Breakaway

Rising slightly, Gavin reached into the pocket of his jeans for a money clip. “I’m paying.” The two words were barely off his tongue when Celia gave the waiter a large bill.

“Keep the change.”

The young man was all smiles. “Thank you, Miss.”

Gavin stood up, reaching for her arm, but she was too quick, pulling away and walking to where he’d parked his truck. He managed to catch up with her at the corner. This time when he reached for her arm, he tightened his grip, not permitting her to escape him.

“If you ever do that again I’ll…”

Celia rounded on him. “You’ll do what, Gavin?” They’d engaged in a stare down that would only end in a stalemate.

“I’ll think of something by the time I get you home.”

“Bully tactics don’t work with me. Remember, I grew up with two brothers and I can roll with the best of them.”

Escorting her across the street, Gavin clamped his teeth together to keep from saying something that would jeopardize his fragile friendship with a woman who unknowingly had seduced him by their occupying the same space.

She hadn’t indicated she was remotely interested in him, yet he felt something intangible that made him want to get to know her in the most intimate way conceivable.

He’d been forthcoming when he told Celia he liked women. He enjoyed their company and he enjoyed sleeping with them. However, he didn’t sleep with every woman he dated because he hadn’t wanted to use them just for sex. With those he hadn’t slept with he’d managed to maintain an ongoing friendship.

His feelings for Celia bordered on ambivalence. He liked her, yet didn’t want to like her too much, because when he returned to his apartment in northern Virginia to await his next assignment, he didn’t want to have to wrestle with emotional baggage.

The return trip to Waynesville was accomplished in complete silence—Celia staring out the side window while Gavin concentrated on the road ahead of him. He maneuvered off the county road and onto the local one leading to Celia’s house.

He didn’t turn off the engine when he got out and came around to assist her. His hands went around her waist and he lifted her off the seat, holding her aloft. Two pairs of dark eyes fused, warring, neither wanting to give the other quarter.

“Put me down,” Celia ordered through clenched teeth.

Pulling her closer, Gavin complied, their bodies pressed together. Then, without warning, his head came down and he slanted his mouth over hers. He knew he’d shocked Celia when her lips parted, giving him the access needed to take full possession of her mouth.

His tongue dueled with hers until he caught the tip between his teeth, sucking softly. She stopped struggling and melted against him when he released her tongue and simulated making love to her. His right hand came down and cupped her hips so she could feel the hardness straining against his fly.

Celia felt pinpoints of heat prick her face, breasts and the area between her legs. Curving her arms under Gavin’s shoulders, she held on to him as if she feared being swept away in a maelstrom of longing where she would never surface again.

Gavin took a step, pressing Celia against the bumper of the truck. Banked passion flared to life as he ground his crotch against hers. Mouths joined, he lifted her to sit on the bumper, he moving to stand between her knees. He’d fulfilled two of his wishes. He’d tasted her mouth, was between her legs, but hadn’t joined his body to hers.

Celia had felt dead, empty inside until now. She wanted and needed Gavin to make love to her but common sense returned to shake her into an awareness of what Gavin was doing and what she was permitting him to do.

“No, Gavin. We can’t.”

Celia’s entreaty penetrated the thick fog of passion cloaking Gavin’s mind. His head came up, and he stared down into twin pools of black-filled shock rather than fear. He couldn’t believe he’d been ready to make love to Celia on the top of a truck like an animal in heat!

He took a backward step without releasing her. His fingers tightened slightly as he eased her off the bumper until her feet touched macadam.

He was annoyed with Celia for making it look as if he were a kept man, but even more angry with himself because he’d lost control. “Don’t ever insult me again by reaching into your purse or I’ll kiss you again, and it won’t be where no one will see us.”

Celia blinked as if coming out of a trance. The laughter that began in her chest spilled over as her shoulders shook. “Do you actually believe you were punishing me because you kissed me without asking permission? You give yourself a little too much credit in the lovemaking department,” she taunted. “I let you kiss me, Gavin.”

Gavin thrust his face to within inches of hers, staring at her thoroughly kissed mouth. “You let me kiss you. But the all-important question is will you let me make love to you?”

Celia experienced a sense of freedom with Gavin she’d never felt with Yale. Although ten years her senior, Yale had not been very adventurous. Their lovemaking was satisfying because she always took the initiative to make it that way. If she’d left it up to Yale he would’ve made love to her only to procreate. She wasn’t what she would call horny, but sexually deprived. She’d missed foreplay, after-play and cuddling.

“I don’t know.” Celia didn’t know because she’d never been one to engage in gratuitous sex, and that’s what it would become if she allowed Gavin to share her bed.

Leaning in closer, Gavin kissed the end of her nose. He’d felt himself a winner only because she hadn’t said no. “It’s all right, baby. I will never pressure you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Celia winked at him. “And I promise not to pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do.” She kissed his cheek. “Go home, Gavin, so I can plan for our cook-off challenge.”

A network of lines fanned out around Gavin’s eyes when he smiled at the woman who made him feel things he didn’t want to feel, made him want to do things he shouldn’t do. “Is it going down at my place or yours?”

“My place, of course.”

“Do you have a grill?” Celia nodded.

“I’ll see you tomorrow around ten.”

“Why so early?” Celia asked.

“It’s going to take at least eight hours to cook my pork.” Gavin reached for Celia’s handbag off the console between the seats, handing it to her. “I’ll wait until you’re inside before I leave.”

He watched her walk and waited for her to open and close the door before driving away. His plan to punish her for what he considered the ultimate insult whenever he took a woman out to eat had backfired.

Gavin knew he had to be careful—very, very careful when interacting with Celia Cole-Thomas or he would find himself in too deep.

Chapter 6

Celia stood with her back pressed against the door as the sound of the truck’s engine faded in the distance. Her knees were shaking so hard she found it difficult to keep her balance.

She’d pretended not to be affected by Gavin’s lovemaking when what she’d wanted was to mate with him—on the hood of a vehicle and out in the open where anyone could see them.

Sliding down to the floor, Celia pulled her knees to her chest and lowered her head. If she’d followed her therapist’s advice, she knew she wouldn’t be going through the emotional turmoil that made her do and say things that made her question her sanity.

But, she hadn’t been completely honest with the therapist or herself—until now. She’d told the psychiatrist about how she’d believed she’d died, but her colleagues had brought her back to life, how the nightmares kept her awake at night and that she sat up until sunrise before attempting to go back to sleep.

A wry smile twisted her mouth at the same time a single tear trickled down her cheek. What Celia hadn’t disclosed to her therapist or anyone else was that she’d blamed herself for Yale’s death. He hadn’t been scheduled to work that day, but he’d switched shifts with another doctor because he’d wanted to talk to her about her pronouncement that although she wasn’t ending their engagement, she’d moved out because she needed to put some space between them.

She and Yale hadn’t set a date, and his constant haranguing that he didn’t want to wait until he was fifty to father a child had begun to annoy Celia. Whenever she reminded him of their commitment to opening the free clinic, he’d drop the topic for several weeks and then bring it up again.

Yet that last time, Yale had done something that was totally out of character for him. He’d begun crying. It was the tears and the pleading that made her agree to meet him when her shift ended. What she hadn’t expected was for him to work the E.R. on his day off.

Celia had mentally beaten herself up over and over. The “what ifs” had attacked her relentlessly. What if she hadn’t dated a man who was ten years older than she and too controlling? What if she hadn’t agreed to move in with him when she’d had her own apartment? What if she hadn’t agreed to marry him when all of her instincts told her he was so wrong for her free-spirit personality?

She knew her parents weren’t happy when she’d moved in with Yale, but she was an adult and there wasn’t much they could say. It hadn’t been the same with her brothers. Both Diego and Nicholas complained about her shacking up with a man when she could afford to live on her own. Celia eventually resolved the problem when she purchased her cousin’s oceanfront mansion.

Buying the property signaled a turning point in her relationship with Yale. He’d become more controlling and at times had been downright mean-spirited. Living apart from her fiancé gave her the opportunity to see another side of the man with whom she’d pledged her future. She’d loved Yale, but she hadn’t been in love with him.

Now, there was her dilemma of Gavin Faulkner. The powerfully built personal bodyguard was a constant reminder of what she’d never had and what had been missing in her life—passion.