job. Call on the next Liuz but don’t knock on the bloody door this time. Just observe.
Back on the street, I walked on uneven flagstones, the colour indiscriminate and without a name, glancing in my notebook to check the number I needed to find. 78 Woodstone Road. Stuffing the book back in my bag and casting a wary glance at the sky, I kept going until I came to a residence that perfectly matched my thoughts of where Liuz would live. Victorian, four stories, the dusty windows of the first floor visible through a black, high, rusty iron-railed fence with a matching gate. I peered at the front door, pleased to note a grey metal casement surrounding several buttons. This was obviously a set of apartments or bedsits.
Bracing myself for a bit of sleuthing, I walked through the gate and up the short path to the plain wooden door, painted sunflower yellow, streaked with swathes of dirt and a muddy footprint. I studied the name-tags beside each button. A couple of full names were there, but the rest were first-name initials with the surname. And only one initial was an ‘L’. The surname was Biros. Possibly Polish?
A quick movement inside to my right, behind one of two windows, snagged my attention. Bushes grew in a row beneath, stout, unruly branches decorated with an abundance of leaves. I looked at the small patch of grass in front of them, then at the bushes, trying to work out whether they would take my weight without me falling. The windows were too high for me to see through otherwise.
I moved in front of the bushes and gave a silent prayer. Before I could talk myself out of it, I scrabbled on top of them, my footing stable, if a little buoyant. I reached up and gripped the stone windowsill, pushing up to press my nose to the lowest part of the pane. A man sat at the back of a long living-cum-bedroom, at a desk boasting stacks of paperwork, a keyboard, and a large monitor that emitted the glow of a website I couldn’t make out. He hunched over, studying the screen, a lock of dark hair flopping forward to cover the eye closest to me. His jeans rode low at the rear, giving me a glimpse of a rather delectable ass-top, and his naked back tapered from a trim waist, expanding to broad shoulders, his muscles prominent and well-toned.
Was that my Liuz?
He reared back in his seat, lifting his arms to lace his hands behind his head, and swung his chair around so he faced me, eyes closed. I caught my breath as I scanned his sharply angled face, long and unshaven, his mouth soft and wide. I studied his chest, a scribble of black hairs at its centre. Straight hair covered his armpits, their direction every which way, and I found myself breathing deeply as though I could capture the scent of maleness just from my imagination alone.
And then, to my horror, he opened his eyes. After a brief flash of surprise he stared at me with a look of indignation that burned my cheeks with the shame of being caught spying.
I started, letting out an insipid yelp, and gambolled about trying to get off the bush. It had other ideas, the branches seeming to sprout hands that gripped my ankles and wouldn’t let go. To top it off, the heavens opened, a torrent that fell without mercy, uncaring that it peppered my hair with fat, bullet-like drips.
‘Fuck!’ I scrabbled some more – and fell backwards onto the grass. ‘Oh hell!’
Panicked, I managed to stand on unsteady legs and make it to the short path. A few more steps would see me down the road, out of sight, catastrophe averted. I wanted to be at home so badly I could taste it. I should never have come out.
Rain pelted down harder, bouncing off the path, and an ominous grouse of thunder warned of a bad storm in my future. I reached for the gate, getting the hell out of there my only concern. A creak sounded above the patter of the rain, and I couldn’t resist looking back. The man I’d spied on stood in the doorway, arms bowed at his sides as though he thought me a thug that needed a good pasting. Still staring over my shoulder, I fumbled with the now-slippery gate, adrenaline surging through me.
He glared at me. They were the blackest eyes I’d ever seen.
I almost whimpered.
He moved to step outside, and I wrenched the gate back.
He bunched his fists, and I made it safely out onto the path.
Breaths gusted from me, and my pulse quickened, the sound of its thrum meshing with that of the slapping rain. I looked at him again as I prepared to run, but something made me remain in place.
He frowned and brought one hand up to the smattering of dark stubble on his chin, and the brief thought that if this was my Liuz, he’d do very nicely, thank you very much.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he asked. ‘And what do you want?’
Chapter Three
His voice came as a shock, deep and husky and inflected with an accent I didn’t recognise, lilting and rapid, almost sing-song. And the way he said ‘fuck’ was quick and joined to the words after it, as if they were one.
But something about his voice and aggressive tone injected me with flight instinct. I had to get out of there. This was not how it was meant to be between us. Fate hadn’t planned this kind of confused, dishevelled meeting. I had to erase it, now, quickly, before it became irreversible.
Clutching my bag, I turned and covered the side of my face with my palm. How could I let him see me for even another second? My mascara was no doubt running down my cheeks – I could imagine its black dribbles streaking over my wet, burning flesh. My clothes were wet and scrappy. My battle with the shrubbery had left its scars – a small rip in the knee of my jeans and several leafy twigs poked from my socks and sneakers.
I picked up a rapid pace, slapped one foot in front of the other on the pavement, not daring to look backwards for fear of doing even more damage to our destiny. But with each step something told me that I’d just met my Liuz. I couldn’t deny what I knew in my heart. Not only his accent, which could be Polish, but also the layout of his bedsit was exactly as I’d imagined. Masculine, sexy, and so damn alluring in a sleazy, impersonal, functional way.
After pounding around the corner, past a paper shop, a hairdresser and a tanning parlour, I finally slowed. His long, toned body screamed athletic. He would be swift, energised. If he truly had wanted me, he would have caught me.
A double-decker bus came with merciful promptness. I stamped up the steps, hurled myself onto the empty backseat and slunk low. Shutting my eyes, I cursed the drips of rain snaking down my neck and soaking through my jeans. Behind my lids, the image of him masturbating came to mind. I swallowed a glut of realisation. The darkly stubbled jawline I’d just seen was in keeping with his picture, as were his long limbs. The wall behind the bed in his room was a dirty, murky green, the bedcovers a nondescript mud-brown. That was where he’d been when he had clutched his cock, worked his shaft, spunked out his cum. He hadn’t been at a friend’s bedsit at all. He’d been at home, on that bed. The bed I had just seen with my own two eyes.
Why had he lied? Did he rent it from his friend, was that it? Or was he ashamed at the state of the place so didn’t want to admit it was his?
I dropped my head into my hands and sucked in a breath. Torment twisted within me. Everything I thought I knew about Liuz was up in the air yet at the same time it was all exactly as it seemed. Exactly as I’d hoped.
His face, dark, brooding, dominant, was the mirror image of the one I’d dreamed of night after lonely night. His body, controlled, honed, was the stuff of my horniest fantasies. Both fear and delight seared through me, jumbling one lust-infused thought to the next then winding it with the knowledge that I’d been dealing with a man so gloriously beautiful,
