Unbound

Chapter 26

I had been wholly unprepared for what giving in to Gabriel would feel like. All night as I lay in bed, my body thrummed with energy that no amount of deep breathing could calm. Sometime after midnight, I thought for a moment about sliding my hand down between my legs and relieving some of the fire that was smoldering there before I changed my mind. He shouldn't be doing this to me, not just yet. Not after only two chaste kisses.

Walking to his house the following morning, I was nearly giddy. I'd never felt quite this way before. With Jack, all of this had come easy—it was nearly expected. We'd been friends for so long that we just sort of fell together. But this, with Gabriel, was the polar opposite. We'd both fought against it since I'd arrived over three months ago: me with distance, him with anger. Both of us finally caving felt more akin to a cataclysmic event than a simple kiss.

"Good morning, Kiera." Three words. Three words from him was all it took to send a burning flush blooming up my chest and over my cheeks. If he only knew what the sound of my name in that low voice of his did to my insides, he'd never let me live it down.

"Morning, Gabriel." Breathy and high, it was far from the confident tone I would have liked to greet him with. I couldn't help it; just seeing him standing there had my lungs constricting.

"Coffee?" He held up the pot.

I wrinkled my nose. "I don't know how you drink that stuff. It's even worse than real coffee."

Gabriel chuckled and replaced it on the stovetop. "Tea, then?"

I tugged on the hem of my shirt anxiously. "I should really get to work. But maybe I'll see you at lunch?"

"Maybe." With his head in a cupboard, I couldn't tell whether he was teasing or not so I mumbled something unintelligible and hurried off down the hallway.

"So?" Ephraim asked once I'd settled in across from him.

My stomach dropped. He knows. "So, what?"

"So," he set his pen down and looked at me. "Did you find anything in your research?"

Relieved, I slumped back in the chair. Gabriel almost certainly did not want anyone to know about our encounters, and I wasn't too keen on the idea yet either. If and when it did get out, the last person I wanted to hear about it was my boss.

But after the night I'd had, I realized I'd entirely forgotten about Angus and my promise to look further into his symptoms. I cringed.

"I'm really sorry, I didn't get a chance last night. I will today."

Ephraim gave me a reproachful look. "See that you do. I haven't managed to find anything yet."

It was yet another morning spent buried in thick, heavy tomes, and I longed for the computer we had behind the front desk at the Sawtooth clinic. Medical texts were so much easier to navigate with keyword search. I had some textbooks, too, that my mother had kept from nursing school and passed on to me. They were at home on a shelf, sandwiched between various novels and yearbooks, gathering dust. In the haze of that last morning, neither Jack nor I had even thought to pack them.

I scolded myself and tried to bring my mind back to where I was: in the medical room, in Gabriel's house. In Castle territory. I needed to stop referring to it as my home; it was impossible to know whether I'd ever be free to return. And besides, after my last conversation with Jack, I wasn't even sure I had the right to call it home anymore. It hurt.

Ephraim could tell I wasn't reading any of the pages I was flipping through, so he smartly gave me the more hands-on task of grinding herbs to occupy me. He was perceptive, and though he couldn't tell what was on my mind, I was grateful he noticed at all.

I was disappointed but unsurprised that Gabriel wasn't waiting for me when I came out for lunch. It was a good time to get a jump on research, though, and I figured I could see if reception was good enough from the guesthouse to load webpages on my phone.

When I opened the back door, I found Gabriel standing in the yard. It took me a moment to realize that he was shoveling the path I took across the lawn between his home and the guesthouse. It had filled in somewhat since the last time it was cleared, but I'd trampled down most of the new snow so that it was still passable.

"You don't have to do that," I called. I followed the cleared portion to where he stood, still with about half of the distance left to finish.

"I don't mind." Standing in the cold in jeans and a t-shirt, I'd never have known he'd been doing physical labor if I hadn't seen the result of his efforts and the shovel in his hand. His breathing remained slow and even and there wasn't a hint of sweat on his brow, though he dragged his arm across it as though there was.

"If I'd known all it would take was kissing you to get you to do my chores, I'd have done it a long time ago." I surprised myself with my boldness, but he seemed to like it.

"Is that so?"

I nodded. "I'd have had you organizing the clinic storeroom, day one."

"You think I wanted to kiss you day one?" He leaned on the shovel, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

I shrugged, losing confidence in my teasing until he flashed me a cheeky grin.

"So this is how you're spending your lunch break? Manual labor?" I asked.

"I'm the Alpha," he said with a bit of pride. "I can take as many lunch breaks as I want."

I rolled my eyes. "Well Ephraim only gives me one, and it isn't very long, so I'm going to need to get by."

Still blocking the way, Gabriel smirked and gestured for me to go ahead. "Be my guest."

"You're not leaving me a whole lot of room." I eyed the narrow path and tried not to imagine just how I'd have to press my body against his if I wanted to avoid falling into the snow. It was going to be tight.

In a second, he'd dropped the shovel and taken hold of my waist. My hands flew to his shoulders as he lifted me like I weighed nothing at all and turned, setting me down on the other side. His own hands lingered on my hips for just a beat longer before he released me. I wobbled a bit, breathless.

"Thanks," was the only response I could come up with. I sounded like an idiot, and I'm sure I looked like one too as I tried to compose myself.

Gabriel chuckled. "Anytime."

His eyes followed me as I walked away and I relished the feeling they left on my back.

As I expected, the two bars of service I got in the loft of the guesthouse weren't nearly strong enough to get online. I walked around the ground level holding it in the air but couldn't find better reception in any of the corners. It did, however, allow me to sneak a glance out at Gabriel each time I passed by the windows. The way the muscles flexed across his shoulders and down either side of his spine with each push of the shovel was almost hypnotic, and once or twice I lingered for too long and he nearly caught me staring.

I figured it was best to wait for him to finish before I made my way back up to the house.

"There's no chance of me finding a computer around here, is there?" I asked Ephraim once I'd made it back inside. He barked out a sharp laugh.

"The Council just barely approved cell phones, and that was only a few years ago."

"That's fucking archaic, you know that?" Ephraim made a disapproving face; he hated when I cursed. But now I was annoyed. "How is it that they get to pick and choose? All the stores take credit cards, all the homes have human appliances. You have a car."

"I'm not privy to the way the Council makes their decisions, but if I had to guess, they weigh convenience against the protection of the Pack and our traditions. Using a dishwasher won't have quite the same ramifications as having access to the internet." He pulled the mortar and pestle away from me, frowning in dismay. In my frustration I had over-ground the seed mixture he'd given me. He took it and dumped it into the trash.

I crossed my arms. "And no one else has a problem with this?"

"So far? Just you." Ephraim passed back the mortar and pestle with a fresh cup of seeds in the bowl. "Not so fine this time, please."