8
Angel
When I opened my eyes next it was still pitch black in the room. No pale light from the dawn was streaming through the partially closed curtains, so I had no idea how long I had been asleep. I knew immediately what had woken me up though—I was too warm. Specifically, the body currently pressed up against me with its arm slung over my middle was too warm. Pumping heat out like a furnace, I felt Gabe curled up behind me on the bed, knees tucked behind mine and something very firm pressing into my butt.
Oh my God.
My heart pounded with fear, not because I thought that Gabe would try to do something to me without my consent, but because he felt so very comfortable and right with his big body wrapped around mine and I was afraid I would like it too much and do something to embarrass myself. Something like, press my bottom a little more firmly against him, just to feel his hardness pressed more fully against me. Oh shit, stop that you slut! That was a new low, taking advantage of a sleeping man. And he was sleeping, I could tell by his deep, even breathing. Gabe always was a deep sleeper. I remembered from all the times I had to wake him up for school in the morning because his three alarms and own mother yelling at the bottom of the steps weren’t enough to do it.
Well, we weren’t teenagers anymore, and no matter how similar to a fantasy of mine it was, lying in bed with Gabriel Anderson, it was not appropriate. “Gabe, wake up,” I hissed into the darkness. There was no answer, only a tightening of his arm around my middle, which brought his thumb skimming into the underside of my breast, braless under the borrowed t-shirt.
Electric shock.
“Gabriel Anderson, wake the hell up right now,” I said more loudly. A groan sounded from behind me and his sleepy voice registered the bare minimum of wakefulness.
“What? God, it’s the middle of the night.”
“Yes, it is, what are you doing in here?” I know he very well didn’t sleepwalk into the room and snuggle himself up all cozy.
“This is my bed, go to sleep.” That was it. No further explanation.
Before he could drift back off like I could tell he was doing by the cadence of his breathing, I continued, “You fell asleep on the couch, and there have to be other bedrooms in this house, it’s huge.”
“There are,” he grumbled sleepily in my ear before grabbing at my side and pinching. “But this one is mine. It was mine before you crawled in here, poor choice for you not finding a guest room. Now. Go. Back. To. Sleep.”
“Don’t pinch my chub!” It is never acceptable to pinch a woman’s chub, no matter how long you have been friends. I was getting rowdy now, and tried to turn over to give him a piece of my mind but was frozen in place by the feel of him biting down on the soft skin between my neck and shoulders.
Holy shit holy shit, that was hot. I’m pretty sure Gabe growled when he bit me, not too hard, but enough to get my attention. Or maybe it was my lust-filled imagination that heard what I wanted, because I had gone from zero to take me now with just that little nip.
“I will swallow your soul if you do not go back to sleep right now.” I did not imagine the growl, and it was not a request. Clearly I was dreaming. There was no way this was actually happening and I was absolutely not having a sexual awakening in Gabriel Anderson’s bed after fifteen years of not speaking. I must still be in the warehouse, sitting on that ugly loveseat with the bag back over my head. That was it. I was having a delusion.
Ok. That made more sense than what I thought had been going on. Well, if I was only dreaming, then no harm no foul. Gabe’s deep, even breathing tickled the hair at the back of my neck, and before long I felt mine start to mirror his. “What a nice dream,” I said under my breath, as my eyes fluttered closed again. Since I imagined the entire thing, I was sure the soft laughter that rumbled against my back as I drifted back to sleep was all in my head as well.
The next time I opened my eyes, full sunlight was streaming through the two windows in what was a much larger room than I had remembered from the night before. Uh oh, not a dream. I was sprawled in the middle of a king sized bed, chocolate comforter half hanging off onto the ground. The furniture was large and made of solid wood. There wasn’t much of it besides a dresser, the bed and a couple of nightstands, but there was a partially open closet door against the wall opposite the bed. Through the open door I could see a huge walk in space with the dark silhouettes of suit jackets and shirts hanging in rows.
Well shit, this was Gabe’s bedroom, all right. So it wasn’t a dream.
I was alone in the bed, but I highly doubted I was alone in the house. Padding through the hallway and down in the kitchen, I found Gabe leaning against the counter separating the two rooms with a cup of coffee in his hands, scrolling through something on his phone.
Shirtless. He was shirtless.
He was also wearing the black sweatpants I was supposed to be wearing. The ones I had discarded before falling face first into bed last night. They hung low on his hips, leaving zero to the imagination from just slightly lower than the waist up. That corded v of muscle that was so highly coveted by lust-filled women all over? Yeah, he had those. I couldn’t remember what the proper term was for those, I just called them handles, because I couldn’t stop thinking about what they would feel like under my hands. Also, if he was wearing those particular sweatpants that meant I wasn’t wearing any at all and I cursed myself for being so out of it that I left the bedroom in nothing but a t-shirt. A gigantic t-shirt that hung down to my thighs, but I was still not wearing any pants. Something about being half naked in front of Gabe made me feel vulnerable, and I didn’t like feeling as if he had the upper hand over me at all.
Tearing my eyes away from that bit of skin at his waistband like a guilty peeper, I looked up to find that he had stopped scrolling through his phone and was looking at me with mild curiosity. The corner of his mouth tilted but he didn’t say anything, just watched me to see what I would say. What did he think I was going to say? He had saved me from a kidnapping, spooned me all night, and now we were half dressed in his kitchen. What the hell was there to say?
“Coffee,” I croaked, saying the only word that would sound foreign coming out of my mouth under these circumstances. “Please tell me you have more than just what is in that cup?” It must have been my imagination, but disappointment clouded his dark brown eyes briefly and then our little standoff was over.
9
Gabe
I could not get Angel home fast enough, holy shit she was making my head work overtime. Everything was an argument with her. Everything. She may have been in the clear with Chaz Malone, and I had paid an extra hundred thousand dollars on top of what he had been asking just to make sure of that, but she and I still had some issues to settle. One of those issues was approaching the misunderstandings from fifteen years ago. The other was dealing with this sudden attraction I had to her.
She didn’t look any different to me at all. Maybe a little more mature, but she had the same long blonde hair and the same curvy body she always did. Maybe her hips were a little wider and her breasts a little more full, but I don’t remember ever feeling like I wanted to wrap my hands around her waist and get lost in the softness before now. My dick swelled to attention just thinking about putting my mouth on her skin, just like I did last night but with more purpose.
She also had the same snapping blue eyes and smart-ass mouth, too.
I was on my way to the office, and I laughed to myself just thinking about what had happened when I dropped her off at her apartment. The Washington Arms. That place was a funhouse.
She didn’t want me to walk her up, which was hilarious to me considering I had just saved her from a kidnapping, and if she thought that I would just drop her off at the curb without checking to see if her apartment was safe, she was nuts.
Her building wasn’t large, maybe eight or ten apartments, but what gave me the creeps as I walked her up to the building was that someone was looking at us from every single window. Some were peeki
ng through blinds, some from behind curtains. There was one apartment on the first floor that had the window treatments wide open, and an older guy, probably in his seventies or eighties, was just standing there staring at us with his arms folded across his chest. He looked grumpy as shit but I couldn’t figure out why. Angel saw where I was looking and was quick to explain.
“This is a retirement apartment building. I’m the only person under sixty in the whole place. My neighbors are super nice and fun to be around, but they are also extremely nosy and way overprotective. Me coming home with a guy after staying out all night is the equivalent of the walk of shame. That’s Gary. He can’t hear for shit and has his answering machine turned up so loud I can hear it pick up through the floor of my apartment.” Angel smiled and waved at him through the window. After a moment, he dropped his scowl and waved back.
“Okay, so if you are going to walk me in then I think you should be prepared.” Angel continued, making me wonder what kind of apartment complex she lived in that visitors needed a warning before they walked in.
“Prepared for what?”
“The welcoming committee,” Angel said as she swung the door to the first floor open, revealing a hallway that ran right through the center of the building.
“What welcoming committee?” I didn’t see anyone, the hallway was deserted. Angel took a deep breath in through her nose and rubbed her thumb between her eyebrows like she had a headache. A wave of nostalgia passed through me and I was overcome by how much emotion I felt watching that simple little tic. Something Angel didn’t even realize she was doing, but I had seen probably a hundred times in the years we had been close.
I missed you.
The thought surprised me and I had a moment of panic thinking maybe I had said it out loud, but then Angel shook her head and gave a knock on the hallway wall. Not even on a specific door, just randomly on the wall, like she knew someone was already listening.
“All right, biddies, come on out. I know you’ve got your ear to the door anyway, Jolene.” Who the hell was she talking about? Man, Angel had a mouth on her. I was just getting ready to tell her to ease up on the throttle when the first door to the right opened up and a head popped out of the doorway.
“Hello dear, you called?” The older woman entered the hallway to greet us and I was shocked at her diminutive stature. At six foot one I could have missed her completely in the hallway until I stepped on her—that was how short she was. Her brown hair was set in perfect curls all around her face and she held a margarita glass in her hand. I assumed it was full of margarita, too, considering the greenish color of the liquid inside and the copious amount of salt on the rim.
It was nine thirty in the morning.
“Oh, can it, you nosy biddy,” Angel said with a laugh, and it was at that moment I realized she wasn’t being rude. She knew this person had been watching us from the parking lot and was calling her out. But she wasn’t mad. Angel just sounded exasperated.
The older woman stood in front of me and gave me the once-over. It was amazing how someone over a foot shorter than me could still make me feel like she was looking down on me. I met her gaze, stare for stare. I was the alpha here, I refused to be intimidated by a boozed-up grandma wearing a turquoise tracksuit and giving me the hairy eyeball.
She looked me up and down while I gave her my most beguiling smile.
She narrowed her eyes at me, and I let my smile grow wider, showing a little teeth.
Her next words were not directed at me, but to Angel, which was a little disconcerting because she was still looking me right in the eye while she was talking. “Now, Angel dear, a lady doesn’t stay out all night and then creep home with a gentleman caller.”
“Well, Jolene,” Angel said dryly, “a lady doesn’t start drinking margaritas at nine in the morning either.”
The old woman smiled then, and I noticed the mischievous gleam in her eye right before she turned and acknowledged Angel. “They do if they haven’t gone to bed from the night before yet!” Then she erupted into the most disarming and adorable set of old lady giggles I had ever heard, and I had to pass my hand in front of my mouth to hide my own laughter.
“Don’t encourage her, Gabe,” Angel said, but she was laughing, too, as she plowed through the hallway and over to a set of stairs that would take us to the second floor. She paused on the second step from the bottom. “This is why I don’t need you to check my apartment, Gabe, no one gets in here without being noticed. No one.”
“Check your apartment? You get yourself in some kind of trouble, Angel?” The older woman I assumed was Jolene looked concerned, but I wasn’t fooled. I bet she was looking for some juicy gossip.
“Your girl here got herself accidentally involved with some shady people by witnessing a crime. Then she got herself kidnapped and almost sold off overseas. Good thing she has a handsome, rich hero around like me to come save the day, right?” Jolene’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her sockets.
“Goddamnit, Gabe,” I heard Angel whisper under her breath as she thundered up the stairs and left me standing on the first floor. I consoled myself with watching her ass bounce up and down as she stormed off in a huff. Her apartment door slammed and I took it as a message I was not expected to follow her. That was okay, she could be mad at me if she wanted, the directive was to make sure Angel was safe. After meeting the residents of The Washington Arms, I had almost zero concern anyone would be lying in wait for her upstairs. I doubt a squirrel could climb up a tree outside unnoticed.
Jolene found her voice and hollered back through the open door of her own apartment, “Gerta! DVR today’s stories, Angel just had an adventure and we need the details. Bring the pitcher and let’s go.” She was already halfway up the stairs when an equally tiny woman with hair so grey it had a blue tinge came out of the apartment holding a pitcher of margaritas in her hand. She didn’t say anything as she passed me, just gave me a polite nod as she shuffled her way slowly to the stairs. Yeah, Angel was going to be kept pretty busy today. I doubted she could get into any fresh trouble, and I really did need to head back to the office and straighten some things out. When I had finally gotten ahold of Dino the night before, he had mentioned some pretty disturbing things. Things I didn’t want happening in my town.
Seemed like Chaz Malone wasn’t lying when he put Angel up for sale. Being situated right on Lake Erie meant a lot of cargo ships came in and out, and a lot of smuggled cargo as well. Drugs were everywhere, addiction was rampant, and it was a very dangerous blight. But you could spend all your resources trying to wipe out the dealers and another ten would pop up in their place. You avoid drugs by not getting involved with them in the first place, and I know that is easier said than done sometimes. But T-Town was being used to move people, and that was something no one could protect themselves from. I had a large finance company to oversee; I had a runner named Melody to investigate; I had just spent the night wrapped around Angel Jax; and I had some feelings about I didn’t quite know what to do with. I had a lot on my fucking plate.
10
Angel
A week had passed since my unfortunate kidnapping.
It was a good thing Gabe left when he had that morning because I was going to smack that look off his too handsome face, I swear to God. That smug asshole knew exactly what he was doing riling up Jolene, and I had to spend the better part of the day explaining exactly who, what, when, and why to both Jolene and Gerta until they finally left me alone to go to Bingo at the Lutheran church down on Summit Street.
They held me hostage for over four hours. Chaz Malone didn’t even have me captive for that long and I was pretty damn exhausted from answering all the questions Jolene was firing at me. Gerta didn’t say much, she never does, but she hung out the entire time, refilling Jolene’s margarita glass when it got low and nodding her head in agreement at the appropriate times. If Jolene was loud and colorful, Gerta was quiet and unassuming. They were the perfect foil for each other. They were
also on my last damn nerve.
That was over a week ago. Since then Jolene had been relatively quiet, mostly on account of how I had lent her four of my last book releases from my personal stash. But I could feel her eyes on me through the window every time I left the apartment, and even though I knew the residents kept a close eye on the place as a rule, I felt especially under the microscope after the events of the past week. And it was all Gabe’s fault for riling them up.
He was another problem entirely. For a man who was super busy running the family empire, he certainly did have a lot of free time to blow up my damn phone whenever he felt like it. To check up on me, he said each time. I didn’t need checking up on. I needed to not be under Gabriel Anderson’s thumb. I needed to get ready for my gig tonight down at Nasta’s bar, and I needed to slap a little makeup on my face so I didn’t look like I hadn’t slept in days, even though I really hadn’t. Because the truth of the matter was I was pretty damn terrified.
I had been snatched by a gang of thugs and felt up by a junkie. I was rescued by someone I used to love, but was also still pretty mad at for reasons I have trouble remembering when he is in front of me, and who also seems to think, because he paid an astronomical amount of money for my release, he is somehow the master of my universe or something. Okay, so the money probably only bugged me. Gabe never said another word about it, but I couldn’t let it go. I hated thinking I owed him something, especially since I had never planned on seeing him again. I was in a crisis of my own making, and I wasn’t ready to talk to him about it.
Gabe, however, did want to talk about it. About everything that happened fifteen years ago, in fact, and I was not ready to take the lid off of that box of painful memories. I was being a coward. I was contemplating the symmetry of my eyebrows when my phone dinged from its place on the vanity.
Gabe Page 6
