Raintree Read online

  “Don’t hide anything from me,” she said.

  It was such an unexpected and startling thought, that any woman could know everything about him and stay, that Gideon almost flinched. He couldn’t bare himself in every sense to anyone. Bare bodies, yes. Bare souls? Never.

  He didn’t want to talk about anything beyond the physical, so he spread Hope’s thighs and stroked. She sighed and wrapped her fingers around him, gently, but not too gently. She caressed, and he closed his eyes and left everything behind to get lost in sensation. This was sex. It was good and right and powerful, but it was still only sex.

  By the time he reached for the bedside drawer, neither of them were thinking about explanations for what this might be. It just was.

  Sometimes a rabbit is just a rabbit.

  ELEVEN

  She should have been able to sleep like a baby, but that hadn’t happened. Not yet. Her mind was spinning with a thousand questions. When Hope became so restless that she began to worry about waking Gideon, she left him sleeping in his bed while she quietly roamed the half-dark bedroom.

  Moonlight from the uncovered window and a hint of illumination from a night-light in the bathroom made it easy enough to see. Gideon was a bit of a minimalist, without a lot of unnecessary stuff in his house. There were family pictures on the walls here and there, but no flower arrangements or useless knickknacks on tabletops. She ran her hands over the dresser in his bedroom. Carelessly discarded on the surface was a ceramic dish for coins, a silk tie he’d dropped in a heap, a small piece of turquoise and what she recognized as another protection charm. She ran her fingers over the small silver charm attached to the slim leather cord. A week ago, if someone had told her that something so innocent and unimportant as a piece of silver could carry the power to protect, she never would have believed it. Now she knew that many of the things she’d once believed were wrong. She lifted the charm and placed it around her neck, where it lay close to the one Gideon had given her. Tabby was out there somewhere, and besides, her heart needed all the protection it could get at the moment. Was that kind of protection even possible? Or was it too late for her?

  She grabbed a T-shirt Gideon had dropped onto a chair near the dresser, pulled it over her head and very quietly walked onto the deck that overlooked the Atlantic. The sound of the surf, together with the gentle light of the moon, soothed her, and she definitely needed soothing tonight.

  It wasn’t like her to get deeply involved with anyone or anything so quickly. She studied all new enterprises from every angle before committing herself in any way. She always remained coldly and totally detached from any situation until she knew without doubt that a move was the right one. She’d been that way since the age of eleven, maybe even longer. She didn’t make rash decisions. Not anymore.

  And here she was, deeply involved with Gideon Raintree. Through the sex, his secrets and the case they were working together, she was involved to the pit of her soul.

  She heard the door behind her open but didn’t turn to look at Gideon. His bare feet padded toward her, and a moment later his arms encircled her. Those arms were warm and strong and wonderfully embracing. It was a nice feeling, to be held this way. She liked it. Maybe too much.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered.

  “Two nights together, and I wake up because you’re not where you’re supposed to be,” he responded with a touch of displeasure in his voice.

  She leaned her head back and relaxed against him. “I’m not exactly accustomed to needing anyone, either.”

  He slipped his hands beneath the oversized shirt she wore, raked his palms against her bare skin and cupped her breasts with familiarity. His fingers teased the sensitive nipples until she closed her eyes and swayed against him, her body responding quickly and entirely. She shouldn’t want him now. She should most definitely not need him this way, with an intensity that drove away everything else. But she did.

  His hands feathered over her breasts. Was that a touch of unnatural electricity that seeped through her skin and shot to her very core? Or was what she felt so intensely simply the response of a woman to a man? Gideon had such nice hands, charged or not, and he touched her as if he owned her, as if he knew exactly how to make her his in every way. He leaned down and kissed the side of her neck, familiarly and gently and amazingly arousingly. Her body quivered.

  She turned in Gideon’s arms, lifted her face and kissed him. Her mouth against his, she slipped her hands around his waist. He’d walked onto the deck naked—not that anyone would be on the beach to see them at this time of night, in this near-dark—and she boldly ran her fingers against his back, his hip, his thigh. If it was true that he could make her his, then it was just as true that she possessed a part of him, at least for tonight.

  He kissed her deeply, arousing her and demanding more with his lips and his tongue and his hands. Her body clenched and unclenched, quivered, and quickly spiraled out of control. So did Gideon’s. She felt it in every caress of his hands; she tasted it in his kiss. Moaning low in what sounded like frustration or maybe impatience, he easily lifted her off her feet. Her legs wrapped around his waist. He was close, so close.

  “Don’t you need a—” she began breathlessly.

  “Already thought of that,” he said, his voice husky.

  She shifted her body to bring him closer, to guide him into her. “You came out here wearing a condom? Pretty sure of yourself, weren’t you?” she teased.

  “I was overcome by optimism.”

  The tip of his erection teased her entrance, and she began to lower herself onto him, anxious and wanting in a way that still surprised her. She’d had more sex in the past twenty-four hours than she’d had in the past five years. And she had never had sex like this before, all-consuming and powerful and beautiful, without awkwardness or disappointment. She had never felt a moment’s disappointment in Gideon’s arms.

  “I’m glad you woke up,” she whispered, her mouth resting against his ear. “I’ve never made love in the moonlight before.”

  Gideon went still. His entire body tensed, muscles tightening. “Moonlight.”

  He lifted her away from the railing she was partially balanced against, and carried her into the deep shadows against the house. No moonlight touched them there, and there was no railing to lean against. Gideon held her; she held him. The wall was against her back, and she felt grounded and afloat at the same time.

  They were lost in complete and utter darkness when he pushed inside her, deep and hard. Hope didn’t care where they were. Moonlight or daylight, darkness or sunshine. Under the covers or beneath nothing but the moon and the stars. As long as Gideon was with her, as long as he was holding her, she didn’t care where they were. Instinct called her to him, but there was more than instinct here, more than intense physical need.

  She hadn’t thought herself in love for a very long time. Her mother, her sister, her nephews, that kind of love was all she dared to believe in. Romantic love was filled with pitfalls. She not only didn’t wish for that emotion, she did her best to avoid it. Love was a trap, heartache just waiting to happen. This unexpected rush of emotion she felt for Gideon right now, while he held her and filled her and brought her closer to release, surely it was just the power of sex.

  But as he made love to her, with her back to the wall and her arms and legs wrapped completely around him, she couldn’t imagine any other man but Gideon making her feel this way. She could love him. She could wrap her entire world around this man and change who and what she was, who she had become. Ghosts, light shows and all, she could love him. Scary stuff.

  They came together with a cry and a moan that were lost in a deep kiss. With the sounds of the surf in their ears and the moonlight inches away, with her body trembling, there was a moment of perfection when those words crossed her mind again. I could love you. Lost in darkness, the gentle glow of Gideon made her smile. I love you tugged at her lips, but she bit the words back. It was too soon for such a confessio