“He doesn’t do parties.” I try to claw back some shreds of dignity. “Honestly, he’s so needy. I should never have let him tag along.”
My fingers itch to open the picture. If it’s a dick pic, I’m going to have to leave right this minute with Gerald in tow, so I can get my hands on the real deal. Luke regards me patiently, waiting for me to tap on the screen. No way.
Coming to find you, I thumb instead.
“I’ve got to go back inside. I promised to look after him.” I let out a huffing sigh, as if catering to Gerald’s needs is a massive chore in my life. “He’s a pain, Luke, honestly. Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Yeah, right,” Luke drawls. He shoots me a pitying expression. “And apparently fish ride bicycles and the moon’s made of cheese.”
OMG, itisa dick pic.
CHAPTER 26
GERALD
Stefan’s text exchanges monopolise Alaric the entire journey back to Sutton Common and all the way into the flat. Courtesy of Alaric’s real-time updates and verbal stream of consciousness, I discover the relationship’s on the ropes. I’ve never met this fiancé, Marcus, and neither do I want to. He sounds an absolute spoiled diva. I’m not terribly drawn to Stefan either. Whilst I accept that he’s Alaric’s oldest mate and therefore probably not wheedling into his pants, he always phones and texts at the most inconvenient moments. Like now, when I’m waiting for Alaric to wheedle into mine.
That said, we usually find a moment to celebrate something before dawn.
Swilling the last of Alaric’s fine beard trimmings down the washbasin plughole, I regard myself in the mirror. Old, miserable Gerald would have left his tenant a passive aggressive note along the lines ofthe cleaning fairy has resigned, orsome of us like to wash in a clean basin.
New, mostly happy Gerald finds himself affectionately smiling at the spiky mass of scruff, then finishes up brushing his teeth.
Just before one, Alaric slinks across the bedroom floor and snuggles in, around half an hour after we’ve gone through the ridiculous pretence of wishing each other goodnight. We don’t sleep together every night, just the ones Alaric doesn’t spend at work. As he informs me each time he wriggles out of his briefs, then dives in next to me, he’s not here for any other reason than that he sleeps better in my bed than on his own. Being naked helps too, allegedly.
My arm is already laid out, ready and waiting for him to scoot closer and tuck himself under it. One skinny leg drops over mine, and his hand drifts down my flank, dipping below the waistband of my pyjamas.
“What’s the plan?” I ask, amused.
“I think we should celebrate Isaac and Ezra’s cool party, don’t you?” In case he hasn’t made his intention entirely clear, he slides my pyjamas down a few inches. “I doubt it’s finished yet.” His cold fingertips draw tickling little shapes in the hair at my groin, and I rock up into him. “Remind me why we left so early?”
“So we could give ourselves plenty of opportunity to celebrate it.”
With his erection pressed against my thigh, Alaric’s palm wraps loosely around my dick. Even when he’s doing something as simple as this—stroking me and lazily getting himself off against my leg—the oxygen is sucked from my body. I skate my lips over the top of his head, dropping tender kisses into his soft hair.
“I like celebrating with you,” I murmur as he sleepily brings me to orgasm.Like?my heart probes. Onlylike?
“And I like celebrating with you too.” Humping my thigh with his face buried in the curve between my shoulder andneck and his hot breath pressed against my skin, it’s like he’s speaking directly into my head. “I want to find loads more things to celebrate with you, except I’m worried it’s stopping you from finding your forever guy. I’m cramping your style.”
“You’re not,” I answer swiftly, then hesitate. He has another flat viewing on Monday in a good location. And any day now, Stefan and Marcus will uncouple, and Stefan will want his best buddy back.
I can’t let him leave without him knowing how I feel. “Maybe you are my style.”
“Yeah?”
If competing for a place at Crufts felt like staring down a long drop, then this feels like teetering on the edge of an active volcano with the wind roaring in my ears.
“Yeah.”
Alaric snorts a laugh, wetly against my neck. “So you like a man humping your leg when you’re trying to sleep?”
Not any man. Only you. “Apparently, I do.”
“Good,” he says on a low moan. “’Cos I could do this every night.”
The moment passes with barely a whimper. If I want him to know how I feel about him, I’ll have to be blunter. Await another suitable time. And if that comes with a pile of hurt? Then I’ll have to learn to breathe through a ladder of broken ribs.
Oblivious to the subtext, Alaric moves his hand from me and onto him so he can finish himself off. He’s close. By now, I’ve learned his tells; how his firm tight arse clenches, how the rhythm of his breathing alters, how the satisfied hiss through the gap in his teeth heralds a jet of spunk flooding my inner thigh. He uses some of it as lube to efficiently bring me to climax too.
