Page 40 of Fe
“Wrap my hand around my cock,” Ripley whispered.
“Ooh.” Fen gulped. “That’s going to come out blurred.” He liked hearing all that except he was waiting for thebut.What was Ripley going to say?
“I’d like to spend more time with you.”
Maybe there wasn’t abut.
“But…” Ripley said.
Fen made a conscious effort to keep his shoulders up. Right, so there was abut.
“I have a…proposition I believe will benefit us both.”
Fen stared at him without blinking. What did that mean? A proposition? It didn’t sound—
“I want you to be my lover.”
Fen’s heart skipped a few beats and he tried not to look confused.Well, duh!Hadn’t the asking him out been leading to that? The talking, the texting, the pressing of knees, the kissing in the car, in the lift? He’d sort of assumed Ripley might take him back to his place tonight. He had his toothbrush in his pocket. Condoms too. And lube because… Though a little bit of him had hoped they didn’t get that far the first time.
No one ever asked someone to go out with them in the way Ripley had, did they? People met through one means or another, realised they liked each other and eventually ended up in bed or…some other place, or they didn’t. The sex happened organically, not by arrangement. Excepting maybe with Grindr.
Did anyone ever say—we’ll fuck on Friday and Tuesdays at nine? Maybe they did. Ripley was still staring at him. Is he waiting for an answer? But he hadn’t actually asked a question.
“You mean…you want me to be your boyfriend?” Fen sort of thought he already was, or at least was edging that way. They just hadn’t got around to the sex bit yet and Fen had thought it was rather sweet Ripley had wanted to wait. The boyfriend bit was what he was asking, wasn’t it? It had to be. And that sounded more than okay, exciting even, because it gave Fen the hope of a relationship that would last a little while, not be a quick fuck with a tossed out ‘see-you-around’ when that wasn’t going to happen, except Ripley was shaking his head.
No? What then?
“Not boyfriend.”
Fen’s heart shrank a little. Right, so lover not boyfriend. Fen wasn’t stupid. He got it and went head-to-toe cold as if he’d stepped into a freezer. Ripley wanted to have him in his bed, or against a wall or…wherever but never take him anywhere. He wanted to hide Fen away, not let him meet his friends or even be seen with him. The male equivalent of a mistress, except this was the second restaurant they’d been to,anda bar,andthe Tate, so the not-being-seen-together bit didn’t make sense. Fen wasn’t sure he got it and he felt Ripley was waiting for him to get it.
Was Ripley ashamed of him? Because he was poor? Because he didn’t have a professional job? Because he was stupid?Stop it!Fen’s chest ached. He wanted to get up and walk away but his feet appeared to be stuck. Probably because he still hoped he was wrong. He shouldn’t jump to conclusions.Ask him if that’s what he means!Then Fen would tell him exactly what he thought of him.
“You don’t want to take me out anywhere? You…” He was going to sayyou just want to fuck mebut some little devil made him change to “You just want me to fuck you?”
He took some pleasure in watching Ripley flounder. He guessed the floundering didn’t happen very often. Nor the someone fucking him part. Not that Fen had ever fucked anyone. He’d like to, but he seemed to havebottomwritten all over him.
“I do want to take you out. I want us to go to places like this. I’d like you to come with me sometimes when I’m out of town on a case. To go to the theatre with me, dinner parties, my chambers’ Christmas party, weekends away, weddings, maybe funerals. Host dinner parties. Go abroad even.”
Fen’s head was spinning. That sounded great! But…Damn that bloody but.“And that isn’t being a boyfriend?”
“Not quite, because the arrangement would have a set end date.”
“Oh.”Why?
“And I’d be paying you.”
Fen couldn’t believe he was sitting in a smart restaurant looking out over the London skyline having the weirdest conversation of his life. He’d been so excited about tonight and now he was feeling sick.
“I realise I’d be taking up a lot of your time, asking you to have days off work. Maybe you could work part time. I thought you could use the money to go to Japan.”
So that made it all right, did it? Ripley had decided he was doing him a favour? Funding something on a bucket list? “You’d pay me for sleeping with you.” Fen said it to be sure he hadn’t misunderstood. He wasn’t that sort of guy. It hurt that Ripley thought he might be.
“No, I don’t see it in that way. I’d be paying you for being with me. Like a job. You’d be a…personal assistant taking care of my leisure time, particularly at weekends but in the week too.”
Shall I pencil you in for a hand job on Tuesday at seven, babes? We could fit in a blow job before we go to Lucinda’s wedding, darling. Do you want me to swallow or not?Fen had drifted off into a horrible sort of fantasy and registered Ripley was still speaking.
“Three thousand pounds a week. Twelve thousand a month. For six months. Seventy-two thousand pounds.”
