Chapter 14
LUKE
The unmistakable and comforting aroma of frying bacon filters down to the very bottom of my lungs, pulling me from a deep and dreamless sleep.
Already, my morning is better, and that’s before I remember where I am.
Curled up snug in Neil’s bed, smelling Neil’s smell, his pyjamas in a heap on the pillow next to mine.
He cuddled me as I fell asleep. Hugging myself—a poor substitute for Neil—I replay the feel of his warm body enfolded around mine.
Naturally, the risk-averse part of me, the part hoping for the best but always preparing for the worst, has questions.
Where is this going? What if it doesn’t last more than today?
What if it lasts long enough to hurt me?
Is this personal growth, being here with a man with a reputation for emotional avoidance, or absurdity?
In the quiet intimacy of night, Neil spelled out his own vulnerabilities.
I identify with many of them, but let’s not forget I’ve also seen him disappear into the toilets with more than one guy during the course of a single evening.
Reconciling that version of Neil with the person who fed me Maltesers in the cinema and gifted me with the most sensational kissing session of my entire life will take some work.
After freshening up in the bathroom, I pluck up the courage to follow my nose into the kitchen.
“Hi, sleepyhead. Aww. Two minutes too soon. You were almost going to get breakfast on a tray in bed. I was planning on joining you.”
My bacon frying host has his back to me. Also, his legs, his shoulders, and most of his arse. I give myself whiplash with the speed I exit the kitchen. Neil is, well, he’s—
“Hey! Where did you disappear to? I was just about to ask you how you like your eggs!”
I manage a noise, not a word, as my neurons short-circuit somewhere between the smooth planes of Neil’s back muscles and another, lower shadowy place my hands and mind haven’t yet dared contemplate.
You thought the devil had horns? So did I.
Turns out we’re wrong. He fries bacon on Sunday mornings, fresh from the shower and practically naked.
“Um…not as scrambled as my brain?” I croak.
Neil saunters to the archway, leaning against it. I peek at him through my fingers. He’s all heat and skin and confidence. Smirking. He knows exactly what he’s doing. My face must be scarlet.
“You don’t normally wear pyjamas in bed, do you?”
“No. I kicked them off in the middle of the night. I find them too hot and itchy.”
Fleetingly, I imagine how falling asleep cuddling him naked might feel. He glances down at himself as if reading my mind. “Are you not enjoying the view?”
I stare at a patch of wall adjacent to his head. “You’ve got nothing on.”
“The radio is on,” he says, reasonably. “The bacon, too. So, how do you want these eggs? Fried or poached?”
I dare another peek. “Fried, please.”
It’s a jock strap. White, low on his hips, and in terms of underwear, not much more than a suggestion. I’ve never seen a man wearing one in real life. Not ever. I’ve thought about it, though.
“You’re wearing almost nothing,” I correct. His right nipple has a silver piercing. Over his shoulder hangs a red tea towel. A greasy wooden spatula dangles from his hand; I switch my focus to that. “Which is worse than nothing.”
“Worse?” His voice slinks over my skin, and, as if pointing out the lie, he waves the spatula at me. Then, slinking across the sitting room, he drops a kiss on my forehead, like that’s something he does every fucking morning whilst wearing an itty-bitty jock strap and nothing else. “Or better?”
The piercing is a silver horseshoe barbell.
Of course it is. As if he couldn’t get any hotter.
I’ve never seen one of those in real life either.
What can I say? I’ve not put myself about very much.
I stare and stare; I can’t help myself. It’s like Neil leaned into the mirror one day, slid the thing into place, and thought, yeah, catnip for Luke.
And then, to fuck with me even more, paired it with a fucking jock strap.
He smiles down at me. “You can touch it if you like.”
“The barbell,” I clarify. No way am I ready to touch the other thing.
“The barbell,” he agrees. “My other piercing can wait.”
“You—“
I’m in way over my head, and Neil’s slow, smug, naughty-but-nice smile says he knows it. Curiosity and want tangling up in my fingers, I trace the shape of the metal, cool and hard against the hairless disc of his nipple. His breath hitches as I give it the smallest of tugs. “Does that hurt?”
“No. It just makes me wish you were also touching my other one.”
I haven’t the nerve; already my senses are overwhelmed. Before I take things any further, I’ve got some serious processing to do. Still, I wonder how the barbell would feel in my mouth.
I receive another forehead kiss. “You’re a tease, Doc. You know that?”
“I’m really not trying to be.”
“I know. That’s what makes it’s so fucking delicious.”
When I’ve had my fill, Neil kisses me again, on the lips this time. He tastes of fresh coffee. I hope I don’t taste too much of sleep. Playfully, he taps my arse with the spatula.
“I think I should put some clothes on,” he murmurs, easing me away. “I promised you I’d behave, and behave I will.”
‘Clothes’ are another faded band T-shirt from Neil’s never-ending well of them and an equally frayed pair of jeans.
He returns his attentions to my breakfast. My (very) limited bank of morning-after memories contains none as comfortable as this one.
After our conversations last night, I could confess anything to Neil, even show him my hair, and he wouldn’t flinch.
I’m not quite ready, however, to expose that. Nor my other scars. Neil’s not the only one who doesn’t want to be seen and considered differently.
“Me and Ez were talking about a late lunch at a pub this afternoon.” He pours himself another coffee. “Maybe see if Gerald and Alaric are free to join us. Are you up for it?” Pausing, he takes a slurp. “I won’t be offended if you say no.”
“Yes.” It slips free before I have time to wrestle with the what ifs and talk myself out of it. “But I need to go home first and shower and have my meds.”
“That’s cool. Will that be another party for two? Am I invited?”
Neil has a razor-edge sense of when to tease me and how far.
Since we met properly over his bump to the head, his charm has sneaked up on me.
Exceedingly good looks help, but it’s no surprise he’s never short of a body with whom to share his bed.
I’d like to join their number properly, when I’ve assimilated all of this.
Not today.
“Into the shower? No. But feel free to tidy up my kitchen whilst you wait.”
After breakfast, we slope off to my place.
Neil’s examining my bookcase, an eclectic mix of weighty medical textbooks and old sci-fi novels, when I emerge from sprucing myself up in the shower.
In my absence, he’s helped himself to a drink.
It’s odd knowing someone else is in the house around my stuff whilst I wash and change, done with far more care than usual, given that a hot man is waiting for me in the sitting room.
I’m undecided whether I like having someone here unsupervised, but I wonder if Neil might become the exception.
“You drink a lot of coffee,” I observe.
He tips back his head, finishing it. “It’s genetic. Part of the RP thing. My body has a condition where it doesn’t produce its own.”
“Is bullshit part of the condition too?”
“Integral. The defining characteristic, in fact. I’m surprised they didn’t teach you that at med school.”
He walks over to me, feeling like a stranger in my own house, and drops an easy kiss on my nose. “You look very tasty, all shiny and new, rash whisperer.” His mouth moves across to my newly shaved jaw, and his arms slide around my waist. “Mmm. Smell nice, too.”
Am I ever going to tire of being kissed by and kissing this man?
At the moment, it feels wildly unlikely, a work of science fiction itself.
Neil’s mouth on mine starts soft and slow, savouring, as if we don’t have a rendezvous at the pub with our friends lined up twenty minutes from now.
Bit by bit, however, it becomes searching and claiming.
When my hips take on a direction of their own and roll against him, Neil smiles into my mouth.
A soft sigh gusts across my cheek, flicking a switch in me.
Need and want surge low in my belly. I swear my dick has been hard since he fed me that first Malteser last night. It’s starting to hurt.
What was it he said? It’s like you’re worrying about the hangover while you’re still at the party. Maybe I should do a little less.
My mouth still glued to his, I press him back against the bookcase.
He must sense the change in me. His hands leave the safe zone of the middle of my back to slide down to my arse.
Mine roam under his T-shirt, dragging down his spine.
When I slot my fingers into the grooves between his ribs, he grabs my wrist, tugging it around to his groin.
For the first ever time, another man’s erection lies heavy and warm under my palm. I inhale sharply.
“Okay?” he checks.
“Yeah. Fuck, it feels nice. Yeah.”
He chuckles, husky and slow. “You want to lose the layers, Luke? You want to see it, too?”
See it? I want to drop to my knees and fucking worship it, in all its hot, proud, masculine glory. I want to lave my tongue up and down it, choke on it until the roof of my mouth is bleeding and raw. I want to suck it dry, until he’s squirming and pushing me away. “Um…yeah,” I croak.