“What is he offering?”
We go through the numbers and sure enough, her ex is trying to screw her. I have no doubt that a property that houses a non-profit animal shelter isn’t easy to come by. I grab my phone from my pocket. She grabs my hand holding it. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Reid.”
“Isn’t he on his honeymoon?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“It’s his honeymoon, Gabe.”
“And?”
“Do you not like his wife?”
“I love her like a sister.”
“Then let her have her husband for her honeymoon,” she argues.
“She gets him for a lifetime.” I remove my hand from hers and punch in Reid’s number before I hit the speaker button.
“What’s up, asshole?” Reid answers.
“Do you know Kenneth Lincoln?”
“Yeah, I know the dirty little prick. What about him?”
Abigail laughs. Reid immediately reacts. “Who’s that laughing?”
“The redhead I told you about that showed up asking for you. She’s his ex-wife.”
“Sorry for that shitty part of your life,” Reid replies. “Because no one could live happily with that man.”
Abigail sighs. “Yes, well, may your marriage be happier.”
Reid replies immediately. “It is. It always will be. Why am I on the phone right now?”
“Abbie needs to be represented against her ex,” I say.
“I’m not a divorce attorney,” Reid says. “In case you got drunk and forgot, Gabe.”
“I’m already divorced,” Abbie inserts. “It’s a litigation case.”
I fill him in on the details. “As much as I’d like to sue that jerk-off, why can’t you take the case, Gabe? You’re just as qualified as I am. What am I missing?”
“His business partner on a majority of his projects is Jean Claude Laurette,” Abbie says.
“And she’s in my T-shirt in my living room right now,” I add.
“You had me at Jean Claude,” Reid replies dryly. “I didn’t need to know about the T-shirt. Email me the details and I’ll start making calls tomorrow morning. We’ll be back in a week. We can meet Abbie then.”
“Abigail,” Abbie corrects, catching my attention. “And Reid, Jean Claude is dangerous and my ex-husband is willing to hurt me and those around me. I’m worried about you taking this, especially with my new connection to Gabe.”
“I know exactly who and what Jean Claude is,” Reid replies. “I got this. We got this. Gabe,” he adds, “we’ll talk tomorrow.” He disconnects the line.
I set the phone on the coffee table. “I’ll be right back with plates and drinks.”
She stands and turns to face me, catching my arm. “Thank you, Gabe.”
“Thank me by eating this pizza with me.” I pull her to me and kiss her. “Abigail. You don’t like Abbie?”
“I like it from you, but no one else calls me that.”
“Why?”
“My father, who’s also an attorney, by the way, hated it. He thought it would make people look down on me when I became a female attorney in a man’s world. I’d never get respect was his take, and he planned this out from my childhood.”
“Like mine tried to do for my sister,” I say, but I don’t give her time to ask questions that incriminate me as going along with it for way too long. “Where’s your father now?”
“In L.A. with a young pretty thing named Katy, so please,” she kisses my cheek, “go for it. It’s okay to call me Abbie. Correcting your brother was reflex, brought on by years of following my father’s orders.”
Her ex and her father both tried to control her and yet she’s a fighter. I can see that. There’s more to her story and I want to find out what it is and I impatiently want to know now. “I’ll get those plates, Abbie.”
She laughs a sweet, sexy laugh and it takes steel willpower for me walk away. I enter the kitchen, thinking about the animal shelter as I grab two bottles of water from the fridge. “What can I help with?” Abbie asks, pausing by the island.
I hand her the waters. “I’ll get the napkins and the plates.”
“Oh good. Lots of napkins,” she jokes. “Or your T-shirt will surely be covered in pizza. I’m messy.”
She’s also adorable. We settle down on the couch and each of us grabs a slice of pizza. She moans her approval, which makes me want to make her moan for other reasons, but I manage to eat the damn pizza. “You know Reid and Carrie just adopted a dog and a cat, and I know they used a shelter for both. Those animals are adorable as hell. How much are the fines you need to pay at the shelter? I’ll pay them. I’m happy to support an organization that helps bring animals and people together.”
She pauses with the pizza almost to her mouth and then sets it down. She doesn’t look at me and seconds tick by before she’s on her feet and darting for her clothes. Something just happened and I don’t know what, but I set my slice down and pursue her. She’s not getting her clothes. She’s not leaving. Sooner or later, she’ll stop trying.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gabe
She’s not leaving.
I hold onto her arm, us between the couch and the coffee table, her in my T-shirt, which is the most she’s putting on anytime in the next twelve hours. Longer if I have my way. “You’re not leaving,” I say softly. “Which is a thought I keep having because you keep trying to run from me.”
Her beautiful green eyes flash. “I’m not trying to run. I’m trying to protect you.”
“You came to me because you wanted to protect yourself, your mother, and the animals at that facility. And you just tried to leave because I tried to help, not because you were trying to protect me.”
She blinks. “Okay. That might be true at the moment, but overall, I am trying to protect you.”
“You have a problem with me donating to the shelter.”
“You’re right. I did. I do.”
“Why? It’s to help the animals.”
“I don’t want us to be that, Gabe.”
I narrow my eyes on her. “I can guess what that means, but you tell me in your own words.”
“I don’t want your money. I’m not here for your money.”
“Were you there for your ex’s money? And I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean, at some point, he was fucking around. You might have justified staying for the money because leaving a marriage is hard.”
“And you know this how?”
“My mother,” I say, not sure why I opened that box of demons. “I know because of my mother, but back to you. We're talking about you."
“I didn't stay for his money,” she says, her voice lifting with the intensity. “But of course, his attorney accused me of that.”
“Is that why you walked away from the money completely? They guilted you into it?”
“I didn’t want to be the bitter, cheated-on wife who took his money to pay him back and look where that got me? He’s threatening the shelter.”
“And I can help.”
“I’m not letting you pay thousands of dollars in fines because of me. And that's how much we're talking about. Thousands, Gabe.”
“Okay. It's thousands. I'm not blinking because I assume that those thousands of dollars in fines mean thousands less you have to feed the animals, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“There is no but to this. I want to help. If I’d heard about this and you weren’t involved, I’d have helped.”
“Gabe,” she breathes out.
I mold her to me, kissing her soundly on the lips before I say, “I want to help.”
“I don’t want us to be this,” she repeats.
“We are whatever we decide we are together. Your ex doesn’t get to decide for us. And he wants to intimidate you by hurting the animals. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell where I hope he burns.” I kiss her again. “Let’s eat. I want to hear about the shelter. I want to go to the shelter. When can we go?
”
“You want to go to the shelter?”
“Gabbie gave birth," I say. "I’ve never seen newborn pups. Take me to meet Gabbie and her babies.”
Surprise and a hint of warmth light her eyes. “Now? Tonight?”
“No,” I say, sitting us down on the couch again. “I’m not letting you out of here until sunrise with me by your side. Now we eat our pizza and go fuck our brains out in my bed.”
“Sunrise?” she asks. “You want me to stay?”
“Yes, Abbie. I want you to stay and you damn sure better want to stay.”
“I can’t go to my mom’s place in the morning in today’s clothes,” she counters. “She saw me yesterday."
"We can go by your place in the morning." I lean in close, my gaze lowering to her mouth, which I really want on about every part of my body right now, before my gaze collides with hers. “Do you want to stay the night? Yes or no?”
She inhales, her lashes lowering, those full lips I’m presently obsessing over parting as she says, “Yes,” and then meets my stare, “I do want to stay with you, Gabe.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” I lean in and kiss her. “Let’s eat. You’re going to need your energy and so am I.”
She laughs. “Is that right?”
“Yes. It is.” I wink. “Now, I need something to keep my mind off your nipples under my T-shirt. Tell me about the shelter.”
Her cheeks heat and she laughs. “My God. You’ll say anything.”
“And I’ll do about anything, too.” I wiggle a brow at her and open the pizza box. “I’ll let you think about that one while we eat.”
“I don’t want to think about that one too hard,” she teases and grabs a fresh slice of pizza. “The shelter is a special place. We just had Santa days for the holidays. Kids could meet the dogs and cats and take photos. We had a big charity day as well with donations for the animals. It was really successful.”
“Define successful?”
“Enough to feed the animals for a full month.”
“How many animals are there?”
“A hundred at any given time. We’re no-kill, so we usually stay at full capacity. We can’t take in a lot of new animals, so we’ve been working hard to expand our foster volunteers, but that can be a lot to manage.”
“And you help with all of this?”
“I do.”
“Isn't that a big job? Aren’t you an attorney outside of the shelter?”
“I am. Well, I was. I quit my job a few years back. I then started working for the shelter for free, as well as helping with a variety of charity operations my ex wanted me to help with, free of charge, to make him look good. In essence, I put my career on hold.”
“And now?”
“I saved enough money in the past five years so that I’m fine, but I’ve just sent out my resume, and I’m going to re-launch my career. I’m actually excited about it. I worked for Neal and Newman Brothers as staff counsel before I resigned.”
“Were you good?”
“Yes, I was,” she says firmly. “They want me back, but one of the executives is too close to my ex for that to feel like a good career move. Plus, I’d like to focus on a broader caseload, rather than one massive monster of a company with the same kind of repeat problems. I want to work for a firm.”
“Did you send us a resume?”
She sips from her water and then sets her bottle down. “Actually, yes, before I realized I was going to need to hire your brother, I did, but we’ll pretend I didn’t.”
“No, we won’t,” I say. “No one else gets you. You’ll come to work for us.”
“Gabe, don’t.”
“I’m not letting you go someplace else and compete with me. Come win with me and our team. We’re damn good and—”
“You’re doing it again. I don’t want to be your kept woman. I don’t want that to be us.”
“That’s it,” I say, taking the pizza from her hands and setting it on the plate before I stand up and take her with me. “You don’t get to judge us by you and your ex. You don’t. If you do—”
“If I do what?”
“There’s a price.”
She frowns. “What price? And why do I feel like I’m not going to like the answer.”
“You don’t know me well enough yet or you’d know just how much you’re not going to like my answer.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just know that you can’t take care of me. I need to take care of me. I don’t want money for a job I don’t earn and—”
I pick her up and she yelps as I throw her over my shoulder and start walking toward my bedroom. “Time for that price you must pay,” I say.
“What does that even mean? Put me down. The T-shirt is falling to my neck.”
I squeeze her naked backside that her T-shirt falling has exposed and she grabs my pants. “Gabe.”
“That’s right, sweetheart. Gabe and no one else.” I walk up the stairs leading to my bedroom where I plan to give her plenty of reasons to forget her ex and to remember me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gabe
I don’t turn on the light in my bedroom despite how much I want to see Abbie, but I know when someone is hiding. I know when they are finding a comfortable place inside the shadows. For me, that’s laughter and humor, a shelter I hide behind. No one sees the real me. No one gets inside my world, inside my life, but she has. She’s here and she doesn’t understand how significant that is, but she will. She will if she just joins me here, really joins me, which means she stops running. That’s her wall. She runs. She pushes. She shoves. No one gets close to her, but I will. I’m going to tear down every last ounce of reserve she has, expose her in every way. More so, I’m going to make sure she doesn’t regret letting it happen.
I squeeze her bare backside and then set her on the floor at the foot of my bed, turning to face the mattress. I have her T-shirt, my T-shirt, over her head and on the floor, in about two seconds and then she’s all mine. “Gabe,” she whispers, and I cup her ample breasts and drag her fully against me.
“That’s right,” I say. “Gabe. Don’t forget who you’re with.” I pinch her nipples and not gently.
She gasps and then moans and her hands go to mine, that plump, perfect backside of hers pressing against my thick erection, teasing me with how easily I could be inside her, but inside her is not the right way to pull down those walls. Not yet. “Let me have that control I wanted earlier,” I demand at her ear, and then I lean around her to kiss her. “Let me have everything just tonight.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I’m going to find out your limits and take you beyond those limits.”
“Gabe—”
“That’s trust. I want the trust he doesn’t have. Have you ever been tied up?”
She stiffens. “Yes. I don’t like it.”
“Have you ever been spanked?”
“No. God. No.”
“So you don’t know if you like it,” I assume, reaching a hand down between her legs, stroking the silken heat there.
“I don’t. I—” She moans with the stroke of her clit and I turn her to face me, her puckering nipples pressed to my bare chest, one hand on her head, dragging her mouth to mine. The other is on her backside, squeezing it roughly even as my tongue licks and tastes.
She pants into my mouth and I lift my hand and give her backside a cautious smack. She stiffens and I squeeze her cheek again even as I deepen the kiss. When she sinks into the kiss, I repeat, lifting my hands and giving her another cautious but present smack. “Gabe,” she pants into my mouth. “Gabe, I—”
I kiss her again, taking and tasting, and I find no fear, no real resistance, to warn me to back off, but I want her submission. I want her willingness. “Did you like it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t—know.”
“Did you hate it?” I cup her face and tilt her gaze to mine.
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“What are you thinking about right now?”
“You. Just you.”
“And when was the last time you thought of nothing but the moment?”
“A very, very long time,” she confesses.
“Do you want to stay here with me?”
“I already told you I did.”
“Not here, in my apartment. We already made that decision. Here.” I squeeze her backside and give it another smack. She arches into my hips, my cock now so damn hard it hurts, as I add, “Here, in the moment. In the pleasure.”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
I kiss her, a deep, demanding, wanting-all-I-can-have-of-her kiss that has me wanting my lips back between her legs. I want this woman on my tongue. I want this woman every way I can experience her. “Play in the moment with me, then. Do what I say. Anticipate where that takes us next. You can always say no. I’ll listen. Okay?”
“What are you going to tell me to do?”
“For starters,” I kiss her and turn her towards the bed, “I want you on your knees, beautiful backside in the air, and I want you to stay like that so I can look at you when I undress.”
“You want—no. Now I—”
I turn her around again and kiss her. “Trust me. Just trust me to make this all pleasure for us both.”
She breathes out a trembling breath. “But I—”
I kiss her. “Turn around, Abbie. Let go. Let me do you, instead of you doing you.”
She laughs. “That could mean so many things.”
“Right now, it means I’m fucking you and pleasing you. You don’t have to do it yourself.” I turn her to face the bed again and lightly trail my fingers over her nipples, easing my body from hers, giving her room to make her own decision. “On the bed, on your hands and knees and I promise you, nothing else but you and me will matter. Not now. Not in the moment we’re living.”
She inhales a slow breath and then steps forward. A moment later, she is naked but for her thigh highs and absolutely fucking gorgeous on her hands and her knees, her butt in the air as she rests on her elbows. I study her, thinking about all the ways that I’m going to fuck her and lick her as I go down on the mattress beside her. I run my hands along her back, leaning in to kiss the spot between her shoulder blades. My hand settles there, rests there, and I do nothing else until she whispers. “Gabe,” and tries to look over her shoulder at me.
His Demand (Dirtier Duet Book 1) Page 5
