Edge of Danger (37 page)

 
How many times was he going to have to have sex with her before he got it through his thick head that this wasn’t merely a recreational fuck? He wasn’t an adolescent who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. He’d never,
never
lost control as he did with Eden. There was no getting away from the reality.

 
Each time he made love with her tightened the bond between them inexorably. He was skating perilously close to disaster here.

 
Being near her made every intelligent thought vanish in a vapor trail.

 
He couldn’t let her go.

 
He couldn’t let her stay.

 
It was imperative he extract the data from her immediately. It couldn’t wait. They were out of time. The robot had to be re-created.

 
Gabriel enjoyed the feel of Eden nestled in his arms for another minute or two, then shimmered them to his bed. Somewhere in that nanosecond, he rashly decided that another hour wouldn’t make a difference.

 
Sheets and blankets were strewn all over the floor from their previous bout of lovemaking earlier in the day—God. A lifetime ago. He brought her to the middle of the mattress, holding most of his weight off her with his elbows.

 
He settled between her thighs. Brushed his fingers across the dark bruises on her pale throat. The rage and despair he felt inside stayed deep. He ran tender lips along her stubborn jaw, felt her mouth curve in a sleepy smile. Gently he nuzzled her lips, drinking in the warm sweet fragrance of her skin with a soft undertone of a floral fragrance that made a promise he couldn’t allow her to keep. “Eden.”

 
“Hmm?”

 
He was on the knife’s edge of arousal, so hard he was in pain. “Just—Eden,” he whispered, teeth clenched as he pushed into her slick heat. Her eyes flared open as he entered her with a hard, steady thrust that seated him to the root. Immediately her arms and legs came around him, shackling him to her. Binding him in a way that he could never have imagined.

 
Need surged through him as he pushed deeper, using the last of his ragged control against the driving demand of his own release. Striving with everything in him, Gabriel kept it slow and deep so that he could savor every liquid pulse of
her
impending release.

 
He couldn’t remember when he’d ever made love without protection, and the sensation of having absolutely nothing between them was exquisite in its intensity.

 
He held her, steadied her, controlled their frantic rhythm, his gaze intent on her face as he withdrew a little, then thrust again.

 
His good intentions flew to hell when she whispered his name on a slow, agonized breath, tightening her limbs around him, then sank her teeth into his shoulder.

 
An explosion of heat shot from the soles of Gabriel’s feet up the nerves and muscles in his spine, and stabbed directly into his brain, demanding he drive into her again and again.

 
And again.

 
And again.

 
Until the world turned white-hot around them and there was no knowing where she began and he ended.

 
Eden felt like a mass of jigsaw puzzle pieces that had been tossed into the air and landed willy-nilly in a completely random and unfamiliar pattern. She’d loved the picture her life had been BG, Before Gabriel, but somehow now, with him, she was reconfigured. Redefined. Reborn.

 
She could hear the unsteady thumps of his heart beneath her ear. “You know what’s insane?” she asked softly, stroking her palm over the crisp, damp hair on his chest. “When I’m with you I feel…safe.”

 
His body stiffened, and the fingers he’d been hypnotically combing through her hair stilled. “I’m not safe, Eden. Far from it. I’m everything a woman like you should be shit scared of.”

 
Not exactly what a well-loved woman wanted to hear when she was still in a postcoital glow snuggled in her lover’s arms. “What kind of woman am I?”

 
“Someone who needs to stay a long way away from a man like me,” he told her, shifting out of her arms to slide across the mattress. He threw his long legs over the side to sit on the edge of the bed.

 
“That’s not much of an answer. What’s the deal, Gabriel?”

 
“It’s complicated,” he answered, his back to her.

 
“Everything
seems
complicated,” she countered. “Just because something appears convoluted doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad.”

 
“That may be true in your antiseptic laboratory. Out here in the real world, things are different. The only thing great sex leads to is more great sex. Let’s leave it at that.”

 
Her brow furrowed as she pondered the cryptic nonanswers that were at complete odds with his behavior and the slight sadness she sensed in his tone. His powerful body had bucked and arched because of her. The knowledge made Eden feel a power and delight she’d never experienced before in her life. Suppressing the need to go to him, to wrap her arms about those broad shoulders, was overwhelming.

 
Instead, she stayed where she was, a mile of rumpled sheets between them. She admired the long, lean line of his tanned back, his broad shoulders, and the way his slightly too long, sweat-dampened hair curled at his nape. She admired that he was still trying to warn her off.

 
“Shouldn’t I get a say in where all this leads?” she asked softly.

 
He turned his head and his eyes were hard and uncompromising. “What do you want from me, Eden? Honesty?”

 
“Of course.”

 
He held her gaze. “Want a commitment? Not going to happen. Ever.”

 
“I didn’t ask for anything that long range, but I certainly appreciate you putting the idea in my head.” She shot him a teasing smile that he didn’t reciprocate.

 
God, he was a hard-ass.

 
She kept eye contact. “But I’m here now…” Her voice trailed off and her heart lurched as, naked and still semi-aroused, he rose from the edge of the bed.

 
Unself-conscious, he turned fully to face her. “Help me here. This can’t be about our physical response to each other. Not right now. No matter how powerful. You have to allow me to extract the data to rebuild Rex. We can’t wait. They’ve had your prototype for weeks. Enough time to figure out what it can do and come up with a creative way to use it.”

 
She bit her lower lip. As much as she would have liked to delve into the pros and cons of their potential, Rex did have to be the priority. Besides, she trusted Gabriel. But, oh God—“What do I have to do?”

 
He gave a huff of laughter. “You don’t have to look so pained. The Joining won’t hurt.”

 
“Yeah. Famous last words. Just do whatever you need to do, and get it over with.”

 
He closed his eyes briefly as if he were in pain. When he opened them again Eden felt seared by the heated look he was giving her. “Stay where you are. I’ll come around.”

 
His clothing materialized on his body in the short time it took him to circumvent the massive mahogany bed, and he smelled as though he were fresh out of the shower. A neat trick.

 
She stroked her hand up his forearm. His skin was slightly damp. “Can you do that for me?”

 
“Sure. Which body wash?”

 
“Lemon ver—” She gave a little scream when a split second later she was in exactly the same position she’d been lying in moments before, but now her skin felt squeaky clean and smelled of “—bena.”

 
She was dressed in jeans and a pale pink T. Even her hair was wet. “God. That—this is so…weird!”

 
“Welcome to my world,” he said dryly, taking her hand to pull her upright.

 
“How…”

 
Gabriel cupped her face, bringing his lips to hers…
Are you going to suck the information out of my b—
“Um—”

 
His mouth settled on hers, spiking her temperature. They both tasted of minty toothpaste, Eden thought vaguely, as he tunneled the fingers of both hands through her wet hair to frame her skull and her eyes drifted closed.

 
“Mmm.” Her hum of pleasure vibrated pleasantly against her parted lips, and she wrapped her arms about his neck.

 
His tongue moved, softly teasing, and when she parted her lips a little more, he slipped inside, deep and sure. Eden’s body was so attuned to his, that if Gabriel had touched her anywhere else she would have exploded like a rocket.

 
His thumbs brushed back and forth across her eyelashes as he cradled her head in his large hands and nibbled her upper lip.

 
God, this man could
kiss.

 
He knew how to seduce, tempt, and excite a woman with his mouth, his lips, his tongue, and his teeth.

 
She wished they were both naked again. She wished—

 
She felt him inside her head.

 
It was the most…extraordinary sensation.

 
Part of her was relishing Gabriel’s incendiary kiss, but another part of her was letting him in. Feeling the soft probing of his mind reaching for hers. Searching. God. She
felt
him there. Her heart started to flutter, this time in panic.

 
Easy, sweetheart, easy. You know I won’t hurt you.

 
Abstractedly she felt him iron the pleated frown between her brows with his thumb.
Give me what I need. Help me, Eden. Please.

 
I want to open my eyes now,
tumbled over—
I don’t know how
in his brain.

 
She heard his soft chuckle.
That’s what I like aboutyou.
He sounded amused.
Your innate curiosity—here?
He probed gently.
Show me the wire frame—that’s a girl. Yes. Keep going…

 
Eden tried to concentrate on what he wanted. And all the while she felt his tongue, warm and slick in her mouth, his damp hair cool between her fingers. Her heartbeat slowed to almost normal as she rapidly walked him through the entire development process. Her nipples were hard and she’d have given just about anything to still be naked. Having Gabriel in her head was like being caressed from the inside.