Telling Gideon about Abby is like waking up to a new dawn. My entire body feels lighter, freer, and the tension is gone from my shoulders. I thought it was serene before, sitting out here in the morning sunlight, watching the waves roll in, eating a five-star breakfast. Now it’s like something out of a dream—almost too perfect to be real.

Although, if I think about it, this entire thing is too perfect to be real, right down to the staff member in crisp shorts and a white, short-sleeved dress shirt who appeared at the front door of the cottage only a few minutes after I’d wandered out into the living room, showered and fresh, my perfectly fitting outfit whisper-smooth against my skin.

When I opened the door, he pulled a rolling tray in behind him with a quiet nod. “Good morning, Ms. Hawke.”

I’d gone pink at the mistake, but didn’t correct him. As long as I’m here, in what’s turning out to be an extended daydream with sex so hot I would never have imagined possible before this, I can let the innocent mistakes slide. I can be “Ms. Hawke” for a minute before Gideon wakes up.

Even after he returns to his seat, reclined under its own umbrella, I still don’t mention what he said to me last night. I don’t breathe a word about it, though the memory causes a new rush of heat to work its way down my spine, and a new warmth to spread across my chest, soaking my heart in its glow.

I want to turn to him right now, when he’s midway through eating his second slice of bacon, and tell him that I love him, too. I should have said it last night, because it’s truer than anything else I’ve ever felt for another person in my life. But it’s also such a fierce, wild emotion that I don’t know if I can depend on it to really be true. I don’t know. Yet.

What I learned yesterday is that I can depend on Gideon.

“Now’s my chance,” he says suddenly, breaking into my thoughts.

“Your chance to do what?”

“Ask you more questions.” He raises his eyebrows and pops a strawberry into his mouth. “Now that we’re out of that whole ‘dessert conversation’ phase.” Then he narrows his eyes, giving me a playfully searching expression. “Unless there’s something else you want to tell me.” Gideon purses his lips, considering. “I don’t think you have any deeper, darker secrets, do you? Besides the fact that you like to get a little kinky when—”

“Gideon!” My face has gone redder than the strawberries on Gideon’s plate.

He laughs, the sound rich and pure. “What? There’s nobody else around, and the staff here are always sworn to secrecy about anything they might overhear.” He reaches for more bacon. He drops his voice. “Last night was hot as hell, Kennedy. I hope you feel the same way.”

A shiver of pleasure jolts down between my legs, and my breath picks up the pace. “I do feel the same way.” All those hours blur together into one big fantasy. “Were you really after other dark secrets? Because I don’t have any. I’m not some kind of undercover spy, or anything like that. I’m really a fancy travel agent who never goes anywhere.”

“Not never. You’re here with me right now.” Gideon slides his plate onto the table between us and stands up, stretching, his t-shirt lifting to expose his hard-as-rock abs.

I put my plate down, too.

Before I can stand up, Gideon crosses over to me, kneels down next to my chair, and presses his lips against mine. I’m instantly wet, despite how long we devoured each other last night, and without thinking I spread my legs, leaning back into the chair.

He puts one hand on my knee and runs it slowly up my thigh until his fingers make contact with the barely-there panties I’m wearing under this, and as he continues kissing me, gently, mindful of the fact that my lips are still sensitive from last night, he pulls them down to my knees. I raise my hips from the chair to help him, but there’s a little seed of anxiety brewing down in my gut.

“We’re outside…” I whisper the words against his mouth. “Anyone could walk over and see…”

He leans in closer, his fingers inching back up again, stroking my slit with the most gentle pressure imaginable. I moan a little, and he answers me with words that send a spike of pleasure straight to my nipples. “Would you really mind if someone saw us?” His voice is so low that I want to wrap my entire body around it and never let go.

“That would be…” He’s playing me like a master musician, the waves of heat radiating from my core like a sonata. “That would be so embarrassing—”

“Would it? Or would it be hot for someone else to stumble upon you—you, Kennedy Carlisle—coming so sweetly on my cock, giving yourself to me again?”

I fight to open my eyes. “I’m not on your cock right now.”

He laughs, the sound so sexy it almost pushes me over the brink into an orgasm. “Stand up.”

He pulls his hand away and I groan at the loss of his touch, but scramble to right myself into a standing position. Gideon puts his hands on my hips and guides me to the back of the lounge chair, then puts his hands on mine and curls them around the sturdy metal backing. “Bend over.”

I bend, the breeze blowing between my spread legs, whispering against my exposed pussy, and then Gideon is pushing into me from behind, his hands bracing himself on my hips, and his knees knocking my legs farther apart.

It’s so intense that I cry out, but Gideon doesn’t raise his hand to cover my mouth. “That’s it, pretty thing. You love this.”

“I love it,” I gasp, as he starts a slow, powerful rhythm, plunging deeper inside me with every thrust, stretching me and claiming me again, right out here in the open, where anyone could see. My nipples are rock-hard at the thought of someone coming across Gideon taking me like this, and even though the cottage’s private beach is silent except for the sound of the wind and the waves, imagining their eyes on us, burning with jealousy, makes me gush around him.

I’m swollen and sensitive with pleasure, but every movement he makes around me is a revelation, and he must feel it, too, because he doesn’t linger. The moment I start to come, knees shaking, legs trembling, every muscle clenching around him, he comes, too, hips rocketing into me.

When we’re finished, he pulls me upright and wraps his arms around me, letting me lean my head against his shoulder. The breeze is warm and sweet, and I close my eyes, trying to memorize how it feels to be here in this moment.

Then Gideon slides his hands down to the hem of my dress, pulls it over my head, and undoes the clip of my bra. His voice vibrating next to my ear is sultry. “Time for a swim, don’t you think?”