They'd both cooled off, erections flagging a bit, flushes gone, leaving behind only sweat and sticky lube.

"Still want to keep going?" Gideon asked.

Cole nodded. "Make me stop thinking."

Gideon raised a brow.

"I want to stop thinking," he amended. "I want you to take care of it."

"No worries, baby," Gideon poured some lube over Cole's ass, working it inside with the dildo. Then he slicked up his cock and pushed the head of it, blunt and warm and different from the dildo, up against him. "Just because I'm taking care of things doesn't mean you can't still tell me what you want. Just try not to think too much about it, okay?

It sounded like he was giving himself a pep talk more than giving Cole a reminder, but Cole was too distracted trying to wiggle down onto his cock to worry about tone of voice. Then they both let out a satisfied moan as he pressed himself back into Cole's body beside the blue dildo. He set a slow, unrelenting pace, hooking his elbows under Cole's knees and leaning down onto his forearms to kiss him.

Honestly, Cole would have told Gideon whatever desire popped into his head, if any had. Like this, though, all thoughts flew out of his skull. The way he was curled up made him feel so full, unable to get a whole breath, which would have been impossible anyway given how thoroughly Gideon kissed him. Nothing in the world existed except Gideon's harsh breathing and soft lips and rough stubble and where the two of them were joined.

With the dildo making it all a little more overwhelming for everyone involved.

This went on for who knows how long. Cole certainly didn't.

But when Gideon sat up to give himself a break—he was flushed and huffing and twitching like he was about to cum any second—there was a puddle of precum on Cole's belly and a cool line of drool trailing from the corner of his mouth. He licked his lips, beyond embarrassment.

Gideon toyed with the dildo a bit until Cole finally found some words to moan out, "Want…harder."

Gideon obliged, quick and unrelenting. The dildo rocked with the motion, sliding out a bit every time Gideon's hips pulled back and pushing in every time they slammed into Cole's ass.

Voice trembling, Cole moaned, "I want to cum."

Gideon changed the angle of his hips and all the air left Cole's lungs. A bit strangled, he added, "Actually, could you…I want you to touch my cock." Gideon did just that.

His orgasm washed over him gently. He gazed up through half-lidded eyes and realized that Gideon looked more of a wreck than usual. He was red all the way down to his nipples again, brow furrowed, and veins popping in his neck. But he kept fucking Cole, because Cole never said he wanted him to stop. Given how well overstimulation usually sent all rational thought flying out of Cole's head, he probably wouldn't.

"Gid…" he broke off into a truly wrecked moan. Gideon had hit his prostate with calculated precision, knocking him off track completely. He managed to give Cole a stern look despite how much he was clearly trying not to cum. All of a sudden he was pulling out and wrapping a hand tightly around the base of his cock, brow pinched.

The next moment, his hand was on the dildo, keeping up the overstimulation.

"Gideon" Cole moaned, "Want you to cum. Wanna see it."

As fast as he'd sat back on his haunches, Gideon knelt up and loomed over Cole, using the hand that had just staved off his orgasm to work his cock in quick, desperate motions.

After, Cole stared at the ceiling and replayed everything.

The tone of Gideon's words and movements hadn't been condescending, nor had it been submissive. If anything, it had been worshipful. Yet, he still gave the impression that he was granting a boon, rather than giving Cole any real power. He was humoring him, not in a cavalier way, but more of a cautious, calculated way. He wielded the power and Cole got what he wanted only because he was granting it.

Really, it should piss Cole off. But it just turned him on. He liked being taken care of too much, which was probably part of why Gideon found him so confusing. Deep down, he liked Gideon taking charge of his safety and padding his life with luxury, and he was certain his husband picked up on that. But he was also afraid of losing his bearings or even himself on that slippery slope.

Logan's life might be ruined, but that didn't mean the way he'd manipulated Cole's trust so he could have total power over him had been erased.

Cole shook the thought out of his head. Gideon was not Logan. It was unfair to even compare them. With Logan, he'd had to play pretend and lie and move out with zero warning to a place Logan didn't know and never ended up knowing just to keep some semblance of himself and his sanity intact. He couldn't imagine needing to treat Gideon like that.

He'd paused the scene to tell Cole he'd drunk a little too much to feel comfortable doing something, for Christ's sake. It was a low bar maybe, but Cole was used to digging down to find his bottom line.

If he told Gideon he wanted a divorce, he had a feeling the man would set him up for life somewhere on his own private island or something and never show his face before him again. Or lock him in the mansion and never let him see the light of day, whispered a dark, paranoid part of him, just to be contrary. Cole highly doubted it.

But it wouldn't come to that because Cole was helplessly in love with Gideon in a way he never, ever could have been with Logan, despite what that psycho had thought.

Gideon was controlling and sometimes thoughtless, but that came with the territory. Still, he wasn't the bull mindlessly ravaging a china shop the way his family thought. He was more like a bull carefully picking his way through a china shop, once in a while catching a long horn on a piece and shattering it by mistake if he stopped paying attention to where they were swinging for even a moment.

He already thought about contingency upon contingency at all hours of the day for every situation. Guy probably thought about car bombs going off every time he got into one. What a way to live.

And he did make space for Cole to have whatever he wanted in many ways. Cole had free reign with one of his unlimited credit accounts. Gideon paid the statements without ever commenting on the contents. Then again, he'd never used it to buy a yacht or anything. It was mostly lingerie and food and art supplies. He had unlimited reign over his free time, unless they were playing in the bedroom. He didn't have to work. But he could work, if he wanted to. He could go to school, but Gideon didn't expect him to.

Really, he had it very good, and he wasn't being controlled or manipulated by any means. It was just that a single moment where he perceived that he might have been was enough to trigger years of subjugation and paranoia.

"Why're you shaking your head," Gideon said lazily, the alcohol and the endorphins melting his voice. He looked like what Cole imagined he himself usually did after sex. It was nice to see him basking for a few minutes before getting down to the business of tidying them up.

Cole gazed at him for a few seconds, watching him blink sleepily. His eyes were so gorgeous. They weren't framed by long or curling lashes like girls always seemed envious of, but they were thick and dark and made his blue irises all the more striking. God, he was beautiful and he was looking at Cole.

Cole abruptly sat up.

"What're you…hnnn…" Gideon clenched his teeth around a groan as Cole straddled his waist and lay atop his torso, their spent cocks sticky between their bellies as they kissed. He kissed his husband until he wasn't sure where he ended and where Gideon began.

When he was lightheaded with it, he dropped his forehead to the pillow and panted in Gideon's ear, "I want more. I wanna feel you inside me again."

Later, after Cole had cooled off some and mulled things over a bit more, he felt like he was at the top of the cliff above a slippery slope once again. It would be oh, so easy to just tell Gideon everything he wanted and forget about the rest. About the why or the how or the gears turning behind Gideon's eyes. His husband would happily shoulder it too, but that wasn't what Cole actually wanted in the end.

"The whole declaring what I want but not actually asking thing is fine, but only when we are playing," Cole said as he massaged shampoo into Gideon's hair. If Gideon was thinking about their play as practice for real life, Cole needed to nip that in the bud. Their play was supposed to be an escape from real life, maybe mirroring it in some ways, but definitely not a true reflection. The power dynamics were fun because that wasn't how they actually were—most of the time—in real life. But he could see how that line easily got blurred for a rich, mafia kid, even one as sensitive and careful as Gideon, so he wanted to straighten out the boundaries early on.

His husband's eyes were drooping in the warm steamy room, but they cut to Cole with a question in his eyes. "Like, it's good for me to tell you what I want and you to listen, that way you know what my expectations are and I know that you hear me, but I'm not about to stop asking for things. Actually asking is an important part of communication too. And just because I want something, doesn't mean I would ask for it."

The look in Gideon's eyes turned incredulous.

"I want world peace and I won't be content until I have it," Cole said in an exaggerated tone, "but I'm not going to ask you to run for president."

Gideon snorted, "As if that would be the way to do it."

"Besides, you should also tell me what you want," Cole said, "And ask for things. Not just hold it all in and do things without my input the way you like to do. That’s fine when we’re playing, but in real life, I want to hear about what you're thinking, what you're worried about, why you are doing what you are doing."

Abruptly, Gideon squeezed his eyes shut and turned to rinse his face off in the water, then opened his eye under the spray to rinse the shampoo that must have gotten into it out. When he finished, he turned back, all attractive with water clinging to his eyelashes and lips and said, "I don't want to burden you. Believe me, I could come home and complain all night long, but that's not what I want to do."

Cole fought back the urge to kiss him, because that would definitely be the end to their conversation and he still had shit he wanted to say.

"I don't want that either, but…if you are using our play as practice for real communication, I just want you to keep in mind that in real life, it goes both ways. If you don't want me to do something…like go to the scene of Logan's arrest…then talk to me about it first. Don't just make the decision. I'm not going to immediately shut down your concerns."

Gideon raised a brow. Cole had thrown a fit and done just that, but in his defense, he'd been pissed off.

Given how his family treated him, Gideon probably wasn't too used to people making space for his concerns. The people who worked under his authority had to listen, but both his mom and eldest brother brushed him off at every opportunity it seemed. Only for his mom to turn around and complain when he didn't want to come to dinner.

"Believe me," Cole assured him, reaching for the knob to turn off the water. "I take your concerns very seriously Gideon Barta."