Page 35 of All of Us Murderers

Nineteen

Zeb woke with Gideon’s arm heavy over him and dread heavy in his stomach. He couldn’t remember why either of those was the case for a moment, and then he did. He didn’t realise he’d made a noise, but Gideon said, “Good morning.”

“Morning.”

Gideon kissed his ear, presumably because it was all he could reach. “We’re us, today? Us again?”

Zeb didn’t know what he meant for a moment, then he remembered. The promise he’d wanted to make that wouldn’t feel like an impossible pledge. It sent a shudder of joy through him. “Still us.”

Gideon’s arm tightened. “Good.”

They’d clung to each other for what had felt like hours last night, relishing touch and skin and breath.

Zeb hadn’t wanted to fuck, with Elise’s broken body downstairs, and Gideon hadn’t suggested it either.

They’d just held themselves together by holding one another, letting closeness salve the little wounds and silence make promises that neither of them dared voice.

They were going to start again. Gideon still cared. Everything was going to be all right—for them, if nobody else—as soon as they could leave this bloody house.

“I’ll need my satchel,” Zeb said aloud. “I brought the manuscript of book four and it’s nearly done.”

There was a tiny pause, then Gideon said, “Keep it with you so we can leave in a hurry. Good thought.”

He didn’t say What are you talking about? or Could you try to make sense? or complain about Zeb beginning a conversation halfway through. He’d just worked out where Zeb’s thoughts must be. He’d always been good at that.

“I missed you so much,” Zeb said into Gideon’s shoulder.

“So did I. Daily.”

“Will you come home with me? My landlady lets me have people sleep on the sofa for an extra ten shillings a week, not that I’d want you to sleep on the sofa.

I know you have to find a new job and all that, of course, and I dare say we oughtn’t rush into anything, and I really am trying to be sensible, but—”

“I will absolutely come home with you, if you want me to.” He kissed Zeb’s hair. “There’s something I think I should tell you.”

“Mmm?”

Gideon took a deep breath. “I went to a club. That one you showed me, but I didn’t want to go in? Well, I did. I went.”

Zeb had felt quite strongly that Gideon should meet more people of their sort.

Gideon had resisted. He’d been terrified of a police raid, the risk of exposure, and, Zeb suspected, of the reality of it.

One thing to have a lover in a room away from all eyes, quite another to go to a club and be seen.

“I’m glad you did. Was it good?”

Gideon grimaced. “It… I think it was good. I spoke to some people. Everyone was very friendly.”

Zeb cast an affectionate glance at him, with his striking features and patrician nose. “I bet they were.”

“And, uh. There was a man. Two men.” It was still dark, but Zeb would put good money Gideon was blushing.

He could imagine the heat sweep over his skin.

“It was a performance, I suppose, or at least I hope it was, because…well. One of them announced the other had lost a bet. He told him to get on his knees in the middle of the room with his hands behind his back and suck him. He held his hair, and called him names, and it was—Christ.”

“Did you like it?”

“I don’t know. Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Just watching, or…?”

“No,” Gideon said. “No. I, uh, it was very—and a man—he sucked me off. I let him.”

Zeb reached for his hand. That would be the second man Gideon had ever done anything with, and he hoped the fellow had made a decent job of it. “Was that good?”

“Yes. Sort of. Yes, it was good, but I didn’t know him. I kept thinking, I wished I’d gone with you. If you’d done that there and then, it would have been—Lord.”

“I’m at your disposal. Did you go again?”

“I was going to. But when I was approaching, there were police on the street, a couple of them loitering as they do, and I walked past without looking and went home. And before I got the nerve up to try again, I ran entirely out of money, so that was that. But I wanted you to know, I did try, and I’d like to go again. With you.”

“Then we will,” Zeb said. “Is there anything else on your mind, at all?”

Gideon took a deep breath. “The things that chap was saying to his partner—”

“You liked it?”

“He was quite offensive. But some of it—telling him he wanted it—”

“The other night,” Zeb said. “I was on my knees with my hands behind my back, and you were telling me how much I loved it.”

“That,” Gideon said hoarsely. “Exactly that.”

“Well, I do, so if you tell me how much I love it, that’s just true. And what I most want in the world right now is for you to tell me exactly what you want me to do, and then point out what an eager little bitch I am while I’m doing it.”

“Oh Jesus, Zeb. Please,” Gideon said helplessly. “Please. Can I?”

“I absolutely insist you do. I will tell you if I don’t like anything,” he added, knowing Gideon as he did. “I will say if it’s too much, and not take offence. But that is very far from my problem right now.”

Since his erection was jammed into Gideon’s hip, this was inarguable. Gideon took a deep breath. Then he rolled over, pushing Zeb gently onto his back, swung a leg over his chest, and straddled him.

“Go on,” Zeb said. “Just as you imagined.”

“I thought about this so much,” Gideon said softly. “Over you, watching your face. And—” He caught Zeb’s hands, leaning forward to pull them above his head, interlaced their fingers, pressed down.

Zeb twisted under him, feeling his weight. “Yes. Like this.”

“I thought sometimes about holding you and fucking between your legs,” Gideon whispered. “I thought about how you’d be so hard, and those noises you made—make—when you want to come, and the way you look. How I’d make you wait till you were moaning.”

“Did you let me come?”

“You did anyway,” Gideon said on a breath. “I’d pleasure myself between your legs and you’d love it so much, you begged for it, and came because you couldn’t help it—”

Zeb whimpered. Gideon’s breath hissed out harshly. “That. That noise you make. That’s what I want.”

He shifted, working his prick between Zeb’s thighs and holding them shut tight with his own legs, hands entwined. Zeb’s blood was thudding in his veins. His prick felt hot and tight, and incredibly sensitive to the lightest possible brush of Gideon’s belly above him.

They were watching each other’s face as the slowly brightening grey dawn lit the room.

Fingers embracing, palms kissing, and Gideon thrusting gently.

No lubrication, just warm flesh, the friction of a smooth prick against his thighs, Gideon’s eyes on his, and the fact that he’d spent solitary nights wanking over this image.

Zeb tilted his hips up, trying to press them together, the pressure in his own prick demanding touch, but Gideon was holding himself up just a little too high for anything but an occasional slide over the very head of Zeb’s prick.

He gave a frustrated moan and felt Gideon’s shudder of response.

“Please,” he whispered. “I want to hear it.”

Gideon paused. Zeb said, “Say it.”

Gideon swallowed audibly. “You are so desperate,” he whispered. “You want it so much. I can feel you shaking and hear you moaning. God, you love it.”

Zeb could hear the naked desire in Gideon’s voice, and it felt like an electric charge all over his skin. “Please. Please, Gideon, touch me.”

Gideon’s hands pressed harder. “Not yet.”

Zeb was squirming now, entirely trapped by Gideon’s hands and constricting legs. Gideon’s cock was wet now, leaking against his skin, rubbing his balls, his motions becoming more urgent, less controlled. “Oh God, please,” Zeb said. “You know I want it. Anything, if you let me come.”

Gideon reared up. “Roll over.”

Zeb rolled, with due care for his rigid erection. Gideon straddled him again, once again nudging his prick between Zeb’s thighs, this time rubbing against his balls and buttocks, moving in short thrusts. His hand came between Zeb’s shoulder blades, pushing him down.

“Please.” Zeb was writhing in earnest, for the friction of cloth under him, and the joy of Gideon’s weight, and very much for the provocative value. “Tell me.”

“You know you love it. You love to fuck and you love me fucking you, and you’re such an eager little tart—”

Oh, that’s my good boy. “Hopeless,” Zeb agreed. “Show me how I love it.”

He felt a hand snake under him, wrap around his prick, and for a second he thought he might spill there and then. He let out a shuddering moan. Gideon whimpered himself. “Oh, God, Zeb, tell me—”

“I am an absolute shameless fucking slut for you,” Zeb said, and then Gideon was driving between Zeb’s legs, spasming, coming over him as he convulsively jerked Zeb’s prick without rhythm or skill, just frantic need, and Zeb had to muffle his shout as he spent into the bedclothes.

Gideon slumped over his back. Zeb lay, flattened, with Gideon’s hand still clutching him, both of them heaving with the need to get their breath back.

“God,” Gideon said at last. “God. Christ. Uh, was that all right?”

“Is that a serious question?”

It wasn’t the acts, or even the words themselves.

It was the desire that had wracked Gideon’s body, and the fact that he’d dug out the truth of that desire and trusted it to Zeb.

That was what he’d wanted; that was a gift he’d hug to himself all his life.

“It was very much all right,” he said, because Gideon might need that.

“Only, next time, I want you to fuck me all the way, and call me a trollop while you do it, please.”

“You’re going to give me a stroke. I will actually die in bed and then you’ll have some explaining to do. Would you like that? Not the stroke. The other thing.”

“I feel like a man who’s saying he’ll do anything should be taken at his word.”

“When you put it that way,” Gideon said, and buried his face in Zeb’s neck.