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“So you keep telling me, but one day I will. That’s a promise. And as for why I’m doing what I’m doing to help this soon after meeting you, I’ll make a confession. You found my black soul and gave me a way to repent.” He winks, and I get this idea that he’s only half joking. Dexter picks then to lick him, washing away any seriousness hidden in the moment.
I laugh. “If your soul was black, Dexter wouldn’t love you.”
“Dexter is named Dexter for a reason,” he says. “He knows how to show his teeth and those teeth say he can kill.”
“And that means he has your black soul? It’s kismet? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yep,” he agrees, pulling us around a corner, toward my apartment.
I point to the high-rise I live in that might look fancy but it’s not. “They valet, but if you want you can wait downstairs and—”
“Not a chance in hell,” he says, pulling us to the valet stand. “I’m going up and so is Dexter.”
My chest tightens. I heard his call. He thinks he’s going to find out that I’m the one that has the black heart. That I’m lying to him in some way. He stops the car and the valets open the doors. “Hello there, Ms. Tanner,” the doorman, a kid in his twenties that always flirts with me, greets me.
“Hi, Jesse,” I greet. “We’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Keep us close,” Gabe says, stepping to my side and palming the kid some cash.
“Yes, sir,” Jesse says, looking disappointed with my newfound love life, while I’m not disappointed at all. Just regretful for all the complications it comes with. Regretful that it can’t go anywhere. Guilty that I’ve let it go on this long but I can’t help it. Gabe is like a drug I’m already finding addictive.
Gabe kisses my temple, right here in front of Jesse, and he does so in this familiar way that says we’re longtime flameswhen we’re not. Not yet. “I’ll be right back,” he says, stroking my cheek. “I’ll grab Dexter.”
A minute later, Dexter has exploded from the car and apparently likes Jesse because he tackles him and starts licking his face. Jesse laughs. “Is he yours, Abigail?”
“He’s Gabe’s,” I say, giving Gabe a wink of my own. “Love at first sight.”
Gabe’s eyes collide with mine, warm and wicked heat in their depths. “It sure as hell was love at first sight,” he says, and it’s clear he’s not talking about the dog, and the way he looks at me, all but turns me inside out. I know he doesn’t mean love. He means lust and of course, it was. God, it was and is. I feel this man everywhere. I’m so responsive to him, so sensitive to everything he does and says that it’s almost unreal.
“Gabe,” I whisper as Jesse interrupts with an offer, “I can walk him for you if you want.”
“That would be great,” I say, forcing myself to look at Jesse. “Thank you, Jesse.”
Gabe hands him the leash. “Thank you, Jesse.”
And with that, Gabe and I head inside the building and the lobby is a shrine of shiny gray and black marble from the floors to the security desk. Gabe wraps his arm around my shoulders and my cellphone rings. I cringe with the certainty that it’s once again Kenneth. “It could be my mother,” I murmur as I punch in the ninth floor and grab my cell from my purse.
The minute I see Kenneth’s number, I grimace and hit decline. Gabe crowds me against the wall. “It was him again.” There is almost what I would call accusation in his voice.
“Yes. It was. I don’t want to talk to him.”
“You mean you don’t want to talk to him in front of me.”
My brow furrows. “What are you suggesting?”
“That I’ll go to the moon for you, Abbie, but I intend to know everything about you, and him, before I commit.”
“I didn’t ask you to commit, Gabe. I barely know you.”
“And I know there’s something you didn’t tell me. You haven’t told me.”
“I heard that on the phone call you made. I get it. You think I’m lying. What I don’t get is why you’re standing here right now, if that’s what you think of me.”
The elevator dings. His eyes bore into mine, cutting and burning, and God, I’m aroused by his anger. How is that even possible? I don’t get aroused at anger. This makes no sense. What is wrong with me? What is this man doing to me?
“Are we getting out of the elevator?” I challenge.
He pushes off the wall and not only does he exit the car, he pulls me close and takes me with him, but the minute we’re in the hallway, he releases me, leaving me cold and—cold. I’m just cold. This man heats me up and turns me to ice, all in the same thirty seconds. I start the short walk. I don’t look at him, but I’m so aware of him, of his big, perfect body, of his temper, of his desire. He wants me, too.
