“What?”
“Come on, now. Bacon is the greatest smell in the world.”
When her stomach took that moment to protest its emptiness, she was kind of inclined to agree with him. But still. Really? “I’m going to take that as a personal affront. That I don’t smell as good as bacon.”
“You shouldn’t feel that way. It’s just, you know…fact. It’s not like you can help it.”
“Are we really talking about this?”
“Well, you brought it up.”
“I didn’t bring up bacon.” This had to be the dorkiest conversation she’d ever been a party to, and that was saying a lot. “Tell you what. If you say you have some on hand, and one of us can fry it up, I’ll forgive you for letting me know I’m inadequate according to your olfactory system.”
He touched her hair, tracing one long strand with the tip of his finger. “Sure. We can do that. How about a BLT?”
“Sounds heavenly.”
As Ian crawled from the bed, Gabby propped her head up and allowed herself to thoroughly appreciate the view. While they’d been tangled up in each other, he’d never completely lost his jeans, but he’d lost them enough that she had a full view of his ass. What she wouldn’t give for her back to be healed so maybe he could throw her down and really put those tight, wonderful muscles to work on her. Even now she wanted to sink her fingernails into his firm curves, and fantasized about doing so while he bent her knees to her ears and pounded into her.
Whew, damn. If she wasn’t careful, she’d get herself all worked up again and burn even more calories she was desperate to replace.
Hell, she was already worked up. If he wanted to go again, she’d be all for it. But he disappeared into the bathroom, and a second later, light flooded in from the doorway. With a contented sigh, Gabby collapsed back on the bed and stared at the ceiling…and wondered what Mark was doing right now.
If that wasn’t a freaking unwelcome intrusion. It wasn’t that she cared. Or, more accurately, it wasn’t that she wanted to care—because, damn him, she did. Every now and then he trespassed on her thoughts when he should be the furthest thing from her mind. Like after she’d just had great sex with someone who wasn’t him. Her first great sex since he dumped her. Her only sex.
So yeah, she still thought about him, and she dreaded—dear God, she dreaded—going back to Dallas, where he might be inclined to seek her out.
Not that she really thought he would. But he’d made a comment about their timing being wrong, about how someday maybe it would be right. He could go on waiting for that moment, she’d told him, because she damn sure wasn’t. To be so brilliant, he’d proven himself a fool to think she’d go for that. “Oh, sure, Mark, I’ll just hang around and wait for ‘someday’ and the next wedding you decide to skip out on. Sounds like a plan.”
And why was she dwelling on it? She had a hot man who’d just fucked her senseless, emerging from the bathroom at this very moment in his low-slung ripped jeans, giving her an electric smile before heading toward what she assumed was the kitchen. She’d be the fool, she decided, if she didn’t get up and follow that. So she put on his T-shirt and did.
Chapter Six
Ian straightened from retrieving the bacon, lettuce and tomato from the fridge as Gabby sauntered in, wearing his shirt. If she’d looked incredible earlier in the parlor and later in the bar—and dear God, naked in his arms—she looked insanely gorgeous right now, her long hair tousled up on one side and her dewy olive skin glowing against the contrast of the shirt. It fell just above mid-thigh on her, and the thought that she might still be bare and wet from their sex underneath it set off all kinds of lustful thoughts in his head. He set the stuff on the counter and wiped his palms on his jeans, mind going blank. What the hell was he doing? Bacon. Right.
“I’ll cook if you chop,” she said, her voice an octave lower than he remembered it.
Full lips even fuller than he remembered them. All from his kisses. He directed her to the skillet and utensils and tried to get his fucking thoughts together.
He’d been an idiot to take her up on her bet, but he’d have been a bigger idiot not to. At least, it had been easy to look at it that way at the time. Now, he had to think about going to work tomorrow and looking his boss in the eye. Shit.
What did it matter? It wasn’t as if anything would come of this. No one ever had to know. From what Brian had told him earlier today, she was a woman looking for a good time to get over a shitty ordeal. And he really had no problem being used, at least not in that capacity. They were a match made in a very brief heaven.
“So,” he said, positioning his knife over a tomato and mentally scrabbling for conversation, “a doctor, huh?”
“Looks that way.” She put the skillet on the stove and turned on the burner. He tried to imagine it, but he just couldn’t see her in scrubs. “After nursing for several years, I started to feel like I knew as much as any of the pediatricians I’ve ever worked for, so why not? And I love kids so much.”
“Well, that’s great. Good on you for following your dreams.”
One of her shoulders lifted nonchalantly. “I should have followed it fifteen years ago.”
Fifteen years ago, he was still in middle school. He chuckled at the thought.
“What’s so funny?”
“You just kinda…brought home our age difference.”
“Oh.” She laid a strip of bacon in the skillet, where it sizzled angrily. “I hate to even ask how old you are.”
“So don’t. I’ll tell you. I’m twenty-eight.”
She laughed out the word “Jesus,” giving it several more syllables than it contained. “Well, Ian, I hope you don’t mind being with an older woman.”
“As long as you don’t mind being with a younger man.”
“After tonight, I might rob the cradle from now on.”
He could damn sure say, for his part, he didn’t mind being robbed from the cradle. Not if she was the one doing the robbing. “I know I’m not supposed to ask…” he began, dangling the invitation for her to fess up.
She gave him a sultry glance over her shoulder. “So don’t. Only, I won’t tell you.”
“I’ll just find out from your brother,” he teased.
“He’ll want to know why you’re interested.”
“Maybe I’ll tell him.”
“Right. As hard as I had to work to get you here because you’re so scared of him? I don’t think so.”
“I’m not scared of him, dammit, and I’ll let you in on a little secret. You really didn’t have to work that hard to get me here.”
“Well. It felt like I did.” He could hear the smile in her voice, and it was impossible not to answer it with one of his own.
“Sorry about that.”
“So then, why did you play so hard to get?” Gabby continued her task, laying a couple more pieces in the skillet. He finished the tomato and started on the lettuce in the time it took him to formulate an answer.
It was complicated. He’d only ten seconds ago had the thought that he didn’t care about being used…at least not for sex. On a deeper level, though, something inside him ached. He recalled sitting in the bar and feeling like he was the prey and she the predator. He’d spent too much of his life that way. He’d worked too hard to escape it all. Any little reminder could send him spinning back mentally, and that was the one thing he tried to avoid at all costs. The less he thought about his past, the better.
But a beautiful woman coming on strong wasn’t enough to make that happen. There was more to it than that.
“You seem like a go-getter. I guess I wanted to see how hard you’d work to get me.” It wasn’t the truth, but it sounded like a good substitute. It might placate her.
“You like throwing down a challenge, then?”
“Maybe.”
“I guess I like a challenge.”
“Given your chosen profession, I’m not surprised.”
They created idle chitchat while they f
inished food prep and eventually sat down on the barstools at the counter to eat. He marveled that Gabriella Ross could look sexy as hell just eating a BLT. There was simply something about a woman who enjoyed her food, and she obviously did.
“I was starving,” she said finally, wiping her mouth with one of the napkins he’d put out. “And I haven’t had one of those in ages. Thanks for bringing up bacon.”
He chuckled and started on his second. “You’re welcome.”
“Tell me about yourself.”
Caught with a mouthful, he struggled to swallow quickly and shrugged. “What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start basic. Full name?”
“Bastian Anderson Rhodes.”
“Oh!” She laughed. “That’s…thorough. I guess I have to give up my middle name now too.”
“If you want. I don’t require it or anything.”
She smiled. “I don’t mind. It’s—” She said something that sounded foreign and beautiful and that he could never hope to pronounce. “But that’s Irene to you. It’s Italian. From my grandmother.”
“Can you speak it?”
“I get by when I visit over there. Mom made sure of it.”
“Wow. Awesome. So…Brian can speak Italian?”
“I think he knows mostly cuss words. But he can get by too. He just gets laughed at more than I do. Evan, he’s fluent. He was always the star pupil.”
“He’s a lawyer, right?”
“Yep.”
He shook his head. “Too much school for me.”
“That’s us. Family of overachievers. Although it took Brian a while to get there.” She sipped the beer he’d gotten her from the fridge when they’d sat down. He’d taken one too. “What about your family? They’re in Dallas, you said?”
He shifted on his barstool. God, don’t let her dig too deep. “My mom is.”
“Are you close?”
“Not particularly. I mean, we speak. We’re cool. But not real close.”
“Well…that’s unfortunate. Not my business, of course, so I’ll shut up now.”
“It’s all right.” He’d tell her a little, then maybe she wouldn’t feel as if she’d pried. “My stepdad was a real dickhead, and that’s putting it mildly. From the time they got together when I was twelve, she and I had a major difference of opinion about how she should handle that situation.” He paused, the sight of the half-eaten sandwich in front of him suddenly making him nauseated. “He died a few years ago. So it’s not a problem anymore. But the damage was done.”
Even though it had been over ten years, he could swear the scar over his eye ached.
“Wow,” she said softly. “I’m sorry about that. It’s a disgrace when people choose a partner over their kids. Not that that’s what she was doing—”
“She was.”
“Your kids should come first. No matter what. And I’ll really shut up now.”
“Before you shut up, know that I agree with you. A hundred percent. Now, on to happier things.” He held up his beer bottle to toast. “To the Rangers.”
She laughed and clinked her bottle against his. “May they be ever victorious. Not going to happen, but we can dream.”
“Absolutely.” He took a deep breath. It felt like the first inhalation he’d accomplished since she brought up the subject of family. Appetite gone, he pushed his plate forward. “Want this?”
Gabby waved her hand. “Oh, no thanks.”
He stood and took their plates to the sink, dumping the rest of his sandwich in the trash along the way.
“How long have you lived here?” she asked.
“Three months.”
“And you like it?”
Shrugging, he leaned against the counter to face her, liking the way her eyes flickered over his shirtless body. Liking the way the white of his shirt lit up her skin. “I don’t hate it.”
“People usually move away from here, not to here. It’s pretty dead-end.”
“Like I said, Brian needed the help, I needed the change. So far, so good.”
“So you plan on staying awhile?”
“I don’t have plans at the moment.”
“That sounds…kind of nice.” She killed the rest of her beer. “To take life as it comes at you.”
“Haven’t you been doing that? Doesn’t everyone, whether they have plans or not?”
“Good point.”
“So how long were you with Mr. Wonderful?”
Her dark brows knit together; the corners of her mouth turned downward. He didn’t mean to cause her distress, but he was so fucking curious about the guy who let her go. Her fingers toyed with the bottle in front of her. “Almost a year.”
“And he was a doctor?”
“A cardiologist. Who doesn’t know jack shit about the heart, apparently. Nor does he seem to have one of his own.”
“Do you still talk to him?”
“I haven’t since I moved here. He tried to call me a few times before I left, but I wouldn’t talk to him. I guess he stopped caring once I was gone. He’s probably glad.”
“I don’t get it. You were planning a life together. I don’t see why he would bail at the last possible minute.”
“You and I both remain in the dark. I’d be lying if I said I never had a single doubt the entire time we were together, but I chalked it up to his schedule or his being tired. I figured he’d have the maturity to come to me if he had a problem.”
“Sure.”
“And to let my parents spend all that money… They wanted to pay for everything, you know, traditional. Everything was in place. And it all went to waste.” She raked her long hair back with one hand, and he thought he saw that hand shake a little. “Pathetic. So fucking pathetic.”
“You’ve seemed to handle it so well, though.” When she laughed humorlessly, he rushed on. “I mean it. I don’t know you well, but I could imagine an experience like that crushing a lesser woman. Making her not want to show her face. But you? Holy shit. You’re on fire.”
The unexpected breaking of a smile over her face was akin to sunshine breaking through storm clouds, as corny and clichéd as that sounded. “I’m on fire?”
“You’re the phoenix rising from the ashes. I’m honored I could be the one to let you express that.” He grinned. “In more ways than one.”
“With the way you’re looking at me right now, you’re making me want to express it again.”
“Yeah?”
He couldn’t take his eyes from her as he approached and turned her barstool all the way toward him. The intensity in her eyes as she watched him, the hitch of her breath as he stepped between her legs—it ignited his blood again in a way he wouldn’t have expected after she’d made him blow his top earlier.
But why not? She was without a doubt the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen, and the more he looked at her, the more certain he became of that fact. She ran her hands over his bare chest and up over his shoulders. Long, lithe fingers he wanted to feel all over him again. He tugged the hem of the T-shirt from under her ass and lifted it over her head. She raised her arms so he could slip it off.
And now, breasts bared, long hair drifting down around them, she was even more beautiful. Her skin… It shimmered. He wanted to eat her alive. There could be no doubt she knew her own beauty, but he couldn’t stop himself from telling her. He could never tell her enough. “So fucking beautiful, Gabriella.”
“Thank you,” she replied softly. She snaked her hands behind his neck again and pulled him in for a kiss. The second her full lips touched his, opened for his, he was lost. That she welcomed him into her glorious body in any way whatsoever was nothing less than a gift, and a miraculous one.
He slid her hips closer until she was snugged tight against his already hardening dick. As he’d suspected earlier, she hadn’t been wearing her panties. Still wet, swollen, flushed and fragrant from their earlier sex. Ian growled deep in his throat as he wrenched his jeans open to get closer to her. She let her head fall bac
k and arched her body, presenting those perfect cinnamon-colored nipples. He leaned in to flick the very tip of one with his tongue, and she sucked in a breath. “Ian…”
Once his cock protruded from his fly, straining to get inside her tight body again, she undulated against it, leaving a trail of wetness on the underside. Her clit was so plump and needy against him, he wanted to hit his knees and suck it for her all night. Make her come over and over and over again, until she couldn’t anymore. “Fuck, baby. You should’ve told me if you didn’t get enough.”
“I don’t know if I ever could.” The corner of her mouth kicked up in a mischievous smirk. “You walking around here all hot and hard.” Her hands skimmed over his shoulders as she spoke, traveling down the contours of his biceps. They came back up and joined over the center of his chest, where his heart thudded strong.
He rubbed the crown of his cock back and forth, savoring her delicious movements as she circled against him. The need to dip in and feel her slick and soft and tight around his throbbing dick almost overpowered everything else. He moved down enough to tease her entrance with his tip, and she gasped and clung to him but shook her head.
“I know,” he whispered. “You feel so good.”
“God, you’re making me wet.”
“So wet.” He dipped in and kissed her, giving her mouth one deep sweep with his tongue. She tried to keep him in, but he evaded her. “I want to taste it again.”
Gabby jerked against him, and he had to lock his fucking knees to keep from thrusting forward into her. He’d never seen anything so hot in his life as the sight of her bare, glistening pussy lips separating on either side of the head of his dick. Never felt anything as sweet, either. “Yes, yes,” she whispered in a rush. “Oh yes, please.”
“I’m having fun right here, though.”
A dirty chuckle came from deep in her throat. “Make up your mind.” She pulled him down to say her next words into his ear, her breath a warm, sexy gust that raised the hairs at his nape. “I want to come into your mouth this time. Then I want to come again with you sunk as deep inside me as you can get.”
Sounded like a damn good plan to him. He might’ve gone down to his knees in obedience, or it might’ve been that her words knocked him off his feet. Either way, he had her here, spread open, bare, in full light.