The Gideon Affair

Paying homage to the sexy ink trail, she traced each line, swirl, and curve with her tongue until she was face-to-face with a ferociously aroused shaft that twitched with a plea for attention.

Very nice but there was the little matter of the ink trail. She wasn’t quite finished. Pushing his thigh higher revealed the seam between his leg and torso where the wicked tattoo shot further south and started to curve under his balls. Tender territory she made short work of tonguing.

His hand went to the thickened shaft on his stomach, covering it with his big fingers and pulling it up and out of her way. Come on, seriously. Could this get any hotter?

After devoting some time and attention on the twin spheres that she noted were way more sensitive and groan inducing than she ever imagined, it was well past time to take other matters into her own hands. Pushing his hand aside, Paige experienced a drenching rush of heat as a wicked pulse of fiery arousal scorched her center when her fingers wrapped around him.

His quiet groan pushed her on.

In the muted light of a new day’s dawn, she let the sight of his naked beauty and what her hands were doing to his manhood mark her soul. Exquisite emotion filled her up. He meant more to her than she could ever express. Friend. Lover. Mate. Being together at last was so right that the awareness blinded her.

And so, with her beautiful man’s hand tangled in her hair and the other clutching the bed sheets, she reduced him to a quivering mess. Eventually, she broke him down, and he bucked silently, once, twice, three times. A long, drawn-out growl quietly broke free as he released in her throat.

Maybe this separate rooms thing wasn’t such a shitty idea after all.

Edward barely bit off a yawn as he cooled his heels in a diner that had a sign in the window that said, Eat, Then Get Hell Out. He was waiting for his dad who was down the street schmoozing with a town official, handling whatever official paperwork needed to happen for Paige and him to get married.

It had been an exhausting day so far. They’d been on the move, getting shit done, as his father irreverently put it, since the wedding was happening on what could only be described as the fast track. While the women were off doing bridal crap, his dad and he were wrestling all the practical details to the ground.

Of course, some of his exhaustion could be explained away by the dawn patrol goddess who crept into his bed and seduced him out of sleep and to within an inch of his sanity. That girl had a wicked mouth and just the right amount of gag reflex.

Oh, he’d gotten his too when he shooed her back to her guest room. She’d gone reluctantly, pouting the whole way after refusing to put her nightgown back on. Nope, if he were going to dismiss her from his bed, she would make her displeasure known by stomping naked across the porch. It had been really fu

But the laughter had stopped when he’d silently pointed at the bed—staying under his parents’ radar meant they hadn’t talked, using gestures and head movements instead.

Motioning for her to get on her back and spread her legs, he’d delivered a delicious payback that had ended with his hand covering her mouth to muffle her cries as he licked her to a violent orgasm.

There was no going back to sleep after that.

He’d taken the opportunity while waiting for his dad to FaceTime Mickey for an update. In every way that mattered, his clever fiancée had saved the day with her brilliance. She’d been totally right and had given them the kill switch of all time. According to M, panic over what the FBI was finding out fueled a desperate attempt to deflect attention to Gideon. It was unclear who was the mastermind, but it didn’t matter.

A lot had happened in a short time after Mickey and Edward’s lawyer paid a second visit to Perry Waterman. Almost overnight, Joa

Markus was going down. There was no way to save him. The dumb fucker let his fingers right click and save a few too many Internet files with questionable content. Well, at least Joa

At the secret meeting, Perry got put on blast and had his ass threatened with Mickey’s impressively shady Russian thugs. Basically, he got told to make the tape disappear. If even so much as a whisper of the provably false accusation that it was Gideon fucking the underage girl got out, Perry Waterman could kiss his fortune, and probably a limb, good-bye. They weren’t going to fuck around with this shit anymore.

Moira was all over Phae’s messy part of the sex tape angle. The young woman took everyone by surprise when she issued a statement claiming ownership of the tape. Yes, she’d been underage at the time, but she was with her boyfriend doing what all teenagers did. Why hadn’t she let Gideon off the hook sooner? She got the best line of all and shut down all the doubters by stating that in the Cinci

He couldn’t wait to share all this with Paige. They were passed the whole Edward-Gideon divide. Having time to focus on them had helped. It wasn’t one or the other. This was their life—the one they built together. Being Gideon Shaw was his job, but he wasn’t what he did.

The only thing bothering him at the moment was a bit of anxiety about Paige’s parents because they didn’t like him. Not that anything had ever been said. He found a middle ground with her dad, man stuff mostly, but her mom, she was a problem.

It wasn’t so much that Rose disliked him personally. Oh, there was probably a little of that going on, but he’d been giving this some serious thought lately and had come to an uncomfortable conclusion. With her fancy degree, Rose probably felt her daughter should be upper management at the Four Seasons by now or ru

The revelation had gotten him thinking about a lot of things and prompted a decision he needed to share with his almost wife. Now that he saw things in a different, clearer light—he didn’t give a rat’s ass about Perry Waterman’s promise to give him a boost into the director’s club.

Fuck that. He’d either get there on his own … or not. He wasn’t about handouts and look-the-other-way incentives for getting ahead. Not only that, but the twelve-year plan was also quickly backspacing to the decade mark, and that was being generous. Yeah, he liked making movies, but at some point … nah.

The cowbells hanging on the diner’s door sent a clash of sounds into the air when a group of men came bustling in. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw his dad with that familiar grin moving toward him as two other men walked behind, cackling with laughter.

They all gathered around the booth where he’d set up camp, hollered to the waitress to bring some coffee, then slapped his father on the back and eyed Edward with mocking interest.

“So, this is what a big Holl-E-Wood movie star looks like in the flesh. Seems like you could use a barber, young man,” said a barrel-chested man with a handlebar mustache who probably cracked ‘em up at the senior activity center with his patented cowpoke drawl.