“Turn around,” I murmured.
He shifted in my arms until we were face to face, barely an inch between us. I kept one hand low on his hip, the other brushing his jaw, my thumb lingering there long enough to make his eyes go heavy.
“Can we… make it mutual?” he asked, voice quiet but sure.
My chest tightened—not from nerves, but from something hungrier, heavier.
“Mutual?”
He nodded. “I want to—while you’re…” His gaze dropped, heat flickering there.
I didn’t need him to finish the sentence. I understood perfectly. And God help me, I wanted it too.
When he reached for me, fingers skimming the edge of my scrubs, every nerve seemed to tune to that single point of contact. The fabric rasped softly under his knuckles, the airbetween us warming with the mix of our breaths. I felt my own pulse jump, thick and deliberate, as his hand slipped beneath the waistband.
Skin to skin.
The first brush of his fingers along my shaft made my lungs stutter. Warm. Curious. Not tentative—deliberate, like he was learning me, mapping the weight and shape for himself. My breath dragged rough through my throat, catching on the edges of a groan I didn’t let out. I could smell coffee cooling on the counter, the faint bite of disinfectant from the clinic hall, but mostly I smelled him—his skin, the soft hint of his shampoo.
I slipped my hand inside his waistband. I curled my hand around him. Skin to skin, his soft exhale shivered against my cheek.
He was hard and warm and twitching in my hand, the weight of him resting fully against my palm. He inhaled sharply, mouth parted, head tipped back.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah. It just—feels… big.”
I swallowed a laugh. “I’m relieved that you think so.”
He huffed a breathless sound. “I meant… new.” Then, he glanced deliberately down at me, a spark of mischief cutting through his blush. “Butthatis big too.”
We both broke into quiet, incredulous laughter, the kind you only get when you’ve got your dick out in the workplace with the clock ticking down, but neither of you care enough to stop. The kind that reminded us that we didn’t have to know everything yet.
“God,” he breathed. “Is this—am I supposed to?—?”
“No rules here.”
We stroked each other in unison, watching the way our hands moved, the way our bodies responded. Gideon’s foreheaddropped to mine, our noses brushing, breath shared in shallow bursts.
He bit his bottom lip, then blurted, “Do people make eye contact through this?”
I choked on a laugh, my grip stuttering. “Is that what you’re worried about right now?”
“I don’t know, man, it’s just—intense.”
“It’s supposed to be.”
His eyes were half-lidded, gaze warm. “Good.”
His hips flexed into my hand. Precum slicked his tip, making every stroke easier, more fluid. He did the same to me, and it was all I could do not to fall apart.
Then he said, “Malcolm—” in this small, amazed voice that hit something low in my gut.
I leaned in, pressed my lips to his cheek. “Almost there?”
His breath shuddered. “Yeah.”
He came first. Eyes squeezed shut, mouth parted in a soft, strangled sound. His release streaked my knuckles, and I watched the way his body shook, how he curled inward, breath caught somewhere between a laugh and a moan.