To Have and to Hold (6 page)

Feeling dwarfed by the model-height woman, Jess grit her teeth and smiled. Gabe chose that moment to finally release her. “I've been wanting to speak to Derek about something,” he said, jerking his head at the pilot standing near the food table. “Nice to see you again, Sylvie.”

“Likewise.” Sylvie's tone held an insinuation Jess told herself to ignore. However, she could hardly overlook the fact that the other woman had all but announced that she and Gabe had once been lovers.

“You married, Sylvie?” she asked after Gabe was out of earshot. The jab was petty of her but she wasn't feeling particularly mature right then.

Sylvie's smile slipped a fraction. “You seem to have snapped up the only man worth anything around here.”

“Lucky me.”

“The true test is whether you can hold him.”

A
nd the claws were out. “I guess you'd know from experience.” Jess made her smile so sweet, Sylvie clearly had no idea whether she'd been insulted or not. “Oh, look, I see Merri over there. You'll have to excuse me, I haven't had a chance to speak to her.”

Glad to be out of range of the other woman's honey-laced barbs, Jess located a couple of chairs and got some food before sitting down with Merri for a good chat.

“You'd better keep an eye on that one,” her friend said twenty minutes later, as they were about to dig into a shared slice of chocolate cake.

Jess followed Merri's gaze in time to see Sylvie put a hand on Gabe's shoulder and press close to whisper in his ear. When he smiled, something new and unexpected inside of Jess, twisted. She stabbed at the cake with unnecessary force. “She hasn't changed a bit.”

“Uh-uh.” Merri swallowed a bite. “She went after Gabe like a freight train as soon as she got back. I heard she was up at Angel most every day before you arrived.”

The chocolate cake was a dry husk in her throat. “Oh.”

“But he married you, so I don't think you have anything to worry about.” Merri's grin was gleeful. “Must make Queen Sylvie want to spit.”

Jess wasn't so sure she
had
won. Gabe and Sylvie looked very comfortable with each other as they stood talking. Height, looks, social standing, they were equals in all that and more. Maybe the real reason Gabe hadn't married Sylvie was that the other woman made him feel emotions he'd rather not have in his life. Made him feel love.

“What's Sylvie do now?” Jess asked, wondering why she cared about Gabe's feelings for the blonde. It was hardly as if she herself loved him. But she was beginning to understand why he'd reacted so furiously to her jumping into Damon's arms this morning. If he'd done something similar with Sylvie…

“I hear she's taken a year's leave from some high-powered job with an international banking firm,” Merri said, interrupting Jess's uncomfortable thoughts. “Maybe she thought she'd return and make up with Gabe.” The other woman gasped. “Oh, Lord, she came. Did anyone tell you what's happened?”

Jess glanced over her shoulder at the absolute worst moment. Kayla's eye caught hers and the brunette began to walk over. Pregnancy had made Damon's wife more beautiful, her cheeks flushed with health, her hair a shiny mahogany that flowed down her back. But when she levered herself into a chair facing Jess and Merri, Jess saw the new lines of strain around her mouth.

“Hi, Jess. Mrs. C. mentioned you were back.”

“Hi. Kayla.” She didn't know what else to say and was waiting for Merri to save the moment when the other woman jumped to her feet.

“Mom's calling me. Back in a tick.”

Grimacing inwardly at the ill-timed summons, Jess searched for a safe topic of conversation. But the single thing she and Kayla had in common was the one thing they couldn't talk about. “I'm sorry,” Jess finally said, her confusion even greater than it had been this morning. Because not only was she truly sorry for Kayla, she was angry at Damon for creating this mess in the first place. “Gabe told me….”

Kayla tried to smile but couldn't quite pull it off. “It's hardly a secret.”

“So, how far along are you?”

“Eight months.” Biting her lower lip, the brunette put a hand on her rounded abdomen. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Nervous tension was a rock in Jess's stomach. “What?”

“Damon…he listens to you. Could you—?” Kayla swallowed, obviously battling tears. “I don't even know what I want you to do. It's not as if you can get my husband to love me again.”

Unable to sit silent in the face of such anguish, Jess put a hand over Kayla's. “I'll talk to him.” An offer made from the soft heart that had already caused her so much pain.

“Th-thank you.” Kayla took several deep breaths and seemed to be on the verge of recovery when her expression suddenly clouded over.

Jess only had to look across the lawn to find the reason why. Damon had arrived and joined in a laughing conversation with several others…until he spied her and Kayla. His face undergoing a sea change, he left the group to head in their direction.

“Go,” Kayla whispered. “Jess, please stop him. I can't talk to him right now. I don't want everyone to see me cry.” Her voice broke.

It would have taken a harder heart than Jess's to have refused. “Okay.”

She could almost feel her husband's eyes on her as she covered the distance to Damon. That merely made her more determined. She had no intention of reenacting this morning's mistake, but if Gabe thought she was going to come to heel like one of the station dogs, he had another think coming.

Then Damon threw his arms around her.

She'd had more than enough of male stupidity. “Let me go right this instant.” This little display would likely both worsen things in her own marriage
and
cause Kayla considerable pain. Jess couldn't understand Damon's behavior—the boy she'd grown up with had never been vindictive or malicious.

He released her but she knew the damage had been done. “Can't I hug my best friend now?”

Well aware that his act had brought all eyes on them, she lowered her voice. “Don't play games. Kayla—”

“No, Jess. I don't want to talk about her.” The stubborn set of his jaw was intimately familiar.

“Why not?” she pushed. “You always told me everything.” Even his joy at first realizing he loved Kayla. “How could you do this, Damon? She's pregnant.” Seeing Kayla had made at least one thing certain in Jess's mind—no matter what else, Damon had taken vows. He'd made promises. And Jess believed in keeping promises. Even if they hurt. Even if you changed your mind.

“Would it have been better if I'd stayed with her when I don't love her anymore?” he snapped, unknowingly rejecting the principles by which she lived her life. “I'm giving her our place and I'm going to support her and the baby, too, so don't make me into some kind of bad guy!” His voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “Don't be like the rest of them and judge me without knowing the facts. Not you too, Jess.”

She thrust a hand through her hair, her mind going in a hundred different directions. Part of her despised Damon for what he'd done, and that was the one thing she couldn't have predicted. However, another part of her admired him for being true to his heart. Was she really making the better choice by remaining locked in a loveless marriage? “But—”

“I told you I love
you
,” he interrupted, raising a hand as if to put it on her cheek. “I was just too stupid to realize it before.”

Jess didn't know how she knew that Gabe had walked up behind her. She was praying her instincts were wrong when a muscled arm slid around her waist. All the blood left her face. “Gabe,” she said, wanting to head off a confrontation.

“Be quiet, Jess.” The order was so low she barely caught it, but the anger behind it made her want to shiver. “I told you to stay away from my wife.”

“It's a free country.”

“
Damon
.” Jess shook her head at the younger man. After a taut second that threatened to end in violence, he gave a shrug and walked off to join the Johnson girls.

“Look at me and smile.” It was a command she normally would have resisted but she had a feeling she'd already pushed Gabe to the limit.

Turning, she put a hand on his upper arm and looked up. “Whatever you think you heard, it wasn't what you thought.”

He bent down to whisper in her ear and she knew it was a move calculated to give the impression of their being a loving couple. “Yeah? I thought I heard another man professing his love for you.”

She felt her spine lock as he confirmed the worst-case scenario.

“Nothing to say?” He dropped a kiss on her cheek as he lifted his head.

“Don't—”

“We'll discuss it at home.”

* * *

The night drive back to Angel was the worst of her life. Gabe didn't say a word and she knew it would be futile to try to make him talk when he'd decided otherwise. Even once they reached the station there was no respite—he left her to check on something Jim had called him about earlier.

By the time she heard him return to the master bedroom, she was a bundle of nerves. She wanted this confrontation over with, even if that meant she had to jump deliberately into the flames. Belting her dressing gown tightly closed over the camisole and pajama bottoms she wore, she knocked on the connecting door. There was no answer but she stepped through anyway.

Gabe sat on the edge of the bed, having already removed his sweater and T-shirt. Now, he dropped his balled-up socks to the floor and stood. “So eager to get to bed?” Holding her gaze, he undid his belt and pulled it out of the loops.

Her eye followed its descent to the floor. “Stop it, Gabe,” she said, nerves tingling with the awareness that her husband was in a very dangerous mood. “You know why I'm here.”

He closed the distance between them, big and male with a glitter in his eyes that was pure anger. “Have you come to kiss and make up?”

She put up a hand to stop him but he walked into it, pressing her palm against his chest and holding it there with one of his own hands. The energy radiating from him burned through her skin and caressed things low and newly awakened.

She fought back, determined to conquer her body's hunger for this man she barely knew. “I came to talk.”

“Talking is not what we do best, darling.” In those angry eyes, she saw memories of their first night in this bed, sultry and dark, passionate and furious.

Her heart began to thud in anticipation and she hated herself for it. “Maybe we'd better start getting good at it.” She broke his hold, surprised when he let her go.

“Why?” Reaching out, he thrust one of his hands into her hair, recapturing her. “I didn't marry you for conversation. I married you to get a well-behaved, undemanding and faithful wife who'd give me children. That you're hot in bed is a very nice bonus but the last I heard, having sex doesn't require talking.”

She slapped him. “Damn you!”

His reaction was a smile that was anything but amused. “I was damned long ago, Jess. Don't you know what they say—Gabriel Dumont survived the fire because he made a deal with the devil.”

“You're no devil, just a bastard.”

“On the contrary my dear, my parents were very married.” Thrusting his other hand into her hair, he pulled her close. His next words were spoken against her lips. “They used to talk but that didn't fix anything.”

Something about that last statement struck Jess as indefinably wrong. Yet he gave her no chance to follow up, ending all conversation with a kiss that robbed her of both her breath and her sanity. Already in the grip of the passion of anger, she ignited at his first touch. Logic and reason flew out the window.

Her robe was on the floor two seconds later, Gabe's hands shoving under her camisole to lie flat against her back. Fueled by the rawest, most primitive of desires, she gripped his hair and took another kiss, giving back as good as she got. He made a harsh sound low in his throat and broke the kiss to run his hands down to her waistband.

Her panties and pajama bottoms joined the robe before she could do much more than gasp. Sucking in a shocked breath, she tried to say something—what, she didn't know—as he lifted her clear. But the sound was lost in the tumult of his next kiss and so was her mind.

When he tore away his lips to turn her so she faced the bed, she didn't understand what was happening…until she felt the hardness of him pressing against her through the closed zipper of his pants.

“Do it!” The order was guttural.

But that same unfamiliar wildness in her, the one that had reacted so explosively to his kiss, understood. It was an understanding of the body, not the mind—her thoughts were fragmented, her skin tight enough to hurt. Bending, she closed her hands around the thick wood of the bedpost.

And then she heard the zipper being lowered.

Even that warning wasn't enough. She screamed as he pushed into her. Hard. Fast. Deep. Her body accepted him, welcomed his driving thrusts, but he was merciless in the intensity of what he asked of her, pushing her so far that she lost all traces of civilization and surrendered to her most primal heart.

* * *

Lying in the darkness, Jess didn't know who she was anymore—not only had she let Gabe love her with an intimacy that made her a traitor to her own emotions, she hadn't managed to make him talk about anything. Taking a deep breath, she moved to push off the sheets.

A strong arm clamped around her waist. “No, Jess. Tonight you stay with your husband.”

When she opened her mouth to argue, he covered it with his own. There was no tenderness in his touch—it was a brand, a mark of possession. She tried to stifle her reactions, tried to regain command of a body that no longer seemed her own, but still she broke. Over and over and over.