Bombora by Mal Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

completely different from getting checked out by a group of giggling women with martinis in hand. At least there’s an element of coyness there, shyness even, whereas how these men looked at me was pure sex. Like they wanted to eat me off the bone. To my surprise, it was a total trip, and not just a power trip.
    Forget feeling up another guy’s cock, I thought, this is how you tendered your resignation from the heterosexual lifestyle. It was the first time I’d ever set foot in a gay bar, period, and I couldn’t claim to have gone there at the behest of a female friend or a group of buddies in search of a laugh. I was there because I wanted to be, because this was where I thought I belonged. The feeling terrified me more than the moment I said I do and made Emilia my wife, more than learning I had a kid.
    I quickly made my way toward the back of the bar, where I felt I’d draw less notice. Luckily there was already someone attracting most of the attention, chatting to a few other men with his back to me, and I slid into a free spot a couple of seats down. Ordering a Scotch, midshelf but respectable, I settled in to take stock of the whole place, curious about the customers Foxley’s tended to attract; the crowd seemed mixed, men in their twenties to upward of forty or fifty. It was hard to get a handle on whether Foxley’s catered to a particular clientele, or if it was a locale favored by many regardless of income or social status.
    From the corner of my eye, I noticed the dude beside me behaved like he was pretty high up on the food chain, ruling over the small crowd he’d attracted like a king before his court. After a few moments of polite chat, he dismissed his companions and swiveled back around to face the bar with an expression caught somewhere between boredom and melancholy. Curious and with nothing better to do, I tried to get a closer look. And, well… shit.
    Damn if he wasn’t the most gorgeous person—not man, person —I’d ever seen in my life, wearing an impeccably tailored gray suit as easily as he wore his dark hair and incredible eyes, bright even in the dim lighting of the bar. The whole look-don’t-touch idea went bust when I let my eyes linger a moment too long on his mouth. Plenty of men have gorgeous lips, cocksucking lips, and I suppose in some circles I’m considered one of ’em. But this man… you couldn’t look at a mouth like that and think about anything but sin.
    I tried so hard not to stare, but it was too late. He caught me out and turned the full force of those eyes towards me, gaze flicking up and down over my seated form in quick assessment. I couldn’t for the life of me look away, though I frantically reminded myself talking to anyone wasn’t part of the plan. When a slow smile curled those criminally full lips and he tilted his head in invitation, I was up and wandering closer before I registered my feet upon the ground. My face and neck flamed with the force of my blush. This was retarded; Hugh’s favorite joke was that I could impregnate women with a look. Nate Fessenden didn’t get embarrassed. I was being retarded.
    Attempting to man up and bite the bullet, I smiled and said, “Hey,” throat tight. At the sound of my voice, his smirk widened and he met my gaze with a hell of a lot more gumption than I felt. “Can I buy you another drink?” I offered. We were both drinking Scotch, from the looks of it, and I was relieved he wasn’t holding an appletini or something equally embarrassing.
    After that, the details were blurry. His name was Phel—Phelan. I gave a fake name, Nate Smith, which felt awkward and wrong on my tongue but marginally less terrifying than telling him my real identity. Still, intensity crackled between us like something out of the Harlequin novels Emilia read on weekends, heady and thick. It was a sharp reminder I’d never felt anything so potent toward a woman—hell, not even another man. I’d felt it from seven feet away, and the