EWB (Enemies With Benefits)

Lunch with my sister was actually kind of nice. She’d almost died when I’d pulled off my sunglasses and she’d seen my eye, and she proceeded to lecture me about the dangers of rugby.

Thank god, she hadn’t seen it last night.

The swelling had gone down a lot, and the cut was healing. There was no need for the butterfly clip now. But the colours . . . black, purple, blue, and red.

But I could see okay, and feeling along the eye socket, it was tender but there was no sharp pain, so nothing was broken.

And apart from my sister’s lectures, it was nice to have someone concerned about me.

Like Marshall was concerned. Sure, he sneered at me a lot and gleefully said things purely to annoy me. But he had been concerned. He’d come home with me, tended to my injured face. He’d fed me, and he’d slept beside me to keep a close eye on me.

He had surprisingly gentle hands. When he was cleaning my eyebrow, I was surprised by how deft his calloused hands could be. Normally he was rough with me, holding me down, gripping hard.

But not last night.

And him sleeping in my bed . . . I’d never slept so soundly. Maybe it was just that I wasn’t alone, that for some strange reason I felt safe with him, which was ridiculous considering the things he did to me, things that I asked him to do to me. Perhaps the reason I felt safe with him, or the fact I trusted him, was a testament to how fucked up I was.

But god, I’d slept well. Even in my sleep, I’d had vague recollections of the warmth of his body, his strong arms.

Maybe that had been a dream.

Goddammit.

Marshall Wise.

I wasn’t supposed to like that he’d stayed the night. I wasn’t supposed to like that he’d threatened me to eat breakfast. Or how he’d sucked my dick or held me down and come on me.

God, how he’d done that. And then just walked out as if I was something to be used however he saw fit.

He was so good at it.

No. Stop thinking about him.

As long as he kept on despising me, we’d be fine . . .

“Valentine?” Brooklyn said. “I lost you for a while there.”

“Oh, sorry,” I replied, sipping my mineral water. “The sun’s putting me to sleep.”

She smiled skyward. “It’s so nice, isn’t it?”

It was nice. The warmth of the sun on a cold winter day. It’d been far too long since I’d sat and enjoyed it.

“Have you heard from Mum?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No.” Not for months. “You?”

She sipped her spritzer and rolled her eyes. “A few weeks ago. She was in London, I think. Or . . .” She waved her hand. “Somewhere over there.”

“Looking for a gin distillery that will allow her to swim in a vat?”

She laughed. “Highly likely.”

Our mother had never been interested in us. We were raised by nannies and au pairs, none of them ever staying long. Brooklyn was three years older than me, and she’d gone to a private girl’s school; me to a private boy’s school. We’d done all we could not to be at home, basically. Our lives barely coincided at all. Until university, adulthood, when we’d try and connect.

Like now.

I did like her. Loved her, even. In the way that you loved a sibling. There was a bond of sorts, a commonality. Ours was our terrible parents.

All the money in the world couldn’t buy us love.

“What will you do about work?” she asked.

“What about it?”

She nodded pointedly at my face. “Your eye. Dad will lose his shit if he sees you like that. At work, no less.”

“He can get over it.” I sneered, a common reaction to any mention of my father. “I got it playing rugby. It wasn’t like I got busted by the cops with coke and hookers and tried to fight my way out of it.”

She laughed, which was the reaction I was hoping for. “Oh my god, have you heard the latest?”

Happy I was no longer the subject of her questions, I chuckled and sipped my drink. “No. What has he done now?”

Mattias, our cousin, was a constant source of scandal and family embarrassment. A guy who prioritised sex and booze over everything else, and someone who my father chose to pretend didn’t exist.

Was my father proud that his own two children were better behaved? Not at all. He used Mattias against us as a prime example of what not to do, of how shameless it was, how crude and disrespectful.

If only he knew what I did.

God, he didn’t even know I was gay, let alone about my perversion for humiliation and degradation.

It was cheaper and more productive than therapy, and god knows I’d tried that. They’d all talked about my relationship with my father, and I could probably see why they’d take that leap. He was half the parental disaster that shaped me into who I was, after all. But he wasn’t the only reason; my mother had equal shares in the stock of failed parenting.

But I’d made peace with that mess a long time ago.

I didn’t need closure or acceptance or to open dialogue with my parents for me to move on with my life. They weren’t the reason I craved sexual degradation, and like one shrink tried to explain, the lack of love from my father was not the reason I was gay and sought comfort from men.

That had been a very short first and last meeting with that idiot.

I mean, Jesus fucking Christ. I should have had them struck from practicing. Probably would have if it wouldn’t have outed me in the process.

But there was no cryptic psychological analysis required.

I had fucked-up parents. So what? Take a number and get in line. I was now an adult, and I made my own choices for my future and well-being.

And above all?

I just really liked getting held down and deep-dicked by a guy who was hung like a horse. If he called me names while he held me down, even better. And if I ached for a day afterward and could imagine feeling his dick still inside me, double bonus.

Marshall ticked all those boxes.

I required nothing more from him than that, and he required nothing more than that from me. It was the perfect arrangement.

Last night, with him staying and sleeping in my bed, had been an exception to the rule. Nothing more.

“So,” Brooklyn said, having finished telling me all about Mattias. She sipped her drink, smiling. “Seeing anyone?”

Visions of Marshall Wise filled my mind. His body, his dick. The way he fucked me, the sounds he made when he came inside me. His hands on me, the way he held me, tight enough to mark me.

But also, how he spoiled Enzo, and how my arsehole cat adored him.

The way Marshall smiled.

The sound of his laughter.

Christ.

“No,” I answered flatly. “You?”

She studied me for a moment, then shook her head and turned her face back to the sun. “Heavens, no. I’m too conceited and too comfortable with solitude and my own company for anyone else. Or so I’ve been told.”

I laughed and, reaching over, tapped my glass to hers. “Cheers to that.”

She smiled at me. “Thanks, Mum and Dad, for such a wonderful family trait.”

I cracked up laughing, which hurt my eye. “Ow.”

She laughed. “You need to get yourself some aloe vera.”

I nodded and smiled as I sipped my drink. “Yeah. So I’ve been told.”

I considered not going to work, as Brooklyn had suggested, because my father would hate it and would think it’d reflect badly on his company, and god forbid his son be seen as anything other than perfect.

But I had work to do and didn’t care what people thought.

If I had critical meetings or teleconferences with important clients, I’d have probably made other arrangements. I could understand wanting a perfect appearance with overseas buyers, but everything on my calendar this week could be done from my office. I didn’t have to see anyone . . . except for the Monday morning site-manager meeting.

I walked into the conference room at exactly eight to a crowd that fell silent when they saw me.

I put my iPad on the table and gestured to my still-black eye, to which they were all staring at. I figured it was best to get it out of the way straight up. “Rugby union. I’d like to joke and say you should see the other guy, but I didn’t even see him.”

“Holy sh—” Harris said, clearly stunned. “Sorry. I didn’t even know you played rugby.”

“I do.”

“Did you win?” Carl asked with a grimace/smile.

“My team? Yes. Me?” I gestured again to my eye. “Not so much.”

Someone snorted.

Marshall.

“Have you considered wearing headgear?” he asked.

My gaze met his and he smirked as he tapped his pen on his notepad, but there was something in his eyes that told me perhaps he was serious. As if he wanted me to wear protective headgear so I wouldn’t get hurt.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I replied, holding his gaze for a beat. Then I changed the subject. “Okay, enough about me. This week’s going to be busy enough without me keeping you longer, given the end of financial year is fast approaching. All invoices need to be lodged . . .”

I kept the meeting short and sweet, using bullet points to brush over topics of importance. I’d taken Marshall’s advice to heart. These people weren’t interested in the corporate wankery I was used to. They wanted fast facts so they could get back to work.

I liked that.

And the breakfast idea had been a good one too.

Last week I’d learned from Andrews about the changed traffic control, which had an indirect impact on his job site, and I might not have known otherwise. And today’s breakfast chat with Harris when they mentioned, just in passing, they had firsthand experience with green energy solutions.

And that was something I’d earmarked for a potential job coming up in September.

Though the additional time with Marshall in a public, professional setting wasn’t as easy as I’d thought it would be.

When I made myself a coffee, he was suddenly beside me. “Your eye looks a lot better,” he murmured.

“Thanks. The aloe helped.”

He grabbed an egg-and-bacon burger and pretended we weren’t having a conversation. “Did you eat breakfast?”

“Having it now,” I mumbled, stirring my coffee, pretending I didn’t know him.

He grabbed a second burger and shoved it at me. “You need to eat.”

And then he was gone, off talking to Carl and Jaman again as if this secretive exchange hadn’t happened at all. Over the next half an hour, I saw him look my way once or twice, and then he stood with his back to me.

Was that so he wouldn’t keep looking at me?

I’d have liked to think it was. That I bothered him. That he had to make himself not look at me.

That I messed with his head. That it annoyed him. That it made him mad at me or at himself. I didn’t care which, as long as he took it out on me on Wednesday night.

When I looked the next time, he was gone.

I told myself I didn’t care, that I didn’t feel his absence. And that him making sure I ate food every once in a while didn’t mean anything.

Because it didn’t.

Marshall Wise meant nothing more to me than a mutually beneficial sexual agreement. He gave me exactly what I needed and letting him use my body for his own gratification was exactly what he needed, apparently.

It wasn’t anything more than that.

It couldn’t ever be.

We were too different, from two very different worlds. Aside from me being his boss, not forgetting one very important factor: Marshall Wise hated me. My family had hurt his family in ways I could never fully understand or appreciate. He would never forgive me for what my father did, nor should he.

And that stark realisation sat like a cold greasy lump of dread in my belly, a dull ache behind my ribs.

So I told myself that I’d let him fuck me extra hard this Wednesday. That I’d encourage him to do it.

And that I’d deserve it.

The fact I needed it and loved it was an added bonus.

Why I was starting to feel conflicted about that, I wasn’t sure. Nor did I have any intention of unpacking that.

Nope.

I tucked that nonsense away and closed the lid tight. And counted the hours down until Wednesday.