A Question of Love (11 page)

“That it was Gabe all along.”

“What was?”

“He was the one I loved. Not you. I just couldn’t see it then. I couldn’t separate the two of you.” She smacked her forehead. “God, how could I have been so blind? How could I not have comprehended this years ago?”

“If it helps, I was blinded by them both as well,” Maddie confessed. “It took me a while to work out Connor was the one, not Gabe.”

“But they’re so…so different.”

“Yeah,” Maddie agreed, “but together they make quite a team.”

“It was the teamwork that did it. That’s what confused me.” Tina turned to stare at Connor as if seeing him for the first time. In a way, she was. She was seeing him through clear eyes, eyes no longer tinted by the misconception of love. Sure, he was gorgeous, but still… “I don’t love you,” she told him, still befuddled by her comprehension. “You just had me thinking I did because you were so darned good in bed.”

“He is good, isn’t he?” Maddie concurred.

“Yeah, and with Gabe, well the two of them…”

“I know.” Maddie nodded. “Believe me, I know.”

“But it’s not just about sex, is it?” Tina asked Maddie.

“It’s about love.”

“And without love, the sex isn’t enough.”

Maddie gazed at Connor. “But with love…”

Tina dropped her head in her hands. With love everything was different.

Which explained why sex with Connor had gone from good to stupendous when Gabe entered the picture. It had nothing to do with Connor and everything to do with Gabe.

No wonder she and Connor couldn’t make it alone after Gabe had left. The magic hadn’t been with Connor, it had been with Gabe.

And no bloody wonder it had taken all of a couple of hours of seeing Gabe again before she’d tumbled, ass first, into bed with him. She still loved him. She’d never stopped.

Sweet Heaven. She loved Gabe. Only Gabe. No one else but Gabe. She’d fallen head over heels in love with him the minute Connor introduced them.

“I love Gabe,” she told Connor and Maddie. “I do.”

Connor gave her an encouraging nod. “That’s good. Very good. But maybe you should tell him this?”

“Maybe I should,” Tina concurred, keen to seek Gabe out and share her wondrous revelation with him.

Then her heart sank. Gabe had walked away from her. Why on earth would he want to hear she loved him? “Or maybe not,” she said listlessly. “Doesn’t really matter what I feel about him. Gabe doesn’t feel the same. Not after Friday night.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, you still don’t get it, do you?” Maddie asked, raising her voice for the first time. “Gabe feels the same way. The reason his behavior changed on Friday night was because Connor sat down next to you. He thinks you’re in love with his best friend—and it’s killing him.”

***

Gabe slumped on his couch in the darkened living room. The blinds were drawn and the lights turned off. Sound blared from the TV, but Gabe had no idea what program was on.

His gut hurt something rotten, and the glow from the screen stung his eyes. He considered switching the TV off but couldn’t be bothered. It required too much effort.

He stared at the unopened bottle of Absolut Vodka on the table in front of him. He should open it and have a sip. Have a glass. Have the whole fucking bottle. He should get pissed on the stuff. But he couldn’t be bothered. Too much effort.

He halfheartedly thought of phoning through for some home delivery. Maybe Thai. Maybe pizza. In the end he couldn’t be bothered. Too much effort.

And when the bell rang he even rallied with the idea of opening the door but didn’t. Too much fucking effort.

He was through making an effort. He was through bothering. He’d spent two months pouring his heart into making an effort with Tina, and look where that had got him.

Absofuckinglutely nowhere.

She’d taken one look at Connor and her eyes had blazed with the same desire Gabe had begun to believe she’d reserved just for him.

How fucking wrong could he have been? How fucking stupid? Yep, he did believe Tina loved him. Just like she had before. As half of a whole. Half of Connor and Gabe. And watching her watching Connor just verified that for him.

Alone, Gabe still wasn’t man enough for her.

The bell rang again and again. Whoever stood outside was one persistent fucker. Still, persistence wasn’t enough to get Gabe’s ass off the couch. Perhaps if he’d been more of a man, like Tina needed, he would have made it to the door.

Fuck.

Gabe dropped his head back and closed his eyes. After a time the ringing stopped. Maybe the hurting would stop too. Nah. Probably not. If it hadn’t quit for four years, it sure wouldn’t quit now.

With that agonizing thought, Gabe willed himself to sleep. At least the oblivion of unconsciousness would be more tolerable than the continual obsession about the woman he loved and his failure to please her.

***

A flood of icy water hit his face, shocking him awake.

“What the fuck?” he gasped as he scrambled to his feet.

Cold droplets splattered down his nose and onto his chest, wetting whatever parts of his shirt hadn’t been soaked in the initial onslaught.

“
That
was for refusing to kiss me on Friday night,” a biting female voice informed him.

“
This
is for walking away from me.
Again.
” Another icy shower hit him, this time from behind, drenching his hair, neck and shoulders. He swung around to face his attacker, opened his mouth to yell and was met with a third frigid blast of water. He swallowed at least half of it, choking in the process.

“That one is for even thinking about not showing up to hold my hand on the most important night of my life.”

A blast of wind tore through the room, doubling Gabe’s sodden discomfort.

“And this one—” yet another torrent of liquid hit him, “—is just because you pissed me off.”

She nodded with grim satisfaction, walked onto the balcony—through a door that Gabe had not remembered leaving open—switched the tap off and wound the hosepipe back into place. Demurely she told him, “It’s cold out here. I’d hate for you to get sick.” Then she pulled the blind down, slid the door closed behind her—and vanished.

What the fuck?

Gabe shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs, although fuck knew whatever cobwebs had been there should have been atomized in the deluge.

How had she gotten into his flat? The front door was locked. He knew because his keys were still in the door where he’d put them this morning. And for that matter, how the hell had she left his flat?

Christ, she hadn’t left. She was on the balcony…

No, she wasn’t. She was gone.

Cold and wet, Gabe stood on the small ledge outside his living room, dumbfounded. Where the hell had the little spitfire disappeared to? He peered over the railing and down two floors.

No way
. No fucking way had she climbed over. Not to get down and not to climb up here either. She would have killed herself in the process.

Well then, where the hell was she?

Gabe yanked his shirt off and wiped his face with it. He charged inside and headed to his front door, using the shirt to dry his hair. Not that it helped. He tossed it on the floor.

He pulled the handle, swore when nothing happened, took a second to turn the key and stormed out into the hallway. Shit, what if she
had
scaled the goddamned balcony? He wouldn’t put it past her. He wouldn’t put anything past her.

Fear edged down his spine, and he took off at a sprint, heading for the stairs.

He came to a careening halt not five paces later.

Tina stood at the open front door of his neighbor’s unit, smiling at its occupant.

“No worries,” the divorced father of two was saying. “Glad to have been of assistance.”

Tina shook his hand, thanked him again and turned to leave. At which point Gabe, seeing red, grabbed her waist and threw her over his shoulder.

She let out an outraged shriek.

He marched back to his place.

“You two have a pleasant afternoon,” the neighbor called after them with a chortle.

“Put me down, you big oaf,” Tina demanded, pounding his back. “You’re…making me…wet.”

Gabe slammed his front door, stormed over to the couch and dumped Tina on the now soaked cushion. And not a second too soon, since she’d begun attacking with her feet, and had she connected, his ability to father children might well have been compromised.

“You have two seconds to explain,” he snarled at her.

“Ah, so
now
you want to talk,” she said with her trademark sarcasm.

“I don’t want to talk,” he corrected. “I want answers.”

“You’ve given me the silent treatment the whole week, but now you want answers, I have to be forthcoming? Go fuck yourself, Gabe.”

He grimaced and resisted the urge to either kiss her stupid or smack the wall. “How did you get into my flat?”

She gave him one of her sweet smiles. So sweet he could not doubt the insincerity of it. “Your charming neighbor, Colin, let me in.”

“Colin has no way of getting into my place.” He set her straight.

“Sure he does.” Still with the sweet smile. “Why he’s just a hop, skip and a jump over your balcony.”

He gawked at her. “You went through Colin’s flat to get to mine?”

“Well, Carter, you sure as hell weren’t letting me in voluntarily.”

He rubbed his eyes. “That was you banging on my door?”

She folded her arms over her breasts and treated him to a stony silence.

Gabe sat in the chair opposite her, his heart performing a hundred-meter sprint in his chest. “What are you doing here?” he asked in his calmest voice.

Christ, she looked incredible. Her lips were painted cherry red and her eyelids smoky blue. They matched the navy dress that ended an inch above her knees and offered just the slightest hint of cleavage. A large, silky scarf-type thingy was wrapped around her shoulders, warding off the cold.

She eyed him evilly and then smiled again. Her sweet, sarcastic smile. “I came here to chat about Connor.”

It took a lot to bring a man of Gabe’s size to his knees, but with just that one sentence, Tina succeeded.

Her smile vanished. “I thought I might give you a chance to explain why you acted like a complete moron the second Connor and Maggie showed up the other night.”

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Once again he pictured the look on Tina’s face as she spied his friend for the first time in four years. The glazed lust in her eyes, the rounded “oh” of her mouth and the way her chest rose and fell in pre-orgasmic flutters.

Suddenly Gabe was cold. Freezing. And fucking wet too.

“Her name is Maddie,” he told her. “As in Madeline. M.A.D.D.I.E.
Maddie
.” And with that he stormed to his bedroom, ripping his jeans off as he went. The damp denim stuck to his skin, making a slurping sound as it came off. “And she’s Connor’s girlfriend,” he yelled. “The woman he loves. The only fucking woman he loves.”

He kicked off the jeans and threw open his cupboard doors, staring blindly at his clothes. Jesus, he wanted to hurt someone. Wanted to rip someone’s fucking throat out. But whose? Whose fucking fault was it that Tina loved Connor as much as she did him? Connor’s? Tina’s? His? Where did he lay the fucking blame?

He jumped when an arm wound itself around his waist and a warm hand touched his stomach.

“And you are the only man I love,” Tina said behind him as she rested her head against his back.

Gabe stilled. Even his lungs ceased working for a moment.

She tightened her hold on him. “I love you, Gabe,” she said, whispering the words against his spine, shooting chills up his neck.

Christ, he wanted to believe her. So much. But he couldn’t. Not after he’d seen her response to Connor in the restaurant.

She pressed light kisses to his back. “I have since the day Connor introduced us. I loved you while I was with Connor, and I loved you when you left.” Her voice dropped. “You hurt me, but I loved you still.”

Her hand trailed a feathery path up his chest, and his groin responded. Fuck, his heart was a fucking tangled knot of pain, and she could still make him hard with just a touch.

“I’ve never stopped. It’s you, Gabe. Only you. You are the only man I love. The only man I ever could.”

“Yep, just me…and Connor.” It was Gabe’s turn for a little sarcasm. “The only men you could ever love.”

Her head moved against his back, as though she were shaking it. “Nope, not Connor. Never Connor. It was you all along. I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t separate you two out, and I didn’t want to. Because that would have meant the man I’d lost my heart to rejected me. Walked away from me.” She took a shuddery breath and released it, the air a gentle wisp over his buttocks. “It would have hurt too much to acknowledge.”

“Damn it, Tina, I saw your face. I watched your reaction when you saw him again.” Shit, he sounded like a lovesick, jealous fool.

Perhaps that’s because he
was
a lovesick jealous fool.

“What did you see, Gabe?”

Fuck, again he had to picture it. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Your eyes.” He closed his own against the agony of the memory. “The open lust in them. The naked desire in your face.”

She sighed. “Did you ever stop and think that maybe all that lust and desire had nothing to do with Connor?”

He snorted in disgust. “So who was it for? Maggie?”

“Maddie,” she corrected with a soft laugh and then made him jump again. The hand that was not caressing his stomach dipped into his undies. The sensitive flesh on his dick screamed to life as the lightest vibration buzzed against it.

“Oh, damn.” He gasped. “T…”

The buzzing ceased.

“Three hours, Carter. I endured this for three hours on Friday night.” The vibrations started up again, and he drew in a burning mouthful of oxygen. “I had to sit with you in public and pretend—for three hours—that I did not want to drag you home and fuck you into oblivion.”

Silence. Stillness. Nothing but the rasping sound of Gabe’s own breathing.

Until the soft hum filled the air again, messing with his head.