Unveiling The Sky (36 page)

I smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

I walked out of Gabe’s bedroom at eleven and saw Naomi passed out face-first on the couch, clad only in her bra and with half her pants off.
What the hell?
I shook my head and abandoned that mystery for the kitchen where I pulled out a carton of eggs, milk, an aluminum mixing bowl and a frying pan. I felt like a cliché as I started making breakfast in nothing but my underwear and Gabe’s button-down flannel from the night before, but God help me if I didn’t absolutely love it.

Today was Thanksgiving, and it’s possible that the four of us getting trashed the night before (Naomi allowed me one more allowance on account of the holiday) wasn’t the best idea, especially since we were still going to try making a traditional Thanksgiving meal. But one drinking game led to another, which led to another… and yeah… we were wasted, and truthfully I didn’t remember much after midnight, but based on the delicious soreness between my legs I was guessing the Gabe and I were… productive.
Hopefully we remembered to use condoms. Being productive is one thing, but I certainly didn’t want to be reproductive.
I snorted at my lame pun and seriously considered the idea that I was still drunk.

I had already cracked eight of the twelve eggs and poured in the milk when Gabe’s voice sounded behind me. It was deep and scratchy like he had just woken up.

“What are you doing?”

“Riding a bike,” I deadpanned. I turned around, cradling the bowl against my stomach and whisking the eggs as he walked to the fridge and grabbed the orange juice before drinking straight out of the container. We smiled warmly at each other and he returned the juice to the fridge without breaking eye contact.

“Can you toss me the stick of butter while you’re there?” I nodded toward him.

“Course.” He continued to hold my eyes until I turned around and started the stove. The butter slid across the counter under my arm, already sliced and on a plate, ready to be put in the pan.

“Thanks,” I whispered.

Gabe nuzzled my neck before wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder. “No problem.” We were silent for several minutes as I put the butter and whisked eggs and milk into the pan, watching them cook.
 

“Maybe you should put some pants on… not that I mind the view.” I shivered as his hand disappeared under the shirt and his fingers dipped into my underwear. “But I really don’t want Derek walking out and enjoying the view either.”

I rolled my eyes and turned around in his arms, allowing his hand to glide along my hip and rest on my butt. “I have known Derek since I was a kid, and unfortunately he was
very
present for the period of time where I seemed to hate wearing clothes. So he has probably seen ‘the view’ more than you have at this point.”

He pinched my cheek and kissed the smirk off my mouth before whispering against my mouth. “Unless you started puberty extremely early, I think quite a bit has changed.” The hand on my butt squeezed, while the other came up and rolled my nipple until I was moaning against his mouth. He growled in response and roughly brought his lips flush with mine, plunging his tongue into my mouth. I could still feel a hand on my backside and fingers around my nipple, but I quickly realized that one of those sensations had to be a phantom feeling as a seemingly third hand slipped between my legs, finding my bare flesh.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” he whispered against my lips as he slipped two fingers inside me and slowly started pumping. We stumbled to the side away from the stove. I fumbled to turn it off as he picked up speed and the heel of his hand rubbed my clit. As I reached back to grab the counter, I hit the empty mixing bowl and several unused eggs, barely acknowledging them as the bowl scraped the wall and the eggs cracked on the ground. Gabe’s hand froze.
 

“Please don’t stop,” I begged, roughly grabbing his wrist and pushing it against me, filling me deeper.

“But, Naomi…” He trailed off, sounding torn between finishing what he started and getting caught. Pushing up on my tiptoes, I groaned as his fingers slowly left me until only the tips remained. With a quick glance over his shoulder, I saw that Naomi hadn’t moved an inch. For good measure my eyes flew to Derek’s door and found it also undisturbed.

Satisfied that no one heard, I sank back down quickly until his fingers were lodged and his palm cupped me once more. Unable to speak, I simply shook my head and urged him to continue as I rolled my hips. His eyes were dark and hooded with lust, but his hand was tentative and way too slow. I growled in frustration. “Jesus, Gabe. She’s not… awake… Derek’s door… is… closed,” I panted out as I rubbed myself against his practically immobile hand.

“That could change any minute.” Gabe’s hand slowed again, but his voice was ragged and his eyes were slightly mischievous. He wasn’t going to stop this time, but he sure was enjoying torturing me.

My hands left the counter and clutched his shoulders, my nails digging into the fabric of his shirt. “Then you better be able to finger me in a minute.” His hand froze again as his eyes widened at my crass words, but I felt no embarrassment. I was surprised too, but it was simply a testament to how comfortable I felt with him. I knew I was safe here. I knew I was loved here.

I would have laughed at his expression if the throbbing between my legs hadn’t crossed the line from uncomfortable to downright painful. “So make it fast… and hard.”

“Are you trying to kill me?” Gabe’s words came out on a groan, his eyes flaring and his control snapping as he lips landed on my neck, roughly sucking the skin there. His hand went from zero to sixty, causing a whole different kind of pain. A pleasurable pain. A pain I would beg for. Gabe’s rough fingers continued to work me over and within a minute I was spiraling. He saw the signs and brought his mouth to mine to silence my cries. I bit his lip as I bucked against him, riding the delicious aftershocks until I was limp in his arms.

We were silent for a few minutes until Gabe slowly removed his hand and moved back enough to bring his hand between us. “Well, well… who knew you’d be into voyeurism?” Gabe smirked as he brought the fingers that were just inside me to his mouth. My face heated up at his words, but I still returned his grin and impulsively grabbed his fingers just before they reached his mouth and brought them to my own instead.
 

He groaned as I slowly licked them clean. “Definitely.”

“Definitely what?”

“You are
definitely
trying to kill me.”

We grinned as we continued to come back to ourselves and looked at our surroundings. My mind was reeling; I couldn’t believe I’d just had an orgasm in Derek’s kitchen. Eggshells littered the counter behind me, reminding me of my breakfast plans.

I laughed when I saw four broken eggs on the ground. My head fell against Gabe’s chest, shaking slightly from his own chuckles. “I guess I should probably throw this out, right?” I nodded to the pan containing only slightly burnt eggs. “It’s probably not very sanitary.”

“I see no reason why
we
can’t eat it.”

“We should probably clean this up before—”

Just as I was about to say
before anyone wakes up
, Derek’s door creaked open and he came stumbling out. He was shirtless and his hair stuck out in every direction as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“What the hell?” he asked while pointing to his half-naked sister. Gabe and I remained frozen. He shook his head and walked our way but came to a halt at the entrance of the kitchen, his eyes going between the mess on the floor and us. Clearly he was still half asleep because his eyebrows were drawn tight for several seconds before they shot up into his hairline. “
What
.
The
.
Hell
?”

“Morning?”

“Alara…”

“
Derek
…” I mocked.

“Ughhh… you know what? Whatever… you’re an adult. You can do what you want.”

“Thank God, now I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

Gabe smiled at me before whispering in my ear, “pants,” and nodding his head toward Derek. I laughed since he was far more interested in his phone than anything living, but with another quick peck to his lips I complied and walked to the bedroom, absolutely powerless against the smile overtaking my face.

I watched her walk away, only looking away once she’d disappeared from my line of sight. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like absolute shit. How are you so unaffected?”

“I didn’t have much, plus Alara and I found… ahh… activities that sobered us up quite a bit before we went to bed last night.”

Derek rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say something when three loud knocks echoed through the apartment, causing him to wince and cover his ears. “Fucking shit, who the hell?” When we were both too slow to answer, the knocks sounded again and Derek bolted for the bathroom, looking like he was ready to throw up.

I walked over to Naomi and shook her awake, trying to keep my eyes away from anything other than her face. She moaned and shifted. “Naomi, come on, get up.” I shook her with a little more force. “There’s someone at the door and whoever it is, I don’t think you want them to see you like this.”

“I don’t give a fart,” she slurred. I squeezed her shoulder and whispered, “please.” She begrudgingly got up and headed for my bedroom where Alara was. I was crossing the apartment as the third set of knocks sounded. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming…” I trailed off as I reached the door. I froze as soon as it was fully opened and my mind registered who was in front of me. Several seconds passed and neither of us said anything, until…

“Gabriel.”

My dad was standing there. When I was seven and got stuck in a tree, I wanted him there. When I was ten and wanted someone to teach me to catch, I wanted him there. When I was twelve and broke my arm, I wanted him there. Hell, even when I was eighteen and graduating and I knew what an ass he was, I still wanted him there. And he wasn’t there. Not for any of it.
 

So I didn’t know if life was being cruel or ironic. Because now that he
was
here, I definitely didn’t want him.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

His eyebrows rose like he was shocked I’d be mad. “You should be with your family, it’s Thanksgiving.”

“I am with my family,” I gritted out, looking down the hallway toward the bedrooms. “And we’re actually going to be leaving soon, so if you wouldn’t mind…” I began closing the door; after all, there was nothing he could say that would change my mind.

“And what about Samantha?” he asked right before it shut.

Except that. I froze, cursing under my breath before I reopened the door. “I invited her over for Thanksgiving, but she said she’d rather be with you.” Which frankly I still couldn’t figure out, but she was adamant about it.

“She said that? She said she’d rather be with
me
?” he asked dryly.

“Yes, she said…” I trailed off as I thought about it, and no, she hadn’t said that. She had said that she needed to be
home
. And what she meant was Mom’s home; she had to be there for
Mom
. I hung my head in shame and stupidity. It never occurred to me that she saw that place as a shrine to Mom, since I had only ever thought of it as our dad’s prison.