Rock Hard (Rock Kiss #2)(98)

AN HOUR LATER, HE finished washing the soap off his body while watching Charlotte dry her petite one. He’d made her deliciously sweaty and sticky. Sated, he wanted nothing more than to just sprawl on the couch with her, but she’d given him an ultimatum. Either they went out together, or she was going to go out on her own.

Gabriel didn’t react well to ultimatums, but Charlotte seemed to think she was doing this for his own good. He had to set her straight.

Dressing in jeans and a striped rugby jersey while she put on a pretty yellow sundress teamed with a sky-blue cardigan, he ate the rest of the cold omelet as well as three pieces of toast. Then they went out.

He stopped at a coffee place to buy her a frothy thing, getting himself a plain black one.

“You should try this,” she said to him. “It’s yummy.”

“Black coffee puts hair on the chest.”

“In that case, I’ll keep on avoiding it. But you go right on ahead, Mr. Love-club.”

God, he loved her wit, loved even more that she trusted him enough to let down all her walls. “Where do you want to go?” he asked once they were back in the SUV.

“How about the Wintergardens?”

He pointed the car toward the Auckland Domain, the sprawling green space in the center of the city. Coming in through the entrance nearest the two huge old greenhouses known collectively as the Wintergardens, he drove past a small pond with a fountain and found a parking spot down the hill from the museum.

The majestic building at the top of the hill dominated the skyline, the lawns sloping down from it sheets of manicured green. Beyond the landscaped areas, complete with playing fields that included a cricket pitch, the Domain was full of old trees, the limbs thick and twisted and interesting.

“I love it here,” Charlotte said, slipping her free hand into his with a cheerful smile.

Suddenly, it didn’t seem so bad that he wasn’t working on the files he’d intended to go through. Breaking the handclasp, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders instead. “Are you over the mad?”

“Nope.” She drank more of her coffee. “We’re going to talk about this.”

“About what?” Finishing off his own coffee, he dropped the cup in the trash can right before they walked into the first greenhouse.

“Funny, Gabriel.” Her face lit up at the profusion of blooms inside the glass structure built in the early 1900s, the vaulted ceiling high enough to be home to a number of large trees alongside the flowers.

“Oh,” Charlotte said, “look at the daffodils.”

Gabriel wasn’t really a plant guy, but he was a Charlotte guy. He enjoyed her enjoying the plants, got rid of her disposable coffee cup when she was done, and made her stand under a hanging fern so he could take a photo with his phone. Laughing, she pretended the ferns were her hair, the resulting image making him grin.

“Let me see,” she said, tucking herself under his arm.

“I demand payment.” Leaning down, he took a sweet, hot kiss before the two of them walked out of the first greenhouse and outside. The long, rectangular decorative pool that separated the temperate greenhouse from the humid tropical one was full of lilies, the sunshine bright on the green of the lily pads.

The area around it was relatively empty except for a small girl who leaned on her hands and knees at the edge of the pool, looking intently within while her parents watched over her from a nearby wooden seat. Vines wound through the large pergola behind them. Running parallel to the pool, it offered fleeting glimpses of the marble statues within.

“You want to go into the other greenhouse or the fernery?” he asked Charlotte.

“Fernery.”

Turning left, they walked into the cool enclosed garden covered only by crosshatching beams and filled with native ferns and trees, the pathway spiraling down in a gentle slope. An enthusiastic tui, the bird’s song distinctive, was their sole companion. Charlotte didn’t say anything as they walked around, then down the steps to the wooden bench on the second level.

“Sit with me.”

Going down beside her, his arm along the back of the seat, Gabriel stretched out his legs. “I have to admit, this was a good idea.” He felt no urge to go for his phone, the peace of the cool quiet seeping into his bones.

Charlotte put her hand on his thigh as she turned to face him. “Of course it was a good idea,” she said, face solemn. “You needed to take a breath.”

He frowned. “I like working, Charlotte.”




“I KNOW.” CHARLOTTE FOLDED a leg up on the bench. “But you don’t give yourself any time to just enjoy life. You’re always going ten thousand miles an hour.”

She could see the annoyance on Gabriel’s face, feel the tension gathering in his thigh. He always got like this when she pushed him about how furiously he worked, but this time, she wasn’t about to back down. “I love you,” she said quietly, “and—”

Steely gray eyes locked with her own. “What did you say?”

It was so easy to say because it was him. “I love you.”

Hauling her into his lap, he smiled, his cheeks creasing in that wonderful way she adored. “I love you too.”

Bubbles of sunshine in her blood, she cupped his face. “I love you,” she repeated. “That’s why I can’t bear knowing there’s something inside you that hurts you.” She had a good idea what it was, but he had to confront it himself if they were to make any headway.