Mine To Take (Nine Circles) (31 page)

The big body in her arms stiffened. “He was out of the picture.” The finality in Gabriel’s voice suggested that not asking any further questions on that particular subject would be a good idea.

She swallowed, her chest tight with sympathy. “So, what happened?”

“We survived on church handouts. And when I was old enough I took the packages from the Angels’ club members and I delivered them for cash.”

“Because you wanted to protect her,” she murmured, understanding. “You wanted to fix it.”

There was a silence.

Then Gabriel said, “There are some things you can’t fix.”

Honor took a silent breath then lifted her head, looking up into his face. “But you’re trying to fix it now, aren’t you? This vengeance thing is part of that, isn’t it?”

There was no expression at all on his features but she could see the burning in his dark eyes. “Yes.”

She lifted a hand, touched his cheekbone and the bruise on it. “What are you so angry about, Gabriel?”

“I think that’s enough fucking questions for one night, don’t you?”

The cold was back. In his voice, in his eyes. Like a mask he wore. It made her hurt for him. Made her ache. Because he was hiding something. The thing he was so angry about. That had driven him to tattoo into his skin the reminders and vows. The shame and the guilt wasn’t only his mother’s, it was his, too. And she wanted to know why.

Her hand drifted down to the waistband of his jeans, undid the button. Slid her hand inside his boxers to where he was already hard and hot and heavy.

His breath hissed as she wrapped her fingers around him. “I don’t think you want to play that game with me now, sweetheart,” he said roughly.

“Why not?” Her hand tightened. God, she loved the feel of him. Warm silk over steel.

“Because you won’t get any answers from me that way.”

“This vengeance you want,” she said, ignoring him. “Has it got something to do with the casino?”

“It might.”

She met his gaze, brushed her thumb over the head of his cock, felt him shudder. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He stared back. “You don’t want to know.”

And that wasn’t a lie. This time he was telling the truth.

God, she was so close to understanding him. Like he was a locked door and she could see the key right there in front of her. But the look on his face told her she did not want to know what lay behind that door. Did not want to know what would happen if she unlocked him.

But ever since her father died, she’d hated secrets. Hated the power they had. Hated how her world always felt fragile. Like glass and anything could shatter it. Anything at all.

Such as this man. He could shatter not only her world but her along with it.

If she let him. If she gave him that power.

What do you mean “if”? You’ve already given him that power.

Yeah, she had. Which meant she had nothing left to lose.

Honor ran her thumb over him again, watching as the fire in his eyes burned higher. “Actually,” she said. “I think that this time I do.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It wasn’t going to happen. She might want to know, but that didn’t mean he had to tell her. And he wasn’t going to. Not yet.

You want to tell her. You want to tell her everything.

Christ, she had her hand around his cock and he was hard and aching for her. And it wasn’t only sexual. Oh, sure, there was that, but also another kind of ache. One that went deeper than sex. An ache he didn’t even realized he could feel and yet, one that felt like it had been there for a long time.

Like he wanted more. Her fierce loyalty. Her understanding. Her care. But he couldn’t have any of those things, could he? Not when he was tainted.

What would happen if he told her what he was? Would she look at him the way his mother had looked at him? When she thought he didn’t notice. Her eyes full of fear and other things, complicated things that he, as a child, didn’t recognize.

He knew that part of her had wanted to get rid of him. That she wished he’d never been born. But she’d kept him because abortion was a sin. He was her cross to bear and bear it she would, a burden he could feel the weight of on his own soul as well as hers.

That weight had crushed his mother. It wouldn’t crush him. But he wouldn’t let another have it either. Especially not Honor, with her own burdens to bear.

“No,” he said. “This is one secret you’re not going to find out.”

But she’ll know. Eventually.

He’d never thought too deeply about how she might feel, finding out that her stepfather was a rapist. Because he hadn’t cared how that might affect her. His mother and the shitty life she’d had had been the only things that mattered.

But now it was different. Now, even though he didn’t want to, he realized he cared. He didn’t want her to find out. Didn’t want her to have this final betrayal. Didn’t want to utterly destroy her image of the man she loved like a father.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have to. Perhaps he could keep it from her. He’d never intended for the knowledge to become public because there had never been any definitive proof. He’d only intended to confront Tremain with what he’d done, fling the knowledge in his face as he pulled the man’s company down around his ears.

“I could get it from you,” she murmured, her hand squeezing him tighter, the low ache of desire beginning to bite.

He could end this. Take her mouth and render her mindless with pleasure. Make her forget everything but the touch of his hands. But for the first time it felt wrong to use that against her. Almost as if what was between them was too important to be used as a weapon like that.

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.”