Open Your Eyes (23 page)

Gabe shifted his weight on the bed. It was then I felt the heaviness of his length on my stomach, pulsing against me. He let go of my hands and grabbed both my wrists in one big hand, raising them above my head. His mushroomed tip found my entrance; he rubbed himself along my wet and swollen folds, waiting.

“Yes,” I breathed softly
. He let out a shudder and a breath I hadn’t realized he was holding. Letting go of my wrists, he pushed into me slowly, his muscles trembling with his restraint.

“Sweet Jesus,” he groaned at my ear as I spread my legs wider to allow him to sink deeper.

He stilled for a moment, his breath heavy and labored.

Would we find our rhythm again, the one we always had
and that came so naturally to us – from the very first time he took me?

“I want you, Natalie.
God,
I want you
,” he growled as he pulled back and rolled his hips to plunge into me with a shudder.

I lay beneath him, momentarily paraly
zed. I had waited so long to hear those precious words. All those years he
didn’t
want me. Yearning. Longing.
Wanting him
.

He kissed my lips, his tongue darting into my mouth, possessive and hungry, waiting for my response. My heart beat wildly in my chest, my throat burning.

The cold fingers gripping my heart unfurled gradually. It was then I felt the love I had always had for this man slowly seep through my being, gently enveloping my senses, till my mind filled with only him. Gabriel. I couldn’t stop it even if I tried. It burst forth from its hiding place, deep within my heart.
Finally.

I slid my arms around his neck and wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him back
, exactly as I’d wanted to for the longest time.

Letting go of the fear.

His kiss deepened, devouring me. He moaned into my mouth as I raised my hips and pushed up to meet him. His hands were in my hair as he rested on his elbows and started driving deeper, unable to hold back any longer.

I met him thrust for thrust, biting into his shoulder to stifle my moans. For a man of
fifty, Gabriel had the stamina and energy of a much younger man. He was a man possessed, plunging into me over and over, as I felt myself building toward another climax.

Then sweet surrender.

With one last powerful stroke, Gabe came apart. Hearing my name on his lips, his voice primal and raw, sent me soaring into a mind-blowing orgasm of my own. I held on to his shoulders as ripple after ripple crashed through my body, digging my nails in hard for purchase.

Gabe buried his face in my neck, whispering words against my skin that slowly sunk in to my brain, “I want you
, Natalie. I have
always
wanted you, my baby.”

Did I hear right? After all these years he tells me he’s
always
wanted me? How could I believe him now, when years ago he told me adamantly that he didn’t? Then let me walk away from him. It didn’t make sense.

“W
-what? What d-did you s-say?” My eyes flew open, searching his face.

His pupils were still dilated
, making his eyes very dark, almost black. His face was solemn, his square jaw set tightly. His lips quivered when he repeated his words. “I have
always
wanted you. I have
always
loved you.
Fucking always
!”

Chapter Forty-seven

I
huffed as I pushed him off me. Gabe rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. I sat up, glaring at him as if he had just grown two heads. My mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. I was shaking. Stunned. My mind in a whirl. “What the hell do you mean? You said – ” I ranted, my voice several octaves too high.

“I know what I said,” he acknowledged. He turned and leaned on his elbow. “I had erectile problems. Impotence. But I was too much of a coward to tell you. And for some fucking ridiculous reason I blamed you –
”

“Are you
crazy
?” I shouted at him, my fists rolled into balls, my heart racing. “Explain yourself!”

H
e grinned. “You are so beautiful when you’re angry. Your eyes go all sparkly.”

“Gabriel, so help me
God…” I spat out, seething. I punched him in the arm for good measure. It only made him throw his head back and laugh, his beautiful body sprawled across the bed, his nakedness compelling in spite of my anger.

“Ah, Natalie my love, it has taken a heart attack to get me to tell you how much you tortured me
.” He smiled wryly.

“
My fault? I tortured you?
You aren’t making any sense.”

He traced a finger up my calf and I slapped his hand away. “I’m waiting for an explanation, Gabriel Lawson.”

Wearing a triumphant smirk, his eyes blazed. “I was angry with you for making me get the snip. That started all the problems. I blamed you and refused to see a doctor. Instead I took it out on you and told you I didn’t want you anymore. I wanted to hurt you just as much as I was hurting. But in reality, nothing could have been further from the truth.”

I shivered and wrapped my arms around my waist, my arms protectively over my breasts. He placed his
warm hand on my knee, trying to soothe me. “I wanted to make love to you as much as I always did. You know how good we have always been together, babe – from the very first time you succumbed to me.”

“Why didn’t you just speak to me?” I whispered.

All those years of hell…

Gabe hung his head and sat silent for a while. He looked up and I could see the pain in his eyes. “My anger and my pride is what stood in the way.
I was…
I am
an idiot.”

Three babies in the span of
six years took its toll on my mind and my body. It was exhausting and never-ending work. On top of that, my pregnant belly was a thing of beauty to Gabriel – it turned him on even more, made him needy and clingy and
always
horny.

Still shivering, I crawled under the bed covers and drew the blanket up to my chin. I closed my eyes and remembered. Those days Gabriel made love to me at least twice a day,
declaring that my growing belly was so alluringly he couldn’t keep his hands off me. Then after the baby was born, he wanted even more sex. If I wasn’t tending to a child, I was tending to Gabriel’s needs. There was no time to rest. There was no time for me. I was close to a breakdown. Lack of sleep and physical exhaustion took its toll. Finally my doctor stepped in and persuaded Gabriel to have a vasectomy.

“You didn’t want to do it – the snip
.” 

At first it angered him. He wouldn’t be a real man if they did that, he’d ranted. But the doctor explained that my body was on the brink of collapse, that more babies would place my life in danger. My body had rejected every form of protection and Gabriel had always refused to wear condoms. So the choice was his.

Gabe shook his head. “No, at the time I didn’t. But I felt like I didn’t have any other option. I could see how exhausted you were. I loved you so much, I didn’t want you to come to harm. So I agreed.”

“
But then you blamed me
?” I asked, still unable to process it all.

He leaned forward and tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered on my cheek.
“It was only years later that the problems started with erectile dysfunction. But I had always been so – sexual – so virile, I didn’t want to believe it happened to me. At first I figured it was your fault for making me have the goddamn vasectomy, even though I know
now
how crazy that thinking was. It took a lot of therapy to get my mind straight. Only then the doctors could figure out how to help me.”

“Tonight –
”

“Tonight you saw the result of the therapy and medication. I’m fine now. And strangely the heart attack helped with that too.” He rubbed at his chest, over his heart.

“Really?
How?
”

“I was forced to eat healthier, to sleep a lot and to exercise. Those all helped make me stronger. Often the problem is partly psychological. In my case it definitely played a role. Which is why I went crazy and didn’t talk to you about it.”

“Gabe, I wish I knew…”

The corners of his mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Like a fool, I
’d rather let you walk out on me than to try to fix it. And since I blamed you, I thought if I was with other women, maybe I would get my mojo back. But it was even worse. I felt like a failure.”

A long silence fell as I absorbed his admissions. I was curious.
“So how did you fix it?”

“I dated a psychologist for a week
or two. She figured it out pretty much straight away. Then she recommended I seek help. She told me I was the biggest idiot walking the planet. That I could have saved our marriage if I just spoke out. She gave me the number of the guy who fixed me. Then she left.”

“Smart woman,” I sneered. “
But how did I torture you
?”

He rolled his eyes, then leaned down and placed a kiss on my forehead. “
You just being
you
. Whenever I am around you, weird signals go off in my brain. It's as if I'm addicted to you. Must be your pheromones or something scientific. It drives me wild…
You
drive me wild.”

“Really?” I couldn’t hide the surprise in my voice.

“Really! Doesn’t matter what you look like, if you are pregnant or not, if you are too skinny or a little chubby. You are under my skin, I can't help it.” He shrugged. “Then not being able to perform, well, that’s a huge blow to my male ego. Miranda always calls me an alpha male. Guess she is smarter than I thought.”

I
bit back a smile at the reference to Miranda.

“Gabriel,” I breathed, “I wish you
had just told me. All these years… I’ve been so hurt…thinking you don’t want me, that there is
something wrong with me
…”

“That’s just it. When I was finally ready to confront my demons and get it sorted out, you went off to New York with Olivia. I tried to stay calm, relax – but you know how the festive season stresses me out.
” He shook his head slowly. “Then I go on Facebook to see how you guys are doing and I see pictures of you with another man. Him looking adoringly at you, as if he owns you. And you smiling at him the way you used to smile at me. And he was
touching
you!” he growled.

“
You and I were separated…”

He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes wild. “Seeing that was bad enough. But then the newspaper column about the rich and famous guy with the Aussie woman? The fact that you and Olivia were in his home? Speculations and more pictures?
I nearly went crazy
. It ate me up from the inside. That was when the heart attack struck.”

My breath hitched when his words sank in. My actions nearly killed him. Good Lord! How could I ever have known at the time? I thought Gabe wanted
us at home over Christmas to ease his angst about his father. I didn’t realize he was on the verge of asking me to reconcile with him. My heart hammered in my chest.

Gabe closed his eyes. He looked
drained. Deep lines etched on his forehead and sides of his mouth as he pursed his lips. His skin had turned a shade of grey. “I thought I had lost you forever. And it would have served me right.
I wanted to die that day
. If it weren’t for Daniel and Robert, I may just have. Our boys were amazing. They saved my life by acting quickly.” He bowed his head and covered his face with his hands, sitting on the edge of the bed, his back turned to me.

We both fell silent, lost in our thoughts.

This revelation opened up new questions in my mind.

Would I still have gone to New York if I had known his intentions? And if I did, would I have reacted the same way to Nick?

* * *

I chose Gabriel over Nick. That wasn’t easy – it nearly ripped my insides out to say goodbye to Nicholas Gallagher. And now Fate had handed me
one more chance with a man I had loved all my life. And he just offered me an understanding of what happened all those years ago.

It should never have happened, our separation was a mistake brought about by miscommunication. If only I had dug deeper, tried harder to reach out to him, even though my pride was severely damaged by his words and actions.

Could I have stopped it from happening? I would never know.

All I could do now was to grab on to this
opportunity with both hands. To learn to never walk away without understanding the real motivation behind the words spoken and the actions taken. Fate had taught me a very big lesson. One that came with a hell of a lot of pain.

R
eaching out, I laid my hand on his arm.

“I’m sorry…” I whispered.

He turned and gaped at me. Torture lay in his eyes. Finally he spoke, “
You’re sorry
? Fuck, Natalie, it is
I
who am sorry.
I
who should beg your forgiveness every day of my life. I fucked up so badly. It was only when I realized what I really lost that I understood just how stupid my false pride is, how that nearly ruined everything that matters to me.
I would rather be dead than lose you forever
.”

Tears were s
liding down his face, unchecked. I had never seen Gabriel Lawson cry.

“
God, Gabe, don’t say that!” I sat up and pulled him to my chest.

My arms wrapped around his body as I pulled him against me. His head nestled in the crook of my neck and I could feel warm tears drop onto my chest. I kissed his ear, then his cheek, tasting the salt on his skin. It was only when he looked up into my eyes that I
realized that my tears were flowing equally as much, mingled with his on my naked skin.

Gabe
placed his hands on either side of my face. “I fucking love you so much. Thank you for giving me another chance. Please say you will forgive me and we can start this all over, only better this time.” His eyes were questioning, burning into mine.

He must have seen my answer there. He
rubbed his nose along mine before he continued, “I have learned from my mistakes. It's not that I won't make more mistakes as we go, but this time, I promise to talk to you, to communicate, so we can solve our problems together.”

New Gabe was infinitely wiser than old Gabe.
He rested his forehead against mine. “And I need you to promise me you will do the same, Nat. Talk to me. I've learned to listen. The hardest way possible. When the universe has to shock you into listening by throwing a fucking heart attack your way, you learn very quickly.”

My heart swelled. We had both learned so many lessons. And solving new problems together would be
considerably easier than trying to do it alone.

I nodded.
“Only if you promise to always tell me what is going on in that big head of yours. I need to know if you are having problems. Problems with work, life – me. Because if I don’t know what's going on in your head, I’m always going to assume it's
me
– even if it isn’t. It's just human nature.”

“I promise.”

I believed him. No one gets that close to death and then makes idle promises.

He pulled me to his chest with a growl. It was only when I pressed against him again, skin to skin, that I
realized I was still very much naked. That feeling his heart beat against my chest was doing things to my insides I had all but forgotten with Gabe.

He leaned back slightly and kissed my cheeks, licking the salt from my skin.

“I never want to make you cry again. It will be my life’s work to make sure I always put a smile on that beautiful face of yours.”

I believed that too.

My arms snaked around his neck as I lifted my chin to give him access to my neck and chest. He dragged his mouth along my skin, soaking up the salty wetness. Then he slanted his lips over mine and kissed me with so much passion it made my heart ache for the loss of all the years we could have been this way. Years forever lost.

Resolve settled in my heart. I would give everything to our new relationship. I would love Gabriel more than I did before. We would make this good.

His mouth mapped every inch of my body, slowly exploring. Satisfied moans assured me he was still pleased by what he found. I writhed beneath him, taking the pleasure his mouth gave me.