Hunter and Morgan: Gatecrasher

by H. K. Nightingale

  Morgan bucked up into it, fighting the instinct to close his eyes because, God, Hunter had never looked so beautiful. There was a flush of red over his gorgeous cheekbones. His lips were wet and plump from kissing. And every bit of his attention was on Morgan as he fucked into him again, and again, and again.

  Hunter licked his hand and reached between them to wrap his hand around Morgan's cock, a hot, wet tunnel to fuck into. Morgan barely needed it; Hunter had found a sweet angle and Morgan would probably have come untouched. But Hunter was obviously on a short fuse, and he was a gentleman. He wanted Morgan to come first, just like he'd said. He wanted to watch Morgan come. Oh God.

  "Yeah?" said Hunter, but Morgan couldn't answer. Everything was pleasure and fire and thunder rumbling deep in his balls, building and building until he gripped the sheets in his fist and Hunter thrust in hard, that final, plugging thrust that tipped him over the edge. Come splattered wetly over his chest; he imagined it coating Hunter's fingers and shuddered out another stream. And another.

  "C-can I, inside you, can I–" Hunter stammered. Morgan, still in an orgasm-haze, crossed his ankles over Hunter's back, pulling him in. His arse was still pulsing, throbbing; Hunter probably couldn't have pulled out again just then even if he'd wanted to. But he obviously didn't; he squeezed Morgan's shoulders and kept his eyes open as pleasure shuddered through him. Morgan felt the throb of it inside him, everything hot and wet and, "f-f-fuuck," said Hunter.

  Then he collapsed on top of Morgan and buried his face in his hair. Morgan relaxed, closed his eyes and gently stroked Hunter's back. It was so warm, damp with a sheen of sweat. He could smell salt and come and, distantly, fresh laundry detergent and an unlit scented candle. Vanilla. Nice. Like custard. Morgan giggled.

  Hunter giggled back. His cock slipped out of Morgan's arse in a slick rush; some of Morgan's boyfriends had found that part icky, but Morgan didn't. It felt rude and naughty and incredibly satisfying. He sighed happily.

  Hunter rolled off him, leaving space for a breeze from the window to cool Morgan's heated skin. Morgan folded his arms behind his head and watched Hunter go through a door at the other end of the room to what was evidently an en suite bathroom. Nice. The shower went on. Hunter stuck his head around the door and said, "Join me?"

  Morgan didn't know how Hunter could jump about so much when he'd just come that hard, but the idea of a coolish spray of water was very appealing. And nobody liked sticky sheets.

  Well, Caleb claimed he did. But he was probably lying.

  Hunter's shower had three shower heads, was beautifully tiled and had plenty of room for two within its frosted glass walls. It smelled of fresh grout and foresty-scented shower gel. Morgan felt a twinge of the -I don't belong here- anxiety returning, but Hunter was still Hunter, cursing when he got soap in his eyes and wanting to touch Morgan whenever and wherever he could.

  When they were back in the bedroom, clean and dry, Hunter pulled the quilt back and they slipped between white cotton sheets. Egyptian cotton, probably, with a ridiculous thread count. The heat of the day hadn't quite died off and the room was warm, so sheets were plenty; the quilt stayed crumpled up at the foot of the bed. They kissed for a while, and maybe things might have gone further, but Morgan's limbs were heavy and his breathing deep, and at some point his head dropped on to the pillow, Hunter's fingers stroking through his hair, and he slept.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning Morgan woke curled up on his side with Hunter draped over his back, one arm holding Morgan firmly around the belly. It felt very nice, and might have developed into something else, but Hunter's phone went off. While he answered it with a grumpy, "Hunter," Morgan's bladder complained. So he went to the bathroom to pee.

  By the time he returned, Hunter was pulling on his clothes.

  "What time is it?" Morgan asked.

  "Nearly seven. That was the client with the husband who's into furry sex in car parks. Someone put a brick through her window."

  "The guy who made the videos?"

  "Bates? Probably. I need to go and see her."

  Morgan cast about for his own clothes. Shit. His clean underwear was downstairs, in his rucksack. "I'll come with you."

  "No. This is nasty stuff. I won't risk you getting hurt."

  Morgan scowled at him. "I'm tougher than I look, you know."

  "It's not that." Hunter caught his arms, pulled him in close. "It's just that you're not insured."

  He laughed, and Morgan laughed too, although he had a sneaking suspicion it was just an excuse. And while it was lovely to be protected, it was completely unnecessary. Still. It wasn't the first time someone had made that mistake, and it's not like Hunter knew what he was capable of.

  That gave him a sharper pang than it had yesterday.

  "Besides," said Hunter. "There's still the work for the fraud case. All that cross-referencing won't do itself. C'mon. I was going to take you somewhere nice for breakfast but I guess it'll be Costa and a bagel at the station. Sorry."

  Actually a bagel sounded really good. Morgan quickly washed and dressed, and they set out for Leeds.

  Morgan's phone started ringing on the train. First Caleb, then Sahil, then Caleb again. He switched it to silent and ignored it, enjoying the press of Hunter's thigh against his. Every now and then he'd catch Hunter looking at him, and Hunter would catch him catching him, and they'd bump shoulders. There was a tiny mole just under Hunter's left eye, so faint he'd only noticed it up close. But now he knew it was there he was fascinated by it. He wanted to kiss it. He actually wanted to kiss Hunter's eyelashes. He could imagine it, a soft whispery feeling across his lips.

  The half hour journey was gone in a flash. At the station Hunter headed to the taxi rank to get a cab to the client's house. As they parted Hunter kissed him. Just a small, quick kiss, and a "see you later, darling," but it left Morgan weak-kneed and a bit head-spinny. It was in public, in broad daylight, for one thing. And for another that 'darling' kept echoing. It sounded so natural. So right.

  He sat down on a cold metal bench and fumbled through his rucksack for his encanté measurement kit. Pricked his finger quickly with the lance and dripped blood onto the test papers.

  0.4. Same as always.

  He pulled out his phone and called Caleb.

  Caleb answered in three rings and yawned pointedly down the phone at him.

  "You called me first," Morgan said. "Less than half an hour ago."

  "And you didn't answer. So I went back to bed."

  "What did you want?"

  "Well, obviously I was nosing around to see how your date went. I presumed that as you didn't make it home, Mr Big Shot PI rocked your world."

  Morgan tried to think up a grown up and slightly huffy response to that, but what he actually said was, "He's amazing." No doubt his eyes were dewy and fluttery as well. It was probably a good thing Caleb couldn't see him.

  "Are you grinning your head off? You sound like you're grinning your head off."

  Yeah. He totally was. He could tell by the way his jaw was aching. "Don't be ridiculous." And then, as an afterthought he couldn't stop from popping out, "He kissed me goodbye. At the station. He called me darling."

  Caleb made gagging noises at the other end of the phone.

  "You're just jealous," said Morgan, happily.

  "Hm. Why'd he leave you at the station?"

  "He's gone to see a client. I'm just about to go to the office. D'you have work today?"

  "No, I took the rest of the week off."

  "Sex party drained you dry, did it?"

  "Oh, very funny. Actually I got a note from Mr Appleford himself. I've got free tickets for a show at the club on Friday."

  "You're going back?"

  "Yes, Morgan," Caleb said, slowly and distinctly. "I thought it would be polite to take Dave and Jennifer, seeing as they introduced me to the scene and everything."

  "Oh, it's a scene now, is it?"

  "You can take your moralising attitude and shove it u
p your arse, Mr Shag-the-boss."

  "I worry about you."

  "And I worry about you. Strange, isn't it? Anyone would think we're friends."

  "I'm serious. Just be safe. Can you drop by the office later?"

  "Why, so you can harangue me further?"

  "There's something I want to ask you. For work. But… Not now. Not on the phone."

  "Ooh, skullduggery! Is there skullduggery?"

  "Can you? Come to the office?"

  Caleb sighed dramatically. "If you insist, Mr Manly Morgan. God, you're always so bossy when you just got laid."

  With that he hung up. Morgan took a moment to appreciate that, yes, he really had got laid, and then he headed for the office.

  Caleb turned up at lunch with a two wraps and some wild honey flapjack from Sophie's, and a couple of large Iced Shaken Hibiscus lemonades from Starbucks. He pulled an upended storage box over to Morgan's desk to sit on and they had a picnic.

  "I should cost out some visitor's chairs," Morgan pondered.

  "Never mind that. Tell me about this skullduggery. And if you want to give a thrust by thrust account of your night with your golden Adonis of a detective along the way, feel free."

  "He's not a detective. He's an investigator. Although he was a detective, once. In the police force."

  Caleb frowned. "An actual proper copper?"

  "Yes."

  "Isn't that a bit… I dunno. We live at the fringes of society, man."

  Morgan snorted. "Speak for yourself. We don't all take time off work for orgies. Anyway, he's not with the police anymore."

  "Once a copper–"

  "Stop it."

  Caleb took a bite of his avocado and cream cheese wrap and chewed. "What did you want me for, then?"

  "We're working on this case." Morgan looked down at his wrap to avoid Caleb's 'oooh, you're working on a case' face. "This guy died, and they found traces of Essence in his system."

  Morgan glanced up to find Caleb rolling his eyes.

  "I need you to promise me to be really careful," Morgan said.

  "Essence doesn't kill you. What was the actual cause of death?"

  "Cardiac arrest."

  "There you go. Being a bit happy or horny or excited can't give you a heart attack."

  "A cardiac arrest isn't the same as a heart attack."

  Caleb shrugged.

  "I'm serious," said Morgan. "Until we know what happened, no Essence. Promise me."

  "Do you have any evidence to say it was the Essence that killed this guy? Not a regular drug? There's plenty of those that mess with your ticker."

  Morgan was rapidly losing patience in the face of sheer panic at the thought of Caleb being fished out of a muddy pond. "They don't know yet. But the fact remains that magic is volatile and unpredictable, and you could do yourself some serious harm. Paranoia, depression, majos-related anxiety disorder. I'm not kidding around here."

  "I can tell."

  Caleb pointed to what had been Morgan's cup of iced tea with extra ice. The plastic cup looked saggy and melted and the drink inside was steaming gently.

  "Shit!" Morgan sprang up to get a cloth. He scarcely managed to get the melting cup in the bin before it oozed warm, pink fluid all over his desk. Caleb passed him paper towels.

  "Sorry," Morgan said, once the initial panic had abated.

  "It's okay," said Caleb gently. He knew how rare it was for Morgan's magic to manifest spontaneously these days. But Morgan hadn't had time to meditate that morning. And he was so scared for Caleb. And it felt horrible, doing magic here, in Hunter's office, even accidentally. As if Hunter would inevitably pick up on the fact that Morgan had desecrated his space with magic.

  But all Morgan said out loud was, "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

  They sat down again. Caleb tipped half of his lemonade into Morgan's empty tea mug, broke a corner off his flapjack and popped it into his mouth.

  "You said Jennifer has a dealer," Morgan said.

  "An old friend, apparently. Look, I don't think she uses regularly. And I won't do it anymore. Not if it bothers you this much."

  "Thank you." Morgan hoped he could trust him to be good as his word about that. "Do you have a name for this dealer?"

  "Why? You're not going to get them dragged off to majos jail, are you?"

  "No, of course not. It's just the police want a sample. To see what it actually does."

  "You said yourself, no two majos make the same Essence. What Jennifer gets from a posh bloke in Horsforth would be totally different from your average street Essence.

  "Wait."

  Caleb put another bit of flapjack in his mouth and raised an eyebrow.

  "Horsforth. Is that where it was? That party you went to?"

  "Yeah. Off Town Street. You go up a road between Morrisons and the betting shop, past the car park, there's an old office building. We went in round the back. I suspect it might not have a license, if you know what I mean."

  Morgan stared at him. "What betting shop?"

  Caleb frowned. "William Hills, I think. Why?"

  "I need to call Sahil."

  "What?"

  "I think our vic might have been to the same club."

  "Okay, first, since when was the word 'vic' in your vocabulary? You sound like one of those cheesy mini-series cop shows. Secondly, who's Sahil, and thirdly, what the fuck?"

  Morgan didn't answer; he was too busy rubbing the sticky flapjack mess off his fingers before he touched his phone screen.

  "Morgan, really, I–"

  Morgan tapped dial, and Sahil picked up on the second ring.

  An hour later, Morgan and Hunter met Sahil and Jess outside Morrisons in Horsforth. Hunter looked like he'd had a rough morning; a lot of the spring had gone out of his step and he didn't even seem to have the energy to be rude to his sister. He did manage a smile for Morgan, though, and bumped the back of his hand against the back of Morgan's when he came to stand next to him. Morgan felt a bit guilty for the conversation he'd had with Sahil where they'd debated whether or not it was wise to put Jess and Hunter in the same place again. It would have been Hunter who'd missed out, as Jess was leading the investigation. But in the end they'd decided perhaps this was the ideal opportunity for everyone to get over themselves.

  Jess was the last to arrive, having stopped off to talk to the staff in the bookmaker's first.

  "Bubble seems to be well known in the area," she told them. "There's burlesque shows here on a regular basis."

  "The building's owned by a guy called Wallace Sturgess," Sahil said. "Lottery winner. The building is part of his rapidly expanding property portfolio. There's been no official change of use registered. Could be he's let it out, or maybe he's branching out into entertainment."

  "Check him out when we get back to the office. Anyway, there's a caretaker, so the locals say. Let's go and have a chat to him."

  Morgan half-expected Jess to tell him and Hunter to hop it now they'd got all the information they needed and were doing the police thing. But she didn't, so they followed her and Sahil down the alley that led to the old office building that apparently turned into a den of iniquity at night. Jess rang the bell to what would once have been quite a fancy lobby, and eventually the big glass doors jerked open. A guy stood behind a completely empty reception desk. There were a bunch of silk-printed screens piled up against the wall behind him. Morgan could imagine they'd go a long way to transform the place from dilapidated office to sensual sex club, especially at night.

  "What can I do you for?" The caretaker was jovial with Jess, but Morgan could see his beady little eyes were taking in everything.

  Jess smiled sweetly. "Actually, it might be more what I can do you for." She flashed her ID at him.

  The caretaker's joviality washed away in an instant. "What d'you want? I've got a rental agreement. I live here and I get paid for looking after the place. It's all above board."

  "And this place," said Jess. "What sort of establishment is it?"

  "It's a cl
ub. And before you ask, yes, we got an entertainment license. I can get that for you as well."

  "That would be splendid," said Jess. "And we'd like to have a look around, please."

  The caretaker looked a bit taken aback. "Don't you need a warrant for that?"

  "Only if you refuse to let us in," said Jess. Her eyes narrowed. Hunter coughed 'bullshit' behind his hand. Morgan hoped the guy did what Jess said before the Hunter and Jess started yelling at each other again.

  The caretaker was wearing an ID badge that said 'Kenny Crossley, Estates'. There was a logo that matched the one etched into the glass doors; presumably Kenny had been inherited with the building. Morgan gave him an apologetic, man-to-man, receptionist-to-receptionist kind of look and said, "It's really important. D'you think…?" He left it hanging, just kept eye contact and tried to look trustworthy and non-threatening.

  Kenny shrugged. "Well, it's not like there's anything to hide. Knock yourselves out. Down the corridor there, past the old boardroom, there's a double set of fire doors, then you're in the club. I'll get the paperwork for you while you're having a look."

  "Thank you," said Jess.

  As Kenny promised, the space beyond the fire doors had been redesigned as a club. What was once an atrium with balconies of offices was now a ground floor bar and stage area, overlooked by tiers of higher level tables, some with internal walls still intact to create private boxes to see and be seen in. Morgan wondered if that's where Caleb had been taken by Jennifer and Dave, a pretty boy to be shown off to the room.

  "Okay, this is seriously weird," Hunter said. "I'm never going to look at call centres in the same way again."

  "Enterprising, in its way," said Sahil.

  "Where's this dungeon?" asked Jess.

  "Downstairs," Morgan said. "And it's not actually a–"