Trust (London Love #5)

All.

The.

Way.

Down.

I think I lost consciousness for a while, because his hand was covering my mouth, and he held me down, as I spasmed and flailed, bed creaking, headboard banging against the wall.

Death was a beautiful thing.

Then the duvet was tucked in under my chin, and he kissed my cheek. Giggled softly.

“You’re disgusting,” I said hoarsely.

“Nope.” He sounded so bloody happy. “See? It doesn’t have to be so very complicated. Just you and me. We can make it work. Because that wasn’t too scary, was it?”

“Well…” I grinned hazily and reached for him. Kissed his stupid mouth before remembering where it had been.

“Swallowed it down like the good boy I am.” He nuzzled my face. His nose, mouth, breath. All of him.

“As I said. Disgusting.”

“Yummy.”

I laughed. And then I held him as tight as I could, and for a minute or two, I didn’t care about anything. Because I was happy too.

Home sweet home

GRAHAM

I liked Agnes. The house was mine. Offer accepted. And I’d been responsible and arranged a driver to take me and Reubs to do all the little things I had planned for today. Like a house viewing. Then I was hoping we could go to this place where they had private dining alcoves. I’d been there before. Posh food. Nice waiters.

After that? I hadn’t thought that far. Perhaps show him my old house. Not that I ever wanted to go back there. It had bad vibes. Bad memories. A place where I had lived when I hadn’t been me. This me was much better. Calmer. Happier. Excited. Well. I wasn’t excited about the crap going on at the studio, but then I had a feeling nobody was.

The production team kept changing. We had new session musicians, who seemed as confused as we were, and then these ready-made sequences kept popping up like some dude in the office was churning out AI music and expected us to magically turn it into multimillion-grossing hits.

It didn’t work that way.

The music that had won us our fans had been made in the middle of the night when Josh and Cork and I had been on a roll. We’d had people working with us who were passionate about what we wanted to create. While I’d been singing, Josh had fiddled with things on his laptop and Cork had drummed along on his knees and magic had happened.

Then things had gone wrong, and I had no idea how to pull us back together.

If I really thought about it, I knew we were gone.

I stepped out of the car, letting my sunglasses shield me from the world.

The alleyway leading to the little courtyard basked in the sunshine, showing off London at its best. Perhaps a little noisy, and the green area behind the houses backed onto the railway lines, something I only discovered when a train rumbled past. Not ideal. But anyway, I’d bought it now, and the family living there were in the full-on throes of packing up their life.

Boxes everywhere. Bin bags. But it didn’t matter. I was on a roll, and the house agreed with me, casting me in warm sun rays as Agnes threw open the patio doors.

This?

“Home sweet home,” I said, throwing out my arms dramatically. Reuben grimaced.

“It’s not at all what I expected,” he said, tripping over a child’s toy on the floor. “You’re a rockstar. I was expecting hot tubs and mirrored ceilings and all that.”

He was joking. Even Agnes was laughing…and spreading her paperwork on the kitchen counter.