Hard Wood, Soft Heart

Hard Wood, Soft Heart by Chloe Stowe

Ravenous Romance www.ravenousromance.com

Copyright ©2011 by Chloe Stowe First published in 2011, 2011 NOTICE: This eBook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution to any person via email, floppy disk, network, print out, or any other means is a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. This notice overrides the Adobe Reader permissions which are erroneous. This eBook cannot be legally lent or given to others. This eBook is displayed using 100% recycled electrons.

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Hard Wood, Soft Heart by Chloe Stowe

CONTENTS Don't miss these other great books by Chloe Stowe! Chapter One: Driven to Extinction Chapter Two: Ghost Runners Chapter Three: Animal Tactics Chapter Four: Sugarcoated Damnation Chapter Five: Gentle Obscenity Chapter Six: Dirty, Little Secret Chapter Seven: Behind Dusk's Curtain Chapter Eight: Under the Joshua Tree Chapter Nine: The Irony of Sirens Chapter Ten: Between the Polite and the Psychotic Chapter Eleven: Creosote Bushes and Bearpoppies ****

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Hard Wood, Soft Heart by Chloe Stowe

**** Hard Wood, Soft Heart By Chloe Stowe A Ravenous Romance(R) Original Publication

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Hard Wood, Soft Heart by Chloe Stowe

Don't miss these other great books by Chloe Stowe! Blow Torch Hard Water Torched Barbarian Taken Forever Bound **** [Back to Table of Contents]

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Hard Wood, Soft Heart by Chloe Stowe

A Ravenous Romance(R) Original Publication www.ravenousromance.com Copyright (C) 2011 by Chloe Stowe Ravenous Romance(R) 100 Cummings Center Suite 123A Beverly, MA 01915 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review. ISBN-13: 978-1-60777-451-8 This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Hard Wood, Soft Heart by Chloe Stowe

Chapter One: Driven to Extinction Saul Tidewater stood on the rooftop overlooking Las Vegas clinging to his heterosexuality by the skin of his teeth. A colorful concoction of vodka, lime, and some desert flower he'd never heard of sat clinking in a high ball of ice in his hand. It was half empty. "How the hell did that happen?" he wondered briefly to himself as he poured another ounce of the liquid fire down his throat. It slid down his gullet with an ease that promised a stellar hangover in the morning. Thank God he didn't report in to his new job for another five days. Only two more "Welcome Aboard" parties to go. He was beginning to think of his first days in Vegas as an adult version of college hell week. If his liver survived, the city would open her big arms to him and welcome him home. He could only hope that was the case, at least. He was in need of a new home right about now. A bevy of female beauties wearing nothing but strings, heels and diamonds strolled by, eying him up and down like a piece of prime meat. His dick didn't so much as twitch. He glanced down at his ungodly priced trousers and thought, "What the fuck?" When he realized that he was actually waiting for a reply from his errant penis, Saul cautiously set the drink down on the railing and backed away slowly. The truth was rapidly becoming ugly and obvious: Dr. Saul Tidewater, thirty-two-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon, was not wired for this kind of lifestyle. 7

Hard Wood, Soft Heart by Chloe Stowe

Having grown up on the shores of the South Carolina coast, Saul was not a man adverse to sand, he just preferred his attached to an ocean rather than a desert. Even the heat the newborn Las Vegas summer had already promised him paled in comparison to the suffocating mugginess of a southern backwater August. Although he didn't buy for a second all the crap about this being a dry heat, he honestly didn't think he'd have any trouble adapting to the triple digits either. His sisters had laughed their collective asses off when he had told them where he was going. One, the youngest and the brat of the family, had bet that he'd dry up and blow away before the Fourth of July. "You're a fish," she had teased while giggling past the last slurps of a Myrtle Beach snow cone. "You've got gills, big brother. Better hope that place the hospital's setting you up in has a lap tub." On day one, he had sent a picture of the Olympic-sized swimming pool at his condo on the Strip to his dear sister. He made sure to include the waterslide and swim-up tiki bar just to bug the shit out of her. He could just imagine her stomping through their parents' house whining at the top of her seventeen-year-old lungs, "That's totally not fair." Saul grinned every time he thought about it. A part of him wished he was there to laugh at her right now. Saul was a family man. With two parents who had been married since the stone age, three little sisters and one big sister, and a collection of cousins that would fill a phonebook, 8

Hard Wood, Soft Heart by Chloe Stowe

Saul was a soul used to "blood company," as his mother always called it. He was alone in Las Vegas. It was a fact he thanked God for every night. His divorce from Elise Delgado had been final for seven months and two days. The fact that he still marked each passed day off with a smiley face in his desk diary made his feelings about the end of his marriage quite clear... if it was only as simple as that. Lost for the moment in the clusterfuck that had been the last few years of his life, Saul nearly jumped out of his skin as a voice rattled off just to his side. "How's Vegas treating you, kid?" A short, old man, whose name Saul really, really should know, nudged Saul's hip with a bony elbow. The man grinned up at Saul with a set of dentures probably worth more than Saul's first car. "Got to admit that we throw a hell of a welcome party." Since it was officially now the third welcome party of the week, Saul easily conceded the point, "Yes, sir. This is truly an experience I'll never forget." While swimming with the dolphins at last night's shindig had really tipped the scales into the unforgettable category, looking around at the gala laid out before him tonight, Saul had to admit that even with the lack of sea life this was pretty damn spectacular, too. The Las Vegas strip stretched out far below them. Two spotlights kept crisscrossing in the night sky like the patrons truly expected Sinatra's ghost to stop by for cocktails and maybe a quick set on the stage by the pool. The long, sinuous pool that lazily snaked through the guests really was the star 9

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of the show. Palm trees and all things succulent softened its curves and hid the occasional steps luring passersby into the pool's warm, lit waters. "Well, you enjoy yourself son. Be sure to drop in and see me next week. I've got my own espresso machine." The old man leaned in and confided with a wry twist of his mouth, "That coffee on the third floor will kill you. Can't have you dying before learning to hate the place." With a wink, the man weaved himself away. Dropping his chin to his chest, Saul sighed miserably. He hated new jobs. Come to think of it, for all the hype about starting a new life and finding a new home, Saul really hated new cities too. Just like back in his hellish years of high school, Saul never found it easy just to slip in with a new crowd. Hell, he didn't even try more than was absolutely necessary for his career to "blend in" any more. Case in point: a good whiff of him just an hour ago would probably have turned up an aroma of cardboard dust spiced with drywall. The cologne he had grudgingly dabbed on himself as he walked out his condo's door hid most of the home improvement aroma, but there were still the bandages sprinkled across his appendages. Each Band-Aid and butterfly bandage was damning evidence of Saul's battles with the box cutter. Why the hell he had dragged that much crap across the country had escaped him after unloading the twenty-third box of things he never even remembered packing. He still hadn't found most of his clothes yet, which was why his wrecked heart was currently covered quite handsomely under a $3,000 tailored suit he'd had to buy his second day in the 10

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city. His favorite old cotton t-shirt with a hole above his right nipple that he was also wearing proved two things, 1) thank God he packed his underwear in his suitcase and not a box, and 2) Saul Tidewater was not planning on getting fucked tonight. The wearing of this t-shirt was unfortunately not the only reason that there would be no sex this fine Las Vegas evening. The desertion of his dick to "the other side" basically sealed that deal. It was by no means an unexpected betrayal, but its timing sure sucked; the amount of beautiful women wearing hardly anything but skin at this party bordered on the ridiculous and the pitiful. It was like wasting Mozart on a deaf man. It was just cruel. As the sarcastic twist that fate was playing on him tonight started to dampen his mood and make a night in front of his television look damn appealing, Saul decided to give that desert flower drink thing another shot. Just as he turned to reclaim his abandoned glass of liquid wickedness, movement beneath the poolside palms caught his eyes. Saul was lost the moment he stopped and stared. A long, lithe and very male figure of golden skin and rich brown eyes stepped out of the pool. He was wearing only a pair of soaked trousers that clung to him like a second skin, leaving nothing to the imagination. A table off to the side held his dry, crisp white shirt and his shoes. The devil-may-care grin he gifted to the waiter handing him a towel left Saul speechless and in a desperate case of lustful need. The man's hair was blond, the color of sun kissed sand, his lips were the same shade of flushed pink as his hardened 11

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nipples, and his dimples were sinful. Saul found himself grinning just looking at the man. He was a little shorter than Saul's 6'2" frame but carried a good deal more finely delineated muscle around on those perfectly proportioned bones than most. Saul nearly swallowed his tongue as the stranger bent over and shook his head. All the extraneous droplets of chlorinated water flew from him in some kind of slow motion that surely signaled that Saul was having a stroke. No way in hell was Saul looking away, however. All the little twitches and nudges of interest his penis had shown throughout the night whenever a nice looking man would stroll by, now joined together into a monumental hardening swell that was threatening to drop Saul down to his knees right there. Fumbling for the back of a gratefully nearby chair, Saul clung to its frame like a boy hanging on to his mother's apron strings. He slammed his eyes shut, pleading with his blood to abandon its southern folly and return to his brain. "Come on! Come on!" he mumbled to himself as he forced his breaths to remain deep and relatively steady. He was a grown man, for God's sake. Puberty had left enough of its own scars the first time around. This gay epiphany/second puberty he had recently been experiencing sure as hell wasn't going to take him out... at least not here in public in a sea of colleagues and hospital board administrators. No way. No how. 12

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"Are you alright, man?" A deep voice coarsened by bits of latent though promised fire slipped roughly into Saul's ear. Saul gulped down what might very well have been a mewl. The sturdy and still damp hand to his shoulder did not help. "Hey? You need to sit down?" To Saul's horror the man did not wait for an answer. He simply started manhandling him around to the front of the chair. Wet hands were everywhere and touching everything. Saul cracked open his eyes to see if the whole world was on fire or if it was just him. Maybe, just maybe, mid-life gay puberty really shouldn't be mixed with vodka, lime, and desert flower crap. He was sitting down now. It would have been a painful position considering his bursting through the zipper condition if his dick hadn't deflated just a smidge with his utter humiliation. His situation, however, was still quite noticeable. Reaching out blindly he grabbed the man's towel that had been slung over the naked shoulder. Saul bundled it up in a ball and placed it strategically on his lap with as much decorum as a man in his state could hope for. "You're going to get your pants wet," the man commented with a barely suppressed laugh. "Not my biggest concern right now," Saul snapped as he wished really hard to die. "Hold on a second," the gravelly-tongued voice was riding low again and the hand was back on his shoulder, this time patting it before disappearing all together. As the bare feet slapping on the cement moved away, Saul seriously 13

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considered making a break for it. People had survived fifteen story falls before. Hey, if he was really lucky, he'd hit the awning over the hotel's front entrance and bounce around a little before going splat altogether. The bare feet were back. Damn this man and his wet toes. Suddenly, the towel was swiped from him. A neatly folded, white linen shirt quickly replaced it. Saul looked down at his lap and couldn't help snarking, "You're going to get your shirt wet." Saul's pants were already damp from the towel and his embarrassment when he finally had the balls to walk out of this place would be nearing its zenith. Apparently knowing what the problem was, the man reached down and peeked under the shirt. "It doesn't look so bad." The proximity of those lips to Saul's need was just about too much to handle. Saul covered his reddening face with his hands. "I look like I wet myself." He stubbornly ignored the issue of his cock nearly popping his fly. Some things were best left unsaid. The stranger's hand swatted him lightly on his knee before standing up and declaring, "Hold on a second." "The man with all the answers but no shoes says again," Saul muttered into his palms. Apparently Las Vegas was hell. Nobody mentioned that crap in those commercials. The bare feet returned, with it the voice, "It's draft." "Huh?" Confused, Saul peeked out from between his fingers just in time to see a whole pilsner of beer being dumped onto his lap. The fact that the glass did not accompany said liquor was the guy's only saving grace. Saul 14

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may be a doctor but he could kick some ass when needed. "What the fuck..." "You're a clutz," the man shrugged. "Better than being, you know..." "Yeah, yeah, I know." It really was a good idea but an uncomfortable one. Saul took absolutely no pleasure in soaking up the beer pooling on his pants with the stranger's shirt. The man was kneeling down beside the chair, the empty pilsner balanced precariously on one knee. There was a smirk to his lips. "Do I get a thank you?" Saul slammed his eyes shut. How the hell could this guy smell like some kind of ungodly mix of sunshine and sandalwood after just peeling himself out of a pool? Saul felt a headache coming on, really not all that surprising when death by embarrassment was about to occur. "I'll make a note of you in my will. Keep an ear open for "shirtless, barefoot filet mignon on rooftop" when my lawyers read it tomorrow. That'll be you." Even with his eyes still tightly closed, Saul could feel something loosen in the man's posture. His next words cleared everything up. "Filet mignon? Did you just call me..." Apparently the grim reaper whispering sweet nothings in your ear made a man lose all rein on his tongue. Mortified was the word that came to mind. "A beef steak. God, I called you a beef steak to your face." Saul bent over his beersoaked lap and dug his fingers deep into his scalp, hoping for a little brain damage to blot out a good chunk of his life. 15

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"To my face?" The man huffed out a chuckle as his hand once again found Saul's knee and squeezed playfully. "You're not looking at me, at any part of me." "There's a point to that." Saul growled down at his own feet. "You know, a plan and shit." "And how's that working out for you?" The man snickered. Figuring whatever damage could be done, had been done, Saul raised his head up and stared at the cockily smiling bane of his current existence. Saul accused needlessly, "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" "Yeah." The man shifted knees against the hard concrete but kept on kneeling and kept on smiling. He added a shrug to the mix as he admitted, "Giving the best looking guy here a killer hard-on is nice, you know." Saul's heart did a funny flip-flop thing that hadn't happened since he had kissed Rosemary Flowers when he was twelve-years-old. He wasn't about to admit to how selfishly good the stranger's statement felt however. There were some standards of manliness after all. Intentionally rolling his eyes, Saul griped, "Glad I could help, as your ego so obviously needs the help." He doubted this guy had ever known a moment of self-doubt. A pale rush of red came to the stranger's cheeks. His smile turned crooked and a little bit sad. "You might be surprised." Shaking his head, getting whatever thoughts had apparently polluted his smile out of his brain, the stranger hoisted himself back to his feet. "There's a men's store downstairs. Let me run down there and get you some pants, Okay?" He 16

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suddenly resembled a Labrador retriever wanting to go fetch something nice and juicy for his master. This time it was Saul viciously shaking thoughts out of his head. Quickly, he got back to less potentially pornographic matters at hand. Cocking his head up to face the handsome goof, Saul informed the guy nicely, "I've mentioned your state before, but what the hell? You know that no shirts, no shoes rule? They're talking about you, hot shot." Those ungodly ripped shoulders shrugged. What that shrugging did to the rock hard nipples and the delicious pecs they were attached to made Saul's brain fuzz out for a moment. The light scar barely visible on the man's sternum was quickly forgotten. When all his senses came back online, the man of the shoulders and the nipples was saying, "I know the owner. She won't mind." "I'm sure she won't," Saul snarled intentionally, although the heavy inflection on the word "she" wasn't quite planned. He immediately clinched his jaw shut, not wanting any other flagrantly jealous words to pop out and condemn him even more. Sure, Saul wanted this stranger; he was man enough to admit that to himself. As far as he was concerned the rest of the world was just going to have to wait for that notification for another year or two, long enough for Saul to accept this gay thing as more than a premature midlife crisis. Saul snorted at his luck. Some guys got a convertible for his thirties, he got a craving for dick. How the hell was that fair? While Saul was internally fighting the good fight for his rapidly paling heterosexuality, the man currently at the center of the controversy was, well, watching Saul. If the smirk that 17

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was teasing his lips was any sign, apparently Saul was an open book to this guy. Narrowing his dark caramel eyes, the stranger spoke seriously, "One question for you." "What?" Saul found himself squirming under the man's glare. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, trying valiantly to ignore how that made the seams in the fly of his pants do naughty things to his already out of control cock. "Are you military?" That was not what Saul had been expecting. "What?" Saul sputtered out, "God, no." The prospect of dealing with this sexual revolution of his under the auspices of the just repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" shit was frankly unimaginable. The stranger slowly released a long breath. With a look of total determination, he replied, "Good answer." Suddenly hands were on the collar of Saul's shirt, yanking him up and into smiling, hungry lips. The fact that Saul Tidewater was actually kissing a man receded into the background with a strangled yelp of "No, duh." What became immediately more important and intimately more pressing was the sparks shooting out of his brain and firing up every nerve ending in his body. The fire he felt was fucking amazing. The stranger pulled back just enough to rush out on one heated breath, "Stop thinking." Dumbly, Saul nodded. He could do that. The devouring of Saul's mouth was then resumed just as heatedly but at a different angle. Saul quickly realized that 18

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this new angle was perfect for the man to shove his very insistent tongue down Saul's very non-resisting throat. While Saul had promised not to think, there wasn't a damned thing in this world the guy could do to make him stop feeling. And, man, did Saul feel. Despite the fact that the spit in Saul's mouth had evaporated in stark fear as Saul was being yanked up and toward those undeniably manly lips, the kiss somehow still managed to be wet and wonderfully messy. There was nothing gentle about this lip-lock. This was all eagerness and lust. Saul had never felt anything close to it in his whole life. Like the doofus he knew he could sometimes be, he found himself grinning while his insides were being sucked up his throat by a damned talented mouth and wily tongue. Saul was suddenly shoved back and into a wall he didn't know was there. The stranger grumbled as he used the move to gasp in some air. "You're still thinking," a surprising chuckle was quickly lost to the total, unrepentant assault on Saul's mouth. This time, apparently, Saul wasn't being given a choice in the "no thinking" matter. A hand still damp with pool water was suddenly shoved down Saul's pants. The good doctor's brain stuttered to a violent stop, as did the rest of his body. Using the momentary shock to his advantage, the stranger did some maneuvering of their bodies. Vaguely, Saul sensed them moving around a corner. A planted palm tree stumbled by the corner of his eye. The music and chatter of the party died down to a distant hum. Saul didn't know exactly where 19

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on the roof they were now, but he knew in his gut that wherever they were, they were now alone. The whole time Saul was being literally manhandled into a private corner behind a row of potted palms, the stranger's hand never left the throbbing member in Saul's pants. God, this guy was talented. Finding himself again shoved against the sturdiness of a wall, albeit a different one, Saul took the opportunity to pull away just long enough to say, "Forget the men's store." It took a second for the words to click for the guy, but it wasn't long until he grinned, "Yeah?" "Yeah." This time it was Saul who pulled the man roughly back into the kiss. In mute appreciation of Saul's efforts, the man gave Saul's member a little twist and pull. Saul's knees deserted him at this point. The man shoved him harder against the wall, one hipbone and a meaty thigh holding Saul upright against the stucco. Except for the hand busily and brutally at work in Saul's trousers, the complete lengths of the men's bodies were pressed up against each other. Saul grunted in stupid pleasure when the man's nipples pushed into his own. Knowing the strength of the man that was in the midst of jerking him off, Saul had no fear in pushing right back. In fact, he quickly found that by wrapping his arms around the man's torso and digging his fingers into the naked back, Saul could start to hump the invading hand with vigor. 20

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The man laughed into their kiss, but did not pull away. In fact, he only hissed as the scratches up and down his long spine were carved into his unprotected skin and then pumped Saul a little bit harder. Minutes where there was nothing but skin and touch and heat and lust fled by in a fog of unspoken "fuck me now, fuck me harder." A moan from deep in Saul's throat bled forth. Saul was getting close. Sensing this, the man suddenly pulled ever so slightly away. He asked as he panted, "Names? Or is that part of this..." The guy didn't look like he cared what the answer was, as if he was just asking it out of politeness or maybe just a hint of curiosity. "Your name is the fucking last..." The rest of the words were shoved down the stranger's throat along with Saul's impatient tongue. Hating to leave the long free expanses of naked skin, Saul's move to the fly of the man's pants was slow and at first hesitant. As his fingers bid goodbye to the stranger's spine, however, they latched on to the firm, sweeping curves of ribs. Following their arcs around to the front, his hands found the six-pack. Drifting down over each muscle with a patience that amazed even him, Saul's thumbs dug possessively into the navel. The man's abs quaked at the unexpected pressure, quivering as Saul stroked the remainder of his nails down the tight skin of stomach and then hip. There was a grunt of lukewarm disappointment when the navel was deserted all together for points further south. 21

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Saul smiled at the accomplishment of making that noise come from this man. The control he felt at that little inconsequential victory left Saul wanting more. Quickly, the man's fly was undone. Without consent, his pants were shoved down over and below his ass. The white cotton boxer briefs followed, ending their journey with the slap of elastic on thighs. Saul grabbed onto the red and wanting shaft and began to drive it like his own. Whatever social graces hadn't wept out of his dick made one last attempt at pulling Saul back from the brink of the "sex in public" kink. "Should we..." "Go?" The stranger squeaked out in what could very well have been a whimper. "Yeah." "No. Your pants are already ruined." The stranger latched onto Saul's Adam's apple and sucked. As a moan deftly turned into a "I'm going to fucking blow" groan, Saul muttered his agreement, "And there's always more beer." Moments later, in a fizzy-edged reality that could only be found in Las Vegas, Saul Tidewater came hard. The stranger's hand didn't let up, it kept pumping, kept screwing Saul's dick, milking and wrenching the cock dry. A strangled noise erupted from Saul's throat just as the other man started to buck and come in Saul's hand. Consciousness fled from Saul in a bang and a whimper. A phone ringing roused Saul from his come-happy doze. The rich gravelly voice was then back, "Damn. I've got to take this." 22

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Saul waved at him to go ahead. Speech was still a few minutes off for Saul yet. Using the wall at his back for support, he slowly managed to find his feet again. A quick glance around confirmed that the palm trees in their giant ass planters were still surrounding them, blocking their view from everyone. The last few seconds of the encounter had been a blur. He wasn't quite sure what else might have been blown away from the earth-rocking, sky-splitting event. He was glad that the palms had survived untouched. Saul Tidewater had nothing against a good tree. Once again, it was the slapping of naked feet on cement that alerted Saul of the stranger's return. He squinted at the man and knew immediately what he was going to say. "I've got to go. Listen, this isn't how I meant for this to end up." A rush of cowardly relief flooded over Saul. "It's Okay." He reached out and patted the bare shoulder in a gesture that even his dick-dulled mind knew was damned patronizing. He couldn't help it though. He just needed to push this guy, this whole experience away. The man looked truly apologetic, sincerity creating a pout that did funny things to Saul's heart. "Do you want me to run down to that store before I go? Do you need me to call a cab or anything?" Saul shook off the offers. "Go. I'm good." He glanced around and spotted the sign that would be his rescue. "I've got a clear shot at the bathroom over there. A little soap and water and then I'm gone. No harm, no foul." He played it off as if this was nothing, as if jerking off a guy during a party on 23

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a rooftop was no big deal. Who knew that he could be such a fantastic liar? "I'm sorry." Having retrieved his shirt and shoes during some point of Saul's little blackout, the stranger started hurriedly putting them on. Saul shrugged as he watched the man's gorgeous body disappear behind cotton and buttons. "Blips on the radar are good things. I fucking love them." The brown eyed gaze suddenly found Saul's again and danced a little nervously as the guy offered, "I could give you my..." "No." Saul dragged his own gaze away as he shoved a smirk out onto his still swollen lips. "Blips don't have names. They lose all their blip-ness if they do." "Blip-ness?" The distraction worked. The man laughed. With shirt buttoned and shoes properly though hastily put on, he announced with a small almost guilty smile, "Okay. I'm out of here then." "Okay..." Saul gulped down a lump in his throat that was just about to kill him. "Thanks for the beer." The stranger surprised him one last time. He leaned forward and gave Saul's lips a warm and soft kiss. "Good night," he whispered as he pulled away. "Goodbye," Saul replied lowly as he watched the man who had no name disappear from his life. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Two: Ghost Runners It was the proverbial morning after and the banana in Saul's fruit bowl was taunting him. There it was just lying there next to a couple of hefty sized limequats that were exhibiting their own pornographic tendencies. The peach, with its nice, fuzzy crack running alluringly down from pucker to stem, quickly brought things to a head. "Cock, balls, and ass," Saul strangled out unbelievably as he stared at the morning food group. "God, I can never go to a grocery store again." With a hardy clunk the good doctor's forehead hit the breakfast table. He was so, so fucked. His stomach growled in agreement. A part of him, he supposed, had foolishly hoped that after last night's rub off he'd be able to put this gay thing to the backburner. Not forever. Just until he had a chance to catch his breath from his cross country move and settle into his new position at a new hospital. Was that so much to ask? The banana in the fruit bowl apparently thought it was. With head still firmly entrenched in table top, Saul blindly reached out and tossed a dish towel over the sexually harassing trio. He just needed a little time to think. Satisfied that it was now safe, Saul raised back up and gulped down a glass of grapefruit juice before his screwed up brain had an opportunity to make even that somehow xrated. Closing his eyes, he let the juice refresh him, cleanse his thoughts and give him a new outlook on his new life. 25

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He nearly jumped out of his skin as the phone in his kitchen suddenly blared to life. With the hospital, friends, and family having his cell phone number, this was the first call he had received on his landline. As the old fashioned ring screamed out and rattled his teeth down to their frayed nerve endings, Saul decided that his first job of the day was to shoot that piece of crap and toss its little remains out with the banana, the limequats, and the fucking peach. "Dr. Tidewater," he growled into the doomed phone. He hated having his grapefruit juice afterglow interrupted. The familiar voice on the other end of the line chuckled knowingly. "Hey, Saul. This is Pryce. I've got a favor to ask of you, buddy." "Shit," Saul groaned as he proceeded to thud his head up against the solid wood cabinet doors. Forget the hangover, he was going to have a grade two concussion before his morning shower if things kept going along at this rate. Pryce Landon was the only person Saul knew in Las Vegas. Despite sounding blatantly pathetic, it had served its purpose well. Pryce had helped hook Saul up with the new position at the hospital. He had even given Saul a rundown of where to grocery shop in the city without having to sell your soul for a pound of potatoes. Pryce had shown him the ropes the first few days and then the man had let Saul be. While Pryce might not have been privy to all the sordid details of what and whom Saul was leaving in South Carolina, his old medical school buddy did know enough to give his friend room. For that, Saul would be forever grateful. For this, however, Pryce was off the Christmas card list. 26

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Pryce was a man with many friends, one of his best being the other thoracic surgeon at the hospital. So when dear old Dr. Applewood went down with the flu, he had immediately called on Pryce to help him find a replacement for a week or two. Pryce might have many friends, but only two of them were thoracic surgeons. Saul didn't have a hope in hell of turning the man down. As noon cracked the day in half, Saul had just finished seeing the third of Applewood's four patients of the day. Thankfully they had all been post-op check-ups, nothing that was any trouble to cover. Walking down the hallway with the fourth patient's file in his hand, Saul figured he could be out of there and back home to his banana dilemma within the hour. Somewhere, as Saul Tidewater opened the door to exam room number three, Fate cackled loudly and wisely. Saul opened the door and found a man sitting on the examining table. Dropping his head to his chest, Saul lamented, "How the hell is this my life?" Stepping into the room fully, he quickly closed the door behind him and went for the lock. Of course there was no lock on the door, this being a damned examination room in a hospital who the fuck would need a lock on the door? The man from last night, the man who had jerked Saul off so beautifully, so anonymously just a few hours ago looked up from the paper covered metal table and asked, "You're Doc Tidewater?" The bastard was grinning. "Shut up." Saul looked frantically around, his mind calculating blockades. He could just imagine the whole 27

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hospital flooding in here outing him before he'd outed himself to himself. Maybe he could wedge a chair behind the door? His jerk off partner was talking again, and, yes, he was still smiling. "I was expecting somebody old and grisly, not..." "Your fuck from last night?" Saul finished for him as he studied the panels in the ceiling feverishly. Shimmying up there couldn't be that hard. "Well, technically, we didn't fuck," God's curse to men straddling sexual orientations helpfully pointed out. "Really?" Saul snorted disbelievingly. "You're going to Bill Clinton that?" There was a flash of movement from the exam table that may have been a shrug. Since Saul was no longer looking at the returned bane of his existence he couldn't swear to it. "Just wanted to stop you from freaking, Doc." He immediately huffed at the hated nickname. "I'm Saul, not Doc. And I am not freaking." He wondered if he could jimmy up some kind of "Do Not Disturb" sign for the door? Hey, maybe a "Quarantined" sign would do the trick? "Spotted Fever" sounded just about right. "You're not looking at me again," Mr. Oblivious with the delectable nipples observed. "No shit." Giving up on escape or burrowing himself into the room for the next decade, Saul finally locked his attention on his patient. The man was wearing a hospital gown, and, damn it, he was rocking the look. "That's what got me into trouble the last time," Saul admitted as the bare toes once again came into play. "And don't you ever wear shoes?" 28

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Saul had expected some crack about boots not going with a paper gown. Instead the man surprised him and asked Saul with a wince of disappointment, "It really embarrasses you that much?" Well, that made Saul feel like a first class ass. He, however, was not one to buckle into apologies. Explanations, yes. Apologies, no. "We are not talking embarrassment here. We are talking my peace of mind, which after the bananas this morning I've lost completely." Immediately regaining the gleam that made the man literally glow with life, the patient confided, "Well, there's no substitution for the real thing, Doc." He grinned cheesily. Saul refused to laugh. "Who the hell are you?" Sure, it was a question he should have asked before sticking his hand down the man's pants and pumping his dick off last night. Better late than never, right? "You're the one with my chart. You tell me." Dropping his head down to his chest, he swung his feet slowly, maybe even a bit nervously, against the examining table on which he was sitting. It took the clunk, clunk, clunk of nervous feet against metal that he'd heard a thousand times over the years with his patients to slam Saul back into reality. "You're Applewood's heart patient?" For the first time he really looked objectively at the man sitting before him. What he saw was a guy propped so firmly up behind a brave front that he doubted the man had peeked out from back there in years. "For how long?" The question slipped out before he could stop 29

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it. He had the answers right there in his hand. All Saul had to do was look. "A couple of years," the man mumbled out with a brief shrug, obviously uncomfortable having to talk about it. "You can get your details there." He nodded to the still closed file. Saul nodded and opened the file. His eyes skimmed the first page, landing immediately on the man's name. "You're Mercer Braun? The baseball player?" Saul remembered the story clearly. How could a man in his field not? Mercer Braun was a ball player just reaching the height of what would likely have been a very long and hugely successfully career. There had been some kind of incident during a game that had landed Braun in the hospital. While he was there it was discovered that he was suffering from severe aortic stenosis. It was a miracle that they had found out about the condition when they did. Braun would have died within months without the valve replacement surgery. It was, however, a blessing with one hell of a big thorn. Braun's baseball career was lost. "Was a baseball player," Mercer corrected, hiding his obvious bitterness behind a fake smile. "First base for the Pittsburgh Pirates." "You were good." Saul didn't know much about baseball, but he did remember hearing that. Color flooded his cheeks. Whether it was embarrassment or anger, Saul couldn't tell. "Yeah, but I'm alive now. I guess it's a fair enough trade."

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Saul busied himself reading the file. The details were clear and unmistakable. He could feel a grateful smile tug at his lips. "You're doing well. Damn well." "I'm lucky, remember?" Mercer shook his head, still staring down at his feet. "You are," Saul assured the man he could no longer read. "Glad to hear it." Mercer huffed out with a sardonic half grin. "Now, if you'll just warm up the equipment over there, we can get me all checked over for this six months and I'll be out of here. Then you can go back to your bananas." This time the smirk the man dug out was genuine and teasing. The bitterness or sadness or whatever the hell it was that had sucked the life right out of Mercer Braun just a moment ago was gone. Fleetingly, Saul wished to God it would never come back. Instead of stating something supportive or blatantly cliche and inspirational, Saul stated plainly, "I hate bananas." Mercer nearly choked on his chuckle. "What?" Saul busied himself jotting down little notes in Mercer's file. No way in hell was eye contact in the cards with what he was just about to say. "Bananas" he inflicted the word with as much sexual innuendo as he could, "are too soft and squishy for my taste." Mercer's face went an amazingly attractive shade of red. Somehow Saul doubted that Mercer ever allowed a lot of people to witness that particular coloring of his cheeks. Quickly, however, any knee jerk reactionary blushing was tamped down by a cockily raised eyebrow and a devilish twinkling in the darkest swirls of caramel in his eyes. "Are you 31

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saying you prefer things hard and..." The accompanying hand gesture was lewd and much appreciated. Saul shrugged his shoulder in lieu of a nod. "Hard and suckable." He swallowed, found he had no spit, and went back to talking. "I've never tried it, of course, but I'm thinking that's the way to go with..." He rolled his free hand out and down, encompassing all southerly parts. "Fruit of the loin?" Mercer quite helpfully suggested. Saul laughed and completely forgot his reasoning for not looking at this surprising wonder of a man. "Well, that's certainly one way to put it." Mercer smirked. "There's several ways—and places—to put it, actually." Saul, the consummate professional here, laughed and then proceeded to blush all the way down to his toes. He felt like an idiot. He hadn't laughed this hard in more months than he'd ever admit. "Are you this way with everyone or just me?" he asked although he wasn't really sure if he was ready to hear the answer. "Life is short." Mercer shrugged as a smile softened the sentiment. "Go for what you want." "Do you carpe diem with Applewood?" Saul had met the man. Old codger was a kind description. Mercer slowly shuffled his feet against the paper sheet he was sitting upon. "Nah, he's too busy giving me grief about my lifestyle to bother." "Your lifestyle?" A sick feeling settled uncomfortably in Saul's gut. "You don't mean that he gives you a hard time about being..." 32

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"Bi? No." Mercer laughed emptily. "Believe it or not, my life is a hell of a lot more than banging anything willing." The attitude accompanying the sharp words was intentionally caustic. Apparently Saul had hit a sore spot with the man. Saul, being the consummate professional that he was, decided to hit back, "That's a shame. I was hoping to see you humping one of those lions from that circus joint." The shock on Mercer's face was just a little bit priceless. The accompanying laugh was even more so. "You're a sick man." "No, that would be you." Saul joined in the laughter, ignoring the warm fuzzies beginning to swirl pleasurably around inside. "Me? I'm a doctor. I get to heal you now." "God complex, huh?" All the caramel flakes swimming around in those truly gorgeous eyes were now shining and lighting up the whole damned world. Saul was doomed, and knew he was doomed, but he carried on bravely with a smirk. "I prefer the wise guru at the top of the mountain image myself. People scaling great heights to get to me puts a little zing in my day." Unexpectedly and just a little bit tragically, Mercer's face fell. The words came slow and solemn. "Never rely on others to give you your zing, Saul." It was the first time Mercer had said Saul's name and it struck a deep throbbing chord in his soul that no one had ever found before. Mercer kept talking, "Find that zing yourself. You won't ever lose it that way." The pain was palpable and Saul just wanted to fix it. Unfortunately, Mercer stripped him of the chance. "Sorry," 33

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the former ballplayer snorted embarrassingly before warning, "but one crack about a broken heart and..." "Stethoscope through the eye, got it." Saul would let it go, for now. Glancing back down at Mercer's file, Saul asked with a genuine curiosity, "So, tell me about this non-sexual lifestyle of yours. What's got Applewood putting little notations of "difficult" and "might as well be talking to lint" in your file?" Mercer shrugged and went back to swinging his feet back and forth against the paper. He looked like a boy just caught with his hand in the cookie jar and crumbs on his lips. "I'm a desert rat. Any free time I've got, I'm out there hiking. He hates it." Saul slipped into his role as disapproving parent easily, nodding solemnly as he further questioned, "What exactly does Applewood say he hates about it?" Saul wasn't an idiot and no matter how much of a stick in the mud Applewood might be Saul knew the doctor was a damn good heart specialist. Applewood wouldn't be putting up a fuss about good, healthy exercise. There had to be something more. By the mulish look now planted stubbornly on Mercer's face, Saul knew that his suspicions were right. For a moment Saul was afraid he was going to have actually pull the words out of Mercer's throat. Saul's patience, however, was finally rewarded with a tense couple of sentences spit at him. "The 'where,' 'when,' and 'how.' I like to call it Applewood's damned trifecta." "Okay." Saul was getting a bad feeling about this. He was going to take this slow. "Let's start with the 'where?'" 34

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"Desert National Wildlife Refuge." A purposefully blank look on Saul's part spurred Mercer to toss out some pertinent details. "It's about thirty miles northwest of Vegas. It's huge. Not a lot of roads. Isolated. Little water. Cell phones are worth shit out there." Mercer rattled off the little list of death traps with a smug, "you can't do anything about it" tilt to his head. Saul eked out a patient smile for the man. "How about we move on to the 'when?'" "I work through the winter and the spring. I run a one-onone hitting camp for pro baseball players. While they're out playing ball in the summer, I've got time on my hands. I'm damned well going to enjoy it." The mental bulldog had now manifested itself in the thrust of Mercer's chin, his jaw jerking out at an absurd angle. Saul would have laughed if he wasn't getting really pissed. "So you hike in the desert in the summer? And let me guess. The 'how' is alone?" "It's done." Oh yeah, the bastard laid out another shrug. "It's not done by people with a severe and chronic valvular heart disease." Mercer, however, didn't give an inch. "I'm fixed," he declared. "Bullshit and you know it." Saul declared right back. Slamming the file down on the metal table at their side, Saul decided he couldn't risk pulling any punches with this guy. He had a hell of a lot of crap to dig through here. "I'll give it to you. The playboy mask is a good one, enjoyable and ridiculously attractive. But this 'I'm an idiot jock' mask you've 35

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got going on right now," Saul reached out and grabbed Mercer's jaw, making the fool look him full in the eye, "this is not working for you. It degrades you and me and all the professionals that have gotten you sitting here today." Defiantly and with a spark of something dangerous promised in his eyes, Mercer jerked his chin away. He assured, "I don't need to be lectured by you." Leaning forward just enough to bug the guy by intruding in his personal space, Saul let a smirk ride his lips as he spoke, "I'm sure you don't. I'm sure you know everything I'm about to say. A man comes as close to death as you did and he's going to know everything he can about what sent him knocking on St. Peter's door." Saul laughed sadly. "You, Mr. Braun, are probably the premier expert on your condition. You know what you're doing." Mercer apparently wasn't a man to cower even in the face of overwhelming facts. With a sly grin of his own he too leaned forward, stealing his spot in Saul's own personal space. "I'm living, Doc. That's all I'm doing." Saul had to fight with himself not to move. The way Mercer's breath brushed over his neck like a million fiery fingers had Saul's body desperate to lean in further, lusting for an actual touch. Saul's mind, heart, and every other organ of any kind of sensibility, however, yanked hard on his dick's leash. A guy with a death wish was not someone to fuck around with, either literally or figuratively. Just to make sure that Mercer knew what stakes he was playing with, Saul shrugged, "Going to be dying soon." 36

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Mercer's smile turned feral. It was clear the man was egging him on and enjoying every minute of it. "Not your problem." "Unfortunately not." Saul leaned back, intentionally breaking any physical connection between them. He could not, would not, jump in the back seat of a car heading straight for a train. He'd had enough shit to deal with lately in his love life. Saul was not looking to take on another hopeless cause. Standing back up, Saul distanced himself even more as he tried to drag back on the remaining shreds of his professionalism. "We better get started with your check-up then. Time is wasting." At the cold shoulder he was intentionally being given now, Mercer retreated. The slump of his shoulders through his paper gown and the lackluster haze that now covered his brilliant brown eyes were the only outward signs that the man had just lost something. To be honest, Saul hadn't expected even that much of a reaction. After all, there were a hundred other Saul Tidewaters out there willing and able to jump into the pants of Mercer Braun. Saul's rejection had to be nothing to Mercer... had to be. So why did Saul feel like he'd just kicked a lost puppy looking for his first home? The examination had ended with a handshake. No words of familiarity were exchanged. Professionalism and resignation had chilled the examining room completely. With a few measured words and well-placed silences, Saul assured Mercer that he was doing very well, that Applewood 37

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would be back for his next appointment in two months, and that Saul had no interest whatsoever in seeing Mercer again. For the second time in twenty-four hours, Saul watched Mercer walk out of his life. This time, however, Saul wasn't left with come-soaked pants and a ravaged cock. This time all that was left behind was a stark emptiness shaded in sadness... and the deep in his bones feeling that maybe, just maybe, Saul Tidewater was the stupidest fuck in the world. Mercer Braun walked out of the hospital feeling as if he had just lost something. It was a silly feeling to have, one that he couldn't really explain to himself. As with most things in his life that he couldn't quickly wrap his mind around, Mercer relegated the feeling to the back burner. There was a hell of a lot of issues simmering away back there, but Mercer took great pride in ignoring them. If they really needed his attention they'd set off the fire alarm or sprinklers or something. It may have been a naive way to live, but Mercer liked it and wasn't planning on changing it any time soon. Born in St. Louis on a wickedly hot July day, from the very beginning Mercer's life had been about avoiding the things a man can't change. Like the blazing hot weather that seemed to follow him around every summer of his childhood, he came to mutely accept the fact that his father only came to visit on the weekends and that his mother rarely smiled at anyone but her little boy. College came quicker than anybody seemed to expect. Mercer didn't like it, but he did it to play ball. He excelled at baseball, loved the game with an unholy passion and clung to it through the proverbial thick and thin of life. Although his 38

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concentration was always on baseball, he did take time off to date, which wasn't a hard thing to do when he looked the way he did and wore his confidence around his shoulders as easily and warmly as a cashmere sweater. The women loved him. It turned out, to his utter surprise, that the men loved him too. Mercer had no preconceived notions of his own sexuality. He just did what he liked with whomever he enjoyed doing it with. His two years of college flew by with an absence of serious relationships but a colorful bevy of sweet interludes and rock 'em sock 'em fuck matches. When Mercer was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in his junior year of college, he dropped out of school and limited his sexual adventures to more sedate flings that could in no way risk the progress of his big league career. So women came and went. Men dropped into his world occasionally, but love was never mentioned by any of them. Mercer didn't care. As corny as it might have sounded, his heart belonged to baseball. Then one September night in Pittsburgh everything changed when his heart literally broke for the game he so loved. It was the bottom of the eighth inning and the stands were mostly empty. The 9-0 score had long ago run off the more casual of observers. The sloppy defense and lackluster effort of a team twenty games out with two weeks left to go in the season had finally driven away the most die-hard of Pirates fans. PNC Park resembled more of a yawning cavern than a major league ballpark. 39

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Mercer Braun had manned first base for the Pittsburgh Pirates for two years. Although the team was crap, their first baseman was good. Very good. After spending his first five years in the majors bouncing around from team to team, Mercer had finally found a home in Pittsburgh. With that home, came unprecedented success for the never say die lefthander. Forty home runs, thirty stolen bases, and a batting average that had hovered around .300 all year had landed Mercer on his first All Star team in July and had handed him a meaty contract extension with a truckload of incentives, all of which he had far surpassed by the last month of the season. He was rich, his future was bright, and he spent nine months of the year playing a game he had loved since he was a kid. Life was good... until the bottom of that eighth inning. A foul ball was popped up to the right side of the infield. A lingering summer wind blew the ball toward the visitor's dugout. Most players would have just let the foul go. Mercer Braun, however, never let anything go. It didn't matter if he was eight-years-old playing in his backyard with ghost runners on first and second, or if he was twenty-nine and playing before a half-hearted, mostly drunk crowd. Mercer always, always, gave the game one hundred percent. September 24, 2008 would be no different. With full speed, Mercer followed the ball towards the dugout. A quick glance at where he was going confirmed that he had another four or five feet before he would hit the metal railing that cordoned off the five step drop from the playing field. It was plenty of room for Mercer to stop before crashing into the rails. 40

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But then Mercer Braun slipped. The two hour rain delay in the long ago fourth inning had left patches of mud on the outer edges of the field. The mud was still wet and still slick. Mercer's right foot immediately slid out from under him. His momentum careened him into the metal railing chest first. He heard his ribs break before the white fire of pain swallowed him whole. Consciousness was stripped from him as the ground rose up to meet him. Three days later, Mercer Braun woke up to five broken ribs, a fractured sternum, and a chest of deeply modeled bruising. For the next two days he was either in excruciating pain or high on pain meds. The fact that the doctors were pointedly telling him nothing never crossed his drug addled mind. On day six, the meds were lessened. The doctors, yes the doctors plural, finally stood at his bedside. Their faces were solemn. The eyes of a hovering intern were filled with pity. Mercer grabbed the sheet covering him. There was no one there to hold his hand as they spoke, as they tore his world apart and offered him no hopes of ever being able to put it back together again. His career was over. His future was stunted. He was facing major surgery and a recovery that would steal away the game he had loved since he was a kid, forever. That night he had dreamed of ghost runners weeping by his bedside. 41

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The diagnosis had been Aortic Valve Stenosis. In laymen's terms it was an abnormal narrowing of an important valve of the heart. It was a congenital condition; in other words, he had had it all his life. If he hadn't fallen and broken his ribs in the bottom of that damned eighth inning, nobody would have known anything about it to this day. Three months later, after countless tests and scores of doctors shaking their heads sadly, valve replacement surgery was deemed necessary. It was major surgery with a real risk attached to it. Without it, however, the medical community all reluctantly agreed that Mercer Braun would die. The surgery was done the day after Christmas. A mechanical valve was inserted rather than a bioprosthetic valve. Research claimed that the mechanical valve would last longer, and that with a steady diet of blood thinners and anticoagulants Mercer Braun, former first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates, would live. Never again, however, would the eight-year-old boy who had turned All Star play baseball. Secure financially but adrift in all other ways, Mercer had learned to enjoy the fleeting company of one night stands and the no string perks of friends with benefits. He asked nothing more of anyone, wanting nothing more. Living from day to day with a big hole in his heart was tough enough without him dragging another poor slob along with him for the ride. So the whole settling down thing had been simmering on his crowded back burner for years. It was one of those pots, however, that never made a peep. It never called out for any of Mercer's attention, so it got none of it. Forgotten, the prospect of love burned away unnoticed. 42

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What was really mournful, however, was that Mercer Braun didn't know enough to miss it. An hour after Mercer's second departure from his life, Saul Tidewater sat at his desk, staring blankly at a stack of pink post-it notes. Words and half-baked images were flying around his head like some kind of x-rated pinball machine stuck on "Tilt." Without sparing it a glance, he reached over and grabbed his Styrofoam cup of coffee. He drank the remaining half cup down without so much as a wince at its coldness. Patiently he waited for the jolt of caffeine to hit his system. It never came. The coffee just settled in his stomach like mud. He blamed Mercer Braun. The man had a freaking death wish. He was walking around like his expiration date read yesterday, and figured that since he was already spoiled why not go for the kicker and dive head first down the nearest sink. Saul scrunched up his face and muttered, "What the fuck?" Not only was his brain making no sense whatsoever, his own damned heart was idiotically chiming in with "Save him. Save him." "No way in hell," he told the pink post-its. They did not answer him back. Their silence was lost on Saul, however, as he argued out his points with vim and a shit load of vigor. "There is nothing medically I can do for the guy. He is as healthy as modern medicine can make him, and that's pretty damned healthy. Hell, he's probably got more years left in 43

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him than me." Saul winced at the memories of smoking away his teen years in an effort to be cool. He had been such a stupid kid. "And I'm not going to be stupid any more. Mercer is trouble. I don't need that kind of heartbreak in my life. And I'm sure he sure as hell doesn't need me." The bevy of men and women Mercer no doubt had sniffing him up was not something Saul wanted to contemplate right at this moment. Saul backtracked to his first argument. "He's a walking time bomb with his own damned thumb on the trigger." He let that thought linger in the office's air for a bit. It was the truth, but hell was it sad. Just as he was coming to accept his very sensible decision, his freaking heart whispered, "All you've got to do is cut the blue wire to save him." "Damn it! There's no fucking blue wire. The time bomb is a metaphor!" The pink post-its stared back at him accusingly. He dropped his head to his desk. "Great. Now my paper products are guilt-tripping me. First the bananas and now the Post-its. Where the hell did his my go wrong?" Thank God there was no answer. He doubted if he could handle his stapler lecturing him. As the gentle tic-tic-tic of his watch wedged under his ear accompanied him through the rest of the long afternoon alone and admittedly pouting at his fucked up luck, only one truly rational thought was left in his head: where the hell did he get pink Post-it notes? [Back to Table of Contents] 44

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Chapter Three: Animal Tactics Saul hated working the emergency room. The agony stricken faces, the sobs of fear and loss, the dumbstruck words that often made no sense but demanded answering just the same, everything about trauma work he loathed. While thoracic surgery was hardly a rose-scented stroll in the park, at least there was some kind of order to things. Nothing was rushed. Clearer heads always prevailed. And when shock did accompany his patients out the door it was never without knowledge. He made sure that everything he did, everything he said was backed up by lengthy discussions of the cold, hard facts and softened with vows of a doctor swearing never to give up on them. Although sometimes there were dragons he knew from the start he would not be able slay, Saul always went into battle with the hopes of a miracle guiding his hands. The weapons education, passion, and experience had armed him with were at his side. The emergency room held no such illusions of grandeur for Saul. He despised working in the place and had fought tooth and nail not to be working it this current afternoon. Unfortunately, by still being the low man on the totem pole at the hospital, when a wave of food poisoning took out a healthy chunk of the interns and all of their supervisors, Saul was deemed good filler material. Filler? He'd never considered himself that hateful Styrofoam popcorn shit before but he appreciated the sentiment just the same and would 45

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remember each and every one of his superiors come Christmas time. Three weeks had passed since he'd seen Mercer Braun in more than his wet dreams. Three weeks had passed in utter sexual frustration and a sore, now calloused right hand. His resolve, however, had remained sure. The metaphorical blue wire and the man inexorably attached to it hadn't entered Saul's thoughts in days... well, at least, hours. It was understandable, therefore, that Saul Tidewater was in one hell of a bad mood when the screams began. "Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!" The thunderous demands of a thousand high-pitched voices barreled in through the emergency room doors with a cloud of short dirt and the harried beating of cleats on a concrete floor. Warily, Saul leaned out of his makeshift office and squinted at the fast moving thigh-high apocalypse coming his way. Luckily, Joanie, a nurse of much sturdier stock and real battle field experience, stepped out from behind the admitting desk and directly into the pizza craving fray. There was a moment when Saul lost sight of her, a moment where he thought he'd have to go in after her. Thankfully, Joanie emerged just as Saul was deciding on where the hell to look for a take-out menu with an emergency number. A whistle pierced the chaos. Silence immediately fell on the emergency room.

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The dust settled with a disappointed sigh and a dozen tiny eight-year-old baseball players appeared beneath the harsh overhead lighting. Then, an "Ah, coach!" broke the din of nothingness. A man appeared in the doorway. He held the hand of a little boy in a torn and muddy uniform, a mis-bent arm hugged carefully to the tiny chest. The fact that the man was Mercer Braun took Saul a little more time to process. "Okay, men, let's leave the animal tactics on the field." Mercer and his broken armed protege had now merged with the elementary school herd. He stood proudly in the middle of the shushed chaos, looking a little uncomfortable only when he spotted Joanie, open-mouthed, staring him down. "Animal tactics?" Joanie asked over her clipboard. "They are, under all that dirt, baseball players, right? Is there really such a thing as animal tactics in baseball?" Mercer's grin resembled that of the Cheshire cat. Slapping his hands together in a move that mocked every would-be world conqueror, he gathered the attention of his troops. "Okay, boys, who wants to answer the nice lady while I take Bulldog here," he rubbed broken-arm's head gently, "over to have my favorite doc fix our boy up?" While Saul was dealing with the shock that his presence had already been noticed and apparently approved of, the answering "Me, me, me!" to their coach's question were a little dizzying. The eager explanations, however, that poured from the second grade mouths were really quite impressive... "You've got to run like a puma!" 47

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"You've got to think like a fox!" "You've got to dive for the bases like a hawk." "You've got to be as smart as a barn owl." "You've got to be as quick as a snake." The answers and their accompanying animals continued as Mercer and his little injured charge made their way carefully across the waiting room. Despite his Hippocratic oath and the inborn concern for a child in pain, Saul admittedly considered making a run for the fire door. Only one fact ended up stopping his cowardice from running amuck... it was damned hard not to notice how Mercer Braun wore a baseball uniform. At one point the jersey, with its top button undone and revealing all kinds of tanned, firm skin and the accompanying pants, which teased playfully every luscious line of taut muscle from calf to thigh to ungodly ass, had once been white with tiny pinstripes of dark blue. Although the dirt now spoiled the once pristine nature of the uniform it did absolutely nothing to detract from the ridiculously goodlooking man wearing it. Saul was gaining a whole new appreciation for the sport of baseball. There was no hint of awkwardness or doubt to Mercer's step. In fact, he walked straight up to Saul with an easiness that spoke of years of friendship. Mercer dropped his hand to the back of the injured boy's neck and squeezed warmly as he bent down to meet the child's eyes. "See, Jacob, your luck's changing already. This here is Doctor Tidewater. I know it's a mouthful to say so I bet he'll let you call him Saul?" Mercer 48

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directed the last part to the doctor himself, a hopeful smile curling his lips. Whatever the hell was going on between him and Mercer, Saul held nothing against the boy and directed all of his attention to him. Saul smiled. "Only if I can call you Jacob?" Saul knelt down on one knee, meeting the boy eye to eye. "If that's alright with you?" He wasn't great with kids, but he always figured that giving a child respect was a good thing. "Sure." Jacob nodded, a few tears making their way down his dirt stained face. Saul immediately turned his gaze down to the cradled arm. "This must hurt," he commented as he ran his hands gently down from the boy's elbow to his wrist. There was definitely a fracture of the radius bone, but thankfully at first inspection it appeared to be simple. The boy manfully swallowed back a sob. "How old are you, Jacob?" Saul asked as he moved the boy's fingers up and down slowly one by one. "Eight," Jacob hiccupped out. Saul put on his best surprised face and exclaimed with just the proper amount of awe, "Wow. I was thinking at least eleven." The lie felt good coming out of his mouth and must have felt equally nice to Jacob, who was now trying a tentative smile himself. With one last reassuring grin to the boy, Saul pulled himself back up to his feet. A wave of musk, sweat and all scents "man" met him as he accidentally brushed Mercer's shoulder. Ignoring the touch, the smell, even the sound of his breathing, Saul forced himself to keep his eyes steady on the 49

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child even as he directed his comments to the bad penny of his life. "So, Coach, how about we get this young man fixed up? I bet I can have you out of here within the hour." "Great!" Mercer slapped Saul on the shoulder. His hand, however, did not move away. It just sat there on Saul's body, burning its warmth and strength through Saul's lab coat and shirt and down to his skin. "Paperwork?" Mercer asked just as Saul gave in to the threat that was this man and actually looked at Mercer. The man was smiling. Saul smirked. He knew he wouldn't be for long. "Lots of it." He couldn't help but chuckle at the pained look on Mercer's face. "But I'll clear it with Joanie and you can fill it out while you keep Jacob company." "Thank you." Damn it. The smile was back and it was fucking warm. "Now, I suggest we get going before Joanie realizes that you're just about to leave her in charge of..." Saul looked pointedly back to the dust covered boys still spouting out animal names and bouncing around on cleats. Mercer, however, was busy staring at the woman, eyeing her with the healthy suspicion of a parent about to put his child in her care. "Is she..." Mercer started. Saul confidently finished, "I'd trust her with my mother's life. I swear." Mercer nodded, apparently taking Saul's word as authority. "Let's get to it then."

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First, Mercer ordered pizza. He ordered a hell of a lot of pizza. Only after his team of empty stomachs had been addressed, did he turn to the hospital's needs. After Mercer got done with the reams of paperwork, he pulled a long list of names and numbers from his back pocket and got busy notifying all parents as to where they could pick up their future major leaguers. Through all the phone calls, however, Mercer never left Jacob's side. By the time Saul had Jacob ready to head home, all of the boys' parents including Jacob's had arrived. Two hours after the initial invasion of the hospital's emergency room, all the little ones were headed home. Mercer Braun, alone, was left behind. Saul found him in the now empty waiting room flipping through information on his phone. "Did your pint sized ruffians desert you?" Saul asked, hands stuck in his slack's pockets, palms definitely not sweating. After patching up Jacob, there had been a flurry of incoming patients into the emergency room. Saul had had no choice but to leave Mercer to his lot and get his own ass back to work. He'd half-expected, half-hoped, that the coach would have disappeared with his players by the time Saul signed out. Of course, he had no such luck. And of course, his dick was busy making merry mayhem at the news. Mercer looked up at him from the fake leather couch and graced him with a crooked, sun-bleached, and dusty grin. "I'm thinking the parents had enough of me for the day." His smile suddenly faded as he shrugged sadly, "I'm betting I've 51

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lost five maybe six today. Practice is going to be a little slim come Tuesday." "Why?" Saul asked, inexplicably stung at the notion that anybody would be blaming Mercer for Jacob's broken arm. "The kid tripped over his own feet going for a fly ball." Jacob had told Saul the whole story while the plaster on his cast was setting. It had been an accident, the kind of accident every little boy or girl had. "You want me to talk to them?" Okay, that was out of his mouth way before his brain had a chance to catch up with his good intentions. Clearly surprised at the out of left field offer, Mercer asked with a curious though grateful tilt to his head, "And what would you say, Dr. Tidewater?" Saul looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet about. "Well, I could throw a shitload of statistics at them. Tell them how normal broken arms are for kids their age. Maybe toss out a few figures of how much safer baseball is to play than soccer or football. Nobody can argue with good, strong numbers like that." That was the biggest load of bullshit Saul had thrown in quite a while. Apparently his tongue was working on auto-pilot these days. "Okay," Amused, Mercer nodded, obviously contemplating matters. "Any of that true, though?" "Could be." Saul stopped there. He wasn't prepared to dig himself any deeper in that hole. Another studious nod was given before Mercer asked the question that was currently weighing on Saul's mind as well. "And why do you care what all the moms and dads think of me?" 52

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"Because I want to get into your pants" was one answer. He had a feeling that truthful-but-crude might work for this guy. Unfortunately for his ever-ready cock, another answer held more of the truth. Suddenly, that was the reply being tossed out there. His dick was going to kill his brain. "It looks like you're doing something important, something that really matters to those kids. No need for it to stop just because some of the parents get a little skittish." "Thank you." Mercer grinned. Saul's toes curled accordingly. "So, you really want me to make a few calls?" He'd have to put in a few hours of research, but Saul was sure he could find the numbers to back whatever needed to be said. If Mercer gave him a day he could even knock out a power point presentation for him. "No. That's Okay." Thankfully Mercer waved him off before Saul started contemplating hiring a couple of experts to testify on Mercer's behalf. "I'll handle it, but thanks for the offer." "Not a problem." Saul shrugged like it was no big deal. All the while, however, he was sketching out plans in his head of how he could lift that list from Mercer's back pocket without the guy noticing. Distraction would most definitely be called for. Distraction he could do. His penis shimmied confidently in his pants. Oh, yeah, he could do distraction real well. Speaking of distraction, Mercer suddenly nudged Saul on the leg. He must have been practicing that mind-reading thing again as his brown eyes took on a depth and a hardness that could only be born of the bright white flames of long, 53

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lingering lust. "You done here?" he asked in the dark, gravely voice he had used on the rooftop all those weeks ago. "Yeah." Saul found himself shifting from one foot to the other wondering if his own pupils were already blown. Fuck, he had it bad for this guy. Digging his hands out of his pockets before they could start scrambling around his pants trying to help the distressed cock out of its current and rising frustration, Saul let the damned blush he'd been feeling since that first night rush up over his face. "Shit." Saul croaked out as he shook his head in a possibly fatal case of embarrassment. "You make me nervous." And wasn't that the understatement of the year? The fire in Mercer's eyes shifted into something softer, something honestly surprised. "Why?" he asked as if he really didn't have a clue as to the effect he had on at least threequarters of the adult population. Saul didn't trust the naive question though and quickly pushed it aside as he snapped grumpily, "How the hell should I know?" If this guy was looking for a game of hard-to-get, Mercer Braun had a surprise coming. Saul was not about to start lobbing out compliments at the guy, hoping he'd hit on the right one to bring the man literally down to his knees. Scrubbing his fingers through his hair, Saul sighed tiredly. "Look, I'm out of here. I think I need a shower or something." "You need a shower?" Mercer looked down at himself and grimaced. "I never got this dirty playing in the majors." Saul found himself smiling again. The words of genuine feeling slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them, "Maybe good intentions make the muck stick." 54

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A little bit of that damning color flushed across Mercer's cheeks as he tried to shrug the sentiment away. "Maybe." Saul knew he should be walking away not digging deeper, but, ah, what the hell. All the blue wires attached to death wishes be damned. He knew he wasn't going to be able to walk away from this, at least not today. "So, what got you into coaching those boys?" He had a suspicion but wanted to see if Mercer would admit to it. Mercer did. "It's selfish really. I miss the game. Those kids give it back to me." "Good man." Saul needed to say it apparently as much as Mercer needed to hear it. The man laughed, looking as uncomfortable as Saul had ever seen him. "I wouldn't go that far, Doc." "I would," Saul immediately assured him, an assurance that apparently the whole world had been slacking off by not giving him. His lips couldn't help twitching a little as he asked, "You want the numbers, Coach?" "No." Mercer finally stood up, his 6'1" frame now only inches away from Saul. He cocked his head to the side and slowly smiled, "What I'd really like is a ride home." Saul gulped back down a whole wad of "fuck me through the floor" and instead answered easily. Hell, it was almost breezily, "That I can do." Saul Tidewater's resistance was dead in the water and starting to stink. Saul pressed the button on the key in his hand and waited for the annoying little twirp of noise to go away. He hated that sound. It made him feel like he'd just scared the living 55

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daylights out of the quietly resting vehicle. He was always surprised when he didn't find a puddle of oil under the car after that, the mechanical version of it peeing its pants. It took Saul a few unaccompanied steps to realize that he'd lost someone. Shit. Maybe Mercer Braun could read minds and had understandably balked at letting a mad man who thought about cars wetting themselves drive him anywhere. Dropping his chin to his chest, Saul let out a "damn, damn, stupid me" sigh and slowly turned around. At least the guy was still standing there. Oddly enough, Mercer wasn't even staring at Saul. His entire gaze instead was whole-heartedly latched onto Saul's truck. "You drive that?" Mercer asked with what amounted to an awe-tinted gleam in his eyes. "It's a truck," Saul defended in a knee-jerk reaction. Although he'd only been in Vegas a month he had already taken enough crap about his choice of a pickup over something more low slung that tended to scream "sex with a gear shift." "Yes, it is," Mercer whispered in stark appreciation. Saul shook his head, utterly lost at this reaction. "What? Have you never seen one before?" "I've got one myself." Mercer shifted a little. If Saul wasn't mistaken there was definitely some impressive tenting action going on in the pants of that uniform. Mercer all but confirmed said erection by sucking his lower lip slowly in between his teeth just before essentially pleading, "Want to take her out for a ride in the desert?" 56

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Saul was suddenly having a flashback to an old western. He thought it best to talk slowly now. "This truck is not a horse. And how do you know it's a she?" "Look at the way she's sitting there all shiny in the sun." Saul leaned forward a little and, oh yeah, the guy's pupils were actually blown. "That's what metal does. Put a can of beans out in the sun and it'll shine at you too." "Can I drive?" "No!" Saul spat out like a neglected wife or something equally horrifying. "I am not letting a damned truck make you harder than me." "I wasn't going to fuck it, Doc." Mercer reached out and started petting it. Up and down the hood, softly up its sides, the man's hands moved seductively over the metal as if vehicular foreplay was a concept with which Mercer was frighteningly familiar. "Just wanted to play with her for a while. Warm her up, get her purring, maybe make her scream as I drive her hard and deep into the sand..." "No," Saul grabbed an elbow and yanked the guy a respectable distance away from any piston or throttle. "My truck is not having babies with you. Now, get in the cab and keep your dick in your pants." Saul was not going to watch this man spontaneous orgasm in the hospital's parking lot over Saul's damn truck. Mercer made it around to the passenger side and looked inside the window. He lit up like a Christmas tree or its xrated equivalent. "Ah, man, she's got leather seats!" Slack-jawed, Saul stood and stared at the man, half expecting that the guy was going to start humping the door. 57

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Said-potential humper started to laugh. Mercer laughed hard. He laughed long. Saul narrowed his eyes. Had the freak been faking? Realizing that was exactly what the lunatic had been doing, Saul shot his arms out to his sides and growled, "Are you fucking kidding me?" "Yep, sure am." The body-quaking laughter melted into a sheepish grin. Somehow the bastard was able to pull off looking both sorry and smug with the same expression. It was a talent Saul had no doubt had landed him a bed full of conquests. At this moment, however, Saul was more confused than anything. It was damned obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain cell that Mercer already had the doctor wrapped around his dick and was a sure thing. There was no need for games here. Just show Saul the mattress and he and his ass were there. Shaking his head at the conundrum he'd latched himself onto, Saul asked with all manner of exasperation, "Why would you..." Mercer's face immediately went hard. He took a step toward Saul and whispered harshly, "Get in the truck." "What the hell?" Saul was immediately riled. No fucking way was he going to be screwed with... at least not screwed with no dicks and assess immediately involved. "Get in the truck and I'll show you." Mercer took the last step between them and unceremoniously slapped his hand over Saul's mouth before continuing in a heated rush, "Unless you really want me to yank down my pants right here and 58

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show you the hell of a boner I've gotten just watching your ass cross this damned parking lot?" "Huh?" Saul mumbled intelligently through the muffling palm and fingers. Dropping his hand slowly from Saul's lips, Mercer sighed almost impatiently before he reached out and dragged Saul into a kiss that would have crossed the devil's eyes. Pulling himself back with a growl of frustration, Mercer dropped his voice to a level previously unknown to man, "I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want to scare you." "Scare me?" Saul's dick must have borrowed a pair of lips because there was no way in hell he had enough brain activity going to actually form words from his own mouth. "About how fucking hard you make me." Without giving any warning, Mercer grabbed Saul's wrist and rammed Saul's hand hard against the uniform's crotch. The bulge was even more impressive tactically than visually. Fighting down the heat that was suddenly rushing to his face, Saul cleared his throat and allowed himself one manhandling squeeze before asking with a smirk, "So you thought..." Mercer shrugged. He divulged his grand plan with a wry twist to the corner of his lips, "You were going to notice," his gaze slipped down to his still palmed balls and cock, "so I figured, you know, blame the truck not the doc's dick." Saul grinned. "I thought it was my ass that you..." "Package deal, I guess." Wrapping his hand around the back of Saul's neck he dragged the doctor back into a full body kiss. It was slower this time, the rhythm of the kiss 59

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humming instead of flailing. It was steady and life-assuring like the beat of a heart. Mercer once again was the one to pull back. The distancing was a struggle, one more painful than apparently Mercer had counted upon. A small frown creased his brow, his gaze fixed hard on the mouth that had confounded him so. Finally, he mumbled almost guiltily, "I've gotten a taste, Saul. I want more." Words were useless at this moment, so Saul simply yanked and pulled and manhandled the man into the passenger's side of the truck and strapped Mercer into the seat. "Don't you fucking move," Saul warned. No way in hell was he letting Mercer take care of his current predicament on his own. If an orgasm was going to be pulled from that gorgeous body it would be by Saul's machinations not Mercer's or the damned truck's. Slamming the door closed, Saul strode purposefully to the driver's side. A moment later the truck roared to life and the doctor pealed out of the parking lot. Sex was going to be had and it was going to be had damned soon. Three blocks later with Saul lost in the blue haze of lust and the cityscape of Las Vegas whizzing blurrily by the windows, Mercer cleared his throat and asked kindly, "Want to know where you're going?" Saul winced. "Fuck." He glared over at his partner in soon to be crime and laid the truth out there for Mercer to deal with however he'd like, "If your house is not less than ten minutes out I'm pulling over to a Seven-Eleven and we'll take care of it there." 60

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Mercer laughed. "Yes, sir." [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Four: Sugarcoated Damnation "You have a water slide," Saul stated it plainly enough. He put no question mark or exclamation point at the sentence's end. It was simply a statement of fact, one that held no judgment for or against the idea of a grown, single man with not a kid in sight having a freaking water slide in his backyard. In spite of the previous warning, the trip to Mercer's sprawling ranch-style house had taken a good hour, just enough time for all penises involved to ratchet their mutual needs down to bearable levels. Traffic really was a bitch and she, no doubt, was busy laughing up a tit at the blue balls the men had to fight off between minutes twenty-five and thirtyseven. Only Mercer beginning to hum the damned rubber tree song had saved the men from having to resort to self-help measures. So, as two grown men with hard-ons the size of civil war cannons were wont to do, Mercer and Saul had spent the last twenty minutes singing about ants and high hopes. Oh yeah, this was Saul's life in a nutshell. Mercer stepped in front of him and narrowed his eyes. Arms crossed in front of his chest, the muscles in his jaw reflected hard thinking going on inside of his handsome head. He didn't say a word, just stared. "What?" Saul asked when the weird silence had started giving him chills. By some kind of weird and mute mutual agreement they had exited the truck and wandered around to the back of the house like two old pals off to enjoy eighteen 62

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holes before lunch at the club. It was like the clawing, ravaging need their bodies clearly had for each other had settled back on their respective haunches, satisfied with just watching and relishing the taste of the mad, wanton sex that would soon be coming their way. Mercer jerked up his left shoulder in an abbreviated shrug. "Just checking if I should lie or tell the truth about the water slide?" Stuffing his hands in the front pocket of his khaki's, Saul rocked back on his heels and smiled. He was amused and saw no reason to hide it. "The lie being..." he cocked his head to the side, a motion for the man to finish the thought. The corner of Mercer's lips quirked up in a most delectable smirk. The man really was a walking "Fuck me" sign. "The lie being that the slide came with the house." "It didn't?" Saul knotted his fingers together inside of his pockets. He was not going to reach out and grope. He was not. Mercer upped the game by chuckling. It did ridiculous things to his freakishly taut biceps. "Yeah, kind of why it's called a lie." When his pocketed fists started making moves toward his own crotch, Saul realized that he was in real trouble here. Yanking his hands out of the danger zone, he hooked them together behind his back. Aware that he probably looked like some awkward first day at boot camp soldier at rest, he threw some more words out as a distraction. "So, you put this in yourself?" he asked with some kind of alien sultry tease slipping in there with it. He immediately slammed his mouth 63

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shut. Innuendos, particularly bad innuendos that he didn't quite understand himself, were not helping. His cock twitched in agreement, nudging him to just get on with it. By now, Mercer's smile had turned almost feral. Apparently his junior member was getting a little antsy too. Mercer's gaze locked hard on Saul's face. Saul imagined he had stared down many a pitcher with that "Come on! Give me your best shot" taunt of a glare. "Yeah, I'm good at putting things in tight places." Saul groaned then made a quick scan of their surroundings. Curiosity quickly got the best of Mercer. "What are you looking for?" "The speakers," Saul answered, stifling back a smirk of his own. "If some cheesy seventies porn music doesn't start playing soon I'm going to be really disappointed." Mercer rocked back on his heels, looking supremely intrigued. "You think I'm trying to seduce you with my water slide?" "Hey, I'm new at this. Lingo could be flying over my head here." Mercer stepped forward, his hands hooking possessively to the waist band of Saul's khaki's. "Do you want to know the reason I put in a water slide, besides always really, really wanting one when I was a kid?" "Sure." Saul's mouth suddenly turned dry and wanting. Mercer nodded but his attention was elsewhere. He was studiously overseeing his fingers undoing Saul's pants. There was no hesitation in his movements, only a self-assuredness 64

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that was fucking hot. As the zipper went down, Mercer added words to his foreplay. "Well, you see the end of the slide over there?" "Yeah," Saul choked a little on the word as his khaki's were pushed down past his hips. Fingers slid down between his skin and the elastic of Saul's briefs. Goose bumps followed the fingers wherever they roamed. "See how it's curved? How it could cradle a man, not letting him fall off on either side no matter what was being done to him?" "Uh-huh," Saul managed after almost swallowing his tongue. Watching his own cock practically leap out of his underwear as his briefs joined his pants low on his thighs was a turn on Saul couldn't explain. As Mercer's warm calloused palms slowly inched their way back up from Saul's knees, the doctor could feel each of the fine hairs of his own thighs rise up and bow to the long fantasized touch of a male on a male. Mercer's voice lowered as his hands reached the flat plain of the groin that extended out so smoothly from weeping penis to hip. The fingers claimed this playground as their own and started running long, lazy circles across the sweet, untouched skin. "And then with the water rushing down under him," the playful fingers back and around to his ass, squeezing the hard cheeks that they found with gleeful hunger, "a doctor no matter how naked under the Vegas sun would stay nice and cool..." "No matter what was being done to him." Saul closed his eyes and surrendered to the thousand new sensations the 65

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rough groping of his ass was sparking throughout his body and his mind. "Very good." Mercer rewarded the surrender with a gentle nibble of his chin. The kneading of the glutes continued as Mercer pulled Saul closer into his body. "I went to medical school," Saul spouted out as if that somehow excused the way his body was folding under Mercer's machinations. Yeah, it made no sense, but what did about this whole situation? Mercer didn't seem to mind the nonsensical segue. In fact, with a devilish smirk clinging to his lips, he jumped right on the bandwagon. "Well, Doctor, you're going to have to show me some of your toys sometime." What started out as a laugh bubbled up and out of Saul's chest as some kind of animalistic moan. If this guy was looking for some verbal foreplay, apparently Saul wasn't going to be able to deliver. "After the water slide, right?" He suggested a little desperately. If he didn't get some action soon all the molecules in his body were going to melt into a gooey glob of stupid. Mercer nodded, his own need digging restlessly into Saul's thigh. "After the water slide." "Got any trunks?" Slowly, guilelessly, Mercer began to hump Saul's leg. "Why? You need some?" Saul looked down at himself. What he could see of his junior member as it was being ground into a uniformed groin was that his cock was red and ready to rock. "Guess not." 66

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Saul's left ear came under assault as Mercer began to nibble between every word, "Haven't you ever..." It didn't really matter what Mercer was about to ask. Whether the rest of the question was "done it outside?" or "fucked in a pool?" the answer was the same. "No. My ex required pillows for everything." Mercer's laugh rattled through Saul's ear and straight down to his dick. "No quick off's in the ocean? Come on, you've got to have been tempted, man." "Some of us know the meaning of restraint." If Saul wasn't currently morphing into an orgasm with legs and lips, the superiority he tried to latch onto his rebuttal might have been something more than laughable. "Yeah, you're all about restraint, Doctor." He scowled no doubt referencing the ride over in the truck. "I was," Saul rebutted... and what a delicious word rebutted was. "Before Las Vegas?" Saul shook his head, digging his fingers deeper into Mercer's back. "Before you." There was a moment of silence, followed by stillness. Both were broken by, "Damn, why do you have to say things like that?" Mercer wrenched himself away, panting and gasping and fisting and unfisting his suddenly empty hands. "What?" Khakis and underwear down around his thighs, arms spread out wide to his side, penis reaching for the sky, Saul knew he must look like an idiot. He sure as hell felt like one. 67

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Bending over at his knees, Mercer was fighting getting his breath back. After a few moments of near fruitless gulping, he got enough air back in his lungs to say, "Put your pants back on." He waved blindly in Saul's direction, his gaze never leaving the ground. Now, Saul was getting angry. What? The guy couldn't even stand looking at him now? "Damn it, Mercer..." Mercer yanked himself back up straight and planted his gaze firmly on the sky a thousand miles above their heads. Hands now shoved under his armpits, he stated between gritting teeth, "I'd do it myself but I'm not risking it." "What the hell?" As much as his pants around his thighs would allow, Saul took a menacing step forward and shoved the man's shoulder back hard. "Risking what, asshole?" Mercer shoved back, anger reddening his face. "Doing this right!" "Huh?" Saul mumbled out intelligently. A sigh packed tight with so many emotions slumped Mercer's shoulders and brought his voice to a level that could only be called sweet. "Doing you right." The clarity of what Mercer was saying, the sentiment behind it, shook Saul. He didn't know quite what to do with the unexpected emotion so he tossed it back in Mercer's face as frustration, "Fuck it, Mercer. I am not a girl. I don't need or want you to feed me dinner and do the sweet nothings shit before you get around to actually screwing me." Saul winced as it sounded a lot more desperate than he had intended. A smile crept back onto Mercer's face as he took a sure step forward and ran the back of his fingers and hand down 68

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the side of Saul's cheek. "Trust me. I will make this so good for you that there won't be a drop of your creamy hot seed left in your body when I'm done with you." Mercer slowly pulled his hand away and shrugged. "Not that you'll know it of course since I fully plan to finish by fucking you out cold." With thoughts frozen in some kind of libidinous shock, Saul's only reply was the pearl of pre-come that bubbled up on the head of his ramrod straight cock. Mercer's smile turned predatory and somewhat commanding. "Put your pants on, Doctor." Saul did. And as soon as Saul did, Mercer Braun started taking his own off. Jersey, pants, cleats, socks, jock strap, it all went. And when it all went there was nothing left but a body so damned perfect that Da Vinci couldn't have done it any better. Without a word of explanation or direction, Mercer strode over to the shower head attached to the base of the slide. Turning the water on he stepped into it and began to quickly scrub off the dirt from the baseball game that still clung to his skin and hair. Even though he wasn't putting on a show doing it, Saul caught himself graying out a couple of times as his own cock started beating restlessly against the constraints of his pants. The water was suddenly turned off. Bending over at the waist, Mercer shook his hair dry. Without bothering with the towel that hung to the shower's side, the man strode right by Saul's side, not offering a passing touch or even a glance, and headed straight in to his patio doors. 69

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Saul was quickly at his heels... the Tidewater cock leading the way. "We're going to take this slow." The word "slow" rolled off his tongue like some kind of sugarcoated damnation. It was as if he was saying, "Yes, expect this to be torture but you'll be so high from the foreplay you won't really care." All Saul could do was nod. The ability to produce words of his own apparently had been sucked up in the vacuum left by his brain cells deserting his head at mock speed heading south. Mercer Braun standing in front of a person buck naked would do that to any male appreciating man, especially a dick loving man who was still cursed with a complete compliment of clothes. Saul sighed. Hell, maybe cutting off all verbal communication from his brain was a good thing. "Let me do all the work," Mercer was talking again. The breath that carried each low-riding syllable tickled the hollow in Saul's neck. Tiny goose bumps rushed down past his shoulders, down to his fingertips and his booted toes. Once again, Saul nodded. "First, I'm going to take these clothes off of you." The flat steady heat of Mercer's palms settled on Saul's chest, the warmth bleeding through the cotton of his shirt. The brown of his eyes turned a speck richer as he confessed, "I want to see your body." Saul swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing so slowly in his neck that it felt as if it was already drowning in the drug that was Mercer Braun. A look of complete, all-encompassing and hungry concentration swept across Mercer's handsome face. He 70

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looked now at Saul as if he were the last strip of New York steak left in a world of gristle. His tongue slipped out and made a slow though fevered run across his soft pink lips. Saul shifted on his unsteady feet, his dick straining against his underwear and pants. He fisted his hands against the side of his legs, fighting the impulse to reach to his own fly and release the beast being born there. Mercer smiled, Saul's efforts of restraint clearly not having gone unnoticed. "Easy," Mercer all but purred like some maneating cat, as his hands moved and cradled Saul's face within the palms. "I'll take care of you, I swear." Like a puppet on a master's string, Saul nodded again. The hands deserted Saul's face, trailing down his neck and slowly onto his collar and the tiny buttons holding the now hated shirt on to his body. One by one the buttons were released. Saul looked down at his chest, watching Mercer's fingers weaving plastic through cotton with a keen deliberateness that dried Saul's mouth. Gently, Mercer pulled the tail of the shirt from the waistband of Saul's pants, bringing the last remaining button to bear. It too was quickly dispensed with. "Better," Mercer spoke around a devilishly certain grin. The slight chill of the air conditioned air fondled the strip of exposed skin that ran down across Saul's chest and stomach. He could feel the muscles of his pecs and abs contracting at the touch of the phantom cold fingers. His nipples, though still covered, hardened like river worn rocks awaiting a boy's hands to play. Saul bit his tongue to rein back the moan. 71

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Suddenly, Mercer's lips were upon his in a feathery light kiss that would have curled the toes of even Michelangelo's marble David. The world swayed for a delirious moment. Then just as suddenly the lips were gone, words replacing them. "Don't hold back. I want to hear every sound you make." This time, Saul didn't dare to nod, the room and its air and its light were still all too unsteady to risk even such a benign movement. Returning to his work, Mercer's fingers grabbed gentle hold of the two sides of Saul's shirt and slowly peeled the cotton off of his chest, his shoulders, his arms and then his fingers. The spent material fell to the floor with only a whisper of sound. The running of the tongue across Mercer's lips returned, along with a hum of fervent appreciation. Saul smiled at the look of increased hunger in the depths of those beautiful brown eyes. Mercer suddenly dropped to his knees, his face in line with the begging shaft still hidden so far and deeply away. Throwing his head back, Saul moaned. But only a soft laugh fluttered briefly across Saul's fly. He peeked down to see Mercer grinning up at him. "I'm down here to take off your shoes." Saul could feel the heat of embarrassment flood his face. A not so gentle kiss was pressed suddenly to his pant caged cock. Saul's hands flew up and grabbed onto Mercer's shoulders as his knees thought about buckling and his heart thought about leaping from his chest. 72

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Mercer's words held no condemnation, no teasing. They were simple fact. "I want you, Saul Tidewater... in every way. Never doubt that. I need to unwrap you slowly. I want to taste and remember every second of this." Gritting his teeth, refusing the inborn urge to hump his hips and the painfully swollen cock that they carried into the face so close, Saul groaned as he instead just nodded. "Thank you," Mercer said just as he reached down and undid Saul's shoes. Saul mutely lifted his legs two times each as the boots and the socks disappeared to the side. The rug was warm and soft against the soles of Saul's feet. He wiggled his toes in the piles of cream colored carpet, relishing the new feel. Mercer stood up, his gaze no longer soft but hard and wanting. "I want to watch your eyes as I make you naked." A twitch of fire shot through Saul's cock, making it weep into his briefs. Saul closed his eyes and prayed not to come like a pubescent boy in his pants. Mercer quickly dispensed of that concern as he again found his knees and his teeth found Saul's fly. Tooth by tooth the zipper was split open. Saul's cotton clad dick popped out with eagerness. Mercer dropped a kiss on its risen but still smothered tip. Saul grabbed on to Mercer's hair to hold on to his balance. Equilibrium was not helped as Mercer's fingers slipped in between waistband and skin. The touch didn't linger however as his hands swiftly divested the underwear from his hips. With his hand still on the steadying head, Saul stepped obediently out of his briefs. 73

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The feel of the cold air on his swollen penis did wondrously maddening things to the rest of his body. There wasn't time to catalogue them though. Mercer was leading him to the bed. Saul went willingly. "Lay down on your stomach," Mercer instructed gently. Saul obeyed. "Now, spread your legs wide. I want to see your hole." Saul bit down on the pillow under his head but did as he was told. The bed dipped. Weight and skin settled on the back of Saul's thighs. He could feel Mercer reaching over to the nightstand. Saul heard the drawer open. He heard the wrapper of a condom being torn apart. There was more movement on the bed and then the sound of a top of a tube being screwed open and then tossed onto the nightstand. Saul whimpered into the pillow in piquing frustration. He had expected a reprimand for his impatience or at least a word of encouragement, all Saul got instead was a lubecoated finger up his ass. It hurt. Saul gnashed his teeth. The finger began to move around. The pain melted into just a feeling of being full and tight. Soon pleasure threatened. A second finger joined the first and started the process of acceptance all over again. By the time three fingers were inside of him, Saul was writhing on the bed in previously unheard of pleasure. 74

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There was a pat to his hip and then words he was finding increasingly hard to understand. "Raise up for me." Even though Saul's mind was already fuzzy in need, his body understood. Saul was soon kneeling on the bed with his ass still three fingers full stuck up in the air. The fingers disappeared. Their replacement was thicker, longer, and had blood pulsing hard through its meat. Mercer's cock entered him slowly, carefully. Tiny circles were being drawn on his cheeks for comfort, for distraction? Saul didn't know. At this point, Saul only felt. The further the dick pierced his body, the more Saul moaned into the pillow. The moans quickly turned into deep throated groans. Mercer grabbed on to his hips and shoved his cock into him at a different angle. The world and its gods exploded into light and fire. The pillow couldn't hold his scream of pleasure. Mercer began to thrust. In and out, fast then slow. Every third or fourth push his dick would brush Saul's prostate. There was no definable rhythm, nothing for Saul's sanity to latch on to. It was maddening and masterful and if Saul wasn't already bowing down in front of him he would have dropped to his knees and begged for more. The thrusts became harder. They began to rock Saul's whole body. They began to rock the entire bed, the headboard now banging violently against the wall. 75

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Saul's breaths became shallower. His thoughts turned muddy and thick. Every touch to his skin turned electric. Lightning threatened to sizzle through his body. Mercer's angle changed again. His hand slipped around Saul's front. The previously untouched penis was grabbed and pumped. Once. Twice. The third time, Mercer rammed the full weight of his cock against his prostate and Saul was suddenly coming. The universe dissolved into one bright pinprick of light that flashed and flickered and finally went out with a howl. Then the darkness overtook him and Saul Tidewater surrendered to it with a smile. Face pressed to the mattress, Saul awoke to a warm but empty space beside him and a spicy balsamic scent drifting through the air. After a brief struggle with the lone sheet left covering his naked body, Saul knuckled his eyes roughly trying to get the world to turn into something more identifiable than a twilight tinted blur. A bedroom of pale ivory walls combined with white washed wooden floors and only a select few pieces of maple furniture combined to create a clean modern look with soft welcoming edges. A down comforter of meadow green laid in a tangled pile on the floor. The pillows currently missing from the white sheets and bare assed doctor on the bed were scattered across the room, stark testament to the afternoon's explosive activities. A blush that felt like it started from x-rated cheeks to his grated ones burned lightly across his body. Saul Tidewater was 76

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not a man of middle-of-the-work-day sex. A painful clinch of his ass chimed in with a reminder of the gay part of the afternoon's festivities. "Ow," he hissed as he rolled over ever so gently. "Another three minutes and I'll fix that." Mercer stood in the doorway to what appeared to be the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel slung low on his hips. He looked freshly showered, his hair still a little damp. Saul wondered briefly if the warm, almost conifer-like scent that still pleasantly teased his nose was a clean, just soap-scrubbed Mercer Braun? "Did you hear me?" Mercer asked around a soft smile. "Yeah," more knuckling of the eyes ensued. He wasn't a fool. He wasn't going to let an opportunity to stare at a barely toweled Mercer be lost to any fuzzy remnants of sleep and a hard fucking. "I got sidetracked for a second." As all details came into crystal sharp focus, Saul mused if he licked his way laboriously all the way from the man's brow to his toes if he would taste the incense on his tongue. "What the hell kind of soap do you use?" he just had to ask. He was used to the exwife coming out of her bath smelling of roses in the winter and honeysuckle in the summer. Yeah, she smelled nice, but this was different. This was way more proactive, hammering in hard on his still spent dick. "You like it?" a damned distracting twinkle accompanied Mercer's question. Saul shrugged. He wasn't about to act poetical about scents and shit. There were certain things a man just didn't do. "Good." Mercer nodded, seeming to get it. 77

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He sat up a little straighter in the bed. "Why? You're going to let me use your soap? Are you saying I stink?" Saul would admit to a little flailing of the emotions at the moment. It wasn't every day that a guy got his virginal ass fucked. Bending his head down, no doubt hiding a most deserved chuckle, Mercer took a few cautionary steps to the bed. "You trusted me enough to let me stick my dick up your asshole; think you could trust me enough to fix you a shower?" A warm rush flooded his chest. His heart flip-flopped accordingly. "In all the centuries of my marriage, my ex not one time 'fixed me a shower.'" Mercer shrugged a little sheepishly, "We're not married." "A valid point." Saul found himself smiling. Slowly, he moved to get out of the bed. He didn't even try to hide the winces. He did however grump just loud enough to assure Mercer could hear, "Jeez, that thing should come with a warning. I'd suggest 'wide load' but you've already got a healthy enough ego you're working with there." Mercer just stood there in his towel smirking. Once uprightness had been reached, Saul motioned for Mercer to go ahead. "No way I'm leading. You're not getting Braun Junior anywhere near my ass again tonight." "Just tonight?" Mercer tried to play the question off lightly but there was a bit of anxiousness in his eyes that he just couldn't hide. Apparently he was worried that he'd really hurt Saul. That warm rush was back again. "Just tonight," Saul assured him before turning and pushing him toward the 78

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bathroom door. "But nobody's going to be wanting to have sex with me if I don't get a shower." Mercer looked over his shoulder and grinned. "Personally, I think you rock the well and truly fucked look." Saul could only roll his eyes at that. Words deserted him as he stepped into the bathroom straight out of the pages of those architecture magazines. He had thought that the bedroom was impressive. This room was just ten times better. Warm cocoa colored tiles lined the walls of the sprawling bathroom. The cabinets were of a light colored wood. The floor was an off-white marble. A huge picture window overlooked the pool and its enigmatic slide. Dark green towels filled the wooden shelves. Large glass bowls served as sinks on counters of granite. What stood out most however was the shower. It spanned the length of one side of the room. Its glass walls ran from floor to ceiling. Inside were two bench seats with a collection of shower heads of every shape and size between them. Saul would guess that at least four fullygrown linebackers could fit comfortably in the shower. Saul almost hated to admit it but sometimes a person has to own up to his gut feelings. "This is sick, man." He glanced over at a smug-looking Mercer. "I mean, really, who lives like this?" Mercer shrugged. "It came with the house." Saul snorted. "It's the reason you bought the house, isn't it?" "Maybe." That was as much information Saul was about to get at the moment as Mercer reached down and released his 79

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towel from its loose hug of his hips. It fell to the floor like it belonged there. In a move that for some reason tickled Saul's insides, Mercer took Saul's hand within his own and led them both into the shower. He closed the door behind them and then turned on one of the many streams of steaming hot water. Without a word, Mercer maneuvered Saul over to a particular spot in the shower and then turned on even more of the shower heads. A warm rush of water hit his ass, massaging a million hot fingers into his cheeks. Saul moaned. Mercer smiled and began soaping his lover up. The mesmerizing scent that had greeted him when he woke soon filled the shower. Saul closed his eyes and surrendered to it and the talented hands gently washing his body. After long minutes of this sweet torture, Saul wasn't surprised at all when Mercer kneeled down in front of him and took Saul's morning wood gently into his mouth. The blowjob was gentle and loving, as if Saul's penis was something to be worshipped and adored. It didn't take long for Saul to come hard in Mercer's mouth, his body bucking slowly under the steam. Once his own come had been milked completely out of his body, Saul fell down on one of the benches and clumsily dragged Mercer's hips toward him. Saul then proceeded to swallow down Mercer's cock whole. It seemed natural to Saul, like he had given a man head all his life, not for the first time ever. 80

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Mercer came with a hard shudder and a grateful "Fuck, yes!" on his lips. Saul swallowed down every drop of come Mercer gave him, eventually easing the spent man down to the floor in front of him. The water and the heat and the smell of good sex lulled both men into a dreamless sleep. His senses returned with a tickle, a tickle in a most unusual place. If his cock wasn't sleeping the sleep of the comatose, it would probably have been making some sweet murmurings by now. A man didn't get tickled often on his groin. There were so many other things to do while in that area that tickling rarely came up. With a smile prickling itself up closer and closer to his mouth, Saul really needed to find out what was going on before dissolving in embarrassing laughter. Holding the giggle in, he cracked open one eye and looked down onto his lap. The very last thing he expected to find was Mercer Braun asleep on his thighs, his head turned to his crotch, mouth open, mute snores falling sporadically on Saul's dead to the world cock and balls. Saul was still sitting on the shower's long bench, both feet planted on the tiled floor. Mercer was still kneeling on both of his knees, one arm wrapped around one of Saul's knees, the other lying slack at his side. He looked damned uncomfortable and completely boneless at the same time. The mop of wet dark golden hair that was plastered around the strangely angelic sleeping face proved irresistible to Saul's fingers. With an uncoordinated flop that he blamed entirely on Mr. Braun 81

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using his dick like a candy coated straw, his hand landed on the head with little grace but full mischievous albeit sleepy intent. Surprisingly, Mercer didn't stir right away. In fact, he didn't stir at all even after a good five minutes of combing clumsy fingers through his hair. Finally, there was movement: an unconscious nuzzling of his face farther into the lap. It ended with lax lips being pressed to a slowly rousing shaft still reddened from its last fucking. Saul sucked in his breath, mashing his tongue to the top of his mouth to prevent any embarrassing noises from escaping. Unfortunately his fingers showed no such control as they dug hard into the scalp they were petting, eliciting a lazy wince around the sleeping eyes. "Shhh..." Saul immediately cooed, then immediately kicked himself for cooing. What the fuck? He had never cooed in his life. "Did you just..." "Shut up." Which of course Saul really didn't mean, because words felt even better on his dick than breaths. Not to mention the way Mercer's lips curling against the skin of his shaft with each spoken syllable made Saul's eyes cross. Clamping his hand tight on the head in his lap, Saul hissed, "Don't you dare move." Saul could actually feel the accompanying smile blossom across his cock. "I was thinking," Mercer mumbled with a bit of unnecessary but totally appreciated tongue. "No, you were..." Saul gasped embarrassingly, "snoring." 82

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The resulting huff of laughter against his groin nearly sent Saul through the roof. "I was thinking before..." Mercer kissed the dick in his face to define his distraction, "that I'd really like to take you out on a date." "Like a girl?" Saul immediately blamed the shock for the stupidity of that question. Mercer's lips formed into a most distracting smirk that sent goose bumps shooting down Saul's thighs. "Men date." "Yeah, I know they do." Saul banged his head back against the shower's wall, trying to knock the feeling of being a grade A coward out of his skull. He figured a confession, albeit a tiny one, was a good place to start, "I just never thought I would, you know, date. I didn't know if I'd want to date. I knew I wanted to fuck but actually dating a guy..." "Makes it more than just a sex thing?" "Yeah," Saul sighed. "Sounds stupid, I know." "Sounds honest." Bestowing another soft kiss on Saul's dick, Mercer raised up and looked Saul straight in the eye. He challenged him, "You've already jumped into the deep end, Doc. Might as well swim around and play amongst the other fishes." "A date?" Saul asked still a little leery at the concept. High school and college fiascos swirled around his head. Mercer nodded, looking all smug and utterly fuckable. "Our first." "You know that implies that there'll be more?" Saul wanted to be sure that he was hearing this right. 83

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"A second, a third, a nine hundred and ninety-ninth? Yeah, I know." The smile Mercer gave him riled up a squadron of butterflies that had been on official downtime since his wedding. "No pressure there." Saul's head sought out another good whack against the shower's wall. Mercer tapped politely on the naked thigh he was still sprawled against. He waited until he had Saul's full attention again before promising, "No pressure, Doctor. Let me take care of the details and all you've got to do is tag along. Deal?" "Deal," Saul mumbled... as if there was ever any doubt. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Five: Gentle Obscenity The lightweight, long-sleeved knit shirt clung to Mercer like a sated lover. Lazily, the ocean blue material hugged every curve of his chiseled pecs, biceps, and abs. Loose enough to dance across his light golden skin, the shirt rode the exballplayer with skill and gentle obscenity. Saul was finding himself damned jealous of that shirt. The faded, light blue jeans embracing Mercer's ass with a pornographic gluttony not allowed in most states did not help Saul's lack of goodwill toward the basic idea of clothing either. Saul had nothing against the light brown boots, although they looked like they would rather be hiking in some kind of a desert hell than walking into a darkened nightclub on a dead end road in Vegas. It had been one week since Mercer had asked Saul and his dick out on a date. Over the last seven days, Saul went to work and performed his job with his usual excellence and fervor. His lunch hours had turned into a game of who can blow whom the fastest, and even this didn't affect Saul's commitment to his profession at all. In fact, his afternoon appointments commented regularly on his particularly good mood. By mutual decision, the past seven nights had been spent apart. Saul was scared shitless of moving too fast and getting too comfortable with the idea of Mercer Braun in his life. Afternoon romps were a hell of a lot different than waking up to a guy every morning. For his part, Mercer had just nodded 85

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his head a lot as Saul rambled on about his reasoning. He never tried to change Saul's mind, just accepting the screwed up rules with a patience and easiness that had stroked his increasingly interested heart just right. Finally, after seven nights of tossing and turning and cursing a too empty bed, "date night" had arrived. Mercer had picked Saul up at seven. Saul had been ready since five. Sitting on his couch, nervously watching the clock, he found himself palming his groin every so often, just to make sure that despite all signs to the contrary that, no, he had not turned into a girl. The drive had been a quiet one. The silence, however, hadn't been awkward, just comforting. Just being in Mercer's company felt a little like coming home... a thought that basically scared Saul shitless. Ever since Elise, ever since leaving the Carolinas, Saul had been searching for a new home. The fact that he may have found it in a guy toting around a death wish on his shoulders did bad things to his stomach and silly, silly things to his heart. Before either a lecture or God forbid some kind of declaration could wrench itself from his mouth, Mercer had turned into a small parking lot and announced proudly, "We're here!" There were no bright lights "here," no showgirls wearing an ungodly amount of feathers and little else. There were no slot machines, no squeals of tourists as they won a bucketful of coins. Nothing strobed. Nothing pounded. Everything was dark, classy, and smooth. A small stage sat at the end of the room. Round tables with simple wooden, unassuming chairs filled the space 86

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between door and microphone. A bar ran along the long brick wall to the left. The bank of black leather stools were already filled with low-talking patrons sipping on shots and dark beer. There were only a few tables left empty, and they all were tagged with little "Reserved" signs. A woman was warming up on a piano to the right of the stage, while a man with a saxophone sat waiting nearby. The low, warm buzz of a crowd nearing showtime filled the smoke filled air. "What is this place?" Saul asked, feeling a little like a tourist himself. "This is where locals, like you, come to hear the best of our town. This, my friend, is—" Mercer said in a voice laced with respect. "When the top acts playing the casinos or just traveling through Vegas want a little low-key downtime and some good drinks, they come here... If they know about it, that is." "Why am I not surprised that you know about it?" Saul's comment was only met with a wry smile. Ten minutes later, the two men were ensconced at one of the more private "Reserved" tables. Drinks had been ordered and served. Unfortunately, Saul's beer hadn't helped in the loosening of Saul's lips. Most of the time Mercer wouldn't have minded the silence, but he had missed Saul this last week. While he had enjoyed his time with the doctor's cock and absurdly talented mouth, Mercer couldn't deny wanting more. More was damned hard to come by when the doctor wasn't doing anything more than breathing and looking scared out of his skin. 87

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Determined, however, to follow Saul's lead, Mercer settled back in his chair and waited for Saul's next move. Mercer didn't have to wait for long. Saul picked up the "Reserved" sign. He turned it over in his hands and stared at it curiously. A smile that teased of good memories curled the corner of his lips. Saul Tidewater was a fascinating man to watch. Mercer could sit there all night and simply stare. Of course, Saul wasn't about to allow that. "What?" the doctor asked cautiously. He turned and looked behind him, scouring the crowd for someone, anyone who could garner such interest for Mercer. Knowing exactly what the man was doing, Mercer shook his head. He was amazed at the doctor's complete lack of self-awareness. How a guy who just oozed an easy classiness and throbbed with pent up heat couldn't know how desirable he truly was bothered Mercer to no end. He wondered if the naivete had been born to Saul or had been cursed upon him by circumstances and people out of his control? Of course with Mercer not being the kind of guy who would just straight out ask about that kind of psychological crap, the exballplayer went instead for healing the symptoms than worrying about its cause. "I was looking at you, Doc." "Why?" The puppy eyes went straight to Mercer's dick. "You were doing this thing with your lips." Mercer found himself making a vague hand motion that he knew nowhere near approximated the enticing curl he was trying to describe. Mercer shook his head at himself. He really was a goner for this guy already. He knew he was in damned trouble here, 88

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but being a fool, he wasn't looking to escape it. He did try to tamp down a little on the puppy love-ness though. "Just wondering what put that look on your face, that's all." Saul shrugged as if trying to rid himself of the embarrassment that was suddenly creeping up onto his face. "Growing up, my sisters were all in to the tea party thing. They'd set up all these little TV trays inside of our house and out in the back yard. They were everywhere. It annoyed the hell out of me. I mean, really, Teddy bear tea parties? How's a boy supposed to play with his Nerf football around that?" He chuckled, then proceeded to scratch his chin, looking, well, crafty. "So when no amount of complaining to my mother got me anywhere, I got creative. I started playing by their rules." "The Teddy bear tea party rules?" Mercer asked, just wanting to keep the details straight. "Exactly." Saul grinned excitedly like a little boy just about to pull off a really big caper. "My sisters couldn't watch all their little tables all the time, so whenever they left one unattended, GI Joe would invade. There'd be guns and tanks and missile silos and B-52's and nuclear submarines. I was one heavily outfitted little boy, let me tell you. But I knew that wouldn't be enough to keep my sisters at bay. So..." Saul picked up the tiny sign again, "in the middle of every little table slash military encampment, I stuck up a little 'Reserved' sign, just like this." "Spelled correctly?" Mercer laughed, after all details were always important in these kinds of things. "Of course." Saul almost looked affronted. "Of course," Mercer apologized with a smirk. 89

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A smile crept slyly across the doctor's lips as he explained the logic of that long ago day, "No self-respecting Teddy bear tea party maven would dare mess with a legitimate 'Reserved' sign." Mercer couldn't help it, he snorted. "That in the by-laws somewhere?" In all seriousness, Saul nodded. "Little sisters have all these weird rules, man. It's freaky. You don't delve too far into their world or you might come out wearing barrettes in your hair and a pink tutu on your ass." "Experience, Saul?" While Mercer wasn't really into that kind of a thing, he'd still gladly take his time in imagining Mr. Med School ballerina-fied. Saul immediately reached for his beer. Swallowing down a gulp, he shook his head. "Not coming near that with a ten foot pole, Mercer." Apparently satisfied at his date's silence on the matter, Saul wrapped things up, "Anyhow, this," he stared down again at the little sign in his hands, "reminded me of that." This time the little shrug that followed was more of a "I can't believe I just told you that" tic than an embarrassment-chaser. Mercer decided to take pity on the guy. He asked him instead, "How many sisters do you have?" "Three. No brothers." Saul shivered a little. "It was like growing up in a war zone, my friend. My only back-up was Lester, a fifty pound basset hound I paid off with English peas under the dinner table."

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"I'm lucky you're here." It was meant to be sarcastic but had somehow come out of Mercer's mouth all different and serious. Mercer was in deep shit here. "That you are," Saul replied with a wise-ass grin. Thankfully, either Saul hadn't noticed Mercer's unintentional slip into smarm or he had chosen to ignore it. Whatever the case may be, Mercer loved the guy a little more for it. "How about you? Any brothers or sisters?" Saul asked behind a long sip of beer. "Only child." Mercer fiddled with his glass until he could find something to add that didn't make it sound so damned pathetic. Inspiration came with a tail. "We did have a cat though. A white ball of fluff and claws we called Q-Tip." Yeah, Okay, it still sounded sad. "Nope. Sorry." Mercer immediately laughed. "Not feeling sorry for you." Mercer rolled his eyes, feeling all kinds of grateful and stupid. "Drink your damn beer, Doc." "You don't?" Saul eyed the soda water sitting untouched in Mercer's glass. "I don't," he replied easily enough. This was a topic he was used to dealing with. "I got out of the habit while I was playing ball and never saw any need to get back in to it." While most of his teammates had drank and had bore no ill side effects from imbibing, Mercer hadn't been willing to risk it. He had wrapped his career so tightly in caution that when it did still manage to break it took out much more than just his ability to play ball, but all the life choices he had made specifically to buffer and further that boyhood dream. "Kind of 91

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lost the taste for it, I guess." The truth was that he feared if he ever started drinking, he'd never be able to stop. The oblivion alcohol offered was just too tempting. "My ex would love you then," Saul replied with a roll to his eyes that Mercer couldn't figure out meant that the guy was being serious or sarcastic. He would have asked but there was a much more important question he needed to put out there. "Ex-wife or ex-girlfriend?" Mercer asked in real curiosity. He was being sucked into Saul Tidewater in so many ways that Mercer was just about ready to completely give in to the pull. "Ex-wife," Saul confessed with a humorless laugh. "Yep, went for the whole bowl of wax on that one." "Sorry." And Mercer found that he really was. He didn't want anybody screwing with this generally good guy. Saul chuckled as he pointed across the table at Mercer accusingly, "Don't tell me. Bachelor?" "Yeah." Usually he bragged when he was asked about that. This time all he felt was a surprising ache. Although admittedly he had never wanted any kind of a serious relationship either before his career or during it, it kind of hurt knowing that with his heart condition and at best flaky future he was probably never going to have one now. It was something he didn't like to think about. Particularly now, sitting across from a man that had an air of forever in everything he did. "Bastard," Saul spit out with no fire. 92

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"Trade you your ex-wife for my bad heart?" The words were out of Mercer's mouth before his brain could catch up and nix them. By the brief spark in his eyes, it was obvious that this slip Saul did catch. Instead of rightfully calling Mercer on it, however, the man smoothed it out and just smirked, "No deal. I wouldn't do that to you." Mercer tipped his glass at the man and admitted truthfully, "I appreciate that." The music swept over them like a warm blanket after a cold, hard day. About an hour in, a few of the patrons started moving a few of the tables closer to the walls. A little empty spot pretending to be a dance floor was soon born. Couples of every make and size wandered in and out of the makeshift arena the rest of the night. Saul watched them all with an envious eye. When the place started emptying out and only the woman on the piano was left on the stage, Saul took one large, fortifying gulp of beer and asked, "You want to dance?" Nearly spitting out the handful of nuts he had just shoved into his mouth, Mercer found himself nodding and standing up before his brain was able to recover from the shock. Mercer Braun had never slow danced with a man. It was a fact odd in its nature but embarrassingly true. "Virgin," he whispered as they stepped out onto the small makeshift dance floor. "No, I'm not." Saul immediately frizzed up like he was some kind of pack animal and an outsider had just insulted 93

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his herd. Then an accusatory glare was shot in Mercer's direction. "Unless of course you did it wrong." "I did not do it wrong." Mercer immediately bit back. He could get his own frizz up too. "Thank God." Saul smirked as he reached out and confidently maneuvered Mercer's hips in line with his. Getting more and more the feeling that he was dealing with some kind of closet Fred Astaire here, Mercer quickly finished his initial point, "I'm talking this slow dancing stuff. I've never done this with a guy." "Oh." Saul nodded solemnly, his hands dropping from Mercer's hips mournfully. The puppy eyes were back. "Want to bail?" "No." Mercer rolled his eyes, knowing he was being played. "I don't want to bail. Just thought I should warn you." "Okay. So no dipping. Got it." "Could you just shut up and dance?" Saul grinned. "You sound like one of those 80's dance movies." Having just about enough of this shit, Mercer reached out and grabbed hold of Saul's belt buckles and yanked the smart ass doctor right into his hips. The bulge the man found waiting for him shut Saul up quite effectively. It was Mercer's turn to smirk. Saul's shock wore off quickly. A look came to his eyes that seemed to say, "So you want to fucking challenge me?" Mercer swallowed suddenly feeling like the bull to a matador. "I want to fucking be with you. Dancing, sucking, screwing, whatever." Mercer stopped, took a deep breath and 94

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summed up his dumb ass confession, "I just want to be with you, Okay?" Saul looked a little stunned by the admission, but he wasn't bolting for the door either. In fact, as his lips were whispering, "Okay," his arms were wrapping around Mercer's waist, pulling him close then starting to sway. As one low, slow song bled away into the next, the men silently stared into each other's eyes as if searching out and finding their place in the other's soul. Saul was the first to speak. "I want to kiss you." The declaration came out on a heated breath that blew warmly over Mercer's lips. The lowly spent words tickled Mercer's tongue before slipping down his throat tasting of mint and beer. "You can't." Mercer slid his hand slowly down the linen covered back, relishing the feel of the strong spine beneath his fingertips. With the hard won determination of a damned good ballplayer, Mercer concentrated only on the soft threads as they lingered beneath the whorls of skin. "We're dancing." "I can kiss..." Saul shifted, sending the muscles of his back into an erotic dance of flesh over bone. His arms tightened around his lover, bringing him dangerously closer to body parts straining in obvious and eager lust. "And dance." He swayed just a little bit harder to cement the point to Mercer's libido. "But I can't." Mercer's confession caught in his throat as a shudder bled through his body. Saul's fingers had found the skin just above his jeans, the shorn nails digging long, open circles into his body, into his consciousness. Chill blades 95

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erupted around the subliminal-laced touch. He was finding it harder to think. He was finding it harder to speak. His words came out rushed, on the back of one unsteady breath, "I can't because I'd have to have more." "More?" the bastard teased behind a devastatingly handsome crook of his mouth. Not able to slowly and painstakingly devour his lover's lips, Mercer sucked his own bottom lip between his teeth. He hissed as he bit down on the tender flesh. The slow lick of pain wasn't enough, however, to sidetrack the simmering pit of desire threatening to boil over and scald the very depths of his gut. "I'd want more here." His mouth was dry; his words literally hurt. There were no "would"s left in this conversation. Everything was about now. There was no use in pretending anything different. "I want more now." He humped his need hard against Saul's thigh, closing his eyes and sighing long and lowly at the searing though bridled passion that it brought. Saul had stopped moving. He stood perfectly still as he sucked in a breath heavy with "wants" and "cant's." He spared one to his tongue to make room for the other. "You can't." It was Mercer who swayed now, rocking them lazily back and forth into one another. He was not going to suffer through this sinful dance of abstinence by himself any longer. He would have company in his blazing, forbidden need. "Haven't you ever..." Mercer angled his head around until he was able to take the lobe of Saul's ear between his teeth. He bit down hard. Saul jerked and held onto Mercer tighter. 96

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Dipping down a few more precious inches, Mercer nuzzled his nose deep within the curve of neck into shoulder. Only after Saul's goose bumps rose and fell beneath his cheek did Mercer finish his well demonstrated thought, "With everybody watching?" As tense and taut as a guitar string under a maestro's touch, in small tight little jerks, Saul shook his head. "Breathe," Mercer reminded him as he moved even lower, dropping feather light kisses to the hollow born of Saul's collar bones. Mercer sucked in the scent that was his lover, allowing himself to get high on the man's musk. Mercer let out a low, long moan just loud enough for Saul's ears and the ears of any voyeurs they may have lured their way. Mercer could feel the color begin to burn across Saul's skin. "You know what I'm doing, don't you?" he breathed into the curve of his partner's jaw. Bringing his hand to his face, Mercer painstakingly swept his thumb across Saul's lower lip, memorizing every crease, every turn of the dark pink flesh. "You know that I'm making them watch you." He pulled back just enough to burrow his gaze deep within Saul's eyes. "They want to see if I'll push you too far." He let his hand fall to Saul's shoulder and then down to his chest. Palming his hand over Saul's thundering heart, Mercer kept talking, "They want to see you going over the edge," his other hand found the swell of Saul's ass, "They want to watch you come." His words picked up speed, "They're watching for your body to quake right now. All eyes on you. All eyes hungering for you and your seed." 97

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Saul jerked his body away, biting down on what could have easily have been a yelp. He didn't go far however. His eyes were wild, feral in their fire. The hand that shot out and fisted the collar of Mercer's shirt no longer held any human restraint. Slowly, Saul began to walk backwards, dragging Mercer along with him. Only when their feet left lazily swimming lights on the dance floor did Saul yank him completely into his body and whispered, "I come only for you." Mercer didn't need telling twice. A bathroom was found. An empty bathroom stall was claimed. The jungle like sounds that followed would become legendary in the club's lore. Saul awoke to a mammoth jostling of the bed. It was either an earthquake—he was still a virgin in that territory—or Godzilla had stopped by to try his luck at twenty-one. Either were perfectly reasonable explanations to the cottony mush that was currently Saul's brain. Seeing no need in opening his eyes to deal with the undealable, Saul started to drift back away letting the act of God or the act of Japanese cinema sort itself out. Just as the sandman was luring Saul his way again, something wet and slippery landed across his face with a sloppy smack. This time the choice not to open his eyes wasn't really his. Whatever slimy creature had just face planted on his face wasn't moving. It was just lying there across the bridge of his nose and up over his forehead. If most of his brain cells 98

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weren't still passed out in a back room of his groin, Saul probably would have tried to defend himself by now. As it was, however, he didn't want to touch it or touch it any more than it was already touching him. Even the visions of a giant slug slowly sucking his brain out of his eyeballs didn't get the blood moving. No sir, there was no fight or flight response going on in this bed. Maybe Mercer had actually fucked him stupid last night? Maybe that's why he wasn't panicking or maybe, just maybe, it was the suffocating aroma of a very ripe banana that had immediately laid his fears of death to rest? "Uh, Doc, there's a banana peel on your head." Unfortunately, Mister Obvious was running a smidge late with his grand pronouncements. Saul would have rolled his eyes at his lover but he didn't want to risk banana slime clogging up a tear duct or something. "Yes, thank you. I realize that." Instead of reaching up for the offending fruit skin, Saul simply folded his hands across his chest and asked politely, "Care to tell me why there's a banana peel on my head?" The bed shook just enough to indicate a nod. Mercer then answered simply enough, "I misjudged my landing and then overcompensated for the sprung spring you're working over here." Saul tried to count to ten but could only make it to four. "Okay, never mind. I'll ask something simpler then. Why is there a banana peel still on my head?" "I was thinking of taking a picture." Of course. 99

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"What are you? Eight?" Saul didn't have to see it; he could just feel Mercer's smirk. "Eight inches of solid girth, Doc, all for you." Wondering when he had slipped back into that bad seventies porn, Saul slowly shook his head and reached up for the peel. As he eased it and its left over gunk off of his eyes, Saul really hoped he wouldn't find Mercer sporting an afro and a thick and juicy moustache. He shivered at the mere thought. "Want a towel?" was asked behind a lousily hid snicker. "No, no, I've got it." Saul blindly reached out for his bedside table where he knew there was a box of tissues waiting. Suddenly, a hand clasped around his wrist and tucked his arm back near his body. The voice had lost its snicker and had gained a truckload of gravel. "Here, let me do it." Saul grayed out there for a minute. The fact that Mercer Braun, former major league first baseman, was licking banana juices off of Saul's face in long, slow laps of his tongue would have shorted out even good old Einstein's circuits. Saul allowed himself the small phase out and tried desperately not to giggle when a previously unknown ticklish spot on his left eyelid fell prey to the tongue. Saul didn't know how long Operation De-Slime Tidewater had taken, but he did know it hadn't been near long enough. As the end was declared by a peck of lips on the tip of his nose, Saul finally opened his eyes and looked straight down to his dick doing jumping jacks under the sheet. "Hmm, think it's a kink?" 100

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"I don't know. Want me to Google it?" Mercer, who was kneeling on the bed at Saul's side, looked down apparently amazed at the aerobic talent of doc junior. Curiously Mercer poked his finger at it. Immediately Saul slapped the exploring hand away. "Hey, hands off. This isn't a petting zoo." He then pushed himself up into a sitting position against the headboard. Carefully, he folded his hands over the over-enthusiastic member. He was not going to have sex until he found out how a banana peel ended up on his head. Mercer leaned back and pouted just a little. It was adorable and unfairly fuckable, but Saul had his rules and was fully prepared to stick to them... for at least the next half minute. "I ask again. Why..." "I answered that," Mercer broke in indignantly. "Not in any human dialect, you didn't." Mercer sighed and began his explanation again. "I was hungry. I found fruit." And the bastard actually planned on ending it right there. Saul pounded him in the thigh. The explanation resumed. "I was going to scare you. I leapt on the bed with my peeled banana and like I said before, I misjudged...." "You leapt?" "Yeah," Mercer shrugged like it was an everyday occurrence which maybe it was in his world. "And you've got a sprung spring, Doc. Better have that looked at." 101

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Sure, Saul would definitely file that away under "urgent." Right now Saul was a bit more concerned that he'd accidentally slept with a toddler last night. "Did you not play enough when you were a child? Was there a lack of trampolines in your formative years?" There was a flinch in those gorgeous brown eyes that disappeared before Saul could have even sworn it was there. Mercer's laugh sounded forced. "You're the grown up in this thing. Haven't you figured that out yet?" "This thing?" Saul slowly repeated, his heart beating way too fast. Tilting his head to the side, all laughter gone from his face, Mercer asked seriously, "What would you call it?" "I don't know the lingo," Saul backed out of the hot seat lamely. Mercer rolled his eyes, accepting the deflection for the cop out that it was. "There is no lingo. Unless you call "seeing one another"..." "Exclusively?" The word left his mouth before Saul could stop it. Mercer nodded, accepting it without so much as a "Hell no! Are you fucking insane, man!" In fact, Saul just might have caught a smile ever so swiftly across those delectable lips. "Unless 'seeing one another exclusively' is some kind of hip jargon you're not comfortable with, Old Man." Any fluffy bunny-like feelings were swept out to the curb. "I'm five months older than you, Bastard." The s.o.b. grinned. "It must have been a long five months then." 102

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Saul wisely ignored that particular dig, choosing instead to look for a little confirmation. "So, we're..." Saul flicked his hand between them briefly. "Yeah, we're..." Mercer repeated the gesture with a soft laugh. Saul felt himself beaming like a fool. "Hey, you want to go spray paint our names on an overpass or something?" "Or something." Mercer shook his head and proceeded to spread the whole length of his body out over Saul's like warm melting butter on a piping hot sweet roll. The grumbling of Saul's still empty stomach was quickly drowned out by deepthroated moans. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Six: Dirty, Little Secret It was only five in the morning, but somehow Saul Tidewater was already running late. What really stung was that this was his day off. He wasn't even on call today. With his career, it was a rare thing to have twenty-four hours completely to himself. He should be sleeping in, not hopping around on one socked foot while trying to sock the other before the sun had even crawled out of its own bed. Maybe if his damned kitchen phone would stop fucking ringing he wouldn't be jumping around like a clumsy kangaroo on speed trying to get to it. Of course just as he got to it, Saul heard the front door open. Shit. He must really be running late. Sparing no time to greet his lover with a "Fuck, this is early," Saul answered the phone with a brisk "Hello?" "Good morning, big brother!" Valerie Tidewater's seventeen-year-old voice burst through the thousand miles of distance with vim and vigor and all things inappropriate for five o'clock in the fucking morning. "Valerie? What the hell?" By his sister's chipper tone that had already scratched out an ache in his head, Saul knew that nothing was wrong on the South Carolina home front. His mom apparently hadn't fallen in the oven. His dad hadn't finally lost the battle with the old oak tree in the backyard he'd been working on cutting down for decades. There were no little sister parts strewn across any highway. Most of him, of course, was damned thankful for the knowledge, but that remaining pissed off part of him, the part that was currently 104

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staring down a sock only half way up his bare foot, was growling, "What the fuck, Val?" He winced as he hadn't meant to let that little pissed off part of him actually get a hold of his tongue. "Sorry, sorry," he tossed out the same apology big brothers had been forced to give little sisters for centuries. Even Valerie's silence was smug. Knowing his little sister she was probably recording this conversation and would be running off to tell their Mom about it the moment she hung up. While Valerie Tidewater might be seventeen-years-old to the rest of the world, she would always be an eight-year-old brat to her big brother. Saul didn't know why the heck he loved her so damned much. When her continued silence got a little too much for him to take, Saul sighed and plopped himself and his one and a half sock-covered feet up on the counter, settling in for the long haul that was often his sister Valerie. "You do know it's only 5:03 out here, right?" The time zone concept had never seemed to breach the girl's hardened teenage crust. "Yes, Saul. They taught us all about clocks and telling time last week. I even got a gold star for it and everything," she gushed drolly. Saul rolled his eyes and wondered if it was really too early to bring out the rum? "What do you need, Val? This is my first day off in two weeks so..." "I needed to say hi to my big brother, check in on him, make sure Sodom and Gomorrah hadn't eaten him up and spit him out yet." Valerie was an expert at dishing out the guilt and the sarcasm in the same roll of the tongue. It was a talent she had learned from their mother. 105

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"Well, thanks for your concern. I'm fine..." Mercer chose that moment to walk into the room. There was skin. The man was wearing a pair of cargo shorts that ended an inch or two above his knee. Mercer's calves were ungodly, even his knee caps had a hint of the devil to them. Saul had to shake his head a little to draw his attention back to his sister and a correction that needed to be made. "Actually, Val, I'm great. Super, even." Saul waved Mercer farther into the kitchen when his lover mouthed if he should leave. There was no way in hell that man looking like that was getting out of his sight for the rest of the day, if not for the rest of his life. "You're super?" she asked incredulously. "Big brother, you haven't been "super" ever." "Val..." Yes, Saul whined. His sister could wring a good whine out of the hardest of souls. "You're a man of no extremes, bro. Even when Elise..." "Don't go there," Saul warned her seriously. "Not today, Okay?" "Okay," she slowly agreed sounding more curious than actually subdued. "Are you alone?" At this point, Saul basically just wanted to die. He was not having this conversation with his teenaged sister. He was not. Apparently, however, he was as his sister did a little screech into the phone before pinning him to the proverbial wall, "You're not, are you? Oh my God, you've got a girl over! What's her name? What does she do? She's not one of those dancers like in the movie "Showgirls," is she? Do you need me to send condoms?" 106

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Saul hopped off the counter and walked deliberately over to his liquor cabinet. His hand closed around the bottle of rum with no second thoughts. He was amazed that all big brothers didn't come with lifetime memberships to AA stamped to their asses. Suddenly another hand joined his, gently prying his fingers away from the golden liquid relief. Saul glanced hard up at the intruder into his bar space but found only a raised brow and a concerned look in his lover's eyes. There was no chastisement or judgment to be found anywhere. Once again sighing, Saul reached up and patted Mercer's face briefly before returning to the hellish world of little sisters offering condoms. "No, I do not need condoms," Saul ignored the snort from Mr. Braun, "and if Mom hears you asking that she's going to lock you up in the basement until you're forty." "Actually, Mom's the one who wanted me to ask." She waited a beat, making sure the pin had dropped and rattled around in all its appropriate doom. "Mom's right here. Do you want to talk to her?" "No, I don't think I'll ever talk to her again, thank you very much." Even with his sister's giggles echoing evilly in his head, Saul steadfastly refused to imagine the look of amusement and good-natured concern for her little boy that his mother was no doubt wearing right now. He glanced up at Mercer expecting little red devil horns to have sprouted from his head. This kind of shit just doesn't happen outside of hell. A hornless Mercer, however, just radiated bleak pity. Saul rolled his eyes and returned to his sister. "I'm not saying 107

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another word to you, Val, until you swear that you are locked alone in your room with all recording devices turned off." "Ah, party pooper," she fussed. The sound of a door slamming however clued Saul in to the fact that his little sister had actually done what she was asked. "Okay, you're all safe. Now I want to hear details. Preferably dirty ones that I can tease you about incessantly." The trouble with Valerie was that she lied about the stupidest things. She might rag on him about some things but his relationships with women she never touched. She had a damned good listening ear, one of which he'd probably used too much since his divorce from Elise. While he had never admitted any of the darker details of the separation to Valerie, he did gain comfort from listening to her odd mix of hopeless romanticism and irrepressible frankness. Unfortunately, the result had been that Valerie could now read him like a book and her bulldog tenacity Saul knew was not going to allow her to let go of her suspicions until she found out the truth about her big brother's love life. He could feel a smirk tugging meanly at his lips as he warned her, "Be careful what you wish for, Sis." Hell, he hadn't planned to do it this way but outing himself to his baby sister at five-freaking- o'clock in the morning sounded just about right. "Okay. I'm ready." Saul could picture her sitting crosslegged on her bed, elbows to her knees, chin cupped in her left hand. "Lay it on me, Saul. Who is she?" "We're not talking she, Val. We're talking he." 108

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Pins can drop in the Carolinas too. "He?" she asked with only the barest hint of a stutter. "Man," Saul confirmed. The sound of his sister's phone dropping to her mattress was clear. In her credit, the phone didn't remain abandoned for long. The sound of her scrambling for it amid a colorful array of curses brought a smile to Saul's face. "You're bullshitting me," Valerie accused, sounding a little hurt and a lot mad. "No," he answered seriously. He did not want her thinking that, not for a moment. "I'm not, Valerie. I swear I'm giving you the God's honest truth here." "Oh my God," she finally whispered. Saul's heart sunk. His voice mirrored his fall, "Is it so bad, Val?" "It sure the hell is!" she snapped. "How the fuck could I have missed this?" There was a loud smack that sure sounded like a slap to a forehead. "Shit. I'm an idiot." "Uh, Sis, are you pissed at you or me?" Hope crept into his voice "Well, duh! Me." The roll of her eyes cut through the miles with venom. "Wait a minute. You didn't think that I would be mad or..." A laugh of utter relief bubbled out of his mouth. "Kind of new at this, Val. I didn't know what to expect." While his family weas open-minded and had never voiced any problems with the idea of same-sex relationships, Saul had still been carrying around that painful niggling of doubt. Valerie would 109

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never understand the gift that she had just given him. He leaned heavily on the counter and just grinned. "How long?" Having fully recovered from the initial shock, she apparently had no trouble shifting back into nosy little sister mode. "About a month now." No need telling her the exact hour, minute and second count. Saul could do without that added torment, thank you very much. "So, is he... I mean, do you..." she sputtered before getting her crap together and just asking it straight out, "Ah, hell, is it good?" "Yeah," Saul found his lover's gaze and smiled, "It's real good." "Super?" He could hear the snicker in his sister's voice and just wanted to hug her. Instead, he just answered simply and honestly, "Yeah." The answering squeal was not totally unexpected but was ear shattering nonetheless. "Val! You're going to scare Mom." Giving his mother a heart attack really wasn't on his docket for the day. "Oh, don't be such a worry wart," she brushed him off with the kind of ease only a teenager could know. "Besides, I bet Mom already knew it." Oh yeah, that's exactly what he needed to hear. "Are you really trying to give me an aneurysm here?" "I'm just saying..." "Well, stop it." Mercer's leaning into the refrigerator to grab himself some milk sidetracked Saul for a second. That 110

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ass really was ungodly. Clearing his throat and readjusting the growing bulge in his pants, Saul confessed a little huskily into the phone, "I have plans for the day that don't include a nervous breakdown, alright?" Trust Valerie to latch on to the telltale deep hum to his voice. "Is he there? Is he with you right now? What is he wearing?" How this conversation with his little sister had degraded into sounding badly pornographic Saul would never, ever know. "Okay, that's it. Conversation is now over." "He is there," she sounded truly awed, a fact that either meant that she hadn't really believed his little revelation or the fact that being a moron ran in the Tidewater family. "You are not talking to him, Valerie." Saul was going to nip that in the bud right now. "Did I ask?" she tried her best to sound affronted. When that didn't work she reverted to pain in the ass. "Can you send me a pic?" "Val!" "He can have his clothes on, jeez. I'm not that twisted." There was a little bit of silence and then a soft and genuinely curious, "Do I at least get his name?" "Hold on a minute." Turning to Mercer, not bothering with trying to hide his question from Val's obnoxiously good hearing, Saul asked, "Does my little sister at least get your name?" They hadn't talked about it. Sure, they had been "doing" Vegas as a couple, using their real names and all that shit, but Saul knew that that damned commercial about "What 111

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happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" could encompass a hell of a lot of things, things like Saul and Mercer. Saul found himself holding his breath painfully as he waited for Mercer to answer... an answer that was taking a damned long time... and what was with that smirk?... and where the fuck... what the hell was Mercer doing? Now standing in front of Saul, the aforementioned smirk still beaming bright, Mercer reached out and took the phone from Saul's apparently numb fingers and spoke right into the receiver, "Hi. The name's Mercer and I've got a thing for your brother." Saul could feel his mouth flopping open and closed a number of times although nothing was coming out. Yeah, he was acting like a freaking fish out of water but at the moment he just couldn't bring himself to care. He wondered briefly how the hell his life had come to this point? Before he could answer himself, Saul watched in a mixture of horror and utter disbelief as Mercer Braun blushed into the phone. The words that followed out of the red-faced mouth didn't exactly help calm Saul's pending stroke. "How old are you again?" Mercer nearly stuttered as his laugh held a definite nervous twitch to it. Swiping the phone out of his lover's grasp before the four horsemen of the apocalypse showed up and started doing their thing, Saul informed both parties as he brought the phone back up to his own ear, "Valerie is seventeen and won't be seeing eighteen."

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Valerie was already in full whine and plea mode, "Ah, come on, Saul. It's not like I don't know what two men can do. I think it's hot." Yes, this was hell. "Goodbye, Valerie." She laughed, giving up graciously. "Bye. Love ya, big brother." Hanging the phone up slowly, still locked in an "I can't believe this shit" daze, Saul found the damned twinkling brown eyes of his lover. He asked him genially, "Did you really have to do that?" Mercer laughed. "I really, really did, Doc." "Do not call me that." Saul stomped over to Mercer's side and grabbed the glass he held in his hand and emptied the milk down his throat without an ounce of regret. Saul had so much pent up energy right now that he was just itching for a fight. Mercer, however, wasn't falling for it. Handing Saul a napkin with a soft smile, he commented, "Valerie seems nice." Saul's frustration was not about to be soothed so quickly. "I repeat, she's seventeen years old. She's a pain in the butt." At Mercer's stern look, Saul relented, if only a little, "She's a pain in the butt that I love lots, Okay?" Great, now he had his lover defending his little brat of a sister. Could this day get any better? "Okay." Mercer nodded agreeably as he headed for the fruit bowl.

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Ripping the banana out of Mercer's hands, knowing what kind of trouble lay on that path, Saul accused without any of the heat from before, "You're early." "No," grabbing a handful of grapes instead of his beloved banana, Mercer corrected, "You're late." He grinned, a little more than was called for in this situation. Saul called him on it immediately, "Why are you smiling?" Popping a grape into his mouth, he shrugged, "I just think it's nice that you told your sister about me." Saul stared at his lover for a long, long time. "You're actually going to brag about that?" he finally managed to mutter out with a healthy dose of "What the fuck?" "I thought that you... that I...I mean, you're a public figure and it can't be easy and..." Mercer laid his hand gently across Saul's mouth. "You thought you were my dirty little secret?" he asked, clearly a little hurt that Saul had read him that way. Gripping Mercer's wrist he slowly pulled the hand away. "Yeah... although I'd hardly call myself little." Saul tried to make light, knowing that he had just fucked up royally. "True enough." Brown eyes traveled appreciatively down to Saul's groin. "Little is one word I'd never use for you, Doc." Taking his last grape, Mercer then slowly brought it up to Saul's lips and grinned like a naughty school boy as Saul bit down on the fruit. "I'm not ashamed of anything you and I are doing. Don't you ever doubt that. Hey, I'd even sell tickets but..." "But?" Saul licked the grape juice off of his lips. 114

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Mercer smirked as he leaned over and kissed off a drop of juice from Saul's chin. "You're mine, Doctor Tidewater, and I don't share." "Good to know." Saul couldn't help but smile. Maybe this day wasn't going to turn out too bad after all. The road was bumpy. Saul didn't mention that though. He figured it was fairly obvious. Besides, he really didn't want to engage the man. Mercer was driving. It was definitely an inappropriate moment to play vacuum cleaner and suck the man's brains out through his cock like a straw. Nope. It was best that Saul kept his mouth shut. Firmly. He was sure that the ride would be over soon. It had to be. Thirty miles of watching firm thighs under richly tanned and softly furred skin jostling with every bump and crevice of the poorly maintained black top had to come to an end sometime. His life was just shitty like that. It had been two weeks since their first "date night." Saul's hospital schedule sucked, so the men had been relegated once again to lunchtime delights. This time, however, overnighters were no longer off limits. Waking up in Mercer's arms had quickly become one of Saul's favorite things. He didn't allow himself to indulge in it often however. Only three times over the past fourteen days had he dragged himself from the hospital late at night and headed straight to Mercer's. After fourteen hour shifts Saul had been in condition for sex. Snuggling, however, became nearly as addictive. When Mercer had suggested a second "date" the first time Saul had a day off, the doctor had jumped at it. Even when Mercer had told him to pack a bag and buy himself some 115

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good hiking boots, Saul hadn't balked. At this point, Saul would have followed Mercer to the ends of the earth. Apparently "to the ends of the earth" was exactly where Mercer was taking him. Slowing down the truck, Mercer pulled into a spot by some big rock before Saul could even ask for another go of it around the block. He could definitely go for another hour or two of a tightly jiggling Mercer behind the wheel. A quick look at his passenger as Mercer turned off the engine brought a frown to the man's brow. "You car sick or something?" he asked Saul. At this point Saul considered banging his head against the dashboard until unconsciousness was had. Anything had to be better than having your lover mistake the look of sexual appreciation on your face as a need to puke. "Something," Saul huffed as he opened the door and prepared to drag himself out of the truck and into the blazing hot oven called a second date. Mercer grabbed his arm. With one foot out the door, Saul looked back at the driver, the "What the hell?" he left to the curves and planes of his apparently nauseated face to ask. Sucking the luscious soft pink flesh that was his bottom lip in between his teeth, Mercer studied Saul a little unsurely for a moment before wondering aloud, "Aren't you going to explain the 'something?'" Saul narrowed his eyes at the man, uncertainty ramming its fist down his throat and making him want to choke up all his bat shit crazy insecurities for Mercer's amusement. This 116

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guy was a walking cock, all self-confidence and sex on a 6'1" stick. What the hell was Saul thinking? Sure, he may be a doctor, a damned good doctor at that, and a decent enough person with an interesting sense of humor and a healthy dose of manly spunk, but Saul Tidewater was nowhere near the league of Mercer Braun. Talk about hitching your dick to a star... a hand suddenly cupping his face brought the inner tirade to an immediate halt. "You've got to stop doing that." A lazy smile had settled upon Mercer's lips. "Stop what?" He was damned proud of himself for not stuttering. The heat radiating through Mercer's skin and into his own did funny things to his head. In an act of pure selfpreservation, Saul shook his head and reluctantly pulled his face away from the brain stuttering caress. Mercer sighed and let his hand fall again to his lap. "Over analyzing everything. One minute you're looking at me like you want to eat me with a spoon and the next you look ready to bolt for the hills." Saul turned away and locked his gaze on some imagined spot a hundred miles away. "Actually I was considering digging a hole and crawling in it." The confession lacked heat or the humor meant to be attached. Saul hoped Mercer wouldn't notice. Mercer noticed. "Why the hell would you want to do that?" He thumped the back of his hand against Saul's thigh, no doubt trying to draw his attention away from the "over yonder" hidey hole. 117

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Saul decided to be a stubborn jackass and refused to even glance at the driver as he laid an embarrassing part of his teenage years out on the line. "Sophomore year, Sawgrass High. I get these flashbacks sometimes." He did manage to flop his hand through the air once, trying to convey without words or gaze that yes, in fact he did know how ridiculous it sounded. "Nerd?" Mercer guessed right away. "To the nth degree." Saul shuddered as some of the crueler memories rushed from the farthest corners of his mind back out front and center. He closed his eyes as the joint feeling of being both an idiot and a big fucking baby settled into his bones like a summer cold. Apparently, Mercer's adeptness at reading a curve ball being launched at him at ninety miles per hour didn't translate into reading Saul Tidewater's insecurities. The ball player blithely responded, "So? What does that have to do with now?" Saul pinched the bridge of his nose and huffed out unkindly, "Asks the jock with his tongue down every cheerleader's throat and his dick in every..." "I was home schooled, Saul," Mercer interrupted. Saul's eyes shot open at the unexpected flood of cold water thrown onto his stereotype driven argument. He immediately felt like a moron. Combined with the idiot and big fucking baby syndrome, Saul was going to be lucky to make it out of this second date without a complex. He opened his mouth to confess to his moron-ness, but Mercer beat him to it. 118

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Wearing a look on his face that said "Well, shit happens. What's a guy supposed to do about it?" Mercer continued, "I never saw the inside of a classroom until I walked into college that first day. I puked up my guts in the potted fichus down the hall ten minutes before Freshmen English was going to start. I tossed up what was left in a bed of God-awful tangerine impatiens five minutes after class was dismissed. I hid out in my dorm room for two days after that. The only thing that got my ass back in gear was wanting to play baseball. I had to go to class to be on the team. So, I went and hated it, but I pulled a B average without even sleeping with any of my professors, male or female. I was drafted my second year." Mercer shrugged, even going as far as to adding a lopsided smile to his conclusion, "All in all I guess it worked out in the end." Saul was basically speechless after that. His mouth flopped open a time or two but nothing came out of it. "What?" Mercer asked, as apparently Saul's imitation of a starving guppy had not gone unnoticed. "How the hell did you end up like this then?" As soon as he asked it, Saul knew it was going to need some explanation. Damn it. He blanched and turned away. Why the hell didn't he just staple his lips shut for good? Giving Saul no time to wallow, Mercer rapped his knuckles against Saul's arm. "Like this?" Saul had to look at him. There was no other way to know if Mercer was just curious or about to practice his home run swing on Saul's face. Turning around, Saul thankfully found a softly furrowed brow that radiated only a little bit of "What 119

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the fuck?" but no immediate violence. Figuring that this look was the perfect example of what Saul had been saying, the doctor flapped a hand toward Mercer's face and answered, "Yeah, like that." "Like how?" The furrow disappeared, replaced with a look of barely restrained amusement. If Saul hadn't found himself falling so hard in maybe-love with Mercer, he would have really hated this guy. "Like some fucking poster boy for popularity and confidence. You know, like Mr. America or some kind of cape-less shit. Let me just tell you, it's sick. In fact, you're sick. And if you weren't hung like some Greek god, me and my latent issues would be out of here. There's a reason you don't sell the rhinestones next to the diamonds. And you, my friend, are it." God, did he just compare himself to a freaking rhinestone? Silently, Mercer stared at him. He stared at Saul for a hell of a long time before replying gently, "You know that all of what you just said doesn't make any sense, right?" Admittedly, Saul had lost himself somewhere after the "hung like some Greek god" statement. The visuals accompanying that truth had sort of overwhelmed his circuits for a second there. Where the rhinestone crap had come from he really didn't want to contemplate. That stapler to the lip thing was looking better and better all the time. "Okay, I agree with you. Nix all of that." Mercer nodded then shrugged. "I liked the hung part." "Of course you would." Saul snorted. "Look, all I'm saying is that you've got to give me some leeway with all this confidence shit. I am not you. I don't have people falling all 120

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over themselves just to get a sniff of me. Don't get me wrong. I'm not jealous of the sniffing, in no way do I yearn to be sniffed by the general public. I just find it weird, good but really, really weird, that a guy like you is wanting to..." "Sniff?" "A guy like me." Mercer tilted his head to the side and shrugged. "Get used to it, Doc. I'm nowhere near done sniffing you." Thankfully the ex-ball player didn't wait for a reply. He was out the door and around to the back of the truck way before Saul's grin reached the goofy stage. Once he had beaten his loopy smile back into submission, Saul joined Mercer at the truck's bed and watched him rustle through their equipment. There were first aid kits, sleeping bags, enough water to drown a fish and all the other sundries that bespoke of a man who had done this kind of thing way too often. However, as Saul's eyes categorized and then dismissed each hiking goodie, a particularly important "sundry" seemed to be missing. "No tent," he stated dryly. Head down, Mercer was busy calibrating something GPSlooking in his hands. He mumbled something mostly unintelligible into his chest. Saul did catch the words "sky" and "cover" though. He was getting a bad feeling about this. "What did you just say?" Saul asked anxiously. Mercer and one of his damned shrugs struck again. "You heard me. The sky will cover us just fine." Saul really hoped the man was kidding. He grabbed and yanked Mercer's arm toward him, forcing him to actually look 121

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at him. Saul really needed some kind of facial clue as to the severity of what was being said. Mercer looked up at him accordingly. Saul's gut hit the ground. "You're serious." There was another fucking shrug. "Of course." When Saul gave him no response, confusion began to eat away at the features of his handsome face. Suspicion soon followed. "I thought you had done this before?" he accused still looking dumbfounded. "Yes." Saul threw his hands out to his side in a sign of complete exasperation. "Camping, as in a tent with a cot, and camp counselors stationed at the flap armed with flashlights and bug spray." If summer camps couldn't be classified as camping then they sure as shit wouldn't be called camping... that, however, was a bit of logic Saul chose not to share at the moment. "Oh." Mercer looked crestfallen, his boot toeing a hole in the dirt. "You should have said. I could have borrowed one from somewhere, I guess. Or I could run back into town and buy a tent for you?" "What and leave me here, by myself?" That was not panic in Saul's voice. It was not. "To stake our claim, yeah." Stake our claim? "Excuse me, when did we decide to pan for gold?" Mercer could do exasperation too. Hands on his hips, a deep breath raked from his lungs, Mercer asked in slow, short words, "You don't want to lose this spot, do you?" 122

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Saul didn't even flinch. He just simply exploded into words and accompanying, and in no way emasculating, hand gestures. "Two points. One: This spot is just like that spot, and that spot over there, and..." "I get it." Mercer rolled his eyes. Saul didn't care. "Two: Lose this spot to whom? There's nobody else here. And just so you know, no matter your affinity for this particular plot of dirt, if a scorpion or a desert hyena really wanted this spot while you were gone, I'd let him have it, Mercer, I really would." Mercer shook his head sadly, a tentative curl to the corner of his lip. "You would have made a lousy prospector, Doc." Saul snorted. "That hurts, Braun." With all seriousness, Mercer asked, "You really need a tent?" Saul immediately scoffed, "I don't need a tent. Need was never mentioned." Mercer nodded patiently. "But you want a tent?" Arms tucked across his chest, Saul confessed in his most manly manner, "Yes. I want a tent." The bastard threw a freaking shrug at him. "Well, I'm sorry. I don't have one for you." He didn't so much as blink as he stared at Saul as if he was just daring the doctor to whine. Saul smirked, unexpectedly finding himself in the perfect position to get what he really wanted. "Then I want a rim job. A big one." Mercer looked suitably stunned. Then he looked ridiculously pleased. "Really? You're up for that?" 123

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A quick look down at his own cargo shorts confirmed Saul's condition in no uncertain terms. "Yes, I believe I am." The setting sun cast a deep red glow to everything, including Saul's ass cheeks. Leaning over the open tailgate of the truck, shorts and black briefs in a puddle at his left ankle, booted legs wide and waiting, wife-beater pushed up to his chest, arms braced for heavy assault, Saul looked like a porn star's wet dream. Mercer hoped to God that his heart was going to make it through this. Mercer had purposefully picked this far corner of the Reserve, a corner that was rarely visited by hiker or park official, in hopes of just this type of brazen encounter. "What are you waiting for? And if you say something corny like enjoying the view, I'm going to kill you." Saul sounded nervous and a little pissy. In impatience, he shuffled his feet around as much as his spread position allowed. The muscles in his calves, thighs, and butt danced accordingly, the x-rated portion of the evening already in full swing. Mercer needed some water. Taking a long sip from the bottle at his feet, Mercer found spit again and was finally able to answer. "I'm just planning my strategy, Doc. There's a lot of prime real estate to cover back here." Saul groaned. "I can't believe you just said that." Mercer chuckled. "Want me to go back to 'I'm just enjoying the view?'" "Might not be a bad idea. I'm nervous enough as it is without me imagining a platoon of soldiers back there measuring up the best approach to my asshole." 124

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"Shh..." Mercer shushed as his plan of attack became clear. "Whatever I do, you do not get to move, understood?" "Yeah." Saul nodded. Mercer began. The long, lean line of the Achilles tendon drew him first. Tight and strung so hard between heel and calf, it was an objectification of everything Saul Tidewater was making Mercer Braun. Decision made, Mercer dropped down to his knees. Finding that he needed to get even lower, that he needed to bend at the waist and stick his own ass up and out in the dry desert air just to reach the chosen destination, stirred something submissive and completely unexpected in the deepest pit of his soul. With his dick already hard and fighting for space in his shorts, bending to the ground at the waist proved painful and almost daunting. A weaker man would have abandoned the quest. The insane desire to skin teeth along the length of the slim taut tendon would surely have been pushed to the wayside in favor of morsels not requiring such subservient posturing. Mercer, however, just took it as a challenge, half wishing that someone did see him this way, hoping for a stranger's lens to have captured this moment and saved it for an eternity more of Mercer's own fantasies. These wishes and hopes faded deep into the background lull of the desert as Mercer's mouth finally enveloped skin. The Achilles tendon jerked in response to the newness of the sensation. With one hand steadying his kneel on the ground, Mercer's other hand clamped around Saul's shin, holding the leg still as its muscles bucked and then finally 125

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calmed. Saul tasted of salt born of sweat, of soap from their morning shower, and of leather from his hiking boot. Slowly, Mercer trailed his teeth and his tongue up the back of his lover's leg, pausing only to linger at the change of texture, the change of shape and girth as heel became calf and calf became knee. The hollow created at the bend of the back of the knee proved to be even more intoxicating to Mercer than the achingly long tendon had been. He felt like he was licking a bowl clean of its batter. Not wanting to miss a spot, not wanting to ignore a taste, Mercer suckled at the often neglected spot. Saul's thighs quivered under Mercer's steadying hands. He mouthed a "shush" into the warm worshipped skin. It was a warning more than an admonition. Where Mercer's attention was headed next he knew to be a fire keg on his own body. He was counting on Saul feeling the same. Leaving the wet bowl of the knee, Mercer mouthed hungrily at Saul's thigh. Sometimes teeth were bore deep into skin, sometimes only tongue and lips nursed the strong though quaking flesh. Smelling the need of the man who was now beginning to moan only spurred Mercer on faster to the awaiting star shaped cauldron of fire stretched and pinched in the dead center of his vision. Circling his hands around to the front of Saul's body, Mercer dragged his shorn nails roughly up from leg to groin. Cupping the balls he found hanging heavy there, he massaged their weight in slow, calming kneads, just enough to distract any nerves but not enough to put flame to 126

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any new fires. Mercer was careful not to touch Saul's shaft, a shaft he could already feel straining as it came to hardened attention. Mercer wanted all of his lover's attention to be focused on what was about to happen between his cheeks. The penis could wait until the star caught up with the festivities. Mercer gave no warning. His tongue simply breached Saul's asshole, digging as far in as the tight man would allow. Saul bucked as if he had just been privy to an executioner's chair's fire. Squeezing the captured balls tighter, Mercer used his upper arms to brace Saul's hips in place. Saul fought the intrusion with determination, a determination that slowly melted down and away into pleasure. Just as Mercer could feel the muscles in Saul's ass cheeks begin to relax, Mercer slipped out his tongue. Saul let out a pitiful moan and shoved his butt back, searching out the lost tongue. Not wanting the man to suffer, Mercer swiped his tongue back down to the treasured valley and began to loop up and down the hard sides. Around and around, licks were circled about the furiously puckering star. Saul began to plea. Then, he began to beg. Only when the sweat began to pearl on Saul's backside did Mercer relent. He stabbed his tongue back deep into the hole. This time, however, Mercer began to thrust. 127

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Saul gasped and Mercer could feel the man's legs start to wobble. He tightened his hold around Saul's waist, no longer needing to use the sacs for distraction. There was no doubt. His tongue was the only thing now in Saul's existence. It was time to add more. With the tip of a single finger, Mercer touched the base of Saul's ripened shaft. Saul jerked. Slowly, the finger followed the vein up to the head. Mercer was still thrusting. Saul was barely standing. With a precision in stark contrast to his jamming his tongue into Saul's asshole, Mercer began circling the tiny slit at the end of Saul's cock with the feather light touch of his finger. Saul threw back his head and screamed. Mercer could feel the orgasm thundering through his lover's body, crumbling defenses, rocking muscles until they literally rolled in surrender to the pleasure. Only when Saul's knees did finally buckle did Mercer slip out his tongue. With a smile and a hard-on that would mostly likely kill him, the ex-ball player caught the doctor in his arms and held him tight as he quaked. Mercer's whispered "I love you" went unheard by the pleasure-shattered man. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Seven: Behind Dusk's Curtain Night had fallen over the desert. The two men lay on top of their open sleeping bags ensconced in the back of Mercer's truck. After a blowjob had dealt with Mercer's lingering erection, dinner had been had and makeshift beds were made. Both men now lay on their backs, naked from the waists up, admiring the millions of stars peeking down on them. Saul was the first to break the silence. "How many times have you done this?" Saul waved his hand lazily among the darkened heavens. He thought the subject matter was fairly obvious. Apparently not. "This?" Mercer wrinkled up his nose, somehow morphing into a five-year-old boy asked to explain trigonometry. "As in watching the stars?" Saul was learning more and more that the naive questioning Mercer sometimes fell into wasn't a show. He wasn't putting on a facade; he was stepping out from behind one. That took a lot of faith in someone to do. Saul was quickly finding himself honored by that trust. Of course, he wasn't about to tell Mercer that. "As in the stars watching you fuck a lover out here with the coyotes and sagebrush?" "Oh, that." Mercer twitched his shoulder a little, apparently the lying down version of his favored shrug. "Would you believe me if I said you were the first?" Saul snorted. "The first cardio thoracic surgeon, maybe." 129

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Mercer shook his head and confirmed simply, "Nope, you're it. One and only." "One and only man, you mean? Girls would just eat this up and you know it," Saul argued with a lot of scraped up gusto but no heart. He was under no illusions that Mercer had been just sitting around waiting for Saul's arrival in his life. An achingly genuine smile crossed Mercer's lips as he argued right back, "I'm sure they would, but you, my friend, are still the only one." "I'm still the only one?" Saul repeated it slowly, sure that he'd heard that line in a hundred different country music songs. He just never thought he'd be on the receiving end of one of them. Saul worked up a harried sigh. "Well, at least you didn't sing it." "I've got a guitar back there. Do you want me to get it?" The bastard was grinning. "You would too, wouldn't you?" Saul shook his head with a smile. Not much would surprise him anymore about this man. "You can probably sing, huh?" Mercer shrugged but didn't deny it. "You want to explain to me again why I'm the one that's here?" He was working on the confidence thing, but sometimes it was a damned slippery slope. "I like you," Mercer confessed simply enough. After a particularly shaky breath he admitted almost shyly, "Maybe I like you too much." "Never could happen," Saul quickly assured while his belly did a warm little flip-flop. Damn, he was so gone for this man. 130

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"I'll try to remember that." Mercer smiled at him easily, almost gratefully, no doubt blissfully unaware of the somersaults Saul's insides were doing. Already feeling like he was going puke up a bunch of butterflies, Saul took a deep breath and said it, "I like you too." "Good." Everything about Mercer suddenly turned soft and achingly gooey. Saul really wanted to lick him from head to toe right about now. Unfortunately with all the "likes" being bandied about, a distinct feeling of being in grade school clung to his bones. Saul tried to shake it off. "Okay. Recess is over. Everybody back to grown up class." "I missed that," Mercer commented softly. "What?" "Recess. I never had one." Mercer's smile turned bright again as the thoughts of swing sets and jungle gyms and games of kickball and hide and seek no doubt filled his head. "I think it would have been fun." "I keep forgetting," Saul admitted, only then asking the question that had been bothering him all afternoon, "So, why were you home schooled?" The question surprised Mercer even though he knew it probably shouldn't. Even though most people he took to bed didn't give a rat's ass about any of his history prior to baseball stardom and tragedy, Mercer should have known that Saul was different. In fact, he'd been different right from the start. It was a realization that left Mercer feeling a little off keel. It was disorienting, maddening, like a sailor stepping 131

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off of a boat for the first time in his life. It was damned hard to find and keep his footing. Knowing this was going to take some explaining, Mercer dug his arms back under his head and pillow and tried his damnedest to look casual while he discussed crap that was anything but. "My father wasn't around much when I was a kid. He traveled a lot for work." It had been an excuse given to him so many times that it had eventually become its own kind of truth. Closing his eyes, he figured he'd just lay his stupidity out there. Let Saul see the moron he had been fucking. "I'd see him for a couple of days every few weeks but never anything more. I thought nothing of it. I just thought that's what fathers did. What did I have to compare it with really?" "Yeah, you said you were an only child?" He could feel Saul's eyes on him, as if he must be measuring him with some kind of normal childhood stick. "Kind of," Mercer confessed with a hard pinch to the bridge of his nose. "Look, it turned out that my father had another whole life and family separate from me and my mom. Yeah, I know, no big shock nowadays. I mean I should have figured it out, right?" "Mercer..." Flinging his eyes open, he turned his head toward his partner and confessed with a humorless laugh, "Well, me being a really stupid kid I never did figure it out. My mom ended up telling me when I was twelve. I was having a fit trying to convince her to let me go to regular school. Apparently, she finally got tired of my shit. She sat me down 132

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at the kitchen table and told me that I was Dad's little secret." Mercer couldn't look at Saul any more. He let his gaze drift to the half moon over Saul's shoulder. "She said that I couldn't go to school because nobody knew about me. Nobody could know about me or my Dad would get in big trouble. That scared the crap out of me." Saul turned to lie on his side, stealing the safety of the moon from Mercer. "That's..." He couldn't afford to let Saul start to talk. If Mercer was going to get this out, he was going to do it quick, kind of like purging a sickness from your gut. "Like I said, I was stupid. It took me a few more years to realize that Dad getting in big trouble didn't mean the cops were going to lock him up or the mafia was going to put a horse's head in his bed or something." Okay, he had been a little obsessed with "The Godfather" for a while, but what boy hadn't? "Big trouble meant his actual wife knowing about me and my mom. He didn't want to get his ass kicked out of his "real" family." Saul summed the whole situation up in one word, "Shit." "Exactly what I told my father to his face when he showed up that next time." It had been a hell of a wait. The man had only been coming once a month those last few years. Three weeks had dragged by before there was that knock on the door. "I was fourteen," Mercer added for no particular reason other than it had felt really important to him at the time. "And?" Saul nudged, not about to let Mercer get away with telling only half a tale. "I never saw him again." Mercer found himself smirking. He doubted Saul thought the ending was coming so soon. 133

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"Neither did my mother. I still feel horrible about that." His mom never really smiled a lot after that day. She never laughed and when she had died ten years later, Mercer could have sworn she was glad to be going. "Sure, my dad was a creep and a no good asshole, but he was my mom's happiness. She lost that because of me." It was a guilt that he still carried with him every day. It was a guilt that held the place of the family he never had. Mercer rubbed his hands wearily across his eyes. Shit, he was so pathetic. Suddenly his hands were pulled away. Saul's earnest face replaced the chosen darkness. "You know that's wrong, don't you?" When Mercer didn't respond, Saul cupped his face with his palm, cradling the grown man who still bore a boy's woes. "Mercer, a child should be a parent's one true happiness." Something fleeting and painful flared briefly in Saul's eyes, but it was gone before Mercer really knew it had been there. "No disrespect, but your mother was fucked up. Not your fault." When words came they sounded as broken as Mercer had felt most of his life. "Keep telling me that, will you?" He hadn't meant to ask it. He had no right to ask Saul for anything. But like a drowning man who is suddenly offered a life preserver out of nowhere, Mercer couldn't help but grab on to it. Inexplicably, what Mercer could have sworn were the beginning of tears welled briefly up in Saul's hazel eyes. Wiping them away immediately, the doctor found a smile to accompany his vow, "I can do that." 134

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Mercer had no choice but to kiss him. Saul happily reciprocated and the men made love until the new dawn. The weeks passed in a lazy rush of sex and longing. Saul's work hours continued to be crazy. Their "dates" continued to be scattered and too many damn hours apart. The "sleepovers" as Mercer loved to call them had increased in regularity to the point that two toothbrushes now resided at each man's "home" sink. Their moments together during these weeks were tiny treasures in their own right... memories to hold to in the dark nights to come... The thin, white cotton sleep pants hung sinfully on Saul's hips. The oranges and pinks of the newly born dawn bathed his bare chest in soft color. His hair still dripped from his early morning shower. His shoulders were slung low, completely relaxed, as he sipped on his coffee. Although ungodly early, the grinding buzz of the Las Vegas strip below already whispered through the open balcony door. A warm wind that promised another baking day gently danced with the legs of his pants giving the illusion of Saul standing on some bluff overlooking a slowly brewing sea. Mercer watched his lover from the bed, his fingers lazily stroking his morning wood. A part of him wanted to slip out from the sheets and tangle his needful body into the calmness that was Saul's. Another part of him wanted to do nothing more than lie there and soak up the striking beauty of dawn on the man... his man. Mercer dared to hope. He was falling in love with Saul Tidewater. He was falling hard and with eyes wide open. A tingle of excitement fluttered through his belly 135

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and down into his cock. He hid his smile into his pillow as his soul moaned in pure happiness and utter terror. The rustling of sheets, pillows, and lips must have brought Saul back from the imaginary bluff. He threw a curious glance over his shoulder and smiled at the sight of his no doubt rumpled lover. "Good morning." His voice was rough but kind. "I didn't want to wake you." "You didn't." Mercer grinned. "Your empty pillow did." It was the truth. While Mercer might have had a lot of lovers, he rarely slept a whole night through with them. An empty pillow by his side was the norm not the exception. He was afraid to admit why it was different this time. Slipping the mug of coffee off on to a small table by the balcony's side, Saul surrendered to a yawn and a slow, long stretch that was doing sinful things to Mercer's already sinning body. Mercer shifted his hand, moving his thumb so it could circle his slit. Saul's voice flittered in to his awareness dampened by his slow building arousal. "You were dead to the world when I got up." Saul was moving to him, his steps teasing in their slowness. The hazel eyes were watching Mercer, burning a hole into his soul Mercer was beginning to fear would never heal up if this man ever left his world. Though clouded and lust filled, Mercer did still have the capacity to flirt himself, although admittedly a little more blatantly. "Maybe dead to the world but apparently not dead to your body." Mercer eased the sheets down and off his hips, revealing his risen cock. It wept in the early morning light like a beggar child whispering, "Please, sir, I want some more." 136

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With the covers away and all pretense of innocence long lost, Mercer reached down and palmed his balls, letting the sacs roll lazily back and forth within his fingers. Mercer watched himself play with his body for a long, stoking moment then turned his eyes back up to the cause of all his disarray. "Look at what you've done to me." Saul's laugh sounded strangled, his movements as he sat his ass down on the side of the bed were no longer so sleek and sure; the bulge in those sleeping pants surely having nothing to do with it at all. "You can hardly blame me for that." Saul glared at the offending specimen, the hunger seeping from his gaze was damned hard to ignore though. "Biology, anatomy, and physiology are the more likely culprits for that..." he swallowed, slow and just a little bit unsteadily as Saul watched Mercer's Adam's apple bob and weave before more words came, "...that impressive, I might even say scrumptious, offering you've got going there." "Scrumptious?" Mercer's toes curled at the insinuation. Saul shrugged, his finger now idly stroking the line of a naked hipbone. "It's early. My taste buds are a little frantic for their morning sausage." Toppling fully over to his back, Mercer dissolved into laughter. "I can't believe you just said that." "I can't believe I just thought that." Saul shook his head slowly, his gaze still loitering thirstily on the exposed and very enthused member. As Mercer's laughs died down, he watched, he felt Saul's eyes scrape over his body, prickling his skin as they moved from his groin, to his abs, to his chest 137

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and finally onto his face. Saul blew out a soft, shaky breath. "Damn, you're fucking stunning when you laugh." Mercer's heart tripped over itself. It was suddenly so full of things it had never known before that, like the man, the heart could no longer keep its balance. Mercer reached out and ran his fingers gently, lovingly, along the lines of Saul's ribs as he returned the truth, "Well, you're fucking stunning when you breathe." A blush crept down Saul's face, neck, and deep into his nipples. He sputtered a bit as he finally found a response, "And what am I supposed to say to something like that?" He sounded a little broken and unbalanced himself. "You say nothing," Mercer whispered as he watched as his fingertips traveled down to the thin cotton hiding so many wondrous things. He felt a smile brush his lips just before his tongue wet them anxiously, hungrily. "You just take off those pants, get back in this bed and kiss my morning sausage away." Saul smirked but obeyed. Raising his hips just far enough over the bed to drag his pants down over his ass, past his thighs and eventually free of his feet. He resettled himself nude by Mercer's side, but stubbornly still not in the bed. His hand, however, clasped down possessively on Mercer's thigh, negating any disobedience by stoking the fire. Saul's heavy gaze settled again on Mercer's still ripe cock. "What if I want to do more than kiss that fine link of meat?" The chuckle was swallowed in a spike of untamed lust. "Like what?" Mercer fought not to stammer in need. "What else do you want to do?" 138

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Readjusting his pose, slipping one hand over to the other side of Mercer's hip, he braced himself as he leaned over prostrate body and leaned in toward the offered dick. "Lick." Fingers swept over the skin of the painfully erect shaft, up to its head, swirling its whorls through the pre-come. "I need to lick these juices up. Waste not, want not." "Okay," Mercer managed to eek out just as Saul descended and long wet tongue met hot needy dick. Savoring the straining length like hard candy, Saul played with the cock in long, lingering laps of his taste buds scraping across the shaft's skin. Mercer sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and moaned. He felt like he was melting. The torture lasted too long but nearly long enough. A sigh of relief and equal sorrow slipped from Mercer's mouth as Saul pulled away. A crinkle of gentle concentration burrowed across the doctor's brow as he mused aloud, "Then I might have to suck. Just a little at first." "Just a little?" "At first." Mercer could feel Saul's head nod against his groin. "Then, I'm afraid, there's going to be swallowing." Six days later, it was over a cold pasta salad and a glass of grapefruit juice that Mercer learned about Anthony. The sun was tucking itself deeper into the horizon and a couple thousand stars were backstage eagerly awaiting dusk's curtain. It was one of those in between times of the day, when it was neither dark or light, day or night, late or early. Mercer had always cherished those moments in the day. Even as a child he'd hurry through his dinner and homework just to 139

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be able to rush out into the backyard and throw the baseball around in those magical twilight hours where dreams were just days away and life was a big open road curling into the heavens. It was strangely ironic therefore that it was in one of these creases between the sun's life and death that Mercer would learn about a little boy who never saw a single dawn. The conversation hadn't started out as anything more serious than discussing the merits of a late night swim over an early turning in. Saul had the floor. His argument was simple. "I need sleep." He downed half of his juice before looking to Mercer for a response. "And you'll get sleep," Mercer sucked an escaping bow-tie noodle back into his mouth. "Just think of it as earning your sleep." "A ten hour shift in emergency followed by an eight hour surgery doesn't cut it, huh?" Saul was in a good mood and in much better shape than he would have Mercer believe. He chased the cherry tomato around his plate with a lazy fondness instead of cutthroat zeal. It was a sure sign that Mercer still had room to push. "Yeah, but I didn't get to watch you put in that sweat and tears." "Tears?" Saul raised his brow but did little else to interrupt. Mercer shrugged as he stabbed an apple slice with his fork. "I like to watch you sweat. If not in the bed or across the 140

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kitchen counter or on the rug by the fireplace, I like to watch you sweat in the pool." "You're crazy." It was something Saul tried to tell Mercer every day. Mercer ignored him as always. "And you're hot when you're clawing through the water, all of the muscles in your back and ass and thighs straining to keep up with your powerful strokes." Saul quirked a smile, "You've been reading again." "Ha-ha." Mercer pushed himself away from the table, settling his arms casually across his chest. "I do know how to string a few pretty words together for effect, you know. I'm just not... well... you." Saul laughed as he slipped a wedge of avocado between his lips. "I am not taking that as an insult simply because I'm way too relaxed to wrestle your ass to the ground and shove this baby corn up your nose." "See?" Mercer nodded, point proven. "You're a regular word shark." Saul snorted. Mercer took it as agreement. "And sharks need water." "And you need help." Saul laughed as he tossed another handful of croutons across the salad. One got away. It was quickly plopped into Saul's mouth and crunched into nonexistence. Leaning forward, elbows now on the table, Mercer smirked. "Don't pretend that you're not a fish. I've seen your gills." Saul huffed around a bite of radish, his neck suddenly sharing the radish's hue. "Those are not gills," he assured. 141

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"I don't know." Mercer smirked as he popped his own crouton into his mouth. "They sure take my breath away." "That was so bad," Saul groaned into the napkin purposely hiding his smile. Mercer grinned watching the Adam's apple across the table tirelessly work as Saul downed the last of his juice. "You want some more?" he asked already reaching for the pitcher. "Not if you expect me to put in a few laps tonight. I don't want to slosh." He nearly choked on a laugh. "God, we wouldn't want that." The moment dissolved into shared smiles and then a soft silence. It was so easy being with Saul. It felt natural. It felt right. It felt like home. With his head tilted back into the oranges of the coming dusk, Saul asked, "What time is it?" Ignoring the watch that set on his own arm, the doctor's gaze lingered heavily on the horizon. Where Mercer's thoughts were light and floated carefree within him, Saul's seemed to carry weight. "It's half past seven," Mercer answered after a reluctant glance to his wrist. He didn't want to take his eyes off of his lover right now. He didn't understand it. He just felt as if he were waiting on something or someone that might come and depart in a single blink of the eye. "Do you believe in ghosts?" Saul's voice was thick, almost bloated, and seemed out of place over bow tie pasta and grapefruit juice. 142

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"Yeah," Mercer found the answer coming with little thought. Memories of the ghost runners that would fill the empty bases in his backyard as a boy drifted out from behind the haze of years. Although "ghost runner on second" or "ghost runner on third" was just a little kid's saying, Mercer had always wanted to believe that there were spirits out there who wanted nothing but to play ball with a lonely little boy. Mercer cleared his throat and with it the bittersweet that always slipped in with memories of his childhood. "Yeah, Saul, I believe in them." Having deserted the fading sun in favor of his hands clasped loosely together on his lap, Saul admitted to what seemed to be to him a crime, "I want to." He watched the nail of his thumb pick intently at a knuckle. "Elise doesn't believe in ghosts." Mercer leaned forward in his chair. He had not expected that turn to the conversation and childishly didn't welcome the presence of Saul's ex-wife on his patio, in their conversation, sharing in their twilight. "Elise?" He tried to keep the discomfort out of his voice but failed terribly. Saul's lips twitched, although it seemed to be an effort. "Jealous?" His eyes flicked up to Mercer's, smiled, then dropped back down to the knot of fingers. "No," Mercer manned up and lied. "Just surprised. You don't mention her much." "I don't like thinking about her much." Saul shrugged a heavy shoulder but didn't seem ready to add anything more. "You want to tell me why you're thinking about her and ghosts tonight?" Saul had told him little about his failed 143

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marriage, only that Elise had "lost it" at the end. Saul never said it but Mercer suspected that she was the main reason for Saul's cross-country move. "I don't know." Uncharacteristically, Saul chewed on his bottom lip. He looked nervous, uncomfortable. Mercer hated it. "Look, forget it. You don't need to tell me anything, Okay?" He had meant for the offer to sound comforting not condescending like it somehow had. Mercer immediately winced. Saul didn't react at all. Mercer wasn't even sure Saul had heard him. With his bare foot, Mercer nudged Saul's leg under the table. "Hey, you alright?" There was a brief nod, a mere flutter of movement before the words came and knocked the world away. "Elise and I had a son." His hands went still. "His name was Anthony." "Was?" Even on such a small, common word, Mercer found his voice breaking. "Yeah." Saul cleared his throat. "He died before he was born." There was nothing to say to that, nothing that mattered, nothing that would help. Mercer just waited. Saul was in the lead here and would always be when it came to this. He could deal with his own shock, his own feelings later. Saul's eyes slowly rose and buried themselves deep again into the reds and burnt oranges of the horizon. "There was a car accident." Saul stated simply. "I was driving. There was a truck. He didn't see us. He didn't see the red light." A small 144

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misplaced smile found his lips. "It happened at sunset. The sky looked just like this." "God, man, I'm sorry. Do you want to go inside?" As soon as he asked it, Mercer knew how stupid the question was. "Forget that I just said that, please?" Again, it was like Saul never even heard him. He was lost somewhere no man ever wanted to go. "I'd like to think there were ghosts, some part of my little boy able to play in the twilight." A lump grew in Mercer's throat. His eyes grew heavy with tears. Mercer Braun hadn't cried in years. He brushed them away before they had a chance to fall. "It's a good thought," he stopped and swallowed, "Maybe it is true. I know dusk is the perfect time to play ball." Thoughts of his ghost runners were pushed away, too difficult to bring back now. Saul wasn't ready for such comfort though. Mercer doubted a father ever could be. Saul's voice was almost lost to a gentle stroke of the desert wind. "Elise just thinks that he's dead. No heaven. No hell. No in betweens." "I'm sorry." Mercer knew the words were trite but he knew they were all he could give him. "Yeah," Saul cleared his throat and finally looked Mercer's way. "Me too." "Anthony's a nice name." The words crossed Mercer's lips without forethought. For the first time in what seemed like forever, Saul Tidewater smiled. "I like it." There was no late night swim that evening. There was just two men watching stars rise and fall in the heavens. 145

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Chapter Eight: Under the Joshua Tree It ended softly, in a swirl of cowardice stoked by the desert sun. "Can I ask you something?" They sat in the shade of a Joshua tree, shoulders brushing. It was hot but not scorching. If a man stayed well hydrated and took regular breaks from the sun and didn't push his body beyond its means, he could survive hiking in the desert today. What worried Saul, what was really starting to rub him the wrong way, was not today. The next time that Mercer was out here alone, no nagging cardiothoracic surgeon tagging along behind him, that was the day that was beginning to scare Saul to death. They didn't talk about it often. The risks Mercer took with his health was a subject both steered clear from. The times they had broached the topic it had turned into an argument so cutting that both men had left it bloody and hurting. It was a scab neither wanted to pick at. Unfortunately, however, it was a scab that was starting to itch. Badly. This was the fifth time that Mercer had taken Saul out to the desert. It was the first time though that they actually hiked. The trail was one Mercer had taken many times. He knew the landmarks like the back of his hand. All Saul could see, however, were the outright dangers and monumental stupidity. Oh yeah, it was starting to itch damned bad. 147

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As the two men sat there re-energizing themselves with a protein bar and some water, there were several things that Saul knew without a doubt... He knew that they had another five miles under the burning sun to go before they reached the truck. He knew that if he hadn't been with Mercer, no way in hell would the man be sitting under this stupid Joshua tree, eating the much needed cardboard and giving his heart a welldeserved breather. He knew with a doctor's certainty and a lover's gut that Mercer was pushing himself too hard out here. He knew that Mercer was screwing around with life and death boundaries, not giving a rat's ass about if he accidentally and permanently stumbled across the border. He knew that Mercer Braun, former baseball player, heartvalve recipient, and man that Saul feared he could love like no other, was going to one day die out here. He knew he had to say something. He knew that Mercer wasn't going to listen. He knew that he was going to have to make Mercer listen or he knew he was going to have to walk away. Watching a man that he loved kill himself was something Saul just simply couldn't do. Having to start this battle somewhere, he'd asked a simple innocent question between bites of dry fiber. The last thing he wanted were red flags being raised before Saul could surround the camp and cut off any potential escape/"fuck you" routes. 148

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"Sure," Mercer shrugged as he wiped any remains of water off of his mouth with the back of his hand. For all of Saul's valid concerns, Mercer looked good. He didn't look like a man playing Russian roulette with his heart. He looked happy. Ironically, in this forthcoming situation, that was not a good thing. Saul cleared his throat and dove right in. "Why do you do this?" "This?" Saul rolled his eyes. If Mercer was going to play the dull tool in the shed, Saul was going to have a hell of a lot of trouble winning this battle. "Yeah, this." With his water bottle Saul pointed at the mesas, the distant mountains, the high isolated desert that surrounded them with miles and miles of utter though admittedly beautiful desolation. Mercer went for the damned shrug again. "I like it." Saul sighed trying to cling to his patience, his patience that seemed to dry up and turned to nothing but dust out here in the middle of fucking nowhere. "Yeah, I get that. I even understand that part of it." Saul wasn't lying. He saw the beauty. He appreciated it even. That didn't mean it didn't scare the shit out of him though. "So?" Mercer was playing the part of blissfully unaware with such skill that Saul almost joined him in the pretend "don't worry, be happy" world of his. Almost, but not quite. Saul rubbed his sweaty hands across the legs of his shorts. He was trying so hard to take this slow, to avoid triggering a fight or flee response. 149

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Unfortunately, that left him sounding like an idiot. "You, uh, usually do this alone right?" "What? Hike?" No, eat this stinking fiber bar. "Hiking out here in the desert by yourself." Saul tried to grind in that last point. Hell, Mercer could hike all he wanted out here as long as he had another able-bodied human at his side to make sure he didn't fall over dead. "Yeah. I told you I did that." Mercer's face scrunched up into the most kissable frown man had ever known. Either the ballplayer was being intentionally dense or he never really had anybody except doctors care enough about him to say "don't do this." Saul wasn't sure he wanted to know which case it was. Sitting up a little bit straighter against the fucking Joshua tree, Saul tried again, "To be honest here, the question you've got me asking, Mercer, is why?" The man was a chick and cock magnet. There was no doubt whatsoever that he could get whoever he really wanted to follow his desirable ass out here for a romp in the desert. All Mercer Braun had to do was ask.... Something he had apparently never done before Saul. Mercer, however, wasn't done playing Mr. Dense. "Why? I told you." "Damn it! Quit fucking playing dumb with me," Saul found himself unintentionally growling. The playing it cool portion of the day's program was obviously over. Drawing and releasing a long steadying breath, Saul added in a softer but no less confrontational voice, "I know better. And so do you." 150

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Dropping all pretense, Mercer looked Saul right in the eye and told him straight out, "I've heard the lecture, Doctor. Applewood's even given me an appropriate pamphlet on it." A smile twisted his lips. "Next, I'm betting he's going to drag out the post mortem heart pictures. You know, try to shock me straight?" Despite the humor Mercer was trying to weasel into the conversation, Saul was having none of it. This was too damned important to play off as a joke. "Applewood might be a stick in the mud, but he knows what he's talking about." "I never said he didn't." Mercer bowed his head, scrubbing at the back of his neck impatiently as he explained, "I just disagree with him. I think the risk is worth it." "Why? To feel alive?" Saul scoffed. "Because let me tell you that there is no surer way not to feel alive than by being dead." "Don't worry about it." Mercer waved Saul's concern off as he pulled himself to his feet and walked a couple of steps away. "Okay, sure." Saul slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up himself. He was getting a little peeved too. "That would have been no problem before I started making love to you," he snarked at the man's back. Slowly, Mercer turned back around. The look of confusion on his face was genuine this time. "Making love? I thought we were fucking." He didn't seem to be bothered by that notion, just unsure of it. While they had admitted "liking" each other, the word "love" had yet to be called into play. 151

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"We were," Saul paused making sure that he had the man's full attention for the important part. "We were fucking that first night. We're not anymore and you know it." Stealing away the last few steps of distance between them, Saul dared him to deny it. "It might scare the hell out of you but you know that's the truth, Mercer." Surprisingly, Mercer's reply apparently required no thought. The truth rarely did. "I'm not arguing about that, Saul." Stuffing his hands into his shorts pockets, he rocked back on his heels looking the Norman Rockwell version of contrite. He assured around a hint of a smile, "I'm not." It was an odd feeling. Having all these important things finally said and confirmed but still skirting around the elephant in the middle of the room. Deciding not to pull any more punches, Saul declared, "I don't want you to die. That's the bottom line." Mercer's smile grew. "I'm not looking to die either. There's a hell of a lot easier ways to kill myself than suicide by desert." Damn it. Saul did not want this to turn into a joke. "This isn't funny." Saul's anger was growing. Apparently, so was Mercer's. "No, it's not. It's my life." Out of his pocket, his left hand pounded on his own chest. "It's my decision how I choose to live it. I'm not going to quit walking across the street just because I might get run over by a bus doing it." Saul bit his tongue, not letting the "You're an idiot" get farther than an entirely reasonable thought in his head. Dragging out whatever vestiges of patience he had left, Saul 152

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argued back in the chosen vernacular, "But that's not what you're doing here, Mercer. You aren't just crossing the street. You're walking out blindfolded on the interstate at rush hour. It doesn't make any sense." Just as calmly, just as rationally Mercer replied, "But it does to me, Saul." In all of his years of med school, in all those truly lousy months of divorce lawyers and court, Saul had never wanted so much to pound his head through a brick wall. Saul drew back a couple of steps as his knuckles pummeled his eyeballs in mounting aggravation and dwindling hope. "What if I come with you? Have anybody come with you? Just promise me you won't come out here alone anymore. You know, just in case..." It was the last resort, but as soon as Saul felt the words come out of his mouth he knew that they too would prove useless. Anger roared to life in Mercer's eyes. "What? You want to be my fucking guide dog? Lead my blindfolded ass across the street? I don't think so." "Fuck, Mercer! We're not talking about pride here. We're talking survival, man. You know, living to fuck the next day." "I thought it was making love." Mercer's anger had died down into something resembling nauseating acceptance. Saul thought about puking up his guts right there. "You're right. It is making love. And I've got to tell you, that's where the problem is." Reaching out, Saul grabbed Mercer's chin and held it steady and secure in his hand. "I just can't sit by and watch the man I'm probably in love with toss away his life like it's a piece of garbage. I can't do it." 153

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Mercer softly grasped Saul's wrist and pulled the arm away. "That's not what I'm doing." "Maybe," Saul begrudgingly allowed. Suddenly not knowing what to do with his hands that had never felt so empty, he shoved his empty fists back into his pockets. "But it is what you're doing to me." The "if you die, I die" Saul left unsaid. He hadn't come to accept that part yet himself. He wasn't about to ask Mercer to do it first. "When the fuck did my life come to mean your life, huh?" Mercer shouted in backbreaking frustration. "When?" "I don't know." Saul yelled right back. "It just happened." Mercer threw up his hands and turned his back on Saul. His voice fell low and tired. "Shit happens, Doc, not love." Saul stared at his lover's back. "Well, you're shoveling enough of it around to know." "It's my life!" Mercer growled out to the horizon, his voice shaking with heavy emotion. "This, all of this right here, is about me, not you." "You're right. It is." That simple acceptance felt like some kind of freaking death knell. Saul was going to be sick. Mercer must have felt it too. He turned around slowly, unshed tears welled up in those gorgeous brown eyes. "I'm sorry, Saul." Nodding his head, it was Saul's turn to look away. "I'm sorry too." The last five miles were made in silence. The drive back to Las Vegas was quiet.

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When Mercer dropped Saul off at his condo and drove away, Saul knew that it may not be over, but it sure as hell was dying. Talk about shitty irony. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Nine: The Irony of Sirens Two weeks passed without one word spoken between them. Saul Tidewater felt hollow, dug out like some abandoned canoe on the Zambezi River heading irretrievably for Victoria Falls... Saul shook his head and roused himself from the stupor born of exhaustion and one too many cups of dangerously bad coffee. Grabbing the remote control that had fallen off of his stomach and onto his couch, Saul turned off the Discovery Channel. Apparently now was not a good time for him to try to broaden his horizons. He needed to stay grounded in the here and now and not allow himself to drift into the "could have been's." He'd just wallow right here in the mud with the hippos. Maybe bake a little in the African sun, waiting for the next lion to stroll by and have him for lunch... Okay, that little bit of morbidity got him moving. Not giving a shit that it was only dusk, Saul turned off all the lights in his eerily empty condo and dragged himself to bed. He didn't sleep much anymore... unless it was on the couch. His bed was too big, too lonely now. As he forced himself under the covers determined to get at least one decent night's sleep, the words he never even dared to say to Mercer kept taunting him, echoing incessantly through his pathetically breaking heart... "If you die, I die." 156

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Laying his head on his pillow, Saul couldn't help but ask, "So why do I feel so fucking dead already?" The desert had always called to Mercer Braun like some kind of siren. "Oh, yeah," out of breath and out of patience with his body, he grumbled into the arid dusk, "A siren luring lost ships to her rocks." He laughed mirthlessly, "I bet she's going to love the pile-up of stubborn, stupid, broken ballplayer she's about to get." By this point he was stumbling more than he was actually walking. He should sit down. He knew he should sit down, catch his breath, let his patchwork heart catch up to the idiocy he was putting his whole body through. He knew it, but hell was he going to do it. Still moving, still tripping over grains of sand, he checked his GPS. For the first time, he had to flip on the embedded night light to see his carefully planned route laid out on the little screen. He squinted hard at the dot that was him and cursed. He still had two more miles to go. As always he had planned the loop through the high desert with precision and challenge on his mind. He had been scheduled to get back to his truck just as the sun set across the western peaks. He even had a cooler packed with sports drinks, water, and a damned fine turkey club he'd made himself this morning waiting for him in the passenger's seat. He knew the refuge like the back of his hand and would have no trouble driving out of there in the dark. Besides, he liked watching the million stars pop out of the dark heavens. When he had been a boy he had thought it was some kind of magic 157

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trick. He remembered his mother laughed when he'd told her that. He never told her anything like that again. "Damn it," Mercer hissed as he tried to shake the unbidden and unwelcome thoughts from his head. "Where the hell did that shit come from?" Roughly knuckling his eyes with hands that trembled, he tried to rub out of his mind everything that wasn't tied directly to this hike, to these two miles he needed to make to get to his freaking beautiful sandwich. That worked for exactly twenty-two and a half faltering, lame-assed steps when a creosote bush came out of nowhere and sent him tumbling knees and palms first into the dirt. Unfortunately desert dirt is not the cartoon variety sand everybody thinks of. When it's hard and packed firm like this dirt most certainly was, desert dirt is a lot like course strips of sand paper stapled down carelessly to the uneven earth. So the resultant cloud of curses and the two angry tears that had the damned gall to fall down Mercer's face were understandable. Shredded knees and grated palms hurt like a real motherfucker. Once every four letter word he could dredge up had been spit off of his tongue, Mercer rolled over on to his back and stared miserably at the pastel-colored sky. Vaguely, he heard a siren's laugh peppering the desert air. Six hours passed and Mercer was only a mile closer to his turkey club. Things had gone a little gray for a few of those hours. The last two weeks of pushing his body to idiotic extremes and not getting any real sleep to level things off had apparently caught up to him. At one point he had passed out. 158

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It had happened to him before. Mercer was sure it would happen to him again. It just had never happened out in the desert before. After replaying Saul's words about dying out here over and over in his head for the last fourteen days, it was no wonder that Mercer felt a little freaked. Maybe a "little freaked" was an understatement. As Mercer dragged his satellite phone out of his backpack and dialed the well-known number, the ex-ball player had to admit that "fucking freaked" might have been a tad more accurate. "Hello?" the muffled voice of Saul Tidewater finally picked up. It had taken five rings and a hopeful stretch that the doctor even answered calls from unknown numbers on his house phone. Mercer was going to have to talk to him about that. "Get your face out of your pillow, Doc," Mercer gently chastised. It was a habit he had noticed Saul had whenever he wasn't in Doctor Tidewater, lifesaver mode. "Mercer?" It took a few moments but he finally beat back the sandman enough to fire up a brain cell or two. "What the hell?" he groused. The sound of Saul scrubbing his hands up and down his face and then grunting when he more than likely rammed a stray finger into his eye was blessedly familiar to Mercer. A little bit of the tension gnawing at his spine disappeared. It was just so damned good to hear Saul being Saul. Shaking his head, Mercer pushed away the thought of how much he had grown to count on this man. It would only freak him out. It would probably freak Saul out too, so it was better just to let the realization go unspoken. Instead he'd go for being a 159

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smart ass. "So? What are you up to?" he asked in his most cheery manner. Saul snorted into the phone, no doubt having already found the face of his bedside clock that would be blinking 2:45 am at him. "Are you drunk or just being a dickwad?" "A dickwad, huh?" The knots that had been strangling his neck muscles loosened. Mercer laughed. "Nobody's called me that since..." "I don't care," Saul informed him inside of a cavernous yawn. The accompanying sound of the bed springs springing again warned of a very short conversation. Saul could drop off to sleep like a damned rock. Mercer hated that he sounded like he was pleading, but he just really needed a few more minutes of Saul's calming presence. "Pretend you're being doctorly and listen to me for a while, Okay?" "Are you alright?" Concern shot through the phone. With a sigh, Mercer banged his head back against the ground. "Pretend, Doc. P-R-E-T-E-N-D. Familiar with the concept?" Apparently the answer to that was "no." Saul was heading full speed into some kind of parental panic fit. "What number are you calling from? Where's your cell phone?" He knew this had been a mistake. He had known it and did it just the same. This whole freaking day was shit full of deja vu. "Is that really important, dad?" "That's sick." Saul ineffectually huffed back a snort of laughter. 160

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"No. That would be sick if you had your cock up my ass when I called you that. When you're nutting out and sound like you're about to ground me, calling you "dad" is perfectly acceptable, warranted even." Mercer winced. Damn it. Now he sounded like Saul. "You sound like me, Braun. I can worry." Fucking a guy who could somehow tune into your own messed up frequency was really a bad idea. "Don't. There's no need to worry." Mercer was quite satisfied that the lie came out without even a hint of tell-tale stutter. Unfortunately, Saul had a habit of not buying any of his crap, stuttered or not. "Oh, of course not. Why the hell would I worry... Was that a coyote I just heard?" Shit. "You did not..." Mercer shot straight up and scanned the darkened horizon for the tattle taling culprit when the truth punched him right in his big fat stupid nose. "Bastard," Mercer hissed into the phone although he didn't know if he was talking about Saul or himself. Saul snorted righteously, "Better a bastard in a bed than an idiot in the desert." Flopping back down onto the ground with a little more speed than he had initially planned, he chose to let the silence talk for him while he tried to get the world to stop spinning on its tail. Saul wasn't one for silence though. His voice rang out clear in the dizzying dark, "Are you currently bleeding?" "What kind of question is that?" Mercer snapped, way too over-defensively for his own survival in this conversation. 161

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Saul took his advantage and ran with it. "It's the kind of question a heart doctor asks a patient on heavy duty blood thinners." "I am not bleeding," which was mostly true. The scraped knee he'd gotten when he'd lost consciousness and face planted into a bush really didn't count, especially since it had essentially stopped bleeding nearly an hour ago. A little sluggish leaking really didn't count as full out bleeding. Mercer would defend that statement to his dying day... Ok, bad thought. Maybe it was time for Mercer to stop thinking now. "What's your heart rate?" The MD had raised his ugly head and there was no hope in hell of getting the beast to retreat back into its cubby hole. Mercer sighed. He'd really hoped that they'd get a little farther into the conversation before that came up. "My heart rate is within normal parameters now. All systems are a go, Doc." "Now?" Of course he would pick up on that. "Yes, now. That's what's important, right?" Mercer cursed the trace of desperation that had latched on to that last part. He was a grown man. He did not need assurance. "Yes, probably you're right." Saul had slipped into bedside manner and was lying/comforting like a pro. "Are you going to share with me what happened?" "Nothing to share." Mercer's lying was nowhere near as smooth as Saul's. He was going to have to work on that if this thing with the good doctor did in fact miraculously go 162

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somewhere other than this, whatever the hell this was. "Nothing that hasn't happened a bunch of times before." That would be two. Saul actually scoffed. "And that's what has you freaked out? A 'bunch of times' event?" Mercer had reached the end of his rope. He snapped, "Shit. I wasn't calling a doctor I was calling my... friend." The word "lover" had almost slipped out. He didn't think he had the right to call Saul that anymore. That hurt his heart more than any damned disease. There was a whole lot of silence at that. When Saul finally spoke again, he spoke fast and furious, "Okay, Okay. I get that. And I appreciate you not using anything that has an 'ex' in front of it. I don't think I could handle that discussion at three in the morning." Maybe they should talk about it. Hell, they had to. "Yeah, about that..." Saul huffed out in extreme impatience as he cut him off. "Didn't you hear what I just said? Or did your 'bunch of times' event take out your ears too?" The impatience was catching. Mercer snapped, "No, but it must have taken out a shitload of my brain cells because I don't know why the hell I'd think I'd feel better just hearing your stinking voice." Silence met his childish outburst. Mercer checked the phone just to make sure that their connection hadn't been lost. It hadn't. Scrambling to come up with something to say, Mercer opened his mouth to try to fix whatever he'd broken when 163

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Saul's voice thankfully sputtered back in, "Oh... So you mean you called just to hear my... I mean that's really kind of..." Rolling his eyes at the desert sky, Mercer stated plainly, "If the word sweet comes out of your mouth I'm going to fucking have a cardiac arrest right now just to piss you off." Saul snorted. "I was going to say 'surprising,' asshole. I might have even thrown in an 'encouraging' just to up the ante a little." "You don't gamble," Mercer pointed out calmly. Saul countered with a sigh, "Is that really the point right now?" "Yeah, it kind of is." Mercer hadn't planned on going there with Saul right now but, hey, he wasn't about to pass up an opening like that. "You being with me would be the biggest gamble of your life. You know the odds, Doc, better than anyone, and you don't like them. I get that." The fact that Mercer did honestly "get that" ached. It would have been a lot easier to sit on his moral high ground if Saul was being an unreasonable shit about all of this. Next time, Mercer was sticking to fucking jerks. After a beat of more of that worrying silence, Saul asked him simply, "Were you hit repeatedly in the head with a baseball when you were a child?" "I don't..." Saul snorted. "No, you're perfectly right. You don't get it." "You said you didn't want to watch me die." The laugh almost sounded bitter. "No, I said I didn't want to watch you kill yourself. Big, honking difference there, slugger." 164

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Mercer rolled his eyes and tried to explain this again. "I want to live. And by live I mean more than just breathing in and out on a regular basis, Saul. I want to enjoy what's out there for as long as I've got. Why is that so fucking hard for you to understand?" Mercer could hear Saul breathing. It was slow and it was somehow damned sad. "Life is precious, Mercer. Just breathing in and out on a regular basis is a wonderful thing. There's no shame in holding on to that." Saul sighed. "Anthony didn't even get that. Not one fucking breath." "Saul..." "It's like you're throwing it up in all of their faces, all those people who fight tooth and nail just to take another breath, all those freaking kids that never got the chance to live one second..." "That's not..." Mercer tried, hating himself a little more than he had ever hated himself in his whole life. "I know," Saul's voice softened as if he could feel what Mercer was doing to himself. "But it's how I see it. It's how I see you. And it just hurts too damn much. I don't have the right to ask you to stop risking your life, but you don't have the right to ask me to watch you do it." "I understand, Okay." Mercer did. He understood. All he was asking now was for Saul to do a little understanding himself. "Look, man, this can't be all about you." Saul laughed. "It can't be all about you either." Mercer felt like they were just going around in circles, getting no closer or further away from the proverbial "resolution." He was at a loss. Mercer Braun, however, didn't 165

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like losing. He never had and never would. The time for beating around the bush was over. It was time for a simple hard truth. Taking a deep breath that rattled his very soul, Mercer declared, "I love you, you know." Neither man had said it before, at least in Mercer's case where Saul could hear it. Yeah, they had implied the whole love-thing under that damned Joshua tree, but neither had actually said the words... until now. Saul's breathing had definitely picked up speed. "This better not be your version of a death bed confession. I'm not dealing with that crap either." "Like I said, I'm fine, Doc." Mercer was surprised to find a smile forming on his lips. "I've only said that to two other people in the world, you know." There was silence and then a soft guess. "Your mom?" "And my dad..." Mercer chucked up a bitter laugh at that sad admission. "Yeah, I know. Pitiful, right? But, hey, I've never been one to give something up for lost without killing myself first trying to hold on to it." There was a dead quiet. "Are you still there?" Mercer finally had to ask. Saul's reply was not what he had expected. "Three," the doctor stated simply. "What?" Saul cleared his throat. "Not counting my family. Three times I've said it." "Elise," Mercer had no trouble guessing one of the three. Sighing, it sounded like Saul was settling back onto the bed. The muffled sound of a pillow catching a weary head 166

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seeped through the line. "Laurie McEnroe. She lived across the street and developed way before the rest of the fourth grade." Mercer snorted. "Can't blame a boy there." There was a breath of a short-lived laugh. "And Charlotte Upton, freshman year in college." A hint of still remembered pain accompanied his words. "I swore I'd be waking up next to her every day for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, after the first three months, she didn't exactly appreciate that sentiment anymore." "Sorry." Saul chuckled. "You shouldn't be. If things between me and Charlotte had worked out I wouldn't be lying here about to make you number four." Mercer found himself laughing as he banged his head again into the desert floor. "We are such fucking idiots." "Not exactly the reaction I was aiming for." Saul sounded a little put out. Mercer ignored it. "We get around to the 'I love you's' only when we're ending it. How pitiful is that?" "Are we?" Saul asked, never having sounded more unsure. "Ending it?" There was a beat of thought before Mercer admitted honestly, "I don't know." "Okay," Saul finally breathed out, relief and exhaustion cutting the word back down to a whisper. "Okay." Nothing was resolved, but nothing was ended. Mercer would take that as a win for tonight. 167

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A yawn pierced the encroaching silence. Mercer smiled at Saul's words, "I'm going to sleep. If you die out there you lose your number four status, just saying." "Understood." Mercer joined in with his own yawn as he dragged himself back up to his feet. He had another mile or so to go but he had no doubt that he would make it now. "No bad dreams," he admonished as he slipped the backpack over his shoulders. "No stepping on scorpions," Saul replied in kind. Mercer laughed. "Bye, Doc." "Good night." Seventeen hours later, Mercer would realize that Saul never actually said the words "I love you" to him. Seventeen hours later, Mercer would fear that it was too late. Two thousand miles away, a woman boarded a plane in Raleigh, North Carolina bound for Las Vegas. Her name was Elise Delgado. In seventeen hours, she would have her revenge. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Ten: Between the Polite and the Psychotic Elise Delgado was a striking woman. With hair as black as a raven's heart and skin as perfectly pale and rich as the freshest of creams, she was a vision of contradictions. A dark stormy gray colored her large, doe-shaped eyes. Her cheekbones were strong, bold enough to carry the heaviest of lie-borne smiles. She was tall with the legs of a runner but the tight posture of a model. Her lips were full and forever a brick red. A tell of her rising nerves and her former life was the licking of her tongue across the front of her stunningly white teeth. A smudge of misplaced lipstick had once been her greatest worry. Times changed. Unborn babies died. Elise Delgado now met most of her days behind a sifter of brandy and a cigarette. When she was out in public she was forever sucking on a hard candy mint. Her parents no longer recognized her, the soul of the little girl they had so lovingly raised having been dulled by liquor and mis-shapened by hate. Yes, Elise Delgado now hated. She hated with all that was inside of her. Before, once upon a long ago time when pregnancies were viable and the baby's room was still periwinkle blue, Elise used to love. She had loved her career as an interior designer. She had loved the little townhouse she had bought all by herself. 169

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She had loved the peek of ocean she could get when she stood on her tiptoes on her chair from her rooftop deck. Most of all, however, she had loved her husband. She had loved him since she was a little girl. Oh, his name had changed over the years. First, it had been Jimmy in the second grade when husbands were nothing more than permanent friends who would push you on the swings. Then there had been Darryl, her first kiss, and Richard, her first lover. All were welcomed into her heart with the unspoken tag of "this could be my husband" blinking tirelessly above their names. Up until the moment she and Saul Tidewater had said "I do," all Elise had really wanted in her life was to be a wife. The next day, she wanted to be a mother. Titles had always been very important to Elise. The fact that her husband was also a doctor thrilled her to no end. The fact that his name had ended up being Saul instead of Jimmy or Darryl or Richard made no difference to her. With one objective met, she put everything she had into becoming a mother. Saul didn't mind. Three months later when her OB/GYN had confirmed that her wish was about to come true, Elise Delgado had loved her husband even more. The car accident six weeks later changed everything. There would be no child for Elise ever, the injuries had assured that. Having a husband no longer mattered. She started to drink. 170

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Then having a husband who had killed her baby and stopped her from ever becoming a mother only meant having someone and something to hate. He took even that away from her when he branded an "ex" across both their titles of husband and wife. She would never forgive Saul for that. Elise Delgado would hate her baby's killer forever for that. She moved like a cat through a jungle, all lean muscle and silent throbbing focus. Although the bottle of liquor in her hand was half empty, her eyes were shining and bright with clear purpose and sharpened passion. Hatred pulsed from her in deep, steady breaths that put Mercer even more on edge. It was seven o'clock when his doorbell had wrung. After dragging himself back home from the near disastrous hike the night before, Mercer had slept away most of the day. He had only finished showering and fixing himself something to eat when his most unexpected visitor had arrived. Mercer hadn't known who she was until she had told him. The liquor that reeked off of her skin needed no such introduction. He had invited her inside, for her safety as well for her well-being. She had said that she needed to talk to him. She had said that there were things he needed to know. She had said as she pulled something out of her purse that she had brought a gun. She showed it to him with a steady hand and a dead gaze. In her other hand, she held a half empty bottle of brandy. It was clearly not her first of the 171

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evening. She sipped on it as regularly as a smoker sucked on a cigarette. Mercer didn't want to hurt this woman. He had never put a hand on a woman before, and he sure as hell didn't want to start now. He didn't want to call the authorities. She had already been through hell. Bringing the police into the situation would only be a last resort. He doubted that he could talk her down, but maybe, just maybe, he could wait her out. The alcohol would have to absorb into her system sometime he thought, either leaving her passed out or sober. He just needed to get that bottle away from her. "Why don't you sit down, Ms. Delgado? I was just about to have dinner and I've got plenty to share." She seemed to have no qualms with his moving around the house. The gun and its steady and sure crosshairs simply moved with him. She shook her head at his offer of a meal. "When will he be here?" "Saul's not coming." He could actually see her pulse quicken as it pounded in her too thin neck. He didn't want to make this woman mad... or madder. Mercer added calmly. "Saul doesn't live with me." "You are a liar," she stated each word succinctly and with long held venom. "I overheard Valerie talking about the two of you." "You can check the house if you like. The most you're going to find of your ex-husband here is a prescription he wrote me a month ago for a cold." Although that was a 172

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blatant lie, it was a lie that Mercer bet she'd have no chance of discovering for herself. The hellish two weeks the men had just spent apart hadn't changed anything in Mercer's house. Their clothes had become so intermixed he had a hard time in remembering whose was whose. As for the always damning toiletries, Saul had the habit of keeping all of his stuff in a shaving kit he lugged with him wherever he went, hospital or lover's. As he'd once told Mercer, "Finding a toothbrush in a hospital is a worrisomely hard thing to do." Carrying his own in his bag had become a well-ingrained habit. Elise's lips slowly curved into an accusatory smirk. She pointed the bottle at him as she spoke, "You think you're clever, is that it?" She laughed. It was harsh and ugly. "I was his damned wife!" Apparently she still remembered. The shaving kit habit hadn't slipped her mind with her sobriety. "Then you're just going to have to take my word for it, aren't you?" He decided to change tactics with her. Maybe a firmer approach would be able to sink through her alcoholic haze. "I hate you," was her calm reply. Mercer snorted. "Well, I don't really have the warm and fuzzies for you either right now, but hey I'm an open minded guy. Things can change and I'm always willing to let them." Maybe a mix of firm and gracious host would wear her down quicker? He nearly laughed. He didn't have a fucking clue what he was doing. Hell, he just wanted to get them both through this whole thing, preferably with no bullet holes or felony charges. "Come on and sit down, will ya? We can talk and I can eat. You can still join me if you'd like?" 173

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He turned his back to her and walked into the kitchen. It was a risky move, seeing as how she had a very effective weapon already clinched in her hand. Mercer didn't think he had much choice though. He still wasn't ready to give up on this woman. Walking to the cupboard, he reached in for a plate for himself. When he heard her footsteps on the kitchen floor, he glanced casually back over his shoulder at his guest and asked one last time. "You sure? It's really no problem." She shook her head tightly. Mercer shrugged and continued gathering up his silverware and napkins. Quite frankly, he didn't know how he was going to stuff down that ham and provolone sandwich waiting for him in the refrigerator. Elise Delgado had sucked the appetite right out of him. No wonder Saul didn't have an ounce of fat on him, the woman was a walking diet. "I just wanted to talk to you," she said plainly as she hovered on the other side of the kitchen's eat-in bar. While her feet never remained still, her eyes stayed glued to Mercer unwaveringly. It was like being a damned moth pinned to a board by some freaking scientist. It was starting to unnerve Mercer. He really didn't want to be around when she started pulling off wings. Grabbing a bottle of fruit juice from the refrigerator, he and his sandwich reluctantly sat down on a bar stool and pretended to enjoy each other's company. Elise Delgado, apparently, did not play pretend. The hate she had already stated shown clearly in her eyes. "Do you know the man you're fucking?" 174

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He nearly choked on a piece of cheese at her choice of language. Apparently southern belles weren't too shy about cursing these days. "Yeah, I do. Saul's a good man." "He's a baby killer," she leaned over the bar and hissed. He was sure that she thought he'd be shocked by her words. "No, Elise, he's not." His calmness seemed to rattle her. "Don't patronize me, Mr. Braun." Her voice rose to a carefully modulated shriek. "Don't pity me either. I am not distraught. I am not the woman scorned. I am the mother of a child I will never see, I will never get to hold. I will never get to know the color of his eyes or the shade of his soft, fine hair." He took a measured sip of his juice and prayed that she didn't notice the slight tremble to his hand. "I'm so sorry for your loss," he offered her with sincerity. She slammed the bottle of brandy down onto the counter. "The man you stick your cock into? That man was driving. That man drove us into the side of a truck. He might as well have taken a shovel and dug the fetus out of my womb." Where pain should have resided in her eyes there was only rage. Slowly, he gave his answer, "The truck ran a red light. Saul hit the brakes. He tried to stop." One night after a few too many beers, Saul had told Mercer all the details of that horrible night. Every detail was now ingrained in Mercer's mind. Elise laughed as though Mercer was nothing more than a dumb child. "Wouldn't you lie if you'd just killed your son?" 175

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"He didn't lie." For the first time, Mercer could see the gun shake in her hand. Whether it was of fury or hellish sorrow, it didn't matter to Mercer right now. He just knew that it was time to make his move. Standing up slowly from the bar stool, he began to circle around the bar towards her. Never once did his voice rise above a steady whisper. "Elise, the police reports, all the crash experts said that Saul did everything he could do to avoid hitting the truck. He even jerked the car sideways to make sure he got the brunt of the impact." "It didn't work, now did it?" Her laugh turned high-pitched. As Mercer kept coming closer, Elise began to step back. She spit out, "My baby is dead, Mr. Braun." "The baby was Saul's, too." Mercer kept inching toward her. If he could pin her up against a wall maybe he could get close enough to go for the gun. He held his hands out in front of him, hoping she'd believe that he was no threat. "Saul never got to see him either or hold his little hand." She had reached the fireplace, the top of her back hitting the mantle. Her hand that had once held the bottle now sitting on the counter dropped to her side. She seemed to regain some of her previous control even as she continued to spout hate, "Should I cry for him? Is that what you think I should do?" He only needed two more steps. "Did Saul cry for you?" That brought her to a pause, but it was only a short one. Laced in spite, the explanation spilled across her lips, "They were crocodile tears." 176

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Mercer almost laughed at the absurdity of that thought. "Have you ever even met Saul Tidewater?" The remark slipped out just as he began to take that last step. He never made it. The door was locked. He rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. Of course, the door was locked. Mercer always kept his door locked. Saul wrenched the knob the opposite way, just to be real damned sure. Still locked. He had gotten the call from the credit card company less than an hour ago. Apparently, a woman had charged a plane ticket to Las Vegas on his card. With Elise being a repeat offender of swiping his credit for her own purposes, the bank was always vigilant in looking for red flags. After identifying himself and, again, his credit card to Elise's favorite car rental company, he knew what car he was looking for and knew of only two places his ex would fly all this way to be. He had checked his condo first. Saul broke a number of speed limits on the way to Mercer's house. Now, here he was outside a locked door with his no doubt soused ex-wife confronting his former/current male lover just inside. Sometimes he really hated his life. Options flipped through his mind's eye like they had been stashed on one of those old fashioned Rolodex's for decades. The possible courses of action he could take at the moment spanned all the gray area between the polite and the psychotic. Married to Elise those last few months, you had to have all exits scoped out before entering a room. It was a sure bet that by the end of the encounter one or both of them 177

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would be wanting to run screaming out the door. In situations like that, exit ways had to remain clear at all times. Although he had never imagined wanting to break into a room with Elise and her booze in it, he figured it would just be like working in reverse. He could ring the doorbell. Hell, he could knock. How fucking gentlemanly would that be? Maybe Elise would greet him in the foyer with a snifter of brandy in her hand and a warm smile on those often frowning lips? Although he wouldn't put it past Mercer to figuratively charm the pants off of his ex, Saul feared that she was way past the point of any amount or brilliance of charm being able to break through her icy hatred. He could always go ninja on the door. True, he had no socalled ninja skills but he had watched a Bruce Lee marathon only a couple of months ago. He was sure he could fake it. Besides, having sex with Mercer had improved his flexibility into the near astronomical range. He could do this. He stared hard at the door just now noticing that it was metal, not wood. Even Mr. Lee himself couldn't have chopped his way through that. Barring any kind of battering ram or handmade explosives from the equation, Saul was left with only two viable options: knock or go home. The ear piercing scream from behind the house, however, immediately changed all that. Saul tore around the side of the house and jumped the fence into the backyard. He knew that scream, he knew it was Elise. She sounded as if she had gone mad. Giving no 178

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thought to his own safety, only Mercer's well-being driving him on, Saul ran onto the patio that connected the pool to the house. Throwing open the French doors, Saul saw a figure lying on the floor near the fireplace. Mercer and Saul's world just about stopped right there. He only got to take one step toward his fallen lover, however, when the barrel of a gun was jammed into his face and the sweet voice of his ex-wife informed him, "We need to talk." The darkness released its hold on Mercer slowly. His head hurt. A lot. What was of more concern than the fire roaring in his brain though was the sight wavering just on the other side of the French doors. The former husband and wife sat at the side of the pool. Saul was on the edge of the teak lounge chair. She was on its matching stool. They were more than an arm's length apart but just barely. Saul sat bent over his knees, his elbows hanging over his thighs. There was nothing in his hands. Elise sat rim rod straight, both feet firmly on the ground. Her left hand cradled her right on her lap. Her right hand held the gun; it was steady, it's aim true. If she pulled the trigger a bullet would tear through Saul's heart. Saul Tidewater would be dead. "Damn!" Mercer cursed into the floor. The world swam sickeningly before his eyes, his flickering consciousness spending more time off than on. He had to do something. 179

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"Off," however, suddenly ambushed him, and Mercer's world fell dark once again. Saul risked a glance back over to the half open French door. He could just barely make out Mercer's shape in the stark moonlight. It was a little like watching an old black and white movie stuck on pause. The dark, broken silhouette was not moving. Saul refused to believe that his lover was not breathing. The lines were just too fuzzy in the pale darkness to pick up such tiny movements. That's what he kept telling himself again and again. A rustling of silk against denim brought his attention back to his ex-wife and the gun she held unwaveringly in her hands. Elise hadn't lost the buzz yet. She was still coasting along like an old train on a well-known, worn track. It was when she began to shake that Saul would really have to worry. Elise was so far gone to her alcoholism that she could think better soused then sober now. Sober, she got nervous, scared, and confused. Drunk, she was steady and her anger was calm, calculating and vengeful. He'd rather have a drunk Elise with a gun than a sober one. How fucked up was that? "You're not laughing at me, are you, Dear?" Elise looked thoroughly amused at the thought. "I know you've got balls, but now's really not the time to use them. Trust me." Saul needed help. There was no way in hell he could get to a phone, but he had to find some way to get Mercer help. If Saul could get her to fire the gun, there was at least a reasonable chance that the neighbors might hear it. 180

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Apparently her shriek hadn't bothered them, but a gunshot was a lot harder to ignore. He just had to make sure that if he got her riled up again that her anger and the accompanying bullet would be aimed only at him, not Mercer. Saul knew it was a fine line he was going to have to walk and he was going to have to walk it in a damned short time. Although he didn't know how badly Mercer was injured, he did know that even a small injury to a man with Mercer's condition could prove to be fatal. That was simply unacceptable. That was not going to happen. Even if it meant getting shot, and yes possibly killed himself, to get the help rolling their way, Saul was fully prepared to do it. Mercer Braun was worth it. Of course, all the convictions of the heart and soul were not enough to keep the quiver completely out of his voice as he began the taunting game. "I wonder what Anthony's thinking right now?" It was the first time Saul had ever called their unborn son by the name they had planned to give him while talking to Elise. Once their little boy had died, neither could say his name. Even now, the word burned in Saul's mouth bittersweetly. Saul found himself fighting back a dry wash of unsheddable tears. As expected, Elise's reaction was a bit more extreme. The Arctic ice cap had nothing on the cold that now burned her eyes. She swallowed once, twice, and then went completely still. 181

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Saul's gaze fell to the gun. A small tremor ran through the barrel's length. He was on the edge of death and knew it. He longed to look at Mercer one last time, but he didn't want to miss his chance. Maybe, just maybe, if he caught her finger moving against the trigger before she actually pulled it, Saul would be able to dive out of the bullet's path. Not completely, of course. He wasn't a damned idiot. But perhaps he could move just enough out of the way to keep the gaping hole in his chest from being mortal. If Mercer was still alive, Saul had to be alive for him. "Anthony's dead." She clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, a habit that had always drove Saul crazy. "My son's not thinking anything." "Our son, Elise," Saul corrected her. She shook her head and the gun with it. "You don't get to claim him. You lost the right." "What about you, huh? Hate and liquor, that's all you exist on now." Saul balled up his fists, trying to control the anger that was starting to burn inside of him. "What kind of mother would you have been, Elise? A part of me is glad that Anthony's not here to see this." That, of course, was a total lie. Saul would have given anything for his son to have been given the opportunity just to take a breath. All this shit their boy could have dealt with, if he had just been given the chance. "You don't mean that." Elise responded coolly. She had always been good at reading his mind. 182

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Saul had hoped the alcohol would have blunted that talent. It hadn't. He was going to have to stick to the truth from here on out if this was going to work. "So, now, you want to deal with truths. What kind of fucked up logic is that, Elise? You come barreling across the country to tell my lover that I killed our baby when you know for a fact that I did not!" He could just imagine the smug smile that must have played across her lips as she had "revealed" the truth to Mercer. Elise opened her mouth, but Saul wasn't going to let her spew out any more of her shit. "You may hate it. You may try to block it out by drowning yourself in liquor but the truth is still there. It may be ugly and fucking unfair, but it's there. You're just too damned afraid to accept it, to accept that we lost our baby to a shitty accident. You couldn't have stopped it. I couldn't have stopped it. No one could have stopped it but God." Saul inched closer to her on his seat. The most condescending smirk he could manage sat crookedly on his lips. "You want to blame someone, Elise? Why don't you blame God? He's the one with Anthony now. He's the one you should be aiming that damned gun at." Saul prayed with all his soul that she'd turn and point that gun angrily at the sky and shoot the hell out of the heavens. Cold fire flared in her eyes as she replied, "But God's not here, Saul. You are." With a calm, demented smile, Elise Delgado pulled the trigger. [Back to Table of Contents] 183

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Chapter Eleven: Creosote Bushes and Bearpoppies Elise Delgado's bullet wasn't the only one to fly at that moment, however. Hell, hers wasn't even the first. A uniformed cop only three weeks with a badge, stood at the now opened backyard gate. A city issued Glock 22 shook in his hand. He looked green, felt green, but none of that mattered. His aim had been true. The bullet had struck Elise in the shoulder. She now lay writhing on the patio. Her gun had flown out of her hands and was sinking to the bottom of the pool. Her bullet was wedged into the wall by the set of French doors. A blood-spattered Saul Tidewater had spared little attention to the cop except to whisper a "Thank God" in his general direction. He had paid no attention to his fallen exwife. He had been through the doors and at Mercer Braun's side before the police officer's Glock had even begun to cool. The policeman called for an ambulance. Saul slid to a halt at Mercer's side. He dropped down to his knees with prayers rattling off of his tongue like some revival preacher. Mercer couldn't help but chuckle. Saul's look of "Thank God you're alive" rapidly curdled into something approaching "I'm going to kill you myself, jerk." Incredulously, Saul asked him, "You're laughing?" "No, well, yeah, but I'm thinking it has to do more with the fireplace poker your ex thunked me in the head with than any 184

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real humor of the situation." He reached up to his forehead and with a wince dabbed carefully at the gash on his forehead. He had been so focused on that stupid gun that he had never seen her grab the poker. By the time she was swinging it at him, it had been too late for Mercer to duck. Saul immediately swatted Mercer's dabbing hand away. "Don't touch it." The doctor pressed a torn piece of his shirt onto the cut. "You hurt anywhere else?" Mercer started to shake his head but thought better of it when the world started to tilt around him. "No," he whispered instead. "Are you alright?" Although he had been able to watch some of the events by the pool he needed to make sure. "I'm fine," Saul answered shortly, apparently pissed at the world at large. "Elise?" Saul huffed. "Do you really give a damn?" "Yeah," Mercer answered because for some weird reason he did. "You would." Saul shook his head, the accompanying laugh was soft and fleeting. "She got hit in the shoulder. She should live, I guess." Cops began swarming the house and the patio. Mercer watched it all with a fading eye. "Had you called the cops?" he asked because Mercer didn't really understand why Las Vegas' finest were now invading his house. Saul suddenly looked as confused as Mercer felt. "No. I don't know why..." 185

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A shadow fell upon them as a mountain of a cop emerged from the front hallway. "Do you have a sister by the name of Valerie Tidewater?" he asked while staring hard at a little notebook. Saul immediately straightened up, fear piercing his voice. "Yeah, why? Is she alright?" "Oh yeah." The cop waved off the concern immediately. "You might even call her the hero of the day. She called us when she couldn't get a hold of you or Mr. Braun. Apparently, your ex-wife left a 'just in case' suicide note pinned to your mother's door." "Valerie found it?" Saul finally allowed his shoulders to relax. The cop nodded. "And saved the day, yes, Sir." "I love that girl," Mercer mumbled as things were beginning to turn gray and unfocused. Saul's hand suddenly warmed the side of his face again. A kiss was pressed to Mercer's lips and a whispered but sure "I love you" was heard right before unconsciousness reclaimed Mercer Braun. The key slipped into the lock with surprising ease. Saul was shaking so badly he had feared that he'd need some kind of back up just to get into his door. The office was dark and smelled of pine cleaner and window polish. Not bothering with the overhead lights, Saul crossed over to his desk and flicked on the Frank Lloyd Wright inspired lamp that his sisters had gotten him last Christmas. The glow from the low watt bulb was soft and comforting. It was as close to a sisterly hug as he was going to get tonight. He shook his head, knowing that 186

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he was being stupid, but sometimes it was damned hard being so far away from family. His still unsteady gaze found the phone on the corner of his desk. He had already called Valerie and promised her that pony she had always wanted. She had laughed, which was a hell of a lot better than the tears that had accompanied her "Hello?" "I need to call them," he whispered to the empty room. His parents needed to hear what happened to Elise from him. Gossip had already cut his family so deep. Saul wanted to cut this firestorm of words and accusations off at the pass. When his hand didn't move toward the phone, however, he blew out a breath he didn't know he had been holding and said to the night, "Later." The night didn't argue with his decision, so Saul put all those thoughts away for a moment. Before he dealt with the people in South Carolina, he needed to wrap his mind around what just happened in Vegas. Slumping down in his chair, he brought his hands in front of his face. They were still stained with blood. "I wonder whose?" he asked as he started to pick off the dried remains on the palm of his left hand. When Elise had been shot, some of the spray from the wound had landed on him. He hadn't remembered that until just that moment. He thought he was probably in shock, at least a little bit. It was nothing that needed medical care or attention, just enough to skew things sideways and make all the edges too sharp. 187

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He should lay down and rest. He had a perfectly suitable couch across the room just waiting to be filled. There was even an old quilt of his grandmother's in the tiny closet off his private bathroom. He could hide under the squares of soft treasured fabric until the night was gone. It would be so easy to hunker down into exhausted sleep. Oh, he was sure the nightmares would try to come, but he knew himself well enough to know that he'd sleep through them, at least for this one night. He glanced at the couch with longing. It was to his hands, however, that he stared with stalwart determination. He had to get the blood off. Sleep could wait. It would wait. Jerking up and out of his seat, Saul winced as the back of his abandoned chair hit the wall with a thwack. Maintenance wasn't going to be happy. Staring bullets at the freshly made hole in the wall, Saul snapped out tiredly, "Well, maintenance can just go fuck themselves." With a new seed of anger planted in his battered soul, Saul stumbled off toward the bathroom, stripping his soiled clothes off and into a far, dark corner as he went. He was standing in just his boxer briefs when he reached inside the shower and turned on the hot water. Exhaustion hit him with the blessed sound of the water. Half-heartedly, he even contemplated stepping inside with his underwear still on. He was just so damned tired now. He relented, however, as the steam rose up to meet his face. He needed to feel the water. He needed to feel it 188

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everywhere. Kicking away the boxer briefs, he grabbed onto the slick, tiled wall and gave himself to the rush of the water. Though written in red, in big official looking block script even, the letters A.M.A. still rode Mercer Braun's release form blurrily. Well, Mercer had had a concussion before. Being beamed by a ninety-two mile per hour fastball in the side of his helmet had taught him well the signs of minimal brain trauma. He could deal. He wasn't sure Saul could though. The hollowed out expression Mercer remembered seeing on his lover's face in brief flashes before the ambulance had arrived scared the shit out him. He didn't care what "medical advice" told him. Hell, he'd have the damn A.M.A. letters tattooed across his forehead if it got him to finding Saul any quicker. Thankfully, the room the hospital had prematurely dubbed as "Mercer Braun's" looked over the parking lot. He had let out a grateful sigh as he had spotted Saul's truck parked in its usual spot. At least he had a starting place to begin looking. It had been explained to Mercer in no uncertain terms that Doctor Tidewater had been sent home. Mercer needed rest and the "good doctor" had needed a shower and a nice ten hours of sleep. Mercer would bet that their "good doctor" hadn't left his side quietly. Having bribed an orderly into letting him borrow his spare set of scrubs, Mercer was currently weaving his way through the long and surprisingly tricky hospital halls on his way to Saul's office. He felt ridiculous stumbling around in hospital issued slippers. He suspected he looked like some half-baked 189

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lunatic trying to escape the asylum. That was the very reason why he clung to his release papers so tightly, ready to flash them at any well-meaning hospital employee giving him the stink eye. So far he'd only had to do that three times. Not too bad for four floors and one hellish elevator ride. Finally, the end was in sight. Saul's office was at the end of a particularly curvy stretch of hallway. Luckily, the door was already open. Mercer doubted he had the coordination needed to actually knock. He walked inside with an unintended lurch as the floor decided to do a sudden jig. Being a man who had, at one point in his much younger college years, been able to hold an absurd amount of liquor, Mercer was able to keep to his feet. Just the same, he scowled at the carpet menacingly before raising his head up to face his lover. All Mercer got for his troubles, however, was an empty desk and a hole in the wall. Thankfully the sound of the shower running made it through his muddled mind before he started looking for Saul underneath his desk. At some point Saul had slipped to the floor. He didn't remember it, the kneeling on the hard ass tile that is. The rest of the screwed up day he remembered perfectly. In fact, full Technicolor images of the evening's gruesome events kept playing in a loop in his mind. The doctor part of him knew that that wasn't healthy. The rest of him though didn't really give a shit. He just let the flashes of blood and guns and exwives and almost dead lovers fill his head until it was too heavy for his neck to hold up. 190

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Hmmm. Maybe that's how he ended up on the floor. "What the hell are you doing on the floor?" A voice not his own angrily shouted over the pounding water. Shielding his eyes from the spray, Saul looked up and found Mercer Braun swaying in his shower's doorway. While the events of the last few minutes might be a bit blurry, Saul was damned sure that Mercer wasn't supposed to be standing there. "What the hell are you doing out of bed?" Mercer rustled a handful of papers at him. "A.M.A." He smirked down at him proudly. "You're an idiot," Saul informed him. "Who's the freak on his knees?" Mercer wobbled a little as he pointed in Saul's general direction. "It's my shower. I can do what I fucking want." Saul stuck his chin up in the air defiantly. The argument he was trying to spark off fizzled, however, with Mercer's answer, "Fine. Scoot over, then." "What? Why?" "I've got a concussion. I should be in bed, but I'll settle for sitting right now." Saul really couldn't find the logic to argue that at the moment. After Mercer had wedged himself on the floor next to Saul, the doctor looked at his lover as the water streamed down his still pale face. "You really should have turned off the shower before you sat down, you know. Or at least taken off your clothes." Staring at him through the rising steam, Saul noticed what Mercer was wearing, ill-fittingly wearing at that. "You look like a reject from Grey's Anatomy." He fingered at 191

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the material casually as if they weren't two men, one naked, one in scrubs, sitting like a couple of sardines in a fully operational shower. "Better than that paper gown they had me in." Mercer shuddered. "Damned right." A picture of Mercer roaming the hospital halls in one of those gowns flashing those damned perfect cheeks to the world replaced all the other images in Saul's shock-tinted mind. He really wasn't up to kicking any more ass tonight. "You going to explain this to me now?" Mercer flailed his arms around the wet cubicle of tile. Saul shrugged. "I had to get your blood off of me." At least he wasn't sitting under a running shower fully clothed. "Oh." Mercer nodded then winced. "Her blood too, I imagine." "Yeah, but that I could handle." Saul scrubbed a little more at his now clean hands. "Yours, well, yours I never want to see, Okay?" "Okay." Mercer smiled agreeably. "So you're saying if I skin my knee don't bring the bandages to you, huh?" Saul knew Mercer was trying to be funny, but Saul just wasn't up to that yet. "That's not what I meant." "I know, Saul." Mercer patted him on the knee and just left his hand there. They let the muffled sound of the water beating on their clothes and skin take center stage for a while.

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Mercer's voice finally broke the silence. The words were low, as if they were a little unsure of their place. "I was afraid I'd never hear you say it." "What?" "The 'I love you.'" Mercer shrugged away its importance. Saul closed his eyes. He had finally realized on his drive over to Mercer's that for all of his cataloguing the "I love you's" in his life he had failed to actually put voice to the most important one. "As you can tell by my ex-wife, I'm not very good at this kind of stuff," Saul laughed sadly. "I'm sorry..." Mercer cut him off. There was apparently something more important to be said. "Lying there on the floor when I realized that you'd never said those words, do you know what I realized?" "No." Saul opened his eyes and squinted through the water at his lover. The deep brown eyes met Saul's and stayed. "That I'd trade one 'I love you' from you for..." he took a deep breath, "for playing blindfolded on the interstate at rush hour." Saul was speechless. Mercer filled in the gap. "I saw you taunting her. You were good. I'm guessing you were doing that on some fucking selfsacrificing, heroic shit notion that if she shot you, it would save me?" After a few abortive attempts at making sound, Saul defended himself as best he could, "I didn't want her to actually shoot me, just shoot in general. I thought the neighbors would hear the gunshot and call the cops." This 193

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time, Saul was the one to shrug. "I told you I don't want to watch you die." "No," Mercer immediately rebutted. "What you said was that you didn't want to watch me kill myself. Then you called me 'slugger,' which, by the way, I hated." "Sorry," Saul thought he should probably say. Mercer ignored him. "Tonight I was forced to lie there and watch you try to kill yourself. I hated it." His voice broke with the vow Saul never expected to hear, "I won't intentionally do that to you again. I swear." "Really?" Saul asked around a grin so large it was only eclipsed by the damned tears now flooding his eyes. Even though the shower was still beating down on them, Mercer reached out and gently wiped the fallen tears away. Then, the ex-ball player threw a crooked grin the doctor's way. "I'm just going to drag your ass out to the desert with me to see every creosote bush, every mulberry tree, every bearpoppy..." "Bearpoppy?" Saul asked around something that was definitely not a lump in his throat. "Doc, you're going to be loving some bearpoppies." Mercer beamed. There was only one question left to be asked. It was an important one, too. "And when I get too old for you to drag my ass out there?" This was a long term deal for Saul. He had to make sure it was one for Mercer too. The gorgeous brown eyes that Saul had fell in love with that first night on the rooftop shined brightly at him. Mercer knew exactly what Saul was asking. "We'll have the 194

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bearpoppies delivered, Doc. You know, senior discount and all that." "I love you." It just had to be said. Saul leaned over and kissed him with all the love a soul could give. Mercer pulled away and whispered against the doctor's lips, "Keep telling me that. It's all my heart will ever need." The End

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