by Beth Bolden
It was even stronger on her tongue, even a few swallows of the fruity liquid burning their way to her stomach.
Gabe deposited her at an empty table with their drinks, and went to get food.
Jemma sat and sipped her drink slowly because she didn’t want to get drunk exactly; she was searching for that dreamy, assertive, embarrassment-free state she’d achieved that first night in Rio.
Gabe returned a few minutes later bearing a plate loaded with a bunch of different types of food. “Here,” he said, placing the plate between them, “you need to eat something.”
Glancing up into his dark eyes, the flashing lights reflected in his irises, she didn’t know if it was the booze or their ticking time talking, but she wanted more. She didn’t want him to be kind and solicitous, concerned for her safety, she wanted him as out of his mind as she was; she wanted him desperate and needy. For her.
She took another sip of her drink, feeling the alcohol burn its way down her throat. It felt good. Freeing, almost. Like she could stand up and take his hand and lead him to the dance floor and show him everything he made her feel without a single worry that he might think it wasn’t enough.
Shaking her head at the food, Jemma pointed to the dance floor, the music reaching a crescendo of noise that meant talking was nearly impossible.
Good, she thought savagely, I’m done talking.
She stood up, just like she’d imagined in her fantasy, and held out her hand. Her insinuation, she knew, was very clear: come dance with me.
Gabe sat there dumbly, clearly surprised at her invitation. He was probably remembering that first night, when he’d had to coax her to the dance floor, and even then she’d been nervous and skittish.
Another Jemma, a Jemma of a few years ago, might have pulled her hand back and laughed it off. But Rio Jemma didn’t budge. This Jemma felt undeniably certain that he felt the same way she did, she just needed to show him what she wanted.
He rose to his feet, reaching out and taking her hand in his, pulling her to him. His hand coasted down her back, resting just above the curve of her ass. She trembled, the force of how much she wanted him making it hard to stay still.
There was something different about Jemma tonight, Gabe thought as they walked to the dance floor. She’d never been so obvious in her desire for him. Liquid heat filled her gaze as they locked eyes earlier, and he liked it far more than he’d imagined he would.
He couldn’t help but remember that first night in Rio, when she’d let him lead, let him take the reins and coax her into dancing. He’d liked that, back then, liked the hesitancy and growing confidence of her movements as she’d gotten comfortable with the idea. Liked that she’d known he was trying to wiggle out the inevitability of them sleeping together.
But tonight? He loved the confidence and certainty in her face and her body, how she knew he wanted her, and wanted him to show her just how much. It was heady and intoxicating, even more than the rum in their drinks.
So he showed her, grasping her body, his fingers tracing the curves of her waist and hips, letting the tips brush underneath the fabric of her tank top. Her skin was hot and damp with sweat, but so soft he wanted to fall to his knees and taste her.
He stayed upright though, enjoying too how assertive she’d gotten, tossing her hair back, and moving her body against his like they weren’t surrounded by a few hundred people. Even during that first night, she’d held back, but there was something unleashed about her tonight, as if she’d finally let that wild part of her free. And god, he loved it. It reminded him of his own emotions that he’d caged so tightly over the years, both for his job and for his personal life. But tonight, her desire was calling to his, luring it right out of its cage. Gabe slid his hands up and down her hips, pulling her in even closer to him, the gorgeous curve of her settling right against his hard dick, and he knew he wasn’t in control anymore.
She swirled around, dark hair floating around them in the warm night, her hands sliding down his back, like she was claiming him. Like she hadn’t realized that he was already hers.
He kissed her then, needing her to know that whatever fire she’d released in herself, he was right there with her. Right away, it was hot and dirty, her tongue sliding against his, her hands drifting even lower, and then lower still with no hesitation, grasping his ass. It was so hot he was probably going to expire, he thought dimly, their bodies still moving with the music, but his brain so caught in the idea of her that nothing was going to stop him now.
Jemma yanked her head away, and for a second, every cell in his body protested, but then he felt her tongue sliding down his neck, and then she bit him hard.
He hadn’t even known the road they were on. He’d always been able to keep control of himself, but it was far past that point now. Gabe glanced up and saw one or two knowing glances from the dancers around them, dancers who were far more occupied with actually dancing than trying to hump each other’s brains out.
It was a split second decision, but from the way she came along eagerly, he knew he wasn’t alone.
He wrapped her hand in his and tugged her along, past the edge of the makeshift dance floor, past the tables of food and tables of mingling neighbors, past the ring of speakers and lights and into a dark alley.
He knew this alley. He knew the bricks of it even as he pushed her back against them, gentle but rough. It was next to the grocery his mom had bought milk at for years, and he’d even ridden his bike on this path more times than he could count, kicked a ball around in the square only a few meters from where they stood, breathing heavily, in the dark.
“What are you doing?” Jemma gasped out, the first words he’d heard from her in almost an hour, as he took the opportunity to sweep her hair out of the way and kiss up her neck the way she’d done to him. She tasted even sweeter than he’d guessed, her skin damp and soft and pliant.
He didn’t even want to say it out loud. Some part of him knew it was wrong, some deep part, buried now, believed he wasn’t respecting her the way she deserved to be respected.
But they had burned way past respect, and the look in her eyes had encouraged him every step of the way.
“You know,” he said, moaning into her neck. “You know.”
He pinned her harder now, the roughness of the bricks rubbing against his hands, probably rubbing against her skin too, but she didn’t seem to mind from the responding moan she gave.
She understood too, because her hand slipped in the nearly negative amount of space between their bodies, and felt for his belt buckle. “I’ve wanted this all day,” she exhaled hard as she made quick work of his belt and then his zipper, her fingers closing around his throbbing cock.
“God,” he moaned into her skin.
He made to turn her around, but she stopped him, insistent hands on his chest. “No,” she panted, “like this.”
He knew he was strong enough. It wasn’t a matter of that. It was just so fucking hot that he thought he might come before he even got inside her. “Okay, okay,” he said, his own breath uneven. He palmed a curved breast through her shirt and she actually pushed his hand away.
“No, no,” she said, insistent, digging through his pockets, because she knew he had a condom in his wallet. She’d seen it once when grabbing some cash for him. She found it, ripped open the package, and slipped it on him with only a few quick movements. “Get on with it.”
Okay, yes. No foreplay. Gabe was afraid his brain was going to short-circuit. He slipped his hands beneath her skirt, right under her ass, and boosted her up. She tipped her head back against the wall, her eyes closing in bliss as he lined up and slid into her.
She was wet and hot, and he might have been surprised, but she’d said she’d wanted this all day. That thought alone was enough to make him lose what was left of his control, forgetting all about careful strokes, about a normal rhythm, any of the things that he’d used to make sure it was good for her. He just pounded into her, barely remembering to not make her skin
take the brunt of the brick wall.
Grabbing his hair, she pulled him closer and kissed him, their mouths fusing together and capturing her moans. All he could hear was the soft slap of skin against skin as he took her, the slick sound and the scent of sex invading every one of his senses. She dug her fingernails into his shoulders and wailed into his mouth as she pulsed around him.
He only lasted a moment longer than she, the sensation of her around him pulling him into a white hot orgasm the likes of which he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before.
It took him a long moment, but when it passed, he opened his eyes and looked right into hers. Oh god, he’d taken her like an animal against the wall of an alley. Anyone could have walked in. But her mouth curved into a very pleased smile, and all the half-formed apologies died on his tongue.
Her head tipped back against the wall as he slipped out and let her down slowly, until her feet hit the ground, her knees wobbling a bit. “That was . . . incredible,” she murmured, a small smile still curling her lips.
Gabe felt no stronger in the knee situation, and used the brace of the wall too, leaning back next to her. “You didn’t mind?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“Mind?” she laughed. “I was there every step of the way.”
“You are not like how Nick described you,” Gabe said, the words slipping out past his weak, post-sex defenses.
But she just smiled brighter. “I think that’s a compliment.”
He would have been lying if he’d said no. And Gabe told himself the only reason he didn’t lie was because he made it a personal goal to never lie to anybody. But that wasn’t exactly the truth either. “It was.”
Jemma woke slowly, the searing brightness making her wish she could just keep her eyes closed and maybe fall back into that lovely, easy, dark void. But it kept growing brighter and then the soft lump she was mostly lying on began to shift around—enough that she couldn’t pretend any longer that the light might just go away.
She wasn’t crazy enough to open her eyes, but she took stock anyway. She could feel some soreness in her limbs, the dull sting of a few scratches on the bare skin of her legs. There was an unpleasant tackiness in her mouth, the cotton fuzziness of last night’s alcohol, but she didn’t think she’d drank enough to cause that dull, pounding headache at her temples because her head felt fine.
“Jemma,” a voice said softly, jostling her carefully but insistently, “you’ve got to wake up.”
She postponed it as long as she could, until the person in question had mostly moved her off their body and onto what was almost certainly a hard bench. Jemma groaned a little as she finally and carefully blinked her eyes open.
It was nearly unbearably bright for a split second, and then Gabe was in front of her, hair wild, eyes a little bloodshot. “You got a text from Kimber,” he said, flashing her phone screen for long enough for Jemma to grasp that he was right, but not long enough in her current state for her to figure out what it said.
“Early. Bright,” Jemma moaned, wishing she could curl into herself but Gabe shot her a look like he already knew what she wanted to attempt.
“No, we really need to get going. I told her we’d meet her at Copacabana in an hour.”
It wasn’t easy, but Jemma eventually dragged her body upright, and her vision finally adjusted enough that she could look at him without squinting.
“In an hour?” she asked sleepily. “But that’s tons of time. It won’t even take half that to get back.”
“Yeah, but don’t you want to have time to stop at the hotel quick and change and grab your notebooks?” Gabe asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Jemma responded emphatically. “And brush my teeth.”
“Well, let’s get going then, we’re on a tight schedule, and my guess is she won’t have a lot of time either.”
Gabe moved from his crouch in front of her, and Jemma stood. They were in the tiny lobby of the dance studio, and the very bright sunshine streaming in from the front window was what had woken her. They appeared to have spent the night on a long, narrow wooden bench, Jemma mostly sleeping on Gabe’s upright body.
As they moved toward the front door, Gabe said, “I asked a friend to come pick us up. He should be here any minute.”
It turned out he was already there. They slid into the cab, Jemma’s legs sliding a little painfully over the cracked vinyl seat. Luckily for her, Gabe’s driver friend also stayed silent except for a quick greeting in Portuguese.
Casting her mind back, Jemma only vaguely remembered them returning to the dance studio to sleep for a few hours. She glanced down at her bare thighs, and was surprised to see the random scratches on them, which matched the dull burning on the back of her thighs. She glanced up at Gabe and found him also staring down at her skin, more than a little wryly.
“Sorry,” he said softly. “We really shouldn’t have.”
Jemma had a sudden flash of memory, of them in the alley, her legs curved around his back, his body pinning hers to the brick wall.
She remembered the rest in bits and pieces: how they’d gone back to the party and ate and drank and ended up dancing the samba so terribly Lina probably would have been scandalized. They’d made out lazily on the middle of the dance floor, their sudden need dampened but still burning low, like a fire that’d been banked for the night.
Grinning up at him, she gave a small little shake of her head. “I wouldn’t change it,” she admitted.
“Even with these?” Gabe asked, brushing the marks with a gentle touch of his fingers.
Jemma had wasted so much time worrying and avoiding and hiding and suddenly it didn’t feel important anymore. Not the way it had used to, with Colin. Whatever she had with Gabe, it felt imperative she not make those same mistakes. So she reached over and tangled her fingers with his. “It was one of the best evenings of my whole life,” she said. “So, especially with those.”
He leaned back against the worn seat and smiled. “I had fun, too.”
They reached the hotel in record time, but Jemma had to glance in the shower longingly as she hurriedly brushed her teeth and washed her face, throwing her hair up into a messy bun. There was just enough time to throw on a pair of shorts and a new tank and grab her notebook and voice recorder before Gabe knocked forcefully on the door, indicating it was time to go.
As they headed down the hallway toward the elevator, Jemma fretted. “But what if Duncan doesn’t want to run the story? I should’ve made time to check my email.”
Gabe stopped, even though just a moment before he’d been hurrying, his long strides eating up the carpeted corridor. “Jemma,” he said seriously, looking right into her eyes. “You know what the right thing to do here is. Whether Duncan agrees to publish it or not, this is a story you should write. You know that.”
Jemma let the words absorb slowly. “Yes,” she finally admitted. “I know that.”
“The most important thing you can do today is get as much as you can. And then write the best story you can. Everything else doesn’t matter. Kimber deserves that much.”
They started walking toward the elevator again. “Kimber deserves much more than that,” Jemma said bitterly, finding herself hating Julia Holloway more than she thought she could. She’d painted Kimber into the worst corner, and Kimber was her daughter. “I can’t believe someone could do this to their own blood.”
“Then let’s ruin the bitch,” Gabe said.
Kimber was waiting for them in the shade of an outdoor café, a plate of untouched food in front of her and an anxious expression on her face.
“Kimber, are you okay?” Jemma said, throwing her arms around her and giving her a tight, reassuring squeeze. Kimber relaxed into the embrace, the haunted look in her eyes retreating a little but not enough. Not for Jemma, anyway. She sat down, arranging her pad on the table. Glancing up at Gabe, who’d stayed standing, she shot him a questioning look.
“I’m going to get us some breakfast and something to drink,”
Gabe said. “I’ll be right back.”
He was giving them the time to get the story worked out privately. It was true that Kimber probably would have shared the details with Gabe sitting there at the table, but it would definitely make it easier if it was just the two of them.
Jemma flipped open her notebook. “Okay, let’s get started.”
They talked for a solid hour. Gabe showed up at the midpoint, depositing a takeout container with some fruit and breakfast pastries on the table and handing Jemma a bottle of water, and then said he’d be around.
More than once Kimber got teary-eyed, but all Jemma felt was a further hardening of her resolve to make Julia Holloway pay for what she’d done.
Near the end of the hour, Kimber leaned back and eyed Jemma speculatively. “Enough questions about me. You really weren’t lying, he’s hot as hell.”
“He’s the best friend of my boss,” Jemma admitted with a blush. “He’s just my tour guide.”
Kimber glanced over at where he was lying in the sand only a few feet away, eyes closed, expression peaceful. “It must be quite the tour.”
“Kimber!” Jemma exclaimed, semi-scandalized.
Kimber smiled knowingly. “You’re cute together.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be talking about you?” Jemma insisted, trying to get them back on task, though they’d addressed most of the points that she’d thought could be important.
“We did,” Kimber said, clearly agreeing. “And you got everything. Or enough of everything.” Her tone of voice turned bitter at the end.
Jemma reached over and grasped Kimber’s hand, gripping it as comfortingly as she could. “I wish I could get you the final draft so you could read through it first . . .” she hesitated but Kimber jumped right in.
“I trust you,” she said. “I trust that you won’t make a mess of it. I wouldn’t have given you the story if I didn’t.”
And give it to Jemma she had. Quotes, details, Kimber even said she’d take pictures of some of the contract verbiage if she could. The only thing left was for Jemma to write the story and beg Duncan to publish it.