Then it hit me. I was aroused. Painful y so.

My breasts were ful and heavy, my nipples furled and tight. My core was aching and my cleft wet. As I lay there in the moonlit darkness, I realized that my own body had woken me with its demands. Had I dreamed something erotic? Or was it enough that Gideon was lying beside me?

Pushing up onto my elbows, I looked at him. The sheet and comforter clung to his waist, leaving his sculpted chest and biceps bared. His right arm was tossed over his head, framing the fal of dark hair around his lavishly handsome face. His left arm lay between us on the blankets, the hand fisted and bringing to relief the network of thick veins that coursed up his forearms. Even in repose he looked fierce and powerful.

I became more aware of the tension inside me, the sense that I was drawn to him by the silent exertion of his formidable wil . It wasn’t possible that he could demand my surrender while he was sleeping, yet it felt that way, felt like that invisible rope between us was pul ing me to him.

The throbbing between my legs grew unbearable and I pressed one hand against the violent pulsing, hoping to dul the ache. The pressure worsened it instead.

I couldn’t stay stil . Throwing the covers off, I slid my legs off the side of the mattress and thought about trying a glass of warm milk with the brandy Gideon had given me earlier. Abruptly, I paused, riveted by the moonlight gleaming off the leather of the ring box on the nightstand. I thought of the jewelry inside it and my desire surged. At that moment, the thought of being col ared by Gideon fil ed me with heated yearning.

You’re just horny, I scolded myself.

One of the girls in group had talked about how her

“master” could use her body any time and in any way he wanted, for his pleasure alone. There was nothing about that I’d found sexy…until I put Gideon in the picture. I loved getting him off. I loved making him come. Just because.

My fingers brushed over the lid of the tiny box.

Exhaling a shaky breath, I picked it up and opened it.

A moment later I was sliding the cool band onto the ring finger of my right hand.

“Do you like it, Eva?”

A shiver moved through me at the sound of Gideon’s voice, deeper and rougher than I’d ever heard it. He’d been awake, watching me.

How long had he been conscious? Was he as attuned to me while sleeping as I seemed to be to him?

“I love it.” I love you.

Setting the box aside, I turned my head to find him sitting up. His eyes glittered in a way that made me impossibly more aroused, but also sent a bite of fear through me. It was an unguarded look, like the one that had literal y knocked me on my ass when we met—

scorching and possessive, fil ed with dark threats of ecstasy. His gorgeous face was harsh in the shadows, his jaw taut as he lifted my right hand to his mouth and kissed the ring he’d given me.

I moved to kneel on the bed and draped my arms around his neck. “Take me. Carte blanche.” He cupped my butt and squeezed. “How does it feel to say that?”

“Almost as good as the orgasms you’re going to give me.”

“Ah, a chal enge.” The tip of his tongue teased the seam of my lips, tempting me with the promise of a kiss he deliberately withheld.

“Gideon!”

“Lay back, angel, and grip your pil ow with both hands.” His mouth curved in a wicked smile. “Don’t let go for any reason. Understand?”

Swal owing hard, I did as I was told, so turned on I thought I might come from just the relentless spasming of my needy sex.

He kicked the covers down to the footboard.

“Spread your legs and pul up your knees.” My breath caught audibly as my nipples hardened further, causing a deep ache in my breasts. God, Gideon was hot as hel like this. I was panting with excitement, my mind spinning with the possibilities.

The flesh between my legs trembled with want.

“Oh, Eva,” he crooned, running his index finger through my slick cleft. “Look how greedy you are for me. It’s a ful -time job keeping this sweet little cunt satisfied.”

That single rigid finger pushed into me, parting the swol en tissues. I tightened around him, so close to coming I could taste it. He withdrew and lifted his hand to his mouth, licking my flavor from his skin. My hips arched without volition, my body straining toward his.

“Your fault I’m so hot for you,” I gasped. “You slacked on the job for days.”

“Then I better make up for lost time.” Sliding down into a prone position, he settled his shoulders beneath my thighs and rimmed the quivering entrance to my body with the tip of his tongue. Around and around.

Ignoring my clit and refraining from fucking me even when I begged.

“Gideon, please.”

“Shh. I have to get you ready first.”

“I’m ready. I was ready before you woke up.”

“Then you should’ve woken me earlier. I’l always take care of you, Eva. I live for it.”

Whimpering in distress, I rocked my hips into that teasing tongue. Only when I was soaked with my own arousal, creaming desperately for the feel of any part of him I could get inside me, did he crawl over me and settle between my spread thighs, placing his forearms flat on the bed.

He held my gaze. His cock, feverishly hot and hard as stone, lay against the lips of my sex. I wanted it inside me more than I wanted to breathe. “Now,” I gasped. “Now.”

With a practiced shift of his hips, he rammed deep into me, shoving me up the bed.

“Ah, God,” I gasped, convulsing ecstatical y around the thick column of flesh that possessed me. This was what I’d needed since we’d talked in his home office, what I’d craved as I rode up and down his steely erection before dinner, what I’d needed even as I climaxed around his thick length.

“Don’t come,” he murmured in my ear, cupping my breasts in his hands and rol ing my nipples between his thumb and forefingers.

“What?” I was pretty sure if he’d just take a deep breath I’d go off.

“And don’t let go of the pil ow.”

Gideon began to move in a slow, lazy rhythm.

“You’re going to want to,” he murmured, nuzzling the sensitive spot beneath my ear. “You love to grab my hair and rake your nails down my back. And when you’re close to coming, you like to squeeze my ass and yank me deeper. Makes me so damn hard when you go wild like that, when you show me how much you love how I feel inside you.”

“No fair,” I moaned, knowing he was deliberately provoking me. The cadence of his raspy voice was perfectly timed with the relentless surging of his hips.

“You’re torturing me.”

“Good things come to those who wait.” His tongue traced the shel of my ear, and then dipped inside at the same moment he tugged on my nipples.

I bucked into his next thrust and nearly came.

Gideon knew my body so wel , knew al its secrets and erogenous zones. He was expertly stroking his cock inside me, rubbing over and over the tender bundle of nerves that quivered in delight.

Rol ing his hips, he screwed into me, exploiting other spots. I made a plaintive sound, on fire for him, desperately infatuated. My fingers cramped with the grip I had on my pil ow, my head thrashing against the driving need to orgasm. He could get me there just by rubbing inside me, the only man who’d ever been skil ed enough to give me an intense vaginal orgasm.

“Don’t come,” he repeated, his voice hoarse. “Make it last.”

“I c-can’t. It feels too good. God, Gideon…” Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes. “I…I’m lost in you.”

I cried softly, afraid to say the other L-word too soon and risk upsetting the delicate balance between us.

“Oh, Eva.” He rubbed his cheek against my damp face. “I must’ve wished for you so hard and so often you had no choice but to come true.”

“Please,” I begged softly. “Slow down.” Gideon lifted his head to look at me, choosing that moment to pinch my nipples with just enough force to inflict a hint of pain. The tender muscles inside me clenched down so hard that his next thrust caused him to groan.

“Please,” I pled again, trembling with the effort to stave off my building climax. “I’m going to come if you don’t slow down.”

His gaze was hot on my face, his hips stil lunging in a measured tempo that was slowly stealing my sanity.

“Don’t you want to come, Eva?” he purred in that voice that could lure me into hel with a dreamy smile. “Isn’t that what you’ve been working toward al night?” My neck arched as his lips drifted across my throat.

“Only when you say I can,” I gasped. “Only…when you say.”

“Angel.” One hand moved to my face, brushing back the strands of hair that clung to the perspiration on my skin. He kissed me deeply, reverently, licking deep into my mouth.

Yes…

“Come for me,” he coaxed, quickening his pace.

“Come, Eva.”

On command, the orgasm struck me like a blow, shocking my system with an overload of sensation.

Wave after wave of pulsing heat rol ed through me, contracting my sex and tightening my core. I cried out, first with an inarticulate sound of agonized pleasure, then with his name. Chanting it over and over as he drove his beautiful cock into me, prolonging my climax, before pushing me into another one.

“Touch me,” he rasped, as I fel apart beneath him.

“Hold me.”

Freed from his command to hold the pil ow, I bound him to my sweat-slick body with arms and legs. He pounded deep and hard, driving strenuously toward his climax.

He came with a growl, his head thrown back as he spurted into me for long minutes. I held him until our bodies cooled and our breathing evened.

When Gideon final y rol ed off me, he didn’t go far.

He wrapped himself around my back and whispered,

“Sleep now.”

I don’t remember if I stayed awake long enough to reply.

As he toyed with the ring he’d given me, I kicked out my legs and eyed the classic nude heels he’d bought me along with some outfits to wear on the occasions I slept over. To start out the new week, I’d decided on a black pinstriped sheath dress with a thin blue belt that reminded me of his eyes. He had excel ent taste; I had to give him that.