Free Reflected in You: A Crossfire Novel by Sylvia Day

reservations, too. I thought my lingering wariness over Gideon’s sleep disorder was contributing a lot to my wild emotional state. As Cary had recently said, the man I loved was a ticking time bomb, and I shared a bed with him.
    I rinsed out my mouth and dropped my toothbrush back into its holder. “I need a shower.”
    I’d taken one before I crashed, but now I felt dirty again. Cold sweat clung to my skin and when I closed my eyes, I could smell
him
—Nathan—on me.
    Gideon turned on the water, then started stripping, blessedly distracting me with the sight of his gloriously tight body. His muscles were hard and well defined, his build lean yet powerful and elegant.
    I left my clothes where they fell and stepped beneath the steamy spray with a groan. He entered the stall behind me, brushing my hair aside and pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “How are you?”
    “Better.”
Because you’re near.
    His arms wrapped carefully around my waist and he released a shaky exhalation. “I . . . Jesus, Eva. Were you dreaming about Nathan?”
    I took a deep breath. “Maybe one day we’ll talk about our dreams, huh?”
    He inhaled sharply, his fingertips flexing against my hip. “It’s like that, is it?”
    “Yeah,” I muttered. “It’s like that.”
    We stood there for a long moment, surrounded by steam and secrets, physically close yet emotionally distant. I hated it. The urge to cry was overwhelming and I didn’t fight it. It felt good to get it out. All the pressure of the long day seemed to flow out of me as I sobbed.
    “Angel . . .” Gideon pressed into my back, his arms tight around my waist, soothing me with the protective shield of his big body. “Don’t cry . . . God. I can’t take it. Tell me what you need, angel. Tell me what I can do.”
    “Wash it away,” I whispered, leaning into him, needing the comfort of his tender possessiveness. My fingers laced with his against my stomach. “Make me clean.”
    “You are.”
    I sucked in a shuddering breath, shaking my head.
    “Listen to me, Eva. No one can touch you,” he said fiercely. “No one can get to you. Never again.”
    My fingers tightened on his.
    “They’d have to get through me, Eva. And that will never happen.”
    I couldn’t speak past the ache in my throat. The thought of Gideon facing my nightmare . . . seeing the man who’d done those things to me . . . tightened the cold knot that had been sitting in my gut all day.
    Gideon reached for my shampoo and I closed my eyes, shutting it all out, everything but the man whose sole focus at that moment was me.
    I waited, breathless, for the feel of his magic fingers. When it came, I reached out to the wall in front of me for balance. With both palms pressed flat against the cool tile, I savored the feel of his fingertips kneading into my scalp and moaned.
    “Feel good?” he asked, his voice low and rough.
    “Always.”
    I drifted in bliss as he washed and conditioned my hair, shivering lightly as he ran a wide-toothed comb through the soaked strands. I was disappointed when he finished and must have made some sound of regret, because he leaned forward and promised, “I’m not nearly done.”
    I smelled my body wash, then—
    “Gideon.”
    I arched into his soap-slick hands. His thumbs dug gently into the knots in my shoulders, melting them with the perfect amount of pressure. Then he worked his way down my spine . . . my buttocks . . . my legs . . .
    “I’m going to fall,” I slurred, drunk with pleasure.
    “I’ll catch you, angel. I’ll always catch you.”
    The pain and degradation of my memories washed away beneath the selfless reverence of Gideon’s patient caretaking. More than the soap and water, it was his touch that freed me from the nightmare. I turned around at his urging and looked at him crouched before me, his hands gliding up my calves, his body an amazing display of taut flexing muscle. Cupping his jaw, I tilted his head up.
    “You can be so