“Fuck,” I say when I do. I’m basically out of words. “Oh. Fuck.”
Gideon bites his lip and finally slides in, slowly, like he’s testing himself. We ditched condoms after getting tested so he’s bare, and I’ve never minded using them, but I also like the look on his face. As if he’s seeing God or something.
He bottoms out and groans, his fingers sinking into my thigh hard enough to leave bruises. I wrap the other one around his hips as he presses himself into me, and—
“Ow,” I say, the vibrator squashed against some weird spot.
“Sorry,” Gideon gasps, then moves, groans and thrusts again and that doesn’t work either, goddamn it.
“Here,” I say. “Try—”
He wraps both arms around me and rolls us over. I yelp, unsexily, and my foot gets tangled in the bedspread and the vibrator jumps out of my hand and I have to lunge after it, but then I’m suddenly on top, kneeling over Gideon. I’m breathing hard, shaking, my clit is throbbing from the overstimulation, but I still sink onto him in one greedy stroke.
“Please,” is all he says, hoarse and wrecked.
It’s easy, from this angle. All I have to do is stay upright and let Gideon grab my thighs and push my knees a little wider. I gasp and clench when I touch the vibrator to my clit again, gently at first. Gideon’s breath stutters.
“I’m not sure it’s gonna work again,” I say. I’ve got my full weight on him, grinding down, pressing my clit against the vibrator. It’s the kind of good that I can feel in my bones but I don’t know if it’s the kind of good that’ll let me come again.
“I think you can,” he says, his hands on my hips as he angles himself, pulls me down, and I make a gasping whimper noise I’m not proud of. “Doesn’t that feel good?”
I sigh and shudder in response.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, pulling me down again, gentle but firm as anything. “Just the way you like it. Lean back.”
I just do what he says, because he’s right that I like this and I’m aching and buzzing and the vibrator pressing against my clit hurts, almost, like I’m gently poking a bruise but it’s also fucking wonderful, and his cock is wonderful, and yeah. I can come again.
Just as gently, he takes the vibrator out of my hand without ever moving it from the right spot, and I let him go to put both hands on his thighs behind me, and fuck. Fuck.
“There you go,” Gideon says. “I love it when you use me.”
I try to disagree, say I’m not using him, but he bucks up a little and pushes the vibrator a little harder against me so instead I make a choked-off sobbing sound. God, I’m close, I’m so fucking close—
“Shhh,” Gideon is saying, like he’s soothing me. “It’s okay if you don’t. It’s okay if it just feels good.”
“It’s good,” I hear myself say. “Gideon, it’s so good.”
“That’s it,” he says, and he sounds like he’s cracking apart under the strain. “You’re perfect. I—fuck, Andi, I can’t--"
I stop moving. Gideon makes a noise like he’s dying but I settle myself and grind down, feel him fill me and stretch me and press the vibrator so hard against my clit I think it might pop and then, in a burst, I fucking come.
I see stars. I see galaxies and black holes and the end of time itself, and when I open my eyes again Gideon is pulling me in, up, grabbing my hips, fucking me hard and fast with my face against his shoulder before he shouts and goes still, throbbing inside me.
I feel flattened and sun-warmed. I feel like I could melt into the cracks, live a simple and thought-free existence. Soon, my breathing evens out and Gideon’s fingers start at the knob of my neck and trace, gently, all the way down my spine.
“You okay?” he rumbles. He sounds like I feel.
I heave myself to the side and roll off him, both knees cracking. The vibrator is still going, somewhere across the bed, and it’ll just have to run out of battery because I’m not getting up to turn it off.
“I’m good,” I say, and we’re on our sides, our legs still tangled. I push a sweaty curl off his forehead. “Are you okay?”
Gideon scoffs and smiles, secret and shy. “I’m fi—”
“Don’t you dare,” I tell him, shoving a couple fingers against his lips. His smile widens behind them, even as he rolls his eyes.
“I can say whatever I want,” he says, and kisses each of my fingertips in turn, matter-of-fact and delicate, but also says, “I’m great.”
“Agreed,” I say, and after all that, he still blushes.
“You know,” I say later, after I’ve brushed my teeth and done my skincare routine, though I haven’t put on clothes. “There are vibrating cock rings.”
Gideon’s already in bed, on what’s become his side, reading a paperback that’s seen better days.
“Really,” he says, his attention snapping to me.
“Really,” I confirm. “You know. If you were interested.”
“Might be worth checking into,” he says, and he’s making a serious face but he’s got that note in his voice, that crinkle around his eyes and it almost hurts, what a gift he is. When he’s like this, quietly happy in a way that feels like walking on sun-warmed stone.
“Might be,” I agree, and steal his robe from the hook on the back of his door, just in case Reid got home while we were busy. “I’m gonna go grab some water.”
When I come back five minutes later, he’s swapped the book for his phone, and I crawl under the covers and get nosy.
“Shit, that was fast,” I say as he scrolls through vibrating cock ring after vibrating cock ring. He taps on one and—yep, he’s reading the reviews.
“Never leave for tomorrow what can be done today,” he says.
I blink at the phone for a second.
“Did you just quote Thomas Jefferson at me? About sex toys?” I ask, and he turns his head. Our faces are two inches apart.
“Fuck no,” he says. “I quoted Benjamin Franklin at you.”
“Is that better?”
“Of course it’s better,” he grumbles, then gets his arm around me with only a little shoving. “Here. This one’s well-rated and waterproof, tell me what you think.”
CHAPTER FORTY
GIDEON
The cages outside are empty. I can barely see them in the dark, faintly moonlit, clouds wandering over the night sky. It’s good when they’re empty, because it means that there’s no hurt wildlife out there with no place to go. Critters only wind up here when the real wildlife rehab centers are too full, or too understaffed, or too underfunded. Too still and too quiet, but good.
It’s been a couple weeks since the two of them went back, the eagle to the wild and the fox to be an Educational Ambassador at a wildlife refuge, but I haven’t quite gotten used to it yet.
I never meant to start taking in critters, but a few years back—after Reid but before Dolly—I got a call about a Great Horned Owl who’d nearly died from ingesting rat poison and needed a safe place to recover, so I built an enclosure big enough for an owl. Then another, and another, and then a few years had gone by and I was a sometimes-waystation for wildlife who needed it.