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“Okay,” I whisper. “One more night. Just—just the one.”
Gabriel nods. “Once we get on that plane home?—”
I close my eyes briefly. Can’t he see my heart breaking? Can’t he tell how much this hurts? When I open them again, I think I see that hurt in his, too. But if that’s what he feels, he’s not saying it.
“That’ll be it.” I bite my lip, hard. “I—” I turn to look at the rest of the library, desperate for anything to turn my train of thought away from what’s happening right now. “Is there anything you don’t like about the house? Anything you want to change?” Other than the subject, which I’m changing, right now. I blurt it out, unable to look at Gabriel, my heart racing as I try to wrestle my emotions under control.
Maybe it’s better that we can’t figure this out. I don’t seem to be equipped for a relationship this intense. I don’t know how to navigate it. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
I guess I just don’t have enough experience.
“The house is perfect,” Gabriel says quietly. “Everything you’ve done here has been perfect.”
And then, from where he’s standing behind me, I hear his footsteps as he turns and walks away.
—-
After that conversation, I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen tonight. I don’t see Gabriel again until dinner, and he keeps the conversation steered away from anything serious, instead talking to Aldo about things happening with the estate, and complimenting Agnes on her help with renovating the house. He goes outside after dinner to have a drink with Aldo, and I rush upstairs as soon as I’m done helping to clean up dinner, once Agnes sees my face and tells me that she’ll handle the kids for the rest of the night.
I take a long, hot shower, staying under the water for as long as I can. My nerves are raw, my heart racing—I feel almost more nervous than I did on my wedding night. More nervous than the first time, for sure. That time, I knew where we stood. I knew what we both expected—or at least, I thought I did. But everything has become a thousand times more complicated since then, and I no longer know what Gabriel wants. I’m not entirely sure of what I want—except that I don’t want to go back. And I don’t think I want this to end, either.
But if we were to keep doing this, he would need to feel the same things I do.
I remember the nightgown I bought, as I get out of the shower and dry off, tucking a towel around myself as I dry my hair. I’m tempted to put it on tonight. After all, if we’re going back to New York in a couple of days, this will be the last chance I ever have to wear it for him.
But putting it on tonight feels like admitting that. Just the thought makes my heart twist in my chest. If I don’t wear it tonight—that feels like leaving just the slightest bit of hope. The tiniest possibility, that maybe something will change, and Gabriel and I will get a happily ever after.
So when I walk back out into the bedroom, the towel still tucked around my chest, I plan to put something else on. But I don’t even get that far.
I’ve just stepped out when I hear the bedroom door close. My hand flies to the knot of my towel automatically, my heart thumping, and I look to see Gabriel standing there as he closes the door. He looks at me, immediately misinterpreting the startled expression on my face.
“We don’t have to do this, Bella. If you don’t want me?—”
“I want you.” It comes out in a rush, because if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that I want him, and he wants me in return. That part of our relationship, at least, has never been confusing. Whatever else we’ve been unable to say to each other, whatever else has remained unclear—the desire has always been there.
I think it’s been there since the day I ran into him in the hallway of my father’s mansion, not knowing that my entire life changed in that instant.
The moment I say it, Gabriel’s face changes. His eyes darken, his jaw tightening, and he goes from the gentle, patient man that I see every day to the one that I only see in these moments, a man who keeps his desire tightly on a leash, who, for this brief space of time, is letting that leash go.
He crosses the room to me in three long strides, one hand on my waist and the other sinking into my hair as his mouth comes crashing down on mine. He’s still fully dressed, in his jeans and a t-shirt, and I’m painfully aware of the fact that there’s only a towel wrapped around me. That knowledge, the feeling of having so little between his hands and my naked body, makes my pulse kick faster, makes my blood race in my veins as the idea thrills me.
I’m already wet, just from his mouth on mine. Just from the heat of his hand, sinking through the towel. He backs me against the bathroom door, shoving it closed with my weight, his body leaning into mine as his mouth devours me.
“Bella—” He moans my name against my lips, and I can feel how hard he is for me, a thick, straining ridge against my thigh, the towel not nearly enough to keep me from feeling it. “I’m going to make you come so many times.”
His hand drops from my hair as his mouth crushes against mine again, grabbing for the knot of the towel and yanking it. He moves a fraction away from me, just enough to let it drop away, and then he’s pressing into me again, the friction of his clothing a stark contrast to my bare skin.
Gabriel slides his hand into my hair again, tilts my head to one side as his mouth glides along the side of my jaw. “Can you feel how much I want you, Bella?”
I can feel all of it. The brush of his cotton t-shirt against my bare breasts, the rough grind of the denim of his jeans against my thighs, between my legs. His hips roll into mine, the thick ridge of his cock pressing into the soft skin of my thigh, the denim covering the zipper of his jeans pushing between my folds.
I gasp, the second I feel him rub against my clit. “You’re going to come for me like this,” Gabriel murmurs, his lips ghosting over the shell of my ear. “You’re going to come for me before I even get undressed. I want you to soak the front of my jeans. And if you come for me, like a good girl, you can have the rest.”
The only response I can manage is a sobbing moan. This is the Gabriel who made me come in the library, who fucked me like I belonged to him right after he told me that we were getting married. The man who trusts me to tell him if it’s too much, and who gives me everything we both need.
Right now, I desperately need him to give me all the pleasure he’s promising me.
I’ll be sore in the morning. I know that, even as the rough fabric rubs over my sensitive, swelling clit, but I don’t care. It feels so good—it feels like everything I need—and I let my head fall back against the door, gasping as Gabriel’s hips roll against mine. I can feel him throbbing against my thigh, his own desire barely leashed, and all that need only fuels mine.
