Chapter Three

 

“I should go,” Todd said with a yawn. “It’s midnight.”

I glanced at my watch. “Fuck, so it is.” I stood though my legs were noodle-like. Too much whiskey on an empty stomach had weakened my muscles.

“Thanks, Matthew, I enjoyed myself.”

I grinned and stretched my arms over my head, easing the knots in my shoulders, aware of cool air hitting my flattened belly as my top lifted.

“I’m on the road this week,” Todd said, shifting his gaze from my stomach. “A ten-day stint, but I’m free tomorrow evening and I’d like to see the shots you’re taking to Armani. You know, make sure there isn’t one of me looking like a complete ass.”

“I promise you do not look like an ass in any of them.” I tried to look solemn as a warm feeling filled my insides, one that had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with spending another evening with Todd. “Shall I bring them to you about eight?”

He shrugged into his jacket, the leather creaking noisily. “Yeah, that would be cool. Apartment 97, Reynolds Building.”

“Yeah, I know the one.”

He wandered into the hall and I trailed after him, my gaze on his tight butt, admiring the roundness of his cheeks. They were perfectly grip-able with a delicious amount of both softness and tautness. Why he wasn’t contracted to do a Levi’s campaign as well as Armani was beyond me.

“Bring those other shots you were talking about, the ones for your exhibition,” he said, shoving a hand through his flopping blond hair.

“Really?”

“Yeah, It’d be cool to see more of your work.”

“Well, the exhibition is all black and white, a bit different to my advertising stuff. That’s bread and butter. The exhibition is pictures of people and things that are important to me and have made me the photographer I am today.”

He reached for the door handle and turned. “Matthew, I haven’t seen much of your work but already I’m a fan.” He smiled, a lovely warm smile that produced a dimple in his cheek as his voice quieted. “I’ll look forward to a private screening of the people and things that are important to you.”

I shoved my hands in my front pockets and resisted the urge to reach for him, pull him into a hug. Even if I made it a bloke-hug with a rough pat on the back, I didn’t think it would be well enough disguised. Todd Carty was pushing open the bolts I’d had around my heart for a very long time. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to be right back in the dark place I’d landed in after Tony had left. And that was a sinking well of loneliness I had no intention of pitching into again.

Ever.

 

*****

 

I thought the next day would pass slowly, dominated with thoughts of seeing Todd again. But by the time I had the shots ready for Armani, made a few calls and ran through the final selection for the exhibition it was eight o’clock.

He buzzed me into his building the same way I had him the evening before. When I stood outside his apartment I stilled and took a deep breath before banging on his door. All day long I’d been beating down the hope that Todd might be attracted to me. It wasn’t impossible, but at the same time was highly unlikely. This was, after all, the guy who’d had a double-page spread in The Enquirer featuring him with a different woman on his arm every weekend in a one-month stretch. Why would he be interested in me in any way other than as a friend? A gay friend admittedly, but that was probably just a novelty for him. Besides, how many guys were gay in the NHL? None to my knowledge, so the chances of the heavens delivering me the first was like wishing for a shooting star to land in my bed—not going to happen.

“Hey,” he said, pulling the door open. “Come in.”

I stepped into the huge apartment. The ceiling was strung with dark beams and the windows hit the floor and the roof. The living area was open plan with an enormous oak-topped breakfast bar and three deep cherry-red leather sofas. A fireplace threw golden heat into the room and a hockey game shouted from a plasma screen in the corner.

I shut the door and watched Todd delve into a bag.

“Here,” he said, pulling out a blue, white and red hockey jersey. “I had it delivered today. More suitable for a New Yorker.”

I laughed as he held up a Rangers top and spun it around. It was his number and Carty written across the back in bold red letters.

“Now,” he said with a wicked glint in his eye. “You’re officially one of my groupies.”

“How quickly I slip from photographer, to friend, to groupie,” I said with a laugh.

“Nothing slippery about it. You can be all three.” He held it against me. “I got you a large, thought that’d work. You’ve got broad shoulders.”

“Thanks. I was bored of the Penguin look anyway.” I took the jersey from him.

“Liar.” He turned and headed toward the kitchen area. “If I hadn’t dragged it off you, you’d still be worshipping the pansy.”

“Don’t diss Gatsby.”

“I’ll more than diss him. If he was going to be playing when we hit the Penguins next week I’d go for every big hurt I could get away with.”

His eyes flashed my way but only for a second, because then he turned, reached for the remote and hit mute, silencing the game that was being warred out on TV.

I stood glued to the ground and washed down a wave of optimism. Because if Todd Carty were gay I could have been big-headed enough to think he was jealous that I liked Sid Gatsby. But Todd Carty wasn’t gay.

Was he?

“Todd,” I said, folding the jersey and putting it over the back of one of the sofas. “You know I don’t just like Gatsby in an admire-his-talent-on-the-ice kind of way.”

He bent over a laptop on the coffee table, flicked it open and whirred it to life. “What are you talking about?

I pulled a memory stick from my pocket. “I mean, I like him in a quite-fancy- getting-naked-with-him kind of way.”

He looked at me, rubbing his finger over the cute vertical dent in his chin. “Yeah. I get that.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, you’re gay. You like being with a guy not a woman.”

I rolled my lips in on themselves. Hesitated, then, “And you like being with a guy and a woman.”

He frowned, a small crease forming between his eyebrows. “Yeah, I did. But that’s over now.”

Something in his tone warned me not to push the conversation. Whether he regretted telling me about the threesome or suspected I guessed it was Raven who’d really held his attention, I couldn’t tell. But one thing was for sure, I wasn’t going to poke a bear then complain at being bitten. I’d let it rest.

“Here we go,” I said, shoving my memory stick into the portal of his laptop. “I’ve got the final selection of your photographs, plus the first wave of proofs for my exhibition. They’re all at the printers now being made into canvases.”

Todd walked over to the kitchen area, grabbed two bottles of beer from a glass- fronted fridge, then wandered back. He flipped off the lids and handed one to me.

“Thanks,” I said, taking a sip and setting it down on the table. I reached for the laptop and sat back on the sofa with it resting on my thighs.

He dropped down next to me. Close. So close his leg touched mine. But it didn’t mean anything, it was just so he could see the screen that was now balanced on my lap.

I pulled up the first of his shots.

“Oh God,” he groaned, knocking back a big chug of beer. “I look like a complete dork at the top of the Empire State Building.”

“You think?” I was surprised, I’d liked this set. The day had been clear and the backdrop of Manhattan stunning. And that was even before looking at the main focus of the picture—Todd, in full hockey gear, spinning a bottle of Raw toward the camera from the tip of his stick. Okay, the bottle had been Photoshopped on afterward, but the effect was great.

“Yeah, why the hell would I be up there in my hockey gear? I felt stupid at the time.”

“Okay,” I said, flicking through to the end of that sequence. “I’ll discourage them from using one of those.”

“Yeah, cool.” He reached over and clicked shift, drawing up the photographs we’d taken of him on the ice at the Rangers’ rink. He stayed leaning slightly over me.

I willed my breathing to remain normal as heat from his body poured onto mine. The soft breeze of his breaths washed over my forearm and made the hairs tickle against my skin.

“Much better. This is home away from home for me,” he said, jabbing his finger toward the screen.

“Yeah, they’re all great,” I managed, loving the way his stunning blue eyes shone for the camera. They could have been chips from an iceberg the way they sparkled. I glanced sideways at him and, to my surprise, found him looking at me. No, his eyes were warmer than ice, more like the Indian Ocean than something from the Arctic. “What?” I asked when he carried on staring.

He turned away, shifted and reached for his beer. “Nothing.”

I swallowed a tight lump in my throat and let my leg rest a little heavier against his. I’d been tense, that was all, and now I was relaxing—or so I told myself. “And these are from the Intrepid.” I scrolled through them. “The very last one we took, after all that effort, all those days of work, is the one my gut is telling me Armani will go for.” I pulled it up, full screen. “It’s the look they were talking about capturing.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, studying the rain bouncing off his bare shoulders and the wind ruffling his hair. “That was really fucking cold.”

“You didn’t look bothered.”

“Nah, it wasn’t. Guess I was just happy it was nearly over. I’d have put up with anything to hear you say it’s a wrap.”

I laughed. “So you won’t mind if that’s on billboards?”

“Whatever. I’m not vain, I just know the kind of crap I’ll have to take in the locker room and on the ice, that’s all. My teammates’ minds are filthy, opponents’ minds are obscene, so the less ammunition the better.”

“Well, regardless of teammates or opposition, I think you could be forgiven for being vain.”

He huffed and shoved his hand through his hair, which tonight was soft and feathery, absent of product. “Why?”

“Because you’re…” I hesitated.

Oh, go for it.

“Gorgeous,” I said. “But I’m sure you know that. Look at the string of women you leave in your wake. And for God’s sake, just being asked to head an Armani campaign is damn strong evidence.” My words tumbled over themselves and my heart raced. Had I really just told Todd Carty, hot new forward for the Rangers, that I thought he was gorgeous?

It seemed I had.

“More gorgeous than Gatsby?” he asked quietly.

A strange, dense feeling grew in my belly. “Yeah.”

His mouth twitched, a tight little smile. “You’re not bad yourself.”

I laughed. A sudden release of tension, like a bubble bursting. “Kind of you to say, but I’ll never switch sides of the camera lens.”

He reached for his beer. The movement made our legs press even harder together and when he sat back our shoulders touched, rubbing against each other as he lifted the bottle to his mouth. “Everyone is different in what they think is attractive, handsome or pretty,” he said with a shrug. “I appreciate a variety of looks, but you should get that, being a very visual person.”

“Yeah, I guess.” An electric current of hope burned through me but I tamped it down. Todd thought I was handsome even though I was a little rough around the edges. My hair was low maintenance, my jaw more often than not unshaven and sure, I was big and butch, but my gym membership wasn’t quite getting its dollar-per-mile worth—my abs were tight but could be more defined.

“So let’s have a look at your exhibition pictures,” he said, snapping me from a sudden urge to suck in my actually-not-too-bad belly.

“Er, yeah, sure.” I tugged my gaze from his bent knees. Encased in denim, they were square and strong. The jeans were faded and the paler material skimmed up his wide thigh before darkening over the creases at his groin. “Let me just…” I drew up the images, my fingertips fast and efficient across the keyboard. “This is Gareth and his partner Joel. They’ve been friends of mine for years. Gareth is an accomplished photographer but he does look great on the other side of the lens.”

The black-and-white picture was of two men on a beach in Cape Cod. Their backs were to the camera and the waves washed over their ankles in a flurry of froth. Gareth—only I knew it was him—had his palm pressed into the small of Joel’s back. Neither wore any clothes and the sun was setting, casting long shadows over their footprints that led down to the shoreline. It was an intimate, sensual photograph that showed their absolute comfort with homosexuality and with each other and I adored it on so many levels.

“It’s great,” he said, leaning forward again and studying the photograph. “Awesome in black and white.”

“It’s my favorite medium. So honest, so detailed, the many shades of black to white are so adept at capturing contours, movement and symmetry.”

“And this is Gareth?” He pointed to Joel.

“No, that’s Joel. He’s a few years younger than Gareth. They met in Hawaii, hit it off straightaway and have been an item ever since. I’m good mates with the pair of them, they’re always there if I need someone to hang out with.”

“Were they there for you after Tony left?”

I was surprised Todd had remembered my ex’s name. “Yeah, they were.” I flicked to the next photograph. “This is Raymond. He’s a complete exhibitionist.” The shot was of a ridiculously made-up Raymond dancing in the streets of New Orleans. It was unusual to see this kind of shot without color but that was what had drawn me to it. That and the fact the group of us had enjoyed a wild time down south last year. It was over my birthday and the gang had taken a few days out of their busy schedules to celebrate with me. They were amazing buddies, the best.

I reached for my beer, took a slug then set it aside as a barrage of fun memories besieged me. Between that and Todd being right next to me, so close we were touching, my heart was now tripping along faster than ever.

We sat for a moment studying the details in the picture. The apartment was so quiet. It was just us, just our breathing and the hum of the laptop. I couldn’t ever remember being so aware of another human intruding into my personal space.

I liked it. A lot.

“He looks fun,” Todd said with a slow nod.

“Yeah, Raymond’s great.” I scrolled through the next few pictures, willing my heart rate to settle. There was Paris in the spring, the pink blossoms a dusky gray. Central Park in the fall, the trees a silvery white and a cyclist tossing up a shower of leaves in his wake. Cape Cod on a bright summer morning, Joel’s dog Rufus running along the beach.

Finally, I came to the last picture. It was another of Gareth and Joel, and one I’d captured spontaneously although the viewer could be mistaken for thinking it was staged. It replicated a famous WWII picture of a GI kissing a girl in Times Square, tipping her back and devouring her mouth in the most unchaste of ways. My picture had been taken on New Year’s Eve when we’d been out having fun. At the stroke of midnight, Joel had grabbed Gareth, dropped him over his arm and kissed him. Camera always at the ready, I’d captured the shot—ticker tape fluttering around them, people celebrating, lights and noise bursting from the frame. But the real beauty was how they were totally lost in each other, oblivious to everything else. The kiss transported them to their own perfect time and place—a whole year of fun to look forward to, a whole previous year of wondrous times to look back on.

A flush of envy washed over me. It often did when I looked at that shot. “So that’s it,” I said, clearing my throat. “My exhibition is a collection of portraits and landscapes, places I enjoy and people who’ve stood by me. I’m thrilled the curators at Theodore Gallery think enough of my work to want to show it to the world.”

“You mean other than on billboards and magazines.” He set his bottle on the table.

I laughed. “Yep, other than billboards and magazines. That’s when I’m being told what to take shots of instead of choosing my own subject.” Suddenly my words caught in my throat. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t, I mean, not that I wouldn’t want to take shots of you, obviously, that was—”

It was his turn to laugh now. “I know what you meant.”

His body nudged mine as his chest rose and fell. I quickly shut down the window and flipped the screen shut, tugged out the memory stick and set it and the laptop on the coffee table.

I sat back and stared at my knees. The exhibition and Armani should be the main things on my mind right now. But how could they be when Todd Carty was sitting next to me with his big hand resting only an inch from mine?

The pale fuzz of his sun-bleached hairs skimming up the back of his wrist and onto his forearm made me want to stroke, kiss, lick them. An image of doing so rushed through my mind. Damn, a wave of heat to my cock warned me of an impending erection. I was such a fool. Why was I even here, torturing myself like this?

“Matthew,” Todd said.

I turned, saw his keen, intelligent eyes gazing straight into mine. He was so close I could make out every whisker on his chin, the delicate shadow within the upper indent of his lip and each individual eyelash.

“What?” I managed, tensing my stomach and resisting the urge to reach for him, kiss him. Just grab him and make him mine for a few sweeter than sweet seconds. Hell to the consequences. Hell to the black eye I’d no doubt get.

“Matthew, I…” He shook his head and his eyes narrowed. He lifted his hand and cupped my cheek in his palm, his fingertips grazing my earlobe and his arm resting down the column of my neck and onto my collarbone. Jaw set tight. he said, “Fuck, I want to kiss you.”

“What?”

“I want to kiss you, right here, right now,” he said in a strained, dark voice.

“But, I…?”

“Don’t question it.” He leaned closer still. So close his lips were just a hairsbreadth from mine. “It’s just, I’ve been thinking about it, and I have to do it, now.”

His mouth connected with mine, big firm lips pressing with both hesitation and determination. It was a close-mouthed peck, not wild, not full of movement, certainly no tongues, but one of the most sensual kisses of my life.

I shut my eyes and rested my hand over his, showing him how much I liked having his palm on my face—the possessive, controlling hold. The heat and hardness in my groin was growing by the second, hot urgency and a gripping fist of longing.

He pulled away.

I opened my eyes. “Todd,” I whispered. “I’ve been trying not to think of kissing you.” I swallowed tightly. “Because I didn’t think you’d want me to.”

“You thought wrong.” He smiled, almost shyly. “It’s taken a lot of soul-searching to admit what I want, Matthew, but now, meeting you, it’s like a key has found a lock and…” He paused and swiped his tongue over his plump bottom lip, leaving a glistening sheen. “And now I’m ready to go down a path I couldn’t before because I was too worried what people would say. But I don’t give a fuck anymore. I just want to be true to myself. Explore the person that I really am.”

Heat was prickling up my back, nipping at my underarms. My cock was raging and my thighs painfully tense. But despite all of that I kept perfectly still, gazing at Todd, breathing in the air he was breathing out. Absorbing his words and their meaning as though they were a string of beads, each one holding a clue to what the hell was going on.

“I like you a lot,” he murmured. “I’ve liked you more and more and I’m not talking about just being buddies.” His gaze was boring into my eyes, studying me closely. There was truth in the blue depths of his irises, the emotion behind what he was saying almost tangible. “And when you told me you were gay I was even more spellbound and couldn’t stop thinking maybe, maybe we could…” He hesitated. “You know, be together.”

“Well, I, yeah, but…?” My words were disjointed, my brain struggling to keep up with this wonderful revelation.

Todd likes guys. He likes me. Fuck!

“I’ve never really been with a guy before, in fact only ever kissed one, years ago,” he whispered, stroking his thumb over my damp lips and tugging them slightly. “But I like kissing you way better than I did him and I want to do it again.”

“Yeah,” I said, stroking my hand down his arm toward his bent elbow and touching all the compact muscle I’d been admiring at a distance. “Go on then.”

And he did. Kiss me. This time there was nothing hesitant about it—it just felt natural and right. His tongue delved deep, his mouth was wide and his breaths were excited and rapid against my cheek.

I opened up and let him in, adoring his malty, spiced flavor and the hot strength of his tongue as it tangled with mine. Our chins clashed, mine sharper against his, my denser stubble creating a sandpapery sound.

“Matthew,” he gasped, breaking the kiss.

We stared at each other, a wonderful honest connection that seemed to exclude everything, including time. Then he grabbed my head in both of his hands, drawing our mouths together in a heated, passion-infused mating that required our necks to tilt so we could get even closer.

I drank it all up, hardly believing it was happening but enjoying every sweet syrupy movement of our kiss. Registering every taste, sound and sensation in my memory.

He pressed forward and I was forced down onto the sofa, my back landing in the soft leather cushions and Todd’s huge body balancing above me.

Our chests and stomachs came into alignment and still he kept kissing me—hot and dark, rich and decadent. We fed off each other and I gripped his hard, wide shoulders as I sought out the corners of his mouth and the creases of his lips.

My balls had drawn up tight and my cock was getting ready to burst. My jeans were unforgiving and my zipper was nothing short of painful against my shaft. “Todd,” I gasped, fisting his t-shirt. This had to stop now or go considerably further. Soon the point of no return would be upon me, and once that happened, I was a stickler for finding satisfaction.

He lifted his head, his mouth hung slack and he was panting. He flicked his attention to our chests pressed together. His nose twitched and he grunted—a deep primeval grunt that generated a forward thrust in his body, making our groins collide in a hard, dizzy and impossibly sexy grind.

“Oh fuck,” I groaned, arching my neck and squeezing my eyes shut. He was going to make me come if he did that again.

Suddenly he was gone. He’d jumped up, his body weight, his heat, his scent leaving me in an instant.

I was stunned.

Shell-shocked.

I scrabbled into an upright position in time to see him striding toward the kitchen counter. His steps were stiff, awkward, and I knew why. He too was nursing an almighty hard-on. I’d felt it for myself. Our solid, engorged cocks had just ground together in blissful contact.

“Todd?”

He raised his hands, sliced his fingers into his hair and shot his elbows to the sides, keeping his back to me as he dragged in a noisy, hissing breath.

“What is it?” I asked, shuffling to the edge of the sofa.

“Fuck, I just didn’t…” His voice was sharp, desperate.

“Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t think it would feel like that.”

“Feel like what?”

He hesitated, then, “I don’t know, just not so crazy and out of control.”

My heart sank. He hadn’t liked kissing me. I gritted my teeth and braced my body as a shard of pain sliced through me. My heart was on the table, again. I adored Todd, fancied him something crazy. Not only Todd “Pretty” Carty, the super-talented hockey player, but Todd the guy, the man facing a whole new angle of his sexuality and just stepping into my world.

Could I handle this? I was fresh from the beaten-up-heart shelf. What I needed was someone settled and content, confident in his desires.

I stood, picked up my memory stick and shoved it into my pocket. Made the most of the opportunity to rearrange my cock, hoping to find a way to relieve the pressure. I didn’t.

Maybe I could drum up my patience, stick a splint around my heart and see how it worked out. Some things in life were worth a risk, a little pain and waiting about. Was Todd one of those things?

For a moment I simply stared at him, at the way his t-shirt stretched over his sharply angled shoulders and hugged the gutter of his spine. Then, with my limbs light and trembling, I walked over to him. Rested my hand on his back and smoothed a slow circle over his granite-hard muscles.

He continued to stare down at his breakfast bar’s surface as though the grains in the wood held answers to the questions in his mind and the lust in his groin.

“Todd,” I said gently. “If this is all new for you I’ll do what I can to help.”

Silence.

“Todd?”

“Just go, Matthew.” He swallowed tightly and dropped his neck farther. “You’re right, it’s all new, but please, just go. I need to be alone.”