The Knight (Endgame #2)(24)
She waves the bundle over herself and then tosses it into the fire. The sweet scent curls around us, sharp and strong. Smoke stings my eyes, and I blink against tears.
“Now our spirits are cleansed and free. Do you feel better?”
“I might be floating,” I say, squinting against the curls of smoke.
“This is some good shit,” Will says, sounding impressed.
“You know what else?” I lie down on the cooler’s plastic bottom, looking up at the smoky sky. “You’re right. Gabriel Miller is a bad man. A very bad man. And I never want to see him again.”
“Um, Avery?” Harper’s voice sounds wobbly, like she’s holding back a laugh.
A low growling sound comes from Will’s direction.
And a face appears amid the swirling smoke. Dark bronze eyes dancing with firelight. Gabriel.
Chapter Fifteen
“I don’t understand why you carried me. I can walk.”
Gabriel sits me down on the edge of the bed, his careful movement at odds with the harsh set of his mouth. “You’re high enough you’d jump off a bridge if I let you. How much weed did you smoke?”
“Barely any!” I’m indignant, even though he might be right. Has the ceiling always been spinning? It’s not a troublesome dizziness, more of a pleasant whirl. The teacup ride at the carnival, lights blurred all around me. “But then Harper did the cleanse.”
“The cleanse?”
“So you’d be out of my life.” I frown at him. “I don’t think it worked.”
“What a surprise,” he says drily.
“How did you find me, anyway? Outside the motel room?”
“I heard the bleating of an innocent little lamb in a den of wolves.”
“Will is a nice guy,” I say defensively.
He came to stand between me and Gabriel, protecting me. I don’t want Gabriel to do anything as retribution.
“I was talking about your friend.”
That makes me smile. “No one else thinks she’s dangerous.”
“I’m good at reading people. It helps with business.”
Part of me wants to know why he made a deal with my father. Did he suspect my father would cheat him? I’m afraid to hear the answers, the fallout still too fresh.
“What would you say about me?” I ask instead. “Besides being an innocent little lamb.”
He sets my shoes aside and tugs my socks off, his manner brusque. “Naive. Young. Trusting.”
I open my mouth to object and then see the glint in his eyes. He’s teasing me, though you wouldn’t know it to hear him. “I’m serious.”
“You’re stoned.”
“Fine,” I say, lying back on the bed. “I’m going to read you.”
He gives a short laugh. “Sure.”
“Asshole.”
His hands work at my jeans, touch impersonal.
I slap his hands away. It’s one thing for him to touch me when he’s giving me pleasure, when he’s taking his own. Another entirely for him to help me like I’m an invalid. I’m high, not paralyzed.
He brushes my hands aside. “Stay still.”
My eyes narrow. “Controlling.”
The look he gives me is pointed. “Someone has to take care of you.”
“Maybe my father would do that if he wasn’t in a hospital bed.”
He tugs down my jeans, leaving my panties in place. “He failed you.”
Anger beats against my ribs, rhythmic and ancient. How dare he? “Dangerous.”
Reaching behind me, he pulls aside the covers. White sheets swirl almost psychedelic in the light from the bathroom. Maybe the smoke from the cleanse was too much.
I don’t fight him as he tucks me into bed, hands gentle but firm, expression implacable. Did I hurt his feelings with what I said about him? Sometimes I wonder if he has any feelings. Maybe he’s just a wild animal, acting on instinct and aggression.
Other times I think he hurts too deeply to ever let himself be vulnerable.
Reaching up, I trace my finger along his eyebrow. It feels more bushy now that I’m high, as if everything is exaggerated. Gabriel is larger and stronger. Bigger in every way.
“Read me,” I whisper.
His eyes darken, almost swirling with molten gold. “Loyal.”
That’s nicer than I expected. “What else?”
He touches his square-tipped forefinger to the inside of my brow, smoothing the curve to my temple, reflecting my movement back to me. “Beautiful.”
A flush heats my cheeks. I didn’t think he would compliment me. It’s shocking, embarrassing. It makes me crave even more. “One more.”
His head tips forward. I only have seconds to register his intent, seconds of breathless panic and overwhelming desire, before his lips touch mine. His tongue sweeps across my lips with startling immediacy. And then he licks inside my mouth, possessive and sure. There’s no hesitation with him, no question as he forces my body into full arousal.
The marijuana heightens all my senses, and with sex it’s even worse. My body is on fire, burning from the inside out, a need raging so fast and so far that I don’t know how he can put me out. All I know is that I need him inside me, desperately, hips rocking into the air with humiliating urgency.