Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“You were amazing tonight. We could go back to my place…”
Oh no, you don’t. I moved in and glued myself to Gabriel’s side, wrapping a possessive hand around his arm.
“Sorry,” I said with a smile aimed at her. She was even prettier up close, dammit. “But he’s with me.”
She looked to Gabriel for confirmation, and I really couldn’t blame her. He’d made no move to back up my claim. Which really pissed me off.
Here I was talking him up and singing his praises to a journalist, practically chasing after him, and he didn’t even have the common decency to put his arm around me and tell her to take a hike?
“Raincheck,” he told her, when what I would have preferred to hear was, I’m already taken, and no other girl could ever entice me to stray.
When Nose Ring Girl finally sauntered away, miffed, Gabriel looked me up and down, taking me in from head to toe without saying a word.
Not so much as a smile or a Thank you for coming or You’re the girl I’ve been waiting for my whole life .
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Okay, so my outfit choice could have been better, and I wasn’t having a good hair day after that blow-dryer incident, but he was being so dismissive that it felt like the first time we met all over again.
So, I, of course, planted my hands on my hips and doubled down. “Are you seriously judging me?” I stabbed my finger at him. “I’ll have you know that this is a very cool T-shirt and I put a lot of time and effort into being here tonight so if you think you can just?—”
“Save it, tiger.” He grabbed my hand and charged to the door, dragging me along with him.
As soon as we got outside, he let go of my hand, set down his guitar and glared at me. Glared.
“I’m with you, huh?” He laughed humorlessly and paced in a small area, each footstep angrier than the next. Like a tiger in a cage . “Funny because I haven’t seen you since that day we went to the Kiev when, once again , you took off and left me hanging.”
“I didn’t?—"
“Are you showing up at all my gigs? Nope. Are we drinking our morning coffee together? Nah. Are you in my bed every night? Hell no .” He spun around and got right in my face. “So kindly tell me how the fuck I’m with you when I haven’t seen or heard from you in six weeks.”
I lifted my chin and crossed my arms over my chest. “Well, I’m here now.”
“Yeah? For how long? In case you need a reminder, we’ve been here before. So are you really here? Or are you going to take off again and make me?—”
“Have you slept with her?” I blurted.
“How is that any of your damn business?” he shot back.
Tonight wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. At all.
While I couldn’t entirely blame him for being angry, I hadn’t expected him to be so overly dramatic.
The least he could have done was give me a simple yes or no instead of answering my question with another question.
“Okay, I get it,” I said with a nod. “I left you hanging, and you’re mad at me. But you know I had a good reas?—”
“No, you don’t get it,” he said. “If you got it, you’d be telling me that you want it to be your business.”
Gabriel took a step closer. I took a step back.
“You’d tell me that you don’t want me to be with any other girl but you.”
Another step forward. Another step back.
“That you can’t stop thinking about me.”
He moved closer and we did this tango until my back hit the wall.
It felt familiar, like we’d been here before. But this time Gabriel was angry and there was obviously something wrong with me because his anger made me giddy. I was practically dancing a jig on the inside, that’s how happy it made me.
If he didn’t care, he would have just walked away.
He caged me in his arms and leaned in, his warm breath skating over my skin. “Are you playing games with my head, Cleo? Are you trying to fuck me up?”
“No.” I reached for him, but he clasped my wrists and pinned them to the wall above my head. Using one hand to hold them firmly in place, he trailed a finger down the side of my neck and over my collarbones, leaving a flurry of goose bumps in its wake.
“Do you know how many nights I’ve dreamt about you?”
I licked my lips, wetting them. Kiss me . “Tell me,” I breathed.
He grasped my chin and tilted my face up to his. “Are you done running?”
“I’m done. I’m not playing games.”
“No?” He kissed the corner of my mouth. The underside of my jaw. The hollow of my throat. Everywhere except my lips.
“Kiss me already,” I gritted out when he continued to tease me.
He laughed, the sound grating against my skin as his mouth hovered at the crook of my neck, just below my ear. “So impatient,” he said, sliding my hair aside and kissing me there. My breathing grew shallow and my stomach fluttered. “Mmm. You smell so good. Like violets and spring rain.”
“Maybe you should write a song about it,” I sassed.
His hands slid down my sides and he gripped my hips, yanking me flush against his body. “I’ve written half a dozen songs about you.”
“Oh?” My brows arched. “Was that ode to the orgasm for me too?”
“The ode to what ?” A laugh burst out of him.
“If you’re referring to ‘Beauty Transcends,’ I wrote that song after a dream.
It’s about spirituality and our never-ending search for meaning and purpose and that connection with something more powerful than us.
But sure, let’s go with that. It’s about sex. ”
I bit my lip. “So are we going to hang out here all night?”
“You have a problem with this wall?” He planted his palms on either side of me like he planned to hold me hostage for the rest of the night. “Because there are plenty of other walls to choose from.” His lips curled into a sexy smile.
I lifted my hand to his cheekbone and brushed my thumb over his full, sensuous lips. I wanted to sink my teeth into them.
He licked my thumb and grasped my hand, lightly biting the inside of my wrist. Shivers ran down my spine.
“I like this wall just fine but…” From the corner of my eye, I watched a few drunk guys stumble out of the bar next door, and suddenly all the sights and sounds of this very public spot encroached on our little love bubble.
Ravers doused in glitter swept past. A taxi careened to a stop, tires screeching.
Music blasted from an open window of a tricked-out Caddy.
And all I wanted to do was grab Gabriel’s hand, run down the street and up five flights of stairs to my place where we could rip each other’s clothes off.
My seduction game wasn’t that strong though, so I cut right to the chase. “Do you want to come home with me or not?”
He pulled back, his eyes narrowing on me like I was trying to trick him. “What about Annika?”
“We’re good now. She moved to Paris last month.”
“Whoa. Annika moved to Paris?” He took a step back and gave me a perplexed look. “ You waited a month ?”
I stepped closer and put my hands on his chest. “I would have come sooner but I wanted to make sure I was ready for this…” I slid my hands up his chest and wrapped them around his neck, because I could. “Ready for you.”
He was quiet for a moment then unwrapped my hands from around his neck and held them. His teeth skimmed over his bottom lip, dark eyes searching mine. “What does that mean, Cleo?”
I cleared my throat and looked down the street toward the park. “It just means I…you know…”
“Stop being a chicken.” He squeezed my hands. “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”
I opened my mouth to speak then closed it again. A lump had formed in my throat and my heart was pounding so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if he could hear it.
This moment was both terrifying and exhilarating. It was my chance to take fate into my own hands and choose him. All or nothing, win or lose. There would be no guarantees, no safety net to catch me if I fell.
But if I didn’t take the risk, I would never know. And I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life running scared and wondering what if. So I took the leap.
“I want to be with you. I don’t want to just dip my toe in the water.
I want to dive right in and submerse myself completely.
I want to drink my morning coffee with you.
Sit in the front seat at all your gigs. Stay up all night talking and laughing and sleep in your bed and dance in the rain with you.
I want to know all your dirty secrets and I want to be the only girl you kiss good night.
I want you to drive your chariot down my street…
” I stopped and took a breath. My pulse was beating in my throat like a hummingbird.
I swallowed and snuck a glance at his face to gauge his reaction. “I mean, if you want that, too.”
He stared at me blankly. As the silence stretched out, my stomach started to churn and my face felt hot. I was tempted to take back every word I’d said.
Until, finally, a slow smile lifted the corners of his mouth and took over his whole face. My heart leapt. “So we’re really doing this.”
My chest loosened and all my fears evaporated. “We’re really doing this.” I smiled so wide my face hurt.
He grabbed his guitar from the sidewalk, took my hand, and we ran . My chunky wood platform soles beat out a staccato rhythm on the concrete, but my heels didn’t slow me down. I felt like I’d grown wings.
We flew. Across the street under the neon lights, around the corner past the moonlit park, down my street and up the stairs. All seventy-two steps from the street to my front door.
When we reached my apartment, we were panting and breathless, and we laughed for no reason other than the sheer joy of being alive.
Inside, I kicked off my heels and Gabriel kicked the door shut, and then we were on each other, hands and mouths groping for more.
Feet stumbling, heart skipping, my fingers twisted into his hair and his hands glided down my back and grabbed my ass, squeezing it in his hands as his lips descended on mine.
A fraction of a kiss. Then another.
I caught the fullest part of his bottom lip between my teeth.
One rough hand gently cupped my jaw and he kissed me. His tongue parted the seam of my lips and swept inside, deepening the kiss.
He tasted like red wine. He tasted like a dream.
“Cleo,” he said, his voice low as his hand twisted in the hem of my T-shirt and he dragged the cotton up my body, fingers brushing my skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake. “Is this okay?”
“Yes. God, yes.” I wanted everything. Right now.
He peeled the T-shirt off and tossed it on the floor then drew back to look at me in the dim light of the hallway.
“Cleo. Cleo. Cleo.” His hand slid around to the nape of my neck and he fisted my hair.
I gasped, a thrill shooting through me when he yanked my head back by the hair and dragged his mouth down the side of my neck, over my collarbone, teeth grazing my nipple as he thumbed the fabric aside and cupped me in his hand. “You’re a work of art.”
I was standing in front of my collaged wall. Song of Songs . The erotic poetry and sexy pomegranates and lacy veils and moody blues.
If I could speak, I would tell him, It’s you. It’s you. It’s you. The one I’ve been waiting for all my life.
I would tell him that I made this collage after I found his notebook in the park and that even before we’d ever met, he inspired my art in the same way I inspired his music, and that it made me feel like we belonged together, like our souls were tethered.
But his dexterous fingers unclasped my bra with one hand and he slid a finger over the slope of my shoulder and dragged the strap down my arm and then the other, and I was temporarily at a loss for words.
With every touch, every brush of his lips on my skin, every lingering glance, my body felt electrified, buzzing with energy and lit up from within like a switch had been flipped on.
I couldn’t believe this was finally happening.