She finished eating, falling silent. When the bowl was empty, he scooped up the dish and spoon and plopped them on the tray. He could feel her eyes following him, though. For several minutes her gaze had been mapping his face, every line, every boned ridge and hollow.
“You want to get it off your chest or not?” he asked bluntly.
“Get what off my chest?”
“Damned if I know. We’ve rehashed what happened…or most of what happened…a half-dozen times now. But you seem to be avoiding talking about something on your mind, like it’d bite you.”
She met his eyes again, swallowed, and then slowly nodded. “I was frightened when you were hitting Wayne. I was frightened you wouldn’t stop.”
“He tried to kill you.”
“He was a pipsqueak. A weakling. No match for you.”
“He tried to kill you,” Gabe repeated, and then sighed. To him, that was the period at the end of the sentence. Any man would understand that, but Rebecca just wasn’t going to think like a man in this lifetime. “If you think I get a thrill out of violence, you can rest your mind, Red. I hate it. And investigating work is nothing like you see on TV, nothing like the work I did in the military, either. It’s damn rare I can’t find a better way to solve a problem than raising my fists. But I know how. And there’s a time and place when that’s the only choice.”
“But you wanted to hurt him,” she said uneasily.
“You bet I did. And I know how to hurt a man. But contrary to what you seem to be scared of, I was in control, would never have allowed myself to lose that control. We want both those characters alive and well—both so the cops can grill them and so they can testify in court. I was never going to hurt him in any way that would have jeopardized your brother’s situation.”
“And what if my brother’s legal problems weren’t involved?”
Gabe sighed. Again. “Shorty, I can’t give you an answer that you’re gonna like. That jerk wasn’t playing pattycake. He was threatening your life. If you wanted me to slap his hands and say no, no, that was never going to happen. There is no guarantee what the law will do with Wayne, so I wanted to make sure he clearly understood that he really, really didn’t want to go near you again. Wayne is no nice-boy accountant. He’s one of those animals that never evolved. And when you’re trying to communicate to an animal, sometimes being polite just doesn’t get the job done.”
“All right. I get you. I understand. But it still made me sick that you had to hit someone because of me.”
Gabe didn’t know what to say to that. Something was going screwy in this whole discussion. She was listening, meeting his eyes straight and true, but something about the way she looked at him was stirring his hormones into a sizzling stew.
His conscience needed to give him a whomp upside the head. The last thing on earth that should have been on his mind was sex. She was bruised and shook up, her skin still looking paler than fragile china, those eyes still anxious and way too vulnerable. It was an utterly illogical time to discover that she was incomparably beautiful. An even more illogical and irrational time to feel desire…much less desire so strong it lashed around his nerves like a hot whip.
“Gabe?”
“What?” He scrubbed a hand over his face, willing his wayward thoughts to disappear. The source of all these stupid, tumultuous emotions was obvious. He’d been scared out of his mind when he saw that bastard with a knife at her throat. He’d come damn close to losing her. Too close. But he hadn’t. She was safe; she was okay; she was with him. And if he could just get that obvious truth to his head, maybe he could make his heart stop pounding and settle down.
“It took you a long time,” Rebecca said, “but you finally believe in my brother’s innocence, don’t you?”
That whole subject was safer ground. “Yeah, I do. Not that it ever mattered what I believed. What mattered was that we were able to scare up evidence that pointed to another viable suspect. It’s impossible to know if Tracey’ll go down for the murder—I’m afraid that’s completely dependent on what the cops stir up after questioning her. But a jury’d have to be deaf and dumb not to see the reasonable doubt as far as your brother’s concerned.”
Rebecca frowned. “What you believe does matter. To me. No one believed me about Jake’s innocence before.”
“Yeah, well, you run pretty heavy in the intuition department, shorty. Some people are a little more comfortable trusting facts.” He stood up, suddenly feeling as rattled as a caged cougar. This was just no good. The longer he looked at her, the more his mind was stripped bare of common sense. “You’re going to turn into a prune if we don’t let you out of there. I’ll just go in the other room. You got a robe in here?”
Even as he asked, he noticed the white silk kimono thing hanging on the door hook. Picturing her naked body wrapped in that was not helping him get his head together.
“Look,” he said gruffly. “I’m just going to stick around until I’m sure you’re asleep, okay? There’s bound to be some brainless sitcom on the tube. And we can order more food if you’re still hungry. You can just put your feet up and veg out until you feel like sleeping.”
“I’m fine, Gabe.”
So she’d said. Several times. But he didn’t think so.
Once on the other side of that bathroom door, he got busier than a mother hen. The curtains were open; he reeled them shut. The overhead light was harsh; he flicked it off. He folded down the bedspread, piled some pillows, fiddled with the TV until he found the most innocuous, mindless program on the air, and set the volume on low.
The whole time he was chasing around, his pulse seemed to be beating to incessant low drums. Hitchcock always put drumrolls in a movie, right before some terrifying disaster took place—but this wasn’t like that. The disasters had all happened, were all over. He knew Rebecca was upset, that was all. He doubted she’d ever been shaking-hands close to any kind of violence before. He’d be surprised if she didn’t have nightmares tonight.
He shoveled a hand through his hair as he glanced around the room. He’d just sit in the far corner, he decided. Physically away from her. There was absolutely no reason to tell shorty he planned to spend the night. She’d just be annoyed. And sooner or later she’d fall asleep, but if and when she had nightmares, then he’d be there.
That drumroll echoed in his pulse again, a dark, slow, insidious pagan rhythm that he couldn’t explain. It was…stupid. It wasn’t like he’d missed her his whole life. It wasn’t like he’d felt a rage beyond sanity when he saw Wayne’s hands on her. It wasn’t like he couldn’t shake the dread-panic feeling that nothing in his life would be right again if he lost her.
He was just having a little trouble settling down tonight. Normally he thrived on stress. Hell’s bells, he loved stress. It was just knowing that Rebecca was still suffering some upset reactions that had him feeling…edgy. As soon as she was safe and sound and tucked in bed, he’d be fine.
Only when the bathroom door opened and she stepped out in that sin-soft silk kimono, Rebecca didn’t even glance at the bed.
She walked straight into his arms.
“I was so scared.”
“I know you were.”
“I’ve never been that scared. First with her, Tracey. Those cold eyes—it’s like there wasn’t a human being with feelings on the other side. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I think I was more scared of her than I was of Wayne. And when Wayne grabbed me…Gabe, I just couldn’t make my mind believe it. That he really intended to kill me, that any human being could that easily hurt someone else—”
“S’okay. S’okay. You never have to be around people like that again. No one’s gonna hurt you now. It’s over.”
When she walked out of the bathroom, Rebecca hadn’t known it was going to come bubbling, babbling out like this. She hadn’t known that she would suddenly feel desperate, for a hug, for physical contact, for the warmth of arms around her. She didn’t know those impulses would hit her so fast, so unfightably str
ong.
Yet needing Gabe—and trusting that he’d be there for her—came as no surprise at all.
His need for her did.
She heard his voice, soothing, quieting, chanting comfort words like a litany…but there was something raw in his voice, raw as a fresh sore. She wondered if Gabe even knew he was hurting. His face was gaunt and silver by the dim light of the flickering television screen, and his eyes were as deep and black as ebony. His arms were wrapped tight around her, his muscles unyieldingly rigid and tense. She thought of wire stretched so tight that it just might break.
His arms suddenly tightened around her in a different way. That long string of comfort words… His voice suddenly trailed off, died into silence. And from nowhere, as if by accident, his mouth was suddenly hovering a breath’s distance from hers.
She’d desperately needed a hug. Needed Gabe. But nothing sexual had been on her mind. The stress and fear of the day had simply been explosive. She’d had to let go.
So, it seemed, did he.
His lips whispered down, touched down, then clung. Bald passion had dominated his kisses before. The hint of wild wolf in Gabe had inspired a heady, primitive response in her, but this was more.
His mouth took hers with tenderness, a shattering tenderness that shook her from the inside out. That first kiss was almost desperately soft.
His lips were yielding, warm, clinging the way flames lapped around a fireplace log. No fire could exist without its source of heat. Right then, just then, Rebecca had the vulnerable sensation that she was his only source of heat.
His hands roamed her back, caressing, stroking, as if he were polishing her skin beneath the filmy silk robe, as if he couldn’t stop touching her. Canned laughter echoed from the TV, but it was muted, distant. When he suddenly lifted his head, the need she saw in his eyes shocked her.
He hadn’t known he was going to kiss her.
She suspected he didn’t know yet that they were going to make love.
She did. His head dipped down again. One kiss swirled into another, melted into yet another. Her fingers found his shirt buttons. His hands found their way into her hair, sieving deep, holding her still, holding her, holding her.
Maybe he didn’t know he was expressing love, but that was the depth of clear emotion he communicated to her. Not for the first time, Rebecca sensed how much he resembled her brother Jake. He was not a man who could survive being trapped behind bars forever. Sometimes feelings had to be let out. Sometimes, even if you were scared no one else was on the other side of the abyss, you had to take the risk and find out. Denying need never made it go away.
She unlatched his belt, loosened it, flicked open the button at his waist. He was just as busy, slowly sliding the robe off her shoulders, off her arms. The kimono dropped to the floor in a silent whoosh.
Fire kindled in his eyes when he saw her bare. His expression turned grave, almost harsh. The silvery light played on his skin as he eased her down on the bed. The mattress was a welcome support for her noodle-knees, for her curling toes, for the shuddering anticipation careening through her veins.
He murmured, “Dammit, Rebecca,” but his deep, hoarse voice was like a man’s caress.
The man was going to inspire her to wanton savagery, if he wasn’t careful. Personally, she was losing all interest in being careful. She thought of the ugliness of the violence he’d grown up with. She thought of how disturbed she’d been when she watched him hit Wayne—not for Wayne, the worm-scum—but for Gabe. She thought of a man who’d kill to protect her, even if it hurt him, even if it echoed everything wrong and painful about his childhood. Gabe was afraid of things, too. Afraid of belonging. Afraid of longing. Afraid of anything soft in his life that he might, damn foolishly, become dependent on.
Well, he was getting soft tonight—whether he was afraid of it or not. He was going to belong to someone.
Her tongue dueled with his in a warm, wet kiss. Fingertips and palms sang down his throat, his shoulders, the thatchy hair on his chest. He touched, too. His hands had a memory of where she was bruised and sore, because he seemed intent on blindly touching those places, erasing where she’d been handled harshly, painting gentleness in those places in his name. And he was gentle. But need was thrumming between them, too, building in rhythm, and his arousal was pulsing hot and heavy against her abdomen.
She pushed at his pants, and earned a rough, low chuckle from him for being so impatient. It was premature, she thought. Gabe hadn’t seen yet what a lady could do in a frenzy of impatience—but she did her best to show him. The bedspread crumpled to the carpet. Pillows seemed to fly. Blankets rumpled and rucked. Even rolling with him in every direction, even kissing him everywhere she could reach, even touching him every which way she knew how…none of it seemed to appease her need to love him.
Desire was starting to scare her. This wasn’t like any book-learning she knew about sex. Gabe wasn’t like any man she’d known in any sense. He responded so fiercely to every touch, so explosively to everything she freely gave. The rest of the universe could have dropped dead. There was only him, coming alive, for her, with her. And this bonfire of frustration that kept building, like a clawing ache that burned and burned and wouldn’t stop.
“Wait,” he whispered.
“No,” she whispered back.
But he only lunged away for a moment, to finish stripping off the rest of his clothes. On his way back down to her, he grabbed something from his jeans pocket. Protection.
She saw the condom and felt a sudden clutching. Maybe it wasn’t conscious in her mind, but her heart knew him as the one man she’d want to father her babies. Yet a second perception followed that one. There was no objection she could make, nothing she could say, because she knew Gabe. In a fire, in an avalanche, he’d never lose his sense of honor and responsibility, and protecting a woman was irreversibly part of who he was.
He took care of it. And then he took care of her.
Her intent was to love him, but Gabe knew a great deal more about the specifics of such torture than she did. A finger probed, a caress to see if she was wet and ready, a teasing promise of what was to come. She tugged his face down for another kiss, twisted her legs around him to let him know she wasn’t interested in this teasing. He could cut it out or die.
There was a wicked smile in his eyes as he shifted closer, but from the moment he began penetration, that smile disappeared. The bones in his face seemed to tighten, and his eyes shone with a glowing raw look of caring and longing. He was in no mood to play. Neither was she. He filled her, slowly yet urgently, making her aware of how empty she’d been without him, making her aware of what belonging to him, with him, meant.
“I love you,” she whispered. The words slipped out again, so naturally, so helplessly. That first thrust bound them together, but the crescendo of speed and rhythm that followed seemed to inflame the soul-bond between them. With Gabe, she felt free, to be wild, to be honest, to be herself, as if there were nothing she needed to hold back. Confessing her love was an irrevocable part of that. If she could give him any gift, it was to feel that same freedom with her.
He seemed to. His skin turned slick and slippery, golden in the distant light. So did hers, glowing with radiance and heat. If he’d known pleasure before, there was wonder in his eyes now, a wonder that spilled over into his kisses, poured through his caresses. They began a galloping, dizzy ride that neither of them wanted to end, a joyful test of how long they could tease fate with this speed and this exquisite burning need.
Something happened. Rebecca didn’t first recognize what could possibly be wrong. There was just a flash-burst of an instant when that galloping pace suddenly faltered; something changed in Gabe’s expression, and he seemed to stop breathing.
He knew before she did that the condom had broken.
Eleven
Gabe either couldn’t or didn’t stop. Rebecca never considered trying. The passion peaking between them was about more than a roller-coaster ride towar
d physical satisfaction. It was about cleaving. For her, everything about making love with him was right, her emotions inflamed and aroused by the freedom she felt for Gabe. Love drove her, a gift too vulnerable not to share. He’d touched her soul, and inside her was a boiling-over need to touch him the same way.
Afterward, the feeling of intimacy with him was just as powerful. It took forever for her heartbeat to stop racing. His, too. Somehow she felt even more irrevocably part of him than before. Gabe shifted to her side, yet still cuddled her close. His face, his eyes, the cords in his neck, his disheveled hair…she couldn’t stop looking, couldn’t stop touching him. And he stroked her back, touched her, kissed her, as if he’d found the same wonder she had in making love together.
For a long time, they lingered like that, sharing a pillow, not talking at all except with their eyes. Eventually, though, he murmured that he needed to get up. He was only in the bathroom for a few minutes. When he came back, he switched off the nuisance television set, flipped off the light and climbed back in bed with her.
But something drastic had changed in those few moments. Except for a ribbon of light sneaking through a slit in the curtains, the room was suddenly as dark as a cave. She couldn’t see his eyes, his expression. When he slid under the blankets with her again, she understood he was staying the night, that, Gabe being Gabe—no matter what other emotions he felt—was not the kind of man to have sex with a woman and take a powder.
But his skin was cool instead of warm. And where he’d been relaxed, his muscles and long limbs were suddenly tense and unnaturally still.
The Baby Chase Page 14