Page 59 of The Talk Around Town

“I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. Pity would’ve been worse than if they’d blamed me.”

She stared at a point on his chest. Her fingers played with the material of his shirt, nervousness conveyed through her touch.

“I moved here to get away from everything. My memories. The whole place was too familiar. It felt claustrophobic. Like I would never be able to breathe properly again. I grew up there and, even though it was much bigger than here, I was always running into people I knew.”

Gabe pulled her closer, resting her head against his shoulder.

“I can’t even imagine. Everyone here was so supportive. But it got tobe too much there for a while. After about a month or so, some of the women started coming around just to see if I was okay.”

Emma gave a wry chuckle. “Hunting you already? Not very polite of them.”

“Mmm.” Gabe’s cheek pressed against the top of her head. “Something like that.”

Emma sighed and relaxed into his body. “So why didn’t you date any of them later on? It’s been years. Millie would jump at the chance.”

Gabe couldn’t help the slow smile spilling onto his mouth. “Would it help to say I was waiting for the right girl?”

Emma sat back and pinned him with a cynical stare. “That’s a little too cheesy. Try again.”

“Don’t believe me? Fine.” His grin faded, and he held her denim-blue gaze with his own. “I didn’t want to ever be in that position again. I thought I’d failed her somehow, failed us. That it was my fault we’d fallen apart. It’s taken me this long to realise that simply wasn’t true. I was too scared to let anyone close.”

Gabe reached up a hand to twist a curl around his finger. It coiled around his hand, just like she’d wrapped around his heart.

“Until I met you. Then I was scared I would lose you, so it was easier to pretend I didn’t want you. If I didn’t want you in the first place, how could it matter either way whether you gave a damn?”

Emma laid her head back on his shoulder, her face pressed into his neck. Her hand stroked the hair at his nape, her fingers twisting in the strands.

Gabe closed his eyes and breathed deep. The scent of her shampoo rushed into his lungs and wound inside him. How had he lived without this for so long? His body cried out for her touch, even a touch as innocent as this. Placing a kiss on the top of her head, he glanced up. The local sergeant, Jack Walsh, stood in the doorway, hat in hand.

Gabe’s soft voice broke the silence. “I think we need to take care of your ute.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The keys rattledin Emma’s hand as she slid one into the front door. Her hand shook so much that she couldn’t turn the key in the lock. Gabe covered her hand with his own and turned the knob. The door yawned wide in front of them.

“You don’t have to be nervous.”

She threw him a tentative smile over her shoulder. Nervousness screamed out at him from every pore.

Gabe turned her around by the shoulders. “I don’t have to come in if it’s too much. We can go as slow as you want. I’ll come back another time.”

Desire, equally mixed with patience, washed through him. Resolve brightened her eyes, followed by trust. That simple look drew him in and sucked him under.

“I don’t want slow. I want you.”

She stepped backward over the threshold and turned. She walked down the hall, turning toward her bedroom at the end of hallway. She glanced at him, still standing in the doorway, then disappeared from sight.

That was all the encouragement he needed. Gabe shut the door and hurried down the hall after her, his shirt unbuttoned and in his hands by the time he reached her bedroom doorway. He stopped dead, all air sucked from his lungs, from the room, at the sight before him. Emma knelt in the middle of her king-sized bed, upright, with her back to him.

Naked.

Gabe grabbed hold of the doorjamb, certain that if he didn’t he’d fall to his knees and have to crawl to her. He made no sound as he moved toward the bed, his hands busy removing his shoes and jeans.

He knelt on the bed behind her and reached out a hand, stopping just shy of the creamy-white skin of her back, hesitant now that he had her within his grasp.

His knuckles grazed the ridges of her spine, following them from her neck down to the dip above her ass. Goose bumps erupted and spread outward from the path his hand took, encompassing her entire body. Unable to help himself, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to the velvet skin of her shoulder.

A shudder rolled over her. Muscles twitched beneath his touch, clenching, anticipating.

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