4 Toby

I wake at fuck knows what time in a strange bed, in the arms of a man I hardly know, and it's perfect. I've never been held like this before. Kind of so…absolutely. His fingers are slack against my wrist, but they're still there. This comforting weight, like he can't bear to let me go. I don't think he's moved all night long.

I'm super careful because I don't want to wake him, but I wriggle myself round in his arms until we're face-to-face.

Laurie.

His breath's morningy, but so's mine. I just like looking at him like this. He's both more and less like himself somehow, stern and soft at the same time. And, lying there in this warm haze with him, I can't believe all the things he's given me in a single night: power and submission and kindness. And now this as well. His peace.

He's also the first person who's ever taken me seriously. The first person to really make me feel beautiful. I can't help wondering what the fuck I'm supposed to be able to give him back.1

Very, very lightly, I touch his eyelashes. The corner of his lips. He doesn't stir. And I'm a little bit worried this is what stalkers do.

I know we're not lovers or boyfriends or friends, and I know that he's going to wake up and call a taxi to drive me out of his life. I hope he doesn't regret me—this stupid kid he took home one night—but I'm going to remember him forever.

I'm not sure I'm the same person who snuck into that stupid club. The only thing I was right about was him. I kind of half wish I'd met him later. When I'm older, and I'm all cool and sophisticated. However that happens. I can't really imagine it properly, though. The best I can come up with is us both wearing tuxedos. And we're in this sort of…bar, I guess, which is all oak and honey and candlelight, and I'm all like, From the top shelf, please, to the bartender. And Laurie looks exactly the same, but I'm kind of hazy, and my brain wants to substitute Daniel Craig, and what the fuck kind of fantasy is this, where I'm played—in my own head—by somebody else?

Besides, if I had met him some other time, I wouldn't be here now. And he wouldn't be my first. And I wouldn't lose that for anything.

I hope he hasn't totally ruined me.

I've no idea what time it is. Late, I think, from the light, which is kind of bright and sharp and sparkly, like you sometimes get after seriously hardcore rain. And it's such a ridiculously gorgeous room to wake up in, a little bit fairy tale, especially since he's got this massive four-poster bed. Or some kind of posh modern take on one, anyway, since there's no curtains or canopy, just the base and the posts, which are heavily carved with arches and spirals and have that inside gleam of really good wood, so deep and rich you think it'd be warm if you touched it. It's fancy without being fussy, and honestly, it gives me a bunch of filthy ideas.

He'd look fucking amazing spread-eagled on a bed like this.

And that's a fantasy I can definitely imagine properly.

I'm not sure about the technicalities, but I reckon you could get somebody into some pretty interesting positions. And by "somebody" I mean Laurie. Legs up and wide, arms above his head. Exposed, vulnerable, and a little bit degraded. And so, so hot. And I know exactly how he'd look: frowning and desperate and embarrassed and turned on. And mine. Just like I'd be his for letting me do that to him.

God. What would it be like to have someone trust you and want you that much? To put aside fear and pride and shame and inhibition. All the stuff that's supposed to be so important. Parts of ourselves we're supposed to protect and care about.

I sometimes wonder what it means that I want someone to do that for me. But then I think it doesn't matter, and that it's just a thing I want. And either everything we want is weird, or nothing is. Unless it's like…avocado. I seriously don't get that. The texture makes me gag, and it tastes like you're chewing the inside of somebody else's scrotum. Who the fuck would want that?2

After a bit, I slide carefully from his arms and crawl off the edge of the bed. Poor bastard must be beyond knackered, because he doesn't stir. Just makes this fucking adorable noise, nearly a whimper. It's probably nothing, but I pretend it's for me. For the loss of me.

It's kind of weird to be wandering around his house with my knob flapping in the breeze, so I wrap myself in yesterday's towel and go down to the kitchen. My clothes have gone a bit fluffy in the dryer, but they're basically fine, and I pull them on. And then I find myself doing all this weird shit.

I pad around and open all the curtains for him. Pick up the Times from the doormat. There's no post because it's Sunday. Then I find myself back in his kitchen, peering into the fridge. It's well stocked, actually, in this slightly anonymous I get food deliveries way.3

I'm probably supposed to be going away. Slipping off discreetly so he doesn't have to wake up and freak out about having brought me home and let me stay.

But then I think of him upstairs, so utterly asleep, and the way he held me all night. The way he dried me, so gently and carefully, looking at me like I was precious, and going on about benzy-whatever-it-was. Making me feel all cared for. Well, that and horny. And now I want to do something back.

There's not much in this world I know for definite I'm awesome at, but breakfast I can do. I think I must've had natural skills in that direction, but half a year at Greasy Joe's has honed me into a bacon-and-eggs samurai.

I know, right? It's the sort of shit parents dream for their kids. Little Tabitha's going to be a doctor. Rory's going to run for government. Crispin is deworming orphans in Somalia. And Toby, well, Toby's not so bad with a griddle pan.

But, hey, at least I'm good at something. For a while there I genuinely thought I wasn't. And, anyway, I've always wanted to play with an AGA.

I want to show off and do him a full English, but with the stuff he's got lying around it would be more like three-quarters, and I don't like doing things half-arsed. So scramblies it is.

I spend a little while like a contestant on Deal or No Deal, opening all the doors of the AGA and peering inside, trying to figure out what the shit is going on in there until I work out which one is probably the roasting oven. I find a grill rack insert, line up some pieces of bacon, and stuff it in there, near the top. Then I find a kind of metal badminton racket that opens and closes, and I guess it's either for kinky shit beyond my wildest dreams or making toast, so I stick it on the boiling plate to heat.

And then I get performance anxiety because scrambled eggs are like this…art form. They're the wax-on, wax-off of cooking. Simple on the surface but infinitely complex and diverse. Totally magical.4

It's got to the point that all the regulars at Joe's will say, "You know how I like them, Toby," and the truth is, I do. I'm literally walking around with twenty different variations of scrambled eggs in my head. Bit of a comedown for somebody who was supposed to be a lawyer, but beggars can't be choosers. And egg maker is way better than beggar, isn't it?

But the thing is, I don't know how Laurie would like them. And that's kind of a problem because I want to make him the best fucking scrambled eggs he's ever had or even imagined possible. Is he traditional or American style? Big curds or small? Pre-seasoned or post-seasoned? Creamy or buttery?

Jesus. It's carnage in my brain.

So I go for what I like best. Well, usually when I cook for myself, I just go for quick and dirty, but I make for him what I'd make for me if I wanted to show myself a good time. If that makes sense.

I break the eggs into the frying pan, add some butter and seasoning—he's got proper sea salt and everything—and give them ten seconds in the roasting oven. Basically, there's two ways to go from here: stir like crazy or hold off, fingers twitching.

I let my fingers twitch and distract myself by putting the kettle onto the boiling plate. Then I grab the pan and gently fold the eggs in. It's a bit weird, not having them on a hob where I can keep an eye on them, and I'm nervy it's all going to go horribly wrong. But then I settle into it. I know it's just scrambled eggs, not like cordon bleu, but there's something that feels right to me about cooking. It's calm and focus at the same time. And you get something real at the end of it, something that can make someone happy.

Next time I check the AGA, the eggs are pretty much done, all gold and velvety. I stir in some crème fra?che and some freshly chopped oregano and pile them onto a plate on top of the crisscross-patterned AGA toast, along with lots of butter and the grilled bacon. And, of course, I steal a little of the leftovers, just to make sure I'm not about to serve him a pile of ming. But, no, it's fine. It's good. Creamy, but not too creamy, fluffy and indulgent. See, this is the other thing I like about cooking: you always know when you've got it right.

I can't find anything like a tray, but I manage to make it back upstairs, balancing the paper, the plate, and a cup of tea. He's still fast asleep, curled around the space where I'd been lying, in the warmth that maybe I'd left. I put everything down on the bedside table and perch next to him. I've never tried to wake someone up, like, romantically before. I've no idea how.

"Uh…good morning… Hi."

Yeah, that probably wouldn't have woken a napping mouse.

I lean in to shake his shoulder, and it feels like a ridiculously intimate way to touch someone when they're kind of helpless and out of it and you're awake. "Laurie?"

If I was going for gentle, I fail hard. He jerks from oblivious to frantic in about a nanosecond. And his face is like this magic mirror of responses: surprise, confusion, loss, awareness. There's even this moment in the middle when he looks happy to see me, but it's gone as quickly as the rest. Eventually, he's Laurence Dalziel again, and saying in this dry, resigned way, "Good morning, Toby."

"Hey." I grin at him because I'm an idiot. "I made you breakfast."

First, he's all bewildered again and then unflatteringly worried. "You didn't have to do that."

"It doesn't suck."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean—" He's still trying to shake off sleep.

"Yeah, you did, but it's okay. Come on, sit up. There's tea as well."

That gets his attention, and he uncurls. The covers fall away a bit, and suddenly I remember he's naked under there. And holy shit. I mean, I know I've seen him already, but the novelty is nowhere near wearing off.

I want all the naked, all the time.

In this light, I see different things, different shadows. Sun dapple on his shoulders. Sparks of gold at the tips of the hair on his arms. Though it's harsher too, picking up grey sometimes and imperfections on his skin, the places where his body is rough and lived in, its muscles earned.

He was gorgeous yesterday, kneeling and burnished and kind of a fantasy. And he's still gorgeous this morning, rumpled and tired and real.

Shit. I'm meant to be doing stuff. Not just staring at him lustily, thinking of all the things I want to do to him. And, for the record, some of those things are perfectly normal. Like kiss him.

I pass him the plate, wafting it a bit so the scent of butter and herbs fills the air. He's still slightly dazed, so I forgive him for the grateful OMG, it doesn't look awful expression that crosses his face.

"You really didn't have to."

I shrug. "I wanted to."

"What about you?"

Oh yeah. Me. "Wow, I totally forgot."

For some reason, my stupid makes him smile. God, I'll be sitting around doing he loves me, he loves me not with a daisy before long, but he's got such a good smile. Makes the gold in his eyes shine. "We'll share," he tells me.

So we sit there in his bed, probably in the middle of the afternoon, and he feeds me morsels of toast and egg, and I feel kind of cherished and turned on and so fucking happy. And I wish I didn't have to go and get on with my messed-up life.

I wish this was my life instead.

Just great eggs and a hot guy and no worries at all.

And they are great eggs, by the way. I can tell he likes them.

That's the other beautiful thing about food: watching somebody enjoy it. Admittedly, it doesn't normally get me horny, but Laurie's a special case.

"Where did you learn to cook like this?" he asks. I'm both surprised and chuffed he cares. Or maybe he's just making conversation with his slightly-more-than-one-night stand. Either way, I like this glimpse of him. Relaxed and sleepy-eyed and looked-after. A little unprotected piece of who he is.

"Nowhere," is what I tell him. But then his head tilts inquisitively, and I can see that he's not going to let me get away with that. "I kind of cooked for myself a lot when I was a kid."

"Why?" Now he sounds sharp. "Does your mother not believe in food either?"

Whoops. I guess I've accidentally painted myself as some kind of abused, underfed guttersnipe. Which isn't true at all. When I was younger, Mum and I had some rough patches, but I've kind of got over it now. She's my mum, y'know? What can you do? "No, she does. It's just she doesn't believe in time."

"I beg your pardon?"

I have to laugh at the expression on his face. "She's not a martyred slave of time." He's still blank. I get this a lot when I have to explain my mother. "Baudelaire?"5

Nothing.

I sigh and crunch the last piece of bacon. It's so good. Salty and rich, with just the faintest hint of charcoal to give it depth. "She believes you should do things when you feel moved to do them, or else you become nothing but a mechanism of chronology or something. But, me, I'm totally a martyred slave. I want to eat three times a day, and I want the savoury bit to come first and the sweet bit to come second, and I want to sleep through the night and wake up in the morning."

He sits up a bit straighter, which makes the duvet slip down, and I'm briefly distracted by…oh God…everything. Nipples and hair and hard ridges of muscle. He's all rough and delicious and—

Fuck, he's talking.

"So she just left you to fend for yourself?"

"What? No. There was always food. But I got sick of Cup-a-Soups and Super Noodles, so I started experimenting." He had that social services look I'm pretty familiar with. "Laurie, we do okay."

"I'm sorry, but your mother sounds like a nutcase."

"Oi!" Nobody gets to call my mum a nutcase except me. "She's a genius." Then he gets the other look I'm familiar with. "And I'm aware they probably seem pretty similar from a distance."

That's why I don't like talking about this stuff. People always get the wrong idea. It's not the Super Noodles that grind you down, it's spending your whole life being second. Like, don't get me wrong, Mum loves me. She loves me more than she loves anyone else in the world. I've never doubted that for a moment. But there's something else: the ever-fading flame of inspiration, or whatever.

That's where my mother dances.

Not for the ordinary shit like scrambled eggs or school reports or anybody else's dreams. And I get it. And it's okay. But she's never going to understand what it's like to…not have that. She'll always support me in whatever I do, whether I'm studying law or working for ￡5.03 an hour as a kitchen porter at a greasy spoon, but that's kind of the whole fucking problem.

Laurie breaks the silence with, "That was delicious. Thank you."

"‘S'okay." I go kind of squirmy inside with pleasure. I like it so much when people enjoy my cooking, and that makes me embarrassed and self-conscious. Because it's kind of pathetically needy, when you get right down to it. Like wanting to be first.

There's butter glistening on his fingers from the last piece of toast. He's got good hands. Because, frankly, he's got good everything. They're strong and blunt and very, very steady. Except, sometimes, when they're really not. And that's a wild thrill all by itself.

I know so little about this man, but I know he unravels hands first.6

I swoop in and clean him up, my tongue getting right down in the tender little V between his fingers, where he tastes so very much like him.

It makes him groan.

And my cock perks up like a Labrador at walkies.

"Toby." There's warning in his voice.

I look up at him, the tip of his finger caught between my teeth and cushioned by my lips, and I make my eyes as big as they can go.

"Please stop that." There's something else in his voice this time.

And, uh, I'm so confused. Please stop that should in no way press the Go button in your brain. And, honestly, it doesn't in a real way. I know what the rules are and how to take no for an answer.

But the way he says it.

Right now, it's ambiguous in the wrong way. But I can so easily imagine it being ambiguous in the right way.

I want him to say that to me and mean it and not mean it, knowing I might not stop. I want him to say it in pleasure, and I want him to say it in pain. And I want the power to deny him. Just because I can. Just because his suffering makes me hot.

I let go of his finger with one last kiss.

And then we stare at each other because it's suddenly awkward as fuck. I'm supposed to be leaving but I'm not, and he's not asking me to.

"Won't your mother," he says finally, "be wondering where you are?"

She probably hasn't noticed yet. Wait. That sounds bad. She would notice. She definitely would. It's just her maternal panic sensor is kept on the lowest setting.

I shake my head. "But I should be going, right?"

"Yes, you should."

"Yeah." I chase a crumb round and round the empty plate with my finger. "Or we could—"

"No."

Shit, I've gone too far. I always do that. There was reluctance before, but now certainty's come down like a wall. I keep trying though. Probably because I'm an idiot. But what have I got to lose? "You don't even know what I was going to ask."

"I don't have to."

Whoa. Talk about quelling. I sigh. "Well, it doesn't have to be wall-to-wall kinky shenanigans. We could…fuck or talk or go for a walk. Anything."

Shit, could I sound any more desperate? But I kind of am. Also: go for a walk? What the fuck. Who does that?

"Toby." Wow, I hate it when he's this gentle. "We can't do any of those things."

I really, really don't want to sound petulant, but I know I will anyway. "Why not?"

"Because I'm thirty-seven, for one thing."

"And people who are thirty-seven don't fuck or talk or go for walks? That must totally suck."

"Not with nineteen-year-olds."

"You know, if this was ancient Greece, you'd be buggering me senseless by now."

"Yes, well, we no longer live in a world of socially mandated pederasty."

I nearly go, And you say that like it's a good thing, but for fuck's sake, it's not funny. I'm nineteen and I'm not a kid. I know what I want, and he wants it too, so why is it suddenly not okay? "Your main objection is some vague perception of social stigma? Not, like, not fancying me or not wanting to fuck me?"

"It wouldn't be right." He pulls the duvet up to his chin, like he's trying to hide under it. It's kind of cute, or would be if he wasn't trying to hide from me and a bunch of true stuff. And that's when I catch it—the faintest tremor in his hands. Fuck yeah.

"And what we did last night was?"

He goes all red. "It was…different."

I'm kind of hovering on the edge of cross now. I mean, it's nice he doesn't want to exploit me or whatever, but fuck it, I'm so ready to be exploited. I lean a little closer to him. I'm being way too intense, but I can't help it. "Are you telling me what we did before wasn't sex? Wasn't intimate?"

He stares at me, all rainy eyes and wildness. Lost, just like me. Then he shakes his head because he's not a liar. I knew that about him from the first.

"So, what's the big deal?"

I guess he's trying to figure it out because he's quiet for ages. I want to smooth the frown lines from his face. Then he says, "In five, ten years, when you're closer to my age, you're going to look back on this and think, ‘What the hell was I doing?'"

"Whatever age I'm at, I'm going to look back on this and think, ‘Fuck, yeah.'"

"No, you're not. Someday, you'll be me, and then you won't think, ‘Wow, intriguing older man.' You'll think, ‘God, what a sad, lonely bastard, sleeping with teenagers.'"

"So you'd sleep with me if I was twenty? That seems pretty fucking arbitrary."

He gets that look I'm starting to recognise, amused and exasperated at the same time. I reckon I'm in with a chance as long as amused nudges ahead of exasperated. "You know it's not that simple."

"Maybe not, but it doesn't have to be unspeakably complicated either. Can't you just see yourself as…I don't know, the gay male equivalent to a cougar or something?"

He blinks at me. "What, an ageing queen?"

That idea's so impossibly crazy I actually laugh. And, after a moment, he laughs with me. "And anyway," I press, "it's not like you habitually go around banging younger guys, right?"

"The room I told you not to go into? It's full of twinks."

"Aww, I thought I was special."

"You know you are." He sounds like he did last night, wrapping me in a towel and telling me I'm beautiful.

It's not like it's true or anything. But I believe he believes it.

And that's…that is special.

So there's no way on fucking earth I'm letting this guy out of my life without knowing what he feels like inside me. It's that simple.

"Okay." I hold up my fingers and begin ticking them. "Way I see it, your main objections are social stuff, when nobody will ever know, and worrying what I'll think about you in however many years' time when you'll totally have forgotten I exist anyway."

"Toby…"

His stern voice ripples all the way down my spine, and I kind of want to arch into it, purring and wriggling, until he turns smoky-rough and sweet instead. "Don't ‘Toby' me. I'm serious. If you don't want me, then that's one thing, and it's okay. But saying no because you're worried about what people will think, that's another, and it's not okay."

He reaches out suddenly, hand brushing my cheek. And I press into his touch, wanting it, wanting it so much. "I can't believe you're trying to talk me into bed."

"You're already in bed."

He smiles his odd, shy smile at me.

"So come on." I don't so much put my cards on the table as throw the whole deck out the window. "Tell me you don't want me."

I'm waiting for him to do it. Expecting it. Braced for it. And I kind of realise a second too late that even if he doesn't mean it and he just says it to make me go away, it's still going to take a rock hammer to my stupid little heart. And then I'm thinking that maybe he's right. Maybe I'm too nineteen for this. Because this shit is big and real, and I'm probably going to dash myself to pieces on the realness of it.

"I can't decide," he murmurs, "whether I'm being seduced or bludgeoned."

"Maybe a bit of both?"

That makes him blush again, and I get to watch it sort of slide all the way down his naked throat. It makes me brave, the way only he can. I crawl fully onto the bed and straddle him. It's not exactly something I've had much practice at. In my head, it's all graceful and natural and I sort of swing myself over like a cowboy into the saddle. But, basically, I kind of scrabble and then plop but, hey, it gets the job done. And shame about my clothes, and shame about the duvet, but I can just about feel the shape of him under there.

And his cock, which seems pretty seduced.

He lets out this…not quite a gasp, more this sort of an uncontrolled breath, that tells me how much he's struggling.

All that control. And he's letting me undo him like a bow.

God. He's perfect. He's fucking perfect.

"It's kind of a classic," I tell him.

I'm kneeling over him, so he has to tip his head back to look at me. His eyes have that hungry, stormy look. "What is?"

"The rhetorical approach."

He tries to laugh, and it comes out all shaky. "I don't think people usually surrender their virtue to the power of rational argument."

"Oh man, they did all the time in the seventeenth century. There's this whole branch of, well, not love poetry, but shag poetry I guess, which is about convincing chicks to bone you because Reasons. It ranges from like, ‘Hey, you'll be dead one day so why not?' to ‘We both got bitten by the same flea so we've pretty much done it already.'"

He's kind of silent, but his body is all noise under me. Thunderous.

I smile at him. "That's my favourite. ‘This flea is you and I, and this our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.' Isn't that way, way hotter than ‘eyes like suns, lips like cherries'?"

His hands come up and frame my face.

Kiss me, is what I think.

Forever limps by.

"What do you want, Toby?"

Dangerous question to ask me when the answer is everything. But that probably isn't what he means. So I go for the obvious: "I want you to fuck me."7

And then he's on me like a breaking storm, and it's fucking terrifying and fucking wonderful and actually fucking happening. I'm on my back, and he's on top of me, and wow he's strong, and he's tearing at my clothes—like, literally, tearing because I hear something pretty serious happen to a seam even through the heart-pounding, blood-rushing tumult of our moving and breathing and coming together. He slides a hand up my chest, the touch more protective than sexy, and for a moment I'm bewildered at what it's doing there, but then he's dragging my T-shirt over my head and I realise he was making sure the fabric didn't snag on my nipple ring.

I catch onto his shoulders and stare into his face, which is all flushed and wild. And, holy shit, there's some kind of…I don't know… It's just so fucking precious to me that he could be so far gone and still remember something that trivial.

And it's exactly the thing I need to hold on to right then, because, God. Unleashed is what he is. And I'm kind of pinned by him and overwhelmed by him, but I know, more than anything else I know, he's never ever going to hurt me, not even in the teeniest, tiniest, most accidental way. And the truth is I like him and I want him—far too much to be scared. Even though he's right between my legs, pressing me wide in this rough, really…definite way. No hesitation at all, like his whole body is saying, I'm going to fuck you, I'm going to fuck you.

And I love it.

Because this is mine too.

I did this to him.

Me. Too skinny, too weird, too intense, nobody me.

And this is something I can have. Something I can really have.

He flings my T-shirt…somewhere, and then his mouth sort of opens over my nipple, and, oh my God, heat, hot, hot wet heat. And then his tongue, holy shit, his tongue flicks the end of the arrow, tugging at the skin very lightly, and it's fucking electric. This thin-bright, not-pleasure-not-pain feeling that ripples outwards like a Catherine wheel. My spine arches helplessly off the bed, turning me into a goddamn croquet hoop, and I make the sort of noise nobody should make from only getting their nipple licked.

That's when I know I'm outclassed.

I wasn't lying when I told him I was sexually active, as they say at the clinic. Yeah, sexually active and responsible, that's me. But sometimes I wonder if my relationship with sex is this sort of unhealthy mixture of insecurity and hormones. Because I like it when people want to shag me—that's undeniably good for the ego—and I have this low-level, pretty much permanent desire to be having sex at all times. But sex itself… Well that's kind of meh, isn't it? Not awful, or anything, but nothing to really beat a good hard wank.

There's no pressure when you're wanking. When you're with someone else, it seems a bit rude to, y'know, be somewhere else in your head. But when I'm flying solo, I can fill my brain with as many hot guys in chains as my imagination can fashion.

Maybe it's because of the kinky thing.

Or maybe I'm a bad lay. But mainly it's kind of wet and awkward, and you're both kind of touching each other like you aren't really sure what you're doing.

Probably because you aren't.

But, fuck, I want to be touched the way Laurie touches me. Like he knows where my pleasure lives, even if I don't, and he's going to drag it out of me screaming.

And I want to learn how to touch him that way. Because I really, really like the idea of him screaming. Kidding. Well, not kidding, not really, but it's not only about the power. It's this sheer crazy gratitude and wanting to pay it forward. Backwards. Pay it somewhere.

Make him feel this good. This completely touched.

He lifts his head before I die. And I just lie there, incandescent, taut, and panting. His fingertips brush my throat.

And I spill another stupid sound. Beneath his hands, my skin is so light and tight I half imagine I'm transparent. I'm glass for him, all the way to my blood-red, shining heart.

Then his hands are at my waist. I lift up for him, and he peels me out of my jeans. Not exactly a classy moment—I'm like a giraffe, all bulging knees and kicking legs—but I forget about it the second he comes down on top of me, naked. So warm and strong and still a little bit rough. Not in an aggressive way, but in a sure way, which makes me believe I'm strong too, like my body is designed for this. To take his. Encompass all his power for my pleasure.

I wrap myself around him, tight as I can, and I fucking glory in it.

I love how solid and heavy he is against me. The way his back shifts under my hands. His cock jammed up against mine, which is kind of awkward and intimate at the same time. I swear to God I can feel the blood in it, beating hard under the skin, sort of its own little pulse. And, at the top of his groin, where the hair is thinner, individual spirals of it pressing into me like he's leaving me this message in our own private graffiti.

We hold there for a bit, in this full-body embrace. His head is tucked in the space of my shoulder, his breath pooling hot against my neck, and I can sort of sight like a sniper down the sweep of his spine, all the way to his frankly magnificent arse.

And I think of all the secrets in him. The way his throat fluttered under my hand. How he looked when he knelt for me. The tenderness in him when he wrapped me up in a towel. And fuck, I want to know more. I want to know how his mouth feels round my cock. I want to know how he tastes in places I've never wanted to know how anyone tasted before. I want to pull his legs open and scratch my nails up his inner thighs. I want to make him hurt.

I'm so fucking greedy. I want to have everything.

"Jesus, Laurie." I twist my fingers in his hair. It's shockingly soft, especially at the nape of his neck. And he looks up, straight into my eyes. He's got that desperate flush that makes my stomach turn cartwheels. "You're like fucking…" I don't actually know what I'm going to say. There isn't a word big enough for how much I want him and for the way this makes me feel.

But it turns out I don't have to say anything else.

"Turn over." His voice has gone so low he actually sort of growls at me. Which is the hottest thing ever.

Though I don't know why he says it, because he doesn't give me a chance to do it. He just flips me. So fast I'm breathless. And staring kind of helplessly at the footboard which… Look, I'm a bit sheltered, okay? Whenever I've had sex before it's usually been at somebody's house, on a single bed, very, very quietly. Not that I've really felt much urge to scream the place down. But, yeah, I guess it never occurred to me not to lie with my head at the head end in the designated bed-occupying position.

But here I am now, with a guy who wants to fuck me so badly that I'm kind of diagonally sprawled and facing totally the wrong way, and he doesn't care.

Yeah, okay, it's a small thing. It's pathetic. But it means something to me. There's something kind of romantic about this idea he's got and is sharing with me. That I've somehow become this crazy, lust-inducing version of me.

Instead of who I really am.

I reach out and curl my fingers over the beautifully carved end piece of Laurie's four-poster. The wood is smooth as skin under my palms and warms up quickly. It's weird, the sensory details you catch onto. There's a man dragging my legs open…putting his mouth on the back on my neck, oh my fucking God…grinding his cock against my arse…and the detailing on his bed is kind of burned into my eyes like I'm never going to forget it.

I guess it's my brain's way of making sure I don't explode of bliss.

Because, Jesus, nobody told me the back of my neck was directly connected to my cock. When he kisses me there, it's hot and cold and sort of bright all at once, as if my veins are full of light. He's everywhere, inside and out, and I melt under him into this puddle of wriggling, groaning yes. And I'm glad I've got something to hold on to because I could fall through the cracks in the universe on feeling this good.

I let my head flop between my outstretched arms.

Do it again. Do it again.

He pulls away instead, but before I have a chance to be seriously disappointed, his tongue paints this wet streak of ecstasy from the crease of my arse and up my spine. At first it's mainly surprising, then it's kind of nice, and then it's fucking incredible as all the nerves in my back sit up and take notice, tingling with anticipation and then fizzing with response as he ignites them one by fucking one. I'm so alive, so intoxicated with it that I have no idea where his tongue is even supposed to be. It feels like my whole back is touched, all at the same time. And I lose everything in sensation. Everything but him.

Suddenly, I notice I'm kind of…making this noise. Like hnnnnnnnn except my breath is all shaky so it's more like hn-nuh-nuh-nuhhhhhh, like I'm a lawn mower that won't start. And I try to stop it, but I can't. I can't.

Apparently that's what happens when you lick my back.

Who knew?

His open mouth is at my nape again, hot and damp, and the scrape of his teeth, and oh God I nearly come. Pure panic is just enough to hold back, well, most of it, but I lie there twitching, in a pool of wet, and want to die in a bad way.

"Toby?" His voice at my ear.

Nope. I'm too embarrassed for actual words.

"What's the matter? Too much?"

If I don't say anything, he'll forget I exist. La-la-la-la-lah. Toby Finch has left the building.

"Toby? Please, what did I do?"

God, he sounds genuinely scared. I hide my face in my upper arm. "Dude. I just nearly came."

"Pardon?"

I turn my mouth a bit to the side. "I. Nearly. Came."

His lips follow the top curve of my ear, which makes me go all tingly again. "Isn't that rather the point?"

"Err, no." It's hard to think when he's touching me… I'd say like this, but it's really at all. "The point is to come at the right time. Otherwise it's premature ejaculation."

"The right time to come, darling, is when you want to come."8

He called me "darling." Turns out, my cock likes that too, and I whimper a little bit as it drips. He tugs at my lobe, and that's it. Undone. I start lawn-mowering again.

"I want"—there's a catch in his voice—"to please you, Toby."

Arrrgh. That's not helping. I squeeze the rail. Twelve times one is twelve. Twelve times two is twenty-four. Twelve times three is— He nuzzles into the side of my neck, rubbing me with the roughness of his unshaven jaw. I don't have a fucking clue what three twelves are.

"Please let me."

His hotness blows my tiny mind once more. I can't believe he's…actually begging to make me feel amazing. Life just doesn't get better than this.

And there's more. I can tell he's shaking. So hard.

"You have no idea," he whispers, "what you do to me."

He's right. I don't. I have no idea how I can possibly do anything to anyone really. But, God, it's a fucking awesome notion that I could.

"You seriously have to fuck me," I tell him. "Like right the fuck now. Because you might not think so, but as far as I'm concerned, if I come without your cock in me, it's really bloody premature."

"Oh, Toby." He's heading back down my spine, pressing my own name into me like gemstones. "Toby. Toby."

He sounds so wrecked. It's beautiful. I have no fucking idea what I've done in my life to deserve something this wonderful, but I swear, I'm about to get religion.

He leaves me all gloopy and shivery, and I hear the szvvvt of a condom wrapper tearing. And suddenly I get this really strong sense of how I must look to him, kind of spread out on his bed, sweaty with lust and shiny-wet from his mouth, legs splayed open, and hands clinging to the foot rail.

Talk about a fuck-me pose.

And it's so good. So fucking raunchy. I'm going to carry this image of me—the Toby that Laurie sees—with me from now on. Forever. My own secret.

The bed shifts under his weight. There's a click and a squirt and then there's a finger inside me. And…whoosh…the breath goes out of me because it's like…hello. I'm expecting it, obviously, but maybe I'm kind of not.

Because what it's like right now is a finger inside me.

And it doesn't hurt or anything—there's a controlled stretch—but that's kind of it.

I mean, I know this feeling. The slightly alien, Hey, there's a thing up there feeling. It's fine.

But I guess I thought it might be different with him. I grit my teeth and wait for it to get better. Which it probably will when he gets round to hitting my prostate.

Okay. Two now.

I stare at the wall, kind of ordinary again. Well, as ordinary as you can be when somebody's sticking their fingers up your arse.

It's weird how much I'm up for this considering how little I'm into it when it happens. What's with that? It's like my body forgets how banal it is, and I start…craving it. Or, maybe, when I think about it, I imagine other stuff and convince myself it's there.

My cock has gone from sixty to zero in what seems like less than a second, though it probably wasn't.

It'll be okay once he's in. I'll get that kind of closeness you get, and the fullness, and that deep, dark inside pleasure that builds and builds but never really goes anywhere. I like that. I do really like that. And later I'll touch myself and dream of his lips and his fingers on my body. Actually, even if this bit is a bust, it's still probably the best sex I've ever had. And just the idea of it is enough, really: me and him. Laurie fucking me, his body in my body, the sounds he'll make when he comes.

Yeah.

I guess I'm ready because he's out again.

I hope I'm ready.

He was pretty diligent back there in his not-very-seductive got a job to do way.

The thought drifts across my mind that this might be how grown-ups have sex. And I can't tell if it's worse or better than the fumbling, insecure, faintly desperate way I'm used to.

I try not to get too sad about it. It's just… It had started off so promising. I should have let him lick me to orgasm.

Next thing I know, he's hoisting me up by the hips so my knees slide under me and I'm sort of teetering there, top half squashed flat to the bed, bottom half waving like a flag on the breeze.

I'm honestly not sure I'm mad keen on it.

It's kind of a shock, how helpless it makes me. And I can't quite forget how absolutely exposed I am. Not least because there's cold air literally wafting over my arsehole.

It's probably staring right at him.

Mirroring the slightly oh look I've got on my face right now.

So I'm lying there, horrified and slightly physically uncomfortable. And what's deeply weird is that, totally out of nowhere, some part of me sort of sits up and goes huh. Because there's something…honestly…a little bit exciting about this moment of absolutely, definitely, undeniably about to get fucked. And if I could get myself into a position to punch myself in the head I totally would, because what's it going to take to make me learn that getting fucked is not actually that great?

Then he's pressing into me. And it's this one long glide, not rough, but relentless almost, opening me up with a press and a twist, like I'm a music box and he knows the mechanism to all my hidden places. I feel him so deep inside me, it makes me breathless.

And, God, the things I like about this are better than they've ever been. No longer some distant consolation, but right there in front of me—well, technically, behind me I guess—and suddenly it doesn't matter how I'm lying because it's not ridiculous anymore. It's fucking amazing.

I try to push back, to get closer to the promise of whatever it is he's offering, because I'm sure…I'm one hundred percent sure…there's something waiting for me, some revelation just out of reach. But he tightens his hands on my hips (I hope they bruise) and won't let me move. Makes me wait there like that, with my body wrapped around his, and the possibility of all this pleasure beating the air.

When I can't bear it a moment longer, he pulls out again, comes in different, and lights me up like a fucking firework.

I think I actually scream.

The last coherent thing left in my brain is: Oh, so this was what I was looking for.

And then I let him fuck me into a mindless, moaning, trembling mess, and I love it. I completely love it. I can't even get a handle on when I begin to come. It's like I'm coming the whole damn time. Everything's just a blur of sweat and heat and the strength of him, pounding into me, pushing me higher and higher and deeper and deeper until I can't think, can't breathe, can't see, can only feel and feel and feel.

I'm making such a bloody racket I only half notice he's saying my name.

I say…everything.

Yes. God. Fuck. There. That. Harder. Deeper. Yes. Yes. Ohhhhhhh yes.

Embarrassing porny stuff I can't even believe is coming out my mouth.

I think I maybe tell him I love him.

Because, right now, I do. I totally do.

At some point, God, it's not even like it crests, but something happens to the pleasure. It pulls in tight as a universe, and then it's everywhere like falling stars, and I'm just taken by it. By him.

Little death, my arse. It's a fucking massive death.

And I die for ages.

Next thing I know, I'm kind of limp and fucked, my lungs tight and my heart pounding, my hands aching from where I've been holding on.

My fingers uncurl and my knees give out by inches until I'm flat on my face, and he's still buried inside me, which is just on the verge of being unbearable, except I don't want to lose him or a single last second of this pleasure. Though what I'm experiencing right now is way too big for pleasure.

I think it might be rapture.

He comes down on top of me, catching himself on his elbows before he smooshes me like a grape.

"Unghh," I say.

"Toby." Wow. He can still do words. "Toby…can I…"

Well. Ish. He actually sounds about as wrecked as I do. My balls do this weird sort of spasm thing—like they're checking their pockets for anything else they can squeeze out my cock—and come up empty.

I wish I could see him. I can sense the strain in him as he shudders against my back, but he probably looks amazing right now. Nothing but taut muscles, ferocity, and desperation.

I want to tell him to turn me over and finish that way, so I can watch him come apart in me, for me, because of me.

But all I can get out is, "Yuhhhh."

"Oh God." His voice breaks with need and gratitude.

And I made him feel that too.

A few thrusts is all it takes, and honestly, that's a relief because, yeah, it kind of hurts. But his hands reach round me and find mine and we tangle up together and that's how he gets there. Clinging to my fingers, his body pressed tight to mine, his mouth open against the back of my neck where he lavishes my skin with all his smothered groans.

He comes gasping my name.

And I'm seriously starting to love the way he says it. It doesn't sound like me anymore. It sounds like some other, different, better Toby. A Toby who can bring someone to his knees. A Toby who gets expertly fucked.

His Toby.

I don't know how he manages it—same magic as whatever makes him awesome at sex, I guess—but he eases out of me carefully and without too much mess. I hear the schloop of a condom coming off, and then he falls onto his back next to me.

We lie there a bit.

There's lube drying in weird places. And to say I'm in a wet spot would be to seriously underplay the enormous ocean of come he's amazingly fucked out of me.

Jouissance, is what I think.9

Which annoys me because that's the name of my mum's most famous painting. The one I really hate and really, really don't want to be thinking about now. Eww.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

How could he tell? I'm still face-first in a bed.

"Yeah." I sort of nod into the sheets.

"Thank you." He gently tucks a few pieces of sweat-heavy hair out of my way, and I shiver. And then I guess I'm unconscious.

* * *

When I wake up again, I've been cleaned up, wrapped up, and I'm lying in his arms. If he'd been asleep too, he's awake now. He's not staring at me, or anything creepy like that, but his eyes are open. He's got that closed-down, faraway look he sometimes gets.

"Uh, sorry. I think I nodded off."

He smiles, and he's back with me, at least a little bit. "It's quite all right."

I don't know why, considering not so long ago my arse was sky-high, but I'm kind of awkward now. It's just not the sort of thing people usually do for you—hold you while you sleep or fuck you into oblivion first. But it's so goddamn nice of him, it makes me sad.

Another of his secrets, I guess. How incredibly kind he is behind that stern mouth and those cold eyes. I don't think anybody has been quite this kind to me my entire life. Or done so much to make me feel special.10

And I suddenly realise there's other fantasies to go alongside the filthy, kinky ones. I want to cook for him. Make him smile more. Do something about the dark circles under his eyes.

I want to fucking take care of him back.

Jesus fucking Christ. Could I be any more of an idiot? I can barely live my own life competently. What the fuck could I contribute to his?

I move a bit and…I'm sticky and sore. In all sorts of places. "I should probably be going."

He nods. This time, there's no hesitation. He pulls away and—urgh—I already miss the way he holds me.

I think about asking if he wants to see me again. I could do it really cool and casual-like. Except, of course I can't. My dominant (no pun intended) discourse seems to be needy as fuck.

But I don't think I am needy, not really. It's just I've never come this close to getting something I wanted before. Not that he's a thing.

So it's hard to just be mature and let it—him—go.

But I get that I have to. He might enjoy kneeling for me and fucking me and maybe that could be enough for me, but considering the epic oratory required to get him to that point, I reckon it would be a hard sell to him.

I wriggle out of bed and pad gingerly around his bedroom, collecting my clothes. I don't catch him doing it, but somehow I get the sense he's looking at me. The thing is, I'm not exactly a striptease master at the best of times, so I have literally no clue how to make putting my shit back on even remotely appealing.

On the other hand, it's not the worst feeling in the world: being watched from bed by a naked man while you both think about the sex you've just had. At least, I hope that's what he's thinking about. He ought to be. It was totally three-Michelin-star sex.

Normally, I'd be dying and scrambling about, but under his gaze I sort of start making a show of myself. I pick up things and stretch probably a bit more than I need to. I even catch myself doing that bend-and-snap thing from Legally Blonde. I don't have much snap, but I'm hoping my bend makes up for it.

"Toby." Oh, I love his severe voice. It makes me want to sort of crack him open like a mussel. "Are you trying to make me fuck you again?"

Ooh! "Is that an option?"

He sighs, and I can't tell if it's impatience or regret. "No. No matter how much you twitch your pretty little arse at me."

I've got a pretty little arse? Awesome.

The first time I see myself in the full-length mirror, I kind of freak out a bit. I mean, after I've dealt with the pang of disappointment that we didn't think to fuck in front of it. But, God, my hair looks like an electrocuted hedgehog, and there's stubble rash all over my face, and my eyes are completely huge like I'm tripping or something. And don't even get me started on the mess of my neck and the finger-shaped bruises on my hips.

Best.

Sex.

Ever.

I grin at Laurie, and he glances away, blushing.

"I'm sorry," he starts. "I'm… I…"

But I shut that shit down hard. "Seriously. Don't. It's fucking perfect."

When I'm pretty much done getting my clothes on, he gets out of bed and wraps himself in the dressing gown he was wearing last night. Wow, it's fluffy. I hadn't realised that then. I don't think you'd go for something that soft unless your life was like substantially lacking in hugs.

Poor Laurie. If only he was mine.

I'd hug him and hurt him. And save him too.

We troop downstairs together. In the hall, he touches my cheek lightly. "You'll be all right, won't you?"

"Yeah."

"Thank you. For today. And yesterday."

I try to smile. "You really don't have to thank me. I was totally up for all of it."

His eyes go sliding away from mine. "Sorry. It's…a polite habit, I suppose."

Habit? For some reason my brain catches onto the word and won't let go. Like I'm recognising something. Something he's maybe trying to offer me or ask me for. Something that's meant to be mine.

"For breakfast," he says.

"Uh-uh."

He still won't meet my gaze, so I reach up, catch his chin, and make him. He flinches, and then, well, it's not quite a sigh, but the rhythm of his breathing changes. Slows. His eyes soften slightly, and I realise it's how he looks when he's at my feet.

He swallows. Then whispers, "Thank you, Toby, for letting me kneel for you."

And, holy shit, if I hadn't just come all the come in the universe, I'd probably be coming right now. My cock actually sort of staggers like a punch-drunk boxer who doesn't know when to stay down.

My touch has become a caress. And, somehow, we're leaning into each other. So close. If I angle my face just right, I know he'll kiss me. I know he will.

But if I let him, I'll be lost. My heart can't take it.

The kiss he's about to give me, I need it from someone who's not about to chuck me out of his house and never see me again.

So I pull away.

I don't know what to say. So I open my mouth and, "Uh, well, byeee," plops out.

And that's how I leave.

On byeee.

Just…fuck my life.