Chapter 5
FIVE
SADIE
Time stood still. I trembled in my new husband’s arms, balancing on a cliff’s edge.
Vulnerability wasn’t something I was comfortable with.
I’d built a moat around myself over the years, an attempt at self-preservation.
My work persona was glamorous and untouchable.
Around my family, I was sardonic and unflappable.
I didn’t have friends to be vulnerable with. Not real ones.
Henry had slithered through my defenses by creating hairline cracks in them that he pried open with comments and criticisms. Over the years, I’d exposed my soft center to him; all the ways that I felt I wasn’t enough.
How much it hurt that I couldn’t be the woman he wanted me to be.
How much of a failure I was for having a body that just wouldn’t do what it was supposed to do.
He’d been loving and understanding…until he wasn’t. He’d used his connections in the wedding industry to send a steady stream of brides to my business, then almost gleefully cut them off when we broke up. He’d made me trust him with my secrets and then used them to control me.
I’d vowed to never put myself in that position again.
And yet in just a couple of hours, Gideon had managed to get me to open the gates and drop the drawbridge. I was asking—begging—for him to kiss me. Hold me. Love me.
Sex was never just sex for me. It had always been a complicated knot of emotion and compulsion. But I still wanted it right now, with him.
His throat bobbed on a hard swallow, eyes studying mine.
Around my waist, his hands tightened. Warmth soaked into my skin at his touch, and I couldn’t help the soft exhale that slipped past my lips.
Gideon’s hair was silky and thick between my fingers.
My body bowed toward him as I ached for more contact.
Just when the threat of rejection loomed large enough to make panic tighten around the base of my spine, Gideon let out a harsh breath, murmured a curse, and kissed me.
The world tilted. Heat scorched through me, and both my arms tightened around his neck. His hands spasmed around me then slid lower, pawing my curves in a rough, possessive grip. Gideon’s kiss was claiming. He groaned into my mouth and swept his tongue against mine. He pulled me closer. Tighter.
Nothing had ever felt so good. I panted his name as he kissed my jaw, my neck.
His hands grabbed and squeezed, and a line of fire blazed down the middle of me.
I ached. Then he slid a hand up my side to grip my breast. I gasped at the possessiveness of his touch, pulling my head back slightly to look into his eyes.
They were dark. Black. “This what you want?” he rasped, his voice making everything from my shoulders to my knees go numb.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“You want your husband to fuck you on your wedding night?”
The rumble of his voice made desire spike inside me, but a thin tendril of fear began to snake through me. I hadn’t told him about my issue. But I swallowed convulsively, and the words couldn’t come. So I just told him the simple truth, pushed it past my lips in a breathy rasp. “Yes.”
He grunted, then tugged the strap of my dress off my shoulder, exposed my breast, and took it into his mouth.
His other arm banded around my waist as I arched back to give him better access.
His hot tongue laved my nipple, his free hand plumping my breast. I could feel his thumb sinking into my flesh, his fingers splayed over the side of my chest and across my ribs.
It was like a brand. His skin was so hot I could think of nothing except how good it felt to feel it against mine.
My fingers curled into his hair and clawed at his shirt. My thighs rubbed together, restless, needy.
He hummed, pleasure vibrating in his tone. “Desperate for it,” he murmured.
I tried to huff out a laugh, but it was hardly more than a short exhale. “No need to gloat.”
“Been a while,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking about me or himself.
I thought I detected a bit of vulnerability in his tone too.
I pulled back to search his eyes, and he took the opportunity to kiss my lips once more.
I lost myself in the taste of him, the strength of his arms, the scent of his skin.
There was need in the way he palmed my breast. Desire in the low, rumbling groan that sounded as if it were ripped from his throat.
A little voice began to whisper, What if he lied on the questionnaire too? What if he wants this as badly as you do?
A man who was a one out of ten for sexual desire didn’t kiss like this. He didn’t stroke and palm and touch the way Gideon did. He didn’t make noises like touching me was the last thing he wanted to do before dying happy.
Gideon was more than hungry. He was famished.
He drank in our kisses like I was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
He touched me like my body had been crafted from his wildest fantasies.
I clung to him, lust building inside me like an electrical storm.
My thoughts were nothing but a low hum, and my body moved of its own volition.
When my fingers wrapped around his clothed cock, Gideon bit out another curse.
His hands slid to my waist, fingers tightening to hold me there, and he glanced down between us.
My fingers clenched around his hard length as my chest rose and fell with every exhale.
My nipple glistened, wet from his ministrations, my carefully crafted dress a rumpled mess.
Tension pulled taut between us. There was still time to recover. Sure, I was half-undressed, but I could scoop my strap back onto my shoulder and cover myself. That would be the safe thing to do. The smart thing to do. I couldn’t take another rejection.
But Gideon moved first. His hands slid to the back of my dress, where the invisible zipper held the fabric closed. He tugged it down and brushed the other strap from my shoulder. I shifted, letting the fabric puddle at my feet.
Then he blinked.
“It’s shapewear,” I explained, fumbling.
I slipped my thumbs into the top of the nylon fabric where it rested just below my breasts.
I shimmied, embarrassed. “I have proper lingerie in my suitcase. I meant to change into it, if we…if this…” I stopped talking when Gideon took over, sliding the tight fabric over my hips and down my legs, taking my underwear with it.
Then his hand was there, between my thighs, and my ability to speak stumbled and died.
He crowded me against the bed, stroking at the wetness of my core, his free hand digging into my hair to tilt my head back so he could kiss me.
And just like the moment when he picked me up and carried me down the aisle, I realized I loved being manhandled by him.
I loved the way his strong thighs bracketed mine and kept me from spreading my legs the way I wanted to.
Loved how he curled his fingers into my hair and caused little pinpricks of pain on my scalp.
Loved the way he kissed, wet and messy and hard.
Loved his big, hot hand between my legs.
This was nothing like the sex I’d had before.
My mind was utterly blank. All my attention was focused on the feel of his fingers stroking my clit and his teeth closing around my bottom lip.
His clothing felt coarse against my bare skin, and I fumbled with the buttons of his shirt before giving up and going for his belt.
He smiled against my mouth, and a dart of pleasure went through me.
“This is a dream,” he murmured, kissing down my neck, sucking the pulse throbbing there. “You’re not real.”
“Please,” I panted, already begging. My hips gyrated against his fingers, and little fireflies of pleasure flitted through my veins.
It was as if a decade of unspent lust suddenly crashed over me.
All the times that my head had gotten in the way.
All the times I hadn’t been enough, or been worried about how I looked or smelled, or been anxious about the pain that would surely come.
All the times that I’d put my partner’s pleasure above my own, because I felt like I had to make up for my deficiencies.
All of it welled up inside and bore down on me, transforming me into a creature made of need.
My fingers curled into Gideon’s shirt as I pulled him down on top of me, my back hitting the mattress, my knees spreading and folding to accommodate his hips.
He propped one elbow beside my head and kept the other hand between my legs.
I moaned, my fingers wrapping around his wrist to keep him where I needed him, my hips grinding to chase the fire building inside.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, eyes circling my face. “So fucking pretty, Sadie. Can’t believe you’re mine.”
I dropped my gaze from his eyes down to his hand.
The skin of his hand looked dark beside my pale inner thighs, knuckles and tendons shifting as he stroked me and stroked me and stroked me.
My breath caught. The pads of his fingers slid over my clit then circled it, and I wanted to cry, it felt so good.
I pawed at his shirt, managing to rip the sides of it apart.
Three buttons came undone. His chest was bronzed and breathtaking.
I put my hands on him, loving the hard pack of muscle I found there, the soft abrasion of his chest hair.
The tattoos on his arms crawled over one side of his chest, the right side.
I slid my palm over them, avoiding his left side.
He didn’t like me touching his scars. I wouldn’t do it now, when everything felt so good.
When I was so close. When I couldn’t bear the thought of him pulling away.
An orgasm shimmered, a glittering haze that promised something good.
I felt it building in my blood, pounding against every door in my mind.
I started on his buttons again, needing to feel the heat of his skin against mine.
Wanting to lick and taste and consume. I managed to get two more buttons undone before Gideon shifted his fingers.
“You’re so wet,” Gideon marveled, letting his fingers slide down to tease at my opening before returning to my bud. A small, distant alarm went off in my mind. He bent down to nuzzle at my neck. “Can’t wait to get inside you.”
“Um—” I gasped as he pressed my clit, hips arching off the bed as far as they could beneath the weight of him. The alarm grew louder.
“Can’t wait to fill you with my cock,” he went on, scraping his teeth against my pulse. “Feel you come apart when I’m deep inside you.”
Uh-oh. My eyes flew open to stare at the ceiling above.
“Gideon—” I moaned as he rubbed my clit, but the orgasm wasn’t getting any closer. Fear had started to rise inside me, and it was impossible to ignore. I had to come clean. Had to tell him the truth. “Gideon, I have to tell you something.”
“Right now?” he asked, stroking just the right spot. But it was too much now. Too sensitive. The pleasure that had been so close began to draw away from me like a wave being sucked back into the vengeful ocean.
Then his hand shifted, and he slid a finger inside me.
The stretch of the intrusion was a familiar burn.
My hands flew to his shoulders, fingernails biting into his skin.
I could feel the smooth, hard muscle of his right shoulder, and the tight, mottled scar tissue on his left.
He grunted. “So fucking tight,” he said, and dropped his forehead to my shoulder.
“Fuck, Sadie. Gonna have to stretch you a bit before I—”
Panic spiked. “Wait,” I screeched, and quickly released my fingers as he pulled away. My chest heaved as Gideon levered his top half off me, emotions quickly flitting across his face.
Confusion. Worry. What looked like a flash of understanding—and disgust. I reached for him, because I didn’t want him to stop, I just needed to explain.
Explain that I’d lied. Explain that my body wasn’t fully functional. Explain that all those things he wanted, those dirty promises he’d made, he could never make them come true.
And I thought he’d agree to file that wedding certificate once he knew? I thought I’d still get my happily-ever-after?
Tears welled in my eyes, burning my eyelids. My throat clogged up, and the words wouldn’t come.
It had felt so good to be wanted as badly as he seemed to want me. I must’ve been weak-willed and cowardly, because I just couldn’t manage to find the words to tell him that he’d married a dud.
I took too long to answer. He twitched away with a shrug and angled his head so I couldn’t meet his eyes, keeping his scars facing the wall so his good side was to me.
I could sense his fury in the room, a physical weight pressing against my naked body, making it hard to breathe.
“Couldn’t go through with it after all?” he spat out, shrugging his shirt back on before turning to face me.
My brain still wasn’t working right. What was he talking about? “It’s not—I’m—I need to tell you about—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he snapped, then turned and slammed the door on his way out. The walls crowded in on me, the air close, too cold now that he was gone, too thick.
I rolled onto my side, buried my head in my hands, and sobbed.
GIDEON
She’d stiffened as soon as her hand had slid over my left shoulder. She’d felt the knobby scar tissue, and the sensation of it had doused her lust in an instant. She was disgusted by me.
I should’ve known. Should’ve fucking seen it coming.