29. Broken Glass #2
“It was an accident. I—"
“Audrey!” he snaps. I gasp as he grips my head in his hands, pressing his forehead to mine, my eyelashes brushing his glasses. He drags in a deep breath, loosening his hold, his tone swapping again to pleading… coaxing. Soft. I feel my heart flutter, my insides turning goopy. “Tell me.”
His thumb makes a gentle, loving pass over the little cut. It stings, but I want him to do it again.
“You have to promise you won’t do anything, Gideon. Really. She’s just… she’s really messed up right now.”
His eyes leave my lips, finding mine, and I know he already knows. “I called everywhere, you know.” His nose brushes mine, his voice swaying rapidly between soft and frigid and growling and coaxing, like he’s struggling to keep himself calm.
“G-Gideon, what are you doing?”
“I think I’m done waiting for you, Audrey.
I was trying. Fuck!” he snaps before sucking down another breath.
“I’ve been trying to let you come home on your own, but I’m losing my fucking mind, Audrey.
If you knew—" He half laughs, but the sound is more chilling than joyful. “If you knew how hard I’ve been trying.”
My chin wobbles, the pounding of my heart and the flutterflies in my stomach, hell, the past few weeks hitting me again like a battering ram.
My chest swells horrifically, my entire body tensing against his.
The last time we were here in the driveway, just like this, when he threw me on the ground and told me to go home, feels too close.
Like it was yesterday, like I can still feel the gravel cutting into my legs.
I jerk back, wincing when his hands tighten toughly, painfully punishing, slamming me back to him.
“No,” he growls. “You don’t get to fucking pull away from me. ”
I do, though. At least, I try. My flesh is hot where it presses and jerks against him as I struggle, my body jerking with panic. “Gideon, let go now! Let go. Let fucking go!”
He releases me all at once, letting me stumble back.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I gasp, righting my sweater that had slipped down over my shoulder, my bun now hanging limp around my neck.
I watch as he unravels, and it’s both jarring and… God, he’s so beautiful. His fingers knot in his hair, tugging it roughly as he paces. “Come inside, Audrey.”
“No! You’re insane!”
His laugh finds me again, ugly and humorless, as he finally stops the abuse on his hair and turns to face me.
I can see it in his eyes, the exact moment he’s not going to give me a choice.
I barely get half a step back before he’s on me, a scream leaving my throat as he jerks me up into his arms. I’m flailing, smacking, and kicking when he slams my back against his chest, holding me there like I weigh nothing at all.
My cursing and threats cut off when his forearm presses underneath my breasts so hard an involuntary squeak leaves my throat.
His other hand punishing as it grips my neck.
“Did you seriously think that these past ten years have changed a fucking thing for me?”
I still at that, the words sinking in deep as he strides into the foyer, kicking the door closed behind us.
“Are you really so fucking deluded, Audrey, that you can’t see I’m every bit as obsessed with you as I was the day I left?
You didn’t get away with hiding from me then, and you won’t now. Do you hear me? Huh?”
I struggle, my chest aching with the meager breath he allows.
He releases me all at once, the smell of Pine-Sol ripe as I crash into the base of the stairs. He doesn’t ease my descent, letting me fall hard, my shin knocking the ground roughly. “Gideon—" I gasp.
“No! No more talking, Audrey.”
I spin around to face him, my ass hitting the step as he crowds in on me, forcing me up to scoot up the stairs. “You-you left me! Everything changed because you changed it!”
I bite back a scream when he snaps out, jerking me up by my arm. I’m hauled ungracefully, roughly up the stairs, his fingers digging into my flesh, mottling the skin there. The muscle and bone underneath like I’ll always feel it.
All of my pleading, my yelling, falling on deaf ears until he releases me again at the top.
But he’s not content to let me stay below him this time.
No, I’m hauled to my feet, his hand a punishing vice on my jaw.
His thumb prodding against my cut on my lips.
“My sweet, sweet Audrey. I left because of you, because if I hadn’t—" He cuts himself off. “I had to go, and it was hell. It was fucking hell being away, but I’m here now. I’m here and you’ve never stopped being mine.
” I flinch as he reaches out, smoothing over my hair with his other hand.
One painful, throbbing, the other soft… lovely.
My heart withers and beats all the harder for it.
But Gideon isn’t done shattering me, shattering the last ten years of my life without him. In the shadow of him, the frightening, bitter cold he left behind. “Two thousand three hundred and two fucking miles wasn’t enough to exercise your goddamn hold on me. But it’s okay now. It’s okay.”
I’m shoved back roughly, panting, the backs of my knees meeting his bed, so wrapped up in the man losing his shit in front of me at the pounding of my own heart I’d missed it when he’d corralled me into his room.
I reach back to steady myself, not falling.
My tears streaming down my cheeks as I face him, his heaving chest inches from mine as the deepest taunting pulse builds between my legs.
“How-how is this okay? You killed me when you left. You let me die in the gravel in the rain, and you didn’t care, Gideon!
You’d never not cared. How can this be okay? !”
He shoves me, making me collapse jarringly on the queen-sized bed. “Because your best friend is home now.”
His suit is mussed, ruffled as he follows me down, his lips slamming against mine in hungry, fevered kisses. Again, for the second time in my life, I am devoured by Gideon Jason Bell.
I’m desperate, panting, needy as he forces himself between my legs. Struggling, fighting, shoving for several breathless seconds before I break free with a sob. “I asked you back then. I asked you if you loved me—"
His hand snaps over my mouth again, covering my nose as he pants, struggling for something.
When his tortured eyes find mine, my galloping heart stills in my chest. “Because I don’t love you, what I feel is infinitely worse than that.
You’re mine, Audrey. On a molecular fucking level, and I am done pretending to give a fuck if you want me or not.
I don’t fucking care that you didn’t wait for me, that you fucking moved on while I spent every single day without you in purgatory.
Now, please, for the love of God, Audrey, I have waited twenty-nine years to do this. Please, shut the fuck up.”
My eyes are wide as he replaces his hands with his lips.
Gideon doesn’t kiss like he’s done it a thousand times.
He kisses like he needs it more than his next breath.
Like we’ll both die without it. I think I feel the same.
Finally, perhaps fatally, my body starts to respond, the shock not slipping away but chipping off in small chunks.
I’m frozen, confused, and overwhelmed until Gideon melts me.
I gasp when he shoves my sweater up, exposing my taut nipples to him.
Embarrassment makes my skin grow hot because this isn’t just some guy. This is Gideon.
This is my Gideon.
On instinct, I work to cover myself, only for my wrists to be gathered in his strong grip and heaved above my head, making my breasts jut out. He takes it as an offering.
“Gid—"
My words are cut off as his deft, eager tongue finds my nipple, sucking it wholly into his mouth. I cry out, my back bowing off the bed as I try to what? Get closer? Escape? It’s all too much and not enough because Gideon is everywhere.
Because Gideon loves me. He didn’t say it, but it’s what he meant.
Gideon has always loved me.
His dark eyes flick up, watching my face contort in pleasure as he sucks once more, only to let off the swollen, abused nub and attack the flesh beside it.
He bites down, and I can’t hide the moan that leaves my throat as he sucks that skin too.
I’m brainless, my core throbbing with each new mark by the time he comes up for air.
What I see on my own skin should piss me off.
It should irritate and disgust me like love marks have before.
Instead, my flush creeps deeper toward the abused flesh.
Gideon is panting as he grinds the hardened length of his cock between my thighs, the pressure making my toes curl. His breath is hot and minty as he presses another desperate kiss to my lips. “You’re mine, Audrey. Tell me.”