Here’s a short that involves Gabriel and Honor from Mine To Take. This appeared in my newsletter in May. If you’d like to be the first to read more shorts like this one, feel free to sign up (just fill in the box at the top right of this page).
Honor leaned against the wooden railings that bounded the huge deck she stood on, staring down at the vast drop beneath her, a vista of nothing but forest and mountains, and the faint glitter of the blue lake that lay at the bottom of the valley. The scent of pine and snow was heavy in the air, so different to the exhaust fumes and wet pavement scent of the city she and Gabriel had left behind earlier that day.
At heart she was a city girl, but she could kind of understand the appeal of the wilderness. Especially when it looked like this.
Maybe Gabriel’s insistence on coming to his lodge in the Rockies hadn’t been such a bad idea after all, even though she hadn’t been all that thrilled with the idea. Then again, he’d be impossible to live with if she’d stayed in New York. Her being safe made him happy and God knew, he hadn’t been happy much of his life. Giving him this wasn’t a big deal. She’d be able to work via email anyway and there was the added bonus of having him all to herself.
Kind of selfish thinking considering the mess they’d left behind in New York, with her step-father in a coma in the hospital and her mother at his bedside. With whoever had shot Guy still running around on the loose. With Alex still avoiding her.
Then again, all of those things could wait.
What was important was that she was here with Gabriel. Alone.
As if on cue, footsteps came up behind her, heat at her back, his big hands resting on her hips as he pulled her against him.
“What do you think?” His deep voice rumbled in her ear. “Can you handle a bit of wild nature, city girl?”
Honor relaxed against his hard, muscular body, feeling the last shreds of tension from the trip to Colorado dissipate. “I can handle you, can’t I?”
He laughed, the sound of it as rough and hot as his touch. “Only because I let you.”
“Oh sure. You ‘let’ me.”
His hands tightened on her hips, moving down over the black wool of her skirt, easing it up. “Don’t know if I like you sounding so smug, baby. I might have to remind you of your place.”
Honor shivered, hunger gathering tight inside her. This was still so new, so different. She wasn’t used to the instant leap of desire whenever he touched her, though really, after the past couple of weeks, she should be used to it by now.
“Seriously…” His mouth brushed her neck behind her ear. “You like it?”
She stared out over the amazing view, the white of snow-capped mountains and the deep green of the pine forest, the glitter of blue from the lake. And behind them, the stone and wood and glass of Gabriel’s house. “Your lodge? Yes. I think it’s beautiful.” Because it was. And after everything that had happened, the silence and peace of the valley was balm to her soul. “I wouldn’t have picked you for a man who loved the great outdoors though.”
There was a silence behind her, his hands stroking up her thighs, underneath her skirt. She shifted restlessly, the ache between her legs becoming more acute.There were no neighbors to see them, nothing but the wide open sky and the vast expanse of the forest. He could pull her skirt up, slide his hand inside her panties right here and now and she wouldn’t stop him. Not that she wasn’t sure she’d stop him even if they were in the city and anyone could see. Her boundaries when it came to Gabriel Woolf were, as it turned out, remarkably fluid.
“I had a book at school,” he said unexpectedly, quietly. “With lots of pictures in it of forests and mountains and lakes. I read it over and over, couldn’t get enough of the fucking thing. Those pictures looked…clean. Peaceful. Better than the dirty shithole I lived in.” He paused and Honor held her breath. Even now, his confidences were few and far between. “I used to dream of one day having a cabin in the woods where my mom and I could live. I swore that one day it was gonna happen.”
Her heart curled up tight in her chest at the thought of the small boy Gabriel had once been. A small boy who just wanted the best for the mother who’d ended up rejecting him. “Did you ever take her here?”
“Yeah.” He sighed his breath warm on her skin. “Once before she died.”
“Did she like it?”
Another brief pause. “Actually, she hated it. Said it was too quiet.”
Honor couldn’t help smiling at that. “Parents.”
“Right?” One arm slid around her waist, holding her while his other hand pushed beneath her tights and settled over her sex, cupping her. His thumb brushed back and forth over the front of her panties, providing the perfect amount of friction.
“Why doesn’t what we dream about ever turn out the way it’s supposed to?” she whispered, small electric shocks of pleasure beginning to move through her every time his thumb pressed against her clit.
“Because life never fucking works that way.” His mouth moved to the sensitive place between her shoulder and neck, and then she felt his teeth biting down in a nip that made those electric shocks intensify. “Until it does.” His lips felt so soft, so warm. “Until what you’d never once fucking dreamed about ends up being better than anything you did.”
The tightness in her heart slowly released, to be replaced by something else, the deep, dark feeling encompassed everything she felt for him. A feeling that got bigger and more encompassing by the day.
She’d never dreamed of a man like him or of a love like this, and yet now she had both. And even though what had happened to her had blown her entire world to smithereens, she couldn’t regret it.
He was worth it. What they had between them was worth it.
Gabriel’s hand slipped beneath the waistband of her panties, sliding through her damp curls, lighting her up from the inside out. And she relaxed against him, letting him work his magic on her.
She might still be in danger and her step-father in a coma. Alex might still be refusing to speak to her. But she had Gabriel and he was better than anything she’d ever dreamed about.
“You’re very annoying when you’re right,” she murmured, the words ending on a gasp as he slid his finger deep inside her.
“Yeah and you love it.”
“I’d love it even more if we took this inside.”
“I don’t think so, baby.” He adjusted his hold so she could feel the hard length of his cock at her back. “I think I’m going to make you come right here while you’re enjoying the view.”
The bastard.
Again, he was right.
Oh, how I loved their book, thanks for the update.