by Dani Collins
He kissed her chin, the heavy but slow pulse in her throat. She wasn’t nearly as frantic as he wanted her. Her collarbone, so delicate, reminded him that all of her was fragile, whether she realized it or not.
Ah, these breasts. They were a fantasy unto themselves and he gave himself free rein to pleasure both of them, teasing and sucking and licking until her nipples were turgid beads against his tongue.
“Gabriel,” she gasped. The fingers in his hair began to clench with desperation, but she wasn’t yet near the level gripping him.
“Soon,” he soothed, drawn by her scent to rub his face across the trembling muscles in her abdomen and here. Here was the magic and the sweetness and the way to fully prepare her for the hard thrusts of his body.
He tantalized, glorying in the honeyed perfection of her until she moved without inhibition, making exquisitely helpless noises that shredded his control. He longed to take her over the edge like this, but she was in such a delicious state of surrender.
Now, finally, her body held the same frequency of tremble, the same throbbing agony of desire that echoed his own.
He rose over her and braced himself on an elbow while he sought her center. Somehow he made himself command, “Say it again.” He had to know they were perfectly aligned.
“Yes,” she told him, eyes opening to slits that were glazed with passion. “I need you. Please.”
He tried to be gentle. She was tight and the heel of her hand pressed into his shoulder. She caught her breath. He stopped. Gritted his teeth.
“It’s okay,” she murmured, biting her lip as she shifted.
He withdrew a fraction. Kissed her. Slowly she relaxed and feathered a caress in the base of his spine.
He let his weight sink the rest of him into her, all the way, until his eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head with sheer ecstasy.
Mine, he thought, knowing that to think it was to take something from her, but in this moment it felt like a fair exchange.
Because she possessed him. Utterly and completely.
* * *
Luli was trembling in what she thought might be shock, but Gabriel lifted his head and just that tiny shift of movement caused such a wave of heated pleasure to wash over her, her scalp tingled and she was suddenly on the verge of climax again.
This was acute arousal holding her in its grip, she realized. She was quivering with desire.
Her loins stung where he intruded, but she loved it. Needed it. Restless frustration guided her hands as she ran them over his back and hips, claiming tense muscles and hot, damp skin.
He kissed her, the rake of his mouth drugging, but inciting. Her knees lifted on instinct, ankles crossing in the small of his back.
He made an animalistic noise and sank a fraction deeper into her. Then he gathered her beneath him, withdrew slowly and returned in a steady thrust, all the way until he had pressed a cry out of her at the reverberation of sensation he rocked through her.
He stiffened and she frantically caught at him. “Yes, Gabriel. Yes. Keep going.”
His rhythm became elemental and primitive, yet sumptuous. It wasn’t a destination, it was a place, a glorious place where they existed together. Where her entire being was filled with light. Any shadows that remained were the long, sweet shadows of summer evenings. The kind cast by a full moon when darkness reigned but pale white shapes existed.
On his skin she smelled earth and fire, metal and rain. She embraced him and pulled him deeper into the well of herself. He growled and tipped up her chin and licked at her neck, said things she didn’t understand, but knew in her soul to be true.
The friction burned intimate places, the impact was nearly unbearable in its intensity, but she couldn’t get enough, couldn’t touch enough of him, hold him tight enough. She made her own wordless noises, primitive and feline, clenching in ecstasy while his strength held her in place for that relentless, thrilling pleasure. It was exquisite and agonizing and she wanted it to go on forever.
But she couldn’t subsist in this state of tension and acute sensations. She was going to suffocate or break or her heart would explode.
And then it did. Her entire world contracted to a fine dark point, then burst. She was flame and gold and joy. Naked and pure and new.
* * *
As the most powerful release of his life receded, and Luli’s sobs of culmination settled to soft, ragged breaths, an incredible sense of peace fell over him.
Gabriel somehow managed to withdraw and discard the condom, then pulled her across him, damp and sweet-smelling as the sheets beneath them. She made a contented noise and her lips touched his chest before she sighed and relaxed into a doze. He was aware of warmth and the pressure of her against him, the tickle of her hair against his naked arm, the weight of her thigh on his and an encroaching sense of regret.
His sifu would berate him for losing focus and letting his discipline lapse, for allowing his ego and bodily hungers to rule him. He was guilty of all those things. He’d been desperate to feast upon her. He had wanted the smug satisfaction in knowing he had initiated her to these pleasures and had done it well.
It had come at a cost. The walls he kept so impermeable around himself were weakening. The first knock had come when she had locked him out of his own software. Sections of mortar between the bricks had disintegrated under the tears she had shed against his chest that night in Paris. The winds of Africa had eroded those bricks further, as her joy at the beauty of the earth and earthly pleasures had reminded him that this world was more than greed and users and privilege.
Now she had rocked his foundation with such power he could feel the fissures extending through him.
Because she had wanted to know what it would feel like if someone loved her.
He worked his fingers into her thick hair and turned his mouth to press a kiss into the fragrant mass, wanting to shelter her even as he wanted to ravish her again.
For this privilege, he would give her almost anything.
Except his heart.
He hoped like hell it would be enough.
* * *
Luli lingered over her morning routine, feeling shy. Gabriel had woken her a few hours before dawn with kisses and caresses that had had her reaching for his turgid shape, so fascinating with velvety skin over hot iron. She had gloried in knowing how to touch him in a way he liked. They had fondled and kissed until she was burning and molten.
Then he’d slid sweetly into her and stayed there, rocking lazily.
Each time she climaxed he asked, More?
And she had greedily said, Yes.
The fourth time he had shattered with her.
She was sore, but not sorry. She felt languid and pleased and filled with mysterious knowledge.
She suspected she was in love.
It was such a new emotion, she had to pause and examine it, try to understand how its rough edges fit inside her and why it felt heavier than the ring he’d given her.
Most of all, she tried to understand how love was something she had wanted all her life and now, as she glimpsed it, it wasn’t something that nestled into her and made her feel safe. It wasn’t a state of being, like contentment. It was something to be given away. It was an active emotion, flowing outward, striving to reach the man who had sparked it, wherever he was at this moment.
She wanted him to love her, but strangely, even more than that, she wanted him to let her love him. She wanted him to welcome this overwhelming spill of feeling she wanted to pour over him.
She had tried that once, though. Her mother hadn’t had a use for her heart. She’d put it on a plane to Singapore and never asked for it back.
A wrenching pain went through her as she thought of Gabriel rejecting her love. Given his childhood, she understood his reservations. It made her want to throw herself further into the fire with him. Somehow heal his pain.
But she also understood that she had to be strong. She couldn’t be the girl who had become a pawn because she was afraid to be on her own. She could love him, but she couldn’t be a slave to that love.
Drawing a shaky breath to bolster herself, she went down to breakfast in her robe.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here,” she murmured, joining him at the table. It was almost ten.
“Why is Marco making you a lunch appointment with that professor from last night?” He glanced up from his tablet, took in her light makeup and the hair she’d pulled into a clip. His gaze lingered on her mouth until her lips tingled.
Then he seemed to gather himself behind an invisible wall. He looked into her eyes, seeking an answer to his question.
“Pardon? Oh, um, he wants to talk to me about modeling opportunities. I said he should get in touch with my assistant. I didn’t think he was serious. Do you mind?”
“No.” He spoke abruptly, sounded like he minded. “Don’t rush into anything, though. He might know people, but he might just want to be seen with you. Make sure he knows you don’t need the money and you’re doing him a favor by showing up.”
So cynical. She bit back a sigh.
“Then I should let him buy my lunch because I don’t actually have money?”
“You have a credit card and a generous allowance. If you want to carry cash, send Marco to the bank to withdraw some.”
She shook her head as she drew her napkin onto her lap. “I crossed out the allowance on the contract and put a question mark beside it. I expected we would discuss it, but we got married and here we are.”
“I wrote it back in with an extra zero. Pay attention to what you sign. This lunch is a bad idea if you won’t even do that much.”
“Gabriel, you know that makes me uncomfortable! I don’t want things—” She cut herself off as she turned over her coffee cup and discovered the diamond earrings on the saucer.
All their intimacy came back in a rush. Her uninhibited clinging to him, begging for more. She had offered him her soul last night and he was giving her...crushed carbon.
Because he thought that was all he was worth? All he had to give?
Her mouth felt wobbly as she picked up one platinum shank. The diamond caught the sunlight and winked rainbow sparks.
“I said only if you want me to have them.” The words scraped like sandpaper in the back of her throat. She had wanted to know what it felt like to be loved and instead she felt cheated.
“I do.” Something in his guarded tone put a sharp vice around her heart.
This was a warning, she instinctively recognized. He would give her diamonds and limitless credit cards, but nothing more. That was the deal.
Meanwhile, she had given him her passion, her virginity, and wanted to give him so much more.
He hadn’t said she couldn’t, she realized.
“I’ll accept them,” she decided, swallowing the lump in her throat. Her voice stayed husky. “Do you know why?”
His brows went up in cautious inquiry.
“Because someday, long after our hideously civil divorce, when I’m old and gray and feeling sentimental, I’ll put them on. My daughter will ask me where I got them and I’ll say, Your father would never let me wear them while he was alive. He knew it made me think of my first husband with deep fondness.” Love. So much love. Her whole body ached with it. “But I won’t tell her why that memory was such a good one, because there are some things children don’t want to know about their mothers.”
His expression didn’t change, but his cheek ticked. “I thought you didn’t want children.”
She shrugged. “I’ll still think of last night every time I wear these.”
She put them on and deliberately met his gaze, confident that now, so would he.
* * *
You have violated our terms of service. Your access has been revoked. Join me in the tenth-floor conference room.
“What? Why? Argh.” She knew immediately what had happened. She had run an update this morning and Gabriel’s software had overwritten all her code. She couldn’t restore from backup, either. She didn’t have access.
Devastated by the white screen and the stark note, she gave her useless keyboard a few more random stabs with her finger, then picked it up and rattled it in frustration.
“Mrs. Dean?” Marco appeared in her door like one of those cartoon characters that defied time and space, conjuring himself from thin air in time to say his line. “I’ll call IT.”
Good luck.
“No. Show me where the tenth-floor conference room is, please. And please call me Luli.”
“Mr. Dean is the only one who calls you that. I presumed it was an endearment.” He cleared his throat, then tacked on, “Ma’am.”
An endearment? Gabriel had just nuked her ability to do the only job she had ever had—after picking away at it until it was down to bare bones. In the week they’d been here, he’d had her unload several investments, moving the cash into his own coffers. He’d had all the payroll records moved to his central accounting department. The property managers of Mae’s various complexes now answered to someone else and even Luli’s emails were cc’d to others.
“Will you go with me to my lunch tomorrow?” she asked Marco while they were in the elevator.
“Of course.”
“I’m not sure how to get around the city. You could show me how the subway works.”
He chuckled, then sobered with a start. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were serious.” He shot out a hand to hold the elevator door while she stepped out. “You have full use of Mr. Dean’s car. Why would you take the subway?”
Because she had to learn. She might love the man, but this marriage wouldn’t last and she refused to be dependent on him.
“This is it.” He paused at the first door and placed his hand on the latch and opened it.
“We’ll talk about the lunch when I get back upstairs,” she said over her shoulder as she entered. “Oh.” She checked as she discovered at least fifty people in the room. “Hello.” She took refuge in her stage persona, pasting on a smile.
They all stared at her with mouths hanging open, tracking her as she proceeded in a graceful walk down the aisle against the wall. They were seated theatre-style facing Gabriel. He stood in front of a projection screen that showed the note he’d placed on her screen to bring her here.
A public dressing down? Really?
“Why so shocked?” he asked the room. “Beauty does not preclude brains. Thank you for coming.” He took her hand as she arrived beside him. “Luli, meet my software-development team. Or rather, the lead technicians for the various modules and apps. These men and women oversee between fifty and a hundred coders each, but you’re looking at my best and brightest.”
His tone held an edge that made the entire room sink down in their seats.
Luli eyed him with suspicion as she made herself smile warmly and say, “Good afternoon.”
“I’ve been showing them how you tailored our software for my grandmother, the entry points you used and some samples of the code you wrote.”
He tapped his laptop and she looked over her shoulder at the string of script she had used to lock him out.
“We’ve been enjoying a little team-building exercise here. It took this room’s collective intelligence two hours to get past your gatekeeper and lock you out.”
“Your grandmother was very cautious,” she prevaricated, drawing her hand from his and clasping hers lightly together before her. “I was protecting her interests, not hacking into your system.”
“No, but you could. And there aren’t many hackers at your level, but the fact you got this far means every one of our customers is vulnerable.” His words left a resounding silence. “I wrote some rough and dirty patches while we were in Africa. That’s wh
at we pushed to the update this morning. It’s going to impact functionality until it’s cleaned up and tailored. I’d like you to oversee that.”
She actually looked to her left to see who he was talking to because he couldn’t possibly be speaking to her. A couple of people snickered.
“Um...” She touched the fine hairs at the back of her neck. Oversee three or four thousand people? Wasn’t there an expression about trees and barking up wrong ones?
“And when people suggest I made my wife the new VP of software development because she’s my wife, what will you say?” he asked the room at large.
Silence, then a lone voice said, “Actually she’s a genius and made us all look like tools.”
“She did, indeed. But she’ll soon make you look like rock stars,” he promised. “See how good she makes me look?” He held out his arm.
She went to him, pulled by forces greater than herself to press against him, but she tilted an admonishing look up at him. Smiled brightly.
“Can I speak to you?”
CHAPTER TEN
GABRIEL BROUGHT HER into his office and closed the door.
“I realize I blindsided you with that,” he acknowledged, appreciating that she had kept her cool in front of the team. That roll-with-the-punches ability of hers was one of the reasons he’d decided to give her this level of responsibility. “They needed to be humbled, though. I wanted them to accept you by your work before they knew who had outsmarted them.”
“How you run your business is your business, but don’t drag me into it without asking me first.” She didn’t balk at revealing her flustered reaction now they were alone, which was oddly endearing. He liked being privy to the woman behind the goddess she presented to the world.
“You wanted a job,” he reminded her. “This is a good one.”
“It’s a huge one! Gabriel, you heard me this morning with the maid. I have a hard time asking someone to iron a wrinkle from my skirt. I can’t supervise a department.”