Teague stormed around the work site, feeling like a heel. He was snapping people’s heads off, handing out unnecessary assignments and pushing everyone harder than needed. Thankfully, Harry was walking behind him and contradicting the orders, otherwise, Teague suspected that they would have a mutiny on the work site.
When Logan walked up behind him, he knew that he was in trouble.
“Go away,” Teague grumbled, grabbing his clipboard even as Logan grabbed a hardhat and followed.
“Not happening, big brother,” he said and stepped in front of Teague before the man could get onto the elevator. “What’s going on?”
Teague gritted his teeth. “You mean, what’s happening in my life other than my wife telling me that she’s cheating on her fiancé with her husband? Or maybe I’m upset by the fact that she keeps sneaking divorce papers into the stacks of documents for Harry to sign, trying to get me to sign them. Or maybe the problem is that I have annoying brothers who show up, trying to tell me how to do my job.”
Logan crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, I can see how those problems could be an issue.” He looked around, noticing that his brother kept glancing over his shoulder to the office trailer. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
Teague ran a hand over his face, shaking his head. “I have no idea. I’ve never known what to do about that woman. She drives me crazy! But I can’t…” he didn’t finish that sentence, not wanting to reveal too much. His hands fisted on his hips and he stared down at the cement, trying to figure out a plan, but every plan that popped into his mind started and ended with Gabby. Naked.
Logan listened and understood. Well, sort of. He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but he could understand a bit after watching Zeke go through a similar kind of hell with Marcy. Everything had eventually worked out with those two. The same kind of tension was happening with Gabby and Teague, so he was all for trying to resolve this just as amicably as Zeke and Marcy had.
He’d thought about it over the past couple of days, wondering what he would do in similar circumstances. “I think you should head out of town.”
Teague’s head lifted and he stared at his brother in confusion. Get out of town? Leave Gabby? That seemed like the exact opposite of his plan. “Why?”
Logan rolled his eyes. “You haven’t been to your cabin in the woods in a long time.” He paused, watching Teague’s expression. “It’s one of those places that an owner really shouldn’t neglect since it is so isolated.” Still nothing, just frustration and another glance back to the office trailer. “No cell phone reception out there, if I remember correctly. No one for miles to interrupt anything. It’s isolated, private, and a good place for someone to just be alone…”
Teague glanced at his younger brother, thinking that the man had lost his mind. “Why the hell would I get out of town? She might…”
Logan didn’t say a word. He stood there, standing in front of Teague with his arms still crossed over his chest, just waiting. Waiting. It took a bit longer for his brother to get the idea, but Teague wasn’t an idiot.
Dawning hit him like a ton of bricks.
Teague’s shoulders finally relaxed. He even chuckled slightly as his hand lifted, rubbing against his rough jawline. “You think…?”
Logan nodded emphatically. “From what I’ve heard, she seems to want those papers signed pretty badly.” He shrugged a bit, almost as if he were dismissing the papers as irrelevant. “She might need directions,” he commented. “And I am more than willing to help out in that area.”
Teague’s frustration vanished and his mouth shifted into a grin. “Never thought you were much of a lady’s man, Logan. But your devious mind just might get you there!”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Don’t even think about setting me up with any woman with a desire for permanence!” he growled. “I like my single status just fine, thank you very much.”
With a pounding on Teague’s back, he walked out of the area, tossing his hard hat back onto the peg before leaving.
Teague wasted no time in packing up his truck with everything he might need. His cabin was already well stocked, but he drove to the store, getting a few other things that might be helpful. Making sure that Harry could cover for him, he walked into the office trailer, carefully, relieved when the stench of broccoli was minimal. He looked over and realized why. Gabriella wasn’t there. “Darn it,” he muttered but walked over and wrote a note, sticking it to her computer screen.
Without another moment’s hesitation, he walked out of the office, jumped in his truck and drove off, heading out of town.
Gabriella walked into the office ten minutes later, saw the note and wanted to scream. “No!” she crumbled the note up and tossed it into the trash. After last night, it was more important than ever to get Teague to sign those papers! She had to finish this and get back to Toby, back to her life! The life she needed.
Toby was kind and gentle. He worried about her, made sure that she walked into her apartment building before driving away after each of their dates, took her to her favorite restaurants and made sure that she was happy. He cared about her! And she…well, she cared about him.
Darn it, she loved him!
Didn’t she?
A week ago, she would have been completely sure about her feelings for Toby. He was sweet, kind, ambitious, and everything she wanted in a man.
Now…she wasn’t so sure.
She felt…calm when she was around Toby. He centered her. He was her friend!
Wasn’t he?
She’d never been able to talk with Toby the way she’d talked with Teague when they were back in Vegas. But she hadn’t admitted all of her past to Teague either. She’d never told anyone about her childhood. Nor would she! Never!
Sitting back in her chair, she stared out the small window but didn’t see the construction happening all around her. Everyone was busy, but she just sat there, trying to figure out what was going on.
Okay, so she had to admit that she didn’t love Toby. She felt affection for him. He was kind and sweet. After the past few days, she could admit that love, at least the passionate kind of love, was not a part of their relationship. But she needed him! She needed him because of the nice things he did for her, the way he watched out for her!
Her mind flashed back to her first day in Seattle, how Teague had taken care of her after she’d ruined her clothes. He hadn’t laughed, he hadn’t told her she had acted foolishly. He’d just lifted her up out of the wet cement, cleaned her up, clothed her, fed her, and given her a place to stay.
“You okay, Gabby?” Harry asked, breaking through her concentration.
She looked around, realized that she was standing in the middle of the trailer, looking like she’d just lost her puppy.
Blinking, she looked up at the big guy with the warm smile and twinkling eyes. She shook her head. “No. I’m not okay. I’m definitely un-okay and I’m sick and tired of playing games! Do you have any idea where Teague might have gone off to?”
Harry lifted his hardhat, scratching his head a moment. “Well, the only place that he really heads off to when he needs a break is that old cabin he has up in the mountains.”
Gabriella’s head swung around to stare at Mount Rainier, but the day was too cloudy to see the stunning peak today. “Please tell me his cabin isn’t up there,” she begged, pointing behind her at the mountain that was on every license plate in the state.
Harry scratched his head again. “Um…well, okay.”
She sighed. “It’s there.” She thought about it for a moment, thought about Toby waiting for her at the end of the aisle in less than a month. The man was sweet and considerate, whereas Teague was wicked and obnoxious. She shouldn’t go to his cabin. She was fairly certain that his cabin was in some remote area of the woods where she’d have to hike for miles to reach him.
She had to go. She had to put Teague in her past and move on with her life. For too long, too many nights, she’d lain awake in bed thinking about Teague. She had to banish him from her life once and for all!
“I don’t care. I’m going.” She looked up at Harry. “Any idea how to get to this mysterious cabin?”
Harry’s mouth twisted slightly. “Well, I’ve been there. Most of the guys have been there to go fishing or something.”
“So you know where it is? How to get there?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Honestly, not really. Teague gets us there but, well, it isn’t really a straightforward kind of thing. There aren’t any roads. At least not real roads.”
She was starting to think that this cabin was more of a campsite. “So is there a path? I’m not afraid of hiking,” she told him, even though she had absolutely no idea how to hike. She knew she needed good boots and lots of water. Other than that, it seemed like just walking towards a goal. Not too hard, right?
“One of his brothers might give you better directions,” he told her with an apologetic smile.
The thing was, Gabriella wasn’t sure if Teague’s brothers would give her directions. They all were very kind to her, but obviously Teague had run away from her by going to his cabin. They might try and protect him by not allowing her to find him.
She looked around as Harry went back to work, trying to figure out a better way to find the directions. Surely, if he’d bought the property, it would be in the county tax offices. She could just figure out directions from that information, right?
She walked back to the beaten up, old desk and sat down in Marcy’s chair, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. The problem would be tracing the correct county in which the cabin was located. The cabin could be anywhere! It was a big mountain! But she would not be deterred!
Harry had said the cabin was located on the mountain. She searched through the counties, every one of them. It took her three hours but she finally found the right county. A few minutes later and she actually had the GPS coordinates for the cabin!
Now it was only a matter of figuring out how to get up there. It was pretty remote, she realized. But as she studied the online map, she figured out a route, considered various options, and then made her plans.
The following morning, she was in a rented SUV and was traveling down the road, the divorce papers in her backpack, two additional pairs of socks, a change of clothes, an extra wool sweater, several bottles of water and energy bars. Teague thought he could hide from her?
Ha! She was going to find him, convince him to sign the papers, and get out of Dodge. It was a five mile hike from the nearest parking lot. She could park her truck there by ten o’clock this morning, walk the five miles up the mountain to his cabin in about an hour and a half, get him to sign the papers and be back down the mountain by mid-afternoon. She might even be able to catch a flight to Boston tonight and be home by morning!
It would all work out. Teague couldn’t continue to avoid the subject here in the mountains. At the work site, he had lots of places to go, things to do, and interruptions. There on the mountain, he probably just sat around being bored. A person could only stare at the stars for so long before boredom set in.
Yes, it was a perfect plan, she told herself.
Five hours later, she wasn’t so sure. She’d been hiking for four hours now and she still wasn’t to the site. She was fairly certain that she was pretty close, but five miles of walking on a street in Boston was entirely different than five miles of hiking up a mountain!
She guzzled another bottle of water and stuffed it back into her backpack. She’d already drunk half the water and her stomach was growling with hunger. But she had brought only two protein bars and she’d eaten one already. She’d need to save the other for the walk back down the mountain.
With determination, she pushed herself away from the tree and forced her feet to walk, ignoring the pain in her toes and heels.
An hour later, she was starting to get worried. She’d reached a beautiful lake and sat down, worried, hungry, tired and her feet were aching. She was fairly sure that she had some pretty good blisters on her feet and she had no idea where else to look. If that man had a cabin up here, she wasn’t seeing it.
The lake was gorgeous though. It wasn’t large, but the clear skies and the crisp air made the surface of the lake almost like a mirror of the sky.
With tears of frustration looming, she fell back against the soft earth, looking up into the blue sky.
“Gabby?” a deep voice said. A moment later, Teague’s hard features appeared in her line of sight. “Are you okay, darlin’?” he asked, bending down and looking into her tired eyes. “You don’t look so great, honey.”
Gabriella thought about admonishing him for calling her Gabby again, but she just didn’t have the energy any longer. “I did it,” she sighed and closed her eyes with relief. “I found you.”
Teague looked down into her beautiful features and chuckled. “That you did, honey.” A moment later, she was in his arms as he carried her down a path. “How long did it take you to find me?”
She put an arm around his neck but was afraid of touching him too much. After the last time they were alone together, she wasn’t sure what would happen.
It finally occurred to her that she was alone with him…on a mountaintop…and there would be no interruptions to save her this time.
Those green eyes looked down at her and she couldn’t even answer the question, too afraid of the situation she’d foolishly put herself into. She was here, on a mountain, alone with Teague!
Had he planned this?
No, impossible! There was no way he could have anticipated that she would have looked for him here of all places.
“Will you please sign the papers?” she asked, trying not to burst into tears. But the thought of walking back down the mountain with her feet so sore…she wasn’t sure she could do it.
“How about if I feed you and then we can talk about anything you want to discuss, okay?”
She couldn’t help it. She leaned her head against his strong shoulder and sighed. “Fine,” she told him, not really caring what would happen as long as she didn’t have to walk any further today.
“You okay, Gabby?” he asked as he lowered her down onto an adirondack chair that faced the beautiful lake. He moved around her, bending to one knee while he loosened the laces on her work boots.
“I’m fine,” she said, hissing when he slid the boot off her foot.
A moment later, he carefully peeled the wool socks away. “Oh honey,” he shook his head as he looked down at her bare feet. “You abused these beauties pretty badly.”
Blisters didn’t really cover the extent of the damage to her poor feet. There were wounds on the toes, her heels, the sides of her feet…just about everywhere, there was a blister, some that had broken and others that were bleeding.
“Yeah. I don’t have a lot of experience hiking,” she admitted.
He lifted her up and carried her down a short dock. “What are you doing?” she asked, wary now. He wasn’t going to throw her into the water, was he? It looked cold!
“You’re going to soak your feet, let them cool down. Meanwhile, I’m going to get you a glass of wine and something to eat. Just relax, okay?”
He didn’t wait for her to respond. As soon as she was settled at the end of the rough dock, he disappeared into the woods again. She peered behind her and realized that there was a cabin right there! She must have passed by this place several times and she hadn’t seen either the dock or the cabin!
Turning back, she looked down at the water, not sure if she wanted to put her feet in there. Didn’t fish live in the water? Wouldn’t they bite her toes if she stuck them in there? She’d read something about how a shark could smell blood from miles away. Were fish the same way?
A glass of wine appeared in her line of sight and she jumped back slightly.
“Feet in, Gabby. I promise, it will feel better.”
She looked back up at him, not sure if she believed him or not. “But what about the fish?”
He shook his head. “There are no fish in this part of the lake,” he told her with a completely straight face.
She watched him for a long moment, but when he only raised his eyebrows, challenging her, she went ahead and stuck her feet in. The water was frigidly cold, but it almost instantly soothed her aching feet. “Oh, this feels good!” she sighed, leaning back slightly and feeling the ache in both of her feet ease slightly.
“Relax. I’ll go get you something to eat.”
A moment later, Gabriella was alone again, staring out onto the beautiful lake. It all seemed so serene and she wanted to jump into the water. It wasn’t warm enough though, so she contented herself with the cold water helping to sooth her feet. Finishing off the wine, she set the glass off to the side and contemplated her next move. Unfortunately, she had no idea what that might be. She was lost. Completely lost.
He handed her a sandwich and a beer. Sitting down next to her, he had his own sandwich in his hand and took a huge bite.
“Thanks,” she whispered, tensing when he sat down too close to her already weak and exhausted body. She tried to scoot away, but he only wrapped his muscular arm around her and pulled her flush against his side.
“Relax, Gabby. I’m not going to bite you.” He took a sip of his beer then shrugged. “At least, not yet anyway.”
All of her muscles tightened up once again. She stared at her sandwich and took a deep breath. “Teague, this isn’t a game.”
He was looking out at the lake but she could tell that he was listening. “Sure it is,” he finally said, “or more accurately, it is a competition.”
She shook her head, trying to stop him, but he interrupted.
“Gabby, you’re my wife,” he said with that deep voice and those green eyes moved from the lake to her own eyes. “You’re my wife and I’ve wanted you in my life from the first moment I saw you in that bar. You looked lonely and confused,” he smiled slightly when she stiffened but wouldn’t relent. “You try to come across as tough and strong, competent. And when it comes to your job, I suspect you’re amazing. But life…” he shook his head. “Life throws curve balls all the time, doesn’t it?”
She opened her mouth to argue his point, but the words wouldn’t come. He was right. Before she’d met him, and all the painful, tedious months after she’d left him, she’d been struggling. Struggling to find herself, who she was, and what she wanted. Because wanting him, needing Teague, scared her too much.
“I won’t hurt you, Gabby.”
She thought of that trailer she and her mother had shared. And he lived in a trailer now as well. “You don’t know how you’ll hurt me.”
He chuckled, acknowledging her point. “Yeah. But not about the things that you’re worrying about at the moment.”
She pulled her eyes away from him, not sure what to say. “Teague…”
“Eat your sandwich, Gabby. You’re too hungry to have this conversation.”
She looked down at her sandwich and, yes, she was hungry. No denying that. “But…”
He shook his head again. “Eat. Relax. We’ll talk later.”
Gabriella sighed. Yeah. They’d talk. And somehow, she would figure out how to get him to sign those papers. She could be honest with him, explain why she couldn’t stay married to him, why she needed to move on with her life. She wouldn’t tell him what Toby could do for her. It wasn’t financial. It was stability. Toby was steady and sure. Yes, he was wealthy, but she wouldn’t ever rely on a man for her financial future. Never! Toby was just…he was sanity. Teague was craziness. It was that simple.
She took a bite of her sandwich and enjoyed the silence between them. Gabriella tried hard to focus on her words, what she would say to Teague when their meal was finished, but…her mind just refused to work for some reason.
In the end, she sat at the end of the dock, her feet dangling in the cool water and she ate her sandwich, drank her beer, and enjoyed the companionship of the man she needed to divorce as quickly as possible. For her sanity. Because it was what was right for her.
“Come on, beautiful,” he said and stood up, then bent down again to lift her into his arms.
“Teague!” she gasped, quickly wrapping her arms around his neck. “I can walk! You don’t have to carry me!”
He shook his head as he carried her back to the cabin. “Course I do,” he argued right back. “There’s no way you can walk on those feet any longer,” he said as he stepped up onto the wide front porch of his cabin. He set her down on one of the beautiful wooden chairs, which was surprisingly comfortable. “You stay there. I’m going to go get some bandages for your feet. If those blisters get infected, you’re going to be in a world of hurt,” and he disappeared into the dark recesses of his cabin.
She tried peering into the cabin, wanting to know what it looked like. But it was too dark from this angle so she sighed, relaxing back into the chair.
Looking down at her feet, she cringed. He was right. Her feet were pretty torn up. She should have stopped a while ago and gone back down. She’d been stupidly stubborn in coming here, but she was desperate now. She’d been around him for too long and those crazy feelings that she’d had the weekend she’d met him in Vegas were starting to mess with her mind. She’d started to wonder if there was a way she and Teague could work. If they could stay married and if she should break things off with Toby.
Teague came back out of the cabin, a first aid kit in his hands. He sat down in front of her, lifting both of her feet and placing them on his hard, muscular thigh. “Talk to me, Gabby. What’s going through your head? Why did you walk all the way up here?”
She couldn’t stop the shiver that hit her when he gently touched her foot, careful to stay away from some of the more sensitive looking blisters. “You disappeared on me, Teague.”
“And?”
She sighed, irritated that he was being so obtuse. “And, you still haven’t signed those papers.”
“And I’m not going to. You’re my wife and I want you in my life.”
Her anger burst out of her with those words. How dare he simply decide that he wanted her and was going to keep her! No way! She couldn’t handle that! “Yeah, well, you didn’t really want me after Vegas too badly, did you?”
His hands stilled on her feet and his green eyes slashed up to hers. “Is that why you left me? To test me?”
Her body stiffened with that question. “No!” she replied and shook her head for emphasis. “Definitely not!” She hadn’t!
Had she?
That thought hadn’t ever occurred to her. She’d never even dreamed of him coming to Boston to find her, to look her up. Why had she even said the words?!
Teague saw the panic in her eyes and realized that she really had wanted him to come find her, to prove to her that their marriage was real. “And I failed. You’re right, I didn’t come after you.” He looked back down at her feet, putting antibacterial ointment over the blisters. “I should have.” Damn it! He’d been so wrapped up in his own indignant anger over the past year, he hadn’t even considered that she might be testing him, that she’d want proof of his feelings. They’d had such a whirlwind romance, it wasn’t outside the bounds of reason to think that they needed help transitioning to the real world.
Gabby shook her head frantically, trying to convince him, and herself, that any sort of pursuit might have made a difference. “No. You shouldn’t have. We weren’t right for each other. We were good for a weekend, but…”
He started wrapping gauze around her blistered feet. “But not for the long haul. Is that what you’re saying?”
She didn’t answer him, not wanting to hurt his feelings. “I…I have a lot of baggage, Teague. Things you don’t know about me.” And things she didn’t want to share with anyone. Her past was too shameful. She couldn’t ever let anyone know about the humiliations she’d endured as one of the poorest students in school. Good grief, she didn’t even want to remember them, much less share them with anyone. Especially not Teague. No, she couldn’t hurt his feelings. She couldn’t tell him that she’d grown up in a trailer and she would never live in one again.
He continued wrapping her feet and she let him. It felt good somehow, having someone take care of her. It had been so long since someone had done anything for her. Toby was a good man, but she had more of a “separate” kind of relationship with him. He did his things and she did hers. They got together on Wednesdays and Saturdays for dinner at a restaurant somewhere and then the various social events he attended when he wasn’t working late.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as he wrapped the gauze around one foot, taping it and then starting on the other foot.
She shook her head. “I was just thinking about my relationship with Toby,” she said.
Teague looked at her and something clenched inside of him. “Do you realize that you either look sad or you frown when you talk about the guy in Boston?”
Gabriella’s eyes slashed up to his. “That’s not true. I love Toby.”
Teague looked into her eyes for a long moment, and shook his head. “No, you don’t.”
She stiffened, about to pull her feet away, but he caught her ankle before she could move, keeping her foot on his thigh. “I do love him! I wouldn’t be marrying the guy if I didn’t love him.”
He smiled as if she’d just given him some sort of prize. She didn’t have long to wait to discover why. “If I extend that logic, then you love me because you actually are married to me,” he announced.
Gabriella laughed, astounded. It made sense, but…
“No. You and I were a fling.”
He snipped the ends of the gauze, taping the second foot. “If that were true, you would have tried to divorce me months ago. As soon as you returned to Boston.”
Her mouth fell open with that announcement. And then she gasped when she felt his thumb slide up the bottom of her foot. “Teague!”
He already had hold of her ankle and pulled her closer. “You should just relax, Gabby,” he told her as he relentlessly pulled her closer. “I’m going to win this battle of wills between us.”
She caught her breath as he pulled her closer and closer. She should fight him, she thought. She should grab onto something and pull away.
Did she do either of those? Nope. Her eyes watched his, her body shivered in anticipation. When his hands took hold of her waist, she knew what was going to happen. Maybe she’d known this would happen ever since she’d decided to come up here to an isolated place in the woods.
Gabriella shivered as his hands pulled her onto his lap. “Admit it, Gabby,” he urged as his hands slid underneath her shirt. “You want me and you love me.”
She shook her head, denying both even though something in her heart glowed ever so slightly with his words. If he wanted her to love him, did that mean that he might love her just a little?
She didn’t have a chance to answer the question because his lips covered hers in a kiss that took her breath away.
Over the past week, so many times they’d been in this situation but something had stopped the follow through. Now they were out in the middle of nowhere. There was no cell phone reception, no traffic, no phones…no interruptions.
And he was kissing her like he’d missed her every day for the past year!
She wasn’t immune to that kind of passion and she kissed him back, needing all of him again. Just like that first time in Vegas, she thought and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back with all of the pent up need she’d been ignoring for so long.
“Gabby,” he groaned and stood up, her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her into the cabin.
As curious as she had been to see the inside of Teague’s mountain cabin, all she wanted was him. Now. Naked. Making love to her like he had that long weekend when they’d first met.
Laying her down on the large, quilt covered mattress, she stared up at him, her body shifting underneath his.
“Gabby,” Teague groaned, his eyes moving over her. A moment later, he whipped her shirt up over her head, tossing it onto the floor behind him. “This is not good,” he said, as he surveyed her breasts encased in a sports bra that left everything to his imagination. “It must go,” he told her with absolute certainty.
Gabby couldn’t help it when she laughed at his overly serious expression accompanied by his not-so-serious words. But when his fingers slid underneath the elastic band around her ribs, she gasped at the intimate contact. A fraction of a second later, the sports bra was discarded behind him and his eyes were surveying her breasts. “You’re so beautiful, Gabby,” he growled as he bent lower, taking one of her nipples in his mouth.
She cried out, but arched her back, needing more, needing him to…“Yes!” she sighed when his teeth nipped her nipple. His other hand was on her other breast and she loved the way he was massaging the flesh, making her crazy with his touch.
“Don’t stop,” she begged when he lifted his head, blowing on the sensitive peak.
“I’m not going to," and his mouth latched onto her other breast.
Oh boy, did he follow through on that promise! Goodness, his lips, his teeth, his tongue…he tortured her until she was screaming with the pleasure. Her fingers had been holding his head close, needing that torture but after several moments, she couldn’t take it any longer. But would he allow her hands to push his head away?
Not at all! Even when she tried to wiggle away from him, his strong arms held her in place. “Teague!” she screamed, and only then did he lift his head to look up at her.
“Did you need to tell me something?” he asked, kissing the spot between her breasts.
Gabriella could barely catch her breath as she looked down at him. But he wasn’t being still. His lips moved to her stomach. All of those places that normally were ticklish seemed to have morphed into sexual sensations. She tried to twist, to keep her head about her while he touched her like this, but she couldn’t. He wouldn’t show any mercy!
“Teague, please, I can’t take anymore.”
His only response was a slow, sexy smile as he ignored her exclamation and…moved lower. And lower!
“Teague!” she whispered this time, but she knew what he was about to do. He knew that she was going to try to stop him so his arms were already wrapped around her legs, fully prepared to keep her in place as his mouth and lips found their next goal.
“Have I mentioned how beautiful you are, Gabby?” he whispered as he gazed at her core. “So perfect,” and a long finger slid down the pink folds, sending shoots of electricity throughout her whole body.
“Teague,” she whispered again, her body trembling in fear, anticipation and desperation.
“I’m here, honey. I’m never letting you go,” he said a moment before his tongue teased her with a feather-light touch. The barely there sensation made her body arch, the trembling increased and Gabriella wasn’t sure if she was arching away from his touch, or demanding more.
When his tongue touched her again, moving against her, tasting her, she cried out, her hands diving into his hair as she whimpered. Was he laughing at her? She had no idea. All she knew was that he was touching her and her body was clamoring for release. She knew he would give it to her. She knew that it would be explosive.
But it had been so long! So damn long! A year since…
“Teague!” she yelled when he twisted his fingers like that! “No, No!” she whimpered, her body trying to curl away. “Too much!” she finally got out.
“Not too much, love.” He chuckled as his fingers twisted again, pressing against the inside of her body as his mouth latched onto that bud and teased.
Teague knew she was close. So damn close. But he wanted her to remember this. He wanted her to know who she was with! Damn, she was so beautiful and whoever had been with her over the past year…well, he wanted that man obliterated from her mind. He wanted to exorcise all of the memories of another man from her. Teague wanted to be the only man she remembered, the only man she cried out for. He’d been her first lover back in Las Vegas. And he was determined to be her last.
Feeling her body tremble like this, it was erotic and amazing. She was so damn close!
But was he letting her climax? Hell no! She tasted and felt too good!
“What’s my name, Gabby?” he demanded as he pulled away only moments before he knew her body was going to climax.
Gabriella lifted her head, ready to scream. “Teague! You’re not playing fair!” she growled, trying to wiggle away from him. She knew this game he played! And he knew her body well enough after only one long, sensuous, erotic weekend together that he could control her in ways she’d never dreamed possible.
His deep, dangerous chuckle was her only warning that this was not going to end any time soon. A part of her thrilled to that sound, but the other half of her, the half that hadn’t found any release in the past year because…well, because she couldn’t fathom any other man doing these things to her!
Lifting herself up higher, well, as much as he would allow her to move, she looked at him, her hands cupping his scruffy cheeks.
“Teague, I know you like to play this game. I know that you can give me the most amazing pleasure. But right now, I need you to just let me go. Give this to me. I haven’t…” she stumbled over her words, unable to admit, even to herself, how much she needed this man. “I just…please,” she finished on a whisper.
Immediately, Teague knew what she was trying to tell him. “You haven’t had sex with the Boston guy, have you, Gabby?” he asked, but the look in her beautiful eyes told him the truth, more than words could ever convey.
She shrugged a naked shoulder and he wanted to howl with relief. “Just…please don’t play with me, Teague. I know you can,” she sighed and a tear born of sexual frustration and desperation crept out from her lashes. “You and I both know that you can drive me crazier than anyone else. But please…not now.”
Teague lifted up and kissed her, barely holding back on the savagery of his need to possess her. “You’re mine, Gabby,” he told her even as his mouth moved back to that spot he’d just vacated.
A moment later, he gave her what she needed and was rewarded by her screams of release as his hands and mouth absorbed her release.
Moving higher, he kissed his way up her body, gentling her as he soothed, while, at the same time, never allowing her to come completely down from that.
Grabbing a condom, he rolled it down his erection, more than ready to bury himself inside of her.
Pressing into her heat, he watched her lovely eyes. They told him everything he needed to know and he groaned as she looked up at him, her desire shining through those golden eyes. “Gabby,” he growled as she automatically lifted her legs higher, wrapping around his waist and lifting up, taking him deeper into her body.
“Oh, Teague,” she whispered as her hands lifted, settling onto his shoulders. “You feel perfect!” Closing her eyes, she turned her head away, wanting more of him, needing all of him. “So long!” And she lifted higher, tilting her hips to take him deeper.
Teague’s hands shifted along her hips, tilting them to get a better angle. He might have laughed when she gasped, but he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about anything any longer. It was just Gabby and her amazing body, taking him higher and higher.
When he knew he was close, he reached down to help her over the edge. But when those muscles contracted around him, tightening convulsively…he couldn’t stop his own orgasm. It was all Gabby and he loved this woman. More than he’d thought possible.
When it was all over, he rolled onto his side, taking her with him and cradling her as she pressed herself against him. He knew what she was trying to do, needing to feel her against every part of him.
His fingers tangled in her golden hair as he stared up at the ceiling, thanking God for bringing this woman back to him. As his breathing slowed, he knew that no one suited him better than this woman. Gabby was his world.
Now he just had to help her understand that he was the same for her. Because he knew it was the truth.