Page 97 of Gideon
“What is?” she asked quietly.
“All of it. I’m sitting here worried about you leaving me when we leave Zion —ifwe leave Zion,” I scoffed derisively.
“Why wouldn’t we leave Zion?” she questioned.
“I mean, for all we know, shit will go down and something will go wrong.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” she asked, finally looking at me again.
“Aren’t you?!” I blurted out in a huff of exasperation.
“I have been worried about that since the day I arrived,” she admitted solemnly. With a heavy sigh, she walked to me, placing her hand on my arm. “Gideon, we’re going to get out of here. It’s not going to be easy. Hell, it already isn’t easy. But what we are doing, all of us, is something big. Something good.”
“I know that. Deep down, I know. But I can’t get away from the searing, painful dread that when it’s all over, you’ll walk away from me, too.” My words were almost impossible to utter, so real and so raw. “When we are gone from here, a million miles away and safe from it all, please don’t walk away from me, too. I know you have your family and I want to help you find them. And I know that you probably won’t want a life with me in the end, but —”
Her hand pressed against my lips, halting my words. The look on her face echoed the fear in my heart. Her vulnerability shone brightly in her eyes.
“Gideon, I can’t leave you,” she whispered, almost as though the words were just as hard for her to say.
“You can do whatever you want,” I spoke against her fingertips.
“That’s my point. Gideon, I can’t leave you because it would kill me to leave you,” she whispered. A small smile lit up her face as she spoke the words. I looked at her in confusion, her meaning lost on me in that emotionally charged moment.
“Gideon,” she began with a heavy sigh, removing her hand from my lips and stepping away from me by only a single step. “I can’t leave you because I think I might be falling in love with you.”
I felt my stomach drop before that hope I had tucked away deep inside came rushing to the surface. My stomach was doing flip-flops, unsure of exactly what emotion to land on.
“You’re falling in love with me?” I restated her words, wanting to make sure I had heard her correctly.
“I think so, yes,” she answered with a tinge of a blush flushing her cheeks.
“Really? You trust me?” I asked her, wanting so badly to believe the words she was speaking, but that fear still pricked at the back of my brain.
She simply smirked before answering, “Implicitly.”
“You’re sure?” Why was I fighting this? Any other time I would take her at her word, but this? This was massive. With a wide grin and a roll of her eyes, she walked away from me. I looked on in confusion as she walked up the stairs and into the bedroom.
Was I supposed to follow?
Was I supposed to just wait here?
I didn’t have time to wonder for long as she came back down the staircase to face me once more. In her hands, she held out two hanks of rope.
“I trust you, Gideon. Implicitly. Use these on me. Please,” she asked, her eyes showing me nothing but pure honesty.
I took the ropes from her hand, weighing out exactly how I wanted to proceed. I tossed the ropes onto the couch, discarded and forgotten.
“I will use those ropes on you, Naomi. I swear it. But tonight, I don’t want ropes. I just want you,” I answered passionately.
“Me?” she asked.
“Just you. I am falling in love with you too, and I just need us. You and me. Gideon and Naomi.” My hands found her waist, pulling her to me as my lips claimed hers. She gasped against my kiss, giving me the opportunity to delve deeper, to taste the sigh that fell from her lips at my intimate invasion.
My hands slid up her sides, moving around her back and further up until my fingers tangled in her hair. I fisted my fingers through her tresses, pulling her head back just enough to break our contact.
“I need you,” I groaned, my words spoken just barely against her lips.
“Take me,” she moaned right back. My hands moved back down her back, cupping over the curve of her ass until I could lift her into my arms, her legs wrapping around my waist as her arms circled around my neck. I needed her, and I needed her now. I walked us, mid kiss, over to the kitchen counter, setting her on top of it as our tongues tangled together.
