25. Christian

25

CHRISTIAN

G ibson’s eyes are fevered and bright even in the dim bar as he recounts his lunch meeting with the politician Silas ran off to live with when he, Drew, and I could no longer easily afford rent after our fourth roommate moved out the winter before last. The fact that Silas had been seeing anyone came as a shock to me, but that it was the loathsome Republican Graham Lawther had me seriously worried for my friend’s safety and mental health.

This isn’t exactly what I expected would happen, but I never thought anything good would come of him being someone’s guy on the side—especially not someone with a public profile like Lawther’s.

What’s truly shocking about Gibson’s recounting is that this all seems to have been driven by Marianne.

“Do you always do everything she tells you to?” I ask when I sense he’s wrapping things up.

“I—she’s my wife .”

I guess. In name only . “What do you get out of this deal?”

Gibson looks at me, so confused, like I asked him to explain how the tides work. Like it should be obvious, and yet he has no clue how to put it into words. There’s pain in there somewhere, too, the same pain that’s always behind his eyes whenever Marianne comes up. Like she went missing a long time ago, but he can’t give up the search. “What do you mean what do I get out of it? It’s not like she wants anything else from me.”

God. Those words hit me like a punch to the stomach.

“What would have happened if you hadn’t gone through with it?” I ask, moderating my tone to sound more sympathetic. It’s obvious he’s miserable.

“You’re pissed at me,” he says, flipping the script. “You think I’m some shady fucker now, don’t you? Please believe me when I say this isn’t an everyday thing.”

“I asked you a direct question, and of course you’re shady, but only because of the sex clubs?—”

“How is that shady?”

I cover his mouth with my hand for a full second so I can say, “Answer my question. What would happen if you told her no?”

“I don’t know,” he says when I lower my hand. “I don’t tell her no.”

“Why not?”

“She’s been my best friend since we were eighteen years old—we’ve been through everything together.”

I meet this declaration with some skepticism. It seems to me like he goes through plenty without her. Like last night, for instance. And today. Unless none of this means anything to him, which doesn’t feel like the case. Meaning—he’s clearly going through something, and she might be the reason, but I’m the one he wanted to talk to about it.

“Was she not available for drinks today, then?” I ask, backing into my point.

“Okay, smart ass. I see where you’re going with this, and I don’t expect you to understand—I’m not sure anyone could. But why would I want to give her more reason to push me away? ”

“You think doing her bidding is gonna win her back? Even if it hurts innocent bystanders?”

“Graham Lawther isn’t innocent .”

“Silas is,” I say flatly, abruptly rising from the table to get a drink at the bar.

When I try to pay, the bartender waves my debit card off. “It’s covered.” He tips his chin in Gibson’s direction.

I roll my eyes. “Whatever Daddy wants,” I mutter, and the bartender chuckles.

“Can you call him?” Gibson asks as I slide back into the booth and get to work on my tequila.

“What would you like me to say to him? Hey—your sugar daddy’s about to go through some things. You might want to steer clear?”

“So, it’s not serious between them?” Gibson asks in what looks like disbelief.

“If they’re still seeing each other, it’s gotta be, doesn’t it? Silas isn’t like me.”

“What does that mean?”

“He wants a relationship.”

Gibson grimaces.

“And yes, I will call him. What am I allowed to say?”

“Whatever you need to say to make it okay.”

“Jesus, you’re a mess. And you’re drunk.”

“I’m not that drunk,” he says, “but I don’t feel great either. Jesus, you should have seen the look on his face.”

“I see the look on yours,” I say.

“And?”

And? It’s completely disarming. I’m sitting next to someone who might have just destroyed one of my best friend’s life, and I want to make him feel better about it. I hate seeing him like this—wearing his unhappiness like a cloak of shame. He’s better than this. “I mean—if you’re that fucked up about what you’ve done, you can always call him and take it back. Limit the damage to bankrupting him. Keep Silas the fuck out of it.”

“Marianne has the video,” he says. “She’ll use it if I don’t.”

“And that’s fine with you?” I ask.

“I get it—okay? What you’re implying. I know she’s using me, and I don’t know why she gives a fuck about this other than she hates men in general after what happened to her?—”

“Hold on.” I hold up a hand to stop him. “What exactly happened to her?”

Gibson’s eyes widen like he realizes he said too much.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. You mentioned something about trauma when we were in Rome—she hates men—including you for whatever reason?—”

“I never said she hated me.”

“Anyway, I can connect the dots,” I tell him.

“It happened in Ibiza,” he says.

I lift my brows. Not to make light of the situation, but Ibiza is one of those places I’ve heard about but can’t be sure actually exists—like Atlantis for rich people. “What did?” I ask gently.

“She was taken from a club by a group of men and raped. She woke up in a strange bed in a strange place, bleeding, bruised, totally violated—it was so bad, Christian. The three men who did it—they were all still there—sitting around in the other room, and they just let her walk out like she was nothing. She had no clue where she was. No phone. Her clothes were all ripped and…” He chokes on his next words and clears his throat.

“When was this?” I ask.

“The summer after grad school for her. It was a couples’ trip, but I had to be here—I had summer classes I had to take to catch up. Fucking Fischer and his girlfriend went along with a few other couples, but not me. So she was the only person without someone to take care of her—keep her safe.”

As the picture comes into sharper focus, I realize I should have seen it before. Guilt. It’s like looking in a fucking mirror. No wonder we connect the way we do.

“The police picked her up on the road, took her to a hospital. She was able to get in touch with her friends who got in touch with me, and I was on the next plane, but I was too late, you know?”

“Yeah,” I say. I do know.

“I should have been there.”

I should have known she wasn’t sleeping anymore. “I’m sorry,” I tell him because I don’t have much else to offer. There is no worse feeling that I’m aware of.

He shakes his head, his gaze sliding from his drink to me. His hair falls across his forehead, and I resist the urge to put it back where it belongs, but it’s hard not to touch him. Very hard.

“It was a long time ago,” he says.

“But you’re both still dealing with the fallout, sounds like.”

He drops his gaze again, sinking even lower in his seat. “Yeah, well…”

Maybe this is shitty, but it’s hard for me to muster a ton of sympathy for her when I’m sitting here looking at what the years have done to him. I don’t begrudge Marianne her trauma, but hurting other people to cope isn’t exactly healthy. I’d like to understand it better—the way he does.

“This is her M.O., then?” I ask. “Make all men suffer? When does that end?”

He gives me a helpless look along with a shrug.

“Gibson…fuck.”

“I know,” he sighs.

“And you don’t think maybe she’s using that hate to fuck you over a little, too?”

He sucks on his lower lip as he stares into his empty glass. “I don’t even know who I am without her,” he whispers.

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

He gives me a side-eye that’s actually really hot .

“Why’d you wanna tell me about this?” I ask. “The stuff about Lawther and Silas, I mean.”

“You don’t think he’s gonna do something crazy like—end it all do you?”

“Probably not, but I’ll talk with Silas later if I can get him to pick up the phone.”

“It wasn’t until I was laying out all the terms that I realized how completely she wanted to destroy him,” Gibson says. “Like there was nothing I could say to mitigate it.”

“You told him he has options, which is true—he does. You have options, too.”

“Like what?”

“Tell Marianne you’ll get Avery the money, but it ends there.”

He sighs heavily. “She’ll just do the rest herself, Chris.”

“And how would that make you feel?”

“Not any worse than I do right now.”

“You sure about that?”

He shifts in his seat and spins his glass on the table. “What are you asking me?”

“I know I’ve brought this up before, but you don’t strike me as particularly happy with your life—specifically your marriage.”

“Is it the way I follow you around that’s tipping my hand?”

I laugh. “No. If anything, I’m the one following you around. We cancel each other out.”

We’re not the only people in the Downside, but we’re two of less than a dozen others. Still, when he grabs me by the neck and brings our mouths together, my eyes blow wide open, and I almost pull away.

Almost .

But once his tongue brushes mine, I’m already fighting the urge to shove my hand down his pants. If he’s trying to distract me from the subject at hand, it’s working.

“Mm…” he groans. “You taste so fucking good.”

“So do you.” Whiskey and warmth .

We kiss again, and I wrap his tie around my hand, keeping him close and locked against my mouth while I try to devour every centimeter of him. The way he kisses me has evolved a lot since that first time. It’s aggressive, still, but he allows me my own hunger, too. We feed off each other, our interest mutual and, if my math is right, equally voracious.

I still want to fuck him, but I doubt he’d be into it. When it’s just him and me like this, though—talking, drinking—it doesn’t seem like such a stretch that he might want to be closer in whatever way works. That he’d let me, the same way he let me suck his dick. If I ask nicely. If I smile pretty enough.

If I let him know how much I want him.

With the next plunge of my tongue into his mouth, I let go of his tie and put my hand between his legs.

He shifts toward me, spreading his thighs to give me better access. His rock solid length strains against my palm, and I give it a tight stroke through the fabric. His kiss gets hornier, both our breaths heavy. “We should get out of here,” I tell him.

“Your place?”

“I’d fuck you right here if I could.”

“Jesus.” He crashes his mouth to mine. It’s bruising—rough and possessive—his hand splaying across the side of my face like he’s trying to hide me from anyone who might be watching. He lifts his hips, pressing his cock harder against my hand, allowing me to cup his balls. I give them a nice, firm squeeze to entice him out of this fucking booth.

His resulting moan is so loud, he pulls away, ducking his head like he embarrassed himself. I smile and kiss him just beneath his ear. “Yes. My place.”

He nods.

I’ll probably only end up on my knees again—or, God protect my hole—my hands and knees, but I’m not picky. I want to get off with him—bottom line, but I might want to come back to this bar some time, and hooking up in this booth might make that difficult.

With regrets, I take my hand out from between his legs and swallow what’s left of my tequila.

Leaving the bar, I’m shocked at how bright it is outside—how high in the sky the sun is. We’re two blocks up from Gramercy, and walking with erections in well-fitted pants. Luckily no one in New York looks at anyone else—except for today where it feels like everyone’s staring. At me. At him. At our crotches. We’re not even touching each other, nor walking particularly close.

“Is it just me…?”

“No—they all know,” he says.

“You nervous?” I ask.

“Not even close.”

Our pace grows brisker, and I say, “You’re gonna try to tie me up, aren’t you?”

“Your place, your rules.”

“It’s like that, huh?”

“Apparently,” he says, sounding out of breath.

We get to the building in almost no time, and yet—it takes forever. Entering through my private entrance, we all but sprint to the stairwell. As soon as the door closes behind us, he shoves me against the wall and attacks my mouth with long, deep licks of his tongue.

I groan, grabbing him by the hips and pulling the full length of his body against mine. Our equally rigid erections grind—our hips moving out of sync with our mouths—like they’ve got minds of their own. I run a hand over his ass, gripping the muscled flesh through his pants. He untucks my shirt, hot palms moving to slide up my sides.

“This’ll be better in bed,” I try to tell him when I can get the rushed words out.

His head dips to inhale and kiss my neck. “I want you. ”

“I noticed.”

Our hips thrust again, making me grunt while he shudders.

“I don’t even know who the fuck I am anymore.”

He keeps saying things like that, but it’s not subtle to me. Not only that he wants me or is attracted to me for whatever reason, but he needs way more than a pet to purr against his leg or offer herself to him passively. He needs to be felt and kissed and handled with want as naked as his own, and right now, I’ve got that covered.

He turns me the fuck on . Drunk or sober, behind his desk or slumped back in a booth—he makes my heart beat faster—and it’s not fading with repetition. It’s only getting more intense to the point where I could barely look at him today when we were supposed to be working. Every move I make reminds me of last night—my backside is still on fire—my asshole aches and keeps twitching randomly, and each twitch puts a thrum in my balls that makes me warm and needy .

“Get off me so I can fuck you.”

“Christian,” he sighs against my throat.

Letting his ass go, I move my hands up his back and give his shoulder blades a squeeze. I like it when he says my name like that. Like I’ve got something no one else can give him— or won’t .

But I’m fucking happy to.

I get him moving again. We make it into my apartment where I have to stop him from pulling my clothes off at the door. His face is flushed, and his eyes are wild, roaming all over me.

“Bed,” I tell him.

“Fine.” He grabs me by the neck and drags me in that direction, attaching his mouth to mine along the way.

I shove the jacket off his shoulders and loosen his tie the rest of the way. He’s wasting no time, going straight for my belt buckle. At the foot of the bed, we finish undressing each other in a hurry, a tangle of arms and rough kisses—gropes and grunts of appreciation .

His cock is thick and hard. The tip slick and dark. I’m about to push him to the bed and take it into my mouth when he drops to his knees and wraps his lips around mine.

“Fuck!” I cry, the shock of it coupled with how warm and wet his tongue is makes my knees buckle, and I have to grab him by the shoulders so I don’t collapse.

“ Umph…Christ ,” he gasps, jerking me in his fist a few times before engulfing me again.

“Goddamn, that feels good,” I tell him. It certainly doesn’t feel like he’s never done this before. His pulls on my cock are long and powerful. His tongue is busy wrapping me up and twisting around my shaft, flicking quickly over the tip before swirling back down my length again. It feels impossible—like something only a high end sex toy could do—sending zaps of intensifying pleasure down my legs and up my spine.

It would be easy to come. It’s not like I can remove my mind from the moment and try to focus on something else. He’s consuming me.

“Is this what you want?” I manage to ask.

Because maybe it is. Maybe getting fucked by a man is a bridge too far for Gibson Hayes. Especially one he can so aptly dominate. It’s not like he doesn’t have me on the ropes even while he’s the one on his knees.

Our eyes meet—his lips stretched and red around my shaft. He circles me with his tongue as I stare down at him. I swallow hard, using so much restraint, it’s making me light-headed. Lightly running a hand up my leg, his thumb grazes the thin skin of my inner thigh, and then, without breaking eye contact, he takes me deep.

That’s a yes.

I clamp a hand on his shoulder and let my hips move with him, chasing the release he’s determined to suck out of me. Yes. Yes.

Blissed out, I let every sensation spill through my veins, heating my core and turning it molten. My thighs shudder, pressure building in my groin. “Fuck, I’m gonna come,” I warn him, in case I wasn’t clear enough that I was extremely close.

He slows down, but deepens his suction, elongates the strokes of his tongue, and seems to savor the erratic pulses of precum spurting from my tip. He moans and closes his eyes, blowing me like he’s in a trance.

It’s mind-bendingly erotic, and the sound of Gibson’s wet mouth surrounding my length tips the balance. I come with a choked gasp, the orgasm gripping my insides and shattering my dick. The second my cum gushes into his mouth, he grips me by the base and tugs me like he intends to drain my balls.

I’m not sure I’ll stay standing long enough for him to do that. I throw my head back, gasping for air, fighting to stay upright. He sucks as I spill and spill, the contractions in my groin resulting in sharp spasms of my cock, and with every one, I feel like I’m coming all over again. It feels infinite.

I’m clawing air into my lungs as he moves to kiss and tongue my crown, cleaning up whatever drops are left. He finally stops, rising to his feet just in time to follow me down as I collapse on the bed. I may be weak, addled, and jerking with aftershocks, but I dig deep, rolling him to his back to press my mouth to his.

I sweep the taste of myself mingled with whiskey off his tongue, and it’s not bad. Good, in fact. A low growl escapes me as I search for more of the distinct flavor in every place I can reach.

Breathless, he gropes at my ass, and I whimper because— ouch . “Sorry,” he whispers, moving his hands up my back. His hips rock, restless and searching for friction.

His mouth is lazy as it accepts mine, but his body is tense and vibrating. He needs to get fucked, and he just sucked the ability to do it right out of me. Asshole. Is he always this self-destructive?

He pisses me off so bad, and I swear I can’t get enough of it.