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It hadn’t ended well for him on most counts, but it could for Hope. Still, the truth was that he didn’t need another bartender. “Carter will be back soon, Hope. He’s not out for good.”
The look in her eyes told him that she knew that, but still she persisted. “Look, if I let them, my parents would happily live my life for me. They would make all of my decisions for me and finance them without even thinking twice about it.” She took a long breath. “I know this, because for a long time that is exactly what I let them do, without any real thought to who I truly was or what I wanted.”
She fell onto the nearest chair, as if the weight of this conversation was taking too much energy. Almost subconsciously, she reached down and rubbed her feet, which were still trapped in those shoes that could have doubled as a weapon as far as Gabe was concerned. They must be killing her.
She looked up at him, a fresh sadness in her eyes that tugged at a long untouched part inside him.
“My parents are good people,” she said quietly. “My parents, my brother, they’re fixers, caregivers. It’s deeply ingrained into the very footprint of their beings to provide, save, fix, care for. I know it all comes from a place of love.”
The way she said it, Gabe wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself.
“But I decided a while back that I didn’t want them making the decisions they think are best for me anymore. I took back control of my life. And part of that meant breaking away from my father’s empire, being on my own and not feeling like I have to live my life a certain way because he paved the road and paid for it.”
He wanted to know what happened “a while back” to make her think this way, but he kept his mouth shut, mostly because his interest in her was starting to feel far more personal than anything he was ready to take on at the moment, and also because she looked so raw and exposed, he didn’t want to make her feel any more vulnerable than she already was.
“Do you know what I mean?” she asked after his prolonged silence, her eyes shining with emotion, her voice a soft whisper in the empty bar.
He nodded, because he really did know. He watched her release a shuddering breath, an unmistakable relief filling her features.
Aw hell, he didn’t stand a chance against her shimmering doe eyes, and he was done kidding himself for this evening at least.
Dragging out a chair, he took a seat in front of her. Moving on instinct, he lined his knees up so they touched hers. The now familiar electricity hummed between them. Without breaking eye contact, he lifted one of her ankles to cradle her foot in his hands. At the skin-to-skin contact, the electricity turned into an almost palpable pulse. This desire, this feeling he had every second he spent around her, it made no fucking sense.
He’d only met her today, but this inescapable chemistry that insisted on heating between them was something he’d have to work out. The trouble was that he wasn’t sure he had the emotional capacity to do it tonight. Or ever.
He watched Hope’s chest rise and fall in quick little pants as he undid the thin strap around her ankle and took the shoe off her foot, dropping it on the floor beside him. Purposefully, he pressed his thumb into the arch and slowly rubbed up, then down. A low groan rumbled out of Hope’s throat as her head fell back and her eyes closed. He repeated the motion with her other foot.
They stayed like this for a while, a quiet intimacy building between them in the empty, silent bar. As he rubbed her feet, he let his own body relax. His tension drained in tandem with hers.
“Hope,” he said after some time, and watched as she unhurriedly opened her eyes, gradually coming out of her blissed-out trance.
The swamping emotion that had filled her eyes earlier was replaced by a darker look that he recognized because he was pretty sure it matched his own. It was a look that reflected need. Desire. Lust.
“Better?” he asked, his voice husky in his own ears.
With a hooded look, Hope nodded slowly.
She lifted her feet off his lap, then shifted closer so that now their legs were interlocked. His knee. Her knee. His knee. Her knee. Her lips parted enough for her tongue to dart out and moisten her lips.
God, she was going to kill him.
He opened his mouth to say something, anything to interrupt this collision course they were on, but no sound came out. Instead, he felt himself lean forward, until their lips were a whisper apart. Hope’s scent intoxicated him, wrapping around them like a mist that set them apart in another world. Her thigh twitched as it edged closer to his. Her lashes fluttered as her lids lowered. That fucking pretty mouth parted ever so slightly. Invitingly.
And not even a dead man could have resisted her.
Fuck. He was going to kiss her. Hehadto. If he had the choice between his next breath of air and a kiss from Hope Morgan, he was going to take the kiss, hands down.
This is insane, was his last coherent thought before he closed in on the space between them. Nothing, not even an earthquake would have stopped him.
Nothing, that is, except one voice saying one word.
“Daddy?”
Fuuuuuuck.
Hope shoved off of him so quickly she nearly knocked him out of his chair. She leapt to her feet in confused shock, wild eyes searching for the source of the interruption.
Shit. He hadn’t seen this coming.
