Boats in the night (8 page)

But no, he’d been thinking about practical things, not dreamy nonsense. “You have

the means to cut yourself free from supermarket tyranny. You could grow absolutely all your own fruit and veg in this garden, and it would all taste amazing. None of those bland waterbombs they try and pass off as tomatoes – you can get them in all sorts of shapes and colours.” Smutty remembered the fragrance of the tomatoes he’d grown with Finn all those years ago. They’d tasted like ripe peaches. Tangy and piquant and downright delicious.

“Come to think of it, in a greenhouse like this you could even grow your own peaches.

There’s this shit-hot variety that… What?”

Giles was giving him the strangest look—bemused affection with a strand of longing

running through it. That joy was back again. No one had ever looked at Smutty in that way before, not even Finn, and for some reason it halted his rush of words and heated his face.

Smutty definitely wasn’t a blusher, so it must just be the extreme humidity of the greenhouse.

He tried to lighten the atmosphere. “You’re looking at me all weird. Have I got something stuck between my teeth or what?”

Giles stepped closer again, and Smutty felt the wooden lip of the staging against his arse as he tried to escape the proximity.

“Your teeth look just fine,” Giles said in a low rumble that shivered through Smutty’s flesh. “You look great.” Giles reached out to cup Smutty’s jaw and ran a thumb over his cheekbone.

Bloody hell, Smutty could feel a half-hard length pressing into his hip as Giles closed the distance between them, then began to nuzzle into his neck. “I didn’t get a chance to have that shower yet, you know. Well, you can probably smell that, seeing as how you’re—fuck!”

Smutty yelped at the sensation of Giles’s tongue in his ear, but once the shock passed, warm liquid pleasure rose to take its place. He eased his elbows back onto the wooden boards behind him, parted his legs and tilted his head to allow Giles access. Giles followed with grinding hips and a ravenous mouth sucking down on his pulse point. “Shit, that’s good.

Feeling hungry were you?”

“I skipped lunch,” Giles mumbled against his skin, the rasp of his five-o-clock

shadow almost distracting Smutty from his words.

“Me too. Gods, I’m famished.” Smutty’s stomach gave a well-timed rumble, and he

began to chuckle, but the laughter was swallowed up by Giles dropping to his knees and mouthing the outline of Smutty’s hard-on through the threadbare denim. “Mmmm, but you can’t lunch on me. Remember the rules?” If only he’d thought to go searching for condoms up in the house earlier… Unless Giles had some on him?

But it was becoming increasingly challenging for Smutty to hold a coherent thought

together, what with Giles ripping his fly open, tugging down his jeans and grasping hold of his cock. When he felt the heat of Giles’s mouth like a brand against his shaft, he stayed him with a hand. “You have to pull off when I’m close, yeah?”

“Of course,” Giles said with a frown that Smutty wanted to wipe away. “I won’t do

anything you don’t want, I promise.”

“Okay. Cool.” The tension eased out of Smutty’s shoulders and he leant back on his

elbows again, content to let Giles explore.

And explore Giles did, running a hot tongue up and down Smutty’s prick, teasing with kisses and light nips. When Giles’s hand eased from his hips and cupped his balls, Smutty let his head fall back and a groan escaped him. He wanted to watch every moment, but the effect of Giles’s touch was overwhelming. Instead he watched patterns pulse behind his eyelids to the rhythm of his pounding heart. But then he felt Giles’s other hand wrap tight around the base of his cock as slick heat enveloped the head, and his eyes sprang open.

There Giles was, kneeling on the filthy floor in a pristine suit, sweat beading at his temples, and looking like he was desperately trying to cram as much of Smutty into his mouth as possible. When Giles’s stretched lips met his hand Smutty saw him struggle not to gag, but he drew back and valiantly made another attempt, reducing his grip on Smutty’s cock to just a tight ring of thumb and forefinger.

Smutty grinned when it quickly became apparent Giles couldn’t deep-throat. It was

fun watching him try, and he’d definitely give the bloke marks for effort. Those blue eyes were watering and the grunts of frustration charmed him—he’d never had a guy want to fit him all in that badly. But who cared whether or not Giles could suck him deep, when there was that glorious pressure, that pumping hand, and most of all, the sight of Giles staring up at him with an unfathomable expression?

It was that gaze that did for him in the end. That and a well-timed squeeze to his nuts that burst ripe pleasure inside him, sent it shooting down his nerves and blossoming all over his body.

“Fuck! That’s it, enough!” Smutty had to grasp Giles’s head to get his attention, get him to pull off. “Gonna come.”

His spunk arced out as Giles continued to pump his cock. Plumes of white splashing

against the flagstones and rapidly turning into dark stains on the dust. Smutty threw his head back again as starbursts exploded across his closed lids. He gasped for air in the stuffy heat, hips stuttering as the aftershocks reverberated through him.

And then Giles tucked him back into his jeans and fastened them again, before rising to his feet.

Aware of a need to reciprocate, but wilting in the heat, Smutty started to sink to his knees. His stomach rumbled again, like thunder in the hushed glasshouse.

Giles hoisted him up. “I’ll be fine. Let’s eat first. You’ve been working hard today.

Need to keep your strength up.”

Gods, he sounded like a mother hen. Smutty grinned. “Got something in mind I might

need my strength for, then? ‘Cause I’ve gotta tell you, that kitchen table of yours looks like it’s good for more than eating off. Not sure how well I’ll be able to concentrate on the food, thinking about you doing me there.”

Giles flushed a fetching shade of tomato, took hold of his hand, and pulled Smutty

towards the glasshouse door.

Chapter Ten

Giles ran a hand over his aching jaw as he peered into the fridge, searching for

anything suitable to offer a man who’d spent the whole morning toiling away. He pulled out a packet of Parma ham, a jar of tapenade and a round of soft goat’s cheese. At least they should be easy to chew. Giles wasn’t sure his jaw muscles were up to much mastication after blowing Smutty.

“Sorry,” Giles said, on discovering a bag of yellowing leaves and foul smelling liquid.

“I don’t seem to have any salad left. It keeps going off.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve got loads growing outside.”

“Hardly. It’s all just weeds.”

Smutty gave him a look that walked a fine line between exasperation and smugness.

“You’d be surprised. Gimme a minute, I’ll come back with some salad.”

While Smutty was out on his insane mission, Giles set the table. As the earthenware

plates thunked onto the hefty slab of oak, he remembered Smutty’s lewd comment about other uses for the kitchen furniture. It was just a joke though, right? People didn’t really have sex on tables in real life—that was the stuff of fantasy. There’s no way Fabian would have let Giles bend him over a table. Not when there was a perfectly comfortable bed upstairs.

Besides, it couldn’t be hygienic, getting bodily fluids on a food preparation surface. Although if Smutty were standing at one end and leaning forward with Giles behind him…

The image Smutty’s words had conjured refused to go away, and with a groan Giles

realised his erection was back at full mast. Without pausing to analyse what he was doing, he raced up the stairs and ransacked his bedside cabinet.

Yes, there was the lube all right, but where were the condoms? Eventually he found

the crushed box lurking under a gallery guide to a Paris exhibition of Fauvist art. That was appropriate somehow, as it was while wandering the halls of the Musée d’Orsay that Giles had had his first inkling Fabian might not be as exclusive as he’d claimed. There had been something about his manner when talking to the young museum guard—a man who even

Giles could tell was as queer as they come—that set off an alarm inside him. He’d asked Fabian about it over dinner, trying to make it into a joke, but he must have been less diplomatic than he’d intended because they’d ended up having a blazing row back in their hotel room.

Giles had bought the pack of condoms the following day in a tiny pharmacy, but

they’d remained hidden in his suitcase, unopened. Fabian wouldn’t risk Giles’s health, would he? He hadn’t dared raise the matter again in case he found out otherwise.

Not until that last, terrible row the night Fabian walked out on him.

Strangely, the memory of that night didn’t seem to sting like it had done even

yesterday. Must have been the effect of going to see Fabian again. Of realising that maybe he hadn’t lost quite as much as he’d imagined. Fabian was like an exquisite porcelain vase: smooth and beautiful to look at, but hollow inside.

Giles tucked the supplies into his trouser pocket and had only a moment’s twinge of

regret to see the mess he’d made of his clothing, kneeling in that mouldering old greenhouse.

It had been worth it. He’d happily ruin a whole rack of Savile Row’s finest to see that ecstasy light up Smutty’s face as he came, and know that it was Giles making him feel that way.

But that wasn’t helping quell his priapic state. Bugger it. He’d just have to get

downstairs first and hide his obvious arousal by sitting at the table. That table. Damn, this wasn’t going to get any easier, was it?

Giles was just easing himself down into a comfortable position when Smutty bounded

through the back door with an armful of weeds.

“What on earth is that lot?”

Smutty spread them onto the table top in front of him, and Giles tried not to wince at the idea of all the bugs that must be falling onto his nice clean furniture.

“Jack by the hedge, wild garlic, chickweed, hawthorn buds and bittercress. All edible and all good.”

“They look like weeds to me.” Giles’s nose screwed up despite his best efforts to

resist. “Are you sure they’re all safe to eat?”

Smutty huffed and gathered the greenery up again. “I suppose you’d rather have your

chlorine-rinsed, plastic pack of baby leaf salad air-freighted in from South America then, would you? C’mon Giles, trust me. These are perfectly safe and what’s more, they’re organic and local, and they haven’t been picked by slave labour either.”

Giles stared in mute disbelief, which Smutty seemed to take as assent as he dumped

the leaves in the sink and gave them a quick rinse. Giles opted not to make any disparaging comments, and set about slicing bread and ham while Smutty prepared the weed salad.

However, it was difficult not to react when Smutty plonked the dripping weeds on

Giles plate then peeled the ham off his own with a look of distaste.

“Thanks, but I don’t eat dead animals.”

“Really? You don’t know what you’re missing. This is delicious.”

Smutty glared at him, and Giles’s dick finally softened enough to be comfortable. He sighed into his weed and Parma ham sandwich. It shouldn’t matter, should it? Smutty wasn’t going to be around for long, so it wasn’t like a few differences of opinion over diet should be an issue.

But the food stuck like glue in his mouth, and he set his sandwich down. What he

needed was a glass of wine to wash the taste away.

And then maybe another one after that, to commiserate himself for having raised his

hopes up about something that was clearly never going to be more than a brief fling.

“Penny for ‘em?” Smutty eventually asked.

Giles snapped to attention, ransacking his brain for an acceptable answer. He wasn’t about to admit to the urge for a drink, and still less to the reason why. What had he been thinking about earlier? Oh yes, table sex. That wasn’t a subject he wanted to raise right now either. Just thinking about it was making his cheeks heat, and he still wasn’t sure if it had just been a flippant remark.

“Have you ever eaten meat?” It wasn’t a topic of conversation he particularly wanted to resurrect, but he couldn’t sit there any longer looking like a gormless fool.

Smutty’s lips twisted into a filthy grin. “Oh yeah, I love a good bit of meat in my

mouth. I’m surprised you don’t remember, Giles. It was only last night.”

“You know what I mean.” Giles contemplated a trip to the sink to run cold water over his burning cheeks.

“Yeah, I’ve had rabbit a few times. And every autumn we’d slaughter a couple of pigs, so I’ve had bacon and pork and all that.”

“So that’s okay, is it? Killing your own animal? But not to buy it from Waitrose?”

“If you raise and kill your own, you know they’ve had a good life and a good death.”

A good death. Was there such a thing? Not in Giles’s experience, but maybe it was

different for animals. It wasn’t like they really understood what was happening to them.

Smutty was still talking. “You know, with all that land you’ve got, you could easily keep a few pigs. They’d be great for the orchard. They’d eat up all your windfalls so pests and diseases don’t overwinter in them. They make good pets too.”

Giles shuddered. “I don’t think I could kill one.”

“No, but you’re not allowed to anyway. You’ve got to take them to an abattoir, but

you can keep all the bits—roast the tail and make headcheese and that. It’s like proper traditional food. Reckon you’d be into that.”

Smutty’s words stirred up memories of a particularly gory episode of
River Cottage
when Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall made revolting sounding traditional dishes out of guts and brains. Giles shuddered. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about looking after a pig.”

“Nah, I don’t suppose you would. Bit too messy and unpredictable for a man who

irons and folds his spare dishcloths.” Smutty grinned. “I bet you iron your underpants too, don’t you?”