Best of 2017

“Where will you have to go?!”

I shrug. “Out of the city, certainly. Out of the country, maybe.”

“What about your boys?”

My gut twists. “My boys have a new life now. A better life.” I take a breath. “I’ll be at the end of the phone whenever they need me. I’ll arrange transport whenever they want to come.”

Her stare is uncertain. “You want me to come with you? Like… with you? Is this…”

“You know what this is,” I tell her. “Unless I’m very, very much mistaken, we both do.”

She shakes her head. “You’re not. I’m just… surprised…”

“You’re surprised?”

“Yeah. I just… I thought I must just be a… because you pay me and I don’t…”

I kiss her temple. “I’ve paid for a lot of sex in the past few years, but I can assure this is the first time I’ve ever paid half a million to take a girl to see her favourite band.”

She doesn’t have any words, just the hugest blue eyes. And I laugh.

It feels so fucking good to laugh.

She laughs too. She laughs the delicious kind of laugh of someone high on life.

“Just as well we have the same favourite band,” she says. Her eyes sparkle as the laughter fades, and her hand snakes up my thigh under the table. “Let’s finish the night with a bang,” she whispers. “It’s a night for favourites, right? How about we look for another?”

“Another what?”

“Another fantasy to fulfil,” she tells me, and my cock twitches.

I know what she’s angling for. I know exactly what filthy thoughts are flitting behind those innocent eyes.

I know full well the meaning of the fucking pang in my gut, too.

Maybe it won’t feel the same with her there.

Maybe she will really make it… different.

“You want me to fuck another man?” My voice is just breath in her ear, but she shudders.

“Yes,” she whispers. “Please… if that’s what you… if you want to as well…”

I hate how much I want to, but that’s nothing new.

“I could make some calls,” I tell her. “Maybe Claude can hook me up at short notice.”

Her eyes sparkle. “Or I could go and have a word with the guy who’s been staring at you from the bar for the last twenty minutes straight.”

I scan the crowd, suddenly well aware that I’ve been totally oblivious to every other person in this building. And there he is.

He’s young. Way too fucking young.

Short cropped hair and piercing eyes. Casual, but not too casual. Jeans and a shirt.

He doesn’t look away when I meet his eyes.

“You like him?” I ask her and she nods.

“He’s cute, right?”

“Cute for me or cute for you?”

She squeezes my thigh. “You’re the only man I’m interested in.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

She nods. “That’s so.”

I hold the guy’s stare until he looks away with a smile. Yeah, he’s fucking up for it.

“He’s young,” I say.

“Legal though. I saw them take his ID at the bar.”

She’s an observant little minx. Law school really would suit her well.

“You want me to go ask him?” She’s smiling, squirming in her seat, and this is a whole new side of her, one that makes my balls fucking tighten.

I shake my head. “I’ll handle it.”

She looks taken aback.

I raise an eyebrow. “You think I’ve never propositioned a guy before?”

She squeezes aside to let me pass, and I angle her face up to mine for a kiss as I go. My eyes meet his as I leave her, and seeing me with Amy does little to dent his interest.

So far so fucking good.

He clears a spot at the bar for me as I make my way over, and he’s taller than I expect up close. He smells fresh. He smells like he wants my cock in his ass.

“I’m Dean,” he says.

I take out a twenty from my wallet to pay for his drink.

“The name’s Ted,” I say.

MELISSA

I CAN HARDLY WATCH. My knees are shaking under the table as Alexander pays for Dean’s drink at the bar.

My heart is a panicked mess as they talk.

I force a smile as Alexander looks in my direction. His mouth is by Dean’s ear, and I wish to God I knew what he was saying.

I also wish Dean and I had sorted out a bail-out word, because I’d be so close to using it right now. So close to blowing this whole crazy thing off.

Downing my wine doesn’t make the nerves any easier. I can hardly sit still as Alexander brings me another and brings Dean along with him.

“Amy, this is Dean,” he tells me, and I’m sure my smile is fake enough to cringe as I say hello. “Dean’s coming back with us,” Alexander tells me, and my stomach drops through the floor.

I grip his hand under the table and he runs a thumb across my knuckles.

My silly fantasies about this evening were ridiculous, I know that now.

This is Dean. My friend Dean. Pretending to be some random in some London pub in order to take Alexander’s dick up his ass.

But he doesn’t need to, because Alexander said all he needed to say already. He’s asked me to go away with him, and I’m still reeling. I need a way out of this hole I’m in, not a sure way of digging it all the deeper.

I’m digging it way too deep.

It’s in Dean’s eyes as he stares at Alexander. It’s in the way I know he must be so nervous. The way I know he must be as terrified as I am of blowing our cover.

“We should drink up,” Alexander says and my heart pounds.

Dean drinks up, downs his beer in one.

I have to take mine back in three long swigs, and my legs feel bandy as Alexander takes my hand and leads me out of this place. I can barely speak as we leave the pub with Dean in tow.

Alexander pulls me into the doorway of the very first hotel we pass. It’s nothing special, nothing like Delaney’s, and that makes it seem so much more real somehow. Three of us in some regular hotel room, where the man I adore is going to pound my best friend’s ass.

I can’t believe I set this up.

I can’t believe this is really happening.

“I’ll get us a room,” Alexander says, and I’m left with Dean as he heads on in.

“You can go,” I hiss. “This was a crazy idea, I’m sorry.”

“Too fucking late for that,” Dean hisses back. “It’s gonna look real fucking suss if I suddenly make a fucking dash for it.”

Alexander beckons us inside and I take a breath.

“You want to do this?” I ask before we go.

Dean looks at Alexander and his eyes darken. “Yeah, I wanna do this.”

Fuck.

“He’s rough,” I say, like he doesn’t know that already, but he isn’t even listening, he’s already swinging the door open.

I feel like a prostitute all over again as we head up to the second floor. I pretend it’s taking the stairs in my heels that leaves me breathless, but that’s not the half of it. I’m on the edge of panic. My ears are ringing and my head feels light as Alexander finds our room and opens the door.

Dean brushes past him on the way in, and Alexander grabs my arm before I can join him.

“Are you alright?”

I nod. Smile. “Sure.”

“Don’t want to call this off?”

I look into the hotel room and Dean’s already perched on the bed.

He wants this.

They both do.

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I don’t want to call this off.”

He closes the door behind us, and the click of the lock sends shivers down my spine.

ALEXANDER

MY DELICIOUS LITTLE Amy has underestimated me.

That’s no real surprise, she simply has no comprehension of how as

tute I have to be in my line of work. My entire career has hinged on my ability to read people – the things they don’t want to tell me, the subtle little inferences of their body language, the little facts between their lines.

I wasn’t sure, not until we left the tavern.

I couldn’t call it for certain until I watched them outside as I went to book us a room.

Dean, whatever his real name is, is no stranger to my beautiful Amy. They’ve met before. I’d venture as far as to say they’re pretty well acquainted.

Which leaves me with a dilemma – to call them out and put an end to this dance, or push them as far as they’ll go to maintain their cover.