Between You and Me

Between You and Me

Willa Okati

www.loose-id.com

Between You and Me Copyright © September 2011 by Willa Okati All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions. eISBN 978-1-61118-454-9 Editor: Crystal Esau Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs Printed in the United States of America

Published by Loose Id LLC PO Box 809 San Francisco CA 94104-0809 www.loose-id.com This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Chapter One “Love isn’t complicated. Not unless people make it complicated. Unfortunately, that happens more often than it doesn’t. But every now and then, Lady Luck tips her hand in a man’s favor, and it’s easy. Or easier. The trick there is knowing the difference.” —Ian

~*~ “I’ll trade you tonight. Shutting down circulation for reshelving,” Daniel offered, already rolling up his sleeves. He stopped for the second it took to tip back his demitasse cup and swallow the last drops of still-steaming espresso and exhaled with a small, pleased sound. They tasted as rich, dark, and decadent as they smelled. He never would understand people who swore the scent and flavor of coffee were worlds apart. Then again, people skills were never his strong suit. Mostly Daniel figured he’d be grateful to the geniuses who’d decided cafés and libraries went well together. Who knew how many times it’d saved his sanity? Minnie, plain and tall and too thin, young and dressed in cocoa brown from collar to boot cuffs, gave Daniel a sideways, dubious look. The only other full-time librarian on staff in this small branch in a small city by the shore, she knew full well no one in any library, ever, jumped at a chance to reshelve returned or discarded books. Thankless, frustrating, and, above all, tedious. And in all honestly, exactly what Daniel wanted tonight. Not to be bored, not as such. Rather, to take a few minutes in peace and quiet to center his thoughts and occupy his hands. Otherwise, he’d risk turning to the barista within instead of a bottle for overcaffeinated comfort. He’d deplete the

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library’s secret stash of 100% Kona, his own hidden cache of Jamaican Blue Mountain, and even the national brand in its plastic red jugs they were just able to afford on a budget as tiny as the branch library itself. Shelving. The meditation of repetition. Zen. Minnie considered him in silence, then shrugged as if to say your funeral. “You do know a few kids were in here earlier building forts in the reference shelves?” “Oh yes. I’m aware.” Daniel breathed in, breathed out, and pushed his hair off his forehead, out of his eyes, and behind his ears. “Better me than you.” A memory tickled itself awake. “Besides, I still owe you one for filling in for a few extra shifts last month.” Minnie waved her hand from side to side in a comme ci, comme ça gesture. “You’d do the same for me. Flu’s a miserable thing.” It was the longest conversation they’d shared since she’d arrived midafternoon; even then she hadn’t questioned his choice to pull a double shift but only directed him toward the café end and kept the process rolling. Short on words she might be, but Daniel liked Minnie. She cared, in her way, and they kept an eye out for one another. She wouldn’t ask about Kevin, or Daniel’s stubborn refusal to answer his phone all afternoon long. She didn’t have to, because she’d put the pieces together by herself, and she could add two and two. She’d simply know about the crash and burn of his relationship. If Daniel could call it a relationship with a man so needy he nearly crushed the breath out of him, yet who’d been stupid enough to break it off in a text. Daniel remained up in the air about that one. What he could and did call it was the last time he’d let someone who meant well try to take charge of his love life, claiming, “He’s perfect for you, I promise.” Daniel didn’t know what “perfect for him” could be, but Kevin? Not it. And as for Minnie’s silent sympathy, perhaps to call it librarian solidarity would be close enough.

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Daniel tipped her a salute of silent thanks and tweaked the small orangutan figurine on the circulation desk as he passed. He dodged her light slap at his wrist and disappeared as quickly as dignity and a squeaky-wheeled cart would allow into the tall shelves that smelled of old ink and paper. Ahh. So much better. Daniel closed his eyes and breathed deeply, letting the quiet envelop him. Even better, in deference to the cooler weather, they’d opened the windows a few inches earlier in the afternoon. Now, as Daniel stood directly in the path of a good strong breeze that made the twilight almost brisk so close to the end of summer, he could let the serenity of the ocean soothe his fractious temper. Best of all, he could smell the richness of roasting coffee blending surprisingly well with salt breezes rolling in from the Pacific only a handful of blocks away. And, because it bore repeating, decadent coffee. Minnie would know what prompted Daniel’s small moan of appreciation, and she laughed quietly at him from the circulation desk. He wasn’t bothered; her soft mirth stemmed from fondness. Besides, Daniel readily acknowledged his addiction. Everyone was allowed at least one vice, and if they weren’t, they should be. Daniel unspooled a set of earbuds from the MP3 player he kept in his hip pocket and plugged himself in as he set to work. Electric violin went well with this kind of mood and task, energy that needed using and confusion that needed sorting out. Other librarians he’d worked with in the past tended to regard Daniel with a mixture of awe and confusion, wondering if his reserve meant he was cold, crazy, didn’t give a damn about the job or the team, or spent most of his time thinking up different ways to kill them all in their sleep. Daniel clicked his tongue. Honestly. Eccentric? Not inaccurate. Cold? Not so. Shy in a way he’d never outgrow if he hadn’t managed the task by age thirty-five. Reserved.

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The problem with that? Most people interpreted his mien as frigid and unreadable, his arm permanently outthrust to warn them they’d better stay back. Even when they got to know him. If they got to know him. Only one man of Daniel’s acquaintance ever blew past those wards as if they weren’t even there. Or, if he’d noticed, didn’t waste time being bothered by climbing the walls or seeing a need to hammer-and-chisel them down. Easier and quicker to make like they didn’t exist, and who knew? Maybe, for Ian, they didn’t. Tempting to miss his closest friend on such a night, but who knew where Ian might be around this time of year? The man made a living as a treasure hunter—of sorts—and careened around the globe in search of what an exclusive client list asked him to hunt down, whether hundred-year-old Scotch or a guitar signed by a rock legend—from Uzbekistan. They’d come a long way from the still-gangly, still-innocent college freshmen they’d been when they met. Daniel remembered their initial meeting as if it were yesterday. Hate—or rather, the distaste of two young opposites upon colliding—at first sight. That’d lasted all of a week, until the night when Ian’s first upperclassman crush ditched him for someone more exciting, and Daniel brewed them both glasses of sweet, cold Thai coffee as his awkward way of offering comfort. After that? Friends. To be brutally honest, Daniel hadn’t made a closer friend before or since Ian. He wouldn’t have wanted one either. Tempting, tempting, tempting to call him… Daniel tapped out a rhythm on the second-topmost shelf, a habit that calmed him and that Ian had an odd fondness for. Most times he’d pick up the tune and start singing almost under his breath, almost off-key but not quite. Close enough to pitch to sound unique, not bad. He could e-mail Ian instead of calling or could see if he’d be up for an Internet video chat, but neither was the same. He’d wait. Ian had a habit of turning up when least expected, anyway.

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Hmm. Daniel thought a moment. If he followed the string of logic through to its natural conclusion and combined it with his sure and certain knowledge of the man, he wouldn’t be surprised, not at all, if Ian showed his face tonight. Daniel chuckled wryly at himself and got back to work. A nice dream, but dreams were only that: flights of fancy. Still. Wouldn’t it be something to have called that one right?

*** Ian never had trouble picking Daniel out of a crowd. He could have done it with his eyes closed and his ears plugged with thick puffs of cotton, and even if someone had taken him and spun him around in circles to make sure he’d lost his bearings. He’d still find Daniel, orienting himself toward the man. Every time. He figured later he should have seen there was more to his focus on Daniel than just friendship, but no one ever saw anything clearly in the moment. At least Ian didn’t. He took long walks off short piers and jumped, knowing when he surfaced he could swim to Daniel standing on the shore. He couldn’t do anything else and still be himself. That was okay. Daniel might keep himself anchored on solid ground, but he’d be there waiting for Ian. Always. Ian figured he should have paid more attention to what that meant too. He never thought too hard about it, though. Overthinking wasn’t his forte. If anyone asked Ian why he did—well, most of the things he did—he never quite knew how to answer the question. How did a guy explain why he was who he was if the person asking couldn’t tell just by looking? Ian didn’t think of himself as complicated. C’mon. He saw opportunities and went after them. He leaped before he looked, and by the grace of whatever gods looked after fools and man-children, usually came in for a smooth landing. When he didn’t, he picked up the pieces, stuck them back together, and got a move on before

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the glue had a chance to dry. He didn’t have a home, living in a series of hotels, and ate a home-cooked meal once, maybe twice a year, and his longest-lasting relationships extended through breakfast the next morning. And yet—he loved his life. Mostly. Ninety-nine percent of the time. Maybe 95 percent. Every now and then, though, Ian found himself in a place where he needed to be somewhere that was…else. Not the ends of the earth, the Alaskan Pipeline or the Foreign Legion, nor a bar where everyone knew his name. The place he needed to be: a tiny town with a crumb of California coastline, close enough to shouting distance of San Francisco but far enough away to see the stars at night. So when he’d known this morning, after waking up alone one time too many, he’d had one cup more than “enough” for now, he’d tossed together a duffel’s worth of odds and ends, including an old Turkish coffee set he’d bought on a whim because Daniel would love it, paid up on his Portland suite through the weekend, and sweettalked his way into a last-minute ticket on a plane down the coast, and— And here he was, standing outside a library no bigger than a postage stamp, breathing deep of an intoxicating mix of roasting coffee, clean sea air, and the last sweet kisses of one of the final summer-warm twilights of the year. Content to be, there and then, putting off clattering up the stairs to the library’s second-story main entrance for the sake of saving up anticipation until he couldn’t take it anymore. Good thing Daniel wouldn’t know he was watching, not with the doors of the café separating them. Ian didn’t often get a chance to stand still and look as much as he wanted, and he was a man who appreciated beauty even when planted in a half-parcel of parking lot, on the outside looking in. Daniel had no idea he’d come tonight. Ian bet he’d be in for getting his ear chewed off; he laughed at the thought, not minding a bit. Besides, he’d tried to call. More than once. Let the surprise be on his own head; at least—Ian thought—it’d be a pleasant surprise. Meantime, he could take his time to relax, far and away from the race for gold and goal, and enjoy the view.

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A good friend? Worth his weight in gold. Daniel? Worth his weight in espresso beans. Ian knew his friend well enough to be positive Daniel would prefer being described as such. Ian hummed under his breath, content for the moment to stand still and watch his friend work. Some kind of gorgeous man, that one, his Daniel. Silken-soft hair richer and deeper a hue than dark chocolate, long enough to curl around his neck and over his ears and tumble across his forehead in the humidity of the salt-rich wind off the sea. Startling blue-gray eyes, an inheritance from his father, were the first things that’d caught Ian’s interest way back when. Like the skies before a storm, with a thick fringe of sooty lashes. He wore a simple white shirt and dark gray slacks tonight, sleeves rolled up and two buttons undone, and when he reached over his head to wedge a fat blue book back into place on a shelf, he moved with the sort of grace, wholly unconscious, dancers only wished they could learn. With all credit to the guy who wrote Fight Club, describing Daniel as beautiful wasn’t the right word, but it was the first word that came to mind. Funny how so few others saw it. Ian never had understood why they didn’t, and he’d given up trying. Sometimes, when Ian stopped to think, he wondered if it was selfishness that he didn’t mind being one of the lucky few. Daniel deserved someone who’d love him tender and love him true, and at thirty-five, Ian could tell he’d started losing the thin edge of optimism he’d hung on to since his twenties. He shook the mood, as insubstantial as cobwebs—usually—off, or tried to. Thirty-five wasn’t old. Far from it, and Daniel was the kind of man who’d age well. Ian looked forward to seeing it. Odd, though…seeing Daniel from this angle struck Ian differently tonight. Almost always muted, the spark that set Daniel apart, something like a flicker of lightning in a cool dusky sky, came through crystal clear. Some kind of gorgeous man, all right—and such a dork. Ian laughed quietly, fondly, absolutely sure Daniel had no clue he moved ever so slightly to the beat of

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his different drummer, or electric violinist, as the case might be, and the music fed through the trail of white headphones from pocket to ears. No one could learn to be the kind of friend Daniel was to Ian. You were born to be that close to one another or not, and how Ian had been lucky enough to stumble across a guy who took him for who he was, charms and flaws and risks and rewards and everything else…eh. Why tempt fate trying to figure out the whys and hows? He’d just be glad as hell and leave it there. Like always. Ian tapped the toe of his shoe on the pavement, considering Daniel’s movements through the window. Y’know what? Ian questioned himself. Anticipation is one thing. Delayed gratification is another. Neither stands much of a chance when I weigh them against a chance in a million to take Daniel off guard. Decision: made. Ian hit speed-dial one more time for the fun of it, and then he hit the stairs, taking them two at a time, excited by the electric sparks that flickered to life in his veins. Yes. This was what he’d come for.

*** Daniel’s phone beeped at his elbow, signaling an incoming text. Damn. When would Kevin give up? Apologizing for apologizing made no one any friends and wouldn’t charm his way back into Daniel’s pants. Should have left this nuisance at the desk with Minnie. Daniel knew the smartphone’s touchscreens well enough not to need to look, severing his connection to the library’s Wi-Fi and muting the volume for good measure. He blamed the momentary irritation, and the music, for the moment’s distraction it took for an assailant inclined to sneak-attack embraces to get the jump on him.

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Not that, after the first split second between involuntarily jumping out of his skin and his body’s decision to stay put passed, Daniel minded. Not a bit. Who could, when warm arms surrounded him from behind? They carried with them a subtle hint of exotic, spicy cologne and the crisp brush of curls against his cheek when the man who’d embraced him without warning hooked his chin over Daniel’s shoulder. Daniel sighed in pleasure and leaned back. “Ian,” he murmured. Ian nudged his head against Daniel’s in a friendly cat sort of greeting. “Damn. I was sure I’d surprise you.” “Idiot.” He sounded honestly disappointed. Such a big goofball of a man-child. Daniel twisted about to greet him properly—that, and to enjoy the sight of his friend grinning broadly and shamelessly at him, an expression that came naturally to Ian. A tall, lean man, Ian’s muscles were defined enough to attract the eye and suited him well. Long legs firm with the same supple muscle gave him a lengthy stride and a good turn of speed but were far more accustomed to casual movement. He reminded Daniel of a mountain lion in the mood to play, just on the verge of batting a paw at him to see if he could be coaxed to join in the fun. He wore a dark green Henley and jeans washed soft as silk, frayed here and there where he’d knelt, bent, and stretched, working away at one project or another. Very hands-on, Ian. Big, firm hands with a strong grip. Even if Daniel hadn’t been able to lay eyes on the man, he’d have known Ian and his absolute lack of personal boundaries right away. Not that they applied to him; Ian made sure of it a long time ago, and somehow made Daniel not care about the space not left between them. Ian’s laugh jostled them both as gently as if they were in a small boat together out in the middle of the sea, without a crumb of land in sight and pleased to be there. He cocked his head to one side, the crisp edges of sugar-maple curls barely brushing his shoulder. “Can I still say ‘surprise’?”

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“No.” Daniel tugged at one of Ian’s curls. “It’s been too long. Don’t stay gone for months next time, okay?” “Do my best.” He’d try. Likely wouldn’t be able to, the job carrying him away, but… Even if occasional months passed without hide nor hair of Ian in town with him, he was and always would be the closest friend Daniel possessed. Letting go of him? Not an option. Ever. Ian knew how sometimes Daniel needed him, and he didn’t mind. He encouraged their give-and-take; as far as Daniel could tell, he took as much pleasure as he gave, and he wasn’t bothered by how he should and shouldn’t show as much. For example, right then: most grown men didn’t cuddle, but that never stopped Ian. He simply pressed as much of himself as he could against Daniel and relaxed, exactly tall enough to nestle as comfortably into Daniel as if in a bed with a lover. Daniel’s night, it’d gotten better when he wasn’t looking. When Ian arrived. He’d called it after all, hadn’t he? From bad to better, and now from better to best. Almost—though it tempted the gods to say so—almost as good as life could get. A cynical man could wonder when the other shoe would drop, or, more likely, when the anvil would fall out of the sky. Daniel pushed the thoughts aside. Save those for later, when he’s gone. Right now, enjoy. Just enjoy. He hadn’t gotten the peace and quiet he’d wanted, not by a long shot, but there was some truth to the old song. If you can’t get what you want, you might find you get what you need. Now if a cover artist would only set that to electric violin… “Right.” Daniel gave him a pro forma nudge, crossed his arms, and propped his hip against the shelving cart. “What are you doing here?”

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“I’m here to kidnap you,” Ian said, all but setting himself on fire with the blazing brightness of his smile. “Or if you want to be picky about it, I’m running away from home. I stopped by to ask if you wanted to come along for the ride.”

*** Oh yeah. Ian soaked up Daniel’s laughter. How many people ever heard Daniel let go and laugh out loud? He’d bet the too-tall, too-thin woman at the circulation desk, busy pretending not to watch them with wide eyes, had never had the opportunity. “It’s strange, really,” he remarked. “Most people go with your basic hello.” Ian shrugged. “True enough, but most people aren’t me.” “For which blessing may we be truly thankful,” Daniel said drily. He sounded severe, but the tiny crinkling at the corners of his eyes gave him away. As firm proof, he reached across to grip Ian’s forearm loosely, casually, comfortably. “You love me, and you know it,” Ian said by way of returning the friendly fire, relaxing by the minute. Daniel’s company always did unwind him, easing him off the adrenaline rush that otherwise kept him going twenty-four/seven. Why? Easy answer. He had nothing to prove to Daniel. After fifteen-odd years of friendship, the man probably knew Ian better than Ian knew him. Ian could roll with that. He admired the heck out of Daniel’s passion for books, but he loved being the one who got Daniel to put those books down and wake up to play in the real world. Who could get him to look up, meet him eye to eye with nothing held back, and who could, before long, bring out the smile he knew for a fact almost no one else ever saw. Too bad. Daniel should smile more often, and sure, that sounded like a Little Mary Sunshine cliché, but Daniel’s smile was a thing of beauty, and more people should get a chance to appreciate it, startlingly broad and generous, bright white against the complexion he’d inherited from his Thai mother. When Daniel smiled, almost everything about him changed.

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Ian reconsidered what he’d thought moments ago. Selfish, absolutely, but he liked it too much, being one of the few who got to see Daniel wide awake and, if not happy as a clown, alert and with his wry sense of humor tipping the scales from remote to right there. “What are you doing here?” Daniel asked, not yet letting go of Ian’s forearm. No one else Ian knew greeted him that way. Not a cultural thing, but a Daniel thing, though Ian read somewhere, somewhen, a long time ago, it had roots in an old, old Celtic welcome. He liked that about Daniel too. All the bits and pieces, some plain and simple and some not, making up not what he looked like but who he was. “Taking a break for the weekend.” One of Daniel’s eyebrows climbed, but his smile only softened without disappearing. “You? A weekend off? Don’t tell me you’re having a dry spell. What was that you said last time you came around about a waiting list?” Ian laughed. “I have one, and it gets bigger all the time.” Daniel’s smile curved into a puckish smirk that made Ian laugh louder, and who gave a damn if anyone gave him an odd look for his boisterousness volume? No one did innuendo like Daniel, in utter silence and absolute clarity. Daniel smirked and crossed his arms loosely in front of himself, hands laced together. “That’s what he said.” Ian leaned comfortably against the shelves facing Daniel. “Which ‘he’ are we talking about?” “Which ‘he’ aren’t we?” “Ouch. I’m wounded.” Never let it be said Ian couldn’t do “dry”—on occasion— as well as Daniel. Daniel inclined his head to acknowledge the victory, but he didn’t back down on the rest. Not that he should. Ian knew himself to be a tad promiscuous. A great big tad promiscuous. The job he loved—how many people who weren’t Indiana Jones or

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Lara Croft could claim to be modern-day treasure hunters?—took him in a whirlwind from one country to another. The adrenaline rush never stopped being unreal, but on the other hand, it sure didn’t lend itself to long-term relationships. Ian might love them and leave them, but at least he sure did leave them wornout and almost purring with pleasure. Sometimes he wondered what Daniel would look like that way. Beautiful, he’d bet. Even if they were “just” friends, he could probably call Daniel the longestrunning friend who’d stuck with him through thick, through thin, and the occasional flight of fancy or fit of insanity. Ian breathed deeply, content to stand there as long as Daniel would let him. He was glad he hadn’t gone out. Another night in a bar, breathing in the smell of old smoke and spilled whiskey, the taste of beer sour and unwanted on his tongue, looking for someone with something genuine in them…no. Far better to have come here, to Daniel; Daniel who, in his way, showed Ian he was loved, and who Ian— Oh. I’m in love with him, aren’t I? Daniel wriggled free. “Are you okay? You froze up like an icicle there.” “What?” Ian blinked, shaking himself out of his abrupt stillness. “I’m…” I am in love with you. And it was that simple, because he had been for years. Seeing it now, he looked back at them through different lenses. And you’re in love with me too. What do we—I—do now? Ian had no idea, and when in doubt—act. “I’m good,” he said, taking a step back to give himself room to breathe and to let Daniel see for himself what he had on his mind wasn’t a bad thing. Daniel didn’t look wholly convinced, but he let it go. Good enough for the moment. Ian dug the keys to his rental car out of his hip pocket and dangled them

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from one finger, giving them a shake to make them jingle. “Like I said. I’m running away from home or just running away for the night. Are you in?” Daniel pushed away from the shelving cart; Ian would bet he’d already shoved the ungainly thing out of his mind to go back to later. He shook his head at Ian, shoving his hair out of his face and grimacing when a recent smudge of blue ink transferred from head to hand. “Did you really think you had to ask? Wherever we’re going, lead the way.” Score. Ian grinned and tossed his keys from hand to hand. “You know, I hoped you’d say that.”

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Chapter Two “Falling in love with a friend is one of the worst ideas a man or woman can entertain. Unfortunately, heart and head only rarely agree on this.” —Daniel

~*~ Waiting outside felt as good to Ian as going inside had. Go figure, huh? Didn’t matter, though, not here. Daniel understood his need to stay on the go, and Daniel would trust him to still be here when he’d finished with the locks. Ian stretched, rolling his neck to work out the kinks. Pop! went some hidden joint he didn’t like thinking about, considering it lived next to his throat. Just considering it for a second made him shudder. He rested his arm on the side of his rented convertible and his chin on his arm, watching the sun crawl slowly beneath the horizon. He liked this town; he really did. Major roads leading to big cities radiated outward from here like sunbeams, taking a man anywhere he wanted within an hour’s drive or so. Yet sleepy enough in itself to feel small, and nestled on a part of the coast tourists tended to skip. Homey, that was the word for Daniel’s chosen turf. Hmm. Maybe Daniel was why this town seemed so to Ian. Winding his way back to Daniel, it was like having someone to come home to, and if there was any truth to the old saying and home being where the heart was… “Excuse me?” Ian flinched. He hadn’t picked up on even a whisper of noise from the woman approaching his car. Honest to God, every time a man relaxed, along came a spider to sit down beside him—or in this case, a grasshopper of a woman with direct intent

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and zero time to waste on the trivialities of small talk. Who pursed her lips at him as if he were the bad boy come to pick her son up for a date. The librarian who worked with Daniel. What was her name again? Minnie? Tall, thin, plain, and if she had the ability to smile, Ian would believe it when he saw it. This’ll be good. She adjusted her glasses to look over the rims at him, far too severe an affectation for a woman who couldn’t be any older than him. Yet it seemed natural, and it fit her. As did her utter lack of repentance for making Ian flinch. Tough cookie. Daniel probably thought she hung the moon. “A word?” the woman asked, adding her question mark for the sake of politeness and nothing more. Odds were close to 100% Ian knew what that “word” would be. He could at least try for a preemptive strike, and with this woman, bluntness was the only way to go. “Stop what you’re thinking. I know what I’m doing. I’m not dumb enough to risk losing Daniel. End of story.” Hmm. No sooner had the words tripped off Ian’s tongue than Minnie’s expression narrowed in deep suspicion. “Lose him?” He could have worded that as less of a giveaway, couldn’t he? She’d heard “the speech” a couple times over the years, once casually when Ian tried small talking with her before Daniel finished work for the day. Small talk with Minnie. Right. He’d never made that mistake again. Ian knew she’d heard it a second time when a skinny guy with a pencil mustache proposed a threesome. Ian gave the speech, Daniel tore strips off Pencil-face with a laser glare, and that was that. He’d had a feeling Minnie hadn’t forgotten that instance, and that he was about to be proved right.

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More, he should have known better than to expect a woman with so effective a piercing stare to pull any punches. “Then you do have feelings for him. What happened to your ‘gay men can just be friends too’ speech?” Ian rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish and a little annoyed at needing to defend himself—and Daniel, to boot. The job didn’t lend itself to long-term relationships—nor friendships. He stayed on the go, never having time to make any connections except the ones involving planes. Daniel meant more than “a guy I know in a town on the coast.” It left Daniel as his only friend. Some people would have figured that to be sad. Ian didn’t. If a guy could have only one friend, he could do a hell of a lot worse than Daniel, and he couldn’t do better. Up until now, it had been enough. “Yeah, about that…” “Mm-hmm,” Minnie said, examining Ian as if he were a dog-eared page in a book she’d never read before, but one that’d fascinated her from the “once upon a time” preface. “To be clear: you’re not expecting friends with benefits or an occasional cross-country booty call?” Ian winced. “Can I just say how it’s wrong in so many ways to hear a librarian talk like that?” Minnie’s eyebrow rose over the rim of her glasses. “Daniel’s a librarian, and you have yet to answer my question about transcontinental sex on tap.” “Because it’s disturbing to hear you ask, that’s why.” “Then answer, and I’ll stop asking,” she replied, unruffled. “Why now, and why Daniel?” “It was enough before. Now it isn’t.” Bluntness. “Because I love him.” Fuck me. Ian had to take a deep gulp of air. True or not, saying it out loud for the first time took balls, and Minnie was the sort of woman who’d step on those balls if she disapproved.

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She pursed her lips. “Good. It’s about time.” “Excuse me?” Minnie waved his question aside. “It’s not just you, you know. Treat him well. I can and will hurt you if you don’t.” “Trust me,” Ian said fervently, “that’s the last thing I ever doubted.” A tiny bit of humor melted the topmost layer of Minnie’s frost. “See that you don’t.” It might be a good idea to get out of there while he was still ahead. Thank God, he had a good reason to ask her—politely—to vamoose. “I’m betting you don’t want Daniel to know you’re out here giving me the third degree, and he’s almost at the door with keys in hand. If you want to get moving while the getting’s good, better start now.” She wrinkled her nose at him. Oddly, the squinch made her look younger and almost cute. “One more thing. If you and Daniel were strangers, would you pick him up in a bar?” “Are you kidding? In a hot heartbeat.” Damn. TMI. Ian backed down. “If I didn’t know him. Why’re you so interested, anyway?” Minnie sighed. “Why do you think? Daniel’s more alive tonight than I’ve seen him since we started working together. I am not a matchmaker, but I have a working set of eyes. I want him to be happy.” She lifted her shoulder in a one-inch shrug. “He has that effect on people.” Ian couldn’t argue with her there. Minnie almost visibly pricked her ears at the sound of keys jangling in a lock. “We never had this conversation. He wouldn’t thank me for sticking my nose in.” “But you did,” Ian said, growing thoughtful. “Because you care.” “Because,” Minnie agreed. She turned on her heel and made tracks, vanishing around the side of the building where Ian could just barely catch a glimpse of a sensible, eco-friendly Prius parked out back of the library.

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Didn’t matter. Door locked, Daniel clattered down the steps at a slower pace, taking his time to enjoy the coolness of dusk and the coffee-saturated air broadcasting from the roastery next door. He sighed and shivered noticeably. Pure pleasure, that look. Pure, unguarded pleasure. Would you look at that? He’d changed clothes, clad now in a red shirt as delicious a red as fresh cherries, with a vee of a neck that dipped below his collarbones. Jeans that clung. Ian recognized them as his most comfortable, worn-in pair, the ones Daniel had worn when he’d lent his friend a hand putting a topcoat of fresh paint on his bedroom walls; they still bore traces of richly saturated dark green splashes. One copper ring through his left earlobe and no other jewelry. Ian watched, and to himself he’d admit he wanted. Okay, so it might be weird to wish one was a cup of hot java instead of a man with a man’s needs, but for a crazy second, Ian entertained the peculiar fantasy. Whatever it took to have Daniel’s mouth on him— Whoa, stop. Ian shook his head hard to clear it. Stop right there, and enjoy the moment for what it is. It’s enough on its own. A night full of moments, actually, lying dead ahead. Sex aside—no matter how big an aside—he couldn’t ask for more, and he wouldn’t either.

*** When spending time with Ian, sometimes he and Daniel said little because they had little to say, and spending time in near-silent company suited them both best. When Daniel stopped three feet away from the convertible to whistle in appreciation, the wild light in Ian’s eyes told Daniel loud and clear this would not be a wholly silent night. Good. “Not bad, hotshot. Not bad at all.” Daniel stroked the car as he came around to its passenger side, caressing the screaming-red paint job and chrome buffed to a blinding brightness. Just looking at a convertible such as this made a man feel as if he were already on the move, all but flying down the highway.

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Daniel concealed the shiver that adrenaline-and-sex mood of Ian’s roused within him. Like honey-dipped lightning or perhaps the euphoria that came after the kind of orgasm that curled a man’s toes— Ah. Daniel tugged his T-shirt out and bent just so, with a grace learned from long practice, to slide into the passenger seat without betraying his reaction in the zipper region. Or not. Ian had the strangest look on his face, halfway between quizzical and—peculiarly unnamable—when Daniel glanced at him, did a double take, and turned back. A look that made Daniel want to squirm for a reason, though which reason escaped him at the moment. “What’s up with you?” “Hmm?” Hard to tell if he’d heard and processed that or not. Daniel nudged two knuckles in the smooth bend of Ian’s elbow. “Mr. Space Case. You all right?” “What?” “Careful or you’ll start to worry me.” Already had, enough to make turning partially toward Ian not a problem. “You’re not sick, are you? Flu’s been going around. I’ve had it once. If I need to spend our playdate wearing a mask so I don’t get it again—” Ah, better. Ian snorted a laugh and rolled his eyes. He knuckled Daniel right back, and harder, in the soft spot between ribs and pelvis. “Idiot.” He cleared his throat. “You’re looking good, that’s all. Thought you might have forgotten you look better in colors than monochrome, but I’ve got to admit, the view isn’t bad today.” Daniel scoffed, tucking his hair behind his ears in a vain attempt to control the thick, silky-soft mass. “Right. I’m on the downhill slide to forty.” He grinned broadly, knowing Ian loved it, wanting to keep his mood pricked bright and sharp. “Either you need glasses, or your standards are slipping.”

***

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Slipping standards? Wrong. So wrong. Ian adjusted his seat belt, grumbling. He’d lost track, replaying what Minnie said. Odds were he’d hear what she’d had to say for herself echoing in his head for hours. Women. Ian fell right around six-point-five on the Kinsey scale, according to one rare lady who’d caught his eye a year or so ago. And when he said “rare,” he meant it: rare. Once or twice per blue moon, chance or circumstance or both cast Ian in the path of a woman he couldn’t say no to, usually a class act who teased and enjoyed a night’s worth of fun and kissed him good-bye with a smile. If they stayed up half the night idly passing words back and forth instead of anything else, the way men just didn’t often manage with other men, and the lady didn’t mind, she’d stay in his book of favorites forever. He could talk to Daniel like that, though. Always had. And behold: Daniel equaled his favorite of all. Nosy know-betters like Minnie? Not so much. “Now you’re scowling,” Daniel said. He clicked his seat belt firmly fastened. “Mercurial mood tonight?” Ian’s laugh burst out of him of its own accord. “No more than usual. Ready to go?” “Only wondering why you haven’t burned rubber out of here yet.” Good point, and really, why hadn’t he? “Hold on to your hat,” Ian advised. He swung the convertible around to face the open, empty road and put pedal to the metal like a bat out of hell. He couldn’t tell which he enjoyed more—Daniel’s mix of startled yelp and exuberant whoop or the power of the motor charging through him, as if he were an extension of the car. Maybe both. Ah, screw it. Daniel all the way.

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“We’re friends,” he said as casually as he could, switching gears on car and conversation at once. Neat trick, huh? “That doesn’t mean I can’t and don’t think you’re pretty damn hot.” Oh Lord. Daniel blinked at him, startled out of both composure and temper either good or bad. Before he could get it together to answer him properly, Ian punched the gas and let the engine rip for all it was worth. Maybe someday he’d learn better, but he doubted it’d be today.

*** What was that all about? Daniel kept one eye on the road and one, thoughtfully, obliquely, on Ian. Ian considered him hot? Seriously? Forgive him for a dubious response, but… Daniel couldn’t exactly swallow the claim. Ian, on the other hand? God, what a different story. No one could claim Ian wasn’t a pleasure to look at. Very few failed to claim just the opposite. As hard as the man worked, he threw himself into play with the sort of gusto that would shock Rome in its final days. Any man or woman he wanted was his for the taking, won over by no more than one of those wide smiles or the crook of his pinky. Common sense tutted and shook its finger at Ian; the rest of the world marveled, stood back, and let him play, with Daniel watching amazed and amused while cozily ensconced in the wings. Sometimes Daniel wondered if Loki and Venus had crossed mythologies one drunken night to hook up just for the fun of seeing what kind of havoc their progeny could wreak on the world. If they had, the end result would be Ian. On nights both dull and long, Daniel confessed internally—and internally alone—he might be a little in love with Ian. That he’d given the larger half of his heart to the man over a glass of sweet coffee. That was a thing best shunted aside and forgotten. After years of friendship, if Daniel knew one thing for sure: avoid sleeping with the man. They wouldn’t be

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friends now if, many years ago on a tequila-soaked college night, he hadn’t been the one to say “no” when everyone else said “yes.” Certainly, he’d have had a night to remember for the rest of his life—and he wouldn’t have seen Ian again, ever, after they graduated. Granted, knowing better didn’t mean Daniel could quite stop himself from lighting up whenever he saw Ian, but, well. Ian never seemed to notice before. With luck, they’d keep it that way. Sticking pins in the balloon of Ian’s easy selfassurance as an accomplished Don Juan kept him level-headed. Better still, it engraved deeper the lines Daniel had drawn in the sand of what could and could not be. Would and would not be. Potato, potahto. Looking over at his friend behind the wheel, driving as if the car were his wings and he had taken flight, made Daniel want to burst somehow; to describe the sensation thus sounded odd, but he couldn’t find a better word, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing, to go up in flames in such a way. Look at him. Such a child. “You’re so very much in love with this car, you’re thinking about fathering its children, aren’t you?” Ian fist-pumped the air. “Even you have to admit she’s a beauty.” “I never said otherwise, now did I?” “I can hear you thinking ‘gas-guzzler’ every now and then.” Daniel chuckled, surrendering the point with a wave of his hand. True. Also true that Ian wanted to marry this cherry-red convertible. If he stuck and stayed in one place long enough to make the splash of cash worth his while, Daniel knew he’d buy one—and it showed. Daniel let it go and let him have that pleasure, a great big boy with a great big toy. Until, that was, Ian dared Daniel with the cheekiest of his grins and popped on a pair of sunglasses. Sunglasses at night; good God. Daniel laughed from the belly. Good, good feeling. “You really do think you’re ‘it on a stick.’ I don’t need proof. Take those things off before we crash.”

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“Nah. I like them.” Ian’s temperament eased from manic to relaxed. Still a little seductive around the edges. “As for ‘it on a stick’? Change that to ‘it on wheels,’ and I might have my moments.” “For example. And modest too,” Daniel said drily. He stroked the soft, inviting leather of the convertible’s dashboard. “I take it your last few adventures went well.” “Mm-hmm. The past months have been good to me. Better than usual. I got my hands on a bottle of 1907 Heidsieck—champagne—and sweet-talked my way into swapping it for a piece of Fabergé that belonged to a Russian princess once upon a time.” Daniel stared at his friend. If he ever forgot the differences between the lives they lived, moments like these served as a firm and definite reminder. “How did you manage—” Ian winced. He took one hand off the wheel to hold it up and stop Daniel asking. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

*** “I’m certain I don’t. It might not involve pits of snakes and bullwhips, but…probably not too far off either, sanitized and prettied up with a decorative layer of money both new and old,” Daniel said from the passenger seat of Ian’s indulgence on wheels, cozied up as comfortably as Ian had ever seen the man in the privacy of his own home. “If you want to be delicate about it, sure.” Seeing him so relaxed did good things for Ian’s mood. “Also, I found a few extra gems—not jewelry but antiques some of my buyers would jump through fiery hoops for. Come the end of those jaunts, I had more than I knew what to do with.” Daniel clicked his tongue. “In this economy, you should be ashamed.”

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Hmm. Hard to tell if he meant that or not. Ian fidgeted in his seat all the same, because Daniel wasn’t wrong. “Then let me donate some to the library. Half, a good half.” He could have predicted Daniel’s reaction down to the last nuance of his frown. “We couldn’t accept—” “Give me one good reason why not.” Daniel narrowed his eyes, but he kept his mouth shut. “So there.” Ian enjoyed a small victory as much as any larger prize. “The library’s getting a check when I have a chance to write one.” Daniel wouldn’t give up that easily; he’d only needed a moment to regroup. “You never heard of saving for a rainy day?” “I’d rather collect experiences than fill up safety deposit boxes to worry about. I get enough of that from clients.” Ian grimaced. “Seriously, it beats me. Most of my client list go to the kind of trouble and expense that makes the word ‘overkill’ an understatement, and nine times out of ten, what do they do with what they hire me to acquire? Lock it up behind glass to look at or show off instead of enjoy. If you ask me, good things should be enjoyed. If that makes me weird, so be it.” “Mm-hmm.” Daniel gave Ian the kind of once-over Ian didn’t mind, rife as it was with equal parts skepticism and amusement. “Rainy days spent with a roof over a man’s head are sometimes underrated.” “By some.” Ian cast an assessing glance toward the sky and clouds drifting thickly across both setting sun and rising moon. “Speaking of rain…” “Every single night for the last week, week and a half.” Daniel rested more fully on the supple leather of the passenger seat, head pillowed on the designated rest for such, and watched the illusion of the clouds fly past when Ian stepped on the gas. “We’re supposed to have a break from the deluge tonight. I’m not complaining. California’s habit of forest fires—fires of all kinds—inclines me to appreciate a good preemptive dousing.”

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Ian conceded the point. He’d let almost anything slide with the wind in his face and the adrenaline of a fast car racing through him. “Still, you think if there is rain, we can beat it tonight?” Daniel chuckled. “I suppose anything’s possible.” He sat up straight to peer curiously at the road as it flashed past. “Where are we going, anyway?” He nudged Ian’s thigh without looking. “Since you’ve kidnapped me—” Ian nudged back. “You came willingly.” “—then the least you can do is hand me a clue.” Ian considered that option for at least half a second before letting his broadest grin out to stretch his lips wide and release some of the building pleasure before he broke out in exuberance. No telling where that’d lead him. He might even end up pulling over and smothering Daniel with kisses. Oh. All right, that’s…different. Ian shifted uncomfortably in his seat and refused to take even a sideways glance at Daniel. There it was again, the spark that set him apart, still at its most pronounced tonight. Something wicked, deliciously so… Daniel took Ian off guard by squeezing and jostling his shoulder, checking him out with purely platonic concern. “Are you all right? You’ve gone pale.” The warmth of Daniel’s touch soaked through Ian’s Henley and deep into his skin, leaving behind what seemed like a handprint of cinnamon massage oil, exotically piquant and cozily, domestically centering. “Me?” Ian resisted the urge to take Daniel’s hand and ask him to leave it there. Please. “Never better. You feel like picking up the pace, maybe even speeding for a while?”

*** Curiouser and curiouser, Ian’s attitude. There would be more to this story, and Daniel remained intrigued.

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“So where are we running away to?” Daniel tipped his head back to enjoy the rush of early night air whipping through his hair and cooling his face. “You never said.” “You’ll see.” Ian frowned. Bless him; it wouldn’t have occurred to him to stop and think about the possibility of Daniel having other plans. “There’s no one I’m taking you away from, is there? A date, or…?” Daniel scoffed loudly enough for Ian to hear over the motor and the wind. “Very much not.” Ian slid his sunglasses halfway down his nose to better eye Daniel. “That’s a strong way of putting it.” Daniel rested his arm on the door, letting the wind high-five him down a long stretch of highway. “I have strong feelings about the matter. Or I did. As fast as they’re fading, they might have seemed rougher than they really were. Who knows? Now. Where are we going?” “You never let anything drop,” Ian chided. “Where are we headed? Honestly? Not sure. That’s kind of the fun of running away, not knowing where you’re going. Anywhere sound good to you? “Hmm.” Daniel let the road rock him, content with the rumble of the engine, both exciting and soothing. “Anywhere will do fine. I think I’m up for anything tonight.” “Speaking of those strong feelings about not having a date…” Ian might have fooled anyone else into thinking he had no plans to double back to town for the express purpose of kicking ass and taking names. “Down, boy,” Daniel murmured. They’d slowed on a curvy bit of the coastal highway, the lull of the engine allowing for quieter speech. “He’s not worth the mileage. Trust me.” “Ouch.”

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Daniel shrugged with one shoulder. “Strong feelings, yes. Still. Not quite what I thought they were.” And wasn’t that odd? On paper, he and Kevin had been perfect for one another. Kevin meant well and always had. Daniel would go so far as to say he was a good man: honest, straightforward, earnest, and interested in commitment. Reliable too; a man could set his clock by Kevin’s morning routine that somehow finished with him looking almost as rumpled as when he finished his day. Cute? Yes. Adorable, even. Sweet? Yes. Dull. Dull as cold gray dishwater? Daniel sighed as he finally admitted it to himself: yes. Ian’s memory had been working double-time over there. “Was his name Kevin?” “Possibly. And you are not allowed to abuse him verbally or physically. He did nothing but bore me; that’s hardly a crime, and the only one it speaks ill of is myself.” Ian’s response to that was short, rude, and to the point. Daniel eyed him sideways and pointed in silent warning. Which he immediately invalidated by slipping his phone from his pocket and waving it in Ian’s direction. “Riddle me this. What do Britney Spears and an ophthalmologist have in common?” Took Ian a second to get there; when he did, he groaned. “Tell me Kevin didn’t.” “He absolutely did.” “Breaking up via text message? No. Class.” Ian tapped the gas. “Your boyfriend has a first name: it’s M-O-R-O-N—”

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“Ex-boyfriend, thank you. And what, you think that’s classy?” Daniel tickled the underside of Ian’s biceps up to his shoulder where he finished with a brief jostle. “What am I going to do with you? Sometimes I wonder.” Ian’s quiet mirth was the response Daniel hadn’t known he wanted. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.” He took a curve, almost visibly thinking. And not liking his thoughts. “Seriously. An ophthalmologist?” “Hey, now. It’s a respectable profession, and Mother would have been so proud if I’d brought home a doctor.” Daniel propped himself against the car door, all the better to watch Ian indulgently. And with abrupt knowledge. “You’re imagining what the sex was like, aren’t you?” Ian almost kept a straight face. “No.” “Liar.” Daniel’s lips quirked. “I can hear you thinking. ‘Is it better this way or this way? First slide or second slide?’” “Oh God.” Ian covered his face in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal unmanly—well, he wouldn’t take kindly to hearing them described as giggles, but they were close enough to deserve the name. “Not while I’m driving, if you don’t want me to crash!” He wouldn’t crash. Daniel trusted him enough to keep going. “I think he needed stronger glasses, to be honest. He had trouble finding my mouth.” Ian looked sideways at him. “You’re into kissing?” Daniel started to say, you didn’t know that? But…he wouldn’t, would he? Odd. Was this the first time they’d talked details, not generalities? Perhaps so. Curious. Daniel snapped himself out of his brief fugue. “I like kissing. I do. It’s more intimate than sex, isn’t it? I think that’s why guys in the closet—” “Or two-beer queers—” “—or the cocky ones aren’t into kissing,” Daniel finished off. “It’s too personal. That’s what I think. And you?”

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Ian flipped him off carelessly and oddly affectionately. Daniel frowned. “None of that particular rant was directed at you, Ian.” Honestly now. He could almost see the oh in a thought bubble over Ian’s head. “From what I’ve seen, you’re not bad. Far from it.” Truth. Whether they chatted over their sex lives like the sort of blue-haired ladies who lived to horrify the younger generations or not, he’d seen Ian kiss enough men to note a plethora of positive reactions. And yes, on the inside he’d wondered what it would be like to be kissed as Ian kissed others. Daniel gritted his teeth and, with an effort, let it go. Ian drummed the steering wheel with his thumbs for perhaps a quarter of a mile. “The sex was really that bad, huh?” “Worse.” “On a scale of one to ten, one being jalapeno and ten being—” “He was oatmeal.” Ian’s empathy leavened the dismay of his cringe. “Tell me you’re joking.” “Would that I were, but unfortunately no. Lukewarm oatmeal. No salt—” “Salt on oatmeal? Ugh. I don’t get how anyone finds that tasty.” Daniel raised an eyebrow at him. “Then consider Kevin to be brined oatmeal. Or, if we’re thinking about what you like, oatmeal with no brown sugar, no processed white sugar, no sugar in the raw—” “I do not have that much of a sweet tooth—” Daniel ignored him for the fun of ticking off a list of toppings. “No honey, no molasses, no blueberries or strawberries—” Ian managed a pretty good eyebrow quirk of his own, even if his presented a whole different layer of meaning. “Not even a banana?” Daniel waggled his pinky finger at Ian. “Little banana. Very little.”

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Slight pangs of guilt stopped him there. Kevin hadn’t been that bad, and it reflected poorly on Daniel to enjoy impugning him so, but he deserved it after that gods-be-damned text. Revenge, both petty and sweet. Strange world, this, but it was what it was. Ian, not being privy to his thoughts, barreled cheerfully on. “No idea how to work it either, I bet.” “Not a clue,” Daniel admitted. Truthfully. “Don’t get me started.” “Huh.” Ian drove in a brief stretch of silence that ended when the curves in the road eased back into a long, straight line laid out before them. “You had strong feelings about a guy like him?” When Daniel chuckled, he felt the last of those conflicted emotions, both good and bad, float away to dissipate on the road behind them. “Not anymore.” The curve of Ian lips formed a certain sort of smile unfamiliar to Daniel. Not proprietary; Ian wouldn’t go there. Nor satisfied. Just…different. He thumped Daniel’s shoulder companionably. “Glad to hear it.” His tone? As strange as his smile. Daniel wanted to ask. He didn’t. “He didn’t deserve you,” Ian said. What? “Excuse me?” Almost impossible to tell in the dusk, but was Ian blushing? Daniel resisted—barely—the urge to lean closer and check. “He wasn’t good enough for you,” Ian explained, simply enough that Daniel couldn’t assign any subtext to his meaning. “Are you sure I can’t kick his ass, just a little? Maybe escort him to a dark alley?” “Do it and regret it.” Daniel knocked his knee against Ian’s to make sure Ian knew he was only joking. Mostly. “I can take care of myself. If I wanted him hurting…trust me, he’d be hurt.” Ian shrugged. Daniel knew he understood; still, he wouldn’t be Ian if he didn’t get the last word in. “Wouldn’t hurt to add some black and blue.”

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“Once more with feeling, friend. Forget about him.” A thought occurred to Daniel. “To be honest and text be damned, I think I’m only relieved now.” “How so?” Ian asked as took a curve casually. Daniel scanned the road in front of them. Did he smell the sea? “He wasn’t the one. I’d known that for a while now. What else is there to say?”

*** What else, indeed? Except Daniel being Daniel, he did have one more thing to say to Ian: “You deserve better too.” “Eh, maybe.” Ian fidgeted. “I’m too used to playing the manwhore.” “Hey.” Daniel’s jab this time hurt, and he’d clearly meant for it to. “Only I get to call you that. As for Mr. Right, I can wait. A little while longer. You could give it a try too.” “I’m not so great at waiting.” Daniel snorted. He tousled the wind-whipped curls at Ian’s nape and scratched below them, as if teasing the sweet spot under a cat’s chin. “Tell me something I don’t know.” Ian didn’t intend to say what he did. The words spilled out of their own accord. “Sometimes I think it’d be easier if we’d been able to fall in love with each other.” He held his breath after that—and after a handful of seconds, knew it’d been needless action. Daniel watched the side of the road, not him, the remark barely scratching his surface as far as Ian could tell. “Who can say?” Ian concentrated on his driving; for once in his life, it took effort beyond subconscious instinct. “Yeah?” “Mmm.” Daniel shifted position, mirroring Ian’s earlier pose with his forearm on the side of the door and his chin on his arm—or so Ian could only guess without seeing him from the other side. “We’ve spoiled one another for other men, I’ll grant you.” Daniel barked a laugh as Ian took the last turn and pulled into the spot he’d

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decided without consciously choosing he’d wanted to bring Daniel to. “You’re unbelievable, Ian. You brought me down the coast from one beach to another beach?” Ian pushed his sunglasses atop his head and dealt Daniel his broadest grin, the one that wrapped up tease and dare and so there in a bow. “Not so. This is a very different beach. Want me to show you?” Daniel pretended to weigh the question, even if they both knew the answer. “After you. If this is ‘anywhere,’ it’s not bad at all.” He stepped out and, in the moment when he stood in profile to Ian, poised between earth and sky, he stole the breath from Ian’s lips. Even so, when watching Daniel, Ian had to let himself enjoy the words inside his head. I’m in love with you, you know. And I always will be.

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Chapter Three “It’s easy to lie to yourself. Try it, you’ll see. Easier than it is to lie to others…until the day comes when you run out of lies. When all you’re left with is the truth, good or bad, if you’re not ready to face it, then that’ll be your fault. So you’d better be ready. Just in case. Otherwise? It’s going to get ugly.” —Ian

~*~ He knew. Ian could tell right away when Daniel glanced back at him. Only for a second and without saying a word, but it was a second that spoke volumes and silenced Ian. Utterly. I know, that look said, and it’s not just you, and please don’t push this. Like hell. “Daniel—” Ian reached for him. Daniel evaded, fading back and away from the car. He might as well have been a ghost for the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed and effortless flowing steps carrying him away from Ian and toward the beach. He’d tucked his hands in his pockets, and he toed off his shoes—no socks—before he crossed the boundary between parking and shore. “So tell me. What’s special about this beach, Ian?” “Daniel…” Daniel either ignored or didn’t hear Ian. “Looks like just another beach to me. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to stay here.” He glanced up at the sky and the gathering clouds that crowded closer over the moon. “Looks like it’s going to rain.” Ian rubbed the ball of his thumb across his forehead, right between the eyes. Too much to process, this, even for a man used to jumping in without a plan.

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Especially for that kind of man. This had layers, one piled on top of another, and leaping without looking? Not going to cut it. So…where do I start? Ian tossed his sunglasses into the backseat and lifted himself out of the driver’s seat Hazzard-style to take some of the pressure off. How do you convince your best friend you’re actually doing this for the right reason at the right time when he’s going to think the exact opposite? Jeez. Nothing like starting with the simple questions, is there?

*** Did the tide go out or come in at twilight? Funny how he’d lived by the shore for years and couldn’t remember. One of those things so ingrained in his thoughts he’d forgotten to pay attention, and when he made a deliberate effort to remember, nothing. Either way, the hiss and rush of waves washing up damp, hard-packed sand were an invitation less possible to resist than iced coffee on the hottest of summer days. Down to the water’s edge. Walk soft, walk slow. Nothing up my sleeve, and nothing on my mind. Daniel estimated zero chance of Ian being fooled, but as long as he caught a moment to process…it’d do. He rolled up his jeans legs to midcalf, preferring to wade without being soaked, though if he were to be honest with himself, a headlong rush into the almost chilly waters, head-deep or waist-deep, would be a better choice. He’d looked at Ian, and he’d known; Ian looked at him, and Ian knew. Knowing. That was one problem. Daniel stepped deliberately into the ankle-deep wash of a wave upon the sand and hissed at the cold; was it so chilly in these waters, or had his temperature risen?

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He didn’t dare look back at Ian now, though he could feel Ian’s presence not far behind—not in the water but half a minute from plunging in and jogging through the surf. Daniel held up one hand, palm out toward Ian, warning him back. Daniel’s body might be in the water, but it was his head swimming, and not in the right direction but against the current. It’s not just me. It’s both of us. A bad idea, oh yes; there couldn’t have been a worse idea between the two of them if they’d tried. Daniel had seen it for himself, and knew Ian would have too. Bodies had minds of their own. Any man with a working cock would tell you as much. Daniel snorted quietly. People weren’t joking when they called it the little brain. On the other hand, it did very little thinking and very much in the way of wanting and insisting on having its way. All it cared about was pressing against his zipper, a full weight almost impossible to resist, shouting at Daniel: you could have done this months ago. Years ago. Go, now. Now, now, now, now-now-now— Daniel gritted his teeth and refused his body’s obnoxious manners. If he so much as palmed himself the way he ached to do, Ian would see. Daniel could not— all right, would not—let that happen. Yet. He needed to—to think—to swallow something besides his own spit and the fine mist of salty ocean water in every breath. Friends made bad lovers. Or rather…friends could make good lovers. They could learn, or even instinctively know, how to please one another. But nothing lasted forever. And when relationships ended, messily or neatly, the friendship that’d held them together before… Daniel thought he might be all right. He’d pull himself together, and he’d go on. Ian wouldn’t be able to. It’d end him.

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But Daniel had seen what he’d seen in Ian, and what’d been seen couldn’t be unseen. If a thing were spoken, it could not be unspoken. Daniel moved deeper into the water lapping about his shins, wetting the rolled-up cuffs of his jeans. Cold, but not cold enough to do away with his hard-on. The reason why? Ten yards away, or less, standing on the shore watching him. Not that Ian hadn’t been the reason for more than a few inappropriate erections before. If he were to take a chance on himself and Ian being more than friends, he could take what he wanted. Daniel grunted as his body reminded him of how good that could be. His body also pointed out he’d have a long, lonely night ahead of him if he didn’t take what Ian offered. Yet he’d grown used to denial. When you had no other choice, Daniel’s subconscious whispered to him. You do have a choice now, and you know what you want. You know. He told it, abruptly, to shut up and silenced his mind. Silencing his body’s silent language? Not a possible thing. He turned without willing himself to do so, facing the shore, drawn as inexorably to Ian as ever, and Ian— No one could bow Ian’s head, nor could they bow his shoulders, but Daniel knew the man. He saw the small signs. Frustration. Something close to desperation. The verge of exhaustion. Cravings, restrictions he had no clue he placed upon himself, and the passions that moved him to travel the world shifting the sand beneath his restless bare feet… A man caught between was and is and can I. And underneath it all? Strength enough to outlast the ages. Daniel let his breath out in a long, slow plume. He’d known, more or less— mostly “more”—he wouldn’t have managed to resist Ian for long. Wherever he was, and wherever Ian happened to be, that indefinable something drew them back together even against the tide.

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Eyes on Ian, Daniel started back toward Ian, walking in water up to his thighs. Not up to his waist. Let him see what he’s asking for. Let me see how he reacts to the sight of me. I have to be sure before I take the next step, the one that’ll change what we are to one another. I need to know this not before it’s too late but before either of us risks it all.

*** Ian blinked up at the sky. Huh. Daniel had called that one, though the rain that’d begun to fall was no heavier than a fine mist. They’d get wetter from the sea if they stood at the shoreline. He brushed that aside to focus on Daniel. Ian would bet his shiny red convertible, rented or not, that what he had on his mind both was and wasn’t what Daniel would be guessing right about now. Want? Yes. Confusion? Sort of. Not knowing what to do tended to flap around only briefly in Ian’s head before it found the straightest route between two points and he aimed himself in the direction he chose, whether wisely or on a whim. Usually worked for him. In this case, though he hadn’t planned anything that had come to pass tonight, what he wanted was no whim. Serendipity kept a tight rein and blessed a man when she felt like it. Anyone who tangled with her had better know how to run fast. Stood to reason, then, that turning from her would be about as bright as a tenwatt candle. He wanted Daniel, and Daniel wanted him. End of story—or the beginning. Ian stood still and watched Daniel approach him, not moving but letting Daniel do all the work. Less would insult his pride. How is it fair the man should look so good wet, when he already looks as fine as wine when he’s dry? Cotton and denim molded themselves to Daniel’s skin where they were soaked or dampened by the ocean, the cling of the fabric leaving nothing

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to guess about above or below the belt—in regards to which the misting rain, slowly halting, didn’t damage the pretty picture Daniel made. And below the belt? Laughing at a man in that condition was too cruel for Ian to consider, and it’d be interpreted completely the wrong way. But c’mon. Daniel walked toward him cock first. He couldn’t have been blunter about the situation if he’d used a metal club. Though from the looks of things, comparisons could be made between one and the other, and Ian couldn’t say he’d mind being smacked with one of the two. He’d said it himself, before. Good things deserved to be enjoyed; why shouldn’t that apply to life as well as art? Enjoyed didn’t equal abused; enjoyed didn’t mean used up and dried out and cast carelessly aside. Enjoying a good thing involved taking care of it. Ian chuckled to himself but let his grin widen to its broadest and brightest to tease Daniel. If he was perfect, he wouldn’t be loved, and Ian did. Love him, that was. Prickles and mule-stubbornness and pride and scary coffee addiction, all of that and more. Then again…it could be that Ian felt no need to think there might be something better out there than this thing between them, acknowledged out loud or not. For its own given definition of the word, the imperfections of this thing between them made it perfect. He knew that. And if he knew it, then he could be sure Daniel did too. The cezve! Still in the trunk, forgotten. Ian snapped his fingers. They’d have to close the distance between them before they so much as talked about this; that was a foregone conclusion. He’d meant the antique Turkish coffee set as a gift, sure, but he couldn’t have found a better peace offering. Certainly beat candy or flowers.

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Besides. Nothing mellowed Daniel out like coffee. See? How I could I not love a man that contrary? Ian tossed his keys in the air and caught them without thinking, a long-term habit he barely noticed. Done and done. It’ll only take a minute to go dig the cezve’s box out of my trunk… “Don’t!”

*** The sea could be hypnotic; anyone who lived by any shore could tell anyone else as much. If he’d let himself forget, he could have walked for an hour or two, or even more, and fallen asleep on the sands if he liked. Might have, if he’d been alone. Normally Daniel didn’t mind solitude; normally, he liked having his own company and no one else’s. But to be alone with Ian almost out of sight but not out of mind—that was too alone. And when he’d seen the glint of metal as Ian tossed his keys— “Don’t!” Daniel did not clap his hand over his mouth like a startled maiden, but he wouldn’t admit to anyone—not even Ian—how close he’d come when Ian tossed his keys in the air. As if he were going to give up and drive away. He’d never do such a thing, even if they were each other’s worst enemy. Callousness like that wasn’t part of Ian’s makeup. But Daniel’s blurting it out in a moment’s panic, well, that gave the whole game away, didn’t it? Perhaps it was childish. No, strike that. It was almost certainly childish to stalk through the lapping shallows, leaving heavy footprints in the sand behind him, almost all the way back to Ian, but Daniel never had claimed not to have a temper.

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He stopped where he did, maybe three feet away, only because the look on Ian’s face and the hunger in his aura would have sent running anyone less used to the force of nature Ian encompassed. Brief silence spread thin and wide between them. In the end, the question Daniel needed to ask was simple. “How long?” He drew the meat of his lip between his teeth and bit to keep himself grounded as he took Ian’s measure. “Why now?” Give credit where credit was due. Ian didn’t dick around with his answer. He shrugged once and spoke, laying himself on the line. “I don’t know the answer to either of those questions, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Or that it’s not a good reason. All I know for sure is when we ran away tonight—” Ah. “So you’re bored with the everyday,” Daniel said. “What? No.” Ian narrowed his eyes. “Oh no you don’t. I’m not that easy, friend. You’re not tricking me into saying something you can use as an excuse. I know you. Part of that is knowing you’re a better man than to do it, but there’s a piece in here”—he twirled his finger beside his temple—“considering the option.” He touched his fingertip to his heart. “If this wasn’t deaf, dumb, and blind, it might have something to say for itself too, but we both know that ship sailed a long time ago.” He stepped back a single pace. “Not this one. All aboard who’re going aboard, party of one.” If he’d left it as a joke, Daniel could have done the same. He knew Ian better than that too. The man picked his moments for sobriety in nature as skillfully as a master craftsman picked his tools, and without a plan. Conception, inspiration, action, Ian’s three tenets to live by, all arrows shot from his heart rather than into it. If Daniel had left it there, he realized things might have turned out quite differently too. But he didn’t.

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Daniel crossed his arms loosely and planted his feet apart to brace himself on the shifting sands the tide threatened to wash away. “If you’re so sure of yourself and so confident I’m yours, why aren’t you on me yet?” “Because I’m tired.”

*** “Excuse me?” See? I knew I’d surprise him. Ian held out his hands, palms up and level. “I’m not tired of my work, and I’ll never be sorry I picked the job, but I will be sorry I’ve run too fast to see things up close.” Daniel had been preparing himself to say something. Now he closed his mouth tightly and watched Ian with the intense sort of focus cats directed toward unlucky mice. “And I’m tired of waking up alone,” Ian said. Silence. Brief silence. No change in Daniel’s expression when he remarked, too casually, “You’d think all the willing flesh a man could want on tap would be heaven.” Ian laughed; he surprised himself, but he wouldn’t have taken it back. Each touch of the unexpected drew Daniel closer to him in more ways than one. “I know, right?” Daniel rolled his eyes toward the heavens. “Stop that.” He’d come close enough for Ian to turn his hand palm down and capture Daniel’s. Daniel wasn’t the only one to stare at that. Gentler than either of them were accustomed to, no doubt, but here and now, anything else would be wrong. For the moment. Ian could feel a certain pressure building—and it was his way to go where the current took him as long as it carried him where he wanted to go. “You know what I really mean,” Ian said.

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Daniel inclined his head once. “Being used as a dick with a person attached. Person optional.” “Or a thrill ride. Buy a ticket and hop on so you can say you did and lived to tell about it.” “I haven’t been there,” Daniel said, cutting him a sharp, dry look. “Semantics. It’s all the same, isn’t it? Just bodies, just fucking. That’s okay sometimes. Sometimes it’s what you need, but you and me…” Daniel hadn’t moved his hand since Ian took it, but when he flexed his fingers, Ian knew he was thinking about pressing palm to palm. “I get you better than you think. People look at this and think ‘exotic.’” He waved at his face. “I am not a dish to pick and choose off a menu. Worse? ‘Exotic’ being all right for satisfying a temporary craving. I haven’t found anyone yet who decided they liked the taste long enough to change their palates for good.” “Except me.” “Except you.” “What would you do ‘if’?” Ian asked. “If you could talk me out of it. Which you know you can’t.” “I’d—” Daniel stopped, ducking too late to avoid the slap of a wave that hit him sideways. He came up spitting water and swearing. Ian kept silent. He might have popped something deep inside, but not a giggle would Daniel hear out of him. He hoped. Dear God was it hard not to burst out when Daniel did his best impression of a wet cat. After the first urge passed, though…there was a reason why T-shirts and ocean waves went very, very well together. If the tee had clung before, now it hugged Daniel closer than a second skin. Translucent, showing him nipped through the thin cotton…water droplets beading on his cheeks, lips, and chin…

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To be frank, it made Ian’s mouth water and he’d dare anyone to blame or scold. Wet cat? Not anymore, but instead a cat carved from obsidian and blessed by Bast herself. Or, putting poetry aside, it was a wonder the water didn’t burst into steam where it hit Daniel—water and heat had a habit of that when they met and sizzled—and the last thing Ian cared about was Daniel catching him staring. Daniel glared at him. “Not. A. Word. Let me think before I speak. If I put one word amiss, you’ll end up deciding to take up bungee jumping and knowing you, you’d forget the harness, so shut up and let me do this right before we get something wrong.” Ian snorted softly. He’d bet Daniel’s propensity for sarcasm had a thing or two to do with boyfriends who bailed on him. Thing was, Daniel only unloosed the sharp edge of his tongue if he cared. If none of the men in Daniel’s past had learned that about him or decided he wasn’t worth it, then Ian figured they had to have been truly stupid. Or had they known, on some deep and wary level, they were only in the way? “I want to know what you think you’re going after with this,” Daniel said flatly. “Tell me.” “You’re asking me that now?” Daniel drew his arms back up, crossed tight over his chest this time. “Yes. Especially, exactly now.” The penny dropped. Right. They happened sometimes to everyone, the kind of promises made to beautiful men with no intention of keeping them. Thing was, those pretty young men, chosen for their brains as well as their looks no matter what someone might think, had no intention of taking those promises seriously either. Easy. Simple. Daniel was neither easy nor simple; and to him, Ian knew he would keep the promise if Daniel let him. That was the easy bit. He’d already done it since they’d known each other. Funny. He’d never realized the reason neither of them could find

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someone to give their heart to was that they already had, and they’d carried each other’s in their pockets. “What’s that look? You’re a million miles away, and you’re right here. Flying like a dragon and crouching like a tiger. They both have claws and teeth; forgive me if I’m not comfortable.” “No more jokes.” Unfair to take Daniel off guard, but all was fair in love and war if the choice was only between love or war and nothing in between. “How long? I don’t know. Maybe always. And you? You didn’t answer me before, but then again, I didn’t get a chance to ask either.” Daniel’s feet were half-sunk in the sand by now, his own weight, however slight, digging him into the shore. “Wishing isn’t always wise.” “I’m not wishing, I’m working.” Ian raised one shoulder. “We could be good together. So tell me what’s out there that’s better than this thing between you and me. If you can think of anything. Dare you.”

*** What is better? Nothing. That’s the scary part. Ian admitted to being tired? Fine; so could Daniel. Tired of jackasses who might or might not have their faults, but for whom the deal breaker always came down to not being Ian. Full stop. “You’re a good friend,” he said. Drawing it out. Ian regarded him quizzically but went with the question. On his last thread of patience but willing to spin it out for Daniel. Daniel wouldn’t forget that. “And?” “If we do this, we’re all in. Do you know what that means? No. Going. Back. Not ever.” “I know,” Ian said. “You think I could, though? Uh-uh. You know me better than to pretend I could sweep a penny under the rug and keep it hidden, let alone this. Whatever it could be.”

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They drew closer to one another, Ian to the edge of the tide washing in, Daniel to the edge washing out, toes in the foam. Ian licked his lips. If it hadn’t been for that one glimpse of vulnerability… “So where does that leave us?” Ian asked as Daniel watched him. Daniel closed his eyes from a heavy spray of ocean mist. When he put out his tongue to taste the brine, he heard Ian catch his breath. “I’m…considering my options,” Daniel said. Of which there’s only one. But that’s how it should be, when… When there’s always been the One. Daniel made his choice. It seemed, later…like something out of a dream. The kind that you hang on to when you’re waking up, that makes you beat the alarm clock with extra vigor when it yanks you out of sleep. Only it’s real. Ian might be the one who pushed all the limits. But here and now, Daniel himself was the only one who could take that last step and make the first move. And so Daniel did. He lifted a leaf neatly from Ian’s book, stepped chest to chest with him and, though he had to rise slightly to his toes, pressed his lips to Ian’s. It shouldn’t have been, should in no way have been so, but it was—easy.

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Chapter Four “I’d known for years that it was better not to take chances. To keep back in the shadows where it’s safe, where only men like Ian dare to tread. Ian is the only one who ever did. That should have told me something, but I made sure to stay blind and dumb. I could say I should have known better, and it would be true. But I could not say without Ian, I would have ventured outside my zone. Ian has that way about him. He makes the impossible, possible. Whether you want him to or not.” —Daniel

~* ~ Daniel’s first kiss with Ian? Chaste, or nearly so. Mouths closed, lips against lips and no more. Ian took charge of the second kiss, slow and teasing, the tip of his tongue flickering across Daniel’s lips. The third kiss, shared between them, was…everything the first two hadn’t been, and more. Oh. Ian kissed Daniel just as Daniel had imagined, in his dreams, Ian would. He licked at Daniel’s lips again, insistent now, coaxing and demanding they part for him. The first stroke of his tongue drew a groan and a shudder out of Daniel. The second, slick and hot, he timed to grasping Daniel tightly around the waist and jostling their bodies together, groin to groin, stiff cocks aligning and drawing stifled shouts from himself and Ian both.

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Daniel licked his lips, so close the tip brushed Ian’s lip. Seeing him shudder— Daniel’s rationale and reasons crumbled like dried sand in a shock of wind and water from the sea and sun. Daniel wanted—no, he needed Ian’s hands on him. He’d damn the consequences just for tonight. Tomorrow could take care of itself. Yet though it was unlike any Daniel had known before, Ian’s kiss was more than he’d hoped for. When Ian wanted to please someone, he delivered. Ian’s kiss was the sort that turned everything on its side, impressing upon Daniel the oddest feeling that his bones were made of flint and striker, and Ian had snapped a spark into life. A spark that spread, making him tingle from scalp to toes, making him wanton, moaning into Ian’s mouth and clutching at the collar of his T-shirt. And yet it was but a tease, a test, and a taste of what could come. Daniel had seen it for himself enough to know the difference between Ian’s lightning-fast, instinctual test and assessment and the real thing. When Ian put his A-game into the job, more than a handful of men Daniel had been around to witness staggered away with the dazed look of someone who’d seen the face of the true God. Before tonight, Daniel had made sure to poke holes in Ian’s ego lest it get too big—not that it would have. Ian tended to watch those people go with puzzled amusement. “Just a kiss,” he’d told Daniel once. “What’s the big deal?” Then, Daniel had scoffed. Now, he knew the answer to that question for himself, thanks. Ian stopped him only when they needed to breathe, warm, moist puffs of air across their lips and chins. “We’re really doing this?” “Unless you stop this before it starts.” Daniel tugged at his hair, sharply enough to make sure Ian knew he meant business, carefully enough not to really hurt him. “I don’t think you want to do that. Or do you?” Ian’s grin turned playfully fierce and his eyes dark with glittering anticipation. “Are you challenging me?”

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“No need. Not when I can do this…” Daniel’s lips barely touched Ian’s before Ian eased him back. “What if I don’t want to do this?” “But you do.” Ian seemed to loom, the breadth and casual, careless strength of him blocking out the rest of the world without effort. He was not wrong. Thumbs beneath the corners of Daniel’s jaw, Ian tilted his head back to kiss him. Silver screens and Rhett Butler had nothing on Ian. All the promise of his tantalizing lips proved itself true to the letter and spirit of the law. But better still than his consuming kiss was the sense of a long, slow smoldering heat and dominance that permeated his every move and made him… Something more than human, Daniel thought. Ian was one of those unstoppable forces scientists and dreamers spoke of with reverence. When Ian decided to chase a goal, nothing could possibly stand in his way for long. Nothing would want to. My God. He’d barely survived nothing more than a kiss. Sex with Ian would kill him. Absolute certainty. But he’d die if he didn’t get to taste more of Ian than his lips. Might as well enjoy the ride and let it take him where it wished. “I think you’ve proved your point,” he said, slightly thickly. His lips felt swollen. “Not even close,” Ian murmured. “I haven’t even started.” Despite the words, he shuddered. “Daniel…I…” He stopped, composing himself; rather, trying and failing to compose himself. I did this to him, a part of Daniel’s mind exulted. He’s this mad for it because of me. Ian exhaled a gusty breath. “Sorry. My head’s…”

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Daniel rubbed his friend’s—his lover’s, now?—shoulder in silence. I hear you even when you don’t speak. Ian managed to steady himself at last. “Do you know how much I’ve wanted this? For how long? Stay with me.” Daniel tipped his head back to look Ian in the eyes. “Where did you think I was going?” Ian’s low laugh was the last thing Daniel heard before the skies opened up and unleashed the rain that’d teased and threatened them before. Sharply stinging droplets of water pelted Daniel’s skin even through his clothes, but he forgot it all in point zero seconds when Ian’s warm, solid hands took him by the waist and drew him closer still. He left them with almost no room for their chests to expand, too eager for more, and for skin on skin with no protection against the elements. When he lifted the hem of Daniel’s T-shirt, Daniel let him. The water, seeming sharp as needles, no longer hurt. It felt more like electricity dancing across his skin. Ian kissed Daniel once more, shaping the word beautiful with the movement of his lips on Daniel’s. Daniel swore and bucked up in search of more friction; Ian laughed and pushed his hips away. Tease. This is not a game. He’d be tempted to kill Ian if he didn’t need so badly to get fucked by him. Ian tugged at Daniel’s hand, nodding at the hard-packed sand. Down? Down, Daniel thought, catching Ian by the forearms. He drew them both to their knees, huddled together, never ceasing to kiss along the way, and then to lie full-length on the beach. No stopping there for Ian. He straddled Daniel, the long, solid weight of his body heavier than Daniel had expected, yet protecting him at the same time. He took Daniel by the wrists and pressed one to either side of Daniel’s head, whispering into his ear: “I hoped, but I didn’t count on it. Now? You’re mine.” Daniel arched up into Ian’s dominance, taking the submissive road without a second thought. Odd to think it, but with most men he’d had to be the top dog.

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They’d assumed he’d want the role. Not so with Ian. He made it clear right away who was in charge, and— Sweet, lord, it’s sweet. Daniel moaned, opening his mouth up for Ian to sweep in and take control. His heart pounded fast, fast, fast; he breathed in quick, noisy gasps, his dick hard enough to hurt. Ian wasn’t shy at all, letting Daniel’s wrist go to reach between them and palm Daniel’s dick. Daniel thrust immediately, instinctively, hissing at how good it felt. Nearly made the top of his head come off to think that this was really coming to pass, Ian’s hand on him and Ian’s cock a hard line trapped between their bellies. Daniel growled when Ian shifted away, letting go. He licked his lips. “Don’t play.” “No ‘play’ about it. Don’t want this to be over too soon, that’s all.” Ian sat up easily, kneeling over Daniel, fluidly stripping off his cheap cotton shirt. He tossed the shirt aside and stretched his arms over his head. “Warm-up stretches?” Daniel queried. “I dare you to blame me. The things I want to do to you, Daniel…” Ian hissed. He palmed his cock through his jeans. “God. If I can stop myself from coming like a teenager, that is. The way you look right now—” Daniel heard but wasn’t really listening, too busy counting the ridges of muscle in Ian’s chest, his fingers curling and uncurling. “Can I?” Ian laughed. He leaned back on his haunches, displaying himself for Daniel’s pleasure. “Help yourself.” Daniel surged up then, touching everywhere he could reach. He learned it all as fast as he could, sweeping over the taut ridges and planes of solid arms, broad shoulders, and a graceful sweep of muscle down to the dip at the small of Ian’s back right above the waist of his jeans. Ian was slick with sweat despite the chilly nip from the wind off the sea brushing across surf-dampened skin, licking beads off his upper lip.

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That would not do. Daniel needed to taste the salt for himself. He was the one who started the kiss this time, a hard smash of mouth on mouth he knew was clumsy, all teeth and bumping noses, no finesse, just frantic cravings for more. Ian succumbed in a way that reminded Daniel of a timber wolf in a good mood, letting a pup play. Daniel couldn’t be bothered to care, not as long as he got what he wanted, in abundance—Ian’s tongue thrust between his lips and Ian’s teeth nipping at his mouth. A groan swelled from Daniel’s throat. He plucked at the back pocket of Ian’s jeans, hovering at the borderline, asking without words if he’d be allowed. “Wish you would,” Ian said, gravelly voiced with lust Daniel could see in his heavy-lidded eyes. “Want some help?” He wasn’t kidding around. As Daniel stared, swallowing down a knot in his throat, Ian pushed his hand down his pants and rubbed his cock, the sight taking Daniel’s breath away in a dizzying rush. He lay down before he fell down and watched Ian with equal parts astonishment at his brazenness and desperation. Ian’s eyes drifted shut. He leaned his head back, chin up and lips parted. “See, I know what you want, Daniel,” he murmured, each word timed with a tug. Daniel had thought himself already hard enough do serious damage; he’d had no idea. Watching this would kill him. “I know what you dream about. I know what you need, and I’ve got it right here for you. All you have to do is come and take it.” Daniel’s heart beat far, far too fast. “I…” he started, not knowing what to say, not sure if he needed to say anything. “Ian, I…” Ian’s hand slowed. “All you’ve got to do is say it, Daniel. Ask and you shall receive, right? Ask and it’s yours.” “Let me see you,” Daniel said in a rush, tongue rough against his teeth. “All of you.” “Anything else?” Ian chuckled. Straddled him and balanced on his knees. “All you want is a good look at my cock, and then we’re done?” Daniel could have punched him. “That’s not all I want, and you know it.”

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“So tell me what you do have in mind.” Ian skimmed his palms up Daniel’s chest and tweaked his nipples, cocking an eyebrow when Daniel hissed. “Sensitive? Let me see.” In Ian-speak, apparently “see” meant “bite.” “Fuck,” Daniel breathed. “More.” Ian’s grin was as savage as his body was flexible. He undulated, moving his hips in fluid symmetry with his forearms, pushing farther down Daniel’s body. Putting his head at the right place to bend and suck, then nibble at one tightly furled nipple. Daniel jackknifed up, loosing a startled yelp. Sensitive? Not usually, not at all, but he’d begun to think Ian had a secret manual full of cheat codes. He knew how to make the impossible possible. After all, they were here together, weren’t they? Wasn’t that proof? Ian had Daniel right where he wanted him and knew it, no doubt about that. He refused to let go, not even when Daniel threaded fingers through his hair and pulled, when he arched his hips and fucked against the broad planes of Ian’s stomach. He could feel Ian’s groan thrumming into his skin, appreciating Daniel in equal measure but still the same old stubborn tease, moving from one nipple to the next until both were swollen and sore. Until he slid his thigh between Daniel’s knees, easing them open. Daniel pressed his thigh to Ian to anchor him, and when his body moved without his permission, thrusting against desperately needed friction, he shuddered and nearly came. Ian pinned his hip gently. “Not yet,” he said, blowing cool air over one wellloved nipple. Daniel groaned. “Soon.” “Better—better be.” Daniel pushed his wet hair off his forehead. The rain had eased up, the squall on its way out, but the spray from the ocean kept him from drying off. “Wait. Want to—can I suck you?” He struggled to raise himself on his elbows and bat Ian’s teasing hand out of the way, to tug down the zipper for his own

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satisfaction. His fingers shook, but though Ian groaned and arched his neck, fighting for control, he didn’t do Daniel the discourtesy of taking over. There was more than one reason to trust himself with this man. “I want to taste you.” Ian’s laugh was breathless. “What if I want to suck you too?” Daniel shuddered in the cold night air, its contrast strong next to Ian’s warmth. Lying with him was what lying under a fire must seem like. “At the same time?” “Maybe.” “Or would you rather fuck me?” Daniel watched Ian taking himself in hand and struggling not to come. So beautiful to watch him put that pressure on his cock. Daniel knew the choking pressure staving off orgasm had to hurt, but—I did that to him; I did that, echoed in Daniel’s thoughts. Ian reined himself in at last and let out a ragged breath. “You’re going to kill me.” He let go, though it took visible effort, and his cock jutted toward Daniel. “Suck me first. Then, God, I don’t know. Whatever. Anything.” Daniel shivered from heat, not cold. He pushed at Ian’s chest. Gorgeous idiot; he’d gone sex-addled. Daniel wasn’t far behind, but he could still direct them, him and Ian, guiding Ian onto his back and himself between Ian’s knees, where his shoulders were just broad enough to give him room to work. He licked his lips, tasting the rain, the salt, and the scent of Ian’s skin. “Like that. Just like that,” he said. Crooned. He brushed his lips over Ian’s cockhead and laid a warning hand flat on his stomach when Ian jerked, pushing up toward him. “Stay still for me. I won’t hurt you.” “I will if you don’t get on with it,” Ian begged. “Your mouth. Please. I need…”

***

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Fortunately for Daniel’s hide, he might tease, but he delivered. No sooner said than done, Daniel took Ian’s cock in hand, wrapped it tight around the base, and slid his mouth over its engorged head. His hot, wet mouth engulfed fully half Ian’s length, his tongue pressing hard on the knot of nerves under the head and his cheeks hollowing around the bulge between them when he sucked as fiercely as a riptide. The sight of Daniel on his knees—Ian almost clawed at his pretty friend, seizing handfuls of the man’s hair and trying to force him farther down, trying to hump the tight seal of Daniel’s lips and conquer his mouth. He couldn’t hear the words he babbled, though odds were they’d have embarrassed him if he could. If they were words at all. Ian figured he’d regret his loss of pride later. Maybe. Actually, probably not. Though Ian fought and lost and fought again not to let go, give in and fuck Daniel’s face—Daniel deserved better—he realized he should have remembered Daniel to be stronger than he looked. He held Ian still with no seeming effort and smirked up at him, flicking his tongue against oversensitive skin with the wicked skill of a devil. He didn’t let up, not once, never ceasing to find new ways to drive Ian out of his mind. Rolling Ian’s sac, tugging, adding exactly the right sting of pain to make this all the sweeter. All the while using his tongue, circling and pushing and stroking, drawing firm lines up and down, pressing light, flicking licks around the crown. “Daniel,” Ian found barely enough presence of mind to warn.

“Gonna—

gonna—” “Shh.” Daniel took a firm hold on Ian’s hips. “Do it,” he said, nuzzling the crux of Ian’s hip and blowing across saliva-wet balls. He thrust the breadth of his tongue beneath Ian’s shaft, letting the weight rest on the cradle he made, an example before he spoke once more: “Give it to me.”

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Ian had no choice, nor did he want one. Almost—he had wanted to fuck, to plow deep within Daniel, or to rut against him until they came together, but this…who could complain? Who could say a bad thing about a beautiful man on his knees, drinking down his cum? Ian took pride in not being “that guy,” the one who left a lover hanging. So to speak. Though coordinating his limbs took some effort, when he saw, through the haze of endorphins, Daniel palming his own cock hard and fast, almost there, Ian pounced. Clumsy, but effective. He knocked Daniel flat on his back in the sand and swallowed Daniel’s startled shout. He could taste himself on Daniel’s lips and tongue. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Ian pushed Daniel’s shoulder hard against the shore, warning him to stay put, and worked his way down the length of Daniel’s body. He could grow addicted to this, kissing and biting a trail to Daniel’s cock. He indulged himself with one moment’s breathing deeply, loving the scent, then took as much of Daniel’s cock as he could in his mouth and showed him what he was made of. Daniel twisted and cursed. No bothering with manners for him, unless he’d gone past that point—Ian thought he had, and exulted over it. Ian liked Daniel’s hips snapping, fucking his mouth with no gentleness at all More, he needed more. Ian hooked one hand behind Daniel’s knee and raised it, spreading his friend’s cleft just wide enough to give him room to slide behind and finger the hard knot where he’d kill to be. He pushed the tip of his finger through, less than half of the first knuckle, but it was enough. The sound of Daniel’s howl split the night wide, rough obscenities and noises that weren’t words but made his meaning perfectly clear. Ian drank greedily, sucking every drop Daniel had to give. Daniel had the sort of flavor Ian could enjoy all his life and never tire of.

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But neither would he be the man who pushed someone past the point of pleasure and into pain, not unless they’d agreed to play rougher games beforehand. He took one last lick to satisfy himself until the next time, sure as he’d been before that it would happen. Whatever it took, he’d make sure of that. He wouldn’t let Daniel retreat into the shadows or push him back into the box labeled “friend: do not touch.” Neither of them were going back to that life. Decision made, Ian held it together long enough to savor the sight of Daniel beneath him struggling to breathe, his lips swollen and slack from kissing and biting, and bare limbs sprawled apart. Good. So good. Then, the last of his strength deserting him, Ian collapsed by Daniel’s side as if he were a puppet whose strings had just been cut. He couldn’t have been happier. Which, in retrospect, should have warned him the fight wasn’t over yet despite his intentions. A man’s promises only mattered if the one he promised himself to agreed with the plan. But that came later. For now, he had Daniel next to him and the last thing on Ian’s mind was letting go. Not now, not ever, and never again… Why did we forbid this between us for so long?

*** Daniel shut his eyes against the falling rain that threatened to drown them both, that washed away sweat and semen all too soon from where they’d covered lips and legs with both. He knotted his fist in Ian’s hair, cradling Ian’s head. His laugh surprised him. “Mmm?” Ian slurred. When Daniel looked, Ian had slitted his eyes open, bare hints of color showing between nearly closed lids. He looked like a contented lion,

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prouder than his elements and as comfortable as if lounging in a Serengeti den, observing his domain. Such a man could make other men forget things they’d rather not remember…and give them new memories. Give them hope. Ian nudged him. “What’s funny, and what’s not funny?” Damn. He’d noticed the one and the transition to the other. Daniel should have concealed his emotions better. He swerved to focus on the former, not the latter. Amusement belonged better here. “Your hair,” Daniel said, fiddling with the wet curls plastered to Ian’s nape, chuckling when Ian bumped noses with him and trailed a lazy kiss across his lips, parted to draw in more breath. Ian blinked at him, head clearly lost back in the rush of coming. Every few seconds, his hips made an abortive twitch, aftershocks that ebbed only slowly. “My hair what?” “One half inch too long for fashion. That’s you. When most men bring out the mental rulers, they’re already unzipping to get an exact measure on whose is bigger. This hair? Such a deliberate tease. No one can call you on being a rebel with a clue, but they can sense it, and it thrills you to the core, doesn’t it?” “You are punch drunk, aren’t you?” “Am I wrong?” Ian laughed, breathless. “No. Though if we’re talking beauty marks…there’s you. You and your eyelashes.” “Do not go there.” Daniel wasn’t too giddy to jab Ian sharply in the side. “The next time someone gushes over my lashes or asks me about the brand of mascara I favor—” “People do that?” “At least once a month. Sometimes more. On a dare, sometimes, or out of simple cluelessness or nosy bad manners.” Daniel made a vague gesture meant to

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encompass all of the above in a single, aggravating group. “Next time someone asks me, I’ll ask them if they’re familiar with the discomfort of an ordinary lash in the eye. Then I’ll ask if they know what it feels like to have a pine needle dragged across their sclera. What are you giggling about?” “Nothing,” Ian said, the liar. He knew how to save his ass, though. “Get up here. And don’t talk about anyone else. Not now.” He thumped the empty patch of sand beside him. Following orders did not suit Daniel, but his body approved and directed his actions. Ian was warm and nice to lie next to. Daniel arranged himself on one side, resting his head on Ian’s chest to listen to the beating of his heart. He grumbled, of course, to keep face, but he didn’t doubt they were both aware he still rode high on the wave of endorphins. He wanted to kiss Ian again, to start all over and ride through the night, clear through to the break of day. Ian’s smile was as fond and as wicked as it was affectionate. “If I had a clue what to say right now, I would.” Daniel’s shoulders shook with amusement. He pressed his face to Ian’s chest, nosing in the soft down of hair. Curious, he tried an experimental nibble at Ian’s nipple. Ian hissed and jerked, legs shifting and heels dragging in the sand. His cock, soft but still dark and sensitive, tried to rise. Save that for later. But because he could, and to make the promise implicit, Daniel drew the tip of his tongue in a circle around the nipple he’d bitten before he subsided. Ian slapped his hip all the same. Turnabout was fair play. Daniel clenched his fist, nails digging into his palm, as the shock to his nerve endings arrowed into his groin and dosed him with sensory overload. Ian would be noting that too, wouldn’t he? Let him. Fair was fair. Daniel settled in, matching his breathing to Ian’s. Good, he thought drowsily. So good. I could almost fall asleep here like this…

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So strange, but so good too… But he’d spoken, if only to himself, too soon, and he’d forgotten that once it’s happened, you really can’t unsay a thing that’s been said, no more than you can undo a thing that’s been done. And if there are consequences of your actions, they’ll demand their due sooner rather than later. Every time. Sometimes the past picks its moment. But sometimes it pounces right away. Rain began to fall, light at first but not for long.

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Chapter Five “The Stones had it right, you know? A man hardly ever gets what he wants. Know why? Nine times out of ten, it’s only what he thinks he wants. And it’s never what he really needs. Sometimes—just sometimes—he gets lucky enough to figure that out in time. And if he’s really lucky, he’ll have someone to teach him where he was wrong and show him the error of his ways. Beating him over the head with a clue bat if necessary. It happens.” —Ian

~*~ Daniel made a mumbling noise in response to—some question Ian had asked, and he hadn’t properly heard, preferring instead to catch his breath and drift in the scent of man, sweat, and musk. The mess Ian had made of his hair would frighten small children and made Daniel chuckle, wrecked as the curls were from salt and sand. “You look ridiculous.” “You look wonderful,” Ian murmured, tracing a circle around one of Daniel’s nipples. “Awake now?” “Only sort of.” “You had other plans for me?” Ian’s grin rang with silent mischief. “You know me well enough not to ask. Don’t I always? Of course, now you have a few more ways to distract me…” Daniel pushed at Ian but only in play. “I see how that works. Distract you from what to what?” “Does it matter? Either way, we both win.” Ian leaned over to press his lips against the angle of Daniel’s jaw, flickering his tongue out for a taste.

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Daniel wriggled and laughed at his lover’s antics. Such a dork. If Ian wasn’t working on some kind of game, he just wasn’t satisfied. Turning on one side, Daniel drank in the sight of his lover. Disheveled and a little rough around the edges from his own sleep, Ian was still the best-looking man he’d ever seen. Even better now, with nothing in the way between his hand and firm flesh, a down of dark hair and lean, muscled legs… “Like what you see?” Ian grinned, flexing for Daniel’s benefit. The muscles on his chest and stomach rippled, fluid yet hard enough to slice tomatoes on. “You know I do, you narcissist.” “Good.” Ian rubbed his knuckles lightly along Daniel’s shoulder. “Kiss me again.” As their mouths touched, Daniel tasted the flavors of salty flesh and spicy cinnamon. Ian lifted up, angling their heads so that he had the dominant position with Daniel pushed down on the sand, but Daniel found he didn’t mind a bit. Not when there were such sweet, hot lips pressing tight against his own. Ian drew back, his cheeks flushed. “There. Now we’re even. It’s your turn to one-up me. Or not.” He laid his hand on Daniel’s back, stroking in slow, lazy passes from the small to his nape. “I’m glad I have you. Did you know that?” Unsaid, Daniel knew he meant: that we are not just friends now. Why that terrified him, with a sharp and sudden spike as if an icicle had pierced his chest, he didn’t know. Only that it was so, and between one heartbeat and the next, he couldn’t get far enough away from Ian—no matter the confusion and hurt it caused him. Daniel’s heart pounded in his throat. There were things he didn’t know. Some he might have guessed, and some not… Ian misunderstood him. Unreadability settled on his face, covering the wound to his spirit, though not well. “You’ve changed your mind now. Haven’t you?” Daniel said nothing. He couldn’t find the words.

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“Fuck.” Ian abandoned his pretense of neutrality; he’d never been good at that and knew it. He sat up, scraping one hand over cheeks and chin, a vain effort to swipe away the rain. “I started it.” Daniel blinked. “What?” Ian gestured between them and the space Daniel put there. “I didn’t ask. That’s what—isn’t it? Or I wasn’t what you’d hoped I’d be?” Daniel wished he were closer so he could twist Ian’s ear. The words came easily enough now. “You know I could have stopped you if I’d wanted to.” He nibbled at his lip before adding, “And you were better than I’d…” “So, what?” Ian’s back stiffened, startling Daniel with his abruptness and the start of real anger. “What was that about? Just an itch for you to scratch?” “Ian—” What Daniel wanted, needed to say, still wouldn’t come out. Ian waited, impatient, anger deepening. Emotions ran high after sex like that; Daniel remembered from rare occasion in his personal dating life when he’d come so hard his thoughts were almost impossible to tangle afterward. Daniel wondered if that and only that was responsible for his change of mood. He couldn’t tell. He dived onto a different topic, the one that should have frightened him more yet didn’t. He didn’t know why it poured out. Only that it did. Speak now. Work up the nerve for later. “Ian…you’re worth more than a onenight fuck, and if you don’t believe that, then I wouldn’t have run away with you at all.” He centered himself before he went on. “I love you. Believe it or not. I do. Your friendship means too much to me to risk. You get that. Don’t you? Ask yourself if you feel the same way about me.” A portion of the tension eased from Ian’s shoulders. “Honestly? No. I don’t. All I know is when I’m with you, it’s easy. When you let it be,” he added pointedly. Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose. “You never quit. You don’t even know how, do you?”

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“Not without a good reason.” Ian spread his hands apart, palms up in the “help me out here” gesture. “Why?” “I don’t do casual. I don’t do sex with friends.” Daniel speared a double handful of his wet hair and pulled a little too hard, needing the prickle and sting to keep him on track; the rain wasn’t enough to keep him focused anymore. “What am I doing here? Do you want to know what I’m thinking, Ian?” he challenged. “Really?” Ian could be as stubborn as Daniel or more so. “Yes.” “You should be able to tell,” Daniel said, bitter as lemon pith. “If you know me this well. I’m fucking terrified. Sex changes everything, and what if you—no. It’s a bad idea. We shouldn’t have ever… What I feel, it isn’t… I am a better man than to let myself do this, and you are too. Unless I don’t know you at all either. Do I?”

*** Ian might have let other things pass. Not that. No way in hell would that one coast by. “You stupid ass,” he said, the words tasting like the rain and black silk as he spoke them. “You’re worth more than a one-night fuck to me too. Didn’t you know? If that was all I’d wanted, I’d have teased you into it the first time we met.” Daniel wasn’t too confused, or overwhelmed, to scoff. “You think I’m that easy?” “I think you wanted me as much as I wanted you. Just took us a long time to see it.” “And now?” Daniel wouldn’t look at him, using his toes to dig holes in the sand and anchor himself there, watching them instead. “I like that about you. The way you never stop asking.” “God. You would.” “No, seriously. Listen to me.” Ian slid closer, pressing their bodies side to side. “Look at me too.” He waited for Daniel’s struggle to pass, and to lock gazes with him when his pride brought his head up to do as Ian wanted. “I understand where you’re

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coming from, and yeah, going from friends to lovers can be a mistake. For others. Not us.” “What makes us different?” “If I could explain it in ten words or less, I would. I can’t. Could you?” Ian tapped Daniel’s chest. “But you feel it, and I know you know it. Don’t lie to me or try to drive me off. What can you say that you haven’t said before that’s going to stop me from loving you this way same as I cared for you as a friend? If there is something, tell me, and tell me now.” Daniel dodged the question. Again. “How would I be enough?” he asked, making the question a demand, a bark sharp as a bite. “Don’t tell me I would.” “What the…” Of all the things Ian might have expected, this was not it. “How do you know you wouldn’t be?” Daniel’s stare became a glare. “Because I. Know. You. I’ve watched you for years, and I’ve heard you tell your stories. When you’re away, you play. A different man every month, isn’t that what you claim? As if it’s something to be proud of? You—” “Stop.” Ian used his greater height and bulkier musculature to knock Daniel to his back in the sand; he wouldn’t have if the anger hadn’t taken over his better sense for a moment. But once begun, best get it done, and I sure have his attention now, don’t I? He pinned Daniel down, one hand over his mouth. Even if Daniel bit him—and he might—Daniel would hear this, by God. “You’re right. I admit that. And every time it happened, do you know what it was? Sex. Just fucking. Sometimes not even names, or real names. Too many men who didn’t remember my name a week later. You didn’t know that about me, did you?” Daniel shook his head slowly, silently, rain pattering between his slightly parted lips. “You say you don’t want to lose my friendship? Fuck, Daniel, do you think I want to lose yours? As often as I move around, how many real friends do you think I

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have?” He took his hand away from Daniel’s mouth to replace it with his forefinger. “One. Just one. You.” Daniel drew in a ragged breath but said nothing. Ian didn’t quit. Daniel needed to hear it all. “When I do something, I do it all the way. I make up my mind like”—he snapped his fingers—“that. That’s true too.” Daniel nodded once, slowly, agreeing with him. A glimmer of hope, well mixed with wary caution, began to kindle within Ian. Maybe, just maybe… Wrong. “If I’d slept with you that first night, I wouldn’t have seen you again. Ever. Tell me that’s not true.” Ian stopped. Damn him for going right to the point that couldn’t be avoided. “No,” he said. “You wouldn’t have.” “You see?” Daniel asked. Ian could see, indeed; could see Daniel sealing himself off. Back beyond a friend, to the cool stranger he’d been when they first crossed paths. “People don’t change their ways. Not even you.” “The hell you say. I—” “Stop. Let me finish. You love your work, but it takes you everywhere, almost without stopping. I’d make a terrible war widow, and I’m not going to stay up at night wondering if this is the time you find someone else, someone bett—” Ian had thought he’d heard too much before; he knew now he’d been wrong, and this was the very last he could take. He bore down on Daniel to make him listen. “How do you know I’d be faithful to you? I always have been. Not as a lover, but they came and went. You stayed. I’ll come home to you whenever I can. Trust me or don’t trust me. And no matter what you say, I’m still your friend. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t. Not if we don’t let it.” Daniel drew his tongue across his lips. He looked lost and hopeless when he tried to deny the truth. “Easier said than done.”

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“Why? Because people say so?” “Because I’ve seen it.” “And I’ve seen it work the other way around. So have you.” Daniel hesitated, almost visibly torn down the middle between want and shouldn’t; between right and wrong. Almost there. Ian pushed his luck. “Kiss me, Daniel. Kiss me again. One taste isn’t enough. I’m addicted.” He put the finger that had been on Daniel’s lips beneath his chin, tilting his head back. “And so are you. Aren’t you?” Daniel closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said on a breath. “And I can’t make myself stop wishing—” “Don’t wish.” Deliberately and slowly, Ian draped his full weight atop Daniel, keeping him there. Steadying him when he needed it. “Why wish when you can do?”

*** Ian didn’t care for the look on Daniel just then. He’d gone somewhere a million miles away inside his head, and it wasn’t any vacation in paradise. He’d chosen this, chosen Daniel. If Daniel had a problem, he’d solve it or die trying. I can start here as well as anywhere. Ian jostled Daniel’s calf to keep him centered and make sure he knew he wasn’t alone even if he had rubbed Ian the wrong way somehow. “What’s going on in your head?” “Do you really want to know?” Simple words simply spoken, but Ian’s skin prickled with the odd sensation that he’d just tweaked a sleeping tiger’s tail to see if he’d wake up—and he had. One golden amber eye open, staring back at him. He suspected Daniel was deciding whether or not to take Ian’s hand into his mouth and bear down with his sharp teeth. Ian had, once or twice, seen Daniel aim that sort of look at one of his soon-to-be exes. He’d never imagined it pointed his way.

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“Right.” Daniel looked up at the clouds. The rain fell sharply upon them again—it’d been a merciless night for that—splashing over his chin, his forehead. He put out his tongue to taste, as if they were snowflakes, and didn’t speak again until his hair had begun to curl from the gathering wetness in the air they breathed. “What if I did tell you no? And you knew I meant it? What then?” The rain began to fall harder, really pounding down around them now. Okay. “I know you better than you think,” Ian said. Needing to touch, he mirrored Daniel’s pose and rested his bare foot against Daniel’s thigh. “You were born with your fists up. You fight everything. No way would you give up. Ever. That’s not something I have to worry about, even if you did scare me into losing five years. Which you did on purpose, because you’re that contrary.” Daniel inclined his head once. “As long as we’ve got that straight.” He rubbed his chin. “Okay. It’s my turn now. Fair?” One of Daniel’s eyebrows rose, but after a moment’s thought, he nodded. “I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I’m not going anywhere,” Ian said. “Even if you try your damndest to make me, and I know you would if I let you. Know this. I’m here to stay if you’ll have me, and even if you won’t. That’s why you never let this happen, isn’t it? You didn’t want to need me too much.” As graceful as ever, even here and now, Daniel moved like a dancer to rest his bare foot on Ian’s hip. Even with his eyes almost shut against the stinging rain, he kept Ian’s gaze. “That is why I won’t take a chance on losing you. I know what happens when love isn’t enough, and no matter how close you are to someone, a day will come where that love isn’t enough. Do you understand now?” Ian knew nothing about forests beyond what he’d seen on TV, but he did remember one thing. The only way to keep a forest alive was to burn it down every now and then. When the undergrowth grew too thick and choked the life from itself. Sometimes nature took care of the job.

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But sometimes a man had to strike the first spark. “Such a stubborn ass,” Ian said. He braced the length of his body over Daniel, balanced on his hands and knees, a human shelter against the storm. Daniel held still, confusion outweighing protest just long enough for Ian to take charge. Small enough to need this, too tough to ask for it. “You asked me to listen. I listened.” “And?” No way Daniel knew how he looked. Almost childlike, the storm washing away layer after layer. Helpless and asking with words, please, I need you, I just don’t know how to say that out loud. “And I’m done listening. I read you loud and clear.” “And?” Ian pushed Daniel’s wet hair out of his face and bent to press their foreheads together. He kept Daniel’s gaze locked down tight. “And if you say another word, you’ll wish you hadn’t.” “What?” Ian took Daniel’s chin to hold him steady. “Shut. Up. Do it now.” That got a reaction, and it was anger, a flash of pure rage; and it was fight, not flight. “The hell you say. I tell you something no one else knows, and this is what you give me? Get off.” He put up a good struggle, but Daniel didn’t have the leverage, laid out across the sand as he was, to push Ian off. Good. Ian had counted on that. He clamped his knees next to Daniel’s on both sides and used him as a fulcrum to lower his body, not stopping until it was his weight that kept Daniel pinned and—safe. He took the risk of being bitten and pressed his finger briefly to Daniel’s lips, trailing his thumb over what could be soft when not hard with anger. “You heard me just fine. Hush.” “Off.” “No.” Wherever Daniel dodged, Ian followed; every move he made, Ian could anticipate from the tiny tells he’d picked up over the years. Who was transparent

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now? He couldn’t shut up now, so it was a good thing he didn’t want to; he couldn’t stop touching Daniel’s face either, stroking across the sharp edges of his cheekbones, the curve of his mouth, the water that beaded on his lashes. “I heard your words, and you know what?” Daniel turned his face away. Ian took his chin and turned it back. “Listen to me. Listen.” He dropped to a whisper against Daniel’s ear, words sliding between the needles of rain. “Listen, shh, listen. You need to hear these words.” Daniel stared at him, flinging up the last silent shield of challenge. “Shh,” Ian said into Daniel’s ear. He pulled Daniel’s arms out from between them, drawing both hard and sharp above Daniel’s head. However it had to be to get his attention and keep it. Ian didn’t let go. “I’m going to tell you a true thing, and you can tell yourself you don’t believe me if you want to tell a lie.” Daniel said nothing. “Look at you.” Ian stroked against the finest fine grain on Daniel’s cheek, his stubble not even as dark as a shadow. “Amazing, that’s what you are. Beaten. Bruised. But not broken. Never, ever broken.” A drop of wariness mixed itself with Daniel’s indignation, turning it a different hue altogether. “That’s your big reveal?” “Nowhere near it. Don’t roll your eyes at me. Look at me. Right here.” He could see the fight, the effort—but Daniel did it. That would make all the difference in the end. Daniel would come around for him. All it took was time. Time and no levees allowed to hold back the floods. “This is my true thing. No matter what you say. No matter what you do, it’s going to be the same. I will not change. Look at me. Feel me. Know this.” Daniel stared at Ian, already shaking his head.

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“Shh. No. It doesn’t matter what you say or how you try to make me run. Look at me and know it’ll always be this way. Know this.” Ian touched his lips to Daniel’s and said, soft and low, each word a kiss: “I’m. Still. Here.” Daniel liked hearing that just about as much as Ian figured he would and reacted the way Ian predicted—God, did he react. This was the tiger fighting to get out of a trap, on the wrong end of a rifle with a bullet that had his name on it. He tightened his hold on Daniel’s wrists, reminding him he couldn’t move. The fragile bones felt too small, and Ian hated himself for knowing he’d leave a bruise there, but it couldn’t be helped; it had to be this way. “You can’t make me go away. Stop trying.” He wouldn’t let Daniel look away, and the rain falling thick as hail around them wouldn’t let Daniel close his eyes, but he rested his body fully against Daniel’s, chest to chest, hip to hip, and found Daniel had grown hard. Hard as Ian was. His body strained to arch up without his knowledge. Ian pushed the sensation as far away from his mind as possible. He could wait for that, and he would, until Daniel said yes. Which, in all honestly, might not be for a long damn time. So be it, if it had to be. “I have another true thing to tell you.” Daniel’s throat moved in a sharp, angry swallow. “Don’t.” “Doesn’t work that way either. I’m. Still. Here.” Ian slid his knee between Daniel’s and held Daniel safe when Daniel arched up at the pressure, neck and back forming curves like the brush of wings, and his mouth opened on a sharp breath in. “And so are you.” Daniel jerked as if he would throw a punch—but he stopped short of hitting the mark, his knuckles digging into Ian’s chest. He said nothing, but he didn’t have to. Ian had all the words they needed. “I know you.”

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Daniel closed his eyes. Ian kissed the lids, careful; kissed his lips, licking them open until Daniel’s groan filled his throat. “See? You know, you always knew. If you really wanted me gone, you’d have turned your back the second before I said hello.” Daniel’s lips moved without sound. Dark eyes opened only just barely wide enough to catch the blackness and the heat of them. Ian spoke the last he had to give against the corner of Daniel’s mouth, kissing him in a counter-rhythm against the pattering of the rain. “You’re still here. That’s how I know you’re in love with me.” Daniel’s eyes flew open wide. Overhead, the first of the thunder rolled deep as the sea that swallowed the sky-splintering crack of electricity beneath the angry waves. Swallowed it and washed it out with the tide. There. There was the tiger stumbling to rest, still growling but not biting. Swimming, not drowning. Ian saw it when Daniel licked his lips clean of rain that came back, and back again, but he didn’t stop washing the drops away. Silence. Stillness. Nothing but water and sand and flesh and Daniel. Waiting. Waiting. Holding him down until he could rest. “As long as it takes,” Ian said. “Years. I’ll still be here.” Daniel hissed; the tiger drawing in its claws—and rising up with one last drop of fight. He hooked his leg around Ian’s, letting him in and locking him close. Hard. Hard as thunder. “I know.” Ian pressed his forehead against Daniel’s, the shock of contact sending white sparks through his head. “I know,” he said again and again. “And I’m still here. Still here…” He had more to say, true things he wanted Daniel to hear. He let them flow from him in a torrent, both words and just—sounds—all that came to him, he gave

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away. They fell together in a pattern matching his body’s movement, a rhythm no one could stop. Not ever. Making Daniel feel. Who moved first, who wrestled them into kissing with a crash into one another, Ian didn’t know and never would, but Daniel’s lips were hard, his teeth were sharp, he showed no mercy…and he tasted of salt that had nothing to do with the sea. He wanted no mercy either. Ian knew Daniel the way Daniel knew him, and he knew he had what Daniel needed. He was the only one who could—who would—give Daniel all of himself. No strings. No rules. Just this, in the rain that washed away the world.

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Chapter Six “Forever isn’t long enough, but with Ian? It’ll do. For a start.” —Daniel

~*~ Ian suspected he might have to teach the lesson more than once, but that’d be all right. He’d be there in person more often, now he’d have a real home to call him back, and if not? There were a thousand ways to reach out and touch someone even from an equal thousand miles away. They’d make this work. If he had to show Daniel, or both of them, whenever they needed the reminder, Ian would be the man they could both count on. He kept his promises. Daniel knew that, but Ian wanted to show him again. Now. Ian began kissing him wherever he could reach, small touches on smooth skin fever-warm to the touch. “Forget the past. For now. Be here with me. Just us, just now. Do that for me?” He pressed his lips to Daniel’s chin, his neck, over the delicate wings of his collarbones, never staying in one place long, only enough to make Daniel hiss and chase after him. Daniel’s eyes were dark as midnight when he pulled Ian’s head back. “You’re going to fuck me, aren’t you? I’ll leave my mark on your back, purple bruises where I’m holding on so tight. Go ahead and give me your best shot.” “God. Give a man some warning before you say things like those.” Ian kissed Daniel again, a hard crush of mouth against mouth, careless of his teeth grazing tender skin.

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“Is that a yes?” Ian pressed his fingertip to Daniel’s lips. “Yes, God yes, just—not yet. Shh. Let me do this first.” “What—” Daniel tried to rise. Ian pushed him back down and pressed his hands against the sand, holding firm long enough to make sure Daniel got the point. “From me to you. Let me.” “Ian…” Daniel slid his fingers through Ian’s hair. “Stupid curls. You have no right to be a grown man and adorable. It shouldn’t be allowed.” He stopped. “These things you’re saying… you don’t have to.” “Crazy talk. Like I could look at you, know you’re mine, and keep it cool when I could do this instead.” Ian eased Daniel’s fist free of his hair. “Hands by your sides or on my shoulders. My turn now.”

*** Daniel felt a brief tickle as Ian settled into position at his hips, then moaned out loud when soft, talented lips wrapped themselves around his cock. The intense suction increased as Ian’s mouth slid down the length of his shaft, taking more and still more in until Daniel felt himself bump the back of a very talented throat. Ian swallowed around the head of his cock. God, oh my God. Daniel’s head swam. Ignoring Ian’s orders to the contrary, he shoved his hands through Ian’s messy, twisted curls. Ian withdrew, swirling his tongue around Daniel’s cock. A literal cock-tease; I should have known. “You now. What do you want, Daniel?” Ian whispered, his breath hot against Daniel’s thigh. “Stand up. Stand.” Daniel pushed Ian off and rolled, pushing himself upright, then tugged Ian to his feet. “You’re turning down a blowjob?” “Only for something better.” Daniel shook clinging strands of hair out of his eyes and rubbed his head against Ian’s chest. Standing just so, he nudged their

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groins together and guided Ian’s hands into proper groping position. He wouldn’t mind a good grope right about now to take the pressure off. So to speak. Ian took but a moment to get with the program. His prowling hands were everywhere he could reach on Daniel, now-here-now-there; his muffled chuckle echoed against the soft skin behind Daniel’s ear when he laid openmouthed kisses on Daniel’s neck. Not enough. Daniel rutted forward into Ian’s groin and back into Ian’s hands, urging his friend—lover—to knead his ass. He pushed back into Ian’s palms and forward against Ian’s cock in a mimicry of fucking, to tease him and to drive his point home. “Oh fuck.” Ian breathed out, ragged. Daniel could feel Ian’s smile against his collarbone. “Don’t say that unless you want me to take you up on it.” Daniel snorted. “If I didn’t mean it, I wouldn’t have said it at all.” “Huh.” Ian drew his clipped nails lightly down the small of Daniel’s back. “You wouldn’t have. Good.” “Good.” Daniel cast about for Ian’s discarded clothing. “What—” “Ah-ah.” Daniel pinched Ian’s hip. “Don’t tell me you’re the kind of man who doesn’t carry.” Ian had started to crouch to dig through his pockets; now, he stopped. “I was, yes. I do have stuff with me. I’m not going to carry as a matter of habit anymore.” He glanced up at Daniel. “Do you understand why?” Daniel shivered. “I think I do…maybe?” “Knucklehead.” Ian hooked his jeans with one finger through a belt loop and stood, carrying the sodden denim with him. “I carried because of the whole ‘you never know when you might get lucky’ thing. Now? I know when I will and when I won’t need supplies. I’ll leave the stuff with you, at your place.” Daniel hesitated. “It’s honestly that easy for you?”

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Ian raised one shoulder. “It is.” He quirked his mouth. “Don’t look so shocked.” He pressed that wicked mouth to the corner of Daniel’s lips. “I’d rather fuck you into a stupor than have to go for the smelling salts now.” “You idiot.” Trust Ian to make him laugh. Always. “Come here.” And Ian came.

Smiling had started to feel natural again, more so when he turned them roundabout, up and over and down, laying Ian on his back so Daniel could climb the length of Ian’s body, pressing close every inch of the way, his hands running over every expanse of smooth flesh he could possibly touch. By the time he’d gotten all the way back up, Ian’s lips were parted with lust, and his breathing was heavy. “Yeah. Perfect, you’re…” He grabbed Daniel and rolled the man with him as he went down on his back. “The stuff’s in my pocket. You’re closest. Get them for me?” Daniel measured the distance between himself and the discarded jeans, between Ian and the discarded jeans. Exactly equal. He started to point that out, then stopped and laughed. “You want to see me stretch.” “Mmm. Guilty.” Ian stroked the tip of Daniel’s chin, kissed it and bit it, rumbling a pleasant chuckle when Daniel mewed. “Would it help if I said please? Or would you rather I ordered?” He slid his thigh between Daniel’s and shifted his hips, dragging the weight of his cock across Daniel’s stomach. Daniel shuddered. He ached with the emptiness he wanted Ian to fill. Looking at Ian, Daniel knew he knew what was needed. And how to get there, over this last break in the sidewalk. “Maybe I do need to order you,” Ian said, looking darkly, sensually proud when a groan pulled itself from Daniel. “So pretty…so fierce. Get the supplies for me. Now.”

***

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Ian doggedly fixed his focus on Daniel. He opened a packet of slick one-handed and drizzled a generous amount on his fingers, suddenly aware how cold and stiff they’d grown during a night by the sea. Slick and sticky, he worked his hands together to warm the stuff up. “Don’t have to worry about being careful.” Daniel shimmied with impatience. “I’m not. I just…no, it doesn’t matter. I want you.” Ian slipped his hand around Daniel’s cock, grinning when the man let out a gasp, then moved on to tickle his balls and stroke the smooth strip of skin behind them. “Get between my legs,” Daniel directed, parting his thighs wide. “You know the way.” Yes. Centering himself felt like the most natural thing Ian had ever done, falling to kneel between Daniel’s legs with a feeling like he was coming home. Daniel lifted those legs to wrap around Ian’s waist, exposing himself shamelessly. His heels dug in. “Give it to me rough.” Ian plunged a slippery finger in. “This rough enough for you?” He twisted the digit about, seeking out the small lump deep inside that would—score. Daniel gasped and writhed on his finger, thrusting his hips up in search of friction and contact. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “Fucking gorgeous.” Daniel moaned. Ian added another finger, stroking that sweet spot almost ruthlessly. “Shut. Up. Do it, just do it, please.” Ian gritted his teeth as he picked up the second sachet of lube Daniel had fished from his pocket and reapplied more of the slippery liquid to his own cock, running his hand up and down the length. “Not gonna rush this. Like you said, we’ve got all night.” Ian would have reached down to stroke Daniel’s face, save for his sticky fingers. He settled for a kiss instead, a good hard bruising one, nibbling at the man’s lower lip with his teeth. “Damned if I think I can wait any longer, though.” “Then don’t,” Daniel urged. “You’re a big man, Ian, but I can take you on. I’m ready. Fuck me. For the love of God, go ahead and fuck me, please…”

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“Never could say no to you,” Ian said, dipping down for another kiss and feeling Daniel’s hands take a good solid hold on him, “Don’t think I’ll start now.” “Good,” Daniel said, panting. He clung tighter. “Good. Do it now, Ian. Now.” Ian ground his teeth together during the interminable seconds it took to position his cock at the stretched entrance to Daniel’s body, and pressed carefully. The ring of muscle was still tight, but once he got past the first barrier, he slid in on one smooth stroke, burying himself balls-deep with a startled gasp. Daniel’s eyes rolled back in his head with the force of Ian’s thrust, but he laughed and tossed his head on his pillow of hard-packed sand. “Again.” Ian obliged, pulling almost all the way out in preparation for another long stroke. He groaned at how good the dragging suction felt, the way Daniel bore down around his cock, and the slippery wetness that he skated on. “You up for this?” Daniel’s eyes were wide and dark. “I’ve been waiting for longer than you know too,” he said as he dragged his nails lightly over Ian’s bare back. “No more talking now. Fuck me hard and deep.” Ian pushed forward roughly, unable to help himself. Dirty talk drove him out of his mind, to the place where he lost control. Good. Just as it should be here and now, where all that mattered was the slide of his cock into the heated furnace of Daniel’s body and the friction of the man’s hard prick against his lower belly. Daniel groaned, thrusting up for more. Ian gave him—them—what he—they—needed, pushing impossibly deeper, as if he could fuck forever and live and die a happy man that way. The world around him melted away, leaving nothing but the dragging pull on his cock and the steely grip Daniel had on him. All too soon, Ian felt his climax punching its way out of him. He moaned in complaint, wanting this to go on forever, but how could a body last when they were being driven—pushed—to the very limits of what they could handle? Daniel was a live wire beneath him, twisting and writhing, thrusting up for deeper penetration and rubbing his own cock against Ian’s belly.

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Ian’s orgasm shocked itself alive like a train emerging from a tunnel, powerful as hell and sharply lit around the edges. He thrust one last time, deep as he could go. A knot cramped deep in his stomach, his balls drew up tight and hard against his body, and his cock spasmed. Daniel made a needy noise. “I’ve got you,” Ian murmured, making a chant of it until the words ran together in a river of reassurance that eased Daniel down just enough to let go. Reaching for his lover’s cock, Ian took a firm hold and began to pump it up and down, no niceties or gentleness, just a good hard jacking. Seemed to be what Daniel wanted and needed from the way he went crazy under Ian’s touch, bucking his hips up for more and still more. His cock, already hard as a column of heated marble, stiffened and twitched, Ian’s only warning before his hand was drenched in gouts of sticky cum. He waited until Daniel had finished, sinking back with something that sounded like a mix of a deeply satisfied growl and a cry of triumph. Then, his fingers aching as if he’d been doing this for days instead of minutes, Ian unwound his hand and brought it up to his lips for a taste. Mmm, sweet.

Daniel gazed at him, heavy-lidded. “Do I taste good to you?” he asked huskily, the deep timbre of his voice enough to make Ian’s cock jerk again where it lay nestled inside Daniel’s ass. “I had better. You’re stuck with the flavor now, because if you’re keeping me this close, I’m keeping you closer, and you can just deal with it.” Ian laughed out loud. “Good thing I like it.” He guided Daniel into a position where they could both rest comfortably without putting distance between them. “Still friends.” And I will make your life nothing but a joy. “Don’t think. Don’t analyze. Just feel. I’m here for you, and I always will be. Everything a man like you deserves.” Daniel’s smile was almost shy. “And what kind of man am I?” “My lifeline.”

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Daniel’s eyes fluttered shut again. Ian’s friend and lover pulled him down into a rough hug, then pushed him away with a laugh. “I think I might just take it easy enough on you to let you fall asleep when we get back to my place,” he teased. “After we work off the adrenaline from a ride in your car.” “Sounds good to me,” Ian said. He grinned, unable to help himself. “And I won’t even make you sleep in the wet spot.”

*** Daniel punched his shoulder, but he laughed as he did, droplets of rains gliding off his cheekbones. “The entire beach is soaked.” “When we’re at home in a bed that belongs to both of us,” Ian murmured in Daniel’s ear, making him shiver, “I’ll keep that promise then.” “Just promise you’ll wake me up with a blowjob.” “Mmm. Sounds about perfect.” Daniel took in a deep breath. His dizziness was all but gone, and he felt securely tethered to the earth with Ian pushing them around until they lay face to face. Ian kissed him, tender and gentle. “That’s to hold you until the morning. And when the morning comes, you and I…” He hesitated. Ian should not do that, and a desire to stop it happening again filled Daniel with the strange, certain determination to spend his life making sure he fulfilled that promise. So be it. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Daniel said, choosing his words carefully. “There’s half a ton of things to work out. Your job, my job, where we’ll live, how we’ll manage, but when it’s morning, I’ll still be here.” He closed his eyes when Ian exhaled in what sounded like pure relief. “I promise you, I want you to stay.” His oath was and wasn’t enough for Ian, it seemed. He might have guessed, and knew what would come next.

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“Stay and…” Ian nuzzled his chest. “Stay with you and do what, Daniel? What do you want to do?” Speaking the words Ian wanted to hear, that Daniel could feel beating within him, mad with the need to be spoken—was still one of the hardest things he’d ever done. And, peculiarly, the easiest, syllables slipping out on a breath that tasted like a kiss. “Stay and love me.” Ian paid him back with a true kiss, lingering and slow, his tongue stroking lazily over Daniel’s. “I can do that,” he said, then chuckled, the echo reverberating through Daniel’s chest. Excuse me? Daniel tweaked his ear. “What?” “Call me a caveman. Whatever. But this is the way it is. From now on, you’re mine.” Daniel snorted. “No kidding? I wouldn’t have noticed you felt that way.” “Dummy.” Ian lifted his head to prop his chin on Daniel’s chest. “Don’t you get how that means I’m yours?” Too much. Too much, but it couldn’t have been less. Daniel drew his courage together and let go of the worries. Let them drift away to be washed out to sea, at least for now. And now he’d done it once, he knew he could do it again when he had to, and he would. That’s life, even if this is a new life. No more hiding. “So you are,” he said instead of denying it, caressing the back of Ian’s head. “Come up here and kiss me?” Ian came and in a hurry. He covered Daniel, sheltering but not smothering, his lips still sweet to the taste with the flavors of mingled cum and salt. “All you ever have to do is ask. End of story.” Daniel thought that over. “No. Not the end of the story at all,” he said, putting his arms around Ian and splaying his palms wide on Ian’s back. “One more. Just a kiss.”

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“Because you like kissing.” “Mmm. I do.” “Then how could I say no?” Ian showed him, then, why he couldn’t—and why he shouldn’t.

*** Ian sighed. One reason to adore a lover with common sense: knowing when to come in out of the rain. One reason not to mind being foolish over one thing? Being able to crow over his triumph when he figured out how to raise the convertible top first. They’d evened the score when they’d decided to use Ian’s spare clothes to mop up the rainwater. Best of all was Daniel not teasing Ian about being heedless, but crawling into the car and beckoning Ian after him instead. Now, well-kissed and well-loved, Daniel sighed—no, purred. Ian’s chest tightened. Funny. He’d never known until he’d heard that sound from a Daniel lying pliant and satisfied in his arms how much he’d wanted to hear it. He’d never known he missed love until he found that either, so he supposed fair was fair. Ian nipped Daniel’s kiss-bruised lips and pressed his forehead briefly to Daniel’s. He could feel the beginnings of the sun’s warmth and hear the sounds of the tide turning behind them. He opened his eyes to watch the sky above, turning from indigo to lavender and red, on its way to honey-rich yellow. “Good thing we got that ‘when the morning comes’ thing decided,” he said. “Nick of time, even.” “Mmm.” Daniel stretched and turned his head to the side, yawning. “That suits us, don’t you think? I’ve had a long day. Maybe I’m getting too old to keep up with

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an insatiable guy like you.” He paused. “Damn, it’s cold.” He wriggled closer to Ian with a sigh. “That’s better.” “We should get back to the city.” “And there?” “I don’t know yet.” Ian tapped Daniel’s nose. “But I will. You know me. When I want something, nothing gets in my way.” Daniel studied him narrowly, not disapproving, but in thought. “I’m tying myself to a man with the restraint of a wrecking ball on a rampage. What’s wrong with me?” “Other way around. What’s not right?” “You would look at it that way.” Daniel slowed his stroking of Ian’s back. “Why me? Friends or not, why choose me? I want to know. That’s all.” “I didn’t choose you. This thing between you and me chose both of us years ago, and you know it. Besides, to be honest…” Ian cut a sly look at Daniel. “Without you to keep me on my toes, I’d be bored to death inside a year. My life would suck without you.” The last thing he’d thought to hear, Ian’s declaration startled a loud, long laugh out of Daniel. “My God, you are an idiot. Come here. Just one more time before we drive back to town.”

*** They’d be okay now, he and Daniel. Ian knew it in the depths of his heart— and when he searched Daniel, he saw the same surety. The same small fears he had himself but the stubbornness they were both legendary for. They would make this work. As sure as if it were written in stone—and who knew, perhaps it was, somewhere—there would be no ending to their story. Just the way Ian liked it best.

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“Let’s get moving,” Ian said. He slapped Daniel lightly on the hip. “First one to get dressed picks where we stop for coffee on the drive back. I’m in the mood for a McDonald’s drive-through. What do you think?” Daniel’s brief, wide-eyed horror gave way to the fastest un-striptease in history, clothing flying back upon him. Ian gave up when Daniel fought his way into his T-shirt, ending up with it backward and inside out, and lay naked on the sand instead, laughing until his stomach ached. After a moment, Daniel joined him. He even dropped to lie beside Ian and kiss him again, coffee forgotten. Time stretched out between them, as slow and golden as the sun above, as if the summer would last forever. And in their memories…it would, wouldn’t it? Ian laced his fingers together with Daniel’s. “Between you and me,” he said, nonsensically but simply and from his heart, knowing Daniel would understand. He did. “Between you and me,” Daniel said, agreeing, kissing him again. Then once more for the road, and once because he forgot the road, and once to discipline him for driving him to forget coffee, and once more for the forever-after. “As long as there’s no drive-through coffee.” Ian stroked Daniel’s cheek with the back of his hand. “I think I can manage that. I wasn’t leaving earlier, you know.” “What?” “I bought you a cezve. Did I pronounce that right? Says-vee?” Daniel covered his mouth but couldn’t hide his amusement. “Yes and no.” He paused. “Wait. Where did you—why did you—” “Because I wanted to,” Ian said. “Do I need another reason? Besides thinking you’d like one. And you would. Right?” “God.” Daniel breathed out slowly, eyelids drifting shut, as if he could already taste the brew. “You have no idea.”

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“I think I do now.” Ian lifted Daniel’s chin with the light pressure of one knuckle beneath the pointed angle. “About time too.” At first Daniel wouldn’t quite meet his eyes; then, he met them with the directness of a lightning strike. “You proved your point; you can manage coffee. But do you think you can manage me?” Ian traced the pad of his thumb over Daniel’s soft lips. “You know better than to ask.” Tension ebbed from Daniel; Ian let him curl up as he pleased and as much as he could while standing, resting his head on Ian’s chest. “All right,” he said, barely as loud as a whisper. “I don’t need to ask, and I won’t.” There. Ian closed his eyes, letting the rising sun and Daniel’s warmth soak into him. That’s where it should end. Right at the beginning.

*** They reached the city and the library where Daniel had left his car the night before. He’d have left it there, only who knew who might be worn out at any given time and need to make a supply run? Ian refused to hand over the keys. Dork. He had who knew how much unused vacation time saved up. He’d saved for years. Now he was going to spend. He’d have more chances. If Daniel had his way, he’d take more than a few rides in Ian’s rented cherry-red convertible before it had to go back to the rental agency, and after that? Daniel could imagine, easily, Ian laying out the cash for this dream on wheels and working double time as long as it took to restore his savings. Might be longer than usual. As often as Ian had found reasons to stop in the city for a long weekend, Daniel knew he’d find more now. We will make it work, you and me. Watch and see. Strange, so strange, and so exciting to be this happy, this excited. Daniel lingered in the convertible. He didn’t kiss Ian there, sharing nothing more than a look with him that dissolved into almost helpless laughter.

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There was nothing to give them away to Minnie, stepping lightly and silently out of her Prius. But she knew with one look and raised her hand to them in a silent wave. And for the first time ever, for them? She smiled at Ian.

Loose Id Titles by Willa Okati A-Muse-Ing And Call Me in the Morning Because It's True Between You and Me By Your Side Enough to Let You Go Georgina's Dragon Helpmeet Lovers, Dreamers & Me Make a Right Temptations, Inc. Wild Hunt THE BROTHERHOOD Series: Amour Magique Bite Me The Dragon's Tongue Good Luck Piece The Out-of-Towner Tezcatli's Game Single White Fang Under Hill and Over the Bar Tunnel of Love Salt of the…Earth? Nothing Like Experience Believe It or Not Incubus Call Once Upon a Liam THE TOMCAT JONES Stories: Tomcat Jones Buddy Holiday Karma Chameleon

Willa Okati A multi-published author of GLBT fiction since 2004, my passion is for writing hot love stories with quirky humor and a sensual eroticism. I exist primarily on caffeine and pixels, take “camera shy” to a whole new level, and persist in trying to learn the pennywhistle despite being woefully tonedeaf. During the summer, I’m a wild woman with henna. Find Willa on the Web at https://www.willaokati.com. Join her Yahoogroup at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/got_ink_willaokati, and follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/willaokati.