Undertaking Love Page 0,46

his head, zipped back through to the kitchen and returned a moment later with a spare motorcycle helmet and his keys.

‘Come on. Let’s go.’

Marla made to slip out of his jacket as she stood up.

‘Keep it on.’

‘But …’

‘No buts. Keep it on.’ His tone brokered no argument, and she didn’t feel much urge to fight. The jacket was bringing her more than warmth. It smelled of leather, and spice, and lemons, and Gabe. It was a comfort, and a shield.

Outside, he tucked her hair behind her ears like a child and slid the helmet down over her face.

‘Have you been on a bike before?’ He lifted her visor as he spoke.

She shook her head.

‘Okay. Just hold on and trust me. I’ll keep you safe.’

In that precise moment, Marla had absolutely no doubt that he would.

She did exactly as she was told and wrapped her arms around Gabe as he gunned the engine into life. He glanced over his shoulder and closed her visor before giving her the thumbs up. She nodded, and they were off.

On another evening the adrenalin of the ride would probably have thrilled her inner speed demon, but tonight she was more moved by the comfort of Gabe’s warm body against her own. Arms wrapped around his waist, the intimacy of him nestled between her spread thighs as the bike throbbed beneath them sent her senses reeling. It knocked her sideways how very turned on she was. Disloyalty clashed against desire. Grief battled with visceral need. She was powerless to do anything more than let the sensations wash over her like a tidal wave and hope to still be breathing at the end of it.

She was just about the most mixed up she’d ever been in her entire life. Her canine best friend had just died, her boyfriend had gone from hero to zero in a crisis, and the man between her thighs was fast becoming the most enigmatic, frustrating person she’d ever known. He was turning her into a veritable Jekyll and Hyde. One day she wanted to kill him and tonight, right now, she wanted to take him to bed.

Gabe pulled into the country lane and eased the bike to a stop outside Marla’s cottage, but she made no move to let go of him. Her arms still gripped tight around his middle, her fingers were still searing his skin through the cotton of his T-shirt. He hadn’t ridden a bike without leathers for years, not since way back when he’d been a teenager taking Cheryl Brady home from their first, and last, date to the cinema. One look at the wild-haired boy on the motorbike was enough for her mum to ban him from ever setting foot near Cheryl again.

He touched Marla’s hand, a gentle nudge to remind her that she needed to dismount before he could, and he felt colder the instant she peeled her body away from his. He climbed off after her, helped her off with her helmet and laid it down next to his on the bike.

‘You okay?’

As she stood there and shook out her hair by the front door, she reminded him all over again of long gone teenage dates. This would have been about the time when he’d have been trying to work up the guts to kiss the girl in question goodnight, and now he found himself with the opposite problem. It was all kinds of inappropriate, but right at that moment he wanted to kiss Marla so badly that it physically hurt.

Frankly, Marla wasn’t helping the situation, either. Was it his imagination, or had she stepped closer? One second there was space between them, the next she’d dragged him against her. The world shrank to the size of Marla’s doorstep as she tipped her head up and found his mouth with her own. Her kiss stripped away his good intentions in a heartbeat as lust roared through his veins, a lit match dropped on tinder-dry brush land. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he knew he should stop her, but Jesus, she was all over him. Her tongue insistent in his mouth. Her magic fingers already learning his skin beneath his shirt. His hands wound their own way into the gilt waves of her hair as he surrendered himself to her siren call. When he moved them lower, her bottom moulded itself perfectly into his palms, and that appreciative little moan she made when he bit down on her lip made him burn to know