CHAPTER NINETEEN
Gabe…
Her submission. Her trust. Her. I just fucking want her. I fucking love her though I won’t admit that, not now. Maybe not ever. I fold her naked body against mine and turn her, walking her toward the couch, pushing her. I am pushing her. I am pulling her closer. I’m a contradiction where she’s concerned. Beyond reason, I want her to run if she’s going to run. I want her to stay, no matter how much she wants to run.
I kiss her, nip her lip again, and when she moans, I turn her, pressing her knees into the cushion, her beautiful backside in the air. Knowing what I know now about her past, I’m stunned that she never hesitates with me. That she can be this completely naked, exposed, and vulnerable with me. I shouldn’t even be going here with her. I know what her ex did to her. I know that even if it wasn’t sexual, he played power games with her. And this, this that we’re doing right now, is all about power.
Her power.
She has the power to make me want to please her. To make me need her. Only is that really what I’m doing right now? Fuck. No. This doesn’t feel right. I step to her, pull her up and around and then I’m sitting on the couch, pulling her into my lap, her hips straddling my hips. “Come here,” I say, tangling my fingers in her hair and pulling her mouth to mine.
“What happened to spanking me?” She presses against my chest. “Don’t let my past be here with us now. Please. You spanked me once before. I was fine then, I’m fine now.”
“It’s not about fear. It’s not about him. It’s about being able to do this.” I drag her mouth to mine, capture her lips with a soft tease of a touch. “And this,” I say, this time licking past her teeth, a slide, a stroke, a tease that becomes a full-on hot, hungry kiss.
We ignite and it’s nothing gentle. She dives fingers into my hair, sinking in low and deep, her breasts nestling my chest. The low and deep I need is inside her and I lift her, pressing inside her, and holy fuck, she’s hot and tight. I pull her down, oh yes, this time I’m pulling, and she moans a soft little sexy sound all the way down my cock. “This is what I needed,” I say, sliding back and forth inside her and cupping her backside to pull her forward. “But I can still spank you just fine like this.” My hand comes down on her backside and she gasps and gives a little, “Oh”, followed by exactly what a good hand palm intends.
She arches into me, clenches around my cock and I drag her mouth to mine again, thrusting into her at the same time. She moans and grabs a handful of my hair, giving it a rough tug. I cup her backside again, the only warning I’m giving her before I smack one cheek again, this time harder. She arches into me again, tugs harder on my hair. I spank her again, and our frenzied rush of hard thrusts and grinds, becomes a frenzied hot burn that has me rolling her to her back; driving deeper, harder, faster.
Her pants and a cry of my name is what undoes me. That and the lift of her hips, and tight clench of her sudden orgasm, sex, and holy fuck, I’m over the edge. I shudder, like I haven’t shuddered in years, a full body, mother of God of explosion I swear to the same God I feel from my balls to my damn toes.
This woman owns me. That’s all I can think, as we collapse into each other and I roll us to our sides, tangling our limbs because I just don’t have it in me to get up right now. “Holy hell, woman,” I murmur, cupping her face. “No more push and pull. I’m just going to keep you right here with me.”
She laughs. “Says the man that just had an orgasm and spanked me.”
I lift up on my elbow, spy my shirt, and snag it for her. “About that spanking,” I say, pressing the cotton between her legs. “You still didn’t a real spanking.”
“My backside would argue that point,” she laughs. “It stings, thank you very much.”
“And stings is good or bad?”
She splays fingers on my cheek and kisses me. “I liked it, and you know it. And you liked it, too.”
“Hmm. Indeed. I liked the fuck out of it.”
Offering me a coy smile, she sits up, holding up my shirt. “No condom needed, right?” Her back is to me which somehow only makes that comment ten times more impactful.
She tries to stand and I catch her wrist, throwing my legs off the side of the couch to sit next to her. “Abbie,” I say softly, a plea that she let this go, at least for now.
She turns to face me, naked as the day she was born, but she doesn’t seem to care. I sure as hell don’t. “What made you need that finality?”
I don’t ask what she’s talking about. The condom comment was the prelude to the expected. And I get it. I’ve shut her out, and if tonight taught me anything, it’s that I can’t keep asking her for more, and not giving it back. And yet, somehow, I’m still not ready. Not for this. “I hate condoms,” I say, standing up and pull her to her feet. “Let’s order dinner. You can ask me questions then.”
“Just not about that.”
“Anything but that.”
“Or Kendall.”
Same topic, but I don’t say that. A muscle in my jaw ticks. “Or Kendall.”
“Let’s make a list of the topics to avoid over dinner. No KM. That would be Kendall, your ex-girlfriend. And absolutely no vasectomy talk. No baby talk, even if it’s not about me and you and babies, because of course, we can’t have babies.” Her cheeks burn red. “Forget I just said that.” She twists out of my arms. “I should leave.”
For once, I should let her leave, because if I don’t, we’re going to talk about babies. And the last fucking thing I want to talk about is babies. Because babies lead to Kendall.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Gabe…
Abbie darts away from me and reaches for her clothes. I pull on my sweats, and shove a rough hand through my hair, and of course, she must think I hate babies. I don’t hate babies. I love fucking babies with those chubby cheeks that explode with giggles. They’re kind. They’re funny. Bad for them is flinging a shit filled diaper, and that mess, I can clean up. Others, I can’t. I just don’t want to have babies. I don’t want to talk about why I don’t want to have babies. Except, fuck me. Don’t I want everything I can get with Abbie?
She’s already pulling her shirt over her head, already back in her legging things she wears. She’s going to leave if I let her. I’m not going to let her. I catch her arm and pull her to me. “I’m a dickhead. I’m an asshole. I’m a fucked-in-the-head dickhead asshole with a closet of demons that I don’t want to eat you up like they do me. But I’m crazy about you, Abbie. Please don’t go.”
“You’re confusing me, Gabe,” she says, her fingers pressed to my chest, all soft and sweet and perfect in every way. When she touches me, I’m alive, I’m a different man. I’m a different person. I want things I shouldn’t want, things I can’t help but want with this woman.
“I get it. I do. But just know this. I wouldn’t be anywhere else right now, with anyone else. I want everything with you.”
“Everything?” she laughs bitterly. “We know that’s not true. We can’t even talk about babies or KM.”
I scrub my jaw and look away, inhaling with bad memories that want to surface.
“Never mind,” she says. “Let’s—I want to go home.”
I curse under my breath and shackle her waist. “Time, baby. I need time. I’m not shutting you out. I just need time. Can you give me that?”
She stares at me for several long beats and then her expression softens. “I’m trying. I have my own demons. They’re about trust and transparency. You know that.”
“I do and that’s why, pretty soon, I’ll be spread wide, like a dog wanting a belly rub.”
She laughs, a soft, sweet laugh that calms even all those the sharp edges of my past. “Is that a promise?”
“It is absolutely a promise. Do you know what you should do when there are two people with demons of the past in the same room?”
Her brow furrows. “No. What?”
“Eat pizza and drink wine. I say we try it and if that doesn’t work. We try another spanking.” I�
�m rewarded with more of her laughter. “I take that as an agreement on all suggestions. Hell, let’s be crazy and watch TV together.” I soften my voice and stroke her cheek. “Let’s just slow down and be together. Can we do that?”
“Yes,” she agrees softly. “I’d like that.
***
A few minutes later, we’ve taken Dexter out, and are now settled in the living room on the couch, with the pooch at our feet, begging for love. Abbie obliges and while she gives him love, we talk through the what and where of the pizza order, I fill wine glasses with a red blend, and we settle in to pick a movie. We end up with Game of Thrones instead, which we both discover neither of us has ever watched.
“Virgins together,” I tease.
She laughs. “Yes, well, virgins at something.”
I’m damn sure a virgin at whatever this is going on with her. I set-up the show to be ready to start when the pizza arrives and despite Dexter’s efforts to get between us, I nudge him back down and scoot close to her, our thighs pressed together. He then proceeds to knock over my wine which goes all over my shirt.
I let him off the hook because the damn dog was in a cage, deserted by his former family, and he gets to milk that shit a long damn time. I yank off the basic white tee and clean up the mess.
Once we settle back down to watch our show, Abbie is watching me. Her hand closes over the tattoo on my arm, her touch radiating through me, and suddenly, I could give two shits about pizza and TV.
“Faith and strength,” she says, repeating what I’d told her it means to me. “Things that remind you of your mother.”
I cover her hand where it rests on my arm. “Yes. Faith and strength. It reminds me that I need to be the man she wanted me to be.”
“But you don’t think you are that man.”
“Not as often as I’d like to be, but you remind me why I should be those things, that man. You remind me of all the things I once wanted.”
“Until something happened that changed you.”
“Yes. Until something happened that changed me.”
“It was bad?”
“It was—fuck, yeah, it was bad, Abbie, but you know bad. I know you get it.”
She inhales and lets it out. “What I admitted—about my ex, about what he did to me—Gabe, I know it makes me pressure you, it makes me struggle with trust. I just want to say that I know that’s not fair to you. I know what happened earlier wasn’t just about you. It was about me. It was about him.”
I lean in and kiss her, my hand at the back of her head. “I will remind you that I’m not him until you don’t need to be reminded anymore. And you—”
“And I’ll remind you that I’m not her until you don’t need to be reminded anymore.”
I don’t tell her that I’ll have to be reminded for the rest of my life. I damn sure don’t tell her that Kendall is the one person who might have the power to destroy us. The way I destroyed her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Abbie…
Gabe and I eat pizza, binge-watch three episodes of Game of Thrones, and then I end up in a hot bath while he walks Dexter. They arrive back in a burst of energy, with Dexter all but leaping into the tub, and I’m officially laughing. I laugh a lot with these two but there are a few perfectly surreal moments. The first happens as I’m drying off and pulling on one of Gabe’s T-shirts, while he and Dexter are roughhousing on the bathroom floor, making my efforts near impossible. I scold them and I’m immediately pulled into the battle.
The next surreal moment is when Gabe pulls me into bed, my head on his shoulder, holding me close, my body cocooned in blankets and him. It’s the kind of perfection I’ve never known with a man. I didn’t think I’d ever even go to bed with another man after my divorce, let alone find it this perfect.
The third surreal moment is directly after the second, when Dexter jumps on the end of the bed. Smart boy that he is, he doesn’t crowd us, but rather, takes a corner. Gabe lifts his head and glances at Dexter. “Smooth operator for a serial killer, isn’t he?”
I laugh. “Yes, he is.”
He strokes my hair. “You’re coming to work with me tomorrow.” It’s not a question, and he doesn’t stop there. “I’ll set you up with Human Resources. We’ll get you started on a new career.”
Surreal moment over, I inch up to my elbow to look at him. “I need to be at the shelter with my mother.”
“Your mother needs to stay away from the shelter. There are no animals there. Grab your phone. Text her and tell her to come to my office tomorrow.”
“Your office?” I ask, rolling over and grabbing my phone before sitting up. “You think she should come to your office? And even if she did, which she won’t, isn’t that disruptive to your staff?”
“She can stay with the new boyfriend. Just keep her out of the spotlight.”
“Boyfriend? Oh god. She does have a boyfriend. Why do I feel so weird about that? She’s a grown woman. A beautiful woman. She never dates. I should be happy for her.”
He raises up on his elbow. “You’re not happy for her?”
“I am. I am.”
“Two I ams. That means you aren’t.”
“No, I am.”
“Three I ams,” he teases. “You don’t like Brandon?”
“He’s fine. I barely know him.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I’m protective, I guess. I’m projecting my history on her, I think. I don’t want her to get burned.”
“And yet here you are with me.” His voice softens. “I’m going to burn you, Abbie.”
“Not on purpose.” I punch in my mother’s number.
“Not on purpose?” he asks.
“It’s ringing,” I say dodging that ball. “Abigail?” my mother greets groggily. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” I say. “Of course. Everything is fine.”
“Are you sure? It’s midnight.”
“Oh right.” I glance at the clock and Gabe. “It’s midnight. Sorry. I just want you to keep a low profile tomorrow. What’s your plan?”
“I’m staying with Brandon. I’m going to stay here until the police interview and go from there.”
“Right. Good.” I turn away from Gabe, irritated at myself for being weird about this thing with my mother. She deserves a relationship. “He’s taking good care of you?”
“Yes, honey, and I’m taking good care of him. What about you? How are things with Gabe?”
“Gabe’s wonderful,” I say and Gabe chimes in.
“And very sexy!” he calls out.
My mother laughs. “He’s quite the character.”
“Yes, he is,” I agree, poking him and when he lays down, I do the same. “He’s the reason we have Reese Summer on our side.”
“I know that. He’s a good man. I hate he’s gotten wrapped up in this.” She’s quiet a moment. “He’s very into you very quickly.”
My brow furrows. “What are you implying?”
“He wouldn’t—he didn’t—”
I launch into a sitting position again, knowing where she’s going and on the phone of all places. “Don’t even finish that sentence,” I say, appalled that she would think Gabe killed Kenneth. “Please. Because I don’t want to get angry with you.” The words snap from my mouth and Gabe’s hand comes down on my leg. He’s willing me to look at him but I can’t. Not when my mother just suggested he did this.
“I really can’t believe you were going to go there,” I say, my voice low, but even to my own ears, it still manages to whip and burn. Dexter belly-crawls to lay in front of me, his head tilting as if he’s contemplating how badly I need a tongue bath.
“Well, for the record,” she says, “I wasn’t talking down about him. If he did it, which I know he didn’t, he would have been my hero.”
“My god, mother. How can you say that? A man is dead.”
“Kenneth was a bastard. He hurt you. We both know he hurt you in all kinds of horrific ways.”
I
squeeze my eyes shut. “I dealt with it.”
“Did you? I don’t think you did. I still don’t think you have.”
“He would have hurt you,” I remind her.
“To hurt you. It was always about hurting you, Abigail. Enough. Enough about that man. Get some rest. We can talk about this when this is over because Reese assured me it would be soon. I love you.”
I exhale a breath lodged in my throat. “I love you, too.”
“Tell Gabe hi for me, honey. Goodnight.” She hangs up.
I set the phone on the nightstand. Gabe eases Dexter back out of my space and then pulls me down on the bed to face him, his hand settling on my face. “What just happened?”
“She thinks you did this and she thinks that makes you a hero.”
He studies me for several long beats. “She watched bad things happen to you. That’s not easy when it’s someone you love.”
“You don’t wish death on people, though. That’s not right. That’s not the way to handle anything.”
“Right,” he says and it’s like a wall slams down between us. “You’re absolutely fucking right.” He sits up, giving me his back, shutting me out.
Stunned, it takes me a moment to process but I’m certain I’ve hit more than one nerve, perhaps more than one demon of his past. Scrambling to my knees, I quickly follow him, settling on my knees beside him, facing him, my hands on his arm. “What just happened?”
“What would you do if you felt someone was threatening the life of your mother?” He looks at me, his eyes deep pools of blue torment. “What would you do to protect that person?”
“Anything,” I say softly. “Gabe, what are you telling me?”
“You want to know who I am? You want honesty?”
“Yes. You know I do.”
He runs a hand over the muscles at the back of his neck. “A few months back, a pregnant woman showed up and said her baby belonged to Reese.”
I blanch. “What? No. Tell me no. He and your sister seem so perfect together.”
Her Submission Page 8
