Take Me On

  That was all right. As long as her face looked like it did right now, slack with pleasure, he was doing what needed to be done. When she’d taken all he had to give her, he pulled back, retreating from her gripping wet heat, watching her mouth fall open and feeling warning signals race up his spine. Too much of this and he was gonna blow.

  She cried out his name as he left her. Empty air swirled around his dick, and he ached to reclaim her warmth, but he made her wait. Her wild eyes locked on his, and she pleaded with him. Nope. Not yet. He palmed her breasts, concerned himself with teasing her nipples into hard little peaks. Once they were erect to his satisfaction, he gave her another slow thrust. Inch by inch, as he’d promised.

  She wasn’t having it. “Oh, fuck this!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck and pushing her body onto his. He had to laugh as her mouth crushed down on his, and she threw her weight forward so that he fell back on the floor with her atop him.

  There, she pinned his wrists to the floor and rode him with a pace that left him momentarily stunned. She took what she needed from his body now, and he fucking loved it. He could have easily broken her grip and taken over, but he let her have her way. It was a beautiful sight, her hair wild, flushed skin. Her tight pussy milked him until no amount of praying or thinking of other things or mentally reciting the Rangers lineup was gonna help him. He came, and thank God she did too, because he was lost. Nothing left.

  The woman was going to kill him. And he’d die happy.

  Light filtered in from the single window in his bedroom. It was enough for him to see her lovely naked body stretched out on his bed. She lay on her stomach, and he couldn’t stop touching her. They hadn’t been here long, but it had been long enough for him to figure out that whatever was bothering her hadn’t been eased by their wild ride earlier. In fact, if anything, she seemed even more down, more tense.

  Maybe it was only that she was leaving him. Hopefully that separation would be brief. They could figure something out.

  If only he knew that was the problem.

  She lifted her head and turned it toward him. He’d begun to wonder if she was asleep, but no, her eyes were wide open. Even the scant light showed they were full of chaotic thoughts. She probably didn’t realize how expressive they were; with her, they truly were the windows to her soul.

  “Gabby,” he said tersely, already preparing for her refusal to talk. “What’s the matter? And don’t say ‘nothing’.”

  “Ian—”

  “Something’s wrong with you. I’ve known it since you got here. If we’re gonna get anywhere, you’ve got to let me in. Shutting me out isn’t going to help anything.”

  “I’m not the one shutting you out,” she said bitterly, sitting up and facing away from him.

  Ian frowned, pushing himself around so he could see her face. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  She stared at him—he could still see the turmoil taking place behind those pretty eyes. Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and finally she dropped her head in her hands. “Fuck. Don’t make me do this.”

  “Do what? For God’s sake, talk to me.”

  “We talked about making this work, right?”

  “Right. I want to.”

  “Well, my parents apparently don’t agree.”

  Ice infiltrated his heart, wrapping skeletal fingers around it. That shouldn’t be a big deal, right? At the end of the day, who really cared what her parents thought? She was a grown woman. But something told him it was a big deal, a very big deal. After all, it was enough to keep her in a funk all night. “Okay. It happens. So…” He lifted his brows, waiting for her to supply the problem.

  “My parents pay for my apartment and pretty much all of my expenses, but only as long as I’m going to school. Hell, they pay for most of my school. I have some money, but not that much. Without them, there’s no way I could make it.”

  He’d figured as much. Damn, and he’d been a dumbass. It should’ve been abundantly clear where this was going. So clear he could’ve stopped her from talking and deduced the problem himself, but he let her go on, each word a dagger driving deeper into his heart.

  “It’s fine with them if we want to be together,” she said. “But you won’t be moving in with me. I move you in, I’m on my own. Which basically means I’ll have to quit med school and go back to nursing.”

  Sighing, he rolled to his stomach, staring sightlessly at the pattern on his drapes. What could he say? He thought of the powerful couple he’d met at the hospital yesterday, and he’d known the very thing that was probably going through her dad’s mind. Looked as if he’d been exactly right.

  “You’re not doing that,” he said firmly. Gabby giving up her dreams was unthinkable.

  “I mean, it’s not like you and I had even talked about moving in together or anything.”

  “Right.” But he’d had hope; it stood to reason that they would eventually, if this thing progressed. He damn sure wouldn’t mind waking up to her every morning. But he couldn’t give her a decent place on what he earned. He’d had roommates back when he lived in Dallas, and they’d still struggled.

  “It just sucks that it was laid out there to me like that. My mom…she’s never been that way to me before. It’s always been Brian who got the whole finger-in-the-face thing.”

  He thought of his own mom, and the shambles that were left of that relationship. If he could fix it, he would. Gabriella had never had to go it alone, not like him. Hell, she never would. She had beauty and brains to get her by. He’d only had brawn and street smarts. They’d gotten him through some rough shit. She was from an entirely different world altogether, though, and he never, never wanted her to get any taste of his. She couldn’t piss her parents off so severely that they disowned her. She needed them.

  She needed them a fuck of a lot more than she needed him. What the hell could he do for her? He damn sure couldn’t earn enough to support them and a baby and put her through medical school.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said miserably.

  He stroked her smooth, naked back while she held the sheet to her chest and gazed at him with such forlorn sorrow in her eyes that he almost couldn’t take it.

  And worse than any of it, maybe, was his own humiliation. That he wasn’t good enough. It was fucking Earl all over again, telling him he was a worthless piece of shit who would never amount to anything. Hearing it from him, though, Ian could’ve laughed it off—look who was talking, after all. King of the worthless pieces of shit.

  Hearing the equivalent from Gabriella’s parents… It cut. It cut him deep as fuck.

  So the bastard had been right after all, hadn’t he? Ian had a beautiful woman who wanted to be with him, who wanted to have a child with him, and he couldn’t be what she needed. He would never be the fucking doctor who could give her the dream wedding and everything she wanted. He could almost hear his asshole stepfather laughing at him from beyond the grave.

  “I don’t know either,” he said distantly. Raw emotion churned in his gut, old wounds breaking open and oozing. The last thing he wanted was for her to witness it. “But…maybe you should go home tonight. Not because I want you to, baby, but…” He trailed off and sighed as her eyes widened.

  “You’re serious? You’re giving in to their bullshit?”

  “What else do you want me to say, Gabby? You said yourself you don’t know what to do. I don’t know what the fuck to do, either.”

  He expected an explosion. He didn’t get one. Gabby’s shoulders rose with her deep inhale. She looked straight ahead for a moment in a sort of stunned daze, then stood.

  Ian grappled for something to say while she dressed. Something to make her feel better, something to soften the blow of the words he’d just uttered. But he’d only be kidding himself, wouldn’t he? He had nothing left.

  And it was the best thing for her, for his baby, to maintain their attachment to a rich, powerful family. If he would in any way jeopardize that by his mere p
resence, then he had to step away.

  As the door closed behind her and despair ate a hole in his chest, he didn’t know if he could.

  Chapter Nineteen

  September

  Even under the roof of the parking garage, it was hotter than the ninth circle of hell. September in Texas was little better than August, heat-wise—hell, she couldn’t hope for much relief until at least late October. If then. And they were breaking high-temperature records. Gabriella felt as if she were walking uphill through sludge—the journey from her last lecture to her car should’ve been a breeze, but for some reason today, she feared she might collapse before she made it. If it was this bad now, what would it be like when she was eight months along? Nine?

  She was absolutely fucking exhausted, and she had a night of reading about the various ailments of the liver ahead of her. Joy, joy. She was being punished for something, she just knew it.

  Digging her silenced phone from her bag, she cursed herself again for being such an idiot. Hoping for something, anything, from Ian. Saying he’d changed his mind. That he didn’t give a shit about anything but her. And then…what?

  And then she’d have to give up everything she was working toward if she wanted to be with him.

  Damn him. It wasn’t as if there weren’t other options. She’d asked if he would be willing to move back, find his own place, get his old job back if he had to, just to be close to her.

  “Well, babe, I always had to have roommates before to make it there. I don’t want to do that again.”

  But he could stay with her a lot of the time, she’d suggested.

  “You don’t need to be worried about someone finding out I’m staying there.”

  Her family wasn’t going to stake out her place, for God’s sake. They weren’t the Andrewses. Besides, they were three fucking hours away. So she’d asked when he thought he could come see her.

  “It’s been like unbelievably busy. I’ll ask Brian when he can spare me.”

  Did he really think she couldn’t check up on that? Brian had told her it hadn’t been any worse than usual; Ian could take off any time he asked.

  So it was pretty much official, wasn’t it? She was pregnant and alone. Even her friends here had somewhat drawn away…maybe that was only her imagination, but it sure felt like it. She couldn’t meet them for drinks—well, she could, but what was the point?—and she was sick of calling one of them up only to hear about what they all did the night before. Even Tina, one of her bridesmaids, her refuge when the shit had hit the fan, suddenly seemed too busy to have any time for her. Maybe she was tired of having such a needy friend.

  That was fine. Gabby would make it just fine by herself.

  As she passed car after car and finally spotted her own, she was even more certain that some transgression in a past life had come back to bite her on the ass. A man leaned casually against the driver’s side door, his attention currently focused down on his cell phone.

  Dr. Mark Easton. Former fiancé, almost-husband.

  He looked as handsome and cool as ever, as if sweating was too undignified for him. His khakis were perfectly pressed along with his dark blue shirt and tie. He always styled his dark blond hair back in a way that made him look as if he’d stepped off his boat after a day of sailing—effortless and windblown. It was beginning to thin the slightest bit on top, a fact Gabby knew unnerved him but didn’t take away whatsoever from his striking good looks.

  Her first impulse was to flee. Hide out and watch until he grew tired of waiting and left. Her second was to hit her panic button and watch him lose that carefully cultivated cool when the blaring horn scared the shit out of him. No sense in the first, though—he would only come back again, and besides, she was melting. She needed to sit, and she needed her car’s air conditioner. She was prepared to go through him, if need be, to attain those things.

  As for the second impulse, well…it was beneath her, even if it would be damn funny.

  “Well, lo and behold,” she said loudly, making sure he found her glaring at him when his head snapped up. “Mark Easton finally shows up.”

  That might’ve been somewhat beneath her too, but…whatever.

  If she’d expected a sheepish reaction from him, she was disappointed—if anything, his expression became even smoother and more remote.

  Gabby proceeded to the door of her car as if he weren’t standing there, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of moving.

  “Gabriella, please,” he said, blocking her way. “Give me five minutes.”

  “I remember you not giving me that same courtesy a few months ago. That was all I needed, you know, about five minutes of your time.” She dodged to the right a bit, trying to get a grip on the door handle. His hand gently caught her arm.

  “I know you’re pregnant.”

  Freezing in his light grip, she let her gaze climb up to his familiar, once-beloved face. The distinguished features, laugh lines, bright blue eyes. Seeing them this close again was a jolt to her senses, but it couldn’t compete with the face that haunted her dreams every night now.

  “And how in the hell do you know that?” she asked, though she figured she already knew. Her mother was going to get a very angry phone call later, once Gabby cooled off enough that she thought she could get through it without flinging mindless curse words.

  “That isn’t important.”

  “It’s not? Did you call her, or did she call you?”

  Sighing, he dropped his hand and looked away. “If you must know, I called her. I wanted to make sure you were coming back.”

  “Checking to see if you completely crushed all my dreams, or just the one?”

  “It was never my intention to crush your dreams. Any of them. I only thought we needed more time.”

  “You thought you needed more time. I knew exactly what I needed.”

  “You had become so obsessed with the wedding, Gabby, that it was no longer about the marriage.”

  Look at that, a shiny new excuse pulled right out of his ass. How long had it taken him to come up with that one? “Oh, bullshit, Mark!”

  “Please lower your voice—”

  “That doesn’t even make any sense. Yeah, I wanted the show. I wanted the whole princess-for-a-day thing. But my heart was always set on you. On our future together. If the whole thing wigged you out that badly, you could have spoken up, you know. You said nothing to me about any of it.”

  “I realize that, and I take full responsibility for my lack of communication. It seemed easier to let you handle all the details because of my schedule, and you wanted to do it. You became so immersed in it, though. When the time came, I couldn’t go through with it. It didn’t even seem to be about us anymore.”

  “Mark, it’s two hundred and eighty-nine degrees right now. I’m not going to stand here in this oven and retread the same ground we’ve been over and over already. There’s no point in it, and I’m about to pass out. You’re not going to wear me down. I’ll never forgive you for what you did. Ever. End of.”

  “Let me take you to dinner.”

  “I’m in a relationship…” Her voice choked off into pathetic, heartbroken silence. Because the relationship she was in, apparently, was only in her head. She missed Ian so much, so desperately, that her throat had closed up, and she realized her hands had gone reflexively to her stomach at the thought of him. Her belly had the slightest little pooch now, and she wanted Ian to see it so badly, where their child grew bigger and stronger every day. This was killing her.

  “Honey, I know you’re working yourself to death, and I can’t even imagine how worried you are about being pregnant. And alone. Where is he now, by the way?”

  “Back home,” she said dully, in place of none of your freaking business.

  He must’ve surmised from her tone it was a touchy subject. “Getting away for an evening and having a nice meal will do you good. I know how you are when you’re stressed, so I doubt you’re eating well. We don’t have to argue. We don’t ha
ve to talk much at all if you don’t want to.”

  I know how you are. He’d said a lot, but her brain was stuck on that. There was so much comfort in those words: someone who knew what she needed when she needed it. For the most part, Mark had—except for the one thing she’d needed from him more than anything else. To show up and commit to her.

  What could it hurt to go to dinner? If she’d thought for a moment that he still wanted her, she’d turn him down cold, but there was no way he could now.

  Then again…what the hell was he doing here?

  “I care about you, Gabby,” he said, as if sensing the turn her thoughts were taking. “You might not believe it, but I do. Very much. I want more than anything to know you’re going to be okay.” Frowning at her, he reached forward and swept a strand of hair from her damp forehead. “You’re not anemic, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Are you taking vitamins?”

  “What are you, my doctor now? I think it’s only a case of being thirty-six and pregnant in three-thousand-degree heat.”

  He retracted his arm, still looking at her in that too-assessing, doctor way he had. “All right, then. My offer stands. What do you think?”

  If nothing else, it would be a night away from her apartment—and away from much-needed reading, unfortunately—but it would be a night in someone else’s company besides her own. She was practically sick of herself, sick of festering in her lonely, chaotic thoughts.

  But in the end…

  “I can’t,” she said softly. “Thank you for caring. I just can’t.” She attempted to reach around him again. And again, his hand caught her before she could.

  “Gabby…”

  “What, Mark, what now?”

  “I love you.”

  “I loved you. Past tense.”

  “I don’t think so. If you truly wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, and I believe you did, you wouldn’t be able to walk away so fast.”

  “Here’s the thing. I can’t love without respect. And I can’t respect someone who doesn’t respect me in return. What you did…it’s pretty damn far from respect, you know?”