One with You (Crossfire 5)

Sitting up, I looked toward the bathroom, then the hallway. Faint light filtered in through the crack of the partially closed door. I climbed out of bed and went to it, unhooking the robe that hung on the back. I slid into the peacock blue silk as I left the room, cinching the belt while I walked to Gideon’s home office.

It was the light from that room that lit the hallway and I squinted as I entered, my eyes unaccustomed to the brightness. I took in the scene with a swift glance: the puppy asleep on the dog bed and the pensive man sitting at his desk. His gaze was on the collage of photos of me that graced his wall, his arms balanced on the armrests of his chair, a tumbler of amber liquid held between his hands.

He looked at me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, padding across the room in my bare feet. “You’re not avoiding the bed, are you?”

“No. I should,” he qualified, “but no. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Want me to wear you out?” I offered a smile, which probably looked silly considering I had one eye closed against the glare.

My husband set his drink down and patted his lap. “Come here.”

I went to him, curling up against him with my arms around his neck. I pressed my lips to his jaw. “Something’s bugging you.”

And it had been bothering him all night, whatever it was.

Nuzzling the tip of his nose against the curve of my ear, he whispered, “Is there anything you haven’t told me?”

I frowned and pulled back, searching his face. “Like what?”

“Like anything.” His chest expanded on a deep breath. “Do you have any secrets left?”

I absorbed that, feeling an odd twisting in my stomach. “Your birthday present. But I’m not telling you what it is.”

A tiny smile softened his mouth.

“And you,” I murmur, charmed by that smile. “All the pieces of you that only I know. You are a secret I will keep until I breathe my last breath.”

His head bowed, his hair briefly shielding his face. “Angel.”

“Has something happened, Gideon?”

It took him a long moment to reply. He looked at me. “Would you tell me if someone you knew, someone close to you, was doing something illegal?”

The twisting in my gut turned into a knot. “What have you heard? Is some gossip blog spreading lies?”

He grew tense. “Answer the question, Eva.”

“No one’s doing anything illegal!”

“That’s not what I asked,” he said patiently but firmly.

I recalled the question. “Yes, I’d tell you. Of course. I tell you everything.”

He relaxed. His hand reached up and touched my face. “You can trust me with anything, angel. It doesn’t matter what it is.”

“I do.” I caught his wrist. “I don’t understand why you’re talking like this.”

“I don’t want any secrets between us.”

I shot him a look. “You’re the one who’s been guiltiest about that. You never used to tell me anything.”

“I’m working on that.”

“I know you are. That’s why things are really good between us right now.”

The soft smile came back. “They are, aren’t they?”

“Totally.” I kissed his smiling mouth. “No more running, no more hiding.”

Adjusting his hold on me, Gideon stood, lifting me with him.

“What are we doing?” I queried, burrowing into his warm body.

He headed back to the bedroom. “You’re going to wear me out.”

“Yay.”

The next morning passed like the morning before, with Gideon up at the usual time while I lazed naked in the bed like a sloth.

As he knotted his tie in the closet, he glanced away from the mirror to look at me. “What are your plans for the day?”

Yawning, I hugged my pillow closer. “I’m going back to sleep when you leave. Just for an hour. Blaire Ash is stopping by at ten.”

“Is he?” He looked back at the mirror. “Why?”

“I’m changing things around. We’re going to turn the guest bedroom into a home office with a Murphy bed. That way, we still have room for guests and I have a place to work.”

Gideon smoothed his tie, then started buttoning his vest, stepping out into the bedroom. “We didn’t discuss that.”

“True.” I deliberately moved my leg so that the sheet slid off it. “I didn’t want you to argue about it.”

We’d originally agreed to turn the guest room into my room and connect it to the master bath to form a his-and-hers master suite. The layout would address Gideon’s parasomnia but also meant we’d have to sleep in separate rooms.

“We shouldn’t be sharing a bed,” he said quietly.

“I disagree.” Before he could press the point, I went on. “I tried to make the best of it, Gideon, but I’m not happy with the idea of being apart like that.”

He stood there silently, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “It’s not fair to make me choose between your happiness and your safety.”

“I know. But I’m not making you choose, I already decided. I’m aware that’s not fair, either, but the call had to be made and I made it.” I sat up and shoved the pillow behind me, scooting back so I could lean against the headboard.

“We made the call together. Then you apparently changed your mind without discussing it further. And flashing your tits at me—as stunning as they are—isn’t going to distract me.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “If I wanted to distract you, I wouldn’t have brought the subject up in the first place.”

“Cancel the consult, Eva,” he said tightly. “We need to talk about this first.”

“The consult already happened. We had to cut it short because the cops came over, but Blaire’s already working on new designs. He’s bringing me some ideas today.”

Gideon’s hands came out of his pockets and his arms crossed. “So your happiness comes first and to hell with mine?”

“You’re not happy sharing a bed with me?”

A muscle in his jaw ticced. “Don’t jerk me around. You’re not taking into consideration what it would do to me if I hurt you.”

Abruptly my frustration turned to shame. “Gideon—”

“And you’re not thinking about what it would do to us,” he bit out. “I’ll let you experiment with a lot of things, Eva, but nothing that’s going to damage our relationship. If you want to fall asleep next to me, I’ll be there. If you want to wake up with me beside you, I can do that, too. But the hours in between when we’re both unconscious are too dangerous to gamble with on a fucking whim.”

I swallowed past a lump in my throat. I wanted to explain further, to tell him that I worried about the distance separate bedrooms would create. Not just physically but emotionally.

It hurt me to have him make love to me, then leave my bed. It took something beautiful and magical and turned it into something else. And if he stayed until I slept, then woke before me to return, he would suffer from lack of sleep. As tireless as he so often seemed, he was still human. He worked hard, worked out harder, and had to deal with tons of stress day after day. Being short on sleep couldn’t become routine.

But his fears for my safety weren’t going to be dismissed in a single conversation. We would have to go step-by-step.

“Okay,” I conceded. “Let’s agree to this: Blaire will drop off his concepts and we’ll look them over together later. In the meantime, we’ll agree not to knock down any walls in the guest room. I think that’s going too far, Gideon.”

“You didn’t think so before.”

“It’s a stopgap that may become permanent and we don’t want that. I mean, you don’t want that, do you? You want to work on sleeping together, right?”

He unfolded his arms and rounded the bed, taking a seat on the edge. Taking my hand in his, he lifted it to his lips. “Yes, I want that. It kills me that I can’t give you something so basic in our marriage. And knowing you’re unhappy about it … I’m sorry, angel. I can’t tell you how much.”