New Lease of Life (30 page)

“Oh, yes.” Pip sighed happily, the nudge of Colby’s dick against his sore arse bringing those memories once again to the forefront of his mind.

“We need to shower and then—”

“Go back to bed?”

“I was going to suggest we go out for breakfast. Since we ate the pizza last night.”

Just after midnight. Cold—the pizza. They had been snuggled up under the duvet and eaten with gusto. In fact, Pip might have eaten more than Colby. Due, in part, to the distraction of a smear of tomato sauce on Pip’s chest and a wayward slice of pepperoni that Colby had chased under the covers. His boyfriend really was a meat lover.

“Whatta you grinning at?”

“Just remembering how much my boyfriend likes meat.”

“
Your
meat.” Colby pressed closer, the heat of him like a blanket at Pip’s back.

The hair on Colby’s thighs tickled Pip’s already sensitive cheeks, tantalizing. Colby’s balls nestled on the rise of Pip’s arse, his dick carving a path in the small of Pip’s back.

Slipping one hand from Pip’s waist, Colby ran his fingers down Pip’s back. “If we build up these muscles on either side of your spine”—Colby said, his voice so close that he dripped the filth directly into Pip’s ear—“then I could fuck you just like this. Standing in front of that big mirror in your bedroom. Watching you watching me. I’d come all over your back. And you, you’d come all over our reflections.”

With the sun rising on the other side of the house, a predawn light allowed the large window to offer up a ghostly image of their bodies tangled together. Pip shuddered. God, Colby was filthy and inventive. Pip had never had a lover so concerned with chasing Pip’s pleasure rather than his own. Not that he should be surprised about that. A laugh escaped from him.

“Too much?” Colby asked.

“No.” Pip twisted his arm behind him and grabbed at Colby to stop him moving away. He rested back against Colby’s shoulder and turned his head to kiss whatever part of Colby’s neck he could reach, Colby’s bristles coarse beneath his lips. “It would take me a week to get a beard this thick,” he muttered to himself. “No. I love that you want to share all the lewd things you want to do to me. It’s just such a contrast to the man I met on that first day who seemed to be made up of—”

“Sugar and spice and all things nice?”

“Yes. And there was me thinking you weren’t kinky enough for Davy.”

“I’m not kinky, Biter.” Colby poked Pip in the side, showed off the mouth-shaped bruise on his bicep, and then gestured at their indistinct reflections in the window. “We look good together, and I just want you to be able to see that. To see how beautiful you are when you come.”

Good together. Beautiful.
Pip looked, really looked, at the picture they made. Colby’s words on loop in his head.
Good together. Beautiful.
He felt compelled to glance at his chest, just to ensure that no outward sign gave away the frantic beat of his heart. He traced nonsense patterns into the skin of Colby’s arm where it held him around the waist.

“Forget sugar and spice, you are puppies, rainbows, and unicorns cavorting in a spring meadow. Even when you’re being filthy you’re kind and considerate, and you bring sunshine and smiles with you everywhere.”

“And if you’d kindly come with me to the shower, I’ll consider sucking the sunshine out of your cock and making us both smile. No reason the puppies and unicorns should be the only ones having fun.” Colby tightened the arm around Pip’s waist and took a step back, dragging Pip with him. “But man cannot live by spunk alone, and I’m starving. Shower sex, wash, dress, and then breakfast. Out. With my boyfriend. There’s a little café around the corner that serves croissants, made in-house and fresh from the oven.”

Croissants! “You remembered.”

“You only told me yesterday. I tried to get some in for this morning but they’d already shut, and I didn’t want to go further afield in case I missed you.”

The view might have been what had stopped Pip in his tracks beside the window, but his carefully laid out clothes on the window seat had been the reason Pip had remained standing in the cool air of the bedroom.

“I’ve got nothing to wear.”

Colby stopped with his tugging. “Nobody will know you wore those clothes yesterday. I was careful with them. Apart from your boxer briefs. They had a lovely damp patch when I peeled them off you.”

“I’ll know.” Pip huffed out a breath, knowing that he was being unreasonable.

“Stupid! Me, not you,” Colby added hastily before Pip even had an opportunity to be offended. “Come on.”

Colby slipped his arms from around Pip’s middle and reached for his hand instead. He dragged Pip out of his bedroom, but instead of heading toward the bathroom, he turned in the opposite direction. He passed one door and stopped in front of the second.

“My spare room, as opposed to my guest room, which is that one.” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder at the door they’d passed.

“Ta-da!” Colby pushed open the door.

Confronted with rows upon rows of mobile hanging rails much like the ones Colby had used to transport all the items from Pip’s house, Pip asked, “A stockroom?”

“Look closer.” With a hand in the small of Pip’s back, Colby ushered him into the room. “It’s stuff I’m storing for a friend until he’s ready to take it all back again.”

“Is he moving?” The curtains were drawn, probably to protect the fabrics, so Pip took a step toward the first rail, drawn in by a pair of brown dogtooth trousers with a contrasting red thread. “Would he mind me borrowing something? If it fits.”

“It’ll fit,” Colby said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Pip saw Colby shake his head, a wry smile on his face.

“There’s a tweed hunting jacket over there that you might want to wear.”

Pip followed the path Colby indicated, a strange sense of déjà-vu, or at the least comfortable familiarity, niggling at him. His breath caught in his chest at the sight before him.

“That’s exactly like my grandfather’s—”

“Pip,” Colby groaned. “Not exactly like. It is your grandfather’s hunting tweeds. All these clothes are yours.”

“What? Why?” Pip didn’t want to shift his gaze from the item of clothing he’d thought he would never see again, but he spun to face Colby, accusation heavy in his voice. “You
said
you sold them.”

“I never actually said that. These clothes never even made it to the shop. The day I packed up your clothes, I came straight here from your place. I’d seen the photos, read your blog, heard you talk about them.” Colby took a step into the room, his arms held wide and his hands open in a placating gesture. “Shit, Pipsqueak, I didn’t mean to deceive you, but I saw the pain on your face when I packed that particular piece away. I couldn’t sell them and run the risk that you would change your mind later.”

“And if I hadn’t come back?”

“I’d have put them into the shop, eventually, but I had to give you the chance.”

“And if I hadn’t fallen….” Pip faltered, knowing what he wanted to say but not daring. “Fallen into your bed?”

“Once I was sure you wanted them back, I would have found a way to get them to you.” Colby took another step forward, but a cautious expression remained on his face. An expression that had no right to be there after all the things Colby had done for Pip.

Pip closed the distance between them and slipped his arms around his lover’s waist. His hands settled in the small of Colby’s back, and instinctively his thumbs found the dimples at the top of Colby’s arse, rubbing into the indentations over and over.

“That’s no way to run a business,” Pip scolded, but he couldn’t hold onto the reproachful tone. Colby wrapped his arms around Pip’s torso, and Pip sighed happily. He whispered his thanks into the kisses he peppered against his boyfriend’s burly chest.

Colby lifted Pip’s chin and kissed him until Pip couldn’t speak anymore. Only then did the full strength of Colby’s familiar smile return.

“My business is about making things better for people. You didn’t pick someone to benefit from your donation, so I did. I made the decision with my heart. And I chose you.”

LILLIAN FRANCIS
is an English writer who likes to dabble in many genres but always seems to return to the here and now.

Her name may imply a grand dame in pink chiffon and lace, but Lillian is more at home in jeans, Converse, and the sort of T-shirts that often need explaining to the populous at large but will get a fist bump at Comic-Con. Lillian is a self-confessed geek who likes nothing more than settling down with a comic or a good book, except maybe writing. Given a notepad, pen, her Kindle, and an infinite supply of chocolate Hob Nobs and she can lose herself for weeks. Romance was never her reading matter of choice, so it came as a great surprise to all concerned, including herself, to discover a romance was exactly what she’d written, and not the rollicking spy adventure or cozy murder mystery she always assumed she’d write. Luckily there is always room for romance no matter what plot bunny chooses to bite her, so never say never to either of those stories appearing.

Lillian lives in an imposing castle on a windswept desolate moor or in an elaborate shack on the edge of a beach somewhere, depending on her mood. And while she’d love for the heroes of her stories to either be chained up in the dungeon or wandering the shack serving drinks in nothing but skimpy barista aprons more often than not they are doing something far less erotic like running charity shops and shoveling elephant shit.

Drawn to the ocean, although not in a Reginald Perrin sort of way, she would love to own a camper van and to live by the sea.

Blog: lillianfrancis.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/lillian.francis.100

Twitter: @LillianFrancis_

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/Lillian_Francis

Published by

DREAMSPINNER PRESS

5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA

www.dreamspinnerpress.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

New Lease of Life

© 2015 Lillian Francis.

Cover Art

© 2015 Paul Richmond.

http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.

ISBN: 978-1-63476-690-6

Digital ISBN: 978-1-63476-691-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015947594

First Edition December 2015

Printed in the United States of America