Chapter 18
The rest of the day took approximately ten thousand years to pass. Emmy kept her head down, spinning with happiness over both
what Alice had told her about the promotion and the idea of seeing Gabe after work. The emotions were nearly too big to handle—not
to mention complicated, because she wasn’t sure how one would affect the other. She and Gabe definitely needed to talk.
He texted her his address when she asked for it at lunch. She had thought to suggest they ditch the rest of the day and head
over right then, but she managed to behave herself. He asked her to come over around 6:30, and it took every ounce of her
willpower to make it through the day.
She’d never been to his apartment before, but the North Park building looked much like hers: a boxy stone-and-glass structure
lined with palms and hedges. She buzzed at the building entrance and all but ran up the stairs to his second-floor front door
when he let her in.
Gabe opened his door, and Emmy had hardly crossed the threshold before he pulled her into a kiss. She immediately surrendered
to it, burning to her fingertips with desire for him. He lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around him. The entryway wall
was suddenly at her back and his mouth moving in a fevered desperation against hers.
“I thought I was coming over to talk,” she managed to mutter.
He kept kissing her like he couldn’t get enough.
Like he might die if he didn’t steal all the oxygen in her lungs for himself.
He bit at her bottom lip and sucked on it, grazing her with his teeth and swiping his tongue.
One of his arms braced under her thighs and the other hand tangled in her hair.
She could feel his desire for her already rock hard pressing into the warm space between her legs.
Just as desperate for him, she tilted her hips, grinding against him as much as she could.
He groaned a coarse, aching sound into her mouth. “Bed, and then talk?”
“Yes,” she agreed, completely ravenous.
He carried her to his room, Emmy peeling and discarding clothes along the way. She missed any view of his apartment because
of the pure inability to pry her lips from his. When he laid her on his bed, she bounced and felt his hands urgently at her
jeans’ button. They were both nearly frantic with need.
“I’ve been thinking of being in your bed all day,” she said, and helped him shove down her pants.
“I’ve been thinking of you in my bed since we met.”
She briefly paused at his confession, and judging by the consumed, hungry look on his face while he removed his pants and
shirt, she got the sense he wasn’t aware he’d made it.
The gentle caressing and exploring they’d done in their hotel was markedly absent. Now they clawed at each other, all hands
and teeth and raw ache to reunite their bodies. Gabe retrieved a condom from his nightstand and wasted no time climbing on
top of her where she waited with her legs spread. Her body greedily welcomed his when he pushed inside.
The only sounds were their labored breathing and Gabe softly rasping missed you as he worked his way in deep, stroking at an intentional pace that both drove Emmy wild and allowed her to gradually take
all of him.
Soon they were moving together as one in a rapid rhythm that had Emmy spinning all over again. She’d nearly memorized his
body in Mexico, but somehow, everything felt different back here in the real world. In his bed with his home all around her,
his soft sheets under her bare skin, the orangey-amber scent so close.
It was new and real, and it was perfect.
“Perfect,” she murmured on a raspy exhale without even realizing it.
Gabe lifted his head at the sound of her voice. He looked down at her, pupils blown out, and darkly grinned. “Yeah. Perfect,”
he panted between strokes. And then he got a look on his face like he’d accepted a challenge to make it even better. “Hold
on, baby,” he growled.
Emmy drunkenly smiled and logged another personal fact about him.
Gabe Olson: always one-upping everyone, even himself.
He swept his hand down Emmy’s leg, leaving a flaming tingle in his wake, and grabbed her ankle. He hooked her foot over his
shoulder and began drilling into her at a frenzied pace that had her gasping and her vision narrowing to a sparkling tunnel.
She spiraled and spun. She tasted the stars. Her orgasm hit her like a line drive, and she came with a cry, the pounding pulse
ripping through her and leaving her shredded.
As her legs trembled, Gabe slowed his strokes and straightened up over her, pausing to let her catch her breath and tenderly
kissing her ankle. “You feel so good, Emmy. So fucking good.” He squeezed her leg to his chest and gazed down at her like
he’d won the greatest prize in the world.
Then he pulled out and flipped her over.
He grabbed her hips and yanked her toward him onto her knees only to sink back in and hit a spot so deep inside her that her
climax gripped her all over again like it had never let go and refused to do so now. She came again in shuddering waves, nearly
screaming into his pillow as he moved behind her, pushing her on and on, deeper and deeper into a blackout bliss until he
joined her there, calling out her name and a flurry of swear words before he collapsed on top of her.
They lay still, hearts pounding and lungs heaving.
The air crackled around them as it cooled and stilled.
Gabe eventually lifted himself off her, the slick slab of his abs leaving her back damp with sweat, and rolled beside her.
He turned on his back and inhaled a large breath as he pulled the sheet up over them.
Emmy was boneless. Spent. A pile of limbs and untethered thoughts.
He pulled her limp body halfway atop his and stroked her hair.
Then he ran a hand down her arm, still somehow able to spark her exhausted nerve endings, and lifted her hand to kiss it.
“We can talk now.” His voice rumbled in his chest where her ear was pressed.
“I literally don’t think I’m capable.”
He softly laughed and draped her lifeless arm over his chest. “Take your time.”
He’d rendered her immobile. She wasn’t sure she’d ever stand again. She’d spend the rest of her life liquefied in his bed—which
didn’t seem like a bad prospect, honestly. She let herself mentally drift into a potential future scenario as she listened
to his heart calm. She’d come over after work, they’d wreck each other between the sheets, they’d have a lazy dinner together,
and maybe she’d spend the night. The thought of it made her snuggle closer to him.
Her stomach loudly growled.
Gabe said, “Hungry? I promised I’d cook.” He began to sit up, and Emmy reached for him.
“You promised we’d talk, too.”
He looked down at her naked in his bed with an unreadable bend to his brow. He lifted her hand to kiss it. “Dinner, then talk.”
As if on cue, her stomach audibly rumbled again.
“See? It’s only proper to feed you after all that.”
“Such a gentleman,” she said with a playful grin but couldn’t shake the feeling he was delaying their conversation. In fact,
he might have just fucked her senseless as distraction, she realized.
Mission accomplished.
Gabe leaned in to kiss Emmy again. “Feel free to freshen up.” He pointed toward the bathroom as he headed in that direction,
bending over to swipe his underwear off the floor and giving her a healthy look at his muscular thighs and perfectly sculpted
backside.
She swooned and luckily had a pile of pillows to catch her when she flopped backward like a damsel into a fainting chair.
While he was gone, she took the opportunity to gaze around the room.
It was kempt and tidy with a laptop closed on a desk beneath a window; his wallet, watch, and the notorious bottle of cologne sat on top of a tall dresser.
The painting hanging above his bed depicted something abstract oiled in shades of blue and gray that could have been either a man in a field or a whale, she couldn’t tell.
His nightstand held a lamp, a phone charger coiled like a little sleeping snake, and a stack of five novels: the top one, a political thriller with a bookmark poking out halfway through.
Emmy heard Gabe finish in the bathroom, and aside from peeing after sex like any responsible and hygienic vagina owner, freshening
up actually didn’t sound like a preferable idea. The smell of him lingered on her: spicy oranges, a hint of sweat, the pure
tonic of him , and she didn’t want to risk washing any of it off. Instead, a better idea sounded like digging in his closet for something
to wear since her clothes were scattered around his apartment anyway.
She slipped from the bed and padded over to the sliding closet doors. Behind them, she found a menagerie of pastel polos and
smiled to herself. Instead of borrowing one of his work shirts, she opted for the old SDSU Baseball tee he’d worn to bed in Mexico. It fell to
her thighs. She searched the floor for her bra and underwear, and when she didn’t find them, decided with a shrug that she
didn’t need them. She stole into the bathroom and found herself looking properly rosy-cheeked and mussed in the mirror.
When she finished, Emmy wound her way through the hall and found Gabe in his kitchen having pulled on sweatpants and a tight
T-shirt. She didn’t think the man owned a loose T-shirt, save maybe the one she was wearing, and that was fine by her.
His apartment had a floor plan similar to hers with an open concept kitchen that spilled into a dining area and living room.
Soft blankets buried his couch, and another stack of novels and a few statistics books were piled on his coffee table.
The pale blue-and-gray decor was all rather soothing.
The giant TV was turned on to the baseball game midway through the third inning.
Gabe stood with his back to her at the counter chopping something on a cutting board. A bottle of wine waited on the island