"What did you decide?" Gabriel said, coming to stand in front of her, his hands on his hips.
Charlotte knew the imbalance between her and Gabriel remained a dangerous question mark over their relationship, but they had to solve this issue first. "I'm not going to let Richard turn me into a scared mouse hiding in its hole."
Gabriel didn't break the eye contact.
Wanting to touch him but not sure he'd accept it in his current dark mood, she carried on. "I'm also not going to be stupid."
"I'll organize security."
"No." When he scowled, she scowled back. "Let me finish."
Folding his arms again, he stood there, an impenetrable wall.
"You're right--your building is secure. If I move into it, it'll take a lot of the stress out of the situation." And it'd keep Gabriel's attention on her, not on thinking up ways to permanently dispose of Richard.
Gabriel unfolded his arms, his features easing. "I'm glad you've seen sense."
"I'm trying to be rational," she said, folding her own arms. "When you say things like that, it makes me want to disagree with you just to teach you a lesson."
"It's a good thing you're more evolved than I am." The faint hint of a smile.
"Gabriel." She battled the urge to stamp her foot. "I did a property search on your building. There's a small apartment on a lower floor that's available as a sublet at a price I can afford. I'm going to apply for it." Not running, but being smart about her safety. "I can catch the shuttle in to work, and if anything happens, you'll be nearby."
Gabriel's scowl had become darker with every word she spoke. "I own an enormous two-level penthouse, and you want to stay in a dinky downstairs place?"
"I have to do this on my terms." She could see him gritting his teeth. Chancing a touch, she put her hand on his chest. "Try to understand."
"I'll go with you when you look at the apartment," he said at last, the words ground out. "If there's anything unsafe about it, you don't stay there. Agreed?"
Charlotte nodded. "Agreed."
"I need to kiss you."
Her heart slammed against her ribs. Pulse a roar in her ears, she rose on tiptoe. When Gabriel cupped the side of her face, it felt so tender and protective that she shivered. He ran his thumb over her cheekbone, lowered his head to hers, and pressed his lips to her own. Despite the violent tension in his body, he kept the kiss gentle, licking his tongue lightly over her lips.
She shivered again, parted her lips, and he slipped inside. A thousand butterflies in her stomach, thighs clenching, she stroked up to close her hand over the warmth of his nape. He was so big everywhere, his neck thick, but it was all perfectly in proportion. Her touch made him wrap his arm around her waist, hold her close as he deepened the kiss, his tongue licking against hers until she whimpered and licked back.
He groaned, sliding one hand up her spine to close over her own nape.
Claustrophobia swamped her in a black wave.
Gabriel was sinking into the sweet sexiness of Charlotte's kiss when he felt her body go stiff, the kiss no longer reciprocal. It took him a split second to release her, but it was too long. Her pupils were dilated, her skin pale, her breath so shallow it scared him.
It was almost as if she wasn't there anymore.
"Charlotte, Charlotte." He wanted to shake her out of it, but wasn't sure she could handle any further contact.
Stiff, her eyes staring out at nothing, Charlotte didn't react.
"Ms. Baird."
A blink... and she focused on him. Her face seemed to go even paler. Swaying on her feet, she reached out as if for a wall. Gabriel took a risk and grabbed her hand before she could unbalance. To his relief, she didn't jerk away, didn't look at him with that terrible blank stare again. "Gabriel?"
"Shh, I have you." Leading her to the black leather of his chair, he sat her down. "Breathe, sweetheart."
Charlotte obeyed the order. It was too fast, too erratic, but it was better than before.
Crouching down in front of her, Gabriel braced one palm against his desk, his other one on her knee. "That's it," he coaxed. "Deeper, slower."
It took at least five minutes before her breathing returned to anything close to normal, and his heart was in his throat the entire time, his body bunched as if to attack a predator. Except this threat was in Charlotte's mind, where he couldn't reach. He hated that he couldn't protect her from her nightmares. "There," he said, tempering his voice with sheer strength of will. "That's better."
Eyes huge and lower lip quivering, she stared at him. "I'm sorry."
"Hey." He squeezed her knee, being as gentle as he was capable of being. "Did I ask for an apology?"
No, Charlotte thought, he hadn't. He was too good a man to make her feel bad about going to pieces, but God, he had to be sick of it. "I thought I was getting better," she whispered, the tiny seedling of hope that had grown inside her curling up and dying. "After yesterday. I thought I was getting better."
"Charlotte, I was in your house most of the damn day yesterday." Gabriel's voice was the one he used in negotiations when he wasn't about to budge from his viewpoint. "You really want to tell me that was nothing? If you do, I'll call you a bald-faced liar."
She swallowed and lifted trembling fingers to his hair, tears rolling down her face. "Why are you doing this?"
"You need to ask me that?" A growl of sound. "You haven't figured out by now that I think you're fucking amazing? You have a brain that won't quit, a smile that lights up my soul, and a body I want to do dirty things to and with three ways to Sunday."
A wet laugh broke through her tears. "You'll probably have to wait till you're eighty to do most of them at the rate I'm going." Charlotte was terrified her words weren't a joke but a prediction.
"We'll be the most energetic couple in the old people's home."
She started to cry in earnest, the sobs wracking her frame as the entire morning came down on her like a brick wall.
"Baby, come here." Gabriel's voice was raw. "Let me hold you."
Wanting nothing more, she bent forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. He stroked her back, his hand a heavy, comforting weight. Somehow, she didn't know how, she ended up on the floor too, on his lap, Gabriel's back braced against the desk as he held her and her glasses pulled off and set aside. The tears kept coming, as if she'd never cried before, years of pain and grief and anger crashing through her in a violent storm surge that made her bones ache and her skin burn.
It felt as if it would never stop, but at some stage it did. Lying exhausted and limp against him until her mind could form words again, she patted the wetness on his shirt. "This is the second time I've cried all over you."
"Since it makes you snuggle up to me, I'm fine with it."
She felt her lips curve and it was a surprise, but she held on to the quiet warmth inside her. If she'd come out of the storm unbroken, she wasn't about to turn her back on that gift. "I want to wash my face." But if she stepped out into the corridor on her way to the facilities, the other staff members would realize immediately that she'd been crying.
"Reach over to the drawer on your right. I'm pretty sure I left a bottle of water in there."
Charlotte managed to open the drawer after Gabriel leaned forward a fraction. The unopened bottle was sitting up front. Taking it out, she pushed the drawer shut and Gabriel braced his back against the desk again.
"My box of tissues is outside," she said, embarrassed about her face now. She'd put on mascara today in her continued quest to master makeup, and it had to be running.
Gabriel picked her up and put her in his executive chair. "Wait here." Exiting the office, he returned a few seconds later with the tissue box and her handbag and once more shut the door. "Weightlifting," he said as he passed the items over. "That's clearly your secret hobby."
"Very funny." Grabbing several tissues from the box, Charlotte dampened them using the water from the bottle. For now, she just wiped her cheeks clean blind. The tissues became s
mudged with the dark brown mascara she'd used to make her lashes stand out a little more. "My handbag isn't that heavy."
"Only half your body weight," he said dryly. "There were three notes on your desk from people who want to see me."
"Did they knock on the door?" she asked, relieved they wouldn't have heard her sobs regardless. Gabriel's office had excellent soundproofing--she never overheard any of his conversations when he had the door shut, no matter how heated.
Now he snorted. "They're scared of me, Charlotte. You're the T-Rex tamer."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm sure they thought you were busy."
"Yeah." He pulled a sticky note out of his pocket. "Then why does this one say, 'Hi Charlotte--wanted to see Bishop. Can you give me a call when it's okay? I didn't want to make him mad by interrupting.'"
Dropping that one on the desk, he took out another. "'Charlotte, can you call me when the Beast is in a good mood?'" Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "That's a new one."
Charlotte scowled. "Those notes weren't for you."
"Don't worry, Ms. Baird. I won't fire the chickens. They happen to be good at their jobs." He put the final note atop the others without reading it aloud.
Feeling a little more human, Charlotte found her compact and checked her face. Her eyes weren't as badly swollen as she'd feared, and the damage wouldn't be obvious behind her glasses if she put on some makeup to replace what she'd cried off. She was no expert even after the past months of cautious experimentation, but she could swipe on a lick of mascara and powder her face, dab on a touch of lip color.
It felt incredibly intimate to do it in front of Gabriel, especially when he sat down in the guest chair on the other side of the desk and placed his feet on the scarred wood of the desk, legs crossed at the ankles and hands laced behind his head as he leaned back. "I want to watch you do that while you're naked."
Her cheeks went hot.
"On one of those pretty little benches women have in front of their vanities. Do you have one?"
"No." She'd always wanted a Victorian-style vanity, but the antiques were too expensive and the reproductions she'd found not quite right.
"Maybe I'll buy you one for your birthday. You can thank me by doing that thing with your mascara while bare to the skin."
He was flustering her, but Charlotte was used to fencing with him on this level. It made her happy that her meltdown hadn't stopped him. Not only that, she found she, too, was back on stable ground, perhaps even more so than before the tears. As if a valve that had been twisted and twisted and twisted had suddenly given way and in so doing, washed everything clean.
"You're not buying me anything for another twenty years." Raising her hand on that stern statement, she pointed to the bracelet that glittered on one wrist.
Gabriel's response was a deeply possessive smile. "Looks perfect on you, Ms. Baird."
Making a face at him for totally avoiding the point, she finished powdering her face. It was what she should've done first, but she'd felt so naked and ravaged that she'd started with mascara. She'd have to repeat the mascara now, after getting powder on her lashes.
Slicking on some lipstick, she redid the mascara and put her glasses back on. Gabriel came into crisp focus. "Will I do?" she asked the man who looked at her as if he wanted to take a greedy bite.
"Come sit on my lap."
"Gabriel."
Putting his feet on the floor, he crooked a finger.
27
Gabriel Leads Charlotte into Wickedness and Sin
"We're in the office," she said, even as she came around the desk to take a seat on those strong thighs. "We're supposed to be professional at work."
Arms loosely around her, Gabriel leaned forward to press his lips to her shoulder. "We're having a coffee break."
"We already had that this morning."
Another kiss over the linen of her shift. "I'm the boss. I say we deserve a second coffee break after all those late nights and weekends." The third kiss brushed over her skin.
Toes curling, she felt her bones start to dissolve.
Then he pressed a kiss to her throat and she turned boneless. No one had ever kissed her throat, and it was so incredibly arousing that she leaned into him in a silent request for more. He chuckled, his breath hot, and gave her what she wanted; his kiss was wet and suckling, made her whimper. "So my Ms. Baird has a hot button on this sweet neck."
Chest rising and falling in jerky breaths, Charlotte stayed shamelessly close. Gabriel continued to feed her sensual hunger, playing his fingers over her hip at the same time. Each kiss seemed to tug on her nipples, stroke her between her thighs. Charlotte found her hand was on the back of Gabriel's neck again, her throat arched for him.
Stroking his own hand over the curve of her waist and to her hip, he nuzzled the spot just below her ear. Charlotte moaned, her panties damp.
"I like that sound." It was a deep rumble against her. "Makes my cock so fucking hard."
Another moan slipped out of her throat, her nails digging into his nape. "Gabriel," she said, the single word breathy.
He kissed his way down her throat in response, each kiss accompanied by a wet little suck. By the time he worked his way back up to that spot under her ear, her panties were so wet they were sticking to her flesh, her breath coming hard and fast, her chest tight with anticipation. He paused, hot breath against her skin. "Touch yourself for me, Ms. Baird."
She bit down on her lower lip, but the moan escaped anyway. The combination of his words and the fact he'd used her professional name, it had her heart thumping even harder, her skin so hot it felt as if she'd catch on fire. "I can't."
"Yes, you can." A kiss just below that delicious spot she needed him to kiss. "I want you to come on my lap, want to watch you take your pleasure."
Lungs aching, she clenched her hand on his nape.
Another wet kiss that ratcheted up her arousal without easing it. "Put your hand under your dress."
Charlotte's heart was racing a hundred miles an hour, her mind filled with Gabriel, his scent--hot, masculine, arousing--in her every breath. And his voice, that deep voice telling her to do such a carnal thing. She didn't know where she found the courage; maybe in the protection of his arms, maybe in the fact she was so close to a pleasure that promised to be bone-searing when she'd been a wreck minutes ago.
She slid her free hand below the hem of her dress.
"Oh fuck." Gabriel's body shuddered. "Higher, sweetheart." Each word was accompanied by a kiss to her neck.
Charlotte had tried this before Gabriel came into her life, but it had never worked, as if there was a toxic block inside her made of fear and the memories of Richard's denigrating words. Then had come those dreams and erotic fantasies. Today, as she inched her hand up her thigh, it felt as if her entire body was alive with arousal, her nerve endings sizzling just below the surface. Breasts rising and falling in an erratic rhythm, she moaned at the feel of Gabriel sucking on her neck as he made his way back up to that spot that felt so good.
Then he was there, his tongue swirling a delicate circle against her skin just as her fingers brushed the plump bud of her clitoris through the lace of her panties. Her clit felt as if it had swollen to three times its usual size, the space between her thighs humid and hot.
"Nudge aside your panties and tug on your clit," Gabriel ordered as he continued to suck and kiss her throat. "Imagine it's my fingers doing that to you. Be rough."
Skin tight and breasts aching, she pushed aside the gusset of her panties.
"Are you wet?"
"Yes," she whispered, her fingers finding the slippery plumpness of her clit.
"Tug," he said, his voice harsh. "Harder than you usually would."
Because she could deny him nothing, she did exactly as he'd ordered. Her thighs pressed together instinctively, her lower body clenching in convulsive shivers as her eyes squeezed shut.
The pleasure was deep, sinful, sublime.
Chest heaving, Charlotte stared
at Gabriel after the last ripples passed through her body.
He'd stopped kissing her, was just watching with glittering eyes, a red flush brushing his cheekbones. "You are so sexy, Ms. Baird."
Blushing, she slipped her hand out from under her dress. She couldn't believe she'd done that, but even more, she couldn't believe she'd orgasmed from nothing more than his kisses and a single purposeful touch. And words. Gabriel's words. That, she thought, was the most important thing.
It had been Gabriel with her.
Closing his fingers around the wrist of the hand she'd taken from between her legs, he tugged it closer, drew in a long breath. "I can smell you, and it makes me want to lick you until you come on my tongue." Molten silver eyes met her own. "Let me."
Her thighs clamped together again, pleasure splintering her body. "I don't think I can take it today," she said when she could speak again.
He brushed the back of his hand over her breasts. "Next time."
Nipples hard and pebbled, she nodded. "Yes." Then she leaned forward and kissed him. Richard wasn't going to steal Gabriel from her. No way in hell.
After Charlotte left his office to head to the bathroom, a hot-pink blush coloring her cheeks, Gabriel shut the door and stood with his back to it. Then he went through a step-by-step mental replay of the last professional game he'd ever played. He'd been injured two minutes before the final whistle, right after the best fucking try of his career, so he had plenty of mental footage.
Just as well.
It took the entire game to get his hard-on under control. But the agony was worth it. He'd never seen anything as hot as Charlotte coming so sweetly in his lap. And he most definitely could not think about that again while he was at the office.
Opening the door to see that Charlotte had returned to her desk, he smiled. "What's on the schedule, Ms. Baird?"
Her nape flushed before she turned slightly in her chair to narrow her eyes at him. He felt his smile deepen.
"Can you fit in a meeting with Geoff before your conference call?" she asked, her lips tugging up at the corners. "He says he only needs ten minutes."
"Send him in."
The ensuing workday was a merciless one. He broke for only a half hour, and that was to spend time on the phone with the principal of the school where he volunteered as the coach for the school's top rugby team--their first XV. One of his players had been caught with weed and the principal wanted to know if Gabriel would back him on a suspension from play as well as school.