I looked up at my husband, watching as he drank from my mug. “Would you like some black coffee instead?”
His hand swept down my back, his eyes on the officers and Arash. “I’d love some.”
“It’s good that you’re here, Mr. Cross,” Peña said. “Dr. Lucas also filed a complaint against you.”
“Well, that was fun,” Arash said an hour later, after showing the officers out to the elevator.
Gideon shot him a look as he deftly opened a bottle of malbec. “If that’s your idea of entertainment, you need to get out more.”
“I was planning on doing that tonight—with a very hot blonde, I might add—until I got your call.” Arash pulled out one of the island bar stools and sat.
I scooped up all the mugs and moved them to the sink. “Thank you, Arash.”
“You’re most welcome.”
“I bet you don’t step into courtrooms all that often, but I want to be there the next time you do. You’re awesome.”
He grinned. “I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Don’t thank him for doing his job,” Gideon muttered. He poured the dark red wine into three glasses.
“I’m thanking him for doing his job well,” I countered, still impressed by the way Arash worked. The attorney was charismatic and disarming, as well as humble when it served his purposes. He put everyone at ease, then let them do the talking while he figured out his best angle of attack.
Gideon scowled at me. “What the hell do you think I’m paying him so much to do? Fuck up?”
“Dial it back, ace,” I said calmly. “Don’t let that bitch get to you. And don’t take that tone with me. Or your friend.”
Arash winked at me. “I think he’s jealous you like me so much.”
“Ha!” Then I saw the way Gideon glared at Arash and my brows went up. “Seriously?”
“Get back on topic. How are you fixing this?” my husband challenged, looking daggers at his friend over the rim of his wineglass.
“Fixing your fuck-up?” Arash asked, his brown eyes bright with silent laughter. “You both provided Anne Lucas the ammunition for this by going to her place of employment on two separate occasions. You’re damned lucky she embellished her story with a little assault accusation against Eva. If she’d just stuck with the truth, she’d have you both by the throats.”
I went to the fridge and started pulling out items to throw together for dinner. I’d been kicking myself for being stupid all evening. It would never have occurred to me to think she might voluntarily reveal her sordid extramarital affair with Gideon. She was supposed to be an upstanding member of the mental health community and her husband was a well-regarded pediatrician.
I’d underestimated her. And I hadn’t listened to Gideon when he had warned me she was dangerous. The result was that she had a legitimate complaint that first Gideon had barged into her office during a therapy session, and then I’d ambushed her at work again two weeks later.
Arash accepted the glass Gideon slid briskly over to him. “The district attorney may or may not decide to go after her for falsely reporting an incident, but she damaged her credibility by accusing Eva of putting hands on her when security footage proves otherwise. Very fortunate, you having that, by the way.”
Learning that Gideon did indeed own the building Anne Lucas worked in hadn’t surprised me too much. My husband needed control, and having that sort of hold over the businesses of both the Lucases was just like him.
“It shouldn’t have to be said,” Arash went on, “but when confronted by crazy, Do Not Engage.”
Gideon arched his brow at me. It chafed, but he was right. He’d told me so.
The attorney shot warning glances at both of us. “I’ll work on getting her erroneous assault complaint dismissed and see if I can leverage it to our advantage by filing a counterclaim of harassment. I’ll also try for protection orders for both of you and Cary Taylor, but regardless, you all need to stay far, far away from her.”
“Absolutely,” I assured him, taking the opportunity to palm my husband’s fine, taut ass as I passed behind him.
He shot me a wry glance over his shoulder. I blew him a kiss.
It tickled me that he would feel even the slightest bit of jealousy. The most impressive thing about Arash was that he held his own next to Gideon; he certainly couldn’t surpass him. While I’d seen that Arash could be every bit as threatening as my husband, it wasn’t his default setting.
Gideon was always dangerous. No one ever mistook him for anything else. I was intensely attracted to that about him, understood that I would never tame him. And God, was he gorgeous. He knew it, too. Knew how dazzled I was by him.
But the green-eyed monster could still get the better of him.
“You’ll stay for dinner?” I asked Arash. “No idea what I’m making yet, but we ruined your plans and I feel bad about that.”
“It’s still early.” Gideon took a deep swallow of his wine. “He can make other plans.”
“I’d love to stay for dinner,” Arash said, grinning wickedly.
I couldn’t resist copping another feel, so I reached around my husband to get my wine and caressed his thigh while I was at it. I brushed my breasts across his back as I withdrew my hand.
Lightning quick, Gideon’s hand caught my wrist. He squeezed and a shiver of arousal slid through me.
Those blue eyes turned on me. “You want to misbehave?” he asked silkily.
I was instantly desperate for him. Because he looked so cool and savagely civilized, completely contained while he basically asked if I wanted to fuck.
He had no idea how much.
I heard a faint buzz. Still holding me captive by the wrist, Gideon looked across the island at Arash. “Pass my phone over.”
Arash looked at me and shook his head, even as he turned to dig Gideon’s phone out of the suit jacket on the bar stool. “How you put up with him, I will never know.”
“He’s great in bed,” I quipped, “and he’s not surly there, so …”
Gideon yanked me into his side and bit my earlobe. My nipples tightened into hard points. He growled almost inaudibly against my neck, though I doubted he cared if Arash heard.
Breathless, I pulled away and tried to focus on cooking. I hadn’t taken over Gideon’s kitchen before, hadn’t a clue where anything was or what he had stocked, aside from what I’d glimpsed while getting coffee ready for the police. I found an onion, and located a knife and cutting board. Grateful as I was for the distraction, I had to do something else besides getting us both revved up.
“Right,” Gideon said into the phone with a sigh. “I’m coming.”
I looked up. “Do you have to go somewhere?”
“No. Angus is bringing Lucky up.”
I grinned.
“Who’s Lucky?” Arash asked.
“Gideon’s dog.”
The lawyer looked suitably shocked. “You have a dog?”
“I do now,” Gideon said ruefully, leaving the kitchen.
When he returned a moment later with a squirming Lucky happily licking his jaw, I melted. There he stood, in his vest and shirtsleeves, a titan of industry, a global powerhouse, and he was being overwhelmed by the cutest puppy ever.
Picking up his phone, I unlocked it and snapped a picture.
That was going into a frame, ASAP.
While I was at it, I texted Cary. Hey, it’s Eva. Want to come over to the penthouse for dinner?
I waited a beat for him to reply, then set Gideon’s phone down and went back to chopping.
“I should’ve listened to you about Anne,” I told Gideon as we returned to the living room after saying good-bye to Arash. “I’m sorry.”
His hand at my lower back slid over farther, cupping my waist. “Don’t be.”
“It’s got to be frustrating for you to deal with my stubbornness.”
“You’re great in bed, and you’re not stubborn there, so …”
I laughed as he tossed my words back
at me. I was happy. Spending the evening with him and Arash, watching how relaxed and easy he was with his friend, being able to move around the penthouse as if it were my home …
“I feel married,” I murmured, realizing that I hadn’t truly felt that way before. We had the rings and the vows, but those were the trappings of marriage, not the reality of it.
“You should,” he replied, with a familiar note of arrogance, “since you are and will be for the rest of your life.”
I looked at him as we settled on the sofa. “Do you?”
His gaze went to the playpen by the fireplace where Lucky slept. “Are you asking if I feel domesticated?”
“That will never happen,” I said dryly.
Gideon looked at me, searching. “Do you want me to be?”
I ran my hand down his thigh, because I couldn’t help myself. “No.”
“Tonight … You liked having Arash here.”
I shot him a look. “You’re not jealous of your lawyer, are you? That would be ridiculous.”
“I don’t like it, either.” He scowled. “But that’s not what I meant. You like having people over.”
“Yes.” I frowned. “Don’t you?”
He looked away, his lips pursed. “It’s fine.”
I stilled. Gideon’s home was his sanctuary. Before me, he’d never brought any women here. I’d assumed he had entertained his guy friends, but maybe not …? Maybe the penthouse was where he retreated from everyone.
I reached for his hand. “I’m sorry, Gideon. I should’ve asked you first. I didn’t think about it and I should have. It’s your home—”
“Our home,” he corrected, focusing back on me. “What are you apologizing for? You have every right to do whatever you like here. You don’t have to ask me for permission for anything.”
“And you shouldn’t feel invaded in your own home.”
“Our home,” he snapped. “You need to grasp that concept, Eva. Quickly.”
I jerked back from his sudden flare of temper. “You’re mad.”
He stood and rounded the coffee table, his body vibrating with tension. “You went from feeling married to acting like you’re a guest in my house.”
“Our house,” I corrected. “Which means we share it and you have the right to say you’d rather we didn’t entertain here.”
Gideon shoved a hand through his hair, a sure sign of his increasing agitation. “I don’t give a shit about that.”
“You’re certainly acting like you do,” I said evenly.
“For fuck’s sake.” He faced me, his hands on his lean hips. “Arash is my friend. Why would I care if you cook him dinner?”
Were we circling back to jealousy? “I cooked dinner for you, and invited him to join us.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
“It doesn’t seem fine, ’cuz you’re pissed.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, I’m confused and that’s starting to make me pissed.”
His jaw tightened. He turned away, walking to the fireplace and looking at the family photos I’d placed on the mantel.
I suddenly regretted doing that. I would be the first to admit that I pushed him into change faster than I should, but I understood the need for a haven, a quiet place to let your guard down. I wanted to be that for him, wanted our home to be that for him. If I made it a place he wanted to avoid—if he ever found it easier to avoid me—then I would effectively be jeopardizing the very marriage I valued more than anything.
“Gideon. Please talk to me.” Maybe I’d made that difficult, too. “If I’ve crossed a line, you have to tell me.”
He faced me again, frowning. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand why you’re upset with me. Help me understand.”
Gideon heaved a sigh of frustration, then focused on me with the laserlike precision that had exposed every secret I’d had. “If there weren’t anyone else on earth, just you and me, I’d be okay with that. But that wouldn’t be enough for you.”
I sat back, startled. His mind was a labyrinth I would never map. “You would be okay with just me and no one else—indefinitely? No competitors to squash? No global domination to plan?” I snorted. “You’d be bored out of your mind.”
“Is that what you think?”
“That’s what I know.”
“What about you?” he challenged. “How would you manage with no friends to invite over and no one else’s life to meddle in?”
My gaze narrowed. “I don’t meddle.”
He gave me a patient look. “Would I be enough for you, if there were no one else?”
“There is no one else.”
“Eva. Answer the question.”
I had no idea where he was coming from, but that only made it easier for me to answer him. “You fascinate the fuck out of me, you know that? You’re never boring. A lifetime alone with you wouldn’t be long enough to figure you out.”
“Could you be happy?”
“Having you all to myself ? That would be heaven.” My mouth curved. “I have a Tarzan fantasy. You Tarzan, me Jane.”
The tension in his shoulders visibly eased and a faint smile touched his mouth. “We’ve been married a month. Why am I just now hearing about this?”
“I figured I’d give it a few months before I whipped out the freaky.”
Gideon flashed me a rare, wide smile and fried my brain in the process. “How does the fantasy go?”
“Oh, you know.” I waved one hand carelessly. “Tree house, loincloth. Weather hot enough to put a sheen of sweat on you, but not too hot. You’d be seething with the need to fuck but have no experience doing it. I’d have to show you how.”
He stared at me. “You have a sexual fantasy in which I’m a virgin?”
It took a lot of effort not to laugh at his incredulity. “In every way,” I said, with utmost seriousness. “You’ve never seen breasts or a woman’s pussy before mine. I have to show you how to touch me, what I like. You catch on quick, but then I’ve got a wild man on my hands. You can’t get enough.”
“That’s reality.” He headed toward the kitchen. “I have something for you.”
“A loincloth?”
He answered over his shoulder. “How about what goes in it?”
My mouth curved. I half expected him to come back out with wine. I straightened when I saw that he had something small and bright red in his hand, a color and shape I recognized as Cartier. “A present?”
Gideon crossed the distance between us with his confident, sexy stride.
Excited, I rose onto my knees. “Gimme, gimme.”
He shook his head, holding his hand aloft as he sat. “You can’t have what I haven’t given you yet.”
I sank back down, putting my hands on my thighs.
“In answer to your questions …” He brushed his fingertips across my cheek. “Yes, I feel married.”
My pulse fluttered.
“Coming home to you,” he murmured, his gaze on my mouth, “watching you whip up dinner in our kitchen. Even having damned Arash here. That’s what I want. You. This life we’re building.”
“Gideon …” My throat burned.
He looked down at the red suede pouch in his hand. He flipped open the button that kept it closed and poured two platinum crescents into the palm of his hand.
“Wow.” My hand went to my throat.
He caught my left wrist and pulled it gently into his lap, sliding one half of the bracelet beneath it. The other half he held up to me, so I could see that he’d inscribed something inside.
ALWAYS MINE. FOREVER YOURS. —GIDEON
“Oh, boy,” I breathed, watching as my husband fit the top half of the bracelet to the bottom. “This is sooo getting you laid.”
His soft laugh made me fall deeper in love with him.
The bracelet had a screw motif that circled the entire band, with two actual screws on the sides that he secured with a small screwdriver.
“
This,” he held up the screwdriver, “is mine.”
I watched him tuck it into his pocket, understanding that I wouldn’t be able to get the bracelet off without him. Not that I’d want to. I already treasured it—and the proof of his romantic soul.
“And this”—I straddled his hips, draping my arms over his shoulders—“is mine.”
His hands gripped my waist, his head tipping back to expose his throat to my questing lips. It wasn’t surrender. It was indulgence, and that was just fine with me.
“Take me to bed,” I whispered, my tongue rimming the shell of his ear.
I felt his muscles bunch, then flex effortlessly as he stood while holding me as if I weighed nothing at all. I gave a throaty purr of appreciation and he swatted my ass, hitching me higher before carrying me out of the living room.
I was panting, my heart racing. My hands were everywhere, sliding through his hair and over his shoulders, unknotting his tie. I wanted to get to his skin, to feel him flesh to flesh. My lips roved over his face, kissing everywhere I could reach.
His stride was purposeful, but leisurely. His breathing even and steady. He kicked the door closed with a graceful, easy push.
Oh God, it drove me insane when he was that controlled.
He tried to set me down on the bed, but I held on.
“I can’t take your clothes off if you don’t let me go.” Only the hoarseness of his voice betrayed his need.
I released him, tackling the buttons of his vest before he straightened. “Take your clothes off.”
He swatted my fingers away so he could take over. I stared, my breath held, as he started to strip.
The sight of his hands, tanned by the sun, glittering with the rings I’d given him, deftly unknotting his tie … How could that be so erotic?
The whisper of the silk as he tugged it off. The careless way he let it fall to the floor. The heat of his eyes as he watched me watching him.
It was the worst sort of denial, extreme self-torture, and I forced myself to bear it. Wanting to touch him but restraining myself. Waiting for him while coveting him. I’d tortured us both by making us wait, so it was the least I deserved.