She felt her nipples pushing in anticipation against her bra, wanting to be touched and teased and licked.
‘Shouldn’t you be with...that woman who came to the office yesterday?’ Alice asked huskily and Gabriel delivered a slow, amused smile that rocked her to the core.
Alice stared down at her feet. The pulse in her neck was beating fast and here, in these clothes, she had that weird, out-of-body feeling that she had had in Paris when she had thrown caution to the winds and jumped into bed with him.
He was making her aware of something better out there, something wild and free, and she hated him for that because she knew that it was all an illusion.
‘It turns out that she didn’t do it for me.’ Gabriel had made a decision; it was one that had come to him when she had pulled open the front door and he had looked at her.
He was done telling himself that he was not built for pursuit. He was done pretending that he wasn’t jealous whenever he thought of her with another man. If these reactions stemmed from the fact that what they had hadn’t run its course, then it was up to him to ensure that it did run its course. How else was he going to get her out of his system?
‘Are you going to invite me into the house?’
‘No. You shouldn’t be here, Gabriel.’ But she was light with relief that the pocket-sized brunette hadn’t become her replacement. It was stupid and it was cowardly but she couldn’t help it.
‘I know I shouldn’t.’ He raked his fingers through his hair, not too sure where he went from here.
Alice looked at him, perplexed.
‘Is there a man in there?’ he questioned suddenly, roughly, and Alice’s mouth tightened with outrage.
‘I’m not you, Gabriel. I don’t hop from one bed to another without pausing for breath.’
‘I didn’t hop anywhere with Bethany. I put her in my car and my driver took her back to her house. End of story.’
‘Just go, Gabriel.’ She sighed and stared to the side of him, but his image was imprinted so forcibly in her head that every bit of him had been committed to memory. He was in her system like a virus which she couldn’t budge.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Why? Why? I’ve told you...’
‘Let me in.’
‘You always think that you can get whatever you want.’
Gabriel stared at her and she squirmed under his unrelenting dark gaze. What would she do if he kissed her right now? Melt. She was melting now, liquid heat gathering between her legs, dampening her underwear. He couldn’t get her out of his head. She told herself that those were just meaningless words, but they bounced around in her head until she was giddy.
‘Let me in.’
He was as immovable as the rock of Gibraltar, standing there in all his brooding, intense glory, and with a little sigh of resignation Alice stood aside.
Her mother was hovering in the kitchen and introductions were made. Pamela Morgan launched into a series of questions, her curiosity on red alert, and Alice groaned silently to herself. If she had never said a word about Gabriel, she might have been able to channel him out of the house without too much difficulty—as just her boss who happened to be down to see a client and had popped in for...reasons best known to himself.
But she had spent far too much time telling her mother about him, describing him, inviting the curiosity that was now unstoppable.
How great to finally meet the man her daughter worked for! ‘You never told me that he was so good-looking!’... ‘My daughter loves her job; I can tell because she talks so much about it!’... ‘And Paris...how wonderful that she had the opportunity to go there! She can’t stop talking about it!’
‘You asked me, Mum!’ Alice avoided eye contact with Gabriel but she could feel him simmering with his own curiosity. ‘I talked about Paris because you asked me!’
Her mother had chosen, however, to skirt round that technicality.
‘I’ve intruded,’ Gabriel murmured. Pamela Morgan was an attractive woman, with a frailty that her daughter lacked. Not even the loose-fitting dress or the long, cream cardigan could conceal her good looks. Was that why her daughter was so self-conscious about her appearance? Was there some sort of unspoken rivalry between mother and daughter? And, yet, no; there was clearly a strong bond there.
This was the first time he had ever met any relative of any woman he had slept with, aside from Bethany’s father. Meeting the family had been something he had always heavily discouraged. Now, he was intensely curious, intensely curious to join the dots and make connections—intensely, inexplicably curious just to find out more.
‘You’re not intruding! Is he, Alice?’