Perfect Fit (31 page)

As Gabe turned into the restaurant’s parking lot, he thought about the weeks that lay ahead. Sage had spent a few nights with him, and he’d even stayed overnight a couple of times at her place. But since her friend Rose Wood would be arriving tomorrow, Sage felt she should spend the night at her own place a lot more since she would have a guest.

He understood that but didn’t too much like it. He had grown accustomed to those mornings he would wake up and find her in his bed. She gave all new meaning to the phrase,
morning delight.

Gabe saw her the moment he walked into the restaurant. She was sitting waiting for him in the lobby. Her face lit into a smile when she saw him and immediately crossed the room. “Hi.”

Not being able to help himself, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. “Hi. Have you been waiting long?”

She shook her head. “No, I just got here. I had a
meeting with Langley Mayhew.” At Gabe’s arched brows, she laughed and said, “And no, he didn’t get out of hand. I think you effectively put an end to any ideas he had regarding me when you insinuated we were lovers.”

Gabe’s lips tilted into a smile. “We are lovers.”

Sage nodded, unable to argue that point, especially considering all the things they did while alone in the bedroom. “Yeah, but we weren’t at the time,” she reminded him. “But trust me, Mayhew was a perfect gentleman today.”

“And if he ever stops being a perfect gentleman, you’ll let me know, right?”

Sage looked up at Gabe when she heard the seriousness in his tone. She held his gaze and saw something that suddenly took her breath away. In his eyes as well as his mind, she belonged to him. The night she had declared that he was the man in her life had pretty much established that fact. It wasn’t that he was insanely jealous or anything of that sort, but he was a man who believed in taking care of and protecting what was his.

And she was his.

She had to acknowledge that she was his in a way she had never belonged to Erol, even after being with him for five years. Erol had been traditional, but there was nothing traditional about Gabe, especially in his lovemaking techniques. There was no limit to what he would do. In the bedroom there was no taboo on anything just as long as they both were comfortable with it.

“Are you hungry?”

His words invaded her thoughts. “Yes, I missed breakfast this morning,” she said, smiling, knowing he knew the reason why. She had spent the night with him, and when she’d tried slipping out
of bed to fix breakfast, he had pulled her back into his arms and had made love to her again.

“Then, I’m going to feed you.” He motioned for the waiter to get them a table. “What are your plans for this evening?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. What are yours?”

He met her gaze. “I know what I’d like to do.”

She raised an arched brow. “What?”

He leaned down and whispered in her ear. Her face turned crimson. She grinned up at him and said, “Oh, I think that can be arranged.”

And it was arranged.

Sage’s heart rate increased, and she took a long, deep breath, hoping to steady her voice when she removed the last stitch of her clothing later that evening in Gabe’s bedroom. He lay naked in bed, propped against a pillow, and watched her strip through desire-filled eyes.

“Just remember I’m still a novice at this,” she said breathlessly. She felt electricity flow between them from across the room and wondered what there was about him that made every nerve in her body come alive with need.

“No other woman can or has pleased me more, Sage.”

She met his gaze, thinking that was an odd statement to make considering the number of women he probably had been involved with since puberty. For him to claim that she pleased him more than any in the past was hard to believe. “Why?”

He raised a brow. “Why what?”

“Why are you saying that to me? You don’t have to, you know.”

Gabe continued to hold her gaze. To him, every
moment he spent with her including this one was important, and he wanted her to know it. He also wanted her to know how he felt but knew that because of her disillusionment with love, he had to tread lightly.

“I know I don’t have to say it, but I want to always be honest with you, like I want you to always be honest about things with me. And what I told you is true, Sage. No matter how many women have been in my past—and there aren’t as many as you may think—I’ve never enjoyed making love to them like I have to you.”

Naked, she came and sat on the edge of the bed. “But I still don’t understand why. I’m not all that experienced, at least with all the things you like doing.”

He smiled. “Yeah, and in a way that’s what makes it so special, like that night in your bathroom, after your bath. It was something you’d never done before, but you trusted me enough to try it and discovered it was something you enjoyed as well.”

She nodded.
Yeah, I enjoyed it all right.
With Gabe she’d discovered another side of her sexuality. In bed with him she felt sensuous, feminine and passionate. And at times, she also felt wanton and burning with a heat that only he could quench, which baffled her even more because Erol had not been an inconsiderate lover. And each time she and Erol had made love, they had shared passion. But it wasn’t of the magnitude of what she shared with Gabe. Gabe could make her wet and achy between her legs just by looking at her. He could make her nipples feel sensitive just by being in the same room with her. Making love with Erol had been good, but with Gabe it was overpowering, magnificent. It was like an adventure.

He knew how to explore new heights and take her there with him, all the way to the top. And he cherished her entire body. There was no part of it he didn’t want to kiss, touch or taste. Then there was his craving to try new and different positions, some she hadn’t thought possible, and he’d always made sure it was something she was ready to try. And so far she’d been game to anything he had introduced her to with no regrets.

Like now.

What he’d suggested at lunch was simple enough, and when she’d thought about it, she was surprised they hadn’t tried it before now. But Gabe had always taken the lead in their lovemaking, and she’d followed. But now he was giving her the chance to be the one in control, and she liked the idea.

“But why would I be able to please you that much, Gabe?” she asked, still wanting to know, needing to know.

Gabe inwardly sighed. She would not let up on her inquiries until he told her something that made perfect sense. It would be so easy to end her questions by just telling her the truth, that he had fallen in love with her so deeply that he couldn’t think straight or about any other woman in his past, but he doubted that would be enough of an explanation since he had told her he’d loved Lindsey, too. But the difference was that since loving Sage, he’d discovered there were contrasting phases of love, and then there were things that were meant to be. Fate. The only reason he could come up with as to why the love he felt for her was deeper, stronger and more monumental than any he’d shared before was because he felt she was his soul mate, his other half, his perfect fit. He hadn’t
felt this attuned to Lindsey. He had thought that many times since he and Sage had become lovers, and now he knew it was true, more so than ever. He was just giving her time to realize it, too.

He sat up in bed. “You please me that much because you do. It’s as simple to me as that, Sage. And what’s so unique and awe-inspiring is that you can do so without much effort. You have the ability to be a ray of sunshine in a part of the country that is usually covered by snow.”

He drew in a deep breath, exhaled slowly and continued. “And when we make love, when I’m inside of you, a part of me wants to stay there forever. When I’m locked into that part of you, it’s like that’s where I belong, and there’s no other place I’d rather be, feeling you surround me, clench me and pull everything I have from me.”

He watched her eyes darken and added, “But although I feel all those things, there is still more between us than just sex, Sage. I like the way we sit down and talk about things, how we confide in each other and discuss things the way we do. And I believe you have an inner strength that you don’t even realize that you have. It’s a strength that I admire and one that will see you through to the light even when your way is dark. You proved that when you had to face up to both Erol and your father falling off the pedestals you had placed them on.”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and met his gaze beseechingly. “But I was hurt and had a hard time with the trust factor, and I didn’t want to believe in true love anymore. Even now I don’t know if I can or ever will again.”

He smiled at her understandingly. “In time you will. One day someone will enter your life who will heal all your hurts and will show you that there is
such a thing as love in its purest form. And by that time, you’ll come to realize that none of us are perfect; we’re all humans and make mistakes. All of us are tempted by things we shouldn’t be, whether it’s the need to increase our assets like Erol or the need to stray away from home like your father.”

She nibbled nervously on her bottom lip. “Do you think you would ever be unfaithful to your wife if you had one?”

“I intend to be faithful to any woman I marry, Sage. I don’t know why men cheat or why women cheat for that matter. All I know is what my intentions are.”

Sage lifted her chin defiantly. “I bet my father intended to do the same thing.”

Gabe refused to let her compare him to her father. He leaned toward her. “I’m not your father, Sage. You have a beef with him and not with me, and I’ve told you my thoughts on the matter. You should hear his side of things.”

Her gaze darkened at the memory. “I already did. He said it was something that ‘just happened.’ He could give me no other explanation than that.”

“Then, maybe it’s one you should accept.”

She lowered her head, and when she lifted it moments later, tears filled her eyes. “But I can’t. He took a vow to love my mother, forsaking all others. But he didn’t do that, Gabe.”

Gabe reached out and pulled her across the bed and into his arms. He kissed her eyes before moving his mouth down to kiss her lips. His mouth feasted on hers in a way that made Sage forget everything, including her father. The only person she wanted to concentrate on was Gabe and how he was making her feel.

Remembering what she’d promised to do—what she wanted to do—she pulled back from his kiss and straddled his body, pushing him back down in the bed. She needed to be a part of him this way, now, to forget. She wanted to concentrate only on him. She met his hot gaze as her thighs parted. She eased her body down onto him, taking him inside of her. She bit down on her bottom lip at the feel of her vaginal muscles clamping down around him as he continued to enlarge inside of her.

He’d told her to pretend she was riding a horse. She had never ridden a horse before, but had seen enough westerns on television to know how it was done. So she caged his thighs between hers as she created a rhythm. She refused to close her eyes for wanting to watch him. She wanted to see his eyes darken with need, glisten with greed and flare with the passion she was stirring.

His hand held her hips as she rode him to her heart’s content, and each time she went down to him, met his strokes, she felt the contractions that shook his body. Then moments later it came … the same time as his. She cried out his name when the first tremors slammed through her, catching her in a stampede of sensations she had never felt before. And when she bore her hips down on him for deeper penetration, he tightened his hold on her, thrusting upward, his body bucking uncontrollably.

It was during that precise moment that they both found the peace as well as the pleasure they needed.

“S
o, have you made out with Gabe Blackwell yet?”

Sage met Rose’s inquisitive smile from across the breakfast table. Rose shot straight from the hip and didn’t believe in wasting time finding out anything that she wanted to know. As soon as Sage had picked her up from the airport, she had been a bundle of questions, first about the weather and then about work. Now that the preliminaries were out of the way, it seemed Rose planned to zero in on her love life.

Sage’s body became hot when she remembered just how many times she had “made out” with Gabe. “Yes,” she admitted, smiling. She leaned back in her chair, knowing her friend probably wanted the nitty-gritty details, but she wasn’t planning on giving her any. What she shared with Gabe was too special and not open for discussion.

Rose smiled excitedly. “I’m happy for you, Sage. I had worried about you after that Erol episode.”

Sage lifted a brow. “Worried about me in what way?”

“I was worried that you would never find another man to trust as well as to love.”

Sage frowned.
Love? Who said anything about love?
Her heart began racing at what Rose was insinuating. She cared for Gabe deeply. She respected him, enjoyed being with him and definitely enjoyed making love with him…. But love had nothing to do with it. With love came total and complete trust, and she’d been there before with a man. She trusted Gabe in a way she hadn’t thought she could another person this soon, but trusting him with her heart was too much to consider doing. Love involved too many emotions, and they were emotions she didn’t want to encounter just yet. She liked the level to which they had taken their relationship, without the issue of love being involved. Jeez! She had just worked through the trust factor with him.

Sage met Rose’s gaze. “I don’t love Gabe, Rose.”

Rose lifted a surprised brow. “Sure you do. What other reason would you have for sleeping with him?”

Sage shrugged. “For a number of reasons. I like him and he’s good in bed.”

Rose shook her head, frowning. “No, Sage, that’s my line, not yours. For you there has to be more, and deep down I had to finally admit that’s what I envied about you. You’ve never sold yourself short and settled for less than what you wanted or deserved. All women need a man to love and who will love them in return. You had that with Erol, and I believe you can have that with Gabe. You’ve never settled for a loveless relationship, so why do you want me to believe that you’re doing so now?”