“He’s cute, huh?” his partner had asked tall, dark, and dreamy.
“Stop, Adrian.” His response was surprisingly firm.
“Come on, man. It’s been a year since you and Kyle split. It’s time you got back on the horse or allowed yourself to be mounted – whatever you’re in to.” I couldn’t see the expression on Adrian’s face, but I imagined he was waggling his eyebrows or something silly.
“He’s not really my type,” Detective Dreamy said with a casual shrug. Right then I knew where this was going and I should’ve just turned around and went back to my friends, but I just couldn’t. I had to know what he was going to say.
“Why ever not?” Adrian sounded genuinely confused by his answer.
“He’s just a bit too…”
“Feminine?” I finished for him. I could hear the edge of anger in my soft voice. The detective duo whipped around to face me, shock registering on their faces. The look of shock on Gabe’s face turned to shame in an instant when he realized I knew what he was about to say. I held my head high and stood straight and proud in front of them like I’d taught myself to do over the years.
“You’re one of those ‘masc only’ guys, aren’t you?” I even used air quotes for emphasis. At least he had the decency to look mortified at being busted. “Don’t worry, Detective Wyatt. I’m not into tall, dark, and dickish men so you’re safe from my affections.”
As first meetings went, it was terrible. There were several times during the weeks that followed that he approached me with an apology in his eyes, but I didn’t want to hear it. He wasn’t sorry he thought it or that he was about to say it. He was only sorry that I overheard him. It was a battle I’d faced all my life, and quite frankly, I was tired of it. So, I insulted him at every turn before he could get a word in edgewise.
He took it like a champ each and every time until his patience ran out; then he kissed me. I didn’t react very well to the kiss – well, I did during the scorching kiss, but not afterward. In the process of setting him straight, I exposed some of my insecurities to him, flirted with another guy, and insinuated that I’d be going home with him to make Gabe jealous. In essence, I’d made an ass of myself.
I barely slept that night when I got home alone. After tossing and turning for hours, I got up and baked apology cookies and took them to him later that morning. I wasn’t sure what kind of reception I was going to receive, but was surprised when he welcomed me into his home without any wisecracks. Instead, he made us coffee and we sat down to eat cookies at his kitchen table. I wouldn’t have been as forgiving or as nice as he was that morning had the situation been reversed.
Gabe moaned and groaned indecently around his bites of my chocolate chip cookies. My dick didn’t care about how big of a mistake it would be to get involved with him. He looked at me, his eyes honing in on my lips, and told me I had a little chocolate on my mouth. Gabe leaned forward and I thought he was going to wipe it off, but instead he licked it off.
That small gesture was like throwing gasoline on a bonfire. He threw me over his shoulder then carried me upstairs to his room where I rode him like a bronco. After I bragged about being limber in one of my tirades, I had to show him what I could do. I thanked the yoga gods when I saw his dark eyes burn with unadulterated lust when he looked up at me. He gripped my hips so hard he left bruised fingermarks that lasted for days and it turned me on every time I saw them.
I snuck out of his house and did my walk of shame home and then avoided him for days afterwards. When he finally pinned me down, I told him what we experienced was a mistake and would not happen again. I wanted to mean it, but I also knew there was something about him that made me want to take a chance. Later that same night, I got the scare of my life when Bianca’s killer broke into my house and tried to kill me. I had called Gabe in a panic when I heard the glass in my back door shatter and knew what was about to happen. I could’ve called 911, but if those were my last minutes on earth, I wanted to hear his voice one more time.
He saved me that night. He shot and killed that guy in my bedroom and then held me tight when fear and shock rocked my body like an earthquake. The police came and separated us so they could take our statements and I immediately missed the heat of his body and his arms around me. After everyone left, we looked at each other for several long moments.
I wanted to ask him to stay; I think he wanted to take me back to his place to tuck me away nice and safe. In the end, neither of us said anything of the sort. He watched as I pulled spare blankets out of a hall closet and made up a temporary bed on the couch. That bastard died on my bed and I’d never sleep on it again.
“I’m going to need to buy a new bed tomorrow,” was what I ended up saying to Gabe. I didn’t thank him for running to the rescue and saving me. I acted like I always did, I pushed all thought of the incident aside and focused on what I could control. I couldn’t change what happened in my home, but I could buy a new bed and bedding.
Gabe reluctantly left that night and we went back to pretending we were strangers for the weeks that followed. I’d seen him about town, but we never spoke again until the morning outside Georgia’s house. Looking down at him through my window, I could see how twisted up he was about stopping by my house. I should’ve kept my mouth shut and let him make up his own mind, but instead, I yelled out the window and issued a challenge that I knew would work in my favor. Regardless of what my brain said, I wanted to see him again and breathe in the scent of him – sandalwood, citrus, and man.
I met him at the back door and insulted him like a schoolkid would, but it didn’t faze him. He just smirked at me and walked into the kitchenette the staff and I used for the salon. I shut the door and turned to face him. The way that he chewed on his lower lip and how his brow furrowed to a V over his brows led me to believe that he was feeling uncertain about being in my home.
“How are you doing?” he asked, his deep voice filled with concern. I liked it almost as much as when his voice was gravelly with need when he came.
“Who’s asking? The cop or the guy who…” I let my words trail off because I wasn’t sure how to classify him.
Gabe could’ve come back with a witty, snappy reply, but he didn’t. He was obviously a better person than me, because I would’ve jumped all over that opening. “I’m not here on official police business,” he replied. “You’ve been dealt a lot of blows lately and I wanted to make sure you were holding up.”
“You want to come up for a cup of coffee?” I think we were both shocked by my question – probably me more than him. “And I mean coffee, nothing more.” I had seen the little flare of hope in the dark depths of his eyes and I had meant it when I said we weren’t having sex again. He was just too damn dangerous for my heart.
“Sure.” Gabe offered me a sly grin and followed me up to the second story.
I wondered if he was thinking how different that visit was from the previous one. I still woke up with nightmares of that man pinning me to my bed with his knees on my chest. I couldn’t breathe and I was quickly losing my strength as the sharp end of his knife got closer and closer to my throat. Sometimes I dreamed it was people other than him trying to kill me. In fact, one dream included the dashing detective with a knife to my throat. Dreaming of him pinning me to a bed wasn’t new, but in all my previous dreams I was panting, moaning, and begging for more, not fighting for my life. I felt that dream was symbolic of my internal struggle to resist him.
Gabe took a seat on the sofa while I popped a K-Cup in the Keurig to make him a cup of coffee. I remembered how he took his coffee from my only visit to his house. It was good host manners and nothing more that encouraged me to add the hazelnut creamer and sugar to the brew for him.
“Thank you,” he said politely when I handed his cup to him. “So, how are you holding up?” he asked when I returned to the living room with my cup of coffee. I sat in the club chair rather than beside him on the couch. The smile on his face was almost a smirk. Did he think I didn’t trust myself to sit beside him?Well, he wasn’t wrong. I feared he was my kryptonite.
“I’m still shocked,” I replied honestly. “This seems like a really bad dream.”
“Tell me about the Georgia you knew,” Gabe said. He didn’t sound like he was asking as part of his investigation. He sounded like he genuinely wanted to know, as if he cared.
“She was a tough nut.” I closed my eyes and pictured the Georgia I knew; the one she rarely showed to the world. She smiled, she laughed, and she told bawdy jokes. She didn’t care that I was gay. She only cared that I was always honest with her. It wasn’t something that happened when she was the mayor’s wife. People told her what she wanted to hear and she lost respect for them. Then there was the ordeal with Nadine and Rocky’s affair. That was the ultimate betrayal and she felt her entire adult life had been a lie. “I knew a different side of her than most. She trusted me.” Emotion choked my voice when I added, “And I let her down.”
