“You bastards,” Jean-Paul groaned.
“Want us to stop?” Aden asked.
“Nooooo.”
Lysander slowly trailed his tongue the length of the prominent vein on Jean-Paul’s cock before taking a breath and swallowing him down, squeezing the muscles of his throat.
“Christ,” Jean-Paul gasped.
Jean-Paul always tasted good and Lysander groaned around him, feeling the guy’s pulse against his tongue and throat, loving the drag of Jean-Paul’s shaft against his palate.
“Listing every song in Les Mis in order isn’t working,” Jean-Paul blurted.
Aden raised his eyebrows. “Already?”
Lysander pulled back and fluttered his tongue lightning fast over Jean-Paul’s cock head.
“Fffffffuuuck,” Jean-Paul whined. “I’m sexed up. What can I say?”
“You want him?” Aden asked.
“No, and you’re not to have him either. See if he can hit his chin.”
“Oh Christ,” Jean-Paul grunted.
Turned out he almost could. Aden licked him clean, then grabbed condoms and lube from the drawer.
Lysander waited until Aden was deep inside Jean-Paul before he thrust into Aden. One long drive to take him all the way and the world seemed to stop for one short, exquisite moment. Feeling his cock held tight by the muscles of Aden’s arse, knowing that Aden was feeling the same, made Lysander grit his teeth as he held himself in check. The three of them were stacked up on the bed but Aden was being careful not to crush his lover. Lysander began to rock his hips, his blood turning to fire.
When he and Aden moved, they moved together, so it was as if they were both fucking Jean-Paul. He wanted to talk dirty to them, but held his tongue. He didn’t want this to turn into anything more than it was, an occasional fuckfest. If he tried to dominate Aden, Aden would push back and Lysander didn’t want to wreck things. The way he moved into Aden dictated how Aden moved into Jean-Paul. Lysander wrapped one hand around Aden’s shoulder, the other around Jean-Paul’s as he pulled back and pushed in, slow quickly shifting to fast, soft lunging into hard.
The sounds of harsh grunts, ragged breathing, and slick wet flesh slapping together invaded and overran the room, along with the scents of sex and musk and sweat. Lysander’s head swam, taking him from the present into memory, and though he tried to hang onto what he was doing, reality slipped and it wasn’t Aden he was fucking but another man, a man he’d pushed away.
“Fuck, fuck,” Jean-Paul gasped.
Aden came with a loud cry and a moment later, Lysander convulsed against Aden’s backside, the gut-wrenching spasms dragging the cum from his dick until he was spent. He collapsed on top of Aden, who immediately edged him onto his side to take the weight off Jean-Paul. Lysander’s heart pounded so hard he could hear it in his head.
Then Jean-Paul turned his face and Aden kissed him. The look in Jean-Paul’s eyes sent Lysander scuttling off the bed. It was a stark reminder of what the two had that he didn’t.
He removed the condom and grabbed tissues from the box by the bed. When he glanced at the pair he thought how much like twins they looked. He also saw they were communicating without speaking. They’d ask him to stay and he’d say no.
“You don’t have to go,” Jean-Paul said.
Lysander walked into the bathroom and disposed of the condom and tissues. He came out to see Jean-Paul staring at him.
“You make me feel used,” Jean-Paul whispered.
“Hush,” Aden snapped.
“Well, that’s exactly what I’ve done.” Lysander picked up his clothes and walked out.
Instead of going up, he went down. He pulled on his pants, though he left them unfastened, but dropped his shirt and shoes in the hall. He unlocked the back door and walked across the patio to the edge of the lawn. He wasn’t sure why he thought he’d be able to do this tonight but halfway across the grass, he stopped. No matter what he yelled at himself in his head, he couldn’t make his feet take him any farther.
He stood still and silent for a long time before he finally turned and went back into the house.
Chapter Four
On the flight back to the UK, Corin was her usual self, complaining that the champagne wasn’t cold enough, the plane not warm enough, her fruit platter not fresh enough. She was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever fucked, but she was a pain in the neck. Flint didn’t drink or eat anything. His head still throbbed, his body ached and he worried he’d throw up.
Although he’d intended to tell Corin he didn’t want to see her anymore, he didn’t have the energy to utter a word. She had to know they were over but he suspected that she wanted to go out under her terms, not his. When they got back, he’d get a cab to his place in Islington and not to her flat. He could move his stuff out later. He hadn’t left much there. His eyelids fluttered closed.
He tried to cheer himself up by thinking about the film he’d signed to do next. He’d wanted to work with the director, Weston Davies, since he’d first started acting and Turning Circle could have been written for Flint. Almost. It was about two gay soldiers in Ukraine, guys on different sides. Flint had read the book, loved it, and done the performance of his life in the audition. It didn’t hurt that he was also going to be paid megabucks, though he’d have done it for less. But his agent had purred when Flint had signed the contract.
A sharp pain flared behind his eyes and he winced. Maybe he ought to see a doctor. Heads shouldn’t pound for this length of time, and the pins and needles in his fingers had worsened. He’d mentioned feeling ill to Corin and all she’d done was tell him not to whine. He wondered if Anton had dumped her, if that was the reason for her shitty mood. I really want to tell her we’re over. He struggled to find the energy and instead fell asleep.
Flint jerked awake when the plane touched down. His headache hadn’t gone.
“I’ve been thinking,” Corin said.
Nor had that headache. Could she think? He sensibly kept that thought to himself.
“The Middle East,” she whispered. “It’s the new Africa.”
He didn’t try to contribute to the conversation. It was easier to let her rabbit on. He wondered if she even knew which countries made up the Middle East.
“The two of us lend our support for injured children, raise money for places for them to stay in, for schools, food, clothes, washer. We shoop seng weer witten. Domp yeth tuk?”
Flint blinked. What the fuck?
“Arry outel isting?” She glared at him.
One of the cabin crew leaned over and said, “Fas tenelt easel.”
Confusion then panic exploded in Flint’s chest. Corin rolled her eyes, grabbed the end of his seatbelt and shoved it in his hand. He fumbled but managed to fasten it and the steward smiled and walked away.
“Ghool,” Corin snapped.
Shit. Shit. For a moment he thought he might still have been sleeping and imagining this. Why couldn’t he understand what anyone was saying? Was it some joke he wasn’t in on? A parallel universe he’d slipped into?
“Week net por tark,” Flint said.
He pressed his lips together. He’d tried to tell Corin they needed to talk, but that hadn’t been what came out of his mouth.
“Wathy ou party brout?” Corin snapped.
“Nut tink.”
Fuck. He was speaking the same bizarre foreign language as Corin and the steward. Which might have been okay if he could understand what he said, but he couldn’t, and judging by the incredulous expression on Corin’s face, neither could she.
Fear choked him along with bewilderment. He reached under his arm and pinched himself hard. Ouch. Nope, I’m not dreaming. If only he had been. So what the hell is wrong?
When the plane touched down, he sighed with relief. Corin still chattered nonsense but he didn’t even try to listen to her. He turned to the window and stretched out. His right leg was slow to respond and a further burst of fear ripped through him.
As the plane taxied off the runw
ay and headed for the gate, Flint’s gaze settled on one of the magazines in the seat pocket in front of him. He pulled it out and gulped. What language was it written in? He checked the emergency information card and although the diagrams made sense, the words didn’t. This was a British Airways plane. The information had to be written in English. What the fuck is going on? He stuffed everything back in place with trembling fingers. A parallel universe suddenly didn’t seem so far-fetched. It would make a good film and he’d have given that more thought if he hadn’t been so worried.
Corin was busy texting, which was a good idea. Flint took out his phone and switched it on. But when he tried to pull up Ryker’s number, he couldn’t read the names. He thought Ryker’s should be at the top, but what if it wasn’t? He shoved the phone back in his pocket. This was a freaky nightmare and in a minute, he’d step back onto English soil and everything would be clear again. He closed his eyes.
“Kint, Kint.”
He opened his eyes to see Corin standing in the aisle, glaring at him as if he was an idiot. Flint struggled again with the seatbelt, relieved when he managed to unfasten it and stand without falling over. They were first off the plane, handed their carry-on bags by the cabin crew. Flint took his in his left hand, smiled his thanks, and tried to pretend he understood what they were saying to him.
As he and Corin headed up the jetway, he felt himself slowing, each step becoming harder to take, particularly with his right leg. Corin was muttering gibberish at him, fury all over her face, and he wanted to shout at her to shut the fuck up but he didn’t dare open his mouth. He needed help and he had no way of asking for it. He knew he looked as if he was drunk. Walking in a straight line was beyond him. Corin stalked off and much as he was pissed off with her, he hurried to catch up. He’d go back to her flat and sort things out from there.
When he found himself in the arrivals hall with his two suitcases, he sighed with relief. Without Corin’s help he’d have fallen apart, but he was on the verge of it anyway. His brain hurt from trying to make sense of unintelligible sounds. Photographers gathered around them and Flint grew more and more desperate to escape before anyone realized he’d gone crazy. Corin smiled and chatted to reporters and Flint just stood there with his lips pressed together. Walk away now. But he had no way of asking a cab driver to take him anywhere. He suspected he needed to go to a hospital. He could manage nine-nine-nine on his phone, couldn’t he? Except he wanted Ryker more than anything. Ryker was his fixer. Ryker could sort all this out before Flint made a bad situation worse.
He couldn’t stand there any longer ignoring what were undoubtedly questions being flung at him by reporters. But he couldn’t open his mouth or his face would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country for the wrong reasons. Flint Klavan arrives drunk at Heathrow. Flint Klavan on drugs? He rolled his bags to the exit and headed for the taxi rank. In his wallet, he had his agent’s business card. He couldn’t read Ryker’s name but he recognized the lightning bolt on the left side. He handed the card to the cab driver, pointed to the number at the bottom, then gestured at his throat and croaked as if he’d lost his voice.
“Rank med ot,” said the driver.
What? Flint swallowed hard. He offered the guy his phone and almost cried with relief when the man made the call, but groaned when he handed it back and Flint realized he was expected to speak.
“Wha thof pet?” Ryker asked.
Shit. Flint concentrated as hard as he could, kept repeating the word over and over in his head before he risked letting the whisper out. “Merp.”
That didn’t sound anything like help.
Ryker kept talking and all Flint could do was keep repeating the word merp. He handed the phone back to the cab driver and after a brief exchange between the driver and Ryker, the guy returned the phone and pulled away from the curb. Flint looked back in time to see an incredulous Corin standing next to a limousine and glaring at him.
Just hold it together until you get to Ryker. That was all he had to do. But his head hurt more than it ever had in his life and he seriously wondered if he was dying. He felt like he’d been filled with a thick liquid that was gradually rising to choke him. But he was still alive when the cab pulled up outside Ryker’s smart town house.
Flint grabbed a handful of notes and pushed them at the driver. The guy lifted his cases out of the boot while Flint struggled to get out of the car. He had to hold onto the roof once he was standing. The driver carried the cases up the steps to the door, and Flint assumed that he’d paid him too much. London cab drivers weren’t usually so accommodating.
The door opened, Ryker stared down at him and Flint found it even harder to breathe.
“Av at ost toot?” Ryker snapped.
Somehow Flint made it up the steps into the house. Once the bags were inside and the door closed, he slid down the wall to the floor.
“Wort thee fucks mat?” Ryker’s eyes widened.
“Ink dot standy.” I don’t fucking understand.
Ryker started to yell at him and Flint kept trying to talk but all he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and wake in a normal world. Ryker dropped down beside him, lifted his head and stared into his eyes.
“Doogs?” Ryker asked.
Did he mean drugs? Probably. Flint shook his head, then gulped. What if doogs meant hospital? He let out a long groan and thought—act it. When Ryker kept babbling and tried to stand, Flint caught his hands and pulled him down. He looked directly into Ryker’s face, put his hand over his own mouth and shook his head. Ryker said something, but because Flint had no idea what that was he realized this was doomed to failure. He put his hands over his ears and shook his head. Then clutched his head and moaned, clutched his stomach and moaned.
Ryker stared at him, frowning, then clutched his own stomach and his head, and groaned. Flint nodded. Ryker took his phone from his pocket, and after he’d spoken to someone, he took hold of Flint’s hand and held it. The knowledge that he’d made Ryker understand he needed help almost choked him. Ryker pretended to pull a zipper across his lips and Flint nodded. This was not something either of them wanted broadcast. Ryker was his personal magician, managing his relationship with the media, sorting out Flint’s fuck-ups, getting his name into the right papers, his face at the right events, but he’d need big magic to sort this out.
* * * *
Flint had never felt so helpless and scared in his life. Whizzed through the streets of London in an ambulance with the siren blaring, he was petrified that as well as losing his ability to communicate, he might lose the use of his arms and legs—and his dick. Oh fuck. Not my dick. If he hadn’t been strapped down, and Ryker hadn’t been sitting opposite looking tense, he’d have slid his hand south and had a quick squeeze or two, just to check. Flint knew about locked-in syndrome. He’d heard it discussed on the TV. Some French guy had written a book just by blinking one eye. Poor bastard. Christ. Panic kept surging into Flint’s chest, making his heart pound and turning his breathing ragged.
Ryker talked to him in what sounded like his calm, reassuring voice, but not being able to understand was freaking him out. The guy could have been telling him he was going to die for all he knew. The paramedic at his side talked the same crap, took his blood pressure, checked he was still alive, and Flint said nothing. Even if he’d been minded to ignore Ryker’s instruction, spouting gobbledygook only made him feel worse.
He was wheeled into the back entrance of a hospital and Ryker pulled the sheet over his head. I’m not fucking dead. But then he got it and gulped. Neither he nor Ryker wanted anyone to see him like this. When the sheet was pulled down and he was moved onto an examination couch, doctors and nurses talked to him as if he could understand what they were saying. Smiles from pretty faces didn’t reassure. The grave faces of the medics made him breathe faster. His pulse and blood pressure were checked again and again. His entire body inspected. His eyes examined. His reflexes tested. Cool fingers brushed what he guessed were the marks on his back
and butt made by Marina’s whip and he was glad for the first and only time that he couldn’t speak to explain them. Except maybe it was obvious. Shit.
Wires were attached to his chest, blood taken, his skin pricked at various points on his body to see if it hurt. Yes, it fucking did. At least yelping was universal. A young female doctor with curly fair hair indicated that she wanted him to stand then mimed what she wanted him to do. Flint raised and lowered his legs and arms, turned, twisted and gripped her hand with each of his. His reward was a smile that didn’t cheer him up. He was made to stand on one leg then the other, do it with his eyes closed, walk in a line, in a circle, pick up various items, though somehow he didn’t think he’d done any of that quite right even though he was desperate to do everything perfectly.
He couldn’t understand when Dr. Goldilocks gave him verbal instructions. Ryker nodded at him to try to speak, but Flint gave up after a couple of words. Fury burned inside him, occasionally flaring into his face and surging into his fists, which clenched tight enough to turn his knuckles skeletal. He was wheeled by a porter down a corridor, into an elevator, and ended up in a room with what Flint thought was a scanner, a large circular machine with a hole in the middle, like a giant metal donut. More scrambled speech from a technician who mimed holding still by standing stiff, then pointed halfway around his watch with his finger. Yeah, I get it. Hold still for thirty minutes.
Flint took the earplugs offered, pushed them in and felt immediate calm. No more language he couldn’t understand. He lay on his back, closed his eyes, and when he felt the couch move, he tried not to think about being enclosed in a claustrophobically small space, particularly when he had no means of calling for help. The clanging of the machine jarred him into opening his eyes and when he saw the scant inches between him and the top of the tube, he slammed them shut again.
Lying immobile gave him plenty of time to work himself back into a state of acute anxiety. What did they think was wrong with him? How long would he be in the hospital? He worried he had no way of telling them about the coke or the possibly drugged beer. Would testing his blood give them answers? Had anyone else been affected? He wanted all this to go away, to rewind the last twenty-four hours, for his understanding and speech to come back and life to be the way it was.
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