“You thought Gabe wanted you merely because he was talking with you. Well, I’m talking to you. Does that mean I want to go to bed with you?”

Brooke almost gasped. “No!”

“Exactly. Just because a man talks with you, doesn’t mean he’s interested in anything other than conversation. You need to learn the body language—the man-signals—that guys display if they want more than conversation. Because if you ignore those signals, you’re just as bad as the male stalkers you hate so much.”

The woman blinked, and then, surprisingly, sat back…and nodded.

All right, then. As Audrey tried to move away, Gabe pulled her closer, his knees closing on her hips. “I like you right here, little cheechako,” he murmured.

Her exasperated huff made him laugh.

He curled his fingers around her waist and whispered, “Nice job with Brooke.”

Maybe. Audrey might have been less aggressive if she’d realized how oblivious the woman was. “Thanks. Um, am I liable to run into a lot more ex-girlfriends?”

“Not here in Rescue. I only came here to visit Mako.”

That was an interesting qualifier—here in Rescue. Was the rest of the world littered with Gabe’s old girlfriends?

Catching her narrowed eyes, he raised his hands in pseudo-self-defense. “I’m not that bad, Goldie, not like Caz. One divorce in my early twenties—I believed in fidelity; she didn’t. A few girlfriends since. No one at all in the last couple of years.”

“Oh.” He’d been married. Well, considering all that was Gabriel, she wasn’t surprised in the least.

He certainly had been more forthright than she’d expected. “Thank you?”

He lifted an eyebrow and waited.

“You want quid pro quo?” Didn’t that just figure?

“Well, yeah.” His fingers were gentle as he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll settle for marriages, the last important relationship, and why it didn’t work.”

This would sure be easier with alcohol. But fair was fair. She was the one who’d introduced the subject. “No marriages. Last relationship a few months ago.” She drew an unhappy breath. “He wanted someone more outgoing. Someone more like Brooke.”

“Really? What an idiot.”

The sincerity in his tone warmed her. Then she winced. Had Brooke heard what she said? What Gabe had said?

She glanced over and was relieved to see the woman had left.

A man had taken the barstool. His appreciative stare made her flush.

With a menacing growl, Gabe leaned down and took her lips.

Oh, the way he kissed. Gently, firmly, teasing, taking.

When he finished, he ran his knuckles over her hot cheek. “That was another kind of man-signal, by the way.”

“Mmm…” Her brain started to come out of the clouds. “What? What signal?”

“The one that tells other men I’ll bust their faces if they touch what’s mine.”

Chapter Twenty-Five