“You shouldn’t have to try, Chloe,” Gabe rasped, his warm breath wafting over her cheek as he leaned into her. “You just have to be you.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but before she could speak, his masculine scent assaulted her senses, and her core clenched in a volatile physical reaction she’d never experienced before.
Oh, God. He smells so good, feels so amazing.
She knew he was going to kiss her, and she didn’t make a single move to stop him. In fact, some long dormant inner voice told her to stop fighting her attraction to him and let herself…feel.
His mouth came down on hers dominantly, but so sensually that she moaned against his lips. She opened to him almost immediately, savoring the taste of passion in his embrace. He plundered her like a man possessed, his tongue taking control of her mouth as he swept inside as though he was desperate for a taste of her.
Chloe was a woman of limited experience, her only intimate contact being with James. What Gabe was doing to her body now was so very different, so enticing that she couldn’t resist. She’d never thought of herself as a sexual female, and most of the time she dreaded sex. James had seldom demanded it anymore, making it clear that her overweight body didn’t appeal to him.
The only time he ever wanted to screw me was to assert his control.
It had nearly always hurt in one way or another, and she was convinced she could probably go the rest of her life without experiencing it again.
I think I was wrong. So very wrong.
Her nipples hardened as Gabe breached any distance between them, his muscular body flush with hers. Her entire being felt like it was on fire as Gabe lifted his mouth from hers and started a trail of pleasurable sensation down the sensitive skin of her neck with his lips.
Unlike their shared kiss on New Year’s Eve, she didn’t feel uptight. In fact, she’d never felt anything that felt so right. Gabe wasn’t intoxicated, so he knew exactly what he was doing. It made the experience that much more satisfying.
“Jesus, Chloe. I can’t take this anymore,” he growled against her skin.
“Then stop.” She was panting uncontrollably, her body quivering with need.
“I fucking can’t. I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you after you came back home.”
It was a heady thing to hear a man admit how much he’d wanted her. And Chloe knew he wasn’t playing her. She could feel the intensity of his need, and her emotions and body were responding. “I’ve never felt this way,” she admitted, almost confused by her desire to rip off Gabe’s clothes and climb all over him.
He grasped her ponytail and tilted her head to meet his eyes. “Never?” he questioned huskily.
She shook her head, fascinated by the hungry look on his face. “Never,” she told him, her voice a little stronger. “It felt good when you kissed me on New Year’s Eve, but I knew you’d been drinking. And I felt guilty because I was still with James. That night was the moment I realized I couldn’t marry him. You were right.”
“Baby, I wasn’t drunk. I knew exactly what I was doing both then and now, and it gets better than this,” he replied in a graveled voice. “You were engaged for years.”
“It didn’t feel like this,” she confessed. “It…hurt and I didn’t like it.”
Embarrassed that a woman her age was telling a man like Gabe about her miserable sex life, she speared her hands through his hair and pulled his head down. He let her, and he covered her mouth again for another fiery kiss.
His hands came away from the wall and wrapped around her body, his fingers seeking and finding the bare skin of her back beneath her sweatshirt and jacket.
Chloe shivered as his fingers moved along her body, as though he were trying to touch every inch of naked skin he could find.
His touch left every nerve ending in her body tingling, and his assault on her mouth was relentless, driving her nearly insane with need.
“Gabe,” she moaned as he finally lifted his head, not sure what she was asking him for.
His hands stilled and he pulled her against him tightly.
“I have to stop, Chloe. If I don’t do it now, I won’t do it at all.” His voice was low and full of regret, his breathing harsh.
She rested her head against his chest, waiting for her breathing to slow and heart to stop galloping like a racehorse. It was almost physically painful when he untangled their bodies and stepped back.
“I’m not apologizing for that,” Gabe said in a dangerous voice.
“Don’t,” she agreed hastily. “I don’t want you to regret something like that.” It was too good, too real. If he said he was sorry, it would spoil the moment, and it was another revelation for her. She didn’t feel guilty or sorry like she had when he’d kissed her on New Year’s.
She felt somehow…freed.
“Hell, I don’t regret it. I just hate the fact that I can’t try to seduce you completely.” He speared her with a gaze full of longing and desire.
“Why?” she asked curiously. Chloe wasn’t sure she was ready for a full onslaught of Gabe, but she wondered why he hesitated if he really wanted her.
“You just broke off an engagement to an asshole, you had a miscarriage not long ago, and you’re my best friend’s little sister. I think that’s reason enough. I’d be a complete dick if I pushed this any further right now.” He hesitated before adding, “But I don’t think I can ever regret touching you, Chloe. It feels too damn good.”
There was complete silence in the room as their eyes met and held, Chloe’s heart aching as she looked at him. She’d made a total mess of her personal life, judged all men and relationships by the one man she’d ever known intimately. None of Gabe’s concerns were valid except that it was too soon for her to leap back into an emotional fire. Her miscarriage was over and the doctor had cleared her completely. It was none of her brother, Blake’s—or any of her brothers’ for that matter—business who his grown sister chose to be intimate with if they both wanted it. Still, Gabe was hesitant to hurt her psyche any more than it was already damaged, and that touched her more than any of his other reasons.