by Robyn Grady
“You’re right. I can’t. Not completely. But I have to believe that my reputation and credentials will get me the right job at the right time. I don’t know that I’d ever be able to gain the respect of the staff here. I won’t make that mistake twice. I won’t jump the queue and take on something I don’t deserve.”
He stopped less than an arm’s length away, and instantly the space between them crackled with heat. Despite their disagreeable past, and the battlefield they occupied now, the grooves in his mind slotted back into blistering memories of last night and the undeniable force that clawed at him whenever she was near.
He set his jaw. Got a grip. Slapped that mental wall back up.
“Nina, you can’t continue to work here.”
Her slim nostrils flared before she slowly nodded. “I understand. I do.” She glanced over their cold meals. “If it’s all the same with you, I won’t stay for dessert.”
She turned, and even as his throat and chest burned he noticed her limp as she walked through into the main room.
And don’t bother with the lame act to get sympathy either, he wanted to call after her. He wasn’t that much of a sucker.
But when the limp seemed to get worse, the further she walked, Gabriel scrubbed his jaw.
Working all afternoon and half the night, she must have been on her feet the whole time. From Mr Dorset’s account, Nina would know she didn’t have another card up her sleeve; she couldn’t call in sick or beg off early. Had the doctor even checked her out? Gabriel would bet not.
He dragged his hand down his face, tried to come up with another way. Then, cursing under his breath, he strode off to catch her up. This woman would drive him nuts.
“For God’s sake, Nina, come back and sit down.”
The way she was going she’d only cause herself more harm.
When she kept walking Anthony’s shadow breathed down Gabriel’s neck, and the voice in his head—over his shoulder—grew louder.
Stop her. Make her listen. She’s hurt. She’s my sister and she needs your help!
Gabriel put some steel in his voice. “Nina.”
“I’m going.”
“Going where?”
She angled back. “I’m looking forward to finding out.”
She was so stubborn. So annoying, and so…amazingly attractive. As her eyes glistened into his, his heartbeat boomed in his ears and he knew to his soul what had to be done.
The pull—this fierce physical attraction—was too strong to ignore. No matter how many times she walked away, he would have to bring her back because what he’d tried to block from his mind all the long day would happen. He knew it as well as he knew his own name. They would make love again and she’d better prepare herself.
The way he was feeling, last night had only been practice.
CHAPTER NINE
GABRIEL strode over and drew her body hard against his. As his mouth came crashing down upon hers, Nina braced herself not to weaken.
In a way, she’d expected this. This man’s middle name might be “irresistible,” but after that discussion she would rather jump from a plane without a parachute than confirm the terrible, wonderful heat his kiss stirred deep inside her.
He wanted her gone. No problem.
She was going.
Go…ing…
After several breathtaking, ultra-persuasive moments, the kiss softly broke and Gabriel’s hot-lidded gaze brushed over her face. His fingertips traced hair from her brow and he murmured, “Are you listening now?”
She swallowed, but held her chin high. “No.”
He kissed her again, and those defences crumbled more. Her head told her to pull back, to slap his face; who did he think he was, assaulting her like this? Her body, on the other hand, whispered to her heart to press in more.
His kisses only got better.
When his lips left hers a second time, her breathing was tellingly deep. A practised hand skimmed her side before he took a lingering kiss from her temple, her cheek. To stop herself from snaking her arms around his neck, she fisted his shirt in her hands.
Feeling giddy, she groaned, “What do you want from me?”
He cupped her chin. “You have to ask?”
She closed her eyes and prayed. She had to clear her foggy brain. Had to keep smart. Keep strong.
“You’re Gabe Turner,” she reminded herself. “You sacked me.” Her eyes opened. “If you think I’ll sleep with you again, you’ve got rocks in your head.”
He scooped her up into his arms and began to walk.
She managed to straighten to a board as her stomach pitched. “I’ll scream.”
His mouth hooked into the sexiest of smiles. “Promise?”
As he carried her into his bedroom, Nina told herself she should struggle and demand he set her down. She had to put this rabid sexual thirst away. Lock the door and throw away the double-edged key. Because, while this might seem a natural extension of their previous smouldering night together, tomorrow she would pay the price.
She’d already lost her job. She didn’t want to lose her self-respect too.
But by the time he stopped in the middle of the shadowy bedroom, and she gazed up into those haunting ice-blue eyes, her arguments had wound down to nought. Rather than warnings she heard only a sweet chorus, urging her to go forward. It was as if history were already written. The deed was already done. Right or wrong, she would go through with this. The reason was simple.
There’d never be another Gabriel. One more time with him would be more than a lifetime with anyone else.
As if he read her thoughts, the lines either side of his eyes crinkled with a soft smile. He crossed the room and set her carefully down beside the bed. Then he flicked down the quilt and stood back, running an eye over her dress, as if approving of the design but also analysing the most effective way to remove it.
Stepping close again, he gripped the hem and the dress slid like butter up over her hips, her waist, her head, finally her arms. While she trembled inside from crown to toe, his hot gaze consumed her. She felt every stroke of his appraisal as it sizzled over her strapless bra, lower, to her abdomen then across her red silk briefs.
His gaze jumped and held hers again while he peeled the shirt off his back and dropped it to the timber floor. With the broad expanse of his chest rising and falling, he pulled her up against his hard heat and, after murmuring that he’d wanted her all day, claimed her mouth with his again.
She’d expected his kiss to ignite her as it had last night, to take over her senses and leave her deliciously weak and desperately wanting. She’d expected the same fireworks to leap up, lighting her blood until flames devoured any lingering whim to resist.
She was surprised.
When they’d lain together last night she’d never felt more alive, more grateful for each breath, and for the man who’d made another day possible. Tonight his kiss went beyond that. This heady emotion wasn’t about outside influence or circumstance. It was about them…how well they meshed…how amazingly well they fitted. As his head angled more, and he kissed her thoroughly, her soul floated away and joined his, twining and spiralling off into blessed infinity.
Nina coiled her arms around his neck, unable to imagine anyone feeling as much as she felt at that moment. The desire was both an all-consuming necessity and a magnificent release that remade her, as light as the moonbeams slanting in through the open plantation blinds. No one could ever have felt this deeply before this.
Before them.
His mouth gradually broke from hers to trail down the side of her throat. She arched her neck, allowing him better access, and sighed when he snapped open her bra. As the bra dropped between them, his mouth slid along her collarbone and, one palm supporting her weight, he lowered her back upon the sheets.
He unzipped his trousers and not soon enough stood before her naked. She shouldn’t stare. She’d seen him sans clothes before. The straight stance, lean hips, hard bronzed frame that tapered into a perfect
V. This sight proved yet again that he was no ordinary man. He was so much more than that.
He rested one knee on the bed and, with his hands either side of her shoulders, asked, “You okay? Your ankle?”
Relishing the abandon, she dragged him down. “I’m not thinking about my foot.”
While she battled to keep her heart behind her ribs, his palm traced down over her waist, her leg, all the way to her bandage and then up again.Above the knee, however, his direction curled in to feather up her inner thigh. When his fingertips skimmed her panties’ damp crotch a flash of darkest desire plunged through her, gripping her insides and coating them with warm liquid want.
Biting her lip, she turned her head towards the pillow. “You want to torture me?”
He chuckled. “Not the word I’d have used.”
She found his hand and held his palm against the pulse that was both freeing her spirit as well as compressing every thought and feeling gloriously tight. His lips nuzzling hers, he tugged her panties’ crotch aside. At the same time as cool air brushed between her thighs, his mouth left hers. A moment later his warm breath was a whisper away from her most intimate, private place.
Gripping the sheet at her sides, she fought the urge to buck her hips, to let him know how dearly she wanted this. Wanted him. When he urged her folds apart, and his tongue dipped to swirl over the sensitive nub, she bit her lip harder to quell the cry.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
Then he kissed her again, with his lips, with his tongue, twirling and tasting until he’d drawn out every ounce of vulnerability she’d ever hidden from the world. She felt the roughness of his beard and the pleasure in his smile as he groaned and hummed against her. The vibration filtered through her blood, igniting a glittering roadmap of longing that swept along her veins. And then…
One second she was vaguely aware of her surroundings, of her individual heartbeat and the rhythmic wash of the waves outside. The next the spiral of sensation had smashed through the ceiling. The tingling burn heightened, deepened, widened, until nothing existed but the heat-lightning rushing over her breasts, scorching her nipples and shooting blazing stars through her mind to her core.
From the moment Nina surrendered, Gabriel knew tonight wouldn’t be their last. Holding her now, as she cried out his name, he was struck by another revelation. Whatever lay behind their fiery connection, it was real—and she knew it too. She wanted this to continue as much as he did—if not more.
As her contractions eased, and she breathed out a full-bodied sigh, he pulled himself up over her amazing curves. Her eyes were closed and an almost innocent smile graced her swollen lips. He drank in the sight, drawing out the anticipation, and with every passing second his want for her grew.
Dreamy, she blinked open her eyes. She focused, then her smile fanned and her arms went out to him.
Pressing tender kisses to her brow, he entered her, with finite, together-again care. When he was certain she was ready, when he felt her urgency had built again to breaking point, he gripped the top of the bedhead with one hand and cupped her nape with the other. He looked into her eyes and, in one, long slow act, drove in all the way.
Her head went back and she gasped, at the same time as he summoned every ounce of will-power to stop the intense push from getting the best of him. He couldn’t remember having experienced this kind of smouldering force before. It was like trying to catch and hold a fleet of flaming arrows in one hand.
He’d reined himself in and was moving again when the worst possible thing happened. Nuzzling up against his ear, she whispered his name.
A wave swept over his body at the same time as she trailed her fingertips up and down his sides. Goosebumps flashed over his skin and that fleet of arrows shot at his groin. He trembled, shuddered, tucked in his chin. But then she cupped his jaw and craned up to steal a tender yet urgent kiss. With her tongue edging lovingly over his, his erection throbbed and hardened to become near unmanageable.
Struggling to smile, he murmured against her mouth, “Did someone mention torture?”
Her laugh was more of a purr. “I can put you out of your misery.”
Her velvet walls contracted around him, squeezing and holding while her teeth tugged his bottom lip. His hand dropped from the bedhead to iron up over her ribcage and knead her breast. As their movements blended and synchronised, he understood he’d never enjoyed an experience quite like this. The fire was so formidable that his blood had turned to lava.
It had nothing to do with their bond over her brother. Nothing to do with saving her life. It was physical, sure, but it was beyond that too. Every ion seemed to fuse in all the right places. She fitted him, he fitted her—everywhere.
Every way.
He took her mouth and kissed her hard as his skin steamed and pressure grew. A moment later she quietened beneath him, shrinking into herself and quivering while her breathing ceased altogether. With every tendon and muscle clenched, he withdrew fully, then filled her once more, hitting a place and a moment so high neither one would reach the ground again without jumping off.
Her fingers dug into his biceps as her frame arched high. The sky opened up—fierce, bright—and Gabriel dived into the light.
CHAPTER TEN
REMEMBERING the bliss of the previous passion-filled night, Nina eased into a satisfied smile a moment before blinking open her eyes to greet what she knew would be a fabulous new day.
With post-dawn shadows dancing over the quiet bedroom walls, and waves thundering on the shore, Nina rolled over. Awake only seconds, already her body ached for Gabriel’s touch—and much more.
Her lover lay on his stomach, one muscled arm curled around his head, his bristled jaw resting upon the pillow. His thick sooty lashes were still and his highly kissable lips were parted. She listened to his deep breathing, which was almost a snore, as his broad bronzed back expanded and fell.
Her gaze filtered down.
The white sheet lay over his tight buns. The outline of his legs reached past the end of the bed. She remembered how that long, athletic body had pressed upon hers last night and a bright thrill sailed through her. No one made love the way he did. Physically he was supreme. As far as skill went, he was king. Even now his invisible line reeled her in. It had been there from the first, this unseen primal force that spoke to her soul. Chemistry? Yes.
And something more.
Nina watched him for long moments, enjoying that surreal feeling again. For the first time in so long she didn’t feel the pressure to get up and “do.” She could lie here all day with him if she wanted.
She no longer had a job to run off to.
Last night Gabriel had clobbered her with the news that he was, in fact, her childhood arch enemy number one: Gabe Turner. He’d followed that up by terminating her employ. Offering to set her up with a publishing job in Sydney didn’t fix anything; she wouldn’t go down that undeserving track again. But after he’d seduced her—after she’d surrendered and they’d made love half the night—neither had broached the subject of her termination again.
So where did she go from here?
A cool breeze blew up the gauzy curtains and Nina shivered. Rubbing her arms, she eased out from beneath the sheet. She tiptoed to the spare bedroom and entered its en suite bathroom. After a long shower, trying to figure out what the heck to do with her life from this point, she grabbed a plush robe off its hook and, fluff-drying her hair with a towel, emerged into the main room.
She stopped dead and caught her runaway breath.
Gabriel spun around to greet her while his dignified guest nodded cordially.
“I invited Dr Newman to check your ankle,” Gabriel said.
“Mr Steele filled me in on your ordeal.” The doctor indicated she should sit at the dinner table. “You’re very lucky he came along when he did.”
Nina tried to release the tension gripping her body, but what must the doctor think of her—an employee breaking that most sacred rule and spending t
he night with a guest? And, regardless of Gabriel saving her life, what right did he have calling the doctor without consulting her first? She felt like a child.
Clutching the robe closer to her neck, Nina cleared her throat. “Lucky…yes. But my ankle feels fine now, thank you.”
The doctor pushed his bifocals to the bridge of his nose, then released the clip on his bag. “Nevertheless…”
Nina evaluated the situation. Clearly she was in no position to win a stand-off. Two against one, and her ankle was telling her to cop it on the chin and sit down.
Trying to look poised in her towelling robe, she crossed to a chair, and five minutes later the doctor’s examination of her injuries was complete. He fished out some tablets, checked the label, and handed the pack over.
“Anti-inflammatories will help with that slight swelling and any pain.” He snapped shut his bag and straightened his tie. “Keep the wounds clean, take it easy on your feet, and call me if you have any concerns.”
Gabriel thanked the doctor for his time, and the moment the older man had let himself out Nina stood and gave Gabriel a look.
He arched his brows. “What?”
“I’m old enough to make my own appointments.”
He gathered her near, stole three or four slow closed-mouth kisses from her lips, and the lines of her defence typically started to slide.
With a crooked grin, he rubbed the tip of his nose with hers. “I was only looking out for you.”
His mouth lowered to kiss her again, but, feeling a little odd with Gabe Turner now that the daylight had come, she dodged and wove out of his arms. She knew he wasn’t that proud, aloof teenager any more, but still…
She dug her hands into the robe’s pockets. “Don’t you think this is weird?”
“You mean how good we are together?”
“That we’re together at all.” She lowered herself into the couch. “I know time’s supposed to heal all wounds, but you really didn’t like me.”
He tugged his ear. “I wouldn’t say that.”