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At least Gabe wasn’t buying what the woman seemed so intent on selling. He smiled again, then turned his attention back to the older, sophisticated couple standing on his right. The brunette pouted for a minute, then slipped into the crowd.
“Happy hunting,” Debbie whispered as she watched the scene play out from the doorway of Fantasies’ main club. A swirl of nerves jittered through her stomach and had her taking a long, deep breath in a futile attempt to settle herself.
Gabe may completely be at ease here, but she felt as out of place as a discount store in Beverly Hills. She knew she was here under false pretenses. After all, the people crowding this club were wealthy, pampered. She owned and operated a travel agency in Long Beach. She couldn’t be more different from Fantasies’ usual guests.
Nerves rattled through her again and she tried to ignore them. DJ-driven music pumped through cleverly disguised speakers on the dark-red walls and candlelight waved and flickered on every tabletop. On the dance floor, couples swayed in sensuous patterns, conversations and laughter rose and fell like waves on the ocean, and amid the sea of people, Debbie felt suddenly alone.
The only person she knew here was Gabe, and he was more or less a stranger now, anyway. Ten years was a long time and what they’d had together then had nothing to do with today.
Her hair was swept up into a tangle of curls and the soft kiss of an air-conditioned breeze brushed the back of Debbie’s neck. She shivered a bit, but knew it had little to do with the cool air and more to do with the uneasy situation she found herself in—depending on a man who had no reason to think well of her and no way of getting back home.
“Deep thoughts?”
Gabe’s voice rumbled across her nerve endings and she jolted a little as she turned to find him standing right beside her. His green eyes shone with an emotion she couldn’t quite identify and the subtle, spicy scent of his aftershave seemed to reach out for her. The man was a walking hormone assault.
“I didn’t hear you come up.”
“Looked like you were too busy thinking to hear much of anything.”
“I guess so,” she admitted, keeping her gaze locked with his.
When he smiled, the secrets in his eyes shifted, softened. Then he held one hand out to her and as she took it he said, “You look beautiful.”
The deep, sapphire-blue dress fit snug to her curves, as if it had been designed especially for her. It snaked down her hips and belled around her knees to fall to the floor in a fluid sweep of silky fabric. She’d never owned such an amazing dress and still wasn’t sure she should have accepted it.
She’d found it laid out for her on Gabe’s bed—and the shoes and matching bag were alongside it. Logically, she knew that buying her this dress had been no more to him than picking up a quart of milk at the corner grocery. But illogically, she felt wrong wearing a dress given to her by a man who didn’t even like her.
Swallowing hard, she said, “Thank you for the dress, Gabe. Really. It’s beautiful. But—”
“If you’re about to tell me I didn’t have to do it, save your breath.” He tucked her hand through the crook of his arm and led her into the crowded club. “I wanted you here tonight and you needed something appropriate.”
Meaning nothing she’d brought with her would do. Well, hard to be insulted by the truth. But still, it irritated her to have to acknowledge it.
“Thanks, anyway.”
“You’re welcome.” He looked down at her, smiled again and Debbie’s knees went a little wobbly.
A simple hormonal reaction, she assured herself as he steered her toward the dance floor. Didn’t mean a thing. Then he pulled her into the circle of his arms and slid into the crowd of slowly moving people on the gleaming wood floor.
His arms felt good—right. She moved against him and memories crowded her mind. Memories of a slow dance with him on the Long Beach pier one cold, autumn night ten years ago. The moon had been out, casting shadows over them and the dozen or so people joining them on the pier.
The scent of the sea had whipped around their bodies, the sweet rush of love had flowed between them. He’d smiled at her then, just as he was now, and when he’d kissed her, she’d known she loved him.
“You’re thinking again,” he whispered, bending his head to hers so that his voice and his breath caressed her ear, sending another shiver over her body.
“Just…remembering,” she said, her hand on his shoulder tightening, to help her balance.
“The pier.”
Her head tipped back and she stared up at him, surprised somehow, that he’d allowed himself that memory. Hadn’t he made a point in the last couple of days, of telling her that he had no interest in the past?
“You remember?”
He moved her into a slow turn, his arm about her waist squeezed, pulling her closer to him. Close enough that she felt the hard ridge of his body pressing into hers.
“Just because I don’t want to think about the past doesn’t mean I’ve lost the memories.”
“They’re good memories,” she said, and watched sadly as the shutters dropped over his eyes again. He was still here, with her, but his emotions had closed down, shutting her out, shutting out anything that might have been warming between them. And something inside her was sorry for it.
He stared at her, his gaze moving over her face with the sureness of a touch. “Not all of them.”
“No,” she admitted, hardly noticing the blur of motion from the dancers moving past them. They were nothing more than a wash of brilliant colors, blending together into a swirl of distraction. “But most of them are good, Gabe. Do we have to lose it all because of the way it ended?”
“I found out a long time ago that it’s better that way. Cleaner.”
His arm still held her close, belying the distance in his words. “But emptier.”
“The present’s full enough for me,” he countered.
“Is it?” She tore her gaze from his long enough to look around the crowded club, to take in some of what he’d built before meeting his gaze again. “You fill it with people like the brunette in the red dress and that’s all you need?”
His mouth quirked. “You jealous of the brunette?”
“Oh, please.” Irritation spiked because, yes, she had been jealous, even if it hadn’t lasted long. “If those boobs are real, I’ll eat my pretty new dress.”
He laughed out loud and the sound of it rolled over the music and settled over her like a blessing from the past. God, she’d loved the sound of his laughter. And his smile had always been enough to light up every corner of her heart. How could she have forgotten? Self-preservation, that’s how, she reminded herself. If she’d spent the last ten years remembering what she’d given up, she’d never have been able to be happy.
“Ashley Strong is a very nice woman.”
Debbie gasped and looked past his shoulder as if she could spot the woman. “That was Ashley Strong? The actress?”
“You didn’t recognize her?”
“No.” And she didn’t see her now. Debbie’d been too busy being sickened by the woman’s blatant attempt at seduction to pay much attention to who she might be. She looked up at Gabe. “But now I know for sure those boobs aren’t hers.”
He laughed again and swept her into a wide turn, his hand firmly on the small of her back. “Damned if I haven’t missed that smart mouth of yours, Deb.”
“You missed me?”
His smile faded and the shutter over his eyes snapped into place. “For a while, I missed you with every breath I took. But it’s different now.”
“Maybe,” she said, and held on to his shoulder tightly. “You say your present’s very full. Yet I watch you working the crowd, Gabe, and I see you surrounded by all of these people, but you’re not actually connected to any of them.”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “How do you know?”
“Because I know you. You’re here, but you keep yourself separate from everyone else. I can see it in your eyes.”
He frowned at her now and the arm around her waist eased off just a little. “You used to know me, I grant you that. But it’s been a long time, Deb. I’m not the man you knew. You should trust me on that.”
The music ended and without another word he guided her across the floor to the owner’s table, set in the shadows along the far wall and closed off from the rest of the guests. She slid in, then watched him as he took his place beside her. There was an open bottle of champagne chilling in a silver ice bucket waiting for them. Gabe reached for it, filled two crystal flutes and handed one of them to her.
“So what do you say, you let go of the past and take me as I am today.”
“I thought I was.”
“Not really.” He turned the flute in his long fingers, stroking the fragile crystal stem with concentration enough to make Debbie remember how it had felt to have those fingers moving over her skin. His gaze turned to hers. “You see me, but you also see the shadow of a man who once loved you.”
Those words jabbed at her insides like thorns pricking her skin.
“I’m not that man anymore.”
“I know that.”
“I wonder.”
She took a sip of champagne, letting the icy froth caress her dry throat. Around them, the club patrons partied, oblivious to the whispered conversation flowing in the shadows.
“Oh, I know you’re not that Gabe.” Debbie looked at him and said, “If you were the man I remember, you would have been doing more to help me out of this mess.”
He eased back against the red-leather banquette. Lifting one arm to drape along the back of the booth, he turned in his seat to face her completely. His features were smooth, even, betraying nothing of what he was feeling. “I told you it would take a few days.”
“You haven’t heard anything new?”
He paused, took a drink of champagne, then shook his head. “Nothing.”
“And you haven’t tried.”
“Are you under the impression I’m trying to keep you here?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Debbie admitted. “But I know there’s more going on than you’re telling me.”
“You’ve a suspicious mind,” he quipped. “Strange, I don’t remember that about you.”
“And that’s not really an answer,” Debbie countered, tipping her head to one side to study the elegant, sexy man sitting so close to her. “You talk, but you don’t really say anything. I don’t remember you being so…flexible.”
He laughed shortly, set his glass down and leaned in toward her. His eyes became the world. Those deep, green eyes that had once captivated her, that had once held all of the world she’d ever wanted.
“What do you want from me, Deb?”
“Your help.”
“You’ve got that,” he said easily, letting his gaze sweep briefly to the swell of her breasts. “Anything else?”
Her mouth watered and a flicker of heat licked at her insides. There was too much she wanted and couldn’t have. Mostly, she thought, him. She wanted him every bit as much as she once had. “Gabe…”
He reached for her hand and smoothed his thumb across her palm. She shivered, closed her eyes and hissed in a shaky breath.
“This isn’t about the past, Debbie,” he said. “This is about now. About tonight. About us and what we could share together.”
Tempting. So tempting. To forget about all the worries niggling at her. To forget that she was trapped by losing herself in Gabe.
“You’re thinking again,” he said, a small smile curving his lips.
“And I shouldn’t?”
He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissed the palm, nibbled at her skin and Debbie felt herself melting. Heat swamped her, need crashed through her and her brain short-circuited. If he’d been trying to keep her from thinking, he was doing a good job.
Sliding toward her on the booth seat, he pulled her close, wrapped one arm around her and looked into her eyes as he said, “Sometimes, it’s better to just shut down your mind and let your body take over.”
God knew, his own body was more than ready. Since the moment he’d seen her again, he’d wanted her. And now, as Victor had reminded him only that afternoon, Gabe was running out of time. Soon enough, he’d have to let her go. But not before he’d had her again. Made her regret ever walking away from him.
Her blue eyes were wide and easily read. There was passion and confusion and enough desire to turn the burning embers inside him into an inferno. Gabe stroked his fingertips along the nape of her neck and felt the tremors that rocked her move through him, too.
Just touching her inflamed him. She was the only woman he’d ever known who could make his body hard with a look. His plan to seduce her and then discard her was suddenly taking on a life of its own. He wanted her now more than he ever had. Ten years ago, he’d had her for his own and lost her.
Tonight, he would reclaim her.
“Stop thinking, Deb,” he whispered, and bent his head to kiss the curve of her neck. She shivered, and sighed a little, the tiny sound slipping inside him.
The taste of her filled him. The scent of her surrounded him. And there in the shadows, he felt a surge of need he’d never known before. Pulling her in closer, he wrapped his arms around her, lifted his head long enough to look down into her eyes. Then slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers. One brush of his lips across hers and her breath puffed out on a half sigh.
“Gabe…”
“Shh…” He slid his left hand down her rib cage, following the line of her body, feeling her breath shudder in and out of her lungs. She went limp in his grasp as she leaned into him and Gabe knew he had her. Knew that she wanted him as much as he needed her.
His mouth claimed hers. He used his tongue to part her lips and at the first taste of her, he felt the years roll back. And the crowded club became a lonely beach in California. She moved into him and her body fit with his as well as it ever had. As if they’d been made for each other, two pieces of the same puzzle. Two halves of the same whole.
And yet, even as those thoughts rushed through his mind, Gabe forced them away. This wasn’t about kismet. Fate. Love. This was about revenge, pure and simple.
He wanted her gasping, writhing beneath him. He wanted her hot and needy, and when he took her to the precipice and over, he wanted her trembling for more. Only then would he be able to walk away, knowing that she would be the haunted one now. Knowing that she would spend the next ten years thinking about him, wondering what might have been.
She tore her mouth from his. “Gabe, I—”
“No thinking,” he reminded her, sliding his left hand up now to cup her breast. Her nipple was hard, pressing against the cool silk fabric and responding to his touch eagerly. His thumb and forefinger tweaked and pulled at the so-tender bud of flesh and Debbie twisted in his grasp. Her eyes closed on another sigh as she moved into him, losing herself in the shadows. Giving herself up to his touch.
“That feels…”
“Amazing,” he finished for her, then took her mouth again, this time with more need than tenderness. With more hunger than care. He needed, so he took. He wanted, so he claimed. His tongue clashed with hers, his breath mingled with hers. Her sighs became his as he devoured her, taking all she offered and demanding more.
He slipped his left hand beneath the bodice of her dress to cup her bare breast in the palm of his hand. He kneaded her flesh, tugging at her nipple until she groaned into his mouth and arched into him.
Shadows danced around them, fed by the candlelight, softened by the whirl of bodies on the dance floor. There was a partition, separating his table from the rest of the club, but Gabe knew it wasn’t enough. The crush of the crowd was only a few feet away.
For what he wanted from Debbie, he required privacy. He needed her naked and moving beneath him. Her hand cupped his cheek as he kissed her and the simple feel of her hand on his face fired his blood and brought an ache he hadn’t known in years to the corners of his heart.
At that stray thought, he instantly pulled back from her. He didn’t want his heart touched. He wasn’t looking for affection. For love. All he wanted from her was the physical. The slide of her body over his. The taste of her flesh in his mouth. The sound of her sighs in his ears.
“Gabe,” she said a little breathlessly, “is everything all right?”
