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Irritation makes my response curt. “Look, I’m into you, but I don’t want to talk about this right now. It’ll work itself out eventually. Can’t we go back to how it was before we brought that shit up?”
The hurt on her face makes my gut ache, but I don’t take it back. Her throat bobs with a swallow and she forces a smile. “Sure, you’re right. I shouldn’t press the issue. I’m sorry.”
My smile is tight. “Forget about it,” I say.
A tense silence descends until she breaks it by clearing her throat. “I think, uh, I’d better get back to my room before they send out a search party for me.” She eases herself off the bed, careful not to bump my injuries and straightens her hospital gown self-consciously. When she’s done, she glances up. “I’ll see you later?” she asks over her shoulder as she walks to the door and pauses.
I nod and she slips out the door.
Good job, Gabe.
Growling, I throw a pillow at the wall and cover my eyes with my arm. I hope I didn’t screw us up before we’d even really gotten started.
Chloe
Five o’clock rolls around and I sit on my bed watching the seconds tick by and cursing myself for my stupidity. I knew I shouldn’t have gone to him. I shouldn’t have made myself vulnerable like that.
Gabe’s been radio silent since I left his room this morning. If he doesn’t come in the next few minutes, I’ll get a hotel room for the night—at least until my parent’s drive in. I won’t feel safe at my house all alone. For the foreseeable future, I want to surround myself with people to combat the feeling I’m being watched.
Which is silly. I’ve been in a hospital surrounded by orderlies and nurses and doctors coming in and out of the room checking on my arm and running countless tests. Not including the barrage of journalists who try to sneak past the cops guarding the floor or the other survivors who’ve been coming by in a constant stream to give their thanks.
With all the attention, of course I feel like all eyes are on me. It’ll take a couple days for all of the attention to die down and for things to go back to normal. Then this itchy feeling will go away and I’ll be able to relax.
One minute left.
The doorknob wiggles and I glance up to find Gabe pushing his way through.
He pauses in the doorway, and I take the moment to study him. His firm jawline is set and his mouth is pressed into a line. His unreadable green eyes are on me and I feel them like a flash of heat.
“I’m sorry,” he says before I can even open my mouth. “I was a dick.”
“You weren’t,” I say, but he shakes his head.
“No, I know when I’m being a dick and I’m man enough to apologize for it. It’s a sensitive subject right now.”
“I know; I shouldn’t have pressed the issue. I still want to go with you, if you’re up for it.”
I barely finish the sentence when he’s pulling me up from the bed and whirling me around. I have the instinctual urge to flee, but he is like gravity and I don’t have the strength to resist his pull.
Nor do I have the strength to resist his kiss.
His lips slant across mine as he pins me against the wall with his rock hard body. My hands go up to grip his nape because the mere taste of him is enough to knock me off my feet. I make an involuntary surprised sound against the potent press of his lips.
His hands slide down my neck to the curve of my arm, and then traverse the length of my back. He reaches the flare of my hips and his fingers flex against the material of my clothes, gripping my hip, pressing me against the thick length of his arousal.
I may be tall for a woman, but Gabe towers over me. His massive shoulders and arms surround me until I’m helpless against him. His lips play over mine, again and again, until he coaxes my mouth to open for him.
With that, he makes a growling sound deep in his throat and hitches my leg up and around his hip, causing the thin material of the borrowed dress Sienna gave me to spread until I’m bare against him. Then I’m overcome by the wet sound of our lips, the gasping breaths I’m able to take in between, and the little rumbles of satisfaction he makes in the back of his throat.
My hair tumbles from the sloppy bun I’d thrown it up in after my shower, and falls in a wet mass of tangles over my shoulders. It surrounds us in the soft scent of coconut and vanilla, and he breaks the kiss to press his face into the curve of my shoulder. He inhales there, nuzzling my skin with the sandpaper-scratch of his beard. It tickles every nerve ending I possess until I become one live wire from head to toe.
“I had to see you again,” he confesses, his voice a mere whisper against my neck. The confession washes away everything else until the only things left are me and him.
My arms twitch around his shoulders and I pull him closer, almost afraid that if I let go, he’ll evaporate and this will all have been a dream. “I’m sorry I upset you.”
He laughs, his hands running lines up and down my back, pressing into the muscles and soothing me into a stupor. “Don’t be sorry, it’s my fault.”
I make a sound and try to pull back, but he doesn’t let me.