I would always be obsessive when it came to her. I’d come to accept that. Eventually, she would, too. “There are things I can’t give you. Don’t fight me on the things I can.”
“Gideon.” Her face softened. “You give me everything I need.”
I brushed my fingers across her jaw. She was so soft. Delicate. I had never anticipated my sanity hinging on something so fragile. “You come home to another guy. You make your living by working for someone else. I’m not as necessary to you as I’d like to be.”
Her eyes brightened with humor. “While I’m about as dependent on you as I can stand to be.”
“It’s mutual.” Running my hands down her arms, I caught her by the wrists and squeezed with just enough pressure to capture her focus. I watched her pupils dilate and her lips part, her body instinctively responding to the restraint. “Promise you’ll come to me first from now on.”
“Okay,” she breathed.
The undercurrents of arousal and surrender in her voice sent my blood humming. She swayed into me, her body softening. “I’d like to come now, actually.”
“I am, as always, at your service.”
—
GIDEON.
The shock of hearing panic in Eva’s voice reverberated through me. My body jolted, jerking me out of the deepest sleep. Rolling to my side with a low moan, I struggled awake, shoving my hair out of my face to find her kneeling on the edge of the bed.
A heavy, inescapable sense of dread had my heart racing and cold sweat coating my skin.
I pushed up onto one elbow. “What’s wrong?”
Moonlight slanted through the room and haloed her. She’d come to me in our bedroom in the apartment next door to hers. Something had woken her, and I was afraid. Fear chilled me to the bone.
“Gideon.” She slid into me in a rush of silken skin and shining hair. Curled against me, she reached up and touched my face. “What were you dreaming about?”
The stroke of her fingertips left a trail of wet across my skin. Startled, horrified, I scrubbed at my eyes and smeared more tears across my cheek. In a corner of my mind, I sensed the lingering shadow of a dream.
The brush of memory had me shivering, spiraling further downward.
I rolled into her and pulled her tight against me, hearing her gasp as I squeezed too hard. Her skin was cool to the touch, but her flesh was warm beneath and I absorbed her heat, breathed in her scent, felt the terrible lingering grief inside me ease with her nearness.
I couldn’t grasp the dream I’d had, but it refused to let go of me.
“Shh,” she crooned, her fingers pushing through the sweat-damp roots of my hair, her hand stroking up and down my back. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
I couldn’t breathe. I fought for air and a horrible sound ripped from my burning lungs.
A sob. Christ. Then another. I couldn’t stop the violent contractions.
“Baby.” She hugged me harder, her legs tangling with mine. She rocked us gently, whispering words I couldn’t hear over the pounding of my heartbeat and the outcry of my phantom pain.
I wrapped myself around her, holding on to the love that could save me.
—
“GIDEON!”
Eva’s back arched as I thrust hard, my knees spreading her thighs wide, my c**k tunneling deep. Her wrists were pinned by my hands, her head thrashing as I f**ked her hard.
Some days I woke her with tenderness. Today wasn’t one of those mornings.
I’d woken to a throbbing erection, the head of my dick wet with pr**cum against the curve of Eva’s ass. I aroused her hungrily, impatiently, sucking her ni**les to hard points, slickening her cunt with the demanding drive of my fingers. She’d ignited to my touch, gave herself over to me, gave herself to me.
God. I loved her so much.