The Hot Floor (19 page)

A wolf whistle rang out, stark in the buzzing hush of a summer’s noon. I figured some teenage girl in hot pants had caught the eye of one of the guys working on the building site across the way, and thought nothing more of it. Not until I heard a voice from the dark shade of the beech tree outside the workshop, anyway.

“Well, look at you flashing your tits around. This new job keeps on getting better and better.”

Dylan. I glared into the shade and pulled the T-shirt back on to hide my blushing skin. Ugh—way too hot. I was going to have to do an Evan and cut the sleeves off.

“That’s no way to treat your new colleague, depriving him of his eye-candy.”

“I didn’t know you were coming today,” I muttered, cursing Liam under my breath for springing this one on me.

“Didn’t know it myself until half an hour ago, lover, but there I was with time to kill. Liam says I need to watch what you two get up to before I’ll be any use to you. Still, nothing like an afternoon of watching two hot, sweaty men working away. I should be paying you, really. Ooh, yes, and I want to learn everything there is to know about glass-making. Expect questions. Lots of searching questions.”

“Can’t wait.” I led the way to the front doors and pushed my way through. Liam waved hello from the other side of the furnace.

“You can start by telling me what undies you’ve got on. It’s not those gnarly boxers again, is it?”

“Dylan!” The heat in my cheeks had nothing to do with the furnace. Just how long was it going to take for Liam and Shannon to cotton on to the fact we’d slept together? Well, passed out together, anyway. Maybe they already knew. Maybe they were trying to set us up.

Maybe I needed to let them know I most definitely was not on the market right now.

The best I could come up with right then, though, was a spluttered protest that my underpants were none of Dylan’s business.

Liam was listening with poorly disguised interest.

“What?” Dylan said, all mock-innocence on his face and an impudent twinkle in his kohl-ringed eyes. “I need to know how best to stay cool, or I’m going to wilt in this heat. Do you go commando? I bet that’s it. Yeah.” Dylan eyed my crotch with a smirk.

“Liam, I’m being sexually harassed already.”

“Oh no, I’m keeping out of this. You boys sort it out between yourselves. Josh, show Dylan where to put his bag and make us all a cuppa, would you?”

I was still fuming over the kettle when Dylan sidled up to me and pinched my arse.

“I’m not interested, Dylan. You’re really not my type.”

“Oh, get over yourself, sweetheart. It’s just the way I am. I don’t mean anything by it.”

“You mean you’re not cruising me?” I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

“Believe me, lover, you’d know if you were being cruised. This is the regular me. Everyday, nine-to-five Dylan. I wouldn’t subject you to the dazzling splendour that is me at my finest.”

When I risked a look at Dylan to see if I was being made fun of, his face surprised me. Sure, there was that cocky surface layer I’d always seen, but I glimpsed something else beneath it. Something unsure of itself and desperate to be liked. Now
that
I could understand.

Maybe there was something we had in common apart from that awful, drunken evening.

“D’you take sugar?” I asked, realising I was still gripping tight onto both cups.

“Three, please. Heaped.”

“You’ll rot your teeth,” I warned, disturbed to realise I sounded like my dad, but I stirred the three spoonfuls in and handed Dylan his cup.

“Thanks, darling. And I’m not that bothered about losing my teeth, anyway. I mean, think of how much more cock you’d be able to fit in your mouth without any teeth in the way.”

Dylan mimed cock-sucking, using his tongue to make his cheek bulge obscenely. I tried not to laugh, I really did, but I failed miserably while at the same time blushing bright red from the memory of attempting to fit Evan and Rai in my mouth at once. That had been another failure, but it had been fun trying.

“That’s it,” Dylan said when I’d hiccupped to a stop. “See, we can be friends, can’t we? I’d hate to think that just coz we’re crap in bed together doesn’t mean we can’t work together.”

I looked at him warily, but then thought, what the hell? I was going to need friends, especially when the fallout came with Rai and Evan. When they started telling me they needed some couple time.

“All right. Friends.” I offered Dylan my hand to shake, but he went for a full body hug combined with a grope of my arse.

“I knew it! Commando!” Dylan crowed as he sashayed off to the toilet. “Well, excuse me a moment, but I think I need to strip a layer if I’m going to fit in with all the studs around here.” Moments later, he flung the door back open and strutted out, a tiger-striped scrap of cloth hanging out of his back pocket. “Ahh, that’s better!”

I stared at him, bemused.

Life just carried on getting more and more complicated, didn’t it?

Dylan turned out to be a pretty fast learner, and by the end of the week, he was managing to prepare the punting irons for us, holding them steady so we could transfer the bases of vases onto them before finishing the necks. Of course, I’d had to deflect a million and one personal questions from him, especially when I made the mistake of telling him I was staying with Rai and Evan.

“Rai Nakamura and Evan Truman? No way! You lucky bastard.”

“They’re my neighbours. How d’you know them, anyway?”

“Believe me, every gay man in the area knows about Evan Truman and his mighty dong. He’s like, their top choice if they ever need a plumber. I swear, some of them probably sabotage their own pipework just to get him to come on over.”

“Are you saying he shags the customers?” Sourness rose inside me. I had no right to feel jealous, but that didn’t seem to make any difference.

“He used to, so they say, until he met Rai, the lucky bitch. If those rumours are true, he should do porn. I mean, seriously, he’d have to make more that way than as a plumber.”

“I don’t think he wants to be a porn star.” I couldn’t imagine Evan performing for the camera with a bunch of fake-tanned steroid abusers.

“Oh, come on, it’s every gay boy’s dream, surely.”

“Not mine.”

“Yeah, well, you’re weird.”

“Says the bloke in the eyeliner with the obscenely ripped jeans.” More rips than denim, it had to be said. Particularly risqué when going commando. I just kept my gaze above the waistline at all times. Dylan’s vehement defence of his jeans distracted him from the Rai-and-Evan topic, much to my relief, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. Evan had been booked for a job that involved long hours this week, putting in the bathrooms for a new-build estate on the edge of town. But what if that wasn’t what was really happening?

No, I couldn’t think that way. I wouldn’t. The minute I started getting jealous and making demands on either of them, they’d decide this little arrangement wasn’t working, and I’d be left with nothing and no one.

I wasn’t going back to my lonely life again. Not if I could help it.

Chapter Fifteen

That evening, a breeze whipped up and stirred the air around, so Rai reckoned we could make something involving the oven without turning the flat into a sauna. Apparently, Evan was a huge fan of lasagna, and we’d both earn a huge amount of brownie points if we made him one of those.

“We can do the bolognese sauce already, can’t we, so it’s just figuring out the rest. Come on, it’ll be fun,” Rai pleaded.

How could I resist him when he had his best puppy face on?

Evan called home just as I was arranging the last of the cheese on the top of the lasagna. I thought we’d done a pretty good job of it, me and Rai, considering neither of us had ever attempted to make a white sauce before. We’d watched a video of Gordon Ramsay making one on YouTube first. We had ended up with a few lumps we’d had to strain out, but that was probably because Rai had been distracted from his stirring while rhapsodising about what a sexy bastard the crumple-faced, sweary chef was. I couldn’t say I agreed.

“Ev wants a word,” Rai said, bringing the phone through to the kitchen. I propped myself up against the fridge and took the handset. Rai had a mischievous look in his eyes which I didn’t trust for one moment.

“What’s up, mate?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just getting a bit lonely with only pipes and washers for company. I thought calling my two favourite men might cheer me up.”

My heart flipped a somersault inside me. He hadn’t just wanted to talk to Rai! I felt like doing a little happy dance, but my embarrassment alert overrode the urge. “That’s nice,” I said when the silence had gone on long enough. “Anything in particular you wanted to talk about?”

Evan chuckled. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re up to?”

“Erm, not a lot right now. We just got dinner made and—hey, what are you doing?” Rai had sunk to his knees in front of me and was grappling with my fly. I tried to bat him away with my spare hand, but he ignored me.

“What
is
he doing?” Evan sounded interested. Extremely interested. I’d heard that tone of voice before, and it sent little shivers of pleasure through my body.

“He’s sexually assaulting me! He’s undoing my jeans.” I hooked a finger through a belt loop to stop him from pulling them down, but that didn’t prevent him slipping a hand inside and searching for my dick. My getting-ever-more-interested-by-the-minute dick. “Rai! You’re breaking the rules. Not without Evan, remember?”

“He’s here, isn’t he?” Rai said, a deceptively innocent smile on his face. How could he look so bloody angelic when inside he was as kinky as they came?

“I’m definitely here,” Evan said, his voice all gravelly. Rai’s hand continued to tease inside my cut-offs, brushing past but never taking hold of my erection properly. I felt my knees starting to weaken and my grip on the belt loop loosen. “I’ll be even more here if you tell me what’s going on.”

I flushed as I realised I’d been set up. Was this some kind of plot to get me talking dirty? They knew how embarrassed that made me. Or was it simply to get me to break that rule of mine about not doing Rai without Evan being there? That rule that really didn’t seem so important right now. Especially as Evan had full knowledge of what was going on.

“Are you okay with this?” I asked Evan, already knowing what the answer would be.

“I’m just fine and dandy. Are you?”

Rai’s hand closed around my dick, and I gasped. “I guess, I guess if you both are. Oh shit, that feels good.”

“Tell me what he’s doing,” Evan said, and I could hear the need turning his voice raspy.

“He’s, er, he’s groping me.”

“Describe it for me.” I could hear a sound suspiciously like a zip being pulled down from the other end of the line. “Listen, let me tell you what I’m doing. I’m sitting on the floor in a half-built bathroom, and I’ve just got my big fat dick out. I’m wanking myself slowly, getting harder and harder thinking about you two beautiful lads getting it on.”

“Oh God, okay, all right. We’re in the kitchen. I’m leaning against the fridge, and Rai’s on his knees.” That much I could handle saying, as there were no dirty words involved.

“On his knees? That’s great. He looks like a right greedy little cockslut when he’s on his knees like that, doesn’t he?”

The word cockslut zinged around inside my body like a pinball, firing off sparks of lust wherever it hit. “I, er—” I looked down at Rai and let go of my belt loop. “He looks like an angel. A fallen one. He’s got one hand in my jeans and the other—oh fuck!”

Rai had just used his spare hand to yank my cut-offs down to my knees. He then got to work on his own fly, pulling his boner out and giving it a few hard tugs.

“What’s he doing now?” Evan sounded eager, and I could hear a familiar
thwup-thwup-thwup
noise in the background. The rhythm of skin on overheated skin. “Come on, Josh. Give me some more.”

“He’s pulled my jeans down, and he’s got his cock out.” I felt dizzy, faint with the rush of blood to my groin and my burning skin. “He’s jacking us both. He’s going really sl-OH!” Because all of sudden Rai had lunged for my dick and swallowed me down, almost to the root. My hips bucked involuntarily, and I almost lost my grip on the phone.

“Not so slow now, eh?” I could hear Evan panting as he waited for my answer.

“He’s using his mouth,” I squeaked out.

“Yeah, he’s good at that. You both are. Nowt finer than having the two of you kissing around my dick.”

“Oh God, yeah, I love that too.”

“I know you do. You’re as much of a cockslut as he is. Maybe even more, you dirty boy. Fancy you, breaking your own rules. I think I should put you over my knee and tan your arse when I get home.”

I wasn’t proud of the sound that came out of my mouth at that suggestion, all choked and raw and needy, but Evan seemed to enjoy it.

“Fucking hell, that’s it. Show me how much you’re enjoying that naughty boy’s mouth. Hey, can you put it on speakerphone so I can hear you both?”

“I don’t…don’t know how.”

“Hand me over to Rai for a minute, then.”