Page 1 of Read My Lips

CHAPTER

ONE

SATURDAY

Simon Azie did not give the tiniest of monkeys who I slept with. Fact.

If he’d wanted to come for an after-work drink, he bloody could have done. On any of the other fifty-million Fridays I’d invited him. Fact.

Turned out though, I’d miscalculated the balance point – measured in numbers of pints consumed – between optimally socially lubricated, and totally turtle-dicked. Which was more of an inconvenient truth.

“Oh. Come. On!” A dead inconvenient truth, actually.

Manic-handed, I gripped the base of my cock, attempting to stop my hard-on collapsing in on itself like a soggy Cornetto cone left out in the sun too long. Spoiler alert: it was too far gone. Another pair of eyes zeroed on my crumpling ego, and my dignity withered right along with it.

“How old are you?” Luke, who was definitely not Simon, unhooked his thigh from the crook of his elbow, shifting higher up the pillows. He sighed like I’d planned it. I bloody hadn’t.

“Twenty-eight.” The brand spanking new Thames-view flat he’d dragged me back to turned all hazy at the edges as my pulse thrummed in my ears. “I’m twenty-eight. There’s nothing wrong with being twenty-eight.”

Except, when you said it three times in quick succession and went all high-pitched and warbled, it started to sound like there might be.

“No wonder you’re having problems. That’s nearly thirty.”

Oh, why had I bothered?

“Look, Luke. This never happens.” Lie. Total lie.

This happened every time someone zoned in on the bit-of-rough-from-Newcastle vibe I’d been trying to escape for the best part of a decade because it wasn’t really me.

“Do you want to give it a minute?” Nose-wrinkled sympathy sheeted off him.

“I guess so. Yeah? Okay.” The patronising git had thought all the gym-going meant I was a bouncer, hadn’t he? Like everyone else who saw my attempt at squeezing into business-appropriate clothing and decided I wasn’t intelligent enough to work in anything else requiring a suit. The memory blurred, but I’d probably corrected him, and he’d probably given me that surprised face people got when they realised I didn’t punch people in the head for a living.

A minute would not solve this.

His unflagging hard-on bobbed against his stomach, all carefree and tempting and neglected. My fault.

“Erm. Do you want me to...?” Genius. A Pavlovian flood of saliva welled in my mouth. Excellent, achievable plan B.

“Or…” Luke’s eyes glinted. “You could tie me to the bed and rough me up a bit.”

Oh Christ he’d really wanted me to be a Neanderthal, hadn’t he?

“What, now?”

“Look, I’ve seen these videos of people online.”

I sagged back onto my heels. “Of course you have.” Why did I always get the guys who wanted me to hate-fuck them through the mattress?

“Well?” Luke eyebrow-waggled suggestively. “How do you feel about hitting me?”

My entire brain fused, stuck on no. No No No.

“Dead hot in here, isn’t it?” A frenetic, rhythmic buzzing ripped around inside my skull like a rogue scooter. “I’m quite warm, actually. Could really do with a glass of water.” The buzzing intensified like an angry stag-beetle trapped under a wet tea towel. Oh god. Dying in a stranger’s bedroom before thirty had never been the plan. “Do you want one? I’ll get it. I don’t min⁠—”

“Not really.” The beery enthusiasm in Luke’s voice deflated. “Thanks.”

My heart had to be warming up for an incoming cardiac event. Brilliant. I’d die, and he’d tell everyone I was a terrified, kink-shaming, self-hating shithead who couldn’t keep it up.