Page 19 of All of Us Murderers

Zeb went to his knees by reflex, only then remembering his hands were still tangled behind his back. That was fine, except that Gideon was still dressed. “Unbutton yourself for me?”

Gideon reached for the buttons at his waist, moving with dreamlike slowness, with Zeb mostly naked on his knees in front of him. He was so hard it hurt.

Gideon released his prick, which was standing proud.

Zeb ran his tongue over his lips, very deliberately, and heard Gideon’s sharp intake of breath.

Zeb leaned in and licked the smooth head of Gideon’s prick, relishing the feel of it, taut and full.

He circled it with tongue and then lips, setting them round the shaft, just holding Gideon there.

“Your mouth, your fuckable mouth. Christ.” Gideon ran his fingers through Zeb’s hair. “You blasted beautiful alley cat.”

Zeb purred round his mouthful, with a lot of vibration. Gideon gave a sobbing sort of gasp and his fingers tightened on Zeb’s scalp. His thighs were flexing with tension. Zeb made a fruitless effort to move his hands, reminding them both he was pinioned by the shirt, and Gideon almost sobbed.

Who needed hands? Zeb leaned in, taking Gideon deep, using tongue and cheeks and the roof of his mouth, everything and anything for Gideon’s pleasure.

He could feel the fingers flexing and tensing in his hair, the motions of his hips, and then Gideon’s hands clamped on his skull, and he was moving.

Gideon fucking his mouth as much as Zeb sucking him, just the way they had always both liked it, and whispering as he moved.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. You wanted this. You’re hard for this. You utter—Christ!”

His hips jerked hard. Zeb held on for the ride, letting him thrust deep into his throat, feeling him come. He stayed there as Gideon’s breath sobbed out, and his chest heaved.

“Jesus,” Gideon said after a moment. “Zeb.”

Zeb pulled his mouth off and swallowed, then sat back on his heels, extremely aware of his own arousal. Gideon looked dizzily down at him. “Do you need me to untangle your arms?”

“No,” Zeb said. “Don’t.”

Gideon contemplated him a second longer, then stepped around him, and Zeb heard and felt the movement as he came to his knees, once again wrapping his arms round Zeb’s waist, a hand round his cock.

“Oh,” Zeb said, leaning back.

There was a sudden wetness on his ear—tongue, the scrape of teeth.

Zeb arched his neck, and Gideon kissed that.

“God, you’re hard. You always did love that.

” His voice shuddering through Zeb, resonating deep in his bones; his thumb at work, stroking, caressing; his arm tight round Zeb’s waist, holding him close.

“You’re so damned good at it and you feel so good—so hard—and, God, Zeb, the way you looked.

” His hand tightened, his strokes speeding up, and Zeb could hear his breath, shallower, urgent.

His own heart was thumping faster, his toes curling. “Can I make you come like this?”

“You can make me do anything you please,” Zeb said, and heard Gideon’s breath catch.

“I fucked your mouth and you loved it and I’m going to make you—oh God, I can feel you—Zeb!”

Zeb cried out, and arched his back into Gideon’s grip, gasping his pleasure as it crested and spent.

He slumped back. Gideon bent forward, so they were wrapped around each other. Zeb felt warm, and cradled, and as if the aching hole in his heart was liable to rip the whole thing apart.

“God,” Gideon said at last. He sounded much like Zeb felt: spent, sated, wretched.

“What are you thinking?”

“How much time we wasted. Where we went wrong. How I wish I had been less of a prig.”

Gideon had been utterly, hopelessly inexperienced when they started.

He’d never acted on his longings before, and those long, cold years of repression had marked him.

It had been difficult for him to acknowledge his own wants, to touch freely, to voice his pleasures, or indeed to do anything at all without checking half a dozen times that he wasn’t getting it wrong.

Zeb had done his best, but a lifetime’s denial and control couldn’t be discarded in a few weeks or even months.

Gideon had talked more in this one encounter than Zeb thought he might have done in any five fucks when they were together.

Maybe he’d found someone who’d taught him to voice his pleasures in a way Zeb hadn’t managed, and if he had, that was excellent, and very much not something Zeb had a right to be wistful about.

“It was hard for you,” he said. “And you weren’t a prig.”

“I was, and we both know it. I wish—never mind.” Gideon shifted his head slightly. He might have been brushing a kiss over Zeb’s hair, or he might have been scratching his nose. “And you? What are you thinking?”

“I was reflecting that I should have made you tie me up and fuck me a long time ago. And then you should have kept me bound and gagged, so I couldn’t have said and done the things that ruined us.”

“Don’t.” Gideon’s sigh heaved both their bodies. “Please. It wasn’t just your fault.”

“Gideon—”

“There’s no point talking about it. You’re going home tomorrow; I’m staying here; that’s all there is to it.”

“I know. But may I write to you? You didn’t say.”

Gideon exhaled long and hard. “Do you recall the story of Pandora’s box? She opened it and let out all the ills of the world, and the last thing to come out was hope?”

“Yes?”

“People always tell that story as though hope was a consolation, the one good thing, instead of the last evil in the box. I truly don’t know why, because hope is unbearable.

My life was perfectly acceptable before I met you—not exciting, perhaps not entirely satisfactory, but functional.

And then you came along, and I started hoping for a lot of things I’d never imagined before, and which of course I couldn’t have—”

“Gideon—”

“I don’t want to hope any more,” Gideon said.

“I want to rebuild the wreckage of my career and my finances and my life, and not bet everything on a dream, or spend every waking hour wanting the unattainable. I’ve spent so much time in limbo over the past year, without you and because of you, and I can’t do it any more.

If that makes me a coward, I’m sorry. But I’m begging you, don’t ask me for this. I can’t.”

“I see,” Zeb said, his heart aching. “I’m sorry too. I wish you didn’t feel like that, but—well, I understand, I suppose. Of course I do. I hope—I hope, if you can be happy, you will be. And…well, you know where I live. If you should want to find me, ever.”

Gideon’s chin came forward, resting on his shoulder. Zeb tipped his head sideways to meet Gideon’s, and they sat in silence as the house cooled around them.