It was my greatest nightmare realized. I’d feared that my past might negatively impact his attraction to me. I’d told Cary that Gideon might stay with me for all the wrong reasons. That he might stay by my side, but that I’d still-for all intents and purposes-lose him anyway.

And it seemed I had.

13

I tightened the belt on my robe. “I’m going to get dressed and go.”

“What?” Gideon glared. “Go where?”

“Home,” I said, weary to the bone. “I think you need to digest all this.”

His arms crossed. “We can do that together.”

“I don’t think we can.” My chin lifted, grief overwhelming my shame and heartrending disappointment. “Not while you’re looking at me like you feel sorry for me.”

“I’m not made of fucking stone, Eva. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t care.”

The emotions I’d run through since lunch coalesced into a searing pain in my chest and a cleansing burst of anger. “I don’t want your goddamn pity.”

He shoved both hands through his hair. “What the hell do you want, then?”

“You! I want you.”

“You have me. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“Your words don’t mean shit when you can’t back them up. From the moment we met, you’ve been hot for me. You haven’t been able to look at me without making it damn clear you want to fuck my brains out. And that’s gone, Gideon.” My eyes burned. “That look…it’s gone.”

“You can’t be serious.” He stared at me as if I’d grown two heads.

“I don’t think you know how your desire makes me feel.” My arms wrapped around me, covering my breasts. I suddenly felt naked in the worst way. “It makes me feel beautiful. It makes me feel strong and alive. I-I can’t bear to be with you if you don’t feel that way about me anymore.”

“Eva, I…” His voice faded into silence. He was hard-faced and distant, his fists clenched at his sides.

I loosened the sash of my robe and shrugged the whole garment off me. “Look at me, Gideon. Look at my body. It’s the same one you couldn’t get enough of last night. The same one you were so desperate to get into that you took me to that damn hotel room. If you don’t want this anymore…if you don’t get hard looking at it-”

“Is this hard enough for you?” He broke the drawstring of his pants pushing them down to expose the heavy, thickly-veined length of his erection.

We both lunged at the same time, colliding. Our mouths slid over each other as he lifted me to wrap my legs around his hips. He stumbled to the couch and fell, catching our combined weight with one outstretched hand.

I sprawled beneath him, breathless and sobbing, while he slid to his knees on the floor and tongued my cleft. He was rough and impatient, lacking the finesse I’d become used to, and I loved that he was. Loved it more when he levered over me and shoved his cock into me. I wasn’t yet fully wet and the burn made me gasp, then his thumb was on my clit, rubbing in circles that had my hips churning.

“Yes,” I moaned, raking my nails down his back. He wasn’t icy anymore. He was on fire. “Fuck me, Gideon. Fuck me hard.”

“Eva.”His mouth covered mine. He fisted my hair, holding me still as he lunged again and again, pounding hard and deep. He kicked off the armrest with one foot, powering into me, driving toward his orgasm with single-minded ferocity. “Mine…mine…mine…”

The rhythmic slap of his heavy balls against the curve of my buttocks and the harshness of his possessive litany drove me insane with lust. I felt myself quickening with every twinge of pain, felt my sex tightening with my growing arousal.

With a long, guttural groan he started coming, his flexing body quaking as he emptied himself inside me.

I held him as he climaxed, stroking his back, pressing kisses along his shoulder.

“Hold on,” he said roughly, pushing his hands beneath me and flattening my breasts against him.

Gideon pulled me up, and then sat down with me straddling his hips. I was slick from his orgasm, making it easy for him to push back inside me.

His hands brushed the hair away from my face; then wiped my tears of relief. “I’m always hard for you, always hot for you. I’m always half-crazy with wanting you. If anything could change that, I would’ve done it before we got this far. Understand?”

My hands wrapped around his wrists. “Yes.”

“Now, show me that you still want meafter that.” His face was flushed and damp, his eyes dark and turbulent. “I need to know that losing control doesn’t mean I’ve lost you.”

I pulled his palms from my face and urged them down to my breasts. When he cupped them, I splayed my hands on his shoulders and rocked my hips. He was semi-hard, yet quickly thickened as I began to undulate. His fingers on my nipples, rolling and tugging, sent waves of pleasure through me, the gentle stimulation arrowing to my core. When he urged me closer and took a hardened tip in his mouth I cried out, my body igniting with need for more.

Clenching my thighs, I lifted. I closed my eyes to focus on the way he felt as he slid out; then bit my lip at the way he stretched me sliding back in.

“That’s it,” he murmured, licking across my chest to my other nipple, fluttering his tongue over the tight, aching tip. “Come for me. I need you to come riding my cock.”

Rolling my hips, I relished the exquisite feel of him filling me so perfectly. I had no shame, no regrets as I worked myself into a frenzy on his stiff penis, adjusting the angle so that the thick crown rubbed right where I needed it.

“Gideon,” I breathed. “Oh, yes…oh please…”

“You’re so beautiful.” He gripped the back of my neck in one hand and my waist in the other, arching his hips to push a little deeper. “So sexy. I’m going to come for you again. That’s what you do to me, Eva. It’s never enough.”

I whimpered as everything tightened, as the sweet tension built from the deep rhythmic strokes. I was panting and frantic, pumping my hips. Reaching between my legs, I rubbed my clit with the pads of my fingers, hastening my climax.

He gasped, his head thrown back into the sofa cushion, his neck corded with strain. “I feel you getting ready to come. Your cunt gets so hot and tight, so greedy.”

His words and his voice pushed me over. I cried out when the first hard tremor hit me; then again as the orgasm rippled through my body, my sex spasming around Gideon’s steely erection.

Teeth grinding audibly, he held on until the clenches began to fade; then he clutched my hips aloft and pumped upward into me. Once, twice. On the third deep thrust, he growled my name and spurted hotly, laying the last of my fears and doubts to rest.

I don’t know how long we sprawled on the couch like that, connected and close, my head on his shoulder and his hands caressing the curve of my spine.

Gideon pressed his lips to my temple and murmured, “Stay.”

“Yes.”

He hugged me. “You’re so brave, Eva. So strong and honest. You’re a miracle. My miracle.”

“A miracle of modern therapy, maybe,” I scoffed, my fingers playing in his luxuriant hair. “And even with that, I was really fucked up for a while and there are still some triggers I don’t think I’ll ever get past.”

“God. The way I came on to you in the beginning…I could’ve ruined us before we even got started. And the advocacy dinner-” He shuddered and buried his face in my neck. “Eva, don’t let me blow this. Don’t let me chase you away.”

Lifting my head, I searched his face. He was impossibly gorgeous. I had trouble taking it in at times. “You can’t second-guess everything you do or say to me because of Nathan and what he did. It’ll break us apart. It’ll end us.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t even think about it.”