“You run every other minute with me. And I get it. You don’t want to want me. Well, I don’t want to want you either but apparently, I don’t have a choice. This happened. We happened and it’s scaring a lot of people other than us.”
She inhales, cuts her stare, and then settles back into her seat. “You’re right. Your father is behind this. You told me he was involved with Jean Claude.” She looks at me. “I’m sorry.” She hands me the envelope.
I open it to find a lawsuit from one of the neighbors of the shelter who alleges she tried to unlawfully force him from his property to take it over. The note says the lawsuit is being filed Monday, and it’s on our letterhead with our firm on the documents. I stick it back inside the envelope. “That will never be filed. He doesn’t work for our firm any longer. This is all a game my father’s playing.” I hand her the envelope. “I’ll take care of him. That’s a promise.” I look at her. “And you don’t know me yet, but I don’t make promises I don’t keep, good or bad.” It’s out before I can stop it, that darker part of me I show only to my enemies and I don’t wallow in it. I never do. My cellphone rings as I put us in drive and set us in motion. I pull it from my pocket and find Grayson’s number, kicking myself for the fact that I didn’t actually check with him before we left, though I hadn’t seen him for a good long while either at that point. Actually, I didn’t say goodbye to my sister either. Fuck, what’s wrong with me?
“Grayson,” I greet, answering the line.
“We’re taking a chopper to the Hamptons. You two want to ride along?”
“We’re in,” I say. “When?”
“We’re there now,” he says. “We’ll wait on you.”
“We’re only about ten minutes away.” I disconnect. “We’re flying into the Hamptons with Grayson and Mia.”
“I thought they’d left? Oh God. Gabe, we didn’t tell your sister goodbye. She was so nice to help and we didn’t even say goodbye.”
We.
I like that word choice.
She twists around to face me, the tension over my father now missing between us. “Maybe we should swing back by the shelter,” she suggests. “I’ll call and find out where she is.”
I pull my phone out of my pocket. “I’ll call her.”
“Put her on speaker, will you?”
I dial Cat and she answers on the first ring. “I was about to call you,” she says as I hit the speaker button. “I got sick. We had to leave and I couldn’t find you. I’m so sorry, but we’re making a donation and will be back tomorrow if they need us.”
“Are you okay, Cat?” Abbie asks, worry in her voice.
“I am,” she says. “I’ve battled some sickness my entire pregnancy. It will pass. If you need me tomorrow, call, okay? Gabe, give her my number.”
“I will,” I confirm. “You sure you’re okay, sis?”
“Positive, brother love.”
I arch a brow. “Brother love?”
“I’m softening you up for Abbie.”
I laugh. “Abbie already thinks I’m soft.”
She gives me an incredulous look that says her mind is in places it shouldn’t be, or rather, I’d like it to be. I arch a brow at her. She blushes a pretty pink.
“Take care of the animals,” Cat says.
“Hear that, Abbie,” I tease. “Take care of the animal.”
“Not you,” Cat chides. “Your new puppy dog and don’t let him fool you into thinking that he is, Abbie.”
Cat knows me a little too well, and I make a note that I need to keep these two apart until I win some trust with Abbie. I don’t need Cat painting me into a corner that resembles Abbie’s ex, as much as I might actually resemble him.
“Call me, Abbie,” Cat orders.
“I will,” Abbie says. “Thank you, Cat.”
We disconnect and while I’d love to revel in the connection between her and my sister, my mind moves elsewhere. “Grayson’s well established in the Hamptons. He’s a force to be known there. Does your ex know him? Is this a problem we need to sidestep?”
She gives a delicate little snort. “Kenneth doesn’t align himself with people he sees as bigger or better than him and Grayson’s one of those people. That’s why you don’t see him in the Hamptons. He doesn’t want a chance to look bad and he wants people who want something from him, to have to chase him.” She glances over at me. “You said you own a place down there?”
“For a few months now,” I confirm. “I started going down there to deal with some of Grayson’s business, and it grew on me. I’m not afraid of being accessible.” My mind goes to every time I made sure a client, and a client’s enemy, knew how ready I was to take action. “In fact, I prefer people understand just how accessible I can be,” I add, “which is why my father pulling this crap makes no sense. He knows I don’t play these games.”
“My ex flies off the deep end,” she comments dryly. “He pushes and he gets angry. I’m sure he demanded you be dealt with and dealt with now.”
“Yeah, well, my father is no one’s little bitch.” I pull us into the driveway of the chopper service. “No matter who the little bitch is that pays the check.”
“You’re calling my ex a little bitch?”
“Yes. Problem?”
“No. He is a little bitch.”
I laugh with the awkward sound when she says those words.
“But what’s your point, aside from his obvious little bitch status?”
I’d laugh again if she hadn’t just sobered me so damn fast. What is my point? A problem is my point. “That he knew I’d shut this down. It doesn’t feel right. I’m missing something.” And I don’t like it, I think, parking the car and glancing back to find Dexter resting in the backseat. We need a crate to travel. We don’t have a crate.
“That document had to be served to me, not you,” Abbie says, pulling me back into the bigger problem “And had you not been with me, I’m embarrassed to admit that I wouldn’t have given you a chance to explain yourself. I wouldn’t have even told you about the document.”
“We’ll work on trust,” I say, eyeing her. “We are working on trust, but you would have figured it out when you calmed down and looked closer at the document. Even if it took you until you got an attorney, you would have figured it out. My father doesn’t do things that can be fixed.” I face forward, my hands on the steering wheel, chasing a bigger picture. What is my father really up to?
“I get it, you know,” Abbie says. “My father and I don’t get along at all. We don’t talk.”
“No,” I say, my jaw clenching. “No, you really don’t get it.” It comes out short, hard. Brutal almost.
“Sorry, Gabe. I didn’t mean to seem like I get it completely. Just that I know what it’s like to not like your father.” She reaches for the door and gets out. I don’t move for about three seconds. My father’s brutal. My father’s a killer. I don’t know how to explain that to her without her seeing a little too much of me in my answer. Fuck.
I climb out of the car and waste no time rounding the trunk to catch her before she enters the building, and I can’t talk to her. I grab her arm and pull her around to face me. “He’s—not someone I want you to understand. I’m glad you don’t. That’s what I should have said.”
“I crossed a line,” she says. “I assumed I knew more than I did and I just—”
“You didn’t cross a line. There are no lines with you, Abbie, and that’s new to me. I’m used to shutting people out.”
“Why? Why do you shut people out, Gabe?”
She hits ten nerves that collide and explode inside me. “Why do you, Abbie?”
“Life touches us and we respond to what it’s made us feel.” Her fingers touch my jaw. “Life touched you like it did me.”
But no one has touched me like she has. Her fingers fall away from my face. “Maybe one day you’ll trust me enough to show me the man beneath the smiles.”
I catch her hand. “Are you suggesting you’ll stay around to find out?
”
“Maybe if I believed you’d really show me that man, I would. Right now, I don’t believe you will and I’m not willing to be as vulnerable as you make me to have this be one-sided.”
“I want to know the woman beneath all that red hair.”
“I’m not complicated. I was burned. You know how.”
“I don’t know what it did to you, though. I don’t know what he did to you.”
“But you know the root of all my evil.”
And she will never know the root of all mine. The door opens and Grayson calls out, “We’re ready to board!”
I kiss Abbie’s hand. “I want to know you, Abbie. The good, the bad, the everything.”
She pushes to her toes and kisses me. “If you did,” she says. “You'd be willing to show me the good, the bad, and the everything. But you’re not. So I'm not. I’m going to find out if they have a crate for Dexter.” And then she’s running toward the building and her ultimatum is clear. She wants the root of my evil. If I want her, I have to give her more than I want to give her. I turn back to the car and stare at Dexter, who is now at the window, another man trapped in a box. God, this dog was made for me but then, so was Abbie, and so I’ll get us beyond the man beneath the smile and keep her right here in the present.
Just me, Abbie, and a killer dog named Dexter.
Holy fuck.
I’m adopting this dog.
What is happening to my life?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Abbie
I left Gabe with my bag. That wasn’t my intent, but I was rattled by how fast we’re moving, and at this point, I just need to make arrangements for the dog.
I enter the airport, the cold air behind me, warm heat suffocating me, yet it’s this man who’s suffocating me in all the right and wrong ways, as insane as that may sound. My head is spinning with him, my ex and God, everything. I don’t know how I went from trying to hire Reid, to kissing Gabe by the bathroom.
I walk to the counter and speak to the woman there. “Hi. Grayson Bennett rented a chopper and Gabe Maxwell and myself are supposed to be passengers. Gabe is on his way in, but he has a dog that needs to ride along.” I have this moment, where I realize what a couple we’re acting like.
“Of course. There will be an extra charge.”
“Expected,” I say. “And this is a large dog.”
We chat back and forth and I know the moment Gabe enters the airport and not because of the gust of air behind me, but because of the tingling awareness in my body that only this man creates. No one else has ever awakened every sense I own. No other man has ever taken me so off guard and held me so very close, and I’m not even speaking literally.
He steps to my side and Dexter starts whining for me, acting like he hasn’t seen me in years. I bend down to pet him and Gabe does the same at the exact same moment. We end up facing each other with Dexter’s big nose nuzzling my neck. “Hi,” I say because why wouldn’t I say “hi” right now.
He grins. “Hi.”
He leans in and kisses me. “You’re a tough bargainer, Abbie Tanner.” He presses his cheek to mine. “We’ll negotiate the terms of everything.” He pulls back and winks. “Right now, I need to get Dexter set-up.”
I swallow the crazy dryness he’s created in my mouth while making other places quite wet. “I took care of him.” I kiss Dexter and stand up with Gabe right along with me. “Did you now?”
“I did.”
“We’re here for Dexter.”
At the male voice, Gabe and I turn to find two men in khakis and white shirts eyeing Dexter. “That was fast,” Gabe said.
“You paid quite a lot for the service,” I whisper, warning him.
His lips quirk and he cuts me a look. “Did I now?”
“Yeah. You did.”
He laughs. “I’ll just eat ramen next week to make up for it.”
One of the men approaches and Gabe hands him the leash. He tugs on Dexter and Gabe grabs his arm. “He’ll kill you if you give him a reason. No tugging, shoving, kicking, hitting, biting, or yelling. Sweet talking and licking are allowed and good practice for other parts of your life. Talk sweetly to him. Love him. Show him you’re worthy.”
The man looks indignant. Gabe hands him a bag of treats he must have gotten at the shelter. The man grabs one and gives it to Dexter. From there, Dexter is all his. He leads Dexter away. I laugh. “Licking is okay? You’re crazy, Gabe.”
“Crazy for you, Abbie.” He kisses me. “Any sign of Grayson and Mia?”
“No, actually,” I say. “I was rushing to take care of Dexter and forgot to ask where they are.”
“Here!”
With a breeze at our backs, we turn to find Grayson and Mia entering the lobby. “We forgot something,” Grayson says. “But we’re ready to hit the sky.”
A few minutes later, I’m in a chopper with Grayson and Mia as a couple and me and Gabe as another, with our dog. Our dog. His dog. The dog. My God, what is happening to me? I’m not adopting a dog or a man. They keep trying to adopt me and I wish it didn’t feel so good. I can’t let the feeling I have with Gabe take me over the top. If I can’t say no to him, this needs to be fun and pleasure. It needs to be a fling. This man hasn’t even been married. He’s not the marrying kind. There is no reason this just can’t be fun. Well, except my ex.
Fling.
Fun.
Sex.
What isn’t he telling me?
A lot, I remind myself. I barely know him.
Rephrase.
What doesn’t he want to tell me? Will he ever tell me? Do I want him to tell me? He squeezes my leg and I look over at him, the chopper’s arms clanking above us, the dark night sky seeming to cradle us, and I’m so very lost in this man. In his eyes. In his secrets. In his laughter and giant personality. I’m going to fall for him. I’m going to fall really hard.
He kisses my hand and when he looks at me again, I watch the confusion in his eyes, and I don’t think this is something he often feels. He’s confused but about what? Me? Us? The dog? Me, I think. Us, I think. Not the dog. Dexter is Dexter. He’s a dog. He’s love. He’s simple. That’s what I love about animals. They’re simple. They love. They eat. They sleep. They love some more.
Gabe is not a simple man. I know this instinctively no matter how simple he tries to seem.
I’m a simple girl. I want to be, at least. I want to be that simple girl with a hot man who loves her and doesn’t cheat on her. A man who loves her and doesn’t betray her. The problem is, I’m not sure I believe that man exists in this world. And as Gabe has said, he fucks. That’s what he does. I cut my stare from his.
What am I doing?
I just told myself to have a fling and now I’m mad at him for being the guy who is the perfect fling?
He leans in, earphones and noise preventing conversation and cups my face, drawing my gaze to his, a question in his eyes. Fuck. I want to fuck and be fucked without being fucked over. I want that to happen with Gabe. It already has. It can. He’s not the guy who sued me. My ex is that guy. And damn it, I deserve a Gabe. I deserve to just enjoy life. I deserve to forget that lawsuit and the threats of this night and just be with this man. That means he can’t hurt me. He’s just sex and sex and more sex.
I like sex.
I haven’t liked sex in a long time, but I do now with Gabe.
I’m going to do just that. We’re going to land and I’m going to let him know what I want.
I press my lips to his and kiss him. He leans back to look at me and frowns as if he doesn’t like something he tastes on my lips.
He sits back in his seat, and we finish the ride with this awkwardness between us that steals all my thunder. When finally we’re on the ground, Gabe encourages Grayson and Mia to deboard first. We follow, and when we would enter the building, he pulls me to him and cups my face. “What happened up there in the air?”
Be bold, I tell myself. Be the girl who kissed him by the bathroom and stay focused on the fling
and the escape. Set him free now, before this becomes trouble. “I decided to let you off the hook. I don’t need everything. I just need you naked.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Gabe
The chopper behind us seems to churn Abbie’s statement over and over in repeat: I just need you naked. I just need you naked. I hear those words in my head, over and over and fucking over.
Normally a sexy woman telling me she just wants to keep me naked would wind me up and get me ready for a hot night or two or even three, of fucking and fucking some more. It’s not that simple with Abbie and yet it’s as simple as my next breath. The simple truth is that this isn’t just sex.
I take her hand and lead her forward and once we’re inside the airport, I cut left and to the right, into a hallway that leads to another, private hallway. The minute we round the corner, I turn her and press her against the wall and force her to own her words. “It was loud outside, Abbie. Repeat yourself now.” I press my hands on either side of her head. “I’m listening. Say what you said to me out there, right here, right now.”
Her gaze cuts right, her red hair a wild, sexy mess around her shoulders, and damn it, I want all of it splayed out on my stomach right about now. I want to fuck her. I want to kiss her. I want her naked, but not because we’re just sex. Because we’re not. Because I can’t get enough of her, when most women are here and gone, and over, in my mind, before they ever started. I reach up and catch her chin, turning her gaze to mine. “I’m listening,” I press again. Needing to know where her head really is and that’s not something I could do on the tarmac.
“I don’t need to know your secrets,” she whispers, swallowing hard before she firms her voice and adds, “I just need you naked.”
I know people. I read people. I know this woman in ways that defy us just meeting and I want to know more of her. She doesn’t mean those words. She doesn’t even come close to meaning those words. “I want to know yours. Sweetheart. Every last one of them, big and small.”
“No,” she says firmly. “No, I’ve decided—”
“You just want to fuck me?” I challenge.
His Demand (Dirtier Duet Book 1) Page 12