by Jenny McKane
“I need coffee, faithful friend,” she said as she moved into the loft’s kitchen. In her days with Gideon so far, she’d started to accumulate all the things she needed to feel somewhat human and normal. A coffee maker. Sugar. Creamer. Cereal. Milk. Bowls. Spoons.
She had no idea what Gideon ate off of when he was home, as his kitchen, in the first few days after her arrival, basically had a bag of cat food (which Sunny had brought) and a couple of frozen meals in the freezer. There hadn’t been much else going on.
Sunny had made it clear that she needed the necessary ingredients to brew herself impromptu cups of (halfway decent) coffee, as well as the ability to snack once in a while during long study sessions or paper writing times.
Cereal was a favorite of Sunny’s, and that’s what she happened to be pouring herself when she heard Gideon’s door open. She froze. What was he doing up so early? From inside his room, she smelled the tell-tale scent of his soap. And he’d already showered? He must have been awake as long as Sunny had been.
She made an important decision on the fly, standing there pouring ground coffee into the little filter basket mechanism on the kitchen counter. Sunny reminded herself that she had a job to do, and she had an education to finish. Those were her goals--and anything outside of them didn’t matter to her. Feelings included. Hell, feelings more than anything.
Sunny decided to stop being so hard on herself for getting a schoolgirl crush on Gideon, too. Hell, he was gorgeous, he protected her, and he bought her a bed and a coffee maker. It wasn’t hard to see how someone as simple as Sunny could mistake those actions for real feelings.
When the coffee had finished brewing, she pulled the filter from the basket and placed the grounds on a dish for Plaxo later. The dream demon had taken a shine to coffee grounds and he gobbled them up anytime Sunny brewed a pot. She turned up her nose the first time he dove right into the pile of lukewarm dirt, but who was she to judge? After giving it a taste, Plaxo had promptly turned his nose up at the coffee itself and declared her crazy for drinking the strange black water that made his tongue hurt.
Different strokes, she supposed.
Heavy footsteps from Gideon’s direction had her mentally bracing, and she stopped herself. For all she knew, he probably didn’t remember a thing after the dose of sexed-up venom he’d received from Seumat. There was no reason for Sunny to go all girly on them both and make it all kinds of awkward.
She put on a practiced, mostly fake smile and turned around to greet Gideon like nothing had happened. Except the look on his face told her that he remembered everything--and for the life of her she couldn’t tell if he was thankful or pissed off. That was the problem with Gideon’s beautiful face--it held his emotions in check and made it impossible for her to read him.
“Good morning,” she said, a little too cheerily. Gideon didn’t move. He was staring at her. “Did you sleep okay? Happen to remember anything from last night?”
His brows furrowed at the questions.
“I remember everything,” he said in a quiet voice. “You took on Seumat alone? Are you crazy, Sunshine? Do you have some sort of death wish?”
Sunny had expected a few reactions, and his anger wasn’t exactly out of the realm of possibility, either. She simply drew in a breath and nodded.
“Why?” he asked, raking his hands through his still-wet hair.
“You were in trouble,” she said with a small shrug. She was looking down at her feet now, timid all over again and struggling against another swell of emotions threatening to bubble up. “She had you in some sort of trance, and I was scared she was going to kill you.”
When she looked up, she expected Gideon to lecture her. What she didn’t expect, however, was for him to cover the distance between them in one step and slide his hands into her hair, pulling her face to his.
His mouth slanted down over hers and his lips, warm and soft and just as glorious as she thought they would be, took control of her mouth. His tongue broke through her lips and before she knew it, Sunny had snaked her arms around Gideon’s neck and had allowed him to lift her so that she was seated on the counter with her legs wrapped around his waist while he kissed the daylights out of her.
Gideon wasn’t soft or probing with the kiss, either. It felt to Sunny that Gideon had kept his own feelings on a short leash and was finally unleashing them on her, either too tired and drugged out from the night before to fight anymore, or too sick of holding back to care anymore.
It was the kiss of a lifetime, and Sunny hung on for the ride, doing her best to give as good as she got, but Gideon was like some sort of kissing god the way he nipped along her lips before plunging his tongue into her mouth and sucking on hers.
His hands gave no quarter, either, and kept a tight hold on her hair, giving just enough pull to keep her electrified as he worked.
Soon, she was putty in his hands and would have handed over the keys to the kingdom just to see where this kiss was headed (she had a few ideas), but Gideon shuddered, broke the kiss, and rested his forehead against hers while he worked to catch his breath.
“Holy shit,” he said, mostly to himself. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
It made Sunny laugh. He had no idea how long she had been wanting him to do that to her.
“You’re kind of a good kisser,” she whispered with a laugh, as she straightened her shirt back down over her.
His hands had roamed a little bit, and she was glad that she hadn’t put on the obsidian blade yet.
Something like that might have ruined the moment.
Chapter 25
Yes, the kiss had rocked her to her very core, but Gideon didn’t let that last very long. As he pulled away and recovered his own breathing, Gideon had to throw a little dash of cold-water reality on the entire situation.
“Now that I have that out of the way,” he said. “I’m going to ring your neck. And then I’m going to do it to myself, because I should never have kissed you.”
Talk about dousing a great moment with a shitty thing to say, Sunny thought.
She frowned at him and waited for him to explain.
“First of all,” he said. “You’re no match for Seumat. You know that. And from what I understand, from what you have told me, you understood it was her, and yet you still tried to attack her? I don’t care if you were trying to save me, Sunny, it was a dumb thing to do.”
“I’m sorry you think that,” was all Sunny managed to say. He was really angry at her, and while she had expected him to be a little upset, this kind of anger had taken her by surprise. “I didn’t have time to think through all the rational alternatives, Gideon. I saw that you were in some sort of stupor, and I did what I could.”
The mention of the trance that Gideon had been in made him frown slightly, before recovering. It was as if he was embarrassed about what had happened.
“And let’s talk about something for a second, shall we?” Sunny continued. “If we were supposed to be on high alert and making all the right decisions, how was Seumat able to deceive you so easily? How could she lure you away with a few pretty words? It didn’t seem like it took much for you to follow her backstage to that little couch you two got so cozy on.” Gideon flinched. “Yeah,” Sunny said. “I saw all of that. You really made me want to throw up, but I stayed, and I helped you. So as much as you think you want to take that position of authority and lecture me, you probably shouldn’t. She freaking yanked your chain and you were a willing little lap dog running after her.”
That got a reaction out of him. Gideon’s eyes flashed to hers, the anger behind them apparent.
“When you spend as long as I had, chained to a demon like Seumat, a few things happen to you,” Gideon said. His voice was rough with anger, and she saw his hands shaking. She must have really struck a nerve. “I already told you that I am not demon enough to sense them right away, and because of my history with her, there’s some sort of chord that always connects us as long as she keeps it. I’
ve never been able to sever that tie with her, no matter how hard I’ve tried these past two years. You can be angry about what you saw, but be certain you understand what exactly is going on. I didn’t want that. Do you think I would want that creature touching me after what she made me do for all those years? Save your righteous anger for somebody else, Sunshine.”
The demon in Gideon was pretty apparent now. His mood has shifted and swung so violently in the opposite direction of where it had just been, similar to how demons were known to behave. Not that humans didn’t have their own mood swings, but demons were always quick to anger, especially when insulted.
Sunny felt like she should probably apologize for assuming too much, but she couldn’t yet.
“And now you’re saying that you shouldn't have kissed me? Why would you say that?”
He held his tongue for a moment, and she saw the tension slowly leaving his body until his shoulders sagged and his head was down. This wasn’t going to be good.
“I already told you that we have different objectives,” he began. “I told you that it was not necessarily the case that we would both meet them. You’re out for an objective, and I’m out for revenge. My end game is already in play, and while I’ve done my best to mitigate any trouble it might cause you, we don’t get to ride away into the sunset together.”
Sunny thought he was handing her a cop out.
“They don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” she said. “Why do you think that I can’t kill Seumat for Michael, and you can’t get your revenge?”
Gideon walked back over to where Sunny was standing and put his hands on her shoulders.
“I know that you assume that the revenge I’m seeking is against Seumat,” he began. His hands were warm on her shoulders, and it was all she could do not to close her eyes against how good it felt. Just having him close felt good. “And while Seumat’s death would be welcome, she is not whom I am after, but I would gladly give her up to get my father. So if it comes down to it, and I need to bail on a target like Seumat to get what I need to kill the bastard who killed my mother and enslaved me, I would do it without thinking twice.”
He was basically telling her that if it came down to it, Gideon would be willing to forsake everything that Sunny was after at this moment in order to get his revenge.
“Even if you know that my life is on the line with the archangels? Michael said in no certain terms that if I fail again, they may have to dispose of me,” she said.
She wasn’t hysterical. Yet. She was still trying to think rationally through what Gideon was saying. She was still trying to hold onto a sliver of hope that it all wasn’t mutually exclusive, and that both of them could get the ending they needed.
It was also evident that Gideon was not telling her everything. As usual, Gideon was keeping his cards close.
“Someday, Gideon,” Sunny said, “you’re going to have to trust me. I know it’s not today. Hell, it’s probably not even tomorrow. But one day you’re going to need to trust me, and you’ll see that I can actually help you.”
Gideon leveled his gaze on hers, the warm honey in his eyes practically glowing.
“I could never trust another creature fully, Sunshine,” he said, all seriousness. It was like somebody had punctured her in the center of the heart, and she was losing air. It was getting harder to draw a full breath as she took in his words. “That’s what you need to understand. No matter what I feel about you now or in the future, I would never fully trust anybody enough to give them not only my heart but a space in my life where I could let my guard down. It’s better that you understand this now, before this goes any further. There cannot be anything between us. Period.”
Sunny took a couple slow, deep breaths. She would not overreact. Hell, she would not react at all right now. Her feelings were clouding her judgment, and if she examined them with a clear mind, she would see that what Gideon was saying was correct. It had been obvious from the beginning, from the very first moment that she had seen him step out of Michael’s car, that Gideon was damaged. That Gideon had a vendetta that he needed to see through.
It was obvious that his vendetta was all that mattered to Gideon, no matter how much he was beginning to care for Sunny.
“I can’t lose focus,” he said, as he started again. “I’m not saying that you are distracting me, just that I cannot afford to lose focus. Sunshine, I’ve lived through a personal hell that will haunt me however long I have left on this planet. I don’t think I’ll ever fully heal from what happened to me, or from what I have seen happen to other people. You do not want to saddle yourself with baggage like this.”
The look in his eyes broke her heart. He truly believed that he was not salvageable, that he was not worth saving. Sunny disagreed wholeheartedly but knew that this was not the place or time for that discussion. Bigger picture, she reminded herself. She could prove to Gideon that he could have his revenge, and that she could fulfill her obligations to the archangels. Maybe the endings for them weren’t necessarily happy, but they could be acceptable. They could be something to work with. What Sunny was really after, maybe for both her and Gideon, was freedom.
Right time. Right place. Sunny would wait for both, she promised herself. She could make it work, and she truly believed that. It was a first for her, as Sunny was one prone to self-doubt and never really believing she was good enough. But she was up for this challenge.
“Say whatever you need to say to make yourself feel better,” she finally said. Gideon looked up at her. “So you don’t believe we can both win? Fine. But don’t sabotage me with all of your issues. I still believe that we can, and I intend to prove you wrong. Just keep your Eeyore act away from me, and we should be just fine. And while you’re at it, keep your lips away from me too. The last thing I need are demon germs distracting me.”
Though the smile she offered him did not quite reach her eyes and was a little too fake and bright, Sunny did her best to convince Gideon that his words had not been lost on her, and that she was taking their mission seriously. She did not want him to think she would become some emotional wreck because he had shunned her, and that she could not be a help to him. If anything, Sunny was about to take charge, and Gideon did not even realize it.
“Eeyore, huh?” He laughed and grabbed ahold of Sunny’s ponytail, yanking her face up so that it was inches from his. “Keep talking like that, Sunshine, and you’ll end up with demon germs in places you couldn’t imagine. I like you. I really do. And the last thing I wanted to do after finally getting a taste of those sweet lips--something I’ve been craving since I first laid eyes on you--was to ruin everything with the reality of our situation. But you can’t get attached to me, Sunny. I don’t walk out of this unscathed. Remember that.”
The words were scored into her heart by now, and she nodded. She understood a lot, and it was Gideon who obviously needed to relearn a few things about how stubborn a woman could be when she wanted something.
“It’s Saturday,” she said as he placed one single, final chaste kiss on her lips. “What are we doing today?
Gideon pushed away from her and ran his hands through his hair.
“Well, now Seumat has an energy read on you as well as me, so we’re probably going to have to do a little recon and see how much damage control we’ll have to do,” he said, his mind obviously working at a rapid rate.
Chapter 26
Damage control had them back at Anya’s place just as the sun was setting Saturday night. Instead of walking through the front door like they’d done the past two times they had visited, this time Gideon whisked Sunny through a hidden entrance in the alley that was behind the home.
She was quiet as Gideon led her through the maze of hallways and staircases that led up to the main floor of the boudoir. Or brothel? Sunny wasn’t quite sure of the correct word and wondered if high-priced madams took offense to slips of the tongue like that. She also considered that Anya Treinka had been through a lot the past couple of weeks, so she probabl
y didn’t care much what the hell Sunny had to say.
The place had a little more activity to it than her previous visits, and from the sounds of chatter and clinking glasses, they were probably entertaining guests tonight. Sunny did her best to keep her eyes to herself and to not stare. As far as she was concerned, Sunny had seen enough sex trade workers and establishments for the past few weeks, and she’d be set for the rest of her life.
This time, they were taken past the sitting rooms on the main floor to a room on the second floor that looked like some sort of suite. It had a sofa and a coffee table on one half of the room and a bed on the other. The hostess gave Gideon a smile and Sunny a smirk before closing the door behind her with instructions to wait for Anya.
Gideon took a seat next to Sunny on the sofa, and they waited in silence a few moments before she spoke up.
“You never mentioned if James recovered from his attack or not,” she said. “Did he?”
“He’s doing better, I hear,” Gideon said. “He went to stay with a daughter down south to recover, and with the severance package Anya sent him on with, he’ll probably be down there a long while mulling over his options.”
“Did you catch who did it?”
Sunny always wondered if one of the things he was doing out by himself was looking for the person or demon responsible. Gideon nodded.
“Demon?” she asked.
Another nod.
“Did you know him?”
He shook his head at that and laughed.
“Just for your information, I don’t have a personal friendship or relationship with every disreputable demon in the greater metropolitan area,” he said, acting sufficiently offended. “Before I was thrown in with the likes of you and the archangels, I was a pretty upstanding citizen by demon standards.”
