“I’m right there with you, sweetheart.”
“Gabriel, it’s too good. I’m going…” I gasp at the way he’s touching all my walls. “I’m going to come.”
He lets out a noise that sounds a lot like manly moan and whimper combined and something about that pushes me over the edge. I shatter. I scream his name. I hope like hell his little sister isnothome right now. My body locks up, pussy fluttering around him, squeezing so hard I swear I can hear my body come.
My mind whites out, chest convulsing as I struggle to catch my breath, lost to the relentless waves of pleasure.
Gabriel grunts above me, his thrusts turning frantic, uncoordinated, and then he lets go—his cock kicking inside me as he comes, his hips jerking as his release spills into me. One orgasm rolls right into the next, leaving me trembling, spent, undone until I’m spineless, collapsed into the mattress.
He tosses the toy aside and flips me onto his chest, holding me close as he finishes inside me, still pulsing, still buried deep. I can feel the warm, wet trail of his cum already slipping from where we’re still connected, and I know I’m going to be feeling him all night while I work.
This is the part where I should get up. Collect my things. Kiss him on the cheek and saythat was great, see you later, and go do the PI job in Hartford I told my coworker I’d pick up. Instead, I lay there, breathing hard, fingers dragging absently over his strong chest, until I can’t bear it any longer and say it. Thestupid,dangerousquestion slips from my lips before I can stop it.
“Gabriel, what are we doing?”
It’s barely a whisper, but the pain in my voice is sharp, impossible to hide. And the second it's out there I want to pull it back because I can hear what's underneath it, the hope and the fear all tangled up together, and I wasn't ready to let him hear that. I wasn’t ready to say it and be this vulnerable tonight.
He goes still beneath me.
Not cold. Not distant. He doesn't pull his arm away or create space between us. He just goes still, like he's choosing his next words with the same care he uses for everything else because he doesn’t want to mess this up.
Then he shifts, and I feel him turn his head to look down at me, and I make the mistake of looking back at him. What I see there are the softest hazel eyes on a face so handsome it terrifies me.
Beautiful men always hurt women.
Those are the words I repeated to myself for months after my divorce. I swallow, bracing myself.
“I think you know what we’re doing. I think you’ve known for a while,” he says simply.
"Gabriel—" I suck in air but there isn’t enough in his room. There isn’t enough anywhere to stop the tears that I feel coming. I roll off him, my head landing against the pillow beside him, blinking hard, my throat tightening as tears burn behind my eyes. I have no ideawhere they came from.
“Please don’t cry,” he murmurs, brushing my hair back, his fingers gentle and careful.
But Ineedto cry. Because this was supposed to be a one-time thing with him. I wasn’t supposed to feel anything. And now it’s become more. I know it and now he does too.
"That's—" I start, and then I stop, because I don't know how to finish the sentence.That's too much? That's not fair for you to say to me when you know I’m starting over. When you know I’m still a mess.
And also…That's the most terrifying thing anyone has ever said to me.
All the above.
He watches me. Still steady. Always steady. Not asking me to say it back, not waiting for an answer to his statement thatwasn’t really a question. Just looking at me the way he always does, like he's got all the time in the world and he's not afraid of whatever I'm about to do next.
And that's the problem. He should be afraid. He should be hedging, qualifying, pulling back just enough to protect himself. That's what people who’ve been hurt do. That’s what people who’ve had the person they vowed to love forever to end up breaking their hearts. That's what I do. You keep one foot out the door so that when it goes wrong you haven't lost everything again. You don't just look at someone like they’re your whole world after sex on Valentine's Day weekend and sayI think you know exactly what we’ve been doing.
"I can't," I say. My voice comes out too thin.
"Okay," he says. And for the first time since I met Gabriel, a flicker of pain flashes across his strong face.
Gabriel is the first man I’ve been with since my divorce. And I cannot—will not—jump straight into something with the first man who makes me feel again. This was supposed to be my gap year. My freedom year. A chance to learn who I am now. I did this to myself. I can’t do this to him.
"I mean it. I can't do this." I'm already moving, off the bed, reaching for my clothes, pulling them on with fingers that aren't steady. "This was—I let this get out of hand and that's on me, I'm not blaming you, but I can't just—" I yank my shirt over my head. "I live here. You're my landlord, basically.”
“You’re not paying me,” he tries to cut in.
“And you're Natasha's cousin and she's my sort-of boss, and my roommate and this entire thing is out of control—"
"Alessia." His voice turns pleading.
