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And just like that, a shutter came down over his eyes and he let go of her. Shivering from the sudden loss of his heat, she wrapped her arms around herself.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you. It’s just—not something I’m used to talking about.”
Dragging a hand through his hair, Gabe seemed to weigh his next words carefully.
“Ruby was six months old when Carrie died,” he finally admitted. “She doesn’t remember her mother.”
A darkness passed through his eyes that Hope recognized as regret. And pain. Inside her chest, her heart squeezed with a similar sensation.
“But lately she’s been talking more about Carrie. Asking questions about her. To be honest, I don’t really know what the hell I’m doing, or if I’m giving her any of the answers she needs. Every single day for the last six years, I’ve felt like I’ve been winging it, praying to God that I don’t screw this up. I’ve no idea if I’m doing right by Ruby. Or Carrie. They both deserved better than this.” His eyes shuttered again and his mouth formed a grim line, as if this story was physically painful.
She knew exactly how hard it was to talk about your rawest pain and decided in an instant she couldn’t make him say more. She wouldn’t be the one to torment him. Not when they owed each other nothing. Not when she wouldn’t be able to return the favor.
She traced her fingertips along his tight, unsmiling mouth. For a moment she simply took him in, every angle and plane of his face, every stress and frown line. It was like a map to all the pain he’d experienced, all the devastation he’d accumulated in his short lifetime.
It was as her fingers brushed the stubble along his jaw that she made the decision not to press him for more. Even though she was desperate to know, even though she had a million questions backlogging in her brain, she wasn’t going to push him anymore tonight. She could sense he’d already shared more than he probably had in a long time, and the fact that he’d trusted her with that was enough for now.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she said, looking into his eyes, willing him to know she meant it.
Gabe held her gaze, then he reached for her hand, lifting it until her palm rested against his lips. He let his eyes close, and to her surprise, he brushed his lips across her fingertips. The sensation shot down her arm, and straight to her heart.
After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and drew her fingers away from his mouth.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice rougher and deeper than before.
Swallowing hard didn’t help move the lump that had formed in her throat. As they stood together, staring into each other’s eyes—parts of them touching, other parts itching to—the familiar heat built between them.
It felt wrong.
It felt right.
It felt… inevitable, Hope thought as her breathing quickened.
Only a day had passed since their encounter in the hallway, but it might as well have been months, years even. The effortless intimacy that existed between them had been there from the first moment.
Now Gabe was looking at her mouth with hungry eyes. Her lips parted in anticipation of what she instinctively knew was coming.
“Hope,” he rasped. “I think I’m about to kiss you.”
At his words, her pounding heart knocked the last of her breath out of her throat in a soft exhale. She wanted that kiss. She wanted it so bad. But that’s not what they’d agreed on in the donut shop.
“What about keeping things just about Ruby?” She managed to ask with the reserve oxygen in her lungs. Her voice came out as a squeak.
Gabe tipped his forehead towards hers, as if seeking the contact. Guilt flashed in his eyes, and she could see—he was waging the same internal battle as her. Conscience against need. Duty against desire.
“You’re right. This is wrong.” His gruff whisper was steeped in regret. Hope drew closer to him because of it. He’d done nothing wrong, expressing his needs. They matched hers. She wanted him to know.
“It doesn’t feel wrong.” She was near enough now that they were sharing the same air. When her breath released, his drew it in. “It feels right.”
“Then maybe it is.”
In one fluid movement, he closed the gap between them. His lips descended on hers, hot and firm, and moved across them with a single mindedness that made her melt against him in seconds.
Feeling powerless to resist and, more alarmingly, not even sure she wanted to, Hope opened her mouth, allowing Gabe to deepen their connection. When his tongue found hers, the kiss detonated, causing a needy moan to release from deep within Hope’s throat. After that, it was all devouring, exploring, and tasting.
She pulled him in by the front of his t-shirt, drawing his tongue deeper into her mouth, relishing the sensations firing all the way down to her toes. His fingers tangled in her hair, tugging her closer as well. She could feel the vibrations that came from his throat low in her belly. Everything that came from him poured into her, and from her to him. As though their kiss was a living, breathing thing.
Eventually, only the need to for air broke them apart.
