Saving Alexander (17 page)

He dropped the bag, picking her up effortlessly and swinging her around as he laughed. “Jesus, Annie! Watch who you nearly knock over, you hooligan!” He put the girl back down and she grinned at him, her brown hair unruly, her green eyes sparkling.

She was a tiny thing, barely four foot and slim. “I’m really glad you’re back, Sage. I missed you. Where were you? Where’s Miles?”

“Whoa, Annie. Hold on with all the questions!” Sage laughed as he looked at Alex. “First let me introduce you to a friend of mine. Alex, this is Annie, my next-door neighbour and general pain in the arse. Annie helps me out with the horses.”

Alex smiled. “Hi, Annie. Pleased to meet you.”

Annie stood back, regarding Alex closely. He felt as if he was being sized up for a coffin, so intent was the girl’s look.

“Are you Sage’s boyfriend?” Annie peered at him warily. “Are you going to be staying here sometimes like Mason? He was nice. I liked him. Why do you have different colour eyes?”

Sage moved over to Alex and rolled his eyes. “Annie, Alex and I are just friends. We work together. His eyes are different because he was born like that. It’s a genetic thing.”

He touched the girl gently on the shoulder. “Miles was in a bit of a car accident in town but he’s fine. I’m going to see him later. So I need some help from you.”

Annie gasped in shock. “Is Miles all right? Is he in the hospital? Can I go see him?”

Sage reached out a finger and laid it against the teenager’s lips. “God, Annie. One at a bloody time, please! Yes, he’s fine, he’s in the hospital and I’m hoping he’ll be home soon anyway. That’s why I’m going to need your help with the horses.”

Annie looked at him solemnly. “Okay. Tell Miles I hope he gets better soon and I’ll bake him some brownies when he gets back.”

Sage smiled. “I’ll tell him. Now, if you’re quite finished with the hundred-and-one questions, you can saddle Lulah up for me and take her for some exercise. Then you can take Jack if you like. I might need you to do that every day for the next few days. Can you manage that?”

The young girl looked at him scornfully. “Of course I can, silly. I’ll look after them for you every day if you want.” She cast one more appraising glance in Alex’s direction and went out of the stall, no doubt to attend to Lulah.

Sage grinned at Alex. “Sorry about that. Annie’s like a little sister. She’s an absolute godsend when it comes to the horses. She’ll do anything for them. She wants to be a jockey when she’s older.”

Alex nodded. He was still a bit put out as being described as Sage’s friend. He knew who Mason was, Sage’s ex-boyfriend, having seen it on Google. But no one apparently had any idea why the two had broken up. Sage didn’t seem to notice his slight disquiet as he left the stall, beckoning to Alex to follow him. He went back into the house, switching the kettle on again as he busied himself making the coffee.

“Are you hungry?” He looked at Alex. “I can make scrambled eggs if you like.” He frowned. “That’s assuming there’s eggs which”—he looked in the fridge and sighed—“there aren’t. Sorry, I retract that offer. What with being in London most of the time I haven’t really managed to stock up.”

“Who’s Mason?” Alex couldn’t help asking the question to see what Sage would say.

Sage scowled as he looked at him. “My ex-boyfriend.”

He didn’t offer any more information so Alex probed. “Were you together long? How ‘ex’ is he?”

Sage shrugged. “We were together eighteen months but he’s been gone about eight months now.” He sounded fed up.

“What happened?”

“Jesus, Alex, I don’t really want to talk about it. He’s out of my life now, so let’s just leave it there.” Alex realised he’d hit a nerve. Sage was getting very testy.

“Did he live here?” Alex knew he was pushing the envelope but he had to know. Sage turned to him suddenly and he felt a pang when he saw Sage’s expression. The man had obviously meant a lot to him.

“Yes, he lived here off and on. But he doesn’t anymore. There, happy now?”

Sage stormed out of the kitchen, back down to the stables. Alex sighed. He’d just had to push it, hadn’t he? And now he’d upset Sage. He finished making coffee and sipped it as he watched Sage in the courtyard with Annie and Tallulah.

Sage helped Annie saddle Lulah, tightening the big strap that ran under the horse’s belly. He turned and marched back up the house. Alex silently handed him his coffee as he came in and Sage took it and drank it as he walked into the lounge. Alex followed him then gasped in surprise.

The lounge was a large, airy room, with huge picture windows running the whole length of one wall. The decor was very masculine with a long black couch, a similar armchair and a magnificent centre table of glass and steel.

There were various pieces of artwork dotted around the walls, a huge bookcase in one corner filled with books and a huge wall-mounted Plasma TV on one of the walls with other gadgets surrounding it. It was all very modern and definitely not what he’d expected from what he’d seen of the rest of the house. He hadn’t really expected this sort of setup from Sage either. Sage caught Alex looking around in amazement and he smiled slightly. He’d seemed to have forgiven Alex the indiscretion about his ex. “I’m not a farm boy, contrary to popular belief. If you think this is fancy, you should see my bedroom.”

His tone was suggestive and Alex’s insides churned at his words. Sage plonked himself down on the sofa, motioning to Alex to sit beside him. He followed and immediately Sage pulled him over, finding his mouth, kissing him deeply as Alex leaned into him. His tongue met Sage’s in a fierce kiss. Alex ran his hands through Sage’s hair and when he pulled away, he left Alex with a sense of loss.

Sage regarded him with curious eyes. “What’s with the fascination about my ex anyway? I’ve moved on.”

“Why did you break up?” Alex heard himself asking the question and winced.

Sage sat up, annoyed. “Jesus, leave it alone, will you?” He looked at Alex out of the corner of his eye. “I tell you what though. I’ll answer your question about that if you then answer one of mine about you. I think that’s fair. We can make it a sort of ‘getting to know you’ process.”

Alex grew cold. Even with what he’d told Sage about himself already, there were still more secrets in his closet, packed away deep on hangers inside the recesses of his subconscious wardrobe, hopefully never coming out. He regarded Sage thoughtfully. “I think you owe me one anyway. With what I told you the other night, I actually think you owe
me
a few answers of your own before we’re even.”

Sage looked at him in contemplation then nodded. “Fair enough, I’d agree with that.” He leaned back against the couch, his feet once again perched on his glass table, and looked at Alex. “Mason cheated on me with his so-called assistant, some young guy I found with his mouth around his dick when I paid him a surprise visit at his office. Given what I’d been through before with my fiancé fucking his friend at our home in London, I wasn’t disposed to letting Mason get away with it no matter how much he told me it was just a temporary ‘fling.’” Sage gave a harsh laugh as he gave a twisted smile. “I’m not a polyamorous guy. I don’t like sharing. That seems to be a problem for the men I’ve picked in the past.” His face shadowed as he regarded Alex. “Well, no agreed sharing, except in your case.”

Alex’s heart lurched. “I’m sorry, Sage. That must have been tough.”

Sage nodded. “It was for a while. We had a flat rented in London and I moved back here full time. I was missing the house anyway but Mason thought this was out in the sticks so he preferred the place in the city. Dan made sure I had enough distractions to take my mind off things.” He grinned. “He’s good at that. Eventually I accepted it was just not meant to be.”

Alex saw the hurt in Sage’s eyes and moved his mouth onto his, soft lips pressing down as if trying to draw out all the pain. Alex pressed himself against him, hands slipping beneath Sage’s shirt, touching the warm skin beneath. His hard-on was ready to launch out of his pants.

Sage groaned. “God, you drive me crazy, you know that? All I want to do is take everything off you and drag you through to the bedroom. You turn me into some sort of caveman.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Alex murmured in his ear, as his lips nibbled his earlobe. He loved that he could do this to Sage, cause this level of reaction in him.

Sage chuckled huskily. “Much as I’d love to do that, I have to get back to the hospital to see Miles. I’ve still got a load of stuff to do here too, so stop tempting me. I’m getting all hot and bothered.”

Alex huffed then grinned, moving away with a wicked smile. Sage reached up and cupped Alex’s face with a gesture of tenderness he’d never had from a man before. A lump formed in his throat.

“Keep those thoughts ready for later.” Sage looked at him with darkened eyes. “If you’re a good boy, we can come back here tonight and you show me what you’re thinking.”

Alex murmured, “They’re very naughty thoughts, so you’d better save all your strength for later.” He moved away from Sage, trying to ignore the heat in his groin, walking over to a set of photographs mounted on one of the walls, peering at them at he moved past. He frowned when one caught his eyes and he turned to Sage. “Is this you here with this guitar? You look as if you’re playing in band!”

Sage laughed as he stood up. “I’m afraid it is. It was one of my dad’s favourite pictures of me. I was eighteen then and played guitar for a rock band.”

Alex stared at him in amazement. “Wow! That is such a turn-on. I’m diddling a rock God.”

Sage laughed. “Hardly. Although we were pretty good. We were called the Vykings, with a y, and we did a couple of gigs around the country supporting some of the bigger acts. We were all huge Oasis fans and we sort of modelled ourselves on them.”

Alex stared at him open-mouthed. “What made you give up a rock career and go into acting then?”

Sage’s face darkened. “One of the band members died and it wasn’t the same after that. We carried on with another vocalist but then my folks were killed and that was really it for me. I had other responsibilities what with this place and starting university. Finally we all went our own ways.”

“Who died? Was he a friend?”

“Jerry was the lead vocalist and fellow guitar player.” Sage sounded grim. “I found him OD’ed in his apartment one night when I went back to pick him up for a gig. We all knew he was into drugs. We all tried but none of us could talk him out of it. I tried to do CPR and called 999 but he was dead by the time they arrived.”

“Oh, Sage. That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged but Alex could see it was still painful. “It was a waste, he was only nineteen. I just don’t understand how anyone can do that to themselves, why people have to get high to enjoy life. It just seems so pointless.”

The hangers in Alex’s wardrobe started to vibrate madly and he quelled their movement with a fierce thought. “Sometimes people get caught up in it. It might be the only way they have of escaping their reality.”

Sage looked at him sharply. Alex met his gaze unflinchingly.

“Have you ever done drugs then?” Sage asked, eyes searching his face.

Alex nodded. “Yes, I did. Both whilst at Bohemia and after when I was trying to come to terms with it all. I was very lucky. I had someone to help me get through it. But I know what’s it’s like to be lost in them.” Alex watched Sage’s face carefully. “Are you disappointed in me?”

Sage shook his head. “I’m not going to judge you. Not after what you went through.” He hesitated. “Are you into anything now I should know about?”

Alex shook his head fiercely. “No. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Sage looked relieved. “I’m glad.” He chuckled in disbelief. “I can’t believe half the conversations we have. It’s all very surreal. S and M, sex, drugs and rock and roll.” He smiled. “It’s definitely an unusual relationship.”

Alex smiled. “Oh, so it’s a relationship now is it? I seem to recall you just wanted to discuss business the last time that word was used. I thought I was just a friend?”

Sage looked exasperated. “You don’t know Annie. If I’d told her we were seeing each other, she’d be an absolute pest about it. She drove Mason crazy, so ‘friend’ seemed the safest thing to say for the moment.” He looked at Alex with amusement. “I didn’t realise you felt so strongly about it.” Sage ignored his own rule about getting hot and bothered, pulling Alex over for a long kiss which left him reeling. They were both breathing fairly hard by the time Sage let him go.

“I need to go over to Miles’s place and pick up some of his things,” he said, glancing back at Alex. “Make yourself comfortable here. It’s just down the road so I won’t be long.”

Alex watched as Sage meandered to an outdoor building, probably a garage of some sort, disappearing inside. Before long, the garage door opened and Alex watched in awe as a helmeted Sage appeared on a shiny black motorbike—he couldn’t see the make—and roared down the road in a snarl of engine and dust.

Jesus, the man had a motorbike! Actor, great-looking, sexy, demi-rock god in his opinion and he drove a bike.
Alex’s cock grew even harder and he hoped like hell there’d be a plan to relieve the tension when Sage got back. He moved curiously toward the rest of the house, telling himself he was looking for the bathroom but in reality he wanted to see just what Sage’s bedroom looked after his earlier cryptic comment.

Chapter 17

The cottage looked smaller from the road and was definitely deceptive. In addition to the lounge and the kitchen, there was a dining room to the side which Sage obviously used as an office. There was a computer and other electronic equipment on the solid wooden table set in the middle of the room. Papers and documents were spread around the table and there was yet another large plasma screen on the wall opposite his chair.

This man loved his gadgets.
Alex was a bit of a geek himself.

Moving out of the dining room, he found a small guest bedroom with a single bed and a small wardrobe. Next to it was yet another room, which was used as storage with boxes, filing cabinets and other clutter. Alex pottered around it curiously for some time, picking up photo frames and old newspapers, smiling at the pictures of what he thought was Sage as a boy, standing with a man and woman he imagined to be his parents. There was a large box filled with newspaper articles about horses and races and a lot of photographs with a tall, rather large man with pitch-black hair and a weather-beaten face standing with various horses. From the resemblance, he imagined this was Sage’s father.