ANDI
Gideon stares at me.His lips are deep pink and slightly parted, red across his cheekbones, his dark hair curling at the ends. He’s still got one hand on his chest where there’s a deep, dark V of water on his tight gray shirt. He’s on his knees on the bathroom floor, and in the silence sudden trepidation slices through me.
Shit, is this too much? Am I going too fast? I’m telling him to take his clothes off and get into a bathtub with me, while he’s probably got plenty of baggage around sex because how could henotwith the way he was raised?
“Or, if you—”
I stop because Gideon abruptly sits back on his heels and pulls his shirt off, and there’s nothing quite like watching a hot man take his shirt off because you asked him to. Told him. Whatever. It shows off all his arm muscles, his wide shoulders rippling as he yanks it over his head then gives his hair a little shake. The hair on his chest is a shade darker than the hair on his head, all of it slicked down over a broad torso that’s just as heavily muscled as the rest of him, thick in a way that suggests a lot of lifting rocks and chopping wood or whatever. The slick, dark hair narrows over his stomach, a dark line past his belly button and under the button of his jeans.
When I finally look at his face again, which takes me a minute, he’s watching me. His expression is intense, all curiosity and caution and desire, but he’s got his knees spread a little past shoulder width and his hands relaxed on his thighs, and there’s really no mistaking the bulge under his zipper.
I wish I had a photographic memory so I could have this snapshot forever. Gideon, on his knees, wet and hard and half-naked, casual as anything and maybe the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I wonder if he has any clue how hot he is. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.
“Thank you,” I say, which I immediately recognize as terrible dirty talk but Gideon snorts softly and blushes and glances away, like I’m being ridiculous and not sincerely grateful that I get to see him in this state.
“You’re welcome,” he mutters after a moment, and I like it so much I lean up over the edge of the tub and kiss him with one hand around the back of his neck. Water sloshes gently over the side of the wooden tub when I do. It probably gets Gideon’s knees wet. My upper half is out of the water now and in the freezing air, puckering my nipples and covering me with goosebumps, but Gideon strokes his warm hands over my shoulders and down my back, making me sigh into his mouth.
I explore him with my hands, and he lets me: he’s warm and damp everywhere, muscled but soft. He makes a gratifying little noise when I follow the trail of hair to the button on his pants and then stop, fingers pressed against the skin there, pausing, savoring the moment and making sure he doesn’t tell me to stop.
He doesn’t. He pushes his fingers into my wet hair and kisses me harder and with his other hand, he takes my wrist and guides my hand to his dick, then groans into my mouth as I slide my palm down his shaft. He’s hard as iron and pushes his hips into my hand, still holding onto my wrist.
“Come in,” I say. “Water’s great.”
He nods, I think, then pulls back. Gideon’s eyes are on my face as he pops the button and pulls down the zipper. He palms himself, once, over black underwear, then blushes like he didn’t mean to do it. I swallow down the wordsdo that againbut bookmark the thought for later use: what would Gideon look like, on his knees, getting himself off while I watched?
I shift until my back is against the other side of the tub, watching as he stands and steps out of his pants. When he hooks his thumbs under the elastic of his boxer-briefs and tugs, his cock springs out, thick and swollen and leaking a little. Jesus Christ. His blush goes all the way to his chest, and he runs a hand through his hair when he’s fully naked.
“It’s still hot,” he says when he steps into the tub, like he’s surprised. It’s really, really not big enough for two adults, so our knees bump together and he’s got one arm slung along the side, his arm muscles shiny with water.
“Does that mean you don’t need warming up?” I ask, and since we’re fit together in here like human Tetris blocks, I reach down and put my hand on the inside of his knee. He inhales softly but sharply and his eyelids flicker.
“I could be warmer,” he says, voice low and velvety and I wonder for the hundredth time if he has any clue that he’s sexy as fuck.
Gideon gives me a skeptical look as I maneuver until I’m straddling his lap, the water sloshing, the bubbles mostly disintegrated by now. He guides me with hands on my hips, then slides them up my sides once I’m settled.
“Like this?” I ask, and wrap a hand around his cock. Gideon inhales hard and his eyelids go to half-mast, his hands tightening on me. His hips buck just hard enough to ripple the water in the tub, and I take it as an invitation to stroke him from root to tip.
“Yeah,” he grits out, voice a harsh whisper. “Like that.”
Gideon doesn’t make a lot of noise as I get him off in hard, slow strokes. Sometimes he groans quietly, his breathing irregular. Sometimes he makes these choked-off noises like he’s trying not to moan as he grabs my hips and fucks up into my hand, the movement small and controlled, like he wants to help himself and can’t.
One time he saysGod, fuck, Andiand the only thing I can think of to say isyeah?
I could fuck him right now. I sure think about it, how it would be the easiest thing in the world: to rise up a little more on my knees and sink down onto him. I think about how he’d probably moan out loud then, how maybe he’d grab my hips and hold me down on him, how good it would probably feel.
I don’t, for a million reasons, but I want to.
Gideon arches his head back when he’s close, his face going mottled pink. When he looks at me again his pupils are wide and his hands are gripping my thighs so hard I might have bruises tomorrow. I stroke him faster, harder, until he wraps one hand around mine, setting the rhythm and bucking his hips, and comes with a long, low groan, head tilted back.
It’s impossibly hot. All I can do is stare down at him, head back and eyes closed, replaying that sound on a loop in my head, the way his whole body tightened and bucked between my thighs. After a moment I lean in and put my lips right on the pulse point of his neck, skin water-cooled, and I can feel how hard his heart is beating right now.
Gideon jerks a little when I take my hand off his dick, but then he’s lifting his head again, all flushed and hazy, his hand tangling in the back of my hair as he brings our mouths together.
After a few minutes, I pull back. He’s watching me, less hazy now, something uncertain in his face. I almost ask, but instead I say, “I gotta move, my knees are killing me.”
“Shit,” he rumbles, voice like a coal mine. He clears his throat and sits up a little straighter. “Here, is that—this tub wasn’t made for two people,” he finishes.
“I don’t think it was made for one person,” I say, settling against the opposite wall of the bathtub. Gideon settles one arm around my knee, his hand coming to rest on my thigh, his other arm stretched along the side.
