Perfect Fit

by Brenda Jackson

  He smiled. He hadn’t known he had so much stamina. Each time they had made love, he’d been left feeling drained and depleted. And all it had taken was her touch, her smile, that desirous look in her eye, to make him suddenly feel renewed, reinvigorated, revived.

  He rolled to his side when he realized Sage had not gone to the bathroom as he’d assumed. He inhaled sharply when his nostrils picked up the scent of bacon. Pushing back the covers, he knew his huge bed would never be the same again without her in it. For that matter, no bed he slept in without her would ever be the same.

  As he stood and headed for the shower, he knew that he wanted Sage Dunbar in his life forever.

  When he entered the kitchen fifteen minutes or so later, he stopped short at what he saw. Sage was standing at the refrigerator, bent and looking into it. What made the scene so heart-stopping arousing was the fact that she was wearing one of his chambray shirts that hit her midthigh, and from her position it was plain to see she had not put on her panties. He leaned against the doorjamb, wanting to get an eyeful of that part of her rounded bare bottom he liked so much. It looked too damn tempting.

  He couldn’t help but recall that his hands had touched every part of that bottom and wanted to do so again. But first they needed to eat, and it seemed she had decided to do the cooking. He cleared this throat. “Good morning.”

  Sage quickly turned around, almost dropping the orange juice she held in her hands. She smiled, thinking there was just something special about a good-looking man early in the morning, especially one who looked like Gabe. He was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a shirt similar to the one she had on. His hung open, exposing his hairy chest, a chest she loved kissing, touching and tasting. The thought of all they had done the night before caused a flutter to pass through her midsection. “Good morning. I didn’t know you were awake. Do you want a cup of coffee?”

  Straightening, he slowly crossed the room to her. Taking the carton out of her hand, he pulled her gently to him as a warm smile curved his lips. “This is what I want, Sage,” he said moments before leaning down and joining his mouth to hers.

  Just that quickly, the fires of desire roared to life between them; sexual chemistry was at its best and all thoughts of the breakfast she was making were put aside when Gabe decided he wanted to be fed another type of meal altogether.

  Breaking off the kiss, he scooped her into his arms and turned to leave the kitchen.

  “Wait, I need to turn off the stove.”

  With her cradled tenderly in his arms, he walked across the room to the stove and turned it off. They would worry about breakfast later. “It’s done.”

  A quick look out of a window they passed indicated it was still snowing heavily. Neither minded since they had plenty of things to do on the inside to occupy their time, and not a one of them was worrying about what was happening with the weather on the outside.

  PART THREE

  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

  —Philippians 4:13

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The following weeks flew by in a furor of activity for both Sage and Gabe. The snowstorm had held everyone hostage inside of their homes for two full days. Then afterward, they were faced with the chore of playing catch-up with those things they had put off during the time they were snowed in.

  Gabe immediately met with Parnell to make sure the construction of Eden would resume as soon as possible. Initially, they had considered the effects of the weather and had made allowances for it. Parnell had found another woman to watch the girls but wasn’t completely satisfied with her. She was good at keeping an eye on his daughters but was a disaster everywhere else. She did not keep the house tidy the way the former live-in housekeeper had done, and he’d found himself picking up after the older woman more than he was picking up after his girls. She was notorious for keeping a messy kitchen, which was one of Parnell’s pet peeves. He found himself coming in from a hard day’s work only to tackle another hard day of work cleaning his house.

  “You’re okay?” Gabe asked his foreman when the two of them had finished going over some items that had cropped up.

  Parnell rubbed his hand over his face. “Yes, but I don’t know how much longer I can last, Gabe. Mrs. Miller is getting worse every day, and all those good housekeeping habits I’ve instilled in my girls are being thrown out the window. I had to explain to them last night why they can’t eat in their bedroom when Mrs. Miller eats in hers.”

  Gabe leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Sounds to me like you and the woman need to have a long talk.”

  Parnell’s face took on a look of frustration. “That’s just it. We’ve had a long talk, and it got us nowhere. She thinks she can do just what she pleases because she knows I need someone to care for the girls.” He shook his head, clearly upset. “If this keeps up, I may have to send them back to Mom until this job is over, and I really don’t want that.”

  Gabe nodded again. He knew how much having his daughters with him meant to Parnell. He checked his watch. He was meeting Sage for lunch. “Well, I’m sure something will work out. What about Bill Phelps’s wife? Hasn’t she kept them before?”

  Parnell shook his head as he folded up the blueprints he and Gabe had gone over. Bill Phelps was one of their electricians whose wife had come to Anchorage with him. She had volunteered to watch the girls during the day. “Yeah, but she’s too easy. The girls run all over her, and she lets them. Besides, Marcy Phelps can curse like a sailor when her soaps aren’t going the way she wants them to go. You wouldn’t believe what the twins have repeated after visiting with her.”

  Gabe chuckled as he stood and put on his coat. “Well, like I said, I’m sure something will work out.”

  Parnell looked at Gabe expectantly. “You seem happy, Gabe.”

  Gabe raised his brow, wondering when he’d ever not been in a good mood. Even when he’d gone through that episode with Lindsey, he had kept his pain from showing. “I’m always happy, Parnell.”

  “Then, you seem happier.”

  Gabe smiled, knowing where the man’s thoughts were going. “Yeah, I am happier.”

  “Would it have anything to do with a certain woman by the name of Sage Dunbar?”

  Gabe snapped shut his briefcase as his smile widened. “It might.”

  Moments later while riding in his car on the way to the restaurant to meet Sage for lunch, he reflected on his conversation with Parnell. Although he hadn’t admitted it, he knew his happiness had a lot to do with Sage. His thoughts drifted to the time they had spent at his place during the snowstorm. That morning after waking up and finding her preparing breakfast in the kitchen and taking her upstairs to make love to her, they had returned downstairs again around noon. The breakfast she had been preparing had become lunch. Then later, after playing a game of strip poker, they had made love again on a quilt in front of the fireplace.

  But they had done more than make love for those two days. They had also talked. She’d shared with him fond memories of things she and her grandmother had done together and how hard she had taken her grandmother’s unexpected death from a heart attack. She’d also talked about her strained relationship with her father. Just from listening to her, Gabe knew that her father’s infidelity had hurt her deeply and had disillusioned her thoughts on the whole aspect of love being true and pure.

  They had talked about it, and although she had listened to his take on things—that she should not let that one episode cloud her mind and heart to true love—he had a feeling she already had. She had also told him the decision she had to make regarding whether she would go home for the Fourth of July. Gabe had tried convincing her that the thing to do was to resolve the issue between her and her father and move on to rebuild their father-daughter relationship. But she felt that as long as her mother did not know about what had happened, she was caught in the middle.

  As Gabe turned into the restaurant’s parking lot, he thought about the weeks that lay ahead. Sage had s
pent a few nights with him, and he’d even stayed overnight a couple of times at her place. But since her friend Rose Wood would be arriving tomorrow, Sage felt she should spend the night at her own place a lot more since she would have a guest.

  He understood that but didn’t too much like it. He had grown accustomed to those mornings he would wake up and find her in his bed. She gave all new meaning to the phrase, morning delight.

  Gabe saw her the moment he walked into the restaurant. She was sitting waiting for him in the lobby. Her face lit into a smile when she saw him and immediately crossed the room. “Hi.”

  Not being able to help himself, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. “Hi. Have you been waiting long?”

  She shook her head. “No, I just got here. I had a meeting with Langley Mayhew.” At Gabe’s arched brows, she laughed and said, “And no, he didn’t get out of hand. I think you effectively put an end to any ideas he had regarding me when you insinuated we were lovers.”

  Gabe’s lips tilted into a smile. “We are lovers.”

  Sage nodded, unable to argue that point, especially considering all the things they did while alone in the bedroom. “Yeah, but we weren’t at the time,” she reminded him. “But trust me, Mayhew was a perfect gentleman today.”

  “And if he ever stops being a perfect gentleman, you’ll let me know, right?”

  Sage looked up at Gabe when she heard the seriousness in his tone. She held his gaze and saw something that suddenly took her breath away. In his eyes as well as his mind, she belonged to him. The night she had declared that he was the man in her life had pretty much established that fact. It wasn’t that he was insanely jealous or anything of that sort, but he was a man who believed in taking care of and protecting what was his.

  And she was his.

  She had to acknowledge that she was his in a way she had never belonged to Erol, even after being with him for five years. Erol had been traditional, but there was nothing traditional about Gabe, especially in his lovemaking techniques. There was no limit to what he would do. In the bedroom there was no taboo on anything just as long as they both were comfortable with it.

  “Are you hungry?”

  His words invaded her thoughts. “Yes, I missed breakfast this morning,” she said, smiling, knowing he knew the reason why. She had spent the night with him, and when she’d tried slipping out of bed to fix breakfast, he had pulled her back into his arms and had made love to her again.

  “Then, I’m going to feed you.” He motioned for the waiter to get them a table. “What are your plans for this evening?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. What are yours?”

  He met her gaze. “I know what I’d like to do.”

  She raised an arched brow. “What?”

  He leaned down and whispered in her ear. Her face turned crimson. She grinned up at him and said, “Oh, I think that can be arranged.”

  And it was arranged.

  Sage’s heart rate increased, and she took a long, deep breath, hoping to steady her voice when she removed the last stitch of her clothing later that evening in Gabe’s bedroom. He lay naked in bed, propped against a pillow, and watched her strip through desire-filled eyes.

  “Just remember I’m still a novice at this,” she said breathlessly. She felt electricity flow between them from across the room and wondered what there was about him that made every nerve in her body come alive with need.

  “No other woman can or has pleased me more, Sage.”

  She met his gaze, thinking that was an odd statement to make considering the number of women he probably had been involved with since puberty. For him to claim that she pleased him more than any in the past was hard to believe. “Why?”

  He raised a brow. “Why what?”

  “Why are you saying that to me? You don’t have to, you know.”

  Gabe continued to hold her gaze. To him, every moment he spent with her including this one was important, and he wanted her to know it. He also wanted her to know how he felt but knew that because of her disillusionment with love, he had to tread lightly.

  “I know I don’t have to say it, but I want to always be honest with you, like I want you to always be honest about things with me. And what I told you is true, Sage. No matter how many women have been in my past—and there aren’t as many as you may think—I’ve never enjoyed making love to them like I have to you.”

  Naked, she came and sat on the edge of the bed. “But I still don’t understand why. I’m not all that experienced, at least with all the things you like doing.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, and in a way that’s what makes it so special, like that night in your bathroom, after your bath. It was something you’d never done before, but you trusted me enough to try it and discovered it was something you enjoyed as well.”

  She nodded. Yeah, I enjoyed it all right. With Gabe she’d discovered another side of her sexuality. In bed with him she felt sensuous, feminine and passionate. And at times, she also felt wanton and burning with a heat that only he could quench, which baffled her even more because Erol had not been an inconsiderate lover. And each time she and Erol had made love, they had shared passion. But it wasn’t of the magnitude of what she shared with Gabe. Gabe could make her wet and achy between her legs just by looking at her. He could make her nipples feel sensitive just by being in the same room with her. Making love with Erol had been good, but with Gabe it was overpowering, magnificent. It was like an adventure.

  He knew how to explore new heights and take her there with him, all the way to the top. And he cherished her entire body. There was no part of it he didn’t want to kiss, touch or taste. Then there was his craving to try new and different positions, some she hadn’t thought possible, and he’d always made sure it was something she was ready to try. And so far she’d been game to anything he had introduced her to with no regrets.

  Like now.

  What he’d suggested at lunch was simple enough, and when she’d thought about it, she was surprised they hadn’t tried it before now. But Gabe had always taken the lead in their lovemaking, and she’d followed. But now he was giving her the chance to be the one in control, and she liked the idea.

  “But why would I be able to please you that much, Gabe?” she asked, still wanting to know, needing to know.

  Gabe inwardly sighed. She would not let up on her inquiries until he told her something that made perfect sense. It would be so easy to end her questions by just telling her the truth, that he had fallen in love with her so deeply that he couldn’t think straight or about any other woman in his past, but he doubted that would be enough of an explanation since he had told her he’d loved Lindsey, too. But the difference was that since loving Sage, he’d discovered there were contrasting phases of love, and then there were things that were meant to be. Fate. The only reason he could come up with as to why the love he felt for her was deeper, stronger and more monumental than any he’d shared before was because he felt she was his soul mate, his other half, his perfect fit. He hadn’t felt this attuned to Lindsey. He had thought that many times since he and Sage had become lovers, and now he knew it was true, more so than ever. He was just giving her time to realize it, too.

  He sat up in bed. “You please me that much because you do. It’s as simple to me as that, Sage. And what’s so unique and awe-inspiring is that you can do so without much effort. You have the ability to be a ray of sunshine in a part of the country that is usually covered by snow.”

  He drew in a deep breath, exhaled slowly and continued. “And when we make love, when I’m inside of you, a part of me wants to stay there forever. When I’m locked into that part of you, it’s like that’s where I belong, and there’s no other place I’d rather be, feeling you surround me, clench me and pull everything I have from me.”

  He watched her eyes darken and added, “But although I feel all those things, there is still more between us than just sex, Sage. I like the way we sit down and talk about things, how we confide in each oth
er and discuss things the way we do. And I believe you have an inner strength that you don’t even realize that you have. It’s a strength that I admire and one that will see you through to the light even when your way is dark. You proved that when you had to face up to both Erol and your father falling off the pedestals you had placed them on.”

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and met his gaze beseechingly. “But I was hurt and had a hard time with the trust factor, and I didn’t want to believe in true love anymore. Even now I don’t know if I can or ever will again.”

  He smiled at her understandingly. “In time you will. One day someone will enter your life who will heal all your hurts and will show you that there is such a thing as love in its purest form. And by that time, you’ll come to realize that none of us are perfect; we’re all humans and make mistakes. All of us are tempted by things we shouldn’t be, whether it’s the need to increase our assets like Erol or the need to stray away from home like your father.”

  She nibbled nervously on her bottom lip. “Do you think you would ever be unfaithful to your wife if you had one?”

  “I intend to be faithful to any woman I marry, Sage. I don’t know why men cheat or why women cheat for that matter. All I know is what my intentions are.”

  Sage lifted her chin defiantly. “I bet my father intended to do the same thing.”

  Gabe refused to let her compare him to her father. He leaned toward her. “I’m not your father, Sage. You have a beef with him and not with me, and I’ve told you my thoughts on the matter. You should hear his side of things.”