“Tonight. Eva.” His beautiful eyes were haunted. “I can’t bear that look on your face.”
“Just be with me,” I whispered, my eyes stinging all over again. “I need you.”
Gideon’s fingertips glided softly down my cheek. “You were with me. The whole time. There wasn’t a second that passed when you weren’t on my mind. You own me, Eva. Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I belong to you.”
I leaned into his touch, letting it soak into me and chase the chill away. “No more Corinne. I can’t stand it.”
“No more,” he agreed, startling me. “I’ve told her already. I’d hoped we could be friends, but she wants what she and I used to have, and I want you.”
“The night that Nathan died … she was your alibi.” I couldn’t say more. It hurt to think of how he might have filled the hours with her.
“No, the kitchen fire was my alibi. It took most of the night dealing with the FDNY, the insurance company, and making emergency arrangements for food service. Corinne stuck around for some of that, and when she left, I had plenty of staff on hand to vouch for my whereabouts.”
The surge of relief I felt must have shown on my face, because Gideon’s gaze softened and filled with the regret I’d seen so many times now.
He stood and held his hand out to help me up. “Your new neighbor would like to invite you over for a late dinner. Let’s say eight o’clock. You’ll find the key—and the key to the penthouse—on your keychain.”
I accepted his hand up and tried to lighten the mood with a teasing reply. “He’s seriously hot. I wonder if he puts out on the first date?”
His returning smile was so wicked it revved me up a notch. “I think your odds of getting laid are pretty good.”
I gave a dramatic sigh. “How romantic!”
“I’ll give you romance.” Pulling me into him, Gideon dipped me with consummate ease.
Pressed against him from hip to ankle and bowed backward in a yielding curve, I felt my robe slide apart, exposing my breast. He deepened my arch, until my tender sex hugged his hard thigh and I couldn’t help but be hyperaware of the power of his body as he supported my weight and his.
That quickly, he seduced me. Despite hours of pleasure and a very recent orgasm, I was primed for him in that moment, aroused by his skill and strength and self-assurance, his command of himself and of me.
I rode his leg with a slow slide, licking my lips. He growled and surrounded my nipple with the wet heat of his mouth, his tongue worrying the hardened point. Effortlessly he held me, aroused me, possessed me.
I closed my eyes and moaned my surrender.
BECAUSE of the heat and humidity, I chose a lightweight linen sheath dress and pulled my blond hair back in a ponytail. I accessorized with a small pair of gold hoop earrings and kept my makeup light.
Everything had changed. Gideon and I were back together. I was now living in a world without Nathan Barker in it. I was never going to turn a corner and run into him. He was never going to appear on my doorstep out of the blue. I no longer had to worry that Gideon would learn things about my past that would drive a wedge between us. He knew it all and wanted me anyway.
But the budding peace that came with that new reality was accompanied by fear for Gideon—I needed to know that he was safe from prosecution. How could he definitively be proven innocent of a crime he actually did commit? Were we going to have to live with the perpetual fear that his actions would come back to haunt us? And how had this changed us? Because there was no way we could be what we’d been before. Not after something so profound.