“We don’t close for hours. I could have pulled a few extra hours.”
“Good. Look, Gabe—”
“—riel.”
“—I’m really not comfortable just leaving you in the flat on your own if that tosser is going to be hanging about and calling you a slag, so—look, you’re totally welcome at home if you want to stay the night with me, or I could stay with you. I don’t want to just push into your space but…”
“I did intend on persuading you to stay.”
A hand slid over Aled’s thigh and dipped between them. A flicker of arousal sparked at the heavy weight on his legs, and Aled cleared his throat heavily.
“Persuasion done, but, uh, first,” Aled said, removing it and kissing the knuckles. “Dinner? Proper little sit-down job? I want to talk about Saturday night.”
Gabriel frowned. “I said I’m sorry about bolting—”
“And I need to say I’m sorry for just spitting it out like that, and repeat the request.”
“You—what?”
Aled squeezed Gabriel’s hand. “I do want you to move in with me.”
Gabriel’s mouth worked silently.
“And it’s not about Michael. It’s not about other men. It’s not about keeping tabs on you, or controlling you. It’s not even about you.”
Gabriel blinked owlishly, and Aled took a deep breath.
“It’s about me, getting to come home every day to a house that I share with someone that I love. Cuddles in bed on Saturday mornings, and shared dinners, and evenings on the sofa. Photos on the wall. Just—someone there. And a home with that someone. And given that someone is you, that home needs you.”
Gabriel’s fingers twitched in Aled’s.
“I need you. Because I love you. Everything else—every single little thing apart from you, me, same roof—can be negotiated.”
And those fingers closed tight and squeezed.
Chapter Ten
Gabriel’s chest hurt.
His heart hurt, his throat hurt, his ribs hurt—everything just hurt. Because the earnest look on Aled’s face, the soft tone of his voice…
God, he meant every word of it, didn’t he?
“You mean that.”
It wasn’t quite a question, but Aled rubbed his fingers and said, “Yes,” anyway.
“You really mean it.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel wasn’t used to being wanted, and he was even less used to people expressing it. He knew how Kevin felt, but he still got uncomfortable if he said anything. He’d known how Jim felt, but would rail against affectionate words. He liked physical affection all day long, but he had no idea what to do with words. There was something starker about them. Something more difficult to process.
More difficult to accept, even as he knew them to be true.
“I—”
A lump formed in Gabriel’s throat, and he bit his lip.
“Are you really that surprised?”
Gabriel snorted. God, Aled could be dumb sometimes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The question was very soft, almost hesitant. Gabriel swallowed, but couldn’t find the words, and for a long moment, they simply sat in silence.
“You know I love you,” Aled murmured eventually.
“I do,” Gabriel mumbled. “But enough that you want me there all the time?”
“Well, not one hundred percent of it. I’d still like to visit the bathroom in peace.”
Gabriel laughed. It cracked in the middle and he choked.
“Oh, hey, Gabe.”
The hug was sudden and hard and Gabriel clutched at Aled’s jacket blindly for a minute. Christ, where was it all coming from? Michael had been a prick, then he’d been so flustered by Aled asking and worried about what it meant, and now this? That soft little declaration and Aled holding his hand like they were getting married, and—
Why was he crying?
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “M’sorry, I just—”
“S’alright.”
“I just—nobody’s ever wanted me to do this before.”
Not really. Kevin had offered, when things had been really bad. He’d stayed with Grandpa and Uncle Chris, but they were family. Even Jim—they’d not lived together out of choice. They’d lived together because Jim had lost his job at the factory and Gabriel had a double bed and they’d been trying the exclusive thing. It hadn’t been—it wasn’t like this.
“What, move in?” Aled asked.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve established that you’ve dated some real idiots…”
Gabriel laughed wetly.
“None of your other regulars ever wanted you to?”
“Kevin did, but Judith draws the line at having her husband’s other subs actually living there. That’s it. Everyone else—”
Gabriel swallowed, and shut up. Everyone else had wanted something in return. They’d wanted Gabriel to move in and play married, full-on forsake-all-others.
“They wanted me to dump all my other guys.”
“I don’t.”
Gabriel dared to breathe.
“I don’t. I still want Michael out of the picture, especially now he’s harassing you and calling you a slag, but that’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah. We can negotiate how we deal with them if you move in, but you’re absolutely beautiful and relaxed after you’ve played your games with Kevin, and you’re all lit up and cheery after a good first date—I love those parts of you, too. I want you to be beautiful and lit up all the time, and whoever makes you do it is welcome to carry on.”
Gabriel swallowed. He scrambled for some semblance of steel. He didn’t want to be sweet-talked and coaxed. He wanted Aled to understand it. He wanted Aled to really, really mean it.
“You—you have to mean that. You have to.”
Aled’s hand was tight. “I do mean it.”
Then reality crept in again, and Gabriel shook his head.
“Gabe—”
“I just—”
“Please.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I—”
“Explain it to me, sweetheart. I know you’re wary, I know you don’t want a jealous dominant on your hands who can control what you’re doing all the time, but—”
“If I moved in with you,” Gabriel said carefully, “then I could end up completely reliant on you. Completely.”
“How? You have a job, you—”
“Not much longer.”
And there it was. The fear rose up in Gabriel’s throat like bile, and he had to swallow so as not to be sick. The rumours were only getting stronger about the shop. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time now. He could be unemployed. He could be back on the dole, and they’d move him into a council flat, and everyone would notice the men coming and going, and rumours would start, and he’d get tranny paedo written on his door again, and—
“Gabriel? Hey, breathe, sweetheart, it’s all right—”
Aled’s hand was suddenly firm on the back of Gabriel’s neck, and he swallowed, pushing back against it.
“It’s all right.”
He breathed. The low tone. The aftercare voice. He closed his eyes, reached out in his mind for the familiar grip of his master’s hand, and breathed.
“There you go,” Aled murmured. “That’s it.”
“They’re talking about closing the shop,” Gabriel croaked. “I’m job-hunting, just in case. But if I lost my job and we were living together, I’d be completely reliant on you. And you could—Aled, I don’t mean it to sound like you would, but—”
“But I could. And that’s enough for you, isn’t it?”
Gabriel closed his eyes and wanted to cry.
“Hey. Hey.”
A hand squeezed his knee.
“Has that happened before?”
Gabriel shook his head but unglued his tongue. “Only because I saw it coming.”
Like how he’d never been raped. Like how he’d never been killed or seriously injured. He’d been lucky and seen the danger coming. Jim had been fine—the man had been gooey from head to toe, and about as dangerous as a rabbit—but there’d been others, other hookups, even other regulars. Other guys who’d pushed for moving in and commitment and exclusivity, and Gabriel had known what they wanted. A pet. A permanent fuck toy. A dirty little secret shut away somewhere, sometimes just from the wife and kids and sometimes from the rest of the world. Others who'd wanted to put him in a box, a cage, a prison, and keep him there.
Whether he liked it or not.
No way out. No safewords. No ending.
One guy had even outright said it.
“Gabriel, look at me.”
And even without them, that was the way it had been before. He could still hear the shrill shriek in the back of his mind, in the very dark recesses where he’d come from. Not under my roof. Not when you eat off my table. You’re my daughter, and as long as you’re here, you’ll do as you’re told.
He remembered that life.
He’d always remember. There was nothing anyone could do—not Kevin, not Aled, not Jim—to drive that out. He’d been reliant once and it had been torture.
He was never going to be reliant again.
“Look at me, babe.”
He refused. The knee was squeezed again, then Aled’s arm was around his shoulders and warm air was ghosting over his ear. Heavy. Comforting. Gabriel relaxed, even as he didn’t want to.
“I’m asking you to make a leap of faith for me,” Aled murmured. “I’m asking you to trust that I’m not out to control you. I call you mine, but this car is mine too and other people ride in it. My house is mine, but I have people over.”
“When you say they can come over.”
“My wife was my wife, she was mine, but she slept with other men. I was hers, but I slept with other men and women.”
Gabriel bit his lip. Melissa. She’d not been exclusive either, but—
“I don’t know why you’re so skittish,” Aled said carefully. “And if it takes the rest of my life to prove to you that you don’t need to be skittish of me, then I will do it. But I’m asking for a leap of faith here, Gabe, and please, I’m asking you to jump.”
There was that please again. Gabriel took a shaky breath—and thought.
If he lost his job, he’d be unemployed and living in Aled’s house. And Aled could use that any way he wanted. If he paid all Gabriel’s bills, then what would Gabriel owe him in return? Gabriel wasn’t thick—he’d had guys try to pay the bill at the restaurant before, to say he had to do what they wanted in bed. His neighbour in the old flat had tried to make Gabriel sleep with a group of his mates, in exchange for them not beating him up for being trans. It could happen. It did happen.
Then he pushed past the instinctive panic and breathed again.
But then, this was a man he’d brought to the very brink of an orgasm then safeworded, and he’d never gotten angry or finished off anyway. This was a man he’d tested, again and again, and who had never failed. This was a man who he trusted to tie him to coffee tables, to gag him, to fuck his face and call him a dirty whore, and yet never hurt him beyond his limits, always respect the safewords Gabriel had brought with him to the scene, and look after him when it was over.
A man stroking his knee in a car, after having driven from Wakefield to Leeds to collect him from work because his ex was being creepy. With no expectation of any reward for it.
God, this was Aled.
And Gabriel was being stupid.
“We need to negotiate,” he whispered.
Aled’s hand tightened. His voice was very carefully controlled. “Everything about how is up for negotiation. Told you. You, me, same roof.”
“Would the—would the roof be in Wakefield?
“I’d prefer that.”
“What about me getting to work?”
“You’re not far from the bus station. And I can drive you up or pick you up when your hours line up to mine.”
“Would it be your house?”
“In the immediate, I think so. Could always find a place of our own later, if you wanted.”
“So where do I bring my other regulars?”
Aled paused. A sick fear unfurled in Gabriel’s stomach.
“I have to be honest here, sweetheart, I’m not especially okay with other men in my house,” Aled said slowly. “I wasn’t with Melissa and I don’t think I will be with you. I’m sorry. But,” he added sharply, “that doesn’t mean you can’t have them. Melissa sort of…pushed the issue too hard. I came home to find her shagging one of her workmates in our bed, and we’d not even talked about if we could bring our conquests home before. So I went a bit nuts, and I’ve stayed pretty turned off the idea.”
“And now?”
“And now, I’m older and you’re kinder than to just wave one of your other lads around in front of me, and maybe it won’t be the issue it was then. I mean, not in our bed, definitely not. But it might be that I go out for the evening with Suze and I have a good time out with her and I’m not in the least bit concerned about coming home in the morning to find the spare bed’s been made up new in my absence.”
“What if you’re not?”
“Okay with that?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we’ll figure out a workaround. Even if it’s finding a nice hotel you can use regularly. I’m certainly not going to say you can’t do it. And hell, maybe one or two of your regulars could come over. I’ve liked the odd time I’ve had to come to Kevin’s to collect my new toy.”
Gabriel smiled faintly, though it was a moot point. Kevin never played outside his own basement.
“We’ll work something out. But it won’t ever be a flat-out no. I won’t ever try and say you just can’t. I’m not trying to change your behaviour. Promise.”
Oddly, it was Aled’s mention of Kevin that let Gabriel relax. They liked each other—well, after Aled had freaked at some of the wounds Kevin had left behind and insisted on meeting him. Once they’d squared up and side-eyed each other a bit, then they’d gotten on well.
And if—if Aled was still okay with picking Gabriel up from Kevin’s, both in and out of games, then maybe Gabriel could trust to fate with this bit?
Still…
“What about bills?”
“Well, I can afford them just fine, and you don’t get paid much, but if it would make you too uncomfortable—”
“It would,” Gabriel said flatly, and finally opened his eyes and glanced at Aled. That freckled face was calm and relaxed.
“Then we’ll work out a way of dividing them up so you’re not broke every month but you don’t feel uncomfortable.”
“You can’t have a financial hold over me. I know I don’t get paid much and I have, like, no savings, but it’s still mine and—”
“And that’s fine,” Aled soothed, kissing his shoulder. “I want you to live with me and be your usual sunny, sarky self, not to live with me and feel on edge all the time. And you certainly don’t owe me anything. Especially as I’m the one asking!”
Gabriel cracked a faint smile and scrunched his face when Aled kissed the edge of his mouth.
“Hey, let’s go and get dinner and negotiate,” Aled said softly. “And, tell you what, let’s trial it first. You’ve stayed the weekend plenty of times, why not try staying a week? And after that, try staying a month? And if all goes well, and we’re both liking it, you could move in proper?”
Gabriel licked his lips.
A week. He could do a week, easily. Maybe…maybe a bit longer? Get a real feel for it?
“Two weeks?”
Aled squeezed his hand and beamed.
“Deal.”
And the smile was so wide, so brilliant, so happy, that Gabriel suddenly didn’t feel so afraid.
Chapter Eleven
Aled left the flat the following morning, and it was intact.
He retur
ned just after six in the evening, and it had been destroyed.
“What the hell happened?” he asked, standing in the open doorway, spare key still in hand, and staring at the clothes everywhere.
Gabriel, wearing nothing but a pair of jogging bottoms, shrugged. He folded himself up to sit amongst the melee again and returned to sifting through the piles.
“Deciding what to take,” he mumbled.
Aled frowned slightly and hunkered down on the threadbare carpet to join him. “Hey,” he said, squeezing Gabriel’s knee. “Everything all right?”
“Not really,” Gabriel admitted. “Michael was round earlier banging on the door and swearing at me. My boss texted to say I need to come in tomorrow for a big meeting about the future of the shop—i.e. I’ll probably be imminently unemployed. And I decided if I’m going to lose my job, I might as well tone down on the stuff and figure out what I can sell on eBay.”
“Sell your underwear on Grindr, you’ll make a fortune,” Aled quipped, then slid his arm around Gabriel’s hips. “Well, there’s nothing you can do about tomorrow, and Michael hasn’t got the first idea where I live, so no more door-banging for a fortnight.”
The smile was faint, and Gabriel’s focus didn’t shift from sorting the clothes. Aled grimaced. A bad day was one thing, but Gabriel wasn’t in the habit of niggling and picking at his bad days. He usually threw a bit of a paddy, had a tantrum for half an hour then got back on track and cracked on.
This wasn’t just a bad day.
“You’re worrying about this, aren’t you.”
It wasn’t really a question. Gabriel’s shrug wasn’t really an answer.
“Gabe—”
A flash of a frown.
“—riel,” Aled added with a grin.
“I’m just tied up in knots between it’s you and it’ll be fun and fine and nothing’s really going to change except I’ll get squashed to death every night in my sleep, and—and it’s a dominant who asked me to dump another regular and gets off on pretty extreme games.”
Aled twitched but allowed the sting. “So do you,” he said quietly.
“Yeah. Which brings me full circle to it’s you and it’ll be fine.”
“Hate to say it, sweetheart, but there’s no way I can prove to your skittish psyche that it’ll be fine until you put yourself in that situation.”
The Other Man (Starting Over Book 2) Page 9