The Lawgivers: Gabriel (26 page)

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It was the languid heat of passion that
dragged Lexa up from the depths of sleep. She resisted briefly,
trying to hug the threads of sleep tightly enough to submerge
herself in nothingness again. Even as she struggled back toward the
depths, however, her mind sent out feelers to determine the source
of the burgeoning pleasure/discomfort.

There was a hot mouth attached to one
of her breasts, pulling at it and sending spirals of pleasurable
heat through her and the binding she used on her breasts was wedged
beneath one of them causing the discomfort. Since Gabriel was the
only man that had ever given her pleasure with his touch it didn’t
take more than a handful of moments to connect the dots. Confusion
still wafted through her.

Hadn’t he changed his mind about
fucking?

It seemed to her that he had, but as
she roused a little further, she verified that it was definitely
Gabriel and if the hand wedged between her belly and her trousers,
slowly inching toward her mound, was any indication, he had
coupling on his mind. Briefly, she debated whether to ask him if
that was what he had in mind or not, but talking seemed like too
much effort. In any case, she was still torn between the
conflicting desire to go back to sleep and interest in rousing
enough to enjoy his sexual play.

She was also comfortable enough clothed
that the idea of stripping her clothes off didn’t have a lot of
appeal.

She decided to let him have his way. If
he wanted to fuck badly enough to figure out how to get her out of
her clothes, he could do it. She was too sleepy to feel like
dragging them off and then putting them on again.

Apparently the lack of fight was enough
to convince him she was willing. He ceased trying to wedge his hand
far enough down her pants to reach her sex and rolled to a sitting
position. She felt pressure around her waist and then heard the
telltale sound of tearing fabric. The binding at her waist
disappeared abruptly. Consternation filled her.

She was still trying to figure out
whether her clothing had been rendered permanently useless or not
when she felt him grasp the sides of her trousers. He dragged her
across the hard floor about a foot past the part she’d warmed with
her body before he managed to dislodge the pants from her hips. Her
bare ass settled against the cold stone, bringing her fairly wide
awake as he finished pulling her pants down her legs and tossed
them aside. She sucked in a sharp breath at the feel of ice against
her previously warm buttocks, but he shoved her knees apart and
dove over her before she could catch her breath, wedging the hard
mass of his double cock against her cleft and commenced the search
for the warm hole that was his goal.

The icy cold, gritty floor against her
ass had instantly banished the currents of heat that had been
churning through her and with it all interest in coupling. But the
probe of his cock at her ass galvanized her into helping him find
the right place to tuck his cock. She tried arching away from the
probe, but there was no way to escape when he had her pinned to the
floor and his dick was too far back along her cleft. She reached
between them a little frantically and made a grab for
it.

He groaned when she managed to curl her
fingers around it. “Baby. Yes.”

She decided not to point out that the
gesture wasn’t enthusiasm but preservation of her asshole. Instead,
she dragged his cock to the right spot and then curled her legs
around his hips and tried to pull him into position.

That was when she discovered she’d
grabbed the wrong cock. The upper one was wedged into the mouth of
her sex and the lower now probing the taint and edging toward her
asshole. Grunting, she levered herself upward and made a grab for
his cock again, nudging the upper dick away from her sex and trying
to align the lower one.

He shoved her hand away and grabbed his
genitals himself, but to her relief he aligned himself for her
comfort. She relaxed again as he pumped against her, trying to
breach the opening. Her body’s moisture enveloped him once he
managed to wedge the head of his cock inside of her and he slid
home with a groan of pleasure.

Lexa discovered banked heat from his
earlier stimulation and felt the tension inside of her begin to
build as he stroked her channel and her clit simultaneously.
Eagerness began to replace the compliance of before. She moved with
him, struggling to capture the bliss his possession promised and
had just reached a point where she knew it was a possibility when
she felt him stiffen. Dismay filled her along with the certainty
that she’d missed her chance to reach it. In the next moment, she
heard him groan as his body gathered itself for release and then
felt the heat of his ejaculation flood her channel. It set off a
tiny quake within her that promised glory and then crashed as he
slumped heavily against her, blowing heated air in her
ear.

A sense of being misused filled her as
he gathered himself and rolled off of her. She fought it, waiting
to see what he would do next.

He snored.

Well, it wasn’t actually a snore, she
decided, having been kept awake many nights by Ralph’s snores. It
was more a hard breath, but there was no mistake that he was asleep
almost the moment he settled beside her.

Shivering, she shoved aside the heavy
arm he’d left settled on her chest and got up to find her pants.
She didn’t feel up to trying to assess the damage. She merely
pulled them on and settled down once more, struggling to recapture
sleep and ignore the sticky wetness between her legs and the
throbbing ache of her sex.

She wasn’t his woman and he didn’t want
her to be, she thought somewhat resentfully, but he didn’t mind
fucking her?

Chapter Fourteen

Lexa’s resentment didn’t last long.
Most of it had arisen from being awakened from a deep sleep to fuck
and then left hanging without culmination. Part of it was due to
the fact that he’d been too focused on his pleasure to notice, or
apparently care, that he’d damaged her ragged clothing with his
enthusiasm. By the time she’d assessed the damage and discovered
she really couldn’t tell that her clothes were in any worse shape
than before she’d decided that his anxiousness to fuck her was
actually rather flattering … in a way.

Then, too, she had been warm and
willing right up to the point where he’d deposited her ass on the
cold, gritty floor and she could hardly blame him for the fact that
that had pitched her back to ground zero when it seemed doubtful
that he could’ve known that it had or would. He’d taken the time to
arouse her. It had just seemed like a callous disregard for her
pleasure because she’d just gotten warmed up good again when he
came.

And, in the scheme of things, she’d
been treated far worse—many times. At least she’d enjoyed it—right
up to the point where he’d left her behind.

And he’d been clearly appalled that
she’d misunderstood what he’d said to her, she reminded herself.
She had misunderstood. He hadn’t tried to mislead her.

If she’d had any sense, she would’ve
realized immediately that he couldn’t possibly have meant what she
thought. It was just what she’d wanted to hear him say. She hadn’t
realized it until she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion, but it was
as plain as day to her now.

She wanted to be his woman in the worst
kind of way—for all of the reasons any woman ever wanted to be
claimed by a man. She thought she’d probably wanted to when she’d
asked him to show her how he could make it feel good, before he
had. She didn’t think she would have been interested in him showing
her if that hadn’t been the case.

She couldn’t say that she’d actually
expected the sex they’d engaged in the night before to smooth
things between them when Gabriel had been so distant and cool after
the misunderstanding, but she was dismayed that it seemed to make
him more distant.

Did he think she was the one that had
initiated the sex? Or that she was trying to use it to convince him
to take her as his woman when he’d already told her that it wasn’t
possible?

Those thoughts made her a little
resentful despite the reasoning that had settled her previous
issues in her mind. She was tempted to inform him that she’d been
dead asleep and it definitely hadn’t been her doing. And that she
didn’t want to be his woman so he needn’t worry about
that!

Of course she was still trying to
convince herself that she didn’t want to be his woman, but there
was no reason he had to know that.

As badly as she wanted to argue with
him about those things, though, she finally decided she wasn’t
angry enough about it to risk arousing his temper.

She could just show him she didn’t have
any interest in being his woman by behaving as coolly toward him as
he was behaving toward her!

In any case, he, mostly, redirected her
mind by striking off to search for the farm as soon as they’d eaten
the following morning since she’d told him that she wasn’t certain
she could find Ralph’s village unless she started from there. It
wouldn’t have been a search except that she’d wandered for so long
without any particular goal in mind other than finding the next
watering hole and the next meal. She knew the general direction,
but only had that vague concept and none about the distance. Beyond
that, nothing looked the same from the air—or rather everything
looked the same.

Of course, the terrain she’d traveled
through didn’t vary enough, truthfully, that it would have been
easier if they’d walked.

They did plenty of that, anyway.
Gabriel would take her up and fly for great distances and then they
would land and walk awhile. The rations he’d brought with him gave
out after the second day. Since he’d divided his food with her, she
felt guilty about it. He would’ve had plenty for twice that length
of time if he hadn’t shared with her.

He dismissed her apology coolly but it
didn’t make her feel any better, particularly since they were
forced to suspend their search for the farm for several days in
order to find food to keep going.

And Gabriel wasn’t happy with the food
they did find.

“We can’t eat that,” Lexa informed him
after she’d examined the cans he’d brought back with him from one
of his expeditions.

He looked indignant. “Why?”

“When the can looks like that it means
the food’s bad. It’ll make you puke your guts out, give you the
runs, and maybe even kill you,” Lexa informed him
matter-of-factly.

He looked revolted and uneasy. “How do
you know the other won’t?” he demanded.

Lexa shrugged. “Well, you don’t always,
but usually … and if it stinks when you open it and looks really
gross, then I don’t eat it.”

He didn’t look the least bit interested
in eating the canned food she approved once she’d heated the
contents. “This looks disgusting and it stinks.”

Lexa looked at him in surprise. She was
already halfway through her can, but she offered to swap with
him.

“Yours looks worse and smells
worse.”

Lexa frowned at him. “There’s nothing
wrong with it.”

“You said if it stank ….”

Lexa rolled her eyes. “Well it doesn’t
taste like the stuff you eat or smell or look nearly as good, but
it’s still food and it’s better than nothing.”

He didn’t look like he agreed, but he
ate it.

Lexa snickered at his
expression.

He sent her a sour look. “I’m glad this
amuses you.”

Lexa chuckled. “It’s the look on your
face every time you take a bite.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I think
you deliberately chose the nasty one for me.”

“I offered to trade.”

He grinned reluctantly. “Which makes me
wonder if you just wanted to trade because yours is nastier and I
got the less nasty one.”

She chuckled but shook her head. “After
a while you just learn to eat what you can find and be glad you
have something to put in your stomach. It beats not having anything
to put in your stomach.”

His amusement vanished but he seemed
thoughtful as he finished his food. “I’d ask what you do with the
container when you finish but I already know. Every village I’ve
been in has piles of these empty containers strewn everywhere and
adding to the stench.”

Lexa felt her face reddening with a
combination of discomfort and irritation. “They ain’t reusable and
it don’t do no good to bury them.”

“It would at least cut down on the
disgusting odors that permeate the villages. For that matter there
is other waste that could be buried that would improve the living
conditions.”

The criticism stung since she knew he
was saying he thought they were all nasty, disgusting creatures. As
much as she hated it, though, he had a point. She thought the
villages were disgusting, too, but it was the same everywhere.
Anytime there were a lot of people living close together—well,
there was no avoiding the smells.

She’d thought Ralph was nasty and
disgusting. He stank and he had vermin living in his hair and
crusty filth all over him. She’d discovered at the first village
they went through that he wasn’t by any means the only one either.
There were more people like him, or worse, than there were that hit
at bathing even occasionally and the men were inclined to drop
their pants and take a piss on any corner—some of the women, too,
although most of them had enough sense to know that was just
begging for rape. They usually found a place to hide to take care
of their business, but they still left it lying around.