Maybe he could provoke a bit of that slamming-against-objects again. Maybe he could persuade Aled to go easy on the lube this time, and screw away the married man who thought he could figure out his sexuality by paying someone like Gabriel to open his legs.

  Aled: Still offering. Where are you?

  Me: Home.

  Aled: Can’t drive, train will take forever and you’ll still have to walk it. Get a taxi to mine.

  Gabriel snorted, thinking of the money on the table. Wouldn’t that be precious, the man’s hundred quid going to get Gabriel a proper fuck from a proper man.

  Me: That’ll cost a bomb.

  Aled: I’ll cover it, it’s fine.

  Me: Nah, I got it.

  Might as well put that bloody fuck-money to good use.

  Me: This cocksucker just left me money for it like I’m some kind of hooker. I'll spend it on getting me to a real man.

  Aled: What an arse. Who needs to pay to get laid anyway?

  Me: Guys who think screwing me still lets them be straight because they’re within twenty feet of vagina?

  Aled: Tosser.

  Aled: I’d want my money back if I’d paid for a girl and got you.

  Aled: Did he tip?

  Gabriel grinned. God, he liked Aled. The guy might look meek and harmless, but he definitely wasn’t.

  Then he sent a postcode, a house number and an offer of scented lube. Gabriel smirked and sent one last message before calling for a taxi.

  Me: On my way. And go easy on the lube. I want it harder this time.

  * * * *

  Aled lived on the Darnley estate, as it turned out.

  The address got Gabriel dropped off on one of the larger roads in the estate. The house itself was kind of nice-looking, with dark brickwork and painted wooden windows, a garage and suspiciously clean 4x4 on the driveway off to one side. It smacked of first home, to Gabriel—either that, or Aled was such a petrolhead that he’d spend thirty grand on a car but not a hundred grand on a house.

  Still, it was a massive step up from a one-bed council flat in Belle Isle, Gabriel thought as he picked his way up the narrow path and rang the bell. And Aled had mentioned an ex he’d been with for ages. Maybe he’d once lived in a proper fancy house, the type of house that people who owned suspiciously clean 4x4s would have, but they had to split the house and Aled had ended up here?

  Definitely that, Gabriel decided, when Aled opened the door, dressed in obviously tailored suit trousers and a pale blue dress shirt, the effect mildly lost by the mismatched socks on his shoe-free feet.

  Gabriel grinned and nodded to the car. “That looks like you can drive.”

  “This looks like I can’t,” Aled retorted and held up a half-full wine glass.

  Gabriel froze.

  Shit. Shit! Of course. Of course that was what Aled had meant. He was in his fucking thirties and had like five credit cards and a goddamned driving license in his wallet. Of course he could drive normally. How could Gabriel have been so—

  “It’s just Echo Falls, but it’s nice,” Aled was saying blithely and Gabriel felt his chest seize in something like panic when Aled held out the glass. “Try it. I just cracked the bottle open so I’ll pour you a glass if you want.”

  Gabriel wanted it. He always wanted it. He always would. It would be so easy just to take it, just smile and say it was nice and take it, Aled would never have to know, nobody had to—

  “Gabriel?” The glass was lowered. “You all right?”

  Gabriel took a deep breath. “I—I can’t drink.”

  “Oh, sorry. Some sort of medical thing I should know about? I mean, I’m guessing from the other night it’s not a religious issue—”

  Gabriel shook his head, finally tearing his gaze away from the glass. “No, it’s—I was, I am, an alcoholic. Three years sober.” And he’d counted every damn day of them. “I can’t drink. At all. I can’t even kiss someone who’s had something strong.”

  Aled blinked, then swore. “Shit, I’m so sorry, I had no idea. I’ll just—well, come in, don’t just stand on my doorstep…”

  Gabriel inched over the threshold, folding his arms around himself, and Aled shut the door, then disappeared into a tiny kitchen off to the left. Gabriel heard a fridge door close, then Aled brushed past him again.

  “Give me half a minute,” he said, disappearing up some stairs on Gabriel’s right. “Make yourself at home, except in the fridge!” he shouted back down and Gabriel hesitantly went for the only other option—forward.

  The living room dominated the house, a tasteful and surprisingly neat room that was basically monochromatic—white walls, cream carpet and black furniture—but with dark red cushions splashing a little life into things. A small conservatory lay beyond, lit by lights designed to look like candles, and the shadow of a garden fence and the side of what Gabriel presumed to be the garage lurked beyond the windows. A couple of framed photographs hung on the walls—an old wedding photograph of a ginger-haired groom and an Indian bride, a holiday photo of Aled and a pretty woman with reddish-blonde hair on some skiing trip, both beaming stupidly beneath absurdly large ski masks and, rather strangely, one of a dark-haired man pushing a blonde woman with bright green wellies in a wheelbarrow at some country fair.

  It was a nice house, Gabriel decided, and slowly unglued his hands from his elbows in favour of exploring. Aled kept a lot of DVDs and Gabriel was amused to notice several porn films amongst the collection, filed shamelessly between superhero movies and slushy romances. He didn’t seem to be much of a reader, although he did have several photo albums in a bookshelf beside a ridiculously large TV and he was a tech geek—the coffee table held a laptop, a tablet and two smartphones—albeit one literally labelled work and switched off—and there was a desktop computer set up on a large wooden desk across the room with two screens and a stack of external hard drives.

  Yeah, Gabriel had hit this guy bang on the nose. Geek.

  “Sorry.” He jumped when Aled reappeared in the living room doorway. “Teeth brushed, mouth washed out, wine stashed away and a new offering—Sprite?”

  Gabriel laughed, a little touched by the consideration, and took the offered wine glass of lemonade. “You didn’t have to—” he started, but Aled shook his head.

  “Yeah, I did, if you can’t even kiss someone who’s been drinking.”

  “You could have just not kissed me.”

  Aled raised his eyebrows, then leaned in and planted a firm kiss on Gabriel’s mouth. It was chaste and brief, but the intent very clear and Gabriel had to blink a couple of times to gather his wits.

  “No way,” Aled said. “I have a thing for lips and honestly, it was your smile on your profile that made me message you. I’m a sucker for a nice smile.”

  Gabriel ducked his head, grinning sheepishly, and Aled laughed.

  “That’s the one. Anyway, it’s fine. I’m not a huge drinker myself unless Suze is involved. I’ll just remember not to invite you over if I’ve been out with her.”

  “Who’s Suze?”

  “Best mate,” Aled said and gestured to the picture of the woman in the wheelbarrow. “Bad influence, she’d only tell you horrible stories about me. So, are you any good at cooking?”

  Gabriel blinked, the sudden change in subject startling. “Um, well, yeah, I guess. You know, microwave meals for one, my speciality.”

  Aled laughed again. “God, thanks for coming over,” he said in a rush that sounded like a confession. “It’s been a shitty couple of days, I needed a pick-me-up.”

  “You could have skipped the small talk and gone straight for the picking up, you know, I’m hardly skittish,” Gabriel teased, making to set the glass aside. It would pick him up, too, and push out that wanker from earlier. Aled didn’t try to leave him money like he was a bloody fuck-for-hire.

  “Ah, no, you’re good company with your clothes on, too. I was thinking, seeing as how I’ve ruined any attempt I’d made at a lasagne, I could call for a takeaway, and we could try making dessert ourselves, then maybe have the pick-me-up?”

  “It’ll be late by then…”

  Aled stepped right into Gabriel’s space and kissed him. Distinctly not chastely. His lips were warm and smooth, and he tasted of spearmint, overpoweringly strong. He kissed as though he were exploring, moving slowly over Gabriel’s lips before pushing in farther and almost stroking Gabriel’s mouth, one hand coming up to cup the back of Gabriel’s head.

  Gabriel slowly pulled himself free, resting his forehead against Aled’s and trying to remember how to talk and breathe at the same time. Finally, he managed, “Um…I guess I could stay the night.”

  Aled beamed. “Do you like Italian food?”

  “It’ll do.”

  It felt scarily date-like, even though the fancy restaurant was actually Aled’s tiny kitchen and porn-hub of a living room, but the strange feeling subsided after Aled had called whatever the place was for their food and turned out all the cupboards for dessert ingredients. He admitted the only dessert he knew was his grandmother’s cookie recipe—“You’re not diabetic or anything, right? These’ll kill you if you’re diabetic”—but after Gabriel admitted he knew half a brownie recipe, they opted to combine the two and, if they sucked, pass them off on the finance department at Aled’s office.

  Turned out, Gabriel could cook better than Aled. Miraculously, the man didn’t even know how to knead dough, and when Gabriel demonstrated, he had his fingers peeled off the finished dough before he could begin to cut it, was backed into the fridge, and his index finger sucked into Aled’s mouth.

  “That’s not like cake mix.”

  Aled pulled off with a grimace. “No shit. Way too much flour.”

  “We could always google how to make cake if you want to lick cake mix off me,” Gabriel offered a little breathlessly as Aled tried another, less floury finger. That was met with the same face.

  “I think we should. This is only sexy for you.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty sexy for me. Except for the bit where you have flour on your face,” Gabriel added.

  “I do not,” Aled said, checking in the back of a spoon, so Gabriel rectified the situation, picking up a handful of it from the counter and literally throwing it.

  For a split second, Aled froze, staring at him.

  “You—”

  Gabriel laughed. “You look ridiculous.”

  Aled’s answer was twofold. Firstly, he emptied the remains of the flour bag over Gabriel’s head. And secondly, he knocked Gabriel’s legs out from under him and took them both crashing to the floor, where he pinned Gabriel with his heavier weight and planted Gabriel’s own dough-caked hand on his face.

  “Eurgh, oh my God!”

  They wrestled in the mess, Gabriel fighting to put his hands in Aled’s fiery hair, somehow still ginger despite the rest of him looking like a cocaine factory had exploded on him, before Aled seized Gabriel’s head in both hands, leaned down and kissed him.

  Gabriel stilled and relaxed his jaw. This kiss was nothing like the other kisses. This kiss was insistent and domineering. This kiss didn’t explore him or make a point—it forced him open and held him still. Aled’s erection was against Gabriel’s thigh and the way his weight was bearing down on Gabriel’s hips kept him trapped. Gabriel rolled his hips up, opening his legs and gathering Aled into him, hooking an ankle over Aled’s calf and swallowing the muted groan that resulted.

  “That’s dirty pool,” Aled whispered, leaving Gabriel’s mouth in favour of his neck, burying his teeth there and biting. Gabriel gasped, arching up into the thrill, his heart suddenly pounding, and shivered. “Interesting,” Aled murmured. “If I bit you enough, would you come?”

  Gabriel groaned as he did it again. “Probably,” he whispered. “I mean, you could always put your hand down my jeans and help it along a little.”

  Aled bit him again, much harder this time, and Gabriel shuddered, hitching his leg higher and grinding himself against Aled’s thigh. He was getting wet. If Aled bit him again, he’d be able to just pull Gabriel’s jeans down and fuck him right there on the kitchen floor, as long as he hadn’t managed to roll his cock in flour.

  “Do it,” Gabriel said breathlessly, guiding one of Aled’s hands to his fly. “I’m nearly there already. Just get inside me and make me really messy.”

  “What, flour in all your hair?” Aled quipped, then he was suddenly gone, sinking down Gabriel’s body and ripping his jeans down like they were on fire.

  “Where are you—fuck!” Gabriel yelped, as Aled’s tongue rubbed itself, hot and rough, right up from his arse to his bellybutton a thick, wet, floury stripe. Then that mouth latched on to his cock and began to massage it between Aled’s lips, leaving Gabriel a shuddering mess on the floor, biting down on his own forearm to stop himself yelling the place down, and his knees pinned apart by Aled’s firm grip. Oh God, and what a grip. He had hands like steel—he could force Gabriel’s legs open if he wanted, just push him down anywhere, any time and open his legs as though Gabriel were his own personal fleshlight with a pulse. He was almost biting down there, the nips hard enough to graze and warn, but light enough that they were thrilling, exciting, so damn fucking good—

  The doorbell rang.

  “You are fucking kidding me!” Gabriel spat and Aled laughed, blowing gently over him and crawling up his body again to kiss him roughly on the mouth.

  “Stay right there,” he said, then wiped his mouth off on his sleeve and got up. Gabriel lay stunned, blinking at the ceiling, just lying on Aled’s kitchen floor, covered in flour with his jeans and briefs around his ankles and his orgasm about thirty seconds away before it had been interrupted by a delivery boy. He scowled and hauled himself up, kicking off his jeans entirely and briefly considering the briefs before losing them, too. His packer had stayed in them, but was floured to death. Great. Just—

  The front door slammed and Aled reappeared. He frowned. “I told you to stay right there.”

  “After you left me in the middle of a tongue fuck?”

  “Not very good at taking orders, are you?” Aled asked and slapped Gabriel’s bare arse. Hard. The crack and sudden sting made Gabriel groan and he shoved Aled against the oven, fisting both hands in his hair.

  “Did we both get pasta?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’ll reheat. Finish what you started.”

  Aled raised his eyebrows, abandoned the bag on the counter and crowded Gabriel back into the fridge, holding both his hands above his head. “You threw the first handful,” he challenged and Gabriel rubbed up against the hard-on pressed into his thigh.

  “You were tongue-fucking me,” he said breathlessly. “Thirty seconds and I’d have come on your face. You owe me. Cock. In. Now.”

  Aled laughed, dropping Gabriel’s hands to tear at his floury trousers and dropping them. He wasn’t even wearing underwear, and Gabriel got both hands instantly on that rock-hard cock, smearing flour into the pre-cum like a paste. Aled swore, batted them off then seized Gabriel’s knees in those insane hands and lifted him up against the fridge.

  “Best be ready,” he grunted and thrust.

  “OhmyfuckingGod.”

  In one swift movement, Aled was completely inside him. He was hard as iron, just shoving his way in like he owned the place. Then he began to thrust, the power of it pushing Gabriel up and down the fridge. Gabriel locked his legs around Aled’s waist and dropped his weight, forcing that cock even deeper, rubbing his own dick against Aled’s stomach and snatching at his mouth in a hungry kiss, tasting himself over the flour, smelling his own sex from the attempt on the floor.

  “Holy fuck, do it, do it, fuck me, fuck me so hard that I taste salt in the back of my throat, shove it so deep it leaks out when you put me down, fuck me, Christ—” Gabriel babbled, burying his face in Aled’s hair and thrusting haphazardly back, trying to get more friction and more cock at all once, fisting his dough-covered fingers in the back of Aled’s shirt and near-tearing it, hearing the contents of the fridge rattling at his back, the fridge itself barely able to support the movement.

  Aled came suddenly, hot liquid flooding Gabriel’s insides and the rhythm stuttering and halting as Aled groaned and bit down on Gabriel’s neck again, staying buried deep inside him as he rode it out. Gabriel clenched around him, trying to match every pulse with a squeeze, and got a breathless curse for it, before they were sinking to the floor in a tangle, Aled pulling out before Gabriel could tell him to stay, and—

  “Oh my God, you have to be kidding me,” Gabriel whimpered as Aled wrapped his lips back around Gabriel’s short length and sucked. He sucked so hard that sensation exploded up Gabriel’s limbs and destroyed his nervous system. He lay whimpering and helpless on the filthy tiles, trying to clench his thighs around Aled’s head, trying to thrust himself against his teeth and tongue, but able only to lie there and cry as Aled’s teeth touched him one last time and Gabriel came so hard that it felt like a seizure, a blackout, a death and a rebirth all at once.

  Then he was lying there, naked from the waist down, covered in flour smeared into paste by cum and spit.

  “You’re a mess. You’ll leak all the way up to the bathroom.”

  Gabriel laughed giddily, his air all gone. “S’your problem.”

  Aled paused.

  Then hands pushed Gabriel’s knees even farther apart and Aled’s tongue began to clean away all evidence of the fuck.

  Chapter Eleven

  Aled piled the dishes in the sink and braced himself against the counter.

  It was nearly midnight. The kitchen was still a mess, cum and flour all over the floor, and all their clothes were in the wash. They had both had to shower thoroughly, ruining a couple of towels, and Aled had loaned Gabriel a pair of boxers and a sleep shirt.

  Which meant Gabriel was, right now, lying in Aled’s bed, smelling of Aled’s shower gel, wearing Aled’s underwear. And was, from the maths Aled was doing, quite possibly into kink.

 

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