Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set

by Misty Reigenborn

  Her step faltered. Candy, having sensed it, turned. "Ami?"

  Ami squinted her eyes. Her heart beat faster.

  It was Gabe.

  "I'm okay."

  Candy noticed Gabe then and her dark eyes got even darker. "You sure?"

  "Yes. Goodnight Candy."

  "Night Ami."

  She turned to her car then, but Ami heard the sigh. Candy didn't seem to like their boss much she thought.

  She waited until Candy had pulled out of the lot before she walked the rest of the way to her car.

  “Hello Ami.”

  "Hi." She thought he looked good in a tight pair of jeans, and a dark blue t-shirt. The chilly air didn’t seem to be bothering him at all.

  "Will you come back inside with me for a few minutes Ami? I'd like to talk to you."

  She wondered if he was firing her already. But no, the look in his eyes told her that he wanted something else completely.

  Gorgeous or not, seven long years since she had had sex or not, Ami knew she could not sleep with a married man.

  "I don't think that's a good idea Gabe."

  "I would never hurt you Ami.”

  She wanted to run away, but knew she had nowhere to run, so she followed him.

  She noticed that his hand shook a little when he put the key in the door.

  He flipped the lights on only in the back of the bar and motioned for her to follow him to the back booth.

  She suddenly wanted a cigarette very badly, and started to reach for her purse, then stopped herself because it was against the state law to smoke inside public places.

  "Smoke if you want. I'll pay the fine if someone finds out."

  She lit her cigarette, taking a deep drag. He got up and rummaged under the bar, bringing out an ashtray and pushing it over to her.

  "Thanks."

  He was silent for a moment, just watching her. Then he said "I have a proposition for you Ami."

  Damn, she thought. He was going to pay her to sleep with him?

  “There are some things that I’d like to explain to you first. I don’t know what kind of rumors you’ve heard around town about me, but they’re not true. I do not hire female bartenders so that I can sleep with them. I have a soft spot for vulnerable women and sometimes that gets me into trouble. I’ve given women money. I’ve paid for abortions, and houses and cars for some of them. I tend to have a hard time telling a beautiful woman no and many would probably agree that it will be my eventual downfall. But let me start with my wife. Oh, Leslie. When I met her, I was nineteen and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was wild, she was crazy. She was so full of fire that I thought I could never love another woman. She had me wrapped around her pretty little finger before I knew what was happening. Her parents hated me on sight, and their birthday present to her every year is a higher amount of money to leave me. She won't do it, but I don't understand why. I won't leave her for one simple reason. I love my children. Which leads me to the next part of the story. My son is not my son. Biologically anyway. She was pregnant when I met her, has never told anyone who the real father is, but I didn't care. I still don't. My son has been my son for twelve years and he will always remain my son in my eyes. I will make sure that his mother tells him someday, when he is ready because it is her story to tell. My daughter, the beautiful, sweet, smart girl that she is, I know her not to be mine either. I wonder about the daughter that Leslie is carrying now. My wife has always had a taste for lovers. It started out as women at first, something I rather enjoyed until she started locking me out of our bedroom when she had someone in there with her. But it hasn’t always been women Ami. I had my daughter’s blood tested for what I thought was my own peace of mind, and I'm not her father. I love them both so much but when they call me Daddy it's nothing but a lie leaving their lips."

  “I’m sorry Gabe. But you could still divorce her. She wouldn’t try to stop you from seeing the kids would she? Even if they’re not yours by blood, you’re the only father they’ve ever known.”

  "She would let me see the children yes. She wouldn't fight me in court; she would shut her pretty mouth and let me see the babies that aren't really mine, though Christian and Jessa are hardly babies anymore. I never had the strength to really leave her before Ami. Until I met you."

  Ami hid a sigh, wondering why this man she barely knew seemed to think of her as his savior. She wasn’t anyone’s savior. Not Gabe’s, not her son’s and least of all, her own.

  "But back to the rumors. I did not hire one of those women to sleep with them. I did not fuck any of them, not once. I made two mistakes with women that worked here, and I regret both of them. The first, you've probably heard about because an ex employee of mine walked in on it. It wasn’t sexual, but it makes me feel worse than even the time it was. Yes, Todd walked in on me snorting a line of coke with a recovering addict. I still hate myself for it. Her name was Brandy and she was beautiful. She was also totally unbalanced. She was a recovering addict and at the time, I still did coke now and then. I only did it with her because she threatened to kill herself if she didn't do it just one more time. I'm sure it was an excuse and she took me for a grand on top of giving her a full paycheck when she only worked two days out of that last two weeks. The other one is simpler I suppose. Tandra. She was young and gorgeous with an abusive boyfriend and an utter lack of self-worth. You remember me asking you about a boyfriend the day I hired you? Tandra is part of the reason I asked that question. He used to come in here every night she worked so she wouldn’t get too friendly with the men she was serving. She was always giving him free drinks. When she worked by herself, which is something I am loathe to let anyone do at night anymore, he used to be in here after closing time. I drive by most nights to make sure everything's closed up. I happened to drive by one Wednesday night. It was almost two a.m., so she should have been gone at least an hour before that. But her car was still in the lot, and the lights were still on. I made sure I didn’t make a sound when I opened the door. She was in this very booth, bleeding from her mouth, and her eye was swelling up. He punched her in the head, and was about to kick her when he realized I was standing there. He had the nerve to smile at me and asked if I wanted to join him. I almost killed him. I broke his nose. There was so much blood I never thought I was going to be able to scrub it all out. Tandra was screaming and crying. Finally I snapped out of it, opened my wallet, took out all the cash I had and threw it at him. It was well over a thousand dollars because I'd cashed a check at the bank earlier that day. I told him to stay away from her and that if I caught him anywhere near her ever again, I'd kill him and bury him where no one would ever find him. She was still crying when he walked away, so I took her into my office, and laid her down on the couch. I held her for a while, rubbing her back and stroking her hair like I had done with my kids when they were younger. After a while she quieted down. I thought she had fallen asleep. I was going to sleep in my chair, call my wife and tell her that something had come up. So I left my message for Leslie. I'm leaning back in my chair and I'm half asleep when all of a sudden I feel this tug at my zipper. I look down and there she is, saying that she had to do something to thank me. I disgusted myself, letting her give me head when her boyfriend had just beat the shit out of her, but I did it. I am only a man and it had been so long since Leslie had bothered."

  Ami lit another cigarette. She wanted him to get to his proposition so she could tell him no and she could get the hell out of there.

  "Tandra stayed with us for a while. My kids loved her and so did my wife of course. I’m guessing that when she left she went back to that piece of shit Andy or another one just like him. I was almost scared to hire another woman after Tandra but I did. Women seem to need more help in this world than men. But you Ami, oh you are the woman I should have met thirteen years ago."

  If he was nineteen when he met his wife that made him thirty-two now she thought. But she would only have been eleven thirteen years ago. "It would have
been kind of illegal for me thirteen years ago Gabe.”

  He sighed. "I forget that you're so young. You don't seem like it. You have an old soul, love. Would you like to hear my proposition?"

  She shrugged. "Go ahead."

  "I have a restaurant. It's about an hour and a half away. I don’t know whether that’s closer to your boyfriend or not." He paused then. "I would like you to manage it for me. You would be the assistant manager at first. I'd pay you a nice salary, put you through school if you wanted, or teach you everything you need to know myself if you prefer. It would come with your own house, rent free. I have two down there that you could choose from. I could come see you on the weekends, during the week if I could manage to get away. You could continue to see your boyfriend until you were ready to fully commit yourself to me."

  She wanted to gag, and wondered if he could possibly be serious, but the look on his face told her that he was. "I don’t have a boyfriend anymore."

  Gabe's face lit up. "Good. Will you consider it Ami? I could give you the life every woman dreams of. I would move the earth for you. I'll get a divorce as soon as you feel you're ready to marry me. Then we can be together, really together."

  "I can't marry you Gabe."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I don't want to marry anyone and you can't walk out on your kids. You said so yourself."

  "I wouldn't walk out on them. I would still see them, you could see them if you wanted."

  "I can't do that Gabe. I don't feel that way about you."

  "You find me attractive; I can see it in your eyes."

  "Most women would find you attractive Gabe."

  "Why do you not want me then?"

  Because you are scaring the shit out of me, Ami thought. Finally she said "It's not that I don't want you, I just can't do this."

  "I want you so badly Ami. I need you. God, how I need you."

  "You don't need me Gabe." But then she made the mistake of looking into his eyes, and she knew was done. Never had a man looked at her the way he was looking at her. Then he was kissing her and she let him.

  When he pulled back he groaned. "I have been imagining that since the moment I saw you. I knew that you were what I needed Ami, what I'd been waiting for."

  She almost ended it then, but he brought her hands to his chest. He was rock hard and he felt so good underneath her hands.

  Suddenly though, she couldn’t take his emotion. If she was going to sleep with Gabe it couldn’t be about emotion. It was going to be about getting off. Because Ami suddenly felt very much like she needed to get off.

  "Gabe."

  "Yes?"

  "Do you have protection?"

  He kissed the side of her neck and said "Are you not on birth control?"

  “No and I really can’t do this without a condom.”

  "There's a dispenser in the bathroom."

  She watched him walk away. He had a tattoo on his back that had his children's name and birthdates on it. She almost talked herself out of sleeping with him, but he was back again before she knew it, blowing all of the sensible thoughts out of her head.

  He wanted to take it slow, he wanted to feel and kiss every inch of her body, when she wanted it hard and fast, she just wanted to fuck.

  She almost giggled when he was finally inside of her. Nick was right she thought. She was a slut.

  He was still moving too slow and she almost cried out in frustration. How could she tell a man that had just told her what Gabe had told her that she was only with him to get off because it had been so long Ami wondered?

  Finally, she had had enough. He was in good enough shape that she thought he could probably take all night. "Gabe."

  "Yes?"

  "Last I knew, I wasn’t breakable."

  He looked disappointed. "I'm sorry."

  She almost apologized to him but he started to move faster and it was suddenly bliss. So she closed her eyes and let her body feel what it wanted to feel.

  Their bodies started to move together in a near perfect rhythm. But it was Nick she was thinking of, and she had to stop herself from calling out Nick’s name instead of Gabe’s when she came.

  She came long before he did, though his breath was still even until he reached his own orgasm.

  She felt utterly fulfilled and utterly disgusted with herself when he sat up and moved off of her, dropping the condom into a nearby trashcan.

  She felt unsteady when she got up. He reached out to help her. She gave him a weak smile as she headed for the bathroom.

  When she looked into her own eyes in the mirror, she knew she had done a very bad thing. There was no excuse for what she had done she thought. She and Gabe weren’t on even ground. He thought he felt something for her, and she’d just wanted to screw. She had a bad feeling that Gabe would never feel like he was just screwing her. Not that there was any way in hell she was ever going to sleep with him again Ami thought, but she felt that way all the same.

  He was dressed by the time she came back out, wiping out the ashtray. He smiled at her, and he looked so content that she felt even worse. What the hell had they done, she thought?

  "Ami.”

  "Yes Gabe?"

  "You enjoyed yourself didn't you?"

  It was even worse than she'd thought Ami said to herself. "Yes Gabe."

  "Good."

  "I'd better get home now."

  "Of course. Will you at least think about my offer please? Or if you would prefer, I can place you at one of the other bars. You seem to be doing well here and the pay would be the same regardless."

  "I'll think about it Gabe."

  "Good." He reached out to take her hand. She almost flinched. "Ami, are you okay?"

  No, she wasn't okay Ami thought. She was disgusting and disgusted and she suddenly missed her father more than ever before. "I'm fine Gabe."

  "Can I follow you home to make sure that you get there okay?"

  "I don't think that would be a good idea." The last thing she needed was for Alicia to be up and see Gabe's distinctive luxury SUV behind her she thought.

  "Are you afraid of what people might say?"

  She shook her head, though it wasn't completely true. Mostly, she didn't want to face what she'd done herself.

  "It's just better if people don't know about this.”

  He nodded as if he understood, but she was pretty sure he didn't understand it the way she did.

  "That's fine. I will follow your wishes completely Ami."

  "Goodnight Gabe."

  "Goodnight Ami. Thank you."

  She bit her lip so that she wouldn't say something that they'd both regret. "Of course Gabe."

  She hoped her smile didn't look as artificial as it felt.

  He turned off the lights and followed her to the doors. She almost breathed a sigh of relief when they were outside, the bar once again locked behind them. Her life suddenly felt like a trap again. It pissed her off that almost as soon as she’d found out she was free from Corin, she’d gone and created another mess for herself.

  As they parted, she wondered why she didn't leave. So what if she'd paid two months’ rent? It didn’t matter. But then she thought again of how she had to get her life together so that she could take care of Charlie, and knew that if she couldn’t work through something like this, there was no way she could raise a kid. She also didn’t want to leave Alicia. It had been a long time since she’d really had a friend and she found she liked the feeling. What disturbed her though, was that she didn’t want to leave Nick either.

  She was most definitely hopeless, she thought as she pulled into the parking lot of the apartment. The lights were on in Carson and Alicia's place but her friend didn't come out to confront her and soon she was in her apartment.

  She was tired, but she felt too wound up to sleep. After checking her email and again finding nothing important, she shut down her computer and headed to the shower.

  She stripped and stood in front of the mirror for a moment. She didn't look any di
fferent, having slept with a married man. But not just any married man she thought. Her boss who happened to be convinced that he was in love with her.

  She scrubbed herself until the hot water had run out and she'd rubbed her skin raw, but she still didn't feel any better when she stepped out of the shower.

  She bypassed all her usual pajamas and pulled out a pair of baggy sweatpants and an old t-shirt of her father’s. She turned her head into her pillow, trying not to cry. It didn't work. Her pillow was wet with tears by the time she fell asleep.

  Chapter 10

  It was almost one in the afternoon when she woke up, and she still felt tired. She dragged herself out of bed and started a pot of coffee, picking up her cell phone.

  She turned it on and dialed her voice mail. She had ten messages waiting. She deleted the seven that were from Gabe without listening to them. There were three from Alicia as well.

  Her friend was worried about her.

  She used the restroom and brushed her teeth, deciding to take another shower because her hair felt sticky.

  She felt somewhat better when she was out of the shower and dressed. She sat on the couch and smoked a cigarette and downed two cups of coffee before she found the courage to go find Alicia.

  Her friend was outside at the picnic table, reading a parenting magazine. Carson's car was in the lot, but he was inside. Their apartment door was open. She could hear loud cheers from some kind of sporting event.

  "Hi."

  Alicia looked up, her face brightening. "I wondered when you were going to drag your butt out of bed. How are you Ami?"

  "I made a huge mistake last night Ali."

  "What happened?"

  "I probably shouldn’t tell you this."

  "Did you have a secret rendezvous with Nick?"

  "I wish."

  "So what happened sweetie?"

  "I slept with Gabe."

  "You slept with Gabe? Your boss Gabe?"

  "Who slept with Gabe?" Carson suddenly said. She hadn't realized he'd come outside.