“Please fuck me, Gideon!” I yell.

That seems to satisfy him, and he begins to move violently, setting a rhythm that quickly has me clutching at the powerful obliques at his hips.

He suddenly slows down, as if wanting to prolong the moment. The slowness makes it feel different from our previous time in his office, somehow. Like there’s an emotional rawness to it that I can’t explain away as just physical attraction.

Maybe I’m just imagining it. Having a huge cock like his inside you would do that to anyone.

“Gideon,” I breathe, not sure what I’m asking for.

He seems to understand anyway, adjusting his angle until stars explode behind my eyes with each thrust.

“Gideon—fuck—Gideon, your cock—yes—right there,there—my pussy’syours—harder—” The words spill raw, unfiltered, my voice a broken thing. “Don’t stop don’t stopdon’t stop—make me feel it—fuck me—HARDER HARDER HARDER—”

I squeeze my pussy tight. Tighter.Tightest.

He growls my name against my throat.“Ava Ava AVA.”A primal chant, our sweat and cries merging with the slap of skin.

My body arches, clenching around him like a vise, release coming sharp and all consuming with an intensity that borderson painful.

“Cuming cuming I’mCUMING—” A scream tears free. “GIDEON—!”

His rhythm fractures. I feel himpulseagainst me.

He groans my name against my neck. “Ava...fuck.”

For several minutes afterward, we lie tangled together, catching our breath. His weight on me is comforting rather than crushing, and I find myself reluctant to let him move away.

Eventually he rolls to his side, keeping one arm draped across my waist. He slips off the condom, tosses it into the garbage bin next to the bed.

Reality begins to creep back in as our breathing steadies.

This was just sex, I tell myself. Just release.

But I know it was more.

All the things he said to me beforehand. All the things I told him back.

“You came.”

“I will always come for you,”

So much for keeping emotional distance. A+ job on that contract clause, Ava.

I was wrong. So wrong to think I could separate physical from emotional with him. Each time we’re together like this, the line blurs further, and I’m starting to wonder if it ever existed at all.

I turn my head to look at him, finding his gray eyes already watching me. There’s a softness there I’ve rarely seen, and for a wild moment, I consider just saying it: that I’m developing real feelings for him. That this stopped being just a contract for me weeks ago.

But then I remember who we are. WhoIam. A temporary convenience in his life, a solution to aproblem. He’s Gideon King, and I’m... well, I’m not someone a man like him keeps. Not really.

“That was—” he starts.

“Just adrenaline,” I finish for him, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue. “From the Burt situation.”

He purses his lips. For a moment, I see something else. Something... more. But I can’t quite read what it is. And then it’s gone.

“Right,” he agrees. “Just adrenaline.”

His arm tightens around my waist ever so slightly, contradicting his words. We lie there in silence, both pretending this was nothing special while everything between us has clearly shifted.