Page 15 of Redemption
He turned at the sound of his name, his features softening as he took me in. "Yes?" His voice was low, husky from exertion but with an unspoken tenderness that made my heart flutter. In the silence that followed, I didn’t know what to say. He smiled, in a way I hadn’t seen before. He smiled with his eyes.
“Want something to drink?” he asked.
“Yes.” He picked up the lamp on his way over to a cabinet and twisted the switch a few times, then shook his head, a reminiscing smile playing at his lips as he abandoned the lamp and opened the cabinet. A new bottle of whiskey in his hand. He cracked open the lid and took a swig before handing it to me. My hands felt tiny around the heavy amber bottle, even more so as I lifted it up to my lips.
More than I expected poured into my mouth, and it took a few gulps to get it down. The warmth of the hard liquor burnedmy mouth, throat, and finally my stomach. He laughed softly as my face twisted.
“Generally, you sip whiskey.” He said
Knowing I was in desperate need of water, he handed me a bottle, and I gulped it down, relaxing as it put out the fire in my throat.
“I expected to be in here helping you with the report.” I said with a hand on my hip as I gestured to the papers littering the office floor. “I think at this point, the most I can do is put these back in order.”
His lips curved into a cocky smile that made me want to crawl back onto his desk.
“Don’t worry about those, leave it,” he said, pulling out two glasses from the shelf and filling them with more whiskey. “I have a hard time believing that you drove over here just to help with the report, considering how quickly you took off your clothes.”
I scoffed at him. “It’s not like I presented myself to you; you barged in on me while I was changing and then just started fucking me.”
“Oh, is that how it happened?” He poured whiskey into our glasses and laughed softly.
I took the glass he filled for me and drank, holding his eye contact. “More or less. And I didn’t drive over here—Henry dropped me off, remember? I was actually working before this and had to convince Henry how important this report was.”
He looked at me thoughtfully, then sat down in a chair by the window, bathed in the white moonlight. “Right, well, tell him I said thank you for delivering you to me.”
I rolled my eyes, walked over and sat in his lap. “I just remembered something.”
“What?” he asked as he put his arm around my waist, his eyes still smiling at me.
I stared back at him with expectation. His pure masculinity made me feel alive. I could smell the whiskey on his breath, feel the softness of my body pressing into his lean strength. He was more intoxicating than the alcohol I’d had too much of.
“You owe me something.”
“And what would that be?” His voice was a husky murmur that sent a shiver through me. His gaze locked onto mine, smoky and intense.
“An explanation.”
His grip on me loosened, and his energy seemed to shift.
“An explanation?” he repeated.
I nodded firmly. "Yes," I said, my voice hardly more than a slurred whisper. "You said you have a long story to tell me, and now we have the whole night ahead of us—and plenty of alcohol.”
For a long moment, he just looked at me, his expression unreadable.
Sophia
"All right," he finally said, his voice thick with resignation.
"You got divorced, didn’t you? It all makes sense—the air mattress, the money issues." I smiled a little, trying to ease the tension, but it felt forced. Gabriel smiled too, a quick, hollow laugh, shaking his head slowly.
"Not exactly. I’ve never been married, and I probably never will be."
"Okay. I won’t guess anymore. Just… start telling me things." My words slurred a little, and I had to blink hard to keep my focus. I hadn’t been this drunk in a long time.
"Let’s just say I come from a wealthy family of businessmen," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, as if even saying that much weighed on him. Silence fell between us, the air thick with unsaid words.
"That’s it? Gabriel, come on, you have to tell me more than that." My voice was softer this time, almost pleading.
