Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2) (6 page)

And afterward? What happened then? Clive would still have Daniel, and Lena would still be missing. Nothing would have changed. All the pain and despair would still be here, waiting to jump out at her the moment she emerged from whatever heights of mindless passion and fulfillment Gabriel took her to.

She drew in a deep breath as she straightened. “I told you, I don’t belong to anyone,” she answered him with dignity.

Gabriel gave a hard smile. “Like me to prove otherwise?” He was beyond frustrated by this situation.

He had learned patience long ago, as part of his intense combat training; sometimes his ops had involved hiding out for days, barely moving, eating, or drinking, until he had a clear shot at his quarry.

But this situation was way out of his experience, was too personal for him to even attempt to pretend it wasn’t. All he wanted to do right now was bury himself deep inside Angel, to be physically joined to the woman who had once held his whole world in the palm of her slender hand.

He had believed he’d given all he had to give to Angel eight years ago, all that he was, and it hadn’t been enough. And if that hadn’t been enough then, it wouldn’t be enough now either. Whatever Angel wanted out of life, he obviously didn’t have it in him to give her.

Except he wanted her. Still. He fucking
ached
to be inside her again.

“I don’t belong to anyone either,” he rasped. “I never will.”

Angel knew that. She had always known that. And it hadn’t mattered. Eight years ago, she had wanted him anyway.

Still wanted him?

Of course she still wanted Gabriel. She had never stopped wanting him. Would never stop wanting him.

“We don’t have to express undying love to fuck each other,” Gabriel scoffed.

“We never did,” Angel acknowledged flatly.

There was no doubting the chemistry was still there between the two of them. The very air around them seemed to sizzle with the heat of that sexual attraction. Angel wanted Gabriel so badly right now, longed for the obliteration of his fierce brand of lovemaking, a time when she knew he would allow her to think of nothing and no one but him. It had always been this way between them. When Gabriel touched her, made love to her, there was no room for anything or anyone else but the two of them.

But she no longer had only herself to think about, had Daniel’s welfare to think of too now. Was responsible for. And going to bed with his father, for what would amount to a pity fuck on Gabriel’s part, was a very bad idea. If they all came out of this alive, then Gabriel would want full access to his son. A physical relationship between the two of them now would only complicate an already unbearable situation.

“What did you and your brothers decide is the best way to approach this?” she prompted instead of answering him.

Gabriel’s mouth thinned at her obvious attempt to change—divert?—the subject. “Asher is headstrong and wanted to go in guns blazing. My brother-in-law, Jonas, favored a stealthier approach, as did Caleb. Ethan is more laid-back, despite the fact he and Caleb are twins, and suggested we call Sinclair and give him the chance to return Daniel and Lena without bloodshed.”

Angel’s eyes were wide as she looked up at him. “And you?”

“All of them. None of them.” Gabriel sighed heavily. “I’m like you. I just want Daniel back.”

“And Lena.”

He nodded. “My brothers have gone away to start a background check on Sinclair and to set up surveillance on his homes and yachts. Maybe we’ll get lucky. We’ll also need the memory stick you have so we can give it to our computer geek. He’ll break any codes, find out where Sinclair’s operations are based.”

“Do you have enough manpower to do all this?”

“Knight Security employs over fifty ex-military men as well as other personnel. I also have several other people I can call on to help. Knight Security is setting every other client aside that we safely can and concentrating all our resources on this.”

“Thank you.”

His eyes glittered. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for Daniel. For Lena. And me,” he added grimly.

Angel looked down at his chest, unable to withstand the intensity of that contemptuous emerald gaze a second longer. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay out of my way,” he ground out.

She flinched at the vehemence of his tone. “Of course.”

“Starting tomorrow.” His arms tightened about her, molding her softer curves against his much harder ones, and making Angel fully aware of the hard length of his cock pressing against her abdomen. “Right now, I want—need, for us both to get naked, so I can fuck your brains out.”

Not the most romantic of seductions, but nevertheless, Angel could feel herself melting at the words, inside as well as out, and her resistance along with it.

What could it hurt to be with Gabriel one more time? Just one more time? To know the mindlessness of his complete possession?

“That wasn’t a request, Angel,” Gabriel rasped as he released her and stepped back.

Her mouth went dry as she was once again the unrelenting focus of those piercing green eyes. “This isn’t a good idea, Gabriel.”

His smile was hard, uncompromising. “You knew that when you came to me. You came anyway.”

“Because I have no one else to turn to! Because—because you’re Daniel’s father.” She knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as she had said it.

Gabriel’s expression became even darker, fiercer. “Take off your clothes.”

“But—” She swallowed. “I’m not that same young girl, Gabriel. I-I’ve had a baby,” she reminded him, only to wince as Gabriel’s expression turned murderous.

“I’m well aware of that.” A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. “Now take your damned clothes off.”

She shook her head stiffly. “I can’t.”

“You will,” he assured with certainty. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” he muttered as she continued to shake her head, all trace of that urbane man in his office earlier today completely gone and replaced with a savagery that caused a shudder of anticipation down the length of Angel’s spine. “We’ll do it together.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head, tousling his hair even further, before tossing the black tee onto the carpeted floor and straightening.

Angel drew her breath in sharply as the many scars showed white and vicious against his tanned chest and arms. Even more scars than there had been eight years ago. Not that they detracted from the power of that six feet five inches of pure muscle. Rather they added to it, as physical evidence to how dangerous this man was.

How could she have forgotten how dangerous Gabriel was?

She knew she hadn’t. She had just been so desperate to get Daniel and Lena back, she hadn’t been able to think beyond that.

“Now you.”

That emerald glitter remained fixated on her, as with only the briefest of hesitations, she slowly grasped the bottom of her T-shirt and began to pull it upward. There was no point in fighting this—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to—knowing Gabriel wasn’t going to take no for an answer, that he was beyond being reasoned with.

Had he ever been reasonable? Not that she could remember. From the very start, Gabriel had been forceful and demanding, sweeping her off her feet and into his bed.

Even so, Angel felt self-conscious as she dropped her T-shirt to the carpet beside his and now stood in front of him wearing only her bra and jeans.

Gabriel hid the flare of desire in his eyes beneath hooded lids as his gaze swept over her slowly. Angel’s breasts were smaller than they used to be, but just as delicious as they swelled against her bra. Her waist was slimmer, and just above the waistband of her jeans, he could see a silver tracery of lines from where she had carried his baby.

He glanced up at her. “I thought rich women like you did everything they could to ensure those didn’t happen?”

“I… Clive didn’t want me to do anything to hide… When I wore a bikini, he liked people to see—” She broke off to bite her bottom lip between her teeth.

“The bastard liked others to see you had supposedly carried his child.”

“Yes.”

Gabriel liked seeing those silvery lines too, to show Angel had carried
his
baby. If anything, it made her even more desirable in his eyes, not less.

He stepped forward to reach out and follow the tracery of those silver lines with his fingertips, glancing up as Angel flinched. “You don’t need to hide these from me.” His voice was gruff. “They’re your war wounds.”

She gave a choked laugh. “Pregnancy isn’t a war.”

His mouth twisted. “According to my sister, Lily, it is— She and her husband, Jonas, have a six-month-old daughter. Amelia.”

Angel could hear the deep affection in Gabriel’s voice as he spoke of the other couple and their baby daughter.

The same way he had once spoken to her.

Before he left her to disappear on some mission he couldn’t talk to her about and never came back. Gabriel had told her almost from the start what it was he did. Oh, not the details, because he wasn’t allowed to do that, but he’d had to give some sort of explanation for the numerous scars on his body.

When Gabriel didn’t come back Angel had been worried at first, that he might have received a killing blow or shot. She had been so worried about him, she’d even called the base where he’d been stationed. The person on the other end of the phone had informed her that Gabriel Knight was currently on leave and not expected back for several weeks.
Gabriel was home but hadn’t come to see her.
After that, Angel had been left with no alternative but to accept Gabriel had never had any intention of coming back to her, that the mission might even have been an excuse to end things between them.

Gabriel had been ten years older than her, far more experienced, and with an aversion to forming any emotional ties that would hold him back from doing his job. Angel had been left with no choice but to accept whatever had been between them was over, in Gabriel’s eyes at least.

She had been the one literally left holding the baby.

Clive Sinclair had kept a casual eye on Angel after her father died of cancer. When he became aware of her condition, he had offered her marriage. Alone and pregnant, her heart aching for Gabriel and what her baby’s future would be without a father, Angel had accepted Clive’s marriage proposal.

She wasn’t in love with Clive, any more than he was in love with her, but the arrangement had suited them both. Clive had a young wife on his arm and in his bed, and his son and heir in the nursery, and Angel never had to worry about Daniel’s or her own future again.

Becoming aware of exactly what a monster Clive was had changed all that. Clive might have given her and Daniel a future, but he took that away from other people, seemingly without feeling so much as a twinge of conscience in regard to what he was doing.

“Don’t ever think about that bastard when you’re with me!”

Angel blinked as she pulled her thoughts back from the past and into the present. A present where she and Gabriel were both half-naked.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue before lifting her chin in challenge at the savagery of Gabriel’s expression. “Take off the rest of your clothes first.”

He didn’t hesitate, gaze holding hers as he slipped off his shoes and socks, before unfastening his denims and pushing them down muscular thighs and then off completely. The black boxers he wore beneath fitted him like a second skin, clearly outlining the long thickness of his engorged cock.

And then he was wearing nothing at all, his eight-inch cock jutting upward and outward from its nest of dark curls, the skin stretched so tightly, the deep red bulbous tip was bare and moist.

Angel couldn’t take her eyes off him, her sexual tension having grown as she watched him remove each piece of clothing. He was as beautiful as any predator, muscles hard and defined across the width of his shoulders, chest, and abdomen. Waist slender. Hips powerful. Legs long and muscular.

“Now you.”

She released a shuddering breath. “This really is a bad idea, Gabriel.”

“Do you want me to do it for you?”

His uncompromising tone said he wouldn’t hesitate to rip her clothes from her body, as he had so many times in the past when he couldn’t wait to lay claim to her.

She continued to look at his face as she unfastened her bra first and slipped it down her arms, allowing her to see how Gabriel’s eyes darkened as he looked at her pert breasts tipped with deep rose-colored nipples. A deeper rose than they had been in the past, another one of the changes caused by her pregnancy.

Nipples that became engorged under the heat of that hungry gaze and caused an echoing ache between Angel’s thighs.

“And the rest,” Gabriel bit out.

She drew in a slow and shaky breath as she unfastened her jeans and slipped them down her hips and thighs, allowing them to pool at her bare feet before stepping out of them. She now wore only a pair of brief black lace panties.

“Leave them,” Gabriel instructed gruffly as she would have removed those too, stepping forward to go down onto his knees in front of her. He placed his hands on her hips, holding her in place as he pressed his face against her mound before breathing in deeply. “God, your perfume is just the same!” he groaned. “Don’t move. I said don’t fucking move!” he warned as she attempted to do just that. “God, I’ve ached to breathe in this perfume again. To touch the silk of your skin.” His lips trailed a path over each of those silvery lines on her skin. Her
war wounds
. The marks she bore for carrying and giving birth to his son.