He should have seen it coming, but he’d been concentrating so hard on Paige the question came out of left field. And he was caught, looking into her big blue bedroom eyes, all liquid, hurting, wanting, patient.
He could practically feel his heart beating in his neck as the words spilled from his lips. ‘They died when I was young. My gran raised me.’
‘Gran Gabriella,’ she said, nodding, even smiling a little, as if the pieces of him slipped into place.
‘She was an amazing woman. Tough. Stubborn. Thank God too. I was a wild kid. Impatient. First to climb the tree. Fastest to the top of the hill. She had a choice to either let me go feral or guide me with a firm hand. All of my focus I owe to her.’
‘Is she in Melbourne still?’
‘She passed several years back. Right about the time my career took off. It broke my heart that she wasn’t around to see it.’ As he breathed out he felt another shift, this one so significant he could practically feel air swirling inside him in the place where he’d harboured that regret for so long.
Paige’s next breath out was long and slow, as if she too was letting things go. He could have kissed her for leaving it there. Hell, he could have kissed her either way. Her hair falling in wisps about her face. Her lips pink from the nibbling.
‘Paige—’ he said, but that was all that came as he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.
He actually shook his head at the realisation that she’d rendered him speechless. The rainmaker. The silver-tongued seducer of innocent creatives.
No matter the mistakes he’d made in his life, he’d done something right for her to have come into his life at the right moment. This woman who’d looked so relieved earlier when he’d reiterated that he’d be leaving soon, that their affair had a use-by date, even he’d been a little taken aback. Until he’d given himself a swift mental slap.
Paige was warm, sexy, astute, and gorgeous as all get out, but there was a limit to what he could offer. It was a good thing that he’d been forced to remember what a destructive illusion feeling for someone could be. He’d remember with even more biting clarity once he was no longer surrounded by air that smelled so thickly of warm, soft, edible, feminine skin.
He stepped forward and placed his hands on her upper arms. Her warmth seeped from the fabric of his too-big jacket into his skin. Her delicious scent curled beneath his nose. Her big blue eyes looked unblinking into his as her chest rose high and fell hard.
Yes, he thought. That. The touchy-feely stuff had made him feel unexpectedly raw, but it had nothing on pure and simple sexual hunger.
He placed a hand on the wall above her head, and heat arched through him as her lips parted, soft and moist and practically begging for his kiss.
When she licked her lips, and tilted her head, the wanting that swept through him was thick and consuming. Unrelenting. And limitless, filling all the newly shifted places inside him. He closed his eyes on that thought. Gritted his teeth against the insinuation.
Then at the slide of her hand into the back of his hair, the press of her hips to his groin, the sweet shuddering sigh as her breath whispered across his neck, he thought, Oh, to hell with it—
Then the lights flickered. And the lift began to move.
The lift binged, the doors opened, and Paige knew that if she snapped her eyes left she’d see the silver wallpaper of the eighth floor. But she couldn’t snap her eyes any which way, not for all the coffee in Brazil.
Not with Gabe looking at her that way. As if he was looking not at her, but into the very heart of her. She wondered what he saw. If it was a disappointment, all cold and uninviting. Or if it flickered with any of the heat freefalling through her body. If he had any inkling any warmth glowing inside her had been put there by him. She looked away then, and hoped she hadn’t left it too late.
‘We should probably get out of here before the thing changes it mind,’ she said. ‘You’re way too big for me to carry out of here if your claustrophobia gets the better of you.’
‘Funny woman,’ said Gabe, though it was apparently enough to get him to move, as he grabbed a door and ushered her through. Without all that concentrated heat burning a hole right through her, Paige somehow managed to put one foot in front of the other to scoop up her heels and purse and exit the lift.
The recessed lighting made the hallway overly bright to Paige’s eyes, as if she’d spent a year in a cave, not an hour in a perfectly well-lit lift. As if the confidences she and Gabe had shared had all been a crazy dream. She shucked his jacket from her back and held it out to him on the end of a finger. He took it and tucked it over his crooked elbow.
He angled his head towards the ceiling. ‘I’d better head back up, check everyone’s okay. Make sure Nate hasn’t invited everyone to sleep over.’
‘You’re braver than I am.’
‘You kidding? I’m taking the stairs. You?’
She wrapped her arms about herself, missing Gabe’s jacket, missing his nearness. It was enough to have her take a step back as she shook her head. ‘I think I’ve tempted fate enough tonight.’
His mouth lifted into the beginnings of a smile, though it never quite eventuated. In fact he looked downright serious. Heart beating so loud she was certain he could hear it too, Paige took a breath to say goodnight, but Gabe cut her off, eating up the space between them with three long strides. Barefoot, she had to look up so far to meet his eyes.
‘When will I see you again?’ he asked.
Paige’s breath hitched in her throat. Apart from the party invite, it was the first time either of them had even come close to suggesting making actual plans. ‘Soon enough, if the past few days are anything to go by,’ she said, trying for sassy, but when her voice came out all husky she failed miserably.
‘Good point. But I was thinking more along the lines of dinner.’
‘Dinner?’ Paige asked, her voice rising in her complete surprise. ‘Like a proper date?’
Gabe nodded, serious face well and truly in place.
A date? A date. A date. Experience said no way. Gabe was a nomad. She’d recognised the impatience in his eye the moment she’d first seen him. If she hadn’t learned to keep a man like that at arm’s length from watching her mum watch her dad walk away, time and time again, then she was an out and out fool.
Of course, there was the small fact that Nate was in the process of trying to get Gabe to stay …
‘Paige,’ Gabe said, the tone of his voice making it clear he wanted an answer.
While her subconscious argued back and forth, all she could do was go with her gut. And it turned out that her gut, like the rest of her body, wanted Gabe.
‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
‘Good,’ he said on a hard shot of outward breath. ‘I’ll call to set it up.’
Gabe slid a finger beneath her chin, and kissed her gently. Tenderly. Then his tongue swept into her mouth and she curled her fingers into his sweater and held on for dear life.
Then with a shake of his head, and a growl that told her it took everything he had to leave it at that, he turned and disappeared into the stairwell, a flash of dark clothing, and huge shoulders, and powerful strides. Leaving Paige blinking into the bright empty hallway.
At the start of the night her biggest hope had been that their sizzle didn’t fizzle in public. Now he’d asked her on a date. She’d wished for a guy to end her dating drought. She had nobody to blame but herself.