Chapter 4

The day after our impromptu ice-cream date, as it turned out. Though it wasn't exactly how Kim sold his invitation for dinner at his place. Instead, he agreed to draw up some plans for the dining/lounge area of the barn, and feed me homemade curry while I looked them over. And when he asked me, with the tingle of his hand on my arm making my toes curl, it was the best offer I'd had in years.

Didn't stop me winding myself up all day leading up to it. Kim's company, naked and otherwise, was sorcerous. Hours passed in the blink of an eye, and every grin and gentle gesture felt amazing, but alone in my flat, pacing the living room, none of it seemed real. I'd been wrong about this shit before. Really fucking wrong. Why not now?

Evening fell, and I walked up the dirt track that led to the address he'd given me so nervous I wanted to puke.

Kim met me at the gate, lounging beneath a hand-painted sign.

I raised a brow. "Blackbeard's Junkyard? That sounds like the weirdest jumble sale ever."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn't name the place, one of the others did."

"Others?"

"Yep." Kim opened the gate. "Come on. I'll show you."

I followed him onto what at first glance looked like a farm. Chickens pottering around a few veg patches my dad would be happy to call his own. A weathered shed and an out of context Harley Davidson leaning against a beat-up garage. All normal stuff, right? It took me a moment to realise what was missing.

"Where's your house?"

Kim grinned. "You'll see."

I took his word for it as he showed me around the land he called home, and yet amongst the random sheds, greenhouses, and workshops, I didn't spot anything remotely inhabitable. What I did see, though, was every contraption under the sun designed for eco living. Mini wind turbines and recycling bins. Compost heaps, and solar-powered showers—three of them.

"How many people live here?" I asked.

"Permanently?" Kim closed the outbuilding housing a small generator. "Ten, but others come and go. Since I've been here, the most we've had is twenty-one."

"Twenty-one? Where the fuck do you all sleep? Outside?"

Kim shrugged. "Sometimes, least we did over the summer. These days I sleep with the apples."

"Eh?"

"We sleep in the trees, Jas. Look."

I felt like a right knob when I finally saw the old Roma trailers nestled in the vast orchard at the back of what I was beginning to realise was some kind of commune. Eight in total, spaced far enough apart to ensure privacy, and they were just about the most wonderful things I'd ever seen.

"Wow. Those caravans are gorgeous. Which one's yours?"

"That one." Kim pointed to the most secluded trailer, beautifully painted and named—if the hand-carved sign nailed to the door was accurate—Kingfisher Cabin. "It's got its own bathroom, a log burner, and a little bit of lekky when I need it. Wanna see inside? There's an extension and a deck out the back."

"Fuck yeah." I followed Kim through the orchard and up the wooden steps of the decking that surrounded his trailer. He opened the door and my pulse quickened. We hadn't made it out of the gig—a public space—without screwing each other's brains out, and the current still simmering between us was so strong I trembled from it—on the inside, at least.

But it was impossible to feel anything but at home as I stepped into the cosy trailer. Rustic and warmed by the deep coloured rugs and throws that covered every surface, it was exactly as I'd expected it to be. I saw him everywhere—on the low squishy couch, at the beautiful wooden table. Stretched out in front of the log burner, naked, and?—

"Jas?"

Kim touched my arm. I jumped. "Huh?"

"Are you hungry? I've got curry and some random veg bits from the garden."

My stomach answered for me, reminding me that I hadn't eaten since a bowl of cereal at arse o'clock the previous night . . . well, this morning, technically. As Kim moved to the trailer's tiny kitchen area and took the lid off a couple of pans, the idea of not eating whatever he was cooking was fucking laughable.

Curry and some random veg bitsturned out to be lamb madras, and a cauliflower dhanzak I couldn't stop eating. "Wow. This is amazing."

Kim shrugged like it was nothing. "Not too hot, is it? I'm a bit of a spice freak."

"It's perfect. I spent my gap year travelling in India, and I've not had curry as good as this since."

"Really?" Kim's eyes lit up. "I'd love to go to India . . . Thailand too. Can't see it happening, though. Too old for that shit now."

"Bollocks. You can't be that much older than me."

"Who says I'm older than you?" Kim's lips turned up in a grin.

I wiped my mouth and regarded him in the twinkly light of the lantern-lit trailer, but his face revealed nothing about his age. His eyes held a wisdom that had led me to believe he'd a few years on me, but I wasn't so sure now. "I'm thirty-one."

"So am I."

Awkward."Sorry. You just seem so chilled and sensible against the shambles of my own life."

Kim snorted. "Me and Mr Shambles are old friends. But you've got me curious now. What's so shambolic about you?"

"Everything." I scraped my plate clean and then pushed it away. "I was trouble from the day I was born."

"How so?"

I shrugged. "I told you the swingers' party story, right?"

"You did. Didn't sound like it defined you, though."

"It doesn't, but I guess it set the tone for the rest of my life. I've always been a pain in the arse. I reckon my dad knows he dodged a bullet when my mum took me back to London."

Kim said nothing, tipping the last of the rice onto his plate. When he looked at me again, his gaze was measured. "What did your brother tell you about me?"

"Gaz? Not much. Just that you work at the cool tattoo place on the seafront. I got the impression he didn't know you very well."

"He doesn't, but you know what this town is like. People talk."

"And what do people say about you?"

"The truth. That I'm a pisshead . . . an alcoholic. It ain't no secret."

"Oh." For the first time since I'd spotted my boyfriend and his wife across a crowded room, I was truly lost for words. "I thought you were going to say you were a freegan or some shit."

Kim laughed. "Would that have been worse?"

I considered it and nodded, still processing Kim's revelation and trying to match it with the composed man sitting beside me. "I fell asleep to a documentary on freegans once. Dreamt about Biffa bins for weeks."

"Fair enough. I'll take that as an assumption that raiding wheelie bins for my dinner would have been exponentially worse than drinking myself to death for most of my twenties."

I took a long sip of the lemon-laced water Kim had put on the table with the curry. It was obvious he was testing me—laying it all out to be sure I could handle it—before this, whatever it was, became something neither one of us wanted to give up. Did he do this with every new person he met? I hoped not. Whatever his past, he deserved better than that.

"I drink," I said. "Sometimes I drink a lot and get drunk. Is that going to be a problem for you?"

The roll of Kim's eyes was so minute there was every chance I'd imagined it. "Abstinence isn't avoidance."

Fair enough. I took my cue to shut the fuck up in the hope that he'd elaborate. In return, Kim leaned forward and brushed the pad of his thumb along my cheekbone. The touch was gentle, and unexpected, and so subtly erotic that a lump formed in my throat. I swallowed, my fingers itching to wrap around his wrist and tug him closer, so I could fuse my lips to his and put to bed any fear that our previous encounter had been a fluke. But he dropped his hand before I could break the thrall he had over me, and the moment passed. "How long have you been abstaining for?"

"A hundred and seventy-five days."

I did the maths. Kim had been dry less than six months. "So?—"

"It's an ongoing thing," he said. "I haven't lost my mind on it for a while, but I have slipped a few times—more than a few."

I sat back in my seat and tried to imagine my life without the comforting burn of a shot of vodka, or the buzz of an ice-cold beer. "How long have you been in recovery for?"

"Four years, off and on. I'd been dry for eighteen months before I fucked up last."

"Was there a trigger?"

"For fucking up? Man, there's always a trigger, an excuse. That's what AA's for . . . to learn better ways of handling them."

I'd pictured AA as a place for old men—a last stop for the winos who lived in the shop doorways on Oxford Street. In my ignorant imagination, young addicts fried their brains on Mkat and got sent to cushy rehab centres. "Thank you for telling me. You didn't have to. I wouldn't have lost my shit if I'd found out later."

Kim smiled. "I believe you, but I don't like hiding it. It's not healthy for me. Besides, if I hadn't told you, someone else would have. You can't hide anything in Porth Ewan."

"Sounds like you've tried."

"Hasn't everyone? This place, though, it's something else, eh?"

I couldn't deny that. Porth Ewan hadn't been my home for a long time, if it ever truly had been, but the claustrophobic town possessed a certain magic, even if I did feel like I'd returned to it to die this time around. "Word on the street is that you're a tattoo artist as well as an epic carpenter. What came first?"

Kim shrugged. "I've been tattooing for as long as I can remember. Grew up doing it in my best mate's garage. But I'd been in AA three times before I realised my heart wasn't in it, at least, not in the way I'd thought it was."

Intrigued, I put my elbows on the table and leaned forward. "I've never met a tattooist who is anything less than obsessed with their work."

"Oh, I was—I am—but growing up, I was more into my mate than what we were doing."

Ah.The penny dropped. "Was he straight?"

"Brix? Fuck no, but we're like brothers, man. I saw that once I got out into the world and met other blokes, you know?"

Growing up in London, the world had been thrust upon me before I'd been truly ready for it, but Kim's tale was one I'd heard before. "How did you get into furniture making?"

"Through AA. My old sponsor was a chippie. He used to invite me down his workshop when I was having a bad day. Put a saw in my hand, and then a welder. I never looked back, 'cept when I fancy a skinful."

It sounded almost romantic, though I was willing to bet by the subtle tension in Kim's soft smile that it had been—and still was—a fucking rollercoaster. "One day at a time, eh?"

"Something like that. Anyway, enough about me. If you're not running for the hills, you wanna explain how you ended up back here when it's clearly the last place on earth you want to be?"

"Porth Ewan's not the last place I want to be."

"But?"

My turn to shrug. When had I become so transparent? "It's just not where I thought I'd end up. I had a good life in London, and it was popping, you know? I could work three gigs a day if I wanted to. Back here I get three in a month if I'm lucky."

"Bet your quality of life is better, though. Brix looked like death when he moved home from the city. Took years of sea air to set him right."

"Brix Lusmoore? The bloke you were in love with?"

Kim rolled his eyes. "I was never in love with him. Brothers, remember?"

Yeah, yeah.I didn't know much about Porth Ewan's notorious Lusmoore clan, but I'd met Brix when my dad had bought some scruffy bald chickens from him, and the dude was almost as gorgeous as Kim.

Almost.

Not that being gorgeous made a man lovable, or worthy of the effort it took to bother. Fuck no. I'd learned that hard lesson, more than once, and I was done getting my heart burned.

Kim tapped my temple. "You're miles away. Don't be. Keep your shit to yourself if you want. I don't need to know anything about you, if you're happier that way. We can just fuck."

We can just fuck.God, the idea was tempting, but even as I turned in my seat and leaned closer to Kim, parting my lips in anticipation of his kiss, I knew it wouldn't be as simple as that. Couldn't be, because nothing ever was.

Kim's lips brushed mine, and the coherency required to give a shit evaporated. I kissed him back and let the thrill of his touch wash over me, eclipsing any sensibility I'd arrived with. Not that there'd been much, and before long, I found myself on my back with my legs hooked around Kim's waist.

I arched my spine, groaning as Kim wrestled with his belt buckle. "Hurry up."

"I'm trying." Kim finally loosened his belt enough for his jeans to drop down his slender thighs. "I'd kinda planned on getting you into my bed this time around, not fucking you at the kitchen table."

The fact that he'd planned to fuck me again sent shivers through me. I reclaimed my legs and let him shift us to a nearby rug. The contrast between the soft wool and the cool tabletop was electric. My heart sped up, and I watched, breathless, as Kim found a condom from who-the-hell-knew-where and rolled it on.

"Do you still have lube in your wallet?"

"Just spit on it."

"No way. That shit burns."

My lust-addled mind realised that his knowledge on the subject likely meant he was vers, and my cock throbbed so hard it hurt. I loved getting reamed until my mind was devoid of all else, but the thought of holding Kim's lean legs and sliding my dick inside him was bewitching.

But the need to have him inside me won out. I jutted my chin in the general direction of my discarded jeans. "Back pocket."

Kim retrieved the lube and slicked his dick. Then he nudged my legs apart with his knees and dropped a palm either side of my head, his cock pressing against me. "Damn. Didn't even get you naked."

It was true. Both of us were still wearing T-shirts and socks, but I was past caring. Kim slid home, and I groaned, almost undone by that single, devilish stroke. "God."

"Right?" Kim flexed his hips. "It's bloody magic."

I couldn't think of a better word as Kim dug his fingers into my hips and fucked me. Lips caught in a snarl, I thrust my hips up to meet his fast-increasing pace, and it didn't take long for shit to get real.

Kim gripped my leg and pushed my thigh to my chest, snaking an arm under my shoulders to tug on my hair. His rough touch had me seeing stars, and I took myself in hand, pumping my dick to keep up with him. "Fuck, I'm gonna come."

And that was an understatement. I'd come like a train in the basement at the gig, my yells masked by the thumping bass above us, but this—being shunted across the floor of Kim's reclaimed trailer—was something else, something that would rattle the tin walls around us if I let it go.

Kim's hand slid from under me to grip my chin. His eyes were wild, his breathing sharp and scratchy. He fucked me faster, groaning with every brutal drive of his hips, and a beautiful flush coloured his cheeks. "I'm gonna come too."

Thank God. I watched, awed, as he fell apart, and then followed him, lost in the curve of his neck and his ragged cry. Wet warmth coated my stomach and hand, and heat pulsed inside me. I mourned the sensation lost to the condom, but as Kim dragged me up for a searing kiss, the reckless devil in my brain danced away. We kissed and kissed and kissed, until I had no real idea how long we'd been writhing on the floor. My dick hardened again, and I gasped in enough air to beg for round two. "Kim?—"

The trailer door opened, letting in a warmish spring breeze that carried with it a sultry laugh and the distinctive floral scent of a woman.

"You started without me."