Blowing It (10 page)

“I’ve heard all about you,” he said, pumping my
hand. “From Magnus, I mean. Abi loves your book.”

“Thanks.” I shot a glance in Magnus’s direction. “Just
so you know, none of the bad stuff he’s said is true.”

Magnus chuckled.

The woman stepped forward and took my hand when her
husband released it. “Lorna.”

I clasped her hand. Her thin fingers were cold, and
this close, I could see the strained marks around her blue eyes, out of place
on a countenance which looked predisposed to be cheerful. “I wish we could have
met under better circumstances.”

“How is Iris?” Magnus asked.

Eric grimaced. “They had to install a stent.
They’ve made her comfortable for now, and the consultant will see her in the
morning.”

“Then she’ll be able to go home?”

“In a day or two.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I said to Lorna.

She smiled. “I’m sure you’re right. Now, I think
it’s about time we take somebody home to bed and leave you two in peace.”

“She crashed about an hour ago,” Magnus said,
indicating the sofa with a nod of his head.

“I should hope so,” Lorna said, crossing the room
and kneeling beside her daughter.

“Sorry we dumped her on you at the last minute,”
Eric said.

“You know I’ll take her any time,” Magnus said.
“She’s no bother.”

“Still.” He indicated me. “You had plans.”

“I don’t mind,” I assured him. “I should spend more
time with my target audience.”

“You don’t have any nieces or nephews?”

“Only child. And none of my friends have kids,
either.”

“So how did you get into writing for children?”
Eric asked.

I caught Magnus’s eye and grinned. “Long story.”

“Next time,” Lorna promised, returning to my side
with Abigail in her arms.

I smiled at the girl, who clung sleepily to her
mother, chubby fingers twining in Lorna’s hair.

“We’ll have to have dinner one night,” Magnus
agreed.

 “I’ll give you a call when things have settled
down,” Lorna said as we moved through the kitchen to the door. “I want to hear
all about you, Owen.”

“There’s not much to tell,” I said modestly.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Eric said. “And don’t
worry, we won’t breathe a word. Magnus already swore us to secrecy.”

I glanced at Magnus, touched he’d had the foresight
to do so, even as I regretted the necessity of keeping our relationship under
wraps. I wondered how much he’d told his family, and how much was Eric and
Lorna being polite. That he’d mentioned me at all was surely a good thing. If
he was telling his family, that meant he was invested, right?

Then again, maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Abi had told her
parents we’d had coffee after the book reading, and he’d been backed into a
corner.

We said quick goodbyes in the cramped hall and stayed
in the doorway to wave them off as they drove away. Eric’s car was an
expensive-looking blue estate, and as we returned to the flat, I asked Magnus
what he did for a living.

“Accountant,” Magnus said, stacking the takeaway
boxes together and putting them back inside the bag they’d come in. “He makes a
decent living.”

“And Lorna?”

“The same. That’s how they met.”

“They seem nice.”

Magnus nodded. “We get on well. Always did.”

“No sibling rivalry there?”

He laughed. “Maybe a little bit, when we were
younger. The only time I ever remember him getting angry with me was when I didn’t
go to college. He was already in uni by then, the same as Georgie. They
couldn’t understand why I wanted to drop out.”

“What did your parents say?”

“I don’t think they were pleased,” he admitted.
“But I was adamant it was what I wanted, and I was in an apprenticeship. It
wasn’t like I’d left school to do nothing with my life.”

“I think you turned out all right,” I said with a smirk,
sliding my arms around his waist from behind and pressing my face against the
broad expanse of his back.

Magnus paused and covered my hands with his. “I got
there in the end,” he agreed. “What about you? Didn’t your parents want you to
find something more secure?”

“Oh yes.” I loosened my grip enough to let him turn
in my arms. “Mum was furious. All that money spent putting me though uni, and I
ended up waiting tables.”

“What would you have done if writing hadn’t
worked?”

I shrugged uneasily, letting him go. “I don’t know.
It
had
to. There was nothing else I could imagine doing for the rest of
my life. And I know it sounds arrogant, but I
know
I can write. I’m good
at what I do.”

“Yes you are,” Magnus agreed, taking my hand and
pulling me into his arms. “It isn’t arrogant to say so.”

I gave him the side-eye. “It kinda is.”

“Not when it’s just you and me.” He kissed my
cheek, right on the arch of the bone. I closed my eyes and savoured the
sensation.

“So, have you told anyone else about me, or just
your brother?”

Magnus snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes,” I said, poking his ribs. “That’s why I
asked.”

“My parents know I’m seeing someone,” he admitted.
“I’m sure they’ve told Georgie.”

“You haven’t said more than that?”

“I don’t like them knowing everything about my
private life,” he said.

I nodded. “I get that.”

“It’s not that I’m keeping you from them,” he
continued.

“Magnus, I get it.” I laid a soothing hand on his
chest. “If you tell them, they get all up in your business about it. The next
thing you know, it’s Sunday lunches and seriousness, then if it doesn’t work
out, it feels like you’re reporting a failure.”

He smiled ruefully. “You, too?”

I laughed. “I think everybody feels like that. And
I’m sorry you had to tell them to keep it secret.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, cupping my face. “It’s
not a big deal.”

The kiss we shared started soft but quickly built
into something more demanding. I linked my hands behind Magnus’s neck, cradling
the back of his head. He held my waist, his big hands keeping me securely
pressed against him. I ground my hip against his thigh, snickering as his
tongue lost its rhythm.

“Like that?” I asked, rolling my pelvis to push my
stiffening cock against the crease of his groin.

He closed his eyes and groaned in response.

“You should take my clothes off,” I suggested.

“Oh?”

“Mmm. I’ve got something special on underneath.”

He sucked a breath, and I nipped his lower lip, tugging
until he whined. God, I loved how responsive he was.

Releasing my hold around his neck, I trusted him to
keep me upright as I leant back to open a gap between our chests. Slowly, deliberately,
I unfastened my jeans, and then his, fumbling a little with the large buckle of
his belt. Looser than mine, there was plenty of room for me to slide my hand
into his fly and take hold of his cock though his underwear. It lay against my
palm, hot and heavy, and I curled my fingers around the thickening shaft.

“Magnus….” I said his name in a sing-song voice, a
smile on my face as I watched him struggle for composure. “I can’t undress
myself.”

I accompanied my words with a couple of slow
strokes of his dick, just to watch his pupils dilate. They were so wide, his
eyes looked almost black, and he tightened his grip on me, hands sliding to cup
my arse and dig in. I rubbed my cheek against the long stubble covering his
chin, enjoying the soft scratch. I could toy with him all night, reduce him to a
boneless puddle of need. He signalled his desire so clearly, so willingly, it
would be a pity not to see how far I could push him.

I’d always been a brattish lover, taking as much,
if not more, pleasure from the thrill of anticipation than even the act itself.
Sex wasn’t worth having if it wasn’t fun. Something Carl never seemed to
appreciate. He was only interested in dipping his wick and getting off. Not
that I was thinking of my ex when I had Magnus falling apart in my arms.

I shimmied my hips, causing my jeans to slide a
little lower down my arse. Magnus gave them an extra shove and they slipped
around my thighs. My dick strained against the soft cotton of my underwear, and
I pushed it against his leg to show him how hard he was making me.

“Jesus,” he hissed, practically lifting me off my
feet to haul me against him.

“Owen will do,” I said, laughing.

I saw the cogs turning as he worked out the joke,
slower because lust was clouding his thoughts. “Arse,” he said when he finally
got it.

“Mmhm. And dick. And mouth and tongue and….”

“Too much talking,” he growled, covering my mouth
and kissing me silent.

“I think I like it when you’re forceful.” I pushed
my hand through the fly of his briefs and touched skin, wringing another low
moan from his lips. “We need condoms,” I said, keeping up slow, lazy strokes
along his length. “Because I’m dying to suck you off.”

It took him a couple of minutes to process the
request, and another five to find the willpower to break away from me.
“Bathroom cabinet,” he said, holding his jeans up with one hand as he hurried
to get the necessaries.

I kicked my boots off in the kitchen, peeled my
jeans down my legs, and sauntered into the lounge, putting an extra little
movement into the sway of my hips, knowing he would appreciate the view. I
dropped my T-shirt to the floor beside the sofa and reclined, naked save for my
white sailor shorts. I stroked my dick through them as I waited, idly caressing
my erection as much for his pleasure as mine.

Magnus paused in the middle of the room, the box of
condoms forgotten in his hand. “Where do you even find them?” he asked, nodding
at my briefs.

“You like?”

He crossed the remaining distance to the sofa.
“Fuck, yes.”

He didn’t swear much, so I took the curse as a sign
of how aroused he was.

“Strip,” I said, sitting upright and taking the box
from his hand.

He obeyed in a flurry of brisk movements, clothes
flung in every direction. He dropped to his knees between my legs as I opened
the box.

“Flavoured?”

He nodded, movement ceasing now he was naked, save his
chest rising and falling with each breath.

My lip wobbled. He’d bought them especially for me,
I knew. The last time I’d been at his flat without bringing my own condoms,
we’d had to make do with plain ones, and while the taste of latex wasn’t so
offensive it had dampened my ardour, it hadn’t exactly been pleasant. Swallowing
a rush of emotion which pricked my eyes and made the bridge of my nose tingle,
I cupped his face and pulled him into a long, slow kiss, fighting the urge to
throw the box across the room and taste him for the first time. In that moment,
I hated Carl for what he’d done to me, for tainting sex with fear and distrust,
for making me wary even with Magnus. But then I thought how Magnus had respected
my limits without a murmur, without so much as broaching the subject, and I
thought maybe Carl had done me a favour.
He’d
never settled for anything
less than coming down my throat, despite the fact he knew I hated swallowing,
and didn’t that say everything? Magnus was a good man, and I was lucky to have
found him.

“I can’t suck you from there,” I said when the kiss
ended, gripping his thick bicep and trying to tug him onto the sofa.

Magnus resisted. Taking the box, he removed a
condom and placed it beside me. I whimpered as he planted his hands either side
of my hips and kissed the underside of my jaw, stretching my neck to guide him
to the best spot. I loved having my neck kissed, and the extra scratch of
Magnus’s beard sent little zings of sensation through me, curling my toes. He
licked the sensitive spot below my ear, scraped his beard across my Adam’s
apple, and sank lower with soft kisses and the gentle graze of teeth. My
nipples weren’t sensitive, so he didn’t spend long on my chest, concentrating
on the softer, ticklish skin of my stomach.

I writhed and then giggled as he swirled his tongue
into my bellybutton, feeling the vibrations of his laugh all the way down to my
balls. When he kissed his way towards my shorts, I bucked my hips, the head of my
cock nudging his chin. He gripped the waistband and pulled the shorts over my
hips, freeing my dick, which rested on my abdomen. After stripping me
completely, he fondled my balls, the brush of his fingertips making them hitch
in their sac.

Magnus’s breath was hot and damp, his eyes dark
with desire. I cupped the back of his head, urging him forward, scratching
through the short spikes of his hair to the longer length on top. He shivered
at the sensation, the flesh of his forearms breaking out in goose bumps.

A little more pressure, still encouraging rather
than insistent, and he bowed his head and sucked one of my balls into his
mouth. My dick jerked and landed with a wet slap, and I groaned approval,
tightening my hold on Magnus’s head to keep him exactly where he was. I was
born with a pronounced perineal raphe, the seam running the underside of my
balls to my hole. On most guys it’s a faint pink line, like old scar tissue,
but mine has a distinct ridge, and I’d discovered during my earliest
explorations of my body how sensitive it was. The first time Magnus nosed under
my balls and licked along its length, my ecstatic reaction told him everything
he needed to know. His lavish attendance of the area had become a staple of our
lovemaking ever since.

When my whining became frantic, and I could feel
the slick slide of spit running between my arse cheeks and over my hole, he
lifted his head, deliberately grazing the underside of my dick with the coarse
hairs of his beard, wringing a choked gasp from me as he reached my fraenulum.
Snickering, Magnus blew a cool breath over the exposed head.

I scrabbled for the condom and tore the foil open
with hasty fingers. “Yellow?” I asked, grimacing. “You couldn’t have found
colourless ones?”