Gabriel - Jessie Cooke Page 0,3

trash, and once they were both dressed he walked her down the back stairs so she wouldn’t have to go through the bar. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and thanked her before tucking her into her car. She stared up into those blue eyes and wondered if she’d ever see them again. She would, but it wouldn’t be until nine months later, when those eyes would be looking up at her out of the face of the dark-haired, angelic-faced baby that the midwife had just wrapped into a blanket and laid into her arms.

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Gabe was disoriented, and as soon as he tried to lift his head up off the bed, he felt like Metallica was giving a concert inside of it. His mouth was so dry that his tongue was stuck to the roof of it, and his lips were stuck together. Slowly, he sat up on the edge of the bed and waited until everything stopped spinning before making his way to the bathroom. His gait was unsteady and the room had begun to spin before he was able to clutch the vanity. When he was able to pull his head up and look into the mirror, he was shocked by what he saw...what the fuck did he do last night?

He opened the medicine cabinet behind the mirror and pulled out a bottle of OTC painkillers. Shaking four out into his hand, he popped them into his dry mouth and used his hands to make a cup, drinking about six “cupfuls” of water before he felt like the moisture was sticking around. It was only when he stood back upright that he realized so much water at once may have been a mistake. His stomach rumbled, loudly, echoing off the empty bathroom walls, and the feeling was like whatever he’d eaten or drank in the past twenty-four hours was being pushed up out of his stomach and collecting in his esophagus. He stumbled over to the toilet and barely made it in time to empty out his digestive tract. It burned and tasted like a combination of crawfish and whiskey...and brought back just a bit of his memory of the night before.

He’d been at Booger’s wake at the club, drinking everything that was handed to him, smoking some weed, and slow dancing with his sexy little nurse. He knew it was early in their “relationship” to call Patrice “his,” but he’d never met another woman he felt so connected to so early on. She’d been there to take care of him every day in the hospital, changing his dressings and making sure he wasn’t in pain. Her smile was what he looked forward to every day as he lay in that bed, waiting to be told he could go home, and her gentle touch was almost as effective in drawing him to her as were her good looks. Her hair was jet black and at work she’d worn it up in a bun on top of her head. The first time he saw her outside of work, though, she’d let it down and it touched her butt and framed her pretty face and all he could think about was burying his own face inside of it. Her eyes were the lightest blue he’d ever seen...except, of course on Blackheart. Some of the guys teased him about how much she looked like their president. Gabe had hero worshiped Blackheart since he was a little boy, and being with a woman who favored him so much gave his brothers way too much ammunition, but Gabriel had a thick skin and he just laughed along with them, and none of them could deny she was hot...hotter than most of the women they were messing with.

He made it back over to the sink and rinsed his mouth with mouthwash this time. Again, his stomach rumbled, but he managed to keep whatever was left in there where it was supposed to be. He looked at his face again and another memory came back...it was an old one, though, not from the night before. It was a memory of when he was just a prospect and he and Booger had been in a fight in a bar on Bourbon Street. They’d both been day drinking and some asshole tourist from the East Coast started razzing them about the way they talked. Booger wasn’t usually one to start a fight, so at first it had just been a battle of words and wit.