Page 4

“Annabelle, wait.”

Annabelle ignored Gabriel. Yes, they had to work together, but right now she needed a little fresh air.

A moment to think. She was taking a trip back in time to the tenth century— Ugh!

No toilets, no coffee, no equality for women— Dutton had bypassed her refusals and gone straight to the High Priestess requesting—no, probably demanding—her hand in marriage, and Gabriel was here, reigniting the passion she’d thought she’d laid to rest. No, not dead, just buried.

And not deep enough, if the dampness of her panties and the rub of her clothes against her peaked nipples was anything to go by.

She stomped her way down the hall. Merry fucking Christmas to me.

“Sending a woman back to that barbaric time is a mistake,” grumbled Dutton as he kept pace with her. “It should be a man. It should be—”

Annabelle stopped and spun on Dutton. “It should be you? Newsflash, dude, it’s the twenty-first century.

It’s politically incorrect and downright misogynistic to think a woman couldn’t do this job as well as, if not better than, a man.

Especially when you’re that man.” She sneered up at him.

“You may think you’re the bee’s knees, Dutton, but you’re going down that road alone.

” She raked her gaze over his sweater to the reindeer in the center, where its red pompom nose bobbled about.

“Really, Dutton? A Rudolph sweater? Could you possibly be any more of an embarrassment to the coven?”

As handsome as he was, Dutton was no Mark Darcy. Not to Annabelle. No matter what he wore. Everything about Dutton made her skin itch.

Dutton ran his hand over the woolen Rudolph. “My great aunt knitted it for me. The woman is in her eighties. There are very few pleasures left in her life. Wearing it is the least I could do.”

If Dutton was trying to make her feel bad, he’d failed.

His great aunt was no sweet, doddering old lady who spent her days knitting by the fireplace and giving sweets to her grandchildren any more than the High Priestess was.

She was a wizened old crone who ruled the King clan with an iron fist and a wicked tongue.

Her idea of pleasure was making everyone in a fifty-mile radius jump to do her bidding and raining down hellfire on them when they didn’t move fast enough.

If Dutton himself wasn’t reason enough not marry into the King clan, Cordelia King certainly was.

Gabriel and Stefanie exited her great aunt’s study. They paused, and Gabriel said something to Stefanie she couldn’t hear, something that made Stefanie frown and her body stiffen. What Annabelle wouldn’t give for shifter hearing right about now.

Then Stefanie retreated into the High Priestess’ office and Gabriel walked toward her. Nope. She was not ready for that conversation. Not yet. She turned and headed for the front door, desperate to get away and to clear her head.

“I won’t risk my future bride—”

Annabelle froze. Slowly, deliberately, she walked back to Dutton and glared up at him.

“Future bride? In. Your. Dreams. Dutton. King. I will never”—Annabelle poked Rudolph in the eye and the pompom jerked wildly—“ever”—another poke, so forceful Dutton took a step back—“be. Your. Bride.” It took everything she had to get the words out at a decibel that wouldn’t be heard across the street.

“I don’t care if the High Priestess were to order me to marry you, I wouldn’t.

I’d rather get stuck in the tenth century, married to some barbarian marauder, than have anything to do with you. ”

A low growl rumbled behind her. Dutton paled.

He might be six feet tall and spend most of his days in the gym, but he was no match for Gabriel.

Montagne suited Gabriel far more than Madore.

He truly lived up to the English translation of his name.

At six feet four, he was a mountain of a man.

As a shifter, he was lethal. Dutton going up against Gabriel would be like a chihuahua taking on a grizzly bear.

But she didn’t need or want Gabriel to fight for her.

“This is none of your business, Gabriel. Back off.”

Dutton removed her finger from his chest. “You’ll come around.

Everyone can see the benefit of joining our two families.

It’ll make the coven stronger. We’re a good match, you and I, Annabelle.

With us at ruling together, there’ll not be single witch or shifter that would dare challenge us.

Or this coven.” He grabbed hold of her chin, ignoring Annabelle’s recoil.

“We’d make beautiful babies, too, to follow in our footsteps.

And despite what you say, even you’re not willful enough to disobey a command from the High Priestess.

” He glanced warily over her shoulder at Gabriel.

“And set him straight. I’ll not have some random hookup of yours coming between us. ”

With that, he turned on his heel and stormed off down the hall, the slam of the front door behind him echoing through the house. Annabelle snorted. Dutton has left the building . Arrogant ass.

She spun on Gabriel and folded her arms across her chest. One down, one more to go.

Gabriel mirrored her stance, his biceps flexing.

Don’t drool, don’t drool.

“We need to talk.”

Annabelle scoffed. “Talk? It’s a shame you didn’t want to talk in Paris. You know, before you disappeared into the crowd of last-minute Christmas shoppers.”

“I had no choice, Belle.”

“Yeah, whatever. Did you know?”

He frowned. “Know what?”

“That I was a witch.”

They both turned as a maid entered the hall, a vacuum cleaner in tow. Gabriel grabbed her arm and tugged her into the downstairs bathroom, closed the door and flicked the lock behind them.

Ignoring the prickle of goosebumps at his touch, Annabelle wrenched her arm free. “Did you know I was a witch when we were in Paris?”

Gabriel shook his head. “No. I wish I had. It may have changed things.”

“Like you might have told me your real name?”

“Like you told me yours?”

Annabelle had forgotten about that. There’d been trouble amongst the covens, and with some of the shifter clans.

It’d been a real mess, and she’d craved anonymity, nothing connecting her to her coven or witchcraft.

Just for a few months. It was part of the reason she’d gone to Paris, and why she’d given Gabriel a fake surname.

It still didn’t excuse him for ditching her like an unwanted Christmas gift. On Christmas Eve, no less.

She dragged in a deep breath, needing to know yet not really wanting to. “Why did you leave?”

Gabriel looked away. “Belle…” His sigh was full of regret.

“Right.” She dropped her gaze and held up her hand, stopping him from giving her some lame excuse.

“I get it.” She forced a smile to her lips.

“I was good enough for a fling, but nothing more. That’s why you left, isn’t it?

You were called back to mate one of your own kind.

” She jerked her head to the door, to the hall, where no doubt his shifter mate—his gorgeous shifter mate—waited. “To mate Stefanie.”

“ What ? No. Stef and I aren’t… Annabelle, look at me.”

When she didn’t comply, when the pattern in the floor tiles continued to hold her attention, he pressed a finger beneath her chin, forcing her to look at him.

“Annabelle, I did return to my pack. They called me in, and I had no choice but to go. I couldn’t tell you why. I still can’t, but I can tell you it wasn’t to mate a she-wolf. And I didn’t want to leave you. If I’d had any other option, I would have taken it.”

She rolled her eyes. My eyeballs sure are getting a workout today.

He cupped her chin in both hands. “Belle.”

The way her name rolled off his tongue, Belle, with that French accent of his…

His pet name for her. Belle—in French, it meant beautiful.

She tried to shut down her body’s response to him, but her skin heated and her heart pounded.

He’d have to know. His shifter senses wouldn’t miss it.

Nor the way her body swayed, no matter how infinitesimally, toward him, drawn there like metal to a magnet.

Their gazes locked, and her breath quickened. He leaned in, hesitating mere inches from her, their breaths mingling. Her mouth suddenly as dry as the Mojave Desert, she licked her lips. With a groan, he bridged the gap.

Oh, Lordy…

Three years, and she had not forgotten the taste of him, the feel of him, nor the way his kisses set her on fire, stirring up long-denied emotions and memories of nights in his arms impossible to resist.

His tongue swiped the seam of her lips, and she parted them on a sigh.

A deep rumble reverberated in his chest and the mental restraints that held her in place snapped, unable to contain the longing and the need that exploded in her chest. She flung her arms around his neck and pressed herself into him, feeling every hard plane, every muscle in his toned body and the evidence of his arousal poking her in the stomach. Lord, she’d missed this. Missed him.

He walked her backward until she hit the vanity, and he ground himself against her as his tongue plundered her mouth. How could she still want him after the way he’d left her? Lied to her? But she did. Oh God, she did. She rolled her hips, meeting his, hungry for his hot, hard cock.

With firm hands on her waist, he lifted her onto the vanity, spread her thighs and stepped between them. He broke away from her mouth to trail kisses down her throat. The scratch of his stubble, the moist flick of his tongue, those full lips—they undid her. They always had.

“God, Belle, I’ve been going crazy without you,” he whispered, his hot breath sending goosebumps across her skin.

She should stop him. They were in the High Priestess’ bathroom, for God’s sake.

Annabelle tilted her head and gave him greater access. I’ve missed you, too.

He tugged at the buttons on her cardigan, parting it.

Confident, he didn’t tease or hesitate. Pushing the band of her bra up over her breasts, he cupped them with his large hands.

Hands that knew what she liked, reminding her of what she’d been missing.

He gave them a gentle squeeze and rubbed his thumbs across her turgid nipple.

She shuddered, her core clenching on air and her thighs quivering against his sides.

“Belle.”

He dropped his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

Heat shot straight to her clit and damn , she almost came.

This. This is what she’d been searching for with every man who’d had the misfortune to grace her bed after Gabriel.

None had ever come close to the way he could bring her body alive and have her panting for him with barely a few touches.

A kiss. A swirl of tongue around her nipple, a scrape of teeth, a slide of a hand along the sensitive underside of her breast, the heady aroma of his aftershave.

God, she was so close. He released her nipple, and cool air raced across her damp skin. She wrapped her legs around him and the inseam of her jeans met his rock-hard erection, and she moaned.

“You like that, Belle?”

Gabriel pulled her in tight, pressing her swollen bare breasts against his chest, the friction of his T-shirt against them exquisite.

He ground into the V of her thighs, and her legs clenched tighter.

He chuckled, low and dark, and rolled his hips again.

And again, and again, setting up a steady rhythm.

She clung to him, her body lost. No longer caring he’d left her.

Or that he’d most likely leave her again.

Right here, right now, in the downstairs bathroom of the High Priestess’ house, all she cared about was the pulsing heat between her legs desperate to be quenched.

His hot breath whispered over her lips. “Come for me, Belle.”

He gave one last grind of his hips, and her mouth dropped open in a silent scream.

She exploded, her heels digging into his butt and her back arched.

She rode the waves, her body quivering until spent, and she collapsed against him, her chest heaving.

No other man had ever played her body as well as Gabriel. Neither before nor after.

The hardness of the vanity, and the unpleasant sensation of the brushed gold tapware digging into her hip, pulled her from her post-orgasmic stupor.

Annabelle released Gabriel and covered her face with her hands.

What the hell have I just done?