by M. C. Adams
Table of Contents
HUNTER
COPYRIGHT
PROLOGUE
ABOUT THE BOOK
1 - KLEIN
2 - HUNTER
3 - KLEIN
4 - HUNTER
5 - KLEIN
6 - HUNTER
7 - KLEIN
8 - HUNTER
9 - KLEIN
10 - HUNTER
11 - KLEIN
12 - HUNTER
13 - KLEIN
14 - HUNTER
15 - KLEIN
16 - HUNTER
17 - KLEIN
18 - HUNTER
ABOUT M.C. ADAMS
HUNTER
A TOUGH LONDON NOVEL
M.C. ADAMS
WICKED ROMANCE PUBLISHING
COPYRIGHT
Content copyright © M.C. Adams. All rights reserved. First published in 2019.
This book may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used in reviews or promotions. This book is licensed for your personal use only. Thanks!
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Image © Adobe Stock.
PROLOGUE
I always thought, if I knew the end was coming, I’d be so horrifically scared of dying that I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.
All that stuff about your life flashing before your eyes just before you go seemed like a lie to me.
Why think about the past when what’s happening in the present is so all-encompassing?
And, actually, I was half-right. Now that I’m faced with the possibility that my life is about to be over, I’m not thinking about the past.
But then, I’m not really thinking about the present, either.
I’m thinking about the future.
What it might have looked like if she and I had been able to make it. Spending our first Christmas together. Taking a holiday in the summertime. Waking up beside each other, one random day, five years in the future.
How she and I might both look.
How we’ll talk, joke, touch each other.
Would we have adopted a dog?
Or a kid?
How might we have grown together as lovers, as people?
I can’t bear the idea of never finding out.
That’s what it really means to be scared of dying. Scared of never finding out. Scared of not waking up tomorrow morning and being able to look at her face, to begin our journey into the future together.
ABOUT THE BOOK
KLEIN
My whole life’s been a lie. Married to a woman I don’t love. Working a job that’s not right for me. Pretending to be something I’m not.
It’s caught up to me. I’m getting threats, shady people trying to steal my fortune.
Now that I’ve met Hunter, all that’s about to change.
He provides me with security, I provide him with cash. Our relationship is purely professional.
We’re from different worlds. He’s a ripped, inked alpha with a lawless streak, and I’m a law-abiding architect with a taste for the finer things in life.
There’s only one hitch: for me to keep ownership of the house I designed, I have to get hitched. To him. All six foot three of him…
HUNTER
When some straight nerd tells me he wants to marry me, I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or punch his lights out. No matter how f*cking sexy those lights might be.
But Klein’s got something I need. Money, and lots of it.
I just wish he wasn’t so f*ckable. And that he wasn’t putting out the kind of signals that are hard to ignore.
And as I get to know him better, I start to feel things I’ve never felt before.
Like maybe, my life might actually mean something. Maybe someone might actually care for me. Maybe I might be worth something after all.
So when it turns out his life’s in danger, I’ve got to put my own on the line. Time to be the tough guy I know I am.
Hunter: A Tough London Novel is a standalone, full length MM romantic suspense novel with no cheating and a heart-pounding Happy Ever After.
1
KLEIN
* * *
Across the street there’s a pink, neon sign saying ‘Sailor Barry’s’.
I look up at it, shielding my hair from the rain with a newspaper. Am I really about to do this?
The whomp whomp whomp of heavy bass is thumping out from deep inside the nightclub. I recognise it — I think — as Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’. Not the kind of music I’d normally listen to. Far from it. I’m an opera fanatic. Give me La Traviata any day of the week.
Still, tonight isn’t about staying in my comfort zone.
I take a deep breath and cross the road.
‘Watch it, mate!’ shouts a man with a cockney accent, his bike swerving around me.
Oops. I need to stay focused. I’m a bag of nerves.
‘Sorry!’ I call out, but the cyclist is long gone.
It’s so busy in this part of London, even at midnight. I’ve been to the West End before, of course, to see theatre shows like Les Misérables at the Queen’s Theatre. But I haven’t been to a nightclub since my university days — a decade and a half ago. And I haven’t been to a gay nightclub since, well, ever.
Hopefully I’ve picked a good one. This neighbourhood, Soho, is renowned for its lively LGBT scene, and ‘Sailor Barry’s’ has some great reviews on TripAdvisor. Apparently it’s run by a tattoo enthusiast with a penchant for puns.
At least I don’t have to worry about getting asked for ID, I think, as I breeze past the bouncer and into a stairwell with a desk at the bottom. I pay the entry fee, and decide to keep hold of my coat. I’m not a snob, exactly, but I’m used to a certain kind of establishment. Putting my coat in the messy jumble of jackets and rucksacks I can see in the cloakroom behind the desk doesn’t appeal to me at all. This garment probably cost more than everyone else’s belongings combined.
It’s not snobby to say that — it’s just a fact…
Okay, maybe it is a bit snobby.
I’m going to need to try to tone that down tonight if I want to blend in.
I smooth down my black, Burbery, trenchcoat. I love this coat, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to wear it for ages. It’s chic and fits me lithe form perfectly. I love the cut so much I bought the coat in three different colours — navy, tan and black. Underneath, a crisp white shirt by Thomas Pink of London. And I’m wearing my going out shoes, a daring pair of dull red Oxfords by Ferragamo.
But the second I walk into the dark, pulsing nightclub, I feel anything but brave.
A lot of the men and women in here are just wearing jeans and t-shirts. One or two have gone for something smarter — black trouser suits with slicked-back hair. Others look utterly outrageous. Pink tutus, glitter-smeared faces, purple lipstick — all sorts. But there isn’t a whiff of Prada or Gucci. I feel like an embarrassing dad trying to blend in at his son’s party.
Come on, Klein. You’re only thirty-seven. You’re hardly too old for this sort of thing.
The décor in here is something else. Barbie dolls hang in lewd poses from the ceiling. There’s a black-and-white movie projected onto a wall — I’m probably the only one in here old enough to recognise it as a Grace Kelly film. There are neon fish, leaping out some of the other walls, and more disco-balls than I can count. I don’t really know what I’d call this style… cyberpunk, maybe?
Robyn has finished now, and there’s a song I don’t recogn
ise pumping out of the speakers. It’s high-pitched and hectic, and everyone’s loving it. There’s a stage at the front of the club, with near-naked men draped in feather boas, waving their arms in the air like they don’t have a care in the world.
I wish I could just let go like that.
But it’s hard to let go when you’re clinging on so tightly.
Feels like I’ve been hanging off the edge of a cliff for so long that my hands have forgotten how to release their grip.
Obviously, the first thing I need to do is go to the bar. It’s already late, and I’ve got some catching up to do. I almost didn’t come out tonight — that’s why I left it so late. I was sitting at home, playing shall-I-shan’t-I with myself for two hours before I plucked up the courage to walk out of my front door.
Now, I’m going to need champagne… and lots of it.
I walk through the dancing throng towards the bar, apologising every time I bump into someone, trying to avoid spilling drinks or stepping on toes. I suddenly become aware of how many hands are in this room. Must be at least two hundred people in here. That’s four-hundred hands. Grabbing onto shoulders, to faces, to bottoms. Sliding inside shirts and up thighs. I’ve never seen so many people making out in one room. Mouths glued onto mouths. Hands holding heads in place so the kisses last forever.
I don’t think this is any different to a straight club, of course. People come to places like this to do things like… that. It’s just been a while since I’ve witnessed such a brazen display of sexual desire… and I’ve certainly never acted like that with someone in a place like this.
But it’s doubly surprising to me because I’ve never seen men kiss each other up close before.
I sidle past a couple with their hands tucked into each other’s jean pockets. They both have shaved heads and white tank tops on, although one guy has black skin and the other white. Something catches at the back of my throat when I see them enjoying each other so physically. It’s… more beautiful, somehow, than seeing a man and a woman kiss. Like they’re two halves of the same whole.
Maybe it’s just the architect in me — always assessing the aesthetics. Is it my way of checking out? Dissociating? Like, if I focus on how objectively beautiful something is, maybe I don’t have to bother questioning how I feel about it…?
I finally make it to the bar, holding onto my bag for dear life. It’s not that I don’t trust people in here, but, let’s face it — this is London. Pickpockets are rife. And if you’re going to rob anyone in here, it might as well be me.
I wait patiently at the bar to get served, watching the hands of the pineapple-shaped clock on the wall tick by, from quarter past midnight… to twenty past… to twenty-five past… to half past…
Am I doing something wrong?
‘Oi!’ yells a rasping voice beside me. I feel a body press up next to mine, and watch a tattooed bicep fly out over the bar, and a hand waving in the barman’s face. ‘I’m gonna need a pint of Punk IPA, mate!’
Well, how incredibly rude. This guy has just barged in, not waiting his turn, and he’s completely blocked me from the server’s view.
‘Um, excuse me,’ I shout into his ear, just beneath a thick, roughly styled mass of deep black hair. ‘You just pushed in front of me. I’ve been waiting here for fifteen minutes.’
The man whips his head around to face me.
His green eyes are piercingly bright beneath his knitted brow. Is he wearing eye-shadow? Eye-liner? It’s hard to tell, but whatever he’s done, his eyes are the boldest, most startling pair I’ve ever seen. He’s got a nose ring, and an earring that looks so wide I wonder if he’s got one of those stretched earlobes that I’ve heard about. Long, bristly black stubble on a hard brow. A cleft chin, scarred and rough. I reckon this guy must be twenty-five at the most. He has this expression about him, though, despite his youth. Like he’s seen it all — and done it all — and isn’t afraid of doing the whole lot all over again.
‘Fifteen minutes?’ he says. ‘Shit. You need to learn to make yourself seen, mate.’
‘I’m just trying to exercise a bit of basic human politeness,’ I reply. ‘That’s all.’
The guy looks at me with a puzzled expression. Maybe he didn’t catch what I said over the music. He turns back to the bar, and shouts: ‘Make that two pints, Alfie!’
The server pours another pint of amber-coloured liquid into a plastic pint glass, and the mystery man hands over a ten-pound note.
‘Fiver a pint here,’ he grins, as he thrusts the pint into my hands. ‘Not bad for the Big Smoke, eh?’
I take the cup he’s handing me, beer sloshing out of the top of the plastic tumbler and all over my hands. ‘This is for me?’ I ask. ‘That’s, uh, very kind of you, but I don’t actually like beer.’
‘Can’t hear ya!’ shouts the guy, tapping his ear and then nodding his head to the beat of the music. ‘Follow me!’
He ducks into the crowd and disappears into the pulsing throng.
Oh, for goodness sake. I look back at the bar, but the server has already moved to the other side, and people are just pushing in front of me left, right and centre. Chances are, I could stand here waiting for another half and hour and still not get the glass of champagne that I’m so desperate for right now.
Fine. I’m going to have to follow the rude guy to wherever he’s leading me, if only to thank him for the beer and then give it back to him.
I stand on tiptoes, looking over the tops of people’s heads, which isn’t too difficult — I’m six three. I spot the tousled mop of dark black hair, moving towards a door at the back of the club, and I edge my way around the room, grimacing as I spill yet more beer onto my trenchcoat, and for some reason, apologising to everyone I pass.
Finally, I reach the exit, and I feel cool air against my face. I’m out in a yard, but I can’t see the guy, because there’s a huddle of smokers standing outside the door, blocking my view. I squeeze my way past them, daring myself to maybe not apologise this time. What’s wrong with brushing shoulders with another human being, anyway? Why should I be sorry for coming into contact with someone? It’s not like anyone’s apologising back to me. Why should I take on the burden of guilt for everyone?
I have nothing to be ashamed of.
Once I escape the wall of smokers, I’m relieved to see that the yard opens out a little more. There are low, wooden benches, wooden tables, and small trees draped in fairy lights.
I might have come here on a mission tonight, but that doesn’t mean I’m not glad to be out of the club for a moment. It’s all so much more intense than I was expecting, and at least out in this yard, I can imagine I’m somewhere else — anywhere else — for a while.
I spot the scowling bloke under an acer tree at the back of the yard. He pats the bench beside him, signalling for me to join him.
Suddenly, the thought hits me: is this man interested in me? Are we engaging in some kind of courtship ritual right now? If so… why don’t I feel as terrified by that prospect as I should be?
Don’t be silly, Klein. You’re here for business purposes. Nothing else.
I smile, trying to look as relaxed as possible, and I sit on the bench. Now that we’re away from the sweat and the alcohol fumes of the club, I can smell the man next to me. He smells of white jasmine — a strangely feminine, heady aroma. I know that smell well — I have a property in Greece, on the coast, and the garden is full of beautiful, white jasmine bushes. Every night, after dusk, the floral scent becomes so strong it’s almost intoxicating.
‘Couldn’t hear a bloody thing in there,’ says the man next to me. His voice is gruff and scratchy. Reminiscent of Nick Offerman or Idris Elba. A bit like he’s been shouting over loud music for the last few years, and his vocal chords have become strained. ‘Noisy as fuck in there. What was it you were saying?’
He sets those sparkling green eyes on me. They’re wide open, but full of mystery. So bright and dark all at once.
‘I, uh,’ I say, surprised to f
ind myself mumbling a little. ‘I, well, I was just trying to say thank you for the beer, but —’
The man shrugs. ‘You can buy me the next one.’
Oh no. That isn’t part of my plan at all. I need to be a free agent tonight. I need to focus on the reason that I’m here. If I have to wait to buy this guy another drink, we could be stuck together for another hour, at least.
‘Thing is, though,’ he says, ‘You’re gonna have to change your tactics at the bar. That was tragic, mate.’
‘I’m not going to just barge in like you did. I… I don’t want to be rude,’ I stammer. ‘Anyway, what I’m trying to tell you is that I don’t really like beer. So here… take mine.’
He purses his lips. ‘Have you even tried it? That’s Punk IPA. It’s good stuff.’
I can’t help smiling. ‘Okay. You got me. I haven’t tried it.’ I lower my lips to the plastic cup and take a sip. It tastes of pine… grapefruit… maybe even a little lychee. It’s actually not bad. I never normally drink pints though. Such much liquid. I much prefer wine and spirits. Much more refined.
‘Ha. Knew you’d like it,’ says the guy, pressing his plastic cup against mine and making a pretend clink sound. ‘I’m Hunter, and you’re the only person in the club that looks like you’re having a worse night than I am.’
‘Me?’ I ask, feigning disbelief. ‘No, no, I’m having a wonderful time. Really, I’ve only just arrived. I’m still… getting into the spirit of things.’
Hunter chuckles. His laugh is genuine and infectious.
‘No offence,’ he says, ‘but you seem pretty uncomfortable to me. I’m assuming this is your first time?’
‘Oh.’ I feel my cheeks reddening. ‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Hunter puts his hand on my knee, just for a second — totally platonically, I think, but it sends sparks shooting through me. ‘We all had a first time, you know,’ he says, taking a gulp of beer.
I consider correcting him. Telling him I’m not in a gay bar for the first time for romantic purposes. That I’m here to make someone an offer. Something far more exciting than a night in the proverbial ‘sack’.
