by JL Merrow
“Bathroom window… In the wind. Don’t stop,” Patrick gasped.
Mark bent back to his task, and soon Patrick was telling him he was ready, damn it, get inside me now. Barely believing this was actually going to happen, Mark lined up and pressed the head of his cock against Patrick’s hole. He pushed, hesitating when he met resistance.
“Not gonna break,” Patrick muttered, sounding strained.
Mark pressed, gently but firmly, and finally, finally he made it past the ring of muscle and was inside Patrick. It was the most incredible feeling he’d ever—
There was another bang, followed by a crash. Mark’s heart jumped around three feet. “What the hell?”
Patrick grimaced. “Stuff on the windowsill falling in the bath. Or next door’s cat’s got in again. Keep going.”
A little uncertain now, Mark pushed in farther and farther until, oh God, his balls touched Patrick’s body, and they were joined, one flesh, deep and perfect and utterly, completely overwhelming. He had to wait, he remembered dimly. Give Patrick’s body time to adjust—
“You can move,” Patrick told him, and that was it.
Mark leaned down to kiss Patrick, the angle awkward but the sensations incredible. Pulling back, he ran his hands over Patrick’s perfect chest, pinching his nipples in turn and being rewarded with blissed-out moans. Then he gave up on all hope of coordinating his movements and just moved in and out of Patrick’s body, each thrust taking him higher and higher. He was in heaven, this was the best, the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him, and any minute now he was going to—
There was a loud creak of hinges. Mark leapt, pulling out of Patrick like he’d been forcibly ejected, and spun, heart racing, to face the door.
There was no-one there. He turned back, frowning, to find Patrick laughing helplessly. “Sorry,” Patrick got out eventually. “It does that, if you don’t shut it properly. Swings open in the wind.”
“This is not funny,” Mark snapped, and he then threw himself back down on the bed and was laughing too. “Oh God,” he gasped. “It’s like a play by Samuel Beckett, and we’ll keep trying and hoping and we’re never, ever going to get to finish—”
“Bugger that,” Patrick said, grinning, and pulled him close again. “C’mon. Third time lucky, remember? Now get back inside me.”
“I’ve heard about pushy bottoms,” Mark said, getting back up on somewhat wobbly knees. He lined himself up again and pushed back in. God, that was good. Even hotter than he’d remembered, and so, so tight.
“Yeah? What have you heard about ’em?”
“That you have to be very, very firm with them.” Mark punctuated the sentence with a hefty thrust that had him seeing stars.
Patrick groaned aloud. “Fuck, yeah. Just a bit higher—oh Christ, yeah. Just there. Fuck, don’t stop.” He grabbed his dick with a hand and started jerking himself raggedly. Mark stepped up the pace to match, hoping to God he wouldn’t peak too soon, but God, it felt so amazing…
Nothing, nothing had prepared Mark for the sight of Patrick convulsing beneath him, his face screwed up in ecstasy as he spattered his chest with thick, white spunk. It was the most erotic sight in the world, and Mark felt as if he bestrode the world. “God, I love you so much,” he breathed, and then he was coming almost before he knew it, his orgasm hitting with the force of a ten-ton truck.
Panting, he collapsed on the bed half beside Patrick, half on top of him, and they lay there in a sweaty tangle of damp sheets, holding one another.
As his breathing calmed and his mental powers slowly returned, Mark became aware that he’d done the unforgivable. “Um. What I said just then—”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. No one takes stuff you say during sex seriously.”
“No—I mean, that’s not it.” Mark’s stomach was horribly fluttery, but he stared up at the ceiling and forced himself to go on. “I meant, I’m sorry I said it then. For the first time, I mean. But, well, I do. Love you.” He flushed. “And I realise saying it just after sex isn’t much better, but I—I wanted you to know.”
Patrick pushed himself up on one elbow to look down at Mark. “Yeah?” he said, his deep blue eyes twinkling.
“You don’t have to say it back,” Mark said quickly, feeling suddenly flat, as if someone had just dumped a large, damp and sex-scented mattress on top of him.
“I know I don’t,” Patrick said, leaning over to kiss him. “And yeah, I love you too.”
The mattress of depression turned into an air bed and floated away, almost taking Mark with him, he felt so light. “That’s good,” he managed.
“Yeah,” Patrick agreed with a chuckle. “Handy, innit?”
“Absolutely,” Mark said, laughing back at him.
* * * * *
Half an hour later, they still hadn’t moved, although Mark was aware they couldn’t put it off indefinitely. After all, Fen was really quite fast at eating pizza. And Patrick’s mum would be home in a matter of hours.
Time was passing quickly, just holding each other and talking about all sorts of things.
“Still got Lex to worry about,” Patrick was saying. “Well, the job, anyhow. Looks like we needn’t have worried about the boyfriend after all.” He sighed. “I could kill that bloody git Onslow.”
Mark gave him a sharp look. “Onslow? Kenneth Onslow?”
“Yeah, he’s the one who’s been trying to convince the trustees Lex oughta go. You know him?”
“Not exactly. He’s a member of the SAPS, but he wasn’t at the meeting I went to. But I do need to talk to him. I’ve taken over as treasurer—apparently it’s not a good idea to ever admit to having an accountancy qualification at this sort of thing.”
Patrick chuckled. “Yeah, Si’s been trying to offload that gig for years.”
“Well, anyway, I’ve spent some of the last few days looking over the accounts—trying to get a feel for them, pick up any potential problems, that sort of thing. And I’ve found a whole stack of very dubious expense claims from your Mr. Onslow. Now, obviously I won’t be able to permit anyone to, shall we say, take advantage of the society while I’m treasurer, but I might be open to persuasion to take the view that what’s done is done. If, say, I were to be convinced that he’s the sort of person who has everyone’s best interests at heart.”
“You’re gonna blackmail him?”
“Um. That’s a very strong word. But basically, yes. I, um, I hope that’s not going to run counter to your principles?”
“People are more important than principles.” Patrick smiled, warming Mark’s heart to ridiculous levels. “Well, some of ’em are, anyway. The ones I love are, definitely.”
“Good,” Mark said firmly. He ran a hand down Patrick’s firm, youthful chest, feeling certain stirrings that suggested maybe thirty-nine wasn’t as old as all that. Did they have time, though?
Oh, to hell with it. Fen was perfectly safe with David, and Patrick’s mum didn’t seem the sort to be easily shocked even if she did come home early. He smiled. “Feeling up to testing whether fourth times are lucky too?”
Patrick grinned and rolled over on top of him. “You’re my sort of bloke, Mark Nugent.”
Epilogue
A month or so later, during the May half term holidays, they were sitting in Mark’s living room, Mark and Patrick side by side on the sofa but not actually touching in deference to their guest. Fen had been quite clear on that before he’d arrived. “Dad, it’s got nothing to do with homophobia. It’s just, like, parental PDAs are so gross.”
Ollie, slumped awkwardly in the armchair opposite them, looked like he’d probably prefer a bit of old-people-snogging to the current atmosphere of excruciating politeness.
Good, Mark thought. Let him suffer. That’d teach him to dare to date Mark’s little girl. Mark had been firm on them not disappearing up to Fen’s room, despite her
pleas that they weren’t, like, going to do anything.
Mark had one rule, one, regarding significant others in Fen’s life, and he was damn well going to enforce it.
Patrick, by contrast, had been spending quite a bit of time in Mark’s bedroom lately, to the satisfaction of all concerned. Ellen, although not precisely supportive of the new openness in their relationship, had declared her grudging acceptance after a particularly heartfelt rant from Fen, which Mark had been only too glad not to be on the receiving end of.
Patrick stirred now and broke the silence. “Hey, you’re never gonna guess who my mum’s started going out with.”
“You sound like you actually approve of this one,” Mark said, giving Patrick an intrigued look.
“Well, I’m not sure I’d go that far, but he’s not a complete no-hoper. Quite. It’s Rory from the Spartans.”
“Rory?” Mark stared.
“Yeah, they got talking after the fun run—you know he was running the bouncy slide? He let her have a few goes for free after all the kiddies had gone home.”
“Well, top marks to him for the novel chat-up,” Mark said thoughtfully. “Although I’d have thought she could do better, looks-wise.” He smirked. “At least someone her own height. And with hair.”
Patrick reprimanded him with a dig in the ribs, which descended into a mock fight, which was what Mark had been aiming for.
“That’s baldist, that is. And heightist,” Fen said, coming in with two glasses of orange squash and causing Mark and Patrick to spring apart guiltily. She handed one glass to Ollie, making certain he had hold of it before letting go, gave him a soft smile and sat down in the other armchair, tucking one leg underneath her. “You know what would make this really perfect?”
Mark sighed. “Let me guess: it’s got four legs, whiskers and a tail?”
The Campaign for Really Cute Cats hadn’t lost any momentum in the Nugent household, especially since the campaigner-in-chief was no longer distracted by having to fix her father’s love life and Ollie’s problems at school. Patrick’s advice hadn’t resulted, as the children had hoped, in the PE teacher’s dismissal, but he had been compelled to give Ollie a written apology, and there was a pretty solid rumour that, humiliated, he was now looking for another job.
Fen grabbed her phone. “There’s this little black-and-white kitten on the RSPCA website, and he’s so cute—Dad, please can we go and see him?” She thrust the screen under his nose, displaying a picture of a worried-looking kitten that apparently rejoiced in the name of Snoop Cat. Snoop Cat? Mark wondered if he’d been taken away from his previous owners for mental cruelty.
“I said we’d get a cat in the summer, didn’t I? If you’re doing well at school.” Mark had been trying to stave off his inevitable surrender a while longer. At least until the memory of his frantic worry over her truancy had faded a little, and he’d no longer feel like he was actively rewarding bad behaviour.
“But he might be gone by then.” Fen slumped into the armchair not currently occupied by Ollie, and sulked for a solid minute. Then she spoke again. “Dad, can I still be a bridesmaid when you and Patrick get married, even though there won’t be a bride?”
Mark spluttered on his tea.
Patrick slapped him on the back, which didn’t help, and answered for them both. “Bit soon to talk about marriage, yeah?”
Fen sent him a serious look. “You do know Dad’s gonna be forty in October, right?”
Patrick laughed, the traitor. “Yeah, but I reckon he’s got, oh, at least another decade in him. So no need to hurry.”
“Yeah, but if you got married in September, he’d still be in his thirties and that’d look better, wouldn’t it? I mean, you’re twenty-five, Dad said. So you marrying a forty-something, that’s gonna look well weird. And anyway, that’d be a good month to get married in. So he wouldn’t think about marrying Mum that time of year.”
Mark coughed. “No, darling, your mother and I were married in May.”
Fen snorted. “Yeah, right.” She and Ollie sent each other matching scornful looks.
“Fen?”
“Dad, I worked it out in primary school. That wedding photo you used to have on the wall? You and mum standing in front of that bush with the big orange flowers? We had one of those in the school garden, and it never flowered before we broke up for the holidays. It was always out when we came back in September. I even asked Miss Cromwell about it, and she said there aren’t any that come out in May, they’re all late-flowering. And you could see Mum had a bit of a bump in some of the other pictures.”
Oh God. “Darling, I’m sorry we, well—”
“Lied to me about it, like, all my life.”
Mark swallowed. “Um. Yes. You know we were only thinking of you.” Patrick slung his arm around Mark’s shoulders and gave him a gentle squeeze of support.
She glared at them both. “You’re supposed to be able to trust your parents, you know. I could get a complex about it. Have all kinds of trust issues and stuff. I could need, like, years of therapy or something.”
Ollie, the little sod, was grinning.
“So, Dad?” Fen went on with an evil smile that was all her own. “When are we going to see Snoop Cat?”
About the Author
JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.
She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and mysteries, and is frequently accused of humour. Her novel Slam! won the 2013 Rainbow Award for Best LGBT Romantic Comedy, and her novella Muscling Through and novel Relief Valve were both EPIC Awards finalists.
JL Merrow is a member of the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet organising team.
Find JL Merrow online at: www.jlmerrow.com, on Twitter as @jlmerrow, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jl.merrow.
Look for these titles by JL Merrow
Now Available:
Pricks and Pragmatism
Camwolf
Muscling Through
Wight Mischief
Midnight in Berlin
Hard Tail
Slam!
Fall Hard
Raising the Rent
To Love a Traitor
The Plumber’s Mate
Pressure Head
Relief Valve
Heat Trap
The Shamwell Tales
Caught!
Played!
Out!
Coming Soon:
The Plumber’s Mate
Blow Down
Don’t miss the other titles in JL Merrow’s Shamwell Tales Series!
All the world’s a stage...but real-life lessons are hidden in the heart.
The Shamwell Tales, Book 2
Though Tristan must join his family’s New York firm at summer’s end—no more farting around on stage, as his father so bluntly puts it—he can’t resist when Shamwell’s local amateur dramatics society begs him to take a role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The bonus: giving private acting lessons to a local handyman who’s been curiously resistant to Tristan’s advances. Not only is Con delicious, there’s fifty pounds riding on Tristan getting him in his bed.
A late-diagnosed dyslexic, Con’s never dared to act, convinced he’d never be able to learn his lines. But with Tristan’s help, he takes the chance. Trouble is, the last time Con fell for a guy, he ended up getting his heart broken. And with Tristan due to leave the country soon, Con is determined not to start anything that’s bound to finish badly.
Just as Tristan thinks he’s finally won Con’s heart—and given his own in return—di
saster strikes. And the curtain may have fallen forever on their chance for happiness.
Warning: Contains a surfeit of Bottoms and asses, together with enough mangled quotations to have the Bard of Avon gyrating in his grave.
You can run from the past…but the past runs faster.
Shamwell Tales, Book 1
Behind Robert’s cheerfully eccentric exterior lies a young heart battered and bruised by his past. He’s taken a job teaching in a village primary school to make a fresh start, and love isn’t part of his plans. But he’s knocked for six—literally—by a chance encounter with the uncle of two of his pupils.
Sean works in pest control, rides a motorbike, and lives on a council estate. On the face of it, he shouldn’t have anything in common with Robert’s bow-tie, classic-car style and posh family background. Yet Robert is helpless to resist Sean’s roguish grin, and a rocky, excruciatingly embarrassing start doesn’t keep the sparks between them from flaring.
Despite Robert’s increasingly ludicrous attempts to keep his past where it belongs, his past hasn’t read the memo. And soon his secrets could be the very things that drive Sean away for good...
Warning: Contains the alarming misadventures of a pest control technician, a stepsister with a truly unfortunate name, and a young man who may have more bow ties than sense.
eBooks are not transferable.
They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Out!
Copyright © 2016 by JL Merrow
ISBN: 978-1-61922-993-8