Caught!

by JL Merrow

  “I was thinking I’d drop you off first, Rob, that all right?” Sean said. “I’d better give Debs a hand with these two.”

  “Oh, of course,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment.

  “Then I thought maybe I could come round to yours after they’re in bed?”

  This time, it was my elation I struggled to tone down to reasonable levels. “Yes, why not?”

  “Are you gonna read us a story first?” Harry butted in.

  “Maybe,” Sean said over his shoulder as he pulled up outside the Old Hatter’s Cottage. “If you’re good.”

  “Maybe your mum would like to read you a story tonight?” I suggested hopefully, only to get shot down in flames more scorching than tonight’s bonfire.

  “Nah, Mum’s bo-ring at stories.”

  “She doesn’t do the voices. Uncle Sean, will you do the voices?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do the voices. If you’re good.” Sean turned back to me. “You okay, there? I won’t be more than an hour. Promise.”

  “That’s fine, really.” I smiled. “Boys, you’ll be good for your uncle, won’t you?”

  Their halfhearted chant of assent as I got out of the car sounded more like “Yes, Miss Anemone” than anything else, but I was sure the intent was there. My heart was light as I opened up my front door. Sean had invited me on a family outing, and it had been a success. He’d held me in public. Had kissed me too.

  All right, it had been dark and nobody else had noticed, but if I were brutally honest with myself, that was probably the only reason I was now congratulating myself over the night’s events rather than having some kind of anxiety attack. And he was coming back in under an hour. Which meant there would be more holding. More kissing. There would probably be other activities as well. I swallowed. Bedroom activities.

  Oh God. I suddenly remembered the current state of my bedroom. I’d been a little lax about tidying up since getting back to work. My bedroom, not to put too fine a point about it, presently bore a striking resemblance to the epicentre of a very small and localised, but unexpectedly vicious, natural disaster.

  I sat on the stairs to take off my wellies, which gave me an excellent view of the large clods of mud I’d managed to traipse into the house. Damn it. Moreover, my wellies, which had seemed such an excellent fit in the shop, were now clinging to my legs like a pair of lovesick terriers. By the time I’d struggled out of the wretched things, I had mud on my sweater, my trousers and all over my hands. And seven of my not-more-than-sixty minutes had gone.

  I spent the next thirty-nine minutes frantically scrubbing at mud deposits, changing my clothes, washing my hands and, ye gods, face—at least that one had been down to ketchup, not mud—and shovelling armfuls of dirty clothes from the bedroom floor into the washing machine. I hoped I would remember to take them all out and sort them into lights and darks before I actually tried to wash them.

  Then I stood in the living room, scanning for anything out of place and/or potentially embarrassing, like the Strictly Come Dancersize workout DVD Rose had brought around as a joke, and my Dirty Dancing Collector’s Edition, her discovery of which had prompted said hilarious jape. No, they were both safely out of sight. I was pretty sure Sean would forgive me the haphazard mountain of journals, paperbacks and village magazines, so that could stay. Right. Time to relax.

  I collapsed onto the sofa but found it impossible to get comfortable. Was I reading too much into Sean coming round here again? After all, it was only 9:27. I’d never been the subject of one of those alarming modern trends, the booty call, but I’d always been under the impression they generally, like the witching hour and things turning into pumpkins, took place at or after midnight. Perhaps we’d just chat. Have a cup of tea, perhaps, and make plans for a proper date—after all, this evening could hardly be counted as a date, could it? Seeing as it had involved a brace of seven-year-olds. Yes, that was it. Sean just wanted to talk. Of course he did.

  Then again… Oh God. I was out of condoms. I’d meant to buy some more, but I’d been into the village chemist’s shop three times this week, and each time there had been either a child or a parent in there who knew me. I knew I should have popped into Boots the Chemist when I went into Bishop’s Langley to buy my wellies. How could I possibly have forgotten? Wellingtons, Boots—it was practically a mnemonic all by itself. God, I was an idiot.

  I pulled a cushion over my face in despair. Then I yelped as there was a knock on the door.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I leapt up from the sofa, took a deep breath to try to calm my pulse rate, ran to the door and opened it.

  Sean was there, the light from the streetlamp turning his hair into a wrought copper halo. He smiled. “All right?”

  “Er, yes. Fine. Thank you.”

  “Sure? You look a bit red in the face.”

  “I, um, really?” I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  Sean’s green eyes crinkled. “Maybe it’s just the light. Colours get a bit off.” Then he looked down at where his feet were scuffing against the cracks in the concrete. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  I stared at him. “Bad? No, of course not. It was fun.”

  “Yeah? That’s great.” His face lit up.

  Had he thought I’d hate every minute? If so, why invite me? He didn’t have to follow his sister’s suggestion. Unless it was some kind of test… I was not going to ask him, I decided. “Come in, anyway. I don’t know why I’m keeping you out here on the doorstep.”

  “Yeah, I never had you down as an exhibitionist.”

  A fluttering started in my stomach at the suggestion in his smile—not to mention his words. Did that mean this was a booty call? “C-come in,” I said again, this time managing to remember to move aside and let him actually do so.

  The fluttering had moved to my throat by the time I’d closed the door behind him. “Did the twins enjoy their story?” I asked, then could have kicked myself for changing if not the subject, then at the very least the subtext.

  “Oh—yeah. Loved it. But you know, I was hoping we could think about more grown-up stuff now.” Strong arms slipped loosely around my waist.

  “I haven’t got any condoms!” I blurted out. Mortified, I clapped a hand over my mouth. I could almost feel the breeze of the stable door slamming shut as the horse flicked its tail in contempt and cantered merrily down the street.

  Sean was laughing at me. “Okay, unexpected but to the point. I like that in a bloke.”

  Oh God. “I mean, I thought… Just in case we… Not that I was making any presumptions, that would be, um, presumptuous. And I wouldn’t want to, well, presume…”

  A rough-skinned hand stroked my face. It was blessedly cool against my heated skin. “Got it. No presuming. Wouldn’t dream of it. You know. Presuming you’d presumed.”

  “You must think I’m utterly ridiculous.”

  He laughed again. “Well, I wouldn’t say utterly.” It had a glottal stop when he said it. U’erly. It was grounding, somehow, as if his very down-to-earthiness could tether me, keep me from flying away unchecked in a puff of embarrassment. “I wouldn’t say ridiculous either,” he added in a lower tone. Somehow we’d become pressed together from chest to hip, and I could feel the rising heat of him through my clothes.

  It wasn’t the only thing that was rising. For some reason, I seemed to be finding it harder to breathe, and that was before Sean leaned forward and seized my mouth in a kiss. He tasted of hot chocolate and cinnamon, and his lips were soft, a contrast to the stubble that rasped against my chin. His tongue teased my lips, then slipped between them, shorting out my brain entirely. My hand tightened on what it was holding, which turned out to be Sean’s arse—well done, that hand—and a hard bulge rubbed deliciously against its twin in my trousers.

  A low sound rumbled in my mouth. For a moment, I thought I’d made it, but then I reali
sed it had been Sean. He broke the kiss to lean his forehead against mine. “You want to take this upstairs? Least I’m assuming that’s where you keep your bed.”

  “Oh God, yes,” I breathed, not entirely sure what I was answering. “Stairs, yes. Bed. Um.”

  “This way?”

  Thank God one of us remembered which way was up. “This way,” I echoed. Then I realised I hadn’t actually moved yet and pulled Sean towards the stairs.

  “Hang on a mo,” he said, his words a cold shower to my libido. Wait? Why? Was he having second thoughts? Was he… Oh. I watched, weak-kneed with relief, as he merely kicked off his trainers. “Right, then,” he said, his wicked eyes dark with merriment. “Lay on.”

  And damned be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!” God, I’d never have enough of this man. Did he know what he did to me? I clutched his hand tightly and stumbled up the stairs.

  There were three bedrooms in the Old Hatter’s Cottage. I was rather proud of myself for remembering which was the right one on the first attempt. Not that the others wouldn’t have been more or less adequate, from the point of view of being furnished with beds, but I had a feeling Sean might prefer one with actual sheets as opposed to just a bare mattress. Unless, of course, he had a hankering to reenact some low-budget porn video, which arresting image wasn’t exactly helping my mental clarity right now… Focus, I told myself firmly.

  “This is it.” I surreptitiously kicked a rogue sock under the bed. I was fairly sure Sean hadn’t noticed it.

  “Nice,” Sean said without so much as a cursory glance around the room. This was probably just as well as I’d just spotted the sock’s forlorn mate. His intent gaze in my direction—Sean’s, that was, not the sock’s; that would have been silly—was having a noticeable effect on my body temperature, and I put my hand up to undo my bow tie.

  I was startled when Sean grabbed my wrist. “Oi. None of that. Have you got any idea how long I’ve been waiting to do this?”

  “This?” I repeated intelligently, only to understand when he gently drew on the free ends of my tie, sliding the silk almost noiselessly out of its knot.

  Sean’s eyes glittered as he laid the two ends flat upon my shirt front. “Black tie,” he murmured, his voice husky. “I don’t care where we go, but I’m gonna take you somewhere you get to wear black tie and a dinner jacket. And then I’m going to take it off you. Piece by piece. You got one of those shirts with the studs instead of buttons?”

  I nodded, my throat dry. “And a detachable collar. Wouldn’t wear any other kind. Not to a formal event.”

  Sean closed his eyes briefly. “Bloody hell.” He put his hands under my jacket, I assumed so he could ease it off my shoulders, but instead of completing the motion he froze.

  “Sean?” I asked a little breathily.

  Two strong thumbs thrust themselves under the straps of my braces. “You been wearing these all night?”

  I nodded. “All night.”

  “Under your sweater?”

  I nodded again. I’d removed the sweater before his return, of course, as it had become a little soiled in the welly debacle. And then donned my jacket because, well, sometimes a gentleman doesn’t like to give away all his secrets at once.

  “Fucking hell…” Sean took a deep breath, seeming to compose himself. “Right. That jacket’s coming off right now.”

  I was half expecting him to tear it off and damn the tailoring, but in fact he slid it from my shoulders with infinite gentleness and laid it carefully on the end of the bed before returning to me.

  I took my chance to seize the initiative and tugged at the hem of his sweater. “Off,” I said in eloquent clarification.

  Sean went one better and pulled off his T-shirt as well. His bare chest was unexpectedly muscular, given his leanness, and lightly furred with copper. I ran a hand up and down it, my fingers catching in the wiry hair. His nipples hardened at my touch. I wanted to bite them, taste them, suck them into points. I wondered what Sean would think of me if I told him so.

  “Like what you see?” he asked with a grin. “My turn now.”

  I drew in a sharp breath as he started to undo the buttons of my shirt, starting at the collar. Would he like what he saw? I’d always been rather lacking in the chest hair department, and while it could be argued that there wasn’t an ounce of fat on me under my clothes, it could also be argued, and with at least equal justification, that there weren’t all that many ounces of muscle on me either. But then, if he liked girls too, hairlessness and lack of a body-builder’s physique shouldn’t be a turn-off—or was it only appropriate when accompanied by breasts?

  I realised Sean’s hands had stilled, and he was looking at me in fond amusement. “Oi. I can hear the cogs turning. Stop thinking so hard, yeah?”

  “Easy for you to say,” I muttered, and startled as he laughed.

  “Did you just insult my intellect?”

  I thought back in alarm. “Um. Possibly? Sorry. Carry on.”

  Sean’s fingers tickled my stomach as he undid my trouser placket. I swallowed—but all he did was pull out my now open shirt to let it hang loose, confined only by my braces. It felt as if those twin lengths of elastic were all that was holding me together. “That’s a good look on you,” he murmured.

  “Really?” My voice was shaky. “I think Mother would be horrified if she saw me like this.”

  I let out an undignified yelp as Sean’s hand wrapped around the tent in my boxer shorts, which was poking rather insistently out of the front of my trousers. “Think we’ll leave your mum out of this, if that’s all right, yeah?”

  “Probably for the best,” I agreed breathlessly—and then he knocked the wind right out of me by shoving me back onto the bed with both hands.

  “Whoops! Sorry about that.” Sean’s expression held not a shred of remorse. “Sudden attack of the klutzes.”

  I pushed myself up on my elbows and mock-glared at him. “Don’t think I don’t know you meant to do tha…aaaa…oh dear Lord,” I finished, as Sean, who’d dropped to his knees while I spoke, freed my achingly hard cock from the confines of my boxers and wrapped his mouth around it. “Oh God, don’t stop.”

  Sean immediately raised his head. Bastard. My cock twitched as he licked his lips. It quite understandably wanted to be back on the receiving end of those oral attentions. “Pardon?” he asked, his eyes wide and anything but innocent.

  “You absolute—” I broke off with an undignified noise as he fondled my balls, all without changing his expression.

  “Did you want something here?” He let go and rocked back on his heels between my legs, now not touching me at all. The air was chill on my poor abandoned cock.

  “You utter, utter bastard… Come back and finish what you started.”

  Sean was openly laughing at me now. “Sorry, feeling a bit challenged in the intellect department. You’re going to have to remind me what that was.”

  I glared at him. “You know very well…”

  “Mind’s a complete blank.”

  “Oh, for… Suck it.” I was getting desperate.

  He frowned in a parody of confusion. “Suck what?”

  “My cock, you absolute bastard. Please.”

  Sean was still laughing as he bent his head to his task, and the vibrations sent tingles down through my balls and back up my spine. Oh God. Had anything ever, ever felt as good as his mouth on me felt right then? Helpless on the bed, trapped by his ministrations, all I could do was feel the warmth of his mouth surrounding me and the rasp of his tongue on my most sensitive area. He varied his attentions, now sucking hard as if he wanted to swallow me down entirely, now pulling back to repeat the torture of his tongue.

  It was sheer, unadulterated ecstasy. The blue touch paper had been lit, and while I did my best to warn Sean to stand well clear, eloquence seemed to be in short supply right now. “N…stop�
�going to… Oh. Oh God. Oh Lord…” Sean was still fanning the flames as the explosion hit. I went off like a rocket, soaring high into the moonlit sky. What little power of speech I had left utterly deserted me as I took in the heady sight of Sean swallowing as I spent in his mouth, his gaze all the while fixed firmly on mine.

  Then my elbows gave way and I collapsed on the bed, my chest heaving as if I’d run all the way to London and back. Warmth flooded me like a shot of brandy to the heart, and I felt as heavy as lead and lighter than air at one and the same time. Sean rose from his knees to appear above me, his expression smug as he wiped his mouth with one strong forearm. “Sorry, couldn’t quite work out what you were trying to tell me there, so I had to wing it a bit.”

  I reached up spaghetti arms to pull him in for a kiss. The taste was, as expected, highly salty, and his mouth seemed softer now. I found it curiously difficult to stop kissing him, but duty called. “Mmm. You winged it very nicely. And if you’ll just give me a moment until I can actually feel my legs again, I’ll be happy to return the favour.”

  “Oops.”

  “Oops?”

  “Bit late for that. And just to warn you, you might want to sponge those trousers off before you send ’em to the dry cleaners.”

  Oh. “You, ah…?”

  “Jizzed all over ’em. Sorry,” he added with a wholly unrepentant smile. Parts of me I’d thought utterly sated twitched at the thought of his impressive multitasking skills. Also, it had to be said, at the image of the debauched state of my trousers.

  Then Sean shivered. It was getting a little chilly.

  “We should get under the duvet. Um. Unless you have to get back?”

  “Nope. Not going anywhere tonight,” he assured me with a yawn. “We probably ought to lose a few more clothes first, though.” He pushed off his jeans, which landed in a messy heap on the floor, and I began the somewhat fiddlier task of disengaging myself from braces, shirt, trousers (slightly foxed), underwear and socks. After carefully considering the options and deciding I greatly preferred the ones that didn’t involve moving from the bed, I gave my trousers a cursory wipe-down with my boxers and decided to worry about them in the morning.