The Accidental Bride (18 page)

‘No, I’m almost certain Lizzie doesn’t know that,’ Brent said when Tom fell silent. ‘She knows about him having an ex called Clara, who was shitty to him, but if she’d known about a tangled web like this, she’d definitely have told me.’

‘I think you’re right,’ said Tom, reaching out to touch Brent’s face. His fingertips were strong, yet the touch was feather-light, suggesting, prompting.

Brent’s libido stirred, yet still this mad revelation gripped
him. ‘I wonder why he wouldn’t tell her? I mean, it’s quite a big thing, really.’

Tom’s fine-featured face grew thoughtful. ‘I … I think maybe it’s some kind of Achilles’ heel. I think John sees his entanglement with Clara as a kind of weakness now. And he’s a proud man. He’s strong and confident and very clever. It’s human nature, and masculine ego, to want to be seen as all-powerful to the woman he loves, and his history with Clara undermines that. It doesn’t make him a bad person to want to hide the screw-ups of his life, and be the great hero, the invulnerable warrior, for his woman.’

Brent laughed softly, then turned his face to kiss Tom’s palm. ‘You’re a very smart man, lover. You should be a psychologist, or a counsellor or something. I hope you’re not trying to analyse me all the time. I think you’ll find that I’m perfectly aware of my own shortcomings. And … well … after cocking up my life a fair bit thus far, I’m actually quite comfortable with them.’

Before Brent could catch his breath, Tom lunged forward, grabbed him by the back of his head, and kissed him hard, very hard. It was a wild kiss, but affectionate too.

‘I like you just the way you are, man.’ he said as they broke apart. ‘Shortcomings and all … In fact …’ The older man drew in a deep breath. ‘I love you, Brent. You know that, don’t you? All this talk about a job at Montcalm … and the cottage and all. I just want to be around you as much as I can possibly be. I want us to be together. Properly. A couple.’ His mouth twisted in a wry grin. ‘We’ll just have to build up to it very carefully, very cannily. The old man knows I’m gay, even though he chooses to ignore the fact. This will be putting it right in his face, though, and I don’t
want him to have another of his turns. But I think we’ll be OK with a bit of finesse.’

Brent shook. His body wouldn’t stop trembling. They’d been circling around this, since almost the moment they’d come together again. But this was Tom’s most overt declaration so far.

You’re everything I want too.

‘I know it’s quick. And if it’s too soon for you, I understand.’ Tom’s voice sounded almost breathy, and Brent could see, wonder of wonders, that his lover was trembling too.

He laughed. He couldn’t stop himself. It was an expression of pure joy.

‘Not too soon for me!’ he cried, wrapping his arms around Tom, and answering the wild kiss he’d received with one of his own. ‘I fucking knew it the moment I saw you again. I just knew it, man. That first time, we weren’t ready. We had to go through stuff … At least, I had. But now I’m ready. Completely ready.’ He gave Tom a steady look. ‘Of course, I’ll play it low key in public. Don’t want to cause you family grief. But between just the two of us, I’m yours, Thomas Wyngarde Smith, for good and all, as long as you want me.’ He kissed his lover again, a soft, sweet kiss. ‘I love you, Tom. I love you.’

They kissed again, rolling around, devouring each other, the kisses all-embracing. It was all emotion, yet sex too. Their bodies surged together beneath the sheets, cocks rubbing against each other, more haphazardly than with intent, but deliciously pleasurable and exciting all the same. Tom slipped onto his back, his hands sliding possessively around Brent’s buttocks, increasing the pressure, increasing the friction, his legs coming up, presenting his erection to Brent’s in the cradle of his pelvis.

Oh, this was so good. So sweet. They’d already come off a while ago, rocking and rubbing their cocks together, stroking each other to climax. But now Brent wanted and needed more, the closer communion, and he knew without having to be told that Tom wanted that too.

‘Please … have me, love. Fuck me,’ Brent whispered, offering himself. They’d never felt the need to discuss who did who, but Tom had naturally assumed the role of the dominant partner.

‘You’re beautiful,’ answered Tom, his voice unsteady. ‘I love the way you feel when I’m inside you … It’s perfect … but … I …’

Oh dear God.

Brent almost threw himself at Tom, kissing harder, almost on fire with love. Blown away that this beautiful prince of a man would offer himself. His cock was a rod of steel, forged hard by desire and emotion, ready to enter, to possess.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes, completely,’ said Tom, smiling as they drew apart.

Brent was all of a dither. He laughed at himself.

Shape up, man! Be a stud! That’s what he wants.

‘OK, then, gorgeous … Let’s get to it.’ He kissed Tom again, then pushed at him, urging him to roll over. ‘I’d like you this way. I want to see that hot, tight arse of yours as I’m pushing in. I want you to be touching yourself as I fuck you. Stroking your rod.’

‘You say the sweetest things, lover.’ Tom laughed, complying.

As his lover moved into position, Brent cast around and snatched the towel flung across the end of the bed. Things might get messy, with lube and spunk, and nobody wanted
to get either of those on the twee chintz bedding of the Waverley. Although God knows how much spunk got spilt on a regular basis in this den of iniquity.

He nudged at Tom, nodding at the towel. This wasn’t going to be the most elegant procedure. In fact, as they shuffled around, getting tangled in their limbs and the towel, rearranging themselves, it all got a bit haphazard. But they laughed, and got sorted, and pretty soon, Brent was pressing the head of his latex-clad cock to Tom’s anus.

It was a tipping point, the first time for him, with Tom. Strong as he felt, his eyes filled with tears. He blinked them away, but one dropped on his lover’s back as he inclined over him.

‘Go for it, big boy,’ encouraged Tom. Brent knew that somehow, he’d felt the tear, the hesitation. ‘Go for it.’

Brent pushed. Tom was tight, the ring so very snug, so resisting. Brent could almost taste Tom’s tension. It was a familiar, beautiful fear, even as desired as the act was. So he spoke softly to Tom, plying him with nonsense love words, anything to help him relax. To amuse him too, to make it fun, because fun always gentled the way. And it worked, because Tom grinned over his shoulder, looking back at him.

‘You really are the most loveable dickhead, you know.’

‘I should think I am!’ said Brent with a laugh, pushing with that head of his dick, passionate and ironic. His reward was Tom’s body yielding to him and letting him in.

He slid home. Deep and home. Home, more than physically. He bent over Tom’s back, putting skin to skin, while he was lodged inside his lover. He kissed Tom’s skin, beyond words, loving the tight heat surrounding his cock.

‘Oh man,’ sighed Tom, adjusting his position, going onto one elbow as he reached beneath him.

‘Yes!’ encouraged Brent, eager for his lover-man to pleasure himself.

They rocked and swayed. Brent began to thrust, keeping it smooth, even though the temptation to go maniacally wild was huge. Tom, around him, was delicious. Heaven on earth. He groaned, keeping it sleek and steady, swinging his hips in a light arc, in and out, in and out.

‘Oh yes, man, yes, do me! Do me! Do me! Do me!’

Right over Tom now, like a second skin, Brent let go, thrusting, thrusting hard, losing his control. His body escaped him and on his last scrap of control, he kissed and kissed again, pressing his mouth to Tom’s mad, brown curls, tears dropping onto the lush silkiness of them.

Hips on auto, he thrust and shagged and fucked. Tom was with him, loving the furore, gasping, grunting, burbling love words of his own, barely supporting himself while with his strong right hand he pumped his cock in time to the beat of Brent’s possession.

It could not last long. It was too fabulous. Brent shouted, his cock pumping semen into the latex that contained him, while he reached beneath, folding his fingers around his lover’s fingers to feel the pump of his seed, free and unfettered, spurting over their clasped hands onto the towel beneath.

With a great sigh, a sigh that Tom echoed back to him, Brent collapsed over his lover. For a few moments, they lay joined, sticky and happy, then they each rolled to one side and settled as spoons, smiling, lost for words, but not needing them.

A while later, fresh from a shared shower and more fun
– mutual masturbation beneath the teeming water – Brent stepped into fresh boxer briefs from the overnight bag he’d brought with him. ‘Do you think I should tell Lizzie about Caroline and Clara when I see her?’ he asked Tom, who was buttoning his shirt. The two of them had agreed on a meal in the hotel’s restaurant, then an evening walk, then back to bed. Shagging was great, wonderful, the best, but somehow doing other things too had acquired a precious new aura of togetherness.

Tom paused, pursed his lips. ‘I dunno … perhaps not. I think we ought to let John tell her the full story. In his own time.’ His slender fingers went back to work on his buttons. ‘I understand his hesitation, but he’ll tell her sooner rather than later. He’s a decent man. He doesn’t like keeping secrets. Not really.’

‘I wonder how she’ll take it?’ mused Brent. ‘It’s a bit of a shocker.’

She’ll probably take it quite well, though, on second thoughts. Lizzie was strong and pragmatic, not a wimpy, weepy woman who behaved like an emo.

‘She sounds quite a grounded character,’ said Tom.

‘She is,’ Brent agreed. ‘She’s got a lot of sense.’

Tom came over to him, and embraced him. ‘Don’t worry. They’re both intelligent. Both grown up. I think my brother and your friend have some ups and downs ahead, but they’ll get there. I’m sure of it. I know my brother. He’s made mistakes, but he does learn. That’s his great strength. And your Lizzie sounds like his perfect match.’

She is. She is.

Brent smiled as they completed their dressing and set forth from their room, together. Always together. From now on.

As he was sure Lizzie would be with her John, before long.

Tom smiled back at him, and took his hand, as they walked.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll be the perfect hostess, Lizzie. You look divine, and you don’t have to do a thing. Mrs T has got every food angle covered, and Thursgood will sort everything else. All you have to do is enjoy yourself.’

Gah, easy for him! Swanning back home after being away most of the week, and completely used to sophisticated parties to start with. John was so suave and self-assured, he could fit in and probably be an honoured guest at every gathering he’d ever been invited to. When had he last experienced a single nerve at all, the blasé git?

I’m being really stupid. It isn’t as if the Queen’s coming round for a burger or a burnt sausage. These are all my friends, plus John’s brother, who’s apparently a sweetheart anyway. And Shelley’s bloke, who I’m sure is also a fairly normal human being. Well, sort of …

It was all under control. It would be fun. She had to calm down.

John came to her, across the room, and stood behind her as she frowned into the mirror. With his hands on her shoulders, she felt the twanging of her nerves settle. Ever
since she’d first met him, she been aware of this hypnotic way he had, and how it affected her, and now he was using it to cool her fears and make her relax.

‘See … Don’t we look a fabulous couple?’ He smiled at her in the mirror, his eyes wise and blue as he did something amazing with his thumbs that unzipped the tension in her shoulders like a miracle cure.

He was right too. They did look great. And seeing the heat in John’s eyes only affirmed what she knew in herself. At the risk of being big-headed about it, she looked a knockout in her newly finished red and white flower patterned sundress. It was something she’d had half done in a dress bag, not sure when she’d have an opportunity to wear it, but she’d completed it during the week for the party, in spare moments.

In fact, she’d been sewing like a maniac altogether this week, with John away several nights on business in Belgium. It’d been a perfect time to catch up on a lot of New Again alterations and some original commissions too. She’d worked so hard and, with help from Mary, she’d almost got ahead of herself. And the intensely focused concentration, the Zen quality of really getting in the zone with a garment, was the ideal panacea for missing the man she adored and yearned to be with.

‘If you were some fancy air-head of a mistress, you could have come with me,’ he’d said, when suited and booted and just about to leave, ‘but as you’re a businesswoman yourself now, as well as a highly sought-after craftswoman, I can’t just drag you off with me whenever I want to, can I?’

‘No, you can’t,’ she’d asserted, just a teeny-tiny part of her psyche wishing she could just chuck everything up and travel with him. The main bit of her, though, was newly
proud and thrilled that at last she did have a career and purpose of her own, a great partner to work with in Marie, and that her days of bumbling through life, not amounting to very much, were a thing of the past.

John didn’t define her, but she loved him ever more each day for helping her to achieve her potential. It sounded like a cliché, but it was true.

She smoothed her hands over the full skirt of her dress, and the vivid, quite garishly patterned fabric that just somehow worked and looked adorable. With her hair in a ponytail, and her lips tinted and eyelashes dyed, she’d nailed a look that was both casual and prettily party-style at the same time. Especially with her diamond earrings to add that extra touch of glamour. If you were going to entertain your mates in a five point two million pound mansion house, there was no point in holding back on the bling, was there?

And the man standing behind her, whose hands now slid around her waist, just looked like a god and a million squillion dollars rolled into one, it was as simple as that.