Page 41 of Justified Lies

Gabe was looking at her like she was wearing a tinfoil cap.

“Sweetheart,” he spoke slowly, “that wasn’t a one-night stand.”

She chose to ignore the smirk that had formed on his tempting mouth.

“Well, we aren’t in a relationship, and we wereintimate,” she whispered the word. “I don’t think it matters that we didn’t sleep together. Then you made an excuse to stop, so I assumed it was over.”

Lianna’s explanation sounded lame even to her own ears, but self-preservation forced her to at least mount this weak argument. She ran out because she was scared and was almost certain Gabe knew that already.

“It was overbecauseyou left.” His voice was soft but still laced with annoyance.

Gabe’s eye contact challenged her. When she dared to meet those narrowed brown eyes, the force of her feelings was impossible to hide. Hugging her body self-consciously, she allowed herself a reprieve.

Looking down, she took in her appearance. A thick pair of gray sweatpants were combined with an oversized silk nightshirt. Technically it was a maternity sleep shirt she bought when pregnant with Annie, but if she called it oversized it made her feel better about wearing it four years later. It was a pink button down with white stripes ending mid-thigh. She cringed inside.

Thick spirals of unruly hair bracketed her face. When she allowed it to dry naturally, it could rival the best Jheri curls from the decade she was born. Growing self-conscious, she attempted to tuck a few strands behind her ears, but they just bounced back whichever way they pleased.

The silence stretched on for several long seconds until she heard Gabe’s footfalls as he approached. She felt heavy under the weight of his stare but refused to look up until he was alarmingly close. Gentle fingers went directly to her hair, as if he were reading her mind. Grabbing a curly strand, he took his time examining it.

“I like it this way.” Gabe released her hair but took another step towards her, his big body herding her from the entry way towards the living area.

“And I wasn’t done yet.”

“Huh?” Lianna couldn’t get her brain to function when he was stalking her like this.

“I wasn’t done last night, or the time before that either.” His eyes held a predatory gleam.

On cue, he reached out and hooked one strong arm around her waist, pulling her tight against him. His hungry gaze traveled down her silk shirt like he had a pin-up model in his arms. Lianna’s breathing faltered.

She should probably be slowing things down, or at least trying to gain some space to think. But he smelled so good, the peppermint from his breath mixing with the usual soap and musk she had come to identify as his scent. Coarse jeans brushed against her cotton clad legs, sending tingles up her spine. It was sensory overload. Instinctively her hands came up to rest on the muscles hidden beneath a fitted t-shirt. This one was sky blue, and Lianna confirmed it was, in fact, her favorite color on him.

Leaning down, Gabe bypassed her mouth to press a kiss on the exposed area where her top shirt button was undone. She felt that kiss in every nerve ending. Then he moved up to her collar bone, forcing her chin up, kissing her again. He kept going up her neck, pressing soft kisses until he reached her jaw.

Nuzzling just under her ear, she could feel Gabe smile before he whispered, “Do you want me to show you what usually happens during a one-night stand?”

Lianna pulled back only to find humor in his eyes, but she was so off balance that her mouth couldn’t form words. Gabe didn’t wait for a verbal answer, erasing the space she had just put between them with a kiss. This time on the lips and it was so sweet, so soft, her heart leapt.

“By next weekend I could show you how a fling works.”

Gabe was whispering the words across her lips in between kisses, his warm breath tickling her face. This certainly threw her for a loop. She was expecting him to be angry or annoyedbut not this. If she wasn’t so turned on, she would be thoroughly confused.

Pushing lightly against his chest, she took a tiny step back again and looked up at him. “Why did you change your mind?”

Stepping right back into her, he rubbed his hands up and down her back, seeming to revel in the feel of the silk shirt she wore.

“Hum?” He snuggled her cheek with his beard.

Since Gabe had re-established himself in her life a few weeks ago, Lianna had been racking her brain as to why. After drawing the proverbial line in the sand, why was he suddenly so forward regarding their physical relationship? He didn’t need to sleep with her to keep her safe from whoever was stalking her.

She had considered that perhaps he felt sorry for her, but the man was in law enforcement, not acting. He certainly seemed to be just as turned on by her as she was by him. Maybe he sensed she was particularly vulnerable, but deep down she trusted Gabe not to mistreat her that way.

As he teasingly nipped her ear before pressing a kiss just under it, she decided it didn’t matter right this second. She had another chance with Gabe. The man she craved since the first time she met him, was offering to fulfill some of those cravings. She would do her best not to ruin it … again. She deserved this one pleasure. Even if it was a fling on his end, she could pretend it was that way for her too.

Gabe’s husky voice broke into her thoughts. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“Didn’t you want to talk,” she stammered out.

“I think we should go upstairs now, or we can do it right here,” he kindly clarified. Deciding that Gabe wasn’t a man that shied away from a challenge, she took his hand and led him up the stairs to her bedroom.

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