No response.
He repeated his name, reminded her that they were just playing, trying to figure out what worked for them. “Come on back, Ms. Baird. It’s no fun playing solo when I can do it with you.”
“Gabriel.” A whisper so husky he could barely hear it, but it was there: his name on the kiss-swollen plumpness of her lips. “Gabriel.” Shuddering, she collapsed against him like a frightened kitten.
The wet he felt against his neck the next second threatened to break him. “Why are you crying?” he growled, almost curving his hand over her nape before he remembered that was a danger zone.
Instead, he shifted her onto her back again and, staying on his side, collared her throat. “Quiet.”
Jerky sniffs, one hand lifting to wipe away her tears. “Sorry.”
“You can cry whenever you want,” he said. “But you damn well don’t do it because you’re beating yourself up. Understood?”
Her eyes glittered. “I told myself I was done with the memories, done with fear.” As much anger and frustration as self-directed disappointment rippled through her words. “But my brain won’t listen!”
“Charlotte.” She drove him crazy. “You have my fucking hand at your throat.” Tightening his grip to make his point, he kissed her, used his teeth, his tongue, until she moaned and kissed him back as hotly. “How exactly,” he said when they came up for air, “do you think you messed up?”
Tiny vertical lines formed between her eyebrows. “Stop snarling at me,” she said, lifting one hand to fist it in his hair.
“I’ll stop when you begin to listen to reason.” He moved the hand on her throat down to her stomach, caressing her as he kissed her again. Her ribcage was so delicate under his touch, her breasts exquisite through the fine lace of her bra. “We’re not going to do everything in one night, and what the hell fun would there be in that anyway?”
Making an aggravated sound in her throat, she pulled at his hair. “I said stop snarling at me.”
“You have a temper, Ms. Baird.”
A scowl. “I have to, with you around.” Shoving at his chest, she pushed him to his back. “I want to do things to you now.”
His cock, already rock hard, jerked to attention. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She straddled him low on his thighs, the view a gorgeous one, especially since her hair had started to come out of that bun. When her hands went to his buckle, he sucked in a breath. Her teeth sinking into her lower lip in sexy concentration, she undid the belt and stripped it off to throw it on the floor, clever fingers on the fastenings of his pants.
He cooperated when she moved down his body, taking his pants and underwear with her. Dumping his clothing on the floor, she straddled his thighs again, her eyes on the hard length of his cock.
“I don’t know how this gets inside me,” she murmured, capturing him in her small, competent hands.
He groaned.
A small, wicked, slightly shy smile on her face, Charlotte began to jerk him off. His eyes closed, his hips rising toward her. He wasn’t the least prepared to feel the hot wet of her mouth close over the head of his cock.
“Fuck!” He had his hand on her nape before he could stop himself, his actions instinctive.
Tearing it away when she went stiff, he groaned and fell back on the bed with his arms thrown wide. “Well, fuck. Now you’re not going to suck me off, are you?”
Muscles easing to softness again, Charlotte sat up, stared at him. Her pulse was erratic in her throat but her lips, they held that tiny, wicked smile. “That’s all you’re worried about?”
“Charlotte, when you have your mouth anywhere near my cock, my brain cells turn into gibbering idiots.”
She laughed, ran her nails down his chest. “You have to behave.” A playful statement, but there were shadows in her eyes.
“I will,” he promised. There would come a day when he could fist his hand in her hair, direct her to do exactly what he wanted, but she’d already gone far beyond what either one of them could’ve expected.
So he lay there and took it, and fuck, it was good.
CHARLOTTE KEPT BLUSHING AS she stood on the sidelines with Gabriel early the next day. A cold Saturday morning, and the high school team he coached was playing its heart out. Then she blushed through her eleven-o’clock pastry class, causing her new friends Juliet and Aroha to teasingly question her about her Friday night.
That just made her blush deepen. She couldn’t believe what she’d done with and to Gabriel. Not only had she taken him in her mouth, he’d then hauled her to the end of the bed and returned the favor with interest, one of his hands tight on her breast, her thigh thrown over a heavily muscled shoulder.
God, the man could be deliciously merciless when he had a goal in mind.
“One more time, Ms. Baird.”
The memory of his roughly coaxing words vivid in her thoughts, she certainly couldn’t look his parents in the eye when she and Gabriel joined the entire Bishop-Esera clan for an afternoon barbeque at a local park.
Full of tall trees, including cheerful cherry blossom trees that had anticipated the coming spring, the park, located at the foot of a dormant volcano like so many of Auckland’s parks, also had plenty of open space.
The barbeque was in honor of Joseph’s birthday, and Charlotte had bought him a DVD of great rugby moments that she hoped he liked. Before any presents were opened or food eaten, however, there was to be a “friendly” rugby game. It was why she’d worn a pair of jeans and a light sweater over a T-shirt, rather than a dress. Though she had her doubts about her skills on the field, no “shirking” was allowed.