by Day, Sylvia
It was the nature of our relationship to be lusty and emotional, earthy and raw. The trust that held us together also opened us up to each other in ways that made us both vulnerable and dangerous. And it would get worse before it got better.
He shoved a hand through his hair. “Eva, I—”
“I love you, Gideon.”
“God.” He looked at me with something that resembled disgust. Whether it was directed at me or himself, I didn’t know. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s the truth.”
“You just see this”—he gestured at himself with a wave of his hand. “You’re not seeing the fucked-up, broken mess inside.”
I inhaled sharply. “You can say that to me? When you know I’m fucked up and broken, too?”
“Maybe you’re wired to go for someone who’s terrible for you,” he said bitterly.
“Stop it. I know you’re hurting, but lashing out at me is only going to make you hurt worse.” I glanced at the clock and saw it was four in the morning. I walked toward him, needing to get past my fear of touching him and being touched by him.
He held up a hand as if to hold me off. “I’m going home, Eva.”
“Sleep on the couch here. Don’t fight me about this, Gideon. Please. I’l worry myself sick if you go.”
“You’l be more worried if I stay.” He stared at me, looking lost and angry and fil ed with terrible yearning.
His eyes pleaded with me for forgiveness, but he wouldn’t accept it when I tried to give it to him.
I went to him and took his hand, fighting back the surge of apprehension that hit me when we touched.
My nerves were stil raw, my throat and mouth stil sore, the memory of his attempts at penetration—so like Nathan’s—were stil too fresh. “We’l g-get through this,” I promised him, hating that my voice quavered.
“You’l talk to Dr. Petersen and we’l go from there.” His hand lifted as if to touch my face. “If Cary hadn’t been here—”
“He was, and I’l be fine. I love you. We’l get past this.” I walked into him, hugging him, pushing my hands beneath his shirt to touch his bare skin. “We’re not going to let the past get in the way of what we have.” I wasn’t sure which of us I was trying to convince.
“Eva.” His returning hug squeezed al of the air out of me. “I’m sorry. It’s kil ing me. Please. Forgive me…I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t.” My eyes closed, focusing on the feel of him. The smel of him. Remembering that I once feared nothing when I was with him.
“I’m so sorry.” His shaking hands stroked the curve of my spine. “I’l do anything…”
“Shh. I love you. We’l be okay.”
Turning his head, he kissed me softly. “Forgive me, Eva. I need you. I’m afraid of what I’l become if I lose you…”
“I’m not going anywhere.” My skin tingled beneath the restless glide of his hands on my back. “I’m right here. No more running.”
He paused, his breath gusting harshly against my lips. Then he tilted his head and sealed his mouth over mine. My body responded to the gentle coaxing of his kiss. I arched into him without volition, pul ing him closer.
He cupped my breasts in his hands, kneading them, circling the pads of his thumbs over my nipples until they peaked and ached. I moaned with a mixture of fear and hunger, and he quivered at the sound.
“Eva…?”
“I—I can’t.” The memory of how I’d woken up was too fresh in my mind. It hurt me to deny him, knowing he needed the same thing from me as I’d needed from him when I told him about Nathan—proof that the desire was stil there, that as ugly as the scars of our pasts were, they didn’t affect what we were to each other now.
But I couldn’t give him that. Not yet. I felt too raw and vulnerable. “Just hold me, Gideon. Please.” He nodded, wrapping his arms around me.
I urged him to sink to the floor with me, hoping I could get him to fal asleep. I curled into his side, my leg thrown over his, my arm draped over his hard stomach. He squeezed me gently, pressing his lips to my forehead, whispering over and over again how sorry he was.
“Don’t leave me,” I whispered. “Stay.”
Gideon didn’t answer, didn’t make any promises, but he didn’t let me go either.
I woke sometime later, hearing Gideon’s heart beating steadily beneath my ear. Al the lights were stil on, and the carpeted floor was hard and uncomfortable.
Gideon lay on his back, his beautiful face youthful in sleep, his shirt lifted just enough to expose his navel and the ripped muscles of his abdomen.
This was the man I loved. This was the man whose body gave me such pleasure, whose thoughtfulness moved me over and over again. He was stil here. And from the frown that marred the space between his brows, he was stil hurting.
I slid my hand into his sweatpants. For the first time since we’d been together, he wasn’t hot steel in my palms, but he quickly swel ed and thickened as I tentatively stroked him from root to tip. Fear lingered just beneath my arousal, but I was more afraid of losing him than of living with the demons inside him.
He stirred, his arm tightening around my back.
“Eva…?”
This time I answered him the way I couldn’t before.
“Let’s forget,” I breathed into his mouth. “Make us forget.”
“Eva.”
He rol ed into me, peeling my shirt off with cautious movements. I was similarly tentative in undressing him.
We approached each other as if each of us was breakable. The bond between us was fragile just then, both of us apprehensive about the future and the wounds we could inflict with al of our jagged edges.
His lips wrapped around my nipple, his cheeks hol owing slowly, his seduction subdued. The tender suckling felt so good I gasped and arched into his hand. He caressed my side from breast to hip and back again, over and over, gentling me as my heart raced wildly.
He kissed across my chest to the other breast, murmuring words of apology and need in a voice broken by regret and misery. His tongue lapped at the hardened point, worrying it, before surrounding it with wet heat and suction.
“Gideon.” The delicate pul s expertly coaxed desire through my skittish mind. My body was already lost in him, greedily seeking the pleasure and beauty of his.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he whispered. “Don’t pul away.”
He kissed my navel, and then moved lower, his hair caressing my stomach as he settled between my legs.
He held me open with shaking hands and nuzzled my clit. His light, teasing licks through my cleft and the fluttering dips into my trembling sex took me to the edge of insanity.
My back bowed. Hoarse pleas left my lips. Tension spread through my body, tightening everything until I felt like I might snap under the pressure. And then he pushed me into orgasm with the softest nudge of the tip of his tongue.
I cried out, heated relief pulsing through my writhing body.
“I can’t let you go, Eva.” Gideon levered over me as I vibrated with pleasure. “I can’t.”
Brushing away the tear tracks from his face, I stared into his reddened eyes. His torment was painful for me to witness, hurting my heart. “I wouldn’t let you if you tried.”
He took himself in hand and fed his cock slowly, careful y into me. My head pressed hard into the floor as he sank deeper, possessing my body one thick inch at a time.
When I’d taken al of him, he began to move in measured, deliberate thrusts. I closed my eyes and focused on the connection between us. Then he settled onto me, his stomach pressed to mine, and my pulse leaped with panic. Abruptly frightened, I hesitated.
“Look at me, Eva.” His voice was so hoarse it was unrecognizable.
I did, and saw his anguish.
“Make love to me,” he begged in a breathless whisper. “Make love with me. Touch me, angel. Put your hands on me.”
“Yes.” My palms pressed flat to his back; then stroked over the quivering musc
les to his ass.
Squeezing the hard flexing flesh, I urged him to move faster, plunge deeper.
The rhythmic strokes of his heavy cock through the clenching depths of my sex pushed ecstasy through me in heated waves. He felt so good. My legs wrapped around his plunging hips, my breath quickening as the cold knot inside me began to melt.
Our gazes held.
Tears coursed down my temples. “I love you, Gideon.”
“Please…” His eyes squeezed shut.
“I love you.”
He lured me to orgasm with the skil ed rol ing of his hips, stirring his cock inside me. My sex clenched tightly, trying to hold him, trying to keep him deep in me.
“Come, Eva,” he gasped against my throat.
I struggled for it, struggled to get past the lingering apprehension that came from having him on top of me.
The anxiety mingled with the desire, keeping me on edge.
He made a hoarse sound fil ed with pain and regret.
“Need you to come, Eva…need to feel you…
Please…”
Cupping my buttocks, he angled my hips and stroked over and over that sensitive spot inside me.
He was tireless, relentless, fucking me long and hard until my mind lost control of my body and I came violently. I bit his shoulder to stem my cries as I shook beneath him, the tiny muscles inside me trembling with ecstatic ripples. He groaned deep in his chest, a serrated sound of tormented pleasure.
“More,” he ordered, deepening his drives to give me that delectable bite of soreness. That he once again trusted us both enough to introduce that little touch of pain chased away the last of my reservations. As much as we trusted each other, we were learning to trust our instincts, too.
I came again, ferociously, my toes curling until they cramped. I felt the familiar tension grip Gideon and tightened my grasp on his hips, spurring him on, desperate to feel him spurting inside me.
“No!” He wrenched away, fal ing to his back and throwing an arm over his eyes. Punishing himself by denying his body the comfort and pleasure of mine.
His chest heaved and glistened with sweat. His cock lay heavily on his bel y, brutal-looking with its broad purpled head and thick roping of veins.
I dove for it with hands and mouth, ignoring his vicious curse. Pinning his torso with my forearm, I pumped him hard with my other fist and sucked voraciously on the sensitive crown. His thighs quivered, his legs kicking restlessly.
“Damn it, Eva. Fuck.” He stiffened and gasped, his hands shoving into my hair, his hips bucking. “Oh, fuck.
Suck it hard…Ah, Christ…”
He exploded in a powerful rush that almost choked me, coming hard, flooding my mouth. I took it al , my fist milking pulse after pulse up the throbbing length of his cock, swal owing repeatedly until he shuddered with the surfeit of sensation and begged me to stop.
I straightened and Gideon sat up and wrapped himself around me. He took me back down to the floor
where he buried his face in my throat and cried until dawn.
I wore a black long-sleeved silk blouse and slacks to work on Tuesday, feeling the need to have a barrier between myself and the world. In the kitchen, Gideon cupped my face in his hands and brushed his mouth across mine with heartrending tenderness. His gaze remained haunted.
“Lunch?” I asked, feeling like we needed to cling to the connection between us.
“I have a business lunch.” He ran his fingers through my loose hair. “Would you come? I’l make sure Angus gets you back to work on time.”
“I’d love to come along.” I thought of the schedule of evening events, meetings, and appointments he’d sent to my smartphone. “And tomorrow night we have a benefit dinner at the Waldorf=Astoria?” His gaze softened. Dressed for work, he looked somber yet col ected. I knew he was anything but.
“You real y won’t give up on me, wil you?” he asked quietly.
I held up my right hand and showed him my ring.
“You’re stuck with me, Cross. Get used to it.” On the drive to work, he cuddled me in his lap, and again on the ride to lunch at Jean Georges. I didn’t speak more than a dozen words during the meal, which Gideon ordered for me and I enjoyed
immensely.
I sat quietly at his side, my left hand resting on his hard thigh beneath the tablecloth, a wordless affirmation of my commitment to him. To us. One of his hands rested over mine, warm and strong, as he discussed a new property in development on St. Croix.
We kept that connection throughout the entire meal, each of us choosing to eat one-handed rather than separate.
With each hour that passed, I felt the horror of the night before drain away from both of us. It would be another scar to add to his col ection, another bitter memory he’d always have, a memory I would share and fear along with him, but it wouldn’t rule us. We wouldn’t let it.
Angus was waiting to take me home when my day ended. Gideon was working late, and then going directly from the Crossfire to Dr. Petersen’s office. I used the length of the drive to steel myself for the next round of training with Parker. I debated skipping it, but ended up deciding it was important to keep to a routine. So much in my life was uncontrol able at the moment. Fol owing a schedule was one of the few things total y within my power.
After an hour and a half of tagging and groundwork with Parker at the studio, I was relieved when Clancy dropped me off at home and proud of myself for working out when it was the last thing I’d wanted to do.
When I stepped into the lobby, I found Trey talking to the front desk.
“Hey,” I greeted him. “Going up?”
He turned to face me, his brown eyes warm and his smile open. Trey had a gentleness to him, a kind of straightforward naïveté that was different from the other relationships Cary’d had before. Or maybe I should just say Trey was “normal,” which so few of the people in my and Cary’s lives were.
“Cary’s not in,” he said. “They just tried cal ing.”
“You’re welcome to come up with me and wait. I won’t be going out again.”
“If you real y don’t mind.” He fel into step beside me as I waved at the gal at the front desk and moved toward the elevators. “I brought something for him.”
“I don’t mind at al ,” I assured him, returning his sweet smile.
He eyed my yoga pants and tank top. “You just get back from the gym?”
“Yeah. Despite it being one of those days when I’d rather have done anything else.” He laughed as we stepped into the elevator. “I know that feeling.”
As we rode up, silence descended. It was weighted.
“Everything al right?” I asked him.
“Wel …” Trey adjusted the sling of his backpack.
“Cary’s just seemed a little off the last few days.”
“Oh?” I bit my lower lip. “In what way?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I just feel like maybe something’s up with him and I’m missing what it is.”
I thought of the blonde and winced inwardly. “Maybe he’s stressed about the Grey Isles job and he doesn’t want to bother you with it. He knows you’ve got your hands ful with your job and school.”
The tension in his shoulders softened. “Maybe that’s it. It makes sense. Okay. Thank you.”
I let us in to the apartment and told him to make himself at home. Trey headed to Cary’s room to drop his stuff, while I went to the phone to check the voice mail.
A shout from down the hal way had me reaching for the phone for a different reason, my heart thudding with thoughts of intruders and imminent danger. More yel ing fol owed, with one voice clearly belonging to Cary.
I exhaled in a rush, relieved. With the phone in my hand, I ventured to see what the hel was going on. I was nearly run over by Tatiana rounding the hal way corner stil buttoning her blouse.
“Oops,” she said, with an unapologetic grin. “See ya.”
I couldn’t hear the door shut behind her over Tre
y’s shouting.
“Fuck you, Cary. We talked about this! You promised!”
“You’re blowing this out of proportion,” Cary barked.
“It’s not what you think.”
Trey came storming out of Cary’s bedroom in such a rush that I plastered myself to the hal way wal to get out of his way. Cary fol owed, with a sheet slung around his waist. As he passed me, I shot him a narrow-eyed glance that earned me a fuck-off middle finger.
I left the two men alone and escaped into my shower, angry at Cary for once again ruining something good in his life. It was a pattern I kept hoping he’d break, but he couldn’t seem to kick it.
When I came out to the kitchen a half hour later, the stil ness in the apartment was absolute. I focused on cooking dinner, deciding to go with a pork roast and new potatoes with asparagus, one of Cary’s favorite dinners, in case he was home for dinner and needed some cheering up.
The sight of Trey stepping into the hal way while I was putting the roast in the oven surprised me, and then it made me sad. I hated to see him leave looking flushed, disheveled, and crying. My pity turned to fierce disappointment when Cary joined me in the kitchen with the scent of male sweat and sex clinging to him.
He shot me a scowl as he passed me on his way to the wine fridge.
I faced him with my arms crossed. “Screwing a heartbroken lover on the same sheets he’s just caught you cheating on isn’t going to make things better.”
“Shut up, Eva.”
“He’s probably hating himself right now for giving in.”
“I said shut the fuck up.”
“Fine.” I turned away from him and focused on seasoning the potatoes to put in the oven with the roast.
Cary grabbed wineglasses out of the cupboard. “I can feel you judging me. Stop it. He wouldn’t be half as pissed if it’d been a man he caught me fucking.”
“It’s al his fault, huh?”
“Newsflash: Your love life isn’t perfect either.”