28. Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Gabe
T he chopper behind us seems to churn Abbie’s statement over and over in repeat: I just need you naked. I just need you naked. I hear those words in my head, over and over and fucking over.
Normally a sexy woman telling me she just wants to keep me naked would wind me up and get me ready for a hot night or two or even three, of fucking and fucking some more. It’s not that simple with Abbie and yet it’s as simple as my next breath. The simple truth is that this isn’t just sex.
I take her hand and lead her forward and once we’re inside the airport, I cut left and to the right, into a hallway that leads to another, private hallway. The minute we round the corner, I turn her and press her against the wall and force her to own her words. “It was loud outside, Abbie. Repeat yourself now.” I press my hands on either side of her head. “I’m listening. Say what you said to me out there, right here, right now.”
Her gaze cuts right, her red hair a wild, sexy mess around her shoulders, and damn it, I want all of it splayed out on my stomach right about now. I want to fuck her. I want to kiss her. I want her naked, but not because we’re just sex. Because we’re not. Because I can’t get enough of her, when most women are here and gone, and over, in my mind, before they ever started. I reach up and catch her chin, turning her gaze to mine. “I’m listening,” I press again. Needing to know where her head really is and that’s not something I could do on the tarmac.
“I don’t need to know your secrets,” she whispers, swallowing hard before she firms her voice and adds, “I just need you naked.”
I know people. I read people. I know this woman in ways that defy us just meeting and I want to know more of her. She doesn’t mean those words. She doesn’t even come close to meaning those words. “I want to know yours. Sweetheart. Every last one of them, big and small.”
“No,” she says firmly. “No, I’ve decided—”
“You just want to fuck me?” I challenge.
“Isn’t that what a man who is now in his late thirties and unmarried wants to hear?”
My lips thin. “Not with you, Abbie.”
“Just sex, Gabe.” She grabs my shirt, fingers balling the cotton, her eyes on my chest, and even after all that time at the shelter she smells sweet, soft, tempting. “Just sex,” she repeats, and there’s almost a desperation to her that I understand a bit too well. I was in her state of mind. I was in a time in my life when I was wounded and I felt like everything was spinning around. To a time when “just sex” gave me security. It also walled me off, shut me down, and did so in a way I’m not letting her wall off.
“Not happening, Abbie baby. It’s too late for that.”
She presses against my chest and looks up at me. “Too late for what?”
“Just sex. That ship already sailed.”
“We’ve known each other a day.”
“Your point?” I challenge.
“Gabe—”
I cup her face. “I know you’re scared.”
That sets her off, her eyes flashing with temper. “I’m not scared. You don’t get to make me scared to fit your narrative.”
Every reaction I provoke from this woman tells me a story. This one tells me that her ex was controlling in a way that reaches well beyond his money. “Maybe it’s just me that’s scared.” Her cellphone starts ringing. “That’s probably your mother.” I push off the wall and give her space to take the call.
She checks the number and glances up at me. “It’s her,” she confirms.
“Tell her we’ll go on out to the ranch and check things out. I need to get Dexter.” I leave and she doesn’t stop me, but I don’t expect her to. Not when her mother is going through hell and the bullets seem to be flying.
I round the corner as she says, “Mom. Yes. We’re already in the Hamptons.” I keep walking. If she needs me she’ll get me. I don’t believe there’s any question at this point that I’ll help her.
My walk is short and I enter the desolate front lobby. I find Dexter sitting on the floor in the center of a bunch of empty seats not far from an unmanned counter, with Mia and Grayson kneeling beside him, both holding treats. Such a good serial killer, I think. He lures them in and then goes for the throat, which means I need to act fast. Grayson and Mia are too good to die this easy.
I hurry forward to claim the beast before he misbehaves. “Thanks for the ride and pet sit,” I say “I need to get the pooch to my place.” Grayson stands, helping Mia to her feet, and handing me the leash. “Can we go out to the ranch and make sure we’re ready for the animals?” I ask.
“I’d like to go too,” Mia says, as Dexter paws at me and I obediently pat his head. “I’m also starving.”
Grayson pulls her around the dog and under his arm. “I’ll feed her and we’ll meet you out there in forty-five minutes. I’ll text you the address.”
“Works for me,” I say. “I’m sure it will for Abbie. She’s talking to her mother now and I don’t need the address. I picked up the location while we were at the shelter. I know the Ellisons.”
When we would part ways, Grayson stands his ground. “You hear we’re working on a n NFL deal?”
“Holy shit, man,” I say. “Of course, I heard. How can I not hear about something that big? I mean, who buys into an NFL team?”
“It’s not done yet. I never count my chickens until they’re hatched. My pops taught me that. Eric’s looking for a new player to help it close. You and Reid interested?”
Eric being his right arm and best friend who masterminds many of his money-making deals. “Hell yeah, we’re interested.”
“Shoot Eric a text. He’s got a lot going on, but he needs to know you could be a player.”
I pull my phone from my pocket and text Eric. “Done.”
Grayson gives me an approving smile. “Need a ride home?”
“I’ll call a car,” I say. “You two take off.”
Mia hugs me because that’s Mia. “I love that you’re helping her. I love you with her.”
She doesn’t know me all that well, but since I’ve started coming to the Hamptons, I see them often. The truth is, she knows me more than most. I don’t let people know me and she’s a female who I haven’t had sex with who has become a friend. Those women read me a little too well, like my damn sister.
The two of them take off and I take care of a car. Still waiting on Abbie, I bend down to check on Dexter’s state of mind and find myself subject to a tongue bath that ends when we both watch Abbie hurry in our direction. I swear I can feel Dexter’s heart thrum harder with excitement beneath my palm at the sight of her or maybe it’s mine beating faster. Just watching this woman walk, the sexy sway of her hips, has my cock hard but that’s not where it stops. There’s more with Abbie, so damn much more. Every woman who was ever my type could walk by in this moment, they would no longer be my type.
She hugs herself and shivers. “I packed my coat because why wouldn’t I pack my coat?”
“You’ve been on an adrenaline high,” I say. “You weren’t cold. I can grab it for you before we go outside.”
“Thank you. I’d love that.” She bends down to greet Dexter. “How’d he do?”
“Good enough to have him playing nice guy. Grayson and Mia think he’s an angel. I saved them from certain death.”
She laughs. “Where are they now?”
“They went to eat. We need to drop off Dexter at my place and we can do the same if you want before we meet them at the ranch.” I don’t wait for a reply, because I haven’t asked what’s important. “Everything okay with your mother?”
“Yes,” she says, straightening. “She has no idea that we’re being attacked right now.”
“Don’t underestimate your mother. I’m good at snap decisions about people. Your mother is no fool and she’s not filled with the kind of naiveté that dummies out brains.”
“Dummies out brains?” She smiles. “The things you say, Gabe.” Her eyes meet mine and this time she doesn’t cut her stare. This time there isn’t the desperate need to push me away. There’s warmth. The kind I could turn to heat in thirty seconds flat. The kind she’s already turning to heat for me and it didn’t take thirty seconds.
“Yes,” I say. “The things I say.” And I’m thinking about the part where I told her that fucking wasn’t enough.
She steps into me and presses her hand to my chest, and there’s no hiding the way my heart thunders under her palm. “You’re scared?”
It was one of those vulnerable admissions that I don’t make and haven’t allowed myself to think about since I made it. I mold her to me. “You scare the hell out of me, woman, but I can’t seem to care. And don’t ask why. Not here. Not now.”
“You’re scared but I’m the one who feels like I’m going to end up hurt.”
“That’s just another way of saying you’re scared.”
“Okay then. Yes. You scare the hell out of me, Gabe.”
We stand there in the vacant sitting area of the airport, the dog by our feet, emotion pulsing between us, seconds ticking by, the next words we say perhaps the most important of our relationship. I cup her face and tilt her chin up. “Want to go get naked?” I say because what I want to define us, is her laughter, her happiness.
She rewards me with a laugh and my soul sings for that sweet, sexy sound. It sings for her. I’m fucking singing for her in all kinds of ways that a man like me should be calling nuts, but I’m not. I’m in deep with this woman, with no regret but I wonder… if she knew my past, would she feel the same?