Page 83 of Battle Scars

Gabe climbs up the bed, and I let my legs fall open for him. I have nothing left to hide from him, it’s all his for the taking. I’m his even if he doesn’t know it. It’s fact—more than passionate words spoken in the heat of the moment. He settles between my thighs and leans forward. He gently swipes his tongue up the length of my opening, teasing me before he really eats me, and then he licks and bites me. He plunges his fingers into me and pumps them in and out while he rolls my clit into his mouth.

He pushes me higher, and I cry out as I come, but he’s not done with me. Not by a long shot.

Gabe crawls up my body and lifts my thighs to hook over his arms, and then he plunges inside me. Holding me this way, I’m open for him, and I feel every bit of him as he glides in and out, filling me over and over.

He kisses me, teasing my lips with his tongue, and I taste myself as he rocks his body into mine. I wrap my arms tight around his shoulders and hold him to me as we move against each other, gasping into his mouth as he drags the length of him across my swollen clit. Even though I just came, I feel like I’m teetering on the edge again.

He shoves a hand underneath my bottom, angling me to take him deeper, and I love it. I love everything he does to me, but this drives me crazy as he teases me, pushing me closer and closer to another orgasm.

Only this time, I want him to come with me.

“Gabe,” I pant. My body is like a livewire in a thunderstorm. Electricity zings all around me and short-circuits my brain cells, but I couldn’t care less. I want more. I want whatever he’s willing to give me. I’m desperate for him even knowing each time may very well be the last.

“That’s it,” he says quietly as he continues to move in and out, deeper and deeper. His movements become erratic as he closes in on his own orgasm, driving me even higher.

“Gabe!” I cry out as I come undone.

“Yeah, baby,” he rumbles as he plants himself deep and follows me over the edge.

My brain is jumbled and fuzzy, and my climax seems to go on forever. And when I can finally breathe again, just a little, I accidentally ruin it all.

“I love you.”

He freezes.

Gabe’s spine snaps straight, and a coldness surrounds him.

I didn’t mean to say it out loud. I never wanted him to know my true feelings, but a secret part of me whispers that the truth is better. I feel relieved that the secret is out.

Maybe this is what he needed to finally move on.

Maybe now, we can be together.

Maybe Manny and Mom and Jett were all right and all I had to do was fight for it.

“What did you say?”

Or they could have all been horribly wrong.

“I love you,” I whisper.

He pulls out of me abruptly and swings his legs off the edge of the bed so that his feet are planted on the carpeted floor. He leans forward, putting his elbows to his knees and his face in his hands. Tension ripples off him.

I sit up and gently place my hand on his back wanting to comfort him. At the same time, I want to open my mouth and draw the words back in. Part of me wants to deny them and the other half knows that would be a betrayal to me and my heart.

“Don’t.”

“I said I love you,” I repeat. “And I’m not sorry. I didn’t plan on telling you, and I wasn’t going to, but it just slipped out.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?” he snaps as he jumps to his feet.

“Well, no.”

“What else weren’t you going to tell me?” he snarls. “Would you tell me if you suddenly started wanting a baby? Would you tell me then, or would you just wait to inform me when the blessed event arrived?”

The way he says blessed event makes me shudder. It makes my heart bleed, because the way he says it sounds like he would never want me to have his babies, that he would never want to share that with me, and I didn’t realize until right now how very much I wanted that.

“Of course not,” I answer. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”