Crossfire 01 Bared to You (45 page)

“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.

Restless and worried, I took a deep breath and asked, “Would you tell me if our sex life didn’t satisfy you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Eva.”

What else could have prompted him to bring this up after our four-day breakup? “I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’m not the type you usually go for. And we haven’t used any of those toys you had in the hotel—”

“Stop talking.”

“Excuse me?”

Gideon set his utensils down. “I’m not going to listen to you shred your self-esteem.”

“What? You’re the only one who gets to do all the talking?”

“You can pick a fight with me, Eva, but it’s still not going to get you fucked.”

“Who said—” I shut up when he glared. He was right. I still wanted him. I wanted him on top of me, explosively lustful, completely in control of both my pleasure and his.

Pushing away from the table, he said curtly, “Wait here.”

When he returned a moment later, he set a black leather ring box beside my plate and resumed his seat. The sight of it hit me like a physical blow. Fear struck me first, icy cold. Followed swiftly by a longing that was white-hot.

My hands shook in my lap. I clasped my fingers together and realized my whole body was shaking. Lost, I lifted my gaze to Gideon’s face.

The feel of his fingertips brushing down my cheek soothed much of the vibrating anxiety inside me, leaving behind the terrible yearning.

“It’s not
that
ring,” he murmured gently. “Not yet. You’re not ready.”

Something inside me wilted. Then relief flooded me. It
was
too soon. Neither of us was ready. But if I’d ever wondered how deeply I had fallen in love with Gideon, now I knew.

I nodded.

“Open it,” he said.

With cautious fingers, I pulled the box closer and thumbed open the lid. “Oh.”

Nestled inside the black leather and velvet was a ring like no other. Gold rope-like bands were intertwined and decorated with Xs covered in diamonds.