Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
SADIE
I woke up with the warm, heavy weight of Gideon’s arm around my waist. This time, instead of letting me go, Gideon pulled me tighter as he mumbled a good morning, then rolled me over so he could kiss me softly.
I’d half expected to wake up and realize that yesterday had been a dream.
It didn’t seem possible to finally be here, with him, like this.
Within moments, Gideon proved me wrong.
I arched off the bed as he stroked me, my legs scrabbling at the sheets, my hands curling into the soft, long-sleeved tee he’d worn to bed.
He watched me with his head propped against his hand as he lay on his side beside me, a soft, satisfied smile on his lips.
When I came back down to earth, he pressed a kiss to my shoulder and promptly intercepted the searching hand I’d sent over toward his crotch.
Bringing my fingers up to his lips, he kissed them gently. “None of that, now.”
“Why don’t you want me to touch you?” I asked, and it sounded embarrassingly close to a whine.
He just smiled at me, eyes circling my face. “I want you to touch me,” he answered, but he didn’t let me move toward that goal. “But not when it feels like you’re just doing it because you think you need to.”
My brows slammed down. “That’s not how I feel.”
“Every time you come, you jump toward me like you think you owe me one.”
“Well—” I clamped my lips shut, heart hammering. Finally, I whispered, “Isn’t that how it works?”
“Not here,” he said. “Not with me.”
“I don’t understand.”
He smiled again, his expression full of fondness, and touched his nose to mine. “That’s okay. You will.”
Rattled, I let him pull me out of bed. I’d thought last night had been the exception. He’d wanted to give me pleasure because he’d felt guilty. He was trying to apologize.
But was Gideon saying that this was what he wanted…all the time? For me to just take what I needed without offering anything in return? Why?
He tugged me to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and set me inside.
“You’re not coming in?” I asked.
He hesitated and finally tilted his head toward the door. “I’ll get some coffee started.”
The door closed behind him, and I knew what had happened; Gideon still wasn’t ready for me to see his scars. It hurt to be shut out like that, and it made it harder to understand what was going on between us.
We moved slowly through the morning. When we sat down for a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast—made by Gideon, of course—he looked at me and said, “I think you should talk to Mrs. Gretzinger about your wedding dress retreat idea.”
I blinked, eggs turning to glue in my mouth. I swallowed with difficulty and said, “Why?”
“Because she’s a good businesswoman, and I think she’d be on board.”
It was hard to breathe. “You…think it’s a good idea?”
“To talk to Ida?”
“No, the wedding dress retreats.”
He watched me for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Oh.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It’s just—” I licked my lips. Why was my heart thumping so hard?
“I looked your company up online,” Gideon continued as he piled some scrambled eggs on a triangle of toast. He took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “You’re good, Sadie.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
He huffed a laugh and shook his head, arching a brow. He saw too much.
“If I’m so good, why couldn’t I stay in business? Why did I have to shut everything down?”
Gideon shrugged, like my failure was no big deal.
“Why does any business go through a rough patch? When I started Marswood Security, I only offered security system installation and maintenance. I struggled. I almost didn’t make it through my second year in business.
It wasn’t until we started offering on-site surveillance to some of the wealthy property owners outside of town that things changed.
That’s when I hired my brothers, and things grew from there. ”
In my travels around town, I’d noticed that there were huge properties outside the town limits.
I’d read into it and learned that the area was dotted with a lot of huge mansions belonging to people who lived in Manhattan or Chicago or Boston.
They’d spend a week or two per year in the area, if that, and usually maintained a full staff at their properties.
One of the reasons Marswood Harbor had been in decline was because the cost of living here had increased substantially when more estates were built in the surrounding area.
It was hard for locals to make ends meet.
“Is that when you asked your grandmother to invest?” I asked. “When you almost lost your business?”
He hummed, nodding, as he took a bite of bacon. “I sometimes regret it, but I wouldn’t have made it without her investment.”
My throat went tight. That sounded ominously familiar. Did I really want my entire livelihood beholden to Etta Mars? But what other option did I have?
“I can take you to The Pier to talk to Ida,” Gideon suggested. “Or give you her phone number.”
I nodded, part uncomfortable, part so hopeful it hurt to even admit it to myself. “Thanks.”
When Henry had helped me by sending brides my way for consultations, he’d made me feel like I owed him something.
I wondered if Gideon would think the same.
If all these wonderful things he was doing for me—and to me—would start adding up too much.
He’d start thinking that he wasn’t getting anything out of this relationship at all, and he’d toss me aside just like Henry.
“Unless you don’t want to reopen your business in this town,” Gideon asked, his voice raspy. He watched me, tentative, like a heavy weight hinged on my answer.
I gulped. “I’m not sure I want to reopen my business at all.
” Speaking the words out loud made fear thrum inside me.
It felt like a big bass drum being hit in the depth of my gut.
Without my business, who was I? Just a defective nobody.
Unsuccessful. Unlovable. “I’m afraid,” I admitted in a small voice.
I caught the edge of an emotion on Gideon’s face. A kind of resigned devastation that he hid in an instant. “What would you do instead?”
I huffed a bitter laugh. “I don’t know. Be a housewife?”
“For this?” The derision was thick in his voice. He flicked a hand, indicating himself. The marriage.
That pissed me off, because he was doing the same thing he always did.
Making it seem like his scars were a dealbreaker, and I must’ve been out of my mind to put up with them.
But his scars were a part of him! How could I look at them and not see the man who’d held me so tightly last night?
The man who’d finally made me feel safe?
“Stop doing that,” I snapped. “You make it sound like I’m so shallow.”
“Isn’t everyone?” he answered, bitter.
We stared at each other, and I bit back half a dozen retorts. I could see the shape of the walls he threw up around himself, and I knew in that instant that attacking them would do nothing. He was so sure that his scars defined him, and I wasn’t going to change his mind.
He hadn’t even let me see them.
So instead of fighting him, I pushed myself off my chair and circled the table.
Gideon frowned at me, suspicious, until I plopped myself down on his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck.
I rested my head on his shoulder and felt his heartbeat against my palm.
It took a few long seconds for his arms to come around me, and slowly, the tension eased out of his body.
When he stroked a thumb over my side, I spoke.
“What happened,” I asked softly, “with the fire?”
His body went stiff, then, muscle by muscle, it eased, as if he were consciously trying to drain the stress out of his body. His hand resumed its stroking, and I let my fingers drift over the soft fabric of his shirt. He smelled like himself, clean and male and delicious.
“It was a warehouse fire. One of the old derelict warehouses on my grandma’s land.
Used to be where they let the wood dry out after it was milled.
I got an alert that some kids broke into the building one night, so I called the cops and drove over.
Three of them had gotten in. Teenagers who were bored with nothing to do on a Friday night. ”
I kept my head on his shoulder even though I desperately wanted to see his expression. “They started a fire?”
He grunted. “The warehouse was almost a hundred years old, and it was full of sawdust and half-rotten wood. They found some old solvents in a box that hadn’t been stored properly and started messing around with them.
They had lighters. It went up within seconds, and one of the roof beams collapsed in front of the exit. ”
My heart thumped. “You got there first.”
His throat bobbed with a thick swallow, and he dipped his chin.
“I could hear them screaming,” he answered, his voice hoarse.
“And then they stopped.” He shrugged and stretched his neck, as if his scars had started itching.
“I was able to break a hole in the wall at the back, where the wood had almost rotted away. By that point they’d passed out from the smoke, so I had to drag them out one by one. ”
Three times. He’d gone into a raging inferno three times to save them. This time, I couldn’t resist the urge to sit up. I kept my hand on his chest, even though I desperately wanted to stroke his face, to touch his skin, to tell him how incredible he was.
But Gideon’s eyes were faraway, as if he were reliving that night.
“I was lucky,” he finally said, shifting his gaze to meet my eyes.
“I only got burned on my last trip in, and I was able to put my arm up to protect most of my face. My forearm and shoulder got the worst of it. The doctors said I was fortunate. The firefighters said I was an idiot.” He huffed at himself and shook his head.
Blinking back tears, I exhaled a shaky breath. “Wow. That’s awful. Were the kids okay?”