I lived here my entire life until I left for college. The mansion is big enough for five more families, so it never seemed like a big deal to me for us to live with my grandmother. When I was old enough to see my parents for what they were, it was easy to see why they’d prefer living here rather than making their own way. They never had to lift a finger.

My father works for my mother’s family business. My grandfather founded it when he was young. His family might come from big money, but he used that and made it bigger.

My mother, on the other hand, lunches and gossips.

But not Gran. She grew up with little before she met my Gramps and never forgot where she came from. She taught me to bake, make sausage gravy to the perfect consistency, and to tend a garden. When I got older, she explained how she made mistakes with my mother and took full responsibility of raising an entitled child who grew into a selfish adult. I always told her she was too hard on herself. My mother is who she is.

Gran said I was her second chance, that the day I was born she promised herself she’d do everything in her power to make sure I didn’t end up like my mother. I was the only reason she allowed my parents to live on the plantation because, in her words, living with my parents was a cocklebur in her soft, southern tush.

I sat with her all day and Gabe made good on his promise. He not only held my hand but wrapped me up in his arms as we sat here and took in her unconscious, lifeless body as it wilted away from me. Besides the hospice nurse, no one else has stepped foot in the library besides the house manager who brought dinner to us.

Gabe left me for about an hour and a half, telling me he had to run some errands, promising he’d be back. He returned with coffee and a slew of chocolate treats that I barely picked at.

I just can’t.

“You should get some rest, Miss Lillian,” the night nurse whispers. “Don’t you worry your pretty head. I’ll send for you straight away if there’s any change. I promise, she’s not in any pain.”

I hear Gabe, who was sitting in a wingback chair next to my Gramps’ antique desk, move in behind me. He puts his hand to my chin and lifts my face. “She’s right. You should sleep.”

The mention of sleep makes me realize how stiff I am from sitting in this chair most of the day listening to my sweet Gran’s shallow, tortured breaths. I’ve seen a lot of death in the past week, but watching cancer slowly eat away at the woman I adore is an evil pain deep in my heart.

I lean up and press a kiss to Gran’s wrinkled forehead. What’s left of her once thick and lush gray hair is lying limp, swept away from her equally gray, clammy face. I choke back a sob and the next thing I know, I’m up in Gabe’s arms.

He carries me down the hall and when we head up the grand staircase I used to play on as a child, I realize he’s heading straight to my old room.

When he sits on the bed with me in his lap, I notice all the bags sitting around. Bags from the Apple store, department stores, Target, and even Banana Republic.

“Where did all that come from?” I sniff and wipe my face on his shirt, realizing I’ve done this way too much this week. “And how did they get in here?”

“It turns out the house manager likes me more than your parents do. He was more than happy to tell me where your room is. I got us both new MacBooks and phones. It might feel like I’m in a movie from the 1800’s on your plantation, but we still need to communicate with the outside world. And I needed some clothes and a toothbrush. The Welcoming Committee didn’t like my shorts.”

“It’s not my plantation,” I argue. “And I like you in shorts.”

He leans in to kiss me. “And I like you pantyless. I’m going to take a shower. It’s been a long day. You should get some sleep.”

I nod and climb out of his arms even though I don’t want to. Gabe presses his lips to the top of my head and grabs three Target bags and disappears into my childhood bathroom that is still wallpapered with buttercups the color of a bright, sunny day.

I go to my pine dresser and pull out a pair of panties and a nightgown from college as I listen to my shower turn on. Looking at myself in the mirror hanging over my dresser, I shut the drawer with my hip and really take in my reflection for the first time since we were ambushed.

I look different.

I never let my hair air dry. I never go without makeup. And I absolutely never go without a bra and panties. My eyes fall to my loose dress hanging on my breasts and my nipples that are beading through the rayon fabric.

Dragging my hands up my body, over my breasts and skin covered in bug bites and scrapes, I take in the woman I see in the mirror. I stood up to my parents for the first time today. I’m the adult now to my dying Gran who was always the one to take care of me. She showed me who I want to be and made me who I am.

It doesn’t matter what people think—if Gran taught me anything, it was that.

Pushing away from the dresser, I turn and make long strides to my bathroom. Turning the antique crystal doorknob, I pad barefoot over the beehive tile laid in black and white, past the clawfoot tub sitting under the leaded glass window and come to a stop in front of the modern shower that was updated in the last decade.

Gabe is standing with his side to me, one hand leaning on the carrera wall with his head under the stream of water. Steam surrounds him, creating a dreamy-like frame for his perfect body. Sculpted of nothing but muscle, his wide shoulders and chest narrow as my eyes drop over his perfectly rounded behind and thick thighs. My heart speeds and I can’t take my eyes off his cock—seeing him for the first time. It’s perfect, thick and long, even relaxed as he stands in my shower, soaking up the hot water.

When I reach for the handle and open the door, he jerks and turns to me. Now, with nothing between us, him standing in front of me stark naked, he makes no move. He doesn’t even give me a hint of what he’s thinking.

I allow myself one more look, never wanting to forget a moment of today. A day where Gabriel Blackburn made sure I got home where I need to be and has done nothing but care for me.

“Lillian.”

His voice, the first hint that I might have the same effect on him as he does me, is gravelly and deep.

When his cock twitches, my eyes fly back to his.

My fingers don’t waste any more time. I lift my hands to the spaghetti straps of my dress, pulling them down my shoulders with such ease I’m surprised they hung on all day. Gravity takes over and as soon as my dress hits the bathmat, Gabe’s big, wet hand grabs mine.

There’re no questions.

There’s no talking.

There’s nothing more that needs to be said.

Right now, I need to lose myself in him.

Gabe turns me and presses my back against the shower wall, the water falling around us like one body instead of two. His cock, now even longer and impossibly thick, is standing at attention and pressed into my tummy. My breasts are rising and falling. His hands move on my arms, my sides, my hips.

The next thing I know, he picks me up and my legs are wrapped around his waist and the tip of his cock teases my sex.

To get lost in Gabe. I want it more than anything.

I need it.

He doesn’t move, but his steel eyes are darker and more intense than I’ve ever seen.

It’s up to me. He hasn’t said a word, but somehow, I just know.

I want him to make me forget about losing my Gran, dealing with my parents, and everything that happened in Nicaragua. But more than anything, I want him.

Without taking my eyes off his, I sink down onto his cock, slowly, feeling the delicious ache of him stretching me. When he fills me completely, his lids fall and an expression sweeps over his face that’s nothing but pure ecstasy.

I wrap one hand around his neck and the other up the back of his head to hold on, because I might have been the one to instigate this, but when Gabe opens his eyes, I know he’ll be the one to take over.

And he does.

Using what feels like every muscle in his body, he slams into me the rest of the way. Just when I didn’t think I could take more of him, Gabe takes all of me. Filling me to the root, he takes a step back and sits on my shower bench, bringing me down on his lap, still connected. He drags his hand down the center of my body, his eyes following his path. Looking down his chest to where we’re connected, he spreads me and finds my clit. When his thumb moves, so do I, rocking on his shaft, loving the way he fills me and makes my body hum.

Hanging on to his strong shoulders, my head starts to fall back when he calls for me.

“No. Don’t look away. Watch what I’m doing to you, baby.”

Oh, my.

“You’re so fucking sweet. Everything about you. I’m a lucky man.”

I bite my lip and do my best to keep my eyes open because I feel it. I’m so close to the edge.

“Watch me work your clit, baby.”

I look down my naked body to where we’re connected. His scarred hand between us, dark and calloused on my fair skin, is the perfect representation of us. We’re different but that’s what makes it so good.

“I want you to come before I fuck you for the first time. Because, baby, the second you sank your sweet little pussy down on my cock, you gave me you. I’m not letting go.”

I can’t answer him. Watching him work my clit and listening to him is too much. No one’s ever talked to me this way before. Sex has never been raw and carnal and so, so heady.

I rock faster, my nails biting into the skin on his neck and shoulders. I feel it and it’s going to be like nothing I’ve experienced.

When it starts to come over me, I lose Gabe’s thumb. His hand comes to my ass to help me move. “There you go. Fuck yourself and find it, sweet Lillian. Show me you can.”

I’m so close. I rock harder, doing everything I can to find contact where I need it most. I think of nothing but the ache that needs tending between my legs.

“So fucking beautiful. I wish you could see yourself.”

Not caring who’s under the same roof as us, I call out, holding myself to him, pressing down on his cock where I pulse.

“You’re damned perfect,” Gabe rumbles in my ear and the next thing I know, my back is to the wall and he’s fucking me.

His hand comes up to cup the back my head against the tile. He’s using such strength and power, he drags out my orgasm and I whimper into the side of his face.

His back muscles tense where I’m holding on and he brutally slams into me two more times before planting himself so deep, I’m sure to feel where he’s been for a week.

And I hope I do.

Right now, I hope I never lose this feeling.

“I’m a strong man, but you could break me, Lillian. Only you could bring a man like me to my knees.”

I put my lips to his neck where my face is pressed and where I never want to leave. “I’d never break you, Gabe. Never.”

“But you could,” he murmurs in my ear and presses his cock into me one more time. Fisting my hair, he holds me steady and looks straight into my eyes. “And that makes you the most powerful woman in my world.”