6
“THEY’D LOCKED THE door and we couldn’t get back inside. The headmaster found us in the morning and let’s just say all the bathrooms on our floor were spotless for the next month.”
Gabe smiled at the image of teenage Megan and Jules getting caught sneaking out of their fancy boarding school on a run for ice cream. “As long as it was just for ice cream.” Damn. He’d been borderline flirting with her the whole conversation. He needed to stop, because whatever this was between them couldn’t go any further. But it was so easy listening to her talk. There was a comfort in her he hadn’t felt in a long time—a comfort he knew he didn’t deserve, no matter how much he found himself wanting it. Every time he thought he should walk away, she’d laugh and draw him back in.
Megan tilted her head, picking up on his barely disguised jealousy. “The first time was for ice cream, but by our senior year we’d discovered the boys’ school.” She gave him a teasing grin, and he could barely tear his eyes away from it.
First he’d been jealous of the guy who’d been forcing his attention on her in the hallway, and now he was jealous of the teenage boys who’d lured her out of her boarding school in the middle of the night. Damn. Megan Sinclair was dangerous. For the first time since his life had been torn apart, he wanted things he had no right to.
An uncomfortable ache accompanied the thought, so he rubbed his hand over his chest. “Shit. It’s after one o’clock,” he said when he caught a glimpse of his watch.
“Really? I didn’t realize it was so late.” She reached for her tiny purse on the table and pulled out her phone.
Neither had he. They’d talked a little about the music he liked to listen to during his workouts, which had led to a brief discussion of movies. They’d found out that they both liked superhero movies, even the cheesy ones. Then he’d asked her how she and Jules knew each other, and even though he hated talking to people, he’d kept asking her questions, wanting her to keep talking. They’d touched on her rooming with Jules in boarding school, then moved on to a brief discussion of her parents, who had retired to Las Vegas a few years ago, and then they’d somehow come full circle to the trouble she’d gotten into.
He usually avoided small talk with the women he dated. Hell, “dated” implied it was something more than sex, which it never was. But with Megan, he wanted to know everything about her, and that scared the hell out of him. He barely knew her, and she was already making him crazy with everything he couldn’t have. How quickly would she get under his skin if they took this further?
“And I’ve missed three texts from Jules,” she said, her eyes wide as her thumbs flew over her phone’s screen, typing out a quick reply.
“Did you ride here with her?” He was surprised that he wanted her to say yes and that Jules had assumed she’d found another way home and left. He imagined taking Megan home and walking her to her door. They’d kiss and she’d lean back against the door, her perfect breasts pressed against his chest. He’d fill his palms with her ass and pull her against him. Then she’d ask him to come inside and he’d say yes, as long as she understood that it was only one night. No-strings sex.
“No, but I don’t want her to worry.” Finished with her text, she put her phone away. “Not that she was. I think Nick kept her occupied.” She laughed and the sound moved down inside him, warming all his cold, hollow places. It sounded stupid, but the longer they talked, the more he felt that dark place deep within him settle down. It wasn’t angry or hurting.
Everything was quiet. And quiet felt good.
“I have to go. I have an early workout tomorrow.” He pushed back from the table, and she straightened.
“On Sunday? Fighters don’t get a day off?”
“Not if they want to win.” But that wasn’t necessarily true. He knew plenty of fighters who took a day off on the weekend to spend time with their families. But he didn’t because both his body and mind craved the exhaustion that came with relentless training.
Her eyebrow rose, and he knew she wanted to comment, but she only said, “I need to go too.” She stepped away from their table, and he followed her.
“Are you in the parking garage?” he asked. When she nodded, he said, “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.” He wasn’t quite ready to give her up for the night. His hand had automatically found her lower back again and he applied gentle pressure to guide her into step beside him. His palm tingled, aching to slide lower. His fingers wanted to curl into the fabric of her dress so he could trace the skin of her thighs, but that could only ever be a fantasy because Megan gave off a good-girl vibe. He’d bet she’d never been tied to her bed, thoroughly enjoying it as a man fucked her senseless. She wouldn’t want the only thing he had to offer. But he couldn’t deny that the thought of corrupting her . . . fuck. It went beyond his wildest fantasies imagining her tied up, blindfolded, shaking, begging, coming undone.
They made their way through the club, the crowd thinner than before, as they headed out. Megan was an attractive woman, so men noticed when she walked by, but they’d see him and look away. And he liked that they thought she was his. He fought the urge to move his hand to her hip and pull her closer as they walked, as if she really belonged to him.
The constant dinging of slot machines in the MGM hotel lobby gave way to easy-listening music in the hallway that led to the garage. He spent half the walk reminding himself of all the reasons he should leave her alone and the other half fighting an erection. She was tense as well. The muscles beneath his palm were tight and she wasn’t even bothering to chat, which he’d noticed she did when she was nervous.
When they reached the garage, she didn’t look at him as she pressed the call button for the elevator. In fact, she seemed to be making an effort not to look at him. When the doors opened, he followed her inside the small elevator, his gaze on her killer legs. They were alone, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that if she were his, he would’ve pushed her up against the wall and run his hands up her thighs, under her skirt. He’d have pinned her arms above her head and dragged his mouth over her neck.
But she wasn’t his. She couldn’t be.
“I’m over here,” she said when they stepped out of the elevator. She led him to a black sedan, and they both stood there for a second staring at the car. He was reluctant to let her go, and she didn’t seem in any hurry to step away.
Finally, she turned to him. “Thanks, Gabe.” Her hand went to his arm, and she leaned in.
A part of his brain realized that she only meant to kiss his cheek. But the other part of him, the part he’d spent all night fighting, had other ideas, and he turned his head and met her lips with his. It was the tiniest brushing of lips, but it was like kindling catching fire. “Sorry.” He pulled back just enough to whisper against her lips. She smelled so damned good.
“Don’t be.” Her nose grazed his cheek.
Touching her was so natural that his arm slipped around her waist and he pulled her close, right where she belonged, and she let out a small sound. That was all it took to shut down the rational part of his brain. He buried his fingers in her hair, tilting her head back for easier access. His mouth closed over hers, deepening the kiss so he could taste her. Her hands went to his shoulders, pulling him closer still as she moaned softly.
He groaned, low and gruff, as his tongue dipped inside her mouth, brushing against hers. She felt perfect in his arms, better than he’d imagined. She fit like she belonged there. He nipped her bottom lip, causing her to make a sexy sound that went straight to his dick. He was two seconds away from forgetting all the reasons he needed to stay away from her and suggesting they go back inside and get a room, when the nearby honk of car lock brought him back to reality.
Fuck. What the hell was he doing? Letting her go as if she’d become the fire, he took a step back. “Megan.” She stared up at him with those wide eyes, glazed and unfocused. It took everything he had not to pull her against him and kiss her until her lips were swollen. But that wasn’t an option. Being with her was shredding his control, and that was dangerous for both of them. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
She pressed her fingertips against her lips. She didn’t reply immediately, and he didn’t give her longer than that. He left her there, probably wondering what had just happened.
Hell if he knew.
“What’s wrong, pumpkin?”
Megan leaned against the counter in her parents’ kitchen, staring down at her phone, but glanced up at her dad’s question.
He tilted his head as he looked at her while tugging on a pair of oven mitts. She realized she’d been glaring at her phone as though she could somehow will it to ring, or vibrate with an incoming text.
“Oh, nothing,” she said, tucking her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. Out in the living room, voices and laughter mingled with the Christmas music floating from the stereo’s speakers.
“Everything okay?” he asked, pulling a tray of mini-quiches from the top rack of the double oven recessed into the wall. The warm air wafted toward her, bringing the scent of turkey and rosemary with it.
She flashed her dad a smile, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah. Just a work thing.” Not exactly true, but the truth was a bit more complicated.
He set the tray down on the cooktop and pulled off the oven mitts. “No work stuff today.” Crossing the distance to where she stood with her hip against the counter, he pulled her in for a hug and kissed her forehead. She took a deep breath, inhaling the comforting scent of his cologne. He pulled back, his warm brown eyes gleaming down at her. “You want a drink? Some wine or some eggnog or something?”
She shook her head, smiling up at him. He looked much younger than his sixty-eight years, his medium-brown skin still relatively smooth. After his hair had gone entirely gray a few years ago, he’d started shaving his head, which also made him look closer to fifty than seventy. He still had the same goatee he’d had since she was born, and even though it was completely white, she couldn’t imagine him shaving it off.
He gave her shoulder a squeeze and moved back across the kitchen, arranging the mini-quiches on a serving platter and making his way back into the living room. She started to reach for her phone again, but stopped herself before she could slip it out of her pocket.
It had been seven days since Gabe had kissed her and shut her brain off while waking up every single nerve ending in her body. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. She went to sleep thinking about it. Woke up thinking about it. Went through her daily routine thinking about it, and every single time she replayed it, her stomach dropped and heat swirled over her skin.
From one kiss.
A part of her couldn’t even believe it had actually happened. She’d known he was attracted to her, but she hadn’t expected him to kiss her. And definitely not like that, like he was suffocating and she was air.
And there went her stomach, the now-familiar heat crawling over her skin, making her ache where she felt most empty. She inhaled sharply, her heart kicking against her ribs as she remembered the feeling of Gabe pressed against her. He’d been hard and had felt thick and long, even through the layers of clothing separating them. If he’d suggested going back into the hotel and getting a room, she would’ve been game. One-night stands and casual sex weren’t exactly in her repertoire, but after that kiss, she’d have followed him just about anywhere. Done just about anything he wanted. She was the woman who couldn’t get out of her own head during sex, and he’d completely silenced her mind with a single kiss.
It was a silence she wanted to chase. Explore. Lean into, real hard.
But he hadn’t taken it beyond the kiss. She didn’t think he was toying with her on purpose, but she felt toyed with nonetheless. A sane woman would’ve been turned off by that. A sane woman would’ve said forget Gabe Maddox and let it go. But Gabe made her crazy, with his intense quiet and sexy broodiness and the way he held himself back despite the fact that he so obviously wanted her. He was frustrating, and intriguing, and sexy, and real. She could honestly say she’d never met anyone quite like him, so instead of letting it go, she’d called him the day after the kiss that had woken her up to the possibility that maybe she wasn’t as damaged as she’d thought. He hadn’t answered, and she’d left him a bumbling voice mail about sitting down for another interview.
It was a bullshit excuse, and maybe it called her journalistic integrity into question, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. He’d planted that kiss on her, and then left her standing in that parking garage too stunned to move.
He hadn’t returned her call. Hadn’t even texted.
She rolled her eyes at her behavior, forcing herself to move away from the counter and into the living room. Gabriel Maddox was the textbook definition of “emotionally unavailable,” and she was probably a fool for letting herself feel anything for him. She knew better. And yet she couldn’t ignore that she did feel something for him. He’d intrigued her from the moment he’d first entered that meeting room at the WFC headquarters, and her fascination had only grown. She’d tried dating guys who were like her—generally happy, talkative, optimistic, easygoing—and none of them had done a damn thing for her. But Gabe, he was dark, quiet, brooding, intense, and something in her craved all of that. She couldn’t even explain it, but it was as though he could fill in her empty spaces, and maybe, just maybe, she could fill in his. Emotionally unavailable or not, she wanted to know him. Wanted to connect with him. Wanted him to want her, the way she did him.
She popped a mini-quiche in her mouth. Basically, she wanted the impossible.
She spent the next hour trying to distract herself, drinking wine and chatting with her aunts and uncles and cousins, and then getting roped into a game of Candy Land with her cousin Gavin’s daughters.
Megan’s mom walked by and gently nudged her arm, tilting her head toward the kitchen. “I can’t believe you guys beat me!” Megan said to Nicole and Tianna with a wink, excusing herself from the game. She followed her mom into the kitchen, noticing the way the sunlight caught the auburn streaks in her light brown hair, a hint of white visible at the roots.
“Can you start peeling some potatoes, honey?” her mom asked, opening the oven to check on the turkey. “I didn’t know your aunt Renee and uncle James were going to come too, and I should probably mash some more.”
“Sure, Mom,” Megan said, bending to retrieve several potatoes from the sack in the pantry. Rummaging through one of the drawers, she located the peeler. She hadn’t grown up in this house, but she knew where everything was. During her treatment, she’d moved in with her parents, wanting both the comfort of home and the moral support of having family around. She hadn’t wanted to go home to an empty apartment after a chemo treatment, or to wake up alone in the middle of the night, when the side effects would inevitably kick in.
Her parents had always been home to her, although she’d been away for both boarding school and then college. But unlike Jules, whose parents had just wanted to get her out of their hair, Megan’s parents had sent her off so she could get the best education possible, and the prestigious boarding school had been her mother’s alma mater. Both Stanford-educated lawyers, her parents had always prized education and learning, and had done everything they could to give Megan ample opportunities.
Her mom sidled up next to her, slicing cheese to go with the crackers she’d arranged on a platter. “Did you hear back from the doctor yet?” she asked, her hazel eyes—identical to Megan’s—filled with concern.
Megan wasn’t sure who the cancer had been harder on—her parents or herself. Telling them she’d been diagnosed had been a tough conversation, and they’d been understandably shaken to learn their only child had cancer. Seeing her go through it had been even worse. But they’d been incredibly supportive, as always, and she knew she was lucky to have them. Not everyone was blessed with such awesome parents.
“No, nothing else. Just that I have to go for some tests, but that it’s only a precaution.” Megan pushed her growing pile of potato skins to the side, making more room on the cutting board.
Her mom nodded. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, it’s okay. It’s just a regular doctor’s appointment. Nothing to worry about.” She wasn’t sure if she was trying to reassure her mom or herself, because even though the tests were merely a precaution, she was worried.
“Okay. But if you change your mind, let me know.” Her mom rinsed her hands and dried them on the towel hanging from the oven door. “So, listen, I was talking with Maryanne, and her son’s going to be in town next week, after New Year’s. Maybe the two of you could meet up for coffee or a drink or something.” Her mom’s eyebrows rose slightly as she studied Megan.
For the past year, her mom had been trying to set her up with a number of her friends’ sons. She’d gone on a handful of blind dates, but none of them had led anywhere. She knew her mom’s heart was in the right place, but she’d just about had her fill of setups for the time being.
“I don’t know, Mom. I’m pretty busy with work right now. Maybe another time,” she said, trying to ease away from the subject gently.
Her mom bit her lip and then nodded. “Okay. I just . . . I’d love for you to find someone, honey. I’m not trying to pressure you, and I certainly don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. It’d just make me happy to see you a bit more settled.”
“I know. Honestly, I’d like that too. But my plate’s pretty full right now.”
Her phone started to buzz from her back pocket, and her heart vaulted into her throat. She hastily wiped her hands on the towel and yanked it free, feeling disappointed then guilty that she was disappointed when she saw Jules’ name on the screen. She shot her mom an apologetic smile, but she waved her away with a don’t worry, it’s fine look on her face.
“Hey, you! Merry Christmas!” Megan said, pacing toward the bay window in the breakfast alcove.
“Hey! Merry Christmas to you too!” Jules’ voice was bright, almost a little breathless.
“How’s Chicago? Cold? I bet it’s cold.”
“Um, yeah. I guess it’s cold.” There was a pause, and she heard Jules take a big breath. “So . . . you were right.”
Megan let out a little laugh. “Naturally. I’m pretty smart. So, what was I right about?”
“Nick proposed last night.”
Megan gasped, pressing the tips of her fingers to her lips as her eyes stung a little. “Oh my God, Jules! That’s amazing!”
“I still can’t fully believe it. I keep staring at the ring.”
“Well, I believe it. He’s totally crazy about you, and you deserve to be happy. So how did he propose? I want every single detail.”
She listened as Jules told her the story, letting the weak sunshine warm her skin. Jules and Nick had both fought hard for what they had, and Megan knew they belonged together. When people who were so clearly perfect for each other found each other, it almost seemed kind of miraculous. Special and rare and precious. A pang of jealousy sank deep, but she pushed it away.
“Megs? You’ll be my maid of honor, right?” asked Jules.
“Of course! Aaaahhhh!” Megan let out a little shriek. “I’m so excited for you! Tell you what, why don’t we have a party when everyone’s back in town? I’ll book a restaurant and you and Nick can invite whoever you want.”
“Aw, thanks, Megs. That sounds great.”
“Did you tell your dad yet?”
“Yeah, I called him this morning.”
“And?” It wasn’t a secret that Craig Darcy wasn’t Nick’s biggest fan.
“He was . . . I guess lukewarm is a good word for it? Not upset, but not exactly jumping up and down either.”
“Well, I’m sure he’ll come around. Maybe he just needs to let it sink in a little.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” A muffled male voice came through the line before Jules spoke again. “Okay, I should go. I just really wanted to call and tell you.”
“I’m glad you did. Congrats, babe.”
They hung up, and Megan looked down at her phone, trying to sort through the weird tangle of emotions knotted together in her chest. Before she could talk herself out of it, she sent the text message she’d been thinking of sending all day.
Merry Christmas, Gabe.
She shoved her phone back in her pocket, feeling annoyed with herself. Stupid. Foolish. If she wanted to find what Jules and Nick had, chasing a guy who was emotionally unavailable wasn’t the way to do it.
So why couldn’t she get him out of her head?