He kept coming toward her with slow, measured strides, his eyes narrowed in an expression of mock menace. A flutter of anticipation deep inside, a feeling that was both delicious and long forgotten, made Gabrielle giggle softly.
“I see,” she said. “And when precisely was this house rule instituted?”
“Precisely one minute ago.” He took the glasses from her hands and placed them on the counter behind her. “So are you going to give up gracefully, or am I going to have to tickle the truth out of you?”
She laughed, her eyes widening and her hands instinctively lifting to fend him off. “No, Connor, you wouldn’t.”
“A dare?” he said, reaching for her. “Hell, Gaby, you know how I am about dares.”
“I know, I know,” she half cried, half laughed, squirming frantically as his fingers roamed over her ribs, tickling her mercilessly. “Stop...I hate...I hate...”
“I already know all about how you hate me,” he declared. He was holding her with one arm while he tickled her. “I want to hear about that smile.”
“No, not you.” She gasped as he let up momentarily. “I hate being tickled.”
“Then tell me what I want to know. The truth, Gaby, why were you smiling?”
“Because...” Laughing hard, she tried to slip to the floor to escape him, but he easily hauled her upright so that she ended up pressed tightly against him from chest to thigh. “Because...”
She broke off abruptly, a sudden awareness of him making it difficult to breathe, much less speak. Her entire body softened as the effect of being so close to him slowly commanded total control of her consciousness. Excitement filled her. The heat and smell and feel of him swamped her senses, and when she lifted her gaze and looked into his eyes, what she saw there made her tremble against him.
She saw desire. Strong and forthright and a little wild. Like the man himself. Connor wanted her. The look in his eyes declared that without restraint or apology, and God help her, at that instant she wanted him the same way.
He lowered his head.
She lifted hers.
And their mouths came together as naturally and spectacularly as water tumbling over a waterfall, the motion smooth and graceful and endless. Their parted lips slanted and angled in a series of delicate brushes. Each touch was butterfly soft, eager, as they learned the taste and feel of each other.
With his hands in her hair, Connor kissed her mouth and her cheeks. He used the pressure of his thumbs to tip her head back so he could kiss her throat gently, oh so gently, as if she were something fine and rare. He bent his head to trace the line of her collarbone with his tongue. Gaby felt his touch in a burst of rapid-fire sensations, hot and wet and rough. A sweet-sharp jolt made her arch against him as he sucked lightly on the skin at the side of her neck.
Laughing softly, he bracketed her face with his hands and stared at her, his eyes dark with passion.
“Oh, God, Gaby, this feels good. So good.”
“I know,” she whispered, touching his face hesitantly, as if she couldn’t quite believe she was doing it, as if she couldn’t quite believe this was Connor holding her and making her feel this way. “I know.”
Everything about him was familiar and at the same time entirely new to her. It was all there in the chiseled planes and hard ridges of his face. All the pride and arrogance and determination, along with a reckless need to prove he wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything. She ran her fingertip over the black silk arch of his eyebrow, prompting his mouth to curve with indulgence.
His forehead was broad, his eyes deep set, his jaw as square and solid as they came. Connor looked exactly like what he was. A tough guy, he had called himself, and she wouldn’t argue with that. But there was tenderness there, too...in his eyes and in the full, brooding lips that could make her shiver and melt simply by coming close to hers. How could she have been so blind for so long to the tenderness in him?
Recalling what he had asked her to say to him on the deck earlier, she leaned into him slightly and whispered, “Please, Connor, kiss me.”
He looked surprised. Then he grinned and jerked her flat against him as his mouth again laid claim to hers. This time, however, there was none of the tentative experimentation of a moment ago. This kiss was hard and fast and hungry. When his tongue pushed inside her mouth, Gaby moaned and felt her knees go weak.
Connor made a rough noise at the back of his throat, something between a groan and a curse. His hips moved against hers, rhythmically, suggestively, matching the rough thrusts of his tongue. Gaby clung to his shoulders, lost in a spiraling pleasure. She felt suspended in the moment and in herself. Dazed and at the same time acutely aware of every touch of his hand, every sound he made, every bit of sensation that whirled within her.
She felt alive. As if she’d been sleepwalking, she thought, and Connor’s kiss had woken her once more. He was right. This felt so good.
Connor pulled her closer still, absorbing the restless movement of her hips against his. He was aware of the exact instant when Gaby surrendered the last shred of her resistance. Like a race-car driver knows engines, he knew women and he knew in that instant that after all this time, Gaby Flanders was his for the taking.
It was heady knowledge, a blessing, a gift, a dream about to come true. Desire surged inside him, like something untamed and trapped that needed to break loose.
With his tongue buried deep in her mouth, his hands moving impatiently beneath her T-shirt, he backed her up to the kitchen counter and pressed against her, hard. She responded and sent pleasure streaking through him in an unbroken arc from his groin to his brain.
He lifted his head with a rough groan, glancing around the kitchen in search of a place to lay her down. The table, the floor, like an animal searching for food or shelter from the cold, he silently hunted for the best and quickest solution to his needs.
Like an animal.
He shuddered, still holding her tightly, and closed his eyes as his chin came to rest on the top of her head.
Like an animal.
The thought made his insides lurch.
Damn it, what was he doing? This was Gaby he was holding, Gaby he was grinding himself against, Gaby he was thinking of tossing right there on the kitchen floor. Gaby, whom he had no more right to hold now than he’d had five years ago, or yesterday or this afternoon out on that deck.
“Connor?” she said quietly. “What is it? Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” He lifted his head and met her bewildered gaze. Don’t look at me like that, he thought, staring into her eyes, wide and bright with longing. Don’t make this harder than it already has to be.
“Then why... ?” Her voice dropped and halted.
“Why did I stop?” he finished for her.
She nodded, her expression growing watchful.
“I stopped because I suddenly got to wondering....” He paused as he loosened his hold on her and leaned back, his eyes narrowing speculatively as he struggled to shut down the need still roiling inside him. “Have you ever done it on a kitchen floor before, Gaby?”
She stiffened, her delicate jaw taking on a firmness he knew well. The flash of resentment in her eyes was almost a relief. That’s right, get mad, he thought. Push me away.
“No,” she replied in a stiff voice. “Have you?”
“As a matter of fact I have. On more than a few occasions. That’s why you have to believe that I know what I’m talking about when I tell you it’s not the kind of thing you ought to be doing.”
“Let me see if I’m getting this,” she said slowly. “You can, but I shouldn’t.”
“You’re not me. You’re Joel’s wife.”
Her head shot up defiantly. “Wrong, Connor. I’m Joel’s widow.”
“Same thing,” he said, releasing her with a shrug.
“No. No, believe me, it’s very different.”
“You’re right. You were a lot smarter as a wife. For instance, back then you saw me for what I am and you knew enough to keep a
way.”
“Oh, Connor.” Her eyes softened as she lifted her hand toward his face. “Are you really that afraid of letting someone close to you?”
Connor grabbed her wrist to stop her from touching him. “Like I told you when we were in the back of that van, Gabrielle, I’m not afraid of anything.”
He thrust her hand aside as he turned to go. “Leave the rest of the dishes,” he said to her over his shoulder. “I’ll get them in the morning.”
Letting the door slam behind him, he crossed the deck in a few long strides and headed toward the lake, a glossy stretch of ebony under the almost starless sky. He didn’t stop until he passed a thick stand of cedar trees that formed a natural barricade between the cabin and lake at that spot. As if, he thought sardonically, he needed a barrier to block the force drawing him back to the cabin and to Gaby. A place to hide him from the thoughts that had followed him out, pounding at his heels with each step, telling him to go back and finish what he’d started, that it was what he wanted, what Gaby and he both wanted tonight. And that he was being an idiot.
Alone in the blackness between the cedars, he did what he’d seldom done in his lifetime—put thoughts of tomorrow ahead of tonight. By his own code of living for the moment and damn the rest, that, too, made him an idiot. So be it. He understood that sometimes it took an idiot to risk doing what had to be done. This had to be done. Tonight, tomorrow, the next day... until the end of the week. It wouldn’t get any easier after that, but at least then he’d have distance on his side. After Friday he wouldn’t be stuck here alone, watching over the one thing he wanted most in the world and couldn’t have.
Talk about the wolf getting into the henhouse, he thought with a morose smile. Worse, for some insane, unnatural reason the hen had decided to invite him in. Crazy woman. And who could blame her with all he’d put her through in the past couple of days? She wasn’t thinking straight. She couldn’t be.
Which meant, Connor told himself, that it was up to him to make sure things stayed under control around there. That meant that somehow, no matter what it cost him, he was going to have to find a way to keep his hands off Gaby for the next four days..
Chapter 7
By the time Connor returned to the cabin, the kitchen was clean, the dishwasher running, the leftovers wrapped and put away. He had to admit he was glad. While not a fanatic by any means, he did disprove the conventional wisdom that said all bachelors were slobs by nature. He much preferred his surroundings to be clean and reasonably orderly.
Like his decision to learn to cook a decent meal, it was probably a reaction to the condition of his own all-male home after his mother’s death. If Gaby had taken him at his word and left the dinner mess for the morning, he would probably have decided to deal with it before turning in and he really wasn’t in the mood.
As he reached to turn out the kitchen light, he noticed the note propped between the now unlit candles in the center of the table. It read, “Sweet dreams, tough guy.” Beside it Gaby had placed his lighter. He must have left it on the table earlier, he realized, slipping it into his pocket and smiling in spite of himself at her note.
So. She wasn’t angry. He’d fully expected her to be, at the very least, annoyed and quite possibly furious with him, either for kissing her or for stopping. It was a call he couldn’t make with any certainty. That was another thing he knew about women. You could never be sure of the details. That didn’t alter the fact that the basics were carved in stone. Or so he’d thought.
He glanced again at the note, thinking how most women would have been angry with him, if only to hide their bruised feelings. Gaby had said he was full of surprises, but it seemed to him she held a few of her own. The note was written in a clean, feminine hand, and on impulse he folded it and slipped it into his pocket along with the lighter. Then he took two aspirins in hopes of calming the throbbing in his injured hand and headed for bed.
Sweet dreams, tough guy. The words ran through his head as he climbed the stairs. Sweet dreams. Not likely, he thought, not tonight. And he didn’t feel like such a tough guy, either, as he passed Gaby’s tightly closed door.
For no particular reason Gaby had set the alarm on the clock radio beside her bed before going to sleep. It clicked on at exactly seven o’clock, drawing her awake with the soft sounds of an old Bette Midler song. It was one she’d always liked. “From a distance...” Even half-asleep her mind supplied the rest of the words: “God is watching us, from a distance.”
She rolled onto her back, stretching her arms wide and smiling even before she opened her eyes to discover that it was a gorgeous morning. It was the sort of clear, sunlit morning that made it easy to believe there was a God watching over the world, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary presented on the nightly news.
Actually ever since Joel had died, she’d felt she had a little extra action going on in the watched-over department. She usually thought of it in regard to Toby. It helped to believe she wasn’t raising him entirely alone, that in some way Joel was still looking out for him and that he would never let anything bad happen to his son. It hadn’t been easy to maintain that belief when Toby was sick, but she had held on to her prayers and her trust. And in the end, when Toby pulled through against all odds, her confidence in the power of love, from all directions, was stronger than ever.
At times she suspected that Joel wasn’t only watching over Toby, but over her, as well. She couldn’t define the feeling and she never tried explaining it to anyone, convinced it would simply be dismissed as a natural part of the grieving process, of her coming to terms with her loss. Maybe that’s all it was, but Gaby didn’t think so.
Whenever it happened, which wasn’t often, she got this strong, absolutely clear sense of what she ought to do at that moment, as if someone was speaking to her and guiding her from within. She might have considered that it was her own common sense, except for the fact that when it happened, she felt a certainty and confidence she rarely felt as she muddled her way through life as a single parent.
That sense that Joel was watching over her was partly why she had accepted Adam’s proposal even though they weren’t in love with each other. Though she had to admit, she’d never quite felt that crystalline sense of certainty where Adam was concerned. It had been more like a gentle current washing her in his direction.
He’d been one of Joel’s closest friends, after all, and he’d been there at the hospital with her the whole time Toby was sick. That proved his concern and that he could be counted on. Everyone told her so. Marrying Adam would mean that Toby wouldn’t have to grow up without a father. Everyone said that was very important, too. And merging their interests in the Black Wolf would secure Toby’s future even further. With his health always a lurking question in her mind, in spite of the doctors’ assurances that he was fine, his future security was very important to her. Marrying Adam had seemed like the wise thing—the right thing—to do at the time. Now she wasn’t so sure.
And why? she asked herself sheepishly. Because Connor DeWolfe had blown back into town, kissed her and made her knees buckle? That had never happened when Adam kissed her. But, she reminded herself, weak knees were not essential for a successful marriage. Especially not the second time around. Hadn’t she made a conscious decision to opt for security over romance?
Sighing, she looked out the window at a sky of solid blue and cowardly shifted her thoughts to Toby instead of the prickly problem of what to do about Connor. It had only been two days, and she missed Toby like crazy. She missed his smile and the sweet smell of him, still half baby, half little boy. She missed him running in to wake her in the morning, full of plans for whatever he wanted to do that day, his eyes sparkling with an innocent assurance that today was going to be the best day ever.
Lord, how she’d had to struggle in the weeks and months following the explosion not to let her own sadness overwhelm his spirit. They’d been together constantly, and there had been times when she’d barely managed to tuck him in at b
edtime before the pain that she’d been holding at bay all day came crashing in on her, the harbinger of another tear-filled, sleepless night. In the morning, puffy eyed and exhausted, she would once more haul herself out of bed and rustle up a smile for Toby’s sake.
Sometimes she had longed to escape for a while and would wish she had a job she could go to where she could perform some mindless task and forget she’d ever been a wife and mother. Looking back, however, she saw how lucky she was to have been able to stay home with Toby, where she had an ever-present reason to smile even when she didn’t feel like it.
Before her marriage she’d worked restoring antique stained glass at a gallery in Boston. She enjoyed the sense that she was creating something new and rescuing something old and beautiful at the same time. After Toby was born, she continued to work at home on a free-lance basis, accepting projects that interested her and that could be adapted to her unhurried pace. Joel had deemed it a labor of love, since her income in no way reflected the hours she devoted to each restoration, painstakingly matching colors and cutting intricately shaped pieces of glass to replace those that had been lost or damaged over the years.
Fortunately they hadn’t been dependent on her income to pay the bills, and that remained the same even after Joel’s death. The money from his life insurance, along with their share of the restaurant income, more than took care of her living expenses, enabling her to continue working at home. She worked for enjoyment and to keep her skills sharp for the day when she could return to it full-time. For now, being there for Toby, to take him to the playground and teach him to ride a bike, was her top priority.
She glanced at the clock, wondering what Toby was doing right then. Seven-fifteen. He was probably eating breakfast. Sugar-coated Crunchies cereal, no doubt, his favorite, which she seldom bought because it was too sweet and which his grandmother always had waiting on the cupboard shelf as a special treat. At least she didn’t have to worry about his wellbeing while she was away. He adored his nana and she doted on him. The two of them had been looking forward to spending this week together while Gaby was away on what was to have been her honeymoon. They had made grand plans for how they would spend each day.
Borrowed Bride Page 12
