by Tamsin Baker
She scrunched her nose. It looked so goddam cute that I leaned over and kissed it.
She pulled back. “What was that for?”
“Nothing more than I wanted to kiss you.”
She leaned over and kissed me right back, this time on the lips.
“What was that for?”
“Ditto.”
“Ditto?”
“Yeah.” She grinned.
I grinned back. If mating meant trading countless immortal lifetimes for just one lifetime of this, I was in.
But I’d born the weight of The Change for so long, how would it feel to live without the fear of when and where? To feel free.
I brushed my thumb back and forth across the knuckles of the woman responsible for lifting that weight. “What did you see?”
“Nothing . . . concrete. More impressions, really. Emotions, even. The vision seemed so real at the time, but if I try and put what I saw into words, it makes little sense.”
“I’d really like to know.”
Again she scrunched her nose. “It was like . . . rainbows. An entire row of them. All bright but broken and dark in places. Yet the end of each one shone with light that felt like happiness. Fulfillment. A life I’d wanted as a child but stopped believing in long since I’d become an adult.”
“What kind of life?”
She froze and snaked her hand free, snagging a beignet. Did that whole bubble-blowing, mouth opening and closing fish thing, which said she didn’t know whether to speak or remain silent.
I grabbed a handful of pecans to avoid saying something stupid and swaying her either way. Sharing had to be her decision.
She inhaled. Long. Slow. Then met my gaze. “A home. A family. Someone who loves me. Kids who depend on me.” Her hands clenched so tight in her lap, crumbling the pastry, turning her knuckles waxen and white. “All of us living a life, safe and secure, never knowing the wrong end of a fist or words meant to cut you to a mere fragment of your original self.”
Chapter 29
Tiffany
I’d said too much.
I heard it in the awkward silence following my outburst. I saw it in Gideon’s expression. I felt it as the old hurts reared up and stabbed at my already aching heart.
Would I ever leave that part of my life behind?
The sharp lines in Gideon’s expression softened. “This is about more than just Richard, isn’t it?”
I shivered, cold in my blood far out-chilling the absence of the sun’s rays. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I get that.” He raised a palm to stall me from further comment. “I won’t push you to share.”
I hadn’t realized my hand was so tightly clenched until it loosened, releasing pastry crumbs and powdered sugar all over my lap. The last thing I’d expected was acceptance.
I nodded, my “thank you” caught somewhere in the back of my throat.
“Saying that, after disclosing certain facts about myself to a certain person . . .” His grin whittled away at some of the chill. “I’ve learned that sharing has the potential to strip pain of its powers. If whatever occurred in the past is still influencing your present, it may help to find someone you trust and talk about it.” He shot me a half-smile when I didn’t react. “It doesn’t have to be me.”
I nodded and tried to look like I was considering his suggestion. What else could I do? Family skeletons belonged six-feet under, dead and buried, left to rot in the ground, not in my goddam head. And not in my new goddam life.
A hand gently unfurled my fist. “Come here.” Gideon edged over and beckoned me to do the same. I shuffled around and backwards, reclining between his legs, his hard, sculpted stomach contracting against my spine, his cock resting deliciously between my butt cheeks. He wrapped me in his arms and I hugged them to my chest.
His cool breath ruffled my hair.
Birdsong floated on the wings of the breeze. Leaves rustled, the wind sighed and my heart thudded loudly in my chest.
Stars sprinkled the sky above.
Time rolled by. Seconds. Minutes. Each breath, each heartbeat marking passing moments that held little or no meaning while I basked in Gideon’s arms.
Tours had long since finished in the other, less private sections of the cemetery. But for some animal rustling through the undergrowth, perhaps a raccoon or mole, we were completely and utterly alone.
Safe.
I sighed, comfortable. Comforted. If only I could bottle up the entire day and keep it secure, somewhere Richard and the other bruises of my world couldn’t reach.
Winter’s chill finally cut through the warmth from my less than adequate clothes and I shivered. He dropped a kiss to my head. “We should go.”
Much as I wanted to stay here, away from the rest of the world, in his arms forever, the cold won the battle.
I nodded and stood, pulling him up.
We packed up the picnic, then headed for home. His home. Was it soon-to-be ours? We hadn’t spoken of semantics and I wasn’t sure it mattered where we lived, only that we would live together. That the peace and openness we’d shared over the course of the day would continue. And maybe Gideon’s show of honesty would go some ways to healing a heart still smarting from the lies of the past.
*
The day had been long, and the night ahead didn’t seem long enough.
The sex was unrushed, the aftermath unchecked. We collapsed in each other’s arms, and when he turned me, wrapping his arms around me from behind, plastering his body to the back of mine, I ignored the skittery beat of my heart and snuggled in.
As my body slowly returned to earth, reality began to set in. Our day of hooky was nearly at an end.
Tomorrow we’d return to work. So much had changed since I’d last entered the pristine buildings of Hagen Pharmaceuticals.
Richard, for one. I’d uploaded my resume on more than one job search site, and already sent out a couple of tentative enquiries. I’d heard nothing back, but it was still early days.
“I’ve been thinking.”
My lips curved. “An exceedingly dangerous occupation.”
He tweaked my nipple.
“Ouch!”
“Behave.”
“Or what?”
His hand slid south. “Or not. I happen to enjoy it when you don’t behave.” He smiled into my neck, stopping just shy of my tummy. “However, I wanted to say . . . I’ve been thinking about your position at Hagen.”
Serenity spilled from my body as if it were river waters tumbling over a fall.
“Would you consider staying on and applying for Mannie’s position?”
“No.” The word escaped without thought.
“Wow, that was fast.”
“I don’t need time to think. Richard is toxic, and I’ve suffered enough toxicity in my life to fill a whole damn dumpsite. Anywhere he is, I don’t want to be.”
“I get that.” He brushed across my belly button in cyclic, barely-there strokes. “Have you considered that the reason Richard still has power over you is because you feed it? Maybe if you stop running and face your fears, you’ll cut short not only his chase, but also whatever sick pleasure he derives from seeing you scared. You’ll win and he’ll lose, and eventually he’ll skulk off to whatever hole he crawled out from to lick his wounds.”
The idea wasn’t new. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t already realized that I handed Richard opportunity to strike me down every time I showed him my fear. Of course, knowing was one thing. Having the strength to do something about it was entirely different.
“Think about it. If you continue not to face him, you’ll spend the rest of your life running.” His palm stroked my tummy in slow, circular caresses. “And don’t forget, this time will be different, because I’m here for you.”
Warm and fuzzy weren’t emotions I’d ever indulged, until now. Gideon’s presence shouldn’t have factored—I’d learned the hard way to rely on no one outside of myself.
But he made it all sound so simple
, so easy. And dammit, he was right. The more I ran, the more pleasure Richard derived from intimidating me. His sneering face rose up in my mind. My heart raced, but with less vigor than before. Even the stupid bitch spilling from his lips rang with less angst.
Perhaps I could do this.
I’d have been lying if I said working with Gideon, as well as playing with Gideon, didn’t sway me. Amazing what great sex and even greater company did for the soul.
I didn’t need to make a decision now, but what I could do is make a decision to think on it. It was a start, and one step in a direction I’d never imagined taking before now.
He stroked my waist, my hip, my thigh. “So, what do you say?”
“You want to work with me?”
He paused. “Very much so.”
“You won’t get bored?”
“Why would I?”
Because every other man I’ve allowed past first date status has done exactly that.
I had to slap that thought, hard. Gideon wasn’t Richard. He’d proven time and time again he outstripped him in every way imaginable.
That included the slow, seductive sweep of his palm back over my hip.
I allowed the sensation to lull me into lethargy, the cocoon of Gideon’s body at my back, his hand doing delicious things to my front.
His mouth stroked sensation over the curve of my shoulder. “Tiff? Will you give it a try?”
I closed my eyes and imagined another life. The life of my vision.
My heart tugged and my mind had no choice but to follow. “Yes.”
*
“What’s this?”
I lowered my book to watch Gideon stride into the bedroom, skin still slicked from his shower, a blue towel slung low on his hips. Hot fucking hell. He was gorgeous. My mouth watered automatically. And that wasn’t the wettest place on my body.
I dropped my gaze from the wicked glint in his eye to Sammy, wrapped firmly in his very large, very skillful hand. I’d moved him from my underwear drawer to the bathroom cabinet, assuming he’d be safer. I’d been wrong.
“Not what. Who.” I crossed my legs—bare but for Gideon’s tee resting mid-thigh—and leaned further back against the headboard, trading wicked glint for wicked glint as I rolled my hand through the air. “Gideon, Sammy. Sammy, Gideon.”
“It has a name?” He quirked a brow.
I quirked one back. “Of course. Don’t all boyfriends?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Absolutely not. I never kid about sex.”
He stared at my old flame—the large, thick shaft, the wide, swollen head, the rabbit-eared stimulator—then flicked the switch. Motorized beads rolled up and down the aqua blue length while the stimulators pulsed and shuddered.
Heat swamped my core, not from the familiar whirr of the motor, or the memory of thick, vibrating silicone sliding into my quivering flesh. Sammy had long been relegated to the shelf, and not once had he been missed.
It was this big, beautiful man, holding my silicone pleasure machine in his hand, making me hotter than an Arizona heatwave.
His nostrils flared in a way that said he’d caught the scent of my arousal, and the slow curve of his lips said he liked it. “Should I be jealous?”
“Only if you doubt your prowess.”
He moved closer, the throbbing, rotating shaft still clutched in his hand. “I think my prowess is perfectly intact, considering your screams this morning—was it four times?”
Five, actually. But who’s counting?
He glanced from Sammy to me, a teasing tilt to his lips. “Did you love him?”
I shrugged. “He was reliable, dependable and always willing. I wasn’t after anything more.”
“So, lust then?” He twirled him in his hands, then held him out for me to take. “Show me.”
Holy fuckoly.
“You want to watch?”
“I can’t think of anything hotter.”
My gaze slid down from his hand to the tent in his towel. I grabbed Sammy and edged the hem of my tee upwards. “Lose the towel.”
With one flick, it dropped to the floor.
He was glorious. A god. Making me want to drop to my knees and worship every amazing inch.
I knew his texture. His taste. I licked my lips, splayed my legs and eased Sammy between my thighs. Gideon’s gaze turned golden.
“Closer.”
Two steps and his cock was within reach, fresh from the shower, radiating pine, fresh grass and potent male arousal.
I was so fucking wet. So fucking ready. With slow, steady pressure, I eased Sammy inside, watching the twitch of Gideon’s cock, the seep of precum escaping his tip.
“Closer.”
One more step and he towered over me. I pushed Sammy deep, his stimulators massaging my clit as I flicked my tongue at Gideon’s cock, swirled his head, sucked the tip.
He growled.
I panted, releasing Sammy, then pressing him deep again. In, out, in perfect rhythm with my play on Gideon’s cock. One hand still moving Sammy, I reached up with the other and stroked him, hard, heavy muscle encased in satin-soft skin.
A smorgasbord offered up for my hedonistic pleasure.
He groaned, bucked his hips, hands carving through my hair, mad for me. He tasted so fucking good, felt so fucking good.
I caught the onslaught of my spiral, mind and body taking flight.
Gideon shuddered, and I knew I wanted more. More than Sammy. More than this space between us.
“Stop.”
A big, strong hand wrapped around his cock and I dropped Sammy beside me.
My gaze clashed with his. “I want you.”
He didn’t need asking twice. With one swift move he was sheathed, on the bed and into my body.
Bliss.
He growled into my ear. “You’re so fucking sexy.”
“Ditto.”
He grinned. I wrapped my legs around his hips and rode the wave of sensation as his cock pushed me up and over the edge of no return. Fast. Furious. Fucking insane. My flesh pulsed hungrily around him as he thrust one last time, filling my body, feeding my soul.
What had started out as fun had become fan-fucking-tastic. Gideon did that. He made every day different, every time as fresh as the first.
Anticipation skittered through my sex-slaked body. The future opened up, blank pages in my personal biography just waiting to be written. I had a lifetime of firsts to look forward to, starting now.
*
Gideon made it easy to fall into happiness.
Stolen kisses peppered the following days at work, while my nights were heated and hedonistic, Gideon filling my body and feeding my soul, whittling away at the barricades surrounding my heart.
Work in the lab took on a new light. Graeme requested I apply for Mannie’s soon-to-be available position. It seemed both Mannie and Gideon were on board with the idea, and that was good enough for him. I bit back the irritation over his willingness to listen to two Y-chromosomes over one pair of X.
Did it really matter how I secured the position? I’d more than earned it. And now, finally, the promotion was within reach. All it had needed was the belief of one person.
I found myself smiling at the simplest things. Breakfast in bed. A soy latte and choc-berry muffin mysteriously appearing on my desk. Chocolate hearts sprinkled over my pillow. Post-it messages pinned to the refrigerator.
A man’s arms around me as I tumbled into sleep, and a firm body cocooning me as I awoke. And sex . . . body-melting, mind-blowing, orgasmic moments that awakened my body and threw every preconceived notion clear out of the water.
So many little things to enrich my world. So easy to become accustomed, to forget what life was like before Gideon.
“Hey.”
I looked up from my computer screen and test results the clock told me I’d been staring at blankly for the past fifteen minutes. “Hey.” The smile started in my chest before it spread to my lips.
“I was thinking . . .�
�� He leaned in and brushed a curl back from my forehead.
I shivered. “Again? This is becoming a habit.”
He moved closer, deliciously filling my space, and all I could smell was pine and Gideon.
“I thought I’d cook dinner tonight. How does paella sound?”
“Fucking fabulous.”
“Oh, and I cleared out a drawer.” His gaze hooked mine. “Just so you have somewhere to leave your stuff when you stay over.”
I froze. It was all happening so fast. A drawer. The permanence of those words coiled through my brain.
His brows dipped, his expression etched with concern. “Is one enough? Or do you need two?”
He was so goddam cute, how could I allow my fears to ruin everything we’d built the past few days? I pressed my lips into what I hoped resembled a smile. “One is fine.”
“Good.” He ducked and dropped a kiss on my nose.
This time the smile was genuine. I swatted him away. “Gideon!”
“What? Who’s going to say something?” He swept the hair from my neck.
I closed my eyes, his touch playing havoc with the sensitive band of skin beneath my hairline. “It’s not what they say, it’s what they think. I need to appear professional if I want to be considered for the CDC Head Scientist role.”
“Oh, they’ll more than consider you if I have anything to do with it.”
Emotion thickened in my throat. “Thank you.”
“You deserve this, Tiff. You’re the best choice for the job.”
“That’s never mattered before. But this time there’s a difference. You.”
“This is all on you.” The flutter of his fingertips slipped beneath the neckline of my top, sending shivers to the tips of my toes. “But if you insist on thanking me, I can think of a dozen ways.”
Heat swamped the flesh between my thighs. “And I can think of a dozen more.”
He perched on the edge of my desk, the same desk where he’d delivered that first unforgettable orgasm. Not the disappointment I’d once anticipated.