Why the fuck are you thinking shit like this? You weren’t supposed to get involved.
Gabriel reached down, pulled her hand away. “Go back to bed, Honor.”
She stared at him. Silent. Then she stepped back and he thought that for once, she was going to do what he told her to. But instead she reached for the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it up and over her head.
Moonlight and neon painted her bare skin. Silver and gold and blue and red.
And even though he’d spent all night exploring that beautiful body of hers, his breath still caught at the sight of her, his cock pressing painfully against the zipper of his jeans.
He took an unthinking step toward her but she held out a hand, her chin lifting, the look in her eyes determined. “Oh no, you’re not touching me. Not yet. Not until you tell me what I want to know.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything, Gabriel. I’m sick of secrets and I’m sick of lies. I told you I’d end up wanting everything and that includes whatever it is you’re hiding.”
“And how, exactly, do you think you’re going to achieve that?”
She tilted her head, her eyes dark, studying him. “I thought I might use … this…” She straightened, ran her palms down her sides, arching her back. The move was provocative, sensual. Sexual. And it made the ache in his cock worse.
Jesus. He wasn’t prepared to use their chemistry this time but apparently she was. The irony of the reversal wasn’t lost on him. “Don’t,” he said, unable to keep the harsh edge from his voice. “Don’t use sex to get what you want. That’s not you, Honor.”
She raised a brow. “Why shouldn’t I? Especially when you were the one who started it. Playing your dominance games with me. Why can’t I do the same thing now?” Her gaze was unflinching. “If I have to fight dirty I will.” She paused, licked her lips. “But I guess if that’s too much for you then by all means, go back to bed yourself.”
“You don’t want to play this with me,” he said roughly. “You’ll lose.”
“Oh, will I?” Slowly she lifted her hands, cupped her breasts. “I’m not sure that’s true.” Her thumbs brushed her nipples and she let out a soft sigh. “You’re not the only one with power, Gabriel Woolf. And you’re not the only one who knows how to exploit a weakness.”
No. Fuck that. He didn’t want to play these games with her. Not here. Not now.
He didn’t say anything, beginning to walk toward her instead. This was his show. His game. He was the one in charge. And if she thought she could take the control from him, she had another think coming.
“Stop,” Honor said, her voice hard, authoritative. “Touch me and I’ll walk out of here right now and I won’t come back. Not ever.”
Gabriel stopped dead. Bluffing. She had to be bluffing. But her gaze was cool. Like an archer watching an arrow they’d loosed, knowing without a shadow of a doubt it would hit the target.
She wasn’t fucking bluffing.
Ignore her. Let her walk out. Don’t let her manipulate you like this.
He should do all that. Because she was getting to him in a way she wasn’t supposed to. A way he’d never intended. But for some reason he stayed where he was. Staring at her.
“What do you want, Honor?” he asked at last.
“Answers. The truth.”
“And if I tell you everything?”
She met his gaze. “I will do whatever you want. Anything you want.”
“But you already do that. You have to give me something I don’t have yet.”
She didn’t answer that immediately, her gaze roving over his face. Searching. “A friend, Gabriel,” she said after a long moment. “You don’t have a friend.”
Unease turned over inside him. “Bullshit. I have friends.”
“What? Those people in your billionaires club? Alex? He punched you in the face and those other two … Do they really know you? Do you trust them?”
The unease deepened, a strange sense of loss opening up inside him. An emptiness he hadn’t been aware of until now.
“You gotta lock it down, kid,” the Reverend had said. “’Cause vengeance is a long, costly, lonely fucking business to be in.”
So he’d hardened himself. Locked it down. Closed himself off from everyone and everything. It was easy. Certainly easier and far less painful than giving a shit. Easier than trust.
He didn’t need anything but his anger.
“I don’t trust anyone,” he said. “And no one needs to know me. I don’t give a shit about that.”
Slowly, she came toward him, the light from the outside moving over her body. Her nipples were hard and he suddenly wanted, more than anything in the world, to push her down onto the floor and bury himself inside her. Cover himself in her warmth, her heat. Her scent. Her taste. Surround himself with her, fill up the empty places inside him. Places he hadn’t known existed until now.
“I think you do,” Honor said softly. “Everyone needs someone to trust. Someone who knows them and who has their back no matter what. Everyone needs a true friend.”
She was close now and everything in him wanted her. But if he touched her she would leave and … he didn’t want her to.
Fuck. She’s getting to you, you prick. Walk away. Walk away now.
Gabriel turned. A ride, that’s what he needed. His bike and the cold wind and the silence of the forest. The open road. Space to get his head back on straight. Clear his mind. Find the cold heart that he needed.
“I don’t need anything,” he said. “And you’ve got nothing I want.”
Then he walked away, heading toward the door that led to his underground parking garage where he kept his bike.
The stairwell was unheated and cold but he welcomed the chill, trying to freeze the ache that seemed to linger in his chest, the heat still burning in his groin. Trying to not see the image of Honor, naked, bathed in neon and moonlight, coming toward him, the expression on her face painful in a way he didn’t want to admit to.
The garage was unheated, too, the concrete icy under his bare feet. Skirting around the couple of cars he’d bought, and the truck he liked to drive when he was working on site, he went to the back where he kept his motorcycles. He had a large collection, but his favorite had always been the black Norton. British bikes had always appealed to him and this one, a Commando, was the one he preferred out of all of them.
He went to the cupboard off to one side where he kept his bike leathers, pulling it open and putting on his jacket and boots.
“Don’t be such a fucking coward.” The voice behind him was feminine and full of contempt.
He turned.
Honor was standing near his bike, still absolutely naked.
Jesus fucking Christ, she’d followed him. She must be freezing.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “Get back upstairs. You’ll freeze to death down here.”
“No.” She remained exactly where she was. “Why should I be the one to leave? I’m not the one running away.”
“I’m not—”
“The hell you’re not. You won’t give me answers and the one thing I offer you, the one thing I know you want, you fling back in my face. Tell yourself all you like you don’t need anyone, but we both know that’s an excuse. You’re scared, Gabriel.”
He shut the cupboard, harder than he’d meant to, the sound echoing off the hard concrete of the walls and floor. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Now get back upstairs before I carry you up there myself.”
Honor folded her arms and he could see the goose bumps on them, the shiver that wracked her as she did so. Her feet were very white. Everything about her, except her hair and her eyes, was very white. “I’m not going anywhere. N-not until I get my answers.”
He took a step toward her, only stopping himself from touching her at the last minute. “Get the fuck upstairs before you freeze to death!”
She moved. But it wasn’t in the direction of the stairs. Instead, she closed the space between them, sliding her hands beneath his jacket, wrapping her arms around him, pressing her cold skin against him. “Why?” she murmured. “When you can warm me up?”
Gabriel stilled. She’d told him not to touch her and yet she was touching him everywhere, her hands stroking his back beneath his jacket, her warm breath against his bare chest. The press of her naked breasts against him was cold but not for long, her skin beginning to warm up again.
“I can give you what you want,” she whispered, her mouth brushing his skin. “I can be your friend. I can be the one you trust. The one you talk to. The one you know will never turn against you. I think you need it, Gabriel. I think you need me.”
He shuddered, unable to help it. Unable to stop the rush of desire that flooded through him.
You have to be cold. Detached.
But how could he be when she was here warming everything up? Melting everything. He couldn’t be. He didn’t want to be.
“You can tell me,” she whispered against his skin. “You can tell me anything.” Her hands moved along his spine. Comforting. “You don’t have to carry these things alone.”
Fuck the not touching. Fuck the cold. Fuck everything.