“Thank you,” she said, and meant it so much, more than he could possibly ever know. “Not that I wanted to ruin you for all others, but…okay, yeah I did.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

It was a good thing he couldn’t see her, because she was grinning like a fool.

“All done,” he announced over an hour later.

Gabby exhaled and went absolutely limp, just soaking up the bliss of knowing it was over. She’d done it.

“Damn,” he said slowly. “If I do say so myself, it looks f**kin’ sick.”

She’d been around Brian enough to know that was a good thing. “I can’t wait to see it,” she told him, “but I think I need to lie here for…an hour or two.”

“Take your time. Do you need anything? More water?” He’d given her all the breaks she’d needed…more and more as time went on.

“I think I’m good.” Stiffly, she pushed herself up on her hands, not even minding that she was topless. He snatched his gaze away from her as she sat up straight.

“You really might want to cover those.”

“Why?” she asked innocently.

“Because I can’t be trusted around them.”

Laughing, she grabbed her shirt, which she’d been lying on, and tucked it under both arms so her br**sts were covered. “Fine, fine. Men. Faced with a pair of tits and they lose their shit.”

Blowing out a breath, he grabbed a handheld mirror and held it toward her so she could see her back reflected in the large mirror on the wall behind her. And…she absolutely lost her breath.

“Oh God,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes away from the beauty of his work. The colors were so vivid, so strong…blues and greens and purples all fading so effortlessly into each other it was almost impossible to think it had been created with human hands and not born on her. The design as a whole wasn’t huge and overpowering, but soft and feminine, the mythical bird surging into the heavens with a strength she could somehow feel. The movement was incredible. She almost expected to see it soar off her skin and rise up with beating wings.

“Tell me that’s a good ‘oh God,’” he said, leaning in so he could see it exactly as she did.

“That’s a good one. Almost as good as the kind of ‘oh God’ you give me,” she said.

Gave me, she should’ve said. Past tense. But with him hovering near her, his scent teasing her nostrils, his work gracing her skin…

She turned her face to his and caught those lips with hers. His breath shuddered out, and he surrendered, sinking into her kiss.

“Oh God,” he murmured, and despite being so caught up in the taste of him, she had to laugh. Memories flooded her, some she hadn’t even accessed until this moment with his tongue questing for entrance into her mouth. Gabby wanted to tease, wanted not to grant it, but she couldn’t do that to him. She didn’t have the ability, it seemed, to deny him.

“Baby,” he groaned at last, pulling back so that their gently panting breaths mingled. “This is the last place we should be doing this.”

The last place, and the last thing she should be doing. She licked her own lips to collect all she could of his deliciousness and let him go.

Coldness rushed in. Almost as icy, as all-consuming, as that empty numbness she’d felt back in March when everything had been snatched away from her. What was she thinking of doing? The impossibility of them couldn’t be more apparent, despite their raging chemistry. She had a scientific brain. She had to be more in control than this, chalk this up to what it was. Lust. Nothing more. She’d never been in lust before, but if this was what it was, then it sucked as much as unrequited love when the object of your lust was about to be out of your reach.

She still held the mirror handle clenched in a death grip. Turning her head away from him, though it pained her to do so, she lifted it so she could see her ink again.

And fought tears. One last beautiful thing, aside from her memories, to always keep him close to her no matter where she went or what she did or who she was with.

She was the phoenix, but he was the one who’d brought her back from the ashes.

Chapter Nine

Gabriella opened her eyes to blinding sunlight and the instant, undeniable knowledge that she was about to throw up.

Flinging back her covers, she bolted for her attached bathroom and barely made it.

Then, trembling and groaning, she splashed cold water on her face and lifted her head to be confronted with her ghastly reflection. “Jesus, what is this?” She was rarely sick, and the last time she’d had any kind of stomach virus… She actually couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a stomach virus.

As she dried her face and tried to decide if she even wanted to risk leaving the bathroom yet—her stomach still wasn’t happy—a disturbing thought occurred to her, but she slapped it away.

“No. Couldn’t be.”

Could she?

Her periods were usually all over the place, and she really couldn’t do the pill because it made her crazy. Mark hadn’t minded condoms while she tried to determine her best option for their marriage, but when that all fell apart, she hadn’t worried about it much anymore.

That she hadn’t had a period in—Jesus, since early June?—was weird, but it wasn’t really a stretch.

Her being pregnant, though, that was a stretch. They’d been careful. The odds of her being late and inexplicably sick for one morning were greater than the odds of condom failure. Certainly. So she wouldn’t worry. She went back to bed.

Except the same thing happened the next morning. And the next it almost happened—only she lay around and felt miserable all morning instead of actually throwing up.

She couldn’t be pregnant, she thought as she stared at the ceiling above her bed. She could not. Last week she’d gone to Dallas and found her place. At the end of the month—a couple of weeks away now—she planned to be living there, and there were a million things to do. A week into August, her second year of medical school would begin.

Holy. Shit.

“Can’t be,” she moaned, turning over and staring at her clock without seeing it. Her right breast pressed into her arm, and the pressure made her wince.

Aching boobs.

Gabriella Ross wasn’t one to panic in any situation. But she’d never been in this one before.

She f**king panicked.

She’d also never been very religious.

She f**king prayed.

What the hell was she going to do?

First off, she decided, she was going to allow herself ten minutes—okay, twenty—to panic, cry, pray, whatever she needed to do, and then she was going to force herself to get up and, like any sensible person, drive to a drug store and buy a pregnancy test. Or four. Because there was no use worrying until there was something to worry about. Until the test(s) came back positive and she saw the proof with her own eyes, there was nothing to worry about.

Gabby repeated those words like a mantra as she got dressed in a cami and shorts and tied her hair up, not bothering with looking too presentable. As she grabbed the doorknob to leave her room, she contemplated throwing up before she left, but didn’t want to break the day’s no-vomit streak. Taking deep breaths until the nausea took its hooked talons out of her stomach, she eased down the stairs, praying yet again. This time to avoid her mother.