Chapter Seven
SHOCK SWAMPED HER as those cool, firm lips met hers. It didn’t last long, and was immediately replaced by a soaring feeling that this was the moment she’d been waiting for.
It made no sense. He was wrong, wrong, wrong, and she should be pulling back, putting an ocean of clear blue water between them…
But instead, she leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, returning the kiss with hot urgency.
Their tongues meshed, and Jennifer stifled a moan of pure pleasure.
She half groaned into his mouth because she didn’t want to break the wild, electric connection between them.
And his mouth wasn’t enough. She wanted more of him to touch more of her.
She clicked her tongue in aching frustration when he pulled back and looked at her, their eyes meeting. His hand was still curled into her hair, and their bodies were so closely pressed together that it would have been a stretch to slide a sheet of paper between them.
‘Jen…’ he muttered huskily, but he wasn’t pulling back, and the curled fist in her hair loosened as he gent-ly pushed her hair back and kept his hand there in a softly caressing gesture.
‘I know,’ she breathed. She had to stop herself from reaching up to touch his face. She knew him so well, and yet now, in this moment, there was still so much more to discover.
‘I didn’t mean for this to happen. Hell, Jen…my self-control is usually rock-solid.’
‘Hmm, it’s a bad idea,’ she dutifully breathed, but she still wanted to touch him, and as he wasn’t pulling back, she guessed that he felt the same way.
But it was a bad idea. Terrible idea, in fact. They were friends, and nowhere was this kiss in the friendship landscape. It was nothing, meant nothing. She would make sure of that, because she wanted everything he could never give.
And yet…
‘Just terrible,’ she added earnestly for good measure.
‘It’s essential,’ he murmured, sifting his fingers through her hair and lightly stroking the back of her neck, ‘that we walk away from whatever the hell this is and forget it ever happened.’
‘For sure. Although, Gabriel…’
‘Talk to me.’
‘I know that’s what we should do,’ Jennifer said roughly, ‘but…’
‘Think before you say anything else,’ he muttered. ‘I’m in a place I never expected to be and have never been before, so I…for the first time in my life, I…’
‘You what?’
‘I can’t predict the outcome.’
‘And is that such a bad thing?’
‘For me? Yes.’
‘Got it,’ Jennifer agreed, thinking that this was definitely one of those surprises best avoided at all costs. She sighed and curved into his soft caress, then craned up to lick his chin, the corner of his mouth…
She didn’t get any further.
With a guttural, stifled oath of abandonment, Gabriel swept her off her feet and was carrying her towards his bedroom. She leaned back with her hair tumbling in a wavy cascade, swinging, as he kicked open the door and deposited her on the bed.
The windows were open and the shutters flung back, allowing in the soft, silvery glow of the moonlight.
The delicate beams of light silhouetted Gabriel as he stood by the side of the bed for a few seconds. Jennifer wondered whether he was having second thoughts.
She knew that she should have been. She should, right now, be horrified and mortified. Frankly, right now, she shouldn’t be here at all, lying in his bed, fully clothed and waiting for what felt inevitable.
Her heart stopped as he began to undress.
She propped herself up on one elbow and stared in the barely there light. His movements were slow and deliberate, and he never took his eyes off her face.
‘Enjoying the view?’ he asked with rampant amusement.
‘It’s not bad.’
‘Very hurtful.’
Looking at her propped up like that with all her tumbling dark hair and sexy curves, Gabriel felt, weirdly, at peace.
The relationship they’d always had, the friendship he’d always cherished, should have made this awkward, but for some reason, it felt natural.
Was this the allure of a friends-with-benefits situation? He’d never, not once, contemplated the viability of any such relationship, yet here he was, and yes…it felt natural.
He wondered whether it was the freedom of knowing that he was with a woman who understood him and where he was coming from.
Jennifer had no expectations of him. She wasn’t looking for love and commitment. She knew where he stood on that. She could him give her body, but her heart would be safe from him.
Was that why he felt so liberated, standing here in front of her lazily curious gaze?
Liberated and turned on in a way he had never felt before.
He was barely aware of his shirt hitting the ground because she was the only thing filling his head, suffocating every feeling but the overwhelming one of craving.
He moved towards the window and closed the shutters. Suddenly the moonlight was snuffed out, and his eyes had to adjust to the sudden blackness.
‘Your turn,’ he commanded huskily when he was once more towering by the side of the bed, staring down at her.
Jennifer slid off the bed and stood right by him, shorter than him but only by a few inches. She gazed up at him, hands trembling with what he hoped was a mixture of nerves and simmering excitement.
‘On second thought,’ he said shakily, ‘I want to do the honours.’
He reached for her hands and held them in his. Before he began to undress her, he lowered his head and kissed her again. This time, the kiss was long and lingering and sweetly, deliciously thorough.
He felt her soft sigh like a caress.
‘Sure about this, Jen?’
‘Never been more sure about anything in my life.’
‘Even though it makes no sense?’
‘I’m going with the flow.’
‘Well, at least you don’t come with any illusions,’ he said with heartfelt sincerity.
‘At least I don’t,’ she agreed, kissing him now on the side of his neck, licking him and tasting the saltiness of his skin. ‘And stop with the talking…’
‘Your wish, my command.’
He undressed her. Bit by slow bit, and with every small revelation of naked skin, he became more and more turned on.
When she was finally standing in front of him in her bra and panties, he ran his hands over her smooth shoulders and along her arms, like a blind man wanting to commit to memory every small inch of her glorious body.
‘You’re beautiful, Jennifer,’ he husked.
‘That’s sweet of you, Gabriel, but honestly, not necessary.’
‘What do you mean?’
He moved to run exploring hands along her sides, along her waist, allowing himself to savour the anticipation of touching more…her breasts, her legs and what beckoned between them.
‘You don’t have to do the whole compliment thing.’
Gabriel pulled back and frowned. ‘The whole compliment thing?’
‘The chat-up lines, you know.’
‘You are beautiful, Jen.’ He began kissing her again, pulling away to say in little tender bursts, ‘and…’ a flick of his tongue against her mouth ‘… I do not…’ a sexy breath in her ear and the dart of his tongue to accompany it ‘…do chat-up lines.’ He pulled back, but he was grinning. ‘You make me sound superficial.’
‘Far be it from me to do that.’
‘One thing I never do is lie. If I tell you that you’re beautiful, then you’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.’
‘Says the man who’s managed to lure me into pretending to be involved with him for the sake of his mother.’
‘Touché, but that was a little white lie,’ Gabriel corrected her. ‘Spoken with the best of intentions. Besides, it’s not so much a lie now, wouldn’t you agree? And what was it you said about enough talking…?’
He tugged the straps of her cotton bra, inched them down and gazed, barely able to breathe, at her breasts as they were oh so slowly revealed.
He’d died and gone to Heaven.
His hands were shaking when the bra was finally off, unclasped and on the ground with the rest of her discarded clothes.
He cupped her abundant breasts in his hands.
His hands were big, but they still didn’t manage to contain her breasts completely.
He rolled his thumbs over the tips of the big circular discs of her nipples and groaned.
His erection was pushing against his boxers like a rod of steel.
Still kissing her, he removed one hand from her breast and guided it towards his erection. Then he had to grit his teeth and contain his urgent desire to go further and faster as her hand circled his length through the light cotton.
‘Okay, not sure how much more I can stand of this,’ he groaned. He got rid of the boxers at speed and propelled her back towards the bed and they both half fell onto the mattress in a tumult of moans and stifled gasps and low laughter.
In her head, Jennifer couldn’t have agreed more. She was so wet that she could feel her thighs sliding against one another, and Lord…the feel of him, of that massive erection, throbbing in her hand.
She’d never experienced anything like the rush of blinding desire that had engulfed her.
She could barely manage to free herself of her underwear, was barely aware of him sinking onto her, as naked as she was.
She felt the hardness of him between her thighs, nudging as she opened her legs to him.
He knew just how to press against her, to rub and slide against the nub of her clitoris until she was going crazy with wanting more.
She held his hips still for a couple of seconds. Her eyelids fluttered. She arched up as he began to tenderly kiss her. He peppered her face with kisses, lingered on her mouth, but not for long.
She knew just how he was going to explore her body, and she couldn’t wait. Her brain just seemed to stop working altogether as the lips that had been on hers travelled lazily down to her collarbone, licking and nipping before settling on one nipple.
She felt him relax into the job at hand as he began to suckle.
He drew her nipple into his mouth and circled it with his tongue, and her whole body arched up so that the sensation could be amplified.
She curled her fingers into his dark hair, spread her legs wide open beneath him and abandoned herself to what was happening to her body.