“Keep your eyes on mine,” he whispers against my mouth. “Let me watch you like you watched me…”

“Ahhh.” I murmur as he slips his tongue deeper into my mouth, obliterating everything I’ve ever read about kisses in books.

My heart is beating so loudly that I’m certain he can hear it because I can’t hear the words he’s whispering against my lips.

His kiss is slow and demanding, relentless but controlled.

His blue eyes have yet to leave mine, and I can’t bear to look away. Without thinking, I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck.

“Fuck…” he says, gently pushing them away. He tears his mouth from mine and trails his lips down my neck. Then he unbuttons the top of my shirt and presses more kisses against my chest.

I moan with every flick of his tongue, every soft and sensual bite from his teeth. My legs are weakening by the second, and he’s tightening his grip on my waist.

By the time he returns to my mouth, I’m too entranced to think about what I’m doing. I’m savoring every second like I know this is our first and last time.

As if he’s temporarily mine…

When he finally pulls away, we’re both utterly breathless.

“We need to forget this never happened,” he pants. “It was just a moment of weakness for me…Are we clear?”

“I…I…” My tongue swells under the vowels, and I can barely speak. My vision blurs next, and I can see two Gabriels staring at me now.

“Belle, are we clear?” he asks again. “Can we agree this moment never happened?”

Tears prick my eyes, and my knees lose what’s left of their strength.

I collapse onto the ground.

Gabriel stoops over me, shaking me and yelling. “Belle? Belle?”

I can’t see or hear anything else.

My world is descending into darkness.

As the Petals Fall

Gabriel

“You made me waste my second kiss…” Belle slurs against my chest, her lips as pale as stone.

One taste of her mouth has driven me to the brink of insanity, and I desperately long to taste it again, but not when she’s clearly suffering from sudden winter shock.

Then again, this may be a sign for me to stop while I'm ahead and focus on Isabelle.

“Who was your first kiss?” I ask, placing my coat over her shoulders. “Belle?”

“Prince Charming from the Second Kingdom.” She struggles to open her eyes. “It was awful, and I was saving my next one—a real one—for my book friend.”

“Book friend?” I trail a finger against the blue veins in her neck and quietly command Mauricio to move a bit faster.

“Yes, my book friend.” She smiles weakly. “We connected through words all the time. No offense, but a nonreader would never understand.”

“Okay.” I roll my eyes. “You can stop talking now.”

“He’s everything you’re not, and the moment I get away again—because I will—I’ll find him and apologize profusely for wasting my lips on you.”