A Sweet Disaster

Chapter 6

NOTE: Marissaaaaa you can skip the first part if you like ;)

Steph froze.

Her heart thudded madly in her chest. What was he doing? Kissing her like that on a rock in the middle of the sea? What was he thinking?

His lips were warm and salty from the sea. She felt him flick his tongue against her mouth and jerked in surprise. He lifted his mouth from hers and she thought it was over until his lips came back to cover hers again.

And then, surprisingly, she was kissing him back. Their lips were moving together as one, melding together in a brilliant fusion. Her lips came apart involuntarily and he took that chance to dart his tongue inside her mouth and touch hers very, very lightly. Once, twice, and she found herself craving for more.

Breath hot and heavy, he adjusted so that he wasn’t pressing down on her too heavily. His lips came down on hers again, distantly she felt her own eyes slip shut, losing herself in the moment.

“W-Wait,” she began after a while, desperately trying to reassert control. “S-stop, Gabriel.”

He jerked back. His eyes became round as saucers and he leaped away from her, touching his hand to his mouth in surprise. Steph saw that they were red and swollen and she figured that hers probably were too.

Scrambling to her feet, she took a step closer to Gabriel. Adrenaline was coursing through her body, making it difficult not to leap at him and slam her lips back on his mouth. She tried to get words out, but they stuck in her throat.

Gabriel recovered first. His face was white, and when he spoke his voice was raspy and hoarse.

“I’m so sorry, Stephanie,” he said hollowly, and jumped off the rock with a splash into the water. She watched him swim away with powerful strokes, reaching the shore in a mere sixty seconds and disappearing into the grotto. He came out a few moments later with his shirt back on, and ran off in the direction of the car.

Breaking out of her numb haze, she dived into the water and swam, albeit clumsily, to the shore. Stumbling towards the grotto and forcing her hands to pull her body up the rocks, she somehow got herself into the grotto, even managing to scrape her hands and knees.

A breeze blew, but it felt much colder than the one that blew before. This was all ice and silver daggers. Her clothes were lying on the rock and she slipped them on, and shoved her feet into her flats proceeding to make her way outside.

Gabriel was waiting inside the car and his eyes were tightly shut, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. Steph noticed that his knuckles were white.

He didn’t look up when she got in closed the door- instead he started the engine and drove without so much as an acknowledgment of her presence.

Not once did he glance at her though she couldn’t keep her eyes off him for any time longer than five seconds. The radio wasn’t even turned on, and the atmosphere was awkward and tense. She’d never heard silence quite this loud.

The truth of the situation was catching up to her now. She’d kissed her brother. In a bikini. What was it called again? Incest. That was the word. Technically it wasn’t incest because she and Gabriel weren’t blood related, but the idea was still the same.

She recalled what he’d said to her just a few days ago. My mom loves him. If our roles were reversed, she’d do the same for me too. Kissing her… it had to be ripping him apart inside.

She understood why he wasn’t speaking, why his face was so pale and stressed and why he was clenching his fists so tight she was afraid his knuckles would split open. He was guilty. By kissing her he felt that he was tearing the family apart and tearing his mother’s happiness apart. He loved his mother- that much was obvious. Clearly he couldn’t do anything to hurt her, and this… this momentary lapse of judgment was eating him inside out.