Gabriel

by S. Cook

  His hand stilled on my back. I moved against him, taking his face in both of my hands. He was frowning slightly, his face was warm, his cheeks freshly shaven. He smelled like aftershave.

  “It's not your fault and you have to stop blaming yourself for all of these things. I read your letters. All of them. Don't you think you've suffered enough?”

  He moved to pull out of my hands, to disagree.

  “I think you have, Gabriel. I think you have.”

  I moved to kiss him. Gabriel reached up to stop me, gently touching the side of my face. His fingers were hot on the sensitive bruises. Suddenly I was reminded of how hideous I must look with a bruised face and neck. I turned away from him so he wouldn’t have to look.

  “Baby look at me,” Gabriel pleaded.

  I turned back to him. His eyes were locked on me, searching my face.

  “You’re beautiful, always,” he said, pulling my face to his.

  His kiss was hot against me. I pushed his mouth open with mine, hungry for him, his touch. He pulled me onto his lap, holding me close, his mouth finding my neck, his hand in the hollow of my back. I sighed against his touch, wanting him, needing him.

  His phone rang. Loud and rude against our solitude. He stopped and regretfully pulled it out of his pocket.

  “I have to take this call. I'm supposed to be working right now.”

  I nodded at him, letting him lean back against the bed, the space between us filling with cold air.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  I moved to climb off him and he stopped me, his thumb trailing over my hipbone before squeezing my thigh.

  I smiled at him, bending and kissing his neck. He stroked my hair as I moved lower beneath his collar. I used my good hand to unbutton his shirt. His conversation was dull background noise. My lips brushed against soft hairs. I felt his breath hitch as my tongue found his pink nipples, teasing him. He leaned his head back, breathing hard on the phone.

  “I'm fine,” he said to the caller. “Just fax the files. I'll take care of it.”

  Slipping into the space next to him, I ran my fingers over his stomach, the hairs were soft, his breathing deep and even. I loosened his belt, pulling it out of the buckle. I watched his eyes as I unbuttoned his pants and slipped my hand into the space, finding him already hard and waiting for me.

  I pulled his pants down past his hips until they were at his knees. I stroked him slowly, watching his eyes close. His answers to the caller became clipped, single words.

  Leaning close to his ear, I whispered, “I want you. I want you to make me feel something.”

  He told the caller he had to go, hung up and let the phone drop to the floor. I climbed back on top of him, the phone buzzing against the carpet. He pulled my mouth to his, kissing me hard. His need melted me.

  I could feel my desire rushing. He pulled my shirt up, breaking the kiss for a moment to reveal my body to him. He ran his hands down my side. He slipped his hands into my panties. I moaned as I rocked against him.

  “I need these gone now,” he growled underneath me.

  I smiled at him, his need evident. I moved off him, then pulled off my panties. I quickly climbed back onto him, his cock nestled underneath me.

  He moaned softly.

  I moved against him, watching his eyes. He cradled my face in one hand, holding my hip in another.

  I moved slightly, letting him slip inside of me. I gasped as I took him gently, letting my weight push him deeper inside of me. I moved slowly against him, leaning forward onto his chest, completely forgetting about my hand. I pulled up quickly as pain shot through it.

  He caught me, rubbing my back, kissing me gently, urging my hips to move. He whispered, bringing me closer to him, letting me lean against him to balance my weight.

  “Baby, look at me,” he moaned. His green eyes locked on mine, intense, needing. “I want you to see how much I want you.”

  “You have me.”

  My hips sped up as his eyes fluttered closed. I leaned into him, pressing my breasts against his chest. I kissed his cheek, his ear as he held my hips down, keeping himself deep inside of me.

  I felt my orgasm building, my moans and breathing mixing with his. Our desire building until as one we came, the climax washing over us both. I kissed Gabriel's closed eyes before gingerly slipping off him. He reached for me as I slid my naked body under the covers keeping my body close to his.

  My hand and bruises were a dull ache. He kissed my forehead, letting me drift for a moment.

  “Oh no, you don’t. Wake up,” he said, laughing.

  “What?”

  “Wake up. Eat your pancakes and take some medicine and then you can go back to sleep.”

  I dragged myself into a sitting position and he handed over my breakfast. I opened the plastic container revealing a still steaming pile of pancakes covered in butter and syrup. My mouth watered involuntary as I dug in.

  “Are you going to share?” he asked.

  “No! You should have got yourself some if you wanted it,” I said, stuffing a huge bite into my mouth. “Did you get any orange juice?” I asked, around my full mouth.

  “Were you raised in barn? Wait until you swallow to speak,” he joked, handing me a carton of orange juice.

  “No, not a barn, a bar. By a man who was a functioning alcoholic. Or should I say non-functioning alcoholic.”

  Gabriel reached into the container with a fork and stole a piece of pancake. I cut my eyes to him. He shoved the fork into his mouth.

  “What about your Mom? I thought she passed when you were sixteen.”

  “My mom had Hodgkin's Lymphoma. She was dying for as long as I can remember,” I answered.

  “I'm sorry, darling. You don't have to talk about this,” Gabriel said, touching my hand.

  “No, it's okay. It's old news now. At first she was sick from the treatments. And then she gave up on that and she was just sick.” I shrugged. “And then she wasn't anything anymore.”

  I smiled sadly at him.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off, changing the subject. “Who was on the phone?”

  “That was my secretary. It's Tuesday and I'm not in the office to do payroll so everybody is in a panic.”

  “Damn! That's important.”

  He laughed and kissed me.

  “It’ll get done. She has my check signature stamp and knows how to do the payroll. Besides, right now this is more important.”

  I rolled my eyes, stuffing more pancakes into my mouth.

  “You're an idiot.”

  “A fool maybe,” he agreed.

  We ate together, laughing and enjoying each other until I drifted back into sleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gabriel

  “I have to go back home now,” she announced as she stood in the bathroom doorway.

  She was wrapped in the huge hotel robe, leaning against the door frame.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I've been here for three days, Gabriel. Three days,” she said and held up three fingers, in case her words weren't clear enough. “Three.”

  I leaned back on the couch and patted the cushion beside me.

  “Come sit with me.”

  “Three days is long enough,” she said again as she walked across the room and sat down beside me on the couch.

  “Three, you say,” I asked with a smirk.

  “It’s not funny.”

  I put my arms around her shoulders and pulled her close.

  “Don't try to change my mind.”

  “Just one more day,” I whispered and kissed her neck.

  She resisted, pulling out of my embrace and looked at me.

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Stop it. We can't stay like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “In this bubble. We both have responsibilities and the bar has been closed for days. I have to go back to my life. I have emplo
yees and I need to do something about Dad. I can’t stay holed up in this hotel forever. I have things that must be done.”

  “But what about me, and us?”

  “I’m serious. I have to go back to my life, and you need to go back to yours.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close again.

  “This is what I want. You. This. All of it,” I whispered.

  “You want hotels and take out?”

  My hand slipped up under the robe and I breathed against her neck.

  “No, not hotels and take out. I want to take you home with me. Back to Maine.”

  “What would I even do there?” she asked.

  “Anything you want. You could sleep all day. Read trashy magazines. Bake. Decorate cakes. Go to school. I don't care. As long as you're with me, I don't care.”

  She didn't respond and I asked, “What would you like to do?”

  “I don't know. Honestly, I’ve never had a chance in my life to think about it.”

  I sighed and ran my fingers through her hair, twirling the ends around my finger. “You want to know what I’d like to do?”

  She looked at me with a suggestive look on her face.

  “What?”

  “I want to tell you that I love you, Lynette,” I said softly.

  When she opened her mouth to respond, which I knew she would, I covered her mouth with my hand and shook my head.

  “If I let you start, you'll never let me finish. I love you. I want you and all of your problems and fears.”

  When I was done, I removed my hand from her mouth and looked at her, awaiting her response.

  “You can't love me,” she said. “You've known me for less than a month.”

  “I know all I need to know about you.”

  “I can’t just go to Maine.”

  “Of course you can. You can do anything you want to do.”

  “But what about the bar?” she asked.

  “What about it?”

  She hesitated slightly and shook her head. “What do I do with it? I can’t just leave it.”

  “Sell it?”

  “I can’t. My dad built that bar.”

  “Into the successful thriving business that it is now? Get real.”

  She pulled away from me and stood up from the couch.

  “Let me take you home with me. Things will be so much less complicated there.”

  “I should just leave my dad here by himself? He would be dead within a month and then I would have nobody but myself to blame.”

  “That would not be your fault.”

  “Take me home. I need to go. It’s been too long.”

  “Don’t be like that. There’s nothing here for you any longer. What are you going to do here?”

  She looked at me for a few seconds and her shoulders slumped.

  “I don't know.”

  “That’s not a good enough answer.”

  “But it’s the truth. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don't know how I feel. I don't know how I want to feel. I’m scared.”

  “It’s okay to be scared.”

  “Not for me. You make me feel, like I'm naked, exposed.”

  I ran my hand up her body, pushing past the tie to her bare side.

  “You are naked.”

  She sighed and turned her face to me.

  “I meant on the inside. Take me back home. I can’t escape forever.”

  I nodded, smiling sadly.

  On the way, she asked me to stop by the bar, since she had left her phone and her house keys there through all the chaos that happened that night. I wasn't even sure whether it would still be there.

  As we arrived, we saw the broken window had already been boarded up. When she tried the door, it was locked.

  “Shit,” she muttered and stepped away.

  I walked up to the door and said, “Allow me.”

  I used my cane to pry the board loose just enough so that my hand could fit through, and I opened the lock.

  She glanced at me with an impressed looked on her face and said, “You’re a regular MacGyver, aren't you?”

  “We’re taught a lot of things in the Army.”

  “Like breaking into buildings? Was that part of your basic training?”

  “Nope,” I said with a smile.

  Although basic training didn't include breaking into buildings, it did teach us to use whatever was around us to stay safe, stay alive, and kill if need be. Of course, I’d never tell her that.

  I opened the door and we stepped inside. The sunlight glittered on the broken glass scattered across the floor. I noticed she hesitated as she glanced at the shards, and the dried blood that stained the wooden floors. It looked like a crime scene, only the body was still alive.

  “Hey,” I said. She looked back at me. “It’s okay.”

  She nodded and took a deep breath.

  “I’m going to get my keys, and my phone. Hopefully they’re still there.”

  I nodded and sat down on a nearby barstool, waiting for her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lynette

  I turned and walked behind the bar, flicking on the lights as I went. I stopped abruptly and my whole body went cold as I noticed the door of the office was closed. I clearly remembered that I hadn't closed the door that day. I pushed the door open, afraid of finding my father inside.

  The office was empty.

  My phone sat on the desk next to my keys. I picked them up and turned to leave. My eyes caught the binder on the cot and I went back for it, then turned off the lights.

  Gabriel looked up as I approached. He stood and held out his hand. I smiled at him, holding the binder to my chest. I shook my head then looked away so he couldn’t see the tears forming in my eyes.

  “I really want to go with you to Maine.”

  Confusion spread across his face.

  “But?”

  “I can’t.”

  He touched my face, running his thumb under my bruised eye.

  “I can't just leave you. Not now.”

  I shook my head.

  “You're not leaving me. But you need to go home. And I have to take care of things here. I can't be like Terry. I can't just drop everything and leave on a whim. Life is full of responsibilities that must be taken care of.”

  His fingertips trailed down my arm one last time before he let me go. His green eyes were cloudy and dull. I held my own hands clasped in front of me, squeezing my palm to irritate the stitches, using the pain to distract myself from the pain on his face. Keep me from reaching out to him and changing my mind.

  He started to walk out and then stopped.

  “Come on. I’ll drive you to your apartment.”

  Ten minutes later, we walked down the hallway to the apartment and I opened the door.

  “Lynette, is that you?” my father bellowed from the kitchen.

  I breathed deeply, clutching the binder full of letters to my chest and looked at Gabriel.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m right here behind you.”

  “Lynette?” Dad called out as he came down the hall.

  His steps were shaky and he used the wall to support himself.

  “Where have you been, girl?”

  “I was with,” I paused unsure of what to say.

  “She was with me, sir,” Gabriel said and stepped forward.

  “You,” my father said through clenched teeth. He glared at me. “You brought that crippled boy into my house?”

  “Daddy, he’s not crippled. He was injured in the Army.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. You're home now and it's time to fix this mess. Hey, what happened to your damn face? Did he hit you? I’ll fucking kill him.”

  Dad spoke about Gabriel like he wasn't in the room, and it was both insulting and embarrassing.

  “Did you hit my daughter, you piece of shit?”

  “No, I didn't. I would never do that. Unlike you. You did that to your daughter. While you’re at it, look at the brui
ses on her neck where you choked her in a drunken rage.”

  “You’re a fucking liar,” Dad snarled.

  “Daddy, stop it,” I warned and shot an apologetic glance at Gabriel, but he was too busy concentrating on my father’s every move.

  With good reason, because last time they met it wasn't exactly a family get-together. His eyes started to darken again, as they had that night, and I stepped in between them.

  “You don't remember what happened?”

  Dad shook his head.

  “I'm not going to get into your business, but if he's hurting you, you shouldn't keep with him,” Dad said.

  I stood in the doorway, staring at him in disbelief.

  “You did this to me. You came into the bar and were upset about the foreclosure so you beat me up. Gabriel stopped you. You were choking me and he pulled you off me. You might have killed me if he hadn’t come in.”

  He shrugged as if it were nothing.

  “I might have slapped you, but I didn't do all of that. I wouldn’t do that. You know I wouldn’t. You’re my baby girl. It’s always been you and me since your Mom and Terry left us. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “But you did,” Gabriel snarled behind me and I glanced at him with a pleading look. He immediately backed away and I turned to my father.

  “No, Dad. Stop trying to deny it. You did this. Did you fix the window? Lock the place up?”

  He nodded.

  “Someone had to. You were gone. Maybe I’ve put too much pressure on you. But it will be different now, I'll help out more. I can even cut back on the drinking. If you’ll help me, I can do it. I’m sure.”

  I closed my eyes.

  This was so fucking hard. How many times had we played this same old song?

  He continued, “Is he a friend of your brother? Terry used to send pictures. I knew that boy looked familiar.”

  “Terry sent pictures?” I asked, almost not believing what I’d just heard.

  “What happened to the money that Terry sent?” Gabriel suddenly asked, giving Dad a hard look.

  “Why are you still here, boy? Don’t you have somewhere to be? You need to get the hell out of here and let me talk to my daughter alone.”

  “Answer the question, Dad.”

  My father's face dropped and then he smiled to cover up the lie he was fixing to tell. I’ve seen the look enough times to tell.