Mine To Take (Nine Circles) (38 page)

He shoved her back against the brick, kissing her back with all the demand she’d shown him. Because the pain wouldn’t stop and he was so sick of hurting. Of feeling cold. Of being angry. He wanted heat. Passion. The softness of her, the gentleness of her. The beauty of her. The loyalty and friendship of her.

Wanted just one second when he could be free of the burden of his whole miserable fucking existence. Where she was the only thing that mattered.

He lost himself in her taste. The heat of her mouth beneath his, the softness of her body against him. The only beauty in a life where beauty had been painfully absent.

“You do want me,” she murmured against his mouth. “You damn liar.”

Of course, she was right. He was a liar. Another sin to add to the rest, staining him black down to his bones.

He didn’t speak, crushing her mouth under his, pressing against her heat, feeling her arms around his neck, holding him as tightly as he was holding her. Teeth against his lip, a sharp bite that had him growling in the back of his throat. A punishment. Well, fuck yes, he deserved her punishment.

Her hand moved between their shaking bodies, down to where he was hard and aching, tracing the outline of his cock. She tore her mouth away from his and murmured in his ear, “You want me, little boy?” Squeezing him. Sending jolts of electricity right through him. “You want me to fuck you up against this wall? Right here? Right now?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t stop the shudder that went through him as she stroked his raging hard-on, her fingers tantalizing.

“Beg me, Gabriel.” Her voice held an edge he’d never heard before. “Tell me how much you want me to fuck you and I just might.”

You fucking idiot. You’ve let her get to you.

But Gabriel shoved the voice from his head. He wanted this moment and he was going to have it. Because after tonight it would never happen again.

“Please,” he said hoarsely. “Please, Honor.”

“Tell me you lied. Tell me you want me.”

He lifted his head, stared into her eyes so she’d see the truth. “I want you. From the moment you got into my limo, I wanted you. And I told myself it was because of Tremain but it wasn’t. You were beautiful, sexy, and challenging. And all I could think about was what it would feel like to be inside you.”

There was blue fire in her eyes, burning bright. “Then get out your condom. Now.”

He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet. There was a condom in there and it he took it out. But she was the one who ripped it open, who unzipped his fly and freed him from his boxers. She was the one who protected him.

She didn’t seem to care they were in an alleyway, that the public street was right there. But he did. He moved them deeper into the shadows then closed the space between them. For all her hard demand, she was trembling and when he ran a hand up her thigh, under her dress, and slipped it between her legs, he felt her wetness. Her heat. He stroked her, looking down into her eyes. They were black in the shadows. Full of secrets.

He wanted to know what those secrets were. Wanted to spend weeks, months, years finding out. But he would never get the chance.

“I always wanted you,” she whispered, her voice ragged as he eased a finger into her, testing her, her flesh slick and hot. “Even though you irritated me. Even though you were so damn arrogant I wanted to spit. But I loved your strength. I loved that you didn’t care what people thought of you. And…” She stopped. “I loved your honesty.”

“Don’t.” He leaned forward, kissing her mouth. “There’s nothing honest about me. You were right. I’m a liar.”

She gasped as he circled his thumb over her clit. “No … you’ve only ever told me one lie. That you didn’t want me.”

She didn’t know. She didn’t truly understand. All he was, all he’d ever done, was lie. To his mother when he’d promised he wouldn’t come after his father. To his friends that he wouldn’t hurt Honor. To himself that this was all for his mother. For justice.

Because it wasn’t.

It was for himself. For the shitty life he’d led. The responsibility his mother had dumped on him when she’d told him he was the child of rape. The responsibility for fixing what had been done to her, because that’s what he did. He fixed things.

Because he was so fucking angry at all the world and didn’t know how else to get rid of it all.

He lifted her leg around his waist, pulled aside her panties, and pinned her to the wall. Then he thrust deep into the molten heat of her. She gasped, her eyes going wide, never taking her gaze from his. “Yes … oh, God … yes.”

He framed his hands around her face. Her precise features flushed with heat and passion. He was shaking and he couldn’t seem to stop.

“Gabriel…” She arched against him, rocking her hips, wanting him to move.

But he didn’t want to. If he moved, this would end and he didn’t want it to end. Because he’d never find this again. She knew everything there was to know about him and despite the fact that he was tainted, that he was full of violence and rage, she still put her arms around him. Held him close. Made him feel like he was worth something.

He closed his eyes. Bent his head and turned his face into Honor’s throat. Inhaling sweetness and musk. Letting the warmth of her chase away everything he was. Then he moved because it was physically impossible not to.

She was so hot, her body giving and soft and yet so tight around him, pleasure unfurling inside him, bright and so fucking sharp it hurt.

He moved and kept on moving, deaf and blind to anything but the woman in his arms. Yes, it was painful but this was the kind of pain that he wanted, that he craved. So sweet. Purer than the cold anger, the detachment.

Better than the justice …

But he couldn’t think of that now. He couldn’t think of anything as the world began to narrow to an exquisite aching point of tension.

“Honor,” he whispered, thrusting deep one last time, feeling her shudder and gasp, her body convulsing around him as the climax roared through him, too.

Afterward he had to stand still for a long time, his heartbeat struggling to normalize. Once it had, he couldn’t bear to move. Only wanted to stay there, holding her trembling body against him.

But this was a cold, dark alley and there were people around, and if he didn’t let her go now, he never would.

Gabriel lifted his head, looked down into her face. There was a tear in the corner of one eye, sparkling like the jewels around her neck.

His heartbeat faltered.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” she said.

His heart stopped.

Everything stopped.

He shoved himself away from her, breathing fast. Something inside him shifted, a need he’d been trying to ignore for a long time, that had been growing larger and larger, a constant, desperate ache. It made him feel like he couldn’t get enough air and he couldn’t understand why.

“No,” he said flatly. “No. You can’t.”

Pain darkened her eyes. “But I do. I think I’ve been in love with you for a while now.”

“Stop fucking saying that.” He turned away from her, his hands shaking as he got rid of the condom and did his jeans up. His chest was so tight and he couldn’t breathe.

“Why?” Her voice was quiet. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Everything’s wrong with it!” Anger pulsed hot in his veins and he embraced it because it was familiar. Simple. Far simpler than the ache that leaned against his heart, that squeezed it until he felt he might break apart. “I told you what I am. All the things I’ve done. Didn’t you hear a single fucking word?”

“I heard.” The tear began to slide down her pale cheek, glittering. “And I don’t care what you’ve done. What you think you are. I know who you are already.”

The thing inside him squeezed so tight he wanted to claw it right out of his chest. “Don’t,” he said harshly. “Don’t say—”

“You’re a good man, Gabriel Woolf. Yes, you’re hard, but you’re also strong and protective. Complicated. Fascinating.”

His heartbeat thundered inside his head and he took a helpless step toward her, wanting her to shut up. To stop her saying the things he knew weren’t true. “Be quiet.”

She ignored him. “But I don’t want to watch you destroy yourself. I don’t want to see anger eat you up inside the way it’s doing right now.”

He bared his teeth in a savage kind of smile. “Did you ever think that maybe I want to destroy myself? That I might like being angry? I mean, Christ, what the fuck else do I have?”

Her gaze met his. “You have me.”

Something shattered inside him. Something he didn’t think he’d ever be able to rebuild. But he ignored the feeling. He
had
to ignore it. “Sorry, sweetheart.” He made himself say the words. “You’re not enough.”

Her mouth tightened, more pain glittering in her eyes. Yet still she didn’t look away. “Whether you believe it or not, there’s an amazing man inside you. But if you keep going down the path you’ve chosen, he’s not going to exist for too much longer.”

“I was never that man, Honor. He never fucking existed.”

The tear had left a long, silvery trail down her cheek. But her jaw was firm. Even now, when he was being a prick to her, she had so much strength. “Nothing I say is going to make any difference, is it?”

He met her gaze. Held it. “No.”

“And if I asked you to stop. If I asked you to let this go. For me. Would you?”

He didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. They both knew the answer already.

Honor looked abruptly away, the jewels on the necklace he’d given her sparkling as she swallowed. Her lashes fluttered then she stepped away from the wall, smoothing down her dress, wiping away the tear. As if it had never been. “Well, at least I know where I stand then.”

Anger coursed through him, heavy and hot and he let it burn. Because that was easier, simpler than the pain he knew was waiting for him once she had gone. “I never promised you anything different,” he said harshly. “I never wanted it.”

The look she gave him was so full of sadness, so full of grief, he had to look away from her, unable to stand it.

“I know you didn’t want it,” she said quietly. “But God help me, you needed it and I wanted to give it to you.”

A pause. The silence choking.

“Good-bye, Gabriel. I hope you find the peace you’re looking for. Wherever that is.”

Peace? He didn’t want fucking peace. That had never been in his future.

Justice. That’s what he wanted. That’s
all
he wanted.

He made himself watch as Honor walked away.

And tried to tell himself he hadn’t just lost everything.

*   *   *

“We didn’t see anything,” Eva said as Honor pulled open the car door.

Which of course meant they’d seen everything, not that it mattered now.

Nothing mattered now.

She’d laid herself out for him, opened herself completely, hoping the fact that she loved him would be enough to stop him from continuing down the path he’d set himself on. But, of course, it wasn’t.

She hadn’t been enough to stop her father from taking his own life or to pull her mother out of her depression. Hadn’t been enough to make Alex stay. Why on earth had she expected she’d be enough to save Gabriel?

“Would you like me to kill him for you?” Zac said, his smooth English voice perfectly pleasant, as if asking if she’d like a cup of tea. “Because I can. It would be no trouble.”

“No, thank you,” Honor said, sliding into the backseat, pulling the door closed behind her. “He’s doing a good enough job on his own.”

In the rearview mirror she saw Eva’s gray eyes watching her.

She had no idea what the other woman saw in her face, but it must have been bad because Eva’s concern was obvious.

Honor folded her hands in her lap, quelled the trembling in her legs. Ignored the empty, hollow space where her heart should have been, now full of jagged shards of broken glass.

It had hurt more than she’d thought possible to walk away from him, yet the moment he’d refused to give up his quest for vengeance she’d known she had to. Because she knew an addict when she saw one. Gabriel was addicted to his quest and he wasn’t going to let anyone get in his way.

Perhaps another woman would have stayed, would have stuck by him no matter what choices he made. But she wasn’t that woman. She’d seen too many people she cared about destroy themselves to stand by and watch, and she certainly wasn’t going to feed his addiction by encouraging him.

She’d had no idea where the strength to leave him had come from, but she hoped it would stick around in the weeks and months to come. Because going cold turkey on Gabriel Woolf was going to be a bitch.

“I’d like you to take me home now, please,” she said.

As the car pulled away, she didn’t look back.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Gabriel leaned his elbows on the parapet of Central Park’s Bow Bridge, staring down at the ice-covered lake beneath it. Snow was still falling and for the first time in years, he actually felt cold.

Yet the creeping chill had nothing to do with the snow settling on his arms, stark white against the leather of his jacket.

The color of Honor’s face before she walked away. Before she left him.

He took a breath. Why the fuck was he thinking about her? She was gone. He’d sent her away. The only thing he should be thinking about now was meeting Tremain. Finally finding out the name of this father.

Christ, what the hell was wrong with him?

A wave of restless energy went through him and he pushed himself away from the parapet, pacing down the bridge.

He hadn’t slept since he’d gotten home the night before and arrived at his apartment to find it empty, Honor gone. He’d expected it and yet, he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of going into his empty bedroom. So he’d paced through his apartment all night, going over and over what Tremain had told him. That he wasn’t his father. That it was some other man.

And Honor walking away from him.

Getting Tremain’s text with a meeting time and a place had been a blessed relief.

Soon he’d know. Soon he’d know everything and once he did, he’d be able to start putting more plans into place.