by H L Day
I took a drink before laughing, the whole situation suddenly striking me as funny. “Are you at least going to admit you have a crush on him?”
He sighed. “Well, I would hardly have sex with someone if I didn’t find them attractive, would I?”
I couldn't keep the smile from my face. “Halle-bloody-lujah! He finally admits it.”
Dom pulled a face before his gaze fastened on mine. “So why do you think he—”
“Slept with you?”
He nodded.
I thought about it. It was a good question. Why would a straight, engaged boss have sex with his personal assistant? “I don’t know. Some sort of experiment, maybe? What’s he said since?”
Dom picked up his phone and fiddled with it. “He wants to talk to me. He sent a message saying something about not wanting me to get the wrong idea.”
I cringed and then felt bad for letting Dominic see it. It definitely sounded like a brush-off though. “Just be careful, Dom. I don’t want you getting hurt.” From the expression on his face, I feared it was a bit too late for that. How the hell had all of this been going on without me knowing? I needed to start paying a bit more attention to what was going on right under my nose. What was next. Discovering that Russell had been secretly dating a millionaire?
Chapter Four
"NO... NO." I SHIFTED closer to peer at the screen. No, it hadn't been my imagination. The guy in the photo really was holding an inflatable flamingo. "Definitely not."
Gabrielle sighed dramatically before swiping to the next picture. "You realize that you're picking potential hook-ups, right? Not your future husband."
I hadn't known what to think when she'd shown up on my doorstep holding a pizza box and a bottle of wine. Especially when I'd never told her where I lived, never mind issued anything close to an invitation. But with Dominic busy trying to sort out his own life and Russell embracing yet another in his long line of drastic diets guaranteed to provide immortality, I was at a bit of a loss. Besides, the pizza was extra-large with pepperoni. I couldn't turn that down.
However, I still wasn't clear on how less than an hour later we'd gravitated toward a strange state of affairs where Gabrielle was determined to bring my recent run of celibacy to an end. Her plan involved Grindr. Hence the fact that she'd spent the last few minutes showing me a succession of photos. She held her phone closer to me. "How about him? He's hot."
I pulled a face. "I wouldn't know. He hasn't got a head."
She rolled her eyes. "It's a torso shot. Who needs a head when you've got abs like that?"
"He could have three eyes, or only one. I'm not fucking a Cyclops."
She gave me a dirty look before putting the phone down. "Close your eyes."
I regarded her with narrow-eyed suspicion. "Why? What are you going to do to me?"
She crossed her arms over her chest. "We're going to play a game."
"I know the kind of games you like to play. I'm not ready to find myself on all fours wearing a tail and collar." I couldn't hold back a shudder at the mere thought. "I'm never going to be ready for that. Especially not with a woman."
Gabrielle made a noise which demonstrated without words that she thought I was the most tiresome person she'd ever come across. Which begged the question, why was she there? Did she have some sort of burning need to take frustrated gay men under her wing? Maybe it was another kink of hers?
"Not that sort of game." Her stare turned distant. "Besides... the puppy play didn't really work. We just ended up feeding each other and taking each other for walks. Less sexy. More functional."
I laughed. "Wow! Kinky."
She huffed. "At least we're both willing to try stuff. Now, close your eyes."
I decided it was probably easier to give in. After all, what was the worst she could do? Rob me and disappear while my eyes were shut? I closed my eyes and steeled myself, listening out for any sounds of her unplugging the TV and making a run for it.
"I'm going to ask you some questions and the rule is that you have to answer them straightaway without thinking about it. No hesitation allowed or it's cheating."
It sounded easy enough. "Sure. Go ahead."
"Picture your ideal man."
"I don't have one." I didn't need to open my eyes to know that she was glaring at me. I could feel it, burning into my skin. "Sorry. I'll try."
"Remember. No hesitation."
I nodded; my eyes still tightly shut. Perhaps I could take a quick nap without her realizing.
"Hair color?"
"Dark." That was easy. Blonds had never done it for me. That was one of the reasons Russell was completely safe from me ever getting ideas about him, no matter how angelic and wide-eyed he might sometimes appear.
"Height?"
"About my height. Bit taller or shorter. Doesn't matter."
"Age?"
I shrugged. "Same as mine, give or take a few years." I had no idea what this was supposed to prove, apart from the fact I wasn't searching for a blond dwarf who wanted me to call him daddy.
"Eye color?"
"Green." Where had that come from? It was a stupid answer. Only two percent of the population had green eyes. Talk about limiting myself to some sort of weird stipulation. I didn't even know anyone with green eyes. Except, I did, didn't I?
Almost as if she could read my mind, Gabrielle's next question got unerringly to the heart of the matter. "Tattoos and piercings?"
She was obviously a witch. There was no other explanation for it. She'd probably found my address by stirring up a mixture of chicken bones and blood, along with a strand of my hair she'd extracted at work without my knowledge, in a cauldron while reciting some sort of ancient incantation. And I'd invited her in so now she could enter whenever she felt like it. Hang on, that was vampires, right? I opened one eye. "This is a stupid game. I'm not playing anymore."
Her eyes opened wide, her mouth forming into a perfect "O." "Ooh! Who is he?"
I played dumb. "Who's who?"
"The dark-haired man with green eyes and the tattoos, the one you can't get out of your head, so that even when I show you the most perfect set of abs. Right next to the words 'up for fun of any kind' you're not interested. I mean, Jesus, I'm interested, and I've got a boyfriend."
"I don't know who you mean."
"Liar!"
"He is not my ideal man. In fact, he's not someone I would touch with a barge pole. What does that saying even mean anyway? Who carries a barge pole around with them? And even if you did, why would you be poking someone with it? Surefire way to lose your barge job if ever I heard it."
Gabrielle's gaze never faltered, all through my deliberate avoidance of the question. She tapped her watch. "I've got all night. Spill, Paul."
I shook my head. "How are you even here, anyway? I never told you where I lived. Or that I liked pepperoni pizza. And what do you mean you've got all night. You're not staying here." I scanned the room, searching for any signs of her having sneaked an overnight bag in. Thankfully, there wasn't one.
"Russell did. Both. He seems to think I'll be good for you."
"No cauldron?"
She frowned, understandably confused by the question. "What?"
I waved a hand. "Never mind. Not important." I stood and started to gather the remnants of the pizza meal together. Given it was only one box and one dip, it took a lot less time than I'd been hoping for. "Well, it's been a great evening. Thanks for coming. We must do it again sometime. Maybe in a year's time."
Gabrielle crossed her arms over her chest, lifting her chin stubbornly. "I'm not leaving until you tell me who he is."
I sank back into the seat I'd vacated only moments before. What harm could it do to tell someone? Maybe it would do me good to get it off my chest. "He is a man who I caught having sex with my ex-boyfriend years ago. I mean, he wasn't my ex at the time. That obviously came after. The guy didn't even remember me. Not until I told him who I was, anyway. He's been flirting outrageously, and yes, he's attractive. Very
attractive. But I'm hardly going to sleep with someone like that, am I? No matter what lies he tells about what actually happened. Besides, he's called Indy. I can't be attracted to someone with such a stupid name. Even without the other stuff. He smiles too much. Oh, and he's got stupid tattoos as well. I hate tattoos. I hate him. Case closed." I waved my hand in the air. "Show me the picture again. The abs one. Not the one with the flamingo. I'm not up for a threesome with an inflatable."
Gabrielle tilted her head to the side, considering my words. Finally, she sat forward, her eyes gleaming with barely suppressed glee. "Hate sex!"
"Sorry?"
"You can have hot and filthy hate sex with this guy." She elaborated when the confusion on my face didn't shift. "I did it with an ex once. It was great. We'd split up and absolutely loathed each other, but we still hooked up on occasion. It was fantastic. None of that dating worry, or any other relationship crap. Just wham, bam, get your orgasm and then go. It suited us both down to the ground at the time. Until I met Jeremy anyway. And then obviously I built something much deeper and lasting." A dreamy look settled on her face. "But I still remember that hate sex. God! It was good."
Jeremy was her current boyfriend, and I already knew far too much about their relationship from Jeremy's underwear preferences to his habits first thing in the morning. Gabrielle certainly wasn't shy when it came to discussing the ins and outs of her daily life. She didn't let a small thing like being at work hold her back either. She grabbed my arm. "Picture it. You slam him against the wall and rip all his clothes off. No talking. No social niceties. No having to ask how his family is doing. Just sex."
My cock twitched as I did picture it. I imagined Indy unable to flirt outrageously because his mouth was full of my cock. I imagined the only sounds coming out of his mouth being moans as I fucked him, his muscular body mine to do with as I pleased. I gave myself a mental headshake. It was a great fantasy but it wasn't going to happen. "Thanks for the advice, but I don't think that's quite my style."
Gabrielle shrugged, her face expressing disappointment as she stood. "Well, don't say I didn't try to help. If you're not even willing to consider other guys because you're hung up on one you claim to hate, then you've got to take some sort of action. You could hate-sex him until you get him out of your system."
I showed her to the door. "Or... I could just stay single."
She tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder. "Or you could stay single and have lots of hate sex. Your choice, I suppose." I was left with very little doubt what choice she would have made and how stupid she believed me to be for not immediately rushing to do her bidding.
I laughed to myself as I closed the door behind her. Hate sex. Right. As if?
FROM THE AMOUNT OF paparazzi camped outside the building waiting to talk to Tristan, it appeared as if he hadn't been lying to Dom when he'd said he'd ended his engagement. I didn't know what that told me about their relationship, but I was hoping Dom might be able to shed more light on it over lunch. That was one of the reasons I'd dragged him away from his desk. Even if it did mean another visit to The Silver Barrel—the last place on earth I wanted to spend time in. It should be fine though, after our last meeting. It wasn't as if I'd left Indy in any doubt about my true feelings for him. There was no way he couldn't have gotten the message. So there was absolutely nothing to worry about. He'd stop flirting. I'd be polite. Drama over. Normal life would resume. Plus, if I was lucky, he might not even be there. He seemed to work evenings, given the previous times our paths had crossed.
I wasn't lucky. There he was, lounging casually by the bar. And the wink aimed in my direction as soon as he spotted our entrance seemed to make a mockery of my earlier assumption. As did the first words that left his mouth. “Hey, sexy. I don’t normally get to see you at lunch. It’s obviously my lucky day.”
Sexy! It seemed that not only was he going to carry on flirting after discovering the truth, but he was going to ramp it up. I muttered something suitably frosty, conscious of Dom's interested stare from my left-hand side as he took over ordering food for both of us.
Indy was dressed all in black today, the only color coming from his tattoos and those damn green eyes that kept popping into my head when I least wanted them to. That, and two words. Hate sex. God, I could hate-sex him so good. I could hate-sex him against the wall. In the shower. On the floor. I could hate-sex him so hard he'd be feeling the depth of my hate for him for the next week. Lost in my lurid fantasies, it took a moment to realize he'd asked a question. "What?"
He smirked as if he could tell exactly what rabbit hole my thoughts had disappeared down. "I asked where you were going to be sitting. It helps so I can let the kitchen know where to bring your food. It tends to work much better than simply throwing it up in the air and seeing who catches it."
I pointed to a random table that appeared to be empty, hating him that little bit more as I picked up my drink and turned my back on him to head to a table I didn't particularly want to sit at due to its proximity to the exit. Now I was going to have to spend the whole of lunchtime sat in a draft. His fault. I'd add it to the ever-growing list of things that were irritating about him.
I eased myself into the seat and met Dom's quizzical gaze. He raised an eyebrow. “So, the barman? What’s the story?”
I looked away. "No story."
“Right. Course there isn’t.”
I studied the glass of lemonade in front of me. Lunchtime meant lemonade, not beer. I might as well tell him. After all, I'd told Gabrielle and I'd known her for precisely five minutes, whereas Dom and I went back years. “Do you remember Stephen?”
Dom nodded. “Of course I do.”
“Do you remember he cheated on me?”
His face turned stormy and I loved him for it. “Yeah, the bastard! But what’s that got to do with—”
I inclined my head toward the bar, hoping he'd manage to work it out so I didn't have to spell it out.
Dom choked on his drink, his eyes going wide. “No! No way! That was the guy Stephen was fucking? The one you caught him with?”
Relieved he'd come to the right conclusion so quickly, I nodded.
Dom opened his mouth and then closed it again, before finally finding words. “But he keeps flirting with you. That’s a bit... He’s got some bloody nerve, hasn’t he?”
I smiled, wishing from Dom's reaction that I'd told him earlier. “Sickening, isn’t it? He seems to think it’s in the past and I should let it go.” I risked a glance at the bar, glad to see that Indy was busy serving customers. I didn't think he was a secret lip-reader, but you could never be too careful.
“How do you let something like that go?”
“Exactly.” It made me feel so much better that Dom got it. It shouldn't have been a surprise really. He'd been the one to mop up my tears at the time. The one who'd let me stay on his sofa until I was mentally strong enough to pick myself back up and get on with life. I turned to thank the person who'd brought our food, who thankfully wasn't Indy, wasting no time in picking up my burger and biting into it. I chewed and swallowed, wiping the ketchup off my chin that had managed to escape. “So, what the hell’s going on with Tristan?”
Dom shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
As if on cue, his phone chimed to announce a message. A goofy grin lit up his whole face as he pulled his phone out and read it before starting to type a response. For the next few minutes, I simply observed as Dom ignored his burger—and me—and carried out a whole text conversation. His behavior was fascinating. This was a Dom I'd never seen before.
Finally, I'd had enough. I'd run out of places to look that weren't in the direction of the bar. I coughed loudly.
Dom raised his head, his bewildered stare making it clear he'd forgotten I was there. I raised an eyebrow. “Who are all the messages from? You know you’re smiling like an idiot, right? Is it Tristan?”
He nodded sheepishly and I sat back, processing the complete change that had come over him. There was another p
art of the puzzle I was missing. I could spend ages trying to prize information out of him piece by piece or I could come up with a plan to speed things up. I reached across the table, snapping my fingers. "Hand it over."
He frowned. “What?”
“Your phone.”
He seemed like he wanted to argue but grudgingly passed it over. Instead of putting it down, I began to scan through his messages, moving the phone farther away when that prompted Dom to leap from his seat and make a grab for it. “Hey! You can’t—”
I glared at him. “Shush. Eat your lunch. I can’t get anything remotely honest out of you. You’ve left me no choice but to resort to underhanded tactics. I don’t know if you’re doing it deliberately or you’re just in denial. I need to find out what’s going on.”
He managed to stay silent for at least a minute while I perused the messages. There were an awful lot, far more than I'd envisaged seeing when I took his phone. They weren't all recent either. Some of them went back weeks.
“Paul, I don’t think—”
I'd stopped listening to him. I was busy staring open-mouthed at the photo that had just popped up on screen. I'd known Tristan was an extremely good-looking man. You'd have to be blind not to notice. But I'd never expected to get the opportunity to see him sprawled over a bed, wearing very little, and smiling seductively in a photo that had obviously been meant for Dom's eyes only. “Holy shit, Dominic!” I stared at it some more. I wanted to remember it next time I bumped into Tristan in the building. It was unlikely, going by the expression on his face, that Dom would ever let me see it again. I moved the phone out of reach again as a flustered Dominic made another lunge for it. “No way! I need to look at this for a bit longer. I’ve often wondered what his body is like under that suit.” I gave a long, low whistle. “Damn, he’s hot! Shame he’s got shorts on. Can you get him to send one without next time?”
“There won’t be a next time.”
I closed the messages screen and placed Dom's phone on the table. I'd seen enough to work out what was really going on between the two of them. “Why not?”