Cyborg Nation Kaitlyn O'Connor (books to get back into reading TXT) 📖

Gideon sent him a look. “She is ripe now—hungry. We must keep her that way until she begins to feel desperate and then offer the contracts.”

“Fine!” Gabriel ground out. “I will give it a week.”

“You will give it however much time is required,” Gideon said implacably.

“But we are less than a month out!”

“And likely we will need that much time … if it works at all!” Gideon retorted, shoving himself to his feet and heading toward the hatch to the hold. “I think I will rest in the hold.”

“There is no bed,” Jerico pointed on.

“I would rather sleep on the floor than wake to find Bronte trying to saw my balls off with a toothbrush!” Gideon snarled. “Unlike Gabriel, I am fond of mine!”

* * * *

The remorse that Bronte suffered over the anxiety that she had wounded Gideon didn’t last. She moped about it for days and finally decided that she would try to make it up to him the next time he initiated sex. She’d been too caught up in enjoying what he was doing to her to even think about trying to pleasure him in the same way. It occurred to her, though, that that was what she needed to do to make amends, not merely allow him to take his pleasure but to go out of her way to give him pleasure herself. If she demonstrated her feelings, he was bound to realize that she did not want anything to happen to him … to any of them. She didn’t hate them. It was important that they know she didn’t.

She could simply tell them, of course, but she saw no reason why they would believe her. She didn’t think they would’ve believed her before they had caught her at the helm. It seemed much less likely they would believe her now. In fact, it was more likely that they would only become deeply suspicious … more suspicious than they already were. Because she couldn’t deny the fact that she’d nipped their budding trust and wasn’t likely to regain it.

It was Jerico who gave her the first opportunity, however. Unfortunately, she was so caught up in worrying that Gideon might take it badly if he was second when it was him she had talked so nasty to that she was thoroughly enthralled before she could reason it out. She was dismayed when he broke away from her almost as abruptly as he had seized her. Feeling perfectly blank when he left, she finally decided he’d abandoned her because he had been hurt, too, and he had thought she didn’t want him to continue because she hadn’t tried to encourage him to.

She should, she thought unhappily, have realized that they must all know what Gideon knew, or thought he knew.

By the end of the week, she was forced to accept that they were actually avoiding her. They weren’t even resting in the sleeping quarters anymore if she was in the room. She didn’t know where they were sleeping, but it wasn’t anywhere around her.

This was much, much worse than she’d thought it was! As loath as she was to accept it, it seemed unavoidable that they thought she might try to smother them in their sleep or something equally underhanded.

Becoming desperate, she finally decided to try the same tact with Gideon that she had tried with Jerico the first time. She made sure she was in the shower, available and naked, when she knew it was time for him to take his bath.

Her belly tightened with nerves the moment she realized he’d entered the room. She braced herself for impact. When nothing happened beyond him standing as still as a statue, she pretended she still hadn’t noticed him and began to soap herself as seductively as she could manage given that she was shaking all over with a combination of nerves and need. She was still annoyed with him for arousing her so thoroughly, until she was ready to scream with need, and then abandoning her. That only made her more needy now, though. She thought she would’ve been even if Jerico hadn’t left her wanting, because this was Gideon, but that unpleasant conclusion certainly hadn’t helped matters.

Her body was already hot and liquid with desire and he hadn’t even touched her. She had to remind herself that she couldn’t just allow him to ease his need on her. She had to give to him, show him with caresses that she did care about him. She didn’t want anything to happen to him … even if she had mentally called down curses on him and thought, for a little while, that she hoped an asteroid would land on him.

Relief flooded her when he stepped into the bathing unit with her, caught her against his chest and then pinned her between himself on the wall. Shuddering as he captured her face with her hands and covered her mouth, as if he thought she would try to elude him if he didn’t hold her, she pushed herself up on her tiptoes and looped her arms around his neck. And, despite the dizzying rush of burning need, as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, she kissed him back, stroking her tongue along his as he caressed her.

He began to shake worse than she was as she rubbed herself against his chest, arching her hips to press her mound against his erection. Uttering a deep groan after only a moment, he wrenched himself away from her and moved beneath the shower spray. It took her a moment to gather her wits and brace her wobbly knees.

Dismay filled her as she stared at his broad back.

Swallowing with an effort against the sense of hurt and anger that welled in her at his blatant rejection of her overtures, she finally decided she probably deserved it. She should not have been surprised that he was unwilling to allow her to try