Gabby opened her eyes and realized that the sun was shining brightly outside the cabin’s window. Stretching her muscles, she was surprised by the tightness in her legs although she shouldn’t be. It had been like this last time with Teague. He was an incredibly passionate, and athletic, man, allowing her to release all of her inhibitions.
“You getting up any time soon?” his deep, teasing voice asked from the doorway of the bedroom.
Gabriella twisted around, looking over her naked shoulder at the tall, handsome man with packed muscles all over his incredible chest. When her eyes moved up to his eyes, she shivered.
“If you’re going to stay in bed, then…”
She couldn’t believe how her body was reacting to him. “I’m getting up!” she gasped even as he walked closer.
He shook his head. “I think you teased me by laying there seductively with just that sheet covering your gorgeous butt for too long,” he replied and his strong hand gripped her ankle, pulling her down from the semi-sitting position she’d moved into so that she was once again, flat on her back. He leaned over her, his arms braced near her shoulders and her breathing grew ragged with anticipation. “You look hot, Gabby.”
She looked up at him, unable to stop that curling need in her stomach. “You’re pretty amazing yourself,” she admitted, her fingers releasing the sheet so that she could run her fingers over the ridged muscles in his abdomen. Gabriella smiled when she heard his voice hiss as her fingers trailed lower.
“Ah darlin’, you want to play too, don’t you?” he laughed and whipped the sheet out of the way.
Gabriella couldn’t stop the laughter when his big body pressed between her legs and his mouth latched onto her neck. She couldn’t help the laughter – it tickled!
But a moment later, his teasing stopped as his mouth moved lower, his eyes watching as her nipples tightened. “I love your body, Gabby,” he whispered reverently as his mouth covered that tight peak.
Gabby’s fingers tangled in his short hair and she closed her eyes, accepting that she couldn’t resist Teague. Never had been able to. From the very first moment, he could do this to her.
She’d worry about the consequences of her actions later. Right now, Teague was taking up all of her brainpower and she lifted her arms to bring him back to her, kissing him with all of the desire she was feeling at the moment.
“Roll over,” he commanded.
Gabby opened her eyes and looked up at him. She knew what he was asking and, after a heart-pounding moment, she shook her head. “No. Just…”
He laughed and took her hand. “Gabby, roll over.”
He didn’t wait for her to follow his instructions this time. Instead, he rolled her over onto her stomach. Even when she tried to roll onto her back, he simply straddled her, holding her in place.
“So…you’re not having sex with Toby,” he began even as his fingers pressed into the muscles on her shoulders.
Gabby had known this conversation was coming, but she’d hoped she would be clothed when it happened.
Being naked, especially with his hands on her back like this, she felt vulnerable.
“My sex life is none of your business,” she retorted. But even as she said the words, she knew that they weren’t true.
His strong fingers found an exceptionally tight knot on her shoulder, pressing gently to loosen the tension. “Ah, Gabby, you should know that I’m not going to let you get away with that kind of answer.” His fingers moved to another place, pressing deeply to release the tension. “But actually, you don’t need to answer.”
She turned her head slightly, feeling the soft sheets even as she glared at him. Well, tried to glare. It was hard to give Teague a really good glare when he was doing those magical things with his fingers again. “Why don’t I need to answer?” she asked. She felt her shoulders tensing as she waited for him to reply, but those fingers! Darn it, he knew her too well. Those fingers just…she turned her face into the sheets once again, trying to stifle a moan of pleasure. But she couldn’t. No way. Not with the way he was touching her, pressing against those telltale knots.
“Because I know you.”
She pulled her arms in closer. “Teague, we were together for four days.”
“And four nights,” he corrected, pressing gently against the back of her head.
Biting her lip, she tried…and failed…to not let him know how good his hands felt. “Teague….”
“Shut up, Gabby,” he told her. “Unless you’re going to admit that you’re still in love with me, that you never would have married that ass in Boston and you’ve never even let another man touch you…” he bent lower, his teeth nipping at the shell of her ear, “because I haven’t been with another woman since you either.” He sat up and his fingers pressed into her muscles once again, “then I don’t want to hear it.”
Gabby heard the foil rip and bit down on her lips. She wanted so desperately to feel him inside of her again, but she was afraid to say it. She didn’t want to give him any more power over her body than he already had.
“Stop it, Gabby. It isn’t going to work anyway.” His strong hands lifted her up and she gasped when he entered her from behind. Deeper! So amazingly deep! She gasped, wiggling to adjust to his size, but those strong hands held her secure, gentling her hips, and holding her in place.
“Teague…I need to move,” she gasped, her head bent forward as she tried to follow his commands. She knew that it would be worth it in the end, but…
“Move Gabby,” he ordered even as his own body pulled almost all the way out of hers.
She didn’t like that. Not one bit! Pressing back, she needed him inside of her…and so the dance ensued. Over and over again, they danced, pressing in, pulling back. Gabriella could barely breathe, needing him to…she wanted to…she just needed him to do that thing that he did with his hands or his mouth or his body. Her fingers gripped the sheets, trying hard to pull him in deeper, to find that…
Yes! Just like that! The rhythm, the pounding. But it wasn’t really pounding! Not when it felt so perfectly right!
He pulled her up higher, his strong hands lifting her, shifting her body the way he wanted her to move. When his fingers found that spot, that amazing spot and teased, she exploded, her body convulsing and all she could do was fall back against him, knowing that his strong arms would hold her close, protect her as wave after wave of intense pleasure bombarded her.
A long time later, Gabby stared down into Teague’s green eyes. She wasn’t exactly sure how she’d ended up on top of him, but she couldn’t stop the sappy smile that formed on her features. “I hope you are a good cook,” she began, her fingers teasing the dark hairs on his chest. “Because I’m starving.”
He lifted his head while his hands smoothed up her back. “Wait a minute,” he said as his hand moved back down to stop on the curve of her bottom. “I had to do all the work a few minutes ago and now you’re going to make me cook too? I don’t think this is a very equitable distribution of labor.”
She tilted her head slightly. “I don’t agree with your assessment of who was doing the work,” she said and tugged slightly on the chest hair. He immediately winced and grabbed her hand.
“You don’t want to start something you can’t finish, Gabby,” he warned. A smack of his hand on her bottom accompanied his warning.
Gabriella laughed. “I’m not afraid of you. You’re just a big, ole softy.”
One eyebrow went up with her description and she couldn’t stop the giggle as she lifted her hands, palms up. “No, please don’t prove me wrong again!”
A moment later, he stood up, Gabby in his arms as he carried her to the bathroom. “I can walk, you know,” she told him, but wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Not with those blisters on your feet. Maybe tomorrow, but maybe not.”
With that, he set her down in the bathroom. “Let’s get those bandages off so that you can shower. We’ll put more on afterwards.”
Teague bent down and slowly unraveled the gauze from her feet, cringing when he uncovered all of the blisters. They might have healed somewhat overnight, but they still looked raw and painful. “These are going to hurt for a while,” he told her, knowing from experience. He’d been hiking these mountains since he was a kid, but sometimes, hiking required a bit of a learning curve.
“Okay, shower time,” he said. Once again, he lifted her into the shower.
“Teague, the bottoms of my feet aren’t injured. It’s the edges.”
He adjusted the water temperature even as he held her close to his naked body. “Are you objecting to my ministrations?”
She chuckled at his feigned wounded expression. “I think I am.”
“Tough,” he came right back. “Deal with it.” He then proceeded to pull her into the warm water and wash her thoroughly, including massaging her scalp while he shampooed her hair.
By the time he determined that she was clean enough, Gabby was a quivering mass of need. He then turned around and started to soap himself up, ignoring her. With a whimper, she stared at his broad back for a long moment before she came up with a plan. Payback!
Gabby would have thought that her desire for the man was sated. Not so apparently! She stole the soap and lathered up her hands, ignoring the dark eyebrow raised in challenge.
After soaping him up with her hands, she pushed him under the water to rinse him off. Then, in a startling move, she bent lower and took him into her mouth. She almost laughed at the sound of surprise he made, but she was too focused on pleasuring him.
Fascinated, she enjoyed torturing him as he’d done to her. She felt his fingers tangle in her hair and increased her efforts, knowing that he was about to pull away from her. She wasn’t going to let him do that, even going so far as to hold onto his hips with both of her hands.
“Gabby!” he groaned but she ignored him, her mouth pulling harder, her tongue flicking against the top before her mouth moved all the way down again.
“Gabby!” he almost roared, his hands pulling at her hair to stop her but she wasn’t letting him. In this position, she was stronger than he was. When his climax came, she enjoyed the sounds of pleasure and the tightening of his hands against her head. She almost laughed when he leaned against the rock walls of the shower.
Standing up, she smiled triumphantly as she reached out to shut off the water.
“Oh no you don’t!” he growled.
One moment, she was standing a foot away from him. The next moment, her shoulders were against the rock wall and he had one of her legs thrown over his shoulder as he knelt in front of her while his mouth moved in, teasing her sensitive flesh while one finger, then two, moved into her heat. “Teague!” she gasped, her hands grabbing his shoulders to steady herself.
She should have known that her “payback” wouldn’t work. Not with Teague. He wasn’t one to allow her to get away with anything, although it had been fun to try. Now…she wasn’t so sure she should have ventured down that pathway.
Although he was extremely good at his own form of payback!
Possibly too good!
“Teague, please!” she begged when he pulled back a moment before her body was going to climax.
“Apologize, Gabby.”
She shook her head frantically. “You deserved it! You got me all…” she gasped when his finger flicked against that sensitive nub again, her fingernails digging into the muscles on his shoulders. “Stop!”
“Not stopping,” he teased and pulled her closer despite her efforts to get away from his teasing mouth and hands. “Apologize and I’ll give you what you want.”
“No! You deserved it!”
Another whimper. Another teasing flick and then his tongue moved against her flesh and she almost toppled over in the shower. “Teague!” she screamed. “This isn’t fair!”
He laughed. “All is fair in love and war, Gabby.” Another flick of his tongue and then he sucked against her flesh, making her body arch into his mouth. Her head was pressing against the rock of the shower wall as she tried desperately to either wiggle away from his mouth or press closer so she could find the release her body needed so badly.
“Apologize and I’ll make your body sing, honey.”
“You’re horrible!”
“Apologize for that too,” he laughed.
“You’re a bastard!”
His mouth moved closer, driving her crazier by the moment.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Please!”
She heard his soft, husky laugh but she was trembling too badly to do anything more about it. “Please!” she begged again.
“Since you asked so nicely,” he teased again and moved in, his fingers and his mouth moving against her flesh. It took only seconds before she was splintering apart, her body writhing against him as her climax drove her out of her mind. She wasn’t aware of him catching her against his body, or how he’d shut off the water, wrapping her up into a large, fluffy towel. She was trembling too badly as the aftershocks hit her. All she could do was curl up in his arms as he carried her back to the bedroom. When he sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs, she sighed with happiness, leaning her head against his broad shoulder as her body completely relaxed.
Teague held Gabby against him, feeling the shivers over and over again and smiled. This was his wife, he thought with relish. He couldn’t believe how perfectly she fit in his cabin and in his arms. He’d known it a year ago, but the feeling was just reinforced as she sighed against his neck.
He kissed her head and pulled her closer. This was his woman! Why couldn’t she accept that?
Knowing he had to make her understand, he shifted her slightly. “Are you hungry?”
Gabby smiled as she looked up at him. “Starving!” she sighed.
“Good. I started breakfast earlier while you were lazing away in bed. I’ll just heat things up again.”
She stood up from his lap but then looked at the clothes she’d worn yesterday. “Ugh. I didn’t bring any extra clothes. I thought I’d just get here and…” she stopped. She didn’t want to think about her reason for coming up here. The papers were somewhere around here, but she wasn’t exactly sure where.
“Here,” he said and tossed her a clean tee shirt. “I would give you a pair of my jeans to wear, but I doubt they’d fit you.”
She banished thoughts of the future from her mind. At least for now. She couldn’t handle the emotions bombarding her at the moment. She was happy. She should be ashamed, but she wasn’t for some reason.
“Thanks,” she said and pulled on her underwear, then her jeans and his tee-shirt. It would work for today, she thought. She’d be able to walk down the mountain. She’d just have to go a bit slower this time so she didn’t further damage her feet.
“Eggs, bacon, and biscuits will be ready in about five minutes,” Teague announced and walked out of the bedroom.
Gabby meandered out from the bedroom herself, looking around at the cabin. It was bigger than she’d thought when looking at it from the outside. The main room held the kitchen, a massive stone fireplace, and a sitting area with three couches set up facing the fireplace. The furniture looked cozy and comfortable, but not overly expensive. The dining table was made of rough wood with wood chairs around it. Everything looked like it belonged in a lake house, but there were no roads up this way.
“How did you get all of this furniture up here?” she asked.
He pulled a pan of golden biscuits out of the oven, setting them on the stove. “I work construction. We have tools for things like hauling heavy things from point A to point B.”
He cracked several eggs, letting them sizzle next to the bacon that was almost finished cooking.
“Okay, point made. But still…the trees don’t seem to be far enough apart on the way up here to get a truck or forklift through them.”
He shrugged. “I have my ways,” he told her with a wink. “You just took the most difficult route. There are easier pathways up here.”
She sighed and sat down at the breakfast bar. “That’s the truth.”
He put a warm biscuit on a plate and handed it to her. “Butter this.”
She looked down at the biscuit, her mouth watering. She couldn’t help herself when he handed her the dish with real butter in it. She smothered the biscuit with the butter, closing her eyes as she took her first bite. “Oh, this is good!” she sighed.
Teague served her up scrambled eggs and several pieces of bacon, and sat down next to her with his own plate and two cups of coffee. “I’m glad you’re still the kind of woman who enjoys food.”
They sat and ate breakfast, talking about the cabin, the lake, the mountain, where he liked to hike, and all sorts of things. She relaxed since there wasn’t anything in the conversation that was controversial. She could handle light and fun discussions. She wasn’t ready to confront her reason for being here. A part of her knew that it wasn’t valid any longer. Not after last night.
“Come on,” he urged and took her coffee cup. “Let’s go sit on the dock.”
He moved two of the porch chairs so that they were at the end of the dock and Gabby curled up in the chair, her hands warmed by the coffee cup.
“Okay, talk to me, Gabby,” he encouraged after several minutes of tense silence. “Why did you run away from me a year ago?”
Gabby stared out at the lake, not really seeing anything, just absorbing the serenity. How could she explain? How could she tell him why she’d run away from him, from their marriage?
“We’d only known each other for a few days. Getting married was crazy,” she finally responded.
He looked to be contemplating her words before he moved on. “We weren’t drunk when we went to the wedding chapel, Gabby. You were fully aware of what we’d both decided.”
She nodded her head, conceding that point. “You’re right, but what I think is right at one moment, might not seem all that sane the next.” She paused for a moment. “You make me crazy, Teague. You do something to me that…I just…” she was having trouble trying to explain.
“You lose control around me,” he finally offered up.
“Yes,” she agreed, turning to look at him.
“And Toby doesn’t have the same effect on you.”
“No.” Toby wasn’t the crazy kind of guy. He was staid, stable. “He’s cautious, conservative.”
“And you want that?”
She bit her lip, trying to figure out what she wanted. Several days ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated. But after spending more time with Teague, she wasn’t so sure. “I know that you scare me,” she finally admitted, refusing to look at him. He might see a truth in her eyes that she wasn’t ready to accept.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment and Gabby was relieved, needing a moment to breathe while she accepted that she’d finally admitted why she’d run away so long ago.
They stared at the lake, not looking at each other for a long time. Finally, he took her hand and she felt his warmth, his gentleness. “What can I do to make me less scary to you?”
She laughed softly, shaking her head. “I doubt you would be able to do anything to make yourself less scary. And I wouldn’t want you to change for me.”
His expression didn’t change. “Gabby, I’m not letting you go. You’re my wife. You’re mine.”
She smiled gently, wishing that she could accept his words. She didn’t say anything. Nor did she pull her hand away from his. She needed his touch for some reason. The connection grounded her in ways she hadn’t thought possible.
“I grew up in a trailer park,” she announced, and sat there in silence as she absorbed the fact that she’d actually said those words aloud. When there was no judgment on his side, she realized -looking up at him- that he was waiting for her to continue. “We got our furniture out of the dump, things other people deemed too messed up to be worthwhile any longer.” Gabby stared at the lake, her heart pounding as those words echoed in the silence. She couldn’t believe she’d just told him that! Her secret shame was out there now! How could she have…why had she…!
Teague didn’t look at her as she spoke but his fingers tightened on her hand.
That small gesture…Gabby wasn’t sure why, but it seemed to break the control she had over her emotions. With a shaky sigh, she continued on. “My father left my mother before I was born. She’d conceived before she’d graduated from high school and he just…took off.”
“What did your mother do for a living?”
Gabriella laughed harshly. “She survived. At least, until after I’d graduated from college. That was the happiest day of her life,” she explained, wiping away a tear with her other hand. “She died a year later.”
“What from?”
Gabriella looked in the opposite direction, then back down at her cup of rapidly cooling coffee. “She died of poverty,” she finally whispered. “It started off as the flu. It had been a rough winter and trailers aren’t known for being especially wind-proof. But that winter, the temperatures in Richmond dipped down into the single digits. I was already working for a company up in Boston at the time. I’d called her, worried that she didn’t have enough heat. But I was already living with three other people during that period, sharing the rent to make ends meet, so I couldn’t send her any additional money.” Gabriella remembered that year. She’d been so poor and all of her co-workers would regularly hit the bars for happy hour. She’d declined all invitations, needing to send her mother whatever money possible while still paying her own portion of their rent. “She’d said she was fine. She’d said she was staying with a friend.” Gabriella wiped another tear, unaware that she was clinging to Teague’s hand now. “I’d called her every day and she’d laughed about the cold. Until the day she didn’t answer her phone.”
Teague waited, knowing that this was a hard story to tell but she most likely needed to tell it. “What happened, honey?” he prompted when she continued to stare silently out at the lake.
Gabriella sniffed and wiped her cheeks again. When she looked back out at the lake, she blurted it all out. “I borrowed money from my friends and took the train down that weekend. I found her dead in her trailer. She’d been sick. The flu had turned into pneumonia.” Gabby took a deep, shuddering breath. “She should have gone to the emergency room. But she was too afraid of the judgment.” She looked at Teague. “When you’re poor, everyone judges you. No matter the circumstances, they see the poverty, not the human.”
Teague stood up and lifted her into his arms, sitting back down in the chair with Gabby on his lap. “I’m sorry, honey. That must have been horrible for you, finding your mother like that.”
Gabriella cried on his shoulder, letting all of the pent-up anger flow out of her. She hadn’t told anyone about that story. She’d gone back to Boston later that week, after burying her mother. No one had come to the funeral. It had been Gabriella and the minister, the two of them watching as her mother’s coffin was lowered into the ground.
“It was a long time ago,” she finally answered, lifting her head and staring up into his green eyes. She was daring him…daring him to judge her, to condemn her for her past.
But all she saw in his eyes was tenderness. And understanding. There was no judgment, no revulsion that she’d been so poor or that her mother hadn’t felt comfortable going to a doctor that she couldn’t pay for to get the medicine she needed. That tension inside of her, the fear she hadn’t fully realized she’d been hiding, eased with his look, with his understanding.
“Yeah, but you’ve never told anyone what happened, have you?”
Gabriella took a deep, cleansing breath as she shook her head. “No. You’re the first.”
“You should have talked to someone, honey.”
He was right, but that didn’t make her past any easier. “Anyway,” she said, wanting to move on, “I paid back the funeral home and all of my friends, got a better job making more money, and then…” she looked at him. “Two years after her death, I met you. You were so different from any man I’d ever met.”
His arms tightened around her hips. “That’s a good thing.”
She smiled slightly. “You were crazy. I needed that.”
“You still do. You take life too seriously, love.”
She didn’t reply, not sure that he was right. “Anyway, that’s why I latched onto Toby. He was steady. He’s a member of the elite in Boston. When he walks into a restaurant, people snap to attention.”
Teague understood. “And if he were to walk into a doctor’s office, they would see him immediately.”
Both her mind and her body froze with his words. She hadn’t thought about it in that way before, but he’d hit the target dead on. “His children too,” Gabriella confirmed.
Teague understood. She wanted security. It was a human’s basic need. Survival. She needed to know that her partner could protect her from the world. He finally got it.
“Gabby…,” he was going to tell her that he could provide for her. That they wouldn’t be living in a trailer. Granted, he lived in one when he was on a job, but that was only for convenience.
But she stopped his words, her delicate fingers covering his lips. “Can we just enjoy the day?” she asked him, her violet eyes searching his green ones. “You’re right, I’ve never told that story to anyone and I think I’m emotionally worn out. I don’t think I could handle any other heavy conversation today.”
Teague accepted her request, but with reluctance. He needed to explain to her, to prove that he could keep her safe.
She saw the look in his eyes and smiled tenderly at what he wanted to say to her. “I have enough money in my bank now. I know that I can take care of myself.” She didn’t say the rest, that Toby’s respectability would keep people from judging her. He seemed to understand. Maybe not accept, but he understood.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested. “A slow, easy walk, so that your feet don’t get more torn up.”
She liked that idea. They walked around the lake, and he told her about the various animals he’d seen here in the mountains, the way the trees would bloom in the springtime and the various colors in the fall. When they came back to the cabin, they laughed as they cooked dinner together, which consisted of simple steak and potatoes, again with lots of decadent butter. And when the night fell, he made love to her in front of the fireplace, showing her with actions how he felt about her.
Gabriella curled up against Teague that night, but she had trouble sleeping. Her conscience was bothering her and she wasn’t sure what to do. Should she cling to her need for Toby’s steady position in the world? Or should she grab onto the happiness that Teague could offer her?
As she listened to Teague’s steady breathing, she worked through the financial aspect of life with Teague in her mind. Trying to estimate how much a small house would cost, what the mortgage might be. She added in home owner’s insurance, property taxes, sales taxes…there were so many small amounts that she didn’t know about that could pop up. She wasn’t worried about home maintenance costs. Teague was in construction, after all. She had complete faith that he could fix just about anything in the house. She looked around in the darkness at the cabin. How much of building this house had he done himself?
She smiled, thinking that it might be nice to have a guy who knew how to build stuff. She could have crown molding in all of the rooms, handsome looking shelves, and she had a lot of ideas that she’d seen in the various homes in Boston that he might be able to make. They would have to be on a budget, she thought. That didn’t bother her though. She’d been on a budget her whole life and she’d still managed to get the things she wanted.
“Go to sleep,” Teague mumbled in the early hours of the morning.
Gabriella looked over her shoulder at Teague, wondering how he’d known she was still awake. But his deep, even breathing told her that he’d fallen asleep once again.
He was right though. She needed sleep. She had a big day tomorrow.
Had she made her decision?
Breaking things off with Toby was mandatory. She couldn’t go back to Boston and marry him, not after spending two nights in Teague’s arms. That just wasn’t fair to Toby.
But what was she going to do with the rest of her life?
She rolled over, snuggling closer to Teague, smiling when he pulled her closer, even though she knew that he was still mostly asleep. He might not be able to protect her from the harsh judgments of cruel strangers, but this might compensate. Wasn’t having a man who loved her like Teague did…wasn’t that enough?
She wasn’t sure. And even as her eyes finally drifted closed, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. For the first time in a long time, Gabriella was unsure about her future and that wasn’t something she liked.