And across from her the best part…Gabe in the suit.
The jacket fit him perfectly, molding over his broad shoulders. He’d shaved too, his jaw a clean, strong line that made him even more devastatingly handsome than usual. Each time his gaze locked with hers, the throb in her core increased.
The server came and went, taking drink orders and mentioning specials. Felicity heard maybe half of it, too aware of the way Gabe’s dark eyes followed her like she was the only person in the room.
She lifted her water glass and realized her hand shook a little. Not from nerves, exactly—from whatever was growing between her and Gabe. She could only compare it to the slight unsteadiness she’d seen in Rhae’s hand on her and Denver Malone’s wedding day. The reaction of a woman so overcome with emotions, there was no other outlet for it.
The candle flickered, casting shadows over Gabe’s rugged features, catching the amber flecks in his dark eyes and painting over the small scar by his jaw.
Talk flowed with the wine they ordered. She told him about a time she’d nearly dropped an entire tray of hors d’oeuvres on the mayor of Willowbrook at a charity event.
“You didn’t.” His tone sounded with equal parts horror and delight.
“Oh, I did.” She couldn’t help laughing. “The tray tilted. Three bacon-wrapped figs went rogue. One of them hit the floor. One landed in the mayor’s wine, and the last one…stuck to his tie. Right in the middle.”
Gabe’s low laugh rolled across the table, the rugged sexiness snagging on her every nerve. At a nearby table, two ladies sitting with a small group of diners turned their heads to look at Felicity’s date, obviously appreciating the sound of his laugh too.
She cast a glance around the restaurant. Two men toward the back of the room were looking at her. For a second, her mind went to the darkest place.
Everyone in town knew her, or knew of her, but she’d never seen these men before. What were they doing in town?
What if they were responsible for her shop, her car, the missing journal?
She shifted, uncomfortable.
Then Gabe twisted, following her gaze. The men turned their attention to their meals.
Gabe touched her hand, a stroke of a fingertip across her knuckles that strummed a deep part of her body and ignited it with that current of desire. She shook off the shadows that had no business interrupting this night.
She propped her chin on her hand. “Tell me something about you.”
He sent another look at the men before fixing her in his stare. “You just want to hear about the time my sister Lu and I…” He launched into a story about them getting into trouble as kids, and how his sister always took the fall for him until one day, he took the fall for her mistake, and he hadn’t even been present at the time it happened.
Felicity found herself laughing at the tale. That led to a story about her and Honor’s childhood, followed by some jokes about the Malones and a lot of looks that lasted too long.
She caught herself watching his hands—how he cut his steak and wrapped his fingers around his wine glass. She imaginedthose hands on her again, spread over her hips, braced under her bottom as he moved inside her.
She clenched her thighs under the table. By the time dessert came, a slice of torte they’d agreed to share, her skin felt too tight. Not with fear from those men who stared at her—from the intense throbbing awareness of the amazing man seated across from her.
Of where this night could go. Of the fact that every moment with him made the possibility of losing him all the more terrifying.
The rest of dinner passed in a blur, and pretty soon they were back at the Black Heart Ranch. As they entered the library, Gabe’s warm fingers stretched across the small of her back, leaving her with the promise of more to come.
The library door shut with a little more force than they expected, causing objects around the room to vibrate, and they shared a laugh.
She caught his hand and drew it to her waist. He latched onto her as if he’d been waiting for this moment all night long. At the same time she went on tiptoe, face tipped up for his kiss, he was dipping his mouth to hers.
The kiss was a tender brushing of lips that ignited more than the fire of need inside her.
It lit up her heart like a sunrise over the mountain.
She was falling in love with Gabe. And the way he searched her eyes made her wonder if he felt the same way.
“Gabe—” The words cut off as one of the nearby stacks of boxes wobbled. The box of Henry’s books started to topple. She reached out, but Gabe was faster, lunging to catch the box before it hit the floor.
The book she’d placed so reverently on top of the stack—the special one that Henry wanted her to have most—tumbled off.
She gasped. Then the tome dropped into Gabe’s hand.
