by Kadi Dillon
Gideon’s blood was hot as he stared at Rebecca’s guilt ridden face. She was pale and withdrawn now where seconds ago she had been glowing. He thought furiously about the way she had kissed him back the day before and his sister’s words from that morning mocked him. “She wants to like you but she’s a little afraid of you.”
“Why are you back so early?” Colin stood slowly rubbing his sore calf muscles.
“The prick didn’t show up.”
“Damn. I’ll call him later since I’m the one he talked to before.”
“Yeah, do that. Tell him not to waste my damn time again.” Gideon had yet to take his eyes off Rebecca who was looking more reserved by the minute. It made him even angrier.
“I need to go take a shower.” Rebecca looked up at Gideon then turned to Colin. “Thanks for the race. Sorry you lost.”
“Yeah, I can tell how sorry you are,” Colin muttered. “Brat.”
Rebecca smiled at Colin—damn her—then walked into the house. He watched her walk through the door and stared at it as it closed behind her.
“Smooth.”
“What were the two of you so chummy about?” Gideon hated the pettiness of the question. He fell in step with Colin as he turned to walk down to the boatyard.
“I seem to recall you telling me to keep an eye on her. She wanted to go for a run, so we ran. She’s damn quick, too.” Colin pulled a cigarette from the pack and lit it.
“That doesn’t explain why you guys have been gone for two hours.”
“I think it does. We were running.”
Gideon jerked a shoulder as they walked through the gate. “Why the hell would I care?” Colin remained silent as they walked into the office. He pulled out a notebook and flipped it to the page with Jefferson’s number and dialed it.
“No answer,” Colin said and sat the phone in the cradle. “That’s odd for a man who couldn’t get a boat fast enough.”
“Maybe he found someone else.”
“Or bought one from a dealer.” Colin shrugged it off. “His loss.”
“Yeah, it’s not like I don’t have other things to deal with besides a quickie boat job.” Gideon scratched the guy’s number down on a post-it note and stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll give him one more call, that way he can’t tarnish our reputation any. We did all we could do.”
They left and locked up the boatyard and made their way back to the main house. It was relatively safe on the island, but the Avery men didn’t put anything past fellow competitors when it came to safety measures. They locked up every night when they left and had automatic sensor lights installed all the way around the office and yard. Both the main house and Colin’s house could view the boatyard from at least one window of each house which was no coincidence.
Gideon’s house—when it was built—would also have a good view of the boatyard. He had the plans and he had the pipes and lines ran to the site the house would sit on; he just needed to build it. And he wouldn’t do that until Jess was comfortable with people coming to the island. It would take a team of at least five men to have it done in a relatively short amount of time. But Jess’s own tragedy and fears borne from it caused her to shun just about any human contact. Except Rebecca, Gideon mused. She’d embraced their unexpected guest and had even formed a kind of friendship with her in the time she had been there. Considering that was less than twenty-four hours, Gideon was both elated and curious about the bond.
So when Jess was comfortable with people—other than her family—again, Gideon would arrange for the laborers to come build his house. Colin, he, and their father could take a stab at it, he knew. But he wanted everything done correctly.
Gideon scowled at Rebecca’s bedroom window when they reached the house but was unaware he was doing so until Colin chuckled.
“You’re gone, man.” He crushed out his cigarette, shaking his head.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Hey, I wouldn’t poach. You don’t have to be jealous.” Colin opened the front door and waited for Gideon to go inside. Gideon only stared at him. “What? You’re mad because we went off alone but like I said, I wouldn’t poach on my little brother. And you saw her first.”
“I am not gone.”
“You’re headed that way.”
“There’s no way I’m heading that way.” Gideon pushed past him and stormed into the living room cursing.
“Cool then. I guess the field’s open.”
Gideon stared after Colin as he walked out of the room. Field’s open? What the hell did that mean? He felt his blood begin to boil as he followed Colin into the kitchen.
Colin poured a glass of tea and asked Gideon if he wanted one. Gideon fumed, telling him what he could do with his tea.
Colin chuckled. “You told me to do the same thing with my promise and let me tell you. Not only would that be embarrassing and uncomfortable but that last part may even be impossible.”
“You think you’re real funny, don’t you?”
“I think you’re really pissed. Care to tell me why?” Colin sat down lazily at the table and winked at Jess as she walked down the stairs and into the room with them.
“What’s going on?
Gideon ignored her. “What the hell did you mean by the field’s open?”
“Oh, that?” Colin put his long legs on the chair in front of him and crossed them. “You said you don’t want her. I might. That’s all.”
“Rebecca?” Jess frowned. “Gideon likes her. You shouldn’t poach.”
“Jess!”
“I’m not going to poach,” Colin explained patiently. “He said he didn’t want to go there. So it’s not poaching. Now, if he were to tell me he was interested-” Colin shrugged.
Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What are you interested in?”
Gideon spun around. “Mom!”
“What?”
Gideon took Colin’s tea and drank it down. Not as potent as coffee, or even a good whiskey but it went a long way to cool his mood. “I’m not interested. But you’re not going there. Got it?”
Colin smiled.
“All right boys. She has a name- and it’s Rebecca,” Jess said for her mother’s benefit. “And I thought we talked about this earlier this morning.”
“You talked to Jess about your sex life?”
He growled at Colin. “All right, listen-” Gideon took a deep breath and thought about what he was going to say. He never got to finish. The quiet kitchen was punctuated by a very high pitched, terrified scream.
Chapter Six
Horrified and unmoving, Rebecca let out another blood-curling scream.
She’d come up and showered the sweat and dirt away, all the while cursing her reaction to Gideon. She couldn’t help how she felt about him and that confused her. She’d been drawn to men before, but men she had known more than a day. She liked sex, but never really wondered how it would be with any particular man. It just happened after a while of dating and friendship. There’d been no dating with Gideon, no quiet talks or romancing. She’d just look at him and want him.
It scared her a little that he could entice such strong emotions from her in so short of time. The intensity of his personality clashed with her more reserved nature. She was outgoing when she wasn’t being chased by goons. She had friends and liked to be social. From everything she’d learned about Gideon so far told her he was more solitary.
They were polar opposites. Completely different in everything but the situation they were in. Maybe the danger added the intensity. Maybe once her father returned and took the painting, Gideon would lose his appeal to her. She hoped so, anyway.
She’d wondered while conditioning her hair why she couldn’t have been attracted to Colin instead. He had the same sense of intensity in him, yet he seemed so mellow. He was dangerously handsome, much like Gideon. So why couldn’t she suffer these feelings for him? It would definitely be safer for her.
But it wasn’t to be, she had
decided as she dried and changed into a new pair of clothes. She was stuck with these unwelcome urges that she didn’t dare do anything about for the next little while. She was brushing her hair when she saw it. Her worst fear had materialized out from behind the cabinet on the wall.
Rebecca was stunned into screaming. She thought maybe it could smell her fear, for it changed directions and crawled on its eight nasty legs. Right. For. Her.
“Oh, my god.” Rebecca screamed again and threw the hair brush at it. Of course it missed. She screamed again, couldn’t seem to help but scream. Icy fingers of panic brushed against the back of her neck. She backed into the wall and before she could suck in the breath to scream again, the door seemed to explode off the hinges.
Rebecca threw her hands up to block whatever barreled through the door at her. Gideon caught her upper arms. He was screaming at her, she realized, but she couldn’t hear the words. His lips formed the word stop over and over again and Rebecca realized she was still screaming.
She sucked in a breath and would have fallen if Gideon wasn’t holding onto her.
“What happened?” he asked again, his voice hard as granite.
Rebecca looked past Gideon to where Colin, Jess, and Rose were standing in the doorway. She looked back at the wall across from her and saw it. It was still there. Her heart dropped and she screamed again trying to run but Gideon held her still.
“What is it, Rebecca?” he shouted over her own panicked sounds.
“Oh, my god.”
“Rebecca!”
“That s-s-spider.” She threw a terrified glance over her shoulder and saw Colin slap it with his bare hand. Bile rose up in her throat and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stop it from coming out. Her heart was beating so fast she wondered how it didn’t explode in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Rebecca.” Gideon shook her. “You screamed the house down because of a spider? What the hell’s wrong with you?”
He was angry, she realized; because he couldn’t see why anyone could ever be so afraid of a spider. Afraid wasn’t the word, Rebecca thought as she struggled with a sting of tears. Well, she wasn’t about to explain it to him. She shook her head and tried to struggle out of his hold.
“Let go of me.”
“Gideon,” Rose said, softly. He shot his mother a furious glance then let Rebecca go. She immediately escaped.
She ran out of the bathroom and down the hall to her room. She was so pitifully thankful that she managed to make it to the half bathroom in her room and turn on the sink before she sank down on the cold, marble floor shaking.
Gideon was still riding the last dregs of temper when he and Colin picked up the splintered wood off the bathroom floor. He was thoroughly pissed that he’d have to fix the door and he was ashamed at the way he had treated Rebecca.
He didn’t often lose his temper that way but Rebecca had a habit of bringing out the worst in him. So maybe it wasn’t Rebecca, he thought dropping the pieces of broken door into the trash. It was his reaction to her that set him off.
“I’ll have Jess order a new door off the internet. We can go pick it up on the mainland.” Colin regarded his brother with confusion.
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t need to be so hard on her.”
Gideon couldn’t fault him for defending Rebecca. Someone needed to. “I know.”
Tongue in cheek, Colin asked, “You going to go apologize?”
“Yeah,” Gideon muttered before leaving the bathroom. He walked slowly down the hallway like a man walking toward his execution. It would be a completely different situation if he could relieve some of the sexual tension he felt around her.
One kiss hadn’t been enough.
He didn’t knock, as was his habit when he wanted to walk into any room of the house. He frowned when he saw that she wasn’t in her room. He knew she had walked this way, so where was she? Then he heard her quiet weeping. The sound was muffled and low but he followed it to the bathroom off her room. He didn’t knock there either since the door was slightly open.
The tap on the sink was running. Gideon looked down and saw Rebecca curled up on the floor. The tremors were fiercely racking her slender body as she cried in her little protective ball. Guilt assailed him from the way he had acted. He had shouted at her for being afraid simply because she had scared him senseless with her terror. He’d heard her screams and panicked much like she had. And now, here in private she was losing the shaky composure she always seemed to have.
But she didn’t have to do it alone.
He crossed quietly and crouched down in front of her. She didn’t see him, for her eyes were buried in her arms as she rocked and held herself. He said her name quietly and she jolted, then turned away from him.
“Go away.” The words were broken and watery as she tried to grab hold of control.
He ignored her request and pulled her into his arms. Instead of fighting with him like he assumed she would, she slumped in his arms as sobs continued to shake her. He sat down the rest of the way on the floor and pulled her into his lap, taking up the same rocking motions she had been doing.
She shook again on a sob and began to quiet. He slid his hand up her back and planted a gentle kiss on the crown of her head. The sounds coming out of her throat seemed to border on pain. It gave way to a possibility he hadn’t thought of yet.
“Did it bite you?”
“N-no.” Her breath hitched again. She settled her head onto his shoulder, breathing deep in attempt to quiet her tears. “I don’t like t-them.”
“I know, baby.” Her breathing began to calm and the tremors shooting through her body were that of exhaustion now. She sniffled once then sighed. “Better?”
She nodded and started to get up but he tightened his hold. “I’m okay.”
“I’m glad.” He waited until she settled back down in his lap. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
She remained quiet and he wondered how badly he’d hurt her feelings. He ran his hand over her back again and this time he felt her tremble from something other than anguish. She went so completely still that he wondered if she were holding her breath.
He trailed his finger up her arm to her chin and lifted her face to his. Her skin was petal soft under his hard, calloused thumb as he stroked it across her cheek. Hungrily, he took in her flushed face, dark eyes, and lips; naked, pink, and parted with what he hoped was invitation. Slowly, watching her blue eyes turn the darkest shade of sapphire, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Her eye lids fluttered until they closed and she sigh. The frantic pounding of his heart filled his ears. He wondered how it didn’t burst from his chest. It was all he could do to keep it slow when he wanted to devour. His lips glided over hers and tasted sweetness. The hand that was on her face dropped to her shoulder then slid to her back.
Gideon pulled her against him and felt softness. His other hand slid up her bare leg until he reached the hem of her shorts. He stopped his trail up her satiny smooth leg because his brain was still able to process the fact that he was sitting on the bathroom floor in his mother’s house. He couldn’t deny himself having her mouth, though, and pressed his lips to hers again and again.
He deepened his gentle assault on her mouth and felt her shudder when his tongue began to taste all the deep, cool corners of her mouth. She made a sound in the back of her throat that sent him reeling. Her hands slid up to his chest.
He felt pressure on his chest and registered she was pushing him away. He nipped at her full bottom lip then let her pull back. He didn’t expect her to pull completely away from him, however. He watched her as she scooted away from him until they were no longer touching. She paused for a moment before scooting over once more.
He felt her distance in more sense than inches. Her face, flushed from his kiss, was closed up. She looked down at her hands, then at the bathroom door. Gideon waited for her to explain herself, but she remained mute.
“Problem?” It cost him to keep his v
oice causal, but he did it.
Her mouth pulled into a grim line and she frowned down at her hands then shook her head. He wished she would say something; anything. But she wouldn’t even look at him.
“Are you going to slap my face or cry or something?”
She gave him a wary glance. “It was only a kiss.”
Only a kiss? Gideon barely kept his mouth from dropping open. She’d been affected. He knew it. His own ego was in serious danger of being insulted. “It was our second kiss, actually.”
She frowned again and he felt a little better to have thrown her for a loop. She had to have been as confused as he was. Again, the attraction didn’t surprise him. It was his actions that shocked the hell out of him. He had superior control, he thought. But he couldn’t seem to find a grip on that control when it came to Rebecca. He’d only known her for twenty-four hours. He shuddered inwardly when he thought of what the next little while in close quarters with her would be like.
Gideon stood up slowly and offered his hand. He wasn’t surprised when she ignored it and rose to her feet on her own. He handed her a paper towel from the vanity and waited for her to dry to her wet cheeks and toss the paper in the trash.
“Don’t worry, Rebecca. It was our second kiss,” he told her again and waited for her gaze to meet his. “But it can be our last if that’s what you want.”
He followed her out of the little bathroom and excused himself. She stayed in her room as he made his way down the stairs. The sooner he could get her back to the mainland safe, the better. He decided it was time to call a family meeting a figure out just what they were going to do and when they were going to do it.
After dinner, everyone occupied the family room to wait for Charles’ arrival. Gideon had told everyone at dinner that it was time they discussed what they were to do about Rebecca’s situation, and he wanted to wait for his father to arrive to fill him in.
Rebecca was nervous. So far, no one in the family was angry with her for the way she’d disrupted their lives. They even seemed to welcome her into their tight group and she hadn’t felt one moment of guilt or aloneness—except with Gideon. She didn’t know about Charles, however, and the worry left her stomach churning. She’d seen his picture on the mantle, but she had been told little about the absent man.