by Sylvia Day
He flexed, warning me he was going to turn around. I slid to the side, watching his body roll with a fluid rippling of muscle.
“Sit up for me,” I told him, thinking he was even more amazing than I’d given him credit for. Or more horny, which I would never hold against him. “With your back against the headboard.”
He arranged himself to my liking, looking sleepy-eyed and sexy, his jaw shadowed with stubble. I climbed into his lap, straddling him. I took a long moment to savor the attraction between us, the delicious and provocative edge of danger he exuded even while at rest. Because Gideon wasn’t tamed and never would be. Just like a panther still had its claws, even when they were sheathed.
That was one of my joys. He gentled for me but remained true to himself. He was still the man I’d fallen in love with—hard with rough edges—yet he’d changed, too. He was all things to me, everything I wanted and needed in one imperfect man.
Smoothing his hair back from his face, I traced the curve of his lower lip with the tip of my tongue. His hands, so warm and strong, gripped my hips. His mouth opened, his tongue touching mine.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“Eva.” Tilting his head, he took over the kiss, deepening it. His lips, so firm yet soft, pressed against mine. His tongue stroked deep, licking and tasting. The soft rasp of it against the tender flesh inside my mouth caused goose bumps to spread in a wave over my skin. His cock began to thicken and lengthen between us, the silky flesh hot against my lower belly.
My nipples tightened, aching, and I shimmied, rubbing them against his chest.
One of his hands cupped my nape, capturing me, holding me steady as he kissed me passionately. His mouth slanted across mine, seeking and ravenous, sucking on my lips and tongue. Moaning, I arched into him, my fingers clutching at his black hair.
“Christ, you turn me on,” he growled, pulling his knees up. He urged me back, his body forming a cradle that supported me. His hands cupped my breasts, his thumbs circling the hard points of my nipples. “Look at you. You’re so fucking gorgeous.”
Warmth spread through me. “Gideon …”
“Sometimes you’re this icy, hands-off blonde.” His jaw tightened and he slipped one hand between my legs, his fingers gliding gently through my cleft. “And then you’re like this. So hot and needy. Wanting my hands all over you, my cock inside you.”
“I’m like this for you. This is what you do to me. What you’ve been doing to me from the moment I met you.”
Gideon’s gaze slid over me, followed by his hand. As his fingertips caressed the outside curve of my breast and stroked over my clit at the same time, I shivered.
“I want you,” he said gruffly.
“And here I am—naked.”
His mouth curved in a slow, sexy smile. “I couldn’t miss that.”
The tip of his finger circled my opening. I lifted a little to give him better access, my hands sliding over his shoulders.
“But I wasn’t talking about sex,” he murmured. “Although I want that, too.”
“With me.”
“Only you,” he agreed. His thumb brushed feather light over my nipple. “Forever and always.”
I moaned and reached for his cock, gripping him in my hands, stroking him from root to tip.
“I look at you, angel, and I want you so badly. I want to be with you, listen to you, talk to you. I want to hear you laugh and hold you when you cry. I want to sit next to you, breathe the same air, share the same life. I want to wake up to you like this every day forever. I want you.”
“Gideon.” I leaned forward and kissed him softly. “I want you, too.”
He teased the tip of my breast, tugging and rolling the hardened peak between his fingers. He rubbed my clit and a soft sound escaped me. Gideon hardened in my hands, his body responding to my growing desire.
The room was lightening as the sun rose higher, but the world outside seemed a lifetime away. The intimacy of the moment was both searing and sweet, filling me with joy.
My hands caressed his erection with tender reverence, my only goal to please him and show him how much I loved him. He touched me the same way, his eyes windows to a wounded soul that needed me as much as I needed him.
“I’m happy with you, Eva. You make me happy.”
“I’ll make you happy the rest of your life,” I promised him. My hips churned, desire sliding hot and thick through my veins. “There’s nothing I want more.”
Leaning forward, Gideon flicked the tip of his tongue over my nipple, a quick swipe that sent a sharp ache through my breast. “I love your tits. Did you know that?”
“Ah, so that’s what did you in—the rack.”
“Keep teasing me, angel. Give me an excuse to spank you. I love your ass, too.”
He pressed a hand to my back, arching me toward his mouth. Hot wetness surrounded the sensitive peak of my breast. His cheeks hollowed on a deep suck and my sex echoed his mouth, hungry for his cock.
I felt him everywhere, all around me and inside me. His heat and warmth. His passion. In my hands, his cock was hard and throbbing, the plush head slick with pre-cum.
“Tell me you love me,” I pleaded.
Gideon’s eyes met mine. “You know I do.”
“Imagine if I never said the words to you. If you never heard them from me.”
His chest expanded on a deep breath. “Crossfire.”
My hands stilled on him.
He swallowed, his throat working. “It’s your word for when things get to be too much, when it’s too intense. It’s my word, too, because that’s how you make me feel. All the time.”
“Gideon, I …” He’d made me speechless.
“When you say it, it means stop.” His fingertips left my breast and slid down my cheek. “When I say it, it means never stop. Whatever you’re doing to me, I need you to keep doing it.”
Lifting, I hovered above him. “Let me.”
“Yes.” His fingers left my cleft, and a heartbeat later his cock was filling me, the flared crown stretching sensitive tissues.
“Slow,” he ordered softly, his gaze hooded as he licked his fingers with long, sensuous laps of his tongue. He looked so wicked, so shamelessly decadent.
“Help me.” It was always more difficult for me to take him this way, using only gravity and the weight of my body. As desperate as he’d made me, he was still a tight fit.
He caught my hips, sliding me up and down leisurely, working me onto his thick erection. “Feel every inch, angel,” he crooned. “Feel how hard you make me.”
My thighs trembled as he rubbed over a tender spot inside me. I gripped his wrists, my sex rippling.
“Don’t come,” he warned, with that authoritative bite that practically ensured I would. “Not until you’ve taken all of me.”
“Gideon.” The slow, steady friction of his careful penetration was driving me insane.
“Think of how good it feels when I’m in you, angel. When your greedy little cunt has something to tighten down on when you’re coming.”
I tightened down on him then, seduced by the coaxing rasp in his voice. “Hurry.”
“You’re the one who has to let me in.” His eyes gleamed with humor. He urged me to lean back, changing the angle of my descent.
I slid onto him, taking him to the root in one smooth, slick glide. “Oh!”
“Fuck.” His head fell back, his breathing quick and rough. “You feel amazing. You’re squeezing me like a fist.”
“Baby.” I couldn’t hide the plea in my voice. He was so hard and thick inside me, so deep I could barely catch my breath …
He shot me a look that scorched. “I want this. You and me, nothing between us.”
“Nothing,” I said fervently, panting. Wriggling. Losing my mind. I needed to come so badly.
“Shh. I’ve got you.” Lifting his thumb to his mouth, Gideon licked the pad, then reached between us, rubbing my clit with expertly applied pressure. Heat bloomed across my skin in a mist
of sweat, the flush spreading until I felt feverish.
I climaxed in a searing rush of pleasure, my sex spasming in hard, desperate clutches. His growl was a sound of pure animal sexuality, his cock swelling in response to the covetous milking of my body.
But he didn’t come, which made my orgasm all the more intimate. I was open, vulnerable, wrenched by desire. And he watched me fall apart with those haunting blue eyes, his control absolute. The fact that he didn’t move, just held himself deep, enhanced the feeling of connection between us.
A tear slid down my cheek, the orgasm pushing my emotions over the edge.
“Come here,” he said hoarsely, his hands sliding up my back and pulling me into him. He licked the tear away, then nudged me sweetly with the tip of his nose. My breasts pressed against his chest, my arms went around his waist, slipping into the space between him and the headboard. I held him close, my body quivering with aftershocks.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “So soft and sweet. Kiss me, angel.”
Tilting my head, I offered him my mouth. The melding was hot and wet, an erotic mixture of his unsated lust and my overwhelming love.
I pushed my fingers into his hair, cupping the back of his head to hold him still. He did the same to me, the two of us communicating without words. His lips sealed over mine, his tongue fucking my mouth even as his cock remained unmoving inside me.
I felt the undercurrent of strain in his kiss and his touch, and I knew he worried about the day’s events, too. I arched my back, curving into him, wishing I could make us inseparable. His teeth caught my lower lip, sinking gently into the swollen curve. I whimpered and he murmured, soothing me with rhythmic strokes of his tongue.
“Don’t move,” he said hoarsely, restraining me with his grip at my nape. “I want to come just feeling you around me.”
“Please,” I breathed. “Come in me. Let me feel you.”
We were completely entwined, grasping and pulling at each other, his cock rigid inside me, our hands in each other’s hair, our lips and tongues mating frantically.
Gideon was mine, completely. Yet still some part of my mind was stunned that I had him like this, that he was naked in a bed we shared, in an apartment we shared, that he was inside me, a part of me, taking every bit of my love and passion and giving me back so much more.
“I love you,” I moaned, tightening my core and squeezing him. “I love you so much.”
“Eva. God.” He shuddered, coming. He groaned into my mouth, his hands flexing against my scalp, his breath gusting hard across my lips.
I felt him spurting inside me, filling me, and I trembled with another orgasm, the pleasure pulsing gently through me.
His hands roamed restlessly, rubbing up and down my back, his kiss that perfect blend of love and desire. I felt his gratitude and need, recognized it because I felt the same way.
It was a miracle that I’d found him, that he could make me feel this way, that I could love a man so deeply and completely and sexually with all the baggage I carried. And that I could offer the same refuge to him in return.
Laying my cheek against his chest, I listened to his heart pounding, his perspiration mingling with mine.
“Eva.” He exhaled harshly. “Those answers you want from me … I need you to ask the questions.”
I held him for a long minute, waiting for our bodies to recover and my own panic to subside. He was still inside me. We were as close as we could be, but it wasn’t enough for him. He had to have more, on every front. He wasn’t going to quit until he possessed every part of me and infiltrated every aspect of my life.
Pulling back, I looked at him. “I’m not going anywhere, Gideon. You don’t have to push yourself if you’re not ready.”
“I am ready.” His gaze held mine, blazing with power and determination. “I need you to be ready. Because it won’t be long before I’m going to ask you a question, Eva. And I’m going to need you to give me the right answer.”
“It’s too soon,” I whispered, my throat tight. I lifted slightly, trying to gain some distance, but he pulled me back and held me down. “I don’t know if I can.”
“But you’re not going anywhere,” he reminded, his jaw set. “And neither am I. Why put off the inevitable?”
“That’s not the way you need to look at it. We’ve got too many triggers. If we’re not careful, one or both of us will shut down, cut the other one—”
“Ask me, Eva,” he commanded.
“Gideon—”
“Now.”
Frustrated by his obstinacy, I stewed for a minute, then decided that whatever the reason, there were questions that needed answers no matter what. “Dr. Lucas. Do you know why he lied to your mother?”
His jaw worked as he clenched his teeth, his eyes turning hard and cold. “He was protecting his brother-in-law.”
“What?” I sat back, my thoughts spinning. “Anne’s brother? The woman you were sleeping with?”
“Fucking,” he corrected harshly. “Everyone in Anne’s family is in the mental health field. The whole fucked-up lot of them. She’s a shrink. Did any of your Google searches dig that up?”
I nodded absently, more concerned with the vehemence with which he said the word shrink, practically spitting it out. Was that why he hadn’t gotten help before? And how much did he love me to make the effort to see Dr. Petersen despite his loathing?
“I didn’t know it right away,” he went on. “I couldn’t figure out why Lucas lied. He’s a pediatrician, for chrissakes. He’s supposed to care about kids.”
“Screw that. He’s supposed to be human!” Rage filled me, a white-hot desire to find Lucas and hurt him. “I can’t believe he could look me in the eye like he did and say all that shit he said.”
Blaming Gideon for everything … trying to drive a wedge between us …
“It wasn’t until I met you that I finally started to get it,” he said, his hands tightening around my waist. “He loves Anne. Maybe as much as I love you. Enough to overlook her cheating and cover up for her brother to spare her the truth. Or embarrassment.”
“He shouldn’t be practicing medicine.”
“I don’t disagree.”
“So why is his office in one of your buildings?”
“I bought the building because his practice is in it. Helps me keep an eye on him and how well he’s doing … or not.”
Something about the way he said “or not” led me to wonder: Did he have anything to do with Lucas’s less profitable times? I remembered when Cary had been taken to the hospital and how special arrangements had been made for him and for me, because Gideon was such a generous benefactor. How much could he influence?
If there were ways to put Lucas at a disadvantage, I was certain Gideon knew them all.
“And the brother-in-law?” I asked. “What happened to him?”
Gideon’s chin lifted and his gaze narrowed. “The statute of limitations ran out for me, but I confronted him, told him if he ever went into practice or laid a hand on another child I’d set up an unlimited fund dedicated to prosecuting him civilly and criminally on behalf of his victims. Shortly after that, he killed himself.”
The last was said without inflection, which made the hairs on my nape stand on end. I shivered with a sudden chill that came from inside me.
He rubbed his hands up and down my arms, trying to warm me, but he didn’t pull me into him. “Hugh was married. Had a child. A boy. Just a few years old.”
“Gideon.” I hugged him, understanding. He’d lost a father to suicide, too. “What Hugh chose to do isn’t your fault. You’re not responsible for the decisions he made.”
“Aren’t I?” he asked, with that ice in his voice.
“No, you’re not.” I held him as tight as I could, willing my love into his tense, rigid body. “And the boy … His father’s death might have prevented him from experiencing what you did. Have you thought of that?”
His chest lifted and fell roughly. “Yes, I’ve thoug
ht of it. But he doesn’t know what his father was. He only knows that his dad is gone, by choice, and he’s left behind. He’ll believe his father didn’t care enough about him to stay.”
“Baby.” I pulled his head toward me, urging him to rest against me. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t make excuses for Geoffrey Cross and I knew Gideon was thinking of him, as well as the boy he himself had once been. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I need you to stay, Eva,” he whispered, his arms finally coming around me. “And you’re holding back. It’s driving me crazy.”
I rocked gently, cradling him. “I’m being cautious because you’re so important to me.”
“I know it’s not fair to ask you to be with me”—his head tilted back—“when we can’t even sleep in the same bed, but I’ll love you better than anyone else could. I’ll take care of you and make you happy. I know I can.”
“You do.” I brushed his hair back from his temples and wanted to cry when I saw the longing on his face. “I want you to believe I’ll stay with you.”
“You’re afraid.”
“Not of you.” I sighed, trying to pull the words together in a way that made sense. “I can’t … I can’t just be an extension of you.”
“Eva.” His features softened. “I can’t change who I am, and I don’t want to change who you are. I just want us to be who we are—together.”
I kissed him. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted us to live the same life, too, to be together in every way we could be. But I also believed that neither of us was ready.
“Gideon.” I kissed him again, my lips clinging to his. “You and me, we’re barely strong enough on our own. We’re getting better all the time, but we’re not there yet. It’s not just about the nightmares.”
“Tell me what it’s about, then.”
“Everything. I don’t know … It’s not right for me to live in a place Stanton pays for anymore now that Nathan isn’t a threat. And especially not now that my parents hooked up.”
His brows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Total mess.”
“Move in with me,” he said, rubbing my back to comfort me.