Beauty and the Feast (16 page)
Gabe pulled himself up on one elbow and leaned over her. “What? That we made love? It’s very simple. I wanted you. You wanted me. You don’t have to pretend. If there’s one person on this earth you don’t have to pretend with, sweetheart, it’s me.”
“But, Gabe, we barely know each other.”
Gabe kissed her then, a long, lingering kiss that left her lips tingling. “I would venture to say that we know each other a whole lot better right now than we did an hour ago.”
Eva tried to turn her head to hide her smile, but he caught it and he shot her an infectious grin.
“Sometimes there’s a connection between people, a connection they can’t explain. That’s you and me. The first time I heard your voice over the phone, I felt it. I’m willing to bet you did too.”
Eva nodded almost imperceptibly. “Yes, I did,” she admitted. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since that very first conversation. It’s a bit of a problem,” she laughed in a self-deprecating fashion. “I’m not sleeping well.”
“You can sleep now, if you want.”
“No,” Eva yawned, “I have a lot of work to do yet. For your party.”
“Our party,” Gabe corrected her.
“You’re sure about this?” Eva asked. “You really want to introduce me to your co-workers? Gabe, I’m nothing. I’m a nobody. I mean, I clean houses and cook for a living.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Gabe ran a hand down the side of her face. “My mother cleaned houses to put food on our table. You’re smart, you’re creative, you work hard, you say what you think. I don’t have to wonder where I stand with you. God, your food would make a seasoned chef cry, and even better, you taste like a slice of heaven. Right here.” He reached between her legs and stroked her wet folds. “You’re soft and sweet and tight and you make the most incredible noises when you come. Christ, what more could a man ask?”
“Gabe…”
“Yes?” The fingers of his other hand toyed with her nipple.
Eva ran a palm along his thigh, weaving her way up from his knee until she cupped his heavy scrotum. She could feel the rounded sac contract in her palm as his cock began to rise. She caressed him, while she ran the fingers of her other hand along his length.
“Fuck me again.”
* * * *
Eva set a bowl of vanilla ice cream on the table in front of Gabe. With a grin, she drizzled the chocolate sauce she’d warmed in the microwave over the top.
“What a pity you didn’t have a chance to use this,” she commented, as she sat down to her own bowl of vanilla ice cream covered with warm balsamic caramel.
Gabe scooped up some ice cream and chocolate with his spoon and licked at it, the movement of his tongue very suggestive. With a waggle of his eyebrows he said, “Well, I thought about it, but you weren’t here. And I figured it would be kind of sticky on my hand.”
Eva’s grin widened as she replied, “Ditto.”
“You minx,” Gabe said with a smile as he reached over with his spoon and took a taste of her ice cream with the caramel sauce. “Damn, that’s good.”
“You sound like Jason White,” said Eva, “I work for his parents and he loves this caramel sauce.”
“Oh yeah? How old is he?” retorted Gabe.
“Too young for you to worry about. Eighteen.”
“Eighteen and horny as hell. I remember very clearly what I would have thought of a woman like you when I was eighteen.”
“Jealous?” asked Eva, looking up at him as she licked a dab of ice cream from her spoon.
“Depends,” answered Gabe, his eyes on her pink tongue.
“Depends on what?”
“On what else you plan to do with that tongue of yours.”
“Mmmm. Imagining…but your shirt’s too nice.”
“That’s easily remedied. Take it off.”
Eva wore one of Gabe’s dress shirts, light mint-green in color. It accented her deep auburn hair and her peachy complexion. She’d drawn one of her long, slender legs up to her chest and she rested an elbow on her knee as she slowly ate her ice cream. She gazed at him with half-closed eyes, her expression dreamy. Gabe had pulled his jeans on. He wore nothing else. He watched Eva lick at her ice cream and he busied himself remembering exactly how that tongue of hers had licked him, when it dawned on him that Eva must be very tired. They’d whiled away the afternoon in bed and he knew she had a lot left to do for the barbecue. He rose to his feet.
“C’mon,” he said, sticking a hand out to her.
“Where we going?” she asked in a very tired voice.
“Nap time. Back to bed.”
“But Gabe, I’ve got so much to do. I can’t.”
“One hour. Sleep for one hour and you’ll feel a lot better. C’mon.”
He pulled her to her feet.
“You’re not going to carry me again, are you?” Eva asked, suspicious.
“Tempting as it is, I’ll let you get up there under your own power this time. C’mon sweetheart, let me tuck you in and you can give me an assignment, anything. I’ll take care of whatever you want… as long as it’s not cooking. I’m a lousy cook.”
Eva gave in and kept her hand in his. That simple act spoke volumes. Gabe knew he’d won her trust. She was his. She trailed him up the stairs. Just like he’d done the week before when she’d been injured, he fluffed the pillows beneath her head and covered her with a sheet. It was still too warm for a quilt.
“Make sure the picnic tables are arranged away from the fire pit and the barbecues, and spread the chairs out on the deck and around the pool. In an esthetic fashion, please. Oh, and I guess you’d better pick up the platters that we knocked off the dining room table. Thanks, Gabe,” Eva mumbled before she turned onto her side and closed her eyes. She folded her hands and tucked them beneath her cheek. She was asleep within seconds.
Gabe watched her for a few moments. Asleep or awake, Eva Raines was breathtaking. And she hadn’t a clue. She was the least pretentious woman he’d ever met, but at the same time, she was definitely the most sensual, by far the most fiery. She was everything he wanted in a woman, more specifically, in the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He had never expected her to fall into his lap like this.
Gabe harbored no illusions about why most women were attracted to him. He knew he was considered a catch. He was thirty-three years old. He was a successful businessman, rich, athletic. He figured he was handsome enough. Some people considered him arrogant. Over the years, he’d learned that arrogance in a man could be attractive to a woman, if a man had the substance to back it up. If there was one thing growing up poor had bequeathed him, it was substance.
When it came to women, Gabe had set the bar high and until now, he simply hadn’t met a woman who could come close, even in spiked heels. A beautiful woman on his arm was one thing. A beautiful woman in his bed could be quite exciting, for an hour or two. A beautiful woman in his life was a horse of a different color. He’d wanted Eva Raines before he’d even laid eyes on her, and from what she’d admitted, she felt the same about him.
Gabe realized that his sister was right. It was time he settled down, although he didn’t think life with Eva would be exactly settled. She was quite a handful. Gabe appreciated that about her. The other women he cared about, his mother, his sister, and his two nieces, could all be described as
a handful
. He didn’t expect any less of his woman, the woman who would be his wife. He reached for a lock of Eva’s wavy hair. Lifting it gently so as not to disturb her, he rubbed it between his fingers. He closed his eyes and held the soft tresses against his lips for just an instant. He inhaled. Eva’s hair smelled spicy and just a bit like chlorine from his pool. Gabe liked the smell. He decided to pull the quilt up around her shoulders in case she got cold, then he went downstairs.
Gabe smiled as he retrieved the large plastic platters that she’d sent flying off the dining room table. He stacked them into a neat pile. He followed Eva’s instructions and arranged the picnic tables she’d rented, making certain nothing was too near the temporary fire pit she’d had constructed. Her foresight and attention to detail impressed him. As far as he could tell, she’d thought of everything. Some of his employees could learn a thing or two from Eva. Like an option quarterback, she was very good at sizing up a situation and adjusting her game. She could probably make something out of nothing, Gabe mused, spin gold from straw. The important women in his life had always had that gift, which was what had allowed his family to survive after his father left them without a word.
Thinking of his father reminded Gabe that he hadn’t called his sister. He entered the kitchen and picked up the phone. He wanted to find out how Father Joe was doing and see if Lise had spoken with
Quincy
again. He wondered if he ought to bring the boy to
Chicago
so suddenly. Eva admitted she’d been worried something had happened to his mother or his sister, but the brother thing was very new and sounded odd, even to his own ears. He’d tell her tonight, when she was awake, if he wasn’t too busy exploring her all over again. Gabe’s cock seemed to be thinking along the same lines and he had to order it to stay down. Whoever claimed a man thought with what was in his pants wasn’t too far off. In Eva’s case however, Gabe’s brain and his balls were in agreement that she was the whole package and there would be no going back. She was his little chef.
* * * *
With Gabe’s help, Eva finished up around
Everything was ready to go. The briskets and the ribs would start smoking first thing in the morning. Eva didn’t have access to a real smoker, so her quick method would have to be good enough. She hoped for a nice smoke ring on the brisket nonetheless, and meat so tender on the ribs that it melted like butter in the mouth. The salmon would take only minutes. All the salads were finished, the beans and tamales ready to slow cook, the Western Cesar salad lacked only the dressing, the ingredients for the cornbread measured and waiting to be mixed, and the desserts were wrapped and in the freezer. She’d make the guacamole and the salsa and bake the chips in the morning so they’d be fresh.
Eva watched Gabe wipe down the countertops in his kitchen. He may not know how to cook, but he followed her directions, he didn’t complain, and he was tireless. The man never slowed down. Eva felt her nipples tingle and she nearly closed her eyes as she remembered what she’d done with him just this afternoon. No, the man never slowed down, especially not in bed.
Never, never, not even once, had Eva known that lovemaking could be so…so…otherworldly, so fantastic. She’d thought those sorts of feelings between a man and a woman happened only in her imagination, or books. Making love with Gabe had transported her, out of time, out of her body, out of this world. Making love with Gabe lifted her far higher than the most amazing food high she’d ever had.
She’d been concerned about her own inexperience, worried that Gabe would find it unappealing, but he seemed to, well, to take immense pride in the fact that he’d given her the very first orgasm she’d ever had with a man. Eva had previously found sex pleasant, but intimidating. The few guys she’d been with seemed to be in a big hurry to get themselves off and she’d always felt insecure and self-conscious, as if there was something wrong with her because she couldn’t come in three or four minutes flat. She’d tried faking it a couple times, before she realized that faking an orgasm just didn’t work for her. Maybe the guy appreciated the fact that he thought he’d satisfied her, but Eva didn’t. Not by a long shot. She’d sort of become accustomed to the idea that she’d have to get off on food, and she’d put all her sexual energy into the food she made, the recipes she created, and her fantasies whenever she took the time to indulge in them. Gabriel Abbott was her fantasy come to life.
Eva practically quivered while she stacked plates in the dining room, remembering how he’d carried her in here and entered her from behind, so rough, so forceful, so… so tender, all at the same time, as if he’d been making her a permanent part of himself, or taking a part of her, Eva didn’t know which. She only knew that she felt whole with Gabe. He filled her up. He soothed an ache she hadn’t fully realized she’d been feeling until he’d pulled out of her. Eva felt herself blushing. She wondered how swollen Gabe’s head would get if he knew that not only did she come at least half a dozen times with him inside her, she’d even come when he pulled out.
The last time…my God…the last time, she’d awakened in his bed, smelling of sex and man, feeling warm despite the fact that she was only covered by a sheet, when suddenly, as she stretched, he was there, unbuttoning the green shirt she’d put on, his mouth tugging on her tender nipples, his stiff cock entering her, stretching her gloriously, rubbing her in exactly the right spot. She’d come violently but without a sound, her mouth buried against the side of his neck, sucking on his tender skin without even realizing what she was doing. She’d given him a hickey. Eva had never given anyone a hickey in her life. Gabe had laughed when she pointed it out and apologized. He claimed he would wear it with pride.
Eva felt Gabe’s arms snake around her waist and he pulled her backward. She could feel his erection pressed against her bottom.
