Page 23 of TRUST (London Love Book 5)

Iwent back out and carried the rest of our stuff inside, laughing to myself as he pottered around in the house. Stuff. His rucksack, our picnic and an armful of clothes, which were mostly mine since I hadn’t really planned this. I’d been driving for the entire day, and I was dog tired. A different tired from being at work.

I hadn’t known where I’d be staying the night, so I’d grabbed a change of clothes and Mr Snuggles, whom I thrust at Gray, who was standing in the kitchen, and dumped our now-lukewarm picnic on the countertop.

“We need a kitchen table.” Yeah, good observation, Reubs.

Gray nodded, hugging Mr Snuggles tightly. “I think they put the one I have downstairs. I didn’t really give any specific instructions.”

“Okay.” I opened the fridge door. It was a big fridge. Another thing I hadn’t taken in when I’d been here before.

“Wow. Something stinks in there.”

“Yeah. Agnes, the estate agent? She said she’d get some essentials in, ready for us. Then we didn’t move in.”

“Okay.” I needed to sort this vocabulary. It was one thing driving with him next to me. A completely different thing standing here trying to pick up sour milk and a packet of something that had blown up like a balloon. “Do we have bins outside?”

“No idea.” He looked scared. Then he kind of relaxed, his face breaking into a smile. “I suck at adulting, in case you hadn’t noticed. Shall we just put it out on the veranda thingy for now? We can go look for bins in the morning. I have no idea, honestly, Reubs.”

He was still holding onto Mr Snuggles. Standing there like a big baby.

I took a seat on a bar stool—at least we had those—and started to unpack the food from the plastic bag.

“Picnic.”

“Shouldn’t a picnic be eaten on the floor?”

“Yes,” I decided, scooping everything back into the bag and dumping my tired arse right on the floor, back against the wall. He joined me, curling up against me as I handed him a soggy sandwich.

“Mum always puts too much chutney in her cheese sandwiches,” he said. “But it reminds me of home. Packed lunches. School. Easier times.”

“I hated school. Never really felt it was for me.”

“Yeah.”

We ate, and a comfortable silence fell. Home. It felt strange. New. Unfamiliar. Yet with his head against my shoulder, I wasn’t stressed out by it.

How was I so calm? I knew the answer. Him. He calmed me. The bastard.

“Before we went on the last tour, I lived in a small flat, for years. It was just a bed and a kitchenette really, but that’s where we’d been put up, and I wasn’t really bothered about moving, but then when I realised I could actually buy something, I bought this really big posh place, thinking that’s what was expected. Like I should have a mansion with space for ten cars, and I kind of imagined having parties.” He laughed. A spluttered, happy laughter. “Can you imagine me? Having a party? I mean, the last party I threw was probably for my tenth birthday.”

“I had birthday parties,” I said. “With Dad’s brothers and my cousins and lots of food and silly gifts. I have no idea how to throw a grown-up party.”

“Don’t really want one,” he muttered, squeezing Mr Snuggles against his chest as he picked up another sandwich. “Reuben?”

“Yeah?”

“The first time I saw this house, I thought of you. And just like all those stupid party dreams, I had all these visions of us. I mean, that other house was just a house. This? I saw the home we could have here. The life I could live. Honestly, it was like my entire future swooshed before my eyes. A real life. A really different life from what I had back then. And…I still want that. I really want us to try…to make that life.”

A real life. I had one. But I got what this meant to him.

“I know what you mean.” I was trying to focus, get my brain into gear. “Yes.”

“Yes what?” He smiled. “I already know what I want, because I’d already decided that, way before you turned up today. I want to be with you, and if that means I have to sell this place and move to Peckham and permanently sleep on your sofa? So be it.”

I sighed and turned to him. Stroked a strand of hair from his stupid face.

“I’ve already said I’m moving in here.”

“A house is just a house. It’s the people in it that make the home. And a home is where you make a life.”

“Is that another one of your song lyrics?” It felt wrong to tease him, especially when he was looking so sincere. So vulnerable. So…

“I think I need a lot of help.”

“We all do. And I will help you, and you’ll have to help me, but Gray?”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.” Another of my dad’s little snippets of wisdom. “You have to be good to yourself. You have to deal with what you’ve got, and you need to talk to me. Don’t just run off when you freak out.”

“And you have to stop throwing me out whenever you freak out.”

I laughed. We were both so full of shit. “Yeah.”

“We’ve talked today. About a lot of things, good things. But there are bad things too.”

“There are no bad things. You’re just a bit scared because of your experiences.”

“Mostly when it comes to things I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, but that’s all of us. Everyone is scared of things we have no control over. Like these bloody security guys you had living with you. The drivers. People knowing who you are.”

“I want to choose my own people now. Live with whom I choose, which is you by the way.”

“Sounds good. I choose you back then.”

“There’s a lot I need to learn.”

“You need to learn how to drive. Then you can get from A to B without anyone else needing to know your business. So that’s first on the list. After getting that kitchen table up here. This floor is really hard.”

He smiled. He smiled and the world went warm.

“You’ve been much better with your boundaries, though,” I said lightly.

“Have I?” More laughter. Bam. Heart eyes. Right there.

“Yeah? You haven’t once mentioned sucking my dick or tried to rip my clothes off.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, I am trying to be a better person.”

“Boundaries are good. But, you know. Trust.”

“Trust.” He wriggled around again. Dug in the bag. Pulled out a packet of grapes. Picked one up and popped it in my mouth. Placed another one in his own mouth, holding it on his tongue. Boundaries my arse. He was being filthy and flirty and he knew it.

“There’s a fine line between trust and fear,” he said quietly. “I’ve thought about that too. The way I treat other people. Like Dan…the stalker guy. I trusted him. He trusted me. And then suddenly, it all went overboard, and I didn’t know how to pull back. How do you learn to untrust someone?”

“You don’t. I suppose that is fear. And you’re right. It’s a fine line. Respect. Trust. Perhaps it’s all about who you choose. I mean, I have chosen you, but you and me—it’s hard to put into words. I’ve never been so scared in my life as that time I had to rescue you from bloody McDonald’s. I was really out of my depth. And then you left, and I understood a little more about how I felt, because I just wanted you back.”

“I left, but I didn’t leave you.” Another grape in my mouth. “I trust you. And you’re just…really good for me. I’ve never had a best friend, like you are.”

I snorted. Best friend?

“You’ve sucked my dick,” I pointed out.

“Boundaries, Reuben.”

“I liked it. Kind of. Which cancels out the best-friend bit.”

“It doesn’t. We’re best friends. You’re my best friend. And the guy on whom I might like to perform fellatio again.”

“What?” I giggled. “Stop it.”

“You went there.”

“Do we even have a bed in this place? Or will I have to kip on that sofa? Is that even a sofa? It looks hard.”

“Designer.” He sighed. “We can get rid of it.”

“It’s a sofa.”

“Bed,” he said,” dragging me off the floor. “We do have one.”

He turned out the lights, and I followed him upstairs to the bedroom, which smelled of air freshener and dust. Carpet cleaner maybe?

He switched on the bedside light, revealing a fully made bed. “Agnes said it was part of the service. Making the house ready to move into. Like, it’s all been cleaned. The previous owners left the bed frame, but Agnes got a new mattress. Basic bedding. There should be towels too. I had towels anyway, I think?”

He was being weird again, so I just pulled my hoodie over my head, dropped my jeans, pulled the covers back and got in.

“Fuck, that’s cold!” I shivered, and he laughed. “Get under the sheets, Gray.”

“Phone charger?” he offered from his bloody rucksack. “Overpriced chocolate bar?”

“All good.” I rolled my eyes right back at him but got my phone out of my jeans, sent a quick text to my dad and set my alarm. Gray plugged the charger in and climbed into the bed beside me, shoving Mr Snuggles under his head. I burrowed further under the huge, fluffy duvet, trying to ignore Gray wriggling around like the idiot he was, then grabbed hold of him and shoved his head against my chest, my face in his hair. Kisses. Fuck it. Him. Just him and me. Here.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For…you know.”

“I know. And fuck the boundaries. Fancy sucking my dick?”

If I thought my life had started to derail before? Today, I’d felt like I was getting back on track. Then he ripped his jumper off and kissed me, and I lost all sense of direction again.

Just him and that mouth of his on my skin and I couldn’t even think. Fingertips on my chest. Goosebumps everywhere. He hadn’t even gone anywhere near my dick, and it was already throbbing like anything in my boxers.

I kicked the duvet away, desperately wriggling out of all that unnecessary clothing.

“Boundaries,” he whispered into my neck. He stopped and looked at me. “Do you trust me?”

He’d asked before, but his honesty floored me, as did my feelings for him, leaving me reeling in no-man’s land.

“I do,” I whispered. “I trust you.”

“Okay. Then let me take care of you. I’m going to make you feel so good. Nothing will hurt.”

He always said that. Always took care of me, even when I couldn’t take care of myself.

I lay there, my hands over my eyes as he kissed down my chest. I couldn’t watch. I wasn’t used to this. I didn’t sleep with people. Well…

“I’ve only ever had sex with two other people, and they were both girls. I don’t think I was very good,” I blurted in a panic.

“Well, Reuben,” he said, placing a kiss on my hip, a soft breath against my stomach. His hair brushed over my dick. For fuck’s sake, dick. A bit of hair was apparently all it took for me to start leaking stuff, while he lay with his chin on my stomach, talking.

“Expectations. Let me lay them out. I’m going to suck your dick. Very, very gently. I don’t want you to come, not yet. Then, when you’re all messy and desperate…”

“Messy and desperate?” I huffed out. I’d give him messy and desperate. Another puff of air over my dick, his hair sweeping across my stomach.

“Gray?” Pathetic.

“When you’re messy and desperate, tell me what you need.”

Okay. I got it.

“Please suck my dick?”

His lips touched my cock, just the lightest contact with the tip, then warmth and wetness as he opened his mouth, licking and kissing. I bit on my knuckle to stop the sounds coming from me.

“There’s nobody here,” he murmured. “Just us. You can shout and scream and beg and…talk to me. Tell me how it feels.

“More.”

And there was my hand fisting his hair. I was trying not to push, but he made it so easy, my cock once again sinking into all that heat. Suction. His tongue moving over my skin. Then cold air followed by his warm grip around me, pumping and squeezing. Those soft lips. My hips thrusting. My hand. Oh, fuck.

“More!”

“Good boy. Tell me what you need.”

“Gray,” I moaned. Oh, fuck.

My hips arched as he slid down, kicking the duvet aside and making himself comfortable between my legs.

Splayed out on the bed, I guided his head back down, his mouth…

God help me.

He came off me with a little smacking sound, licked around the head then spat, letting it run over the head of my cock before his hand smeared it down my shaft.

Something that should have been disgusting, but absolutely…wasn’t.

“I’m…”

“Desperate?” he suggested and swallowed me down again, as I growled in frustration. What the fuck was I doing, just lying here? Wasn’t this supposed to be a two-man show?

He came up for air, circling my slit with his tongue. “Good boy.”

Leaning over my leg, he scrabbled around in his rucksack then dropped a bunch of stuff on the sheet next to my hip.

“Lube,” he announced. “Essential stuff to make this good. Do you use lube to wank? If not, it’s a game changer.”

Okay, but…

“Condom,” he continued, ripping a packet open with his teeth. “And don’t worry, you’re going to fuck me. Hard.”

He had to stop with this dirty talk. My dick was twitching, and I really wanted to ask him to just get his mouth back down there because I needed it.

“I would have prepared if I’d known, Reubs. Douching is a thing, you know? Cleaning your insides so you’re all fresh.” He pumped his dick as he talked.

“Do you think I care about that? Gray, just bloody…”

“See? Desperate.”

“Not desperate,” I countered. Lies. My hand now around my dick, which he promptly swatted away. The hand. The dick, he took back into his mouth. Licked me clean as I whimpered and shook and begged.

Desperate.

“Hold still.” He smiled, rolling a condom on me like an expert.

Fuck. “Are we doing this?” I questioned, my eyes a bit bleary. My breath hitched as he straddled me. All of him displayed before me as he leant back.

“Aren’t you supposed to…you know…” Fuck. “Stretch?”

“I like using a plug. But no time now, so I’m going to go slow. Torture you a bit. Don’t come, not yet.”

“You said nothing would hurt!” I whined, and then I shut up. Pressure. Bloody hell, Gray.

He was right there, his cock erect and proud bouncing around right in front of me. And yes, two-man show.

Lube. And Latex. Fucking hell.

I roared as the top of my dick seemed to get swallowed up by hard muscle. Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. Why hadn’t I googled this?

Lube. Too much drizzling into my hands, but he had said to wank him, so I did. My hand gripping his dick and…yeah, game changer. Smooth glides. Warmth. His laughter seemed to glimmer in the air.

“Oh, yes,” he panted. Then he rose off and I wanted to scream.

“Pass me the lube.”

I did, my hands shaking. Far too many sensations at once for my frazzled brain to compute, I closed my eyes.

The lube. His breaths. My dick being held firm against his opening.

He could kill me now and I would have died happy.

Pressure. My hands jerking. Him thrusting into my grip. His mouth running a steady stream of words that I failed to even register. And then he was…one hundred percent…properly…fucking me. Or I was fucking him…

All I knew was that my hands gripped his hips as he slammed onto me.

“Do you like it?” His voice seemed to come from miles away.

“Yes,” I roared.

Then he got off again, leaving me to whine over the loss of him.

“Come on,” he demanded. “Fuck me.”

Somehow, I figured out what he meant as he threw himself on his back and offered himself up to me, his legs landing on my shoulders, his back fully curled up so I could reach. He stroked his length, slow, seductive movements as I grabbed my sticky condom-clad mess of a dick and pushed. I didn’t dare look. All I went on was his breaths, the pressure around me. I had to move closer so I could get all the way in.

Comfortably.

Dangerously.

Good.

Addictive AF.

“Just move. You won’t hurt me,” he panted out.

I opened my eyes and took him in, splayed out with all that skin on display. Pale, hard nipples, his eyes closed and his neck exposed as another moan escaped his mouth.

I pushed in. Groaned in pleasure. Pulled out and did it again as he sang with me.

“Harder.”

“Harder, I can do.”

It was probably like a complicated choreography, and I had lost all control now, diving down so I could suck his neck, biting his shoulder as my cock pistoned in and out of him. His leg had fallen to the sides, and I had no idea how I was holding it together, with his hands firmly on my arse, telling me to just go for it. Harder. Faster.

My eyes having lost all focus, I had to close them.

My mouth finally found his. Breaths against breaths. We weren’t even kissing, just existing in a moment that never seemed to end.

One. More. Thrust.

His fist against my stomach, pumping spasm after spasm out of the body underneath me as I…I couldn’t even think. Nothing. Darkness and silence though my throat ached with the sounds coming out of it. Sounds I couldn’t hear.

Sex.

Okay.

My body seemed to find its way back to the light, and it felt like I’d been gone for hours as I lay there on top of him, the long, firm strokes down my back grounding me.

I didn’t realise at first, but he was singing. A low hum against my cheek.

“I love you.” Shit. Did I?

“I know,” he replied in a voice that still felt like singing. A low hum. Soothing. “Was that okay?”

I giggled softly and tried to move my limbs. Everything felt stiff yet mellow. Other than the cold, wet patch on the sheet under my thigh as I flopped down beside him. Ugh.

He covered me up with the duvet and shuffled closer so my head was resting on his shoulder.

“Poor Mr Snuggles is scandalised,” I mumbled.

“I’m sure he is.” He pressed his lips to my head.

“I’ve…never…you know?”

Confessions.

“Reubs, I’ve never fucked you either. It’s all new for both of us. Sex is just another thing we have to figure out. You need to know what makes me tick. I need to figure out what makes you tick.”

Condom. I clumsily got it away from my limp dick and shoved it off the edge of the bed. Squirmed at the sound it made against the floor.

“Very unhygienic.” He giggled.

“That cleaner sounds like a good idea now.”

“Nah. We’ll manage.”

I was tired. Yet…

“Did you really…you know…enjoy that?”

“Did you?” he countered. Cheeky little shit.

“Dead,” I said. I couldn’t stop smiling.

“See? Sex is really good. There are so many things I want to show you, and I mean? Reuben?”

“Yeah?”

“Mind blown. You’re hot!”

“Shut up.”

“No. You’re, like, really hot. You make me tick. Just being you.”

“Thanks.” What else could I say? I smiled. Held him. Let my fingers dance over his skin.

“I like this,” he mumbled into my hair. “I like the life we could live here.”

“We will live here,” I corrected. Because I could see it now, clear as anything. Him. Me. This bed. This house. My little car parked outside.

I could feel it too. His skin against mine.

Trust.

“Trust me,” I whispered.

“I do,” he whispered back.