16. Gideon #2
The skin-to-skin contact steals my breath—her soft curves pressed against my hard planes, her legs parting to cradle my hips, her hands sliding down my back to grip my ass and pull me closer.
I groan against her throat, teeth grazing her pulse point, and she arches beneath me with a sound that was half-moan, half-sob.
"Please," she whispers. "Gideon, please?—"
"Tell me what you need."
"You. Just you. Inside me. Now."
I should draw this out. Should worship her the way she deserves, with my mouth and his hands and every ounce of patience I've never possessed.
But Cassie's hips are rising to meet mine, and her nails are dragging down my back, and the heat between her thighs is soaking through my pants like an accusation.
I shove my trousers down just far enough, I position myself at her entrance, my body a heavy, trembling weight above hers, and push inside.
The sheer intensity of filling her steals the breath straight from my lungs.
A sharp gasp catches in Cassie's throat as her body stretches, opening completely to accommodate my massive frame, gripping me tightly.
I bury my face into the crook of her neck and let out a low, guttural groan that vibrates right through my chest, a desperate sound of a man fighting his own primal instinct to simply take.
"Okay?" I manage to choke out, my voice rough and strained.
Her response is immediate, driven by a deep, aching need that burns through her veins. She wraps her legs higher around my waist, locking her ankles behind my back, and rocks her hips upward to draw me even deeper into my core. "Move."
I move.
I brace one hand beside her head and use the other to slide beneath her thigh, lifting her leg higher around my waist.
The deeper angle pulls a broken moan from both of us.
“God,” Cassie gasps.
I slow deliberately, grinding deep enough to feel her body flutter around me before pulling back almost completely and thrusting in again.
Every movement is torture.
Every sound she makes pushes me closer to losing control entirely.
Cassie's nails drag down my shoulders as she arches beneath me, and I shift again, turning us until she is half on top of me instead.
Now she rides the force of my thrusts, hair falling around her face, mouth open in breathless cries while I hold her hips and drive upward into her.
The sight nearly kills me.
“You're unreal,” I groan.
Her head tips back when my mouth closes over her throat again, and I feel her body tightening more and more with every movement.
At first, the pace is slow and agonizingly deliberate—deep, intentional strokes that make us both gasp.
I open my eyes, staring down through the dim light of the penthouse, and find myself watching her with a fierce, unwavering focus.
I am cataloging every micro-expression on her face: the flutter of her eyelids, the ragged parting of her lips, the way her back arches completely off the mattress when I hit the perfect, scorching angle.
"Right there," she breathes, her voice breaking as a wave of intense pleasure ripples through her. "God, right there?—"
I give her exactly what she demands, abandoning my careful restraint.
The rhythm shifts, growing harder and faster until the heavy wooden bedframe knocks rhythmically against the wall.
The sound matches the frantic, pounding tempo of my heart.
She meets each powerful thrust with an upward arch of her own hips, her fingernails digging deep into the rigid muscles of my shoulders to anchor herself.
Her soft cries grow louder, filling the quiet suite as the electric tension coils tighter and tighter between us.
I lower myself fully, dropping my forehead against hers so that our breaths mingle, hot and uneven. "Look at me."
She forces her eyes open, meeting my gaze. Her eyes are hazy and dark, brimming with a raw, terrifying vulnerability that shatters the last of my carefully constructed defenses.
"I love you," I say.
The words tumble from my lips without permission—broken, unpolished, and completely true.
A sob tears from her throat, the emotional weight of my admission crashing over her. "I love you too. I’ve loved you for so long?—"
I silence her confession with a hard, bruising kiss, driving incredibly deep as I swallow the rest of her words.
I pour every ounce of unspoken emotion into the desperate slide of my mouth against hers.
She is so tight, squeezing me with every involuntary contraction of her muscles.
I can hear the ragged stutter of her breathing, can feel the sweat slicking her skin, and her fingers tightly tangle into the silk sheets just to hold onto something stable while the world spins away.
"Let go," I murmur against her mouth, his voice a soothing command amidst the storm. "I’ve got you. Let go, Cassie."
The final barrier inside her snaps, and she completely shatters.
Her climax crashes through her entire body in violent, relentless waves.
Every muscle clenches desperately around me as her back bows off the bed, her scream muffled against my shoulder as she soaks me completely.
The sensation of her coming undone completely breaks me.
I groan, low and primal, burying myself to the absolute hilt as my own heavy release tears through me, spilling inside her in hot, rhythmic pulses that seem to go on forever.
We stay tangled together afterward, breathing hard, sweat cooling on our skin.
Cassie's fingers trace lazy patterns across my chest. "That was…"
"Not enough," I finish. "It's never going to be enough."
She laughs softly. "I was going to say perfect."
I press a kiss to her hair and hold her tighter—this woman who has seen through every wall, who has demanded I trust her instead of owning her, who has somehow become the only thing that matters more than control.
I don't know how to love correctly.
But lying there in the dark with Cassie warm in my arms, her heartbeat steady against my chest, I think maybe—just maybe—I am finally ready to learn.