Chapter 28 A Garden Between Worlds #2
Arden leaned in, elbows braced against the table, her gaze steady on his. “You’re doing more than surviving,” she said, voice low but certain. “You’re trying to rewrite it.”
Not a question.
Gideon nodded once. A hard, quiet motion. “Trying.” His voice roughened. “But Evelyn… she doesn’t just want to shape the narrative. She wants to control it. Every word. Every page.”
He looked at her then, really looked. “If she sees you as part of my story…”
He didn’t finish.
He didn’t have to.
Arden’s chin lifted. “Let her.”
No bravado. Just defiance.
For a moment, Gideon didn’t speak. He watched her. As if she’d become something he hadn’t dared hope for.
“You don’t make anything easy,” he murmured.
“Would you really want me to?”
His smile was slow. Dangerous. “No. I’d hate it.”
He didn’t want easy.
He wanted her.
The moment stretched, pulling tighter with every breath.
The air between them pressed heavier, denser.
He should’ve said something.
But for once in his life, Gideon Blackwell was speechless.
She was it.
The most dangerous thing he’d ever seen.
And fuck if he’d ever let her go.
“You’re chasing approval that doesn’t matter,” she murmured, almost conspiratorial.
His eyes lingered on her mouth, then returned to hers with something unresolved between them.
Her breath snagged.
She hadn’t seen that coming.
Her gaze fell to the table, trying to find something safe to anchor herself to, but nothing felt steady. Not with him looking at her like that. Like he saw her.
All of her.
“I built walls,” she admitted, her voice brittle. “Too high. Too thick. I built them so no one could get in.”
Her fingers brushed his chest, catching in the fabric of his shirt, subtle and reflexive.
“It was survival. That’s what it was. I got good at being alone.”
Gideon didn’t move. But his presence settled, anchored and certain.
She took a shaky breath. “Some people would call it selfish—cutting ties. Leaving them behind like they didn’t matter.”
She shook her head.
“But that life… that wasn’t living. It was barely breathing.”
He said nothing. Just listened.
Present. Anchored.
His thumb began tracing circles at her hip—small, quiet ones. A reminder. You’re not there anymore.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she said softly. “If I hadn’t left… I don’t think I’d have made it out whole.”
When her eyes met his, no trace of pity stared back. Only steady resolve.
“You’re still standing,” he said, voice low. “And not because someone saved you. You did that. You made a life out of what was left.”
He lifted a hand to her face, cupping her cheek with slow, instinctive care. His thumb brushed her skin, and the touch sent a quiet ache through her ribs.
“In case no one ever said it out loud… you made the right call.”
She stilled.
The words hit like truth always did—sharp, clean, undeniable.
He leaned in, his breath warming her skin, and pressed a kiss to her forehead—gentle and unhurried. When he pulled back, he didn’t say anything. He just looked at her.
“And those walls you’ve built?” His voice was low but unyielding. “If I have to, I’ll climb them. Scale them. Hell, I’ll knock them down brick by brick if that’s what it takes to get to you.”
Her throat tightened.
She paused, voice nearly lost to the quiet. “What if I never figured out how to let someone in?”
A beat. Then: “You already have.”
God help her.
He meant it.
The air between them was charged—every glance, every breath, somehow tethered to the other.
“That’s what makes this real, Arden.” His hand found hers, threading their fingers together. “You’re not hiding anymore.”
She felt it—his steadiness, his restraint. No pressure.
“Can we take it slow?” she asked. “See where it goes?”
His smile was quiet. Certain.
“We can take it as slow as you need,” he said, voice firm, reverent. “But make no mistake…”
His fingers brushed hers, then entwined.
His voice dropped.
“You’re mine. I’ve known it since the night we met.”
Her pulse skipped.
She didn’t pull away.
Didn’t run.
She stayed.
For once, the space between her and another person didn’t feel like a battleground.
And when Gideon rose and offered his hand, voice low, steady—
“Come inside.”
She didn’t hesitate.
“Okay.”
He didn’t lead.
He didn’t pull.
He waited.
And she took the step herself.
The room wasn’t lavish or cold—it was lived in. A quiet kind of worn, softened not by decor, but by presence. The scent of spice and temptation lingered in the air, unmistakably him.
It wrapped around her before she’d even stepped inside.
Arden hovered in the doorway, fingers brushing the collar of her coat. Like one more step was significant. She wasn’t sure what, but she felt it in her chest like a warning.
She’d faced down chaos. Stared down threats. She knew how to brace for danger.
But this?
This was different entirely.
Gideon said nothing and didn’t crowd her. He waited quietly.
She removed her coat and laid it across an armchair. A simple act, but it felt seismic. As if she’d crossed into a version of herself she wasn’t used to being.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said at last, her voice low. Not timid. Honest.
The admission landed between them with more weight than she expected.
Gideon crossed the space like gravity pulled him forward. No urgency. No resistance.
His hands rose—rough palms brushing her jaw, thumbs tracing her cheekbones with aching precision. He didn’t grasp or demand.
He simply… touched. Anchored.
“You don’t need to,” he murmured. “Just let me be here.”
A quiet steadiness rose in her. Not all the way, but enough.
She nodded. A small motion. But for her, it was surrender wrapped in instinct.
Not defeat, but deeper. A kind of permission.
She drifted toward the dresser, fingers gliding along the wood like it held a current. No words. No glances back. A pause, a breath, and then she opened the drawer.
Her hand closed around the black tee—soft, broken-in, steeped in his scent. A tightness curled low in her chest. She brushed her fingers over the cotton, then closed her hand around it and walked toward the bathroom.
Her eyes flicked back to him.
Not asking.
Not explaining.
Only checking to see if he was still there.
He was.
Behind the door, each beat of her pulse pounded louder than the last. Not nerves.
Not fear.
Anticipation, thick and molten, settled deep in her belly.
Every movement—peeling off her layers, sliding into his shirt, adjusting the hem—felt like a choice. A line crossed. Not for him. For her.
When she stepped out, the air changed.
He didn’t speak.
Didn’t move.
Just stared—utterly still, jaw tight, like she’d shattered control itself.
His shirt clung to her like a secret he wasn’t supposed to know. The hem grazed the tops of her thighs. The thin fabric did nothing to hide the swell of her breasts, the hard peaks betraying her need.
And now, she looked like a reckoning.
His reckoning.
Like she didn’t know she’d set him on fire.
Or maybe she did.
And that destroyed him even more.
When she walked toward him, slow and sure, it was a fucking death sentence.
He didn’t reach for her.
She reached for him.
And the second her hands found him, the surrounding air detonated.
The kiss wasn’t patient. Wasn’t polite. It was filthy with want—wild, greedy, a collision of mouths that held nothing back.
His hands found her hips and lifted her into him, grinding her up against the hard line of him with a desperation that shattered his restraint. The heat of her—through cotton, of soft meeting steel—was goddamn lethal.
She wrapped her legs around him and moved against him with slow, dangerous rolls of her hips, dragging the thick length of him along the ache between her thighs. His hand slid higher, curled around the back of her thighs, dragging the shirt up until his palm found bare skin.
Hot. Smooth. Dangerous.
“Jesus, Arden,” his voice was ragged. “You’re going to fucking destroy me.”
She didn’t answer.
She kissed him again—deeper, darker, needier. Like a woman possessed.
Like the past was ash and she was the flame.
Her fingers speared into his hair, a sharp tug dragging a guttural sound from deep in his chest—feral, helpless.
He kissed her like he was starving. Like she was air. Like if he didn’t have her now, he wouldn’t survive the next breath.
When she pulled back, it wasn’t distance, it was survival. Their foreheads pressed together, breath tangled, pulses crashing in the hush between them.
Her lips were kiss-bitten, parted and trembling. Her eyes? Dark with promise.
Her chest rose with a need she made no attempt to hide.
And him? He was already gone. Shattered. Worshipful.
Then she kissed him again, slower this time.
Not softer.
More lethal.
Gideon finally pulled back. Just enough to see her.
Really see her.
He circled her in a slow orbit, reverent and starved, like she was holy ground he had no right to touch.
His gaze slid down her body—pausing at the swell of her breasts, the way his shirt clung and lifted, hinting at skin that begged to be touched. Her thighs, bare and breathtaking. Her nipples, hard and straining against cotton that couldn’t hide a damn thing.
She was art.
It was obscene.
It was perfect.
And it was his undoing.
Because nothing had ever looked like it belonged more than she did right now; standing barefoot in his room, in his shirt, looking at him like she wasn’t going anywhere.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.
He reached for her hand—steady, quiet, and sure.
The air between them shifted.
He could’ve taken more; she would’ve let him.
But instead, he stepped back, barely, so he could meet her eyes.
What passed between them then wasn’t lust.
It was understanding.
This wasn’t about possession. Not tonight.
This was about the quiet in between.
The choice to stay.
The ache beneath the armor.
So when he reached for her hand again—gently, open-palmed—it wasn’t to pull her into more.
It was to lead her into the hush between heartbeats.
Softer.
A promise made without words.
The bed was warm.
But that wasn’t what grounded her.
Gideon’s arm rested against her like a vow, not a cage, not a command.
A tether. Steady. Solid.
There, if she reached for it.
Never asking for more than she was willing to give.
At first, her body resisted. Muscles tight, spine stiff.
Her instincts whispered warnings out of habit.
Don’t relax. Don’t trust. Don’t let go.
Old reflexes didn’t die easily.
But his touch never shifted.
Never coaxed.
Never took.
It only offered.
His breath moved slow and even behind her, like an anchor in a sea she didn’t yet trust.
And his hand—God, that hand—traced soft, aimless patterns along the small of her back.
Not suggestive.
Not even intentional.
Just… present.
His thumb brushed her hip, featherlight, unhurried.
Like a signal. Like a reminder. Take your time. I’m here.
Something cracked open in her chest.
Not pain. Not fear.
Just the unfamiliar weight of being met—gently, completely, without expectation.
She didn’t know how to do this.
Didn’t know how to be touched without consequence.
Didn’t know how to rest in someone else’s quiet without preparing for the silence to turn sharp.
But she didn’t have to know.
Maybe she had to stop fighting.
Just long enough to try.
So she breathed.
Hesitated.
And then she moved; she curled into him.
Slightly.
Barely.
But it was enough.
Gideon’s breath hitched. Not loud. Not dramatic.
But it was there.
And then, his arm tightened. Just a little.
Not to hold her down.
Enough to keep her.
And she let him.