He grimaced as he reached for the platter of chicken.
“You really don't like being called that, do you?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Connor? No, as a rule I really don't.”
“Why?”
He held the platter in front of her. “Chicken?”
“Thank you.” She took a piece. “Why?”
“You don't back off gracefully, do you?”
Gaby lifted one shoulder. “I figure I don't have anything to lose by being persistent. If you get irked enough, you just might take me home early.”
“I don't irk that easily.” He helped himself to chicken and corn, then lifted his head to meet her waiting gaze. “It's no big deal about the name. My mother called me Connor. Everyone else always called me Con. After she died, I went through what I guess you'd call a stage. That's when my brothers started calling me Wolf, short for Lone Wolf, which a few years later was changed to Black Wolf because I had this black T-shirt and jeans that I wore a lot.”
She arched one brow.
“All right, I wore them nonstop for about six months,” he admitted, his expression sheepish.
“Another stage?” she asked, her nose wrinkling at the picture he'd presented.
“I guess. I was thirteen,” he added as if that explained everything.
“I see.”
“I suppose I got used to being called Wolf by everyone. At some point that just became who I was, how I thought of myself, how I introduced myself. The name Connor was part of the past, a whole other lifetime and...”
“And it brings back memories of your mother,” she finished softly when he trailed off.
His mouth quirked. “Yeah, it does.”
“I understand.” She flashed him a smile. “Wolf it is, then.”
“No,” he said quickly. He shrugged. “Over the past couple of days I've gotten used to hearing you call me Connor and I sort of like lit.”
“Then why did you grimace a minute ago?” she asked, skeptical.
“Because I brushed the back of my hand against that hot platter.” With a rueful expression he held up his bandaged hand. “That's the last time I go messing around a rusty motor with a hangover.”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
He shrugged. “Only when I cook over a hot grill. Or splash boiling water on it when I'm dropping com in the pot. Or touch a hot platter. Or...”
She broke off in the middle of a commiserative wince to eye him warningly. “Connor DeWolfe, are you looking for sympathy?”
“Is it working?”
“Yes,” she admitted, laughing.
“Then I'm looking.”
Gaby shook her head, still laughing. “Just be quiet and eat your dinner.”
“Is that what you say to Toby?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, but he always listens.”
Grinning silently, he picked up his fork, and for a while they both ate without talking.
The meal tasted as good as it looked and smelled. Gaby even succumbed to seconds and then groaned when he offered strawberry shortcake for dessert. He refused to accept her polite protests that she was full, tempting her until she finally gave in and tried a small piece. It didn't even surprise Gaby to find that the sweet, flaky biscuit beneath the fresh sliced strawberries was homemade, any more than it surprised her to learn that he had made a special trip to the cabin to stock the pantry the night before bringing her there. She didn't think anything could ever surprise her again where Connor was concerned.
He wasn't what she'd thought, she realized, or maybe he was exactly what she'd thought and had struggled so hard to deny. She wasn't sure yet, and it was going to take some time to figure it out. She only knew that if a woman had to be stuck in a cabin with a man, she could do a lot worse.
Now that she wasn't constantly looking for him to do or say something wrong, he was actually very easy to be with, funny and talkative and utterly attentive, as if every word she spoke was of the greatest importance to him. It didn't hurt any that he was also gorgeous and sexy and armed with enough seductive charm to make a woman on the verge of turning thirty feel like a teenager on her first date.
No wonder the man never lacked for female companionship, she thought dryly. Recalling the many lean, leggy blondes she had seen him with through the years, Gaby couldn't help wondering why he had ever looked twice at her at all, never mind had the kind of intense, sustained interest he claimed. There was only one explanation, she told herself as she helped clear the table after dinner while he loaded the dishwasher. The lure of the forbidden.
He'd been interested in her precisely because she was Joel's wife and therefore off-limits. A classic case of the spoiled little boy who wants the one thing in the toy shop that he's been told he can't have. Once he got it, of course, he would quickly lose interest. So, she told herself with a small smile, if she really wanted Connor to leave her alone once and forever, the solution was as obvious as the effect he had had on her earlier this afternoon. A very intriguing idea.
“What's so funny?”
“Hmm?” She paused in the middle of her thought, halfway between the table and counter with the empty wine goblets in hand, and peered at Connor quizzically.
“I asked what was so funny,” he explained. “You have this sort of secret little smile.”
“That,” she told him, “is because it's a secret.”
“You're also blushing, which only makes me more curious.”
“Sorry, like I told you, it's a secret.”
“Oh, no.” He tossed the dish towel aside and moved toward her. “No secrets around here. It's a house rule.”
He kept coming toward her with slow, measured strides, his eyes narrowed in an expression of mock menace. A flutter of anticipation deep inside, a feeling that was both delicious and long forgotten, made Gabrielle giggle softly.
“I see,” she said. “And when precisely was this house rule instituted?”
“Precisely one minute ago.” He took the glasses from her hands and placed them on the counter behind her. “So are you going to give up gracefully, or am I going to have to tickle the truth out of you?”
She laughed, her eyes widening and her hands instinctively lifting to fend him off. “No, Connor, you wouldn't.”
“A dare?” he said, reaching for her. “Hell, Gaby, you know how I am about dares.”
“I know, I know,” she half cried, half laughed, squirming frantically as his fingers roamed over her ribs, tickling her mercilessly. “Stop...I hate...I hate...”
“I already know all about how you hate me,” he declared. He was holding her with one arm while he tickled her. “I want to hear about that smile.”
“No, not you.” She gasped as he let up momentarily. “I hate being tickled.”
“Then tell me what I want to know. The truth, Gaby, why were you smiling?”
“Because...” Laughing hard, she tried to slip to the floor to escape him, but he easily hauled her upright so that she ended up pressed tightly against him from chest to thigh. “Because...”
She broke off abruptly, a sudden awareness of him making it difficult to breathe, much less speak. Her entire body softened as the effect of being so close to him slowly commanded total control of her consciousness. Excitement filled her. The heat and smell and feel of him swamped her senses, and when she lifted her gaze and looked into his eyes, what she saw there made her tremble against him.
She saw desire. Strong and forthright and a little wild. Like the man himself. Connor wanted her. The look in his eyes declared that without restraint or apology, and God help her, at that instant she wanted him the same way.
He lowered his head.
She lifted hers.
And their mouths came together as naturally and spectacularly as water tumbling over a waterfall, the motion smooth and graceful and endless. Their parted lips slanted and angled in a series of delicate brushes. Each touch was butterfly soft, eager, as they learned the taste and feel of each other.
With his hands in her hair, Connor kissed her mouth and her cheeks. He used the pressure of his thumbs to tip her head back so he could kiss her throat gently, oh so gently, as if she were something fine and rare. He bent his head to trace the line of her collarbone with his tongue. Gaby felt his touch in a burst of rapid-fire sensations, hot and wet and rough. A sweet-sharp jolt made her arch against him as he sucked lightly on the skin at the side of her neck.
Laughing softly, he bracketed her face with his hands and stared at her, his eyes dark with passion.
“Oh, God, Gaby, this feels good. So good.”
“I know,” she whispered, touching his face hesitantly, as if she couldn't quite believe she was doing it, as if she couldn't quite believe this was Connor holding her and making her feel this way. “I know.”
Everything about him was familiar and at the same time entirely new to her. It was all there in the chiseled planes and hard ridges of his face. All the pride and arrogance and determination, along with a reckless need to prove he wasn't afraid of anyone or anything. She ran her fingertip over the black silk arch of his eyebrow, prompting his mouth to curve with indulgence.
His forehead was broad, his eyes deep set, his jaw as square and solid as they came. Connor looked exactly like what he was. A tough guy, he had called himself, and she wouldn't argue with that. But there was tenderness there, too...in his eyes and in the full, brooding lips that could make her shiver and melt simply by coming close to hers. How could she have been so blind for so long to the tenderness in him?
Recalling what he had asked her to say to him on the deck earlier, she leaned into him slightly and whispered, “Please, Connor, kiss me.”
He looked surprised. Then he grinned and jerked her flat against him as his mouth again laid claim to hers. This time, however, there was none of the tentative experimentation of a moment ago. This kiss was hard and fast and hungry. When his tongue pushed inside her mouth, Gaby moaned and felt her knees go weak.
Connor made a rough noise at the back of his throat, something between a groan and a curse. His hips moved against hers, rhythmically, suggestively, matching the rough thrusts of his tongue. Gaby clung to his shoulders, lost in a spiraling pleasure. She felt suspended in the moment and in herself. Dazed and at the same time acutely aware of every touch of his hand, every sound he made, every bit of sensation that whirled within her.
She felt alive. As if she'd been sleepwalking, she thought, and Connor's kiss had woken her once more. He was right. This felt so good.
Connor pulled her closer still, absorbing the restless movement of her hips against his. He was aware of the exact instant when Gaby surrendered the last shred of her resistance. Like a race-car driver knows engines, he knew women and he knew in that instant that after all this time, Gaby Flanders was his for the taking.
It was heady knowledge, a blessing, a gift, a dream about to come true. Desire surged inside him, like something untamed and trapped that needed to break loose.
With his tongue buried deep in her mouth, his hands moving impatiently beneath her T-shirt, he backed her up to the kitchen counter and pressed against her, hard. She responded and sent pleasure streaking through him in an unbroken arc from his groin to his brain.
He lifted his head with a rough groan, glancing around the kitchen in search of a place to lay her down. The table, the floor, like an animal searching for food or shelter from the cold, he silently hunted for the best and quickest solution to his needs.
Like an animal.
He shuddered, still holding her tightly, and closed his eyes as his chin came to rest on the top of her head.
Like an animal.
The thought made his insides lurch.
Damn it, what was he doing? This was Gaby he was holding, Gaby he was grinding himself against, Gaby he was thinking of tossing right there on the kitchen floor. Gaby, whom he had no more right to hold now than he'd had five years ago, or yesterday or this afternoon out on that deck.
“Connor?” she said quietly. “What is it? Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” He lifted his head and met her bewildered gaze.
Don't look at me like that
, he thought, staring into her eyes, wide and bright with longing.
Don't make this harder than it already has to be
.
“Then why... ?” Her voice dropped and halted.
“Why did I stop?” he finished for her.
She nodded, her expression growing watchful.
“I stopped because I suddenly got to wondering....” He paused as he loosened his hold on her and leaned back, his eyes narrowing speculatively as he struggled to shut down the need still roiling inside him. “Have you ever done it on a kitchen floor before, Gaby?”