Page 36 of For Real

“This is…what it is. And, someday, probably quite soon, you’ll meet someone who can be your boyfriend. Someone you really want to be.”

“And”—his nose wrinkled sceptically—“then I just randomly bugger off with this imaginary guy, do I?”

“Yes.”

“And what about you?”

I gave him my sternest look. “I’ve somehow survived for thirty-seven years without you, Toby. I’ll contrive to go on.”

“Well, you didn’t do very well the last couple of months. I hardly know you and I can see you’re wrecked.”

“That,” I said sharply, “is not the point.” I made to pull away, but his fingers tightened on my tie and my cock, and the truth was, I didn’t want to be let go.

“All right. All right. We’ll just do”—somehow he managed to get sarcastic air quotes around the word without the use of his hands—“‘this.’”

I swallowed and nodded again. The relief was almost unbearable, and I’d put up no fight at all, simply allowed a nineteen-year-old to come in from the cold and sweep me off my feet.

“But no more chucking me out of your house.”

I tried to smile. “Mi casa es su casa. You leave when you want.”

“And I have to see you at least once a week.”

“My job is not forgiving.”

“Nonnegotiable. I don’t care when it is or what we do or if you just lie next to me completely unconscious, but I want to see you and I want to be with you.”

I opened my mouth to protest and then realised it would have been ridiculous. The idea of seeing Toby every week was…delightful. The problems would come when he met someone else, lost interest, or his life took him elsewhere, but I could deal with that when it happened. And, in the meantime, I could simply…simply enjoy him, an unexpected, unasked-for gift from the universe.

And, frankly, fuck everything else.

I deserved a little happiness. A little peace.

“All right.”

Toby’s eyes flared like twin stars. “Then congratulations, Mr. Laurence Dalziel, consultant in emergency and prehospital medicine, on your acquisition of one slightly used, but otherwise prime condition Tobermory Finch.”

“Tobermory?” I asked, trying not to laugh as he swung round and straddled me.7

“Call me that and I’ll seriously have to kill you.”

Then he kissed me, and I forgot about anything but his hot, eager mouth and his tongue pushing clumsily against mine. If he lacked finesse, he made up for it in enthusiasm and a certain ferocity. It was wet and our teeth clashed more than a few times, but—like the tie he still held—it was undeniably a claiming. And in the midst of all that damp velvet softness, I felt something else, something smooth and warm and hard gliding against me. A tongue stud? God. A rough little secret at the heart of his kiss.

I let him have his way with me, opened for him, offered myself to him, and held him close. In time, it turned a little wild, the sort of urgent, grinding kiss that I hadn’t shared with anyone since Robert and I were Toby’s age and hornier than we were competent. I’d forgotten how pleasurable it could be, this particular cocktail of lust and uncertainty, how liberating and intoxicating.

Heat gathered between us, between our mouths and at the places where our bodies met, where my hands touched him. Our breaths turned ragged together. And when I dragged him closer so I could drive my cloth-trapped cock between his thighs, he arched into me, moaning and frantic. It was maddening and wonderful in almost equal measure, these rough collisions of mouths and cocks and selves.

I threw him off me, and he landed on his back on the sofa, legs parting instinctively to allow me between them. I came down on top of him, catching his spare hand and pinning it against one of the cushions. His fingers curled into mine and still we kissed and writhed and clung to each other.

At last, Toby tore his mouth away from mine. “Hey. Like…hey…”

I jerked back, releasing his wrist. “Oh. Oh. God. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He seized my face and pulled me into another kiss, teeth scraping my lower lip, making me groan again. “It’s just…I’m still kind of ticked off at you.”

I gazed down at him. He didn’t sound ticked off or look it really. What he looked was thoroughly debauched, his mouth swollen, his cheeks flushed, and the blue of his eyes almost entirely lost to pupil. But then I understood, and my cock, impossibly, grew harder still. “I’m sorry.” God, I was no better at being sorry than he was at being angry. My voice was thick with longing.

He folded his hands behind his head and stretched somewhat theatrically. His hoodie rode up, showing a gleam of pale skin. “That’s just talk, Laurie. If you’re really sorry, I think you should show me.”

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