The Divorce (Starting Over Book 1), page 3
Time to see if a year out of the game had changed anything.
It was early, so he took his time. Home for a shower and a change of clothes, then out again, keys and wallet in his jacket and condoms in his jeans. Belle Isle was not exactly a salubrious part of Leeds—in fact, Aled would say it was a shithole, to the point that he took the bus, rather than risk his car on some scabby street corner there. It was exactly where he expected some sex maniac from Grindr to live, truth be told. Perhaps angel23 was even a professional whore, but Aled would be damned if he was going to pay for this. He wasn’t that desperate.
The shop itself was actually quite nice and Aled parked himself in a chair by the window that stared down the main road, watching buses trundle past and a couple of blokes dealing drugs out of a car to passers-by, scarpering when a siren wailed somewhere in the estate behind them. Aled watched it all dispassionately and waited.
He knew he was being a bit harsh. Melissa had been from Eastmoor, the dodgiest part of Wakefield, and her family had been lovely. If Daz rated angel23 so highly, he was probably nice enough. And Aled had been a student in Leeds. He’d lived in a flat that had been burgled eight times in one year and yet all his neighbours had been friendly little old people who used to call him and Melissa sweet. Two or three of them had come to the wedding, actually.
But still, he’d not go back. He didn’t live in the nicest estate now, but at least he could park his car on the drive at night and still have four tyres when he came back out in the morning. He could leave his kitchen window open and not come downstairs to find a smackhead in his hall. He’d never been burgled there. Here, it was all too likely to happen.
So what was he doing, watching Belle Isle for some guy who wouldn’t look like his picture and was offering to beg to suck Aled’s cock?
Well, that was it right there.
He’d offered to beg.
Aled was no formal dominant, no tried-and-tested member of some community or club, but he was dominant. He had fantasies. He got off to violent porn—he got off to his partner begging him for what they wanted or begging him to stop doing what he wanted. It caused him issues, sometimes—a lot of them, actually, because Aled wasn’t exactly comfortable with the fact that sex was a lot hotter if he was threatening his partner throughout—but it was the way he seemed to be wired. Melissa had been wired the other way and that had worked beautifully.
And angel23 saying he’d beg…fuck, it had pushed Aled’s buttons, whether he meant to do it or not.
Maybe this could be the breath of fresh air that Aled needed. Maybe he’d have a bit of fun, vent a little, and it would brush the cobwebs away enough to go after Melissa and try to work things out properly. Or it would wake up his latent sex drive enough that he had no option but to seek people like angel23 out and get back into the field in some way. With or without Melissa.
Either way, it sounded like moving on, right?
Aled’s phone buzzed and he opened the new message from angel23 that simply said, On my way.
Waiting, he sent back. Want anything?
angel23: Dick would be nice.
gingerbiscuit: From the shop!
angel23: Do the staff have dick?
Aled glanced.
gingerbiscuit: No, all women.
angel23: Never mind. Latte if you’re offering though, please :)
Aled got up and fetched the requested latte. It had started to rain outside, so cold and thick that it would be slush if the temperature dropped any further. He kept glancing back to see the street as he was served. There was no sign by the time he returned to the table, and no further messages, so he sat back and watched with an eagle eye. angel23 probably looked nothing like his picture and yet Aled watched anyway. Maybe he’d be obvious—Aled had never met a trans man before—or maybe he’d be—
Aled’s jaw sagged.
Just. Like. His. Picture.
A man walked out of the estate on the other side of the road. His hair was shockingly dark, so black it seemed to absorb the colour all around him. His skin, by contrast, was equally shockingly white, almost porcelain, and even at this distance, the dark spray of stubble across his jaw and neck was crystal clear. He wasn’t tall, but he had long, confident strides. He wasn’t wearing anything especially fashionable or eye-catching, but people were turning to look at him. At his face, Aled was sure. At his perfect, gorgeous, beautiful face.
He made a beeline for the coffee shop and Aled swallowed. angel23 matched his picture perfectly. Flushed mouth, dark hair, dark eyes, as he pushed into the shop and his gaze flicked briefly around before landing on Aled.
He smiled.
Aled’s chest caught at the slow, wide smile that bloomed and creased that paper-white skin. The creases put ten years on him, so he looked thirty instead of twenty, but when it faded, the years vanished again like a mirage. Aled gestured at the latte, feeling oddly numb as the stranger approached. He couldn’t quite breathe.
Fuck, he was beautiful.
And fuck, did Aled want him.
“Aled?”
“Guilty.”
A hand was stuck out. Long fingers. White as his face. Smooth, when Aled shook it, but for rough bumps on the palm where his knuckles lurked under the skin.
“Gabriel.”
“Nice to meet you,” Aled said and flicked his gaze down to the latte. “So—how fast can you drink that?”
Gabriel laughed. His voice was mid-range, but he had a high laugh. Almost musical. He sank down into the chair opposite and a foot ended up between Aled’s under the table.
“Keen, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, well, I was expecting at least a bit of exaggeration when it came to your photo,” Aled mock-grumbled.
Gabriel took a sip of the coffee and licked his lips. Those near-black eyes raked Aled as if he was a specimen to be studied. But Aled could feel the familiar cool rush of adrenalin and confidence pooling in his system and met the stare head-on. Challenging. Demanding.
And Gabriel noticed, by the way he licked his bottom lip again.
“You’re not what I imagined,” he said slowly.
Aled quirked an eyebrow.
“You look like you have scheduled sex with your wife once a week, on Saturday nights, and it takes four minutes and thirty seconds.”
He wanted to laugh. But something made him smirk instead and Gabriel shifted in his chair.
“Very specific,” Aled drawled, testing the waters, and Gabriel fidgeted again.
“You, uh. You don’t look like you want a three-course meal from a stranger on Grindr.”
Reading from the script. A year out of the game and it was still the same thing that people noticed every time. They still set themselves up for the same surprise. Aled drained his cup, then leaned in to whisper.
“That’s the thing about short ginger guys,” he breathed. “We have a lot more to prove. And I am very good at proving it.”
Gabriel’s throat bobbed silently in his neck. Aled imagined it nudging the head of his dick, and grinned.
“You mentioned begging. I’ve never slept with anyone who hasn’t been begging for more by the end of it.”
Gabriel curled his fingers around Aled’s arm and stroked the soft skin on the underside of his wrist. “Best find that alleyway, then.”
“Mm, don’t think so. Not in this rain. How far’s your place?”
“Ten-minute walk.”
“Five,” Aled said, pushing back his chair. “Walk quickly.”
In truth, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do, or what he was doing. But there was adrenalin in his system. He could feel his body almost waking up, as though he was stepping out of the dark and into the light. Whatever else had happened this past year, he could smirk at an attractive man over a cup of coffee and have him breathless without lifting a finger. His eyes still had it. His voice could still rumble.
And Aled knew that was where his power lay. He wasn’t conventionally attractive. The spare tyre was getting too big to just be a Saturday night burger. Ginger blokes weren’t frequenting the covers of Attitude and GQ on a regular basis. Five seven was average height for a woman and he hadn’t lifted anything heavier than a bag of shopping in more than ten years.
But he could drop his voice to the demanding purr of an arrogant master without a moment’s thought. His mouth was a miracle worker and he could read a body better than a book. Even without Gabriel yanking on his sleeve to tow him out of the shop and threatening him with pain if he turned out to be vanilla after all, Aled could read the lust in that work of art of a body.
So he didn’t wait for the flat.
It had stopped sleeting, but the sky was a furious black. They crossed the main road and were swallowed up by the estate again and, as they ducked between two blocks of flats, Aled caught an elbow and hauled Gabriel into the shadowed recess between two dumpsters, slamming him up against a thankfully locked fire door with enough force to crash the air right out of him, and seized his mouth in a hungry kiss.
“Fuck,” Gabriel whispered when he could and Aled rubbed a thigh up between his legs. “Oh my God. Fuck.”
“What’s the magic word?”
“Please.”
“Better,” Aled chided, thumbing the button on Gabriel’s jeans. There was a slip of skin brushing his knuckles. He could feel a rabbit-fast pulse against his wedding ring. “What do you want?”
“You to fuck me until it comes out my mouth.”
Aled raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? Right here where your neighbours can see?”
“Don’t care.”
He popped the button and found nothing. No underwear. Just wiry hair and damp heat. Gabriel bucked against him as he explored, grinding down on Aled’s thigh. Aled could feel—
“What you want me to call it?”
“What?”
He stroked the short length, thicker than usual but no sign of surgery. “This.”
“S’my dick,” Gabriel said breathlessly. “Thought you were good?”
Aled squeezed until Gabriel’s voice cut off in a high whine.
“Don’t get smart.”
“You gonna shut me up?”
Aled bit him. Deep and hard, right in the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Hands clawed his shoulders and hips rose jerkily. It let him in, then he had two fingers buried to the knuckle in hot, wet fire.
“I know what to do with this. Question is, you want that first and the starter when we get home, or are you not a fan of appetisers on their own?”
Teeth caught Aled’s ear. Sucked. Then broke away to whisper.
“I’m a traditionalist. Three courses means three. An appetiser would be four and that’s just wrong.”
Aled laughed. “Finger-fuck not enough for you?”
“I want your cock. Don’t make me beg again.”
“I’ll make you beg whenever I want.” Aled withdrew his fingers and yanked at the jeans. It was cold. The rain was barely holding off. The first cold drops pattered down as he pulled down his zip and pumped himself once, twice, to get from interested to in.
“You want this?”
“Fuck yes.”
“Then ask nicely.”
Gabriel swore but then arched his back. A leg hooked over Aled’s hip. A hungry cunt touched at him and Aled held deliberately still. Kept his face blank. Cold. Controlled.
In charge.
“Please, God, fuck me, fuck me right here and right now—”
Aled pushed. Gabriel groaned. Deep. Guttural. Aled caught his mouth to shut him up and lost himself there. Two wet, welcoming spaces opening up to him as if they were built for his use. The scrape of brick on denim. The drag of hungry muscle when Gabriel didn’t want to let him pull out. The warning tightness that stopped the head when he buried himself back inside, his dick just a little longer than Gabriel allowed for. The crash of thighs against his hips as he thrust. The whispers against his mouth—faster, harder, more—and the answering burst of energy in his spine.
It had been—
So long. Too long. The first fuck in a year and it was in an alleyway with a stranger. Rubbing a stranger’s dick between his fingers. Hammering a stranger’s cunt like it was familiar as home.
It had been too long.
He came in a lightning strike. Everything seized up. He buried teeth in a lip. Felt nails in his scalp. Squeezed until he felt the answering storm in Gabriel and the stuttered breathing and spasmodic tugging that said he was still good at sex.
Even if the act itself didn’t take so long.
“There’s your starter,” he muttered hoarsely and pulled out. “Takes the edge off. Means you can savour the main course.”
Gabriel’s gaze was wide and dazed, but he smiled. Kissed him. It was messy and off-kilter. Hungry and wanting.
“There’s cum in my jeans.”
“Should have worn underwear then,” Aled said, tucking himself away.
“Just gets in the way,” Gabriel mumbled, then grinned. “So. I begged.”
“You did.”
“And I’ll beg again if it’ll get you into my flat and bending me over the bed.”
Aled smirked, crowding Gabriel back into the wall for a hungry kiss. Gabriel’s knees shivered and his hands fisted in Aled’s jacket. The rain was lashing it down once more and Aled hadn’t noticed.
“Tell you what,” Aled whispered, lips brushing up Gabriel’s jaw to his ear. “Your flat. Lose the clothes. And I’ll clean you up with my tongue—then bend you over whatever surface you want and get you messy again. If you’re good.”
Gabriel pushed him. “And if I’m bad?”
Lust burst back into life like a button had been pressed. Aled seized. Gabriel hung in his grip, jaw slack, eyes staring.
“Don’t be bad.”
Gabriel licked his lips, leaned up and kissed him.
Chapter Four
“Fuck.”
The chuckle against his ear—low, warm and almost smoky—sent shivers chasing the afterglow of the best orgasm Gabriel had had in days. He hummed, dragging his fingers across the floorboards as lips wrapped around his earlobe and sucked lightly.
“Fuck,” he whispered again.
“We did, yes,” came the deep reply, then tongue and teeth tugged at his earlobe before letting go and the weight spread out over his back moved.
Gabriel scowled and clenched. But it wasn’t enough. Hips shifted. The messy slide of a soft cock slipping free was offset by the tug of a condom. Gabriel closed his eyes and grimaced at the sensation.
“Okay?”
“No. You should have stayed inside.”
If the chuckle had been dirty, seedy and completely fuckable all on its own, the lighter laugh was oddly warm. Gabriel twisted his head to peer out from under heavy eyelids and admired the view of Aled propped up on his forearms, nose tracking Gabriel’s sweaty shoulder in tantalising strokes, freckly biceps bulging under a round layer of fat.
“Next time,” Gabriel murmured sleepily, “you can forget the rubber.”
“You wish.”
“You did the first time.”
“Yeah, and that was a cock-up.”
“Mm. Can I get some more cock up…”
It had been swift, brutal and exactly what he’d needed. The minute Gabriel had closed the front door, Aled had slammed him up against it and ripped his jeans off. Then when Gabriel had tried to kiss him and persuade him to head for bed and a blowjob, Aled had just swept out his feet from under him and they’d both gone tumbling to the floor.
And fuck, it had been a good one.
Aled was heavy. Hairy. He was short and stocky, like a soft barrel, and he’d held Gabriel under him effortlessly, his chest sticking to Gabriel’s back as they’d moved. Gabriel had been loosened up by the shag in the alley, but the cum Aled had left behind—apparently by mistake—had been half-dried and caught. It had been the perfect blend of smooth and not, and as Aled pressed a bristly kiss to the back of Gabriel’s neck, Gabriel could have purred.
“Where can I bin this?”
“What?”
“The rubber.”
“Floor.”
“Bin, you layabout.”
“My flat, my rules,” Gabriel grumbled, then pushed. Aled sat back on his heels to let him go and Gabriel followed, plucking the used condom from his fingers only to drop it on the floor. Aled’s thigh was hot and sticky between Gabriel’s legs and his mouth tasted like coffee. Gabriel sucked on his lower lip, sliding higher on his lap until that soft, used cock was resting against him. Heavy. Hot.
Promisingly thick.
“Dessert?” he whispered against Aled’s mouth, their lips catching with every syllable.
“You’ll be so lucky…”
“Or that good.”
“Only did the V.”
“But you did it twice, so it counts,” Gabriel chided and bit the lower lip. He sucked. Hard. And the cock caught between them thickened just a little more.
This time, the quiet “fuck” wasn’t Gabriel’s.
“Come to bed,” Gabriel whispered. “Starter in the alley and main course on the floor—let’s at least be classy about dessert.”
Aled laughed, nudging his jaw against Gabriel’s. He needed a shave and Gabriel ground his cheek against the sandpapery texture, sparks of electricity crackling across his face from the contact.
“Oh, you like that?”
Gabriel hummed agreeably and reeled in a shaky breath when Aled rubbed those sparks against his neck. Gabriel could come on a love bite alone. This—
“You’re getting wet again. Well. Wetter.”
“Gonna do something about it?”
The chuckle was back. Dark and dirty. A hand gripped the back of his neck and Gabriel breathed out in a long, high whimper as roughness scraped down to his shoulder and a bruise was sucked into being.
“I’m not one for something sucking on me when I’m soft,” Aled murmured. “So how about you open those knees for me a third time and I put this to work on your cock instead?”
Gabriel bit his lip until it ached. God, have that—that—grit, scouring at him like it would rip his skin off as well as get him off? Fuck, he wanted to ride it. Wanted to just lock his thighs around Aled’s head and hold him there until he’d rubbed Gabriel’s dick right off with that broken glass of a would-be beard.
