Her New Worst Enemy (9 page)

Her hands shook as she picked up her phone to check for messages and noticed she’d
missed a call from Penny. She’d texted, too. Ellie scanned it quickly. They were running
late and wouldn’t get there until the evening.

Great, more time alone with Gideon. The idea both thrilled and terrified her.

She took a deep breath, tucked her still damp hair behind her ears and went downstairs
to face him.

He was in the kitchen, which he’d put back to rights. His hair was wet, so he must
have had a speedy shower too. He looked up from what he was doing at the work-surface
and smiled at her.

“How are you doing?”

She gave him a small smile. “I’m okay now, thanks.”

“I’ve made some sandwiches.” He brought a plate piled high with them to the table
and nodded for her to sit down.

“Great, I’m starving.” She realized she actually was now that her nerves had steadied
and she leaned forward and grabbed a couple of sandwiches from the tottering pile.

Gideon sat down opposite her and took one for himself. They ate in silence, neither
of them looking at the other. Ellie was finding it hard to swallow. Gideon’s all-consuming
presence enveloped her senses making it impossible for her to relax.

She could hardly believe what had happened between them; it felt like a dream. She
needed to restore some kind of normalcy to the situation if she had any hope of dealing
with it in a rational manner.

“I think those were the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten,” she said finally, brushing
the crumbs off her fingers.

“It’s funny how sex on a table followed by a bout of weeping can make you hungry,”
Gideon said, a twinkle in his eye.

Ellie grinned at him sheepishly.

“Sorry about ripping your sweater,” he said.

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t exactly one of my best.”

“To be honest, I’m kind of glad it’s destroyed. It does nothing for your gorgeous
figure.”

Ellie snorted in embarrassment. “You’re kidding, right? It’s hardly gorgeous.” She
leaned back in her chair and pulled her arms across her chest.

“Why are you so hard on yourself? Have you actually looked at yourself in the mirror
recently?” Gideon leaned forward, a bemused smile playing about his lips.

God, she loved his mouth.

“I try very hard not to.”

“What did Paul do to you, Ellie?”

His question shocked her. “He … he … ” she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Not without
bursting into tears again. She looked away to gather herself.

Gideon didn’t say anything, just waited for her to finish her sentence.

“When he left me … ,” she took a deep breath, “it was for someone else.”

“Did you know her?” he asked.

“No. She was just some floozy with an overactive reproductive system.”

“What?” The shock was evident in his voice and she was almost pleased at his heated
response.

“She was pregnant,” she clarified.

“Jesus, Ellie, I had no idea.”

“No one did. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel like broadcasting the sordid details of
exactly how my boyfriend came to leave me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you? What for? It wasn’t you that cheated on me, then upped and left to live
with your lover and new baby.” She twisted her fingers in her lap and stared down
at them, unable to meet his gaze.

“I mean I’m sorry for bringing it up. It’s obviously still pretty raw for you.”

She shrugged her shoulder and offered him a sad smile. “I wanted to have children.
I thought we were going to start trying soon. I was so excited about the idea.”

“Shit, Ellie, no wonder you seem so distracted.”

Despite her humiliation at allowing Gideon to see her in such a raw state, she was
relieved at finally allowing the words to spill out of her.

“Well, at least you found out what a selfish dick he is before you had kids with him,”
he pointed out calmly, his expression kind and gentle.

“Yeah, I keep reminding myself of that, but it doesn’t help much.” She shrugged despondently.

“I get that,” Gideon said, nodding slowly, encouraging her to carry on talking.

“I know this is going to sound pathetic, but after it all sunk in and I realized he
wasn’t coming back, I started to get nervous about leaving the house. I was terrified
of bumping into them both, seeing them so happy together … ,” she swallowed painfully,
“with their baby.” She stared down at the table and traced her fingertips along the
grain of the wood, trying to hold herself together, determined not to cry in front
of him again. “It should have been me.” Her voice wobbled as the anger and pain and
hurt she’d been suppressing fought its way to the surface. “I thought I had my life
all planned out, but it came crashing down around my ears and there wasn’t a thing
I could do about it.” She slapped her hands against the tabletop in frustration. “Not
a fucking thing!”

When she glanced back up at him, he was studying her with a sad frown on his face.

“So that’s why no one saw much of you.”

She drummed her fingers softly on the table now, as the anger subsided. “It’s like
being a prisoner in your own city. They’re an ever-present threat, just lurking behind
the scenes. I stopped going out in the end. It was less stressful.”

“He’s really done a number on you, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m an idiot for allowing it to happen.”

“What are you talking about? There’s no way you could have stopped it.”

“I’d like to think that’s true, but I let him do this to me. I took whatever he dished
out in case he left me if I didn’t. He was a hard man to please and it slowly chipped
away at my confidence until I thought no one else would want me if we ever split up.
Looking back now I can see the warning signs. No matter what I did, or wore, or said,
it was never good enough. And I tried hard, Gideon, I swear. I know I can be a bit
of a handful, but I tried to rein myself in, to be the girlfriend he really wanted,
but I guess I failed pretty spectacularly.”

“What a dick. That’s psychological abuse, Ellie.” He slammed his own fist down onto
the table, making her jump.

She raised an eyebrow at him and he gave her a grim smile. “Sorry, but it makes me
so mad to see what he’s done to you.”

“Yeah, maybe. Or maybe I deserved it … I don’t know.”

“That’s rubbish, Ellie, and you know it.”

“I feel like I’ve given the best I’ve got and it wasn’t enough. What if it keeps happening?
What if I never meet anyone I really click with?” She knew she’d slipped back into
wallowing in self-pity, but it helped to say all this out loud to someone. To annunciate
the fears that had been nipping at her toes for months now.

“You have nothing to worry about. Plenty of people out there would be stoked to have
you as a girlfriend.”

“You reckon?”

“Yes.”

She looked into his eyes and was touched to see sincerity there. Gideon was the last
person she’d expected to get sympathy from, and his kindness only made her feel more
confused about what had happened between them.

Gideon must have seen a shift in her expression because he frowned and huffed out
a sigh.

“Do I have to take you on the kitchen table again to prove to you how damn attractive
you are?”

All the air left her lungs in a whoosh and a rush of blood to the most needy part
of her threw her off balance. She could barely breathe for excitement and her voice
seemed to had given up on her. She sat there mouthing the air, totally unable to respond.

Her body screamed “yes” at her like a wailing banshee, but her damn common sense sat
heavily on her shoulder shaking its head.

Gideon stood up suddenly, shoving his chair back with a screech and looked down at
her with an intense expression in his eyes.

“Get up,” he said.

Ellie’s body responded to the demand before her reason caught up, pushing her own
chair back with a resounding squeal.

Gideon marched around to the other side of the table and grasped her hand, moving
away quickly and pulling her with him. He practically dragged her out of the kitchen
into the hallway and led her up the stairs.

“Where are we going?” Ellie managed to gasp as she hurried to keep up with him. His
words had caused a chain-reaction through her system that sent her blood pounding
through every artery and vein at double its normal speed. She felt alive with promise
and unutterable excitement.

What was he going to do to her?

The mere question thrilled her.

At the top of the stairs, he turned toward the dressing room and pulled her in with
him, slamming the door closed behind them.

They stood there, staring at each other, their breathing quick and light.

“Come here,” Gideon said, and she responded, not allowing herself to think or wonder
or even care what might happen next. It was as if she’d managed to turn off her nervousness
and was acting purely on instinct.

It was so freeing.

The determined touch of his hands on her shoulders made her shiver in anticipation
and she let out a small gasp as he pushed her around to face the long, free-standing
mirror, stepping behind her so she could see the whole of herself reflected in the
glass.

“Put your arms in the air,” he said into her ear, his mouth so close she could feel
the soft exhalation of breath against her skin.

She did as she was told, raising her arms above her head and waiting, her body quivering
with expectation. She watched him in the mirror as he grasped the hem of her t-shirt
and slowly pulled it up, exposing her stomach, then her breasts encased in her plain
white bra, then over her head and gently up over her arms before he discarded it onto
the floor beside them.

Ellie automatically pulled her stomach in and averted her eyes from the reflection
in front of her.

Compared to Gideon’s honed physique she was seriously out of shape. She felt her body
pull inwards again as her gaze dropped to the floor.

With a ping, her bra came loose at the back and she gasped in surprise as Gideon pushed
the straps roughly down over her shoulders. The bra slipped away from her body, leaving
her top half totally exposed and her arms automatically came forward to cover her
breasts.

“Look at yourself, Ellie,” Gideon said quietly into her ear. His body was so close
she could feel the heat of him radiating against her bare skin.

“I don’t want to,” she whispered.

“Don’t give me that,” he said, his voice rough and low. He put one hand under her
chin and tipped her head, forcing her to look up. She took in the image reflected
back at her and groaned at the sight. She hadn’t looked properly at her body for ages
and didn’t like what she saw now. She was so ridiculously voluptuous, her breasts
large and her stomach rounded. Thank God he hadn’t taken her jeans off to expose the
cellulite on her thighs.

She met his gaze in the mirror and stared defiantly back.

“See. I’m nothing like the fit women you usually date.”

“I love your body. It’s beautiful.”

Ellie let out a laugh. “Sure it is, if you’re half blind.”

Gideon shook his head slowly at her. Raising his hands he put one on each of her shoulders
and pulled back on them, forcing her to stand up straighter so her breasts moved higher
and further forward.

“If you stop trying to hide yourself, you’ll see how gorgeous … ” He leaned forward
toward her, the heat of his body burning into her back and kissed the left side of
her neck, sending shivers down her spine. “How sensual … ” he said against her skin,
moving to her right side and kissing just below her ear this time. “How utterly sexy
you are.” This time he grasped her wrists and pulled them behind her body, pushing
her breasts forwards even more. He held both wrists captive with one hand and pressed
his body closer to her, trapping them. She gasped as the hardness of his erection
pushed against the top of her buttocks.

“See how much you turn me on,” he whispered again into her ear, his eyes not leaving
hers in the reflection.

His other hand came round and cupped the weight of one of her breasts, and as he rubbed
his thumb gently over her nipple, it hardened in response, making her draw in a sharp
breath.

Blood pounded between her legs causing a hard ache of need, and she pushed her buttocks
against him, loving the feeling of his obvious arousal for her.

As she stared back at the mirror, she was amazed to see how different she looked now.
Her breasts were high and full pushed forward and with her pelvis tipped back, her
stomach seemed flatter and tighter. For the first time in a very long time, she looked
at her body, really looked at it, and liked what she saw.

Gideon’s fingers moved to flick over her other nipple, sending another pulse of feeling
down through her body.

“You see,” he said, kissing along the top of her shoulder. “Gorgeous.”

He released his hold on her captured wrists and ran his fingers across where her collarbones
pushed against her flesh, to the dip of her neck, then skimmed down over her breasts,
down her stomach to the top of her jeans.

He pulled the buttons roughly open and slipped his hands inside, under her panties,
before pushing them down over her legs.

“Step out of them,” he murmured, and she did as she was told. She was now standing
naked in front of a mirror. In front of Gideon.

“Bend forward and put your hands against the mirror,” he said.

“What?” Her voice was shaky and light with arousal.

“Just do it, Ellie,” he said, kicking her clothes away from them.

She did it, placing her palms against the cool glass. The mirror held steady against
her weight, the heavy mahogany strong and firm.

Gideon pulled her hips up and back so she was bent slightly at the waist, her ass
in the air, then gently kicked at her feet on the inside.

“Spread your legs.”

Ellie took a sharp intake of breath. The intensity of the scenario was so far from
anything she’d ever experienced before.