Dirty Games

by Barbara Elsborg

  Tears rolled down Owen’s face.

  “Don’t kill yourself, mate. If it’s over me, well I’m not worth it. Just get better and move on. Okay?”

  When there was no reply, Thorne walked out.

  In the corridor, Nate stepped toward him. “How is he?”

  “Lucky, apparently. Ask again if you can go in.”

  In a way Thorne had been lucky too. His impetuosity had steered him in a direction he wasn’t ready for. Marriage. It seemed crazy now to think he’d wanted it. Crazy to think he’d wanted it with Owen.

  Thorne called Linton on his way back to his car but the guy didn’t pick up. He almost left a message, then thought again.

  There was no answer when Thorne pressed the buzzer to Linton’s flat. He kept his finger where it was because if the guy was there, in a moment or two he’d be so pissed off he’d answer.

  Thorne had been about to give up when Linton snapped, “What?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Roberto?”

  “No.”

  “Julian?”

  “No.”

  “Sebastian?”

  Thorne laughed. “Nice try.” They were names of characters he’d played. “Going to let me in?”

  “I’m in bed.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Well, I have to get out of bed to get to the door and that’s a lot of effort.”

  “You could get back in it. I’d help.” Why was he so excited about seeing him? This is crazy.

  There was a pause before Linton spoke. “Third floor. Flat forty-three. But you already know, don’t you?”

  The door release clicked and Thorne pushed it open. He was so impatient, he almost didn’t want to wait for the lift, but the doors slid open as he approached so he stepped inside.

  He had a smile on his face as he walked down the corridor. A barefoot Linton emerging from his flat made him smile harder, but as Thorne drew closer, he groaned.

  “Hey, I’m the one who’s allowed to groan,” Linton said.

  Thorne lifted his hand to Linton’s cheek and brushed his fingers over an angry red mark. “What happened?”

  Linton pulled back. “Come in.”

  Thorne followed him inside and closed the door. “Are you limping?”

  Linton paused on his way down the hallway and leaned against the wall. “It’s a warning from friends of the guys who attacked Dirk.”

  “Shit.” Thorne swallowed hard. “A warning for me?”

  “They’re not aware we know one another.” Linton frowned. “I can’t see how they would. They want Dirk to tell the police that the guys who attacked him were actually trying to assist him, and they’d gone to get help when you appeared on the scene.”

  “These guys walk away instead of using their mobiles?”

  “It doesn’t matter how unbelievable it is, just that they weren’t the ones who beat him up.”

  “What did they do to you?”

  “Gave me a taste of what will happen if things don’t go their way.”

  Anger surged inside Thorne. When Linton lifted his arm, Thorne saw him wince.

  “Show me,” Thorne said, not thinking he would.

  Linton half-laughed, then unbuttoned his shirt and let it drop. All Thorne could take in were the bruises and scrapes, clear shoe prints on his skin, and he clenched his fists. He hadn’t expected Linton to take his trousers off too but the marks were worse on his legs.

  “Jesus,” Thorne muttered.

  “See? You only had to wait for me to get knocked around to get me to take off my clothes.” Linton walked into the living room, eased himself down onto the couch and leaned back with soft moan.

  Thorne frowned. “You’re warning me. You’ve only stripped to demonstrate what might happen to me if I confirm those were the guys I saw.”

  “Worse would happen to both of us, and to Dirk. And yes, that’s the reason I stripped.”

  Thorne paced in front of him. “Does it have to be the only reason?”

  Linton laughed and flinched. “Ouch.”

  “Can I get you anything?” Thorne asked. “A drink? Painkillers? Cock ring? Lube?”

  “Just sit down and we’ll see how things go.”

  “You don’t know how things go?” Oh shut up, you idiot. Nerves were making him gobby and this was not the time to make a move. Thorne sat carefully at Linton’s side not wanting to jostle him. “You misunderstood.”

  “Er…I think I know what lube’s for.”

  “About Owen.”

  “Ah right.”

  “We were going to get married.” Thorne leaned back against the cushion. “Though I still wonder how I got myself into that situation.”

  Linton let out a grunt of disbelief. “What? You fucking dickhead! You wonder how you got into that situation?”

  Thorne bit his lip.

  “Presumably one of you asked and the other said yes. If it was Owen who asked, you could have said no. You don’t start down that path if you don’t want to get married.”

  Thorne swallowed hard.

  “I assume you loved him,” Linton said.

  Thorne shot him a glance but Linton’s face was a mask and Thorne dropped his gaze to the floor.

  “Yes, well I thought I did, but now I’m not sure it was love I felt. When I was with Owen he was a ball of energy. I’ve never met anyone so enthusiastic about everything. He was always hyper. Never said no. It pains me to admit it, but sometimes I need to be told no. It took a while for me to register he was too excitable, too easily broken if things went wrong, too easily hurt. At first, I didn’t mind his fragility. I had the idea that I could mend him.” He turned to Linton. “Guess I cocked that up.”

  “I’m not sure anyone can mend someone else. You can try but people have to want to be helped, want to get better. My brother is an extreme example of that. I tried so hard to fix him. Bought him stuff, found him places to live and I don’t know that any of that was the right thing to do.”

  “Owen told me it was me who made him happy, that I made his world turn, that I’d brought him back to life after a shitty time as a teenager. And that was great until I began to suspect there was something underlying his behaviour that had nothing to do with me. I began to see he was doing everything to please me, rather than doing things to please himself.” Thorne gave a grim chuckle. “That was until the day he did something that didn’t please me at all.”

  Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. Linton wanted to kill Owen. “He cheated on you?”

  Thorne huffed. “I thought you might come out with some jokey quip about him not polishing my cock ring, or putting the loo roll on the wrong way round.”

  The lump in Linton’s throat made it hard to breathe. “I’ve been cheated on. It’s not funny. Well, maybe it will seem funny eventually. When I’m dead.”

  Thorne groaned. “This is not the first deep conversation I wanted to have with you.”

  “But it’s the conversation you need to have. We’ll talk about cock rings later.”

  Thorne sat for several moments not saying anything. Then Thorne took hold of his hand, squeezed his fingers and Linton exhaled.

  That one kind touch undid him. He opened his mouth to tell Thorne everything, saw tears on the guy’s face and couldn’t do it. Shit.

  “I was away filming and finished early,” Thorne whispered. “I thought I’d surprise him.” He cleared his throat. “He was in bed with Josh’s brother, Nate. A fucking journalist. They were naked, both of them laughing. They didn’t see me. I slid back out of the house, went to a club and got very drunk.”

  Owen, you fucking dickhead. “Why didn’t you confront them?”

  “Would you have? Did you?”

  “It was different for me. I’d have hurt someone who didn’t deserve it. But if I’d come home and found…Pascal in my bed with another guy, I’d have at least stood there until they noticed me.”

  “And?”

  “I’d have asked why. Hoped Pascal didn’t tell me I was shit in bed,
then I’d have said Pascal was shit in bed before I told the two of them to fuck off.”

  Thorne gave an empty smile. “Too easy. Too painless. I had a better idea.”

  “Not if whatever you did led to Owen crashing a car deliberately.”

  “Worse than that. First thing he did was slit his wrists. Fuck, it can’t all be about me. I’m not that special.” He paused. “You’re supposed to disagree about the special bit.”

  Linton squeezed Thorne’s fingers. “What did you do?”

  “Put on a show. Tore him to pieces in front of his family. I wanted to stop the moment I’d started but it was as if I were performing a piece in a film with lines I had to say. So I spat out every hateful thing I could think up, including that he was crap in bed.” He gave Linton a rueful smile. “But I never revealed I knew what he’d done. I wanted him to not understand why I was being so cruel, that was my revenge, and I thought at least that would be it, but Owen wouldn’t accept we were over. He bombarded me with messages, phone calls, emails.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him you’d seen him and Nate?”

  “I didn’t want him to know how much he’d hurt me. How fucking humiliated I felt.” Thorne brushed the tears from his face. “We were getting married. How big a commitment did he fucking want? It wasn’t even the wedding I thought I’d have. I envisaged going off to some tropical island. Barefoot on the beach, no one there but us, no cameras, no phones, no press.”

  “Why didn’t you push for that?”

  “I don’t know whether it was because I wanted to make Owen happy or whether I was already pulling away. I did put my foot down about selling the damn event to some celebrity magazine but the number of guests kept creeping higher and I put up with that, then he let someone else fuck him. What made him do that to me? What had I done or not done that would make him cheat?”

  He took a deep breath. “It sounds like we were doomed from the start and maybe we were, but I fell for him, he fell for me and it was good for a while at least. I liked that he wasn’t in the business. He put up with a lot of crap from me. He put up with too much.”

  “You never had that conversation? Told him he was letting you get away with being a bastard?”

  “You don’t know what he’s like. It’s difficult to criticise someone who’s trying so hard to be perfect. I just wanted him to be happy and I forgot that I was supposed to be happy too.”

  Linton didn’t know what Owen was like, not now. He had at one time but that night when they were teenagers had changed everything and for Owen, dictated his future.

  “There was another reason I kept quiet,” Thorne said. “I didn’t want Josh to find out. I couldn’t afford for him to take sides. Josh is my best friend. The only person I’ve ever been able to totally trust. I can’t lose him. I’d be lost without him.”

  “If you totally trusted him, you’d have told him. Maybe you ought to tell Owen the truth.”

  Thorne pulled his fingers out of Linton’s grasp. “I think he’ll find out soon enough. I saw Nate at the hospital. He guessed I know about them.” He turned to look at Linton. “You’re the first person I’ve told about what I saw, about how it affected me. It hurt. Still hurts. I feel a fool. I suppose it means I trust you not to run to the papers and make some money.”

  “I would never do that. Well, not unless I really needed cash for something important. Like a new TV or a holiday in Ibiza.” Or for helping my brother.

  Thorne gave a short laugh but guilt nibbled insistently at Linton’s gut. What was Owen thinking? Linton had to assume Max had no idea that Owen had cheated on Thorne. This whole thing was so fucked-up.

  “What did the press say when the wedding was called off?” Linton asked.

  “There was plenty of speculation, none of it favouring me.”

  “A big story for Nate and he didn’t use it even though he wouldn’t have come out of it looking good?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe he really cares for Owen.”

  “I hope he does. I wish the two of them would gallop off into the sunset together.” Thorne chewed his lip. “Then I’d like their horses to throw them and leave them in the middle of nowhere so they have to walk miles in the dark and freezing cold with zombies on their tail.” He paused. “And werewolves. And might as well throw in a few anacondas and piranhas.”

  Linton smiled.

  “I’m relieved Owen’s going to be okay but I wish he could sort his head out.” He looked straight at Linton. “Well, I bared my soul. Trusted you after I’d told myself not to trust anyone. Going to tell me your story?”

  Not the one Linton should be telling him. “Owen cheated on you once. Pascal cheated on me for twelve months.”

  “I only saw Owen cheat once. For all I know it was more times than that.”

  “Not for an entire year though.”

  “No.”

  “It turned out that my boyfriend had a girlfriend the whole of the time he went out with me and I had no idea. She got pregnant, had a baby and I still had no idea. Pascal commuted between London and Paris and that’s where she lives. Did live anyway. When he was with her at the weekends, he told me he was helping his sister who was a full-time carer for their sick parents. Only they didn’t exist. Parents nor sister. I felt such an idiot for not seeing through his lies. I gave him the benefit of the doubt so many times. I swore off bi guys after that.”

  “Because we’re more likely to lie and cheat?”

  “No. I know that’s not true, even though you get double the temptation to cheat. Being bi shouldn’t matter but I felt terrible for Pascal’s girlfriend, particularly because things didn’t end straight away between us after I found out. Pascal lied, said it was over between them and it wasn’t.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Someone told me.” Max had told him. “Pascal pleaded with me, said it was me he wanted, I just had to be patient, he had to pick his moment to finish with her, except when I stopped being patient he said he’d always wanted another guy in their bed, so maybe he could persuade her into giving it a try and I could join them.” Linton took a deep breath. “That wasn’t going to happen. I gave him chance after chance and I was a fool. Eventually I told him I didn’t want to ever see or speak to him again.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend or kids.”

  Linton huffed. “But would you like them?”

  “Kids maybe, at some point in my life. I don’t have preconceived ideas about the partner having to be a woman. It might have been Owen, but I’d have been making a mistake even before the cheating. He was too needy, not right for me. I see that now. I rushed in, let him rush me, that won’t happen again. But I’ve never cheated on anyone, despite what you might read in the papers. And I won’t accept being cheated on.”

  Linton nodded. Did lying to Thorne count as cheating? He thought it did. Crap.

  “The irony was Owen always worried I’d be attracted to something he could never offer me, that I would be the one who strayed. I guess that’s the anxiety in dating someone who’s bi. Every time I even looked at a woman he was jealous. I know it’s hard to understand when you’re not bisexual. You’re not gender orientated by choice, but bisexuals are choosing between sexes when we find someone we want to go out with.”

  “I get that you pick a date on the basis of your feelings. You could go either way. Dirk’s bi and he…yeah well. My feelings have been coloured by my experience and by watching Dirk mess up time after time in his relationships. I don’t know why I think women would get hurt more, not when I remember how much I hurt.”

  “You loved Pascal?”

  “No,” Linton snapped. “Never that. I cared for him.”

  Thorne frowned. “You said that as if you don’t believe in love.”

  “I don’t. People say it when they want to fuck someone or when they’re fucking.”

  God, lighten this up. “Or maybe I just haven’t met the right guy.”

  “Sure about that?” Thorne stared at hi
m.

  Linton felt as though Thorne had reached into his chest and was tugging at his heart. The right thing to do was to tell him everything, and he couldn’t. Not right now.

  “I’m pretty sure the right guy would be kissing your pain away.” Thorne lifted Linton’s hand and kissed his fingers.

  The breath caught in Linton’s throat.

  “Except I’m worried about hurting you.”

  “I can cope with some pain if I get a treat at the end.” You fucking coward. Tell him. “I have to use the bathroom.”

  “Need help?”

  “I’m okay.”

  But once he was in there Linton locked the door and slid to the floor, felled by the effort of keeping silent. He could see the lightning strike coming and knew that no matter what he did, it would hit him.

  “You all right?” Thorne called.

  “Yeah.” I just want this night. Is that so wrong?

  He pushed himself up and went back into the bedroom.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thorne slid his hand to the back of Linton’s head and closed in until their mouths were almost touching. When he felt the hiccup in Linton’s breathing, desire flooded his veins, pooled low in his gut and his cock began to swell. He twisted his fingers in Linton’s hair and with his other hand stroked the bruise on his cheek with the tips of his fingers. When Linton’s hand settled on his thigh, Thorne almost whimpered with pleasure.

  Then their lips met and despite Thorne’s intention to be careful, not to lean in too hard, not to hurt Linton even more, he felt as if he was melting against him, into him, through him. Linton moaned into Thorne’s mouth, the vibration fluttering down his throat, and Thorne began to drown in an overload of sensation. He couldn’t get enough of Linton, wanted more and more. They took turns to explore each other’s mouths in slow, sensual sweeps, licking and nibbling and kissing until Thorne’s cock felt as if it were going to break his zip. They kissed until Thorne was light-headed with lust. They kissed until the world faded around them.