Chapter 21 #2
“Few weeks in the hospital and they came out fine.” He gave me a small smile.
“One of them was Cash Bridges’ nephew. After that, we reached a bit of a truce.
They stopped going for rides through town, intimidating the residents.
Stayed up near their clubhouse and in the surrounding hills.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t think Cash or any of his people are Mr. Titty,” he added.
“If he knew one of his guys was tagging all over town, he’d put a stop to it. ”
I accepted this change in topic, even though I wanted to ask him more about the fire. I wanted to tell him how brave he was and how much I admired him for what he’d done. Instead, I laid my head back down on his shoulder, and we both drifted back into silence.
He held me tightly, and my body eased against him.
I’d never felt so comfortable with anyone, especially not a man.
But how could I not be comfortable with Gideon?
Someone who put others first, always. He’d run into a burning building three times to save a bunch of delinquent teens.
He’d driven hours to sit with burn victims. He’d gotten married to me so that his brothers wouldn’t lose their livelihood when his grandmother sold off his business.
He put me first every time we got physical. Even his rejections had been his way of prioritizing my needs. He hadn’t thought I’d want him that way.
The magnitude of Gideon’s selflessness was staggering, even if it sometimes seemed misguided. After all, he’d pushed me away the same way he’d done to his ex. He’d broken up with Lenore because he thought she deserved better.
Then my mouth opened, and words vomited out of it before I could hold them back: “Do you regret breaking up with your ex?”
There was a pause. “What?”
I could taste his confusion in the air, and I lifted my head to look at his expression.
There was a deep furrow between his brows, and he scanned my face like I’d just started explaining the finer details of quantum physics.
I gulped. “She told me you broke it off with her when you were in the hospital because you didn’t want to subject her to a life with you. ”
Gideon blinked. His frown deepened. “That’s what she told you?”
I rushed onward, knowing that if I didn’t get the words out, they’d stay stuck halfway up my throat.
“And now you and I are together, and I’m starting to…
I’ve developed feelings for you, Gideon.
” I inhaled. “I know how it feels to be betrayed by your body. It’s not the same thing,” I added, “because my problems are hidden and yours are on full display. But I still feel like a lesser person because of my issue. And if you feel the same way…and you only broke up with Lenore because you wanted to let her go…” I shook my head.
“I guess I’m just asking if we’ve got a chance.
You and me. Or if you still have feelings for her.
She’s back now, so maybe that changes things for you. ”
He looked at me like I’d been speaking a foreign language. “I didn’t break up with Lenore because I wanted to set her free of a life with me,” he grated. “She broke up with me.”
I frowned.
He let out a bitter huff. “Maybe not in so many words, but I could see the disgust in the way she looked at me when she came to see me in the hospital. It was a whole month after the fire when she finally showed up.” His eyes slid away from mine, lips twisting bitterly.
“I waited and waited and waited for her, and she showed up with her hair done and a new designer purse on her arm. She looked at me like I was vermin, and then she told me she wasn’t the nursing type.
So yeah, I said we should go our separate ways.
I told her I wouldn’t hold her back. But it wasn’t because I loved her.
In that moment, all the love I thought I had for her died. Like a switch flicking.”
Cold seeped into my bones. He’d been at his lowest, lying in a hospital bed with burns all down his left side, and then he’d been through that.
As if he wanted to drive the point home, he met my eyes and said, “I didn’t break up with her because I was some sort of selfless martyr.
It was because I could tell her new man had bought her that purse, and there was nothing that would make her stay with—” His hands lifted off my body and settled back down again.
A helpless, hopeless gesture. There was nothing that would make her stay with me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t be.” His eyes were remote. He was still in the past. “That’s what people do. They let you down. Use you.”
The hell of it was, I agreed with him. I’d said those same words, thought them countless times.
But hearing them spoken by Gideon in such a bitter tone made me want to rebuke them.
I didn’t want to use him, and I hadn’t felt used by him.
He’d let me down on our wedding night, but he’d more than made up for it.
Not everyone was like Lenore and Henry. Gideon wasn’t. I wasn’t.
He sighed and met my gaze. Pale blue eyes circled my face, and he let out a long sigh. “I don’t know if we have a chance, Sadie,” he finally said. “I keep waiting for you to up and leave.”
Like I almost had twice already.
But that was before I’d bared myself to Gideon. Before I told him everything about me, all the lies and the secrets and the things I hated.
Now he knew, and he hadn’t turned his back on me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I vowed.
He searched my face, looking for the lie. His grip on me tightened almost to the point of pain, and then suddenly he was standing. I yelped, wrapping my legs around his waist so I didn’t fall to the ground.
He marched us to the bedroom, kissing me the whole way.
Then he threw me on the bed, took off my shorts, and used his mouth in other places.
I gripped his hair and ground myself against him, breathless with pleasure.
Wild with it. Through hazy eyes, I watched Gideon rut against the bed as he ate me out, like he couldn’t help himself.
Like he was enjoying himself too much to stop himself from chasing his own pleasure any way he could.
I was so close. “Gid—”
He grunted in response as he sucked my clit. I gasped.
“Gid,” I repeated. “Can you—”
“What, baby?”
“I want…” I squeezed my eyes shut, breathless with fear and need and desperation.
“Tell me.”
“A finger. Just—I’m afraid it’ll hurt—”
He lifted his head. His hips stilled. Breaths gusted out of him, brushing over my sensitive skin. “You want me to put a finger inside you?”
I bit my lip. Nodded.
He gritted his teeth, frowning. Shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’ve been practicing,” I blurted, then flushed.
Gideon’s eyes went wide. I could feel fine tremors in his shoulders where they pressed against my inner thighs. He dropped his gaze to my center. Licked his lips. “You’ll tell me if it hurts.”
I nodded.
“You’ll stop me the second it’s too much.”
“I will.”
He looked up. “I mean it, Sadie.”
A breathless laugh fell out of me. How was this man real?
Normally, an invitation like the one I’d just extended would never have been questioned.
My previous partners would’ve used it as an opening to push my limits.
But Gideon was letting me know in no uncertain terms that I was safe here.
That this would only go as far as I wanted it to.
Every muscle in my body eased. Gideon felt it, his eyes skimming up to meet mine before dropping back down to my core. His thumbs spread me, stroking. Worshipping.
His finger was bigger than the dilator I’d been using. I tensed as he pushed it inside, only as far as the first knuckle. He stopped immediately.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, shaking. “Keep going.”
He hummed, unconvinced. Then his mouth was on me, sucking, licking, caressing. His finger did not move. Not until I was rolling my own hips against it. Not until I was begging.
Only then did Gideon push his finger deeper.
It stretched, but not in the painful way I was used to.
No, this was something different entirely.
And when he thrust it in and out of me in long, slow strokes, his mouth still moving over my clit, I couldn’t help the disbelieving laugh that fell from my lips.
And then I came. My back arched as my hands gripped Gideon’s head.
I rocked against his mouth and his hand as he urged me on with wordless, urgent grunts.
Afterward, I was glad we were in the middle of the forest, because the noises I made were unlike anything I’d ever heard coming from my own mouth.
“Now you,” I said as soon as I could speak. My breaths sawed in and out of my lungs. “And don’t say no. Let me make you feel good.”
Gideon extracted his finger from my body and huffed, pressing a kiss to my hip.
“I’m serious, Gideon. I want to.”
He straightened, amused. A wet patch stained the front of his bottoms.
I blinked, my gaze flying up to meet his. He let out a long, gusting exhale, his hand moving up to comb the hair from his face. Satisfaction was written on every line of his face and body.
“You already…?”
He caged me against the mattress with his palms on either side of my head and pressed a kiss to my lips. “You think I’m able to listen to you make those noises while you’re grabbing my hair to ride my face, and I’m not going to lose control in the process?”
I gulped, heart hammering. Words were beyond me.
Gideon chuckled, then gathered me in his arms and held me close. Eventually, I gave in and dozed.
GIDEON
I was done fighting against my desire for her. It had always been a losing battle.
Still, I wondered if her hesitation to pursue her business idea was more than just a confidence issue. What if she didn’t want to set down roots here? What if all this time, she was planning on leaving the first chance she got?