“Too much information.”
“I disagree,” Tim replied, not missing a beat. “They started off white…”
Scott recoiled. “White? What the hell happened?”
“My wife’s stockings.” Tim gave him a filthy grin.
“Oh.”
“They were red.”
“I worked out that part.”
Tim waved the secateurs at him. “Take ’em.”
Scott lifted his eyebrows. “You’re suggesting I use them to cut my jeans into shorts?”
“That or to slit your throat with.”
Scott took them. “I can think of someone else’s I’d rather slit…”
Tim gaped. “On second thought…”
“I was joking.”
“Good. Shorts, a skirt, a speedo if you get creative, be careful mind, once you snip below the node, there’s no going back.”
“What the hell is a node?” Scott shook his head when it looked like Tim might launch into a twenty-minute explanation. “These jeans cost me two hundred pounds.”
“And?”
“I’m not going to cut them to pieces.”
Tim patted Scott’s arm. “Keep ’em with you in case. Now, where’s your net at?”
An hour later, and Scott found himself sat on the paving slabs beside the koi pond. He’d long fished out any leaves and petals that had got blown into the water and had left the net, complete with the contents he’d collected by the side.
Scott had cut his jeans, all the way from the bottom to halfway up his thighs. The relief had been enough for him to sigh in bliss, and it only increased when he dipped his toes into the pond. The fish came over to investigate but soon lost interest, and Tim strode past to gloat at Scott’s destroyed jeans.
Scott swayed his feet back and forth through the water, allowing another sigh to leave him.
“Can I join you?”
Scott stiffened and, without looking at Thomas, replied, “It’s your mansion, you can do what you like.”
Thomas came closer and knelt beside Scott. He leaned over the pond and took a long, hard look at his reflection before shutting his eyes.
He opened his mouth, but Scott got there first.
“I mean twenty pounds? Are you serious? My mouth is worth five times that after all its practice.”
Thomas pressed his lips into a hard line.
“And I should be paid compensation for having to look at your sneering snake face while I performed oral on you, not to mention your dick is its own terrifying sna –”
Scott froze when Thomas touched his face. Thomas grabbed it with his fingertips, then twisted them slightly.
“What are you doing?” Scott asked.
