“I…I’m…” struggling to string anything useful together, let alone a sassy and seductive response. As he steadily palms himself through the thin cotton, Gerald has no trouble at all. In place of words, I sink to my knees; my body knowing it needs squillions of his babies hitting the back of my throat, even if my brain’s still paralysed.

  “I like my men like my curtains,” I manage, because, obviously, bringing soft furnishings into sexy times is always a good idea. “Well-hung.”

  Gerald pushes his jeans a little lower on his hips, exposing the small fading scar from his recent surgery. His hand moves inside his boxers, and he fondles his balls. From the swollen outline of his dick, I’m surprised there’s room. “Do you want to feel how big I am?” Through his lashes, his dark brown gaze flicks up to mine. “Or shall we cut to the taste? Tell me what you want, Alaric.”

  My heart kicks, trying to outrun my mind, and my dick throbs in time. I swallow drily. Tell me what you want, Alaric. Those words, spoken in that voice? It’s smooth, intimate, like satin with an edge. And that hand? It hasn’t even touched me yet—hasn’t touched Gerald yet, not properly—but I already belong to it. Plus, that delicious cock…fuck. A bubble of something rises in my chest. If I don’t move or shout or get my mouth around this man right this second, I might burst.

  “I think I want to know who the fuck’s kidnapped grumpy Gerald.” I knock his hand away. “And right now, I don’t care if that thing in your pants is a Tic Tac. I’m still going to find a way to gag on it.”

  I bite down on a whimper. Tic Tacs? Mars Bars? Jumbo-sized bananas? Not even close. Gerald, it transpires, has been hiding a fucking clarinet between his legs. Whoever gets to bounce on that long-term is one super fucking lucky guy. Play it cool, Alaric, play it cool. You are literally a urologist and a bone fide blowjob princess.

  Hands on Gerald’s thighs and unemployed, seeing as the thing’s defying gravity, I give it a straight-up lick. His dick’s as veiny as his ropey arms; the biggest, dorsal vein is thick and engorged. I want to suck on that vein like it’s the river of life. When I trace it with my tongue, slower this time and more teasing, from the root to his tip, Gerald lets out a satisfied grunt. His fingers drag through my hair, the tips grazing my scalp with just enough pressure to send a ripple of heat down my spine.

  “More,” he orders, softly. The pressure on my head increases a fraction. “I want your pretty mouth full of me. You want to taste me like that, Alaric?”

  “Fuck yes.”

  “Can you go deep?”

  Flirtatiously, I do the opposite, mouthing his plum swollen head like it’s my first, gazing up at him through my lashes.

  “Fucker.” Gerald grunts again, the pressure on my head tightening even more. “Naughty boys get punished, you know.”

  He smells raw and earthy, an intoxicating blend of skin and salt and natural, manly musk. I can’t get fucking enough of it, nor of his grip on my hair. He directs me deeper, tickling my tonsils. If this is punishment, then he can fucking punish me morning and night. I rub myself through my trousers, needing to get off. When I swallow, he holds my head still, thrusts up, and calmly fucks my mouth like it’s nothing but a convenient hole.

  I can deep-throat like a champ, but as he gets close, pumping harder, I gasp for breath. My eyes water, and saliva spills from the corners of my mouth. A harsh and frenzied snort bursts through my nose, I swallow and swallow again with frantic urgency. Panic, instant and visceral, floods me. A dry heave wracks me.

  Instantly, Gerald yanks me up. “Shh, sweet,” he pants. “You okay? You want me to stop? Or you want more?”

  Tears stream down my face; my voice is hoarse. I squeeze my throbbing dick. “Want more.”

  “Good boy.” He nods once before hauling my face closer to his. “Such a good boy.”

  I think he’s going to kiss me, taste himself on me. Perhaps I’ll jerk him. Perhaps he’ll finish off himself. He’s nearly there—precum’s oozing from him like a lit firework.

  But no. Oh no. With an obscene, long lick of his hot tongue, Gerald cleans the tears and snot from my cheeks. Then he pushes me back down again.

  “Finish me off.”

  What is it about his tone that has me following his every command? Immediately, I close my mouth back around him, my blood pumping like a fountain. Fresh tears flood my eyes; I’m choking on him. Yet still I suck as if I’m a sponge soaking him up, soaking up his pre-cum. Yielding to the tight coils of his fingers in my scalp, my whole body is soft and limp (except for my cock); I lap up his fucking ‘good boy, good boy’ moaned over and over and over again, like that’s something I fucking enjoy now.

  Gerald doesn’t warn me he’s coming, but when he swells impossibly more and stiffens, he lets out a sound that has me fucking hosing into my pants at the same as he jizzes down my throat. He doesn’t let me off until I’ve licked up and swallowed down every drop and my own spunk has cooled in my crotch. Only then does he haul me to my wobbly feet, thank me with another of those slamming kisses on my mouth, and order me to bed.

  That guy and his Top Gear chart can go to hell. Competition blown away.

  CHAPTER 18

  GERALD

  When Alaric surfaces from his room, I’m already up, showered, and dressed, and sitting at my laptop, sorting tedious life admin. Or pretending to—concentrating this morning is a challenge. I’ve heard him shuffling around for a while. Is he waiting for me to go out so he doesn’t have to face me? He probably doesn’t see the same Friday night hook up twice in his life, let alone every morning at breakfast.

  As the cutlery drawer rattles in the kitchen, I feel obliged to at least acknowledge him. We’re going to have to, sooner or later. Undoubtedly, we’ll need a conversation. Alaric needs conversations about why the corners of picture frames collect dust faster than the edges. Therefore, he’ll most definitely need one about this, though I have no idea what direction it will take. After the magnificent blow job, I was too stunned and cum-hazed to exchange any kind of meaningful dialogue. I stumbled from the sitting room as soon as I trusted my legs to support my weight, with little more than a hellishly self-conscious thanks.

  “You slept late, for a guy with chronic insomnia,” I observe as his footfall wanders in my direction. Though my eyes are glued to the computer screen, the chomping of Coco Pops is unmistakable.

  “Not really.” Alaric perches on the armchair opposite in his frivolous little bathrobe. At least he’s wearing one, though I can’t vouch that there’s much underneath. “I was just allowing you some space.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  Yep, as awkward as I predicted. Though thank heavens he only gave me a blowjob. If I’d hung around to kiss those glossy lips properly, I’d still be kissing them now. And how excruciating would that be to explain away?

  “Thanks,” I add, not entirely grateful.

  “Look. Gerald.” His spoon clanks against the side of his bowl. I don’t generally encourage wet food in the sitting room. As long as he doesn’t wave the spoon around like he normally does when he talks, I won’t say anything, but I really don’t want milk spatters on my cushions. “I’m… um… really sorry about last night. That we… you know… that I sort of took advantage after you’d had a couple of beers that you’re probably not that used to.”

  “Um… okay?”

  To say I’m bewildered would be doing bewilderment a deep disservice. Why the fuck is he apologising? I’m the one who made a move on him, not the other way around. From the second that good-looking guy, Neil, got all up in Alaric’s personal space like he fucking belonged there, my housemate was mine, mine, mine.

  Alaric swallows a mouthful of sugary cereal. “I know you have this whole celibacy-no-random-sex thing going, and I should have respected that. Whilst I can’t aspire to that ideal myself, I think it’s very cool. So cool. I’m super, super cool with it.” He munches through some more cereal. No wonder he’s thin, living on lip gloss and Coco Pops.

  “So what we did last night, it won’t happen again,” he continues. “Although,” the spoon is dangerously close to dripping milk as he beams across at me, “Gerald, I have so got to tell you something: you sex like you dance. Did you know that? Do you always sex like that, you know, so fucking…toppy?”

  “Um…” The short answer is yes; the longer one is complicated. My sexual behaviour, so at odds with my non-sexual behaviour, is something I prefer not to unpick. I hope I didn’t freak Alaric out.

  “I mean, it was only one little kiss in the taxi, and it was only one… one little… or rather… um… big show you put on back here, but, yeah, good sexing my friend. You’re a hard recommend. Hah! Anyhow, the estate agency sent me a whole new list of cool properties new to the market, and so I should have a cool new flat any day now. Sorry, too many news.” He swallows. “And probably too many cools, too. My bad.”

  As his apology witters on, the hollow, sinking feeling you get when reality doesn’t quite match what you’d hoped for envelops me. I hadn’t dared long for anything, really. Alaric’s a player; I’m a nerdy bloke plodding along my dull trench in deepest Sutton Common. And I know he’s moving back to his London life. Not a day passes when he’s not texting or flipping through his phone, arranging and searching for suitable rentals.

  But if he knew me better, if he’d lived with me for longer, he’d know that I’m a man who doesn’t break my resolutions. Not ever. And it’s not through iron will or superhuman fortitude. It’s simply that until last night, I’d never even been tempted. Cheap sexual encounters aren’t so hard to find, even for a guy like me and even in Sutton Common.

  But I don’t have them. I don’t want them. I’ll never have another. And Alaric isn’t one. You sex like you dance. Alaric sexes like he was created especially for me. I want to wear his ankles as a necklace and pound him into the middle of next week. Then snuggle him up on the floor in fifteen duvets and watch him sleep. Last night was not me slipping up. It was me giving into the temptation orbiting my life ever since my elfin tenant burst through my front door. Handsy Neil was nothing more than a trigger.

  “Not sure sex is a verb in that context.” I press a few keys at random. His fulsome apology has given me an out, and I force a smile. “And your sexing wasn’t too bad either.”

  I chance a look at him, prettily making his way through his breakfast. The blowjob was everything his fucking lovely mouth promised, and yet the way he let me push his head down and reduced me to a whimpering mess isn’t the best thing about him. Not that my pride will ever let him know. Dr Alaric Alvin will soon vanish from my life as explosively as he burst into it.

  “I make all sorts of crazy resolutions every New Year,” he comments cheerfully. “Usually of the dry January sort.” He smiles up at me, kindly. “They barely last a week once I’ve done a stretch of night shifts. So I feel your pain.”

  “Everyone can slip up once in a while.” Seems I’ve got away with it. “Just once. Resolutions are made to be broken, aren’t they?”

  “Sure,” he agrees equably. “Just think of last night as a two pints of real ale head rush aberration. If that’s how you want to play it.”

  No, it’s not how I want to play it at all, and sinking a small volume of moderate-strength beer has nothing to do with it.

  Much happier now we’ve cleared the air, Alaric shifts in the chair. With a slow grace, he recrosses his legs, the left gliding over the right. The bathrobe inches higher. “I’m just saying your bossy sexing game is really good, Big G, that’s all. Out the top drawer. That man you’re holding out for is going to be in for one hell of a ride. Literally.”

  His perfect, nose-scrunching laugh—I feel it in my chest. My dick is uncomfortably swollen behind my zip. That man I’m holding out for? What if, right now, he’s sloppily crunching his way through a bowl of Coco Pops?

  Contradicting urges ricochet back and forth in my head. My sexing game isn’t for everyone. As an unassuming person, my desire for control in the bedroom doesn’t always jive with potential partner’s expectations. But it seems I’ve found someone who approves. No, it’s more than that. Someone who needs it, to calm the incessant noise hurtling through his brain. I caught the flash in his eyes as I ordered him to shush in the taxi. And again, as I ordered him to his knees. Something in him settled.

  As Alaric slurps cereal, desire whispers seductively in my ear. We could have a repeat performance, it sighs. Right now. One more time.

  When he reaches the end, after the spoon clatters into the empty bowl, Alaric rises from the chair. So do I.

  “Come over here.” I motion with a curl of my finger. Fuck it. I’ll deal with the cost to my heart when he’s gone. “I want to show you something.”

  “Sure. What?” Oblivious, Alaric wanders over, assuming it’s on the computer screen. Taking the bowl from him, I place it out of harm’s way next to my laptop, then turn back to Alaric.

  “You have milk on your upper lip.”

  Using my left hand, I caress his cheek.

  My right tugs on the cord of his bathrobe.

  With my tongue, I lick off the milk.

  “Fuck.” He stares for a second, pressing the back of his hand against his lip. Then he lets out a shaky laugh. “You want to slip up twice in a while, Big G? Break that resolution one last time? Is that it?”

  I answer with a kiss. A real one, not like the short sharp shock I delivered in the taxi last night, but long, languid, and territorial, one hand anchoring his jaw and the other on the back of his head. His mouth is a silky cocoa-sweet drink, and the fierce kisses he returns swallow my breath. It’s dangerous, kissing him like this. He’s moving out of my life any day, but I’m going to overlook it, just this once.

  Happy he’s staying put, at least for the next few minutes, I release him from his bathrobe.

  Nothing but miles of smooth skin greet me, plus his neat, semi-hard cock, proportionate to the rest of him. Seeing me looking, he gives it a tug, stretching it up.

  My heart isn’t supposed to lurch. Wanting him this way is like reaching out to touch the stove, already bracing for the burn. I watch him grow to full hardness, damp at the tip. And totally hairless.

  “Doesn’t that get cold?”

  “Yeah, sometimes.” Alaric huffs a laugh. “Are you offering to warm it up for me?”

  “Yeah.” My hands are already at my fly. My mouth back on his. We need a horizontal surface. “Right now.”

  “Us doing this is crazy. Half the time I think you hate me.”

  “I do sometimes. You want me to stop?”

  “Fuck no.” Alaric giggles around my kiss. “I want you to bring bad Mr Bossy out more often. I dig it like nothing else.”

  I push him backwards. Alaric’s room is closer. It’s a landfill site, clothes and books strewn everywhere. For once, I don’t care because I’m going to have Alaric naked and under me. I give him a little shove. “On the bed. Now.”

  I kiss him like I mean it, like I’m starved. A groan bubbles up through my chest; I feel it before I hear it, low and coarse, building since he recrossed his fucking legs. I kiss and suck a path down his neck, just to hear him gasp. I lick and bite at his nipples to see his body jerk. I palm his swollen dick, delivering rough strokes of pleasure, until his pretty head drops back and his glossy mouth falls open.

  The velvet skin of his cock is so warm it scalds my tongue. Messily, I swallow him down, not caring I’m out of practice, not caring I gag. He’s delicious everywhere; he tastes sweet as a fucking doughnut. I want him under me, over me, begging between my legs. I want him vertically, diagonally, on his knees, across my lap. I want to fuck him into the mattress until the bedframe snaps, I want to bend him over my coffee table halfway through book club. I want to ram into him against the shower wall, the bathroom sink, bent over the fucking toilet.

  But most of all, I want him to want me with as much raw heat as I want him.

  Zipping up afterwards and carelessly throwing Alaric a tissue—as if swallowing down his cum, then tossing myself off over his face is nothing but a quick fix—kills me. Every cell of my body screams to jump back into bed, smother him like a weighted blanket, and stay there all day and all night. The stupid thing is the horny bugger would probably be up for it. Even now, as I step away from the bed, Alaric’s fingers loiter over his pretty little cock. His blue eyes sweep over my body in a slow visual caress. But, yeah, how to ruin my hard-won, solid mental health in twenty-four short hours.

  “We should… er… consider this something we did and won’t do again,” I manage, as if I don’t have knitting needles stabbing at my chest. “It’s not… as you know, how I do things.”

  Alaric yawns. Abandoning his cock, he stretches out in the bed, unguarded, arms arching overhead, his spine curving like a bow. He remains naked as the day he was born, a sight I want to lap up all day. “No more sexing,” he agrees. “Consider this as a ‘post two pints of real ale hangover’ reminder that it’s not what you want. Like a sexing version of hair of the dog.” Lean muscles ripple under his skin, he tosses the soggy tissue aside. “And now you’re going back to the celibacy thing until Mr Longterm comes along. Got it.”

  “Exactly.” And then I crawl over him again and kiss him, one last time. For about ten minutes.

  CHAPTER 19

  ALARIC

  Gerald travels to an optometry conference in Manchester for a couple of days. On his return, I have a horribly inconvenient set of night shifts. Perhaps it’s just as well. With the help of two pints of beer and a sultry soul number, I’ve totally screwed up the entire ethos upon which my landlord has meticulously calculated his future. Hopefully, he’s using the time and space to reset his mental road map back to saving himself for Mr Boring and Longterm. I’m spending it practicing not getting hard every time my mind replays him licking up my tears, then shoving my head back onto his cock.