“You are the smartest, bravest, strongest woman I know. The only stupidity in the room was mine at letting my fear for you overrule my experience of your calm, capable grace under pressure.” I tried to smooth away the tightness around her eyes with my thumbs, and perhaps she believed me a little bit, because she continued to hold my gaze.
Shane spoke quietly, but with confidence. “You said you have to run things through a filter before you ask me certain questions, so I don’t clam up or shut down. Last night I felt like I had to filter the words you said through my understanding of the things you’ve gone through so I didn’t take them personally. That’s a lot of second-guessing that I don’t want either of us to have to do.”
“Neither do I.” I brushed a piece of hair back from her face and studied her eyes. I started to say something else, but she got there first.
“I’ve done a pretty big number on myself the last few years, and some of those things have become habits. They might take a little time to break, but if you’re willing to hang in there for a bit—”
I kissed her. I should have waited until she finished speaking, but all I could see was her mouth saying “yes.”
I finally stopped kissing her so I could see her eyes. “I like the name you chose for yourself. Shane. It’s strong, and soft, and mysterious, and alive – just as you are.”
She smiled, and I took a breath for courage.
“I want you.” I said, meaning it to depths of my soul. “I want you to be the first person I speak to every morning, and the last one every night. I want to kiss you, and touch you, and make love to you, and I want to laugh, and dream, and plan with you. I’ll probably make mistakes, I’ll be afraid for your safety, and I’ll be annoyed that I can’t do anything better than you except pee standing up, but I’ll grovel for all of it if only for the make-up sex and the chance to become a better person in your eyes.”
She smiled at “make-up sex,” and I exhaled.
We men are simple creatures.
She took my hands in hers and leaned back against the window frame. “In my head, you’ve had one foot out the door, and I’ve been protecting myself from that the whole time.”
I scoffed. “In my head, something was going to happen to you that I couldn’t prevent, and I’ve been protecting myself from that the entire time.”
“I’ll survive whatever happens to me, Gabriel.”
“I don’t leave the people I love, Shane.”
49
Gabriel
“Falling kisses are the ones that whisper like snowfall in a great forest, filling the silent spaces with perfection. They make you feel as though you are the only two people in the whole world who understand.” – Miri Eze
Shane swallowed visibly and stared, as if waiting for me to take back the words. Instead, I kissed her hand, and then I stood.
“Wait here,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I could feel her eyes on my back as I went into the sitting room and printed the e-mail I’d received from the university that morning.
I stopped to scratch Oscar behind the ears, then returned to the bedroom to find Shane still sitting on the window sill, again facing the sun with her eyes closed. “You miss California,” I said with no question mark in my tone.
She nodded, eyes still closed. “I miss the sunshine. I miss the mountains and the ocean, and occasionally, very occasionally, I miss my mom.” She turned to look at me. “Seeing you with your family makes me realize what I’ve missed.”
“My mum has always been a firm believer in ‘the more, the merrier’ around her table.”
She smiled, and it lit the dark places in my soul to see it. I held my hand out to her. “Come.” I led her over to the bed I hadn’t slept in for two days. “Lie down and close your eyes.”
She raised an eyebrow with a smirk. “Moving pretty fast, aren’t you, Eze?”
I grinned. “Not nearly as fast as I’d like. No, I want you to imagine something, but you need to close your eyes.”
She didn’t hesitate then – she kicked off her low boots and lay back on the coverlet. She ran her hand across the soft sateen. “Nice.” It was a Moorish pattern in jewel tones I’d picked up when I got to Chicago.
“It suits my story.”
“Now I’m curious.” She settled herself on the side of the bed I’d already begun thinking of as hers and closed her eyes. I sat next to her and just barely resisted reaching a hand out to touch her – any part of her would have been fine, really. I just wanted the contact.
“Okay, now picture this. You’re in prison—” Her eyes flew open and she scowled. “No, not you, sorry. A woman is in prison in St. Jago de la Vega, Jamaica. The year is 1720, and it’s November.”
Her scowl turned speculative as she looked at the printed paper in my hand, but I pulled it to my chest, out of view, so she settled back and closed her eyes. “Okay. Prison in Jamaica, 1720. Got it.”
“The man she loves has just been sentenced to hang by the neck until dead, and she’s furious at him for letting them get caught,” I continued.
She cracked an eyelid to squint at me. “1720, Jamaica, sentenced to hang … for piracy?”
I smiled. “You know your history.”
“I used to play Pirates and Privateers with my brother and his friends. I was the Pirate Queen and they were her majesty’s privateers. Due to my superior size and fighting skills, the pirates always won.”
“Well, then, you’ll find this story rather fascinating,” I said, grinning as she sat up to face me. “Not going to pretend anymore?”
“I don’t need to. My imagination is already fully engaged. Tell me the story.” She pulled her left leg in front of her and then tugged the right leg of her trousers up to detach her prosthetic, which she dropped to the ground beside the bed. Then she sat cross-legged on the bed facing me with wide, intrigued eyes.
I continued. “The woman receives a letter from the man, presumably smuggled to her by a prison guard. It’s all about how it wasn’t supposed to go down like it did, and how they screwed him over when they captured him—”
She snorted, “In that language.”
“In flowery eighteenth-century language that requires copious amounts of translation, yes.”
“Okay, go on.” She was grinning, and I loved that I could make her smile.
“Apparently, he had made a deal with the English when they captured his ship that he would go quietly if they gave her clemency.”
“And yet she sat in prison.” Shane was a step ahead of my story. “Which meant she was a pirate too!” She sat silent for a moment, calculating, and then turned her gaze back to me. “Anne Bonny and Mary Read were the only two female pirates I know of who were in the Caribbean in the 1700s, and Anne was either the lover or the wife of Captain Jack Rackham, who was captured and hung in Jamaica.”
I was impressed. “Damn. You should have been the one to open the letter.”
“What letter? What are you talking about?”
I grinned at her. “The letter you found in the secret compartment of my nana’s antique secretary.” I showed her the printed e-mail. “I got this from the head of the History Department at the University of Chicago.”
She took the paper and scanned the contents before looking up at me in wonder. “They think the letter is from Rackham to Anne Bonny?”
I held my hand out for the paper. “May I?”
She handed it to me, and I found the passage I wanted to read out loud. “I thought to give you the chance to have our child in freedom, where she’d grow capable and strong and beautiful like her mother. But in protecting you I failed you, for I know now that by your side I would have died with my love or escaped with you to spend our days together in freedom. I know your strength but trusted not my own to see you hurt or killed beside me, and for that I will pay with my life and your liberty. The cost of my fear was too high, my love. Forgive me my failings, and pray love our child in spite of her father’s thin blood.”
<
br /> I looked up to see her eyes shining at me. “The historian who translated it took some liberties and modernized the language for me, since I’m not a scholar, but it landed a solid punch on me when I read it.”
She exhaled softly and whispered, “Wow.”
“It’s dated November 16, 1720, and is addressed to ‘Bonn’ and signed by ‘John.’ A simple Google search on the date gave the historians their starting point, and from there, I gather it was fairly easy to put the pieces together. They’d like to study Nana’s secretary, as there are no records of what happened to Anne Bonny after she was granted a stay of execution, but there are theories that she traveled to Cuba or to the Carolinas after her baby was born. In any case, she was likely aboard a ship at some point, and possibly hid the letter in the secretary herself.”
“Can we see the letter?” Shane asked, a little breathlessly.
“It’s still ours until we gift it.”
She frowned. “Ours?”
“I’ve been opening that drawer for more than twenty years, and I never found it. It’s as much your discovery as it is mine.”
She got up on her knees and pushed me over so I lay back on the bed, then crawled over me until she was looking down at my face. “You’re my discovery. It just took me a while to believe that what I found could be mine.”
She kissed me then, with lips so soft and gentle they whispered against me. I felt the kiss settle on my skin and all around us like the softest, whitest snow, and the whispered promise of it filled me with a peace so pure and clear that I finally understood.
“A falling kiss,” I murmured against her mouth, and I felt her lips smile next to mine.
After a delicious kiss that lasted several lifetimes, Shane sat back and regarded me. “I’m going to say this out loud, and it’s really hard because my brain has been willing you to know exactly what I want without me saying it.”
I sat up suddenly. “Say it. Because I want things that I’m holding back too.”
She exhaled with a little nervous smile. “Okay,” she closed her eyes with a wince, like she couldn’t believe she was saying it. “You know what Mitch said about my leg.”
I scowled. “And I want to beat the shit out of him for it.”
She looked away. “I’m actually trying not to freak out about whether you think my stump is gross.”
I must have been staring, open-mouthed, for an eternity, because she finally squared her shoulders and met my gaze. And when she saw the shock in my expression, something in her seemed to relax fractionally. I finally found words that made sense from among the jumble of outraged protestations in my brain.
“I understand that your confidence took a big hit from that asshole whose name need not be mentioned again unless it’s to read his death notice. However –” I made sure she was looking right in my eyes as I said it, so she’d know I really meant it. “I think you’re stunning, and amazing, and outrageously sexy, and I intend to worship every inch of you – with my mouth if possible, and certainly other parts.” She giggled quietly, and I pulled her to me and kissed her hair.
“When I stepped into the shower with you up in Northport,” I continued solemnly, “it took all the self-control I possessed not to roam every inch of your body with my hands, my lips, my tongue—” My voice sounded ragged in my own ears, and I throbbed with a primal need to be inside of her.
“I want you, Shane. I want to know every inch of you, and there isn’t a part of you that doesn’t turn me on. Your scars are beautiful because they mean you’re alive, and when I kiss them it’ll be in reverence for what you’ve survived and who you’ve become because of them.”
She looked up at me and I kissed her hard, the way I’d been needing to, and it fueled the hunger for her that had settled in and become part of me.
“What were you holding back?” she asked, when she could finally breathe.
“This,” I said, kissing her fiercely again. “I can do soft and gentle – I’m actually a fairly gentle guy.” She chuckled at that. “But I’m not feeling very gentle at the moment. I—” I struggled to find the word. “I crave you. You’re like the air when I’m underwater, or like fire when I’m frostbitten. I need to smell your hair, taste your skin, feel the weight of your body on mine. I am so fucking hungry for you…” I groaned and rolled her under me. Her hands clutched at my back, and I reveled in the strength of her fingers. She wrapped her legs around my hips and pulled me in to press against her. I ground myself into her heat and was suddenly desperate to lose the layers of fabric between us.
I lifted myself off her and peeled my t-shirt over my head. Her hands went to my stomach, and her touch sent a lightning bolt of sensation straight through me. Then she pulled her own t-shirt off, and my eyes devoured every inch of her body as she revealed it. Her tiny bralette was simple cotton with thin straps, and I pulled it off over her head.
Shane’s skin had the golden leftovers of sun, but no tan lines, and the image of her naked on a tropical beach filled my brain. She pulled me down to her so my chest met her breasts, and my stomach met her hip bones.
My hands roamed her body as we kissed, and I explored every plain, every hill, and every valley of the landscape that was this gorgeous woman.
She reached for the button on my jeans, and I helped her open them. I broke our kiss long enough to pull them off, and she tugged on the waistband of my boxer briefs. “Those too,” she gasped, as my tongue found her nipple. She slid the briefs down, and then her hands trailed up my thighs and I moaned.
I needed to see all of her. I kissed down her ribcage to her stomach, and then opened her jeans while inhaling the vague scent of vanilla and amber from her skin. She arched up to help me when I tugged the jeans off over that perfect ass which had first caught my attention, and I caught a brief glimpse of hot pink cotton thong underwear before I hooked them with my thumbs and they were gone too.
The only thing she still wore was the neoprene sleeve on the end of her leg, and I could feel her go still as I reached for it. I looked up to find her watching me, so I smiled. “Does it roll off, or pull off?”
She reached down and began to roll it, but I pushed her hands away and continued what she’d begun. The skin beneath the sleeve was red from the constriction, and there was a line where the seam had pressed. I traced the line with gentle fingers. “Does this hurt?”
She shook her head, and I met her eyes. They were wary, and she looked so vulnerable. I ran my hands down her thigh, over her knee, and across the smooth scar at the end of her leg. She shuddered, and I kissed her as I indulged in my desire to explore every … damn … inch.
50
Shane
“I have a dirty mind, and right now you’re running through it naked.” – Gabriel Eze
Gabriel’s hands on my body were strong and careful and soothing and the most sensuous thing I’d ever felt. It had been years since anyone had touched me with more than clinical care, and I gave in to the indulgence of just being felt.
His mouth followed his hands, and then my own hands explored every plane of his spectacular body, which was strong, capable, and totally responsive to stimulus. I smiled to myself as he arched toward me in a wordless plea for more – more touching, more pressure, more kisses. I felt powerful and desirable with him, and stimulation of his body could easily become my specialty.
He finally groaned my name to stop me. He pulled a condom from the nightstand and rolled it on before pulling me on top of him to ease himself inside me. We fit together perfectly, and I ground myself against him until every nerve ending caught fire and I shattered into several thousand points of heat.
Afterwards, we rolled to face each other, and he tucked my head onto his arm and wrapped my leg over his hip. He smoothed the hair back from my cheek and kissed my fingertips when I touched his face.
“Somewhere along the way I fell in love with you,” he said in the quiet voice he used to draw people in. My breath caught, and I let the words settle near my heart, t
esting them against my own reserve.
“I’m not sure I know what that feels like,” I whispered.
He smiled as he traced my eyebrow and then my cheekbone with his fingertips. “It might be different for other people, but for me, it feels like a superpower.”
My answering smile allowed his words to nestle in and make themselves comfortable. “And what does this superpower give you?”
“Well, right now I feel like I could fly, maybe take on a few villains and single-handedly battle them into submission. I also feel fairly combustible, which either makes me useful or dangerous, I haven’t decided which.”
He was grinning, and it made my heart thump wildly.
“Huh. I think loving you makes me identify with Anne Bonny a little bit.”
His grin got even wider. “Really? How so?”
“When she met Jack, he was like a mirror for her true self – the person she hadn’t dared to reveal until he stood next to her, supporting her, encouraging her, loving her. Their partnership made each of them much stronger than when they’d been alone.”
I rolled back on top of him and kissed him deeply. “Also for the record, I have a peg leg, so there’s that.”
His laughter was so loud that Oscar came barreling into the room to save us, and we had to dive under the covers to save ourselves from his enthusiastic kisses.
And as I buried my face in his chest and he protected me from the Oscar beast, I let my own unspoken feelings find the place where his words had nestled in my heart, and I thought I could love this man for a long, long time.
Epilogue
Gabriel
“Best friends don’t care if your house is clean – they care if you have wine.” – Sandra Greene
The security guard in the lobby of the condo building greeted Shane by name.
Code of Conduct (Cipher Security Book 1) Page 31
