[RECAP: Leonie and Father Gabriel have been getting hot and heavy in a secluded cottage...]
They spent the rest of the day simply being with one another. Gabriel told Leonie about his family and his childhood, and even about Joanne.
Leonie felt insecure at first, hearing about his ex, but Gabriel soon allayed her fears. "It was never with her like it is with you. It was a relationship that should have ended, we weren't even that compatible. But it can happen like that. You graduate university and you either split up or move in together and get engaged."
"So that's what you chose?"
"Regrettably, yes. Then she met someone else, and I was devastated. But looking back it was more hurt pride than a genuine broken heart. I know that now, being with you."
Leonie was curious to know what Joanne looked like, but obviously couldn't ask without sounding paranoid. "There wasn't anyone else afterwards?"
"No. There was the church, and then you."
Gabriel didn't probe Leonie about her own past, but she felt she should be honest as well about past relationships. "I never felt serious about anyone either. But it was just high school, I guess."
"What about that fellow I saw you with on the first day of school?"
"Who?" Leonie was bewildered. The only man she had been around on that day was her grandmother's chauffeur.
"It looked pretty much like he was going to be sharing your bed," Gabriel said. When Leonie still appeared confused, he added: "Very hairy. And bear-like in appearance."
Leonie felt her face flame. He meant Buster, her teddy bear. "That was just a thing from home," she mumbled. Poor Buster was at that moment buried at the bottom of her trunk somewhere, cast aside in favour of Gabriel.
Gabriel laughed. "It's alright. I thought it was cute."
Covering her face, Leonie wanted to die of embarrassment. "I was really hoping that you hadn't noticed. Or that you'd forgotten."
"I was never going to forget the moment I first saw you."
She looked up, into his sincere blue eyes. "Really?"
"The second I saw you I got my first reminder that there was a world out there. And that celibacy might not always be so easy as it had been up to then." It had hit him like a jolt, seeing her that day. He had felt an instant attraction and connection.
Leonie thought back to when she had first seen him. She mainly remembered the mortification of looking clumsy in front of a totally hot guy. "I remember you seemed kind of annoyed."
"I was, but with myself, and the situation. I hadn't wanted to teach at a school, let alone a private school full of overprivileged girls. And when I found myself attracted to one of them on the very first day, I was particularly irritated." Gabriel's eyes softened as he looked at Leonie, and he stroked her hair. "But it was when I saw you the next day, sitting alone outside, that I completely fell for you. Even though I tried to deny it for ages."
"There were times I thought you hated me, when you ignored me in class," Leonie said.
Gabriel apologised. "I never meant to make you feel bad. I was just trying to keep it all under control, to hold you at arms' length. When you came into the confessional and started talking about some guy you liked, I was beside myself with jealousy."
"Except it was you," Leonie said.
"How was I to know that? I was a priest, remember. Somehow I figured that everyone would just see me as that, rather than as a man."
Now Leonie laughed. "You seriously have no idea, do you? Half the school was crushing on you and probably having impure thoughts about you."
"Did you?"
"Maybe." Leonie thought of all the times she had dreamt about him and fantasied about him.
"Tell me some of them." There was heat in his gaze again.
She looked down, not daring to meet his eyes when she spoke. "They were mainly about you disciplining me in the vestry for doing something bad."
"Disciplining you? Would you like that?"
Leonie felt even more embarrassed. "I don't know. It was kind of hot, thinking about you being my teacher."
For Gabriel it was more than hot thinking about Leonie being his student. "Lie back," he commanded.
Leonie, feeling a shiver of anticipation, obeyed.
***FULL JUICY SCENE IS IN FALLING FROM GRACE: INTIMATE SCENES***
When he finally let her go, he moved back up and looked down at her. His dark hair fell over his forehead and there was a gleam in his eyes. "I like you submitting to me. It makes me feel that you're mine."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have a feeling he's going to find celibacy even harder if he goes back to his priest job...
(and yes, that was a really bad pun)