Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Mia
Sunday night football and I was on my couch watching the game on TV like I always did.
I knew better than to go to the game in person this time.
It had been over a week since I’d seen Gabe, since the funeral and I had no idea what our status was.
But I wished like hell I could console him, wished like hell I had the strength to call him, risk rejection, on the chance that I could comfort him.
In the end, the Militia lost the game, so I should have been happy I wasn’t there. But I blew out a sigh, staring at his sad face as Gabe took the podium at the postgame press conference. My heart felt like a practice dummy, battered and stalwart. Still all his for the taking.
His game had been erratic, but this time everyone knew why.
He’d lost his mother and that had to have shaken his focus.
I waited, holding my breath and hoping fiercely that no one from the media would kick the man when he was clearly down.
If anyone of them had, I’d have taken their name and .
. . and I don’t know what, but I would have done something.
Called them out, made them feel small, or I’d have written a letter to their producer or editor, ripping them.
But there’d been no need, because Gabriel Wyatt was the golden-haloed boy, the gracious, press-friendly guy who would spar playfully, give away a sound bite more often than he gave away credit for good team play—which was always.
As he stood there, trying to smile, trying not to look defeated, he looked hollow, like the fight was gone and he struggled to even care, struggled to hang onto football as his life force.
Tears streaming down my face, I picked up the clicker and stabbed at the off button, viciously aiming it at the television until it went dark. It didn’t help. Misery didn’t turn of like a television. Pacing around, I knew I should get to bed, should try to get some sleep.
When my phone clattered on the glass coffee table, I looked at it, surprise the only thing registering.
After a few beats, realizing it was on vibrate and I should answer it since work was the only call I’d be getting at this hour, nearly midnight, I snatched it up and answered it.
Wiping the tears from my face as if that would steady my voice or settle my emotions enough to speak professionally.
“Mia Lane speaking.” Poised, not a shadow of nerves.
“Why weren’t you at the game?”
My poise shattered like a window bombarded by rocks, his voice hard, accusing. Nerves lit up like I’d touched a live wire, which I had if the wire’s name was Gabe.
“Are you at home? I looked for you after the game. Tate told me he gave you a ticket.”
Failing to control my jumpy heart, I needed to be brave and straight, to know where I stood without any nuance. I said, “I thought I was banished until the end of the season.”
“Yeah, well that plan worked like shit.”
He sounded more resigned than upset. I laughed like a silly girl, my heart hurting and light at the same time.
“Did I ever tell you how much I love your laugh?” His voice was thick, like he was clogged with emotion.
“No. Why don’t you come over here and tell me.”
“Unlock your door.” The phone went silent.
“Gabe?” No answer.
He’d ended the call. I dropped the phone. Jumping from the couch in a frantic hurry, I pulled my old Auburn T-shirt over my head, tossing it into the open closet as I ran into my bedroom.
I still wasn’t sure where we stood, still on shaky ground.
But he was coming over here and I had a feeling I was about to find out exactly what kind of relationship he was offering me.
Whether I had a chance to be the most important thing in his life.
Because that’s what I had to offer him. All of me, the way my mother had given herself to my father.
And even after all those years of neglect, I knew I loved my father, knew he loved me, each in our imperfect ways.
Maybe I needed to let Gabe love me in whatever imperfect way he could. If he loved me.
By the time he walked in the door, a surprisingly short time after I’d dropped my phone, I was ready, dressed in a silky rose-colored slip that passed as a nightgown with thin straps and lace barely covering my breasts, my excited nipples popping through the thin fabric.
I would console him as best I could, give him all of me.
I heard him exhale a long breath as he stepped inside the door, looking across the room at me as I stood from the couch. My heart clenched for him.
“Gabe…” I breathed his name, not knowing what else to say, wanting to fold him into my arms, my heart, forever.
“You look like a mirage, the kind of vision that could haunt a man,” he said.
He came to me, close, but not touching. He smelled like autumn and nighttime and danger, earth and city soot and car fumes clinging to him.
His dark hair was disheveled, his face unshaven, and he wore a black sweater under his worn leather jacket with black jeans.
He looked like a dark knight coming to save my heart from loneliness when I wanted to be the one to save him.
“Do I haunt you?” I asked. Knowing he was thinking of us now, distracted from his loss.
He nodded, pulled me in against his chest, wrapping his arms around me, covering my mouth with his.
He plunged his tongue deep inside, claiming me, possessing me thoroughly.
Through the sensual haze that threatened to put me into orgasmic oblivion soon, the only thought that managed coherence was how insubstantial my nightgown was, how easily he could remove it.
And wishing and wanting and waiting for him to rip it from me, tearing the last of the barriers between us away.
“I think we should talk first,” he said, separating his mouth from mine, resting his forehead against mine, his head bowed slightly.
“Isn’t that my line?” I said, almost hiccupping with emotional nausea, everything in me rearing up to escape convulsively at the least provocation.
I felt his smile as he brushed his lips against my face, then took my hand in his big strong shaky one, the incongruity puzzling me.
How could he be shaky? Wasn’t he always so sure, so self-possessed?
Then I remembered that was what people thought about me.
And I’d been acting all along, learned the pose from a pro, how to appear perfectly composed, confident, no matter what was going on.
Most of the time it was real, but there were those gaps, like any time I was with Gabe, that I filled in with plastic.
He led me to the couch and pulled me onto his lap.
The first impression I had was of his enormous rock hard cock against my ass.
I couldn’t help the gasp, as I looked at him, my mouth open.
Naturally he grinned, male pride showing through his nerves, settling him back firmly into that confident untouchable hero territory.
But I was comfortable with that. It’s where I’d harbored him for years.
Where I cherished him. Until the real-life version invaded my life, became more untouchable and more desirable, more real and more distant all at once.
I wanted the real vulnerable, confident, gracious, kind, single-minded, misguided, mother-loving Gabriel Wyatt, more than anyone, with everything in me.
He touched me, as if he’d reached inside and stroked my aching heart, exploded my passion to a level I’d never felt, never realized was in me, made me want to sooth him, made me laugh. Made me cry.
I squirmed, not even trying to leave him alone so he could talk.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care about his words, but I was sitting on his ginormous cock, the beautiful prize I longed for, and I could wait to hear his words.
Now, I wanted to feel his skin, feel his heart beat against mine, feel the raging pulse of desire of his inside me, in my mouth.
I wanted to take that tempting oversized prize of his into my mouth.
He wrapped his arms around me, trying to still me.
“Mia, I made a mistake.” His gruff voice filled me. I kissed his mouth and he responded with abrupt voraciousness, plunging and nibbling and sucking, as he moved his hands to my face. I had my hands in his hair, holding him back, matching his hunger until I panted for air and for more of him.
“Let me say what I need to say.” His ragged voice pleaded with me.
“Hurry then.”
He half chuckled as he sucked in air, his arms around me, holding me in place again. They were no longer shaky. They were strong, and loving, like him.
“I should never have put football before you, or asked you to wait. It was wrong— “
I shook my head in a surge of bravery. “It wasn’t wrong if that’s the way you felt.”
“It wasn’t the way I felt.” He stared at me with those intense eyes, boring into me until I felt branded, until I felt the implication of his words all the way down to my bones.
“It’s not the way I feel. You, Mia, are far more important to me than football.” His voice sounded shaky saying the words that I knew were once blasphemous to him. They sounded wrenched from the depths of his soul, from a place that hadn’t seen the light in a very long time.
I felt dizzy and swayed in his arms slightly, as if the swirling emotions his words stirred threw me off kilter physically.
“Mia— “
“I adore you, Gabe. Do you know how much you mean to me? Everything. I want you, want to make you happy no matter what, want us to cherish each other and now— “
“I do cherish you, Mia.”