“Don’t you get it?” His nostrils flare, his handsome face twisted into an enraged scowl. “It’s not talking I need right now. Not when I’m like this.”
Even though I jump at his sharp tone, I take a step inside, shrinking the distance between us because I’m that desperate to reach him. “Then tell me what you need. Show me.”
I can see the desire in his flashing, furious eyes. I can see the jagged need. Not even his anger can hide the fact that he wants me in spite of what he’s saying.
I glance down and see that he is erect behind thezipper of his dark jeans. On the sides of his neck, veins stand out like cables, pulsing so intensely I can almost hear the drum of his heartbeat in the thickened, electrified air between us.
Right now, he is coiled, dark energy in need of an outlet.
Maybe I should be afraid of everything I see in him tonight, but I’m not.
He pulls my silk kimono off the hook near the towel bar. He’s about to stuff it into the duffel bag, but I halt his hand. I take the garment from him.
“Dammit, Gabriel. Don’t shut me out.”
His gaze bores into mine, the hazel turned stormy gray beneath the harsh slashes of his brows. “I can’t give you what you want, Eve. And you can’t give me what I need.”
“Bullshit.” I shake my head. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“You want me to use you?” His scowl deepens. His voice is rife with torment, but also arousal. I know him enough to recognize the rawness of his lust. “You deserve more than this. Christ, you deserve a hell of a lot more than me.”
I take another step closer. “Why don’t you let me decide that for myself?”
He swears under his breath, then brushes past me, stalking out toward the living area with my duffel bag gripped in his hand.
I should go. If that’s really what he wants, if he’s just going to keep pushing me away, I should leave him to his solitude and save myself the heartache of loving someone who cannot—or will not—love me in return.
Because that’s what this is, this burgeoning sense ofyearning I feel for him. Love.
Oh, God. I am so in love with Gabriel Noble, it hurts.
I drift out to the hallway, the kimono grasped numbly in my fingers. I find Gabe standing near the door, waiting for me to concede to his demand that I go. No matter what either one of us truly wants.
He needs this control.
That’s how he copes with pain, be it emotional or physical. He reaches for control.
He needs it more than solitude. Maybe even more than he needs me.
I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to see it, but now it seems so clear. I think back to the bondage we played at last night, how it excited him to be in control of my body, in control of my pleasure as well as his own.
It excited me too.
As I walk slowly toward him, I pull the silk belt off the kimono and let the garment fall to the floor. Gabe looks at me as I approach, his gaze flicking to my fingers as I tie one end of the belt around my left wrist.
His face is a mask of fury and desire. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I don’t answer until I am standing in front of him with only a foot of space to separate us. “Don’t you remember what I told you? I am yours, Gabriel. So, now the rest is up to you. Are you mine?” I hold the loose end of the belt out to him. “If you are, then take me. Take me the way you need to, whatever that has to mean to you tonight. Let me be what you need.”
“You are.” The words gust out of him, thick and raw.
He grabs the silk ribbon from my fingers and yanks me forward. I crash against the front of his big body, mytethered hand pinned between us. And then his mouth is on mine. His kiss is brutal. A hard claiming that steals my breath and sends a current of fire licking through every fiber of my being.
I melt into him, his name a jagged sob as our tongues clash and our bodies press and grind together. Relief floods me as his mouth consumes me. I haven’t lost him tonight. Far from it.
I think, for the first time since we’ve met, we are truly only just discovering each other now.
He breaks away from our kiss, his eyes wild with hunger. My summery dress has buttons down the front from bodice to hem. Gabe manages only the first few before he rips it open on a dark curse. He dips his head, his mouth latching on to the curve of my bared shoulder.
