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my nose and the last I remembered was falling and a pair of arms catching me.

Forgiveness
    I groaned as I woke up, my head was killing me and my mouth was dry as sandpaper. I threw my arm over my face and sighed. How the hell had I ended up in bed? I remembered going to the bar, playing pool and dancing and then nothing, complete blackness. I sighed again, struggled upright and opened my eyes and gasped, I was in Gabe’s bedroom.
    ‘Hi,’ a low voice murmured. I turned my head squinting, I still felt drunk. I caught my breath to see him sitting in a tub chair at the side of the bed looking at me. He looked how I felt, but even with the lack of sleep and worry showing on his face, along with the black eye, bruised jaw and rough stubble, he still made my stomach flip.
    ‘Hi,’ I whispered, gulping as a rush of emotion hit me to see him again.
    ‘How are you feeling?’
    ‘Rough as a very grizzly bears arse. What am I doing here?’ I could feel my heart rate speeding up, God I’d missed him so much. He was wearing my favourite dark navy jeans and a fitted white shirt and had one ankle up on his knee as he steepled his fingers, his elbows resting on the edge of the chair, his sad eyes studying me intently.
    ‘Lexi called me and asked Doug and I to come and get you. Thank God she did, you were …’ he sighed, shook his head and looked down at his fingers. I swear I’d never seen anyone so handsome, anyone who gave off such a raw masculine vibe. No woman in close proximity to him stood a chance of resisting him if he decided he wanted them. He just oozed sex and it still stunned me that he was mine, at least I hoped he was still mine. I wasn’t really sure where we stood at the moment. I looked down and realised I was only dressed in my underwear.
    ‘Did you … did we …’ I stammered blushing.
    ‘No of course not,’ he retorted quickly, and flashed me a how could you even ask me that? look. ‘You were completely wasted Mia. I undressed you, but didn’t think it was appropriate to take off your underwear given our current situation.’
    ‘Which is?’ I asked breathlessly, desperately trying to stop my body’s reactions to seeing him again after so long.
    ‘I think you need to tell me that Mia. You tried to break it off with me on Sunday,’ he whispered, looking at me expectantly and slightly afraid.
    ‘Then you did with me,’ I reminded him.
    ‘I was scared of hurting you.’
    ‘You did hurt me Gabe,’ I stated and saw him grimace as his eyes flicked to my bruised arms and a veil of pain set across his face. I automatically reached up and folded my arms across my chest and covered the offending reminders with my hands. ‘I’m not talking about the bruises, I’m talking about what you said. I was angry and tired and wanted to get away from you, from the argument. I didn’t want to end our relationship.’
    ‘Really?’ he asked, looking up at my face, the relief evident on his.
    ‘Yes really, but it doesn’t mean that you didn’t hurt me with your words or actions.’
    ‘I know,’ he sighed, running a hand over his face and I could hear the stubble scratching his palm. ‘I’m so sorry Mia. There’s no justification for my actions, I don’t know how to even start to explain or apologise. I’ll understand if you can’t forgive me or if you don’t … if you don’t love me anymore.’  He never for a second took his sad eyes off me, he looked so broken and it made me catch my breath to hear the depth of pain in his voice. He thought I’d stopped loving him? Already? Just because we’d had a nasty fight? I couldn’t bear it any longer, the distance between us was physically so minimal, but emotionally we may as well have been on opposite continents and I suddenly knew that I wanted to bridge both gaps.
    ‘O Gabe,’ I sighed. I pulled the duvet back and took him by surprise by scrambling over and climbing into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face into it. My