Twisted Summer (8 page)

Gabe was evidently friendly with the young girl on the till desk, and I left him chatting rubbish with her while I sidled off to make the call. Esmé answered in gasping breaths.

“Hold on, chick. I’m out running. Let me get to the end of the road.”

I listened to her breath slow—not an unfamiliar sound, heh—and counted the thumps as she pounded the pavement.

“So,” she said, “how’s it going?”

“It’s not too bad,” I lied. “Did you see Dexter’s Noose last night?”

“I took Carla. Not like that, before you say anything. Just needed someone to go with.”

Carla was in her Biology class and was the designated sixth form lesbian. She was on to me and Esmé before anybody else.

“I forgive you,” I said dryly. “Were they good? Tell me they were crap to make me feel better.”

“What? Sacrilege! You know I can’t say that about Mattman and his merry band of rock gods.”

“Bitch.” I giggled. “Miss me then?”

Her voice dropped to a coy whisper. “You know I do. Tomorrow night, my parents are out until nine.”

“Oh. Mmm.” I bit my lip. “Listen, baby, I have to go. We’re out at some farm shop in the middle of God-knows and I need to locate some choc before I combust. I’ll text you when I’m on the way home, okay?”

“Okay.” She sighed. “You better. Love you, pixie.”

“Love you too.” The words were all dry and I coughed when I hung up.

Back in the shop, Gabe had already loaded the basket with bread, cheese and apples. I nudged the four-pack of pear cider with an arched eyebrow.

“
You’re not getting me all drunk and
relaxed
again.”

He grinned. “It’s for me. You don’t have to drink it unless you want to.”

There’s a lot I don’t have to do unless I bloody want to, but that’s not the problem!

“Can we get dark chocolate?” I said.

“In need of a fix?”

“Something like that.”

“It’s by the till.” He nodded back toward the freckled girl he’d been chatting with. “Knock yourself out.”

They had a surprisingly good selection: Divine Fair Trade, Green and Black’s. Some local stuff dappled with walnuts and dried cranberries which looked especially yummy.

I held the bar up at the check-out girl. “Excuse me. D’you know if this is organic?”

She squinted at it. “Not that one, I think. The Green and Black’s is, though.” She smiled shyly, nudging the bar in my hands. “I didn’t know Gabe had a girlfriend.”

“Oh.” I froze. What had he told her? Was she just assuming? Crap. “We’re, um…”

“Have you chosen?” Gabe came up behind me in the nick of time. “Get a couple if you like.”

“One’s fine.” I tossed a bar of butterscotch into the basket and ducked my gaze away from the girl’s. I don’t know what was worse—that I wanted to say he was my boyfriend, or that she seemed to think he was when he was my not-uncle. Shit.

Then Gabe stroked the small of my back absent-mindedly as he paid, and I didn’t push him off. I just went slowly beetroot as my thoughts drifted away from my girlfriend, away from the law…and to the boy parts that had driven me to distraction just twelve hours earlier.

I drummed my fingers on the dashboard of the car. “Gabe?”

“Hmm?” He put his sunglasses back on and started the ignition.

“Did you tell the shopkeeper I was your girlfriend?”

A beat. He swallowed. “I said you were with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“She asked if you were with me, and I said yes. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but then…I wasn’t sure what I meant, either.” He cleared his throat. “Let’s hope you never go in with your mother, eh?”

“But why didn’t you just say that I’m your niece?”

He swallowed again, eyeing me in the mirror. “Because you’re not
just
my niece, are you?”

“I thought we were keeping it secret.” My palms began to sweat; he was staking claim on me in public. This was crazy talk. “Whatever I am…it’s only until tomorrow.”

That filthy grin twitched at his lips. “I thought you wanted us to be normal?”

“I…” Argh! He was incorrigible. “I hate you,” I muttered.

We drove home in silence. He didn’t even put the radio back on. I loitered in the car as he took the bags in, and when I refused to come out, he left the keys on top of the Range Rover with a shrug and an unintentionally sexy pout.

I folded my arms against the dash and banged my head on them.

One
, you’re a perverted bitch, Danni Warren.

Two
, you’re a cheating cretin.

Three
, you have no self-control. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Four, five, six
…what the fuck are you going to do?

Well. There was one thing.

I snuck back into the cabin with slumped shoulders. Gabe was in either the bathroom or the bedroom; either way, it was enough time to take a pear cider from the fridge and crack off the top. It was still lukewarm as it hit my throat, but the sugar and the fizz were delicious and it didn’t take long to neck the whole thing. I got a bit lost in the act of swallowing without dribbling and when a pair of strong hands touched my hips from behind, I nearly dropped the bottle.

Gabe rubbed up along my ribcage until he was cupping my breast. His fingers teased gently. “Do you hate me now?” he said.

I didn’t answer.

He lifted my ponytail and blew along the path of my neck, warming the air-cooled trail with his tongue. “Now? Now, do you hate me?”

I put the empty bottle on the counter but I still couldn’t speak. I never wanted him to stop touching me.

Gabe turned me and stroked the hair from my face. His kiss was soft at first—he had a pale bruise where I’d bitten him—but I soon let him deepen it, whimpering into his mouth.

“What about now?” he whispered.

“
I don’t hate you. I just…I…” Another kiss. He licked the cider from the lithe little tendon under my tongue. “I hate that we’re
wrong
.”

“I know. I know.”

“My Mum would butcher you. She’d—”

“I don’t care, Danni.”

“You should.” I snorted. “She’s vicious.”

“She’s also not here.”

“Huh.” I cocked my head. “This is true.”

He nuzzled into my neck. “She’s not at the beach, either.”

“We’re taking a little walk…?”

He patted my bottom. “We’re taking a walk.”

I’d barely reached for my shoes when he came up behind me and pawed beneath my dress. He found my knicker hem and pulled on it, stroking me as he eased them down.

“I want you without these,” he said mischievously.

I blushed as I buckled my sandals; half from the alcohol and then, well…I’d never gone commando before. I wasn’t wearing a bra either, but I always guessed from all the vitriolic comments from middle-aged comediennes that I should make the most of getting away with it.

“I won’t ask why.”

“I’ll bet you can guess, though.” He spanked me lightly as I got to my feet. “After you, gorgeous.”

We walked down to the beach with knotted fingers, enjoying the cloying heat of the afternoon. Gabe held my skirt down when the breeze threatened to expose me and he brought my knuckles up for kisses every few moments, as if he couldn’t get his fill of them.

I felt naughty enough the first time I held hands in public with Esmé; this was something else.

We left our shoes by the rotten old beach gate and Gabe led me to a rocky corner set into the shade of the cliff. The rocks there were large with flat, smooth surfaces; perfect for sitting on. I kissed him passionately when he scooped me into his lap.

“Somebody will see us,” I said, glancing about at the little stretch of sand. “If they’re walking on the ledge over there—”

“Baby.” He tucked my skirt down. “They won’t know. And do you care…?”

I shifted against the bulge that nudged between my thighs so enthusiastically. God, no…I really didn’t. Not anymore.

“I feel like I’m in one of those daytime soaps,” I confessed.

“Illicit trysts by the ocean,” he mumbled into my collarbone. “Oh no, we shouldn’t! We mustn’t!”

“We can’t!” I giggled.

“
This forbidden lo—
lust
shit is TV crack, isn’t it?”

I tried so hard not to pause at his slip. Failed miserably. So I sat back and stroked the wind-ruffled hair from his face. “Yeah. I’m starting to get that now.”

His hand crept up along the inside of my thigh, higher and higher until he plucked waves of pleasure in my pelvis like notes on a harp. Shameless, I closed my eyes, took deep lungfuls of sea air and basked in the sunshine that spilled across my shoulders, all the while rocking myself harder into his palm. I liked this position, this in-the-lap-of-a-gorgeous-man thing. If I wasn’t about to come apart on his fingers, I’d have swished my arm in the air like a cowgirl and said something smug and embarrassing. Like a boss!

“You,” he said over the breeze, “are so wonderfully inappropriate.”

Oh, Jesus H. Christ. Tell me I didn’t say that out loud.

“Don’t look so terrified.” He grinned.

Then I felt the stretch of his second finger, all damp and warm from my sticky skin, and forgot about everything. Everything. All I wanted was the feel of him inside me properly, to have him take me like he did the previous night.

“Don’t rush.” His voice was muffled by the crash of the tide. “Don’t want you to be sore.”

“I…I won’t.” I wanted to savor every second; in a few hours, I’d never be able to have him again.

My muscles complained at his intrusion. It seemed I was still at least half a virgin (how the hell was that possible?) because while his entry was quicker than the first, it still stung in the same sharp way. I lowered myself slowly, wincing, and then—
oh
. There it was.

“Good girl.” He clutched my skirt to the cheeks of my ass. “That’s it.”

How was this gorgeous fullness so familiar already? I’d only had him once before, but that orgasm already echoed as if it lingered solely to be awakened by Gabe. Clever boy.

I sucked a welt at the base of his neck. “There’s nobody up there, is there?” I was facing the cliff; he had the view out.

“No. We’re all alone.” His teeth grazed my jaw. “Do that harder for me…ah.”

The sour salt of the sea filled my nostrils, and he was welcome sweetness in his proximity—his heat, his sweat, the static friction of my sundress against his T-shirt and the pain-pleasure chafe of my bare thighs on his cord shorts. He pressed the heel of his hand up now and I crushed my clit on it as I fell down faster. Harder. Faster.

“Gabe…Gabriel…I…” I whimpered into his kiss. “Make me come.”

His silver-gray eyes flashed at the challenge. The fist that held my skirt in the breeze stroked up to squeeze my hip, and he undulated into me, forcing his last inch. I bit his earlobe to keep from moaning too loud, but the moment would come soon when I’d break and he’d bruise. Again.

I should have cared that he had me half naked in public, but I was so close and he felt
so
good. The shop girl’s words kept echoed over and over—
I didn’t know Gabe had a girlfriend
—and the sweet throb of the alcohol had turned dull at my temples.

“Danni?”

I yelped against his neck. It was all I could manage.

“
Danni, I need to—don’t—
ah
.”

It may be that he said things after that; I just didn’t hear him. I rode into spasm after spasm, never tiring of pleasing myself; judging by the loud curses, he was peaking too. He finished with his face pushed into my breasts and my fingers drawing patterns in his hair.

“I like nasty hell,” he mumbled, exhausted. “It’s…bouncy.”

“My thighs are killing me.”

“Serves you right for being so greedy.” He grinned through our kiss. “Want me to carry you home? I’ll throw you over my shoulder.”

“Mmm…I wouldn’t say no.”

He did try. We got half way up the beach path before he got tired of my shrieking laugher and plonked me back on the floor, muttering about excitable teenagers. I loved that he was strong enough to haul me about like that, though; I felt safe in this visceral, primal way.

We showered off the sand together in his tiny bathroom. There was barely space to move in the cubicle but we worked up a lather in the squash of limbs. I stroked coconut shower gel over his pecs and watched the bubbles drop down to coat each streak of muscle.

The barbecue was set up for dinner and we chargrilled a steak big enough for about four people. Gabe showed me how to cook it by demonstrating how it should feel on the different parts of my hand, and it ended with him biting at my fingers, kissing his way up my arm. There in the garden, turning the coals beneath the grill and wrapped in my gorgeous man, I was starting to see what he meant about the sun. About being connected.