Can't Help Falling In Love Part 13

"Please," she gasped out.

Gabe lifted his eyes to hers, sweat dripping from his forehead to hers as he stilled. "Anything," he told her, his voice as raw as hers.

But he couldn't give her anything. He couldn't become a man who went to a safe office every day and promised to come home in one intact piece every night.

And she could never ask him for that.

All she could ask for was this moment, this pleasure.

"Gabe." She lifted one hand to his cheek, cradled him there as her whole world came down to this man, this one moment, this desire that demanded to be sated. They wouldn't get any more moments like this. All they had was now, these final moments of sweet perfection. "I need you here with me."

"I need to be there, too."

His words were as good as a caress, enough to push her to the precipice of a pleasure so intense she couldn't even imagine what was on the other side.

For the first-and last-time, Megan opened herself up completely to Gabe, pushed down every wall, shoved apart every prison bar, and let him in, so deep that as he slowly slid into her, as he filled all of the empty places she hadn't even realized were there, she could have sworn he touched her soul.

Again and again he rocked over her, around her, inside her, his arms strong, his heartbeat steady, his kisses sweet and demanding all at the same time as they climaxed together.

No one has ever loved me like this was her last thought before the prison bars started falling back into place, cras.h.i.+ng down in a circle all around her heart.

Chapter Fourteen.

Plain and simple, Megan blew Gabe's mind. To the point where, even though he knew he must be crus.h.i.+ng her, he couldn't manage to move a muscle from where he lay, sprawled over her, breathing heavily into the damp crook of her neck.

She was breathing just as hard, and he wasn't surprised, given that their lovemaking had been at least as physical as anything he'd done even as a firefighter.

Gabe thrived on putting out fires. His job was his calling and every day he went to work, he went with a deep level of satisfaction over the life he'd chosen. But no triumph over fire had ever left him feeling this elated.

Which was why, no matter how many times he'd tried to hold onto the idea of one night-and only one night-with Megan, his brain hadn't been able to pull it off.

He hadn't forgotten what they'd agreed on in her apartment, but that didn't mean he could discount what had just happened here between them, either.

Slowly lifting himself up off her sweet, soft curves, he looked down into her eyes, still fuzzy from the aftereffects of her climax. He smiled at her, the beautiful woman he couldn't get enough of, and said, "Good morning."

Two short words were all the time it took for Megan to go from pliable and loose and warm to rigid and tense and cold.

The caveman inside of him wanted to keep her pinned there beneath him on the bed. Instead, he forced himself to let her scoot away from him.

She reached for the first piece of clothing she could find. He wasn't sure she realized that she'd grabbed his s.h.i.+rt, that she was wrapping herself up in him. The only thing he was sure of was the fact that Megan was desperate to get away from him.

In the decade that Gabe had been taking women to bed, they had only ever tried to get closer to him. They'd tried to find ways to spend more time with him. They'd worked to seduce him. A couple had even hoped for a ring.

But none had ever tried to get away from him.

Until now.

When Megan had made it to the far corner of the room, her back up against the wall, clutching his s.h.i.+rt tightly closed around her, she finally stopped and stared at him with big, alarmed eyes.

"That can never happen again." She shook her head, that hair he'd had his fingers buried in just seconds ago falling over her shoulders like crumpled silk. "Never."

Gabe got off the bed and pulled on his boxers to give himself time to think before replying. Back in her apartment their discussion about staying away from each other made sense. Perfect sense.

But now...well, there sure as h.e.l.l wasn't anything perfect about keeping their distance.

After his jeans were back on, he turned to the beautiful woman watching him so warily and said, "Never's an awfully long time. Especially after-" He gestured to the bed. "Seems to me instead of saying never we should be discussing things."

The shock on her face was better than that wary fear. "What's there to discuss?"

He wasn't at all pleased to note that his name on her lips was no longer the almost-prayer it had been when she was coming beneath him. "Seems like there's plenty, Megan."

She all but flinched at the way he said her name, still a caress, as if they were still in bed together, rather than standing at opposite ends of the room throwing the word never around.

"No," she said, her hands clutching even tighter at his s.h.i.+rt, "just because we-" This time she was the one looking at the bed. "Nothing has changed."

"Everything has changed." He didn't want to have to push her like this, but he sure as h.e.l.l didn't like the way she was pus.h.i.+ng him.

"Yes. Okay. Fine." Each of the words was clipped as they fell from her kiss-swollen lips. "We had s.e.x. And it was great, but-"

"More than great."

"You win," she replied in a hard voice, as if they were on opposite sides of a war, rather than in this together trying to figure out where to go from here. "It was more than great, but it doesn't change anything. You're still you and I'm still me. Which means that it can never, ever happen again."

All she wanted was for him to agree. He could see that. And he'd promised her anything, just minutes ago when they were making love.

But how the h.e.l.l could he agree to never?

"Tell me about her," she suddenly asked. "About the victim you saved. The one you dated that it didn't work out with. What was her name? What did she do for a living? What color was her hair?"

His surprise at her questions was tempered by the fact that he knew what she was doing: She was forcibly trying to remind him of his reasons to walk away from her. Probably before she reminded him of hers-of the husband who'd died in his dangerous job and left her and her daughter all alone.

"Kate. Teacher. Dark."

Gabe watched her carefully as he answered her questions. For all that she was saying she wanted him out of her life, there was no doubt in his mind that she hated putting together a mental picture of his ex. Just as much as he hated to think of her in Summer's father's arms, more stupidly jealous of a dead man than ever now that he knew just how much warmth, how much pa.s.sion, how much sweetness Megan had to give.

"What happened? How did you save her?"

"It was an apartment fire."

"Like mine?"

He shook his head. "No. Not nearly as bad as yours." But Kate had been crying, shaking, so scared that he'd pulled her into his arms and hadn't let go of her until the ambulance arrived.

"How did you start dating?"

He didn't want to tell her the truth. But his mother hadn't raised him to be a liar. "She came by the station. To thank me."

Megan flushed. "Of course she did. I should have guessed."

"She was nothing like you."

"Right," she said in that same clipped voice, so at odds with its husky warmth when she was pleading with him to make love to her. "Strange how similar it all seems, though." Her eyes were overly bright as she looked back at him. "Did she have a child, too?"

"No. She was young. Only twenty. Still in college."

"Was she pretty?" She held up her hand. "No. Don't answer that. Of course she was pretty." She took a deep breath. "So, what happened?"

"We broke up."

Just like that, the strong woman moved back to the forefront. "You told me, and I quote, 'It never works out.' Why not?"

"She was young. We both were."

"Sure," she said, "I believe that. But I'm pretty sure this whole firefightervictim thing is bigger than just you and Kate and how young you were." She looked like she'd tasted something rotten as she said his ex's name. "Tell me exactly why being with a fire victim you've saved is such a bad situation. I want to hear why it never works out."

d.a.m.n it, this was the problem with smart women. They knew how to box a guy into a corner.

"Do you know why I'm a firefighter?"

"Because you love to help people." She paused a beat, then lifted her chin in a clear challenge. "And you love the thrill of danger, too."

"Most people, once they learn what I do for a living, that's all they see. The firefighter." d.a.m.n it, he didn't want to tell her this, not when he knew exactly what she was planning to do with the information. "When that moment where their life is on the line is the first time you meet-"

"It's all they ever see."

He wasn't at all surprised that she understood. "But no one can be a hero twenty-four seven."

"Of course you can't."

He should have known she'd see too much, that she'd hear all the things he wasn't saying. Because even though she wanted him just to go away, she was watching him carefully as they spoke about his ex.

"There's more to the story, isn't there?"

s.h.i.+t. He didn't want to tell her this, didn't ever like to talk about it. Even his family didn't know how bad things had gotten with Kate. Only Zach, who had been with him when they'd found her.

"She didn't take the breakup well."

Megan's eyes widened and for a moment he thought she was going to come over to him. Instead, she simply asked, "What happened, Gabe?"

He swallowed, those horrible minutes when he'd found Kate bleeding in his house coming back to him as if five minutes instead of five years had pa.s.sed.

"She said she couldn't live without me. That I was the only reason she was still alive. I found her in my apartment just in time."

"Gabe." Megan's voice was hollow around his name. "My G.o.d, how could she have done that to you?"

How, Gabe had to wonder, had he ever compared this strong, magnificent woman standing before him to the girl he'd stupidly dated half a decade ago?

"You're nothing like her, Megan," he told her, believing it more every time he said it. "You're strong. She wasn't. You're not looking for anyone to take care of you. I think," he paused, weighing his words carefully before saying them, "that was all she ever wanted from me."

"I'm sorry, Gabe, so sorry you had to go through that." She shook her head. "No wonder you've got that rule about fire victims. It makes perfect sense." She blinked at him. "I'd have the same rule. And I wouldn't break it. Not for anyone."

"Megan," he began, even though he wasn't sure exactly what he was going to say to her. All he knew was that she had to stop painting everything so black and white.

She moved one hand from his s.h.i.+rt to hold it up in cla.s.sic Stop position.

"The fact remains that you saved my life. And my daughter's. I'll never be able to forget what you did for us. You're right that I would never do anything like that to you, but how am I supposed to stop seeing you as a hero for what you did?" He hadn't made a move toward her, so she dropped her hand. "You'll always be the larger-than-life firefighter who risked his life for me, Gabe."

d.a.m.n it. Everything she said was making sense, but all those moments when they hadn't been talking had made sense, too. So much sense that he still couldn't quite wrap his brain around the magnitude of the fireworks that had lit and exploded between them.

"You deserve to be with a woman who sees you for everything you are." She swallowed hard. "And I deserve a long life with a man that isn't bound and tied to chasing danger. I can't go through what I went through with David. I just can't. Please," she said softly, "don't make this harder on both of us than it needs to be. We shared one incredible night." She looked out toward the window. "Part of a morning, too, and that's going to have to be enough." She turned back to him. "I need to check out of my room and go pick up Summer soon."

"You're leaving this morning?"

"Yes. As soon as I get Summer."

"Do I get to say goodbye?"

"Goodbye," she said, purposely misunderstanding him.

Gabe had heard the word heartbroken many times, but he'd never understood it until today.

Thinking of the rest of the week in Lake Tahoe without Megan and Summer made his chest feel like it was cracking open, right in the center.

"Summer will wonder what happened."

"You're bigger than that," she told him in a soft voice. "Please don't use my daughter to try to get me to change my mind about us."

Was he really bigger than that?

What rules would he break for the chance to be with this woman?

His?

Hers?

All of them?

Suddenly, she seemed to realize that she was wearing his s.h.i.+rt. A small sound of dismay came from her lips as she pulled it tighter around her. "You need your s.h.i.+rt."

Gabe knew he should tell her he didn't need the s.h.i.+rt to make his way back to his room. Barring that, he should turn and let her strip it off in private.