Alex caught Gideon’s jaw with one hand and pushed until Gideon met his gaze. “You don’t make it difficult. But you do make it hard.”
If Alex’s thumb weren’t propping up his chin, Gideon’s mouth would have fallen open. “Did you . . . Was that an innuendo?”
“Yeah.” Alex grinned, a dimple popping in one cheek. “How’d I do?”
“Um, good. But your dad . . . your family . . .”
“Mom keeps telling me and Lin that we can’t put our lives on hold for Dad. Maybe it’s time I started listening to her.”
Alex stood and pulled Gideon to his feet. At the expression on his face, in those impossibly deep obsidian eyes, Toshiko’s voice threaded through Gideon’s forebrain, lecturing him about sex drives. “The urge to propagate DNA can be triggered by a cognitive reminder of mortality just as it can by the adrenaline rush of a near-death experience.”
Sex. It was only sex, right? He could give Alex that release. Give it to them both.
His heart fluttered up to his throat. Damn it. This was Lindsay’s brother, not a ham-handed teenager who got his how-to-bone-a-guy instructions from a deprecated Wikipedia page. Not some cookie-cutter YUP-from-hell. He needed to deactivate the freaking post-Mark safety protocols.
“Alex—”
“You’re not gonna freak out over my size again, are you?”
As recently as last week, Gideon would have said yes and run for the nearest escape pod. But Alex knew how to take care of someone as fragile as baby Lindsay. His hands might be enormous, but his hold was gentle—nothing like Mark’s clueless, clumsy roughness. Gideon shook his head.
“Good.” Alex cradled Gideon’s bandaged hand. “Because I promised you no harm, and I broke that promise already, but I swear—”
“Hey. This wasn’t your fault. I was the one who decided to go mano a mano with a box knife. But before we go any further, I should probably mention that I don’t date men who—” Gideon took a deep breath. “This is going to sound really asshole-ish, and I don’t mean it to be, but I usually only date men who are on the same . . . intellectual page as I am.”
As Gideon had feared, the expression on Alex’s face changed, but instead of anger or hurt, the corners of his eyes crinkled and he actually chuckled. “You think that because I don’t have a college degree I’m stupid.”
“No. I didn’t say—”
“Uneducated isn’t the same as stupid.” Alex advanced on him, and Gideon retreated until he collided with the sofa arm. “Ignorance can be fixed. Stupidity, now. That’s different. Stupidity is a pigheaded refusal to face the truth.”
Gideon steadied himself with one hand on the sofa. “We don’t have the same frames of reference,” he said, a little breathlessly. “While you were no doubt bashing guys’ heads on the football field, I was bashing guys’ brains in the academic decathlon. I embraced intelligence as a weapon, and I was deadly. That hasn’t changed.”
Alex was so close now that his knee pressed between Gideon’s legs. God, he smelled good. Like soap. Irish Spring. An old commercial catchphrase popped into Gideon’s head. “Manly, yes. But I like it too.”
And, God, did he ever.
“You said you’d date me in spite of my dad’s condition.”
“I don’t think I said that exactly.”
“You implied that it wouldn’t stop you.”
“Yes, but—”
“That means you would.”
Gideon shoved at Alex’s chest with his good hand. It was like trying to move the Portland Building, but that bothered him less than Alex misunderstanding his biases. It’s not you, it’s me. “I’m a self-professed intellectual snob, Alex. I treat anyone with an IQ below 160 like an idiot.”
“You haven’t done that with me.” Alex captured Gideon’s hips with both hands. “Besides, have you seen the size of the electrical code? You think an idiot could master that?”
“It’s big?”
Alex’s smile was wicked. “Huge.”
God, Alex’s erection felt like it would give the electrical code a run for its money. “I can’t—”
“You think I can’t speak your language? I’ve been wiring networks for years, so I know all the buzzwords. I can speak fluent geek.”
Alex released one hip and trapped Gideon’s jaw in a gentle grip. “Software.” He pressed those sinfully full lips against Gideon’s mouth in the tenderest kiss in the history of the world, and suddenly Gideon didn’t want to argue anymore. “Byte.” He nipped Gideon’s lower lip.
“That’s not how you spell—”
Alex laid a finger over his lips. “Stop.” Gideon’s eyes widened, and he gulped in the face of Alex’s grin. “They tell me that’s a machine-level command. Glad to see it works.” Alex swiveled his hips, a slow grind teasing both their groins. “Feel that?”
Gideon bit back a groan and clenched his eyes shut. “Mm-hmm.”
“Hardware,” Alex murmured into his ear. “Take me to your room and I’ll demo my hard drive.”
“I—”
“I know the rules: no butt sex. Don’t sweat it—I can live without my dick up your ass. Anything else?”
“God no.”
Gideon led the way down the hall, Alex so close behind that his chest brushed Gideon’s shoulder blades and his toes bumped Gideon’s heels in an awkward unsynchronized gait. He expected Alex to head straight for the bed, but instead Alex wrapped one arm around Gideon’s waist, his hand warm on Gideon’s hip, and steered him toward the corner turret with its bank of windows.
Alex moved behind him then, resting one palm lightly on his sternum.
“Control.” Alex’s voice in his ear was rich and smooth and delicious as crème brûlée. “That’s not just a keystroke, is it? It’s your whole life. Everything so neat and managed. I want to see you on the edge. Hot and sweaty. Desperate for my dick. Wild to paint the room with your spunk and screw the dry cleaning bills.”
“I don’t— You can’t— The windows . . .” Gideon’s breath sped up, fast and shallow as if his lungs couldn’t fill below his heart, beating hard against Alex’s palm.
Rain splatted against the window. Alex unbuttoned Gideon’s shirt, spread it wide. “Nothing out there but a big-ass doug fir and a couple of soggy squirrels. They won’t care.”
The window rattled in its frame, and a finger of cold air stroked Gideon’s bare skin, raising goose bumps in its wake. But then Alex’s hands began to roam his chest. No goose bump could survive in that heat, although Gideon shivered anyway and sweat broke out on his forehead.
Alex’s chin pressed on his collarbone, holding him in place against the bigger man’s body. “Mmm.” Alex trailed one enormous hand over Gideon’s chest, his calluses rough against hairless skin and tight nipples.
Gideon moaned, arching his back, and Alex tickled his lower lip.
“Shhh. You don’t need to hold on to that control tonight, baby. Lean on me. Relax. I won’t let you fall.”
His skin was on fire now, and he fairly vibrated under Alex’s touch. Outside, the branches of the tree lashed in the wind, dark except when they caught the gold of the streetlamp, as if the wind were blowing the light around. Gideon twitched when Alex popped the button on his fly, and when he followed up with a nipple tweak? Torture. The best kind. Gideon grasped Alex’s wrist. “How do you expect me to relax when you do that?”
Alex drew off Gideon’s belt. “I don’t think I can trust those hands. They keep trying to hold on to control. You need something to remind you that you’re mine tonight. Everything here—” Alex ran a hand from Gideon’s throat down his bare chest and across his groin, cupping his balls through his jeans “—all of it is mine, and I won’t make the same mistake as before. I’ll keep you safe. That cool with you?”
“Unngh.” Gideon’s vocabulary deserted him as he was wrapped in Alex. With no desire to protest, to struggle, to escape, he managed to croak, “Uh-huh.”
“Good.” Alex stripped off Gideon’s shirt in one downward yank,
yet managed to ease the sleeve over his injured hand. He took the thin belt and looped it around Gideon’s right wrist above the gauze, pulling Gideon’s arms back gently. “This is only to remind you, baby. Hold on to the belt, yeah? You want out, just let go. You want out?”
Did he? Mark hadn’t restrained him, not with anything but his body, but he hadn’t asked either. Hadn’t been so careful. “N-n-no.”
“You can change your mind. Anytime. Just drop the belt or say the word.”
“What word?”
“How about . . .” His mouth grazed the shell of Gideon’s ear. “One?”
Gideon’s cock jerked and throbbed. One. The last time Alex had said that word in that tone, Gideon had gotten the most incredible blowjob on the planet. “Okay.”
Alex unzipped Gideon’s fly and pushed his jeans and briefs down around his thighs. He sighed into Gideon’s ear. “Look at you. So fucking gorgeous. I can’t believe you’re all for me.” He nuzzled the curve of Gideon’s shoulder, opened his mouth and gripped the curve with his teeth. He put one hand on Gideon’s chest and the other under his balls, and slowly dragged his palms toward each other, covering all available real estate. He did it again, and Gideon quivered under his touch.
“That’s it.” Alex’s voice in his ear was sex and sin and redemption. “Show me what you can do.” One of his hands stroked behind Gideon’s balls, the other fisted his cock, a counterpoint of smooth and rough that had Gideon writhing against him.
God. He wanted that exquisite torture to go on and on, but it had been too long and he came, on a gasp, with Alex shifting his grip, cupping Gideon’s balls and letting his dick shoot freely, over his pants, his shirt, the wall, the window. God, he was standing in front of the window.
And he didn’t fucking care.
When Alex had walked in tonight, he’d only intended to talk with Gideon. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment when he’d surrendered all his misgivings and put aside his duty with a virtual fuck it, and decided to go for what he wanted for a change.
This isn’t only for me. He needs it as much as I do.
As Gideon sagged against his chest, Alex supported him, trailing his fingers across Gideon’s skin, soothing him as the tide of his orgasm receded. “You liked what I did to you. What I made you feel. Didn’t you?”
“Yes.” His voice was barely audible above the soughing of the wind in the trees.
“That ever happen before?”
“No.” He sucked in a breath when Alex plucked at his nipples.
“Contrast. Like you said, it’s good.”
Gideon shuddered and stepped away, slipping the belt off his wrist. Alex’s cock was hard to bursting behind his fly, but it was Gideon’s move now.
Then Gideon shucked off his splattered jeans and Jesus. His skin glowed in the lamplight like cream mixed with honey—a sinful dessert Alex would kill to devour. He reached for him, but Gideon put a hand on his chest.
“No. My turn. I want to see you. I didn’t get the chance before.” He unbuttoned Alex’s shirt, his face so serious as he tried to manage with the fingers of one hand clumsy with bandages. “I’ve been aching to see this chest.”
He pulled the last button through the worn buttonhole, and Alex had never been so grateful for his limited clothing budget.
“God, you’re so . . .” He pressed a tentative kiss between Alex’s pecs. “Smooth. I thought for sure you’d have a chest rug to die for.”
“Nah.” Alex had to concentrate to force words out of his mouth, to not grab Gideon and toss him on the bed. He may not be a fucking PhD, but he knew enough not to rush someone as skittish as Gideon. “Not much body hair. They figure I’ve a little Native American somewhere in my DNA cocktail.”
“That would account for the cheekbones too.” He pushed Alex backward until they reached the bed.
Alex sat down, spread his legs, and leaned back on his elbows. “Do your worst, baby. I’m all yours.” More than you know.
Gideon knelt between Alex’s thighs and fumbled one-handed with his button fly.
“Hey.” Alex’s voice rasped as he laid a hand over Gideon’s, with a little extra pressure against his straining erection, because hot damn, Gideon Wallace’s hand was only a couple of layers of cloth away from his dick. “I can do this part.”
“No way. If I can . . . damn it.”
Alex moved Gideon’s hand aside. “Baby, just because I open the door for you, doesn’t mean you don’t get to drive.” He popped the buttons on his fly, and his erection poked out the front of his boxers.
“Oh . . .” Gideon’s breath on his exposed dick made it jump as if it wanted to leap into that perfect mouth. “You’re uncut.”
Alex gritted his teeth, bunched his fists in the comforter, and thought about circuit diagrams. “That a problem?”
Gideon stroked Alex’s cock, the skin of his fingertips softer than velvet. “No. But I’ve never . . .” He glanced up at Alex and grinned, those killer brown eyes glinting with mischief behind his blue-framed glasses in the dim light. “Contrast.”
And he engulfed the head of Alex’s cock.
Jesus, his mouth was hot, wet silk, with a teasing scrape of teeth. So fricking perfect. When his tongue circled the head and probed underneath the foreskin, Alex collapsed onto his back and roared.
Geekspeak: Hit
Definition: A request sent to a web server for a file or resource; one web page can generate multiple hits if the page has more than one associated resource, as each individual file counts as a hit whenever the page is loaded.
Alex stood by the bed where Gideon lay curled under the covers, his eyelashes a double fan against his cheeks, a smile tucking in the corners of his lips even in sleep. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Gideon’s forehead.
“Mmm.” Gideon’s eyes fluttered open. His smile faltered when he saw that Alex was dressed. “Can’t you stay?” That low sleepy voice turned Alex’s crank, no question, and his dick was on board for round three. Damn it.
“Sorry, baby. I don’t like leaving my mom alone with Dad, and I’m already late to relieve Lin.”
Gideon raised himself up on one elbow, and the covers slipped off his shoulders. Alex couldn’t help it. He had to trace that smooth slope with his tongue and button it with a kiss behind Gideon’s ear.
“God. Are you sure you can’t stay?”
“Wish I could but . . .” Alex kissed him again before standing up.
“I’ll see you at work tomorrow, then.”
Alex pointed at him, which would have been more threatening if he hadn’t been holding a crumpled washcloth. “Forget it. You’ve got one more day off. No cheating. Besides, the CFO douche bag left orders with security to keep you out.”
“But it’s already been three days.”
“Sorry, babe. His orders were three working days, so today didn’t count.”
Gideon threw back the covers and scrambled to his knees. Shit.
“That flaming asshole! How the hell am I supposed to finish this project on time if I can’t even walk in the fricking door?”
“Chill.” Alex leaned over, propping his fists on either side of Gideon’s hips. He kissed his man—yes, his man—a slow press of lips and slide of tongues with a little bit of tingle left from the nuclear peppers in Landon’s gumbo. But that was how it ought to be. Gideon wasn’t built for sweet. He was built for fire and sass, exactly the way Alex liked it. “If you need help with the nontech stuff, I’m your guy.”
“But you have your own job to do.”
“Don’t sweat it. I worked it out with Manny. He hates consultants.” Alex stood up and grinned at Gideon fuming in the middle of the bed, naked and tousled and gorgeous. And mine. He stole one more quick kiss and squeezed the back of Gideon’s neck. “Be good.”
He slipped out of the bedroom. Creeping down the hallway, he passed his sister’s closed door and Charlie’s room with its hum of computers, empty but for the wink of LED lights like the eyes of tiny clockwork mice. His
jacket hung on the barstool—not that he remembered dropping it there—so he grabbed it and reached in his pocket for his keys. Nothing. He checked the other pocket.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Where are the damn—” A rhythmic jingle from the darkened living room froze him.
“Looking for these?” His sister’s voice held an edge that he’d heard maybe twice in his entire life, counting tonight.
Alex turned. Lindsay was huddled in the corner of the couch, hugging a throw pillow to her chest, his key ring dangling from one finger.
Great. Now what? He’d always sucked at lying, the result of having a father who could cut through any of Alex’s bullshit, no matter how believable, but he’d gotten pretty good at avoidance.
“Hey, Lin. I thought you were gonna wait until I got home.”
“Daddy fell asleep, and Mom told me to go.” She switched on the lamp on the end table, and the backlight turned her hair into a golden halo, but if she was an angel, she was obviously the pissed-off kind. The type that did all the smiting. “We got tired of waiting for you.”
He sank down on the other end of the couch and ran a hand across his head. His fingers smelled of Gideon. “Sorry about that. I—”
“Did you forget what we talked about? What’s important now is Daddy. Making him well.”
Damn it. “Lin. We can take care of him the best we can, but he’s not going to get better.”
She flung the pillow at him. “I’m sick of that attitude. From you and Mom. Of course he won’t get better if you don’t bother to try.”
“We try. We—”
“No, you don’t. You humor him. You expect him to get worse, so he does. I refuse to do that.”
He heaved a sigh. “Fair enough. But we have our own lives to lead, yeah? Mom’s been ragging on me about decompressing for a while now.” Who’d have thought he’d have a chance like this to take her up on her suggestion?
“Alex, I don’t care if you have sex, although I’d rather not hear the details. But you’re not a casual guy. You’ve got a loyalty streak a mile wide, and you deserve someone who’ll return your devotion.”
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