CHAPTER 15 #2
“Eat.” I hedged the charcuterie board her way. She picked at it quietly while I popped open the bottle of sparkling juice, poured it into two cups, and handed her one. “If you want something else, let me know. The kitchen inside is fully stocked and I can make you anything you’d like.”
“You can cook?” Her brows hiked up right before she popped a few berries in her mouth.
“I’m no chef.” I brought the cup to my lips for a sip. “But yes, I can fend for myself.”
Impressed, she cocked her head. “What’s your specialty?”
“I can make a mean grilled cheese sandwich,” I replied. “Do you cook?”
“Yes, and I can make a mean lasagna.” She grinned and wiggled her eyebrows. “When I can finally move back into my apartment, I’ll make you some.”
Now I was picturing Gabriela flouncing around in my kitchen bare ass naked, save for a little apron, and the lustful image had my blood rushing south. Fuck. What I wouldn’t give for that scenario to be a reality.
“I’d really like that,” I said. “How are you feeling with the whole, you know, situation?”
“I’m doing fine. As fine as one can be in my shoes.” She leaned her head against my shoulder. “I appreciate you asking and constantly checking in on me.”
It was the least I could do. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and she burrowed her lissome figure into my side, seeking warmth when the strong wind blew towards us.
I had an extra blanket in the basket, but I was afraid that if I gave it to her, she wouldn’t need the heat of my body.
“You think Oscar told your dad that you’re missing? ”
Her bodyguard was probably losing his mind since we’d made a quick escape from the bar, but Gabriela insisted she didn’t want him following. Not tonight. She said she felt safe enough lately to escape his overbearing presence for less than a handful of hours.
“God, no. He’s probably terrified of telling him that he was distracted with his phone and didn’t see me slip out of the bar,” Gabriela said. “But I did send my parents a text in our group chat that I’m hanging out with you. They know I’m in good hands and probably alerted Oscar by now.”
They know I’m in good hands.
I was honoured to know she felt safe with me.
I’d protect her with every fiber of my being.
“I’d never let anything happen to you,” I rasped.
“I know,” she murmured with a lopsided smile.
Fuck, I wanted to kiss her so bad. I was about to do it, but then she turned her attention back to the sky. “It’s so peaceful here.”
I searched for the particular stars that were supposed to be visible tonight. Spotting what I was looking for, I pointed at it. “I think that’s the constellation Pegasus, named after the winged horse from Greek mythology.”
“Wow…” she trailed off and I marvelled at the way her face morphed with wonder. Her head snapped my way and she nudged me with her elbow. “Hey, Hunter?”
“Yes, doll?”
“You mentioned enjoying Greek mythology and I know nothing about it.” Gabriela clasped my hand, the pulses at our wrists touching each other. “Tell me one of your favourite stories.”
The fact that she wanted to learn more about me the same way I thirsted to learn more about her made my heart glow like a hundred fireflies trapped in a jar.
I reflected for a moment, wondering which story would appease her romantic heart. Perhaps she’d enjoy the renowned myth of Hero and Leander. “I have one, but it has a tragic ending.”
“Most beautiful things do,” she said wistfully. “Hit me with it.”
Clearing my throat, I started recounting the tale, “Hero, priestess of Aphrodite—the goddess of love—and Leander, a young man, fell in love and had a secret relationship. They lived on opposite ends of the Hellespont Strait. Every night, he swam across it to be with her. And every night, Hero lit a torch in her tower to help guide him towards her.” I mapped the curve of Gabriela’s soft jaw with my pointer finger, tipping her head back so I could gaze into her blue eyes.
“Their relationship bloomed during the warmer months, but when the weather got colder, they agreed to halt seeing each other until spring. But one winter night, Leander saw the torch lit in Hero’s tower again.
Desperate to see his beloved, he tried swimming to her.
Halfway through his journey, a gust of wind blew out her light…
And Leander lost his way, drowning. Legend has it, when Hero saw Leander’s dead body in the water, she threw herself from her tower to be with him for all eternity. ”
A gasp escaped Gabriela. “No.”
“I told you it was tragic.”
Her bottom lip stuck out almost sullenly. “That’s incredibly sad.”
I kissed her forehead, inhaling her vanilla and red roses scent. “Hero and Leander’s myth has been culturally referenced many times over the years.”
“I can see why,” Gabriela muttered. “It must be the forbidden love aspect.”
I toyed with the ends of her red hair. “Mhm.”
“What got you interested in Greek mythology in the first place?”
I glanced at the water before us, glistening like a dark bejeweled surface.
“My older sister, Heidi, had a best friend named Donovan. He used to read a lot of classics and mythology. When I turned ten, Don gifted me a comprehensive book on Greek mythology for my birthday. I must have read that book from front to back at least twenty times. Along with my dad, Don was one of the male figures in my life that I always looked up to.”
Gabriela smiled. “How sweet.”
“After my dad died, Donovan sort of stepped up,” I said, “He’d come to all my football games and take me out to pizza parlours afterwards the same way my dad did. He’d watch action movies with me every week, without once seeming bothered to be spending time with his best friend’s kid brother.”
“I’m glad you had someone like that in your life.” Gabriela squeezed my hand. “Donovan sounds like a great person.”
“He is.” Donovan was one of the most honourable men I’d had the privilege of knowing.
Which was why him leaving the city years ago was such a harsh pill to swallow.
He was no longer part of our lives, but he’d left his mark on me and Heidi, and it was something I’d always be grateful for.
“Do you ever feel like you were born missing something because you were meant to find it later in life? I feel like I never had a brother because I was meant to have Donovan as mine.”
The same way I felt like I was missing Gabriela my whole life without even realizing it…and here she was, in the flesh, the living personification of all my desires and dreams.
Gabriela’s face softened. “Yes. That’s how I feel about Anna and Layla.
Though I’m an only child, I never felt like I didn’t have siblings because I had them since childhood.
They’re my found family. We may not share a drop of blood, but they’re my sisters in every way that matters. I’m lucky to have them.”
“They’re lucky to have you too.” I glided my fingers through her hair and she shivered when my knuckles grazed her back. Feeling bold, I added, “And so am I.”
The particles of the air hovering between us charged with an electrifying energy. Gabriela appeared angelic under the glow of the stars, and her eyes gleamed characteristically with desperate need. My expression no doubt mirrored hers.
I was about to lean over and fuse her mouth with mine, but she broke the heady eye contact and glanced down at our joined hands instead, biting her lip.
Dejectedness swirled in the pit of my stomach.
Did Gabriela not feel this deep connection pulsating whenever we were in the same vicinity?
There were times when I thought Gabriela wanted more with me but was holding herself back, hiding behind the guise of being friends. If I weren’t so perceptive where she was concerned, making it my goddamn mission to study her, I may have missed the signs.
But they were there.
I didn’t know what was holding her back, but I intended to find out soon.
Instead of vocalizing those thoughts, I dug into the wicker basket for the gifts I bought her.
A football jersey, a novel, and a rose-petaled resin bookmark.
“Here.” I plucked them out and placed them into her lap. “For you.”
Surprised, Gabriela let go of my hand to unravel the jersey and traced the number nine with her fingers. “You got me your jersey.”
“I said I would, Gabby.” I’d never break a promise to her.
“Oh, and a book.” She flipped it around to face the front, her eyes flaring in recognition. It was one of her favourite stories—the same one with the vampire lord and his mortal bride that inspired tonight’s date. She thumbed through the pages, gasping. “Hunter, you annotated this?”
Was that the wrong thing to do? I’d gotten into the habit of annotating my books because of school in order to be prepared for assignments and I occasionally did the same with the books I read for leisure.
She assessed me with an indescribable expression and heat smattered across my face.
“Yes,” I admitted. “I highlighted my favourite passages and left notes in the margins regarding my thoughts.”
I enjoyed this book, even though I initially read it with the sole intention of better understanding Gabriela. I wanted to know what it was about this romance story that stood out to her so profoundly. Four hundred pages later, I got it.
It was the attentiveness of the hero. His ability to constantly prioritize the heroine.
To give her everything she could possibly want and need, to communicate eloquently and validate her feelings, to shower her with all the attention she’d never received, and to simply worship her as she was a gift from the heavens that he’d treasure forever.
Gabriela Regina Bellafiore wanted to be treated like a goddess, to be the center of her lover’s universe, to be someone’s damnation and salvation in one.
God as my witness, if she’d give me the chance, I’d cherish her for all of eternity.
“Hunter, this…” She shook her head, oscillating between shock and awe.
“I’ve never received anything so lovely and thoughtful.
I can’t believe you read this book. I can’t believe you brought me to stargaze.
I can’t believe you—” She paused when the bookmark I’d carefully nestled between the pages fell out.
Grabbing it, she studied the crushed rose petals and gold flecks glittering in its clear surface, her expression of appreciation growing even further. “Is that—”
“I made it,” I rushed out. “From the roses you gifted me.”
Gabriela’s gaze fastened on mine, brimming with a myriad of emotions that spoke to something deep inside of me.
I held my breath, anticipating her response like a man gone to battle waiting weeks for a letter from his beloved. Desperate to read her written words. Desperate to hear her lilting voice in his mind. Desperate for the anchor only she could provide.
“Why?” she whispered almost challengingly. “Why did you do this?”
Without looking away from her, I said in a ragged voice, “You know why, Gabriela.”
Gentle fingers caressed the stubble on my jaw before cupping my cheek. I leaned into her touch, letting her see all the reverence painted on my face.
“I like you,” I confessed in a murmur and let my thumb stroke over her cheek. “I think I’ve liked you since the first moment I laid eyes on you over a year ago, when I knew nothing about you…except for the fact that you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”
Gabriela’s hypnotizing eyes widened at my admission.
My heart thundered in my chest. “It’s the truth.”
One second, she stared at me like I was unreal.
The next second, she closed the distance and stamped her mouth to mine with a needy sound that caused heat to scorch my insides.
A groan climbed up my throat.
Our lips parted and our eyes met for the briefest second as though acknowledging that we’d been foolish to assume this wouldn’t happen again.
Then our mouths collided once more like magnets, harder and needier.
Her kiss tasted sweet and of something that was uniquely Gabriela. I practically devoured her lips with my demanding kisses and frantic licks. Her tongue swept against mine almost teasingly, a languid erotic dance that set me aflame.
I felt dizzy and breathless from what the hot little minx was doing to me, wrenching open my ribcage, gazing into my heart, making room for herself, and slowly settling there like I was something to be possessed and owned.
For Gabriela, I was.
Wholly and unequivocally ready to be made hers.
I wrapped my fingers against that slim column just the way she liked and clenched lightly, relishing her sexy gasp. Gabriela’s fingers twisted in the collar of my shirt, holding me hostage, as if I had any plans to ever escape her clutches.
Hook, line, sinker, this siren had ensnared me.
Using my arm, I curved it around her back and dragged her astride into my lap without once breaking our lip-lock. Her weight against me was divine, namely when she sat against my bulge, giving an experimental buck of her hips like she wanted to feel me inside of her.
I was losing control, at the end of my sanity rope. I needed to know what she wanted from me. Some kisses. A few fingers. My tongue. Or my dick pounding away inside that tight little pussy.
Right now, I was game for all of it.
Fisting her hair, I jerked her head back but kept my hold on her neck. “I’m barely hanging by a thread.” I panted. “What are we doing?”
She was panting too. “Being friendly.”
I nearly growled, slapping her ass and inciting a half moan, half sob from her. “Don’t play with me, Gabby.”
“Why?” She squared her arms around my shoulders and leaned in for another sensual kiss, nearly sucking the soul out of my body. “I thought we were friends, Hunt.”
We were the furthest thing from friends and based on her playful tone, she knew it too. But it seemed she enjoyed toying with me. Fucking brat.
“Friends aren’t supposed to know the way you kiss, touch…” I nipped her bottom lip. “Or taste.”
“Maybe,” she mumbled seductively. “We’re the kind of friends who do.”
I let loose a deep groan when she planted hurried kisses down my jaw and along my neck, stopping momentarily to bite me before soothing the sting with a lick. I was in heaven and hell all at once. “Fuck, tell me what you want from me while I’m still thinking straight, baby.”
Judging by the way her breath hitched, she liked it when I called her baby.
Gabriela raised her face back to mine, lips pulled into a wicked smile and her bewitching gaze glittering as if all the starlight was sucked out of the sky and reflected in her depths. “I want you to stop thinking and kiss me, pretty boy.”