He took the items and didn’t ask any more questions. He listened to all the demands and took them in stride. Then he walked up to me, putting his hand behind my head and bringing me closer to him. He kissed the top of my forehead.
No one in my family had been affectionate. I had no loving parents, nor brother. Everyone was out to protect themselves, so this was as foreign to me as the day was to the night. Eclipsed moments were not enough to get me used to tender emotions.
Bastian’s dark eyes pierced me, and I knew what he was going to say would be important. “Having half a heart is better than not having one at all, and baby, yours is still very much beating.”
That half a heart that was still beating pounded against my ribs. I looked away and heard the flap of the tent as he walked away.
I’d been moving chess pieces for the last few years, and this was just another move I had to make. A queen sacrificed soldiers for her victory; this was just another battle I needed to win.
The next day camp was fairly quiet, with people going to cease a fire that I had started. My hair was loose, and I rubbed perfume in my hair, behind my ears, and on my wrist so that I would smell enticing enough to devour.
Keeping out of people’s way, I made my way to the edge toward the riverbank. The camp was set out here since it had clean water that made it easier for people to survive long periods without going back into civilization.
Making sure that I didn’t step on any branches, I climbed onto a rock that overlooked Gideon’s back.
My body felt shaky, as if adrenaline was trying to take over. The man in the water was almost a stranger; he was nothing like the carefree MI6 agent I had met years ago. His features were harder, yet he still had some softness to him. His body was a different story. It looked like it had been carved from marble, all carefully detailed to bring opponents down and women to their knees.
He was covered in tattoos now. I could see some peeking from the back of his head down to where the water met his waist. The snake head that was on the back of his torso glared at me. It was a gorgeous piece of art that I remembered tracing with my fingers, with the tip of my tongue.
“If you want to join me, Petal, you’ll have to ditch your clothes,” he said without turning around. I didn’t have to ask how he knew I was here because, since the moment I met him, there had been an invisible chain wrapped around our necks trying to suffocate us.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” I told him.
Gideon dived under the water, and I held my breath. My eyes stayed glued to the spot of water right below me. In no time, he was standing in the shallow water. Droplets of water ran from the top of his head down to his chest. The sunrays made the droplets glisten down his pecs and his well-defined abs.
His whiskey eyes shone with mischief.
“Are you a little thirsty, Daph?” Gideon winked.
Maybe if I were a weaker woman, I would have swooned. When he put his tattooed arms on the edge of the rock, I took a step back.
Gideon pulled his body up, water falling down his naked body, and I forced myself not to react. He was by far the most handsome man I had ever met. An enigma, unlike anything I had ever been exposed to. He was like feeling the sun on your skin after years of being in the dark.
He was standing before me naked, and he was hard. His dick was about the only place he didn’t have any tatts—that and his ass.
I gulped, hoping it wasn’t noticeable.
Did it get hotter out here?
“What’s the matter, Petal? Cat got your tongue?” His tone was hoarse, betraying his feelings. He was just as affected as I was judging by the way he was trying to cut steel, maybe even more.
“As I was saying, I’m going back to Sweden first thing in the morning.”
He took another step toward me, his naked body dripping down to my combat boots. His hand came behind my nape, pushing aside my hair, causing my back to arch because of his wet fingers.
“You said that already,” he murmured as he inhaled the skin below my ear. “I don’t know how that’s any of my business?” Gideon asked, just as the tip of his tongue flicked my earlobe.
In an instant, he plastered me to his wet body, his erection nestled between us. My hair was in his hands, and he was pulling it hard, so I was forced to look into his eyes.
My heart beat the same wild beat it was doing earlier, but this time it was with triumph. Whatever remorse I may have been feeling was now gone by his words. Fear shut some people down, but not me because I came from mayhem, and it lit me up like the winter palace at night. When darkness is all you know, you learn to love the shadows.
Something I think he knew. It was scary how much he knew me. We had moments through time and places not enough for him to have my number, yet he did.
“I’ve been waiting for you to make a move, Petal, because I know that I broke a part of you.”
My hand came to his erection, holding him firmly but not enough to cause pain.
“You never even cracked me, handsome.”
I was broken long before he met me.
“I missed that,” he murmured as he moved his hips back and then forth again.
I realized my mistake the second the word left my lips, but it was too late to take it back now.
“I miss the smell of your hair, the way your body succumbs to my demands. I miss the way you curse in Russian when I fuck your pussy hard.”
My grip on his cock became firmer, and my hand started to stroke him. Slowly I raised a hand to his chest, trailing the lines that created eyes of a skull.
“You have it all wrong.” My voice dropped to a sultry tone that made his cock twitch. “It was me riding you.”
“Fuck,” he groaned. He let go of my hair, his hand coming to my throat and the other one grabbing my free wrist and bringing it to his nose. “You always smell like heaven.”
My ministrations became faster and harder because, despite the time and oceans dividing us at points, I knew his body, and he knew mine. We were magnetic poles not meant to attract but to repel, causing destruction in our paths whenever we got too close.
His breathing became labored; the tense energy came off him in waves. He was close. Not only did I read his body language, but when I looked up at him, I saw him. It was in his gaze; he was burning up—he was burning up for me.
I knew a few more strokes and he would become undone, and the evidence would be in my palm—sweet victory at my fingertips.
“Shit,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
The hand at my nape pulled me close to him, and my cheek pressed against his chest. He smelled fresh like spring. I knew warmth didn’t have a smell; it was something you could feel and not see, but I saw it in him. He was like sunshine, and I was like ice. That’s why he was dangerous to me. If he got too close, he could undo all the things I’d sweat blood for.
He squeezed my neck while he moved his lips over my forehead, slowly gliding them down my cheek. I shivered at the prickling sensation from his stubble. His lips made it to the shell of my ear, and he gently bit the helix with enough force that the tip of my ear felt like it was on fire.
“Fuck…you,” he spat. He took a step back, holding on to my neck, making sure I didn’t move. “You want to make me come, Daph? Make sure you win this little pissing contest and somehow in that messed-up head of yours counting it as a win? Be my guest, Petal, but you’re going to do it on your knees and choking on my dick with the victory of my release falling out of your lips.”