Page 20 of Gideon (Finding Home #3)

“Okay,” I say slowly and gratefully once we pole up outside Constance’s suite. “Wait here,” I instruct Gideon. “I’m just going to make sure that Oliver knows what she’s been up to so he can keep an eye on her.”

“If your boyfriend can drag his eyes off you,” he says fretfully and then his expression brightens. “That fire extinguisher is so red!” he exclaims.

“Yes,” I say slowly. “So red, and so not going to be touched under any circumstances at all, Gideon Ramsay.” He slumps back against the wall, looking like a sulky child, and I grin at him. “Wait here, trouble,” I say affectionately.

Oliver is predictably sullen, but he rallies enough to practise being insincere with his charge, and I leave them to it.

When I get outside, I stop dead. Shit! Where’s he gone?

For a second panic engulfs me, but then I see someone’s foot poking round the corner and the faint tuneless humming of “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie.

Grinning, I make my way to him and stand over him. He’s lying on the floor outside our suite staring at the ceiling. “I can see the stars,” he says dreamily.

I look up. “They’re not stars, they’re spotlights in the ceiling.”

He waves his hand. “They are stars,” he says crossly. “I can quite clearly see that they’re twinkling at me.”

“Well, of course they are,” I say soothingly.

He stares up at me. “You’re so gorgeous,” he mutters in a low voice and my heart starts to pound heavily. “I want you, but I won’t do anything. Do you know why?” he whispers loudly.

“Why?” I say softly, feeling the mood shift and change.

“Because I can’t.” He raises his finger to his mouth. “Shush!” he admonishes me rather loudly. “It’s a secret. I’m gay, but you can’t tell anyone.”

I feel my whole body clench in shock as all my thoughts and half-formed suspicions are confirmed. My cock twitches instantly, but I ignore it.

“Gideon,” I say softly.

He shakes his head. “Ouch! Someone hit me.”

I smile helplessly. “No one hit you. You did it yourself by banging your head on the floor.”

“Well, that was a bloody stupid thing to do,” he says fretfully. He stares at me. “Don’t tell anyone,” he whispers. “No one would understand. I’d never act again. My fans would never forgive me. I can’t be gay.”

“I don’t think you have a choice in the matter,” I say softly, then earnestly assure him, “I won’t tell anyone.”

I feel so sad. I don’t know why he thinks that, but I suppose I can’t blame him.

There’s a lot of homophobia about, and he would more than likely lose some jobs.

My concern is more for what this is doing to him.

What must it be like to live your life being told that one of the most inherent parts of yourself is wrong?

It must be soul-destroying. Is this why he’s so wild and unmoored and grumpy?

“You can trust me, Mr Ramsay,” I say, feeling the urgent need to tack the mister part on so it reminds us both where this soft mood could land us. In dangerous waters.

“I’m not Mr Ramsay to you,” he says crossly. “I’m Gideon to you. I hate you being formal with me.” He tugs on his jumper crossly. “I’m very hot,” he says peevishly. “Why is the heating on?”

I bend over and help him pull his jumper off, and he emerges from the folds blinking like a tiny stoned mole. My mouth twitches, but any semblance of a smile vanishes as he looks at me, his eyes deep and dark.

“You’re not for me,” he says slowly. “Go back to your boyfriend.”

“I haven’t got one,” I say sharply. “Not that that improves our situation at all.” My head is still reeling as thoughts teem and churn. He’s gay. He’s closeted. He’s gay. That means I could have him. He’s my patient. He’s gay too.

Dismissing them with difficulty, I crouch, extending my hand down to help him up.

He grabs my hand and tries to get up but he displaces his weight, and I feel myself falling onto him.

I try to throw my weight to the side, but I can’t, and I’m heavy enough to warrant the startled “ oof ” he makes when I land on him.

For a second we stay still. Then he starts to giggle and it’s so infectious that I join in, right up until he threads his hand in my hair and I tip my chin up to look at him.

“So pretty,” he says almost wonderingly, and for a long second that seems to stretch out like hot toffee we stare at each other.

I can feel every inch of his long, hard body under me as I lie between his thighs, including what feels like a very lucky eight inches pressing against my hip.

He’s hard. I inhale sharply, getting a gust of his spicy vanilla scent, and our gazes tangle and slip together.

I don’t know who moves, but in the next second our lips meet and my head reels. His lips are full and slightly dry. I can smell pot on his breath, but that’s my last thought because then our groins press together and we groan in synchrony.

His lips part, and I lose my head. Reason screams at me that this is a terrible idea and we’re in a bloody corridor, but I throw it away completely.

Instead, I kiss him back, forcing his lips open and tangling my tongue with his.

He seems to melt back into the carpet in surrender and I follow him, chasing his mouth and taking it again as he gives a throaty groan.

Every cell in my body is beseeching me to grind on him, to strip him and put my cock inside him, because his surrender tells me everything.

I card my hands through the soft waves of his hair, holding his skull gently and directing his face so I can get as deep into his mouth as I can. I want to meld into him so totally that you couldn’t tell where he ends and I begin.

Fuck knows what would have happened, but at that moment the speaker above us crackles and reason returns to clear away the lust just enough for me to realise what I’m fucking doing.

I move back, and it’s so very hard to do – like I’m pulling away from the brink – and my cock throbs painfully.

Gideon tries to grab me, but I pull free and sit back on my haunches, panting and staring at him.

As my thoughts clear, I look around frantically and sag with relief to find no one taking photos of us.

We’ve been lucky that there are no witnesses to the supposedly straight famous actor rolling around on the carpet in the corridor with his male nurse.

I wince at the thought of the shitstorm that would create.

I scrub my hands down my face, smelling vanilla on my fingers where they dug into his skin. “Fuck!” I say. “What the fuck am I thinking? You’re my bloody patient.”

He stares up at me, his expression dazed and blind for a second. Then he sits up, pushing me off him. “Nice of you to remember.”

I sigh. “I’m so sorry,” I say earnestly. “Oliver dropped my phone in the sea, and we missed the boat.”

I stop because he’s patently not listening to me again.

He gets to his feet, swaying and clinging to the wall for a second.

“Is it stormy?” he says vaguely. “Why is the ship moving about like this? Can’t they get a competent captain?

” I shake my head at his lord of the manor impression.

“I’m so hungry,” he says very loudly and plaintively. “I want something to eat now.”

I get to my feet. “Okay,” I say softly. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.” I pause. “If you remember.”

He reels into the suite, and I follow him. Do I hope he remembers it or not? I can’t make my mind up.

GIDEON

I wake up the next morning coughing, and my chest feels sore enough for me to remember doing the same in the middle of the night. I cough and cough, feeling my breath catch and my eyes stream. I try to suck in some air but I can’t get enough, and my head swims as I start to panic. Fuck!

The door bangs open, and Eli dashes in. He takes one look at me bent double and clutching at my chest, and he immediately grabs the portable oxygen tank that has sat redundantly in my room since the beginning of the cruise. Well, I hope it feels better now that it’s needed.

“Easy,” he says, his voice warm and steady, and immediately I feel calmer, the panic that fizzed inside me like lemonade, dissipating under his control of the situation.

He straps the mask onto my face and props two pillows behind me, settling me back against them.

“Deep breaths,” he says, his hand on my wrist feeling my pulse.

His face has that inward look he gets when he does anything like this.

I breathe in slowly, feeling the tight grip on my chest gradually ease. When it’s gone and I can breathe steadily, I go to take the mask off, but his hand stops me. I swallow hard because it’s warm and firm, the fingers long and spread over mine.

He looks at me and hesitates. I open my eyes, trying to make myself look pitiful, but it doesn’t work, and I sag slightly as his face takes on a stern look that really shouldn’t make my cock as interested as it is.

“What were you thinking?” he bursts out. “You’ve had pneumonia, for God’s sake. Your lung collapsed. You were in intensive care. This trip home was supposed to be about rest and relaxation.”

I lift the mask up. “Dope is very relaxing. It’s a medical fact.”

He snaps the mask back on, and I swear he pings the elastic far harder than he should.

“Gideon, you use the words ‘medical facts’ the way that some people quote the Bible. At no point in any medical research has anyone added the words, ‘And after they’ve had a collapsed lung, the patient should definitely roll a really nice fat doobie and try to eat his body weight in pizza.’”

I purse my lips and raise the mask. “Someone should commission that study.” I take one look at his cross face and realise it won’t be me doing that.

I’m about to continue being flippant when I take note of the dark circles under his eyes.

He’s got to be as tired as me, since he was in here with me most of the night rubbing my back and talking me down from panic.