Hot in the City (10 page)

His features were so relaxed. Happy, which made him even handsomer. And sexier. As a little ripple of heat moved through her, she sighed. She couldn’t seem to get enough of him.

“You’re welcome. This food looks great, I’m starving. Let’s eat,” he said voraciously.

“They really did give us a lot.” She noted the wide array of sandwiches, cheese, chips, fruit and drinks. “I think the café lady who was flirting with you packed a little extra.”

“Good thing,” he said, digging into one of the sandwiches while Della ate some cheese and an apple.

“Do you do this often, hike out in the mountains?”

“I used to. We grew up in Denver, and the Rockies were our playground. My brother and I spent most of our time climbing or hiking from the time we were kids. My parents met on an expedition team climbing Kilimanjaro, so they raised us in the same tradition. In fact, they’re spending this summer in the Andes. It sounds pretty amazing, from their emails.”

“Wow, I’m impressed. That explains why this is literally like a walk in the park for you while I’m barely keeping up.”

“City girl,” he teased, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled at her. “You’re doing fine. I guess I missed it more than I thought. The air, the exercise. Work takes over. Maybe too much.”

She nodded in agreement, her appetite spiking as she reached for more goodies.

“My parents are more urban types,” she said in kind. “They travel widely, always did. Very focused on culture and history. They took me along when they could, but a lot of my time when I was young was focused on school.”

“No siblings, I take it?”

“Just me. Are you close with your brother?”

Gabe’s expression turned strained. “We always have been, but not as much lately. My fault entirely. We haven’t seen each other for almost two years now, though we stay in touch on email, the occasional phone call. Still, he and his wife had a second baby last January, and I’ve only seen pictures.”

Della reached over, put her hand on his arm. “You sound like you miss them. Don’t DHS agents get holidays off?”

“Sure, but I didn’t take the time. Not for the past two holidays, anyway. There were...other things going on. I wasn’t in the right head space to be around family.”

She sensed the mood had changed, and Gabe stopped eating, staring back out over the tree line.

“Was that because the woman you were telling me about, the one you were involved with, died?”

Della held her breath, hoping she wasn’t stepping over a line and possibly ruining their weekend, but she couldn’t help it. The question had been at the back of her thoughts since he’d brought it up before. Clearly it was an event that had moved him deeply.

Several moments passed, and Gabe didn’t take his eyes off the view as he spoke. “About two years ago, yes. I guess I’d lost track of that, too, which is what I intended. I just didn’t pay attention to anything else.”

Della was quiet, hoping that would invite him to say more. She also didn’t want to push. Whatever he shared with her, it had to be his decision.

“Her name was Janet, and we were partners since I started at the DHS. She had slightly more seniority.
That
she never let me forget,” he said with a rueful grin. “But I had a lot more experience.”

“How long were you together?”

“Three years. We only became lovers six months before she was killed. I suppose that wasn’t very long, but...it really pulled the rug out from under me. Maybe because we had history, or because I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. I couldn’t get my head around it for a long time, that she was gone. Even though she wasn’t the first person I knew who had been lost in the line of duty, it was...harder.”

“She was special to you, so obviously it would be different. What happened? What do you mean that you weren’t there for her?”

He leaned back on his elbow, looking at her now, blowing out a breath before he spoke again. His fingers absently played with a small stone he picked up.

“We’d been following a money-laundering operation for a while, investigating bogus business fronts that were moving cash to terrorist cells in the US and other allied countries. We were gathering enough evidence to send in multi-agency strike teams, trying to follow the path to the source as far as we could. The goal was to get as many of the major players as possible. The people operating the businesses were small fish—we wanted the guys running the show.”

Della nodded.

“It was mostly background work, surveillance and research. Then my department sent me to Africa to help with a problem with an operation there, and there was no reason to think Janet couldn’t handle things here on her own. But then something broke, and they had a small window to get in and grab a major player who had suddenly shown up on the radar in D.C. She went in with the strike team, but things went bad. She was shot, fatally. And that was that. I didn’t even know she was gone until I was on my way home. I almost missed the funeral,” he said, his voice low, soft. Laced with regret.

It was easy to see it was still painful for him.

“No one told you? They didn’t wait?”

“Protocol. DHS couldn’t risk compromising the work I was doing in Africa, and her family had no idea about me, so they had scheduled the funeral quickly. Also, I found out shortly afterward there was a mole. Someone had told the terrorists that the strike team was coming—it was the only way they could have been taken out so easily. They even thought it might be me at first. It was a huge mess.”

Della was shocked beyond words that one of Gabe’s own people was responsible for what had happened.

“That’s unbelievable.”

“I couldn’t believe it, either, at first. When I returned, and she was gone... I don’t know. It was like I turned my back for a minute and the world changed. I didn’t react well—especially when they took me off the case altogether.”

“Oh, Gabe, I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing to go through.”

“I found out about the mole—a buddy told me, off the record—and I started investigating, off-book, which was why they benched me in the first place, turns out. Bart figured he might as well put me in there undercover, since I was going to do it anyway, once I knew. I had to. I owed that much to her. But it was perfect, since everyone thought I’d been put on leave, their guard was down.”

She held her breath at the predatory look in his eye, the razor-sharp intent. Della had no doubt he’d accomplished his task.

“You found him?”

He nodded, but seemed calm, more serene than she would expect.

“I did. Not a he, though. One of Janet’s team, someone she trusted and confided in. That’s how they knew what she was up to. She’s serving a life sentence now. I wanted to do worse, but unfortunately, she didn’t give me an excuse. Government employees aren’t paid a lot, so she was padding her retirement fund by leaking information to the enemies. On several operations, it turned out.”

The words were delivered coolly, matter-of-factly, and made her shiver even on the warm summer day.

“I’m glad that you found her.”

Della also understood, now, why he only wanted casual associations, like the one they had. The fact that his lover hadn’t been able to trust her best friend, and that had led to her death—how could Gabe ever trust anyone, living in a world like he did? Where you couldn’t even trust the people who were supposed to have your back?

If Della thought she had problems connecting with others, in forming relationships, she could only imagine how difficult it would be for him. Casual was the only way to function in that case. Easy come, easy go, because you never knew what was going to happen next.

Though, the way her heart hurt for him just then, she had to admit that their relationship was becoming less and less casual, at least for her. Still, that was her problem. He had never promised anything more.

“Thank you for confiding in me,” she said, moving closer to him, her palm cupping his cheek as she leaned in for a soft kiss. Though his pain was in the past—or was it?—she was moved by the urge to comfort, and to connect. To take off the chill that had come over them. To let him know that for this moment, anyway, he wasn’t alone. That until he left, she wasn’t going anywhere.

The kiss lingered, and he moved some of their food out of the way so that he could pull her closer, investigating the depths of her mouth more deeply, making her heart hammer in her chest. Della’s fingers slipped up underneath the edge of his T-shirt, moving across the taut skin of his waist, and she felt his arm around her tighten.

His lips slid to her ear and he mumbled, “Keep that up, and we’re going to have to add a second public place to your resume,” as he nipped the lobe and made her catch her breath.

She pulled back slightly to check behind them.

“I don’t see anyone around.” Her eyes met his with mischievous challenge and he smiled, pulling her in for another kiss.

“Temptress,” he accused softly, his hand moving to her breast. The thin material of the tank top she wore was almost no barrier at all to the heat of his hand and the teasing of his fingers.

Two could play that game, she thought, her fingers finding him, hard and ready, and sliding into his shorts to close around him. He groaned, encouraging her with a slight movement of his hips.

“I love how you make me feel,” she said against his mouth as his hands dipped lower, too, making her shudder against him.

“Tell me.”

Sensations were stealing her breath as she searched for the right words. “Wild...like I really am sexy, and daring.”

“You are all of those things, Della, and more,” he whispered, pausing to look at her intently.

“Not before...not with anyone else,” she admitted as his touch made her close her eyes and fight the urge to cry out, just in case anyone was close by.

“I can’t say I’m not happy about that,” he said, his tone rough, his breath short as she pushed him to the edge, too. “But you shouldn’t doubt yourself. You...move me, too. Deeply.”

She thrilled to those words, and they made her bolder. Reaching for the zipper of his shorts, Della decided she had other plans for Gabe. She wanted to wipe out any bad memory as well as any clear thought he had in his head, and it excited her to realize she was capable of doing exactly that.

But as she kissed him once and started to move down his body, his hand squeezed her shoulder, making her still.

Then she heard it, not too close, but audible, the laughter and voices of others. They weren’t alone.

“We should probably pack up and head on,” he said.

Della’s frustration was obvious, but he sat up, pulled her up with him, tipping her face up to his.

“Suddenly the summit is a lot less interesting now. Want to head back to our cabin? Maybe go for a swim in the lake?”

That conjured all kinds of wonderful images and possibilities in Della’s mind, and she couldn’t agree fast enough. And as they fixed their clothes and collected the remainder of their lunch, the voices came closer, a tour group of young scouts appearing on the path above them, and Della had to let go of a sigh of relief.

“Good decision to stop,” she told Gabe with a rueful grin. “We would have spent the rest of the day in jail for public indecency.”

He chuckled as they headed in the opposite direction of the group, back down the path. Della felt reenergized and moved a lot faster now, keeping pace with Gabe, because she couldn’t wait to get him alone for a bit of private indecency, she thought to herself with a grin.

Her time with him might be limited, and was likely drawing to a close, but she pushed that thought to the back of her mind, intent on enjoying every second they had left. Hopefully, leaving both of them with some good memories. After Gabe was gone, she had a feeling she would need those as much as he would.

10

G
ABE
DOVE
FROM
the dock, cutting through the clear water of the mountain lake, loving the way the cold shocked his senses. Breaking the surface, he looked up at Della, who still stood on the dock that ran out in front of their cabin, dipping a toe in doubtfully.

“It’s not that cold once you’re in, I promise,” he said with as much sincerity as he could muster.

It was actually pretty darned cold, but in a good way. The sweat and heat from the hike and the sun seemed to simply evaporate from his body. Though the heat he felt looking at Della as she stood there in her bathing suit was another thing altogether.

He took in the body-hugging black one-piece suit she wore. It was so... Della. It was like the suits he saw in pictures of fifties and sixties actresses—the bombshells—but it suited Della perfectly. Modest but sexy all at the same time. The material showed every curve and allowed a tempting peek at the cleavage he wanted to get a lot closer to. The walk down from the mountain had been hot in more ways than one, and Gabe wanted to finish what they’d started there.

“My toe doesn’t lie,” she said, arching a doubtful eyebrow in his direction.

He treaded water, and reached down, shucking his swim trunks and throwing them up on the dock next to her feet. She shrieked and laughed as the cold water splashed her.

“Now, jump in, and I promise I’ll keep you warm,” he said with a crook of his finger.

She looked around, but no one else was in sight. There was an easy fifty yards of wooded terrain between the cabins and the lake.

Biting her lip, she still looked apprehensive, but closed her eyes and did a graceful dive, breaking the surface with an outraged gasp a few feet away from him.

“It is
so
cold!” she accused, her teeth chattering. “You lie.”

Gabe ignored the stab of guilt her accusation caused and closed the space between them, pulling her up against him and wrapping his arms around her. Within seconds, her shivering stopped. He licked kisses along the curve of her neck and shoulder, his erection already rubbing against her hip.

Her eyes widened. “How is
that
even possible in this icy water?”

“It’s you, Della...you have me so hot I’m surprised we’re not creating steam on the surface. Besides,” he said, as he slid one strap of her suit off her shoulder, “it really does warm up after you’re in for a few minutes. You just need to keep moving.”

“It is getting warmer, I think,” she said, reaching under the surface to take him in her hand as they kissed.

Gabe groaned, the playful mood turning to something more urgent as he moved into her touch, but as good as her fingers felt on him, it wasn’t enough.

“I want to be inside you, Della, now,” he said in her ear. “But we don’t have any protection out here. I can promise you I’m healthy, but I understand if you don’t want to take my word for it.”

The way she looked into his eyes as she slid the other strap of her suit from her shoulder nearly did him in.

“You’ll have to take my word for it, too, and I’m using birth control,” she said, and finished wiggling out of the rest of her suit until they were naked together under the water.

Gabe took her suit and flung it up on the dock along with his before he brought her legs up around his hips, wrapping her around him as he found his way inside the silky heat of her body.

Home
, something in his subconscious seemed to echo, surprising him. That was a feeling, and a word, that he never associated with sex.

“Oh, Gabe, that’s so good,” she said on a gasp as he filled her completely and stayed there for a moment, the two of them as close as any two humans could possibly be.

He liked Della, and could even admit to caring for her, but now there was an overwhelming need and tenderness that made him stop, catch his breath, find his footing.

Except that he was, literally and figuratively, in over his head, so he moved them a few feet closer to the dock, where he could find a firm stance on the sandy bottom.

“Everything with you feels good, Della.” It was true. With her, he felt like a different man. Like he had hope, and was rediscovering things about life he had forgotten about, or given up on.

Claiming her mouth in a hard kiss, need taking over his softer emotions for a moment, he focused on how soft and slick her skin was, cool, still from the water, against his own heat. She didn’t seem to mind, sinking her fingers into his hair, returning the kiss as passionately, rolling her hips in the way that drove him insane.

“I love how you do that,” he said, closing his eyes.

“What?”

“When you move like that...”

“Like this?” she whispered against his mouth, doing it again.

“Yeah, but keep doing it and this won’t last long.”

She smiled, her lashes spiked with drops of water, her blue eyes indigo with desire as she held his gaze and did it again. Gabe took her bottom in both hands, controlling her movement so that he did last. As much as she pushed him toward release, he didn’t want this to end. Didn’t want what was on the other side of this moment, this weekend.

Reality. His leaving. No Della.

The prospect felt bleak, and he dismissed it, returning instead to the heat of her body and how he felt deep inside of her.

Just take this, it’s as much as you’re ever going to get
,
and maybe more than you deserve,
he thought to himself, starting to move in a way he knew would drive her over the edge.

He was right. Her head tipped back, her fingers digging into the muscles of his arms as she made those sweet, aroused noises that told him she was close. Moments later, his knees nearly gave out under him as she was shuddering through her release, her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him. He followed, the skin-on-skin contact proving too much for him to resist. He couldn’t maintain his control against the passion she shared with him.

“Della, you turn me inside out,” he mumbled against the curve of her neck, and held her tighter as they cooled down.

“Me, too,” she whispered back.

Gabe led her out into deeper depths, where they loosened their hold on each other and swam for a while. He was not surprised to find Della was an able swimmer—better than he was, really.

They both turned when a rumbling sound echoed behind them, to discover that dark clouds had invaded the horizon.

“Storm coming in,” he called. “We’d better get out.”

“Race you back to the dock?” she offered in return, eager for the challenge.

Gabe was spent, but he couldn’t say no, not when she looked like some sexy sea nymph, her curly hair wet around her face, cheeks flushed, smiling.

As they both pushed through the water, back to the dock, where their suits had dried in the sun, he came up several yards short of the win. In fact, she had picked up her suit from the dock and was pulling it back on, mostly under the cover of the lake, when he finally caught up.

Grabbing his shorts and putting them on underwater as well, they climbed the ladder and walked toward the cabin just as a light rain started.

“You’re a heck of a swimmer,” he commented, chagrined to be slightly out of breath as they made their way quickly up the path as the rain intensified.

“All those years at college with nothing much else to do, I spent a lot of time doing laps in the pool. I still swim a few times a week. I try to run, but I don’t like it as much as swimming.”

“So that explains the smokin’ hot bod,” he said with a leer as he wiggled his eyebrows.

She laughed, and still had a hint of a blush around her cheeks.

“Well, at the very least, it keeps me in shape. Doing what I do, I sit at a desk a lot, sit in planes a lot, and so forth. And I like food, so...”

“No complaints here,” he said as the rain became heavier and a bolt of lightning flashed over the lake. He quickly fished out the key from where they had hidden it before heading down to the dock.

But underneath the rock, his fingers felt only dirt; he discovered the key several inches back from where he’d left it. Maybe an animal had tried to make off with it?

Or maybe he’d kicked it when he turned away? It was probably nothing, but the hairs on the back of his neck insisted otherwise.

“What’s wrong?”

Gabe stood, shaking his head. “Nothing. I just didn’t see the key at first, and thought I had the wrong rock.”

He opened the door to the cozy cabin and they ducked inside just as the clouds opened, rain pouring down in sheets as thunder and lightning crashed around them.

Gabe peered out the window. “I forgot how storms can come up so quickly in this heat and humidity. Glad we made it back in time, it’s pretty fierce out there.”

“I love storms, though. And they are so much different here than in the city,” she said, standing next to him by the window, taking it all in.

Gabe watched her rather than the storm, envying how she soaked up every experience, took it in whole, and it all came shining out of her eyes, her expression. He’d forgotten, for the most part, how to take such pleasure in simple things, like a thunderstorm, a swim in a lake, or a mountain climb. Della was putting him back in touch with that.

It felt good. It felt like...living again. When Janet had died, had he really given up on life so much? It seemed so. Until now.

His hand had curved around Della’s shoulder as they stood taking in the rain, and he stroked the nape of her neck, his thumb sliding under the strap of her suit.

“It doesn’t show any sign of letting up soon,” he murmured.

She turned toward him, her hand planted on his chest over his heart. “No, I’d say we’re probably stuck inside for a while.”

He was ready again, wanting more of her, and she knew that, the increased thud of his heart under her hand making her eyes widen slightly as she looked up at him.

“Wow,” she whispered.

“That’s what you do, Della, every time I’m near you,” he said.

She started to say something back, but he took the words away with a kiss, not wanting to talk. Gabe only wanted to feel everything he could, to learn from Della and squeeze everything that was possible from the moment. To live again.

Walking her back from the window, he slid the straps from her suit down her shoulders, and they both shucked their clothes on their way to the huge bed that dominated one side of the cabin.

To his surprise and delight, Della stopped short of the bed and surprised him by planting a hand on his chest and pushing him firmly back on to it, leaning over him. Her pretty blue eyes sparkled with sexy intent as she crawled up over him and pinned his hands down on either side of his head.

“Now, you stay put and let me show you what I wanted to do to you up on the mountain.”

She delivered the command with mock severity, which nonetheless had him more aroused, and definitely intrigued.

Gabe sure wasn’t about to argue as she kissed her way down his body and continued to surprise him, rocking his world—she was also changing it more than she knew. Maybe more than both of them knew, he thought, before she took him between her lovely lips and proceeded to wipe away any clear thoughts at all, and Gabe was more than happy to let her.

* * *

D
ELLA
WOKE
UP
alone in the huge, soft bed, naked and disoriented. It took her a second to let her eyes adjust to the dim morning light before her mind cleared and she remembered where she was. The cabin. With Gabe.

A smile stretched across her lips as she recalled everything about the time she and Gabe had spent together here. It was special, and to her, at least, far past anything she could even define as a “fling.”

She cared for Gabe. Maybe more than cared. She felt his pain when he told her about his loss, and when he smiled—in the rare moments when he seemed truly carefree and open, like he had in the lake—it moved her deeply. When he made love to her, and told her how she affected him, it made her feel like the center of the universe. No one had ever made her feel that way. Like she was the sun, shining only for him.

There was more than desire, and more than sex between them. At least for her. She couldn’t deny that, even knowing he would probably deny it. There were moments when she was sure he was feeling the connection between them as deeply as she did, but then in the next moment, it would be gone. He would be distant again, the mask in place.

All she could really go on were her own feelings, and that was okay. This was, perhaps, the first time she had really started to fall for someone, and it was spectacular. And that he wanted her, too, was more than she had dreamed of.

She wanted to enjoy it, even if it hurt like hell later, when he left. The sharp pain of missing him hit her, even at the thought.

Which made her wonder where he was. The cabin was silent, and there was no sign of him. Snatching up her phone, she saw it was around eight in the morning. The rain hadn’t passed completely, making the room darker than it normally would be at this time of the day. A chill grabbed her as she slid out from under the thick blanket.

Della took a robe from the back of a nearby chair and padded to the kitchen, where she saw a white slip of paper on the counter, near a pot of coffee.

Back soon, went to find some breakfast, G.

Della smiled, relieved, and poured a cup of coffee while she waited, stepping out onto the small porch outside the door, taking in the view. The sun was starting to peek through the clouds on the horizon over the lake, and so the day would clear up soon. Her mind relaxed and the stress from her daily existence had completely dissipated. Maybe she should find a retreat like this to visit alone, to work, and to think.

But she only had one more day here with Gabe. Then what?

Back to her life, to setting it all back to rights, the wedding, getting her home fixed and refurnished, preparing for the new semester and her speaking trip to Italy. Her life would move forward, and so would Gabe’s. The thought created a small well of sadness in her chest, but she chased it away. She’d known what she was getting into. She’d get over it, and all of this would be a happy memory. Eventually, there would be someone else.