Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tess didn’t think she’d ever been so pleased to see the back of two people, as she was overjoyed to wave off Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. No, that was wrong. Elizabeth Darcy!
‘The picnic was such a delightful interlude. Those cupcakes quite transported me,’ Mrs Darcy said gaily, twirling her bloody parasol. ‘Do not hesitate to call on us again if such diversions are afoot.’
‘Yes, let’s do it again,’ Tess said, but irony hadn’t been around in the Regency era, so Elizabeth just beamed at her and Darcy nodded his head and finally they were gone in the usual puff of goodbye glitter and the scent of elderflower and cut grass.
All that was left of their time in the mortal realm was a few stray cupcake crumbs and Tess’s temper, which had been simmering for a good few hours now and showed no signs of abating.
So much for her date with Darcy. He’d been perfectly polite if distant, but as soon as his wife, his actual, legal, wedded wife, had turned up, it was as if Tess had ceased to exist.
It was the reason why Tess loved Pride and Prejudice so much. The love between Darcy and Elizabeth was the blueprint for the relationship that Tess craved with her whole heart.
After all, it was a love that had endured for over two hundred years, and delighted millions. There was no way that Tess, of all people, could come between the two of them; it would be like trying to keep metal and magnet apart.
And really, she didn’t want to come between them. If Darcy had turned out to have wandering eyes and wandering hands then it would have destroyed Tess’s entire belief system. She needed their love to be absolute because without it, she’d have nothing to strive for.
All hope would be gone.
But still, for one afternoon, she’d wanted to pretend that Darcy was hers, and she hadn’t even been allowed that.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone as much as I hate you.’ She turned to Gabe, who was shelving the three volumes of Pride and Prejudice.
He didn’t say anything at first as he fussed over the books. Then he straightened up and adjusted his glasses so he could look at her. Sternly.
‘Hate is a very strong word,’ he said in a lecturing tone.
‘It’s not strong enough. I despise you! I detest you!’ Tess was on a roll now. ‘The sight of you makes me want to pluck out my own eyes!’
‘I appreciate that your emotions are … heightened, but really, you’re being very silly and also more than a little hurtful,’ Gabe said in a wounded voice, as though he was the injured party.
Tess advanced on him. They were the only ones in the library, which was usually closed on a Sunday, and in this little corner of the stacks, which housed the pitifully sparse collection of fiction, there was no one to bear witness to Tess’s pain, her suffering, her abject humiliation, because hello!
She was the injured party here and he’d better not forget that.
‘Yes, I know you think I’m silly, just like everyone else does,’ she said, almost tripping on the hem of her dress again as she stepped nearer to Gabe, who backed away from her as his survival instinct kicked in.
‘I didn’t say that you were silly, I would never say that,’ he protested.
‘Do not try and semantic your way out of this …’
‘You can’t use semantic as an adverb. It’s an adjective,’ Gabe said because he clearly had a death wish.
‘Shut the fuck up and listen to me,’ Tess snapped. ‘You do think I’m silly. You have no regard for me …’
‘That’s simply not true!’ Gabe was starting to sound a little angry himself.
‘You knew how important this date was to me, but you still went ahead and sabotaged it because you want to sabotage The Love Library,’ Tess threw at him.
‘Again, not true.’ Gabe was backed up against the shelves now and he must have realised that he wasn’t going to get past Tess, who imagined that in her white dress she must look a bit like an avenging angel. Or a really, really pissed-off angel. ‘This date, it didn’t mean anything, it couldn’t.’
‘It meant something to me.’ Tess wanted to be majestic in her rage, but her voice was beginning to wobble because, predictably, the tears weren’t far away. ‘Yes, it was just pretend, but sometimes pretend has to be enough.’
‘It’s not enough though, is it?’ Gabe put out his hands to fend Tess off as she was almost within throttling distance of him. ‘I did what I did because … because I didn’t want you to get notions.’
Tess couldn’t believe her ears. ‘Notions!’
‘Notions,’ Gabe confirmed grimly. ‘You were already planning your second date and I’m sure you were imagining all the dates after that.
Thinking that maybe if it all worked out, he’d stay with you.
Although that could never happen. Because he loves Elizabeth and also because it’s against library rules! ’
‘Just admit it! That’s what this is really about.
Your precious library!’ Tess punctuated every word with a jab at Gabe’s chest so maybe he’d feel a little of the sting that she felt at what he’d just said; the secret truth of it.
‘That’s why you really did it. Because you’re a priggish, philosophising, fig-forsaking gatekeeper.
God forbid that someone has any fun with one of your bloody books! ’
‘No, that’s not why I did it,’ Gabe said, holding up his hands against his chest to ward off Tess’s pointy blows.
‘Yes, it is!’
‘No, it’s not!’
‘Then why did you do it? Why did you ruin my date instead of letting me have one perfect afternoon in the company of the perfect man?’ Tess couldn’t help but give Gabe another vicious jab. ‘Give me one good reason why you did it.’
‘OK, I will. My one good reason is … it’s …’ He looked as wild as Tess felt. ‘I did it because …’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, why?’ she shouted at him, and Gabe’s hands were coming up again, not to ward her off but to take hold of Tess, turn her round so it was she who was pressed up against the shelves with nowhere to turn, nowhere to run and he … he …
He kissed her!
Gabe Sharma was kissing her!
In his library!
In front of all the books!
And she was … kissing him right back.
With the sliver of sanity that was all that she had left, Tess finally realised what this had been about.
All those weeks.
All that arguing.
All the bickering.
So much banter.
It was this.
Gabe’s hands, one branded on her hip, one clutched in her hair to position her upturned face at the precise angle so his mouth could chase her own. The clash of their lips, teeth knocking together until Tess grabbed greedy handfuls of Gabe’s t-shirt so they could adjust their positions.
She was still pinned tight against the bookshelves, his body keeping her in place, so she couldn’t get away. Not that she wanted to, when one of his thighs slid between hers and his chest pressed against hers.
She was enthusiastic, he was pliable. Gabe was very happy to follow Tess’s lead, but when her enthusiasm and her hand creeping up to finally settle in his thick dark curls resulted in knocking his glasses askew, they had to pause again.
Ever so carefully, Tess took off Gabe’s glasses and reached behind to place them on the shelf. He blinked uncertainly in the shadows of the stacks. The only light coming from the soft glow of the dim downlighters set into the wall sconces.
‘But I want to be able to see you,’ he whispered in Tess’s ear. ‘You’re so beautiful. I know that all of you will be beautiful.’
His words were a dark promise of what might possibly come. But they sent a trickle of uncertainty edging down Tess’s spine to the small of her back where Gabe had one large hand splayed against the knobs of her spine, and down to the flare of her hips.
‘Not beautiful, not me,’ she whispered back because all those books, all those characters waiting to be summoned, she didn’t want any of them eavesdropping.
Also, it was hard to say some things out loud.
‘Don’t say that,’ Gabe told her. ‘You are beautiful.’
Without his glasses, Gabe looked vulnerable in a way that he never had before.
There was nothing now, not even multifocal, thinned glass, to hide his face and his soft, almost tender look as he gazed back at her.
This close and in the muted light of the stacks, he was all pupil, and when he blinked again, Tess was jealous that his ridiculously long lashes got to brush the delicate skin under his eyes.
They stared at each other for a long, long moment punctuated only by their own hurried breaths. Then Gabe’s brows pulled together, not in their usual furrowed, frustrated way but as if he was asking Tess a question without words.
Tess nodded.
And now that they’d repositioned, regrouped, it was time for another kiss that wasn’t a clumsy battle of wills, but Gabe’s mouth moving slowly, almost reverently. Planting soft whispers, the merest suggestion of a kiss, like gossamer wings on Tess’s forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose.
A slow, lazy exploration of the topography of her face. Her cheeks, her chin, tracing a path up to that tiny patch of skin behind her ear where it seemed as if a thousand nerve endings had all congregated.
Nobody had ever taken so much time to kiss, but not kiss, Tess. As if kissing her was a thing not to be rushed but rather to be savoured.
It was blissful for quite a while until it became absolutely unbearable.
The hands which had gathered up the soft cotton of Gabe’s shirt, now dragged him even closer so Tess could kiss him.
An audacious planting of her lips on his.
Her tongue thrusting into his mouth. She swallowed his shocked gasp, but she felt his limbs stiffen, his muscles tense at her shocking act and she retreated.
In shame. Like she’d done more than kiss him.
Like she’d actually undone his belt, his jeans and taken the hard length of his cock, which she could feel prodding against her belly, in her hand.
When would she learn to stop being so bloody impulsive? It never ended well.
‘I’m sorry,’ Tess whispered, and she tried to pull free, but Gabe didn’t seem inclined to let her go.