By the Book

by Scarlett Parrish

  I took a deep breath before replying. “Is it any wonder?” I didn’t look at him but felt his gaze on me.

  Finger by finger, he let go of my hand while relief and addiction fought for supremacy. I had not a clue how it was possible to want the thing that scared me, but there it was.

  Above the dialogue on-screen, I heard Daniel draw a deep breath, the kind of inhalation that usually preceded speech, and my spine stiffened, bracing itself against a desire to lean into—or away from—him.

  “Reece.” Elbow on the armrest, he twisted round to face me properly. “Come here.”

  Instead of mirroring him, I shifted to my right, lent him a shoulder or a listening ear.

  Incongruously, the warm breath on the side of my face made me shiver, and I wondered what it was he had to say.

  Nothing.

  I gasped when the tip of his tongue flickered against my neck, unable to tell him to stop or carry on. The way it trailed up to the spot behind my neck rendered me speechless, and when his kiss, or his taste, grew more insistent, even then the only sound I managed was a whimper. I doubt he even heard it.

  What I did know was the way he breathed against my ear without saying anything audible, without moving, drove me crazy. Shifting in my seat, I moved the popcorn carton from my lap to the empty seat to my left. It was just too damn uncomfortable having anything touch me. Hell, I was so hard even my jeans fit too snugly and I had to uncross my legs.

  Not drawing back from my ear, his cool words sent a jolt of fire through me. A hand coming to rest on my thigh all but made me combust. “Am I getting too close?”

  I gulped. Knew what I wanted to say but not how to say it.

  “Or not close enough?”

  Yes, that. Clearing my throat, I inclined my head, and his breath whispered from my earlobe, down my neck to the collar of my jacket, where fabric formed a barrier between breath and skin.

  The hand on my inner thigh moved up, squeezed my erection once, briefly, then moved back down my leg. His touch was gone before my widening eyes had returned to normal, and the voice in my head wondered, did he really do that?

  “Fuck.” The word emerged as a sigh, though intended as an exclamation, and Daniel, now sinking back in his own seat, laughed. “Fuck.” Turning my head to look at him at last, I didn’t know whether I wanted to call him a bastard or grab his collar, pull him toward me, and kiss him till he couldn’t breathe. I saw no earthly reason why he should be allowed the luxury of oxygen when just being around him took my breath away.

  He grinned, while focusing—or pretending to—on the screen, and I wondered exactly what he thought. It was probably best I didn’t know. I had enough problems dealing with the thoughts in my own head.

  Probably another hour or so of the movie to go, I estimated, willing myself to concentrate.

  God, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.

  * * *

  Daniel zipped up his jacket and hunched his shoulders against the biting cold. “What did you think?”

  Other moviegoers milled around us, spilling from the cinema into the night, heading to the parking lot or walking home. The ground was wet, shallow puddles here and there refracting the neon from the sign above us into a thousand shards of eye-watering light.

  I looked at him and blinked.

  “The movie?” he prompted. “I was asking what you thought of it.”

  “There was a film showing?”

  He shook his head, trying to look disapproving, I supposed, but the smirk ruined the attempt. “Reece, you…” He tutted, flicked up his collar, and thrust his hands in his pockets. “Listen.” And suddenly his demeanor changed from lighthearted to other. “Are you—I mean, do you want to…?” He stepped closer, eyed any passersby, and I wondered what necessitated his desire for public privacy. “You can stop at my place if you want. I mean I’d…” His gaze scanned the crowd, now less of a crowd and more of a moviegoers’ equivalent of chucking-out time at the local pub. Stragglers wandered past us, not listening, but Daniel—the normally confident Daniel—was concerned someone would overhear.

  And it had to have been on my behalf, because he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought.

  “I’d take the settee. You could have the bed. The bedroom. Just so you didn’t have to go back home.”

  “I don’t know.” I looked down at the ground, shuffled a bit, could have kicked myself. I must have looked like a nervous kid. Two grown men dancing around each other like we were strangers.

  “Look, we go back to my place to get out of the cold, and I can either call you a cab, or…” He shrugged, took a step closer to the parking lot, a step farther from the shelter of the cinema, and a step farther from me.

  He had me on a piece of elastic, because I followed. “Okay.”

  “Sure?” He raised those damn eyebrows expectantly.

  This is such a bad idea. I should say no.

  “Yeah. Saves waiting for a taxi in the rain.” I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that there wasn’t a single taxi waiting in the cinema parking lot. If there was, I’d have to jump in a cab and absent myself from Daniel far too abruptly. I was a great believer in making life difficult for myself. Slow good-byes did no one any good in the long run, but I sometimes used them to convince myself I wasn’t really leaving.

  “It’s not raining that hard. Just a drizzle.”

  “Changed your mind about me coming back to your place?”

  “Me?” He grinned as we walked, side by side, mirroring each other. Collars up, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. “Never.”

  An instant parting would have forced the issue. I would have to choose between a homeward journey and the admittance, then and there, that I wanted to go home with Daniel.

  And I shouldn’t have wanted that. I should have turned my back on Daniel, hailed the first available taxi, jumped in, said a few mea culpas, and headed back to a flat containing nothing but the chalk outline of a dead relationship.

  But I kept walking. Because Daniel was my way of forgetting a slow good-bye to someone else. He was the reason I’d needed to say it in the first place.

  “You know…” He drew a deep breath and stopped. The surprise of him pulling up like that caused a delay in my comprehension for half a second, and I backed up, leveled with him again. “I didn’t want you thinking…”

  The way he looked with spots of rain occasionally running from his hair down his face made me shiver. But I told myself it was a cold evening.

  There are no greater lies than the ones we tell ourselves.

  “There’s no ulterior motive to this, Reece.” He cleared his throat.

  It seemed incongruous that two people who had been intimate to whatever degree could be fully dressed, out in public, and yet somehow reticent.

  Shaking my head, I tried to focus on him, his words, but that bottom lip of his distracted me. Even still, while he searched for the right words, it invited kisses.

  Daniel’s tongue flicked across his lips. “I just thought you could do with some company, that’s all, and if that sounds patronizing, it’s not meant that way.” He shrugged, and we started walking again, fell into step. “You’re welcome to stay over if you want. If you don’t fancy going back home.”

  We continued in small talk for the rest of the short walk to his flat, and with every left step, I decided staying was the only option. Every time my right foot hit the ground, I tried to convince myself to read over the script in my mind. All I had to do was ask him for the number of the nearest cab company. Stay, go, stay, go; my mind changed with every footfall.

  I followed Daniel up the tenement stairs and waited while he fumbled for the correct key on the fob. He paused before flipping past the thumb drive and the keys to his filing cabinet and computer desk then ran a finger along the correct key slowly as if contemplating something. Then he came back to life, stuck the key in the lock, and—

  Stopped.

  “Reece?” He straightened, didn’t unlock the doo
r, but turned in a half circle where he stood so he was facing me. “You know what my job is.”

  “Yes?” Frowning, I nodded, unsure of where this was going but sure he’d tell me.

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “But sometimes I have trouble with words. Like now, for instance. There’s something I’d like to say, but if it comes out wrong, I’ll just have to trust you to translate.” His words were quiet enough to cause little or no echo in the stairwell, secretive, conspiratorial, and most of all, discreet.

  I gulped. It was never pleasant when someone tried to prepare me to hear something.

  “There’s something I want to do before we go in. I mean, try. Like a tryout or something.” He bit his lip, that lip I wanted to feel on my neck.

  Images of him leaning in to kiss my neck, the rough of his stubble against the smooth of my skin, flashed in front of my eyes, and it took effort of which I didn’t know I was capable to bring myself back to the present.

  “Just to see if…” He stepped in closer, hands in jacket pockets while his keys hung from the lock, unturned and taunting me with their silent not yet. “You see, after everything that’s happened, I just need to check that you…” Daniel’s breath whispered over my skin. “Aren’t…” He gulped. “You know…”

  With one tilt of my head, one degree of incline, one hand on his lapel, I closed the gap between us. Kissed him or let him kiss me, I wasn’t sure which, but when our lips met, all doubt melted away.

  I clenched my fingers, not enough to bunch the leather of his jacket under my hand but enough to let him know I wanted to touch him. Wanted him closer.

  The tip of Daniel’s tongue traced an invisible line from the corner of my mouth along the inside of my top lip, and I sucked in a breath. The smell of him—leather, deodorant, washing powder, sheer, unadulterated sex—filled my lungs, and oh God, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, who the hell needs oxygen when I can just breathe you in instead?

  Then that wasn’t enough. I wanted to taste him as well, drew his tongue into my mouth, letting—

  “Jesus.” He broke off the kiss, panting, touching his forehead to mine for a second before straightening.

  “Did that answer your question? Whatever the question was?”

  “I think so. I don’t know. Reece. Fuck.” He took a deep breath, frowned, looked away, and I imagined him—knew if I were in his position, that was how I would feel—in pain. Questioning himself. Us. This.

  “Go on.”

  “You’ll think I’m an idiot.”

  “What’s new?”

  He smiled, thank God. The ice wasn’t fully broken yet, but the thaw had begun. “You know what they say about the road to hell.”

  “Daniel Cross is at the end of it?”

  He burst out laughing, the grin lighting up his face. He looked me in the eye, and something in us connected. An understanding, maybe, that if neither of us knew where this was going, we at least agreed to be confused together.

  “What I mean is… Can I be straight with you?”

  “A straight Daniel Cross isn’t something I’d—”

  “Shut up, Hutton.”

  I grinned, nevertheless surprised at our ability to joke around at a time like this. But black humor had eased many a difficult situation. It was a minor release in anticipation of a greater one.

  “I’m only human, and my self-control won’t last forever. It’ll only hold for as long as I believe I’m not torturing myself for nothing.”

  He’s asking for hope. He’s asking if…

  Oh God, Daniel, if only you knew I have even less self-control than you do.

  I could have sworn his lower lip wavered. “So…I can call a cab, or…when we get indoors, we hang our coats up and grab a beer.” He took a deep breath.

  He’s asking me to choose for him.

  I rolled my shoulder muscles, attempting to work out the kinks of tension. And the tension was only there because I was nervous, ever nervous, of saying it out loud.

  So I didn’t.

  I simply reached for my zip and undid my jacket.

  Chapter Ten

  Staring up at the ceiling, I saw nothing in the inky blackness and Daniel in my mind’s eye. According to my mobile phone, it was after one in the morning, and though I was tired—emotionally exhausted, in fact—sleep refused to come.

  Though the duvet cover and pillowcases smelled of washing powder, the bed felt like Daniel. This was his. He slept here. He fucked here.

  I groaned out loud, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands. Why I had to think of that, I didn’t know. Each thought about Daniel pushed the possibility of sleep further away until it was no more than a barely perceptible dot on the horizon.

  He, conspicuous by his absence, was all around me.

  After he’d shown me to my quarters, I’d taken in the fact that the wardrobe and chest of drawers matched. Coordinated. He slept in a sleigh bed. “Made of genuine leather too; not cheap,” he’d boasted before adding with a playful wink, “And with what goes on in the bedroom, it’s best to make it comfortable, don’t you think?” His eyebrows had lifted as he exited, looking over his shoulder and adding, “‘Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’”

  “Fallen ones?” I’d shot back, closing the door on his fading laughter.

  Rest? Some hope. Kicking the duvet off me, I bared my torso to the air, resting one hand on my chest, the other cradling the back of my head, a buffer to stop my thoughts from corrupting Daniel’s pillow.

  This is fucking torture.

  If he felt half as bad as I did, he wouldn’t be sleeping either. Then again, he was a lot more confident about his sexuality than I, so maybe that demeanor he’d long since mastered of yeah, I’m bi; what the fuck of it? made for a softer pillow than my guilt trip over Georgia and the fact that it wasn’t her making my cock hard.

  God, I want him to touch me so badly.

  If I was at home right now, I could be jacking off and taking care of this monumental fucking hard-on instead of lying here wishing it was Daniel—oh God…

  I imagined it was his hand slipping past the waistband of my shorts, his hand gripping my cock as it slid to the base, loosening ever so slightly on the upstroke.

  Fucking hell, Hutton. Stop it.

  Ceasing all movement but not letting go, again I stared blindly at the ceiling. The damage was done. Coming here tonight had bad idea written all over it.

  I wanted to come. Needed to come. But lying in someone else’s bed, especially his…it wouldn’t be a good idea.

  Running my thumb absentmindedly around the tip of my cock, I gasped. Told myself to stop.

  I swung my legs out from under the covers, and as soon as my feet hit the floor, I breathed a sigh of relief. Half out of bed, I could convince myself—or try to—that I had half won the victory over the images painting themselves on the insides of my eyelids.

  Images involving Daniel touching me, breathing into me, whispering in my ear that he had to see the look on my face when I—

  Burying my head in my hands, I smothered a groan, summoned as many thoughts as were possible to evict desire for Daniel from my head. The prime minister covered in blackberry jam. My geography teacher from high school, Mrs. Bennett. Fish guts.

  None of it worked.

  I got up, paused with my hand on the door handle. Unless I mastered the art of levitation, there was a chance my footsteps would alert Daniel if he was awake. A creaking door hinge, a running tap.

  And I wondered if that was what I wanted.

  Groping my way down the hall, past the living room door, I held my breath, keeping my ears tuned to any signs of a floorboard creaking in the living room, someone’s weight shifting on the settee.

  Please be awake, Daniel.

  No. Sleep.

  Logic told me to go back to bed, but the devil on my shoulder—and the wings on Daniel’s back—persuaded me to stay up a while longer, justifying this after-dark mischief by rea
soning I’d never sleep anyway. Daniel’s bed was too big without him in it.

  I kept the light off in the kitchen. The darkness made me feel less guilty. Moonlight and weak streetlights, diluted by distance, pricked my conscience.

  I wondered if the householder would forgive me if I raided his alcohol stash. It would be difficult to explain. I’m only stealing your whiskey ‘cause I need to drink to forget how much I want you.

  The after-midnight mist eddying round the streets outside hypnotized me, looked almost Gothic, blurring the glow of streetlights and watering down the moon’s usual brightness.

  When it came to Georgia, the only right thing to do was man up and call her soon about picking up her stuff. The ungentlemanly part of me wanted to ask—beg—her to come back. To share and be shared. I wanted her in my bed. I wanted Daniel there too. I didn’t want to choose. Selfish little me didn’t want to.

  Whether it was the ghostly atmosphere outside or the chill one in my personal life that most troubled me, I didn’t know, but the cause of and solution to many of my problems slept mere feet away.

  Slept, or ignored the visitor creeping round his house.

  * * *

  I didn’t know how long I’d been standing at the kitchen sink before the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

  A creaking floorboard and a door opening elsewhere in the flat. Daniel was awake, and my body tuned in to that fact before my mind acknowledged it. I knew before I knew.

  Gripping the edge of the sink, I refused to turn to the door when it opened.

  “Ah. I thought you’d be in here.”

  “Couldn’t sleep. Considered raiding your alcohol stash, but figured you wouldn’t be too pleased.”

  “Help yourself. There’s beer in the fridge if you want one.”

  “No.” I laughed and shook my head. The door clicked shut behind me—us—again, and Daniel crossed the room, stood at my shoulder. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Nah, I just couldn’t drop off for some reason.” He rested a cool hand on the small of my back, and I flinched. “Don’t worry about it.” He inched closer, close enough to touch more if one of us cared to cross that remaining breath between us. The hand on my back slid to my hip; the other mirrored it. His fingers tightened on my hips, and for the briefest of milliseconds, his hard cock pressed against me, still enough to make me dizzy even through the fabric of his shorts and mine.