Geekspeak: Look and Feel

Definition: How the combination of the visual design and behavior of a user interface contribute to its esthetics, ease of use, and user satisfaction.

Gideon huddled on the sofa as the daylight faded, until the living room was lit only by the yellow glow of the streetlight outside the bay window.

Alex had given up on him and walked away. Of course he did, idiot. You didn’t answer the door. Gideon sniffed, hugging one of Lindsay’s needlepoint throw pillows and trying to channel a little of his usual what-the-hell-ever attitude, but he couldn’t muster up the energy for a decent diva fit.

His heart squeezed like a miser’s fist at the thought of what Lindsay had been hiding from them, at what Alex and his mother had been enduring, probably for years. But it was Alex’s dad that he empathized with most. Did poor Mr. Henning know what was happening? What he’d lost? Or was he content as his world contracted around him?

It’s like the picture in the gallery, like “Flowers for Algernon.” Mr. Henning is living my nightmare, with everything about him that made him himself slipping away, beyond his control.

“Get over yourself, Wallace. You’re not the injured party here,” Gideon muttered. He’d been a total asshole, running away, adding stress to what must already be an unbearable situation for the Hennings, all because he couldn’t face his own fear.

It took him several seconds to realize the thumps vibrating his bones weren’t the beat of his blood in his ears. Someone considerably heavier than Charlie or Lindsay was climbing the stairs.

Alex.

God, another chance. A de–douche bag do over.

He didn’t stop to wonder about why it mattered this time, when with any of his other hookups, he’d have let it go and danced a victory jig around the living room. He launched himself off the sofa and flung open the door before another of those hammer-handed knocks had a chance to fall.

“Hi.” God, he sounded like he’d just sprinted across the apartment—because, you know, he had.

Alex’s fist dropped from knock position. He held a covered ceramic tureen in his other hand, which was encased in a red-and-white-striped oven mitt.

“Hey. Don’t slam the door. I’ve got food.” Alex lifted the lid and released the aroma of seafood and spices and sausage. None of those incredible—and identifiable—scents had been present in Alex’s house earlier.

“Where did you get that?”

“Your downstairs neighbor. Gonna let me in?”

Gideon stood aside and waved Alex inside. “Is that a landlord’s perk? You get to raid your tenants’ kitchens at will?”

“Only if they’ve been your best friend since you were six. Did I mention”—Alex set the tureen on the breakfast bar and stripped off the mega-mitt—“he’s the executive chef and one of the owners of Double Down?”

“So that’s why we had no trouble getting a table.”

“Money and a fancy address aren’t everything. Sometimes it pays to know the people who do the work.” Alex removed the lid, and Gideon’s eyes nearly rolled back in his head.

“God, that smells amazing.”

“Yeah.” Alex inhaled deeply. “I think he makes this shit with lobster stock. And real Louisiana sausage.”

“Andouille.”

“And do what?”

“It’s the name of the—”

“You think I don’t know sausage?” Alex cocked an eyebrow.

“Uh . . .” Gideon licked his lips. “Do you want some?”

Alex’s grin kindled a fire in Gideon’s groin, and his gaze slid down to Alex’s fly. Sausage. Gah! He gulped and looked up, only to catch Alex doing the same to him.

“Yeah. I want some.” Alex’s voice rumbled in his chest, deeper and richer than ever, and Gideon suddenly wanted to feel that rumble in his flesh, in his bones. “Where . . .” Alex took a step forward. Yes. Now. “. . . do you keep your bowls?”

Sitting at his dining table with Alex, drinking beer and eating the world’s best gumbo ever, cocooned in the apartment that was the only home Gideon acknowledged, was like sitting in a pocket out of time. Dinner in the TARDIS.

No one here to see or level contempt on either of them. The party line might be that America was a classless society, but Gideon knew the truth. The classes were just configured differently. Money and education and privilege—and yes, race—all conspired to make him feel as if he and Alex were teetering on the edge of a lurid tabloid headline.

But for now, cozy and safe, he could pretend this might last.

“Alex, can I ask you something?”

Alex took the final sip of his Mirror Pond. “Shoot.”

Gideon drew figure eights on the placemat with his finger. “Are you out?”

“You’re the one who called me on feeling you up in the restaurant.”

“I mean to your family.”

Alex put his beer bottle down and stared at his bowl where a couple of stray shrimp floated in the dark broth. “Not sure if that’s the right question.”

“Okay. I’ll bite.” Gideon scooped up the dregs of his gumbo. “What is the right question?”

“My mom knows. She probably knew before I did. Lin knows.”

Hmmm. One cast member notably missing from that program. “And your dad?”

Alex shrugged. “I didn’t push it.”

“Push it?”

“When we were together, we were mostly about work and family. I mean, I never brought a boyfriend around to meet them, not when I was a teenager or even in my early twenties.”

“Were you afraid he’d freak?”

“No. But I’d never met anyone who was worth trying to rewire our relationship. I could get sex if I wanted it—”

“I can believe that,” Gideon muttered.

“—but where was I gonna find another dad?”

“So you never came out to him?”

“No, I did. About twenty-seven times.”

“It took him that long to accept it?”

“It wasn’t that. I came out to him first right before he was diagnosed, but between my visits, he’d forget. So I’d come out again. Next time around, same routine. I kept coming out and he’d be fine with it, but then we’d have to go through it once more. Finally, there wasn’t much point.”

“Why not? I get that it was annoying to have to repeat the same experience but—”

“He forgot me.”

Alex’s crooked smile tore a piece out of Gideon’s heart. “God, Alex.” His voice barely made it past the lump in his throat. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about your dad. I’m sorry I ran.”

“No. I get it. I bring a lot of baggage to the table. It’s tough to deal with. Will couldn’t.”

“Will Tuckett? Lindsay’s douche bag of an ex-fiancé? Is that why he bailed on our darling girl?”

“It’s not the official excuse he came up with, but it’s the true one.”

“Well, it’s not mine.”

“You got a different reason for bailing?”

“No! That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” Gideon toyed with his spoon, turning it bowl up, bowl down. Concave reflection. Convex reflection. Upside-down face. Right-side-up face. “I don’t consider your father and think, God, if I date Alex, will I have to put up with that kind of drama? You should know by now that drama is my middle name. But . . .”

“Go on.” Alex’s voice sounded grim, as if he knew what was coming.

Gideon swallowed and set the spoon down, aligning it with a stripe on the placemat. “It won’t be easy for me to see him, because that’s my own personal nightmare. Losing it. My memory.” God, could he really confess this? His pulse pounded in his ears; his urge to run and hide was nearly overpowering. But Alex’s dark eyes never wavered from Gideon’s face. They held no judgment, no anger, no contempt. Only the solid core of niceness that characterized the entire Henning family. “I don’t know how to face it. I have no idea how you all manage.”

“Hey. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” Gideon captured Alex’s hand, and he returned the pressure, firm and grounding. “I feel so fucking bad for your dad.”

Alex’s gaze dropped to their joined hands. “Lin doesn’t get it. She’s never understood how important it was to Dad to be able to provide for his own. She’s sad because he can’t do the same things with us, have fun, remember our birthdays or, shit, our names. But I look at him and I know that he’d hate this. Not the helpless part—he was never too proud to let Mom baby him or let me lift something that was too heavy for him. But being the guy who pulled his family down instead of picking them up.”

“So what happens next?”

Alex ran his free hand across the dark shadow of his barely there hair. “Only one way this’ll end. My mom’s a nurse, for Chrissake. She’s got no illusions. Lin refuses to admit it because she was always Daddy’s little girl. She thinks he’ll remember stuff if she tries hard enough.”

Gideon scooted his chair closer so he could put his other hand on Alex’s broad back. The gauze taped around his fingers shone white against the charcoal flannel of his shirt. “There are lots of good care facilities. It doesn’t have to be hideous.”

Alex shuddered under his hand. “The good ones cost money. That’s why I’m working this crazy schedule. Trying to save up for when the day finally comes.”

“And I’m making it more difficult. An annoying complication you don’t need. I promise I’ll—”

Alex caught Gideon’s jaw with one hand and pushed until Gideon met his gaze. “You don’t make it difficult. But you do make it hard.”

If Alex’s thumb weren’t propping up his chin, Gideon’s mouth would have fallen open. “Did you . . . Was that an innuendo?”

“Yeah.” Alex grinned, a dimple popping in one cheek. “How’d I do?”

“Um, good. But your dad . . . your family . . .”

“Mom keeps telling me and Lin that we can’t put our lives on hold for Dad. Maybe it’s time I started listening to her.”

Alex stood and pulled Gideon to his feet. At the expression on his face, in those impossibly deep obsidian eyes, Toshiko’s voice threaded through Gideon’s forebrain, lecturing him about sex drives. “The urge to propagate DNA can be triggered by a cognitive reminder of mortality just as it can by the adrenaline rush of a near-death experience.”

Sex. It was only sex, right? He could give Alex that release. Give it to them both.

His heart fluttered up to his throat. Damn it. This was Lindsay’s brother, not a ham-handed teenager who got his how-to-bone-a-guy instructions from a deprecated Wikipedia page. Not some cookie-cutter YUP-from-hell. He needed to deactivate the freaking post-Mark safety protocols.

“Alex—”

“You’re not gonna freak out over my size again, are you?”

As recently as last week, Gideon would have said yes and run for the nearest escape pod. But Alex knew how to take care of someone as fragile as baby Lindsay. His hands might be enormous, but his hold was gentle—nothing like Mark’s clueless, clumsy roughness. Gideon shook his head.

“Good.” Alex cradled Gideon’s bandaged hand. “Because I promised you no harm, and I broke that promise already, but I swear—”

“Hey. This wasn’t your fault. I was the one who decided to go mano a mano with a box knife. But before we go any further, I should probably mention that I don’t date men who—” Gideon took a deep breath. “This is going to sound really asshole-ish, and I don’t mean it to be, but I usually only date men who are on the same . . . intellectual page as I am.”

As Gideon had feared, the expression on Alex’s face changed, but instead of anger or hurt, the corners of his eyes crinkled and he actually chuckled. “You think that because I don’t have a college degree I’m stupid.”

“No. I didn’t say—”

“Uneducated isn’t the same as stupid.” Alex advanced on him, and Gideon retreated until he collided with the sofa arm. “Ignorance can be fixed. Stupidity, now. That’s different. Stupidity is a pigheaded refusal to face the truth.”

Gideon steadied himself with one hand on the sofa. “We don’t have the same frames of reference,” he said, a little breathlessly. “While you were no doubt bashing guys’ heads on the football field, I was bashing guys’ brains in the academic decathlon. I embraced intelligence as a weapon, and I was deadly. That hasn’t changed.”

Alex was so close now that his knee pressed between Gideon’s legs. God, he smelled good. Like soap. Irish Spring. An old commercial catchphrase popped into Gideon’s head. “Manly, yes. But I like it too.”

And, God, did he ever.

“You said you’d date me in spite of my dad’s condition.”

“I don’t think I said that exactly.”

“You implied that it wouldn’t stop you.”

“Yes, but—”

“That means you would.”

Gideon shoved at Alex’s chest with his good hand. It was like trying to move the Portland Building, but that bothered him less than Alex misunderstanding his biases. It’s not you, it’s me. “I’m a self-professed intellectual snob, Alex. I treat anyone with an IQ below 160 like an idiot.”

“You haven’t done that with me.” Alex captured Gideon’s hips with both hands. “Besides, have you seen the size of the electrical code? You think an idiot could master that?”

“It’s big?”

Alex’s smile was wicked. “Huge.”

God, Alex’s erection felt like it would give the electrical code a run for its money. “I can’t—”

“You think I can’t speak your language? I’ve been wiring networks for years, so I know all the buzzwords. I can speak fluent geek.”

Alex released one hip and trapped Gideon’s jaw in a gentle grip. “Software.” He pressed those sinfully full lips against Gideon’s mouth in the tenderest kiss in the history of the world, and suddenly Gideon didn’t want to argue anymore. “Byte.” He nipped Gideon’s lower lip.

“That’s not how you spell—”

Alex laid a finger over his lips. “Stop.” Gideon’s eyes widened, and he gulped in the face of Alex’s grin. “They tell me that’s a machine-level command. Glad to see it works.” Alex swiveled his hips, a slow grind teasing both their groins. “Feel that?”

Gideon bit back a groan and clenched his eyes shut. “Mm-hmm.”

“Hardware,” Alex murmured into his ear. “Take me to your room and I’ll demo my hard drive.”

“I—”

“I know the rules: no butt sex. Don’t sweat it—I can live without my dick up your ass. Anything else?”

“God no.”

Gideon led the way down the hall, Alex so close behind that his chest brushed Gideon’s shoulder blades and his toes bumped Gideon’s heels in an awkward unsynchronized gait. He expected Alex to head straight for the bed, but instead Alex wrapped one arm around Gideon’s waist, his hand warm on Gideon’s hip, and steered him toward the corner turret with its bank of windows.

Alex moved behind him then, resting one palm lightly on his sternum.

“Control.” Alex’s voice in his ear was rich and smooth and delicious as crème brûlée. “That’s not just a keystroke, is it? It’s your whole life. Everything so neat and managed. I want to see you on the edge. Hot and sweaty. Desperate for my dick. Wild to paint the room with your spunk and screw the dry cleaning bills.”

“I don’t— You can’t— The windows . . .” Gideon’s breath sped up, fast and shallow as if his lungs couldn’t fill below his heart, beating hard against Alex’s palm.

Rain splatted against the window. Alex unbuttoned Gideon’s shirt, spread it wide. “Nothing out there but a big-ass doug fir and a couple of soggy squirrels. They won’t care.”

The window rattled in its frame, and a finger of cold air stroked Gideon’s bare skin, raising goose bumps in its wake. But then Alex’s hands began to roam his chest. No goose bump could survive in that heat, although Gideon shivered anyway and sweat broke out on his forehead.

Alex’s chin pressed on his collarbone, holding him in place against the bigger man’s body. “Mmm.” Alex trailed one enormous hand over Gideon’s chest, his calluses rough against hairless skin and tight nipples.

Gideon moaned, arching his back, and Alex tickled his lower lip.

“Shhh. You don’t need to hold on to that control tonight, baby. Lean on me. Relax. I won’t let you fall.”

His skin was on fire now, and he fairly vibrated under Alex’s touch. Outside, the branches of the tree lashed in the wind, dark except when they caught the gold of the streetlamp, as if the wind were blowing the light around. Gideon twitched when Alex popped the button on his fly, and when he followed up with a nipple tweak? Torture. The best kind. Gideon grasped Alex’s wrist. “How do you expect me to relax when you do that?”

Alex drew off Gideon’s belt. “I don’t think I can trust those hands. They keep trying to hold on to control. You need something to remind you that you’re mine tonight. Everything here—” Alex ran a hand from Gideon’s throat down his bare chest and across his groin, cupping his balls through his jeans “—all of it is mine, and I won’t make the same mistake as before. I’ll keep you safe. That cool with you?”

“Unngh.” Gideon’s vocabulary deserted him as he was wrapped in Alex. With no desire to protest, to struggle, to escape, he managed to croak, “Uh-huh.”

“Good.” Alex stripped off Gideon’s shirt in one downward yank, yet managed to ease the sleeve over his injured hand. He took the thin belt and looped it around Gideon’s right wrist above the gauze, pulling Gideon’s arms back gently. “This is only to remind you, baby. Hold on to the belt, yeah? You want out, just let go. You want out?”

Did he? Mark hadn’t restrained him, not with anything but his body, but he hadn’t asked either. Hadn’t been so careful. “N-n-no.”

“You can change your mind. Anytime. Just drop the belt or say the word.”

“What word?”

“How about . . .” His mouth grazed the shell of Gideon’s ear. “One?”

Gideon’s cock jerked and throbbed. One. The last time Alex had said that word in that tone, Gideon had gotten the most incredible blowjob on the planet. “Okay.”

Alex unzipped Gideon’s fly and pushed his jeans and briefs down around his thighs. He sighed into Gideon’s ear. “Look at you. So fucking gorgeous. I can’t believe you’re all for me.” He nuzzled the curve of Gideon’s shoulder, opened his mouth and gripped the curve with his teeth. He put one hand on Gideon’s chest and the other under his balls, and slowly dragged his palms toward each other, covering all available real estate. He did it again, and Gideon quivered under his touch.

“That’s it.” Alex’s voice in his ear was sex and sin and redemption. “Show me what you can do.” One of his hands stroked behind Gideon’s balls, the other fisted his cock, a counterpoint of smooth and rough that had Gideon writhing against him.

God. He wanted that exquisite torture to go on and on, but it had been too long and he came, on a gasp, with Alex shifting his grip, cupping Gideon’s balls and letting his dick shoot freely, over his pants, his shirt, the wall, the window. God, he was standing in front of the window.

And he didn’t fucking care.

When Alex had walked in tonight, he’d only intended to talk with Gideon. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment when he’d surrendered all his misgivings and put aside his duty with a virtual fuck it, and decided to go for what he wanted for a change.

This isn’t only for me. He needs it as much as I do.

As Gideon sagged against his chest, Alex supported him, trailing his fingers across Gideon’s skin, soothing him as the tide of his orgasm receded. “You liked what I did to you. What I made you feel. Didn’t you?”

“Yes.” His voice was barely audible above the soughing of the wind in the trees.

“That ever happen before?”

“No.” He sucked in a breath when Alex plucked at his nipples.

“Contrast. Like you said, it’s good.”

Gideon shuddered and stepped away, slipping the belt off his wrist. Alex’s cock was hard to bursting behind his fly, but it was Gideon’s move now.

Then Gideon shucked off his splattered jeans and Jesus. His skin glowed in the lamplight like cream mixed with honey—a sinful dessert Alex would kill to devour. He reached for him, but Gideon put a hand on his chest.

“No. My turn. I want to see you. I didn’t get the chance before.” He unbuttoned Alex’s shirt, his face so serious as he tried to manage with the fingers of one hand clumsy with bandages. “I’ve been aching to see this chest.”

He pulled the last button through the worn buttonhole, and Alex had never been so grateful for his limited clothing budget.

“God, you’re so . . .” He pressed a tentative kiss between Alex’s pecs. “Smooth. I thought for sure you’d have a chest rug to die for.”

“Nah.” Alex had to concentrate to force words out of his mouth, to not grab Gideon and toss him on the bed. He may not be a fucking PhD, but he knew enough not to rush someone as skittish as Gideon. “Not much body hair. They figure I’ve a little Native American somewhere in my DNA cocktail.”

“That would account for the cheekbones too.” He pushed Alex backward until they reached the bed.

Alex sat down, spread his legs, and leaned back on his elbows. “Do your worst, baby. I’m all yours.” More than you know.

Gideon knelt between Alex’s thighs and fumbled one-handed with his button fly.

“Hey.” Alex’s voice rasped as he laid a hand over Gideon’s, with a little extra pressure against his straining erection, because hot damn, Gideon Wallace’s hand was only a couple of layers of cloth away from his dick. “I can do this part.”

“No way. If I can . . . damn it.”

Alex moved Gideon’s hand aside. “Baby, just because I open the door for you, doesn’t mean you don’t get to drive.” He popped the buttons on his fly, and his erection poked out the front of his boxers.

“Oh . . .” Gideon’s breath on his exposed dick made it jump as if it wanted to leap into that perfect mouth. “You’re uncut.”

Alex gritted his teeth, bunched his fists in the comforter, and thought about circuit diagrams. “That a problem?”

Gideon stroked Alex’s cock, the skin of his fingertips softer than velvet. “No. But I’ve never . . .” He glanced up at Alex and grinned, those killer brown eyes glinting with mischief behind his blue-framed glasses in the dim light. “Contrast.”

And he engulfed the head of Alex’s cock.

Jesus, his mouth was hot, wet silk, with a teasing scrape of teeth. So fricking perfect. When his tongue circled the head and probed underneath the foreskin, Alex collapsed onto his back and roared.