Bad Boys Over Easy Read online

  Was this what being in love really felt like?

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out.” She took special care to look good. Gideon was coming over for dinner, an invitation that she had spontaneously, and without warning, issued the other night when he’d walked her home. Bummed that he hadn’t even tried for that good-night kiss, she’d blurted out that she would like to fix him dinner Saturday night.

  He’d looked surprised, then amazed, as he’d answered that he’d love to come for dinner. With another sexy grin and a light touch of his hand upon her cheek, he’d walked away, leaving her feeling slightly tipsy and aroused outside her apartment building.

  Now it was Saturday, dinner was warming in the oven, and she was trying to make herself look desirable yet not too eager for her date with Gideon.

  She wanted to have sex with a Cupid. God, that sounded kinky. Yet just the thought of kissing him again, of having his hands and that wicked mouth on her, anywhere on her, had her heart rate speeding up and little shivers of desire working their way up and down her spine.

  This surely had to be a sorry state of affairs.

  If it was the last thing he did, he was going to kiss her again.

  Gideon stood outside Val’s door, a bouquet of yellow roses in one hand and the other hand poised to knock.

  He’d given in and talked to McCabe about the whole thing. Finally going to work had actually eased some of the tension he’d been suffering from and, as unlikely as it sounded, McCabe had improved his mood even more.

  “Go for it.” His advice had been short and to the point, but he’d given Gideon the go-ahead to do what he’d wanted to do all along.

  Now here he was, ready to have dinner with the woman that he was in love with. If he could just get through the meal without acting like an idiot, or suggesting that they go to bed like he really wanted them to do, all would be fine. He hoped.

  He knocked once, and when almost a minute went by with no response, he raised his hand to knock again. Before he could connect with the door, it flew open in a whirlwind of motion—all he saw was long black hair flying, a short blue dress swirling, and spots that suddenly danced behind his eyes. And, of course, he felt quite well the rush of blood that landed somewhere below the waistband of his slacks.

  “Hi.” It was pretty lame as greetings went, but Gideon couldn’t quite think straight. Val was gorgeous; he’d already known that, but tonight she was absolutely beautiful.

  It wasn’t helping to tamp down his love and desire to get her horizontal one bit.

  “Hi. Are those for me?” She was looking at the flowers, and Gideon was looking at the smooth skin of her thigh he could see where the hem of her dress ended.

  He cleared his throat and extended the roses to her, pulling up what he hoped would be a charming smile. “Yes. I heard a rumor that you were partial to yellow roses.”

  “Well, then, the rumor was right. Come in?”

  Val backed up a step, and he made his way in. And then he stopped, only a hairbreadth and a bouquet of flowers separating their bodies in the doorway.

  Looking down at her, thoughts swirled in his mind of what their future held, of what living with her for eternity would be like. Of what their children would look like. He thought of introducing her to his parents, and it warmed his heart. He thought, all in the space of less than a minute, of what living and loving with Valentine Lewis would be like.

  It made the band of stress that had been circling his gut let go, and it left a feeling like none he’d ever known circulating throughout his body. Gideon loved Val, and if the look in her cerulean blue eyes as she stared up into his own was any indication, she felt the same way.

  He was going to kiss her now, and to hell with the consequences. These were unusual circumstances, and he was an unusual guy. Val was, by all accounts, the most unusual woman he’d ever met. In his book, that called for desperate measures.

  Gideon didn’t ask for permission, or even wait to see if she would grant it. He wrapped one hand in that long silk curtain of dark hair, planted his other hand at her waist, and lowered his lips to hers as her mouth opened in surprise.

  This was no casual kiss, no consoling touch of lips like the one he’d given her in the bar the other night. This was passion, flowing out of him and into her, and to his relief, vice versa.

  Closer. He needed to get closer. It was the only thing he could think as her tongue touched his, as her hands lost their grip on the roses and he felt them instead in his hair.

  He’d never tasted anything sweeter than her kiss. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard sounds that were half-moans and half-pants, and he couldn’t tell if they were coming from him or Val.

  Gideon didn’t really care. He left her lips long enough to trail his mouth over her cheek and lightly nipped her earlobe. Fighting the fire that was raging inside of him, he tried to slow down the burn that was surely going to ignite into a wildfire. He trailed his lips across her eyelids, down the bridge of her nose, down to her neck where he lightly licked the pulse that was beating there.

  Val’s hands were everywhere—in his hair, gripping his shoulders, at his waist. Letting his own hands wander, he ran them down the bare expanse of her arms and felt the flesh rise with goose bumps. Bringing his mouth back to hers, he lightly ran his palms down the silk of her dress at her waist, until his fingers lingered where the skirt ended.

  She was a wiggling mass of desire pressed firmly against him, and Gideon suddenly felt like a virgin alone for the first time in the company of a ready and willing woman.

  His mood was abruptly shattered when he realized that he was a virgin alone with a ready and willing woman for the first time.

  Gideon forced himself to pull back gently, and the glazed look in her eyes had his erection growing larger and harder. Damn, but he hurt. He wanted to make love with Val, but he was suddenly confused and not a little afraid. This was the woman he was destined to love forever, and he needed to do this right. A quickie against her open apartment door wasn’t what he’d had in mind.

  He cleared his throat and ran his hand once more across the ebony silk of her hair. “Maybe we should shut the door, Val. And then we can talk about where this is leading.”

  Where this was leading? She knew damn well where it was leading. To her bed, if she had anything to say about it. Or the couch. Or damn it, they could just keep going right where they were standing. Oh dear God, what was she thinking? Was she crazy?

  But Gideon looked so good, hair rumpled and eyes wide with desire. And she could feel him, still, the way his erection had pushed against her belly and caused a fire to light there.

  It had been a very long time since Val had felt that rush of passion. When she mixed in the love that was churning around her heart, it was one heck of a heady feeling. And now the nitwit wanted to talk—again. Maybe that was good. Maybe it would calm her beating heart, would give her time to figure out what she felt, what she wanted. Give her time to contemplate what being in love—and lust—with a Cupid really meant.

  She took a deep breath and picked up her roses from where they’d fallen on the floor. Turning away from him, she left Gideon to close the door. She had to smile when she heard the locks, all three of them, slide closed.

  “Would you like something to drink? I’ll have dinner on the table in about fifteen minutes.”

  Val glanced back over her shoulder as she opened the refrigerator and noticed that Gideon hadn’t moved from his spot just inside the doorway.

  “You can come in,” she laughed.

  He finally moved, hesitantly it seemed, to perch on the edge of her cream-colored sofa. Val poured them each a glass of wine, then picked up her roses from the counter. Rummaging around under her kitchen cabinets, she finally found a cut-glass vase. Filling the vase with water, adding just a pinch of sugar the way her mother had taught her, then adding the flowers gave her something to do with her hands.

  When she’d finally placed the vase in the middle of he
r small table, she had nothing left to do but take Gideon his wine. Suddenly, she was nervous, and the only way to get rid of it was to keep busy—keep talking.

  She sat on the matching chair across from him, a glass and bronze coffee table between them. Handing him his glass, she smiled into his eyes, and felt a shiver run through her at the desire she saw there.

  Seems he hadn’t been as unaffected by their kiss as she’d thought.

  “Well then. What should we talk about?”

  “Anything you’d like.”

  Not much of a talker tonight, but that was okay, since no one had ever called her shy and quiet.

  “How old are you?” It was a question that had been burning a hole in her head for days.

  Gideon’s eyes widened slightly and Val watched as he took a gulp of wine. “Yes, well, I guess you got right to the point, didn’t you?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No.” He looked down into his wineglass, fingering the stem nervously. “I just don’t want you to panic when I tell you.”

  Val’s laughter sounded slightly hysterical, even to her own ears. “Why in God’s name would I panic? You can’t be, what, more than thirty-five or so.”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “Well, then, see, that wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

  “One hundred and thirty-two.”

  The wine she’d just swallowed got stuck somewhere on its way down. She didn’t choke, but it was close. It landed, at last, with a thud in the pit of her stomach, and her hand clenched the glass so hard she was afraid it might shatter. Holy hell, please tell me he didn’t just say what I know he just said.

  “Tell me I heard you wrong.”

  Gideon finally glanced up from the liquid in his glass and smiled. It looked a little ragged at the edges, but he was trying. “You didn’t hear me wrong.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.” Val sat her wine down on the coffee table and quickly rose. “Let me get dinner out of the oven, and then we’ll talk about this some more.” After I have time to figure out what I’m supposed to do with a man, a Cupid, who is over one hundred years old. What the hell is happening to me?

  As she removed the roast from the oven, it occurred to her that they’d been doing a lot of talking lately. Seems that all they did, really, was talk—and yet she still had so many questions that it felt as if her head would explode with them.

  Would it ever end? Would she ever know everything there was to know in this situation?

  As she set out serving dishes and placed the rolls in a basket, she realized that it might not even matter. Did two people ever know everything about each other? All couples had secrets, or if not secrets, had things about themselves, about their pasts, that didn’t come up until later in their relationship. Was this any different?

  Sure, she wanted to know how being a Cupid worked. She wanted to know how he spent his days, and his nights. Val wanted to know about his family, his ethics, the things that made him sad and those that made him happy.

  And she wanted to know what he looked like naked.

  Her hands shook so badly on that last thought that the basket she’d been holding hit the tabletop with a bang, and rolls spilled over the top to land next to her vase. Naked. Well. That about summed it up, didn’t it?

  “It’s time to eat.”

  They sat across from each other, a quiet settling between them that wasn’t all that pleasant. Here she was, Miss Can’t-shut-me-up-if-you-slapped-duct-tape-over-my-mouth, and she couldn’t think of a thing to say to the man sitting across from her.

  Val cleaned her plate in silence. She could hear the ticking of her kitchen clock, which sounded ungodly loud this evening. She even swore that the sounds of her chewing were echoing off canyons somewhere. Dear God, had she ever gone this long without talking?

  It was too much. Here she was, sitting across from a man who she undeniably had feelings for, and they were studiously avoiding contact. They weren’t even looking at each other, for Pete’s sake. The craziness had gone on long enough. Valentine was a woman of action, by God, and if ever there was a time for action, this was it. Manners be damned, because it was show time.

  “Enough.” It had come out louder than she’d intended, and Gideon’s fork dropping onto his plate sounded like a ricocheting bullet in her small kitchen area. “What the hell are we doing, Gideon?”

  He cleared his throat, but he at least looked at her. That was an improvement. “I think we’re trying to get comfortable with each other, and it doesn’t seem to be working.”

  “You can say that again. Okay, enough of this crap.” Val pushed her chair back from the table and placed her hands, palms down, on the table. Leaning toward him, she saw his eyes widen and a smile tug at the corners of his lips.

  Her face was only inches from his, and she could see her reflection in the velvety smoothness of his brown eyes. Val had never been so intrigued with a man’s eyes before—then again, she’d never felt like she was free-falling into a lake with no bottom.

  “I think we need to cut to the chase, as they say. You’re a Cupid, I’m not. You’re over a hundred years old, and I’m not. Those are the obvious.” She took a deep breath and leaned closer still, until her lips were only a breath away from Gideon’s. “What’s not so obvious, at least on the outside, is the fact that we’re in the middle of something that neither of us can stop. I have feelings for you that I’ve never felt for anyone else. I can’t say it’s love, not yet, because I’m just not sure. But there’s something there, and a lot of it is chemistry.”

  Val leaned forward, until her mouth was at the corner of his lips. “I’m thinking that the chemistry between us is just about hot enough to self-combust. And I really, really want to find out if that’s true.” She flicked her tongue out, just enough to wet his bottom lip, and something unfurled deep in her belly at his hiss of indrawn breath.

  “So why don’t we leave the niceties to later, and work on the chemistry first. Come to bed with me, Gideon, and show me what a Cupid can do.”

  Seven

  January 20, 2004

  Cupid Headquarters

  Circle of the Three

  “Should we intervene, Your Excellence?” Dimitria’s voice was soft, a tinkling of chimes on a windy day. “I don’t know if we should allow Gideon to, well…” Her words died off as her hands fluttered before her.

  Eros let out a chuckle, raising an eyebrow at Dimitria’s stern look of disapproval. The look on Jonathan’s face was one he didn’t think he’d ever forget. Gideon’s father was hovering somewhere between disbelief and horror, and Eros had to admit that it was quite humorous to watch.

  “We have let this thing go on this long without intervention. Why should I stir the pot with my own hand now?”

  “Eros,” Dimitria said, “you know why. Gideon is about to…he’s thinking about…I think he’s going to…” Her words ended on a sigh of frustration. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  His laugh was deep and bounced off the chamber where the Circle had convened. “Of course, dear lady, I know what you’re talking about. Is it the right choice, this path that Gideon and Valentine Lewis are embarking on? I cannot say for sure. But I will tell you one thing, both of you.”

  He moved around on his throne, turning to face his consorts. “I will not interfere with what the gods have begun. I have learned, in all of these thousands of years, that things happen for a reason. Your son, Jonathan, was destined to be Val’s soul mate. Can I explain it? Of course not. But I know it to be true, and I will not interfere.

  “So my dear, dear Dimitria, we will close the curtains now and let Gideon follow his own path. I think that this is one job that our boy can figure out all on his own.”

  January 20, 2004

  Val’s Bedroom

  Gideon was trapped in a purgatory of his own making. Hovering in some nowhere land between sheer terror and absolute delight at knowing that he was going to have sex with Val, he had no idea what
to do.

  How the hell did you tell the woman you loved that you were a one-hundred-thirty-two-year-old virgin?

  Gee, Val, the thing is, I love you with all of my heart and soul, but there’s something you need to know. When I take my clothes off, you’re going to see my wings—and oh, by the way, I’ve never had sex before.

  Yeah. That was going to go over real well.

  So instead of thinking, he let his mind wander over nothing as Val led him down the hallway and into the bedroom. Once there, in the darkness that was only slightly alleviated by a sliver of moon shining through her window, she turned to him, her body fitting perfectly with his.

  Now this he could do. All he had to do was give in to the passion that flowed through his veins, the need and desire to be with this woman, and he could act with confidence.

  Gideon felt Val’s arms on his back. It seemed that his every nerve ending was attuned to her—to the way she smelled, like tropical flowers after a rain. To the way she felt, soft and pliant against his own hard body. Even the way she moved her palms in slow circles against his back. He could feel her breath through the material of his shirt.

  He brought one hand up to smooth the hair back from her face, then let it linger, along her cheek, down the fine arch of her neck, across one shoulder as he made his way down to her waist. His thumb brushed, ever so lightly, against the outer curve of her breast on his way down. Gideon heard her breath stumble, felt her hands grab his shirt as she moved closer to him.

  It seemed to be as elemental, as timeless, as time itself. He might not know the intricacies of making love, but he knew, deep down inside where it mattered, that he could please her. Small touches, light caresses upon her body, would bring her to a pinnacle of desire that he alone would be able to take her over.

  The thought thrilled him. It didn’t matter that he was inexperienced. What mattered was that right now, at this perfect moment in time, they were together, edging toward something that neither one of them was likely to forget.