One with You (Crossfire #5)

by Sylvia Day

  I remembered watching Manuel Alcoa make a conquest when we’d all gone out together to a karaoke bar. Like Arnoldo, Gideon, and Arash, Manuel didn’t even have to try. He just had to pick from the wide selection of women throwing themselves at him.

  What would my husband do when his friends paired off with beautiful babes? Sit by himself and nurse a caipirinha? I didn’t think so.

  Gideon wouldn’t cheat. He wouldn’t even flirt; it wasn’t his style. He hadn’t even flirted with me in the beginning and I was the love of his life. No, he would dominate the room, looking dark and dangerous and untouchable, while an endless tide of gorgeous women frothed around him.

  How could he possibly be unaffected by that?

  Cary laughed. “You look ready to murder someone.”

  “You’re closest,” I warned him.

  “You can’t kill me. Who else will pack just the right outfits for you to make Gideon as jealous as you are?”

  “Sounds like I came home at just the right time.”

  Cary and I both looked over at the front door and found Gideon coming in with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a pet carrier dangling from his hand.

  My scowl was chased away by the delight that ran through me at the sight of him. I couldn’t say how he did it, but Gideon made even sweats and a T-shirt look insanely hot.

  He set his stuff down on the floor.

  “What have you got there?” Cary climbed to his feet and walked over to the carrier.

  I stood and went to my husband, thrilled with the simple joy of welcoming him home. He met me halfway, his arms coming around me. I pushed my hands up beneath the back of his shirt, caressing the warm, hard muscle. As he bent to kiss me, I tilted my head back. His lips brushed mine, then settled in for a soft, wordless hello.

  As he straightened, he licked his lips. “You taste like wine.”

  “Would you like some?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I headed into the kitchen to grab another glass. Behind me, I heard the guys greet each other, and then Gideon introduced Lucky to Cary. Happy barking and Cary’s rich laugh filtered through the air.

  I hadn’t moved in yet, but it felt like home.

  Cary had been gone an hour before I worked up the nerve to ask Gideon the burning question on my mind.

  We were sitting on the couch. He slouched comfortably, knees wide, one arm slung over my shoulder, one hand lying casually on his thigh. I was curled against his side, my legs pulled up, my head on his shoulder, my fingers toying with the hem of his T-shirt. Lucky slept in the playpen by the unlighted fireplace, occasionally whimpering as he dreamed about whatever it was that dogs dreamed about.

  Gideon had been quiet for the last thirty minutes, almost contemplative, as I discussed the merits of the wedding dress sketch he’d picked up from the coffee table.

  “Anyway,” I said, finishing, “I feel like I’ll know it when I see it, but I’m running out of time. I’m trying not to panic about it. I just don’t want to settle.”

  His hand lifted from my shoulder and cupped the back of my head. His lips pressed against my forehead. “You could wear jeans, angel, and be the most beautiful bride ever.”

  Touched, I snuggled closer. I inhaled deeply, then asked, “Where in Brazil are you going?”

  Gideon’s fingers sifted through my hair. “Rio.”

  “Oh.” I could picture him lazing on the white sand shore of Copacabana, his magnificent sun-bronzed body on display, the brilliant blue of his eyes shielded behind dark sunglasses.

  The lovely women on the beach wouldn’t be able to tell if he was watching them or not. That would excite them, make them bold.

  At night, he and the guys would take in the nightlife in Ipanema or maybe they’d be true hedonists and head to Lapa. Anywhere they went, stunning, passionate, scantily clad women would follow. It was inevitable.

  “I heard Cary say you’re jealous,” he murmured, nuzzling the crown of my head. There was a smug note of satisfaction in his voice.

  “Is that why you picked Brazil? So I’d suffer?”

  “Angel.” His grip on my hair tightened, gently urging my head back to look at him. “I had nothing to do with the selection of the destination.” His lips tilted up in a sexy smile. “But I’m glad you’ll suffer.”

  “Sadist.” I pulled away from him.

  Gideon wouldn’t let me get far, tugging me back. “After your suggestion about Deanna, I was beginning to think you were getting bored with me.”

  “That’s hysterical.”

  “Not to me,” he said evenly. His gaze searched my face.

  Realizing he was at least partly serious, I stopped trying to get away. “I told you I didn’t like the idea of you hiring her.”

  “Not right away you didn’t. You recommended I seduce her like you’d tell me to pick up a bottle of wine on the way home from work. At least when I mentioned Rio, you tensed up and sulked about it.”

  “There’s a difference—”

  “Between actively seducing a woman I’ve fucked before and agreeing to a bachelor party I didn’t plan? Absolutely. And it makes no sense why you’d be okay with the first one and have a problem with the second one.”

  I glared. “Because one is a business transaction in a controlled environment. The other is a last hurrah for sport fucking in the one of the sexiest cities in the world!”

  “You know better.” His voice was low and smooth, easy. Which meant it was dangerous.

  “I’m not worried about you,” I stressed. “It’s the women who’ll want you. And your friends, who’ll get drunk and horny and want you to play, too.”

  His face was impassive, his gaze cool. “And you think I’m not strong enough to handle the peer pressure?”

  “I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “I’m just trying to clarify your convoluted thinking.”

  “Look. Let’s get back to the Deanna scenario.” I wriggled away and stood. Facing the coffee table, I stretched out my hands, directing. “This is how I pictured it before I made the suggestion. You in your office, leaning back against your desk in that way you do that’s sexy as hell. Jacket on the coatrack, maybe a scotch on the rocks next to your hand for an informal touch.”

  I faced the couch. “Deanna’s in the chair farthest from you, so she can get the full picture. You give her a slow once-over, say a few double entendres about getting things done together. She gets ideas and seals the deal with a signature on the dotted line. That’s it. You never get closer than a few feet from her and you never sit down. The glass wall stays clear, so she won’t make a move.”

  “You imagined all this in a split second?”

  “Well”—I tapped my temple—“I have some memories rattling around up here that fueled the fire.”

  “My memories of seduction in my office don’t include anyone else,” he said dryly.

  “Listen, ace.” I sat on the coffee table. “It was a spontaneous thought that came to me because I was worried about you.”

  Gideon’s face softened. “Angels rush in. I get it.”

  “Do you?” Leaning forward, I put my hands on his knees. “I’m always going to be possessive, Gideon. You’re mine. I wish I could put a sign on you that says it.”

  He held up his left hand, showing off his wedding band.

  I scoffed. “You know how many women are going to pay attention to that when you’re trolling through Rio with your crew?”

  “They’ll pay attention when I point it out.”

  “Then one of the guys will let slip that it’s a bachelor party and they’ll just try harder.”

  “Trying won’t get them anywhere.”

  My gaze ran over him. “You’ll be irresistible in graphite gray dress slacks and a black V-neck shirt—”

  “You’re remembering that night at the club.”

  He obviously did, too. His cock thickened and lengthened, tenting his sweatpants obscenely.

  I almost moaned as h
is arousal proved what I’d suspected: He was commando beneath the soft cotton.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about you after you left my office,” he murmured. “Couldn’t get the vision of you out of my mind. Then I called you at work and you taunted me, telling me you were going home to play with your vibrator when my cock was hard and ready for you.”

  I squirmed, recalling every detail. He had been wearing a V-neck sweater that night in New York, but what I imagined him wearing in Rio made allowances for the tropical climate and the steamy press of bodies in a nightclub.

  “In my mind, I saw you on your bed,” he went on, reaching between his legs to stroke his erection through his pants. “Your legs spread. Your back arching. Your body naked and shiny with sweat as you pushed a thick plastic cock in and out of your creamy cunt. I was half crazed with the idea of it. I’d never felt lust like that. It felt like I was in heat. The need to fuck was a fever inside me.”

  “God, Gideon.” My sex ached. My breasts felt swollen and tender, the nipples tight and sore.

  He watched me, his eyes hooded. “I went out before I arranged to meet you. I was going to find someone who wouldn’t say no like you did. I was going to take her to the hotel, spread her out, fuck her until the madness went away. Who she was didn’t matter. She was going to be faceless, nameless. I wasn’t going to look at her while I was inside her. She was just a stand-in for you.”

  A low sound of pain left me, the thought of him with someone else in that way too agonizing to bear.

  “I got close a couple times.” His voice was hoarser now. “Had a drink while I waited for each one to finish flirting and signal they were ready to leave. I figured I backed off the first time because she just wasn’t doing it for me. The second time, I knew no one would do it for me. No one but you. I was furious. At you for denying me. At them for being inferior. At me for being too weak to forget you.”

  “That’s how I felt,” I confessed. “Every guy I met was wrong. They weren’t you.”

  “It’s always going to be that way for me, Eva. Just you. Always.”

  “I’m not worried about you cheating,” I reiterated, standing. I took off my tank top, then my shorts. My nude lace Carine Gilson bra and panties followed. I stripped quickly, methodically. No tease whatsoever.

  Gideon lounged, watching, unmoving. Like the sex god he was, waiting to be pleasured.

  Then I saw him through someone else’s eyes, my husband sitting just like that in a crowded Brazilian club, the silent demand for sex pouring off him in waves of heat and need. It was just who he was, an intensely and insatiably sexual creature. Was there a woman alive able to resist the challenge of him? I hadn’t met one yet.

  I moved to him. Straddled him. My hands slid over his broad shoulders, feeling the warmth of him through the cotton of his T-shirt. His hands went to my hips, burning my skin. “The women who see you will want to do this,” I murmured. “Touch you like this. They’ll imagine it.”

  Looking up at me, Gideon stroked his tongue slowly over his bottom lip. “I’ll be imagining you. Just like this.”

  “That’ll only make it worse, because they’ll see how bad you want it.”

  “How badly I want you,” he corrected, moving his hands to cup my ass and urge me against his erection. The lips of my sex, parted by the spread of my thighs, hugged his cock through the lace. My clit pressed against his hardness and I rolled my hips with a gasp of pleasure.

  “I can see them finding the best vantage point,” I told him breathlessly, “staring at you with fuck-me eyes. Running their fingers down their cleavage so you appreciate their assets. They shift on their feet, crossing and recrossing their legs because they want this.”

  I cupped his hard, thick penis and stroked it. He flexed in my palm, vitally alive and eager. His lips parted, the only break in his control.

  “Your mind’s on me, so you’re hard. And if you’re sitting like this, with your legs spread, they can see how big your cock is and how ready you are to use it.”

  Reaching behind me, I circled his wrist with my fingers and pulled his left arm up to drape over the low back of the sofa. “You look like this. Don’t move.” I moved his other arm to his lap. “You’ll have a tumbler in this hand, with two fingers of dark cachaça inside it. You sip it every now and then, licking it off your lips.”

  I leaned forward and stroked my tongue over the sensual curve. He had a gorgeous, sexy mouth. The lips were full, but firm. They were often stern, giving little clue to his thoughts. He smiled rarely, but when he did, he could flash a boyishly playful grin or a smugly confident challenge. His slow smiles were erotic teases, while his wry half-smiles mocked both himself and others.

  “You’ll seem distant and remote,” I went on. “Lost in your own thoughts. Bored by the frenetic energy and pounding music. The guys ebb and flow around you. Manuel always has a hot beauty on his lap. A different one every time you look. As far as he’s concerned, there’s more than enough of him to go around.”

  Gideon smiled. “And he has a fondness for Latinas. He totally approves of my choice in wives.”

  “Wife,” I corrected. “Your first and last.”

  “My only,” he agreed. “Hot-tempered. Hot-blooded. My one and only permanent one-night stand. I know exactly how it will be between us, and then you go and take me by surprise. You eat me alive, every time, and want more.”

  I cupped his jaw in one hand and kissed him, still stroking his penis in long, leisurely pulls. “Arash stops by with a new drink for you every time he makes his way around the room. He tells you stories about what he’s seen while circling and you briefly look amused, which drives the women watching you wild. That little flash of intimacy and warmth only makes them want more.”

  “And Arnoldo?” he murmured, watching me with hot dark eyes.

  “He’s detached, like you. He’s wounded and wary from his broken heart, but he’s accessible. He flirts and smiles, but there’s always that sense of something unreachable about him. The women who are too intimidated by you will go for Arnoldo. He’ll make them forget you, even while he’s forgetting about them altogether.”

  A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “While I sit there stewing and brooding with a perpetual hard-on, missing you so badly I can’t have any fun at all?”

  “That’s the way I’m picturing it, ace.” I sat back on his rock-hard thighs. “And the women will be envisioning themselves coming up to you and sitting on your lap like I am. They’ll want to push their hands up your shirt like this.”

  I slid my palms beneath the hem of his T-shirt and pressed them against the rigid lacing of his abs. My fingers followed the grooves, tracing every muscle of his eight-pack that I could reach. “They’ll fantasize about how hard your body is beneath your clothes, how your pecs will feel when they squeeze them.”

  My actions accompanied my words, my heartbeat starting to race at the feel of him beneath my hands. Gideon was so cut and strong, a powerful sexual machine. There was a primitive female drive that responded instantly to that. Craved it. He was a male worthy of mating with, an alpha in his prime. Vigorous. Potent. Eminently dangerous and untamable.

  He moved and I stopped. “No, stay still,” I admonished. “You wouldn’t touch them back.”

  “They wouldn’t be near me at all.” But he resumed the pose I’d put him in. A sultan of old, being worshipped by an eager harem girl.

  I lifted his shirt. I pulled it up and over his head, pinning his shoulders back with the hard stretch of fabric. His head turned, his mouth latching onto my nipple and suckling, easy, gentle tugs of suction on the sensitive point. I whimpered and tried to pull away, too turned on to bear it. His teeth caught the hardened tip, trapping me.

  My head bowed, my eyes riveted to the sight of his hollowing cheeks. Inside the heat of his mouth, his tongue lashed my nipple, his lean throat working as he swallowed. My core tightened and trembled, echoing the rhythmic pulls.

  Reaching between us, I untied the draws
tring of his waistband and pushed the elastic down enough to free him. I held him in both hands, my fingertips tracing the thick pulsing veins coursing along his brutally sexy length. He was wet at the crown, my hands gliding over the slickness of pre-ejaculate.

  His mouth released me when I aligned his cock with the opening to my sex. “Take it slow, angel,” he ordered gruffly. “Work it in. I’ll be in you all night and I don’t want you sore.”

  Goose bumps swept over my skin. “They wouldn’t imagine taking you slow,” I argued.

  Gideon reached up with both hands, pushing the hair back from my face. “You’re not thinking of other women now, angel. It’s you you’re picturing.”

  With a start, I realized he was right. The woman mounting him wasn’t one of the leggy brunettes I’d visualized eye-fucking him. That was me. I was the one stroking his cock adoringly. I was the one positioning him, lowering onto him, taking a moment to rub the wide head of his penis back and forth between the lips of my sex.

  My husband groaned at the feel of me, his hips lifting slightly, pushing demandingly into the entrance of my body. He grabbed my hips, pulled me down, spreading my sex open with the flared tip of his cock.

  “Oh, Gideon.” My eyelids grew heavy as I sank onto him, taking a thick inch inside me.

  He lifted me slightly, until just the crown was in me, then lowered me again, making me take more. The tendons in his neck stood out in stark relief. “You don’t want me wearing a sign. You want me wearing you, your tight, little cunt squeezing my cock. You imagine yourself topping me, as I just sit back and let you have it.”

  He stretched his arms out along the back of the sofa, displaying that magnificently male torso. “Or do you want me to participate?”

  Wetting my dry lips, I shook my head. “No.”

  I pushed up, then slid back down. Over and over. Working him deeper each time, until my buttocks sat atop his thighs. He was thick and long. I whimpered softly as he throbbed inside me.

  And I didn’t have all of him yet.

  Tilting my head, I kissed him, savoring the slow slide of his tongue against mine.