Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels (35 page)

A sound drew his gaze to the doorway where Gabrielle stood, her blue eyes concerned but her stance wary.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation.”

He was tempted to look away, but he was through hiding from difficult things in life. “I need a different lawyer, but I really shouldn’t change right now.”

“Because he’s your brother’s friend?”

“Yeah.” He should have known she’d get right to the point. Her intelligence was one of the things he liked about her. “They don’t see me for who I really am, but as their friend’s little brother who needs to be taken care of. Do you understand?”

Her blue eyes darkened with some deep emotion. “Yes, I understand.”

• • •

Gabrielle left Christian to sleep, or whatever else he planned to do and escaped to the living room, away from the darkness that had taken over his spirit. She wanted to give him comfort and ease his burdens. But that way lay hurt, for if she gave him her strength, she knew she’d also give her heart. She yearned to be yin to his yang. Each time they touched, she felt the possibility of completeness, to interlock together as one. But she was afraid, and the fear kept her from reaching out.

When her cell phone rang, she almost welcomed the interruption of her painful thoughts. But when caller ID showed her boss’s number, she didn’t want to answer.

“Hi, Cal.”

“Gabrielle, what the hell are you doing?”

She tried playing dumb. “What do you mean?”

“You know damn well. I saw you on the news with Ziko. I specifically told you to stay away from him. He’s guilty. You need to close your case file and move on to the next case.”

“Cal, I’m investigating some new evidence … ”

“Not if it lets Ziko off the hook. Michigan Casualty needs not to pay on this claim. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. But Cal, this evidence benefits Michigan Casualty.”

There was a pause, and then he demanded. “What is it?”

If she told him the truth and he decided it wasn’t worth the risk, he could shut her down. But she told him everything.

“It sounds like a police investigation to me,” he said.

“I normally run a concurrent investigation, you know that. I want to tell Michigan Casualty’s clients exactly who owes them money, but whether that’s Barrett and Ziko or a jealous competitor, I don’t know at this time. We owe our clients the truth, Cal.”

“Yes, and if there are two culprits, that’s even better. Fine, you have forty-eight hours.”

“But that’s not enough time.” Christian wouldn’t be mobile for the first twenty-four, but she wouldn’t tell Cal that.

“If you need more time than that, then you’re not the right person for my job.”

What could she respond to that? Nothing. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will.” He disconnected the call without saying good-bye.

Gabrielle wanted to scream her frustration. Now she had to make a determination of guilt from among numerous suspects, do it in forty-eight hours, to Cal’s satisfaction, and half that time she’d be stuck at Christian’s house watching over the invalid. And he didn’t even have food or diet soda in the house.

• • •

When Gabrielle prodded Christian partially awake during the night, he pulled her down onto his bare chest. As he fumbled with her PJs, trying to bare her, she pushed at his chest to get him to release her. She couldn’t let the inevitable happen.

“Stay with me. Please.” His words were slightly slurred from the pain meds, his pupils dilated, but need dripped from every syllable.

Gabrielle had to swallow her own need before she could reply. “That’s not a good idea, Christian.”

“The bed’s big enough. I need you.”

She sighed. She couldn’t fight both of them. “All right.”

Later, she didn’t know who started it, her or him, but it began with a touch. Just one touch. She thought she was having another hot, erotic dream about him. In it, he lifted her short PJ top, or maybe she did. He pulled her down until her breasts touched his bare chest. The electric contact made her suck in her breath. So did he. Then she knew this wasn’t a dream. In her head, the vision of her and Christian making love continued, but in reality, it was just beginning. She rubbed her breasts up and down his chest, until her nipples stood out with excitement.

Christian gripped her butt and pulled her fully onto him. Then he yanked her PJ shorts down to mid-thigh. Next, he pulled down his own shorts.

“Christian … ” Her protest was weak. The warmth of his genitals against hers felt so good. The vee of her thighs rubbed up and down on his hardened cock, making him groan against her lips, making her wet between her legs.

“I like feeling you against me,” he said.

He kissed her. It was a hungry kiss, on both their parts. As she continued to rub herself against him, he shifted, or she did, and his cock slid between her legs. They were flesh to flesh from chest to mid-thigh. Her sigh of relief echoed his. He was where he belonged. They fit together like two puzzle pieces. Well, almost. He wrapped his arms tightly around her back.

Gabrielle purred her pleasure. They rocked together, not just his cock against her cleft but their entire bodies. She’d never felt so complete, so in tune with the man in his arms. She felt electrified.

Gabrielle pressed her nose into the hollow of his throat and kissed his neck. He nuzzled her temple, his breath warm against her face.

“Am I inside you?” he asked, nuzzling her ear.

“No.” He was sharing her vision again. She fought down her feelings of unease and turned to kiss his lips.

The echo of the vision continued, arousing her doubly. The real Christian moved his body urgently against hers, while his dream body moved strongly inside her.

And then one of them shifted again, and suddenly he pushed his fullness inside her body. Gabrielle stiffened, groaning, as she stretched to accommodate him. The sense of coming home was so strong, she knew she would not deny either of them this joining.

“Wait, Christian. We need a condom.”

“I’m clean. Are you?”

“Yes, but I’m not on the pill.”

“Nightstand drawer.” Their vision selves were thrusting faster. Christian thrust into Gabrielle. “Hurry.”

As she reached for the nightstand, he moved with her. He thrust upwards and deep as she leaned forward to grab a condom from the drawer. She groaned, her outstretched hand frozen in air as excited tingles ran through her loins. Clutching the condom, she sank onto him and they both groaned. She rested her forehead gently against his.

“I’m not sure we should do this.” It was getting hard to think while Christian of the vision thrust into her. That couple’s desperation to be complete was becoming her own.

“Gabrielle, I need you.” His voice dripped need.

Her sigh gusted across his face. “I need you, too.”

She lifted off of him. He grabbed for her, but she turned with the condom in her hand. He stroked her breast and the already tight nipple beaded further. He took the nub between his thumb and forefinger and rotated it. Pleasure shot straight to her lower body. Gabrielle moaned.

So did he when she smoothed the condom on him. She cupped his balls, massaging them with her thumbs. The couple in her mind were mating with frantic need.

“Gabrielle.”

She shimmied out of her PJs and mounted him. Their groans were a sedate echo to what she heard in her mind. But as soon as they began to move, their rhythm began to try to sync with the other couple’s.

Her body moved naturally with his. There was no hesitation, as though they’d been lovers for years. Yet the frantic sensation grew stronger, not weaker. She had to become one with him.

His body fit inside hers perfectly, filling her up with intimate stretching. His gasps and sighs as she sank on him and lifted once again were music to her ears. The heat of their joining burned through her loins, branding her, branding him.

“Christian … ”

“My name is Kit.”

“Kit. Call me Gaby.”

“I like Gabrielle better.”

So did she, the way he said it. She sucked in her breath. “Help me go faster.”

Christian grabbed her hips and moved her up and down on him. She got wetter the faster his cock slid in and out. Their pace was almost equal to the vision couple.

And then there was only one pace, and vision became reality. Gabrielle was stunned by the beauty of their loving, by the wonder of having Christian inside her. He held the key to something she hadn’t known was missing. She sought it in him as he plumbed her depths. The strength of her orgasm caught her by surprise, and she cried out, grinding her body into his as she milked him.

But Christian grabbed her hips and rolled until she was under him. He pounded into her body with a desperate need. She arched her hips to his with a sharp cry as a second orgasm seized her.

And then they were catapulted into the oneness she sought. She grabbed after it, as he grasped her tight and emptied his passion into her. They flew together, one soul.

But the flight was all too brief. They settled to earth in a gasping, panting pile.

“That was more than I ever imagined making love could be.” He sounded slightly out of breath.

“Yes.” She’d sensed it was possible with him.

“The dream is gone.”

She didn’t know how to talk to him about the vision he’d experienced. “Christian … ”

“Kit.”

“Kit, you see it, too?”

“Yeah. You sound surprised.”

“I’ve never shared a vision with anyone before.” Why this man?

“We’re different. Don’t you feel it when we’re together?”

“I don’t know what I feel.” It was too much to take in while aftershocks trembled through her lower body.

He nuzzled her face. “Don’t think so much. This is too new to analyze. We have to face the world soon enough. For these moments, can’t we make love again and enjoy each other?”

She cupped his face in her hands and turned it until she could see him in the weak light from the living room. She thought she saw a reflection of what she was feeling, of everything they’d experienced in the past frantic moments. She wasn’t the only one who’d felt the oneness. Already, another vision of them making love began. What was to happen between them was fated.

She nodded. “We’ll need another condom.”

“We have all we need.”

As dawn lightened Christian’s bedroom, Gabrielle slipped from his arms, careful not to wake him. She showered, washing off the evidence of his multiple possessions. She needed this time alone to face what she’d done.

She’d slept with Christian Ziko. No, that was too mild a description. They’d mated with ferocious need, they’d ravaged one another with a hunger that wouldn’t be slaked. Her tender breasts and aching vagina were testimony to his passion.

The visions had continued as she and Christian made love. She thought they might be the reason they had made love three times. It troubled her that he shared her psychic vision.

Why had she agreed to make love with him? She’d tried not to become close to Christian, tried to hold off from becoming intimate. Now, she felt a connection to him. She’d sensed it was possible, but now she was afraid they’d forged a bond impossible to break. And that frightened her more than anything.

“Gabrielle?”

She jerked, startled. Christian stood outside the glass doors, leaning on the wall.

“I’ll be right out.”

The shower door slid open. “Don’t bother.”

She tried to avoid his touch, but it was impossible in the small shower. As soon as he touched her, the vision began again, and she knew she was lost. His cock was hard and full once more. She didn’t know how he was able after all they’d done already, and pain medicine and a concussion on top of it. But she didn’t fight it as he turned her to face the wall.

His warm flesh pressed against her buttocks, and the slick head of his cock probed between her legs as his strong arms slid around her. He thrust inside her.

Gabrielle was helpless against him, against the visions that predicted each coupling with him. It was meant to be. So she moved with him, feeling the connection soul deep.

• • •

Christian’s headache was a steady but bearable throb, his nausea non-existent that morning. They had a full schedule of investigating ahead of them. Their first stop would be the automotive repair shop in Highland Park, where his Jeep had been towed, to retrieve the handwriting samples.

As they surveyed the reporters from his front window, he realized there was no x-rated scene playing like a movie inside his head. There’d been no vision when he’d woken alone, either. But each time he and Gabrielle touched, erotic images filled his mind.

He remembered what she’d said. “Last night, you asked me if I could see the vision, too. What did you mean?”

Gabrielle released the window curtain, the car keys clutched in her hand so hard the tendons stood out. She looked wary. She swallowed but didn’t respond.

Christian got a bad feeling in his gut, and it wasn’t from concussion hangover. What did they call people who saw things when they touched people? He couldn’t remember the technical term, but he did know something.

“You’re psychic?” he asked.

Gabrielle flinched. Color slowly leached from her face, leaving her eyes as pain-filled blue orbs. “Yes. We need to go. Don’t say anything to the press.”

As soon as she opened the front door, several reporters ran toward them. Gabrielle and Christian walked through the barrage of questions without saying a word. She unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel, her movements stiff, as though she was angry.

She didn’t want to admit the truth to him. It hurt, the lack of trust, coming so soon after their soul-shattering intimacy.

Christian climbed into the passenger side, angry because he knew he shouldn’t drive today. He was cut off from full independence when he had important work to take care of. And he was dependent on Gabrielle when he’d just learned she kept secrets from him.

He waited until they’d reached the main road before he asked. “Tell me the truth. I deserve to know.”

“I’m what’s called a touch clairvoyant.”