Chapter Ten
Gabe stepped into the Malones’ house with Carson at his side and was greeted by the scent of baked goods and strong coffee.
Carson tossed him a glance over his shoulder. “Honor baked brownies. I guess it’s her and Felicity’s mom’s recipe.”
At the mention of Felicity, Gabe’s insides both warmed and steeled with protectiveness.
He and Carson spent all evening digging through the past of every person Felicity ever knew.
They cross-referenced all of the intel with the timing of the break-ins.
While they didn’t get to the bottom of anything, it was good to use his brain the way he used to on ops.
It felt like getting back to his roots after such a long time.
The more they uncovered, the clearer it became that whoever was stalking Felicity was patient and methodical. He and Carson had eliminated a few possibilities and found others worth a closer look.
Their boots thumped on the hardwood floors, tracking over the faint sound of the women talking. Once in a while, the voices were interspersed with the occasional laugh or the squawk of a baby.
It sounded a lot like his sister’s home. Like a family.
The second he walked into the living room, his brain shifted from how to guard Felicity to how to care for Felicity.
His gaze landed on her where she was tucked between her sister and Aspen. A movie played on the big-screen TV, and Navy sat on the floor with her farm animals, just as he remembered her from the therapy office.
Felicity smiled at whatever Aspen said, but Gabe could see the brittle edges of it and the bruises of fatigue beneath each eye.
At that moment, she looked up and saw Gabe. Her gaze locked with his, and he watched relief wash across her face.
A knot jerked in his chest, drawing him toward her with the unshakable belief that she needed him right then.
As he crossed the room to her, Navy spotted him too and bolted toward him. He swept her up and tickled her belly. Her peal of laughter had every person in the room smiling.
“How you doing, Navy?” He spoke to the child but stared at Felicity.
Her eyes were warm and soft, though he read more there—a plea to get her out of there.
While every one of the Malone women were well-meaning, caring and attentive, he could see how that could seem too attentive to a woman like Felicity. She was accustomed to being alone, and she sought company when she wanted a break from the solitude she relished.
And he understood her so well because he felt the same. It was what brought him back to the mountains. And now, she was the one place he didn’t feel hunted by his own thoughts.
He tickled Navy again, then she kicked her legs to be set down and shot off toward her toys again.
He didn’t pause. He just veered straight for Felicity.
She pushed to her feet and met him in the middle of the big room.
His body angled toward her. “You okay?” he asked quietly.
Her eyes were tender, foggy blue, but tired. “It’s been a long day.”
He pitched his voice lower. “Want me to throw you over my shoulder and carry you out?”
A laugh bubbled out of her, drawing looks from Honor and some of the others. “That might be a little too much.”
“You think so? Didn’t Kent from I Dream of You do that with Marianna?”
Her eyes widened. “You read that too?” A flush of pink, as subtle as a sunrise, coated her cheeks. “I never guessed you were a women’s fiction fan.”
“Not sure I agree with readers saying they couldn’t put it down, but it was okay.”
She laughed again at his personal review, and his fingers twitched toward her. From the corner of his eye, he saw Carson’s focus lift from his infant son in his arms to him and Felicity.
Suddenly, she twisted away from him and moved toward Honor. Whatever she said to her sister had Honor nodding and touching her arm lightly.
Felicity faced the room with a smile. “It’s been a long day. I’m heading to my bed in the library. Goodnight, everyone.”
Wishes of a good night’s sleep and calls of goodnight followed.
Felicity drifted to his side. “Walk me to the library?”
“I’d do anything for you.” He meant it. He’d slay dragons for her.
The glint in her eyes was too much like the one he saw a split second before she’d kissed him back in the bookshop. A heartbeat before their mouths collided and they ended up in each other’s arms on the floor of the cookbook section.
He looked over her head at the rest of the family. No one was paying any attention to them.
Good. Because Felicity was looking at him like she remembered every second of it…and wanted a repeat.
They stepped out of the living room but didn’t take two steps before they reached for each other. She slipped her hand around his, and his heart flexed at the gesture even as he smoothed his thumb over hers.
The voices faded behind them as they moved toward the library. At the door, he paused to allow her to enter first. When he stepped in, he closed the door behind them with a quiet click of the latch.
On the mantel sat a tiny cup holding the flowers he left on her pillow earlier.
She stepped closer. Slow and deliberate. Her body heat washed over him. Her breath brushed his jaw when she tipped her face to his.
His pulse throbbed. The slow burn? Yeah. It was done. Gone. Burned itself out into a wildfire.
“Felicity.” Using a fingertip, he eased a lock of hair off her brow. “Christ, you’re beautiful.”
She cut her gaze over his face, his chest and back up. “I want you.”
His throat clicked as he swallowed. “You sure?”
She slid a hand up his chest, fingers curling in the fabric of his T-shirt. “I’ve been sure.”
That was all it took.
He cupped her jaw and kissed her—hard, hungry, deep. She met him with equal force, gripping his shirt, pulling him closer like she couldn’t get enough.
Her mouth was warm and sweet from the treat he’d smelled earlier. Her mother’s brownie recipe.
She arched into him, her breasts skimming his chest and her hips cradling his hardening cock. The kiss grew rougher and hotter.
With a quick move, he lifted her around the waist and spun her. When he pressed her gently against the wall next to the bookshelf, she slid her hands under his shirt, nails grazing his skin.
“Gabe.” It was a plea.
He hissed through clenched teeth. “You’re killing me.”
Her eyes glittered with want. “Good.”
He kissed her again, plundering her mouth for long moments and pausing only long enough to let her drag his shirt over his head. Her gaze swept across his chest a heartbeat before her lips met his skin.
Hot, alternating between sucking his flesh and leaving small nips that drove him wild.
He locked his hand in her hair, twisting lightly, tilting her face to his. Her lips were swollen, her chest heaving.
“I want to go slow. To be soft. But I don’t think I can.”
“Show me.”
Those two small words unlocked the gates and threw them wide. A rush of white-hot desire blasted out.
He stripped off her top and tossed it aside. Dipping his mouth to her neck, he coaxed a throaty moan from her sweet lips. Passion exploded inside him, and she latched on to him with both hands as if she never wanted him to leave.
Hell if he did either.
He explored her sensitive skin, scattering kisses from her delicate collarbones to her ears.
Her breath came in fast pants. When he yanked her bra cups down so her breasts spilled free, he bent to those too.
Kissing. Sucking. Making her arch and cry out and rake her fingers over his shoulders and back.
“Gabe!” She burrowed her fingers in his hair and dragged his head up so she could crush her lips to his. The kiss turned carnal. Their tongues worked in deep passes as they tore off each other’s clothes.
Her pants. His jeans. The heat of bare bodies stole his last shred of control.
“Fuck. Condom.” He braced a hand on the wall beside her while he swiped his jeans off the floor and attacked his wallet in search of the packet he’d stuffed in there that morning.
When he produced it, she took the foil square, hands shaking with urgency, and a few seconds later, she let out a rough laugh. “I’m useless at this.”
“You’re perfect. Let me.” His voice tremored as much as her hands as he ripped open the packet and jerked the condom over his throbbing length.
She hooked her arms around his neck, yanking him down to her lips once more. But he only kissed her for a brief moment before tearing away and dropping to his knees.
Their gazes crashed like violent waves on a rocky cliff. “Let me show you how good I can make you feel.”
When he looped her shapely calf over his shoulder, splaying her for his questing tongue, she bottled in a cry.
God, she tasted like heaven and all the good things in life he never believed he deserved now. Except she was letting him have it—have her.
He teased her slippery pussy with his tongue, gliding from her drenched opening to her stiff clit. With a sucking pull, he had her bowing off the wall. After two fingers teased her entrance, he had her begging.
With two fingers buried deep inside her and her clit trapped between his lips, he had her crying out his name.
The dark twist of need inside him spread from his groin right up to his heart.
This was more than sex, and they both knew it. Neither of them were one-and-done people. They were loyal when they cared and fierce when they loved.
She rocked into his tongue and fingers, her inner walls clenching on his fingers with each pass and her cries growing raspier in the silence of the library.
He delivered a swirling lick over her clit and she shook for him.
With a growl, he hooked his arms under her, scooping her up and pinning her to the wall.
“Tell me how it feels.” His order made her hips twitch involuntarily.
“You…feel…so good!”
“More. Find the words, Felicity.”
She bit off a cry. “It’s…so hot. Your tongue on my…pussy. Oh god!”
“More.” He curled his fingers inside her, and she flooded for him. He pulled his fingers free to lap at the sweet juices he craved more than air.
She twisted her fingers in his hair, guiding him. Pressing his face where she wanted it most in the hottest moment of his damn life.
He thrust two fingers deep again, and her walls started to pulsate. He looked up at her beautiful face, heart shattering with emotion for this amazing woman who was gentle and strong and passionate to the core.
Her eyes fixed on his, wide, pleading.
“Tell me what you want. Ask for it.”
“I want…your tongue. Your fingers. Your cock!”
He gave it to her. Plunging his fingers hard and fast while sucking her clit until her body stiffened and she came with a rasp, hips rocking with each new swell she crested on the sea of pleasure.
She barely caught her breath before he had her in his arms, lifting her and turning for the sofa. When he settled her on her back, he took control of her mouth once again, plundering until he thought his balls would burst.
* * * * *
Gabe pressed her down on the cushions, arms braced on either side of her.
Her hips lifted to him, inviting him closer. Everything in her body screamed yes.
He lowered his forehead to hers, his eyes dark and burning with more than desire. “Christ, bookshop. You fit me—”
“Like a lock that’s been waiting for the key,” she rasped.
He issued a groan. “Give me those poetic lips.”
Before she could respond, he claimed them for himself. A crushing kiss, bruising almost with its intensity. Searing heat wrapped around them both, bringing them close and tight as he guided his erection toward her center.
In one smooth glide, he filled her to the stretching point. Her gasp tore from her lips, answering his growl.
Then she locked her thighs around his strong torso and dragged him deeper, her fingers digging into his back.
With one hard jerk of his hips, he reached a spot she never knew existed until Gabe. It stole her breath, her mind and her heart in the same moment.
They moved together—hard and hungry, then slow, then wild again—meeting each other’s rhythm with desperate urgency.
When she reached up and cupped his jaw, drawing him in for another endless kiss, their bodies slipped into an angle that launched stars across her vision.
“Oh god. Bookshop. I can’t hold back. Don’t—”
But it was too late. She wanted him to come, to feel him jerking inside her with each pulse of his cock.
She squeezed him with her inner walls, milking him…and sending him over the edge.
At the first rough push, she flew with him, her climax hitting sharp, stealing her breath as she gasped his name. He held her through the waves that rocked them both, the guttural sound of him unraveling in her arms echoing in her ears.
He buried his face in her neck, breath shuddering, his arm banded tight around her as he whispered her name over and over.
It took long minutes for her world to go still and her mind to reconnect to her body. He didn’t pull away, and she wouldn’t let him if he tried. She kept her arms around him, tracing patterns along his spine in slow passes.
In that moment, she realized what this was.
Something lasting.
Something real.
Something a hell of a lot like love.
As she snuggled against his chest, one truth settled deep and immovable inside her.
If she was reading the situation right…then Gabe was in the thick of her mess too. Really in it.
And she wasn’t the only one who could get hurt.