Northern Light

by E. J. Russell

  “If the collection was lost, how do you know about it?”

  “He described it in OCD detail.” Luke added a bucketful of rice next to Stefan’s mountain of beans and arranged the trout on top. “Eat up.” Luke glared at him until he took a bite of fish. “His patron was Ruth Gordon.”

  “The actress?” Stefan said, trying to keep his mind on the conversation and not on the freaking awesome flavor of trout with lemon and hazelnut butter. Real food. God, he’d missed it.

  Luke nodded and poured himself another shot. “He wrote reams of letters to her. She introduced him to the inside circle in Hollywood and New York. That’s who bought his paintings. Theater people. Film stars. But in spite of hobnobbing with celebrities, he fell in love with a bourgeois nobody. Go figure.”

  Man, this Scotch was the real shit. It blurred the hard edges in the room, turning it into a chalk drawing, smudged by a careless artist. Blurred the hard edges in Luke’s mind too, blunting all the bullshit worry. So what if Stefan’s hair was overlong or his collarbones stood out like bas-relief ivory? The lamplight burnished his skin and the soft-focus lens of the alcohol allowed Luke to relax and enjoy the view.

  He took another gulp, bared his teeth against the burn, and lifted one of Stefan’s hands. “God, I remember these hands. I can’t count the number of times I tried to draw them. Failed every time.” He traced the square palm, the row of calluses at the base of the long, tapered fingers. Stefan tried to pull away but Luke tightened his grip. “You ever want something so fucking badly that you’d sacrifice anything to get it?”

  Stefan stopped resisting and sucked in a sharp breath. “Yes,” he whispered.

  “That’s how I felt about painting.”

  “Oh.” Stefan snatched his hand away but Luke recaptured it.

  He fit his own hand over Stefan’s, matching palm to palm, fingers to fingers. “Yeah. I dreamed of being the best damned painter in the twenty-first century.”

  “It’s a good dream.” Stefan’s voice wobbled, as unsteady as Luke would be if he tried to walk across the room right now.

  “I loved you so much then,” Luke said. “You have no idea. But every time I looked at you, I knew I’d never be the best. You’d always be better.”

  “Christ, Luke.” Stefan covered his face with his other hand. No good. Luke needed to see his eyes. He grasped Stefan’s wrist and pulled, caging both Stefan’s hands between his own.

  “Yep. Every single time, I’d compare my shit to yours and I knew. That dream was fucking dead.” Funny how that didn’t seem to matter so much now. This Scotch totally rocked.

  When Stefan yanked his hands away again, Luke didn’t fight him. Instead, he picked up the bottle and refilled his glass.

  Stefan’s mouth tucked in at the corners, the familiar sign he was about to say something neither of them wanted to hear. “You should have told me.”

  “Why? Not like you could do anything about it. My dream. My problem.” Luke shrugged and swirled the liquid in his glass. “So I went looking for a replacement.”

  Stefan hugged his chest and clamped his hands under his arms as if he was afraid Luke would try to grab them again. “Is that why you left?”

  “Yup.” Luke tilted his head and stared at the ceiling. “Sounds kind of stupid now, doesn’t it? Probably should have just become a drug addict like every other mediocre artist.”

  Stefan pushed away from the table and stood up. “Ooookay, that’s a quarter bottle of Scotch talking. Time to ease up.” No wobbles in his voice now. He sounded exactly like Luke’s kill-joy high school algebra teacher.

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  “Trust me. That stuff packs a killer hangover. You’re switching to water.” Stefan plucked the bottle out of Luke’s hand mid-pour and set it on the sideboard.

  Fucking spoilsport. Luke leaned his head on his fist and tracked Stefan across the room, savoring the flex of his ass under those threadbare sweats. Damn.

  When Stefan returned and leaned over to set the water glass on the table, something escaped from the open collar of his worn flannel shirt and swung in the air next to Luke’s face. A tiger’s-eye pendant on a leather thong. Stefan noticed him staring and a blush painted those killer cheekbones as he tucked the necklace back under his shirt.

  The sight went straight to Luke’s dick in a knee-jerk Neanderthal response. He’d bought the pendant because it contained all the colors of Stefan’s hair, from the pale gold highlights he got in the summer to the darker gold and sugar brown of winter. He grabbed Stefan’s wrist. “You hocked Marius’s watch and ring but you kept that?”

  Stefan shrugged one shoulder, his blush deepening. “The other stuff was Marius trying to…to decorate me. Make me more acceptable to his circle. And piss you off a little, too.”

  Luke snorted. “It worked.”

  “This meant something.” Stefan smiled, a lopsided quirk of his full lips. “You lived on ramen for a month after you gave it to me.”

  “So did you. We shared the same pantry.”

  “Yeah, but for me, ramen was business as usual. For you, it was torture.”

  It was, but God, it had been worth it. Worth it to see Stefan wearing his collar, his mark. Not Marius Worthington Prescott the fucking Fifth’s.

  Huh. Maybe Stefan was right about easing up on the liquor. If he hadn’t had one too many fingers of Scotch, he wouldn’t be thinking of other things his fingers could do, all involving some entertaining part of Stefan’s body.

  Ah, screw it. He took a last, fiery gulp and scooted his chair closer to Stefan’s so he could breathe in his scent. That unique blend of soap, musk, and oil paint. A whisper of acetone. The combination of man and art was more intoxicating than any mind-altering substance, although the Scotch sure as hell didn’t hurt.

  Chapter Seven

  Stefan toyed with his dinner, appetite vanished. If it weren’t for him, Luke would be a painter now, with a perfectly respectable, possibly even stellar career. I drove him away. I killed his dream. Christ, as if he didn’t slog through a deep enough swamp of regret and guilt every day already.

  The scrape of Luke’s chair was the only warning he had before Luke’s Scotch-infused breath ghosted over his cheek.

  “Uh. Luke? What are you doing?”

  “Thinking.” Luke’s voice had dropped to that damn lower register again and Stefan shivered, his cock tenting the napkin in his lap.

  “Thinking doesn’t require your nose in my ear.”

  “This kind does. I’m thinking how goddamn sexy you are,” Luke rumbled.

  Danger. Danger. Remember me? Suspected forger? Dream-killer? Stefan hadn’t missed the purposeful past-tense of love, either. He edged away until his butt was halfway off his chair. “No you’re not. You said I look like a skeleton.”

  “Maybe I think skeletons are sexy.” Luke leaned toward him until they were practically horizontal.

  “That’s revolting.” Stefan shoved Luke’s shoulder until he was back in his own personal space.

  “Maybe it’s Freudian. Maybe I want to jump your bones.” Luke leered over the top of his empty highball glass. “Or maybe I want you to bone me.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  Luke chuckled, a low burr that stroked Stefan’s spine like a teasing finger. “On a couple of shots of Scotch? No way.”

  Stefan sighed. “Way. Give me your keys. You’re not driving in this state.”

  Luke leaned his chin on his cupped palm, but his elbow slipped off the table. “Gonna let me sleep here? With you?”

  Christ, talk about a disaster. To wake up and see disgust—or worse, indifference—in Luke’s face once he’d sobered up? Stefan needed to be business-like. Detached. That’s the only way he could get through the night and survive Luke’s inevitable departure. “Dream on, pal. Let’s go. You’re checking out for the night.”

  He hauled Luke out of his chair and frog-marched him into the bedroom, which would have been impossible if Luke wasn’t completely plastered. “Sit.
”

  “Excellent plan.” Luke dropped on the bed, bouncing on the mattress in a squeak of protesting springs. “Join me?”

  “No.”

  Luke’s shoulders slumped. “’S no fun,” he muttered.

  “Can you take off your shirt and pants, or do you need help?”

  Luke didn’t answer, but he held out his arms and let his head loll back. Stefan huffed out an exasperated breath and unbuttoned Luke’s shirt, revealing a tight white T-shirt underneath. Thank God. He wasn’t prepared for the sight of Luke’s naked chest. Not in a million years.

  “Drop your arms, Morganstern.”

  Luke’s arms flopped to his sides. Stefan peeled the Oxford off, gritting his teeth when Luke laid his head on Stefan’s shoulder. He stood up so fast that Luke toppled forward. Stefan steadied him with one hand. “Lay back.”

  Luke blinked up at Stefan. “I ever tell you your eyes are like the Gulf on a perfect day?”

  “What Gulf? We lived in the middle of Connecticut.”

  Luke pointed an unsteady finger at Stefan. “Right. Hadn’t seen the Gulf yet. But I see it now. Every morning. Like you’re looking back at me.”

  “Uh-huh.” Stefan nudged Luke’s shoulder and he fell backward onto the mattress.

  “’S true.”

  He unbuckled Luke’s belt and unzipped his chinos. Christ, the guy still dressed like a complete prep. When he raised Luke’s feet to grab the hem of the pants, Luke chuckled.

  “Whoa, Stef. You a top now? That’s a new wrinkle.”

  “Shut up.” Stefan shucked the pants off. “Keep your socks on. It gets cold overnight if the fire in the wood stove dies.”

  Luke wiggled his hips. “Boxers next.”

  Stefan clenched his jaw, grinding his molars together. He’d thought the dinner had been torture, but this set a new standard. “I don’t think so.” He pulled Luke to his feet and turned down the covers. “Get in.”

  “You’re interested. I can see.” Luke grabbed Stefan’s burgeoning crotch, squeezed, and tugged.

  Christ. Stefan disengaged the wandering hand. “Yeah, and you’re wasted.” When you’re sober you can’t stand to touch me.

  God, the smell of him. Even overlaid with Scotch and wood smoke, it was still Luke. Stefan could get drunk himself on the scent, but one hangover a day was his limit. Besides, he knew from experience that a Luke hangover lasted for years. The withdrawal from the last overdose had nearly killed him. He couldn’t face another one. He wrestled Luke between the flannel sheets and pulled the heavy quilts up to his chin.

  “Why aren’t you in the bed? You should be in the bed.”

  “I’ll sleep on the sofa or in the studio.” No. Not the studio. What if it held another painting? His fist tightened on the quilts. Christ, what if it didn’t?

  “You should be with me,” Luke mumbled, his eyes at half-mast.

  Stefan folded Luke’s clothes and set them on the cane-bottomed chair next to the window, tempted—God, so tempted—to take this one last chance to slide his hands over Luke’s flesh, feel the stroke of his tongue, the thrust of his cock. He swallowed against a mouth gone suddenly dry. “Not anymore. You think I’m a criminal, remember, not to mention a dream-assassin.” He flipped on the solar lamp on the bedside table. “Good ni—”

  Luke’s hand clamped his wrist, pressing tendon to bone. “You. Should. Be. With. Me.”

  Stefan’s head snapped around. Luke’s voice, no longer Scotch-fuddled, held a menacing note Stefan had never heard before. His teeth were bared in a grimace, eyebrows bunched together, and pupils blown wide.

  “Luke. Let go.”

  “I won’t share. I told you.”

  “Yeah, you did. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Won’t.”

  “No sharing. Got it.” Stefan pried Luke’s fingers off his wrist and stepped back. “Sleep it off now, okay?”

  Luke’s head dropped back on the pillow and his face relaxed, eyes drifting shut. “Won’t.”

  “Whatever. Try to make it to the bathroom if you need to vomit.”

  Stefan fled before desire overcame his sense of self-preservation.

  After he banked the fire for the night, Stefan paced the threadbare rug, still restless and unsettled by everything from Luke’s sympathy and drunken passes to his own undeniable yearning. Luke had promised to reserve judgment. Could Stefan trust him enough to take him to the studio? Tonight, for a minute or two before the Scotch kicked in, a genuine heat had shone in Luke’s eyes. What if whatever awaited them on Stefan’s easel branded him guilty and doused that heat for good? Stefan shuddered. Not worth it.

  He stalked to the hall closet for spare bedding, wrinkling his nose at the musty smell. Crap. No extra pillow. He’d have to steal one from the bedroom, not that Luke would notice anything less than a freaking mariachi band in his alcohol-induced coma.

  He grabbed a flashlight off the shelf and padded down the short hallway. Some trick of the cabin’s ventilation concentrated the acrid smell of wood smoke outside the bedroom door and he coughed.

  From inside the room, Luke cried out, a wordless protest, and alarm chased up Stefan’s spine. He hesitated, but a tortured moan from inside the bedroom goosed him into action.

  He pushed the door. It didn’t move.

  He shoved again and it shoved back, as if the room were full of water, pressing against the door.

  Stefan braced his feet and forced it, inch by resisting inch. Halfway in, it gave way and he staggered inside. He dropped his flashlight and it rolled in an arc across the floor. Between the flashlight’s flattened cone of amber light and the flickering glow of the solar lamp, the room pulsed orange like the heart of a flame.

  Luke lay naked, spread-eagle on the bed amid the shredded remains of his T-shirt and boxers. Standing by the door, Stefan’s breath condensed in a chill deeper than October, but a sheen of sweat shone on Luke’s chest. His legs thrashed in a tangle of quilt and sheet, his hands gripped the edge of the mattress, and his back bowed as if an implacable force pulled him toward the ceiling.

  “Luke!” Stefan’s shout was muffled, hidden behind a crackling roar inside his head. His trip across the room was like swimming through syrup. The closer he got to the bed, the hotter the air. He reached for the iron bedstead to pull himself the last few feet.

  He snatched his hand away. The rail felt hot enough to burn, but when he uncurled his palm, it was pale and callused, not reddened and blistered. Frowning, he touched the bedknob with a tentative finger.

  Cold. Huh. A trick of the mind.

  Luke moaned, straining against invisible bonds, and Stefan dismissed hot and cold as irrelevant. He scrambled onto the bed and threw himself across Luke, wrapped his arms tight around the taut body.

  “Luke, it’s me. Wake up.”

  Luke’s eyes flew open and Stefan almost leaped off the bed. Instead of the familiar hazel, they were obsidian. Foreign. Luke whipped his head back and forth on the pillow and Stefan grabbed his jaw, forced him to meet his gaze.

  “Talk to me.”

  Luke jolted as if he’d caught himself at the edge of falling. He drew a sharp breath, released it on a groan, let go of the mattress, and grabbed Stefan. Stefan returned the embrace and felt a momentary disorientation, as if gravity had shifted from down to up.

  Luke shouted, hoarse and wordless. He clutched Stefan harder.

  “Shhh.” Stefan pressed his cheek against Luke’s damp forehead. “It’s over. I’ve got you.”

  Luke went boneless and shivered in air that once again felt like Oregon October and not high noon on the streets of hell. He blinked at Stefan, and his eyes faded from ink to coffee to hazel. Stefan cradled the stubbled jaw in his palm.

  Luke flicked his lower lip with his tongue. “Stef?” The uncertain note in his voice squeezed Stefan’s heart.

  He kissed Luke once, gentle, meant to soothe, to comfort. He drew back and met Luke’s gaze. “You okay?”

  “Shit, yeah.” Luke tangled his hands
in Stefan’s hair and pulled his head down to a kiss nowhere close to gentle, soothing, or comforting. Luke’s lips demanded, his tongue invaded, and Stefan didn’t surrender so much as join the assault, all his caution reduced to ash by the heat of Luke’s mouth.

  Stefan’s nerves thrummed, his body vibrating like a bass string when Luke pulled up his shirt. Luke’s hand, fever-hot against his skin, swept from his waist to the top of his ribcage. No point in pretending Stefan wasn’t eager for this. The evidence was right there, his cock hard and straining in his sweatpants, rubbing against Luke’s thigh.

  There was something…something he should remember. Some reason this was a bad idea. But it faded like the dying light of the solar lamp.

  Luke registered several important facts because he was one hell of an investigator, wasn’t he? Stefan’s body stretched on top of his. Luke was naked—how the hell had that happened? Stefan wasn’t, but his erection pressed against Luke’s dick, long and hard under the meager cushion of his sweatpants.

  He ran a finger over Stefan’s lower lip, touched his own mouth, and was rewarded with Stefan’s wry smile. The tiger’s-eye dangled from the cord around Stefan’s throat and Luke wrapped it in his fist, pulling Stefan in for another kiss.

  Heat shot through him, from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair. His hips bucked once, twice against the hard ridge of Stefan’s dick and he came with a shout, shuddering and panting against Stefan’s shoulder as if his orgasm had been building forever, as if he hadn’t come at all in decades.

  Stefan stroked his chest and his arms until his tremors eased, mouth warm against Luke’s throat. God, had Stefan even come? The front of his sweatpants was soaked but that could’ve been Luke’s fault. “Next time,” he gasped, “I’ll do better by you. Swear.”

  “Uh-huh.” Stefan still sounded uncertain, as if he didn’t believe in next time, but his hands moved on Luke’s back, pulling him close. He chuckled. “Since when can you come over your shoulder? Your back is wetter than your belly.”