They found things they shared in common: a love of Thai food and horror movies.
They found things they were never going to agree on: the merits of reality TV and punk music.
But most of all they found solace in each other’s arms, and peace in each other’s body. Each new act of sex bonded them closer. Sometimes slow, intimate and intense, other times red hot sexy rip-your-shirt-off-and-fuck-me-right-now, but always consuming.
Dylan’s skin turned a deeper shade of gold lying out on the deck with Kara, and he lowered his guard enough to feel insulated from the worries of his old life.
Settled. Happy, even.
It turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life.
Chapter Twenty One
A stranger on a hired moped followed Kara’s red Mustang along the coast road, his face obscured by a helmet.
He watched as she and Dylan parked the car and disappeared into the closed up club just after lunchtime.
He watched Kara leave again half an hour later and contemplated following her, catching up with her first instead. That would make for a very illuminating conversation. Tempting as it was, given the way her luscious ass had looked in those cut off denim shorts, he decided against it. He had more to gain from going inside.
He walked around the perimeter of the club, noting the dusty Estrella beer truck unloading, with professional interest. He slipped soundlessly into the unlocked cellar with the ease of a practised thief, waiting for a few minutes after the sound of the delivery truck’s engine faded away before he unfurled himself from behind the crates. Helping himself to a bottle of beer, he knocked the lid off and drank deeply. A second beer followed the first, for Dutch courage. Now he was ready.
Upstairs in the office, Dylan worked on the staff rosters for the coming month, deep in concentration.
Downstairs behind the bar, Lucien flicked through the morning’s mail, an espresso on the bar beside him. He’d left Sophie at home with Tilly for an afternoon of wedding planning with Kara, or more likely a wide-ranging chat over a glass of wine, if Kara had anything to do with it.
A sound behind him had him instantly on high alert, and he looked up a second before the man appeared through the door at the end of the bar.
“Who the fuck are you?” the stranger blurted, clearly not expecting his company.
“That’s a fairly fucking audacious question, given the circumstances,” Lucien said coolly, placing his cup down as he watched the smaller man with shrewd eyes. The guy’s attire suggested that he was a holidaymaker, and a vain one at that. Cheap shorts, vest cut to show off his physique, a flashy identity bracelet and a thick chain around his wrist. Aggression emanated from him in waves, and only some vague familiarity in his face stopped Lucien from removing him by force from the premises without bothering to ask any more questions.
“Get your boss down here, man,” the guy said. “And I’ll have a Southern Comfort while I wait. In fact, make it a double.”
Lucien made no move, considering the intruder’s American accent. The stranger mistook his silence for trepidation, and reached arrogantly for a glass.
“No? I guess I’ll just get my own then.”
He had misread the situation. Big-time. His hand froze half way back down from the shelf as Lucien took a step towards him and said, his voice laden with menace,
“No you won’t. Put my glass down and get the fuck out of my club.” The stranger blanched and took several steps back and around the bar.
“You have precisely ten seconds before I post you home to your mama in a series of blood-stained envelopes,” Lucien added, conversationally.
The guy slid the glass he’d snagged back onto the bar and swallowed hard. Then, both turned sharply at the sound of footsteps jogging down the stairs. A couple of seconds later, Dylan emerged through the staff doorway.
“Lucien, do you know whether…” Dylan’s words died in his mouth as he caught sight of the visitor.
Lucien watched Dylan’s expression go from easy to stricken, and the pieces tumbled into place. The man was a stranger to Lucien, but not to Dylan. Now he knew why he’d had the sense of recognising something in his face.
“Hey big bro,” the guy said, oily now that he felt he had the upper hand again. “Long time no see.”
“Justin.” Dylan could not have loaded the word with more despondency if he’d tried. He threw the paperwork in his hand down on a nearby table. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
His heart thumped uncomfortably behind his ribs. How long had Justin been here? What had he said to Lucien?
“That’s no way to welcome your little brother, is it?” Justin said, the same sly grin on his face that always irritated the hell out of him.
“How did you find me?” Dylan said flatly. He hated the fact that Lucien had to hear this.
Justin practically sneered. “Because you couldn’t help sucking up to mom, even from thousands of miles away." It figured that their mother would have trusted Justin around her computer. She always wanted to think the best of him. "Hey mom, I remembered Billy’s birthday,” Justin said, affecting a mocking, whiney voice.
“Hey Matthew, you’ve always been a good boy, Justin’s always been the bad boy. Stay in Ibiza and enjoy yourself while he rots,” Justin went on, an awful impersonation of their mother that hit the mark anyway. “Just like you let Billy rot.” Those weren’t their mother’s words, they were pure Justin.
Dylan’s heart constricted with pain at the low jibe. He looked at his brother for several long, silent seconds, searching for something worth loving and coming up with nothing. As kids they'd shared little in common, as men even less. There was an underhand slyness to his kid brother that had made Dylan's skin crawl his whole life.
“Go home, Justin. You have no place here.”
“And yet it seems you do, Matty.” Justin gestured around the club, the bracelets on his wrist clashing against each other in the quiet room. Dylan flinched at the sound of Billy’s nickname for him, his eyes sheering away from Lucien’s unreadable ones across the room.
“Maybe I see what you’ve got going here and I want in. I saw that hot piece of ass you were with earlier.” Justin cut an hourglass shape in the air with his hands. “Maybe I want in on that, too.”
It was debatable who reached him first. Within a second he was surrounded, Dylan on one side, Lucien on the other, fury white hot on both faces. Like prey caught between two prowling lions, Justin’s eyes darted for an escape route, knowing there wasn’t one.