Bared to You

losing my
right to say no!
—was never going to happen
again. “You know what I went through. I need
control as much as you do.”
“Sit down, Eva.”
I stayed on my feet, just to prove my point.
His smile widened and my insides melted. “Do
you have any idea how crazy I am about you?” he
murmured.
“You’re crazy all right, if you think I’m going to
put up with being ordered around, especially
sexually.”
“Come on, Eva. You know I don’t want to beat
you, punish you, hurt you, demean you, or order
you around like a pet. Those aren’t needs either of
us has.” Straightening, Gideon leaned forward

---

us has.” Straightening, Gideon leaned forward
and placed his elbows on the desktop. “You’re the
most important thing in my life. I treasure you. I
want to protect you and make you feel safe. That’s
why we’re talking about this.”
God.
How could he be so wonderful and so
insane at the same time? “I don’t need to be
dominated!”
“What you need is someone to trust—No. Close
your mouth, Eva. You’ll wait until I’m finished.”
My protest spluttered into silence.
“You’ve asked me to reacquaint your body with
acts previously used to hurt and terrorize you. I
can’t tell you what your trust means to me or what
it would do to me if I broke that trust. I can’t risk it,
Eva. We have to do this right.”
I crossed my arms. “I guess I’m dumber than
bricks. I thought our sex life was rockin’.”
Setting his glass down, Gideon kept going as if
I hadn’t spoken. “You asked me to meet a need of
yours today and I agreed. Now we need to—”
“If I’m not what you want, just spit it out!” I set the
picture frame and my glass down before I did
something with them I’d regret. “Don’t try and
pretty it up with—”
He was around the desk and on me before I
could stumble back more than a couple steps. His
mouth sealed over mine, his arms caged me. As
he’d done earlier, he carried me to a wall and
restrained me against it, his hands banding my
wrists and lifting them high above my head.
Trapped, I could nothing as he bent his knees
and stroked my cleft with the rigid length of his
erection. Once, twice. Silk rasped against my
swollen clit. The bite of his teeth on my covered
nipple sent a shiver through me, while the clean
scent of his warm skin intoxicated me. With a
gasp, I sagged into his embrace.

---

“See how easily you submit when I take over?”
His lips followed the arch of my brow. “And it feels
good doesn’t it? It feels right.”
“That’s not fair.” I stared up at him. How could
he expect me to respond any differently? As
disturbed and confounded as I was, I was
helplessly drawn to him.
“Of course it is. It’s also true.”
My gaze roamed over that glorious mane of
inky hair and the chiseled lines of his
incomparable face. The longing I felt was so acute
it was painful. The hidden damage inside him only
made me love him more. There were times when I
felt like I’d found the other half of myself in him.
“I can’t help it that you turn me on,” I muttered,
“My body is physiologically supposed to soften
and relax, so you can shove that big cock inside
me.”
“Eva. Let’s be honest. You 
want
me to have total
control. It’s important to you that you can trust me
to take care of you. There’s nothing wrong with
that. The reverse is true for me—I need you to
trust me enough to give up that control.”
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.”
I felt like he was 
pushing
me away.
Rolling, I shoved him to his back; then I mounted
him, my robe parting as I straddled his hips. I ran
the palms of my hands over his powerful chest
and raked the tanned flesh with my nails. My hips
undulated over him, stroking my bare cleft over his
cock. Through the thin silk of his pants, I could feel
every ridge and thick vein. From the way his eyes
darkened and his sculpted mouth parted on
quickened breaths, I knew he could feel the outline
and damp heat of me as well.
“Is this so awful for you?” I asked, rocking my
hips. “Are you lying there thinking you’re not giving
me what I want because I’m in charge?”
Gideon set his hands on my thighs. Even that
innocuous touch seemed dominating.
The edginess and sharpened focus I’d detected
not long ago abruptly made sense to me—he
wasn’t restraining his force of will anymore.
The tremendous power coiled inside him was
now directed at me like a blast of heat.
“I’ve told you before,” he said huskily. “I’ll take
you however I can get you.”
“Whatever. Don’t think I don’t know you’re
topping from the bottom.”
His 
mouth 
curved 
with 
unapologetic
amusement.
Sliding down, I teased the flat disk of his nipple
with the tip of my tongue. I blanketed him as he’d
done to me in the past, stretching my body over
his hips and legs, my hands shoving beneath his
gorgeous ass to squeeze the firm flesh and hold

---

him tight against me. His cock was a thick column
against my belly, renewing my fierce appetite for
him.
“Are you going to punish me with pleasure?” he
asked quietly. “Because you can. You can bring
me to my knees, Eva.”
My forehead dropped to his chest and the air
left my lungs in an audible rush. “I wish.”
“Please don’t be so worried. We’ll get through
this along with everything else.”
“You’re so positive you’re right.” My gaze
narrowed. “You’re trying to prove a point.”
“And you might prove yours.” Gideon licked his
lower lip and my sex clenched in silent demand.
There was a brilliant depth of emotion in his
eyes. Whatever else was going on in our
relationship, there was no doubt we were
seriously twisted up over each other.
And I was about to demonstrate that in the flesh.
Gideon’s neck arched as my mouth moved over
his torso. “Oh, Eva.”
“Your world’s about to be rocked, Mr. Cross.”
It was. I made sure of it.
Feeling goofy with feminine triumph, I sat at
Gideon’s dining table and remembered him as
he’d been just a short time ago—damp with sweat
and panting, cursing as I took my time savoring
his luscious body.
He swallowed a bite of his steak, which had
been kept hot courtesy of a warming drawer, and
said calmly, “You’re insatiable.”
“Well, duh. You’re gorgeous, sexy, and very
well-hung.”
“I’m glad you approve. I’m also extremely
wealthy.”

---

I waved one hand carelessly, encompassing the
whole of what had to be a fifty-million-dollar
apartment. “Who cares about that?”
“Well, I do, actually.” His mouth curved.
I stabbed my fork into a German fried potato,
thinking that Peter Luger food was almost as
good as sex. Almost. “I’m interested in your
money only if it means you can afford to stop
working in favor of lounging around naked as my
sex slave.”
“I could afford to financially, yes. But you’d get
bored and dump me, then where would I be?” His
look was warmly amused. “Think you proved your
point, do you?”
I chewed, and then said, “Should I prove it
again?”
“The fact that you’re still horny enough to want to
proves 
my
point.”
“Hmm.” I drank my wine. “Are you projecting?”
He shot me a look and casually chewed another
bite of the tenderest steak I’d ever had.
Restless and worried, I took a deep breath and
asked, “Would you tell me if our sex life didn’t
satisfy you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Eva.”
What else could have prompted him to bring
this up after our four-day breakup? “I’m sure it
doesn’t help that I’m not the type you usually go
for. And we haven’t used any of those toys you
had in the hotel—”
“Stop talking.”
“Excuse me?”
Gideon set his utensils down. “I’m not going to
listen to you shred your self-esteem.”
“What? You’re the only one who gets to do all
the talking?”
“You can pick a fight with me, Eva, but it’s still
not going to get you fucked.”

---

“Who said—” I shut up when he glared. He was
right. I still wanted him. I wanted him on top of me,
explosively lustful, completely in control of both my
pleasure and his.
Pushing away from the table, he said curtly,
“Wait here.”
When he returned a moment later, he set a
black leather ring box beside my plate and
resumed his seat. The sight of it hit me like a
physical blow. Fear struck me first, icy cold.
Followed swiftly by a longing that was white-hot.
My hands shook in my lap. I clasped my fingers
together and realized my whole body was
shaking. Lost, I lifted my gaze to Gideon’s face.
The feel of his fingertips brushing down my
cheek soothed much of the vibrating anxiety
inside me, leaving behind the terrible yearning.
“It’s not