Page 77 of Fast Vengeance

Gabe slid the hand in her hair down to cup her cheek. Her skin was warm, like velvet as he swept his thumb across it, wiping the tear track away.

“I didn’t want him to die,” she whispered. “I thought I hated him, but… I wanted him to go to prison, not die that way.”

Ah, sweetheart.

“They’re all gone.” Her tone was wooden, empty. “My family’s all gone.”

You’ve got me.

He wanted to say it so bad he had to choke the words back. Because he couldn’t say them. It would cruel to give her false hope that anything between them could last when she was in WITSEC.

But staring down into those pain-filled, red-rimmed eyes, Gabe couldn’t take it.

He tipped her face upward, caught the slight flare of surprise in her eyes and the hitch in her breathing as he brushed his lips over hers. Once. Twice.

Her hands released his shirt to curl over his shoulders and she leaned up to press her mouth to his. Gabe swallowed a groan and slid his fingers into her curls, squeezing gently instead of gripping tight and crushing his mouth to hers as he wanted. He couldn’t help but skim his tongue along the seam of her lips, steal inside to touch hers, caress lightly when she parted for him.

Before things got out of hand, he lifted his head, flexed his fingers in her hair. The curls wrapped around his fingers, clinging as though they didn’t want to let go. He felt exactly the same way.

Oceane stared up at him, the shock and pain momentarily gone from her face, a slight flush on her pale cheeks visible in the moonlight. “Oh…”

Yeah, oh.

What the hell he was going to do about this, he didn’t know. But that was something for him to worry about later. “I’ve got to take you to talk with the head of the taskforce,” he told her, wishing they had more time. He would love to be able to take her away from here.

To some fancy hotel where he could strip those bloody clothes off her, carry her into the shower and clean her. Dry her off, then carry her to bed and hold her in the darkness. Be there when the pain came back to attack her in the middle of the night.

Because it would. And it would keep attacking her for weeks and months yet.

She sagged, closed her eyes. “I can’t.”

It sucked that they wouldn’t give her time to decompress, but with a case this important there was no time to lose. “I’ll stay with you.”

Her eyes opened and she stared up into his face. “Thank you.”

She didn’t have to thank him for that. “Come on.” He slid her off his lap, wrapped a steadying arm around her waist and stood, pulling her with him.

“Did you get Brock out?”

His heart squeezed that she would think of Cap at a time like this. “Yeah. We got him out.”

“And he’s alive?”

“Yeah.”

She exhaled, sagged against him. “Thank God.” She looked into his eyes. “Will he be all right?”

“Not sure. Khan was checking him over when we found out what was going on with you. I dropped everything and ran.”

She stayed pressed to his side as they emerged from their hiding spot. “Where is Victoria? Does she know Brock’s been rescued?”

“Not sure. I’ll make sure she knows.”

A group of agents spotted them. One of them waved at someone behind him and rushed toward them.

“Two good things came out of this mess,” she said as they kept walking.

He glanced down at her in surprise.

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