Apart from the fact that it wasn’t raining, it was an end to the evening so reminiscent of the one five years ago. A memory that had remained etched in Bryn’s mind.
She had been mooning about Gabriel for weeks by that time, totally infatuated with his dark good looks and confident air. After he had come to her parents’ house to talk with her father a couple times, she had taken to calling in to the Archangel Gallery several times a week on the off chance she might see him again.
That evening she had hung around outside at closing time, telling herself it was because she was waiting for the rain to ease off before making a dash for the bus stop, but in reality she had been hoping to catch a glimpse of Gabriel as he left the gallery.
Her breath had caught in her throat when she’d seen him coming out of the main doors, a fiery blush on her cheeks as he’d looked up and seen her, his face going blank for several seconds before recognition had widened those chocolate-brown eyes and he’d stopped to chat with her. It had been a blushingly stilted conversation on Bryn’s part, and she had been rendered completely speechless when Gabriel had asked if he could drive her home.
She had been so aware of Gabriel’s proximity once they were seated in the confines of his sleek sports car, the silence between them on the drive to her home seeming heavy with possibility and causing Bryn to tremble with nervous anticipation.
She had given him a shy glance from beneath dark lashes once he’d stopped the car outside her parents’ house. ‘Thank you for driving me home.’ She had groaned inwardly at her lack of sophistication.
‘You’re welcome.’ His voice had been husky as he’d turned in his seat to look at her. ‘Sabryna, I— Tomorrow there’s going to be—’ He had broken off, frowning darkly. ‘Oh, to hell with it, if I’m going to burn I may as well go down in a ball of flames!’ he had muttered fiercely before his head had swooped down and his lips had captured hers.
It had been the most exquisite kiss of Bryn’s young life, slow and searching, but at the same time so erotically charged she had felt as if she might drown in the feelings, emotions, coursing through her body.
She had been totally dazed by those emotions as Gabriel had suddenly wrenched his mouth from hers to look down at her briefly with hot, passionate eyes before moving back and turning away.
‘You should go in,’ he muttered darkly. ‘And try not to— Never mind,’ he had bitten out abruptly as he’d turned to look at her with tortured eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Sabryna.’
She had blinked. ‘For kissing me?’
‘No,’ he had rasped harshly. ‘I’ll never be sorry I did that. Just— Try not to hate me too much, okay?’
At the time Bryn had believed she could never hate Gabriel, that she loved him too much to ever hate him.
The following day, that ‘tomorrow’ Gabriel had referred to so obliquely, her world had blown up in her face, as her father had been arrested for forgery, with Gabriel lined up as the prosecution’s lead witness against him.
‘I’m glad,’ Gabriel murmured now in answer to her earlier comment.
Bryn came back to the present with a bump. ‘I’d ask you in for coffee, but...’ She trailed off with hard dismissal.
It had been a surprisingly enjoyable evening, Bryn acknowledged self-disgustedly, knowing that the past shouldn’t have allowed her to enjoy an evening with the hateful Gabriel D’Angelo.
But she had....
The food had been so excellent and the decor, the crowded room and loud conversation had all become part of that enjoyment. Two glasses of wine and she had even become fond of Toni’s off-key renditions of classical Italian arias!
As for the company... Gabriel had proved to be an amusing and entertaining dining companion, as they discussed their favourite artists as they ate, along with some of the funnier stories from Gabriel’s years of running the Archangel Galleries with his brothers.
Bryn had felt totally relaxed in his company by the time they left the bistro, from the good food, the wine and the good company, so much so that it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world to agree to Gabriel driving her home.
Enjoyable as the evening had been though, she admittedly inwardly that she found Gabriel even more disturbing now than she had five years ago.
As Gabriel D’Angelo he was unmistakably intelligent, sinfully handsome, as well as being equally sinfully rich and powerful.
As Gabriel he was obviously intelligent and handsome, but he was also relaxed and charming, plus he had a slightly wicked sense of humour, and a warmth that had allowed him to accept, without so much as a blink, the enthusiastic kiss Maria had planted on his lips, with the plea to ‘come back and see me soon’, before they left the bistro earlier.
All of those things, together with those dark and mesmerising good looks, that Bryn had become so increasingly aware of as the evening progressed made her very aware that she was in danger of falling under this man’s spell for the second time in her life.
‘But?’ Gabriel turned in his seat to prompt Bryn out of her continued silence.
She raised startled eyes. ‘Sorry?’
‘“I’d ask you in for coffee, but...”’ he reminded her.
She smiled ruefully. ‘That’s a woman’s polite way of saying thank you for the evening but now it’s over.’
‘You don’t have any coffee?’
‘I always have coffee.’
‘Then why not invite me in?’
She blinked long lashes. ‘I—well—it’s late.’
‘It’s only eleven o’clock.’ Although it was obvious to Gabriel that Bryn didn’t want to invite him into her home, and he knew she was right to feel that caution, he wanted so badly for her to change her mind.
He hadn’t thought it was possible, but his attraction to her had deepened in the past few hours and he was now desperate to taste and feel those plump lips that had been tormenting him all evening.
So desperate he moved to close the distance that separated them. ‘Bryn—’
‘Please don’t!’ She immediately held her hands up defensively, her eyes wide with alarm as she leaned back against the door behind her.
‘Why not?’ Gabriel prompted.
She ran the moistness of her tongue over her lips before answering him. ‘Why ruin a perfectly good evening?’
He frowned darkly. ‘My kissing you would ruin the evening?’
‘Please, Gabriel—’
‘But that’s what I want to do, Bryn— To please you!’ He closed the last of the distance between them as he pulled her gently forward into his arms before looking down at her hungrily.
‘I can’t!’ Her eyes glittered with unshed tears, her hands still held up defensively between them, not pushing Gabriel away, but desperately trying not to touch him either. ‘I can’t, Gabriel,’ she repeated achingly.
It was the despair in her voice, along with those unshed tears glistening in her beautiful eyes, that caused an icy chill down the length of Gabriel’s spine as he stilled. ‘Talk to me, Bryn,’ he encouraged gruffly. ‘For God’s sake, talk to me!’
‘I can’t.’ She gave another desperate shake of her head.
‘I have to kiss you, damn it,’ he said, wanting Bryn, but more than that wanting her to trust him.
With her body. With her emotions. With her past....
She looked up at him searchingly in the moonlight for several tense, timeless seconds, before she gave another slow and determined shake of her head. ‘I really can’t,’ she repeated flatly.
‘Not good enough, Bryn!’ he rasped. ‘Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, that you don’t want that as much as I do, that you haven’t ached for it all evening, and I won’t ask you again,’ he encouraged gruffly.
Her throat moved as she swallowed convulsively. ‘I can’t do that either,’ she acknowl
edged achingly, her voice carrying a desperate sob.
‘You want me to make that decision for both of us, is that it?’ he bit out harshly.
Bryn was no longer sure what she wanted!
Well... She was, but what she wanted—to kiss and to be kissed by Gabriel—was what she shouldn’t want.
He was a D’Angelo, for goodness’ sake. And no matter how charming and entertaining he had been this evening, underneath all that charm he was still the cold and ruthless Gabriel D’Angelo from all those years ago. To allow— To want to kiss and be kissed by that man went against every instinct of loyalty she had, as well as every shred of self-preservation she possessed.
Except... She couldn’t escape the fact that the man she had met earlier today, the man she had just spent the evening with—the same man who made her pulse race and caused her body to be so achingly aware of everything about him—wasn’t in the least cold or ruthless, but was instead hot and seductive. That man she desperately wanted and longed to kiss.
Which was utter madness, when she knew exactly how Gabriel would react if he knew who she really was.
‘Please let me, Bryn.’
She couldn’t breathe as she looked up at Gabriel, unable to make a move to stop him as his hands moved up to cup her cheeks and lift her face to his, feeling herself drowning, becoming totally lost in the dark and enticingly warm depths of his piercing brown eyes as his mouth slowly descended towards hers.
CHAPTER FIVE
BRYN MELTED AS Gabriel first sipped, tasted and then devoured her as he crushed her lips beneath his, hearing the low groan in his throat as her fingers became entwined in the dark hair at his nape. Her breasts were heavy and aroused as they pressed against the hardness of his chest, Gabriel having pulled her in as tightly against him as was possible in the confines of the car as he continued to kiss her with an ever-deepening hunger.
A hunger that Bryn couldn’t help but feel in return, groaning low in her throat as she felt the brush of Gabriel’s tongue against her bottom lip, light, questing, possessing as her lips parted and his tongue surged inside, licking and tasting, learning every nuance, every dip and curve, his hands a restless caress along the length of her spine.
Bryn broke their kiss, her slender neck arching as she felt Gabriel’s hand push her blouse up, his fingers lightly caressing the bareness of her spine, her abdomen, before his hand cupped beneath the bared fullness of her breast.
The soft pad of his thumb was a light, sweeping torture across her aroused nipple, his lips a hot caress against Bryn’s throat as pleasure coursed hotly through her body, heating, dampening between her thighs, as he captured her aching nipple between thumb and finger, squeezing lightly.
His ragged breath burned against her throat as his other hand moved to unfasten the buttons of her blouse, allowing his questing lips to move lower, his tongue a sweeping, hungry caress against the tops of her breasts before dipping lower as he sucked her aching, straining nipple into the moist heat of his mouth.
Bryn’s head fell back against the headrest behind her, her fingers becoming entwined in the dark thickness of Gabriel’s hair as she held him against her, the intense pleasure of the dual assault of Gabriel’s lips and fingers against her breasts almost too much to bear.
Almost.
The pleasure was just too good, too exquisite, as it built higher, and then higher still, as Gabriel continued to draw deeply on her nipple, his tongue a moist and rasping caress against that burgeoning heat, rising higher, deeper, until she felt as if she would explode into a million pieces that could surely never be completely put back together again.
Never.
‘Gabriel, you have to stop!’
Gabriel was so aroused by the taste of Bryn and the desire that had raged so deeply, so out of control between them, that it took him several moments to realise that her hands were now pushing against his chest, her face turned away from him as she struggled to free herself from his arms.
He backed off the instant he realised what she was doing; he had never forced himself on a woman in his life before and he certainly wasn’t about to start now. He desired Bryn too much to ever want to do anything that she didn’t want, ache for, as much as he did.
Gabriel’s breathing sounded harsh in the confines of the car. ‘Hell, I totally forgot where we were.’ He gave a wince as he realised they were still sitting in his car parked outside the building where Bryn lived, and that although the side windows of the car were darkened glass, the windscreen certainly wasn’t. ‘I’m sorry, Bryn.’ He ran an agitated hand restlessly through the dark thickness of his hair.
She avoided so much as looking at him as she straightened and refastened her blouse with hands that shook slightly, her face pale in the moonlight.
‘Bryn?’
‘Not now, Gabriel. In fact, not ever!’ she insisted shakily. ‘I have to go.’ She turned to look out of the side window. ‘I— Thank you for dinner. I enjoyed Antonio’s.’
‘Just not what followed?’ Gabriel murmured knowingly.
Bryn gave a pained grimace. ‘I’m sure you’ll agree it wasn’t the most sensible thing either of us has ever done—’
‘Bryn, will you, for the love of God, look at me?’ he rasped his frustration with the situation. ‘Talk to me, damn it!’
She turned slowly, eyes huge and shadowed, her cheeks as pale as ivory in the moonlight. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’
‘Don’t you?’
She looked away from the intensity of his gaze. ‘How about, this should never have happened?’ She gave a shake of her head. ‘We both know that already.’
‘Do we?’
‘Yes.’ Bryn looked at him searchingly. ‘Unless— Is this standard procedure? Did you think, expect, that I would be so grateful to be included in the exhibition at Archangel I would—?’ She broke off abruptly as she obviously saw, and recognised, the tightening of Gabriel’s jaw and the anger now glittering in the darkness of his eyes.
‘I’m getting a little tired of that accusation, Bryn.’ He spoke softly, dangerously so. ‘And no, kissing me isn’t the price you’re expected to pay for inclusion in the exhibition!’
She winced. ‘I didn’t exactly say that—’
‘You didn’t exactly have to!’ Gabriel bit out harshly, wondering if he had ever been this angry in his life before. ‘What the hell sort of man do you think I am? Don’t answer that,’ he immediately amended. He already knew what sort of man Bryn thought he was.
Gabriel had thought, believed, that after a rocky start they had managed to spend a relaxed evening together, that Bryn was starting to see beyond what happened in the past—starting to see him beyond that—and instead she now thought him capable of using his position as one of the owners of the gallery to— What an idiot, what a fool he was, to think that Bryn could ever see him as anything more than the man who had helped to put her father in prison....
‘You’re right, Bryn. You should go inside now,’ he growled coldly. ‘Before you think of something else to say to insult me.’
Bryn hesitated, continuing to look at Gabriel searchingly, unable to read anything from his suddenly closed expression. ‘It wasn’t my intention to insult you—’
‘Then heaven help me if you ever do mean it,’ he muttered disgustedly.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I was— I just— Our going out to dinner earlier, what happened just now, it was a mistake.’
‘Mine or yours?’
‘For both of us,’ she insisted firmly. ‘And I think it would be better, for the sake of the exhibition, if it didn’t happen again. If we keep things on a purely business footing between the two of us from now on,’ she added.
‘As opposed to?’
‘Anything less than a business footing,’ she maintained determinedl
y.
Gabriel gave a grim smile. ‘Do you really think that’s possible after what just happened?’
Bryn wasn’t sure a business footing had ever been a possibility between herself and Gabriel—and she was utterly convinced of it after her response to him just now. Gabriel had only needed to kiss her, to touch her, to caress her and she had forgotten everything but him and the moment. Nothing else had mattered at that moment. Nothing.
And it had to. It must. Because she wasn’t about to allow herself to suffer the heartache of falling in love with Gabriel D’Angelo.
Not again.
Gabriel took in the stubborn lifting of Bryn’s chin, the determined glitter in her eyes, and knew that she meant it when she said she wanted the two of them to go back to having a business relationship only.
If not for the reason she stated.
He was thirty-three years old, had been sexually active for almost seventeen of those years, and he was experienced enough to know when a woman desired him. And, whether she liked it or not, Bryn had been looking at him all evening as if she desired him as much as he desired her, and what had happened just now had been a direct result of that mutual desire. Bryn might wish it weren’t so, might believe it was insanity on her part to be attracted to Gabriel while still carrying the pain of the past, but none of that changed the fact that she did want him.
Whether or not she actually liked him was something else entirely.
And that mattered to Gabriel.
Because he not only desired Bryn, he liked her. He had liked her five years ago too, even before he had seen her unshakeable loyalty to her father, and the quiet strength she had offered her mother as the two of them had sat together in the courtroom day after day.
Just as he admired Bryn’s determination since meeting her again, her tenacity to succeed so intense that she had even been willing to become involved with the Archangel Gallery, to meet with at least one of the detested D’Angelo brothers, in order to achieve the success she so desired.
A Bargain with the Enemy Page 7