Rae

He kept me waiting ten minutes, probably trying to figure out if I was taking the piss, and I spent the same about of time staring at his message, wondering the same thing.

Cash: my bed is ur bed

Even now, a whole day later, it still made my head spin.

I opened the message and read it again, but my Cash-clouded brain didn’t clear. I had a million and one things to do at home, but my five o’clock train was all I could think about.

Sprig poked me in the side. “Are you helping me with this fence or what?”

“Hmm?”

He rolled his eyes and pried the hammer from my hand. “Never mind. I’ll do it my bloody self.”

Sprig wandered off to finish up adding reinforcements to our perimeter fence. It wouldn’t stop the police if they wanted to roll onto our camp again, but it hopefully would make the Goon squad think twice before they brought their quad bikes down from the house.

Meg appeared at my shoulder. “How long will you be gone?”

“A couple of days?” I shrugged. “I don’t really know, but I’ll be back by the weekend, and I can come home anytime you need me.”

“That’s not why I was asking. I just like to know when to expect you in case something goes wrong.”

“You worry too much.”

Meg sighed. “Maybe, but in any case, while you’re there, be sure to thank Cash for us. The stingers did the job without anyone getting hurt, and that’s the best outcome we’ve had for a while.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her about Cash getting clobbered in the face, and I didn’t want to think about the photo he’d sent me of his swollen, bloodied cheek. The only images I wanted rolling around my brain were of his bed, preferably with him in it, naked.

Meg laughed. “You’re away with the fairies, boy. Why don’t you leave this to us and get an earlier train? There’s a bus in ten minutes.”

Responsibility weighed heavily on me, but Meg was persuasive, and five minutes later found me running down the lane to catch the bus to the station. Safely in my seat, I texted Cash.

Rae: Might be early

Cash: for real?

Rae: Yeah. But don’t worry if you’re working. I can hole up in the pub with my laptop.

Cash: try the house first, there might be someone home

Fair enough, though I wasn’t too keen on facing Cash’s housemates again after stumbling my way past them last time, limping and sweating. It hadn’t been my best look.

But even that wasn’t enough to dampen the slow excitement building in my gut. I’d spent a solid twelve hours in Cash’s company mere days ago, but this was different. I was going to his house because he wanted me to, and I wanted to be there. No drama, no complications. No life and death. Just him, me, and his glorious bed.

I rolled into London at three o’clock, and by the time I’d hoofed it from Euston to Tottenham, I was still two hours early. The pub was tempting, but despite selling a couple of articles to Yahoo this month, I didn’t have the money to waste on drinking alone.

That left showing my face at Cash’s house without him, so off I trotted, dodging the grimy puddles a winter shower had left on the pavement, head down, earbuds jammed in my ears. It seemed like no time had passed when I found myself knocking on his art deco front door.

I took my earbuds out and wrapped the wire into a neat coil while I waited. It was bizarrely occupying. The front door opened with a whine of old hinges, and I jumped a fucking mile.

A long-haired dude wearing the same jeans as me was on the other side. His gaze swept over me before his expression settled into a friendly smile. “Rae?”

“Uh, yeah. Is Cash home yet?”

“No, but come in. He won’t be long. I’m Lucky.”

He stuck out his hand. I took it and endured another curious once-over. “Nice to meet you.”

Inside the house, Lucky pointed at the stairs. “You can wait in his room if you want, or come through to the kitchen. My boyfriend gave me a cat. I’m trying to figure out if it wants to kill me.”

He wandered off. The lure of Cash’s bedroom was strong, but curiosity won out, and I followed him to the kitchen.

I don’t know what I’d expected to find, but despite my vague recollections from the last time I’d been here, Dominic Ramos and Sergio Maldano sitting at the counter wasn’t it. What the fuck were two premiership footballers doing in Cash’s kitchen?

If my surprise showed on my face, no one seemed to notice. Maldano grinned, Ramos nodded with the manner his reputation had led me to expect, and Lucky gestured to a tabby ball of tension huddled by the microwave.

“I don’t think she likes me,” he said.

I put my bag down and tried to block out the presence of two world famous sport stars. “How long have you had her?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“She hasn’t had enough time to like you, then. Where did she come from?”

“A building site,” Ramos said. “She was sleeping in a skip there, but it was taken away today, so I brought her home.”

I spared him a glance. His stern expression remained, but then he flicked his gaze at Lucky and the puzzle pieces clicked together. I didn’t follow football much, but I remembered now why Dominic Ramos’s name had stuck in my mind. He was gay, and coming out had pretty much ended his career. So he’s Lucky’s boyfriend? Jesus, Cash kept that quiet.

Of course he had. Secrecy was second nature in the life we shared, why wouldn’t he be equally discreet about this? Besides, none of it was my business. I offered Ramos my hand. “I’m Rae. Um, did you take her to a vet?”

“Dom. And yeah, I did. They said she wasn’t chipped and the shelters were full, so I could take her home or pay them to kill her.”

Lucky flinched, but I was too cynical to react to the hurt in my gut. “Are you going to keep her?”

Dom shrugged. “If she likes it here. Cash doesn’t know about her yet, though, and it’s his house.”

Lucky winked at me. “I’m pretty sure he won’t mind.”

A solidarity I couldn’t quite decipher flowed between us, but Maldano, who’d said nothing until this point, stood before I could figure it out.

“On that note, I’m off. Nice to meet you, Rae.”

“Um, sure. You too.”

The number of times I’d made a sound instead of uttering a word was becoming embarrassing. I tracked Maldano as he left the kitchen, then refocused on the disquieted feline. I pinched Dom’s seat—he’d followed Maldano out—and made a soft noise with my tongue. The cat looked at me the way only cats could, equal parts derisive and curious, and flicked her tail. “Have you fed her?”

“Not yet,” Lucky said. “I’ve put a tray down by the door for her to pee in, though. Do you think she’ll use it?”

“I’m not a cat expert, but I reckon so. They don’t like being dirty.”

Lucky took me at my word and sloped off to the fridge. He came back with a tin of cat food and handed it to me. “I still think she wants to kill me.”

He was cute. I couldn’t help grinning as I took the tin from him and tipped some rank-smelling meat into a nearby dish.

The cat perked up immediately, and padded across the counter, head-butting my hand to get me out of the way. I took advantage of her obvious hunger to run a hand over her. She was ragged and thin, but the markings on her fur were gorgeous. “Feed her little and often till she gets used to it. What’s her name?”

Lucky shrugged. “I don’t know. Dom said we should wait until Cash came home to name her, in case he didn’t want her to stay.”

“You know he’ll let her stay.”

“Yeah.” Lucky nodded. “I think I do.”

I left him to bond with his nameless cat and retreated to Cash’s bedroom, ignoring the urge to google Dom and his famous friend. Cash’s bed smelled like home, but I resisted taking a nap with my face in his pillows, and upended my bag. Having reliable electricity on tap was something I’d learned to make the most of when it was available. I plugged my phone into one power socket, and my laptop the other, and logged into my blogging site.

But my fingers froze on the keyboard. After a hunt, standard procedure was for me to document every moment as accurately as possible, but I couldn’t do that this time. Operation Jellyfish—as Fletch had coined it—had caused criminal damage to Goon’s property. To write about it in any way whatsoever was impossible. The best I could do was confirm the hunt had been called off and leave it at that, but was it enough? People read my blog to stay informed of the tragedies going unpunished in our countryside. I had a big following. Silence wasn’t an option.

Lacking any less traumatic ideas, I wrote a post on cubbing, wincing every time my stomach turned, and praying Cash had a plan for cleansing my soul when he finally showed his face. Time slipped away, as it did whether I was having fun or not, and it was only the front door slamming sometime later that pulled me from my work.

I saved my words, and took a quick glance at myself in the mirror. Shadows circled my eyes, but that was pretty standard these days, as was my shambolic hair. Nothing I did would tame it, so I gave up, and slid down the ladder of Cash’s attic bedroom.

His voice carried up the stairs, soft and Irish, but deep enough to make my heart skip a beat. I was drawn to him—and reluctant to be caught loitering on the landing—so I drifted downstairs, caught in the net of his melodic laughter.

I found him in the kitchen; Lucky’s cat perched on his shoulder, eating cheese out of his hand. “I guess she’s staying, then?”

Cash turned slowly to look at me. “I can think of worse things to come home to. I’m not cleaning that fucking litter tray, though.”

He directed the last comment at Lucky, but I couldn’t pull my gaze from him. His cheek still bore the mark of our anarchic weekend, but beyond that…he was so damn beautiful he made my knees weak, and I realised with a start that it was the first time I’d seen him happy.

Sober and happy, at least, unless he’d sunk a few pints on the way home.

I approached him with caution, giving the cat time to object before I touched either of them, but she was a different animal to the creature hiding by the microwave a few hours ago, and she accepted my proffered hand with a chirruping purr.

“She likes you,” Cash said.

“She didn’t earlier.”

“Just scared, poor thing. She’ll be right after a few days.”

“She got a name yet?”

Cash rolled his eyes. “Victoria. Lucky reckons his imagination needs a spliff to work right, but he reckons she’s a little queen already.”

I was inclined to agree, but I sensed something simmering beneath Cash’s words and left it alone.

Cash finished fussing the cat and deposited her into the plush basket I hadn’t noticed earlier. With his hands free, he didn’t seem to know what to do with them.

I took pity on him and gave him a hug, drawing him tight against me in the kind of embrace I’d dreamed of before I’d even met him. He was slightly taller than me, his neck the optimum height for me to bury my face in. I slid my hand into his hair and rubbed his shoulder. “I missed you.”

Tension melted from Cash, as though he’d been holding his breath since I’d walked into the kitchen. “Yeah? I missed you too.”

I tilted my head back to look at him. Gorgeous green eyes stared back at me, clear and warm, untainted by the madness we had in common. A few weeks ago, kissing him again had seemed fantastical, as if our first encounter had happened to other people, but it came naturally now. Our lips met with a soft brush, and then with more purpose. The stubble on his jaw scraped the soft beard on mine, and I wound my arms around his neck.

We fit together so perfectly I almost laughed. Almost, because there was nothing funny about how kissing him made my heart jump and my skin tingle. About the haze fast descending over my mind. Coherent thought abandoned me, and for as long as his lips were on mine, there was nothing else.

Too soon, Cash pulled away with a barely audible chuckle. “I’ve been dreaming about that.”

Dreams seemed to be a recurring theme in my life right now, but I couldn’t deny the relief that rushed through me. He feels it too.

Thank fuck for that.

A breathless laugh escaped me. “I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been on my mind the whole way here. I don’t remember enough of the last time we did that.”

“Perhaps I can fill in the gaps for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Later, though. I think Lucky and Dom are going to his place for the night.”

“About that...Dom, I mean.” I knocked my head on Cash’s chest and reluctantly let him go. “You could’ve told me my hallucination was real.”

Cash turned away to open the fridge. “I wasn’t sure he’d be here.”

“And if he hadn’t you’d have left me to believe I was fucking tripping?”

“Maybe. I’ve never really brought anyone home, so I don’t know how to handle the Dom thing. It’s kinda complicated.”

“Still, you could’ve warned me I was walking into the Chelsea dressing room, with his mate here and all.”

Cash snorted. “Chelsea? Dom and Serge never played for those wankers.”

Like that was the point. But I understood the discretion, and with my lack of football knowledge painfully exposed, I changed the subject. “What’s for dinner?”

Cash turned back with full arms and a wide smile. “Stew and mash. That okay?”

It was more than okay. With the chaos of the last few weeks, no one on camp had found time to cook properly, and my diet of microwave rice and instant porridge was starting to get old. The rainbow of vegetables Cash dumped on the counter looked like heaven, and only my desire to touch him was stronger than my eagerness for dinner.

Cash cooked while I played with the cat, keeping half an eye out for his housemates. Dom never came back, but Lucky appeared again a little while later.

“You have two choices.” He swiped something from Cash’s pot. “You can look after Victoria for the night, or I can stay in and ruin your fun.”

Cash shot him an indecipherable frown and turned back to the stove.

Lucky turned his attention to me with a questioning stare.

I shrugged and tickled Victoria’s chin. The name suited the haughtiness she was starting to show, and the regal way she held herself as her fear faded. In some ways, she reminded me of a vixen. “We’ll take care of her, mate.”

Lucky fussed Victoria, kissed Cash’s cheek, and left.

A moment later, the front door banged. Cash turned his eyes briefly to the ceiling. “Thank fuck for that.”

“Oh stop,” I said. “He’s nice. I like him.”

“You live with him then.” But there was no weight behind the words, only a fondness that made the cosy kitchen even more welcoming.

***

Cash brought a pot of rich vegetable stew and a dish of mashed potatoes to where I sat, with deep bowls and a couple of spoons. “No one around here knows me from sabbing. I only told Lucky about it a few weeks ago.”

“How did that go?”

“You’ve met him. What do you think?”

“That he’d be cool…perhaps even want to join in.”

Cash pointed a spoon at me. “You’re bang on, but Dom’s too recognisable for Lucky to get involved with our shit. I had to say no.”

Our shit. Crude words, but they meant something. Perhaps they meant everything. At this point, who the hell knew? “Does Dom know?”

“No idea. If he does, he hasn’t said anything.”

The practical side of me pondered what the support of a high profile face like Dom’s could do for the cause, and weighed up the cons that came with it—for us and for him. But I didn’t get very far, because my supper smelled too good, and I hadn’t come here to work.

We ate huddled up at the counter, shoulders touching, knees brushing. The food nourished me, and Cash’s quiet, healing company brought me to life. As he cleared the dishes away and dumped them into the sink, something irrevocable shifted in me. It had been a long time since I’d shared such an intimate meal with someone. Since I’d craved someone the way I craved him. We had much in common, and yet we were different, but being with him, even if it stayed just like this, felt so…right.

Cash washed up while I fed the cat and settled her—as much as a cat would ever deign to be settled—in her new bed. Then we turned the lights low, left the radio on for her, and retreated upstairs.

I wasn’t sure what Cash had in mind. He swung effortlessly into his attic bedroom, and I followed, only for him to grip my arms and pull me up.

He didn’t let go. He kissed me once, twice, three times. “We can stick a film on if you want? Or go down the pub—”

I let him know without words exactly what I thought of any plan that didn’t involve staying right there. Claiming his mouth, I backed him against the nearest wall, slipping my tongue past his soft lips. My hands slid under his clothes, coming to rest naturally at the base of his spine and the back of his neck. The alchemy of our perfect fit struck me again and it was all I could do not to fucking ravage him.

Cash was apparently less concerned with subtlety. He made a noise low in his throat and gripped my hips, hitching my leg up to press us impossibly closer. The bulge in his jeans ground against my hard dick, and I swear I whimpered. God, he felt good. So good. Only the desperate need for more drove us apart.

I took his hands and tugged him to the bed, and he was on me instantly, his gentle kiss ramping up as his lips became more demanding.

Shuddering, I arched up into him, baring my neck. He took his cue and dug his teeth into where I wanted them most. Clothes disappeared. Our skin came together, and fireworks sizzled in my nerves. I flipped us over, straddling him, his dick pressed against me. Leaning down, I bit his uninjured cheek. “Do you want to fuck me?”

He groaned, eyes closed, head thrashing from side to side. “I can do either. Whatever you want.”

I hadn’t considered that he might bottom. The thought alone nearly sent me off, and I realised I was way too worked up to fuck him—at least not if he wanted something that would last longer than ten seconds flat. I kissed the mark my teeth had left on his face. “Next time, I’m gonna lay you down and fuck you real slow, make you scream, but right now, I need you inside me.”

Cash chuckled hoarsely. “I ain’t gonna argue with that.”

“Wise man. In the drawer?”

He nodded, and I reached across him for condoms and lube. Everything we needed was right there, and I had dim memories of the strip of condoms we’d used that night. It looked like it hadn’t been touched since, but I couldn’t be sure. And it wasn’t my business.

Yet.

Or ever.

Whatevs.

I rolled a condom onto him, pausing beforehand to fleetingly swallow him, then I lubed up and sank onto him, taking him inside me with a long, slow slide that made us both gasp. “Fuck.”

Cash grimaced with the effort of staying perfectly still. “You reckon? This isn’t going to last long if you do me like this.”

I appreciated the fact that he was struggling with his stamina too, and the prospect of him coming inside me made my blood run even hotter. A slow rhythm built between us, me undulating and grinding down, while he dug his fingers into my hips and gently thrust up. It was deadly and beautiful, and intense pleasure seeped into every fibre of me.

Beneath me, Cash made sounds that turned me inside out—every gasp and moan, every hitch of his breath. A flush stained his chest, and sweat dampened his gorgeous skin. The weight of sensation made my eyes heavy, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from him, even as our hypnotic pace gave out and he tipped me over.

He pushed me onto my back and gripped my ankle, clutching my leg against himself as he hunched over and drove into me, his gaze still locked with mine. Over and over, harder and faster, our bodies moved together, chasing a peak I was almost scared of.

But when it came—when I came—there was no fear, only blinding pleasure. Heat sluiced through me, and I shot with a yell, absorbing every pulse of Cash’s cock as he released inside me, every shudder as he groaned into the crook of my neck.

This made sense. It had to. Or the whole world was fucked.