Chapter 23 #2
I turn and race toward my garage. There’s a quiet-down room toward the back. I need my candy stash and to be alone, now more than ever. I’ve just cleared the doorway when the first crack of thunder shakes the metal building. A hand grabs me, and I’m shoved against the wall.
“What the fuck was that?” Gabe roars in my face, and he looks pissed. No, he’s furious with me.
“What?” I can’t for the life of me figure out what would garner this kind of anger from him. He’s here to protect me from a psychopath, not my own bad decisions, and to be honest, if someone can shoot me at the speed I was driving, then they deserve to win the fight.
“Are you serious?” his voice is eerily calm and quiet.
“Yes.”
“You could have fucking killed yourself out there,” he snarls. “Are you crazy?”
“No?”
“Was that a question?”
“To be honest, I have no idea,” I answer as calmly as I can, because really, I have no idea.
I was stupid; I know, but no one got hurt.
I pull in a deep breath before pushing it out.
I feel no less frustrated with my life than I was before I hit the track and Gabe isn’t helping.
“I’m fine. Nothing happened. It was stupid to drive like that, but I’m fine, and so is everyone else.
Now I have to take shelter until the lightning passes, so I’m going to do it in my down room. ”
He just watches me for a bit before something seems to snap inside him, and he mutters, “Fuck it.”
“What?”
“You already hate me,” he says, catching me off guard.
“I don’t hate you.”
“So it won’t matter if I fuck you now. You can go back to hating me after.
” He grabs me, moving quick as a cat, and wraps my legs around his waist before crushing his mouth against mine.
I can feel the steely length of him press against the apex of my thighs, and I can’t help but arch into him to feel his heat and hardness where I need him most.
As he kisses me, he trails his hands up and down my sides, lightly grazing the curve of my breasts. His touch heats me from the inside out as I quickly catch fire.
I press my palms to the sides of his face to deepen the kiss and take control, but he’s not having it.
Instead, he looks in my eyes, holding me prisoner as he wraps a strong hand delicately around each of my wrists and lowers them to hold both together in one of his large hands.
He looks to the side—what for, I have no idea.
Or at least I don’t until I see him grab a length of tow rope from on top of a workbench.
He wraps the end around one wrist and then the other, linking them together in front of me.
I gasp as his intentions become wildly clear.
He raises my arms over my head and loops the rope to a helmet hook on the wall.
It’s just high enough that when he unwraps my legs from his waist, I have to stretch up on my tippy toes, though not enough that it’s terribly uncomfortable.
But I’m helpless to do anything other than watch as he dips his finger under the hem of my tank to glide over my belly as he lifts it higher and higher until it rests just above my breasts.
My sports bra zips up the front, and I hold my breath while he pinches the tiny metal pull between his thumb and index finger. He slowly tugs it down until the material parts, exposing my breasts to his view and the cool air conditioning of the room.
He lightly trails the back of his hand over my breasts and down my belly, where he unties the arms of my fire-retardant suit from around my waist. He dips his hand into the front of my shorts underneath and parts me immediately.
My face flushes at the thought of what I know he finds there—me wet and wanting. I squirm on my toes to try to take what I want, what I need. But it’s no use.
He pushes down on the heel of my boot with his, and when I pick my leg up, the boot drops to the floor.
He moves to the second one and does the same.
Gabe pushes my suit and my shorts to the floor, and I step out of them, leaving me bare from the waist down.
Only my shirt and bra remain on, but even that is in the loosest sense possible.
He takes a step back, and I watch with rapt attention as he stares at me.
Taking me in. His heated gaze touches on every inch of me, every nuance that is exposed to him, and then he unbuckles his belt and lowers his zipper.
His hard cock springs free, and I know he wants me with the same intensity that I want him. Maybe even more.
Gabe grabs me by my outer thighs and swings me up so that I’m open to him. Between the way my arms are pinned to the wall above me and the way he holds my legs, he has me anchored to him, for him. I’m his to do with as he pleases, and it’s both frightening and exhilarating.
“I shouldn’t want you,” he says, sounding a little bit wild as he notches the very tip of him to my opening, and then he drives in all the way to his very root, making me gasp. “But I can’t stay away.”
“Don’t.”
He pounds into me, harder and faster than he normally does. This is as rough as it will be quick.
“I can’t stay away,” he admits, and his confession sounds like it’s being torn from his chest.
“I don’t want you to,” I pant as he possesses me, and the pads of his fingers dig into my thighs as he plunges into me again and again.
He takes my mouth and licks in. He overwhelms me with his mouth, his body. His scent is in my nose, and he surrounds me completely.
I grip the rope that binds me. I need something to hold onto or I might just splinter apart, and if that happens, there will be nothing that can put me back together again.
Like always, Gabe gets his way, even when that’s to destroy me in the very best of ways. I rip my mouth from his and arch my body back as I come.
He drives into me one last time and then follows me over the edge.
Once again, in the moment immediately after, it’s like he becomes a completely different person. One who wants absolutely nothing at all to do with me, and I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t hurt.
“Fuck,” he bites out as he pulls free from my body, setting me back on my toes. He tucks himself back into his pants and quickly unhooks the rope from the hook on the wall, unwinding it from around my wrists.
I wiggle my fingers as blood flows back into my hands. It burns, but the way Gabe is freaking out right now, I don’t want to draw attention to my own discomfort.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I never should have touched you.”
“Gabe—” I start, but the sound of his name on my lips makes him flinch.
“I have to go. I won’t touch you again,” he murmurs before he turns on his heel and walks away, leaving me feeling like there’s an air of finality to it all.
Eli pokes his head in about thirty minutes later to drive me home. Thankfully, I’m cleaned up and back in my clothes when he does.
When we leave the track, Gabe is nowhere to be found. I figure I’ll see him later that night. He always comes to me at night.
Only he doesn’t come to me. In fact, he doesn’t even come to the house. Eli sleeps on the sofa downstairs.
I had wanted out of this toxic cycle so badly, and now that he’s gone, I feel despondent. Even though I denied it all along, I hoped he would fall for me like I had fallen for him.
I guess some dreams just don’t come true.