He glanced at her as she processed that. “But you were shot,” she murmured, as if the mere subject was taboo.
“I was but not in combat. It was a domestic dispute. I was shot by a young airman who’d been aiming a gun at his equally young, terrified wife.” He could say the words now and not have them feel as if someone had punched him. Or shot him again. “You don’t want to hear this, not with us about to go into a party.”
“I want to hear it if you want to tell me,” she insisted. “But I don’t want to bring back bad memories for you.”
Gabriel nodded but didn’t say anything until they reached the school. He parked far away from the building where he could see people milling around, and he got out of his seat belt so he could unzip his jeans.
Even though the only illumination was coming from a lamppost, he saw the surprise in her eyes. Surprise mixed with heat. Which pleased him. Even now, she responded to him, andhe would try to add to that heat later, but for now, there was something he wanted to show her.
Even though he immediately realized that yanking down his pants probably wasn’t his brightest idea.
Still, Gabriel maneuvered and shifted his position on the seat until he could get his jeans down past his boxers and to his thigh. She couldn’t miss the scar because it hadn’t faded to the healed stage yet. Might never. He’d accepted that. But he still watched Rosalie’s reaction to it.
She didn’t gasp, say she was sorry or some of the other things people said when they found out he’d been injured in the line of duty. She simply touched her fingers ever so gently to it.
“It still hurts?” she asked.
“Sometimes. Not now, though.”
Especially not now. Then again, pain wasn’t his go-to response when Rosalie’s hand was mere inches from his boxers. Which meant she was mere inches from the place where she used to touch him.
Reggie wasn’t the only one who’d done the hands-in-the-pants stuff. Nope. They’d gotten damn good at pleasuring each other.
“You didn’t take my virginity,” she said out of the blue. Her eyes met his, but she kept her hand on his thigh. “You wanted me. I was sure of that.”
“You were sure because it was true,” he verified.
And while this was probably the worst time to dole out his logic, because of the location of her hand and because he had his jeans hiked down, he did owe her an explanation.
“I was still trying to work out how I could leave Last Ride and not hurt you,” he said. “I just didn’t feel it was right to have sex with you, then walk away.” He stopped, groaned and pulled up his jeans. “That makes me sound more honorable than I was.Trust me, there were plenty of times I wanted to pretend you wouldn’t get hurt and go ahead and finish what we’d started.”
She stayed quiet a moment. “We did do a lot ofstarting, didn’t we?” Rosalie asked, not in a sad-trip-down-memory-lane kind of way. “And some finishing in our own way.” She was smiling a little now.
“Yeah, we did.” He felt himself smiling, too. Felt the urgent need to lean in and kiss her.
So that was what Gabriel did.
He touched his mouth to hers and lingered there just to savor the moment. There was plenty to savor. Plenty to taste. So that was what he did, too. He kissed her, letting the heat catch fire and go into a long, slow simmer where time just seemed to stop. His heart sure didn’t stop, though. It began to rev. So did other parts of him, but Gabriel just kept on kissing her.
A sudden blast of laughter had them pulling apart, and for a moment Gabriel thought someone had caught them. It wouldn’t have been the first time. But in this case, the laughter hadn’t been aimed at them. It’d come from a group of their former classmates who were making their way into the gym. Judging from the blare of the music when they opened the door, the reunion party was already in full swing.
There was absolutely nothing in that building that he wanted more than being with the woman sitting beside him.
“I don’t want to be here,” Rosalie said, looking up at him. “Do you?”
“No, I don’t,” Gabriel assured her, and he was already calculating just how fast he could get her back to her house.
And into her bed.
CHAPTER FIVE
ROSALIEHADNOdoubts that Gabriel and she would soon be the talk of Last Ride, since there was a good chance that someone had seen them arrive at the reunion and then quickly leave.
All that kissing they’d done in his truck likely would have been noticed, too. But she didn’t care. Didn’t mind having to deal with morning-after gossip. She just wasn’t going to let that interfere with her night with him. For fifteen years, she’d lamented that she’d never done the deed with Gabriel, and now she was.
Heck, maybe two deeds or even more.
It wasn’t easy, but they managed to keep their hands off each other during the short drive from the high school back to her house. They even waited until they’d gotten inside, which prevented her neighbors from getting a peep show. But once they were in her foyer, the restraints snapped, and they went after each other.