Day, Sylvia - Bared to You - A Crossfire Novel

“I can’t help it that you turn me on,” I muttered, “My body is physiological y supposed to soften and relax, so you can shove that big cock inside me.”

“Eva. Let’s be honest. You want me to have total control. It’s important to you that you can trust me to take care of you. There’s nothing wrong with that. The reverse is true for me—I need you to trust me enough to give up that control.”

I couldn’t think when he was pressed up against me, my body achingly aware of every hard inch of him. “I am not submissive.”

“You are with me. If you look back, you’l see you’ve been yielding to me al along.”

“You’re good in bed! And have more experience. Of course I let you do what you want to me.” I bit my lower lip to stop it from quivering. “I’m sorry I haven’t been as exciting for you.”

“Bul shit, Eva. You know how much I enjoy making love to you. If I could get away with it, I’d do nothing else. We’re not talking about games that get me off.”

“Then we’re talking about what gets me off? Is that what this is?”

“Yes. I thought so.” He frowned. “You’re upset. I didn’t mean—Damn it. I thought discussing this would help us.”

“Gideon.” My eyes stung, then flooded with tears. He looked as wounded and confused as I felt. “You’re breaking my heart.”

Releasing my wrists, he stepped back and swept me up in his arms, carrying me out of his office and down the hal way to a closed door. “Turn the knob,” he said quietly.

We entered a candlelit room that stil smel ed faintly of new paint. For a few seconds I was disoriented, unable to comprehend how we’d stepped out of Gideon’s apartment and into my bedroom.

“I don’t understand.” A serious understatement, but my brain was stil trying to get past the feeling of being teleported from one residence to another. “You…

moved me in with you?”

“Not quite.” He set me down, but kept an arm around me. “I recreated your room based on the photo I took of you sleeping.”

“Why?”

What the hel ? Who did something like that? Was this al to keep me from witnessing his nightmares?

The thought shattered my heart further. I felt like Gideon and I were drifting further away from each other by the moment.

His hands sifted through my damp hair, which only increased my agitation. I felt like batting his touch away and putting at least the length of the room between us.

Maybe two rooms.

“If you feel the need to run,” he said softly, “you can come in here and shut the door. I promise not to bother you until you’re ready. This way, you have your safe place and I know that you haven’t left me.” A mil ion questions and speculations roared through my mind, but the one thing that stuck out was, “Are we stil going to share a bed when we’re sleeping?”

“Every night.” Gideon’s lips touched my forehead.

“How could you think otherwise? Talk to me, Eva.

What’s going through that beautiful head of yours?”

“What’s going through my head?” I snapped. “What the fuck is going on in yours? What happened to you in the four days we were broken up?”

His jaw tightened. “We never broke up, Eva.” The phone rang in the other room. I cursed under my breath. I wanted us to talk and I wanted him to go away, both at the same time.

He squeezed my shoulders, and then let me go.

“That’s our dinner.”

I didn’t fol ow him when he left, feeling too unsettled to eat. Instead, I crawled onto the bed that was exactly like my own and curled around a pil ow, closing my eyes. I didn’t hear Gideon come back, but I felt him as he drew to a stop at the edge of the bed.

“Please don’t make me eat alone,” he said to my rigid back.

“Why don’t you just order me to eat with you?” He sighed, and then slid onto the bed to spoon behind me. His warmth was welcome, chasing away the chil that had brought goose bumps to my skin. He didn’t say anything for a long while, just gave me the comfort of having him close. Or maybe he was taking comfort in me.

“Eva.” His fingers caressed the length of my silk-clad arm. “I can’t stand you being unhappy. Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say. I thought we were final y coming to a point where things would smooth out between us.” I hugged the pil ow tighter.

“Don’t tense up, Eva. It hurts when you pul away from me.”

I felt like he was pushing me away.

Rol ing, I shoved him to his back; then I mounted him, my robe parting as I straddled his hips. I ran the palms of my hands over his powerful chest and raked the tanned flesh with my nails. My hips undulated over him, stroking my bare cleft over his cock. Through the thin silk of his pants, I could feel every ridge and thick vein. From the way his eyes darkened and his sculpted mouth parted on quickened breaths, I knew he could feel the outline and damp heat of me as wel .

“Is this so awful for you?” I asked, rocking my hips.

“Are you lying there thinking you’re not giving me what I want because I’m in charge?”

Gideon set his hands on my thighs. Even that innocuous touch seemed dominating.

The edginess and sharpened focus I’d detected not long ago abruptly made sense to me—he wasn’t restraining his force of wil anymore.

The tremendous power coiled inside him was now directed at me like a blast of heat.

“I’ve told you before,” he said huskily. “I’l take you however I can get you.”

“Whatever. Don’t think I don’t know you’re topping from the bottom.”

His mouth curved with unapologetic amusement.

Sliding down, I teased the flat disk of his nipple with the tip of my tongue. I blanketed him as he’d done to me in the past, stretching my body over his hips and legs, my hands shoving beneath his gorgeous ass to squeeze the firm flesh and hold him tight against me.

His cock was a thick column against my bel y, renewing my fierce appetite for him.

“Are you going to punish me with pleasure?” he asked quietly. “Because you can. You can bring me to my knees, Eva.”

My forehead dropped to his chest and the air left my lungs in an audible rush. “I wish.”

“Please don’t be so worried. We’l get through this along with everything else.”

“You’re so positive you’re right.” My gaze narrowed.

“You’re trying to prove a point.”

“And you might prove yours.” Gideon licked his lower lip and my sex clenched in silent demand.

There was a bril iant depth of emotion in his eyes.

Whatever else was going on in our relationship, there was no doubt we were seriously twisted up over each other.

And I was about to demonstrate that in the flesh.

Gideon’s neck arched as my mouth moved over his torso. “Oh, Eva.”

“Your world’s about to be rocked, Mr. Cross.” It was. I made sure of it.

Feeling goofy with feminine triumph, I sat at Gideon’s dining table and remembered him as he’d been just a short time ago—damp with sweat and panting, cursing as I took my time savoring his luscious body.

He swal owed a bite of his steak, which had been kept hot courtesy of a warming drawer, and said calmly, “You’re insatiable.”

“Wel , duh. You’re gorgeous, sexy, and very wel -

hung.”

“I’m glad you approve. I’m also extremely wealthy.” I waved one hand carelessly, encompassing the whole of what had to be a fifty-mil ion-dol ar apartment.

“Who cares about that?”

“Wel , I do, actual y.” His mouth curved.