Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel

“I’m only here because I was told you wouldn’t be.

I’m here for Cary and his career. So you can go back to the party and forget about me al over again. I assure you, when I walk out the door, I’l be doing the same to you.”

“Shut your damned mouth.” He caught me by the elbows and shook me so hard my teeth snapped together. “Just shut up and let me talk.” I slapped him hard enough to turn his head. “Don’t touch me.”

With a growl, Gideon hauled me into him and kissed me hard, bruising my lips. His hand was in my hair, fisting it roughly, holding me in place so I couldn’t turn away. I bit the tongue he thrust aggressively into my mouth, then his lower lip, tasting blood, but he didn’t stop. I shoved at his shoulders with everything I had, but I couldn’t budge him.

Goddamn Stanton! If not for him and my crazy-assed mother, I’d have had a few Krav Maga classes under my belt by now…

Gideon kissed me as if he was starved for the taste of me and my resistance began to melt. He smel ed so good, so familiar. His body felt so perfectly right against mine. My nipples betrayed me, hardening into tight points, and a slow, hot trickle of arousal gathered in my core. My heart thundered in my chest.

God, I wanted him. The craving hadn’t gone away, not even for a minute.

He picked me up. Imprisoned by his tight grip, it was hard to breathe and my head began to spin. When he carried me through a door and kicked it shut behind him, I couldn’t do more than make a feeble sound of protest.

I found myself pressed against a heavy glass door on the other side of a library, Gideon’s hard and powerful body subduing my own. His arm at my waist slid lower, his hand delving beneath my skirts and finding the curves of my butt exposed by my lacy boy shorts underwear. He wrenched my hips hard to his, making me feel how hard he was, how aroused. My sex trembled with want, achingly empty.

Al the fight left me. My arms fel to my sides, my palms pressing flat to the glass. I felt the brittle tension drain from his body as I softened in surrender, the pressure of his mouth easing and his kiss turning into a passionate coaxing.

“Eva,” he breathed gruffly. “Don’t fight me. I can’t take it.”

My eyes closed. “Let me go, Gideon.”

He nuzzled his cheek against mine, his breath gusting hard and fast over my ear. “I can’t. I know you’re disgusted by what you saw the other night…

what I was doing to myself —”

“Gideon, no!” God. Did he think I left him because of that? “That’s not why—”

“I’m losing my mind without you.” His lips were gliding down my neck, his tongue stroking over my racing pulse. He sucked on my skin and pleasure radiated through me. “I can’t think. I can’t work or sleep. My body aches for you. I can make you want me again. Let me try.”

Tears slipped free and ran down my face. They splashed on the upper swel of my breasts and he licked at them, lapping them away.

How would I ever recover if he made love to me again? How would I survive if he didn’t?

“I never stopped wanting you,” I whispered. “I can’t stop. But you hurt me, Gideon. You have the power to hurt me like no one else can.”

His gaze was stark and confused on my face. “I hurt you? How?”

“You lied to me. You shut me out.” I cupped his face, needing him to understand this one thing without question. “Your past doesn’t have the power to push me away. Only you can do that, and you did.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” he rasped. “I never wanted you to see me like that…”

“That’s the problem, Gideon. I want to know who you are, the good and the bad, and you want to keep parts of yourself hidden from me. If you don’t open up, we’re going to lose each other down the road and I won’t be able to take it. I’m barely surviving it now. I’ve crawled through the last four days of my life. Another week, a month…It’l break me to give you up.”

“I can let you in, Eva. I’m trying. But your first response when I screw up is to run away. You do it every time and I can’t stand feeling like any moment I’m going to do or say something wrong and you’re going to bolt.”

His mouth was tender again as he brushed his lips back and forth over mine. I didn’t argue with him. How could I, when he was right?

“I hoped you’d come back on your own,” he murmured, “but I can’t stay away anymore. I’l carry you out of here if I have to. Whatever it takes to get you back in the same room with me, talking this out.” My heart stuttered. “You were hoping I’d come back? I thought…You gave me back my keys. I thought we were over.”

He pul ed back, his face set in fierce lines. “We’l never be over, Eva.”

I looked at him, my heart aching like an open wound at how beautiful he was, how broken and in pain he was—pain I’d caused to some degree.

On tiptoes, I kissed the reddened handprint I’d left on his cheek, clutching his thick silky hair in my hands.

Gideon bent his knees to align our bodies, his breathing harsh and erratic. “I’l do whatever you want, whatever you need. Anything. Just take me back.” Maybe I should have been scared by the depth of his need, but I felt the same passionate insanity for him.

Running my hands down his chest in an effort to soothe his trembling, I gave him the hard truth. “We can’t seem to stop making each other miserable. I can’t keep doing this to you and I can’t keep going through these crazy highs and lows. We need help, Gideon. We’re seriously dysfunctional.”

“I saw Dr. Petersen on Friday. He’s going to take me on as a patient, and—if you agree—he’l take