Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
“It’s not real,” he says, taking my hand. “You don’t have to tell her anything unless we determine there’s a real problem.”
“Those men at the shelter threatened her with legal, as in criminal, investigations.”
“And I’m telling you that I will make this go away. Whatever I have to do, I’ll make this go away.”
“Gabe, you can’t—”
He leans in and kisses me. “I can. I will. Trust me. I need you to trust me, or at least give me the chance to earn that trust. Okay?”
My heart squeezes. “Okay,” I whisper, and his lips curve, his eyes lightening despite the shadows cloaking the car.
He releases me and starts backing up. I settle into the leather of the seat and inhale. I can’t wait for him to make this go away. I have to make it go away and I know what that means. I know that dark, horrible place I have to travel to make it go away. And before someone I care about, Gabe included, gets hurt.
Chapter thirty-six
Abbie
The ride to Gabe’s place is short and the awareness between us rich with sexual tension and a budding understanding that doesn’t require words. We’re both in this to stay. We’re both ready to be alone again.
He pulls us into his driveway, parking under a huge oak tree. “I’ll come around and get you,” he says, as he kills the engine and the lights.
I don’t argue. It’s been a long time since I was in a place where a man could come around and get me and actually did so by choice. And not because I live in Manhattan where cars aren’t feasible with parking fees, traffic, and pedestrians overflowing in the roads. My ex never did anything to be a gentleman. Not for a long time. Not for years of the marriage. And yet I stayed.
I flash back to that spontaneous moment when I’d kissed Gabe by the bathroom and thanked him for waking me up. He did. He keeps opening my eyes, and my heart, wider. He exits the vehicle and rounds the truck and my hand runs over the soft leather interior, the seat warmer a perk of the luxury vehicle that somehow doesn’t define the man. He has money. He has power and success. I know it’s in abundance because he felt no fear of my ex and Jean Claude, but I know this from his actions. He doesn’t walk around wearing his money and power as a weapon. He is his own weapon.
A weapon.
Gabe has so many layers I want to understand.
He opens the door and I rotate my legs, my feet hitting the gravel and Gabe offers me his hand. I stare at it, preparing myself for the jolt of his touch when that is nothing I have ever felt before. This man undoes me without even trying. I reach out and press my hand to his and his long fingers close around mine. His powerful arm eases me to my feet, and in a breath, I’m standing directly in front of him.
He reaches up, his fingers brushing my cheek, goosebumps lifting on my skin, and they have nothing to do with the cold breeze from the nearby ocean. It’s this man. It’s the way he turns me ten kinds of inside out. “You know what happens if I take you inside, right?” he asks softly, his voice a low, rough rumble of masculine heat.
“Take me to the shower because I smell like dog and I’m pretty sure horse and hay?”
His low, soft laughter that follows chases heat through my body. “A shower it is, but I won’t promise we’ll make it there before I undress you. I might just have to fuck you in the hallway.”
Fuck me in the hallway.
Yes.
Please.
Do it.
I have not had a man want me so much that he had to fuck me in the hallway in a lifetime, it seems. “That sounds like a self-control issue to me,” I tease.
He doesn’t laugh and then as a groan of thunder sounds somewhere in the nearby sky, starlight beams through the clouds, and illuminates his face, the depths of desire in his eyes as he says, “Control. Yes. It’s definitely a control issue.” He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses it. “Let’s go see who has it.”
Had anyone else said this to me, I’d back away. I’ve given away the control of my life for far too long. I need to own it. I need control. But this man owning my body and my pleasure that hardly seems like me giving up anything. It seems like it’s a reward for walking away from the past. I already know it’s pleasure. He’s pleasure, not pain, and I want the escape he offers. I want to forget the hell facing me in the morning light with my mother, legal issues, an ex that I swore my lifetime devotion to only to be burned and bruised emotionally.