“Damn, Gabrielle. You keep looking at me like that, I won’t make it five strokes.” He snatched a condom off the nightstand and crawled toward her, kneeling between her thighs and draping her legs over his thighs. He tore the package open.
She skated her finger along his bunched quads, gaze locked on his thick erection and the prominent veins running root to tip. “But I haven’t gotten to touch you yet.”
He leaned over her, forearms anchored on either side of her head and his dog tags resting between her breasts. He studied them a moment, a thought or emotion moving behind his eyes she couldn’t quite identify. Closing his eyes, he skimmed his knuckles along her sternum and down between her legs. “Put your hands on me. Feel all you want. Just please, God, say you can do it with my cock inside you.”
She could work with that. Totally a win-win if it meant feeling his body next to hers. “Yes.” She wrapped her legs around his waist and undulated up along the side of his shaft. “Definitely a yes.”
A low, broken grumble crawled up his throat, and he hung his head. “Jesus, I’m not even inside you yet and I want to come.” Grasping himself by the root, he slicked his cockhead through her wetness and lined himself up. His gaze locked onto hers, a lightning-bolt potency behind it that shook her to her core. “Feel me, Gabrielle.”
Oh, God. How could she not? He was every dirty fantasy and ideal hero wrapped into one. A feral protector, poised above her and ready to stake his claim. She gripped the back of his neck with one hand and splayed the other across his chiseled abs.
He pressed deeper, stretching and filling her with such slow purpose it rippled to the top of her head. Pleasure and pain. The purest intimacy and darkest sin.
She wrapped her arms around him, luxuriating in the way his muscles bunched beneath her palms and the fine sheen of sweat that coated his skin. Only when he was seated fully inside her did he draw his hips back, the flared head of his cock rasping perfectly within her sex.
“Zeke.” She smoothed her hands across his flanks and scraped her nails across his taut skin, rolling her hips in encouragement. “More.”
“Hell yes, more.” He drove himself forward, still nowhere near unleashing the power burning off him, but filling her completely. Then again. And again. Slow out and fast in, he worked himself inside her, his gaze roving as reverently as his touch across her breasts, her hips, and where they joined.
Tension built low in her belly, slower to grow than her first release but packed with the promise of so much more and hovering just out of reach. And oh, how she wanted it. The clench of her sex around his cock. The toe-tingling push and pull of his shaft against her sensitized walls. She dug her heels into his ass and fisted her hands in his hair. “More. Harder.”
A low, satisfied chuckle rattled from his chest. “Fuck, knew you’d be wild.” He shifted back to his knees, gripping her hips as he moved and taking her with him so he towered above her. A conqueror taking what he wanted without the least hesitation. He thrust against her, the deepened angle driving the tip of his cock against the perfect spot inside her and slapping his tight sac against her ass.
“Look at that pretty clit. Swollen and ready to send you off.” His voice dropped to a low grumble, the foreign words he used none she’d ever heard before but dirty enough they’d likely singe her cheeks if she went on tone alone. He dipped one thumb between her legs before she could ask, sliding beside where his iron length pistoned in and out of her and slicked her wetness up to the tight nub. “Give it to me, gatinha.”
Yes. God, yes. Just like that. Her thighs jerked and squeezed his hips.
He circled her once, twice, punctuating each touch with his pounding thrusts. “Come on my cock and take me with you.”
He pinched her aching clit between his slick fingers and her world exploded.
Perfect. His hard to her soft. His strength to her give. His claim to her surrender.
His shout rang out above her and his hips slammed against hers, his unyielding length jerking inside her. This was what all the fuss was about. The connection. The sensations and the gut-clenching emotions. With each languid glide in and out he bound her, wrapped her heart and thoughts in a gossamer cocoon. Sheltered her from the raw vulnerability raging between them.
His lips skimmed her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, more of his lilting Portuguese falling over her like early-morning mist.
She wrapped her arms around him, combing her fingers through his well-mussed hair with one hand while the other explored the sweat-slick skin along his back. If she could lock herself in one moment of time, this would be it. The serenity of it. Untouched by reality or the fears she’d battled throughout her life.
“I like you like this.” He lifted his head enough to make eye contact. The tension and focus he usually carried was gone, replaced with the same leisurely peace slipping through her muscles. He smoothed his knuckles along one cheek. “Soft and purring after you’ve sunk your nails in deep.”
Her eyes popped wide. “I didn’t.”
“You did.” He grinned and nipped her lower lip. “And don’t even think about keeping them from me next time because I liked it.”
Before she could argue, he shifted slightly and slipped his hand between them. “I need to deal with this condom. You stay put, yeah?”
She nodded and he slipped free, drawing a disappointing whimper past her lips.
“I know, baby,” he whispered against her mouth, and then rolled from the bed and padded to the bathroom, giving her another sigh-inducing view.
God, what a night. What a life-altering, heart-searing night. After what he’d given her, she might as well claim tonight as her first time with a man, because the other two experiences weren’t even close. A paint-by-numbers attempt with all the wrong brushes and colors compared to a master artist’s crowning work.
Definitely worth the risk. No matter what happened tomorrow, even in the next second, she wouldn’t change a thing.
He ambled back to the bedside, a lazy panther grace behind each step. He smoothed her hair off her cheek. “You need anything? Water?”
You.
She shook her head instead, the feelings dammed up at the base of her throat too overwhelming to speak without unleashing a torrent of tears.
For the longest time, he just stood there, studying her face. He flicked off the lamp and darkness blanketed the room. The bed dipped beside her, his summer-warm scent engulfing her a second before he spooned against her and banded his arm around her waist. “You okay, gatinha?”
Okay didn’t cover it. Didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of everything swirling in her heart. She covered the possessive hand he’d splayed above her belly and nestled in deeper against his heat. “I’m perfect.”
Chapter Eighteen
Zeke shifted beneath the covers, the scent of something sharp and unpleasant dragging him from sleep. Damn, but he didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to think. Gabe felt too good next to him. All warm, soft and sweet.
But the scent was off.
His eyes popped wide and his muscles tensed. That was smoke. A lot of it. He rolled to his back and glanced toward the windows facing the front yard. A soft, golden glow flickered behind the blinds, wavering and at the wrong angle to be a street light.
He tossed aside the covers and rolled to his feet. Prying open the blinds, he peeked outside. “Shit.” He clicked the lamp on and snatched his pants off the floor. “Gabe, get up and dial 911.”
She pushed herself up on her elbows, her gaze unfocused and heavy-lidded. “What?”
“I need you to dial 911, sweetheart. Your neighbor’s house is on fire.”
That got her attention. She scrambled to the window, not the least bit concerned, or not yet aware, she didn’t have a scrap on. “Mrs. Wallaby’s?”
“No, the other one.”
&
nbsp; She gasped as soon as she looked outside. “Oh, my God. That’s Mr. Yates’s house.” She shot across the room and grabbed her robe off the back of her closet door.
Zeke wrestled into his shirt and jammed his feet into his loafers, not bothering with socks. “When’s the last time you saw him?”
“Yesterday afternoon when I got home from shopping.”
“Which side of the house are the bedrooms?”
“The end closest to our house.” She hurried out to her purse on the kitchen table and dug out her phone.
Zeke strode toward the front door. “As soon as you get the fire trucks on the way, call Danny and let him know what’s up. Tell him to call Beckett.”
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to see if he’s in there. You call 911.”
“But you’ll—”
“Gabe, make the call. I’ll be fine.” He ducked out the front door before she could argue and jogged across the dew-slick yard. If the bedrooms were closest to Gabe’s house then the fire had clearly started in the kitchen, because the whole far end and a good chunk of the center was engulfed in roaring flames. Another five or ten minutes and he wouldn’t be getting anyone out of there.
Farther down the street, a few slow moving shadows worked their way down the lamp-lit sidewalks, but no one quick or nimble enough to help him scout the home’s interior. The front door was locked. Fire or not, it was solid enough it wouldn’t budge with nothing but his shoulder for leverage. He ran around the back of the house, the patio with its sliding glass door thankfully a good distance from the fast-moving flames. Not expecting much in the way of luck, he tugged on the handle.
Low and behold, the damn thing slid open easy as pie, thick, choking smoke rolling out into the already tainted night. He covered his mouth with his arm. “Mr. Yates?” He ducked low and crept along the edges of the murky living room to the hallway on his left. “Hello?”
Nothing. Not a single sound save the roiling flames licking their way closer and closer. Both bedrooms were empty, though one was unmade, the covers angled back as though someone had left in a hurry.
Shit, that meant another trip back toward the front. His eyes burned and his lungs ached with the weight of so much smoke. Another few minutes and he wouldn’t have any choice but to bail, but damned if he wanted to let Gabe down. Not in this. Her neighbors were everything to her. As much of a family as his brothers were to him.
He inched toward the middle of the living room. “Mr. Yates?”
There. A faint groan followed by a weak cough.
Zeke plowed ahead, heat blasting on all sides and sharp sparks snapping as the fire consumed everything in its path. The smoke shifted, exposing pajama-clad legs and bare feet. Sucking in the deepest breath he could, he crouched, hefted Gabe’s neighbors in his arms and hauled ass for the back door.
The fresh air slapped his sweat-coated cheeks and long, racking coughs seized his chest. He kept moving, distancing himself from the inferno and rounding toward the cul-de-sac and the rapidly growing crowd. Sirens sounded in the distance, but all Zeke could focus on was drawing a steady, clean breath and finding a decent place to lay Gabe’s neighbor out.
“Zeke!” Gabe hurried into his blurry vision. She’d replaced the robe with loose gray sweats, and her eyes were wide with panic. “Is he okay? Are you?”
“Fine.” His voice sounded like hell, not exactly the confident tone he’d hoped for, but at least he was breathing. If he was lucky, Mr. Yates would be, too. He laid the man down near the sidewalk. His respirations were faint and his pulse weak, but there nonetheless. So long as he could get some oxygen in the man soon, he’d be over the biggest hurdle. “He have any medical conditions?”
Gabe kneeled next to her neighbor, holding tight to his hand and smoothing the hair off his head. “Not that I know of. He’s retired, but he’s really healthy. Does his own yard work and walks all the time.”
A definite bonus considering the overtime his lungs were doing.
“Did you see what caused it?” she said.
“Had to be the kitchen. That’s where it was centered when I first woke up and saw the flames.”
“That can’t be it. He doesn’t cook. Hasn’t since his wife died. He either heats what I give him in the microwave, or has food delivered.”
The firetrucks squealed to a stop not twenty feet away, the ambulance right behind it.
Zeke stood and waved the paramedics over. “He needs oxygen.”
The men complied, hurrying their direction laden with a portable tank and duffels full of first aid gear.
Zeke sank to his ass, knees bent and elbows resting on top.
“You sure you’re okay?” Gabe dropped beside him, her neighbor forgotten in favor of wiping the sweat and grime off his face.
“Yeah.” He covered her hand with his and sucked in another breath. “Better once I get this shit cleared out of my lungs.”
On cue, one of the medics knelt beside him and held out a mask. “How long were you in for?”
“A few minutes. Maybe five. Nothing long enough for serious damage.” Zeke took the mask, pride taking a backseat to making sure he was strong enough to look out for Gabe. One inhalation after another, he focused on the unruly blaze. The building was a complete loss, a fact evidenced by how the firemen focused more on containment than actually dousing the fire.
That can’t be it. He doesn’t cook.
That weird, sixth-sense vibe resonated out in all directions. If Mr. Yates didn’t cook, then what else would have started the fire? And why the hell hadn’t his back door been locked?
“Man, what the hell happened?” Danny strode up beside him, his gaze locked on the blaze.
Beckett ambled their direction, his attention far less invested on the fire and more focused on the thickening crowd.
Zeke laid the mask aside and stood as Beckett ambled up beside him.
“For a tiny neighborhood, this place gets a lot of nasty action,” Beck said low beside him.
“No shit,” Zeke answered back in kind. He glanced at Gabe beside him. Her fingers were laced tight with his, but her worried gaze was locked on Mr. Yates. He pried his hand free and nudged her toward the slowly rousing man. “Go talk to him.”
“But you’re—”
“I’m fine. Sweaty and dirty, but fine. Go talk to him. You might want to chat with the neighbors lined up over there too and let them know everything’s okay.”
Danny tore his stymied stare away from the blaze and the firemen scrambling around it. “I’ll cover the neighbors. Gabe, you stay with Mr. Yates.”
The two had barely cleared hearing distance before Beckett jumped in. “You don’t think this was an ordinary fire, do you?”
“Too coincidental,” Zeke said. “Gabe says the owner never cooks, but it had to have started in the kitchen.”
“Could’ve been a one-time thing. Hungry people do desperate shit. Could have been wiring, too.”
“Maybe. But you wouldn’t believe how often Gabe gets hit up by Realtors claiming they’ve got high-scale buyers looking for lake property. Remember those two houses down the street that already sold? If the people were so hot to use the land, then why are they still empty? Plus, a couple down the street who had no intention of selling are headed to a retirement community after they got an offer they couldn’t pass up. You already know about the break-in with her other neighbor. Now a fire?”
Beck crossed his arms and scanned the elderly crowd. “What are you thinking?”
“Beats the shit out of me, but something’s not right, and my woman lives here.”
Beckett arched an eyebrow. “Must be getting serious if you’re using that kind of language. You want me and Knox to dive in?”
Damn. He hadn’t even been cognizant of his phrasing, not that he
had a problem with it. If anything, it felt right. Scary as hell, but definitely on target. “Yeah, I think that’s smart.”
Beck hesitated a beat, rubbing his hand across his mouth as though he couldn’t quite bear to utter what came next. “You know if we start spending brotherhood resources on this, the rest of the guys are gonna want to know what you’re up to. You ready for that?”
Gabe’s sweet, soft voice as she talked to her neighbor lilted behind him. He twisted in time to catch her squeezing Mr. Yates’s frail hand and laying a tender kiss to the top of it.
Three weeks. Three weeks of her growing and facing her worst fears, some of them just to be with him.
You make the risk worth it.
The sweetest words anyone had ever shared with him. And man, did he understand the sentiment. For her, he’d do just about anything. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Chapter Nineteen
Gabe had pulled some long nights, but never like this one. Even with her eyelids sagging like concrete curtains, she wasn’t altogether sure she could sleep. In her whole life, she’d probably only slept away from home five times, let alone at some place as swank as Zeke’s town house, but Zeke had refused to let her stay home. Too much smoke, he’d said.
Located on the edge of Dallas’s trendy Uptown area, Zeke could easily make it from his house to Baylor’s Level One trauma center in under ten minutes. Everything in this part of town reeked of new. All shiny and perfect.
The shower in the attached, oversize bathroom shut off and Gabe snuggled deeper under the soft gray sheets. Probably something like seven-thousand thread count, knowing how high-class everything else was in his place. How he’d made himself so comfortable in her house was nothing short of a miracle. Where her place was all earth and softer jewel tones, his had a definite black, gray and red theme throughout. A manly, contemporary feel.
Zeke padded out of the bathroom, one towel slung low over his sexy hips and another draped around his neck while he dried his hair with the ends. He headed for the ebony dresser across the room with its circular mirror hung above it. “I thought you’d be asleep already.”
Wild & Sweet (The Haven Brotherhood) Page 20