Chapter 3
Tori
Ihad never laughed as much or smiled as often as I did with Gabe. The food was just as delicious as he’d said, but it was his company that made my night. We talked long after the server took the food away. Long after Gabe paid the bill and ignored my attempt to split it.
The breeze ruffled my hair but did little to cool my skin.
Even at night, it was still eighty degrees.
Gabe had left his jacket in the car, his muscular arms doing nothing to help me think straight.
He was like a walking piece of eye candy.
His attention remained solely on me as we walked, like his world revolved around me.
“Don’t tell me you’re cold,” he said, leaning on the rail that overlooked the river.
I dropped my hands from my arms, realizing I’d been rubbing them. “Far from it. Does it ever cool down here?”
A sexy shrug followed by, “Eh, depends on what you call cool. The locals will pull their winter coats out about November when it dips into the sixties. And you might get a handful of winter days in January.”
He turned to face me, his hazel eyes almost amber in the moonlight.
“Do you ever miss it?” I asked, my fingers awkwardly playing with the fabric of my dress.
“What?” he asked, his head tilting.
“Being home? I mean, Florida is so different from up north.”
Another shrug. “Sometimes, but I left New York for a reason, and I don’t regret that.”
His expression was so serious, I wondered what burdens he carried. His head lifted, and there was a tug at the corner of his mouth. “Especially not now.”
Butterflies crashed like a torrent through my belly.
“Tori?”
“Yes,” I breathed as he stepped closer to me.
“I really want to kiss you right now.” And those butterflies turned into vicious dragons, heating me to my core. “I know we’ll be working together for the next few weeks, and it could be awkward, but…”
“Yes,” I answered.
His eyes lit, and I swallowed back the emotion that simmered in my heated body.
“Yes?” His throat bobbed, and he seemed so unsure suddenly when he’d been nothing but confident since I’d met him.
I nodded. “Yes.”
He closed the distance between us and tipped my chin, his eyes searching mine before his fingers smoothed over my neck and into my hair.
It was the sexiest start to a kiss I’d ever experienced, and the crush that had twisted to attraction twisted into something that I knew I wouldn’t be able to restrain once it fully formed.
He leaned down, his lips brushing mine before they completely captured them.
The breath fled me, and blood pulsed through my veins.
My world seemed to turn, my feet no longer on the ground.
Our lips parted, but his hand remained, cupping my neck and keeping my eyes focused on him when they opened.
Something passed between us, a spark of recognition, a tug of consciousness.
That kiss had been more like the solidifying of something that had been building since the moment he entered that room.
“I’m gonna need more of those,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Plenty more.”
“That depends on what kind of beer you bring this weekend,” I teased, giving him a coy grin.
His chuckle vibrated through my body. “Noted. Good beer equals more kisses.”
I joined his laugh, something that was too easy to do with him.
He untangled his hand and dropped it to take mine, keeping it in his firm grasp while we walked back to his car.
The drive to my apartment held no awkwardness, only ease as Gabe asked me questions about my time in college.
By the time we arrived at my apartment, I was certain he knew everything about me, yet there was still so much I had yet to learn about him.
“As much as I don’t want this night to end,” he said as we stood at the door to my apartment, “at least I know I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Mmm, a work date. That’s romantic.”
“What? You don’t like a little flirting after mutual funds and stock foreplay?” And his confidence had returned, making me a mess of hormones.
“Sounds sexy, but I’ll stick to romantic kisses by the river.”
He smiled, the move lighting his eyes to a dusty golden brown. “Then how about we compromise with a goodnight kiss?”
My lips tingled in anticipation. “I’d like that.”
Our first kiss had been debilitating, but this one set my body on fire. I didn’t want it to end because it was so perfect. Gentle and sweet with a tethered passion that left me curious to know what it would be like once we set it free.
My lips were still tingling when they separated from his.
“Good night, Tori,” he said, brushing my hair back from my cheek before he left me.
I watched as he turned back one last time, throwing me a crooked grin. Bringing my fingers to my lips, I remained there, hearing him take the steps and, after a few seconds, the start of his car before he drove away.
Entering my apartment, I threw my purse on a box and drifted into the bedroom, my heart still swooning, my head still spinning.
After collapsing onto my bed, I listened to the furious beat of my pulse and stared at the ceiling.
Gabe was too perfect to be true, and the giddy way I was acting warned me I was likely to get hurt.
That didn’t stop me from counting down the hours until I would see him again, nor did it stop me from thinking about him before I finally fell asleep.
“Now that’s the kind of beer that will earn you another kiss,” I teased Gabe.
He swiped his hand over his forehead, feigning relief as I moved so he could enter my apartment. Placing the beer on the tiny corner of counter I’d cleared earlier that morning, he turned back to me.
“Mind if I take my reward now?” Polite and devastatingly handsome.
My head hadn’t finished nodding when he cupped my cheek and kissed me.
Swooning was becoming a regular part of my life because every kiss he gave me had my body questioning its ability to function.
Although we were keeping it professional at work, he had taken me to lunch every day and to dinner two more nights.
Each evening began and ended with kisses that left me incapable of thinking.
With much reluctance, we ended the kiss. Dropping his forehead to mine, Gabe muttered, “You and those lips are going to be the death of me.”
I swallowed a moan as his hand caressed my neck.
“I promise my intention is to do anything but kill you,” I said, wishing my heart would stop beating so furiously. After three dates, he had done no more than kiss me, but each kiss was reverent, like he was savoring each one.
“That’s a relief,” he said, lifting his head and giving me a kiss on the forehead. Stepping away from me, his eyes skimmed my body. “You look beautiful, Tori.”
I glanced down at my ripped jean shorts and UConn T-shirt. Arching my brow, I gave him a disbelieving frown. “Did you start drinking before you got here?”
He let out a laugh before scooping me back into his arms. It was the first time he hadn’t waited for permission and the first he’d touched any more than my face or neck.
Sparks sizzled like the wings of a million butterflies were alighting in my body.
As if he realized he’d moved too fast, he released me, running a hand through his hair.
“Sorry,” he said, lowering his eyes.
I picked his face back up, spreading my arms around his neck and noting the strength of his muscles.
His kisses left me so lost that I had a hard time moving when caught in the moment, so this was the first time I’d touched him.
Pulling his head down and trying not to react at how thick and soft his hair was, I brought his sight to mine.
“You are seriously the sweetest man I’ve ever met. You have my irrevocable permission to kiss me and hold me any time you want.”
His amber irises turned a lush golden brown as they searched mine. “I don’t want to mess this up, Tori. You do something to me.” He swallowed, looking so uncomfortable that I wanted to erase it from him. “I’m not myself with you.”
My heart dropped. “Oh.” I let my hands fall from him, but he caught them.
“That’s a good thing.”
Eyes shooting to him, I saw the conflict in the twisting of his brows.
“I’m not usually like this.” His jaw tightened. “I’m hard and driven. I don’t let emotions or women in.”
Worry hammered me, and I dreaded his words because the man I knew was not the one he was describing.
“But with you…with you, Tori, I want to be different. I don’t want to be hard and unfeeling, and that…well, that terrifies me.”
I’d suspected he was hiding something from me, and hearing his confession led me to believe something in his past had shaped him into the man he was talking about. A man he hadn’t let me see.
“So, I want to treat you like you’re fragile. Like I could break you if I move too fast. And I don’t want something fast with you, Tori. I don’t want us to burn and fade. I want more.”
My mouth parted as the air fled my body. I freed my hands from his and threw them around his neck, pulling his mouth to mine. “Then we won’t fade,” I said against his lips. “But I want you to kiss me when you want to, to take me in your arms when you have the urge, and to hold me when you need to.”
The tension in his body relaxed, and I felt his smile as his arms wrapped around my waist again. The kiss solidified the moment, warming my soul with its tenderness.
“Us,” I said as our lips separated. “You said us like we’re…” I didn’t want to make assumptions, but he confirmed my thoughts quickly.
“A couple,” he said. There was no question in his statement, only an affirmation.
“Exclusive?” I asked, unsure why. Although this was so new that it seemed fast, even if it also seemed right.
He pulled back, his eyes narrowed, and in that look, I could see the man he’d described, the one he didn’t let into what we had.