Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Autumn
I wasn’t sure I’d ever been attracted to a man more than I was to Gabriel when he told Joshua and Tristan they could flirt all they liked, but I was going home with him.
It encapsulated one of the things I liked best about him—he didn’t say much, but when he did, every word counted.
He was all strong, brooding confidence that didn’t need to shout.
Some guys were possessive or territorial, but it was all about their ego.
When Gabriel said what he did, it was a statement of fact to stop his friends wasting their energy.
And then he told us about the Theatre Café, and I didn’t know if I should kiss him into next week or faint from all the swooning.
It was just past one in the morning when we got home, which meant we had six hours until Bethany got up.
We could get a lot done in six hours.
Gabriel put his key in the door, and I placed my hand on his, making him stop and turn to me.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “You need to get rid of the sitter as soon as possible,” I said, and reached around to the crotch of his pants. I let out a small moan as I found him hard as rock in my hand. “I have plans for this.”
“Believe me, I have plans too,” he said and opened the door, gesturing for me to go in first.
The sitter was gone in less than sixty seconds. As Gabriel shut the door, I slid my hands around his waist.
“Did you have a good time tonight?”
“Of course,” I replied. “I was with all my favorite people. And I got to sing. Anyway, the night’s not over yet.”
He tilted his head to one side, and I don’t know if it was the way his eyes seemed to narrow ever so slightly, or the way he seemed to tower even taller over me than he did normally, but I felt like he was getting ready to devour me.
And I was looking forward to being his prey.
The starting pistol had been fired on my heartbeat, which set off at a sprint.
“I think you’ve been a little wound up for me all night. ”
He slid his hands over my ass and yanked the bottom of my dress up. Jesus, how could this man be so polite in public? So taciturn and suave when he was in company? Then a switch flipped as soon as we were alone, and he turned dirty and provocative and knee-weakening sexy.
His hands slid into my panties, his fingers into my folds, and I sighed with relief that finally, I was right where I wanted to be.
“Shit,” he spat and spun me around so I was pressed up against the door. “Have you been this wet for me all night?”
I nodded as he lifted my leg over his hip and slid his fingers inside me.
“You’re soaked,” he said, pushing his fingers inside, his thumb finding my clit.
“I’m surprised you lasted this long without an orgasm.
” He coaxed my g-spot awake with his fingers and I couldn’t stop myself from twisting my hips to get more.
I needed relief from this built-up need I had for him.
“I’m shocked you weren’t begging for me in the cab.
If you’d have said, I would have been more than happy to have reached up your skirt into your hot, tight pussy and made you come. ”
I tried to keep control over my breath as he spoke, but it was no easy feat. He was right. I’d been so wound up all evening. So desperate for him. Now that he was touching me, I was already so close to the orgasm I’d been imagining getting all evening.
In a flash he let go of me, took his hand away, and stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets. I stayed pinned against the door, unable to function. My disappointment at his lost touch felt like a chasm opening in my chest.
He pulled out a foil square and in record time, had his pants open, the condom on, and my leg around his waist. “This what you need?” he asked as he thrust into me.
It was exactly what I needed, and I exhaled with relief at having him inside me finally. “Yes,” I choked out. “It’s all I need.” I held onto him, clinging to his thick, muscular arms as he pounded into me, just as I’d hoped he would.
He fucked me with hard, deliberate, achingly deep movements, and I could do nothing but let him.
Nothing but give myself up to him. I’d spent the evening wondering how I was going to seduce him, but I should have known that seduction wasn’t necessary when it came to Gabriel.
He knew what he wanted and he took it, and I was happy to let him.
“I’ve been thinking about this all night.
I’ve been imagining all the ways I’m going to fuck you,” he said between heavy breaths.
“First it’s going to be like this up against the door.
Then I’m going to go down on you and make you scream.
Then I’m going to fuck your mouth. And you’re going to come and come and come. ”
It was too much. His words. The friction. The feeling of being impaled on him, my back against the hard wood of the door. “Gabriel,” I cried out.
“That’s right,” he said, his voice softening, his pace slowing but not stopping as I shuddered against him.
He lifted me up as I floated down from my climax, and I pulled him closer. I wanted to stay like this for as long as possible—him and me, joined. Connected. Together. In every way.
“You okay?” he asked as he sat me on the kitchen table and began to undress me and then himself. His cock stood thick and upright against his belly, and my eyes trailed up to its crown, to his flat stomach, his hard chest, his wide shoulders, and that oh-so-beautiful face.
I nodded.
“You seem . . . a little sad.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sad at all.” I paused.
My instinct was to hold back. To keep things sunny and light.
But the fact was, he seemed to like to hear everything about me.
The good and the bad. And I wanted him to know how I felt about him.
I wanted to be real with him. “I really like you, Gabriel,” I said.
It was important he knew that. Important that he understood this wasn’t just about the sexual chemistry.
It wasn’t just about the way he was wise and caring.
It wasn’t any one thing. It was everything.
He paused and looked at me as I sat naked on the table in front of him and cupped my face. “I really like you too.” He stroked his thumb over my cheekbone. “More and more.”
I tilted my head into his hand, and he bent to press his lips against mine.
If whatever we had was growing stronger as time went on, then how was I going to feel when August arrived, fresh with its invitation to travel?
Would my wanderlust fade, burrow itself beneath my feelings for Gabriel?
We had just over a month before I’d be gone. And then what?
Before I could drown in what-ifs, Gabriel’s insistent tongue and urgent lips worked their way down my neck, between my breasts and over my belly.
Roughly, he pulled my legs apart and kneeled before he buried his head between my thighs.
He was impatient and greedy, and he made me feel as if I were the most valuable prize he could ever wish for.
His tongue soothed me at first, long, languid, slow strokes that calmed my pulsing clitoris and gave me a chance to revel in his desire for me.
I sighed and his tongue grew firmer and more insistent, ratcheting up my yearning for more of him.
He knew, and began to circle and flick his tongue in a circuitous release of pleasure that climbed up my body.
My body had surrendered and my orgasm galloped toward me, unrelenting and urgent. Just as I began to fall, he took away his tongue and his fingers and stood.
My eyes widened as I waited for him to explain himself. But he said nothing and simply lay me down on the table as if I were the main course at his one-man banquet. He stood at one end of the table and I shifted, understanding Gabriel was a man who always kept his word.
He was going to fuck my mouth.
He guided my head off the end of the table and tilted it back. “I’m going to get so deep—right at the back of your throat.”
I groaned and opened my legs so he could see what his words did to me. What his tongue and his cock had already done to me. I was red and swollen and so, so wet.
He slid against my tongue with a groan and swept his hands through my hair, holding my head as he pulled back and rammed his cock into my throat.
Any other man and I would have said no, but I wanted this just as much as he did. I wanted him to fuck me exactly how he wanted to fuck me. I wanted him to take everything I had to give. I wanted everything with him.
He slid his hands over my breasts, twisting my nipples, causing me to moan at the sparks of pleasure it set up as he kept fucking me where I lay.
“Autumn, you’re so gorgeous,” he growled. He dipped his hand between my legs. “And so fucking wet.”
I came as soon as he touched me. Shuddering as he withdrew from my mouth. “Oh baby. You’re still so wound up.”
Two orgasms and I still wanted more.
“I should have cut this evening short. Made some sort of excuse and come home to fill you up.”
He walked around the table and scooped me up, this time placing me at the edge of the oak. “I think you just need a good, hard fuck again, don’t you?”
He grabbed a condom from where he’d left the packet from the first time, but I didn’t want him to use it.
“I’m taking contraceptives,” I said. “And I was tested before I left the U.S.”
He stalked back from where he’d left me with my legs open, waiting for him. “You want me inside you, skin to skin,” he said as a flat statement. “I was tested after my ex-wife left and there’s been no one since.”
“Yes, Gabriel,” I said, clawing at his chest.
He stood between my legs and positioned himself at my entrance. “You want it?”
I nodded.
He pushed in so slowly, our eyes locked on each other as if we were stepping over some kind of line in the sand.
“It’s so good, Gabriel.” He felt so perfect. As if my body had been waiting for him my entire life.
“Because you’re amazing.”
“With you,” I replied. I was amazing with him.
There were no reservations about the strength of my feelings, about what kind of man he was or how he cared for me.
And he cared for the whole me, not just the piece of me that I chose to show the world.
He liked my shade as well as my light. I didn’t think that was possible.
The only obstacles between us were external, and the longer I knew him, and the deeper my feelings grew, the more the issues that once looked unsurmountable seemed to diminish in size and importance.
Was that what love was? Something that could conquer all?