She sets down her camera bag and reaches for my tie. I lean toward her so she doesn’t have to stand on her toes, and hold still. Or I try to. I find myself listing closer until her lemon-sweet scent fills my lungs and the warmth of her body buffets my skin.
“How did you do this?” she mutters as she tugs at the tie and tucks the length farther down beneath my vest. “You’re never mussed.”
“I don’t remember,” I say, fighting the urge to rest my forehead on hers.
“Tough day?”
I think about where we are, and everything clenches cold. “I’ve had better.”
“Well, drink your tea.” She smoothes a hand over my chest and across my shoulders. “Let it work its magic on your British soul.”
Stroke me more. Forever.
But she stops and gives me another happy look. “Oh, I found your phone on the dresser.”
She pulls it out of her pocket and gives it to me.
I stand there, phone in one hand, tea in the other, unable to form words.
Sophie pats my shoulder. “Can’t believe you left that behind.”
I can’t believe anything about myself anymore. I don’t know whether to run or grab hold of her and never let go.
“Walk with me?” I ask, pocketing my phone.
“Where?”
Anywhere. “Outside. I need air.”
Neither of us mentions that we’re in an outdoor venue. She simply takes my free hand. “Lead on, sunshine.”
* * *
Sophie
* * *
Outside the stadium isn’t exactly conducive to a nice walk, as it’s in a fairly industrial area. Of course Gabriel, being Gabriel, texts his driver to pick us up and take take us to a nearby harbor.
It’s gorgeous here: the Riviera sparkling in the sun, palm trees rustling overhead. Gabriel fits right in with his tailored light grey suit, sunglasses covering his eyes, his coal-dark hair swept back from his face. Images of Cary Grant dance in my head.
I’m no Grace Kelly in my jeans and Chucks. But he never makes me feel frumpy or underdressed. Even now, he walks at my side, his hand lightly touching my lower back as he guides me around an older couple strolling along hand in hand.
As soon as we pass them, Gabriel shoves his hands deep into his pockets and stares out over the sea. He’s so pretty against this backdrop it almost hurts to look at him.
But he also appears distracted and unsettled.
“You okay, sunshine?”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. “We didn’t have very much money growing up. My father was a mechanic. Originally from Wales, but he settled in Birmingham.”
I have no idea why he’s talking about his dad, but I’m not about to stop him. I know without a doubt that The Book of Gabriel doesn’t open very often, if ever.
“Was? Did he retire?”
He snorts. “Retire would imply that he worked steadily. He never held down a job for very long. He preferred to live on the dole.” Gabriel’s jaw clenches. “I don’t know if he’s alive, actually, since he walked out of my life when I was sixteen.”
“Oh.” I don’t say anything else, sensing that he needs to talk more than I need to question him.
He keeps walking, his pace slow and steady, his eyes to the sea. “My mother was French. Her parents emigrated to Birmingham after her father took a managing position at the Jaguar plant. For a time, she worked as an accountant. She met my when she did the books for one of the shops where he worked.”
“Do you get your love of numbers from her?” I ask softly, because he’s drifted off, his expression tight.
“I suppose I do.” He glances at me. I can’t see his eyes behind the shades. “My mum died when I was fifteen.”
“Oh, Gabriel.” I want to take his hand, but they’re still tucked in his pockets. I wrap my fingers around his thick forearm instead, leaning slightly into him. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “Lung cancer.” A deep breath rattles him. “Rather, she was diagnosed with stage four, non-small cell lung cancer. However…she, ah, decided to take her own way out.”
I stop short, and he does too, since I’m still holding on to him. A lump rises in my throat. “You mean she—”
“Took her own life,” he answers shortly. “Yes.”
“Oh, hell.”
“I don’t…blame her,” he grits out. “I simply… Ah, bollocks, I resented the hell out of her for taking what short time we had left away from me. Which is selfish, I know, but there it is.” He spreads his hands as if to encompass his pain.
A thought occurs to me, and my skin prickles in horror. “And then Jax…”
“Yes.” The word is a bullet, his face flushed and full of rage before going blank.
I move to hug him, but he turns and starts walking again, still controlled but his pace faster now.
“As I said, we did not have a lot of money. But Mum always wanted to go back to France. Her parents had died, and she felt a bit lost, I think, missing her country. This one time, Dad piled us into the car and we drove here, to Nice for holiday.” He stops and stares at the sea. “I was ten. It was the last time we went anywhere as a family.”
He lets me take his hand, and his cold fingers twine with mine.
I hold him more securely. “I’m sorry, Gabriel.”
Nodding, he keeps his gaze averted. “I remember being happy here. But it brings back other memories I’d rather forget.”
“Of course.”
We don’t say anything for a while, simply walk.
“I feel shitty now,” I confess. When he glances at me with confusion, I bluster on. “I went on and on, complaining about my mom showing up, and what a pain my parents are—”
“And I loved hearing about it,” he cuts in. “Don’t you dare think otherwise. And don’t you dare pity me. I won’t stand for it.”
“It’s not pity,” I say softly, squeezing his hand. “I just…” Ache for you. “Hell, I don’t know. I feel like a shit just because, okay?”
He chuffs out a half-laugh. “Well, okay. And I do have a family.”
“The guys and Brenna?”
“Yes.” His hand slips from mine, and he clears his throat. “After Mum, well, Dad was around even less. But I’d always done well in school. I received scholarship for an independent school. You’d know it as a prep or boarding school, I suppose.”
“I know Harry Potter,” I offer.
He almost smiles. “I think we’d all have preferred Hogwarts.”
“Was it bad?”
“It wasn’t good,” he says with a touch of asperity. “I don’t know how much you know about Britain, but whether we admit it or not, classism is very much alive. All I had to do was open my mouth to speak and the other students knew I was working class.”
“You?” I have to laugh. “You sound like Prince William to me.”
His ghost of a smile is bitter. “Mimicry. You learn to adapt to survive. And there are days I hate the sound of it coming out of my mouth. Because I ought to have stayed true to myself. At the time, however, I just wanted to fit in. Didn’t work, though.”
“Did they give you shit?”
“Scholarship Scott with his dad on the dole? Of course. And I was a bit of a runt until I hit twenty. Stick thin and about six inches shorter.”
I have to grin at that, imagining Gabriel in his puppy youth, all awkward angles and blooming male beauty.
“I was having the crap beat out of me when I met Jax.” He says it almost fondly. “Jax jumped right in the middle of it, scrappy as a dog. Next thing, Killian, Rye, and Whip were there, pummeling the shite out of anyone left standing.”
He looks up at me and laughs, the first truly amused sound I’ve heard from him since our walk began. “I was brassed off. Who were these tossers? They didn’t know me. Why help?”
My throat constricts. “You’d never had anyone help you just because it was the right thing?”
Eyes the color of the sea meet mine. “No. A
t any rate, I told them to piss off.”
“But they didn’t.”
“Of course not. Firstly, they’d heard I could secure dope—”
My steps halt. “You? Smoking up? No.”
“How very scandalized you sound, Darling,” he says, fighting a small smile. “I was a teenager stuck in boarding school with a bunch of elitist wankers. Passing through some of those long hours in a haze was part of survival.”
“I’m now picturing you slouched on a couch, doing bong hits.” I grin at the thought. “Did you get Scooby-snack cravings?”
He looks at me blandly. “Yes, but only after riding around in the Mystery Machine, searching for villains. Hard work, that.”
Snickering, I start walking again. “So after you became the guys’ supplier?”
“Hilarious,” he mutters. “And it wasn’t about drugs. Not really. They were outcasts in a way too. They came from money, but they were all either half-American or had lived there for a majority of their lives.”
“I can see that. They all basically sound American. Especially Killian and Rye. I mean, sometimes I hear a faint English accent when Jax speaks,” I say, thinking back on our conversations. “And Whip has a slight Irish lilt.”
“Jax and Whip—or John and William, as they were known back then—spent more of their time in the UK than Killian and Rye, so that isn’t surprising. At any rate, they decided I was worth adopting, and they wouldn’t go away. I was doomed.”
“Poor baby.”
Gabriel stops and turns toward the breeze coming in from the water. “It’s…hard letting people in. My dad was a drunk, almost never home. Mum was gone. And here were these four rich boys trying to take me in like I was Oliver fucking Twist.”
“And yet here we are,” I say softly.
He nods, almost absently. “Some things are hard to resist, no matter how badly you try to maintain your distance.” He begins walking again, back toward the waiting town car. “I spent summers at Jax’s house, went on holiday with Killian or Rye or Whip’s family. And I saw how life could be.”
We near the car, and he glances my way. “And when they began their band, their talent was brilliant, even then. But their organization was shit. So I stepped in, promised their parents I would do my mates right. Always.”
I stop short. “Gabriel.”
He stops as well, his brow quirking. Framed against the French Rivera, the massive yachts and sleek sailboats resting in crystalline waters, his pale suit cut to perfection and highlighting his dusky skin, he looks every inch the international playboy. I can’t even picture him poor and struggling. Until I meet his eyes.
Such beautiful eyes. But the fine lines around them, and the weariness that always seems to linger in those stark depths, tell me a new story now. All he knows is to fight and protect, both himself and those loyal to him.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
He blinks, a slow sweep of long lashes, and his expression goes blank.
“I mean it.” I take a step closer. “None of it. Not your mom. Not Jax.”
It’s as if I’ve slapped him. His head jerks back, and his lips flatten. For a second, I think he might shout at me. But then he gives me a one of those fake-ass polite looks he saves for sponsors and record executives.
“This conversation has run away from me. I hadn’t meant to go on a poor-me walk down memory lane.”
“Stop.” I touch his cheek and find him so tense, I imagine he might shatter. “We don’t have to talk about this any more. But I’m not backing down from what I said. We can’t control the actions of others. It will never happen. We can only control our own. Kill John would not be what they are without you. And those guys wouldn’t love you like they do if you weren’t worthy.”
His shoulders don’t lose their starch. If anything, he seems to harden all over, his armor forming right in front of my eyes. But then the corner of his mouth lifts.
“Is this how it’s going to be?” he asks in a slightly husky voice. “You championing me, whether I want it or not?”
“Someone has to do it, sunshine.” I give his cheek a gentle pat then get my ass in the car before he can say another word.
Chapter Thirteen
Gabriel
* * *
“Why…the…fuck…did I agree…to go on this death run with you?” Jax’s panting whine is pathetically weak as we make our way through El Retiro Park in Madrid.
“You asked to go,” I say, not breaking stride. Perspiration trickles down my skin; my heart pumps steady and sure. “Said you needed the exercise.” I glance at Jax stumbling along beside me, his chest shining with sweat. “You weren’t wrong.”
He gives me the finger, apparently past talking, and I take pity on him, slowing down.
“Enjoy the scenery.” I nod toward the manmade pond that reflects the monument to Alfonso XII. Couples row around it, laughing, kissing, or lounging in the sun.
I wonder if Sophie has been here yet. She’d probably head straight for the boat, demanding that I row as she took pictures of it all.
I shake my head. I do not row women around in boats like some sort of cliché sap.
But you’d do it for her. Lie to yourself all you like. You’d do it and love every second.
I tell myself to shut it.
“I can’t appreciate the scenery,” Jax grumps, “when my legs are on fire and my lungs are waving the white flag. I mean, what the fuck? I perform every night on stage. For fucking hours.”
Jax doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him, but he’s kept so much to himself this past year and a half that he’s grown weaker than he once was.
“Different type of endurance, mate.”
He grumbles, and we fall silent. Despite his complaining, I’m glad he chose to come out with me. Though he never ran with me before, we used to lift weights together, spotting each other because we were of a similar strength then. It was one of the few things we did as friends, without business taking centerstage.
I haven’t thought of it until now, but I miss that time with him. I run a few more beats. “Perhaps it’s best if you find an alternate form of exercise.”
Though I’m not looking his way, I hear his scoff loud and clear. “Don’t you dare go easy on me, Scottie boy. I count on you to kick my lazy ass.”
It’s a struggle to keep a straight face. “Very well then, move that lazy arse, and stop complaining.”
We pick up our pace once more. Or I do. Jax groans and plods along with terrible form.
The hotel looms in front of us.
“I’m warning you now,” I tell him as we pass slow, strolling people. “I’m taking the stairs to my room.”
“Oh, fuck no,” Jax says, looking horrified. “I’m stopping in the lobby.” He flashes a rare, wide smile. “I’ll pace around panting and guzzling water. Probably take me under a minute to find someone to rub me down.”
Of course he will. I’d have to be willfully blind to miss the attention we both receive, even now, as we sweat under the hot Spanish sun. Wherever we go, eyes follow.
I could do the same as Jax. It’d be easy as snapping my fingers to find sexual release. These days, my body is aching for it, my balls sore from lack of fulfillment. And yet the thought of finding some willing woman in the hotel lobby makes my stomach lurch. Needing sex isn’t precisely the problem; it’s more an issue of being constantly tempted by one, certain woman.
As soon as we enter the hotel, I leave Jax to his hunting and take the stairs, pushing myself to go faster, harder. My thighs scream in protest, my lungs burning as I pound along. I don’t stop. I want the pain. I want to be so exhausted that my body gives up asking for what it can’t have, and I can go through the day with an ache in my muscles, not my cock.
By the time I get to the room, I’m so spent, I’m nearly stumbling. It’s blissfully Sophie-free in the cool of the room. I grab a bottle of water from the mini fridge as I pace around, my chest heaving. My blood rushes through my ears, my vision a haze a
s I bumble my way into the bath, drinking as I go.
Shoving my shorts down and toeing off my trainers, I turn to reach for the taps and knock down a small laundry basket sitting on the sink.
I rub the sweat out of my eyes and find myself facing yet another batch of Sophie’s knickers, now scattered all over the floor in a patchwork rainbow of silk.
Fucking fuck. A pair of little white panties patterned with tiny red cherries rests on my foot. My hand closes around cool silk, and my cock rises so swift and hard, I actually groan.
I’m not prepared; I’m too weak this time. Too fucking weak to stop myself from lifting the panties to my nose and breathing in deep. A wave of lust slaps through me so hard, my knees nearly give out.
Because these are Sophie’s dirty knickers. And I’m the perverted bastard who’s getting off on the musky scent of Sophie’s pussy.
Another groan tears out of me as I fall against the cold tile wall. I close my eyes tight, fighting the urge to take another breath. Don’t do it, mate. Drop them and get the hell in the shower.
But I can’t. My cock is so hard it throbs in time with my frantic heartbeat. God, her scent…the tart-sweetness of her perfume lingers, calling the golden hue of her skin to mind. Only this time, I picture her on the bed, wearing noting but these cherry panties, her tits thrust in the air, her thighs spread wide. Just waiting for me to nuzzle between them.
Without my permission, my hand slides over my chest, rubbing those dirty little knickers on my skin, as if I can soak up that scent and make it part of me.
I’m shaking, my breath disjointed and deep as my hand descends. Smooth silk wraps around my cock. I fist it and squeeze my eyes tight as I give myself a hard tug.
Sweat trickles down my stomach, my pulse thrumming on my neck. I jerk at my needy cock, my sore muscles bunching with each pull. It feels so damn good, and not nearly good enough. I almost hate her in this moment. Hate her for making me this needy. Only, I don’t. Not even a little bit.
I want. I want. I want.
It’s a refrain in my mind as I fuck her panties like some naughty schoolboy. If she knew what I was doing… Heat licks down my spine, up my trembling thighs.
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