Page 40 of The Mistress (Foxgloves #1)
GIDEON
G ideon walked quietly down the hall towards the room Amelia had pointedly entered earlier. He couldn’t believe how he deserved her and how she had forgiven him without a thought after everything. He would not let down the faith she put in him again. He would treasure and protect it with everything he had. Just as he would love her and never intentionally make her cry anything but tears of joy ever again. It had made his heart soar when she laughed with those tears in her eyes, and that smile on her face. She glowed with joy. Like she couldn’t believe it. And neither could he.
He couldn’t believe that the loveliest woman he’d ever known was meant for him on such an intrinsic level. That she fit him and fulfilled him so perfectly. And after the turmoil of the past weeks and their confusion, misunderstandings, pain, she was still his. She would always be his. And she accepted him. He was hers.
The night couldn’t come fast enough. When Amelia invited Gideon to her tonight, he knew she needed him. The truth was, he needed her, too. To hold her, love her, reassure himself that they were no longer apart.
Coming up to the door, Gideon tapped his hand on the wood quietly. Not a full breath later, the door opened, and he hurried in. She must have been waiting just inside for how quickly it opened.
He closed to the door behind him, careful not to make a noise. Then, he turned around and all thoughts left his head.
Amelia was a vision. She stood there, looking simultaneously confident and shy, her burnt golden mane down in waves around her face. She was dressed in only her nightgown with her dressing gown open in front. Gideon had never seen a more beautiful sight than Amelia in this moment. Open, trusting, offering him herself.
As if to further that point, before Gideon could say or do anything, Amelia let her dressing gown fall to the floor. Then, face flushed and looking radiant, chocolate eyes never leaving his, she pulled her nightgown over each shoulder and shrugged it down, until it, too, pooled at her feet.
Gideon’s mouth went dry. His eyes raked over those luscious, naked curves that his hands craved to touch, before moving back to her face. She watched him with unfaltering love and trust. The trust it had killed him to lose these past weeks and that now saved him with its return.
He didn’t miss the shyness peeking through Amelia’s eyes either. In the space of two heartbeats, he had his hand on the back of her neck and his lips on hers. His other hand grasped the delicious curves at her waist and pulled her body flush against him and his already hard length.
He'd never kissed her like this. Even that awful day when he learned the magnitude of his mistakes, he’d kissed her seductively, possessively. Tonight, he kissed her savagely. Greedily. Without a shadow of restraint. As if kissing her, touching her, feeling her – it was all there was in life. She was a feast, and he was starved.
Both of her hands were in his hair, and she tugged at the strands gently. His chest rumbled from the pleasure of it. She arched her body into him and kissed him back just as desperately. Like she needed him just as much as he needed her. Like he was her sustenance, too.
His hand at the back of her neck squeezed before moving into her hair. Just like every other time, the action triggered her body to melt in his hands, and he used his grasp on her roots to angle her head just right and deepen the kiss.
The moan she rewarded him with shot straight through his cock, and he ground against her instinctively. She tore her mouth from his, gasping. He didn’t stop, immediately moving his mouth down the column of her neck, while the hand at her waist moved to her breast and began teasing it.
“Your….” Her voice was a breath of air. “Your Grace…,” she started.
Gideon snapped his head up, his grip on her hair tightening to inflict just the right hint of pain. He got the desired result – she opened her eyes and looked at him. Her glazed look of lust made him strain still further in the confines of his clothing.
“ Gideon ,” his voice was a command.
She shuddered, her eyes rolling back in her head. That reaction pleased him immensely. He loosened his grip on her but still kept a firm hold.
“Gideon,” she corrected, her voice huskier with her arousal.
He continued cupping her breast while watching her. He pinched her nipple, rolling it between his fingers, and she arched into him. She was lost completely to him, and he was still fully clothed and had barely touched her.
“Yes, dear?” he pitched his voice low, letting it rumble out of him.
“I need….” She broke off in a moan.
“Yes, Amy? What do you need?”
“I…I don’t know. More. Please, Gideon.”
That cracked through his own crazed desire enough for him to remember. He was moments away from fucking her against the nearest flat surface. That was not how he wanted this first time to go.
Gideon leaned in to kiss her again, slower this time but just as thorough. He bent down, lifting her off the ground with one arm under her knees, the other supporting her back. Her arms encircled his shoulders. Gideon didn’t resist biting that lusciously full bottom lip as he carried her to the bed and murmured, “I’ll take care of you, my dear.”