He’d been surprisingly kind about it. She never would have expected him to be so gentle with her afterwards. Hell, if someone had burst into tears after having sex with her, she’d probably have totally freaked out.
Her body was alive with feeling now. She’d felt numb since Paul had walked out and grown used to it, but this encounter with Gideon had opened her right up again. She ached pleasantly from their fierce lovemaking and her heart still beat twice as fast as normal, but she felt exposed and uneasy with it.
What was she going to do about this? She couldn’t get involved with someone like Gideon. He wasn’t interested in a serious relationship — he’d proved that over and over again with the string of women he dated. And he was too damn attractive. She would never be able to compete with the beauties he usually had hanging off his arm. She couldn’t put herself through that. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust herself to be able to handle him.
She needed more than a fling. She needed someone who wanted to settle down and have kids. Like soon. She didn’t want to leave it much longer to start a family; she would be thirty soon and time was starting to run away from her.
No way did she want to bring up kids on her own. She wanted to be with someone who would be around long term, who wouldn’t walk away from her when things got tough, or when someone better came along.
No, Gideon was out as far as a serious relationship went. She wouldn’t be surprised if he kept his distance from her after her crying fit anyway. The thought made her insides clench. Despite the chaos of feelings it had brought, she’d absolutely loved having sex with him. Loved it. Her body hummed from the pounding it had taken and her cheeks grew hot as she replayed the scene in her head. His forcefulness had been a revelation. She’d loved him taking control like that. Paul had never made her feel as wanted, as sexy, as Gideon just had.
She got out of the shower and threw some fresh clothes on. Her sweater would have to be binned; there was no way she could mend it after the savaging it had taken. A rush of lust bombarded her at the memory of Gideon tearing it away from her body.
Her hands shook as she picked up her phone to check for messages and noticed she’d missed a call from Penny. She’d texted, too. Ellie scanned it quickly. They were running late and wouldn’t get there until the evening.
Great, more time alone with Gideon. The idea both thrilled and terrified her.
She took a deep breath, tucked her still damp hair behind her ears and went downstairs to face him.
He was in the kitchen, which he’d put back to rights. His hair was wet, so he must have had a speedy shower too. He looked up from what he was doing at the work-surface and smiled at her.
“How are you doing?”
She gave him a small smile. “I’m okay now, thanks.”
“I’ve made some sandwiches.” He brought a plate piled high with them to the table and nodded for her to sit down.
“Great, I’m starving.” She realized she actually was now that her nerves had steadied and she leaned forward and grabbed a couple of sandwiches from the tottering pile.
Gideon sat down opposite her and took one for himself. They ate in silence, neither of them looking at the other. Ellie was finding it hard to swallow. Gideon’s all-consuming presence enveloped her senses making it impossible for her to relax.
She could hardly believe what had happened between them; it felt like a dream. She needed to restore some kind of normalcy to the situation if she had any hope of dealing with it in a rational manner.
“I think those were the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten,” she said finally, brushing the crumbs off her fingers.
“It’s funny how sex on a table followed by a bout of weeping can make you hungry,” Gideon said, a twinkle in his eye.
Ellie grinned at him sheepishly.
“Sorry about ripping your sweater,” he said.
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t exactly one of my best.”
“To be honest, I’m kind of glad it’s destroyed. It does nothing for your gorgeous figure.”
Ellie snorted in embarrassment. “You’re kidding, right? It’s hardly gorgeous.” She leaned back in her chair and pulled her arms across her chest.
“Why are you so hard on yourself? Have you actually looked at yourself in the mirror recently?” Gideon leaned forward, a bemused smile playing about his lips.
God, she loved his mouth.
“I try very hard not to.”
“What did Paul do to you, Ellie?”
His question shocked her. “He … he … ” she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Not without bursting into tears again. She looked away to gather herself.
Gideon didn’t say anything, just waited for her to finish her sentence.
“When he left me … ,” she took a deep breath, “it was for someone else.”
“Did you know her?” he asked.
“No. She was just some floozy with an overactive reproductive system.”
“What?” The shock was evident in his voice and she was almost pleased at his heated response.
“She was pregnant,” she clarified.
“Jesus, Ellie, I had no idea.”
“No one did. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel like broadcasting the sordid details of exactly how my boyfriend came to leave me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? What for? It wasn’t you that cheated on me, then upped and left to live with your lover and new baby.” She twisted her fingers in her lap and stared down at them, unable to meet his gaze.
“I mean I’m sorry for bringing it up. It’s obviously still pretty raw for you.”
She shrugged her shoulder and offered him a sad smile. “I wanted to have children. I thought we were going to start trying soon. I was so excited about the idea.”
“Shit, Ellie, no wonder you seem so distracted.”
Despite her humiliation at allowing Gideon to see her in such a raw state, she was relieved at finally allowing the words to spill out of her.
“Well, at least you found out what a selfish dick he is before you had kids with him,” he pointed out calmly, his expression kind and gentle.
“Yeah, I keep reminding myself of that, but it doesn’t help much.” She shrugged despondently.
“I get that,” Gideon said, nodding slowly, encouraging her to carry on talking.
“I know this is going to sound pathetic, but after it all sunk in and I realized he wasn’t coming back, I started to get nervous about leaving the house. I was terrified of bumping into them both, seeing them so happy together … ,” she swallowed painfully, “with their baby.” She stared down at the table and traced her fingertips along the grain of the wood, trying to hold herself together, determined not to cry in front of him again. “It should have been me.” Her voice wobbled as the anger and pain and hurt she’d been suppressing fought its way to the surface. “I thought I had my life all planned out, but it came crashing down around my ears and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.” She slapped her hands against the tabletop in frustration. “Not a fucking thing!”
When she glanced back up at him, he was studying her with a sad frown on his face.
“So that’s why no one saw much of you.”
She drummed her fingers softly on the table now, as the anger subsided. “It’s like being a prisoner in your own city. They’re an ever-present threat, just lurking behind the scenes. I stopped going out in the end. It was less stressful.”
“He’s really done a number on you, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m an idiot for allowing it to happen.”
“What are you talking about? There’s no way you could have stopped it.”
“I’d like to think that’s true, but I let him do this to me. I took whatever he dished out in case he left me if I didn’t. He was a hard man to please and it slowly chipped away at my confidence until I thought no one else would want me if we ever split up. Looking back now I can see the warning signs. No matter what I did, or
wore, or said, it was never good enough. And I tried hard, Gideon, I swear. I know I can be a bit of a handful, but I tried to rein myself in, to be the girlfriend he really wanted, but I guess I failed pretty spectacularly.”
“What a dick. That’s psychological abuse, Ellie.” He slammed his own fist down onto the table, making her jump.
She raised an eyebrow at him and he gave her a grim smile. “Sorry, but it makes me so mad to see what he’s done to you.”
“Yeah, maybe. Or maybe I deserved it … I don’t know.”
“That’s rubbish, Ellie, and you know it.”
“I feel like I’ve given the best I’ve got and it wasn’t enough. What if it keeps happening? What if I never meet anyone I really click with?” She knew she’d slipped back into wallowing in self-pity, but it helped to say all this out loud to someone. To annunciate the fears that had been nipping at her toes for months now.
“You have nothing to worry about. Plenty of people out there would be stoked to have you as a girlfriend.”
“You reckon?”
“Yes.”
She looked into his eyes and was touched to see sincerity there. Gideon was the last person she’d expected to get sympathy from, and his kindness only made her feel more confused about what had happened between them.
Gideon must have seen a shift in her expression because he frowned and huffed out a sigh.
“Do I have to take you on the kitchen table again to prove to you how damn attractive you are?”
All the air left her lungs in a whoosh and a rush of blood to the most needy part of her threw her off balance. She could barely breathe for excitement and her voice seemed to had given up on her. She sat there mouthing the air, totally unable to respond.
Her body screamed “yes” at her like a wailing banshee, but her damn common sense sat heavily on her shoulder shaking its head.
Gideon stood up suddenly, shoving his chair back with a screech and looked down at her with an intense expression in his eyes.
“Get up,” he said.
Ellie’s body responded to the demand before her reason caught up, pushing her own chair back with a resounding squeal.
Gideon marched around to the other side of the table and grasped her hand, moving away quickly and pulling her with him. He practically dragged her out of the kitchen into the hallway and led her up the stairs.
“Where are we going?” Ellie managed to gasp as she hurried to keep up with him. His words had caused a chain-reaction through her system that sent her blood pounding through every artery and vein at double its normal speed. She felt alive with promise and unutterable excitement.
What was he going to do to her?
The mere question thrilled her.
At the top of the stairs, he turned toward the dressing room and pulled her in with him, slamming the door closed behind them.
They stood there, staring at each other, their breathing quick and light.
“Come here,” Gideon said, and she responded, not allowing herself to think or wonder or even care what might happen next. It was as if she’d managed to turn off her nervousness and was acting purely on instinct.
It was so freeing.
The determined touch of his hands on her shoulders made her shiver in anticipation and she let out a small gasp as he pushed her around to face the long, free-standing mirror, stepping behind her so she could see the whole of herself reflected in the glass.
“Put your arms in the air,” he said into her ear, his mouth so close she could feel the soft exhalation of breath against her skin.
She did as she was told, raising her arms above her head and waiting, her body quivering with expectation. She watched him in the mirror as he grasped the hem of her t-shirt and slowly pulled it up, exposing her stomach, then her breasts encased in her plain white bra, then over her head and gently up over her arms before he discarded it onto the floor beside them.
Ellie automatically pulled her stomach in and averted her eyes from the reflection in front of her.
Compared to Gideon’s honed physique she was seriously out of shape. She felt her body pull inwards again as her gaze dropped to the floor.
With a ping, her bra came loose at the back and she gasped in surprise as Gideon pushed the straps roughly down over her shoulders. The bra slipped away from her body, leaving her top half totally exposed and her arms automatically came forward to cover her breasts.
“Look at yourself, Ellie,” Gideon said quietly into her ear. His body was so close she could feel the heat of him radiating against her bare skin.
“I don’t want to,” she whispered.
“Don’t give me that,” he said, his voice rough and low. He put one hand under her chin and tipped her head, forcing her to look up. She took in the image reflected back at her and groaned at the sight. She hadn’t looked properly at her body for ages and didn’t like what she saw now. She was so ridiculously voluptuous, her breasts large and her stomach rounded. Thank God he hadn’t taken her jeans off to expose the cellulite on her thighs.
She met his gaze in the mirror and stared defiantly back.
“See. I’m nothing like the fit women you usually date.”
“I love your body. It’s beautiful.”
Ellie let out a laugh. “Sure it is, if you’re half blind.”
Gideon shook his head slowly at her. Raising his hands he put one on each of her shoulders and pulled back on them, forcing her to stand up straighter so her breasts moved higher and further forward.
“If you stop trying to hide yourself, you’ll see how gorgeous … ” He leaned forward toward her, the heat of his body burning into her back and kissed the left side of her neck, sending shivers down her spine. “How sensual … ” he said against her skin, moving to her right side and kissing just below her ear this time. “How utterly sexy you are.” This time he grasped her wrists and pulled them behind her body, pushing her breasts forwards even more. He held both wrists captive with one hand and pressed his body closer to her, trapping them. She gasped as the hardness of his erection pushed against the top of her buttocks.
“See how much you turn me on,” he whispered again into her ear, his eyes not leaving hers in the reflection.
His other hand came round and cupped the weight of one of her breasts, and as he rubbed his thumb gently over her nipple, it hardened in response, making her draw in a sharp breath.
Blood pounded between her legs causing a hard ache of need, and she pushed her buttocks against him, loving the feeling of his obvious arousal for her.
As she stared back at the mirror, she was amazed to see how different she looked now. Her breasts were high and full pushed forward and with her pelvis tipped back, her stomach seemed flatter and tighter. For the first time in a very long time, she looked at her body, really looked at it, and liked what she saw.
Gideon’s fingers moved to flick over her other nipple, sending another pulse of feeling down through her body.
“You see,” he said, kissing along the top of her shoulder. “Gorgeous.”
He released his hold on her captured wrists and ran his fingers across where her collarbones pushed against her flesh, to the dip of her neck, then skimmed down over her breasts, down her stomach to the top of her jeans.
He pulled the buttons roughly open and slipped his hands inside, under her panties, before pushing them down over her legs.
“Step out of them,” he murmured, and she did as she was told. She was now standing naked in front of a mirror. In front of Gideon.
“Bend forward and put your hands against the mirror,” he said.
“What?” Her voice was shaky and light with arousal.
“Just do it, Ellie,” he said, kicking her clothes away from them.
She did it, placing her palms against the cool glass. The mirror held steady against her weight, the heavy mahogany strong and firm.
Gideon pulled her hips up and back so she was bent slightly at the waist, her ass in the air, then gently kicked at her fe
et on the inside.
“Spread your legs.”
Ellie took a sharp intake of breath. The intensity of the scenario was so far from anything she’d ever experienced before.
“What are you going to do to me?” she breathed, her heart hammering against her ribs.
“Wait and see,” he said, still standing behind her.
She felt a draught of movement behind her and hung there, suspended, for what felt like forever, her body throbbing with excitement. Gideon finally came up behind her, pressing his now bare hips to the top of her buttocks and his erection against the base of her spine. He leaned his body forward against her as he bent to first push her hair away to the side, before dipping his head to place a feather-light kiss against the nape of her neck.
She groaned in appreciation and held her breath as he ran his tongue down the center of her back, moving it over one vertebra at a time. The sensation was delicious; his hot, wet tongue against where her skin covered the bone was so sensitive she shivered.
“Cold?” Gideon asked with a smile in his voice, “Don’t worry, we’ll soon warm you up.”
Ellie was about to answer when she realized he was pulling away from her to reach lower down her spine. Surely he would stop at the base? Surely?
But he didn’t. He kept his tongue moving, occasionally retracting it into his mouth to remoisten it, before continuing down, down, down …
As he passed the last knob of her spine she gasped in surprise as his tongue continued its path, deep in between her buttocks, where it played up and down against the sensitive flesh there, causing sensation to riot through her body.
She was so turned on and so utterly amazed by the turn of events she could do nothing other than groan.
Gideon ran his hands up between her thighs to find how wet she was for him.
“You like that then,” he murmured against her skin, his voice muffled and guttural.
First one finger, then two penetrated her and Ellie thought she would come there and then.
Gideon twisted his body around underneath her so he now sat on the floor under her spread legs, his fingers still inside her, and bent forward to flick his tongue over her clitoris with deep, hard strokes.
Her New Worst Enemy Page 7