Villain (7 page)

Gabriel smiled, a smile for her alone, one that made her heart trip. “By me.”

Stella blinked, nearly choking on a breath, as Gabriel let his gaze wander deliberately over her body.
I want you too. Right there on the bench, spreading your legs for me
.

Realizing he was indeed reading her thoughts, Stella blushed crimson. How embarrassing! She was grateful for Kevin’s interruption.

“And just who in the world are you?” Kevin looked disgusted by Gabriel’s soiled clothes, and though Gabriel was taller, Kevin somehow made it appear as if he were looking down his nose at him. “I haven’t seen you before in my life!”

Gabriel spared Kevin as much attention as one would to a fly, instead cocked an eyebrow at her and crossed his arms over his chest. “Care to explain to him, Stella?”

Now what exactly was it that she should explain? she wondered. That, even now, as she stared at him, in broad daylight, she felt like fainting from sheer, mindless lust? That she’d taken his body and offered her own in trade, for all eternity?

“Are you going to explain me to him, or should I?” Gabriel prodded, his eyes glimmering darkly. His words oozed sex almost as much as every one of his pores did, and she blushed down to the roots of her hairs when her mind began to wander again.

She remembered. Exactly. How his kisses felt. His hands felt. The way he fucked her: hard and bad and deliciously.

She rose slowly, her feet unsteady. “Gabriel, what are you even doing—”

“Stella, who is this creep?” Kevin asked.

“Yes, Stella, who am I?” Gabriel repeated. “More importantly, what am I to you?” Gabriel seemed as eager to know the answer as Kevin, his jaw harsh with determination. What on earth did Gabriel expect her to say? She’d barely been able to admit to her lust in the darkness; now he wanted her to do so in public? He really
was
a villain!

“He’s nobody you know, Kevin,” she said.

“Oh, I’ll bet he knows me,” Gabriel told her. “I’ll bet he knows a whole lot about me.”

Stella stared at Gabriel, her brow marred in a scowl. “What are you doing?”

His voice dropped, the tone a silky whisper as his eyes fell to her mouth. “I want to know what it is I am to you. I want to hear it from your lips.”

She glared at him. As if he didn’t know!

You’re the man I offered my body to
.

Gabriel was silent for a moment, as if that wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to hear. “Is that all?”

Stella would not spill her guts this easily to him. Not now, and certainly not with Kevin here. She would not even think it or else he’d see right through her. Instead she kept her mind busy, concentrating on the present. “Is that what you’re here for, Gabriel, to collect?” she asked.

“When I come to collect, Stella, you will have no doubt about it.”

Shifting from looking at one to the other, Kevin demanded, “What the hell is going on here?”

“You stay out of this,” Gabriel spat.

“Now wait a damn minute here—” Kevin began, but then his glare vanished, and his face began to pale. “It’s you! You’re that pathetic, crazed lunatic… You’re
him!”

Gabriel grunted. “Please. Call me Villain. Everybody else does.”

“You’re the asshole who cursed this town and dragged it with you to your personal, stinking hell!”

“Kevin, stop!” Stella told him.

Kevin was beyond listening, beyond reasoning, his warm eyes now reddened and angry and wild. “You’re the bastard who killed my uncle!
You’re
the fucking loser who’s been haunting this town ever since that silly girl killed herself over
you!”

“Kevin!”

It was too late, for Gabriel grabbed Kevin by the collar and slammed him back against a tree trunk, his teeth bared. “You can call me anything you want, and I don’t give a fucking shit, but don’t
ever
speak of her again, or I swear I’ll think nothing of killing you, too.”

Stella rushed forward. “Gabriel, please,” she said, pressing a shaky hand to his arm, his bicep bulged and tight with tension under her palm. “Just let him go. He’s been fed stories all his life, and he knows no better than to believe them.”

Gabriel was panting, his nostrils twitching.

Slowly, his dark, glimmering eyes moved from a panting, sweaty Kevin, to settle on her. “I need to talk to you.”

She could have melted right then, in a warm, liquid pool of all that was mushy.

“I can’t now,” she said, glancing past her shoulder, worrying what would happen if anyone passed by and word spread out that the Villain was out harassing the townsfolk. “I’ll try to come by tonight.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Stella, don’t listen to him,” Kevin told her. “He’s a murderer, a killer. He’ll kill you, too!”

Gabriel pulled Kevin forward then slammed him back again, his knuckles white from the tight grip he held on Kevin’s collar. “If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

“Gabriel, go now,” Stella insisted. “I’ll be by as soon as I can.”

He looked troubled, desperate. “No. I need to see you. Now.”

“I—” She colored everywhere. “I need to see you, too, but I can’t now.”

“Son of a bitch, you killed my uncle!”

Gabriel turned, eyes narrowed into slits, his face inching so close to Kevin’s it made him cringe. “Yes! It’s me. I did all those things and then some. How about adding one more sin to that long list of mine, hmm?”

“You didn’t really kill his uncle, did you?”

Gabriel turned to face her, his face deadly solemn. “I burned him.”

Chapter Five

That night, everyone in town had heard the Villain was out of his hole, and they locked and barred their doors to keep him away, including Stella’s mother.

That afternoon, after the incident at the park, Kevin had successfully proved to Stella what a complete sorry judge of character she was. He had followed her home only to humiliate her in front of her mother, calling her names and getting himself slapped in the face when he’d called her a “fucking whore.” Stella hadn’t ever slapped someone, but because it had been well deserved, she had to admit it felt very, very good, even though her palm stung.

Shocked by all that was transpiring, Stella’s mother had drawn herself up as high and tall as she could, and with a hard, steely gaze, told Kevin, “Leave. You’re no longer welcome in my house.”

Kevin had left almost foaming at the mouth from his rage, the front door slamming behind him. Stella had stared at her mother and whispered a very fervent, “Thank you.”

That night Stella had trouble falling asleep, and for hours considered stealing out of her window to go to him. She’d said that she would, and she knew he must be waiting for her.

Instead she kept to her bed, filled with apprehension that any angered townsfolk would follow her if she were caught wandering the streets. She was scared of what they might do to her—to Gabriel. Their hate had been festering for far too long, and after realizing with a shock how mean Kevin could be when angered, she might as well expect that of everyone else, too. For years, the town had seemed to be waiting for a reason, one single, valid reason to go after him. All that held them back was fear, that same chilling feeling that kept Stella in her bed that night.

When sleep finally claimed her, it lacked dreams, her thoughts filled with a bleak, black nothingness. She woke up in the middle of the night, facedown and moaning into her pillow.

Stella was being deliciously fucked.

“Wake up, baby,” a murmur whispered behind her ear.

She fisted her hands over the bed as a wave of heat washed over her. “Don’t stop,” she pleaded, feeling the length of a thick, long cock slide up to her center.

“There you go,” a silky voice purred in her ear before a sinful tongue swirled across her neck and shoulders.

She craned her neck, exposing it to his mouth as it trailed upward and moistened the skin along her jaw, the shell of her earlobe.

He was shafting her hard, her pussy so moist she could hear the wet, slick sounds of his cock slipping in. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t you
dare
stop.”

Grabbing her pelvis, he pulled out, and then slammed back in again. “I’m not stopping.”

Oh, she’d truly gone to heaven now.

She gasped when he withdrew and took his cock in his hand, rubbing the tip along her cleft. The swollen, pulsing head stroked her lips, her clit, and then all the way back to the pink, ringed entrance of her ass.

“Please tell me this isn’t a dream,” she moaned.

“It’s not a dream,” he murmured, pressing his cock to her wet, needy pussy. “No dream.” He filled her again with a single thrust delving all the way in.

Oh, dear this was wonderful. Then a shocking thought came to her. “Gabriel…who am I?”

“Hush, Stella.” His lips touched her ear, hands smoothing up her sides then cupping her breasts. “Let me fuck you.”

She was still herself, and he was fucking
her
. How incredible. How delicious. Oh, let this night never end. “Yes, oh, Gabriel,
fuck me
.”

He groaned, gripped her hips tightly and pulled out. “Say it again.”

“Fuck me.”

“My name, Stella. Say it.”

“Gabriel.”

He thrust inside. “Louder, Stella. Shout it.”

“Oh, Gabriel!”

He shafted her once more.

“Please, oh, God, Gabriel, faster!”

He plunged so deep her spine curved, and her eyes rolled backward as she came. Waves of pleasure rocked through her, her cunt pulsing around him, and he pounded faster, pummeling her through her orgasm. As her trembling receded, she felt the warm spurt of his cum inside her, and another wave of shuddering rocked through her.

“Oh, God,” she breathed.

He nuzzled her neck, his lips moist on her flesh. “You’re mine.”

“Oh, Gabriel, I do want to be.”

“You are. You’re mine.” He tilted her face to kiss her lips. “Come to me tomorrow.”

“I will. Oh, yes, I will, I’ll come to you tomorrow.”

“Go to sleep, baby,” he murmured, giving her a slow, languorous kiss on her lips, then spreading that same hot kiss up to her ear.

He’d called her baby.

Baby
.

This couldn’t be happening.

“Will you stay a little, Gabriel?” she whispered, feeling drowsy already, his lips weaving a lullaby magic on her earlobe.

“Yes, I’ll stay a while, but sleep.” And holding onto that thought, she fell asleep, this time to dream only of him.

Gabriel Hunter, waiting for her tomorrow. Gabriel Hunter, calling her baby. Gabriel Hunter, telling her she was his.

Then Gabriel Hunter, standing before the flames, his eyes glowing red as he watched the house on Hill Street yield to the flames. He was uttering something as he watched, the same verse over and over again. “Burn, you son of a bitch. Burn to hell.”

Then his face changed, looked almost distorted with agony when he stood before another kind of fire. Stella watched as if from above, and her heart shattered into a thousand pieces as she saw those fathomless eyes stare off into the flames as a different chant reached her, this one low and hoarse and yearning. “I will not age a minute until you come back to me.”

Come to me.

Come to me tomorrow.

“Naaaaaaugh!” she cried when she woke up alone in her bed the next morning. She must have dreamed everything all along, even that delicious, out-of-this-world fuck.

Damn it! She slammed a fist on the mattress, then stared in shock at the lone white lily she’d barely missed beside the pillow.

A lily. For her?

Could Gabriel have…

Her heart faltered a beat. Well, there was only one way to find out.

* * *

Something was terribly wrong.

Sunlight streamed through the entrance of the cave, and all the ropes had disappeared. No more torches lit the way, no more clothes were strewn around the corner, and instead she found Gabriel sitting over a tall, wide wooden chest.

He was reading, his brow furrowed in concentration.

Stella’s heart leapt with joy at the sight of him, and yet the feeling lasted little, for when he looked up at her, there was something different about him. Something alarming.

His clothes were clean, a pair of black slacks and a crisp cotton shirt, and he looked shaved and ready for…something.

Rather than look like a brooding villain, he looked like a freaking hero, just after saving the day.

She didn’t like this turn of events at all!

“Are you leaving?” she asked, careful to keep the worry out of her voice.

A half smile touched his lips, his eyes warming at the sight of her. “Maybe.”

She smiled falsely. “I had the weirdest dream last night,” she said, hoping dearly to be contradicted. Hoping dearly, dearly that it hadn’t been just a dream!

He eyed her with a slightly raised brow. “Oh?” he said as he set the book on top of the chest and rose.

“You said the strangest things to me.”

He advanced on her, smiling a slow, pleased smile. “Did I?”

She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “Oh, well.” She turned before he could see the look of disappointment on her face.

He reached for her shoulders. “Come here, Stella,” he whispered, pulling her back against him.

Need and desire flared inside her. His lips caressed her temple, and she shivered against him. “I need you to do something for me.”

She closed her eyes and pressed herself back against him so every lean inch of him was touching her. “Anything.”

“I need you to break a spell.”

Stella stiffened, her eyes popping open.

So he
did
want her body after all. Well, of course he did! It was the only vehicle for him to bring his love back.

That’s just what Stella was to him. A body. Her insides recoiled at the thought. When he’d told her she was
his
last night, she’d foolishly imagined he meant something else. Now her heart felt like shriveling inside her.

“Come,” he whispered, taking her hand and leading her toward the chest. She followed hesitantly, watching him place a finger on the open book. The pages were old and yellowed, the letters written in an elaborate, old-world style.

“Read this, beautiful,” he said, tapping the page. “Read this and mean every word.”

She shook her head, taking a step back and looking up at him in confusion. “Gabriel, I—I don’t understand.”

He took both of her shoulders and squeezed. “Yes, you do, Stella.” His gaze was deep and piercing, filled with an odd sort of understanding that made her feel anxious and agitated.

“No, I—”

“You do understand, Stella. You understood even before me.” He shifted his hands up her neck, splaying them across her cheeks, his eyes looking deep into her own. “It’s you, Stella. It’s
you
, baby.” There was so much emotion in his voice that she felt a knot form in her throat.

“W-what do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember?” he asked, his tone filled with hope. “Don’t you remember me? Us?”

Stella stared up at him with wide, watery eyes that stung from the effort to hold back tears. She did remember. She remembered too much, in fact. But she’d never considered—or maybe she had, but she’d been much too scared to even admit—that those memories might actually be her own.

But they were, weren’t they?

They were as much a part of her as he was.

“Faith,” Stella whispered, her old name on her lips somehow sounding as familiar as her new one.

“
You
are Faith, Stella.” His hands squeezed her face in encouragement, then one of them flattened down over the page of the book. “Read it, beautiful.” Gabriel’s eyes were steady on hers. “Make peace with yourself so we can start over.”

Start over…

Stella held onto those words as if they promised her eternity. She’d been given another chance, but she had yet to live it. Had been too scared to live it. Maybe now she could make peace with Faith Harrison, with her cowardly old self.

Catching her trembling lower lip with her teeth, Stella turned to stare down at the Book of Shadows, Gabriel stepping behind her.

Slowly, hesitantly, she began to whisper the words, listening to his gentle voice behind her, speaking them in unison.

Remove the chains of time and space, and make my spirit soar, let these mortal arms embrace, the life that haunts before
.

Everything. Everything she had tried not to remember. Everything which had been there, contained, on the edges of her mind, broke free and flashed before her eyes.

A whole life with Gabriel, the future awaiting them, destroyed by men’s greed. Her father’s ambitions, his lack of scruples.

Stella remembered herself, softly crying as she spoke those forced marriage vows, all of them lies, lies because she’d loved another man, wanted another man, who had drunk himself into a stupor the night before. For months, she’d begged, cajoled, and pleaded with Gabriel to let her do what she must do, let her save her father, and she knew how much, how
very much
it cost him to let her.

She remembered assuring him she would be all right, telling him she would get out of this as soon as her father was released, and yet she’d inwardly feared it might never happen.

She remembered struggling with that odious man on her wedding night, remembered the nausea at the feel of his big, fat hands on her body.

She remembered his face after she’d slapped him, bloated and red with rage, and his vicious words as he tied the rope around her.

She remembered her father. Stripped of all manhood right before her eyes, reduced to groveling, sniveling at the man’s feet, begging for his daughter’s life as her husband tightened the rope around her until no more of her whimpers could be set free.

She remembered choking, looking into her father’s wild, tortured gaze, and finding only a small trace of the man he’d been before; she remembered forgiving him, forgiving him for everything. And in that last breath of hers, she remembered Gabriel, remembered thinking,
Wait for me. I will come back to you. Wherever you are, I will find you. Please wait for me. Don’t ever stop loving me…Please, wait…Wait for me…

“Y-you waited,” she sobbed, her body shaking uncontrollably. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t.”

He caught her when she swayed, wrapping his arms around her in a tight, protective embrace. He smoothed his hands through her hair, whispered endearments to her. She was so distraught she didn’t notice his shudders, or the deep, muffled sobs against her hair as he cried out his suffering too.

“It was him, Gabriel; it wasn’t me. I would
never
kill myself, not when I knew you were waiting for me!”

“He won’t hurt you now,” he said in a ragged whisper, tightening his hold on her. “I should’ve taken you away. I should’ve protected you better.
Oh, God, forgive me
.”

“No, no, no, don’t say that, you always protected me—always,” she said fiercely.

“I heard you. In my mind, I heard you calling me. I thought I’d go crazy,” he said savagely. “It took me hours to get back from the city, and when I did, I couldn’t find you.”

“So you killed him.”

Gabriel fell silent for a moment. “I set his house on fire, but I didn’t kill him, Stella. Your father did.”

“My father,” she whispered, remembering that face, so anguished at what his weakness, his vice had caused.

“He was committed to the asylum. Didn’t last a month before he passed away.”

Though it hurt so much, suddenly she had to know more. “And my mom?”

“She never spoke again. She locked herself in her room and just…waited to die.” Stella drew in a sharp breath. Gabriel fell silent, as if unsure whether to continue. “She died shortly after your father.”