Page 7 of Survival Game

“No, sorry, can’t make it. I’m going into work to finish off some chores. It’ll give me a head start tomorrow—we have a fancy function on at lunchtime. I’ll take a rain check.”

Lucinda pounced on him and, as expected, he was smothered with warm, female flesh under silk.

“Great to see you, London. We’re gonna be doing this bonding thing a lot while I’m here.” She released him and he found he could now breathe.

“Sounds good to me. Thanks for lunch. I’ll give you a call tomorrow and we can set up another date? Maybe we can go to a West End show. I know you always wanted to see Wicked. Perhaps Ryan can get us some cheap tickets. He’s got connections in the theatre business.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh yeah, that would be awesome. I’d love to see that show. Call me tomorrow then and let me know what’s happening. Lovely to see you, babe. Love you loads, you know that.”

She planted a perfumed kiss on his cheek then left with a waft of expensive scent. She clambered into her taxi and Kyle waved as it sped off.

He looked at his watch. Time to do a little work then figure out what he was going to do for the rest of the night.

It was around six pm when Kyle let himself into the club. He shook his head when he saw the light burning under Ryan’s door. His boss always seemed to be working, even when the club was closed.

He huffed. He couldn’t talk, being here on his day off too.

Bloody hell, we’re both losers.

“Boss?” He knocked on Ryan’s door, waited a while then tapped again. Sounds emanated from inside the room, so he knew someone was there. He opened the door and walked in. “I thought I’d come in, do the line cleaning, stock some barrels and get everything ready for—”

He stopped short at seeing Ryan on his knees, enthusiastically blowing Mango, who leaned back against the desk with a beatific look upon his face.

Oh shit, I take back my thought about Ryan being a loser.

Suppressing his laughter, Kyle backed out of the door. Maybe they hadn’t noticed him.

“What the fuck?” Mango snarled, his voice strangled. “Ry, you in the habit of just letting anyone walk into your office like that? What the hell happened to knocking first?”

He hauled his lover to his feet and then tucked himself away, his face red. Ryan licked his lips and smirked at Kyle.

“Well, hello there,” he murmured. “This is a surprise.”

“I did knock,” Kyle said, trying to keep his amusement at bay. “Twice. Obviously the two of you were preoccupied.”

“Yeah, and the club is closed, so no one should be here.” Mango hauled his arse up onto the desk. “Ry, talk to your staff,” Mango whined. “Tell them they can’t just barge in when you and I are having our happy times.”

Kyle broke into chuckles at Mango’s petulant tone. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to barge in.”

Ryan sauntered over to him looking like a cat who’d got the cream. Kyle was sure he’d interrupted them before that happened though. “Ignore Grumpy Puss over there. He’s just mad he didn’t get to finish. I’ll help him out with it in a moment. So, you managed to ditch that douche of a date last night then?”

Kyle couldn’t help shuddering. “Yeah, I did. Won’t be seeing him again.”

Ryan’s eyes softened. “You seem out of sorts about it. Anything I need to know?” His tone had an edge to it and Kyle had no doubt that if he so wanted, Ryan and Mango would deal further with the unpleasant Steve.

“No, I left him there, went home and crawled into bed. Nothing to report, boss.”

“Hmm.” Ryan didn’t seem convinced. “Okay. What are you doing here now?”

“I just finished having a late lunch with Luce and rather than go home and eat ice cream again and watch other people getting off on telly, I thought I’d come by here and finish up a few things.” He snorted. “I didn’t expect to find a free porn show.”

Mango raised his middle finger at him but grinned as he did so. Kyle had always found Mango’s bark to be far worse than his bite, despite his carefully crafted reputation meant to scare people shitless.

Ever since Ryan had face-planted in the club a while ago, Mango had been a mother hen where Ryan was concerned.

Ryan frowned. “It’s your day off, sweetz. You should be out there having fun, not stuck here working.” He gave a wicked smile at Mango. “At least I was having fun even though I’m here. My boyfriend here decided he fancied a bit of boss-employee roleplay so we—”

Mango’s face flushed. “Okay, Ry, way to tell the world about our sex life. Could we not do that please?” He squirmed uncomfortably.