Barging In Read online

  “What makes you think I wasn’t interested in him? I suppose someone like you wouldn’t shag an old queen like him if he were the last man on earth, although you’d quite happily work your way through every sleazy little whore at a place like the Hussars.” Robin’s lip curled up in a sneer.

  “Look, I’m not a one-man kind of bloke, and I don’t see why I should be ashamed of that.” Dan stuck out his chin. He was buggered if he was going to let Robin take the moral high ground here. “I’m a player.”

  “You’re a slut, you mean.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Not a chance. I’ve got a girlfriend anyway. Mel. You remember?” There was no mistaking the challenge in Robin’s eyes. It was that defensiveness that fundamentally honest people always betrayed when they were lying through their teeth. “I’d better get going. I’m supposed to be meeting her at the Hat and Feather.”

  Dan wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. “Funny that, I figured you were gay, the way you kissed me back in the pub. The gay pub, where you were having a drink with a gay man.” Bloody hell, if that wasn’t a blush spreading across Robin’s cheeks and making him look even more edible.

  “I’m bi, but that’s nobody’s fucking business but my own, okay? Not that it matters, anyway, because I’m off to see my girlfriend. Good-bye, Dan.” His voice was sharp enough to make Dan wince, and it deterred him from following after Robin as he stalked away.

  “See you soon, Robin,” he called.

  Robin didn’t turn back.

  Sighing heavily, Dan wrapped his jacket closer around his body and headed off towards the Hussars. Robin was right; that probably was more his kind of place, and there was no point wasting the evening. There’d be plenty of opportunity to get to work on Robin before he had to go back to London. He’d have him by the time his trip was over.

  A smirk tugged at his lips.

  Robin wouldn’t know what had hit him. Dan was going to rock his world.

  “Hey, Danny-boy! You just caught me,” Tris said. “Lucky for you I’m not on stage for the next couple of numbers. How you doing? Sunk that boat yet?”

  “Still afloat, no thanks to you.”

  “You’re such a drama queen! What are you doing calling me at this time of the evening, anyway? Can’t you find any better company? Thought you were meant to be checking out the scene in Bath.”

  “Yeah, I did. It wasn’t all that.” He’d given up and cycled back to the boat again. Once he’d got the boat warmed up and figured out that there was no television reception in this particular spot, phoning Tris seemed like the best entertainment available.

  “So? What gives? Thought you’d be on your knees in a toilet stall by now. Don’t tell me you’re getting picky in your old age.”

  “Fuck off. If I’m old, then so are you.”

  “Yes, but I make more of an effort to look young than you do, sweetness.” Dan could practically hear Tris sucking in his cheeks and pouting. “Go on then. Spill it. Or have you already spilt it and come home early?”

  “No such luck. Had a great snog earlier—really hot boater guy—but he got the fear, and I couldn’t find anyone else who measured up.”

  “So you are getting picky! I knew it. But Dan, really, a boater? Aren’t they all smelly hippies? You hate hippies.”

  “I don’t hate hippies!”

  Tris harrumphed. “You once told me you’d never shag a man who wore tie-dye, no matter how well hung he was.”

  Dan couldn’t deny it. “Yeah, well, Robin doesn’t wear tie-dye. He looks more like a cross between paramilitary and posh boy. Do you get posh boys becoming boaters?”

  “Lord knows, darling. You know me, I try and stay away from all that class nonsense. I love slumming it, so maybe he does too.”

  Dan pondered Tris’s words. So far, Tris was probably the most upper class of all his friends, and the vast difference in their backgrounds had never stopped them getting along. If anything, it gave them more to talk about.

  “Anyway,” Tris continued, “you’d better not go getting all boring on me and wanting to settle down like everyone else seems to. I was going to take you to this great club I got invited to last night. You’d love it. Full of big men with tattoos. It was a bit…leather, but nothing too outrageous.”

  “You went to a leather club? Seriously?” Tristan might be a cheap tart, but he was just about the most vanilla man Dan had ever met—didn’t even like the idea of threesomes much. Tris made Dan look downright kinky in comparison, even though the closest he’d ever got to bondage was that time he’d let a lover tie his hands to the bed frame. The loss of control had freaked him out so much that he’d never dared try it again.

  “Yes, seriously. You know me. Always willing to try new things,” Tris said.

  “Always willing to try new men, you mean.”

  Tris laughed. The sound always made Dan chuckle. Tris might put on camp airs and graces like they were going out of fashion, but he had this belly laugh that never sat quite right with the act.

  “So go on, then,” Tris demanded. “I’ve got another few minutes. Tell me what I’m missing out on.”

  Dan looked around the tiny space. Despite using half a box of firelighters, he’d had real problems getting the stove going—good thing the boat had gas-fired central heating or he’d be freezing his nuts off. “You’d hate it. It’s cold. The shower’s only a trickle, and it’s so small in there the curtain keeps getting stuck to your arse. The bed’s about the size of a single even though it’s meant to be a double. God knows how we’d have both fit in it.”

  “We’d have had to snuggle, babe. I’m sure that’s what the boaters do. Must help them to keep warm as well.”

  “Yeah. Tell you what, I wouldn’t mind snuggling up with this Robin fella. Bet he’d keep me warmer than your skinny arse would.”

  “Darling, I’m wounded. Mortally. Can’t you hear the death rattle?” Dan held the phone away from his ear as Tris made a vile noise.

  “You finished yet?”

  Dan heard a voice in the background, and Tris stopped pretending to die.

  “Oh shit, that’s my call. Gotta go. You just go after this sexy boater man. I want to hear all about how you seduced him next time you phone, okay?”

  “Will do. Break a leg, Tris.”

  “Love you too. Ciao!”

  Dan stared at the phone display for a moment, but there was no one else he wanted to call. Tris was his oldest, closest friend and the only one he felt he could really open up to. Plus, he was brilliant at phone sex. He worked on one of those chat lines when he was between jobs—said it was just another form of acting. Dan had been hoping he might have the time to work his magic over the phone tonight. It had been ages since they’d done that.

  For some reason it was much easier to get off with Tris over the phone than it was in person. Maybe they just didn’t fancy each other enough to make the sex spectacular, or maybe it was something else. Maybe they couldn’t be what the other one needed. Dan always had to top and got the feeling that Tris wanted him to be even more dominant. It just wasn’t his style, though, so they very rarely bothered these days. Much better to flirt outrageously and go out on the pull together.

  He shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. Why hadn’t he gone home with one of the guys who’d offered? He’d have a warm bed and even warmer company. Fact was, though, none of them had measured up to Robin.

  He couldn’t shake the memory of that kiss.

  Bugger. Perhaps he really was getting old.

  He went with the flow and got an early night, stumbling into bed fully clothed. Maybe it was all the fresh air and exercise that was to blame, but sleep claimed him almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Morning found Dan warm and cosy in his nest of blankets. He surfaced from a dream of tussling with three sweaty, naked men and went to touch himself while still half-asleep.

  Why was he wearing his jeans?

  Dan sat up and looke
d around. Oh God, still on the bloody boat. What’s more, it was fucking freezing. He burrowed back under the blankets and tried to recapture his dream.

  But the dream guys were gone and he could only conjure up Robin. He went with it, remembering the image of Robin chopping wood. Those muscles had been beautiful—lean yet defined—and obviously the result of real work rather than steroids and protein supplements.

  Dan unzipped his fly and stroked his cock. Memories of Robin’s scent and taste assaulted him. Smoky, spicy, musky… Whatever it had been, it drove Dan wild. Would the rest of him taste as good as those luscious lips had? He imagined them wrapped around his dick. Imagined that tongue stud teasing his slit just before every plunge down. He used his thumbnail as a substitute, and the delicious pain made him hiss with pleasure. As his hand started to slip on precome, he sped up, his breathing shallow and rapid. The blankets were stifling, and he threw them back, no longer bothered by the frigid air.

  He pictured Robin crouched down, pinning him to the mattress. The tattoo on his back undulating as he bobbed up and down, his cheeks hollowed. His dark eyes meeting Dan’s.

  Dan arched his back and came with a cry, spunk spurting between his fingers and pooling on his stomach.

  He gave a wry smile. He could have woken up next to one of those blokes from the pub last night but turned them down for a date with his hand and an imaginary Robin. It felt like the start of one of his infatuations. Dan had grown to recognise them by now—this overwhelming interest in one particular man, which would last only for as long as it took him to shag it out of his system—no more than a couple of weeks. At that point, some of the gloss wore off the previously perfect man, and Dan would start to get bored and restless, looking around for someone new to divert him. The first few times he’d assumed that he’d fallen in love, but now he was older and wiser, he’d come to the conclusion that he just wasn’t capable of that. It was probably for the best, as he’d hate to get tied down like his mum had been with his dad. He wasn’t about to let an infatuation with one man—no matter how soulful his eyes were—wreck his perfectly happy lifestyle.

  The come on his belly cooled and rapidly became uncomfortable. Dan sighed. No point trying to figure out the Robin thing on an empty stomach. Much easier to work on it in the presence of the guy. He’d get over him quickly enough.

  After a hasty encounter with the clammy shower curtain, Dan pondered the options for breakfast. He ended up eating cold couscous salad out of the plastic tub from the deli, along with a torn-off piece of the now rather stale ciabatta loaf. He needed to get to a supermarket for some proper food—none of this fancy middle-class grub he’d been hoodwinked into eating over the last few years. He felt like a return to the food of his youth: chips and baked beans, pie and mash, sausages and gravy… Good honest food to fill you up and give you energy. Grimacing, he abandoned the rest of the ciabatta.

  By now the sun was filtering through the rather thin curtains, so Dan decided to welcome it in. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten which side of the boat was which and ended up opening them on the towpath side. The elderly woman out walking her dog gave him a rather sweet, if decidedly startled, smile. Mind you, his towel had slipped pretty low on his hips… Shame it hadn’t been one of the male boaters, really. One in particular.

  By the time Dan was dressed and had checked over his camera, the sun was high enough to have boiled away most of the mist that hung above the water. It was going to be another fine autumn day. Humming to himself, he cycled off in the direction of Mel’s boat. After checking in with her, he wanted to wander down to the river and get shots of the Dundas Aqueduct from that angle. And who knew, maybe a certain sexy boater would be up and about and ready to carry on their conversation from last night.

  That way he could have his fun and get Robin Hamilton out of his system for good.

  Dan framed the composition of the stone aqueduct towering over the river below and fired off a few shots. They’d be good but not striking. What he needed was to find an angle where the vivid reds of the trees were partially obscuring the ochre limestone and adding interest to that side of the scene. He scrambled up the valley side, slipping on the leaves covering the slope. Bugger. Now he had a muddy knee to match his soiled trainers. The countryside was bloody murder on his clothes—it was no wonder these boaters all looked like they’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, then rolled in a ditch for good measure.

  Eventually Dan found a tree he could lean into and use to brace himself while he composed his photographs. It wasn’t comfortable, leaning sideways onto the rough bark, but at least it was secure enough so that the slight give of the springy trunk didn’t alarm him.

  The leaves above his head rustled. Great. There was a creature up here with him. Dan tried to remember if any dangerous animals climbed British trees. As far as he could recall, he should be safe. Probably just a squirrel or something that sounded a lot larger than it really was. He peered nervously up into the crisscrossing branches and saw a furry face staring back. A familiar furry face.

  “Morris?”

  The cat just eyed him a few moments longer; then its lids blinked shut. Dan rooted around in his jacket pockets and found the folded-up poster liberated from the floor of the pub. Yep, that was Morris all right. The markings all matched. What the bloody hell was he doing lurking halfway up a tree, halfway up the side of the valley, when he could be curled up by a stove on a nice warm boat? Dan knew where he’d rather be.

  “Here, Morris! Come on down. Your daddy’s worried about you, you know.”

  Morris blinked slowly, giving Dan a look that suggested he found him beneath contempt but resolutely refused to budge. He’d been missing for a couple of days now, Dan remembered, so he might well be injured.

  Dan pondered his options. There was really only one way of checking on the cat, and that involved climbing the sodding tree. It might be one of those skills every man was supposed to absorb during childhood, but his hadn’t featured many trees. Still, there was a branch just above his head, and he was light and limber. It would have to be enough. After packing his camera away, Dan grabbed hold of the branch, relieved to discover the bark was crenellated deeply enough to provide decent traction for his feet. He found other hand and footholds, eventually seating himself on the same branch as Morris, some eight feet off the ground.

  Dan eyed the cat. “You’re coming with me, you know,” he said with rather more certainty than he felt, looking down and wondering how on earth he was going to get them both safe on solid ground without causing further injury. He reached out and gave a tentative stroke to Morris’s back. The cat hissed and bared his teeth. Bloody marvellous. Then Dan noticed what looked like blood matted into the fur there.

  “There’s no point getting pissy with me, catkins. I’m taking you down, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Turned out there was plenty Morris could do about it, including yowling, swiping out with bared claws, then sinking them into Dan’s chest when he finally grasped the ungrateful monster by the scruff and held him close. “Ow! You bitch! I’m only trying to help.”

  Morris turned his head to bite Dan’s hand, and any consideration of how best to get down from their perch became purely academic as Dan lost his balance and toppled off. He squawked, arms flailing, then hit the ground with a jolt that knocked all the breath out of his lungs. Fortunately he landed on his back, forming a human cushion for Morris. A human pincushion, more like, he thought to himself, wincing as claws dug in dangerously close to a nipple.

  Still, it was better than landing facedown and having to explain to Robin why he had a squashed dead cat attached to his chest by its claws. But it wouldn’t do to lie around in the woods all day. Not now that he’d effected his heroic rescue and could take Morris home and claim his reward, whatever that might be. Dan smiled to himself. He’d go for another kiss, followed by something more intimate once he’d got Robin warmed up. Yeah, that was worth dragging his arse up off the ground and wrestl
ing with the world’s most ungrateful rescuee.

  Morris had gone limp, so Dan took the opportunity to haul himself up and then button his jacket around the furry lump. God, he looked like he was pregnant, and he was fairly sure the denim of his jacket, designed more for posing in clubs than rugged outdoor use, was going to stretch all out of shape trying to support Morris’s weight. He slung his camera bag over one shoulder and experimented with adjusting the straps, eventually fashioning a platform for the unwieldy creature’s bum.

  As he stumbled up the valley side, Dan lost himself in daydreams of an insanely grateful Robin. Better that than panicking about the fact that Morris hadn’t moved since their fall from the tree.

  Chapter Five

  “Fucking bastard piece of shit!” Robin glowered at the half-assembled plate rack. It didn’t defend itself; it just sat there on his workbench maintaining a stubborn silence. Really, it wasn’t the plate rack’s fault that Robin was having so many problems working today, but since it couldn’t stand up for itself and accuse him of being a moody bugger, it was having to bear the brunt of his bad temper.

  “You just watch it, plate rack. Right now you’re nothing but fancy kindling.” Robin picked the wooden construction up, half inclined to just chuck it on the fire and start again, but Smiler was expecting it to be ready by tomorrow—he had his daughters coming to stay and wanted to be able to impress them with his new-found domesticity. Perhaps it wouldn’t seem so utterly hopeless if he took a break and came back to it. Okay, so he’d cut one of the pieces to the wrong size, but it had been bloody difficult to read his scrawled notes, especially after he’d spilt beer on them.

  Robin downed tools and kicked the leg of his workbench. He needed fresh air and grabbed his jacket and bag on the way out. It was still bright and mild for October, but there was a chill breeze, and he knew that it would be that much cooler in the shade of the woods.