by Lili Valente
Our lips meet in a bruising kiss that is a frenzied tangle of lips, teeth, and tongues, not even close to the languid kisses we usually start with. But Gabe’s right—tonight, a slow burn would be impossible. Right now, we are a spark and kindling catching fire, igniting with enough heat to burn down the entire building.
His hands work their magic and suddenly my skirt and tank top are gone, without me remembering shifting to help him make them disappear. And then he’s pulling away from me to rip his shirt over his head, revealing chiseled muscles sharper and more defined than the toned chest I remember.
“Become a meathead while I’ve been gone?” I ask, hands shaking as I trail my fingers down his rounded pecs, to the taut ridges of his abdomen.
He was lovely before, but now he is…perfection, so gorgeous it seems a shame sculpting the male figure went out of vogue with the ancient Greeks. Someone should sculpt this man, immortalize every inch of his beauty in marble for women to drool over for generations to come.
“You know I enjoy torturing myself,” he says, a pained expression flickering across his face as I hook my fingers over the waistband of his shorts.
“No torture tonight, only good things.” I dip my hand lower, raking my fingernails over the bulge straining his fly, drawing another curse from his lips.
He captures my wrists in his hands, drawing my arms up over my head before pinning them to the lounge chair’s cushions. “Not yet. If I take any more clothes off, I’ll be inside you in thirty seconds.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I wrap my legs around his waist, flexing my muscles until I’ve pinned his hips to mine. His cock presses against me through his shorts and my thin bikini bottom, making my entire body tighten with desire.
“I’m not the only one who’s changed.” He runs his hands from my knees to my thighs before giving them a squeeze. “Run any marathons lately?”
“I don’t do organized athletic activity. I run at night, by myself.” I punctuate the words with circles of my hips, grinding against him through our clothes. “I run so I’ll be fast enough to get away from the bad guys.”
“You are so fucking sexy,” Gabe says, breath shuddering out against my lips as his palms slide higher, until his fingers nearly encircle my waist.
He dips his head with a growl, finding the end of the bikini strap tied around my neck with his teeth and loosening the bow with a jerk of his head. My top springs free, baring my breasts, and a moment later Gabe is pulling my nipple into his mouth. Immediately, I forget that I was going to tell him that he is sexier, and that I’m never going to get enough of his body.
I forget everything but the amazing way he makes me feel.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Caitlin
Waves of bliss course from my breast to every electrified inch of my skin until I’m moaning and squirming beneath him. I thread my fingers through his hair and try to tug his mouth away from my chest, but he only intensifies his efforts, licking and sucking and biting until my breasts ache and the flesh between my legs is swollen and slick. I feel bruised with wanting him, and I only crave more. More of his kiss, his touch, more of the way he makes me feel like my skin is too small and my soul too big for this fragile human body.
“Please.” My fingers claw into his thick biceps, so much denser than they used to be. “I don’t want to wait. I need you. Now.”
“Not yet,” he mumbles against my breast, but a moment later, his hand slips beneath my bikini bottom and his fingers slide through where I am hot and wet and dying for the relief I know only he can give me.
“God, Caitlin.” He groans as he kisses his way down my ribs until his breath warms my fluttering belly. “You taste so good. I don’t want to be able to taste anything but you.”
I whimper. I want to tell him I need him inside me, where I have craved him so desperately that I wake from dreams of the two of us with tears streaming down my cheeks. But before I can form the words, he’s made my bikini bottom vanish and hooked my knees over his shoulders. And then he lowers his mouth between my legs and I remember that there is something almost as good as Gabe’s cock.
His mouth.
God, his mouth.
His tongue teases through my heat, sending more blood rushing between my legs as he circles my clit with the perfect, delicious pressure. He takes me right up to the very edge, close enough that I can feel the hot winds of oblivion blowing across my cheeks, promising to sweep me away to a world where there is nothing but bliss, before Gabe abruptly abandons his work.
I suck in a ragged breath, but before my moan of frustration can escape my lips, Gabe drives his tongue inside me, wrenching a different kind of cry from my throat. He drives in and out, fucking me with his tongue as his hands hook around my thighs and spread me wide, wider, until I am completely exposed.
But I know this is how he likes it. He loves me like this, laid open to him, hiding nothing, concealing nothing, shamelessly reaching for the pleasure he wants to give me. I buck into him until every muscle in my body is strung tight, and my breath is coming fast enough to make me dizzy. I fist my hands in the cushion above my head, desperate to have something to hang on to, and then it happens.
Gabe tips me over the edge and I’m falling, spinning weightlessly through the air as my womb contracts and my toes curl and my features twist with the horrible beauty of it all. I make a face I know isn’t pretty, but I don’t try to hide when Gabe surges up over me, bringing his lips back to mine.
I let my breath rush out into his mouth, tasting my taste on his lips, clinging to his shoulders as he disposes of his shorts and boxers with one swift movement. I hear the tearing of foil and feel Gabe’s hands moving between our bodies as he sheaths himself and then the hot, pulsing head of him is at my entrance and he’s pushing inside.
He drives home with a savage thrust and a groan that is wild and primal and makes my teeth ache with the need to trap flesh between them and bite down. He pushes in and in and in, until every inch of him is buried inside me, and the head of him butts up against the end of me.
I throw back my head, squeeze my eyes closed, and cry out, just that one single thrust almost enough to take me over again, but then Gabe pulls back, depriving me of all that sweet fullness.
“Look at me.” He cups my face in his hands, his voice as ragged as my soul feels. “I need to see your eyes.”
I look up at him, into him, and at that moment—with both of our walls down, and nothing but skin on skin, and sweat, and blood pumping too fast between us—I see everything. I see down to the heart of him, and I know that none of the other bullshit matters. He is Gabe, and he is mine, and I am his, and I am going to love him forever. I am going to love him until I die, and after.
Looking into his eyes, I believe in reincarnation, because one lifetime isn’t enough time to love this man. I need forever, eternity.
“I love you.” I know it’s too soon, but this moment is too real for secrets.
“I love you,” he says, throat working as he swallows. “I thought I needed the memories, but…all I need is you. You’re all I’ll ever need.”
Tears fill my eyes, but I press my lips together, fighting through the emotion, not wanting to cry. Right now, I just want to be with him, and for our second first time to last forever.
As if he’s read my mind—and maybe he has, the same way he’s read my heart—Gabe’s second thrust is infinitely slower than his first. He glides into me with a long, languid stroke as he moves his hands beneath my back to cup my ass in his hands. He shifts my hips until we hit that sweet spot where every thrust takes me a little closer to bliss, and then he sets about driving me slowly out of my mind.
With Isaac, slow meant slow and steady, a long distance runner plodding resolutely toward the finish line. With Gabe, slow is a roller coaster creeping toward the apex, making my stomach flip and my thighs tremble and my heart lodge in my throat because I know the fall is coming. I know it’s coming and it will be epic and terrifying
and wonderful and I will never be the same after he takes me there.
There…there…closer…closer…
“Yes,” I gasp, fingers digging into the back of his neck, breath coming fast against his lips as he drives home and my body quivers like a bow string about to break. “Yes. Please, Gabe, now.”
“Come for me, Caitlin,” he breathes. “Come for me.”
And I do, the way I always do with him, my body obeying his command like I was made to lie beneath him, made to spread my legs and lift my hips and come, crying out his name, as his rhythm grows faster and he takes me with all the passion we create together. He comes moments after I do, his cock pulsing inside of me, sending aftershocks of his pleasure echoing through my bones. I swear I can feel how good it is for him, like part of my soul is tangled up in his.
It’s so much more than an orgasm. It’s a celebration, a prayer of thanksgiving for the return of lost things. He whispers that he loves me again, but I don’t need to hear the words, I can feel the truth in the way he holds me close and kisses me like I am the answer to every question, the balm for every hurt, the only thing in his world that could never be replaced.
After, we lie tangled together, catching our breath as the sun sets and the air begins to cool. My fingertips drift up and down his back, relishing every brush of skin against skin, the miracle of him, of this moment, of us, too big for words.
“Let’s stay here forever,” he says, hugging me closer, kissing my bare shoulder.
“Okay,” I agree with a content sigh. “We can hang hammocks and go to sleep watching the stars every night.”
“Sounds like heaven.”
“Until it rains.” I kiss his cheek.
“Or the mosquitoes descend.”
“We’ll get mosquito coils,” I say. “We have tons of mosquitoes at the house in Hawaii, but with a few coils burning, we can hang out without getting devoured. Except Emmie, the poor thing. Mosquitoes love her. I tell her it must be because she’s sweeter than the rest of us.”
He props up on his forearms, smiling down at me. “I don’t know, you’re pretty sweet.”
“As sweet as you remember?”
“Sweeter.” He traces the curve of my ear with a fingertip, even that innocent touch enough to make my body start humming all over again. “I should get rid of the condom, but then I want to hear about Hawaii. How you got there, where you live, where you go to school, whether you’ve learned to surf…everything. I want to feel like I’ve been there with you.”
I smile, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world, as I watch my gorgeous man walk naked across the roof to toss the used condom in a trashcan near the grill, and turn back to me with a smile on his face that assures me there is nowhere he’d rather be than here with me.
After we’re snuggled up again, I tell him about Aunt Sarah and the will, about flying out with the kids. I tell him about Danny’s girlfriend, Sam, and how well he’s been doing in school. I tell him about the friends I’ve made at the community pool, and the way Emmie took to swimming like she was born in the water. I tell him about my courses at the U of H, Maui campus, and my night runs, and how sometimes the sadness was so strong nothing could make me feel better except running down to the shore and watching the waves pound against the rocks.
And then, finally, I tell him about the baby. How, at first, knowing I was having our child was all that kept me going, and how losing that sweet little life almost killed me. I can’t keep from crying as I confess it all, but it’s okay, because Gabe cries, too. He pulls me into his arms and wraps himself around me and my tears wet his chest and his tears dampen my hair, but for the first time, the grief is bearable, because Gabe is here to share it with me.
By the time we’re finished talking and crying and talking some more, the sun has long set and the first stars are flickering to life in the dark blue sky, but we still don’t move for a long time. We stay entwined on the lounge chair, quiet in the darkness, giving everything we’ve shared time to settle and harden, cementing us to each other even tighter than we were before, so tight I know nothing will ever come between us again.
“We’re going to take care of the things that need to be taken care of, and then we’re getting out of here,” Gabe says, proving he feels it, too, that he and I have become us again. “I’m coming to Hawaii with you. I’m not going back to my old school. I’ll finish up what I can on Maui, and then take things from there.”
“I think the campus on Oahu has a law school,” I say. “We could rent out the Maui house, and move islands when you get in.”
He hugs me closer. “You’ve got a lot of faith in me.”
“Absolutely,” I say, pressing a kiss to his bare chest.
“I can’t believe I left to go have the surgery without at least trying to contact you,” he says, confirming my suspicion that this is the part of our story that troubles him the most. “Something must have happened. Something with my parents.” He curses. “I wish I could fucking remember.”
“You will,” I say, believing it with my entire heart. “So much has come back to you, just today. Give it time.”
“It’s already taken too much time,” he says. “I hate that I wasn’t there for you. I hate that I don’t know why my parents did what they did.”
“Then let’s go see what we can find,” I say, standing and stretching my arms over my head, feeling more satisfied than I’ve felt in ages. “I’ll take Charlene’s computer, and you see what you can find on your father’s.”
“Sounds perfect,” he says, smacking my bare bottom, making me laugh as I turn to retaliate, chasing him naked across the roof to smack his ass before we declare a truce and walk hand in hand back to reclaim our clothes.
Minutes later, we’re dressed and headed back down the fire escape to Aaron Alexander’s office, ready to hunt for the answers we need to put the past to rest and get started on forever.
CHAPTER NINE
Gabe
“Come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy,
That one short minute gives me in her sight.”
-Shakespeare
Every minute with her is more perfect than the last. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking, making love, goofing off, or hacking into computers on opposite sides of a quiet law office, every second with Caitlin confirms that this is where I’m supposed to be.
I understand now why, since coming home from the surgery, I’ve felt like a guest at Darby Hill. Darby Hill isn’t my home, my home is five feet, one inches of hard-working, hard-loving, fearless, fragile, beautiful blonde and I never want to leave that home again.
“I’m not going back to Darby Hill tonight,” I say, gazing across the office to where Caitlin sits cross-legged in Charlene’s chair, clicking through her email. “I won’t be able to resist the urge to strangle my parents.”
Caitlin doesn’t say a word, and I’ve started to think she hasn’t heard me when she says—
“We can’t go back to Hawaii, either.” Her voice is trembling, and I know she’s found something bad, even before I cross the room to stand beside her and she looks up at me, a haunted expression on her face. She points to the screen in front of her. “Look at this.”
I lean down, rubbing her back in gentle circles as I read through a series of emails between Charlene and two lawyers on the island of Maui. She solicited them to assist her in transferring a property to “a deserving young family” who would only accept the property if it seemed to come to them through the will of a dead relative. I read the entire string of messages, but I realize by the third response from Sumiko and Associates what has happened.
“My parents bought you the house in Maui,” I say. “To make sure there were a few thousand miles and an ocean between us.”
Caitlin’s breath rushes out. “And you were right. My dad was in on it. They paid him ten grand to help them pull off the inheritance story, and get me out of town. I found an email Charlene wrote to him before I
found this one, but it didn’t mention anything about why they were offering the money, or why he’d agree to it.”
I brush her hair over her shoulder. “Are you going to be okay?”
Her cheeks puff as she blows out a long stream of air. “I mean…my dad is breaking my heart all over again, even though he’s dead, and the kids and I are homeless, but…”
“You’re not homeless.” I urge her up out of the chair before taking her place, and pulling her into my lap. “The house is in your name. There’s no reason you can’t keep living there.”
“It feels tainted now.” She curls into me, wrapping her arms around my neck, allowing me to comfort her in a way that makes me feel like the luckiest man alive. I never imagined being there for someone could feel like a gift instead of a responsibility.
I also never dreamed it would be so devastating to learn I was almost a father.
The thought makes my stomach turn to lead, so I push it away, even as I hold Caitlin closer. I can’t think about how things might have been different—if Caitlin and I had been allowed to stay together, if she’d been there for me after the surgery, and I’d been there for her during the pregnancy. I can’t imagine a scenario where our child lived without wanting to kill my parents for what they’ve done more than I do already.
“Finding answers sucks,” Caitlin says, reaching out to click the browser closed.
“But we still have one very big question left.”
“Why did they go to all this trouble,” Caitlin says, completing my thought with an ease that is more evidence that we belong together. “All told, this deception must have cost almost a million dollars.”
“And even to my parents, that’s not a small number.” I hum a tune I can’t put words to, but for the first time since the surgery, the hole in my memory doesn’t bother me. I recovered the most important part of who I used to be, and she is threading her fingers through my hair, twisting it in idle circles as she thinks.