“You judgmental prick!” she burst out, hands clenched at her sides.
His mouth thinned, gaze steely. “I seem to remember you were once very fond of that prick,” he mocked.
She gave a disgusted shake of her head. “This was a mistake. I’ll find someone else to help me.” She turned on her heel and walked toward the door. “You are obviously as much of a self-centered bastard as you ever— Gabriel!” She gasped as, having crossed to her side in two long strides, Gabriel caught hold of her arm before she could open the door.
He spun her around, capturing and holding both her hands in one of his before lifting them above her head. He pushed her back against the door.
The moment Gabriel pressed the length of his body against hers, his senses were assaulted anew by that perfume of citrus and spice. Followed by breathing in the hot femininity he knew was all Angel. It caused his cock to throb. “When was I ever a self-centered bastard with you?” he demanded harshly, his face only inches away from hers. “When?” He pushed her hands higher above her head, thrusting her breasts forward as he glared down at her. “I gave you every fucking part of me there was to give, and it still wasn’t enough.”
Angel had forgotten how tall Gabriel was, at least a foot taller than her own five feet and five inches in the three-inch heels. His body pressing so intimately into hers also allowed her to feel the hard strength of his muscular chest and defined abdomen, and the length of his engorged cock pressing against her. He smelled of the lemon soap he had always used in the shower, and the same spicy, masculine cologne. And beneath those was the heated, seductive musk that was all Gabriel.
Breathing him in caused those memories of hot, sweaty bodies to slam into her again, limbs entangled as they each fought for dominance over the other, not really caring which of them won, knowing in the end they would both win. That together they always won.
Angel shook her head to clear it of those memories. They had no place here. She had no place here. Having seen Gabriel again, spoken with him, breathed him in, she now knew this really had been a bad idea. A mistake. Beneath the suit and silk shirts, he was still the same warrior. A man who took no prisoners and gave no quarter.
A man she now realized had no intention of giving her quarter. He almost seemed to hate her, and she had no idea why when he had been the one to walk away from her.
What had she been thinking when she decided to come here?
Had she been thinking at all?
Truthfully, she had been too desperate to think, to reason. Too driven to realize, if she let this man back in her life he would destroy her by his mere presence.
A presence that was causing her body to melt into awareness of his. Her nipples were engorged, the heat pooling, dampening, between her thighs.
She avoided meeting the fierceness of Gabriel’s gaze. “I really do have to go.”
“I don’t think so,” he murmured, his breath stirring the hair at her temple. “You not only searched for and found me here at Knight Security, but you also made an appointment to see me personally. You aren’t leaving here until I know the reason why.”
“It isn’t important.” Angel blinked to ease the sting of tears at her understatement, the absolute lie of the words she had just uttered.
The reason she had come here to ask for Gabriel’s help was everything. Her sole reason for being. For getting up in the morning. For going to bed at night. For every breath she took. Everything.
But the man in front of her, this Gabriel, wasn’t the same man she had known eight years ago. He was harder. Colder. In body, heart, and soul.
“Now that I’ve seen you again, I realize you can’t help me,” she said dully.
“How the fuck can you know that when you haven’t told me what the problem is?”
“You can’t—” Her words were cut off abruptly as Gabriel’s hand curved about her chin and held her firmly in place before his mouth came crashing down on hers.
Oh God…
Angel was powerless to fight against the overwhelming need that flooded every part of her as Gabriel kept her hands pinned above her head and took full possession of her mouth. His lips savagely claimed and devoured. He kissed her long and deeply, every part of her mouth explored and laid siege to, his body hard and unyielding as he kept her pinned against the door.
Her body responded to this man, as it always had—always would? Her nipples became harder, her breathing shallow, between her thighs now a hot and liquid ache.
She gave a sob when Gabriel finally wrenched his mouth from hers. Unsure if it was a sob of need or simply relief at the ceasing of that physical onslaught.
He was breathing heavily, his eyes glittering down at her. “Why are you really here? Was it for this?” He pressed the length of his cock against the heat between her thighs.
She gave a choked laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous!” How could she have known, guessed, that Gabriel would want her? He had stopped wanting her eight years ago, so why should she have ever thought he would want her again now? And yet he did. That desire was unmistakable in the physical evidence of his body, the heated glitter in his eyes, and the flush along the sharp edges of his cheekbones. He looked nothing like the urbane man who’d been sitting behind his desk when she arrived, his expression having turned almost feral and out of control. “Release me, Gabriel,” she instructed quietly.
He bared his teeth. “Why the hell should I?”
“Because I asked you to.”
He gave a scornful laugh. “And you seriously think I have any interest in doing anything you might ask me to do?”
“Obviously not.” She sighed. “Which means this conversation is over.”
His eyes narrowed to glittering slits. “It’s over when I say it’s over.”
“No.” Angel had no idea how she managed to speak so calmly, when her whole body was still shaking from the onslaught of sensations created by that unexpected kiss. “I have no idea why you’re so angry with me, but you are, and that anger means you can’t help me.”
“You have no idea why I’m so angry with you…!” Gabriel drew in several deep, controlling breaths before releasing her hands and stepping away from her, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. “You’ve walked back into my life—for whatever reason—after eight years of silence, and you have no fucking idea why I’m angry with you?” He gave a disgusted shake of his head. “You never used to be obtuse.”
“I never used to be a lot of things,” she said evenly before sighing heavily. “I didn’t come here to argue with you.”
Gabriel snorted. “You didn’t come here to fuck. You didn’t come here to argue. So what the hell are you doing here?” He was at the end of his considerable patience. Seeing Angel again so unexpectedly was guaranteed to do that!
Kissing Angel again had been…incredible. Her lips were as soft, and she still tasted of something delicious he couldn’t name or describe but obviously still craved. Like a man dying of thirst in a desert.
He’d thought he was over this woman. That all those years of silence had killed any last lingering feelings he might have had for her. A few minutes in Angel’s company, and he had turned into a ravenous caveman. Or an addict desperate for his fix.
He didn’t want this again. Didn’t want to want Angel again. It had consumed him last time, almost killed him when she walked away, and he wasn’t about to lay himself open to that type of pain again.
He moved to sit behind his desk as a way of putting distance between them. “I can give you the names of several other reputable security companies who might be interested in helping you with whatever your problem is.” He pulled his notepad forward and wrote down three telephone numbers before ripping off the top sheet and holding it out to her. “As I said at the beginning of our conversation, Knight Security is not interested in taking you on as a client.”
Some of Angel’s anger returned at Gabriel’s easy dismissal of her after almost destroying her with his kiss. “You insult me, kiss me, and
now you think you can just dismiss me?” she challenged. “Well, it doesn’t work like that, Gabriel. I was willing to let this go, was on the point of leaving, then you were the one who decided to kiss me as if you own me—”
“Eight years ago, I did own you, damn it!” A fire blazed in his emerald eyes. “Every fucking inch of you was mine.”
“I belong to myself!” she came back fiercely. “Then and now. No one owns me. Not you. Not Clive. No one. So if you—”
“Who is Clive?”
She looked startled. “What…?”
Gabriel’s hands clenched into fists on top of his desk. “Who. Is. Clive.”
Oh God…
Only a few seconds of being back in Gabriel’s company, and she realized how big a mistake she had made coming here.
Gabriel had been intense eight years ago, and at the time, Angel had reveled in his single-minded pursuit of her. Been flattered by it. Seduced by it. Owned by it; Gabriel was right about that. She had been his. As surely as he had been hers. Until he wasn’t. One day, Gabriel had been the center of her life, totally consuming her, and the next day, he had been gone. Leaving a vacuum and heartache in his wake that had almost broken her.
Almost.
Until she found a reason to carry on. To not only survive but thrive.
She didn’t know what had made her say Clive’s name just now. Maybe because he was so much on her mind? Whatever the reason, she knew Gabriel well enough to realize he wouldn’t let the subject drop now that she’d brought it up. “Clive Sinclair’s my husband.”
Gabriel’s teeth clenched. “Is he dead?”
“No, of cou—” Angel frowned. “I said Clive Sinclair, Gabriel.”
“I heard you— The billionaire?” He eyed her with sharp suspicion.
“That’s the one,” she confirmed dryly.
“Jesus Christ!” Gabriel looked stunned.
As well he might. Clive owned media all over the world, including several television stations. He also owned a hotel chain and an airline, but preferred to travel in his private jet and own homes in several major cities in the world. Clive Sinclair did things his way or not at all.
Much like the man seated behind the desk in front of her.
Except she knew Gabriel possessed a heart behind that arrogant exterior. A heart that might not belong to her anymore, but she knew it was there nonetheless. Or, at least, it had been…
The mistake she had made was in thinking Clive had a heart too beneath his ruthless exterior. Once they were married, she had quickly been disabused of that fact.
“You’re married to Clive Sinclair?” Gabriel was still having trouble getting his head round the idea of his Angel being married to anyone, let alone a man as powerful and rich as Sinclair. The billionaire had to be at least twenty-five years older than her, and so powerful he could ensure his private life remained exactly that: private.
Which is probably the reason I never realized Angel was his wife.
Not that it would have mattered if he had. Whatever had been between the two of them was over.
“Separated,” she said stiffly.
The choke hold about Gabriel’s throat eased slightly. “But you aren’t divorced?”
“Hoping to be.”
He scowled. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means Clive isn’t as…amenable to the idea as I am,” she answered guardedly.
“You’re fighting over who gets custody of the poodle?” he taunted.
The moment of truth had arrived, Angel realized. The moment when she either told Gabriel why she had come here, to him specifically, or she continued to fight Clive on her own.
She was tired, so very tired, of trying to fight this battle alone.
She was also heartsick. In a way that was threatening to crush her.
“Angel?”
Tears stung her eyes at once again hearing the name that had been lost to her for so long. A familiarity that even allowed her to release a little of the self-pity she had never indulged in the past, or since.
Gabriel had once entered her life like a whirlwind, sweeping her off her feet, before leaving as abruptly as he had arrived. Angel had been left in a vacuum to pick up the pieces of her life and carry on without him. Which she had done, in the only way available to her at the time.
With hindsight, it had been the wrong way, but she hadn’t known that until it was too late to do anything but persevere with the choices she had made.
Choices which were now tearing her apart.
She raised her chin and looked directly into Gabriel’s dark green eyes. “We don’t have a dog. We do, however, have a son. A darling little boy Clive feels no qualms about using in order to make me do what he wants.”
Gabriel felt as if someone had just punched him hard in the chest, robbing him of breath. Not only was Angel married, but she had a son. He couldn’t… It was… God!
He might have tried not to think about Angel as the years passed, but even when he had allowed his thoughts to linger on her, he had never imagined her as someone else’s wife, and certainly not as a mother.
Stupid, he realized now. Angel was a beautiful and desirable woman. The same woman who had gone up in flames in his arms whenever they were together. Any man would want her. To claim all that fire and passion as his own.
The fact that she had come here now in order to seek Gabriel’s help in what appeared to be her acrimonious divorce was beyond comprehension. She couldn’t seriously think he would ever want to become involved.
He gave a firm shake of his head. “Knight Security deals in personal and professional security, not domestic disputes. If it’s any help.” His lips thinned. “It’s my experience men as powerful as Clive Sinclair like to assert that power with physical conquests outside their marriage. If you want evidence against your husband in order to attain a divorce, then I suggest you go to a detective agency.”
“This job isn’t for a detective agency or for Knight Security. It’s for you alone.”
“Me?” he scoffed.
Angel nodded. “It’s time for you to come out from behind that desk, Gabriel.”
He scowled darkly. “I’ll decide whether or not I ever do that, and becoming embroiled in your messy divorce certainly isn’t reason enough for me to even consider it.”
“If you won’t do it for me, then do it for Daniel.”
“Who the fuck is Daniel?”
“Your son.”
What the…!
Chapter 2
“My seven-year-old son Daniel is also your son, Gabriel.”
Why did Angel keep saying that? How could Angel’s son be his son too?
There was only one way that was possible. She would have to have been pregnant when she left him eight years ago.
If that was true—
Angel backed up several steps as Gabriel stood up to cross to her in forceful strides.
His expression was fiercely accusing as he grasped her painfully by the tops of her arms. “Where is he now? Where’s my son, damn it?”
“Gabriel—”
His eyes glittered as he glowered down at her. “How could you keep him from me? How dare you?” His face was pale, the skin stretched tightly across his cheekbones. “And why the hell did you marry Sinclair?” A nerve pulsed in the rigid set of his cheek. “Did you think I wouldn’t want you? That I wouldn’t want both you and our child?”
Angel had no idea what Gabriel would or wouldn’t want. How could she? He had already left her life by the time she realized she was expecting their baby. He’d left her with no choice but to fend for herself and their unborn child. She had done that to the best of her ability. Weighed up the options available to her and taken the one she had believed would give her baby the best future.
Angry color burned in her cheeks. “Don’t you dare attack and accuse me, Gabriel. Don’t you dare!” Her voice shook with emotion. “You weren’t there for me to know how you felt about anything. Maybe if you had been, I woul
dn’t have made the lousy choice that I did.”
He released her so suddenly, she stumbled and almost fell. “So now this is my fault?” He ran an agitated hand through his short dark hair even as those fiercely glittering eyes remained fixed on her. “Where’s my son now, Angel?” he demanded again coldly.
“That’s why I came here to see you—” She broke off with a gasp as Gabriel grasped hold of her arms again.
“Where the fuck is he?” His eyes were narrowed. “If you intended telling me about him, why didn’t you bring him here with you so I could see him for myself? Did you leave him in the care of some fucking nanny while you swanned off in your designer clothes? Answer me, damn it!”
“I’m trying to.”
“Try harder!”
“I—” She broke off as the office door was suddenly flung open.
“What the hell is going on in here, Gabriel?” Another man stood in the doorway, his overlong dark hair and green eyes showing a marked resemblance to Gabriel. “I could hear you shouting at the other end of the hallway.” He raised his brows as he glanced at Angel. “I sincerely hope that isn’t a new client, because if it is, your people skills need a little working on.”
It was totally illogical, totally inappropriate, given the dire circumstances, but for some reason, this man’s dry humor struck Angel as being hilariously funny. Once she began laughing, she didn’t seem able to stop, even when the tears began to cascade down her cheeks.
“Gabe?”
Gabriel’s own frown matched that of his brother. Angel wasn’t just laughing, she was caught up in full-blown hysteria, crying as well as laughing.
He was feeling less than calm himself, as indicated by Caleb’s reference to his raised voice. Gabriel never shouted. He was always in control. Never lost his calm. His ability to reason. In the past few minutes, he had done all those things.
Learning he had a seven-year-old son would do that to any man.
Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2) Page 2