Page 43 of Justified Lies

As Lianna continued to claw at him, she whispered his name and Gabe’s control slipped.

God, this woman did it for him. Ignoring his shaking arms, he buried his head into the side of her neck, his eyes squeezed closed against the pleasure. Gabe held on to his composure by a thread.

Lianna raised her legs, interlocking her ankles around his back. As she hugged him close with both her arms and legs now, Gabe felt oddly emotional. “Please,” her plea redirected his attention.

Obliging, he was able to give her exactly what she wanted … for about a minute. On the sixty-first second his composure rode away on her sex-laden voice, and he was flying apart.

****

Lianna was exploding, confident her body must be breaking into pieces. It was the best kind of agony. Had it ever felt like this before? The intensity of her emotions caught her off guard.

The pleas coming from her mouth were loud and explicit, but she hardly cared. Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore the detonation occurred. His name was on her lips as she rode the high.

Gabe’s big body collapsed on top of her, and she heard him struggling to take in air. Never had being crushed felt so wonderful. Her arms remained wrapped around him as she clung tightly.

The euphoria was setting in. She hoped he would never move and for a few long minutes he complied. Then to her disappointment he shifted, putting his body weight back on his forearms. Gabe rose, only to look down at her.

“You okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No, that was definitely all good.” She smiled up at him.

Seeming to relax then, he slowly looked around. Finding her underwear on the other side of the bed, he reached for them. He used the clothing to clean up after himself. She instantly felt empty, on more than one level. As if he was feeling the same, he lay on his side and took her into his arms. Not exactly as good, but a decent enough consolation.

Gabe flipped all the way on his back, pulling her half onto his body. One leg was thrown across his thigh, while her head was nestled between his arm and chest. Neither one of them said a word for a long time. Lianna was content just rubbing the coarse hair on his chest and listening to him breathe. She considered breaking the silence to ask him again why he suddenly stopped holding her at arm’s length and now held herinhis arms. Her fear of the answer kept her mouth closed.

Lianna shivered and Gabe hugged her closer. He leaned down and pulled the throw blanket from the bottom of the bed up to cover them. What happened tonight didn’t feel like settling or like scratching an itch. In fact, it felt like they had forged a connection deeper and truer than she ever imagined possible.

Lianna had stopped sharing a bed with Scott before he passed, so it had been years since she had been with a man. Maybe that was why this felt so monumental for her. Or maybe they had tapped into something. A connection that only two people who cared deeply for each other could share. She wanted to believe that so desperately that she did, closing her eyes and letting his warm embrace be enough for now.

The night seemed to simultaneously go on for days and be over in minutes. Lianna woke up to Gabe’s warm body still asleep beside her, and a bladder that was going to quit at any second. Slipping out from his grasp, she heard him stir as she hustled into the bathroom. As she washed her hands, she looked at her reflection in the mirror and barely stifled a scream. Herhair was doing its best bride of Frankenstein impression. She hurriedly pulled it back into a scrunchie before brushing her teeth and slathering on some of her shea butter lotion.

Grabbing a bath towel, she wrapped the fluffy cotton around herself. While she may have felt mildly confident under the guise of dark last night, she felt like a droopy mess this morning. The tiger stripes under her butt were best kept hidden.

Opening the door as slowly and noiselessly as possible, she found him propped up on one elbow facing her. Her heart ceased beating. Lianna would bet money the organ froze in action. Never had she seen a more delicious sight in all her life than Gabe lying naked in her bed.

The sheets were down around his hips, stopping just below his muscled stomach. His dark hair was bed ruffled, his beard a little too shaggy. Brown sleepy eyes watched her lazily, but his smile had her coming undone. It was positively devilish, and she would have given him anything in the world had he asked at that very moment.You want me to rob a bank? Sure. Elope and raise the kids in Timbuktu? Okie dokey. Get your name tattooed across my forehead? Why not?

Instead of dropping her towel and pouncing on him like she wanted to, Lianna walked the few steps to her dresser and grabbed a t-shirt. Honing the skills she learned in her high school locker room, she quickly threw the shirt on without letting the towel drop. Then she shimmied into panties. When she was covered, she dropped the towel and turned to him. Still grinning at her, he patted the bed beside him. When she didn’t move, he verbally nudged her.

“Come here.”

With Gabe’s voice husky from sleep, the tone purely authoritative, she was defenseless. Lianna walked to the bed and perched at the very edge, balancing so she didn’t topple over theside. Moving in a blur, Gabe snagged her by the upper arm and reeled her in.

She laughed as he pulled her under him and started peppering her face with kisses. It felt like a scene out of a made-for-TV movie, and if she let herself, she could believe that they were carefree lovers, at least for a while.

Right on cue, Gabe went all in for the Emmy. Cradling her cheeks in both hands, he leaned down gently to kiss her on the lips. Turned out it wasn’t just a kiss, but a caress that went straight to her soul. He hadn’t kissed her like that before—no one had. The kiss was filled with so much passion, so much… love? If his kiss could speak, it would spout poetically about her being his Annabel Lee. At that moment, in his kiss, he was able to tell her more than his words ever could, and it shot panic straight to her core. Because regardless of his feelings and intentions, hers became glaringly clear.

She was in love with this man.

****

As Gabe lay there, Lianna sprawled over him, his body still inside hers, he had to forcefully clamp his jaw shut. For the second time in so many days, he feared that if he opened his mouth, he would regurgitate the words. Sure, he cared for Lianna, wanted to take care of her, but why his brain wanted to shout things he wasn’t even sure he felt was beyond him.

Getting laid had never turned him into some sort of heartsick Romeo in the past. Maybe he had been celibate too long. Gabe pushed away the knowledge that Lianna wasn’t just any woman, and this wasn’t just another instance of him getting laid.

Lianna snuggled closer, pressing a kiss into his neck and he clenched harder. Starting to panic, he knew he had to get out of there. Not necessarily because words he had never used with anyone else kept coming to mind, but because his body felt theneed to release that information. Gabe wasn’t sure what loving her meant, having never been in love before.

The fact that he had no idea what she would say in return to such a declaration didn’t help. Gabe needed to think and that was very hard to do with the half-naked woman lying on his chest.

---