I walked toward her.
“I still want to wait,” she said quietly, even as her eyes betrayed how I affected her.
She grabbed my wrist when I reached for her, her gaze holding mine. “Let me do all the touching.”
I inhaled sharply. “I can’t agree to that.”
Her mouth curved. “Yes, you can. You’re stronger than I am, Gideon. You have more control. Greater willpower.”
Her other hand reached up to graze my chest. I caught it and pressed it against my skin. “Is that what you need me to prove? My control?”
“You’re doing fine.” She pressed a kiss over my pounding heart. “I’m the one who needs to figure things out.”
Her tone of voice was soft, almost crooning. I was raging inside, burning with lust and love, and she was trying to gentle me. I almost laughed at the impossibility of that.
Then she stepped into me, her plush body fitting tightly against mine, her arms hugging me so hard there wasn’t any space between us.
I crushed her close, my head bowing over hers. I didn’t know until that moment how badly I’d needed to feel her like that. Tender and accepting, bared in every way possible.
She leaned her cheek against my chest. “I love you so much,” she whispered. “Can you feel it?”
It overwhelmed me. Her love for me, my love for her. Every time she said the words, they hit me like blows.
“You said once,” she whispered, “that there’s a moment while we’re making love when I open and you open and we’re together. I want to give you that all the time, Gideon.”
The suggestion that there was something missing in what we had stiffened my spine. “Does it really matter how and when we feel it?”
“You could argue that.” Her head tilted back. “I won’t disagree. But if you’re on the other side of the world when you need reassurance from me, I need to know that I can give it to you.”
“You’ll be with me,” I muttered, frustrated.
“Not always.” Her hand cupped my cheek. “There will be times when you need to be in two places at once. Eventually, you’ll trust me to fill in for you.”
I studied her, looking for cracks in her resolve. What I saw was determination. I didn’t totally understand what she hoped to achieve, but I wasn’t getting in the way. If she was going to change or evolve, I needed to be part of that process if I expected to keep her.
“Kiss me.” The words left my throat as a low command, but she must have sensed the yearning behind it.
She offered her mouth and I took it hard, too hard, my hunger violent and greedy. I lifted her off her feet, wanting her to wrap her legs around me, to open to me so I could push inside her.
She didn’t. She hung there, her hands stroking through my hair, her body trembling with the same unquenchable desire I felt. The flicks of her tongue against mine were maddening, taunting me with the memory of that tongue stroking over the rest of my body.
I struggled to pull away when everything inside me was goading me to push further. “I need to be inside you,” I said hoarsely, hating that I had to voice what was so obvious. Why make me plead?
“You are.” She nuzzled her cheek against mine. “I want you, too. I’m so wet for you right now. I feel so empty it hurts.”
“Eva … Christ.” Sweat slid down my back. “Let me have you.”
Her lips touched mine. Her fingers raked through my hair. “Let me love you another way.”
Could I handle that? Hell. I had to. I’d vowed to give her whatever she needed, to be the beginning and end of everything for her.
I set her down and went to the shower, shutting the taps off. Then I moved to the tub, stopped the drain, and started filling it.
“Are you mad?” she asked in a low voice I barely heard over the rush of water.
I looked at her, saw the way her arms crossed her chest and gave away her vulnerability. I told her the truth. “I love you.”
Eva’s lower lip trembled, then curved in a beautiful smile that took my breath away.