When he felt her muscles begin to spasm, he finally broke their kiss and peered down at her, bracing her with his other arm as her release rocked her, loving the way her rapture played over her face.
“Oh God, Gabe!” she gasped, her fingers digging into his arms. “Please.”
Seconds later, they had shed the rest of their clothes and were falling onto his bed together in a blissful tangle. He joined their bodies in one rough thrust, making love to her with the same savage, life-affirming abandon. She rose to meet him, drawing him in, clutching at his back, demanding all he had to give.
When she came again, his name on her lips in a breathless gasp, he let go with a ragged cry. Then his mouth found hers in a slow, languid kiss as her hands smoothed over his skin, soothing him with the tenderness of her touch.
* * *
“Mind if I ask you something?” Gabe said sometime later as they lay in his bed, their arms and legs entwined, her head resting on his chest as he held her close. “Why did you go out to the Monroes’ farm on your own? Don’t take this the wrong way, but what the hell were you thinking?”
Elle explained about the call she’d received from Janice Monroe. “She needed help. Even if it was a ruse to get me out there, her cry for help was genuine at the heart of it. Would you have reacted any differently if she’d called you?”
She has a point, but still…
“It’s my job to rush in when people need help, Elle,” he reminded her. “I’m trained to handle myself.”
She sighed. “Well, I’ve decided helping women like Janice Monroe is where my heart is. I’m taking the job at the foundation.”
His brows shot up. “Are you sure? I know how much being a prosecutor has meant to you.”
“I went into law so I could make a positive impact,” she told him. “After seeing firsthand the terror this family experienced…”
“There are going to be a lot of people you can’t help, Elle,” he told her, knowing all too well the challenges she might face.
She sighed and shook her head. “If I can help just one woman have a better life, help one child escape that kind of situation before it comes to what happened today…”
Gabe’s heart swelled with pride for the woman in his arms. He’d never known anyone quite as strong or resilient. She’d been through hell, and instead of dwelling on her own trauma, all she could think about was how she might continue to help others.
When she fell silent, snuggling in tighter against him, he smoothed his fingertips along her arm, trying to push away the images of just how wrong things could’ve gone earlier that day, how close he’d come to losing this incredible woman, how close the world had come to being deprived of the light she brought to the lives of so many.
He sighed, realizing he’d completely underestimated her. “I’m sorry, Elle.”
She frowned at him. “For what?”
“For thinking you needed a knight in shining armor.” He brushed her hair from her face. “You were right when you said I can’t constantly worry that something could happen to you, that I might not be able to protect you.”
She rose up on her elbow and scooted up higher on the mattress so that she could look down at him. “You saved my life that day at the courthouse without a moment’s hesitation,” she reminded him. “And odds are good that you saved my life again today. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I don’t know what would’ve happened. So while it’s true I may not need a knight in shining armor, I do need you, Gabe Dawson. But I want you as a partner in whatever this is between us, as my lover and my friend—not just as my handsome hero.”
“I think I can promise that,” Gabe assured her, tucking a lock of her fiery hair behind her ear. “But you have to promise me one thing first.”
She gave him a cautious look out of the corner of her eye. “What’s that?”
“That you’ll stop referring to ‘whatever this is between us’ as if you don’t know what it is.”
She flushed, and her green eyes grew darker as she whispered, “What is this then, Gabe?”
He caressed her bottom lip with this thumb, knowing that, in a moment, he was planning to taste them again and lose himself in the bliss he could only find in her arms. “This is forever,” he told her. “I love you, Elle. And I can’t imagine ever loving anyone else.”
A slow smile curved her lips as he drew her down to receive his kiss. “I love you, too,” she murmured against his mouth. “And forever sounds about right…”
Epilogue
“Where are we going?”
Gabe grinned at her. “It’s a surprise.”
“And I needed to be blindfolded for said surprise?”
