Page 108 of A Shot at Love
She paid the bills that had come in while she was gone, checked her bank balance for any Internet transactions and payments deposited in her absence and then realized she was hungry.
Dinner was a bowl of Kandy’s fish chowder and a couple slices of sour dough bread, after which exhaustion once again dragged her to bed.
One day home and no word from Ky. Before she fell asleep Gemma told herself he was busy righting all the wrongs Ritandi and Tiege had created. He’d call when he could.
Day two she awoke with more energy. When her phone was still empty of any word from Ky, she pouted, got ready for the day and decided to work.
Now that she’d joined the land of the living and employed again, she needed to pay attention to all her projects. She dug out her cameras and hooked them up to her home computer.
The images she’d taken of Ky in bed popped up immediately, filling her screen and kicking her pulse into high gear.
He truly was a magnificent man. Every curve and dip in his chest and abdomen, where the muscles grouped and flexed, was perfection. Memories of all that power and strength above her, surrounding her, inside her, shot to the front of her mind. Gemma closed her eyes and sat back, just letting them play through.
She missed him. Pure and simple. Alone in the privacy of her home, safe and secure from any threats, and free to let her mind explore, she could finally admit what she truly felt for him.
And it was more than the simple longing she’d tried to convince herself it was.
Much more.
Was she was in love with him? She’d never been in love with any man before, so her reference for what she was feeling was nil. But there could be no other explanation for what she was going through. Her mind drifted to his image no matter what she was doing. His was the last face she saw before falling asleep, the first thing that popped into her head upon awakening, and her dreams were filled with him. His voice, his expressions, the way his eyes stared at her when he was inside her, as if he could read her thoughts.
He’d snuck past her all her defenses, sidestepped her protective nature, and grabbed hold of her heart with his hands.
It wasn’t just the physical part of him that she craved, either. Oh, that was great enough. Gemma was a woman who knew the benefits of physical pleasure and she enjoyed sex. Sex with Ky was amazing. He’d approached it the way he seemed to everything else in his life: calmly, thoroughly, and with full commitment. The way she’d felt when he kissed her, as if he owned her body and soul, had been a heady experience, and she’d remembered thinking what unbelievable and complete power there was in surrender. It sounded crazy, but to give all her control over to him, to trust him with everything she was and had, was stupefying.
Physically, they were a near-perfect match. In so many other ways, though, they were as well. He was a competent straight man to her many snarky remarks, able to toss out a dead-aimed zinger of his own now and again. They both enjoyed martial arts, and what she might lack in body strength, she more than made up for in skill. Ky had even admitted she was masterful with weapons. They both liked to cook, although she easily conceded he was the better chef.
Family had come first, last, and always to her, and it did to Ky as well. The way his eyes had gone soft and loving when he’d spoken of his siblings, or quoted his mother or grandmother, showed her he was the type of man who valued those he loved.
Every way she looked at him, inside, out, physically, mentally, and spiritually, Kyros Pappandreos was a man—the only man—she could picture giving her heart to and entrusting him with.
She hit the scroll button on her laptop and stopped at every photo she’d taken of him. In the garage while he’d been pummeling the punching bag, drenched in sweat and looking like a powerful machine; seated on the couch while he’d been hatching his plan with Rick, thoughtful and pensive; the pictures of him naked and spread across the bed, a sheet covering him from the waist down, a look of drowsy sexual satisfaction in his eyes. Satisfaction from what they’d just shared.
A single tear slipped down her cheek. Gemma laughed out loud, not missing the irony of crying over a man when she’d spent a lifetime protecting herself from ever doing just that.
