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At this announcement, Gabe kisses me like he can’t stand waiting until we’re out of this moment then reaches for my coat. He undoes me. He drives me crazy. I haven’t had a man kiss me because he couldn’t wait to kiss me later in forever. The butterflies in my stomach are wild and crazy and wonderful. Gabe holds out my Chanel trench coat for me, a coat that is one of the few things I retained from my old life. It represents money and tells a story, but not the one he likely assumes. I turn and slide my arms inside, and when he settles it around me, he leans in and whispers, “You smell like roses tonight.”
Because I used my favorite bath products with a splash of rose-scented perfume and if I’m honest, I did it because I wanted to see him because I wanted him to be this close to me. I turn to face him and his eyes collide with mine with a punch of awareness that steals my breath. His eyes lower to my mouth and linger before lifting. “Why’d you come here instead of to the office?”
“I—” I breathe out, “was uncomfortable showing up to your office after kissing you. I thought you might frequent this place and I could talk to you here.”
“Good call,” he says, and his phone beeps. He pulls it from his pocket. “Our ride is here.” He laces his fingers with mine, holding on as if he thinks I will bolt, and the truth is, I should. I’m pulling this man into dangerous territory, far more so than he knows. He has the right to hear all the facts. I have to talk to him before anything else happens between us.
I hold this thought and vow to make it true, but then we’re in the back of a black sedan and he’s dragging me to him, hispowerful thigh pressed to mine, his hand on my face, his breath a warm tease on my lips before he’s kissing me, drugging me with the taste of him, with a demand on his lips. And while I swore I would never let a man demand anything of me again, this man’s passion, his hunger, does demand, and it’s wonderful, it’s addictive, it’s an escape I didn’t know I needed, but I do. I need this. I need him. I can’t seem to stop the assault on my senses, and the burn to just keep kissing him. And kissing him. And kissing him some more.
I’ll tell him about the danger when we get to his apartment before I kiss him again. Before I let him kiss me again.
Chapter five
Abigail
Ireally don’t even know when the car stops moving. Gabe parts our lips, awareness of our arrival washing over me, even as he strokes a strand of hair from my face, tenderness in the touch that he can’t possibly feel for me. He barely knows me, but it doesn’t even matter if it’s real. I just really need to feel this man, to feel something other than this hollow sensation I’ve been feeling.
“Come on,” he whispers, kissing me again before he glances at the driver. “Thanks, Jim.” He exits the car and helps me out, draping his arm over my shoulder, and sets us into motion down a sidewalk, the cold air off the nearby ocean gusting and lifting my hair. I shiver and he pulls me closer, holds me to him, but we don’t speak. We don’t have to speak. We’re just here, together, headed toward his apartment where we both know what we intend, and that sexual tension heats my chilled body.
It’s a short walk before we’re approaching his building. Gabe lets me go for only a flash of a moment to hold the door and then I’m back under his arm while we cross a lobby of shiny floors and high ceilings. Gabe waves to the guard behind the security deskand we cut right to a bank of elevators. A car opens immediately as if the guard did something to ensure it was waiting for us.
Gabe laces his fingers with mine and leads me inside the car, maneuvering me until I’m against the wall by the panel. The doors begin to shut and Gabe steps close, his big body crowding mine, his spicy scent that hints at musk and man, consuming me the way he consumes me. He gives me no room to breathe anything but that scent. He gives me no room to escape, his powerful legs framing mine like they had in the bar bathroom, and then he punches in a floor and a security code. The doors are sealed and his hands cup my face.
“I thought I let you get away last night.”
“I thought you let me get away.”
“That wasn’t my intent,” he says. “I looked for you.”
“You did?”
“Yes. I did.”
My fingers curl on his chest. “I really didn’t know who you were. You know that, right?”
“If I thought you did, we wouldn’t be in this elevator together.”
The elevator halts and he kisses me. I really like the way he takes every opportunity to kiss me. “Let’s go to my apartment,” he says.
Nerves assail me, overwhelm me even, but he’s already leading me out of the elevator and with a quick turn right, we’re at his apartment. The next thing I know, he’s behind me, his big body crowding mine, his erection, impossible to miss as it nuzzles my backside. He unlocks the door and shoves it open. “Wait.” I rotate to face him. “Before I go inside—”
He walks me backward inside the apartment and kicks the door shut. “Too late. We’re already inside.”
“Gabe, about the legal case—”
“Reid and I will defend you.”
“You don’t even know me. You don’t know the details.”
“I know more than you think I know.” He brushes his knuckles over my cheek. “For instance, you need a drink. You’re really tense. Come sit down.” He turns me toward the room and I take in the open space with a connecting living room and kitchen—brown leather couches and dark wood beneath my feet. It’s downplayed money and power, much like my first impression of the man, who I know is worth millions, which doesn’t comfort me. Not when Jean Claude and my ex together are worth billions. They’re powerful. They’re dangerous.
Still, Gabe has cast bait that I’m biting on. All kinds of bait that I’m biting on. Thus why, as he crosses the room and heads toward a bar in the corner next to a wall of windows and beneath industrial piping that is part of the design of the ceiling, I follow. The minute he’s behind the bar, I’m in front of it. “What does that mean? You know more than I think?”
He sets a glass in front of me and fills it with an amber liquid. “Honey whiskey. Try it.”
I decide he’s right. I need that drink, but I come with a warning. “I get drunk easily. Whiskey is strong.”
He rests his elbows on the bar and fixes me in a blue-eyed stare. “I promise not to let you fall off the bed or me.”
