Technically Mine (Love, Emerson Book 2)

by Isabel North

  She nodded.

  “Sounds revolting.”

  “Octopuses aren’t revolting. They’re incredibly smart.”

  “Nora. Are you trying to tell me something? Do you have an octopus kink I should know about? Is it the tentacles? Don’t get me wrong, I’m here for you. No judgement, whatever you need—”

  She smacked him. “I do not have an octopus kink. It was Anna. Oh.” While she was busy trying to explain, he slid an index finger under the elastic of her panties and started to drag it back and forth. “Anna said you were like a sexual octopus.”

  “Teenage boys with no finesse are compared to octopuses. Men in their prime about to bestow shattering orgasms upon their ladies are compared to gods. Sex gods. Or predators. Again, the sexy kind. Not spiders or snakes. Panthers. Wolves, bears. Think you get where I’m going here.”

  He snapped the elastic of her panties.

  “I do, and I wish you’d hurry up and get there,” she said. “Weren’t we supposed to be in a rush?”

  He fisted the panties at her hip and tore them off.

  Nora gasped.

  “Hotter than when I tore the shirt, right?” he said.

  She lifted up and kissed him. His tongue filled her mouth and he kissed her breathless before pulling away, cupping her chin firmly.

  “I’m sorry about the octopus comment,” she said. “It popped into my head. I was panicking. If it helps, Anna also said you looked better than any porn star she’s ever seen.”

  Gabe frowned. “You were panicking?”

  She tried to distract him by kissing him again, but he caught her and pushed her flat. Undeterred, she went for his jeans. His abdominal muscles jumped under her touch and he let her open his fly before pinning her wrists at her sides. She fought him and he shook his head.

  “Nora. Panicking?”

  “For a moment. A second.”

  “You’re not panicking now?”

  “No.”

  His green gaze, appearing almost black with passion, held hers. He released her wrists and sighed. “You’re afraid of me.”

  Only a little. “I trust you.”

  “Want me to slow it down?”

  “I’ll kill you if you slow it down.”

  He smiled, and sat back.

  Nora followed him, placing her palms on his cheeks, loving the roughness of his stubble against her skin. She ran a thumb over his lower lip. “I was panicking about keeping up, that’s all. I haven’t… Vince and I were never—”

  He cut her off with a hard kiss. “I don’t care about Vince. I don’t care about your cousin, or her opinion of my moves. Lucky for me my ego can take the hit of being compared to an octopus. I care about you, Nora. I want you so bad, baby, but I want you to be ready. I can wait.”

  “Unicorn,” she blurted.

  His shoulders shook. “Unicorn?”

  She dropped her head to his chest and groaned. “You’re not an octopus or a god or a bear. You’re a unicorn.” She curled her hand into a fist and gave him a soft thump. “I’m sure that I’m not the first woman to tell you this.”

  “You are most definitely the first woman to tell me this. Unicorn, huh?” He tipped her face up. “Better than an octopus. Still prefer wolf, though.”

  “You’re just…oh, you know what you are. And there’s all of this going on—” she gestured at his arms and abs, “—and on top of all that you’re so nice. You’re out of my league and I had a brief confidence wobble but—”

  “I’m going to let you in on a secret, Nora. There is no league. Okay? There’s you, and me. That’s all there is. That’s all there ever is. Two people who want each other. The rest of it is all bullshit.”

  “Okay.”

  He smiled. “Okay?”

  “Yes. Okay. Get the condom. You said you were in a rush. I’m warmed up.” Any hotter and she’d explode. “Let’s go.”

  Gabe didn’t move.

  “Nooo,” she breathed. “You don’t have a condom? I can’t believe this! Are you kidding me?”

  “I have a condom.”

  “Where is it?” She started to go through his pockets. Nothing in the front. She pulled him down to lie on top of her so she could access his back pockets. They were empty, but his ass felt so good under her hands she couldn’t help giving him a hard squeeze.

  He hissed, his hips jerking against her. “Stop that.”

  She did it again.

  “It’s not in my pockets.”

  She rolled her head to the side and spotted his wallet on the coffee table. Before she could reach for it, he slid a hand under the pink fuzzy pillow, and brought out a condom.

  Nora stared at it. “When did you put that there?”

  “Earlier.” He opened the packet.

  “I never noticed. You do have some moves.”

  “You have no idea.”

  She watched him shove down his jeans and put the condom on. She shivered. “I think I’m about to get an idea.”

  Gabe brought three more packets out from under the pillow and tossed them onto the coffee table beside his wallet. “Honey, you’re about to get more than one.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It didn’t count as running away, Nora thought, because she fully intended to return to San Francisco.

  She opened the car window another inch for Sunshine. Her dog still wasn’t a big fan of cars, and wouldn’t get near the doors unless she had her leash on, but she was enjoying the wind in her ears. She leaned into the breeze whipping in as they powered down the interstate, and smiled happily.

  Returning to Beacon Falls probably wasn’t Nora’s smartest move. Then again, not a lot that she’d done in the last six months had been a smart move. Vandalizing her ex’s house. Falling for a dog who was going to leave her before Nora got to give her the life she deserved.

  Falling for a man like Gabe Sterling.

  Sleeping with a man like Gabe Sterling.

  She shouldn’t have slept with him. Not ever.

  Up until last night, she’d had her imagination. Now, she’d had the full experience. Anything after that? Not going to make the grade.

  “What happened to you?” Anna had asked when Nora arrived at the office. “Did you walk into a wall? Slip in the shower and hit your head? Your eyes are all weird.”

  “They’re not weird.”

  “They’re all unfocused. Dreamy.” She gasped and pointed an accusatory finger. “You slept with him.”

  “What? No. How can you tell? No. With who?”

  “You slept with Gabe Sterling!”

  “I look like I slept?” Three hours. That was all the rest Nora had gotten. The last orgasm he gave her had been at six o’clock in the morning, by which time she’d been so wrung out it took him ages to get her there. When he did, it had seemed to last forever.

  Gabe’s patience in bed, she had discovered, was a terrifying thing. He knew what he wanted, and he did not stop until he got it.

  “How was it?” Anna asked.

  “Mind-boggling.”

  “He boggled your mind?”

  Nora gave a hollow laugh. “He boggled my everything. Every single part of me. Thoroughly boggled.”

  Anna lifted her brows.

  “No,” Nora said. “Not everything. Not that.” Eh. Kinda not that. “It was all strictly vanilla.”

  “Vanilla boggling. I don’t know what to think.”

  Neither did Nora.

  Except vanilla had not been on the menu.

  Gabe had made love to her three times. Each had been more intense than the last. His focus on her and his attention to detail had taken on an almost preternatural edge. It was as if he had bent reality around them, taken her with him into another dimension where the rules were upside down and time had a different heartbeat.

  The outrageous playfulness that defined him had disappeared. Instead of the dirty talk that had gotten Nora so hot the brush of his fingers was all it took to send her flying again, he’d fallen silent.

  H
is uninhibited passion had turned slow and wickedly deliberate.

  He hadn’t let her hide anything. The eye contact had been so profound, at one point she’d thought he was going to stare her into orgasm.

  “Nora?” Anna interrupted her thoughts. “Seriously. I’m worried about your face. What’s that look?”

  “This is my ‘I had my first one-night stand and I’m done talking about it’ look.”

  “Nope. That’s not the look. You’re freaking out. What happened?” Anna stiffened. “Did he do something you didn’t like?”

  Yes. He left.

  He’d coaxed that last release out of her exhausted body, and when Nora woke to her alarm, he was gone.

  He’d left, and she was…confused.

  Nora had no idea what the future held for her. For them. If there was a them. But she did know it was time to move on from her past, which was why she was on the interstate on the way back to Beacon Falls.

  At a rest stop, Nora filled Sunshine’s travel bowl from a bottle of water, and sat at a picnic table in the sun. She chewed on a dry sandwich, staring off into the trees. How had she gotten here?

  It was lunchtime on a Wednesday. Five months ago, she’d have been running out for a sandwich at her local café with the dental hygienist.

  Then Vince and Melissa had happened, and three months ago she’d limped into San Francisco, tired of her disastrous solo road trip during which she had not managed to find herself, despite what the books and movies suggested would happen to a woman of her age chucking it all in and setting off into the great unknown.

  Two months ago, she’d still been reeling from the experience of walking in on their new client in nothing but a towel.

  And now here she was, at a rest stop, having run away from spectacular sex with the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

  Nora groaned and laid her forehead on the wooden table with a solid thunk. God. Gabe Sterling was the worst man in the world to want that from.

  The. Worst.

  She pulled out her cell phone and called her mother.

  “Hello? Nora, honey?”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Nora? Is that you? Hello?”

  “Mom.”

  “You’re breaking up. Is it windy? Are you in a tunnel? Are we having a solar flare?”

  Nora stretched out on the bench and blinked up into an endless blue sky. The air was warm and still, no wind. As for the solar flare, how would she know?

  “Nora! Honey, what’s wrong with your cell phone?”

  “Bad reception, I guess.”

  “In San Francisco?” Her mother’s voice was heavy with disbelief. “Where all those technology people live? Can’t any of them fix it?”

  “I’m not in San Francisco.”

  “Oh, Nora. Sweetie, you’re not on the run again, are you?”

  “Nope. I’m on my way to you. I have a note in my Filofax that the rent’s up on the storage unit next week. Anna gave me a few days off, and I thought now would be the perfect time to come home and sort things out.”

  “You’re so organized.”

  Yeah. Organized. She painted a thin veneer of control over a seething tornado of chaos and doubt, and told herself it was all good. “I’m ready to make it official.”

  “Make what official?”

  “Leaving town.”

  “You left months ago.”

  “And now I’m making it official. I’m going to clear out the storage unit and sell everything. See you and Dad. Say goodbye this time. To your faces.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Nora squinted at the phone. “Mom, I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “I am, honey. I think it’s healthy, what you’re doing. Um…why don’t you come down next week instead?”

  “I’m not free next week, I’m free now. And I’m almost there. I’ll be with you in an hour, hour and a half.”

  “Well, that’s unfortunate.”

  “Mom? Hello?” The call had disconnected. Nora pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it. The low-battery icon flashed back at her.

  Sunshine nudged her inquiringly.

  “I have no idea,” Nora said. “Let’s go introduce you to Grandma and Grandpa.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Making love to Nora was maybe the worst decision Gabe had ever made.

  He’d known how he felt about her. Obviously, he’d known. He was, after all, rearranging his entire world for her.

  And then…that.

  She’d blown his mind.

  He’d thought he was prepared for how it would be. When he returned from New York two days later, he was still buzzing. He could still feel her. He knew that he’d feel her forever. As if being together had somehow made her a part of him, and him a part of her.

  Complete. He felt complete.

  Satisfied.

  At peace.

  When he was with Nora, the snapping electric storm of energy that had thrown him around his entire life faded, and he was…free.

  Thirty-nine years old, and at last he knew what it was to be himself. His real self.

  Of course, he’d never let her go now. The only reason he’d been able to tear himself away and leave her sleeping that morning was because the sooner he left, the sooner he’d come home.

  Yeah, sleeping with her when he had to leave in mere hours had been a terrible decision. He should have stuck to his plan. Waited until he had everything wrapped up, Bill was approved as CEO of Sterling Enterprises, and Gabe could give Nora the focus she deserved. It was done now, and he was done waiting.

  The first time he called and she didn’t pick up, he wasn’t worried. Then she didn’t pick up the second time.

  Or the third.

  Then Anna sent him straight to voicemail on both her office phone and her cell phone.

  He drove from the airport straight to the Holmes Squared office, and the instant Anna saw him, she shot her chair back from her desk and stalked over to poke a finger in his chest, snarling, “What did you do to her?”

  Gabe looked down at her. “Honestly? A whole lot. She seemed to like it. She screamed loudly enough. And before you piss me off, it was happy screaming. Very happy.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s what she was screaming.”

  “So why did she go running off to Beacon Falls?”

  He jerked. “What?”

  “You have sex with her, and next thing I know, she throws the dog in the car and goes running off to Beacon Falls. You can’t tell me you’re not to blame.”

  He scowled.

  “I can’t get hold of her,” Anna said, and cocked a hip, crossing her arms over her chest. “You?”

  “She must have forgotten her cell.”

  “You don’t know Nora if you think she’d forget her cell.”

  “Maybe I scrambled her brain with my wicked sex skills, you think of that?”

  “I’m thinking maybe she scrambled your brain.”

  “Yes! She scrambled my brain. She scrambled my life!”

  Anna fell back, startled.

  Gabe stepped toward her. “When is she coming home?”

  Anna retreated. “Tomorrow. She’s supposed to be home tomorrow.”

  He backed her into her desk. “Well, I’m not waiting. There’s something I’m going to need from you. And no. This is not an interior decorating emergency.” His chest heaved with the enormity of what he was about to do.

  Anna gazed up at him, wide-eyed. “I’m not having sex with you!” she said, voice high and fluttery.

  Not…? “I don’t want to have sex with you. I’m in love with your— Ah, fuck.”

  Anna clapped her hands over her mouth and bounced up and down.

  Glaring at her, Gabe took out his phone.

  “This is so—” she started.

  He cut her off with a single shake of his head.

  She rolled her lips together and looked like she was going to burst.

  “Bill,”
Gabe said when the call connected. “Draw up a non-disclosure agreement and get someone to run it over to Anna Holmes’ office, would you?” He paused and stared at the floor for a long moment. “Yes, I’m back from New York. No, I’m not coming in. I have other business to attend to. The usual NDA will do. You know the one.” He raised his head and pinned Anna with a look. “Destitution and despair to my foes if they thwart my will.” He hung up.

  Anna had hopped up to perch on her desk, and she used the toe of her pretty shoe to push him out of her personal space. “You are very dramatic. Could explain why Nora bolted. Are you this dramatic in bed?”

  “When I’m not being an octopus.”

  “What’s with the threatening paperwork? I promise I won’t tell her you love her before you can. All you have to do is ask. I’m trustworthy.”

  “Please don’t tell Nora before I can.”

  “This is so romantic. I won’t say a word. I’ve got your back, buddy.”

  “Great. Sign the NDA.”

  “I said I won’t tell. Weren’t you listening?”

  “The NDA’s for something else. Clear your schedule for the afternoon. You’re coming with me. I need your eyes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Sunshine was a hit, more with Nora’s father than with her mother, who patted her once then started fussing about dog hairs on the furniture and muddy paws on the carpet.

  “I must say, Nora, I admire you for sticking with it and coming anyway.” Her mother finished unloading the dishwasher and began to wipe down the countertop.

  Nora stood at the kitchen window drinking a Diet Coke. Out in the yard, Sunshine was watching her father with interest as he threw a tennis ball, then bounded after it when all Sunshine did was wag her tail at him.

  “I’m not sure I’d be brave enough, if it was me,” her mother continued, rinsing the cleaning cloth and wringing it out, “and I never really thought of you as the brave type, either. But then, you have changed a lot in the last few months. What with the vandalism. And the dog.”

  “Getting a dog is hardly in the same bracket as spray-painting cocksucker on the side of a house, Mom.” The things she’d done with Gabe, now those were in the same bracket.