Chapter 23

SARAH

She literally collapsed. Splayed out like a drunken starfish on Gabe’s chest. The man was magical, from his crooked grin to his scars and secrets to his magnificent body that had turned her every fiber to melted jelly. If breathing weren’t an involuntary action, she would be dead because her brain had stopped working when he had entered her. Her inner muscles were still clenching around his member, stretching her, the aftermath of her explosive orgasm still sending shivers down her spine. She knew she had to move but she couldn’t even lift a hand to brush the hair out of her face and breathed a heavy sigh of relief when his large hand pushed the annoying strand behind her ear.

“I’ll move in a moment. I just need to get my brain to engage,” she whispered against his skin and smiled in satisfaction when he jerked inside of her as her breath fanned over his nipple.

“There’s no rush,” he whispered back, his voice deep and gravelly beneath her ear, his fingers languidly stroking her hair before tracing the small tattoo of a hummingbird escaping a gilded cage on her shoulder. “I like you just where you are.”

He didn’t say anything for a long while, and Sarah wondered what he was thinking. Gabe was such an enigma, open about things like his family and friendships, but when it came to his thoughts and emotions, he was as closed up as an uncooked clam. Would he tell her if she asked? Did tonight change things between them? Was she, once again, giving herself blindly to a man who didn’t feel the same way about her?

She knew she couldn’t compare Gabe to Christiano. They were as different from one another as ice hockey was to baseball. And yet, even if Gabe was the proverbial ice hockey with his mystery, speed, and propensity for danger, she trusted him with not only her life but with Amelia’s life as well. And there was a sense of danger about him that attracted her to him as much as she feared it. Probably because she knew that he would never use that power against her, not like Christiano had.

She shivered when he ran his hand up her back, tracing the two faint lines between her shoulder blades, and the one that spanned from near her spine to the side of her hip. From his position under her, he couldn’t see them, yet his fingers found them with pinpoint accuracy, burning their lengths, searing the feel of his fingertips into the glossy white scars.

“Sarah…”

“Yes, Gabe?” She could barely squeeze air out of her lungs as his rumbled voice washed over her.

He tilted her chin so that she had to look at him. “Stop thinking and kiss me.”

“What makes you think I’m thinking—”

His hands fisted into her hair as he lifted her face to cut off her words with a kiss so tender it brought tears to her eyes. There was no urgency as their earlier kisses had been. There was no demand and invasion, just sweet pleading and an even sweeter surrender.

Sarah reveled in the scrape of Gabe’s scruff along his cheeks as she cupped his jaw, his tongue slowly, gently, exploring her mouth, as if he was savoring her taste. She arched her back when his hands slid down its length, taking his still-hard manhood deeper into her and making him groan deeply. She loved that sound and could spend an eternity with him to find out what made him growl in that special way.

She knew that chocolate and peanut butter were his weaknesses, and anything with that combination would have him closing his eyes and moaning, but it was nothing compared to the rumble that he emitted when she moved in a certain way or kissed a particular spot on his neck. She broke the kiss with a gasp when he cupped her butt and held her to him as he reversed their positions, his delicious weight pushing him further into her. She wrapped her legs around his hips and held onto his shoulders as he started moving, as slowly as his kiss had been.

“Sarah,” he whispered when his wandering lips found her ear, his tongue twirling around the lobe before he sucked it gently into his mouth. Sarah arched her neck, giving him more access to explore her neck. A shiver ran through her when he scraped his beard gently across her skin, a blaze of red settling on the creaminess when his mouth settled on her breast. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Vanilla, apples, cinnamon, and heaven… That’s what you taste like…”

She laughed and tugged at his hair to lift his head to her. “Seriously? Apple tart?”

He smiled, drew in a long breath as he nuzzled the valley between her breasts, and nodded. “That was the first thing Granddad baked after I came to live with them when my parents died.” He cupped her breast and brushed a leisurely thumb over her nipple. “It was my first day at a new school and it was the first thing I smelled when I walked in, warm apple tart. It made me realize that I was ~home~. And that’s what you are, Rah, my home.”

~Could this man get any better~? Sarah wondered as she stared up at Gabriel, tears making his strong face blur in front of her. She pulled him down and kissed him softly, realizing that she would do everything in her power to nurture that feeling he had for her. Gabriel Von Ashner was so strong and gave the impression that he didn’t need anyone in his life, and yet he had given her the most precious part of him. His vulnerability.

“Make love to me, my big marshmallow,” she whispered against his lips, making him laugh.

“Seriously?” He repeated her words to her as he stared down at her with a slight frown. “A marshmallow?”

She soothed the frown between his dark brows. “One of those giant, puffy ones that are perfect for s’mores. The longer you hold them over the fire the gooier they become.”

“Couldn’t you at least compare me to that massive snow guard of Elsa? A ~marshmallow~? Really?” He bent his head and tugged her nipple with his teeth, making her yelp. “I give you this romantic memory and you compare me to a ~marshmallow~?”

Sarah laughed as she hitched her legs higher onto his waist, arching her hips against him, and moaning when he touched a magical spot deep inside of her. “S’mores remind me of campfires, summer fun, and you rising out of the lake with water running down your body, looking like a Greek god that I just want to—”

The rest of her words were swept into a hard kiss that had them both moaning as he increased his pace within her, his strokes long and sure as he thrust into her. She gasped his name and dug her nails into his back as she soared higher, and she clung to Gabe as he carried them both over the edge of oblivion, their cries mingling at the peak of their climax.