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“Sure.” Her eyes drifted closed. Maybe now she could sleep. “I like arguing with you,” she said beneath her breath. “You’re really cute when you get mad.”
Gideon snorted, and then he laughed. “You’re one of a kind, Hope Malory.”
“So are you, Gideon Raintree.” It was as close to I love you as either of them were willing to get.
Gideon woke not long after sunrise, which was normal for him. Waking with his arms around a beautiful woman was not so normal.
His sexual relationships in the past had been brief. Even in those that lasted a few weeks or even a few months, he maintained a certain distance. He didn’t spend the night elsewhere or ask women to spend the night here. It was too dangerous.
Sleeping with Hope didn’t feel at all dangerous. It felt right and good and natural, as if they had been sleeping together for a thousand years. And that was truly dangerous. It was so dangerous that last night he had almost forgotten Emma’s words and taken Hope right there in the moonlight. He’d been wearing a condom, but no kind of protection was a hundred percent effective. Moving into the shadows before he’d buried himself inside her had simply been a precaution.
He lifted her shirt, his shirt, and laid his mouth on her flat stomach. Damn, she tasted good. She felt good, so warm and silky. He kissed her there, drawing the essence of her into his mouth, trailing the tip of his tongue up and down, sucking against her skin until he felt her hand settle in his hair.
“Good morning,” she murmured, her voice sleepy and satisfied.
He answered by lifting the shirt a bit higher and pushing his hand beneath the soft cotton. The chill of her protection charm brushed against his hand as he uncovered one breast and took the nipple deep into his mouth. Hope’s fingers threaded more thoroughly into his hair, and he suckled her deeper. He tasted her and savored her until one of those little moans caught in her throat.
This morning he wasn’t in any hurry. He would make her come a time or two, make lo
ve to her long and hard and then leave her sleeping soundly. When she woke up and found that he was well on his way to the Cordell crime scene, she might be pissed for a while, but she would forgive him. He knew exactly how to make her forgive him.
He spread her legs and ran one finger along the tender skin of her inner thigh. Her skin was soft, the muscle of her thigh gently shaped and utterly feminine. “You have the longest legs,” he said as he lifted one and laid his mouth behind the knee. She shuddered and wrapped that leg around him as his mouth moved higher. Her leg hadn’t seen much sun. It was as creamy pale as any skin he had ever seen, and it fascinated him. He ran a finger up from her knee, allowing a little bit of electricity to escape. Hope laughed and twitched.
“That tickles.”
“Does it?”
“Yes,” she said with a sigh.
He wasn’t anywhere near finished with this woman. Would he ever be? While the morning came alive, he tasted her everywhere. He made her quiver and lurch; he made her moan. After she came against his mouth, she all but threw him onto his back, determined to have her way with him, as well. Determined to make him moan. And she did. With her mouth and her hands, she studied every inch of him.
Knowing that he was as ready as a man could possibly get, Hope pulled away from him and drew the T-shirt over her head. Gideon reached for the drawer where he kept the condoms. He would have to stop by the drugstore on the way home tonight. He was almost out. And no matter how much he liked Hope, no matter how right and close and true she felt, no matter that she made him glow in the dark, he wasn’t ready to go any further than this. They had great sex, but there was no guarantee that it would last. Not much in this world was truly lasting.
Hope sat on the bed, smiling and flushed and breathing hard all over again. Her black hair was mussed around her face. Perfect Hope, so carefully put together, was utterly gorgeous when she was mussed.
Mussed and naked…and wearing two charms around her neck.
Gideon dropped the wrapped condom to the bed. He forgot about pushing inside Hope and ending this torment. He forgot about everything else but those pieces of silver. “Where did you get this?” he asked as he lifted one of the charms. The one he had not given her.
She lifted the charm and studied it absently. “I almost forgot about this one. I found it on your dresser last night.”
Gideon jumped from the bed and turned toward the dresser in question. Sure enough, Dante’s fertility charm was gone. No, not gone. Hope was wearing it around her pretty neck. “Were you wearing that last night when we were on the deck?”
“I think so.” She pushed her hair back, combing it with long, pale fingers. “Yeah, I was. I picked it up and put it on before I went outside.”
He turned and stared down at her. “Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s pretty.” She removed the charm that had not been made for her, drawing the cord over her head and ruffling her mussed hair further in the process. Not that it mattered. It was too late. Much too late. “I guess I felt the need for a little extra protection last night.” She offered the talisman to him with an outstretched hand. He didn’t take it. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t supposed to touch. Take it and come back to bed.”
“All the protection in the world won’t undo…” He stopped. One time, that was all, and he had been wearing a condom and they hadn’t been in the moonlight. Maybe, just maybe…He rushed into the bathroom and slammed the door.
“Gideon?” Hope called through the closed door. “Are you all right?”
Not even a little. “Fine,” he answered tersely.
Fine? What a lie. He’d been this close to another moment of absolute perfection inside Hope Malory, and then he’d seen that charm lying against her chest. Wanting someone to distraction physically was one thing. Making a baby together was another thing entirely.
Maybe everything was fine. He’d been thinking clearly enough to move Hope out of the moonlight last night before having sex with her. That one fact might have changed everything. Emma couldn’t come to him in a moonbeam if there was no moonbeam in which to travel.
