But he did not take.
He did not push. He simply held himself still and let her discover what she wanted.
And God help her, that undid her more than any coaxing or demand ever could.
Gideon was not asking her to surrender.
He was letting her take control.
She moved very deliberately. And Gideon, he groaned. His hips jerked. Right there.
“Yes—”
Gideon gripped her backside. Helping her grind and shift, stealing the air from her lungs.
“Oh—”
“There you are.” His voice was rough and low. “Sweet God, there you are.”
Her throat tightened. “Gideon,” she breathed against his mouth.
He tasted—warm. Always of tea. And something else. Something wholly his.
She wanted more of it.
More of him.
Pushing. Sliding. Beatrice felt everything. The heat coming off his skin. The sinewy strength of his muscles.
His mouth left hers only briefly—his kiss pulling at her throat—the scrape of his beard that, oh my… more.
More of that ungodly friction. Primitive.
Utterly improper.
“Please—” she began, but she wasn’t sure what she was begging for.
His hand slid to her throat, his thumb beneath her jaw. She was captured, but also, entirely free. “Just like that. Let yourself have it.”
The world narrowed.
To the loose, careful hold of his hands. To the throbbing beneath her.
“Gideon—”
Her fingers dug into his coat. She moved against him without thought, without shame—and the pleasure answered, fierce and bright and overwhelming.
Again.
And again.
Wave after wave rolled through her until she could do nothing but hold on to him and shudder through it, wild and lost and impossibly alive.
Then, slowly, it loosened its grip.
The room came back by degrees.
The quiet.
