And yet, when I hesitantly raised my gaze to his, he was staring at me in wonder. One massive palm pressed to my chest, his thumb and fingers spreading on either side of my neck. He didn’t devour me with his gaze; there was hardly any heat of arousal in his expression. But the yearning on his face undid me.
“Gideon.” I breathed his name as he wrapped his other arm around me and drew me close. His palm burned as it dragged down my chest to my stomach, stopping just shy of my erection. It curved around my waist until both his hands pressed into my back. “I need—”
“I know,” he whispered, kissing the corner of my mouth.
I shifted closer to bring our chests together, and my knee bumped the junction of his thighs. My eyes widened in shock as he gasped. Dropping my stare to his groin, I swallowed thickly. He wasn’t fully erect, but there was a bulge there. He was half-hard.
“I can…” I lowered my hand, hovering over him.
He stopped me, taking my wrist in hand and bringing it to his mouth. He kissed the thin flesh of my wrist, his words breezing over my skin. “This is enough for me.”
The disappointment was there because I wanted to touch him more than anything. I embraced it, acknowledged it, then set it aside. It had no place between us, not when Gideon was already giving me such an extraordinary gift.
“Okay.” I ran my fingers over his prickly facial hair. “Can I someday?”
When he nodded, his nose grazed my cheek. “Maybe.”
“I wanna make you feel good,” I said, and he kissed me again, slow and sweet.
“You do make me feel good,” he said between kisses. “This makes me feel good.”
“Good. That’s… good.” I added pressure to his chest, and he fell back onto the bed. I followed, bending to kiss his sternum, his collarbone, the hollow of his throat. “Is this okay?” I asked against his neck, lips pressed to his fluttering pulse point.
“Yes.” His fingers flexed on my waist as I rocked against his thigh.
He allowed me to touch and explore every inch of his torso, and when I was nearly drunk off the salty taste of his skin, I returned to his mouth. My orgasm hovered in the background, prickling down my spine every so often as I rolled my hips against his thigh. But it was just out of reach.
Cradling my head with one hand, Gideon twined the fingers of his free hand with mine. He brought my hand to his mouth and slid his tongue over my palm. For someone who didn’t care much about sex, he was incredibly good at being sexy. I shivered as his tongue slid from the heel of my hand to the tips of my fingers.
Then he said, “Touch yourself, kapara. Let me see you.”
I nearly came from his command alone. It spoke to my level of desperation how little convincing it took. Leaning over him, I kissed him desperately and slid my damp hand into my underwear. I was close, my orgasm tingling in my lower back where Gideon placed his hands, dragging gentle fingers over my skin. Our kiss broke as I gasped.
“Gideon, I—oh God—I’m gonna…”
“Show me,” he said.
And that was it. Green eyes met mine. Our gazes held as my body tightened, then shattered. I trembled as he cradled my head in his hands. He whispered words of adoration as I rode the wave of my orgasm. I moaned his name, spilling into my underwear, and he smiled. Oh, how he smiled up at me.
For a moment, tears burned my eyes, blurring his gorgeous face. He kissed away the moisture.
“You’re beautiful. Thank you, darling. Thank you for sharing this with me.”
“I love you so much.” I choked out the words as I buried my face in his neck.
He wrapped me up in his arms as I shook. He kissed my sweaty temple and sighed in contentment. Even though he hadn’t come, he lay languid and tranquil underneath me. I almost felt his satisfaction, his peace. We hadn’t bonded, but it had been a close thing. Our hearts were almost in sync. Almost.
And it was perfect.
I must have drifted off because I startled into awareness when Gideon gently shifted my weight on his torso. My arms were curled between our chests, one hand still sticky. My release was cold and tacky in my underwear, and I blushed. It had definitely soaked through to his underwear by now.
My head was pillowed on his pectoral, his chest hair tickling my cheek. His fingers sifted through my hair, scratching at the damp roots. Like we were floating in a bubble of bliss, we lay in comfortable silence, soaking.
I didn’t want to break the beauty of the moment, but I had to know. “Are you okay?” I asked in a whisper.
His fingers didn’t even pause, continuing to work through my hair. “Yes. Are you?”
A rather unattractive snort escaped my nose. “I’m more than okay.”
“That’s good.”
As his chuckle vibrated against my cheek, I smiled. Peering up at him, I rolled my eyes at the cocky smirk gracing his lips. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so smug before.”
The grin widened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I always look like this.”
Nuzzling his chest like a cat, I burst into laughter. He rumbled beneath me, his stomach bouncing against my ribcage. I twirled whorls of chest hair around my fingers as I basked in the afterglow. I never wanted this moment to end.
But time marched on, and the itch of drying semen in my pubic hair quickly grew impossible to ignore. Hating myself for shattering the sublime spell hovering over us, I slowly lifted until I could perch my forearms on his chest. He stared down at me, cheeks slightly pink, eyes calm and sated.
“Hey,” I said.
Gideon arched an amused eyebrow. “Hey.”
“So, uh, I’m a little… messy.” I cringed. “I mean, I need to clean up.”
Completely unruffled, he said, “Okay.”
As I rose to sit back on his thigh, I grimaced. “Sorry, I think… you need new underwear. It, um, got on you. Sorry.”
Like he was struggling not to laugh, Gideon bit his bottom lip, then said, “You don’t have to apologize. I’m aware of what happens when a man orgasms.”
My eyes narrowed. “This really doesn’t bother you?”
When he sat up, I grabbed his shoulders to steady myself. He surprised me with a quick kiss to my lips. I’d never seen him more at ease.
“Riley, you’re male. I understand what that means, even in regard to sex. So no, it doesn’t bother me.”
“So I’m overthinking it?”
He just smiled.
“Okay, fine. I see how it is.” I glanced down and balked. A smear of semen glistened on Gideon’s hip. I nonchalantly wiped it away, and he chuckled. “Seriously, I really gotta change my underwear.”
As I feared, Gideon’s trunks were damp on one side, but true to his words, he didn’t recoil. He simply stood from the bed, bent over, and tugged them off. I may have ogled his butt for a few seconds as my brain broke. But I totally played it off, cool as a cucumber.
I stole away to the bathroom to clean myself up, and when I returned, I nearly had a heart attack. Gideon lay sprawled naked on my bed, the sheet twisted around one leg, his flaccid penis playing peek-a-boo. I whined deep in my throat.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I crossed my arms over my chest and pouted.
Gideon coughed and blushed. “I can get dressed if you prefer that.”