“I willalwayshave your back,” Gideon ground out.“Do you understand?If we’re sleeping together, if we’re not, as long as I’m alive, I will have your back.That’s not what this is.”
“What is it?”Joey asked, no smile at all.Deadly serious.
“You will choose me, or you will walk away,” Gideon told him.“But you will not taunt me.My heart froze.My breath, my blood—the only thing that worked was my gun hand.If I am going to be that terrified, I need to know who you are to me.Either way it’s fear, but I need to know what kind.”
Joey tilted his head back as though he was savoring the contact, the bare hint of violence, Gideon’s fury.
“I will never walk away,” Joey said, like it was a dare, and that was the end of Gideon’s restraint.
His mouth on Joey’s was hard, furious, without mercy.His hands, ripping away the clothes, leaving Joey Carlyle’s fine golden body naked down to his boots, were hard and without hesitation.
“With my boots on?”Joey tried to tease, but Gideon, who was kicking off his own shoes—a sort of oxford/walking boot crossbreed—couldn’t return the jibe.
“On or off,” he panted, dropping his sport coat on the ground and fumbling with his belt.“As long as I’m inside you.”
He heard a small welcoming whimper from Joey’s throat, and somehow the boots disappeared.
“Where are you going?”Joey complained as Gideon stalked toward the bedroom.
“There’s lube in here,” Gideon called back, and when Joey snarled, “Fuck lube!”Gideon turned to scowl at him.
“No, Joey.We will use lube.And care.And tenderness.If you are choosing me, I’m not going to abuse that choice.Do you understand?Not even if I want to fuck you so bad I can’t breathe.”
Joey beat him to the bed, scrabbling for the lubricant as Gideon finished dropping his clothes.
He turned to find Joey Carlyle ass up, his fingers deep in his own asshole as he spread the lubricant, groaning with pleasure.
Gideon was just hard and angry enough to take him that way, thrusting inside brutally, leaning forward to pull him up by the throat and pressing his front along Joey’s back while embedded deeply in his flesh.
“You chose me,” he growled.
“Yes,” Joey gasped.
“Then don’t scare me.Don’t tease me.”He punctuated the orders with thrusts.
“No,” Joey panted.“I won’t.”
“When you want me, come in.”
“I will!”Gideon thrust extra hard.“Gid, I swear, I’ll come… come in… oh God, I’m gonna come….”
Gideon released his throat and pushed down with a hand on his back and fucked him brutally, still angry and scared and needy.Beneath him, Joey groaned, spasming around Gideon’s cock while he came, and it was almost enough, not quite enough, Gideon was going to… going to….
The sound Joey made then was not quite human, a deep groan of surrender, of giving, and inside his body, his flesh softened, relaxed,bloomedaround Gideon’s cock, and suddenly Gideon was there.
His vision washed white, and his fingers tightened on Joey’s hips, and a cry that felt like it was ripped out of his chest with barbed wire sounded in the still apartment around them.
“Dammit!”
He had no idea what it meant, but his orgasm took over, shaking him hard, pouring his entire heart into Joey Carlyle whether he’d planned to hold back or not.
It didn’t matter what he’d planned.He fell forward, clutching his lover to his chest in the cool autumn chill of the apartment, their naked bodies clammy with sweat.
Their breath sounded strange in that stillness, and for a moment Gideon wanted to cry with shame.It was clear now that Joey had thought he was safe, and Gideon—God, had he just betrayed what he wanted most?
“I knew it,” Joey said, speaking into the void.
“What?”Gideon was still holding him close, praying he wouldn’t try to wiggle away, because after what they’d just done, Gideon would have to let him.
