“Alexis…”
“Don’t.” I grit my teeth, nostrils flaring. “Please just let her stay with Harry and me. It will mean a lot to our son to have another familiar face around.” I swipe my tongue over my lip. “He misses you, you know.”
Gabriel goes quiet, though I can hear the rattle of his breath against the receiver. I have hit a nerve. Good.
“Fine,” he says finally. “She can stay with you.”
“Thank you.”
The line clicks, and just like that, the conversation is over. I don’t know when or if I’ll get to speak to Gabriel again, but at least I’ve learned one thing from the conversation. He doesn’t hate me. If he truly hated me, he wouldn’t have given in. He wouldn’t have talked to me in the first place.
I hand the phone back to Angelo, feeling a little lighter than I did before. Gabriel doesn’t hate me. And if Gabriel doesn’t hate me, we might actually be able to mend the fissure keeping us apart.
I would like to think that it is the excitement of the day preventing me from falling asleep. Clara’s back, and sleeping soundly in the next room over. The doctor says she’s malnourished and dehydrated but otherwise in okay health. A few days of rest and recovery, and she should be good as new. Between getting her back, the call with Gabriel, and reuniting Harry and Clara, today has been a whirlwind.
But that’s not why I am lying awake, staring up at the dark ceiling.
Gabriel’s voice keeps playing in my mind. I hadn’t heard it for so long, I think I forgot what it sounded like, how when he speaks, each word feels like a gentle caress over my skin. Gabriel’s voice came back into my life for a moment, and now it is gone again, and I feel a hollow loneliness instead.
I think of all the things he has said to me in that voice. The sweet things. The angry things. And best of all, the filthy things. Gabriel is always in control, and sex is no different. He gives commands, then rewards you for following them. Or punishes you for not following them.
Sometimes that’s even better.
I feel a pang of heat deep in my belly, and my fingers glide over the front of my panties, idly stroking my folds through the cotton.
I build the scenario in my head. There is no camera in my bedroom, but for the sake of my fantasy, I pretend there is and that I’m putting on a show. I picture Gabriel sitting in his office, bent over his computer screen as he watches my fingers dip below the fabric of my underwear, gliding over my wet slit.
Of course, he wouldn’t be able to resist touching himself too once he saw my arched back, lips parted, hand strumming at my clit. I like to think he would have to come over right away. That he couldn’t stand the sight of me pleasuring myself without his permission. He would break through the door just as I was about to crest that most glorious wave and deny me the satisfaction. I let myself drift into the fantasy.
I writhe in the sheets, my face flushed with heat. I am so close. So. Close.
The door slams inward, and before I know what is happening, a shape covers me in the dark, ripping my hands away from my body and pressing them up and over my head.
The figure is shadowed in darkness, but I smell sandalwood and male musk. Gabriel.
He leans over, his body pressing me hard into the mattress. His lips caress the shell of my ear as he hisses, “Did you think I was just going to let you get away with it?”
“With what?” I buck up against him and find him hard at the apex of my legs.
“Teasing me.” He sucks my earlobe into his mouth and nibbles it. “Tempting me. Making me want you when I know that I can’t have you.”
“Can’t you?”
Gabriel sucks in a breath and grinds against me. “You’re right,” he murmurs. “I can have you anytime I want. You’re still mine.”
My fingers rub over my sensitive nub, sending pulses of delicious heat through me. I start to move faster. My scalp tingles.
Gabriel keeps ahold of my wrists in one large hand while he unzips with the other. I feel his weight against my thigh, and his lips come to my neck.
“Tell me that you want it,” he says.
I keep my lips pressed tight, even as a moan threatens to rip through me.
His hands tighten on my wrists, and he rubs his hard length against the front of my panties. I suppress another moan, teeth gritted tightly.
“Tell me,” he orders. His deep voice cuts through me like a knife. There is a measure of desperation in it, and I know he needs me right now every bit as much as I need him.
I can’t hold back any longer. “I want it. Please.”
Gabriel emits a deep growl and rips my panties right off me, tossing the torn fabric to the ground. He wedges himself between my thighs, and I feel his thick head at my entrance, pressing into me.
Heat washes over me. I rub furiously, tension pooling deep in my belly.
Gabriel drives in. His hips crash into mine, and I let out a moan of pure bliss as he fills me, stretches me, owns me completely.
“That’s right,” he groans, pulling out and then slamming home again. “I’m the one who gets to make you come. You’re mine, Tiger. All mine.”
My hand grips the sheets as I climb to the peak of pleasure, eyes screwed shut. It’s good. So good. I imagine him above me, his dark hair falling over the deep pools of his eyes as he fucks me senseless.
I break right down the middle, pleasure ripping through me. White flashes behind my eyes. I go perfectly still, not even breathing, as everything in my world blurs at the edges and then comes slowly into focus.
The room is deadly silent until the sounds of my hoarse breaths fill it again.
The loneliness continues to lap at my ankles like soft, hissing waves. I wonder how long until the tide comes in.
11
Gabriel
Never in my life have I wished more that Vito was still alive. I am sitting in my office with his brother, discussing adjustments to our strategy now that we know the face of our enemy, but Silvano only ever met Felicity Huffman briefly. He doesn’t know her like Vito did.
Vito and I used to spend hours discussing the various manipulations she used on my father, and all the ways she might become dangerous for us. I vowed that I would always stay one step ahead of her. If something happened to my father and she came for me next, I would make sure that I didn’t fall into her web.
Only, now I have. She has been pulling my strings for months, and I feel like an absolute idiot. I had no idea.
Silvano studies the photo on the desk. Felicity and my father are grinning at the camera. He looks handsome in an ink-black tux. She looks stunning in a floor-length purple gown. The photo is around five or six years old, but Felicity has barely aged.
“This is a good thing, Gabriel,” Silvano says, sliding the photo back to me. “We know who we’re dealing with now.”
“I know.” I toss the photo into a drawer, skin prickling.
Silvano’s mouth tugs down at the corners. “Your lips are saying one thing…”
I don’t know why Felicity’s reveal has rattled me so much. There is something incredibly disturbing about having my father’s former lover come back into my life, years after she nearly brought my father’s empire to ruin.