Page 107 of Dirty Pool

She sucked in a shady breath.

He was as still as stone.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Gabbie—”

“Just tell me, Michel.”

“One side wanted a war. The other side didn’t. I thought … if I forced their hands, then they both might be too busy to notice what I was doing. With you.”

Oh.

Her heart thundered.

Michel cleared his throat, and then quickly kissed her again. “If other people can do what they have to do, then why can’t I?”

He wasn’t wrong.

“But what about after?” Gabbie glanced out the windshield where the people were still blowing by their vehicle parked along the side of the street. No doubt, they were in a no parking zone, but she just didn’t care. “So we leave, and then what happens once things calm down here? You think my father won’t come after me? He will, and then what will happen? He won’t stop. You know that, don’t you?”

“We’ll deal with it when—”

“I want to be with you.”

Michel’s hands on her face tightened a bit. “I know. First this, though. We’ll figure out something else later.”

“I don’t want to worry about it at all.”

She loved her father.

She loved Michel more.

Gabbie’s gaze caught the building across the street from where they were parked, and a thought drifted through her mind. It was so quick, she almost laughed it off. It was absurd, in a way, but she’d heard the thought nonetheless.

Michel hadn’t missed her silence, either. “What’s going on in your head?”

“I just thought about something foolish, that’s all.”

“Nothing you think is foolish.”

He would say that.

“This probably is,” she muttered.

He kissed her again—desperate and hungry like that first time, but now, sure and strong, too. God, she loved this man.

She would love him forever.

“Tell me,” he uttered against her mouth.

Gabbie smiled. “But it is stupid, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Gab—”

“I thought we could get married.”

He stilled.