Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
S itting against the headboard in their hotel room, Gabe flipped the last page of the purchase agreement for Beach Island. Aunt Pat, Uncle Bobby, and the rest of the board wouldn’t vote to sell, would they? The agreement contained no guarantees about retaining the employees. All of them, from Old Jeff in the ticket booth to that high school kid who’d arrived early every shift to be the first to ride Mystery Mountain, whooping so Gabe could hear him all the way in the executive offices if the window was open, would be out of a job.
Not to mention the patrons. They wouldn’t be Gabe’s responsibility anymore if they sold. He wouldn’t have to worry about anyone falling off because of a poorly maintained harness or hitting their head on a low-hanging branch. That’d be the new owners’ responsibility. But would it? He’d cared about them for so long. Could he stop after it wasn’t his name on the deed?
That was why he’d emailed Brandon, copying the board, to lay out his long list of concerns about the purchase order. It might not be his place, considering he wasn’t really an Armstrong anymore, but he’d done it all the same. He’d worked in the park since he was thirteen. Been the CEO for nine years. They might not let him vote once he revealed what he’d learned, but he had opinions, and he’d expressed them.
The door clicked, and Sunny stepped in, humming “Piano Man.” Her cheeks glowed with more than rouge, and her eyes held a sparkle they hadn’t when she left.
Until she looked at Gabe. The smile that’d been playing on her lips faltered for a moment. She stopped humming. Then her lips lifted, but the spark didn’t return to her eyes. “Hey, I didn’t think you’d be up.”
“I was just reading.” He tossed the papers onto the bedside table. “Did you and Mary have fun?”
“We did. She took me to a piano bar, and I sang a little.”
“Karaoke?”
“Something like that.”
Why did his chest twinge? It wasn’t like karaoke was their thing. As he’d told her, he didn’t sing. She did. And he should’ve loved that she and Mary had fun together. But he and Sunny had so little time left. Was she leaving tomorrow? Or the next day? Definitely by early Thursday. He coveted every minute she had left.
He kicked his feet over the edge of the bed and walked to her. She stood still while he cradled her delicate jaw in his hands. Leaning down, he kissed her lips. She didn’t want him to say the words that burned in his chest, but he’d show her. With his touch, he’d tell her he was grateful for what she’d given him. That he’d grown to care about her. That he wished she’d never leave.
“Let me take care of you tonight,” he murmured against her lips.
She blinked up at him, her eyes glassy, and nodded.
He eased her coat off her shoulders and lay it over the chair, revealing the black dress that hugged her body, the same one she’d worn the night they’d done karaoke. He shut his eyes, remembering the first time he’d taken it off her. They’d been wild that night to get to each other’s skin, to taste, to touch, to relieve the pent-up longing that had built on the long drive. Not tonight. Tonight, he’d savor her. He’d create a memory he could pull out like an old photograph to comfort him on the lonely nights to come.
Gently, he turned her to face the bed. He looped up her long hair, twining it around his fist, and held it against her shoulder. In the lamplight, some strands glowed golden, and others blazed ruby red. He wished he had time to catalog them all. It’d take weeks. Maybe years.
When he kissed her nape, she shivered. Slowly dragging down the zipper of her dress, he placed kisses along each vertebra as it was revealed. When the zipper reached the end of its track just above her thong, he pushed it off her shoulders and supported her as she stepped out of the puddle of fabric. He made her wait, trembling with need, while he picked it up and laid it over the back of the chair with her coat.
She stood in her black bra and purple-striped thong a couple feet from the foot of the bed. This gorgeous woman had chosen to be his. At least for tonight. He wanted to fall to his knees and beg her to stay so he could worship her always, but she would’ve snatched back her dress and left him right then. So, instead, he’d treasure the moments they had left.
Standing between her and the bed, he pulled off his T-shirt and pajama pants, down to his boxer briefs. They didn’t hide how turned on he was, and as he adjusted himself, her gaze arrowed to his barely contained erection. She licked her lips.
He circled around behind her, letting her feel the warmth of his body.
“Gabe—” Her voice was strangled.
“Shh. Shh. I’ve got you.” He started back at her nape and laid a trail of kisses from there along the top of her right shoulder. Lifting her arm so it was perpendicular to her body, he kissed over it, down to the elbow, then to the back of her hand. He kissed each fingernail. Then he circled around and kissed the pad of each finger, her palm, her wrist—she squirmed at that. Then the inside of her arm, the crook of her elbow, with a tiny nip there, up the inside of her arm and across her collarbone, carefully avoiding her breasts. He’d come back to give them the attention they deserved.
He kissed along her other arm, front to back. Then, starting at her shoulder blades, he planted row after row of kisses all the way down to the waistband of her thong. He made the kisses on her buttocks in narrowing circular patterns. She twitched and moaned but let him continue.
Kissing each leg from the curve of her bottom down to each heel, he ended with his cheek pressed against the carpet. Then he circled around to her front and started at her toes.
Maybe she realized it, maybe she didn’t, but he was laying claim to every inch of her body. Even if no one else, including Sunny, knew, Gabe would know that whenever she left, she was going out into the world with the print of his lips on every part of her. It’d be like the time someone had tagged the wooden fence at one side of Beach Island. They’d painted over the graffiti a half-dozen times, but if the sunlight hit it just right, you could still see the old words, a ghostly reminder.
The closed-mouth kisses Gabe placed on the triangle of her thong were promises he’d return. He breathed in the scent of the soaked fabric. Her arousal was a gift, and he’d anoint himself with it later.
He moved up her flat stomach, circling her navel with his tongue. That made her shiver, too. He kissed over her ribs, noting how they heaved with her breath. Finally, he reached behind her to unclasp her bra. It whispered to the floor.
His own arousal gnawed at his control, urging him to hurry, to bury himself inside her and mark her there, too. He observed the sensation, the pleasure that tugged at his gut with a hint of pain, and set it aside. Soon enough, he’d give in to it. Not yet.
His kisses around her breasts turned to nibbles and, at last, full-on licking and sucking. She wobbled, and, finally, he used his hands, banding them around her waist to hold her up. She rubbed her thighs together as he tongued her nipples. He imprinted the scent of her on his brain.
Her breathing coming in pants, she buried her hands in his hair and held him to her. He pulled her nipple into his mouth and flicked the tip with his tongue. When he looked up, her mouth was open on a silent scream. He released her nipple, and when he repeated the action on her other breast, her whole body quivered.
He guided her to the bed, where he arranged her now-pliant body face-down, with her hips at the edge. Rolling down her thong revealed her plump, glistening lips. He kneeled and, spreading her legs with his shoulders, feasted on them and her beckoning clit until she shuddered and froze, crying out this time. He licked her through her orgasm, gently, reassuringly, murmuring, “I’ve got you.” He squeezed his own dick at the base through his shorts to calm it. Later.
“Gabe, I?—”
“What is it, love?”
As soon as the words were out, he wanted to claw them back. His heart pounding, he covered the slip with a playful tap on her ass cheek. “Move up on the bed.” Maybe she’d believe it was only sex talk.
He pulled back the covers and let her crawl inside. Still wearing his briefs, he spooned up behind her, cradling her like the precious gift she was.
“Gabe, I—I want you inside me. Just you.” She didn’t look at him, but she ground back against the ridge in his shorts. “I have an IUD. And I’ve been tested. All clear.”
God, another gift. One he couldn’t accept. “I haven’t been tested since before my ex and I broke up, and we—we didn’t use condoms. I don’t think she…still, I can’t. As much as I want to. Besides.” He rolled to the bedside table and shook the box. “We have one last honeymoon condom.”
“It’s really all right. I trust you, Gabe.”
He kissed her shoulder. “And I trust you. But we’re using the condom.”
He shucked off his underwear and rolled on the latex. They made love face to face, and Gabe held off as long as he could, making sure she had one last orgasm before he came and came, shuddering, above her.
Only later, when he was sure from her long, even breathing that she was asleep, did he whisper the words that’d been tearing at his chest all night.
“I love you, Sunny.”