Crossfire 01 Bared to You (26 page)

I
kept my head down as I made the walk of shame past the registration desk and exited the hotel through a side door. I was red-faced with embarrassment remembering the manager who’d greeted Gideon as we got on the elevator. I could only imagine what he’d thought of me. He had to know what Gideon reserved that room for. I couldn’t stand the thought of being the next in a line of many and yet that’s exactly what I’d been from the moment we entered the hotel.

How hard would it have been to stop by the front desk and secure a room that was ours alone?

I started walking with no direction or destination in mind. It was dark out now, the city taking on a whole new life and energy from what it had during the business day. Steaming food carts dotted the sidewalks, along with a vendor selling framed artwork, another hawking novelty T-shirts, and yet another who had two folding tables covered in movie and television episode scripts.

With every step I took, the adrenaline from my flight burned away. The maliciously gleeful thoughts of Gideon coming out of the bathroom to find an empty room and paraphernalia-strewn bed ran their course. I began to calm down…and seriously think about what had just happened.

Was it a coincidence that Gideon invited me to a gym that just so happened to be conveniently close to his fuck pad?

I remembered the conversation we’d had in his office over lunch and the way he’d struggled to express himself to keep me. He was as confused and torn about what was happening between us as I was, and I knew how easy it was to fall into established patterns. After all, hadn’t I just fallen into one of my own by bailing? I’d spent enough years in therapy to know better than to wound and run when I was hurting.

Heartsick, I stepped into an Italian bistro and took a table. I ordered a glass of shiraz and a pizza margherita, hoping wine and food would calm the vibrating anxiety inside me so that I could think properly.

When the waiter returned with my wine, I gulped down half the glass without really tasting it. I missed Gideon already, missed the playful happy mood he’d been in when I left. His scent was all over me—the smell of his skin and hot, grinding sex. My eyes stung and I let a few tears slide down my face, despite being in a very public, very busy restaurant. My food came and I picked at it. It tasted like cardboard, although I doubted that had anything to do with the chef or the venue.

Pulling over the chair where I’d set my bag, I dug out my new smartphone with the intention of leaving a message with Dr. Travis’s answering service. He’d suggested we have video chat appointments until I found a new therapist in New York and I decided to take him up on that offer. That’s when I noticed the twenty-one missed calls from Gideon and a text;
I fucked up again. Don’t break up with me. Talk to me. Pls.

The tears welled again. I held the phone to my heart, at a loss for what to do. I couldn’t get the images of Gideon and other women out of my mind. I couldn’t stop picturing him fucking the hell out of another woman on that same bed, using toys on her, driving her crazy, taking his pleasure from her body…

It was irrational and pointless to think of such things, and it made me feel petty and small and physically sick.

I startled when the phone vibrated against me, nearly dropping it. Nursing my misery, I debating letting it go to voice mail because I could see on the screen that it was Gideon—plus he was the only one who had the number—but I couldn’t ignore it, because he was clearly frantic. As much as I’d wanted to wound him earlier, I couldn’t stand to do it now.

“Hello.” My voice didn’t sound like mine, clogged as it was with tears and emotion.

“Eva! Thank God.” Gideon sounded so anxious. “Where are you?”

Looking around, I didn’t see anything that would tell me the name of the restaurant. “I don’t know. I…I’m sorry, Gideon.”

“No, Eva. Don’t. It’s my fault. I need to find you. Can you describe where you’re at? Did you walk?”

“Yes. I walked.”

“I know which exit you took. Which way did you head?” He was breathing quickly and I could hear the sounds of traffic and car horns in the background.

“To the left.”

“Did you turn any corners after that?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know.” I looked around for a server I could ask. “I’m in a restaurant. Italian. There’s seating on the sidewalk…and a wrought iron fence. French doors…Jesus, Gideon, I—”

He appeared, silhouetted in the entrance with the phone held to his ear. I knew him immediately, watched as he froze when he saw me seated against the wall toward the back. Shoving the phone into the pocket of jeans he’d had stored at the hotel, he strode past the hostess who’d starting speaking to him and headed straight for me. I barely managed to get to my feet before he hauled me against him and embraced me tightly.

“God.” He shook slightly and buried his face in my neck. “Eva.”

I hugged him back. He was fresh from a shower, making me achingly aware of my need for one.

“I can’t be here,” he said hoarsely, pulling back to cup my face in his hands. “I can’t be in public right now. Will you come home with me?”

Something on my face must have betrayed my lingering wariness, because he pressed his lips to my forehead and murmured, “It won’t be like the hotel, I promise. My mother’s the only woman who’s ever been to my place, aside from the housekeeper and staff.”

“This is stupid,” I muttered. “I’m being stupid.”

“No.” He brushed the hair back from my face and bent closer to whisper in my ear. “If you’d taken me to a place you reserved for fucking other men, I would’ve lost it.”

The waiter returned and we pulled apart. “Should I get you a menu, sir?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Gideon dug his wallet out of his back pocket and handed over his credit card. “We’re leaving.”

We took a cab to Gideon’s place and he held on to my hand the entire time. I shouldn’t have been so nervous riding a private elevator up to a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue. The sight of high ceilings and prewar architecture wasn’t new to me, and really, it was all to be expected when dating a man who seemed to own damn near everything. And the coveted view of Central Park…well, of course he’d have one.

But Gideon’s tension was palpable, and it made me realize that this was a big deal to
him
. When the elevator opened directly into his apartment’s marbled entry foyer, his grip on my hand tightened before he released me. He unlocked the double-door entrance to usher me inside, and I could feel his anxiety as he watched for my reaction.

Gideon’s home was as beautiful as the man himself. It was so very different from his office, which was sleek, modern, and cool. His private space was warm and sumptuous, filled with antiques and art anchored by gorgeous Aubusson rugs laid over gleaming hardwood floors.

“It’s…amazing,” I said softly, feeling privileged to see it. It was a glimpse into the private Gideon I was desperate to know and it was stunning.

“Come in.” He tugged me deeper into the apartment. “I want you to sleep here tonight.”

“I don’t have clothes and stuff…”

“All you need is the toothbrush in your purse. We can run by your place in the morning for the rest. I promise to get you to work on time.” He pulled me into him and set his chin on the crown of my head. “I’d really like you to stay, Eva. I don’t blame you for running, but it scared the hell out of me. I need to hang on to you for a while.”

“I need to be held.” I pushed my hands under the back of his T-shirt to caress the silken hardness of his bare back. “I could also use a shower.”

With his nose in my hair, he inhaled deeply. “I like you smelling like me.”

But he led me through the living room and down a hall to his bedroom.

“Wow,” I breathed when he flicked on the light. A massive sleigh bed dominated the space, the wood dark—which he seemed to prefer—and the linens a soft cream. The rest of the furnishings matched the bed and the accents were brushed gold. It was a warm, masculine space with no art on the walls to detract from the serene night view of Central Park and the magnificent residential buildings on the other side. My side of Manhattan.

“The bathroom’s in here.”

As I took in the vanity, which appeared to have been made out of an antique claw-footed walnut cabinet, he pulled towels out of a companion armoire and set them out for me, moving with that confident sensual grace I admired so much. Seeing him in his home, dressed so casually, touched me. Knowing I was the only woman to have this experience with him affected me even more. I felt like I was seeing him more naked now than I ever had. “Thank you.”

He glanced at me and seemed to understand that I was talking about more than the towels. His stare burned through me. “It feels good to have you here.”

“I have no idea how I ended up like this, with you.” But I really, really liked it.

“Does it matter?” Gideon came to me, tilting my chin up to press a kiss to the tip of my nose. “I’ll lay out a T-shirt for you on the bed. Caviar and vodka sound good to you?”

“Well…that’s quite a step up from pizza.”

He smiled. “Petrossian’s Ossetra.”

“I stand corrected.” I smiled back. “Several hundred steps up.”

I showered and dressed in the oversized Cross Industries shirt he laid out for me; then I called Cary to tell him I’d be out all night and give him a brief rundown about the hotel incident.

He whistled. “I’m not even sure what to say about that.”

A speechless Cary Taylor spoke volumes.

I joined Gideon in the living room, and we sat on the floor at the coffee table to eat the prized caviar with mini toast and crème fraiche. We watched a rerun of a New York-set police procedural that just happened to include a scene filmed on the street in front of the Crossfire.

“I think it’d be cool to see a building I owned on TV like that,” I said.

“It’s not bad, if they don’t close off the street for hours to film.”

I bumped shoulders with him. “Pessimist.”

We crawled into Gideon’s bed at ten thirty and watched the last half of a show while curled up together. Sexual tension crackled in the air between us, but he didn’t make any overtures so I didn’t either. I suspected he was still trying to make amends for the hotel, trying to prove that he wanted to spend time with me not “actively fucking.”