But he nuked the idea before it took hold. Playing at the club had been his happy place in recent years, but the shitstorm with Angelo had changed that. Part of Dylan wished they’d never fucked that first time—that someone else had railed him and then disappeared out the door, never to be seen again. But it was a very small percentage of his brain. The rest of him, and definitely his dick, would give just about anything to confine what had happened between them to the four walls of the heady bunker room. That way, Dylan could’ve gone back and taken a chance on Angelo coming back for more.
Yeah, because when it came down to it, that was all this was. A fuckhot play session that had spilled out into real life, right?
On the cramped train, Dylan almost believed it, but then he found himself walking the long way home from the bus stop and slinking past Giordano’s Deli. On his first go around, Angelo was nowhere to be seen, but as Dylan crossed the street under the pretence of ducking into Waitrose, his creepy behaviour paid off. Angelo was at the serving counter, handing someone a wrapped package and a paper cup of the kind of coffee that Dylan dreamed of when he was stuck in the office.
He trailed to a stop, blocking the supermarket’s entrance. Angelo was dressed in skin-tight black jeans that clung to his slim hips and dancer’s calves. A plain white tee with rolled up sleeves sat perfectly on his leanly muscled torso, covered by a forest green apron that probably made his dark eyes gleam. Damn it. The week since their last chance encounter had done nothing to ease the burn in Dylan’s veins, the ache in his chest, and the heat in his blood. Angelo Giordano was so fucking beautiful it hurt, and only the muttered exclamation of someone behind him broke the spell.
Reluctantly, Dylan tore himself away and braved the Friday night crowds in Waitrose—harried yuppie parents who’d forgotten to buy dinner on their lunch break and loved up couples planning a cosy night in. When he emerged a little while later, clutching a ready meal for one and a bottle of gin, the deli was closed and Angelo was gone.
* * *
Dylan made it to Saturday afternoon before he turned stalker again. A weekend with no plans meant running the bazillion errands he’d spent weeks avoiding, which gave him an excuse to wind up loitering outside Giordano’s. At least, that’s what he told himself when the irony didn’t choke him. And as luck would have it, or not, Angelo was there this time and looked up at just the right moment to catch Dylan staring at him from across the street. Brilliant. To walk away would have appeared more stalkerish than ever, so he swallowed his pride and crossed the road.
Angelo came outside to meet him. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
Angelo’s rare smile made a brief appearance. “No, mate. That’s me.”
“You don’t live at the deli.”
“No? Sure feels like it this week.”
“Business booming?”
“Something like that. My sister has gone back to uni, and having my mum here is more hassle than it’s worth.”
“You should sell it.”
Dylan instantly regretted his bluntness, but Angelo merely nodded. “Tell that to my entire family, I dare you. ’Cause I’ve been trying for years and all it’s got me is a seat at the kiddie table at Christmas.”
“Do they know how much debt it’s in?”
Angelo shrugged. “Probably not, because then my mum would have to admit that my father gambled our piss-poor profits down the swanny when he couldn’t keep up with the Starbucks down the road.”
Ah. So that was it. Dylan had been ruminating over what had happened to what little profit Giordano’s had turned in the last few years, because it hadn’t gone on staff salaries. Angelo took home next to nothing, and his father before him had paid himself even less. It was on the tip of Dylan’s tongue to ask if Angelo’s own missing money had gone to his father, but then he remembered that discussing Angelo’s debts outside of the office was a massive breach of confidence. Fuck’s sake. What was it about this bloke that obliterated Dylan’s common sense?
“Anyway . . .” Dylan started to turn away. “I’ll let you get on.”
“Okay.”
Angelo didn’t move, and the sensation of his eyes boring into the back of Dylan’s head made Dylan’s every step feel ridiculous, like he was walking away from a friend he hadn’t seen in years.
And he couldn’t do it. He was three feet away when he stopped and turned. “Um, are you going to the club tonight?” An infinitesimal twitch in Angelo’s eyebrow was his only reaction. Dylan shifted his weight from one foot to the other and fidgeted with his shopping bag. “I mean, because I might, and I’m not your advisor anymore, so—”
“So what? You want me to fuck you again?”
“Would that be bad?”
Angelo glanced over his shoulder. In the few minutes Dylan had been wasting his time, a queue had formed at the panini counter. He started to back up, and for a mortifying moment, Dylan feared he wouldn’t answer, but then he fixed Dylan with the arresting stare he’d imagined all along, way back before he’d known that the strong hands holding him down belonged to Angelo.
“I might be there,” Angelo said. “If I am, you’ll be waiting.”
He was gone before Dylan could deny it.
* * *
The club had never felt smaller. Dylan saw Angelo in every corner and crevice, even though he’d been inside for more than an hour, surreptitiously watching the door, and Angelo had yet to arrive.
If he was even coming.
Dylan took a deep swallow of his ill-advised Jägerbomb. The booze was having little effect on his nerves, and the Red Bull had made him jumpy enough that he didn’t notice the beast of a man dropping onto the bar stool beside him.
“Hey, man. You wanna play?”
Dylan cast a glance at the man. Big and brawny and covered in a fuzz of body hair, he couldn’t have been further from Dylan’s fantasies if he’d tried, but his smile was lovely, and Dylan knew just the man to send him to. “Not tonight. Have you met Ron over there, though? He was a little lonely a while ago.”
A small white lie. Ron was never lonely, but there was always room for one more in his all-man scrum. Dylan watched the man take his place in the fold and then turned away. Ron’s orgies were legendary, but Dylan was holding out for something far more intimate, and as the clock struck ten, he forced himself to take a chance.
Downstairs, Seamus greeted him with a knowing smile—or at least as close to a smile as he ever got. “Back so soon?”
“It’s been two weeks.”
“Aye, funny that. Well, let’s see what the night brings you.” Seamus relinquished the blindfold and directed Dylan to the very first room in the corridor.
Dylan’s heart clenched. What if Angelo didn’t find him there? What if he requested bunker five on the assumption that Dylan would be there? What if he doesn’t come at all? If Angelo didn’t show, Dylan would take the cock of whoever walked through the door in his place—a thought that made his entire body tingle—but the muted thrill had nothing on the fire Angelo had left burning a fortnight ago.
He’ll come. He has to.
Dylan undressed and then let himself into the dark basement room. He tied the blindfold and positioned himself on the bare mattress, absorbing the brutal jolts of hope running through him. Come on, Angelo. I’m waiting for you.
And wait he did, for what seemed like hours. He counted his thumping pulse as his dick hardened and waned with each turn of his brain. Nerves rarely troubled him when it came to sex—in the club or out in the real world—but on his hands and knees, waiting for the fuck of a lifetime, he could barely breathe.
The door opened and the faintest hint of a cool breeze tickled Dylan. Goosebumps broke out on his heated skin, and anticipation zapped up his neck, buzzing through his scalp as his companion dropped their clothes on the floor.
What little breath Dylan had caught in his throat, and he shuddered, sure he felt a ghost-like hand brush his shoulders. Wa
rmth bloomed in his chest and spread through every nerve. His gut told him that the light-footed man prowling around him was Angelo, but until they touched and the stars exploded, he couldn’t be sure.
Strong fingers threaded through Dylan’s hair, yanking his head back. “Safe word?”
He came.
Dylan gasped. “Fox.”
“Say it. I’ll hear you.”
Angelo’s voice was like a drug, and Dylan’s nerves faded away. He leaned into Angelo’s touch, and the charge where their skin touched sent pulses of desire hurtling through him. Fuck, yeah. He remembered this—the crazy current that made him dizzy. Heady and addictive, he couldn’t get enough, and his cock throbbed in anticipation of what was to come. Would Angelo take him hard and fast like he had before, or were they in for an entirely different ride?
A million scenarios spun through Dylan’s mind, but his world narrowed when Angelo’s hands gripped his arse, his dick gliding along the seam like it was made for him, like it was dying to get inside. Angelo, apparently, wasn’t playing around.
Teeth scraped along Dylan’s spine as Angelo leaned over him, and the rustle of a condom wrapper pierced the air. Dylan braced himself for the blunt intrusion of Dylan’s cock, but it didn’t come. Instead, the strong hands he remembered lifted him clean off the mattress and tossed him onto his back.
Dylan groaned and spread his legs. Rough play had always got him hot, but knowing that it was Angelo chucking him around like a rag doll? Damn. His balls were already drawn up so tight he worried they’d never come down. His dick ached too, and his hands twitched, craving friction. But he didn’t move. Angelo hadn’t commanded him to stay still, but he didn’t have to. Dylan submitted because he wanted to. He splayed his arms wide and offered himself to Angelo. “Fuck me.”
“Quiet.”
Angelo’s palm connected with Dylan’s thigh. The slap was playful, but Dylan gasped all the same and arched his body, desperate for more. Angelo struck him again, harder this time, and Dylan moaned out, long, loud, and pleasured.
Yes. But he didn’t dare say it.
Hit me. Use me. I want it.
The spanking went on for a while, each strike soothed by Angelo’s warm palms. Dylan cried out each time. By BDSM standards, their play was light, but by the time his dick was welcomed into Angelo’s sinfully hot mouth, his senses were in overdrive. Shit. I’m gonna come! But before he could bust, Angelo eased off, edging out Dylan’s climax like a pro.
“Not yet,” he whispered in Dylan’s ear, his breath hot against Dylan’s cheek. “This is gonna last, baby.”
Baby. Dylan hated sappy terms of endearment, but hearing it drip from Angelo’s devilish tongue sent shivers down his spine. He tensed his stomach muscles and raised his hips off the bed, still stubbornly leaving his arms spread wide.
I want to kiss him.
The revelation caught him off guard, though it shouldn’t have. He’d wanted Angelo in every context where they’d encountered each other—even the office, where Dylan had imagined Angelo fucking him over the battered MDF desk.
Angelo gripped Dylan’s thighs, and a groan tore out of Dylan. His body was crying out for Angelo to be inside him, but a renegade army was enjoying Angelo’s touch too much to give it up without a fight, and he trembled as the battle raged inside him.
Touch me. Fuck me.
And the longer Angelo kept him waiting, the less he cared about what came next.
Just give me something . . . please.
The aching void Angelo had left behind last time deepened. Dylan ripped his arms from the mattress and made a clumsy grab for Angelo’s hips, yanking him closer until Angelo’s cock nudged him, and cool lube trickled onto his tingling flesh.
Angelo’s low chuckle rumbled through Dylan. “So impatient,” he muttered. “I’m gonna have to be firm with you.”
“Do it,” Dylan gasped out, and the answering burn of Angelo’s cock pressing inside him blew his mind.
Angelo fucked him senseless. Nonsense fell from Dylan’s lips as he fell slack beneath the brutal assault of Angelo dicking him out. Over and over, Angelo drilled Dylan’s prostate, and Dylan could barely stand it. He went to pieces, thrashing his head from side to side, his cries loud and strained. Edging was apparently Angelo’s party trick, and Dylan was so crazed by the need to bust that he almost didn’t notice Angelo lifting him once again.
The cold metal wall against his spine came as more of a shock, and the rush of blood to the head had him lolling like a rag doll in Angelo’s unswerving grip. He wrapped his legs around Angelo’s waist and held on for dear life as Angelo speared him again, and the change in angle was enough to shatter what was left of his tenuous control. Four deep thrusts and he came undone, spilling between them in jets of wet heat. His climax was blinding, his moans delirious, and only Angelo’s ragged shout kept him in the present.
The warmth of Angelo filling the condom was nearly enough to send Dylan over the edge again. He convulsed in Angelo’s arms and squeezed his bound eyes shut as Angelo carried him back to the mattress. Angelo laid him down and briefly pressed their foreheads together, and the club faded away. For a long moment, they simply breathed together, and Dylan imagined that Angelo would stay with him, that he wouldn’t step away, retrieve his clothes from the floor, and leave Dylan alone with his laboured breaths and racing heart.
But Angelo left.
Chapter Four
The knocking on the garage door came and went as the morning drifted into the afternoon. Angelo dozed through most of it, curled up on the couch that doubled as his bed, but eventually, Theresa’s patience wore thin, and she let herself into his garage lair.
“Why are you still in bed?” she demanded. “Your uncles are visiting today. They want to talk about the business.”
Angelo cracked his eyes open, shielding them against the light Theresa had let in with the open door. “Unless they want to buy it, I’m not fucking interested.”
Theresa met his cursing with a string of her own Italian expletives. “You’re no help to me when you’re like this. You’re just like your father.”
Angelo could believe it. Silvio Giordano had been a constant source of disappointment to all who knew him, and it was clear by the way his mother was looking at him now that she felt much the same way about her son. “I’m tired, Mum. Can we do this later?”
“You’re always tired. Perhaps if you came home at night instead of staying out drinking, you’d feel better. It’s no wonder you’re not fit enough to dance anymore.”
Fuck you. Angelo sat up, ignoring the wave of nauseating fatigue that threatened to send him straight back down again. “I’m retired. What did you expect me to be? A fifty-year-old ballerino?”
“You’re twenty-eight.”
“Right. Did you want something? Because I’ve got shit to do.”
The conversation had no destination. Theresa treated him to a final glare before she turned on her heel and left. The bang of the garage door rattled Angelo’s aching bones, and he lay back down, retrieving the TV remote and his phone from the concrete floor. His phone was of little interest to him—he’d run out of data on his PAYG SIM days ago—so he switched the TV on and stared at the news channel until sleep claimed him again.
Dawn the next morning found him alone in the deli, taking deliveries and setting up for the breakfast rush. Despite sleeping most of Sunday away, his legs were still dead weights, and he was practically on his knees when he sensed a familiar presence behind him.
Dylan.
Angelo turned slowly, half convinced his exhaustion-addled brain was playing a cruel trick, but for once the universe was on his side, and Dylan’s tentative smile felt like a light summer rain. “Hey.”
Dylan’s grin amped up a notch. “Hey. I wasn’t sure if you’d be pleased to see me.”
“Why would you think that?”
Dylan shrugged. “Stalker, remember?”
“I followed you to the club on Saturday.”
“Well . . . no, but you said you’d be there, and I wouldn’t have gone otherwise.”
“No?” Dylan leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “That’s odd, ’cause I’ve been asking around about you, and apparently ‘Angel’—that is you, right?—is a man of extremes. You either disappear for months on end or show your face every week.”
“How do you know I’m not in a disappearing phase?”
“Because you hadn’t been seen all year before the first night we met.”
“First night we met, eh?” That was one way of describing it. Angelo’s arms throbbed with a darkly familiar pain, but convincing himself that it was a hangover from holding Dylan against the wall had got him out of bed that morning. “Well, I’d go back to the stalker bullshit if I could be bothered, but if I’d had the time, I’d have asked around about you, so I guess I can’t complain.”
“I’m too intrigued to care if you complain or not.”
“Intrigued?” The door opened behind Dylan. Angelo glared at the potential customer, willing them to fuck off already so he could lose himself in a conversation that was making him hot all over. “There ain’t much about me to be intrigued about. Fucking in the club is my jam, and I’m a miserable bastard in real life.”
“Are you? Or has life kicked you in the nuts?”
Dylan stepped aside without waiting for an answer, and with a cruel twist of fate, the customer behind him had a long list of orders for the estate agent’s office down the road. Filling them took the best part of fifteen minutes, and by the time Angelo was finished, Dylan was gone.
He trudged home that evening in a warped funk—torn between the buzz of Dylan’s unexpected visit and the reality that whatever was simmering between them would likely fizzle out once Dylan realised that Angelo was a disaster in just about every way possible. Besides, it wasn’t like he had plans to stick around. Convincing his mother to sell the deli would take time, but as soon as it was done, Angelo was gone. Where to, he had no idea, but Romford was as dead to him as Silvio Giordano.
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