Chapter 46 Reckless Devotion
Reckless Devotion
The drive back into the city passed in a quiet blur, but the silence wasn’t empty. It hummed, alive and electric, with everything unspoken.
Arden rested her temple against the window, the glass cool against her skin. Outside, the city unfurled in golden blurs’ each flash of light slipped over her reflection. She took the time to appraise him—profile rigid, jaw set, hands gripping the wheel. He didn’t look at her once. Didn’t dare.
When they finally pulled into the garage beneath his brownstone, the Roadster settled with a low purr, its last rumble fading like a held breath.
Gideon cut the engine. Neither of them moved.
Then, slowly, he turned to her. The storm in his eyes was quiet now—steady, but it carried promise.
“Still think the car is sexier?” His voice was low, edged with something darker.
She tried to smirk, bold and flippant, but it cracked under the heat of his stare.
The space between them had tightened to a breath.
“I don’t know…” She lifted a shoulder, casual. “It’s close.”
His jaw flexed. Just once.
A warning.
Then he was out of the car.
She barely had time to track him before he was there, rounding the hood with that quiet, coiled stride she’d learned to recognize. He opened her door without a word, offering his hand like a man who knew she’d take it.
“I still think can tilt things in my favor.” he said, voice rough, threaded with the control he was barely keeping.
Inside, the brownstone welcomed them with a hush, familiar and expectant.
Arden slipped out of her coat, the fabric whispering down her arms before pooling over the armrest in a soft, deliberate fall.
When she turned, he was there.
No rush.
No hesitation.
Just Gideon, closing the space between them like gravity had decided.
“You know,” he said, voice low, teasing, but anchored. “I’ve been patient.”
The word patient landed like a spark.
Heat stirred low in her belly. She didn’t try to hide it.
“Patient?” she asked, brow lifting.
He traced her wrist, only a brush, but her breath caught anyway.
“Letting you take the wheel. Sitting through dinner. Watching you move in that brutally intoxicating outfit…” His hands slid to her waist, thumbs slipping just beneath the hem of her blouse.
“You’ve been testing me.”
She laughed quietly, but the sound dissolved as he leaned in, his mouth grazing just shy of her throat.
“You’re wrong, by the way,” he murmured.
She swallowed. “About what?”
“That the car is sexier.”
His hands moved lower, slow and certain, anchoring her. Then his mouth met hers. No hesitation. Just heat and hunger and something deeper.
Arden melted into him. Her fingers gripped in his shirt, dragging him closer until nothing remained between them but friction and fire.
His hands tightened on her hips, fitting her to him like he’d imagined it a hundred times.
He kissed her like she wasn’t just his to claim. But his to keep.
When they parted, foreheads pressed, breath mingling, he brushed his thumb over her lower lip.
Reverent. Possessive. Like a vow written without words.
Her smile curved, slow and certain.“I might need more proof.”
His gaze sharpened—dark, intent, unraveling. “Come on,” he said, voice rasped and wrecked. “Let me prove it.”
He kissed her again, an invitation. A promise.
“I’ve got all night,” he said. “And I’m done holding back.”
Arden paused long enough for the weight of it to land. Then she met his eyes, sharp as ever, her voice steady as her pulse.
“You’re awfully confident for a man who might be losing.”
“Losing?” His smirk curled, molten and sure. “You’re still here.”
The truth in it struck deeper than she wanted to admit. Her fingers pressed her hand to his chest—firm, grounding.
Because she wasn’t unsure anymore. Not about him. Not about this.
“Lead the way, Blackwell,” she said.
And she let go.
The door clicked shut behind them, sealing the room, and everything they would become.
He didn’t wait. He didn’t ask. He crossed the space like he’d already decided. His eyes weren’t teasing now. They were focused, hungry, intent. “This isn’t a game to me.”
“I know,” she said.
His hand came up slowly, open and unhurried. His fingers brushed the side of her neck, then followed the line of her collarbone, gliding down her arm. From there to her waist, where they lingered—mapping. Learning.
“You can still walk away.”
She didn’t.
Instead, she stepped closer. Palms to his chest. Feeling the restraint. Feeling the storm.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
His breath caught.
So did hers.
The moment shifted. No turning back.
His hands gripped her waist harder, anchoring her.
“Then let me have you,” he said, voice hoarse, reverent.
She kissed him. Not shy. Not soft.
“I’m already yours.”
His next kiss wasn’t a continuation.
It was a reckoning.
Unhurried but hungry. Like his mouth was spelling out every vow he couldn’t yet say. Intentional. Focused. Like this wasn’t about seduction or satisfaction. This was about her. Seeing her. Knowing her.
He moved with that infuriating, beautiful certainty, as if the rest of the world had gone quiet for this. For her.
Gideon didn’t just touch her. He memorized her. As though this wasn’t indulgence, it was survival. His weight anchored her, firm and steady, while his hands traced the places she didn’t know were aching until he found them.
A shiver raced down her spine as his palm slid across her ribs. Each brush sent sparks dancing beneath her skin. He wasn’t grabbing; he was asking. Every pass of his fingers, every breath against her, was a question.
He was still learning her. Reading her body like a prayer whispered in the dark. And every gasp? Every sound, every arch, every tremble? They felt like his answers.
His lips wandered from her mouth to the tender spot beneath her ear.
There, he paused. Kissed. Tasted her like a man savoring something he wasn’t sure he deserved.
Open-mouthed. Slow. Addicted. She felt it in the way his breath caught.
The way his jaw flexed. The way his entire body responded to the quietest gasp she couldn’t hold back.
When his lips grazed her collarbone, she moaned softly, almost helplessly. Almost. His name barely formed on her tongue.
And he—he breathed her in. Like her scent alone could anchor him.
Then he moved lower, inch by agonizing inch. He kissed the curve of her breast. The space between. The edge of her ribcage. Each press of his mouth branded her—hot, reverent, wrecking.
Her hands threaded through his hair, nails grazing the line of his jaw, and when she moaned, really moaned, his whole body jerked. He trembled. Like the sound had done something he wasn’t sure he could come back from.
Then his mouth closed over her nipple.
Not gentle. Not rough. Just right. His tongue was slow and insistent, sending a spiral of heat straight through her. Her back arched instinctively, lips parting as another broken sound escaped.
He dragged his teeth gently across her nipple, just once. Her gasp was so erotic it nearly broke him.
“Fuck,” he rasped. Not at her. For her. For himself. Like he couldn’t believe she was real.
He wasn’t just touching her.
He was unraveling himself in the process.
Her hands found his shoulders, then his back, tracing the strength that bracketed her. She felt his restraint stretching, straining, threatening to snap.
And still, he let her guide the rhythm until the careful control inside him fractured.
He lifted his head.
Met her eyes.
And the look he gave her…
It wasn’t lust.
It was everything else.
Need. Fierce. Soul-deep. Raw.
“You’re a fucking masterpiece.”
His voice shook with something sacred. Not because of what he saw, but because of what he felt. For her.
Her breath caught.
Then he was kissing lower.
Slower.
Her ribs. The soft slope of her stomach. Her hips, where his hands found her again. Fingers flexing, thumbs grazing bone like they were sacred. When he glanced up, the look in his eyes knocked the breath from her lungs.
“You’re unreal,” he rasped, voice uneven. “I don’t know what to do with you.”
His hands settled at her hips, fingers splayed wide like he could anchor her there—keep her from slipping away, even if the world burned around them.
He kissed his way down her body in a slow descent, mouth dragging over familiar skin with a hunger that said knowing her wasn’t enough.
He needed to claim her all over again—inch by inch, breath by breath.
And then, lower.
His mouth found her like he’d been dreaming of it. No hesitation. No finesse. Just heat and hunger and a rhythm so deliberate it made her toes curl. He kissed her like she was a promise, one he’d bleed for. One he didn’t intend to break.
She felt the shape of his grin before she saw it, the way his mouth curved against her thigh, cocky and heart-wrecking.
“Gideon,” she breathed, voice already frayed. “Please…”
Her fingers slid into his hair, desperate for something to hold onto as the world narrowed to heat and anticipation.
His laugh was low and wicked—a dark promise, delivered straight to her skin.
“Since you asked so nicely…”
Then he gave her everything.
His mouth closed over her clit, tongue circling with unrelenting precision—crushing, consuming, controlled. He didn’t rush. Didn’t tease. He devoured her. Lips coaxing, tongue tormenting, his mouth working her like he was hell-bent on memorizing the way she fell apart.
She cried out, hips jerking, thighs trembling, but he held her steady. Let her come undone. Made her feel every second of it—every flick, every pull, every relentless wave of pleasure until her body locked and shattered in his hands.
But he didn’t stop.
Not right away.
He softened only when she gasped his name again—broken, blissed-out, breathless. His kisses gentled—featherlight along her thighs, her hips—reverent again. Whispering things she couldn’t quite hear through the pulse roaring in her ears.
Only when she sagged back into the mattress, boneless and trembling, did he rise.