As if we’ve beckoned her, my mother appears beside us. “Hurry. Gabbie is panicking over her puppies. I can’t calm her down and deal with the other animals, too.” She takes off running again and Gabe and I whirl around, both of us falling into a jog behind her.
A few minutes later, we’re in a giant barn with horses and dogs, with Gabbie and her puppies in a stall meant for one of the horses. Gabbie is in the middle of the hay with her pups all around her. Well, all but the one in Gabe’s arms, because the man might be rough and tough with my ex-husband, and wild in bed, but he is sweet as can be with the animals. Grayson and Mia are here as well, both helping to unload the animals and a swarm of volunteers aid the efforts as well. It’s magical. It’s special. It’s a like a big family and it’s been a very long time since I felt a part of a family beyond the shelter. But this reaches so far beyond the shelter.
“Abbie.”
Gabe’s voice draws my attention and I look up to see him sitting against the wall, hay all around him and that puppy still in his arms.
“Yes?”
“What are you thinking?”
What am I thinking? It’s then that I realize how wrong I’ve been with Gabe in so many ways. I stand up and walk around Gabbie to sit next to him, my legs aligning with his. “That I’m very lucky to have your help, Gabe. I want you to know that all my pushback isn’t because I don’t know how lucky I am. I’m just worried about you and well, a little scared about depending on you. That hasn’t gone well for me with other men.”
He sets the puppy down next to her mom and the pup nestles close to Gabbie right away. He turns to me and strokes my cheek. “It will with me. Watch and see.”
A few hours of grueling labor later, getting all the dogs settled, Gabe and I are once more sitting with Gabbie and her puppies.
“Hey, you two.”
My mother enters the space and kneels next to Gabbie. “Ah, thank goodness she’s calmed down.” She strokes her head and looks at us. “You both did good.”
“I’m a virgin puppy pleaser,” Gabe says, “so that’s good to hear.”
My mother laughs. Gabe just does that to people. He makes them laugh and my mother looks at him with genuine warmth in her eyes when she never did so with Kenneth. “Well, we’ll make you a pro. Watch and see. Thank you, Gabe. You made this happen and it’s fabulous here. The owners of the ranch are generous. Your friends are generous. You are generous. We’re lucky to have your help.”
“My absolute pleasure,” Gabe says. “And for the record, I’m in puppy love. I’m going to put in an application to adopt Dexter.”
My mother’s brow dips. “Dexter?”
“Right,” he says. “The killer dog I saved everyone from. He’s at my house now.”
My mother laughs again. “Killer dog. Okay. Well, whichever dog that is, is a lucky dog.” She stands up. “You two go get some rest. We’re all set here. Brandon, the ranch owner, is letting me stay at the house, and there’s a small cottage right next to the barn where we have volunteers. I don’t even want to think about what comes after tonight. I just want to be grateful for where we are now.” She winks at me. “Get some rest.”
I blush with the certainty that she’s not talking about rest at all and Gabe barks out laughter. My mother disappears and Gabe stands and helps me to my feet. “Let’s go get some rest,” he says, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
I’m still blushing as he leads me out of the door and we run into Grayson and Mia. “We’re headed home,” Grayson says, his arm around Mia. “You guys want to get breakfast early tomorrow and come back out and help?”
This billionaire and his wife want to come back out early and help. I’m blown away. “Thank you,” I say. “You both are wonderful and generous and—”
“Happy to help,” Mia says, smiling. “We had fun. We’re eager to be parents and this kind of satisfies that need in us.” She glances at Grayson. “We love it, right?”
Grayson kisses her. “We do.” He looks at us. “Breakfast?”
“Yes,” Gabe and I say at the same time, and then laugh as we look at each other, this kindred spirit between us that I can’t explain. The understanding that I will be with him tomorrow also with us. “Breakfast.”
A few minutes later we settle into the car, and I’m glad we no longer have a driver. I’m thankful that we took his car because we couldn’t speak freely otherwise. Gabe’s just turned on the engine when I watch my mother walk by, laughing with a man I don’t know, a good-looking man actually, about her age. “That’s the ranch owner,” Gabe tells me, reading my mind. “And he’s a good man, recently widowed.”
“She’s smiling,” I say. “After all that has happened, she’s smiling, and I have to tell her about the lawsuit.”
“It’s not real,” he says, taking my hand. “You don’t have to tell her anything unless we determine there’s a real problem.”
“Those men at the shelter threatened her with legal, as in criminal, investigations.”
“And I’m telling you that I will make this go away. Whatever I have to do, I’ll make this go away.”
“Gabe, you can’t—”
He leans in and kisses me. “I can. I will. Trust me. I need you to trust me, or at least give me the chance to earn that trust. Okay?”
My heart squeezes. “Okay,” I whisper, and his lips curve, his eyes lightening despite the shadows cloaking the car.
He releases me and starts backing up. I settle into the leather of the seat and inhale. I can’t wait for him to make this go away. I have to make it go away and I know what that means. I know that dark, horrible place I have to travel to make it go away. And before someone I care about, Gabe included, gets hurt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Abbie
The ride to Gabe’s place is short and the awareness between us rich with sexual tension and a budding understanding that doesn’t require words. We’re both in this to stay. We’re both ready to be alone again.
He pulls us into his driveway, parking under a huge oak tree. “I’ll come around and get you,” he says, as he kills the engine and the lights.
I don’t argue. It’s been a long time since I was in a place where a man could come around and get me and actually did so by choice. And not because I live in Manhattan where cars aren’t feasible with parking fees, traffic, and pedestrians overflowing in the roads. My ex never did anything to be a gentleman. Not for a long time. Not for years of the marriage. And yet I stayed.
I flash back to that spontaneous moment when I’d kissed Gabe by the bathroom and thanked him for waking me up. He did. He keeps opening my eyes, and my heart, wider. He exits the vehicle and rounds the truck and my hand runs over the soft leather interior, the seat warmer a perk of the luxury vehicle that somehow doesn’t define the man. He has money. He has power and success. I know it’s in abundance because he felt no fear of my ex and Jean Claude, but I know this from his actions. He doesn’t walk around wearing his money and power as a weapon. He is his own weapon.
A weapon.
Gabe has so many layers I want to understand.
He opens the door and I rotate my legs, my feet hitting the gravel and Gabe offers me his hand. I stare at it, preparing myself for the jolt of his touch when that is nothing I have ever felt before. This man undoes me without even trying. I reach out and press my hand to his and his long fingers close around mine. His powerful arm eases me to my feet, and in a breath, I’m standing directly in front of him.
He reaches up, his fingers brushing my cheek, goosebumps lifting on my skin, and they have nothing to do with the cold breeze from the nearby ocean. It’s this man. It’s the way he turns me ten kinds of inside out. “You know what happens if I take you inside, right?” he asks softly, his voice a low, rough rumble of masculine heat.
“Take me to the shower because I smell like dog and I’m pretty sure horse and hay?”
His low, soft laughter that follows chases heat through my body. “A shower it is, but I won
’t promise we’ll make it there before I undress you. I might just have to fuck you in the hallway.”
Fuck me in the hallway.
Yes.
Please.
Do it.
I have not had a man want me so much that he had to fuck me in the hallway in a lifetime, it seems. “That sounds like a self-control issue to me,” I tease.
He doesn’t laugh and then as a groan of thunder sounds somewhere in the nearby sky, starlight beams through the clouds, and illuminates his face, the depths of desire in his eyes as he says, “Control. Yes. It’s definitely a control issue.” He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses it. “Let’s go see who has it.”
Had anyone else said this to me, I’d back away. I’ve given away the control of my life for far too long. I need to own it. I need control. But this man owning my body and my pleasure that hardly seems like me giving up anything. It seems like it’s a reward for walking away from the past. I already know it’s pleasure. He’s pleasure, not pain, and I want the escape he offers. I want to forget the hell facing me in the morning light with my mother, legal issues, an ex that I swore my lifetime devotion to only to be burned and bruised emotionally.
Gabe guides me toward the house and we walk up the steps. The minute we’re at the door, he pulls me in front of him, his body encasing mine, his lips at my ear, a warm breath, a warm promise of pleasure tickling my ear and my neck. My nipples tighten, my breasts ache for his touch. My sex is a tight knot, thighs already slick with the certainty that he will soon be there where I need him, between my legs.
He unlocks the door, shoves it open, and together we walk inside. He flips on the light and when I would turn to face him, he holds me where I’m at, kicking the door shut. Dexter barks, but the garden room door is shut. Gabe calls out to him, “It’s us, Dexter. Chew your bone.” He nuzzles my neck. “I’m going to owe him a steak or something for not saying hello.”
I laugh at the way this man says things that make you laugh in the most intense moments. “Yes,” I agree. “Or maybe a pizza.”
He doesn’t laugh. He pulls my coat off and tosses it and his hoodie hits the floor right after mine. I’d laugh at the way he’s just tossed them, but now I’m the one who can’t laugh when perhaps I would at another time. Because he’s touching me again. He presses his hand on my belly and nuzzles my neck again. “We aren’t making it to the shower.” He steps into me, his thick erection nuzzling my backside. His hand caresses up my waist, and over my breasts where he squeezes. I lean back into him, moaning softly with the pinch of my nipple.
“That’s what I wanted,” he confesses, his breath tickling my neck again, and I don’t know if he means the moan or the way I’m now leaning fully against him. The way my entire body is against his. The way, I realize, I’m trusting him to hold me up. To protect me from a fall even as he takes me to the most vulnerable place ever. That place where you give up everything you are to pleasure, to the person who is giving it to you and that you want to give it to.
“Definitely not making it to the shower,” he says, and suddenly he’s pulling my T-shirt over my head, tossing it as he did my coat. My bra is gone before I even register where my shirt has fallen. His hands are on my breasts, his eyes raking over my nipples before they meet my stare.
“I’m going to lick you, fuck you, and repeat, and then we’ll shower.”
“I think we should shower first.”
“No, Abbie. We’re not showering first.” He turns me to face the door, and presses my hands to the hard wooden surface, his body framing mine as he says, “How many orgasms will it take for you to trust me?”
“Orgasms do not equal trust.”
“They do if they come after I’ve pushed your limits after you’ve freely let me push your limits.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Gabe
The sweet scent of some kind of flower, rose, I think, tickles my nose right along with a soft strand of Abbie’s red hair. I step into her, my hips cradling her hips, her hands still pressed to the wooden surface of the door. She is tiny and soft, and yet fierce and strong in ways that I think her past has made her question. I want to make her feel strong again. I want her to feel empowered. I want to show her how much her pleasure matters.
My hands settle on her waist and I lean in, inhaling that floral scent she’s wearing that’s becoming so damn familiar to me, and I swear my cock thickens just from drawing it in. I want that scent on my skin. I want her naked and spread wide on top of me, riding me. Moaning for me. Impatience burns inside me. I could strip her now. Fuck her here. Take her and then do it again, nice and slow, and then make it up to her with my tongue. But that’s what I need. It’s not what she needs and if she were any other woman, I’d consider my way over her way.
I caress a path up her waist, and then gently tease her nipples with the lightest touch of my fingers. She moans and arches into my hands. I cup her breasts, squeezing them even as I pull her back against me, my thumbs flicking her nipples. “I want everything,” I whisper, turning her to face me and pressing her against the door, my gaze raking over her high, full breasts before lifting. “Can I have it?”
“Define everything?”
I reach down and stroke her nipples. “Everything. No limits.”
Her hands flatten on my chest. “I have limits.”
I cover her hands with mine. “See that’s the thing, Abbie. I have limits, too. So many fucking limits, that until you, I didn’t know just how many. And I keep breaking them with you. So, break a few of yours with me. Trust me.” I cup her face. “Trust me.”
“I don’t even know what that means, Gabe.”
“I’ll show you,” I promise. “It, this, is all about you being present. Being right here with me.”
“I am.”
“No. You’re one foot in the door and one foot out. You’re always halfway in your mind, building a wall between us because of him.”
“I don’t think of him when I’m with you.”
“He’s conditioned you to think of him even when you don’t think you are.”
“No, I—”
I lean in and brush my lips over hers. “I’m going to make you forget him. Even if it’s just right here, right now, with me, and he’s back in the morning. One night at a time works for me until he’s gone.”
She catches my hand and instead of denying that I’m right, she whispers, “What if he won’t ever go away, Gabe?”
“He will. I promise you. He will. I’ll make sure he goes away. I won’t leave room for him.”
“And when you’re gone?”
I cup her face. “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll figure that out. That’s another promise.” I close my mouth down on hers, my tongue stroking deep, and I let her taste how much I mean my words. I let her taste how much I want more of her, more of us. I let her taste how naked she’s made me when I haven’t even started undressing, and I never let anyone do that to me.
“I want you in my bed,” I murmur, parting our lips. “This bed. Any bed I call mine, I want you in it.” I don’t wait for her reply. I scoop her up and start walking, carrying her down a long hallway that leads to the master bedroom where a motion detector automatically turns the lights to a dim glow.
I close the space between us and the bed and stand with my back to the bed, settling her on the ground, and pulling my shirt over my head but leaving my pants on. “Undress for me.” I caress her naked breasts and then sit down, a challenge in my eyes.
I want her trust.
I’m asking for it now by asking her to dare to be naked, right here, right now, with me watching.
Her eyes meet mine, and I see understanding and a hint of trepidation in her eyes. She’s walled herself off. She’s made herself believe she’s less than the other women that were in her husband’s bed, and I’m not going to let her feel that any longer.
My gaze lowers and rakes over her breasts, lifting slowly until our eyes collide again. “You’re beautiful. Stunning.
Everything I want in a woman. It’s just us here. It’s just me. Undress for me, Abbie.”
Her eyes warm and while that trepidation isn’t gone, it shifts and changes, a mix of desire and arousal. She kicks off her shoes and then reaches for the waist of her leggings. My cock reacts, thickening, hot and hard, and not because she’s undressing, but because I know how shut off she is, I know how she protects herself and no matter what we’ve done before now, now matters. Now is a shift between us. It’s not me taking. It’s me asking. It’s her giving freely.
She slides down her leggings, her long slender legs driving me wild, and when they’re down, she kicks them aside. Next comes the tiny black thong she’s wearing that’s barely a thong at all. She catches the silk straps with her fingers and slides them down her hips, the sweet spot between her thighs driving the urgency in me that I bank. This isn’t about me. This is about her.
She’s naked now. Naked in ways I know she never intended to be with me and yet, in a few shorts days, she’s here, she's willingly vulnerable and I want more. “Come here and kneel in front of me.”
She laughs awkwardly. “You want me to—”
“Yes,” I say firmly, meeting her stare. “I do. I want you to trust me that much, but you have the control, Abbie. You can say no. This isn’t about my control. It’s about yours.” I stand up and I walk to her, a lean away from touching her, but I don’t. “When you let me have control, that’s about you controlling me, not me controlling you. You made that decision. And when you trust that much, when you let me have control, you’re free. It’s your escape. I want to be that safe place where you escape.”
“I’m not falling for you, Gabe,” she whispers.
My lips quirk. “Then just come for me, Abbie. I’ll settle for that tonight.” I back up and sit down. “Come here and settle on your knees.” I wiggle an eyebrow. “I promise if it hurts, it will hurt so good.”
His Demand (Dirtier Duet Book 1) Page 16
