Unexpected Love (Timid Souls Book 3) (4 page)

I couldn’t wait to finally feel settled somewhere.

It would be a welcome transition.

I cooked us a healthy dinner of grilled chicken and asparagus, rice, baby carrots, and fruit for dessert. And because she’d been a good girl and had eaten all of her vegetables, I let Penny have a Popsicle afterwards.
Take that, Vanessa.

I worked on the living room couch while Penny watched
Minions
for the twelve thousandth time this month, but I didn’t mind. Her constant giggles throughout the whole movie were music to my ears, so she could watch it as much as her little heart desired if I got to see that happy smile on her face.

Our bedtime ritual went the same as always with giving her a bath, combing her hair and brushing her teeth, followed by her attempts to prolong having to actually go to bed like most children her age often did.

“Read me a story, Daddy. Please?”

Yeah, she had me wrapped around her little finger and she knew it. But I still set boundaries and established rules, despite what Vanessa wanted to believe.

“Okay, but just one and then you have to go to sleep.”

She nodded her agreement and lay back in bed with an excited smile on her face. She looked like both me and Vanessa. She had her mother’s jet black hair but my nose and hazel eyes. She was my little angel.

“Which one do you want me to read?”

She looked down at her nightstand where her favorite books were kept and pointed to the one I read pretty much every other night. “That one.”

Halfway into the story, she was passed out and I was tiptoeing out of the room so as not to wake her, ensuring that her nightlight was on and shining brightly before I left. It didn’t take me long to fall asleep that night either, with thoughts of a sexy little blonde with blue eyes and a sweetheart face swirling around in my head.

After I dropped off Penny at school the next morning, I decided that I would take a few more boxes over to the new house before work. I figured moving might be a little less stressful if I took over a little at a time.

I parked in the side driveway instead of in front of the garage because it was closer to the back door which was right beside my office. I dropped the boxes on the floor and took in the disorganized mess of the room. Boxes were scattered everywhere and stacks of files were strewn about. I decided not to even touch it until I had more patience and was about to walk back out the door when I heard noises coming from the dining room area.

The only person who had a key and had permission to be here when I wasn’t was Felicity and my heart jumped at the possibility that it was her. That I was going to see her after days of having nothing but the memory of our afternoon together to satisfy me. I wasn’t disappointed when I entered the dining room and saw her crouched down underneath the table, her ass pointing right up at me.

She was in a pencil skirt.

And it molded perfectly to that ass of hers.

Damn.

“Felicity?”

##

Felicity

I jumped at the sound of his voice and hit my head on the underside of the table.
Great.
Now I looked like an idiot in front of him. I scrambled out from underneath it and quickly stood up to face him, brushing off my clothes in the process. I probably looked flustered and nervous in his presence, but it was only because I was.

“Hi, Gabe. I didn’t realize you would be here.”

I could feel the tension thickening between us and I wasn’t sure if it was out of uncertainty or lust. On my end at least, I knew exactly what was making my fingers itch to reach out and rip that suit off his body.

“I was just dropping off a few more boxes for the office,” he said and looked around the room with an appraising eye. “Everything okay?”

I nodded, avoiding eye contact with him. I wasn’t sure what standard protocol dictated in this situation. Whenever you had your first encounter with a guy after you’d screwed him once rough and hard on a bathroom sink.

“Yeah. They delivered the wrong rug in here and I was just replacin’ it with the right one,” I told him. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on work today if I didn’t fix it.” I laughed at myself which made him laugh in turn, easing a little bit of that tension in the air.

“Do you need any help?” he asked.

I shook my head as I took stock of the room, figuring out how I was going to make my exit. “No, I’m done. I was actually gettin’ ready to leave. Thanks, though.”

I couldn’t help it, I had to look up at him. I had to have those hazel eyes locked on mine for just a second before I left him.

That was a mistake.

As soon as I did, I was pinned in his gaze, mesmerized by the way his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared as he looked me up and down. I actually became breathless at seeing the lust on his face, the intent in his eyes, that desire I knew he was trying to contain.

“Enough of this,” he blurted out.

Then he was on me.

Mouth fused to mine, lips sealed against mine, tongue exploring with purpose. Having his mouth back on me was sweet relief and our resounding moans were proof of it. His hands were on my shoulders as he backed me up to the dining table and pushed me down until I was spread out on it. He looked down at me with hooded eyes, the look of a man who had his woman right where he wanted her. He pursed his lips as he ran his hand down the length of my body, briefly stopping to knead each breast before he lowered it to the hem of my skirt, pushing it up my thighs.

“Once wasn’t enough, Felicity,” he whispered as he watched the material slide up my legs.

I lifted my hips so he could get it up to my waist, my eyes tracking his expression when he took in the black silk underwear I had on. He cupped my mound with his large hand. “I need more of this.”

My hand covered his as I guided it past the waistband of my panties until his fingers grazed the soft flesh of my sex. Our eyes didn’t stray from one another as we rubbed my folds together. “I’m not stoppin’ you,” I said in a low voice.

Using his other hand, he pulled my blouse free of my skirt and began to push it up my chest until my bra was exposed to him. “No, you sure as hell aren’t. Because you need this too, don’t you?”

He yanked one cup down and took my breast into his mouth for the first time, licking and sucking on the nipple until he was satisfied and then he moved to the next one. Every time he got a reaction out of me that he was pleased with, he would moan deeply, sending tingles throughout my body and causing goosebumps to cover my skin.

“We both know what we like and you can handle what I have to give you,” he said, laying kisses on my chest, moving upward to my neck and jawline. “You need me to be rough. Don’t you, Felicity? You don’t want slow and gentle. You want to be fucked. Right, baby?”

“
Yes
.” I needed him to do that before my insides imploded. “Yes, yes, yes.”

Our mouths met in another frenzy, another battle for domination. I was more than happy to give him that control but it was this game of back-and-forth that made it fun. He made quick work of his pants and was soon hovering at my entrance. He entered me without pause and it sent a jolt of arousal through me, stealing all my oxygen from me for a few indescribable seconds.

When he started moving, it wasn’t long before our movements became frantic, our bodies chasing our climaxes so desperately that everything else around us faded into the background. Nothing was as important or as necessary as our impending pleasure in those moments. But even with my legs wrapped around his waist, the angle wasn’t doing it for me, wasn’t allowing him to go deep enough.

I unwound my legs and brought them up to rest on his shoulders, the new position immediately making a difference as Gabe sunk further into me, penetrating me deeper.

“Have I ever told you that I’m a former gymnast?” I asked as I pulled his body closer to mine, pushing my legs back to the point that my heels were practically touching the table above my head. I was once again bent in half, my body contorted like a pretzel.

His forehead scrunched and he picked up his pace inside of me. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I smirked, my confidence building. “Oh, yeah. I can show you positions you’ve probably never even thought of before.” I pulled him even closer, pushing my legs back farther, and my grin spread when he muttered “no fucking way” under his breath.

He dropped his head, his arm muscles straining as he fought to keep himself propped up above me. “Shit, you’re going to kill me, woman.” I could feel him grow harder inside me and knew that comment had just about pushed him over the edge.

I leaned up and brought my face inches from his, making his eyes snap open, fire lighting in his. “I can give it to you hard too, ya know,” I said. “I’ve got pretty strong legs. I could go for a long, long time and all you’d have to do would be to lay there and watch.”

“
Fuck me
.”

He let go out of nowhere, releasing inside me with a thunderous roar. The fierceness of his voice and the intensity of his body’s pleasure set me off to achieve my own powerful orgasm. My nails scraped along his shoulders as I fought to not scream at the top of my lungs. I couldn’t even comprehend what had just happened for several seconds after Gabe collapsed on top of me. We both seemed content to just lay there on the table, allowing our heavy breathing to fill the otherwise silent void.

Then, just like last time, reality slowly came back into focus.

He shifted his body and gently eased out of me, making me already miss his proximity. Neither one of us said anything as we dressed and my apprehension built. Thankfully, he decided to take mercy on both of us and address what just happened.

He ran his hand through his hair as if to straighten it but I recognized it as a nervous gesture. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here.” He was looking at me like a man who had zero answers and I was sure that my expression mirrored his. “All I do know is that I can’t seem to control myself around you.”

So don’t.

He sighed and continued before I had a chance to come up with a response. “I don’t want to make any promises to you right now—”

I held up my hand. “I’m not askin’ you to. I don’t expect that.”

His face turned serious. “I don’t want you to think I’m using you.” I shook my head in protest but he went on. “I like you, Felicity. I really do. It’s just…with Penny and everything that’s going on, I don’t know if I can commit to anything right now.”

I offered him a comforting smile, trying to reassure him. “Why don’t we just take things slow for now? We don’t have to talk commitments or anything serious, okay? We’re havin’ fun, right?” The corners of his mouth quirked up in a grin and he gave a small nod. “So, let’s just leave it at that until it stops workin’ for us.”

It probably wasn’t the best plan in the world, but it was the only one I could come up with to ease both of our anxieties. The truth was I didn’t want to stop whatever it was we were doing. And if he didn’t want to take the next step, I was fine with staying where we were.
For now.

Sure, I had developed feelings for him a long time ago, but it wasn’t like he needed to know that right away.

This time when he smiled, he flashed all of his teeth and I breathed a sigh of relief. “I think I can do that,” he replied.

##

I had made it sound so easy, the whole “staying where we were at” thing with Gabe.

The problem with that was that the only times we were ever around each other on purpose was for work, meaning at his house or at my office. And now that his house was pretty much completed, there weren’t a lot of reasons for us to have regular conversations or meetings. Meaning, there weren’t frequent calls or texts. Nothing to sate my need to be around him or at least hear his voice.

It really sucked.

I hadn’t thought about the fact that us working together was about to come to an end when I had said that to him and he probably hadn’t either. I wanted to contact him so badly, but the last thing I needed was to make him think that I had changed my mind and did want that commitment from him.

That was the quickest way to lose a man you were trying to reel in.

I had even added an extra hour to my evening yoga ritual every night, in addition to my morning sessions, to distract myself from my urge to chase Gabe down. So far, they hadn’t done jack to tamp down my lust.

The doorbell of our townhouse rang and I went to answer it since Bea was still in the shower. Our friend Gwen’s gorgeous smiling face greeted me in a flash of long blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

“Hey, hon,” I said as she stepped forward to give me a hug.

“Hey, girl,” she said and I closed the door behind her. “How are you?”

Sad and pathetic because I want Gabe and can’t have him.

“Peachy. Whatcha got there?” I asked, looking down at the two bottles of wine in her hands.

She held them up with a big grin. “Figured Bea would appreciate this. Clay and I went wine tasting last weekend and found the cutest little winery in West Virginia. This stuff is pretty potent.”

I chuckled and took one bottle from her, reading the label. It was one I had never heard of before. “You sure you didn’t purchase moonshine instead? Those West Virginia boys know how to brew some strong stuff.”

She giggled and headed for the kitchen. “No, it’s definitely wine but it’ll get you good and tipsy. Clay and I found that out pretty quickly.”

As she collected the wine glasses and bottle opener, I took a moment to appreciate the progress our friend had made over the past several months. She had been in a pretty bad relationship with her ex-fiancé William Callahan, until last summer when she met Clay Masterson during the mayoral election campaign when William was running against Clay. She and Clay had become close during that time, fell in love, and William hadn’t appreciated it. Needless to say, he went psycho when she left him for Clay and he attacked her. Thank God Clay had intervened when he had because I didn’t want to even think about what could have happened.

Now, William was in prison for attempted murder and some other charges, Clay was Mayor of Washington, D.C., and she and Clay were living out their happily ever after. Gwen hadn’t had an easy way of it, that was for sure, but she was doing so well now and I couldn’t have been happier for her.

“How’s the foundation doin’?” I asked.

She and Clay had started the One Heart One Hand Foundation that assisted homeless and other impoverished individuals, including underprivileged youth, get on their feet. They offered job training and placement programs for adults, as well as financial advisement, in addition to various programs for the youth, such as reading comprehension classes and other educational seminars.

“It’s going great.” Her voice was so animated when she spoke of the foundation; you could tell it was her passion. “We just got the funding approved to build that new youth center over on 16
th
Street.”

“Congratulations!” I wrapped her up in a hug. I knew she had been worried about that funding not going through. “That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks,” she said and took a sip of her wine. “That’s another reason I brought the wine over. So we could celebrate. Or at least so I could.”

“Pssh. You know Bea never needs a reason to celebrate.”

“What are you mouthin’ about, little one?” my big sister asked as she entered the kitchen, her wet hair tied up in a knot on top of her head.

“I never mouth,” I said and squeezed past her before she could attempt to tackle me and get at my feet. It was her one form of torture against me. She knew I absolutely hated having my feet tickled, so that was her go-to whenever she was annoyed with me. “Come on. It’s almost nine.”

It was Saturday night, which was when the three of us gathered around our television for our weekly viewing session of
Outlander
on
Starz.
We had all read and loved the book series by Diana Gabaldon, but we were also ridiculously obsessed with Sam Heughan. The man was a Scottish god and could model a kilt just as well as he could a pair of Calvin Klein underwear.