Accompanying Alice (32 page)

After dinner they drove around
the
nearby
lake
, peeking at the
water
between the houses built along its shore, stopping to trespass in the moonlight bathing
a
subdivision’s private beach. Carrying their shoes, they walked along the water’s edge in comfortable silence, close without touching. In the silky water that washed up, then receded, around their ankles, they stopped to watch the stars come out. When Alice shivered involuntarily during a sudden off
the
lake breeze, Gabriel automatically moved in behind her and wrapped his arms around her like a shawl, tucking her tight to the warmth of his chest. Wind lifted her hair to tickle his nose, filled his nostrils with her scent.

Sensation flooded him. He buried his face in her hair, letting her fill his senses as she filled his heart. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to get enough of her. He couldn’t remember ever feeling the way she made him feel—whole, free, replete…a part of something larger than he’d ever been a part of before. Family. She’d made him a part of hers. And without meaning to, she’d made him a part of her. That was the way it went. When you weren’t looking for a thing to happen, when you couldn’t afford it to, boom, that’s when it caught you. He was used to snap judgments; they were a hazard of his profession, and he made them and lived by them every day. But this was different, this was deeper, a knowledge he’d somehow carried with him all his life, a sense of recognition. He loved Alice Meyers.

He’d expected to shock himself with the admission, but he wasn’t shocked. Unnerved, maybe, uncertain about how to work love and Alice into his future—and himself into hers. But not stunned.

He felt her take a deep breath of lake air and sigh it happily away. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

He rubbed his face in her hair. “Very.” God, he wanted her. Wanted to brand her as his.

Alice turned in his arms, slipped her own arms about his waist and tipped her face up to him. He made her feel sexy and secure at the same time, but she didn’t want to be
“safe”
with him tonight. Tonight she wanted to flirt with the dangerous side of him, to know if she could tame it.

I want to touch him
, she thought.
I want to hold him. I want him to touch me, be with me. Just once before he leaves. Before I let him go.

She drew herself up with a mental start. He couldn’t leave her if she let him go. It was that simple. Why couldn’t she have understood that eighteen years ago with Matt, and last week with the girls? Love didn’t mean binding up, it meant freeing. It meant choosing to release. It meant choice.

“I never said thank you, did I?” she asked aloud.

Gabriel touched the moon shadow on her cheek. “For what?”

For coming into my life, she thought. For listening to my complaints. For waking up my body. For touching my heart.

“For dinner,” she said aloud. “For whatever you said to Mike this morning.”

The set of her lips in the moonlight fascinated him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth. “Dinner was my pleasure. I didn’t say anything to Mike. He doesn’t need anyone to say anything to him where Becky’s concerned. He loves your daughter, Alice. He’s not blind to her faults, and an adolescent sex drive hasn’t blinded him to himself. He came after the whole woman Becky is—” he grinned “—banana
cake relatives and all.”

“My relatives have nothing in common with banana cake,” Alice said in mock indignation. “Well,” she amended, “except maybe Aunt Bethany. And Aunt Kate. Maybe Helen. Grandma Josephine...”

A gust of wind tossed her hair into her face. Gabriel smoothed it back with trembling fingers. “Alice,” he muttered hoarsely, “you’re running on.”

“Am I?” she whispered. The look on his face made her giddy with anticipation. It made her want to do something she’d never regret.
Touch him,
she thought.
Trust your instincts. Trust yourself.
“Am I really?” she repeated, half smiling.

“Yes.” Gabriel nodded raggedly. “On and on and—”

Alice locked her arms about his neck, lifted herself against him and kissed him. He ran his hands down her back and crushed her tight, groaning when she nipped at the soft underside of his lips and dipped her tongue between them.

Just for a minute,
he assured himself.
I can do this for a minute, then I’ll stop.

Heat curled and tightened in his belly, clouded his awareness. He struggled for control, but she invaded his mind and his senses, and he lost himself in her. He pressed her to him like some missing piece of himself and let instinct lead him where it would, deepening the kiss. He could feel her against him, her body formed to fit his, soft and hollowed where his was hard and ridged. He wanted her. Beside his want there was nothing else; it was primitive, uncontrolled,
complete. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted a woman like this, couldn’t remember that he ever had. The ache of his desire for her cut deep. His hands kneaded the soft fabric covering her hips, her name in his throat was an impatient plea.

“
Alice
...”

He felt the vibration of her response against, his tongue.

“Yes...”

The wind scudded across the lake, sent waves slapping up over his knees to rouse him. Disoriented, he lifted his head to collect his bearings, and felt the waves plaster his pants to his legs again. He looked at the beach, at the lights across the water, at Alice staring up at him as though transfixed—felt the pulse of blood through the arousal behind his zipper. He dropped his head back in angry disbelief and shoved his hands through his hair. Oh, God, he’d promised
himself he wouldn’t use her and leave her like Matt.

“God, Allie, why did you let me do that?”

“You didn’t
do
anything.”

“In another minute... Why didn’t you stop me?”

“I didn’t want to.” Alice tried to touch him, but he yanked himself away from her and started back up the beach. “Gabriel, please. Wait.”

“Do you know what you’re doing, Allie?” He jerked to a stop in the sand and swung about on her. “I could hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you, Alice.”

“No,” Alice said vehemently, fumbling with her purse. “You can’t hurt me if I don’t let you.”

“What turnip truck did you fall off
of
, Alice? I don’t know what the future holds past this minute. How can you deal with that when I’m not sure I can? God, I’m not a kid, I should know better. Damn, I’m sorry.”

“
I’m
not.” Impatiently Alice emptied the contents of her purse in the sand. “I didn’t fall off any turnip truck. I’m well aware of what I’m doing. I’m not going to let you hurt me and I promise— Ha!” Triumphantly she snatched up the crinkly packages she’d been looking for and got to her feet. “And I promise to try not to hurt you. Here—” She grabbed his hand and shoved the foil squares into his palm. “Use ‘em in good health.”

“What?” He was hysterical, he thought, looking at his packets in his hand. He’d lost his mind. But she’d lost hers ahead of him.

“I found them,” Alice said with supreme dignity, “inside a bunny puppet when I was straightening the dresser in the girls’ room. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but I thought you might be.”

Gabriel stared from her to his hand incredulously. “You weren’t sure, but you thought I might—”

“That’s right.” Alice nodded vigorously. “Absolutely. So, what do you think?” Hands on hips, she tapped her foot in the sand. “Should I pitch a hissy and yell at the girls? Should I ignore the whole thing and put them back where I found them? Should I throw them away…” She glanced at Gabriel from
the
corner of her eye, saw his shoulders begin to shake. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing,” Gabriel said, laughing harder. “Me, you, the world in general—the way you always seem to hit me in the funny bone to make me laugh.”

“I’m not hitting you anywhere. I’m trying to ask you for advice. But if this is the way you’re going to act...” She stuck her nose in the air and turned to walk past him.

Too breathless to pursue her properly, Gabriel dropped to his knees in the sand, caught her about the hips and hugged her. “Don’t go,” he wheezed. “I promise not to laugh anymore. I promise I’ll just listen. However difficult you make it. “

Ignoring the last, Alice brushed her fingers through his hair. “Will you give me advice if I need it?” she asked softly.

Gabriel rubbed his face in the fabric across her stomach.

“Absolutely,” he whispered.

“In that case...” Alice framed his face between her palms, lifted it toward her and looked down at him, loving the play of moon shadow across his features, the revealing shift and play of it in the breeze. Her heart swelled and contracted with emotion and excitement, but no doubt. “I
want you, Gabriel,” she whispered. “I need you. I’ve thought about it, and I know the promises I can’t make, and I understand what you… I know these things—” she stroked a hand down his arm to find his hand “—don’t give me any license beyond that and tonight, except...” She touched two fingers to his mouth and smiled shyly. “Please, Gabriel, I want to make a memory with you. I want something of you to keep—a secret I won’t ever have to share with anybody but you. Please. Let me love you while you’re here and I can.”

All laughter gone, Gabriel pressed his face into her stomach and hugged her tight. If she wanted him he was hers
,
body and soul. He would make her his for as long as possible. He reached for her hands to pull himself out of the shifting sand, bent and kissed her. “Let’s go home,”
he said.

Chapter Twelve

I
nside the darkness of her bedroom, they fumbled together, laughing, until their clothing lay in puddles around their feet.

“Nervous?”
Gabriel
asked, running the tips of his fingers up and down her arms.

“A little.” Alice smiled tremulously. “I’ve never had an adult lover, Gabriel. I had a high school sweetheart, a
boyf
riend. I don’t know if I’ll—”

Gabriel stilled her self-doubt with a finger to her lips.

“You’ll be fine,” he whispered. “Incredible. I’m the one who should worry about disappointing you.”

“But you won’t,” she protested.

“No,” he promised softly, “I won’t.”

A moment of awkwardness passed between them. Then Gabriel smiled and bent toward her, and Alice stretched to meet him, fit him.

Bared to one another for the first time, they moved slowly, hands tracing every line and curve. No shrinking violet when she’d made up her mind to something, Alice found the appendectomy scar on Gabriel’s abdomen and examined it thoroughly, making Gabriel smile when she bent to kiss it, making him inhale sharply when she drew a line from the scar to his navel with her tongue and paused there for a few tantalizing moments before continuing on. In his turn, Gabriel lowered her to the bed and took his time, exploring every inch of her, finding the sensitive nerves in the arch of her foot, the ticklish spots at the inside of each knee, the places that made her giggle and try, not very hard, to get away from him. The spots that made her gasp and sigh and twist her hands in his hair with longing.