back to something else he’d said. “What was Plan B?”
“Get you kicked out of school and sent home,” he said matter-of-factly.
Her jaw swung once more as shock ricocheted through her. “What?” she jerked away, putting some distance between them. “How could you have possibly done that?”
He stalked her, pushing a lock of hair off her shoulder and following it with his fingers as it fell down her back. “Would have been easy,” he stated as he studied the strands still in his fingers. “But a shit thing to do to someone who’d worked her perfect ass off to get where she was. Really, it would have been a very last resort.”
“But…it’s Columbia University,” she insisted, as if he didn’t already know that.
His grin spread slowly and with enough ego to be noticeable. “Did I mention it was a last resort?”
Rather than intimidate, his apparent clout inflamed her. Or maybe it was the ease with which he was slowly revealing himself, allowing her to know him. He was no longer lying and deceiving. He was openly giving her answers to anything she asked, and honestly sharing all that he was capable of.
Reaching up to tunnel her fingers into his hair, she tipped her head to kiss the underside of his jaw. “Your honesty is very attractive,” she admitted, hearing the truth of it in the breathy sound of her voice.
“Is it.” His arm tightened around her waist and he lifted her so that their eyes were level. “Then you’re gonna love when I tell you I need your fuckin’ clothes off. Feel like begging for mercy I won’t give?”
She could barely breathe around the grin that claimed her face as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Her lips were almost on his when she remembered something that had been hanging in the back of her mind. “Condoms.” She kissed him. “Haven’t been using them.” She slipped her tongue into his mouth for a taste. “I have some in my purse.”
He cupped the back of her head and held her steady so he could kiss the sense right out of her. “There’s some in my nightstand.” He got them moving, bringing her into the bathroom rather than the bedroom. “But since you’re on the pill and as pure as they fuckin’ come, and I’ve been tested even though Stefano pretty much made me a monk for the past few years, I think we’re good. You?”
Her hands burrowed between them so she could get at the button of his pants. “We’re good.” Foolish or not, she agreed. They were so fucking good together. “How do you know I’m on the pill?” She nipped at his earlobe before kissing her way down the side of his neck.
“Had Maks hack into your medical records the other day to make sure. Get that shirt off.” Because his jeans were now open, she obeyed, pulling her tank over her head and dropping it to the floor as he dimmed the lights. “I’d never risk you, Eva. Never,” he rasped as his mouth latched onto her bare shoulder. Around his nips and kisses, he added, “I know you don’t trust me, but please believe that.”
Her insides twisted. Having it voiced somehow confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t true. Maybe it was sex on the brain doing something to her logical thought process, but she did trust him. With her life and then some.
“Gabriel?”
His head came up, and the low light cast half his face in shadows, lending him a mysterious air.
“I wouldn’t be with you again if I didn’t trust you.”
He growled like an animal, a low sexy sound that came from deep in his throat.
Hmm. Her hips rolled with a mind of their own, seeking out his erection. She went for his mouth to kiss him in case he was thinking to say something. She didn’t want him to. That sound he’d just made was all the response she needed.
† † †
Gabriel devoured his woman’s mouth as he reveled in the gift she’d just presented him with.
Her forgiveness.
Fuck. That made it even harder to take his time with her. He wanted to savor this. Bask in the need blazing from her eyes that she was too inexperienced to hide.
But shit hit another level when she started unbuttoning his shirt without prompting. He grasped two fistfuls of her hair and pinned her hard against the wall, groaning good and deep when she sucked steadily on his tongue while straining to get closer. He