Zac moved like a snake: rolling over, shoving Liam onto his back, and straddling him before Liam could protest. “So? Never said I would, did I? Now it’s your turn to do as you’re fucking told.”
He cut off any argument Liam may have made by aligning himself with Liam’s dick and easing down on it in a long, slow slide.
Liam groaned. The heady burn that had simmered between him and Zac since they’d struck their sordid deal increased tenfold, and his eyes fluttered closed. He thrust up, seeking friction. Zac met him in the middle, and their bodies collided over and over, flesh slapping flesh, grinding together, building to the brutal rhythm that Liam had craved so badly. The cheap IKEA bed shunted across the floor, and he braced himself on the frame, driving deeper inside Zac.
“Fuck!” Zac gasped, and his legs shook. Liam gripped his hips and flipped them over, pinning Zac once again, and pounding into him so hard he made his own eyes water as Zac cried out and arched his back. “Yeah, that’s it. Don’t stop, don’t stop.”
As if. Liam was on a one-way trip. He put his hands on Zac’s chest and fucked him harder, clenching his eyes shut as Zac clamped down around him, digging his nails into Liam’s skin. Orgasm roared through him like a wildfire, obliterating more than a year of abstinence, and he fought to hold his pace, but as he came with a gravelly yell, control abandoned him and he fell on top of Zac, mashing their bodies together, sweat merging with a sticky, wet warmth that suggested Zac had beaten him to the punch.
He came. For some reason, that surprised Liam as he lay in a sex-dazed stupor. Like he’d thought Zac’s boner had all been for show. Like a man could fake a dick as hard as that.
“Open your eyes.”
Liam shook his head. Nope. If he lay still in his self-imposed darkness, he could pretend the first stirrings of shame and disgust weren’t brewing deep in his gut, and he wouldn’t have to look at Zac and despise the both of them.
But the longer he lay there, the harder it became to block out reality. Guilt was relentless like that. He opened his eyes with a sigh. Zac stared back at him, his dark gaze . . . sad? No, that couldn’t be right. This meant nothing to him. Liam was a client, a john, and Zac had completed the job he’d been paid for. The grief was all Liam’s.
Liam rolled away and sat up, searching for his discarded clothes. Behind him, he heard Zac move too and open the bedside drawer. A rustling came next, and then the flinty flick of a lighter. Weed smoke filtered into Liam’s senses, a smell he’d recognise anywhere, and the shield he’d cast around his heart in his haste to get Zac into bed began to crumble.
He found his jeans and yanked them up his legs, checking his pockets for his wallet, phone, and keys. His T-shirt was in the doorway. He retrieved it and pulled it over his head.
“Going already?”
Liam turned. Zac sat cross-legged on the bed, smoking a funky kaleidoscope pipe. With his sweat-sheened skin and tousled hair, he looked like one of those waifish models in the trendy cologne ads. “I’ve got to get home.”
“To your husband?”
Liam snorted.
“It’s okay,” Zac said. “You’re not the first to scarper with his tail between his legs.”
“I can put my tail where I damn well please. There’s no one around to notice.”
“Ah.” Zac nodded like he knew everything in the whole fucking world. “Divorced, eh? Is that the same for gays? All that legal bullshit?”
“Wouldn’t know,” Liam said flatly. “My husband’s dead.”
Zac blinked, missing a beat. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” And Liam meant it. He’d long ago grown tired of hollow sympathy from people who didn’t give a shit. “Have you seen my shoes?”
“Over there. You okay getting home?”
Liam followed Zac’s direction to the foot of the bed and stamped into his shoes. “Think I can manage. I’ll see you around, yeah? Thanks for . . . a good time.”
“Pleasure was all mine.” Zac regarded him a moment through a haze of smoke, then reached into his Aladdin’s cave of a bedside drawer. He retrieved a card and passed it to Liam. “There’s my number. Give me a call if you ever need another distraction.”
Two days later, Zac stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and blew the last precious lungful of smoke to the ceiling. He had no plans to buy any more. And that went for weed too . . . maybe. Of all his vices, it had proved the hardest to quit. Was there anything better than sharing the sunrise with a joint? Probably, but in recent months it had been his only way of winding down after an arduous night hooking.
Shame it didn’t knock him out for long. Zac yawned and checked the time: 11 a.m. Still, four hours’ kip was better than nothing, and it was better than pacing the small flat, waiting for a knock at the door that rarely came.
Speaking of which. Zac forced himself out of bed and padded across the hall, wincing as the sun hit his scratchy, sleep-deprived eyes. He opened the door to the second bedroom and found it deserted, like he’d known he would, the bed unslept in since he’d changed the sheets more than a week ago. Fuck’s sake. It was the eighth morning straight he’d woken to an empty flat. Soon he’d have to catch a bus into Norwich and search the city centre—the squats, the alleys, the derelict warehouse behind the church. Jamie had a gift for winding up in the worst holes a city had to offer, a skill Zac had shared until circumstance had forced him to mend his ways . . . or at least sew a threadbare patch over them.
He tore himself away and drifted to the kitchen, despite knowing the fridge was empty. Staring at its bare shelves, he imagined what he’d eat if he didn’t need the cash he’d made over the weekend for rent. A sausage sarnie maybe, with bacon, onions, and cheese. And brown sauce, loads of it. He’d pick up some HP next time he had money to burn. Which would be the next side of never.
Zac shut the fridge with a heavy sigh. Six months ago, the luxury of a roof over his head had seemed like a distant dream. To lust beyond that now felt wrong, so back to bed it was. He had another long night ahead of him tonight, servicing the most regular john he’d managed to find since moving to the arse end of nowhere—an old guy, with a penchant for spanking and a tiny cock. Still, he was clean and amiable, a perk of Zac picking his own johns. No more grubby motherfuckers for me.
Pondering, Zac took a piss and crawled into bed, burrowing under the covers that smelled of the last john he’d brought home. The only john you’ve ever brought home. He pulled a pillow over his head and let his mind meander back to his encounter with Liam two nights ago. It had been everything he’d imagined when he’d first laid eyes on him. More. And the tall, enigmatic blond had been on his mind ever since, much to his chagrin. After all, Liam hadn’t struck him as the kind of bloke who called up hookers, begging for a repeat performance. Yeah? So why did you give him your card?
