Chapter 20
TWENTY
SADIE
All the air rushed out of me as I admitted that I wanted him.
Gideon reached over to touch my cheek. His grip tightened for a second then suddenly softened, as if he’d had to master his own reaction with sheer force of will.
His eyes bore into me, and I thought I would die from the tension strumming through my body.
Then he leaned toward me, parted his lips on a soft exhale, and kissed me. His fingers ghosted over my skin as he angled my face toward him. He leaned over the center console and deepened the kiss.
With the gentleness of his touch, my heart began to settle. I’d been so primed for rejection that this new development was almost dreamlike.
He kissed my lips slowly, thoroughly, and then moved his mouth over my jaw.
And when his hand drifted down to my lap, my whole body shivered.
His hand was so warm. I could feel the heat of it through the fabric of my dress over my upper thigh.
His calloused palm snagged on the silky fabric as he shifted his hand to run his fingers over my inner thigh.
My heart rate spiked. On instinct, I reached across to put my hand on his crotch. I needed him to feel good too. That was the only way I knew how to do this, how to have sex, how to make it worth it for him despite my deficiencies. I always had to overcompensate.
But Gideon did something I didn’t expect: he pulled away. He looked down at my hand as I gripped him, stroking clumsily across the center console, and then shifted his gaze to meet mine.
“What are you doing?” he asked curiously.
I froze. “I—I’m sorry, I thought—”
“I’m the one who fucked up, Sadie. I’m the one who’s supposed to fix it.”
I wasn’t sure that was quite accurate, but as he spoke, he shifted the hand in my lap to grip the space between my legs, and my response died on my tongue. The fabric of my dress bunched under his fingers, and my legs spread on instinct.
“Take your hand off my cock,” he rasped, and I shifted my hand to his leg.
My chest heaved as he squeezed my cunt, lightning sparking in the pit of my stomach.
Gideon hummed. “You’ve been treated badly, baby,” he mused.
“Haven’t had someone take care of you properly.
Myself included. I fucked up. Didn’t understand what you needed from me. ”
“I forgive you,” I said between pants. My knees were pressed as wide as I could manage, one shoved against the door, the other against the padded surface of the center console.
Gideon let out a harsh grunt, then took his hand away to press the ignition button.
“We’re not doing this here,” he said. He backed the car out of the spot, and then his hand was on me again.
Even through the layers of fabric, the touch ignited a fire in me.
I squirmed, arching my hips up toward him.
“Seatbelt,” he said, driving with his knees while he put his on. I fumbled for mine as he turned off the long driveway onto the road. “Good girl,” he said when it clicked.
I let out a shaky exhale, and his fingers rubbed in slow circles exactly where I needed them.
I whimpered, glancing over at him to see him look entirely unbothered—other than a slight tension in his neck and the clenching of his other hand on the wheel.
When we were on a straight patch of road, he took his hand off the wheel and pressed it against the bulge in his pants, his knees guiding the steering wheel to keep us on the asphalt.
All the while, his fingers rubbed and stroked and circled my clit. My panties clung to my body, soaked. I reached over to slide my hand over his inner thigh. His lips kicked in a small smile, the movement of his fingers increasing in speed and pressure.
I was so turned on my vision had gone hazy at the edges. Then his hand was gone while he drove around a bend, and I whimpered in protest.
“Patience,” he chided softly, returning his hand to where it had been delivering sweet torture to me.
My own fingers crept closer to the hard bar of his erection.
I wanted to feel it, wanted this to feel good for him too.
Wanted to show him that even though I couldn’t take his cock inside me, I could still make it good for him.
But when I felt the seam of his pants in the middle of his spread legs, he took his hand away from my core and used it to grab my misbehaving wrist. “Not what we’re doing, babe,” he said, shooting me a glance that looked part stern, part amused, and part…something else. Something deeper.
“Gideon,” I whined.
“Nearly there.” He kept hold of my wrist, his thumb stroking the pulse on its underside, and I squirmed in my seat. Unbelievably, the feel of his hand on my wrist was almost as good as when it had been between my legs.
He turned onto the cottage’s driveway. I would’ve said he was entirely calm, unbothered by our activities, except that he parked crookedly, half on the grass to the side of the driveway.
Then he was out of his seat and coming around to my side.
I fumbled with my belt as he wrenched the door open, and then I was unceremoniously hauled out of the car and thrown over his shoulder.
My heels went tumbling to the ground as my legs kicked, Gideon’s steps crunching on the gravel drive.
His arm banded over my legs, and a big, warm hand gripped my thigh, the thumb pressing in the soft flesh near my core.
I panted, a breathless laugh falling out of me. “This isn’t how I imagined things going this evening.”
“No?” Gideon asked, reaching into his pocket with his other hand to grab the keys to the front door. “This is how I’ve imagined things going every day since you walked down that aisle. Every day, every night, every fucking second, Sadie. No matter how hard I try to stop it.”
“What?” I breathed, confused, but the sound of my question was lost as Gideon slid me off his shoulder and brought me inside. He kicked the door closed behind him, hands bracketing my waist, and pushed me up against the wall.
I moaned into his kiss. Gideon was a torrent of energy and desire.
He pressed his thigh between my legs and pinned me against the wall with his bulk, kissing me like he wanted to consume me.
Worship me. Make me his. I writhed against him, fingers curled into his hair, body arching and grinding as much as the position would allow.
“I didn’t realize,” Gideon rumbled, his lips coasting along my jaw.
“Didn’t realize what you needed.” His hands slid down to my hips.
As he pulled back, I saw that his pupils had blown out so there was only the thinnest ring of blue around them.
With his fingers sinking deep into the flesh on my hips, he helped me rock them back and forth.
I gasped at the pressure of his thigh against my clit. Gideon’s lips kicked.
“You just need a man who isn’t afraid to make you come,” he said, reading my face for every reaction. His grip on my hips was inexorable, rocking, rocking, rocking. “This is what you need, isn’t it, baby?”
“Gideon—” I dropped my hand to his crotch, and—
“Stop that,” he said mildly, and I did, pressing my hand against his stomach instead.
His smile widened. He looked drunk, but I knew he hadn’t touched a drop tonight.
I felt like I’d gone out of my mind. I was outside my body and simultaneously more connected to my physical self than I’d ever been before.
Heat snaked through my belly and tightened. Gideon shifted his leg, and I had no choice but to go up on my tiptoes. I clung to his shoulders, gasping, as most of my weight was balanced on the ridge of his thigh. It felt so good. So fucking good.
“How long has it been since you’ve been given what you need?
” Gideon asked, dipping his face into the crook of my neck.
I felt his breath against my collarbone, his nose tracing the line of my pulse.
He inhaled like he wanted to imprint the scent of me into his lungs.
“How long since a man has treated you right?”
I huffed a breathless laugh. “I’m not even sure what that means,” I admitted. My fingernails had curled into his suit jacket, one hand on his shoulder, the other pressed against his stomach. The pressure on my clit was so intense my vision went white around the edges.
“It means this, right here, baby,” Gideon answered. “It means you riding my thigh until you come. It means my face between your legs. It means you take every orgasm you need from me, every orgasm that you’ve been denied before, and you take your hand off my cock.”
I huffed, tears leaking from the sides of my eyes, and moved my hand back up from where it had drifted down.
“I want you to feel good,” I whined, leaning my head back against the wall.
It sounded like a desperate whimper, and even as I said the words, tension gripped my chest like a giant’s fist. I needed him to feel good.
Needed him to get what he needed, because otherwise…
Otherwise what?
Otherwise he’d leave. He’d get sick of me. He’d look for pleasure somewhere else. He’d toss me aside like garbage, and I’d have no choice but to come to terms with the fact that I would never be good enough.
“Hey.” Gideon squeezed my hips, then moved one hand to my jaw. His thumb pressed my chin, and I blinked until his face came into focus. He frowned at me. “You went somewhere. Stay here with me.”
“I—” The words died on my tongue. I didn’t know what this was between us. Didn’t know how to take without giving. If I didn’t give him something back, what use was I? Why would he ever want me to stay?
As if he could read my mind, the line of Gideon’s shoulders softened. His eyes flicked between mine, and his thumb moved from my chin to stroke my cheek. “Do you trust me?” he finally asked, voice soft and low.