by Lara Adrian
Gabe is silent as he strolls farther inside, his head on a swivel, his shrewd eyes drinking in every detail, searching every corner of the enormous space.
“You have a lot of windows.” He walks up to the tall glass, staring out at the buildings across the street before tilting his head down to watch the activity on the ground below. “No privacy blinds?”
I touch a switch panel on the wall and built-in, semi-opaque louvers pivot closed between the double-paned glass. “I prefer natural light. Plus, I never get tired of the view.”
“I can see why,” he says, pivoting to walk toward me now. He chuckles. “If you like light and views, you’ll never want to see my place. I rent an overpriced, undersized second-floor walk-up. One of my windows looks right into my neighbor’s kitchen. Another one has an unobstructed view of the dumpsters out back.”
I laugh. “I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
“No, it is.” He grins, pausing in front of me in the living room. “With my new promotion, I plan to get into a bigger place eventually. Something closer to headquarters, if I can swing it.”
“You must really like working at Baine International.”
“I love it.”
“What were you doing before?”
He shrugs. “Private security. Events. Some occasional bodyguard work here and there. I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done if Beck hadn’t given me the opportunity to come in and meet Nick.”
I tilt my head. “I didn’t realize my brother helped you get the job.” I’m taken aback, although it’s obvious to me that Andrew and Gabe have developed a friendship that extends beyond work. Gabe and Nick too. “How did you and Andrew meet?”
He gives me a vague shake of his head. “Like I said, I was doing a lot of random temp jobs. They all start blending together after a while. I think I was working the door at some private club when I ran into Beck.”
“My stiff, workaholic brother at a club? I’d pay to see that.”
Gabe clears his throat and drifts away from me, heading toward the kitchen. “You must like to cook?”
“Sometimes.” I follow him into the gleaming, modern kitchen that was my favorite feature in the place when I bought it. “I only know how to cook big meals, like my mom used to make. Cooking for one just doesn’t seem to be part of my DNA.”
“You and my mom would get along great.”
“Yeah?”
He glances at me. “Yeah. She’d love you.”
His steady gaze seems to reach inside me, as warm and enticing as a caress. A soft yearning that goes beyond the physical unfurls within me as our eyes linger on each other. I want to know more about this man. I want to know who he is outside the boundaries of his work for Nick and my brother. I want to know everything there is to learn about him.
In a small, private corner of my heart, I realize that I want him to let me into that other part of his life.
He walks around the large island in the center of the kitchen, back toward the bolted emergency door that leads to the interior stairwell fire escape. “Who’s got keys to this door?”
“Just me and the building maintenance manager.” I arch a brow at him. “Would you like to inspect my entire apartment, officer?”
He slants me a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Bad habit. I should probably get back on the road.”
I follow him out of the kitchen and back toward the living area. As he passes a narrow table situated behind one of the sofas, I see his gaze pause on my collection of framed photographs that sit there. I have pictures of my friends and places I’ve traveled all around the world, but it’s the candid snapshot of my parents that Gabe reaches for.
“Your mom and dad,” he says, more statement than question. “They look happy.”
“They were.” I move in beside him, looking at their smiling faces. My mom is seated on weathered white porch steps in rolled-up denim overalls and a baggy T-shirt, peeling a bright red apple. Her chocolate-brown hair is gathered in a messy bun, her fair, freckle-spattered face flushed, either from the day in the sun or warmed from the fact that my dad is sitting behind her, his strong brown arms wrapped around her waist, his squared chin resting on her shoulder.
I can still see the love in their eyes as they stare out from the glass-covered image. My heart breaks a little for them, too, knowing that this captured moment in time was one of only a precious few they had left before a drunk driver in town would steal my mom away from us.
“I took this photo not long after I turned eight years old. It was such a wonderful day. We had just come in from the orchard with a bushel of apples, and Mom and I were going to make a bunch of pies. They looked so happy sitting outside on our veranda, I ran into the house and got my new camera to take their picture.”
“This was taken when you were eight?” Gabe remarks quietly, and I know he remembers that I told him about losing my mom at that age. His eyes are tender when he looks at me. “I’m glad you have this memory of them.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
He carefully sets the photo back down. “So, you didn’t grow up in the city?”
I shake my head. “Not at all. We lived upstate on fifty acres of apple orchard that belonged to my mom’s family. My dad’s still there.”
Gabe smiles. “I figured you for a city girl.”
“I love the city. I love the energy of it, the culture, the endless opportunities you can’t get anywhere else.” I pivot around to face him, resting my hip against the edge of the table. “I’m glad I grew up where I did, but this is home.”
“I know the feeling. My family’s all in Bayside, going back several generations. I like it well enough there, but that wasn’t the life I wanted.”
“Is that why you joined the military? To get out of the hometown and see more of the world?”
“At the time, that’s what I told myself.” He considers his words in silence for a moment before speaking. “The truth is, I enlisted because I knew if I stayed, sooner or later, the old man and I were going to hit a wall neither one of us could move past without coming to blows. I didn’t want to do that to my mother. Or to my brothers. So, I left.”
I place my hand lightly on his forearm, because I can’t hear that bitter edge of pain in his voice and not offer some measure of comfort--whether he wants it from me or not. He doesn’t withdraw from my touch.
He glances down where my fingers gently caress his lighter skin. A slow breath escapes through his flared nostrils. When he lifts his eyes to mine, they are fierce with desire.
Tormented with it.
“Eve,” he rasps, the first he’s ever called me that name. And while it’s been a source of pain and bad memories for me for these past many years, hearing Gabe say it with such raw need inflames me like nothing else can.
He grabs hold of me, his hands warm and strong on either side of my face as he takes my mouth in a fevered, possessive kiss that burns through every cell in my body. I was melting before he touched me, but now I’m on fire.
He catches my moan in his mouth, his tongue pushing past my parted lips. My sex clenches in answer to each wet stroke and lick and thrust. Our bodies crush against each other where we stand, Gabe’s muscled arms pulling me into the hardness of his arousal.
He reaches down and cups my ass in both hands as the demand of his mouth renders me boneless and aching, so ready for him I can hardly breathe.
His mouth is open on mine, our kiss mutually hungered. Our desire is dangerously close to exploding out of control.
It’s what I want. What I crave more than anything right now.
This man. This kiss. This white-hot attraction that’s been smoldering between us from the day we first met.
With one hand buried in the silkiness of his short hair, I use the other to explore the hard slabs and planes of his chest. It’s not enough. I tug the hem of his T-shirt loose from his jeans and slip my hand inside. His skin is hot and velvety soft, even in the places where I feel the ridges of several scars. His abs are ripple
d beneath my fingertips, a delicious eight-pack, punctuated by a line of crisp hair trailing down to his groin where the steely ridge of his erection proves more than I can resist.
He hisses against my mouth when my palm slides over the top of his zipper. His hips buck, rocking into my caress. He growls my name in a ragged tone, somewhere between a warning and a plea.
He releases one hand from my backside, dragging his fingers around the side of my thigh. He finds the loose edge of my top and lifts it, moving his hand beneath the fabric and up to the swell of my breast. His grasp is bold, dominating. As he kneads and caresses me, his tongue invades my mouth once more, owning every breath and gasp and moan that leaks out of my throat.
I am wet for him, beyond ready for anywhere he wants to take me. Despite the fact that we’re both fully clothed, I teeter at the edge of a pleasure I haven’t felt in a very long time--and never as intensely as this.
“Fuck,” Gabe snarls, shuddering as I continue to stroke him. He draws back from my mouth on a harsh curse, panting hard. “Fuck.”
He’s shaking with barely controlled arousal. I know, because I feel the same powerful need vibrating inside me. I lick my kiss-bruised lips. I stare up into his stormy gaze, hating the anguish I see there. I skim my fingers over the furrowed crease of his brow.
“If you’d like a tour of the rest of the apartment, my bedroom is just up those stairs.”
It’s a lame attempt to defuse some of the torment I see in him, but his faces relaxes a fraction. He groans, clamping his molars tight behind the flat line of his mouth when he should be kissing me some more. “I’d better not.”
We’re not talking about a house tour, and I can’t pretend I’m not aching desperately for him to stay. “Do you want to, though?”
“More than you can possibly know,” he says, his voice rough and jagged.
But he’s still moving away from me. Another inch back now, with a deepening scowl and a curse ripe on his lips as he stares at me.
“If I go down this path with you right now, there’s no coming back. Hell, I’ve already gone too far. Every minute I’m with you, I’m betraying your brother’s trust. Nick’s too.”
“They don’t have anything to do with this. They’re not here.”
He shakes his head slowly, his hazel eyes scorching me as they drink me in. “I can’t do this with you, Evelyn. It wouldn’t be fair. I don’t do this. And don’t do relationships, either. I’ve tried before. I’m not any good at it.”
“I don’t recall asking for you for that.”
“You should.” His reply is sharp, even uttered low under his breath. “Christ, you should demand it. You deserve something more than this.”
“More than this,” I ask hesitantly, “or more than you?”
“Both.”
He says the word with finality. Another step carries him out of my reach, and I know his control is stronger than my wish to keep him here. He wants me, there’s no question about that. I see it in his handsome, rigidly held face. I see it in the thickness of his erection, straining against the confines of his dark jeans.
“I have to go.”
I nod mutely, then watch as he walks out the door.
13
~ Gabriel ~
“It was a knife, all right.” My cousin has taken the flat tire off Evelyn’s car in the zoo parking lot and rolls it over to where I stand with Beck and Nick. He sticks the end of a flathead screwdriver into the gash in the rubber, showing us the severity of the puncture. “I can probably patch it but based on where the hole is and the size of it, I’d recommend a replacement.”
Beck nods tightly. “Sure. Do whatever you think is best. I’ll handle the bill. Thanks, Len.”
“No problem, Mr. Beckham. Take care, Mr. Baine.”
I follow Len to the flatbed tow truck where he’s already loaded Evelyn’s Volvo. He tosses the bad tire behind the driver’s seat before hopping into the cab. “I’ll personally run the car back to the owner for you, Gabe. She should have it later tonight.”
“I appreciate it, man.” We shake hands, then he drives off with a salute, diesel engine rumbling as he rolls out of the empty lot.
Beck gives me a concerned look as I turn back to him. “You haven’t said as much, but I’m guessing you don’t think this was random.”
“No. I don’t.” The feeling has been gnawing at me since the moment I saw the blade-sized cut in the tire. “Someone zeroed in on Evelyn’s vehicle, out of all the other cars left in the lot all day. The way I see it, that someone either tailed her to the event, or knew she’d be here.”
Someone who had decided to make a bold move, whether to scare her or to disable her means of leaving, I’m not sure. But either scenario puts a cold fury in my veins.
I don’t have any right to feel personally protective of her, let alone possessive. But that doesn’t diminish the rage simmering beneath the surface of my outward calm.
“And the zoo security staff?” Nick asks. “They weren’t any help?”
The park security office was my first stop when I returned from taking Evelyn home. I knew that would be the place to start asking questions, but I also needed the extra time to regroup and get my head screwed on straight before I had to look Evelyn’s brother or my boss in the eye after pawing her like an animal back at her place.
Not that she had complained.
And not that I wouldn’t be tempted to do it all over again, given half a chance.
Christ. Just thinking about her in my arms makes me start to go hard all over again. The feel of her against me, her soft curves pressed to all of the hard places I ached for her, her sweet mouth open and yielding to mine . . . her whispered invitation to take her up to her bedroom and fuck her the way I’ve been wanting to ever since I first set eyes on her.
It’s all fuel to a spark I cannot allow to catch fire. Not without the risk of it consuming everything in its path.
I clear my throat. “The security staff tried to help with my questions. They showed me the security camera feeds from the lot today, but unfortunately, there’s nothing to go on. The cameras here are meant to monitor the gate traffic in and out of the zoo, more so than the vehicles parked outside.”
Nick grunts. “That’s fucking great,” he says, in a tone that conveys both his frustration over not having control of the situation, as well as his impatience to get to the bottom of any problem.
I can relate. I also share the urgency of both men to determine if Evelyn is in actual danger, and, if so, mitigate it by whatever means necessary.
I rub a hand over my jaw as I consider the slashed tire and the other unsettling things that have happened over the past week. “This feels deliberate. It feels targeted. And now I’m beginning to think it’s neither random nor the first incident where Evelyn’s concerned.”
Beck’s expression goes grim. “You’re talking about a few nights ago at L’Opale? The strange power outage, and the possibility that someone was trying to get into the shop that night.”
“You mentioned that Evelyn’s had some problems with stalkers in the past.”
He exhales a tight sigh, his nod sober. “Aside from the typical parade of losers sending her lewd messages and dick pics over social media back when she was modeling, there was a nutjob or two at some of her runway shows. One asshole in Milan managed to get backstage before security bounced him hard enough to put him in the hospital for a few days.”
My jaw clenches at the mere idea of anyone getting that close to Evelyn. If I’d been there, the son of a bitch would have had bigger problems than a hospital stay. “What about now? She’s been out of the spotlight for several years. Has she mentioned any recent problems? People who might still be interested in her career? Ex-boyfriends?”
“No. Not that I’m aware of. As for ex-boyfriends, I wouldn’t know. Evie keeps her personal life private.”
I can’t deny my sense of relief over that revelation, considering I had my tongue down her throat just a short while ag
o. Still, the lack of information doesn’t help assuage my concern for her safety. “What about her coworkers?”
“What about them?”
“Has she made any enemies at the boutique? Former employees, current colleagues who might have a beef with her--either real or imagined?”
Beck shakes his head. “I don’t know. Shit. You’re serious. You really think she’s in some kind of danger.”
I hold his stark gaze. “I think it would be foolish to assume she’s not. Right now, though, the only basis I have for that is my gut.”
He blows out a slow breath, concern rankling his brow. “Your gut is good enough for me.”
Nick gives a nod of agreement. “Good enough for me too.”
“All right,” I say, starting to put a plan together in my head. “I can tap one of my brothers to put a cop on her. It can’t hurt to put one on the shop for a while too.”
Beck scoffs. “Christ, no. She’ll never go for that. It’s bad enough that she thinks I’m an overbearing pain in the ass. If I put a babysitter on her, she’ll only push back harder than ever. It might be enough to lose her for good, and I can’t risk that.”
“She wouldn’t need to know. It could be totally covert, just another pair of eyes to make sure she’s protected.”
Nick’s dark head bobs as I speak. “He’s right, Beck. And I agree with you that bringing in law enforcement when all we’ve got is a hunch would either scare Evelyn or make her rebel. If we’re going to keep a covert eye on her, it needs to be someone she trusts. Someone we trust explicitly too.” That shrewd blue gaze that has helped Nick negotiate impossible deals all over the world now levels meaningfully on me. “The only question is, are you up for the job?”
“Me?” Ah, fuck. It wasn’t my intention to enlist for this job.
