Liam chuckled, and true to form, had Zac on the edge before Zac could comprehend that he was happy to be awake. He clenched his eyes shut and fought the inevitable, but lost—like he cared—and it was over before it had really begun.
“Bastard,” Zac grumbled sleepily.
“Am I?” Liam crawled up the bed, dragging his hard cock over Zac’s stomach. “How about if I let you choose where I shoot my load? That do ya?”
Of course it would. Jamie aside, Liam was the only person who ever let him make such decisions. Zac deliberated briefly, then pointed to his chest. “I want you to come on me.”
Liam straddled Zac and jacked himself off, his bottom lip between his teeth and his gaze locked with Zac’s. “Like this?”
“Yeah. Like that.”
Liam groaned, like he had a hundred times over when they’d fucked around, but this time the gravelly sound seemed to travel through Zac and reverberate in his bones. Christ, Liam was gorgeous. Jamie was hot—beautiful in his own way—but Zac knew him too well, saw the flaws that were too close to his own. It was different with Liam. Despite the cash burning a hole in Zac’s pocket, somehow this seemed more real.
“Shit.” Liam came abruptly, shooting all over Zac’s chest. “God damn, you fuck me up.”
Zac grinned, relieved it wasn’t only him having issues with stamina, and caught Liam as he lurched forward and collapsed on Zac’s chest. He wrapped his arms around Liam and it felt good. Too good. He buried his face in Liam’s silky sun-streaked hair and breathed in a scent so fresh and clean that he closed his eyes to it, pretending for a moment that this was a life they shared, and he didn’t have to let go and return to the drudgery of hooking by the sea.
Still, there was some comfort in knowing he wouldn’t be leaving Liam behind entirely. Liam hadn’t given any indication that he spent a lot of time in King’s Lynn, but Holkham was only twenty miles away. No distance at all if Liam wanted his services again.
Liam raised his head. His grin was like the sun filtering through the posh curtains they’d neglected to close the night before. “Breakfast?”
“Um, sure.”
Liam rolled away and slid off the bed, disappearing from the room before Zac could protest. Zac mourned the loss of his soothing weight warming his bones. He’d never much cared for men lying on top of him in any context, but with Liam, it was okay. More than that. With Liam, it was so fucking perfect it frightened him.
In an effort to distract himself from the odd brooding mood he’d woken up with, he got up and searched out his phone. It was dead, and he’d forgotten his charger. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like anyone he truly wanted to speak to ever called. He shoved the phone back in his bag and drifted to the bathroom that was bigger than his bedroom. He took a piss and splashed water on his face, trying not to smirk at the shower where they’d had so much fun the night before. Fun that, despite being the one to initiate it, had caught Zac off guard. In truth, he’d tracked Liam to the bathroom because he’d woken alone in a dark, strange room and panicked, which had led him into Liam’s arms, if getting bent over in the shower counted as a rescuing embrace.
“You okay?”
Zac spun around. Liam stood in the doorway balancing a couple of plates in one hand. “I’m good. What you got there?”
“Croissants. I found them in the freezer.” Liam ventured further into the room and set the plates down, producing a jam jar from under his arm. “Fuck knows how long they’ve been there, but this hasn’t been opened, and it’s in date.”
“Winner.” Zac was suddenly ravenous. He followed Liam’s example and crawled back into bed, accepting a plate loaded with warm pastries. Liam served him a big dollop of some weird kind of orange jam, and for a while they ate in companionable silence. Then Liam switched on the TV, flipping to the news channel, and Zac saw the time. “Fuck. It’s eleven o’clock.”
“Got somewhere to be?”
“No . . .”
“Ah, I see. Have I run out of credit?”
It hadn’t occurred to Zac to watch the clock. He usually had an alarm on his phone that he pretended was his driver calling to pick him up, so johns wouldn’t know he was alone, but, like the first night they’d met, Zac had forgotten about the need for caution. “I guess I should get going soon.”
Liam said nothing. Zac swallowed the last of his breakfast and tried to pretend he wasn’t hanging out for Liam to ask him to stay, like the idea of pulling his clothes on and trudging home didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.
He’ll want to fuck me again, though, won’t he? But Liam made no move to tug Zac back into bed. Instead, he watched Zac dress with an inscrutable gaze, then got up himself and pulled his own clothes on. “Will you be okay getting home?”
“Hmm?” Zac glanced up from stamping into his tatty trainers. “Oh . . . yeah. I bought a return ticket.”
“From King’s Cross?”
“No, from Liverpool Street.” Silence. Zac wondered if Liam could hear the thud of his pounding heart. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Liam shrugged. “Just seems a bit weird to be heading in the same direction on different paths. And I feel a bit bad for dragging you all the way here, especially when we didn’t leave the flat. I probably shoulda taken you out for dinner or some shit.”
“I’m a whore, not an escort.” Zac pushed past Liam and headed for the door.
Liam followed and shoved his way in front of him, blocking him again. “Will you stop calling yourself a fucking whore?”
