His Inspiration

by Tanya Gallagher

“It’s not your fault, Bex. That’s part of life.”

  “Everyone keeps saying that.”

  Gabe nodded. “That’s because it’s true.”

  His heart beat under her cheek, and she whispered the words that scared her the most. “What if I can’t be the person you want?”

  Gabe pulled her closer. “Oh, honey. You’re already everything I want. You’re you.”

  She snorted out a laugh. “Sure am.” But his reassurance eased the knot in her chest. Little by little, she was going to keep letting down her walls for him. She was going to reach for a future with him. It wasn’t fair to either of them if she held back.

  Tonight Gabe held her and soothed her, whispering again and again that she was his. And she was. She didn’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else.

  “I’ve got you,” Gabe promised, stroking a hand down her back. His heart pounded against hers, so strong and sure and alive. “I’m not going to let go.”

  “Okay,” she said. Maybe her curse could be lifted after all. “Because I’m all in.”

  Chapter 24

  Bex was already awake, slipping out of Gabe’s bed and pulling her hair into a messy ponytail before Gabe cracked his eyes the next morning.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, swinging his legs out of bed. His face was still half-numb from his pillow, and his words came out sleepy and muffled.

  Bex stepped toward his side of the bed wearing little more than a pair of underwear and a strapless bra. “As much as it’s tempting to stay here all day, some of us have to show up at work.”

  Gabe stood and grabbed her by the butt to pull her close. “I have to show up at work, too,” he countered, nipping the end of her nose.

  Bex smiled and rolled her eyes. He was glad that she’d been able to fall back asleep after last night’s dream. This morning the tension seemed to have evaporated, and she came back to him like a breeze, like a citrus-scented sky.

  “Oh yeah? You’ve got a shoot today?”

  “A product shoot for a dog food company.”

  “Bow-wow,” she laughed, pulling away from him to reach for her clothes.

  “Hey, woman. Don’t mock what pays the bills. There are going to be some very happy bitches at my shoot today.”

  Bex gave a mock gasp and slid her dress over her head. “You’d better mean dogs, ace. Anyway, all my clothes are back at my house. So I’ve got to run home before work.”

  “You could do the walk of shame today.”

  She waved at her body, sheathed in that tight white dress. “Not so sure this screams, ‘Trust me, I can design your award-worthy sex toys.’”

  Gabe trailed his eyes over her body and smirked. “Actually, it completely does.”

  Bex swatted his arm, and he kissed her, slapping her butt before letting her go. She stepped into her high heels and turned to him. “By the way, thank you for last night.” She drew a shaky breath. “I know I’m not always easy to deal with, but it means a lot to me.”

  “No one’s perfect, Bex. I’ve got my own fair share of baggage. But we’re in this together.” He cleared his throat. “Speaking of being together, when you do go home, do me a favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Make sure you don’t use those toys without me.”

  Bex narrowed her eyes and cocked her head with a smile. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  They were playing a game, and with this simple request, Gabe had just changed the rules. After last night he needed to know that Bex trusted him enough to pivot with him. “If you’re serious about innovating, you need some fresh ideas, not the same old toys you’re used to.” So what if that was an excuse?

  “The same old award-winning toys, you mean?”

  Gabe held her gaze and laid his cards on the table. “I want all of your pleasure, honey. Let me give you everything you ask for.”

  Bex’s soft laugh echoed in the room. “That’s a tall order.”

  “I know, but I want you hot and greedy for me.” There was no better feeling in the world. He lowered his voice and smiled as her breath sucked in. “You know I always aim to please.”

  “Francie, over here. Francie, look this way, sweetheart.”

  Francie aimed her liquid brown eyes at Gabe and licked her chops. Then she tossed her head and shuffled in the opposite direction.

  “Francie, come.”

  Dear god, he was sweet-talking an eighty-pound ball of gray and white fur. The Old English Sheepdog dragging her lumpy ass across the pristine white floors of this rented studio couldn’t give two shits about Gabe or his camera or the fact that he had to deliver this dog food campaign with just ten minutes of shooting time left in today’s session. The dog had no interest in touching the very food that Nature’s Choice Dog Food had hired her to sell, and she oozed around the set like molasses. The fact that she was about ninety percent fur was part of the problem. No matter how good the air conditioning was inside this studio, if Francie ever stepped outside to do her business, she’d probably keel over from heatstroke. No wonder she moved like a sloth.

  Francie’s owner, Patty, was just as out of it as the dog. “Francie rhymes with Fancy,” Patty cooed. She squeezed a dog toy shaped like a weasel, and the rubber squealed in Gabe’s ears, sending his brain into spasms. If he never had to hear that sound again in his life, it would be too soon.

  At least Francie perked up at the squeal, whuffling her way forward to shove her nose into the bowl of dog food that she’d patently ignored for the last fifty minutes. Thank god, because Gabe was one step away from lacing the food with hamburgers from the drive-through across the street.

  Snap.

  He kept his eye on the viewfinder, clicking away while Francie had her way with the bowl of kibble.

  “And, cut!” he said.

  The dog had the grace to wait until after Gabe stopped shooting to piss on the floor.

  He shook his head. Maybe photo shoots with Las Vegas showgirls weren’t so bad after all. At least the chance of them performing some bodily function on set was less than fifty percent.

  Gabe left Patty to the cleanup, walking across the room to strike one of his softboxes. His phone buzzed as he began folding the flash diffuser.

  “Gabriel Marx,” he said.

  “Just who I was looking for,” the voice announced. “Gabriel, this is Angelica Feng. I manage the Trailblazer Gallery at the Renegade Hotel. Derrick Fisher left a message and mentioned that you might have some business to discuss with me.”

  Gabe’s chest lightened. He hadn’t been sure that Derrick was going to come through, especially after Bex had fled right in front of him. He’d have to buy the guy a drink. Was that even a thing—buying a guy a drink who worked in the beverage industry? If not, he would buy the guy a burger. Or something.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I’m a local photographer whose work has been featured in a bunch of national and international magazines and blogs. I’ve been working on a solo exhibit for some time now, and I’d love if the Trailblazer would consider hosting the show.”

  “Hmm, photographs?”

  “Yes.” Gabe’s voice sounded desperate, but he needed this. For himself, and now also for Bex. He needed to be the artist he knew he could be, for her sake.

  If Bex had been worried about him hanging out with some bitches today, she had no reason to fear. Even if the bitches had been human and not canine, he was still so irrevocably hers. There was no comparison between anyone else and Bex. He just needed to keep on proving that to her. “I’d be happy to bring a portfolio by to show you,” he told the gallery manager. “I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

  “That sounds excellent,” Angelica said. “Tell me, what day should we pencil into the calendar?”

  Chapter 25

  “I want to remind everyone that product specifications for this year’s design competition are due by the end of the week.” Jeremy’s voice rang through the speakerphone
set on the Las Vegas conference room table. “You don’t have to be a designer to participate. Just give us your best ideas, and we’ll see how they can translate into an innovative new toy. I’m going to turn this call over to Bex to give you more details.”

  “Right,” Bex said, picking up where her boss had left off. “What we need you to do is go on the design portal with your toy ideas and fill out the corresponding information—the kind of toy you have in mind, the shape, dimensions, materials, and colors. All that. If you have sketches to attach, even better. The portal will collect everyone’s information and present an anonymous panel of ideas to our judges.”

  It felt weird to be the one instructing people how to sign up for the contest when Bex also wanted to throw her hat in the ring, but any conflicts of interest were up to Jeremy to deal with. Her level of experience in the design world should hopefully give her a leg up on the competition. Fingers crossed.

  Jeremy broke in. “Thanks, Bex. Can you hang on the line for another minute after the call is done?”

  Her cheeks heated as the production team in Las Vegas scrutinized her face. Whatever. What Jeremy wanted to talk about was as much a mystery to her as it was to them.

  Jeremy wished everyone good luck and dismissed the meeting. Bex stayed in her chair while her coworkers filed out of the room. Then Jeremy’s breathing filled the speaker. “You still there, Kingsley?”

  She swallowed and forced her voice to stay light. “Still here.”

  “Great.” She could imagine him in the Seattle offices, the buildings downtown spearing up into the sky just outside his window. She’d visited the X Enterprises headquarters a few times in the past to get to know some of the team and the operations. The whole place oozed sex appeal, from the frosted glass walls of the offices to the dark marble floors. Still, Bex preferred the Las Vegas facility and the whirring noise of the machines in the production space just down the hall from her office. The offices here felt a little more comfortable, more humble. Frankly, even if the headquarters were a little less intimidating, Seattle as a whole was too wet for her—her hair a mess, the sky threatening something for six months of the year. Vegas was hot, but you got used to melting all over the place. And it was a dry heat, the kind that could settle into your bones. Anyway, she’d never known anything different.

  “So Bex,” Jeremy continued, his voice rumbling through the room. “I wanted to talk to you about joining the judging panel for this year’s competition. I’ll be one of the judges, along with Avery in PR. But we’d like a third on the panel.”

  It took Bex a second to realize he was asking her to be the final judge. Her mouth dropped open, and she pressed a hand to her chest to feel her heart pounding. Her stomach tensed.

  “I’d love to, Jeremy. But I’d also like to have my design considered for the prize.”

  She needed that prize. Her niece or nephew needed that prize. Or, at least, she wanted to be able to earn it. Being too good at her job was not going to bite her in the ass. It wasn’t fair.

  “Hmmm.”

  “Could you have a different judge be the third opinion on my toy? Maybe Vanessa?” Her voice sounded desperate, but she was beyond pride. She needed this to work out.

  “I’m trying to figure out how to make this work for you, Bex. Maybe just Avery and I can judge your toy. Can you live with that? Two opinions instead of three?”

  She cleared her throat. “Yeah, I guess.”

  Jeremy’s voice was laced with doubt. “I still don’t know how this will be fair. Let me think it over.”

  “Sure,” she said. She’d have to deal with it.

  Bex ended the call and sat in the empty conference room for a minute. Jeremy wanting her to be a judge was a good thing, right? It meant that he trusted her and that her job was secure. But it also meant she needed to design a toy that was going to knock it out of the park for both Jeremy and Avery, or she was going to be at a distinct disadvantage. Everyone else she competed with would be getting the best of three opinions. She was only going to get two.

  Luckily, her toy was going to hit every damn erotic zone someone could dream of. Literally.

  Bex pushed back from the table, determined to get her design polished to perfection and submitted to the contest before Jeremy could second-guess his decision.

  “Everything okay?” Emma asked, catching her elbow as she threaded her way to her desk.

  Bex frowned. Sometimes Emma was almost too good at reading people’s emotions. “Yeah. Totally.”

  Emma cocked her head. “Gabe messing with your head?”

  Bex snorted out a laugh. “No.” Her heart, maybe.

  She shoved the thought aside. The man fucking with her head right now was her boss. She’d always liked Jeremy, but he could be edgy sometimes—so driven that he could drive people away. Not unlike herself, actually. She suspected it was why they got along so well. At least now that he’d found Vanessa, he’d calmed the hell down and lightened up a little. Maybe that’s what love did to a person. Maybe falling for Gabe was going to be a good thing for Bex too. Because she was falling for him, wasn’t she? It was hard to slice it any other way.

  “Just gotta kick some butt on my design,” she assured Emma.

  “You will.” Emma laughed. “Did I tell you that your last design went over so well with Sara and Max that I got sexiled from my apartment this weekend?”

  Bex could never quite embrace Emma’s enthusiasm about living with roommates, especially since her friend could afford a place on her own, but she did love the vicarious stories she got to hear about Emma’s vocally-enthusiastic roommate, Sara, and her boyfriend, Max.

  “I’m strangely proud,” Bex said. “But why didn’t you call me? You could have crashed at my place.”

  Emma pressed her lips into a small smile. “I had a feeling I would have been sexiled at your place, too.”

  Bex opened her mouth to protest, but she realized Emma was right. The memory of Gabe inside her when she was bent over the dryer made her skin heat, not to mention the memory of his arms around her as she’d danced at the Euphoria.

  God, how was he so addicting? It wasn’t just the sex, though that was fantastic. She couldn’t get enough of him in any capacity. And the man was practically a saint. After all, he hadn’t run away even when she’d been so awkward about Spencer. Gabe wanted her, and he acted like he was going to earn the right to be with her.

  Emma looked at her face and laughed. “Suspicions confirmed.”

  “Ack,” Bex started. But, yeah, she was having a lot of sex these days. And, it turned out, consistent sex with the same person was even more awesome than sporadic one-night stands. Who knew?

  “Don’t worry, peach.” Emma smiled at her. “I’m happy for you. Now go get your ass in gear and make a new sex toy.”

  Bex headed back to her desk and unfolded the sketch she’d worked up last night. Even though she would make a 3D rendering on her computer, she loved starting out the design process by hand, using colored pencils like she was a kid working on a school project.

  She’d sketched out a vibrator that stimulated three erogenous zones—a small clit stimulator, a vaginal vibrator, and a curved butt plug shaped like pleasure beads. So, yeah, the toy was as close to the perfect pleasure Gabe’s body and expert touch could deliver and still be silicone. Sometimes art could imitate life. Whatever. Maybe someone else could feel as good as he made her feel.

  Bex had come to crave the drug of his touch so much that she hadn’t visited her china cabinet of toys in weeks. Even if Gabe hadn’t given her the instruction to leave them alone, she wouldn’t have thought about them. She didn’t need her collection anymore. She bit her lip, pausing as the realization crashed into her.

  Oh man, she was so screwed. Literally, but also figuratively. Gabe was becoming a habit that was hard to break.

  Chapter 26

  Angelica Feng looked over her desk in the back office of the Trailblazer Gallery and pinned Gabe with a stare. “You realize the Trai
lblazer is more like a museum than a gallery?” Her lips twitched to the side, and Gabe couldn’t be sure if it was because he was wasting her time or because she was amused he was even trying to get a showing here.

  He nodded. The museum part was a technicality, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. “That may be true, but I’m a prominent artist in this community.” Angelica’s gaze cooled, and he winced at his own words. He sounded like such an ass. “Sorry. That came out wrong. What I’m trying to say is that I think this show could be a huge asset for the Trailblazer. It’s a picture of idealism set against a Las Vegas backdrop. There’s nothing more relevant than the perspective of a local artist, and it would be a great showpiece for both visitors and locals.”

  Angelica’s hair was cut in a sleek, stylish black bob, and it swung slightly as she sat back against her chair with a smile. “Well, I can certainly appreciate the concept.”

  Gabe’s fingers tightened around the edges of his iPad. Now was when she should be asking for his portfolio. She’d practically opened the door.

  Instead, Angelica fixed him with an assessing gaze. “Tell me why I should even consider this when I hear you got into an, ahem, altercation, with Kevin Holloway at the Illusion Arts gallery. You have to understand that the artists we select are a reflection of our gallery as a whole. Just last month we pulled Bryce Bixby’s work after he made some off-color comments about immigration practices.”

  Shit. This was so not good. Sweat slicked across Gabe’s palms. “I don’t make it a habit of beating up normal people,” he said carefully. “But when a powerful man tries to assault a woman, I do take issue with that.”

  Angelica shook her head slowly. “I take it Mr. Holloway tried something funny?”

  He nodded, and Angelica sighed. She looked like she was trying to make a decision, and he sat under the weight of her gaze for a long moment. At last, she spoke. “My niece interned at Illusion Arts a few years back. Said the owner was a creep.”