Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)(11)
“Our routine was for me to just show up at Trahan’s when I wanted to see you,” she said, then immediately winced, because what was coming next was going to sound terrible. “So I thought the easiest way to break things off was to just stop showing up.” Because I didn’t want to see you anymore. She didn’t have to say the rest of the words. They seemingly hung there in the air between them anyway.
Gabe’s jaw tightened, and his fingers flexed around the glass mug of iced tea he was holding, but he nodded. “Got it.”
She breathed. Maybe he did. “I just didn’t think we needed to have a big, deep conversation about it, since things were . . .”
“Not big or deep,” he supplied when she wasn’t sure where to go with the rest of that sentence.
She wanted to protest that. Because saying this thing between them wasn’t big and deep seemed to imply it had all been superficial and unimportant. And it really hadn’t been. But it was better not to admit that. It was better to walk away thinking that it was a temporary fling and nothing more.
Gabe’s tone and posture were casual. He sat back in the scarred wooden chair, one ankle propped on the opposite knee, his right arm draped over the back of the chair, his big left hand cradling the glass mug. But even if she’d only technically spent about twelve days total with him, she could tell that he was feeling anything but casual. Which, stupidly, made her stomach swoop a little. They couldn’t keep going, but she had to admit that it was nice to think that letting go wasn’t easy.
She lifted a shoulder. “Right,” she lied. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to have been big or deep, but it had felt like it was. Or could be. Or would be.
“I didn’t realize that your moving to New Orleans was an option,” he said, his voice low and his drawl coming out as he lengthened the words.
Damn, that drawl. His wasn’t nearly as pronounced as many she heard in the city. Even his brother Logan’s was more obvious. But when Gabe was relaxed, it came out. And when he had his mouth against her ear and was saying things like “Come for me, baby,” or “Damn, girl, you do things to me,” it was rich and thick.
And it also apparently showed up when he was pissed.
She fidgeted in her seat, partly uncomfortable and partly turned on. “It wasn’t. Or I didn’t think it was.”
“Until you had the right reason.”
She nodded.
“The job with Elena and Travis was the right reason?”
She nodded again. “Working with the buildings and houses in New Orleans is an amazing opportunity,” she said. “I don’t just know and love the architecture, but the history, too.”
“And what if I’d asked you to move down here?” he asked point-blank.
Okay, so they weren’t going to meander around things. That was probably good. She shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t have moved down here for you.” There. That might sound harsh, but it was true.
Those blue-flame eyes flickered, but he held his casual posture. “What about some other guy? If you’d met someone else that first night?”
She was already shaking her head by the time he’d finished the question. “No. Not for a relationship. Definitely not.” And yes, she put a little extra emphasis on those last two words. “The job would be the only reason. And only this job,” she said. “I want to do restoration work on buildings I love and appreciate. For people in a city that also loves and appreciates them. I really think this job in this city is the only thing that could have gotten me out of New York.”
Gabe ran his thumb up and down the side of his mug, tracing a line through the condensation. And her traitorous body, which seemed wanton only for this man, responded to that stroking motion by that digit as if he were running it over her skin. Or her nipple. Or her clit. All those parts tingled just watching it.
“Obviously this morning when I was coming in your mouth in the shower and then fucking you over the sink in the bathroom, you knew you were moving here—had moved here,” he said.
His tone, and that drawl, was low and slow, as if they were discussing how her Cajun chicken salad was. But those words . . . and that look in his eyes when she met his gaze . . . Her whole body went hot and soft just sitting across the table from him.
She knew, of course, that Gabe was a dirty talker in the bedroom. She knew that he liked to lean in and say all kinds of naughty, delicious things to her when they were standing in line for beignets or listening in on part of a ghost tour or watching a street magician perform at Jackson Square. But that was when they were flirty and having fun and would be going back to his apartment that night. This—and the things he’d said to her in the hallway at the firm—was nothing like that. These were sexy and direct and dirty and, clearly, designed to get a reaction from her and give him some kind of advantage. Even if it was just to shock her.
“Obviously,” she managed to say in response to his comment. She even, somehow, managed to inject a little sarcasm in there.
“How about last month when you were letting me get you off with the vibrator we bought on Bourbon before making you ride my cock?” He paused, letting those words swirl around them. “Did you know then that you were going to move down here?”
“I found out that Monday,” she said, her mouth dry and her panties wet as that memory replayed in vivid color and graphic detail.