One Night with her Bachelor(5)
Her face turned beet red, and he wished he could reel the words back in as fast as a fishing line. She grimaced, and the column of her throat flexed as she swallowed. Hard. And damn but didn’t that sight make him harder?
“That depends on whether it’s working.”
Adrenaline shot through him, making his fingers and toes ache. All day, he’d craved a physical distraction… He owed Molly more than that, though. This was probably the most he’d ever talked to her, but Scott had been close to her and Gabriel had tagged along on some of his outings with Josh, so he knew she was a nice woman with a son who buzzed with energy. He knew she’d married young and divorced several years ago. And he knew she taught kindergarten. All those things added up to a woman who deserved more than to provide momentary physical relief from his agonizing memories.
Apparently his answer had taken too long because she rolled away, knocking her knee against the table leg and sucking in a pained breath. He winced and reached for her, but she was already on her feet and backing toward the door. “I’m sorry. I just… I thought… this would be easier.”
He stood slowly, not wanting to spook her. “What’s this?”
She waved her hand between them. “I thought, after the way we connected the other day…”
He racked his brain. “The other—?”
Horror hit her face and her hand flew up to cover her wide-open mouth. “Oh, my God. You don’t even remember. You don’t even… oh my God. Sorry. I’m going. Forget I was here. Please. You’re having a dream. I’m having a nightmare.”
She grabbed her backpack and tried to swing it over her shoulder, but he managed to block the door before she could escape. Holding out his hand to calm her, he said, “Take a breath. This isn’t a nightmare. You’re talking about the store. The milk and eggs.”
She nodded, her jaw clamped so tight he worried it might break in half.
“And they looked so sexy on my shoes that you decided to come up here and seduce me.”
The tight lines of her face softened bit by bit as his teasing sank in.
“Was it all that rubbing I did to get the egg off my boots? Back and forth, back and forth, getting a nice polish on the tip… of my boot? That kind of turned me on too.”
The corners of her lips twitched.
“Be honest—did the milk spraying onto the eggs make you as hot as it made me?”
She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, but her whole face smiled. When she finally looked at him again, she was less tense than he’d seen her since she’d arrived. “That’s gross.”
He reached over, lifted the strap of her backpack off her shoulder and lowered the heavy thing onto the floor. Growing more serious but keeping his voice gentle, he asked, “What are you looking for, Molly?”
She swallowed again, but at least she didn’t look away. “Orgasms. At least three.”
Chapter Two
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Gabriel wielded silence the way he’d wielded his ax—with a mesmerizing, methodical upswing before slicing through the air with a perfectly aimed sentence. The way he stared at her now, one hand still holding her backpack and the other relaxed at his side, made nerves do the hokey-pokey in her belly, waiting for that sentence to fall. She’d just been blunter than she ever had in her life. She’d never even said such a thing to Greg, and he’d been her husband for six years. Yet Gabriel met her bravery with silence.
And then, “Just three?”
Wham! Her belly turned to liquid heat, and she swallowed every misgiving that told her he might be mocking her. “If you’re handing out more, I’ll take them.”
His jaw tightened, and his eyes narrowed in a way that made her feel as though he were peering at her through a microscope, seeing every single doubt and insecurity magnified by a million. “Molly, you’re a very n—”
She slapped her palm against his mouth, muffling the well-meant insult he was about to pay her. “Don’t say the n-word. Don’t.” She’d been called nice her entire life, and she was really stinkin’ sick of it.
His lips and stubble tickled her palm as he kissed it before gently clasping her wrist and moving her hand away so he could speak. “What’s wrong with the n-word?”
“It’s the worst four-letter word in the English language.”
An amused glint danced in his eyes. “You spend too much time around kindergartners if you think nice is the worst word there is.”
“That’s my problem, Gabriel. I spend so much time around kids that everyone associates me with them. They think of me as untouchable. Simple and sweet and pure. Yes, I’m the n-word, but people use it to mean something other than kind. They use it to mean asexual, and I’m not.”
At least, she didn’t feel as if she should be. She was twenty-nine, active, fun, and good with people. But she loved her son and had devoted herself to him since she was nineteen. And, for the past five years, she’d had to do it all on her own. Being Josh’s mom was exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure. Some nights she laughed herself to sleep. Others, she fell face-first into her pillow, too wrung out to dream. Even her subconscious passed out cold. But one thing stayed the same—the pillow next to hers was always empty. She really enjoyed men’s company, but it had been a heck of a long time since she’d enjoyed that company in bed.