Page 21 of Desired By you (Always & Forever #3)

Chapter Sixteen

Brad

“Gabriella,” I manage to say on a struggling breath.

Gabriella, she’s here. She’s the girl in the red mask.

The girl I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I laid eyes on her.

I came here in hopes of getting rid of my thoughts of Gabriella.

She’s plagued my every waking and sleeping moment, and it’s messing with my head.

I thought finding this mystery masked girl and having a moment alone with her would alter my brain, help me forget, and move on.

Give me a new focus and obsession, but now I know the two are the same woman, I am absolutely fucked.

“W-What are you doing here?” she says, just loud enough for me to hear her over the music.

“What am I doing here?” I hiss in annoyance. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I don’t mean for it to come out as harshly as it does, but a mixture of emotions is invading my brain, and I don’t know what to think or feel.

Gabriella. It was her all along.

I have so many questions. I step closer to close the strained space between us, but she steps back and rushes to the door.

“Wait,” I yell, and I’m hot on her heels. She runs down the corridor towards the exit sign, her heels clicking against the hard floor.

“Hey. What’s going on?” a man's voice bellows down the corridor, but I ignore him.

Gabriella disappears into the darkness of the open door, and I pick up my pace to reach her.

She clambers down the steel fire escape, and I take the steps two at a time, my chest burning with a mixture of exertion, fear, and utter confusion.

“Hey.” The voice from earlier is now behind me. A security guard, I assume, rushes down behind me, but I continue.

“Gabby, wait,” I holler as she disappears behind a wall. I never call her that, but I need her to stop and listen to me. I round the wall and find her just as she tears off her mask and tosses it to the ground. Before I can speak, the guy who was chasing us appears, gasping for breath.

“Are you okay? Do you need me to throw this asshole out?” he says, pointing at me.

I don’t give her a chance to answer. “This asshole is her boyfriend, so fuck off.” I don’t know why I said it. I just need him to go so I can talk to her.

“No, I’m fine. He can stay. I’ll be back in soon.” She tilts her head just enough for me to see her broken expression.

The man nods, giving me a suspicious look, and I glare right back.

Once he leaves, I take a few steps towards her and she backs away, holding her hands up in surrender.

“Brad, please, just… just go and pretend this never happened,” she begs, her voice cracking.

“I can’t do that. I want to know what you are doing working here.”

“It’s none of your business,” she bites back, her tone full of anger.

Annoyance swells in my gut. “Well, you made it my fucking business when you gave me a lap dance, Gabriella, so start talking.” Her body flinches as if my words have physically struck her.

“I didn’t know it was you,” she hisses. “If I knew it was you, I wouldn’t have agreed to do it.” Her words cut like a knife, deep and painful.

Any anger I held towards her dissipates as I watch a tear roll down her cheek.

I close the space between us, tugging her into my chest and gripping the back of her head as I press a kiss to her temple. Sobs wrack her body and I hug her.

When her cries begin to settle, she lifts her head to look at me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I just meant, no one knows I work here.” She sniffs.

“No one?” I question, furrowing my brows. She shakes her head. “Ali and Ria don’t know?” I question.

“No, and you can’t tell them, please.” Her tone is pleading as she steps away from me, creating some distance, which I hate.

“I won’t, but you need to help me understand. Are you doing it for the money? Are you in some sort of trouble, because I can help, you can always come to me and—”

She cuts me off. “No, no, it's nothing like that. It doesn’t matter,” she says, trying to end this conversation, but I’m not budging.

“It does matter,” I say sternly.

“No, it doesn’t. You wouldn’t understand,” she says as she frees herself from my hold and steps away.

“Try me,” I say in a challenging tone, crossing my arms over my chest.

Her eyes flare with anger under the glow of the street lamp, and I’ve never seen them like that, and it hurts, knowing she’s kept such a big part of her life a secret from me.

“I wanted to feel something, somewhere that no one knew me. A place where no one would judge me, a place where I would feel seen.”

My brows furrow, not understanding what she means. “How long?” I ask.

“Two years,” she whispers, and hangs her head as if she were ashamed.

“Fuck, Gabriella, are you serious?” I spit. Anger flaring in my chest. Thinking of how many men she may have danced for, how many have looked at her the same way I have been doing. I clench my fists and take a deep breath before speaking again.

“You’re right, I don’t understand. Why would you need to work here to feel like that?”

“Because,” she bellows, wiping her cheek with her hand, sniffing before continuing, “all my life I’ve been told what to do, how to act, what to wear.

Men have either wanted me in a way I wasn’t ready for or made me feel like I was the problem, like I wasn’t enough.

I’m twenty-five years old and I am terrified of intimacy and letting a man into my life because I am scared I won’t be good enough.

” She pauses, looking up at the dark night sky.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it takes me a while to feel comfortable around people. ”

Yes, I had noticed. I notice more about her than she realizes.

“I want to date. I want to find someone to settle down with, but I can’t get past a first date because I shut down and cut them off because I know what the next part will be. They will want intimacy and I freak out and run scared.”

“Gabriella, if a man isn’t willing to wait until you feel comfortable being with them, then they aren’t the man for you,” I say, jealousy burning in my core.

“I know that, but I’m scared I’ll never be ready, so a friend asked if I would be interested in dancing here, and I took it. I thought it might make me feel more confident, more comfortable in my own skin so that I can feel ready to open myself up, maybe find someone to…”

“To fuck. You want to fuck one of these men?” The words fall out, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

She physically flinches at my words again, and I feel like the biggest asshole.

“No, I didn’t come here so I could fuck someone,” she spits back.

“I didn’t mean that, I…” I stop, at a loss for words because truthfully, I don’t know what to think or feel. My mind is a jumbled mess.

A silence falls between us, the tension and awkwardness getting too much.

I reach into my back pocket for my cigarettes and lighter.

I pull one from the box, placing it between my lips and flick the lighter.

A small flame glows and I suck on the tip of the cigarette till it ignites.

I stuff the packet and lighter back in my pocket.

Taking a long drag, bringing my thumb and pointer finger to grasp the cigarette, tilting back my head, I puff the smoke into the night sky and let my shoulder sag, my body relaxing just a little as I exhale.

I’m not a big smoker, not now anyway. I only allow myself one a day and some days I don’t feel the need, but right now I could chain smoke this entire pack with how high my stress levels are.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I don’t mean to be an ass.”

She folds her arms across her waist protectively. “I know.”

“You could have come to me. I would have helped.”

I take another drag of my cigarette and puff the smoke into the air. Mocking laughter falls from her.. “Yeah, okay.”

“What’s so fucking funny?” I hiss. Shit, I am pissed. I need to rein it in. It’s Gabriella.

“You, saying I should have come to you. Don’t you think that would be a bit weird?

H ey Brad , I know you don’t see me like that, but do you think you could fuck me because you seem to be the only man I feel comfortable around and then I can get over this issue with intimacy and sex so that I can find myself a boyfriend and potential husband.

Yeah… that wouldn’t have been weird at all.

” She falls back against the wall, running her hands through her hair.

I stand there, stunned, replaying her words. She feels comfortable around me. She wants to find someone to settle down with. Too many thoughts and emotions swim in my head. I take one last drag of my cigarette and toss it to the side. Blowing out the smoke as I step towards her.

“You think I don’t see you like that?”

She shakes her head.

A hiss escapes my lips, and I run my hand through my hair, shaking my head.

“I’ll do it.” The words leave my mouth without really thinking about the gravity of what I’m offering, but all I know is I want to help her.

I want to be that person for her, I can't bear the thought of someone else being with her right now, helping her with this, and it’s with that thought that I realize, I’d do just about anything for her.

She backs up, her brows furrowed as if she were processing my words.

“You’re insane. You can’t do that.”

“Why?” I ask, taking a step closer.

“Because it would make things weird, and you don’t…” I press my index fingers to her lips to stop her talking, sensing she’s about to ramble. I lower my head so I am painfully close to her lips.

“If you need me, use me. If being with me helps you, then I’m all yours, Gabriella. For as long as you need.”

I remove my finger from her lips, and to stress my point further, I cup her face, running the pad of my thumb over her bottom lip, causing her eyes to flutter closed.

“And to be clear. I do see you like that.” My voice is low and gravelly, full of heat and want for this woman, and then I do something I never let myself do.

I give in to my urges and I press my lips to hers.

It soft and gentle, it's everything I’m not, but for her, I want to be, because Gabriella doesn’t deserve the fractured and tortured parts of me.

Her body melts into mine as her hands fist my top.

I tap my boot against her feet, signaling for her to widen her legs, and she does, allowing me to push my knee between her thighs.

To my surprise, she grinds her center against my thigh and lets out a whimper as I push my tongue inside her mouth.

She welcomes it, and our tongues intertwine, creating the most intoxicating and consuming kiss I’ve ever experienced.

I’m not a big kisser, never understood the need for it.

It felt too intimate, but Gabriella is the type of woman I sense craves that level of intimacy, but she’s also someone I want to show it to, and that scares me.

I don’t have a chance to let my thoughts wander anymore.

Cheers and whistles ring out. We break the kiss and turn to see a crowd of drunk men gathered at the end of the car park, attempting to get into waiting cabs.

When we turn back to each other, our eyes lock, and I swallow the lump in my throat that’s making it feel impossible to breathe.

The reality of what I have just offered her weighs heavy in the pit of my stomach.

We’ve already crossed the line of friendship and entered new territory with that kiss.

I know I am playing with fire, I’ll worry about all the “what if’s” later, but for now I need to know what she wants.

“So, what will it be, Gabriella? Do you want my help?”