I let myself go, sinking into the music. I only intended to tease him a little, maybe cajole the stiff soldier into having a little fun, but it doesn’t take more than a minute for the playfulness of my intentions to give way to something deeper. I hear his low growl as I move my free hand into my loose hair, then bring my fingers down along the silver line of the zipper that runs the length of my dress. His jaw is rigid as he watches me, his body radiating a palpable heat in the scant inches that separates us.
Knowing he’s watching me, knowing he wants me, strips away any inhibition not already erased by the martinis I’ve consumed. I guide his hand to my hip and hold it there as I continue his private dance, slowly moving closer to him, until there is no more room between our bodies. I dance against him now, shameless in my desire for him.
And while his need is held on a tighter leash than mine, I can see that he is close to breaking. I want him to. God, I want to smash that iron control of his into a million jagged pieces.
Impulsively, I reach up and take hold of his scowling face.
I kiss him, slow and deep and desperately.
He kisses me, too, searing me with the heat and power of his answering desire. But then his strong hands are on my arms, his grasp tight and unrelenting. He growls, and the dark, furious rumble of it vibrates through me, all the way to my marrow.
I’ve pushed too hard this time.
The scorching truth of it is written all over Gabe’s thunderous expression, and in the low curse that boils out of him as he stares at me now.
Yet he is infinitely gentle as he sets me away from him.
It takes a moment before he speaks. When he does, his voice is as rough as gravel.
“Tell your friends you’re leaving now. I’m taking you home.”
17
~ Gabriel ~
She doesn’t speak a single word to me for the duration of the drive from Muse to her apartment building on the Upper East Side.
Maybe she senses the volatility in me. She damn well should. I am caught in a vise of dark emotions, beginning with the unspent fury that’s been riding me since I first glimpsed that drunken jackass accosting her at the club.
Nothing would have given me more satisfaction than planting my fist in his leering face—or in that of any of the other men who’d been circling Evelyn like sharks on the dance floor before I approached her.
As the man who’s now personally responsible for her well-being, I’d have been justified taking her out of there based on concerns for her safety alone.
But it’s not her safety that’s foremost on my mind as we enter the elevator from the garage where I’ve parkednext to her repaired Volvo.
It’s not duty I’m thinking about as the elevator doors close behind us and I reach for Evelyn’s hand.
And it’s not fury that makes me drag her against me, although it is something dangerously close to it. A rough curse explodes out of me as I crush her mouth beneath mine.
She moans, going instantly pliant in my arms. It’s not enough for me that she’s willing. I need her to know that this time, there is no turning back.
Not tonight.
Not for either one of us.
I am a goddamn powder keg, and she is the open flame that’s going to obliterate me.
Christ, she already has.
If I thought I could deny it before, that private slow dance she performed for me back at Muse, and the kiss she’d ended it with, has burned all of my resolve to ash.
This woman has torched every last scrap of my reason and my dubious honor, too, because right now I’d trade everything—including my other leg—just to be inside her.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realize she and I have been heading toward this moment from the beginning. I try to rationalize now that maybe the only way to put out this fire is to get in front of it. Let it burn itself out tonight, and maybe then we can both go back to our lives as they were before.
It’s a flimsy plan, but I’m willing to grasp for anything. Especially anything that will allow me to justify the arousal that’s raking me as I hold Evelyn against me now.
A shocked sound escapes her as I clutch the roundedswells of her behind and grind her hips into my erection. I push my tongue past her parted lips, invading, taking, demanding.
