that on her and then leave—for a couple of days? Was he insane?
“Don’t go.” It was ripped from her just as he turned the doorknob.
Gabe stiffened, then turned to face her. “I don’t want or need your pity, Annalise.”
“I know.” She stared him directly in the eye, her gaze rock-steady though her stomach pitched sickly. “I want you to stay.” She reached for him. “Please stay.”
He studied her from across the room, his eyes hopeful but his mouth grim. “I don’t think that’s a good idea until you figure out what you want.
“I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how I feel.” She swallowed. “All I know is that I don’t want you to go tonight.” She glanced outside at the blossoming daylight. “This morning. Whatever.”
“That’s more than I expected,” he murmured, striding across the room and yanking her into his arms. Then his mouth was devouring hers, his tongue teasing and tasting, thrusting and stroking, until her eyes crossed and her knees turned to jelly. He tasted like he always did—like rain and the ocean and a raging inferno that burned her alive. But he tasted sweet, too. The mixture of the familiar and the new nearly drove her over the edge.
Her hands reached up and tangled in the thin silk of his dress shirt. She needed him inside of her, needed the long moments of oblivion he always provided. Just a little while where she wouldn’t have to think.
Her hands slid down his arms to cup his ass as she pressed firmly against him. Gabe moaned low in his throat, his hands pulling her even closer into the shelter of his body.
She loved the feel of him, the hardness of his muscles, the roughness of his hands, the surprising softness of his skin everywhere else. Breaking away from his kiss, her fingers scrambled frantically at the buttons of his shirt.
But he stilled her, his hands finding hers, his thumb stroking the urgency from her fingers. “Let me take care of you this time,” he murmured, guiding her slowly backward toward her bedroom.
Tears stung her eyes, but she batted them determinedly away. This was no different than all the other times, she told herself. It was just sex. Just scratching an itch.
But as he lowered her to the bed, she knew better. This was everything she’d run from for eight long years, everything she’d hidden from in the arms of friends and strangers alike. She knew she should protest, that she should push him away. But she simply didn’t have the energy to do so. Or the heart. For once, she wanted to let a man make love to her. To love her. Only her.
Gabe stretched out beside her, elbow bent, head resting on his upturned palm as he studied her. Those wonderful eyes had gone completely black, an intense heat burning deep inside of them. His desire was palpable and a shiver of excitement skittered up her spine. She licked her lips, and even she didn’t know if she did it to be provocative or because it was suddenly necessary.
“I need you.” His voice was soft, seductive. A silken whisper stroking along her skin. A velvet caress igniting every nerve ending in her body. “I need all of you.”
“Yes.” It was a whisper, as confusion and excitement surged through her with every breath. His face was serious, focused exclusively on her. His body was hard, completely unyielding against the softness of her own. But it was his eyes, so full of hunger and desire and need for her—and her alone—that made her pulse quicken and her inner thighs grow wet. It was that hunger that also began the slow, inexorable task of melting the first of the many layers of ice she’d built around her heart.
He reached out, cupped her breast in his strong hands. Let his thumb run in light, seductive circles over the already aroused nipple. Annalise arched against his hand, increasing the pressure, and she could have sworn she heard electricity crackle around them. That one simple touch