She'd withstood the assault until the storm passed, but he'd left, disappearing from her life for six months. It was then she'd recognized how much he'd become a part of her. Even moving and breathing were difficult, pretending she was still Anwyn when he'd apparently torn her soul out of his body and taken it with him. In her despairing moments, she'd told herself if he ever came back, she'd give him what he wanted. She would walk into the cage he offered, and somehow learn to trust him enough that she no longer saw the bars.
But when at last he returned, he'd told her he would not ask her again, nor would he permit her to agree to it. Perversely, she'd felt a sense of loss, that he'd turned his back on the bond that his species viewed as the closest possible link with another living being. Ironic, considering that link was possible only with a species they considered inferior.
His fingers stilled against her. Pulling out of her thoughts, she caught her breath as Gideon knelt at the prayer bench. The man's obvious struggle with himself made Anwyn's own body clench. He was rigid with tension, from the breadth of his shoulders in his thin T-shirt, down to the braced thighs and taut ass in the worn jeans.
“He keeps a toe blade in those boots.” Daegan's attention sharpened on the screen.
“I'll be fine, Daegan. He won't hurt me. I know it.”
Gideon's hair fell farther forward across his brow in his penitent position. It only enhanced the fierce resistance in the brilliant blue eyes that flashed through the unruly strands. When she heard his words—
I'm here, damn you. Come back to me—an insolent demand, her heart soaked up his pain, her pulse accelerating against Daegan's palm.
He kissed her there, letting his lips linger. His hands had returned to her breasts, and now they were drifting, stroking, plucking so that her body was shifting restlessly, a rhythm to his erotic motions. “I suppose you intend to keep him waiting,” he murmured.
“It's part of what he needs. Do you have time . . . for me to need you?” Gideon had touched her own healed wounds with his rabid suffering. It made her willing to let her guard down. Though deep in her heart, she knew she could trust Daegan with far more of herself. It was herself she didn't trust.
He'd stilled at her soft request, but now his lips increased their pressure against her throat, becoming more insistent. “You so rarely ask me for anything,cher . You know I would deny you nothing.”
“I want to keep watching him.”
“I know. You will taunt him with that, too, that another took your body while he knelt in loneliness.”
“Serving me with his obedience. A gift I'll reward. But with him, I need to hold back. That's the key.”
“You're afraid you'll want to give too much of yourself to him, too soon.” She couldn't deny it. It was in the quiver of her body, the way her nipples continued to harden beneath Daegan's touch, elongating under his skilled fingers. The aching pleasure became more uncomfortable as he pinched them again. She bucked against him, throwing her head back onto his shoulder, the violence taking her by surprise. Sometimes she came to life like the slowest boiling water, tiny bubbles of response barely quivering below the surface, and other times it was like this, as if the time Daegan had spent away from her had turned her blood to lava, such that she would erupt at his merest touch.
He was ready for her, though. Sliding the side zipper of the latex over the curve of her hip, his hand teasing bare flesh, he peeled the pants down but didn't push the tight garment past her thighs. “Bend over; clasp the chair in front of you,cher . I want to take you tight, where you cannot spread as wide for me as you wish.”