Claiming My Vengeance

by Jessica Blake

  To his credit, he didn’t seem fazed at the sight of me in a sheet, and he stood up. His craggy face creased into a smile. “Olivia. I’m glad to see you’re all right. I’m Detective Kincaid. I—” He paused and eyed my attire. “I’d like to ask you some questions, but I can wait until… for you to…”

  “Sure. Clothes.” I flushed. “Be right back.” I stopped at the top step. “Gabe?”

  “I’ll bring you something right up if you want to jump in the shower,” he called. I wouldn’t be able to face the detective after this. We sounded so… intimate.

  I was standing in the middle of Gabe’s room, coming to the stark realization that I owned nothing but my messenger bag and my bike, assuming it had survived the fire, when Gabe came in with a few shopping bags. He dropped them on the bed and crossed to me in three strides.

  Tangling his fingers in my hair, he pulled me to him and kissed me hard. “I want to throw you on that bed right now and not let you out of it for a month.” His gray eyes were anything but cold, and his erection pressed against me, triggering an instant response of heat.

  I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not getting off that easy. Last night was a mistake.”

  My words didn’t even phase him. He just kissed me again before stepping back and gesturing toward the bags. “I had my assistant grab a few things for you. I threw your clothes in the wash last night, but they’re beyond saving. I called your friend Roxy too, to let her know what was going on. She says she’s got everything covered at the gym but to call her when you get a chance.”

  He disappeared back into the hallway.

  As usual, Gabriel Ainsley was taking charge. But at least he hadn’t run.

  ***

  Gabe’s assistant was clearly a guy. He also clearly had no business being a personal shopper, since he apparently figured that all girls liked floral patterns and dresses. No jeans. No t-shirts.

  I went downstairs fifteen minutes later, wearing the least floofy-looking outfit of all of them, a black and paisley shift dress that hit about mid-thigh. It thankfully fit loosely, since I couldn’t wear a bra with it — the ones in the bag were too big. Thankfully, the flowery underwear fit, but I still felt mostly naked, since I hadn’t worn a dress since prom.

  Detective Kincaid gave me a polite nod and a small smile as I sat down. Gabe put a cup of coffee in front of me, and I sipped it gratefully while Kincaid watched the two of us with steady hazel eyes. I wondered what he was thinking.

  “Gabriel’s gone through most of what you told him last night, but I do need to hear your account of things.”

  I’d expected as much. As emotionlessly as possible, even though the retelling crystallized the horror of the day before all over again, I gave him the whole story, beginning to end.

  He took notes, stopping me only for short points of clarification. Gabe didn’t interrupt, but throughout my recitation, I could feel his tension from across the table, like a tightly leashed tiger in the room.

  “I don’t need to tell you that you were lucky, Olivia,” Kincaid said, tapping his pencil on his notepad. “And you did well, getting everyone out safely. Your elderly neighbor had some very nice things to say about you.”

  “Olivia wasn’t lucky,” Gabe interrupted coldly. “She was brave and fucking smart to deal with that asshole the way she did.”

  My heart squeezed a little bit at that. I sure as hell hadn’t felt brave or smart, but it was nice of him to say. Even if he did sound like a jerk.

  “Don’t be rude,” I told him mildly, and he glared back at me. But the glare didn’t last long before his lips quirked up in a smile.

  A smile that made my heart sing.

  Smile or not, Gabriel was obviously done with the interview, and the detective didn’t miss the signs either, because he closed it down pretty quickly after that, throwing Gabe a sardonic smile on his way to the door. He gave me his card, shook my hand, and told me he’d be in touch if he needed anything else. As soon as the door closed behind him, Gabe turned on me, advancing slowly and purposefully.

  I held up a hand. “No. I’m leaving. I should never have come here last night.” And I shouldn’t have. I could have called Roxy.

  I didn’t want to examine my reasons for literally running to Gabe too closely. Just being near him again had my carefully contained emotions in turmoil.

  “No, you’re not leaving.” His smile turned predatory as he moved toward me. “You left me once, and I’m never letting you do it again.”

  He couldn’t have said anything more guaranteed to piss me off if he’d tried.

  “Excuse me? I think you’re forgetting who left whom. Does your disappearing act at the lake house ring any bells for you? How do you think I felt when I found out you were gone?”

  “I ran,” he admitted. “But you ran further. You went back to fucking Detroit, and then you disappeared.”

  I moved quickly to put the couch between us. I still wasn’t sure he wouldn’t just leap over it, but at least I had the illusion of distance. “I went home. You knew the arrangement between us was supposed to be… limited… and you gave me no indication that what was between us would go any further than a convenient fuck.” I was deliberately harsh. “Besides, you knew where I was if you wanted to find me during the first weeks after I’d gone.”

  Gabe’s knuckles whitened, his fingers making dents in the rough gray weave of the upholstery where he gripped the back of the couch. “You should talk to your friend Freddie about that. And Roxy. I tried to track you down. Tell you I was sorry. You’d sold the bar and Freddie said you went to the East Coast somewhere. He wouldn’t tell me where. Roxy said she lost touch with you after you changed your number.”

  Even though he’d already told me this last night, in the light of day, I could tell he was still sincere. My hopes rose, even though I tried to fight it. He really had tried to contact me. My friends might have been misguided in lying to him, but I was there with Gabriel right then, and the long weeks I’d gone without him seemed far away.

  His gray eyes, usually so cool, were heated and intense as molten steel. I wanted to run to him. Jump over the couch myself. Smooth out the bleak lines on his face. Kiss that hard mouth. Show him how I felt.

  Dammit, I was done fighting it.

  I was in love with him.

  “You were going to tell me you were sorry,” I repeated his words cautiously.

  “Chester told me he told you about Natalie.” Gabe’s face showed no emotion when he said the name, but I couldn’t control the spasm of distaste. Natalie, who had ruined Gabe’s life and then abandoned him and compounded his misery with lies. He noted my expression and gave me a wry smile that quickly fell away. “What I felt when I realized the truth about Natalie was nothing compared to the way I felt when I realized you were really gone.”

  “I’m—”

  He held up a hand. “And that’s not all. I hated myself for trusting the Cunningham dickheads, and I blamed myself for letting them into my life.” He looked so sad, it broke my heart. “I just lost trust in myself, which made it even harder to trust anyone else.”

  I was moving toward him before I even realized it. Stepping right up onto the couch and over it, into his arms. He wrapped them around me so tightly, it almost hurt, and I buried my face in the side of his neck, breathing in the scent of him.

  “God, I missed you,” he murmured, his voice like gravel. “I never want to let you go.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  His arms tightened until I almost couldn’t breathe before he slid his palms down to cup my ass. He hitched me up, and I wrapped my legs around his hips, the smooth material of his suit jacket sliding beneath my thighs. I could feel his cock already responding, thickening where it pressed against me, and I felt a reciprocal pulse of heat. He carried me, but not far, laying me down on the long sofa.

  He shrugged out of the jacket, tossing it on the chair behind him, and unbuttoned his cuffs.

  “You’ve been nothing but a pain
in the ass from the beginning,” Gabe said roughly. His hands went to the buttons at the front of his shirt, loosening them one by one. “You’re stubborn.” He undid the last button and the white linen parted, showing heavy muscles sculpted by years of physical labor that his time in an office chair hadn’t diminished. “You’re annoyingly self-sufficient.”

  “So romantic,” I replied, lifting my chin.

  “I haven’t been able to get you out of my head.”

  His fingers paused at the fastening of his pants as I drew the paisley dress slowly up my legs.

  “You’re controlling,” I told him, darting my tongue out to wet my lips. “Manipulative.” I stopped my hands at the juncture of my thighs, feeling my own wet heat through the thin fabric of the dress, and gave myself a slow, casual stroke that made him catch his breath. “Obsessive.”

  “Liv…” he growled but I held up a finger. I wasn’t done yet.

  Shrugging one shoulder, the thin strap fell, and the front of the dress slipped down to catch on the pebbled tip of one breast. Emotion burned my eyes as I said the last thing he needed to know. “And I love you.”

  He was on me, his mouth crashing down on mine, plunging with his tongue, his hand gripping my exposed breast, claiming me. I almost came right then.

  As I cried out his name, Gabriel’s hand streaked down between my thighs, pushing the fabric of my panties aside, driving his fingers deep inside me, his thumb pressing firmly against my clit.

  I came.

  Crying out helplessly, my hips lurched upward, seeking more of him, but he tore his hand away, freed his cock and slammed into me. I was already wet, more than ready for him, and another orgasm followed immediately on the heels of the first.

  I locked my legs around his back as he pounded into me, riding me hard to his own finish, but holding out long enough to trigger my third orgasm. On a shuddering groan, with a last, deep thrust, he stiffened, the muscles of his back rock-hard beneath my hands, and I felt him come inside me, filling me with pulsing, scalding heat as we hit the peak together.

  “And you love me too,” I whispered hoarsely against his shoulder.

  “God, yes.” He leaned back to look at me fiercely, running a thumb across my bottom lip, his eyes glittering silver. “Yes, I do. I love you, Olivia. With everything inside me.”

  EPILOGUE

  Gabe

  The venue for the wedding reception was relatively small, considering it was held on the terrace at my lake house, north of Chicago. However, since the ceremony had been an intimate one with just close friends in attendance, and had taken place in the living room, it seemed appropriate.

  The after-party was wild, regardless of the short guest list. Roxy was out on the makeshift dance floor, a corner of the patio where we’d set up a stereo system blasting a playlist with all kinds of music. Her hair was a blaze of flame under the hundreds of fairy lights that had been strung up overhead, shaking her ass to an old Billy Idol song while Flynn looked on with an interested gleam in his eye.

  Jason was at one of the small, wrought-iron tables, bullshitting with Chester, who looked dapper in his rented tux. By the way Chester kept hugging and kissing anyone who walked by, most recently Beckett, I was pretty sure he was drunk.

  Hunter was flirting with the bride, who was blushing adorably, still wearing her lacy white dress… even her orthopedic shoes were covered with tiny lace bows.

  And me? I was looking for Olivia.

  I walked to the edge of the terrace and descended the wide, cement steps, leaving the sound of laughter, celebration, and eighties music behind me. The night was lit brightly by a mostly full moon as I wondered around, intent on finding my girl.

  In the sand, I spotted a pair of high-heeled sandals that had been kicked off, and I dropped my own shoes next to them, cuffing the ankles of my dress pants. I followed the sound of the waves, gentle tonight, and felt the cool sand between my toes. The days were still hot, but the nights were getting cooler. Summer was on its way out.

  I stopped at the top of the bluff. Olivia was on the beach below, standing at the edge of where the small waves lapped against the sand. She glowed in the moonlight. There was no other way to say it. Her arms and legs were bare in her sleeveless, pale green dress. She’d worn her hair down, and it spilled down her back in loose waves, held back only on the sides with little twists.

  When I’d first seen Olivia Redmond, I hadn’t fully realized it, but there was a darkness about her. A wary distance. She’d taken the ashes of a traumatized, grieving teenage girl and created a strong, brave, badass woman, but that darkness had still hung around her, a lingering shadow in her dark brown eyes and in the way that she held part of herself back from everyone else.

  Today, though, as I’d watched her dancing with Chester on the old man’s wedding day, throwing her head back to laugh at something he said — probably something dirty, if I knew Gramps — there was no darkness left in her.

  I hadn’t banished it for her in the few weeks since we’d been living together. In fact, we’d bickered and argued enough that I half-wondered if she’d decide I wasn’t worth it and move out on me. Somehow, in the days following the fire, she’d banished the darkness all by herself.

  Now, standing in the moonlight, looking out over the lake, she was brilliant. Radiating with heat and life and strength. I headed down the hill toward her.

  Liv

  I smelled Gabe’s cologne before I heard him slip up behind me in the soft, white sand. I’d been enjoying the quiet, the stars, and the little champagne buzz I had going on, and to be honest, I was feeling kind of sentimental after the sweet, loving simplicity of Chester and Elva’s wedding ceremony. They were just so damned cute.

  “Hey,” I said quietly as Gabe’s arms slipped around my waist, and he leaned down to rest his chin on my shoulder. I was glad for his warmth at my back. The breeze had picked up a little, and I was getting goose bumps.

  “You’re missing the party. Chester just kissed Beckett right on the mouth. I think Beckett was a little disturbed.”

  I laughed, picturing the buttoned-down luxury hotel magnate getting kissed by a drunk octogenarian groom. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to see that.”

  Gabe chuckled, his chest vibrating against my back. “You’ll get to see it. I’m pretty sure Hunter got it on video.”

  Gabe let me go and stepped away, and I shivered at the sudden coolness. I’d gotten very used to being surrounded by his heat since moving in with him. But when I turned around, he slipped his jacket off and draped it over my shoulders, slowly running the backs of his knuckles down over the lapels that covered my breasts. I shivered again, but not from the cold.

  “Are you happy?”

  The question made him sound surprisingly vulnerable, even though his face, hard and unsmiling in the moonlight, looked anything but.

  “Living with you?” I asked. “Absolutely.”

  It was true. Our work schedules were hectic, especially with Gabe neck-deep in reorganizing Ainsley Holdings and with me spending a good part of my time at the gym, but when we were together, everything else in the world stopped. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  It was terrifying, actually. I felt like I was constantly waiting for someone to tell me there’d been a mistake. That the universe hadn’t actually slated me for a happily ever after.

  “Are you? And fair warning,” I added with what I hoped was my best ruthless smile, “if you say no, I’m going to dropkick your ass.”

  He didn’t smile back at me, just dropped down into the sand. Not on one knee. My always-in-control Gabriel went down on both.

  He pulled a small box out of his pocket and flipped it open, where a simple, round-cut diamond in a white-gold setting glittered against black velvet.

  “Marry me.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  No flowery words. No promises, except the ones that reflected back at me from his silver eyes. My throat had gone tight, and tears burned at the back of my eyes. I di
dn’t think I could have answered him if I wanted to.

  Instead, I let my weak legs give way and went to my own knees in front of him. Nodding, too choked up to speak, I gave him my hand, and he took the ring out of the box. His hands shaking only slightly, he slid the ring on my finger.

  “I love you, Liv,” Gabe said quietly, half-smiling, pulling me toward him. “But I’m going to need an answer.”

  “Ye—” was all I got out before his fingers tangled in my hair, and he interrupted my verbal acceptance with a possessive, all-consuming kiss.

  Gabriel hadn’t totally given up his controlling ways, but at least now it looked like I had a lifetime to work on him.

  A lifetime to love him.

  And a lifetime for him to love me.

  THE END

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

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  Jessica Blake

  A Sneak Peek

  CLAIMING MY DUCHESS

  Jessica Blake

  CHAPTER ONE

  Iliana

  “You’re stressing again, Squeaks.”

  Of course, I was stressing. I’d just packed my entire life into ten cardboard boxes. Well, what was left of my life after the massive online moving sale I’d just conducted, not to mention the physical yard sale I had on the front lawn of my apartment complex.