Chapter One
FEIGNINGsleep, Marcus Vine cracked an eye open when the warm male body next to him rolled away to perch on the side of the bed. Last night’s hookup sat there for a moment, his broad back on full display, lowering his head and pushing hands through dark oily locks. An ornately patterned tattoo of curls and thorns and flora decorated well-defined muscles of tanned silken skin. When he stood upright and moved toward the bathroom, his pert muscled backside and thick hairy thighs moved with the easy grace of a feline predator. After hesitating by the bathroom door a moment, he spun around and headed back toward the bed.
The view full frontal now, Marcus ogled the man’s sheer physical beauty. Perfect pectorals covered with a dusting of dark moss that trailed down in a line toward the generous cock nestled in a triangular bush of pubic hair. A little too trim actually. Did he manscape down there? And what if he did? Marcus chastised himself. A man should make the most of what he’s got. The hunk in question—what was his name again?—plucked his cell phone from the bedside cabinet and scooped up his clothes from the floor before heading back toward the bathroom.
As soon as the door closed, Marcus sat up and checked the time: 8:10. A whole morning before his lunchtime meeting. Part of him wanted to call someone close, a friend back in England to share his exploits with and get a second opinion. But there was no one, not anymore. That used to be the job of Lorraine Bradford—Raine—his best friend since high school. Just thinking about her elicited a pang of sadness. Almost a year to the day, they had lost her in a car accident, and then, at the request of Tom, her widowed husband, he’d agreed to give the family time to heal. Even if he’d never said the words aloud, he’d always believed that he and Raine would be a part of each other’s lives into old age.
But that was then, and if working in the restaurant trade had taught him anything, it was the importance of picking yourself up after any setback and moving forward. Nobody else would do it for you.
Perhaps he should make fresh coffee. Then again, maybe the guy would want to escape as soon as he’d finished in the bathroom. Or perhaps his inclination to overuse the word “like” would be just as prevalent in the morning. Why couldn’t Marcus meet a normal guy who had beauty, stamina,anda modicum of intelligence? Someone like Tom Bradford, who had all of those and more. At least this guy hadn’t indicated wanting anything serious. Marcus folded his arms and thought back to the night before.
Hindsight could be a pain in the arse. And not a good one. Alarm bells should have sounded when the conversation on their stroll back to his Manhattan serviced apartment became progressively one-sided. Then again, perhaps bells had already been ringing, but Marcus had been deaf to them, hypnotized by the man’s charisma and masculine beauty. Until they had settled back in the apartment, that is, when what’s-his-name had continued to bombard him in adolescent enthusiasm with stories about his budding modeling career, his disdain for the amateurism ofAmerica’s Next Top Modeland other reality modeling shows, and the various countries he had been to and had yet to visit. At first the excitement had been endearing, almost infectious. And then the man had insisted on talking Marcus through two hundred and twenty-eight professional photographs of himself on his tablet computer. Admittedly some had been stunning, in various costumes, poses, and states of undress, but when he segued into photos of his three pedigree Persian cats, Marcus’s ardency had not so much waned as flatlined.
Thursday night drifted into the early hours of Friday morning. And the sex—once they got there—had been at best lackluster. A good word, actually, because the whole encounter lacked any kind of lust. The six-feet-four hunk turned out to be not so much passive as inanimate, rolling over, pushing his face into the pillow, and lying prone. Not once did he respond to kisses on the neck or caresses along the perfect ridge of his back, even to a gentle massage across broad shoulders and down the sides of his torso. Nor did he attempt to reciprocate in any way. So unmoving was he that at one point Marcus wondered if he should check for a pulse. Admittedly, the man—what the hell was his name?—had labeled his sexuality “fluid.” Maybe he meant fluid as in a tub of wet cow’s liver. Or maybe this was a modern generational thing, some kind of new millennial sacrificial sex. Eventually Marcus had sighed and given up, rolled to the other side of the king-size mattress, and fallen asleep.
But then the hunk had stayed until morning, so what did that mean? Maybe Marcus should turn off the spiteful critic in his head and cut the man—Freddie, his name was Freddie—some slack. Having someone that striking by his side couldn’t do his budding culinary career any harm. And the fact they were on different continents was absolutely perfect. Skype or phone relationships rocked. And then maybe his friends and workmates would finally get off his case about him being a die-hard one-night-stander. Bite the bullet, he told himself, and ask for Freddie’s number as soon as the moment felt right.
When he heard the shower running, he breathed a sigh of relief. Stretching out an arm, he grabbed his mobile phone and thumbed the ringer back on. As he peered at the phone display, he noticed a couple of long-distance missed calls from an unknown number. Ah well, he thought, if it was important they’d phone back.
Half an hour later, togged out in track bottoms and a simple white tee, he heard the bathroom door open.
Olive branch time.
“Coffee?”
“Caffeine’s poison. Got guava?”
“Juice?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, no. There’s orange juice in the fridge, I think.”
“Fresh squeezed?”
“Probably. Before the manufacturer added sugar and chemicals and shit and poured it into a box.”
“No, then. Talk about death by fructose. I’ll, like, get something natural on the way to the dance studio. In fact, I should get going.”
And suddenly Marcus remembered why they had connected. Not only did the man look after himself physically, but he cared about what went into his body. Yes, maybe this was somebody he could have around—albeit at a distance.
“So before you go, Freddie, I wondered if I could get—”
“What did you just call me?”
“Freddie,” said Marcus, faltering. “Isn’t that your name?”
“Oh. Em.Gee. That issonot my name.”
“I’m sorry. It was loud in the club last night. I must have misheard.”
“Repeat after me. Fair.”
“Sorry?”
“Fair!”
“Oh. Fair.”
