Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel (34 page)

“More,” he ordered, deepening his drives to give me that delectable bite of soreness. That he once again trusted us both enough to introduce that little touch of pain chased away the last of my reservations. As much as we trusted each other, we were learning to trust our instincts, too.

I came again, ferociously, my toes curling until they cramped. I felt the familiar tension grip Gideon and tightened my grasp on his hips, spurring him on, desperate to feel him spurting inside me.

“No!” He wrenched away, falling to his back and throwing an arm over his eyes. Punishing himself by denying his body the comfort and pleasure of mine.

His chest heaved and glistened with sweat. His cock lay heavily on his belly, brutal-looking with its broad purpled head and thick roping of veins.

I dove for it with hands and mouth, ignoring his vicious curse. Pinning his torso with my forearm, I pumped him hard with my other fist and sucked voraciously on the sensitive crown. His thighs quivered, his legs kicking restlessly.

“Damn it, Eva. Fuck.” He stiffened and gasped, his hands shoving into my hair, his hips bucking. “Oh, fuck. Suck it hard…Ah, Christ…”

He exploded in a powerful rush that almost choked me, coming hard, flooding my mouth. I took it all, my fist milking pulse after pulse up the throbbing length of his cock, swallowing repeatedly until he shuddered with the surfeit of sensation and begged me to stop.

I straightened and Gideon sat up and wrapped himself around me. He took me back down to the floor where he buried his face in my throat and cried until dawn.

I wore a black long-sleeved silk blouse and slacks to work on Tuesday, feeling the need to have a barrier between myself and the world. In the kitchen, Gideon cupped my face in his hands and brushed his mouth across mine with heartrending tenderness. His gaze remained haunted.

“Lunch?” I asked, feeling like we needed to cling to the connection between us.

“I have a business lunch.” He ran his fingers through my loose hair. “Would you come? I’ll make sure Angus gets you back to work on time.”

“I’d love to come along.” I thought of the schedule of evening events, meetings, and appointments he’d sent to my smartphone. “And tomorrow night we have a benefit dinner at the Waldorf=Astoria?”

His gaze softened. Dressed for work, he looked somber yet collected. I knew he was anything but.

“You really won’t give up on me, will you?” he asked quietly.

I held up my right hand and showed him my ring. “You’re stuck with me, Cross. Get used to it.”

On the drive to work, he cuddled me in his lap, and again on the ride to lunch at Jean Georges. I didn’t speak more than a dozen words during the meal, which Gideon ordered for me and I enjoyed immensely.

I sat quietly at his side, my left hand resting on his hard thigh beneath the tablecloth, a wordless affirmation of my commitment to him. To us. One of his hands rested over mine, warm and strong, as he discussed a new property in development on St. Croix. We kept that connection throughout the entire meal, each of us choosing to eat one-handed rather than separate.

With each hour that passed, I felt the horror of the night before drain away from both of us. It would be another scar to add to his collection, another bitter memory he’d always have, a memory I would share and fear along with him, but it wouldn’t rule us. We wouldn’t let it.

Angus was waiting to take me home when my day ended. Gideon was working late, and then going directly from the Crossfire to Dr. Petersen’s office. I used the length of the drive to steel myself for the next round of training with Parker. I debated skipping it, but ended up deciding it was important to keep to a routine. So much in my life was uncontrollable at the moment. Following a schedule was one of the few things totally within my power.

After an hour and a half of tagging and groundwork with Parker at the studio, I was relieved when Clancy dropped me off at home and proud of myself for working out when it was the last thing I’d wanted to do.

When I stepped into the lobby, I found Trey talking to the front desk.

“Hey,” I greeted him. “Going up?”

He turned to face me, his brown eyes warm and his smile open. Trey had a gentleness to him, a kind of straightforward naïveté that was different from the other relationships Cary’d had before. Or maybe I should just say Trey was “normal,” which so few of the people in my and Cary’s lives were.

“Cary’s not in,” he said. “They just tried calling.”

“You’re welcome to come up with me and wait. I won’t be going out again.”

“If you really don’t mind.” He fell into step beside me as I waved at the gal at the front desk and moved toward the elevators. “I brought something for him.”

“I don’t mind at all,” I assured him, returning his sweet smile.

He eyed my yoga pants and tank top. “You just get back from the gym?”

“Yeah. Despite it being one of those days when I’d rather have done
anything
else.”

He laughed as we stepped into the elevator. “I know that feeling.”

As we rode up, silence descended. It was weighted.

“Everything all right?” I asked him.

“Well…” Trey adjusted the sling of his backpack. “Cary’s just seemed a little off the last few days.”

“Oh?” I bit my lower lip. “In what way?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I just feel like maybe something’s up with him and I’m missing what it is.”

I thought of the blonde and winced inwardly. “Maybe he’s stressed about the Grey Isles job and he doesn’t want to bother you with it. He knows you’ve got your hands full with your job and school.”

The tension in his shoulders softened. “Maybe that’s it. It makes sense. Okay. Thank you.”

I let us in to the apartment and told him to make himself at home. Trey headed to Cary’s room to drop his stuff, while I went to the phone to check the voice mail.

A shout from down the hallway had me reaching for the phone for a different reason, my heart thudding with thoughts of intruders and imminent danger. More yelling followed, with one voice clearly belonging to Cary.

I exhaled in a rush, relieved. With the phone in my hand, I ventured to see what the hell was going on. I was nearly run over by Tatiana rounding the hallway corner still buttoning her blouse.

“Oops,” she said, with an unapologetic grin. “See ya.”

I couldn’t hear the door shut behind her over Trey’s shouting.

“Fuck you, Cary. We talked about this! You promised!”

“You’re blowing this out of proportion,” Cary barked. “It’s not what you think.”

Trey came storming out of Cary’s bedroom in such a rush that I plastered myself to the hallway wall to get out of his way. Cary followed, with a sheet slung around his waist. As he passed me, I shot him a narrow-eyed glance that earned me a fuck-off middle finger.

I left the two men alone and escaped into my shower, angry at Cary for once again ruining something good in his life. It was a pattern I kept hoping he’d break, but he couldn’t seem to kick it.

When I came out to the kitchen a half hour later, the stillness in the apartment was absolute. I focused on cooking dinner, deciding to go with a pork roast and new potatoes with asparagus, one of Cary’s favorite dinners, in case he was home for dinner and needed some cheering up.

The sight of Trey stepping into the hallway while I was putting the roast in the oven surprised me, and then it made me sad. I hated to see him leave looking flushed, disheveled, and crying. My pity turned to fierce disappointment when Cary joined me in the kitchen with the scent of male sweat and sex clinging to him. He shot me a scowl as he passed me on his way to the wine fridge.

I faced him with my arms crossed. “Screwing a heartbroken lover on the same sheets he’s just caught you cheating on isn’t going to make things better.”

“Shut up, Eva.”

“He’s probably hating himself right now for giving in.”

“I said shut the fuck up.”

“Fine.” I turned away from him and focused on seasoning the potatoes to put in the oven with the roast.

Cary grabbed wineglasses out of the cupboard. “I can feel you judging me. Stop it. He wouldn’t be half as pissed if it’d been a man he caught me fucking.”

“It’s all his fault, huh?”

“Newsflash: Your love life isn’t perfect either.”

“Low blow, Cary. I’m not going to be your punching bag over this. You messed up, and then you made it worse. It’s all on you.”

“Don’t get on your damn high horse. You’re sleeping with a man who’s going to rape you any day now.”

“It’s not like that!”

He snorted and leaned his hip against the counter, his green eyes filled with pain and anger. “If you’re going to make excuses for him because he’s sleeping when he attacks you, you’ll have to make those same excuses for drunks and druggies. They don’t know what they’re doing either.”

The truth of his words struck me hard, as did the fact that he was deliberately trying to wound me. “You can put down a bottle. You can’t quit sleeping.”

Straightening, Cary opened the bottle he’d selected and poured two glasses, sliding one across the counter toward me. “If anyone knows what it’s like to be involved with people who hurt you, it’s me. You love him. You want to save him. But who’s going to save you, Eva? I’m not always going to be around when you’re with him and he’s a ticking time bomb.”

“You wanna talk about being in relationships that hurt, Cary?” I shot back, deflecting him away from my painful truths. “Did you screw Trey over to protect yourself? Did you figure you’d push him away before he had the chance to disappoint you?”

Cary’s mouth curved bitterly. He tapped his glass to mine, which still sat on the counter. “Cheers to us, the seriously fucked up. At least we have each other.”

He stalked out of the room and I deflated. I’d known this was coming—the unraveling of circumstances too good to be true. Contentment and happiness didn’t exist in my life for more than a few moments at a time, and they were really only illusionary.

There was always something hidden. Lying in wait to spring up and ruin everything.

 

G
ideon arrived just as dinner was coming out of the oven. He had a garment bag in one hand and a laptop case in the other. I’d worried that he would try to go home alone after his session with Dr. Petersen and was relieved when he’d called to say he was on his way. Still, when I first opened the door and saw him on the threshold, a shiver of unease slid through me.

“Hey,” he said quietly, following me back into the kitchen. “Smells delicious in here.”

“I hope you’re hungry. There’s a lot of food and I’ll be surprised if Cary joins us to help eat it all.”

Gideon dropped his stuff on the breakfast bar and approached me cautiously, his gaze searching my face as he neared. “I brought some things with me to stay the night, but I’ll go if you want. At any time. Just tell me.”

I blew out my breath in a harsh rush, determined not to let fear dictate my actions. “I want you here.”

“I want to be here.” He paused beside me. “Can I hold you?”

I turned into him and squeezed him hard. “Please.”

He pressed his cheek against mine and hugged me close. The embrace wasn’t as natural and easy as we’d grown used to. There was a new wariness between us that was different from anything we’d felt before.

“How are you doing?” he murmured.

“Better now that you’re here.”

“But still nervous.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Me, too. I don’t know how we’re ever going to fall asleep next to each other again.”

Pulling back slightly, I looked at him. That was my fear as well, and my earlier conversation with Cary didn’t help matters.
He’s a ticking time bomb…

“We’ll figure it out,” I said.

He was quiet for a long moment. “Has Nathan ever contacted you?”

“No.” Although I had a deep-rooted fear that I might see him again one day, whether accidentally or deliberately. He was out there somewhere, breathing the same air…“Why?”

“It was on my mind today.”

I pulled back to search his face, a knot forming in my throat at how tormented he looked. “Why?”

“Because we’ve got a lot of baggage between us.”

“Are you thinking it’s too much?”

Gideon shook his head. “I can’t think that way.”

I didn’t know what to do or say. What assurances could I give him, when I wasn’t sure my love and his need would be enough to make our relationship work?

“What’s going through your mind?” he asked.

“Thoughts of food. I’m starving. Why don’t you go see if Cary wants to eat? Then we can get started on dinner.”

Gideon found Cary sleeping, so he and I ate a candlelit dinner for two at the dining table, a somewhat formal meal while lounging in the worn T-shirts and pajama bottoms we’d put on after our respective showers. I was worried about Cary, but spending quiet downtime alone with Gideon felt like just what we needed.

“I had lunch with Magdalene in my office yesterday,” he said after we’d enjoyed a few initial bites.

“Oh?” While I’d been ring shopping, Magdalene had been enjoying private time with my man?

“Don’t take that tone,” he admonished. “She ate a meal in an office covered in your flowers, with you blowing kisses from my desk. You were as much there as she was.”

“Sorry. Knee-jerk reaction.”

He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a quick, hard kiss to the back. “I’m relieved you can still get jealous over me.”

I sighed. My emotions had been all over the map all day; I couldn’t decide how I felt about anything. “Did you say anything to her about Christopher?”

“That was the point of the lunch. I showed her the video.”

“What?” I frowned, remembering my phone had died in his car. “How’d you do that?”

“I took your phone up to my office and pulled the video off via USB. Didn’t you notice I brought it back last night, fully charged?”

“No.” I set my silverware down. Dominant or not, Gideon and I were going to have to work on which lines crossed over into my freak-out zone. “You can’t just hack into my phone, Gideon.”

“I didn’t hack into it. You haven’t set a password yet.”

“That’s not the point! It’s a serious invasion of my fucking privacy. Jesus…” Why in hell did no one in my life understand that I had boundaries? “Would you like me rummaging through your stuff?”

“I’ve got nothing to hide.” He pulled his smartphone out of an inner pocket of his sweats and held it out to me. “And you won’t either.”

I didn’t want to get into a fight now, things were too shaky as it was, but I’d let this go long enough. “It doesn’t matter whether or not I have something I don’t want you to see. I have a right to space and privacy, and you need to ask before you help yourself to my information and my belongings. You have to stop taking whatever you want without my permission.”

“What was private about it?’ he asked with a frown. “You showed it to me yourself.”

“Don’t be like my mother, Gideon!” I shouted. “There’s only so much crazy I can handle.”

He jerked back at my vehemence, clearly surprised by how upset I was. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

I gulped down my wine, trying to rein in my temper and unease. “Sorry I’m mad? Or sorry you did it?”

After the length of several heartbeats, Gideon said, “I’m sorry you’re mad.”

He really didn’t get it. “Why don’t you see how weird this is?”

“Eva.” He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “I spend a quarter of every day
inside
you. When you set limits outside of that I can’t help but see them as arbitrary.”

“Well, they’re not. They’re important to me. If there’s something you want to know, you need to ask me.”

“All right.”

“Don’t do it anymore,” I warned. “I’m not kidding, Gideon.”

His jaw tightened. “Okay. I get it.”

Then, because I really didn’t want to fight, I moved on. “What did she say when she saw it?”

He visibly relaxed. “It was difficult, of course. Even more difficult to know I’d seen it.”

“She saw us in the library.”

“We didn’t talk about that directly, but then, what was there to say? I won’t apologize for making love to my girlfriend in a closed room.” He leaned back in his chair and exhaled harshly. “Seeing Christopher’s face on the video—seeing what he really thought of her—
that
hurt her. It’s hard to see yourself being used that way. Especially by someone you think you know, someone who’s supposed to care about you.”

To hide my reaction, I busied myself with refilling both my glass and his. He spoke as if from experience. What exactly had been done to him?

After a quick gulp of wine, I asked, “How are
you
doing with it?”

“What can I do? Over the years, I’ve made every attempt to talk to Christopher. I’ve tried throwing money at him. I’ve tried threatening him. He’s never shown any inclination to change. I realized long ago that I can only do damage control. And keep you as far away from him as possible.”

“I’ll be helping you with that, now that I know.”

“Good.” He took a drink, eyeing me over the lip of his glass. “You’re not asking me about my appointment with Dr. Petersen.”

“It’s none of my business. Unless you want to share.” I met his gaze, willing him to do just that. “I’m here to listen whenever you need an ear, but I’m not going to pry. When you’re ready to let me in, you will. That said, I’d love to know if you like him.”

“So far.” He smiled. “He talks me around in circles. Not many people can do that.”

“Yes. Talks you back around and makes you come at it from a different angle that has you thinking, ‘Now why didn’t I see it like that?’”

Gideon’s fingers stroked up and down the stem of his glass. “He prescribed something for me to take at night before bed. I filled it before I came over.”

“How do you feel about taking drugs?”

He looked at me with dark, haunted eyes. “I feel it’s necessary. I have to be with you and I have to make that safe for you, whatever it takes. Dr. Petersen says the drug combined with therapy has been successful for other ‘atypical sexual parasomniacs.’ I have to believe that.”

I reached over to squeeze his hand. Taking medication was a big step, especially for someone who’d avoided facing his problems for a long time. “Thank you.”

Gideon’s grip tightened. “Apparently there are enough people with this problem that there have been sleep studies on it. He told me about a documented case where a man sexually assaulted his wife in his sleep for twelve years before they sought help.”

“Twelve years? Jesus.”

“Apparently part of the reason they waited so long was because the man was a better lay when he was asleep,” he said dryly. “And if that’s not a killer blow to the ego, I don’t know what is.”

I stared at him. “Well, shit.”

“I know, right?” His wry smile faded. “But I don’t want you to feel pressured to share a bed with me, Eva. There is no magic pill. I can sleep on the couch or I can go home, although of the two choices I’d prefer the couch. My whole day is better after getting ready for work with you.”

“For me, too.”

Reaching over, Gideon caught my hand and lifted it to his lips. “I never imagined I could have this…Someone in my life who knows what you do about me. Someone who could talk about my fuck-ups over dinner because they accept me anyway…I’m grateful for you, Eva.”

My heart twisted with a sweet pain in my chest. He could say such beautiful things, the perfect things.

“I feel the same way about you, ace.” Deeper, maybe, because I loved him. But I didn’t say that aloud. He’d get there someday. I wasn’t going to give up until he was absolutely, irrevocably mine.

With his bare feet propped on the coffee table and his computer on his lap, Gideon looked so at home and relaxed that he kept distracting me from my television shows.

How did we get here?
I asked myself. This extravagantly sexy man and me?

“You’re staring,” he murmured, his gaze on his laptop screen.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Is that a sexual suggestion, Miss Tramell?”

“How do you see me while staring at whatever you’re working on?”

He looked up then and caught my gaze. His blue eyes blazed with power and heat. “I’ve always seen you, angel. From the moment you found me, I’ve seen nothing but you.”