A smile flickered on his lips. “It doesn’t matter,” he replied. He stepped forward so that her bare skin was pressed against the warm smoothness of his chest. “It’s all beautiful to me.”
“Gabe…”
His lips touched the side of her neck. “Beautiful,” he breathed, and she shivered.
She reached for the button of his jeans, sliding it out of the buttonhole. She pushed the jeans over his hips, sliding her hands beneath the cotton of his shorts and closing her eyes, adoring the feel of his firm flesh in her hands. Things moved faster now, with an urgent edge as Gabe helped her out of her jeans and panties all at once and then fused his mouth to hers, nudging her backwards towards the bed. They fell against the mattress together, completely naked now except for the cotton of her bra.
Instinctively she moved her hands to cover her belly.
With gentle patience, Gabe moved one of her hands aside and replaced it with his own, sliding his fingers over the soft skin, making awareness ripple through her. “Don’t hide,” he murmured, replacing his fingers with his lips. The breath caught in her lungs, need taking over where longing had been. She reached out and touched the side of his face, the stubble there rough against her fingertips. “Please,” she whispered, and he slid up the bed, covering her body with his own. He kissed her, long, slow, languorous, until she was pliant beneath him. Then, and only then, he slipped inside her.
Chapter Seven
Gabe felt her body close around him and clenched his jaw. So good, but too good to be over too quickly. He waited, struggling for control until he felt her move beneath him. He opened his eyes and found her gaze locked on his face. God, she was beautiful. So shy, so self-conscious, worried that he wouldn’t find her attractive. But he loved her curves. He loved that the changes in her body had been wrought by motherhood. They didn’t detract from her sexiness at all. Carly Douglas was all woman, and tonight she was his woman.
He set up a rhythm and then it was impossible to think. He could only feel; the heat of her body, the sound of her sighs in the golden light of the room. It gilded her skin with a warm glow as his body tightened. Her fingers dug into his back and her eyes slammed shut as she shattered beneath him.
Gabe grit his teeth, trying to hold on, but it was pointless. As Carly let out a long, sexy sigh of satisfaction, he drove into her one last time and into oblivion.
A thin cry sounded from across the hall and Gabe opened his eyes to look at his watch. It was only nine. It had only been an hour since they’d made love and already everything looked different. He was curled around Carly in the gray shadows of the room, her back pressed to his chest, and he felt the moment she awakened as Nathan cried again.
She slid out of his arms wordlessly and he watched as she scuttled across the floor to pick up her clothes. The cries increased as she rushed to put on her discarded jeans and her blouse. But more telling was that she never looked at him once. Not once.
After she was gone Gabe rolled to his back and put his hands behind his head. He’d pushed too hard. He’d seen the need in her and it had matched his own. Being with Carly wasn’t just about sex because she meant more to him. Had for years.
But now he recalled the day in her kitchen when she’d told him she wasn’t looking for romance. About how her life was focused around Nathan and making things right for him. So what was tonight for her, then? A quick scratch of an itch? Gabe refused to believe that she’d used him. She’d been too lovely and fragile for that. But clearly she was having second thoughts about what they’d done, reevaluating, and the last thing he wanted was her carrying around some misplaced guilt about what happened.
He had to be more careful with her.
He got out of bed and slid back into his jeans. Pulling the T-shirt over his head, he left the bedroom and peeked into the spare room where she was in the middle of putting fuzzy footed sleepers on Nathan.
Very, very careful. Because what Gabe was feeling was big and scary and real, and it wasn’t something Carly was ready for.
“Come have something to eat,” he suggested quietly. “Better late than never.”
She picked Nathan up and cuddled him close to her shoulder. “Maybe I should go, Gabe.”
But he couldn’t let her leave now. Not with this hanging over them. “You have to eat something, and I have a perfectly good dinner that is too big for one person.” He smiled at her.
“Just for dinner,” she said, and there was a bit of a warning in her voice. He was right. They’d moved too fast, and now it was time to take a few steps back. Get their footing again.
He popped the pasta dish in the microwave to reheat and put the salad and bread basket on the table as they waited. He turned on the dining light rather than lighting candles, poured ice water rather than popping the dealcoholized wine he’d bought. Carly clipped Nathan into his seat, fastening an activity bar across the front. A bright blue elephant seemed to hold his undivided attention.
Gabe didn’t want to do anything to add any extra pressure to Carly. But when the moments dragged on, silent except for the sound of cutlery against plates, he couldn’t stand it any longer.
“I’m sorry, Carly. What happened tonight…” He put down his fork. “It was wrong of me. I didn’t mean to push you into something you weren’t ready for.”
“Why was it wrong?” she asked carefully, also putting down her fork.
How could he explain? “Because you’re…well, you’re Carly.”
She wrinkled her brow. “And that makes me undesirable?”
“God, no.” She thought she was undesirable? Even after all they’d shared? “I’ve known you forever, you know?”
“I know.”
She stared at her plate.
“I don’t want to upset you. That’s the last thing I want. I just…dammit.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I should have been more careful with you.”
For long seconds they sat in silence until finally Gabe forced his shoulders to relax. “I didn’t mean to complicate things. Let’s just finish our dinner, okay?” He began to pick up his fork but Carly reached out and gripped his forearm.
“No, not okay. It’s already complicated and it’s driving me crazy. I want to know why being with me was such a big mistake. I think you owe me that, Gabriel.”
She called him Gabriel. She only did that when she was particularly scared or angry. He wasn’t quite as willing to take the blame as he’d thought. Maybe because he could still smell her on his skin. He searched for the words to explain how their joined pasts made things more difficult, that she wasn’t just some woman he could be casual with. “For God’s sake, Carly. You’re Brandon’s sister.”
“So what? You and Brandon haven’t been friends for years. You should fix that, by the way.”
“You said yourself you’re not interested in a relationship after the disaster of your marriage. You’re focused on Nathan and being a good mother and you said you weren’t interested in romance. I pushed the issue, and I understand it went too far. Let’s just take a step back, okay? Find our feet again.” If they could remain friends, get back to solid footing, perhaps all wasn’t lost. They’d leapt ahead several spaces tonight and the way she slipped from the room afterward told him it had freaked her out big time.
Carly fought to hold back the tears that were stinging the backs of her eyes. Everything he said was true. She had said all those things and she had meant them. Weeks ago. She loved Nathan more than she’d thought possible, and every decision she made from here on in was with his best interests at heart.
But she was still a woman. She still had hopes and longings and needs, and tonight Gabe had exceeded all expectations and dreams. Being with him, loving him, had been insane and wonderful. Now he was being so unbearably polite—and apologizing for something he need not apologize for. Did he really believe what he was saying? Or was it his way of letting her down easy?
She’d spent years in an awkward marriage with a man who never really loved her the way th
ey’d promised to love each other forever. She wouldn’t ever put herself in that position again. If Gabe thought they’d made a mistake, she’d gather what was left of her pride and keep on going. She was good at surviving, after all.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said, noticing her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else—higher and far too light to be attached to her current feelings. She pasted a smile on her lips and rose from the table, going to Nathan’s seat and beginning to pack up his things. “I really should be getting home so he can have his last feed and be put down in his crib for the night.”
Gabe got up from the table and she saw confusion in his eyes. She tucked a stuffed animal into the diaper bag and put it over her shoulder.
“I’ll call you,” Gabe said, coming forward. He gripped the handle of the seat and followed her to the door. She thought about insisting on taking Nathan herself but decided it was probably just as easy to make as few waves as possible.
He padded out to the car in his bare feet and fastened Nathan in the back. Carly checked the seatbelt and then straightened, keeping one hand on the door.
“Carly, are you sure we’re okay?” he asked, and she felt the words bubble up inside her. What if she let it all out? How she felt? How afraid she was? Where would her pride be then? She wouldn’t beg for his love, or hang all over him like a hopeful puppy.
He had admitted they’d made a mistake, that they’d gone too far, and that was that.
“We’re fine,” she replied. “I gotta go.”
He shut the door after she got behind the wheel, and stayed standing on the pavement as she backed out of the driveway and turned on to the road.
She was halfway home when she finally let the tears come. She’d given Gabe everything she could give tonight, and he’d handed it back to her. And the worst part of all was that she still loved him.
A week went by, and then two, and Gabe never called. Carly started having a love-hate relationship with her telephone, her heart leaping each time it rang, and then hating it when it remained silent. He’d said he’d call her. The absence of those calls spoke volumes. And Carly wasn’t going to call him. She’d done all the chasing she was ever going to do.
She wanted to say that she agreed with him. That making love had been a mistake. But she couldn’t. She didn’t regret it, or how he’d made her feel. Wanted and beautiful. That was what she chose to take away from the night, not the crushing words after.
She was in the backyard deadheading the flower beds when he came around the corner of the house. He looked more delicious than ever in a pair of board shorts and flip flops and a T-shirt that fit his shoulders perfectly. A jolt of awareness shuddered through her as she brushed off her hands, slightly sticky from picking old petunia blooms.
And as he came towards her all she could think was, He came.
“Hello, stranger.” Oh, well done, she thought. Her voice had come out all steady and cool. And he did look slightly chagrined, she noted as his steps slowed.
“Hey,” he answered back, stopping at the edge of the flower bed.
“How’ve you been?”
His dark eyes widened and she thought he looked a little confused. What had he expected? That she would fall into his arms as easily as she had last time?
“Not so good,” he replied. He met her gaze. “Sorry I didn’t call.”
“I didn’t really expect you to. It’s okay.”
Which was a damned lie.
“You didn’t?”
She picked up the bucket with the wilted blooms. “You made it pretty clear you wanted to take a step back from everything.”
“Me?” He held out his hand and then dropped it again. He stepped around the corner of the bed so they were face to face. “You were the one running scared. I stayed away to give you space.”
“Running scared?” Her fingers started to tremble on the handle of the bucket. “I distinctly remember what you said during dinner, Gabe. You were the one who said we needed to cool off.”
“Only because I saw you when you got up. When Nathan cried. You couldn’t even look at me. And you were in a big hurry to get back into your clothes. You couldn’t get away fast enough.”
Carly’s lips dropped open. “Good God, for a man who I thought was smart, you can be really dense! I wasn’t trying to get away. I was trying to get to Nathan as fast as I could so he didn’t wake you up.”
The moment hummed through the air as Gabe absorbed what she was saying.
“Then you showed up at the door and suggested dinner like nothing had happened. You were all dressed. It wasn’t come back to bed, it was come have dinner. I thought maybe I should go. And then everything you said…”
“You thought I was running scared.”
She nodded.
“But you don’t want romance.”
It was true. She had said that. Except that he was the exception and didn’t know it. She was simply afraid of screwing it up. But she was more afraid of letting him walk away this time, she realized.
“So you thought I was into one-night stands?”
“Of course not!”
“I trusted you. Don’t you understand that? I’ve always trusted you.”
“I know,” he replied, taking the bucket from her hand and putting it on the ground. “Believe me, even waiting as long as I did was torture. I said I wasn’t going to push. Only I couldn’t help myself.” He sighed and stepped forward, lifting his hand to cup her cheek. “I see you and I want to take care of you. I know how hard it is and I want to make your day easier. I don’t know what it is…” his voice dropped to a husky whisper, “…but you make a man want to do things for you.”
Carly knew of a few women whose fantasy was to be taken care of, but she wasn’t one of them. She wanted so much more than that. She blinked a few times, trying to figure out exactly how she was feeling and what she wanted to say. When Gabe leaned in again, she turned her head away while everything seemed to turn cold.
“I don’t know why I have to keep telling you this, but I’ll say it one last time, Gabriel.”
She looked him square in the eye and said firmly, “I don’t want your help. I don’t need your help. And I don’t want you hanging around out of any misplaced sense of guilt or obligation or duty.”
Carly’s heart gave a painful lurch when Gabe dropped his hand and stepped back. “Is that what you think this is about?” he asked. She tried to ignore the underlying hurt in his voice. She didn’t want to hurt him, not ever. But what he was saying…it wasn’t love. And Carly couldn’t settle for anything less. Not ever again.
She took a breath, trying to steady her emotions so that she could actually speak. “Think about it. In high school you took me to the prom. Why did you do that?”
“Because you were stood up and I felt sorry for you.”
Carly lifted an eyebrow, trying to hide how the truth hurt even though she’d asked for it. “Like you feel sorry for me now?”
Gabe’s expression darkened. “That’s what you think? That I kissed you out of pity? That I slept with you because I felt sorry for you?”
It sounded so harsh when he put it that way. And it wasn’t really what she meant. But she wanted everything—his love, his heart—and he was holding back. “Okay, so maybe not. But let’s be honest here. I was Brandon’s little sister and you knew I had a huge crush on you. You came to my rescue then, but I didn’t hear from you for years, not while I was away at school or after I got married. Not even when we lived and worked in the same town. What got us talking again? You came to my rescue, and I thank God every day that you did. Then I became poor Carly. Single mum trying to do everything and there you were, stepping in to assist.”
“So I’m wrong for wanting to help you?”
Carly wanted to cry. “That’s not it, don’t you see? I don’t ever want to be an obligation. I never want to be tied to someone because they think it’s their duty.”
Could she really tell him how she felt? She’d look f
oolish, wouldn’t she? After all she’d been through, she was still holding on to her romantic notion of love. Still believing in the fairy tale even though she had proof that they didn’t exist.
And yet she knew in her heart that nothing would be the same after today. What did she have to lose? Because it wasn’t what she was saying that would make the difference. It was what she wasn’t saying. She kept getting stuck on what she didn’t want rather than just telling him what she did.
“I don’t need to be rescued. I…I just need to be loved.”
Silence fell like an axe and Carly lowered her gaze. She knew it was probably a girlish ideal but she couldn’t escape the certainty that she was right. “What happens when I don’t need rescuing anymore? Where would we be then? Because you’re right about one thing. I never want to go through with anyone what I went through with Jason. And with you it would be so much worse.”
“Why worse?” He asked it quietly.
“Because I have loved you over half my life,” she replied, feeling more sure of herself with every breath. “Because you have always been my ideal and finally getting to love you and then lose you would be more than I could take.”
Gabe put his finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up the tiniest bit. His dark eyes were wide and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Say that again,” he ordered.
“Say what…”
“The first bit. Say it again, Carly. Please.”
“Because I’ve loved you half my life?”
He closed his eyes and Carly watched the lashes tremble.
Gabe fought against the emotion threatening to overwhelm him. Hearing her say the words was more—was better—than he could have imagined.
He opened his eyes to see tears in hers and he took her hands in his, squeezing. “I didn’t expect that,” he whispered. “I hoped. I hoped that maybe, with time, you’d love me back.”
Off The Clock: First Responders, Book 1 Page 7
