Gabriel Fallen, page 12
This is actually happening. We’re actually sitting around this desk, plotting murder. Multiple murders. The targets have earned their death certificates many times over, but still.
A nervous twinge stirs in my gut but I tamp it down. The world will be a better place without them. “So then … we need a game plan.” I look to each of them in turn. “We need to make nice and pretend that we’re moving forward with the alliance they all think we’re here talking about.” Because if any of them caught wind of what was really going on, it would mean war.
“Yeah, no offense, but I don’t trust that fucking uncle of yours not to stab us in the back,” Merrick says with a pointed look.
“Something we finally agree on.” Caleb lifts his glass, and the youngest Perri man clinks it.
“So then what are we going to do? We need a plan,” I push. Ideally, one that smears as little blood on our hands as possible.
Caleb sighs and pours another round.
ELEVEN
MERCY
“Why did he make you come here if he’s going to be somewhere else all night?” Michelle scoffs.
I shrug. “Because he can?”
“I guess it could be worse.” Michelle waves a manicured hand around the VIP section—dark alcoves of private tables and pricey bottle service, for those so inclined—and then at the empty glass in her hand.
Dwayne notices and leans in. “You want another round?”
“Would you, my darling?” She grins up at him, her dangly earrings catching the light to sparkle.
His eyes twinkle with his chuckle. “Extra dirty this time?”
“So dirty.” She winks.
I roll my eyes. If this keeps up, they might be screwing on this table by the end of the night. At least it can handle the body weight. I know from experience.
I should pass on another drink. I’ve probably already had one too many. Despite my best attempts at being good company to Michelle, I’m a mess of frazzled nerves. The foreign object inside an extremely intimate part of me is one thing. If it were just that, I’d likely be fine. I trust Gabriel with my body, and I know that whatever we’re going to do later, I will enjoy it.
What I don’t trust him with is my heart, and I’m beginning to worry that he has somehow managed to wrap his sinful fingers around it.
Something is shifting between us. It started last night, in that haze of intimate, sleepy sex, and while I can’t define what it is yet, I know it’s the last thing I expected or wanted—to look at him differently. And now we’ve just gone through this roller coaster of bloody shirts and is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-murderer and him divulging crime family activity that you don’t tell the woman you’re just fucking, even if you’ve paid a shit ton of money for her.
And here we are, things shifting further. Becoming more intense. He wants my heart?
I’m not sure a man like Gabriel knows what that means. The way to a woman’s heart is definitely not by bribing her to sleep with you.
But maybe he wasn’t expecting this shift between us either.
What’s even more bothersome is that he’s told me about his involvement in the illegal prison fight ring and I don’t care. That he divulged something like that to me is an odd source of pride.
How messed up am I to be proud of that? What is happening to me?
I let my gaze drift toward the wall of mirrors that reflects the strobe lights and cage dancers but reveals nothing more, and that gnawing feeling in my stomach stirs.
I’m worried about Gabriel.
I don’t want to be worried about this man. He doesn’t deserve my concern, and yet I can’t help myself.
“So? Where is Gabriel and his sexy slut brother anyway?” Michelle hollers as soon as Dwayne is gone. She’s on her fourth martini, and I’ll likely be carrying her to her bed.
“In their office. They’re meeting with someone right now. I don’t know. It sounded important.”
“We should go up there and interrupt their little ‘meeting.’” Michelle air quotes that word with her fingers.
Memories of the tension in Caleb’s face when he stormed in there has me shaking my head. “Yeah. That would be a bad idea.”
“Oh right. Because they’re basically the mob.” Her eyes widen dramatically.
“Michelle …” I glance around. It’s too loud for anyone to hear anything, thank God.
A catchy dance song begins pumping over the speakers, and she throws her hands up with a squeal. “Let’s go and dance!”
I sigh at my harebrained friend. The idea of going back out on that dance floor right now is so not appealing to me. The muscles deep inside clench as I begin shimmying across the bench, breathing steadily against the pressure. I’m not about to tell Michelle that Gabriel put a plug inside me, and I nearly came while on the dance floor earlier. I’m sure as hell not going to admit that the anticipation of being naked with him again has my panties soaked and that I’m eager to see Gabriel as much to know that he’s safe as so I can get relief.
A horde of tall male bodies approaches from the left, stalling our retreat to the dance floor. Gabriel is leading the charge, followed by those two men I passed on my way here, Caleb, and a few bouncers that made the group look all the more impressive. And lethal.
I only have eyes for Gabriel though, his collar unfastened another button, his face as handsome as ever, though stony. Whatever that meeting was about, I can’t tell if it went well. It must have, if he’s coming out here with the men now.
A rush of heat floods my core.
Michelle scoots over and leans in to press her mouth against my ear. “What. The. Hell. Merce! You didn’t tell me how hot all his friends are!”
“Friends” probably isn’t the right word for what they are, but I can’t blame her for her reaction. The group is turning heads all around us.
“Which one is Caleb?” She waves the question off with her hand. “Actually, never mind. I’ll do any of them. All of them.”
“After Dwayne, of course.”
“All in a good night’s work,” she says with mock seriousness, smoothing her palms over her black lace dress. “God, when did I become such a perv?”
Probably around the same time I did. Right around the time Gabriel stepped into my life.
He drops down into the booth, blocking my exit, shifting closer to me. “Hey, baby. Sorry that took so long.”
I inhale the scent of his cologne and find myself sighing. “How’d it go?” I peer over to see the man with blue eyes and beard and the sleeve of tattoos eyeing me, his expression cold and calculating.
“Better than I expected. But, more importantly”—his gaze skims my dress, stalling on my chest. I wonder if my nipples are showing through this silky material. I don’t dare check—“how are you?”
“Fine.”
“Really? Just fine?” He presses a soft kiss against my lips, his tongue teasing over the seam, stealing my gasp. But he doesn’t deepen it. Instead he turns to match the bearded guy’s stare.
“Why do I feel like you’re marking your territory right now?”
“Because I am.” He leans in to press his mouth against my neck, just under my ear. “How wet are you?”
My heart begins to race as everything and everyone else disappears, all my attention on this sexy, all-consuming man beside me. I swallow, struggling to temper my voice. “I’m basically the Sahara.”
His responding laugh sends a warm shiver down my spine. Beneath the table, he smooths a calloused hand over my bare leg, traveling up my thigh toward the hem of my dress.
I hold my breath, expecting him to dip his fingers into my panties and prove me a liar, but he settles his hand on my knee instead, and leans over to greet Michelle with a nod. “Welcome back. I take it Dwayne is taking good care of you?”
“If you mean blocking my opportunity to meet the man of my dreams, then yes, you should give him a big raise,” Michelle quips, but then her eyes are flittering from Gabriel to Caleb and to the wall of eye candy behind.
Lulu the blond server comes around then with our two dirty martinis. When she sees Gabriel and Caleb, the fake smile she’s been wearing all night for us turns genuine. She winks at Gabriel and then sidles up to Caleb and says something I can’t hear, but it makes him grin and shrug nonchalantly.
Caleb nods toward the drinks. “Theirs?” I read off his lips.
“Yeah,” she mouths, and while I can’t hear her, I’m imagining that her voice carries a bitter twinge.
He steps back as if to allow her to do her job. Or to direct her to do it. Flashing him a lascivious look, she leans over the long oval table to set the drinks in front of us, far enough that I can easily peer down the cleavage of her impressive, store-bought breasts. I’m not sure she’s even wearing a bra. What I am sure of is that the men behind are also getting an eyeful from the other angle. She makes a point of widening her stance.
Good grief.
I’ll bet she makes a ton in tips.
There’s no doubt in my mind that both Caleb and Gabriel have slept with Lulu. Countless times, probably. There’s also no doubt in my mind that she may be a dick-swapper but she’s also insanely jealous right now, hence the saltiness toward us all night. I mean, a VIP table, a personal guard, open tab all night … she’s figured out I’m not just another nightly fuck for him.
Whatever. She can still have Caleb’s dick, but she can’t have Gabriel’s until I’m finished with it. Something she needs to learn and quickly.
I can’t help myself. I lean in and press a soft, slow, tantalizing kiss against his lips.
When I pull away, he’s smirking. “Why do I feel like you’re marking your territory right now?” He echoes my earlier words.
“Because I am.” I match his steady gaze. “Have you fucked her?”
“Yes,” he admits without hesitation.
I expected the answer and yet it feels like a punch to my stomach. “Are you going to fuck her again?”
“Not while I’m with you.”
But he will again, after me. After us.
Why does that thought leave me so unsettled?
His gaze locks on my mouth as I take a sip of my martini and try to push the distress away.
Caleb is saying something to Wayne, who then quickly moves in to lead the other men to the table across from us. Not that they couldn’t all fit in here, I note. He directs Lulu to them with a slide of his hand over the small of her back and then settles into the booth on Michelle’s other side. His eyes zero in on my best friend as he eases his way closer, his lascivious intentions plastered across his face.
“Hey, Michelle?” I lean in to say in her ear, “Remember when you asked me to stop you from kissing frogs? Well, you’re about to screw a warty toad. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Yeah. I don’t care. I’ll make him double up.” She toys with the stem of her glass as she gazes dreamily at him.
“This is beautiful.” Caleb reaches up to drag his fingertip over the delicate diamond and emerald necklace decorating her collarbone.
She shudders. “Isn’t it? It’s one of our new pieces. My family owns Banks Jewelry in Scottsdale.”
I miss his response, distracted by Gabriel’s hand sliding between my thighs, his fingertips rubbing over my damp panties. “Fuck.” His chiseled jaw tenses. “When will you just admit you want me?”
I swallow hard. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“Open for me.”
“I told you, no shows,” I retort, even as I fight the urge to obey and part my legs. The VIP section is designed in a way that offers privacy, with dark alcoves and deep tables and heavy curtains draping the sides. I can’t see below the table across from me and I have to assume they can’t see me.
The only person who might catch a glimpse is Michelle, and she’s too enthralled with Caleb right now to care. Besides, nothing shocks her.
“Please, Mercy,” he growls, though he’s already working his fingers beneath the seam of my panties, prodding my thighs apart. I gasp as he pushes two fingers into me.
Shifting my legs farther apart, I let my eyes casually roam the faces around us as the music pounds, to see if anyone has picked up on what Gabriel’s doing to me below the table’s surface.
The bearded man across from us is watching intently.
Gabriel peppers my jawline with featherlight kisses that draw a soft moan from my lips. “You’ve never been this wet with me before,” he murmurs, stroking my clit with the pad of his thumb. “How close are you to coming?”
“Close,” I admit, reaching down to seize his hand. A few minutes with Gabriel is all it takes to get me there. But, while that guy across from us may not be able to see anything, he can damn well figure out what’s going on. “Not in front of him.”
Gabriel’s gaze follows mine. A deep growl escapes his throat, but he relents, slipping his fingers out. In the next second, he’s seizing my hips and hoisting me onto his lap, my back to his chest. The plug shifts, rubbing something deep inside.
I try desperately to ignore the sensation as I take a sip of my drink.
He leans in, pressing his lips against my ear. “Imagine how tight it’s going to feel with that and my cock inside you later.”
I can’t even imagine my body accepting all that, but I find myself growing eager to find out if it can. For now though, I bite my tongue and focus on downing my drink while enjoying the steady thrum of Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman.” A perfect song for the moment. That’s what Gabriel does to me—there is something about him that makes me crazy, something that pushes me beyond my limits.
“Trying to get some relief?” There’s a gruff, teasing lilt in Gabriel’s voice.
Only then do I notice that my hips are rolling to the beat of the music.
“I just really like the song.” I peer back over my shoulder at him. While Gabriel’s feigning calm, his breathing is erratic, his chest is heaving, and his eyes are dilated.
And his dick is hard against my ass.
I may be desperate for an orgasm, but at least so is he. Which one of us will break first?
I grind my hips hard against his dick to the rhythm, earning both our groans, because yet again that plug shifts inside me. This might be my new favorite game to play with him.
“My office. Now,” he growls.
I smile, and I imagine it’s equal parts sweet and victorious, because Gabriel is breaking first and it took only seconds. “I’m sorry, but I can’t leave my friend here alone.”
“She’s with Caleb.”
I give him a high-browed look. “Exactly.”
“Caleb!” he barks.
His brother leans over, and they share a long, hard gaze. Michelle catches my eyes and shrugs.
After a moment, Caleb rolls his eyes but then holds his hands up in surrender.
“Caleb will get her home, unmolested. She’s fine.” Gabriel shifts me off his lap and climbs out of the booth, adjusting himself with a hand against his groin, not bothering to hide the move. Only he can stand there with a noticeable erection and not look ridiculous. He holds a hand out toward me, and I see the unspoken warning in it.
Whenever, whatever.
Why am I fighting this?
I wiggle out, tugging my hem down to avoid flashing the table across from us.
I don’t even look back at Michelle, my attention rapt on the powerful man ahead of me as he grasps my hand. With a single nod toward the other table, he leads me to the stairwell, brushing off several people trying to catch his attention.
“No one comes up,” he demands of the guy standing at the bottom, urging me ahead of him. There’s no bouncer waiting at the top anymore.
I instinctively reach back to hold my dress down, but he swats my hand away. I head up the stairs, acutely aware of how close Gabriel’s face is to my ass.
The heavy steel door is barely shut when he’s charging into me, herding me against it. “You like to tease, don’t you?” he rasps, his hands going for the straps of my dress, pushing them off my shoulders. The silk dress falls to the floor effortlessly, and then he’s reaching for the clasp of my strapless bra and unfastening it. My breasts spill out, feeling heavy and full and aching for his touch.
He yanks my panties down, letting them join the dress on the floor and then Gabriel’s taking steps backward, toward the desk, his gaze eating up my form, naked save for my red stiletto shoes. “Come here.”
I can’t help noticing the strips of tape over the window, the kind of thing you need when glass is about to break. It wasn’t like that before his meeting “What happened?” I ask warily.
“Nothing.” He unfastens his belt and zipper and shoves his pants and boxer briefs down. His erection juts out beneath the hem of his dress shirt, making my mouth water. He takes it in his palm. “Get over here now, Mercy.” He winces as if in pain.
I keep my stride even and slow as I make my way over to him, feeling the vicious smile forming on my lips. I’m enjoying his raw need for me.
With a hard swipe of his hand across the desk, he clears the surface, sending several crystal glasses flying to shatter against the polished floor.
I barely have time to jump before he’s grabbing me by the hips. “Bend over,” he commands in a hard tone. For the second time tonight, I find myself sprawled over his office desk.
I check the reflection in the window in time to see Gabriel grab both sides of his shirt and yank, sending buttons flying in all directions. He tosses the ruined garment to the floor, leaving him standing behind me with his pants pooled around his knees and the rest of his perfect, powerful body bare.
It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
And when I arch my back to give him a better angle, a heady guttural sound escapes his lips.
I half expect him to plunge right into me, but instead he leans over, pressing his chest to my back, his hot skin a shock compared to the cold surface of the desk. He brushes my hair to one side and drags his tongue over the nape of my neck. “You enjoy teasing me, don’t you?” he murmurs, rolling his hips, his hard length pressing against the base of the plug. As if to remind me that it’s there—as if I could ever forget—he jerks his pelvis forward, shifting it.
A nervous twinge stirs in my gut but I tamp it down. The world will be a better place without them. “So then … we need a game plan.” I look to each of them in turn. “We need to make nice and pretend that we’re moving forward with the alliance they all think we’re here talking about.” Because if any of them caught wind of what was really going on, it would mean war.
“Yeah, no offense, but I don’t trust that fucking uncle of yours not to stab us in the back,” Merrick says with a pointed look.
“Something we finally agree on.” Caleb lifts his glass, and the youngest Perri man clinks it.
“So then what are we going to do? We need a plan,” I push. Ideally, one that smears as little blood on our hands as possible.
Caleb sighs and pours another round.
ELEVEN
MERCY
“Why did he make you come here if he’s going to be somewhere else all night?” Michelle scoffs.
I shrug. “Because he can?”
“I guess it could be worse.” Michelle waves a manicured hand around the VIP section—dark alcoves of private tables and pricey bottle service, for those so inclined—and then at the empty glass in her hand.
Dwayne notices and leans in. “You want another round?”
“Would you, my darling?” She grins up at him, her dangly earrings catching the light to sparkle.
His eyes twinkle with his chuckle. “Extra dirty this time?”
“So dirty.” She winks.
I roll my eyes. If this keeps up, they might be screwing on this table by the end of the night. At least it can handle the body weight. I know from experience.
I should pass on another drink. I’ve probably already had one too many. Despite my best attempts at being good company to Michelle, I’m a mess of frazzled nerves. The foreign object inside an extremely intimate part of me is one thing. If it were just that, I’d likely be fine. I trust Gabriel with my body, and I know that whatever we’re going to do later, I will enjoy it.
What I don’t trust him with is my heart, and I’m beginning to worry that he has somehow managed to wrap his sinful fingers around it.
Something is shifting between us. It started last night, in that haze of intimate, sleepy sex, and while I can’t define what it is yet, I know it’s the last thing I expected or wanted—to look at him differently. And now we’ve just gone through this roller coaster of bloody shirts and is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-murderer and him divulging crime family activity that you don’t tell the woman you’re just fucking, even if you’ve paid a shit ton of money for her.
And here we are, things shifting further. Becoming more intense. He wants my heart?
I’m not sure a man like Gabriel knows what that means. The way to a woman’s heart is definitely not by bribing her to sleep with you.
But maybe he wasn’t expecting this shift between us either.
What’s even more bothersome is that he’s told me about his involvement in the illegal prison fight ring and I don’t care. That he divulged something like that to me is an odd source of pride.
How messed up am I to be proud of that? What is happening to me?
I let my gaze drift toward the wall of mirrors that reflects the strobe lights and cage dancers but reveals nothing more, and that gnawing feeling in my stomach stirs.
I’m worried about Gabriel.
I don’t want to be worried about this man. He doesn’t deserve my concern, and yet I can’t help myself.
“So? Where is Gabriel and his sexy slut brother anyway?” Michelle hollers as soon as Dwayne is gone. She’s on her fourth martini, and I’ll likely be carrying her to her bed.
“In their office. They’re meeting with someone right now. I don’t know. It sounded important.”
“We should go up there and interrupt their little ‘meeting.’” Michelle air quotes that word with her fingers.
Memories of the tension in Caleb’s face when he stormed in there has me shaking my head. “Yeah. That would be a bad idea.”
“Oh right. Because they’re basically the mob.” Her eyes widen dramatically.
“Michelle …” I glance around. It’s too loud for anyone to hear anything, thank God.
A catchy dance song begins pumping over the speakers, and she throws her hands up with a squeal. “Let’s go and dance!”
I sigh at my harebrained friend. The idea of going back out on that dance floor right now is so not appealing to me. The muscles deep inside clench as I begin shimmying across the bench, breathing steadily against the pressure. I’m not about to tell Michelle that Gabriel put a plug inside me, and I nearly came while on the dance floor earlier. I’m sure as hell not going to admit that the anticipation of being naked with him again has my panties soaked and that I’m eager to see Gabriel as much to know that he’s safe as so I can get relief.
A horde of tall male bodies approaches from the left, stalling our retreat to the dance floor. Gabriel is leading the charge, followed by those two men I passed on my way here, Caleb, and a few bouncers that made the group look all the more impressive. And lethal.
I only have eyes for Gabriel though, his collar unfastened another button, his face as handsome as ever, though stony. Whatever that meeting was about, I can’t tell if it went well. It must have, if he’s coming out here with the men now.
A rush of heat floods my core.
Michelle scoots over and leans in to press her mouth against my ear. “What. The. Hell. Merce! You didn’t tell me how hot all his friends are!”
“Friends” probably isn’t the right word for what they are, but I can’t blame her for her reaction. The group is turning heads all around us.
“Which one is Caleb?” She waves the question off with her hand. “Actually, never mind. I’ll do any of them. All of them.”
“After Dwayne, of course.”
“All in a good night’s work,” she says with mock seriousness, smoothing her palms over her black lace dress. “God, when did I become such a perv?”
Probably around the same time I did. Right around the time Gabriel stepped into my life.
He drops down into the booth, blocking my exit, shifting closer to me. “Hey, baby. Sorry that took so long.”
I inhale the scent of his cologne and find myself sighing. “How’d it go?” I peer over to see the man with blue eyes and beard and the sleeve of tattoos eyeing me, his expression cold and calculating.
“Better than I expected. But, more importantly”—his gaze skims my dress, stalling on my chest. I wonder if my nipples are showing through this silky material. I don’t dare check—“how are you?”
“Fine.”
“Really? Just fine?” He presses a soft kiss against my lips, his tongue teasing over the seam, stealing my gasp. But he doesn’t deepen it. Instead he turns to match the bearded guy’s stare.
“Why do I feel like you’re marking your territory right now?”
“Because I am.” He leans in to press his mouth against my neck, just under my ear. “How wet are you?”
My heart begins to race as everything and everyone else disappears, all my attention on this sexy, all-consuming man beside me. I swallow, struggling to temper my voice. “I’m basically the Sahara.”
His responding laugh sends a warm shiver down my spine. Beneath the table, he smooths a calloused hand over my bare leg, traveling up my thigh toward the hem of my dress.
I hold my breath, expecting him to dip his fingers into my panties and prove me a liar, but he settles his hand on my knee instead, and leans over to greet Michelle with a nod. “Welcome back. I take it Dwayne is taking good care of you?”
“If you mean blocking my opportunity to meet the man of my dreams, then yes, you should give him a big raise,” Michelle quips, but then her eyes are flittering from Gabriel to Caleb and to the wall of eye candy behind.
Lulu the blond server comes around then with our two dirty martinis. When she sees Gabriel and Caleb, the fake smile she’s been wearing all night for us turns genuine. She winks at Gabriel and then sidles up to Caleb and says something I can’t hear, but it makes him grin and shrug nonchalantly.
Caleb nods toward the drinks. “Theirs?” I read off his lips.
“Yeah,” she mouths, and while I can’t hear her, I’m imagining that her voice carries a bitter twinge.
He steps back as if to allow her to do her job. Or to direct her to do it. Flashing him a lascivious look, she leans over the long oval table to set the drinks in front of us, far enough that I can easily peer down the cleavage of her impressive, store-bought breasts. I’m not sure she’s even wearing a bra. What I am sure of is that the men behind are also getting an eyeful from the other angle. She makes a point of widening her stance.
Good grief.
I’ll bet she makes a ton in tips.
There’s no doubt in my mind that both Caleb and Gabriel have slept with Lulu. Countless times, probably. There’s also no doubt in my mind that she may be a dick-swapper but she’s also insanely jealous right now, hence the saltiness toward us all night. I mean, a VIP table, a personal guard, open tab all night … she’s figured out I’m not just another nightly fuck for him.
Whatever. She can still have Caleb’s dick, but she can’t have Gabriel’s until I’m finished with it. Something she needs to learn and quickly.
I can’t help myself. I lean in and press a soft, slow, tantalizing kiss against his lips.
When I pull away, he’s smirking. “Why do I feel like you’re marking your territory right now?” He echoes my earlier words.
“Because I am.” I match his steady gaze. “Have you fucked her?”
“Yes,” he admits without hesitation.
I expected the answer and yet it feels like a punch to my stomach. “Are you going to fuck her again?”
“Not while I’m with you.”
But he will again, after me. After us.
Why does that thought leave me so unsettled?
His gaze locks on my mouth as I take a sip of my martini and try to push the distress away.
Caleb is saying something to Wayne, who then quickly moves in to lead the other men to the table across from us. Not that they couldn’t all fit in here, I note. He directs Lulu to them with a slide of his hand over the small of her back and then settles into the booth on Michelle’s other side. His eyes zero in on my best friend as he eases his way closer, his lascivious intentions plastered across his face.
“Hey, Michelle?” I lean in to say in her ear, “Remember when you asked me to stop you from kissing frogs? Well, you’re about to screw a warty toad. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Yeah. I don’t care. I’ll make him double up.” She toys with the stem of her glass as she gazes dreamily at him.
“This is beautiful.” Caleb reaches up to drag his fingertip over the delicate diamond and emerald necklace decorating her collarbone.
She shudders. “Isn’t it? It’s one of our new pieces. My family owns Banks Jewelry in Scottsdale.”
I miss his response, distracted by Gabriel’s hand sliding between my thighs, his fingertips rubbing over my damp panties. “Fuck.” His chiseled jaw tenses. “When will you just admit you want me?”
I swallow hard. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“Open for me.”
“I told you, no shows,” I retort, even as I fight the urge to obey and part my legs. The VIP section is designed in a way that offers privacy, with dark alcoves and deep tables and heavy curtains draping the sides. I can’t see below the table across from me and I have to assume they can’t see me.
The only person who might catch a glimpse is Michelle, and she’s too enthralled with Caleb right now to care. Besides, nothing shocks her.
“Please, Mercy,” he growls, though he’s already working his fingers beneath the seam of my panties, prodding my thighs apart. I gasp as he pushes two fingers into me.
Shifting my legs farther apart, I let my eyes casually roam the faces around us as the music pounds, to see if anyone has picked up on what Gabriel’s doing to me below the table’s surface.
The bearded man across from us is watching intently.
Gabriel peppers my jawline with featherlight kisses that draw a soft moan from my lips. “You’ve never been this wet with me before,” he murmurs, stroking my clit with the pad of his thumb. “How close are you to coming?”
“Close,” I admit, reaching down to seize his hand. A few minutes with Gabriel is all it takes to get me there. But, while that guy across from us may not be able to see anything, he can damn well figure out what’s going on. “Not in front of him.”
Gabriel’s gaze follows mine. A deep growl escapes his throat, but he relents, slipping his fingers out. In the next second, he’s seizing my hips and hoisting me onto his lap, my back to his chest. The plug shifts, rubbing something deep inside.
I try desperately to ignore the sensation as I take a sip of my drink.
He leans in, pressing his lips against my ear. “Imagine how tight it’s going to feel with that and my cock inside you later.”
I can’t even imagine my body accepting all that, but I find myself growing eager to find out if it can. For now though, I bite my tongue and focus on downing my drink while enjoying the steady thrum of Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman.” A perfect song for the moment. That’s what Gabriel does to me—there is something about him that makes me crazy, something that pushes me beyond my limits.
“Trying to get some relief?” There’s a gruff, teasing lilt in Gabriel’s voice.
Only then do I notice that my hips are rolling to the beat of the music.
“I just really like the song.” I peer back over my shoulder at him. While Gabriel’s feigning calm, his breathing is erratic, his chest is heaving, and his eyes are dilated.
And his dick is hard against my ass.
I may be desperate for an orgasm, but at least so is he. Which one of us will break first?
I grind my hips hard against his dick to the rhythm, earning both our groans, because yet again that plug shifts inside me. This might be my new favorite game to play with him.
“My office. Now,” he growls.
I smile, and I imagine it’s equal parts sweet and victorious, because Gabriel is breaking first and it took only seconds. “I’m sorry, but I can’t leave my friend here alone.”
“She’s with Caleb.”
I give him a high-browed look. “Exactly.”
“Caleb!” he barks.
His brother leans over, and they share a long, hard gaze. Michelle catches my eyes and shrugs.
After a moment, Caleb rolls his eyes but then holds his hands up in surrender.
“Caleb will get her home, unmolested. She’s fine.” Gabriel shifts me off his lap and climbs out of the booth, adjusting himself with a hand against his groin, not bothering to hide the move. Only he can stand there with a noticeable erection and not look ridiculous. He holds a hand out toward me, and I see the unspoken warning in it.
Whenever, whatever.
Why am I fighting this?
I wiggle out, tugging my hem down to avoid flashing the table across from us.
I don’t even look back at Michelle, my attention rapt on the powerful man ahead of me as he grasps my hand. With a single nod toward the other table, he leads me to the stairwell, brushing off several people trying to catch his attention.
“No one comes up,” he demands of the guy standing at the bottom, urging me ahead of him. There’s no bouncer waiting at the top anymore.
I instinctively reach back to hold my dress down, but he swats my hand away. I head up the stairs, acutely aware of how close Gabriel’s face is to my ass.
The heavy steel door is barely shut when he’s charging into me, herding me against it. “You like to tease, don’t you?” he rasps, his hands going for the straps of my dress, pushing them off my shoulders. The silk dress falls to the floor effortlessly, and then he’s reaching for the clasp of my strapless bra and unfastening it. My breasts spill out, feeling heavy and full and aching for his touch.
He yanks my panties down, letting them join the dress on the floor and then Gabriel’s taking steps backward, toward the desk, his gaze eating up my form, naked save for my red stiletto shoes. “Come here.”
I can’t help noticing the strips of tape over the window, the kind of thing you need when glass is about to break. It wasn’t like that before his meeting “What happened?” I ask warily.
“Nothing.” He unfastens his belt and zipper and shoves his pants and boxer briefs down. His erection juts out beneath the hem of his dress shirt, making my mouth water. He takes it in his palm. “Get over here now, Mercy.” He winces as if in pain.
I keep my stride even and slow as I make my way over to him, feeling the vicious smile forming on my lips. I’m enjoying his raw need for me.
With a hard swipe of his hand across the desk, he clears the surface, sending several crystal glasses flying to shatter against the polished floor.
I barely have time to jump before he’s grabbing me by the hips. “Bend over,” he commands in a hard tone. For the second time tonight, I find myself sprawled over his office desk.
I check the reflection in the window in time to see Gabriel grab both sides of his shirt and yank, sending buttons flying in all directions. He tosses the ruined garment to the floor, leaving him standing behind me with his pants pooled around his knees and the rest of his perfect, powerful body bare.
It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
And when I arch my back to give him a better angle, a heady guttural sound escapes his lips.
I half expect him to plunge right into me, but instead he leans over, pressing his chest to my back, his hot skin a shock compared to the cold surface of the desk. He brushes my hair to one side and drags his tongue over the nape of my neck. “You enjoy teasing me, don’t you?” he murmurs, rolling his hips, his hard length pressing against the base of the plug. As if to remind me that it’s there—as if I could ever forget—he jerks his pelvis forward, shifting it.
