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He smirks and reaches out to cup my face gently. Still as a statue, I keep my gaze on his, unable to tear it away. “Why is that a question? Don’t you want to kiss me again?”
“I do,” I pant softly. His body, so close to mine, is doing things to my mind. I’m losing it around him.
He brushes his lips against mine softly before demanding I open up with his tongue thrusting into my mouth. I grip his shirt, dragging him closer to me, smashing my body against his. His hands go to my hips as we ravage each other in the best kiss I have ever had. It takes my breath away as the blood pumps through my veins like molten lava.
“Gideon,” I whisper when he pulls slightly away to lean his forehead on mine.
“Isla. If it wasn’t abundantly clear, I want you. I need you. You have swept in like a tornado and made a mess of my order. But you thrill me, you challenge me, you defy me, and it delights me. If I were to lose you from my life now, I would be broken.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I rasp.
“And what about Dante?”
“Who?”
He smiles slowly, with a dash of evil dancing across his kiss-swollen lips, and my heart breaks.
“I see,” I mutter bitterly and pull away. “This was all just a ploy to get my attention back on you.”
He grabs my hand. “Not at all, Isla. If you want him, by all means, have him. But know that he is a sub-par version of the man you really want.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s completely fair. I’m saying if you want him, you can have him.”
“And lose you at the same time! Why would you even do any of this?” Tears pool in my eyes before they spill down my cheeks.
“Who said anything about losing me?” he asks, turning his head to the side in query. “I never said you would lose me.”
“Wh-what?” I stammer, not following.
He takes my hand and leads me down the hallway, back to my bedroom. Pulling me inside, he closes the door softly as my palms sweat.
“I have realised something about myself since you swept in here. You have made me see that I would do absolutely anything to keep you in my life. I’m a ruthless man, Isla. I don’t give a flying crap about anyone, with the exception of my sister. Usually. I haven’t given a shit about anyone I’ve hurt or destroyed or killed to stay at the top of this game. I still don’t give a shit. But you…” He shakes his head as he stares at me. “You have changed all of that. I care what you think. I care how you feel. It bothers me that I might disappoint you or that I might upset you. I haven’t killed those two arseholes who attacked me in my own home and who hurt you because I know that’s not what you would want me to do. I am a leopard, Isla. They don’t change their spots, but there is something about you that my soul is begging for, enough that I’m considering your feelings above my own.”
“Oh… I’m not even sure what to do with all of that. I guess the big question is, why?”
“Good question,” he says with a hollow laugh. “But you are missing the point here.”
“Which is what?”
“That I don’t care if you want Dante. Kiss him, fuck him, ride him from here until dawn if that’s whatyouwant to do. Hell, go and do the same with Sebastian if he’s up for it, take them both, I actually don’t give a fuck, Isla, because all I want is for you to be happy, and as long as you will be mine, I don’t care what you do. There is precious little that youcoulddo that would make me walk away from you now because, for the first time in my life, I’ve had a taste of something real. Something tangible, something that makes me feel alive, and I will hang onto it with everything that I’ve got because I am not losing you. You are not walking away from this. I won’t let you. So you can do what you want, with whomever you choose. But you aremine, Isla. Don’t ever forget that.”
The air crackles with the tension and intensity that follows that passionate speech. I’m rooted to the spot. I don’t know what to say or do. No one haseversaid anything even remotely in the vicinity of what he has, and I’ve had several long-term, serious boyfriends in the past. But that kind of says it all.
They wereboys.
Gideon is a man. A real man, able to speak openly about his feelings and how deep they run, even if he does sound a little crazy.
But crazy, in this case, is good. It’s better than good. It’s perfect because I know that I feel the same way. “I am yours, Gideon. I think I knew that the second I laid eyes on you when you had a gun pointed at my face.”
“I know I felt it before then.”
“So, where do we go from here?”
“You need to decide what you are going to do about Dante,” he says with a sigh. “I can’t guarantee that he didn’t just kiss you to get to me, so you need to sort that out.”
“I don’t want Dante,” I say, shaking my head. “I know you are used to seeing one woman with multiple men in your porn orgy shows, but that’s not me, Gideon. I hope that is okay with you because I, too, am a leopard, and my spots don’t change either.”
