He slammed the laptop shut and got up, shoving his chair back. “Jesus, Charlotte. You’ve always known how much I work.”
“And I’ve always thought you were heading for an early grave.” She began to whisk the eggs. “You didn’t belong to me before, so I couldn’t say anything, but now you do, so I am.”
“I’m as healthy as an ox.”
“You don’t rest, you don’t relax—”
“I feel very relaxed after we fuck.”
“Stop trying to make me back off by using words like fuck.” She poured the omelet into the pan, so angry that she didn’t even blush at getting the word past her lips. “I want to have a life with you. I don’t intend to have a life with your job as a silent partner.”
He growled at her, actually growled. “I am who I am, Charlotte.”
“So am I—doesn’t mean you haven’t helped me heal.” She put the omelet on a plate, shoved it onto the counter. “Eat.”
“I don’t need healing.” He ignored the omelet.
It just made her angrier. She found a fork, put it on the plate. “So you’re telling me I’m the only flawed one in this relationship?” After all, she was the one who couldn’t even sleep with the man she loved beyond life.
“Fuck.” He thrust a hand through his hair. “That’s not what I said.”
“It sure sounded like it.” When he continued to ignore the omelet, she picked it up and began to eat herself. “Go then, work,” she said after swallowing the first couple of bites. “I’m going to go out.”
“Where?” He came around to loom over her.
“Wherever the hell I want.” Charlotte slammed the plate with the half-eaten omelet on the counter.
Gabriel followed her upstairs to her bedroom when she stalked off. “Damn it, Charlotte, this discussion is not finished.”
“If you want to finish it, you can come with me. Otherwise, go stare at your laptop!” She slammed the bedroom door—or tried to. He’d blocked it with his hand. “Go away. I’m about to change.”
“I’ve seen you naked, Ms. Baird, and I intend to keep on doing it.” Folding his arms, he filled the doorway, a big, brooding male who didn’t think she’d take the dare.
Infuriated with him, she shrugged her robe to the floor.
FUCK.
Gabriel’s cock went as hard as rock between one heartbeat and the next. Charlotte hadn’t been wearing anything under that robe, and now she was standing all sweet and curvy and flushed with temper in front of him, her hair tumbled around her face. He didn’t even think about it, just strode to her and picked her up, then threw her on the bed.
She gasped, her eyes flashing at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Coming over her after tearing off his sweatpants, he braced himself on his forearms. “Finishing our argument.” He tore off her glasses and threw them in the vague direction of the nightstand.
“Hah! I’m—”
He swallowed her words with his mouth, one of his hands gripping her breast. She shoved at his shoulders. Lifting his head, he said, “What? You want me.” She always wanted him, and that was the hottest thing on the planet.
“I am really, really, really mad at you!”
“Good, we’ll have angry sex.” He kissed her again, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth and squeezing her breast harder than he’d ever done before.
Shoving her hands into his hair, she pulled.
He jerked up his head. “What?” It was a snarl.
“We are not having sex,” she said, chest heaving. “I’m going out.”
He nudged his hips into hers, his cock shoving against her passion-damp entrance. She whimpered, her throat arching. He kissed it, suckling hard enough to leave a mark before tugging on her nipple and rolling the plump nubbin between his thumb and forefinger. Then he gave in to the beast inside him and moved down to bite at her breast while he firmly collared her throat with one hand.
She wrapped her legs around him, opening herself up to his possession. “Gabriel.”
“Yeah?” Stroking his free hand along the back of her thigh, he shifted his voracious mouth to her other breast, sucking hard on her nipple before using his teeth again. He scraped up her soft flesh to her moan, fingers digging into her thigh.
Sucking in gulps of air, Charlotte finally said, “Please.”
“Please what?” he demanded, rocking himself against her so that the very tip of his cock pushed into her before he pulled back out. It was torture, her grip scalding and possessive and so, so good.
Her nails dug into his shoulders, her hips lifting toward him. “You know.”
“Say it.” Kissing his way up her chest and to her throat, he squeezed the hand around that slender column just enough to get her attention. “Say it.”
She moaned. “Fuck me, Gabriel.”
It was all he needed to hear. Gripping her under her knee, he shoved her leg up and wide before he thrust into her in a single aggressive push. She gave an erotic little scream, then hauled his head down to hers for a kiss as wet and as raw as the sex. He rode her hard, made her come with rough caresses of her clit while he pumped in and out of her, and then, while her body was limp and sweaty, he pushed up both her thighs, spread her even wider, and drove himself to the hottest fucking orgasm of his life.
37
CHARLIE-MOUSE VS T-REX: CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND