by Barb Han
Kinsley took another sip of coffee. There was no amount of caffeine that could jolt her into understanding Gabriel’s world.
“And that’s where the story tanks,” he said. “There’s a piece missing from view and I can’t figure out what.”
Gabriel fisted his hands and then leaned on his knuckles for support.
“You mentioned Blake before. How is he?” She twisted her fingers together.
“He’s resting. Morphine’s on a pump so he won’t be in any pain.” Gabriel’s gaze suddenly intensified on the paper. “He’ll be fine. It’ll take some time for his body to heal but the doc is optimistic for a full recovery.”
Relief washed over her as she took another sip, trying to clear her mind and refocus.
“When was the last time you ate something?” He was staring at her hands, which she realized were shaky.
“Lunch, I guess. Why? I’m not hungry.” Food was the last thing on her mind right now. She doubted she could get a bite down.
“You need nourishment.” He walked over to his backpack on the couch and returned with a power bar. “This will keep your stomach from revolting. Think you can manage a few bites?”
He set it next to her coffee mug.
“I can try.” She didn’t dare look at him when he was standing this close. His masculine presence already caused her pulse to pound and her stomach to feel a freefall sensation. “Thank you.”
He squeezed her shoulder. The move was meant to reassure her. She could tell by his touch. But it sent rockets of electricity shooting through her instead.
The air turned cold the minute he moved to the other side of the table.
Gabriel flexed his fingers before raking them through his hair. Had touching her had the same effect on him? She couldn’t deny that a piece of her wanted it to even though she doubted it. He’d been all business so far. But even if he did, so what? A few joules couldn’t erase their past. Besides, she thought she’d known Gabriel all those years ago. She didn’t. And she sure as hell didn’t know this man standing across the table from her. This was hardly the time to talk about their past.
Kinsley managed a few bites of the bar. She expected it to taste like eating dirt but it had more of a peanut butter flavor. The chunks of chocolate helped make it even more palatable.
“You said we could stay the night here. Where do we go after this?” What she really wanted to ask was how much her life was about to change forever. Gabriel wouldn’t have the answer to that and if he did, she wasn’t sure she could handle knowing.
When life got to be too much in the past she’d learned to focus on her next step and not look too far ahead. All focusing on the future did was create more stress.
She took in a fortifying breath and tried to force the goose bumps on her arms to chill by force of willpower. Being so near Gabriel took a toll.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet.” He pushed off the table and walked into the kitchen where he paced. He checked his cell and rubbed a hand over the scruff on his chin. “I need to take a break.”
She followed him and stopped when he rounded on her.
“Is he important to you?” he asked.
“Who?” And then it dawned on her. He was asking about Blake. “He’s my friend.”
“I thought he was your publicist but it’s obvious the two of you have a personal relationship,” he stated.
She didn’t like how he could still read her.
“I don’t think my relationship with Blake or any other man is your business,” she shot back. It was probably just the emotions from the day that had built up and needed release that had her almost screaming at him.
He stood his ground. His gaze narrowed and his lips thinned. “Would you still say that if you knew how badly I wanted to kiss you right now?”
Gabriel shouldn’t play his hand like that. He especially shouldn’t have told Kinsley that he wanted to kiss her. But he did. Denying it wouldn’t make it go away and a part deep inside him needed to know if she was with another man because that would be the equivalent of a bucket of ice water being poured over his head.
Did he have a right to know?
Hell, no.
“That’s not a good idea,” she finally responded, lifting her gaze from the tiled floor.
“Hell, I know that. I wasn’t asking if it was a good idea. I was telling you to keep your distance, so I don’t embarrass myself,” he stated.
That seemed to rile her up.
“You know, you could’ve called all those years ago. Or stopped by to see me before you took off into the Army and disappeared.” She was emphasizing her words by waving her hands around.
“Are you kidding?” A quick shot of anger darted through Gabriel, firing his insides. He needed to make sure he understood her correctly before he let himself go too far down that path. “You think I signed up for the military without telling you goodbye? Is that how you remember it?”
“I was in the hospital. You never came to see me.” Her chin quivered, betraying the stone-cold emotion on her face. “What was I supposed to think?”
“I did show. Your father refused to let me come into your room. He said you resented me for getting in the crash and that you’d be fine. I came every day and was turned away. I texted you dozens of times every day and you never responded.”
“I had a concussion. My father took my phone away,” she stated. “Why didn’t you send someone in with word?”
“I was young and stupid, so eventually I believed him. I was busy licking my wounds. He told me you never wanted to see me again and that if I pushed the issue, he’d see to it I was arrested for reckless driving.” If it was now, he sure as hell wouldn’t let her father get away with that. He’d been trained not to shake things up at that age and was on strike three. One more and he’d lose everything. “You should know better than anyone else that I couldn’t afford one more strike.”
She seemed to simmer on those words for a few minutes before trying to speak. “He took away my phone. The doctor said it wasn’t good for me to be on the screen. I got it back a few weeks later and my mother said I could have ten minutes a day.” She stared up and to the left, recalling the information. “I checked for messages from you. Why wouldn’t you have texted?”
“After a month of not getting a response, I stopped,” he admitted. So much came into focus now but he still had questions. “Lainey came to visit me and said you didn’t want to anything to do with me ever again.” He was too embarrassed to admit to Kinsley now that he’d written to her for an entire year with no response. He’d been a lovesick pup, licking his wounds.
“She did what?” The shock on her face had him rethinking everything he’d been told back then. Her question was also rhetorical.
The desire to reach out to her and pull her into his chest was a physical ache. It caught him off guard and he needed to slow his roll because that heartache that had caused him to lose twenty pounds because eating made him sick that also eventually turned into a fire in his belly to fight back against the world and become the best soldier he could.
If holding her again could erase all the years of hurt he’d faced he would. “It was a long time ago, Kinsley. I think we’ve both moved on since then.”
A piece of him was happy to know that she hadn’t rejected him. It made him feel like he might be able to trust his judgment again when it came to women. Was that the reason he’d kept them at arm’s length most of his adult life? He’d gotten over his childhood crush with her years ago. Or, at least he’d believed he had.
As old wounds opened and he felt the pain like this had happened yesterday instead of forever ago he wasn’t so sure.
Either way, Gabriel needed to button up because standing there in the kitchen with her and being hit with all those emotions from the past wasn’t doing good things to his self-control.
“Why not reach out on social media?” she argued but he could see the fight was draining from her. Were her emotions on the same r
oller coaster?
“Because you blocked me from your accounts,” he stated.
“I promise that I did no such thing,” she countered.
“Then, who? Your father?” He gripped the edge of the counter to keep his hands busy.
“Either him or my mother. Neither thought I should go out with you in the first place. They were pretty vocal about it actually. I don’t know why I didn’t put two-and-two together before.” There was that lost quality to her voice again.
“It was for the best for both of us.” If he could take those words back, he would. But they were out there.
Her reaction to them was to march straight over to him. She stood toe-to-toe, staring at him for what felt like minutes but was probably seconds. “Do you really mean that, Gabriel?”
Now he knew what she was doing. She was getting close enough to tell if he was lying. All she’d ever had to do was really look into his eyes when he answered, and she could read his mind. Times had changed. He’d learned to shove his emotions down deep, put on a blank face and finish a mission no matter the cost. The U.S. Military had taught him to do that and he was grateful. He was no longer the angry kid who was always one inappropriate comment directed at him away from losing his temper.
Gabriel was a calm, collected grown man who didn’t need to prove himself with his fists when someone hurled insults at him anymore.
And he could certainly handle five-and-a-half feet of cobalt blue eyes and honey-wheat colored hair.
“You haven’t answered me.” She was so close he could breathe in her clean and flowery scent. She smelled like spring lilies.
He shrugged in response.
“If you were smart, you’d take a step back,” he finally said.
“Are you threatening me, Gabriel?” He shouldn’t enjoy the sound of his name rolling off her tongue so much. It was weakness causing him to get lost in another time—a time when life was easier?
He couldn’t exactly say high school had been his best years. Not at the Foster Farm. His fosters had made sure him and the other kids in their care didn’t cross the line. He still had scars on the backs of his legs from the welt marks the belt had left the few times he’d gotten out of line.
Not until he’d dated her did he let himself believe had might have a future. He started to hope that life could get better. And that’s probably all this bout of nostalgia was—a blast from the past. A snapshot in time, a turning point, where he’d started to turn his life around.
It had taken a few angry years of beating himself up in the military for him to push past the pain of losing her.
But then he’d learned to breathe again. He kept himself exhausted and in enough physical pain to be able to set aside everything else. Had he stopped living? Had he closed himself off to any other possibilities? Had he gotten over her?
There was one way to find out. Kiss her.
“You mind if I do something?”
“Depends on what it is, Gabriel.” For a split second they were those two young and in love kids again. Everything that had happened since they were last together became white noise with no power over either of them.
“Kiss you.”
Her mouth, those pink lips of hers, formed an O. She hesitated for a moment before she tilted her face toward him and brought her hands up to his chest.
That was all the encouragement Gabriel needed. He brought his hands up to her face. He cupped her cheeks. He took in a breath, a moment of hesitation in order to breathe in her sweet scent. Memorize her.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, “Kiss me.”
He dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers. She opened hers to give him access as he delved his tongue inside her mouth. His tongue found hers as he deepened the kiss.
All rational as to why this was a bad idea flew out the window along with logic.
It didn’t matter when her lips were pressed to his.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and he felt her full breasts flush against his chest.
Gabriel dropped his hands to loop around her waist. He smoothed his hands across the dip in her lower back and took his time gliding them up toward her neck. He could feel her trembling under his fingertips as he trailed down her spine and spread his hands around her sweet round bottom.
His breath came out in rasps and his pulse pounded. Her fingers outlined the ridges in his chest and then smoothed over his stomach before moving lower to the waistband of his jeans. She stopped at the clasp.
He stood there for countless minutes kissing the woman he’d once loved aware of how easy it would be to open her cotton robe and touch her in places he’d only fantasized about as a young buck. Places that he was certain he knew how to bring her the most pleasure from now.
Experience had taught him that he was decent in bed. Most women returned for an encore, which had been fine with him as long as they knew what they were getting with him, and maybe even more importantly what they weren’t.
Tongues tangled, the feeling of the world righting itself for this moment in time overcame Gabriel. He teased his tongue inside her mouth, tasting the sweetness there.
Kissing was as far as they’d gone as kids along with some heavy petting.
They were adults now with adult-like desires. She nipped at his bottom lip, tempting him to take this further. And then she bit down in a way that was so damn sexy Gabriel thrust his tongue inside her mouth.
And then she brought his hands to her robe. She opened her eyes. Those depths of the ocean blue eyes were glittery with need and his heart detonated when he looked into them, into his Kinsley’s eyes.
He gripped the lining and she tugged his hands apart, freeing ample breasts. She’d grown into a stunning woman with just the right amount of curves.
Gabriel trailed his finger along the inside of her robe until he palmed her breast. She arched her back and the move was sexy as hell.
His cell buzzed on the counter. He muttered a curse. Kinsley pulled her robe closed as he stalked toward the annoying noise.
“This had better be damn important,” he muttered.
And then he saw the message.
Someone or something is moving toward the pool house.
Chapter 7
“What is it?” Kinsley’s heart pounded her rib cage for a couple of reasons. Both were obvious. She’d just made a huge mistake in kissing Gabriel and now they were in danger. But, damn, that kiss. She’d been missing that kind of passion her entire adult life. Their kisses as teens hinted at the kind of chemistry that could ignite a blazing inferno as adults.
“There’s been a breech.” Gabriel cursed again.
“Of what?” She glanced around wildly.
“They don’t know.” He returned a text.
“What should we do?” The first thing she thought about was putting clothes on. She darted toward the adjacent bedroom and flew out of her robe.
It was dark and she didn’t turn on the light. She heard a click-sound from the other room and realized it was a bullet being engaged in a chamber. If that didn’t jump her heartrate up a couple of notches, she didn’t know what would.
She fumbled around for her clothes in the dark space. The only light streamed in from the opened door leading to the living room.
“We need to go.” His voice was a study in calm whereas her body was made of elastic bands.
Kinsley threw on her pants and a shirt not bothering to dig around for her underwear and her blouse. She bolted toward the sound of his voice and her heart thudded when she saw him in the door frame. Very little light escaped around his large frame. Basically, he blocked out all the light.
She gasped. “Jesus, you scared me.”
“Ready?” He was all business. There was no hint of the passion from a few minutes ago.
He threaded their fingers together and led her into the kitchen.
“There’s only one door,” she mostly said to herself.
“That’s why we’ll use the back window,” he answered.
<
br /> “Can you fit?”
“I’ll make it work.” He said it like it was nothing and her mind snapped to all the crazy and seemingly impossible situations he must’ve faced overseas. He was in his element—a world that was so completely foreign to her.
“Wait. My bag.” She didn’t want to leave anything behind.
Instead of rushing her, he walked to the kitchen table where she’d left it.
“Got it.” She slung the strap over her arm. “Should we take any of the papers?”
“I already disposed of them.”
In another few seconds, he was helping her onto the kitchen counter and toward the window over the sink.
Kinsley climbed through the opening and dropped onto the hard ground onto all fours. Gabriel was on her heels but he somehow landed on his feet. He was crouched low and urging her forward the second she regained her balance.
Staying low, they hustled toward the back garden. There was enough light that she feared someone could easily see them.
Quietly and stealthily they moved toward the darkness. The property was massive and there were more trees than she could count. She and Gabriel stuck to the edge of a path but she had a feeling that was about to change. And she had completely forgotten to slip on shoes, which was fine on the manicured lawns but she had a feeling they wouldn’t be on that forever.
The estate was bordered by a ten-foot brick wall.
“Hold on,” Gabriel whispered. “I need to keep our guys posted on our location.”
He covered his cell with his arm, she assumed to block anyone from seeing the light on the screen, and sent a text.
And then he was gently urging her forward again.
By the tree line she realized her mistake but she didn’t want to risk slowing them down or be the reason they got caught if he stopped, so she kept her pain to herself. She as grateful he couldn’t see her facial expressions. Each step hurt but she was determined not to speak up.
