Mine to Keep Read online

  Amy was a strong woman, and he needed her to see the strength inside her. Whether she’d gotten over what Steven did to her because of the kids or for some other reason, the fact was, she’d gotten over it. He knew there were times she hurt, but that was to be expected. Gabriel knew he would never abandon her. He cared about her too much to let her go. In his heart, he knew he wanted Amy to be his. For her, he could be a better man.

  Putting the beer down, he went to see how she was doing. He wanted to help her wherever he could. His feelings for her were not something he took lightly. He knew how he felt, and it scared him with its intensity.

  Mine.

  She walked out of the bedroom door leaving it ajar. “I want to be able to hear them,” she said with a smile. Her smile made him want to fall to his knees and beg her to be his.

  He nodded and followed her down the stairs, the kiss they’d shared playing in his mind.

  Mine.

  That one word kept whispering through his mind like a mantra. Amy wasn’t a thing for him to possess. She was a person to make her own choices.

  For a forty-five year old man, he was behaving like an adolescent.

  “Amy,” he said. She stopped and turned around. “When you said you wanted to feel what it was like to be kissed without being afraid, did you mean anything else?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Have there been other things that you’ve only experienced fear?” He’d read her file and knew the type of man her husband was.

  Chapter Three

  Amy didn’t know how to respond to him. How did you tell the man you had intense feelings for that there was nothing about your marriage that you hadn’t been afraid of? Steven got off on the fear he instilled in others. When would she be rid of that bastard? He’d controlled her while he’d been married to her, and he was controlling her from prison.

  “You don’t want to know the answer.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know.”

  She licked her lips and stared past his shoulder while thinking about her life with Steven. From the moment they had started dating to when Gabriel had carried her out of hell, she’d been afraid of Steven. “There was never a moment when I wasn’t afraid. He dominated every part of me.” Why hadn’t she seen what her life had become?

  “Why did you marry him?”

  “I got pregnant and didn’t have a choice. I was seventeen, scared, and my parents organised everything.”

  “Did you ever love him?”

  She sucked in her lips and shook her head. “No, I never loved him. I couldn’t stand his guts.” Amy broke down allowing the tears and her pain to fall away. She went to her knees, but Gabriel caught her and carried her to the couch in his sitting room. The television was playing to itself, and she let go. For six years she’d been living a nightmare. Six years of being under a man who did nothing but scare her.

  “Have you ever talked about it with anyone?” he asked.

  “Who is there to talk to? Most of Cape Falls doesn’t believe me, and I’ve spent most of my life thinking I should just live with it.”

  “I don’t think like that.”

  “You’re the only person I know who believed me. In Cape Falls, there seems to be this old written rule that we stick together as a town. What I don’t get is when I first told someone, I was laughed at. My mother told me that what a man does with his wife is his own business, and Cape Falls says to stay out of other people’s business or something like that. I think our precious little town needs to rethink the rules.” She rubbed the tears from her eyes even though more fell afterwards. “I sometimes relive that night in my head, over and over again. I don’t know what would have happened if Billy hadn’t known how to dial your number.”

  He rubbed her arm and lifted her legs over his lap. They were so close, and she wanted to do nothing more than bury her head against his chest and forget about her life before she met him.

  “Why don’t you tell me about him? Tell me about your life and what led you to marrying him and not throwing his ass in jail.”

  She stared into his eyes. The magnetic blue always managed to soothe her. He was hard but gentle with her. Anna had offered to be her sounding board, but Amy had been afraid to talk to anyone about her time with Steven. Gabriel was different. He didn’t judge her or look down on her. In his own way, he cared about her.

  “My parents liked him. Whatever I did in high school or anything, they never approved. I was always disappointing them, and then Steven came knocking on the door. He was a nerd but nice to me. At least in the beginning he was.”

  “He was trying to impress your parents?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. We went on a few dates at my parents’ insistence. We became a couple. Once you’re seen with the same person more than once, you’re a guaranteed couple. That’s what I mean about staying here. People will think we’re a couple, now.”

  “We’ll deal with that when it comes.”

  She liked that he didn’t appear disgusted. “He took me to the movies one night. It was one of those movies where you sit in the car. I was bored and wanted to go home. We had sex in the back of the car. He kept kissing me, and one thing led to another and bam. Virginity gone.” She remembered the pain of that night. He hadn’t been gentle. She’d tried to stop him, but in the end she’d let it happen.

  “Did you want to be with him that night?” Gabriel asked. The tears fell harder than ever. No one had ever asked what she’d wanted. They always expected her to want everything that had come to her. The kids and Steven.

  “No.” She sobbed the word out. For six years she’d kept her thoughts to herself. Six years where she gave herself to a man she couldn’t stand.

  “Let it out.” He held her close as she let loose all of her emotions she’d kept bottled up for years. The pain and heartache from her predicament.

  After some time, she managed to calm down. Her head hurt from the constant crying. Gabriel passed her a tissue, which she was grateful for.

  “What happened next?” he asked.

  “I got pregnant. He told my parents he wanted to marry me. Two months later I was Mrs. Grant, and I knew I had twins on the way. His parents moved us into a home, and he got a job. Everything was going fine.”

  “You weren’t happy?”

  “I was doing what everyone expected of me.” She looked down at her clasped hands. Her left hand no longer had the small gold band on her finger. How many times had she looked down at that gold band in the six years she’d been married and felt trapped? Too many to count. She remembered the fights and the pain from his fist along with the constant waiting for him to go to sleep so she could clean up the mess he’d created.

  “Were you happy?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you love your kids?”

  She gasped, her hand covering her mouth. “Of course. They were the only thing good to come from my life with Steven. I would give me whole life for them.”

  “You’d be surprised the number of women who’d wish otherwise.”

  “No. Not me. I hated my life with Steven but never with them. Seeing their faces in the morning is what helped to get by.”

  “When was the first time he hit you?”

  ****

  Gabriel knew he was asking a lot of questions, but he wanted to get to know the woman inside. Amy was damaged by what her ex-husband had done to her. He knew she hadn’t talked with anyone about her life. From the moment he kicked the door down to this instant of her sitting with her legs in his lap, she’d been constantly fighting.

  She probably didn’t know what a break was. She licked her lips, and he noticed she did that a lot when she wasn’t happy with her life.

  “A week after Mia and Billy were born. He’d been out at work. For his dad I think. In the early days the twins wouldn’t sleep. I had to take what rest I could. My parents weren’t interested. A woman’s role was in the home, and she needed to take care of her own fami
ly. He came home. The twins were asleep, and I hadn’t done anything. There were dishes over the side. The clothes hadn’t been washed.”

  She stopped in her explanation, and Gabriel knew she was gaining herself.

  “His food wasn’t on the table. I hadn’t eaten. I came downstairs wrapped in a robe. I’d taken a shower, and he was looking round, inside the cupboards. I went to give him a hug, and with the back of his hand, he slapped me. I don’t want to go into more. Let’s just say after that day, I always had dinner on the table, the pots cleaned, and the washing done.”

  “What about the chains on the fridge and cupboards?”

  “I gained a lot of weight with the twins. He didn’t want to sleep in the bed with a fatty, and so he weighed me daily and left out rations for me to eat. If I didn’t use the required food in his dinner, he’d know.”

  He wanted to go to the prison and kill the bastard. Gabriel cupped her face and forced her to look at him. “You’re a beautiful woman, and what that bastard did to you was wrong.”

  “I should have got out. I should never have let it get that far. Mia and Billy deserve better than what they grew up in.”

  “You’ve changed that now. You’ve got me, baby. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He promised himself that with every breath in his body, Amy Grant would never know a single moment of pain if he could help it.

  “You’re the only person I can trust. Anna and Laura mean well, but they’ve got their own lives to live. Without you, I’ve got no one.”

  He held her close, his feelings in turmoil inside him. The need to protect her and claim her as his own filled him to his very core.

  There was no way he could love her. He’d given up on love many years ago. Staring past her head to the television, he couldn’t help but think about life with her. In his mind he saw coming home to her. The two children seated at the table, laughing over something Amy said, a pot of stew bubbling on the stove while she pulled bread out of the oven. There was once a time he craved a normal life with vanilla sex and a loving relationship. With the many years he’d spent in the big city solving murder cases, his heart had grown hard and his loving even harder. Gabriel was a dominant man. In the past he’d gotten through his life by using that control to bring women pleasure through the combination of dominance and pain. When it came to the woman in his arms, the feelings she evoked startled him. A part of him wanted to tie her up and spank her ass. The need to hear her screaming out his name in pleasure called to him more than a cold beer on a hot summer’s day, did. Another part of him wanted to lay her on his bed and make love to her for the rest of his life. The two parts of his soul were wrestling with each other. More often than not, he wanted to lay her down and love her body. He knew no other man would give her the kind of devotion that he could.

  Amy deserved some gentle loving. Could he be the man for the job? He shouldn’t be thinking about her like this. He was over twenty years her senior. His best friend, William Johnson, owned an exclusive BDSM club in the city. When Gabriel found life to hard to bear, he had visited the club owned by William and had embraced being a dom. His life at the time had been so different from what it was now. Did he even need the dominant lifestyle? Closing his eyes, Gabriel forced down the need to order Amy to forget about her ex-husband. He wanted to be able to take the pain away from her. Usually with a simple instruction his requests were obeyed, but with Amy everything was different. He didn’t want to assert his control or make her do anything she didn’t want to. Gabriel wanted her to come to him and show him what she wanted. What had happened to his dominant part? When Tim had been disrespectful in the pizza place, Gabriel had wanted to make the man show his woman some respect.

  Cape Falls would be horrified if they knew the real man behind their new Sheriff—but he was a man that was changing with the right woman in his life.

  “Thank you for listening to me,” she said. He allowed her to move away from him because he needed to gain control of his arousal. Having her in his arms had brought his cock to full attention. He was pleased he’d picked a long shirt.

  “I’m here whenever you need me. I’ll always be here.”

  She nodded her head. “Thank you, Gabriel. You’ve been an angel. I’m going to head up and get some sleep. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  He watched her leave the room, her generous ass swaying in the jeans she wore. Fucking hell, he wanted to tear the jeans from her body and kiss her full, rounded ass. He was going insane. Gabriel turned back to the television. He put on the football and went to grab himself another beer.

  His mobile rang, and he answered it quickly, checking the stairs to make sure the noise hadn’t woken the kids up.

  “Hello,” he whispered.

  “You’re whispering now. Seriously, Gabriel, you’re starting to worry me,” William said on the other end.

  Gabriel smiled. William was a true dominant, but he could moan like any woman. “Why are you calling me this late?”

  “I’m bored, and I’m thinking of moving. You’re right. The city no longer holds any appeal to me.”

  He heard some commotion, and Gabriel knew something bad had happened.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m being closed down. It would seem when politicians start visiting the local fuck scene, the need to fuck over a person’s livelihood is the ideal solution,” William said.

  “So have you lost your license for owning a BDSM club and for selling alcohol?” Gabriel asked. He knew how much the club and bar meant to his friend.

  “No. I was given a stern warning. I either close up the club and move, or they’ll ruin my reputation and get rid of everything.”

  Gabriel had warned William that the force was hoping to close him down. It had only been a matter of time until they went through with it.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “That town you’ve moved to. Cape Falls. Do you think they’ll accept a club like mine?”

  Gabriel burst out laughing. He could already see the outrage through the town if William brought such a club near their area. “Let me just fill you in. You know that girl Amy I was telling you about?” He waited for confirmation before continuing. “Well, she was abused by her husband, and the residents here believe she cheated on him by not standing by his side.”

  “Shit. This is the girl you don’t have feelings for but talk about her every moment we talk on the phone?” Gabriel heard the teasing from his friend on the other end of the phone.

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “How do the residents cope with your language?”

  “They spend most of their time in shock, but I take care of them, so it all works in my favour.”

  They both laughed and caught up. Gabriel had missed talking to his friend. William was the only man who understood him.

  “I’m going to come and visit you in your little backwards town. Would that be all right?” William asked.

  “It would certainly be entertaining. This place doesn’t own a tattoo parlour.”

  “This could be fun. We could show Cape Falls what they’ve been missing.”

  Gabriel chuckled. “You can stay here as long as you promise to leave Amy alone.”

  “Are you claiming her?”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. Claiming Amy would be a dream come true. The age gap between kept getting in the way. His passions were also extreme, and he knew she’d only experienced pain with Steven.

  “She doesn’t know who I am. I don’t want to scare her off.” Gabriel didn’t want to tell his friend that his needs were slowly changing.

  “Gabriel, you need to be open with her. I’ll come and visit and leave your little Amy to you.”

  He shut his mobile phone and stared at the match playing on the screen. William visiting Cape Falls would be entertaining, but with him so close, it would only be a matter of time before Amy found out the truth about him. He shut off the television and made his way up the stairs. His mind was on h
is situation with Amy. The man he’d been for the last twenty years wouldn’t be able to change overnight. When a submissive put her whole trust in him, it helped a part of him. Through the control of her pleasure, he was able to find the man he once was. The city had done something to him. From the crime and the crap he’d witnessed, a part of him had been lost. Amy was different. After everything Amy had gone through, all the trust she put in him meant more to Gabriel than anything from some other random sub. Their trust was only limited to what he did to their bodies. Amy trusted him with so much more, and that could never be replaced in his heart.

  Gabriel settled down into bed, staring at the ceiling for the longest time. He wanted Amy so badly. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. How could a woman who’d been physically abused be able to come to him?

  Tears filled his eyes from the pain of his answer. There was no way Amy would ever be able to come to him. He would never hurt her. All he wanted to see in her eyes when he gazed at her was the beauty of her laughter.

  He turned over and closed his eyes. No further answers came to him.

  Chapter Four

  Amy spent the weekend trying to figure out who could look after her children before they went to school full time. They were due to start in late September. The schools ran a little differently in Cape Falls with their term times. The holiday break was during the summer instead of running through summer into autumn.

  They couldn’t stay at the shop with her. She wasn’t the full time manager. On Monday morning Anna came to see her carrying a foil package. David and Paul followed behind her.

  “We come bringing offerings of food and candy,” Anna said. Billy and Mia ran out from the back room and hurled themselves at David and Paul.

  “Thanks for this,” Amy said. She hadn’t been able to make herself some food that day. Between the kids and the meeting she had with Debbie this afternoon, she was as tense as a tightly wrapped wire.

  “We heard about the day-care problem.”

  “Did you also hear about Debbie coming to talk to me?” Amy asked.