by Cole McCade
She curled away from him, but he stroked his fingers over her hair, trailing its length over her naked shoulders with a soft touch. “I’m clean, Leigh.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word for that? How do you know I’m clean?”
“You’re too smart not to be careful, considering the choices you make.”
“Condoms break. Things happen.” She dragged herself out of bed and tugged her panties and tank top to rights. Every inch of her body hurt, a soreness she’d savor at any other time, spasming through her in hot flushes, but right now… “I’m going to the emergency clinic.”
Gabriel sighed and sprawled back against the pillows, draping his arm over his head. “It can wait until morning.”
“No. It can’t.”
“It takes up to two weeks for a reliable test result after unprotected sex. Going tonight won’t do anything but frustrate you.” He watched her from under the shadow of his arm, pale eyes chaotic as a storm front. “We’ll use a condom next time.”
“Why? The damage is already done.”
“If either of us has anything, it’s not a one hundred percent transmission rate. Why take the risk again?”
Because it felt good, she thought. Because I wanted that dirty feeling without the ever-so-sexy STD pillow talk after. Because I wanted to be a bad girl, and wanting to be a bad girl has driven every horrible decision I’ve ever made.
She muttered and grabbed her hoodie. “There won’t be a next time anyway.”
Gabriel sat up, the bed-springs creaking. Broad hands gripped her hips, spanned the breadth of her body, pulled her to stillness where she couldn’t escape the way he looked at her: like she mattered to him. Like he didn’t want her to leave.
“I think there will,” he said.
She scowled and glared at the wall over his shoulder. “Because I’m going to want to fuck you with that guillotine hanging over my head for the next two weeks. Sure.”
“You won’t even be here in two weeks.” He might not have meant it as an accusation, but it struck like one. “So I suppose if it happens, we live separately with the consequences of what we’ve done. But there’s no point in worrying about it right now.” He touched her cheek, drawing her gaze back to his own. “You’re not worried about the STDs. You believe me when I say I’m clean.”
“Like fuck I do.”
“You do.” His eyes narrowed. “And you’re not worried about getting pregnant again.”
“Birth control fails.”
“Not that often.” He leaned up to press his mouth to hers—but she turned her face away. He sighed and rested his brow to her shoulder. “You’re so terrified of intimacy, little mouse. I wonder why.”
She flinched. “That wasn’t intimate. That was me trying to distract you.”
“My mistake.” His grasp drew her closer. “Come back to bed, Leigh.”
“Is that an order?”
“It’s a need,” he said, soft and entreating, and as she met his eyes she realized he was still in pain. Still in pain and hiding it, for her. Hiding the fact that deep under that proud, domineering skin was a broken man who needed the comfort that came after, as much as the distraction of burying himself in her body and forgetting everything but the heated friction of skin on skin.
“…oh.” She practically mouthed it, just a breath, then scowled, relented, and leaned into his touch. “God, you irritate me.”
He chuckled—and when he drew her down into his lap, she let him, huffing and curling against his chest and letting herself just ache with what he’d done to her inside and out.
His breaths ghosted over her hair. He settled back against the bed, cradling her close. “I only irritate you because I’m starting to get under your skin.”
“You can stop the smugness any time now,” she muttered. “Chlamydia isn’t exactly what I want to remember you by.”
“I don’t have chlamydia.”
“Says you.”
He laughed, full-bodied and warm and deep, building up to a reverberating boom in his chest. “So you want something to remember me by?”
She glared at him and shoved at his chest. “No. No. Absolutely not.”
With an amused sound he caught her hands, held them, and kissed her—a kiss like a sigh breathing past her lips, exhaling her willpower from her until she sank against him.
“Leigh,” he murmured against her mouth, as his tongue traced her lower lip.
“Mm.” She tasted him when she licked her lips; she lowered her eyes, focusing on the beat of his pulse against his throat and the sharp fierce line of his collarbone. “That’s not my real name, you know.”
“Oh?”
“It’s my middle name. My first name is Clarissa. I always hated it.” She rested her head to his shoulder and curled her hand against his chest. “No…I hated the way people said it. Like it was supposed to remind me who I was, and where my place was.”
“Ah.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Choosing your name let you choose your place.”
“Something like that.” She didn’t know why she was telling him this. Maybe because he hadn’t asked, and for once she wanted to be herself with him without him having to pull it out of her—even if it meant telling him the honesty in her dishonesty. “It let me be who I wanted to be. It let me be who I really am.”
“Then I shall continue to call you Leigh,” he said, and gathered her close within the cocoon of his arms.
She didn’t know how long they sat there, listening to the music and the laughter and the rattle of bottles from below, watching the light change through the window as the moon curved its path across the sky. It was easy to just be with Gabriel, when she stopped fighting him. To close her eyes, breathe out everything inside her, and just be.
At some point he drew the blankets up over them and slid down to rest against the pillows, but by then she was already near-gone, drifting off with a sense of security she hadn’t felt in a long time. The feeling that no matter if he gave her body the abuse she craved, Gabriel wasn’t even capable of visiting the same kind of pain on her heart. Some types of men were like that, she thought as she struggled against her sinking eyelids and the yawn building in her throat. So sincere, so honest they let the world break them over and over until they developed such thick outer armor but underneath it all, never really changed. Gabriel wouldn’t hurt her.
But she would hurt him. She knew that without a doubt, because it wasn’t in her nature to do anything else.
Heavy steps thudded up the stairs. She stirred drowsily. At some point in the last hour the noise below had faded to nothing but running water and glasses tinkling together, and the sound of the register closing out. Now Gary trudged into the room, brushing the beaded curtain aside with a clatter—only to stop and stare at Leigh and Gabriel, his witch-eye as wide as his glassy fake.
“Did you fuck in my bed?” He groaned and dragged a hand over his face. “Oh, God. You fucked in my bed.”
Gabriel chuckled; Leigh hid her smile against his chest and closed her eyes tight. “Sleeping.”
“Burning those sheets,” Gary retorted.
“In the morning.”
“Fire. Not enough fire in the world.” Gary clumped over to the couch and threw himself down, then muttered, “…told you so.”
Leigh opened one eye. “I am surrounded by smug bastards, and I swear the next one of you to say a single word is getting punched in the mouth.
Gabriel started, “I—”
“Punched. In the mouth.”
His shoulders shook underneath her, his quiet laughter echoed by Gary’s more raucous cackle. “Goodnight, Leigh.”
“’night.” She closed her eye again, and wondered at the strange, almost alien urge to grin. “Fuckers.”
* * *
She slept with a contentment she couldn’t remember feeling since she’d been a little girl, and the world had been as simple as sugar cookies for finishing her homework and telling the secrets of dandelions to her fi
rst paper-bound diaries. Gabriel’s breaths were the rocking of the sea and rolling of the tides, lulling her into a quiet that didn’t break until the sun was high. She woke with her skin feeling hot as fever and Tybalt’s bony weight on her feet, and the noise of a car alarm on the street below still ringing in her ears.
Before she even opened her eyes, she knew Gabriel was awake. She was starting to learn him, the feel of him, and she knew the waiting stillness that informed every line of his body and held him so perfectly motionless beneath her, vibrating in the possessiveness of the heavy arm draped over her. She was almost afraid to look. Looking meant confronting that she was here. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken up next to the same man twice in a row. Maybe the last time she’d slept next to her husband, but Gabriel wasn’t her husband.
She’d never been more grateful for that.
“You can stop faking,” he rumbled, low laughter edging his voice. “I know you’re awake.”
“Asshole.”
But it pulled a smile from her. She opened her eyes, looking up at how the sunlight fell over his face and sanded off the sharp edges. He lay relaxed against the pillows, his eyes soft with sleep and his hair a tousled mess across the cotton, body stretched out in a powerful sprawl.
“You’re looking better,” she said.
He met her eyes, a contented smile softening the stern line of his mouth. “I’m feeling better.”
“Past the worst of it?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, his eyes hazing. “It’s not the sort of thing where you just see it through to the other side and walk away clean. Once it’s in you, it’s in you. Like a stain that never washes off, and you never know when it will turn up again.”
“I think I know a little too much about that.”
“I know you do.” His knuckles grazed her cheek, a touch so soft it barely skimmed the fine hairs of her face. “That’s why I trust you.”
Her blood slowed. She stared at him. “You shouldn’t.”
“You trusted me,” he said. “You were terrified of me last night, but you trusted me.”
“I’ve recently proven I’m a notoriously bad judge of character.”
He let out a brief, amused snort, then leaned in and pressed his lips to her brow. He lingered, his warmth soaking into her like firelight, and she closed her eyes.
“Thank you,” he breathed, praying the words against her skin. “For pulling me back from the edge. I’m sorry. I don’t—I would never, not unless you wanted me to—”
“I know.” She opened her eyes and pressed her fingers to his lips. “You’re like me. You…you understand the difference. And you know what it feels like to want things that scare other people.”
“As long as you want them too, little mouse.” He caught her hand and pressed his lips to her palm. “As long as you want me.”
The words carried with them a question. A question he should know better to ask, when nothing had changed. As soon as she had the money from Maxi, she was gone. Putting down roots here was bad for her.
Even if she was having trouble remembering why, when all her reasons suddenly seemed flimsy and shallow and nothing but a reflection of her own selfish fear.
She pulled back, her chest tight. “I’ll make breakfast. Gary will be up soon.”
Gabriel’s arm tightened on her—then fell away, letting her go without protest. His gaze was knowing, and yet for once he let it lie, simply raking her bare legs with an amused look as she climbed out of bed.
“Then you might want to find something to wear,” he said. “Unless I’ve misunderstood the nature of your relationship.”
She wrinkled her nose, glancing at the sleeping pile of rickety bones on the couch. “Ew. He’s like my Dad, Gabriel.”
“Would you parade around half-naked in front of your father?”
Her gut clenched. She turned away quickly, lest he see what surely must be written on her face, memories that would break her if she let them rise up again. Bending, she snatched up her skirt from the floor with clumsy fingers. Her ripped skirt, torn from waist to hem.
“Leigh?” Gabriel asked softly.
She clenched her fingers in the fabric. “You ruined my skirt.”
“Sew it back up. I think you’ll like it better that way.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
She stuffed the skirt in her backpack and dug out a pair of tiny raggedy cutoff shorts, wiggling into them—and wincing when they pressed up against her still-wet, clammy panties. She felt bruised to soft-swollen tenderness, and any other time she might savor it, if she didn’t feel like she’d been punched in the chest.
“Something’s wrong,” Gabriel murmured.
“I feel like I fucked a cactus, that’s what’s wrong.”
His laughter was low and indulgent, but it didn’t stop him from getting up, levering himself out of bed with lazy strength and prowling close. He corralled her with rough hands on her hips, and she sulkily let him draw her close. “You are a mistress of evasion. Tell me you’re not upset about having sex with me. You’ll break my heart, little mouse.”
“You are such a sarcastic asshole.” But she leaned against him, resting her brow to his chest. “Believe it or not, it’s not you. This time.”
“Do you want to tell me what it is?”
“What’s the point?”
“There’s a point.” He nuzzled her hair. “If it helps you, there’s a point.”
“Don’t, Gabriel.” She pressed her hands to his chest and pushed back. “Don’t get attached.”
Once more, he let her go. She turned away and pulled the fridge open, but she didn’t even see what was inside. She just stood there, staring in at the sputtering white light and letting the cool air wash over the nauseated heat flushing her face.
“You’re really leaving, then?” he asked, and she curled her fingers tighter against the refrigerator door.
“As soon as I have the money.”
Warmth against her back. Strength. Arms around her waist, beating back the chill of the fridge, and this time she couldn’t escape, didn’t want to.
“Then come out on my boat with me.” His voice rumbled through her as he leaned into her. “Just for one night.”
She tilted her head back against his shoulder and curled a hand against his arm. “Are you asking me on a date?”
“I’m asking you to spend one more night with me, since you’re leaving. That’s safe for you, isn’t it? One night, and then you can leave me at your back.”
Leigh stiffened. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not.” A soft kiss brushed to her shoulder. “I’m trying to work within your comfort zone.”
“You make me sound like I’m too fragile to handle anything more.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m not fragile,” she hissed. “Maybe I’m broken, but it didn’t come easy.”
He turned her in his arms, until she couldn’t escape the tender way he cupped her face in his palms, tilting her up to meet his eyes, looking into her as if he understood all her secrets and only wanted her more, when she didn’t understand how that was possible.
“What struck you hard enough to break you, little mouse?” he whispered, and her breaths shuddered from her, sharp with an old and half-forgotten pain.
“Believing a promise that was always a lie.” She covered his hands with her own, clasping them as if they could somehow hold her together. “Believing the kind of promise that…that I can never afford to believe again.” She took a deep breath, then confessed, “I’m still married.” A humorless laugh cracked her mouth. “I think. I don’t know. Maybe he divorced me, and I just wasn’t around to get the papers.”
She’d thought Gabriel would pull away, but he only gathered her closer. Enfolding her. Sheltering her. “Do you still love him?”
“I’m not sure I ever did.”
“Did he love you?”
“I…I thought he did. I’m not sure anymore.”
�
��Then why did you marry him?”
“I don’t know. Because I was afraid of being alone? Because…he was nice, at first—no.” She shook her head. “Because it was expected of me.” She faltered, averting her eyes. “I spent my whole life doing what was expected of me.”
“What about what you wanted?”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“But is this what you really want?” Gabriel’s thumb stroked her cheek. “Is it?”
She couldn’t answer that. It would make leaving too hard, when she needed to be able to walk away without looking back. She closed her eyes, resting her brow to Gabriel’s chest.
“It’s good enough for now,” she said.
“You won’t choose what you want, but you ran away from what was expected of you. That’s nothing but a life in limbo.”
“Maybe I like limbo. Nothing bad happens in limbo.”
“Did something bad happen in your marriage?”
Leigh only shrugged, her head filled with the smell of gunsmoke and the sound of cries of fear, her heart filled with a poison that had weight and gravity enough to crush her. “Does it matter?”
“It matters.” And still he didn’t let her go; still he held her as if he could protect her from herself. “Tell me. Tell me, little mouse.”
No, her heart said, but her lips were already moving.
Tell me, he’d asked.
And so she did.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHE’D ALWAYS HATED HOSTING THESE parties.
Leigh leaned against the patio door and watched people mingle on her back lawn, uniform in their pastel cardigans and white capris and trendy little straw sun visors. Party music that had gone out of style in the nineties played just loud enough to make these aging, red-cheeked bankers and their flock of bland fluttering wives feel like they were young and hip and so totally with it. The air smelled like fresh-cut grass and pâté and the weird not-meat smell of gourmet hot dogs, however the fuck anyone made hot dogs gourmet. Her skin crackled oily as a griddle in the heat, and her only company was a cloyingly sweet little umbrella cocktail, the scent of her own summer sweat, and the pink squirming bundle in the shaded bassinet at her side.
