Chapter 26 - Bridget #2
“Bene. Very good. This is where you would run away,” he said with a lopsided smile. “You could hit me in the groin first.”
I caught my breath. “Can we try again?”
“Si,” Gabriel said after a miniscule pause. “It is important to practice.”
We reversed positions, his weight solid and warm above me. My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. “Ready?” I asked.
He nodded.
I bucked my hips, hard and fast, until I could roll him over again. This time, I let my weight fall forward until I pressed my body to his. I could feel his heart pounding beneath me. His pupils blew wide, and I realized my scent was probably going haywire, but I didn’t care.
“Again?” I asked.
“Certo.” He spun me back over, fast enough that I lost my breath. He was right above me, closer than before, his lips inches from mine before he pushed back up onto his haunches. I nearly moaned at the friction the motion caused.
My eyes flicked down. Was he hard? Surely not. If he was, it was just because of my scent. Right?
Without warning, I bucked my hips harder than ever. Gabriel grunted in surprise, and I pressed my advantage until he was beneath me again. I crawled until I straddled his hips. I sat back, feeling his length against me, unmistakably hard and hot.
“Carissima,” he said, almost a groan. “This is not good self-defense.”
“It’s not?” I asked with faux innocence.
“No,” he said. “I told you, you should run.” His eyes burned into mine, no longer full of humor. I needed to take a breath.
And then suddenly his hands were gripping my hips, and he was grinding me against him.
I cried out and let my hands drop to his shoulders. I rolled against him, mindlessly seeking friction, and his fingertips dug into my ass.
“Cazzo, carissima,” he groaned. “Your scent.”
I should have been ashamed to use my scent’s effect on him this way, but I seemed to have lost my shame along with my mind. I could feel myself getting wet, just as I had the other night, but I needed more.
I wanted to kiss Gabriel, wanted to taste him. I wanted.
As if he could read my mind, he rolled us again, so he hovered above me, his eyes on my lips. He rocked against me, stoking my desire. “Stop me, mi fiore, if you do not want this.”
I surged up to kiss him. Our lips met, too hard, but I didn’t care. The relief that coursed through me felt like a revelation. He wrapped his hand firmly around the base of my skull and moved his lips against mine.
It wasn’t my first kiss. I had kissed a boy once before, when I was sixteen, at a party my fathers dragged me to.
He’d been on the catering staff and had found me hiding in the garden.
He was kind and sat with me for an hour, joking about the other guests.
When he’d leaned in, I’d seized the opportunity for a normal teen interaction.
That kiss had been short and sweet, almost chaste.
This kiss was not.
Gabriel’s tongue teased against the seam of my lips, and I opened for him eagerly.
He swept in, his tongue as hot and insistent as his length pressing between my thighs.
I kissed him back eagerly, inexpertly, but my self-consciousness faded fast. I sucked on his tongue and was rewarded with another groan, another buck of his hips against mine.
“Cosí dolce, come il miele,” he murmured against my lips. “Mi hai fatto ardere il cuore.”
I had no idea what it meant, but I didn’t need to understand his words to understand their meaning. He kissed me again, nipping at my lips, and I felt like I was going to combust. My skin felt too tight to contain me.
“Gabriel, please,” I said, and I didn’t recognize my own voice. I couldn’t catch my breath. It was so hot in that tiny room.
He looked down at me, and a bit of the haze left his eyes. “Oh, carissima,” he said. “We need to be home.”
Home. What even was home anymore? The apartment? At the thought of what and who awaited me at their apartment, I felt another rush of heat. Andrew. Nathan.
Was I whining?
Gabriel kissed me once more, hard and fierce, then rolled off me. I keened at the loss of his weight, but he picked me up swiftly, one hand under my back, the other under my knees, like I weighed nothing. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my forehead to the damp skin of his neck.
He swept me down the hall, back through the door of the apartment. I kept my eyes closed, breathing in his scent like that could stop the world from spinning. A cramp had started at the base of my stomach that reverberated with each step.
The door slammed closed behind us.
“What is going on?” Nathan asked, sounding angry. “What did you do to her? Is she injured?”
The sound of his voice set off a pulse of cramps low in my stomach. “Nathan?”
Nathan’s scent grew stronger. I opened my eyes briefly. He looked as angry as he sounded. “I’m here,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“She is…” Gabriel groaned as I nuzzled into his neck. “She is in heat, or close to it. Perhaps a spike.”
Heat spike. The analytical part of my mind, distant and locked behind a hazy curtain of lust, concurred.
I was flushed, cramping, and felt like my skin was going to burn off.
It tallied with the symptoms the doctors at the Center had enumerated, even if I’d never been unfortunate enough to experience one.
The world tilted as Gabriel placed me on the bed in the guest room. I kept my eyes closed as the room spun, my head lolling slightly on the pillow.
“What do we do?” Nathan asked, his voice clipped.
Gabriel brushed strands of hair from my forehead, damp with sweat. “She needs an Alpha.”