Epilogue

One year later

Alex

G entle waves lapped against the velvet sand. Overhead, a ripe moon reflected silver in the black water. This place was so peaceful. I’d enjoyed my five days in Bali after an unfortunate meeting two days ago, but I missed Lucas as I always did when I worked away. At least I’d be back for Christmas Eve in two days. I couldn’t wait, despite this paradise I was lucky enough to be spending my time in.

I’d sat in Lucas’s office with Max on New Year’s Eve. Lucas had insisted I bring someone with me to the meeting. He wanted it professional, above board, not the boss giving his boyfriend work. He had a contract drawn up and there was a lawyer there who went over the minutiae until my head spun. Later, Lucas was at pains to point out that this work was independent of whatever happened with us. No matter how we ended up, the work would be there if I wanted it.

My first photo shoot was at the end of January. He and I were still so new, tentatively taking steps, feeling each other out (and feeling each other up). He’d refused to come to the photoshoot. He said watching me lying on a bed wearing nothing but his new collection of tighty whities would make him so hot under the collar it would send the wrong impression to his colleagues. No one wanted the CEO walking around the studio with a hard-on. Photos from that shoot ended up in magazines and on billboards. I remember stopping in the street, staring up at the lean brunet with the sultry eyes, floppy hair and bulging underwear and thinking, is that me ? I’d got a lot of stick from Max. He thought I had something shoved down there. My mum was very proud but hesitantly asked if I would have more clothes on next time. My dad didn’t say much. He probably thought Lucas was pimping me out or something.

Modelling for Lucas led to a major agency taking me on and suddenly I was getting work thrown at me and mixing with the sort of people I had only seen on Instagram and adverts for designer brands. I felt like a fraud when I stood amongst these beautiful people. A failed university student and waiter with enough neuroses to keep a shrink busy for months. Imposter syndrome, they call it, and I had it in buckets. The work started in the UK. Then I was going to Europe for a couple of days at a time and then it was long haul flights to far-flung destinations I had only dreamed of visiting. I baulked at the very idea. They wanted me to model clothes in Tokyo and were prepared to pay me thousands. This was my life now? I hadn’t even given up my shifts at the restaurant for fear it would all come crashing down and still picked up a couple a week when I could.

Lucas and I discussed it. He encouraged me to seize the opportunity to see the world with an added bonus of making money. It could only be my decision and if I didn’t want to go, he would support me no matter what. So I turned up at the airport at the arse-crack of dawn that day with my years-old shit suitcase and found Lucas waiting there for me. He had booked the seat next to me on the plane. I remember I threw myself into his arms in the check-in queue and smothered his face with kisses. It was only one of the many trips he came on with me.

My strength, my support, the love of my life.

Of course he couldn’t always come with me and Bali had been done on my own. It was also where I’d run into José, as I had always known I would.

◆◆◆

Lucas

Street lights shone through the cab window as we sped along the dusty road and I reflected on how far both me and Alex had come in the last year. He was now a supermodel. He laughed when I, or others, called him that, but it was true. He was earning an eye-watering amount of money and travelling first class to fabulous destinations.

When I’d seen the finished photos from that first shoot, Alex lounging on a bed with come hither eyes and his package outlined so perfectly in my bestselling range of undies, I could barely breathe. My secretary had brought a file to my office and when I’d opened to the first picture, I’d caught my breath. I’d forgotten she was there as I stared, flipping through the photos, my dick getting harder and harder. Nobody had ever looked so amazing modelling my stuff. No one . I was biased, but Alex was the one. The new face of my brand.

I’d cleared my throat. “Thanks,” I’d said, “that’ll be all for now.” What I meant was, please leave and close the door so I can jerk off . My hand wasn’t steady as I thumbed my mobile and brought up Alex’s number. When he answered I heard bird cries and distant voices. “I got the photos,” I told him. “I can’t believe my eyes.”

He sounded crestfallen when he replied. “Oh. Sorry. I thought I’d done okay. Do you want me to try again? If not, I don’t mind if you get someone else. You don’t have to pay me. Sorry, I…”

“Shut up,” I said.

He did and the line echoed with shock.

“These photos, Alex,” my voice was low and aroused, “are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m not sure I can bear to let anyone else see them.” I spread my legs, rubbing the bulge in my trousers.

He laughed nervously. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I’m sorry to be so crude, but I’m going to have to wank over them in my office. Right now.”

His laugh this time was more like a cackle. “Oh my God, dude, you’re shameless.”

I unbuckled my belt. “You’ve made me this way.” It was true our sex got better and better, but it seemed we were both holding back, rationing our contact to seeing each other once or twice a week, neither willing to admit that they wanted to spend twenty-four seven with each other for fear of being taken as coming on too strong or worse, being a creepy stalker. I was smitten though, more than I had been on Christmas Eve if that was even possible. I wanted him at every moment of every day.

In a lower, more serious voice, he said, “Tell me what you’re doing.”

“I’m unfastening myself,” I replied as I did just that. This was the first dirty phone call we’d had. “I’m taking my dick out. My dick that is so fucking hard because of you.” Alex gave a little moan down the line that shot straight to my groin and I fisted my cock, gave it a few hard tugs.

“Are you wanking off?”

“Yes.”

“I want to do it too, but I’m in the park feeding the ducks.”

I snorted. “Listen to me then.” My breath hitched as I increased the rhythm of my hand.

“God,” Alex said. “Did you really like them?”

“You look like an angel,” I replied. “But a fallen angel. One who’s about to ravage you and drag you straight to hell.”

“Oh.” He sounded nonplussed. “Is that good?”

“Oh, God, Alex,” I groaned. “I’m going to come.” I squeezed my eyes shut, stroking my swollen flesh, wishing he was here, on his knees for me, his sweet mouth around me. I was never sure what I liked most about sleeping with Alex. His mouth or his arse or his hands. All of them were magical. All of them made me orgasm like I never had in my life before. My libido was well and truly awakened from a casing of frost and I hoped it never hibernated again.

“Come for me,” he whispered like all the best dirty clichéd books and that was me done. I came into my hand, making sure to catch it all so I didn’t have to go to my eleven o’clock meeting with cum on my trousers.

“Fuck,” I panted, eyes squeezed shut.

Alex laughed softly. “I need to go home and rub one out too now.”

I reached for a tissue from the box on my desk. Never had that box been used for such an illicit thing before.

“Are they really okay?” Alex asked and the uncertainty and hesitance in his voice astounded me, despite the fact he had just heard me wanking over the photos.

“Alex,” I said, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder as I fastened up, “what we’ve paid you for these isn’t enough. You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my life and I want…” I stopped.

“What do you want?” he asked after a breath, his voice low and serious.

“I want to be with you. I want to be your shelter from the storm outside, the one you can turn to when you’re anxious and hurting and afraid. The one you share your highs and lows with and the one you kiss goodnight.” I took a breath and felt foolish. My heart was beating hard and it wasn’t from the climax.

“No one’s ever spoken to me like that before,” Alex said so softly his voice was almost lost amongst the sounds of birds and people around him.

“I hope I haven’t scared you.”

“No. I knew how special you were when I saw you sitting there alone on Christmas Eve. I asked myself how come nobody else could see it. Like a light shining from you. A beacon to guide my way. A lighthouse steering me away from the rocks.”

Suddenly I had a lump in my throat like a boulder. Tears stung my eyes and my jaw trembled. I clenched the phone hard. Get a grip. Don’t cry.

“Are you there?”

“I’m here.” My voice sounded strangled.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“Could I come over and see you at work? If you’re not too busy.”

“Yes,” I said, the meeting forgotten. “Come now.”

My secretary had called twenty minutes later. “Alex Redfern to see you.”

I’d only found out his surname when he’d signed the contract. I’d tried it in my head and on my tongue. Then I’d tried it with my own name. Lucas Redfern. Lucas Redfern-Rainford .

“Send him in,” I said, getting up from the desk.

Alex opened the door and came inside. I stepped towards him and we embraced fiercely.

Watching the scenery pass the cab in a blur outside now, I still remembered that day so clearly. The words he had spoken. The words I had spoken. I had stepped up that day. From the man who was not sure he could take Alex on, to the man who would. That man was new, bigger, better. Lucas Rainford 2.0. And he had carried on getting better because of Alex. For Alex.

Hence why I was here today. My phone beeped and smiling to myself, I pulled it from my pocket. It was Adam, What’s Apping an Insta link. Have you seen this?

I opened the app and my smile died.

◆◆◆

Two days ago

Alex

I recognised him as soon as I saw him. Arrogant, strutting, brainless. Bronzed, skinny and Botoxed up to his eyeballs. Fillers in his lips and cheeks. Eyebrows tattooed on, guyliner and designer stubble carefully groomed. My stomach plunged. I was with some of the other models in the hotel dining room, sitting next to Kayleigh who I’d worked with before and who was a riot. José was with three other guys, all of them wearing the shortest of shorts and vest tops, with flip-flops showing their horrible hairy toes which definitely wouldn’t be included in the final photos.

I’d known I’d eventually bump into him. Were the men with him the ones who had assaulted Lucas? The ones José had encouraged to rape him? I watched him choose half a grapefruit and some watermelon and wondered if he had an eating disorder like a lot of the models I had met. I wouldn’t go down that path. I was eating eggs, toast, yoghurt and fruit and intended to wolf the lot down and go back for seconds.

The gang wandered past my table. José’s gaze swept over me then came back to rest on my face, staring, his eyebrows pulled in tight. I stared back. What was his fucking problem? He stopped.

“Look who it is,” he said. “Lucas’s toy boy.”

It was nothing I hadn’t heard before. I gave less and less of a fuck as time went on. But when I was confronted by this vile rapist, I took exception to it. I shoved my chair back and stood. “I know what you did,” I hissed.

He laughed and glanced at his friends. “Oh, really?”

We were gathering an audience now. The rest of the crew and models were looking, along with other guests of the hotel. It suited me fine to tell them all.

“You raped him,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“What?” His olive skin had turned pale.

“You heard me. You and your friends.” I gestured to the other three men who were looking distinctly uneasy and trying to back off. “You raped him.”

José laughed. A brittle, hard laugh, but one that didn’t fool me.

I raised my voice, looking around. “José and his friends pinned Lucas Rainford to a bed in Scotland two years ago and raped him. They think they got away with it. They haven’t.”

Now his cronies were white-faced and shaking their heads, while José was still trying to bluster his way out. “He’s crazy, he’s fucking crazy. You know who this guy is, right? A gold-digging waiter sucking dick on demand. Making up lies to hide the real facts. That Lucas took the four of us to that hotel room and fucked us all one after the other. Yes, that’s right.” He laughed, his eyes gleaming. “He’s an absolute pervert. Some of the stuff he begged us to do to him, you wouldn’t believe your ears.”

I threw my coffee in his face. “Shut up! He has the evidence of what you did to him and if it’s up to me, he’ll go to the police.”

José clenched his jaw, dark eyes spitting fire. “Fucking little rent boy,” he spat. “He needed a real man. And he got a real man.”

I punched him so hard in the face he flew into the breakfast buffet table, smashing plates and scattering pastries and fruit.

A couple of guys from the crew waded in then and it was all over. José picked himself up and stalked away and his spineless buddies followed him.

I sighed, looking out over the black water and enjoying the warm breeze on my bare arms. I didn’t feel bad that I had confronted José but I knew I should have had the conversation in private. Nobody needed to know Lucas’s business. However, he’d disappeared after that, the word seeming to be that he had been fired, which was wonderful news. If I had managed to ruin his life the way he had ruined Lucas’s, it was all right by me. While I still wanted Lucas to go to the police, I was wary about raising the subject with him. We were dynamite in bed together but he was still tense whenever I got anywhere near anal play with him. He welcomed a rim job but when I’d tried a couple of times to ease fingers in there, he’d pulled away, shook his head. I didn’t know how or when he was ever going to be over what those men had done to him.

I wasn’t active on social media but I’d been told that rumours were circulating about José. I’d had enough witnesses that it was bound to be the actual facts being shared online, not speculation. And I had not asked Lucas’s permission. I had spilled his secret and sooner or later he would find out. While I couldn’t wait to get back home to see him, I was dreading it too. Surely he was going to be angry with me and feel embarrassed and humiliated, as would I in his position. Imagine if he had shared with a room full of strangers what Bill had done to me in that alleyway and I had read about it online afterwards? I shuddered. Yes, I wasn’t sure how I was going to make this up to him. Maybe it would be the ruin of us. I didn’t want to think about it.

I turned around then as I heard shoes crunching over the damp sand. A tall man in a white shirt and linen trousers was making his way across the beach to me, silhouetted in the moonlight. I caught my breath, unable to believe my eyes. Then I started to run, stumbling on the sand before throwing myself into his arms with a cry.

◆◆◆

Lucas

I’d flown all the way to Bali to surprise him before the end of his shoot because I couldn’t bear to be without him any longer. But what I’d just seen on Instagram had taken the wind out of my sails. People were saying that José had raped me.

Alex saw me and came running. He threw himself into my arms and even though I was angry and upset, I gathered him in close, breathing in the scent of his hair. Holding him felt like coming home, no matter where we were, as always. That hadn’t changed. But something had. He had told someone what had happened to me. And now I was being talked about online.

I realised with a start that Alex was weeping against my chest. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wanted to kill him. I should have killed him. Please forgive me.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, my anger gone as suddenly as it had appeared. How could I ever be angry with him? I was just disappointed that the secret between us had been spilled. He had let me down, I suppose. I didn’t want to feel this way. I hoped this would be the only time he would ever disappoint me. I held him tighter and stroked his head. But I could understand. He hadn’t revealed my secret through any maliciousness. He had never done anything but be my support, my guide, my rock. The lighthouse he said I was. We guided each other from the rocks. I had missed him the last few days like a part of me had been amputated. My bed was cold without him, my house empty. My one solace had been the black cat Alex had adopted from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home to keep me company while he was away. Gaston was the sweetest, most loving animal you could ever hope for, despite the awful start he had had in life, dumped as a kitten by his owner and fighting his way back from cat flu that had left him close to death. I had never had a pet. I couldn’t believe how they could enrich your life. The love I gave back to Gaston was the love he showed me unconditionally. Like Alex.

Alex’s chest was hitching with sobs. “Please forgive me.”

I lifted his head to look down into his face. “I forgive you,” I said. “It’s okay.”

He swallowed, trying a wan smile that came out more like a grimace. “Is Gaston okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“Who’s feeding him?”

“Max.” Alex’s smile was more genuine when I said that. I’d developed a good friendship with Max over the last year, even if he was very protective over Alex. I searched his eyes. “What did you do to José?”

“I punched him in his horrible, smug face,” Alex said, looking both proud and fierce.

His words swelled my breast, even though it wasn’t what I wanted. “Better hope he doesn’t press charges.”

Alex scoffed. “And have the police come after him for rape? I don’t think so.”

I ran my thumb over his bottom lip. “How do you fancy Christmas in Hawaii?”

He stared at me. “What?”

“I booked a hotel for the next nine days. We fly on Christmas Eve.”

He threw himself into my arms again. “Oh my God, you’re amazing.”

I smiled against his hair. “Come on, I need a drink.”

◆◆◆

Alex

I’d left the balcony doors open and we’d probably be eaten alive by mosquitoes. When I crossed the room to close them, Lucas said, “Leave them. Let me listen to the sea.”

He loved the ocean so much. His face lit up like a child at Christmas whenever we travelled somewhere and he caught a glimpse of the sea. He talked all the time about retiring to the coast, about buying a home in Greece. I wanted to be right there with him, watching that wonder on his face every day. He came up behind me and rested a hand on the back of my neck. His touch was still enough to make me shiver. Always had been, always would be. He reached around with both hands and started to unfasten my shirt. As he slipped it off my shoulders, he pressed his erection against my backside. I couldn’t help the groan that slipped from my throat, my dick going rigid in seconds.

Soft lips caressed my neck and my head fell back against his shoulder. “I want to be inside you,” he murmured.

A rush of pre-cum wet my underwear. When his hand slid down over my belly and between my legs, I bucked into his touch. “Please,” I said.

He unfastened my trousers. “You’re wet,” he said in my ear as he traced the outline of my cock and balls through my damp briefs. Lucas Rainford briefs of course.

I whimpered. “I need you.”

“Get undressed,” he said.

My cock throbbed as I hopped about dragging my clothes off, throwing myself on the bed and hoping he had lube. We hadn’t put the lights on but I could see his silhouette well enough in the dark as he came to me naked, tossing something onto the pillow by my head. He lowered himself into my arms and we kissed deeply, rubbing our dicks together. He reached for the thing he’d put on the pillow and keeping his mouth on mine, I felt cold wetness between my legs. I arched as he rubbed my entrance, teasing me open before spearing me with his finger. I gasped into his mouth, rocking against him as he added another and fucked me with them. So good. So fucking good. Every touch he gave me lit me on fire. I couldn’t get enough of his hands, his mouth, his dick, his beautiful body, the way he fucked me.

I breathed hard as he knelt up and rolled on a rubber. Lifting my knees, I felt him press against my entrance, so hard and so thick I shuddered with impending ecstasy. “Oh God,” I cried as he slid in to the hilt. “Lucas, oh God, fuck me.”

He kissed the words off my lips, starting to move within me, hard long strokes that completely undid me as only he could. Nobody had ever fucked me like him before and nobody ever would. I couldn’t breathe for the pleasure swarming through my body and I clutched at him, dragging my nails down his back, bucking against him so he took me deep. I had no doubt my noisy cries would be heard through the open doors, perhaps filtering down to the terrace bar below, but I didn’t much care. I was a man coming unravelled at the seams and as his thrusts got harder and faster, I was rushing headlong into climax. I reached for my dick, jerking furiously, wondering if I’d get there before him. I usually did. I just couldn’t last once his cock was inside me. The action of him stretching me open sometimes made me come hands-free if we’d had an extended foreplay session. I remembered that memorable occasion when he’d come first. He’d slowed his pace with me still moaning and whimpering below him. Pulling out of me, he’d slid down and put his mouth around my dick and I’d exploded instantly. I loved to see my cum on his lips. He knew that. He liked to kneel at my feet and paint his mouth with my dick, before licking my cum off with slow swipes of his wicked tongue, gaze fixed on mine. He had the best tongue in the world and he had used it on every part of my body.

“Please,” I moaned again. “Please.”

His hand closed over mine. We wanked me off between us while we kissed. “I love you,” he said. “Always.”

“I love you too,” I said just before I cried out and spurted onto my belly and up my chest.

Lucas growled. He nailed me hard to the bed with jerky thrusts, groaning as he came. We collapsed into a sweating heap, our hearts racing against each other’s chests.

◆◆◆

Lucas

When I slid from the bed, I pulled the sheet up to Alex’s neck to protect him from any ravenous mosquitoes and made my way across the room to the balcony. Alex was sound asleep but with jetlag kicking in, I wasn’t finding it so easy even though I was shattered. The hotel was on the beach, the dark waves crashing onto the sand beyond the terrace and swimming pool. How I loved to be away from England, at one with nature and the ocean. Tomorrow I needed to go snorkelling. I couldn’t wait to discover what lay beneath Bali’s enchanted waters.

My body was thrumming with satisfaction but my dick was reawakening. I wanted to slide back into Alex’s tight, wet heat. The depth of my love for him frightened me. But I knew he returned it. I knew our love was fierce, solid and forever. Nothing could shake it, let alone break it. So it didn’t matter if people knew what José and his friends had done to me and who knew, maybe one day with Alex’s support, I would tell the police, show them the photos and give them my clothes. And maybe one day he would tell on Bill too.

For now, we carried our scars and embraced them. They made us who we were—strong, unafraid and resilient. Now that we had found each other we were united against the world.

THE END