One Summer (35 page)

She wondered for a fleeting moment how many women had seen Gabriel St. James this way. Worse, how many would see him after he’d left Shelter Bay.

Sticking to her recent vow of living in the moment, she turned her mind to the now.

He was tall and lean, with the power and endurance of a long-distance runner. His deeply tanned skin was smooth and tight over his bones and muscles. Although definitely, relentlessly male, he was beautifully formed, and if he’d been around in the days of Michelangelo, the sculptor wouldn’t have been able to resist immortalizing him in marble.

No, she decided. Marble was too cold.

“Bronze,” she decided, realizing she’d spoken out loud when he arched a dark brow. “Have I mentioned that I love your body?”

His laugh was rough and strained. “It’s all yours.”

“Oh, goody.” Because it had been too long since he’d kissed her—at least a minute—she cupped her hand at the back of his neck and dragged his mouth to hers.

The power was volcanic, erupting with a force that nearly buckled her knees.

Desire. Need. Want. All were too weak to describe the powerful sensations surging through her.

“You know those things I said I wanted to do to you?” He’d murmured them in her ear after they’d gone back to photo editing, hot, sexy, mind-reeling suggestions of ways they could make up after their brief fight.

“I seem to recall something about that.” Her legs were going weak. She dug her short, filed nails into his shoulders to keep her balance.

“That was just for starters.”

Charity’s head spun as she pressed her palms against his chest. He’d already brought her to levels of passion she’d never imagined. And yet now he was telling her there was more?

“Promises, promises,” she said on a ragged laugh.

He cupped her chin, holding her gaze to his. “That sounds a lot like ‘Bring it on.’ ”

Just as she’d never been all that comfortable parading around naked, Charity had never felt all that confident about her sexual skill set. After all, it was difficult to be proficient at something you didn’t practice. It wasn’t that she didn’t like sex. She just had never understood why sensible, rational people made such a big deal of it.

Now she knew.

She also knew that Gabe knew things she’d only ever dared dream of. She’d witnessed it in his hot, hungry eyes when he looked at her. She’d felt it in his hands, which revealed a familiarity with the female body that caused needs to well up inside her even as she hated all the women he’d ever touched.

“I want you.” She skimmed her fingertips down the side of his face, over the raised scar bisecting his brow, down the five-o’clock shadow that felt like the finestgrade sandpaper against her fingertips. “I want everything.”

“Then hold on, sweetheart.” His fingers went to the buttons of the pretty white blouse she’d bought for their first date. “Because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

Before she could sense his intention, he ripped the blouse open, sending the white buttons skittering across the floor.

Speed. Fury. Heat. Gabe’s hands were everywhere, sending her torn blouse and lacy ivory bra flying.

His mouth was hot and hungry as it fastened on a bared breast while his roving hands yanked her jeans down her thighs.

Caught up in the storm she’d invited, Charity was as helpless as a raft caught in a tsunami. She heard herself cry out, heard her heart pounding like the surf in her ears, the sob that escaped her lips as he ripped away the bit of lace between her thighs, pressed her back against the bedroom door, and plunged his fingers into her.

The orgasm, quick and sharp, and bordering on pain, shot through her. Even as she struggled for air, before she’d even caught her breath, those rough, sinfully wicked hands were taking her up again.

Surely it wasn’t possible to feel so much and survive, she thought as he used his mouth and teeth and tongue on her, driving her beyond reason.

She heard her own cry of shocked release as her body rocked from the hot explosion of pleasure. Destroyed, her bones turned to sand, Charity sagged against the door.

But her surrender only fanned the flames.

She’d never been ravished. Never imagined she’d want to be. But as the forbidden thrill of being overpowered shot through her, she wrapped her legs around his hips as he lifted her off her feet and impaled her.

“Stay with me,” he said as his mouth ground against hers.

As if she’d had a choice. As if either of them had from the beginning.

He carried her, half-walking, half-stumbling, to the bed. And when he tumbled down onto the mattress, Charity clung tight as she fell with him.

“Are we still alive?” Charity asked when she could finally speak again.

“I think so.” He touched his mouth to hers. “But I’m not that certain about anyone else in town, because either that was an earthquake, or we’ve just logged a personal best.”

“And here I always thought that was a literary cliché. Making the earth move.”

She laughed lightly at that and snuggled against him, loving the way he could make her burn one moment and feel so amazingly lighthearted the next. She’d never laughed in bed. Though there had been times when she’d nearly wept.

Ethan had always assured her that sexual compatibility was something that took time. That the passion they were lacking in their relationship would inevitably come. She’d wanted to believe him, even though deep down inside, she’d always secretly blamed herself for her inability to respond as she sensed he’d wanted. The way the woman he’d cheated on her with must have done.

“My wedding was supposed to be the highlight of the social season.”

“Not surprising. Since you mentioned your fiancé’s blue blood.”

“Blue as ice,” she muttered. “Anyway, all the newspapers sent their society reporters. They were gathered together on the sidewalk, like vultures, when I arrived at the church.”

“Which isn’t exactly the casual, anonymous life you’re living now.”

“Hardly. One of them, a reporter from a tacky little supermarket tabloid, managed to slip into the church before the ceremony, posing as a flower-delivery guy. He caught me at one of the rare moments I was alone—which makes me think he’d been lurking in the corners waiting for my mother to leave the room—and asked me to comment on the story of the lawsuit that had been filed against Ethan.”

“Someone was suing Douglas?”

“Apparently so. Since it was the first I’d heard of it, I told him I had no comment, and asked him to leave.”

Charity realized that just as it no longer hurt, she didn’t care enough to harbor even the slightest bit of anger anymore.

“It was a paternity suit.”

His hand, which had been idly playing with her hair, stilled. “Ouch.”

“Ouch, indeed.”

“So, I guess the fiancé admitted it was true?”

“Actually, he denied it.”

“He wouldn’t be the first guy to deny screwing around.”

“Ah!” She held up a finger. “But he didn’t deny having had sex with the woman. Just that it was his child.”

“Which you didn’t believe. Which is why you called off the wedding.”

“Actually, I
did
believe him. And not just because I’m gullible, which I’m not. Well, maybe a bit, since I had no idea he even liked sex enough to be having it with two women, one of whom he was supposed to be marrying, during the same period of time.”

“Shows he was an idiot. Because any man lucky enough to have you in his bed sure as hell wouldn’t need anyone else.”

“Thank you.” She smiled and pressed her lips against his.

He lifted his right hand. “It’s the God’s honest truth.”

“It’s different with you,” she said.
I’m
different with you.”

“Lucky for me the guy turned out to be a dud. Or you might be living in some McMansion in a gated suburb in Chi-town and we never would’ve met.”

“I’m beginning to wonder about that,” she murmured. She’d been wondering about fate ever since he’d brought it up the first night they’d made love.

“Anyway, it turned out that he had proof that although apparently they’d been having an affair for several months, he couldn’t possibly be the father because he’d had a vasectomy.”

“I see.” But Charity could tell from his tone that he didn’t. Not really.

“Since the woman in question filed a paternity suit, I take it he hadn’t told her about his little snip job,” Gabe said.

“Actually, he hadn’t let either of the women in his life know about his surgery.”

He looked down at her. She liked the surprise on his face because it revealed what she’d already figured out for herself. That Gabriel St. James truly took the Marine code of honor seriously.

“Are you saying—”

“I’m saying that Ethan knew I wanted children. We’d discussed it. We’d even put a down payment on that stone McMansion with lots of bedrooms and a big backyard for a swing set. And he purposefully chose, for whatever reason, to deceive me. Which is why I didn’t go through with the marriage.”

“That’s a damn good reason.”

Tenderness. Gabe felt it and fought against it. He tried, instead, to focus on his anger that the cheating bastard had hurt her.

If he had half the sense of that mutt he’d somehow ended up adopting, he would’ve left town before they’d gotten this far.

Because as much as he cared for her, and he did, more than any other woman he’d ever met, there was no way he could see this ending well.

Even knowing he was being selfish, and in his way as much of a bastard as her fiancé, Gabe wanted Charity.

And because he also needed her, more than he’d ever thought possible, more than was comfortable, he made love to her again.

And again.

He’d always been a loner. Even during his short-lived marriage, as his ex had pointed out to him on numerous occasions, he never let anyone else in.

How many different beds had he slept alone in over his lifetime? How many mornings had he awakened alone?

Countless.

Which had been just the way he’d liked it.

But now, as he lay awake long into the dark of night, stroking the silk of Charity’s hair and listening to her quiet breathing along with the sound of the surf hitting the cliff below, Gabe wondered if he’d ever be able to recapture that sense of solitary contentment.

The Lab proved a hit. Leia behaved like a perfect lady, charming Kelli and even impressing Cole, who Charity imagined would be willing to move heaven and earth to give his bride anything she wanted.

Professing a need to show her new furry baby off to her in-laws, Kelli dashed out the door before Charity had gathered up the adoption paperwork to take back to the clinic.

“She’s certainly excited,” she said.

“She is. But she also has an ulterior motive. I’m supposed to talk with you.”

“With me?” Charity looked up from the manila folder she’d been about to put in her laptop bag. “About what?”

“Gabe.”

“What about him?”

“She says that I should tell you about him.”

“Oh, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” It was what she knew she should say. But Charity was also so curious.

“Kelli says that Kara told her that you two have gotten pretty involved.”

He gave her that same long, steely-eyed look she’d grown accustomed to getting from Gabe. The one that looked right into you. Charity wondered if the Marine drill instructors taught it at boot camp, or if it was something warriors were born with. “I suppose you could say that.”

“Then it’s not serious?”

“I can’t speak for him.”

He laughed at that. “I can’t think of many people who’d dare. He’s a tough nut to crack. At first I thought that the reason he always seemed to be different from the rest of us is because he was a photographer instead of a real Marine, whatever the hell that is. Then Fallujah happened and I watched him switching back and forth between his M4 and his camera during a firefight without blinking an eye, and I realized that he was actually the kind of gung ho Marine they made all those old World War Two movies about. The guy actually believed he was bulletproof.”

“Yet he wasn’t,” Charity said, thinking of the scars.

Cole sobered. “No one is. I’ve always been pretty good at reading people, but when he first joined our unit, I’ve got to admit that I didn’t have a clue what makes him tick.”

“Join the club.” Although she didn’t know Cole all that well, she was close with Kara and his brother, which allowed her to feel more comfortable than she might have been having this discussion with a stranger.

“You have to understand how it is in war,” he said. It’s a lot like being in a movie, but the script’s being written minute by minute. And there aren’t any doovers. If you screw up, you can end up going home in a body bag with a flag draped over the coffin.

“Adrenaline can help keep the fear of dying away while fighting—otherwise even the toughest Marine, unless he was flat-out crazy, would probably be hunkered down behind a wall crying for his mama. But afterward, there’s this need to talk about what happened. To hash it over and over again.” He shrugged. “Because if you get it out in the open, you can kind of put it behind you and move on.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“But Gabe wasn’t like that. You’d have to drag things out of him. The guy flat-out never talked.”

“He doesn’t much now.” Charity thought how Johnny Harper might actually know more about Gabe’s childhood than she did.

“Yeah. Kelli figured that might be a problem.” He dragged his hand over his dark hair, which, although he’d left the military, he still wore in a Marine high and tight cut. “Because the guy pretty much lives in his own head.”