The Voyeur Next Door (30 page)

His persistence made me chuckle, even when I found no humor in being asked to move.

“Why is it so important I work for you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

“Because I think your talents are being wasted and you’re not appreciated the way you deserve,” he stated boldly. “If you work for me, I can promise I would utilize all your abilities to their full potential. You’d get weekends and holidays off and you’d get to see the world.”

It was tempting. I knew it was stupid to turn it down, but the hidden strings came with a price I wasn’t willing to pay.

“I can’t move to San Francisco,” I told him. “I just moved here. I have a year lease on my apartment and…”

That was it. I had no friends. No family. No reason otherwise to stay.

He seemed to realize that as well.

“I’ll buy out your contract, or we’ll get someone to take over the lease. It’s not a big deal, but giving up this opportunity is. It’s him, isn’t it,” he said when I continued to hesitate.

“Who?”

“Gabriel. I’m not blind, Ali. I see the way you are around him and I’ve seen the way he watches you.”

I hadn’t realized I’d stopped moving until he forcibly had to drag me back into motion.

“It’s not … he’s not…”

“Tell me you love him and I will never bother you with this again.”

What he was asking was ridiculous, and quite frankly, none of his business. How I felt, or didn’t feel about Gabriel was personal and I didn’t need to explain myself to anyone. I certainly shouldn’t be made to feel rushed and cornered, especially when I was trying so hard not to think about the guy. The last thing I needed was for another reason to get him stuck in my head.

“I don’t…” The words wedged in my throat and I had to swallow several times before they dislodged. “I can’t.”

I expected him to be upset, or disappointed. I didn’t expect him to grin sadly and stop moving.

“I didn’t think so.” His hold on me loosened and fell away. “But if you ever change your mind…” He let his words trail off. “I’ll see you around, Ali. Take care of yourself and remember what I told you.”

Then he just left me in the middle of the dance floor and walked off. I started to call after him when I felt it, felt his heat gliding along my spine before he even spoke.

“Can I have this dance?”

I turned, my heart already careering out of control with delight. My gaze traveled up the length of him to fix on his face and I felt myself sink even further in the quicksand that was Gabriel Madoc. So it was no surprise when I reached for him. His hand caught mine. The other one went to my waist, just above my hips, exactly where he’d touched me in his mom’s kitchen. The spot prickled with awareness, alerting every nerve ending in my body of his touch that seemed to sear through my dress to singe skin. My involuntary gasp was caught by the music, but I knew he felt the tremor that rocketed through me.

He held me much closer than Carl had. His grip was firm and possessive. It left no doubt in anyone’s mind who I belonged to and that alone sent a thrill through me that I knew was wrong. He imprisoned me in the unwavering chains of his gaze, leaving me powerless to break away while he scrutinized my soul. I wondered what he was looking for.

“You came.”

The hand on my waist slid over the swell in my spine where it connected to the rise of my backside. His palm flattened against the spot and I was drawn even closer, eliminating what modicum of space there had been between us. My soft frame was cradled seamlessly into the unyielding length of his in all the places that counted, thighs, pelvis, stomach … breasts. I couldn’t even breathe without feeling the skim of my hardened nipples against his chest. I couldn’t move without feeling his cock reaching for me through miles of fabric to prod into my midsection.

He was long and hard and I grew wet from that knowledge alone.

“Gabriel…”

“I couldn’t leave without having this dance with you.”

My fingers tightened around his shoulder. “Why?”

His quiet exhalation whispered over the curve of my cheeks, smelling of mint and despair. “Because the further away I got from you, the more it felt like if I kept driving, I would lose you for good and that scared me like nothing else.”

His gruff declaration slammed into me and, even while my brain debated what my ears were hearing, my heart had already dissolved into a warm, useless puddle in my chest.

“You had four weeks to say something,” I whispered, uncaring of the emotions in my voice. “You had chances after chances to make me stay.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t want you to stay. I spent the better part of three weeks talking myself in and out of asking you here with me tonight. I even started to tonight at the play, but Doray beat me to it.”

I remembered what Tamara had said about Gabriel having bought two tickets and my name on the seating chart at his table next to him and again during the play.

“You said your mom told you to wait for me,” I accused.

He gave me a dry frown. “There were arrows everywhere. I doubt you would have gotten lost.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Because I couldn’t. I told you from the beginning, both times, that I can’t have a relationship.”

It was with some difficulty that I managed to swallow down the lump in my throat just long enough to speak.

“Because of Regina?”

I hated bringing her name up. I hated the pain that filled his eyes before he turned them away. I hated the tightness in his jaw and the stiffness rippling along his shoulders.

“I didn’t go after her out of love, Ali. When she left, it was guilt that made me look for her. It was self-loathing, because I made her that way.”

I was shaking my head even before he stopped talking.

“You said she was into that lifestyle before you guys met.”

He nodded. “But I encouraged her. I indulged her and gave her no boundaries because of my own curiosity. While I took the lifestyle seriously and tried to learn everything I could, I was young. I was stupid. I wasn’t ready for the type of obligation that came with being responsible for someone else. I haven’t been with another woman since her death because I can’t trust myself, because despite how much losing her hurt, I know I would never recover if I ever let anything happen to you because of my carelessness.” The hand on my back lifted and lightly skimmed the side of my face, sending warm ripples along my spine to pool in the pit of my stomach. “I never burned for her the way I do for you, Ali. I was never consumed with the need to possess her, to claim and mark her as mine. Thoughts of her never kept me up at night. They never had me reaching across the bed for her. They never filled me with so much rage at the thought of someone else having her that I wanted to run them over with my car.” A shimmer of laughter replaced the darkness in his eyes when I chuckled. “You bring out things in me that I’m not equipped to handle.”

Humor faded into heart palpitating pleasure that coursed down my spine in rivulets of anticipation. It took all my reserve not to kiss him, not to give in to everything he was saying blindly.

“What do you want, Gabriel?” I searched his eyes. “Am I yours to keep, or are we picking up where Q and Aoife left off?”

He kissed me.

No. He branded me with his mouth. He branded me with the urgency and promise I could feel moving through him.

“You’re mine,” he growled in between kisses.

I pulled back, oddly breathless despite the brief contact. “Not as an employee, right? Or part of the team?”

His beautiful face broke into a smile that stole whatever little oxygen I possessed and had me melting lightheaded into him for support.

“Mine,” was all he said before he was on me again, hungry and wild this time.

The hand on my face slid back to close into my hair and tugged with just enough strength to terrorize my senses. The subtle pain hissed down my body in a hot flood that rushed over my panties. It yanked back my neck so I was fully at his mercy. One toned thigh wedged between mine, lifting me up when I buckled. My pussy settled on the hard muscles and I whimpered at the wetness rubbing over my lips. My clit throbbed with the sort of pain only he could quench.

“Gabriel…” His name was a torn sound between a plea and a sob. “Stop. God, please stop, or I’ll come right here.”

His response was to band both arms around my middle and drag me closer, higher against his body and kiss me until all thoughts of protest died with a weak moan.

“You’re soaking through my jeans,” he hissed against my mouth.

Sure enough, there were wet patches up his thigh in all the places I had rubbed against him. The dark stains fanned my arousal, and my embarrassment. But the need for him was stronger.

“I’m so close,” I panted, trembling from head to toe.

“We’re leaving.”

I didn’t argue. I let him propel us off the dance floor and straight out of the hall. My heels scraped and slid across the shiny glass with my unsteady pace. It was only by sheer grace of will, and Gabriel’s hands, that I was even able to walk.

“My car is—”

“We’re taking mine.”

His jeep was parked on the side of the building, beneath a patch of shadow that pooled around it like an ink spill. His was the only vehicle in sight and I wondered if that had been intentional, or because he hadn’t wanted to find a spot. I didn’t think about it for long. He didn’t give me the chance to when he pinned me against the cold metal and reached beneath my skirt for the source of agony between my legs.

“Christ!”

His vicious snarl burned the side of my face as his fingers violently tore my panties off my body and violated me right where we stood. No forewarning. No teasing. Just a mindless surge of two fingers all the way to the knuckles.

I came with a scream that was captured by his palm while I rutted and thrashed like a wild animal over the invaders pounding into me with brutal anger. My nails clawed at the back, passenger side window of his jeep as my entire world exploded around me and I came again on the heels of the first orgasm. His fingers bit into my face, suffocating and silencing my wails as he broke me in the darkness. My shredded panties had barely slid all the way to my ankle when I came a third time and nearly blacked out between the splintering intensity and the hand smothering my air.

The hand pulled away and I wheezed as I fought to breathe. The fingers in my pussy withdrew, leaving my slit feeling empty and used to rub my mound, spreading the juices from ass to sensitive clit. Each cruel roll of his heel sent an electric current sizzling through me until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Behind me, somewhere beneath the numbing buzz between my ears, I heard the hiss of a zipper, the rustle of fabric. Then his hands were on my hips, shoving me forward and pulling me back at the same time. I had to plant my palms against the glass to brace myself when he kicked my feet apart wide. In the dark window, I caught his eyes, hard and ravenous as he gave me two seconds to decide if I wanted his cock.

“Yes!” I panted, pushing back against him. “Fuck me!”

It wasn’t gentle. He slammed into me hard enough to blind me with exploding stars and lift me up onto my toes. His triumphant snarl bit into the skin of my neck with sharp teeth, leaving marks to match the bruises I knew I would have in the morning from his hands. The cool metal clashed with the heated sweat of my body as I was pinned against the jeep and the man beating into me like my pussy was air and he was suffocating. Each mindless thrust shot fingers of pain and pleasure bursting through me.

I cried out.

“Too much?”

My head rocked wildly. “Don’t stop!”

His satisfied grunt came with the sharp nip of his teeth on my earlobe. He sucked the sensitive flesh as he fucked me. His fingers slipped up my thigh to flick at the helpless little nub begging for his attention. He rolled and pinched and tormented it until the only escape was to leap off the edge and fall forever into the exquisite bliss he promised. My climax wasn’t as strong as the first three times, but I came with a croak of his name. My body pulled and sucked at his cock, hugging it tight as he squirted inside me. The hot rush of his release filled me with a new prickle of arousal that had me dragging his hand back to my mound.

“Like my come filling your pussy?” he taunted as I came weakly with the expert coaxing of his fingers.

I nodded, too numb and exhausted for words. My breath fanned across the glass pressed into my face in a white plume.

He held his cock inside me until the very last shudder had left my body. Then he withdrew, slowly. The head popped out, spilling his come over the gravel beneath our feet. I gasped and shuddered at the loss, at the cool night licking at my bruised, exposed, and slick skin. My pussy throbbed. My clit panged. My knees hurt from hitting the side of the jeep and I was sure I would be sore for a long time. But it was worth it. I would do it all over again if he would just give me an hour to recover.

“Ali?”

Tender hands pulled me away from my slumped position against his car door. I was turned and pulled into his chest where I happily snuggled and closed my eyes.

“Say something.” While his tone was teasing, I could hear the underline concern and shook my head.