My one. My only.

If only …

And then her mouth met his, and he couldn’t think at all. There was only Carly, the sensation of her, and for now, it was enough.

The crush of their lips against one another wasn’t remotely gentle, and yet there was a sweetness to it as he felt Carly’s hand thread up through his hair, as she dragged him down to her. Her small hand curled in his hair as she gave in to him, making a sexy little whimper in the back of her throat as she opened her mouth to his, willingly giving herself to him, asking without words for more. And Gideon was more than happy to oblige. He angled his head to deepen the kiss, sliding his hands down to cup her backside and bring her up even closer against him, letting her feel how she affected him, how hard he always seemed to be for her. She strained against him while he nipped at her lips, matched the wild rhythm of her tongue as it rubbed against his.

She wasn’t quite through being angry yet. He could feel it, and oh, he knew even better than she did that she was well within her rights, even though he knew he’d never be as sorry as he ought to be. If things had been different, after all, he might not be here with this beautiful woman in his arms, enjoying the benefits of her decision to channel all of her anger into sexual energy that he could reap the benefits of.

“Gideon,” she sighed as she moved her head to kiss along his jawline, to nibble at his ear. And some dim, still active part of his common sense told him that if they didn’t stop, now, he was going to have her on the floor in a matter of minutes. Calm down, he commanded himself. Carly nipped at his neck and slid her legs around him, immediately negating any effect that might have had. A few more minutes of this could hardly be a bad thing, after all.

Gideon was just lowering her to the floor when he heard the bell above the door jingle out in the shop, and a female voice call Carly’s name. Damn. And she’d just about convinced him to postpone their talk for a bit, too. Bloody commerce. Didn’t people here look out the window at that much snow and figure staying in was better than going out? Well, he supposed, there was nothing for it now.

“Carly,” he said softly as he straightened. He nuzzled her neck, trailed kisses down it even as he told her to stop. “Carly, love. I’m afraid we’ve got company.”

“Mmm.” She continued her tender assault on his ear. “That’s nice.”

She had no idea, he thought as he bit back a groan. “Unless you want to put on a show for them, which you’ve nearly convinced me to do at this point, you might want to think about saving this for later.”

“Later. Customer.” She breathed against his neck, but then some part of what he’d said seemed to get through. Carly raised her head to look at him, and he had to smile. She was delightfully mussed, her lips full and rosy from his kisses. Her eyes were slightly glazed, and all of that blond hair he wanted so desperately to get his hands in was coming loose from the elastic she’d pulled it back with.

Ravished, she looked. Gideon liked knowing he was responsible for it. It certainly suited her. He’d never met a woman who could surprise him so with her moods. Carly Silver was shy and proper one moment, cool and collected the next, and then a fiery little tigress who’d just as likely claw your eyes out as tear your clothes off and devour you. He had underestimated her, he saw now, and was sorry for it. How much, he didn’t know. But he would certainly file that revelation away for future reference.

“Customer. Oh. God.” Her eyes cleared. “Um. Do you think you could put me down?”

And just like that, she was back to shy and proper. Gideon grinned.

“Then you’ve decided not to throw me out?”

She just sighed, but there was a twinkle in her eye. “Could you have been any more persuasive?”

The woman’s voice called again, a note of concern in it this time. Going against what he wanted to do, Gideon lowered Carly back to her feet.

“Go on, then. We can continue this very, mmm, stimulating conversation when you’re through.”

“When I’m through?” Carly smiled now, but there was a hint of something in it Gideon wasn’t sure he liked. “Oh no, pal. You might have convinced me to let you stay, but my benevolence doesn’t come for free. And if you’re going to be protecting me, I see no reason why you can’t make yourself useful.”

Gideon felt himself wince as he caught her meaning. He’d been impressed, from what he’d seen, with her whimsical little hobbit hole of a shop, full of books he’d never dream of opening and lovely, sparkling things he’d likely never buy. Too female, although he got the appeal. Sort of. But spending the day there would be like living on another planet. And that, he saw, was exactly what she was intending.

“Slave labor?”

Her smile deepened, and Gideon was helpless in the face of Carly’s winking dimples.

“Exactly.”

Resistance, he could see, was futile. And so, trying not to drag his feet so that she’d notice, Gideon followed her out into the store … and onto Venus.

Chapter Ten

ONE OF THE THINGS ABOUT LIVING IN A SMALL TOWN that could be both a blessing and a curse was the tendency for news to travel at roughly the speed of sound. As Carly stood at the door of Bodice Rippers, watching the slow, swirling fall of snowflakes in the fading half-light and feeling the ache in the arches of her feet that always meant a productive day, she had to concede that today was one of the ones where it leaned decidedly toward blessing.

She flipped the sign to CLOSED, braced her palms in the small of her back, and stretched. Who would have thought that word she had somehow found a cover-hunkquality Highlander to work in the store for the day would have brought out the entire female (and, truth be told, a little of the male) population of a town that was still, for all practical purposes, snowed in? The predicted rotten weather, however, hadn’t returned, and apparently everyone was tired of being cooped up. The plows had been out in force, and although the snow banks were piled several feet high in some places, Jamison Winslow, who owned the sporting goods shop just down the street, had been busy with his extremely large snowblower clearing the sidewalks all morning.

Kinnik’s Harbor was waking back up, and apparently, in desperate need of entertainment. Well, Carly thought with a smile, they wouldn’t be hearing any complaints from her. And Celestine and her mouth, she decided, were deserving of some freebies the next time they came in. Because it had been the best day, profit-wise, since the weather had turned cold, gray, and snowy almost a month ago. Fall-That-Was-Really-Winter was an old tradition in this part of New York, and this year had been no exception. The problem was, when it happened, it was always a crapshoot as to whether people were actually going to work up the energy to get off their rear ends and leave their houses.

Apparently, Carly mused as she heard the scrape of a box across the floor and an irritable sigh behind her, she’d found the secret for making them do it. All she had to do was have a muscular hunk in the shop bending and lifting all day, every day, and she’d be a millionaire inside of a year.

Six months if she got him to wear a kilt, she thought, picturing it with a wicked grin.

Of course, she would also be hot, bothered, and continually, annoyingly jealous of the masses of eye-batting, tight-shirt wearing females who flocked in to hang all over this particular hunk all day. She pursed her lips, turned her head towards her grumpy, unwilling volunteer. It was entirely possible, she decided, that the ulcers she was bound to get wouldn’t be worth it.

She had to bite back her smile when she looked at Gideon. Judging by the sour expression on his face, the rumpled, slightly sweaty appearance of him, and the large, book-filled box at his feet that he looked very close to drop-kicking, he wouldn’t see the humor in anything right about now.

“You wanted these where, Highness?”

Ouch, Carly thought with a small wince. It was possible she’d worked him a little hard today, she supposed. Not that he hadn’t deserved it. But her stockroom really had needed reorganizing. And the new historicals really had needed their own display. And an awful lot of the customers had seemed to want Gideon’s help, specifically, in finding titles, even though everything was clearly marked and alphabetized by author.

Well. It was probably time to end his torment.

“You know, I can get that myself tomorrow. Just leave it.”

He looked at her darkly. “With pleasure.” And then he did kick the box, sending it skidding across the floor to stop beside the counter.

“Hey,” Carly complained, even though instinct told her to leave it be. “I have to sell those, Gideon.” And then she had to make herself stand her ground, because Gideon, looking more than a little mutinous, stalked over to stand only inches away from her, plucking a book from the box and dangling it before him like something unpleasantly smelly and dead on his way.

“I’m aware of that, Carly,” he growled, and there was more than a hint of wolf in it. “I have, in fact, been up to my bloody ears in what you sell all day. I have learned the subtle and fascinating differences between subgenres, been lectured on what does and does not constitute a decent sex scene, and stood in the middle of the most bloodydamn boring debate in history about romantic cover art. I have also,” he continued as Carly found herself taking an involuntary step back from the force of his onslaught, “had my ass pinched, patted, grabbed, and otherwise fondled every time I turned around, all in the name of making you happy. And so, Miss Silver,” he finished, his voice dropping even further towards possibly violent, “I must ask: are you happy?”

She honestly didn’t know whether to giggle or run screaming. He was kind of sexy when he was pissed off, though. Even if he looked just about ready to bite her. She finally managed a response that to her sounded like nothing more than a high-pitched squeak.

“Uh-huh.” She nodded, and she knew her lips were quivering with that unwanted giggle. To his credit, when he noticed, Gideon simply glared at her, spun on his heel, and stalked back into the stockroom. When the thumping and banging started, Carly gave up, pressing her hands to her mouth and laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes. It really was sweet that he’d stayed and been her slave for the day. Not that she’d meant to torture him … at least, not quite so much. And who had been grabbing his ass all day?