“Well, I’m confused and that’s starting to make me pissed.”
His jaw tightened. He turned away, walking to the fireplace and looking at the family photos I’d placed on the mantel.
I suddenly regretted doing that. I would be the first to admit that I pushed him into change faster than I should, but I understood the need for a haven, a quiet place to let your guard down. I wanted to be that for him, wanted our home to be that for him. If I made it a place he wanted to avoid—if he ever found it easier to avoid me—then I would effectively be jeopardizing the very marriage I valued more than anything.
“Gideon. Please talk to me.” Maybe I’d made that difficult, too. “If I’ve crossed a line, you have to tell me.”
He faced me again, frowning. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand why you’re upset with me. Help me understand.”
Gideon heaved a sigh of frustration, then focused on me with the laserlike precision that had exposed every secret I’d had. “If there weren’t anyone else on earth, just you and me, I’d be okay with that. But that wouldn’t be enough for you.”
I sat back, startled. His mind was a labyrinth I would never map. “You would be okay with just me and no one else—indefinitely? No competitors to squash? No global domination to plan?” I snorted. “You’d be bored out of your mind.”
“Is that what you think?”
“That’s what I know.”
“What about you?” he challenged. “How would you manage with no friends to invite over and no one else’s life to meddle in?”
My gaze narrowed. “I don’t meddle.”
He gave me a patient look. “Would I be enough for you, if there were no one else?”
“There is no one else.”
“Eva. Answer the question.”
I had no idea where he was coming from, but that only made it easier for me to answer him. “You fascinate the fuck out of me, you know that? You’re never boring. A lifetime alone with you wouldn’t be long enough to figure you out.”
“Could you be happy?”
“Having you all to myself ? That would be heaven.” My mouth curved. “I have a Tarzan fantasy. You Tarzan, me Jane.”
The tension in his shoulders visibly eased and a faint smile touched his mouth. “We’ve been married a month. Why am I just now hearing about this?”
“I figured I’d give it a few months before I whipped out the freaky.”
Gideon flashed me a rare, wide smile and fried my brain in the process. “How does the fantasy go?”
“Oh, you know.” I waved one hand carelessly. “Tree house, loincloth. Weather hot enough to put a sheen of sweat on you, but not too hot. You’d be seething with the need to fuck but have no experience doing it. I’d have to show you how.”
He stared at me. “You have a sexual fantasy in which I’m a virgin?”
It took a lot of effort not to laugh at his incredulity. “In every way,” I said, with utmost seriousness. “You’ve never seen breasts or a woman’s pussy before mine. I have to show you how to touch me, what I like. You catch on quick, but then I’ve got a wild man on my hands. You can’t get enough.”
“That’s reality.” He headed toward the kitchen. “I have something for you.”
“A loincloth?”
He answered over his shoulder. “How about what goes in it?”
My mouth curved. I half expected him to come back out with wine. I straightened when I saw that he had something small and bright red in his hand, a color and shape I recognized as Cartier. “A present?”
Gideon crossed the distance between us with his confident, sexy stride.
Excited, I rose onto my knees. “Gimme, gimme.”