Dream_A Skins Novel Read online

  Praise for Garrett Leigh

  “Emotional and brilliant…”

  All About Romance

  “Tastefully erotic … more smart than smutty…”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Powerful and compelling…”

  Foreword Reviews

  Dream

  A Skins Novel

  Garrett Leigh

  Copyright © 2017 by Garrett Leigh

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art: Garrett Leigh @ blackjazzdesign.com

  Photography: Dan Burgess @ danburgessphotography.com

  Editing: Posy Roberts @ [email protected]

  Proofing: Annabelle Jacobs, Vanessa North.

  For my foxes, as ever, with love…

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  PATREON

  Coming Soon

  Whisper (a SHORT excerpt)

  Believe (a SHORT excerpt)

  Crossroads (a SHORT excerpt)

  Further Reading

  What Matters (a SHORT excerpt)

  Misfits (a SHORT excerpt)

  Also by Garrett Leigh

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “You didn’t have to run out on us.”

  Guilt surged through Dylan Hart as he pressed his face against the cool glass of the train window, his phone plastered to his other cheek. “I’m sorry, babe. I just need some space, okay?”

  Eddie sighed. “I’m sorry too. I wish things were different.”

  “No, you don’t.” Dylan forced a chuckle. “You and Sam are perfectly happy wrapped up in each other. We can party as much as we like, but at the end of the day, I’m an add-on you don’t need.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true.”

  Crickets. Dylan suppressed a sigh of his own and squeezed his eyes shut. “Look. Me and Sam have been close for a long time, but we never messed around much until you came along. Sam’s into me because you are, and I’m okay with that, but⁠—⁠”

  “You need more, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Dylan hadn’t realized how true it was until he said it, but once he had, the reality that he had to quit his sexual addiction to his two best friends gut-punched him. He leaned forward in his seat, like he could curl his body against the pain. He’d been in love with Sam for years, and now Eddie too, but where did it end? “Eddie,” he whispered, “you’ve got it made with Sam . . . he loves you so much. Let me go find a piece of that for myself, eh? Before we all get hurt.”

  He hung up before Eddie could reason with him. She was upset, he could tell, but it was for the best. Sam would take care of her, like he always did, and Dylan would take care of himself.

  Dylan changed trains at Highbury and then again at Stratford. By then it was getting dark, and he almost convinced himself this was his usual commute home and he hadn’t left a piece of his heart in Vauxhall.

  But the feeling didn’t last as he got off the train in Romford, and he drifted out of the station with a black cloud for company. Outside, a queue of traffic was being held up by a funeral procession, complete with a horse and carriage. Dylan stared at the coal-dark horses, mesmerised by their grace. Old school cockney funerals were common around Romford, but the spectacle never lost its dignity. He observed the procession as it passed⁠—the undertakers and the family walking slowly behind⁠—and wondered where they were headed. The Sacred Heart, perhaps? Dylan’s grandfather was buried there.

  The procession passed. Dylan snapped out of his daze and made his way to his apartment in the old Railstore complex. He hadn’t been home for a few days, but the converted flat was exactly as he’d left it⁠—cluttered and yet distinctly empty. He glanced at the L-shaped couch and recalled a night he’d spent on it a few weeks ago, wrapped up with Sam and Eddie, their legs tangled together as they slept off an evening of fucking and friendship. He’d miss those nights.

  He turned his back on the living room and trudged to the bathroom, his nerves beginning to tingle with the urge to wipe the slate clean. No. It’s too soon. But was it? How did you measure something like that?

  Dylan had no idea and continued to wrestle with it as he stripped his clothes and abandoned them in a pile by the bath. A hot shower did little to soothe his disquiet, and by the time he should’ve been winding down for the night, he had itchy feet that he couldn’t ignore.

  Forgoing dinner, he slipped into his favourite tight jeans and a fitted dark shirt and headed out with only one thing in mind: I want to be someone else for a while. Or at least a different version of himself.

  He took a cab to the outskirts of town. The nondescript building by the motorway junction appeared lifeless as he got out of the car.

  “Are you sure you want to be here, mate?” the driver asked, though he didn’t seem to particularly care.

  Dylan paid the man and allowed himself a small grin. “Oh, I’m sure. Have a good night.”

  He shut the door and walked towards the old coach house. With its painted over windows, it looked abandoned, but as he got closer, the faint thump of EDM reached him, and his pulse picked up to match the beat.

  The signage was as discreet as the rest of the building, but the wording never failed to get Dylan hot: Lovato’s⁠—a place for every fantasy. So far, it had yet to let him down. He paid the entry fee and signed in, and then made his way to the downstairs cloakroom. Usually, he’d hit the bar first, but he wasn’t in the mood to wait today. His non-fuck with Sam and Eddie had set him on fire, and he couldn’t rest until he’d done something⁠—or someone⁠—to dampen it down.

  By the stairs, the door to one of his favoured haunts was open. Despite his focus on reaching the basement rooms, Dylan glanced inside. The row of cubicles was affectionately known as “the truck stop” and the scene that greeted Dylan was a perfect endorsement⁠—men and women alike stood with their underwear around their ankles while burly men screwed them from behind. One guy was sprawled on the pseudo bathroom counter, his legs in the air while his missus did him with a strap-on. Dylan caught his eye and winked. Perhaps he’d join them later, if he could shift his dark mood.

  He left the truck stop behind and descended the stairs. The corridor leading to the basement rooms split in two, and he took the left fork to changing rooms that were quiet compared to the pleasurefest upstairs. Pounding music slowed to a dirty dubstep beat, and Dylan let the headier vibe seep into him as he stripped his clothes and stashed them in a locker.

  With a towel around his waist, he bypassed the glory hole pit and approached Seamus, who was guarding the bunker rooms. “What ya got for me?”

  Seamus appraised Dylan with his usual inscrutable stare and handed him a strip of inky-black fabric. “Go to the end. I’ve got a cracker for you.”

  Yeah, yeah. But Dylan had been frequenting Seamus’s lair long enough for the surly Scot to know what he liked, and the rush of what was to come stirred Dylan’s dick to life. He entered the last bunker in the corridor and dropped his towel by the raised mattress that took the place of a cosy
bed. The room was barren to a layman’s eye, but Dylan approached the utilitarian chest of drawers like he was in his own home and selected his box of tricks with little conscious thought. Just rubbers and lube today⁠—the plugs and glass dildos could wait.

  Dylan draped his towel over the liquid-proof mattress and then sat on the edge and fixed the strip of fabric Seamus had given him over his eyes. Blindfolded, his pulse kicked up again. He licked his lips and counted the beats as he positioned himself on the mattress⁠—chest down on his hands and knees. He palmed his aching dick just once and then raised his hand to signal that he was ready for whatever walked through the door.

  * * *

  “Angel! Long time, no see.”

  Angelo Giordano slid onto a bar stool and nodded at Carl, an old friend of sorts, though they’d never seen each other outside of the club. “It hasn’t been that long.”

  “No? Seems like forever since I last saw your pretty face.”

  “Piss off and get me some water.”

  “You don’t want a Peroni?”

  “Nah. Fuck that.” Angelo had drunk his fill of crappy Italian beer at his father’s wake, and his empty stomach was still protesting. “Water’s fine, mate. Honest.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Carl slunk away to the fridges on the other side of the bar. Angelo watched him go, admiring his perfect porn-star backside. Carl was good fun and they’d played together many times in the past, but as Angelo ran his gaze over his broad shoulders and thickset thighs, he felt nothing. He wasn’t here for familiar; he’d come for the unknown.

  A bottle of water appeared in front of him. Carl squeezed Angelo’s wrist and moved on, because that was the other good thing about him: he knew when to leave people alone.

  And Christ, Angelo wanted to be alone, but he had one last thing to do before he locked himself away for the rest of the week; a last itch to scratch before he gave himself over to the black cloud that had followed him all the way home from New York. Was still following him, two months later.

  He spun around on his stool and surveyed his surroundings. The bar was situated in the middle of the club, equidistant from most of the play areas. At this time of night, things were starting to heat up and spill over from the more popular rooms. Angelo’s first cursory glance picked up an acquainted couple screwing over a table, a snake pit of women on the floor, and a dude clearly getting the blowjob of his life from the bear of a man on his knees at his feet.

  Heat pooled in Angelo’s groin. He thought about joining the couple on the table, of claiming his space behind the man and fucking him while he banged his wife, or shoving his dick in the bear’s mouth and hitching a ride on what looked like some damn fine head. But he didn’t move because both options were dances he’d danced before, and he wasn’t in the mood for another waltz.

  Angelo drained his water bottle and slid from his stool. Instinct drew him to the stairs that led to the basement rooms⁠—his favoured place to play when his mood was this dark⁠—and he joined the short queue of others who fancied a mystery tour. At the front, he found Seamus, a beast of a man who watched over the basement rooms like every participant was his own child.

  He tipped Angelo a wink. “Looking fly, brother. Do I need to go through the checklist with you?”

  “Probably not, but I know you want to.”

  Seamus chuckled and went through his safety list before stamping Angelo’s hand, branding him as the only player who’d walk into whatever followed with his eyes wide open. “Bunker five,” he said. “I gotta feeling you’re going to like what you find.”

  Angelo rolled his eyes. Seamus was a terminal optimist, and his script never changed, regardless of what Angelo found on the other side of the thick steampunk door. “Whatever. Cheers, mate.”

  He left his shoes with Seamus and padded barefoot down the industrial-styled corridor, the metal floor cold against the soles of his feet. The play bunkers were soundproofed, what went on behind the heavy doors audible only to Seamus and the pay-by-the-hour observation galleries, but Angelo sensed the heat emanating from each room he passed and let it seep into him and merge with the building anticipation roiling in his gut.

  Bunker five was at the end of the corridor. Angelo paused with his hand on the door and psyched himself up for what he might find. In the past, he’d screwed all kinds of people, but dear God, he wanted to fuck a man tonight⁠—needed it. Craved it. Pansexual be damned, some days, only a man’s touch could take the pain away.

  Angelo opened the door. Blinked a few times. And then a rush of relief hit him so hard he had to steady himself on the doorframe.

  Whoa. Jackpot.

  He sucked in a breath, and the smouldering desire in his gut did a happy dance. It had been a while, but the thrill of opening the door never got old, and this time he’d struck gold⁠—literally. The slender young man waiting for him on the bed had a halo of fair hair and pale skin that would look awesome with Angelo’s handprints welded into it. And beyond that, he was ready. Blindfolded and splayed out on his hands and knees, the man had left condoms and lube beside him⁠—his message clear. He wanted to be fucked, and Angelo was over the damn moon to oblige.

  Dropping his clothes as he went, he stalked around the raised mattress, his dick already hard. His plan was basic, already spelled out by his mysterious companion, but he paused by the man’s head, intrigued by his lips. Pillowy and full, the temptation to slide his cock between them was strong, but the metal floor biting into his bare feet stopped him. People didn’t come to the basement rooms for that⁠—they came for the anonymous oblivion that Angelo craved.

  Angelo returned to where the man clearly wanted him most. He reached for the condoms, and the man shivered as Angelo tore the foil wrapper open and then tossed it aside. Angelo rolled the condom on, jacking himself a couple of times before he turned his attention to his partner in crime and his willing hole. The lube was the stretchy kind that was fashioned on real come. It dripped out of the bottle in long wet strings and onto the man’s cleft, sliding down his thighs. The man shuddered again, but Angelo made no move to comfort him. Nah. The basement rooms weren’t about getting up close and personal; they were about getting down and dirty, and Angelo was more than ready.

  He pushed lube into the man’s hole with his thumb, absorbing the delicious answering moan. Words were rarely exchanged in encounters like this, but there were a few that Angelo was obliged to utter. He eased his thumb further inside the man and leaned over him, his nipples brushing the man’s smooth back. “Safe word is fox. Don’t be shy about using it.”

  The man gasped out a laugh. “I won’t.”

  His voice was deeper than Angelo expected, and the gravelly words went straight to his dick. He withdrew his thumb, lined up with the man’s hole, and pressed inside with as much care as he could muster with his blood roaring a symphony in his ears. The man was tight and hot and slick with lube. And more than that, he wanted Angelo’s cock and widened his stance to take all of him in one slow slide.

  “Fuck yeah.” Angelo stopped for a moment, reeling from being balls-deep inside a man. He took a breath, and then a strange sensation washed over him, and he lurched forward before he caught himself, hands flailing as he fought the urge to run his hands all over the man’s smooth back. What the hell?

  That was a new one. When he’d played in the basement rooms before, he’d never thought about really touching whoever he’d been railing. Had never taken much notice because that was the point—a hook-up that took anonymity to the extreme, where sex narrowed to the lightning bolts of pleasure shooting through his dick. But he wanted to touch this man, wanted to squeeze those slim hips and let his palms roam that flawless back.

  Wanted it. Craved it.

  Fuck it.

  Under the pretence of steadying himself, he laid a hand at the base of the man’s spine. A jolt of electricity surged up his arm, and a strangled groan escaped him. “Shit!”

  “Yeah?” The man arched, his chest drop
ping to the mattress, his hole clenching, and then he drew himself off Angelo’s cock, before spearing back down on it, again and again, setting the rhythm that Angelo had played out in his head before he’d lost his bloody mind. Over the moody electronica, the slap of skin on skin grew louder as the man ground back on Angelo’s dick, meeting Angelo thrust for thrust as Angelo regained the ability to screw him coherently.

  The club faded away⁠—the music, the hum of the crowd, and even the eyes that were bound to be watching them from the secluded observation points. The roll of the man’s hips grew more erratic, and Angelo was right there to take up the slack. For long minutes it seemed that their heady encounter would be a quick one, but then the reason Angelo had come to the club returned to him, and the desire to take control won out.

  He gripped the man’s hips, slowing his movements, and then stilled him entirely as he took the man’s arms and pinned them behind his back. Angelo paused a moment to give the man a chance to squirm or protest or give any sign that he didn’t want Angelo to bang his brains out. There was none, and Angelo briefly pictured them with their positions reversed. With the man on top doing everything to Angelo that Angelo was planning on doing to him. Wow. That was new too. Angelo rarely bottomed. It had been years.

  Angelo spat where they were joined, adding to the lube already there, and tightened his hold on the man’s slender hips. He started slow . . . but deliberate, dicking out the man with targeted stabs of his cock. The dizzying heat burned his veins, and he knew the moment he’d found the man’s sweet spot. The velvet warmth clamped tight around his dick, and the man cried out, balling his hands into fists and pushing back on Angelo in a blatant demand for more.