Rule Breaker

He stares at me. “So you’re telling me that you obey all my orders, because honestly that would be news to me?” “I always obey your orders,” I say indignantly. “I am quite possibly the best assistant in history.” “That would certainly be true, if you were the only assistant in history.

The truth is that I will always need you more than you need me. It’s also the truth that I’m not a good bet for someone as vital and young as you. I’m bad tempered, a perfectionist who is too serious, and too used to being on my own. You could go out tomorrow and find someone better for you, but the truth is that no one will ever need you like I do.” He pauses and then says firmly. “No one will ever love you like I do.

Sometimes we think that a certain path in life is the way we have to go. We see other routes, but we avoid them because we’re so insistent they’re not for us, that we might get lost or hurt. Then sometimes fate sets in, and someone takes your hand or waves you over. You step off your chosen path, and find that although this one is new and scary, somehow your feet know the way to navigate it. You might even find that it leads you the way that you were always meant to go.

To: Gabe Foster From: Dylan Mitchell I have prepared the fourth pot of coffee for you to taste. I pray that this one meets your exacting taste buds, because I do actually have plans for the rest of my life.

Yes, Cinderella won a real prize - a man who couldn’t see her true worth until she fitted in the shoe properly.

All good sex comes with a side order of inappropriate laughter.

I feel something snap and settle in me. It's the last piece of my heart, falling for him without any input from me at all.

Shithead Boss Man, eh? You know, Dylan, I really lucked out in the assistant department. The other partners in the firm have ended up with someone awful, who soothes them, is at their beck and call and agrees with them all the time. I got one who is sarcastic, argumentative, scruffy, rarely where he should be, and calls me Shithead Boss Man rather than Sir.” Jude laughs at him, before reaching out and swiping one of the prawns from my carton of sweet and sour. “He’d call you Sir if you spanked him.

Gabe, you’re sick, and much as you’re a shithead sometimes, I’ve trained you to be a fairly acceptable shithead to me. If you died I’d have to go to all the effort of training someone else.” “If I died maybe you should consider a change of career into the nursing profession. With your lovely bedside manner you’d be a shoo-in.

He’s adorably high-handed where you’re concerned, isn’t he?” My eyes slide closed. “With anyone.” “No,” he says thoughtfully. “Only you. He really can’t be bothered with anyone else, unless they’re connected to you. You’re all he sees.

I snort at the thought, and he looks at me with one supercilious eyebrow raised. I sigh inwardly because anyone else would find that gesture charming and sexy. Instead, it just makes me want to poke a pen in his eye.

It hurts to know that fate has given me the perfect person for me to love, but has failed to make it reciprocal.

Fucking hell, Jude. You can see how cold my nipples are in this, and these black jeans are so tight that if I take them off there'll be an imprint of my dick on them. Is it puritanical to not want to tell the general public that I've been circumcised?

Listen to me very carefully, and think hard about what happens if you go over my head to do something for me that you think is right. What is my normal reaction?” Gabe slumps slightly. “Not favourable?

He leans back in his seat. His legs are spread and his head tipped back, with his eyes challenging me. “Okay what’s next, boss?” I shudder theatrically. “I see why you like it. Just the word makes me feel all powerful.

He gives a great guffaw of laughter. “Fuck you, Dylan.” He looks puzzled for a second. “I think that might be the first time that I’ve laughed during sex.” “That just means it was never good sex. All good sex comes with a side order of inappropriate laughter.

He does this all the time, little moments of care and warmth in a sea of hot sex followed by indifference. It’s what’s keeping me stuck in this one-sided relationship, the glimpse of what could be.

You could go out tomorrow and find someone better for you, but the truth is that no one will ever need you like I do.” He pauses and then says firmly. “No one will ever love you like I do.

I know now that you’re somehow everything I never knew I needed. You’re funny and clever and irreverent. You don’t let me get away with anything, and you stand up to me. You’re kind and generous and warm, and when I see you, something fills up in my chest, and it feels so good. But then you leave, and it’s lonely again, and I’m so fucking tired of being alone and too afraid to try.

Of course he’s fucking better than you. Because he wants a real relationship with me.” I’m conveniently ignoring the fact that I’ve only just met Richard, and would rather form a relationship with Charles Manson.

Gabe might be a complete bastard, but I sort of think of him as my bastard, and I don’t like other people criticising him.

Tradition comes from something being so brilliant and such a good memory, that you try to recreate it every time that you can.

I lay back on the bed, wrapping myself in the duvet until all I can smell is his and my scents mingled together, and I weep because he’s never coming back, and although it was the right thing to do I’ve broken my own heart in the execution of it.

I push his hand away, stung out of my calm. “That’s how you treat my telling you that I love you. You tell me to try harder to sleep with someone else.” I shake my head.

I make a hoarse, wild sound, giving his finger a catlike lick, and something in him seems to snap. Reaching out he grabs my head, sliding his long fingers into my hair, and before I can think, he brings my lips to his, and I taste Gabe Foster for the first time outside my incoherent dreams.

I actually like hearing about people’s childhoods. It’s nice to listen to, a bit like overhearing a really lovely secret.” He instantly looks both embarrassed and aggrieved, as if I’ve made him say such a whimsical thing.

All I know is that this man is special to me. He has the ability to make me feel more than any other man I’ve ever met. He makes me angry and challenges me, almost at the same time as making me laugh and filling me with a strong sense of protectiveness towards him. He makes me feel alive, the way that my mum had always promised me would happen when I met someone serious. But I know looking at him that I still mean absolutely nothing to him.

I’m aware of a couple of men enjoying their view of him, and I’m filled with a sense of pride and misguided possession because just for this brief moment, he’s mine.

I don’t actually think that I’ve got another fuck in me, and if my cock tells you differently just ignore him.” I laugh. “I would never argue with my best friend.

A blow-up doll is obviously the one for him,” he says poisonously. “I’m sorry, Dylan, but I think the man’s a fucking wanker. Anyone with eyes could look at you and know that you do not have just sex written over you.