He rubbed her back. “That must’ve been so traumatic for you.”
She was about to tell him that she’d nearly forgotten about it thanks to the rest of the night and morning she’d spent with Gabriel, but thankfully her brain stopped her just in time. She might not be on board with the level of trauma Stewart seemed intent on assigning her, but she was wasting an opportunity to enjoy some genuine male attention.
Gabriel didn’t want long-term. After all, they were adults sharing one night of consensual enjoyment—blah, blah, blah. Stewart was here and now. She needed to get her head out of the clouds and think about the future. A future she did not want to spend alone with nothing but the memory of that one night with a handsome Brit.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gabriel was straight-up grouchy. There was no other word for it. People often said Connor scared away the clientele who probably had no business coming into a bar like Phoenix Rising anyway. Today Gabriel was scaring away even the customers who did.
“Okay I can’t take it anymore. Two days of this crap is two days too much. I know something is bothering you. Spill,” Jessa demanded.
She was taking advantage of a lull in the Thursday evening crowd to wipe down the tables. Gabriel hadn’t thought anything of it when she’d asked him to carry a heavy tray of pint glasses back to the kitchen. Now he wondered if she’d used the chore as a ploy to buy time to badger him about his “feelings.” He gave her a frown to show her how he felt about her scheme.
She gave him an unladylike snort. “Yeah, that’s not going to work with me. Your expressions are child’s play compared to the scowls that Connor has in his repertoire.”
Gabriel bit back a curse. After years of successfully suppressing his thoughts about Franny, he’d spent more time in the last few days talking and thinking about her and the shambles she’d made of his life than he had when it’d first happened. He heaved the tray full of glass onto his shoulder. “Can we not just let this go?”
“No.” She gave him a squinty-eyed glare. “According to Emory, you and Alex think the guy Anne is dating is a wannabe loser. I don’t like the idea of my friend getting mixed up with someone like that. She’s had a hard enough time with relationships.”
He stalked across the bar and unloaded the tray onto a counter. The Phoenix was a low-maintenance operation. The dishwashing station was in the back corner of the bar, and there was no kitchen or back of the house to speak of. Jessa had been nagging Connor of late about renovating and adding a limited menu, but he was still digging in his heels.
Unfortunately Jessa wasn’t done discussing the topic of Anne. “Did she ask you to the party tomorrow night?”
“No, she said she’d rather take the ponce.” Anne’s reason was still like acid in his gut. “She said she figured it was more his scene.”
“And of course you got all offended and pissy.” She propped one hand on her hip and shot him a dirty look that even Connor would’ve been proud of. “Honestly, men! And what the hell is a ponce? Can’t you speak English?”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“Okay, okay, point taken.” She scrubbed at a sticky stain left over from someone’s inventive use of a cocktail. “Still, what is it you don’t like about this guy?”
Gabriel considered this. It was an honest question. One that shouldn’t be answered by his own mixed feelings on the topic. Yes, his number one reason for hating Stewart was that the man appeared to have every intention of inserting himself into Anne’s life on a permanent basis. Not to mention the fact that Stewart would eventually worm his way into her bed, which was entirely unacceptable for reasons Gabriel didn’t want to think about.
Jessa left her cleaning to get right in Gabriel’s face. “Are you sure you don’t just hate him because she likes him?”
“Bollocks,” Gabriel muttered, rubbing his face with both hands. It was entirely possible that Jessa was right. Even Alex’s negative bias could be explained by that possibility.
“What I don’t get is why you don’t date her yourself. She likes you. You like her. That much is obvious.” Jessa’s tone was gentle. “Why all the torture when you could just step in and tell her how you feel?”
“She doesn’t feel the same!” he burst out. “She’s said as much. I don’t… I can’t get involved like that again.” Did the woman not understand how that sort of rejection gutted a man? Too much more of this shite, and he was going to run out of countries to hide in.
Jessa shrugged. “Then you need to back off and let her be with this Stewart person.”
Gabriel’s bone-deep rejection of that solution scared him. He snarled something completely inappropriate, but it didn’t faze Jessa in the least.
“Look, I can tell you from experience that she will never have the confidence to come to you first. Never. Women like Anne…” In that moment Gabriel glimpsed the Jessa he’d never met. The timid mouse she’d been before Connor’s interference. “Women like me—we would rather stick with the familiar pain of being alone than risk being rejected by someone we feel is so far out of our league.”
Alex maintained that there was some telepathic link between Connor and Jessa. When Connor appeared in the walk-through between the front and the back, Gabriel could believe it was true. Jessa began striding toward her husband, running into his open arms.
Connor scooped her off the floor, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. They kissed hungrily, her nails scoring his bare scalp as they dueled with lips and tongues. Connor set her on the countertop. Reaching beneath her short skirt, he tore her panties off and let the scraps of satin fall to the floor.
Gabriel couldn’t look away and knew they didn’t care whether he did or not. Jessa groped for Connor’s belt. The jingle of it coming undone was loud in the evening quiet. His cock was hard in her hand, and it didn’t stay there for long. He gripped her ass cheeks in his big hands as she spread her legs and helped him slide inside her body.
Their coupling was abrupt and rough. Gabriel’s erection strained at his pants as he watched. Sweat beaded at his hairline. He longed to experience something this raw and real. Not just the physical release of skin rubbing against skin and the slap of his balls against his lover’s body. It was the tangible expression of desire and love he craved so deeply. The way they moved together, their mouths mimicking the thrust and retreat of Connor’s cock into Jessa’s pussy.
Alex sauntered up, pausing beside Gabriel to watch the show. “Are we taking a nooky break? That sucks. Emory is working and I don’t fancy trying to shag you.”
Gabriel let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a strangled laugh. Even when life was bollocks, it was good to have friends.
* * *
Anne wished her father would hurry up and leave town now that he was retiring. Two days ago she’d felt confident and attractive while exchanging conversational barbs with Gabriel and enjoying Stewart’s attention. Now she felt like the fat, frumpy girl she’d been since puberty.
Her father reclined back into his posh leather executive chair and regarded her over his desktop. “I worry about your health,” he said with a helping of false concern. “The club employs personal trainers you know.”
“Yes, I know.” Anne missed her mother. Father had never been the same since her death more than fifteen years before. She’d always wondered if at some point he’d decided the only way to gain credibility in his field was to assume the identity of Sigmund Freud. Sure, the guy had been a revolutionary in the field of psychiatry, but he’d also been an asshole without a clue when it came to women.
“I’m sure you’re aware of my reasons for asking you to come into the office today.” Her father pressed his hands together and steepled his fingers.
His solemn expression gave her a stomachache. “Actually I have no idea.”
“It’s come to my attention that you’ve claimed you’re bringing a date to my retirement party.” Father’s bushy gray brows inched together in a look of consternation. “I can well understand the
sense of inferiority that would drive you to make such a claim. With Jason’s success in both his career and his recent remarriage to the lovely and talented Rochelle, he has proven beyond doubt that he has overcome the setback you caused when you abruptly ended your twenty-year marriage. However it has not seemed over the last year as if your decision to leave Jason was the best one you could have made under the circumstances. You seem stuck in a disturbing habit of wallowing in self-pity.”
Anne couldn’t breathe. It was as if a vise were squeezing her insides. She wondered in the back of her mind if she were having a heart attack. Blood rushed in her ears, the sound of her thundering heartbeat drowning out everything but the urge to leap across her father’s desk and strangle him with her bare hands. Anne had never felt such intense rage before in her life.
Her father wasn’t done. “With that in mind, I want you to know that I will understand completely if you choose to find an appropriate excuse of some sort and make your regrets about not attending the party.” He stood up, their brief exchange obviously finished in his mind. He strode around his desk and patted her on the shoulder. “I won’t hold any ill will toward you for this incident, Anne. You are my daughter, and I have great love for you despite your recent string of failures in life.”
Anne stumbled to her feet. She wanted to say something. So many words were spinning in her mind. Experience kept her silent. It wouldn’t matter. Nothing would ever matter. She was the disappointment and she always would be.
“I have a client in just a few moments,” her father said distractedly. “You can see yourself out.” He brushed a dry kiss over her forehead and disappeared out the door of his office.
She stared around at the trappings of her father’s success. His degrees and certificates hung on the wall along with mementoes of the many places he’d been asked to speak. A picture of her and her parents caught her eye. It’d been taken the day she graduated college. Her father had never been very impressed with the idea of a Fine Arts degree. He claimed it wasn’t worth the cost of the paper it was printed on. At the time it hadn’t mattered. Anne was set to marry Jason Paul and be the society wife her father had groomed her to be. Now she felt like a discarded piece of fluff.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Anne strode down the sidewalk like a woman on a mission. Anger thrummed in her veins like a drug. The only thing that mattered was getting it out, no matter what she had to do. She almost wished the thugs from the night before would pop out and threaten her again. She’d have happily kneed them in the balls and clawed their eyes out.
She could see Gabriel standing outside the Phoenix. He was leaning casually against the building with his arms crossed over his broad chest. Four rowdy college-aged guys were showing their IDs to get into the bar. She figured Gabriel was too preoccupied with the process of nodding them through to notice her.
She was wrong.
His crisply accented voice drifted on the night breeze. “Hello, Anne.”
Anne was beginning to think she was truly crazed. So many urges hit her all at once it left her gasping for breath. She wanted to grab the front of his shirt and drag his mouth down for a kiss. Yet there was a part of her that wanted to punch him so hard he doubled over in pain. She wanted to scream and cry and stomp her feet and throw her shoes and yank her hair out by the roots. She was sick and tired of everything, and she didn’t know where to begin making it right.
“Let me pass,” she demanded.
There was no way for Gabriel to know what had occurred in the last few hours. He could only trust his instincts to tell him that something had happened in Anne’s life to utterly destroy her.
Awareness sizzled along his nerve endings as his battle reflexes stirred. He pushed away from the wall though he kept space between himself and Anne. “It’s a slow night. The girls will welcome some company.”
She cocked her head to one side and shot him a derisive smile. “Yeah? Well I’m here to get laid so girl time will have to wait.”
A jolt of possessive fury hit him so hard it left him almost breathless in its wake. “The hell you are,” he snarled. Backpedaling, he tried to regain his equilibrium. “What about Stewart? Thought you and the toff were getting pretty chummy.”
“What about Stewart?” She pushed into his personal space and glared up at him. “He’s not here to give me what I need, so I’ll find someone who will. Isn’t that why most people come to the Phoenix?”
Blood rushed to Gabriel’s groin. His cock was throbbing in the confines of his cargos. He didn’t like the idea of sharing her with Stewart the ponce. He sure as hell wasn’t on board with watching her shag some other nameless bastard. Those voluptuous curves belonged to him. She belonged to him. Nobody else should ever get to hear her cry out as they tunneled into her sleek pussy. Anne belonged to him. End of story.
Gabriel couldn’t take any more. He closed the distance between them and groaned as he pulled her body flush against his. She looked both angry and bemused, her dark eyes sparkling with fire. Then he lowered his mouth to hers and forgot anything else.
She kissed him back like a hellcat bent on destruction. Her tongue slid inside his mouth, and her nails scraped his scalp. He let her lead. The rhythm was furious, like a primal force unleashed. Their teeth clicked as their lips meshed again and again in fervent passion.
Her fingers left his hair and knotted in his shirt. The kiss turned brutal. She bit his bottom lip, and Gabriel tasted the coppery tang of blood. Arousal flared, and he had to forcefully fight down the urge to dominate. He sensed she needed this though he had no notion of why.
And then it was over as suddenly as it had happened. Her tiny noises of pleasure turned into delicate snarls, and she began beating on his chest. Gabriel pushed past the haze of lust in his mind and wrapped his arms around her body. He held her close and let her rage.
Anne pounded on Gabriel’s rock-hard chest with every ounce of strength in her body. It didn’t even seem to faze him. He only held her close and whispered soft nonsense. She clutched the black cotton of his shirt and pressed her face into his pectorals. Within seconds she was weeping, the anger fizzled to nothing but impotent anguish.
Still he held her close. His scent surrounded her, soothing her battered pride. When he lowered his head and brushed his lips against her hair, Anne was undone. After everything, how could someone like her have wound up here with someone like Gabriel Hawkins?
“Better?” he murmured.
Chagrin burned her cheeks. “I’m so embarrassed. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for going totally psycho on you.” She began to pull away. “I’ll go home now and save us both any more embarrassment.”
His arms became bands of iron tethering her to him. “Like hell. Tell me what happened.”
How could she possibly explain the series of events leading to this evening? What if she told him that her father thought she was a waste of space only to have Gabriel agree?
She wasn’t useless fluff.
“Anne?”
“No talk.” She reached up and pulled his mouth down. “Take me now and make me forget. Please. Just take me now.”
Anne was so starved for affection and validation she would’ve been willing to hike up her skirt there in the street. Thankfully Gabriel had the presence of mind to prevent their eventual arrest for indecent exposure.
Still immersed in Gabriel’s kisses, Anne heard the door crash open somewhere behind him. Half carrying her, he stumbled into the bar. He pressed her back against the wall and hungrily devoured her mouth. When his lips left hers to travel down the column of her neck she realized they were in the tiny entryway behind the cage door. It wasn’t at all private and Anne didn’t care.
She pulled his T-shirt free of his pants and hissed at the heat of his skin against her fingertips. He undulated against her as she scraped his abdominal muscles with her nails. Power seeped into her veins, pushing the anger away and leaving her drunk with desire.
He lifted her dress and cupped her bottom
in his hands. His mouth tickled a trail of fire over her collarbone. When his tongue slipped into the cleft between her breasts, Anne moaned with need. He pulled her against his erection. The hard ridge of flesh beneath his fly rubbed against her soaking wet center, and she almost died with the frustration.
She fumbled at his waistband, finally managing to unfasten his pants and sink her hands inside. His big cock was hard and hot. She palmed it between both hands and stroked the soft skin until she felt the dampness of precum at the tip. The slippery fluid made her fingers slide sweetly over the puckered flange. Gabriel growled and panted as his hips trembled and thrust against her.
He tugged at the sides of her panties. “Are you attached to these knickers?” he whispered raggedly.
“No.”
“Good.” He snapped the elastic using nothing but his thumbs.
He tugged the fabric free of her legs and dropped it to the floor. The act struck Anne as funny. She giggled, opening her eyes and meeting a warm blue gaze brimming with the same humor. Tenderness washed over her. She cupped his face in her hands and willed him to understand exactly what she needed.
He pressed his forehead against hers. “I can’t wait anymore, love. I have to be inside you now.”
The muscles in his arms tensed as he spread her legs and lifted her off the floor. Anne reveled in his strength, aroused beyond limits as she pushed her hand down between their bodies and fit the head of his penis to her damp opening. He wriggled until his thick shaft sank all the way to the base inside her pussy.
Anne wrapped her legs around Gabriel’s waist and wound her arms around his neck. She fought to keep her eyes open. She wanted to see him when he came, to experience the fullness of what they were sharing with her eyes wide open.
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