God, how she’d wanted him.
Then he’d finally told her all those things. About his past. About the job he’d been given, the job he’d refused to do in the end.
Because of her.
I didn’t want you to be afraid of me. . . .
Yeah, she’d been angry he hadn’t told her, so angry. But those simple words and the look in his eyes had cut through that anger like a hot knife through cold butter. Because it had been he who’d looked afraid in that moment.
It had made her chest get so tight she could hardly breathe.
He was a man who kept himself isolated, who protected her and all the others, yet held himself apart, making sure no one knew him, not really. And now she knew why. He was protecting her from himself. From his past.
It came to her then, like the ray of that bright morning sun shining into the kitchen, she was seeing him for the first time. Not the adored older brother figure or the hot older guy she had a crush on. Or even Gideon, the protective friend.
But a man, flawed and beautiful and troubled. A man who’d watched his father murder his mother, who’d gone from foster family to foster family. Who’d grown up lonely and isolated and angry.
A man who’d created his own little family and who looked out for everyone else, yet had no one he himself could turn to.
A man who needed a partner, a friend, a lover.
A man who needs you.
Yes, he did. She could be that for him if he’d let her. And it was the weirdest thing. It was like she saw her own behavior in a new light too. No wonder he’d been treating her like a naughty kid. How could he do anything else when she was treating him like an overbearing authority figure? If she really wanted him to treat her as a woman, as a partner, she needed to start acting like one.
So she’d moved straight to him, without hesitation or shyness or embarrassment, telling him exactly what was in her heart. Well, maybe not quite everything. She’d faltered at the last minute, seeing the denial in his eyes. But that was okay, she’d get to that later. Right now the only thing she wanted was to give him back a little something of everything he’d given her. Because that’s what a partner did, right? It was a two-way street, give-and-take, stuff like that.
Zoe opened her mouth wider, and it was she who deepened the kiss, who began to explore him, slowly, deliberately, keeping her hands where they were at the base of his throat. Leaning into him so all that hard, packed muscle was up against her, all that wild heat.
He was still and she could feel the tension in his posture, almost like he was holding himself back. Yet his mouth was hot and he let her explore him, responding lazily, unhurriedly. It felt so good. The kiss sweet, with a carnal edge that had her trembling.
But that was okay. She wasn’t going to wait to be told what to do like a good girl, not this time. She wasn’t poor little virgin Zoe, sighing after a man she couldn’t have, helpless with desire and want and that other, bigger emotion that squeezed her heart so tight and refused to let go.
She was a woman who was in love with this man—yes, love, that’s what it was—and who wanted to show him he wasn’t alone. Who wanted to give something of herself to him in the only way he would accept.
So she slid her hands down that magnificent chest of his, over the hard corrugations of his abs, slipping under his tank to the hot skin beneath. Sliding down farther, under his running shorts and boxers, to curl around the rapidly hardening length of his cock. Then she bit his lower lip. Hard.
He gave a growl deep in his throat, and suddenly one hand was in her hair, his fingers buried deep in her curls, tugging her head back, his tongue sliding deeper into her mouth, while the other slid over her butt, pulling her hips hard against his.
He was taking control again, the kiss becoming hotter, more demanding, more desperate. Yet she didn’t want him to have all the power this time, to be the one taking whatever he had to give. She wanted to be the one giving for a change. So she resisted, tightening her hand around his cock at the same time as she pulled against the hand in her hair, kissing him back, just as hot, just as hungry. She nipped him again, sliding her hand down the length of his shaft, then back up again.
“Fuck . . . Zoe . . .” His voice was raw, guttural, and she loved the desperate edge to it.
She loved him. She always had.
“Anything,” she whispered against his hungry mouth. “You can have anything you want from me. Take it, Gideon.”
He made another rough sound, and then she was being walked backward to the kitchen table against the wall. He reached forward, not taking his mouth from hers, sweeping everything on the table’s surface to the floor. Newspapers and mail went flying, a cup smashed, apples from the fruit bowl rolled everywhere, but she didn’t care. In fact, she loved that, too, because all those other times he’d been in control. And now he wasn’t. He was wild and desperate, that veneer of the chilled-out guy he liked to present to the world completely stripped from him. Leaving the dark heart of him bare.
She loved that best of all. No one knew this part of him. No one but her.
He lifted her on top of the table, kissing her hungrily, as if he couldn’t get enough, and she slid her free hand into soft thickness of his hair, holding on tight, kissing him back with the same desperation as he was kissing her, squeezing his cock harder.
He groaned, roughly jerking her sleep shorts down her legs and off, pushing her thighs wide. She let go of his hair, reaching to push down his own shorts as he pulled her to the edge of the table, the hot, bare skin of his hips brushing against her inner thighs.
She shivered as his teeth closed on her bottom lip the way she’d nipped his. “Gideon . . .” His name was a prayer, ending on a harsh gasp as his hand slipped between her legs, his fingers finding her clit and stroking, making her shudder.
“Christ . . .” he whispered. “We need a condom.”
But she didn’t want him leaving, didn’t want to break the connection they had right in this instant. A shared desperation. A shared hunger. Where right now, they were equals.
“I don’t care.” Her heart raced, her pulse loud in her head. “You need me. So take me.”
He cursed, low and harsh under his breath. And then he was shoving his running shorts down and pulling her even closer to the edge of the table, the blunt head of his cock pushing against her. Then he thrust, sliding deep inside her.
Her breath escaped in a rush, feeling the subtle burn as her pussy stretched around him, followed by the sweet ache of pleasure, and for a moment she just closed her eyes, glorying in it. In the feeling of him inside her, surrounding her.
Then he drew his hips back and thrust again, and she opened them, meeting the shadowed darkness of his, losing herself in all that black, velvet heat. She couldn’t look away, consumed by the fire that burned in both of them as he moved inside her, harder, deeper.
She curled her legs around his lean waist, drawing him in and holding him close, the rhythm intensifying.
“Zoe . . .” The rough whisper was a caress all on its own, an edge of tenderness to it that wrapped around her heart. “Little one . . .” The look in his eyes was mesmerizing. Almost as if he felt the same way about her as she did about him.
Not that it mattered. Right now she didn’t care if he did or not. The only thing that did matter was the vastness inside her, the ebb and flow of it, as if she were an ocean and he were the moon, pulling at the tide.
She touched his face, the sharp edge of his carved cheekbones, the straight line of his nose. The strong shape of his jaw, roughened with morning stubble. Hard, male, and so achingly beautiful.
He said nothing, the expression on his face so stern and yet the look in his eyes . . . so hot. Burning as he pulled out of her, then thrust back in, harder, faster.
She began to shake, because it was so good, so intense, the edge coming for her and she rushing to meet it. Sliding her arms around his neck, wanting to be as close to him as she could get, she turned her face into his th
roat, the hot feel of his skin and the scent of him surrounding her.
Then his hand was cupping the back of her head, cradling her, and he was moving even deeper, even faster, the harsh sound of his ragged breaths in her ear. And there was a pressure on her clit, his finger circling and stroking, so that she shuddered and screwed her eyes shut tight, her mouth opening as the orgasm crashed over her with all the suddenness and intensity of a summer storm.
She couldn’t stop trembling as the pleasure rocketed through her, sparking every nerve ending, clinging to him as if gravity had suddenly ceased to exist and he was the only thing keeping her anchored.
His movements became wilder, out of rhythm, his hold on her abruptly tight, and then he groaned, his big body shuddering as the pleasure came for him, too.
She didn’t move for a long moment afterward, simply holding him and being held in return, and she couldn’t say how many minutes passed before he shifted, withdrawing from her. But he didn’t pull completely away, gathering her close without a word and lifting her into his arms.
He took her to the bathroom, setting her down and turning on the shower. Then he stripped them both and pulled her into the narrow stall, picking up a washcloth and beginning to slowly wash her. She let him, loving the feeling of his touch and the tenderness in it, before taking the cloth from him and returning the favor. His body was so big and strong, massively muscled and yet with a certain grace to it. Wide shoulders, hard chest, lean hips, the water following all the fascinating dips and hollows, while she followed the water first with her hands and then with her tongue. She traced every inch of the cherry blossom tattoo that wrapped around his torso, while he stroked her hair, and then she fell to her knees in front of him, wanting to touch and trace something else.
He let her, his black gaze on her as she ran her tongue down the length of his hardening cock, taking it into her mouth and sucking him in deep. He kept a hold of her hair in one hand while with the other he stroked her face, watching as she worshipped him with her mouth, the water falling down all around them.
It felt good. It felt right. Like this was the point they’d both been edging toward their entire lives.
She never wanted it to end.
When the shower finally ran cold and they got out, he dried her off and carried her back to his bedroom, laying her down over the white sheets and spreading her legs again, finding a condom this time before sliding inside her, taking her long and slow, as if he had all the time in the world. Making her scream at the end, her nails leaving marks on his back as the orgasm broke her apart, and then he put her back together again with gentle strokes of his hand up and down her spine.
More time passed, though how much she didn’t know.
Gideon rolled onto his back, and she put her head on his chest, enjoying the feel of his fingers idly playing with her hair. The branches of the cherry tree were dark against his bronze skin, the blossoms bright. She touched one with her finger as a deep, companionable silence gathered around them.
Such a beautiful tattoo and yet a strange one for a hard man like him.
“This is for your mom, isn’t it?” She kept her voice quiet, not wanting to break the atmosphere. He’d told her a few things about his childhood, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
“Yeah. She had the same one in about the same place.”
“You don’t talk about her much.”
“And you know why.”
She did. Because of his father and the way his mother had died. “Bad memories, I get it. So . . . is that why you, uh, did the things you did?”
He sighed. “Like I told you. My school record sucked. I mean, I was barely there anyway and ended up not graduating from high school because the local kingpin needed bouncers for a party he was giving. I needed the cash and it seemed like easy money.” Gideon paused. “I was good at it too and when the guy needed muscle for another operation, he asked me if I was still interested in working for cash. It kind of snowballed from there.”
Zoe had a feeling looking directly at him would make him clam up, so she kept her gaze on the blossom near his left pec, a feminine shape that should have looked ridiculous on the hard, masculine shape of him and yet somehow didn’t. “Why, though? I get you were poor and had nothing, but there were other options. There always are.”
He was silent for a while, so she concentrated on his chest, tracing the outline of the flower with her finger, enjoying the feeling of his hot, bare skin up against the length of her body. “I was angry,” he said at last. “I was so fucking angry. That prick killed Mom and I had nothing.” His fingers stilled in her hair. “He took her away, leaving me with nothing at all and . . . I wanted something. I thought that something was money so I could get the things I never had as a kid, so that’s what I worked toward. Getting money any way I could.”
Her heart tightened in her chest as she remembered the young man who’d used to come visit her sometimes, wherever she was living. They usually met at the park. He’d be sitting on a bench, and whenever she arrived, he’d look up and smile at her. A huge grin that lit up her entire world.
Except . . . sometimes it didn’t reach his eyes.
Perhaps even back then she’d known something wasn’t quite right with Gideon Black. That he had a core of darkness she couldn’t reach. A darkness she’d recoiled from.
Well, she wasn’t recoiling from it now. “So how exactly did you get it?” She traced the stem of the blossom where it met the branch, following the branch down to the side of his abdomen, his muscles tightening as she touched him.
Another silence.
“I don’t want you to know.” His voice was soft, but that darkness was threaded all the way through it. “It’s not something anyone should know about me.”
This time, she looked up, meeting his gaze in the dimness of the room. “Nothing will change the way I see you, Gideon. Nothing.” Because it wouldn’t. It would be terrible, yes, but he’d been someone different then, a different man with a different life, and he wasn’t that man anymore. She knew it like she knew the beat of his heart beneath her hand and the warmth of his smile whenever he looked at her. Like she knew the feeling in her heart was love, whether she wanted it to be or not.
He took a breath. “That’s not why—”
“Isn’t it?” She stared at him and she realized with a start that she wasn’t afraid anymore. As if accepting the fact that she was in love with him had gotten rid of any lingering fear, which was weird. Maybe it was because she had nothing left to lose. He had her heart, he could crush it in his hands or cherish it, and there was something oddly liberating in the thought.
Gideon’s dark eyes held hers for a second, then a subtle, almost imperceptible smile curved his mouth. “You’re dangerous, little one. Did you know that?”
“Yeah, of course I’m dangerous. You don’t want to mess with me.” She folded her hands on his chest and rested her chin on them. “Now spit it out. I can punish you pretty good if I want to.”
That subtle curve to his mouth faded, his fingers playing with her hair. “I’m not a good man, Zoe.”
“And you’re not the best judge of that, clearly.”
He coiled a strand of hair around one finger, rubbing it with his thumb. “Why do you want to know all that shit? It was a long time ago.”
“I want to know because you don’t want to tell me. Because it may have happened a long time ago, but it still obviously matters to you.” She paused. “Because you’re afraid.”
The look in his eyes flickered, his finger pulling her curl tight. She didn’t flinch, keeping her gaze on his.
“I can’t let you go, Zoe,” he said suddenly, fiercely. “If I tell you these things, everything about my past, and you decide you want to leave, I will stop you. Understand? You’re mine now and I keep what’s mine.”
A shiver went through her, shaking her down to her soul. “Good,” she said, with the same intensity. “Because I don’t want to be anyone else’s but yours. Now quit sta
lling and tell me.”
So he did, and it wasn’t pretty, as she knew it wouldn’t be. And when he’d finished, she said nothing, because there wasn’t really anything to say. Instead, she slid on top of him, covering him with her body. Then she covered his mouth with hers.
It wasn’t forgiveness; that wasn’t hers to give. But she could give him acceptance, and it seemed to be enough.
For now.
* * *
Gideon woke with a start to the sounds of someone hammering on the front door of the apartment. Zoe was lying on top of him, her hair all over his chest, the gentle, soft weight of her a delicious temptation, making his cock harden like it hadn’t been inside her a number of times already that morning.
He turned his head, checking the time, vaguely surprised to see it was eleven a.m. Shit, he should have opened up the garage hours ago.
The knocking came again, even louder and more insistent than before.
Cursing, he shifted Zoe carefully off him, not wanting to wake her, and rolled out of bed, pausing to pull on a pair of jeans, then slipping out into the hallway.
Whoever it was gave another hammer on the door as Gideon approached, and he scowled, undoing the locks, then pulling the door open.
Levi stood on the other side of it, one blue eye and one dark one widening as he took in Gideon, half dressed, standing on the threshold. “What the fuck?” he said in surprise. “You look like you’ve only just gotten up.”
Gideon leaned one forearm against the doorframe, irritated. “I have. What the hell do you want?”
“Some guy’s been calling me because he wants to pick up his bike from the garage and he can’t because it’s somehow not open.” Levi raised a brow, the ring in it glinting. “Which is weird because you never not have the garage open. I thought you might have died in your sleep or something.”
“Obviously I didn’t, otherwise I wouldn’t be here standing talking to you.”
Sin for Me Page 22
