Chapter 3 Exploration in the Dark
The bedroom held its breath.
Marlene’s hands found Gideon’s chest in the dark—not gentle, not hesitant, but certain. Her palms pressed flat against the hard planes of his pectorals, and she felt the stutter of his heartbeat beneath her right hand. Fast. Matching her own.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
“So are you.”
She pushed.
The backs of his knees hit the mattress edge, and his eyes widened—just for a fraction of a second—before he let himself fall.
The bedframe groaned. Springs creaked. Gideon landed with his elbows propped beneath him, looking up at her with an expression she couldn’t quite name.
Surprise, maybe. Hunger, definitely. Something softer underneath that she wasn’t ready to examine.
The streetlamp threw its orange light across him in prison stripes, and she could see everything now.
The scar on his ribs she’d touched in the hallway.
The one on his shoulder. A third she hadn’t noticed before—a thin white line running along his collarbone, barely visible, like a seam where someone had stitched him back together.
Marlene climbed onto the bed.
One knee on either side of his hips. Her thighs bracketed his, denim sliding against denim, and the friction made her breath catch. She settled her weight onto him—not all of it, just enough to feel the solid length of his body beneath hers. His hands came up automatically, found her waist, gripped.
“What are you doing?” His voice was gravel.
“Exploring.”
She’d never done this before. Never taken control like this, never positioned herself above a man and felt the power shift beneath her skin like a current finding its circuit.
Her father’s voice flickered through her memory—slow down, think things through, don’t be reckless—and she shut it out.
Her father wasn’t here. Her father had never once asked what she wanted.
Gideon’s thumbs pressed into the hollows of her hipbones.
“Explorers usually have a map,” he said.
“I prefer to get lost.”
His laugh was short and surprised and cut off when she leaned forward. Her hair fell around their faces like a curtain, blocking out the streetlamp, blocking out everything but the heat of his breath and the dark gleam of his eyes.
Brown. His eyes were brown. Deep brown, almost black in this light, but brown—she could see it now, this close. She didn’t know why that mattered. It mattered anyway.
Her fingertips found the scar on his collarbone first.
Tracing it. Slow. The skin was smoother than the surrounding flesh, raised just slightly, and when she followed its path from the hollow of his throat to the curve of his shoulder, Gideon’s jaw clenched. His grip on her hips tightened.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you holding your breath?”
He exhaled—a sharp rush of air through his nose—and something in his face cracked open. Not breaking. Just opening. Like a door left ajar.
“Nobody’s touched them,” he said. “Not like this.”
“The scars?”
“Any of it.”
Marlene’s heart clenched. She didn’t let herself stop.
Her fingers moved to his shoulder next—the puckered circle there, smaller than the one on his ribs, more recent judging by the color.
She traced its circumference, and his eyes fell shut.
His lashes were dark against his cheeks.
She watched his throat work as he swallowed.
“Shrapnel,” he said, before she could ask. “Iraq. Second tour.”
“And the one on your ribs?”
“Same tour. Different day.”
Her palm flattened over the scar on his ribs now, covering it entirely.
She could feel the rise and fall of his breathing beneath her hand, faster than before, shallower.
Her other hand braced against his chest, and she realized with a jolt that she could feel his heart pounding directly under her fingers—could count the beats if she wanted to.
She didn’t count. She leaned down instead.
Her lips brushed the scar on his collarbone.
Gideon’s whole body went rigid. Every muscle locked at once, his hands freezing on her hips, his breath stopping mid-inhale.
For one terrible second she thought she’d made a mistake—crossed some line she hadn’t seen.
But then his hands slid from her hips to her back, fingers splaying wide across her spine, pulling her closer rather than pushing her away.
“Marlene.” Her name was barely a whisper.
She kissed the scar again. Slower. Her lips parted against the raised tissue, and she felt the shudder that ran through him—a full-body tremor that started somewhere deep and radiated outward until even the mattress seemed to vibrate with it.
“Is this okay?” she murmured against his skin.
“Yes.” The word was torn from somewhere raw. “Yes, I just—I’m not used to—”
“To what?”
“Being seen.”
She lifted her head. Met his eyes. His pupils were blown wide again, but she could still see the brown around the edges, and in it she saw something she recognized. The same loneliness she carried. The same desperate, clawing hunger to be known by someone, anyone, even for a single night.
“I see you,” she said.
He kissed her.
Not like before. Not urgent or frantic or hungry.
This kiss was something else entirely—deep and searching and almost painful in its tenderness.
His hand came up to cup her jaw, thumb tracing her cheekbone, and she sank into him.
Her chest pressed against his. The lace of her bra was the only barrier between her skin and his, and she could feel the heat of him bleeding through it.
His other hand slid up her spine. Found the clasp of her bra. Paused.
“Can I?”
She nodded against his mouth.
The clasp released. The straps slipped down her shoulders. Cool air hit her bare back, raising goosebumps, and then Gideon was pulling the fabric away—slowly, reverently, like unwrapping something precious. The bra joined the growing collection of clothes somewhere on the floor.
His eyes dropped.
And stayed there.
Marlene felt the urge to cover herself. An old instinct, deeply ingrained. Don’t be vain, don’t be immodest, don’t want attention you haven’t earned. Her father’s voice again, worming its way into her head even now, even here. She forced her hands to stay at her sides.
Gideon said nothing.
His knuckles brushed the underside of her breast. Featherlight. Barely a touch at all. Then his palm curved around her ribcage, calluses catching on her skin, and he exhaled like a man who’d been holding his breath for years.
“You’re shaking again,” she whispered.
“I know.”
His thumb traced the curve of her breast. Slow circles, maddening and perfect, and she let her head fall back. Her hips rolled against his without conscious thought—a movement her body knew before her mind did. The friction of denim against denim sent sparks up her spine.
“Lean down,” he said.
She did.
His mouth found the hollow of her throat first.
Then lower—the plane of her sternum, the swell of her breast.
His lips were hot and his stubble scraped in a way that made her gasp.
When he took her nipple into his mouth, she made a sound she’d never made before.
High and breathy and completely unguarded.
His tongue circled. His teeth grazed, just barely, just enough to send a shockwave straight down to where her thighs clenched around his hips.
“Gideon—”
He switched to the other breast. Same slow, devastating attention.
Her fingers tangled in his hair—short as it was—and she held him there, her hips grinding down against his in a rhythm she couldn’t control.
His hips rose to meet hers, and she felt him beneath her, hard through his unbuttoned jeans, and the knowledge of it made her dizzy.
She pulled back. Gasping.
His lips were wet and parted, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. His hands roamed her back, her sides, her thighs—touching everything he could reach, like he couldn’t get enough of her skin.
“Your turn,” she said.
“My turn?”
“To be explored.”
She pushed herself upright again, sitting astride him, and the pose was almost absurdly intimate.
Her bare above him, her hips pressed to his, the streetlamp painting them both in orange and gold.
She traced the scar on his ribs one more time—the longest one, the one that told a story she still didn’t fully know—and then she followed it with her mouth.
Kissing her way down his chest.
Her lips mapped the ridges of his abdomen. The dip of his navel. The trail of dark hair that disappeared beneath his waistband. His stomach muscles contracted under her mouth, and his hand found the back of her head—not pushing, just resting there, fingers threading through her hair.
“Marlene.” Her name was strangled now, barely recognizable. “If you keep going—”
She lifted her head. Smiled. The expression felt foreign on her face, like she was trying on someone else’s confidence and finding it fit better than expected.
“Then what?”
His eyes met hers in the dark.
The door downstairs slammed.
They both froze—statues in the orange light, breath held, ears straining. Footsteps on the stairwell. Heavy. Deliberate. Climbing.
Gideon’s hand tightened on the back of her head. Not fear. Readiness. The same instinctual tension she’d seen in the diner when headlights had swept the windows.
The footsteps reached the second floor.
Kept climbing.