“My mother and father married soon after they met, and she got pregnant with me right away. She was a young mother, but she loved me, I knew that…but love….” He trailed off, holding his breath, then let if all go at once. “Love couldn’t save her from Nathaniel Maddox.”
Staring up at him, Kendra leaned in until he could feel her breath on his neck. The urge to wrap his arm around her, to hold her to him, to absorb all the beauty that was his wife was so strong he had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself.
Her need to nurture was instinctual, but he knew, in that moment, he couldn’t take advantage of it.
It wasn’t right.
“From the very beginning, my father was unfaithful to her, not even bothering to hide the fact that he was fucking around on her, but she was so in love with him, with the dream man she’d met, that she’d stayed. She’d always accepted his lame apology jewelry, truly believing he’d change.”
Growling, Gideon tensed, knowing the rest of it was only worse.
“He broke her so utterly, that she completely forgot she wasn’t just a wife but also a mother—she left, Kendra, she left us with him, no hesitation, no goodbye, and not a single word from her since. At just thirteen years old, I was abandoned by the woman I loved the most in the world, thrust into the role of father, mother, protector, and brother all at once, all without knowing what the fuck I was doing. My brothers were my rock, they held me down when all I wanted to do was fly away, and so I dedicated my life to them, to making sure they never missed her, they never knew hunger or loss or failure. I determined to buildan empire so big and powerful that no one could touch us—” he paused, leaning forward to press his forehead against hers. Her breath caught. “And I succeeded…until my greatest vulnerability took my heart and placed it securely in her hands.” Kendra tensed and pulled back just enough to meet his gaze. There was shock there, but also hope…so much desperate hope. “You’ve untethered me, you’ve shattered me, piece by piece, until all that’s left is the darkest most hideous parts. With you, I am undone…and yet…I am also remade, fashioned into something I don’t recognize but so desperately want to hold on to, because what I am when I am with you is the best of me—you make me the best me I can be, Kendra.”
“But Gideon,” she breathed, “you don’t love me; our marriage was a lie from the beginning—you can’t change that fact.” She tried to stand up, to move away from him, but he couldn’t part with her warmth for even a moment. He gripped her arms, dragging her into his lap.
Immediately, his cock turned to stone, throbbing against her plump, bouncy ass.
He groaned at the friction, the pleasure, and thrust upward, pressing his erection against the heat of her.
She gasped, struggling to get free, but he planted his face in her neck, drew in a breath, and rasped into her flesh, “Stop wriggling, or you’ll end up on your back on this couch with my cock nine inches deep in that tight, wet pussy.”
She jerked to a stop, her chest heaving with uneven breaths.
“You wouldn’t—you don’t want me like that; you said so yourself?—”
He snarled, “I fucking lied!”
She started, shocked at his tone and volume—he’d never raised his voice at her before, then again, he’d been so fucking emotionally constipated, he hadn’t allowed himself to show this level of anger, of frustration, of fear.
“From the moment I saw you across that gala, I wanted you,” he admitted, his deep voice raw with stark truth.
He allowed her to pull away far enough to see his face; she wanted to see the truth or lies written there.
“You’re lying,” she croaked, “you told me?—”
“That night you left, I said a lot of things that weren’t true, and the biggest lie of all of them was that I didn’t want you, that you were just a marriage of convenience to me. From the very beginning, you have owned my heart, my soul, and my fucking cock—I got so hard at first sight, I honest to God thought I was having a stroke. But then that voice in my head, the one that sounds like Nathaniel Maddox, told me I was high on the power, the sick knowledge that I was going to use you, control you, and you’d never know about it.
Kendra slapped her palm against his chest, the pain stinging.
“You’re sick, Gideon! Who gets an erection from something like that?”
He chuckled, quickly leaning in to nip at her chin. “To some men, power is an aphrodisiac.”
She hummed, her skin flushing. Catching herself leaning into his mouth, she pulled away and squared her shoulders as she asked, “Are you one of those men?”
“No, baby—I can tell you with 100% certainty that the hard on I sported for most of the evening was because of you in that sexy-as-fuck dress. Your smile and laugh just about made me come, too.” His let his hand drift from her waist to her thigh, making her shudder. “And they still do.”
Trying to pry his hand from her leg, she demanded, “So why the contrived courtship, the hush-hush, rushed wedding, and the three years of prescription sex?”
“Prescription sex?” he asked, his lips quirking.
She huffed, rolling her eyes. “Sex three nights a week, every week, for three years—like a prescription, and you didn’t want to miss a dose.”
He threw his head back and laughed, his throat working to expel a sound wholly unlike him that even he was shocked by it.
Had it really been that long since he’d laughed?
From the wide eyes and gaping mouth on his wife, he guessed it had been.
