“I’ll give them a look tonight, give you a summary of what we’re looking at in the morning.”
“Sounds good, bro. Enjoy your ride.”
Tipping his head, Country disappeared out the door, only wrestling with it a little bit this time. Once Blake was alone again, he dropped his head back on the chair’s headrest and stared at the stained tiled ceiling. So much for the quiet life. Seemed no matter how hard a man tried, the past was determined to dog him to the grave. At least he had the company of a naughty school teacher to keep him company until the reaper decided to pay him a visit.
Closing his eyes, Blake replayed his night with Gabby, and found himself wondering what she was getting up to.
SIXTEEN
“What am I going to do with you?”
The kitten, covered in grime and soaked to the bones, gave a plaintive cry. Gabby’s heart melted and she cuddled the poor animal closer, uncaring that it might ruin her outfit.
She’d already thoroughly accomplished that when she’d decided to crawl on her hands and knees through matted leaves and various debris to reach the little critter. Which turned out to be a wasted effort. It’d taken a crew of firefighters to cut through that storm drain and rescue the kitten.
Which, apparently, was now her responsibility.
She had no idea what to do with a cat. Due to their allergies, her parents never allowed her a pet growing up. When she was small, she used to wish she could have a dog or cat like her friends, but eventually, she’d outgrown the curiosity in favor of childhood thrills and discovery. Now, looking down into a set of multicolored green and gold eyes offset by black, orange, and white calico fur and a little pink button nose, she was smitten.
“Can I hold it, Miss Gabby?” several of the children asked, their little hands reaching and their faces straining as they jockeyed for the closest position.
Crouching down, she held the kitten close to her chest while giving them better access. “Pet him nicely, boy and girls. He’s been through a lot today, and we don’t want to scare him.” The kitten fairly disappeared from sight under the onslaught of excited hands. By the time she stood again, she noticed the parking lot was filling up with parents arriving to pick up their kids.
Gabby sighed, more than ready for the day to be over. “Okay, class, recess is over. Let’s head back inside and get our book bags.”
“Are you gonna keep ‘im?” Ash asked, falling into step with her rather than running ahead with the other kids.
“I don’t think I can,” she hedged, sorting through different scenarios in her head, all of which ended up with one or both of her parents having an attack that resulted in hours at the ER. Looking down at Ash, she thought maybe…But it was best not to ask in case she got his hopes up for nothing. She’d have to wait for Blake to get there, she thought, then wondered if he even liked cats. For the sake of the furry feline in her arms, she certainly hoped so.
After sending off her crew, Gabby sat on the front steps with Ash while he held the cat and they waited for Blake to arrive. For once, she wasn’t irritated at him for not being on time. Last night, while he’d read to Ash, she’d noticed the way he seemed to struggle over the words. He’d tried to brush it off, and Ash, bless him, had stepped in to offer up plausible explanations, but Gabby still wondered. She’d met a kid once with dyslexia and saw how much trouble they had with words and other things every person was forced to deal with on a daily basis—like keeping track of time. Every day things that most people took for granted.
If she was right, and Blake was dyslexic, it explained a lot. Especially Ash’s behavior, rushing in to save his dad. It would also explain why Blake seemed almost ashamed when she’d volunteered to take over. But he needn’t be ashamed or embarrassed. If he were there now, Gabby would tell him that she actually found it endearing that such a dominant man, so fierce and formidable, would possess such a flaw. It made him more accessible in her eyes.
Not that she hadn’t accessed plenty of him last night. Instantly, her skin heated, as if exposed to open flames. She’d been struggling all day not to think about the time she’d spent in his bed. About Blake’s aggressiveness. The way he manhandled her while still somehow managing to be gentle. The only pain he’d inflicted had been the good kind, and the thought of never experiencing it again brought Gabby’s mood crashing down to the concrete beneath her.
One time would not be enough.
The thought that she might already be getting attached to Blake was bad. Not because he was bad for her, but the other way around. Gabby had things in her past that she hadn’t quite come to terms with. Things that still posed a threat if ever anyone found out who and where she was. Because she hadn’t just come home to start a new life as she’d led everyone to believe.
No, she came home because it was the only place she could think to hide.
What a hypocrite she was, pointing fingers at him and shaming his lifestyle when in all actuality, it was she who posed the real threat. Gabby was ashamed of herself, of the way she’d acted, and when Blake uncovered what she was hiding, as he eventually would, she wouldn’t blame him if he walked away.
Except Gabby didn’t want him to walk away. Not for a second. The reality of that scared her even more.
Gabby was worrying her teeth over her bottom lip when she heard the distinct rumble of Blake’s bike coming down the road. He’d made himself clear how hard he’d worked to get himself and his club…friends…whatever on the straight and narrow. Again, she considered what would happen if he found out the kind of skeletons that were lurking in her closet…
Gabby rose alongside Ash, her stomach doing flip-flops as he coasted to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. As per usual, he stayed firmly seated while Ash ran up to him. Only this time, instead of making a beeline for his helmet, he shoved the cat in his father’s face.
On reflex, his head jerked back before Blake dragged the helmet over his head and inspected the scrawny animal.
“Where the hell’d you find this thing?”
Ash’s face was bright with excitement. “Miss Gabby found him in the sewer. The firemen had to come and cut him out. It was awesome! Can we keep him?”
“He’s filthy,” Blake observed, then looked up at Gabby as she approached. Taking in her disheveled appearance, he raised a dark brow.
Coming to a standstill in front of him, Gabby smiled dolefully. She hadn’t had a chance to see herself in a mirror, but she knew from the black, scratch-like smudges and large, brown stains on her blouse, as well as the runs in her stockings and dried dirt on her palms that she was a sight to behold. At least it was the end of the day and there was a shower in her near future.
“So firemen, huh?” Blake finally spoke, his voice gruff and holding more than a little edge.
This time, Gabby raised her brow. “Jealous?”
Without notice, he reached out and snagged her hip, hauling her up for a searing kiss that stole Gabby’s breath away. She clutched his shoulders to steady herself, caught by surprise by his aggressiveness. When he finally released her, her skin felt tight and she knew her panties were completely sodden. Just another piece of clothing destined for the trash.
Pressing her fingers to her lips, she stared at him, a question in her wide eyes.
But there were no answers forthcoming. Blake just turned his attention back to Ash and scratched the top of the cat’s head with a finger.
One of the fingers that had been inside her last night, Gabby thought, and experienced another heatwave that made her throb with need. Hell. She’d spent all day trying to keep her body in check, and he’d gone and unraveled all that hard work with one toe-curling kiss.
She was doomed.
“He is cute,” Blake was saying. Ash’s eyes were filled with hope, and Gabby knew by the look on Blake’s face that he was no more immune to his son’s charms than she was of his. “Fine, you can keep him.”
“Yes!”
“But as a trial run,” Blake added. “You want him
, then he’s your responsibility, and if he pisses on anything, he’s out.”
“Deal!” Ash was bouncing up and down, hugging the cat and scrubbing his cheek against the top of its head. It was easy to tell that he was already in love.
Gabby grinned, happy for him.
While Ash busied himself trying to figure out how to juggle the kitten and his helmet, Blake drew Gabby close again, tilting his face up. The skin around his eyes crinkled around the corners from the sunlight spilling down from above as he said a gruff, “Come here, teach.”
Gabby’s heart seized as she stepped closer, leaving nothing but a sliver of air hovering between them—for modesty’s sake, of course. The warm touch of Blake’s calloused fingers wrapping around the back of her neck caused a shiver of awareness to trickle down her spine.
“I’ve been thinking about being inside you all day,” he murmured, his lips grazing the shell of her ear. “Come back to my place tonight. Six. We’ll order in, watch a movie, then put the kid to bed and have some fun.”
Gabby got the sense that he wasn’t asking. She was inclined to say no, just to save herself the headache of getting in any deeper than she already was, but she had very little willpower where Blake was concerned.
“What about the kitten?” she asked, jerking her chin up.
“There’s only one pussy I’m interested in having in my bed.”
Rolling her eyes, Gabby made an exasperated sound. “I meant what are you going to do with it? A kitten needs things, like a cat box and food. A bath,” she added, pinching her filthy blouse and giving it an evidential fluff. She was loath to admit that her clothes were probably ruined. The idea of having to shop around for replacements had her gritting her teeth.
“Good point well made,” Blake conceded. “So how about you run on home, grab a change of clothes, and we’ll swing by to pick you up in thirty.”
“Pick me up for what?” she asked hesitantly.
“So you can help us pick out everything we’ll need.”
“I don’t know the first thing about animals,” she protested.
“Well, then this is the perfect time for you to learn. Isn’t that right, Ash?”
Up until that moment, Gabby had assumed that Ash hadn’t been paying attention, too absorbed in trying to figure out the logistics of getting himself and the cat onto the back of the bike without falling off. Apparently, she was wrong. He’d already stashed the feline in his backpack.
His head shooting up, Ash was all wide-eyed enthusiasm. “You can help us pick out toys. It will be fun!”
“Yeah, teach,” Blake said with a lopsided grin, “it’ll be fun.”
Holding his unrelenting stare, Gabby weighed her options, of which there were precious few, and realized one thing. “You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?”
“Now you’re learning.” With a cocky smile and a wink, Blake slapped her ass and released her. Sliding his helmet over his head, he double-checked to make sure that Ash was set to go, then reminded, “Thirty minutes.”
Flipping the visor back into place, he fired up the engine and Gabby stepped back, giving him space and watching as they rode off down the road. And just like that, she was spending another evening with the Mahone boys.
SEVENTEEN
Sometimes you just had to know when to throw in the towel. Blake was learning that lesson very well. “Goddamn ungrateful, sonofa—”
“Daddy,” Ash said, his tone filled with warning.
Catching Gabby’s eye, Blake’s lips quirked and he reigned it in, cursing inside his head instead. Fresh out of quarters, he couldn’t afford another for the swear jar. The kid was a real ballbuster, just like his daddy, so he really couldn’t be mad. Pushing up from the floor, Blake ruffled Ash’s hair. “Sorry, buddy, but the little shhhhh…uh, brat scratched me up.”
After spending some time at the pet store selecting all kinds of what Blake suspected was unnecessary crap—did a cat really need a Snuggie?—they finally arrived home and gave the little turd, who they’d officially named Ninja on the account of him being found in a sewer drain which Ash attributed to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a bath.
The second the water touched his feet, Turd—as he’d taken to calling him—had gone ape shit. Blake tried clamping down on his scruff, but the little bastard was wily, squirming this way and that like the girl in the damn Exorcist. When the thing started clawing its way up his arm in a desperate bid to flee, he couldn’t lie and say that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind to twist the little jerk’s head right off his shoulders.
But for all the blood he’d drawn and all the shredded skin Blake now sported, one look into those huge, round eyes so full of terror, and he felt sorry for the pitiful creature. It reminded him of Ash’s first bath after he was brought home from the hospital. Neither he nor Jodi knew what the hell they were doing. They were sloppy and awkward, and despite their best efforts to control the water, when it’d gotten into Ash’s eyes, he’d gotten the same look that Ninja had.
He just couldn’t stay mad after that.
But he sure as shit wasn’t stupid enough to sit there and continue to take it. Thank God for Gabby. Regardless of her assertions that she didn’t know the first thing about caring for animals, she was proving now that she had the nurturing gene built in.
Her tenderness, compassion, and patience with the kitten caught and held his attention. Blake stood behind her and Ash, bent over the tub, gently soaping and rinsing the subdued cat. It was calm in her hands, his little face turned up to hers as she cooed softly to him as if he were a baby. Which, in a way, he guessed it was.
Watching the scene unfold, Blake was instantly hard. There was just something about the way she was sitting there, handling that kitten like a pro, that made him want to strip her naked, bend her over, and get inside her.
“Okay, little guy,” Gabby said as she wrapped the kitten in one of his towels and roughed him up a bit, “all clean.” Ash stood, and Gabby handed him the cat. Climbing to her feet, she gave her back a stretch that pushed her tits up and out, and Blake’s pants grew impossibly tighter.
As Ash brought the cat over to Blake to show him their handiwork, he rushed to cover what she’d done to him before his kid got an eyeful.
“See, Daddy. Ninja’s happy now.”
Forcing his gaze away from Gabby, Blake looked down and pulled the fabric back to reveal the tiny face. He heard the distinct vibration of purring going on and smiled. “Yep, he sure is. Good job, buddy. Now why don’t you go on and take him to your room and show him his new bed.”
Ash skipped off, this time forgetting to issue his standard complaints. In his absence, the tension in the room thickened as Blake and Gabby faced off. Her lips twitching in a nervous smile, Gabby’s gaze darted away from his, and Blake felt his temperature spike in response. He liked that she wasn’t easy. She was more likely to run the other way if given enough quarter to do so, so he kept pushing. Edging her into corners like a cat chasing a mouse was almost as entertaining as catching her.
And he liked catching her a whole lot.
While she busied herself cleaning up the bathroom, sopping up water from the floor and closing the shampoo bottle, he made his move.
Closing in, Blake eliminated any possibility for escape. Bent over the tub, he made sure that when she stood, her back was flush with his front, all those delicious curves rubbing against all the right parts.
“Oh!” Surprised, Gabby jumped, spinning around and losing her footing in the process. Before she could fall backwards into the stall, Blake grabbed her arms and hauled her up against his chest, crushing her so close he could feel her heart slamming against his ribcage.
“Thanks for helping out tonight.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, and Blake smiled, pleased at the breathy tremble he heard in her voice. “You didn’t fare so well, though.” Her lips pursed and she turned her attention to his arms, drawing back enough to trace her fingertips lightly over the myriad,
angry red scratches that covered him from wrist to elbow.
Inspecting his torn flesh and noting the dried blood, he shrugged. “Yeah, that’s the first time I had pussy fight back.”
A shocked laugh stuttered out of her. “I hope you don’t kiss your mother with that mouth.”
His expression serious, he said, “Not since she died.” Gabby’s eyes widened almost comically, and Blake couldn’t hold back his smile. “Totally yanking your leg, teach. She’s in Colorado, hiking up mountains or some shit.”
Huffing, Gabby shoved against his chest. “Ohh, you! You’re incorrigible. Come on, help me get this place straightened up. I’m hungry, and I seem to recall you promising to feed me.”
Blake slanted her a lewd grin and got a slap in the chest for the effort. He laughed, loud and deep, because he’d never known a woman with balls big enough to take a hand to him. Not even Jodi, and her decision-making skills were questionable at best. It was her tough-as-nails attitude that had first drawn him her way, and it was her soft underbelly that convinced him she was worth sticking around for. He’d been wrong on all counts, as far as Jodi was concerned, too young and stupid to understand the difference between a girl and a woman, but he was under no such illusions now.
Blake had learned life’s lessons hard and well, and Gabby was one hundred percent woman if ever he’d met one.
Within the hour, they were all sitting together on the couch, Ash in the middle, chowing on lo mein and shouting out letters and wrong answers to Wheel of Fortune. Normally, this kind of thing wasn’t exactly Blake’s idea of family fun night, what with all the letters and words and reading going on, but Gabby somehow made it light, easy, and he was surprised to find that he was enjoying himself.
He was especially enjoying watching Ash. The kid hadn’t smiled or laughed so much in longer than Blake could remember. He was usually so solemn, reserved. Serious. Whenever Gabby was around, though, he’d noticed that Ash was much more vocal and expressive. He was better around her, more confident and determined.
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