A Question of Love (10 page)

He ignored her questions, “Are you still turned on?” he asked in a gruff voice.

“You know I am,” she gasped. She was close to breaking point, and having Gabe so near in such a confined space was not helping matters.

He stepped forward. “Do you want me to help you?”

She swayed towards him, craving his touch. “I want you to turn the darn thing off,” she murmured. “Especially with Connor and his girlfriend sitting right there.”

“Does it make you hot?” His voiced dropped, so low it almost sounded menacing. “Seeing Connor again?”

Tina’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“Are you wet for him, T?”

She stared at him. She
was
wet. And hot—and, damn it, Gabe knew it.

“Gabe,” she said on a moan. “Please…”

“Please what?” His mouth twisted in a grimace. “Please turn it off? Or please help you?”

“We’re in a toilet, in a restaurant,” Tina pointed out, almost at the end of her tether. “Please, just turn it off.”

Gabe hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “You’re not being honest with me or with yourself.” His tone was hard, unforgiving, and it made her stomach clench with doubt and insecurity. This was not the Gabe she knew.

She almost forgot that thought a second later when his hand made its way under the hem of her dress and crept up the inside of her thigh.

Tina groaned and dropped her head against his chest, inhaling his familiar scent, relishing it. Oh, God, his fingers were by her pussy, pushing her panties aside and resting on the butterfly, pressing it against her. “Touch me,” she croaked, barely able to breathe. “Please, touch me.”

“You mean like this?” He dipped a finger lower and ran it over her slit.

She bucked against him. God, that felt good. Her body leapt to attention, just like it always did when she came into contact with Gabe.

“Fuck,” he swore. “You’re dripping.”

Tina shivered. Gabe seemed…pissed off. She clutched the collar of his shirt with both hands and looked up at him. “Gabe, w-what’s the matter?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, yet he said nothing, choosing instead to slide his finger deep inside her pussy.

“Oh, my God,” she breathed as powerful sensations radiated through her limbs.

He added another finger, pumping them in and out.

“
Aaahhhh
.” Tina couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. She clutched his shirt tighter, pulling his head down so she could kiss him, needing to feel his tongue in her mouth, his lips against hers. Needing the intimacy and the reassurance Gabe could give her.

He turned his face away from her, added another finger and continued to fuck her. Hurt and rejection mingled with a cutting relief. The whole evening she’d been on edge, horny, desperate for an orgasm. Now it was minutes away, seconds. But damn it, she didn’t want to come like this. Not with Gabe’s rebuff stinging her heart.

“Gabe, please,” she begged, looking for both reassurance and relief.

He twisted his fingers and pushed in again. “How does this feel?”

“Good.” Because it did. So good she almost lost it. “And terrible.” As much as she needed her orgasm, she didn’t want it like this. Not when Gabe seemed so angry.

He turned to her and whispered in her ear. “Can anyone else make you this hot?”

Chills ran down her spine. “No one has ever made me feel this way.” Like she could explode and cry at the same time.

“So, it’s just me?” He slipped his other hand beneath her skirt and rolled his fingers between her ass cheeks.

“God, yes,” she cried, not sure whether she was responding to his touch or his question.

“I’m the only one who makes you feel so good?” He stroked in and out of her pussy.

She squeezed her muscles around him. “Y…yes.”

“Say it.” Still with the stroking, still with his hand on her ass.

“Say…what?”

“Say I’m the only one.” He pumped a little faster.

She teetered on the edge of her orgasm. “Y-you’re the only one.” Without a doubt.

“Then come for me, Tina.” His voice echoed with grim satisfaction. “And call out
my
name as you do.”

He curved his fingers and pumped into her a little faster. At the same time he stroked her anus. The combined fuel of the butterfly and his actions tipped her over the edge. She came hard, breaking on his hand.

She cried out his name, searching again for his mouth, but it wasn’t there. Her release stretched out longer than she would have liked, the result of an evening spent on the verge of orgasm.

“Say it again,” Gabe whispered as she convulsed. “Say my name.”

“Gabe.” Speech was close to impossible. “
Gabe
,” she breathed as the last few spasms wracked their way through her groin. She collapsed against his solid body, using his strength to hold herself up.

The butterfly whirred to a stop, and Gabe removed his hands. His breath was an uneven rasp in her ear, and his erection pressed into her belly.

For just a moment he took her weight, letting her rest against him. His breath blew threw her hair. And then he stepped away.

Tina stumbled.

He steadied her but came no closer. She grabbed onto the basin and leaned over it, her breath coming a million miles an hour.

With a light tap, he placed the remote control on the countertop. Then he paused, motionless, before sighing deeply.

“Tina…” There was so much uncertainty in his voice she turned to look at him.

He shook his head, frowned, and then as though he couldn’t help himself, pressed the gentlest of kisses to her neck. Just one kiss. One beautiful kiss that whipped her breath from her body and was over way too soon.

Long before she gained even the slightest semblance of control, the lock clicked, the door swung open behind her, letting in a draft of air, and then it was closed.

Tina found herself alone in the small bathroom, shaking. That last, exquisite sensation of his lips on her neck had seemed frighteningly like a kiss goodbye.

Chapter Eight

“He won’t be here?” She looked at Valerie in despair.

“I’m sorry.” Valerie shrugged, looking helpless. “No.”

Everyone who mattered in Tina’s life would be attending tonight’s opening. Her family, her friends, her colleagues. Her boss was coming with his wife and three adult daughters. Her hairdresser told her she was bringing her new boyfriend along. Even Connor and Maddie would be there.

The only person who had chosen not to grace her with his presence was the one she wanted beside her most of all. The one who had made this all possible. The one who had promised to hold her hand through the scary bits of the evening.

“Yet he came to the gallery this morning for a private viewing?” she asked again, desperate for some understanding, some insight into Gabe’s absconding from her life. Why would he need a private viewing anyway? He’d helped her select every sketch displayed. He knew each of them almost as well as she did.

Valerie nodded. “At eight-thirty sharp. And trust me, my dear, I don’t get out of bed for just anyone so early on a Sunday morning.”

“Did he say why he couldn’t make it?” Oh, God, she was beginning to sound pathetic. But she hadn’t heard from him in over a week, and she was getting desperate.

“No.” Valerie raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you might ask him yourself?” Then she frowned, looking thoughtful. “But I will say this. Gabriel is a large man. A mountain. And yet…” Her voice trailed off.

“And yet what?” Tina prompted, almost afraid to hear the rest of Valerie’s sentiments.

“And yet this morning he seemed…small. As if he’d lost inches off his height overnight.”

Tina slumped back in her chair. She could identify all too well. She herself felt all of three feet high. As if holding her head up and her shoulders back was too difficult. Damn it all, it was Gabe’s fault. How dare he walk away from her again? What was he thinking? He’d spent an entire evening seducing her, getting her excited, and then he’d had the audacity to act disappointed when he’d discovered she was aroused. Disappointed enough to leave her.

She gritted her teeth. She’d spent the last week puzzling over Gabe’s behavior, Gabe’s absence, and now she was getting pissed off.
Of course
she’d been turned on. She’d had a freaking vibrator clamped over her clit for three hours. What the hell else had he expected? He’d been working the goddamned remote control—

“Tina, are you okay?” Valerie peered at her. “You look as if you’re about to burst a blood vessel.”

She took a deep, calming breath. Just as well Gabe wasn’t going to show his ugly mug at her exhibition tonight. Attacking him with a knife in public would not make for good publicity.

“I’m fine,” she assured the gallery owner. “Just nervous about the showing.”

He deserved a freaking knife. How dare he stampede back into her life like he had, make her fall in love with him all over again, and then vanish?

Valerie patted her hand. “You’ll be fine. Better than fine. By tomorrow this time, you’ll be famous. The talk of Sydney. Every discerning art collector in the city will be clamoring to purchase a Tina Jenkins original.”

Tina smiled at Valerie. She might be bossy, opinionated and over the top, but Tina had come to adore her. “Thank you again for doing this. This is an opportunity of a lifetime.”

Valerie brushed off her gratitude. “I’m only doing it because you’re going to make me a lot of money. It’s Gabriel you owe your thanks to.” Before Tina had a chance to respond, Valerie stood and shuffled her out of the office. “And now I have to meet the caterers and ensure everything is set up for your debut.” She air-kissed Tina’s cheeks. “Go make yourself beautiful for tonight. I will see you later.”

Dumped by Gabe and tossed out by Valerie. Just great. Tina felt about as wanted as swine flu. She went home to sulk.

When she arrived there however, she was diverted from her undertaking. Sitting on the front steps leading up to her building were Connor and Maddie.

She stared at them, incredulous. “It’s like stepping into a caricature of my life. Everything’s familiar, yet nothing is right.”

Connor grinned and patted the step beside him. “Sit, T,” he invited. “We just came by to say hello. That’s all.”

She eyed him with suspicion. Oh no. No way. Not eight weeks ago she’d gone down this exact road with Gabe. He’d also just stopped by to
say hello
. Then he’d proceeded to sweep her off her feet. Look where that had gotten her?
Nowhere.
She was as miserable now as she had been four years ago. No way was she going that route with Connor.

“I am not going to sleep with you,” she told him before turning to face Maddie. “Or you for that matter.” She turned back to Connor and folded her arms. “We tried it once. It didn’t work. I’m not exploring the scenario again.”

Connor let out a full-bellied guffaw while Maddie stifled a laugh.

“That’s not why we’re here,” Connor assured her when he stopped chuckling.

“Oh.” Tina had the grace to blush. “Ah. So, uh, why are you here?”

“To discuss Gabe,” Connor said.

Tina flashed him her sweetest smile. “Oh, lovely. Let’s chat, shall we? Maybe then you can pry my fingernails off with a screwdriver. It should be just as much fun.”

Maddie gave her a sympathetic look, and Tina found herself warming to the other woman. Awkward circumstances aside, Maddie seemed nice.

Belatedly, Tina took Connor up on his invitation and sat on the step beside him with a sigh. “Okay,” she said, this time without sarcasm. “Let’s talk about Gabe.”

“He’s miserable,” Connor told her.

“Good,” Tina answered. So was she. And she was miserable because of Gabe, so she was glad he was miserable too.

“He looks a little like you do,” Connor said.

Tina raised an eyebrow. “Short and blonde?”

He gave her a quick grin. “No. Unhappy, dejected and pissed off.”

Tina studied her shoes. “Why are you telling me this, C?”

“Because I haven’t seen Gabe like this in a long time, and it worries me.”

She grimaced. “He’s a big boy. He can look after himself.”

“He’s crazy about you, Tina,” Maddie said. “Head over heels, madly in love with you.”

“Yeah?” She pictured herself frantically seeking Gabe’s mouth as he fucked her with his fingers, craving his kiss, his love, his affection—and finding nothing but his cold rejection. She gave Maddie a dubious look. “Well, he sure has a funny way of showing it.”

“Cut him some slack, T,” Connor said. “You know that talking things out isn’t one of Gabe’s strengths.”

Tina looked at him, pretty sure he had no clue just how deeply Gabe’s rejection had cut her. “Yes, I’m well aware of that. But not one word in over a week is perhaps taking his
weakness
a little too far, don’t you think?”

“I think he’s hurting,” Maddie said.

Good.
She bit her lip.

“I think you’re hurting too,” Maddie added, all too insightfully for Tina’s peace of mind. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Tina couldn’t hold back her dubious look. Maddie, the current lover of her ex-boyfriend and the ex-lover of her current boyfriend—well, current up until a week ago, anyway—was offering her a friendly ear.

Maddie smiled. “Yeah, I know. It’s weird. You and me talking like this, pretending to be friends, when, well…” She motioned to Connor and then to herself, then included Tina in her gestures. “When, you know, we hardly know each other, yet have all this shared history. It’s a little odd.”

Tina snorted. “A little?”

“Okay,” Maddie snorted back. “A lot.”

“I’ll just give you ladies some space on this one.” Connor shifted up a step.

Maddie caught her eye and grinned. Tina grinned back and found herself liking Maddie even more. Under different circumstances she suspected the two of them might have made great friends.

“Did something happen between the two of you?” Maddie asked. “You looked so happy together when we saw you at the restaurant last week, and then, minutes after we joined you, that all seemed to change.”

Tina should have found Maddie’s question a little too…brazen, but she didn’t. It was difficult to take offense to her in any way. She sighed. “We were getting on well, and then we weren’t,” she agreed. “The only thing that changed was that you joined us.”

Maddie said nothing, just let Tina’s response hang between them.

“His entire demeanor was different after that.” Tina thought out loud. Gabe had turned from an attentive, sexy date to a sad, aloof, cold stranger. “It was like seeing you switched a button in his personality.”

From there her mind wandered to the only logical conclusion she could think of—and God help her, she wished it hadn’t. She hated the conclusion. Despised it. “He’s in love with you, isn’t he?” she asked Maddie.

Maddie’s jaw dropped.

Tina began to tremble. “You know,” she said, clasping her hands in her lap and listening to her heart break in two, “he said he was okay with you and Connor being together. He seemed so cool about the whole situation, and I believed him.” She’d been wrong. Gabe was far from cool. He was all twisted up inside, and she’d only noticed when Connor and Maddie had interrupted their meal. But then that was the first time she could have noticed. It was the first time she’d seen them together. “He told me he’d given you his blessing,” she said to Connor, hoping he couldn’t see the utter desolation that was tearing her apart. “He even said he was happy for you guys.” She’d taken his words at face value. What an idiot he must think her. “He must have lied to protect you both from his real feelings.”

Connor made a strange, choking sound, before wheezing out a baffled, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, C, it all makes sense now, don’t you see? How could Gabe pretend to be interested in me when the real owner of his heart was nearby?” Damn it, why was the revelation so difficult to accept? Why did it make her chest clench in agony and her throat close up in grief?

Connor looked at her in disbelief. “You know, if I wasn’t so fond of you, I’d attempt to beat some sense into you.”

Tina grabbed his thigh—the closest of his body parts—and gave it a comforting squeeze. “I’m sorry, C. Shit, this must be awful for you too. Knowing you and Gabe are both in love with the same woman.”

He rolled his eyes. “If Gabe loved Maddie he’d be with her right now. He’d never have made the same mistake twice. He let you go. He wouldn’t have let Maddie go.”

“But he did,” Tina argued. “He did it for you.”

“Gabe’s a good guy. The best I know. But he’s not a saint. He gave Maddie and me his blessing because he wanted you, not her.”

Christ, Tina wished that were true. Wished with all her heart. But she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Not after the way Gabe had behaved in that bathroom.

“Tina,” Maddie said, “I can assure you Gabe has no romantic feelings towards me. He never has. What we shared was sex. End of story.”

It might be the end of the story for Maddie, but the thought of Gabe having sex with another woman—a woman he loved—made Tina want to throw up.

Maddie must have noticed her distress. “The only woman he’s loved in the past four years is you.”

Tina shook her head. “Then why would he have gotten so angry when you arrived at the restaurant?”

Maddie bit her lip. “I don’t think it was my arrival that angered him.” She shifted her gaze to Connor.

Tina frowned. “You think it was Connor’s?”
Huh?
“Why would Gabe be upset about seeing his best friend?”

Maddie said nothing. She tilted her head and looked at Tina’s hand where it rested on Connor’s thigh.

Tina looked at her hand too. Then she looked at the leg beneath her hand and got distracted. Oh, dear Lord, her hand was on Connor’s leg! Connor—her ex-lover.

She stared at her hand, dazed, waiting for sparks of electricity to shoot through her, burning her palm where it clasped his thigh.

Nothing happened.

She waited a little longer.

Still nothing.

She shifted around and switched hands.

Nothing. She was gripping Connor’s leg and she felt…nothing. Nothing! No increased heart rate, no tug of arousal, no difficulty breathing. Not even a tiny leap in her belly.

Connor sat without saying a word.

She peered up at his face, searching the features she’d always found so endearing. When her gaze settled on his beautiful blue eyes she almost gasped out loud.

She felt nothing.

And yet when Gabe touched her, looked at her…

“Oh, good grief!” How could she not have grasped the truth before? How could she have been so blind as to not see what was so obvious now?

“T?” Connor’s eyes narrowed in concern. “You okay?”

She didn’t answer, just kept staring as reality barreled through her.

“T?” Connor said again.

“I don’t love you,” Tina told him.

Connor looked somewhat taken aback.

“I never did,” she said, knocked sideways by the fact.

He gave her an uncertain smile. “It doesn’t happen often, but right now, I’m not sure what to say.”

“Don’t say anything,” the sage Maddie offered. “Just let Tina talk.”

Tina offered him a shy smile. “I’m sorry. I know that sounds terrible, but I’m just realizing…” Oops. Maybe this was too much information.

“Realizing what, T?”

It wasn’t fair to dump all this on Connor. She needed to sort it out in her own head first.

When she didn’t answer him, Connor said to her, “T, I’ve seen you buck naked, on your knees, making love to me and Gabe at the same time. You think it might be a little late for inhibitions? Just say what you need to say.”

“Connor!” Tina blushed scarlet and looked at Maddie, mortified.

Maddie rushed in to reassure her. “Don’t worry. He’s pretty much seen me the same way. Just say it. Whatever it is, he can take it.”

Tina couldn’t help but smile at her. “No wonder Gabe and Connor love you. You’re cool.”

Maddie frowned. “Gabe doesn’t love me.”

“And Tina doesn’t love me.” Connor said, steering the conversation back to her incredulous discovery.

“I don’t,” she agreed. “I never did.”

“So, what are you only just realizing?” Connor prompted her.