We Have Till Dawn

I finished my beer, torn between jumping his bones and running away to hide, because I knew I wasn’t gonna win this round. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from handing over my heart on a goddamn platter.

Hell, I wasn’t strong enough to run away either.

Screw it all. I leaned in again and kissed his jaw. “Come home with me, papi. I need your big fat cock.”

Funny how quickly he lost interest in his phone. “Okay. Let me pay for the drinks first.”

“Already took care of it.”

“Oh.” He frowned for a beat before his eyes heated up with some indecent idea. “Then let me treat you to something else before we go back to your place.”

The dirtier, the better.Half an hour later, Gideon’s driver pulled up in front of an adult store back in Manhattan, and I was beginning to wonder if this was the reason only the driver—aside from Claire—knew of Gideon’s sexuality. Because Gideon had simply said “West Village,” and the driver had known exactly what that meant.

So Gideon had been here before.

Long gone were the seedy places with boarded-shut windows and back alleys. In the heart of an LGBTQ neighborhood, this store was brightly lit and showcasing its services right in the window alongside boxed sex toys, stacks of movies, and kinky outfits. They had six private booths, two double suites, whatever that meant, a glory hole, and a theater that seated eighteen guests.

“We won’t be long. Perhaps thirty minutes,” Gideon told his driver.

Once we were on the curb and Gideon had closed the door, he turned to me and unzipped my jacket. There was a new air to him; he was assertive and in charge of the situation.

“Are you up for some role-playing?” he asked.

“Sh-yeah.” I blinked up at him, instantly intrigued and turned on. “You’ve been here before.”

He inclined his head. “It’s been my once-a-year indulgence the past ten years.”

Hot damn. “What do you do when you come here?”

He raked his teeth across his bottom lip and smirked a little. “Not much. I rent a booth and masturbate with the door ajar. People enjoy watching.”

“And you like being watched.” I stepped closer and slid a hand up his chest. “You’re an exhibitionist.”

It was funny to me that he could hesitate to go into a grocery store without a shopping list, but he had no issues being in control as soon as it was about sex. That part of him wasn’t merely confident; it was utterly fucking shameless.

“Neurotypical humans take sex too seriously,” he said. “I’m not an exhibitionist so much as I enjoy making people nervous. It turns me on to see them out of their element. To see them hesitate and wonder what’s protocol.”

My eyebrows went up, and…well, so did my cock.

This was his alternate universe. A place where he was the assertive norm and everyone else was scrambling, like he felt he did in society, in his everyday life.

He cupped my jaw and brushed a thumb over my barely there scruff. I’d shaved yesterday. “You can pass for twenty,” he murmured. “Sweet boy.”

Jesus.

His raw masculinity and power pushed me straight into a subservient mind-set.

“Just follow my lead, okay? The trick is to take it slowly at first so everyone who doesn’t want to take part can leave.”

Um. Everyone? Take part?

Rather than taking my hand or something, he slipped a hand to the back of my neck and ushered me into the store, which was surprisingly small. Considering all they bragged about in the window, I’d expected something bigger. But there were arrows on the floor leading to the back, so I guessed all the booths were in another section, separated from the store.

Gideon guided me straight up to the register, where a guy my age was flipping through a catalogue with a bunch of leather outfits. He glanced up and straightened as he spotted Gideon.

“How can I help you, sir?”

Oh, step off, bitch. Not in any way you’re hoping for.

He reminded me of Shawn.

Gideon tightened his grip on my neck a little and patted my chest. “I’m here as moral support to my son who’s too shy to pick out some sex toys to experiment with.”

Madonna fucking mia…what?!

Heat exploded within me, and I blushed like a fucking kid. It felt like my cheeks were suddenly on fire. My stare could not drop to the floor any faster, though not fast enough for me to miss the shock on the guy’s face.

“It took me forever to drag it out of him,” Gideon went on. “So I’d like to nip this in the bud and get it over with. Any recommendations?”

I didn’t know what was worse, the fact that two couples nearby had clearly overheard Gideon, or that I was getting off on it. Despite the mortification…fuck it, no one turned me on like this man.