"I know you can," Paul said, the emotion in his voice gone now. He sounded bored, disinterested and utterly done. He let the riding crop drop with a loud clatter, the thin rod smacking on the table and falling to the floor.<br/><br/>"I thought I taught you better than this..." Paul sighed and then, incongruently, he reached out and pressed his cool palm against the back of Gabriel's neck. Usually when Gabriel misbehaved Paul would extract himself completely, make the boy fear that Paul had left, refuse to touch him no matter how sweetly he begged. Perhaps he was going soft too, because he did not want to leave his angel alone even if he was not acting right.<br/><br/>"Explain yourself," he murmured in a tone that could almost be called soothing if his voice was not so flat. His touch though was gentle, his wide, dry palm smoothing over the arch of Gabriel's neck, his fingers idly playing with the small golden hairs there.<br/><br/>"Tell me, my angel," he said, before digging his fingers in and dragging them down, scratching four harsh lines in Gabriel's back from neck to tail bone, "what has made you forget yourself."