(Author's Note - Written for Bad Boys and Ugly Sweaters contest by @RomanceSparks. Word count 1975)
Cal leant against the wall, sipping his drink and watching, waiting for his opportunity. The party was warming up nicely, full of people who were getting into the Christmas spirit. Their hosts had decorated the room with a Christmas tree in the corner—real pine, not plastic—which filled the room with fresh scent, and colourful streamers hung from the ceiling. The mulled wine punch was a huge hit, in more ways than one, Cal smiled to himself—sipping cautiously—and the volume was rising by the minute. Soon, he thought. He could already feel his pulse rising in anticipation.
Cal scanned the room again, his eyes hooded to disguise his interest. He paused for a moment, his gaze caught by one man who looked as if he might still be sober. His brown hair was cut short against his head and his black pants and white shirt made him look as if he'd come straight from the office. Only the black leather jacket suggested he'd come out to a party. Cal let his eyes linger for a moment. Mmm.
Reluctantly, he pulled his eyes away and continued scanning the room. Everything looked normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Almost time to make his move.
He let his eyes drift back to the man who'd caught his fancy.
Damn! He was looking right at Cal, a slight smile on his face.
Hastily, Cal dropped his eyes and took a sip of his drink. Was the stranger really smiling at Cal? Or was he amused by his jumper? He'd chosen it so carefully for tonight, to match the nerdish image he was trying to project. Advertised as the ugliest Christmas jumper on the market, it featured an image of Spock from Star Trek, wearing a red Santa hat, with the caption "Trek the Halls" in large print across the front. The best thing about it from Cal's point of view was that everyone was so bemused by the jumper, no-one looked very hard at his face.
Was that gorgeous man really checking him out? Damn, but this timing sucked! On any other night he would have approached the stranger with a smile and seen where things went from there, but tonight... he had a job to do. He couldn't afford to attract anyone's attention, let alone their interest.
Ducking his head in feigned awkwardness, Cal began to edge around the room, heading for the bathroom. If he was going to do the job, it had to be now or never. He pushed his way through the crowd and went into the passage. There was the bathroom at the end, easily identified by the cute sign saying "This Is It!" He leant against the wall for a moment waiting for the current occupant to leave, and took the opportunity to check that no-one was watching him.
A young woman came out of the bathroom and smiled briefly at the picture on his jumper before heading back to the party. He went inside, took off the jumper and turned it inside out revealing a black lining. He put it back on and left the bathroom, now looking like half the other men at the party in a dark top and jeans.
His luck was in—the passage was empty. Quick as a flash, he was round the corner at the end of the passage, heading upstairs to the bedroom on the first floor. His heart was pounding as he wrapped a large handkerchief around his hand and pulled out the centre drawer in the dressing-table. He reckoned ninety per cent of women kept their jewellery in the centre drawer and he wasn't wrong tonight. Running an expert eye over the contents of the box, Cal selected a heavy gold chain which looked like it would be hard to identify with any certainty. Not only that, it would slide easily into his pocket without bulging as a necklace would do.
He had just slid the chain—wrapped neatly in his handkerchief—into his pocket, when he heard footsteps outside.
"Hullo? Are you up here?" The low tones came from outside the door. Cal's first instinct was to go out the window, even though it was locked and on the first floor, but then he had second thoughts. The voice sounded curious rather than angry. Perhaps there was some way he could salvage this.
Hastily, Cal stripped off his jumper and put it back on the right way, at the same time pushing the dressing-table drawer shut with his hip. Cautiously he peered around the bedroom door. The man who'd been eyeing him earlier was standing in the passage, looking at him quizzically.
"I wondered if you'd find me," said Cal, and smiled. Before the other man could move, Cal pulled him into the room and then—tripped awkwardly over a pair of shoes on the floor. Both men fell onto the bed, Cal underneath. The other man struggled to free himself.
"What the hell—"
"Oops," laughed Cal, a trifle breathlessly. "That was fun, but actually, I was just going to start with a kiss. Give me a hand up, will you?"
The other man gave a startled laugh, then reached down and hauled Cal to his feet. For a moment, they were almost in each other's arms. Both took a quick step back.
"I think perhaps we should introduce ourselves," suggested the stranger. "I'm Harlan Simons."
"Cal Peters," lied Cal, though the first part of his name was true enough.
"So how do you know Phil and Sue?" Harlan was struggling to make normal conversation, obviously still flustered from the unexpected tackle to the bed.
"I'm a friend of Sophie's," improvised Cal, picking the most common name he could think of on the spur of the moment. Everyone had at least one friend called Sophie, right?
"And you?" he asked, before the other man could question him further.
"I came with Jim, but he's just a friend," Harlan hastened to add. He was looking steadily into Cal's grey eyes, obviously liking what he saw. "So, you wanted to kiss me, huh?"
Harlan stepped forward, putting his hand behind Cal's neck, and lowering his lips to Cal's mouth.
Talk about the wrong time and the wrong place! But after his extremely blatant invitation, Cal could hardly say he'd changed his mind.
"I-er," he managed before Harlan's tongue swept into his mouth. Afterwards, Cal blamed the adrenaline coursing through his body, but at the time, it felt like his brain simply turned to mush. Cal forgot what he'd been going to say. All he could think of was the excitement coursing through his veins at the feel of Harlan's tongue in his mouth. His arms went up to circle Harlan's shoulders, pulling their bodies hard against each other. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt such a strong attraction. He pressed even closer, wanting... wanting—
"Oops! Sorry!" a laughing voice broke them apart as someone shut the door loudly behind them. Neither had even noticed it opening.
Both men stared at each other.
"Wow. That was... unexpected," said Harlan. He ran a hand through his short hair. "I don't normally do things like that. Act so impulsively, I mean."
"Me neither," said Cal, feeling as if the gold chain was suddenly burning a hole in his pocket. Thank heavens he had it wrapped in his handkerchief. That embrace had been alarmingly intimate.
Harlan looked around the bedroom as if he was suddenly seeing it for the first time.
"This is Phil and Sue's room. We shouldn't really be in here. Do you want to go somewhere else?" he asked. "My place? Or yours?"
"Uh..." Cal couldn't think what to say. The hottest man he'd met in ages and he was going to have to turn him down.
"Sorry," he blurted. "I know I've given you the wrong impression, but I don't usually do one night stands."
Harlan flushed and put his hands in his pockets. "Actually, I don't either. I just—"
"Perhaps we should go back downstairs and join the party," interrupted Cal, knowing it sounded like a brush off but unable to think of anything else. Rather too late, his brain had begun working again on all cylinders. He needed to get out of here, fast, and make his escape.
"Right," agreed Harlan, his face closing down. "Normally I get that reaction after I tell people I'm a cop."
"Wha—?" Cal felt the colour drain from his face.
"I know. A gay cop, pretty crazy, right?"
"Uh," said Cal. He was so screwed. Caught in the act by an off-duty copper. Had Harlan been watching him all along? Giving him enough rope to hang himself?
"It's all right, you've made yourself pretty clear!" said Harlan in clipped tones. "By all means, let's go down and join the party." He strode to the door.
His legs feeling wobbly, Cal followed. Was Harlan still playing with him, or didn't he know what he'd done, after all?
Following Harlan along the passage back to the party room, Cal saw Harlan's jacket hanging on a peg. Before he could think twice, he slipped the gold chain into the furthest pocket, then wiped his face with the handkerchief.
His back shrinking, waiting for a heavy hand to grab his collar, Cal made his way straight to the front door. He left without looking back, his ears straining for sounds of pursuit, or even the uproar of discovery, but he heard nothing out of the ordinary. In less than five minutes, Cal was safely in his car and driving home.
That had been way too close for comfort. Maybe it was time to think about a new career...
His mind kept replaying the events of that evening. Harlan was the hottest man he'd met for ages. Though right now Harlan was probably grinding his teeth in fury and congratulating himself on a narrow escape, Cal couldn't help wishing things had turned out differently. Maybe—after the initial furore had died down—he could try and get in touch, see if Harlan was still interested... Cal laughed sourly, who was he kidding? He'd probably get a fist in the face.
He'd never see Harlan again.
"So, fill me in." Harlan was seated opposite from Phil in the coffee shop. A week had passed since that embarrassing night when he'd gone to put on his jacket to leave the party, and discovered Sue's gold chain in his pocket.
Phil was apologetic. "I'm sorry you were caught up in it, Harlan. Turns out, the whole thing was a set-up by my security firm. They've been after me for ages to get a better security system for the upstairs rooms and this was their way of proving it to me. They used one of their own men, one of their investigators. Normally he tests out their security systems, finds the weak spots and then reports back. Something must have rattled him that night, to make him leave the chain behind. His boss was expecting to be handed the "stolen" goods to present back to me, but instead...."
Phil cleared his throat, remembering Harlan's embarrassment at the party, bringing the chain to show Phil and Sue, explaining how he'd just found it in his jacket pocket. "He must have known he could trust you to hand it back," offered Phil, venturing a small smile, a slightly questioning look in his eyes.
"Hmm," growled Harlan, only partially appeased. That did rather explain Cal's unexpectedly hasty exit. In fact, now he considered, it possibly explained quite a lot. He began to smile. Rattled, huh? Cal didn't know what rattled was—yet.
"So, this guy works for your security company then? I don't suppose you have his name, or number?" asked Harlan, as casually as he could.