“Sweet Mary and Joseph!” he said when I opened the door. “You look like you’ve been crying.”
“Only tears of frustration,” I replied, ushering him into the flat.
Chris wasted no time popping open the champagne and pouring us both a glass.
“I think you had better tell your Aunty Christine what’s been going on,” he said, draping himself over the sofa like a forties film star. He listened patiently as I told him about my mother’s call, and when I finished he sat bolt upright and raised his glass.
“I propose a toast,” he said. “I propose a toast to pastures new and letting go of the past.”
“That’s two toasts,” I said, chinking my glass against his.
“So it is,” replied Chris, topping both our glasses up and chinking once again.
The champagne didn’t last long, so we moved on to Grey Goose served over chunks of ice chipped from the freezer compartment with a bread knife. Both of us were now sprawled languidly on the floor with the bottle between us.
“So you had better tell me about this new job you have signed up for,” Chris said, almost missing his mouth with his glass.
“By the end of the week,” I said, straightening up, “I will be Lord Shanderson, Third Earl of Beadale’s personal butler.”
“Shanderson?” Chris asked, suddenly sitting up poker straight. “Not Lady Elizabeth’s husband?” he asked.
“The very same. Why, do you know of him?”
“Not exactly.” He smirked. “But Lady Shanderson is one of my regular first-class passengers. She’s quite a handful.”
“If you believe everything you read in the papers,” I said.
“Oh! Sweetie, I could tell you stories about Elizabeth Shanderson that you will NEVER read in the papers.” Indicating that he had no intention of doing anything of the kind (just yet, anyway), he drew a thumb and forefinger across his mouth as if closing an imaginary zip. “But you know me, Anthony, I’d rather die than spill.”
I looked at the clock and was cheered to see that it wasn’t even ten thirty. I was now having fun with my old friend, and my woes seemed to be disappearing just as fast as the vodka. The bottle, which had been a third full when we started, was now completely empty, but I wanted more. I’m not a big drinker, but every now and again I get the bit between my teeth and don’t want to stop until I am properly drunk. And this was one of those nights. I was also starting to feel very, very horny.
“Let’s go out!” I said suddenly, jumping up. Chris held out a hand, which I used to hoist him to his feet with a jolt.
“Maybe just one quick one for the road,” he said with a mischievous grin.
By the time we’d excitedly galloped down five flights of stairs and run into the rain-sodden street, neither of us could be bothered to turn back and grab umbrellas. So whilst Chris huddled in the shelter of my front door I stood in the road wildly waving my arms. As anyone who has ever tried to hail a cab in London in the rain will know, it often feels like the drivers are vetting you before deciding whether or not to stop. A few passing cabs had their yellow lights on, but either I looked more drunk than I actually was or I had become temporarily invisible.
“Fucker!” shouted Chris at every passing cab as he blew cigarette smoke into the cold night air. “Show a bit of leg, babe.”
“You are not helping!” I said. “Really not helping.”
I was about to give up before getting even more soaked when a taxi came around the corner and drew up slowly in front of us. We jumped in without observing the usual protocol of stating our destination through the driver’s window.
“Evening, gents,” said the driver in a thick cockney accent.
“The Coach and Horses on Ledbury Road, please,” I said. The driver clocked me in the mirror and then turned in his seat to speak face-to-face.
“I know it well,” he said with a slight grin.
He was strangely sexy when he smiled. Not my type at all but sort of rugged and handsome, mid forties maybe. He was balding, but what hair he had was gray and closely cropped. His short beard was also liberally speckled with gray, but his craggy features were tanned. It was the eyes that did it though. They were bright and mischievous and the color of Wedgwood china.
“Err, great,” I said, stumbling over my words. “Let’s get going then.”
I smiled weakly at him, but caught myself biting my bottom lip. He winked suggestively before turning his attention back to the road.
The drive to Ledbury Road was a short one, and, although Chris chatted nonstop all the way, I kept one eye on the driver’s mirror and watched as his eyes flitted between the road and me. When we drew up outside the bar Chris did his usual trick of being the first out of the cab so that I was stuck with paying for it.
“I’ll get us a drink in,” Chris said, before squeezing past me and running for the door.
“How much?” I asked the driver though the glass partition.
“Just give us a fiver,” he replied, shooting me that sexy grin again.
“The meter says seven pounds,” I said, handing him a ten-pound note.
“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s good to break a few rules, innit?” he said, handing me back a fiver.
“Cheers then,” I said, pulling my coat around me to disguise the growing bulge in the front of my jeans. I headed toward the bar, but as I squeezed past the two burly bouncers I turned to see the taxi still by the curb with the engine running. The driver smiled before pulling away and disappearing toward the Bayswater Road.
The bar was throbbing as usual and filled with the kind of random mixture of guys that made it my favorite haunt. I hate the kind of places that attract just one kind of guy; bars for bears or bars for gym bunnies, that kind of thing. It just strikes me as terribly restrictive. I mean, how are you supposed to know what kind of mood you are in? I like to think of my taste as very democratic. I surveyed the room for familiar and unfamiliar faces alike before spotting Chris weaving through the crowd, carrying a couple of drinks and bouncing in time to the music.
“Cin, cin!” he said, handing me a large vodka. We chinked glasses before falling into the companionable silence that makes it possible for two friends to cruise a room without looking single or desperate. After ten minutes of being lost in the music and the scent of a hundred horny men, I turned to Chris to ask him if he wanted another drink. But I was too late; he was already locked deep in conversation with a tall black guy who had his enormous hand clamped to Chris’s backside as they chatted.
I watched Chris’s new friend knead his arse like a master baker at work until I felt a firm tap on the shoulder. Assuming it was someone I knew, I turned around smiling broadly, but was greeted instead by the taxi driver holding two pints of lager. He obviously registered my shock at seeing him in this place, so he spoke first.
“I see your mate got lucky.”
“What are you doing here?” I said, accepting the drink he was holding out to me.
“Well, like I said, sometimes it’s good to break a few rules.”
“Lager isn’t usually my drink,” I said, taking big steadying gulps of the cold beer. “But seeing as you offered . . .”
“That’s not all I’m offering,” he said, almost causing me to choke at the forthrightness of his statement.
He was smiling, but the look in his eyes told me he was deadly serious. I stood back to get a better look at him. He was solid like a rugby player with broad shoulders and a surprisingly narrow waist. He was taller than I expected too. In the cab, where I could only see his body from the shoulders up, I’d imagined him to be a little soft around the middle, maybe even with a beer belly. But looking at him now, up close, it was clear he spent his fair share of time in the gym.
“I’m Frank,” he said, holding out a hand the size of a shovel.
“You certainly are,” I said, shaking it firmly. “I’m Anthony.”
He squeezed my hand tightly and used it to pull me close enough to him that our chests were touc
hing and his mouth was close to my ear.
“You look like you need a real man, Anthony,” he growled into my ear. “You know, someone to, err, take control of the situation. If you know what I mean.”
Suddenly the loud dance music pumping from the speakers dwindled to a barely audible hum, and the only sound was that of my own rapid breathing. All witty remarks and smart-arse responses evaded me. I took a deep breath before answering.
“As a matter of fact, Frank, I’m usually in the driving seat if you know what I mean,” I said, trying to sound cool. “And I find there aren’t that many real men around these days.”
“Well, maybe all that is about to change,” he replied, keeping his eyes firmly locked onto mine.
He released my hand, and we hastily downed the remains of our drinks. I halfheartedly signaled to Chris to not only tell him I had gotten lucky but also to see the look on his face when he saw with whom. I needn’t have bothered though as he was busy eating the face off the black guy in a darkened corner, oblivious to everything and everyone in the room. I’d have to share the intimate details of my conquest over a coffee some other time.
I followed Frank down the street until we came to his cab. He unlocked it and climbed in the driver’s seat.
“Get in,” he said urgently, and I obeyed, climbing into the back. He drove, only just this side of the law, directly to where he’d picked us up earlier. His voice came through the taxi’s intercom.
“Where to exactly?” he asked.
“Park anywhere near here,” I said. “We are right outside my place.”
He pulled into a space just yards from my front door and was out of his seat and holding the passenger door open before the engine had died.
As I fumbled with my keys Frank ground himself into me, forcing me against the door. Once inside the communal hallway I quickly led the way, sprinting up the stairs, two at a time, him hot on my heels.
In the flat I reached for the lights, but before I had a chance to hit the switch he was on me. The dark of the flat was punctuated only by a faint yellow glow rising up from the streetlamps below the living room window, and in the half-light we pulled at each other’s clothes until in a matter of seconds he had kicked off his shoes and was naked from the waist up whilst I, somehow, was wearing only my white Calvin Klein Y-fronts. I felt strangely vulnerable, not a sensation I was used to, but it felt deeply arousing. I stood before him instinctively awaiting instructions.
“Get over here,” he said, lowering himself into the overstuffed armchair in the corner of the room.
I moved toward him. With one of his big hands he took me by the arm and bent me over his knee where the rock-hard bulge in his jeans dug into my solar plexus.
“I bet you are a bit of a naughty boy, aren’t you?” he said as his hand circled my cheeks through the thin white fabric.
I squirmed and tried to get myself upright again but then, very suddenly his hand came crashing down on my backside, forcing my whole body into a jolt. I should have seen it coming, but I was wound up into a state where all common sense was gone. Another slap came seconds after the first, and I felt him twitch beneath me.
“You like that, don’t you?” he said.
The truth was I didn’t know what I felt. Part of me wanted to jump up and tell him this wasn’t my kind of thing, but a greater, much more powerful voice in my head was telling me that he was right. I liked it, and I liked it a lot. I had only known the guy for a couple of hours, but there was something about him that had me completely hypnotized. My chest was pressed firmly into his thick muscular thighs, and I could feel my heart pounding, and I’m pretty sure he could too.
“Let’s go to bed,” I said.
“I like a man who knows what he wants,” he said, easing me off his lap and onto the floor.
Standing slowly he flexed his biceps and puffed out his chest, which was covered in a thick layer of dark hair. His hands moved slowly, undoing his belt followed by the buttons of his jeans. I stared, transfixed by this slow motion striptease. The only sound in the room now was my heavy breathing.
Eventually he eased his jeans down and stepped out of them, revealing a pair of tight black designer briefs.
“Nice pants,” I said, reaching up and hooking my thumbs into the waistband and slipping them down in one fluid movement.
“I can tell you’ve done that a few times before,” he said, sending them sailing across the room with one flick of his foot. He was now standing over me completely naked, and I quickly realized he possessed that rare thing that’s utterly impossible to fake—confidence. I stood and pushed him in the direction of the bedroom, and once through the door he allowed himself to fall back onto the bed and I immediately fell on top of him. Between a volley of frantic kisses Frank reached over and located the switch for the bedside lamp. When he flicked it on, the bedroom was flooded with a warm glowing light.
“Let’s leave it on,” he said as he began to kiss my neck. “You are way too good-looking for me not to be able to see you.”
I’m not sure what I expected to happen once we were in bed together (particularly since I could still feel a faint stinging sensation on my arse cheeks), but I wasn’t expecting him to be so incredibly tender. My usual habit of automatically taking charge sexually flew right out of the window along with what few other inhibitions I possess the very minute he laid his huge hands on me. I’d never before been with anyone who made me feel so inclined to surrender to him, and I realized I liked it. A lot.
I have to be honest; I thought he would bolt as soon as he got what he came for. That’s usually the way it works, but he didn’t. All that sex and alcohol must have made me suddenly very tired, and I assumed that as soon as he saw me yawning and my eyes drooping he would head for the door, but he didn’t. Instead he put his arms around me and engulfed my body with his. We must both have drifted off immediately, because the next thing I remember is being woken by the sound of the alarm on my phone. It was 8 a.m.
CHAPTER 5
“Frank, wake up,” I said gently, shaking him by the shoulder. He stirred and moaned, but showed no signs of actually waking. I looked admiringly at his naked body. Last night had been dark and carnal, but there against the whiteness of the sheets I saw him, quite literally, in a new light. I studied him carefully as he slept, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the large, new-looking tribal tattoo that wrapped around the top of his arm and snaked over his shoulder. I’d never really wanted to have one myself, but on a body like Frank’s I found it a real turn-on. He stirred suddenly and rolled onto his other side, revealing another tattoo on his left shoulder that I hadn’t noticed the night before. It was an old-fashioned swallow trailing a banner, and on it were the words:
MANDY & FRANK FOREVER
I was stroking it absentmindedly when Frank opened his eyes and smiled up at me.
“Morning, mate,” he said sleepily.
“Hi, you okay? I mean, do you need to be anywhere? We have slept right through.”
“If you want rid of me, you just have to say,” he said, laughing.
“No, no, not at all,” I said. “It’s just that I thought you might have to get back to somebody or something. I don’t want you to have to answer any awkward questions.”
He laughed lightly and shook his head.
“No worries on that score, mate; young, free, and single as they say.”
“And Mandy won’t be wondering where you are?” I asked.
He looked at me for a second and then let out a booming laugh.
“Ah!” he said, patting the tattoo on his shoulder. “That. Let’s just say that in mine and Mandy’s case, forever meant two miserable years and a very expensive divorce a long, long time ago.”
“Coffee?” I asked breezily, desperate to change the subject.
“Nah, mate—can’t stand the stuff. Bit more of a tea drinker really,” he replied.
I padded into the kitchen and began frantically searching the cupboards for tea. I never dran
k it, but usually kept some for guests.
“Earl Grey aright for you?” I shouted through to the bedroom.
“Er, PG Tips?” he replied. Eventually I found some Fortnum and Mason’s English breakfast tea that I figured was the nearest he was going to get. I fired up the Gaggenau for my coffee and boiled the kettle for tea.
“Nice and milky with four sugars,” he said from the doorway, making me jump.
“Four sugars?” I asked, slightly appalled. “You’ll rot your teeth.”
He had a towel around his waist, but it fell to the floor as soon as he moved across the kitchen. He slipped a broad arm around my waist and pulled me to him, clamping his mouth onto mine. His breath was sweet with the taste of mouthwash, reminding me that I hadn’t yet brushed my own teeth.
“My breath must stink,” I said, placing a hand over my mouth and pushing him away, suddenly embarrassed.
“Nah! You taste just fine to me,” he said, pulling me back.
We stayed locked together kissing passionately until the kettle came to a boil, letting out an ear-piercing scream.
The noise of the kettle, or maybe just the promise of a cup of tea, forced us apart, but not before I had taken in the sight of Frank standing stark naked in my kitchen. For a second I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he leaned casually against the kitchen counter. He made no attempt to cover up, and his sheer lack of self-consciousness sent a torrent of blood rushing to my groin.
“So what’s with all the boxes?” he asked, breaking my filthy train of thought.
“I’m moving,” I replied. In truth I didn’t know what else to say, as I was only just getting my head around what I was about to do.
“Not too far I hope,” he said, finally retrieving the towel and casually knotting it around his waist.
“Funny you should say that. I’m leaving London for a while. It’s a work thing.”
“What do you do for a living then?” he asked. For some reason the question completely wrong-footed me. Exactly what was it I was going to be doing? It was easy when I was at the Landseer; I would just answer, “I work in a hotel.” Nobody ever asked any more questions beyond “Which one?” But now I wasn’t sure I could be bothered explaining that I was about to become a manservant.
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