“You didn’t tell me you were moving out anyway.”
He dropped the tape gun and stood. “Now why are you upset?”
She spread her arms, a gesture encompassing the neat rolls of canvases, the boxed up supplies and empty cabinets. “Wendy told me you gave notice in November.”
“So I did.”
“And then you accosted me in December and now you’re moving in with me in April.”
“You’ve got a fine grasp of the calendar, darling. But why accosted? Did I waylay you? Did I apprehend you? Why are you looking backwards to turn December me into a predator?”
The room was too bare to give her any hiding space, and he was right there in front of her, just waiting for an answer. She crossed her arms. “Back in November, where did you plan on living next week?”
“Back in November, I had a rental lined up which was supposed to take me on New Year’s Day. It fell through, so back in mid-December—before accosting you at the party, darling—I told Mac and Wendy I needed another bit to figure out where I would be at when I moved. They told me no rush, since they weren’t decided on what they’d do with the place.”
Seventeen boxes and not a single one packed with a roadmap for her to get through this. “So you didn’t lead me into that bathroom because you were looking for a new place to live and I was a shortcut?”
“Chloe.”
“Okay, I sound ridiculous. Petty and paranoid. I’m just asking.”
He beckoned her to him. As usual, she shook her head. As usual, he came to her instead. “I’m going to tell you a secret, darling. Now don’t go and spread this around, but: there are far easier ways to get a roof over my head than by living with you.”
She ran her hands up his arms. “Charmer.”
“I’m serious.” He kissed her cheek, hauled her closer. “You are antagonistic, and impatient, and still get too superficial sometimes.”
“All I said was Paul would be a lady-killer with those eyes.”
“He may not want to kill anyone, darling, much less the ladies. He may not want to spend his life being judged by his appearances. Don’t make him self-conscious before his first birthday.”
“You sound like my sister.”
“I know.” He grinned before nipping his way down her neck. “I texted her after you said the thing about Paul's eyes, and she gave me a script.”
Trying to shove away from his upper body just pressed their hips into each other. She turned the friction into a game. “You’re both ridiculous.” It was a game she intended to win.
He played right back. “I’ll tell you one thing that’s ridiculous, and it’s not your appearance-based judgments.”
“Said the artist.”
“Said the artist who has plenty success enough to rent on his own, and doesn’t need the love of his life to spare him a corner of her house.”
It still made her blush when he said it. She was such a damn fool for him. And for what his hands were doing, sneaking under her hemline. “What’s ridiculous, then?”
“Mmm?”
“You claimed you were going to tell me something ridiculous.” She had his shirt almost off, and was soothing kisses on the passion mark she’d left last time she’d had unfettered access to his shoulders.
His thigh slipped further between her legs. She arched. “It’s this dress. Who wears a white dress on moving day?”
“You don’t like it?”
“Hell, yes I like it. It’s distracting. You keep twisting and reaching and squatting and bending and this dress is made to gap open just when I ought to be focusing on your to-do list.”
And she thought he’d missed all the skin she kept flashing his direction. Her nerves sizzled with anticipation every time she bent for the marker she continued to drop by his side; it was close to an hour before he appeared to notice how close she’d brought her bare backside to his view. “Poor Gabriel.”
“And it’s impractical. You’re going to get all dirty by the time we finish with everything.”
“I am, am I?” She pinched forward her bodice, eyeing her cleavage as if examining for soil. Brushed her fingers along the top of her breasts. Then because she ached and she needed to hear his breath catch, she thumbed her nipple and gyrated her pelvis against his thigh.
“So dirty.” His fingers pressed into her legs, and she offered her mouth up to him.
It didn’t matter how rough or deliberate or often he kissed her, it was always electric. They fell to the sofa, and she quelled his fears about dirtying her dress by removing it. He followed suit with his own clothes, and she figured, since he was doing most of the heavy lifting of the day, she should give his body a little break. She pushed him back and straddled his waist, her eyes mirroring his as they roamed her torso. His chest rose and fell as she stroked it, his heart steady under her hand. She followed the midline down, tracing more and more lightly until just the pad of her forefinger reached the base of his cock. He watched, silent and intent, and her heart was anything but steady when she wrapped her palm around his hard length. Rising up, she teased herself with the head of his cock, and even combined with his just-right pressure on her breasts she needed so much more to be satisfied. But she was a lucky woman, and she didn’t have to wait for it a moment more.
He was a sweet, sweet man, and he made sure she felt his appreciation of her. Not just of her body, as she slid down his hard length, but everything about her. He put her first. Not only in their sex play, when his brush-light circles on her clit brought her to climax before he gave himself up to deep, hard thrusts, but in the way he respected her wishes and opinions. He was generous. Not simply in the way he shared his body with her, opening himself to her gaze and her touch and her need, but in how he also shared his mind and his energy and his heart.
So much about him. A world of connections she hadn’t ever sought, but which had found her anyway. “I love you,” she panted, repeated, insisted. Her knees dug into the sofa cushion and his hands tightened on her hips. She rode him hard, insistent. Urgent. “Damn. Gabe, damn. I love you.”
He bucked beneath her. His eyes seared as she climaxed, then squeezed tight as the rampage of thrusts began, his orgasm chasing hers as she squeezed his cock with every inner muscle she possessed. Calling out her name, he came, and it sent shivers throughout her body.
They slowed, and kissed lingering kisses, and collapsed together. Gabe hugged her to him, and he made a fine body pillow. Warm and gentle and just a little too sweaty. She peeled her head up enough to prop it on her fist and look at him. “You know I didn’t really worry you’re moving in with me to save rent, right?”
“You know I don’t think my drafting room is just a corner of your house, right?”
She kissed him, right over the heart he’d given her. They’d converted her dining room and downstairs guest room into a studio for his painting and planning. More and more of his work was murals and large-scale installations, which meant he divided his time between drafting table and work sites. She kept a stash of his business cards to pass on to admirers of his NICU mural, and he offered special rates to clients from the hospital.
“I know,” she said. “Sometimes we get touchy in all the wrong ways.”
“Can’t spend our lives getting touchy in all the right ways, now, can we? This way keeps us sharp. I like you sharp.”
“Am I supposed to make innuendos about your prick when we still haven’t cleaned out the fridge? Let's finish this up and make living together official. Do we need to transform ourselves into presentable human beings?" She offered a hand to lift him up. He dug her bra out from the sofa cushions and passed it to her.
“Nah. I told Mac they should steer clear today, just in case."
She gave him a look. "Just in case what?"
He pulled his shirt over his head and quirked his lips. "Just in case Paul got underfoot and started chewing on discarded bundles of tape. Naturally. What else would I have been warning them about?"
“Smartass.”
It wasn’t expected, the way looking around this studio as it was tidied and sanitized of Gabe’s presence sucker-punched her. She thought she was so excited about cohabitation. About their commitment. And she was.
But the space where they’d first kissed now looked like anyone could live in it. None of his art on the walls, no stacks of supplies or boxes of memorabilia or the little touches proclaiming, “This is the external representation of Gabriel Babineaux, amazing man.”
He fit in, at her house. He’d made, as she’d suggested, much of the space his own. In their front room, he’d blended their lives so his canvases and her family photos hung frame-to-frame. The colors of his clothes brought life to the unrelenting white hues of her closet. All of it forced joy into her daily life in a way that continued to surprise her.
“Will you miss this a lot?”
His arms wrapped her waist, and he tucked his chin over her shoulder. “Some.”
“But you were ready to go anyway? Not just because of me?” She leaned back into him, face averted in case he needed to confess hard truths.
“Chloe. I’m not going to ever stop being grateful to Mac and Wendy for taking me in when all I wanted was for my art to pay my way in the world. Thanks to them, I never had to go back to teaching, and I was never tempted to chuck it all in and take over for my dad.”
“You’d have managed all your success without their low rent.”
“It’s not just the rent. And I told you enough times you aren’t giving me opinions about my career.”
She laughed and leaned her cheek against his. When she praised him, he was inconsistent about his professional barriers, but she just never knew if she could get away with compliments, so she kept trying.
“Mac and Wendy gave me space to believe in myself. Heidi—okay, and my own insecurities—brought out the brain demons. I learned to clear them away in this place.”
“So you are going to miss it.”
“Nah.” He was swaying a little, half a dance and half a cuddle, and all a hug. “All that work comes with me. It already did. It’s a foundation I can rest on any time now, the place that’ll stop me from hitting rock bottom.”
“You’re pretty poetic, for an artist.”
“You’re pretty mopey, for a woman who saved two preemies yesterday and is getting a sex god roommate today.”
“Yep.” She touched her lips to his temple and slipped into the kitchen. “But let’s finish up with these boxes and see whether or not a nice long shower will wash away my cares.”
Gabe nodded. She refilled their water bottles and he went back to taping up boxes. “Besides,” he said, “if you’re too much of a demon, Mac promised he’d throw out whoever his next tenant is so I can move back.”
“Just you try to leave me, Gabriel Babineaux, and see what happens.”
He didn’t answer for a minute. She sat back and caught him looking up her skirt again. His eyes smiled, but his voice was every kind of solemn when he said, “Nope. No, thank you. I don’t think I will.”