“Luis is a good man, Toby. You’d like him, I think. How is Rain? You said he’s taking care of you. Is he at the hotel?”
I hesitated. “Actually, I’m staying at his place. He and Tammy insisted that if I was at the hotel I’d never rest. So, I’m staying at his cottage in Oakham for a few days.”
“They aren’t wrong. You always were a workaholic.” I heard the smile in his voice. “So, things are getting serious between you, then?” His voice sounded wistful.
“Errm, we’re seeing how things go. He experienced a bad breakup, and understandably he’s a little wary.”
“He’d be an idiot to let you go. Tell him that from me.” His voice was fierce, and I felt a surge of affection for this man. “Anyway, I need to go now, Toby. You take care of yourself, and I’ll see you in a week. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Me too,” I murmured. “I’ll see you then.”
The call disconnected, and I put the phone back into my pocket.
I went back to work three days later. Rain had now finished up the final touches to the Canterbury Bar. After Monday, he’d be in Leicester every day building a library with Lucas. We hadn’t talked about that yet, the fact we were no longer going to be seeing each other as often. It would certainly give us both space.
Rain had been a little withdrawn the last couple of days. I think the strain of looking after me, even though I’d been adamant he didn’t need to, and having me in a state of permanence at his home had worn him down a little. I still struggled with pain, and I was having trouble sleeping, tossing and turning and waking Rain up. The one saving grace was that I’d heard nothing from Dave Webber about any charges being levied against me. A local reporter named Ginny Loomis, someone I knew quite well, had made mincemeat of Neil in the local paper. She’d accused him of being homophobic, a bully, and hadn’t held back. I was gratified to see that article.
Both Rain and Tammy had been dismayed that I wasn’t going to press charges against Neil. The last thing I wanted was my past bandied all over the place in the village to people who knew me, and I hoped, respected me. If they found out exactly who I’d been, I’d be mortified. Lucas was the only one who wasn’t hounding me, and I’d seen his expression of sympathy when the other two were badgering me.
Rain had stroked the hair from my forehead during one of our late-night talks. “You know,” he’d said, “there’s nothing stopping that wanker, Neil, or Dave from telling anyone anyway, whether you press charges or not. So, why not just do it?”
“I can’t, Rain.” I’d shaken my head. The thought of having to stand in a courtroom and tell the audience what I’d done in the past and what I’d been to Ricky—his little bit of “gay rough”—to people who’d known me for the past four years was anathema to me. Best let it lie like a sleeping dog and see what happened.
ON MY first day back, I sat in the office, catching up on what had happened when I’d been gone. Tammy and Chris had done a superb job of managing things, and I felt a little miffed at that. No one wants to think they’re replaceable. I was sitting, checking through some of the catering bills, when there was a quiet knock on the door. I looked up to see Haruka Hayashi, the translator from the Japanese contingent, standing at the door with an apologetic smile on her face.
“Mr. Prentiss-san? Can I speak with you? I have someone who wishes to say hello.” Her English was flawless, delivered with a charming Japanese accent, and I smiled.
“Of course, Ms. Hayashi. Please, come on in.”
She turned, saying something quietly to someone standing with her, and then she came in, with Mr. Miyamoto trailing behind her. I stood up and moved toward him.
“Mr. Miyamoto. I’ve been meaning to come and see you to thank you for what you did for me, speaking to the police. You and your friends were very helpful.”
He smiled, a wide smile full of teeth, his mouth opening and torrents of excited speech pouring forth. His hands spoke volumes, but I had no bloody idea what they were saying as they waved excitedly in front of my face. I watched him, feeling a little out of my depth. I was relieved when the verbal diarrhea ceased.
Haruka chuckled, watching my rather perplexed face. “He says he is so glad to see you standing and looking better. He was very worried about you, and he thought you were very brave to hit the other man after you were stabbed. He says you were like Superman.” She laughed softly, a musical sound that made my toes tingle.
I blushed. “I don’t think I’m Superman, Haruka. I suppose it was the adrenaline that helped.”
She turned and translated for Mr. Miyamoto, and he frowned. The diarrhea commenced again. When he stopped and took a deep breath, Haruka turned to me with another smile.
“He says definitely Superman. He wants you to know he admires you greatly for fighting back and that he has the greatest respect for you.” My heart swelled at the sight of this little man looking at me with something akin to worship on his face. I felt a little uncomfortable. Haruka noticed it.
“He also says he has told the police everything he saw and impressed upon them that the other man was a coward and a bully. His friends have done the same.” She grinned. “He also says the bully deserves to have his balls cut off and fed to him.”
I laughed at that and then grimaced as the pain hit my ribs.
Mr. Miyamoto moved forward with concern and laid a gentle hand on my arm. “You alright?” he asked in halting English. “You hurt?”
The sight of this small man, this stranger, with such a look of worry on his face for me brought tears to my eyes. They welled up, and I thought they were probably long overdue. I tried valiantly to fight them back, reaching up a hand to wipe my eyes. He nodded, raising a gentle hand to my cheek.
“You strong. You help me.” I imagined he was referring to when I’d tended to him when he had fainted. “You good, brave man, Mr. Prentiss-san.”
The lump in my throat got bigger, and all I could do was nod. He patted my cheek softly, inclining his head at Haruka. She inclined back graciously, and he turned and left the office. I sniffed, trying to keep myself composed and not turn all girly and dewy-eyed in front of Haruka. She smiled at me, her eyes soft.
“We have a saying in Japan, Mr. Prentiss-san. ‘To die is easy. To live is hard.’ I think you have seen a lot of hard living. Both Mr. Miyamoto-san and I heard what those policemen were saying about you and your past when I took everyone in to make their statements. I think Mr. Miyamoto-san is right. You are a good, brave man.”
She leaned forward and kissed my cheek gently, then left in a waft of perfume and a slight sway of chiffon blouse. I collapsed into my chair, finding tears trickling down my cheeks. It had all been a little surreal, and it looked like past events were catching up with me. I got up, closed and locked the door, then gave way to a bout of heartfelt crying. I hadn’t done that since I was a boy.
LATER THAT night, I was in my room, in my boxers, lying down on the bed, trying to concentrate on watching Thursday Round Up, a news program on the telly. My mind kept wandering. Rain had finished everything he needed to do in the Canterbury Bar earlier than expected, and it was now officially completed. He’d been at the site of his new job today and had a dinner meeting tonight with the man who wanted the library built in Leicester. Tomorrow there would be no reason for him to come by the hotel. He and Lucas were taking a couple of days off before their next job out of town and Lucas was taking Tammy away for the weekend—leaving tomorrow. There was a quiet knock at the door. Frowning, I glanced at my watch. It was close to 11:00 p.m., and I wasn’t expecting anyone. I pulled on a pair of jeans and opened the door. The first thing I saw was a huge bunch of yellow roses and a bottle of champagne. A pair of blue eyes gazed at me over the top of the flowers. My stomach lurched, and I smiled—more like a stupid, sloppy grin—as Rain stepped into the room.
“Flowers for me?” He nodded as I closed the door behind him. Taking the flowers, I smelled them appreciatively. He looked a little embarrassed.
“A
ctually, they were my mother’s idea,” he murmured, “When I told her about you being hurt, she told me to go out and buy flowers for you. She said even a man appreciated a bunch of roses. She said she’d call you to see if you actually got them, and she would too,” he said darkly. “So, never let it be said I don’t bring my boyfriend flowers. I’m also taking time out from my pole dance and stripping practice, so you should feel privileged.”
He kissed me, a long, lingering smooch that had me hard in seconds. “And the champagne is for me to pour all over you and lick off.” He caressed my cheek teasingly. “I know it will make a mess, Mr. Neat and Clean, but you’ll just have to manage with it.”
I chuckled, an overwhelming sense of happiness flooding through my body just with him being here. “Thank your mother for me next time you speak to her.” I felt a warm feeling that someone across the other side of the world had thought about me. “I think I can manage one night of stickiness if it means I get to feel your tongue doing magic things to my body.”
God, I am so bloody horny now at that thought.
“I didn’t think I’d see you tonight,” I remarked, trying to find something to put the flowers in. No one had ever bought me flowers before, so I had nothing “vaselike.” I gave a smile of triumph when I managed to find an old glass spaghetti canister that was being used to store various odds and sods and which I thought might do. I tipped everything out into my “man drawer,” the one in my dresser that held all manner of crap, and filled the canister with water from the bathroom. Rain watched as I set about arranging the stems in the makeshift vase. He had a smirk on his face.
“Wow, flower arranging too? You’ll make some man a great husband one day.”
I whacked him across the back of the head with one of the stems, and he sidestepped as he laughed. “I finished my dinner date, and I needed my Toby fix. I haven’t seen you all day. Tomorrow I’m back at this job in Leicester.”
I looked at him in surprise. “I thought you only started the job on Monday and you had tomorrow off?”
He shrugged. “The job is turning out to be a little bigger than we thought. I’ve still got a bit of scoping to do. So, I said I’d get there tomorrow morning and make a start.”
I finished the floral arrangement. It was no Ikebana, but it would have to do. I set the vase down on the dining table that had so recently seen a lot of action.
Rain chuckled. “I might have to move those later,” he murmured suggestively.
I shook my head firmly. “Not tonight, old bean. You slam me down on that table like you did last time, and you’ll end up with my puke all over you.”
“Way to go, Toby,” he muttered with a grimace. “That certainly gets the romance going. And after I bought you flowers too.”
“Bringing a man flowers does not guarantee that you’ll get lucky,” I said mock primly. He laughed softly and moved over to my “man drawer,” rummaging for the corkscrew. “So, what do I do about this champagne, then?” he asked silkily. “Do we drink it the traditional way, or do I lick it off you?”
Mr. Cocky perked up in my trousers, and Rain grinned slyly. The bottle opened with a pop, and he laid it on the table, wandering over to me, a look of definite intent in his eyes. Holding my breath, I waited to see what he had planned. As he reached out, his mobile went off, the Joker tone and its ominous chuckle reverberating in the room. He stilled, looking down at his jeans pocket. I watched him. He seemed a little jumpy.
“It’s a little late for a text, isn’t it?” I murmured.
“It could be Joe, the library man. He said he’d confirm what time we’re meeting tomorrow.” He took his phone out, turning away. I slid my jeans off my hips, and threw them into the corner. I picked up the champagne, selected two glasses from the cupboard, put them on my side table, then got onto the bed to wait for him. Rain flicked through his phone, his face darkening at whatever was in the message. He typed something, then slipped the phone back into his pocket.
“That looked like bad news,” I said, watching his face. Something seemed off.
He shook his head. “No, it’s all good. It was Joe. I’m to meet him at ten. So, I don’t need to be up too early in the morning.” He grinned, still looking unsettled. “So, you can keep me awake all night if you like.”
Rain looked at me lying on the bed. He eye-fucked me all the way from my face down to my toes, a look of sheer lust that went straight to my groin. He took his shirt off as I watched, then tossed it onto one of the beanbags. Slowly, he undid his trousers, slipping them and his underwear off to fall in a heap on the floor.
“God, you are so bloody sexy,” I whispered, watching him move over to the bed, ready to do battle with the adversary that was my body. “I think tonight we might even manage to fuck properly.”
He grinned as he knelt beside me. “I’d suggest you get those off, then.” He gestured to my wet-fronted boxers. “Then we can get busy with this champagne.” He smiled evilly as I slipped off my underwear and pushed it onto the floor. “I think maybe it might be time for those ties we spoke about to come out and play?”
I swallowed, remembering how he wanted to tie me up and blindfold me. I was certainly up for all of that. Mr. Cocky agreed, and Rain stood up and made his way to the dresser. But first he fiddled with his iPhone, attaching it to the dock in my room. Luckily we both had the same taste in mobiles. He smiled in satisfaction as the strains of our song, “Smoke and Mirrors,” the same one we’d played when we were making love on the haystack, played through the speakers. He grinned at me.
“I love this bloody song. I am so going to screw you all night to this tune.”
I gulped. That was definitely something to look forward to.
He opened the drawer, and I stared at the taut cheeks of his backside and the strong line of his spine as he rummaged around. Then he turned with a sly smile, and the sight of him looking so delectably decadent made my head swim. Of course, it could also have been the three ties he held up, in varying colors and widths. His eyebrows rose suggestively.
“These should do,” he murmured huskily. “Green for your lovely eyes and black and red for your wrists.”
The thought of being tied to the metal headboard, unable to see and simply feeling whatever Rain decided to do to me, made my heart palpitate and my breathing quicken. He saw the look on my face as he ambled over to me.
“Not getting cold feet, are you?” he whispered as he trailed the ties across my stomach and brushed my cock with them.
“Uh-uh.” My voice was husky. “Do your worst, Rain.”
He grinned, straddling me, and I smelled his heady scent of arousal and saw his blue eyes darken as he considered what he was about to do. Gently, he pushed one wrist up onto the metal frame and wrapped the tie around it, not too tight but taut enough that it wouldn’t come loose too soon. He then did the same with the other one. Then he sat back and regarded his handiwork with a look like a tiger about to devour its prey. I felt completely vulnerable and hoped like hell I wasn’t going to hyperventilate with all the emotion flooding my body. He leaned forward, swiping his tongue across my lips teasingly, once, then twice, and I groaned. I was immobilized by one hundred and sixty pounds of man sitting on my legs.
“You are a world-class bloody bastard,” I muttered. He smiled smugly.
“I know. But you love it.” He got up and went to fetch the vase of flowers I’d arranged so artfully earlier. I watched him in puzzlement as he set them down on the bedside table.
“What are those for?” I asked, dreading the answer. Who knew what went on in Rain’s mind? Perhaps he had visions of sticking a rose up my backside. I hoped fervently, if that was his plan, he made sure there were no thorns. He waggled his finger in my face.
“Toby, you can take that look of abject fear off your face. I’m honestly not that bloody kinky, you idiot. Although it could give a whole new meaning to having a rose in my mouth.” He snorted in laughter as I scowled. “No, I just wanted you to see that bringing flowers
to a man does guarantee you getting lucky. At least this man.” He waved at me. “He’s a complete bloody pushover.”
He leaned over, placing the last thick tie over my eyes, and the world went dark green. I swallowed at being so suddenly plunged into the world of the blind. He tied it behind my head, and I heard his sigh of satisfaction as he climbed onto the bed, with me in all my nude glory, lying trussed up and unseeing.
“You look so fucking hot,” he whispered in my ear as his tongue darted in, causing me to shudder. “I am so going to make love to you all night.”
Chapter 16
Rain
A SHIVER coursed through Toby’s body at my last words. To be honest, I was turning myself on so much by what I was doing to him that if we didn’t get this show on the road soon, there’d be no bloody point. I was ready to explode, the sight of Toby’s muscled, wiry body, laid out for me like a smorgasbord of sheer sexual fantasy enough to send anyone crazy with lust.
But I needed to be gentle with him. I could see the dark, yellowing bruising on his back and the healing but still garish stitching holding him together. He was still so pale too, despite his constantly telling me he was feeling fine. I wanted him badly, but I also wanted to show him I cared, that he could trust me. Although thinking of the text I’d got earlier made me feel guilty. But there was time enough to think of that later. I didn’t want to deal with that right now. I wanted to make love to the man stretched out in front of me.
Sometimes our lovemaking was pure animal sex, brought on by the mutual desire we had for each other. Sometimes it was simply a release, a quick blowjob or a wank before we got up in the morning, guaranteed to release the pressure. But most times it was slow and languorous, a blending of two bodies and minds that wanted to pleasure each other and simply enjoy the feeling of skin and sweat and bodily fluids. This was one of those times.
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