The Wedding (Starting Over Book 3) Read online

  “Now,” he whispered. “Please.”

  “Ssh,” Aled soothed, and tracked his mouth lower. Gabriel’s cock burned against his tongue, and he teased it between his lips rather than truly sucking it. The pleasure that swept over Gabriel seemed to shred him, leaving him shuddering and dazed under—around—Aled’s hands.

  Only then did Aled press the tip of his cock inside.

  The grip was far tighter than usual, thanks to the residual pain of their earlier game, and Aled paused less for Gabriel and more for himself. The urge was to simply thrust past it, to force his way in as he had countless times—and with less preparation—before. But he fought it, closing his eyes and pressing his lips to Gabriel’s breastbone to ride out the intense heat and the buzz of the lube. He was beginning to regret that choice…slightly.

  He pushed forward in slow increments, bracing his weight on the mattress and feathering kisses over Gabriel’s heaving chest as he moved. Only once he was buried to the root did he shift down onto his elbows and kiss and knead with his teeth at Gabriel’s neck, finding a shivering pulse and worshipping it idly until the incredible pressure began to ease, and the tension in the body beneath him ebbed away.

  And he remained still, completely still, until Gabriel whispered, “Please.”

  Aled preferred long strokes, hard and bed-shaking. But this time, he simply rolled his hips, and felt. He could feel every inch of skin inside, every clutching muscle and every jumping nerve. The tightness was unnatural for Gabriel but the feeling of being buried inside him was not. It was like coming home, like he hadn’t left the US until tonight, and Aled sank into it and him with hedonistic, utterly selfish pleasure.

  “Can I—?”

  Gabriel’s fingers caught in his hair. His lips found Aled’s in the dark, and his whisper was inaudible, yet somehow deafening.

  So Aled pressed close, pressed as deep into him as possible, and came so hard that it rattled his bones, shaking his muscles loose like an hour in a Jacuzzi, pouring every bit of anxiety and hesitance away like worthless tat.

  And even as he softened, he remained.

  He simply curled around the heat in his arms, gathering skin and hair and life close to his chest, and relaxed.

  He was home.

  And everything was fine.

  * * * *

  He didn’t get to keep Gabriel to himself the next day. Apparently, someone had to go to work. At the time, Aled had just turned over into the warm spot and ignored everything except that nice dream he’d been having but waiting up to an empty house four hours later was a bit of a downer.

  Especially when he was woken by his phone ringing.

  Constantly.

  “I swear to God…” he muttered.

  Thinking it would be work, he dragged himself out of the nest to find it. His big mistake was not checking the caller ID before answering it, then his second was not hanging up on the shriek in his ear.

  “Get up!”

  “Urgh. No.”

  “Get up!” Suze insisted.

  “Let me guess.” Aled dragged himself back into bed and threw the duvet over his head. “You’ve said yes, and now you both want to go out and get pissed.”

  “Well, not right now. Actually, change of topic—”

  She wittered on about needing to borrow his spare pump for a flat tyre, and Aled let the noise wash over him as he slowly woke up. He’d not slept especially deeply, but he felt drunk on being in his own bed again. And possibly having some decent sex for the first time in six weeks, too.

  And other emotions.

  “Suze.”

  “So I told him that—”

  “Suze.”

  “What?”

  “I thought about what you said.”

  There was a short pause. Aled snorted with laughter.

  “Okay, one specific thing you said. About me and Gabriel.”

  “What about you and—oh my God, no.”

  He waited.

  “Are you really?”

  “Just a thought,” he said.

  “But how serious is the thought?”

  “Not very.” Given that it had occurred somewhere around half-four in the morning, and Gabriel asleep was about as beautiful as he ever got because the sarcasm stopped for five fucking minutes.

  “Aled.”

  “It was more what you said about my marriage.”

  Aled knew exactly why he’d ended up divorced. He’d married the most wonderful woman in the world—then forgot to let her know. Looking back, they’d been fracturing long before they’d found out he was never going to have children. The infertility might have been the breaking point, but if he’d kept paying enough damn attention, then Melissa would have loved him enough to stay.

  He knew that now.

  And Suze’s little jab had him wondering less about marrying Gabriel and more about marrying at all. Would he make the same mistake again, now he knew what to look for? Would he still get lazy if he had another ring on his finger?

  “Are you going to ask him?” Suze asked softly.

  Aled smiled down at his bare fingers and clenched them into a loose fist. Gabriel would look good with a ring, but—

  “Am I heck,” he said. “All the effort I put in just to get him to move in with me? He’d run a mile if I proposed.”

  Except he probably wouldn’t.

  Chapter Six

  Gabriel’s phone lit up on the desk at exactly one minute to six.

  He eyed it suspiciously for a moment, the timing just a little too perfect. He’d been on memberships all day, and he didn’t remember telling Aled that, but the man always seemed to pounce on membership days. It was like he could just sense that Gabriel had spent all day sitting around doing nothing.

  Gabriel worked at Aled’s gym. He’d started just mopping floors and restocking the toilet roll in the bogs, but his chatty nature with the customers had earned him a promotion up to front of house, so to speak. The money wasn’t great, but he liked the job just fine. And he liked being able to pay half the monthly bills and still having a little leftover to himself.

  Gabriel had been homeless once. He’d left home at sixteen, and not entirely of his own volition. Now he had a home, and backup options should everything with Aled collapse around his ears, but the paranoia had never left him. He had an emergency fund that nobody else knew about, and he still carefully shaved a little off his wages every month to top it up. Just in case. Just in case.

  Aled: Want to play tonight?

  And the just in case was never more obvious than their games. After Gabriel had lost his job and moved in with Aled to avoid another go at homelessness, he’d lost the ability to enjoy some of his favourite games. Like Aled paying for a weekend at the beach and renting Gabriel as well as the holiday cottage. Some games, Gabriel thought sadly, were probably gone forever.

  Then he shook himself and pushed up from the desk.

  “I’m off, Caroline!”

  “Have a good night, sweetie!”

  He waved as he gathered his things, mulling over what to suggest. They hadn’t played a rough game since Aled had gone to the USA, so it was seriously overdue. But where to start? If Aled was going to break this soft streak, then Gabriel wanted some mindfucking as well as just ordinary fucking. A bit of metal and leather wasn’t going to cut it.

  Me: What do you have in mind?

  Aled: I’ll think about it.

  Gabriel rolled his eyes as he walked out into the unreasonably chilly carpark. It was threatening rain. His bike was damp as he unlocked it from the railings. It was going to be a—

  A horn sounded.

  A very familiar horn.

  Gabriel grinned as the car coasted to a stop right in front of him, missing the front wheel of his bike by a hair’s breadth. The tinted glass and white paint looked like something out of an advert, and the way the driver’s-side window eased down to reveal the driver was a movie.

  “Get in,” Aled said.

  Gabriel hooked the b
ike up to the back, then wandered around to the passenger side. Aled was in a predatory mood. The mirrored sunglasses and the lack of a kiss or friendly greeting said it all. Gabriel’s blood began to head south in anticipation. He was going to be fucked in a field or a car park. Maybe even suck Aled off while parked up on a busy shopping street, only the black glass between him and a bunch of gossipy mums after the best bargains.

  Or not. Aled took a seemingly aimless route out of Wakefield, heading north into Leeds. Passing Belle Isle was familiar, and Gabriel wondered for a wild minute if Aled meant to fuck him in his old flat building, but that, too, sailed past. The traffic was fairly calm, and it began to rain in earnest as Aled finally pulled off the main road into an industrial estate and stopped in a car park next to a brooding black warehouse of a building.

  “Where are we?” Gabriel asked.

  “The club.”

  Gabriel blinked. “A nightclub? You know that’s a—”

  “Not a nightclub,” Aled said. “A fetish club. They don’t even allow alcohol in here. You’ll be fine.”

  Gabriel bypassed the alcohol issue entirely. Fetish club. A prickle ran up his spine. It was an odd mixture of fear and arousal. Kevin had taken him to one in Manchester a few years ago, but for private sessions. Not—not just—

  “Colour?”

  Gabriel chewed on his lip. “I—yellow.”

  Aled’s hand on his back was warm and soothing.

  “Tell me.”

  “Are you a member here?”

  “Yeah. Melissa and I went to their theme nights a few times. I think she had a bit of a nudist streak, to be honest. I’ve not been in years, though.”

  “What are we going to do in there?”

  “I’m going to fuck you,” Aled said simply. “And other people are going to see. That’s it.”

  “They’ll try and touch me.”

  He’d barely been able to walk through the one in Manchester without hands appearing out of nowhere to touch him. And Gabriel liked the idea of being shared out like a toy, but something had always stopped him. It was a shade too scary. A fraction too dangerous. He’d tried with Kevin those few times in Manchester, but had always chickened out at the last minute, too scared to relax and enjoy the truly anonymous fuck.

  “They’ll touch me,” Gabriel repeated. “I can’t. I like the idea, but I tried all of that and it’s too scary. I can’t do it.”

  The hand rubbed up his back once, and down again. Heavy. Hard. A comforting protection. He relaxed and the spike of anxiety bled away. It wasn’t like Aled was going to make him do anything he didn’t want to do.

  “Nobody here is going to touch anyone without permission,” Aled said quietly. “That’s why we used to play here. They’re strict. And there won’t be permission—you’ll not be doing any talking and I’m not going to be letting other people touch my things.”

  The cramp in Gabriel’s gut eased. He took a deep breath.

  “I want you naked, and I want to fuck you. But—”

  “I want a blindfold.”

  Aled paused.

  “I know they’ll all be looking at me, but—I—can you blindfold me?”

  Aled’s fingers hooked behind his ear. The kiss was nothing like any of their games. It was soft and sweet and Gabriel relaxed into it.

  “Okay,” Aled murmured. “I’ll show you where we’re going, then I’ll take you into the locker room, strip you off and blindfold you. Colour?”

  “Green.”

  “All of them.”

  “Green for go. Yellow for pause. Red for stop,” Gabriel recited.

  “Good.”

  Then his thigh was slapped, the crack deafening in the quiet darkness of the car, and the next word was a hundred times harsher.

  “Out.”

  Gabriel got out. It was raining heavily, but he waited anyway. Aled’s hand slid into his back pocket and he was steered across the car park to a metal door with a CCTV camera staring down at them. Aled pressed an intercom button, said something about a membership and a guest, and a lock released. They were allowed into a featureless airlock and only once the metal door had locked again behind them did the inner door release.

  Then Gabriel stepped into a luxury hotel.

  At least, it looked like one. A roomy atrium, with a mahogany reception desk near the door and beyond it an array of fancy-looking sofas. It wasn’t busy. Three or four couples were scattered about, talking quietly. A staircase disappeared into the floor in one corner, and a sign informed him that the changing rooms were somewhere to his right.

  Aled spoke to the twinkly receptionist while Gabriel stared around. He was made to sign a rulesheet, then handed a towel and a locker key before Aled’s hand returned to his back pocket and he was steered into the locker room. It was like the sauna in Leeds he’d been to a few times with some of his Grindr playthings. Warm, dark and close.

  “Clothes off,” Aled said.

  He’d brought a bag from the car. He fished out a blindfold before shoving the bag into the back of the locker, and Gabriel wondered if Aled had meant for more toys.

  “I said strip.”

  He jumped and hastily stripped. His work clothes were bundled up and shoved into the locker and his dick twitched as Aled locked them away and pocketed the key. If the club was unfamiliar, the lockers weren’t. If he failed to please, then he stayed naked until he succeeded. How many mornings had the wardrobes and drawers been locked until he either safeworded or had sex?

  He was offered one last chaste kiss before the world was plunged into darkness. For a second, he was all alone on the tiled floor. Then Aled’s hands cupped his neck, and the bite struck out of nowhere.

  “Fuck!”

  His arse was slapped. He whined.

  “Swear at me again, and I’ll take you downstairs and beat you.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “Better. Walk.”

  He was steered by the shoulders, but made to step back into the lobby first. Immediately, he could feel eyes on him. People were staring. There was an artificial sort of silence and Gabriel couldn’t choose between trepidation and arousal. He was naked but for a blindfold and a nipple ring, and everyone was staring. But then…he was naked but for a blindfold and a nipple ring, and everyone was staring. He felt confident and shy at the same time. He felt grounded and lost at once. Aled’s hands were on his shoulders, but there was nothing in front of him. Aled was holding on to him, but not shielding him.

  “Stop.”

  He stopped. The hands vanished. A chair creaked and Aled’s hands returned to his hips.

  “Kneel.”

  He sank to the cold floor. The marble was intensely uncomfortable. If he sat forward, it crushed his knees. If he leaned back, it ground against the tops of his feet. But he didn’t fidget. He sat perfectly still as Aled raked a hand through his hair, tugging almost painfully at his scalp.

  “Open.”

  He opened his mouth but didn’t lean in. Aled was in one of his dangerous moods, and Gabriel was too disoriented by the club to want punishing. Sex in front of staring strangers was enough. Being beaten or humiliated in front of them was—for now—too much.

  “Take a deep breath.”

  The command came after a long pause. Gabriel whimpered, then obeyed. The hand slipped to the back of his neck. He relaxed his throat as the head of a hard cock was pushed past his lips, and tried not to flinch or resist as it carved a hot path past teeth and tongue and throat. It stopped when his nose brushed hair. Behind the blindfold, he closed his eyes and tried to push down the panic. No air. No air. There was no—

  “Hum.”

  He obeyed on instinct. His lungs ached. The dick in his neck got impossibly bigger. He fisted his hands into the sparse hair of his own thighs. Tears were burning his eyes. Please, please, please—

  The hand vanished from the back of his neck, but Gabriel stayed perfectly still. He knew the trap. He felt dizzy, but the trap was worse, the trap was worse—

  A s
ingle finger stroked from his forehead to the crown, then the hand closed and pulled. He reeled in a desperate breath as the wet head came to rest on the tip of his tongue, then closed his lips to hold it in place.

  “Very good,” Aled murmured. “You’ve been practising.”

  Oh, no.

  “But it’s been six weeks since you deepthroated me, so who’ve you been practising on?”

  Gabriel said nothing.

  “You like having other men’s dicks in you?”

  Nothing.

  “You want other men to see you like this?”

  Nothing.

  The cock slid free. A hand gripped his jaw so hard that Gabriel felt the bruises blossom. He whimpered, and cruel teeth bit his lower lip for the infraction.

  “Give them a show, then.”

  “S-sir?”

  “Get up here and fuck yourself until I’m done. Let them all watch those pretty tits of yours. Then when you’re done riding it, you can walk over to the bar with my cum running down your legs and get me a coffee. How does that sound?”

  It sounded humiliating. It sounded embarrassing. It sounded utterly awful. Everyone would be staring at him the whole time. Then if Aled wanted to lounge around and drink a coffee, he’d fuck Gabriel again after. Two fucks with all these people watching. Two loads to run down his legs. Two rounds of being used like a warm aid to wanking.

  It sounded so fucking good.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Chapter Seven

  Aled wasn’t sure what had inspired him to take Gabriel to the club, but it was an experiment he was definitely going to repeat.

  Not only had the jealous stares of other men in the club been one hell of an ego-stroking exercise, but Gabriel had been stoned on submissive bliss. He’d even cosied up in bed that evening for another fuck—but it had been gentle.