So Irresistible (22 page)

But all she knew were desire and need. All she could think about were Shane’s talented mouth, his hard, waiting cock, the sensual things they would do to each other after she came.

Desperately, Gabriella tried to hang on. “Yes,” she breathed again, writhing and panting. “
Yes
, just like that. Then I’ll—” She broke off as an early tremor shook her. “I’ll—”

“Yes?” With excruciating interest, Shane quit touching her.

She
knew
he was trying to drive her insane.

Tossing her head against the pillows, Gabriella searched for words. “I’ll love you,” she cried. “I’ll love
you
!”

She tried to focus on the naughtier aspects of what she’d said, pretending that loving him was just a euphemism—that she’d merely promised to return the favor and kiss him this way next. She tried to concentrate on the remembered feeling of Shane filling her mouth, sliding inside, pulsing as she swirled her tongue around him. She tried to think about sex. Nothing but sex.

Even as her legs quivered with tension and her heart threatened to explode from her chest, Gabriella tried to resist.

But as Shane delicately lowered his mouth to her again, as he stroked her again, as he whispered something sweet and explicit and erotic against her skin, she just . . .
couldn’t
resist.

“I love you,” she moaned at last. “I do. I love you! I—”

I can’t speak
, Gabriella realized, caught on a wave of pleasure so intense that she couldn’t even remember where she was. With a helpless cry, she reached out for Shane. Yes.
Yes
.

“I need you,” she finally gasped, still pulsating, and Shane knew exactly what she meant. He knew
her
. “I need you.”

“Take me,” he said, unconsciously repeating what she’d said to him earlier—but adding to it a whole new measure of command. “Take me,” Shane groaned, husky and intent. “Take
all
of me.”

He left her no choice, and Gabriella didn’t care. Because by then Shane was inside her. By then he was filling her, pleasing her, giving her everything she needed whether he knew it or not. Thrusting and gliding, driving them both higher with every hard stroke, Shane brought himself to the brink.

He pushed past it with a yell, clutching her to him.

They collapsed together, all hammering hearts and boneless limbs and dizzy delight. They fell against the bedclothes in each other’s arms, silent and united and utterly satisfied.

Beneath Shane, Gabriella shook her head. She exhaled.

She had a terrible feeling she might have said too much.

When Shane raised his head and kissed her, he confirmed it.

Maybe she could still bluff her way through this.

“You look . . .
smug
,” she observed. “You liked my show.” With a wry grin, she stroked his cheek. “And
you
were skeptical.”

“
I
was a believer early on.
You
were the skeptical one.”

“Huh?”

Shane blinked. “You love me, you cynic. You just said so.”

Oh, God. She really
had
said that out loud. She’d been trying so hard not to. When it came to Shane, though . . .

“I guess I couldn’t help it,” Gabriella confessed. “You were there. I was there. It was the spur of the moment.”

Shane’s self-assured look wavered. “Spur of the moment?”

Nope. She
couldn’t
bluff her way through this. Not the way she had
his
declaration at the waterfront. Shane’s unexpected defenselessness rocked her to the core. As much as Gabriella had tried to deny her feelings for him, it seemed that sex with Shane brought out the real her in ways that nothing else did.

“And I meant it,” Gabriella admitted truthfully, feeling her own heart swell with vulnerability as she did. “I did.”

“Of course you did.” Playfully, Shane waggled his eyebrows at her. “After all that, how could you possibly resist?”

But despite his sexual swagger, there was still a vulnerability in him that moved her—maybe because it matched hers. With a final exhalation, Gabriella gave in completely.

“I couldn’t resist,” she said honestly. “I never could. You had me hooked from that very first night at the brewpub.”

“You should probably say it one more time,” Shane suggested magnanimously, “just to cement it in your mind for good.”

Seeing right through him, Gabriella couldn’t help smiling. It turned out that Shane’s most soul-deep vulnerabilities were part of what made her love him the most. She’d simply needed a steady dose of mind-scrambling sex to unlock that truth for her.

“I love you, Shane,” she told him. “I think you definitely have a weird kink about aprons, and you kinda need a haircut—”

“Going off track. Try again.”

“—and I love you, all right? I do. So there. Face it.”

“All right. Let’s not get crazy.” With a gruff tone, he leaped out of bed, treating her to a prime view of his round masculine glutes. Shane offered her his hand, looking boyishly pleased—even while trying to seem tough. “Shower time.”

“I’m getting pruney fingers from all the showers we’ve shared,” Gabriella complained.

“Price of love, baby.” As she got up, Shane smacked her behind, sending her hurrying toward the shower. “Face it.”

Then, laughing, they both headed down the hall together, newly unified and ready to face whatever came next.

Standing in the hallway of his luxury apartment building, Shane danced around on the balls of his feet, feeling like a prizefighter about to go into the ring. After last night, with Gabby, he knew he could win. At everything.

All he had to do was give up on his father.

But he should have done that a long time ago, Shane told himself as he impatiently eyed the closed apartment door in front of him. He should have recognized a lost cause when it continued berating him and bailed out for good. He’d been holding on for years, stubbornly and naively believing that if only he did the right things, his father would come around.

His father would love him. Would be proud of him.

Would respect him and care for him and maybe (if Shane was extraordinarily lucky) admit that he’d been a complete tool all these years—ever since the single-malt whisky and the hope it had stoked. As a teenager, Shane hadn’t expected the neglect that had come next. He
had
taken on the blame for it, though.

After all, he’d always been bad. It had been no different after he’d been adopted by the Walthams than it had before. Shane had still been lonely. He’d still been driven to misbehave. He still hadn’t found anyone to rely on.

But not anymore. Now, today, Shane was throwing in his chips with Gabby. He was trusting
her
to be there for him.

In return, Shane planned to be there for her.

Just as soon as Lizzy opened her damn door and let him get on with it. Shooting that slab of polished wood a scathing look, Shane raised his fist. He gave the door another solid pound.

It opened. Lizzy appeared in the gap, sporting a monster case of bedhead, a flimsy wrapped robe, and her eyeglasses.

She frowned at him. “What the hell, Shane? It’s early.”

“Let me in.” All but vibrating with edginess, Shane rubbed his palms together. “I need your help with something.”

“Later.” His assistant shook her head. “After coffee.”

“Now.” Shane put his hand on the door, intending to bulldoze his way in. “You’re supposed to be available twenty-four /seven, remember?”

“Yeah, well . . . you’ve been preoccupied lately.” She was plainly referring to Gabby. “And I’ve been taking advantage.”

“Vacation time is over, then. Let me in.”

Lizzy’s eyes narrowed. “I have company, all right?”

Automatically, Shane squinted over her head. In the slice of deluxe high-rise apartment he could glimpse beyond her, everything looked . . .
not
like a secret love nest. What the hell?

Was Lizzy dodging him? He was trusting
her
by coming here, too. After everything his dad had said about knowing Lizzy . . .

Well, Shane would have been an idiot not to have doubts about his assistant’s supposed loyalty.

“I’ll come over to your place later.” Lizzy held fast to the door, eyeing him implacably. “Let’s make an appointment.”

“An
appointment
?” Shane boggled. “Who do you work for, anyway?” He waited a beat. “Oh yeah. It’s me. I’m coming in.”

“Look, there are things you don’t know about me.”

“Fine. You can start by telling me what they are.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“No?” Fully fed up with having this conversation through a ten-inch gap in the doorway, Shane put his hands on his hips. “Then tell me how you know my father and Waltham Industries.”

Guiltiness washed over Lizzy’s expression. “He told you?”

“Not everything. But enough.”

His assistant nodded. “All right. Come in.”

 

 

Long after her usual wakeup time, Gabriella became aware of the sun shining on her face. Startled, she opened her eyes.

It was late. She was due at the pizzeria soon.

Why hadn’t Shane awakened her? Sure, they’d stayed up late last night. Really late. After their shower, they’d padded into her kitchen, fixed twin cups of cocoa, then drank them while curled up on her sofa, talking long into the night. Shane had told Gabriella about his teenage years with his friend Casey Jackson, another kid from the foster-care system; she’d told him about her years of studying for exams while bussing tables at the pizzeria and crushing on the cute summertime waiters.

They’d swapped dreams and mistakes, hopes and failures. They’d revealed their fears (who would have guessed that big, burly Shane was phobic about spiders?) and laughed at their idiosyncrasies (Gabriella took a drubbing for refusing to eat melon in any shape, form, or variety). They’d come together in ways that had nothing to do with sex or bravado or secrets.

Afterward, they’d slipped between her sheets and cuddled there, spooned together, then fallen asleep in each other’s arms. It had been an idyllic night. Gabriella hadn’t regretted for a second finally revealing her true feelings for Shane.

In fact, she’d reveled in them. Because it was hard for her to trust people. It was difficult for her to let go of control and just . . .
be
with someone. But with Shane, she’d done that.

It had been incredible, too. The only thing Gabriella hadn’t done was confide her short-lived suspicions to Shane that he’d been sabotaging her pizzeria. But last night—as now—those suspicions seemed to belong to bygone days. Shane had disproved them. He’d accidentally restored her faith in him by revealing his unwanted trust fund. Now that Gabriella knew he wasn’t some kind of merciless corporate raider, she was ready to take things even further between them. But if he wasn’t there . . .

Abruptly realizing Shane
wasn’t
there, Gabriella rolled over. In Shane’s place was a note. On his pillow was a daisy.

He’d obviously stolen it from her neighbor’s yard. Gabriella didn’t care. There were tons of flowers in her neighbor’s yard. In fact, that very same neighbor sometimes taunted Gabriella about her woebegone roses from Nonna Grimani. That made a tiny bit of pilfering—for a good cause—seem okay.

Smiling, Gabriella reached for the daisy. She pictured Shane, legendarily tough and capable, leaning over the white picket fence between their yards to pick that flower.

Her smile broadened. She glanced to the window, wondering if her neighbor had discovered the theft yet. Probably not. What was one daisy in a veritable botanical garden’s worth of flowers? It was sweet that Shane had chosen a daisy, too.

Gabriella loved daisies. She loved their simplicity, their charm, and their straightforwardness. Daisies weren’t fancy.

But they were beautiful—almost as beautiful as Gabriella felt when she was with Shane. With a sigh, she let her gaze travel over her messy, sun-splashed bedroom. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Her mischievous cherry-print apron—the one that had started it all—lay in a heap on her bureau, right beside one of her red stilettos. Remembering the look in Shane’s eyes when he’d stripped off those items made her smile again.

Shane was
so
sexy. So open. So fun to be with.

Except when he scampered off at sunrise.

Wearing a faint frown, Gabriella opened his note.

Hey, beautiful!
it read in his signature cocky scrawl.
Meet me at the pizzeria. I have a surprise for you.—S

At that, excitement sizzled through her. Would it be an erotic surprise? A romantic surprise? An apron-related surprise?

Maybe, Gabriella decided, it would be a practical surprise, something like Shane deciding to take on more work at Campania. She direly needed help. A partner like Shane would go a long way toward ensuring her eventual success with the pizzerias. Because while right now Gabriella was in just-hang-on mode, trying to keep her head above water long enough for things to improve, she knew she needed a better long-term plan than mere survival.

With Shane’s help, she reasoned, she could make a plan. It might require compromise—more compromise than she’d been able to muster with her dad—but it might work, too. She might win.

She might be able to convince Shane to set aside his plans for his own amateur-restaurateur small pizzeria. She might be able to persuade him to work for her full-time. He was smart and capable, and he definitely had a knack for dealing with people.

Yes. It could work. If they both tried, it could work.

Impressed with herself for being willing to accept help—and especially to compromise when necessary—Gabriella set aside her daisy. She left Shane’s note on her nightstand for safekeeping. Then she tossed aside her bedclothes, clambered out of bed naked, and went to get ready for her day. Big things were ahead.

Finally, at long last, things were looking up.

 

 

“I met your dad on a date.” Lizzy said those incredible words as though they were a grocery list of soup supplies. She slid into place in an easy chair across from Shane. Barefoot and still wearing her robe, she met his gaze squarely. “It was a long time ago. I was . . . a different person. I met Gregory—”

“Hold on.” Incredulous, Shane stopped her, his reasons for coming momentarily forgotten. “You went on a
date
with my dad?”

“Well, your parents
are
divorced, Shane. They have been for years,” Lizzy pointed out reasonably, inadvertently reminding him that their divorce had happened shortly after they’d adopted him . . . almost as though Shane had somehow driven them apart. “I’m no home wrecker.” She shrugged, then adjusted her glasses. “Gregory was lonely. I was in the market for a rich boyfriend—”

“My
dad
was your boyfriend?”

“You know,” his assistant observed, “usually you refer to him as your ‘father,’ keeping that extra little bit of distance between you. But now, he’s your ‘dad.’ Isn’t that interesting?”

Shane offered an expletive. “Did you fuck my father?”

Lizzy laughed. “No. Actually, I lifted his wallet. On our first date. When he caught me leaving, we became friends.”

This just got weirder. Shane boggled. “You’re a thief?”

“Well, at one time, I—” Lizzy broke off. She shook her head at Shane, looking as unknowable as ever. “The point is, Gregory was impressed with my ‘chutzpah.’ That’s what he said. He’s not even Jewish. I thought
that
took chutzpah. We hit it off.”

“Did you keep it?”

“His wallet?” Lizzy gave him a rare grin. “Not
that
time.”

“You became friends with him, but you stole from him?”

“The second time I did it to prove a point. It was—” His assistant regrouped. She put her hands together, looking serene. Controlled. And damn mysterious. “Why do you want to know this?”

Because I want to know if I can trust you
.

Unfortunately, the only way to know that was to do it.

“I didn’t want to know
any
of it.” Defensively, Shane held up his palms. “You’re the one banging my much older father.”

“What can I say? Gregory is a silver fox.” Lizzy glanced behind her, toward the hallway leading to her bedroom, as though hoping she wouldn’t be overheard. “But I already said I
didn’t
—” She swung back around to him, her gaze sharpening. “Aha.”

“Aha, what?”

“Aha, that was all a trick to get me to let you in.”

Of course it was. Shane couldn’t hold back a satisfied grin. “I would have found out the truth sooner or later.”

“Later is always better. That’s my motto.” Staring at him in obvious disbelief, Lizzy shook her head. “You’re not supposed to use your fixing tricks on
me
, you jerk.”

“Mmm-hmm. I know I’m not.”
Speaking of
which . . . “Now that I’m here, I have an assignment for you.”

Lizzy’s eyes brightened. “Does it involve subterfuge?”

“Your eagerness for subterfuge is disturbing.” Shane grinned at her. “And usually, exactly what I need. But this time? No. All I need is for you to make a purchase for me.”

He handed his assistant the envelope he’d prepared. It contained detailed instructions, a written time line, and—

“This is a lot of money.” Lizzy arched her brows, holding up the electronic funds transfer authorization he’d included. “From your personal accounts, too.” Her attention swerved to his face, probing him for information. “What’s this about?”

“I’m trusting you with it. That’s all you need to know.”

“All right.” Taking the bait, Lizzy returned the EFT authorization to the envelope. She scanned the other documents Shane had included, then squinted in thought. “It will take a miracle to get all this lined up according to your time line.”

“Good thing you’re a miracle worker.” Having done what he’d come here for, Shane stood. Apologetically, he angled his head toward the bedroom. “Sorry to intrude on your morning-after.”

“No problem.” Lizzy put away the envelope. She rose to stand beside him, hands in her pockets. In her robe, with her crazy hair and no makeup, she seemed much too young and defenseless to have done any of the things she’d implied she’d done. “It’s a casual thing. I just want to maintain separation.”

Separation
. That would have been a smart thing for Shane to have kept between him, Gabby, and his favorite pizzaiolo, Gabriella. But after last night . . . well, it was too late for that.

“Good thinking.” Shane hoped his expression didn’t give away his feelings on the matter. “I have to get to Campania.”

He turned to leave. His assistant stopped him.

“Hey—speaking of the pizzeria . . . what’s the latest?”

Unhappily, Shane paused. He felt stuck. Torn between the familiarity of his fixing world and the rightness of Gabby’s.

Reluctantly, Shane withdrew a USB stick from his pocket. He tossed it onto Lizzy’s coffee table, reasoning that, at this point, the information it contained couldn’t be used for much.

“I got this from Gabby’s place this morning.” At least he was maintaining his fixer credibility, he told himself, in case of . . .
what
, exactly? He wasn’t sure. But he’d done it now. “It contains a digital video of Robert Grimani, shot by a local news crew during an interview last year. In it, he’s explaining how to make Campania-style pizza dough. Step-by-step.”