I Hate Summer (15 page)

I shot him the finger and downed the rest of my pint. “Whatever, see ye tomorrow. Ye”—I turned to Trystan—“remember, if ye come on the bed, keep yer fricking hands to yerself.”

A ripple of interested chuckles and arched brows swept around the table, and I left Trystan to explain his curious sleeping habits.

T
HE
BAR
where Dan worked was still busy, which was lucky for me because it meant he wouldn’t notice I was late. I wove through the crush of people clamoring for cocktails with the practiced ease of someone who grew up short. I leaned against the bar and found Dan among the servers; he was six foot with charcoal hair that he kept shaved and dark Mediterranean skin stretched over his swimmer’s body. He and the other waiters and waitresses practically danced around each other as they collected elaborate bottles and made a show of creating the beautiful drinks. Dan hadn’t seen me and I watched him with a smile as he performed for a pair of midtwenties women who were watching him with unabashed appreciation—if only they knew.

“Can I get you a drink?” an unfamiliar voice asked from next to me. I kept my body leaned on my arms against the bar and just turned my head, fixing the guy who’d spoken to me in the depths of my pale eyes. He smiled a little nervously.

“Ye realize I’m a guy, right?” I asked. If my height didn’t make it obvious enough, my jeans and shirt should have made it clear. But the lighting was low and it wasn’t like it was the first time I’d been mistaken for a girl.

“Ah, yeah, sorry I thought….”

I could see he wanted to go, but also didn’t want to break eye contact.

“Oh, yer gay.” I was faintly surprised because even looking how I looked it was unusual to be hit on in a regular bar—York was a city, but it wasn’t exactly a metropolis. Maybe I should clarify: I was dressed in a simple gray shirt and jeans, I talked like any other guy, and I didn’t wiggle my arse or wear some kind of rainbow bracelet or some shit like that, but with my neutral features no one is ever particularly surprised to find out I’m gay. Plus my odd blond hair is still shoulder length—thanks, Meredith—and though I don’t do much more with it than tie it back when I get out of the shower, leaving it to dry in a bit of a mess, it does unfortunately look like I dye it. I turned my ice blue eyes on him and let my gaze skim up and down over his body. He wasn’t bad-looking, a bit tall for my usual tastes, but some other evening I probably would have taken him up on his offer.

The whole thing took less than twenty seconds, but the guy’s cheeks were blooming red and the color was spreading quickly down his neck—kind of amusing given that he came on to me. I tried to soften my face into a smile because there was an edge of worry mixed in with his embarrassment. “Sorry; ye made the right call, but I’m waiting for someone. Some other time?”

He let out a long breath. “Shit, you had me scared for a moment there.” He relaxed his smile and dropped his shoulders.

“Can I get you a drink, Ide?” Dan’s voice came from the other side of the bar. I turned to say yes, but then he tangled his hand through my collar and pulled me over toward the beer taps, and then Dan’s lips were pressed over mine. He kissed me aggressively, all teeth and demanding tongue, but I didn’t mind.

I laughed lightly as Dan let me go. He was glaring at the guy who’d offered to buy me a drink. And I wasn’t surprised when my would-be suitor mumbled a good-bye and disappeared into the packed bar.

“I’d already said no.” I let my mirth show and Dan pouted slightly. I couldn’t really blame him; it wouldn’t exactly have been the first time I’d dragged someone else into our evening, but we always agreed on it first, and really it was Ashlie who liked that shit.

Behind him, his colleagues were rolling their eyes. It wasn’t like Dan was camp, but neither was it the first time they’d seen us together—although usually he waited until we were somewhere a little less public before he pounced on me.

“They’ve asked me to stay for an extra half hour, until the rush dies, that okay?” Dan added after a moment, and suddenly he looked a bit nervous about his outburst.

“It’s fine, chill, Dan; finish yer shift. I’ll have a Grolsch, or do ye only offer drinks when yer jealous?” He clicked his tongue and poured me a drink. I drank it and watched him flirt with men and women alike as he made a startling array of cocktails in a short space of time.

“Come on, then,” he murmured against my ear when his shift was finally done. He wrapped a hand through mine and pulled me out the staff entrance. His mouth covered my lips as soon as the door clicked shut behind us, and he pressed me up against the wall of the back alley. His body meshed up against mine, and he rolled his hips in suggestion of what was to come.

“Ashlie text me.” We were both breathless as he broke the kiss but left me pinned between his body and the wall with his hands shoved up my shirt. “He’s got some friends over.”

“Yeah, I saw him yesterday. I’m not really in the mood,” I said between nips of his bottom lip.

Dan grinned at me and ran his tongue over his teeth as he let his hand slip down my spine and toward the waistband of my jeans.

“Echo’ll be there…,” he whispered.

“Yeah, but if I wanted both of ye, I’d just have my own threesome, wouldn’t I? I don’t want to have t’ share ye with those greedy little boys.”

Dan sniggered and his grin widened at the image my words had put in his head. But I knew he didn’t really want to join Ashlie’s party, he just wanted to make sure I knew he wasn’t trying to keep me for himself.

“Want to go somewhere for a drink?” he asked. I could see him trying to pull himself together.

I chuckled as I let my hands dust down his back and nuzzled my face into his neck, and then I was sucking, dragging his flesh into my mouth as my fingers pressed into his ass, holding him tightly against me.

“Come on,” I whispered against his ear after I’d pressed a soft kiss against the mark I’d left against his collarbone. “Take me home and fuck me, Dan.” He groaned and pressed me back against the wall, getting thoroughly distracted and definitely not getting me any closer to the bed. I pushed him off and dragged him toward the main road and the prospect of a taxi. After my last two days, I really needed the stress relief.

We stumbled through the door to his flat, stripping as we went and leaving a trail of clothes behind us. I dropped to my knees and took his penis in my hand, and the flesh hardened fully as I stared up at him through pale eyelashes. Then I parted my lips and let my tongue slip out to taste his cock. He grunted something unintelligible and pressed himself into me, his eyes closed in bliss as I brought him right to the very edge.

“Fucking hell, Ide.” He tugged me to my feet and pressed me back onto the bed. He grabbed a bottle of lube and he was grimacing as his body bucked—trying to find something to rub against and take him the rest of the way over the edge of his orgasm. But he held himself away from me, moaning as he worked his lips down my chest. “You’re the worst fucking bottom—how the hell am I supposed to concentrate now?”

I gave a throaty laugh as his teeth closed around my nipple. I was the worst bottom because I wasn’t a bottom; I generally liked to fuck rather than be fucked. And even if I loved being topped by this guy, it was hard to sit back and do nothing. A trail of marks unfurled like bright pink wings down my chest as Dan took out his frustration with his lips and teeth. And then he was repaying the favor, closing his mouth around my flesh as he slid two slick fingers inside of me.

“Ah,” I panted and my body bucked against him as he went straight for the spot he knew better than anyone. He was massaging and stretching as he toyed with my dick with his tongue, and soon I was on the edge and he was pulling away and sliding a condom over himself. Then I was being filled again, the slight edge of pain washed away almost instantly as his cock took over where his fingers left off. I moaned and thrust up into him as he wrapped his hand around my dick to palm me off, doubling the sensation. My spine arched in bliss and my eyes slipped closed.

“Oh God…,” I cursed as a slither of pure pleasure spiraled out of my spine, because behind my eyelids my brain had decided to gift me with an image of Trystan, and he was in Dan’s place. Pressing into me, filling me, as he stared down at me through smug eyes and drove me over the edge. I forced my eyes open and fixed Dan in my sights, but it was too late. My cock pulsed and juddered in Dan’s grip, and he milked me as he thrust inside my arse and was drawn over the edge by my sudden orgasm.

“Shit,” I groaned as Dan dropped his weight on top of me. Luckily he mistook my genuine annoyance for surprise at my sudden finish—usually we lasted longer than that.

“You were really stressed, eh?” He chuckled and brushed a strand of wayward hair out of my eyes. He kissed me lightly, then sat up to pull out and dispose of the condom.

“Want a beer?” he asked as he went through to the kitchen of his apartment.

I felt like I needed one after that—whatever the fuck that was. I pulled my boxers back on and followed him.

“So what’s up?” he asked as he handed me an open bottle.

“Remember my holiday from hell?” I asked as I helped myself to the contents of Dan’s cupboards, specifically the kitchen roll he stashed under the sink, and started to clean myself up.

“Oh yeah.” He laughed lightly and a warm grin spread across his face, because whether he remembered me telling him about the holiday or not, I knew he would remember the sex we’d had when I got back—let’s just say I’d been insatiable and leave it at that.

“Well the guy from said holiday is going to be staying wi’ me for a few days.” I toed the bin and leaned back against one of the sides—clean enough for now.

“The homophobe you shared a tent with?”

“Meh, I don’t even know if Trys
is
a homophobe or just messed up.”

Dan eyed me curiously and crossed the room to wrap an arm around my waist. He pulled me against him and pressed a kiss against my lips.

“Well, you know you can stay here if shit gets bad.”

I smiled at him but I couldn’t keep the small sigh from my lips. I’d been sleeping with Dan for two years. The story of how he got me to bottom for him is one for another day, but suffice to say he put a lot of effort into getting me into bed, a hell of a lot. And once he’d shown me that I didn’t hate bottoming as much as I thought, we came to a kind of agreement—because liking to be fucked and trusting any old idiot to do it were completely different things. That had led to him introducing me to Echo, and then I’d met Ashlie, and we’d kind of fallen into the odd open and group type relationship we now had. But from the start we had made it very clear that whatever was between us was just for sex.

I did stay over at his place sometimes, after a particularly epic session or if I was too wasted to get myself into a cab, and I was probably almost as comfortable in his house as I was my own. I still didn’t think staying with him for a few days was a great idea, because it had the potential to shift the dynamic of our relationship, and at the moment I liked it just the way it was.

“I’ll let ye know if I need ye,” I said as I kissed him lightly and glanced at my watch. “I should probably get going after this. I have work tomorrow.”

He chuckled and let me go. “Send me some pics, eh?” Dan asked as he dug through our abandoned clothes to find something to wear while we finished our beers.

“I
DE
?” T
RYSTAN
was still half-asleep as I opened the door to my bedroom later that evening.

“Yeah, only me, sorry,” I whispered. I was faintly surprised that he’d woken up, because from sharing a tent with him in Scotland I’d got the impression he was a heavy sleeper. But it wasn’t that late, so he could have only just got in. I used the light on my phone to make sure I didn’t stand on him. I swore as I tripped over a spare sleeping bag that had tumbled from its pile. And then someone flicked on my bedside light.

Not someone: Trystan.

He flopped back down and then rolled over to watch me through eyes that I wasn’t sure were narrowed with sleep or in annoyance. I stared, because I’d briefly forgotten how gorgeous he looked sleep-tousled, and my flash of memory while I was under Dan had really not done him justice.

I realized he was staring back at me.

“You smell of sex,” he announced after a moment.

“No shit? I wonder why that would be?” Irritation flared in my chest because I’d said no to Dan’s offer to use his shower, but right now I was wishing I hadn’t and it annoyed me that I cared.

I tugged my shirt off over my head, then frowned because Trystan sniggered and I suddenly remembered the marks Dan had left. They’d be gone in the morning, but right now the pale pink trail of butterfly kisses were still clear against my ivory skin, even in the low light.

“Did tonight’s underage boy get a bit carried away?” he jeered as he continued to watch me strip to my boxers and pull a pair of pajama bottoms on over my lower half.

I let a languid smile curl the edge of my lips as I stood at the bottom of his roll mat. He was propped on his elbows, staring up at me with that holier-than-thou smirk of his, and I really wanted to wipe it off his face like I’d done when I’d called his bluff and blown him and like I’d done when he’d let me stick my finger in his ass. He seemed perfectly happy to forget all of that—well if he thought I was just going to take his shit, he had the wrong idea about me. We weren’t in Scotland surrounded by our families now; he was in my house.

“If I had sex with underage kids, then I would have fucked yer brother in Scotland.” I kept my voice level as I dropped over him. I enjoyed the fact that in his sleeping bag he couldn’t struggle away as I fell on my knees straddling his hips and I dropped my hands on either side of his shoulders. He collapsed his elbows, lying down to open up a bit of space between us, but I followed with a smirk, driven on by the beer sloshing round my system.

“I would’ve taken him somewhere private.” I kept my voice a low hiss. “And I would’ve sucked his little cock and stuck my finger in his arse, just like I did to ye.” I watched his reaction with smug satisfaction as those lovely chocolate-brown eyes of his darkened. “And he would’ve begged me for more….” I dropped my head down and he flinched as I skimmed past his lips and left my mouth against his ear. “Just… like… ye… did,” I whispered very deliberately against his ear and enjoyed the ripple of irritation I could feel underneath me.