He had not come near her since that night and she needed him, she needed him to see how hungry she was for him. Her body burned with want and desire. She craved his touch, the touch he had denied her for so long.
She knew she had to earn his trust back. Tonight would be the first step to doing just that.
“Come here Gabriel,” she called to him, his eyes roamed her face, her lips a shining beacon.
Gabriel took a few tentative steps towards the couch where Mia sat and she grabbed his belt, pulling him closer.
Gabriel was by my side, compelled, he could not resist. I gripped his belt, pulling him closer still until his buckle was level with my face.
He was wearing his tan cowboy hat and a singlet that smelled of earth and hard work, the white cotton singlet hugging his tanned body which rippled beneath it. I ran my hand on his abs, flat and hard like corrugated iron. He hissed at my touch and tried to pull away but I yanked at his belt keeping him next to me.
Her heart pounded as he lay his eyes on her, dangerous eyes, eyes that promised all the things he didn’t say.
Mia sucked in a deep breath as she pulled at the buckle releasing the belt, allowing it to fall open. Gabriel stood frozen before her, the cords of his neck taut, his jaw tight. She undid his button and unzipped his jeans, allowing her knuckles to glide along the erection already pushing, tightening, hardening, already ready, willing, hers.
She pulled on his jeans, they fell around his ankles his boots protruding from above the well-worn fabric.
Gabriel let out a guttural wild sound as I released him from his boxer shorts. His dick stood hard and twitched as I reached for it.
A low, almost inaudible moan escaped Gabriel as Mia’s mouth closed against his rigid cock. Her tongue flicked against his head, her lips closing against him, sucking, licking, as she took him in, slowly, adjusting the vacuum of her mouth, warm and sultry.
“Fuck Jane,” he said in his scratchy voice. Gabriel weaved his hands through my hair, his body moving with his driving need.
I was intoxicated by him, absorbed in him, I could smell the sunshine and country and grass on his skin, his muscles screamed from hard laborious days in the fields. And the taste. Like home, like he was always meant to fill me in all the right places.
Mia’s nails dug into his hard ass as he thrust into her, surrendering to her in full, as she took all of him. His body shook, his cock engorged, rigid, swollen. Gabriel sucked in breath, panting as his knees barely held him up.
Two thundering taps on the door echoed through the apartment, without waiting for an answer, the handle turned down and the door swung open. I choked for a moment, Gabriel’s hardness suddenly suffocating. I pushed Gabriel out of my mouth.
I caught a glimpse of Björn’s questioning eyes as I turned back to my computer. Beside me, Gabriel stood, his aching bulge centimetres from my face, his need and despair written on his face. The pain of it. I had felt how close he was.
I heard Björn’s steps behind me as I tried to suck in calming breaths trying to settle my heart. He placed a single, delicate kiss on my shoulder.
“What has got you all warm and fuzzy?” Björn tucked his head on my shoulder and his eyes flickered over the screen. “I see.” He trailed a few more kisses along my neck and came to stand beside me.
He didn’t wear jeans but had his tailored navy-blue suit on. He stood there, silently. Waiting. His eyes falling to my wet lips. Lips that had just been around Gabriel, lips that left him wanting. I reached for the button of his pants, and just like Gabriel, he was already aroused, hard, needy.
The pants pooled to his ankles, his black socks peeking around his ankles. My eyes trailed his long powerful legs, landing on the erection, pushing through his boxer shorts, begging to be touched.
I released him from his boxers, his dick swollen and hard. Björn didn’t move. His nose flared as his chest rose and fell in quick succession. I reached for his hardness and closed my mouth around it, my mouth already wet, already practised. A growl of pleasure emanated from Björn’s throat as I sucked him slowly, pulling him deeper into my mouth, my throat. A hand weaved through my hair and he gathered the strands between his fingers already wild already tussled from another’s hand. He moaned his pleasure as I drew him in, the hot wetness of my mouth prompting his hips to move in slow measured pulses.
“You fucking bitch.” I heard Gabriel’s voice by my ear, my head bobbing up and down along Björn’s cock.
“Jesus Jane, what are you doing to me?” it was a muffled strained whisper. Björn’s body began to quiver. I latched to his tight buttocks, his hands guiding my mouth, his thrusts quickening, his body trembling.
“Jane. I’m going to come.” Every word stretched, the air barely reaching his lungs. He tried to pull away from me but I clutched onto his ass and drew him into me.
“You’re going to let him cum in your mouth? What about me?” my eyes flickered to Gabriel’s pained erection, there was nothing I could do for him, and nothing to say with a dick in my mouth.
I looked to Björn. Our eyes met for a split second and Gabriel’s question was answered.
With a twist of his hand, he grabbed my hair forcing my head down, then thrust in earnest, his movements quickening, his ass tightening, his entire body shuddering. With a final convulsion, he found release in my mouth, my name revered on his lips, abandoning himself to pleasure, hot salty cum coated the back of my throat.
His hands released my hair, and he pulled himself out of my mouth. I licked my lips, the taste of him mingling with Gabriel’s scent, so close, overpowering, the scent of need, of anger, of jealousy.
Gabriel shot Björn a seething look.
“Jesus Jane.” Björn seemed to recover some of his composure. “I wasn’t expecting that when I walked in, maybe I should interrupt your work more often.”
At that Gabriel growled and I smiled biting my lip.
“Now, how could I possibly repay you?” Björn’s voice was dripping with honey. He fell to his knees; his pants still wrapped around his ankles and pulled my ass to the edge of the chair. He pushed my skirt up revealing my soaked underwear beneath.
“Mmmm.” It was a pleasurable sigh, and it shot shivers right down to my core.
Björn pushed my knees apart and trailed soft kissed on my inner thigh, skipping over my need and travelling to the other side. He lifted my legs so that each knee was on his shoulders, and pushed aside my underwear.
I gasped as his wet tongue slid along me.
I hadn’t seen Gabriel sneak up on me, but before I knew it, his hands were on my breasts, pinching nipples, grabbing them through fabric. I moaned my pleasure, my hips moving against Björn’s mouth, my breasts aching for Gabriel’s touch.
“Your mouth is free now,” Gabriel whispered in my ear as he pinched a nipple, the sensation sending spasms of pleasure to my clit where Björn was devouring me, in greedy, tantalising strokes. Like getting lashed with a whip of pleasure, again and again. Wave after wave of aching anticipation crashed against me.
“Open your mouth Jane,” Gabriel ordered me, tugging at the nipple in his hand.
Breathless, I cried in pleasure as the edge came closer.
“Open your mouth Jane. Now.” He pulled once again and my body flamed with the need for release. So close.
“Now Jane!” He was desperate, his cock in my face.
“Gabriel,” I moaned his name and pushed him away, needing the release, my synapses ready to explode, my body tense ready to peak.
Without warning, Björn’s mouth left me. His shoulders stiffened and his face flashed with anger.
“What the fuck did you just say?” his jaw was clenched, his lips shining with moisture.
My pussy throbbed, screamed, whimpered for his touch, for relief.
“Nothing.” I panted, trying to force his mouth back to me with my knees. His strong body stoic, unmoving.
“You just called me Gabriel.” He almost spat out the name as he wiped away at his mou
th, peeling my knees from his shoulders.
“What?” fuck I needed to come. “I did not.” The need tearing at me. Hot and throbbing. Is this how I left Gabriel too?
Björn stood up and pushed himself away from me. His face a mask of irritation. I pulled myself back on the chair realising that the moment could not be recovered.
“Björn. –” I pushed away from my chair.
“Don’t!” He shot me a look that could melt an iceberg, and I froze in place. He opened and closed his mouth a few times as if trying to work out the words that would not come to him. He ran a hand through his hair and took a galvanising breath. With cold burning eyes he looked at me. “Jane, I like you, like really like you. It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to spend so much time with someone that isn’t on four legs.”
He raised a hand as he said it, anticipating the joke that sat on the tip of my tongue. Of course I would go on all fours for him.
“I know you love your Gabriel character. After four books it would be impossible not to understand you have a connection to him. But,” he sucked in a deep breath, “He is not real. I am. And you need to decide if you want a relationship with me or him.”
“Björn -”
“I’m not finished.” He cut me off. “I know you are working on another book, but I think it needs to be your last. Give him his happily ever after, send him away, kill him off, I don’t really care. But if you want to be with me, you need to end it with him.”
His words sank in slowly. Or maybe I was the one that was sinking.
“Look,” he took a few steps towards me and cupped my chin in his hand so that we looked into each other’s eyes. “I know you love him. I know it’s hard, I know maybe in some ways, he is real to you and it is hard to let go. But you need to choose Jane.”
He dropped his hand and looked into my eyes for a long moment. He turned away towards the door. “I’ll give you some time to think about it. I have to fly to Japan for a week, I have a conference. You let me know what you want when I get back.”
How could I explain all that I was feeling at that moment? Anger? Sure, but that didn’t even begin to cover it. Resentful? Betrayed? Abandoned? Sure, all of those, but so much more, for despite the harshness of his words they stank with truth I didn’t want to hear. Gabriel and me had been together for three long years. Yes, he was perfect, but deep down I knew he wasn’t real. Björn was, and as pretty damn close to perfect as I had ever experienced. Intelligent, savvy, well groomed, funny, sexy, charming and a generous attentive lover. He had a job and liked to read books, he even read my series, joking about taking tips from my books when we were in bed. And he did. When he plunged a butt plug into my ass for the first time, I could have never told him about Barry and how he inspired Gabriel’s sexual desires. When he tied me to the bed head, I could never tell him about Leon. When he quoted sweet kind words, I told him I would introduce him to Grish one day.
Gabriel stood against the wall, his face a mixture of hatred and confusion.
“You’re not actually considering what he said, are you?” his voice was low and dangerous, I could see the glint of madness in his eyes.
“I don’t know Gabriel.”
“You’re going to kill me?”
“Of course not. But you could have your happy ending. You and Mia and Spots.”
“I don’t want Mia.”
“Gabriel…”
He closed the distance between us, his hard stomach against my back, heat erupted between us, his hand gliding to the gaping unfinished need left by Björn.
“He doesn’t know you like I do.” His hand slipped beyond the hem of my skirt. “He can’t make you feel like I do.” His fingers penetrated my underwear. “He can’t make you scream like I can.” His fingers found my wetness. He circled them slowly, the lost sensation left by Björn’s leaving, rising once more. But somehow it felt different. Tense. Sad. Maybe if I let him do this, it would be the very last time. It felt like a goodbye.
I pushed his hand away and broke away from him.
“Don’t think like that Jane. We have forever.”
I looked to his face, the perfect chiselled chin, the pillowy lips, the tortured blazing brown eyes that would drown me in pools of decadent chocolate. “I need some space. To think.”
“Jane?” my name reeked of sadness and dejection. I could almost feel the crack of his heart as it shook the ground beneath me.
I built a wall, around my heart around my head. I couldn’t let him in. I needed space.
“Don’t do this Jane.”
“Just give me time to think Gabriel.” I left him there, shredded by desire, bleeding by pain, seething from anger, needing comfort, love, things I couldn’t give him just then.
I closed the door to my room and let the darkness hold me as I wiped away hot tears.
2004
It took Clarice three weeks, five days and three hours more or less to sell Guarding Gabriel. Not only did she sell the first book, she had negotiated a multi-book deal with the potential for more, pending the reception. To say I was thrilled would have been the understatement of the century. My advance would pay my rent for three months and if sales were average, I could quit my job at The Hot Bird.
The thought gave me chills, it would mean I could have Leon, in whatever capacity he would give himself to me. Maybe we could have more than just a one-night stand. Maybe we could be more. So much more. I pushed the thought away.
I had to wait for sales to start coming in and that meant at least eight months of suffering under Leon’s scrutinising, searing eyes. Torture.
Gabriel became a constant. No longer an idea, no longer a shadow, but a real thing, a presence that lurked and remained and became more real and solid the more I wrote about him, the more I poured myself into him.
Barry remained missing.
Without Barry to celebrate with, I started on my second book that night.
It was almost 4 a.m. when I dropped my pen and grabbed my phone.
I opened messenger. “You have eight months to fire me. Tick Tock boss man.”
I tossed the phone away unsure what possessed me to text Leon at such an ungodly time of night and not expecting an answer.
My phone thrilled angrily on my bed. My heart somersaulted into my mouth.
“Hello?”
“You seem eager.”
“I’m giving you fair warning.”
“At 4 a.m.?” I could almost hear his eyebrow arching and his lips falling into a smirk.
“I didn’t think you’d be awake.”
“It still doesn’t change the time.” He inhaled deeply. “But I like that you think of me in the middle of the night.”
My heart jumped onto the spooky house rollercoaster and was about to plunge into the darkness. Heat rose to my cheeks as I thought of what I could say in response.
“Why are you up so late Jane?”
“I was thinking of you.”
“When I planned on keeping you up at night, this is not what I had in mind.” He growled it, his voice thick with desire.
I swallowed hard. My stomach tight. “And how were you planning on keeping me up?” I bit my lip, proud and petrified of what I had just asked.
“Guess you’ll find out when I fire you in eight months.”
“Leon.” I started protesting, I wanted more, I wanted him to tell me, to entice me, seduce me, fill my nights with wetter dreams of him.
“Good night sweet Jane. Congratulations.”
The line went dead.
I spent my 27th birthday working, just like the year before. My advance showed up in my bank account the month before and I felt comfortable, complacent even, but I knew I had to ride the tide. I couldn’t just let go of this job because of an advance. I needed to be paid, to have a constant income. So I ground my teeth and stuck in my heels and I was going to survive this place for another six months. To survive Leon for another six months. Survive his looks and prowls, his late-night phone calls and growin
g tension. Two months disappeared in a flash, the next six would fly.
Like the previous year, he had called me up to his office. I didn’t shiver and shake or worry. I leapt up the stairs my heart thumping in my chest.
I walked into his dimly lit office. At this time of night, all the edges looked sharper all the surfaces gleaming against the dim light as if clinging to the source. Maybe they were also afraid of the dark.
I heard the ice jiggle in his tumbler as I walked in. His chair faced the window and he didn’t swivel around. I saw my reflection in his large dark windows. My black-and-white striped leather skirt rode high on my thighs. My matching shirt rose above my belly button exposing just enough skin to show off my flat belly. I finished the look with my suspenders and knee-high boots. It was a new outfit. I bought it the previous morning as a birthday present to myself. And if I was to be really honest, I bought it hoping that Leon would invite me up to his office.
I approached the chair.
“Don’t sit.”
He turned around in his chair, his eyes widened and his mouth parted an inch to allow for his intake of breath. I gave myself a mental pat on the back. That expression was worth every penny. He pushed away from his chair, his eyes latched onto mine, fiery and strained.
He opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a box. It was long and rectangular wrapped in golden, lavish wrapping paper and a lace bow that crisscrossed the length and width of the box.
He rounded the desk. His hungry eyes devouring my body.
“Happy birthday Jane.” He pecked me gently on the cheek and handed the box over to me. Clenching his jaw, he stepped away and leaned against his desk. His hands clutched the lip, white knuckles shone in the dim light. “Sammy has called you a cab. Go get your things, your shift is over.”
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