Page 21 of Gabe (Blue Team #2)

That had never happened before. In my narrow, safe life back in Riverton, I didn’t have sex with virtual strangers.

I dated and got to know my partner. I asked thoughtful questions about their past, I weighed their potential for a long-term relationship before I took to their bed.

And I absolutely didn’t undress in front of them while they were fully clothed and beg them to fuck me.

Never would I dare to plead with them to take control so I could let go and not think.

No, I was always in control. Always in my head. Always thinking.

It was tiresome.

Gabe reached over and set his hand on top of mine. He didn’t twine our fingers together. He didn’t hold it. He simply placed his big, warm palm over my hand. The gesture was somewhat comforting. Like it settled my nerves.

“I live a few miles from the safehouse down on the water.”

On the water. Cripes .

“Can you see your house from the bridge?”

“Yep.”

Holy shit. Every time we cross the Severn River Bridge I’d admired the waterfront homes. They were big and beautiful. Most looked like imposing estates dotting the riverfront. They had to cost millions of dollars .

“Seriously?”

Gabe was quiet for a moment and I realized how rude my comment must’ve sounded. I was gearing up to apologize when he broke the silence.

“I grew up poor. From what little I remember before my dad died we lived a decent life. But after…” His words hung thick in the air and the first piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “Let’s just say, after he was gone Mom and I didn’t have much of anything.”

A queasy feeling shifted in my belly and I muttered, “Food.”

One word that snuffed all the oxygen out of the car.

And I knew this to be true when I tried to catch my breath and couldn’t.

All the times he asked me if I was hungry, commented on my lack of lunch, him snapping at me earlier.

It all made sense now. He’d grown up without much of anything.

And his dad had died when he was young, before he was old enough to form concrete memories.

Oh. My. God.

“When I joined the Navy I swore my mom would never go without again,” he said.

No, he didn’t say it, he vowed it. His tone definitive.

“And neither would you,” I carefully added.

“Neither would I. Never again would the people I care about go hungry. Never again would I have to…” Gabe abruptly stopped and clamped his mouth shut.

He did this literally—his lips pinched so tightly they were two flat lines that served to hold in whatever he was going to say.

I didn’t know what to say. Actually, there was nothing to say. ‘I’m sorry’ wasn’t an appropriate response to his plight, and knowing Gabe the little I did, he wouldn’t want to hear that from me. But I had to say something.

“I bet your mom’s proud of you.”

Gabe pulled into the parking garage and carefully pulled into a spot next to the SUV he drove the first few days we’d been together.

Nice car.

Expensive house .

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he was overcompensating. I’d bet Gabe had set his mother up much the same way.

That had the discomfort in my belly shifting again. I hated that there was something so significant in Gabe’s past that all these years later he still felt the need to remedy the suffering. I figured he’d long since stopped going without, yet the pain of his childhood was evident.

“She is proud but not in the way you’d think,” he finally told me. “But my mother and her stubbornness is a story for another day.”

I actually smiled at his disgruntled grumble.

“Let me guess. She doesn’t allow her adoring son to shower her with his generosity.”

“Something like that,” he mumbled and I knew I was right. “You ready to see what Delilah sent Garrett?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. Garrett hadn’t shared what was on the video, but I was happy about one thing.

“I’m happy she’s alive.”

“Evette—”

“I know, I know. You don’t trust her. But after I reread her emails with a clear head I truly think she was warning me, not threatening me. I still don’t understand why she sent me the pictures.”

“Hopefully, we can bring her in and ask.”

One could say Gabe didn’t sound thrilled.

Nor did he sound convinced I was right and that Delilah had sent those emails in warning.

Instead, he sounded like he was humoring me but there was nothing I could say that would change his mind.

Hopefully, what Delilah had sent Garrett wouldn’t nail the woman’s coffin closed.

I didn’t think she wanted to be a guest of the Z Corps interrogation room while she was on their bad side.

“Hey, do you have an interrogation room on-site?”

Gabe’s lips twitched and he continued to fight a smile when he said, “We do all torture off-site if that’s what you’re asking.”

Say what?

“I wasn’t, but you’re kidding, right? ”

“Yeah, honey, I’m kidding. And no, we don’t have a dedicated interrogation room at the office.”

“But you have one?”

He was quiet for a beat then answered, “Yes. We have two separate locations we could use if we needed to question a suspect. And before you ask, Z has two other safehouses in the area and one on the Eastern Shore. Now, you ready to go upstairs and see why Garrett called us into the office?”

I was so ready. I really wanted to see what this video was that Garrett wouldn’t tell us about over the phone.

“Ready.”

Instead of getting out of the car Gabe hooked me around the back of my neck and pulled me halfway over the center console, meeting me halfway so we were close, our mouths a hair’s breadth away.

But he didn’t kiss me. His fingertips pressed into my skin and his raspy breath mingled with mine.

Then he put more pressure on the back of my neck and dropped his forehead to mine.

“I don’t know what it is about you,” he murmured.

“Pardon?”

“You’re a dangerous woman, Evette London. I know I should run from you but damn if I can get myself to move.”

It was a weird thing when you feel frozen in place—like you can’t breathe, yet your heart pounds so hard it feels like you’re vibrating. Like you’re going to simultaneously hyperventilate and suffocate.

“Gabe,” I wheezed.

That was all I managed to get out. He didn’t move away—not that I wanted him to.

No, I wanted to stay right where I was for a good long while.

I wanted to stay connected to him—our foreheads touching, his fingers digging into the back of my neck, the smell of him enveloping me.

But I wanted to touch him, too, so I lifted my hand and cupped his face.

In the dim light, with our faces close, I still managed to see him close his eyes.

“You scare the fuck out of me.”

“Right back atcha,” I returned.

“No, honey. You scare the fuck out of me.”

I sensed there was a degree of variation from his original statement though the words were the same, but I wasn’t understanding. I didn’t need to ask; he made short work of cluing me in.

“Don’t know why, can’t explain it, but when I walked into the reception area and saw you standing there I felt it.

A feeling of rightness hit me. A rush of adrenaline.

Years of agony fell away and I could breathe again and that was from just a look.

By the time we were upstairs the feeling had intensified tenfold.

I wanted to protect you and not just because it’s my job but because the thought of something happening to you was physically painful.

You make me question my sanity. You make me want to grab ahold of you and never let anyone take you from me.

You scare the absolute fuck out of me because never in my life, not one single time, with any woman, have I ever wanted the responsibility that comes with a relationship.

But you? You make me crave it. I want you to need me.

I want you to look to me for protection. But I want to give you me.”

Holy smokes .

Gabe felt it, too.

He felt it.

Holy shit.

Gabe’s hand slid from the back of my neck and tangled in my hair. My scalp tingled, my lungs burned, my heart pounded.

“I need to run from you,” he whispered.

“Please don’t.”

“Evette—”

“Please don’t. Not now. Please give us a little while longer.”

“Honey—”

“You already told me this is a dead-end road. I know there’s no future. I swear I’m not having fanciful thoughts of white picket fences. I just want the here and now. Please give me that.”

Gabe exhaled a ragged breath. And since his forehead was still pressed to mine I felt him nod. I hoped that meant he agreed. I was being stupid, nothing good was going to come from our time together. It would only lead to my heart being shattered.

But I’d take the broken heart for a few more days with Gabe.