Dangerous Beauty: Part Three: This is War (75 page)

Movement heard in the kitchen made her move faster. It was him! It had to be. He was the only other person that had a key to her cottage.

“Robert …”

Anastacia burst through the swinging door into the kitchen with a smile on her face. Just like she’d hoped Robert stood in the middle of the kitchen floor looking as perfect as he had the day he’d left over a year ago.

Anastacia squealed and jumped into his arms. She clung to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist as she grabbed his face and kissed him. She felt his hands on her back right before his arms wrapped tightly around her … very tightly. Almost painfully tight.

When she broke the contact of their lips, Robert let out a low grunt. His eyes remained closed for moment before he opened them and pinned her with an intense stare.

Anastacia inhaled a slow breath as she gazed into his eyes. She didn’t know why, but for some reason she was unable to speak. She couldn’t even move. She wasn’t aware of how long they just stared at one another, but she didn’t make any kind of move until he did.

Robert took three slow steps forward until Anastacia felt her back pressed against the wall. Confused by his silence, Anastacia opened her mouth to speak, but was silenced when he leaned forward and kissed her again.

It felt as if an electric shock shot through her body when his lips touched hers. It was so … different from their previous kisses. She didn’t remember Robert being so … passionate, so possessive. His kiss consumed her. Nothing else around them existed as she became enraptured in the moment. Anastacia held on to him with every bit of strength that she had in her body, refusing to let him go, hating just the thought of any distance being between their bodies.

Robert kissed her with a fierce, seemingly uncontrollable hunger. He touched her like he’d never touched her before, his hands moving expertly over every curve of her body. Logic, reason, and any thought of how utterly
wrong
this was flew straight out of the window. It was a
nother
level of intoxication. Anastacia couldn’t think, she couldn’t do anything but feel. Feel his lips against hers, his tongue caressing her mouth, his hands slipping under her shirt and gliding up her belly to caress her breasts.

So good. God,
it felt so incredibly good. It felt as if she were flying, but she had no idea what the hell was happening around her. This just didn’t … feel like Robert. Only one man had ever made Anastacia feel so lost, so powerless, so separated from what little sanity she had.

“Silas!” a deep male voice roared from across the kitchen, effectively yanking Anastacia out of her daze and back to reality.

Her eyes shot wide open at the same time his mouth pulled back from hers. His head turned to the man that had shouted his name, and Anastacia’s eyes followed until they laid upon … Robert?

“What, Robbie?” he asked in a clipped tone. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“
Are you out of your fucking mind?
What the hell is going on in here?”

“She’s my wife!”

“I don’t give a shit, Silas! She most likely had
no idea
it was you …”

“Trust me! She was about to figure it out.”

Back and forth they shouted at one another. Meanwhile, Anastacia glanced back and forth between them, trying her best to keep up with the events happening right before her eyes. Her heart rate sped up as her eyes darted around the kitchen. It was like she’d entered the fucking twilight zone. For decades she’d known them both, but never before had she been in the same room with them at the same time. They were fucking identical on a level that Anastacia had never seen it before; same face, voice, body structure, and black attire. The only thing separating the two was the scar, which was meant to be Anastacia’s decipher. The long scar that she hadn’t even thought of looking for when she’d seen him standing in the middle of kitchen floor.

Robert.

Robert had not been in the kitchen, had not held her in his arms and kissed her breath away. Nor was it Robert that was still holding Anastacia tightly at this moment. No. Robert was standing in the doorway with vicious anger masking his face.

Anastacia cocked her head to the side, and frowned in thought. If Robert was standing on the opposite side of the kitchen shouting, and not holding her in his arms, then the man that was holding her had to be … “Silas.”

The second she whispered his name his head snapped in her direction, a look of concern in his light brown eyes … “Yes, pet?”

A piercing scream tore loose from her lips, filling the entire cottage.

Chapter 29: It was still a dark and stormy night

Gabriel locked the gate on the twins’ playroom door. “Be good you two. And no fighting.”

“Fighting
,
” Maksim repeated with a smile as he ran around the room pushing his fire truck.

Gabriel chuckled softly and started to walk away.

“
Zio
!” Aleksandr called.

Gabriel turned back to find him standing on his tiptoes, leaning over the gate. “Aleksandr, please get down.”

Obediently, he did as Gabriel had instructed.

“Now what can I do for you?” Gabriel asked.

Aleksandr smiled a big, cheesy grin, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Some cookies for Maksi and Sandr?” he asked.

He shook his head in disbelief. The child never stopped eating. Gabriel had no idea where the boy put all of the food he ate throughout the day. Aleksandr stood, waiting patiently for his response as he twisted the silky curls of his hair with his adorable little fingers. How the hell could he say no to him when he stood there looking so damn cute? He knew Carter wouldn’t approve, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“Yes, Uncle will bring Sandr and Maksi some cookies.”

Aleksandr rejoiced, jumping up and down shouting cookies until one of his toys stole his attention. Gabriel sighed and strolled downstairs to the kitchen. He wanted to clean up the mess from dinner before Nathan and Carter got home from their dinner party.

Once he made it to the kitchen he removed the baby monitor from his pocket, flipped it on, and checked on the boys. Gabriel loved that the monitor had a screen on it so that he could actually see what the kids were doing. Maksim was still playing with his truck, and Aleksandr had sat down in the corner with a box of crayons and a Spider-Man coloring book.

After checking on the kids he went about cleaning up the dinner mess. They’d had the boys’ favorite for dinner: some of their mother’s homemade chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, cornbread, and collard greens, with some chocolaty chocolate chip cookies and milk for dessert. Carter had pre-prepared everything the night before, so all Gabriel had to do for dinner was pop everything in the oven and serve. The boys devoured every bite of their food just like Carter had said they would, but they’d also gotten a good amount of crumbs on the floor.

Gabriel took his time to make sure every part of the floor was cleaned, then he went to work on the dishes.

Sometimes he wished that Carter would just hire a maid. He hated seeing her rush around this big house cleaning up after Nathan and the boys alone. Therefore, whenever he had time, he’d come to the main house and help her out some. He didn’t agree that she could do it all alone, but he also understood her hesitation to bring some unknown stranger in her home. Silas had been sending the boys gifts, yes, but that didn’t mean he had really changed. He had minions everywhere, and bringing someone in the home where she and Nathan raised their children that could possibly be working for Silas wasn’t worth it.

“Well, don’t you look very … domestic.”

Gabriel gave him a quick glance, and then resumed washing the dishes. He’d known that he had been watching him, but he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge Dante. Leaning against the wall of the kitchen entrance with one hand in the pocket of his suit pants, and the top three buttons of his shirt undone … and his hair all messy and tousled perfectly, he looked
frustratingly
sexy.

Okay, maybe Gabriel had acknowledged his presence once or twice.

“I’ve never seen this side of you before,” he said as he walked into the kitchen and sat in one of the stools on the opposite side of the counter.

He looked up from the dishes in annoyance. “What the hell do you want, Dante?” Gabriel hadn’t been in many relationships in the past, but he was pretty sure that there was some kind of rule against talking to your significant other while he or she was still pissed over a huge fight you’d had just the night before. “I’m not ready to talk to you yet, so just … go back to the gate and do your job.”

Gabriel lowered his eyes and continued washing the dishes, admittedly scrubbing them a little harder than he needed to.

“Gabriel.”

He ignored him, hoping that it’d make him leave. The last thing he needed was to be in the room with his fucking addiction. Gabriel had never been one to allow himself to be used. He was always in control because he was always the object of everyone’s affection. Both men and women, Gabriel had control over every encounter he’d had in the past, but now things were different.

He wasn’t in control of his relationship with Dante. Every progression they’d made had been on Dante’s terms. When they’d first begun their affair, Dante was in a committed relationship with a man he’d loved. For months, all Gabriel was to him was a piece of ass, available whenever he wanted to fuck … which was usually only three or four times a week. He’d let Dante take him to parties as his date, clubs, and fucking dinner parties with his old friends from college, and then they’d head to Dante’s second apartment—the one he reserved for visits from his father, who resided in Vegas—and spend the entire night and half of the damn day locked in the damn apartment.

Gabriel would actually get excited for the days Dante would call him, or pick him up from school. They’d always spend the day together doing shit that Gabriel used to dream of doing when he was locked in the basement of Silas’s castle. He could now finally say that he’d been on a yacht, or that he’d had hours of mind-blowing sex in a private jet taking him to numerous five star resorts for getaway weekends.

Pretty much, Gabriel had been living the life of a rich man’s whore. The relationship was a secret;
he
was a secret, and he started feeling as if he were being pushed back into the damn closet. He hated it, especially after all that he’d endured after he’d found the courage to not be ashamed of his sexuality.

He’d had to end the affair with Dante in order to get him to drop the man he was living with. After he eliminated Casey from his life, Gabriel had been sure that Dante loved him, even though he hadn’t said it yet. Unfortunately, the fight they’d had last night pretty much confirmed that Gabriel was still just Dante’s fucking toy, and it didn’t feel good. The last thing Gabriel had ever wanted in his life was to be in a relationship with another person, and be the only one in love.

“Gabriel, would you please just talk to me?”

His annoyance quickly progressed to anger. He dropped the dishes in his hand and brought his hands out of the soapy water. Taking a moment to check the twins on the monitor, he found them both quietly putting together puzzles and turned his eyes back to Dante. “What the hell do you want me to say?” he asked angrily.

Dante sighed as a regretful frown fell over his face. “I’m trying, Gabriel. You have to see that. I never meant to hurt you. I just need more time than this, that’s all.”

“We’ve been together for two years!” Gabriel snapped. “You told me that we were finally going to be a real fucking couple, then you spend half the night shouting at me because I talked about us with my mother? That makes no sense to me!”

Dante slammed his hands against the counter, as if he were about to yell, but stopped himself. Taking a deep breath and visibly calming himself, he locked eyes with Gabriel once again. “I was upset because you didn’t tell me that you had told your mother we were together.”

Gabriel’s jaw ticked. “Why does that even matter?”

“You shouldn’t be discussing our relationship with her right now. Your mother doesn’t need to know our business.”

“Who fucking cares? She’s my mum, and I talk to her about everything. She already knows that I’m gay!”

Dante shot up from his seat and ran his hand over his face as he paced the floor furiously. “That’s not the point, Gabriel.”

“Then what the hell is the point?”
Because, to be perfectly honest, I’m fucking lost!

“The point is she didn’t know that
I was gay!
And frankly, it was none of her fucking business.”

“What the fuck do you think she did, Dante? Run out and tell your goddamn daddy?”

“You have no idea how close they are, Gabriel. Nobody does. They talk more than everyone thinks.”

“Who gives a fuck? I wish she would have told your father the truth because it’s pretty obvious that you never will!”

“Yes, I will, Gabriel. In
my own time
. All I asked was that you be patient with me, but you steadily refuse. You keep threatening to end our whole damn relationship!”