The Other Man (Starting Over Book 2) Read online

  “I didn’t realise Kevin actually made money off that.”

  “Oh, yeah. Loads. Live streaming and amateur movies and stuff. That’s why Judith doesn’t work—she usually does it, not me.”

  “Doesn’t that trigger your whole hatred of being paid for sex?”

  “It’s Kevin. It’s different.”

  Aled shrugged. Gabriel rolled his eyes and pulled away. He knew Aled didn’t get that—truth be told, Gabriel wasn’t sure he got it either—but the easiest thing about being with Aled was his casual acceptance. The man wasn’t innately curious. He tended to just let things lie.

  “This is the first place that was mine.”

  “I’ve never had a place that was just mine,” Aled admitted. “I met my wife when we were still at school. I lived in student accommodation when I did my degree, then we bought the house together. I bought out her share when we divorced, so I suppose it’s the first one that’s mine too.”

  “Be—be ours again. If I stay.”

  “Yep.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Aled shrugged. “I want you to, but if you don’t, you don’t.”

  Gabriel tipped back onto the bed. Aled let him go, and Gabriel stared up at him with a frown.

  “Why are you so easy?”

  “Because you’re not,” Aled replied, tapping his knee and shaking it lightly. “I figure the best way of keeping hold of you is not to hold on at all. You’ll come to me when you’re good and ready.”

  “You make me sound like a feral cat.”

  “You are a feral cat.” Aled laughed and finally stood up. “Come on. Let’s get everything packed and sorted.”

  The odd tension eased as they packed the rest of Gabriel’s things—what little remained, anyway—into Aled’s car, and Aled insisted on cleaning. Apparently it was some mortal middle-class sin to leave a rental place messy, and Gabriel barely managed to stop him going next door to borrow a vacuum cleaner for the carpet. And, quite frankly, the sight of his sometimes sadistic dominant flitting about with a hanky to clear dust off the windowsills gave Gabriel a stitch from laughing so hard.

  “Watch it,” Aled said as they locked up, Gabriel still giggling helplessly. “We can tank the lunch idea and I can beat you into a coma instead.”

  “Oh, please. You’re too soft for a proper beating.”

  “I can send you back to Kevin. Retraining and all that.”

  Gabriel smiled, but there was no exciting thrill. He stretched up and kissed Aled briefly, and who cared if anyone saw? He’d not be back.

  “Think I’d prefer something gentler today.”

  “Mm?”

  “Yeah.”

  “After lunch,” Aled said, patting Gabriel’s bum affectionately. “Maybe we’ll play with the ribbons again.”

  Gabriel hesitated at the communal door, looking back up the stairs one last time. Part of him wanted to stay. Part of him was scared. He’d settled down—for the first time, really, since he’d run away—but then Aled stroked his fingers, not quite taking his hand, and the anxiety eased.

  Maybe it would be the start of something better.

  “Don’t look now,” Aled murmured, “but Michael’s car is hanging about.”

  Gabriel clenched his jaw. His wrist suddenly throbbed where Michael had grabbed it outside work. Without taking his eyes off the stairwell, he let the door swing shut and said, “After we put these bags in the boot, kiss me like it’s a slushy movie.”

  “Make a show of it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Aled chuckled. “Okay.”

  Gabriel didn’t look, but he could see it out of the corner of his eye as they made for Aled’s boot. The lights were on. The engine running. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he squashed the last of his things into the mess. He could feel Michael staring at him, and not in the sexy way that someone stared when they thought he was attractive. In the scary way. Like when chavs on the street figured out he was—

  He shut the boot with a thunk, then turned and parked his arse against the number plate.

  “This is the one and only time you get to do that,” Aled said.

  “What?”

  “Put your bum on my car.”

  “Petrolhead.”

  “Guilty.”

  Gabriel beamed, obnoxiously wide like he was shooting a toothpaste ad, and looped his arms around Aled’s neck, rocking up into him when familiar hands cupped his backside. One slid into his back pocket, and he arched. Aled really was only an inch or so taller than him, not enough for a proper craned-neck kiss, but Gabriel gave it his best shot.

  He could feel the anger emanating from the other car.

  And he could feel Aled’s wry amusement in the way the kiss twisted around their smiles.

  “You’re a sod,” Aled whispered, nudging their noses together. Gabriel, eyes closed, grinned.

  “He deserves it.”

  “Yeah? Has he been calling you again?”

  “No. Kevin came round looking for me, and Michael gave him some shit. So Kevin thumped him.”

  It was a very condensed version, but Gabriel knew he was asking for trouble right now if he told Aled about the scene outside the shop. His ploy worked. Aled chuckled and kissed his neck, burrowing his face against him for a moment before slapping his arse and pushing away.

  “Come on, tart. Lunch.”

  “Fireplace pub and a blowjob?”

  “I have a feeling that he’s going to try following us, so fancy that place on the North Yorkshire moors we went last summer?”

  Gabriel laughed as he opened the passenger door. “That’s over an hour away!”

  “Exactly.”

  Aled was right. Another engine roared alongside theirs, and they were tracked aggressively back to the motorway. Then Aled hit the northbound carriageway and put his foot down. And a ten-year-old Clio was no match for last year’s Range Rover. Michael vanished from the rear view in a matter of seconds and took the ugly feelings with him.

  “Okay?” Aled asked, and Gabriel stretched out in the passenger seat.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Aled didn’t really do holidays.

  His best Christmas in years had involved one present, a film, and fucking Gabriel with his fist for most of the day. He spent most New Year’s Eves studiously avoiding work parties and playing loud music to drown out fireworks. And every year he tried—and failed—to get out of birthday drinks with Tom and Suze.

  Failed being the operative word.

  He knew he’d failed when he got home from work on his thirty-fifth birthday to find a note from Gabriel on the fridge, simply saying he’d gone to visit his granddad and would see Aled’s hungover arse in the morning.

  “Shit.”

  He’d been in Manchester all day for work at a product launch and hadn’t bothered to check his phone before starting the drive home. Why would he? He’d either get home to food and sex, or Gabriel would be out and Aled would make some food anyway and maybe have a wank on the sofa.

  But no. Gabriel had taken his alcohol addiction out of the picture.

  Which meant Tom and Suze were imminent.

  Aled sighed and resigned himself to his fate, heading upstairs for a shower and a change of clothes. He heard the doorbell ring halfway through said shower and, by the time he stepped out, Suze had let herself in with her spare key and was singing in the kitchen.

  “Five minutes!” he bellowed.

  “You have two!” she shouted back.

  He’d not seen her since Christmas, so he threw on some decent jeans and a T-shirt and headed downstairs sooner rather than later, catching her in a bear hug at the bottom of the stairs. Just like that, the little ache in his chest was soothed.

  “Missed you,” he told a mouthful of her peroxide blonde hair, and she tightened her grip.

  “You too.”

  Tom was a friend. But Suze was family. And Cornwall was only five or six hours away, but Aled
had missed her fiercely for the whole time she’d been gone.

  Then she yelled, “Thirty-five!” and ruined his right ear.

  “Thanks,” he said sourly, letting go.

  “And is this a permanent thing because that bike in your conservatory is definitely not yours,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows and grinning up at him.

  “Ah. Don’t say anything.”

  The smile dimmed. “What?”

  “Gabriel’s lost his job,” Aled said. “He didn’t want to go back to council housing after some pretty grim experiences with them, so he’s moved in here until it’s sorted.”

  “Just until then?” she asked uncertainly.

  “I hope for longer, but we’ve agreed up until then,” Aled said. “Just don’t say anything. He was a bit shaky about it.”

  She squeezed his arm. “But is it going okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, I know that face!”

  Aled rolled his eyes and moaned at her, denying that he was loved up and shagged out. Even if his birthday had begun with fucking Gabriel over the kitchen counter without a rubber. He didn’t have to tell her that.

  He was dragged out for the usual crawl. Tom joined them at the second pub and got a round in. They called him old and domesticated, Aled pointed out that they were the same age and much more domesticated than he was, and everybody got drunk. Very drunk. By the time Gabriel texted him, the letters were blurry on a fuzzy screen and Aled struggled to unlock the phone to read the whole thing.

  Gabriel: Can you call me?

  Me: In the pub.

  Gabriel: Please? Just step out for a couple of minutes. Won’t take long.

  Aled frowned and staggered to his feet, swatting away Suze’s hands.

  “Gotta ring Gabe.”

  “Why?”

  “Dunno.”

  The cold air hit him full in the face as he stumbled outside and he blinked against the sudden flash of sobriety. A niggle of worry. Gabriel rarely called and even more rarely asked Aled to do it. The pub was quiet, Christmas celebrations having bitten several wallets too hard, and he leaned up against the wall just shy of the windows to put the phone to his ear.

  And heard the ringtone.

  “What the f—”

  The sound was coming from the narrow alley that wound between the pub and the legal offices next door. As he stepped into the gloom, a hand snaked out and fisted in his collar. Gabriel’s dark eyes glittered inches from his own.

  “Hello,” Aled said stupidly.

  Gabriel said nothing. He simply towed Aled into the alley until they were hidden in the damp dark, then rubbed his entire body down Aled’s front as he sank to his knees. Cold hit Aled’s cock—then wet warmth.

  “Oh Christ…”

  He was worked. There was no other word for it. Gabriel sucked on him like their lives depended on it, and Aled was completely hard in under a minute. It was too dark to see, but he’d seen the sight plenty of times before. His memory could provide the lot. That dark head bobbing against him, flushed lips swelling around his prick, the flash of eyes as he looked up—

  He cupped a hand behind Gabriel’s head and pulled him closer. A throat caught against the head of his dick. Yielded. And the powerful drag of a submissive desperate to breathe was tugging on his cock with more power than a simple blow job could ever manage.

  If the cold air had driven a few of the pints out of his system, the throat fuck did the rest.

  Aled was practised at it. He choked Gabriel to the point of dizziness before letting go and three deep rasps were all that were allowed before he did it again. He didn’t thrust. Didn’t need to. A hand clenched in Gabriel’s hair was more than enough and the fists clutching the knees of his jeans broadcast a silent permission across two years of alleyway fucks and questionable ethics.

  Aled smiled at the dirty sky and closed his eyes.

  Two years.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, and that was the only warning he gave.

  The climax was nothing special. Satisfying, but not mind-blowing. But then Gabriel sucked him clean, nuzzling at his stomach before rising, and Aled caught him tight in a hug and bit his ear, careful not to kiss when there was still alcohol on his breath.

  “Happy birthday,” Gabriel whispered, nudging his jaw.

  “I’m going to wake you up before I leave for work tomorrow and fuck you into a coma,” Aled mumbled, squeezing tight before letting go. “Love you.”

  “You too, drinky. Go on. Go back to your pints.”

  “Oh shit, yeah, pints. I’ll stay at Suze’s. I’ll—”

  “Don’t. I’m on my way to Kevin’s,” Gabriel said, nipping his ear. “Getting the train to Leeds then he’s going to pick me up and we’re going to a hotel.”

  “A hotel?”

  “Yeah, he’s got this friend.”

  Aled laughed. “I take it you’ve played with his friend before?”

  “Well, duh. Anyway, the friend is playing with me. Kevin’s just renting me out and watching. He doesn’t fuck outside the basement.”

  “Sounds fun. Let me walk you to the station,” Aled said. “S’only down the hill. C’mon.”

  Gabriel’s hand was damp and warm in his own, and Aled figured there’d been two orgasms in the alley instead of one. Gabriel refused to agree, calling him imaginative as Aled tucked himself away and they stepped back out of the dark and into the gentle yellow glow pouring from the pub windows like nothing had ever happened, hand in hand.

  “Hey!”

  Gabriel stiffened, darting his hand away from Aled’s in a flash. And Aled frowned. He knew that shout. He’d heard it once before.

  “Oh, I don’t fucking believe it,” Gabriel whispered.

  “I’ve had enough of this!”

  Aled remembered a white-knuckled hand on a doorframe just before the car door slammed. Then he lost his temper.

  “Jesus Christ, will you just fuck off!”

  Gabriel jumped away from him like he’d been shot. Michael stopped in the middle of the road. Aled unbuttoned his lip and let the beer do the talking.

  “Grow the fuck up and let go already! It’s over! Over, need me to spell it out? O-V-E—”

  “Like I’m going to let him just fuck off with an abusive scum—”

  People were coming out of the pub. Tom was suddenly shouldering his way through to stand beside him. Gabriel was hovering on the curb, one foot in the road and one out of it.

  Aled was short, ginger and had been wearing glasses since he was eight years old. He’d known men like Michael all his life. Men who thought a six-pack and a sizeable sausage made them God’s gift to the known world. Men who had thinner skin than the loo roll in a public toilet. Men who thought that sex was just them getting to shove their dick somewhere and to hell with who accommodated it. Sex with them was enough, right? Sex with them was automatically brilliant because they were automatically brilliant. There’d always been men like Michael. There always would be men like Michael.

  And yet here they were. With Michael staking out a pub like an obsessed loser and Aled having been the recipient of a birthday blowjob.

  “Fuck me,” he said. “What kind of sad cunt stalks their ex? What’s the matter, Michael—was nobody else willing to go for a ride on your prick?”

  Everything moved.

  Michael first. Fist up, surging forward.

  Then Tom, smashing between them like a shield.

  Then Gabriel.

  Who jumped off the curb like it was a trampoline and slammed his fist into Michael’s perfect jaw with the loudest crack that Aled had ever heard.

  Chapter Twenty

  The cell door opened and Gabriel looked up from his examination of the floor.

  “There’s an interview room free, Mr Lazarri,” said the cop. “Let’s grab our chance, eh?”

  He was middle-aged, with little round glasses and a bald spot, and a soft voice that reminded Gabriel of nurses. He looked more like a geography teacher than a copper, and Gabri
el appreciated it. The ones that had broken up the fight outside the pub last night had been rough and aggressive, but the custody staff were all right. And it wasn’t exactly Gabriel’s first time being arrested either. The food was as shit as ever, but the mattress was surprisingly comfortable and Gabriel had managed a few hours before someone had been dragged in at five in the morning, screaming the place down and calling them all fascist scum. And it looked like the morning shift were friendlier than their late-night counterparts, because the officer held out a cup of coffee and apologised for it being instant.

  “It’ll do,” Gabriel said.

  “Come with me, then. Let’s not keep you waiting too much longer, eh?”

  Gabriel had been arrested once or twice when he’d been begging, but that had been a long time ago and he couldn’t really remember what came after a kip in the cells. He fidgeted as the officer set up a tape and got his notebook out. His colleague was already nodding off. Gabriel sympathised.

  “All right, interview commencing at nine-thirteen. Interviewing officer is myself, PC 6453 David Barnes, and I am accompanied by my colleague, PC 4521 Peter Rice. If you can just say your name for the tape, please, sir.”

  “Gabriel James Lazarri.”

  “Thank you.”

  They went through his rights and Gabriel shrugged off the offer of a lawyer. It was just a punch-up, and he hadn’t been arrested in years. Why bother with a lawyer for a stupid punch-up? Going by the dozing PC Rice, they weren’t even going to bother getting him in front of a magistrate for a telling off and a fine. He was probably going to just get cautioned again.

  “Could you tell me in your own words what happened, Mr Lazarri?”

  Gabriel opened his mouth—and paused.

  He’d been ready to say it was just a dumb fight. He’d been ready to say he lost his temper, it all got a bit out of hand, things happen, he hoped the other guy was all right, whoever he was, never seen him before. He’d been ready to blow it off as one drink too many, keep quiet that he’d been sober as a priest, and nothing more.

  But his wrist throbbed in memory of Michael’s grab outside work.

  His phone was full of messages.

  Kevin.