Worlds Apart (22 page)

Now Taylor released his laugh. He
loved
Niall’s carrot cake.

Niall grinned. “Extra frosting.”

Taylor laid his hands flat on Niall’s thighs and slid his palms over firm muscles until his thumbs brushed the fragile skin of Niall’s sac. The sound of Niall exhaling tightened his chest. Niall’s balls were drawn up around the base of his cock, much like Taylor’s. Taylor could smell Niall’s musky arousal, hear his rapid breathing, see the bead of precome at the tip of his cock growing like a liquid pearl. Every sense seemed heightened. Every cell in his body ached with arousal. His mouth no longer dry, Taylor leaned forward to sweep his tongue over the silk-covered slit.

Niall hissed and Taylor’s eyelids fluttered as he tasted another man for the first time. Salty and sweet, the tangy flavor sent a rush straight to his brain like a fast-acting drug. Taylor slid his hands higher until his fingers curved over Niall’s angular hip bones. He wrapped his lips around the head of Niall’s cock and sucked. Niall’s thighs quivered and he moaned.

“Oh fuck, fuck.”

Taylor licked down the length of the swollen shaft, trailing his tongue along the prominent veins, tracing their path. He lapped at Niall’s balls and then licked his way back, bringing his hand up to squeeze Niall’s cock. Taylor’s other hand had crept to his own balls, and he pushed down, trying to win some time. Seconds probably. Niall’s breathy gasps were turning him on as fast as if he pumped his cock.

When Taylor let Niall’s cock slide in and out of his mouth, he felt fingers thread his hair and a palm settle at the back of his neck, but Niall didn’t push, didn’t pull, just held him. Taylor gripped Niall’s dick and dipped his tongue into the slit, and Niall gave a violent twitch.

“Let’s do this together,” Niall mumbled.

Taylor leaned away and Niall swung round so he lay on his back on the couch, his legs dangling over the end. He caught Taylor’s hand and pulled him up, turning him until he faced his feet. Taylor groaned when Niall caught his cock and bent it back to his mouth. Then Niall took him so deep, Taylor shuddered.

A moment later, his cock was back in the air and Niall was tapping it against his cheek. Lick and tap. Lick and tap.

“Want a race?” Niall asked.

“Ready, steady, go—oh it’s over?”

Niall laughed. It seemed to Taylor that Niall had never laughed so much.

“The one who comes last wins,” Niall said.

“Wins what?” Taylor choked out.

“Just wins. The sheer bloody joy of it.”

Taylor lifted Niall’s cock to his mouth and took him as deep as he could. The bastard did the same to him. Heat flashed through Taylor and his balls tingled. He wrapped a hand around Niall’s cock, folded his mouth around him and tightened his lips as he pushed his head down over the silky length. It was hard to concentrate when Niall was sucking his cock, not just sucking but licking, blowing, teasing the length of him. Orgasm was a breath away, a suck away, the slightest touch away.

He bobbed his head over Niall’s crest, pulling at the top few inches, tightening his lips, moving faster while Niall worked his own magic. They were both grunting and moaning. Taylor kept stopping to gulp air but Niall just kept going and going.
How can he breathe?
The telltale tremors of eruption grew in Taylor’s brain. Niall had his hands on his butt, fingers digging into the crease as he deep-throated him. Taylor sucked harder and faster and as he felt himself sliding down a huge wave, Niall’s cock grew in his mouth and went hotter just as Taylor’s balls exploded.

As he erupted into Niall’s mouth, so Niall erupted into his. Thick jets of come hit his tongue, his teeth, his throat, and Taylor swallowed and swallowed and loved every moment of it.

But when the wave rolled away to leave him stranded on the beach, Taylor wondered what the hell he’d done. Niall licked him clean and let him out of his mouth. His firm grip kept Taylor from bolting, and he pulled him down to lie at his side, heads together. And finally Taylor didn’t want to run because this felt perfect.

Chapter Fourteen

Roo backed away from the door, her heart jumping. She’d come down to find something to eat and heard groans coming from the orangery. She’d only looked because she worried Niall might be in pain. The expression on his face wasn’t pain, it was ecstasy. They had their mouths around each other’s cocks and Roo had never seen anything as sexy or frustrating in her life.

Well, that settled one question. Not straight. But raised another. Bi? Unless Niall had been playing with her in the tent and Taylor was pretending he’d wanted to kiss her a few hours ago. Maybe she was just some pawn in a stupid game. She sagged with disappointment and edged toward the stairs. They wanted each other, not her. Roo felt like a sumo wrestler was sitting on her chest. She didn’t take another breath until she was back in the room she’d chosen with the door closed.

Roo brushed the back of her hand over her eyes and slumped on the bed. That
wasn’t
a tear. Now she was not only pretending
not
to cry, she was wide awake and starving, her mind tearing along like a racing car. She was
not
going to think about what she’d seen downstairs. Definitely not going to admit that she did more than take a quick glance before she moved away. More than a long look.
Oops.

Wow, they were hot. Really hot. Am I sick to be turned on by two guys getting down and dirty?

Now Roo was hot.
Shit.

She pushed herself up, walked over to the bookshelf and ran her fingers over the spines. Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry
bloody
Potter. Roo had already read those. The last two in the series weren’t there. All but one of them looked brand new.
Strange.
She pulled out Charlotte’s Web and the book next to it came out as well and fell from its slipcover. Roo picked it up and could see it didn’t belong to the cover. It was a notebook, not
Captured by Indians.
She flipped through the pages and smiled at the childish writing. If it had been a diary, she’d have put it back. Probably. But this looked like a story. Roo took it back to bed, crawled into the sleeping bag and started to read.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a big house with a big garden. His name was Taylor.

Roo stopped. Maybe she shouldn’t read it. But her gaze was drawn inexorably back to the page and she kept going.

Taylor had a sister called Stephanie, who was very beautiful even though she was only ten years old. She had long, black hair and dark eyes.

Roo smiled. Within a few lines it was established that Stephanie was sugar and spice and all things nice, and Taylor was loud and rough and all things trouble. Roo curled up and lay on her side.

But this story started when Stephanie was five and Taylor was nine.

Taylor was playing with Stephanie in the garden and his blue-and-white plane flew over the wall. They weren’t supposed to touch the wall, their mother and father had told them time after time, but Taylor climbed over to get his plane. He came back a few minutes later and told Stephanie to go back to the house because he was going to play with the boy who’d climbed back with him. Only there was no one with him. Stephanie stomped off to complain to her mother that Taylor wouldn’t play with her and he was pretending a boy liked him.

An imaginary friend.
Roo had never had one of those, though she had made up imaginary boyfriends based on the TV show she liked at the time. They used to walk to school with her and be waiting at the end of the day to walk home again. She used to dream of going to America and meeting them, and of course they’d love her at first sight.
Yeah right.

She turned the page.

Poor Stephanie. She’d had all Taylor’s attention and now she had none. Well, according to the story. As soon as Taylor finished his homework, he went to play in the garden and made it clear his sister wasn’t welcome. He wouldn’t even tell her the name of his friend. He was growing up, their mother said, and she’d started to show Stephanie how to cook, paint pictures and make necklaces so she didn’t bother Taylor. But Stephanie spied on him sometimes, heard him talking to himself and then laughing as if someone answered.

Then one day Stephanie crept out to the garden when Taylor wasn’t home, and she’d seen a boy with sun-streaked blond hair sitting in the tree house. She’d called out to him and he’d leapt over the wall and disappeared, right in front of her eyes. Stephanie had bolted to the end of the garden but he’d gone.

It hadn’t just been an ordinary boy she’d seen. There was something special about him. He had wings. Stephanie knew without a shadow of a doubt that Taylor’s friend was a faery.

Roo smiled.
That’s so cute.

The next page was the last one Stephanie had written. She wanted to see where the faery had gone, so she planned to creep out after dark when everyone was asleep and climb over the wall.
Maybe not when it’s dark,
she’d added.
Tomorrow afternoon in the sunshine.

Wish me luck.
The last words in the book.

Roo was disappointed there wasn’t more. She tucked the book under the pillow and closed her eyes. Then opened them. She needed to switch the light off. But before she could move, the door flew open and she sprang up.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” Taylor yelled.

Roo moved to a sitting position, yanked up the sleeping bag to her chin and stared at him. He bracketed the doorway, his face filled with fury.
What have I done?

“Get out of this room.” Taylor’s face was pale and his fists were clenched.

Niall appeared at his back, put his hand on Taylor’s shoulder and Taylor shrugged him off.

“Now,” Taylor snapped.

Roo crawled from the sleeping bag and picked it up, along with her pillow, keeping it pressed against her chest. She bent over her case and fastened it with shaking fingers. Taylor was frightening her. For a moment she’d been transported back a few years to when a guy had yelled at her like that, except Mike had less control than Taylor and he’d hit her. He’d taken her to a country house for the weekend, they had a room with a four-poster bed and he’d wanted to tie her up. Mike didn’t listen to no.

“Taylor, come on,” Niall said. “How could she know? What harm’s been done?”

Roo scuttled out of the room, dragging her things with her. She turned to see Niall push Taylor into his bedroom farther down the corridor. Niall went inside with him and closed the door. She sagged. The floor in an empty room or that four-poster?

The floor won.

Roo took her things to the smallest room, luckily as far away from Taylor as she could get, and dropped her sleeping bag on the wooden floor. She’d slept in worse places. At least this was dry and warm. When she laid her head on the pillow and felt something hard beneath her cheek, Roo realized she’d accidently slipped the book inside the pillowcase. She pulled it out and laid it in her case. The mood Taylor was in, he’d accuse her of stealing it. She’d put it back tomorrow and he’d be none the wiser.

Oh God.
What had caused
that
outburst? If he hadn’t wanted her to sleep in his sister’s room, why hadn’t he told her? Though she should have registered how it looked, how it was preserved and used some common sense. Roo wished she could leave now, but she had no money and nowhere to go.

I’m not going to cry.
But she struggled against the tightness in her chest and the choking sensation in her throat.

She was Happy Roo, the woman who dressed as a chicken for fifty quid, the woman who found something to smile at in almost everything. Because if she didn’t smile, bad things would creep up and strangle her, remind her she wasn’t wanted, that the one person in the world who really should have wanted her, hadn’t and didn’t.

Not going to think that.

Not going to think at all.

Niall held a silent Taylor while he shook. He could feel the guy’s tears falling onto his shoulder, and every drop felt like a dagger in his heart. Niall didn’t let him go. Taylor finally pulled free, turning to wipe his eyes before he flopped back on the bed.

“I saw the light and for one crazy moment, I thought Stephanie had come home. Oh shit. Roo will think I’m a complete asshole. I should explain.”

He tried to sit up and Niall pushed him down. “It’ll wait until tomorrow. Let her sleep. You sleep.”
Let
me
comfort you, not her.

Taylor looked up at him. “Stay with me.”

Always.
Niall swallowed the lump in his throat.

Taylor settled on his back and Niall lay on his side facing him. Maybe what Taylor felt for him wasn’t yet love, but he’d cared enough to rush to Ilkley to help him and he’d cared when he’d dragged him from the hot tub. Now Taylor wanted Niall’s comfort. It meant something, didn’t it?

“I need to clear that bedroom,” Taylor whispered. “That’s what my parents want me to do because they can’t. They never gave up hope. They still haven’t given up hope. How can they when there are stories about women emerging after years in captivity, held in gardens, in underground bunkers, under bloody beds—held by warped men, and sometimes their warped wives? Stephanie could still be alive. How can you ever give up that hope?”