Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2) (13 page)

He stood slowly. “Angel, I did what I had to do to get the information I wanted.”

“I said I understood that.”

“You said the words, but your eyes said something different.” He grimaced.

She shook her head. “I’m just… Are we still flying to Majorca this afternoon?”

“Along with several of my men. Ethan and half a dozen Knight Security employees flew over last night. They’ve been watching the place, gathering information. He’s found somewhere, a villa, where we can all stay. In a little village on the west coast called Banyalbufar. Heard of it?”

“I’ve eaten in the restaurants there several times. It’s only a couple of miles from Clive’s estate.”

“So the people in the village would recognize you?”

“Maybe.” She looked flustered. “I’m not sure.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s better if you keep a very low profile until we’ve secured Daniel, anyway.”

“Of course.”

“Angel—”

“Do you have somewhere I can splash some water on my face?”

Gabriel knew he wasn’t imagining the way Angel couldn’t quite look at him, or the flatness of her tone or her distance from him. Obviously not physically, but emotionally he sensed there was definitely a barrier between them. “The bathroom is through there.” He nodded in the direction of the connecting door, continuing to watch Angel until she closed the door behind her.

He was still staring at that closed door, wondering what he could do to make Angel less uncomfortable around him, when Ash strode into his office.

“You haven’t lost her again?” his brother teased after noting Angel’s absence.

“Oh, fuck off!” Gabriel scowled as he moved to sit behind his desk. “She’s simply gone into the bathroom to freshen up.”

Ash grinned unrepentantly as he leaned against the front of the desk. “She’s one hell of a woman,” he murmured admiringly.

“She is.” Some of the tension left Gabriel’s shoulders as he acknowledged all that Angel had been through today: the tension at the bank, the shooting, cleaning and dressing his wound, watching as he interrogated one of the men involved in the shooting. Most women would have been in hysterics by now rather than simply fainting. He certainly doubted the past eight years as Clive Sinclair’s wife had prepared her for any of what had happened today.

Ash arched a brow. “Going to keep her this time?”

“Doubtful.”

“Why not?”

Gabriel gave an exasperated snort. “Because she’s who she is and I’m who I am.”

“Which is…?”

“Angel has lived as the wife of a bloody billionaire for the past eight years. Knight Security is lucrative, and it’s made us all rich, but nowhere near the realm of Sinclair fortune.”

“Mainly made by ruining other people’s lives, whereas we do all we can to preserve life,” Ash reasoned.

“Well…yes. But not only don’t I have Sinclair’s fortune, but I don’t have his polish or sophistication either. At heart, I’m an ex-soldier, special ops. I’m a blunt instrument to Sinclair’s fine Toledo blade.”

“I think you’re underestimating her,” Ash insisted. “And isn’t it because she’s trying to divorce the fine Toledo blade that this situation occurred at all?”

“Yes…”

Ash straightened to give Gabriel a heavy slap on the back. “If you want the girl, then you have to grow a pair, bro.”

“You have such a way with words!”

“What I have is
my
girl, and if you want Angel to be yours, then you need to do what it takes to get her.”

Easier said than done when everything Gabriel did, even if it was for the right reasons, seemed to push Angel further away from him.

Chapter 7

“Is this bedroom okay for you?”

Angel turned in answer to Ethan’s query from the 180-degree nighttime view of the Mediterranean. She was feeling less tense in the knowledge Daniel was only a couple of miles away on Clive’s closely guarded estate.

The flight to Majorca had been uneventful. They had even eaten dinner on board. “They” being six men dressed in black, Gabriel having introduced them as more employees of Knight Security before he disappeared into the cockpit.

Minutes later, the plane had begun to taxi toward the runway of the private airfield and then taken off, with Gabriel as the pilot.

Which was when Jack Kramer, tied up and strapped into a seat at the back of the sleek, compact jet, already furious at being tricked into believing Angel was dead, had begun to shout his objections at being taken to Majorca. One of the men moved to sit beside him, talking softly for several minutes before Kramer went suddenly silent.

After that, Angel slept for much of the flight. She had managed to eat a little of the food, and quite frankly was exhausted from the events of the day.

The drive up into the mountains, made in the two black SUVs that had been waiting for them at the airport, had been a familiar one to Angel. They had even driven past the entrance to the long driveway to Clive’s estate. Angel had been hidden behind the smoke-glass windows and easily recognized the two guards patrolling up and down inside the gate as being part of Clive’s personal security team.

The private villa Ethan had found for them was perched on the side of one of the mountains, looking out over Banyalbufar and the beautiful blue-green sea beneath the terraced village. The villa itself was huge, with its own private swimming pool and enough bedrooms to accommodate all the men from Knight Security if they doubled up.

In fact, all would have been perfect if Angel had Daniel with her.

“It’s lovely, thank you,” she finally answered Ethan. “Does the owner of this villa actually know we’re here?” she prompted suspiciously.

He grimaced. “Not exactly. But we’ll make sure it’s all good before we leave,” he added hastily as her eyes widened.

Zander had introduced the two of them on their arrival at the villa. Ethan seemed far more laid-back than his twin, Caleb. Ethan also had flirtatious hazel-green eyes rather than his twin’s pale green and enigmatic ones.

“Anything I can get you?” He quickly changed the subject. “Drink? Something to eat?”

“No, I ate and drank on the plane, thank you.” She frowned slightly. “Where’s Gabriel?” He hadn’t traveled in the same SUV as her and had disappeared as soon as they reached the villa. At the time, she had presumed he had gone to talk to Ethan about the security he had put in place in the surrounding grounds. Except Ethan was here with her…

“He had some stuff to do—”

“Ethan.”

“—and asked me to—”

“Ethan.”

“Yes?” He eyed her guardedly.

“I asked where Gabriel is. And don’t tell me again how busy he is,” she added firmly as she guessed he was about to do exactly that. “Is the wound on his side bothering him?”

“What wound?” Ethan looked genuinely puzzled.

“Men!” She breathed exasperatedly, not in the least surprised Ethan had no idea his brother had been injured in the shooting this morning. “Tell me where Gabriel is. Now.”

“Whoa, you’re quite scary when you want to be, aren’t you?” He grinned his appreciation.

“Terrifying.” She didn’t even attempt to hide her sarcasm. All the Knight brothers were at least a foot taller and probably weighed twice as much as her.

His grin deepened. “I’m really surprised Gabriel didn’t hang on to you when he had the chance.”

Angel stiffened at this reference to the past. “Maybe he didn’t have a choice.”

Ethan’s eyes widened. “You turned him down?”

“He didn’t ask.”

“Oh.”

She smiled tightly. “Now could you tell me where he is?”

“Last bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs.”

At the complete opposite end from Angel’s bedroom, which was the last bedroom on the
left
at the top of the stairs. Coincidence? Angel didn’t think so. For some reason, Gabriel had been avoiding her since they left England. And she intended finding out why.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Gabriel tensed at the sound of Angel speaking but continued reapplying the new dressing to his wound. “What does it look like I’m doing?” His snarled comment was less that inviting.

“Making a mess of things,” she answered bluntly as she stepped into the bathroom adjoining his bedroom and pushed his hands and the new dressing out of the way so she could look at the wound. “This is infected.”

“It’ll calm down in a couple of hours. I’ve injected an anti-inflammatory drug into the wound—”

“
You injected yourself?
”

He raised dark brows. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Well, of course I— Never mind.” Angel’s impatience was barely leashed as she shook her head. “I’m guessing treating yourself is another part of your special ops training.”

“Part of, yes. What the hell…!” Gabriel hissed as she accidentally touched the swollen and inflamed wound on his side. “That hurt, damn it.”

“Don’t be such a baby.” She quickly and efficiently applied the fresh dressing before looking up at him with dark gray eyes. “Why are you avoiding me?”

He frowned his irritation. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Okay, I am,” he conceded. “I thought it was what you wanted.”

“What
I
wanted?”

He shrugged. “My method of questioning Kramer earlier obviously upset you.”

“The situation, the relief of knowing where Daniel is upset me. Realizing there are so many parts of you I don’t know upset me. But not the way you dealt with Kramer.”

“Oh.”

Angel gave a tired sigh. “We’re still not communicating very well, are we?”

“Not verbally, no,” he conceded huskily, totally aware of how alone they were in his private bathroom, and that he, at least, was completely bare above the waist.

Instead of stepping away as Gabriel had expected her to, Angel moved closer to him. “How’s your side now?”

“Fine,” he answered slowly.

“Then I think there are enough complications without the two of us continuing to misunderstand each other. For instance.” She placed her cooler hands against the heat of Gabriel’s chest. “What’s your guess as to what I’m thinking right now?”

Gabriel remained silent, knowing what he wanted it to be. He just didn’t want to cause further friction between the two of them by making assumptions. Angel could just be in need of a reassuring cuddle rather than full-blown lovemaking.

“Now?” She stepped even closer before tilting her head back and trailing the softness of her lips along his clenched jawline. “Or now?” Gabriel held his breath as the heat of her lips traveled down the length of his throat before her tongue dipped into the hollow at its base. “How about now?” She moved lower, the moist rasp of her tongue sweeping across the tautness of his nipple, savoring, tasting, before showing its twin the same attention.

Gabriel drew in a sharp breath as the pleasure and blood shot straight to his cock, causing it to rise and engorge. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Angel.”

She glanced up at him beneath silky lashes. “I’m a little rusty, if you want to help me out?”

“You seem to be managing to
communicate
just fine without any help from me.” His jaw was clenched so tightly, he could barely speak, his need and hunger for Angel’s touch making it impossible to think, to feel anything but the moist sweep of her tongue against his sensitized flesh.

She smiled at him as she ran the tips of her fingers across his tautly roused nipples. “I do, don’t I?” she murmured with satisfaction, those fingertips now trailing down the silky dark hair veeing down his abdomen to the waistband of his denims. “Still think I want to avoid being with you?” she teased.

“I’m a little less convinced of it,” he conceded dryly.

Angel chuckled, the warmth of her breath a sensual caress.

Gabriel made no attempt to touch her, holding himself back rather than risk breaking whatever spell they were both under. Angel had come to
him
. Was touching
him
. Surely that had to mean something? That she felt something for him, even if it was only lust, an adrenaline high much like the one he had felt earlier?

Gabriel wasn’t proud. He’d take what he could get.

“I don’t like this distance between us, Gabriel,” she murmured.

“I don’t like
any
distance between us!”

“There doesn’t have to be any…”

One of his arms snaked about Angel’s slender waist, his other hand moving to cup her chin as he tilted her face up toward his. He saw an answering desire in the dark depths of her gray eyes. “I’m too hyped up to be gentle with you,” he warned.

“I’m not asking you to be,” she assured him.

He gave a low groan as his head lowered and he captured her parted lips with his own, the kiss quickly deepening as he thrust his tongue into the wet heat of her mouth. Angel answered that intimacy by stroking her own tongue along his, adding fuel to the fire, until it raged out of control and threatened to consume them both.

“Maybe we should move out of the bathroom?” Angel teased as Gabriel helped her to take off her T-shirt, chuckling as Gabriel seemed surprised by their surroundings. “You’re injured, Gabriel!” she protested as he swung her up into his arms and strode out of the bathroom.