by Alyssa Cole
I let out a low wail of frustration; the sensations built and built but didn’t crescendo.
His hands grabbed my waist, hard, holding me in place as he thrust up into me savagely, somehow knowing exactly what I needed to get off. My gaze locked on to his and the desire to give pleasure that I saw there made my heart lurch and pushed me right over the edge. My eyes slammed shut and my mouth opened wide when the dam finally burst. I came, shuddering as the powerful tide of sensation swept through me, pulsing from my core to my stomach to my breasts. I wanted to scream my bliss, but some innate politeness silenced me, or perhaps my vocal chords couldn’t process this new category of sound Gabriel drew from me. My breaths came in great gasps while I gripped him inside me, feeling him get even harder before he bucked up under me, small pants ripped from his throat as his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth pulled into a taut grimace of pleasure.
I collapsed onto his chest, his heartbeat jackhammering beneath my ear. We were both overheated and sweaty, but he hugged me tightly and dropped gasping kisses into my hair before pulling me down onto the bed with him.
“You...” He paused to catch his breath.
“Rocked your world?” I finished for him, grinning as he laughed and rolled so that we lay on our sides, legs entangled.
He stroked his fingertips across my jaw, across the areas where my bruises had faded. His eyes had returned to their normal amber color, and they studied me now. I studied him, too, trying to piece together all the strange thoughts and feelings that were popping up like weeds in a garden.
“You’re not allowed to leave this bed ever again,” he said with a bemused grin. His eyes retained their seriousness though.
“Even for a bathroom break?” I asked.
He held me tightly and shook his head.
“Bedpan,” he muttered. And then he was kissing me again, fiercely. Possessively. I held on tight and kissed him back, just as hard. Who knew what tomorrow would bring? For tonight, we were safe and he was mine.
Chapter Sixteen
I awoke to something warm and wet moving pleasantly over the sensitive hollow behind my ear. I smiled when I recognized it as Gabriel’s tongue. I’d become quite familiar with it during the course of the night. The way it could be pliant and coaxing or rigid and conquering.
I couldn’t count the number of times we’d touched and explored each other, frantically— like students cramming the night before a final exam—before falling asleep with our arms tightly clasped around one another. The flutter in my heart every time I looked into his eyes scared the shit out of me, but I could at least rest assured that I wasn’t the only one who was holding on for dear life.
We had repositioned ourselves into a spooning position at some point during our slumber. Now his forearm rested on my side, holding me close to him as his fingers brushed over my breasts. His thickening erection bumped me from behind, and his hips moved in lazy thrusts against the seam of my ass. I generally mauled anyone who messed with my sleep, but this was a wake-up call I wouldn’t refuse.
“G’morning,” I whispered, reaching a hand behind me to cradle the back of his neck. I ran my nails over the fine hairs and sensitive skin there, and he growled into my ear. His hand slid from my breasts down between my legs, where I was already aching for his touch, even though I’d only been awake for a few seconds.
His fingers slipped between my folds, circling slowly, the lackadaisical motion somehow ensuring that he hit all the spots that were crying out for his attention. Sensation tingled through me to my toes, my nerve endings preparing themselves for the pleasure that was to come.
I gripped his neck harder and he paused, kissing along my jawline.
“Are you too sore?” he asked quietly. “I can stop.”
I ground against his hand. “Stop and I’ll kill you,” I said, working my hips so that my ass brushed against his erection.
He laughed that deep, bass tone laugh of his as he pulled his hand away, leaving me wanting. “I knew you wouldn’t be a morning person,” he said, rolling away from me. “I have just the thing for that.”
“So death threats aren’t enough to keep you at your job?” I glared over my shoulder. My mouth curved into a silencing smile when I realized he was sliding on a condom. He was a lithe silhouette in the scant light that peeked in through the blackout curtains, so I turned and moved my hands to his hard chest and muscular arms, trying to take in his form with as many senses as I could.
It still seemed so unreal that I was here, that we were together.
His heart beat under my hand as I traced his pectorals with my palms, a sudden and unpleasant reminder of his mortality. My mind replayed the scene with Blue Hat, how Gabriel had strode into the clearing like an avenging angel, heedless of the danger.
I nearly stopped breathing at the thought of what could have happened to him. It was a crushing sensation; I felt like a tin can in a compactor powered by my own fears, bombarded by worries that would leave dent after dent until I was pounded into something small and sad.
He’s mine now. Mine to lose. It could happen so easily.
I knew I shouldn’t let these thoughts invade our first morning together, and I fought against them, but not before he heard the hitch in my breath as I pulled away from him. He caught my wrists before I’d moved more than an inch.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you still worried about your parents?”
“No. Well, yes. But now...” I considered lying, but there was no need for that between us. He could bypass any walls I threw up anyway, which was part of why I feared losing him to begin with. “Now I’m worried about you too.”
“You weren’t before?” he joked. I felt like a fool, revealing my fears to him. I could just imagine John making fun of me if he ever knew. Girl, you dickmatized.
But it was more than that. I couldn’t explain the heavy feeling in my chest at the thought of something happening to him, how that mingled with the heady happiness that came from just being so close to him. Instead, I leaned forward and kissed him, taking him by surprise with the ferocity of my ardor. His mouth opened on a groan, and I took advantage, suckling at his plump bottom lip before nipping at it a bit harder than I should have.
His grip on my wrists tightened as he raised my hands over my head and laid me back down, his body blanketing mine. One hand secured my wrists while his other caressed my face, my neck, my shoulders, each touch dispatching a flurry of tremors through me.
He let out a soft laugh. “Why are you worried about me, again?” he asked, his voice rough. “I’m the luckiest man in the world right now.”
His mouth lowered toward me, his warm lips pressing softly against mine as he kissed his reassurance into me. His approach was the exact opposite of mine, tender where I’d been rough. His tongue prodded gently, and I opened for him, welcoming the controlled passion of his movements as he subdued me with licks and nips.
His knee worked its way between my thighs, spreading me. When his hand slid over my mound and cupped me, it was no surprise to him that I was wet and ready.
“I knew we’d be this good together,” he said as he stroked me. All I could do was nod and try not to cry out into the morning quiet of the house. “Maybe that’s why we fought so hard.” He settled himself between my thighs. “Because once we stopped, there was nothing to hide how right we were for each other. Because there’s no going back from this.”
I felt his cock nudge at my opening, already tightening in exquisite anticipation. I rocked my hips up to meet him, craving the thickness of him, but his hand pressed down at my waist, holding me in place. His weight was a constant pressure on me, although he took care not to crush me, as was the grip of his hands on my wrists and waist. I was entirely in his care, and my body trembled with the pleasure of it.
When he felt my body shaking beneath him, he finally slid into me and I welcomed the slow, relentless stretch. His breathing was labored and his muscles shook from strain, but he didn’t change the pace of h
is entry, despite my attempts to speed things up. I undulated against him, trying to claim more of him, to quicken the pace of the erotic throb that built in time with his maddeningly slow stroke, but in this position I was at his mercy. He was in control of both my pleasure and his. When he’d filled me to the hilt, he circled his hips on the withdrawal and repeated the motion. He did this again and again, each slow slide of his cock building upon the previous thrust but going slightly deeper, circling just a bit wider. After I let go of the frustration, there was only a delicious fullness and the pangs of pleasure as he found a spot I didn’t know existed inside me, plumbed some hidden depth. Sharp, brilliant bliss shattered me at the culmination of each stroke now, and I trembled with anticipation in between.
“I’ve got you, Arden,” he said, only the slightest strain in that voice that made my knees go weak. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The pace of his thrusting sped up, stoking the heat within me, and I struggled to move against him despite my constraints. My fears melted as he made love to me with the same fervent attention he applied to all of the things he cared about most. Strands of his hair brushed at my cheeks as he kissed me, capturing the tears that traced a path there. The tears didn’t fall from fear anymore, but from the pleasure that sluiced through my body in waves, assailing me from every front: the friction of his cock inside me, the pressure of his hand binding my wrists, the gentleness of the kiss we shared, the way my heart felt full to overflowing. It all combined within me, some raw alchemical mixture of sex and emotion I’d never allowed myself to experiment with before. The reaction was explosive.
I cried out into his mouth, arching madly beneath him as the sensation took me, as it both broke me and made me whole. My legs went up around his waist and held him to me as my inner walls clenched around his cock, and then he was gone, too, my climax pulling him along after me. Our moans intermingled between our breaths. He released my wrists and grabbed my face in his hands, holding me steady for a tender kiss even as the last wild thrusts of his hips subsided.
We didn’t move in the aftermath. His forehead rested against mine and we lay there simply breathing in and out. I didn’t know about him, but something within me had been utterly decimated, the high wall that had always protected that yawning need inside me. I didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but there it was.
A tentative knock sounded at the door.
“Oh my God, do you think they heard us?” I whispered, heat flooding my already flushed face.
Gabriel smiled—I could feel it through the darkness. “We can say it was those noisy deer again.” He kissed my nose before rolling off me. “What’s up?” he asked as he stood and disposed of the condom.
John’s muffled voice came through the door, the voice of someone dearly regretting all the wine he’d drowned himself in the night before. “I know this is highly unlikely, given certain, um, sounds that have been emanating from this general area, but Maggie isn’t in there, is she?”
I bolted up in bed, immediately on full alert. I may have been confused about some things, but this I knew was no good. Gabriel stopped midstretch, a still and silent shadow at the foot of the bed.
“Because I can’t find her anywhere, and I’m a little worried,” John continued. I was sure that if I had X-ray vision, I’d see him scratching his nose in agitation on the other side of the door.
Fuck.
I jumped out of the bed and my foot landed in a silky pile of fabric. My kimono. I pulled it from the floor and tried to find the armholes, all the while reassuring myself that Maggie wouldn’t have been stupid enough to leave the house again. Despite the fact that she was an overemotional teenager. Despite the fact that she’d done it before—a bit of information that only I was privy to.
I heard the slide of denim over skin as Gabriel got dressed too.
“One minute,” he barked. His voice sounded how it had the first time I’d met him—clipped and closed-off. Taking charge, but also taking everything onto himself. I didn’t know if there was actually anything to worry about, but if there was, we couldn’t go back to the way things had been. I’d flayed myself for him, and now he’d have to do the same.
I walked over to him, felt for his hand in the darkness and grabbed it. I could feel the slight resistance, the tension that emanated from him.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” I said, bracing myself. Against what, I didn’t know.
He sighed, the deep, tired sigh of a man who was berating himself for not doing enough. For not being able to control all the factors that affected our lives. “Arden, I have to—”
“You don’t have to do anything but listen. Once you do that, we can figure this out.” I squeezed his hand, hoping he got my message. It took a beat longer than I was hoping for, but he squeezed my hand too. “Maggie told me something last night,” I began, but then John shifted restlessly on the other side of the door, loudly cleared his throat and knocked again.
“You can tell us at the same time,” Gabriel said, pulling the door open.
“Sorry,” John said awkwardly. His eyes darted back and forth between me and Gabriel and our clasped hands, and he smiled. But it was a weak smile, overshadowed by the worry etched into his face.
“Nothing to apologize for,” Gabriel said, despite the fact that he was shirtless and we looked like two people who’d had crazy sex all night long.
John started heading toward the stairs. We followed him, and the scent of already-brewing coffee, to the kitchen.
“I need caffeine. And aspirin,” John said, rubbing at his temple with one hand as he poured coffee for all of us with the other. “Getting trashed so soon after a head injury isn’t the best of ideas.”
“Where have you looked for her?” I asked. “When did you notice she was gone?”
“She slept in the room with me last night, clutching a puke bucket, of course,” he said. “I woke up about ten minutes ago and she wasn’t there. I thought maybe she’d gone back to her room, since it’s already afternoon, but she wasn’t in her room or the bathroom or down here, either.”
Gabriel let my hand go and cupped both of his around his mouth. “Maggie!”
Both John and I flinched, but that was the only response he got besides a ringing silence. Panic bubbled in my chest, and I felt tears pressing at my eyes for the umpteenth time in twenty-four hours, which had to be some kind of record.
She wouldn’t have. She couldn’t have...
“Maggie was the one who was creeping around the bodies,” I blurted out, not sure how to relay the information delicately and opting for the sledgehammer approach. “I found my Louisville Slugger in her room last night when she blew up at me, and she told me she’d gone and searched them.”
John’s hand jumped and coffee splashed onto the counter when his head whipped in my direction. He clearly regretted the action, his face scrunching in pain as he squeaked out an incredulous, “What?”
Gabriel was silent. He watched me from across the kitchen, his expression stony.
“I tried to tell you last night,” I reminded him. Tension started to gather between my shoulder blades, spreading up to stiffen my neck.
His eyes narrowed, but then he gave a curt nod. “You did,” he admitted, and I felt a fraction of my worries ease.
“I figured she could tell you herself in the morning. It seemed like something you both should have heard from her,” I continued. Part of me felt guilty that I hadn’t forced Gabriel to listen, but I was tired of that particular emotion. I couldn’t have predicted her behavior any more than they could have, and they had the benefit of a lifetime of observation. “I don’t know if she left again—it would be ridiculous for her to leave—but you should know she’s done it before.”
“And here I thought she was such a Goody Two-shoes,” John said wanly before swallowing some aspirin with a gulp of coffee. “Turns out she’s just another alcoholic teen runaway.”
“Let’s just calm down,” Gabriel sa
id. “Why don’t we check the house again? Arden, you take upstairs. John, you do this floor. I’ll search the cellar.”
We fanned out, calling her name. The search took less than five minutes, since the house wasn’t that big. We were left with an unavoidable fact; Maggie wasn’t there with us.
The three of us met again in the kitchen. I forced my cooled coffee down my throat while Gabriel trudged outside to see if she was nearby.
“Why would she do this?” John asked. “Did she smoke crack last night, in addition to getting wasted?”
“I have no idea,” I said, and I didn’t. All I knew was that I was scared and, if she’d left of her own accord, betrayed. How could she do this to her brothers at a time like this? How could she do this to me?
I stood and rushed up the stairs, quickly rinsing off with cold water before slipping into thick tights and my jeans, along with a warm wool sweater. I rummaged through a hall closet for a coat, since mine had been ruined by Blue Hat’s blood, and found a nice goose down one that had the bonus of balled-up gloves in one of the pockets.
As I passed Maggie’s room I ducked in, hoping the scene we’d had last night wasn’t our final interaction. Her bed was unmade—it was never made, but now it seemed like one of those details that might be the last thing I remembered about her, and I hated it. I straightened her pillows and draped her duvet neatly over the wrinkled sheets just in case, a painful lump in my throat all the while. I hoped the bed would be messy again by night’s end. I couldn’t deal with another loss, with another relationship ended against my wishes and without me having a chance to make things right.
I stomped down the stairs in my Doc Martens, clutching my slugger, to find John watching Gabriel pack a bag.
“Her bow is missing from its case,” Gabriel said without looking up. “And some food is missing from the cellar. Not a lot, but a box of her favorite snack was ripped open...”
His words seemed to wrap around me, binding me with the reality of the situation. I was unable to move, barely able to breathe, as it set in; she really had left. The smiling, sulking girl had surprised all of us.
