Bared to You

  The live band began playing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and Cary appeared beside me as if by magic. “Time to make me look good, Ginger.”

  “I’ll try my best, Fred.” I smiled at Ireland. “Excuse me a minute.”

  “Three minutes, forty seconds,” she corrected, displaying some of her family’s expertise in music.

  Cary led me onto the empty dance floor and pulled me into a swift foxtrot. It took me a minute to get into it, because I’d been stiff and tight with misery for days. Then the synergy of longtime partners kicked in and we glided across the floor with sweeping steps.

  When the singer’s voice faded with the music, we stopped, breathless. We were pleasantly surprised by applause. Cary gave an elegant bow and I held on to his hand for stability as I dipped into a curtsy.

  When I lifted my head and straightened, I found Gideon standing in front of me. Startled, I stumbled back a step. He was seriously underdressed in jeans and an untucked white dress shirt that was open at the collar and rolled up at the sleeves, but he was so damn fine he still put every other man in attendance to shame.

  The tremendous yearning I felt at the sight of him overwhelmed me. Distantly I was aware of the band’s singer pulling Cary away, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Gideon, whose wildly blue eyes burned into mine.

  “What are you doing here?” he snapped, scowling.

  I recoiled from his harshness. “Excuse me?”

  “You shouldn’t be here.” He grabbed me by the elbow and started hauling me toward the house. “I don’t want you here.”

  If he’d spit in my face, it couldn’t have devastated me more. I yanked my arm free of him and walked briskly toward the house with my head held high, praying I could make it to the privacy of the town car and Clancy’s protective watch before the tears started falling.

  Behind me, I heard a come-hither female voice call out Gideon’s name and I sent up a prayer that the woman would stall him long enough for me to get out without further confrontation.

  I thought I just might make it when I passed into the cool interior of the house.

  “Eva, wait.”

  My shoulders hunched at the sound of Gideon’s voice and I refused to look at him. “Get lost. I can show myself out.”

  “I’m not done—”

  “I am!” I pivoted to face him. “You don’t get to talk to me that way. Who do you think you are? You think I came here for you? That I was hoping I’d see you and you’d throw me a goddamn scrap or bone…some pathetic acknowledgment of my existence? Maybe I’d be able to harass you into a quick, dirty fuck in a corner somewhere in a pitiful effort to win you back?”

  “Shut up, Eva.” His gaze was scorching hot, his jaw tight and hard. “Listen to me—”

  “I’m only here because I was told you wouldn’t be. I’m here for Cary and his career. So you can go back to the party and forget about me all over again. I assure you, when I walk out the door, I’ll be doing the same to you.”

  “Shut your damned mouth.” He caught me by the elbows and shook me so hard my teeth snapped together. “Just shut up and let me talk.”

  I slapped him hard enough to turn his head. “Don’t touch me.”

  With a growl, Gideon hauled me into him and kissed me hard, bruising my lips. His hand was in my hair, fisting it roughly, holding me in place so I couldn’t turn away. I bit the tongue he thrust aggressively into my mouth, then his lower lip, tasting blood, but he didn’t stop. I shoved at his shoulders with everything I had, but I couldn’t budge him.

  Goddamn Stanton! If not for him and my crazy-assed mother, I’d have had a few Krav Maga classes under my belt by now…

  Gideon kissed me as if he was starved for the taste of me and my resistance began to melt. He smelled so good, so familiar. His body felt so perfectly right against mine. My nipples betrayed me, hardening into tight points, and a slow, hot trickle of arousal gathered in my core. My heart thundered in my chest.

  God, I wanted him. The craving hadn’t gone away, not even for a minute.

  He picked me up. Imprisoned by his tight grip, it was hard to breathe and my head began to spin. When he carried me through a door and kicked it shut behind him, I couldn’t do more than make a feeble sound of protest.

  I found myself pressed against a heavy glass door on the other side of a library, Gideon’s hard and powerful body subduing my own. His arm at my waist slid lower, his hand delving beneath my skirts and finding the curves of my butt exposed by my lacy boy shorts underwear. He wrenched my hips hard to his, making me feel how hard he was, how aroused. My sex trembled with want, achingly empty.

  All the fight left me. My arms fell to my sides, my palms pressing flat to the glass. I felt the brittle tension drain from his body as I softened in surrender, the pressure of his mouth easing and his kiss turning into a passionate coaxing.

  “Eva,” he breathed gruffly. “Don’t fight me. I can’t take it.”

  My eyes closed. “Let me go, Gideon.”

  He nuzzled his cheek against mine, his breath gusting hard and fast over my ear. “I can’t. I know you’re disgusted by what you saw the other night…what I was doing to myself—”

  “Gideon, no!” God. Did he think I left him because of that? “That’s not why—”

  “I’m losing my mind without you.” His lips were gliding down my neck, his tongue stroking over my racing pulse. He sucked on my skin and pleasure radiated through me. “I can’t think. I can’t work or sleep. My body aches for you. I can make you want me again. Let me try.”

  Tears slipped free and ran down my face. They splashed on the upper swell of my breasts and he licked at them, lapping them away.

  How would I ever recover if he made love to me again? How would I survive if he didn’t?

  “I never stopped wanting you,” I whispered. “I can’t stop. But you hurt me, Gideon. You have the power to hurt me like no one else can.”

  His gaze was stark and confused on my face. “I hurt you? How?”

  “You lied to me. You shut me out.” I cupped his face, needing him to understand this one thing without question. “Your past doesn’t have the power to push me away. Only you can do that, and you did.”

  “I didn’t know what to do,” he rasped. “I never wanted you to see me like that…”

  “That’s the problem, Gideon. I want to know who you are, the good and the bad, and you want to keep parts of yourself hidden from me. If you don’t open up, we’re going to lose each other down the road and I won’t be able to take it. I’m barely surviving it now. I’ve crawled through the last four days of my life. Another week, a month…It’ll break me to give you up.”

  “I can let you in, Eva. I’m trying. But your first response when I screw up is to run away. You do it every time and I can’t stand feeling like any moment I’m going to do or say something wrong and you’re going to bolt.”

  His mouth was tender again as he brushed his lips back and forth over mine. I didn’t argue with him. How could I, when he was right?

  “I hoped you’d come back on your own,” he murmured, “but I can’t stay away anymore. I’ll carry you out of here if I have to. Whatever it takes to get you back in the same room with me, talking this out.”

  My heart stuttered. “You were hoping I’d come back? I thought…You gave me back my keys. I thought we were over.”

  He pulled back, his face set in fierce lines. “We’ll never be over, Eva.”

  I looked at him, my heart aching like an open wound at how beautiful he was, how broken and in pain he was—pain I’d caused to some degree.

  On tiptoes, I kissed the reddened handprint I’d left on his cheek, clutching his thick silky hair in my hands.

  Gideon bent his knees to align our bodies, his breathing harsh and erratic. “I’ll do whatever you want, whatever you need. Anything. Just take me back.”

  Maybe I should have been scared by the depth of his need, but I felt the same passionate insanity for him.

  Run
ning my hands down his chest in an effort to soothe his trembling, I gave him the hard truth. “We can’t seem to stop making each other miserable. I can’t keep doing this to you and I can’t keep going through these crazy highs and lows. We need help, Gideon. We’re seriously dysfunctional.”

  “I saw Dr. Petersen on Friday. He’s going to take me on as a patient, and—if you agree—he’ll take us both on as a couple. I figured if you can trust him, I can try.”

  “Dr. Petersen?” I remembered the brief jolt I’d felt at seeing a black Bentley SUV when Clancy pulled away from the doctor’s office. At the time, I’d told myself it was wishful thinking. After all, there were countless black SUVs in New York. “You had me followed.”

  His chest expanded on a deep breath. He didn’t deny it.

  I bit back my anger. I could only imagine how terrible it must be for him to be so dependent on something—someone—he couldn’t control. What mattered most at that moment were his willingness to try and the fact that it wasn’t just talk. He’d actually taken steps. “It’s going to be a lot of work, Gideon,” I warned him.

  “I’m not afraid of work.” He was touching me restlessly, his hands sliding over my thighs and buttocks as if caressing my bare skin was as necessary to him as breathing. “I’m only afraid of losing you.”

  I pressed my cheek to his. We completed each other. Even now, as his hands roamed possessively over me, I felt a thawing in my soul, the desperate relief of being held—finally—by the man who understood and satisfied my deepest, most intimate desires.

  “I need you.” His mouth was sliding over my cheek and down my throat. “I need to be inside you…”

  “No. My God. Not here.” But my protest sounded weak even to my own ears. I wanted him anywhere, anytime, any way…

  “It has to be here,” he muttered, dropping to his knees. “It has to be now.”

  He chafed my skin ripping the lace of my panties away; then he shoved my skirts to my waist and licked my cleft, his tongue parting my folds to stroke over my throbbing clit.

  I gasped and tried to recoil, but there was nowhere to go. Not with the door at my back and a grimly determined Gideon in front, one hand keeping me pinned while the other lifted my left leg over his shoulder, opening me to his ardent mouth.

  My head thudded against the glass, heat pulsing through my blood from the point where his tongue was driving me mad. My leg flexed against his back, urging him closer, my hands cupping his head to hold him still as I rocked into him. Feeling the rough satin strands of his hair against my sensitive inner thighs was its own provocation, heightening my awareness of everything around me…

  We were in Gideon’s parents’ house, in the midst of a party attended by dozens of famous people, and he was on his knees, growling his hunger as he licked and sucked my slick, aching cleft. He knew just how to get to me, knew what I liked and needed. He had an understanding of my nature that went above and beyond his incredible oral skills. The combination was devastating and addicting.

  My body shook, my eyelids heavy from the illicit pleasure. “Gideon…You make me come so hard.”

  His tongue rubbed over and over the clenching entrance to my body, teasing me, making me grind shamelessly into his working mouth. His hands cupped my bare butt, kneading, urging me onto his tongue as he thrust it inside me. There was reverence in the greedy way he enjoyed me, the unmistakable sense that he worshipped my body, that pleasuring it and taking pleasure from it was as vital to him as the blood in his veins.

  “Yes,” I hissed, feeling the orgasm building. I was buzzed by champagne and the heated scent of Gideon’s skin mixed with my own arousal. My breasts strained within the increasingly too-tight confines of my strapless bra, my body trembling on the edge of a desperately needed orgasm. “I’m so close.”

  A movement on the far side of the room caught my eye and I froze, my gaze locking with Magdalene’s. She stood just inside the door, halted midstride, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the back of Gideon’s moving head.

  But he was either oblivious or too impassioned to care. His lips circled my clit and his cheeks hallowed. Sucking rhythmically, he massaged the hypersensitive knot with the tip of his tongue.

  Everything tightened viciously, then released in a fiery burst of pleasure.

  The orgasm poured through me in a scorching wave. I cried out, pumping my hips mindlessly into his mouth, lost to the primal connection between us. Gideon held me up as my knees weakened, tonguing my quivering flesh until the last tremor faded.

  When I opened my eyes again, our audience of one had fled.

  Standing in a rush, Gideon picked me up and carried me to the couch. He dropped me lengthwise on the cushion; then hauled my hips up to rest on the armrest, arching my spine.

  I eyed him up the length of my torso. Why not just fold me over and fuck me from behind?

  Then he ripped open his button-fly and pulled his big, beautiful penis out, and I didn’t care how he took me just so long as he did. I whimpered as he shoved into me, my body struggling to accommodate the wonderful fullness I craved. Yanking my hips to meet his powerful thrusts, Gideon battered my tender sex with that brutally thick column of rigid flesh, his gaze dark and possessive, his breath leaving him in primitive grunts every time he hit the end of me.

  A trembling moan left me, the friction of his drives stirring my never-sated need to be fucked senseless by him. Only him.

  A handful of strokes and his head fell back as he gasped my name, his hips rolling to stir me into a frenzy. “Squeeze me, Eva. Squeeze my dick.”

  When I complied, the ragged sound he made was so erotic my sex trembled in appreciation. “Yeah, angel…just like that.”

  I tightened around him and he cursed. His gaze found mine, the stunning blue hazed with sexual euphoria. A convulsive shudder wracked his powerful frame, followed by an agonized sound of ecstasy. His cock jerked inside me, once, twice, and then he was coming long and hard, spurting hotly into the clutching depths of my body.

  I didn’t have time to climax again, but it didn’t matter. I watched him with awe and pure female triumph. I could do this to him.

  In the moments of orgasm, I owned him as completely as he owned me.

  Gideon folded over me, his hair falling forward to tickle my chest, his lungs heaving. “God. I can’t go days without this. Even the hours at work are too long.”

  I ran my fingers through the sweat-damp roots of his hair. “I missed you, too.”

  He nuzzled my breasts. “When you’re not with me, I feel—Don’t run anymore, Eva. I can’t take it.”

  He pulled me up to stand in front of him, keeping his cock in me until the soles of my heels touched the hardwood floor. “Come home with me now.”

  “I can’t leave Cary.”

  “Then we’ll drag him out of here with us. Shh…Before you complain, whatever he hopes to get out of this party, I can make happen. Being here accomplishes nothing.”

  “Maybe he’s having fun.”

  “I don’t want you here.” He suddenly seemed distant, his tone far too controlled.

  “Do you know how badly it hurts me when you say that?” I cried softly, my chest tight with the pain of it. “What’s wrong with me that you don’t want me around your family?”

  “Angel, no.” He hugged me, his hands roaming my back in soothing caresses. “There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s this place. I don’t—I can’t be here. You want to know what’s in my dreams? It’s this house.”

  “Oh.” My stomach knotted with worry and confusion. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  Something in my voice lured him to press a kiss between my eyebrows. “I’ve been rough with you today. I’m sorry. I’m edgy and agitated being here, but that’s no excuse.”

  I cupped his face and stared into his eyes, seeing the tumultuous emotions he was so used to hiding. “Don’t ever apologize for being yourself with me. It’s what I want. I want to be your safe place, Gideon.”

  “You ar
e. You don’t know how much, but I’ll find a way to tell you.” He rested his forehead against mine. “Let’s go home. I bought some things for you.”

  “Oh? I love gifts.” Especially when they came from my self-professed unromantic boyfriend.

  Cautiously, he began to pull out of me. I was shocked to feel how wet I was, how copiously he’d come. The final few inches of his cock slid out in a rush and semen slicked my inner thighs. A moment later, two audacious droplets fell to the hardwood floor between my spread legs.

  “Oh, shit.” He groaned. “That’s so damn hot. I’m getting hard again.”

  I stared at the brazen display of his virility and felt warm. “You can’t go again after that.”

  “Hell if I can’t.” Cupping my sex in his hand, he rubbed the slickness all over me, coating the outer lips and massaging it into the folds. Euphoria spread through me like the warmth of fine liquor, a sense of contentment that came solely from the knowledge that Gideon found gratification in me and my body.

  “I’m an animal with you,” he murmured. “I want to mark you. I want to possess you so completely there’s no separation between us.”

  My hips began to move in tiny circles as his words and touch reignited the desire he’d goaded with the thrusts of his cock. I wanted to come again, knew I’d be miserable if I had to wait until we reached his bed. I was a sexual creature with him, too, so physically attuned to him and so positive that he would never physically hurt me, that I was…free.

  I encircled his wrist with my fingers and gently directed his hand around my hip to reach for me from behind. Nipping his jaw with my teeth, I gathered the courage he inspired in me and whispered, “Touch me here with your fingers. Mark me there.”

  He froze, his chest lifting and falling rapidly. “I don’t”—his voice strengthened—“I don’t do anal play, Eva.”

  Looking into his eyes, I saw something dark and volatile. Something very painful.

  Of all the things for us to have in common…

  The raw passion of our lust gentled into the warm familiarity of love. With my heart breaking, I confessed, “I don’t either. At least not voluntarily.”