Breaking Joseph Read online

“You’ll make up for it when we get back.” He shrugged. “And you know I would have had you pitch if it hadn’t been for…circumstances.”

  I nodded. He couldn’t be seen to favour me, not when Poppy and I had applied for the same spot on his team and the result had yet to be announced. “Thanks.”

  My chair-for-one was so damned isolating. In public, we were Punch and Judy in daylight bondage, trying to ignore the crocodile’s teeth gleaming in the corner. In private, it was so natural to brush past him and be savaged by my own urges, and while things were strange between us, it didn’t stop flesh triumphing over logic–or at least, it hadn’t as he’d shoved me against the shower wall several hours ago. To sit apart like this was to be severed.

  Aidan appeared by the revolving doors and I shot him a smile.

  “I’m off now,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Is that okay?”

  Joseph blinked, somewhere else entirely. “I’ll see you back here in a couple of hours–for the club, remember?”

  “I will.”

  Blood surged beneath my skin in the stampede to get to him. Go on, kiss him goodbye.

  He stared up, drinking me in, his lips just slightly parted. “Later, Leila.”

  I found myself blushing. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Lei-Lei! Get your arse over here!” Aidan waved like an idiot and I cringed as I strode over.

  “My boss is just–”

  “Like I care.” He grabbed my shoulder with his spare hand. The other held a large box of doughnuts. “We have a date with a very handsome man.”

  “I thought we were going for dinner?”

  “We were.” He ushered me toward the lift. “But then I managed to injure Mattman, so I have to comfort him.”

  “More homoerotic wrestling?” I pressed the button for Matt’s floor.

  “Pah. I wish. No, we set a little challenge at the gym.”

  “Aidan!” I scolded.

  “What? He’s a big rugby boy–he can handle a few press-ups.”

  “You train for three hours a day!”

  “I…well, yeah. I’m superior.” He flashed me a mischievous grin. “But those shorts he was wearing…nom. I would wear him like a hat.”

  “There’s an image I didn’t need.”

  I grew uneasy as we reached Matt’s door. No longer a couple, he and I were in limbo, barely friends–if we ever would be again. I knew I made him uncomfortable.

  “Does he know I’m coming?” I whispered as we knocked.

  “Yeah, checked with him. It’s fine.”

  “Oh.” Really?

  Matt appeared in the doorway, his hair even messier than usual and his t-shirt creased like a Welsh landscape. He nodded at us and limped back toward the sofa. His room was smaller than mine but had a cosy, intimate feel that the suite didn’t have. It smelled like him too–spicy shower gel with a boy’s edge of musk, the kind he’d once smothered me in straight off the rugby pitch.

  “What did he do to you?” I perched on the bed.

  Aidan landed heavily beside me.

  “Circuit training.” Matt groaned. “Bastard.”

  “You’ll heal, you whinging fairy. It’s only a pulled muscle.” Aidan snorted.

  Matt clasped his thigh, wincing as he lifted it onto the sofa. “It still fucking hurts!”

  “Best have a doughnut, then.” Aidan passed him the box. “Keep up your strength and all that.”

  “Just to be on the safe side.” Matt scooped three up in one large paw and deposited them next to his laptop.

  “Lei-Lei?” Aidan waved the box under my nose and the sweet, yeasty smell made me nauseous.

  “I think I’ll give them a miss.” Any more junk food this week and I’d need a forklift into the airplane. “Mind if I order room service?”

  Matt waved a doughnut in the air. “Go ahead.”

  The boys chattered about the American football match on the television, and I called down to order smug, virtuous chicken salad.

  “What did you two do last night?” I asked.

  “Candlelit dinner,” said Aidan, not looking at me. “We shared a plate of spaghetti so we could have sloppy bolognaise snogs.”

  “Then we went out to kick some bums,” Matt added.

  “You stayed in and watched internet porn, didn’t you?” I asked.

  Aidan stuck his tongue out at me.

  “Only for some of it,” Matt muttered, blushing slightly. “We had dinner with Poppy and Sadie downstairs.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Sounds cosy.”

  “It all went a bit downhill when I suggested a four-way.” Aidan sighed.

  “Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “Oh, he did,” Matt said. “We’d never have got rid of them otherwise.”

  Aidan laughed. “That blond girl wanted me. Seriously. She kept staring at my crotch.”

  “Sadie?” I giggled.

  “He’s delusional.” Matt licked sugar off his fingers. “He’d probably got spaghetti on it or something.”

  “My cock gets hungry,” Aidan insisted. “I have to feed the beast. You’re just jealous, Mattman.”

  He scowled. “I think I’d rather wank with sandpaper than screw Sadie, cheers. She’s probably still crusty with Joseph’s–”

  I cleared my throat loudly.

  “Sorry,” Matt mumbled, looking away.

  “You’ve been hanging around with him too much,” I chided, poking Aidan in the ribs.

  “Lei-Lei–are you suggesting that I’m a bad influence?”

  “You are!”

  Aidan pouted. “You spend all day with your poxy law stuff…you need lightening up a bit.”

  “Maybe I like my poxy law stuff,” I grumbled.

  The door rattled with a knock and I went to fetch the tray from the bellboy. Aidan eyed my dinner with distaste.

  “That looks disgustingly healthy,” he complained.

  I chewed a spear of raw pepper. “I’ve got a long night ahead. I need proper food.”

  “Argh. Crap. I forgot about this stupid celebration thing.” Matt slapped his forehead. “I’m going to look like a prize twat. Can you get into nightclubs on crutches?”

  “Maybe if you’re Lady Gaga,” said Aidan.

  I glanced around the room. “You don’t have crutches.”

  “No…but I’d need them.” He blew the hair out of his eyes. “I look ridiculous limping like this!”

  “You’ll just have to forgo that cha-cha you’d planned, and we’ll make up a story about how you did it. Something heroic. Aidan?”

  He swallowed a mouthful of doughnut. “Ace. How about…Sadie dropped a fork and you had to dive under the table before it was swallowed by her cavernous minge?”

  Matt shook with laughter, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “Get me drunk and I’ll so say that.”

  “You’ll get fired, Matt,” I said.

  “It’d be worth it.”

  “Ooh, ooh!” Aidan bounced and the tray on my lap rattled. “We could say you got injured crowd surfing at one of our gigs.”

  I looked up. “One of your gigs?”

  “Me and Aid have formed a band,” Matt explained. “We’re electro-punk fusion.”

  Aidan stole a crouton from my plate. “We’re called Cockspank. We just need to get a synthesizer and we’ll get snapped up in no time. So you see, when you introduced us, you did something monumental for music.”

  “Your parents will be so proud.”

  Aidan glared. “Yeah. Well, my dad can go fuck himself anyway.”

  There was a nerve I’d never known existed. “Sorry, Aid,” I said quietly.

  “Oh, don’t be a moron.” He brightened with suspicious speed. “Anyway. Where were we?”

  “My stupid leg,” said Matt.

  “His stupid leg. Let’s see. Ooh!” He grabbed my hand and my knife clattered to the floor. “Lei-Lei gives excellent massages.”

  Matt and I exchanged awkward glances.

  “I don’t think–”

>   “I don’t know…”

  “Ugh. You’re both so bloody stubborn. Mattman, she’s hardly going to rape you.”

  “I like the able-bodied ones,” I protested. “They put up more of a fight.”

  “I’m broke anyway.” A shy smile emerged from beneath Matt’s mop of hair. I didn’t know whether he was being good-natured or sarcastic, but it was uneasy either way.

  Aidan glanced at his watch. “I have to cut loose in a bit.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  “I have an appointment with my hand,” he said, straight-faced.

  “I’m going to assume that’s for a manicure,” I said drily.

  He and Matt exchanged conspiratorial grins.

  “Maybe the swimming will help your pain a bit, Matt?” I said.

  He pulled a face. “Oh, for crying out loud. I forgot about that as well. What kind of club has a pool, anyway?”

  “A fetish club,” Aidan said helpfully. “It’ll be full of blood and cock yogurt.”

  I swatted him around the back of the head. “It’s a private member’s club. It sounds…well, a bit classier than London clubs, actually.”

  Matt’s upper lip twitched. “Woo-fucking-hoo.”

  “Right then. Going to love and leave you. I’ll see you at the airport, okay?” Aidan stooped to hug my shoulders tightly, and then clasped hands with Matt. “Lei-Lei, suck it up and give him that massage. Well. Maybe not literally.” He had that childish, singsong tone again that made me want to throttle him, but Charlotte rubbed her hands with malicious glee.

  The door slammed loudly and Matt and I sat for a moment, the TV filling the silence with buzz.

  “Do you want me to?” I asked eventually.

  He eyed me in the raw sunshine that poured through the window. “I suppose it’s worth a go.”

  “Do you have any oil or lotion, or anything?”

  “Funnily enough, no.”

  “Hang on. I’ve got body butter in my bag, I think.” I pushed the tray off my lap and rummaged around for the little pot. Back on the sofa, he lifted his legs so I could slide beneath them. “This one, right?” I eased his shorts up and brushed my fingers over his left thigh.

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

  The thick scent of coconut bloomed between us as I twisted off the lid.

  “Shit.” He growled softly. “Sorry. It’s cold.”

  He trembled as I spread the cream over his skin. I wanted to look at him, but it seemed inappropriate. I’d almost forgotten how muscled his legs were–now, they rippled beneath my palms.

  “Tell me if it’s too hard, okay?” I used the heel of my hand to put pressure along the inside of his thigh. Head back, eyes closed…he didn’t look like he was in pain.

  I carried on until the lotion squelched between my fingers and his skin shone. Matt’s breath gained pace to match the strokes. What would Joseph make of this? Was that my measure for every situation, now?

  Matt began to shift uncomfortably and that was when I noticed how hard he was. I ached to be filled and the sudden lurch of it made me gasp. With a client, I’d have taken his shorts down and started massaging around his v-section, complimented his cock. God knew, I had enough good things to say about Matt’s.

  But he wasn’t a client; he never really had been, not in that sense. Fucking him would be some sort of friendship kamikaze. The carnivore in me wanted this, and she was the girl who really needed to go on a diet.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, his tongue prodding his cheek.

  “It’s okay.” I smiled up at him. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, right?”

  “Still.”

  “Should I stop?”

  He bit his bottom lip. “No.”

  The knock at the door made us jump, and I tugged my slick hands away. Matt threw a cushion over his lap.

  “Um…come in?” he called.

  The door cracked open and Poppy’s head appeared. “Gosh. Sorry. Should I come back later?” She looked slightly mortified at intruding on our tangle of limbs.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “I was just wondering if I could borrow a laptop, actually. Mine’s dead and I can’t find the charger.”

  “Take mine.” Matt inclined his head to where it flickered on the coffee table.

  Poppy darted in and tucked it under her arm. “Thanks a million. I’ll bring it back later. See you both in the lobby?”

  “We’ll be there.” The door snapped shut and he let the cushion drop to the floor. He still strained against the fabric of his shorts. “That wasn’t awkward at all.”

  “Nope.” I giggled as I resumed circling strokes on his inner thigh. “Is it working yet, do you think?”

  He shot me a long, lazy smile. “Not quite. Better carry on.”

  Things were thawing between us at a shameful rate. It was just a massage, right? Charlotte blew bubbles with invisible gum, played with her hair: shameless pair. I should stop. I should stop. Matt wasn’t recreational.

  I didn’t stop.

  “So how’s it going, then?” he asked, studying me.

  “How do you mean?”

  “With him.”

  I licked my lips to moisten them. “Good…I think. A bit confusing, but then that’s how he is.” By then, I lingered right at the top of his thigh. “Have you met anyone over here?”

  “There was a girl the other night.”

  “Oh?” Oh.

  “Not much to say really. She wasn’t anything like you, though.”

  I gave a bittersweet little laugh. “That’s probably a good thing.”

  “Maybe.” He caught my wrist midstroke. “Leila.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Stop now, okay? I’ll end up doing something stupid if you don’t.”

  It would have been so easy to climb over and straddle his hips, lift my skirt and mew at the stretch of him. I couldn’t stop thinking of how it felt to have his fingers jammed right into that sweet spot, how I’d gushed and throbbed around them. Fucking Aidan, playing the woefully unsubtle matchmaker. I was going to punch him when I had the chance.

  “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Matt said, still clutching my wrist. “About the same thing I am.”

  Heat rushed across my chest in tiny seizures. The thrill of two–an adrenaline-flavoured fizz pop of deception–reared its pretty little head. “Yes.”

  “God, I think about it all the time.” He dropped my hand then, easing himself up and pulling his legs away. “This…this is just cruel.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not you. Just this whole fucking thing.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, well–as they say over here–amen to that.”

  “I should get a shower,” he said. “I can’t go out walking and smelling like a pansy.”

  “You don’t smell like a pansy.”

  “No?”

  “Like a coconut,” I teased.

  “I smell like you.” He smiled incredulously. “I like it, and I hate it.”

  I pulled myself up, tucking the body butter into my bag. “I ought to get a move on too,” I said. “We need to be down there in an hour or so.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for…you know.”

  “It’s okay.” I gazed at him over my shoulder. “It was nice.”

  “It was.”

  I twisted the door handle.

  “Leila?”

  “Yeah?”

  Matt toyed with his collar nervously. “He’s good with you, right?”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “He doesn’t hurt you.”

  “Of course he doesn’t.” I clutched my stomach involuntarily. “Why’d you ask?”

  “Just checking.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Good job I don’t have crutches. I’d smack him in the face with them anyway.”

  Chapter 5

  The Hummingbird Club was set in an old warehouse, all towering ceilings and industrial details offset by Baroque furniture in velvet an
d Perspex. It smelled very new, that weird mix of fresh leather and clean, floral-perfumed bodies.

  “Do you think they’re actually going to make us swim?” Poppy whispered as we filed into the reception.

  “I don’t think we have to do anything,” I said. “I think Redfish are just trying to show off.”

  “Or get a discount.”

  I dropped my swim bag on the tiled floor as I signed into the guest book. Matt lingered behind me. Though he hobbled a bit, it seemed the massage had actually helped.

  There was the thought of Joseph in the pool later, in all his fleshy finery. The pale green shirt he’d chosen for the evening was serpentine–it set off his eyes and gave them something of the wild. His wanton fingers kept brushing the small of my back, and he stroked through the fabric of the Leger dress before remembering that he wasn’t meant to touch me–nobody but Matt knew I was paid for.

  But I found myself hoping that everyone noticed us, regardless.

  The lift took us up to a plush, old-school bar where a jazz band played. Deacon strode over to shake our hands.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” he boomed, all pearlescent teeth. “It’s our way of saying thank you for the hard work to come.”

  “Nothing like a little New York hospitality.” Joseph smiled. “It’ll be good to meet the rest of the company.”

  “We don’t have everybody here, of course. But most of my team, some of Elise’s colleagues, management…we have a good turnout, as you can see.” Deacon gestured to the bustling bar and then his dark eyes darted toward me. “The pool’s on the roof, just up the stairs.”

  “Cheers.” Yves leaned forward to shake his hand. “I take it you have a good wine list here.”

  “Honestly, my friend, I’m not a wine drinker. But Alex over there is.” Deacon pointed to a tall, wiry man. “And he’ll be able to recommend something. Lord knows, he’s sampled enough of it.” He turned to Joseph. “Come meet the CEO while I can still pin him down.”

  Joseph nudged me gently as he followed Deacon and I stayed behind with Poppy and Matt. Yves had gone to pester Alex, and Sadie was already chatting to Deacon’s PA on an overstuffed sofa.

  “I’ll get us some drinks,” Matt volunteered. He limped off to the bar.

  “What happened to him?” Poppy asked.

  “Overdid it at the gym. Although we’ve been trying to think of something more glamorous all evening.”