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“Morning, Trist. How’d you sleep?”
“Great. You’ve got a good mattress,” I said, as if his Casper mattress was the real reason why I slept like a baby and not the fact that I had a brick wall of a man sleeping next to me.
He chuckled before going back to his phone call. “Yes, today is perfect. Thank you, Amoura. I know this is difficult, but it’s important. I’ll see you soon.”
He hung up the call and set his phone down on the counter before turning his attention back to the grill. He scooped up the fluffy pancakes and placed them on clean white plates, adding a square of butter to each stack before drizzling them in syrup.
“That was Amoura. She’s the sister to one of the Midnight Chemist’s most recent victims.” He set the plate down on the table, the clang of porcelain against glass sounding like a gong. I tried not to let my anxiety rise at the mention of the Midnight Chemist but couldn’t help the clammy palms and tightening throat. “She’s been out of the country but just got back today. Wants to talk to me.”
“Does she know anything?”
“We’ll find out. The cops spoke to her, but she says she’s got more to share.”
I arched a brow. “That she couldn’t share with the police?” I cut into the pancakes, syrup and butter running down like a molten river of sweetness and calories.
“Sometimes people don’t say everything to the police, even if it means saving a whole lot of people if they did. We’ll see. It could be nothing.” Gabriel took the seat across from me. He opted for a glass of orange juice instead of the steaming mug of coffee I clung onto like a life raft thrown into stormy waters. Every sip brought me closer and closer to shore.
Gabriel swallowed a mouthful of his breakfast before speaking again. “She has a busy day today, so she wants me there in the next hour or so. Want to go on a little field trip?”
“I actually want to stick around here if I can. I woke up feeling really inspired. I want to see if I can get some words down.”
I also woke up rock hard and wishing I could kiss you, but that’s for another book.
Gabriel gave me a skeptical look. He had a freshly shaven face, which made him appear equal parts younger and more intimidating. I could see the clear definition of his strong jaw, the subtle scars from a long-ago-fought battle with acne, the dark eyebrows that sat above a pair of priceless blue gems. There was nothing there to hide every tiny detail, nothing to hide the fact that I wanted to trace it all with my tongue.
“I don’t think leaving you alone is a good idea,” he said.
“I can’t be watched twenty-four seven. And besides, I’ll be here, in your home. Safe. We got rid of the tracker—he probably doesn’t even know where I am now.”
Gabriel took a deep breath. He set his fork down on the bright yellow place mat and drank from his Disney World cup, his Adam’s apple bobbing with every gulp. “I don’t know, Trist. This person’s been able to surprise me, and I don’t like that. I don’t want you to think I’m overbearing, but I’m also worried for your safety.”
“And that makes me worried for mine,buuuutI think I’ll be okay today.” I pulled out my phone from my gym shorts. “Look, why don’t I text Eric and Noah. Maybe they’ll swing by while you’re gone? Safety in numbers, right?”
That made the tension in Gabriel’s eyes ease. He went back to annihilating the pancakes. “How is it?” he asked me between bites.
“Amazing, thank you for this. For everything, really.” I looked across the small table. He almost looked comically large for his small chair. He had a shirt on, but the corded muscles of his shoulders and chest appeared to be trying to remedy that. One wrong move and he’d be left wearing tattered pieces of fabric.
Well, guess that would be a right move for me.
It was weird. I could admit that. I’d never fallen so quickly for someone. And never this hard for them, either. There was an insatiable thirst that dried my mouth every time Gabriel was around me, and the only way I found I could quench it was with a kiss.
Never happened to me before. I’d dated, I had boyfriends, I had flings, I had one-night stands, and I had a fuckin’ stalker.
But I’d never had this firework-in-your-chest-and-campfire-in-your-crotch kind of feeling before. Sure, some people might attribute it to a Prince Charming–type syndrome, where the armor-clad prince swoops in and saves the other dragon-cornered prince, carrying him away in his arms and having sweaty and bed-breaking sex with him in his castle. Gabriel came into my life in a similar way, fighting off the fire-breathing dragon and claiming me in every room of his modern-day castle.
But that had been a single night (and morning and part day), and now we were back to operating behind walls and boundaries. It made sense why he’d lay those down, but fuck, I hated it. All I wanted to do was explore the wild and explosive chemistry we shared together. It was the only thing that got my mind off my shitty-ass situation—and that’s putting it very lightly.
We finished up eating, and I helped clean up, washing the few dishes while Gabriel put everything away. We joked as we worked, teasing each other about our wildest college stories. Gabriel had been in a frat during college and beat me with his outrageous story involving a lion statue, a purple polka-dotted thong, and a whole lot of illegally obtained alcohol.
I grabbed my laptop when our kitchen duties were up and plopped down on the couch. Gabriel came out of his bedroom wearing well-fitted light jeans and a white T-shirt, a silver chain peeking out against his tan skin. He put on a pair of sunglasses and glanced at his watch.
“How far are Eric and Noah?” he asked, standing above me. It was very difficult for me to focus on my phone when Gabe’s slightly bulging crotch was at eye level with me.
“About twenty-five minutes.”
It’s more like an hour, but that’s fine.I really didn’t want Gabriel worrying about me. I understood that was part of his job, but I couldn’t be babysat all day, every day.
“I’ll wait, then.”
