She pulled her brush through her hair with a punishing yank and stopped. Staring at her face, she grazed it lightly with a trembling hand. Then her face crumpled and the tears came again. Ugly loud sobs. After a few moments, she caught herself, forced herself to stop.
Pull yourself together, Gabriella.
Pushing back wet strands of her hair from her face, she sniffed loudly. She was stronger than this. All the bullying in high school and she hadn’t cried like this.
She supposed it was an adrenaline crash. Or shock, maybe.
She had been attacked, after all. First by Jason . . . and then her sister.
She full-body shivered where she sat on the edge of her bed and that didn’t make much sense. The air-conditioning was running at a mild seventy-six. Her face looked ravaged. From the slap. From her bout of crying. She could feel the beginnings of a headache starting at the center of her forehead. She needed a couple Tylenol and a good night’s sleep. Everything would be better in the morning.
The doorbell chimed and she winced, looking in the direction of her front door in dread. She didn’t want to see Tess right now and she feared it was her.
Standing abruptly, she moved to the door, determined not to open it if it was Tess—or even, God forbid, Jason. She didn’t want to see either one of those two. She didn’t want to see anyone.
Taking a breath, she flattened her hands on the door, expecting a member of her family to be there. If not Tess, then someone else. Her sister had probably called everyone and told them what happened. She would want everyone to know just how badly Gabriella had fucked her over . . . just how awful a person she was.
Except it wasn’t Tess or any member of her family.
It was him.
The one person she was okay seeing right now. The one person she wanted to see.
She just didn’t realize it until this very moment.
He sucked in a breath when she stood in front of him in the doorway.
The apartment’s living room light was off and it was damn dark, but that didn’t stop him from admiring her. She looked edible in her robe, her hair darkly wet and trailing over her shoulders, her generous breasts hugged by the taut pull of terrycloth. The robe was belted tightly, accentuating the nip of her waist and flare of her hips.
Apparently it was impossible to stay away.
“Uh. Hi.” He held up a bag. “I’m always bringing you food.” He shrugged, wondering why he felt so awkward. Like a boy and not a man. “My sister said you should never show up to someone’s house empty-handed.”
“My mom says that, too.” Her gaze dropped to the bag. Her voice was a little hoarse, like she’d just woken from a nap and he felt the effect of it shoot straight to his dick. He wanted her hoarse voice filling his ears as he hammered inside her. “What’s in there?”
He swallowed and fought back his rapidly growing erection. “Pecan tarts. From Eugenia’s.”
“The magic word. Words,” she amended as she pulled open the door and gestured him inside.
“Hope you don’t mind me coming by.” He’d debated doing so. After his sister’s visit, he felt like he should prove it to himself that Gabriella didn’t mean that much to him . . . that he wasn’t as far gone for her as Piper seemed to think.
“No. I’m glad.” She looked away. “Which I know probably makes me really confusing since I asked you to go last time. Like I’m some person who doesn’t know what she wants and sends out mixed signals.” She stopped abruptly and released a ragged breath. “I just had a . . . real shit day.”
“Well, I hear dessert can be a cure-all for those kinds of days.” And sex. Hot dirty sex. Lots of it.
Man, get your mind out of the gutter. She just said she had a shitty day. She didn’t need him coming at her like a horny teenager—or like a man who had been locked up for several long years—with only getting in her pants on his mind.
She plucked the bag from his hand and moved to her couch. She sank down and crossed her legs. Peering inside the bag, she pulled out a tart and bit into it with a moan. He sat down across from her. She held the bag out to him and he took a tart, too.
“So tell me about your shitty day.” It seemed the safest route. Innocent conversation. Her shower-fresh scent tantalized and there was still that robe. That damn robe. He knew there was nothing under it. She was so close and so naked under the fabric. He only had to reach for her. But he wouldn’t. Not again. Not this time. Not without her express invitation.
She didn’t look up from where she studied the contents of her bag, but he detected her reluctance in the way she lifted her shoulders in a shrug and then dropped them back down in a defeated slump.
“I’d rather not talk about it. Tell me about your day.” She drew her knees up to her chest, arranging the hem of her robe, mindful that it continued to cover her. She propped her elbow on her knee and rested her face in her palm—quickly pulling it away with a soft whimper.
He frowned. “Bri?”
She looked up and that’s when he noticed her face in the dimness of the living room. Her cheek, to be precise. It was swollen. He leaned forward, stroking a finger down the side of her face. The skin was heated and puffy to the touch. He knew the side effects to getting hit. Sadly, he’d lived the kind of life that made certain he knew all about such things.
She flinched at his touch.
“Bri.” He said her name more forcefully. “What happened to your face?”
She shook her head and reached for the hair behind her ear, untucking it so that it fell forward in a veil to shield her from his eyes. Too late though. He had seen. He knew. She couldn’t hide.
He took a bracing breath. Maybe it was an accident. Some mishap at work. If that was the case, however, why didn’t she just come out and say as much? No. Someone had done this. Someone had put hands on her.
A dangerous fire ignited inside his chest for the bastard who had done this to her face.
He softened his voice, making sure to keep his anger in check. He didn’t want her to think he was angry with her. “Bri . . . please tell me what happened.”
“Cruz.” She lifted her chin, releasing his name in a shaky breath, her eyes wide and haunted in her face. Now he could see that her eyes were puffy and red. She’d been crying. It did something to him . . . twisted his guts until they felt like a well-wrung towel . . . and he realized with a bit of a jolt that he didn’t want this woman to ever hurt. Ridiculous, he supposed. No one could be one hundred percent shielded in life. He knew that better than anyone. But if he could protect her from the world, he would. He wanted to.
“Are you all right?” That was the most important thing. He looked her up and down as though checking for injuries. Bare skin peeked out at him between the open lapels of her robe, the V of skin threatening to distract him if he let it. But he wouldn’t. Something had happened to her.
“I—I can’t—” She stopped and looked down at her lap for a moment, inhaling a shuddery breath.
She wasn’t going to tell him. At least not right now. He inhaled thinly through his nose. Fine. He wouldn’t push, but he would find out. Eventually. And then God help the animal that dared lay a finger on her.
Composed again, she lifted her gaze back up. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
He nodded with a swift inhalation, emotion similar to both dread and elation swirling through him. “Okay.” But maybe she didn’t mean she wanted him to stay. “Do you want me to call someone?”
“Can you stay with me?”
He inhaled at the softly-voiced request. Almost as though she feared his rejection.
She wanted him to sleep over. Hell.
“I just can’t be alone,” she quickly went on to say. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me, not in that way . . . just sleep with me.”
There was a distinction and she was clearly making it.
“Of course.” She wasn’t looking to get laid. She’d been through an ordeal and she just needed someone right now. He could do th
at. He could be that person for her.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and clueless as to how much he wanted her. She’d never know how much sleeping next to her and not touching her would torment him, but he would do it so she wouldn’t be alone.
“Thank you.” Taking a deep breath, she stood and took the bag of pastries into the kitchen. A moment later, she was walking toward her bedroom.
He listened as the water ran in her bathroom. The sound of her brushing her teeth carried to his ears. He waited, giving her plenty of time to change out of her robe into something else.
Satisfied he’d given her enough time, he ventured to her bedroom door, knocking lightly.
“Come in.” She was pulling back the covers, wearing an oversized T-shirt. He hoped like hell there were shorts underneath.
He stepped closer and pulled back his side, wondering why he felt so nervous all of a sudden. This was about comfort, not sex. And he’d slept in a woman’s bed before.
Yeah, but you never were there just to sleep. You were never there for anything emotional, and what she needs from you right now is all about emotion. Christ.
She slipped beneath the covers. She looked so small and vulnerable tucked under the bedspread. He didn’t like it. He wanted her to be her usual self—fiery and strong, that smart mouth of hers driving him crazy. For multiple reasons. Although he realized tonight wasn’t about what he wanted.
He took off his shirt, reaching behind his neck and pulling it over his head in one sweep. Her eyes widened but she said nothing, merely watched as he stripped down to his briefs. He hastily slid under the covers, using the fabric to conceal his erection. With her, its existence was a matter of fact. The thing was a homing device when it came to her. It wanted one thing. It had one mission. Get. Inside. Gabriella.
He kept close to the edge, mindful not to touch her body, keeping as much space between them as he could without knowing for certain where she was. He was determined to hold back and not take advantage of her. Not like this. Not when she was vulnerable and shaken. He held himself still. Stiff. Probably too stiff. It was going to be a long night.
She stretched her arm toward her lamp and darkness descended on the room. It took his eyes a moment to acclimate to the dark and make out the outline of her in the bed beside him.
Springs squeaked softly and sheets whispered as she shifted her weight on the bed.
“Cruz?” The soft utterance scratched the space between them.
“Yes?”
“Thank you for staying.”
After a moment, he spoke into the dark. “You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Sometimes things were easier to admit in the dark. He knew that.
She released a choked laugh. “I don’t know what I’m more upset about. That my former brother-in-law sexually assaulted me or that my sister thought I consented . . . that I was a willing participant.”
He sat up abruptly and leaned over her. “He did what to you?” Violence like he hadn’t felt since prison, when he’d fought for his life, pumped through him.
“He touched me . . . forced a kiss on me. Tess walked in and lit into me.” She stopped and he heard her heavy breathing through the dark. Ragged and wet, one beat from sobbing.
“Who hit you?” he asked, his voice surprisingly calm, in direct opposition to how very not calm he felt. His hands opened and closed into fists at his sides and he was already calculating how he could get her brother-in-law’s address from Hale.
“My sister slapped me.” Her voice broke and she was crying.
Cursing, he reached for her, pulling her into his arms.
“How could she hurt me like that?” She buried her face into his chest, her tears soaking his skin.
“The people we love always have that power. When they hurt us . . . it’s a greater wound. If she hasn’t already realized she made a mistake, she will.”
She sniffed. “I’m not so sure.”
There was a rustle of movement and he felt fingers brush his arm, then slide down, curling around his hand.
He’d never been a hand-holder. That was an act of intimacy he never shared with a woman. Somehow sex was easier . . . less personal than lacing fingers.
Fuck it.
He lifted her hand and brought it between them, weaving his fingers through hers, pressing their palms close. So close he could actually feel the beat of her heart through her soft skin, fusing with his own. “Try to get some sleep, Bri.”
His chest swelled with something that he had never felt. Something that made him pull her closer and wrap her up in him. She sighed sweetly and melted into him, giving herself completely over to him.
He held her so close . . . so tightly there wasn’t any room for air between them. As though that would somehow keep her safe. Keep her from ever getting hurt again.
There weren’t two of them in this bed anymore.
There was only the one.
The following morning Gabriella woke to find Cruz gone.
Dawn barely lit the room, peeking through the blinds and painting the room in fingers of gray and pink.
She yawned and then winced. Her cheek hurt. She lifted her fingers to her face. Frowning, she swam through the fog of her thoughts, last night coming back to her bit by bit. Jason. Her sister . . . her sister. The slap that nearly knocked her teeth out.
She shifted slightly and turned sideways to where he had slept beside her. He had held her through the night. Even though it hadn’t been sexual, it had been the most intimate she had ever been with a man.
They’d shared a bed. She had slept plastered against him. He had held her like he would never let go. But he had. He had left—and without a word.
She had asked him to spend the night with her.
At the time it seemed like a good idea. At the time it seemed the only option considering how unbearably alone she felt.
Aloneness had never troubled her so much before, but that was before her sister turned on her in the most vicious way. Family was supposed to be better than that. Family was supposed to be there for you.
Last night she had felt so lost . . . and then he showed up at her door as if sent by angels. She snorted. She knew she was being fanciful. Even ridiculous.
Just once she had let herself cling to a man. One night the vulnerability could be forgiven.
But now she was faced with the consequence of that weakness. He was gone and she was alone again and reaching for him across her bed where he wasn’t.
Where he could never be.
Seventeen
She hadn’t seen or heard from him in days. Three days that felt like the longest in her life.
She was certain the angst she was feeling was compounded by the fact that he had slept with her, held her, all at her request, and then vanished like smoke in the air. Maybe that’s what he preferred. Certainly it was the smartest, safest thing to do between two people unable to be anything more fleeting than a random hook-up.
Except nothing about Cruz felt random. Nothing about sharing a bed with him felt casual. There’d been closeness between them that night, an intimacy established. Maybe he wanted to erase that. Maybe it meant nothing to him.
It shouldn’t have felt like a rejection to her, but it did. She had no right to feel this ridiculous sense of rejection. It wasn’t like they’d gone out on a date and he had promised to call or text. God knew that scenario had happened to her before and she had never felt this level of disappointment.
It was something she knew about: going out and having what she thought was a nice time with a seemingly decent guy who then failed to call or text as promised—planting the seed in her mind that there was something lacking in her.
This wasn’t that though.
There’d been nothing as dignified as a date between them. He brought her and Nana dinner. They watched TV. That wasn’t a date. He spent the night and cuddled with her. She winced. That wasn’t a date either, to be truthful.
They’d been locked in a closet and they mad
e out.
He’d showed up at her place and they’d made out.
That was the extent of it. They’d hooked up. Fooled around. No promises made. Contrary to what her heart was telling her . . . it was casual. She needed to put her big girl panties on and face that fact.
But he had said they would be seeing a lot of each other and he had kept true to that vow—except for these last three days.
She shoved the voice aside. She couldn’t put any stock into that utterance. Because she wasn’t needy or desperate or delusional.
This was Cruz Walsh, and she shouldn’t be longing for the man to make love to her.
After the things he did, how can you not?
Telling her internal voice to shut up, she turned and greeted a customer, taking her coffee order. Fortunately it was something complicated and required her concentration for the next ten minutes.
When that order was complete, she went back to the sink to rinse out the blender. Her mind strayed into Cruz territory again. It couldn’t be helped.
Apparently he had given up his pursuit of her. Maybe he had just decided he didn’t want to hook up with a journalist he believed was after his story—a story he was determined not to give.
Disappointment lanced through her chest.
It wasn’t, however, because his rejection hurt. It was not because she didn’t get to have that wicked mouth again and all his other wicked parts, the sexual promise of which had been epic.
“Someone is requesting your presence,” Jabal leaned in to whisper near her ear.
Gabriella twisted around where she stood at the sink, instantly tense. Could it be . . .
At the sight of her bright-eyed niece, her shoulders slumped a little. No. Not Cruz. She should be glad and relieved because she didn’t have to come face-to-face with him in her workplace where she would probably turn into an awkward, bumbling idiot. And there was her manager who always frowned on fraternization.
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