My orgasm hits like a rogue wave, sweeping me away until I’m nothing but need and feeling and whimpers.
“Scarlett. Fuck yes!” Gabriel groans as he keeps going, taking me higher.
I can’t stop coming. I’m going to freaking shatter into a million tiny little pieces at any moment.
Moments later, Gabriel roars out his climax so loudly that the entire building seems to shake.
Fifty-Six
Legend
The earth stands still. Stops turning. Every other human on the planet ceases to exist.
As my heart hammers and sweat drips down my brow, I try to catch my breath as I stare at the beautiful face of the woman in front of me. In that moment, I know she has the power to break me.
Q had the reason for his concern wrong. She’s not just out of my league. She’s the kind of woman I’ll never recover from.
Everything I ever thought I knew before was bullshit. Scarlett Priest is it. The kind of woman I’d kill to keep—and would kill me to lose.
I lean forward, touching my forehead to hers, inhaling the scent of sex and sweat and sweetness that’s all her.
She will break me.It’s a fact.
“Thank you,” she whispers, her breath cool against my overheated skin. “You have no idea how badly I needed to know this was possible. To know that I can feel likethis.”
I don’t know exactly what she means, but my dick is in danger of sliding out of her, so I press a kiss to the tip of her nose.
“Thankyou,” I say, pulling out.
She scrambles off the desk, and I walk around it to grab a box of tissues from a drawer. I hold it out to her, and she takes a handful.
“Let me take care of this, and you can clean up in the bathroom.”
I walk through the attached doorway and dispose of the condom, wash my hands, and do up my pants before letting her have the restroom. She closes the door with a smile on her face that strikes fear so deep inside me, it threatens to take me to my knees.
I keep my expression fixed until I lose sight of her, and then I spin around and jam my fingers into my hair.
What the fuck did I just do? What the fuck am I going to do now? I can’t do this. Not with her. If something happened to her ... I won’t survive it.I don’t know how I know this fact, but I do.
My stomach churns. How the fuck do I face her?
Q’s warning from earlier hits me like a sucker punch.“Whatever you do, don’t let her in. You keep your circle small on purpose, Gabe. Remember why.”
I remember why. Because when my circle’s not small, people die.
I’ll never forget the sight of Bump’s bleeding body crawling toward me as tears streamed down his face.“Jorie’s dead.”Then he passed out, and I thought I’d lost them both. Regret ripped through me, shredding the fabric of my fucking soul.
I can’t go through that again.
Moses will find me. With my name and picture in the papers after the shooting, I’ve known it’s only a matter of time before he tracks me down to finish the job he fucked up when they shot Bump and Jorie.
I refuse to put Scarlett at risk.
The sound of the flushing toilet tells me I have only a couple of minutes to decide what to say, and I keep coming up blank.
The moment I see her face, I’ll want to give in. Tell myself it could work. That I can protect her.
But that’s a lie.