And when the culmination arrived, it was a simultaneous crescendo that burst from the energy between them, surrounding and sealing them in a halo of shimmering joy as they clung tightly to the only thing left in the universe. Each other.
* * *
Gideon left Adara at a complete and utter loss. She always left the bed first, hitting the shower so she could recover her defenses after letting them fall away during sex. Lovemaking always made her feel vulnerable, and after acting so greedily and helpless to her desire for him, she needed alone time more than ever. She’d never felt so peeled down to the core in her life
But Gideon disappeared into the bathroom, stealing her favorite line of escape. She sat up, thinking to dress, but then go where?
The toilet flushed and she flicked the corner of the duvet over her nudity, not sure where to look when he came out of the bathroom. He struck a pose in the doorway with elbows braced and a near belligerence in his naked stance.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, unnerved by his intense stare.
“Nothing. You?” He seemed almost confrontational and it got her back up.
“No. Of course not.” Except that she’d pretty much exploded in his arms and didn’t know how to handle facing down this tough guy who didn’t seem to have a shred of tenderness in him anymore. She slid a foot to the edge of the bed. “I’ll, um, just have a quick shower—”
“Why?” he challenged. “You just had one.”
True, but where else did one ever have complete privacy except the bathroom? She’d figured that one out in grade school. It was one of her coping strategies to this day. She set her chin, trying to think up a suitable way to insist.
“I hate it when you run away after sex,” he said, coming toward the bed in a stealthy, pantherlike stride. “Unless you’re inviting me to join you in the shower, stay exactly where you are.”
Her heart skipped, reacting to both his looming presence and the shock of his words.
“You’re the one who started it, running out like you had a train to catch the first night of our honeymoon. I thought that’s how we did this,” she defended, going hot with indignation. “When we’re done, we’re done.”
“Our first night was your first time. If I hadn’t left you, I’d have made love to you all night and I didn’t want to hurt you any more than I already had.” He leaned over her as he spoke, forcing her onto her back.
She pressed a hand to his chest, warding him off. “Well, I didn’t know that, did I? You walked out on me and I didn’t like it, so I made it a habit to be the first to leave every other time.”
He hung over her on straight arms, his eyes narrowed hawkishly. “So you’re not running away to wash the feel of me off your skin?”
“No.” That was absurd. She loved the feel and smell of him lingering on her. “Sometimes I run the shower but don’t get in,” she admitted sheepishly.
He muttered a curse of soft, frustrated amusement. “Then why...?”
“You make me feel like I can’t resist you! Like all you have to do is look at me or say a word and I’ll melt onto my back. That’s not a comfortable feeling.”
“That’s exactly how I want you to be. I want you here, under me. I want to make love to you until we’re so weak we can’t lift our heads. I’ve never been comfortable with how insatiable I am for you. At least if we’re in the same boat, I can stand it.”
She almost told him then that sometimes she woke in the middle of the night and ached for him to come to her. Shyness stopped her, but she overcame it enough to reach up to the back of his head and urge him down to kiss her. She stayed on her back, under him, and moaned in welcome as he settled his hot weight on her.
He groaned in gratification.
* * *
Moonlight allowed Adara to find his T-shirt on the floor. The doors were still open and the air had cooled off to a velvety warmth that caressed her nudity. She took a moment to savor the feel of her sensitive skin stroked by the night air. It was an uncharacteristic moment of sensuality for her.
She glanced at her naked form in the mirror. The woman staring back at her through the shadows was a bit of a stranger. The dark marks of Gideon’s fingerprints spotted her buttocks and thighs. They’d got a little wild at times through the afternoon and evening, definitely more voracious than either had ever revealed to the other before.
Her abdomen fluttered in speculative delight. His focus on her had shored up places inside her that had been unsteady and ready to collapse. Her footing felt stronger now, even if the rest of her still swayed and trembled.
Yes, there were still places inside her that were sensitive and vulnerable, places very close to her heart. In some ways, she was even more terrified than she’d been before they’d come up here and thrown themselves at each other, but she was glad they’d made love. Very glad.
A whisper of movement drew her glance to the bed. Gideon’s arm swept her space on the bed. The covers had long been thrown off and the bottom sheet was loose from the corners. They had indisputably wrecked this bed.
The body facedown upon it, however, was exquisitely crafted to withstand the demands he’d made upon it. Adara took a mental photo of his form in the bluish light: his muscled shoulders, the slope of his spine, the taut globes of his buttocks, his lean legs, one crooking toward her vacant spot as he came up on an elbow.
His expression relaxed as he spotted her in the middle of the room. She tightened her grasp on the T-shirt she clutched to her front.
“Get back here.”
The smoky timbre of his voice was a rough caress all its own, while his imperious demand made her want to grin. Despite being a naturally dominant male, he usually phrased his commands as requests when he spoke to her. That was all part of the distance between them, she realized. Part of both of them not letting the other see the real person. She ought to be affronted by his true, domineering and dictatorial colors, but she liked that he wasn’t quelling that piece of his personality around her anymore.
She liked even more that she wasn’t afraid of this side of him. He wasn’t an easy man to resist on any level, but she wasn’t afraid to stand up to him.
Even if he still made her feel inordinately shy.
“I’m thirsty. And I want to see what’s in these baskets.” She turned away, prickles of awareness telling her he studied her back and bottom exactly as proprietarily as she’d looked at him before he’d woken. She shrugged his T-shirt over herself.
“That’s the first thing I noticed about you and I hardly ever get to see it naked.”
“My bum?” Her buttocks tightened beneath the light graze of his T-shirt and she felt herself heat. She turned to bring the basket along with the wineglasses to the bed, not bothering with the wine itself. She was after the sparkling water in the green bottle.
As she placed the basket on the bed and knelt across from him, she caught a look of disgruntlement on his face.
“All of you,” he clarified. “You’re gorgeous and I like looking at you.”
She didn’t know what to say. She was flattered, but only half believed him.
Tucking her loose hair behind her ear, she confided, “I’ve never felt confident about the way I look. Showing any hint of trying to be sexy while my father was alive would have been a one-way ticket to hell. And I never really trusted any man enough to flirt.” She gave him the bottle of water to open for her then poured two glasses, drinking greedily only to make herself hiccup.
She giggled and covered her wet lips, but sobered as she saw Gideon glowering into his glass.
“Men who hit women make me insane. I know it’s not right to answer violence with violence, but if your father were still alive, the police would be involved right now, one way or another.” He took a deep slug of his water, eyes remaining hooded, not meeting her shocked gaze.
His vehemence was disturbing, prompting an odd need to comfort him. She reached across to stroke his tense arm. “Gideon, it’s in the past. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” he said sharply, but when he looked at her, his expression softened a little. “But right now isn’t the time to think about it. Get rid of that,” he ordered with a jerk of his chin at the T-shirt.
“What am I? Your sex slave now?” She did feel a little enslaved, but she wasn’t as resentful as she ought to be about it.
“No. You’re my wife. You ought to be comfortable letting me see you naked.” He set aside his glass to reach for an orange.
She finished her own water and set it aside before easing the shirt off her body and setting it aside while she continued to kneel demurely, feet alongside her buttock, arm twitching to cover her breasts. To distract herself, she watched Gideon efficiently section the orange and bring a piece to his mouth.
He clutched it in his teeth and looked at her. “Bite,” he said around it.
Her heart did a somersault. “Why?” The defensive question came automatically, but then she thought, Just do it, and leaned down to close her mouth on the fruit.