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’ll see you’ve been yielding to me all 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.”
“Bullshit, 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 hallway to a closed door. “Turn the knob,” he said quietly.
We entered a candlelit room that still smelled 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 still 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 hell? Who did something like that? Was this all 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 million questions and speculations roared through my mind, but the one thing that stuck out was, “Are we still 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 follow 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 pillow, 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 chill 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 finally coming to a point where things would smooth out between us.” I hugged the pillow tighter.
“Don’t tense up, Eva. It hurts when you pull away from me.”