Chapter 20
Gideon eyed the cooked pasta critically. “No,” he disagreed. “You have to put the pasta into the sauce, mix it, and then serve it.”
“And I think you need to twirl the pasta in the bowl and put the sauce on top,” Dawson argued.
“Which you are then going to mix in . Isn’t the extra step pointless? Might as well do it to start with.”
“It’s about presentation.”
“Are we serving royalty?”
“We’re not good enough to put a little effort in?”
Gideon tugged Dawson closer, sliding his hand into Dawson’s back pocket. “It looks just as nice no matter which way you do it.” He tilted his head up, silently asking for a kiss.
Dawson obliged, their mouths brushing gently and then a little harder. “You’re too tempting,” Dawson murmured. “And that’s a dirty way to end an argument.”
“It means I win.”
“That is not what it means.”
“Get the bowls out for me?”
Dawson kissed him once more, swatted him on the ass, and then did as asked, spreading three bowls over the counter beside the cooked pasta resting in the strainer.
Gideon put the pasta into one of the bowls and spooned the white sauce over the top before dumping the rest of the fettucine into the sauce.
“Did you do that just for me?” Dawson asked playfully, wrapping his arms around Gideon from behind.
“That depends,” Gideon said, turning to chase Dawson’s mouth.
“On what?”
“On what I get for it.” He hoped for a kiss.
Dawson licked across Gideon’s bottom lip before deepening the kiss. Gideon reached up onto his toes, twining his arms around Dawson’s shoulders and plastering their chests together. “You can have whatever you want,” Dawson said before diving back in.
Whatever he wanted. There were too many things. They made him greedy, and he wanted to have it all. Not just sexually. All the things. His son, them, a shot at something new and exciting.
Dawson palmed Gideon’s hard cock and massaged, hand moving up and down over his pants. Gideon grasped his wrist, unsure if the move was meant to stop him or encourage him to keep going.
“The food’s going to go cold,” he moaned. And Riley would be there any minute. They didn’t have time for more than this, and he didn’t want to get so worked up he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else.
“I’ll be quick,” Dawson promised before sinking to his knees.
Gideon’s breath caught in his throat, all of his blood moving down to his cock as Dawson undid his pants and freed him.
He bit his bottom lip as Dawson took him into his mouth, favouring haste over finesse. He couldn’t look away as he thrust into the wet heat. A tongue flicked over his skin, and his knees buckled. He gripped the counter behind him, bracing himself as he used his free hand to cradle the back of Dawson’s head.
“Yeah, that’s—fuck, that’s so good.”
He wouldn’t last long, not with the expert way Dawson worked him over. Bobbing up and down rapidly, sucking and licking and hitting every spot just right. Dawson clearly wanted to keep his promise, getting Gideon to orgasm as quick as possible.
Dawson’s hand worked between Gideon’s legs, stretching back to squeeze his ass. Gideon clenched in response, arousal rocketing into overdrive. A finger stroked over his hole, and he pushed back with a broken, “ Please .” He didn’t have the words like Riley, couldn’t think of anything but how good Dawson felt wrapped around him and how much he needed this.
The second Dawson’s finger breached him, his orgasm hit. He thrust hard, pumping into Dawson’s mouth. Dawson didn’t pull off even after he’d swallowed Gideon’s load. He continued to suck lightly, eyes closed and blissed out, like Gideon had drugged him.
Gideon stroked his hair, leaning heavily back against the counter. When Dawson eventually stood, he eagerly pulled the younger man into his arms, kissing him until they were dizzy with it. Dawson gave his lip one more lick, did up his pants, expertly tucking his softening cock back into his underwear, and then stepped back. When Gideon reached for him, Dawson stayed out of reach with a small smile on his face.
“What about you?” Gideon asked, frowning. Dawson’s pants tented, clearly in need of relief. Something Gideon would more than gladly give him.
“I can wait for my dessert,” Dawson said. “Riley should be here soon, and we need to eat.”
As if on cue, the lock in the door flicked open, and Riley strode through. Gideon forgot how to breathe. He already knew how Riley looked in a suit, acutely aware of it every day now that he also knew the prize hidden underneath, and it still managed to stun him every time he saw him. The perfectly tailored suit hugged all of Riley’s finest features and broad shoulders. He never had a single stitch out of place, not until he took them into his arms and wrecked them. They were the only ones who got to see him mussed and looking human .
Gideon loved him. Loved them both. He needed this to not end badly, for himself and for them. He wanted a future that had a happy ending.
Riley looked between them and then at the half-dished-up dinner. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked. He hooked a finger in his tie and worked it free, discarding it over the back of a dining chair.
And there it was. The Riley they were learning. The more laid back one, the one who let his hair down. It floored Gideon, honoured him, made him want to get on his knees and worship him. Or them both. He swallowed hard at the image of being on his knees for both men as they fed him their cocks. Something to bring up later.
“Gideon?” Riley arched an eyebrow.
Heat rushed into Gideon’s cheeks. “Sorry. Uh, let me heat it up, and we can eat.”
Riley’s lips quirked. “Take your time.” He kissed Dawson in greeting, holding his nape to keep him in place. Gideon got distracted watching them, the temperature in the room rising enough that he didn’t know why none of them had burst into flames yet.
“I have a question for you,” Dawson said while Gideon finished plating up and sticking each bowl into the microwave one by one.
“I hesitate to hear but go ahead.” Riley shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He pulled down some glasses, kissing Gideon’s shoulder as he moved around him. The domesticated feel of it had Gideon’s heart fluttering in his chest.
“Do you mix the pasta with the sauce and then serve it, or do you put the pasta in the bowl and then put the sauce on top? You know, for presentation purposes.”
Gideon groaned. Were they still talking about this? “Don’t answer that.”
“It’s an important question!” Dawson insisted.
“I don’t know if I should answer. Sounds like you two need to sort it out yourselves.” Riley opened the fridge and got out the jug of water, filling each glass perfectly three quarters full. Gideon squinted suspiciously at his, tilting his head to check it. Riley arched an eyebrow, and Gideon grinned and kissed him briefly.
“Probably, but answer anyway,” Dawson said.
Riley studied them as if looking hard enough would help him work out who sat on which side of the fence. “It’s getting mixed anyway, so the logical choice would be to mix them first,” he concluded.
Gideon pointed at Dawson with a, “Ha!”
“Multiple people agreeing on a subject doesn’t mean you’re right ,” Dawson said.
“Don’t be a sore loser,” Gideon said, unable to keep the smile off his face as he leaned into Dawson’s space, kissing the corner of his mouth.
“I didn’t lose,” Dawson grumbled. “You’re the wrong ones, not me.”
“Well, Mr. Big Winner, take your dinner and go sit down,” Gideon said, exchanging another light kiss before handing the bowl over.
Riley didn’t say a word when he spotted the fact that Dawson’s meal had his the way he liked it.
Gideon sat with one leg under him. Contentment settled in him as he listened to Dawson and Riley talk. When he and Lucia had divorced, and he found himself suddenly on his own, he hadn’t thought about the future. Hadn’t thought he could find anyone that he felt that way about again. The intimate love he and Lucia had shared had been long gone by the time they called it quits, with nothing but warm friendship left, and part of him had wondered if he could get that back. Or if it had been lost along with everything else.
In so many ways, his feelings for Dawson and Riley ran deeper, hotter. There was a desperation he’d never felt with Lucia. Theirs had been a quiet, slow-simmering love. Not less , just different. In the end, it hadn’t burned bright enough to sustain them.
He hoped that she’d found that missing spark with Ned even as much as he needed to work through his conflicting feelings about the entire situation.
“Have you had a chance to speak to Sadie?” Gideon asked cautiously when the conversation lulled. He wanted to get himself out of his thoughts, but he also knew Dawson was trying to carry the burden by himself and not involve Riley. None of them could escape it now, and if they wanted Dawson, they needed to work through it.
Riley stared at his pasta as if it could give him the right words. If only the pasta gods were that generous. Mostly they just gave bloating and a craving for more.
“She’s still not answering my calls,” Dawson said heavily. “I could go to her work, where I know she’ll be, but it feels too much like ambushing her, and I don’t have a right to do that to her. I just have to hope that she’ll calm down enough to at least let me talk to her. Eventually.”
Gideon took Dawson’s hand and kissed the back of it. “She will. Your friendship is too important to you both.”
“I should have been the one to tell her, not have her find out like she did. If I’d just sat down with her, explained it, maybe it could have ended differently.”
“It wouldn’t have,” Riley said.
Dawson glared at him, though it didn’t have the same heat it usually did. He looked tired. “Are you trying to make me feel better or…?”
“The reality of the situation is that it’s her choice how she reacts to us, and it’s still none of her business. Whether you’d told her yourself—which I highly doubt you would have done any time soon, at least admit that to yourself—or she caught us, the way she reacted wouldn’t have changed. And I think you’re well aware of that.”
“You don’t have to say it out loud.”
“How you choose to respond to it is the only thing that you have control over. Give her time. She’ll get over it, or she won’t.”
“I bet they don’t let you give speeches during team-building exercises or conferences,” Dawson said dryly.
Gideon almost choked on his pasta, grabbing his water to wash it down.
“It’s important that we acknowledge the reality of the situation. Speaking of situations,” Riley said, turning to look at Gideon.
Gideon froze. What had he done? Nothing he could think of. He hadn’t even pranked Grady today, even when the guy had asked for it by making annoyed noises at his computer all day. He should get a medal for that.
“Dad knows about us,” Riley followed up quietly.
Gideon dropped his fork, and it clattered on his bowl, the end of it dropping in the pasta sauce. “Uh.” Shit. “Did someone see us?” Had he not been discreet enough? Well, of course he hadn’t been. He practically had a neon sign that said he’d had Riley’s dick up his ass, and he’d liked it and would in fact be doing it again that night. The sign flashed in multi-colours.
“No, my mum told him.”
“Oh.” Oh. “I didn’t even think of that.” He should have, especially considering her reaction when she’d seen him walking out of Riley’s bathroom. None of them were very good at the whole “hiding” thing. It was a miracle it had taken them this long to get caught.
“Apparently neither did I.”
“Are you fired? Am I fired?” Would he find a scathing email in his inbox tomorrow morning? Or worse, a really nice one asking him to come to the chief superintendent’s office? Gideon had actually only ever spoken to Simon Sinclair a half dozen times over his career. The gap between his position and that one kept them out of the same sphere. His orders came down the line, not directly from the top. Sometimes he forgot he and Riley’s dad were the same person.
Dawson frowned. “Would your dad really fire you over that?”
“When we’re at work, he’s not my father. Usually. We try to keep the lines drawn clearly. This time he was just my dad. Like Gideon is just my lover, not my detective. Nobody got fired. He wanted to talk to me about it, and what we plan to do.”
“Did he say we should break up?” Gideon couldn’t swallow the lump in his throat. They had other avenues they could try first, surely?
“It’s the easiest option.”
Gideon’s heart seized up. Is that what Riley would do? End it to save their careers? He couldn’t push down the panic clawing its way into his chest, hindering his ability to breathe. No .
“But not the one I want to do. He’s on our side, for now. If someone at the precinct, or someone who shouldn’t know, gets wind of it, then his hands are tied, however.”
“So what do we do?” Gideon asked.
“We transfer. One of us does. I don’t expect you to do it. Dad is looking at options for both of us. I’m not putting it all on you.”
“And give up your team?”
“Yes,” Riley said bluntly.
Gideon’s lips parted in shock. “You would do that for me?” Give up everything he’d worked for? Gideon didn’t know the full extent of it, but he had an idea just what Riley had done to get his own team, and how much he had fought to keep them.
Gideon didn’t want to take orders from another senior sergeant, work cases outside of the Chatswood PAC. He’d spent most of his career at that station, even before he’d made detective. He’d been there even longer than Riley had; Riley and Quinn had transferred over when Riley had been promoted. Gideon had known them briefly before that, some of their cases overlapping, but he hadn’t really known them until he’d started working for Riley. Had almost forgotten their first meeting, when apparently Riley had developed a crush on him, which he still hadn’t quite wrapped his head around. It made him feel giddy .
Riley twirled pasta around his fork and took his time chewing it. “If I have to choose between my job and us, I choose us, Gideon.”
Christ. So did Gideon. So fucking much. “So… so we move? One of us moves. Someone moves.” That idea sat as badly in his gut as breaking up did, to be honest. It felt wrong .
“Yes. And until then we be discreet and don’t give anyone a chance to find out. That means no more kissing at the office, no more looks—”
“What looks?”
“You give looks.”
“And you don’t?” Gideon countered. Riley had made eyes at him more than once in the office. It usually resulted in Riley calling him into his office to make out—under the guise of scolding him for something. Ange and Quinn’s suspicious faces said they totally weren’t being subtle in the least. It probably didn’t help that Gideon came out with swollen lips and walked in a bit of a daze for a little while afterwards. They didn’t understand how good Riley kissed, like a drug that made Gideon ache for so many things. If Riley wanted to fuck him in his office during work hours, Gideon doubted he’d say no. In fact, he’d encourage it.
“Neither of us can be making any more looks. We have to keep everything about our relationship at work strictly platonic. We can’t give anyone a reason to look more closely at us.”
“And outside of work?”
“Outside of work, you belong to me, and we make it work. If that’s what you want.”
If that’s what he wanted? What the fuck did that mean? “You think it’s not?”
“I think that you have a son to think about, and your own career. If you chose to end things to keep your house in order, I can hardly blame you.”
For someone so smart, Riley could be incredibly stupid. “Riley, I love you. And Dawson. And if you’re willing to make this work, then so am I.” It was cathartic to finally return the feelings that Dawson had so beautifully spouted the other night.
Riley looked down at his plate, face conspicuously blank.
“It’s okay,” Gideon said. He didn’t need Riley to say the words to know how he felt. Riley showed his feelings with every gesture. With the way that he'd looked after Gideon when he’d been sick, with the patience he’d shown Dawson as they navigated this strange relationship. With the way that he always put their comfort above his own. Riley’s love might be quieter than theirs, but it was no less intense. In a lot of ways, his intensity was so much more than theirs. It was fierce protection that wrapped them in warmth.
Riley nodded stiffly. Gideon leaned over pressed his forehead to Riley’s temple. “Discreet, then,” he said. “We can do that.”
Probably.