Lovers and Liars: An addictive sexy beach read

by Nigel May

  49

  ‘Credit where credit’s due, this is one of the best-equipped gyms I’ve ever seen and the fact that Sheridan Rivers has built it especially for you to train in leading up to the fight with Orlando is pretty special. It certainly put you through your paces today.’

  Fidge Carter slapped Hatton Eden firmly on the back, his hand becoming damp as it connected with the slick of sweat that was coated across the boxer’s skin after their hours of training.

  ‘It’s an excellent gym but we must be careful.’ He moved Fidge’s hand away despite a longing to let it rest against his flesh. ‘And anyway, I thought it was you who put me through my paces, not the gym. You have worked me hard today. Harder than I thought we would for the first day in Barbados.’ Hatton laughed, although he wasn’t joking. The pair of them had been training for at least six hours, sparring in the ring that the gym contained and also using the machines for both strength and stamina. And Hatton’s body ached more than he cared to admit.

  ‘We have this place completely to ourselves. Sheridan assured me that this place is private. I have the keys and nobody else does. Not even your “number-one fan”, Sutton, can come in here and check out those abs of yours. And no press are allowed anywhere near this place.’ Fidge smiled at the reference before continuing. ‘Apparently Sheridan’s actually thinking of calling this place the “Hatton Eden Health Complex” after you win the fight – he’s convinced you will, he’s already pencilled it in as a major selling point at the hotel. But I’ll be asking him about a cut of all the takings, don’t you worry. If he’s using your name then we need to reap the rewards.’

  ‘A gym named after me, that is madness. But I like it. My parents would have been proud. That smells of success, does it not?’ For a moment, Hatton lost himself in thought as he cast his mind back to days in Bulgaria with his parents. It seemed like a million years ago, yet in the same breath as if it were yesterday; so much had happened in his life. He hoped they were looking down from wherever people went after they died. Hatton touched a cross tattoo that formed part of the sleeve he sported on his left arm. It always made him think of his parents: a symbol of their purity and their determination to live life on the right path. They were good people; two islands in a sea of bad. The thought that they were no longer with him still hurt harder than any punch. He lifted his right arm above his head and stared at his latest tattoo, the inscription that Russell John had inked for him in Culver City.

  ‘Yeah, it’s not just the success that smells,’ grinned Fidge, pointing to Hatton’s exposed underarm. ‘You and I need to shower off and get cleaned up. This place has a sauna and a steam room too if you fancy relaxing a bit after we shower.’

  Hatton sniffed at his armpit. Fidge was right. He was more than a little ripe.

  ‘That sounds good. Now let’s shower…’

  Julian Bailey loved the ferry journey between mainland Toronto and the group of islands in the middle of Lake Ontario. It brought him peace of mind; a calmness and serenity that his job working alongside Sheridan Rivers never did. He could have flown to the islands using the small but perfectly workable Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, which was located at the western end of the island chain, but where was the fun in that? Julian spent half of his life mile-high on one airline or another, or within the confines of a Velvet private jet, and he had no urge to spend more time in an airport terminal than he had to. The ferry was small, often jam-packed with tourists, and in the winter months would more than likely have to break its way through thick slabs of ice to reach the island, but to him it signified ‘going home’, which meant everything right now. All he wanted to do for the next seventy-two hours was to be home.

  Julian lived on Algonquin Island, one of the islands making up the chain. There was a quirkiness about the houses there that had always appealed to him – it reminded him of some of the villages he’d loved while growing up back in the UK. The island was a close-knit community and he relished the little time that he managed to spend there. He loved walking along the leafy lanes between the houses, many of them decorated with oddities in their gardens. Toy animals, wartime helmets, colourful masks, plastic dinosaurs… There was no reason behind them as far as Julian could see. They just made the place unique, dreamlike, weird and totally wonderful.

  Julian loved living there for the privacy too and as he walked up his garden path to open his front door, ready to push back the pile of junk mail that had doubtless gathered since his last visit, he checked his watch. He had two hours until his visitor, Mistress Jo-Jo, arrived. It wouldn’t just be the gardens of the island that would be decorated with masks and toys tonight though – it would be Julian’s bedroom floor too. Mistress Jo-Jo would be putting him through his sexually submissive paces later on and he couldn’t wait to see what delights she had in store for him. As he went to close the door behind him, the sun, still high in the summer evening sky, peeped down through the trees in his garden, its heat warming his face.

  It felt good.

  The heat of the sauna increased as Fidge picked up a wooden paddle and threw another ladleful of water onto the artificial coals in the corner of the room. It was a big space and when the gym opened fully it would be able to house at least a dozen people, but right now it just contained a naked Fidge and Hatton, both of them keen to de-stress after the rigours of their training.

  Hatton was seated on the top tier of wooden benches, his legs splayed and his erect cock, long and straight, in his hand. He worked the shaft with his fingers, his member throbbing with delight in the nest of red hair that grew at its base.

  A fizz of steam came from the coals as Fidge walked back over to Hatton and knelt down on the lower tier of the benches, positioning himself between Hatton’s muscular legs. He too was erect and he pumped at his cock with one hand as he took Hatton’s shaft in the other and allowed his tongue to tease the end. He flicked feather-light licks across the slit and then swooped his mouth down greedily to take in the length of his weapon. Hatton took a sharp intake of breath at the pleasure he felt as Fidge opened his throat to take the full length of his love. He stared down at the man between his legs, looking at the seahorse tattoos on his back as he observed Fidge hungrily work his mouth up and down his cock. A wash of sheer, unadulterated love passed over him as he watched his man in action. Fidge had changed his life and he thanked whatever higher force was out there for the day that he had come into his existence.

  ‘I love you, Fidge,’ he murmured as he let his head rest against the wooden walls of the sauna, his breathing becoming increasingly faster as he felt his explosion mounting within him.

  But Fidge didn’t reply. He had no desire to – he didn’t need to state his love for Hatton, he could show it. He continued to work Hatton’s shaft, aware from the heightening of his partner’s breathing that his prize would not be far off. The light taste of pre-cum spread across his lips as he worked the tip of Hatton’s member again. Hatton let out a cry of satisfaction to signify that release was imminent and beyond turning point. Fidge opened his lips wide and sucked the full length of his partner’s rod into his mouth. As he did so the heavenly liquid gush of Hatton’s release hit the back of his throat. Fidge swallowed every drop, continuing to move his lips up and down the still-hard shaft as he did so. Without touching his own cock any further, a flow of thick white seed poured from it and landed with a rapturous splash across the wooden bench. Without saying a word, Fidge removed his lips from Hatton’s cock and raised himself up to his lover’s face. The two men kissed, the taste of his own desire clear to Hatton as his lips met Fidge’s. They held each other in their arms, their bodies hard and tough, yet their emotion soft and yielding: their love as one. Fidge savoured the moment before letting Hatton move away. It pained him that a love like theirs could not be shared without consequence but he knew that, for the moment, that was how it was to be.

  Ten minutes later Hatton was pulling a T-shirt over his head in the changing area outside the sauna. It was emblazoned
with his slogan, ‘The Main Man’. He was naked otherwise. Fidge too was naked and about to slip his own T-shirt, a brightly coloured print of the Joker from the 1960s Batman TV show, over his head, when he reached out, placed his hand behind Hatton’s head and pulled the boxer towards him, kissing him firmly on the lips.

  Hatton smiled. ‘What was that for?’

  ‘Just to say I love you too. So much. It’s not often we get to be alone together, away from the prying eyes of the world, so it’s nice to have some QT, just you and me.’

  A wave of confusion crossed Hatton’s face. ‘QT?’

  ‘Quality time,’ explained Fidge, ‘just you and me, no one else. No prying eyes watching our every move.’

  Except the hidden camera situated in the corner of the changing area, set into the wall where no one could see it. It was there as part of the security system for when the health complex opened after the fight. But the camera was working now and had just filmed Hatton and Fidge’s playful kiss in every detail.

  ‘I love our private gym,’ said Fidge, pulling his Joker T-shirt into position.

  ‘Me too,’ echoed Hatton.

  Except it wasn’t as private as Sheridan Rivers had promised them. And that was no joke.

  The knock at Julian’s door came sooner than he expected. Mistress Jo-Jo wasn’t due for another hour but if she was the one dishing out the punishment then quite frankly she could play by her own rules.

  Julian was wearing simple chinos and a loose-fitting shirt. The clothes wouldn’t stay on for long after Jo-Jo’s arrival so there was no point in dressing up with any degree of fashion or artistry. She would be ‘dressing him’ in her own special way anyway, using bondage ropes and nipple clamps. Her box of toys was one of his favourite pleasures in the whole of Toronto and made his cock harder and straighter than the CN Tower.

  He made his way to the door and opened it. He’d been expecting a woman in her mid-thirties, voluptuous in appearance and possessing that sexy glow that only women with a little bit of life experience behind them seem to own. Someone who would take control from the moment he opened the door. What greeted him could not have been more different.

  The last thing he saw was the barrel of a gun pointing into his face. Held by someone he was not expecting to see. Before he could say a word, the semi-silenced sound of the weapon went off and a small bullet broke the skin between Julian’s eyes, embedding itself fatally in his brain.

  Two different people had disembarked the ferry that evening on a quest to face him. One had followed him from the Velvet hotel and watched from the shadows as Julian caught the ferry and then walked to his house. The other had turned up on time as pre-arranged. Both had come with the intention of causing pain and dealing punishment, but only one had been able to deliver.

  50

  Sutton Rivers had been expecting to crawl between the sheets with Julian Bailey when she reached Toronto. The last thing she had expected had been to run into Sheridan and to witness the destruction of her own family.

  Now that husband and wife were both in town together it was clear that they had to share the same bed, despite Sutton’s predilection to practice her sexual expertise with her husband’s best friend.

  Sutton and Sheridan had spent the night arguing in their Velvet suite. And it wasn’t just a breeze of a disagreement between them or a gust of annoyance at what was happening in their lives. This was a full-on hurricane of a row that was played out at an off-the-Richter-scale level of ferocity and volume that even people living as far away as Niagara-on-the-Lake were likely to hear – and that was over a hundred kilometres away. Clubbers shaping their bodies to Blair Lonergan’s Velvet DJ set that night would have heard the fracas coming from the Rivers’ deluxe suite had they not been so immersed in the almighty beats pounding their ears.

  As Sutton slathered on her night cream, gazing into her dressing-table mirror and smoothing it into her face as she prepared for bed, it was Blair that she was keen to shout about first. She was insistent that his dismissal be revoked. Sutton could smell bad press a mile off and binning one of the world’s top DJs from appearing at your chain of hotel clubs was press of the worst degree.

  ‘Sheridan Rivers, you call yourself a businessman! You know as well as I do ditching that DJ makes no fucking sense whatsoever. You will reinstate all of his appearances, including the one at the fight in Barbados. It’s good press to have someone like Blair there. Makes us and, more to the point, the Velvet empire, look down with the kids instead of surrounding ourselves with a host of old Hollywood cronies wobbling to the ringside on their Zimmer frames. Boxing may be old school Rat Pack glamour for them but we need to bring it bang up to date and bring every bit of bling from Jay Z to Daddy O to the table. And Blair’s kudos can do that. You gotta get with it, mister, it ain’t all Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis these days.’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ spat Sheridan, the volume of his own voice matching that of his wife’s, but he knew what she was saying was right. She nearly always was. Blair was popular on a global scale and removing his name from the bill of the fight would only bring negativity. ‘But I don’t want that man anywhere near our daughter. He leaves Nikki alone.’

  ‘Oh, our daughter is it now! Our daughter!’ Sutton pointed a finger at Sheridan and waggled it at him as he climbed into bed. ‘Not so long ago you were reading the riot act and cutting off all ties with her, telling her to go and live in the nearest trash can, and now all of a sudden she’s back to being our daughter again. I think you need to tell her that because as far as I can see we have a daughter who thinks Daddy is ready to dump her in the gutter and never let her see the inside of a private jet again.’

  ‘She stole from us, Sutton. She betrayed us.’

  ‘And I am just as upset about that as you are, but what’s done is done. You’re hardly the pinnacle of decency yourself, are you? She’s learnt from the best! You’re the king of getting what you want, no matter what the cost to those around you. Brad Pitt handing out money to the nearest cash-light charities you ain’t! And I ain’t no Oprah Winfrey, more’s the pity, so don’t tell me we’re sweeter than a truck full of candy. She’s made a mistake and that’s that. Rap her on the knuckles and move on.’

  ‘She’s lost my trust and she needs to earn that back. I will not just roll over and let her and her money-grabbing narcotic boyfriend win.’ Sheridan’s voice was uncharacteristically shaky, showing a weakness that didn’t often manage to penetrate his thick skin.

  Sutton was nowhere near ready to back down, though. ‘So make her work for your respect. Fine, I get that. You need to play Lord of the Manor like some goddamned Downton Abbey suit but don’t risk losing your own daughter for it. Threatening all this shit with the will. And FYI, when you croak, which may be sooner rather than later if I can find a knife in my vanity case to plough into your spineless back, then all Velvet money is split two ways and that’s how it stays. You may have knocked me out of the equation with your motherfuckin’ pre-nup but when I go to meet the great plastic surgeon in the sky for everlasting eternity and the smoothest skin this side of Tyra Banks, because that sure is my idea of heaven, then I want to know that both of our daughters are being looked after equally. You hear me?’

  ‘I’m not backing down about the will. Nikki needs to understand that she can’t betray me without losing what she cares about. And she’s made it pretty clear that finance comes before family.’ Sheridan was losing his rag and if Sutton wasn’t mistaken there was a real chagrin, beyond sadness and vexation, in his eyes. He looked tired and emotional and if she didn’t know him better, she would have said a man on the edge of a breakdown. Not that any kind of sympathy, had she managed to find even a sliver, would have stopped her tirade.

  ‘Haven’t you upset enough people in this family without turning your own daughter against you as well? God knows, I put up with enough shit from you! Don’t think I don’t know what you get up to behind my back, because I do. And you know what, I don’t care anymore.’r />
  Sutton paused for a second, surprised to hear her own words. She didn’t care anymore. There, she’d said it. How could he hurt her and make her miserable if she didn’t care anymore? She cared about the money and the family business but did she really care about Sheridan? No. What she had thought was hate may have actually been total indifference. She let herself smile as she continued applying the cream, suddenly feeling less vulnerable than she had done in years. Maybe it was the thought of Julian, she wasn’t sure. Once all this was over, she would take great relish in telling Sheridan about her and his best friend.

  She continued. ‘You can hurt me all you like, but Nikki and Heather deserve your love until the day you die. You never know what’s around the corner, so ditch all this heartache and just man up to being a loving father. Just look at Heather, one minute she’s planning a lifetime with Max and the next she’s the youngest widow since Courtney Love. She needs us both to see her through this. And so does Nikki.’

  Sheridan seemed to suddenly go into shutdown, looking away from his wife’s reflection in the dressing table mirror and turning to lie face down in bed, his head buried deep in the pillow. Sutton stopped what she was doing to look over at her husband. He was shaking. Was he crying? He sure wasn’t talking anymore. Maybe her words had hit home. She took a final glance at her moisturised face in the mirror, climbed into bed beside him and switched off the light, feeling that for once she had come out on top. She would sleep well tonight, and after today’s events, she needed to – it had been a hell of a day.

  As it happened, Sutton didn’t sleep well at all. It’s hard to continue dreaming about Idris Elba and a lost weekend in an Aspen log cabin when the man beside you in bed is fidgeting and flipping around with the panic of a speared fish. And from the way Sheridan was sweating, both he, the bed and, annoyingly for her, Sutton, were becoming as wet as one.