Page 10 of Compulsion

Jack blinked hard, distracted just as I’d hoped he would be. “Eight p.m. Why?”

“I’m going out for a drink with one of the guys from work. I’ll… I said I’d meet him at eight thirty.”

Jack didn’t grace that with a reply, just peering at me. What, he didn’t believe me?

I got up, showing off my firm intention to go out. “Is Louis dancing at the club tonight?”

“No, he has the weekend off. He’s round at his mother’s for the monthly visit, but he’ll be back soon. He’s bringing in some good wine. We’re celebrating our anniversary tonight.”

I smiled to myself at the sudden flush on his face. Did he really think I hadn’t noticed the extra candles on the table, the smoked salmon chilling in the fridge, the smell of something special in the oven to follow? They were over each other like treacle on special occasions. What’s more, they’d appreciate me going out, even though they’d never ask.

And I wanted to get out of the flat. I wanted some space to think about it all. To try to calm my restlessness. To shake off the smell of Seve that I imagined still lingered in my nostrils, and the abrasion on my fingertips from clutching at the rough bricks of that backyard wall. To relive the memory of him behind me, the press of his body, panting, gasping, thrusting hard against my back. Deep up inside me, stretching me, filling me. His unfamiliar but firm hand around my dick, tugging me along with him, ripping a reaction from me that had been as deep as it had been dirty.

Shit. I was shocked at myself. Why couldn’t I get this into perspective? It had just been a quick, fierce fuck at a club, a whole week ago. It’s not like I hadn’t done it before. Yeah, I was trying not to make casual sex with strangers a habit nowadays, but I wasn’t giving it up for life, was I? Yes, you were, prompted my nagging conscience. It was part of my old life, not the new. I seemed to be having trouble with the separation.

Seve didn’t feel like a stranger. All I could think about was him.

That night, I never met anyone for a drink. In fact I never had any intention of it. I went straight to Compulsion.

HE DIDN’T appear until after midnight. The dance floor got darker and hotter and noisier, and I’d cursed my fixation at regular intervals ever since I arrived. I was drinking beer again and had been leaning against the bar for hours like some lazy whore. The number of approaches I’d turned down was five so far: four guys, one girl. I started out civil, then got progressively sharper. When the next person approached with the same hopeful leer and what he thought would be a seductive line, I glared so hard that I saw him pale. He veered quickly off in another direction.

And then Seve was there beside me. I never saw where he materialized from. His smell was spicy and teasing, and suddenly I was awash with all the other sensual memories of last Saturday. I swallowed hard, determined not to behave like some horny teenager, and turned slowly to face him. His long-fingered hand was curled around a drink as before, and his smile was almost sly. He had the same jeans on, I think, but a darker shirt with some kind of green shine to it. There was a slim silver chain around his neck and a tiny silver stud in his ear. The beard was newly trimmed, the skin of his cheeks and throat smooth.

He nodded at the retreating clubber. “Not your type, Max?”

He remembers my name. Something twisted painfully inside me. I’d been thinking he spent the last week fucking so many strange blokes in the backyard that he’d never remember just one.

“Don’t know.” I was having trouble making my tongue work—just the sight of him did things to me that I’d hoped were long buried. I dropped my gaze away from his. “Been a while since I even thought about what my type is.”

“A while?” That bloody voice—soft, rich, cool. “Since last Saturday?”

I know I flushed. I prayed that the lights were low enough that it wouldn’t look too obvious. “Yeah, well, last Saturday was—let’s say—unusual for me. Can’t say it’s on my regular weekend list of Things to Do.”

“Me neither.”

I felt him staring at me and I met his gaze. His eyes flashed like fireworks, like warning flares. He was still smiling, but his expression was guarded, with pursed lips as if he wasn’t sure what else to say.

“You come here often?” I blurted out. Shit. And after I’d been so rude to those others tonight, coming up to me with far more original chat-up lines.

“I do now,” Seve said.

I started to laugh, then bit it back. “I’m not asking for me,” I said with a grin. “It’s just I haven’t seen you around before.” I tried to remember what the club had been like when I last came to see Louis dance, before it was sold into its latest guise. That was over a year ago, of course. I was sure I’d have remembered a bloke like Seve, however crowded the place had been.

He paused before replying. “I haven’t been in Brighton for long.” He shrugged very slightly, his muscles moving like the last gentle ripple of an evening wave on the beach. “I’m with the new management.”

It figured. The way he seemed to exist apart from the crowd of dancers and drinkers; his confidence with the club; the way he got past security.

“Do you have a problem with that, Max?”

“No way. I mean… no. Unless I’m causing you trouble as a customer, of course.” I laughed again, realizing how stupid that sounded the minute the words left my mouth.

But maybe the embarrassment was all on my part. Seve certainly didn’t seem disturbed by my prattling—far from it, in fact. If there was one thing I could recognize in a man’s eyes, it was lust, and I suspected Seve’s was reflected in my own. His smile creased the corners of his mouth—his lush, greedy mouth. The mouth that I wanted to be touching very, very soon. My gut ached, and I felt warmth creeping down my spine like heated goose bumps. And I knew the feeling wasn’t because I’d been drinking.

I knew I had to keep cool. Then I looked into his confident gaze and thought, Who am I kidding? “Look, Seve. About last Saturday—”

He interrupted me. “You want some more?” He put his drink down beside mine on the bar.

“Yeah.” I knew he didn’t mean the beer. And I knew he knew I knew. Whatever.