Sex, Lies and Valentines (14 page)

His eyes contracted. His body jerked. His movements grew jerky, fast, then slow. Then he slammed into her with a guttural cry of delight.

They fell into each other’s arms, both breathing fast as they tried to calm their racing hearts.

“Let’s try that again,” he breathed against her hair.

She shouldn’t. Oh, God, she couldn’t believe what they’d just done. How unprofessional—but delicious—it had been. She was crazy. This was crazy. But the incredible sensations pouring through her body said otherwise. Danita looked into Gabriel’s gorgeous eyes and sighed. She was already in trouble. Might as well make whatever price she paid really worthwhile.

“With pleasure,” she finally purred.

7

A BOUT OF HOT, WILD sex should have a man waking up with a big, fat smile on his face. A couple of orgasms, a handful of panting exclamations to his prowess as a love god and the smile should be just this side of smug.

Propped on one elbow, the sheet pooled at his waist, Gabriel glared at the tousled blond hair barely visible above the mossy green fabric of the sleeping bag. They’d barely finished their second round of wild sex, Gabriel’s heart was still racing, and she’d climbed off his body with a distant smile, grabbed prurient flannel pajamas out of her suitcase and locked herself in the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, she came out with her face washed clean, her hair a smooth halo around her pretty face, and a wall a mile thick around her. With a murmured good-night, she’d grabbed that damned sleeping bag, made a show of taking her gun from her purse, then snagged a pillow off the armchair. Before Gabriel could yank his jaw off his chest, she’d settled the sleeping bag in front of the door like she was some kind of guard dog and settled down to sleep.

He’d be damned if he was going to beg her to sleep with him. But still, he felt cheated out of his smug morning-after smile.

He eyed the tousle-haired temptation snuggled up in that sleeping bag dreaming her cozy dreams and debated.

He could wake her up. Just haul her out of there, trap her against the wall and pour all his frustrations into her body while making her scream in ecstasy.

Or he could take the oh-so-subtle hint from her body language, all curled up facing away from him, and leave her the hell alone.

Before he could decide whether to let this game play out or to yank her from that damned sleeping bag and earn his smile, the phone rang.

Danita didn’t stir.

Either she was a really deep sleeper, a questionable trait for an FBI agent on assignment.

Or she’d been awake all along.

“Black,” Gabriel snapped into the receiver.

“Morning, big brother,” Maya sang out in an annoyingly cheerful voice. “I didn’t interrupt anything important, did I?”

He watched Danita as she turned over to face him, pushing that sunshine-bright hair off her face and giving him a questioning look.

“Nope,” he dismissed. “Nothing important going on here.”

“Ooh,” Maya said, drawing out the word in her typical annoying little sister way.

“Cut it out,” Gabriel told her, shoving the blankets off and climbing, naked, out of bed. Danita’s sleep-swollen eyes widened, her breath catching in an almost silent moan of appreciation.

Maybe he’d find something to smile about this morning after all. Gabriel arched one brow in a silent offer. Blushing, Danita tugged her sleeping bag higher as if she were the one strutting around nude.

He knew he was acting like a pouty little boy who insisted on taking his toys home because the other kids didn’t want to play with them. But he didn’t care. Gabriel tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder and yanked his jeans up. He didn’t bother to zip or snap them,

“What’s up?” he asked Maya. “Did you need me for something?”

Whether it was because she felt vulnerable huddled in a sleeping bag while he strode around nude, or if it was her way to avoid looking at him, Danita climbed out of her puffy bed.

“Actually, I was calling for Danita.”

His gaze sliced across the room, watching the woman in question tuck her gun back in her purse and neatly fold the sleeping bag into a smaller puff of fabric. He was sure she’d hide it back in her suitcase, too.

“Hang on,” he snapped before tossing the phone onto the puffy gateway of Danita’s sleeping bag.

“Hello?” Danita greeted hesitantly, her gaze flickering away from Gabriel’s as if she were afraid that a full-on look would mean she had to give him a morning blow job.

“Today? Um…” She grimaced, finally looking directly at him with her eyes wide and insistent. “I think Gabriel had plans for the day, actually.”

He did, but he’d much rather execute them without an FBI audience. He still wasn’t crazy about Danita pouring on the charm to con his family, but figured they were all savvy enough to handle themselves. Mostly because this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

So instead of taking Danita’s hint, he gave her a wicked smile and said loud enough to carry through the phone line, “Nope. The day is wide-open, babe. Go ahead and have fun.”

Her glare was lethal. Blue eyes, free of the heavy makeup he’d seen her wear so far, were laser-sharp with anger.

But her tone stayed light and friendly as she answered Maya’s onslaught of questions.

“I really shouldn’t,” she protested for the third time. “I don’t have a gift or anything.”

She listened, still glaring at Gabriel, then gave a silent sigh. “Well, if you’re sure, then yes. Of course. I’d love to come to Pandora’s bridal shower this afternoon.”

Well, that freed up his afternoon nicely, Gabriel grinned. Now he could poke into the goon squad’s plans, see what he could uncover about their revered leader without Danita and her cop sensibilities getting in his way.

It also meant leaving his family to Danita’s mercy. His grin faded. Crap.

He strode over to Danita, holding out his hand for the phone. “I need to talk to Maya before you hang up.”

Giving him a long, calculating look, Danita’s lips quirked in challenge. She turned her back on him to finish saying her goodbyes, a clear message that she still thought she was in charge. Then, without looking at him again, she held out the phone. As soon as he took it, she went to her suitcase, gathered clothes, grabbed a bag and sauntered off to the bathroom.

“What’s Caleb doing while his bride-to-be gets her party on?” he asked his sister.

“He’s fixing the porch on his new place, remember?” she said. “You should have stuck around longer last night so you could see it. It’s really sweet, just a couple blocks from Aunt Cynthia’s. Caleb said as soon as he’s done with the house renovations, he’s going to build a big fence to keep her out, though.”

Over Maya’s laughter about how disagreeable their aunt could be, Gabriel heard the shower start. That didn’t mean Danita might not have her ear pressed to the door, but still, it made eavesdropping more difficult.

“Hey,” he said quietly into the phone, interrupting Maya’s bemoaning the constant campaign pitches from the mayor. “Keep your guard up today, okay?”

The silence was alive with questions. He waited, trying to anticipate the direction his inquisitive sister would take them, and just how he’d answer without blowing his con and Danita’s cover.

“You’re afraid your sweetie might learn a few family secrets?” Maya guessed. Then her tone turned from teasing to deadly serious. “You’re not really planning a long-term relationship with her without telling her the truth about the family, are you? I mean, she has to know what you, well, do. Right?”

Gabriel huffed out a breath and dropped to the bed. Well, he hadn’t expected her to go in that direction.
Shit
.

“I just don’t want to wave our history, or any current activities, in Danita’s face,” he finally said.

“You know you can’t build a relationship on a lie,” Maya said quietly. “If you’re really planning to marry her, you have to be honest. You have to tell her who you are, Gabriel. The real you. Not some character you’re playing to pull a con.”

Good thing he wasn’t really planning to marry her, then. Because he didn’t particularly like the idea of letting anyone, especially someone with a badge, know who he really was.

“Don’t worry about it,” he suggested. “Just, you know, focus on the girly wedding stuff today instead of heart-to-heart confessions.”

“You sure? Because I’d planned on hauling out the photo album and showing her all of your baby pictures. Especially that one of you, naked, playing in the mud. What were you? Four?”

“Behave, Maya,” he ordered, laughing now. “Just, you know, keep it smooth, okay?”

“I was thinking I’d do the family dinner thing tonight. You’ll come, right? Spend some time with Dad.”

The shower stopped. Gabriel puffed out a breath, staring out the window at the thick copse of pines. He hadn’t realized until last night how much he missed his father. His entire family. He had no desire to move back to bucolic Black Oak. But he didn’t want to shut the door to visits. But until he’d tied up this mess, he couldn’t plan for any of that.

“No,” he decided. Distance was better. Until he’d figured out who was setting Tobias up, at least. “I’ve got plans tonight.”

He offered an absent goodbye as he gathered his own clothes for the day, and his thoughts for the next state in the game. He needed an ally. Someone in the goon squad who could clue him in to the bigger picture. He knew he wasn’t going to get the name of the kingpin, but he might garner enough info to develop some kind of plan.

“All yours,” Danita said as she exited the steamy bathroom, the scent of wildflowers filling the air.

Gabriel wasn’t a man who looked for subtlety in women. He’d always found that the more obvious a woman, the easier she was to deal with. So Danita’s hair slicked back, her face bare, her wholesome image shouldn’t appeal to him.

So why the hell did she?

“Did you have sweet dreams?” he asked, on edge and wanting her to join him.

“Let’s not play games, okay?” she said, giving him a direct look at odds with the sexy memory he had from the previous night. “We had sex. It’s over. Now we’ll set it aside and forget about it.”

“What if I don’t want to forget it?” he asked, both irritated and admiring of her poise.

Her only response was a casual shrug as she tucked her jammies and whatever else back into her suitcase. The fabric of her dress, a soft blue that perfectly matched her eyes, stretched over her hips, making him damn near drool and shoving him just a little closer to that edge.

“What’ll you be doing while I’m enjoying tea and petit fours while toasting your brother’s upcoming wedding?” she asked as she held up two pair of shoes, one a strappy purple, the other vivid blue. Both made a strong argument for the allure of foot fetishes. “Helping your brother build a porch, was it?”

He shook his head, deciding to focus on the admiration instead of irritation at her intent focus on pretending they hadn’t blown each other’s minds the night before. Fine. She wanted casual, he could play casual like nobody’s business.

“Nah. I’m better at tearing things down than hammering them together.” Still, he could see she wanted an answer. Taking his time, he selected a shirt, then grabbed underwear. Danita’s gaze cut from the black boxers in his hand to his unbuttoned, unzipped jeans and her breath hitched.

Desire flared in her blue eyes, giving Gabriel a brief hope that they could stop pretending and have some sweet a.m. follow-up to their hot night.

Then she blinked and it was gone. Instead she gave him a questioning look. “So what’ll you do instead? Visit your father? Read a book? Scam a few old ladies?”

“I’m more interested in scamming younger ladies.” Gabriel grinned. “I figured I’d hang out here. Make nice with the goon squad. Tour the grounds, see what kind of changes Ham’s made around here since I moved away.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you up to?”

Smart woman.

Deciding he’d rather ignore her question than lie to her, Gabriel shrugged. Before she could ask anything else, he strode over until he was within touching distance. Close enough for the wildflower sweetness of her perfume to wash over him. Close enough to see her pulse flutter at the base of her throat. And, thankfully, close enough to see her nipples bead against the soft fabric of her dress.