The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(25)

“God…” The word is bent and broken.

And that’s it for me. I can’t keep standing out here listening. I tell myself I’ll try the doorknob, and when it doesn’t open, I’ll turn and go.

I turn the knob, push gently, and gape when it gives an inch—before pumping something solid.

I hear him getting to his feet, the swshh of motion. I can feel him there behind the door.

“Marley, you can go.”

I startle at the nearness of his voice. It’s deep and hoarse. I feel it in the center of my chest; it kicks my heart rate up a notch.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I just…Gabe, can I come in? Just for a— Just to see you?”

I shut my eyes as I hear him shifting his weight. I try to picture him there, glaring at the door. I hear him exhale, and the door opens, revealing Gabe, with vacant eyes and a stone face. His features don’t move as his red-rimmed gaze meets mine.

He blinks and raises the hand at his side just slightly, turning his palm half out. “You good?” His voice is clearly hoarse.

He blinks again, the motion slow. I realize he looks tired, almost drugged.

“What happened?”

With his head down, he steps into the shadows of the foyer. I peer in, and it’s impossible to miss the spray of glass that glimmers on the hardwood hall behind him. And the smell. The smell of alcohol is overwhelming.

With my stomach in a knot, I step onto the threshold.

Gabe’s hand comes over his eyes. He’s looking down at his feet, clad in sneakers. His shoulders look huge, his curls wild and rumpled. My eyes search his long-sleeved, gray t-shirt for signs of…what?

The lines of his body are all heavy. He seems frozen there, with his hand over his eyes.

I edge inside a half-step, waiting for his eyes to find mine—but they don’t. I watch his shoulders as they rise and fall, and I realize he isn’t going to look at me.

“Can I give you a hug?” I whisper.

After a second, he lifts his shoulders.

Okay…

I step to him, wrap my arms around his waist, and press my cheek against his warm, thick chest. Oh God…my body sings at being pressed against his. Gabe’s ribcage expands on a deep breath, and when he exhales, I can feel him relax against me. He curls over me a little…and I can hear and feel his heavy-but-controlled, start-stop breaths. He’s trying not to cry, I know he is, and it makes my throat ache as I hold him.

I start rubbing little circles on his back, and his breaths go a little shallower, and then there’s just one soft, soft sob, and he hugs me back—hard. His hand drifts up my back, into my hair, and he’s holding my head against his pec. I feel his cheek against my hair, his massive ribcage as it pushes out against my chest. I hear his heartbeat, such a heavy throb.

And then Gabe does something he’s never done. He wraps himself around me…all of him. His arms around me, leg behind mine, and he rubs his scratchy cheek against my hair and exhales, long and slow.

He murmurs, “Sorry, Mar,” and I am frozen at the gentle tone of his voice as his lips brush my hair, soft and tender, like a lover. Gabe’s warm, soft lips press against my forehead for a giddy second, after which he shifts so that his face is pressed beside mine. After which, he bends his head and rests his own forehead against my throat.

Something soft and pliant simmers at the center of me. My hand, still hugging his back, strokes up toward his nape—and for that second, I just want to touch his curls. Something innocent and simple: I just want to brush them with my fingertips.

And at that moment, his lips brush below my ear. He presses them there on the back of my jaw…and as my heart stops beating, his mouth turns into a comet that burns, hot and scalding, down my throat.

Gabe is kissing my throat.

Gently…gently…just his slick and silken tongue and tender lips. But then his lips are sucking. His mouth is on my throat like something hot and hungry, hard now—I can feel his teeth—and I can’t stop a little cry that’s really more a moan—and when I moan, his mouth finds mine, and we are done. There is no time, there is no space, only this: a man’s mouth, hard and soft and slick and dark and holy, forceful and invading, and me—just me, just Marley, always little Marley, open to him, melting for him, lying down for him as I spin in his orbit and he picks me up and then I’m being carried, and the house around us tilts and I realize he doesn’t taste like liquor. I think then what happened. Then we’re moving down a hallway and his mouth is dipping down to have at my mouth, at my neck, he’s nipping underneath my neck and I’m being laid on a bed and Gabe is leaning over me.

I open my mouth, and instead of speaking, I rise up to meet his mouth, and Gabe is on the bed, I’m on the bed, he’s big and warm and hard and thick, all animal, and I’m a desperate animal in heat. I want him. Gabe is moving over me and I want him so bad there is no logic, there is nothing but the fuzzy, grateful thought that he seems so much better now. He’s so firm and steady over me, he’s crawled atop me like some kind of mountain lion and he’s lapping at my throat as his paws push up my shirt and then he’s stroking my sides… I shiver as his big hands stroke my ribs. His mouth moves up along my jaw and finds my lips, and I think vampires, I think he’s stealing something from me. Is it reason, common sense? His mouth is hard and harsh but also tender-soft and gentle, caressing. And I can feel him breathe between our kisses, I can clutch his neck and then his hair and underneath him, I can arch, and I can pull him by the pantsleg down atop me.