GirlMostLikelyTo

by Barbara Elsborg

  “There you are.” A hand tapped his shoulder and he turned to find his French leech.

  Monique put her glass of champagne on the table and dragged a stool over, forcing it into the space between him and Adam. Tomas didn’t miss the glare Sylvie aimed at Monique, nor the roll of the eyes from Adam. Wren made no attempt to disguise her amusement and his interest piqued again. There was little Tomas loved more than a challenging woman. Except perhaps a challenging guy. Not that he could take a relationship anywhere at this point in his life. The worse thing he could do right now was get attached to anyone, but if he needed info on Ezispeke, he’d rather squeeze it out of Wren than Sylvie.

  “What you study?” he asked Adam.

  “Italian.”

  Wren stiffened. Ah, she wasn’t aware of that? If the two hadn’t met each other in the class she’d just taught, when had they met?

  “What about you?” Adam asked.

  “English conversation and Italian,” Tomas said. Well, he would be studying Italian once he’d registered for Wren’s class.

  Sylvie put her hand on his arm. “Why don’t you try Japanese? I can squeeze you in. It’d be a pleasure.” She all but fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I’m planning a really interesting field trip. Somewhere we can take our clothes off and have fun.”

  Tomas gaped at her.

  Wren sighed. “Swimming pool again?”

  “The changing room at Harvey Nicks,” Sylvie said.

  Monique all but moaned. “Very beautiful store.”

  Sylvie grinned. “I figure I can talk Olive into it if I include an expensive meal in their café.”

  “Probably.” Wren pushed her empty plate away.

  “I like shopping,” Monique said.

  Wren turned to her. “We can talk about that tomorrow. What you like to buy and where you prefer to shop. Maybe we can go for a walk around Leeds next week.”

  Monique clapped her hands together.

  “Fancy learning Japanese?” Sylvie pleaded. “Any of you?”

  “No thanks. I’ll stick to Italian.” Adam glanced at Wren.

  Tomas shook his head. “I need English for work. Italian for love. I don’t need Japanese.” He took a drink of beer, remembering a split second too late that it was Adam’s. Christ. He’d never done that before. It was the sort of thing that got you a black eye in Yorkshire. He heard Adam exhale.

  “French is the perfect language for love,” Monique said. “Je t’aime.” She stared straight at Tomas. That was subtle. He thought about telling her to fuck off in Croatian but decided not to risk it in case she assumed it was a compliment.

  “Amin mela Ile,” Wren said.

  Adam laughed. “Elvish?”

  She blushed. “I didn’t think anyone would recognize that.”

  Tomas hadn’t. Elvish? What the fuck?

  “I’m not liking class this afternoon,” Monique said. “English grammar. Ugh. Boring. Conversation is the best way to learn.”

  Wren put her empty glass back on the table. “If you want to really understand a language, you need to study the grammar too.”

  “But the priority should always be on communication.” Adam stared straight at him. “If you can’t make yourself clear, it’s easy for misunderstandings to arise.”

  Tomas deserved that. Although to be fair, he’d communicated his desires clearly enough, he’d just changed his mind. Wouldn’t take much to change it back. Adam looked like he’d walked off the page of a magazine advertising some preppy clothing company with his pressed pants, and white shirt under a cashmere sweater, his hair perfectly cut. A gray coat was slung over the chair back, a leather Tumi bag at his side.

  He found his mind accelerating into a new fantasy. Two dark-feathered birds of prey and a cute brown-eyed Wren sandwiched between them. Tomas had been in a threesome once, a long while ago, and not for very long because it went bad. Not easy to balance everyone’s needs. Jealousy flared and when things became heated, he’d stepped away before they boiled over. He was in the habit of stepping away. He’d perfected the art of the one-night stand to the point he was bored with it.

  Sylvie tapped his arm. “How long have you been learning English?”

  “One day. My first lesson this morning.” He grinned at Wren. “I learn a unicyclist with an ugly nose can carry a horn and an umbrella.”

  Wren roared with laughter and then clamped her hand over her mouth as she glanced around. Probably checking Benoit wasn’t nearby. Adam glared as if annoyed Tomas had amused her. Shit. Competing already?

  “Indefinite articles?” Adam asked.

  Wren nodded. “How did you guess?”

  Because he’s a fucking smart-arse. “I also learn how to talk about weather,” Tomas said. “Only need two words. Gray and miserable.”

  Wren picked up her bag. “You can joke in English. That shows quite a high level of competence.”

  Damn. Now he was being a smart-arse.

  She stood up. “I have to go back. Thanks for lunch, Adam.”

  He stood too. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Tomas pushed to his feet. “I come as well.”

  Monique started to get up but Sylvie caught her arm. “Can I buy you another drink?”

  Monique sat again.

  “Have you thought of learning Japanese?” Sylvie asked.

  Tomas caught Wren’s flash of thanks to Sylvie and then followed Adam and Wren out of the pub.

  “You know each other?” Tomas asked as they headed toward the language school.

  Wren walked between them, her hands in her pockets.

  “We met in Italy,” she said.

  “In Venice,” Adam added. “Very romantic city.”

  Damn if that didn’t annoy him. “Has problem with streets flooding,” he muttered.

  Wren chuckled. “Have you ever been?”

  “Once.” He’d hated it.

  As they drew closer to Ezispeke’s admin office, Tomas realized they were all heading for the same place. Part of him wanted to wait and register later for Wren’s Italian class, the other part of him was keen to know what Adam wanted. Plus if Wren and Adam created enough of a distraction in there, he might be able to pick up information for Marco. It was always a balance working for him, a line Tomas had to think twice about crossing, especially when what he did or said might be of too much benefit to the bastard.

  Jolene, Olive’s secretary, looked up when the three of them walked in. She’d been happy enough to take Tomas’ cash this morning, no receipt offered. She smiled from him to Adam but her expression soured when her gaze settled on Wren. Tomas bristled. What had she done to deserve that?

  “Hi Jolene, I’ve come—” Wren began.

  “Not now,” she snapped. “Come back later.” She beamed at Adam. “How’s everything going?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  Wren slammed the door and the glass rattled. Tomas swallowed his snigger.

  “How can I help you?” Jolene glanced from one to the other.

  He inclined his head toward Adam. “You first.”

  “After you.”

  “I can wait.”

  Adam’s jaw tightened. “So can I.”

  Fuck, we’ll be here all day. “I want to change course,” Tomas said.

  “Already? If you have a complaint about Wren—”

  “No, her class good. I want to learn Italian.” He stared at Adam as he said it and saw his eyes widen.

  Jolene clicked on her keyboard and checked the screen. “Instead of…Russian?”

  “Yes. I change mind. Wren good teacher. I learn lot from her. I like her. I want her.”

  Tomas had chosen his words deliberately and Adam tensed. Why the hell do I like needling him?

  “There’ll be a twenty pound administration charge,” Jolene said.

  Fucking hell. For what? But Tomas took out his wallet and tossed a note onto the table. It wasn’t his money.

  Jolene slipped it into a cash box without offering a receipt and turned t
o her monitor. “Okay. I’ll add your name to her list.”

  “Mine too,” Adam said and somehow Tomas wasn’t surprised.

  Adam handed over the money and Jolene didn’t offer him a receipt either. Not hard to conclude the forty pounds wasn’t going through the books, but why would Marco be interested in that? Was he thinking of using the school in some way?

  “Take me out of the Russian class.” Adam glanced at Tomas.

  Tomas started. “You were going to learn Russian like me?” Un-fucking-believable.

  Adam shrugged.

  Jolene tapped at her keyboard. “Fine. Let me give you new timetables.”

  The printer by her side whirred into action.

  “You have list of all classes and teachers?” Tomas asked.

  Jolene handed him a leaflet. “If you want to sign up for something else, you need to be quick or you’ll miss the first session.”

  “Some too many people to take more?” he asked.

  She frowned. No wonder. He hardly understood that himself.

  He tried again and offered her the leaflet. “Mark which classes full.”

  She shook her head. “They’re never full. We can always fit another in.” She handed over the timetables.

  Once they were out of the office, Adam confronted him. “Have you been following me?”

  “What?” It hadn’t occurred to him Adam might think that.

  Adam raised his eyebrows. “You made your feelings clear yesterday.”

  Not exactly. “That was yesterday. Maybe I feel different today.” Nope, he felt the same. I want him. “I not follow you.”

  Adam stared at him. “Do you believe in fate?”

  He faltered. The answer was no, but what was the alternative? That Adam wasn’t who he appeared to be? Tomas sure as hell wasn’t.

  Adam didn’t believe in fate, God or guardian angels. He had no explanation for how he’d managed to bump into Wren again except for pure, dumb luck. He’d never mentioned that night in Venice to anyone. It had been a flawed gem hidden in his heart. A few hours of pure excitement that ended too soon. But it didn’t matter how they’d met again, they just had and he knew even after all these years, there was something unfinished between them.

  And was it dumb luck he’d also found a guy who made his heart race? Or had Ally made that luck for him by choosing an apartment with temptation next door? Even if she had, that Tomas also wanted Wren was a bonus. Possibly. Or a disaster. It all depended on whether the guy could share and whether Wren wanted to be shared, setting aside the issue of whether he could share. It wasn’t in Adam’s nature. A spoiled only child, he’d never had to let anyone else touch his toys. Ruined by parents and nannies, he’d grown up selfishly expecting to always get his own way. Until Ally and Caspar had taught him different.

  “Yesterday…” Tomas’ voice trailed off.

  Tomas’ seemingly unconscious action of dragging his fingers down his cheek to rub his jaw made Adam’s stomach clench, remembering those fingers touching him. Living next to this guy for three weeks would drive him insane whether they had sex or not. Adam had been magnetically attracted to Caspar, but knowing his PA didn’t swing that way had tempered his libido to a manageable level. Tomas might have changed his mind yesterday but that kiss that been real. Tomas had wanted him. He still wanted Tomas. He also wanted to teach him a lesson. At the moment, that need was stronger.

  He nodded toward the washrooms and watched Tomas swallow hard. Adam let him go in first, scanned to make sure it was empty then bulldozed him into the end stall. He locked it and hung his computer bag on the hook.

  “It wasn’t that—” Tomas said.

  Adam shut him up with a bruising kiss and slammed his long body against Tomas’, pushing him against the wall as he thrust his tongue into his mouth. This was supposed to be more about getting his own back than pleasure, but at the taste of beer on Tomas’ lips, his fierce determination to get even turned to slush. Shit, shit, shit.

  Tomas groaned and snaked his hands under Adam’s coat around his back, pressing his fingers into his spine. Lust pooled in his gut and as their hips ground together, he clung to one last thread of awareness that he needed to listen for interruptions. He couldn’t risk anyone hearing them, finding them, seeing them. Adult or teenager. But it was hard to think when electricity zapped from head to toe like forked lightning, when his cock felt swollen enough to burst, when the need to come built like a geyser inside him.

  They kissed, tongues sliding together as they ate at each other.

  Enough, he told himself. He’d made his point. Yet he tugged Tomas’ shirt from his pants, slid a hand over rock-hard abs up to his nipple and twisted hard. Tomas’ knees sagged and his hands fell to settle on Adam’s butt.

  Tongues twisted, teased and mated as hands squeezed and hips rutted. They panted into each other’s mouths while Adam’s heart rate raced off the scale. More, shouted his cock. But when Tomas yanked at Adam’s zipper, he grabbed his wrists to stop him. It wouldn’t take much for Adam to come and he wasn’t going to let that happen. He yanked Tomas’ hands over his head, securing them against the wall in the way Tomas had held him yesterday.

  Tomas struggled, but halfheartedly. Adam wasn’t sure whether he—they froze at the sound of a door opening and pulled back to stare into each other’s eyes. A rasp of a zipper followed by the splash of piss hitting a urinal. It went on and on. And on. Adam raised his eyebrows and Tomas’ mouth quirked in a grin. They were both at the point of laughter when there was a long sigh from the other side of the door and the sound of the zipper going back up. The main door opened and closed again and they breathed out.

  “Didn’t wash hands,” Tomas whispered and Adam sniggered.

  He kept one hand around Tomas’ wrists and dropped the other to the guy’s jeans to push open the button. A tug lowered the zipper and Tomas hissed as his cock found its own way through his boxers into Adam’s hand.

  Adam’s fingers shook. “Don’t move,” he whispered.

  Tomas nodded and Adam rewarded him with a kiss, a light brush of his lips, a slide of his tongue along the seam of a hot mouth while he unfastened the buttons of the guy’s shirt and spread it open.

  Far enough, said his brain, but most of Adam wasn’t listening. He dropped his head and licked the tight bud of Tomas’ nipple, circling it, fluttering his tongue over it until the man’s breathing grew ragged. He tugged at the waist of Tomas’ jeans and yanked them and his boxers down until they bunched on the ground.

  His cock jutted out, the uncut head shiny with pre-cum. He’s shaved. Christ. He was big as well. Adam wrapped his hand around him and squeezed the long, thick cock, suddenly desperate to suck him off, taste him, eat him, swallow his cum. Tomas’ fingers threaded his hair, then cupped his neck and they were kissing again.

  Think, think, think. Before I lose control of my hips, my cock, my mouth.

  Someone else came into the bathroom and they broke apart once more. That might just have saved me. The same sequence of sounds, but this time the tap was turned on. When the door closed, he trailed a finger up the length of Tomas’ cock and swept it over the head to scoop up a silky pearl of moisture. His own cock pressed harder against his zipper. He lifted his finger to his mouth and licked it. Tomas didn’t blink but need was written all over his face.

  Adam wavered. He thought about staying to finish this but shook off temptation. He wouldn’t change his mind. He slid his hand to the latch on the door behind him, flipped it open and grabbed his bag.

  “Now we’re even,” he said with a grin and slipped out.

  “Oh fuck.” Tomas let out a long groan.

  The stall door slammed closed, the lock engaged, but Adam heard the faint sound of a chuckle and the whisper of, “Game on.”

  He smiled, then gave himself a mental kick because he suspected Tomas was going to stay and sort out the problem he’d given him while he had to try to disguise the bulge at the front of his pants. He consulted the timetable he’d been
given and after fastening the buttons of his coat, headed for Wren’s classroom.

  Chapter Seven

  Wren tried to keep her attention fixed on the window at the back of the classroom but it was as if she had a couple of elephants in there. Though chest-thumping gorillas might be a better fit. Adam and Tomas sat on either side of the room, as far from each other as they could get, and despite her best efforts, her gaze kept sliding from one to the other.

  Adam still had his coat on and fastened as if he intended to make a quick getaway, and Tomas had rushed in late looking hot and flustered, and he still looked flustered. Every few seconds he glared at Adam, who answered with a smirk. What’s that about? She dragged her attention to the center of the room and spoke in Italian to her twelve students.

  This Italian for Travelers class was a continuation, the third of four three-week terms. She’d taken over for a colleague on maternity leave. Wren thought it was crazy to call something a term that lasted only a few weeks, and even more crazy that not all the terms coincided, but Olive had her own particular way of running things and it was wiser to toe the line than object. Besides, Wren had been happy to grab the class, thrilled to have adults to teach, though that was before the African wildlife had joined the group.

  She made everyone chuckle with her collection of odd but true demands made by hotel guests. Now the students knew she could make things fun, the lesson would flow. One by one, she asked them to make up a request to do with a stay in a hotel and eventually only Tomas and Adam remained.

  Tomas leaned back and crossed his hands behind his head. “Sembra che vi sia un corpo morto nel mio letto. Si prega di cambiare le lenzuola.” His Italian was perfect.

  Everyone but Adam sniggered. Tomas had said—there appears to be a dead body in my bed. Please change the sheets.

  “Molto bene,” Wren said.

  After Adam had stuttered and stumbled his way through, “Acqua minerale naturale con latte, per favore,” she realized why he’d not laughed. He hadn’t understood what Tomas said.