Chapter Nine

Lucien

I wake for the second time with my head in Jay’s lap and pretend I’m asleep for a while longer, savouring it all. Now he’s appreciated I’m an utter fruitcake, he’ll politely withdraw, and memories of little stolen moments like this will be all I have left.

“I know you’re awake,” he says softly, and I sense the smile in his voice.

“No, I’m not. I’m dreaming about a gorgeous junior doctor I met recently and what I’d like to do with him.”

“Your skin is flawless; has anyone ever told you that?” he murmurs, leaning down and pressing his silky lips gently on mine. A wave of something approaching peace wafts over me. Maybe he won’t leave yet after all.

“Yes, my mother. She used to stroke my forehead with her thumb and say that my skin was even softer than hers.” I find that my throat is closing, and I keep my eyes firmly shut, willing those bloody tears not to breach the barrier.

“What, you mean like this?”

Last Friday evening, I dined opposite someone who once knew me inside and out, but who never in five years said anything or did anything as sweet as this boy is doing now, the pad of his thumb so warm and tender across my brow.

“It won’t bring them back, Lucien,” he says carefully. “You know, the drinking, the not eating thing, the hiding yourself away from everyone. It won’t bring any of them back, not Billy-Ray, not your parents, and not Oliver.”

My voice wavers as I reply. “Oliver was going to be a father. His wife, Isobel, was lovely, so perfect for him. They were childhood sweethearts. She had just discovered she was pregnant, and they were so excited about it. We all were. They would have been wonderful parents.”

The tears breach the barrier, and he dabs at them gently with his sleeve. I have not felt so cherished since my mother died. It’s a while before I can speak again.

“I should have been with them in the helicopter. Me, instead of Oliver and Isobel. I should be dead too. But at the last minute, someone called in sick at work, and I agreed to stay on and cover a shift for a few hours and take the next flight out. Why did I get to live when everyone else died? I should have been in that helicopter. I feel guilty that I wasn’t. I feel guilty that I’m living, when they died and Billy-Ray died.”

“You did everything you could for Billy-Ray,” he says. “All the ICU staff did, and he was comfortable at the end. I was there, I saw him and held his hand just a few minutes before. He was ready to die. And if you’d died in that helicopter, then patients like him wouldn’t have had the benefit of you caring for them—the world would have been worse off.”

I’m lost in the sincerity of those brown eyes gazing down at me, the slight quirk of his upper lip, the beginnings of a smile.

“And you dying would have made my world much worse, too, because then I wouldn’t have had this.”

He kisses me lightly again, melding his generous mouth to mine, and I lose myself in his fresh, honest taste, in his strength and warmth. If I’m brave enough to just hold it all together and trust his words, then I can kid myself that I can taste the tiniest edges of happiness too—me with him, feeling cherished, feeling loved. And not long after that profound thought, like the insatiable sex god that I am, I fall fast asleep again.

*

At some point during the night, he half carries, half manhandles me into bed. I’m sleepily aware of his warm bulk settling in next to me and laying my head on his chest, encircled in his arms. Waking at dawn several hours later, the room still dark, I lie quietly, listening to Jay’s regular breathing. My first thoughts are that I haven’t felt so calm and refreshed for as long as I can remember. My feet haven’t been so warm either, which has everything to do with the human hot-water bottle lightly snoring alongside me.

My libido is also feeling refreshed, and suddenly, the few centimetres distance between me and that broad expanse of naked boy are too much. I could lie here for ages and watch him as he peacefully sleeps, and when he wakes, I could gently seduce him, with teasing caresses and nibbling kisses, until he’s begging me for more. He’s never been with a man before; I could take it easy and slow.

But as my libido has sprung awake for the first time in aeons, I have a much better plan in mind. After quickly stripping off my nightie, it would not be stretching the realms of exaggeration to say that I launch myself at him. Thus, in the sleepy half-light of early morning, Jay wakes with a jolt of incomprehension to find the length of his huge firm body covered in mine. I snuggle closer, relishing every point where our bodies touch, my face nestled into the warm crook of his neck, breathing him in. As his hands automatically slide around my waist, he shifts slightly, sleepily spreading his legs so I can settle myself comfortably between them. I hum contentedly.

“Are you purring, Lucien?” He chuckles softly in the dark.

The memory of our amazing kisses against the desk in my office has my cock stirring. I hum again, feeling his chest rumbling with laughter, and my cock swells even more. Wriggling it gently against his, he gasps with shock and pleasure as our hard shafts greet each other.

“Christ, that feels so nice,” he groans softly into my ear as I do it again, a more deliberate roll of my hips this time, relishing the scratchiness of his pubes against my groin. Very slowly, very gently, we find a rhythm, and for the first time in his life, he learns to love the delicious, lazy bump and slide of a simple cock rub as our bodies slicken with sweat and leaking pre-come.

“Gosh, you like that, don’t you, Jay?”

“Yeah, God, yeah. Remind me why I waited twenty-nine years for this?”

You waited for me, I want to say, so I would be the only man who ever had you this way.

His big hands explore lower over the swell of my hips, easily covering my arse cheeks. As his hips rock up to meet mine, I bury my face further into the shadowy groove of his neck and collarbone, nibbling and sucking as I go, tasting his fresh salty skin. I slide my mouth lower, down to the flat brown disc of a nipple, and he cries out with shock when I tug it into my mouth.

“Lucien, fuck. Luce,” he moans, and I wonder if he can sense me grinning with delight against his skin. I move back up his body again and find his mouth. Gradually, our rhythm becomes faster and more ragged as he lifts his hips higher, our cocks battling against each other. A familiar delicious tingling in my spine tells me I’m close to release.

“I’m going to come,” warns Jay, and I’m not sure if he’s surprised, panicked, ecstatic, or semaphoring a mixture of all three.

“That is generally the idea,” I pant, and as I bite down firmly onto his nipple again, gorgeous waves of liquid heat spurt between our bellies, accompanied by his gasp and curse of pleasure. That cry is all it takes for my own orgasm to erupt, mingling with his, both of us jerking out every drop until I settle gently back on top of him, our bodies stilling once more, the only sound the slowing thump of his heart in my ear.

“Fuck,” he says eventually. “Just…wow…fuck.”

With his strong arms wrapped around me in the dark, I could lie cocooned in this wet, sticky mess for the rest of the day. He makes a wonderful pillow, and whoever declared a Midlands accent wasn’t sexy has never heard my boy Jay calling their name in the midst of orgasm. I think I nod off again; there is something about this solid boy that makes me want to curl up against him and never let go.

As the sky brightens and my room lightens, I reluctantly lift up onto my elbows and look down at him more clearly.

“Good morning, my darling,” I murmur, and he blushes beautifully.

“I think we’re going to be glued together forever now,” he remarks, shifting his weight experimentally. Yep, he may be correct. It’s fairly crusty down there.

“It’s odd being in this position,” he carries on, shyly looking up at me. “You know, lying here underneath and not on top. I mean, I’ve obviously had a girl on top, but you’re, like, bigger and…um…it feels like you’re in charge up there, you know? You’re stronger than you look, Lucien.” He smiles self-consciously. “I like it, though. I didn’t think I would. In my head I sort of always imagined me up there and you down here. But I like it a lot.”

“I like it too, Jay. And I like you a lot.”

I lean down and kiss him, my tongue exploring. We’ve both probably got stale morning breath, but neither of us notices or cares. He breaks away and looks up at me self-consciously.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He’s about to say something but changes his mind and nods instead before stretching his neck up for more and then breaking off again.

“…Do you, I mean, are you always on top?”

I shake my head, smiling, and just to demonstrate, I roll off him, taking him with me so that our positions are reversed. Blimey, he’s heavy. Fortunately, he quickly realises I’m squashed and takes some of his weight on his elbows.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone, because it will spoil my image,” I whisper in a conspiratorial fashion, “But Dr Avery is very, very easy to please. He’s extremely versatile. He likes it top ways, bottom ways, sideways, diagonal ways, um…on seaways, leeways, motorways, on bridleways…” I giggle. “And in alleyways, pathways, doorways, archways…anyways probably, as long as it is with you.”

My silliness is rewarded with his beautiful easy smile, beaming down at me, followed by a loud tummy rumble.

“Gosh, I’ve been a dreadful host.” I pout up at him girlishly. “In pursuit of my own pleasure, I forgot that all those well-honed muscles need regular feeding.”

“Puny aristocratic ones do too,” he replies, manoeuvring off me and climbing out of bed. “And you need to eat more before you waste away. Which is why I’m going to make you a proper breakfast.”

*

I luxuriate in bed with a warm, fuzzy glow for a while before quickly showering, then follow the delicious aroma of frying bacon into the kitchen. As much as I could have lazed around under a duvet with him for the rest of the day—because, basically, I’m aching to have him inside me—I appreciate that this is all a bit new for him, and he may need time to adjust. And some protein and carbohydrates. So I’m going to be generous and allow him at least half an hour to regroup before I launch myself on him again. And who said we need to be in bed to fuck? I’ve been fantasising about him taking me over my kitchen table for weeks.

Having anticipated a couple of rashers of bacon between two slices of bread, the full English being dished out onto my delicate white china plates is quite impressive. As is the vision of my new man, filling out a long-sleeved white T-shirt, a pair of grey sweatpants hanging low from his hips.

“Which rugby team have you invited to join us for breakfast?” I enquire, eyeing the mounds of food. “I’m not saying I’m not up for a challenge now I’ve acquired a taste for the larger physique, but I’m not certain I could manage all fifteen of you.”

“You won’t grow big and strong, Dr Avery, if you don’t eat a proper breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day. Now sit.”

I do what I’m told and accept a plate laden with more calories than I’ve consumed all week. I’m actually vaguely hungry, and he watches me eat like a proud father with a recalcitrant toddler.

I chew a mouthful of black pudding. I should ask him to photograph it, my cousin Freddie will never believe me otherwise. I swallow. “The most important meal of the day is the one you have before a big night out drinking in dodgy nightclubs. If anyone should heed that advice it would be you.”

He looks at me amused through his lashes before lasciviously licking a blob of stray ketchup from his upper lip. “But if I’d heeded that advice, then I wouldn’t have gone to Spangles, and I wouldn’t be here with you, would I?”