Unspoken

by Lauren Hawkeye

”I’m on the pill.” Her voice was soft, almost shy. “I’m protected.”

  The muscles in his shoulders went rigid. “I’m clean.”

  She smiled. She wouldn’t have asked. She trusted him. “I know. Me too.”

  Feral possession blazed in those vibrant eyes. Balancing his weight on one elbow, Gabe pushed her thighs wide, then took himself in hand. He stroked his length over her, and she whimpered.

  Then he pressed himself to her, and slowly, excruciatingly, moved forward. Ellie held her breath, squirming beneath him as he steadily filled her body, stretching her, awakening her nerves.

  Once fully seated, he stilled, looked down at her.

  Lowered his head for one of those slow, perfect kisses.

  “I want to take my time. Watch you slowly come apart underneath me.”

  She very nearly could have, just from those words. But more than she wanted what he promised, she wanted to make him feel what she already had.

  Digging greedy fingers into his hips, the muscled planes of his butt, she tilted her hips, forcing him in just a fraction more.

  The groan he made was the sound of a man in pain.

  “You got your way already.” Another squeeze, another tilt of her hips. “Come with me, Gabe. I want you to.”

  She saw uncertainty.

  Determination.

  Wicked intent.

  Pulling back, sliding forward. Mind numbingly good.

  Too slow.

  Raking her nails over his back, she urged him onward with her hips. He tensed, tried to fight it, but she could see the instant he passed the point of no return.

  “I won’t last long.” Burying his face in her hair, he moved faster, and faster still, finding his own pleasure—finding solace—in her body, and Ellie was only too happy to give it to him.

  “Come to me, Gabe.” Her whisper was loud in the dark. “Come to me now.”

  Shuddering, he clenched, hilting inside of her, and then again. Only once his soft groan had faded did he still, whispering something that she couldn’t quite catch.

  They stayed that way, wrapped up in one another, as the sweat dried and their skin cooled. Joined together.

  After what might have been minutes, and might have been an hour, Ellie had a question. Rolling over, she pressed her lips to the hollow of Gabe’s neck.

  “Why did your father want to buy Estelle’s Blooms?”

  Gabe made a sound that was half laugh, half snort of exasperation. “We’re naked in bed and you want to talk about my dad?”

  She scowled. “Just answer the damn question.”

  Gabe pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I don’t have the faintest idea.” He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her throat...

  ...and lower

  ...and Ellie forgot what she’d asked.

  Chapter Ten

  A rare cold wind blew over the Florence graveyard. Ellie shivered, dressed in just the jeans and tank that she’d worn to Gabe’s the night before.

  Since she’d missed the funeral, she wouldn’t have known where to go, except for the freshly turned dirt, and the newly erected headstone.

  Estelle Agnes Kendrick

  1944- 2012

  “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you,

  I could walk in my garden forever.”

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Ellie had no idea who had chosen the quote. It certainly wasn’t one that she would have selected for the woman that she knew. And yet...

  She thought of the boxes that Estelle had so carefully stored in her attic. Thought of the connections that bound them all... herself and Estelle, herself and Gabe. Jamie and Gabe. Even, she thought with amusement, Estelle and Ed.

  Shivering with cold, and uncertain of why she’d come in the first place, Ellie pursed her lips then, deciding to go all in, kissed her fingers and touched them to the headstone.

  That was when she saw the bouquet, tucked in behind. Dried now from the desert heat, what had once been a dozen red roses was propped up against the back of the headstone... wrapped in plastic from the grocery store where she’d seen Ed. A small card was tucked amongst the now desiccated stems.

  “They’re not up to your usual standards, my love, but with you gone, they’ll have to do. I know you never forgave me, but know that I carried you in my heart to the end.” Estelle read the words out loud, turned them over in her mind.

  Estelle had been sixty eight when she’d died.

  Gabe’s parents had had him later in life... Ed would be somewhere in his early sixties.

  Ed had been very interested in what she’d planned to do with the shop. So interested that he’d wanted to buy it.

  Ellie stood for a long time, looking down at those roses.

  Was it possible...

  Could love really still burn bright after tragedy?

  She didn’t have the answer.

  But...

  Was the possibility enough?

  ***

  Ellie was gone when he woke up. Gabe wasn’t surprised by that fact, but he was entirely taken aback by the depth of unhappiness that the knowledge caused.

  Rolling over, he scrubbed his hands over his face then, embarrassed even though he was the only one there, lifted the pillow that Ellie had slept on, held it to his face, and inhaled the floral scent she’d left behind.

  He was an idiot, because last night he’d fallen totally and completely in love with Ellie Kendrick again. Or maybe he’d never been out of love with her at all.

  And after listening to her story the night before, he knew that if it hurt her too much to stay, then all he could do was let her go.

  The pain was like a migraine, a dull ache that seemed manageable until you moved, where it morphed into a pain so bright it could blind you.

  Most of him wanted to roll over, to pull the covers over his head and never come out.

  The small part of him that seemed alive knew that he had to get his ass in the shower, and then to work.

  He sat up slowly, every muscle in his body aching as though his inner pain was leaching from his soul to his body. He made it to the edge of his bed, then was defeated, lowering his feet to the floor and his head to his hands.

  Was this how Ellie had felt, so many years ago? Utterly defeated and all alone?

  The sound of his door opening had his jolting, his cop instincts holding him rigid, listening until he identified the rest of the sound.

  Footsteps. Soft and quiet and, to his ears at least, easily identifiable.

  His heart rose, but he tried to push down the sensation until he knew.

  Ellie appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. In her hands was a single rose.

  “Hey.” She spoke softly, uncertainty playing over her features.

  “Hey.” Gabe’s eyes looked her over greedily. She wasn’t perfect, this woman, but damn it, she was his.

  Scared me, he wanted to add. Then, figuring he had nothing to lose, he did.

  Ellie crossed to sit on the bed beside him. Her fingers worried the petals of the rose, but didn’t touch him.

  “I thought I was going to leave. Even this morning... I still thought it was the right thing to do.”

  Gabe’s heart clenched, but he nodded at her to go on.

  Rather than speaking, she held the rose out to him. Not sure what she was getting at, he took it.

  “This flower has the potential to have a nice long life. For a rose, I mean.” She eyed the flower, sniffed. “And for a grocery store special.”

  Gabe couldn’t hold back a small smile.

  “But here’s the thing. We can nurture it. Take all the right steps to make sure it stays healthy. But in the end, it might still die before its time.” This time when she ran her fingers over the petals, her fingers brushed his, and she looked him right in the eye,

  “What are you asking, El?” He didn’t want to hope, but that ship had sailed.

  She bit her lip, worried it with her teeth before speaking again.

  “I guess th
e question is... do you nurture it anyway, even knowing that it might not live up to its potential? Or do you just walk away and avoid all the potential pain?”

  “To hell with this.” Gabe tossed the flower to the side, then pulled Ellie into his lap. Wrapping his arms around her tightly, he ran his lips over her hair. “We might fuck it up, El. We’ve done it before. But I’m game if you are.”

  She pulled back, looked at him for a long moment. And then she smiled sunnily, an expression that he didn’t entirely trust. At least, not on her.

  “Well then, I have a problem.” He could see her trying to make her expression solemn. She failed miserably.

  “Oh?” He traced his fingers over her cheekbone. She was so small, and she looked so impossibly fragile, this woman.

  He was the only one who knew how incredibly strong she was.

  “Yes. Well. I sold my apartment.” She smiled sweetly. “Know anywhere a girl can find a place to stay?”

  “I might. But we’d have to discuss terms of payment.” Joy he hadn’t known he was capable of filled Gabe until he felt sure he would split in two. Unable to resist, he took Ellie’s mouth with his own, kissed her until they were both breathless.

  Wicked intent filled her eyes, and she nipped at his lower lip. “I’m pretty sure I overpaid you just then. You should give me my change.”

  He kissed her again, and his hands wandered lowered.

  He muttered a protest when she braced her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away.

  “Are you certain? I mean, we could screw this up again and make it all worse than it already is. In fact that’s a pretty likely possibility. So really, Gabe. Be sure.”

  In response, he kissed her again. And then showed her just how sure he was.

  The End

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  Like what you just read? Read the story of Alexa,

  the sister Ellie just discovered, in Untouched, A Novel.

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  UNTOUCHED Excerpt

  Copyright 2014 by Lauren Hawkeye

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  New York Times and USA Today bestselling romance author Lauren Hawkeye serves up a captivating story of loss, self-discovery, and deep-seated desire.

  Some secrets are best left locked away in the past….

  Alexa Kendrick has no recollection of the car accident that left her scarred and sent her life careening wildly off course. When the half-sister she thought she’d never meet shows up at her door with an invitation to a new life, Alexa finds herself in Florence, Arizona, a town notorious for being populated with more prison inmates than actual citizens…a town that has done its best to hide its own dark secret.

  After Ellie is called out of town, she leaves her sister with the keys to her flower shop and Alexa finds herself swapping lives with her sibling: running Ellie’s business, living in the house left to them both by their absentee father…and forging a smoldering relationship with sexy-as-sin penitentiary officer, Nate Fury—a man with his own demons.

  But arranging flowers by day and tangling with the only man who has ever seen her real self by night isn’t enough to silence the mysterious panic that fuels Alexa’s dark dreams. When Nate brings home a book written by an inmate, one describing an unspeakable crime, the shackles binding Alexa’s own lost memories begin to shatter. And as the devastating truth comes to light, she realizes that Nate holds the key to unlocking her past, as well as her heart.

  ***

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  I didn’t understand.

  Who was that? I didn’t know, and that scared me. I wanted my mother, like a child trapped inside a woman’s body.

  And why couldn’t I see? Why was the entire field of my vision an implacable, grim landscape of slate, stretching as far as I could see every which way.

  “Rapid papillary dilation, oculus dextra only... no wait, oculus sinistra also.”

  Huh?

  Thoroughly confused, I struggled to sit up, to open my eyes. Why was I lying down? Had I been asleep? I wasn’t even tired.

  Nothing happened. Annoyed, I commanded my brain again to move my arms, my legs, to crunch my abdominal muscles in a sit up. To force the ever quickening flutter of nerves in my eyes to open.

  Nothing.

  Panic snaked its way into my consciousness, an oily sickness in my gut. It roiled in my stomach like an over-rich meal as I frantically tried to understand why my limbs weren’t working.

  “Heart rate’s increasing.” I heard, as if from a great distance, a long, repetitive string of shrill beeps, quickening irregularly before slowing again.

  A flash of light, nougat yellow, registered in my right eye, then my left. I opened my mouth to protest, but instead of my own voice, higher than I’d ever liked it to be, I heard the lower, more moderated tones of a man.

  “No pupillary response oculus unitas. Reflexes?” A sharp tap on each knee.

  I was getting annoyed. I wanted to wake up.

  As the minutes ticked by, however, realization slowly trickled in, water filling a vase full stones.

  This wasn’t a dream. This was real.

  I tried again to speak, and again and again. There was no sound besides the one reverberating off the shadowy confines of my mind.

  I was screaming, but it seemed that no one could hear me.

  I howled until even my inner voice was hoarse. As I quieted, my mind—my only companion, it seemed—turned over what I’d heard, what I’d experienced since waking.

  I was in a hospital, or something like that. If they were testing my reflexes, then why couldn’t they see my responses? Why couldn’t they tell that I was awake, just unable to speak, to see, to ask?

  “Any word on an ID yet?” Another male voice, this one lighter and somehow more smooth.

  “No. The patient had no identification on her. She’s too young. Hopefully her parents are looking for her.”

  Wait a minute. That was wrong. Completely wrong. I never went anywhere without my purse, a small piece of battered leather that I’d had for years.

  And patient? Patient of what? Why did I need to be here?

  What had happened to me?

  “What do the cops say?” This came from a woman whose voice reminded me of the burnt ochre and gold sunrises back home. Home, yes, home. Was I home?

  No, that wasn’t right. I was in the mountains. I’d been here for a few months. It had been fun until...

  Until what?

  Bearing down internally, I tried again, with all of my strength, to spit out the words that were choking me.

  I didn’t want anything to do with anything involving the police. I was a good person. I followed the rules, always. And I just wanted these strange people to hear what I had to say, not to run off talking to the cops—and I had no idea why they’d need to do that—or to keep poking my skin, shining lights into my eyes, or strapping monitors to my skin.

  Why couldn’t they hear me? Why couldn’t I talk?

  And what was that haze of red that was wafting on in, the curling tendrils ominous in their undulating shades of scarlet, crimson and claret.

  It was—oh, my God. The pain. The pain. Like a million tiny, deathly sharp blades, not stabbing but slicing, all at once, through every single bit of my flesh. Melting through layers of derma and fat, muscle and bone.

  As my breath caught, rasping painfully in my inexplicably swollen throat, I heard the faint, staccato song of the beeps again. They raced, faster and faster, before pausing once, twice and slowing, sliding towards silence. I tried to shut out the pain, to breathe through it, but still I heard the busy bee hum of panicked voices, of shouted words, of things I didn’t recognize.

  A sharp sting in my right hand, then a lovely cool b
egan its slow trickle, heavy and so fat with wet that it dampened the pain, bit by bit. Numbed the senses.

  With its arrival the desire to speak, to yell and scream my existence, faded. I no longer cared about why I was where I was, or who was around me. Didn’t care why I was trapped, an active mind in a body that wouldn’t respond, no matter how loud I screamed.

  Didn’t care that my memories were hazy.

  Oh, that cool. So thick and sweet, deadening my veins and everything that they touched.

  I didn’t want... I couldn’t... I needed to...

  It all faded to grey.

  Untouched

  Available for preorder now!

  Read on for an excerpt from A Bride for a Billionaire,

  Available Now!

  Other books by Lauren Hawkeye

  New adult romance

  Three Little Words

  Spring Fling (with Julia Kent, Sara Fawkes and Cathryn Fox)

  Love Me For Me

  Love Me If You Dare

  Contemporary BDSM romance

  Linger

  Breathe

  Blush

  Surrender to Temptation

  Fling (With Sara Fawkes and Cathryn Fox)

  Historical romance

  Seduced by the Gladiator

  My Wicked Gladiators

  See her websites for complete booklists!

  www.laurenhawkeye.com

  www.laurenjameson.com

  About the Author

  Lauren Hawkeye/ Lauren Jameson never imagined that she'd wind up telling stories for a living... though when she looks back, it's easy to see that she's the only one who is surprised. Always "the kid who read all the time", Lauren made up stories about her favorite characters once she'd finished a book... and once spent an entire year narrating her own life internally. No, really. But where she was just plain odd before publication, now she can at least claim to have an artistic temperament.