She’d bought the property where they first made love.
They’d been so hungry for each other they hadn’t worried about being discovered. Back then the weeds grew high, and the old shack had served as a blind for passing motorists or neighbors. Someone would have had to fly directly overhead to see them.
Later he snuck into her house and they made love in a bed for the first time. After landing the job at the oil refinery, he’d been able provide an occasional hotel room.
But most of his paycheck went to help Mama with the bills because Decker had cost them all a fortune in legal fees and lawyers. The day Mama said “no more” was a relief.
Guilt crowded out everything else for a moment. Not about Decker. Gage did everything he could for his brother.
But about Mia.
He’d been able to offer Mia so little, and she still loved him. Without reservation. And just when they were about to have a life together…. free of his family obligations and hers…
He carried the bowl into the bedroom. “Dessert in bed for my lady.”
Maybe they could carry on a long-distance relationship. He could decide not to re-enlist for his next four years. But he still had three years left on this one, and by then he’d be eight years in.
He had no right to ask her to give up her life here and move to San Diego to be with him. Being with a SEAL meant not really being with them for about fifty percent of the time. Why would she want to sacrifice everything for a guy who abandoned her? Who would continue to abandon her every time he was deployed?
He didn’t want to think about any of it right now. He just wanted to hold Mia, touch her, love her while he could.
She was wearing a filmy gown of pastel blue-green, and her eyes seemed to catch the color and reflect it. Her hair hung in waves across one shoulder, and she smiled as she took the first bite of the soufflé. He sat down on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes and socks, then stripped off his T-shirt.
He caught her gaze lingering on him. So of course blood rushed south and his dick hardened. Something about knowing she was sitting there naked under that gown drove him crazy.
He stripped off his pants but left his boxer briefs, then slid in beside her, and when she held out the chocolate-filled spoon, he accepted a bite and held the sweetness on his tongue before he chewed. It had a crisp outer layer, followed by a spongy cake, and then the chocolate crème. “That’s good.”
He slipped the gown’s spaghetti strap off her shoulder until her breast was exposed, then circled her nipple with his fingertip. It beaded beneath his touch.
“Gage.”
Just the way she said his name, breathy and soft, brought him to full arousal.
He looked into her eyes. “Eat your sweet. I can wait for mine.”
She offered him another bite and he took it.
“What if I can’t wait?” she asked, setting the bowl on the nightstand.
He swallowed. “We’ll finish it later.” They slid downward at the same time and pressed close together. He kissed her softly while he slid his hand up her leg beneath the gown. Her legs fell open when he found her with his fingers, and she hummed beneath his kiss.
The moist heat of her closing around his fingers, and the way she moved beneath his touch, made him painfully hard.
He removed his fingers to lift her gown over her head and tossed it to the foot of the bed. Her body was delicate and slender, her breasts high, and fuller than her small-boned frame suggested.
He wanted to touch and know every inch of her. But that was a double-edged sword. For every caress he gave her, she returned it with one of her own. And every slide of her hand along his side, his chest, his abdomen, pushed his need higher. When she freed him from his briefs and pushed him back, he was more than ready.
She lowered herself over him. The heady feeling of being taken in, a kind of caressing glide and gripping sensation, nudged him toward the edge.
She rode him with an easy, slow rhythm while Gage cupped her breasts and caressed her nipples.
Mia braced her hands on the bed above his shoulders as she began to pump in earnest. He gripped her hips while she moved and lifted his to meet her downward stroke.
He was closing in on the moment of no return when she reached behind her, cupped his balls, and rolled them in her hand. He didn’t just fall over the edge. He leapt over it. For a long moment all he felt was the ferocity of his release. It seemed to go on and on.
The white noise gradually cleared to include the hoarse sound of their breathing. He opened his eyes to find Mia smiling down at him.
“That was…” He took a deep breath. “If it got any better, I might not have survived it.”
She laughed. She sprawled on top of him and rested her head on his shoulder. “It was better than chocolate soufflé.”
He stroked her back and smoothed the tumbled yard of dark hair off her shoulder.
“I think I could sleep right here, just like this, for the next week,” she murmured.
Her phone rang, and they both groaned.
She reached for her cell on the nightstand disconnecting their bodies in the process. “It’s my mother. Her timing sucks, as usual.”
*
“Your brother was stopped for speeding tonight coming home from work. They said they got a tip about Mason buying drugs, and they found them in his car. Did Gage Fontenot have something to do with this?”
Of course she’d go straight for Gage. “No, Camille. Gage has no history of doing, buying, or selling drugs. You might want to look into some of the people you’ve been associating with lately. Someone who recently threatened me and obviously has an interest in smearing our family’s reputation.” Mia looked at Gage to find him still reclined, exposed and gorgeous.
Camille fell silent for several moments. “I’ll mention that to Mason. If I find out Gage is involved, I’ll crush him.”
“Gage is busy doing repairs to Mama Bet’s house. Someone broke in one of the attic windows last night in an attempt to enter the house. Luckily they didn’t get in since Gage has an alarm system wired throughout the place. The police were there, I was too, and he was with me all night last night. So I can guarantee he had nothing to do with any drugs in Mason’s car.
“In fact, I invited him to stay with me until his grandmother is released from the hospital. It seems there might be an organized faction involved in Mama’s neighborhood. Mason wouldn’t know anything about that, would he? He is buying up property in that area.”
“Of course he doesn’t know about people breaking into properties. He buys and renovates them, then turns them into rentals.” Her mother’s snooty outrage made Mia grimace.
“I thought he might have experienced a break-in at one of his properties. What are they going to do about the drugs found in his car?”
“The police are investigating, but Gerome had cleaned the car the day before and didn’t see the bag under the seat. So it had to have been placed in his vehicle today.”
“He may want to check the cameras at his office and start paying more attention to locking his car on a consistent basis.”
Camille didn’t like it when she criticized Mason. “So you’re just picking up with that Fontenot boy where you left off six years ago, after he ran out on you just like your father did me.”
Rage clear and cold rushed through her. “Oh, did Mason hire people to threaten Dad with a thirty-year prison term for drugs he didn’t buy? Did he tell him to leave the state or else? And as I remember it, you kicked Dad out of the house.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ask Mason, Camille. If you don’t know about this, then your boy went rogue and took something you said to heart.”
“And as for Dad… You got the house, pots of money, and both of us to hold over his head for four thousand a month per child. Eighteen years at four thousand a month seems like a good deal to me. It’s almost nine hundred thousand for me alone, counting the college tuition money you screwed
me out of. But then Mason only bagged you eight years. What more did you want?”
She heard her mother’s indrawn breath. “I wanted his respect and for him to keep his dick in his pants instead of his assistant.”
If Camille had hoped to shock her, she didn’t succeed. “You’ve had twenty-five years to move on and find someone who can fulfill that desire, Camille. I’ve moved on from his neglect and yours. What I do with my life is my business. I don’t interfere with your life or ask anything of you, and I would be thrilled to sever contact with you and Mason completely. In fact, I think that might be the answer to all our problems.”
“I think you’re forgetting that we’re all tied up with B and B together. You’re stuck with us whether you like it or not.”
Camille would try to ruin her business so she could suck her back into the fold. But Mia decided in that moment that she’d let it go and let the bank have the stock if her mother screwed with her. Camille would be cutting off her nose to spite her face.
She hung up before her mother could say anything else.
Gage’s touch on her shoulder made her jump.
“Come to bed and let me hold you, Mia.”
She felt cold until she nestled in against him, skin to skin. “I hate that she brings that kind of nastiness out in me. I can even hear her voice saying similar things, but I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“How much hurt are you supposed to absorb before you finally have to say ‘no more?’ I was thinking about how much Mama, Roman, and I absorbed when Decker was doing drugs and getting into trouble. Mama finally said no more and let him face the consequences. And then he had the nerve to say she’d betrayed him.
“I learned then that drawing a line is an act of survival. Roman, Mama and I gave up our lives for two years to try and straighten Decker out, and he nearly brought the whole family down, financially and emotionally. You’re smart to draw a line and stick to it.”
Mia cuddled closer. “She wants control of everything. I was just a baby when my father left. He was unfaithful to her, and she kicked him out.
“My grandmother tried to help her cope. My mother is her only child, but these days they rarely speak because of how Camille behaves. It hurts Mamie every day, and she blames herself. She doesn’t understand how Camille can be so heartless when she was raised with all the love she and my grandfather could give her.”
“Everyone loved her but the man who’d taken an oath to,” Gage said.
She thought about that for a moment. She understood how devastating that was because she’d experienced the same thing when Gage broke everything off and left. But Camille took her obsession with punishing her ex-husband for his indiscretions to a whole new level.
“Nothing is ever enough for Camille. Even if he’d worshipped her twenty-four hours a day, she’s like a leech, sucking everything up and still hungry for more.
“But on a happier note, they pulled Mason over and searched his car.”
A quick smile flitted across Gage’s face. “Karma’s a bitch.” He brushed a kiss over her forehead. “You’ve had enough for one day, Mia. Just close your eyes, relax, and let everything that happened today go.”
She didn’t think she could do that.
Gage kissed her shoulder. “Close your eyes and let me shoulder things for you. Just pile them on me.”
She imagined doing that, closed her eyes, and was out in seconds.
CHAPTER 16
‡
The apartment was quiet in the mornings. In fact, it was quiet all the time. They must have added extra soundproofing when it was built, because noise from the business below never infringed.
He was home and didn’t have to get up at five, but his internal clock went off every day between five and five thirty. He wished it wouldn’t, because it gave him too much time to think. He fed Jazz, poured his first cup of coffee, turned the television on to a news channel, and propped his bare feet on the coffee table. He kept the sound turned off and read the closed captions at the bottom of the screen so it wouldn’t wake Mia.
Jazz finished eating and slinked over to join him on the couch, tramping back and forth across his lap, then standing on one thigh and meowing at him.
Gage stroked him absently while he mulled over the events of the week before. Worry about Mama, the drugs planted in Mama’s house by the cops, and Mia’s run-in with Abney had created a pressure different from what he experienced during a mission. But he still felt on edge, and on high alert much of the time.
The one release was renewing his relationship with Mia, in bed and out, although his guilt about leaving her hadn’t completely abated. How could it, when he recognized the changes in her caused by his betrayal and her family’s?
After just a week in her home, spending time with her, making love with her, all the feelings came back, almost as if they’d just been asleep for the past six years. It was dangerous to love someone like this. They were both scarred by their separation years before, so how would it be any easier to deal with it when he had to go back?
He raked the thick, wavy hair back off his forehead. A picture of Mason came on the screen with his name posted beneath, and Gage leaned closer so he wouldn’t miss any of the captions scrolling across the screen. A hearing had been scheduled for the case to be discussed. He’d only been held a couple of hours. It would be perfect karma if the son-of-a-bitch had to eat a prison sentence, but Gage couldn’t see that happening. The rich guys rarely served time because there was always a loophole for them to slither through.
And Gage still felt that niggling worry that the asshole might find out that it was Mia who planted the drugs on him, though she swore she’d avoided the cameras and their driver while doing it.
Jules called the day before and told him Abney had fallen off the New Orleans grid. But that didn’t keep Gage from feeling like Mia might still be in Abney’s sights. If what she saw was true, the bastard had a lot to lose if evidence came to light.
Besides, sticking close to Mia whenever they went out, and even when they didn’t, wasn’t exactly a hardship.
But this lull was making him antsy. He got similar feelings during a mission sometimes, and they were always hit shortly after those feelings by something dangerous that came out of the blue.
He checked the clock. Lottie would be arriving in a few minutes, and he’d go down and get some beignets for Mia as soon as they came out of the oil. He scooped Jazz off his lap, laid him on his blanket at one end of the couch, and left the apartment.
He returned with the pastry and set out eggs and bread to fix Mia some breakfast before she left for her meeting with the bank president. Then he fixed fresh coffee and took a cup into the bedroom.
He waved the cup under Mia’s nose, then stood back. In the past week he’d learned that having some coffee before her feet hit the floor was the one luxury she really enjoyed. He made a point of making it each morning and had been generously rewarded for his efforts.
She stirred and stretched, the looked up at him through sleep-slitted eyes.
“Wake up, sleepyhead. You have that meeting first thing this morning with Clarkson. I went downstairs and sweet-talked Lottie into selling me some beignets before the café opened. And I have eggs ready to scramble and bread ready to toast so you won’t feel guilty about eating sweets this early.”
She covered a yawn, then wiggled up into a seated position. “Why are you always so energetic in the mornings?” She plumped a pillow behind her, accepted the cup he handed her, and took a sip. With a hum, she leaned back against the pale oak headboard, balanced the cup on her thigh, and closed her eyes again.
“I thought you liked how energetic I am in the mornings. You seemed very…appreciative yesterday, and the day before that, and the…”
She laughed and waved her hand. “You’ve made your point. I’m very appreciative of it…after I’ve had my coffee.”
Gage laughed. “So caffeine is the key. Got it. Would you like breakfast in bed? I can arr
ange that.”
“No. I’m awake now.” She took a healthy sip of the coffee, set it on the oak nightstand, and threw back the covers.
The short, skimpy gown barely covered her ass. Her sweet, warm, sexy, naked ass. A wave of pure lust pumped through Gage’s system, and he felt the impact of it all the way to his toes.
She had that meeting. But a little sex would prime her for it. She’d be wide awake and energized and she’d eat Clarkson for breakfast.
And it would only take a few minutes.
He caught her hand and brought it to his lips while at the same time he looped an arm around her waist and brought her in close against him, allowing her to feel just how energized he was. He rested his hand on her barely-covered ass.
Mia’s eyes leapt to his face, and she smiled. “You’re going to make me late for my meeting.”
“I promise to be quick and good. Really, really good.”
Mia laughed.
He kissed her like he hadn’t had sex in months. Which he hadn’t before coming home and seeing her again. He eased her back on the bed, then bailed out of his clothes as if African fire ants had invaded them.
He stifled Mia’s laughter with another kiss and felt her go soft and pliant beneath him while her hips rose against him in invitation. Using his fingers, he found her wet and ready for him, so he tempted her further, until she was humming beneath his touch and running her hands up and down his back. He slipped inside her and felt the warm grip of her body around him at the same time she cupped his ass. God, how would he ever live without this again?
She nipped his earlobe, then sucked on it, and an avalanche of sensual chills went arrow-straight to his dick. Desperate for her, his pace leapt to quick, deep strokes while her sighs fed his need and urged him on. Her answering movements drove him further. The unbearable pleasure built and built until it was almost painful—until her cry of release triggered his own and he groaned in relief.
Afterward, he lay facedown for several moments, trying to catch his breath.
Hot SEAL, Midnight Magic (SEALs In Paradise) Page 14
