Page 7 of For Real

Which I don’t.

Shit.

We stop outside one of those white fairy tale houses. They’re reasonably common in the posh bits of London, but they’re so pretty and costume drama-ish that it’s hard to believe they’re real and that people really live in them. I honestly half expect a rosy-cheeked, honey-blond woman to come round the corner wanting to know who will buy her sweet red roses.

He unhooks the little iron gate and I follow him up the steps to the front door. It’s so weird. Stairs on a street-level house. But there’s a sort of basement-type thing underneath, I guess for the servants you’d have had if you lived here in 1812 or whatever.

In the hallway, I give him his coat back, and he hangs it up in a cupboard before leading me into what I guess would be a sitting room in an ordinary house, but is probably a reception room in a place like this.

Even knowing precisely fuck-all about interior design, I can tell it’s super nice. Clean and cream, and during the day I guess it’d be so full of light from those big arched windows. I wonder if this is where he’d sit in summer, all sleek and golden like a lion pretending to be tame.

God, I really want to see him naked.

But we’re not even talking, just standing a polite distance from each other in the middle of this gorgeous room, and I have absolutely no idea what he’s thinking.

At last he breaks the silence, because I sure as hell can’t. “We can do this wherever you like.” He sounds so perfectly collected. Like this is normal. Maybe it is. For him. “Only not in my bedroom or the locked room on the top floor.”

“That’s really Bluebeard of you.”

“Sorry. I don’t use it anymore.”

I’m not going to ask about the bedroom. Don’t need to. No getting ideas above your station, Toby. And I’m honestly not sure if I’m meant to be prowling about the house, seeking an appropriate wanking zone. It’d totally serve him right if I went for something weird like the closet, or the loo, or the pantry. Instead, what comes out of me is, “But what about your carpet?”

Argh.

Don’t laugh at me, don’t laugh at me.

But he meets my eyes steadily, and I suddenly remember why I liked him so much. “I don’t care about the carpet.”

“How about here, then?”

In your living room. God. Fuck. Fuck.

He nods, crosses to the windows, and pulls the curtains. Bedroom or not, that seems intimate, like we’re closed into our own little world. There are dimmer switches, so the artificial light is mellow somehow, not harsh. Magical, as he goes to his knees again. And this time it’s for me, just for me, and it’s even better than before.

Better, and still nothing like enough.

“I want to see you naked.”

Holy shit, was that me? That was me. Shit, I’ve gone too far. I always go too far.

He doesn’t move for a moment, like he’s thinking about it or struggling with it, and I can’t tell if he wants to do it or he doesn’t want to do it, and I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m clearly a bit bobbins at this, but I want it so badly that I kind of don’t care.

Then he’s on his feet again. And he’s doing it. He’s actually doing it. He’s taking his clothes off. His hands aren’t quite steady, and that makes me feel good, so fucking good.

And, wow, his body. He’s not a gym bunny, but that always looks kind of pretend to me anyway, and I want to be like, Stop trying so hard. Eat a muffin. But he’s strong and lean without being intimidatingly ripped, and the light catches the hair on his chest and stomach and forearms so he sort of glows a bit. I love that, and I know I’m staring at him, but what would be the point of asking him to take off his clothes if I didn’t look? Oh, and he’s hard as well, just from this, and I love that too.6

It’s kind of embarrassing to tell the guy who’s way hotter than you how hot he is, but I have to. I can’t not. And it’s totally the right thing to do because he gets this gorgeous dark slash over his cheekbones—which isn’t quite a blush—and I get to see his throat work as he swallows. And I can suddenly remember how it felt under my hand.

At last, he’s kneeling again. Same as before: hands behind his back, knees slightly parted, as though he’s just waiting for me to nudge them wider.

Except this time he’s looking down.

Because it worked at the club, I try, “I want you to look at me.”

I wonder if I should mind that he hesitates when I tell him to do something. If this was porn, I’d probably be all, Do it now, bitch, or something. But I can’t say that to him. Jesus. Why would I want to?

And—is it weird?—I like the way he hesitates.

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