Lexington Black (4 page)

His heart was beating in a hectic, random
fashion, and his erection hadn't subsided either. Frantically he
shifted in his seat and tried to squash it into submission.

'Jesus, I'm so sorry! I must have dropped
off.'

Black laughed good-humouredly. 'It's no
problem. It's never happened to me either, my salesman falling
asleep mid-pitch.'

'I'm not a salesman,' Rob stammered.
Christ, what the hell was happening?
He hastily closed his
jacket to hide the tent he was pitching and driveled out another
apology. He was reeling with shock and confusion but Black seemed
to find the whole thing very amusing.

'If you're not a salesman, what are you?'

'An accountant,' Rob confessed. 'That's why
Mr. Soames ...'

Black made a throw-away gesture with one
careless hand. 'The car will sell itself or it won't.'

Rob took a deep breath, trying to slow his
heart beat. 'Then why me? Why not our sales executive?'

Black veered suddenly to the left, leaving
the M40 and pulling into another large service station.

'Coffee,' he said decisively.

Rob didn't want to fall asleep and have
another horny dream in front of a potential client. 'Good idea,' he
said, with some relief.

In Starbucks, Black was in charge. He ordered
Rob into a seat where they could talk easily without having to
compete with the clatter around them.

'Please, Mr. Black, I'll get these,' Rob
protested.

'For a start, I insist you call me Lex. And
I'm buying as it was my idea. Sit down.'

He went to queue for their drinks. As Rob
watched his impatient body language, he could tell that Lexington
Black was not a man accustomed to waiting in line.

He came back to the table with a tray
containing a cappuccino for Rob and a double espresso for himself,
as black as molasses.

'Thank you,' Rob said when he sat down.

'You're welcome.' Lex smiled at him and for
some reason, Rob felt his stomach lurch. He hoped his alcoholic
binge from the night before was not going to come back to haunt
him.

'Are you okay?'

Rob snapped his attention back to the
present. 'Yes! Long night last night. I'm sorry.' He was pretty
sure this was no ordinary test-drive. The client drove the car,
said they liked it or they didn't, or they'd think about it, and
that was that.

SNAP. Lex's fingers were in front of his
face. 'I lost you again,' he said, sounding a little
exasperated.

'Sorry.'

'Don't say that fucking word again,' Lex
ordered. 'In return, you can tell me the long story you alluded to
in the showroom. The one about the clock?'' He prompted at Rob's
blank look.

'Oh! Well ... It's a bit of a sad tale,
really. Not that interesting.'

'I'm interested.'

Rob avoided the man's penetrating gaze. He
felt a bit like a schoolgirl doing detention with a really hot
teacher. He shook his head to clear the mental image and decided on
honesty.

'My wife threw all my possessions out on the
driveway. I came home one night and there they were. I had to find
a flat immediately and there's no room for it where I am so ...
it's at work at the moment. The wood was damaged in the rain and
the mechanism is rusty so I'm sending it away to have it restored.
It's going next week.' He sat up straighter. 'Anyway, about the
car...'

'You're not a natural salesman, are you?' Lex
said, this time with open amusement.

'Like I said before, I'm an accountant. Well,
book-keeper, to be honest.' Rob kept his voice light. With a
massive effort he put his professional face on. 'I used to work for
one of the big accountancy firms in London. I was a junior
Partner.'

'What made you change?'

'I was made redundant.'

'That's too bad.'

'Last in, first out, that's the way it goes.
I've been with Radleys ever since. My ex-wife ...' He stopped
short. This was a potential client, not a counseller for his
personal problems.

'Your ex-wife didn't like the thought of you
being a book-keeper?' Lex was looking at him intently. 'Is that why
she's your ex-wife?'

Rob was stunned at his perception. 'Yes,
actually,' he said when he had recovered his composure.

'Women can be a fucking pain in the ass. I
prefer men.'

Rob blinked. He couldn't think of anything to
say to that.

'I mean to do business with. To spend time
with.' He idly stroked one finger tip along Rob's wrist. 'To sleep
with.'

Rob stared at the spot where Lexington Black
had caressed him. It tingled strangely, as if ice had been used
instead of warm skin. He felt his breath quicken. It was on the tip
of his tongue to ask whether Lex really was interested in the car
or was he after something else, but he didn't because misreading
the signs would have been awkward at best.

'Yes. I get it. Wow.' And how did they get
from grandfather clocks to his customer's sexual proclivities so
quickly? Lex stared at him as though challenging him to respond
with something more profound than "wow." Rob shifted in his seat
and moved his hands out of reach. He felt as gauche as an
adolescent.

'So ... have you lived in England long?'

Lame, lame, lame. The flash in Lex's eyes
seemed to confirm it.

'I live in New York. I'm here on
business.'

This was something Rob could work with. 'Then
I don't get it. Surely you could find a car like this easily in the
States? One with a steering wheel on the correct side?'

'You sound as if you don't want me to buy
this car.'

'I don't,' Rob said honestly. 'I'd rather buy
it myself, to be honest.'.

Lex's smile widened. 'Maybe you do have
salesman potential after all.'

'Sorry, I don't...'

'I bet you would say that about any car I
chose to drive today.'

'No, it's the truth. I once had a Porsche 911
but it was nowhere near as peachy as the Audi. Now the only way I
get to be close to a car like that is when I clean it. If you buy
it, I'll go into mourning.'

Lex laughed out loud. 'I'll bear that in
mind. To answer your question, I could probably find this car in
America. In fact, I know I could, but until I walked past your
showroom, I didn't know what I wanted. Have you ever done that?
Seen something so special you know your life will never be complete
until you possess it?' His gaze seared into Rob's. Rob dropped his
attention to his coffee.

'I guess,' he muttered.
Damn it, he was
blushing!

'When I saw the attention you gave that car
it damned near gave me a hard-on. I knew I would never find
anything like it in the States.'

Under his magnetic gaze, Rob could feel a
strange tightening in his lower belly. He was getting hard
again
. Change the subject, for Christ's sake
.

'Right. Well. That's great. What do you do
for a living?'

'All in good time. We were talking about
you.'

'Why are you so interested?'

'If you want me to consider the Audi you'll
answer any damned question I care to ask you.' Lex was still
smiling, despite the sternness of his tone.

'But I don't want you to buy the Audi,' Rob
countered. Despite the hard-on he was copping under the table,
despite the direct questioning from this extraordinary man, he
beginning to enjoy himself. His heart was beating in an unfamiliar
way. He didn't know what the hell was going on but he decided he
liked it. He liked it a lot.

Lex smiled indulgently. 'Touché, Rob, but
you're still going to answer the question. Now it's a matter of
principle.'

'That's just what I was thinking.'

'Fair enough. Tell me tomorrow night over
dinner.'

Rob was aware he was doing his stranded fish
impression again. 'I ...'
Think. It wasn't "let's meet up for a
pie and a pint" but a "tell me tomorrow over dinner." Dinner. Like
a ...

'You mean, like a date?'

As soon as he said it, he realised his
mistake. Lex concentrated on folding his serviette into smaller and
smaller triangles.

'So I've just told you I'm gay, and now you
think I'm hitting on you?'

Yes, yes, yes!
'No! No, no, no. I...'
He caught the Machiavellian glint in Lex's eyes. 'Anyway...'

'Anyway, what? I'd appreciate a bit of
company on my last night in England.'

Put like that, it sounded less intimidating.
'Of course. I'll be happy to.'

'Good. Come to the Deansfield Hotel at eight.
Their food is fairly reasonable.'

Rob gave a surprised laugh. 'I know. I'll be
there on Sunday for a family lunch, which promises to be joyous. My
sister's wedding reception is being held there in September.'

'That's very convenient. Maybe you'll be able
to sample their breakfast as well.' Lex toasted him with his coffee
cup, his smile enigmatic. 'So what do you do for fun, Rob
Martyn?'

Rob was monumentally relieved at the change
of subject. 'Not much at the moment, but if I had the choice I'd be
in a room with a sea view, bashing out pulp novels for an adoring
readership. That sounds pretty damned good right now, dull as it
sounds.'

'So you write. Interesting. Published
anything?'

'I self-published once on Amazon, that's all.
A couple of years back. I think I sold one e-book, and that was to
my sister.'

'What's the title?'

Rob laughed. 'I wouldn't inflict it on
you.'

'Go on. I really want to know.'

'Okay, but it's pretty bad. It's called
The Victorian Gentleman's Guide To Twenty-First Century
Woman.
It's a kind of steampunk/romance/adventure/satire kind
of thing.' He looked at the bemused expression on Lex's face. 'I
told you it was bad.'

'Not bad. Maybe a little cumbersome. What the
hell is steampunk?'

Not for the first time, Rob found he was
explaining what the steampunk genre was. "Think of the Industrial
Revolution, set in a post-apocalyptic future," was how he usually
described it. It had been gratifying to discover how popular the
genre was, when he first began looking into self-publishing on the
internet.

But since publishing, he had almost forgotten
about it, not bothering to advertise, to court social media or talk
with other independent authors. Sandy's putdown had convinced him
he was no good but he hadn't had the heart to withdraw the book
from sale.

'I've got notebooks full of novels I've
started and abandoned repeatedly over the years,' he continued.
'One day I'd like to have some time so I can sit down and actually
do one of them some justice.' He shrugged. 'I warned you it was
dull.'

'I wouldn't have said dull. Fucking surreal,
perhaps.'

Taking advantage of the lull in the
conversation, Rob glanced at his watch. 'We should be getting
back.'

On the drive back to the showroom, he
wondered if he had done the right thing by accepting Lex's
invitation to dinner. He had not wanted to offend the man by saying
no, but he was not sure what Paul would think if he found out.

Should he say anything to Lex, to tell him
not to say anything?

No. Then it would imply there was something
wrong about two guys just meeting up for a meal and shooting the
breeze. And that's what it was. Two guys, meeting up, shooting the
breeze.

But what if it wasn't? What if this was the
adventure he had been waiting for his whole life?

What if he was like his father in more ways
than one?

The thoughts spun around his head as Lex put
the Audi through its paces on the empty, twisting roads. It hugged
the corners and accelerated with a roar down the straights. Speed
limits through the small villages seemed to be irrelevant. By some
miracle they were not flashed by speed cameras or spotted by roving
policemen, and they arrived back at the showroom little before five
o'clock.

Rob directed Lex towards a parking space
between two other cars and he pulled in.

'I'll put it back in showroom later,' he said
as he unfastened his seatbelt.

As they walked back to Lex's car, Rob felt
his hand on his shoulder. It was an innocuous gesture until the
moment they broke apart, when he felt his fingertips run lightly
down his back and stroke him just above the swell of his buttocks.
Then he smoothly shook Rob's hand as if nothing had happened.

'Until tomorrow, Robin Martyn. Today has been
... enlightening. Definitely not dull.' Again that amused smile,
and the gentle squeeze before he let go.

Damned right, it had been
, Rob thought
as he practically ran into the cloakroom. He adjusted his clothing
to make his erection less noticeable and splashed cold water on his
face. He was flushing like a teenager on heat.

'Is everything all right?' Paul was standing
right outside the cloakroom door as he emerged again.

'Fine,' Rob squeaked. The unexpected sight of
Paul's concerned, wrinkled visage calmed his cock and he let out a
relieved breath. 'Fine,' he said in an almost normal voice. 'He
bought me coffee, chatted me up and said he'd think about it.'

Paul continued to watch him curiously. 'It
was strange when he specifically asked for you to take him out. I
don't suppose you have any idea why?'

'I've never seen him before in my life.'

'Sounds like the only ride he was interested
in was you,' Greg grinned, his humour returned. Rob smiled weakly
at them, thinking of their reaction if they ever found out how true
that could be.

That night he was too wired to sleep. He lay
on his bed with too many thoughts whirling around in his head, the
main one being "a guy touched me and I liked it."

He knew what the implications were. All those
people who had looked at him with some sympathy after his premature
ejection from his own house would be nodding and saying, "yeah, I
knew it.' Which they did not. No-one did. He remembered all the
offensive banter he had shared with the guys at the garage. The way
they laughed when one of their number went in with a new trendy
haircut.