Laughing softly, breathlessly, she loosened her grip. “Sorry.”
“I’m not.” His mouth covered her smile, his tongue plunging between her lips to mate with his.
Amusement fading in a quick flash of heat, she moved her hands to his bare shoulders. His skin was hot, sleek. Muscles bunched and rippled beneath her palms as he moved over and against her.
She hadn’t expected pretty words or sweet nothings from Gideon, and she didn’t get them. He was a silent lover, but a thorough one. There wasn’t an inch of her body that did not receive his attentions. Her black nightgown proved no obstacle to him; he had it off her almost before she realized it. His jeans quickly joined the swath of black fabric on the floor.
She discovered immediately afterward that Gideon was a very well-built man.
He kept protection in his nightstand—a fact she had discovered several days earlier. She hadn’t been snooping, just looking for a safe place to keep her jewelry and contact lenses when she wasn’t wearing them. Her first glimpse of those shiny silver packets had filled her mind with images that had left her hot and bothered for hours.
Her imagination hadn’t come close to reality.
Mindful of the child sleeping across the hall, she bit back a cry of pleasure when he finally joined them together. She couldn’t totally suppress the moan of delight that escaped when he began to move. He covered her mouth with his to smother any more sounds.
Yet at the moment of climax, it was Gideon who lost control, expressing his satisfaction with a deep, hoarse groan. Even as she gave in to her own shivering release, Adrienne was pleased by the sign that Gideon was as affected by their lovemaking as she was.
They recovered in a silence broken only by the sounds of their ragged breathing. Gideon lay on his back. While his arm was beneath her, he wasn’t exactly holding her against him. She sensed that he was already drawing back, gathering the emotions he had let slip earlier and locking them securely away.
Which, she thought, was probably a good idea considering the necessarily temporary nature of their personal relationship. She would be heading back to New York in a day or two—it was well past time for her to do so—and there was no purpose to be served by deluding themselves, even briefly, that there was anything more between them than a passionate attraction. Maybe it felt like more at the moment—maybe it felt like a lot more—but that was just her romanticizing things again. Fantasizing about a happy ending that was extremely unlikely.
She rubbed her cheek against Gideon’s shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty damned good,” he answered without hesitation.
She laughed softly. “Glad to hear it.”
He turned his head to look at her in the watery light that filtered in through the sheer curtains. She could just make out his faint smile. “That’s what I call a full-service literary agency.”
She smiled sweetly back at him and then punched him in the stomach.
Gideon laughed and caught her hand. The sound of his rare laughter made her breath catch.
So it felt a lot like love, she told herself wistfully. That didn’t mean she had to get carried away by the fantasy.
“Sorry,” he said, brushing a soft kiss against her knuckles. “Couldn’t resist.”
Though she knew he was talking about his lame joke, her first thought was that she hadn’t been able to resist him, either.
Still holding her wrist, he turned her hand over and pressed a kiss in her palm. Though she would have sworn that she was completely sated, she felt a renewed flicker of interest spark inside her in response to the feel of his warm lips against the sensitive skin of her palm. When he transferred his attentions to the hollow beneath her ear and then nibbled his way down the line of her jaw to the curve of her shoulder, the spark flared into a small flame. And when he slid a hand slowly down her quivering tummy to ease his fingertips into the nest of curls between her legs, the fire burned even hotter.
He moved against her hip, and she felt the unmistakable evidence that she wasn’t the only one affected by the heat. “Oh, my.”
His mouth was curved into a faint smile when he spoke against her lips. “Problem?”
“I’m just impressed by your stamina.”
He nipped lightly at her lower lip. “You know what they say about writers.”
“What—” She was forced to pause to clear her throat. “What do they say?”
“We keep working on a scene until we get it exactly right.”
If he got it any more right this time, she was likely to explode, she decided, pressing her mouth to his as her arms went around him. But who was she to interfere with the creative process?
Chapter Twelve
Gideon didn’t stay all night, whether because of Isabelle or for reasons of his own, Adrienne couldn’t have said. He slipped out of bed as soon as he recovered his breath from their second round of lovemaking, donned his jeans and left her with a quick kiss on the cheek.