"Good. Get comfortable on the bed and show me how you masturbate."

Cole blinked. Gideon plucked the champagne flute from his hand and went over to the table to fill it again. When he turned around and saw that Cole had not moved, he twirled his finger in the universal get-moving gesture.

"Come on," he said, "I want to watch you touch yourself. Do it like you would normally masturbate."

Cole scooted back across the mattress in a flurry of silken rose petals, his face probably flushed the same shade of scarlet as theirs. Clients have wanted him to do all sorts of things while they watched and jacked off, from dancing to sitting there looking pretty, but none had ever asked him to touch himself. What would be the point when they could have him give them a hand job instead?

The pillows sank beneath his body when he settled against them. Rose petals clung to his thighs as he lifted his knees and parted them to give Gideon a nice view. He lifted the lace panties off his soft cock and tucked them beneath his balls.

He was not sure exactly what Gideon was aiming for by wanting him to do it the way he would usually masturbate. He did not usually masturbate, period. He went ahead and licked his palm a few times, then wrapped it around himself. The whole situation felt awkward, so he kept his eyes lowered and did not look at Gideon standing there, drinking champagne and watching. Instead, he focused on the way the stockings pressed into the skin of his thighs and how the garter felt wrapped around his waist. He arched his back and lifted his legs a little more.

"You look like you're putting on a show."

Cole peeked over to see that, sure enough, Gideon was sitting casually on the edge of the table, sipping champagne. "Just trying to get in the mood," he huffed.

"You like putting on your pretty lingerie and arching your back and feeling sexy?" Gideon asked.

And yeah, Cole did like all that. Or at least the concept of it. He bought this lingerie with the intention of enjoying his body for himself. And it had been great the first few times he did that, twisting around in the sheets at home or watching himself in the bathroom mirror, just his eyes on his body and nobody else's. But the novelty had worn off. In the end, he only saw exactly what he was putting on display for the leering eyes at work, just trussed up differently. And it had not felt sexy dressing up only for himself; it just felt a little lonely. Gideon did not know that, but his words struck a nerve.

"Yeah, I'm in the right line of work, aren't I?" Cole snapped.

Gideon pressed his lips together. He put one hand up in surrender and set down his glass. Cole realized his tone was far too acidic for a client and fumbled out an apology, not sure where his sudden ire had come from. From balking at a client wanting him to see such private facets of himself. From balking at the fact that he had already worn his personal lingerie and opened that door for Gideon to waltz through. Embarrassment that he hoped maybe he could find in Gideon the validation had been looking for when he first bought this lingerie.

"Don't apologize," Gideon said firmly, "Does this make you uncomfortable?"

Cole let his head sink back into the pillow and scowled at the ceiling. His fingers were still curled around himself, though he had stopped stroking. With his free hand, he rubbed his eyes. "That's a stupid question."

The bed dipped beside Cole's hip, and he lifted his fingers to see Gideon seated there, one hand between them, fingers just inches from Cole's hip. "I said to do it the way you do at home, but you could easily put on a show. Become that creature who dances in front of the entire club every night. I wouldn't know the difference between how they masturbate and how you masturbate at home alone."

It was bold of him to assume that the two were separate—infuriatingly accurate, too. Cole put his hand over his eyes again. There was hesitation holding him back from letting himself enjoy this like he had imagined he might earlier in the day. Like it was wrong of him to do so. Maybe he should check the depth before diving headfirst. Or he could just give in.

Gideon wanted him to play along. Cole wanted to play along. He kept his hands over his eyes and stroked himself. The heat of Gideon's fingers was mere inches from his skin, putting tension on the duvet beneath his back.

"You usually lay on your back?"

Cole sighed and let both hands fall to his sides. "I don't usually do this at all."

"Oh," Gideon tilted his head, "Well..."

And dammit, something snapped, and Cole decided to commit completely to the bit. He was used to getting the shallow end anyway. There was nothing holding him back from wanting. Wanting Gideon's eyes on him, seeing him – Cole and not Nikki. Wanting to please Gideon, regardless of the money. Wanting to just let himself feel something, dammit, because he was tired of forcing himself to be numb.

"When I do," Cole flipped onto his stomach, shoving one arm under the pillow and the other beneath his body, nuzzling the side of his face into the pillow so he could peer up at Gideon through one eye, "It's usually in the mornings when I'm still half-asleep and I just..."

He rolled his hips forward into the clutch of his fist and sighed into the pillow as the familiar motion settled into his limbs. Sex was many things to him, but masturbating like this when he was barely awake was a safe place. In an instant, he was fully hard.

This was probably not what Gideon had in mind. After all, the man was paying for sex, and really, this was not all that sexy. But he did not seem displeased. He did not have much of a reaction at all, jaw clenching and pupils dilating - simply intrigued. He did not laugh or look on lecherously, turning that safe, soft place into an object of lust. Maybe he understood this was more about comfort than sex. Maybe all he had been looking for was vulnerability, and this was certainly that.

His hand rested on Cole's undulating lower back, almost reverently, and he asked, "Are you usually under the covers?"

"Yes."

"Get under them," Gideon told him. He stood and put his hands on his belt, unlooping it with careful, measured movements. Cole's mouth went dry. He shuffled under the covers and lay there, feeling like he had one foot in this hotel room and one foot in his bed at home. Clients rarely wanted him to get under the sheets. Usually, the neatly folded hotel duvets were never even unfolded.

Gideon slid under the covers beside him, fully naked. He picked up one of the rose petals that had found its way inside the sheets and tossed it away, then lay on his side and looked at Cole expectantly. Suddenly, it felt far too personal. What had he been thinking? His gut clenched as he began to wonder if it was a mistake to get this personal. He always faked it, and he could fake it now, so why was he showing this to Gideon?

"I'm not sure if..."

Gideon suddenly did laugh, not meanly, just as if he was chuckling at himself more than Cole.

"Baby, I just want to see what makes you feel good," he said with a gentle stroke down Cole's back and a smile, "If it's uncomfortable for me to watch, what if I help you? How about this?"

He pushed himself up and knelt over the back of Cole's thighs, tugging Cole's arm from beneath his body and placing both his hands so they were curled into the edge of the pillow. "Just hold on and let me take care of you now that I have some idea of what you like."

He already had a pretty good idea of what Cole liked from last night, but now he certainly knew more. His body slid down so that it bracketed Cole completely, thighs and claves pressed to the outsides of Cole's legs, one elbow propped beside Cole's shoulder to hold up his weight, and his other hand sliding under Cole's hip to cup his erection.

"Go on," he murmured against the back of Cole's neck, "Fuck my hand."

Gideon's arousal lay thick and hot on Cole's ass, brushing against the skin and poking his lower back as he rolled his hips. Gideon's hand was much larger and rougher than his own. Cole had calluses from swinging around the pole, but they were in different places than Gideon's. And Gideon's grip was looser, not moving with Cole's hips the way that his own hand would but remaining still. It sent shockwaves through the base of his spine, and he pressed his face into the pillow to muffle a groan of pleasure.

"Does it feel good?" Gideon huddled closer, a more solid and comforting presence even than the blankets, shielding Cole from the rest of the room. He nodded. Gideon let him work himself right up to the edge and, then predictably, pulled his hand away and held Cole's hips down against the mattress while his heartbeat slowed, but his cock continued to strain against the sheets.

Then he sat up, and the cool air from the rest of the room swept over Cole's back. Large hands cupped his ass, kneading and pulling it apart to look. He buried his head into the pillow and forced himself to relax, letting the buzz of almost arousal win out over embarrassment.

"You ever been rimmed?"

Cole propped himself on his elbows and looked over his shoulder in shock. "What?"

Gideon looked back with open curiosity, still kneading his ass. "Well?"

"I, um..." Cole blushed. "No."

Gideon grinned. Then he hoisted Cole's hips into the air, and Cole's cheek flopped back onto the pillow. If he thought showing Gideon how he masturbated in the mornings was a little too personal, erring on the side of a bit shameful, there was no way for him to be prepared for how it felt to have someone put their mouth on him there.

"Gideon, really, this is..." He looked over his shoulder, up the curve of his spine, to see Gideon peering at him from behind the curve of his ass, which made everything so much worse. He chose to stare at the handle of the bedside table drawer instead. A stream of cold air hit him where Gideon had just licked, making him flinch. Then he flinched again when Gideon sunk his teeth into the back of his thigh.

"Just relax. You have to do everything I tell you, right? So don't worry about it."

So, Cole did not. He did not worry so much that he leaked precum all over the sheets and thought he might catch the pillow on fire because his face flared with heat when Gideon pointed out how wet he got. He did not worry about anything Gideon did to him for the next three hours, except for the fact that he was pretty constantly hard for that entire time, balls aching and body trembling.