“Calm down,” I replied, “and make sure you watch the front while I’m gone.”
Tess groaned and sidled towards the counter. She positioned herself behind it with a weighty sigh.
I laughed and squeezed both her shoulders. “And no smoke breaks!”
“Be careful, I might go on a baking strike and then you’ll be screwed,” she said, then prodded me in the ribs with the end of the whisk.
I winked at her and rushed out of the door.
Chapter 30
Ally
I stood in my tiny apartment kitchen above the bakery and stared at Gabe. He leaned against the counter on one side of the tiled room, opposite from where I stood.
“She came here again?” he questioned the obvious, then gripped the counter until his knuckles turned white. Like pellets of hail that had sailed down out of a black summer sky. “What did she say?”
“Oh, the usual. You know, that I should stay away from you or I’ll regret it. Something about her dad, George. I should be afraid of him. Is he some kind of big shot?” The cupcakes were in the oven, my tiny one rather than the commercial grade downstairs. I’d been testing a new recipe when Gabe arrived to tell me about his request for the paternity test, not realizing Faith had beat him to it.
“I think the pregnancy hormones have taken over her brain.” He shook his head and looked at me. “I’m so sorry this has happened, Allegra, I didn’t want it to go down this way.” He pursed his lips and tilted his head to the side as he studied me, waiting for my response. Then his gaze traveled down my body, from my ponytail, over my plain t-shirt and to the jeans I’d slipped into after work. That look finally settled on my bare feet.
I cleared my throat to get his attention — I’d just painted my toenails a bright red. In honor of my new label as a scarlet woman.
“It’s okay. I don’t know what you expected would happen when so much is on the line for Faith. I can handle a little animosity. We’ve all been through high school.”
“You were bullied in school?”
“Who wasn’t?” I asked. The sweet aroma of baking cupcakes floated through the small space between us.
“I wasn’t. So what did you say to Faith?” Gabe asked, taking his hands off my countertop and folding his arms. He’d taken his coat off to reveal a tight red cotton t-shirt beneath. The outline of his pecs enticed me.
I tore my gaze away from them. “I told her that I won’t stay away from you. You need a friend right now, because she’s treacherous.” I sucked my bottom lip, considering. “I know you were intimate and everything, but I don’t trust her. Hope that doesn’t offend you.” I ran a dishtowel between my fingers, feeling the miniature rough blocks of fabric which decorated it.
Gabe’s brow wrinkled and he looked away for a second. “A friend.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
He strode across the kitchen and placed his hands on either side of me, against the counter, then leaned his forehead against mine. “I am offended.”
“I — I didn’t mean to offend you.” I was never this nervous, only around him. He was so damn intense all the time, it drove me crazy.
“I don’t want to be your friend,” he whispered, and his breath was hot on my cheek. It swept down that sensitive flesh and whispered across my neck.
Goosebumps sprinkled my arms and I gulped. I had to keep it together around him, because who knew if wanting him was the right thing to do? What if he hurt me again? I didn’t think I could take it.
It was proving difficult to leave myself vulnerable. To trust. But I had to try, because I really did care about Gabe. He’d need support and I wanted to be there for him. If the baby was his. Even if he wasn’t the father. Especially then, because he’d be grieving a loss.
He pressed himself into me, then ran the tip of his nose across my forehead and over my cheek. Gabe stared into my eyes, those blue orbs shearing through my fears and into my soul. “I don’t want to be your friend, Allegra. I want to be more than that.”
“More?”
He nodded ever so slowly, brushing his nose up and down mine. “You’re already mine. Now. Forever.”
Riiiiiiing.
The timer on the oven gave a shrill cry and I sucked in a ragged breath. “I have to get the cupcakes out.”
He lingered for a moment, glancing at my lips then back into my eyes.
“They’ll burn,” I said. I practically whimpered it.
Gabe moved aside an inch, and I had to squeeze past him to get to the oven. I took the dish cloth, grabbed an oven mitt and opened the door, then whipped the tray of cupcakes out and placed it on the wire cooling rack.
“Need help with that?” Gabe asked, coming up behind me and brushing his fingers down the slope of my neck. God, had it only been a few days since we’d touched like this. It felt like an eternity.
I dropped the oven mitt and reached for the dial to turn off the heat. He followed my lead and wrapped his hand around mine. We turned the dial together. My heart went crazy, pounding against my rib cage.
“Gabe, I don’t think —”
“Then don’t think,” he replied, his voice heavy with desire. With all the words still unspoken. He brought my hand back to my abdomen and held it there for a moment, pressing the warmth of his skin against mine. He lowered his lips to my neck and nipped at it, then soothed the bites with his tongue.
I moaned and melted into his embrace, resting my head against his shoulder. I didn’t want the moment to end, just this exact moment when he held me. But it had to — I couldn’t let this happen now. I wasn’t ready to let go again.
I turned in his arms to face him. “Gabe —”
“Wait,” he said, “listen, if you want me to stop, I will. I just can’t bear the thought of never touching you again because of this.”
I swallowed.
He brought my hand up and brushed his lips over my knuckles. “Yes or no?”
I watched his lips and closed my eyes for a moment to savor the feeling. So right. So beautiful. The tension between us was too much to handle. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, I need you right now, Gabe. I think I might need you for even longer.”
“I feel the same way.” He grasped the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head, then dropped it to the floor.
I undid the top button of his jeans and tugged them down. They scraped past his muscled thighs and drifted to the floor around his ankles.
Gabe stepped out of them and stripped my jeans off in one fluid motion. He looked at my red panties and groaned. The same color as the toes he’d just been admiring. He was hard already. Straining. Swelling.
I stared at him and tugged at my lower lip. I wanted him inside me. My mouth, my pussy. Just inside me, hot and hard and everything I’d yearned for since it had all turned sour. I shoved the pain and fear out of my mind and moved back from him, pressing my heated palms against his chest.
Gabe’s expression flickered with confusion. He reached down and tore his shirt over his head, exposing the perfect abs. God, he was absolutely delectable.
I turned and walked to the counter, then bent and slid my panties over my ass and let them fall to my ankles, giving him the full view of my round ass. “What are you waiting for?”
“Oh my god,” he grunted, “I’m going to worship your body.” He rushed up behind me, grabbed my ass in both hands and got on his knees. He flipped me around and spread open my engorged folds. Then his head was between my legs. Where I wanted him. Where I’d been dying for him since he’d walked through the door. Gabe plundered me with his tongue as he traced a path to my swollen clit. He hesitated for seconds. Then, that magic tongue flicked out and gave one butterfly touch to the sensitive nub.
Pleasure screamed through my nerves and I jerked into his tongue. “Inside me,” I managed. “Now.”
“Not until I’m done,” he countered. He splayed me open with his fingers, licking them and sucking my clit all the way into his perfect mouth. He groaned and the vibration alone
almost made me break apart. “You’re as delicious as the cupcake I’m going to eat later,” he said, between mouthfuls of my flesh. He stopped only long enough to crawl his fingers up over my stomach to land on my erect nipples. They felt so huge and straining. God, if only he’d pinch them …
“You have the most fantastic breasts I’ve ever seen, Allegra. I wonder if you’d like it if I did this.” He pinched and then soothed over it with softer strokes. It was like he knew exactly what I wanted before I could even articulate it.
I jerked at the taste of rough pleasure and his tongue flicked over my clit again. I bucked my hips over and over, finding a rhythm in sync with his tongue. The flicks of pleasure became a stream. I drew in a shuddering breath and grasped the counter, tingles slipping down my belly.
“You’re going to come for me,” he growled. “Come right now, Allegra.”
At his whispered command, my pussy clenched tight through a blinding wave of sweet release, a bliss of pleasure that made everything wrong between us suddenly feel right.
“Oh, Gabe.”
He stood and cupped my face in his hands, holding me steady for a searing kiss. Like possession. Like love.
“Gabe, please.”
His fingers skimmed down my fevered skin and slid inside me. I shuddered and threw my head back, gripping the counter for stability. My rubbery legs felt like buckling.
“Fuck, you are dripping wet, Allegra. You want me as bad as I want you.”
“Ahh.” Words. They were impossible. Useless.
He impaled me in one fluid stroke, stretching me wide in a mix of perfect pleasure and a little pain. A throaty gasp was all I could manage, awash on the sea of those sensations that only he could give me.
Gabe grabbed my hips and dug his fingers into my flesh. He plunged into me, again and again, rolling his hips and working his thick shaft inside me. Oh God, I was going to come again. I tightened around him and moved in time with him. Faster. Harder.
“You’re going to make me come like that,” he panted between thrusts.
“I want you to come. I want you to come so deep inside me there’s a question of where you end and where I begin,” I whispered back.
He grasped a handful of my hair and pulled it lightly, then ran his hand down to grab the back of my neck. “I want you to come again, Allegra. And again. And again.” He could barely speak. He had to be close, and I wanted him to orgasm more than I wanted another one of my own.
“You come for me first,” I demanded, then rolled my hips and my eyes at exactly the same moment. This sensation. God, oh god, it was better than anything I’d ever experienced before. Better than the last time.
Better than cupcakes.
I ground into him, his cock hitting me in the perfect spot.
“Allegra,” he murmured, then I could feel him pulsing inside me. I shut my eyes and rode through another orgasm, half-shrieking my pleasure. Gabe stopped moving a moment later, then swept the hair from my shoulder gently and planted a kiss there. He pulled out ever so slowly.
I whimpered a little. I already wanted him again. Maybe I’d never get enough of him.
Chapter 31
Gabe
I stood in the kitchen beside Allegra, with a towel wrapped around my waist. Her hair was still wet from the shower, and lightly tousled. She was gorgeous. Everything that I’d always wanted but never known. Bright and shiny like Technicolor.
I’m not the kind of weak dipshit who falls right out of the gate. Probably because Faith’s antics had made me a little gun shy. Not ready to trust until more time had passed. I’d just assumed that the dull thrum of our relationship and then subsequent friendship was something like love. I’d had a few women since college, but nothing that even came close to comparing to Allegra.
I ran my fingers down her back and rested them above her glorious ass cheeks. “They look delicious,” I said, picking up a spoon and dipping it into the frosting she’d picked out. Apparently, she didn’t care for the double entendre.
“Watch it,” she replied, then whacked me on the butt with a dishtowel. Her full red lips were parted slightly, and she pressed them together each time she tipped a cupcake out of the tray.
She brushed off her hands on her apron and smiled. God. I could lose myself in that smile. “Now, for the frosting.”
I took the spoon and dabbed a little on her nose, then leaned forward and sucked it off. “Hmmm, tastes delicious.”
Allegra froze, blinking rapidly. Bit by bit her shoulders slowly relaxed. “Not as delicious as you,” she said, then blushed furiously. This from the woman who’d said she wanted me to blow my load inside her not much earlier.
I brushed the hair back from her ear and nibbled. Every bit of her was as scrumptious as any concoction in the cases downstairs.
My phone buzzed and I slid it out of my pocket, then exhaled at the interruption. I wasn’t officially on call, but if there was a fire big enough, the chief would ask for all hands on deck. I glanced at the screen and the breath left my body. What did that son of a bitch want now?
“I’ll be right back,” I said as I walked toward the hallway for privacy. “I’ve got to take this.”
She gave me a quizzical look, then shrugged and returned to icing the cupcakes. I walked through to her bedroom and shut the door behind me.
I stared at the screen for a moment longer as if doing so would cause the nausea bubbling in my gut to go away. Cause him to go away.
I swiped my thumb across the screen, tapped the re-dial button and pressed the phone to my ear. A deep, authoritative voice answered on the second ring.
“Dad.”
“Gabriel. Where are you?” My father’s voice was an acquired taste. Made from a recipe of Bourbon, Cubans and red meat.
“I’m kind of tied up at the moment. What’s up?”
“Yes. You can explain to me why you’ve upset Faith. I talked to George at lunch and he’s concerned. Very concerned.”
Shit. So she ran straight to enlist Daddy’s help just as I’d suspected. This conversation wouldn’t end well. I squared my shoulders and prepared for the worst.
“I didn’t go out of my way to upset Faith.”
“Then what’s this I hear about a paternity test?” my dad snapped and shifted the phone in a series of pops and scrapes. I could imagine him dragging his finger through his full head of salt and pepper hair and spinning in his office chair. High on the twenty-second floor surrounded by mirrored and plated glass. Lording over his minions.
“It’s normal. The lab I called said its standard protocol in a situation like this.”
“And what situation is that?” he demanded. I heard the pop of an aluminum can. His doctor had told the elder Moreno to lay off the Diet Coke. Dr. Flagg had been told to go fuck himself.
“Come on, Dad, you know how Faith is. We weren’t a couple when it … happened. It was only the one time.”
“I’ve warned you about this,” he replied, following that up with a swig. And then another until I heard the can crumple into a ball inside his meaty fist. “I’ve warned you many times. Countless times. Pull your head out of your ass, Gabe.”
“You’re not telling your adult son what to do again, are you?” I taunted, knowing exactly how to yank his chain. And relishing it. “I’m pretty sure we’ve been down that road before. I’ve warned you many times. Countless times. Pull your head out of your ass, Dad.”
“You know there are consequences to your actions, Gabriel. To your impertinence.” He was using his quiet and deadly tone. Meant to strike fear into the hearts of his business rivals.
“Yeah, I’m aware of that.”
My father hung up and the dial tone greeted me. I scrubbed my face with my hand and slid the phone back in my pocket. My dad wouldn’t win any father-of-the-year awards anytime soon. Ruthless in business. Ruthless in his life. With his family. Admired but feared at the same time. Donovan Moreno had risen from the ashes of a New York barrio to own one of the premier financial man
agement firms in Minnesota. He’d driven himself to the bone, and I’d been in high school before he’d ever attended even one of my football games. All he cared about was his legacy. And money.
The low rumble of a muffled conversation came from the kitchen. I frowned and stood up. Who the hell could that be?
I marched to the bedroom door and opened it, then walked into the tiny kitchen. My fists clenched automatically when I recognized the douche bag standing in the middle of Allegra’s kitchen.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’d like to ask you the same fucking question.”
Allegra practically stamped her foot. “Enough, you two. This apartment can’t withstand the fallout of a pissing match. I can’t afford to replace any broken furniture right now.” Allegra brandished the frosting covered spoon at her ex-boyfriend. “Matthew, you’re not invited and definitely not welcome. Leave before I slap you with this utensil.”
“You’d better learn to lock your doors, then, Ally,” Matthew replied with a smirk.
“Is that a threat?” I asked. Taunting. Wanting nothing more than to entice this dipshit into a physical altercation so Allegra wouldn’t blame herself when I killed him. “Because if it is, I will cut your balls off. With a dull butter knife.”
“You’re such a cocky son-of-a-bitch,” Matthew turned on me and puffed out his puny chest. “You’ve fucked with the wrong guy.”
“I don’t want you here,” Allegra barked and advanced a step on Matthew. “Get out or I’ll call the —”
“What, you’ll call the cops? I am the cops, sweetheart.” Matthew smiled again. “And I’ve got friends in high places. I can’t believe you’re this stupid. Spreading your fat thighs for this douche. You don’t even know —”
“I’ve had enough,” I said as I strode forward. No way was I letting Matthew say anything about my checkered past. I didn’t even know what he knew. Allegra didn’t know all of it and I needed to keep it that way. Until I could explain the truth. Explain everything.
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