Humbug (8 page)

I risked a look at him then. He was watching me, his expression calm, with just a touch of concern.

“It’s not as if my dream in life was to be a management consultant,” I said.

He smiled at that. “What was your dream?”

I gave a short laugh. “You won’t believe me when I tell you.”

His smile deepened. “Try me.”

“A maths teacher,” I admitted. “Can you imagine it? Me, working with teenagers?”

He canted his head to the side and considered me. “I can, actually. You’re very good at breaking complex things down, explaining them simply. I think you’d be a good teacher.”

The simple
niceness
of that made me sort of crumple up inside, gratitude mingling with embarrassment and maybe a touch of incredulity. I wanted to believe him but somehow I couldn’t be sure he was being sincere.

Why was hope so painful? “The kids would probably hate me,” I said huskily.

“Sarky bastard like you?” he replied, mouth quirking up to one side. “Nah, they’d love you.” He paused then asked, “Is that what you did your degree in? Mathematics?”

I turned to him fully, shifting in my seat so that my body faced him. “Yeah. I was all set to start teacher training after graduation but one of my friends dragged me along to a recruitment fair and persuaded me to apply for a consulting job—I wasn’t seriously expecting an offer, but when I got one, I decided to take it. I had a lot of student loans by then so the thought of earning rather than racking up even more debt was too tempting to pass by.” I shrugged. “I’d only planned to do it for a couple of years, but I guess I got used to the job. And the money, of course.”

“Could you give the money up now?” Rob asked. “If you decide to move to teaching, you’ll be facing a massive salary drop.”

I thought about that. About the disposable income accruing in my account month on month because I had no time to spend it. “Yeah, I could give it up,” I said, the cogs in my brain beginning to turn as I examined the idea. “My mortgage is modest and my flatmate gives me rent. And it’s not as if I have a husband or kids who depend on me. I’m pretty sure I could afford to do the year’s training without needing to take out any debt.”

A tiny thread of excitement came to life inside me and I had to bite my lip against a sudden smile, not wanting to betray how much this new idea suddenly meant to me. “I could do it.”

“You could,” Rob agreed softly, his gaze on me. He’d parked outside one of the more heavily decorated houses we’d seen. A life-size reindeer made of thousands of lights stood sentinel in the front garden, glowing first red then gold then green, then cycling back to red. The changing colours glowed inside the car, illuminating Rob’s face—mine too, presumably—like traffic lights.

Stop, wait, go.

“Quin.” This time Rob didn’t so much say it, as breathe it, and I watched, mesmerised as he lifted his hand and touched my face, fingertips just grazing my skin. Our eyes met as the pad of his thumb swept across my cheekbone. Such a simple, tender gesture. I didn’t know what to do or say. All I could do was stare at him and wait for what came next.

“I like you,” he said finally. “I’ve always liked you. Even when you were being a dick.”

“Yeah?” My voice sounded as shaky as I felt.

“Yeah,” he confirmed with a half-smile. “Not that you ever noticed me.”

“Are you kidding?” My laugh was astonished. “I noticed you. I just never imagined you’d be interested in me.”

“Why not?”

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

That lip-quirking smile kicked up again. Fuck, it was charming. I wanted to kiss the corner of that smile.

“You think I look good?” he asked, eyeing me, his voice lower, deeper.

I raised a brow. “You do
not
need me to tell you the answer to that question.”

“Actually,” he said seriously, his smile fading a little. “I think I do.”

My mouth was dry, my heart thumping a rapid tattoo. “Okay,” I began shakily, somehow managing to hold his gaze. “I think you look really—
really
good.”

He leaned closer, so close I could feel his breath against my face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I breathed back, my eyes on his.

“Good enough to kiss?”

By way of answer, I slid my hand behind his neck and pulled him to me.

I got my wish about kissing that smile. As soon as our lips touched, his quirked up, just for a moment, curving beneath my lips. And then his hand was sliding into my hair, cupping the back of my neck, and he was deepening the kiss, lips parting, tongue delicately touching my own, startling a gasp out of me.

That quick, my cock was hard, stiffening almost painfully in my jeans, making me shift in my seat in an attempt to ease the pressure. Rob muscled closer, fiddling with the zip of my bomber jacket, parting the sides to slide his big hands inside and up over my ribs, kissing me all the while. His touch was firm and possessive and the growl he gave as I plastered myself against him made me shiver.

When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard and Rob’s eyes were glittering.

“So,” I said slowly. “Do you fancy coming back to mine?”

Rob smiled again.

W
hen I pushed open the front door of my flat, it was to find the place dark and silent and very empty. Freddy was still out, thank God. I flicked on the lights, and Rob strolled past me, his gaze curious.

“Do you want a drink?” I asked, following him into the living area and switching on more lights. “I’ve got wine or beer. Or something soft if you prefer.”

Rob turned to look at me. His lips twisted up in a grin that was decidedly wicked. “I’d prefer something hard, and not to drink.”

He didn’t take even a step towards me, just waited where he stood, his dark gaze challenging and amused.

Cocky bastard.

I liked that new cockiness though. I had a hard-on for it. For him.

“C’mere,” he said, and I went, crossing the floor towards him, yanking off my jacket and dropping it on the floor on the way.

His intent gaze glittered as he watched me approach, and the admiration I saw there, the attention—it blew me away.

I stopped in front of him, waiting, my breathing shallow, my pulse racing. The air between us felt charged with something, something like electricity but not. Something real, almost tangible, but not. It felt like I should be able to touch it. Touch the thick current between us, grasp it like a rope and use it to reel Rob in.

He reeled me in instead, reaching out to take my upper arms in his hands and pull me to him, pull me right up against him, our bodies colliding, hot breath mingling, lips not yet—not quite yet—touching.

“I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to do this in the office,” he murmured, his gaze travelling over my face. “Just grab you and maul you.”

I made a noise in my throat that made him grin and draw me even closer, till his mouth was grazing mine, but still not kissing me, still holding back that last little bit of connection I craved.

“Did you know that?” he asked softly, and I felt his lips shaping the words against mine, his warm breath, gusting gently.

I whimpered and he groaned, then pressed our mouths together, and all the electricity, or whatever it was between us, sparked. Flashed. Rob’s kiss was hot and deep, his tongue plunging into my mouth, tangling with mine. His arms came around me and he ground his hips against mine and it was so fucking good, hot and sparky and passionate. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this into someone.

“Bedroom,” I muttered between kisses. “I want you naked.”

He muttered his assent and I grabbed his hand, dragging him after me, out the living area and down the hall to my bedroom, every second that his mouth wasn’t on me feeling wasted.

We tumbled inside and immediately started kissing again, lips pressed together even as we toed off shoes and grabbed at each other’s shirts to yank them off. I felt momentary embarrassment as I compared Rob’s impressively toned torso with my own leaner, less ripped one, but it was a feeling that burned away when I caught the heat in his gaze.

He liked what he saw.

He liked
me.

All the stuff he’d been saying about having a thing for me was true, and if I’d known, if I’d noticed…

If I hadn’t been so fucking consumed with my job. God, the things I’d been missing out on and I hadn’t even known.

“What do you like?” Rob murmured in my ear, making my neck prickle with pleasure, goose bumps rising on my skin.

“Fuck,” I breathed, trying to make my brain work. “Anything. Everything. I don’t know. I just want your skin, your mouth—I want to come, want you to come—”

I was incoherent, babbling. Rob chuckled, seeming amused, but it didn’t sting. His laughter was kind, maybe even fond.

I shook my head a little against the dazed feeling and looked into his eyes—warm, brown, kind. God, I could lose myself in that gaze.

“What do you want?” I asked huskily.

He leaned into me and kissed his way up my jawline, to my ear. “To start with,” he murmured, his deep voice sending prickles of sensation down my neck, “I want to see your cock. I want to taste it.”

I swallowed hard and his soft chuckle in my ear told me he knew the effect he was having on me.

Without another word, he dropped to his knees and pressed a hot-mouthed kiss to my taut belly before leaning back on his heels and turning his attention to my jeans. He smiled as he unfastened the metal studs, his movements unhurried, and then he was easing the jeans down over my hips, uncovering my white Calvin Klein trunks and the hard, needy cock that was presently trying to burst out of them.

“Rob—” I began, my voice pleading, but I had no idea how to go on, could only stare at him as he traced the damp patch on my trunks with his thumb, his fascinated gaze fixed on my cock as it twitched in reaction. I must have leaked a fair amount of precum because the damp patch was sizeable, and as Rob slid his thumb back and forth, the shadowy pinkness of the flushed skin of my cock showed through the now transparent fabric.

Rob dipped his head and rubbed his face against the hardness, the dampness.

“You smell so good,” he murmured, mouthing at my prick.

I choked out a cry. “I’m going to come in my pants if you don’t watch out.”

He looked up, grinning. “That would be hot,” he said. “But let’s save it for another time. I want this bad boy in my mouth.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

He slid his thumbs into the waistband of my trunks and drew them down too, careful to ease the waistband over my hard shaft. My cock sprang free with an exuberant bounce that made us both laugh, and when Rob looked up at me, grin wide, warm eyes dancing with amusement, I felt the weirdest bolt of—God, I don’t know. It was lust and fondness together. Laughter and desire, a heady mix of different pleasures that somehow connected all the different parts of me, my cock and my brain and my heart.

Fuck, what was I thinking?

What indeed? Suddenly I
couldn’t
think—because Rob had lowered his head again and his hand was gripping my shaft as he readied himself to taste me.

I gasped when his tongue finally touched me, lapping a warm circle over the blunt head of my cock, once, twice, three times before his mouth engulfed me and he took me in fully. His fist prevented him going too deep at first, but I couldn’t stop a whimper. Could only stand there, legs barely able to hold me up as I watched him work.

After a while, he opened his fist, loosening his grip on me somewhat, but still cradling my shaft with the side of his hand, revealing my flushed length to his hungry gaze. Then, canting his head to the side, he began licking stripes up and down my shaft, driving more whimpers from my throat and prompting me to reach for him, my hand clutching at his shoulder. His tongue moved in wet, lavish worship, snaking down lower to slide over my balls. I shuddered at the first slither of wetness on my scrotum, then groaned when he dipped his head to press a few wet, sucking kisses there.

“Fucking hell,” I managed to get out. “I’m really close.”

Rob hadn’t even put my whole cock in his mouth yet and I was ready to blow like a geyser. I wasn’t sure why I’d got so turned on so quickly, perhaps it was something about the pleasure Rob was taking from this himself. Sometimes sex felt like taking turns—you get me off, then it’s my turn. This wasn’t anything like that. Rob was giving me everything, but from the noises he was making he was getting off on it as much as I was, and that was so fucking hot.

He was licking his way up my shaft again now, rising higher on his knees. Distantly, I was aware that I was whimpering and groaning, muttering swear words and pleas, one hand clutching at his shoulder, the other drifting into his thick hair. And then—
oh fuck!—
then his mouth drove down over my throbbing dick and I was plunging into heat and warmth and suction. I yelled out, my fingers tightening in his silky hair.

I surrendered myself to the pleasure, to the heat, to the clasping muscles in his cheeks and his tongue swirling on me, and the light graze of his teeth as he worked me hard. And now I really was going to come, I could feel it, deep inside me, roiling like magma.

I leaned back a little, loosening my grip on him, wanting to see him when I blew. He looked up at me. So stupidly handsome. Deep brown eyes, extravagant lashes, and that gorgeous mouth sucking me. Our eyes met. His were filled with heat and desire and something fierce that sucker-punched me, but I couldn’t think about what that was, or what it meant because my orgasm was happening now.

“I’m coming,” I choked out and he closed his eyes again, giving himself over to these last moments. I came long, hard and hot and Rob stayed with me the whole way, hands on me, mouth on me, letting me see his pleasure as he tasted me and devoured me and finished me off altogether.

I was dazed when it was finally done, my legs wobbly. I stumbled my way down to the floor beside him, still blinking confusedly, my legs a tangle of jeans and Calvin Kleins. Rob rearranged me so I was lying on my back and settled his big body over me. I offered him my mouth to kiss and he took it with a groan, tongue plunging inside.