Captivated by You Chapter 9: Gideon
As usual, this chapter is extremely long and broken into distinct enough chunks that it’s super hard to decide on a title for the post that truly encompasses what the chapter was about. However, I truly believe this one did it justice, because this is the mother fucking chapter of minor characters. I am not exaggerating, there were only a couple villainous minor characters, Eva’s family and Detective Shelly Graves who were MIA. Even fucking Angus has dialogue in this chapter (though you’ll really wish he didn’t.)
Anyway, in case you’d forgotten, when we last left off Gideon seemed really angry at Eva when he caught her talking about his traumatic past with his step father. Gideon quickly ushers Eva into their limo, while Angus looks concerned.
He should be concerned, but not for the reasons Angus (and Eva) are expecting.
I’d nearly stopped the elevator halfway down to fuck Eva against the wall like an animal. The only things that deterred me were the security cameras and watchful guard eyes monitoring the feed.
I wanted to leash her. Sink my teeth into her shoulder as I nailed her. Dominate her. She was a tigress, clawing and hissing at everyone she felt had done me wrong, and I needed to pin her down. Make her submit.
Gideon isn’t mad at Eva, he’s just aroused to the point of seeming furious? He’s so aroused that he needs to describe having Eva submit in a creepy way? But, hey, it can only get creepier, right? Of course, I’m right, this is a Gideon chapter!
She set her hand on my thigh. “Gideon …”
Grabbing that slender hand wearing my ring, I shoved it between my legs and thrust my aching dick into her palm. “Open your mouth again and that’s what I’m putting in it.”
Take note, men, this is one of the top ten ways to make a woman never want your penis anywhere near her mouth. Eva is the exception to the rule.
Angus drives them to their couple’s therapy, which Gideon had forgotten about. This is, of course, super awkward for his erection. [Matthew says: Ariel’s not even making a joke. This is an actual conflict that Gideon muses/angsts about over the course of a half-dozen pages.]
For some reason, this is the moment Sylvia Day decided that Angus needed his chance to shine and be Irish for thirty seconds.
Ducking down, Angus peered in at me. “Couples therapy means the both of you.”
I glared at him. “Stop enjoying this.”
The smile in his eyes curved his lips into a broad grin. “She loves you, lad, whether you like it or naw.”
I do naw like this one bit. [Matthew says: At least we’re not supposed to feel bwessed about it.]
“Of course I like it,” I muttered, glancing over my shoulder to check the traffic before opening my door and stepping out. I rounded the trunk. “That doesn’t mean she’s not a loose cannon.”
Angus shut the door. A rare summer breeze ruffled the graying red hair that peeked out from beneath his chauffeur’s hat.
So I guess this is all the evidence we needed that Angus is Irish? Was this ever mentioned before? [Matthew says: Maybe he’s a teenager from Newark. I hear that “or naw” is popular Newark slang these days.]
What’s even weirder, though, is that when he talks again at the end of this scene, all traces of his accent have suddenly disappeared:
“Why won’t she leave it the hell alone?” I stepped onto the sidewalk, tugging my vest into place and wishing I could straighten my thoughts as easily. “She can’t change the past.”
“It’s not the past she’s thinking of.” He set his hand briefly on my shoulder. “It’s the future.”
Farewell, Angus’ short-lived accent. Also, does this mean Angus knows about Gideon’s past but his step father didn’t? What the fuck? And why is he suddenly in charge of dolling out platitudes disguised as deep wisdom? [Matthew says: Platitudes… wisdom… OH MY GOD. Angus is this book’s Ana’s mom!]
In the therapy session, Gideon doesn’t want to talk about anything that just happened between Eva and Chris (Gideon’s step father), and later Eva confronts him about his evasiveness.
“That peace you’re looking for? You’re pretending you have it during the day and suffering without it at night. It’s tearing you up from the inside, and it’s shredding me watching it happen to you. I don’t want you to live like this forever. I don’t want us to live forever like this.”
I think Eva has a great point here, but I also think she needs to stop confronting people for Gideon before he’s ready. But her next point is so nonsensical, it undermines any good points she makes during this conversation:
“Listen.” She wrapped her legs around my hips. “I said I wasn’t going to push you and I meant it. If we were two years into our relationship, I’d put up a fuss, maybe. But it’s only been a few months, Gideon. The fact that you’re seeing someone and talking about your dad is enough for now.”
So basically what she’s saying is, “I’ll marry you after a few months, but damn it you don’t have to try to resolve any of your deep, emotional problems until like 2 years into the relationship!”
Even weirder, Eva then tries to make Gideon promise her that eventually he’ll talk about murdering Nathan with their therapist. I would really, highly encourage Gideon to keep that one to himself. This better not just be another opportunity for another character to come in and convince us that what Gideon did was Noble and Wonderful.
Gideon quickly moves the conversation back in the direction of sex, where he firmly believes it belongs. He tells Eva he’s brought a crimson, silk cord to tie her up with. To an untrained eye, this might just seem like Gideon’s way of avoiding the real issues, but Gideon thinks otherwise:
Sexual healing. What could be more perfect for two people who had the history Eva and I shared?
Um. Other things. Like maybe therapy or just not using sex to avoid or “solve” every problem you and your spouse have. [Matthew says: Not to mention that this question has been explicitly asked in every single book so far. Asking the question again and again doesn’t make it more relevant. It’s the same thing as “Are we there yet?”, but it’s, uh, “Isn’t sexual healing perfect for us?”]
Eva is still worried that Gideon is angry she spoke to Chris:
“You were furious when we left.”
“Furiously turned on.” I smiled wryly. “I can’t explain why, because I don’t understand it myself.”
“Try.”
I reached up and brushed the pad of my thumb over her lips. “I see you angry, passionate, ready to fight, and I want all that violence trapped beneath me. You make me want to hold you down, clawing and screaming, your cunt milking my cock as I pound it into you. Mine. All mine.”
That is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever read. It’s like a weird combination of a rape and farmer fantasy. I want this imagery out of my head immediately.
So Gideon claims that over dinner one night, his mother most definitely told Chris what happened to Gideon (what the fuck kind of dinner conversation is that?) and that Chris was pretending not to know. But Eva still believes he doesn’t. BUT WHEN WILL WE KNOW THE TRUTH AND WHO THE FUCK CARES?
Later, Gideon has a horrible nightmare with a really graphic rape scene of what his abuser used to do to him. It makes me feel awful for him, but it also pulls a Fifty Shades and explains why Gideon usually dates brown haired women – because Hugh used to make him look at sexy brunettes while he molested him. In Fifty Shades I get that a lot of the story hinged on the fact that Christian always pursued women to be his submissives if they looked like his birth mother. Fine, fair. But what do we gain from knowing this detail about Gideon? Why did his preferences for brunettes before Eva have to be justified in this way?
In the nightmare, Gideon starts killing Hugh, Hugh morphs into Nathan, but then in the end it’s Eva that Gideon’s murdered! It was a really stupid end to the nightmare. After he wakes up, Eva runs in the room to comfort Gideon, and the next morning she makes him promise that they’re going to make today their best day ever! Like a shitty One Direction song!
During the day, Gideon is doing business with Arash who is suddenly in this book all the fucking time even though he was never ever mentioned before. Ireland calls and says that her parents were fighting all night and that she wants to come stay with Gideon and Eva. Gideon agrees she can stay with them Saturday night, which I’m sure will have like 20 some chapters dedicated to it for some reason. [Matthew says: At least this isn’t a Jamie McGuire book. She’d have her own spinoff novel where she meets her own Gideon Cross clone by now.]
The chapter ends with Eva and Gideon’s friends getting together for their kareoke night out, which is an excuse to throw fucking ALL THE MINOR CHARACTERS INTO ONE PLACE. To the point where it just feels like Day is playing the cruelest, increasingly confusing joke:
“Was this your idea?” Arash asked, when we met him outside the ground-floor entrance to the Starlight Lounge.
[…]
“Great reviews online,” Shawna said, “and some of my regulars were raving about it.”
Manuel checked out the eager crowd behind the ropes, while Megumi Kaba stood cautiously between Cary and Eva. Mark Garrity, Steven Ellison, and Arnoldo all stood back, keeping the way clear for those whose names were on the VIP List.
[…]
I followed her gaze, spotting a couple approaching us. My brows rose when I recognized Magdalene Perez. Her hand was linked with that of the man next to her and her dark eyes were brighter than I’d seen in a long time.
[…]
Maggie grinned. “Gideon. Eva. This is my boyfriend, Gage Flynn.”
[…]
Maggie had been through enough with Christopher. I didn’t want to see her hurt again.
And here’s Will and Natalie,” Eva said, as the last of our group arrived.
This book is just a massive, throbbing clown car. Like why the fuck is Will here? Isn’t this meant to be all of their closest friends? Eva literally got pasta with him one time on their lunch break!
As they’re headed inside, Gideon reveals that he owns the place (OF COURSE), which ends up leading to Arash revealing that Gideon’s sold his fuck pad. This pleases Eva (and I’m sure her greedy cunt) greatly.
For your reference, here are all the minor characters that appeared or were mentioned in this chapter [Matthew says: For your reference, I indicated the ones that I honestly have no clue who they are]:
- Angus
- Gideon’s step father Chris
- Gideon’s mother
- Ireland
- Nathan
- Hugh [Matthew says: Who?]
- Arash
- Cary
- Magdalene (Maggie)
- Maggie’s boyfriend
- Will [Matthew says: Who???]
- Will’s girlfriend [Matthew says: A very similar “who?”]
- Megumi
- Manuel [Matthew says: WHO?]
- Shawna [Matthew says: Just realized this person isn’t Magdalene, so I don’t know who this is either.]
- Steven
- Mark
- Dr. Peterson
- Brett
- Arnoldo
- Christopher
Tell me if you caught any characters I missed!
Don’t forget Dr. Lucas and his wife (Anne?) Still not sure who they are and why Gideon hates them so much but they seem to show up at a lot.
Oh how could I possibly forget those two gems! But they did not appear in this chapter, shockingly. At least I can’t recall their names coming up, even though Hugh (the rapist’s) did.
So wait, did I miss something? What ever happened with all that “Megumi had a bad encounter with BDSM” stuff a couple chapters back? It sounded like it was going to be some huge reveal, but did nothing ever come of it, because she shows up here for 2 seconds and the only indicator that something strange happened to her is that she “stood cautiously”.
So I think all that happened was that one of the lackeys (either Clancey or Raul) went and “took care of the issue” and the guy hasn’t bothered Megumi since. So that was literally it! So far we have no evidence that there was any point in that subplot happening because there was no interesting payoff whatsoever. Except, you know, standing cautiously 😉
Taylor still gets my vote for favorite minor/secondary character and best lackey. I can at least remember who he is and he even gets a couple entertaining lines (IIRC he tells Ana “Mrs. Taylor has a nice ring to it” among other things). I might actually have read 50 Shades if it was endgame Ana/Taylor. (Or endgame Christian rediscovering his sub side and Taylor topping the hell out of him, because that is something I would read especially since my headcasting for Taylor is Jason Statham, not whoever actually played him).
The only way I can tell who the minor characters in Day’s stuff is by your descriptions, and I’m not surprised that pretty much everybody else has the same problem. You and Matthew are heroes for making a valiant effort in that direction (and reading all this awful “literature”) for our entertainment. Also, the Russian mob as its own collective minor character is hilarious.
(Also, congrats on the upcoming wedding and I hope all your paperwork goes smoothly).
Thank you!! Ug we’re trying to get all of our paperwork together, and we were told to just bring as much proof of our relationship as possible. So sure, we could print like 60,000 pages of FB messages, or just pick enough to show the dates align with what we’ve told them. Either way it’s annoying to pull together. But worth it!
It’s so hard trying to describe the minor characters because there really is no distinction except really bland characteristics like, “Shawna is the sassy one! Megumi is the shier one!” And I’m like “THIS ISN’T ENOUGH TO HELP ME!!!”
I’d be into the Taylor/Christian end game twist if I could shake the image of Taylor in my head basically just being an un-sexy Alfred from Batman.
The “Jason Taylor is Jason Statham” headcanon is basically thanks to Jenny Trout’s 50 Shades takedowns on her blog (the old version that I don’t remember the URL for has a fair number of comments about it because it was kind of a collective thing among the frequent commenters.) If my headcanon for Taylor was an unsexy Alfred I wouldn’t be into endgame Taylor/Christian either.
Megumi was nothing more than a plot device to cause a fight in which Gideon will exert more control over Eva. In this case, he gets mad at Eva for using her step fathers hired muscle instead of his to go after this guy. He even tells her that by using him, she allows her mom to keep interfering in her life (which is somehow different than his own interference in her life?) Of course Eva agrees to only use Gideon’s thug going forward so only Gideon can have the supreme power over Eva.
In conclusion, Megumi is Plot Puppy.
Wow, I don’t know why I expected anything more from this book (I didn’t really, but still). The whole one paragraph BDSM/Megumi plotline just seemed so bizarre to me because by this point I’d almost forgotten that this series was originally supposed to be about BDSM. But has that even been part of the story since halfway through book 1 at all?
In the sentence about Ireland I literally thought you were talking about the country first, and was really confused. Then I realized it was that person who I really don’t remember but I think is Gideon’s sister? Maybe?
Yes, Gideon’s sister, well remembered 🙂 I frequently get confused with this book and also when we did the Beautiful/Walking Disaster books and there was a Brazil and America.
Oh naw….Is Angus Irish or Scottish? Oh wait, I don’t care.
I actually sat and pondered this for awhile, but I thought the weird emphasis on his red hair was Day’s shorthand for Irish?
I guess, we may never know for sure 🙁
By the way though, I kept thinking of this when the parade of minor characters came through.
I thought Nathan was dead?!