41. Gibson

41

GIBSON

T he incessant beeping. “Babe,” I murmur, reaching for Christian and coming up empty, my hand landing on the pillow and not his face. I crack open one eye. “Chris?”

The shower is running. I groan and scoot to his nightstand, fumble for his phone and swipe to shut off his alarm. It’s meant to wake us both, but it’s too fucking early. There’s more than enough time for us to ignore it for another half hour.

Might as well multi-task.

I crawl out of his bed, open the door to his bathroom, and enjoy the silhouette of his arched back as he rinses his hair in the shower. “Move over,” I grumble, joining him, my hands running up his sides and cupping his pecs, pinching his nipples to make them hard. I do love this tiny shower sometimes.

He turns and wraps his arms around my neck, my cock growing hard along with his. We kiss, slow and deep, our mouths sliding smoothly in the water. Reaching between us, I take our dicks in my hand and slowly stroke them together, keeping my mouth sealed to his.

His hand moves to my crack, his fingers sliding through it, teasing my hole and making me groan into the kiss. He gives my lower lip a rough tug. “Miss me, babe?”

“ Yes —I mean, your alarm woke me up.”

“Uh-huh.” He rocks into my grip. “Let me inside this dick. Play with me.”

“Inside…? Oh, Christian…you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“It’s gonna feel so good.” He presses kisses to my neck, his fingers to my hole. “Let me in.”

My knees weaken at the thought, my brain melting. I’ve never done anything close to this before. How long has he been thinking about it?

Using my left hand to jerk him, I tug at my foreskin, stretching it past my tip while I consider his request. There’s a tug in my balls as my anatomy stretches with it. I’ve never cared for my foreskin—it’s an ugly thing, and it’s always made me different. It’s a product of having a father from Greece who was also uncircumcised along with the rest of the men on his side of the family. I’m always in a hurry to get it out of the way when I’m with someone, and Christian rarely shows much interest in it. Until now. Or maybe it’s hard to pay attention to what he’s interested in when my cock is in his mouth.

I have no clue what I’m doing.

“Soap me up,” he says. “I’ll clean you from the inside.”

My vision actually blurs.

I’m so hard, I’m not sure he’ll fit inside. I let go of him to rub a bar of soap in my hand and use it to get him lathered. Nervous breaths huff out of me—the feel of his silken length has me hot, and the steam isn’t helping. I lean back on the tile wall, not trusting my body to hold me up. He encroaches, aiming his tip at mine. He gives my foreskin a few longer tugs, being rougher with me than I was.

I breathe through the intense stretch and brace myself with my hands on his hips. He manages the details, widening my opening with two fingers, and holding my cock steady as our tips meet. After a few slips, his cock slides in, and I gasp.

The sensation is mind-blowing. Too much. The sight of my foreskin encasing both our cocks is obscene. I let out an abrupt shout as his crown slides over my shaft, creating a lewd bulge between us.

“Oh, shit, that’s hot,” he breathes, staring down at our crude joining.

I dig my nails into his flesh and let him handle us. The raw slip of him against my naked cock is the definition of violation, but in the best, most erotic way possible. I’m a mess of sounds and muscle tension, fighting to allow the direct stimulation while not sliding down the wall and melting into the drain. “Fuck, baby… fffuuucckk …”

“So goddamn snug , babe. I’m gonna come right on your dick,” he says, his fist around the bulge, keeping us intimately joined, rubbing and tugging and pressing and staring.

“Come,” I tell him. “Come inside me…”

“This feels insane,” he breathes. “So fucking good. Umph… I can’t hold it.”

I groan again, my legs trembling, and my neurons fraying. “Give it to me,” I growl, not sure how much more I can take.

He thrusts harder—deeper into me. It’s so fucking sensitive and tight. My toes curl, hanging on for dear life as he destroys my cock. His breath stutters. I feel every contraction of his shaft like it’s happening to me and not on me. The heat is incendiary as he groans his release.

I grab his shoulder and squeeze, watching his orgasm send him to the stratosphere. His head falls forward as he pants and shudders. As he slides out, I shake, too, taking in the whole illicit sight— his cum dripping out of my cock.

He takes my erection in his hand and tugs it. Soap suds mixed with thick, milky white jizz. Three slow, powerful strokes, and I’m a goner—exploding at the sight and the firm pressure of his hand. I slap the wall to stay upright as my body is overcome with a thunderous spasm and my cock releases several powerful jets of cum directly onto his abs. “ Fuck! ”

Before one or both of us collapses, I pull him into my arms and slam my mouth to his. He meets me in a hot, wet, kiss that keeps my orgasm alive and thoroughly numbs my brain.

Once we’re breathless, we hold each other tight, long enough to come back to earth.

And in the clearing haze, I realize something important.

If I keep waiting until we’re not lusting after each other or sated from each other, the words are never going to come out of my mouth. Since the Hamptons, for three weeks, we’ve been insatiably attached. We’ve woken up nearly every morning together. The only time I’m not with him is during his eight-hour shifts in the lobby. He comes with me to the club, he’s picked his side of the bed, which used to be mine, and I stopped turning down his invitations to go out with his friends.

We’re in a relationship, whether he wants to call it that or not, but I haven’t asked.

With Marianne scheduled to return to the city tomorrow after a month in Sag Harbor, I need, at the very least, for Christian to know where I stand, even though the guilt of it sometimes still manages to choke me up. I’ve known since he found me in the woods, and each day since, the feeling has only stabilized and settled deep in my gut. “I’m in love with you, you know?”

His response is to tighten his grip on me. “I didn’t know,” he whispers, and I can barely hear him over the water.

“Is that okay?”

He nods, his face moving affirmatively against my neck. “Still not going anywhere, which is what I really need to hear from you.”

“I’m not, baby. I can’t. You’re the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I know. ”

I grin, kissing his bare shoulder. “Now tell me what I need to hear. Because I’m not stupid.”

He lifts his head slightly to kiss my earlobe. “I love you, Gibson. More than everything.”

I knew. I did. But hearing it in his words, his voice, is different than knowing. Hearing it with his wet naked body pressed to mine makes it mean all these unmet needs have found a place to spend themselves safely—in a way that doesn’t break me down and chip away at my soul. Intimate, full-fleshed, loud, open love , and all I have to do is hold onto it.

“In that case, I think we should not go to work today,” I decide.

“Well, we can’t stay in here .”

“You want to go out?” I ask.

“I think it’s supposed to rain.”

“I don’t care,” I tell him.

“We could cross the street and be inappropriate in the park. With snacks.”

“In the rain?”

“Why not?” He loosens his hold and pulls away to look at me. He reaches up to push my drenched hair off my face. I return the favor. “I like you wet.”

“Love. You love me. Wet.”

“That, too.”

Christian definitely gets me wet.

The rain comes and goes, soft summer showers that drench for a few seconds then taper to a fine sprinkle. We find a tree to lie under, but it offers minimal cover on the edge of the small clearing in Central Park. Other couples are enjoying the summer showers, so it doesn’t feel altogether indecent to make out with Christian in a public space as often as I feel compelled to. His wet, black t-shirt does things to me .

He lets me talk endlessly about finding a building for him to buy and restore. He says it has to be for apartments when I force my fantasy real estate game on him, and they have to be affordable. Since those are his only conditions, I run with it, spewing ideas until he says something along the lines of— that makes sens e or, yeah, that could work .

And finally, he starts playing the game, too, tossing around neighborhoods, and thoughts on ideal square footage, like he’s actually considering buying and selling real estate.

“Who’s your ideal renter?” I ask him while he lies on his back with his arms behind his head. His hair is damp and pushed off his face. He’s got his eyes on the sky, and I’m on my side staring at him with a finger hooked in one of his belt loops.

“Me,” he says. “A single doorman. All he needs is a small clean place, nice neighborhood. His own doorman. Good sight lines.”

“You’re so sexy when you talk about sight lines.”

“And it’s gotta be close to the subway. For days like this.”

“You wanna do it?” I ask, tugging the loop, wanting his eyes on me again.

He turns his head.

“You do it,” he says, grinning. “I just gave you an awesome idea.”

“It is an awesome idea, and I can walk you through exactly how to make it happen.”

“I already have two jobs.”

“Work for me full-time.”

“I do.”

“You know what I mean, smart ass.” I scoot closer to him, my hand sliding up his shirt to palm his stomach. “I don’t care if you want to be a doorman forever, and if that’s what you want, you can tell me to shut up, but you’re not half bad at this, and you don’t hate it.”

“No. I don’t hate it. Much to my surprise.”

“Then tell me—where do you see yourself in ten years?” I ask .

He blows out a sigh and looks up at the clouds again, squinting like he’s trying to picture it. “Maybe traveling? I want to be here, but not all the time. And I’d love to be working less, not more.”

“I’m a bad example because I like working all the time, but I could easily take a year off to travel.”

“Would you really be off, though? Or would you be checking in all the time, working remotely?”

“I said I was a bad example, but the idea is, you find the right people who can keep things running without you, and you take all that money you made and follow your passions.”

“Maybe I’d rather inherit, self-publish a book, and wander aimlessly letting inspiration find me.”

“Sounds lonely,” I tell him with a contrived pout.

He stretches one of his arms out and wraps it around my back, pulling me to his side. “Ten years is a long time.”

“It goes fast. You’d be surprised.”

He faces me again, but this time, we’re much closer. “Where do you see your self?”

I hold his steady blue gaze and imagine deeper laugh lines. Maybe slightly softer flesh beneath my hand. Less elastically perfect skin. “Wherever you want me.”

He grins. “I get to pick?”

“I’ll consider your input.”

“Oh, well…” He turns to his side and lines his body up with mine. A gentle rain is falling, and a drop hangs from his lower lip. “If I had my way, I like the idea of you in Singapore. Some place like that.”

“With you?”

“If you want.”

“I do,” I assure him.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this,” he says, the raindrop holding onto his pretty mouth for dear life.

“It’s just talking. ”

“But then talking turns into wanting, and wanting becomes expectations, and I don’t wanna do that today.”

“Christian, I meant what I said.”

“You mean it when you say it to her, too.”

“Baby…” I press my forehead to his. “I had no idea someone like you even existed.”

“You’ve known me for years, Gibson.”

“You’re determined to give me a hard time, aren’t you?”

“More like I’m determined not to get my hopes up.”

“I kinda wish you would,” I say, unable to resist sucking the persistent drop of water into my mouth.

He catches my face in his hand, something fierce burning behind his eyes. “What if everything changed? What if she wants you enough to try again?”

Of course it comes down to this. We’ve been together just shy of two months and the man who kissed him in Rome was a broken, lovesick fool for a woman who stopped wanting him decades ago. But the man I kissed probably couldn’t imagine falling in love, either. Some seismic changes have occurred, and nothing is the same, including my feelings about my marriage. Because it turns out I’m not as stuck as I thought I was, and I’ve paid more than my fair share for whatever I felt like I owed her.

Some damage can’t be undone, but I can build something new.

I ask him the most important question I’ve ever asked. “What if I don’t?”