Gideon stripped off his tie and tossed it over the back of the couch as Cole wandered over to the bed. He sat on the edge to await instructions. And to watch Gideon shrug off his jacket, then unbutton his shirt and undo his belt. He twisted his fingers around the sheet and bit his lip.

"What do you want?" Gideon asked, coming over to stand in between his legs, tantalizingly half-undone with his bare torso peeking out between the sides of his shirt and bulging boxers from his unzipped pants. Cole's mouth watered as he stared at Gideon's crotch.

Then fingers snapped in front of his eyes.

"What do you want?" Gideon repeated.

Cole rolled his eyes up. He knew they looked good when he was gazing up through his lashes. "Don't you have a plan for tonight?"

"The plan is to give you whatever you want," Gideon said, which he'd definitely only just come up with after their conversation on the ride home. But it wasn't a benign offer of control. No, Gideon whipped out his weapon of a smirk and clarified, "I won't do anything to you tonight unless you explicitly ask for it."

Christ.

Cole bet he really meant it to. He wasn't going to take that shirt all the way off unless Cole asked him to. Experimentally, he tried to reach up and push it off Gideon's broad shoulders himself, but his hands were caught and gently pushed back down.

"These are too precious," Gideon chided. "I'll tie them up if I need to. Anything you want tonight, I'll do it for you. You just have to ask. Okay…"

There was an awkward pause, a vacuum in the space where he'd usually use a pet name. Cole remembered snapping at him earlier not to do so.

"About earlier…it's okay if…I mean, I wasn't really mad about…well," he swallowed and tried again, "it's okay if you call me baby."

Gideon just tilted his head, looking down at him from above, and waited.

Christ almighty.

He was a psycho. He was a dominant though and through. Permission from his submissive little husband to use pet names meant less than nothing to him when he donned this personality in the bedroom. Within the bounds of their discussed limits, Cole had no permission to give. Gideon was the one with the authority to give permission or, in this case, grant Cole what he wanted, if he just asked for it.

He would probably crawl into bed as he was and go to sleep if Cole didn't ask him to do something soon. That was how stubborn he was.

After a moment of squirming, Cole muttered, "I want you to call me baby."

"Good boy," Gideon praised warmly. It should have been patronizing, but Cole's chest fluttered and his face warmed with pleasure.

"That was very good, thank you baby."

Cole dropped his gaze and eyed Gideon's crotch again. He chewed on his lip, then blurred, "please can I suck your cock?"

He'd been a little obsessed with it since Gideon helped him get better at deepthroating. Judging by the little quirk of Gideon's lips when Cole checked his expression, the man knew it too. But instead of granting permission, he raised a brow.

"Is that what you want?"

Cole blinked. Wasn't that implied. "Yes?"

"Well, you didn't say so. Maybe you are just asking because you think that's what I want."

Cole's lips parted. Okay, this was even more diabolical than he originally thought. Usually, Gideon had him crawling around on his hands and knees begging for this and that. Saying please and thank you when he wasn't gagged. He got away with being a little bratty sometimes, but the thought of outright declaring what he wanted instead of asking nicely had his cheeks flaming in a way they rarely did anymore during sex.

"Um…" he stuttered to a halt immediately. Then Gideon lost the smirk and gave him a warm, genuine smile, then a wink. Right, they were playing. He was safe. Gideon wasn't a client tricking him. He was the love of his life playing with him. And Gideon could always safeword if there was something Cole asked for that he didn't want to do, then they could talk about it. No big deal.

"I want to suck your cock," he said in a small voice.

"Alright, baby," Gideon pulled his magnificent cock out. It wasn't rigid enough to stand up under its own weight yet, so he held it by the base, but that was all he did.

Cole licked his lips and leaned forward to suckle and lick at the head, then the sides, then he bobbed a few times. It was strange. Gideon normally was quite the active participant, rocking his hips forward, smacking himself against Cole's lips or tongue or cheek, grabbing his hair, and whatnot. But he just stood there.

With a pout, Cole sat back.

Gideon lifted his brow again.

Cole puffed out his cheeks, then sighed. "I want…you to touch my hair."

Gideon smiled and ran his fingers through Cole's hair.

And that was how it went. He had to pull off again and tell Gideon that he wanted him to fuck his mouth. He had to say he wanted Gideon to remove the rest of his clothes, then take Cole's off for him, save the lingerie. When he wanted to move further up the bed and have Gideon put his fingers in him, he had to say so aloud or else they would have just ended up laying in bed together naked, doing nothing. It was a strange change of pace that left him more than a little flustered and feeling as wildly out of control as always.

As he was telling Gideon that he wanted a third finger inside and maybe a bit of attention paid to his nipples, he realized that he felt out of control because he wasn't making demands, just declarations. He was merely admitting his desires, not even asking for Gideon to grant them. So, the actionable stuff was all still in Gideon's hands. After that epiphany, he felt a little more comfortable.

"I want you to go grab the blue dildo and fuck me with it," Cole said.

Gideon crawled off the bed and padded over to the closet. Cole lay there and wondered if he could get really creative and say he wanted things like for Gideon to get off just by rutting against his hip, while pleasuring Cole with one of their thicker realistic dildos instead. Or maybe just forget to say he wanted to see Gideon's orgasm at all. He'd probably go to bed with blue balls, no questions asked. Then he decided he didn't really want that.

Maybe if they did this again in the future.

Gideon returned and poured more lube into him, then slid the long thin dildo inside.

Right now, he just wanted to be close to Gideon. He hated being mad at him. And after being upset on and off with Gideon over the past couple of days, he just wanted to give himself up and be overwhelmed by him the way he really loved. A reminder of how much he actually did trust this man.

"I want your fingers too."

"I want you to fuck me while it’s still inside."

His fingers pulling out to reach for the lube and slick himself up didn't leave Cole feeling bereft for those couple of seconds while he was empty, because, well, he wasn't empty. Instead of listening to his heartbeat thudding in his ears in with anticipation, he felt it pulse in his cock as his ass gripped the thin dildo.

Gideon was fully hard and had no problem sliding in beside the firm silicone. The stretch made Cole squeeze his eyes shut and pant in harsh little gasps. It didn't hurt, but it was overwhelming. Then Gideon started to move. He pinned Cole's knees to the mattress and loomed over him, fucking with slow, precise thrusts that mystifyingly allowed Cole to catch his breath despite it all.

He pouted.

"I want it harder."

Gideon obliged.

He planted a fist on the bed beside Cole's shoulder and reached one hand down to keep the dildo in place while he picked up the pace. Catching his breath was impossible now, as was trying to hold back any of the strained moans that this kind of sound fucking wrenched out of him. But it still wasn't enough.

"I want…" he looked down over himself, decked out in lingerie and lube, stretched around Gideon and a dildo. "I want…you to go…get the nipple clamps," he gasped between thrusts.

Gideon stopped, balls to Cole's ass, filling him so much it was hard to think around it, and said, "I think I need to pause."

Cole's heart stopped in his chest. The room around them suddenly existed again, moonlight shining in through the curtains, cold in contrast to the warmth of their bedside lamps. A flush reddened Gideon's skin all the way down to his nipples, and his abdomen flexed with every pant. Sweat dripped down his cheek as he tilted his head.

"Oh?" Cole asked weakly.

Gideon rarely safeworded. For that matter, neither did Cole. He could count on one hand the number of times they'd paused a scene.

"Nothing bad baby," Gideon assured him, rubbing his big hands up and down Cole's torso over the lace. "I'm ok. I just drank a little too much to be comfortable using the clamps on you tonight. Can we keep it a little more vanilla?"

"Oh, right," Cole nodded. "Probably a good idea."

"Besides, do you really want nipple clamps? You don't like pain. Why're you asking for them?"

He really didn't. The only times they ever used nipple clamps or spanking or that god-awful ball vice contraption was for predicament bondage, punishments, or because Gideon mustered up the courage to ask if it was alright. A sadist Gideon might be, but a masochist, Cole was not. Still, even he could admit a little spanking was hot. And predicament bondage was a sure-fire way to get him to sink into the right headspace.

"I..um…" Cole licked his lips.

Gideon's thumb tapped lightly over his ribs. "Baby, don't think too hard. I didn't do this to make you think. You don't have to try to figure out what to do next."

Cole furrowed his brow in confusion, drawing a chuckle out of Gideon. A chuckle which he could feel in his guts because Gideon was still balls deep. He squirmed a little and Gideon's hands on his sides tightened.

"I will pull out," he warned.

Cole stilled.

"All you have to do is tell me what you want, and I'll make it happen for you. Now, if you want little specific things like a certain dildo or a nipple clamp, I want you to tell me, but you can also leave the details up to me if you want. Now, why did you want the nipple clamps? Is it for punishment or…"

"I wanted to get out of my head a little more."

"Alright baby," Gideon grinned. "You should have just said so."

Cole wondered how this was really any different from normal. In general, he wanted Gideon to get him out of his head during sex. That was kind of the point of it all. So why make him ask for anything at all instead of just doing it?

"What's the point of making me ask? Isn't that just…generally the expectation?"

"Well, yes, but isn't it a little different to ask for things during negotiations than to ask for them while playing?"

Yes, it was. But he'd told Gideon he wanted to get out of his head more while they were negotiating during the pause just now. Maybe that was why it didn't feel any different than normal.

Gideon smiled at whatever expression he was making. "I thought you would get there on your own. Get frustrated and just tell me you wanted me to take care of it or to…do whatever I wanted, or something like that. But…I should have known better with you," he reached up to tap Cole gently on the nose. "You tried to take care of it all yourself. That's what I get for doing something without talking to you about it first."

Cole rolled his eyes.

"And I thought it might be a good exercise in listening for me," Gideon admitted. "We communicate pretty well when negotiating our kinks and planning stuff, but it’s different in the heat of the moment. So, I just…" He shrugged.

Of course, Gideon would use their play as a kind of training for real life. For him, power dynamics were just a fact of life, even outside of the bedroom.

"This is why it's good to set our intentions for the play beforehand," Cole mused aloud.

Gideon hummed in agreement.