by Terese Ramin
Later, at the reception, no one had been the least surprised when Becky’s mother and her escort were mysteriously unavailable for their dance.
Even at the memory, Alice blushed. She and Gabriel had spent a decidedly wanton few days getting to know one another properly in every room of the house. On the fourth day, while Alice guiltily greeted Allyn who had arrived home at last, Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed and gingerly pulled his mother’s last letter out of the pocket of the jeans he’d shed in favor of the tux for the wedding. The paper was crumbled, dirty and hard to read, having spent six months wadded into a ball in the basket at his apartment, but it didn’t matter. The letter still said what he remembered, that his parents loved him and wanted to see him, no matter where—or who—he was. They were taking a sabbatical from their mission and would spend the summer with family in Iowa. He hadn’t much time.
By the time Alice had finished her heart to heart with Allyn and come searching for him, he’d found the suitcase she kept tucked in the back of her closet and had it half packed. He’d eyed her sheepishly for half a heartbeat, then he’d well and truly swept her off her feet, spiriting her away to meet his parents and marrying her at a simple Quaker ceremony inside of a month. Alice had already decided to live with him no matter what, but true to his word to Jack Scully, he’d tied up his loose ends and left the Bureau to become a crisis counselor at nearby Oakland University, putting both his experience and his educational background to use. His transition from undercover agent to husband, stepfather and a mostly eight hour a day career life had not
always been smooth, but every instant of it had been worthwhile, had served to cement the bond between him and Alice.
Alice’s own life in particular seemed to have struck a reckless course for new horizons, sailing far beyond the edges of her most unrestrained desires. She no longer hid her competence under a waffling exterior and had made a deal to buy the string of café bookstores Skip had once asked her to design and oversee. Under Gabriel’s gentle encouragement she’d become a firm believer in risking everything to achieve a dream. She still found it incredible when she thought about how their lives had settled and changed together, weathered disaster, grown and blossomed. There was only one dream that they’d agreed to postpone until everything else was settled. And with two years behind them, and Gabriel’s undercover life—including any leftover testimony he’d had to make during the last twenty-four months—out of the way, Alice decided firmly that it was time to make one more dream come true.
“You look pretty complacent.” Gabriel slid his arms around her waist, rested his palms on the flat of her belly. “What are you doing, counting our blessings?”
Alice rubbed her husband’s chin with the back of her head, nodding. “Feels good to know where I belong, who I am.”
Gabriel’s arms flexed tight around her; he buried his face in her hair. “God, does it ever,” he muttered fervently. “You’ll never know.”
Alice turned in his embrace, reaching to hold him, too.
“But I do know,” she said. “If I hadn’t found you that day, I never would—”
Gabriel kissed her quiet. “You’ve always been stronger than you think,” he returned softly. “Even without me you’d have been all right. You’d have grown and survived and become who you are, anyway. It’s me who was lucky that day...” His eyes shut on a prayer of thanks. “I’ve gotten so much from you, Alice, I can’t say. My own family back, a whole new family here—sisters, daughters, a grandchild. A real life.”
“But if it wasn’t for you,” Alice argued gently, “I’d be a lonely brittle frustrated not quite forty year old. You make me—”
“Whole.” Gabriel kissed her. “Complete.” His tongue made a lazy tour of her mouth. ““And these two shall be as one.”“ He quoted the words from their marriage ceremony as tongue and lips traced the familiar but always new trail along her throat, up the sensitive area below her right ear. ““One heart, one mind, one spirit, one body...””
“Two minds,” Alice murmured, arching her neck for him. “One heart, one spirit, two minds and one body.”
“As long as we come back to that,” Gabriel muttered, skimming his hands over the sides of her cotton covered breasts. “I don’t care if we have six of everything else.”
“Mmm.” Alice’s arms locked around his neck, and she pulled herself up to meet his mouth. “I think you’ve definitely got something there—”
There was a thump in the hallway.
“Alice, aren’t you going to bring the—Oh!” Edith gasped, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. Pardon me.”
“Ah-ah-ah, Alice,” Helen teased from the doorway. “This may be the place, but it’s not the time. You’ve got guests in the yard, an open window and you didn’t even shut the—”
“Thank you, Helen, I’ll take care of it,” Gabriel said firmly, then closed the door in her face and locked it.
“How rude,” Helen commented.
“Are they actually going to stay in there now?” Edith breathed.
“Looks like it,” Helen said.
“Well!” Edith exclaimed, affronted, and then ruined the effect by giggling. “At least one of us has found a man who can handle Brannigans.”
“In his sleep,” Helen agreed, and the two of them went off, laughing.
“Well, that’s taken care of.” Gabriel turned back to his wife with an irresistible come-hither smile and a look of unabashed anticipation. “Now, where were we?”
Alice backed away from him. “No, Gabriel, we can’t. Not now. They’re all going to—”
“Let them,” he said. “They’ll talk about us no matter what we do. You’ve got to face that, Alice.”
“But—” Alice scrambled across the bed “—don’t you think we should go—”
“Yes.” Gabriel knelt on the bed, leaned over and caught her hand, drawing her toward him. “I definitely think we should.”
“Now?” Alice felt the buzz of warmth through her muscles, felt them melting. She resisted Gabriel an instant longer, prolonging the anticipation. “Shouldn’t we go do it now?”
“Wrong verb, Alice.” Gabriel tugged suddenly, and Alice sprawled on the bed. He knelt over her, pulling impatiently at the tiny buttons on her sundress. “I think what you meant was, shouldn’t we stay and do it now.”
“Yes.” Alice sighed. She arched to him, reveling in the instant coil of tension inside her, wishing she hadn’t put all these damn buttons between them today, wanting him inside her now. She stilled his hands by wrapping her hips around him and pulling him down to her. “I suppose that’s exactly what I meant.”
She shifted beneath him, touched moist feminine heat to the fly of his light summer pants. Gabriel groaned softly and caught her hips, rubbing himself against her. Alice pulled herself up by his shoulders, hips matching the rhythm of his, pressing them tighter. “Come to me, Gabriel,” she whispered against his mouth. “Come into me now.”
Her eyes were dark, full of passion; her demand left him hard, impatient, trembling, ready. With a hoarse oath Gabriel tried to ease himself away from her, reaching for the decorative can on the shelf beside the bed. “Oh, God, Alice, I will. Just let me get—”
“Now, Gabriel, please,” Alice breathed, tugging at his pants, unsnapping, unzipping, freeing him. “I’m ready now.” She reached between their bodies, guided him past the silky barrier between them, and with a twist of her hips sheathed him inside her.
Gabriel’s breath grew ragged with his effort to stay still inside her. “Alice—God, you’re killing me, Allie. Let me protect—”
Alice rocked her hips, moaned at the feel of him, hot, slick, sliding. She looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes, arched her throat and moistened her mouth with her tongue. “Don’t want to be protected,” she gasped, lifting herself toward him again. “We’ve waited two years, everything’s taken care of. It’s time, Gabriel, it’s time...”
Realization dawned slowly. A low animal growl emanated from deep
in Gabriel’s throat, and he laced his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back where he could see her. Love and passion filled her face, but there was something else, too. Invitation, fierce and joyful; surety and expectation. Gabriel’s lungs constricted.
“Are you sure you want this?” he asked carefully. “You’re not just doing this for me? You’re sure?”
Instead of replying, Alice rolled her hips around him once more, eliciting another groan from him as her body took him deeper. With the last shred of his self-control, Gabriel wrapped his arms about her waist and held her motionless. “Alice. Please. I need to know.”
She brushed his face with the palm of her hand, an act of love. “I’m sure, Gabriel. This is for me, too. I want everything with you, you know, the whole shot. Parenthood, midnight feedings, diapers, sleepless nights, toddlers and teenagers. I want—” she grinned and touched her mouth to
his “—to wash baby spit out of your shirts and watch baby fingers pull your hair. And I want to see your face while you watch our baby born, see you hold him, see you...”
Her breath faltered when Gabriel cradled her in his arms and laid her back on the bed, bending over to unbutton her dress with his fingers, lips, teeth. Alice pressed him to her, feeling the coil of heat begin to expand and swell inside her, wanting to hold it in, wanting to explode. Her throat made sharp unintelligible sounds of excitement, her body moved, her hands tightened in his hair. Gabriel held her still.
“What else?” His voice was an erotic stroke against her fevered skin; his tongue provoked, teased, withdrew. “What else do you want, Alice?”
“I want to see your eyes in his face,” she whispered thickly. “I want to share everything with you that I did with Allyn and Rebecca alone. And I—” She gasped and her entire body convulsed when he clutched her hips and came into her hard, at the same time dipping his head and finding
a nipple, suckling it deep. “Gabriel, please,” she pleaded, her train of thought lost as the volcano began to erupt inside her. “I want you there, too. Don’t let me go alone. Come with me. Come…”
“I am, love. I will,” Gabriel assured her fiercely. “Always, anywhere you want to go. I’m with you.”
And then there was no more talk, only breath and movement and hot sweet sensation, the song of their future being born.
*