Salvation (20 page)

***

I
t was just a couple of weeks later, on another Friday evening, when we were having dinner at my place. I’d tried out a new recipe, and Gideon had brought over wine and cupcakes.

I collapsed on the couch after dinner, sighing with pleasure and with just a little bit of buzz from the bottle of wine we’d shared. “Those were really good cupcakes,” I said.

He grinned and sat down beside him. “Glad you liked them.”

“Well, you seemed to like them pretty well too.”

“I was just eating them so you wouldn’t be the only one.”

“Liar.” He was smiling so adorably that I leaned over to give him a kiss. Then we settled into a cuddling position.

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” Gideon asked.

“We can if you want.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t really care.”

“Well, that’s not very helpful.”

I laughed at his dry tone and nestled a little closer to him, feeling so much affection and trust that I needed to be as close to him as I could get.

He didn’t seem opposed to this idea, and he reached down to find my hand. “We could look for something on TV.”

“Is there a game you want to watch?”

“Not tonight. What about music?”

“That’s fine too.”

He let out a sigh. “There’s a spider in the corner over there spinning a web. Maybe we can just watch her progress?”

I gave a little whimper and jerked against him. “Where’s the spider?”

He laughed out loud. “There’s no spider. It was a joke.”

Feeling like I needed to explain myself, I said, “I knew it was a joke. But I thought there might actually be a spider too. And I’d rather not let them set up shop here.”

“I’ll take care of any spiders that start hanging around.” His voice was teasing but also unusually soft, and he leaned down to brush a kiss into my hair.

I turned so I could look up at his face. I have no actual proof of this, but I suspect my expression was embarrassingly besotted. “You’re really good at taking care of things for me.”

He must have noticed my expression because his own features relaxed into a matching emotion. “I like to take care of things for you. Evicting spiders or supplying cupcakes or whatever else comes along that needs doing—I’m your man.”

I swallowed, experiencing such a deep wave of feeling I could barely process it, barely take a full breath. “You
are
my man,” I whispered, sliding a hand up so I could feel his slightly rough jaw and his thick hair.

He made a nose in his throat and leaned his face down so he could reach my mouth. He usually started his kisses very lightly, gently, easing into passion, but he didn’t this time. His mouth was hungry, urgent, and I couldn’t help but respond. Floods of feeling and sensation washed over me as he stroked my mouth with his tongue.

I shifted until I was on my knees so I could wrap my arms around his neck. His slid one of his hands down to my bottom and twisted the other one in my loose hair. I made a silly sound in my throat as the pleasure rushed through me. I felt filled with him, surrounded by him, overwhelmed by him.

Then I felt a familiar flicker of bleak memory and tore my lips away, suddenly needing to breathe.

“You okay?” he asked thickly, adjusting us so I was on his lap, my thighs draped over his. I could feel his frustration in the tension of his body.

“Yeah. Sorry.” I leaned against his chest.

“Don’t be sorry. I didn’t mean to get quite so carried away.” He sighed and stroked his hand slowly down my hair.

“I got carried away too. It wasn’t just you.”

“Good.” He found my hand and started to stroke the palm with his thumb in that special way he had.

We sat together, me in his lap, without making any attempt to move. He kept caressing my hand, and it felt unexpectedly good.

I mean
really
good.

He caressed little circles and lines along the palm, down to the heel, and up the line of each finger. At first, it felt pleasant in a way that made me sigh and relax against him, just a tender indulgence. But then the sensations shifted, intensified, and all of the nerve endings he stimulated seemed to shoot down to the same location.

He trailed down to brush the pad of his thumb against my wrist, and it felt so delicious that I gave a little moan.

“You like that?” he murmured.

“Yeah.” When he adjusted his hand so he could run his fingers in a gentle line from my wrist to the bend of my elbow, I gasped. “Oh, yeah.”

He lifted my arm so he could kiss my palm, his lips following the same pattern as his thumb. It felt even better—especially when he flicked his tongue out unexpected to tease—and I felt an ache grow between my legs.

“I don’t know how you do that.” I mumbled, fisting my hand in his shirt and trying to process my growing arousal. I was flushed and growing breathless.

“Do what?” He sounded as turned on as I was.

“Make touching nothing but my arm feel so good.”

He gently nipped at a sensitive spot on the inside of my forearm, and I gave an embarrassing little yelp. “How good does it feel?” he murmured thickly.

I stretched against him, feeling my breasts and my lips and my heart all pulsing with excitement. “Really good.”

“It looks like it feels good.” He was back to stroking my palm. “I love to see you this way. I love to make you feel so good.”

I moaned again at the sensations, feeling limp and about to explode at the same time. He slid his fingers along the line of my inner arm again, and I whimpered helplessly. “Oh, God, Gideon. I want even more.”

With a muffled groan, he turned me so I was straddling his lap. Then he pulled me closer so he could kiss me.

This kiss was even more urgent and hungry than the first one. Our mouths moved together almost desperately, and each stroke of his tongue sent more sensations down to my throbbing arousal.

Then he broke the kiss and nibbled his way down my neck. I dropped my head back and moaned uninhibitedly at the feeling. His hands spanned my ribs, holding me in the position he wanted me, and I was so overwhelmed that I arched my back and tried to push my breasts up toward him.

“Oh, fuck, Diana,” he mumbled against my throat. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The sweetest thing I’ve ever touched.”

My heart responded to his words the way my body responded to his touch, and I whimpered again in response. “Please, Gideon,” I gasped, starting to rub my groin against his. He was hard, and the feel of him seemed to match the way I felt too. “Oh, please.”

He hissed in response to my grinding against him, and his hands slid down to squeeze my bottom. But then he held my hips still and lifted his head. “Baby, you need to tell me what you really want.”

I tried to process the shift, the cessation of motion and sensation, and I just stared at him, panting desperately.

“If you just want to kiss, that’s fine, but we’ll have to back down a little because I’m going to lose it in about sixty seconds. If you really want more, you need to tell me—so I know what I’m allowed to give you.”

He was trying so hard, so assiduously trying to hold himself back from taking what he obviously wanted, that my heart exploded in a climax far deeper than anything my body was capable of. With a little sob, I threw my arms around him. “I want you, Gideon. I want you all the way.”

He wrapped his arms around my body and hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe. “Are you sure? Don’t push yourself just because I’m impatient. We can do something midway between—”

“No. I want all of you. Tonight.” I pulled back so he could see my eyes and know I was telling the truth.

His face twisted briefly as he focused on my expression and evidently saw the truth there. I saw the transformation on his face, and it was a reward in itself.

I wanted to please Gideon, as much as I wanted to please myself. I wanted to give to him as much as he’d always given to me. “Take me to bed,” I said. “Will you please take me to bed?”

“Damn right I will.”

I giggled at the gruff reply, and then squealed when he got up off the couch and reached down to swing me up in his arms. He carried me into my bedroom and laid me down on the bed. I pulled him down on top of me and we fell into another deep kiss.

When he lifted his head, he was panting as much as I was. “Just tell me what you need or if anything makes you uncomfortable. Promise me you’ll tell me the truth, even if it means we have to stop.”

“I will.” I didn’t think I’d need to stop. I felt compelled by something more powerful than I’d ever felt before. But I appreciated the sentiment, and I smiled up at him sappily. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said with a half-smile. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“Yes, you have.”

He looked a little uncomfortable in the face of my naked appreciation, so he went for humor. “Well, I’ve kissed you and paid a little attention to your arm, but I’m sure I can do better than that.”

I giggled and pulled him down into another kiss, and then the kiss transitioned to his mouthing little lines along my jaw and down my neck. I gasped as he fluttered his tongue against the pulse in my throat, and then I gasped again when he slid his hands under the hem of my shirt. “Can I—” he began.

Instead of answering, I grabbed my shirt and pulled it over my head myself. He stared down at my body—pale skin, black bra—as if he might devour it.

I shifted self-consciously at the blaze of desire in his eyes, at something that almost looked like awe. “No need to stare,” I quipped, using wit to mask my discomfort.

‘Of course, there’s need to stare. I’ve never—you have no idea how breathtakingly beautiful you are.”

I didn’t feel beautiful. I’d always been decent looking, but I’d never really felt beautiful in my life. For the last several months, I’d felt the opposite. But he seemed to think I was, if the look in his eyes was anything to go on.

He finally lowered his mouth to kiss my collarbone. And then the hollow between my breasts. And then my nipple, over the fabric of my bra.

I arched up and gasped at the resulting sensation, and then I whimpered again when he teased my nipple with his tongue.

For the record, I’ve never considered myself a whimperer. It doesn’t sound exactly dignified. But I don’t know how else to describe the little sound that kept coming out of my mouth, and at least Gideon seemed to appreciate it.

He took a long time fondling and caressing me, eventually taking off my bra and then my pants. By that point, I was practically writhing with desire and trying to claw off his clothes.

The only flicker of resistance came when he kissed his way toward my back, lifting me slightly so he could get farther around my body.

When it felt like he was going to turn me over, I raised my hand to his chest and said, “I’m sorry. I can’t...from behind.”

He lifted his head and stared at me. “It wasn’t going to be from behind. I was just—”

“I know. I know. But even that...I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” He smiled and lowered his mouth back to my breast, and soon the moment was completely forgotten.

A few minutes later, he asked, “Are you ready?” He lifted his head up to look at my face, which I’m sure was damp and flushed. “It feels like you’re ready, but just tell me if I’m going too fast.”

I almost snorted on a burst of laughter, my whole body shaking beneath his. “Too fast isn’t exactly how I’d describe it.”

He was as flushed as I was, and his blue eyes were blazing with passion impossible to hide or misinterpret. “I’ve got to make sure it’s good for you.”

Feeling swelled up in my heart. “It will be good, Gideon. Just being with you will be good. Let’s not aim too high our first time.”

He shook his head. “I’m not aiming too high.” Then he lowered his face to suckle my breast again before he kissed a line down my belly. I shifted my hips as desire pulsed strongly between my thighs, and more so as his mouth got even lower. He slanted his eyes up to me with an obvious question. “May I?”

I hadn’t been expecting it, and I was immediately uncomfortable. But it wasn’t the rising of demons or the flash of dark memory. It was a vaguer discomfort—self-consciousness and anxiety and uncertainty and confusion. But none of that was strong enough to make me say no. I nodded silently and watched as his mouth trailed even lower.

I gave a soft little cry when he brushed his mouth against my arousal through my panties. He teased and nuzzled until I couldn’t hold myself still, and I reached up to fist my hands in the pillow on either side of my head.

“Oh, God,” I mumbled, arching up and spreading my thighs farther apart.

“Do you like that?” His mouth was muffled by my flesh, but I could understand the words clearly.

“Uh huh.” I hissed through my teeth as his tongue darted out to stroke a quick line. The fabric of my panties was damp now, and not just from his mouth. “Oh, yeah.”

He grabbed the sides of the waistband and gently pulled my underwear off. I was more self-conscious as he stared at my completely naked and exposed body.

No one else got to see my body. No one else would ever get to see my body. And, even with Gideon, I felt like I needed to cover back up.

“Everything about you is beautiful,” he murmured, finally resuming his activity, without the layer of fabric between his mouth and my flesh.

I cried out at the intensified sensation.

“Good.” He was making halting little murmurs, muffled by my body, as if he couldn’t help but say the thoughts out loud. “So good. Let me make you feel good.”

Now, I’d never before been a particularly noisy lover. I was always afraid it would be kind of distracting and obnoxious. But I felt completely out of control, and I couldn’t seem to restrain the sounds.

He found my clit with his tongue and teased little circles around it. I made a sound like “eh” every time he gave it a hard jab. Then he moved his mouth a little lower and found a different spot to attend to. He slid his tongue in and out around my entrance with a rhythm that made me pump my hips and groan loudly.

“That’s right, baby,” he mumbled, trying to hold my hips steady enough to keep up his ministrations. “Don’t hold back. Don’t hold anything back.”