I studied it further while I brushed my teeth and hair.

There was a soft hum of need beneath my skin, a persistent level of arousal that shouldn’t have been possible considering the number of orgasms I’d already had over the course of the day. It was an emotional y driven need to connect to Gideon, to reassure myself that we were okay.

Clutching the ring box in my hand, I went to my side of Gideon’s bed and set it on the nightstand. I wanted it where I’d see it first thing in the morning, after a good night’s sleep.

With a sigh, I draped my beautiful new robe over the footboard and crawled into bed. After tossing and turning for a long while, I final y crashed.

I woke sometime in the middle of the night to a racing pulse and quick, shal ow breathing. Disoriented, I lay stil for a moment, gathering my bearings and remembering where I was. I tensed when it sank in, my ears straining to hear if Gideon was having another nightmare. When I discovered him lying quietly beside me, his breathing deep and even, I relaxed with a sigh.

What time had he final y come to bed? After the days we’d spent apart, it worried me that he might have felt a need to be alone.

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.”