Gideon regarded her for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, talk.”
Janelle disappeared through a door on the side of the living room. She didn’t close the main door, but she did close the bathroom door, evident from the telltale clicking sound. Did she lock the door?
Probably best she did that. After seeing her, Gideon wanted to strip down and hop into the shower with her.
Down, boy. Easy.
He returned to the kitchen and placed all the containers on the counter in front of the plates. He caught the smell of fresh coffee before he noticed that she’d made herself a cup. He placed the mug on the counter by a plate and poured himself a cup. He also grabbed a couple of glasses and filled them with ice and water. With what he’d brought for dinner, he didn’t know if she would be able to handle the heat.
By the time he finished dressing the area with folded napkins and utensils, he heard the shower stop. He allowed his imagination to wander. Janelle would be drying off her delicious body, moving the towel down over her curves.
“How are you doing in there?” He needed to fill the space with some chatter to keep his thoughts off Janelle and her body.
“Getting dressed,” she said from her room. “Be there in a minute.”
Gideon took the opportunity to take in his surroundings. The modest apartment had hardwood floors throughout except in the kitchen. Tan tile covered that floor. One dark brown couch sat against the wall. Besides her newly acquired plants, she’d decorated the home with paintings and photographs of flowers.
“I know it’s not like your place.”
He turned around when he heard her voice. Now dressed in black leggings and a formfitting T-shirt, she still looked good enough to eat. She took her hair down from its bun and allowed her wild curls to dance over her head. She’d covered her lips with a pink lipstick. Thick gray socks covered her feet.
“No, it’s better.” He approached her.
“Don’t tease me.” She made her way to the breakfast bar.
“I’m not. This place feels cozy, like a hug. My house is huge for a couple of reasons. For one, that’s what the home owners association required.” He pulled the chair out for her before she sat. “The second reason is because I’m hoping to one day get married and fill it with a boatload of kids.”
“Really?”
He sat down across from her. “Yes. What about you? You want kids?”
“Of course.” She put her hand to her stomach. “I’d like to think I will be a better mother than my own.” She dropped her gaze for a moment. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring in a heavy topic.”
“No, I like it when you’re real.” He stared at her for a moment before looking over at what he’d brought. “I hope you’re into Indian food.”
“I’ve never had it, but I’m willing to try anything.”
“Good, because I actually brought Mexican.”
She gave his arm a playful slap. “You are so wrong. I thought I smelled cilantro.”
“I have nachos and cheese along with some salsa. I have tamales, chicken with chorizo, refried beans, rice, guacamole. I brought a buffet of food.”
“Good. I’m starving.” She rubbed her stomach.
“I’ll serve.” He spooned beans and rice onto their plates, then placed a chicken taco on each plate. “Start with that first.”
Gideon thought he had a voracious appetite. He watched Janelle. She finished off her plate of food and went in for seconds, getting the grilled chicken and chorizo in her next round. Her satisfied moans let him know his dinner pick had hit her spot.
With her formal dinner done, Janelle started on the nachos. “I can’t believe you’re here in my home.”
“Why?” He picked up a chip and ate it plain. The taste brought him back to the days of working in a Mexican restaurant to help pay for additional expenses while in college. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to see you. So tell me why you didn’t want to see me. What are you protecting me from?”
She shoveled another salsa-filled chip in her mouth, probably to stall for time. She made sure to chew it completely before she answered. “I go on the Internet all the time. There are pictures of us everywhere. They’re saying such nasty things about you.”
“See, that’s the problem. Stop reading the stuff you see on social media. It’ll drive you crazy. It’ll make you angry.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “I don’t want to see this face angry. Like I said before, I could care less what people say about me. The only people I care about are my family and you.”
“But they keep coming to my store and asking me questions.”
He shook his head. “Don’t answer them. Eventually, they’ll leave. They’ll make up stories anyway, even if you tell them the truth.”
“And what’s the truth?”
He put his fork down and regarded her seriously. “That you’re truly, deeply, achingly in love with me.”
She could barely contain the food in her mouth through her laughter. “Stop it. You’re going to make me choke.”
“I’ll save you.”
“Speaking of saving. How did you and your brothers get with Queen Elizabeth? I know you said you were adopted when you were about seven.”
He hadn’t really talked about that with anyone outside of the family. “Our biological mother was a bad drug addict. I was old enough to remember the funny-looking glass pipes that littered our trailer. There were people that were in and out of our home all the time.” Recalling those moments, Gideon could almost feel the roaches crawling on his skin again. He swiped his hand down his arm before continuing. “Once Thane was born, Child Protective Services came to the house and took all of us. I have no idea who my father is, although once I made pro, lots of men tried reaching me to tell me they’d had sex with my mother. Not an awkward conversation at all to have with a perfect stranger. Anyway, the three of us got bounced from one foster home to another. Sometimes, the three of us were together. Sometimes, we got separated. Queen took the three of us in her home as a foster mother at first.” He smiled to himself. “I remember the moment she took the three of us upstairs in her home and pointed out our individual rooms. We had never had a room of our own. We always shared bed in a room that we shared with someone else or shared a couch or slept on the floor somewhere. With her, we had our own rooms with our own beds. The house was warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and not the other way around. And she could cook. Man, my mom is great in the kitchen.”
“Sounds idyllic.” Janelle dipped a chip into the cheese mixture and then the salsa before taking a bite.
“It was. I count my lucky stars every time I think about where I could be had I stayed with my birth mother. I would probably be in jail or a junkie or dead.”
“Have you heard or seen from her?”
Gideon shook his head. “Last I heard, she died of an overdose when I was a senior in high school. I believe it. I never did any digging, and I would never disrespect my mother now to try and find any information on her. It doesn’t matter. I’m where I need to be.” He picked up his coffee and took a sip. “What about you? You’re tight-lipped about your family.” He scanned the living room area. “I don’t even see pictures of them on the wall.”
“Not much to tell.” She kept her gaze down. “That I know of, I’m an only child. My mother had me when she was fifteen years old. Unlike your birth mother, mine wasn’t a junkie. She rolled with a bunch of older kids, including the rumored twenty-five-year-old pervert who knocked her up before skipping town.”
Gideon blinked. “Wow. Heavy. So you never knew your dad?”
“Not really. I saw pictures of him.”
“Your mother had pictures of him?”
She shook her head. “No. She told me his name. I Googled him and found him on the sex offender registry for Virginia. Yes, he’s currently doing time for taking inappropriate liberties with a minor. It made me sick. I look up his information from time to time to see if he’s o
ut of jail. Otherwise, I don’t care to know him.”
“And your mother?”
She let out a sarcastic laugh. “She’s busy trying to be my best friend. She thinks it’s cool to only be fifteen years apart. She gives me such horrible advice on life and men.” She waited a beat before she continued. “She’s one of the reasons why I want to stay away from you. You are amazing. You shouldn’t get wrapped up in me and my screwed-up family.”
“Hey.” He framed her small face in his hands. “I’m a big boy, and a pretty good judge of character. You let me take care of any issues that come my way. As long as you like me, that’s all that matters.”
She turned her head and kissed the palm. “I do like you. A lot.” She touched his knee.
Not wanting her to feel his knee brace he had hidden under his pants, he held her.
“Did you make an appointment to have the surgery?” she asked.
Gideon couldn’t lie to her. “No. Playing football is all I really have. It’s what I want to do. I can’t have that ruined, and if I have this surgery I’ll have to be out of commission for months.”
She sighed and got out of her chair. She stood between his legs. “You remember when you said you wanted children?”
Gideon nodded. “Are you offering to start now?”
She grinned at his lighthearted joke and then became somber again. “Think about your house full of children, all running around you, and you barely able to walk or keep up with them. Imagine not being able to hold them.” She held his shoulders.
“You are amazing, you know that?” He watched her blink at his statement.
“Why do you say that?”
“You are so open when you talk to me. But during sex, you barely make a sound.” He watched her face flush to a bright shade of pink.
Janelle tried stepping back, but Gideon caught her around her waist and pulled her forward. “You are so strange.”
“No, I’m not. Men want to know that they’re fully satisfying their partners in bed. If you keep it all bottled up”—he kissed her neck—“I won’t know if what I’m doing is turning you on.”
“Trust me. You definitely turn me on.”
“I do?” He slipped his hands up the back of her shirt. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’d like to show you. But you have to do one thing for me.” She pulled on his hand and guided him toward her bedroom.
“What’s that?”
Once inside of her bedroom, she went to a tall dresser and opened the top drawer. She pulled out a long, black scarf. “You have to trust me.”
Chapter 19
Janelle had had no plans to ever sleep with Gideon again, although every cell and molecule in her body had begged her to amend her thinking. Seeing him again and listening to him and touching him had her changing her tune.
“What’s the scarf for?” Gideon peered down at her hands before returning his stare to her eyes.
“Let’s call it a trust exercise.” She approached the big man, who looked even more massive in her small bedroom.
Only a couple of feet separated his head from her low ceiling. If he spread his arms apart, he probably could touch the walls on either end.
Her home embarrassed her compared to Gideon’s palatial estate. His bedroom had been decorated in all white, from the walls to the linens. He had several bedrooms and bathrooms and even an in-law suite. She barely had room to add a litter pan for a cat. Then she remembered his story about his childhood. He had been in homes worse than her tiny apartment.
Janelle touched his muscular chest over his pullover sweater. He didn’t have to flex for her to feel his muscles. She licked her lips as she brought her hand to his small pebbled nipple. Using the tip of her finger, she circled it. Under her manipulation, it became harder. She listened to his breathing becoming heavy.
Gideon eased his hand behind her head to bring her forward. When he pressed his lips against hers, her body tingled from her scalp to the soles of her feet. She felt the need to remove all of her clothing so that her bare skin could rub against his. First, she needed to get him naked.
She stepped back long enough to remove his top over his head, or high enough so that he could finish the job. With his bare chest in front of her, she pressed against him. She sought his nipple with one hand. She kissed the other and then licked it.
He growled and wrapped his arm around her waist. She felt so secure in his arms, like nothing mattered outside of her home. He made her feel important and sexy.
As soon as she felt him reaching under her shirt to remove it, she backed up. “I’m the one driving here.”
“That means I don’t get to touch you?”
The longer she looked at him, the more she wanted to buckle. “Not yet. I want you to relax your need to control everything.”
He leaned his head down. In a lowered voice, he said, “You’re asking for a lot.”
She nodded.
“If I’m going to be giving up something, I expect you do to the same.” He swept her hair over her ear and whispered. “I want you to scream.” To ignite the spark, he licked the shell of her ear and then nibbled her fleshy lobe.
“Oh, God.” She put her hand to his chest again in an attempt to push him back.
Instead, she eased it around to his back and held him in place. She felt his heart pounding as she touched his back. He started kissing down her neck. Her body felt like he had doused her with gasoline and set her body aflame.
“Wait. Wait.” Janelle attempted to catch her breath. “I need you to sit on the bed.”
Gideon peered down. “Little difficult to do in my current state.”
She started to look down to see what he meant. Before she could do so, he took her hand and held it against the front of his jeans. His impressive erection pressed against his zipper and the tip nearly peeked over the button closure.
“Jesus.” To give him some relief, and to take another look at his penis, she unbuttoned his jeans and slowly eased down the zipper.
Janelle hooked her thumbs on the sides of his jeans and his briefs, and pushed them down his legs. As she crouched down in front of him, his hard cock waved in her face. She got his jeans down around his ankles.
“Now sit on the bed.” She nudged him back so that he landed on her platform bed.
Janelle dropped to her knees to free him of his shoes and jeans. She finally got to see his knee brace. “Do you need to leave this on?” She rested her hand on his knee.
“No.” He ripped the Velcro straps apart and freed himself from the orthopedic cage. He tossed the device on the floor. “Okay, you have me naked. Now what will you do to me?”
She crawled on the bed and moved behind him. She removed the scarf she had hanging around her neck. “Remember, you trust me.”
“I’m trying.”
“Close your eyes.” She waited a beat before she covered his eyes and tied the silky fabric around his head. “Now lie down.”
Gideon did so. “You’d better be joining me soon or this blindfold is coming off.”
“No. Don’t.” She kissed him. “I hope you like this.” Janelle crawled out of bed.
“Where are you going?” He reached his hand up like he wanted to touch her.
“I’m getting undressed.” She pulled her shirt over her head and removed her bra.
“No fair. I want to see that.” He started to take off his blindfold when she stopped him.
“Hey, no peeking. You promised you would do this.”
“Okay.” He lowered his hand. “I hope you know you’re the only woman I have ever let do this to me.”
“Really? None of your previous girlfriends wanted to blindfold you or tie you down?” She removed her pants and panties.
“You aren’t going to tie me down, are you?” A bit of worry laced his voice.
“Would you let me?” She tiptoed to her adjoining bathroom and looked around for lotion or baby oil.
“You really are pushing it, aren’t you?”
Unable to find oil, she went with her vanilla-scented lotion. When she returned to the bedroom, she straddled his body. “I don’t want to tie you down. Just keep you blindfolded so that you don’t know what’s coming.”
Gideon put his hands on Janelle’s thighs. “I have condoms in my wallet.”
She leaned forward and put her mouth by his ear. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect us both.”
He wrapped his arms around her in her prone position. While down on his body, she kissed the side of his face. His goatee scratched against her skin.
When she felt him trying to turn her over onto her back, she wriggled out of his grip and sat. “Relax.”
“How am I supposed to do that when you—”
The first dollop of lotion that hit Gideon’s chest silenced him for a moment. His body stiffened under hers. When she rubbed the creamy lotion into his flesh, she felt his body loosening. He exhaled and rested his hands on her thighs.
“Smells like a cake or cookies.” He took in a deep breath.
“It’s my lotion. You like it?”
“Do I like you rubbing my body? Of course. Do I like smelling like a bakery? Not so much.” He chuckled.
“Hey, are you saying I smelling like a pastry?” Before he could answer, Janelle reached down and held Gideon’s sac.
He gritted his teeth and arched his back. “You smell and feel so good.”
“Good answer.” She continued massaging him until he sat and wrapped his arms around her.
“You are torturing me, you know that, right? I couldn’t watch you undress. You’re limiting my touch. And now you’re making me so hard I can’t think straight because all my blood is rushing to my lower half.”
“I thought you liked a little teasing.” She raked her fingers through his blond hair.
“Teasing is one thing. Tormenting me is something else. But two can play that game.” He lowered his head and found her breast.
“Oh, yes.” She held the back of his head as he licked her nipple.
When he sucked her whole breast into his mouth, Janelle felt powerless to do anything but fold to his will. She shouldn’t have been surprised when he massaged her other breast. Taking away his sight didn’t lessen his need or his ability to find her hot spots.
Forget Me Not Page 24