Gabriel Is No Angel

by Wendy Haley

  Why did you make love to me tonight? It was a dangerous question, one that left the respondent much too vulnerable. Rae didn’t want to be vulnerable. Not to him. Not to anyone.

  And because she didn’t dare tell him that against her will, against all sense of self-preservation, she’d fallen in love with him. Good Lord, she might as well hand him the sacrificial knife!

  “That isn’t a fair question,” she said.

  “Still sidestepping?” he countered.

  “As I recall, you’ve sorta got me trapped in this corner.”

  “I wasn’t speaking in the physical sense. Do you want to know what I think, Rae?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No.” He closed the distance between them. She moved back the last few inches left to her and found herself with her back against the wall. Damn. Damn him.

  “I think you made love to me to keep me distracted,” he said. “And it worked big time, didn’t it? The minute I was asleep, you sneaked out to grab Peter Smithfield.”

  “That isn’t the way it was,” she said.

  He propped his hands on either side of her head. His gaze bored into hers, an icy cold rage turning them flat and pale. “I don’t like being conned, Rae.”

  “I could say the same,” she countered. “There were two people involved in that lovemaking, you know.”

  “I’m not the one who left,” he growled.

  “So I went for a walk!”

  His brows rose. “A walk? At 2:00 a.m.?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on, Rae,” he said. “You can do better than that.”

  She took a step forward, intending to get out of this corner any way she could. But he didn’t move back, and she either had to stop or walk straight into his chest.

  “Let me out,” she said.

  “No.”

  They glared at each other for what seemed like forever. Then something new came into his eyes, and her adrenaline went into a jagged upward surge.

  Desire.

  She hadn’t expected to see it in him. Not now, with such bitter conflict between them. But there it was, leaping like a flame in those gorgeous ice blue eyes.

  It hit her like a physical blow, igniting a slow burn deep in her belly. Her gaze drifted to his mouth, which was achingly sensual despite the hard-cut line of his lips. Instinct drew her hand up, laid it against the beard-roughened curve of his cheek. She watched the heat in his eyes flare higher, hotter.

  If this were an illness, at least they were both infected.

  Deliberately, she let her fingers trail down the strong column of his neck. His pulse throbbed beneath her hand, revving perceptibly as she slid her thumb into the hollow at the base of his neck.

  He reacted instantly, leaning toward her until their mouths nearly touched. She knew it was a ploy; she could see that in his eyes. Even so, her body thrilled to his nearness. Her skin felt hot and too sensitive, her breasts and nipples tingling in awareness. She could almost feel his hands on her. Touching her. Loving her all over again.

  “What do you want, Rae?” he asked, his voice low and harsh.

  “I...” She trailed off, not having the slightest idea of what she wanted to say.

  His eyes slitted nearly closed. Until then, she hadn’t realized just how much danger she was in. Now it was too late.

  His mouth covered hers. Although the kiss was butterfly light, butterfly soft, she reacted instantly. Desire torched through her, settling in an ache deep in her belly. Her breasts swelled and sensitized, as though her very flesh craved his hands.

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he deepened the kiss. Anger, resentment, caution—all drained from her mind like water from a sieve. Rational thought flew away, leaving only passion. She opened her mouth, accepting the touch of his tongue to hers.

  A wild, rushing wave crashed through her. Gone were the problems between them, the anger, the mistrust.

  He made a hoarse sound deep in his throat. She echoed it as he moved closer, slowly fitting his body to hers. Breasts, belly, thighs—sweet fire ran from every contact point, desire so hot it made her legs weak.

  There was nothing civilized about their passion. Nothing civilized in the way he plundered her mouth, or the way she sank her fingers into the dark wealth of his hair. This was as elemental as the sea, as fathomless and untamed. And like the sea, it conquered, overwhelmed, overcame.

  He slid his hands down her back, his fingers spread as if to encompass as much of her as possible. Then he dipped lower, cupping her, bringing her up against his aroused body.

  She cried out, a soft sound of arousal that made him surge against her. Sensation swirled like wine through her veins, driven by every beat of her heart. He slid one hand to the back of her neck, the other beneath her sweatshirt. Shifting position to allow him access to her breasts, he slid his palm upward along her ribs. Helplessly, Rae arched to meet his hand.

  His skin felt hot against her nipple, but she knew his mouth would be hotter. She yearned to feel his mouth there, right there. She ached for it. Just as she thought she might go crazy with the wanting, he dragged her shirt upward.

  Rae shivered with anticipation. The air felt cool on her overheated skin, and she couldn’t wait for him to warm her. Suddenly, her sweatshirt snagged on her fanny pack. With an impatient hiss, Gabriel unhooked the pack and tossed it away.

  It landed with a solid clunk.

  Gabriel stilled, and Rae’s heart did a swift, hard dive into her stomach. He pulled away from her. It took every bit of self-control she possessed to keep from drawing him back.

  “What have we got here?” he asked, retrieving the pack from the floor.

  He unzipped it and peered inside. His brows went up as he spotted her gun.

  “I have a permit for that,” she said.

  Gabriel let his breath out in a long sigh. He’d almost allowed her to con him again. Hell, it had been easy enough. One look, one touch, and he was on a roller coaster to nowhere.

  Well, the sight of the gun had brought him crashing right back to sanity, that was for sure. He hefted the .380 in his open palm. With any other woman, he would have considered the gun a contradiction. After all, who’d think that a creature of lush curves and warm, silken skin would possibly have anything to do with a deadly little semiautomatic? Rae, however, didn’t seem to fit any mold save her own.

  “Nice gun,” he said.

  Cautious, she nodded.

  “Packs a kick, though,” he continued. “Not enough mass to absorb the recoil.”

  “I can handle it.”

  Her matter-of-fact statement sat like lead on his heart. He dropped the pistol back into the fanny pack. “I bet you can. Better see if you can get a couple of hours’ sleep.”

  “Where?” she asked, then instantly regretted the question.

  He lifted his brows in supercilious inquiry. “Don’t worry. I’ll crash on the sofa.”

  With a sigh of frustration, she turned away. She was far too old, too cynical and too busy to have regrets for what might have been. Still, she couldn’t keep from watching Gabriel out of the corner of her eye as he wrestled the sofa over to the door. After positioning it to block the exit, he settled into it as though it might have a prayer of being comfortable.

  “Serves him right,” she muttered.

  Conned him, indeed, she thought huffily. She’d given herself to him in a way she’d never done before, even during her marriage, and he thought it a con? Cops were too cynical for words.

  She’d known it. She’d known it all along.

  There had never been a chance for them. She’d allowed herself to get trapped by a fantasy of her own making, a fantasy without a chance of coming true. She’d known it.

  She lay on top of the covers, unwilling to snuggle into the bed where she and Gabriel had shared so much pleasure, and stared up at the ceiling. There’d be no sleep for her. Judging from the amount of wiggling he was doing on the sofa, he wasn’t going to get any sleep, either. It was some
consolation, but not much.

  “This is stupid,” she announced to the room in general.

  “What is it now?” Gabriel asked.

  “I’m not going to get back to sleep, and neither are you.”

  “Ah. Do you have an alternate suggestion?”

  His voice was arid and harsh, and she decided that answering him would be a waste of time. She sat up and switched on the light.

  “Hey,” he growled, shielding his eyes with his hand.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she said.

  With a growl, he sat up. Her pulse stuttered as she took in the picture he made. He’d put on the same shirt he’d worn earlier, which ought to be fine, except that it was missing the top two buttons. A V of curly chest hair was visible in the opening, as well as some very hard, sculpted male chest. With his hair tousled and his eyes shadowed with fatigue, he looked...he looked like a man who’d spent the past week making love to some lucky woman.

  Oh, bother. She had to get some space, some objectivity, and some coffee. Alone. She went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she locked it.

  Gabriel wondered if she were locking him out or herself in. After the way she’d looked at him a moment ago, he couldn’t be sure. But oh, man, she had looked at him. He was surprised the sofa hadn’t burst into flame beneath him.

  The sound of running water came through the bathroom door. He lay back down and closed his eyes, trying not to think about Rae in the shower. He might as well have tried to fly. His imagination conjured up the vision of Rae naked, water sluicing down her delectable body. Enticing. He’d wash her, his hands gliding over her glistening breasts. Her skin would be soap slick, hot from his touch.

  In his fantasy, he walked into that bathroom. Naked, he’d step into the shower. He’d put his arms around her and pull her wet, naked body against his. There would be no Peter Smithfield, no damned summons to be served, nothing but skin and passion and heat.

  His body had reacted powerfully to the fantasy, becoming so hard it was actually painful. Gritting his teeth, he turned face down. It wouldn’t do for her to come traipsing out here and find him ready to celebrate the Fourth of July in a big way.

  “Damn,” he growled.

  The bathroom door opened a crack, nearly startling him out of his skin. Rae peered out the narrow opening, steam curling out from around her.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “Would you mind handing me that bag over there? The blue one?”

  He closed his eyes, willing self-control. After a moment, he was able to get up off the sofa to fetch the bag. She had to open the door wider to take it from him, and he got an eye-searing glimpse of her shapely derriere in the mirror. Steam fogged the glass, making that pale, curvy image seem to float.

  Reality, at that moment, seemed a hell of a long way away.

  Gabriel knew he was staring, but he couldn’t have looked away if his life depended on it. Arousal swept through him in a wild rush, and it was all he could do to keep from pushing that door open and claiming her all over again.

  Sure, his cop’s mind whispered. And get used all over again. But damn, she was more woman than the law ought to allow.

  “Here,” he growled, holding the bag out.

  Rae noticed that Gabriel’s gaze seemed to be focused on a point behind her. Then she stiffened. She’d forgotten the mirror. A glance over her shoulder confirmed her suspicion. Oh, yes, she’d really slipped up this time. She’d taken great pains not to reveal more than her neck and face to Gabriel, while leaving her naked behind exposed in the minor.

  “Men are toads,” she said.

  Gabriel didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “A man would have to be crazy not to look,” he said. “I might be a fool sometimes, given the proper motivation, but I’m not crazy.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” she countered.

  He put one hand on the door, exerting enough pressure so that she had to lean against it to keep it from swinging open. Her heart started to pound with fear. Not because she thought he might force his way in. He wouldn’t.

  She was afraid that she’d let him in.

  “Are you going to pretend that nothing happened between us?” he asked. “Can you honestly think you can forget what happened in that bed over there, what we did and what we shared?”

  Never. “Yes.”

  “Then why haven’t you covered up?”

  Rae’s face went hot, and she wished she could crawl in a hole. Of course, there was no answer to his question. She hadn’t covered up because it simply hadn’t occurred to her.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I like looking at you.”

  Her gaze strayed down his body, and she realized just how much he liked looking at her. She jerked her gaze back up to his face.

  “As you can see, I can’t seem to hide my feelings very well,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.

  Somehow, she had to get a handle on things. Her libido was zinging almost out of control, and making love to him now would be the biggest mistake of her life.

  “You call those feelings?” she inquired.

  He shrugged. “I can sure feel them.”

  Rae thought she detected a note of disdain colored his voice. She swallowed hard, hoping she was mistaken. Disdain would turn the memory of that beautiful lovemaking into something less. Something...well, tawdry.

  “Let go of the damned door,” she ordered.

  He did. But he smiled when he did it, taking away any hope of triumph for her. Rae closed the door and locked it, then stepped into the shower. Grateful for the comfort of the heat, she turned and let the water beat against her back.

  “These things happen,” she said, moving so that the shower peppered her front. “You made a mistake. Deal with it.”

  Gabriel didn’t matter. He didn’t.

  Strange, though, that the water running down her face tasted suspiciously like tears.

  Chapter 10

  Rae didn’t say a word as she stuffed her gear into the soft-sided suitcase she’d shipped with her clothes. Her eyes felt heavy and sore, but she told herself it was fatigue.

  Gabriel leaned against the door, watching her. He looked big and sexy and as arrogant as ever. Rae wondered if anything could puncture that cynical self-confidence. Probably not. People who dared to try would just find themselves at the wrong end of a pair of handcuffs.

  “I’ll drive you home,” Gabriel growled.

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’m going that way, anyway,” he said.

  She shot him a look that should have dropped him where he stood. “Oh, so the surveillance is still on?”

  “Until I hear otherwise.”

  “Why don’t you call and ask?”

  One corner of his mouth went up. “Anxious to get rid of me?”

  “Detective,” she said, tilting her head back to meet his gaze, “you have no idea.”

  She zipped the bag closed and headed for the door. She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d do if Gabriel didn’t get out of the way. But he did, and with a smile.

  That smile was full of cynicism, like the man himself. But it also contained a megawatt-voltage of sensuality, and she registered it in places she didn’t even want to admit she owned.

  Of course, he followed her out into the hall. She walked along, head high, looking neither to the right nor the left—and certainly not toward him.

  “Seems a shame to waste money on a cab when there’s a perfectly good car waiting downstairs for us,” he said.

  “No,” she said with finality.

  “It would make following you a whole lot easier.”

  “I bet.”

  She jammed her thumb onto the Down button for the elevator, and held it there.

  “That’s not going to make it come any faster,” Gabriel said.

  “MacLaren, go away,” she snapped, completely exasperated.

  “I can’t.”

  “You won’t, you mean.”
r />   “Can’t,” he corrected. “Orders, remember?”

  The elevator arrived. Rae put her nose in the air and walked on. Gabriel came with her. Clasping his hands behind him, he rocked back and forth from his heels to the balls of his feet. Rae kept her eyes forward and her temper under tight rein.

  Only a few more minutes, she thought.

  The same clerk was still on duty. His brows rose as Rae marched up to the desk and slapped her key on the counter.

  “I hope you folks enjoyed your visit,” he said.

  “Best honeymoon I ever had,” Gabriel said.

  Rae was getting some definite homicidal impulses. She signed the charge slip with a slash-and-dash approximation of her signature, then ripped her copy off and headed for the door. She wasn’t surprised that Gabriel followed her; she was only surprised that she’d managed to stay sane this long.

  A taxi idled outside. She started toward it, but Gabriel caught her by the arm and pulled her to a stop.

  “Is that for you?” he asked.

  “I called while you were in the bathroom.”

  “Sneaky.”

  “Sneaky would have been leaving the room,” she countered.

  “I’d only find you again,” he said cheerfully.

  “Why do you think I didn’t walk?” she snapped.

  Removing her arm from his grasp, she got in the taxi. As it pulled away from the curb, she glanced out the back window and saw MacLaren getting in the Taurus.

  After that, she kept her face turned forward. She wasn’t going to shake Gabriel, much as she’d like to. Some day she’d like to peel off a twenty and growl at a taxi driver, “Ya get this if you lose him.”

  She leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “If I offered you a twenty and asked you to lose someone, what would you do?”

  He shot her a glance. “Are you kidding, lady? Think I’d risk my license for a lousy twenty bucks?”

  “So, how much?”

  “Who do you want to lose?”

  “A cop.”

  He gave an explosive snort. “You ain’t got enough.”

  “I need to buy a car,” she complained. “Taxi drivers have wimped out.”

  “No joke,” he retorted. “This is the nineties, lady. Everybody’s gotta be politically correct.”