Second Chances (11 page)

“Gabriella!” He shouted her name as the force of his climax pushed him into a euphoric world where only they existed. “Gabriella, mine
. Always and only, mine,” he chanted as he spilled himself inside her, filling her over and over until he was completely spent.

When he had but faintly recovered, he pushed himself up to hover above her, unable to wait to see his love for her echoed in her own eyes. Slowly, as his vision cleared, what appeared before him was
the tear stained, haggard face of a common whore.

“What
….” Lucian’s body tensed as he wrapped his hands around the woman’s throat and wrenched her upward, off the bed. He studied her face, his features twisting in revulsion at what he saw before him. “Putanna!” He growled as he drew back his fist and struck her across her face, sending her crashing to the floor at his feet.

She was a fucking whore! His Gabriella
had betrayed him. After all the years he’d waited for her, all the things he’d given her, she had betrayed him. Again. She had spit on his love for her and left him to…to what? She couldn’t possibly want a life without him. She wouldn’t survive without him. She was promised to him!

When the strange woman on the floor
tried to stand, he shackled her wrist and jerked her to her feet. Her pleas for mercy filled his ears, triggering his wicked grin and sending a familiar euphoric rush through his veins. She would beg him. Before he was through, she would beg. Just like the common whore in his arms, she would plead for him to love her.

“Shh, mi
cielo.” He pulled the whore against him, cupping her face in his hands as he fluttered gentle kisses against her closed eyes, her forehead. After ten years she would finally be his.

The woman’s
sobs echoed against his bare chest. “Shh, Shh. It will be ok, love.” Their noses touched and then he skimmed his lips against hers, her trembling breaths hot against his skin. His fingertips slid along the back of her scalp, anchoring in her long, ebony locks before he tugged her head back to look at her. The look of fear and confusion in her eyes fed his anger and desire until his pulse pounded in his temples and hummed through his veins. Although he had just fucked her, his groin tightened in anticipation, just before he snapped her neck.

“Soon, mi
cielo.” He lowered the whore’s lifeless body to the floor, reaching to his king size bed to retrieve the sheet that was sodden with their sweat. “Sleep now.” The white Egyptian cotton wavered in the air as it floated down like a spotless cloud to cover her broken body.

Lucian walked to his bedroom door and threw it open. Ramos stood at his post across the expansive hallway and jumped to attention when he heard Lucian’s voice. “Take her away,”
he ordered his guard and paced lazily to the curio near the window.

Without a sound
, the burly footman hurried in behind him and scooped the heap from the floor. He didn’t spare a glance or a question as he quietly left the room and clicked the door closed behind him.

Lucian poured a finger of fire and slammed it back,
smashing the glass against the floor. It had been nearly a week since he’d heard from
The
Lieutenant
. What a ridiculous name for someone who was supposed to be the most feared, elusive hunter on the planet. He’d had dogs that had names more menacing.

“A fucking week!”
He marched to the bedside table and flipped on the lamp. He stared at his cell phone willing him to call. He would call the bastard himself, tear his fucking head off, if he had his fucking number. His gut had churned when he turned over the down payment and the asshole wouldn’t even give him a phone number to reach him, should he want to. ‘
You’ll hear from me
,’ was all he’d said before walking off into the sunset, with a million of his fucking dollars.

He didn’t care if Gabriella’s father had
highly
recommended him. It wasn’t her father’s money anymore. It was his. All his, and soon, Gabriella would be as well. With or without
The
Lieutenant
, he was going to find her. Gabriella’s incarcerated, fool of a father wasn’t the only one with low life friends in high places.

He picked up his cell phone, his hands shaking, and punched at the display until the number he was looking for
scrolled into view. He hit dial and waited. When the familiar voice on the other end barked a curt greeting, calm poured over him like warm honey. He could see a new plan falling into place. Fuck the million dollars. Some things you just had to do yourself.

**********
********************

Claira’s heart was in the clouds, soaring with the angels, fuel
ed by unfamiliar feelings. Good feelings, she decided. Her mind, however, was definitely in the gutter where it had been since her visit with the McLendon twins. The visions they had inspired had haunted her dreams throughout the night.

Matt’s mouth sliding across her skin, his tongue tracing her lips, along her jaw until his teeth nipped at the tender shell of her ear.
His ragged breath puffed hot against her neck, one hand slipping under the collar of her shirt as the other began unbuttoning the buttons at a slow, torturous pace. She tried to stay calm. She didn’t want to seem over eager or for them to see her inexperience, but when she felt Mason’s hard, lean body press against her back and fold around her as he bent and traced the other side of her neck with his tongue, her heart nearly exploded. She woke with her pulse pounding in her head, in her throat and other areas she wasn’t entirely familiar with.

She
tossed off the covers, embarrassingly aware of the uncommon wetness between her thighs that seemed to flow on command if she even thought of Matt or Mason. She understood her arousal. She wasn’t ignorant of the mechanics of sex. She’d simply never appreciated the importance of it. Or the urgency that everyone else on the planet seemed to have toward it. Now that her body seemed to demand what her analytic brain had denied it for all her years, she didn’t know how to process it all.

Once she had finally fallen back to sleep the
dreams started all over again, her sex deprived body taking over her brain. The trend continued the next morning. Her memories of her time in the barn with Mason were so hot that she’d barely noticed the cold water sputtering from the shower head.

He’d been so endearing wi
th the puppies. The concern in his eyes when he told her about the puppies’ mother recovering at the vet’s home made her heart ache for them. He told her about the day they found her nearly dead and saving the tiny puppy when it couldn’t take its first breath. With anyone else she’d have thought they might have been bragging a little, but when she’d lost her balance while reaching for one of the puppies and skinned her bare knee against the dirt floor, she’d seen a true, nurturing quality in Mason she’d never seen in any other man before.

He had picked her up
with little effort and sat her on a nearby table, then retrieved a small first aid kit from one of the stalls. After he’d cleaned the wound with a careful, steady hand, he lowered to his haunches in front of her and blew a cool puff of air against the stinging cut, sending a shiver dancing along her heated skin. Once the small bandage was in place his hands shifted up her thighs, his fingers tracing small circles beneath the hem of her skirt. She swallowed back a moan as she stared at his hands. Like iron to a magnet, her eyes were drawn to his and the electric blue desire she saw pulled her farther into their depths. She tried to look away, but she couldn’t. He leaned in and presses his lips to her bandage then stood and towered over her, spreading her thighs with his broad, hard hands. He stepped between them and when she tilted her head back to follow him, he lowered his head, capturing her lips with his own.

H
is kiss was every bit as stirring as Matt’s, but different in so many ways. Matt had been charming and teasing, slowly tasting her as she grew comfortable with his caresses. Mason consumed her. His strong body crowded against her, his calloused hands kneading her thighs as he plundered her mouth, holding nothing in reserve. Passion she’d once thought a fantasy flowed from his lips, his tongue and infused with her own desires, emboldening her to take, to drink from him. Her hands found their way to his work hardened chest. With every stroke of his hands on her thighs, her hands echoed the movement across his pecks and down his rippled abdomen.

The higher his hands t
raveled up her thighs the lower hers explored. When his fingers grazed across the hot, damp cotton of her panties, he let out a curse and then deepened their kiss. Her fingers trembled against his shirt and over his belt as she dared them to do what she so desperately wanted.  Her fingertips made contact with the starchy denim of his jeans and a tremor of desire rocked her entire body. Mason’s finger tested and teased the edge of her panties. Just as her hand caressed over his bulging erection, he slipped two fingers under the elastic and stroked them against her slit, swirling them through her wet heat. A deep moan tore from Mason’s throat and an equally agonizing whimper escaped from her when the tip of his fingers pressed at her entrance.

Uncertainty flooded her thoughts and suddenly she wasn’t so confident in her own boldness. Mason must have sensed her hesitation
because he slowly pulled his hands from beneath her skirt and tore his lips away, panting as he leaned his forehead against hers. His hands came up to frame her face, his palms and fingers caressing her. “I knew it would be like this,” he said, his breath’s measured and forced. “I want you, Claira. Hell, I
need
you, but I know it’s too soon. I can wait. We can wait, as long as you need us to, sweetheart.”

Whatever thoughts she had begun to have about the ‘
we’
comment were completely obliterated when Mason pulled back and traced her lips with his fingers. She could smell herself on his hand. What she thought should be embarrassing suddenly became the most erotic pleasure she never imagined existed, let alone one she would enjoy. The tip of her tongue snaked across her bottom lip, tasting herself for the first time. Looking back now, she thought the action had been quite slutty. What had she been thinking? But Mason obviously had a different opinion. He brought his fingers to his lips and tasted her, licked her essence from his calloused digits then kissed her senseless again. She couldn’t remember who broke the kiss, but they were both breathless and panting when he had finally helped her down from the table and wrapped her in his arms

What
was left of her senses had evidently malfunctioned because when he had asked her to come back for Sunday supper to finalize their plans for Conner, she had immediately agreed. When he’d walked her to her car, she felt a twinge of guilt about not saying goodbye to Matt. Then a huge wave of disbelief and mortification crashed over her as she’d realized she had just been making out with his brother. Something similar to shame had fought for space in her head, but strangely it had nothing to do with what had happen between the three of them.  No, she knew then, just as she knew now, that she should have never let things go that far.

Now, standing in the canned goods
aisle of the local supermarket, she battled with the decision to call them and back out of their Sunday plans. She’d read every label on every can of beans, peas, corn and tomato’s on the shelves, twice, and hadn’t really seen any of them. Her mind kept reliving their kisses and caresses, mingling them with blurred memories of blood and death. That part of her life was supposed to be over, but she couldn’t allow herself to really believe it enough to live out the fantasies, the hope that Mason and Matt had given her.

She needed a therapist.
She understood doctor-patient confidentiality, had lived by it at one time herself, but she could never bring herself to trust that deeply. If her father or Lucian ever wanted the doctor to talk, he or she would, no doubt, telling them everything they wanted to know.

She reached out for
a can of green beans and fumbled the can, sending the ones stacked precariously around it tumbling to the floor around her. When she tried to catch one, it bounced off her fingers and crashed into the shelf, knocking more cans to the floor and rolling down the aisle. Sighing to herself, painfully aware of her sudden lack of coordination, she stooped to pick up the closest of the wayward cans when a stranger’s hand moved on top of hers. Her head shot up as the hand jerked back and she found herself face to face with a man she didn’t know.

“Let me help,” the man offered with a shy smile and began to gather up the cans. He stacked them back on the shelf as she grabbed for the few still a
t her feet. The stranger stood and slid a few clumsy steps down the aisle to gather those that had rolled away, reaching low under the bottom shelf for one in particular. When he returned, he stacked them on the shelf behind her then held one out to her.

When she didn’t move, he pushed it toward her, urging her to take it. “The one you were after, I believe.” His eyes were sincere and his tone friendly. Still
, she didn’t move. “Surely you want it. I’ve never seen someone study a can of beans for so long.”

Her eyes darted to the can in his hand and then back to him. Her mouth went dry and her insides began to shake. Who was he? “You…you were watching me?”

His smile turned shy again and he blushed. Blushing on command had been one of the more difficult tactics he’d mastered, but he’d used it so often it seemed effortless now. And it always worked. He reached over and grabbed up a can of baby peas. “Um, actually I was waiting for you to choose one so I could grab these.”