by Sharon Sala
Ignoring propriety, she burst into his room without knocking and caught him leaning over the sink in his bathroom, trying to wash a long, angry slash on the back of his arm.
"You're bleeding!"
He turned. His eyes pierced her, blue shards of icy fury pinning her in place.
"Not as much as I was before," he drawled, remembering the puddle of blood he'd left beside his bike, along with what was left of his shirt in the garbage can outside. He winced when the cold washcloth slid along the tear in his flesh.
"Oh, my God," Annie said, and moved. Before she could think, she'd taken the cloth from his hand and pushed him backward onto the commode. "Sit down," she said, and leaned forward, peering over his shoulder to see if there was further damage to his back that she hadn't noticed.
Gabe hit the seat with a sigh, wearily giving in to the exhaustion and pain he was experiencing, and wondered how much longer his body could endure what he put it through. In the same thought, he realized the silent question was moot. If his calculations were correct, his time on earth was nearly up. It was that thought, and the knowledge that he couldn't have the forever that he wanted with this woman beside him, that made him react as he did when Annie cupped his chin with her fingers and started to wipe the cod, damp cloth across his face as she would a child's.
He took the cloth from her hands and flung it into the bathtub, and before she knew what was happening, she was in his lap, and his hands were on her face. She had one moment of fear, and then it swiftly disappeared as he groaned, leaned forward and covered her lips with his own.
Annie shuddered. It was like feeling steel melt against her lips. At first his lips were hard and hot, and then they shifted, softening, testing the corners of her mouth, her chin, even the hollow at her neck.
"Gabriel," she whispered, and then, when she could breathe again, she realized that he'd only begun. His body trembled beneath her fingers, and as her hand slid down the front of his chest, his heartbeat thundered beneath the skin, rumbling like the Harley's engine on a wild ride to heaven … or hell.
He scooped her into his arms and stood. Without words, he carried her into his room and then stopped by the side of his bed. His gaze went from her face to his bed, then back again. In spite of the question in his eyes, Annie could not speak. It was all the answer he needed.
The bedspread was cool and slick against the bare skin on the backs of her legs as Gabe deposited her with little aplomb. Annie shuddered and moaned as his hands swept down the front of her breasts, molding the thin fabric of her T-shirt to her generous curves. He straddled her body, positioning himself so that her womanhood was in perfect juxtaposition to his own aching need, and then leaned forward and pressed his mouth across the protesting bud he'd made of her nipple, which protruded upward beneath the cloth.
With mouth and hands, he moved across her body like a marauding outlaw, and just when Annie thought he would take without asking, he stopped, buried his face against her belly and started to shake.
"Gabriel?"
She traced her fingers across the taut, corded muscles of his neck and shoulders, feeling the tension and the emotion he was trying to control.
"I want you, Annie." His voice was low and guttural, muffled against her belly as he struggled with the red-hot need to rip the clothes from her body and bury himself deep inside her heat. "But it isn't fair to you. You deserve promises I can't make. A love I can't give. You don't deserve this … to be taken in want and need. And right now—" a shudder ripped through him as his fingers tightened in the flesh at her waist "—all I'm feeling is need."
It killed him to admit the truth of his feelings, but it would have been the end of him later if he'd taken her in a lie.
Tears squeezed from the corners of Annie's eyes as her hands gently stroked his shoulders and down his back until; she actually felt the anger dissipating beneath her touch.
"It's all right, Gabriel," she whispered. "It's all right." I would have been willing to settle for need, she told herself as she watched him roll off her body and walk back into the bathroom. There's no time in my life for promises, either. Not anymore.
She got off the bed and walked out of the room.
It was only days later, standing in line at a local supermarket, that she learned what had happened to him. That he'd walked into a robbery at a gas station not three blocks from her home and wound up in a fight that might have cost him his life.
When she heard the story, Annie stared at the box of cornflakes in her hand and then down at her basket and tried to remember what she'd been about to do. But she couldn't. All she could hear was the woman praising an unknown biker for saving her husband's life, and all she could see were the events that had ensued.
It was then that Annie thought she understood where Gabriel's intense need to have sex had come from. It must be a natural emotion to want to feel alive, when only a short time earlier you had come so close to being dead.
The cornflakes fell from her limp fingers onto a loaf of bread as Annie closed her eyes and swallowed past a lump in her throat. She could think of no better way to feel alive than to experience the blessed rush that came from the joining of two bodies with one purpose … making love.
Time continued to pass with little mention ever made of the near miss they'd had and the wanting that hung between them. Gabe's presence in Annie's world had become so solid that she could not imagine life without him. Yet always, at that thought, came an overwhelming sadness. Because for Annie, there would be no future with Gabe. When school was over, he would leave her. She had to face that fact. It was the only way she could get through the days they had left.
* * *
Sirens screamed, matching a woman's terrified shriek. Annie sat straight up in bed, heart pounding, eyes heavy with sleep as she tried to imagine why she was still hearing a nightmare when she was wide awake.
A door banged across the hall, and Annie realized that she wasn't having the dream alone. Gabriel's footsteps moved quickly toward the living room. It was only when she heard the front door open and then slam shut behind him that she knew she was truly awake. She bolted out of bed and ran to the window.
Her first thought was that she was hearing police sirens. But when she parted the curtains and looked outside, her heart sank. Fire trucks were everywhere.
"Oh, God! The complex must be on fire," she moaned, and ran to the closet. If she was going to lose everything she owned within the next few minutes, she didn't want to be nearly naked when it happened.
In less than a minute she had on jeans and a sweatshirt. With socks and shoes in hand and shaking from the rush o fear and adrenaline, she stuffed her personal identification in the hip pocket of her jeans and ran for the door.
In the back of her mind, she was both surprised and disappointed that Gabriel had left the apartment without even warning her of the danger. But then, as she raced toward the parking lot where the other residents were gathering, she realized that she'd misjudged him completely. The danger was not to her own building, but to the one two buildings over and closest to the street. Using the bumper of the nearest car for a makeshift seat, she quickly put on her socks and shoes, shivering nervously as she struggled to tie the strings without making knots, still wondering where Gabriel was and why he'd disappeared so fast.
Firemen were wielding their hoses and making way for the paramedic unit that had just arrived. The paramedics rushed out of the ambulance and, with skill born of long years of practice, quickly cleared a space in the crowd as they began setting up a first-aid station. Another ambulance arrived, available, if needed, to transport the injured. And then a woman's horrified shriek silenced the crowd's rumble of dismay.
"There's a child in that apartment!"
All eyes turned toward the third-story apartment facing the parking lot. A small girl, probably no more man nine or ten, was outlined by the flashing lights from below as she stood at the window, pounding on the glass with both hands. If was like watching terror in
pantomime as she struggled helplessly against the glass, barrier, unable to lift the window.
The onlookers, Annie included, felt sickened and helpless as they watched the child through the glass. Gabriel's whereabouts was momentarily forgotten in her shock, until she saw a tan, dark man slip through the crowd, run past the fire fighters and into the smoke-filled doorway.
"Gabriel!" Annie screamed, but her shout was lost in the noise around her.
Few people even acknowledged her cry as they stared transfixed toward the child, who was now moving helplessly from window to window in the room.
A handful of firemen held a net directly below her, but she was still unable to break the window. The people could only watch and hope that the man would be able to rescue her in time. Annie increased her own silent but terrified pleas for help as they waited and prayed.
* * *
"Oh, my God," Annie whispered, pressing shaking fingers against her lips, unable … unwilling … to believe that they'd really seen Gabe run into the building.
Frantically, she began moving through the crowd in the parking lot, certain that any minute Gabe would grab her arm and spin her around with that heart-stopping smile on his face, chiding her for her fears. But it didn't happen, and she had to face the fact that it was him that she'd seen.
A local news crew, which had materialized out of nowhere, had also seen the man, and cameras were instantly trained on the last place he had been seen, as well as the girl in the window.
Fear such as Annie had never known enveloped her. This was worse man anything she'd ever experienced. Fear for herself she could cope with. But this fear for another human being, one who'd come to mean more to her than he should, nearly overwhelmed her.
Ignoring the intermittent tails of smoke that blew toward the crowd in which she was standing, Annie stared at the child in the window and prayed as she'd never prayed before.
Long moments that seemed like hours passed, and then suddenly another gasp went up through the crowd. Flames could now be seen behind the child, and they all knew it was only a matter of moments before it would be too late.
"There's someone in there!" a man shouted and raised his arm, pointing toward the child as a second figure appeared at the window.
Moments later glass shattered onto the firemen below. But they stood their ground and waited, bracing themselves and holding on even tighter to the net. Seconds later, two figures stood in the opening. A man leaned out, holding the limp body of the child. Just as the camera crew focused, he let go of the child, and she fell through the air, as silent as her earlier plea for help had been.
With hardly a thud, the firemen deftly made the catch and then transferred her semiconscious body to the arms of a paramedic, who turned and made a dash toward the wailing ambulance. The man came next. With the flames licking at his feet and no time to maneuver, he leapt headfirst out the window.
Gabe landed on his back, unable to believe that he was still in one piece as he stared up at the smoke-filled night sky.
"You crazy son of a bitch," one of the firemen said, as they rolled him out of the net and slapped him roughly on the back. "You could have been killed."
Gabe staggered to his feet as he gratefully drew long draughts of clean air into his lungs. A man in uniform began heading toward him. Unwilling to explain himself, Gabe turned and quickly lost himself in the gathering crowd.
Annie had watched until she saw him stand up. Then she buried her face in her hands and fell to her knees, unable to move for the relief that coursed through her body. Hands appeared from the crowd around her, quickly pulling her to her feet, then moving her to the edge of the pack.
"Are you all right, miss?" a voice asked.
Annie looked up into the face of a man she recognized as living in her own building. She nodded.
"You sure?" he continued. "It looks as if they've got it under control. I'd be glad to walk you back to your place."
"No, no, I'm fine," Annie muttered, and began looking for Gabe. He was nowhere to be seen.
She pulled away from her neighbor's grasp and started running. Something told her that Gabe wouldn't stick around for an interview. She headed for her apartment.
Her legs were shaking along with her hands as she struggled with the doorknob, trying to make it turn. And then finally it gave and she burst into the living room, only to hear the sound of water running in the shower down the ball. Without sparing a thought for what she was about to do, she slammed the door behind her and began to run.
Seconds later she was in his bedroom.
A heavy mist floated out of the shower stall. A pile of smoke-tainted doming lay in the doorway. The faint but unmistakable outline of a tall, male figure behind the frosted Plexiglas door was all the impetus she needed.
Gabe was leaning with arms outstretched against the wall, bracing himself beneath the flow of water, letting it wash away the acrid stench of smoke and fire. He leaned forward, closed his eyes and sighed as the steady stream rushed over his head and down the back of his neck, easing the muscles he'd strained only moments before and soothing the tiny scorched places on his skin. And then the door flew open and he moved away from the water's force, staring in shock at the look on Annie's face.
"You could have been killed," she said in a broken whisper.
Ignoring the fact that she was fully dressed and he was not, she stepped into the shower and into his arms.
"Annie! My God!" Gabe groaned, as his body betrayed him.
Water pelted down on top of them. Several seconds passed as Gabe stood in shock before he thought to reach over her shoulder and close the door to keep the floor from being flooded.
"Back off, Annie!" His voice thickened as her hands moved up and down his back in a desperate, searching motion, as if she couldn't believe he was actually there and in her arms.
But his warning was useless. She was as glued to him as her clothing was to her own body. With a muttered oath, he reached over her once again, this time to turn off the shower.
Suddenly there was only the sound of Gabriel's harshly indrawn breath as she stepped back and looked at him. Everywhere. Once again his body betrayed him, and this time there was no way he could hide what her nearness had done.
Annie closed her eyes and let the sensations of what she'd seen fill her. And when she opened them again, it was to feel him pulling her wet sweatshirt over her head.
"You have about thirty seconds to get the hell out of here," Gabe said. "Or it'll be too late … for both of us."
She shook her head and slid the palms of her hands up his chest as the sweatshirt fell to the floor of the shower with a soggy plop. Her bare breasts tingled as a draft of air moved across them, tightening the nubs in their centers to a jutting pout.
Gabriel groaned and bent forward, testing them with the end of his tongue. She sighed as his lips moved over her and leaned against his body when her knees went weak, bracing her hands on his chest, where his heart pounded wildly beneath the skin.
"It's already too late, Gabriel. It has been since the day we met."
He wasn't certain it was tears that he saw on her face. It could have been the lingering remnants of their shower. But the trembling of her lower lip told him all he needed to know.
"Annie … I can't promise you anything," he said harshly, still unable to make the last and final move toward the inevitable.
"I don't need promises, Gabriel. Promises mean a future. You and I don't have that. All we have is now … and it's all I need."
The shower door flew back, slamming with a sharp thud against the wall as Gabriel picked her up and carried her to his bed. There, in a tangle of teddy bears and bed sheets, he stripped her of the rest of her clothing and covered her body with the fierce determination of a warrior claiming his prize.
He was everything she'd imagined and more than she could have dreamed. His hands moved with gentle finesse across her body, lighting fires in places that had never been ignited before. Every curve of her sk
in became a flash point of nerves. She struggled beneath him, toying to return the favors of his loving, and then found herself unable to do anything but simply hang on to his shoulders as he took them both to a place where time ceased and sensation was the beginning and end of everything.
"Annie, Annie, Annie."
Her name was a chant on his lips as his hands slid between her legs. And then a roar began in her ears that blocked out everything but the feelings building beneath her skin. Fire bursts came in sudden, intense jolts, starting from the center of her being and emanating outward, melting her bones and her senses until she could no longer move or think. All there was in her world was Gabriel's hands, his lips, and the feel of his body moving up and then over … down and inside.
Gabriel slid between her legs, shuddering with every breath as his mind raced his body for control. But Annie's own loss of control was unbelievable, unexpected, and too much to resist.
Her hands said what her lips could not as she grasped his shoulders and urged him on. And when her hips lifted from the bed and begged him to come closer, he did. By then he was too far in and too far gone to remember to prolong anything but the need to breathe.
Annie's heart raced, her body burned, and Gabriel kept touching matches to the fire with intensifying thrusts.
When the first tremor's began inside her, moving along his manhood in tiny, convulsive jerks, Gabriel groaned from the pleasure. Through a sensual fog, he watched as Annie closed her eyes, bit her lower lip and arched upward, trying to engulf him. And then everything exploded around them as the world tilted on its axis, and Gabriel held on to the woman beneath him to keep from flying away.
The last thing Annie remembered before falling asleep was Gabe's arms enfolding her and his faint whisper drifting across her ears.
"This wasn't supposed to happen, Annie Laurie," he kept saying. "This wasn't supposed to happen."
Hours later Annie felt herself being taken from the warm bed and carried across the hall. A sharp, unwelcome pain surfaced behind her eyelids when she realized that Gabe had put her back in her own bed. She all but held her breath, unwilling for him to know that she was awake: The hurt was too fresh and too swift as she realized that he hadn't even been willing to awaken with her in his arms.
