Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel (29 page)

His gaze was on the wall illuminated by the picture light, which snagged my attention, too. I was startled when I saw the art—a huge collage of blown-up photos of him and me: the picture of our kiss on the street outside the gym…a shot of us from the press gauntlet at the advocacy dinner…a candid of the tender aftermath of our fight in Bryant Park…

The focal point was the image in the center that had been taken while I slept in my own bed, lit only by the candle I’d left burning for him. It was an intimate voyeuristic shot, one that said more about the photographer than it did the subject.

I was deeply touched by the proof that he’d been falling along with me.

Gideon gestured at the drink he’d poured for me in advance and set on the edge of his desk. “Have a seat.”

I complied, curious. There was an edge to him that was new, a sense of purpose and calm determination paired with laser-precise focus.

What brought on his mood? And what did it mean for the rest of our evening?

Then I saw the small photo collage frame lying on the desktop next to my drink and my worry faded. The frame was very similar to the one already on my desk, but this one held three photos of Gideon and me together.

“I want you to take that to work,” he said quietly

“Thank you.” For the first time in days, I was happy. I hugged the frame to my chest with one hand, and picked up my glass with the other.

His eyes glittered as he watched me take a seat. “You blow kisses at me all day from your picture on my desk. I think it’s only fair that you be equally reminded of me. Of us.”

I exhaled in a rush, my heartbeat not quite steady. “I never forget about you or us.”

“I wouldn’t let you if you tried.” Gideon took a deep drink, his throat working on a swallow. “I think I’ve figured out where we made our first misstep, the one that’s led to all the stumbles we’ve had since.”

“Oh?”

“Take a drink of your Armagnac, angel. I think you’ll need it.”

I took a cautious sip of the liquor, feeling the instantaneous burn, followed by recognition that I liked the flavor. I took a bigger drink.

Rolling his glass between his palms, Gideon took another drink and eyed me thoughtfully. “Tell me which was hotter, Eva: sex in the limo when you were in charge or sex in the hotel when I was?”

I shifted restlessly, unsure of where the conversation was leading. “I thought you enjoyed what happened in the limo. While it was happening, I mean. Obviously not later.”

“I loved it,” he said with quiet conviction. “The image of you in that red dress, moaning and telling me how good my cock feels inside you, will haunt me as long as I live. If you’d like to top me again in the future, I’m definitely game.”

My stomach tensed. The muscles in my shoulders began to knot. “Gideon, I’m starting to freak out a little. All this talk of safewords and topping…it feels like this conversation is leading somewhere I can’t go.”

“You’re thinking of bondage and pain. I’m talking about a consensual power exchange.” Gideon studied me intently. “Would you like more brandy? You’re very pale.”

“You think?” I set the drained glass down. “It sounds like you’re telling me you’re a Dominant.”

“Angel, you knew that already.” His mouth curved in a soft, sexy smile. “What I’m telling you is that you’re submissive.”

 

I
pushed to my feet in a rush.

“Don’t,” he warned in a dark purr. “You’re not running yet. We’re not done.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Being under someone else’s thumb—
losing my right to say no!
—was never going to happen again. “You know what I went through. I need control as much as you do.”

“Sit down, Eva.”

I stayed on my feet, just to prove my point.

His smile widened and my insides melted. “Do you have any idea how crazy I am about you?” he murmured.

“You’re crazy all right, if you think I’m going to put up with being ordered around, especially sexually.”

“Come on, Eva. You know I don’t want to beat you, punish you, hurt you, demean you, or order you around like a pet. Those aren’t needs either of us has.” Straightening, Gideon leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desktop. “You’re the most important thing in my life. I treasure you. I want to protect you and make you feel safe. That’s why we’re talking about this.”

God.
How could he be so wonderful and so insane at the same time? “I don’t need to be dominated!”

“What you need is someone to trust—No. Close your mouth, Eva. You’ll wait until I’m finished.”

My protest spluttered into silence.

“You’ve asked me to reacquaint your body with acts previously used to hurt and terrorize you. I can’t tell you what your trust means to me or what it would do to me if I broke that trust. I can’t risk it, Eva. We have to do this right.”

I crossed my arms. “I guess I’m dumber than bricks. I thought our sex life was rockin’.”

Setting his glass down, Gideon kept going as if I hadn’t spoken. “You asked me to meet a need of yours today and I agreed. Now we need to—”

“If I’m not what you want, just spit it out!” I set the picture frame and my glass down before I did something with them I’d regret. “Don’t try and pretty it up with—”

He was around the desk and on me before I could stumble back more than a couple steps. His mouth sealed over mine, his arms caged me. As he’d done earlier, he carried me to a wall and restrained me against it, his hands banding my wrists and lifting them high above my head.

Trapped, I could nothing as he bent his knees and stroked my cleft with the rigid length of his erection. Once, twice. Silk rasped against my swollen clit. The bite of his teeth on my covered nipple sent a shiver through me, while the clean scent of his warm skin intoxicated me. With a gasp, I sagged into his embrace.

“See how easily you submit when I take over?” His lips followed the arch of my brow. “And it feels good doesn’t it? It feels right.”

“That’s not fair.” I stared up at him. How could he expect me to respond any differently? As disturbed and confounded as I was, I was helplessly drawn to him.

“Of course it is. It’s also true.”

My gaze roamed over that glorious mane of inky hair and the chiseled lines of his incomparable face. The longing I felt was so acute it was painful. The hidden damage inside him only made me love him more. There were times when I felt like I’d found the other half of myself in him.

“I can’t help it that you turn me on,” I muttered, “My body is physiologically supposed to soften and relax, so you can shove that big cock inside me.”

“Eva. Let’s be honest. You
want
me to have total control. It’s important to you that you can trust me to take care of you. There’s nothing wrong with that. The reverse is true for me—I need you to trust me enough to give up that control.”

I couldn’t think when he was pressed up against me, my body achingly aware of every hard inch of him. “I am
not
submissive.”

“You are with me. If you look back, you’ll see you’ve been yielding to me all along.”

“You’re good in bed! And have more experience. Of course I let you do what you want to me.” I bit my lower lip to stop it from quivering. “I’m sorry I haven’t been as exciting for you.”

“Bullshit, Eva. You know how much I enjoy making love to you. If I could get away with it, I’d do nothing else. We’re not talking about games that get me off.”

“Then we’re talking about what gets
me
off? Is that what this is?”

“Yes. I thought so.” He frowned. “You’re upset. I didn’t mean—Damn it. I thought discussing this would help us.”

“Gideon.” My eyes stung, then flooded with tears. He looked as wounded and confused as I felt. “You’re breaking my heart.”

Releasing my wrists, he stepped back and swept me up in his arms, carrying me out of his office and down the hallway to a closed door. “Turn the knob,” he said quietly.

We entered a candlelit room that still smelled faintly of new paint. For a few seconds I was disoriented, unable to comprehend how we’d stepped out of Gideon’s apartment and into my bedroom.

“I don’t understand.” A serious understatement, but my brain was still trying to get past the feeling of being teleported from one residence to another. “You…moved me in with you?”

“Not quite.” He set me down, but kept an arm around me. “I recreated your room based on the photo I took of you sleeping.”

“Why?”

What the hell? Who did something like that? Was this all to keep me from witnessing his nightmares?

The thought shattered my heart further. I felt like Gideon and I were drifting further away from each other by the moment.

His hands sifted through my damp hair, which only increased my agitation. I felt like batting his touch away and putting at least the length of the room between us. Maybe two rooms.

“If you feel the need to run,” he said softly, “you can come in here and shut the door. I promise not to bother you until you’re ready. This way, you have your safe place and I know that you haven’t left me.”

A million questions and speculations roared through my mind, but the one thing that stuck out was, “Are we still going to share a bed when we’re sleeping?”

“Every night.” Gideon’s lips touched my forehead. “How could you think otherwise? Talk to me, Eva. What’s going through that beautiful head of yours?”

“What’s going through
my
head?” I snapped. “What the fuck is going on in yours? What happened to you in the four days we were broken up?”

His jaw tightened. “We never broke up, Eva.”

The phone rang in the other room. I cursed under my breath. I wanted us to talk and I wanted him to go away, both at the same time.

He squeezed my shoulders, and then let me go. “That’s our dinner.”

I didn’t follow him when he left, feeling too unsettled to eat. Instead, I crawled onto the bed that was exactly like my own and curled around a pillow, closing my eyes. I didn’t hear Gideon come back, but I felt him as he drew to a stop at the edge of the bed.

“Please don’t make me eat alone,” he said to my rigid back.

“Why don’t you just order me to eat with you?”

He sighed, and then slid onto the bed to spoon behind me. His warmth was welcome, chasing away the chill that had brought goose bumps to my skin. He didn’t say anything for a long while, just gave me the comfort of having him close. Or maybe he was taking comfort in me.

“Eva.” His fingers caressed the length of my silk-clad arm. “I can’t stand you being unhappy. Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say. I thought we were finally coming to a point where things would smooth out between us.” I hugged the pillow tighter.

“Don’t tense up, Eva. It hurts when you pull away from me.”

I felt like he was
pushing
me away.

Rolling, I shoved him to his back; then I mounted him, my robe parting as I straddled his hips. I ran the palms of my hands over his powerful chest and raked the tanned flesh with my nails. My hips undulated over him, stroking my bare cleft over his cock. Through the thin silk of his pants, I could feel every ridge and thick vein. From the way his eyes darkened and his sculpted mouth parted on quickened breaths, I knew he could feel the outline and damp heat of me as well.

“Is this so awful for you?” I asked, rocking my hips. “Are you lying there thinking you’re not giving me what I want because I’m in charge?”

Gideon set his hands on my thighs. Even that innocuous touch seemed dominating.

The edginess and sharpened focus I’d detected not long ago abruptly made sense to me—he wasn’t restraining his force of will anymore.

The tremendous power coiled inside him was now directed at me like a blast of heat.

“I’ve told you before,” he said huskily. “I’ll take you however I can get you.”

“Whatever. Don’t think I don’t know you’re topping from the bottom.”

His mouth curved with unapologetic amusement.

Sliding down, I teased the flat disk of his nipple with the tip of my tongue. I blanketed him as he’d done to me in the past, stretching my body over his hips and legs, my hands shoving beneath his gorgeous ass to squeeze the firm flesh and hold him tight against me. His cock was a thick column against my belly, renewing my fierce appetite for him.

“Are you going to punish me with pleasure?” he asked quietly. “Because you can. You can bring me to my knees, Eva.”

My forehead dropped to his chest and the air left my lungs in an audible rush. “I wish.”

“Please don’t be so worried. We’ll get through this along with everything else.”

“You’re so positive you’re right.” My gaze narrowed. “You’re trying to prove a point.”

“And you might prove yours.” Gideon licked his lower lip and my sex clenched in silent demand.

There was a brilliant depth of emotion in his eyes. Whatever else was going on in our relationship, there was no doubt we were seriously twisted up over each other.

And I was about to demonstrate that in the flesh.

Gideon’s neck arched as my mouth moved over his torso. “Oh, Eva.”

“Your world’s about to be rocked, Mr. Cross.”

It was. I made sure of it.

Feeling goofy with feminine triumph, I sat at Gideon’s dining table and remembered him as he’d been just a short time ago—damp with sweat and panting, cursing as I took my time savoring his luscious body.

He swallowed a bite of his steak, which had been kept hot courtesy of a warming drawer, and said calmly, “You’re insatiable.”

“Well, duh. You’re gorgeous, sexy, and very well-hung.”

“I’m glad you approve. I’m also extremely wealthy.”

I waved one hand carelessly, encompassing the whole of what had to be a fifty-million-dollar apartment. “Who cares about that?”

“Well, I do, actually.” His mouth curved.

I stabbed my fork into a German fried potato, thinking that Peter Luger food was almost as good as sex. Almost. “I’m interested in your money only if it means you can afford to stop working in favor of lounging around naked as my sex slave.”

“I could afford to financially, yes. But you’d get bored and dump me, then where would I be?” His look was warmly amused. “Think you proved your point, do you?”

I chewed, and then said, “Should I prove it again?”

“The fact that you’re still horny enough to want to proves
my
point.”

“Hmm.” I drank my wine. “Are you projecting?”

He shot me a look and casually chewed another bite of the tenderest steak I’d ever had.