Falling From Grace: Intimate Scenes

Chapter 52

[RECAP: Now it's the school holidays, Leonie is staying with Father Gabriel at a secluded cottage...]

Gabriel could tell that Leonie was nervous as they reached the cottage. He didn't want to rush her or push her into anything. Mostly he just wanted to be with her.

He had already brought in plenty of wood from the shed so he set about lighting a fire.

"It will take a while to get some heat going," he told her.

It was a surreal experience. Here he was, in total privacy with the one person he had longed to be with for months, and he even found himself feeling uncertain around her.

The chimney drew well and the wood was dry and ready to burn, so crackling flames didn't take long to flare up. The heat would set in as the embers formed, but it was already making a difference to the room. "Come and stand nearer the fire, you look freezing," Gabriel told Leonie.

She joined him by the fire and held her hands out to feel its heat. She was avoiding looking at him and she didn't know why. It wasn't as though she hadn't been alone with a guy before. Her stomach was a pit of nerves. Even though he had been her teacher and priest at St Winifred's, she had felt on a level with him there.

Now he seemed older, the adult. Leonie cast a glance at Gabriel. At the well defined angle of his jaw, shadowed by stubble as he hadn't shaved that day. His lips, masculine and firm but sensuous when it counted. His dark brows and the startlingly blue eyes beneath them.

He was so perfect. Educated. Intelligent.

Even without the priest thing, what could he possibly see in her?

"What's wrong, darling?"

When he called her that, Leonie's heart did its usual flip.

"Nothing."

They both knew this wasn't an answer.

"Come here." Gabriel's voice was kind but stern. He took her hands and warmed them in his. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. If you don't feel comfortable and you want go to home, or you want me to drive you to your friend's house, that's totally okay."

The thought of him driving her away was awful. "That's not it." It was hard to explain.

"Are you having doubts?" he asked.

It was more the opposite. "None. I was more worried that you might have them," Leonie told him.

Gabriel answered her and allayed all her fears by taking her into his arms. She melted against him. He pulled her down onto the sofa and half across him, so he could kiss her more comfortably. "Never," he told her.

They embraced some more and Leonie felt the heat rising. She could feel Gabriel's hardness through his jeans. She had never actually touched him there and she wanted to. So she pressed her hand over it, feeling its shape, and experiencing a pang of alarm over its size. Maybe the material made it seem bigger than it was?

He moved her hand away. "If you want to take things slow, you'll have to stop that."

"I don't want to take things slow."

She saw the heat flicker in his eyes as she said this, and felt glad. She reached up to kiss him and moved her hand back over him, then tried to unbuckle him.

Once again Gabriel caught her hand. "Wait." He wanted to touch her first. He pushed her top up and kissed over her stomach, moving higher as he reached her bra. He freed her breast and his mouth went over it, drawing her in.