Dirty Sexy Knitting (32 page)

“Cassandra, do you know where I stashed that noose?” Gabe asked, his voice tight. “I think we’ve found a better use for the rope.”

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.

—RICHARD BACH

 

 

 

 

After a tense night guarding their prisoner, at dawn Cassandra laced up her hiking boots. She struggled into a slicker, listened to another round of Gabe’s admonitions, and then mouthed a number of promises, some of which made little sense.

She didn’t need to see a doctor and she wasn’t going to hole up with one of her sisters after making contact with the sheriff. As it happened, once they heard her story, the authorities kept her at the station in Calabasas until Gabe and Reed could be collected. He must have called Nikki and Juliet on his way in—maybe the sheriffs had some secret cell reception—because the other two women, along with Noah and Jay, arrived just minutes before the man who had saved her life.

He raised his eyebrows when she expressed the sentiment in the hallway at the station. “We’ll discuss who rescued who later, Froot Loop.”

“I’m too tired,” she said. Neither one of them had slept the night before while they watched over Reed, suffering through his ranting and his too-seldom sullen silences. “All I want to do is go home and sleep.”

It was past noon when Noah drove them back up the canyon. The road had been cleared of mud and debris, but there were leaves and downed branches all over their narrow lane. When they came to her place, Noah kept his foot pressed to the gas.

“Wait, wait,” she protested from the backseat.

Noah exchanged a look with the man on his right.

“You stay with me for now, Froot Loop,” Gabe said, his voice adamant.

“No.” Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

“Please.”

Noah glanced over his shoulder. “Otherwise I’ll have to take you back to Juliet,” he added. “And she told me to tell you that on this issue you can count on her being ‘the mean one.’ She said you’d understand that.”

She understood
them
. They were still determined to behave as if they were her sisters, even though that was no longer a certainty. DNA testing, she reminded herself, putting it on her mental list, right after sleep and some time to allow the shock to wear off. That day that Gabe had left the shop—was it only forty-eight hours ago?—she’d apologized to Nikki and Juliet and put forth her plan for genetic testing. They hadn’t exactly agreed.

Maybe it was best to forget that anyway. Perhaps she should break contact and sever ties with the other two. After all, Reed Tucker had planned on killing the three of them in order to protect his inheritance. A plan she’d set in motion by her selfish desire to find herself a family had backfired with near-fatal results.

It would be better for everyone if she remained alone.

Gabe seemed to understand that. Few words were exchanged between them as he ushered her into one of the spacious guest rooms with an attached bath. Her plan was a long shower, but she was so exhausted she settled for a short one. Then she braided her wet hair, wrapped herself in a terry robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and fell into bed and into sleep.

She awoke, heart pounding and disoriented.

“It’s okay, baby.” Gabe’s voice. “You’re safe.”

Her eyes flew open to find him sitting in the upholstered chair near the bed. In jeans and a T-shirt, his feet bare, he looked as if he’d been there awhile. She could tell from the light outside the window that it was closing on dusk again.

“Nothing could get to you,” he said. “I watched over you while you slept.”

She struggled to sit up, gripping the lapels of the robe together. “You should have slept yourself. I’m fine.”

Leaning forward, he took a glass of water off the bedside table and handed it to her. “I had to make sure of that.”

She shot him a look, but his face wore one of those inscrutable Gabe expressions that told her he was deep in his interior world.
Not your puzzle, Cassandra
, she reminded herself.
Soon he’ll be taking himself away and all his moods with him.

Her hands seemed to be trembling again, so she carefully put the glass down. Beside it on the little table sat a small package wrapped with a mangled bow.

Gabe noticed the direction of her gaze. “It was in my pocket when I set out in the rain last night. For you. Happy belated birthday.”

Oh. Yeah. She’d forgotten all about that. With trepidation, she eyed the gift. “Am I supposed to open it?”

He shifted in the chair. “Up to you. I . . .” Hesitating, he forked a hand through his nonexistent hair. “I hope you like it. It’s, uh, organic.”

Eyebrows raised, she took it in her hand, holding the small package on the shelf of her palm. “You bought me an organic present? How enlightened of you, Gabe.”

Shrugging, he leaned forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees and his dark, watchful eyes on her.

The ribbon fell away. The lid of the small box lifted on a hinge. Set in white velvet was a pair of diamond earrings. Sparkling, platinum-set, hefty-sized diamond stud earrings.

Her mouth dried. She’d expected something made at a craft fair, maybe. A gift certificate to the local farmer’s market folded into quarters.

He slumped back in his chair. “Boring, huh? Conventional.”

“Organic,” she whispered, touching one with a fingertip. Gemstones and precious metal. But she didn’t understand. Diamond earrings weren’t a gift you bought for a neighbor or a friend. You bought them for a woman. A lover. And surely not one you planned on leaving.

“I picked them up a couple of weeks ago.”

Ah. When they
were
lovers. When he wasn’t leaving. Before he’d decided he didn’t want her anymore. She pasted on a smile. “Thank you. I’ll treasure them. They’ll always remind me of you.”

“Cassandra . . .”

“A birthday gift and a good-bye gift,” she continued, deciding it was imperative she let him know she understood. “That’s how I’ll think of them.”

He groaned. “
Cassandra.
” In a breath, he launched himself out of the chair and was in the bed, over her, his body’s weight on her, his hands warm as they cupped her face. He kissed her mouth, her nose, her chin. “My heart almost crumbled all over again when he put that gun against your head.”

She knew what he meant. No matter the separation to come, they’d shared a past that included those terrifying moments. Her hand stroked his short hair. “Mine shredded when he pointed it at you.”

His mouth pressed more kisses to her cheeks, her throat, and then her mouth again. “Let me heal it, baby. Let me put it back together for you.”

Oh.

“Let me show you how glad I am that we’re alive.”

Oh.
Even through the covers she could feel the heavy bulge of his sex.

He was offering one last chance for intimacy with him. More of that good-bye, she supposed, as well as a celebration. But . . .

With his next kiss, logic, sense, self-preservation flew out the window. She couldn’t say no. She wouldn’t. They
were
alive, after all.

“Cassandra?” He looked into her eyes.

“Yes.”

The air chilled her suddenly hot skin as he pushed the covers off and drew open her robe. He rubbed his smooth cheek against her breast, and she held his head close, perversely missing the usual rasp of his whiskers. But then his lips found her nipple and it stiffened as it always did in the heat of his mouth and against the flickering tease of his tongue. She arched, and he cupped the other breast in his palm, thumbing the nipple to a matching peak.

He drew her robe away from her bare body and tossed it over the side of the bed. Then he rolled, bringing her over him so that he could run his big palms over her back and along her bottom. His hands squeezed and she gasped, her thighs parting so he could press his jean-covered leg against the warm, already wet place between hers.

She squirmed, loving the knowing pressure, but wanting more. Her hands pushed at the hem of his T-shirt and he jerked it off in one movement. Closing her eyes, she inhaled his clean scent, then indulged herself, retelling him her deepest secrets by tracing them with her tongue on the muscled expanse of his chest.

He shuddered, and buried his hands in her hair. “Witch,” he murmured. “Take me into your body,” he said, his hips lifting against hers. “I’ll make it so good for you. I’ll make it so right.”

She smiled against his skin and thought about telling him that she didn’t expect his promises, that no one had ever given any to her, but that was just too much talk. So instead her hand wandered down the rippled muscles of his belly. The skin there twitched when she reached the button of his fly.

Groaning, he rolled again, leaving her splayed beneath him as he drew off his jeans. Then he rose over her, and took the backs of her knees in his palms. As he sank into the mattress, he lifted her legs and opened her. His expression softened and his eyes glittered as he looked down on the swollen wetness of her sex. It throbbed under the heat of his gaze and she saw his nostrils flare and his chest rise and fall in heavy breaths. “You’re so pretty. So pretty and so ready for me.”

He dipped his head and drew his tongue from the sensitive button at the top of her cleft to the warm lower well where he lingered, tasting her. She cried out as his tongue painted her with pleasure until she pulled at his arms, asking to be filled by him.

He didn’t acquiesce, not until she was sure she wasn’t breathing, when there was no oxygen pumping through her body, but only desire. His hips pushed her thighs wide. His erection nudged at the melting entrance to her body.

“Do you know what we’re doing, sweetheart?”

“Hm?” Her eyes closed, she lifted her hips, trying to take him in, but he held back, asked her again.

“Do you know what this is?”

She lifted her lashes, looking into his face, knowing there was some message there. Her trembling fingers played over his lips and he nipped at them, sending another jolt of desire through her already jangled system.

“Cassandra, do you know what I’m trying to tell you?”

“Tell me?” She couldn’t think. “Good-bye?”

His eyes closed. “No, sweetheart.” Then they flared open. “Or yes. Yes. It
is
good-bye. Good-bye past.” He fitted himself to the notch in her body and pushed in. “And hello us, Cassandra.” He slid deep.

Her body swallowed every naked inch.

Her heart seized. Her eyes flared wide.
Every naked inch.

“Shall I pull out?” He ducked his head so his serious, dark, dark gaze met hers. “Is that what you want?”

She shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I know I love you. I’ve loved you for nearly two years. I’ve probably been in love with you for that long, too. But even though you gave me a lecture the other day that pulled the wool from my eyes . . .”

His silly pun brought a tremulous smile to her lips.

“. . . I couldn’t move on until I was faced with another potential tragedy.”

He kissed her mouth, still buried deep and unmoving, even as her inner muscles undulated against his thick flesh. “Not until I saw you with death just a bullet away. I couldn‘t bear the idea of losing you. Of losing all the possibilities of a life we could have together. Of a life we might
make
together.”

Her heart felt too big for her chest. She touched Gabe’s face, touching his brows, his chin, his beloved lips.

They moved under her fingers. “Will you be my future, Cassandra? Will you be my friend, my wife, the mother of my children? Will you be my family?”

Emotion rippled through her. Did she need to answer? He knew what it would be because he knew her so well.
Be my family.

The man was always listening.

“I love you, Gabe,” she whispered, then she took a deep breath. “Make me a baby.”

He grinned, looking younger than she’d ever seen. Happy. “For that, as many as you’d like.”

 

 

Cassandra firmed her grip on the key to Malibu & Ewe and forced herself to ignore her roiling stomach and fit it into the lock. Gabe had his hand on her shoulder and the warmth of his touch eased some of her nerves. She was keenly aware of the envelope in her other hand, and she worried that her sweaty palm might obscure the information that it contained.

Or maybe that would be a good thing.

She and Nikki and Juliet had sent their DNA tests away. A simple cheek swab and from there a laboratory had done the work. It was supposed to take a couple of weeks, but Jay, who seemed to know everybody in the world, was able to make a call and cut the wait time in half.

They all had received the results and were meeting at the knitting shop today—a semineutral location—to open them together.

“Froot Loop?” Gabe said, running his hand along her hair. “You okay?”

She hadn’t moved.

He turned her in his arms and tilted up her chin so their gazes met. “Cassandra, sweetheart. No matter what happens, no matter what that piece of paper says, it doesn’t change anything I feel for you. Or anything about our future plans. You know that, right?”

She managed a smile. “I know that.”

His kiss was soft and sweet as his hand brushed her lower belly. “If there’s a baby in there, we don’t want it upset by you worrying.”

“There might not be a baby in there. Have you thought about that?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “I’ve thought about what a hardship it will be for us to keep trying to get one planted.”

“ ‘Planted’?” She pushed at his shoulder. “Eew.”