Page 42 of For Real

“And grumpy.”

“See previous.”

He stretched languidly, rubbing himself against me, his arse parting as sweetly as a peach around my shaft.

“God. You’re cruel.”

“You like it.”

Tormented, entranced, I kissed the nape of his neck. “Yes.” He shivered in response, goose bumps gathering instantly under my lips, and I…I broke. “Oh, Toby, please. When will you let me come?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Tomorrow. In me.”

I opened my mouth to answer, and only a groan came out.

“Cruel,” he murmured, “and also merciful.”

“Perfect,” I told him, catching his wrist and holding him tight.

“Only to you.” His drowsy, husky voice. “But it’s fucking amazing.”

I wasn’t sure if I would manage to sleep, my cock heavy with promises of tomorrow, but somehow I did, lulled to it by Toby’s warmth, his steady heart, and his every long, slow exhalation.

But something roused me a few hours later. Nothing I could have identified, but somehow I knew Toby was awake beside me, his body sticky-hot and tense, his breathing not quite steady.

“Toby? Are you all right?”

He turned, burying his face against me. “Kind of… Yes… No… I don’t know.”

Dear God. He regretted me. I’d grovelled on my knees and sobbed in his arms, and now he despised me. I pushed away sleep and panic and my own ugly fears. “What’s wrong, darling?”

He was quiet for a long time. Then, so softly I barely caught it, “I’m scared.”10

I wasn’t sure if I should be touching him—if that was what he wanted—but I dragged my fingertips down his spine and he relaxed, just a little. “Because of what we did?”

“Yeah. Kind of.”

“It wasn’t what you’d imagined?” Somehow I managed to say it without cringing. What had he imagined? Some pretty fantasy, far removed from the messy reality of me in pieces at his feet.

“Oh, it was way better than I imagined.” He lifted his head and repositioned himself more comfortably against my shoulder, arching into my touch. “It’s just massively different to want something, and have it, y’know?”

Relief, such relief. “Yes. I do know.”

“And I was just thinking that maybe wanting it means something different now.”

I kept stroking him, my hands drifting over his skin like leaves on water, soothing myself as much as him. “How?”

“Because…because I really like you, Laurie.”

Once again, his fearless honesty left me defenceless, and I found myself blurting out, “I really like you too,” as if we were children exchanging vows in the playground.

I wasn’t sure he heard me, though, because he didn’t reply. He just nuzzled into me, pleasure-soft noises falling from his lips. Contentment crept through me in return. I was tired and not precisely aroused, but he had left me with a quiet awareness—of him, of my body, the needs he had fulfilled and the ones he had left to throb and burn and build inside me.

It felt strangely indulgent to be awake. Nights were for sex, sometimes, and sleeping. Blue lights and urgent skies. Death. And sudden, unlikely life. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d stayed up simply to talk. Perhaps with Robert, at university, when we were young and in love and time had meant nothing.

“It’s just,” he said, after a while, “how will I know it’s okay? Like when I put the tie round your eyes, you said you didn’t want it, and”—an odd, hesitant note crept into his voice—“I did it anyway, and it turned me on. It turned me on a lot.” His cock stirred between us, and he gasped and tried to shove it out of the way. “God. I’m sick.”

It had been a very long time since I’d thought my sexual preferences worth questioning. And, while I understood his concerns—and, to an extent, I was glad he had them, as the alternative would have been worse—I was also faintly exasperated. Excavating one’s navel for lint struck me as a futile and uniquely adolescent pastime. I didn’t want him to feel guilty about what he did with me, but I didn’t particularly want to analyse it either. “You know that’s not true.”

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