Chapter 11 #2
“Not necessarily by choice.” Clay didn’t talk about the man who’d fathered him much, but he understood that sometimes you had to open up to someone to get the same in return.
He was willing to try for the sake of getting closer to Gabriella.
“Pete has always been bad tempered, and he never had any use for me. But over the years I got pretty good at knowing the right time in the drinking cycle to ask him questions about his past to gather some leads on possible kids. Pete needed enough alcohol to get his brain working and his mood relaxed, but if he had too much he turned angry.”
“That sounds awful.” Gabby set down the glass on a coaster and then tucked one foot under her on the couch, the firelight casting a golden glow on her face. “And time-consuming.”
“It took months of impromptu drop-ins since I didn’t want him to know how hard I was digging for information. And considering the narrow window of time in a day when he was coherent and amenable to talking, it ended up being a hell of a lot of visits.”
Cementing his decision to cut the guy out of his life completely.
“But you kept going for the sake of your family. The brothers and sisters you hadn’t found yet.” Gabriella looked at him with a warmth and admiration in her eyes that he definitely didn’t deserve.
But for a minute he wondered what it would be like to feel that warmth in her gaze and savor it. To be truly worthy of that generous heart of hers.
“Because I quit too soon, Mia grew up not knowing she had family.” He hadn’t pushed Pete hard enough and Clay regretted that with every fiber of his being.
He should have known better, damn it. “I couldn’t wait to be done with those visits and put the old man in the past. Thanks to that chip on my shoulder, the most vulnerable of my siblings—the youngest—was hung out to dry with an unfit mother. ”
Restless with the weight of that guilt on his shoulders—a weight that had been growing every damn day since he found out about the teen—Clay shoved to his feet.
“I should go.” He hadn’t meant to venture so far down this road, his need to be close to Gabby clouding his judgment. “It’s been a long day and I know you’ve got a lot on your mind with the trial tomorrow.”
He paced toward the door to grab his coat, but paused by the window that looked across the courtyard toward the main house. The outdoor lights he’d left on illuminated the cedar home.
“Will you go to court with me?” Gabriella asked as she padded softly across the hardwood floor in bare feet.
Her tentative question slid right past his guard, bypassing all his better intentions. He ought to tell her he wasn’t the right man to sit beside her. That she deserved more. But when he turned and peered down into those liquid blue eyes, he didn’t have a chance of denying her.
“If you want me to be there.” He skimmed a thumb along her cheek. Watched her eyelids flutter at his touch. “I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.”
“Thank you.” Her hands landed on his chest. Her palms landed on his chest in a gesture of trust that was only going to lead to trouble
And heaven.
“Gabriella.” He forced himself to stay still. To think about what happened next before he did something she would regret. “I should probably go.”
She bit her lip for a moment. No doubt recognizing the wisdom of taking a step back. But then she brushed a light caress up his chest to curve her palms around his shoulders. Drawing herself closer.
So close the floral scent of her skin drifted his way, making him hungry for a taste of her.
“You just said if I want you with me, you wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.” Her words were so close to his mouth they puffed along his lips with a teasing caress all their own.
“I meant about the trial.” He ground out the words through gritted teeth, his whole body aching to be with her.
Her fingers gripped his shoulders with surprising strength.
“Too bad,” she told him, arching an eyebrow with a challenge in her tone. “Because I need you now.”
The boldness was a totally new thing for her.
Or maybe it was an old thing. A part of her personality that she’d buried long ago after a terrifying night that shattered her world. But being with Clay made her feel safe again. Whole again.
Gabriella tracked his gaze, watching the way his pupils went dark at her touch. Still, he held himself back. His chest and shoulders rigid with a tension she didn’t understand.
“What about Mia?” he asked, the words a raw scrape in his throat.
“She’s safe and fed after a horrible day.” Gabriella had found out what time Mia needed to awake for school in the morning when the girl had emerged from her room long enough to snag some pizza and a water bottle. “I think the kindest thing we can do now is leave her be until the morning.”
Still, appreciating his concern for his sister, Gabriella led him out of the living room to the back of the main floor, the in-law suite an extravagant add-on her father had masterminded before he went to prison.
He’d included all the posh extras to entice his mother to live with them, but Gabriella’s grandmother had refused to leave her home in New York.
No one had ever lived here as far as Gabby knew, but Zach must have plans for it with all the remodeling he’d already done.
She led Clay into the master bedroom that used to be an eighties nightmare of gold and white. They stepped over the threshold into a space lit only by the moon slanting through blinds on the French doors leading out to a back patio.
When her feet hit the thick carpet, Clayton let go of her hand. She stopped, turning back in time to see him quietly close the door behind them. His shadowed features gave nothing away. And yet…
A closed door could only be a good sign.
Her heartbeat skipped pace. A jittery, breathless sensation danced through her as he stepped toward her again. She stared up at him until his fingertips grazed her chin. Caressing softly despite the weathered, roughened feel of hands that had lived a harder life than she could imagine.
“If you’re really sure about this, Gabby, I won’t leave.” His words were as good as a promise. She felt it in her bones, a soul-deep trust in this man that had begun long, long ago.
The tension she’d been feeling eased, replaced by another, far more pleasurable kind. Now, her primary concern addressed, she could think about other things like…when will he kiss me?
As soon as the thought formed, however, she realized it was the wrong question to ask herself.
She wasn’t waiting for him to make that move.
Bracketing his face in her hands, Gabriella arched up on her toes and brushed her lips against his.
The contact zipped through her like an electric shock, physically traveling along nerve endings and lighting up her insides with awareness.
Hunger. The effect was so sweeping, she pulled back a moment to savor it.
To press her lips together and hold that kiss.
His breath warmed her sensitized mouth in that moment, a delectable reminder of all that awaited her. And, she hoped, him.
“Did you feel that?” she couldn’t resist asking, even if it made her sound like a teenager after a first kiss.
“A bolt of lightning that left things smoldering straight down to my socks?” He reached a hand to twine through her hair, the fingertips scraping along the back of her scalp.
Gently he gathered up her hair and tilted her head to one side as he stared down at her in the gray and white moonlight. “Yes, ma’am. I did.”
His words sent an answering streak of desire through her.
This time Gabriella didn’t think. She let the kiss happen, melting against him as he drew her to him.
She caught at his shoulders, anchoring herself to him and all the sweet sensation his lips inspired.
Softly, sweetly, he nipped and licked at her mouth until her lips parted for him.
Then the kiss took a hungry turn, his tongue teaching her things no one had ever shown her before.
She’d been his tutor once. Now? She greedily followed his lessons, wanting to catch up with him even as she needed to savor every moment of being with Clayton Travers after all this time.
He backed her toward the bed, their legs tangling pleasantly in a seductive dance. He let go of her hair to mold her body to his, breasts to chest, hip to hip. The feel of all that male strength against her—straining toward her but under Clay’s complete control—made her weak-kneed. Boneless.
She felt for the buttons on his shirtfront, needing to feel more of him. Desperate to end the suspense of what more this night might bring. Every stroke of his hand over her body burned away a little more of the hellish day. Her nightmarish past. The heat between them fired away everything else.
“Gabby.” He covered her hand in his and she swore she could feel his pulse hammer right through his skin and into hers.
Maybe it was hers.
She was all feeling and pulse.
“Mmm?” She couldn’t work on his buttons with him holding her fingers, so she settled for raining kisses along his jaw, savoring the gentle scratch of the bristly skin there.
“I don’t have any way to protect you.” His words might have been in another language since they didn’t make sense. And therefore, didn’t slow her down as she dipped a kiss onto the column of his throat where his skin was even hotter.
“Touch me,” she whispered.
“Gabby, listen to me, please. I wasn’t expecting this.” He captured her face in his hand and turned her gaze to him. “I didn’t bring anything to keep us safe.”
Blinking, she forced herself to process what he was saying.
And smiled.
“I did.” She slid free of his touch and tried to remember where she set her purse. “Even though I have never had any reason to be sexually optimistic, I am perpetually prepared.”