“Then why are you blushing?”
He tilts my face up and examines it. “I was raised to respect women. My mother always told me girls should be treated like gold.” He shakes his head. “There were times last night where it felt like three big dudes ganging up on one woman. We were really aggressive with you, Elise. I…spanked you for doing nothing wrong. I spanked you hard—”
“Careful, Gabe. You’re turning me on.” My smile fades when I see he’s actually concerned about this. “Hey.” I wrap my arms more securely around his neck and the pressure of his hold on me increases. “I knew I could say stop and all of you would stop. Or I wouldn’t have been here in the first place. I loved every single second of last night. Even the spanking.” I nudge his nose with mine. “Maybe even especially the spanking.”
“Really?”
I hum into a long, winding kiss, loving the way I can predict the hardening of his body, the length and slant of it inside of his sweatpants. His big hands clutch my bottom, I lick the tattoo on his neck and I’m being lifted onto the kitchen table, my thighs pushed apart eagerly…when my stomach growls loud enough to shake the cabinetry.
Gabe pulls back from our kiss looking stricken. “Oh my God. You’re starving.”
Now it’s my turn to pinken. “I could try to deny it but apparently my stomach is doing the talking.”
He lunges for the fridge. With an erection tenting his sweatpants.
I don’t even try to stop him. I might be in the first, flushed stages of arousal, but it’s too much of a pleasure watching this man crack eggs into a bowl, rip bagels in half in his bear-sized hands, pour orange juice into a Mets memorabilia day glass. Besides that, I really want to ask him about what I heard this morning while lying in bed. “Gabe…” He glances back at me over his shoulder, nods for me to continue. “I knew your brother and your ex-wife lived next door, but…you can hear them in your bedroom.”
“Yeah, they have kind of a ritual.” He takes a fork out of a drawer to whisk the eggs. “My brother goes out to get bacon, egg and cheeses most mornings. When you heard them this morning, he was coming back from his breakfast run.”
It’s hard for me to imagine how painful this must be. How hard it must have been, especially right after the divorce. Gabe might not have been deeply in love with Candace, but for his brother to walk all over his feelings, to invade his space, must be so hurtful.
I have a really, really big problem with anyone hurting Gabe’s feelings.
My skin is starting to feel a little extra hot when I saunter to the side window and peek out through the blinds, looking across the driveway to Gabe’s brother’s house. There is a light on inside, but I can’t see anyone. However, I do notice that the car belonging to Gabe’s brother is parked on Gabe’s lawn. There is more than enough room to get all four wheels of the vehicle in the driveway, so it must be a choice.
I remember Gabe telling me how much it bothers him.
I remember the fact that Gabe only got called outside to hang with his brother and the rest of the neighborhood kids if the football got stuck in the tree and they needed him to get it down. These were just stories until now. Until I’m looking at the stupid tires on the lawn.
I release the blinds with a little too much force and circle the kitchen, considering sliding a knife out of the butcher block, taking it outside and stabbing it into the wheels of Gabe’s brother’s car. As satisfying as that would be, it wouldn’t solve Gabe’s issue, though. The issue of his brother not only disregarding his feelings but almost taunting him.
“I smelled sustenance,” Tobias says, walking into the kitchen. In a wide open robe that I’m pretty sure belongs to Gabe, nothing but a pair of white briefs underneath. “I’ll have a double espresso and eggs Florentine, please.”
Gabe snorts. “I’ve got eggs and bagels.”
“Fine. God. I’m so hungry, I’m willing to eat gluten.” Tobias drops into the chair in front of my laptop and crooks his finger at me. “After breakfast, I’ll go back to eating Elise.”
I roll my eyes at him, but I definitely saunter close enough—on purpose—that he can catch me around the waist and yank me down into his lap. He growls into the crook of my neck and strokes my hair, seeming to count each strand as they sift through his fingers. And I can’t even lie, it’s exactly where I want to be. Where I’m supposed to be. I can feel it in the depths of my chest. “What does everyone have planned today?”