Tell Me

Chapter Ten

Warm breath stirred against Melanie’s ear and she jerked awake, banging her head on something hard as she was thrown back into consciousness. The something hard grunted in pain. Gabe! Her hand shot up to rectify the damage and she caught him in the nose with her palm.

“Jeez, woman, remind me not to wake you by blowing in your ear,” Gabe complained. “I’ll stand at a distance and poke you with a stick next time.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up in the seat. “I didn’t mean to become violent. When did I fall asleep?”

“About three seconds after you snuggled up against me.”

He’d felt so warm and comforting with his arm around her that she hadn’t stood a chance at keeping her eyes open. “I guess I was tired. Are we here?”

“Well, we’re in the parking lot where we store our vehicles.”

Melanie blinked her eyes to adjust them to the lights that were suddenly glaring inside the shuttle bus. Shade was already halfway down the bus steps. She glanced up at Gabe and smiled. His mohawk was lying flat after his shower, so she reached up and stroked the soft strands.

“I can’t wait to see your house,” she said. “I have no idea what to expect.”

“It’s not a mansion or anything,” he said. “But I like it. It’s a bit outside of town, so we still have an hour of driving before we get there.”

She would do her best to keep her eyes open and provide entertaining company while he drove; they could sleep late in the morning. At least she assumed he’d let her get her full eight hours. She couldn’t think of anything grander than spending her entire Saturday in his bed. Sleep optional.

“Did you catch a nap while I was sleeping?”

He’d slept some on the plane. She knew, because she’d watched him.

“Nope,” he said. “I mostly felt you up to keep you from snoring too loud.”

She grinned, knowing he was only teasing. “Enjoy yourself?”

“Until you started moaning some other guy’s name,” he said. “Who is Juan?”

“I did not!” She hooked an arm around his neck and kissed him hungrily. He produced a groan deep in his chest, reawakening the part of her that was addicted to the man on a physical level. She tugged her lips from his and stared up into his heavily lidded green eyes. He looked hot as fuck when he was sleepy. Did she really get to be with him the entire weekend?

“If I’m moaning anyone’s name in my sleep,” she said, “it’s yours.”

“I’d rather you moan it while you’re awake.” His eyebrows wiggled suggestively.

Melanie caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to the seat across the aisle.

“I’m so tired,” Lindsey complained as Owen hefted her to her feet. “Do I really have to check into a hotel tonight? Can’t you just let me crash on your couch? I promise I won’t sneak into your bed and try to molest you while you’re sleeping.”

She rubbed her belly with one hand and covered an extended yawn with her other as she shuffled toward the exit.

“I’m tired too,” Owen said, sounding more cross than Melanie had ever heard him. “Do you think I want to deal with this right now? I’d much rather be with Caitlyn than trying to figure out what to do with you.”

Lindsey’s eyes filled with tears and she turned her back to him, struggling not to cry. Melanie was on her feet, prepared to comfort her, when Owen closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and placed a hand on her shoulder. He gave it a slight squeeze.

“Fine,” he said, “you can stay at my place tonight, but don’t think it’s going to become a permanent situation.”

“Thank you,” she said, and hugged him with one arm. “I wouldn’t even ask to stay, but I’m so exhausted. What time will Caitlyn be over in the morning? I’ll be sure to be gone before she gets there.”

Melanie had a hard time reading the young woman. Lindsey seemed completely sincere, but Melanie couldn’t help but wonder if the pregnant woman was really on a mission to turn Owen’s head. Melanie didn’t know whose side she should champion. She’d never met Caitlyn, though Owen seemed to be smitten with her. But shouldn’t a man be a little more concerned about the mother of his child? But was it his child? Melanie still wasn’t sure.

She glanced at Gabe and found him looking half-sick as he watched Owen assist Lindsey down the bus steps. “Something wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Everything is right in my world now that you’re here,” he said.

“Are we going to camp out on this shuttle tonight?” she asked, wondering why he was taking so long to disembark. “I did enjoy my nap on your shoulder, but I can’t guarantee your safety when you wake me from that position.”

He unfolded his tall frame from the seat and took her hand.

The driver was waiting for them to leave. The woman covered her mouth to stifle a yawn as Melanie and Gabe made their way to the luggage rack.

Within minutes Melanie was scrambling into Gabe’s enormous pickup truck and settling into the comfortable leather seat. She smiled at him in the glare of the cabin lights when he climbed in beside her.

“I know you’re not compensating for anything,” she said, nodding at his crotch, “so what’s with the ginormous truck?”

“I need something to pull my boat,” he said. “It’s badass.”

She grinned at him, loving that he could be such a guy.

As it was so late, traffic was light outside of Austin. Away from the city, they scarcely met another car on the desolate road.

She was still a bit sleepy, but did her duty and talked to Gabe about trivial things, such as his boat and the weather, to keep him awake. Though he looked ready to pass out from exhaustion, he perked right up when she got up the nerve to ask what was truly weighing on her mind.

“So what’s the deal with Lindsey?” she asked. “Madison seemed to think the baby is Owen’s and Lindsey does too, but you don’t seem convinced.”

“It’s probably his,” Gabe said, reaching for the stereo knob and turning blaring metal music on.

Melanie turned it back off. “How can it probably be his? It either is or it isn’t.”

Gabe rubbed the back of his neck and became fascinated with the side view mirror.

“Gabe!”

“You’re not going to like what I have to say.”

Her stomach dropped. “It’s yours, isn’t it?”

“I’m pretty sure that it’s not.”

“What the fuck, Gabe? Did the entire band have an orgy with the chick or what?”

He blew at his cheeks, still refusing to look at her. “Yeah, pretty much.”

She’d been joking, so his validation of her question made her eyes bug out.

“It was Christmas Eve,” he said. “We were far from home and trapped on the bus together in a blizzard with Lindsey and her friend. Things got out of hand. I honestly don’t remember much about it. I do know that I never have sex without a condom, but I was completely trashed that night. So like I said, I’m pretty sure it’s not mine, but I can’t guarantee that it’s not.”

Melanie was too stunned to form a response. Should she berate him or console him? She couldn’t decide.

After a long tense moment, he reached for her hand. “If it is mine, will you turn your back on me?” he asked.

Would she? That was a pretty big question to ask so early in their acquaintance.

“Would you want to be with the mother if it’s your baby?” she forced herself to ask, not sure if she could handle his response. She liked him so much. She didn’t want anything to come between them.

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “No,” he said. “I want to be with you, but I can’t lie. I would feel an obligation toward the child. Not just financially. Emotionally.”

And she wouldn’t want him to feel any other way.

“I want to be with you too,” she said. “I want this to work even if…” She took a deep breath. “Even if the baby is yours.”

He smiled. She saw the flash of his white teeth in the headlights of a passing car. “But I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

And secretly she really hoped it wasn’t. She wasn’t thinking about marriage and having a family just yet, but if she did fall in love with this man and have his children, she selfishly wanted all of his babies to be hers.

“I can’t help but wonder why Lindsey’s convinced that the baby is Owen’s. Maybe she knows he didn’t use protection or something.”

“She’s convinced because she likes him and wants it to be his. Owen used protection. He does have his cock pierced though, so if one of us was going to compromise the integrity of a rubber, it would be him. Still, no guarantees that’s what happened either.”

“So we won’t know who the father is until the baby’s born?”

“You planning to stick around that long?” He looked at her and squeezed her hand. His hopeful smile was barely illuminated by the dashboard lights.

“I’d like to.”

“So we cross that bridge when we come to it.”

She paused to reflect on his suggestion and then nodded. “Agreed.”

There was nothing they could do about the situation now anyway. Best to not let the slim possibility that Gabe was an expectant father ruin their time together. Her shoulders sagged as the tension drained from them. If they were still together in three months, they would get through this together. She could handle that. She was used to dealing with other people’s drama.

They turned off the highway and travelled almost a mile on a bumpy gravel road. When the truck entered a driveway and Gabe’s house loomed out of the darkness, Melanie’s breath caught. A spectacular A-framed log cabin sat at the end of the long, paved lane. The entire front of the house was an expanse of windows, blocked only by a huge porch and a smaller deck on the second level.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“It’s not as big as Jacob’s place, but I like it.”

If she’d have tried to guess what his house would be like, a log cabin in the country would not have been her first guess or even her twentieth but now that she’d seen it, she knew that it fit him perfectly.

“You’re a country boy at heart,” she accused.

“What?” he said. “Naw, I’m pure metal, baby.”

He turned on the truck stereo and blasted her ears with loud music. He banged his head and roared with the vocalist. She knew he was metal; she’d watched him punish a set of skins before an audience of thousands not five hours ago. It was the country part that she’d completely misidentified.

He turned off the stereo and leaned across the truck cabin to steal a kiss. “Would you prefer if I was all country?”

“I prefer you to be exactly who you are.” And she wasn’t just saying that. His mix of traits was fascinating. She doubted she’d ever get bored with him. She just hoped she could keep his attention half as well as he kept hers.

“Want to see the inside of the house?” he asked. “Or are you planning on sleeping in the truck?”

“I’m tired enough to do exactly that.”

“So I won’t be getting any tonight?”

“Is that all you think about?”

“When you’re around?” He grinned. “Pretty much.”

“I guess we do have something in common,” she said.

“We have plenty in common,” he said, “and we have all weekend to figure out what.”

She was looking forward to spending time with him more than he could possibly realize. They talked on the phone a lot, but those conversations always quickly turned to sex and them spouting their attraction to each other. She was ready to get to know him on a deeper level. He never said much about himself, and she couldn’t help but wonder about him. She was naturally nosy.

He opened the truck door and Melanie climbed out her side, practically collapsing from weariness when her feet touched the ground.

“I hope you like to sleep in,” she said, stifling a yawn behind her hand.

“My second favorite thing to do.”

She had a suspicion as to what his first favorite thing was and that it also involved a bed. Sometimes.

She weaved her way toward the front porch, glad she was responsible for carrying only herself and her purse. She doubted she could have lifted her poorly packed suitcase. She appreciated Gabe being her baggage handler.

When she stepped on the porch, a security light blinded her and a deep, loud woof, accompanied by a second, less terrifying bark, boomed from the house. Heart thudding, she froze. Gabe nudged her in the back with his shoulder.

“I hope you aren’t afraid of dogs,” he said.

“Are they vicious?”

“Only if you touch me,” he said with a grin.

“Then I’m bound to be mauled to death.”

He set their luggage by the door and unlocked it. As soon as he turned the knob and pushed the door open, two giant blurs of fur—one blond, one black—knocked Gabe flat on his back and commenced to give his face a thorough cleaning. The two Labradors didn’t even notice Melanie standing to the side of the door giggling at their tail-wagging enthusiasm.

“Beau,” Gabe said in a tone that didn’t sound the least bit authoritative with all the laughing he was doing. “Heel, Beau. Sit.”

The larger of the two dogs—the yellow Lab—released one deep, loud bark that made Melanie jump and began to clean Gabe’s ears. The smaller of the pair—a sleek black Lab—was bouncing on Gabe’s chest and belly as if he were a trampoline.

“Lady,” he gasped. “Settle down.”

The dog whined loudly and wagged her tail. Only she didn’t wag just her tail—she wagged her entire body. And when she could no longer contain her glee at seeing her master, she began to jump up and down on him again.

Breathless, Gabe laughed. “I missed you too, Lady.”

“Do you need help?” Melanie asked, wondering if she dared to grab the dog’s collar. The animals didn’t know her, and she was rather fond of her fingers. They didn’t look like mean dogs, but most dogs weren’t mean to their owners. Strangers on the other hand…

Gabe struggled to rise to his knees on the large wooden porch. When he finally managed to get his legs under him, his face got another thorough licking by two wide pink tongues, and Melanie couldn’t help but laugh at the way he cringed, squeezing his eyes tight and clamping his lips together with comic exaggeration. He wrapped an arm around each dog and forced them to sit on either side of him. Beau licked his nose and sat panting. If dogs could smile, he was smiling. Lady was trembling with her efforts to contain her exuberance, but she managed to keep her haunches mostly on the ground. Her tail thunked loudly against the boards beneath her.

“Melanie,” Gabe said from his kneeling position, “I’d like to introduce you to my poorly behaved dogs. The big guy is Beau.” He stroked the head of the dog to his right.

Melanie extended her hand towards the yellow lab. He sniffed her fingers and gave her a courteous lick. Melanie petted the sleek fur of his ears. The dog was definitely smiling now.

“Aren’t you a sweet boy?” she said. The dog thunked his tail on the ground, seeming to agree with her assessment.

“And the bundle of energy is Lady,” Gabe said about the smaller, black lab.

Lady barked happily several times and undoubtedly would have started bounding off the porch planks again if Gabe hadn’t had her collar fisted firmly in one hand.

“She’s a beautiful dog,” Melanie said.

“With very bad manners,” Gabe said and laughed. “I’m afraid she’s not much of a lady.”

“She’s just happy to see you,” Melanie said. “Aren’t you, girl?” She bent closer to Lady and slapped her thighs.

This attention sent Lady into a fit of exuberant barking. Gabe released her collar and shoved her toward the steps. “Go run off some of that energy,” he said, and Lady raced off the porch to run circles around the heavily shadowed yard. “Do you need to run too?” he asked Beau.

Beau swiped at his nose with one paw and groaned. Gabe chuckled and rose to his feet.

“I guess I should have warned you that I have dogs,” he said to Melanie.

“They are a nice surprise.”

“I’m not sure nice is the right word.” He patted Beau’s head affectionately, and the dog looked up at him in adoration, his tongue lolling out to one side.

She wondered why Gabe had never brought up his dogs before. They obviously meant a lot to him, and he was obviously their god. In fact, he never talked much about his home life at all. Getting him to tell her anything about himself the night they’d met had been nearly impossible.

“Gabe, why don’t you ever talk about yourself?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“We talk every day, but I don’t feel like I know much about your past, your friends and family, your home.”

“No one wants to know all that boring stuff,” he said, hefting Melanie’s suitcase and his duffle bag from the porch.

“I do,” she said, following him into the house.

“You don’t talk about that stuff either,” he said.

“Well, that’s because my life is boring.”

“Not to me,” he said.

She paused just inside the threshold to gape at the interior of his home. It was an open plan. Very open. The two-story living space had Melanie craning her neck to view the exposed wooden beams high above. She could see all the way through the house to the expansive kitchen at the back. A loft above the kitchen looked cozy with its massive fireplace. The home’s furnishings were masculine and strong. Tables and shelving were all heavy, dark woods paired with black iron hardware. The fabrics were forest greens and navy blues, beige and browns and plaids. She didn’t see any dead animal heads hanging on the walls, but the place definitely had the feel of a hunting lodge.

“Do you hunt?” she asked.

“Do you?”

“Uh, no.”

“I’m more of a fisherman. I’ll take you out on the boat tomorrow. If I decide to get out of bed.”

He whistled for Lady, and the dog scampered into the house, her nails clicking against the dark hardwood floor. Beau flopped down on a thick rug near the door and Lady lay on top of him, much to Beau’s obvious annoyance. When no amount of squirming would move Lady from her resting place, the big, yellow dog huffed in acceptance and closed his large chocolate-brown eyes.

“Do you like to fish?” Gabe asked as he shifted both bags to one hand so he could close the front door and lock it.

“I’ve never been,” she admitted.

“You’re from Kansas and you’ve never been fishing?”

She shook her head.

“What in the world have you been doing all your life?”

“Riding tornados to Oz and following yellow brick roads,” she teased.

He chuckled. “This way, Dorothy. I’ll give you the grand tour tomorrow.” He gestured toward the back of the house. “My bed is in here.”

She followed him toward a door off to the left of the great room. She bumped into him when he paused on the threshold.

“I guess I shouldn’t assume that you want to sleep with me tonight,” he said. “I do have a pair of guest rooms upstairs if you’d be more comfortable sleeping alone.”

“Don’t make me smack you,” she said testily. She was too tired to play coy. All she wanted to do was fall into his arms and then fall asleep.

“I was just trying to remember my manners,” he said and entered what turned out to be a huge master suite.

Its décor was also very masculine, more heavy furniture with dark woods. More dark colors and not a doily in sight. The king-sized bed in the center of the room was the most beautiful thing Melanie had ever seen. She didn’t even have the decency to wait for him to drop her luggage before she kicked off her shoes and began to tug off her clothes in gleeful abandon. She normally wore a cotton nightgown to bed, but she didn’t think Gabe would mind if she slept in the buff tonight. She didn’t think she could keep her eyes open long enough to find sleepwear, much less don it.

He left their luggage at the door and made a pit stop in the connecting bathroom. By the time he returned, naked and gorgeous, Melanie was already under the covers and blinking drowsily.

He shut off the light, and a moment later she felt the mattress sag beside her. Gabe tugged her against him, pressing his chest against her back and other things against her bottom. She was too tired to be interested in that particular appendage. At least that’s what she thought until he whispered, “Good night, sweetheart. I promise to wake you properly in the morning with an orgasm and a smile.”

Her eyes popped open, unable to make out more than shadows in the dark room.

“Not if I wake you up improperly first,” she said.

He didn’t counter her statement, but she knew he’d heard her because his cock stirred against her ass.