“What are we doing, Ronan?”
“Anything you want.” I licked and sucked his neck, and he swelled in my hands. “Everything. Please.”
“Fuck me, I shouldn’t want you, but I do.” This time, Gabriel initiated the kiss, and I sucked on his tongue as I continued to pay homage to his gorgeous dick. His hips pistoned into mine, and I grew almost light-headed from the intense pleasure still rolling through me.
“Come on. That’s it, right there.”
Gabriel took me around the waist in a punishing grip, and I welcomed the bite of his fingers digging into my skin as his cock erupted, spraying come over my hand, our stomachs, even hitting my chin. We stood there swaying slightly, bodies sticky and plastered together. The thundering of our hearts along with our gasps filled my head. Minutes passed before I could form a coherent thought in my scattered brain.
“If you even think of saying you’re sorry, I’ll punch you in the face.”
A rough, sexy laugh rumbled through Gabriel, but when he cupped my cheek, forcing my gaze to his, a troubled expression met my eyes. “You know this is a huge breach of protocol. I don’t have sex with clients.”
“What about the senator’s son?”
The moment I spoke, I wanted to take the words back. Gabriel’s beautiful mouth thinned to a hard line.
“I have nothing to say about that. And as for what happened today, I think it’s better if I leave now. I can’t work for you anymore.”
Stunned into silence, I watched him hitch up his sweats and leave the room. Still naked and sticky, I stormed after him, and though he’d shut the door, I didn’t care. I wrenched it open and found him removing his clothes from the dresser.
“What the hell are you doing?” I strode over to him and planted myself in between the dresser and the bed, intending to prevent him from leaving. Bastard simply walked around me and pulled the duffel to the opposite side.
“Packing. I quit.”
“I don’t accept it. You’re being stupid.”
“Thanks. That’s helpful to get me to stay.” His lips twitched. “But I’m not. I…can’t. Not after what happened.”
“Forget about it. It just happened. It didn’t mean anything.”
His brows pulled together. “It did to me. I don’t have casual sex.”
“Listen. I haven’t had sex in over six years. Consider it a one-off, and we can forget about it.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know that I can.”
And because I was a pushy bastard, I had to ask. Plus, now that I knew what Gabriel tasted and smelled like, I wanted to know who else had gotten a little bit of paradise.
“Was it because I mentioned DJ?” Gabriel’s shoulders stiffened. “I’m sorry I threw that in your face, but in the pictures I’ve seen, he couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
A brittle smile appeared on Gabriel’s face. “Yeah? You were the only one to see it.”
“So you were in a relationship and he asked you to keep it on the down-low?”
“Yeah.” Gabriel shrugged, and it pissed me off.
“Why wouldn’t he want to acknowledge you? He should have been happy to have a boyfriend like you.”
A smile, quick as a heartbeat, came and went on Gabriel’s lips. “Thanks for the compliment, but it wasn’t easy for him. His father had expectations, and in politics it’s still pretty conservative.”
I wanted to lash out and say that it was a bullshit excuse, but I’d done enough damage for the day. Obviously Gabriel still hurt over the relationship, but was it that DJ had died, or that he refused to acknowledge Gabriel as his boyfriend? It was unfathomable to me that Gabriel would live in the shadows, allow himself to be hidden away.
“I’m sorry I brought it up. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“When someone you care about is gone, the hurt never goes away.”
I thought of my parents—my mother, so lively and bright-eyed, always busy juggling her job as a salesperson with her family responsibilities but never without a hug, and my father, up at five in the morning to open the bakery, yet always there at school plays or sports, no matter how tired he was.
