Page 7

chapter

seven

It’s late when we draw up to the car park of the hotel that Joan booked for us. I unfasten my seat belt and stretch.

“I am so fucking glad this day is nearly over,” I say fervently.

Con snorts. “Oh, dear, the plight of being the teenage pop star’s pin-up.”

His good humour has carried on through my extricating us from the pop twink’s clutches that were rather like a little blond octopus.

“That is not a thing at all. Besides, he soon forgot me when you unveiled your musical master plan.”

He sighs tiredly. “If you can’t beat them, you should just give in and fucking join them. Maybe I should forget about musical artistry.”

“Or maybe stop referring to it as musical artistry, you snob.”

He laughs and climbs out of his truck, stretching, and I hastily drag my eyes away from the width of his chest and the length of his legs. They’re shown off to great effect in a pair of old jeans that cling to him and a faded blue T-shirt. It’s so typical of Con, I think affectionately. He has no idea what impact he has on people.

I dismiss my thoughts and grab my bag and follow him into the reception of the hotel. The place is an old coaching inn, and the owners have kept the exposed brick walls in the reception area and mingled it with a lot of tartan furniture for some odd reason. It’s also completely deserted. After a few minutes, I crane my head over the desk.

“What are you looking for?” Con asks.

“Some sort of bell to say we’re here.”

I lean further and then feel him grab my belt and drag me backwards.

“Are you trying to give me a wedgie?” I gasp.

“If I were trying, I’d manage it.”

I regain my feet. “Just so you know, big-headedness isn’t hot.”

He smiles at me. It’s slow, sensual, and so completely unlike the Con I’ve known for years that I gape at him. He bops me on the nose. “So why are you drooling?”

“I am not,” I say crossly. Then, footsteps sound, and a receptionist appears. As Con turns to her, I wipe my mouth to double-check.

I suddenly become aware that Con and the woman have stopped talking, and they’re both staring at me.

“What?” I say.

The woman seems worried, but Con just looks as if he’s trying not to laugh. “We have a little problem,” he says.

“There are antibiotics for that,” I mutter.

“Sorry?” the receptionist says.

I smile at her. “What seems to be the problem?”

“We only have one room reserved for you,” she says anxiously.

I gape at her. “What?” I finally say.

“We only have one room,” she says, giving me a worried glance and talking slower.

Con gives a soft snort, and I shoot him a glare before turning back to the lady.

“Yes, I thought that was what you said. But how?”

“Joan only booked one room,” Con informs me, and when I look over at him, he puts both hands to his face like a piss-taking version of The Scream painting.

I bite my lip to stop myself smiling at the idiot and turn back to the woman. “Well, that’s our secretary’s fault,” I say briskly. “But surely there must be another room available?” She shakes her head slowly. “What? Not one? It’s midweek.” My voice is gaining a slightly shrill edge, and I breathe in to modulate it. “Maybe a tiny room. I can sleep anywhere. Even a broom cupboard,” I add desperately.

“No, sir,” she says solemnly. “We have a cheesemaker convention in the hotel.”

“Well, can’t they share? That sounds like a very friendly profession.”

“There are one hundred and fifty of them, sir.”

Con chuckles and leans down to grab our bags. “We’ll be fine,” he informs her. “It’s only one night.”

I stare as she smiles at him in relief and bustles about giving him the key and the breakfast and Wi-Fi information like he’s a tattooed knight in shining armour. Finally done, she gives us directions to our room and hotfoots it out of the room before I can speak and object.

“She’s moving fast,” I observe with my brilliant deduction skills.

“Probably scared that you’ll try and sleep on her desk.”

“Shut up,” I say and follow him up the stairs. “Oh well. It’s just us. I’m sure we’ve slept together before.”

I stop abruptly on the stairs as he turns and bends down to me. “If we had slept together, you’d have remembered it,” he says throatily.

I stand with my mouth open like a fish before realising that he’s turned and is moving upstairs again. “You’re a gigantic boaster,” I say. He chuckles, and I shake my head. “You’re very good-humoured about this.”

“Sometimes life has a way of rewarding us for years of toil.”

“You won’t be saying that when you realise how long I take in the shower.”

I follow him down a long hallway with very creaky floorboards until he pauses outside a huge oak door.

“Ready?” he says with a dramatic flourish as he opens the door.

I glare at him and sweep past, only to come to a stop. “Jesus,” I say.

The room is papered in a pale aqua-green silk wallpaper and stuffed with antique furniture. However, my attention is grabbed by the four-poster bed. It’s absolutely massive, with ornately carved bedposts from which hang jade patterned silk curtains. They echo the silk bedspread, and the fluffy white pillows and sheets complete the ostentatious look.

I gaze at the huge expanse of the bed, whose surface is covered with red petals.

“What the fuck?” I breathe. “Has Joan booked us into the fucking honeymoon suite?” He starts to laugh, and I shake my head. “The woman is a bloody menace. Well, I’ve got a good mind to sack her. See how she likes feeding Hank Marvin on water biscuits then.”

He runs his hand along the bed and presses the mattress. “Firm,” he says approvingly.

What for? Fucking me into it? For a wild second, I almost think I’ve said it, but fortunately, it was in my head, and I watch as he moves around, unpacking his bags and looking in cupboards and doors. As much as I’m panicking at sharing with him and maybe letting my guard down and showing him how I feel, a large part of me wants to smile. Con has this joy in life and knowledge. Everything is interesting to him, and it’s very endearing.

I become aware that I’m staring at him and immediately jerk into action, grabbing my bag. “I’ll have the first shower,” I say huskily. I pause, looking at him. He has his hand on the door of an oak wardrobe in the corner of the room. It’s carved with fantastical animals and stands easily six feet high.

“It looks like you could find Narnia in here,” he observes.

“Don’t go in, then, for fuck’s sake,” I say sourly. “We can’t share the room with any more people.”

“I don’t know,” he says, eyeing me. “Mr Tumnus looks a lot less grumpy than you at the moment.”

“You could play the fiddle together and leave me out of your smart-arse remarks.” He laughs, and I shake my head. “I’m having a shower,” I state firmly. “I will likely be in there for a very long time.”

“I’m trying to imagine what you can think of to do in there,” he says in a thoughtful voice.

“Try and spend the time instead examining your sudden good mood and the fact that you’re being rather flirtatious.”

He shuts the wardrobe door and suddenly seems a lot closer than he was. “Really? You don’t know why I’m in a good mood?” he says huskily.

“Shower,” I squeak, and grabbing my stuff, I shut myself in the bathroom.

The bathroom is very luxurious as well, and I wonder why Joan decided to splash the cash. Normally, when we’re away, we stay in the cheapest hotels she can find. The shower cubicle is enormous, and I spend a while in there enjoying the hot water and the fantastic pressure. I use the time to talk myself around, so by the time I emerge, I feel put together and serene.

I let myself into the bedroom. Con has removed the rose petals and is lying on the bed, his bare feet crossed and his hands behind his head, watching the football on the TV. I eye his long feet and the fact that his arms are bunched up, showing his big biceps, and feel my inner serenity immediately starting to retreat.

“Bathroom is yours,” I say briskly.

He looks over at me, and his eyes move up and down steadily, taking in my silk dressing gown. It’s citron-coloured with small violets embroidered over it, and it falls to my feet.

“What?” I snap.

“You look lovely,” he says, and the sincerity in his voice floors me.

I rub my finger over the silk, feeling its softness. “Really?” I ask. He nods fervently, and I bite my lip. “It was my nan’s. I suppose you think that’s weird. My grandad bought it for her from China years ago when he was in the navy. She kept it in this box in tissue paper and never wore it, but she’d let me open it and look at it when I was little. I kept it when she died because the sight of it has always made me happy, and I wear it because we should never let anything stay in tissue paper.”

His eyes are soft and warm and almost admiring. “I wasn’t going to say it’s weird,” he says steadily. “I was going to say I love it because it’s just like you.”

“A bit flamboyant?” I say doubtfully.

“No. Bold and bright.”

He runs his eyes over me again, and by the time he reaches my eyes, I feel hot and flushed.

“Bathroom,” I snap, and he bites his lip to hide a smile. Unfortunately, he’s not entirely successful, and I glare at him.

He rises and walks past me. His arm brushes mine, and my skin tingles as if he gave me an electric shock. I continue staring after him long after the door has shut. Then I give myself a shake and take out my clothes from my bag, hanging them up in the wardrobe and plugging our phones in to charge. I dump my dirty clothes in my bag and set them neatly in the wardrobe. I close the door and turn as the bathroom door opens.

I once watched a film called Backdraft , where Billy Baldwin was always silhouetted enticingly against a backdrop of smoke. Con’s background is the more innocuous steam from his shower, but Billy’s got nothing on him. He’s shirtless and clad in just a pair of boxers, and my gaze clings and skips along his big chest. He’s impressively put together, which has got to be genetic because he hardly does any exercise. I frown as I see the line of ink down his right side. “What does that say?” I ask before I can pull myself together.

“What, this little thing?” he says, eyeing me and tracing one long finger down his side. The tattoo runs down his lean side and disappears along the groove of his pelvis and under his underwear. His finger comes to a stop at the cotton barrier, and I become aware that I’m gaping at him.

I take a breath. “I didn’t know you had a tattoo there,” I say in what I hope is a conversational tone, although even I recognise it’s far too breathy.

He smiles. “It says, ‘Friendship is a slow ripening fruit.’”

I stare at him. “Who said that?”

He makes a production of looking around. “I think I just did.”

“You’re such a twat.”

He laughs. “It was Aristotle.”

“And that’s for David,” I say confidently.

“Nope,” he says. “It’s for you.”

He moves past me and pulls the sheets back. He climbs into the bed and gives a sigh of happiness.“Oh, that’s lovely. Cold, fresh sheets.”

I glare at him.

“Getting in?” he says. When my glare intensifies, he grins. “You’re blocking the view of the footie on the TV.”

My mouth drops open in outrage, and he breaks into peals of laughter.

Shaking my head, I pull the sheets back and then look at the bed in dismay. It’s enormous, the mattress hitting me at chest height. “How high is this fucking bed?” I squeak. His laughter gets louder. “No, really. Did medieval people carry ladders around with them when they fancied a kip?”

“Want a hand up?”

“Only if you fancy losing some digits,” I snap. I lift my leg, considering the height. “Good heavens, this is like Mount Everest,” I say faintly. He starts laughing again, and I shake my head. “Did they bring George Mallory here to do his training?”

“Knowing his set of friends, they’d have found other uses for the bed.”

“What a scandalous set. All those young men photographed in the nude and historians are still trying to persuade us that it was just high jinks between manly young men.”

I try another hopeful hop, and he shakes his head. “There’s a stool under the bed.”

“What?” I glare at him. “When were you going to tell me?”

He chuckles and lies back. “I was aiming for another five minutes, but you were starting to look a little plaintive.”

“Wanker,” I say succinctly, prompting another burst of laughter. I retrieve the stool and climb into the bed, falling onto the sheets as if I’ve just completed a hike up a mountain and I’m about to plant a flag. I look over to find him biting his lip and smack his arm.

“Shut up,” I say, and he makes a performance about zipping his lips.

I kneel up and pull off my robe, and there’s an instant hush. “Shit, Frankie,” he mutters.

I look over my shoulder at him and smile. “Not so lippy now, are you?”

“Those are the skimpiest pair of briefs I have ever seen.”

“Oh, these old things,” I say airily, running my finger along the edge of my black briefs. He makes a choked sound, and I laugh. “You’re so easy.”

“I must be.”

“I sleep naked,” I inform him climbing under the sheets. “So, you should be glad I’m wearing anything at all.”

“Why the hell should I be glad about that? Are you daft?”

I laugh and nestle back into the bed. The sheets are cool and soft against my skin, and the duvet has just the right kind of crinkly expensiveness to please me. The pillows are the perfect shape and consistency to cradle my head. The only problem is the size of the bed. Seen from the floor, the bed looked the size of a football field. Now, however, sharing it with Con, it seems to have shrunk. His scent of freshly washed skin and sweet shampoo appears to weave a spell around me, and every time he moves, he brushes against me.

As if on cue, he shifts, and I feel his hairy leg against me.

“Sorry,” he says meekly as I tut. “These beds aren’t made for men my size.”

“You’re six foot four. Not the Hulk,” I say pettily, and he snorts.

“Shall I put a pillow between us on the bed?”

I gape at him. “No, because I’m not Doris Day.”

“Definitely not. I bet she was infinitely sweeter-tempered.”

I can’t help the twitch of my mouth and turn my back on him. He laughs. The sound is sexy right next to me, and I wonder how I can have sat in a room with him for years and never noticed. Now, it’s all I can focus on. That and his smell of warm skin. I feel my lids lowering and my breath coming short, and I immediately take evasive action.

“Ooh, football,” I cry, looking at the TV. “How exciting. Who are we watching?”

“I wasn’t aware that you liked football, Frankie.” There’s a suspicious sound of laughter in his voice, but when I look at him, his face is innocent.

“Oh yes,” I say. “My grandad supported—” I rack my brains. “Some football club. Was it Tottenham Harris?”

There’s a short pause. Then, “Do you mean Tottenham Hotspur?”

“Yes, that’s the one. They’re my favourite too.” He bites his lip, and I send him a warning glare. “So, are they playing?”

“No, because this is the Scottish League.”

“Ah.” I nod wisely. “And Tottenham is a London team.”

“And English.”

I watch the screen. “So, it’s two-nought, then?”

There’s a stifled snort from my bed partner. “You could say that,” he says in a choked voice.

“And those names under the team names. Are they players who’ve been naughty?”

I shoot around and glare at him as he howls with laughter. “What is so funny?” I gasp.

“You pretending to like football.” He stops laughing at me and looks up earnestly. “Your virtue is safe, Frankie.”

“I don’t think I’ve had that since I was sixteen,” I whisper, staring down into his eyes. The brown is so clear in the lamplight it looks like the brook that runs beside the village.

I become aware that he’s staring back at me and wonder awkwardly what he sees. Nobody like his current bed partner, that’s for sure. I’m not a patch on Tim. At the memory that someone is waiting at home for him, I draw back. Something that looks like disappointment crosses his face, and then it clears, and he lifts a hand and brushes my hair back from my face.

“Go to sleep,” he says, and there’s such a wealth of warmth in his voice that it brings tears to my eyes. I nod and turn on my side. I stiffen when he cuddles up to me, but he’s lovely and warm in the cold sheets, and he sets the remote control on my ribs. “You’re like a little table,” he says. “I could rest my cup of tea on your ribs.”

“I can see why you get so much cock,” I observe. He laughs, and I let loose with a huge yawn.

“Go to sleep,” he commands, and astonishingly, I do. Usually, I need perfect room temperature, a face mask, and my Spotify rainy weather sounds playlist to get to sleep, but tonight I drift off accompanied by the soft sound of the football and his warm presence behind me.

I come awake with a start. The room is dark, and the high street outside is quiet. I’m warm and snug, mainly because Con sleeps behind me with one long arm curled over my waist. His breaths are soft and even against my nape, and for a few seconds, I rest there, savouring the feel of him. I’ll probably never get this again, and I sigh softly, nestling into him for a precious few minutes.

A quick glance at my watch tells me it’s three in the morning. I’m desperately thirsty, and I start to ease out of bed to get a drink. I pause on the edge as Con utters a grumbly sound and turns to his back. He’s lit by a shaft of moonlight that’s slipped through a gap in the curtains, and it highlights him as if he’s on stage. His hair is messy, his eyes closed, and his face peaceful. It’s so strange to see him like this as he’s normally constantly on the move. To see him peaceful makes me feel protective of him, and I pull the sheets more over him as the air conditioning has made the room a little chilly.

I slip into the bathroom, running the tap until the water is cold and filling a toothglass. I drink thirstily. Once I’ve finished, I rest my hands on the sink and stare at myself in the mirror. I look the same as ever—messy dark hair, thin face, and slender body. I watch myself shake my head and then make my way back into the bedroom. I shut the door behind me, and the click must wake Con because he sits bolt upright.

“Frankie?” he says sleepily.

“Here,” I whisper, and he rolls to face me, but unfortunately, he moves too far, and he rolls right out of bed, falling to the floor with a crash.

There’s a startled silence that I break, rushing over to him.

“Are you okay?” I gasp. “That was quite a way to fall.”

He rolls over and looks up at me with a disgruntled expression.

“Are you okay?” I start to say again but choke in the middle. He glares at me as I break into peals of laughter.

“I’m so sorry,” I try to say but then spoil it by laughing until I’m fighting for breath and clutching my ribs. Finally, I calm, but when I look at him, he’s watching me with one eyebrow raised, and it starts me off again. “Sorry,” I choke out. “So sorry.”

“You don’t sound it,” he observes, but that just sets me off again.

“You fell.” I wave my hand. “Such a bang ,” I manage and then start to laugh again.

Eventually, I calm and look down at him. “Are you alright?” I say, trying for sincerity.

“You know you sound so caring, Frankie, and yet inside, you’re still laughing at me.”

“Well, it’ll teach you not to take the piss out of me with the high bed. What on earth happened?”

“It’s your fault. You spoke to me, and I turned. In my bed, there’d be space. Not so much with this fucker.”

I snort and manfully stop myself. “And have you hurt yourself?”

My voice wavers, and he shakes his head. “Never consider a career in the nursing profession. Never .”

“I’ve got the hands of a surgeon.”

“And the sense of humour of a five-year-old. It’s a lethal combination.”

That sets me off again, and when I stop this time, I find myself hovering far too close to him. My hand is down beside his head, my fingers brushing his hair. My laughter dies, and before I can think better of it, my fingers move, twining in his hair and feeling the softness slip over my skin.

I still when I find him watching me, his eyes dark in the moonlight.

“Con,” I whisper and gasp as he raises his hands. For a long moment, he stares at me as if contemplating one of the great mysteries of the world, and then, grabbing my face gently, he brings me into him and takes my lips with a soft groan.

For a second, we rest against each other, both stunned by the evening’s development, and then the feel of his lips against mine overrides all the voices screaming caution at me, and I open my mouth, sending my tongue out to tangle with his.

He tastes of mint, and his lips are soft and pillowy, and the kiss seems to spark from there as we go from zero to a hundred in seconds, twisting and turning to get closer while our mouths eat at each other.

He moans in the back of his throat, one hand holding my skull between his big hands and keeping my lips against his. Time seems to slow down as we kiss until my lips feel sore, and my dick is throbbing hard. Con moans and grabs my arse, urging me to straddle him. I lift and obey him. I only have my briefs on, and they’re barely managing to contain my cock, and I groan as my dick rubs against the hard length in his boxers.

He sucks on my tongue gently, and I push down against him. The pressure feels right, but it’s not enough, so I pull back. “Take them off,” I say wildly as he thumbs the band of my underwear. He groans, staring at me through slitted eyes, and then his fingers move, caressing my skin as he pushes the briefs below my arse. I sit up into a crouch and tear them off, throwing them over my shoulder.

“You too,” I pant, fisting my cock in a tight grip to avoid going off like a rocket as he pushes his boxers down. I can’t help staring at the body he reveals. He has a tight stomach that leads down to a V line. Brown hair runs from his belly button downwards like an arrow pointing to his cock. I gulp. His huge cock.

“Jesus,” I whisper, and he gives a choked chuckle.

“Don’t stare.”

“I can’t help it, Connie. That’s fucking massive. It’s the Titanic of cocks.”

“Didn’t that sink?”

“It’s never going to happen to you with that buoyancy aid between your legs.”

I stare down at it and slide my finger along the silky skin. The skin is stretched tight over his cock, with a prominent vein standing out darkly.

I tighten my grip on my cock, and he stares at my hand. “Touch yourself,” he says. “I want to see.”

For a wild second, I want to do it, but then I hesitate, feeling suddenly and inexplicably shy. A flush stains my cheeks, and I bite my lip.“Con?” I say, suddenly uncertain, and he sits up, his stomach muscles tightening in a very distracting way.

“No,” he says, kissing the side of my mouth. “Don’t start thinking, Frankie.” He kisses the side of my mouth again, and then again. Teasing kisses that come close but never connect with my waiting mouth, and all the while, his big hand clutches my skull tenderly, his fingers caught in the waves of my hair. I feel the tension ease out of me, and I chase his mouth almost drunkenly, my eyes drifting closed.

“Con,” I say, barely able to recognise the dazed sound of my own voice.

“Yes,” he says and kisses me properly, his tongue tangling with mine, and within seconds, I’m lost again, all my senses narrowing to the feel of him naked against me. My Con, who smells of soap and has his big hands on me, caressing my skin while he eats at my mouth with urgent little sounds.

Before I know it, I’ve pushed him to his back and climbed onto him, straddling him. My cock rubs against his, and I cry out, thrusting my hips to get the pressure again and again.

“Like this,” he whispers and raises his hand to me. Immediately guessing what he wants, I lick his palm and fingers, getting them sloppily wet before taking one finger into my mouth and sucking on it lazily. He puts another finger against my lips, stretching the lines of my mouth, and shudders wildly when I take that in too, taking them to the back of my throat with ease and getting them slippery and wet.

He pulls them out of my mouth with a wet plop, and I cry out as he encircles our cocks in his hand. I add my own on top of it, bridging the gap and squeezing his fingers. Beginning to cant my hips, I shuttle my dick through the tight grip. I can smell the tang of precome in the air and feel it moistening our shafts and making the slide incredible. I groan, and leaving him to hold our dicks, I rest my hands on his huge shoulders, digging in my fingernails and rubbing against him in a vigorous motion like the tide.

“Kiss me,” he pleads, and I bend to take his mouth. My hair falls around us, hiding us behind a silky black curtain, and he lets go of our cocks to clutch my head close to him, his fingers tugging on the strands. I press my head into his hands and rub against him, the motion lubricated by precome and sweat. I rear back and watch him as I writhe, digging my fingers into his big chest and brushing his nipple.

He throws his head back, all the cords in his neck standing out. “Frankie,” he says hoarsely, and I rub frantically, digging my knees into the side of his thigh and feeling the telltale tingle in my balls.

It comes on me in a rush. I have no time to prepare. One minute we’re rutting furiously, so melded together I can’t tell his body from mine, and the next, I’m coming with a wild shout spurting over his cock and balls. He grabs my arse, pulling me in tight, and then gives a low, tortured groan. I feel his semen hot on my skin, and I fall onto him, knocking the breath from him, but his arms tighten to keep me there.

I’ve never felt anything like that, and I let that recognition settle into my mind, where it will undoubtedly ferment into outright worry. For now, though, I just lie savouring the warmth and feel of his big body and feeling his breaths strike the side of my face and the occasional nuzzling warmth of his kiss against my temple.

After a long moment, I roll off, and we lie on our backs, staring up at the ceiling, the room full of the sounds of our slowly steadying breathing. Semen is growing cold on my skin, and consciousness starts to seep back. Consciousness and concern.

“Jesus,” I finally say. “What the hell just happened?”

“Frankie, look at me.”

I slowly do as he asks. I’d do mostly anything he asked of me, maybe even hide a body, but somehow this is harder than that. He’s watching me, his eyes mysterious in the moonlight. I stare at him. Is he going to say he regrets it? I become aware that I’m holding my breath, and I let it out unobtrusively.

“What?” I finally ask. My voice is hoarse and soft. “What was that, Con?”

He watches me for another second, but then incredibly, he smiles, and it’s a smile unlike any he’s ever directed at me. It’s full and warm and lights up his face.

“It was simple and easy,” he finally says. He rolls to his side and runs his finger down my face, tracing my cheekbones and ending at the corner of my lips. I compound my foolishness by kissing it, and he smiles again. “And yet it was everything too, if you know what I mean. Does that sound silly?”

“Not at all,” I say, and we exchange slightly shy smiles.

I open my mouth finally to try and clarify what just happened. My senses are reeling. That was simultaneously the hottest event of my life with the person who, up until two months ago, I’d never looked at like this. How has this happened?

However, Con sits up and scatters my thoughts. “Come on, Frankie,” he says, his voice low and tender. “The middle of the night isn’t the time to analyse stuff, and I can see your brain starting to rumble.” The latter is said with an air of wild tenderness that makes my heart beat faster.

“So, what is the middle of the night for?” I ask, letting him clean us off with his T-shirt and push me into the bed. He slides up next to me, pulling the covers over us and slinging his arm around me so his warmth and scent envelop me. It seems funny to inhale that familiar scent now it’s cut through with a trace of spunk.

“It’s time for sleep,” he says. “Sleep with me, Frankie. Close and warm.”

And I do. I drop off so fast it’s like free jumping off a cliff.