Chapter 15
She was too beautiful, Gabe thought. It seemed some great cosmic mix-up he even got to look at her. Acres of pale skin he wanted to bare completely and taste, and he in no way deserved any of that.
But he’d take it.
Then there was this ridiculous bed, with gingerbread-man-printed sheets. A mix of the ridiculous and the practical, which seemed so very her it just about hurt. He didn’t understand her, didn’t want to, but something about her caused this horrible ache inside of him he couldn’t trust.
But he was here. In this pullout couch bed because she slept in the living room, so her kid could have his own room. It was a kind of sacrifice he’d stopped thinking existed. Not outside of war and famine anyway.
It swamped him with such feeling he was almost afraid to touch her, to move forward. She didn’t know what she was doing, dirtying herself with him.
“Oh, let me go get the condoms.” She blushed just saying the word, but she shook her hair back, sailing toward the dark little hallway. “You should be naked when I get back,” she said firmly, an order.
He wasn’t big on taking orders, but he had no problem with naked. No problem ignoring all the shit in his head and focusing on what they were doing. Sex. Naked together. The rest didn’t matter. He could self-flagellate all he wanted tomorrow, but first he was going to get something out of it.
He pushed off his boxers and slid onto her bed. There was a gingerbread man smiling up at him from the sheets, its creepy gumdrop eyes and grotesquely smiling, frosting-painted mouth repeating over and over in pattern.
“You’re going to be scarred for life, buddy,” he muttered, trying to focus on something that wasn’t the sheets. But everywhere he looked, Christmas paraphernalia glowed or smiled or downright creeped him out.
It wasn’t nerves. He had sex. Maybe not, you know, a lot, and maybe not with women who were most decidedly in his life, but this was still temporary. A scratching of itches that would have no bearing on the future.
He wasn’t sure he really believed that, but he wanted Monica enough to pretend for the time being.
She returned to the living room and placed the condom on the end table next to the couch. She still had her underwear on, but she’d pulled her hair out of its band and the flyaway strands of blond somehow made her look younger, more…innocent.
Gabe couldn’t say he cared for that. The reminder she hadn’t been with anyone since her husband, that this might be important even if she didn’t want it to be. That they might be only a few years apart in age, but they were ages apart in experience and cynicism and—
“Do they hurt?” she asked, hovering there, studying his body. Not the kind of excited perusal he would have welcomed, but the careful, concerned study of the web of scars over his body. A few lines on his leg and hip, a web of marks on his shoulder, including the burns he’d sustained from the grenade blast that had exploded behind him.
He tried not to tense, worked on looking almost bored and relaxed lying naked on her gingerbread man sheets. “The scars themselves? Not so much these days.”
He shrugged, trying not to let irritation simmer through him. “Sometimes they ache a bit. Winter seems to make that more the case, but it’s bearable.”
She nodded, then looked at him solemnly. “I should probably be very, very gentle with you,” she said, and he might have fallen for that serious tone if her mouth hadn’t curved up at the end.
He grinned and crossed his arms behind his head. “Oh, baby, I was a Navy SEAL. We don’t do gentle.”
She laughed as he’d hoped she would. Then she bit her lip and reached behind her. Her bra went slack, then she let it fall to the ground.
She was…perfect somehow. More perfect than he could have imagined in his most detailed fantasies. It was so close to too much, but he was selfish enough not to care what he deserved and what he didn’t.
“It’s amazing how fantasy never quite measures up to real life,” he murmured, content for these few humming seconds to just watch her. To let it ratchet the anticipation higher and higher till it was almost painful.
He didn’t mind pain, not when it came in the most beautiful of packages.
She laughed, just the slightest hint of nerves edging it, so he got to his knees, drawing her closer to the edge of the bed. He ignored the sharp stab of pain in his hip and pressed a kiss to her chest, between her breasts, then her belly, slowly edging her panties down her legs.
She was impossibly soft, impossibly sweet. Every time she sucked in a shallow breath or let it shakily out, that tight edge of desire scraped sharper, and still he was slow, patient, careful. He moved his calloused hands over her hips, her thighs. He soaked up that rough against smooth slide until his body felt as though it was throbbing from the inside out.
Then in a smooth move he’d pat himself on the back for later, he flipped her onto her back on the bed.
She let out a surprised squeak, and then a laugh. “Is that a special Navy SEAL sex move?”
“Of course.” Positioned on his side, he enjoyed a few seconds of just taking her in. Long and lean, and he barely even noticed she was sprawled out on a gingerbread-man-printed nightmare. He leaned down and kissed the tip of her tightened nipple and she squeaked again, so he licked, sucked, lost himself there in the sweet softness of her breasts until she was panting his name.
Then he moved lower, tasting and nibbling down her torso, carefully maneuvering her until he’d positioned himself between her legs, tasting the sweet velvet of her thighs.
She gave his shoulders a little push. “O-oh, no. No, you-you can’t.”
He glanced up, raised an eyebrow at her. “Why not?”
“B-because. Because. Because.” She gave his shoulders another ineffective shrug. “I cannot speak coherently when you are… You’re…”
“Who asked you to speak coherently?” He kissed higher on her thigh, letting his breath trail over the center of her as he moved to the other leg. “You don’t like it?”
She let out a sound he thought was maybe supposed to be a laugh, and the thing was he wasn’t the one holding her legs open. He certainly wasn’t the one shaking and watching him with intense, wide eyes.
“W-we have to look each other in the eye after this is all over. I can’t… You’ll…”
He grinned up at her over that gorgeous body. “If you think this will make you incapable of looking me in the eye, we probably shouldn’t have sex.”
“Oh God, we have to have sex.”
He laughed at that, then went ahead and tasted her. She nearly jolted off the bed.
“Want me to stop?” he asked, looping his arms around her thighs to keep her on the bed. There was the longest pause, and when she finally answered, it was on a whisper.
“No.”
* * *
She couldn’t quite admit to him that no one had ever…well. She’d been so young and naive when she’d been married, and this had always seemed too…intimate. She hadn’t had years with Dex to get beyond that either.
In retrospect, that was stupid. But that was retrospect, and now she was thirty years old, and this could quite possibly be the last time she had sex ever. She’d experience it. Enjoy it. Savor it.
“Eep.” If she could stop squeaking every time his tongue touched her. But it was like electricity. A shock that jolted, but only pleasure was left after. A pleasure that seemed to wave bigger and bigger as Gabe’s mouth explored her.
She squirmed, unable to stop herself, but Gabe held her firm and still and she had to grab on to the sheets to stop from…something. Something.
“Gabe…”
But he didn’t stop. If anything, he only focused harder until that last wave seemed to break, a spiraling crash of a million sensations she could only let roll over her, a perfect kind of drowning.
“Okay,” she managed, her voice a scratchy thing as she tried to stop panting. “This time I am going to definitely and without reservation say wow.”
He laughed, dragging the sound and feel of it against her body as he moved up until she was completely covered by six-foot-a-lot of former Navy SEAL. She sighed happily, winding her arms around him.
He nuzzled into her neck, as though content to simply lie there as her heartbeat and breathing slowly came back to normal. She could tell certain parts of him were not content, were hard against her, and yet he made no move for himself.
She trailed her fingers over the soft bristle of his short hair, down the surprisingly smooth skin of his neck, to the scarred shoulder.
She traced the outline of a tattoo that must have predated his scars. “It’s a bird,” she murmured, angling her head to get a better look.
“Mm.”
“What’s it mean?”
“That I sailed a lot,” he said, his voice muffled against her neck.
“Really?”
“More or less.”
“But why not an anchor or rope or some other such thing? A boat? One of those captain wheel things?” She traced the outline of the bird, the slash of a scar through its wing and a blotch of pale skin as though part of the tattoo had simply been burned off.
The idea made her gut clench. Even knowing about the accident that Gabe had been a part of, seeing it marked across his body when they were naked together was something completely different.
“I might have been a sailor, but I like the idea of being free to fly wherever.” His hand slid down her side, slow and gentle, a sensuous glide at odds with the way those words seemed so emotionally honest it took her breath away.
“Gabe,” she whispered.
“Hmm?”
“Get the condom.”
The expediency with which he followed that order was truly something to behold. He had the package open and the latex rolled on before she could scarcely blink.
Then he simply paused, hovering over her. This beautiful specimen of a man. Muscles and scars and that wicked mouth. It might all have been enough. If she’d been desperate and wanting to experience something she’d denied herself for a decade, she might have seen him in a bar and needed only that smile, that body. Maybe it was possible to want this when only looks were involved.
But the feeling inside of her, the need inside of her, was tied up in Gabe’s big heart. That was what made it possible to give this piece of herself to him, to take a piece from him. The muscles certainly didn’t hurt. The way he looked at her like she was some precious gift didn’t hurt at all. But it was the whole—the attraction and the heart.
It was in this moment, more than the rest, that she knew things were going to be so much trickier than she’d given them credit for. She didn’t know anything about sex without love, but she didn’t think it felt like this. Like her chest would burst with anticipation and it would be worth it. Like she wanted to live in the moment forever, just him naked and hovering over her. Beautiful and sweet.
Too many emotions swirled around her—new feelings and old familiar ones she was afraid to give any room to. Too many worries and too much confusion lived in those old feelings showing up here and now. Because there was no part of her that wanted to stop. No retreat. She wanted him and this more than she wanted or was able to listen to any reasonable thought in her head.
“You okay?” he asked gruffly, positioned there between her thighs, gorgeous and more than ready.
“I’m amazing. And very much enjoying the view.” Her voice was scratchy, and maybe her somewhat-teary eyes gave her away, but he acted as though he didn’t notice.
He grinned. “The view from here isn’t so bad either.”
She reached out and touched his face. It was supposed to be sex. It was supposed to be simply about attraction and acting upon it, and yet even with a new blaze of fiery passion igniting inside of her, she touched him with all the gentleness inside of her. All the sweetness.
So much about Gabe was hard and sharp, and she wondered if he had any gentleness in his life at all. She wanted to be the source of it. All of it. Selfishly, she wanted to be the only one who gave him that.
She traced his jaw with her fingers, and he leaned forward, into the contact. His palms were planted next to her shoulders, and he held himself above her, but his eyelids fluttered closed as she continued to trace the lines of his face. She sighed over the prickly scrape of his whiskers against the pads of her fingers.
He lowered his mouth to her shoulder, pressing a kiss there. Unbearably sweet. But with that unbearably sweet motion, he positioned himself at her entrance, slowly nudging inside.
She’d forgotten what this felt like. The slow invasion of someone else becoming a part of her. That feeling of being full and connected, physically and more. The way it ignited sparks of pleasure and desire. She had forgotten all that, and even as it swept over her, as he swept over her, she couldn’t remember what sex had ever been like before.
There was only this. There was only Gabe. He was all that existed—in this room, around her, inside her.
She simply let herself go. She didn’t worry about control or what he was feeling, she just let herself be a part of it. The sweet, slick slide of desire. The giddy pride over being the source of his ragged breath against her skin. The way the pleasure and the need for release could coil deep inside of her again, almost sharper and harder this time because he was so deep inside of her.
Each stroke was a slow, agonizing glimpse of what she was after. That edge, that fall, all the release that awaited her after this buildup.
She whispered his name against his mouth before kissing him softly, and it broke something inside of him. His kiss became fierce. Teeth and growls. His grip on her hip was now an iron-hard band that might leave marks.
And she loved it. Reveled in it. Wanted more of this rough, untethered side of him.
“More,” she urged. She deserved so much more. She deserved it all, every which way she could get it. She’d been alone so long, and now she wasn’t. Maybe this was temporary, but she would take every last second and everything she wanted out of it.
“More. More.”
On the third more, she found herself being maneuvered, somehow flipped over and splayed on top of him. She blinked at his chest, shocked beyond words he was still deep inside of her.
“You want more,” he said, his voice and its dark, dangerous edge. “Take more.”
It took a few seconds to truly have those words penetrate. To understand what he meant. What he was offering.
Gabe fancied himself something of a broken, selfish man, but he was none of those things. Even in this temporary get-it-out-of-our-systems moment, he was offering what she wanted. She needed. He would enjoy it too, but it wasn’t the same as just going after whatever he wanted.
She placed her palms on his chest and moved into a sitting position. His eyes glittered, and his hands came to her hips, clamping there again. She moved her body forward, and he hissed out a breath.
She was affecting him, torturing him maybe, and there was such an amazing power in that. It gave her a patience she didn’t know she was capable of—and maybe she only had it because he employed it on her. She’d absorbed his ability to draw out a moment until it nearly hurt, until you thought you would break.
And then you did.
She moved slow, so slow she nearly hated herself, but every time he gasped, as his breath went from shallow to panting, something new and brighter sparkled to life inside of her.
“Monica,” he murmured, hushed and holy, like a prayer. Then he mumbled something that sounded like a please. It crackled through her like lightning. Like power.
She leaned forward, breasts brushing his chest, mouth going to his ear. “Are you begging me?” she whispered.
He laughed so dark and edgy, it sent a shudder of anticipation through her. The kind of shudder that felt almost like fear, except she was too excited, too far gone to ever be afraid.
“Baby, I never beg.” He held her hips hard and tight, moving himself slow and deep inside of her. “But you might be a first,” he said on a loud exhale.
The power, no matter how much of a lie it might have been, coursed through her at his words. Almost as if he’d known it would eradicate all the patience she’d been using.
She moved against him, faster and faster, chasing her own pleasure as though it were the answer to all of life’s problems. When the orgasm rushed over her, hard and shuddering, she barely noticed Gabe’s fingers digging tighter into her hips as he arched up into her, growling low and feral.
She collapsed forward on the wide, hard expanse of his chest. Remembering the way he’d covered her before, she attempted to do the same to him. She stretched out and then pressed her nose into his neck and kissed the underside of his jaw.
“I guess it’s my turn to say wow,” he offered, his hand gently brushing up and down her back.
She managed to chuckle. “You damn well better.”
She wanted to lie here for possibly ever. Happily sated and warm and in Gabe’s arms. On top of him as if she had bested him in some way. No, she didn’t want to leave this place.
But he was probably uncomfortable and maybe she shouldn’t be a needy post-sex cuddler. She didn’t know what casual sex was like. As the lingering edge of her orgasm began to wear off, anxiety crept in. They did have to spend a lot of their future lives dealing with each other, and she didn’t want to be the silly, desperate-for-more-of-him woman.
But as she made a move to get off of him, his arms only tightened around her so that she couldn’t move.
Her body immediately relaxed. It wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last. But for right now, in this moment, he wanted her there, and she wanted to be there. She was going to let that be comfort enough.