Page 18 of Only for You
So, no, this guilt didn’t belong to her. She’d been his balm, not his catalyst. But his throat closed around that admission, so he said, “Not this, no,” and drop-kicked the subject for another. “Why L.A.?”
A beat of silence, followed by a nonchalant shrug. Too nonchalant. “Why not?” Her gaze dipped, and as if she couldn’t keep her hands to herself, she toyed with his piercing. Grinding his teeth against the pleasure zinging to his balls, he covered her hand with his and waited until she returned her attention to him. Several more seconds passed before she sighed and shook her head. “It was the farthest place from Boston without leaving the country, and big enough to get lost in.”
“Is that what you wanted? To get lost?”
Something dark ghosted through her eyes. “Once I realized God had no intention of letting me stop breathing like I asked him to after you went to jail, I figured pretty much becoming a ghost in a city where people looked through you rather than at you seemed like the next best option.”
God had no intention of letting me stop breathing like I asked him to…The words rattled against his skull, and a dirty fear coated his throat, his tongue.
“What are you talking about? You didn’t try to…” He trailed off, not even able to complete the thought.
“Kill myself?” she supplied. Shaking her head, she eased off his thighs, sitting next to him, her knees pulled to her chest and held there by the band of her arms. “No. But some nights I wanted to fall asleep and not wake up. I knew you would eventually be released from jail, but for all intents and purposes, you might as well have been dead to me. After what I’d done, I’d lost you. And there were moments I didn’t want to exist in a world where you didn’t. Melodramatic, I know.” A small, humorless smile curled the corner of her mouth. “You’d been gone about a month before I realized I couldn’t remain in Boston. Not when I saw you everywhere. So L.A. it was. I packed up what I could stuff in my car, borrowed some money from Uncle Garrett, and left.”
“You didn’t have a place to live, a job,” he said, belated worry for her settling inside him. A city the size of L.A. couldn’t have been kind to a woman totally on her own.
“I managed. Found a job bartending, stayed at a motel until I could afford an apartment. I had more than you. And I’ve been…okay. Sometimes even happy. At the end of next month, I’m going to be the owner of my own bar. Nothing like yours,” she said with a dry laugh. “But a small dive bar in Culver City. Uncle Garrett would be proud.”
“That’s wonderful, Gabriella,” he murmured. “I’m happy for you.” And he was. When they’d been wrapped around each other in bed, she would sometimes talk of taking over her uncle’s bar. That she’d still managed to grab her dream… It was a testimony to her will and strength. He wasn’t so much of an asshole that he couldn’t be proud of her for that. Admire her for it.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Closing her eyes, she loosed a shuddering breath. “Killian, I…”
“No.” He jolted off the bed, stripping his opened shirt off and throwing it aside.
“Killian—”
“Lay down,” he ordered, stalking across the room to the armoire. Yanking the door open, he snatched a silk scarf off a hook. He wrapped the material around his fists, staring down at the cloth. Throwing a glance over his shoulder, he inserted a thread of steel in his voice. “Lay down, Gabriella.”
After a brief hesitation, she complied and slid down on the mattress, her gaze fixed on him. Questions lurked in the purple depths, and he turned away from them. What could he say? That he’d been afraid of what she was going to say? That she was sorry again? Could he forgive her? He didn’t want to hear it. Not now. Because damn if he knew what he would say in response.
He’d played himself.
From the moment he’d set eyes on her, his goal had been drowning in her once more. Taking what he’d been denied for five long years. Sex, then back to their lives. At some point—maybe the moment she slid down the wall to her knees, taunting him, or the second he’d touched her bare flesh again—the scales had started to shift. Her pleasure—their pleasure— had begun to outweigh the original goal. This night had become less about taking and more about the desire that only this woman had ever been able to elicit and stir. About feeling alive again outside of an illegal fighting ring. She’d made him come alive instead of remaining the angry shell of a man he’d been since leaving the stink of jail behind.
And he didn’t want that to end. Not yet. It eventually had to; this night would inevitably lighten into day, and he would forfeit his right to touch her, bury himself inside her. An expiration date swung over their heads.
But until then, he had a legitimate reason to have her under him.
Shutting the armoire door, he returned to the bed and Gabriella. He tossed the silk scarf on the mattress, then quickly removed his pants. A soft gasp echoed in the room, and her lashes lowered, hiding her gaze from him. Just as he parted his lips to demand she open them, so he could see her thoughts, read her emotions, she opened her eyes, and Jesus. The arousal there, the heat. It seared him to the bone and twisted the dial in him from blazing to goddamn conflagration. No woman had ever looked at him with such need, hunger, or…longing.
That had to be wrong. Unlike him, she’d known where he was the entire half decade. If she’d missed him, she could’ve contacted him. He’d waited for her to come to him in the jail, to see him. But she’d deserted him, and that had hurt him worse than calling the cops. Even now, the knowledge throbbed like a thousand bee stings. Still, this time, he would walk away. But not until after…
“Put your wrists together and hold your arms out,” he instructed, picking up the long length of dark blue material and placing a knee on the mattress next to her hip.
This time, she didn’t waver but thrust her hands toward him. He quickly bound her wrists. Then, straddling her body and leaning over her, he secured the scarf around a bed railing. Once satisfied the material wouldn’t loosen, he straightened and stared down at the lean, graceful, but powerful body under him. Greed and anticipation coursed through him like rushing waters finally freed from a dam.
Jesus, she was beautiful. Without warning, a fissure cracked open inside him, and a rush of loneliness poured out of him, catching him off guard. He’d missed this connection, this sense of…safety in having the freedom to be vulnerable, to be himself with a woman. Inhaling, he briefly closed his eyes. Only with her. Only with Gabriella had he been truly happy. Grief-laced anger flickered within him. Constantly being on guard, having to shield himself from possible pain was another, different prison. And experiencing that freedom right now was another, different kind of pain.
Mentally shaking his head, he refocused on the beauty spread out before him. All that black as midnight hair spread across the pillow and tangled around her face and shoulders, spilling over her breasts. Cherry-red nipples poked through the strands, and he gently brushed them aside, baring her flesh to his hungry gaze. Her slender torso and flat belly flared into hips that fit perfectly in his hands. And then the neatly trimmed triangle of tight, raven curls. He’d had his mouth and fingers on and inside the flesh those curls hid. And he needed more. Was desperate for more of her. Needed to imprint her scent on him.
Slowly, he leaned back, cupped the back of her thighs and guided her legs up and out. With her long limbs bent at the knees, he had an unhindered view of her pink, swollen flesh. Of the puffy folds that were still damp and grew wetter under his stare. Of the small, grasping entrance that would soon stretch around him like the sweetest, tightest mouth. And…he slid his hands under her hips, lifted, and pressed his thumbs to the firm, bottom curves of her ass, spreading them. His gut clenched at the sight of the puckered and newly opened hole.
His fingers pressing into her skin, he lowered her legs and adjusted them to their original position. Once more he straddled her, and he dropped forward, his palms denting the pillow on either side of her head. For just a second, his mouth hovered above hers, and the siren’s call of those lush lips tempted him. He’d told himself earlier that kissing her was too intimate, that he wouldn’t cross that line. But with every breath carrying the flavor of her kiss, he couldn’t deny himself this pleasure anymore. Screw the line.
In spite of the aching, desperate need insisting he take, ravage, he slowly pressed his lips to hers. Slowly parted her lips and slid his tongue deep. Slowly licked the roof of her mouth, then sucked. And tangled. The taste of her. Damn, it never got old. And he called himself about ten different kinds of fool for ever trying to convince himself he’d forgotten. That he didn’t crave this. Like ripe peaches and sunshine. Like sin and every bad thing he shouldn’t want. But so fucking did. That sensation of old and new ricocheted through him once more. The woman was the same, but the hungry way she nipped at his lips, danced with him—that was new. Bolder. Hotter.
Yet, it was like coming home. Like the welcome he didn’t know he wanted, needed.
He feasted on her, for a moment, his control slipping as he drowned in her taste, savored each soft lick, delighted in each thrust of her tongue. Over and over, he dove between her lips, taking, giving, claiming, and surrendering.
