Shameless Nathan Lloyd

This is a modern supernatural horror story of one guy's journey from pretty-boy hetero master-manipulator, to submissive bi boy. 

18+ Explicit Content. Features a supernatural plot, lots of story, lots of sex, male-on-female, male-on-male, threesomes, dominance and submission, verbal coercion, and bisexuality.

Chapter 1 

“Nathan, someone’s in the showroom!”

Thanks Colin, God forbid you actually deal with your own customers.

It was probably the job candidate anyway. He hadn’t told me who I was interviewing, but given it was quarter to five, if it wasn’t them, they weren’t getting the job.

I swung my feet off my desk with a sigh. I had an MBA for Christ’s sake; I was supposed to be helping Colin sort out his business processes, not interviewing kids for part-time work.

I slipped on my suit jacket then ran a hand through my hair, feeling it settle back into place. It should be fine—it had enough product in it—although it was starting to brush against my collar. Colin would probably start harassing me about getting a hair cut again soon, but girls did seem to like it long. I was guessing it was the ‘bad boy’ thing.

I smoothed a hand down my shirt and made sure it was tucked in. If I was going to interview a kid only a few years younger than me, I wanted to establish I was more senior from the get-go, so they didn’t think my age meant they could give me shit.

I opened my office door and did a double take as I saw a girl standing by the unmanned reception desk, rather than some greasy-faced teenage boy.

Asha Grace, literally the girl-next-door, was a friend from school. Four years younger than me, she and my little brother Ty were still close, although I hadn’t seen her much since I’d left home.

“Hey,” she said, giving me a charming smile that didn’t belong on the face of the little gamer demon-child I knew.

She was wearing a cream-coloured blouse with gold buttons that fell softly over her lush breasts, and a skirt that showed off her small waist and rounded hips. Her dark hair was wound up in a lose bun with strands of hair trailing down to frame her face, her blue eyes outlined with black makeup. Her lips were tinted with pink gloss.

“Hey.” I pushed my hands into my pockets. “What are you dressed up for?”

The last time I’d seen her she’d been in jeans and one of Ty’s faded gaming t-shirts, drenched after a water fight, playing video games with Ty on my mother’s couch.

She smiled brightly, and I realised why she was there.

“No.”

“Yes!”

I glanced down at her shoes. “You’re wearing heels.” Two inch patent heels. Another first for the girl who preferred to wear leather boots in case she got the opportunity to kick the shit out of someone who dared throw a homophobic slur at her precious Ty.

“Come on Nate, don’t you have an interview to conduct?” Her eyes glittered.

I gestured to my office. “Get in there.”

I slid into my office chair as she followed me in.

“Okay, what’s going on? Why the hell do you want to work here?”

She sat on the chair in front of my desk and levered her shoes off with the toes of the opposite feet.

“I need a job. I need to get out of that house.”

I knew her foster parents, Stefan and Dylan, could be anal retentive when it came to protecting her, but she was lucky they cared so much. I didn’t even know where my father was, and she had two.

“So study.”

She gave me a disparaging look. “I said ‘get out of that house’, not ‘be bound to it by crippling debt’.”

I frowned. “You must have only finished school a few days ago.”

“Yes.” She gave me that bright smile again. “And now I’m moving out into the wonderful world of paid employment.”

The Ash I’d grown up with was competitive, fiercely so, to the point of needing to win every goddamn time. She was always getting into trouble, a force to be reckoned with if she thought you were fucking with her, and she was, to put it bluntly, impossible to manage.

I put a hand to my forehead. “Ash, as much as you’re a good friend to Ty, I can’t deal with you on a daily basis.”

“Friend to Ty?” she sounded insulted. “Until you left home, I thought the three of us were close.”

Yeah, well, if ‘close’ meant using me to cover her ass, and challenging me constantly, then I guessed we were super close.

She gave me narrowed eyes. “Don’t be an asshole, Nate. I need a job and you have the power to give me one.”

I leaned forward. “Oh, I have the power, do I?”

I steepled my fingers in front of her… mostly for a joke. Partly because I knew it would piss her off.

Her eyes darkened and I dropped my hands to lie flat on the desk.

She had a lot to learn about wearing pale-coloured clothing. I could see the outline of her black, lacy bra clearly through the fabric of her blouse.

Jesus, she really had filled out. How had I not noticed?

Probably because I hadn’t seen her outside of an oversize t-shirt since she was fifteen.

“Nate? Do you want to see my resume?”

I pulled my eyes back to her face. This should be good.

She handed me a couple of sheets of paper, stapled in the left hand corner. Her resume was neatly laid out. It looked good. Except that it was all fabricated.

“I like this,” I said, pointing to the entry that said she’d been a team lead for a paper recycling company. “Nice touch using a company that’s out of business.”

“I care about the environment.”

“Last time we ate take out, you walked straight past the recycling bin and shoved the plastic container into the rubbish.”

“It was dirty,” she said. Her eyes roved around the office. “I didn’t think the recycling people would want to clean it.”

I just couldn’t process that logic.

“What about this,” I said. “Works well in a team, but is equally capable of working automatically.” I looked up at her. “Did you mean ‘autonomously’?”

“Always use simple words,” she said. “Recruiters don’t like it when you overcomplicate.”

I gestured to the page. “You know those two words don’t mean the same thing?”

She sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “This skirt is too tight and this blouse is made of—” she plucked at it, “—I don’t know what, but it’s making me feel like a sexy secretary in an exploitative erotic fantasy. Can you please give me a job so I can get changed?”

I gave her a look of disbelief. “You think once you get a job, you never have to dress up again?”

She shrugged. “You don’t. I’ve seen you when you come home to visit Cara.”

Cara was my mother. Ty was still living at home with her while he studied, and I tried to get home a couple of times a month to see them.

“Whenever I see you you’re wearing jeans, and you obviously don’t iron your shirts,” she went on. “The only time you dress up is when you’re on the prowl.” She cast an eye over my suit. “Is that even yours, or did you borrow it?”

I gave her a cool look. “You’re not exactly convincing me to give you a job.”

“Ooh, do I have to suck your cock for that?” She puckered her glossy lips at me.

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “That’d certainly help.”

“Dickwipe.” She put her feet up on my desk. “Come on, Nate. I promise I’m more than the kid who beat the crap out of you in Halo. I’ll prove myself to you.” She winked at me. “Trust me.”

Jesus, she was one step away from clicking her tongue and giving me finger-guns.

She also seemed to be unaware that sitting as she was, with her feet on my desk, meant I could see up her skirt to the tops of her thigh-high stockings. She shifted slightly so that I could see black lace stretched across her crotch.

Or, maybe she was.

And I was supposed to give her a job.

Hearing the door to Colin’s office open, Ash took her feet off the desk and straightened her clothes. She slipped her shoes on moments before he put his head around the door.

“Is this our new candidate?”

Small and balding, Colin tugged at the collar of his grey sweater, his eyes roving over Ash.

Filthy old perve, she’s a kid.

She got to her feet and shook his hand firmly, giving him solid eye contact.

“Hi, Mr…”

“Dashwood. Colin Dashwood.”

“The owner,” I clarified for her, standing with her CV still in my hand.

“Lovely to meet you.” She inclined her head towards him politely. “I’m really looking forward to working with you.”

Colin broke into a smile. I knew that smile. I’d worked for him long enough to know his fetish was probably imagining his daughter’s teenage friends lying naked in a hail of rose petals.

“Oh, well! Right. I’ll let you get on.” He winked past her at me and I knew I was screwed.

“I’ve got a job, and you’ve got to train me.” She danced out the door in front of me, and turned back to me. “So. What do I wear tomorrow?”

“What you’re wearing today.”

I unlocked my car and she let herself into the passenger seat.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in, then slid into the driver’s seat.

“Asha, would you like a lift home?”

“Thanks.” She put on her seatbelt as I started the engine. “So, jeans and a t-shirt?”

I shook my head. “Whatever you want. By all means, give me a reason to fire you.”

She gave me a sly smile. “I’m going out with Ty tonight to celebrate my new job. Want to come?”

I shook my head. I didn’t even bother asking her when she’d organised that.

We pulled up outside our houses and I parked up. Since I was there, I figured I should probably go in and say hi to Ty and Cara.

“Nate, helloo my handsome boy!” Cara swept me into her arms and hugged me. “Look at these muscles!” She squeezed my bicep.

“Mum, really?”

She laughed. “You do need a haircut though.” She ruffled my hair.

“Hey bro.” Ty tagged me on the shoulder as he walked past me into the lounge. He threw himself down on the couch and flicked on the TV.

“Are you here for dinner?” asked Cara.

“Just dropping off Ash. She’ll be working with me. At Dashwood.”

Ty glanced over at me with a smirk. “She said you’d give her that job.” He made a face. “Damn, I just lost twenty bucks.”

“Yeah, well, she charmed old grumpy pants, so I kind of had to give it to her.”

“Old grumpy pants? Is that what they call you these days?” said Cara.

“Har, har.”

I sat on the couch beside Ty. “What are you playing?”

“At the moment?” he gestured to a stack of games beside the TV. “Mostly that lot. Haven’t been playing much though. Mostly studying. Oh hey.” He pulled out his phone, typed something into it then handed it to me. “I found this.”

It was a rental listing for a house.

“That’s ridiculously cheap,” I said. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I know right? Four bedrooms, lounge, games room, huge kitchen. All that land. Belongs to the Transport Agency. They’re going to put a motorway through there at some point but until then it’s for rent. I think it’s cheap because they’re only doing basic maintenance on it.”

I swiped through the pictures. The place was huge. Ten times the size of my tiny studio flat. And it had a pool.

“I was thinking, you, me, Ash—maybe get another flatmate. Even if there were only three of us, we’d be paying next to nothing in rent.”

“Your rent is free,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but that pool,” he said. “Plus, I wouldn’t be under Cara’s feet anymore.”

“You’re not under my feet, sweetheart,” she said, as she walked past the lounge on the way to the bedroom with his laundry.

I cleared my throat. “Okay. Where is it?”

He pulled up the location on a map. “Not that far out. The motorway’s going to run through here—” he pointed with his finger, “but that work’s not scheduled to start for another three years. They’re still buying up all the property they need for the easement.”

I had to admit, a party house that cost virtually nothing in rent kind of appealed to me. I could put the extra cash I’d save towards a deposit on a house of my own.

Of course, it also meant that I’d be taking Asha to work every fucking day.

“Does Ash have to live with us?”

He gave me a look. “Come on, Nate, she’s not that bad. She’s not a kid anymore.”

“Could have fooled me.” I went back to the pics of the house. “Yeah, okay. Give them a call.”

He gave me a hopeful grin. “I was kinda hoping that since you have a real job, and references, maybe you could call them?

I nodded wryly. “Yeah, should have guessed. Text me the link to that listing and I’ll give them a call tomorrow.”

 Chapter 2 

My phone buzzed as I got back to my flat. I checked the text as I unlocked the door.

‘Hey, are you up for that movie tonight?’

I kicked the door shut behind me and grinned.

Mikaela Lewis.

Mikaela Lewis was hot. Correction. Fucking hot. She was the last girl from my final year at school that I hadn’t slept with. The last one I wanted to sleep with.

It was my luck that she liked horror movies, because horror movies really are a horny guy’s best friend. They’re short, they get a girl’s heart racing, and they’re usually way sexier than being torn apart by a psycho killer has any reason to be.

I’d nearly given up on getting her attention, and then she’d left an idle comment on a movie trailer I’d posted on Facebook, saying she wanted to see it and no one else she knew wanted to go. Right after I updated my profile pic. What a coincidence.

And now, here we were.

‘Can do.’ I texted back. ‘What time?’

I picked her up on the way, and put my aftershave on in the car so the scent hung in the air. One thing I’d learned about girls who were hard to sway was that sexy was in the senses. How comfortable they were with you, what you smelled like, the tone of your voice. What you felt like when they finally got there.

She was dressed in a knee-length summer dress, decorated with green and red flowers. The front of the dress was laced to the waist, showing a flash of bra and a deep cleavage. The dress drifted down below her knees, meeting knee-high brown leather boots.

She got into the car and smiled shyly at me. Her long blonde hair fell in a shag of waves over one lightly tanned shoulder.

I watched her with a slight smile I knew would unnerve her, and saw her catch the scent of my aftershave. She leaned in towards me, searching for the source of the scent, then caught herself and sat back in her seat.

I grinned to myself.

Her eyes dropped as she clipped on her seatbelt. “I’m glad you were free. All my other friends are wimps.”

“Yeah, thanks for reminding me the sessions were about to end.”

I let the ‘friends’ thing go. She was reassuring herself by trying to friendzone me early on. I did have a slight reputation that may have given her cause for concern. But you don’t get a reputation by being bad at what you do.

I was wearing a t-shirt with a shirt thrown over the top, the sleeves pushed up to the elbows, and she glanced across at my arm as I put my hand on the gear shift and put the car into gear, then back at her hands in her lap.

Yeah, I didn’t work out for nothing.

We sat at the back of the theatre, her long hair tickling my nose, my arm around her shoulders. I hadn’t asked permission and she hadn’t argued when I’d put my arm around her.

She put her hand on my leg every time something jumped out of the darkness, and I drank in the scent of her hair as she leaned into me.

More than anything, I wanted to pull open the laces on her top and cup her perfect breasts, but I needed to play this part right. Too soon and she’d slap me away for the sake of her own dignity. Too late, and I’d miss the thrill of making out in a movie theatre with my high school crush.

On the screen, a terrified girl in a tight, white t-shirt screamed as the murderer stalking her slammed his fists against the glass sliding door.

Mikaela let out a squeal, then laughed at herself, embarrassed.

I smiled down at her. “Too scary for you?”

She shook her head. Her pupils dilated as I drank her in with my eyes. Girls dislike predators… but as long as you’re civilised, it doesn’t hurt to give them a hint of the hunter inside you.

I let my hand fall over her shoulder, not touching anything inappropriate, but drawing her closer. Her hand on my leg moved higher up my thigh as she leaned into me.

Her fingers toyed with the dangling end of the laces that held the front of her dress closed.

I twined one lace around my finger as I watched the movie.

Her head turned slowly towards me as I continued to wrap the lace tighter around my finger until the bow at the front of her dress started to loosen.

She continued looking up at me, her hand on my thigh, her fingers moving slightly with her breathing, her palm hot against my leg.

She jumped again as on-screen, the stalker threw the heroine against the wall, his knife pushed against her throat.

The bow came undone.

Her eyes came back to my face. Slowly, I looked down at her.

I pushed up the armrest up and she squeezed closer. She raised her face to mine and I brushed my hand into her hair as I kissed her, those silky beach-combed locks sliding between my fingers.

Her tongue sought out mine and I brushed my hand lightly across her breast, finding her bra was some shear material that meant she felt natural in my hand.

She was practically in my lap now, and I put my hand into the centre of the dress’s laces and tugged. The gauzy fabric slid through the eyelets easily, so that the top of the dress opened to the waist. I slid my hand inside her dress and she breathed a sigh of pleasure into my mouth as I pinched her nipples gently.

I kissed her harder, stroking my tongue across hers, my hand moving inside her dress, brushing my palm over that sheer fabric, squeezing and teasing.

Her hand moved up to sit against my cock, now hard in my jeans. She started to unzip me, but I pulled my hand back from her dress and stopped her.

“Not here.”

She looked disappointed, but satisfied herself with stroking me through my jeans.

The movie was nearly over.

“Let’s get out of here,” I murmured.

She reached down and grabbed her purse and followed me out of the darkened theatre.

In the empty lobby, she tried to lace her top up, but I stopped her.

“Be brave. Leave it.”

Her eyes widened, but I didn’t give her time to think about it. I grabbed her hand and pulled her after me, past the bored ushers, the late-night stragglers and the curious kids in the arcade.

We got outside and she fell against me laughing. I pulled her to me and kissed her, one hand inside her dress, the other around her waist.

“Come on.”

I pulled her towards the car and she giggled as she followed me.

We got into the car and I pushed the key into the ignition, pulling out of the parking space with a jolt that threw her against me.

She did up her seatbelt, then looked across at me hungrily.

I glanced at her as I drove out of the car park onto the main road. Her lips were swollen from kissing me, her hair a mess of blonde waves that fell around her shoulders.

She glanced down at my crotch.

I laughed at her hunger and put my eyes back on the road. Luckily, my flat wasn’t far from the mall.

Before I realised what she was doing, she’d unhooked her belt and her face was in my lap.

“Jesus, Mikaela, don’t—”

Her slim fingers undid my fly and she pulled me out.

Her mouth closed over me.

“Ooohhhh.”

She swept her tongue up the underside of my cock before taking me into her wet warmth.

I gripped the steering wheel, struggling to change gears with her breasts pushed against my arm.

I glanced down to see her cheeks hollow as she suctioned over my cock like a pro.

“Mikaela, I can’t concentrate.”

She ignored me, looking up at me with pale blue eyes, her face surrounded by a cascade of blonde waves.

“Fuck!”

A car braked suddenly and I swerved to avoid it, pulling the car back into my lane. She didn’t even pause.

I pulled up outside my flat and killed the engine.

She started to pull off me, but I put my hands on the back of her head and pushed her gently down.

Phase one first, darlin’.

I had a rule. If a girl wanted to fuck me, she had to swallow my load first. I considered it a rite of passage.

She renewed her efforts and I slid my hand back into her top, squeezing her breasts, crushing her nipples between my fingers.

With a little help from a hand wound in her hair, she swallowed most of my cock, the tip bumping the back of her throat.

“Oh, Kaela, that is fucking amazing.”

I pulled her mouth onto me faster, pushing her down to reach deeper, and she pushed against my thigh.

“Relax.” Her eyes met mine. “You can do it. How will you know if you never try?”

I felt her trying to relax her throat muscles and pulled her down onto me.

Fuuuuuck.

My cock jumped and I held her in place while I exploded into her throat.

She made a small noise of distress and I released the pressure on her head.

She came up off me as the last of my cum spurted out, splashing her chin and neck.

Her eyes were wide.

“You were amazing,” I reassured her. I pulled her in and kissed her. “Let’s get inside before someone calls the cops.”

I got out and opened her door, then led her, dazed, into my flat.

Inside, I flicked on a side lamp. My flat wasn’t much, but I kept it tidy and warm. Warm enough to want to pull your clothes off.

The bed was always made, the sheets always clean. Before I went out, I always sprayed some cologne on the bedspread.

I put my hands on her waist and drew her towards the bed, sitting with her standing between my legs. My cum glistened against her skin. I reached up and ran a finger along her skin, scooping it up. I pushed my finger into her mouth and she let me scrape it against her teeth, then swallowed it.

I pulled her down onto my lap and put my hand inside her dress again.

“Kiss me.”

She bent her head to mine and put her arms around my neck.

I lay back and pulled her on top of me. Her hair fell around my face, surrounding me in the scent of her shampoo.

As we kissed, I pulled open the front of her dress and pushed it off her shoulders, baring her breasts in their thin fabric prison.

Her nipples showed clearly through the iridescent blue fabric, and I caught them and rolled them against my palms, enjoying the natural softness of her breasts.

She sat up, gasping for breath, and I slid my hands up her thighs under her dress, and moved her over my crotch.

She pushed her cloth-covered snatch against my cloth-covered cock, rocking her hips against me. Maybe it was my age, but I didn’t seem to have any problems coming back to life when a beautiful woman was on top of me.

I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out a condom and she took it from me. She tore it open with her teeth, then took it out of its packet, her eyes locked to mine.

“Hop off for a second.”

She climbed off me long enough for me to pull my jeans and briefs off, then straddled me again.

She sat on my legs and wrapped my cock in rubber, before pushing herself against me again. The lace of her panties pushed aside as I slid inside her.

I let out a sigh of pleasure.

She pushed her hips against mine, pulling me deeper, and I put my hands up to those beautiful tits as she started to ride me.

She moaned and dropped her head, pushing herself onto me harder and harder, grinding her clit against me.

Sensing she was close, I put my hands on her hips and pushed my hips up into hers.

She let out a small sob and her muscles clenched around me. That was enough for me.

I growled as I thrust into her, my cum surging into its latex prison as she collapsed on top of me.

I kissed the top of her head as she lay against me, one hand curled against her mouth. “I need to get this out.”

She lifted her hips as I carefully removed the condom and tied it off, tossing it into the bin beside the bed.

She lay back against me and I put my arms around her, surrounded in her scent, and the heat of her skin against mine.

“If I’d known it would be like this, I’d have let you ask me out ages ago,” she said dreamily.

Something about the way she said it made me think she expected this to happen again. But truth be told, as beautiful as she was, she was the closing note in a chapter of my life that I was putting behind me. I had no intention of adding her to my future.

She must have felt me tense. She looked up at me and realisation dawned in her eyes.

She got off the bed and did up the front of her dress, then collected her bag from the floor and turned back to me. “Could you give me a lift home?”

“Sure.”

I pulled on my pants and took her home.

 Chapter 3 

The next day, I took Asha over to the house after work to take a look around. They really had skimped on the maintenance. There were patches where the carpet had worn through, peeling wallpaper in the bedrooms and the taps in the bathrooms leaked relentlessly.

“Do you think it’s haunted?” she called from the top of the stairs.

“Probably,” I said. “Seems like the type of place. Rent’s too cheap, all run down.”

“Come on Nate, this isn’t funny anymore!”

I laughed. “Don’t forget to look behind you!”

There was silence for a moment, then a squeal of delight. “Ooh, this room’s mine!”

I jogged up the stairs and walked down the hall till I found her.

“Look, I don’t even have to buy a bed!”

The previous owners had left behind a slat bed with an ornate wrought iron bed head. The mattress looked brand new.

“Weird they left it behind.” I ran a hand along the edge of the mattress and found a tag. The logo was a large L drawn on an angle, with a smaller letter ‘c’ drawn inside it. Probably some Swedish furniture brand.

She walked to the window and pulled the dusty curtains open. “Nice view.”

It sure was. Her ass, in tight jeans, was spectacular.

For a moment I imagined walking up behind her, reaching around her to crush her breasts in my hands while I pushed her against the windowsill and ground myself against that gorgeous ass.

Instead, I joined her and looked out over the trees and pastures behind the house. The Transport Agency owned most of the land in this area, so none of it was built on. There was stock grazing, and the odd house like this one, but mostly it was green fields and a few trees.

I grew aware that she was wearing a scent; something I hadn’t noticed at work or in the car.

“What is that?” I asked. I sniffed her neck.

“What?”

“That perfume.”

“Oh!” she gestured to a crappy dresser shoved into a corner of the room. “I found it over there.”

I walked over to the dresser. The mirror was dappled with age, giving me back half my reflection, blotched at the edges like burnt paper.

I picked up the bottle of perfume. There was a round patch in the dust where it’d been sitting and another lighter patch where Ash had put it down again.

I sniffed the bottle and tried to find a name on it but the label had long since peeled off.

I tugged at the dresser’s top drawer, curious about what else might have been left behind.

“I tried, can’t get it open,” said Ash.

Yeah, well, she wasn’t me.

I got a good purchase on the drawer knobs and pulled. I managed to get out of the way in time to avoid damage to my work shoes as the drawer slid open and broke free of its runners, crashing to the ground at my feet.

Something bounced out of the junk and rolled across the floor and I followed it and picked it up. It was a red rubber ball. I turned it over. It had a wide slot running through it.

Gross. I dropped it and wiped my hands on my jeans, pretty sure it was part of a ball gag.

When I looked up, Asha had pounced on the drawer of junk and was starting to sift through it.

“We have some old junk jewellery, a suspiciously stiff sock, a Zippo lighter with ‘Carpe Diem’ printed on it, a DVD that looks like someone’s porn collection, a photo portrait of a Victorian family, some of whom may have been dead at the time it was taken, and oh, this cute little ornate cube.”

“Where?” I said.

She laughed. “Kidding. No Cenobites here.” She raked through the crap. “Nothing interesting.”

She picked up the drawer and slid it back into the dresser. “Nice work on breaking the furniture though.”

She glanced around and noticed the ball. “What is that?”

“That is… well, it’s part of someone’s BDSM kit.”

“Their what what?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what BDSM is.”

She gave me a look of genuine confusion.“Big Delicious Sandwich Maker?”

“What, no—”

She slapped my arm. “I’m just kidding, I know what it is. Fun!” She threw her hands up in the air.

Why did that not surprise me.

“Anyway,” she said, “I think this place is great.”

“Yeah… I want to take a look at the rest of it before I make a decision.”

We continued exploring the house. Three of the bedrooms were doubles, with the fourth being more of a study. That one had a weird, musty smell. Like someone had spilled vinegar in there. It’d make an okay spare room, but I didn’t think anyone would want to rent it.

There was a bathroom and a separate toilet on the top floor, with a second toilet on the lower level. The bottom floor was divided into a massive kitchen, a dining room and lounge with a fire place, and then, separated from all that by the hall and stairwell, there was a huge games room on the other side.

I decided I’d take the room next to Ash’s, on the corner of the house. It put me as far away from the bathroom as possible, which meant less noise. The corner room didn’t have an en suite like the other remaining bedroom, but it was the largest; which I figured was fair, since it was my name on the lease.

As we walked back down the stairs, the scent Ash was wearing floated up to me. It was like walking past something blossoming in the heat of summer, a scent I caught and lost again as she moved.

My eyes were glued to the sway of her ass, as she jogged lightly down the stairs.

We got to the bottom and Ash glanced back at me. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Yep. Just thinking about how much work this place needs. Shame it’s being torn down. If they did it up, it’d be a nice family home for someone.”

We carried on down the hall. She stopped suddenly in the doorway to the kitchen and I bumped into her. I put my hands out instinctively and steadied myself again her shoulder and the wall. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought I saw something. Maybe a rat.”

I tried to see past her, and grew aware that I had an erection, and that it was currently pressed against her ass. What the hell was wrong with me? This was Ash, the girl I’d gone to school with, whose father had threatened to murder me on half a dozen occasions if I so much as looked at her sideways.

Her perfume hung around her, making me giddy. Without thinking, I slid the back of my finger down her spine.

She jumped. “Whoa, what are you doing?”

“Get out of the way,” I said. I pushed past her.

The kitchen was decorated with mustard and orange tiles, but the bench had been refitted at some point with beige Formica from a different period.

Ash crouched by the oven and then put her head to the floor so that she could see under it.

“Yep, a rat.” She waved to it. “Hi haunted-house rat.” She straightened up. “He’s not very friendly.”

“Yeah, well, he’s going to be dead as soon as I buy some traps.”

I walked around the kitchen, spying the end of a scaly tail as I approached the pantry. “Your new friend has a mate.”

I saw a black box at the bottom of the cupboard and crouched to take a look.

“Got a bait station here. Probably empty. Looks like they’ve had problems with rats before.”

I straightened up and turned to find Asha had already left the kitchen. I followed her out into the lounge, where she was standing in front of the fireplace.

“Nice,” she asked, pointing.

The fire box door was blackened with soot, except for where someone had scrawled, ‘Run’ in letters on the inside.

“Yeah, this was definitely a student flat before they put it on the market.”

I pulled open the fire box and took a look inside. Some ash, a couple of twigs, and the skeleton of a bird.

“Looks like there might be a nest built in the chimney too.” I closed the door again. “So… home sweet home?”

She shrugged. “Anything to get away from Stefan’s constant prying. Oh my God, you would not believe how he treats me! It’s like I’m still ten years old!”

I looked at her—really looked at her—at the grown woman standing in front of me wearing designer jeans and soft leather boots and a t-shirt that fell off one shoulder, her dark hair pulled up into a loose bun. It was true. She wasn’t the same girl I’d grown up with. She was beautiful. Not breathtakingly hot like the girls I dated, but she was still a beautiful woman.

She noticed my roving eyes and examined my face. “Did you just actually listen to something I said?”

I nodded. “You’re not a kid anymore.”

 Chapter 4 

Four weeks later I stood on the front lawn of the huge old house as the first stars appeared in the dark blue sky above the roof.

“You all good?” My older brother Jase slammed the back of his ute and locked the gate back in place.

“Yep, we can take it from here.”

He stood beside me and looked up at the house. “It’s creepy isn’t it.”

I glanced sideways at him. “Thanks.”

He brushed his dark hair back from his face, wiping away sweat from the effort of moving three loads of furniture with me. He was eleven years older than me, a substitute father figure for the father I’d barely met and who Ty had never known.

“Well, at least you have Ash to keep you company.” He grinned.

“Yeah, well, Ty should have been here.”

I was still pissed off that Ty had decided to go to up north to a music festival during the week we moved in. It meant I had to carry his rent for a week. Which wasn’t much, but it was the principal. This was his idea. He was supposed to be here.

Jase slapped me on the back. “I might take off then.”

“Thanks, man.”

He raised his head and lifted his eyebrows in acknowledgement, then headed back to the ute.

I went inside and looked at the chaos of boxes. Ash was upstairs sorting her things, but most of the furniture for the lounge was mine.

I sat down on the couch and looked at the place where the TV would eventually sit—when I got around to unpacking it.

Ash walked behind the couch and I reached out a hand behind my head to her. “Can you please set up the TV? I can’t be arsed.”

“What?”

I glanced around, confused. She’d answered from outside. But I’d just heard her walk past me into the kitchen. My fingers had brushed against her jeans.

She came into the lounge and found me staring.

“What? Did you see Ratty McRatface again?”

“Were you just in here?”

She shook her head. “No. I was out at the car.”

“I could have sworn…” I turned back to the empty TV stand.

“You want help with the TV?” she asked.

“I was just… I heard…” I trailed off. There was something in the air, a vibration. Like a generator was running under the house.

“Lazy bastard.” She crouched on the floor by the TV box and slit open the packing tape with a knife. She’d dressed practically, which for her these days meant tight jeans and a peasant top that showed her cleavage when she leaned forward.

I got up, convinced something electrical was running.

“Can you hear that?” I asked.

She looked up from tugging the flat screen out of its box.

“Oh, is it the pool pump?”

“What’s a poop hump?”

“The pool pump. The pool’s green. It’s gross. Maybe they left the pump running.”

I helped her get the TV out of its box and set up on the stand, then went outside to take another look at our famed pool.

The pool was a kidney-shaped concrete monstrosity, set into the ground. This time of night, the water looked black and thick as oil. There were shapes floating in it.

Down the side of the house was a small shed. I pulled open the door, dislodging a many-legged shape that landed by my feet and scurried away into the darkness. I flicked on the light switch. Cobwebs stretched across the width of the shed. Some of them were occupied by spiders the size of my palm. The red on/off switch was set to ‘off’.

I shut the shuddering metal door and pushed the bolt across. Ash could deal with all pool pump related activities from here on out.

Back in the lounge, Ash had managed to hook the TV up to the surround sound speakers. She flicked on the amp and pressed the button on the TV to turn it on. Samsung’s ‘Hi, I’m a TV!’ sound sang through the speakers.

She dropped down onto the couch and flicked through the channels until she found the movie channel. “What do you want to watch?”

You, I thought. You leaning back so I can see down your top, see the curve of your tits as they’re swallowed by lace.

“Uh, anything violent,” I said.

I hopped over the back of the couch and dropped down beside her.

We had work in the morning, so the TV went off at midnight, and we both headed up to bed.

I sat in my room with a suitcase of clothes at my feet, listening to the shower run at the other end of the hall. Turned out I could hear it just fine. The hiss of the water through the pipes, the knock of soap against the soap holder.

My mind was going places it wasn’t supposed to go. I couldn’t get Ash out of my head.

I lay back on the bed and my hand strayed to my cock, stroking it through my briefs. In the weeks since she’d turned up at the car yard, she hadn’t entered my spank bank. She was my spank bank.

Her on her knees, her lips around my cock, her lying back on my bed, looking up me with half-closed eyes, while I fingered her. Her, lying on her stomach, looking back over her shoulder at me while I ran my hands over her ass.

My cock jumped and a stain spread across the front of my underwear from oozing precum.

Ash knocked on the door and I covered my crotch with my hands.

“Yeah?”

“Shower’s free.”

I shrugged on my robe and pulled the door open just in time to catch a glimpse of her, wrapped in a towel, as she went into her room.

Her perfume hung in the air.

I headed down to the shower and beat myself off furiously, watching my cum swirl with the water down the drain.

On my way back to my room, I heard her swear and stopped outside her door. “You all right?”

“Yeah, just having some trouble with my lamp.”

I pushed the door open and she glanced up at me, surprised. She was in bed, clearly naked, the covers drawn up so that nothing was showing but her bare shoulders.

“I didn’t say ‘come in’,” she said.

“You said you were having trouble with your lamp.”

As if to back me up, the lamp by the bed flickered.

“And I’ll fix it. It’s just a loose connection or something. I’ll check the wiring tomorrow.”

She lay down and pulled the covers up to her neck. “Nate?”

“Yeah?”

“Please leave.”

Half dazed, I turned and left her room. I closed her door quietly behind me. As I walked back to my room, the hall lights flickered and dimmed so that the light was halved. I looked up at the bare bulbs that lined the hall. They were all different wattages, but all of them were dimmer than they had been. Which implied a wiring problem. Or a breaker problem.

Or a haunted house problem.

I climbed into bed and whacked one more out, imagining climbing into bed beside her, her freshly showered skin, damp curls of her hair hanging over my face as she rode me to ecstasy.

 Chapter 5 

The next day was Friday. I got up to take a shower and found Ash was already in the bathroom.

I sat down in the hall with my towel, already regretting agreeing to live with a female. Ten minutes later the door opened with a waft of steam.

“Hey. We leaving at seven?”

“Yep.”

I got up and went into the bathroom. I shut the door and stood in the damp warmth, scenting her soap, her perfume. That goddamn perfume. Whatever it was, it was driving me crazy. Maybe if I got rid of it, she’d stop turning me on so much and things would go back to normal.

On the drive to work, my phone beeped. The text came up on my lock screen.

“Ooh, Nate, someone apparently wants your balls in their mouth right now!”

Ash held the phone up and I glanced at it and winced. I’d forgotten about horny Stella. Stella was a sometime fuck of mine; weekends, birthdays, special occasions. She liked it in the ass, which was her chief appeal, and every now and then she got particularly horny and she texted me. Texts like the one she’d just sent.

I took the phone out of Ash’s hand and put it in the centre console.

“Don’t read other people’s texts.”

She poked her tongue out at me. “Ooh, I’m Stella and I want Nate’s sweaty ballsack in my mouth!”

Oh, how I wished that were true.

At work, I took my phone into the toilets and texted Stella back.

She sent back a pic of her from the neck down, no face. She was naked except for stockings and suspenders. One hand was between her legs.

I groaned and threw my head back. I’d always had a healthy sexual appetite, but lately it felt as if I was constantly horny. This was not helping.

I texted her back. ‘At work.’

She sent back a smiley face. ‘Tonight?’

Yeah, I could do that. ‘K. Where?’

‘Yours?’

I thought about that. Maybe having her over to the house was a good idea. Fucking Stella’s brains out in that house might help me stop obsessing over Ash, and get back to my normal routine of screwing leggy blondes with degrees in looking cute.

I texted her my new address, then dealt with my erection before I went back to my office.

Ash was sitting at my desk, drinking a black coffee. She had something up on screen on my laptop. “Look.”

She pointed to the paused video. An episode of Sensing Spirits. Filmed at our current address.

Ash sipped her coffee. “They didn’t find anything.”

I clicked on the video and watched a team of idiots wander through our house, recording green night-vision images and crapping on about standing in ‘cold spots’.

I shut the browser down. “Why are you researching the house?”

She shrugged. “You were totally freaking out last night. It wasn’t like you.”

I frowned at her. “Clarify ‘freaking out’.”

She mimicked my voice. “I was just… I heard….”

“Don’t you have work to do?” I kicked the swivel chair sideways and the last of her coffee sloshed in her cup.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, old grumpy pants.”

Bloody Ty.

She got up and walked over to the door. “Movie night tonight?”

I checked my phone then glanced up at her. “Uh, no. I have someone coming around. We’ll probably be in my room.”

“Okay.” She dipped her head and left, closing the door behind her.

Ash was sitting on the couch eating popcorn when Stella arrived.

She stared at me. “Why are you dressed like a hooker?”

“Shut up.”

Stella and I had an understanding. Both of us dressed to each other’s tastes. She would be in red, while I was dressed in a fitting black tank top and the tightest possible jeans.

I adjusted myself and answered the door.

As I led her through the lounge to get her a beer from the kitchen, Ash got to her feet, kernels of popcorn falling down her front.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Asha. Ash.”

“Hi Ash. Stella.” Stella took the beer I offered her and gave me a smile. I grinned back at her. She was dressed in a fitting red dress that was mostly straps at the back and a couple of square flaps at the front with a deep oblong cutout between them, out of which her breasts rose like Mt St Helens. Her long legs were clad in dark stockings that terminated in bright red stiletto heels. Her long blonde hair hung halfway down her back, her lips outlined in a bright red that matched her dress.

“Nice to meet you,” she said to Ash.

I led her back out of the lounge to the stairs and winked back at Ash, who was kneeling on the couch watching us with an expression of shock.

Upstairs, Stella looked around my room with an expression of distaste.

“You didn’t mention you had not unpacked yet.” Her strong Russian accent only made her more gorgeous.

I sat on the bed. “Does it matter? The bed’s made.”

She walked over to me and stood between my legs and put her slim hands on my shoulders. “True.”

I pulled her close and looked up at her.

She gazed down at me. “You are so gorgeous.” She ran her hands through my hair.

“Right back at ya, babe.”

I reached up and peeled down the straps of her dress, releasing those gorgeous tits. Her breasts stood up on her chest without a bra. For all I knew, they were fake. But who cared? They were perfect.

Stella knew the rules. She dropped to her knees and pulled my cock out of my jeans. I lay back on the bed with my arms folded under my head and gave in to the delicious sensation of her circling the head of my cock with her tongue, lingering on the underside before making another slow circle.

Her long painted nails dug into my thighs, hard enough to leave dents. My eyes closed halfway as she dragged those same nails down to my balls and grazed them over my sac.

She sucked more of me into her mouth, gliding her teeth along my cock, her eyes burning into mine.

I pushed my hips up to meet her, and she sucked me harder, one hand lightly caressing my balls.

She shifted her attention and moved down to take one of my balls into her mouth, gently running her tongue over the surface before taking the other into her mouth, engulfing me with heat.

As she tongued my nuts, she ran her nails over my thighs, making me shudder, then dug her nails back into the softer flesh of my inner thighs.

She moved back to my cock and wrapped her hand around it, lapping at the head, then sucking all of me into her mouth.

Stella didn’t deep-throat, but she had a way of touching me that left my nerves on fire.

She ramped up her suction, bobbing her head up and down on my cock, increasing her pace and the pressure of her nails against my thighs.

“Fuck, yes, do it!” I ground out. She pushed her nails into me and the pain brought me to the edge.

She gave my balls a practiced tug and wrapped her lips around the head of my cock, and I came in her mouth, her tongue sliding around my cock as she swallowed it all down.

I lay there while she lapped at me until there was nothing left, then sat up and lifted her into my lap.

She ran her hands over my chest, my arms, then pulled my tank top over my head.

She drew her nails down my chest, then leaned in to kiss me.

She bit at my lower lip and I hissed in pain. “Easy, easy.”

She gave me a wicked look and bit her lower lip. “Please.”

Gaaargh, every time. She pushed my boundaries every fucking time. But it was just so hard to tell her no. “Just, no visible marks. Okay?”

“No permanent marks.” She leaned forward and nipped my neck and I threw back my head as she bit down.

She was definitely leaving visible marks.

She put a hand behind my head and brought me up to kiss her. She nipped at my lower lip, her nails trailing over my chest.

I leaned back on my hands. “So what do you want tonight?”

She ran her hands over my biceps.“I have something in my ass.”

Whoooaa, hoa, yeah.

I grinned. “Well we’d better get that out for you.”

She kissed me on the lips and I lifted her off me and threw her back on the bed. I stood and pulled off my jeans and underwear, while she got onto her hands and knees. Her tight red dress was stretched taut over her ass. Her eyes roved over me as I slid the red dress up over her ass.

There was a glittering red jewel nestled between her cheeks.

“Oh Stella, you naughty, naughty girl!”

At 3 a.m., I walked her to the door.

She shrugged on her coat and I gave her a kiss goodbye. I watched her walk back to her car and turned to find Ash standing behind me on the stairs.

“Jesus, you—”

No, not Ash. If it’d been Ash, she’d still have been there.

I closed the door behind me and leaned against it so that I could keep an eye on the stairs. I wiped a hand across my face.

Was I seeing things now?

“Is someone there?” My voice sounded too loud in the silent house.

I heard a door open on the top floor. “Nate? Is that you?”

There was that tension. That vibration.

It’s just the pool pump.

“Nate?”

“Yep, sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yep. Go back to bed.”

She hesitated for a moment. “Okay.”

Her door closed.

Someone had been on the stairs. Someone had been on the fucking stairs. I hadn’t imagined it.

If you had, that’d make more sense.

At my back, the door vibrated as if someone had pushed their weight against it, then pulled it closed as hard as they could. I spun around and locked the door. I listened for footsteps.

And there they were. Boots, clumping along the deck, down the steps, onto the concrete driveway.

I wrenched open the door. No one was there. The security light, triggered by Stella leaving, clicked off, leaving me in darkness. Wind sighed through the trees and a branch thumped against the roof.

Just the wind. Now get the fuck inside before someone puts a hook through your face.

I closed the door again and locked it. The vibration was still there, too low to be heard. I wasn’t going outside to see if the pump was on.

I left the lights on and climbed up the stairs. As I reached the landing, there was a sense of pressure changing. The sound, whatever it’d been, stopped. The house fell still.

I walked back to my room, and made a mental note to stock up on light bulbs. They weren’t going to last long if we left them on all night like this.

As I passed her door, I heard a noise from Ash’s room. I stopped and listened, ready to push open the door if she was in trouble. Instead I heard a soft moan. Not of pain. Of release.

I shook my head and carried on down to my room.

 Chapter 6 

Saturday morning. I got up late and found Ash in the kitchen making a protein shake.

I leaned against the bench. “I can give you the natural version if you like.”

She gave me a look of confusion. She was dressed in cutoff shorts and an old shirt that looked like one of Stefan’s.

“I prefer some flavour.”

I was pretty sure she hadn’t understood the joke, but it was hard to tell with her.

“So what are you up to today?”

She ran the blender and then poured the frothy pink liquid into a glass.

“I was going to do some painting. There’s mould all over the walls in my room. Dylan suggested I take to it with bleach and then paint over it with a mould-resistant paint. I’m going to head out and grab some from the hardware store. Want to come?”

I shook my head. “Sounds… awful.”

She went into the lounge and dropped down onto the couch. “What was all that noise last night? Did your date give you a hard time when you kicked her out?”

I gave her a look of disdain. “I didn’t kick her out. She left.”

“At three a.m.? Do you despise each other so much that you can’t even bear to sleep next to each other?”

I loaded up the toaster and set the jug onto boil.

“It’s not about that,” I said. “We don’t meet up to sleep next to each other.”

“So, what then? You meet up to fuck, and that’s it?”

I shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“Jesus, Dylan was right about you.”

Probably.

“I am sorry I woke you up,” I said.

The toaster popped and I pulled the toast out and spread it with an inch of peanut butter, then added boiling water to some instant coffee.

I took my breakfast to the lounge and sat down opposite her.

“You know, one day, when you’re all grown up, you might want to have sex too.”

I gave her a bright, patronizing smile.

“Not with someone like you,” she said darkly. She sipped on her drink. It left a pink ring around her mouth. She licked her lips clean. Slowly.

I kept the plate on my lap and concentrated on my toast.

She cocked her head. “So, what are you going to do today? It’d be nice if we did this place up a bit. It’s sunny today—maybe you could drain the pool.”

“You mean drain the swamp.” I pointed towards the pool with my toast. “Did you see what’s floating in there?”

She nodded. “Yep. You’ll need a net. There’s one leaning up against the pump house.”

She finished her drink and got up to put the glass in the dishwasher. “Right, I’m off. Don’t drown.”

After she’d gone, I put on some rubber gloves and went to take a look at the pool. As I’d suspected, there were two possums floating in the green muck. The controls for the main drain were in the spider infested pump house, but before I turned it on, I’d need to get the larger… objects… out. Otherwise they’d clog the drain.

With a sigh, I grabbed the net and started skimming.

It was midday by the time I felt confident enough to leave it to drain. I flicked the controls on and went back to stand by the stagnant pond that would soon be our summer oasis. As far as I could tell, it was working. I peeled off my sweaty rubber gloves and headed back inside. Time for some gaming.

Ash got home a short while later.

“Nice job on the pool,” she said. “It’s going to be nice when it’s clean.”

She was covered in a light sheen of sweat, and carrying a bunch of crap in plastic bags.

“I thought you were just getting paint?”

She dumped the plastic bags on the lounge floor. “Yeah; paint, a roller, spare rollers, brush cleaner, brushes, mould treatment—and this packet of jellybeans for buying over a hundred bucks worth of stuff.”

She ripped open the plastic packet and popped a red jellybean into her mouth. She held the packet out to me. “Want one?”

I shook my head. “So, you pretty much let yourself be sold a bunch of crap you didn’t need.”

“Yeah?” She sat back on the couch. “Tell me, Mr grumpy pants, which of this stuff don’t I need?”

“Stop calling me that,” I said. I nudged a plastic bag with my foot. “You’re telling me Stefan and Dylan don’t have any decorating stuff lying around?”

She shrugged. “Don’t think so.”

“Your gay foster fathers don’t have any decorating equipment? Not so much as a paint brush you could borrow?”

She popped an orange jellybean into her mouth. “I didn’t ask. Not all gay guys are into decorating you know.”

I rolled my eyes. I knew damn well that Stefan was. He’d redone their house three times since they’d lived next door.

“Well then, great job.”

She threw a black jellybean at me. I caught it and threw it back.

She caught it and threw it back. This time, it fell down between the couch cushions.

“And that’s how you get ants.” I lifted up the couch cushion. “That’s weird.”

There was a mark on the base board. A triangle with a smudge in the centre. It hadn’t been there when I’d put the cushions on the couch. It looked as though it had soaked through the wood.

Ash peered around me. “What?”

“Just a weird… stain.”

I pushed the cushions back into place and put my hand flat against the fabric. It wasn’t wet. I didn’t see how water had soaked through from inside the couch.

She dropped back down on the other couch and threw a purple jelly bean at me.

“Right!”

I threw myself across her and grabbed the jelly beans out of her hand. “I’m going to make you eat all of these!”

I grabbed a handful and shoved them into her mouth.

She pushed me away, laughing, and spat a rainbow of jellybeans at me.

There was a knock at the door.

“Anyone home?”

I looked at Ash. “You expecting anyone?”

She shook her head.

I climbed off her and went to the door. I pulled it open and found a pudgy middle-aged man on the stoop. There was something about him that pinged a warning on my radar. Something about the sheen of sweat on his forehead and the way he was breathing as if he’d just discovered his picture was being shown on the news.

“Are you Nathan Lloyd?”

“Yeah, I am.” I leaned against the doorframe. “What can I do for you?”

“You fucking asshole!” He put both hands against my chest and shoved me back into the house.

I fell back against the stairs and he swung a fist at my face.

I put up my hands to defend myself, then grabbed him around the legs and tackled him to the ground.

I sat on his chest and raised my fist. “What the fuck are you doing?”

He sneered up at me, his wire-frame glasses knocked crooked.

“You fucked my wife, you fucking… you fucking kid. You fucked my wife.”

He started to cry. I stared at him, confused.

“What’s her name?”

“Stella,” he sobbed. “I found her messages to you on her phone.”

“Stella is your wife?” I said. I was having a hard time getting my brain to absorb that concept. I lowered my fist. “Stella Gordon is your wife?”

“Yes! Yes!” He put a hand down to his pants and I got off him. He didn’t look the type to carry a knife. An iPhone, sure, but not a knife. He pulled out his wallet and handed it to me, open to her picture.

“Well, bugger me.” I was sure she wasn’t older than thirty. This guy had to be at least twenty years her senior.

I sat on the stairs and flicked through his photos. In all of them she was clothed. In some of them she was with a round-faced kid who had blonde hair and glasses—just like his dad.

He sat up and I handed his wallet back to him. “I’m sorry mate. I had no idea she was married.”

Trembling, he took it and adjusted his crooked glasses.

“She has a wedding ring.”

“Not when I’m fu… not when I see her.”

He stuffed his wallet back into his pocket and sat there, his little round body and his short, splayed legs.

“I know, I know. You want to know how I ended up with a wife as gorgeous as her.”

I leaned back on the steps. “Yeah, I have to say, I am curious.”

He scratched his head, parting his thinning hair so that his scalp shone through, and looked down at the ground.

“I met her on a Russian dating site. You know the kind.”

“Vaguely,” I said.

He flashed me an angry look. “Yeah, I get it, because you’ll never need to buy sex.”

I shrugged. I wasn’t going to deny it.

“I earn okay. I’m a computer programmer. I have a good heart. I wanted kids and I never got the chance because… well.” He gestured to himself with a hand. “Because I’m not exactly mating material. And I thought we were happy. I gave her a good life—she hasn’t wanted for anything. We have a son, Marcus, and we both adore him. But recently I started to get the feeling something wasn’t right. I found clothes in her wardrobe that I’d never seen her wear. Found… toys.”

He took a shuddering breath in.

“So you snooped on her phone?” I said. “Sounds like you have a healthy relationship. I don’t know what went wrong.”

He glared at me. “With your hair and your ripped body and your pretty face—you’ll never be lonely. But what if you weren’t handsome? What if you were ordinary looking? What would you do then?”

I took offence at that. “What do you mean, ‘what would I do’?”

He looked around the dilapidated house. “I mean, I’m not judging you or anything, but if this is the best you can do, I have at least one thing going for me that you don’t.”

He was starting to annoy me now.

“So, your purchased wife is cheating on you,” I said. “With someone less than half your age.”

“I’m forty-three.”

Oh, wow, life really had been unkind.

“About half your age, then. What are you going to do about it? Because, I’m telling you buddy, you’re not kicking my ass any time soon.”

He stared down glumly at his chubby hands. “Nothing I can do, I suppose.”

“Have you considered talking to her?”

He laughed through his nose. “Yeah. Right.” He gave me a despondent look. “Well. Now you know.” He got to his feet and I stood with him. “So you won’t see her again? Will you?”

I held out my hands. “Mate, you need to sort your marriage out. If she calls me, I’ll ask her straight up, is she still married. If she says yes, I’ll say no. If she says no, I’ll say yes. Repair it, or lose it.”

My answer left him simmering, but he knew he couldn’t do much about it. He stepped back onto the porch and I looked past him and saw his car. He owned an Audi R8. This fat little bastard owned an Audi R8.

He glanced at my Honda, sponsored by work, and I saw his lips twitch in a smile. He could get girls with that car if he wanted to. I knew, because I met girls with the depth of a saucer of milk all the time. And he was right—if I wasn’t really, really, ridiculously good-looking, they wouldn’t be fucking me.

As he drove away, I closed the door and sat back on the steps. Was I really nothing more than a handsome face and great hair?

Ash wandered out of the lounge and stood leaning in the doorway.

“That sounded like fun. I didn’t realise you were a home wrecker as well as a chauvinist.”

I looked up at her. “Do you like me, Ash?”

She did a double-take at my serious tone.

“Do you like me? Who I am?”

She shrugged. “Do you really care?”

I made a noise of frustration and got up and headed upstairs. I went into my room and slammed the door, the memory of Stella standing next to the Milky Bar Kid, and fatty’s Audi R8, lodged in my mind. 

 Chapter 7 

I had a concept of what cleaning a pool involved. It turned out my concept was the stock-photo equivalent of the real thing.

The drain clogged with all the plant matter and sediment still left, meaning there was a foot of manky, green, stinking water left to bail out with a bucket.

I got in there with a shovel and dumped the crap into buckets and dumped the buckets onto the lawn.

Then I got a broom and started to scrub the sides.

At its deepest point, the pool was a foot taller than I was. At the shallow end were a couple of steps that provided easy access, dropping away to less than a metre deep.

It took half the day to unclog the drain and get rid of the last of the water. I sat back at the side of the empty pool and sipped a beer as I looked over the fruits of my labour. Ash was right, it was going to be nice when it was filled. Palm trees grew around the outside of the paved, fenced area, which gave it a tropical feel. And also provided all the greenery I’d just shovelled out as silt.

I was dozing by the near-full pool when Ash finally appeared.

“Hey, hey, nice work!” She sauntered out in cutoffs and a purple singlet top, with Stefan’s old shirt draped over the top, carrying a couple of beers.

She handed a beer to me.

“Thanks.”

She dropped down beside me and rolled her leg sideways into mine.

“Was anything alive down there?”

“Nope.”

“Was anything dead down there?”

“I found part of a rat. I think. There were teeth.”

She held up her beer and clinked it with mine. “To summer.”

“To summer.”

I glanced sideways at her. “Have you finished your painting?”

She shook her head. “Sprayed the mould cleaner, cleaned it off again. I put on the first coat of paint. Needs a day to dry.

I shook my head. “Seems like a lot of effort for a place you don’t own.”

“I like things to be nice.” She wiggled her bare toes. Her toenails were painted with iridescent polish that caught the sunlight. She glanced up at me. “Do you want to talk about last night?”

“About what?”

“About your sudden crisis of confidence.”

I sipped my beer. “Not really.”

She picked at a flake of dried paint on her shirt. “I don’t mind, if you want to talk.”

I took another sip of beer and said nothing.

“Seriously, Nate, what’s going on? You’ve been weird since we moved into this house.”

I glanced at her. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face, loose strands coiling around her face and trickling down her neck like dark water.

“What about you? I haven’t seen you on the console since you moved in.”

She shrugged. “Who would I play with?”

“Me?”

She laughed. “You’re not Ty.”

I turned towards her. “What does that mean?”

She shrugged. “Playing with Ty is fun. Playing with both of you is. But when it’s just you, I don’t know. You get so competitive. It’s not fun anymore.”

I scoffed at her. “It’s not me who’s competitive.”

She gave me a look of amazement. “You’re kidding, right? You hate it when I win.”

“Because you’d do anything to win. Including cheat.”

She shook her head, incredulous. “Jesus, pot-kettle much?”

I shook my head and concentrated on my beer.

My eyes slid sideways as she leaned back, the shirt falling away from her shoulders. I was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra under her singlet top.

“Nate, why do you do it?”

I rolled my eyes, annoyed. “Do what?”

“Fuck everyone.” I started to get up, but she pulled me back. “Okay, I’m sorry. But… why can’t you have a girlfriend like normal people?”

I shook my head.

“Nate? You want to know if I like you? I don’t even know you. I don’t think you know yourself.”

“Sorry, did you study psychology before or after you worked for the extinct recycling company?”

I got up and brushed off my jeans.

Something rustled in the bushes on the other side of the pool. A trickle of sweat ran down the middle of my spine. I was sure I could see a person crouched in the bushes.

“What?” Ash rose and stood beside me. Her perfume swam around me as strong as petrol fumes. I couldn’t breathe.

“Nate, what?”

She caught my hand and whatever was in the bushes moved back and melted out of site.

I took in a gasping breath, my chest heaving.

“Nate! What? You’re scaring me!”

“Didn’t you see that?”

She looked back at the bushes. “There’s nothing there.”

I swallowed hard.

“Breathe,” she said. She stood in front of me and put her hands on my chest. “Nate? Look at me.”

I pulled my gaze away from the bushes.

“What’s going on with you?”

I didn’t know. I really, honestly didn’t know.

“Look, I’ll show you there’s nothing there.” Before I could stop her, she ran along the edge of the pool and pushed her way into the bushes.

She stood among the flax bushes and looked back at me. “See?”

She screamed and fell back into the garden.

“Ash!” I ran towards her and she got back to her feet, laughing.

“You fucking… bitch!” I pulled her out of the garden and tripped on the edge of the pool and lost my balance.

She screamed as both of us tipped into the pool.

She flailed against me and I turned her onto her back and dragged her to the edge of the pool. I pulled myself up onto the steps, then pulled her up backwards, my arms around her waist, sitting her between my legs.

I put my mouth next to her ear. “Never do that again.”

I shook her by her shoulders, then shifted back and got up. I pulled off my wet t-shirt and she turned to watch me as I wrung it out.

“It was just a joke. What’s wrong with you?”

I looked down at the bunched t-shirt in my hands. What was wrong with me? Good question. “I think someone’s been sneaking around the house.”

She gave me a puzzled look.

“The other night after Stella left, I turned around and saw someone on the stairs. I thought it was you. But it wasn’t.”

Her pupils grew a fraction and her breathing changed. “Nate, you’d better not be bullshitting me.”

“And then I heard someone outside. They tried to get in.”

“Did you see them?”

I look a deep breath. “I don’t think there was anyone to see.”

She got to her feet and shrugged off Dylan’s shirt, leaving her shoulders bare and glistening in the sun.

“So… you think it’s haunted then?”

I shrugged.

She gave a strained laugh. “You know, if you really think something’s here, I’m not sure I want to stay.”

I felt a twinge in my gut, and tried to figure out what it meant. I realised I didn’t want to leave the house. Even if someone was stalking us.

“Yeah, well, there’s no such things as ghosts, so… just make sure you lock the doors. And let me know if you see anything, okay?”

She nodded. “Don’t stress, Nate. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

I picked up what was left of our beers and headed back into the house.

 Chapter 8 

I sat in the lounge and tried to play a game, but I couldn’t concentrate. I went up to my room and lay on my bed, flicking through Facebook.

A message came through from Stella. ‘What did you say to Paul??’

Fuck.

I stared at the message for a good ten minutes. Should I tell her what he’d said about buying her off a website? Probably not. But truth be told, I was a little annoyed she hadn’t told me she had a husband.

‘You never told me you were married,’ I typed back.

There was a pause, then; ‘He’s furious. Said he knows we’ve been seeing each other for ages and that you’re in love with me’.

Now, as stunning as Stella was, her English had never been that great. I got a strong feeling I wasn’t speaking to her.

‘In love? What gave him that impression?’

Dots appeared as she typed a message back.

‘He found my phone, and the pics. And then some other stuff. On the computer. You know, the emails? About me leaving him?’

Now I knew I wasn’t speaking to Stella. We’d never emailed. No one emailed much anymore unless they had to. Except maybe old people. Like her husband.

‘Uh, what emails? I don’t even have an address for you. And you know I’m not in love with you, right?’

I gave it a second, letting him absorb that, then settled down to have some fun. I carried on typing before he could answer.

‘I mean, you’re the best fuck I’ve ever had, don’t get me wrong. The things you do in bed… they’re golden. You’re gorgeous, from your mouth to your ass. Jesus, if you do even half the things you do to me to Paul, then he’s a lucky guy.’

I waited as dots bounced their way across my screen.

‘You’re not in love with me?’

‘Uh… no. What would make you think I was?’

More dots.

‘You’re a much better fit for me than Paul. I mean, he had to buy me. You just have to flick your fingers and I come running.’

Okay, this guy’s insecurity was starting to piss me off.

‘Stella, we both know you flick your fingers and I start cumming. You know the effect you have on me. I’ve been so lucky to have been with you, even if it was only a couple of times. But your husband loves you. Isn’t that why you came to this country?’

Dots and more dots.

I knew he had to be processing my ‘only a couple of times’ comment. I might still be able to salvage his marriage, if he could get his shit together and talk to her about it.

‘I suppose. I mean, I love our son. And Paul’s a good husband.’

‘Plus, he has that Audi,’ I shot back. I couldn’t help myself. ‘He makes more than I’ll ever make. You don’t want a guy like me. I’m all abs and hair and smouldering eyes. lol.’

I never, ever typed ‘lol’. Ever. But fuck him. Fuck his chubby, Audi-owning, wife-purchasing ass.

Dots winked at me. This one took a while.

‘Do you want to see me again?’

He had to have typed and deleted a few messages in that time.

‘No, Paul, I want you to stop snooping on your wife and talk to her. You don’t fix a broken marriage by doing this stupid shit. You have a kid together. And I’m not kidding, you have more to offer than I do. So stop being such a fucking moron and talk to your wife.’

There was a long pause, before the dots danced across the screen again.

‘Fuck you.’

‘Right back at ya.’

I lay back on the bed and put the phone beside me. Sunday night. There were two girls I’d been seeing in recent times who wouldn’t mind a Sunday night booty call, but neither of them would be able to come to me. I could go to theirs, but as it got darker, the idea of leaving Ash alone in the house became less and less appealing. Even though she hadn’t seen or heard the things I had, it didn’t mean whatever it was wouldn’t come after her if I wasn’t there.

You’re kidding right? There is nothing in this house!

But the rational part of my brain that couldn’t comprehend my thinking on this, also couldn’t explain what I’d seen.

Could be schizophrenia.

Thanks, brain. You cheered me right up.

I texted Ash. ‘What are you doing?’

Her text came back almost instantly. ‘Why, your usual lays let you down?’

Ouch. Harsh. But fair.

‘Want to watch a movie?’

‘Sure. Give me twenty and I’ll meet you downstairs.’

I threw the phone onto the bed again, my thoughts straying back to Stella. Part of me wanted to get in touch with her and make sure she was okay. I assumed she’d left herself logged into Facebook on some computer or device he had access to. She might not even know he knew. He wasn’t likely to be violent, was he? I didn’t honestly think so.

I felt a little sad, thinking I’d never have her hands on me again. No one had ever mastered me like she had. She just knew what I needed. Her hands, her bright red nails. Her mouth. Her ass.

I made a strangled sound and got off the bed. If I was going to masturbate, I needed to empty my bladder first.

I walked down the hall and used the bathroom. On the way back, I heard noises from Ash’s room.

I stopped, knowing I was snooping, but also with one hand resting on my crotch.

She moaned.

Yep, as I’d thought. The pervert in me really, really wanted to see this show. I got down on my hands and knees and tried to look under the door.

All I could see was carpet, but a faint waft of her perfume reached me over the smell of fresh paint.

“Nate?”

I got to my feet as silently as possible and headed down to my room, easing the door closed behind me.

Why the hell didn’t she have a boyfriend? She was clearly hot for it, and I could see plenty of guys going for her. She was bold, curved in all the right places. Fun to be around, if she liked you.

I lay back on the bed and stripped off my jeans.

As I stroked my cock, it occurred to me that other people might not know the same Ash that Ty and I did. No friends had helped her move in. I hadn’t heard her on the phone to anyone either. No one had called in to see her new place.

Could it be that eighteen-year-old Ash had as few friends as she’d had at school?

I guessed that made sense, since she’d only just left school, and hadn’t been out in the world long enough to meet new people yet. Working at the car yard wasn’t going to help her in that regard either.

Which made me…

One of two friends she has in the world.

I stopped, my cock resting in my hand, as the full impact of that hit me. She had Stefan and Dylan. And she had us. And that was it.

I had friends, although most of the guys were more drinking buddies than anything else. We went snowboarding in winter, kayaking in summer, road trips when we all had the cash. If I didn’t want to be alone, I didn’t have to be.

And she just has you.

I checked my phone. I had five minutes left to get this done.

I let my mind drift back to Stella, but found Asha’s face swimming into my mind instead.

I closed my eyes and gave in.

Ash stood in front of me, her brilliant blue eyes outlined with dusty eye shadow. Her long hair was loosely tied so that it fell over one shoulder. She was wearing Stella’s red dress, only on Ash, it fit differently.

Stella was tall and slim. She had nice tits, but narrow hips.

But Ash… Ash was all curves. Shorter, her hips were well rounded, while her waist curved inward under a rack that strained to be released from its fabric prison.

Her lips were plump and coated with gloss so that they glistened. Her chest heaved as she breathed out, filling the dress to the point where her breasts were barely contained.

She crawled over the top of me and lowered her mouth to kiss me. Her lips were slick with gloss as her tongue slid against mine.

I beat myself furiously as imaginary Ash hand-walked her way down my body, before lowering her mouth over the end of my cock. Her eyes met mine, those lips stretched around my—

Ash bashed on the bedroom door, and red-dress Ash vanished.

“What?!”

“Are you coming?”

“I’m fucking trying to,” I muttered, hopefully too low for her to hear.

“Hurry up!”

She walked off down the hall, and I could just imagine the satisfied sway of her ass in her tight jeans.

I tried to pull back the vision, but sexy Ash wasn’t complying. She sat up, her cleavage spilling out of her dress, and regarded me with cool eyes.

You want me, but you won’t tell me. What are you afraid of, Nate? Afraid you’ll get rejected again?

Yeah, once was enough for this lifetime. I did sure things. I did game. And right now, I didn’t know what Ash’s game was.

Just the thought of her turning me down made my cock shrivel. I looked down at my fading erection and knew it wasn’t going to happen.

With a heavy sigh, I got up and dressed, then joined Ash downstairs.

 Chapter 9 

By the time I got downstairs, the sun had gone down, and the ranch slider had turned into a black mirror of the lounge. I pulled the curtains, unnerved by the thought of all that dark, empty, invisible land outside.

“When’s Ty back from up North?” asked Ash. She was in the kitchen pouring popcorn into a bowl.

“Wednesday, I think,” I said. I threw myself down on the couch. “Bring me a beer would ya?”

I heard the fridge open, and a moment later, something flew at me.

I ducked, and the unopened beer landed beside me on the couch.

“Jesus!” I picked it up. It was an empty bottle with the cap pushed back on.

Ash snickered at how hilarious she was. She walked into the lounge and handed me a beer coated with condensation, then sat in a big armchair, the popcorn in her lap.

“You could have hit me!”

“Pffft.” She tossed a bottle opener to me. “Your muscular arms would have deflected it.”

She gave me a look from under her eyebrows, mocking me.

I put the empty bottle on the coffee table and levered the lid off the cold one with the bottle opener.

She put her feet up on the table and crossed her ankles. “Your hair’s getting really long. You look like something off the cover of a shitty romance novel.”

“I could tie it into a man bun if you like.”

She shook her head. “No. I mean, it suits you. It’s just, if you want guys like that lady’s wife to not want to punch you in the face, getting a haircut would help.”

I took a swig of beer. “I don’t think my hair was what enraged him.”

“How many times did you pork his wife?”

I swung my head to look at her, unimpressed with the accusation in her voice. “You know I didn’t do that on purpose.”

“You fucked her accidentally?”

“You know what I mean.” I turned back to the TV and switched it to the movie channel. “What are we watching tonight?”

I realised her eyes were still on me. Considering me.

“What?”

“Remember when you asked me if I liked you? On the stairs? When you were questioning your life’s purpose?”

I put my head on one side. “Deeply regretting saying anything to you, yes.”

“I do like you, Nate. I mean, you’re selfish, self-absorbed, vain. But when I was growing up, I could count the people I trusted on one hand. And you were one of them.”

I looked down at my beer.

“Do you remember that night you took me to the concert? I knew you didn’t want to go. I was thinking about that the other night. Wondering how many guys would take a bratty kid to a concert like that.”

“You were family,” I said, then instantly regretted it.

Her eyes darkened. “Not family,” she said. “We were more than that.”

For years I’d thought Dylan hated me because I’d got Ash drunk when she was thirteen—at her request. I was at Uni when I realised that wasn’t it at all. He didn’t like me because he didn’t trust me.

I was nineteen, Ty was seventeen and Ash was fifteen, and we were all seated around the dinner table when I had my light bulb moment and realised that Dylan actually despised me.

I was seeing a girl at the time called Shannon, and had been for a couple of weeks. She was in some of my classes and we hooked up on weekends. That was mostly all it was, just hook ups. We were both too busy studying to date properly, and she had a part time job that took up most of her spare time.

Stefan lifted his wine glass. “So, I hear you went on a date last night.”

I grinned and took a sip of my beer. “Yeah, she’s a nice girl. Her name’s Shannon.”

“You were seeing her last time we were here, weren’t you?” asked Dylan.

Something in his tone made me look at him twice. He carried on eating, but it was the first inkling I had of what he thought of me.

“Yeah,” I said. “A couple of weeks now.”

Cara got up to get something from the kitchen and Dylan looked up from his dinner.

“Weren’t you seeing someone else recently? Cindy, I think it was?”

I gave him a guarded look. “Yeah.”

I dropped my eyes to my plate and kept eating.

“And before that, weren’t you seeing a girl called Sarah? I don’t know, it’s hard to keep up.” There was a trace of disgust in his voice.

I frowned down at my food and kept eating.

Cara came back from the kitchen and sensed something wasn’t right.

“Asha, love, what have you got on this weekend?”

Ash shrugged. “There’s a concert on that I want to go to, but I can’t go unless someone over eighteen goes with me.”

I brought my teeth together, knowing where this was going.

“No one I know likes their music though.”

I could feel her eyes on me. I knew the band she was referring to, and I hated them. Loathed them with a passion. Kid-punk music, dressed up as adult anger. The lead singer usually started by talking about how he’d been a prostitute on the streets of California, before he launched into his first morbid song.

“Nate, what are you up to this weekend?” asked Cara.

The concert was R18, which meant Ty couldn’t take her. I knew Stefan and Dylan had a weekend away planned, and Ash was going to be staying with us. But I had my own plans.

“I have a date,” I said.

“With… Shannon?” asked Dylan.

I looked up at him. There was something really unpleasant in his eyes.

“Yes, with Shannon,” I said.

I hadn’t actually made any plans—I didn’t usually bother. But if it got me off the hook with Ash, I was happy to make sure I was unavailable on Saturday night.

Ash gave me a hurt look. I knew she really loved this god awful band, and normally I’d have obliged as long as I still got to do my own thing later on, but I really got the sense that if Dylan thought I’d agree to take her, he’d cancel their weekend away and take her himself.

“Oh honey, that sucks,” said Cara. “Maybe I can take you?”

I could see Asha was stricken at the thought of being accompanied by an adult, but Dylan looked relieved.

The weekend arrived and I lay in bed stroking my cock, thinking about Shannon. I sent her a text.

‘Busy tonight?’

It was a full minute before I got an answer back.

‘Sry, have plans. My friend’s bday. We’re all going out on a yacht. Yay!’

I felt an unfamiliar twinge of jealousy. Why hadn’t she invited me? She was going out to some amazing yacht party, and she hadn’t invited me.

The vain part of me, which at nineteen was nine-tenths of my personality, wondered why she wouldn’t want to show me off to her friends. And then the jealous part of me, that had never really had to do much work, started asking hard questions about who she might be taking instead.

I typed a couple of responses and deleted them, trying to find a way to ask her what was going on without appearing jealous. In the end, I realised there was no way to do that and finished jacking off instead.

After I showered and dressed, I joined Ty and Ash at the kitchen table where Cara had made lunch.

“You all set for tonight?” Cara asked Ash.

“Yes,” said Ash, with a tight, polite smile. I knew she was grateful to Cara, but I could also see she was dying on the inside.

“I’ll go if you want,” I said casually. I snagged a warm bread roll from the middle of the table and tore it open.

“Really?” asked Ash.

“If that’s okay with you?” I said to Cara.

Cara gave me a grateful look and sat down at the head of the table. “Thanks, Nate. I’m sure you’re closer to the band’s demographic than I am anyway.”

I pointed a finger down my throat, then scraped some butter onto my bread roll.

Ash smacked me on the arm. “You love them. I know you do.”

“Yep, that’s why I didn’t buy tickets for me and all my friends.”

I shoved the bread roll into my mouth.

She gave me an amused look, and I could see she was excited. She didn’t care that I hated the band. She just cared that she wasn’t going with parental oversight.

Five hours later, she finished putting the final touches on her makeup. She twirled in front of me and Ty in the lounge. “What do you think?”

I thought she looked exactly like a prostitute from the streets of LA.

“You’ll fit right in.”

She was wearing fishnets, and boots that gave her an extra three inches in height that clanked with buckles and chains when she walked. Her skirt was basically a stretchy fabric ass covering and her top was made of mesh that was only opaque over her tits as a design afterthought.

When she stood side on, I could see she wasn’t wearing a bra.

She pulled on a little cropped jacket and then shouldered a backpack.

“We should go.”

“Way too early!” I protested, but she grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the door.

“I want to get up by the stage!”

The plan was to park at the train station and catch the train into town. That way, we wouldn’t have to fight traffic on the way home.

I parked up at the station and started to get out of the car, but she pulled me back.

“Look.” She reached into the back seat and held up a bottle of 42 Below. I knew it was mine, because she wasn’t old enough to buy booze, and because it was only a quarter full. Just how I’d left it. In my wardrobe.

I took it out of her hand. “You can’t take this on the train.”

“I know!” she snatched it back and screwed off the cap. “That’s why I’m having some here.”

She tipped her head back and downed a good third of what was left in the bottle.”

“Jesus Ash, go easy. When did you start drinking like that?”

I took the bottle back from her and capped it.

“Just now.” She grinned at me. The vodka had wet her lips and she licked it away.

Her eyes, ringed in black kohl, looked huge as her pupils blew out with excitement.

“Woo!” She punched the air with a clank of bangles.

“Ash, are you going to be okay?”

She glanced across at me, then unbuckled her seat belt and crawled into my lap. “Yes, Nathan dearest, I am.” She kissed me on the nose, then pushed open the driver’s door and wormed her way across me, falling onto her hands and knees in the car park. She got up and dusted herself down. “Coming?”

Jesus. What had I got myself into?

The concert was a mass of girls all dressed exactly like Asha. There were a few depressed looking boyfriends, and quite a few truly depressed looking parents, but generally I was surrounded by teenage girls dressed as gothic whores.

If they’d been a bit older, I would have enjoyed the show. As it was, it made me feel old.

Asha screamed and jumped up and down and joined in with the rest of the girls. At the end of the concert, her hair messed, her makeup racooning around her eyes, she turned to me and gave me a sweaty hug.

“You are the best, Nate.”

She jumped into my arms and I caught her with my hands under her ass and gave her a hug, before dropping her.

“Woo!”

Yeah. Woo.

On the train back to the car she sat vibrating with joy, and I knew I’d done the right thing. She’d had the time of her life, she was safe, and all was well. But I had a feeling when Dylan found out I’d taken her, he was going to be pissed.

But if he thought I was going to molest someone I thought of as a kid sister, he was fried in the head.

“I turn sixteen in two months,” she said excitedly, drawing hearts in fog on the train’s window.

And I’d be twenty. Our birthdays lined up to within two days of each other.

“I want to have a combined party,” she said.

I shook my head. “Nope. You’ll be sixteen and my friends snort coke. So, no. I’ll come to yours, but you’re not coming to mine.”

She gave me a hurt look. “I’m not a kid anymore, Nate.”

“You are, you are, and you are,” I said. “At least, you are to me.”

The hurt in her eyes deepened to anger and I knew I’d really upset her.

She fell silent, all the joy gone out of her.

I sighed. “What are you doing for your birthday anyway?”

She put her head on one side and watched the dark landscape go by.

“I dunno. Maybe a movie night.”

The fact was, Ash didn’t have many friends. She didn’t have a lot in common with girls her age, except perhaps bad taste in music, and she tended to be a little too aggressive, too outspoken to keep friends when she did make them.

“Ty will be into that,” I said.

“Ty,” she said flatly. She rested her head against the window.

We sat in silence for a while and then she glanced across at me.

“My parents are alive.”

I blinked. “Okay.”

“They’re not dead, and they’re fine.”

She lapsed back into silence. I flicked my train ticket between my fingers, waiting for her to say more.

“They fostered me out because they couldn’t deal with me.”

Jesus. What a place to be having this conversation.

I stayed silent.

She bit the inside of her lip, then turned back to the window.

Back in the car, she retrieved the 42 Below from the back seat and drank it as I drove us home.

At the house, I took it from her. There was virtually nothing left.

“You’re a good guy, Nate,” she mumbled, as I helped her out of the seatbelt.

I went around to her door and helped her out of the car. She slung an arm around my neck, and I walked her up to the house.

“Even if Dylan does hate you.”

She slapped her thighs with her hands. “I need to be drunk.”

She got up and went into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of vodka.

I shook my head. “Still drinking that shit.”

“Don’t you?”

“No. I put away colourless spirits when I became a man.”

She poured herself a glass of vodka and took a mouthful. “Let’s watch a movie.”

Glad to break the tension, I picked the first horror that had more than three stars and put it on.

Halfway through, I got up to take a leak and came back to find her stretched out on the couch. The movie was paused. She had a hand flung over her eyes.

“You want to go to bed?” I asked.

She squinted up at me. “Just wanted to be more comfortable. Can you turn the lights off?”

I did as she asked and she sat up. I took a seat at the end of the couch, giving her space, and she set her glass of vodka on the floor beside the couch and lay back down, using my lap as a pillow. I glanced over at the bottle and saw she was a third down.

“Right, movie, go!” She waved a hand at the screen.

I pressed ‘play’ and the movie played on.

But while girls screamed and ran from axe-wielding maniacs, and guys tried to figure out the mystery of the maniac’s motivation, I found myself staring down at Ash.

Her eyes were half closed as she watched the movie, her hair trailing down her back. Where her t-shirt met her jeans it’d risen up, exposing a triangle of pale flesh.

Her cheek was warm against my leg, her head a few tantalising inches from my crotch.

Fuck. Now was a bad time to get an erection.

But her perfume, that sweet, fresh scent, hung around her. She smelled as if she’d just stepped out of a summer rain shower in a shampoo commercial.

Her t-shirt was pulled tightly over her breasts and I could see the glitter of a diamante-studded ring where the strap met the top of her bra through the thin fabric.

She cupped my leg under her head with one hand and squeezed every time there was a jump scare. Did she know the effect she was having on me? I wasn’t sure. I was doing my best to hide how I felt about her.

And how’s that working out for you?

Fucking terribly, that’s how.

Remember the advice you gave fatty? To talk to his wife?

Sure, but his wife was his wife. He knew she loved him.

Yeah, that’s why he had to pay for her.

Okay, so maybe he didn’t know that.

What was it you told that poor bastard? Repair it or lose it.

The movie finished and I stretched, relieved I’d made it through the last forty minutes without bumping my swollen cock into her face.

She sat up and looked around blearily.

“I wanted to tell you something.”

“As long as it’s not ‘I want to throw up’.”

She threw her arms around my neck and smiled at me.

“Nate. Nate. I need to tell you something.”

“Go home, Ash, you’re drunk.”

She shook her head exaggeratedly.

“No, no, listen. Listen!” She put a finger to my lips. “Ssssssshhhhh.”

“Okay,” I said, my lips moving against her finger. “I’m listening.”

She rested her forehead against mine and bit her lower lip. “I always… I always wanted you… to see me.”

“I do see you, Ash.” I put my hands on her waist. “And you look really fucking drunk.”

She tapped her finger against my cheek. “See me.”

I wrapped my hand around hers to stop her taking my eye out.

“I like you, Nate.”

Those words tugged at my gut. But there had to be a ‘but’.

“But—”

And there it was.

“Dylan thinks you’re an asshole.” She giggled.

The tension in my gut ramped up a notch. “And what about you, Ash? What do you think?”

She put her head on one side. “I think you’re cute. But you’re a bad, bad man!”

She wove in place and I shook my head at her.

“I think it’s time you went to bed. You use the bathroom first and I’ll check in on you after.”

She started to pout, but I kissed her lightly. “Go on.”

She got unsteadily to her feet and started for the door. “I’ll protect you, Nate. If bad things come for you. I’ll look after you.”

I shook my head again. “Okay then.”

She stumbled towards the stairs.

As I tidied the kitchen, I decided to pour the vodka away. She didn’t need any more nights like tonight.

I put the bottle into the recycling, and by the time I got upstairs and opened her door a crack to check on her and found her asleep with the light on. I switched off the lamp and left again.      

 Chapter 10 

Monday morning, I woke at five to a text from Ty.

‘Call me when you’re up. Change of plans. Need to talk to you about the house.’

I groaned. I was so not going to call him at 5 a.m.

At quarter to seven there was no sign of Ash. I banged on her door.

“You coming to work?”

There was a groan. “Do I have to?”

“Yes, you don’t get sick leave for another three months.”

“Fine.” She sounded pissed. “Give me twenty minutes.”

“You’ve got five.”

She pulled open the bedroom door, wrapped in a fluffy robe. “I hate you.”

“I’m not responsible for you deciding to get blind drunk on a Sunday night.”

She sniffed and pushed past me to use the bathroom.

As we drove to work, she lay back against the seat, her eyes closed.

“I am never doing that again.” She opened her eyes and looked across at me. “Would you really force me to come to work sick?”

I shook my head. “Not if you were actually sick. I’m not a total asshole.”

She closed her eyes again. “I am actually sick.”

“You got a job with no qualifications, three days out of high school, and you want to bunk work because of a hangover. Tell me again how you deserve a day off.”

She sighed.

At work, I gave her the list of things Colin wanted her to do and left her to it.

My phone pinged as I opened my laptop. Another text from Ty, asking me to call him.

I rang his number. “Hey bud, what’s up?”

“Nate? Hang on, I’ll go outside.” He sounded as if he was at a café.

The clatter of cutlery and laughter fell away.

“Hey, thanks for calling me back. I have bad news and good news. What do you want first?”

“That doesn’t sound good. Everything okay?”

“Yep, yep. It’s just, I won’t be able to move into the house.”

I gritted my teeth. “Why?”

“I did my budget and I can’t afford it, even though it’s not much. Buuut, wait for it. The good news is, I met a guy up here who’s looking for a flat.”

Hmmm. “This guy… how did you meet him?”

Ty cleared his throat. “He’s a good guy. I met him at the festival and we got talking.”

“Talking?”

“Bro, do I do this to you every time you introduce me to a girl?”

I chuckled. “Fair enough. So tell me more about him. Does he have references?”

“He’s a bit older than us. Early thirties. He’s moving down from up North and needs a place to live while he gets settled.”

“So, it’s temporary?”

“Maybe. I said it probably would be, but he’d probably stay if you guys liked him. Thought I’d leave that in your hands.”

I sighed. “Okay. What’s his name?” I grabbed a pen.

“Vincent Devin. Vince. He’s English. Been out here for a couple of years now.”

“So you’ve been tripping for three days with some English guy you fancy, and now you want to install him in my house?”

“Nate. Please. I swear it’s not like that. I just… he was looking for a place and I can’t afford to move out right now.”

“Would that have anything to do with the amount of drugs you bought for this festival?”

“Nate!”

“All right, fuck it, fine. I’ll talk to him. But if I don’t like him, he’s not moving in.”

“That’s fine.”

He gave me the guy’s number and I wrote it down.

“So when do I expect him to turn up on my doorstep?”

“He’s back in town tomorrow night. I’ve told him to give you a call when he hits town.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the idea of living with a stranger. Not right now, while Ash was being so weird. But the rent wasn’t going to pay itself. I’d intended to pay half of it myself and divide the rest between Ty and Ash. But if Ty wasn’t moving in, and this guy had a proper job, he could probably pay half of the full rent and I could pay less. And besides, it was a huge house. If we put him at the other end of the hall in the big double room, he’d be well away from our end of the house.

Our end of the house? Getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we Nate?

“You still there?” asked Ty.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “Drifted off.”

“Is everything okay?” he asked. “Asha’s not driving you crazy?”

Not in the way you think.

“She’s okay.”

I could hear a grin in his voice. “I told you she was grown up now.”

“Yeah, well, your ‘grown up’ got herself totalled on vodka last night and has a massive hangover today.”

“She did?” he sounded disbelieving.

“Yeah. She was trying to tell me something, I think.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t know. I’ll talk to you when you’re back. Maybe she needs to speak to someone.”

“Like… a psychiatrist?”

“Maybe. Anyway, I have to go, I’ve got a yard full of clients and Colin’s not in the office today.”

“Okay, chill, bruv.”

“You too.”

After I ended the call, I added Vince’s number into my phone. I could always tell him we’d changed our minds about renting out the room if we didn’t like him.

And if Asha likes him and you don’t?

Tough. My name was on the lease.

By lunchtime, Ash had her head on her desk, a glass of water and a packet of painkillers just in reach of her outstretched hand.

“You look like a crime scene photo,” I said as I walked past her desk to check on the customers who were wandering the yard.

“I feel like it,” she said.

I put my hands in my pockets and glanced back at her. “Have you learnt your lesson?”

She shook her head, rubbing her face against the desk pad.

I turned back to the glass and watched a couple circle a Toyota. She hated the colour. He hated the car. Probably not going to make a sale on that one.

“Hey, did I say some weird stuff to you last night?”

I turned back to her. “Yes.”

“I didn’t mean any of it. Please forget I said anything.”

I walked over to her desk and sat opposite her. “Only if you promise if you need help, you’ll ask for it.”

She sat up and looked at me. “What do you mean, ‘help’?”

How to say this. “I don’t know much about your past with your birth parents, but if bad things happened… you know you can talk to someone about it.”

“Someone?” she said.

“Yeah. Like, a professional.”

“A professional.” Her voice was dull. “Yeah, okay. If I need help, I’ll go talk to a professional.”

“Cool.”

I got up and stretched. The couple in the yard had moved onto an i-series BMW. She liked it, he liked it, but I could see they didn’t have the budget.

I went back to my office and left the door open so I could see into the showroom. It was pretty clear Ash wasn’t going to be doing anything useful for the rest of the day.

We grabbed fish and chips on the way home and sat in the lounge to eat. Ash had perked up as soon as work ended, leading me to believe her hangover was mostly her adapting to the idea of actually working for a living, rather than an alcohol-induced malaise.

She ate with gusto and then went hunting through the cupboards.

“Where’s the vodka?”

I pretended I didn’t hear her, and a moment later, she appeared in front of me with the empty bottle.

“Did I drink all of this?”

“Looks empty to me,” I said. Not technically a lie. She narrowed her eyes, but took it back to the recycling bin.

I shifted in my seat to watch her hunt through the kitchen, looking for, presumably, something else to drink.

“What are you doing?”

“I just want… I dunno. I want something to drink.”

I got up and went into the kitchen and leaned on the bench with my arms folded, watching her turn the cupboards upside down.

“Is there a reason you think alcohol will appear in the pantry?”

She paused her trash-panda activity and looked up at me. “You always used to stash booze.”

“I told you, I don’t do that anymore.”

She wilted.

“But I’m curious as to why you’re suddenly acting like a veteran alcoholic.”

She put a hand to her head, the other on her hip. “I don’t know. I’m just stressed.”

I know a really good way to relieve stress.

“Want to watch something?”

She gazed past me. “What about a swim?”

I looked at her as if she was crazy. “It’s not that warm yet!”

“I don’t care.” She gave me an alluring smile.

“How about you swim, and I… don’t.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Old grumpy pants.”

She headed for the stairs.

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

She paused. “Ty told me it’d drive you crazy.” She threw a wicked glance at me over her shoulder and jogged up the stairs, presumably, based on the temperature outside, to get changed into a wetsuit.

It was a nice enough evening that I thought I’d sit outside while she swam and surf the ‘net, even if it was too cold to swim. And maybe perve at her in her bathing suit.

I dusted off an old plastic lawn chair and set it by the pool.

Asha appeared a few minutes later, dressed in a black and white zebra-patterned swimsuit. When she got into the water, I saw they’d apparently run out of fabric halfway through its construction. The back was a bikini bottom and a piece of string that held the front part in place.

She stepped onto the first step and shivered.

I looked up from scrolling. “You don’t have to swim.”

“I want to.”

I shook my head and went back to my phone. A message came up. It was from Stella.

‘I need 2 c u’

I considered it. Could be Paul, realising his wife wasn’t an English major. Could actually be Stella.

‘Do you think that’s wise?’ I texted back.

Dots winked across the screen.

‘Im afraid for Pauls anger’

Yeah, that felt more like Stella. I dialled her as Ash launched herself into the pool.

“Stella?”

“Nathan!” She started crying.

“Hey, hey.”

I got up and walked into the front yard, away from the pool and Asha’s hearing.

“What’s happened?”

“Paul found my messages to you. He accused me of being in love with you, of wanting to end our marriage. He said I was a terrible mother.”

There was anguish in her voice.

“Stella, you’re not a terrible mother.”

She sobbed harder. “He said if I leave him, he will send me back to Russia. That I’ll lose my son.”

What a prick. I wished I’d punched him now.

“Listen Stella, he can’t do that. Even if you divorced, he can’t stop you seeing your son.”

“Are you sure?”

No, actually, I wasn’t. I left that one alone.

“Do you want to leave him?”

She was silent for a moment. “I love my son. And Paul is a good husband.”

“So don’t divorce him. Problem solved.”

“He is talking of divorcing me!”

I shook my head. “He’s just scaring you. You’re the best thing to ever happen to him. You’re way out of his league. But I can understand him being upset that you’ve been cheating on him. You get that, don’t you?”

She sniffed. “Yes.”

“Why’d you do it?”

More sniffing. She blew her nose. “I am not attracted to him. He is a good husband, but he is so…”

“Bland?” I offered.

“Bland?”

“It means boring,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Boring. In bed.”

Aha. So, she probably hadn’t found his hentai collection.

“If he’s boring in bed, it’s probably because he thinks that’s what you want. Trust me, anything you do with me, he’d love to do with a double scoop of icecream on top. Not, literally,” I added quickly. “Or, maybe, I don’t know.”

She thought about this and blew her nose again.

“What I’m saying is, your husband would love to bang you however you want to be banged. You just need to talk to him. If you want to make this marriage work, give him a chance to make you happy. And if it doesn’t work out, then maybe talk to a lawyer about what would happen with Marcus if you got divorced.”

She sniffed. “Would you help me if I wanted to leave him?”

Ah, HELL no.

“Try and make it work,” I said. “And so you know, I don’t sleep with married women.”

Unless Paul made more of a dick of himself, in which case, he’d get what was coming to him.

“All right.” She sounded weary.

“I know marriage is hard, but you owe it to yourself to at least try and make it work.”

She sighed. “I will speak to him.”

“And if he threatens you, call the police. Okay?”

“All right. Thank you, Nathan.”

“You’re welcome. Take care, Stella.”

I hung up and found Ash watching me quizzically. “I know marriage is hard,” she mimicked. “What qualifies you to give marriage advice?”

I headed back to the pool. She was standing at the shallow end, shivering. Her wet hair clung to her shoulders. Her lips were blue.

“Ah, you seem to have hypothermia,” I said.

She stepped out of the pool and wrapped a towel around her shoulders. “The water’s still quite cold.”

As she stood there, dripping, smelling faintly of chlorine, I realised that I wanted her. Really wanted her. Wanted her the way Paul wanted Stella. It wasn’t love, exactly. I wanted to… possess her. I wanted her to belong to me.

I had an urge to put my arms around her and warm her, to tell her to go inside and take a shower, then come back and sit on my lap while we watched movies.

Wanted to take her to bed and fuck her for hours, her eyes on mine. I wanted her to think about me and no one else.

Not just because I wanted to fuck her, but because I wanted her to cheer the fuck up and get over whatever was bothering her.

I shivered, and realised the sun was going down and it really was getting cold.

Ash just stood there, freezing her ass off, as if daring me to say something.

I shook my head and went inside, leaving her to decide if she wanted to freeze to death or not.

 Chapter 11 

Monday night. Ty had said his new friend ‘Vince’ would be turning up tomorrow night.

As maddening as I found my pull towards Asha, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to turn up before I’d done something about it.

Since we’d moved, I hadn’t been to the gym and I knew if I didn’t get back into a routine, I’d lose condition. I sat in the lounge, trying to decide if I needed an early night, if I was going to get up at six, when Ash came downstairs dressed in a robe.

As far as I could tell, she wasn’t wearing anything under it.

She’d had a shower, and her hair smelled of shampoo. And she’d put on that damn perfume again.

She sat beside me on the couch, oddly solemn.

I flicked through the content on screen while I tried to decide what to do, and after a while, she took the remote from me and sat it on the opposite side of her.

“Would you like to talk, Ash?”

She gave me a pensive look. “There really isn’t anything left to drink, is there?”

I shook my head. “You could go buy something.”

“Would you drive me?”

I shook my head.

She gave me an injured look. “You know I don’t have my licence.”

Actually, I hadn’t known that.

“Didn’t Stefan or Dylan teach you to drive?”

“Yes. I mean, I have a licence, I did learn how to drive. I just… don’t have it… right now.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “You lost it?”

“Yeah. Just speeding, but... I can’t drive.”

“Then I guess you might have to have a sober Monday night like the rest of the working community.”

She stared sullenly past me into the darkening front garden. “I wanted to talk to you.”

I sighed. “You can talk to me sober.”

She transferred her gaze to my face. “What did I tell you last night?”

“That Dylan hates me.”

Her brow furrowed. “Did I say anything else?”

I shook my head.

“I just… last night I dreamed something was after you.” She said it half to herself. She looked up at me. “Something’s going on in this house, isn’t it? You can’t deny that.”

I looked around. “It’s an old house. I’ll admit, it’s given me some surprises, but I think it’s just old. Drafty window frames and door sills, old timber, creaks when it’s hot, creaks when it’s cold. Probably full of possums and rats and bad wiring… from the possums and rats.”

“So you don’t really think anything is here?”

I gave a short laugh. “No. Not really.”

She gave me a penetrating look, as if she really wanted to say something but couldn’t quite bring herself to.

She gave a small, frustrated sigh and rested her head back on the couch, so that her hair tickled my arm. She turned to me, shifting so that our knees were nearly touching. The scent of her perfume came to me as she moved.

“You know how Dylan feels about you…”

I snorted. “Everyone knows how Dylan feels about me.”

“Yeah, well, before I moved in here, he gave me a speech. About you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“He said you were ‘predatory’ and that you viewed women as meat.”

I scratched my ear. “Okay. Seems like he saw right into my soul.”

She laughed. “I told him you weren’t that bad. That you were just compensating for not having a dad of your own.”

I gave her an amused look. “Compensating?”

She smiled. “I don’t mean it like that.” She rested her cheek against my arm. “I always thought you had the potential to be a good guy. If you could just remember women existed when they weren’t in front of you.”

Oh, she had no idea.

“And I don’t just mean when you’re masturbating.”

Okay, so she had some idea.

“I mean, I think you have a screwed up relationship with women because you don’t have good relationships with anyone. Your guy friends are all fuckboys like you, and you only spend time with women to sleep with them.”

“At least I have friends,” I said, then instantly regretted it when her face fell.

“I don’t think you do,” she said seriously. “I think you’re as alone as I am.”

“What gave you the idea I’m lonely?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t say you were lonely. I said you were alone. I think you being lonely would be an evolution for you.”

I took my arm back and stretched. “Well, as fun as this conversation is, I’m going to head to bed.”

She watched me go with a touch of sadness in her eyes.

It was too early to actually sleep, so I lay on my bed, my arms folded behind my head, thinking about Stella’s predicament. On the one hand, I hoped she could make it up with her husband, because I honestly wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be deported if they got divorced.

On the other hand, I was never going to get to fuck her again. And that was a true tragedy.

My hand strayed to my cock, and before I knew it, I was remembering my last night with Stella, those red, red lips.

I heard Ash come upstairs an hour later and go into her room. My light was already off and I was on the verge of sleep when I heard a knock on the door.

I said nothing, figuring if I pretended to be asleep, she’d go back to her room.

The soft knock came again. Still, I said nothing.

My phone lit up as a text came through. I picked it up and checked it. It was from Ash.

‘Is that you in the hall?’

Okay, that had to be a joke. I lay still, listening.

The knock came again. Only, not from where you’d expect an adult to knock on a door. It was much lower down. Almost as if someone was rapping their knuckles on the bottom of the door.

‘Nate??’

Something moved in front of the strip of light that ran under the door.

I texted her back. ‘I’m trying to get an early night. Not in the mood for jokes.’

Her text came back in real time. ‘It’s not me!’

It had to be her. Quietly I got out of bed. Sneaking was nigh-on impossible—every part of the floor in this house creaked—but I did my best. The strip of light blacked out and reappeared as the bulb in the hall flickered on and off.

I grabbed the door handle and wrenched it open.

There was no one in the hall.

My phone beeped.

“Yes, I’m in the hall!” I said out loud. “And I want some sleep, okay?”

I heard her bed creak, then movement across the floor in her room, and finally she opened her bedroom door. “It wasn’t me.”

She looked genuinely afraid. But I wasn’t fooled. I’d seen this girl lie bold-faced to Cara about what she’d been doing on dozens of occasions.

“Seriously, Ash, I really need to sleep. I want to get back to the gym tomorrow.”

She put her hands up in an angry shrug. “I’m not doing anything!”

I folded my arms. “I’m going to ignore any more noises, okay? Don’t text me. I need sleep.”

“It wasn’t me!”

That perfume wafted around her and an urge came to me to grab her, to spin her around and slap her ass.

Realising my annoyance, mixed with her perfume, was starting to turn me on, I turned my back on her and went back to my room.

I took my baseball bat out of the wardrobe and rolled it under the bed where I could reach it, and turned off the light.

 Chapter 12 

I woke, groggy and dehydrated at 1 a.m. and went downstairs to get a glass of water. Near the bottom of the stairs, a thump from the kitchen made me jump. I stood still, listening. There was a creak, like someone putting weight on a loose floorboard. A big rat?

This house needed its floor re-nailed.

I put one foot onto the bottom step and the sound came again, this time from the end of the hall. I could see the end of the hall where it opened up to the kitchen. There was nothing there. Well, no one there, at least.

I started towards the kitchen and froze as heavy footsteps started in the open doorway. They thudded straight past me and disappeared into the games room. The door to the games room slammed shut.

I stood frozen for a long, long time. There was no way this house was haunted, because ghosts didn’t exist. But what the hell else did you call that?

An animal under the house?

Maybe.

Sound transference through the ceiling—sounds like it’s downstairs but it’s not?

Maybe.

Someone outside? You should probably look.

I pulled open the door. Trees swayed in the moonlight, but there was no sign of anyone. I shut and locked it again.

Just the wind.

Grasping at straws, now.

We’re living on a hellmouth?

The light over the stairwell flickered and I realised if it went out, I’d be left standing in the dark. I got a glass of water from the kitchen and jogged up the stairs, leaving the hall lights on as I walked down to my room.

As I passed Asha’s door, I paused and listened. There was no sound. I put my ear to the door and heard a soft hush of breath. Sounded like she was out for the count.

From below, the kitchen door slammed.

Fuck’s sake.

At least we hadn’t pulled a ouija board out. Although, knowing Ash, she probably had one in her room somewhere.

I went down to my room and turned on the light, shutting the door behind me. I turned on the lamp next to my bed and stood by the main light switch, debating where or not to turn it off. I must have stood there for ten minutes before I decided to do anything else was to admit I thought something weird was in this house.

I flicked the light off and sat on my bed in the lamp’s glow. The house lay in silence.

I pulled my shirt off over my head and then tugged off my jeans. I left on my underwear in case I needed to get up again in a hurry, and got under the covers.

Half an hour later, I was tired enough that the lamp was annoying me, and I hadn’t heard anything more. I switched off the light and fell asleep.

BANG!

I jolted upright as the door to my room flung open. It bounced off the wall and juddered in place. I fumbled under the bed for the baseball bat and slid out of bed. I stood in the dark, bat at the ready.

“What the hell?” Ash flicked on the hall light and appeared in the open doorway rubbing sleep from her eyes. “What’s going on?”

I flicked on the lamp beside the bed and she noticed the baseball bat. She was instantly on guard. She looked around and backed into the bedroom, keeping an eye on the hall. She looked ready for a fight. Except for her printed pajama bottoms, which were decorated with fluffy bunnies.

“What happened?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Come over here,” I said.

She did, her forehead creased with concern. “Is someone in the house?”

I looked at her closely. If she was acting, I couldn’t tell.

“Maybe.”

She stood beside me, just a guy in his underwear holding a baseball bat, and a girl in bunny pyjamas.

There was a sound in the hall.

I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to find anything, but having Asha there made every male protective synapse I had fire.

“Stay here.”

I pulled on my dressing gown, then walked into the hall with the bat up and ready.

The house was silent. The only sounds were the floorboards protesting as I stopped at the top of the landing. I shifted my weight and there was a creak from below. I stayed very still. Nothing.

I moved slightly, adjusting my stance in case someone came up the stairs at me, and the sound came again. I tried rocking my weight. Somehow, the piece of floor I was standing on caused the steps below to creak. There was a clear cause and effect.

I went downstairs anyway and checked the locks. Everything was in order.

I went back to the bedroom and pushed the baseball bat back under the bed.

“Just the wind,” I said, and she gave me a caustic look.

“That’s not funny.”

I shrugged and she rolled her eyes.

She crossed her arms, which pulled her top down, showing the tops of her breasts. She was wearing a spaghetti-strap top made of shiny material that moulded to her skin and left nothing to the imagination.

“Seriously Nate, what the fuck is up with this house?”

“It’s just old.”

My eyes were still fixed to her tits.

She cocked her head, listening.

There was a creak from the hallway and both of us froze. Keeping an eye on the open door, she crouched and pulled the baseball bat back out from under the bed. It put her in line with my crotch. As she started to straighten up, she turned back to me and stared straight at my bulge through the gap in my robe

She reddened and straightened up, the baseball bat resting on one shoulder.

“Is someone there?” she called out.

There was, predictably, no response.

I leaned back on the bed. “We’re going to have to get used to this house making noises, or we’re never going to get any sleep.”

She glanced back at me. “You honestly think these are normal noises?”

“I don’t know what’s causing them, but there’ll be an explanation.”

There was another creak in the hallway and she took a step back. It was pure fluke that she bumped against my foot, placed just behind hers, and lost her balance, falling into my lap. Pure fluke.

I put my arms out to steady her and my thumb grazed the underside of her left breast. She took a moment to get her feet under her again, but when she did, she was standing between my legs, her ass in my face. It was all I could do to not pull down her pajamas and push her cheeks apart.

From somewhere else in the house, a door slammed.

She glanced back at me. “There’s no such thing as ‘the wind’ inside a house.”

“There’s no such things as ghosts.”

“There are such things as criminals.” She stayed where she was, her shoulders tensed.

“I checked the doors. No one’s here. There can be wind inside old houses. One door opens and another one slams shut. Have you felt the draft around these windows?”

I felt the air pressure change and there was that sensation of something switching on, a faint rumble under my feet.

There was a sound in the roof, too heavy to be a rat. More like something the size of a dog dragging itself across the roof.

“Fuck, Nate,” she said in a low voice. She pressed herself back into me and I stood and put my arms around her. She was so freaked out, she didn’t even notice.

We both tracked the noise as it moved across the ceiling from left to right, and it graduated to sound like someone shuffling across wood on hands and knees. Only there wasn’t enough space in the ceiling for a person to be up there.

The bedroom door slammed shut and she yelped.

“Fuck me! What is doing that?”

This time, my arms were already around her, and I took the opportunity to cup her breasts. In the confusion, they just leapt into my hands. At least that was my story if she asked, but again, she didn’t seem to notice.

She raised the baseball bat, ready to beat the crap out of… what? I don’t know.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she said.

She was probably right. As rational as I wanted to be, the noises and the slamming doors defied easy explanation.

But I didn’t want to leave—not tonight. Not now that I had my arms around her and her perfume in my nostrils and her hair tickling my chest.

If I could convince her to stay in the house, I was sure she’d stay in my bed. If she stayed in my bed, there was no way she could resist me. Women just didn’t.

I took the baseball bat out of her hands and she gave me an evil look. “You got any other weapons?”

“We don’t need any other weapons. I’ll go take one last look, okay? Then we both need to get some sleep.”

I walked to the bedroom door and pushed it open. The light in the hallway flickered and the bulb let out a metallic tink and died.

“Do we need rock salt?” she said.

“I don’t know Ash, do we?”

My next words were cut off by a shadow appearing at the end of the hallway by the empty bedroom. I raised the bat and got in front of Ash.

“Swing away, Merrill,” she muttered.

I took a step towards the shape and there was a sound like someone slamming their hands against the wall, right opposite me.

I fell back against the opposite wall, flailing the bat.

Ash crouched to avoid being brained. “Jesus, watch it!”

I was beyond spooked now. The shape at the end of the hallway was still there, watching us. Or, maybe it was just a shadow, shaped like a person.

“Nate, we need to get out of this house,” said Ash. Her voice was steady, and I could tell she’d kicked into survival mode. This was bad. If we ran, we’d end up sleeping back at our parents’ houses, and that would not be conducive to the kind of sex I wanted—needed to have with her, before she was taken away—

By what?

My brain didn’t answer. It had other things to worry about.

“Hey!” I shouted at the shape, hoping to incite whatever was there to act.

I swore it jumped forward an inch, but it was hard to tell in the dark. I readied the bat, although I wasn’t sure blunt-force trauma was going to work on a ghost.

Ash gasped as the shape moved again, this time jumping forward a foot. There were no features, just an outline.

With a jerk, it rushed towards us.

I got ready to smash it with the bat, only before it reached us, it diverted down the stairs into the darkness.

The front door opened and slammed shut again. Which was impossible, since I knew it was locked.

Something in the air changed as if a buzzing circuit had been turned off. The dead hall light flickered back to life.

Ash got out of her crouch and peered over the stair railing. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think it’s gone.”

We walked back to my room and sat beside each other on the bed.

“Do you mind if I sleep in here?” she asked hesitantly.

Maybe there really was something in this house. Something that wanted me to sleep with Ash. Thank you house!

“Are you sure? I snore.”

She slapped my chest with the back of her hand and my cock twitched.

“You have to promise to behave though.”

I crossed my cold, black heart and hoped to die. “Of course.”

We left the light on in the hall and the bedroom door open a crack. I propped the baseball bat beside the bed and switched off the lamp.

Ash settled into my bed, facing the wall, while I watched the door. Although I expected it’d be hard to sleep after what’d happened, something told me there wouldn’t be any more disturbances, at least for the rest of the night.

I lay awake listening to Ash breathe until her breathing deepened and evened out. Then I rolled over and spooned her.

She snuggled back into me in her sleep and I lay there, enjoying her warmth and savouring what I was going to do next. I had it all planned out in my head. After weeks of masturbating to visions of her mouth, her wet snatch and her (probably) virgin ass, I had a very specific plan for how this night was going to go. But first, she had to give herself to me completely.

Relaxed in my arms as she was, I waited until I was sure she was deeply asleep and moved my hand to cup her right breast. She gave a soft sigh and I squeezed, feeling her soft flesh through her skin-tight top. Her breasts were ripe, firm, the tops of her mounds like velvet.

She moved slightly and I knew, even in sleep, I was turning her on. She started to squirm as I massaged her breasts, and I knew she was close to waking, but her body was still completely relaxed under my touch.

I slid the spaghetti strap off her right shoulder and slipped my hand into her top. Her skin was smooth, her breast plump and heavy in my hand. I squeezed and teased, then tugged on her right nipple before gently rolling her a little back towards me so I could reach her left breast where it was trapped under the angle of her body.

She gave another sigh and then her eyes fluttered open.

“Nate! What the—”

I covered her mouth with mine. After a moment, her lips parted to let my tongue into her mouth. I covered her left breast with my hand and squeezed hard, catching her nipple between two fingers.

She moaned into my mouth and I turned my attentions to her right breast, using my thumb to massage her flesh while I mauled her tongue with mine.

She put her hands against my chest and pushed me away.

“Don’t, Nate.”

I sat up, knowing the light would catch my silhouette and knowing it was a good silhouette.

“You seemed pretty into it.”

“I was asleep.”

“And then you woke up.”

She shook her head. “Maybe I should go back to my bed.”

I didn’t fight as she sat up and pulled her spaghetti strap back onto her shoulder. It was nearly 2.30 a.m. and cold as the grave. The light from the hall was a dingy yellow, and the bulb looked as if it was going to die for real any moment.

She shivered and looked around the room, the covers drawn up to her chest to stay warm.

I snaked my arm around her waist and lay back, saying nothing. Just watching her. I rubbed my thumb against her flank.

She glanced down at me.

I smiled back; not the grin I used to turn women on, but a relaxed smile. Reassuring her she was in control.

After a while, she lay back beside me. My arm was under her, still around her waist.

“Can you just hold me?” she said. “I don’t want… anything else.”

Yeah, she did. But I was patient.

“Of course,” I said, then changed my tone to sound brusque. “We should sleep. It’s going to be light soon otherwise.”

She snuggled back into me and I wrapped myself around her. Her shoulders were cold, so I dropped my head so that my breath ran across her cold skin. It didn’t take long before she relaxed in my arms again and started to fall asleep.

I moved as if I was trying to get comfortable and draped my right arm over her so that my fingers just lightly touched her right breast as she breathed out. As she started to slip under, I noticed she was breathing out a whole lot further than she had been before.

I let her breathe into my hand, then moved my fingertips as if trying to avoid an accidental touch.

Soon, she wasn’t asleep, but pretending, and I knew she was as turned on as I was.

She turned slightly back towards me, ‘forcing’ my hand to rest across her right breast. This time, I left it there, unmoving, and pretended to be asleep myself.

I could sense her frustration. She’d expected me to maul her, but instead I’d just fallen asleep. The nerve!

She snuggled in a little closer and her legs parted slightly. I could smell the wetness there and boy did I want to bury my face between her legs. But she had to work for it now.

Finally, she dropped the pretence of being asleep. Her fingers brushed over the back of my right hand as it cradled her breast. I knew she wanted me, but that wasn’t enough. I needed more if I was going to give her everything I could give.

She splayed her fingers across mine and squeezed, squeezing her own breast with my hand. I pretended to be fast asleep and oblivious to what she was doing, and she ran her fingers up my arm, to my neck, and then put her hand on the back of my head. She rolled over towards me and guided my mouth to hers.

I kissed her as though she’d woken me out of sleep, then put my hand on her waist and drew her to me. I rolled on top of her and massaged her breasts again, supporting myself on one arm while I felt her up.

She pressed her thighs together, turning herself on with that touch of skin, and I knew she wanted me inside her. But that was phase two. We had phase one to go first, and that was where she earned phase two.

I pushed her top up, exposing her gorgeous breasts to the dim light. Her eyes glittered as she watched me take in the sight.

“You sure you want this?” I asked, my mouth poised over one nipple.

“Yes!” she said, clearly frustrated. I lowered my mouth to her breast and she wound a hand into my hair.

I drew each of her breasts into my mouth, circling the nipples with my tongue, then biting down gently.

Her left hand strayed down my body, but I was intentionally lying too far down for her to reach me.

Oh my god, girl, I’m not that easy. She wasn’t going to get away with giving me a quick hand job, before I fucked her brains out.

I reached down and pulled off my underwear and tossed them beside the bed.

Then, when she started to make small noises of frustration, I moved further up her body. She reached under me for my cock, but before she could grab it, I straddled her so that I was sitting on her chest, my dick bobbing in front of those luscious lips.

I said nothing, just looked down at her with hunger in my eyes.

Although I could see this wasn’t in her plans, she got the message that this was how she got what she wanted.

She put her hand around my cock and guided it into her mouth.

I closed my eyes in ecstasy. A mouth had never felt so good. The best part was that she wanted that cock inside her, and I wouldn’t give it to her. She had to suck me to fuck me, and that was the most amazing feeling of control. I’d played a hundred girls in bed, and none had been quite this satisfying.

Positioned as she was, it was hard to get my cock down her throat where I wanted it, so I moved up further and rocked forward. Her eyes widened and she tried to stop me filling her throat by grasping my cock in her hand as she sucked, but I wasn’t having that.

I leaned forward and pinned her hands up by her head. Now, I was free to dive in as far as I wanted.

She made a muffled noise of complaint, but I ignored her. By the end of this night, she’d be begging for round two. A little bit of discomfort now was a small price to pay.

She tried closing her teeth around my cock and I warned her by squeezing her wrists—hard.

“Use your tongue.”

She brushed her tongue along the underside of my cock as I rocked my hips forward, swirling it around the head, tonguing me. God it felt so good.

“Fuck this feels amazing.”

She gave me a look of fear and I started to fuck her face harder, forcing her to open up her throat and relax so that I could go deeper.

I could feel a climax building and I knew she wasn’t going to like that. But fuck it, she needed to learn proper ‘fucking Nate’ etiquette some time. Always start as you mean to go on.

Sensing I was getting close, she tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. I increased the pressure on her wrists, just in case she decided to really fight back, and humped her face, my balls bumping against her chin.

Oh fuck, oh fuck…

I came, spurting my load into her throat, then pulled out so that I was in her mouth. I wanted her to taste me. To swallow my load voluntarily.

With her breathing high in her chest and panicked, she wasn’t getting enough air.

I kept my cock in her mouth until she was forced to swallow, then pulled out enough that she could breathe properly.

I let go of her wrists and squeezed the last of my cum onto her tongue, before sliding out of her mouth.

She swallowed the last away and then swore. “You bastard!”

She thumped me with her fists, but as much as she liked to think she was tough, she’d never be tough enough to hurt me while I was sitting on her chest. All I had to do was apply a little weight and she wouldn’t be able to breathe. I’d found that very effective on girls who were learning my fuck routine for the first time.

When she’d calmed down, I got off her chest and knelt between her spread legs. I could see from her anger that she thought I was done. That I’d used her mouth and now she was going to be left frustrated.

I loved this part so much. Probably more than I should.

I got up and went hunting for something on the floor.

“What are you doing?”

Boy did she sound mad.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just looking for my dressing gown. I need to take a piss.”

She stared at me, incredulous, while I howled with laughter inside. Finally I found my robe and pulled it on.

“Back soon.”

I took a piss because I needed one, and also because I needed a breather before phase two. I waited just long enough that I knew she’d have given up on me and started playing with herself, then came back into the room.

Sure enough, she stopped, frustrated, and turned to the wall.

I dumped my robe by the bed and while she lay facing away from me, I pulled out the cord and tied it to the left bed post. There was already a tether on the right hand side, where it was less obvious, but I found it paid not to leave things tied where people could see them. I might not use them… then again, I might. It depended how crazy things got.

I turned away from her, enjoying a few more moments of her deepest frustration, then turned back to her. I pulled up the covers and put my arm around her. The second I touched her, I felt her body relax. She snuggled back into me, rubbing her covered ass against my naked cock.

I ran my hands over her upper body, tracing the curve of her waist, then ran my hands up over her breasts, teasing her nipples. Then, when she rolled towards me, I pulled her top up over her head.

Her eyebrows drew together. “I don’t like anyone holding me down.”

“Yeah, you do.”

She dropped her eyes.

I held her wrists with one hand and ran my free hand over her breasts, teasing her nipples until they were rock hard.

I kept teasing her until her eyes narrowed to slits, her lips parted. I leaned over her and kissed her.

“Nate?”

“Sssh.”

I started to play with her breasts again, until her body was squirming under my touch, then moved between her legs and knelt there.

She kept her hands loosely above her head and looked down at me… nervous… but not afraid.

I slid my body further down the bed and buried my face between her legs.

I slicked two fingers with her juices, then ran them down either side of her swollen lips. She moaned and her hips bucked as she tried to get something—anything inside her. I needed to go slow to stretch this part out. She’d swallowed my load against her will—the least I could do was return the favour.

Her juices were dripping down her thighs, running down between her butt cheeks, as I slowly fingered her, pushing two fingers inside her up to the second knuckle, curling them against the slick inside wall.

She moaned, and I circled that spot, making sure not to press too hard. The edge of my palm sat against her swollen lips, and I could feel tremors run through her as I grazed that edge against her sensitive flesh

I ran my tongue up her slit, lapping and sucking her into my mouth. She tasted sweet, a little tangy. Her thighs were lightly scented from whatever body wash she used, and as she wound her hands into my hair, her perfume invaded my brain, driving me to dig my tongue into her furiously.

“Don’t stop,” she said hoarsely, her fingers sliding through my hair.

I finger her, tongued her, teased her until her back was arching and her muscles were grabbing at my fingers, trying to pull me deeper.

I slid three fingers into her, running my tongue across her hooded nub, and she let out a scream, her fingers catching in my hair.

“Fffnnnnnnggg.” She made a noise in her throat and her muscles started to contract around my fingers.

She was so wet, so dripping wet, I slid four fingers into her and rammed them home, her humping me, her muscles gripping me as she came, shuddering, strangled scream after strangled scream.

I kept thrusting until I felt her pleasure turn to sensitivity, and withdrew my hand from her hot insides.

She shivered under me and raised herself up on her elbows.

She looked down at me, my face coated with her juices, and her eyes were filled with dark satisfaction.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I said.

There was something in her eyes, something wild, something I hadn’t seen there since she was a fifteen year old kid, begging me to let her drink, to find her smokes, to hide her illegal fucking of her equally underage boyfriend from her fathers.

I’d always obliged her then; she just had a way of getting me to do what she wanted. And at this moment, I almost felt she’d done it again. That this hadn’t been entirely my idea.

She let herself fall back, half-exhausted, and I kept up small motions around the outer edge of her opening.

I was guessing she’d be a little sore tomorrow, but for tonight, we weren’t finished.

Phase two.

I had a passion for asses. To me, ass play and ass sex were dessert, earned only by satisfying my partner orally, and vaginally. Vaginal sex was fantastic, was something I loved, something I adored. But ass sex, however much it was the crowning glory of my sex life, wasn’t something I could always get. But I had a feeling if I got this right, her ass would be mine tonight.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, my voice low.

I ran a hand over her stomach, sliding up to run my fingers along the undersides of her breasts as I continued to toy with her sensitive lips.

“Amazing,” she said. “Don’t stop.”

I grinned.

I moved up the bed and closed a hand over her left breast.

“You are so fucking gorgeous, Asha Grace. Being here with you, covered in you, the smell of you, the taste of you, fuck. Fuck.”

She smiled at this and put her hands on my arms, running them over my biceps, then back up to cup my face.

“Admit it. You’ve wanted to do that for years.”

“Yeah, I like ‘em older,” I said.

She shook her head, her eyes serious. “No. You were fucking when you were sixteen. I know you were.”

I shrugged. “I was sixteen. They weren’t.”

I’d found I appealed to older girls very early on. At seventeen, I’d been fucking a twenty-nine year old mother of three. Divorced, of course. I had some morals.

“I want you inside me,” she whispered.

I sat back on my heels and slowly jacked my cock, keeping up my ministrations to her dripping sex.

When I was solid and ready to go, I lined up and pushed inside her. Just the tip. Just enough to fill her entrance with the circumcised head of my cock and coat myself in her wetness.

She moaned and I lowered my head to her breasts. I licked around her nipples, then moved up to her neck and licked up her collarbone. She smelled so fantastic, that perfume just drove me wild.

“Please,” she said, breathless. Her bright blue eyes stared into mine, demanding I give her what she wanted.

I bit down on her breast again and she let out a small scream of frustration. Her fingernails dug into me, as she tried to pull me closer, to draw me inside.

But it didn’t do her any good. I loved the pain. Wanted more.

“Nate, please!”

I covered her mouth with mine and she bit at my lip, just nipping, but hard enough that it made my dick swell and my resolve crumble.

I pushed into her, sliding into her wetness, her tight muscles rippling along my length, so, fucking, hot. It was like a furnace was burning inside her.

Our mouths locked together, I drove my cock deep inside her.

She cried out, and I could feel from how tight she was—that I was filling her, going as deep as she could take me.

I leaned on one elbow and covered one of her tits with my hand, crushing her nipple between my fingers.

She screamed and bucked against me, but I knew it wasn’t pain. I felt her shudder, felt her body roll under me as I did it again.

She pulled her face away from mine, panting, and I moved down to suck her free nipple while I slid in and out of her.

“Need you… deeper…” she panted. She put her hands on my chest and pushed me up onto my arms.

She squirmed under me and I got what she was trying to do. I got off her and she turned around, raising herself to all fours with her ass pushed invitingly into the air.

I drank in her scent and pushed two fingers inside her while I kept one hand on my cock.

“Fuck me!” she said, a cry of frustration.

Well, we’d make it to phase three. I’d make sure of it.

I lined up and shoved my cock into her.

She gasped and fell forward, her face pushed into the pillow as I started to piston in and out of her, pushing deeper and deeper, my nuts slapping against her soaking snatch.

“Fuck!” she shouted, loud enough to wake any sleeping spirits in the house.

Before she could cum, I pulled out, leaving her confused and desperate.

I leaned over her and reached for the soft restraints that were tied to my headboard, the ends hidden under the mattress.

“What are you doing?”

I pushed her arm into the mattress, holding her down with my weight, and tied the fabric around her slim wrist.

“Nate? I don’t like this.”

“Sssh.”

I leaned over to the other side of the bed and secured her other wrist.

“Nate, please, I don’t like this.”

“You’ll never know if you never try. Trust me.”

I gave her a wicked grin, and then moved back on the bed and lifted her hips so she was back on all fours.

“What are you doing?”

I leaned forward and started to tongue her ass.

She went very still. I pushed my tongue into her hole and she shuddered, then started pushing back against my face.

“Ah, you like that?”

Phase three, we have a go.

I pushed a finger into her wetness and slid it up around her tight hole. She gasped again as I pushed the tip against her pucker, and her clutching muscles pulled my finger inside.

I groaned in contentment as I pushed my finger in and out of her, easing her open. I needed lube. Luckily, I had lube.

I reached over to the windowsill and pulled a small bottle of lube from behind the blinds.

I squirted some into my hand and then pushed my finger back into her.

She pushed back against my finger and I add another, stretching her out until my fingers slid easily into her.

Oh, God yes.

I placed my cock against that shiny opening and pushed.

“Hooooo,” she breathed, as her muscles pulled me inside her. “I’ve never done this. Please don’t. I’m scared.”

“Just relax. Trust me. You’ll love this.”

She whimpered as I put my hands on her hips, my cock pulsing with the thrill of being her first.

Slowly, I began to push into her until the tip of me pushed through her tight ring of muscle.

I reached under her and squeezed her nipples, feeling her muscles tense around me.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “But please don’t—”

I pushed in another inch.

“Fuck!”

She let out a shuddering breath, her head hanging down between her arms, a rivulet of sweat running down the middle of her back.

I put a hand on each of her ass cheeks and pushed them apart. There she was, impaled on my dick, my darker flesh against hers.

I started to push into her, adding lube whenever I felt any resistance.

Soon, she was pushed back against me, driving my cock further into her hot, tight ass.

She lifted her head and shook her hair back and looked at me over her shoulder. I’m sure the look in my eyes was the look a wolf gives the thing it’s about to eat.

I reached forward and grabbed a fistful of her hair, and started to fuck her in earnest.

“Ow!” She pulled against my hand, letting out a small cry with each thrust.

I leaned forward so that I could reach under her, and played with her nipples, squeezing as hard as I dared.

Her back arched like a cat’s, her ass pushing back into me as I thrust my hips forward.

“Oh, fuck Nate, I’m close.”

Just hearing those words made everything tighten. I put my hands under her hips and guided her onto me, fucking her deeper and deeper until she swallowed every inch of me and my balls were slapping against her dripping pussy.

“Fuck, fuck!” It was a growl, the sound of someone having dirty, ragged sex for the first time.

I felt my cum well up and a second later I shot my load into her, slamming her back onto my cock, my balls hitting her wet snatch with an audible slap.

“Hnnnngggg.” Her muscles started pulsing, milking the cum from my cock as she ground her ass back into my groin, her orgasm twisting her body with pleasure.

I held her against me while her shudders slowed and the pulse in her ass slowed to an intermittent twitch.

“I’m pulling out now. Just relax.”

She nodded.

I slid out of her and watched with fascination as my cum trickled from her stretched hole.

“Can you please untie me now?”

I leaned over and loosened the ties and she rolled onto her back. I crawled up the bed and lay beside her, both of us slick with sweat.

Her hair hung in damp tangles against her shoulders.

She put a hand up to my face, tracing my cheekbone with her finger.

“No wonder you break hearts, Nate.”

She sounded sad. But I found women often felt emotional after a good, hard fucking.

I lay a palm flat against her chest and closed my eyes, surrounded by her scent, and the knowledge I’d made her mine. 

 Chapter 13 

I woke the next morning and found Ash had gone back to her own room. I got up and showered and met her downstairs.

She looked fresh, dressed as she had been for her interview.

“Did you iron your clothes?” I asked.

She gave me a cool look. “I’d hate to get fired for being sloppy.”

I wasn’t sure if she’d meant that to sound the way it had, and figured she was in one of those mysterious moods women got into when they realised they were attracted to you when they didn’t want to be.

I unlocked the car, and she got in and sat in silence, as if I hadn’t fucked her in the ass the night before.

The day was strained, with her paying attention to clients and paperwork to the point of ignoring me when I spoke to her.

On the way home, she slipped off her heels and massaged her feet.

“Hey, can you drop me off at Stefan and Dylan’s? They invited me round for dinner. Dylan’s going to give me a lift home.”

I glanced across at her. “Sure. Is everything okay?”

She nodded. “Yep.”

She slipped her heels back on and rested her chin in her palm, using the windowsill as a ledge for her elbow, and gazed out the window.

I dropped her off and didn’t head in to see Cara and Ty. With an empty house, I had a night to myself, without any drunken dramas or, hopefully, weird ghost shit.

It was dark, and I was five-deep in a killing spree, when there was a knock at the door. I swore and put down the controller. “Back in five, guys, someone at the door.”

Someone yelled out ‘fag’ as I pulled off my headset.

I opened the door to a guy about my height. He had a dark jacket over the top of a maroon shirt, and a scatter of stubble along his square jaw. He smelt of some woody cologne that smelled like something Ty would wear.

This had to be Vince.

“Hey. Vince, yeah?” I held out my hand and he gave me a firm handshake.

“Vincent Devin. But yeah, Vince is fine.” His accent was somewhere in London via a private education, I was guessing.

“Well, come in.”

I got out of the way and he walked past me into the entryway. Looking at his clothes, I didn’t think he was going to be keen on staying here.

He glanced back at me as I shut the door. “You been here long?”

“Just under a week.”

He pushed back his jacket and put his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he walked into the lounge.

I walked past him into the kitchen. “You want a beer?”

“Thanks.”

I got two from the fridge and levered off the tops and handed one to him.

He took it with a nod, and took a sip while he looked around the lounge.

“Ty said you were coming down this way to work.”

He spun in a full circle, running his gaze over every inch of the room before he answered.

“Yeah. I have a client who needs my services.” He glanced back at me. “It might be a month or a year. I’m not sure yet.”

“That’s okay,” I said, before I realised what I was doing. I knew nothing about the guy, and I was agreeing to let him stay as long as he liked.

“What’s the rent?” he asked.

“Two-fifty including expenses.”

His mouth twisted in an amused smile. “Let’s see the fabulous room I get for that.”

Feeling slightly uncomfortable with his tone, I led him up the stairs. He followed me at his own pace, sipping his beer, one hand still in the pocket of his jeans.

I led him down the hall to the master bedroom furthest from mine, and pushed the door open.

“It’s got an en-suite. You can fit a king-size bed in here if you wanted. Lots of room for furniture. There’s a double wardrobe too.”

He put his head around the en-suite door and nodded approvingly. “Looks good. Good enough, anyway.”

He came back to the centre of the room and gave me a considering look. “What do you do?”

“I work as a manager at a car yard,” I said. “Ash, the other flatmate, works there too.”

“For you?” He sipped his beer.

“For. With. Blurred lines.”

That seemed to amuse him. He looked around the room again and nodded. “I’ll take it. If that’s okay with you?”

That threw me.

“We have some other people looking—”

He chuckled. “Look, if you want more cash, just say so. If you don’t like me, just say so. It’s okay. I’m a big boy. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

I foundered while I figured out the right way to respond to that.

“You know how it is. You say that to people when they come to look so you don’t have to tell them they look like serial killers. But I do need to talk to Ash. She should probably meet you before we make a decision.”

He put his lips together, a glint of amusement in his clear green eyes. “It’s your name on the lease, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but she lives here—”

He pushed his empty beer bottle at me and I took it from him.

“You don’t look like the kind of guy who lets women make decisions for him. Show some balls. Tell me I can move in, or tell me to go.”

I opened my mouth and he laughed.

“Sorry, sorry. My job… it makes me an asshole some days. Give me a call. I need to know by tomorrow night so I can tell the moving company to take my gear here or to a storage unit.”

He walked out into the hall, heading for the stairs.

I followed him back down to the foyer.

He turned and shook my hand. “Let me know.”

The fact was, the house was out of the way and it was in a sorry state. I could get someone in easily enough, but I knew what kind of tenant that’d be. And Ty had endorsed the guy.

He put a hand on the door knob.

“Hey, look, I think you’d be a good fit. You can move in if you want.”

He looked back at me. “You sure?”

I nodded. “There’s a deposit and a bond—”

“Give me a number and I’ll transfer it to you right now.”

“I’ll work it out.”

We headed into the lounge and I put his empty bottle into the recycling bin. Mine was hardly touched. I sat it on the kitchen bench and wiped the condensation on my fingers against my jeans while I found a pen.

I worked out a total and scrawled a number onto the back of an envelope, along with my bank account number.

He took it and held up his phone. “Transferring now. You’ll see it in your account tomorrow.”

He keyed in some numbers, then showed me the transaction had gone through. The account he’d transferred it from had close to twenty thousand dollars in it.

I knew Ash was going to be furious I’d agreed to let someone move in without even speaking to her about it, but he was right. It was my name on the lease. And he seemed like someone who was going to pay his bills.

“Right, I’ll go get myself sorted. I’ll move in tomorrow, if that’s okay?”

I nodded. “See you then.”

He got back into an understated black Mercedes, and I realised I hadn’t asked him anything about himself. I didn’t know what he did for a job, didn’t know how old he was, if he had kids, if he liked snorting coke, or watched Shortland St.

I sat on the couch, feeling as if I’d been somehow bullied into letting him move in.

I went to bed before Ash got home, not in the mood to explain.

 Chapter 14 

Ash was just as cool towards me the next day, and I decided the burgeoning fuckfest I’d hoped we’d turn into, wasn’t going to happen.

I suspected she’d spoken with Dylan, although if she had, I probably would have had an angry phone call by now. Or just had my legs broken in a dark alley.

She was sitting quietly on the couch with her legs tucked under her, watching me play online, when Vince showed up.

I let him in and invited him into the lounge.

Ash looked up in surprise. I’d forgotten to tell her anything at all about him, including that someone was moving in.

“Hi, I’m Vince.”

He held out a hand and she got off the couch and shook it.

“Asha. Or just Ash is fine.”

“Asha. Lovely name.” He gave her a grin that was all handsome, all charm.

She responded with a shy smile and I felt a stab of annoyance. If he thought he was going to use his posh accent to seduce my girlfriend—

Your what, now?

Well. She could be if she wanted to be.

“Vince is moving in,” I said. “Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about it.”

“Yeah, work was just so busy.” Her voice was flat.

Vince looked from her to me. “I’m sorry… you look taken off guard. I don’t have to do this right now—”

“No,” she said. “No, it’s fine. I just didn’t know.

Both of them looked at me.

I ignored the general air of accusation. “Do you need a hand with anything?”

“Thanks mate, that’d be great.”

The truck had followed him up the drive. I helped him and the driver unload a bed, some furniture and boxes, and helped them get it all up the stairs to his room.

Half an hour later, I left him putting his bed together and went back down to the lounge.

Asha was tucked into an armchair sipping tea, staring into space.

I dropped onto the couch. “So, we have a flatmate.”

“I see that.”

“You ever going to look at me again?”

She turned her gaze to me and I saw real anger in her eyes.

“I’m still waiting for an apology.”

I did a double take. “What for?”

She looked away. “You know what for.”

I shook my head slowly. “I really don’t.”

She bit her upper lip, then shook her head in annoyance. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“Last night? I seem to recall you enjoying yourself.”

“I wasn’t ready.”

“Ash, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just figured it was time to cut through the bullshit.”

She looked down at her tea. “I wasn’t ready to go there with you.”

I sighed. “Well, I’m sorry I took a shortcut. You’re just… you know how hot you are, right?”

She flashed me a questioning look as if she was trying to figure out if I was bullshitting her.

“I was going to explode if I didn’t… go there.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that.” Her tone was sharp. “And now that you’ve ‘gone there’?”

“Now Dylan can get fucked, because I want to—”

“Move onto the next girl?”

“Date you,” I finished. “I want you to be my girlfriend.”

She looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “If you knew what a girlfriend was, that might be sweet. If you hadn’t started feeling me up while I was shaken up and asleep, I might have been touched by you asking me out. But you didn’t ask me out. You mauled me, made me swallow your cum, edged me until I let you fuck me in the ass, and then presumed I belonged to you.”

My mouth fell open. Usually women weren’t so hostile after I spent a night balls-deep in them.

“I know who you are,” she went on. “And I don’t want you to ever do that again.”

I started to realise how angry she was. Angrier than I’d ever seen her.

I leaned forward and clasped my hands between my open legs. “Do you still want to live here?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Vince looks nice.”

I sat back on the couch and gave her a cool look.

Would she? Would she fuck him just to get back at me?

The stairs creaked as Vince came down. He strode into the lounge carrying a coffee machine.

“Okay if I set this up in the kitchen?”

“Ooh real coffee!” Ash got out of her chair and followed him into the kitchen. She stood, watching him with admiration as he set it up and made her a latte.

The smell of ground coffee filled the lounge as I tried to decide if I should go upstairs, or stay down here and keep an eye on them.

“You want one?” Vince asked me.

I shook my head.

He and Ash leaned side by side against the kitchen bench and clinked their cups together.

“To the best flatmate ever,” said Ash.

“To people who appreciate the good things in life,” said Vince. He gave her his charm-loaded smile and she looked up at him under her eyelashes.

I headed up to my room to find another girl to fuck.

 Chapter 15 

The next night, Ash asked to be dropped back at her foster parents’ house again. She’d been unusually quiet at work, but seemed happier. While I was glad she didn’t seem to be angry with me anymore, I was concerned that her new good will towards man might be related to the guy with the posh accent who’d just moved in.

When I got home, Vince was cooking on the stove top.

“Evening. Do you want some dinner?”

I paused. It’d be rude to refuse.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I dropped my laptop by the couch and went into the kitchen to see what he was making.

“Nearly done.”

He started assembling food that looked as though it’d been prepped in a five star restaurant onto two plates.

“This looks amazing.”

“I was a chef back in London before I moved out here.” He gestured to the lounge. Shall we?”

We sat at the little-used dining table.

“So what do you do for a living?” I asked.

He took a mouthful of food and chewed while he thought about his answer, then took a sip of his beer.

“I can’t really say,” he said eventually. “I can tell you it’s contract work and it pays well. The time span’s unpredictable. The job lasts as long as it takes me to complete the contract.”

“You sound like a hired killer,” I joked.

He gave me a penetrating look. “Why would you say that?”

“Variable contracts. Pays well.”

“I could be a project manager.”

He held eye contact with me as he chewed. His grey-green eyes were glossy and clear as glass. If he’d been a girl, I’d have stared into those eyes forever. As it was, I dropped my gaze.

“Yeah. And you probably are. I just—”

He broke into a grin. “I’m just fucking with you.” He swallowed, then gave me an amiable smile

Ha, ha, you’re so funny. Motherfucker.

He took another sip of his beer. “But seriously, I can’t tell you what I do. At least, not until my contract’s up. Client confidentiality and such. But I promise the rent will always go in on time.”

I wondered what he did that was so wrapped up in confidentiality. Some kind of computer security, probably. I had friends who worked in the field and they tended not to talk about who they were working for until the job was over.

“What’s with the room upstairs?” He pointed to the ceiling with his fork. “Is that for rent?”

It took me a moment to figure out which room he meant.

“The P room?” I said.

“P room?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“The one that smells as if they used to smoke P in there. You know, the drug.”

“I do know the drug,” he said. There was a mocking edge to his voice. “We have drugs in England too.”

I concentrated on my food, feeling like a prize idiot.

“Hey, Nate.”

I looked up, meeting those clear, green-grey eyes.

“Don’t let me get to you, yeah?” He took a mouthful and chewed.

“You’re not… I’m just tired.”

He nodded and put his cutlery down. He threaded his fingers together and leaned on his elbows.

“Dubious history aside, would you mind if I used it as a study?”

I shrugged. “Go for it. Although I don’t know how you can stand the smell.”

“I’m pretty sure all it needs is an airing.”

He finished the last of his dinner then got up and held out his hand for my plate.

“Thanks.”

“No problem at all, Mr Leaseholder. We want to keep you happy.”

He headed into the kitchen and put the plates into the dishwasher, then came back, drying his hands on a tea towel. “Right. I’ll go set myself up.”

I watched over my shoulder as he jogged up the stairs. Everything about him was starting to make me feel uneasy. Maybe it was because he was so much older; maybe it was the tailored suits and the gourmet food that made me feel… inadequate. I still didn’t understand why he’d want to live in a house like this.

I put on an 80s horror movie and tried to relax, but Ash’s annoyance kept creeping into my mind. It didn’t seem fair. I’d made her happy. I’d turned her on, most likely more than she’d ever been turned on before in her life. It made no sense that she was pissed at me. I’d given her what I knew she’d wanted since we were at high school together.

Vince came back into the lounge an hour later.

“Nate. You’ll want to see this. That room? There’s something very odd about it.”

“What did you find?”

“I’m not sure. There’s a strange mark on the carpet.”

“Like, a burn mark?”

He shook his head. “Hard to describe. Come take a look.”

I paused the movie and followed him back upstairs.

He pushed open the door to the single bedroom and I walked past him into the room.

He’d set up a desk along one wall, complete with his laptop. For some bizarre reason, he’d replaced the energy saver lamp in the main fitting with a red incandescent bulb.

“Are you a photographer?” I asked.

He nodded. “Sometimes.”

Along the side wall was a buffet with what looked like a tattoo kit organised on top of it. In addition to a standard swivel chair, he had a leather chair with arms, that reinforced the impression he’d turned the room into a miniature tattoo studio.

“Is this what you do?” I asked. I picked up a bottle of ink from a stack of bottles.

“Please, don’t touch those.”

I put it back down. “What did you want to show me?”

He came in after me and shut the door behind him, then pointed at the carpet in the corner of the room behind the door.

“See that?”

I turned and walked over to where he was pointing. As I crouched to look at the carpet, I felt a sting in the side of my neck. I put a hand up to the source of the pain. “Fuck.”

I blinked hard as my vision blurred.

“You all right, mate?” Vince’s voice behind me sounded distant.

“Can’t… see anything.”

Vince put his arms under my armpits as my legs buckled under me and pulled me to my feet.

He guided me to the leather chair, watching me with those cool green eyes as I tried to form words.

“Feel… weird…”

His mouth twisted into a smile. “Relax, mate, it’s hot in here. You just need to cool down.”

The room faded in and out as he started to undo the buttons on my shirt, my fingers spasming against the arms of the chair.

“You’ll be fine.”

My body felt as if it was getting heavier, my head lolling back against the chair’s headrest.

“There.” He pulled my shirt open and placed a hand on my chest. “You’ll feel better soon.”

“Nathan, are you still in there?” His voice sounded distant.

I blinked and found him leaning over me. The chair’s leather stuck to the skin on my back and I realised I was naked to the waist. There was an ache in the muscle on the left side of my chest, as if I’d sprained it.

I was relieved to find I could move again, and put a hand to my throbbing head. Sweat trickled through my hair. It was hot in the small, enclosed room; too hot. My vision blurred again.

“Drink some water.” Vince held a glass to my lips. He was wearing black rubber gloves.

I put up my hand to take the glass but he swatted my hand away. Confused, I let him tip the glass so that I could take a sip, then laid my head back against the headrest.

He set the glass back on the stand beside him and reached to one side and picked up a tattoo gun.

“What are you—?”

There was a buzz like an angry insect as he placed the gun against my chest.

“What are you doing?” I struggled to get the words out through numb lips.

Vince kept his eyes on his work. “Art.”

I looked down and saw he’d drawn a tattoo of an all-seeing eye on the left side of my chest. The outlining and most of the shading had already been done. How long had I been out?

The gun he was using had a cluster of fine needles attached to it for shading work. He worked the needles down the side of a line that angled from the centre of my left pec towards my armpit, and mopped beads of blood away.

I stared down at it, my eyes refusing to focus.

“And done. Here, take a look.”

He put the gun down and held up a mirror. I squinted in confusion at the design I now got to wear for the rest of my life.

As pissed off and confused as I was, I could see he knew what he was doing. A pyramid ringed in flames held a stylised eye. The only colour in the tattoo was the sage-green iris of the eye.

Underneath the triangle that held the eye was an ornate ribbon with a word inscribed into it.

He ran his finger over it, intensifying the ache in the muscle.

“Can’t read it.” My head pulsed with pain as I tried to make sense of the lettering.

“It says ‘Inteus’.”

I met his gaze with confusion.

“It’s your new middle name.” He smiled.

“Have a middle name,” I said, my words slurring. “Andrew.”

I realised through the fog that he had to have drugged me. Why, only God knew. I just hoped he wasn’t going to kill me.

He looked down lovingly at his handiwork, then back up at my face.

“Nathan Inteus Lloyd. Welcome to your new life.”

I blinked at him as his face swam in and out of focus. “Why are you doing this?”

He leaned in until I could see the gleam of amusement in his eyes as they searched mine. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

He helped me out of the chair and slung my arm around his neck. He opened the door and walked me down the hall to my bedroom and dumped me on the bed, then pulled off my shoes and tossed them on the floor. He sat on the bed beside me.

“When you wake up tomorrow, you won’t remember much of this. But when I call you, Inteus, you’ll come. Oh, you’ll come.”

He placed a hand against my bare chest, just below the tattoo, and a shiver ran through me.

I blinked hard, my head swimming, and knew I wasn’t going to be awake much longer.

Sure enough, a second later the world went black.

 Chapter 16 

I woke up with a headache and a dry mouth. The left side of my chest hurt as if I’d been punched. I rubbed a hand across my chest and my fingers brushed against a rough square of gauze.

What the fuck? Is that a bandage?

I glanced down, but couldn’t see it properly at that angle. I got up and walked unsteadily across to the full length mirror on the wardrobe door. Definitely a bandage.

I peeled back a corner of the tape holding the gauze in place and pulled the fabric away.

I breathed out in shock as I saw the tattoo scribed into my skin. I caught a snatch of red memory, full of vague shapes, but not much more.

What the hell?

The last time I’d decided to get a tattoo, I’d been very drunk. And I hadn’t actually gotten it—I was so drunk, they refused to work on me until I sobered up.

So, if I was drunk last night, why didn’t I remember anything about it? And drunk on a week night? I just didn’t do that anymore.

My phone beeped, warning me I needed to get ready for work.

I pulled on my robe and went down to the bathroom to shower. I met Vince in the hallway.

Seeing his face brought back a flash of memory. Not an image, just a sense of general unease.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. He was already dressed for work, some faint cologne clinging to him that smelled of incense and musk.

“The weirdest thing happened to me last night,” I said. I searched his face for his reaction. “I got a tattoo.”

He frowned. “Where?”

I pulled the top of my robe open and showed him the bandage. “Do you know anything about this?”

He shook his head. “No. After dinner you went out… didn’t see you come home.”

“I went out?” I fought to find my way back to a memory of the night before that had any clarity.

He caught hold of the edge of the gauze. “Do you mind?”

I shook my head, and he peeled the gauze back, revealing the carefully detailed eye in its triangular prison.

“Inteus,” he said. “What does that mean?”

His fingers brushed my skin, sending a shiver of sensation through me that I struggled to interpret. I reached up and pulled the gauze back over the tattoo. He took his hand back.

“I don’t know what it means. I guess, drunk me knew.”

“You might want to wash instead of showering,” he said. “New tattoos don’t like water.”

He carried on down the stairs and I went into the bathroom and looked up ‘Care for new tattoos’ on my phone. He was right, a shower was a bad idea. I sat on the side of the bath and looked down at my new artwork. Well, it was a nice tattoo. And it’d be easy enough to cover.

It’s huge.

And it looked expensive.

I looked up ‘Inteus’.

The first result told me it was a Native American baby name, meaning ‘Has no shame’.

I couldn’t begin to comprehend what I was thinking when I’d asked some random tattoo artist to do this to me.

My alarm beeped again and I slapped the side of my face, trying to wake myself up.

Ash knocked on the door. “Nate, we’re going to be late!”

“Five minutes!”

I washed up and got dressed, gingerly buttoning my shirt over the gauze bandage.

Ash met me downstairs. As she had been the day before, she was dressed immaculately and smelled of some light scent. It wasn’t the perfume she’d found in the house before we’d moved in.

“Ready to go?” she asked brightly.

I nodded.

As we drove to work, I glanced across and noticed her toying with something in her pocket.

“What you got there?”

She pulled a small flip-out knife from her pocket.

I looked back at the road.

“I thought you didn’t carry knives anymore.”

“I thought you didn’t drink anymore.”

I flashed her another glance. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you, last night. Off your face, slurring your words. When I got home, you were lying on my bed, completely out of it, with a bandage on your chest that I can only assume means you went out and got a tattoo.”

“On your bed?”

“Yes. And for some reason, you thought I’d be super turned on by you falling all over yourself and saying filthy things.”

Jesus, what the hell had I gotten into last night?

A sliver of memory came to me. Red light. A sticky leather chair under me. Vince.

“Nate?”

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” I said distractedly.

Did Vince do this to me?

“Really?” she said. “You don’t look sorry.”

I shot her a glance. “You made it very clear how you feel about me. I’m not the kind of guy who chases a girl who doesn’t want him.”

She made a noise of exasperation. “You think that’s the problem—I don’t want you?”

I lifted my thumbs off the steering wheel. “Well, yeah, that’s the impression I got.”

“So, you didn’t pay any attention to the context of our conversation the other night at all? All you heard was ‘I don’t want you’?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what you want me to say. You were pissed off that we had sex. Sex that you enjoyed at the time. To me, that’s a pretty clear indication you don’t want me near you.”

She let out a growl of annoyance. “Jesus Nate, how are you so thick? It’s like all your stem cells put their efforts into your hair instead of growing your brain.”

I pulled up in the staff parking area outside Dashwood and looked at her.

“What does that mean?”

“I bet Stella had a tan line from her wedding ring and you never noticed it.”

“How is this about Stella?”

She pushed open her car door and slammed it shut behind her.

I followed her into the showroom and she threw herself down at her desk.

“Ash, talk to me. What did I do this time?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “I can’t be bothered trying to explain it to you. If you don’t get it, talking to you isn’t going to help.”

I gave her a shrug. “Of course not. Why would talking ever help?”

I went into my office and slammed the door.

What was I missing? Okay, so I shouldn’t have snuck up on her the other night. Clearly that was a mistake. But I knew she’d be into it if she just relaxed, and she had been. I’d read her right every step of the way. Hell, she’d begged me to put my cock inside her. So what had I done wrong, other than just sped things up?

By the end of the day, I was no closer to coming to a conclusion.

When we got home, Vince had already set the dining table for three. Ash and I hadn’t used the table since we’d moved in, preferring to eat in the lounge in front of the TV. It was starting to feel like Vince was changing the culture of our living arrangements, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

He heard us come in and beamed at us. “Sit down, sit down.”

I dropped my laptop bag by the couch and sat at the table. Ash slid into the seat opposite. We looked across the table at each other.

Vince came to the table with food as immaculately presented as it’d been the night before. Rack of lamb, seated on a bed of roast vegetables, drizzled with a red wine jus.

He set our plates in front of us, then went back and fetched a bottle of wine and glasses.

I put a hand out. “No thanks.”

He ignored me, and lifted my glass to pour it full of red wine. He set it back in front of me. “You’ll like this. Don’t drink the bottle and you’ll be fine.”

I gave him a look of annoyance and he tilted his head at me and raised an eyebrow, daring me to say something.

My chest started to ache, and I put a hand to the gauze bandage.

He poured glasses of wine for himself and Ash, then handed the bottle to me, turning the bottle to the description on the back. “Zinfandel. The perfect pairing.”

I checked out the label and put it back on the table. It looked expensive.

That look of admiration was back in Ash’s eyes.

“You don’t have to cook for us,” I said. “We probably won’t return the favour.”

I sounded like more of an asshole than I meant to, and took a mouthful of wine, wincing at the bitter aftertaste.

Vince ignored my comment and raised his glass. “To new beginnings.”

We clinked glasses.

I looked into the bowl of the glass and Vince winked at me. “No poison, promise.”

It turned out wine wasn’t my drink. As soon as I finished eating, I excused myself and stumbled over to the couch, feeling nauseated. There was a bitter taste in my mouth and a throbbing pain in my head.

I could hear Vince and Ash speaking quietly, the gurgle of wine being poured into her glass, her soft laughter.

I woke up on the couch in darkness. The only light was from the muted TV.

Vince sat on the couch opposite me, a glass of wine in his hand.

“How are you feeling?”

I sat up and put a hand to my head as a headache bloomed. “Where’s Ash?”

“In bed. It’s late. You really can’t handle your booze, can you mate?”

I met his gaze. His face was angles and shadows in the light from the TV.

“I feel terrible.”

He swirled the wine in his glass. “Did you figure out what it meant?”

I gave him a confused look.

“Inteus” he said.

As he said the word, spasms ran through every muscle in my body. My arms, my chest, my thighs, my calves. My cock.

“It’s an interesting word,” he said, examining the liquid in his glass. “A name. I looked it up. Did you know it means—”

“Without shame,” I said. “Yeah, I looked it up, too.”

“Why would you get that tattooed on your chest?”

I pushed myself back into the couch as the room started to tilt sideways, and stayed there until the spinning stopped.

“Nathan?”

I squinted at him, trying to bring his face back into focus. “I guess I thought it was appropriate.”

His voice grew quieter. “And why would you think it was appropriate?”

“Probably because so many people have called me that over the years.”

He looked down into his wine. “Inteus.”

His voice caressed the syllables, his accent making it sound like a euphemism for something dirty.

My body reacted the same way it had before, my muscles twitching. My cock twitching.

“Without shame, eh.” He drained his wine and leaned forward, the empty glass cupped between his hands. “Have you been fucking Asha Grace?”

I stared at him. “I don’t see how that’s your business.”

A slow grin made its way across his face. “Well, it’s just that I wouldn’t want to tread on your toes.”

Should have fucking known.

“She’s free to do what she wants,” I said.

“Is she now?” There was a challenge in his eyes.

“Yes, she is. I need to go to bed.” I tried to stand, but my legs buckled under me. I fell back onto the couch.

Vince lowered his voice to a growl. “You’ll go to bed when I say you can, you spoiled little shit.”

Jesus.

I stared at him, wide-eyed. I’d let a fucking psycho into my house. I had no doubt those vague memories were right. He’d drugged me last night, and he’d done it again tonight.

Vince got to his feet and walked over to me, forcing me to look up to meet his gaze. He put a hand on top of my head, and every thought I had fused together into a big mass of nothing. At the same time, every muscle in my body came alive from my scalp to my toes, every nerve awake and connected.

His fingers rested against my skull. “Oh, Nate, Nate, Nate, your journey’s just beginning. But before we go there, I want to taste Asha Grace. You’re going to help me do that.”

I wanted to shake my head, but while he was touching me, I couldn’t move.

I tried a few times to form words before I could speak. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to give her to me.”

What the hell?

“She’s not mine to give you.”

I tried to stand again and found none of my muscles would obey me.

Vince smiled, then lifted his hand. It was as if air rushed back into the room. My head cleared and the fog lifted enough that I could stand.

He stepped back to give me room.

I took a threatening step towards him, my chest swelling with anger.

“I don’t want you near Ash.”

“I thought she was free to do what she liked?” His eyes searched mine.

“You said… you wanted me to give her to you.” I was getting confused again.

“And you will.”

I raised my fist. “I fucking won’t. You can’t go around drugging people—”

He moved into me, so his face was inches from mine. “What are you going to do about it?”

I pulled my fist back and nearly lost my footing. “Leave her alone.”

Vince snorted through his nose. “There may be hope for you yet. But right now, you’re going to take me to Asha.”

“Fuck you! You’re not going near her!”

His blow caught my chin and knocked my head back. I hadn’t been expecting it. I hadn’t seen him move.

He grabbed a fistful of my hair before I fell back onto the couch, and brought my face in close to his, his eyes full of sparkling madness.

I should have hit him. But as long as his hand was in my hair, I was paralysed.

“Come on Nate. Lead the way.”

He let go of me and I realised I was unconsciously stroking myself through the fabric of my jeans, and pulled my hand away in horror.

His eyes strayed to my growing erection. He shook his head. “You can’t even pretend you don’t want this, can you?”

He put one hand on my shoulder and placed his other over the swelling in my jeans. I tried to move away, but my heels hit the couch. There was nowhere to go.

His hand felt hot through my jeans. A shiver of excitement ran through me and I fought it down, disgusted and confused. But I didn’t push him away.

I struggled to make words. “I don’t know how you’re doing this, but whatever drug you gave me, I don’t care. You’re not going near Ash.”

He stopped caressing me and grabbed a fistful of my shirt and pulled me away from the couch, then shoved me up against the wall. He pushed my face hard enough against the surface that I could smell the paint.

“You want Asha. So do I. I think it’s only fair that you share that particular treasure. But don’t worry, you can play too.”

I gritted my teeth as he let me go, and stumbled away from him.

“Come on Nate, doesn’t it excite you? The two of us, fucking your girlfriend together?”

I swallowed. He was right. My cock was throbbing at the thought of him taking her.

He stood there, just a good looking guy who wanted to fuck a good looking girl. While most of me knew this was wrong, that maybe his intent was even criminal, I remembered what Ash unleashed had been like. The animal look in her eyes.

He stepped in close to me again, his voice a low growl. “You know she’s up for it. I just want to make sure you’re on board.”

I thought of that look of admiration she kept giving Vince. She wanted him, I was sure of it. Somewhere, in her darkest heart, she wanted us both.

Vince pushed me into the foyer. He pushed me again and I found myself at the bottom of the stairs.

“Go. Up.”

I hauled myself up using the handrail, my mind churning, my cock hard in my jeans. He didn’t have to shove me again.

I reached the top of the stairs and walked down to Asha’s room. I put my ear to the door. There was no sound from inside.

Vince pushed me out of the way and stood with his hand on the door knob.

“If you tell me to stop, I won’t do this. Do you want me to stop? Or do you want me to go inside this room and fuck your girlfriend into a frenzy, then prepare her ass for your cock?”

I stared at him.

“I thought as much.”

He pushed open the door.

 Chapter 17 

Vince held the door open and gestured for me to go into the room. I walked hesitantly over to the bed. “Ash? Are you awake?”

Ash kept her eyes closed. “I am now,” she said sleepily, with a hint of irritation. “What do you want? Are the ghosts after you again?”

Vince moved silently into the room, somehow managing to avoid hitting a creaky floorboard. He hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets and looked down at Ash with an expression of amusement. “Hello Ash.”

Her eyes flew open on hearing his voice. She sat up, hugging the bedspread to her chest. She’d fallen asleep in a t-shirt… one of Ty’s. I was guessing that under the blankets she’d be in very little else.

She glared at us. “What the hell?”

Vince jerked his head at me, and I walked around to the head of the bed and rested my hands on top of the ornate metalwork. It was as if I could hear his voice in my mind.

Or your own, you horny little fuck.

That didn’t sound like my voice.

Ash glanced warily at me, then transferred her concern back to Vince.

“Can I help you?”

Vince gave her a predatory smile. “We thought you might be lonely.”

She pulled the covers tighter around her. “Nope. Perfectly fine.”

His eyes fixed to her face, he said, “Nate?”

I leaned over the bed head and ran my hands down Ash’s bare arms.

She looked back at me in confusion as I closed my hands over hers and pulled her arms back behind her, forcing her to lie back on the pillow.

“Hey!”

She tried to pull away, but I increased the pressure on her wrists until she gave a yelp of pain and stopped struggling.

I knelt and manoeuvred her so that so that she was lying flat with her arms above her head, her wrists pulled through the ironwork.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Vince sat beside her on the bed and she pressed herself down into the mattress, trying to get away from him. She tried to yank her wrists out of my grip, but there was no way I was going to let her go.

She gave me a desperate glance. “Come on, Nate. You know how I feel about being held down.”

“Yep.” I moved my face close to hers, so that my breath touched her hair. “I do.” I lowered my head and kissed the inside of her wrist, and felt her shiver.

She made a noise of exasperation. “You know you’re an asshole, right?”

I did. But I hadn’t felt this turned on before in my life.

Vince reached down and grabbed a fistful of duvet. He yanked it down. She was wearing sexy lingerie, and I was guessing it was because of the huge pile of washing in a corner of the room. Her panties were made of lace and some kind of pale metallic material. They stretched between her legs enticingly.

“Oh my,” said Vince, biting his lip, mocking her.

“Vince, seriously, you’re not invited!”

She glanced over her shoulder at me. “And you—you’re never invited again!”

I kissed the inside of her other wrist, lowering my head so that my hair brushed against her sensitive skin.

Her eyes fluttered closed and her lips parted. A moment later her eyes flew open again as she caught herself. “Nate, stop it!”

There was anger in her voice and I knew this was exciting her, and it was pissing her off.

Vince put his head on one side as he contemplated Ash.

“At this point, you know why Nathan and I are in your room.”

She gave him a tortured look and nodded.

“So, what I need to know is, do you want us to leave?”

Her lips parted, but no words formed.

Vince grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and started to peel it up her body. Just below her breasts he stopped and placed his hands against her ribs.

“Stop me any time.”

She stayed silent, wearing a tortured expression, as he slid his hands up under the fabric and cupped her breasts.

She shuddered under his touch, flinching away from him. But her nipples standing out against the cloth told me her body and her mind had very different ideas of what she wanted.

He stayed there, her breasts in his hands, and waited. “Do you want us to leave? Or do you want to find out what happens next?”

She was breathing heavily, her eyes fixed to his face. After a moment, she gave a quick shake of her head.

Vince seemed to drink in her poor show of resistance. He caught her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and tugged, teasing them until they stood up proud from her breasts.

While he tormented her, I ran my nose along the inside of her wrist. Her skin smelled of a light fragrance that was all her own.

I scented the perfume that had caught in her hair and my cock pushed painfully against the fabric of my jeans.

Vince glanced down at Ash’s underwear and I could see satisfaction in his eyes.

“You look as if you’re getting a little moist there.”

She squirmed under his gaze, but he didn’t touch her there. Not yet.

His eyes glittering, he ran his hands over her breasts, massaging, squeezing, teasing. Giving her only half of what she wanted.

She threw a glance back at me. “Are you okay with this? This random stranger feeling me up?”

My hungry expression told her everything she needed to know.

Vince pushed her t-shirt up to her neck, exposing her breasts to the air. My cock twitched in my pants as he bent his head and slowly circled her nipples with his tongue.

She closed her eyes and groaned, lost in his touch.

He bit one of her nipples, just hard enough to make her wince, then swapped to the other breast and did the same.

If he wasn’t careful, she’d cum before he even got inside her.

He seemed to come to the same conclusion, and paused mauling her tits to slide his hand down over her exposed stomach. He laid his palm against the crotch of her panties, his fingers nestled into the creases between her thighs and her panties, two fingers putting pressure against her covered opening.

“So wet,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want us to leave?”

Her eyes flickered open. She looked furious. “If you’re going to fuck me, you’d better be fucking good at what you do.”

Vince chuckled, his eyes filled with heat. He tugged the fabric of her panties together, so that his knuckles grazed against her sex. He ran his fingers up and down the fabric, forcing her panties to slide between her butt cheeks. At the same time, he slid one hand up over her stomach and covered her left breast. He tugged on her nipple and her breathing grew erratic.

Sensing she was close, he removed his hand from her sticky underwear and stood, eliciting a moan of protest.

He tugged off his jeans and briefs, releasing himself for the first time. Ash’s eyes grew round. Truth be told, so did mine. The guy had a monster dick.

He got back on the bed and nudged her legs apart. “Okay Asha Grace, let’s see if you’re ready to take me.”

He slid a finger up the side of the crumpled lace and satin panties and slipped it inside her.

She gasped and shuddered in my grip.

He added a second finger, and it was as if I was inside him as he did, stroking along the inside of her slick channel.

He got on all fours and lowered his head to hover just above the saturated cloth that covered her opening.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to stop?” he said.

“Asshole!” she said, in a strangled scream. “You’re getting what you want—don’t be a cunt about it.”

He laughed, and lowered his head. His tongue slid against her exposed lips, then traced a line up over the fabric in the centre.

She bucked her hips upwards, trying to force more contact than he was willing to give her.

“You can’t cum before me. That’s the rule.” He glanced up at me. “Isn’t it, Nate? Isn’t that one of your rules?”

I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted to see him fuck her.

He went back to sliding his tongue around her slippery entrance. Using long, slow strokes, he pushed her lips together with his tongue, then sucked her flesh into his mouth.

Her breathing was growing ragged and urgent.

Vince sat back on his heels and tugged her underwear down. She lifted her ass so that he could remove them completely, and he lifted them to his nose and inhaled deeply.

In that moment, I wished I was him.

Ash moaned, and he dropped the damp panties beside the bed and moved up so that his monster cock was pressed against her and held it there.

She let out a groan of frustration, and I pulled her arms together and trapped both wrists in one hand.

She shuddered as I reached through the ironwork and closed my hand over her right breast, while Vince slid his cockhead across her dripping wet slit.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” he said. He guided his cock in circles, pushing in just an inch, then continuing the slow, lazy motion.

“Yes!” she said, through gritted teeth. “Just do it.”

He put his hands under her thighs and lifted her for better access, and pushed himself part-way into her.

He paused there, just the first third of him inside her.

I squeezed her nipple hard, and Vince slid himself all the way in.

She took a hard breath in, and I knew she was lost. After this, he’d only have to call her name and she’d be his, like all the girls I’d fucked into a frenzy. What was love, but ongoing lust for someone who made you feel as if all the fires in the world were burning inside you?

I felt a small twinge of jealousy at the thought of just how turned on she was with someone other than me, but at the same time, it was just so fucking hot.

Vince moved his hips and started to stroke in and out of her, reading her body and giving her the depth that would keep her on the edge, but not quite let her climax.

Cradling her ass in his hands, he used his thumbs to press into her inner thighs, teasing her sensitive lips.

She started to tense as he increased his pace, and I knew she was close. But rather than finish, he pulled out suddenly.

He gave me a look and again, I could hear his voice in my head. This is how it goes, isn’t it Nate?

Ash stayed where she was, breathing hard, her eyes closed.

Vince nodded to me and I let go of her wrists and reached over the bed head. Before she realised what was happening, we’d flipped her over. I caught her wrists again through the iron and Vince pushed a pillow under her hips.

Her eyes opened wide. “Nate, no, no, don’t you fucking dare!”

“Come on Ash, you loved it!”

“It was okay with you,” she said. “You have a small dick.”

Compared to Vince, yes, but that was uncalled for. She’d suffer for that later.

Vince ran his hands over her ass and cupped her cheeks in his hands. He slapped her and she gasped, his hand leaving a red handprint against her skin. He slapped her again, massaging the heat into her rounded cheek.

“Do you like being spanked, Asha Grace?” he said.

“Fuck you,” she said.

Not the words I’d have chosen.

He slapped her ass again and I could see her biting back something—whether it was a cry of pain or a moan of pleasure, it was impossible to tell.

He pushed a finger into her, transferring wetness from her pussy back to her puckered hole.

He ran the tip of his finger around her rim, then lowered his head and started to lick around that tender flesh.

Her eyes widened and I could tell no matter how turned on she was, she was terrified of what was coming next.

Vince pushed the tip of his finger into her ass and twisted it as he licked her. The sound of his tongue working against her hole was suddenly my world. He added another finger, sliding the tip into her, pushing her open to accommodate the intrusion.

“Relax,” he said, his voice low and hypnotic. “I need to get three in here before you’re ready for my cock.

Just the thought of him stretching her out was almost too much for me.

Ash’s eyes grew heavy-lidded, and my own cock raged inside my pants.

I held her wrists with one hand and undid my fly, releasing my erection. I started to stroke myself, while Vince added a third finger and ran his tongue up and down her slit, circling her asshole, then tonguing her between his fingers as he pushed them in and out of her.

Vince added two fingers of his other hand to her pussy and slid them in and out against the fingers in her ass.

She moaned loudly, and her hands gripped my wrists sporadically, as if she was trying to use that grip to increase his pace.

Finally he straightened up and lined his cock up with her pussy. He pushed all the way in and pumped in and out of her a couple of times, slicking himself with her wetness, then pulled out and slid his cock up an inch to her taut asshole. He pushed the head of it against her and she moaned.

As far as I knew, Ash had only had anal sex once—with me. I just hoped she enjoyed this just as much.

Vince increased the pressure against her hole and she winced in pain.

“Oh, no, no, Nate, please, he’s too big—don’t let him do this! You do it, please?”

Vince gave me an amused glance. Once I’ve been inside her, there’ll be plenty of room for you.

Reminding me she thought I had a small dick.

I kissed the inside of her wrist. “It’s okay, Ash, he’ll stretch you out. Then you and me can have some fun.”

I knew I sounded like a complete asshole, but you don’t tell a guy he has a small cock and expect him to bring you flowers.

Vince chose that moment to push himself into her.

She let out a cry and bit down on the pillow.

I held her hands as Vince pushed himself inch by inch into her, thrusting a little at a time, using the wetness from her dripping snatch to ease his passage.

“Relax,” he said, in that low, slow voice. “Let it happen, Asha.”

A tear slid down her cheek. She looked up at me. “Why are you doing this?”

Because it’s who I am.

Because you rejected me.

Because you woke a fire in me and it won’t go out.

I said nothing.

Vince leaned over her. “Are you alright, love?”

She let out a shuddering breath.

“I’m nearly there.”

He slid two fingers into her pussy as he continued to feed his cock into her ass, and when he hit the right spot, her dilated pupils told me when she did eventually cum, the intensity might kill her.

Finally, he seemed to figure he’d got as much of himself inside her as was going to fit. It was only half his length, but it was enough for her.

He started to push into her, pulling out only a short way before sliding himself back in.

His fingers moved in and out with a slick suction, as Ash climbed towards orgasm. Her wrists were slippery with sweat in my hands, her hair clinging to her forehead.

Her lips started to move as if words were forming that she didn’t have the ability to speak out loud.

All of a sudden, her teeth clamped together. She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed as she came, bucking under Vince.

He put his hand on the small of her back and started to thrust into her urgently. He groaned and dropped his head, his eyes closed as he shoved himself into her one last time and emptied himself into her.

She shuddered under him, her fingers spasming, her skin on fire.

Vince stayed where he was, shuddering under his own orgasm.

Then, when it subsided, he stayed inside her for a while, tracing his fingers over her back, her ass, touching her lips to make her shiver against his deflating cock.

With a look that was almost regret, he slid his cock out of her ass.

He got off the bed and joined me at the head. Ash looked up at him with a dark, savage joy, and I knew I was right. He’d found something in her that would bind her to him for life. I might have woken it, but he’d unchained it and set it free.

Again, there was a twinge of jealousy, but it passed. Because despite her protests that she didn’t want me, I was about to fuck her in the ass.

Vince took her wrists from me, and I pulled off my clothes and climbed onto the bed behind her.

She shivered as Vince reached through the wrought iron and began to tease her breasts.

I jacked my cock a couple of times and was about to push myself into her flooded snatch, when Vince spoke.

“Ash. Do you want Nathan to fuck you in the ass right now?”

Her eyes locked to his. She looked as if she was floating on heroin.

“Okay.”

‘Okay?’ Well, it was better than ‘no’.

More than slightly annoyed, I slid my rigid cock between her slick lips and shoved myself inside her. She felt so slippery, so wet, I nearly came then and there.

I ran my hands down her flanks as I slowly fucked her, coating my cock with the moisture I needed to pleasure her a second time.

I leaned forward and grazed my teeth across the back of her neck, and her perfume swam around me.

In a haze of desire, I pulled out of her snatch and ran my slick cock up to her other, loosened hole.

Her gaze was locked with Vince’s. I tried not to look at him.

I nudged myself against her opening and her muscles contracted, tugging me inside. She moaned softly and I could see Vince tending to her as I pushed into her.

I could feel her consciously relaxing her muscles to let me in, and started to thrust into her. Not too hard—not too far. But with her tight muscles clenched around me, I would only last a minute anyway.

Her moans grew louder, and I glanced up and saw the most intense look in Vince’s eyes as he fondled her.

Without warning, she let out a yell, and I felt her asshole spasm.

I let out a strangled groan and shoved myself into her, embedding every inch of me into her ass so that my balls slapped against her pussy.

Fuck!!!

My cock seemed to explode as I came, shoving myself into her in a frenzy, completely lost to the world around me.

I released a pulsing surge of cum into her ass and then, craving my visual fix, I slipped out of her as the second surge spurted from the end of my cock, surprising myself with the sheer quantity of spunk I had to offer as I sent a rope of cum flying across her back. A thick gob of it ran into her crack, while a stray splatter trailed down one ass cheek.

“Nate, what the fuck?” She looked back over her shoulder at me.

Dazed and satisfied, I sat back on my heels and admired my handiwork while cum drooled from the end of my cock onto the sheets.

Vince let go of Ash’s wrists and she sat up. She twisted around and punched me.

I had the sense to move as I saw the blow coming, but her first glanced off my chest, hitting the fresh tattoo.

“Fuck!” It felt as if someone had set fire to me. I put a hand up to the bandage as I got out of striking range.

“You asshole!”

“Right back at you!” I said, my hand still pressed to the bandage.

“Now, now,” said Vince. “Asha, I know why you’re angry. But Nate doesn’t.”

To my amazement, she stilled. She watched him silently as he grabbed a towel from beside the bed and tossed it to her. “Clean yourself up.”

She caught the towel, a wariness in her eyes.

“I’ll take care of it.”

Still, she just stared at him.

“Trust me.”

Her eyes still locked to his face, she did as he said.

He ran a hand over his stubble as he watched her, then lifted his gaze to me. I found myself suddenly uncomfortable. I became very aware I was naked in front of a guy whose cock was a third bigger than mine—

Twice the size

—quite a lot bigger than mine, and he was giving me a weird look. I picked up my underwear off the floor and he said coolly, “Leave it, Nate. We’re not done.”

I froze. My heart suddenly beating that little bit faster as I wondered what the fuck that meant.

Ash finished with the towel and pulled her t-shirt back on. She sat back on her heels, her eyes flickering between me and Vince.

“Ash. This next part’s for you.”

She frowned.

“Trust me.”

The edge of his mouth twisted in a smile that held a hint of something I didn’t much like.

“Nate, come here.”

I hesitated. He was going to hurt me, I knew it. Although whatever drug he’d given me seemed to have worn off, I still didn’t feel strong enough to fight him.

He seemed to swell in size, and his presence stirred something in me. Was I attracted to this guy? I’d always been straight. Very, very straight. But when he spoke—

“Nathan Inteus Lloyd. Get here. Now.”

Inside I rebelled. But I found myself reluctantly doing as he said.

I reached him and he pointed to the floor.

I shook my head. “No way, man.”

He reached out and peeled away the gauze patch that covered my tattoo.

I put a hand up to stop him and he pushed my hand out of the way and laid his palm against my chest. I weakened under his touch, my legs nearly giving way. My head started to swim with the pain of pressure against all those inflamed nerve endings.

He put a hand on top of my head and pushed.

Despite every instinct I had screaming to resist, I fell to my knees. I looked up at him and he cupped my face in his hands and brushed the hair back from my face.

“Such a pretty face. I’m surprised you ended up on team Girlfriend. When I first saw you, I honestly thought you were far too pretty to be straight.”

A shudder of fear ran through me. I’d never felt so vulnerable in my life.

He looked down at me with a kind of cold curiosity.

“Have you ever had a cock in your mouth?”

I shook my head, aware that his wasn’t that far away from my face.

“Not even at school?”

I shook my head.

“At camp?”

I shook my head.

“Never?” He glanced up at Asha. “What do you think, my dear? Should Nate learn the secrets of the pleasure he took from you?”

I thought about the first time we’d had sex, where I’d sat on her chest and forced my cock down her throat. It didn’t surprise me that she didn’t start begging him to let me go.

“Come over here.”

She got off the bed and walked over to us.

“Pop down behind him and put your arms around him. He’s going to need your support.”

She did as he said, pressing her warmth against my back.

“I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this!”

“Then why are you on your knees?”

He stared down at me.

My chest heaved as I considered what was about to happen. But I didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

Vince pushed my jaws open with his thumb and massaged the inside of my cheek. His thumb tasted of Ash.

“What you think you want doesn’t factor in this, Nate. What you need though… that’s my business here.”

All I knew was that I really, really, really didn’t need his cock in my mouth.

Ash squeezed me, her breasts pressed against my back through the soft fabric of her t-shirt. Then, maybe on some unseen signal from Vince, she reached around and wrapped a hand around my cock.

I realised, despite how terrified I was in that moment, I was already partially aroused. Her hand stimulating me was only making me more confused.

Vince, his thumb still in my mouth, curled his fingers under my chin and lifted my face so that I was forced to meet his eyes, or look at the cock bobbing in front of me.

I chose to meet his eyes.

“Suck,” he said. He pressed his thumb against my tongue.

Ash licked her palm and started to massage my now rock hard dick.

“Suck,” said Vince, with a little more force.

I started to suck his thumb, feeling stupid and violated at the same time.

“Use your tongue,” said Vince. “The way you told Ash to, back when that was a thing you got to do.”

I swallowed hard. I should get up, get the hell out of here. But Vince had some kind of hold over me that I didn’t understand. Was it the drugs? His voice? Or maybe it was his sheer presence. He oozed dominance in a way I’d never seen in a guy before.

In the moonlight, the planes of his face were hard angles, his eyes as inhuman as polished glass.

I swirled my tongue around his thumb, running it along the underside, then back around his first joint, as if it was a tip of a cock.

“Good boy,” he said. He pulled his thumb out of my mouth and patted the top of my head. Then, without another word, he pushed the real thing against my lips. A slimy drop of precum smeared across my mouth.

I shook my head and made a noise in my throat.

“Nate. Look at me.”

I closed my eyes.

“Look at me.”

He gripped my hair painfully and I opened my eyes. My heart was pounding as though he was about to knife me, rather than fuck me.

“Open your goddamn mouth.”

I was so hard in Ash’s hand, and I knew part of it was Vince. His voice, his touch. His cool eyes commanding me to do as he said. His body was pale and hard, the muscles of his arms and his chest picked out in shadow in the moonlight.

He pushed the head of his cock against my lips again, and I reluctantly relaxed my jaw just enough that he could continue to force his way in.

His hard length slid across my tongue, forcing my mouth open and my lips to stretch around him.

Every joke I’d made to Ty growing up suddenly came back to haunt me. I wondered if both of us had now sucked on Vince’s dick. The thought made me queasy.

Vince pulled me forward onto him, and his cock filled my mouth and came to rest at the entrance to my throat. I put my hands on his thighs and tried to pull back, but he lifted one hand off his leg and applied pressure to my fingers.

“Don’t fight me. Do you understand?”

I nodded and he let go. I dropped my hands to rest on my thighs, my pulse thudding hard, terrified that he’d push so far in, I’d choke to death.

But he stayed where he was, not pushing in any further, while he devoured the sight of me looking up at him, my face impaled on his dick.

Below, Asha slid her slick fist up and down my shaft, teasing me swollen and full again.

Vince put his head on one side and said conversationally. “You know I’m not gay, don’t you?”

I frowned, unable to speak around a mouthful of his meat.

“This is not about sex, Nate. This is about power. Something you’ve needed to understand properly for a long, long time.”

He pushed both of his hands into my hair, cradling my head, and started to fuck my mouth.

As if sensing this was where I would need the most support, Ash intensified her efforts. She moved to lie on the floor in front of me and curved her hands around me, screwing both hands around my cock in opposite directions, her thumbs flicking over my oozing cockhead.

As Vince got into his stride, I struggled to keep my mouth open wide to stop my teeth grazing his skin, as he stroked across my tongue and nudged the entrance to my throat.

“Use your tongue!” he said hoarsely.

He pulled back so that only his cock head was in my mouth, and I ran my tongue around the tip the way I loved girls to do to me.

I shuddered as I felt Ash slide her mouth over me. Unexpected as it was, I found myself suddenly giving Vince’s dick a lot more attention than I’d planned to.

He made a small noise of satisfaction as I slid my tongue up the slit at the tip of his head and cleaned away the precum. Then, as Ash started to swallow even more of me into her throat, I ran my tongue along the underside of his shaft, massaging him, slicking him with spit.

Ash did the same to me and I sighed around him as he pushed his full length back into my mouth.

His grip on my hair tightened and I sensed something was about to happen that I really didn’t want to have happen.

At the same time, I grew aware that Ash had brought me close to climax and was holding me there with her skilled mouth.

“You will swallow,” Vince growled down at me.

He pushed himself into my throat. I gagged, barely able to breath, and he pulled out a short way, then back into the back of my throat.

Holding my hair tightly, he started to push himself down my throat in slow, even strokes that brought my forehead against his muscled abdomen with each thrust.

Again and again he thrust into me, until I started to see stars from lack of oxygen.

Tears stung my eyes as I fought not to choke, streams of saliva running from the sides of my mouth, my hands spasming against my thighs.

I wanted to beg him to stop, to take back my dignity. Instead, I sucked on him as he slid his cock across my tongue, swallowing against him.

As Ash applied suction to the tip of my own solid erection, Vince grunted and let out a noise of triumph. He shoved in harder, pushing into me again and again, invading my throat so hard I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to speak when he was done.

Then, when I thought I was about to pass out, his teeth clenched together in a snarl and he shoved himself all the way into me and held himself there, while my eyes watered.

A moment later his dick started pulsing.

He growled low in his throat and pulled back so that only the last third of his dick was in my mouth, while his cum surged through his cock like water running through a hose.

I put my hands against his legs, his hands in my hair holding my head in place as he emptied gout after gout of thick cum into me. It filled my cheeks and ran across my tongue and behind my teeth, leaking down my throat.

I had no option but to swallow it. I gulped down what was in my mouth, and all that thick, sticky cum slid down my throat.

It occurred to me that injecting my cum into a girl’s throat was something I’d never take for granted again. My next reaction was relief that Vince didn’t taste bad, even though the texture of a guy’s wad was vile.

I’d heard so many horror stories from women about what cum tasted like if a guy drank coffee, or ate the wrong food, that I really wasn’t sure what to expect. As it was, the taste wasn’t like anything I’d ever tasted before.

It was salty, but that wasn’t the predominant taste. It was musky, almost meaty, and it coated the inside of my mouth and my throat with a permanent residue so that the taste stayed there long after the goop had slid down into my stomach.

Vince pulled out of my mouth with a wet sound, and I came back to the sensations down below as Ash coaxed me towards release.

Free to concentrate on myself, I gasped, on the edge of climax.

This time, instead of putting my hand against the back of her head, I let her do what she wanted. She didn’t deep-throat me—instead, as I groaned and started to thrust myself into her mouth, she squeezed the head of my cock and sucked hard at the swollen bulb in her hand.

I came hard, jerking in her hands. She continued to slide her tongue over my head, alternately sucking and licking as my cum spurted onto her face, splattering her lips and chin with gobs of yellow-white cream.

When I was spent, she let me go and sat back on her knees.

I sat there breathing hard, unable to believe what’d just happened. Vince didn’t let me enjoy the moment.

He put his hand back under my chin. “You’re not done yet.”

Ash sat up and wiped the cum off her face with her arm, as Vince squeezed my chin.

“Open.”

Still buzzing with the afterglow of a truly amazing orgasm, I did as he said.

My eyes flew open as I realised what he was going to do. Holding my mouth wide, he slid his slowly shrinking erection into my mouth and squeezed the last few drops out of the end of his cock onto my tongue.

The salty cum pooled on my tongue. I’d never felt so much like a whore in my life.

“Clean it.”

He didn’t give me a chance to argue. His grip on my face was bone-crushingly strong.

My eyes still watering, I slid my tongue over his shrinking erection, lapping at the oozing end of it, and tonguing it until there was no more cum left to collect.

“Good boy.”

He slid out of my mouth and let me go, and disgusted with myself, I swallowed it all without waiting for his instruction.

I sat back, exhausted. I felt as if I was going to throw up.

Vince grabbed the towel from the floor and tossed it to Asha. She wiped her face, and was about to mop a pool of my cum off the floor when Vince stopped her.

He pointed at me.

Oh, no, no, no!

“Please, don’t make me,” I pleaded with him. I had no energy to take any more of that foul stuff into my mouth.

His smile was a curl of amusement. “It’s yours. Always clean up after yourself.

He put a hand against the back of my head and pushed me forward.

I got onto my hands and knees and looked down at the puddle. Just the thought of doing this made me want to puke. The cum already in my stomach wasn’t likely to stay there was it was.

He pushed my head down and then crouched in front of me, his hand wound into my hair.

“Suck it up, buttercup.”

I lowered my head and sniffed at the pool of liquid. Definitely my cum. I’d know it anywhere.

I stuck my tongue out and lapped at it, telling myself it was cold custard. Cold, salty, meaty-tasting custard.

As it turned out, I tasted okay too—for all that cold, congealing cum, licked off a floor, would not be something I’d be adding to my list of favourite foods.

I ran my tongue through the thick liquid, sliding the tip of my tongue across the dusty floorboards, collecting the cooling liquid onto my tongue.

At the end of each sweep I paused and swallowed, feeling the urge to throw up growing with every mouthful.

Finally, my stomach heaving, the floorboards were clean.

Vince gave me a nod and patted the side of my face.

“Good boy.”

He turned his back on the two of us and got dressed, while Ash and I watched in silence. Then, without another glance, he did up his shoes and left, shutting the door behind him.  

 Chapter 18 

Vince was gone by the time I got up. I showered, wincing as the water ran across my new tattoo. Once I was clean, I examined it in the mirror. That black, outlined eye stared back at me. Most human eyes, even in art, have some expression, and I could have sworn this eye was angry with me.

If it hadn’t been for the tattoo, I would have passed off the night before as a nightmare. One that left me unsure how to feel. About myself. About Ash. About Vince. About anything.

Ash joined me downstairs at ten to seven. Her hair was back in a loose bun, and she was wearing tight jeans and a t-shirt that showed one shoulder.

She looked fresh and gorgeous, only instead of wanting to fuck her, I had the urge to give her a kiss on the forehead and tell her everything would be okay.

I suppressed the urge. It’d be weird. And God knew there was already too much ‘weird’ going on right now.

“Morning,” she said, as I collected my laptop from beside the couch.

“Morning.”

I avoided eye contact. Neither of us really knew how to deal with what’d happened the night before. I wanted to tell myself that he’d forced us to fuck him, but part of me knew it wasn’t that simple. Whatever he’d tapped into was real and a part of us. He just happened to know how to prise it out into the light.

After Vince had left, we’d climbed into bed together and slept, me wrapped around her. I say ‘slept’, but between us I doubted we’d gotten much, both of us too disturbed to sleep. All I could feel was my own, cold cum sliding down my throat.

We got through work on autopilot and arrived home to find Vince sitting on the couch. He had a glass of wine in his hand and was watching a movie.

“You’re making dinner tonight,” he said to me as I came into the lounge.

I felt an instant stab of anger. I threw my laptop down. “I’m not your bitch!”

He swivelled his head to look at me. My heart beat faster as I waited for him to threaten me.

“I’ll help, Nate,” Ash said in a small voice.

Vince turned back to the TV.

Together Ash and I made dinner and delivered it to the table to a waiting Vince.

He examined our efforts and made a face.

“Cooking lessons start tomorrow. You can’t live like this.”

Ash nibbled her food, eating just enough to escape Vince’s scrutiny, but I still wanted to throw up from the night before.

Eventually, Vince put down his cutlery.

“You seem to be struggling, Nate.”

I shook my head.

“Tell me, boy who’s ‘not my bitch’—why aren’t you eating?”

I dropped my gaze. “Not hungry. I’m going to go to bed.”

He put his hand flat on the table in front of me. “You’re going to stay here and eat.”

“Vince—I was thinking we could hang out tonight,” said Ash.

His gaze slid sideways to her.

“In my room,” she said. She gave him a small smile.

He sat back in his chair and considered her. “All right.” He gave me a cool look. “You’re off the hook. For tonight.”

I shoved my chair back and bolted to my bedroom.

As I shut the bedroom door, I realised my hands were shaking.

I sat down at my desk and turned on my computer. I couldn’t get in my own head tonight. I needed to be anywhere else.

I logged onto Facebook and immediately saw the red ‘message received’ symbol at the top of the page.

There were three messages from Stella.

With a sigh, I opened the window.

‘Did you tell my wife to divorce me?’ was followed by; ‘Don’t fuck with my family, or I swear I will destroy you.’ Time stamped an hour later, there was one, final message. ‘I guess I’ll see you soon.’

I sat back in my chair. This was not helping my state of mind. I looked back at the screen. ‘I’ll see you soon’. The guy had to know if he came after me I could down him with a single punch.

Unless he meant he’d come after me legally. But what could he do? I hadn’t done anything illegal. Not even in my life away from Stella.

He is a programmer, though. 

Which meant what, exactly? That he’d hack me?

No, ‘see you soon’ implied he was going to turn up on my doorstep, either with bigger, stronger friends, or a lawyer.

If it was friends, he’d have to pay them. A guy like him didn’t have friends who could beat up a guy like me.

I closed the message window and scrolled through my feed. The same old shit came up as it had the day before. Fake news, clickbait and photos of people’s meal choices.

I left the computer and lay on the bed. Propped up against a pillow, I scrolled through my contacts.

I stopped on Ty. Ty was responsible for this guy being in my house. Maybe Ty could get rid of him.

I pressed on his number. The phone rang twice and went to voicemail.

“Ty, call me back, you fucker. I need to talk to you about Vince. He’s…”

He’s what? Making me eat his gourmet cooking? Making me feel inadequate? Given me a satanic tattoo that’s turned me into someone who slobbers on his cock any time he tells me to? 

“Just call me.”

I ended the call and lay back, frustrated.

A text came through. I picked up the phone, hoping it was Ty. But it wasn’t Ty, or Stella. Or Paul, pretending to be Stella.

‘Hey cutie, it’s Marla. Do you want to catch up tonight?’

Marla. I searched my mental database. Marla. Ah yes, an online dating contact from months ago. A one-hit wonder, I’d thought at the time, but not an unpleasant one. The ‘Tainted Love’ of her gender. Memorable and eminently replayable.

‘Where abouts?’

‘I need to come to you—all my flatties are home tonight and I want to get loud.’

Here. I had a feeling that would play very badly with Vince. In fact, I wasn’t sure she’d be safe from him. And then there was Ash.

I realised I couldn’t do Marla, no matter how much I craved normal sex right now.

‘Shit, I can’t. Just remembered, I have to get up early tomorrow.’

Her pause conveyed her disappointment

“Okay stud. Another time.’

‘Absolutely.’

I tossed the phone down beside me and my hand strayed to my jeans. But of all the scenarios I could play back, the only one that would come to mind was licking my own cum off the bedroom floor. 

 Chapter 19 

All week, Ash kept Vince occupied. It should have bothered me that they were boning, given how I felt about her, but I found myself in a mental daze, unable to turn myself on, unable even to raise enough emotional energy to get jealous.

Saturday came, and with it, Ty’s birthday. It was a costume party. Although I hadn’t heard from him all week, I assumed it was still on. Ty loved his parties.

I was planning to go as a pirate. I’d acquired some fake leather pants and a white muslin shirt off the internet. I’d also stolen eyeliner from Ash’s room. I ringed my eyes with it and made a face in the mirror. Not quite Johnny Depp, not quite La Tigra, but not bad at all.

I checked myself out in the mirror and knew I’d outdone myself.

The doorbell rang. I was wearing makeup. Ah well, if it was Paul with a lawyer, this would make a great story. If it was Paul’s paid pals, what I looked like didn’t matter. I’d either be able to take them or I wouldn’t.

I jogged down the stairs to answer it. Sure enough, it was Paul on the doorstep. I looked past him for signs of any larger, more dangerous friends he might have brought with him, but he seemed to be alone.

I lounged in the doorway, wondering what he could possibly want now.

In the heat of the afternoon, he was wearing a shirt that only just buttoned over the expanse of his belly, the buttons pulling apart to show distorted diamonds of pale skin. His crumpled shirt tails sat over the top of his pants, the fabric twisting up on itself like the edge of a dead leaf.

For a guy who looked like he’d just finished masturbating over Twilight Sparkle porn, he looked surprisingly confident.

I put my hand on the edge of the open door, ready to smash it into his face if he tried to force his way in.

“Hey Paul. What can I do for you?”

A lazy grin spread across his face. “Your mate, Vince, said you’d be here.”

There was a creak on the stairs behind me and I glanced over my shoulder find Vince walking slowly down the stairs. My heart sank.

Vince reached the bottom of the stairs and walked up to me. He placed his arm around my shoulders and addressed the fat bastard on the stoop.

“Paul? Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” He put his hand out and Paul shook it.

Vince looked sideways at me. “Nate, I believe you know this man’s wife?”

“She never mentioned she was married.”

He patted my shoulder. “And when you found out, I’m sure you apologised profusely and offered to make it right.”

Fuck, Vince. Really? I gave him a dark look.

Paul took in Vince’s physical contact with me and I could see him trying to figure out the dynamics of the relationship.

I’d had enough. “Fuck off, Paul.”

I started to shut the door, but Vince grabbed it with the hand that’d been resting on my left shoulder, holding it open.

“Nate, Nate, Nate.” He placed his free hand against my chest and I felt as though a sledgehammer had thumped into me. I gasped and bent over and he rubbed my back as I broke into a coughing fit.

“What did… what did you do to him?” said Paul.

Vince kept his gaze on me and waited until I got my breath back. When I straightened up, he pressed his hand against the tattoo again, only this time the contact ignited my nerve endings in ways that were inappropriate in front of a guest. I felt myself swelling in my tight leather pants and winced.

“So, an apology,” said Vince. He slapped his hand against my chest.

It was a warning, a reminder he could make me do whatever he wanted. Force me to submit to him, humiliate me in front of Paul for his amusement. Prove I really was his ‘bitch’.

Well, fuck that.

It was one thing to fuck with my libido in private, but I was not about to let him dominate me in front of another guy.

“You don’t know the circumstances, Vince. I don’t have to apologise for shit.”

Paul sneered. “So you think it was okay to tell my wife to leave me?”

I gave him a cold look. “I told her to give you a chance, actually. Something I’m currently regretting.”

Vince considered me. “Have you given this man anything in the way of an apology?”

I narrowed my eyes. “No.”

Vince put his hands on my shoulders and shook me once. “Well. Now would be a good time.”

I met his eyes. “I don’t think so.”

Vince gave me a look that promised all kinds of hell if I kept arguing with him. A presence boiled off him that made my skin crawl. If I didn’t agree to apologise to Paul, I wasn’t sure what he’d do. The thought excited me. But if something was going to happen, I wanted it to happen in private. Not in front of this balding idiot.

“Nate?” Vince prompted.

I looked up at Paul, shaking my head at the absurd amount of control Vince had over me. “Fine. I’m sorry I fucked your wife.”

Seeing me contrite, there was a light of malicious joy in Paul’s eyes.

“—in her pussy, and in her ass. I’m sorry for both of those. And for coming in her mouth so often.”

Paul’s grin turned to a look of burning anger. He looked as if he was about to have a stroke.

Vince’s grip tightened on my shoulders and I gritted my teeth. “You couldn’t help yourself, could you?” he said. He turned to Paul. “That wasn’t the best apology, was it?”

Paul shook his head. “About what I expected.”

“I thought the same,” said Vince. “I think young Nate here thinks he bagged your wife through natural selection.”

Paul’s lip lifted in a sneer. “Before you, I was treating her like a good guy would,” he said. Saliva flecked his lips as he spat the words at me. “I respected her. But after she told me what she wanted in bed, I fucked her like she’d never been fucked before. She said so.”

He watched my eyes intently for my reaction to this revelation.

I imagined he truly had fucked her as she’d never been fucked before. I doubted she’d slept with any other sweaty, socially inept, tentacle-porn watching douchebags.

If Vince hadn’t been there, I would have told him this. As it was, I said nothing.

“Paul, you’ll enjoy this.” Vince released his grip on my left shoulder and ran his hand up to the back of my head. He massaged his fingers into my scalp and then grabbed a fistful of my hair.

“Vince,” I said, warning him to let go. He wouldn’t dare humiliate me here. Not in front of this walking ballsack of a human being.

He brought his face close to mine and said, “On your knees.”

“Vince—”

“Inteus.”

All the strength left my body and he pushed me to my knees.

What the fuck was happening to me? I was strong enough to take Vince on, but I couldn’t so much as raise my fist to him anymore. Instead, despite my humiliation, a thrill of excitement ran through me at the thought of what he was about to do.

Paul looked down at me with a mix of satisfaction and savage glee. “Does he have to do what you say?”

Vince’s forehead creased for a moment and he gave a small shake of his head, telling Paul to shut up and just enjoy the moment.

He reached around me and unbuttoned the top button of my pirate shirt, his knuckles igniting my skin as they brushed against my skin. He undid the next button and slid his hands inside, sliding over my pecs, over that goddamn tattoo.

I gasped as his fingers traced the outline.

Paul just watched in wonder.

Vince undid the third, then the fourth button, and pulled the shirt down off my left shoulder, exposing the all-seeing eye to the air. He traced his fingers over the eye and I flinched under his touch.

Paul, who’d no doubt been playing Dungeons and Dragons while I was losing my virginity, seemed to instantly get the connection.

“Is that how you do it?” he said to Vince.

Vince didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled the rest of my shirt up so that he could reach the buttons, and undid the last couple. He pushed the shirt off my shoulders and it slipped down my arms, gathering at my wrists where my hands rested on my thighs.

He placed his hands on my shoulders and kneaded his fingers into the muscles.

Paul grinned. “How does it feel, kid, to be on your knees in front of me in your shitty fake leather pants, half naked, about to suck another man’s cock like the fuckboy you are?”

Very much like I’d gone to hell.

Paul put a hand to his zipper and glanced over me at Vince. “Do I—?”

Wait, what? I thought Vince was going to let him watch, not use me like a fucksock. Paul did not seem like the kind of guy who would want another guy to give him a blowjob.

Vince apparently gave him an affirmative, as he slid down his beige trousers and tugged down his pants, taking his Walter White tighty whities with them to pool around his ankles.

I gagged at the smell that accompanied his cock reveal.

“I knew I was coming here this morning,” he quipped, as if this was hilarious. “So I fucked Stella in the ass last night and then didn’t shower this morning.”

I tried to look back at Vince, but he gripped my hair tightly, keeping me facing Paul.

“I’ve also had three coffees since six a.m.”

Fucking douchebag.

I dropped my eyes, my face twisted with disgust.

Vince, still holding my head in place, crouched so that his face was next to mine. “Are you sorry you fucked his wife, Nate?”

I tried to nod, but his grip was too tight.

“Yes. Fuck, Vince! I’m sorry!”

He straightened back up. “Do you think he’s learned his lesson?”

There was hunger in Paul’s eyes. I didn’t think he even cared about getting off—he just loved that I was helpless.

“I don’t know. I see fear… but not remorse.”

Fuck, what did remorse look like if it didn’t look like this?

“Then I guess we need to hammer the point home,” Vince said, joining the innuendo party. “Open wide, Nate.”

I pressed my lips together. No way was that used fuckstick going in my mouth.

Vince increased his grip on my hair and I felt strands of it ripping out of my scalp.

“Nathan Inteus Lloyd, open your mouth.”

The second he said ‘Inteus’, a scorching pain ran through the tattoo. It felt as though someone had splashed acid on my chest.

I opened my mouth to breathe into the pain, and Paul took his cue and stepped forward, waving his oozing cock at my face. At least it wasn’t that big. He was way smaller than me. Which explained why Stella had looked elsewhere for carnal pleasure.

Normally this would have given me a measure of satisfaction, but kneeling as I was, it was hard to indulge in schadenfreude.

“Open your mouth.” Still holding a fistful of my hair, Vince used two fingers to massage the back of my head. “You shameless little shit.”

Paul waved his dick at me again and tried to use it to part my lips. I put my hands up to push him back and Vince let go of my hair and grabbed my shoulders. He pressed his thumbs into the muscle, hitting some pressure point there, and I let out a strangled noise and dropped my hands from Paul’s legs, biting the inside of my cheek to stop from crying out in pain.

“This is going to happen, Nate. What is it you like to tell your girls? Just relax.”

Fucking asshole. Which was probably what he’d do to me, if I didn’t stop pissing him off.

Paul waved his cock in my face. “Come on. You loved my wife’s ass so much, here’s one last taste.”

He pushed his spongy head against my lips, his precum sliming my lower lip. Vince tapped his thumbs against my shoulders, warning me he’d hurt me again if I didn’t comply, and I grudgingly opened my lips enough to let Paul push his way in.

The taste was revolting. The smell was somehow worse. Because he wasn’t that long, I managed to take most of him in, leaving my nose buried in a bush of wiry, greying pubic hair.

He put a hand on top of my head, resting it there. The look in his eyes made me die inside. Just this one act broke any illusion of who held the power here. He was the one who made the money, drove the Audi, and had the smoking hot wife and a kid who was one casting call away from representing white chocolate on TV.

Who was I? Well, I was the guy with a fat guy’s prick in my mouth.

“Is he making an effort?” Vince said to Paul.

Paul shook his head slowly, keeping his gaze locked with mine.

“Nate.” Vince’s thumbs dug in, just enough to remind me how much those pressure points hurt.

I ran my tongue along the underside of Paul’s semi-erect penis and felt it jump. Another drop of precum ran from the tip and pooled on the back of my tongue.

Vince, sensing my lack of enthusiasm, dug his thumbs into my muscles enough that I pushed back against him.

“Do you want me to take you upstairs?” he said.

Hell no. I shook my head.

“Then suck.”

Fuck it. The sooner this was over, the sooner I could wash my mouth out with bleach.

I held my breath to block out the stink of Paul’s sweaty man meat, and started to suck, running my tongue along the underside of his shaft and then swirling it around the head.

He moaned and his fingers in my hair spasmed against my scalp.

He half closed his eyes and I ran my mouth up and down the length of him, using suction to try and get him off quicker.

Paul put one hand under his balls and squeezed himself gently.

Vince put out a hand. “Nathan can do that.” He pulled the shirt the rest of the way down my arms and tossed it behind us on the stairs.

“Nathan.”

At this point, I just wanted it over.

I reached up and cupped Paul’s musty testicles, massaging his saggy sack with my hand.

He moaned and looked down at me, his eyes full of hunger, and a borrowed dominance that made my skin crawl. Guys like Paul didn’t get to give me that look. Jealousy, hate, envy—that shit I was used to. But not this. Paul wasn’t just not afraid of me anymore; he thought he owned me.

I rolled my shoulders, wishing Vince would move his hands and let me get myself of this humiliating position. Instead, he kept his grip on me, adding pain to humiliation.

Well, if he was going to force me to go through with this, I might as well finish it.

I wrapped my hand around Paul’s mediocre cock and squeezed as I ran my tongue around his head. He moaned, pushing himself further into my mouth, and I sucked harder. Surely he couldn’t last much longer.

Paul, as it turned out, could last much longer.

He pistoned in and out of my mouth, faster, and harder with each thrust, so that I could barely apply any suction to him.

Then, just as I was about to pass out, he grunted and his cock spasmed, jumping against my tongue. A second later, it started to pulse.

He let out a growl, and his hand tightened in my hair as he rammed himself into my throat up to the hilt, slapping his balls against my chin as he humped my face.

His cum surged into my mouth and throat and I swallowed… God help me, I swallowed his disgusting load. Spurt after spurt, as if he’d saved up for weeks. If he really had banged Stella last night, how the fuck was he still so full of cum?

“Fucken’ suck it!” he said redundantly, and gave one final shove.

His cock finally stopped pulsing and he pulled back, dragging it across my tongue with a look of deep satisfaction. It fell from my lips with a wet plop.

The second he was out, I put a hand to my stomach, convinced I was doing to throw up. I needed water to get the vile taste out of my mouth.

I tried to get up, but Vince pushed me back down.

“You’re not finished yet, Nate. You know what you need to do.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Come on, Vince!

I opened my eyes. Paul’s deflating member hung out of his zipper, the end of it coated with a pale scum. Vince put his foot on my back and shoved me forward.

With a sigh of disgust, I got onto my hands and knees, and for the second time in my life, took a man’s cock into my mouth. His flesh felt spongy and weird as if he’d literally emptied his cock into me, instead of just four months’ worth of cum.

I cleaned out the last of his slime, making sure I dug into his slit to get it clean enough that Vince would let me go.

Paul’s hand was still in my hair, stroking my scalp now, petting me like a dog.

I looked up as I finished, and his smile was full of triumph. And worse, he had his cellphone out, filming me cleaning his cock.

Asshole. He’d fucked me. Completely fucked me. As if anything that’d happened with Stella had been my fault.

“Remember I have this next time she calls you.”

He pushed the phone back in his pocket, then tucked himself back into his pants and zipped them up.

I sat back on my heels, staring at him with a slow-burning hate.

“Do you feel vindicated?” Vince asked Paul over the top of me.

Paul nodded, his gaze still locked to my face. “Yeah. I think he gets it.”

“And Nate. What will you say if Stella calls you again?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe, ‘hey, did you know your husband’s a closet homo?’”

Vince cuffed the back of my head, but Paul just laughed.

“Kid, you’re the one on camera sucking me off with your eyes closed.”

The urge to throw up was back.

“Aw, hey, hey,” he said, using the voice I’d used on Stella the last time she’d called me. He put a hand under my chin and tilted my face to look up at him. “Don’t feel too bad. You’re a kid. You thought you owned the world. Now you know better. A bit of humility helps build character.”

I shook my head out of his hand and he laughed, a pudgy, weak little man, whose arrogance had been buoyed by a twist of fate neither of us would ever understand. This world belonged to guys like me.

Uh huh, you keep telling yourself that.

“Take care.” He turned his back on me and strolled back to his Audi.

As he backed the car around, I saw him put the phone on his dash so he could, presumably, watch his moment of glory over and over again.

I dropped my head and wondered if my life was over. It was one thing for Vince to humiliate me when no one else was around, but now this guy was carrying a video of me that he could use any time he wanted.

My shirt flew at me and I caught it.

“Get up. We have work to do before Asha gets back.”

 Chapter 20 

After Paul had gone, Vince pushed me towards the stairs.

Ash was out for the day—where, I wasn’t sure. But it seemed Vince had planned things that way, because watching me suck off Paul had just got him started.

He propelled me down to his bedroom, and shut the door behind us.

I hooked my thumbs into the top of my leather pants. “You said we had work to do.”

“We do. We’re going to do some work on your personality.”

He undid his shirt cuffs, and indicated I should sit down in a stuffed armchair beside the bed.

I slumped into the chair and watched as he untucked his shirt and sat on the bed.

Finally, he turned to me. “I’ve been here a week now, and I’m curious to know how that’s been for you.”

I pointed to the tattoo on my chest. “I don’t know what this is, but it—and you—are fucking terrifying.”

He gave me an amused smile. “What that is, is a brand. And I have only one question for you today. Do you have any idea why somebody would do this to you?”

“Some asshole comes into my home and brands me with some supernatural control-shit fucking tattoo, and then I’m supposed to tell him what the fuck it’s for?” I said. “Just making sure I understand the question.”

“My, my, sucking off your ex’s husband seems to have turned you into a foul-mouthed little cunt,” he said. “But clarifying would make your answer void. So just answer the question as you understand it.”

I got a very real sense that getting this wrong was going to lead to bad, bad things for me.

Why did he brand you ‘shameless’?

Because I am? So what? What use is shame anyway?

I didn’t think that was the answer he was looking for.

Think, fuckboy, because if you don’t, you know what’s going to happen to you.

Vince shook his head at me. “All right. I can see you’re still on the ‘dull’ side of confused. So let me explain a few things to you. What do you know about this house you’re in?”

I shrugged. “It’s got problems with pests. Badly latching doors. Loose floorboards…”

“You really believe that?” His forehead creased. “After the week you’ve had, you think you’re just living in a creaky old house with one of your brother’s onetime fucks?”

I swallowed. I didn’t like thinking that Vince had been inside my brother.

“Okay, so maybe something else is going on.”

He gave me a slow clap. “Very good. And what do you think that might be?”

I looked at him blankly.

“I’m trying to help you here, Nate. Think.”

He wants to punish me.

Yeah, but why? What did I ever do to him?

“Can I ask you a question?” I said.

He narrowed his eyes and searched my face. “All right. One.”

“What do you do for a job?”

“Get up.”

“Wait, wait!” I protested. I put up my hands. “I didn’t mean to piss you off.”

He snarled. “Get over here.”

I got up and went to stand in front of him.

“Just how physical am I going to have to be with you in order to get you to cooperate?”

I found myself breathing through my mouth, anticipating violence.

“You don’t have to hurt me.”

“If you didn’t like it so much, no, I wouldn’t,” he said. “Put your arms up.”

I shook my head and he slapped me with the back of his hand.

It sent a shock through me to realise he knew me that well.

I put my arms up and he pulled my shirt over my head. I could tell he did it that way so that I was complicit in undressing myself. If he’d just undone my shirt, I could pretend I’d resisted. But I was standing there. Not resisting. And I didn’t understand why.

“Now, turn around.”

I did as he said. I could feel his gaze on me.

“You’re a very pretty boy, Nate.”

He started caressing my ass, running his fingers across the tight faux leather. He ran his hands up to my waist and slid his hands over the muscles of my back, up to my shoulders, down my arms.

My skin came alive under his touch, his fingers sending thrills of electricity through my everything.

“Turn back to me.”

He smoothed his hands down my body to my waist until he reached the tops of the faux-leather pants, then ran his fingers along the inside of the top band until he reached the fly. He undid the button and then slowly, his fingers putting pressure against my growing erection, pulled the zipper down.

He yanked the pants open so that they sat around my hips, then stood back.

“Take them off.”

I stared defiantly at him.

He raised his hand. “You really want me to hit you again?”

No. The threat was enough.

I pushed the tight pants down one leg, pulled my foot free, and then peeled them down the other. I pushed them aside with my foot.

“And the pants,” said Vince.

Stupid English-speak for underwear.

I slid my briefs down and stepped out of them. Naked, I couldn’t meet his gaze. I glanced at the closed door. I could walk out. Make him keep me here by force or let me go.

He put his hand under my chin and forced me to look at him.

“You’ve spent enough time on your knees today. Time for ‘phase two’.

He said it as if he’d been inside my head. Been in there and rummaged through every filthy thought and deed I had stored there, and used it all to put together the most humiliating experience he could think of.

I cleared my throat and stated the obvious. “Ash isn’t here.”

Without her, there was no way I could pretend I was getting off on anything other than what was, essentially, Vince turning me into his fuck toy.

He shook his head. “No, she isn’t. Every night for the last four nights she’s dutifully taken one for the team. And you’ve not spoken up once. Not once. You haven’t raised your voice to me, never mind your fist. You just let her climb the stairs with me like Little Bo Peep heading off to find her lost sheep, while you crept into your room and fisted yourself furiously into oblivion.

I stared at him with watering eyes.

“Lie down on the bed.”

I walked over to the bed, intending to lie on my back, but he stopped me.

“Face down.”

Trembling, I turned my back on him. He put a hand in the middle of my back and pushed me forward onto the bed.

I lay on my stomach and knew if he did this, there was a very good chance I would cry, for the first time in my adult life.

I listened as he stripped, the clank of his buckle as he took off his belt, the quiet fall of his trousers as they hit the floor.

I felt his hand on the back of my leg.

I jumped, trying to twitch away from him, but he gripped my leg hard and pushed his thumb into the muscle.

“Relax. Let it happen.”

Relax. Yep. Relax.

This must be how Ash felt when you lined her up to receive his cock.

No. She was a girl. It wasn’t the same. Plus, I already knew she liked anal sex.

So do you.

Yeah, when it was my cock and someone else’s asshole.

He ran his hands up the backs of my legs, running his fingers up over my ass and then down again.

He crawled onto the bed, so that his knees were either side of my body, and sat back on my legs.

He pushed my cheeks apart and ran his thumbs down the centre, running the pads of his fingers lightly over my asshole. I felt my sphincter twitch, and groaned inwardly. He was too good at this. It made it too hard to separate out what I let him do, from what he forced me to do.

They’re different things? Really Nate?

He reached his hand down and cupped my balls, then started to massage the base of my sac lightly with one finger. Trapped under me, my cock surged to life.

He paused his efforts and ran his hands over my back, dragging his fingers over my skin.

“Do you know why I’m doing this, Nate?”

“Because you’re a psychotic faggot?”

He smacked a hand across my ass as hard as he could. It fucking hurt.

“Don’t ever let me hear that word come out of your mouth again. It’s disrespectful to your brother.”

I looked at him over my shoulder. “He’s not a faggot. You are.”

“I warned you.”

He picked up his belt off the floor and folded it in half. I looked at the wall, breathing hard in anticipation of pain, and he smacked me with the belt.

“Fuck!”

He smacked me again, even harder.

“Fuck, Vince, stop!” My hands were balled into fists, my teeth grinding against each other.

“Don’t like that?” he growled. “Then how about you shut your mouth unless you have something intelligent to say?” He tossed the belt back on the floor and leaned forward and ran his tongue down the centre of my back. “Which for you, is never.”

He ran his hands over the muscles of my back, kneading me as if he was giving me a massage; only I hadn’t asked for a naked massage.

He shuffled up so that he was sitting across my lower back, and placed his fists either side of my head. He leaned over me so that his face was close to mine.

“No fight left in you?”

I turned my face away.

He laughed and sat back, trailing his fingers across my skin. He shifted back to sitting on my legs and started to massage my ass cheeks.

“You have a superb ass for fucking.”

He prised my cheeks apart and I heard him gather spit in his mouth. A second later, a splat hit my sphincter. He rubbed his spit into my asshole, running his finger around the outside in slow circles. He slid a hand further down and toyed with my balls while he let another gob of spit go.

My stomach jumped as he touched the seam between my testicles, pushing his knuckle gently into the skin near the base of my sac.

Lines of pleasure ran up both legs, as if wires were attached between my stomach, my toes and my balls.

He carried on massaging his spit into my asshole, then placed the tip of his finger against the tight opening.

“Let it happen,” he said, adding a mocking lilt to his voice.

I clenched my fists into the bedspread and tried to imagine Ash’s mouth around my cock.

He pushed his finger into my asshole.

I gritted my teeth as he toyed with my balls and slid his finger in and out of me.

My trapped cock started to ache. More than anything, I wanted him to reach around and grab it, but he seemed disinclined.

He spat again, and pushed the spit into my tight hole until he had a slick action going. He started to use his finger to loosen the muscle, then swapped his finger out for his wider thumb.

I didn’t want his cock in my ass. I didn’t. I didn’t want any of this.

He shifted and I felt the tip of his cock pushed against my asshole.

“Wait, I’m not ready! Please, not like this!” I said.

“Unlike your lovely girlfriend, I didn’t think you’d want so much ass attention.”

I grabbed the duvet with both hands.

“Please. You’ll tear me up.”

“Oh, you’d like some lube, would you?” He pushed two fingers inside me, and touched something that made me gasp… but this time with pleasure.

“Fucking, yes.”

He laughed. I felt a small vibration run through the mattress as he picked something unseen up off the bed, and then heard him squirt lube into his hand.

He rubbed it between his palms and then slicked it down his erection.

His head, hard as a bullet, was pushed back against my unprepared hole.

“Any last requests?”

“Please don’t.”

He laughed and put one hand against the small of my back while he used his other hand to guide his cock into my ass.

It hurt. Even lubed up, it hurt. I couldn’t relax, I didn’t want him inside me.

He pushed in what felt like ten inches of his length, but which was in reality probably only one, and my asshole was on fire.

Silent tears ran from my closed eyes, soaking into the bedspread underneath me.

He stopped, every inch of me resisting him and trying to push him out, and ran his fingers across my back.

“Why aren’t you fighting me?”

“Please just finish.”

“Are you… crying?” he sounded curiously amused.

“Please, just do it and go.”

He sat back. “No.”

He got off me, his cock sliding back out of me. I realised my cock was throbbing, desperate to be released.

“Go on,” he said. “Touch yourself, if that’s what you want.”

I reached under me and slid my hand around my cock. All of a sudden, I wanted Vince’s attention again.

Sensing this, he ran his fingers lightly over my ass while I did my best to pleasure myself.

He ran one finger down my crack, and poised it over my asshole. My sphincter twitched against his fingertip, and I remembered how it felt for him to press his finger inside.

“You get one chance to answer this question too, Nate. Do you want me to fuck you?”

“Please just touch me.” I wanted his hands on me, his fingers inside me, but not his cock.

“That’s not an option. Do you want me to fuck you?”

He pressed his finger against me, and I felt my asshole trying to swallow him inside. My balls ached with the need for release. I was almost in tears, I was so desperate to cum.

“Nate, your last chance. Do you want me…” he pressed his finger inside me, and I shuddered and bucked underneath him. “…to fuck you. In your tight, man-whoring ass. Like the shameless little fuckboy you are.”

Fuck you Vince, fuck you Vince, FUCK YOU VINCE!

“Yes!” I said, desperate, my face damp with tears.

“Say please.”

I shook my head, disgusted with myself. “Please.” I choked on the word, as he stroked inside me.

“Good boy.”

He knelt behind me again and pushed forward. The lube and my need for his cock let him slide right into me. Once a few inches of him was in, he started to move inside me. He was slow. Careful. He wasn’t hurting me now; me asking for it was all he’d wanted anyway.

I tried to relax and stopped trying to propel him out of my body.

He thrust into me, massaging my ass cheeks as he rocked his hips into me. I realised how far in he’d gotten when his balls slapped against mine.

He let out an appreciative groan and fell forward and started thrusting into me in earnest.

I did my best to relax while I fisted my own cock.

Without warning, he reached under me and gripped my shaft below my hand.

I gasped, a fire of pleasure running through me as he took over from me.

Slick with lube, he spiralled his hand around my shaft, running his fingers over the head when he reached the end, then squeezing.

I realised I was humping his hand in time with his thrusts.

The extra movement encouraged him and he started to push into me harder and faster, his balls colliding against mine. That soft connection of flesh was the strangest sensation.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. A guy was fucking me in the ass. And I hadn’t fought him, hadn’t done anything to protect myself. I’d let him push his cock into me, stretch me out, take his own pleasure.

Another man had his hand on my cock!

I groaned, overwhelmed by how wrong, and how hot that thought was.

“I’m going to cum soon,” he said, grunting as he shoved his cock as far into me as he could. “I’d advise you to do the same.”

I closed my eyes and tried to get away from the mental image of him on top of me, and concentrated on his hand on my cock.

He used his thumb and forefinger to circle me, using pressure in time with his thrusts to connect the two sensations.

I pushed back against him, driving him in as deep as possible.

“That’s the way, you nasty little fuck.”

I felt his body tighten.

He shoved into me and I felt his cock start to pump cum into me. At the same time, he ran his fingers lightly over the head of my cock and squeezed the base.

I cried out and humped his hand until my own cock spurted hot cum against the bedspread, spraying strings of cum everywhere.

He thrust into me twice more, emptying every last squirt of cum he had into my asshole.

He lay on top of me, both of us slick with sweat, and then drew his hand away from my cock. My whole body throbbed, every inch of me raw and alive at the same time.

He sat up, shifting his weight off me, and carefully slid his cock out of my ass.

My muscles pushed him out, glad to be free of the intruder. Cool air seemed to touch the inside of me as he slid free.

He got off me, and I rolled onto my back.

He stood in front of the bed, naked and glossed with sweat.

God he was hot. Muscular, intense, the expression in his eyes one of ownership. Ownership of me.

He laughed at my expression. “Do you want to clean my cock?”

Yes. Fucking yes. Oh God, why?

I shook my head.

He gave me a dark smile. “Another time.”

He pulled open the bedroom door and shut it behind him, leaving me to leak cum onto his bedspread.

 Chapter 21 

I stayed there for a good ten minutes, then realised if I didn’t get dressed, he’d come back and I’d still be naked.

I slid off the bed and stood. Pain shot through me. Cum leaked out of my asshole and slid down my leg.

I pulled on my briefs, then tried to pull on my fake leather trousers, but it hurt too much to bend like that. I gathered up my pants and shirt and pulled open the door. No sign of Vince. I headed down the hall to my room, dumped my clothes on the floor and shut the door behind me.

The curtains were still closed, leaving the room stained the colour of nicotine.

I stood against the door in that murky light, my chest heaving. I was supposed to be at Ty’s party in less than an hour.

I left the door and stood in front of the full-length mirror attached to my wardrobe door.

I don’t know what I expected to find. That he’d changed me somehow. That I’d look different.

I walked up to the mirror and touched my fingers to my face, half expecting not to feel anything.

You’re in shock.

I noticed a stream of goop sliding down my leg and grabbed a towel and wiped it away. It was a mix of white, brown and red.

Disgusted, I threw the towel away and stood in the middle of my room, unsure what to do with myself. I didn’t want to get dressed the way I had been before. Guys were going to look at me, and I wasn’t sure what that would do to me right now.

There was a knock at the door.

“Nate? It’s me. You in there?”

Asha.

I scrambled for my robe and pulled it on. “Come in.”

She came into the twilight of my room and shut the door behind her.

“Vince told me he spent the afternoon with you. Are you okay?”

I said nothing and she walked up to me and put her arms around me. She pressed her cheek to my chest and after a moment, I circled her with my arms.

She looked up at me, tears tracking down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“This is all my fault. I knew when he said I should go out today that he might do something to you…”

“No,” I said. “What he did isn’t your fault.”

But I think it might be mine.

Part of me knew I’d entered an abusive relationship with Vince, and it was up to me to figure a way out of it.

She wiped her face with her sleeve. “I think it is my fault. I should have stood up to him. I should have told him to leave you alone. You know what he’s doing is wrong?”

I dropped my gaze.

“Nate?” She put a hand on my chest. “Nate, please don’t let him hurt you anymore.”

I looked away. “Ash, Vince is just a guy who’s tapped into something inside me that I didn’t know was there. That’s all.”

She shook her head. “He drugged you and tattooed you, and since that day he’s owned your ass.”

Shut up about my ass. I shifted uncomfortably.

“Like I say. Clearly there’s a sub in me that I didn’t know was there.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall.

“Hey, Nate? Is Ash in there? Are you guys still coming?”

Bad, bad question to be asking.

“Ty!” Ash ran to the door and flung it open. She practically threw him against the wall, hugging him so hard his eyes bulged.

“Ash, please stop!”

She let him go and beamed up at him. “I’m so happy to see you!”

He frowned at her, then back at me. “You don’t look ready.”

“I didn’t know you were picking us up.”

“I texted you… where’s your phone?”

I spun around and started searching my pockets. I found it in my jacket and pulled it out. Two texts. Two missed calls.

“Anyway, get ready, I need to get to the venue. The guys are setting everything up.”

“Come help me get ready,” said Ash. “Let’s go to my room. I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages!”

As she led him away, I sank back onto the bed, wincing as pain lanced through me.

I looked down at my discarded pirate clothes. Suddenly, they seemed the equivalent of Ash walking out the door in a four-inch skirt and a see-through top.

No gay guy had ever threatened me. I’d been around Ty’s friends plenty of times, at parties, just hanging out. I got glances, yes. I got offers, yes. But I’d never felt concerned that someone was going to push me against a wall and try to fuck me.

Today, that was all I could think about.

I found a pair of dark denim jeans slung over the back of a chair, and picked out a maroon dress shirt from the wardrobe. I took those and fresh underwear down to the bathroom and pushed open the door.

I turned on the shower and made sure the bathroom door was locked before I stepped under the stream.

 Chapter 22 

I joined the others downstairs fifteen minutes later. My hair was damp from scrubbing every trace of Vince out of it, and I’d doused myself in Ash’s body wash to get the smell of him off my skin.

I was still afraid that some of his scent, that woody, incense fragrance, would be trapped in my wet hair, but there was only so much water in the hot water cylinder.

Ash had put on her costume, the female equivalent of what I’d been intending to wear. As we walked out to the car, Ty cast an eye over my clothes.

“I thought you were dressing up as a pirate too?”

“Decided to go as a pirate’s landlubber friend, Dave.”

He laughed.

“So where are we going?”

“I rented out a venue in town. We’ve got a DJ setting up now.”

“Jeez! How many people are coming?” asked Ash.

Her costume consisted of layers of lace and leather, along with thigh-high boots. Any other day, I would have loved to pull it off her. Today, it just left me aching and confused.

“I sent out nearly fifty invites. Most will turn up later on, so it’ll just be family to start with.

We drove there in his beat-up Nissan Tiida and parked in a parking garage near the venue.

Still tender from Vince’s ass fucking, I found myself wincing every time I stumbled into a curb.

Ty gave me a concerned glance. “You okay?”

“Just pulled a muscle at the gym,” I said. “Probably should have put some heat on it.”

He grinned. “You don’t want heat back there, mate!”

Ash looked stricken as I did my best to laugh him off.

We got to the venue and were greeted by my older brother, Jase.

Jase grabbed my hand in a street handshake and bumped fists with Ty.

“Hey hey, how you been? I haven’t seen either of you in ages.”

His dark hair was swept back from his face and tucked behind his ears.

“Oh you know, work, gym, COD, more work…”

“And lots and lots of fucking, am I right?” He grinned.

“Hey guys, I’m just going to keep setting up,” said Ty. He strode off towards the DJ booth.

I gave Jase a strained smile. “Yep. Yep. Lots of that.” I caught an edge of movement and glanced around. A dark-haired guy, young, tight shirt over tight jeans, was leaning at the bar. He concentrated on his beer, but I was sure he’d been checking me out. His sleeves were pushed halfway up his arms, and his lightly tanned forearms were smooth and veined, the skin taut over the muscle.

He wasn’t big, just toned.

I found myself staring at his hands, imagining then unbuckling my pants.

“Ah, Nate?”

I jerked my head back around to look at Jase.

“How’s it living with Ash? She driving you crazy?”

I stared at him, still distracted by the image of the dark-haired guy’s hands sliding down my body. “Crazy?” A huge pause while I converted the word into meaning. “You could say that.”

I shifted, trying to ease the discomfort in my back passage.

Jase gave me confused look. “You okay? You seem preoccupied.”

I nodded, my face slack with the stupefied, open-mouthed gape of someone who can’t process speech because all the blood needed for thought is congregating elsewhere. “Yeah, just ah, I worked out too hard today.”

His face broke into a slow grin.

“Shut up.” I smacked his chest with the back of my hand.

The guy at the bar walked past us, heading for the bathrooms. He gave me a lazy smile as he walked past.

“Hey, I’m gonna go get a beer,” I said to Jase. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

“No problem.” He gave me another puzzled look and I headed for the bar.

Over the next half hour, dozens more people arrived. I ordered a beer and drank it standing, then another, waiting for the alcohol to kick in and dull the pains that shot through me every time I shifted my weight.

The bar filled up as it grew later, and soon I found myself pressed against other thirsty patrons.

Specifically, against the dark-haired guy from before.

He took his drink from the barman and angled his body towards me.

“Hey. My name’s Pax.”

“Hi. Nate.” I dropped my eyes to my beer and took a swig.

His eyes stayed on my face, a slight smile on his lips. “I caught you checking me out before.”

I choked and spat beer around the neck of the bottle.

He laughed as I wiped beer from my mouth with the back of my hand.

“I’m straight,” I said.

He laughed through his nose. “You might think you are, but you’re not.”

Fuck you Vince. What have you done to me?

I shook my head, still avoiding eye contact. “I have a girlfriend. She’s here tonight, actually.”

“Yeah?” He looked up and around the bar. “I don’t see many women here.” He looked back at me, his head cocked slightly as he considered me. “You a friend of Ty’s, or an ex?”

I choked on my beer again and slid it onto the bar before I upended it over myself.

“His brother.”

Pax’s grin expanded. “His brother? Oh yeah. I can see it now. Must run in the family.”

I shot him a look of annoyance. “I’m not gay.”

His rich, brown eyes met mine, full of warmth and naked desire. My heart slammed against my ribcage as it sped up, a heat building down below.

“Maybe you’re not gay. But you’re not straight. Not with the look you’re giving me. And not with what you’re packing down there.”

He nodded towards my pants, where a semi was starting to tighten the fabric.

“Look, Pax, you seem like a nice guy—”

“I’m anything but a nice guy,” he interrupted. “That’s my charm.”

He watched me, his full lips slightly parted, his smooth fingers wrapped around his beer.

“I’m not gay.”

He looked down and shook his head. “The closet’s a lonely place, Nate.”

“I’ll survive.”

He took his beer and left the bar, giving me a lingering look as the crowd swallowed him up.

By midnight, I was off my face drunk. The pains had finally subsided and I sank down on a bar stool and drank the free booze as the DJ cranked up the volume for some serious dancing. I looked away from the sea of sculpted hair, cologne and tight clothes, as Ty’s friends laughed and danced and took selfies in the heated darkness.

Ash appeared beside me, her face flushed. Her dark eye makeup had run with sweat, ringing her startling blue eyes. Her dark hair fell in waves around her shoulders, her breasts pushed up inside a cream peasant blouse by a faux leather bustier, laced tight to show off the curve of her waist. A layered skirt made from ivory coloured lace completed the outfit, longer at the back and almost indecent at the front, leaving eight inches of cream thigh on view above the tops of her knee-high boots.

She looked primal, hyped, and sexy as hell.

“You look wasted,” she said.

I nodded. “Am a bit.”

The bar tender pushed a beer across the bar towards her.

“Dance with me.”

She looked up at me from under her long lashes. She was breathing hard, her chest heaving. I remembered what it was like to touch her breasts, to run my hands over her smooth skin.

The music throbbed around us as she pulled me off my stool, my half-finished beer abandoned on the bar, forgotten.

Drunk as I was, I stumbled as she tugged me through the crowd towards the DJ booth.

We danced close, her pressed against me, grinding herself against my leg, her fragrant hair under my nose, her perfume—that perfume—like a heady garden full of flowers on a hot night.

She looked up at me and the hunger in her eyes swallowed all thought. She reached into her blouse, and I followed her hand with my eyes as she pulled out her lip gloss and unscrewed the cap. She stroked the brush over her lips and pressed them together, then slipped it back into her bra, trailing her slim fingers across the top of her creamy breasts as she pulled her hand from her blouse.

I found myself panting, my mouth open, my cock swelling in my pants to a painful stiffness.

She put one hand against my chest and leaned in close. I bent my head to meet her upturned mouth and she caught my lower lip between her teeth, biting gently. I groaned, my body alive with need for her.

Her fingers traced over my chest, slid down to my waist and traced the waist of my jeans.

Paralysed by the live fire of her touch, I shuddered as her mouth met mine again, her wet lips plump and soft. Her tongue stroked against mine and my eyes closed to slits, wanting her, needing her so badly it hurt.

I put my hands on her waist as she ran her thumbs over my bare skin, then felt a tug, followed by a jerk, as she popped the fly on my jeans. The backs of her knuckles against my skin pressed into my groin as she slowly pulled down my fly.

She lay one hand over my covered length and let out a breathy sigh that flowed into my mouth and mingled with my groan of pleasure as she stroked me through my tight cotton briefs.

“Fuck Ash, fuuuuuck.”

She pulled away so she could watch my face and ran her fingers over me, stroking up and down the shaft then caressing the head of my cock through the stretchy fabric.

She bit her upper lip, her eyes wide with hunger, and put her palm flat against my abdomen and slid her hand down into my underwear.

I let out a sharp breath as her fingers closed around me.

“Ash—”

She reached up on tiptoe and pulled my head towards hers. “Sssh. Don’t give the game away. Touch me.”

I jerked her in close, so that my cock was trapped between us, grinding my erection into her.

“I said touch me, not hump me,” she scolded gently. She smiled at me, those plump, glossed lips curving into the sexiest, naughtiest, sweetest smile I’d ever seen on a girl.

She took my left hand and slid it down to her hip, then lower, so that my fingers lay against that stretch of bare thigh between her boots and her short skirt.

She continued to stroke my cock as I ran my fingers up, up, pushing my thumb against the edge of her lace underwear. I knew which ones she was wearing. They were the ones she’d been wearing when I’d shared her with Vince.

“Oooh.” I groaned loudly as she squeezed my cock, perfectly in time with the memory of Vince pushing his hot length into her while I crushed her breast between my fingers.

She moaned as I caressed the crease of her thigh, then ran my fingers over the stretch of lace across her crotch.

“Inside,” she whispered.

God she was hot. So fucking hot I wanted to explode inside her.

Her fingers teased my head, sliding her fingers through my oozing precum, and using it to lube the swollen bulb of my cock.

I cupped her in my hand, resting my middle finger against her soaking, lace-covered slit, while I caressed the edge of her underwear with the fingers either side.

“Inside, Nate!” Her voice ached with need.

Someone jostled against us and I realised suddenly that we were on a crowded dance floor. We couldn’t do this here. Not what I wanted to do, anyway.

I pulled my hand away from her crotch and she whimpered. I hastily pulled up my fly, leaving the top button undone, and grabbed her hand. I looked around. The only exits were to the street, the bathrooms and a door labelled ‘Staff Only’.

There was no way I was taking her into a filthy pub bathroom.

I pulled her towards the Staff Only door, and after a moment, she followed.

I let go of her, and she caught my hands, twining her fingers with mine.

I cut a path through the sweaty dance floor where boys ground on boys and girls ground on boys and the air stank of testosterone and cologne, and pushed open the door.

We fell into the hallway, the thump of the music halved as the door swung shut behind us.

We were in a narrow corridor. Up ahead was the entrance to the kitchen, and at the end of the hall was a door to the staff car park at the back. But on our right was what I wanted. A staff break room. I put a finger to my lips and Ash giggled silently as I led her towards the break room.

I pushed open the door. It was empty. We slipped inside.

The room was carpeted in deep red carpet, the same as the bar area, with a carpeted bench seat running the length of one wall.

There was a small kitchenette at the other end and a door that led to the staff bathroom.

I stumbled as Ash pushed me, and she propelled me towards the carpeted bench seat.

“Sit down,” she said.

I did as she said, falling heavily onto the bench.

She stood between my legs and looked down at me. I put my hands on her waist and she ran her fingers through my hair, drawing it back from my face. She stroked my cheek. “If only you didn’t know how beautiful you are.”

She bent and kissed me, her lips plush with arousal. I put my hand behind her head, winding my hand into her hair, and caressed her scalp as her tongue pressed against mine.

She dropped to her knees and I started breathing in short gasps as she drew down my fly again and pressed her mouth to my underwear. She looked up at me as she ran her tongue across the cotton, pressing the end of her tongue against the tip of my cock, digging into the slit.

She slid her hands over my waist, tracing the line that ran from hips to groin, and then pulled at my jeans.

I lifted my hips so that she could pull them down, and shuddered as she caught the waist of my briefs and started to lower them.

Remember what you did to her the first time you fucked her? Remember how you forced her to give herself to you, how you took her?

Vince’s voice, in my head.

I stood, causing Ash to fall back onto her hands.

She crawled out of the way as I stepped out of my jeans, then accepted my hand. I helped her up and guided her to the bench.

Without speaking, I sat her, and knelt and pushed her legs apart.

I drank in her scent as her thighs parted in front of me. Her perfume—her natural perfume and the scent she’d worn that night—surrounded me as I trailed my fingers across the damp lace between her legs.

She let out a sigh and leaned back.

I ran my fingers over the outline of her sex, enjoying the rise and fall of her breasts and her fingers, gently spasming as they lay loosely curled against the carpeted bench.

I slid my finger up the side of the lace, then slipped it inside. So wet. So wet.

She let out a gasp and her hand reached for me as I explored inside her. I leaned forward, my eyes on the heave of her breasts and she caught her fingers in my hair.

That light tug against my scalp made my eyes roll back up in my head. The tugging grew more urgent, and I dropped my head and touched my mouth to her saturated underwear.

Both hands were in my hair now, caressing my scalp, sliding through my hair, making me feel hypnotically high.

I slid my tongue up one side of her panties, then the other, then slid two fingers inside her.

She moaned and arched her back, her fingers tightening in my hair until pain and ecstasy met in a crashing wave. I realised my dick was pulsing and put a hand to my underwear. They were sticky. My cock jumped under my hand and I realised I’d cum from sheer excitement.

The orgasm made my chest ache and my balls tighten, as though it hadn’t been a release, but the prelude to one.

Ash moaned again and I lowered my face to her underwear again. I caught the stretchy satin and lace and tugged it aside, and ran my tongue up her soaking slit from top to bottom, running my tongue over her hooded clit.

Her moans grew louder and I slid my tongue deeper, her taste sweet and tangy all at once; a taste as compelling as the first hit of an addictive drug.

I hooked my fingers into her panties and pulled them down, then pushed my mouth to her swollen lips.

Her fingers drew patterns against my scalp, tugging and massaging, intoxicating me as I sucked her slick flesh into my mouth and sucked, sliding my tongue either side of her lips, then stroking up the centre until her hips bucked and she ground against my face.

I put my hands under her thighs and gripped her, pulling her forward so that I could consume every part of her.

She let out short gasps in quick succession and I could feel she was on the brink.

I spread my tongue flat and stroked her with its wet surface and she came, her hips pivoting wildly as she thrashed and moaned, her moans strangled as she choked them back, her fingers spasming in my hair.

I stroked my tongue across her sex as she shuddered, circling the outside of her lips in slow, lazy circles as she calmed, and started to moan again.

Someone touched my shoulder.

I froze. Someone was in the room with us. I hadn’t heard them come in.

Ash, feeling me tense, opened her eyes. She sat up on her elbows and her eyes widened. But not with fear.

I tried to look back over my shoulder but strong, firm hands gently turned my head forwards again.

“Vince?” I mouthed to Ash, and she shook her head.

The hand on my shoulder became two, but the touch wasn’t like Vince’s dominating grip. This was a caress, a gentle touch of fingers gliding over the muscles of my shoulders, my back.

The hands slid over my shoulders and began to unbutton my shirt.

I closed my eyes, lost in that tickle of smooth knuckles moving against my chest, leaving a line of inflamed nerve endings as he—because it definitely was a he—finished unbuttoning my shirt and slid it off.

Those same hands travelled over my shoulders and down my arms, smoothing over my biceps and trailing down my forearms.

Breath tickled my neck as he spoke into my ear; “Don’t stop.” He pushed my head forward.

Ash’s eyes were wide with excitement as I nuzzled her and began to lap at her. That small break was enough for her to pass through the sensitive stage and move back into arousal.

She teased my fringe, sliding a lock of my hair between her fingers, while whoever was behind me ran his fingers lightly over my back. I squirmed under his touch, afraid of what he might do next, what he wanted from me, but unable to pull away from Ash’s heady fragrance.

I kissed at her sex, nuzzling and nibbling, drinking in her soft moans and the quiver of her thighs under my touch.

As I concentrated on Ash, I realised the hands on my back were doing nothing more nefarious than drawing patterns across my skin. I sank into Ash’s pleasure, and slid two fingers up to tease her, as I ran my tongue over her hooded nub.

She gasped, her fingers gripping my hair and pulling me in close and I licked her furiously, pushing my stiff tongue in and out of her until her back arched so high, I thought she might break in two.

She let out a tight scream and her muscles spasmed around my tongue. She growled low in her throat and then used her grip on my hair to pull my head back from her.

I sat back on my knees, gasping for air, and felt an ache from below. I looked down and saw my cock was thick and swollen in my briefs.

Ash sat up and slid her ass back on the bench. She looked past me.

From behind, strong hands ran roughly through my hair and gripped, pulling my head to one side, as Pax pressed his lips to mine.

His lips were soft, his kiss chaste. He pulled back, his mouth open, his eyes bright with desire.

He raised an eyebrow. A question.

I shook my head and he pressed his lips to mine again, a longer kiss, his lips still closed, the pressure firm, but not forceful.

His fingers caressed the curve of my neck where it joined my shoulder, his touch light.

He pulled away, and again gave me that questioning look.

This wasn’t Vince. There was no attempt to restrain me or force pain on me to get me to comply.

“It’s okay, Nate,” said Ash quietly. “If you want him, it doesn’t mean anything bad.”

What if it did? What if it meant Vince had fucked with my head so badly that I no longer knew what I wanted? That I’d let anyone do whatever they wanted to me?

“Nate.” I looked back at her. She moved forward and I caught her waist as she slid off the edge of the bench and sat across my lap.

Pax continued to stroke the side of my neck. He knelt beside me and rubbed his cheek against my bicep.

“You feel so good. And you smell like sex in a bottle.”

His voice was low and husky with desire.

Ash peeled down the front of my briefs and released my cock. She ran her hand up and down its length, then tucked it under her and slid down onto it.

I let out a gasping breath and helped her slide up and down my swollen erection, until my cock was slick and sticky. She lifted herself off me and Pax reached around my body, his head resting against my arm, his other hand still stroking my neck, and took my cock in his hand.

His firmer grip, and the size of his palm, felt amazing. Using Ash’s wetness, he squeezed the shaft as he jacked me, sliding his fingers over the head, teasing out the precum.

His lips brushed my skin as he spoke. “I want to taste you.”

His voice sent a shudder through me.

“Hop up.”

Ash stood and stepped aside and Pax put his arm around my waist, encouraging me to rise.

He guided me to the bench seat, where Ash’s juices had left a wide stain, and sat me down.

Facing him, I found it hard to breath. This was real. A man was about to suck me off. Not Vince, not as some punishment for something I’d done, but a guy who just wanted me.

His shirt was loosely buttoned, and he undid the remaining couple and let it fall open.

His body was chiselled with muscle, sharp lines drawn between his abs and his pecs, his shoulders promising strength that would easily match mine.

He was hairless except for a dark down that ran across his sternum, shading across the curves of his pecs.

He gave me a smile I recognised because I’d worn it so often myself. I felt a twinge inside as I realised it worked on me as well as it worked on the girls I fucked. He looked sexy, charming, boyish. But this guy was no boy.

He put a hand to his pants and undid his belt buckle. He popped the button and undid his fly, then slid his pants down, his eyes glued to mine as he did.

He wasn’t wearing underwear.

His cock hung between his legs, and the length of it was terrifying.

“It’s okay, it doesn’t get much bigger when it’s erect,” he said with a grin. “Your face!”

“I don’t care,” I said, my eyes on that gently swaying pendulum. “It’s not going in me.”

He gave me a smile that said uhuh, whatever you say. He knelt in front of me.

“Have you ever been sucked off by a hot guy, straight-boy?”

I shook my head.

“Does the thought turn you on?”

I swallowed.

Behind him, Ash leaned back against the wall, watching us with fascination. She had one hand resting against her collar bone, the other draped over her thigh.

“Nate?”

I turned my gaze back to Pax. His brown eyes glittered under a heavy fringe of dark hair.

He placed his hands on my thighs, his eyes filled with hunger.

“I won’t touch you,” I said.

He smiled. “Your loss. But… I’ll be happy just to have you in my mouth.”

Fire ran through me as he ran his hands up my thighs, up my hips and brushed against the top of my briefs.

“Can I take these off now?”

I stared at him, then nodded.

He slid his fingers into my waist band and I lifted my hips so that he could pull them down.

My cock sprang out, full and swollen.

He unhooked them from my feet, then pushed my thighs apart wide enough to accommodate the width of his body. He shuffled in closer and ran his fingers over my inner thighs, his gaze fixed hungrily to the patterns he traced against my skin.

Slowly, painfully slowly, he inched his hands across my shaved groin until he reached the base of my cock.

He wrapped one hand around the shaft, and grazed his palm across my balls, until they rested in his hand.

“When I saw you across the bar earlier, I knew I was going to taste you. You have such a pretty face.”

Dammit, why did guys keep telling me that?

“And this…” he looked back down at my flushed cock, swelling in his hand, “is everything I’d hoped for.”

He lifted his eyes to my face and slowly lowered his face until his lips pressed against the swollen head of my cock. Then his lips parted and the slick, wet heat of his mouth swallowed me down.

I gasped as he swallowed against me, taking more and more of me into his mouth, into his throat. When my balls finally rested on his chin, he held me there for five long seconds, his eyes seductive under a dark fan of eyelashes, his fringe shining like ravens’ feathers. I put out a hand to him, afraid he couldn’t breathe, but he laughed around me and slid back, then onto me again, picking up a rhythm.

“Touch him, Nate,” said Asha. She sounded drunk as fuck.

I tore my gaze away from Pax’s hypnotic motion and saw she had her fingers between her legs, rubbing and teasing.

I glanced back at Pax. He lifted a hand from my thigh and reached for my hand. My chest expanded and contracted as if I was running a marathon as I let him take my hand. He guided my hand to his shoulder, and pressed my palm to the side of his neck holding it there.

I could feel his neck muscles working as he slid his mouth up and down me, swallowing me, sucking me harder than any girl ever had.

There was something about him that made me so hard it hurt. Something about him finding me hot, choosing to suck me into the back of his throat, just because he wanted me, was so fucking sexy. It scared me. I didn’t want to feel this attracted to another guy, to feel this turned on by a man. But his lips stretched around me was everything I’d ever felt with a woman… maybe more.

He took his hand away to place on my thigh again, and I moved my hand up to his hair of my own volition, combing my fingers through that glossy silk.

He groaned around my dick at my touch and smiled up at me, and I slid my fingers through the soft feathers of his hair.

He pulled right off my cock and slipped his lips around the end, sliding his tongue along the slit, sending waves of pleasure through me, then slid his hand under my balls. I felt his finger pressing back against my aching entrance. Still in the glow of too much beer, the touch of his fingertip sent shivers through me.

He flattened his tongue and slid it along the underside of my shaft, then suctioned over the head while that finger pressed into me.

“Fuck,” I gasped, on the edge, and he slid his mouth off me. Holding my gaze, he slid his finger into his mouth, slicking it with saliva, then slid it back into me.

I could barely breathe as he probed inside me, finding that spot, that spot that made me weak and hungry and desperate for him to put his lips around me again.

With a smile of deep satisfaction, he took me into his mouth and held me there.

I made a desperate noise and he shook his head.

He looked up at his fringe.

I gripped his hair, hard, and he smiled and took me all the way down into his throat.

His finger pumping into me, stroking across my prostate, he put his other hand over the hand I had wound into his hair and encouraged me to push him onto my cock.

As on fire as I was, it didn’t take my encouragement. I wound both hands in his hair and guided him onto me, fucking his throat, while I rode his finger.

Fffffffffuuuuucccckkkkk.

I came suddenly, spurting into his throat on the downward stroke and held him there, spasming into him, pumping my cum down his throat.

He breathed calmly through his nose, his eyes on mine, a slight smile curving his lips around my throbbing flesh.

Finally, he gently pushed against my thigh and I dropped my hands from his hair in silent horror at having just deep throated a guy.

He slowly drew back off my cock, strands of saliva slicked along my length, and continued to massage my prostate.

I closed my eyes as my dick slapped wetly back between my legs and let him pump me, riding an afterglow like nothing I’d felt before.

When he finally withdrew his finger, I felt as if I’d lost something.

I heard a small noise and opened my eyes. Behind Pax, Ash had her fingers curled inside her, and was shuddering under her own orgasm.

Pax stayed knelt between my legs, running his fingers over my thighs, massaging and stroking.

“You have such a beautiful body,” he said. “Why are you so afraid of using it with other beautiful men?”

I frowned down at him. “I’m straight.”

He rolled his eyes.

His firm, insistent touch was starting to stir my dick again.

Ash stood and walked back to us. She sat beside me and rested her head on my shoulder.

Pax took one hand and ran it up her thigh, grazing his fingers lightly over her still-swollen lips.

Her lips parted and she let out a shiver of breath.

He slid a finger inside her, then lifted it to my lips. I took his finger in, tasting Ash’s sweetness. I ran my tongue around his finger, and he returned his hand to her inner thigh.

His other hand rested on my leg.

“You’re both so beautiful. Would you fuck for me?”

I stared at him. My head was still a fog of drunkenness. My gaze slid to Ash. Her pirate blouse had been pushed down, her beautiful tits exposed to the air.

“Come sit on my lap,” I said to her.

She moved, and positioned herself so that she was facing me, and settled into my lap.

Below us both, Pax’s hands worked, his fingers stroking her sex, teasing my balls, then gripping the base of my cock and gently squeezing.

Ash put her palms either side of my face and lowered her mouth to mine.

Our tongues and lips mashed together as she drew me into her kiss, and a ferocious, rising tide of need.

I hardened under Pax’s touch and slid my hands down to cup Ash’s breasts, running my thumbs over her nipples.

She moaned in pleasure into my mouth and I squeezed her nipples hard, causing her to moan louder.

I needed to be inside her.

I put my hands under her ass and lifted her, then slid myself up into her.

She swallowed my cock as Pax’s mouth had before, so hot, so slick, her muscles gripping me as she slid all the way onto me.

I put my hands under her ass and lifted her so I could push into her, and she draped her arms around my neck and closed her eyes, rocking her hips into me to press me against her sensitive inner wall.

Pax moved into us and closed his hands over Ash’s breasts, kneading them, his hands dark against her pale, pale skin.

He leaned over her and nipped at her neck, licking a line up to her ear, then bit down gently on her earlobe.

She gave a shuddering sigh, her hard nipples grazing my chest as Pax placed his hands under her breasts, pushing them up as he kissed along her jaw.

Ash groaned so loudly I thought I’d hurt her, but her eyes were heavy with desire. She ground her hips, driving me in deeper and deeper. I nuzzled the other side of her neck and Pax put a hand up and ran it through my hair, sending shudders down my spine.

I threw my head back as she rode me hard, bucking my hips up as I slammed her down, driving her all the way down the length of me to grind her clit against my groin.

She moved her hands to my shoulders and steadied herself as she pushed me deeper. Her breathing turned to half-spoken words, “Hoh fuck, oh, fuck.”

Pax pressed his lips to her shoulder as her face contorted.

“Nate,” she whispered. She let out a panting breath and her muscles spasmed around me.

“Ash.” I bit down on her neck and kept pushing into her, enchanted by that face that looked so much like pain, but represented so much pleasure.

“Fuck!” I shuddered as my cum spurted into her. “Shit!”

I wasn’t wearing a condom. I wasn’t wearing a fucking condom!

I started to pull her off me, but she gripped my hair and growled at me, pushing herself back down.

“I’m on the pill, chill out.”

I relaxed back, breathing hard, and let myself sink into the moment.

Her beautiful tits were in my face, round and pale and ripe.

I took my hands off her ass, my cock still buried deep inside her, and took a breast into my mouth, swirling my tongue around her nipple as she shuddered and her fingers spasmed against my shoulders.

Both of us had marked her skin, two round, red bruises, on either side of her neck.

She leaned into me and pressed the side of her face to mine.

We stayed there, both of us glowing, hot, sweaty, and satisfied, until Ash climbed off me. She sat beside me and I put an arm around her and she leaned into me.

Pax looked down at us both. “Absolutely beautiful, both of you.”

His giant cock was stiff and proud. Suddenly, I wanted him. That smooth cock, that smooth body, his warm eyes, his hair like dark feathers.

I tried to stand, but I was too drunk, and slid to my knees instead.

He laughed and dropped down with me and put his arms around me. He kissed my throat and laughed against me.

“That fucking thing’s not going in me, eh?”

“It’s not. I was just going to give you a hug goodbye.”

He moved back so that he could see my face. He said nothing, but there was a look in his eyes that made the tattoo on my chest ignite.

I slid my hand down his chest, over the ripples of his abs, down to his stiff, hard cock. I closed my hand around it.

“Here.” Ash dropped down beside us and bent over his cock. We moved back to let her in, and she took him into her mouth, slicking him with her spit.

I moved my hand up his shaft as she lubricated it with her tongue and he closed his eyes, his fingers twitching as they lay against my shoulder.

Ash looked up at me, her heavy-rimmed eyes full of that wild thing she’d had when she was younger. This was her true self.

Pax’s breathing grew faster and I gripped his shaft, stroking my fingers over the head as Ash lapped at him, drawing her tongue over the tip of him.

He let out a gasp as he came, his cock pulsing as he spurted cum into Ash’s mouth. She let it slide back down his cock while she moved her lips over his head, and it ran onto my hand and trickled down my wrist.

He suddenly put a hand over mine and gently pulled my hand away from him. Ash sat back up and wiped his cream from her lips.

Pax opened his eyes. They glittered with satisfaction.

“Still not gay,” I said.

He laughed softly.

I sat back on my heels as he stood and started to dress. As he buttoned up his shirt, he paused and looked back at me. “You should call me.”

He finished buttoning his shirt and left the small room, closing the door behind him.

 Chapter 23 

Ash and I tidied ourselves and went back out to the party, but I was staggering around in a daze. I felt drunker than I had before we’d snuck into the staff break room.

Ty caught sight of me and came over, pushing his way through the sweaty crowd.

“Hey bro, what’s up? You look arseholed.”

I nodded, blinking as the noise pounded into my head. “I think I might take off.”

He looked from me to Ash, who was holding me up. “How are you getting home?”

“We’ll catch a cab,” said Ash. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after him.”

She reached up on tip-toe and gave Ty a kiss on the cheek.

“Happy birthday, Ty,” I said, trying to slap him on the back and falling sideways. Ash pulled me upright, and she and Ty helped me across the dance floor to the front door.

Outside, I closed my eyes as a cool breeze hit my face.

Ty hugged me and then left me with Ash to wait for a cab.

I leaned against the wall and found my thoughts straying back to Pax. The feel of his hands on my body, the way his tongue slid along my cock. The way I’d ridden his finger, pushing it as deep inside me as I could.

“Is he okay?” I heard someone ask.

“I think the night’s catching up with him.” Ash’s voice.

“Nate, are you okay?”

I opened one eye to see Pax’s concerned expression.

“Fine,” I mumbled, and rested my head back against the wall.

He placed a hand on my shoulder, his fingers stroking the side of my neck, and my legs gave way.

“Whoa, whoa there!” He caught me as I started to slide down the wall. He steadied me and I found myself pressed against him. I opened my eyes and found his face inches from mine. His lips were parted, his eyes wide.

“Damn, no one’s answering the phone!” Ash looked around desperately. “I’ll call Vince.”

“Who’s Vince?” asked Pax. His arms were still around me.

“Dominant male,” I said, and laughed. “He’s a wanker.”

Pax frowned. “A lover?”

“Hah.” I started to lose my footing and Pax pulled me upright again.

“Shut up, Nate,” said Ash. “I’m on the phone.”

“Wanka!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

Pax laughed and pushed his lips against mine. It only took a moment for me to kiss him back.

Distantly, I heard Ash talking to Vince. “Yeah, he’s drunk. No, I can’t get hold of a cab because of the thing in town. Would you mind?”

Pax’s hands ran up under my shirt, caressing my skin as he slid his tongue into my mouth.

Something hard and cold was pressed against my face.

“Nate!” Ash hissed. “He wants to talk to you.”

Pax pulled back and I put my hand against the phone, holding it to my ear.

“’lo?”

“Nathan.” His voice was a low growl that woke me up. “What are you doing?”

“I’m at Ty’s party. You know that. I’m drunk.” I started to laugh.

“Are you alone?”

There was an edge in his voice that tightened something in my stomach. Pax’s hands were on my waist, his thumbs stroking my skin. His eyes held concern.

“With Ash,” I said.

There was a pause. I could hear him breathing. “Just Ash?”

Pax took the phone from me. “Who is this?”

I reached for it, but he pushed me gently back against the wall and I slumped against it as he moved away from me.

Ash grabbed my arm, stopping me from sliding completely to the concrete. She looked after Pax with worried eyes, but she couldn’t go after him without letting me fall.

“Yes, he’s with me, actually. I’ll take him to mine, let him sleep it off. Me? I live close. Sure, you can come get them tomorrow.” He gave Vince his address.

“Fuck, Ash,” I whispered to her. “Fuuuuck.”

Pax handed Ash’s phone back to her. “I live just around the corner. I’ve got a spare bed and a couch. That Vince guy sounds like he’s in a bad mood. I wouldn’t feel right making him drive all the way into town at this time of the night.”

He put an arm around me, and Ash slung my arm over her shoulder. Together, we walked down the street, me leaning heavily on them both.

We got to Pax’s house and he unlatched the wrought iron gate and then led us up the path to a Victorian cottage.

He leaned me against the wall. “You okay? I need to unlock the door.”

He pulled out a set of keys and fumbled with the lock, then pushed the door open. He put his arm around me again, and he and Ash walked me down to the lounge.

Big leather couches were arranged in front of a fireplace, and behind them a breakfast bar divided the lounge and kitchen.

They sat me on the couch, and Pax went back to lock the front door.

He headed back into the kitchen and set a kettle on to boil. “What you need right now is coffee.”

“Thanks for this,” said Ash. She sat beside me and tucked her legs under her. I put a hand up and brushed her cheek and she ruffled my hair. “Ya drunk bastard.”

“Who is that Vince guy?” Pax asked.

Turning my head that far was beyond me, so I looked around the lounge. A big screen TV was set above the mantelpiece and potted palms bookended the couch. I slid sideways and moved myself down the couch, so my head was on Ash’s lap. She stroked my hair and I closed my eyes.

“He’s our flatmate. He’s kind of…” she searched for the words.

“A controlling dick,” I offered, my eyes still closed.

“Yeah,” she said softly. She stroked my fringe against my forehead and I could feel myself starting to drift off.

Pax came back to the lounge. I smelt the tang of coffee as he set it on the coffee table.

“Thanks,” murmured Ash. She stopped stroking my hair, I guessed to take up her coffee mug, and I moaned in protest.

Pax chuckled. “He’s so cute when he’s drunk. Is he always like this?”

“Honestly, I’ve only seen him this drunk once before, and I think he was drugged.”

There was a pause, and I opened one eye to see Pax sink into a leather armchair beside the couch.

“What do you mean, drugged?”

His brown eyes were serious under his raven-black fringe. A scatter of stubble outlined his jaw, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. God he was hot.

“I think our flatmate, Vince, drugged him.”

“What?” Pax’s eyes shadowed. “Why haven’t you got rid of this asshole?”

“You try,” I said. I waved my hand at him, but didn’t have the strength to hold it up.

“Look,” said Ash. She set her coffee down on the coffee table and unbuttoned my shirt. “He did this.” She pulled down the left side of my shirt, exposing the tattoo.

Pax got out of his chair and leaned over me. “What is that?”

“Vince drugged him and tattooed that on his chest.”

Pax stroked the outline and I shuddered, my shoulder blades twitching as his fingers ran over the ink.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

I shook my head. It felt nice. When he touched it.

He pulled the edge of my shirt back over the tattoo and sat back down.

“Do you know why?” he asked Ash.

“I think… somehow he’s using it to control Nate. Sexually.”

Pax’s lips made an ‘eff’ as if he was about to swear. “Was he… was he into guys, before tonight?”

Ash picked up her coffee again. “Not exactly.” She sounded guilty. She sipped her coffee, while Pax’s expression grew darker.

“So he wasn’t lying… shit, Nate, I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head, which was a mistake. My vision blurred and nausea stirred in my stomach.

“It’s okay. I like you. I just don’t want to fuck Vince.”

Pax pressed the back of his hand against his mouth. He looked horrified.

“Has he been violent with you?”

I felt Ash move slightly and guessed she was shaking her head. “Not exactly… but it’s like, neither of us can stand up to him. He has this way of making us do what he wants. And he’s so…”

“Hot,” I mumbled. “He’s really hot.”

“Yeah,” said Ash, her voice weary. “He is kind of hot.”

They kept talking as I drifted away.

I woke to someone shaking me.

I opened my eyes blearily and found Ash kneeling by the bed, her hands on my shoulders.

“Wake up!” Her voice was low and urgent.

I looked around the darkened room. Someone had lit the fire. Pax was asleep on the other couch, his hand resting on his chest.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Vince is here!”

I sat up and instantly regretted it as the room did a barrel roll.

“I’m gonna hurl,” I said, putting a hand to my stomach.

She sat beside me and put a hand on my back. “Come on. I don’t want him to wake up Pax.”

Her phone vibrated and she gave it a worried look.

“Okay, okay, I’m… I’m standing up now.”

I stood, and she steadied me as I lost my balance.

Her phone vibrated again.

She pushed it into her bra and together we started for the door.

The keys weren’t in the lock.

“Fuck,” hissed Ash. “Stay here, I’ll look.”

She leaned me against the wall and I slid down it to the floor. My head ached. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to stay conscious.

I heard Ash searching the room, then softly swearing as her phone vibrated again. There was a knock on the door.

“Nate? Asha?” Even muffled by the door, I could tell Vince was pissed.

“Shit, where are they!”

“What’s happening?” I recognised Pax’s voice and opened my eyes. Ash stopped ferreting under the couch cushions and stood frozen in the middle of the lounge.

“Vince is here,” she said, after a pause. “I was looking for the keys.”

Pax pushed a hand into his pocket and pulled them out. He nodded to Ash and came down the hall to where I was sitting.

He crouched beside me. “You okay?”

“I feel a bit shit, to be honest.”

He helped me up, then unlocked the door.

Vince stood outlined against the streetlit darkness. Pax flipped on the hall light and I squeezed my eyes shut as the light sent a stab of pain through my skull.

“You must be Vince?” Pax’s rich baritone seemed to have dropped a notch.

I opened my eyes and saw he was blocking the doorway. Ash put her arm around me. “Come on Nate.”

She helped me away from the wall.

Pax glanced over his shoulder and put out a hand. “Just a sec.”

He turned back to Vince. I could just see Vince’s face past his shoulder. His eyes were fixed on me.

“These guys say you drugged Nate and that you’ve been forcing them to do things they don’t want to do. Is that true?”

Oh, FUCK.

Vince folded his arms. “Who the fuck are you again?”

Pax pushed his loose shirt sleeves back up, leaving his muscled forearms bare.

“Paxton Mills. I’d shake your hand, but I’m a little concerned I might need to punch you.”

Vince chuckled low in his throat. “Oh, like that is it? Let me guess, pretty-boy’s cock’s been in your mouth, and now you feel all protective, is that it?”

Pax laughed through his nose. “I take a dim view of drugging people.”

“So whatever happened between you was fully consensual was it? He asked you to suck him off, or finger him, or whatever else you did to him?”

I could see the muscles in Pax’s arms tense.

“I didn’t realise how fresh he was. You can’t say the same.”

Vince laughed again, louder this time. “Oh, that is rich. Fresh. If you only knew.”

“Nate, we should go,” said Ash. She helped me past Pax.

Vince gave him a look of triumph. “Looks like we’re going home.”

Ash stopped on the path, her eyes scanning for Vince’s car.

“Mind your own business, Paxton Mills,” said Vince. “Lest someone mind it for you.”

He started down the path after us.

“Nate?” called Pax. “Don’t let him abuse you. Don’t be that guy.”

Vince put a hand against the small of my back and pushed, so that I stumbled forward.

Ash corrected me and we pushed the small gate open. The street was lined with cars; no garages in this neighbourhood. Vince pushed the button on his key ring, and his headlights lit up a few houses down.

“Walk,” he said. He put his hand possessively on my shoulder, guiding me at a pace I could barely keep up with, as Ash did her best to keep me upright.

We got to his car and he pushed me into the back seat and slammed the door. Ash got in the front, and Vince climbed into the driver’s seat.

I caught his gaze in the mirror and the look in his eyes sent a shiver down my spine.

He started the car and pulled away from the curb, leaving me with a sick feeling in my stomach.

 Chapter 24 

I woke the next morning in my own bed, with no memory of the car journey home. But there was one thing I did remember. Pax. Pax’s arms around me, his hands on my body, his lips pressed against mine. And Ash, sliding up and down my cock, her plump breasts thrust up by her corset, her hair falling into a loose mane, her eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure.

I threw back the covers and saw I was still fully dressed. I put my hands to my buttoned shirt and the feel of my own fingertips against my chest made me shiver as I remembered Pax’s hands running across my skin.

Fuck! What the hell had I done last night? This shit was getting out of control.

I tried to get up and fell back onto the bed as the room lurched. Okay, still drunk then. I tried again and stood still, getting my balance. I glanced sideways at the mirror on the wardrobe door and saw my pirate makeup had run around my eyes. I looked like a used man whore.

When I felt able to, I grabbed my robe from the back of the door and opened the bedroom door. The house lay in silence.

In the shower, I washed off the makeup and then stood with my hand braced against the wall, letting the water run through my hair.

I couldn’t get Pax out of my head. His finger in my ass, stroking against that special place, while I pushed down onto his hand. His massive cock in my hand, his cum trickling down my wrist.

I was too exhausted to beat myself off, so I dried off and went back to my room with a semi.

I fell back on the bed, naked and clean, my cock lying swollen against my stomach.

I had to get this under control. I needed to get rid of Vince, before he broke my brain for good. But not right now. I was too tired now.

I closed my eyes and my head sank into the pillow. I rested a hand on my cock, idly stroking it, while I replayed fucking Ash the night before. She’d been spectacular. Somehow, having a common enemy in Vince had brought us together in a way I hadn’t dreamed would be possible.

I heard the door shut quietly and opened my eyes. Vince was standing beside the bed.

I stared at him, frozen, my hand still on my cock.

He stood beside the bed in the pose bouncers adopted outside night clubs, his hands clasped in front of him, his shoulders relaxed, his legs just over shoulder width apart.

“Good morning Nate.”

I said nothing.

“Had a good night last night, did we?”

I watched him warily.

He broke the pose and I moved to get out of his way as he sat down on the bed.

Please don’t touch me, please don’t touch me—

He put a hand out and rested it against my bare chest. I stilled under his touch, my skin coming alive under his fingers. His grey-green eyes narrowed as he considered me.

“So, you seem to have made a new friend.”

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.

“Did you fuck him?”

I shook my head.

“Bullshit.”

He moved his hand to the tattoo, tracing the outline, then the eye in the centre. My eyes flickered closed as his touch filled me with a soft, paralysing euphoria.

“Do you remember me asking you a question yesterday?”

Yesterday? Yesterday seemed like a million years ago.

“Nathan. Pay attention. Do you remember what I asked you yesterday?”

His fingers kept running over the tattoo.

“Hint.” His voice grew closer as he leaned forward. “It was right before I fucked you in the arse.”

He pressed his palm flat against the tattoo and I gasped. My eyes flickered open. It just felt so good. So good. I wanted him to touch me everywhere. To feel his hands on my body. At that moment I would have done anything he asked me to. Anything.

“Answer the fucking question,” he said.

He lifted his hand and I started breathing again, unaware that I’d stopped.

“You asked…” I struggled to think back. “You asked why someone would brand me… shameless.”

“Well done! The boy still has a few brain cells left that he hasn’t drunk and fucked away. I’m going to ask you that question again. You get one chance to answer. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Sit up.”

I sat up against the headboard and drew my knees up to my chest.

“Why would anyone brand you ‘shameless’?”

Despite my aching need for him to touch me, I tried to think back to the point he was trying to make. Shameless. Why was I shameless, and why was it a bad thing?

He watched me intently.

“To punish me…” That much was a given. “For the way I…”

I broke off, knowing I knew the answer. But my head was too fucked with the need to be touched to concentrate.

“The way you what?” he prompted.

The need to be touched by… someone I didn’t want to touch me.

I swallowed. “The way I convinced Ash to… sleep with me.”

“The way you ‘convinced’ her? You can do better than that.”

He placed a hand lightly on my knee like a creepy uncle and squeezed gently.

I licked my dry lips. “Okay, the way I manipulated her.”

His head tilted slightly to the side as he regarded me with those cool, cool eyes.

“Just her?”

I shrugged. “I find girls usually want to fuck me.”

“Do they now?”

“Everyone does, apparently.”

His hand caressed my knee.

“Tell me, Nate. Have I done anything to you that you didn’t want me to?”

I frowned, wishing I wasn’t naked, wishing he was on the other side of the room, wishing his touch wasn’t making me too horny to think straight.

“Have I?” he asked again.

“You know you have! I never wanted you anywhere near me.”

His fingers stroked over my knee.

“It’s not as if I tied you down before I fucked you in the ass,” he said.

I dropped my gaze.

“I don’t blame you for being confused,” he said, his hand still resting on my knee. “Sexual desire in some of us is so strong, no matter what our minds say, no matter what we know is best for us, if someone touches us in just the right way…” he slid his hand down the angle of my thigh towards my groin. “We find ourselves helpless to say no.”

His hand slid across my inner thigh and wrapped around my stiffening cock.

“Okay, I get it!” I said, desperately.

He caressed my flesh, and I watched myself swell in his hand.

“Tell me to stop.”

My eyes rolled back as he started to tug on me.

“Nathan, pay attention!”

He slapped me lightly, then gripped my hair. I groaned, pulling against his grip to increase the pain.

“You don’t want a man to touch you, but you won’t tell me to stop, will you?”

He gripped my hair tighter and the pain of it, mixed with his hand moving up and down my cock, made me groan louder.

“So what will you never do again?”

I looked at him, my eyes heavy-lidded, wanting nothing more than for him to suck me off as Pax had, wanting his body pressed against me, his fingers inside me.

“What. Will you never do. Again?”

My mouth hung open, my brain numb with pleasure. My eyes rolled back.

“Nathan!”

He took his hand off my cock.

I opened my eyes and looked at him.

“Do you want me to touch you again?”

I stared at him in agony. He knew I did. I nodded.

“Then tell me what you’re never going to do again.”

I scanned his face, trying to remember. I was never going to… “I’ll never take advantage of Ash again.”

He put his hand back on my leg. “Of any woman.” He moved his face in closer to mine and his hand slid back to grip my cock, his fingers collecting the precum oozing from the tip, slicking it over the head.

“And not just women Nate, because you don’t belong to just women anymore.”

His face was close to mine. I tried to kiss him, but he gripped my hair again and held me back. His eyes burned into me.

Fuck I wanted him. I wanted him to throw me to the ground and shove his cock in my mouth, wanted him to finger me, to dominate me, to… oh fuck.

“Say it,” he said. “Promise me that your days of manipulating anyone into fucking you are over.”

“Okay,” I panted, as his hand continued to stroke my cock. “I promise never to manipulate anyone again. Please, please, just…”

“Do this?” he said.

He took his hand off my cock and pushed his middle finger into my mouth. “Get it nice and wet. It’s going in your ass.”

I held his eyes as I sucked on his finger, slicking it with spit.

He gave me a satisfied smile and moved his hand back between my legs. My back arched as he pressed his fingertip against my pulsing hole.

Christ that felt good.

He pushed just the tip of his finger inside me. “Fuck yourself.”

He kept a tight grip on my hair as I pushed myself onto his finger, rocking my hips to move it further inside me.

“Good boy.” He started to push his finger into me, then let go of my hair and reached for my hidden bottle of lube on the windowsill.

I kept riding his finger as he squirted some lube onto his fingers and then slid a second finger inside me.

Fuuuuck. I closed my eyes and his free hand roved over my chest, brushing across my nipples, sending thrills of pleasure through me. I froze as he traced the outline of the tattoo and threw my head back, my cock harder than I’d ever been in my life.

The muscles in my groin tightened as he added a third finger to my ass, pushing into me, reaming me open, getting me ready for his cock. The squelch of his lubed fingers was loud in the silent room.

“Do you want me to fuck you again?”

No. I didn’t want any guy to fuck me ever. But if he stopped now, I knew I’d humiliate myself by begging him to keep going.

Taking my silence as assent, he slowly withdrew his fingers from my ass.

“Roll over.”

I did as he said, and he pushed my arms above my head. “Keep them there.”

I heard him strip, then the slurp of more lube being squeezed from the bottle.

He got back onto the bed and placed one hand on my ass, while he slid his fingers back inside me.

I pushed back to meet him as he stroked his fingers over my prostate.

“Please, please keep doing that,” I said desperately. I gripped the edge of my pillow and ground onto his hand.

He kept up his stroking and I reached down for my cock.

“No.” He pushed my arm back up over my head. “Do you know how hard it is to make a lasting impression on you?”

I had no idea what he meant, but I really, really wanted to touch myself.

He kept sliding his fingers in and out as I pressed my face into the pillow.

“Please touch me!”

He ran his fingers over the muscles in my back, dragging them down my body until he reached my hips.

“It’s not my job to give you pleasure.”

I panted hard. Since when?

“Tell me, Nate, should I be doing this?”

Fuck’s sake, why the constant preaching?

“No,” I panted.

He raised his eyebrows.

“But please don’t stop.” I glanced back at him and he shook his head.

“I’m not even sure you can be saved.” He sighed. “Now get on your hands and knees. We’re going to cum together.”

He pulled his fingers from my ass and wiped them on the bedspread as I pushed myself up onto all fours, breathing hard in anticipation.

He slicked his cock with more lube, then pushed the tip of him against me. I relaxed as much as I could as he slid himself in.

I gasped as he didn’t stop at two inches, but kept pushing himself slowly all the way in to the hilt.

He stopped when his balls nestled against mine, and ran a hand over my back.

“When I realised my job was to fuck you, I have to admit, I was intrigued,” he said. His fingers traced circles against my skin as my muscles contracted around him. “Relax, Nate, relax. Or this is going to be a fucking unpleasant experience for you.”

I did my best to relax, but the size of him pushed all the way inside me was impossible to ignore.

I put one hand to my cock and stroked it to take my mind away from the pain and humiliation of letting him do this to me.

“You are a very pretty boy. I didn’t think you were bisexual, but I see now that you belong to anyone who wants you.” He backed his cock out a short distance, then pushed back into me. I gasped, squeezing my cock hard as pain and pleasure ripped through me.

“You have no idea how dangerous it is for someone like you to be as pretty as you are.”

He slid out again, this time pulling half of his length out of me, then slamming back into me.

“Please, don’t.”

He wrapped a hand back into my hair.

“Don’t what? Hurt you? Fuck you?”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

He tugged on my hair. “If I honestly thought you wanted me to go easy on you, I would.”

He moved inside me, not pulling out, just moving.

I sighed, pulling against the fist wrapped in my hair.

“You like that, don’t you? A bit of pain, a bit of control. Some risk. Your mistake was thinking everyone liked what turned you on, Nate, but I think you get it now.”

He pulled out a short way and slammed back in, then started to fuck me with slow, steady thrusts.

At least he’d properly stretched me out this time.

I stroked my hand along my cock as his thrusts reached deeper into me than seemed physically possible. But the deeper he drove, the more of him I wanted inside me. I wanted him, needed him to shove into me harder. As the initial pain wore off, I wanted more. Much more.

He put his hands on my hips and pulled me back onto him so that I gritted my teeth and started to fist my dry cock to combat the new pain.

“Get your hand off your cock and hold it out.”

I did as he said and he paused fucking me long enough to squirt some lube into my hand.

I wrapped my hand around my cock again and he gripped my hair harder, sending waves of pleasure through me.

“You’re such a needy boy, aren’t you Nate? Always looking for someone to dominate, while all the while, you really wanted someone like me—” he slammed into me, making me grit my teeth again, “—to make you his bitch.”

He had complete control, his cock slipping deeper and deeper into me, his balls swinging against mine in a steady collision of pleasure.

He picked up the pace and let go of my hair, running his hands down my back to rest on my ass.

“Is this enough pain, Nate, or do you need more?”

He slammed hard into me.

I gritted my teeth and let out a growl of pleasure.

I did my best to relax, pushing back onto him in time with his thrusts, feeling his cock swelling inside me until I was afraid he was going to explode me open. But the fear made every part of me come alive; the fear that he’d hurt me, that he owned me, that he could do whatever he wanted to me, and I wouldn’t fight back.

“That’s it, pretty-boy, give me your arse.”

There was a hot fire inside me, and his thrusts were too hard not to be painful, but I wanted it, needed it so badly.

My hand slid up and down my cock, precum drooling onto the bedspread. I pushed back onto him as he thrust into me, feeling myself edging towards a climax that would be like nothing I’d ever felt before.

He growled with satisfaction. “You shameless little fuck.”

He grabbed my hips and slammed into me, pulling me back onto him, plunging into me deeper and deeper.

Oh God, I was going to explode.

I gripped my cock tightly, just below the oozing head and squeezed in time with his thrusts.

God. Oh God. Oh FUCK.

I gasped as I came, my cock pulsing in my hand, spurting cum across the duvet.

His balls slapped against mine and then he let out a groan of pleasure and shoved hard. His cock throbbed inside me, filling every inch of me.

He leaned forward and gripped my hair, shaking it in his hand before letting go and running his hands down my back.

He held me on him, dripping and shuddering, and ran his hands over my ass.

“I would almost turn gay for you,” he said thoughtfully. “The joy of taking you from a terrified ‘no’ to a desperate ‘please’ every day for the rest of your life would be so sweet.”

He drew his fingernails down my back and I shuddered with pleasure.

“But eventually you’d stop fighting. And I’m not a complete monster.”

He put a hand to his cock and slowly extracted himself from me.

The sensation of him leaving left a strange melancholy as the last of his heat pulled out of me.

I collapsed on my forearms and rolled over.

He knelt on the bed, his softening cock still oozing. Slowly, he lay back and put his hands behind his head.

I got onto all fours and crawled over to him.

“You know what to do.”

His eyes stayed glued to mine as I got between his legs and took his cock into my mouth.

I was floating on a sea of endorphins. As I wrapped my mouth around him, I didn’t even taste myself. I just did what he told me to do. My mind was a soft mush. He could have told me to eat his ass and I would have done it.

I sucked his softening dick, cleaning it with my tongue, seeking out the last of his cum.

When I was done, he pushed me away. “That’s enough.”

He got off the bed and pulled his clothes back on, then stood looking down at me.

“I think you’ll be okay, Nate. Just stop nurturing your inner douche.”

After he’d gone, I lay on my back, his cum running from my stretched asshole, and wondered what the hell was going to happen to me.          

 Chapter 25 

My phone buzzed. A text. ‘Are you ok?’

The name on the screen read; ‘Pax - I Put My Number In Your Phone For You’.

I stared down at the message. Was I okay? No, not really. I was a straight guy who’d sucked cock two days running, been fucked in the ass two days running, and who’d accepted a blow job from another guy before giving him a hand job in an unplanned three-way. I was doing a completely shit job of being straight.

‘Fine.’ I texted back.

A second later my phone buzzed again. ‘I want to see you again. Can we meet?’

I shrank into my robe. Meet him again. Sober, that just didn’t seem like a good idea.

‘I’m not gay.’

It only took a second for him to reply. ‘You don’t have to be. You don’t have to be anything. Just meet me. I want to see you.’

There was a knock at the door.

“Nate, are you in there?” Ash.

“Come in.”

She opened the door and closed it behind her. She was still in her pyjamas.

“Fuck, Nate, what did he do to you?” She came up to me and put her arms around me. I held her close as tears slid down my face.

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” I said. “I don’t know who I am.”

She hugged me tightly, then put her hands in my hair and tilted my head up to look at her.

“You’re who you’ve always been. Only you’re more.”

She put her hands up to the buttons on her pajama top and unbuttoned it, brushing the fabric aside to reveal her plump breasts. I stared at chest, mesmerised.

“Do you still want me?” she asked.

I nodded, my tears stilled as I focused on her, her scent, her hair a tangled mess of waves.

“Then you’re not gay, Nate.” She brushed the hair back from my forehead. “You might be bi. But that doesn’t mean you’ve lost anything. Who you fuck is not who you are.”

“It’s part of who I am.”

She stroked her fingers through my hair.

“Actually,” I said, “it’s a lot of who I am.”

She kissed me. “Well, maybe it shouldn’t be.” She kissed the top of my head. Her naked breasts were right there. I was relieved to feel myself getting hard. I slid my hands up to her waist.

“Nate?”

“Mmm?” I looked up.

“You’re still you.” She held my gaze, a small smile on her face. “Actually, I take that back. The fact that your hands aren’t on my tits right now means you have changed. I’m just not sure it’s a bad thing.”

I laughed softly. “I’m sorry,” I said. My eyes were still damp with tears. “I’m sorry… that I forced myself on you.”

She gave me a half smile. “I wanted you, Nate, I just wasn’t ready. I wanted you to know me first… as well as I knew you.”

I put a hand to my head where a headache was settling in. “I was a total knob.”

She touched my cheek. “I always hoped there was something else inside you.”

My phone buzzed again. I stared at the screen until Ash took the phone from me and read the message. “He wants to see you again.”

“How would you feel about that?”

She smiled, but there was a touch of sadness in her eyes. “Nate, right now, you need to spend some time figuring this stuff out.”

“You don’t mind?”

She ruffled my hair. “I’m curious to see where it goes. Just don’t shut me out.”

She handed the phone back to me.

Another message appeared on the screen.

‘Bring Ash if you like. I’d like to see her again too.’

I turned the screen towards her. She grinned.

When we got downstairs, Vince’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

“Where’s Vince?”

Ash shrugged, then picked a piece of paper up off the kitchen bench. “He left a note.” She read it aloud. “By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. But don’t doubt, if I’m needed, I’ll be back. So be good, Nate. Be very, very good. And to you, beautiful Asha Grace… make sure he treats you well. Vincent.”

She folded the note back up.

We stared at each other for a moment.

“Hey, can I see your tattoo?”

I nodded and she pulled up my t-shirt. “Jesus. Look.”

I stared down at my chest, puzzled. “What?”

She ran her fingers over the tattoo. “It’s changed.”

I had to read it upside-down, but I could see she was right.

“Does that say ‘Adal’?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and Googled it. It meant ‘Honourable’.

I handed the phone to her. “What are the chances it stays like that?”

She stroked her fingers over the lettering. “Pretty good, I think.” She smiled up at me. “Let’s go see Pax.”

Available now on Smashwords as 'Shameless'.

Copyright © 2017 Jason Clearwater

All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1545260781