“But you didn’t,” I supply.
“No.”
“Did you watch me get stuck in a sports bra? Without my knowledge?”
Gideon puts his hands over his face and takes a deep breath, his sleeping bag heaving over his chest.
“Yes,” he admits.
I push myself up on one elbow and watch him for a moment. It’s a fairly low couch, so he’s only a few inches further off the ground than me, and he’s shadowed and disheveled and tortured-looking, and I think: someone’s really done a number on Gideon.
For the record, it doesn’t bother me that I forgot to close the curtains and Gideon got a peep show that was maybe twenty seconds longer than it could have been. I lived in Brooklyn for ten years and I’veneverbeen great at closing curtains; presumably worse people than Gideon have gotten an eyeful. If the reverse had happened, I probably would’ve watched too.
I think of earlier, trying to wriggle out of my stupid sports bra, Gideon watching from outside the window. I think of what I’d do if it happened again and I knew it, and my pulse picks up, my stomach suddenly fluttering.
“Did you like it?” I ask, my voice soft because I don’t dare to be louder.
Gideon freezes, then rolls to match my position, up on one elbow, facing me.
“What?” he asks, and I swallow.
“Did you like it?” I ask again.
There’s a hitch in his breathing: quiet, subtle, unmistakable.
“I did,” he finally says, and I sit up on the mattress, pushing the blanket pile off myself. Gideon’s watching me, his green eyes nearly black in the dark, his lips parted.
“For the record, you could’ve just asked,” I say, and tug on one sleeve.
It’s not particularly easy to take off a sweater in a sexy way, and it’s not any easier to remove two sweaters, a long-sleeve t-shirt, and a tank top. I get the three top layers off at the same time, the only sound in the room the snap of static and Gideon’s soft breathing. The tank top is thin and tight and the way Gideon’s staring at me makes me bold enough to take it off in one final flourish.
Once I toss it away, I realize I’m topless and a little cold and on a twin mattress on the floor in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and I have no idea what to do with my hands. I settle for leaning back on them while I watch Gideon look at me, unmoving.
I’m not sure how much longer I can be this brave when he finally shoves off his own blankets, falls to his knees from the couch, and crawls the three feet over to me. He crawls until he’s straddling my legs, knees on the floor and pressed against the side of the mattress, then leans in and kisses me.
When he wants to be, Gideon is so soft. There’s nothing hesitant in the way he kisses me, but it’s sweet and gentle and firm, all at once. I think of the birds he took out of the net, how he held them without hurting them or letting them hurt themselves, and flick my tongue against his lips.
The kiss deepens by shades, a bit at a time. He’s not pinning me down but I’m pinned nonetheless, unable to move my arms or the force of him will topple me backwards. He shifts and puts a hand on my back, rough and calloused, with that same firm tenderness that makes me gasp quietly and squirm, pressing myself into him. He’s got that thermal shirt on again, and it feels so good against my nipples that a noise escapes my throat.
Gideon makes an answering noise, plants a hand on the mattress, runs his fingertips along my spine. They’re improbably warm—I run hot, he said—and they send trickles of heat down my backbone. He pulls his mouth away from mine and pauses, millimeters of space between us, before closing his teeth around my bottom lip and biting just hard enough that I feel it.
Then it’s gone, and his hand is sliding over my ribcage and I gasp in a deep breath, and the movement rubs my nipples against his shirt and I shudder, fingers going tight on the mattress. Gideon puts one hand against my sternum and presses me back.
I go. He does it the same way he’s done everything in the last five minutes: gentle and sure and sweet and unyielding. I drop to my elbows, looking up at him, his hand hot as an iron on my chest as he looks me over, his pupils blown in the dark. There’s a lock of hair that’s come down to curl over his forehead, and between that and the look on his face he’s the portrait of desire as I let my elbows go from under me.
My head goes back further than I’m expecting, and I remember it’s a twin bed. There’s a blanket here to shield my head from the floor but I’m tipped slightly backward, looking at the corner where the wall meets the ceiling, and I’m about to shove myself up again to reposition but Gideon’s mouth is on my neck. It’s soft and hot and his beard scratches and tickles and there are teeth, sometimes. I hear myself make a noise and he does it more, scraping them over my collarbone as he shuffles one knee onto the mattress, the weight of it next to my left hip.
He takes the other hip in a hand, firm and gentle and certain, like I’m a bird he won’t hurt but won’t let fly away. I have my hands, finally, and I sink my fingers into his hair. I can’t see him because my head is tipped back, but I can feel him pause, the sudden coolness where his mouth was a moment ago.
Then there’s a quick, sweet press of lips against the inside of my wrist, and a second later, a flash of heat flicks over my nipple. I’m expecting it but I still gasp and arch into the solid heat of his hand still pressing against my sternum, telling me to keep still.
I try, but I can’t. My breathing is ragged and I’m squirming, back arching, as Gideon explores my nipple with his mouth, using his lips and tongue andteethwith a focused intensity that makes me feel like he’s taking notes.
Under him, I’m melting, turning from a person into a liquid. There are noises coming out of my mouth I’ve never heard before and all I can do is pretend I’m not making them, because Gideon is kissing a trail of fire across my chest and does the same to my other nipple, only this time he moves the hand on my sternum just enough to casually slide his thumb over my other nipple.
I make a noise like a squirrel stuck in the mud, a sort of gasping whimper because my head’s still back at a weird angle, but I wriggle one leg free and wrap it around Gideon’s hips. He doesn’t pause what he’s doing but he does stroke my thigh from hip to knee, hitching it a little higher as he does, the heat of his hand sinking through two pairs of pants.
Soon, I get my other leg free and around him, but he doesn’t let me take his weight. I can tell he’s hard and it would be a relief if he’d start rutting against me, but he doesn’t. Not even when he trails kisses to the hollow of my throat, up my neck, and under my chin. I swallow against his lips and he licks me, then gets an arm under my back, and tugs me onto the mattress, spinning me so my head is on the pillow.
