by Josh Lanyon
I left the lodge and walked back through the silver, shivery rain to my cabin. I locked myself in, shoved the desk against the door, and built up the fire in the grate. I undressed and got into bed and told myself to go to sleep.
The room gradually warmed, and the shadows softened and blurred.
I jerked awake. Someone was pounding hard on the door. Jackknifing up into sitting position, I sat rigid, heart hammering. My gaze fell on the poker conveniently placed beside the bed, and I rolled out of bed, snatching it up.
“Kit? Can you hear me? Kit?”
Poker poised, I paused. Not a line I would have written myself, but rather accurate under the circumstances.
“Kit.”
“J.X.?”
“Who do you—? Open the goddamned door,” he yelled, sounding uncharacteristically bad-tempered. I went to the window, peered out, and sure enough J.X. was staring up at the stormy skies with an expression that clearly read, why me?
I shoved the desk away from the door and unbolted it.
J.X. pushed the door open. “I thought something had happened to you. What the hell are you doing in here? Rearranging the furniture?” He squeezed past the desk and slammed the door shut. Without looking at me, he slid the bolt.
My heart unaccountably sped up. “Do you mind? I was sleeping.”
He turned then. “Again? Are you sure you don’t have sleeping sickness?”
“What do you mean, again? Most people do try to schedule a little shut-eye into every twenty-four hours.”
We were glaring at each other, and I suddenly wondered why. Was it simply because we didn’t know how to relate to each other if we weren’t arguing? The silence between us was abrupt and awkward.
J.X. tore his gaze from me and looked at the bed with the rumpled sheets and blankets. His profile was unreasonably grim. Maybe he was in pain. There was a neatly taped square of white gauze on the back of his head. He was certainly pale, and there were shadows beneath his eyes. I probably didn’t look much better.
“Aren’t you supposed to be lying down?” In case that sounded like maybe I wanted him lying down with me, I added aggressively, “What are you doing here?”
“Why did you leave the lodge? It’s not safe down here.”
“It’s not safe up there either.”
“It’s safer there than it is here.”
“I felt perfectly safe until two minutes ago when you woke me out of a peaceful sleep.”
“Which goes to show how much you know.”
Luckily testosterone is not flammable, so the cabin did not spontaneously combust while we squared off.
Then J.X. had to go and spoil all our fun by saying calmly, “You didn’t give me a chance to thank you.”
“No thanks necessary,” I clipped. “It’s all part of the service.”
Damn it. He was looking at me in that particular way of his, his dark eyes a little quizzical, his mouth tugging into a reluctant smile. Why did he have to do that? It was so much easier when we were hassling each other.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
“Probably.” I added, “But I actually am an egotistical, self-centered prick. I just…don’t approve of murder. On general principles.”
“I understand.” He reached a hand out and brushed my bare shoulder. “You’re getting goose bumps.”
“Fancy that,” I exclaimed mockingly. “It must be you. It can’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that it’s forty degrees in he—”
His hand closed on my shoulder, and he drew me forward. He said softly, “Let me warm you up.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said as he stepped out of his jeans—and I don’t think Superman ever shed his clothes as fast or looked as gorgeous naked. “The sex is nice, but we seem to singe our eyebrows on the afterglow.”
He glanced up smiling, and the sweetness of that smile literally stopped the breath in my throat. “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you.”
My swallow was audible.
He straightened, took my hand, and led me to the disheveled bed. I lay down, and then I sat up again. “Really,” I said. “This isn’t necessary. It just confuses everything.”
“What are you confused about?” He sat next to me and reached out, brushing the hair out of my eyes.
“Well, you know. Various points. Anyway, you probably have a concussion,” I told him. “I’m sure you’re not up to this.”
He chuckled and glanced down meaningfully. Apparently he was up to it.
“Still…”
“Here,” he said suddenly brisk. “Let’s get under the covers. You’re shaking.”
I dived gratefully under the covers, wrapping myself modestly up to my chin. He stretched out beside me, brown and muscular against the sheets as he made himself comfortable. He propped his head on his hand. He was still smiling that knowing smile, and it was beginning to alarm the hell out of me.
“When I came to, you were kissing me,” he remarked.
“I…uh…thought you weren’t breathing. I was giving artificial respiration.”
He laughed, his teeth very white. “Debbie said you were crying before you bribed her to let you into the cellar.”
“I wasn’t crying,” I returned irritably. “I’m coming down with a head cold.”
“No wonder in this weather.” His breath tickled my cheek. Reaching over, he hauled me into his arms. I was too nonplussed to object—not that I’d have really wanted to object. His soft-haired chest thrust hard and arrogantly against my own. Every satiny muscular inch of him was shockingly, beautifully hot. “Jesus, you really are half-frozen.” He pulled me closer still.
We lay there for long moments. Face pressed into the curve of his neck, I was forced to admit that this was…well, bizarre. I wondered if I was dreaming and reached around him to pinch the back of my hand.
“What are you doing?” he asked drowsily.
I raised my head. “Are you going to sleep?”
“Just closing my eyes for a sec…” He shifted, maneuvering so that my head was comfortably tucked under his chin. I curled one arm beneath the pillow cushioning our heads, cautiously wrapped the other around his lean waist. He moved one leg between my own, capturing my feet between his.
“Cold feet…”
“Warm hands,” I whispered. And his hands were very warm, moving against the small of my back in slower and slower circles.
“Should you be sleeping with a concussion?”
“I’ve already woken up twice since I got hit…”
He let it trail, breathing softly and moistly into my ear. His half-hard cock was nestled into my groin, bare hot limbs twined with my own. The arms holding me slackened as he dropped into sleep.
My own cock was nudging him impolitely, but that was clearly going to have to wait.
I blinked wonderingly into the soft gloom. Obviously he’d been knocked over the head a lot harder than anyone had imagined…
It was one of the nicest dreams I’d had in a very long time. No arguing, no yelling, no David at all. A delightful flush and sense of well-being…a dawning awareness of a pleasure so keen it was almost poignant.
Yep, something felt really, really good…
I opened my eyes to a soft and unthreatening darkness—the shine of eyes and smiling teeth and the pleasurable knowledge that someone’s warming, knowing hand was on me, a skimming, tugging, glissade up and down—and I was responding, my cock filling in slow, sweet pulses. To save my life, I couldn’t bite back the little moan of gladness as that hard but subtle hand took me right to the edge and held me there, precisely balanced on the knife-edge of joyous release.
J.X.’s mouth came down on mine, the Van Dyke beard as silky soft as a baby’s hair. I shuddered, and he murmured gentle indeterminate noises. His tongue flicked my lips, and I opened to him, permitting that delicate exploration of teeth and tongue—unsettlingly, his taste was already well-known to me, a budding
addiction.
All the while his hand held me positioned on that dizzying final step, reeling but not allowed to fall. His other hand nestled my balls, squeezing gently, then lightly, lightly scratching with his fingernails, and I bucked a little, making a desperate sound in the back of my throat. That combination of mouth and hands—exquisite torture.
I reached, relieved to find him right there, silky cropped hair, neat ears, strong neck, broad shoulders—my fingers fluttered over hair and skin and muscle, urging, needing—
His hand tightened, increased the tempo, and pressure was building quite unbearably inside me—like giddy laughter, like a little kid on a swing, lilting higher and higher toward the sky, over the treetops, sailing up, giggling irrepressibly at the rush—
“Oh, Christ…” I said against his mouth.
I began to come, white-hot heartbeats spilling over his hand, splashing my belly and tensed thighs. There was a sharp, sweet smell mixed with the scent of rain and naked skin, and all the wires holding me tight snapped, and I was free…floating free, free falling…
I was laughing—and J.X. was laughing too. What the hell were we laughing at? But suddenly everything was light and lovely…and very funny. He dropped back into the sheets beside me, and we lay there panting and chuckling.
“I’m not married,” he told me when we had caught our breath and were tangled warmly in each other’s arms again.
“No?”
His laughter died. His voice was edged. “You honest to God think I’d cheat?”
I could have turned the question on him, but maybe I’d learned something over the past couple of days after all. “It’s hard to imagine.”
He grunted. Finally he said, “I was married, but it wasn’t a real marriage. My kid brother, Alex…” He drew a sharp breath, and I turned to study his face. There was a quiet, controlled pain there. “He was killed in Iraq.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “Anyway…his girlfriend, Nina, was pregnant. Our families are…very traditional, very conservative. So Nina and I married.”
Holy guacamole. I thought that kind of thing only happened in chick flicks and Harlequin romances. “To give the baby a name?”
“That, yes. But for Nina’s sake too—and Alex’s. He’d have married her if he’d known. Anyway…when Gage—my nephew—turned three, we divorced. I still spend a lot of time with them, but it was never a genuine marriage. It’s not like I ever lived there or anything. I can’t believe you thought I’d—”
“Hey, first of all, I didn’t. Others insisted to me that you were married. Secondly, you did marry, so…it’s not like everyone was totally off base.”
“But if anyone should have known my…my inclinations…”
In an effort to move the conversation away from these awkward channels, I said, “Does your very conservative, very traditional family know you’re gay?”
“They know,” he said austerely. “It’s not something that’s ever discussed.”
That sounded fairly forbidding. I was mulling it over when he turned his head and kissed my shoulder.
“So why were you scared?” he asked.
“What?”
“The last time I was here, you said the reason you never returned my phone calls or emails—”
“Oh.” I met his eyes. “Right. Look…it’s not like you’re going to like me better after you hear this.”
“Tell me anyway.”
I sighed. “You already know that the weekend of the conference in DC I was…”
“Vulnerable.”
I made a face. “I guess. Anyway—” I met his gaze. His eyes were dark and serious. “That weekend was…I’m not kidding when I say you might have saved my life. But when I got home, David was waiting, and he was distraught, apologetic, willing to do anything to put things right. And…I thought I loved him. I’d thought myself in love with him for three years, so I couldn’t believe that just like that it was over for me and I’d…that I could feel that for someone else so quickly…”
He didn’t say anything.
I explained painstakingly, “It didn’t seem realistic. It didn’t seem practical. I thought I was mistaking lust for…something else.” It was very hard to hold his gaze. “I panicked, lost my nerve.”
“You should have told me.”
“Yeah, I should have. But I wasn’t sure if I saw you again, spoke to you again, that I could break it off with you.”
He smiled faintly, derisively. “And what happened with David?”
“He ran off with my PA. And if you laugh at me, I’ll kill you.”
“It’s not particularly funny,” he said. “We lost ten years.”
I said carefully, “When you say we lost ten years, are you implying—or am I inferring—that there might be some years left?”
“I don’t know. We still have to survive the rest of the weekend.” He didn’t appear to be entirely kidding.
“The weekend is over,” I protested. “All we have to do is wait until the relief arrives. That can’t be many more hours.”
“You think we’re going to be permitted to hide out here till the sheriffs show up?”
“Yes.”
“Kit.”
“Well, why not?”
“You know why not. Because the killer knows that you know.”
“I don’t know anything.”
He was eyeing me steadily.
“I don’t know for sure,” I said weakly.
“But you’ve narrowed the possibilities down to what…two? Three suspects?”
I said evasively, “That’s not the same as being able to prove it.”
“The killer is not going to want you trotting to the sheriffs with your suspicions. Nor is he or she going to necessarily believe that I don’t remember anything about when I got hit.”
“Do you remember anything?”
“Some. More than I let on at the lodge.”
“Do you know who hit you?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
I sighed. “I think we should leave it alone.”
“You’re talking to the wrong person. I’m not in the leave-it-alone business.”
“You’re not a cop anymore. You could leave it alone. It’s not like either of them were a great loss to humanity.”
“Is that really the point?”
“Isn’t it?”
He said, “Do we discourage vigilantism to protect the bad guys or for the sake of the good guys?”
“I’m not endorsing vigilantism. I’m saying this isn’t something I necessarily want to stick my neck out for.”
“What would Miss Butterwith do?”
“Call Inspector Appleby.”
He was amused. “Okay. What would Inspector Appleby do?”
I sighed. “Gather all the suspects in a conveniently located drawing room…”
“Will a conveniently located meeting room do?”
I closed my eyes. “I guess it will have to.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I want you to know that I think this is a bad idea,” I called over the sound of the shower. “And, furthermore, I don’t think you should get that bandage wet.”
“You can glue it on for me if it falls off.”
“Funny,” I said around a mouth full of toothpaste. “I faint at the sight of blood.”
“You haven’t fainted so far.”
I spat and bent down to rinse my mouth. When I straightened, J.X. had turned off the taps and was shoving back the grisly shower curtain, stepping out of the tub.
I tried not to stare, but he was…hard to ignore. It was a fairly small bathroom. And talk about a man in his prime. Tall, lean, cleanly defined muscles beneath satiny brown skin. Sable hair bisected his pecs and arrowed down to the straight and unequivocal statement of his returned interest. Forcing my gaze to his face, I said, “I really don’t think we have time for that.”
“You know that, and I know that, but he doesn’t believe it.”
> “Believe it,” I told him.
J.X.’s mouth tugged into one of those heart-stopping smiles. “Maybe you should whisper in his ear.”
And, insanity though it was—and at my age, no less—I got down on my knees in that small and steamy room and took his hard, jutting length in my mouth. Soap and warm, damp skin…the salt-sweet taste of his excitement. Was there a greater aphrodisiac in the entire world?
I steadied him—and myself—hands on his lean hips, thumbs tracing ethereal circles on slick skin. J.X.’s breath caught raggedly, and he let his head fall back, gasping for air as I sucked him.
His hand brushed my head, fingers twisting in my hair. “Oh God,” he said throatily. “I can’t believe this…”
Me neither. But here I was putting my experience, if not wisdom, to good use, massaging his cock with my tongue while he blinked wetly down at me, bemused as little jerks of lightning shot through his nerves. Nice to be able to do this to him—for him. I lowered one hand to cradle his balls, and he groaned.
I hummed, teasing, and he laughed unsteadily, his fingers twining restlessly in my hair. It didn’t take long and he was coming, sperm slinging from his cock and sliding down my throat, and I was lapping the fountain up like mother’s milk, gasping and swallowing. His knees gave, and he was kneeling with me on the little damp square of rug, holding me tight, kissing my mouth.
* * * * *
“Do you still live in L.A.?” he asked as we trudged once more across the field separating the guest cabins from the main lodge.
“Chatsworth Hills,” I agreed. “Are you still in San Francisco?”
He nodded.
The rain had lessened to a fine mist, and for the first time in days, the sun had slunk out from behind the clouds. It had immediately retreated—and I couldn’t blame it—but I thought it was a promising sign that the storm was finally passing. The wind had stopped too.
“Do you get down to Los Angeles much?” I asked casually.
“No.” He glanced at me. “But I didn’t have a reason before.”
I smiled twitchily. Our shoulders and arms brushed as we walked. He was right there in my personal space, and I liked it. But where was this heading? I had failed at one relationship; jumping into another didn’t seem like the smartest move.
