Matt sank into the passenger seat, eyes red-rimmed, but his cautious smile was genuine.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Me and Phil talked. And we talked to Brenner, too. He didn’t say much back, which would have been unusual for him, but he’ll have been listening.”
Christ, I was going to start blubbing again. “And how is Phil, is he okay?”
Matt chuckled. “Same as ever. Still a cocky git. He’s got twin daughters and a young son and is on wife number three. He can’t keep it in his trousers. His current missus is only twenty-five!”
I grunted. “I hope he’s got a good salary, keeping that lot happy.”
Matt laughed. “Apparently so. He’s just opened his fifth branch. Business is booming.”
We left Stourbridge behind us as the first drops of rain began to fall. As the car purred down the dual carriageway, boxy suburbia made way for leafier green stretches. We weren’t travelling far, only to my parents’ place for the night. Matt held my hand loosely in his as I drove.
“Are you sure your folks are still away?” he asked as we entered the village.
“Definitely,” I reassured him. “My dad phoned me earlier as he headed out for his morning constitutional, with strict orders to buy my mother a slice of tarte tatin from the boulangerie. They’ll be in Provence for at least another week. And before you say it; no, tarte tatin isn’t just a fancy word for apple pie.”
“I love you,” Matt replied, à propos of absolutely bloody nothing. His voice was quiet but determined. “I love you so fucking much, I can’t hold it inside. I’ve never loved anyone else. I’ll warn you though, I’m not going to be very good at it. Dreadful probably. Shit, look out, you are about to crash into that bloody lamppost.”
THE ONLY ONE I KNOW
(THE CHARLATANS)
I avoided the lamppost by a whisker, although we did crash rather spectacularly through my parents’ front door.
“Bloody hell, you feel good.” I ground inelegantly into Matt’s groin, squashing the beautiful man wholovedme against one of the walls in the hallway. He’d expressed his love with far more eloquence than I was managing. “You know when Phil gave you a cuddle? Part of me loved it and part of me wanted to jump out of the car and scream at him to get his filthy mitts off my man.”
Matt giggled around my mouth. “Am I only now discovering that you’re the jealous, caveman type? Phil’s as straight as an arrow.”
“I know,” I growled, “but you’re mine.”
A deep-seated, primal urge rampaged through me. After a twenty-five year wait, I wanted to claim my man. Now. And then lock him in my bedroom so I could claim him some more. Which wasn’t Dr Valentine-like at all.
My rational inner voice told me to stop mauling him and slow down, but with his soft tongue licking along my jaw and his hard body pinned between the wall and my bulk, coherent thought had fled the room. I’d waited way too long to nail him as mine. Twenty-five years too long.
“I feel as if I’m being ravaged by the rugby club’s entire first eleven,” he gasped, as I tugged at his T-shirt. Seemed I’d forgotten how to remove this most basic of garments and resorted to pulling at random.
“Nope.” Abandoning my attempts to remove his T-shirt, I attacked my own instead. “Just one horny flanker who needs to strip you naked right this second.”
His hand slipped between us and I shrieked as he gave my heavy balls a firm squeeze through my trousers. I was on the cusp of embarrassing myself.
“Shit, that feels so good,” I whimpered, as his T-shirt joined mine on the floor. “Christ, I need to…I need…”
My desires were frantic but directionless. Too inexperienced and too out of practice to take the lead, yet too desperate to relinquish control. Sensing my mounting urgency, Matt placed both hands against my naked chest and pushed me back firmly. “Easy tiger. Me too, babe. Me too. How about we shut the front door first?”
My brain had short-circuited. Oh lord, old Mr Wilkins over the road would be getting an eyeful if he was out watering his tomato plants. After slamming the door and sliding the bolt across for good measure, I turned back to Matt, propping up the wall with his arms folded, exactly where I’d left him. And bare-chested. Below a hollow belly, his jeans sagged around narrow hips. I took a sharp intake of breath and then again, a second time. A traiI of black hair, in stark contrast to his milky-white skin, disappeared under the waistband of his boxers and…ugh. Debauched, wanton, dishevelled and mine, mine, mine. I gave myself a quick squeeze.
“Shall we take some of this big dick energy to a bedroom?” He raised a cool, amused eyebrow in the direction of the stairs.
Yes, god yes. Now. Dragging him by the wrist, I marched towards the stairs.
Matt pulled me back. “Stop a second. Do you have any stuff, Alex?”
“What sort of stuff?”
“You know, to um…ease the way, as it were. And condoms. Maybe in the bathroom cupboard or somewhere?”
Oh. That sort of stuff. Oh…shit. Another item to add to the list of things at which I was a complete amateur. I hadn’t thought this through at all. A feeling of panic descended.