Believe: A Skins Novel

by Garrett Leigh

  Bunker five was at the end of the corridor. Angelo paused with his hand on the door and psyched himself up for what he might find. In the past, he’d screwed all kinds of people, but dear God, he wanted to fuck a man tonight⁠—needed it. Craved it. Pansexual be damned, some days, only a man’s touch could take the pain away.

  Angelo opened the door. Blinked a few times. And then a rush of relief hit him so hard he had to steady himself on the doorframe.

  Whoa. Jackpot.

  He sucked in a breath, and the smouldering desire in his gut did a happy dance. It had been a while, but the thrill of opening the door never got old, and this time he’d struck gold⁠—literally. The slender young man waiting for him on the bed had a halo of fair hair and pale skin that would look awesome with Angelo’s handprints welded into it. And beyond that, he was ready. Blindfolded and splayed out on his hands and knees, the man had left condoms and lube beside him⁠—his message clear. He wanted to be fucked, and Angelo was over the damn moon to oblige.

  Dropping his clothes as he went, he stalked around the raised mattress, his dick already hard. His plan was basic, already spelled out by his mysterious companion, but he paused by the man’s head, intrigued by his lips. Pillowy and full, the temptation to slide his cock between them was strong, but the metal floor biting into his bare feet stopped him. People didn’t come to the basement rooms for that⁠—they came for the anonymous oblivion that Angelo craved.

  Angelo returned to where the man clearly wanted him most. He reached for the condoms, and the man shivered as Angelo tore the foil wrapper open and then tossed it aside. Angelo rolled the condom on, jacking himself a couple of times before he turned his attention to his partner in crime and his willing hole. The lube was the stretchy kind that was fashioned on real come. It dripped out of the bottle in long wet strings and onto the man’s cleft, sliding down his thighs. The man shuddered again, but Angelo made no move to comfort him. Nah. The basement rooms weren’t about getting up close and personal; they were about getting down and dirty, and Angelo was more than ready.

  He pushed lube into the man’s hole with his thumb, absorbing the delicious answering moan. Words were rarely exchanged in encounters like this, but there were a few that Angelo was obliged to utter. He eased his thumb further inside the man and leaned over him, his nipples brushing the man’s smooth back. “Safe word is fox. Don’t be shy about using it.”

  The man gasped out a laugh. “I won’t.”

  His voice was deeper than Angelo expected, and the gravelly words went straight to his dick. He withdrew his thumb, lined up with the man’s hole, and pressed inside with as much care as he could muster with his blood roaring a symphony in his ears. The man was tight and hot and slick with lube. And more than that, he wanted Angelo’s cock and widened his stance to take all of him in one slow slide.

  “Fuck yeah.” Angelo stopped for a moment, reeling from being balls-deep inside a man. He took a breath, and then a strange sensation washed over him, and he lurched forward before he caught himself, hands flailing as he fought the urge to run his hands all over the man’s smooth back. What the hell?

  That was a new one. When he’d played in the basement rooms before, he’d never thought about really touching whoever he’d been railing. Had never taken much notice because that was the point—a hook-up that took anonymity to the extreme, where sex narrowed to the lightning bolts of pleasure shooting through his dick. But he wanted to touch this man, wanted to squeeze those slim hips and let his palms roam that flawless back.

  Wanted it. Craved it.

  Fuck it.

  Under the pretence of steadying himself, he laid a hand at the base of the man’s spine. A jolt of electricity surged up his arm, and a strangled groan escaped him. “Shit!”

  “Yeah?” The man arched, his chest dropping to the mattress, his hole clenching, and then he drew himself off Angelo’s cock, before spearing back down on it, again and again, setting the rhythm that Angelo had played out in his head before he’d lost his bloody mind. Over the moody electronica, the slap of skin on skin grew louder as the man ground back on Angelo’s dick, meeting Angelo thrust for thrust as Angelo regained the ability to screw him coherently.

  The club faded away⁠—the music, the hum of the crowd, and even the eyes that were bound to be watching them from the secluded observation points. The roll of the man’s hips grew more erratic, and Angelo was right there to take up the slack. For long minutes it seemed that their heady encounter would be a quick one, but then the reason Angelo had come to the club returned to him, and the desire to take control won out.

  He gripped the man’s hips, slowing his movements, and then stilled him entirely as he took the man’s arms and pinned them behind his back. Angelo paused a moment to give the man a chance to squirm or protest or give any sign that he didn’t want Angelo to bang his brains out. There was none, and Angelo briefly pictured them with their positions reversed. With the man on top doing everything to Angelo that Angelo was planning on doing to him. Wow. That was new too. Angelo rarely bottomed. It had been years.

  Angelo spat where they were joined, adding to the lube already there, and tightened his hold on the man’s slender hips. He started slow . . . but deliberate, dicking out the man with targeted stabs of his cock. The dizzying heat burned his veins, and he knew the moment he’d found the man’s sweet spot. The velvet warmth clamped tight around his dick, and the man cried out, balling his hands into fists and pushing back on Angelo in a blatant demand for more.

  Like that, is it? And fuck if Angelo could deny him. As if he wanted to. He picked up the pace, shoving his dick home with as much rhythm as he could manage with their slick bodies sliding together. Over and over, he drove his cock deep, panting, growling, and flicking his head from time to time to keep the sweat from his eyes.

  Edging had always been Angelo’s jam, and it seemed he’d found the perfect partner for his favourite game. He fucked the young blond to the other side of the mattress, and it was only when the man was perilously close to sliding off that he grasped his hips and yanked him back.

  On their third go around, the man let out a ragged moan, and Angelo’s cock pulsed in warning. Heat rocketed through every vein, and his skin burned. Another odd urge to touch his companion swept over him, and then the desire to flip him over and pound him face-to-face. Except they wouldn’t be face-to-face, because the unwritten rules of the basement rooms prophesied that they should stay like this⁠—back to chest and invisible.

  Angelo had never been one for rules.

  He flipped the man over, revealing a lean, toned chest that was the stuff of Angelo’s fantasies. He’d played with plenty of big guys, but when he was alone in bed, it was bodies like this that kept him awake⁠—soft and lean . . . delicate, and yet crying out for a brutal railing.

  Angelo yanked the man closer and pushed his legs apart. “Name.”

  “What?”

  Angelo leaned over the man, his lips a hairsbreadth from that slender neck. “Give me a name.”

  “Dylan.”

  Clubs like this were full of people playing under an alias, but a distant instinct told Angelo that this was real. Dylan. Yeah, he liked that. He dug his fingers into Dylan’s thighs and drove back inside him. Dylan let out a piercing moan, and Angelo took it as a cue to give it to him hard, all the while transfixed by his cock stretching Dylan out. It was a beautiful sight by itself, but combined with Dylan’s pliant body and guttural moans, Angelo was gone.

  Dylan’s cock was poker straight and rigid on his sweat-sheened belly⁠—somehow he’d known that he didn’t have Angelo’s permission to touch it.

  Angelo wanted to touch it.

  Squeeze it.

  Suck it.

  On a good day, he could’ve fucked and sucked Dylan at the same time, but today wasn’t a good day, and he settled for leaning back on his heels, raising Dylan’s hips off the mattress, and screwing him so hard that his moans turned to shouts and then desperate yells as he start
ed to come.

  Angelo rode the wave as Dylan convulsed and plastered himself with jets of come, but then things got hazy. His vision darkened to the point where he might as well have been wearing the blindfold. He busted so hard he saw stars, and for a long moment, the reality of his so-called life faded away.

  He was dimly aware of a smattering of applause as he chased the last shocks of release. Beneath him, Dylan was splayed out, panting and clearly exhausted. Completing a hat-trick of weird thoughts, Angelo pictured himself collapsing beside him and then spooning up against his back, melding their laboured breaths until they fell asleep.

  Idiot. Angelo hadn’t shared a bed with anyone that way in years, and he wasn’t about to start now. Ignoring the urge to stroke Dylan’s golden hair back from his sweaty face, he pulled out and lightly punched his shaky thigh.

  “Cheers, mate. Thanks for the ride.”

  WHISPER - a SHORT excerpt

  Whisper

  The haze evaporated, but in its place came the mess I’d been in the first time I’d ever raised my hands to someone. Nausea flared in my gut and spread out, its acid tendrils creeping through my veins like lava.

  I spun around as Sal emerged from the feed store. She was fine. Joe’s anger vibrated through me, but he was fine too. They were all fine. It was done. It was over, and I needed to get the fuck away from it all before I lost my shit all over again.

  Joe touched my shoulder. I brushed him off and walked away from him, ignoring him when he called my name. If my car keys had been in my pocket, I’d have made my escape that way, but they were upstairs in my room, and before I knew it, so was I.

  I shut my bedroom door and leaned against it, my heart thumping in my chest. Fighting wasn’t my bag, but I was good at it⁠—I’d had to be⁠—and a sick part of me got off on it when I didn’t keep myself in check. When I let myself be like him.

  ’Cause let’s face it . . . it was in me, whether I liked it or not.

  I closed my eyes, parroting the bullshit I’d fed Emma to get her out of the house. “The only constant in life is change. And I’m ready for it.”

  But was I? Until now, the farm had seemed a sanctuary from the real world⁠—the last place I’d pictured myself squaring up to someone⁠—but it was clear now that I’d been naive. Joe’s family had drama just like everyone else. More than everyone else, if the scene in the yard was anything to go by.

  A shudder passed through me. Those men had stood no chance of getting anywhere near Sal, even before Joe had appeared, but they’d meant business when they’d first arrived. If I hadn’t been there, how far would they have gone? Would they still go? They’d threatened to burn the farm down if Joe didn’t get to them first. Did they mean it?

  Pondering that question reignited the anxiety dancing in my chest. I exhaled long and slow, trying not to fight the inevitable. A full-on meltdown was probably avoidable if I could get out for a run, but that would mean facing Joe and Sal, and I wasn’t ready for that.

  Not yet.

  I went to my desk and forced myself to work. The words didn’t flow, but I hammered them out anyway, until my cracked muse gave up on me. I was staring moodily at nonsense I’d typed when a knock at the door made me jump. “Come in,” I called, expecting Sal.

  Joe slipped through the door and shut it behind him. He leaned on it in much the same way I had, but didn’t close his eyes. Instead, he stared at me, curious⁠—expectant, even⁠—like he was the one waiting for an explanation.

  “Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” he asked quietly.

  I turned back to my laptop. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

  “Not if you were paying attention. Pretty sure Dicky McGee told you all you need to know about my family drama.”

  “So, what else is there to say?”

  Joe pushed off the door and came close enough that I could smell clean sweat and hay. “Whatever you want to tell me? I mean, I’m grateful that you twatted them, but I’m curious about the death moves. You wanted to kill him. Why?”

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was disturbed that Joe had read me so easily, but I stood by my actions, however he’d interpreted them. I forced myself to look at him. “You wouldn’t kill someone who put their hands on your mum?”

  Joe’s eyes darkened. “She didn’t tell me that.”

  “Yeah, well. You know how it went down. He wanted money, she wouldn’t give him any, so he got tricky with her. I moved him on . . . that’s all. Guess he’s lucky it was me, not you, eh?”

  “Not necessarily. I had a row with him a few weeks ago. Got nicked for it. But he still came here and got in my ma’s face, so I can’t be that intimidating.”

  I begged to differ. The fact that a man as big as Dicky McGee had felt the need to come back with two equally large men said a lot, even if they had taken the pathetic route of harassing Sal. “Do you think they’ll come back?”

  Joe came closer still. He crouched beside me, his elbows on my desk, his forearms tanned and strong. “I don’t know.”

  “Are you worried?”

  “I’m always worried, but having an idiot drunk for a father will do that.”

  “Is he violent?”

  “Christ, no. I wish he was. Perhaps I’d understand him better.”

  I laughed. Couldn’t help it. “You’d understand your father better if he hit you?”

  “You said violent. You didn’t specify that it had to be towards me. Am I missing something here?”

  He was missing the world⁠—my world⁠—but why would he want to share it with me? Why would anyone? I tapped a key on my laptop to bring it back to life. “Trust me, you’re not missing anything. Is Sal okay?”

  For a protracted moment, Joe stared at me, his eyes deep pools of something I couldn’t escape. Didn’t want to escape. But he sighed before I caught up with him, and the moment passed. “Ma’s fine. She’s used to dealing with my dad’s mess. If you’re okay too, I’m going to head out and try to get to the bottom of this bullshit.”

  “You’re going after those blokes?” Tension rippled through me. The urge to kill had simmered down while I’d sat and brooded on where it had come from, but the thought of Joe fighting alone reignited the worst kind of fire.

  He touched my arm, lightly at first, but then his fingers closed around my wrist, his thumb pressing against my pulse point. Sometimes I wondered if people could hear my thundering heart, but I didn’t care if Joe heard it, if it outpaced his by a mile. How could I care about anything when the heat of his touch reached every part of me?

  “I’m not going after Dicky,” he said. “I want to, but I’ve fucked up too many times to believe it will change anything. Besides, I can’t get nicked again for at least a year.”

  “Got a record?”

  “Little bit.”

  “But Dicky McGee’s the one harassing you.”

  “Don’t mean nothing in this town. We’ve got too much gypsy blood in us for the police to ever take our side.”

  Gypsy blood explained Joe’s wild eyes and dark complexion, and as I glanced around my borrowed room, little clues that I’d missed made sudden sense. There was even a Romani trailer abandoned in one of the fields outside. How had I not made the connection before? “Your grandpa was a gypsy.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Joe nodded anyway. “Roma. Came over from Bulgaria in the thirties. He was travelling with a circus, but when it all kicked off in Europe again, they couldn’t go back. He trained horses in Norfolk for a while, then came here to work as a farrier.”

  “How did he end up with this place?”

  “He won it in a card game. We’ve bought more land legitimately over the years, but this house is someone else’s history.”

  “Sounds like you have plenty of history here.”

  Joe’s eyes darkened again. “Too much. Listen, Sal’s going to be downstairs for the rest of the day. Would you mind keeping an ear out while I go deal with my old man? I know it ain’t your probl
em, but⁠—⁠”

  “It’s fine.” Everything was fine while Joe’s hand was still millimetres away from holding mine. “Your mum is safe with me.”

  “I know.” And then he was gone, away and to the door before he looked back. “Hey, Harry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Come have a beer with me later, if you’re not too busy. Maybe we could both use the company.”

  MISFITS - a SHORT excerpt

  Misfits

  Jake took some persuading, but eventually Tom managed to coax him into a nearby café.

  “You’re not buying me lunch, though. I can buy my own.” Jake stomped up to the counter and came back with tea and bacon sandwiches. “This posh enough for you?”

  You sound like Cass. “Do I look too posh for a bacon sandwich?”

  “Not today.”

  Tom resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He’d woken up in Berkhamsted to find Cass had hidden all his smart-casual business attire in protest at their Monday apart. Tom had retaliated by stealing Cass’s only clean jeans and his favourite leather jacket. “Okay, so if you think I’m such a dickhead, why are you buying me lunch?”

  “I spat in it.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I wanted—wankers—I wanted to.”

  Tom chanced a grin. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t.”

  Jake picked up the pot of tea. His hand shook. He put it down again. “What the fuck is an open relationship?”

  “You want me to define it?” Tom leaned forwards. “Or tell you what it means to me and Cass?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I don’t know, because we don’t care what anyone else thinks.”