“That right? You don’t seem too sure.” Lucky eased my trainers off my feet and set them aside like they were made of glass. “And why should I tell you my life story when I know nothing about you except that you’re a closeted queer?”
“Are you shaming me for that?”
“Of course not. I’m stating a fact.”
Lucky nudged his way between my legs. He placed his hands on my jean-clad thighs and brought his face level with mine.
I wanted to kiss him, but I didn’t—I didn’t move at all, just stared at him like an idiot. “There’s more to me than being in the closet.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. The details are missing, but I know who you are.”
I couldn’t see how that could possibly be true, but I didn’t challenge him. Being close to him again was like a drug, and I greedily drank him in. I swear down, I felt his pulse through his cool palms on my legs.
He leaned forward, and for a moment I thought he might kiss me, but his lips stopped an inch away from mine. “What do you want?”
I swallowed noisily. “Want?”
“Yeah. From me. Right here. Right now. What do you want, Dom?”
I want it all. But I couldn’t say it. I closed my eyes and inhaled shakily. “I don’t know.”
His reaction went unseen by me, but his hands warmed with every inch they slid up my legs until they reached my hips. They hit my chest as he pushed me onto my back, and he straddled me.
I opened my eyes to find him leaning over me, his expression as confused as I felt. “You’re such a fucking mystery, and I don’t even care. I’ll do whatever you want, even if you want to pay me to fuck, and never see me again.”
“Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“I can give you money if you need—”
“Fuck off, Dom.”
He didn’t move, but his steely gaze was absolute: he didn’t want my money.
I reached for him, grasping his slender shoulders first, squeezing gently, and moving higher to cup his face. His jaw was as smooth as mine was rough, and his hair was falling out of his messy bun, the strands damp and twisted. “Did you get caught in the rain?”
“Nah. I had a bath when I got here. Hope that’s okay.”
“It ain’t my bath, mate.”
Lucky bit his lip. “I know, but you invited me here, so…”
“So, nothing. It’s just a room, Lucky. Do whatever you like with it.”
“Don’t say that. I’ll be naked and swinging from the light fittings before you know it. This is the biggest bedroom I’ve ever seen.”
I glanced around the cramped hotel room. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. My childhood bedroom was built for a hamster, and I haven’t really had one of my own since then.”
“You share a bedroom at the moment?”
“Kind of. I kip in with my mate when her old dear’s at work.” His gaze flickered away from me. “Anyway. Point is this place is a world away from mine.”
“Enjoy it then.”
“How long have we got?”
I’d paid for the whole night, but I had training in the morning, so I’d have to be gone in time to be in my own bed by midnight. And even then I’d be tired. But none of that was Lucky’s problem, so I shrugged and left it at that. “Are you hungry?”
“You always ask me that.”
“’Cause I always want to know.”
Lucky slithered off me with enchanting grace and went to the window. “This view is shit.”
I rolled onto my stomach so I could see through the net curtains he was holding open. “You don’t like hipster coffee shops and McDonald’s?”
“I don’t like coffee, but I’d kill for a box of dirty nuggets right now.”
“You eat that shit?”
“Course I do. It’s cheap and delicious.”
“It’s crap.”
Lucky spun around. “So? Bet you’d eat it if I put it in front of you.”
I was willing to bet I’d eat anything Lucky asked me to, but I hadn’t eaten McDonald’s or its skanky cousins in years. “If I said I might, would you let me buy you dinner?”
“It’s three o’clock, but yeah…I reckon that would be a fair deal.”
There was no way I was risking showing my face in a high street McDonald’s, and I didn’t fancy letting Lucky out of my sight for the ten minutes it would take him to shoot out by himself to get it, even if I could technically see him out of the window. But this was London, the city that delivered just about anything, and it didn’t take Lucky long to download an app onto his phone and order enough crap to give us both heart attacks.
The smile on his face was worth the filthy stench when it arrived.
He danced back to the bed with a stuffed paper bag. “I got you the meatiest option—it’s some limited edition thing I saw on the telly.”
I accepted a damp cardboard box and warily peeked inside. The contents looked disgusting and smelled even worse, but I knew the moment I took a bite I wouldn’t be able to stop.
The parallel was tragic, not that I was comparing Lucky to a burger that had likely never seen any part of a cow I’d want to eat.
We ate the food, and as I’d feared, it was fucking delicious, even the nuggets that were basically chicken-flavoured doughnuts.
I sat back on the bed while Lucky licked grease off his fingers and stuffed the rubbish into the tiny waste bin, and I admired his back. He’d long abandoned his tatty coat on the floor, and he was wearing the vest he’d worn the first time I’d seen him, the one that gave me a good view of his torso. I tried not to stare, but he caught me anyway.
“I’ll take it off if you lose your T-shirt too.”
It sounded a fair deal, but I couldn’t decipher what it meant. Last time, I’d wanted nothing more than to know he was okay, but then he’d kissed me, and my pure intentions had evaporated like they’d never been there at all.
I didn’t know how I felt right now, beyond being desperate to see his milky-white skin.
Lacking any brighter ideas, I took my T-shirt off. Lucky shed his too and eyeballed my jeans. “Is it weird that I want to get into bed with you?”
“Define weird.”
“I’d rather not. There’s some things we’re better off not knowing.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” I unbuckled my belt and undid my jeans. “But to answer your question, I don’t think you’re weird at all.”
“That’s not quite what I asked.”
I stood and pulled one leg out of my jeans, as though standing in front of him half-naked was fucking normal, as though any of this was. “Yeah, but I’m going to get in the bed anyway, and I’d really like it if you did too.”
We left our underwear on and slid under the duvet. My cock stirred immediately, but I forced myself not to check out Lucky’s package and rolled onto my stomach, watching him as he fiddled around with the stack of pillows.
“Who needs six pillows?” he wondered aloud. “Surely it would bend you in half to sleep on them?”
“I think they’re just for show. I have a bunch of them on my bed that I chuck on the floor every night. Somehow they always find their way back.”
“Neat freak, are ya?”
“Nah. I have a housekeeper.”
“Oh.” Lucky turned away from me to reach for the TV remote, but I didn’t have to see his face to know his expression would be carefully blank, like he didn’t want me to know how alien my lifestyle was to him.
He rolled back with a bland smile. “You wanna watch a film, or something?”
“You know I’m not an arsehole, don’t you?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because I get the feeling it’s something that bothers you.”
“That you’re an arsehole?”
“No, that I’m not wanting for money.”
“It’s not my business.”
“Trust me, I wish it wasn’t m
ine right now. I’d give it all up to be free of this shit.”
“So why don’t you?”
I brushed a stray lock of crazy hair back from his face and the light touch grounded me a little. “Because I don’t know who I’d be without it.”
“Someone happier, maybe?”
“Are you happy?”
“No.”
His blunt response caught me off guard, but I believed it. Lucky had an old soul, man, the soul of a kid who’d been through the mill and come out a bruised, cynical survivor.
I let my thumb trail his cheek again, rubbing briefly over the shadows beneath his eyes. “I wish you were.”
“Why?”
“Stop asking me that.”
“Because you don’t know the answer?”
It wasn’t that. I knew the answer was because I cared more about him than people who’d been in my life for decades.
Lucky closed his hand around my wrist. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Shut down. I don’t care who you are to the rest of the world, Dom. You don’t have to be that person with me.”
“I don’t know how to be anyone else.”
“Not true.” Lucky released my wrist and shifted onto his back, stealing his face out of my reach. “I might be really fucking wrong about this, but I don’t think you’re getting naked with anyone else right now—and I don’t think you have for a while.”
“Even when I have, it hasn’t been like this.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it seems too fascinating for you, and I know it’s not me that’s so interesting.”
“That so? Well maybe it’s your turn to be wrong.”
Lucky didn’t answer. He flicked the TV on and ran through the channels until he came to an old western I vaguely remembered my father falling asleep to on Sunday afternoons. “This okay?”
“Uh…yeah.”
Lucky dropped the remote. For a moment he looked like he would simply lie on his back and watch the TV, ignoring me completely, but then he sighed and reached for me. “Come here.”
“Where?”
“Here, numbnuts.”
I still didn’t know what he meant, so I let him arrange me until I was where he apparently wanted me, curled into his side with my head in his lap.
It was so comfortable, his hands so soothing as they rubbed the back of my neck, that I wanted to cry.
Eleven
Lucky
I knew Dom would be beautiful when he slept, but I never imagined he’d trust me enough to let me see it.
Warm, and stuffed full of dirty McDonald’s, I settled back against the marshmallowy pillows, and made the most of him. I rubbed his neck, and grazed my fingertips over his rough jaw, and then I wove my fingers into his dark hair, and bent to smell it, breathing in his clean, spicy scent. Damn. It wasn’t enough that he looked like a walking cologne advert, he smelled like one too.
When it became clear he wasn’t stirring anytime soon, I moved my attention further down his body, stretching so I could reach as far as his ribs.
He flinched. Perturbed, I lifted the duvet to see why, and caught sight of a mark I hadn’t noticed when he’d undressed, a ragged, mottled bruise that made him look like he’d been run over by a motorbike. Huh. Maybe that was the job he was so desperate to conceal from me—GP rider. They made a shit ton of money, right?
Like I cared about the cash. Dom reckoned he’d give his wealth up in a heartbeat, and the more time I spent with him, the more I believed him. I ghosted my fingers over the bruise again, and then brushed my lips over his temple. I got you.
At some point, I fell asleep too. It was dark when I woke up, and Dom was awake, staring at me like I was some kind of mutant. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar. Are you twisting your melon because we slept together?”
“Um…no?”
I snorted, but my amusement was fast tempered by the realisation that I’d somehow wrapped myself around him like a limpet, and my dick was hard as fuck.
Brilliant.
I started to disentangle myself, but Dom stopped me.
“Don’t go.”
His cock pressed against mine, hot and hard.
Heat rippled through me. I hadn’t come here for this, but I couldn’t pull away from it either. I wanted Dom as much as I had the moment I’d laid eyes on him. I wanted to kiss him.
So I did, over and over until I sucked a deep, throaty groan from him. He pulled the elastic from my hair with one hand, and ripped my underwear down my legs with the other, freeing my aching dick. I braced myself for his tight, hot grip, like I could prepare myself, but my imagination had nothing on reality.
Dom squeezed my cock, pumping and twisting just how I liked it, but oh-so-fucking slowly I wanted to scream. I tore my lips from his and threw my head back. “Faster.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Not yet.”
I groaned, though it came out more of a whimper, and fumbled with the waistband of his designer boxers. His cock sprang free, rigid and weeping, and my mouth watered, but I wasn’t ready to give up on his slow torture just yet.
He brought our lips back together and we kissed a sensuous dance as he worked my dick and ground his own against my thigh, undulating a gentle rhythm that left me panting like a horny dog.
“You’re so fucking cruel,” I murmured between kisses.
He smirked against my lips. “Masochist.”
“Yeah.” I thrust my hips up, chasing his vice-like grip. A shot of pleasure burst in my belly and I dropped my head to his shoulder. “Don’t stop.”
Dom obeyed me for a while, but just when I thought I could come from his hand alone, he eased off, and pushed me onto my back. He shoved the duvet away and kneeled between my legs, hooking his arms under my knees, and lifting my pelvis from the mattress. Caution kept me from begging him to fuck me, but I was unprepared for the sensation of his tongue sweeping over my hole.
“Fuck!”
If he hadn’t had absolute control over my body, I’d have jack-knifed from the bed. I gazed down at him, stunned. His eyes widened, like he hadn’t expected me to react so strongly either.
I sucked in much-needed air. “Do that again.”
He licked me again, softly at first, but then with more purpose as I turned into a shuddering, moaning mess beneath him. His tongue drove steadily into my hole, and his delicious grip returned to my cock.
“Jesus.” My head fell back and I grabbed the bed frame to tie me down to the world. “That’s so fucking good.”
Dom hummed against me. The vibration sluiced through me and the first stirrings of a shattering orgasm bloomed in my belly. He replaced his tongue with his finger, and then added another, and when he found my sweet spot, I was fucking done.
I cried out loud enough to wake the devil and came like a freight train. “Oh god…fuck yeah.”
It seemed like it would never end, and when Dom had milked the last drop out of me, he eased his fingers free, and scrambled to his knees. His hand was a blur as it flew over his dick, and then he came too, growling out dirty words that sent more shivers through my still-trembling limbs.
He fell forward, catching himself on one hand, his strong arm easily holding him up. “Fuck me.”
“If you say it again, I just might.”
I expected tension to ripple through him, to steal the glow seeping out of him, but his grin was uncharacteristically easy.
“One day, maybe.”
“For real?”
He shrugged. “Who knows?”
Not me, but I wanted to. He got up to pad to the bathroom, and I mourned the loss of his pulsing skin sliding against mine, of his warm hands holding me down, but when he came back with a damp towel that meant I didn’t have to get up, I just about fell in love with him.
He slid back into bed, more at ease than he had been any other time we’d splashed jizz
all over the place.
I wiped myself clean…ish, and then surgically attached myself to his side.
He laughed. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Damn fucking straight, though it might be my turn to pass out on you. I think you’ve ruined me.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“God, no. I’m just not used to coming so hard.”
Dom propped himself up on one elbow, a tiny frown creasing his forehead. “How do you usually come?”
“Is that what you really want to know, or are you asking me if I’m fucking anyone else?”
“Both.”
“Well, I usually come pretty good…but it’s not the same as what you do to me. I can’t explain it, but it’s like you flip a switch no one else knows how to find.”
He nodded slowly. “Makes sense. I’ve never—uh—I’ve never been so hot for anyone in my life. It’s fucking insane.”
“True that.” I forced myself to sit up a bit and mirrored his pose. “Do you really want me to answer the second part of your question?”
“Yes. I think. I don’t know. I suppose it’s none of my business.”
“It’s not, but you want to know, and I don’t mind telling you, so it doesn’t matter.”
Dom chewed on his bottom lip and waved his free hand for me to continue, while I searched for the words to explain my messed-up co-dependent relationship with Jamila.
“I sleep with my best friend sometimes. We try not to fuck, but it happens when we’re both lonely. I keep trying to stop, but I can’t seem to help it when she’s the only one who gives a shit about me—which makes me a piece of shit, right?”
Dom’s hand twitched like he wanted to touch me, but he didn’t. “How does she feel about it?”
“The same as me. She has a girlfriend, but she’s away in Afghanistan. Meg won’t be back for a while, so my mate’s hard up and lonely, and Meg doesn’t mind her fucking around with me because she knows it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Everything means something, Lucky.”
“All right then. She knows it’s friendship and nothing more, happy? I’m not in love with Jamila, and she’s not in love with me.”
“But you do love each other?”
“I suppose. She’s an awesome friend to me, but I don’t know what I contribute right now. I’m kind of a mess.”
Lucky Page 9