Still no Lena.
The minutes ticked by and I grew almost half-crazed with fear. Anyone who saw me would have thought I was out of my mind. Lena might not even be with Kline— but I’d tear every fucking door down if it meant the slightest chance of keeping her safe. I begged under my breath to every fucking god in the universe that I wasn’t too late.
A sudden crash came from a room down the hallway, loud even above the music.
SHIT!
“Lena!” I sprinted over, but the door was locked.
I gritted my teeth and threw my entire weight against the door, slamming my shoulder into the solid wood. It shook heavily the first time, but with the second time the wood groaned and splintered at the lock. The door flung inward.
I stumbled into the room from my momentum—
—and just like I feared, Jacob Kline was in there with Lena.
Kline was breathing hard as if he’d just run a mile, and behind him was Lena…eyes wide and tears streaming down her face. Pieces of shattered porcelain were scattered on the floor. The left strap of Lena’s top had been ripped off.
God, no. No no no—
A cold, blind rage took over me. My body was filled with a savage violence I’d never felt before.
There was a flash of recognition in Jacob Kline’s—my father’s eyes when he saw me.
He opened his mouth to say something, but before the words even came out I was on top of him, throwing vicious punches into his face that split my knuckles and broke his teeth.
I’ll kill him, I thought, the words in my mind eerily calm through the haze of rage. I’ll fucking kill him—
My fists connected with his face again and again and again until the sound of cracking bone was all I could hear. The air smelled like copper.
Kline had stopped trying to fight back by now. He had thrown his arms over his head, trying weakly to crawl away from me.
“Stop,” I heard Lena pleading. “Gabriel, please stop.”
I heard shouting, then a strong force clamped around my neck and waist, yanking me back and away from my target.
“Enough, you fucking idiot,” Liam Berling snarled in my ear. “You wanna be charged with murder?” He grunted as my elbow connected hard with his stomach.
“He hurt her.” My voice was ragged. It sounded too raw, too animalistic to have come from me.
“Gabriel, please.” Lena’s urgent voice. “Please, you have to stop.” An insistent tugging on my sleeve.
She was standing too close, I realized dimly. I could hurt her.
Lena sensed my hesitance and clung more firmly on my arm. Berling’s guys took the chance to pull Jacob Kline from under me.
He spat blood on the floor.
“You fucking maniac!” he rasped. His face was bloodied and swollen. “You tried to kill me!”
I lunged after him again, but Lena held on tighter.
“Gabriel!” she cried.
I looked down at Lena, moving like I was in a trance. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. Tear tracks ran down her face, catching strands of pale hair against her damp cheeks.
But her blue-gray eyes were fierce and determined.
“Gabriel,” she said again. “Please stop.”
I wrenched away from Berling and pulled Lena into my arms. She crumpled against me, her shoulders trembling so hard she couldn’t breathe.
“Get the bastard to another room and call the cops,” Berling snapped.
I heard him giving out more commands, but the fight had suddenly gone out of me. All I could think about now was the woman in my arms and how shaken she was. Every tremor of her body against mine ripped a new hole in my chest.
Lena winced when Jacob Kline started shouting out threats of destroying me, and I crushed her tight against me in assurance as Liam’s guys hauled him away. At one point he might have even yelled that I was his bastard son—but right now I couldn’t care if the world heard him. All that mattered to me was Lena.
“Are you hurt?” I said hoarsely. “Did he…?”
A weary shake of her head.
The relief came in a wave so strong I nearly doubled over. I took off my jacket and bundled her into it, then gathered her into my arms again.
And as I held Lena against me I gave her every vow and promise I could think of. I swore to her that I would keep her safe, that I would never let her be hurt again.
Anything to stop the quiet tracking of tears down her cheeks. Her pain was like a knife twisting in my chest.
“I got you.” I murmured to her again and again, needing to reassure myself just as much as I did her. “You’re safe now, I got you. I’m never letting you go.”
“We’ve locked up the fucker,” Berling said briskly as he came back into the room. “The cops are on their way to take our statements—”
Lena stiffened.
“I can’t,” she said in a low voice.
“I’ll be with you,” I told her. “We’ll talk to them and then we’ll go home. I won’t let Kline come near you—”
“I can’t go through that again.” She swallowed thickly. “Not yet, at least. Right now I just want to go home. Please.”
I wanted to ask what “that” meant, but her breathing had started to turn even more shallow. Lena looked outwardly calm, but I had learned to recognize her first signs of panic attack.
“Easy, babe. Breathe.” I rubbed her back in steady soothing circles. “Easy. I’m taking you home right now, okay? Just breathe.”
I knew we needed to talk with the police, but with how shaken up Lena was right now, it wasn’t gonna happen tonight. I couldn’t bear another second of seeing her look so pale and afraid.
After carefully gathering her into my arms and picking up her discarded clutch, I jerked my head to tell Berling to get out of the way. He stepped aside with a bewildered look that said he totally disagreed with what I was doing.
But this was Lena’s call, and the only one that mattered to me right now. Everything and everyone else could hang.
I made my way out the now-deserted back of the mansion—Berling’s guys had cleared the area out—and to the garage where my car was. I got into the driver's seat, taking Lena with me and setting her in my lap.
We sat in silence for long moments to catch our breaths, me holding her, and after several minutes Lena’s shaking eased into faint tremors.
But I couldn’t bring myself to let go of her just yet. I needed to feel the weight of her in my arms, to have her warm breaths against my skin reminding me she was safe with me.
“If I’d been just a few minutes late—” I broke off, unable to voice the implications of that statement. “If I hadn’t come…”
“I brought pepper spray,” Lena said softly. “I was going to use it, and then you came.” She shook her head. “But I think… I think I threw a vase at him…”
“Good girl,” I said, keeping my voice steady despite my cold rage. “He won’t hurt you again. I’ll see that fucker locked away for life.”
“I can’t talk to the cops yet,” she said apologetically. “I’m not ready for the questions…”
“You don’t have to until you want to,” I assured her.
“Okay.” Lena’s eyes took on a determined gleam. “But first there’s something I have to do.”
“What is it, angel?”
“This.”
She carefully withdrew a small black device from inside her top, and her phone from her clutch.
My brows snapped together. The device was unmistakably a hidden video recorder and a mic.
With a slow exhalation to steady herself, Lena pressed play on her phone.
“Stay away from me,” her voice came, low and nervous.
My blood ran cold when Jacob Kline’s face came into view on the screen.
“Easy, cupcake. I mean no harm. See?” The bastard had a smug smile on his face as he advanced upon Lena, his hands held up mockingly.
“Don’t touch me. I said I’m not interested.”
“I can be persuasive. Shall I show you?”
Lena tried to move away but he grabbed her arm and held fast.
“Get away from me, please.”
My arms tightened around Lena as Kline came so close to the camera that his face was out of frame.
“Fuckin’ tease,” his voice hissed, dangerous and threatening. “Do you know who I am? I can make or break you with a single word—”
The camera shook as Lena struggled.
“Let me go—stop! Help!”
“Stop screaming, you bitch—”
Lena cried out as she pulled away, and I heard the sound of ripping fabric followed closely by a loud crash of the vase she threw—then a frantic pounding on the door and my furious shouts from the other side. The door crashed open as I forced my way in and found her.
Lena stopped the playback. My breathing was coming in shallow bursts, unsteady with fear and anger.
“I wired myself before coming here,” she said, trying to sound calm even though I could feel the racing pulse in her wrist against my skin. “I knew he’d be here so—”
“So you used yourself as bait?” I said hoarsely. “Christ, Lena—”
Lena gripped her phone in her hand, her jaw set tight.
“Now I have proof,” she said, “and his lawyers can’t intimidate me into silence anymore. Because it won’t be just my voice this time. It’ll be everybody—don’t you see?” Her eyes were bright and furious and alive. “Gabriel, I’m taking this to the news.”
I felt so damned helpless and angry—at Lena for going this far, at myself for not doing more to keep her safe.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but there was no other way.”
“There’s always another way that doesn’t involve you nearly—” I broke off with a vicious curse.
Christ, I just wanted to take Lena away from everything that was hurting her.
But right now Lena didn’t look afraid. I was the scared one, and she was the one saving herself with her quiet and stubborn fury.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous this was?” I managed.
”Of course I do,” she said quietly. “But I’ve tried every other way to make myself heard. This time the world will listen. They have to.”
I was amazed at her strength, and so damned furious that she had to go this extreme. I was stunned that it took such lengths just so people could see.
People like me.
“Fuck me.” I pressed my forehead against hers in defeat. “Let’s get you home.”
“Take me to yours,” she whispered back, weaving her strong, slim fingers through mine in silent comfort. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
I was silent the entire drive back to Gabriel’s suite at Cam’s hotel, too tired and shaken to make conversation. Gabriel didn’t say a word either, and just kept giving me unreadable looks from the driver’s seat. When he thought I wasn’t looking, his face was a hard mask of cold rage.
I also found that coming down from an adrenaline high was an unnerving experience in itself. By the time we arrived at the hotel, my hands and legs were shaking uncontrollably and my lips were chattering so hard I had to clench my jaw to keep them still. Gabriel didn’t ask any questions as he bundled me into his arms and whisked me up to his suite.
Being surrounded by his scent calmed me considerably. I breathed in greedy lungfuls of pine-scented air as I sat on the bed where Gabriel had deposited me before he disappeared into the bathroom.
Nervousness started creeping in again while he left me. I knew I was safe here, but an irrational part of me was afraid that Gabriel would leave me here alone. I didn’t think I could stand being alone right now.
The sound of running water came from the adjoining bathroom, and Gabriel reappeared in the bedroom a moment later.
He got on one knee before me, raising his brows in question. His dark eyes were solemn and searching.
I nodded, and he eased his coat off my shoulders. I helped him as he unzipped my skirt and top and gently pushed the remaining intact strap down my shoulder.
My shivering had returned again now that I was naked, but Gabriel didn’t let me remain cold for long.
“Hang tight,” he murmured as he picked me up in his arms again. His knuckles were crisscrossed with deep cuts from his fight with Kline, but I knew that it was the last thing that Gabriel cared about right now.
I clasped my hands around his neck as he carried me into the bathroom and gently lowered me into the bathtub filled with steaming water.
A breath of relief escaped me as the heat worked its way into my muscles and bones. It felt like all the strains of the night were melting away into the water.
“Tip your head back.”
I obeyed, and Gabriel poured hot water gently over my hair, then added shampoo and began washing my hair and massaging my head.
My eyes slid shut as I enjoyed his touch. Gabriel’s concrete and wood bathroom smelled like his pine cologne too, and I let myself relax as his hands worked on the tense muscles at my neck and shoulders.
After rinsing me off, Gabriel toweled me dry and carried me back to his bed again. He put me under the covers like I was a child, gently but firmly easing me back into the mattress when I tried to get up to talk with him.
“Later,” he said, his expression quiet and unreadable. “You need to rest up now.”
Then he eased me onto my side and began brushing out my damp hair. I wanted to talk to him, but I was so unbelievably tired. I wanted to ask him why he looked so shaken, like his heart had been broken, but my eyelids refused to stay open. I drifted off seconds later, surrounded by Gabriel’s warmth and his scent.
I cracked my eyes open sometime later, but this time I was alone in his bed. Gabriel had left the bedroom door a few inches open, with the lights off and the TV turned down to the dimmest setting. His low voice came from the living room outside as he spoke with someone on the phone. His voice was grim, and I thought I could hear the sound of him typing on his laptop.
But before I could call for him, I fell asleep again.
The next time when I awoke, the TV had been turned off and it was silent outside.
My chest gave a jolt when I thought Gabriel had left me alone in the suite until I heard low, even breathing coming from the living room. Gabriel must have fallen asleep on the sofa outside.
I eased up onto my arms, feeling rested even though it couldn’t have been more than a few hours since my ordeal with Kline.
His voice swam into my mind again, dark and angry and cruel, and I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head hard to dispel him.
I had finally gotten the evidence I needed, and now I didn’t want to think about it. I couldn’t, because if I did I thought I might break into pieces.
But here in Gabriel’s room and his bed, I felt safe. Protected.
All the same, there was something else bothering me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Gabriel was trying to avoid me. He’d hardly said a word to me earlier, and even when he was bathing me his gaze never met mine directly.
Shifting higher on the pillows, I shut my eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but it seemed too hot in the room all of a sudden. The night air was cold outside, but my body was heating up like a furnace under the covers even though I was completely naked.
All I could think about was Gabriel and how much I wished he was here in bed with me instead. He had been so careful with me earlier, handling me like I was fragile porcelain.
I found myself wishing that Gabriel was less worried about hurting me. I wanted—no, I needed him with me.
I needed to feel his warmth and his touch. I needed him to remind me that Lena Hastings was still alive, that she had survived and that she hadn’t shattered like glass at the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
But I knew he wouldn’t come. What had happened earlier had scared Gabriel, the same way it had scared me a year ago when my rose-tinted glasses of the world had been mercilessly ripped off. He had gazed at
me earlier with devastated brown eyes, like he had let me down somehow.
But he hadn’t let me down. He had come for me after all.
And now I’d make him come to me again—and I knew just how.
Biting my lip, I flirted with the idea of pleasuring myself the way Gabriel had done for me last night. I slowly eased the covers past my naked body, barely stifling a moan when the soft fabric brushed against my nipples.
I could hear Gabriel’s slow, even breathing as he slept on the sofa outside my door. He was guarding me even in his sleep, and the knowledge that he was keeping me safe made me ache for him so damned much.
Slowly, I parted my legs slightly and slipped my hand between my thighs.
I touched my middle finger to the swollen point where I was aching for him.
“Ohh…” I breathed. My eyes slid shut at the blissful contact.
“You’re so wet for me,” Gabriel had murmured when he’d taken me the first time. I was growing wet now, throbbing with anticipation for him. The dampness coated my thigh as I played with myself the way he taught me to.
It wasn’t like me to be so daring, but something had come over me tonight. I felt like I had walked into a den of lions and emerged intact.
I had survived, and I could feel. Every shot of pleasure through my body was a reminder that I was alive.
“Gabriel,” I whispered softly as I petted myself with my fingers. “Gabriel, yes…”
My lips parted helplessly, but my hands didn’t stop. My fingers slipped over my clitoris, working the slick flesh there like Gabriel had done for me before. My other hand played with my breast, cupping and squeezing and teasing mercilessly. The covers tangled about my legs as I shifted in his bed. Every inch of my skin felt too sensitive.
An image of Gabriel rose into my mind, pushing out the last threads of fear that had wound around my heart tonight. I welcomed the distraction with relief, letting my fantasy of him take over me completely.
Gabriel was shirtless, lounging in his chair with his powerful legs spread apart. The large bulge of his erection strained against the fabric of his pants.
Charming (New York Heirs #3) Page 16