

Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
About the Author

There's no escaping the man at the heart of his memories.
Three years ago, David and his college roommate, Ethan, were on the brink of unimaginable success, ready to revolutionize an industry and reap billions. Then David accidentally revealed the attraction he'd never wanted to feel, and certainly never meant Ethan to see. Mortified, he ran from everything that mattered---the fledgling company he'd helped to build, the bright future he'd worked to secure, and the man he couldn't let himself want.
Now he's built a new life for himself. So what if it's not the one he hoped for? He's learned to look only forward, and not to envy the success Ethan achieved without him. He's even learned to cope with the nightmares. The panic attacks. The failed relationships with women.
When an opportunity arises to enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime getaway to a private island resort, David never suspects a trap is about to be sprung. One where he'll be forced to face the truths from which he's been hiding---and the man from whom he's never stopped running.
Warning: This book contains erotic waffles, sexual math, blatant ABBA worship, kidnapping, nude napping, dog-napping, journal hijacking, betrayal, redemption, and red-hot man love so poignant and passionate, you won't know whether to say "awwwwwww" or "oooooohhh!"
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
The Trap
Copyright © 2010 by Indigo Wren
ISBN: 978-1-60928-226-4
Edited by Linda Ingmanson
Cover by Natalie Winters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: October 2010
The Trap
Indigo Wren
For Nigel and Cat.
"We're here?" David pressed the button on his ear dome. Even with the noise-cancelling aviation headset, he could barely hear his own voice over the whacking of the helicopter blades.
The pilot nodded. "Rooftop helipad. Steps down from the pad are over there, in front of us." He pointed to an air sock. "That's where you want to go. Not toward the tail rotor. Keep your head and arms down as you exit." He grinned. "And please don't give yourself a high-five directly beneath the main rotor, or you may draw back a lower number. Enjoy your stay, sir."
With a mouthed thank you, David pulled off the headset and stepped down, turning to tug his black carry-all bag from beneath the seat. Wind from the spinning blades tore at his shirt and hair as he scuttled like a beetle for the steps by the air sock. When he reached them, he turned to wave, but the pilot was talking to someone on the radio.
Hope he's not asking for directions. If he doesn't already know where he is, that doesn't bode well for me being in the right place.
David could just imagine the MapQuest route from a private resort island. Fly to green island shaped like deflated lung. Go 0.2 miles. Turn right at breaching humpback. Go 0.8 miles.
Grinning like the jet-lagged idiot he was, he thumped down a thousand miles of cement steps and felt himself cross some kind of psychological dividing line the moment his foot left concrete and struck sand.
A path stretched before him, flocked by tropical trees with frondy leaves that rustled and rattled in the slight breeze. The sound gradually overtook the mechanical thwok thwok thwok of the helicopter blades as he walked.
Even with the waves crashing on the beach beside him, he couldn't quite believe he was actually here.
For one thing, he'd been traveling for what felt like ninety-four hours straight, through one of those nightmarish itineraries that always made him feel trapped in a Kafka novel.
For another, he just wasn't a "tropical getaway" kind of guy. The idea of lying on a striped beach chair, sipping colorful drinks and flirting with skin cancer beneath a fierce equatorial sun had never held any appeal for him.
But something about the brochure for this place had knocked his inner travel cynic on his ass...and before that guy could get back to his feet, sputtering angrily and threatening to sue, David had booked the trip.
Had it been the luxurious vellum overlays? The poetic descriptions and idyllic photos? The promise of near solitude?
Maybe.
Or maybe it was the little inner voice that whispered this might be a place where he'd finally sleep easily again...free of the panic attacks that regularly woke him to a pounding heart and clammy, sweat-soaked skin.
Not that he really thought so, of course. What could a private island achieve that even prescription sleep aids had consistently failed to?
The path opened into a cleared space of sand and stone. To the right, a veritable architect's wet dream of stone, wood and glass rose from the landscape as if it were part of it. At the top of six widely spaced stone steps, an expansive porch framed a massive carved door.
It all looked just as it had in the brochure.
He was so ready for this vacation. A whole month of sleep, silence, and serenity---what could be more perfect? No television, the brochure had warned, but there was electricity---courtesy of state-of-the-art green generators.
Fine by David. You couldn't turn off the TVs in crowded airport lounges, and he'd had to grit his teeth through so much Jay Leno and Judge Judy this year that he'd have thrown himself from the helicopter if either had been on board.
Or maybe one of them.
No. He sighed. You probably couldn't turn off the TV in prison, either.
Well, that was the inmates' problem. He wished them luck tunneling out of their cells. All he wanted right now was to check into his---cell, cottage, cabin, whatever they had here---and surrender consciousness from a prone position on an actual bed, not folded up like a pretzel in yet another unyielding airplane, airport or helicopter seat.
He pushed open the massive door and stepped into a great room.
Beautifully upholstered chairs and sofas dotted a glorious Persian rug island on a glowing hardwood sea. Scattered end tables displayed fans of magazines and glass bowls of exotic shells. On either side of a yawning fireplace, large windows framed a view of the little beach.
Cello music played lightly from hidden speakers. Bach. The unaccompanied suites.
Despite its size, the room felt more like an intimate sitting room than a grand hotel lobby.
It was beautiful.
And, apart from him, it was empty.
He swung his carry-all up onto a chair and scanned the room in vain for a reception desk where he could check in and surrender an imprint of his credit card. Not that there was likely to be anything so crass as a credit card machine in an exclusive resort like this. Place like this, they probably just brought you a smoothie of blended champagne, truffles and caviar while they ran an IV drip directly from your money market account.
David didn't have a money market account. What he did have was an obscene number of frequent flyer miles. Well, not anymore, of course. He'd exchanged a frightening number of them for a significant discount on this little getaway.
He'd made the trade on impulse, right after that amazing brochure had arrived in the office mail. What else was he going to use all those hard-won miles for? He sure as hell wasn't going to be flying back to Maine to meet Susan's family and spend Christmas with them this year.
This year or any other.
Christ, can you just let it go already? He was too damned tired to want to explore his own emotional failings right now.
Actually, he didn't think he'd ever not be too damned tired for that.
Come on. He flicked a glance at his watch, though he wasn't even sure what time zone he was in anymore. Let's get this show on the road.
He was a little surprised no one was waiting to greet him and get him settled in. Surely, the resort staff had known when their own helicopter was scheduled to arrive...had heard it land? He could still hear it, himself, if slightly muffled by distance and architecture.
Ah, there. From behind him, soft footsteps approached from one of the hallways at the far end of the room, and he turned, fixing a smile of polite greeting on his face.
At first, he registered nothing about the man but his height---he was tall, even taller than David---and the somewhat disconcerting fact that he was wearing a loose-fitting, faded T-shirt, well-worn jeans and nothing at all on his tanned feet.
Just another guest, then. David's impatience returned, along with a healthy side serving of exhaustion. Oh, well. At least he can tell me where to check in.
The man's light brown hair was sun streaked and carelessly shaggy, as if the length were not so much a deliberate choice as the result of a missed haircut. Gentle waves ran through it. His head was bowed slightly over some kind of electronic device---a game? An iPod?---and at first, David couldn't see much more of his face than the tip of his nose.
Then he lowered his hands and tilted up his face, letting clear hazel eyes settle on David's.
For the briefest, disoriented instant, that face looked only familiar---an assortment of carelessly good-looking, clean-cut features that tugged hard on David's memory but were impossible to place in this context.
Then the mental pins clicked and tumbled into place, and the blood drained from his face as full recognition dawned. Recognition and horror.
"Oh, God." He took an involuntary step back. "Ethan."
"Hello, David."
Ethan.
David felt dizzy and hot. Had he stumbled into a horror movie? He could practically hear the menacing violin notes, shrill and suggestive of knives. It's Ethan. Dear God, it's Ethan.
"God, I'm...I'm sorry." His tongue was a stone in his mouth. Frantically, his gaze stripped the room. He needed a human shield. He'd take a hostage if he had to.
There was no one.
He hitched up the carry-all so that it hung between them. Cheeks burning, he looked anywhere but at the other man. "I didn't know... I had no idea you'd be here."
"Obviously."
"I'll...I'll go."
"Will you? How, exactly?"
"The helicopter's still here." David turned and even took a step toward the door before a subtle change in the muffled noise from outside took on shape---and meaning. Rotor blades chopping. Loud, but arcing now, the sound narrowing indefinably.
Moving away.
Panic dawned as he realized his getaway vehicle was getting away---without him. God, no! I can't be here! Not now!
With a curse, he abandoned all dignity and simply ran. He yanked open the heavy door and hurled himself off the steps, stumbling into the sand and racing down the cleared path to the tiny crescent beach beyond the trees. He yelled and waved his arms at the sky even before he could see it through the trees, his bag thumping and banging gracelessly against his hip. Some part of him was sure he looked and sounded ridiculous.
He didn't care. How he looked or sounded was exactly nowhere on his current list of worries.
It was a very short list. Only one word long, really.
Well, not even a word so much as a name.
Five letters.
Reaching the beach, clear of the trees, David stared up into an empty sky. He could still hear the distant whooping of the chopper's great blades, but its return flight path must have taken it inland, over the island, rather than directly out to sea.
Chest heaving, he bent over to grab his knees and let the blood pour back into his head. His body shrieked in protest. Idiot! You're a distance runner, not a sprinter. What are you thinking?
Fuck is what I'm thinking. He squeezed his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Fuck, and damn it all to hell.
He sucked in a deep breath and tried to face the disaster head on.
Okay. He'd have to go back inside. It would be okay.
Whoever was manning the reception desk---or whatever passed for a reception desk in a fancy, high-end resort like this---would simply get on the phone or intercom or whatever-the-fuck thing people on the ground here used to talk to people in the air there and get the pilot to come back and pick him up.
The whole thing couldn't take more than five minutes. Ten, tops.
Ten uncomfortable minutes had never killed anybody.
Not even ten excruciatingly embarrassing, emotionally agonizing, gut-wrenchingly God-awful, feels-like-someone-is-stabbing-you-in-the-psyche-repeatedly-with-a-BBQ-fork-and-you'd-rather-chew-off-your-own-head-at-the-neck-than-have-to-stay-there-for-another-ten-seconds minutes.
They'd probably even let him wait somewhere private for the helicopter's return---especially if he made it clear right away that he wasn't going to be expecting a refund for this very late cancellation of his very expensive holiday plans.
Reluctantly, he tugged up his bag and ascended the steps as if he were climbing to the hangman's noose. At the top, he put his hand to the latch and breathed a silent prayer.
Please have gone away, Ethan. Please have had the sensitivity to go wait quietly in your suite or Quonset hut or whatever until you're sure I'm gone.
He pushed the door open.
Ethan stood in the center of the room exactly where he'd left him, arms crossed and still looking cool.
Shoulders sagging, David closed the door. He did not meet the other man's eyes.
"I'm sorry. I'll just ask the staff to buzz the pilot back, and then I'll be out of your hair."
"Oh? Good luck with that." Ethan's lips twitched into a familiar half-smile, and he shrugged. "Good luck, in fact, getting the staff here to do much of anything you want."
David blinked. Why would it be difficult to secure cooperation from the staff of a five-star, exclusive, private-island resort hideaway? One so expensive that Fodor's had actually had to add a symbol with two additional dollar signs to include it in their online hotel listings?
"Sorry?"
"That's three," Ethan said cryptically, falling back onto the leather sofa and picking up a magazine. The slick pages made a fwip-ping sound as they turned. David recognized the magazine as the latest issue of The Economist. He remembered there was an article about Ethan on page eleven and wondered if Ethan even knew it was there.
Probably not. He knew from bitter personal experience that it was infinitely harder to find a substantive American magazine that didn't mention Ethan Locke somewhere in its glossy pages than to find one that did. The man's name had become as synonymous with the high-tech age as those of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
Over the years, David had grown all too accustomed to stubbing his emotional toes on such reminders of his former roommate. In the beginning, he'd tried to blot out Ethan's growing media meteor shower by holding a metaphorical thumb closer and closer to his eye. He'd cancelled subscriptions to magazines. He'd stopped watching the news and limited his television viewing to movie channels.
But he'd chafed at feeling disconnected from the world. And he'd still stumbled regularly over snaps of Ethan (and whatever actress the paparazzi had spotted him with most recently) on the covers of tabloids at the supermarket checkout.
Finally, he'd realized that trying to shield himself from the media's ongoing love-fest with handsome Internet wunderkind Ethan Locke was like trying to navigate a roomful of unsprung mouse traps in bare feet. While blindfolded. And drunk. He'd settled instead for minimizing the duration of each unwelcome shock. When it came to slamming magazines shut or jabbing the "off" button on TV remotes, he could set Olympic speed records.
If only becoming an expert in making two-dimensional images of Ethan disappear had done something to prepare him for dispatching a three-dimensional version. Especially one that seemed determined to stretch out this awkward encounter by refusing to go politely away and wait in his room.
David perched on the edge of the chair farthest from Ethan.
"Three what?" His gaze crawled the room, vainly seeking a circumspect call button, a discreetly placed bell, a white telephone handset...anything he could use to send out an SOS.
"Three sorrys." Ethan lowered the magazine and stared directly at him. "But then, I guess that did kind of turn out to be your go-to word, didn't it, David? When push came to shove?"
David's cheeks flamed. He tried to keep his voice calm. "Please. Let's not do this. I said I would go, and I will. This isn't the time or place to...to get into anything."
"No." Ethan gave a humorless laugh. "That would have been three years ago, in New Mexico."
David squirmed. His knuckles were turning white on the grip of his carry-all. He forced himself to relax his hands and meet Ethan's eyes.
"Three years is a long time to nurse a grudge, Ethan."
"Oh, I assure you, there's been no nursing required. My grudge is fully recovered. Completely autonomous. Ready for action."
Were the words deliberately suggestive?
Did he really want to know?
"Petty grievances aside, I'd say everything worked out for you in the end, didn't it?"
"Well, now, I couldn't say." Ethan's drawl was silky. "I haven't gotten to the end. Not yet."
His stare was open and challenging.
David looked away first.
Minutes stretched by. Ethan fwipped through his magazine. David gripped his knees and stared unseeingly at the bookshelves along the far wall, waiting with increasing desperation for someone---desk clerk, pool boy, fucking palm tree mascot in full costume, he didn't care, anyone, anyone at all---to get off his or her ass and come rescue him from this hell.
God, what was taking them so fucking long? What if he had a panic attack or something, right here in their precious lobby? What if he keeled over and died because his throat swelled up and he couldn't breathe? What if they came at long last to check him in and they found a stiffening corpse on their beautiful wood floors? That'd be pretty goddamn inconvenient for them, wouldn't it? That would teach them to leave a guest cooling his heels through their entire Bach audio library.
On the CD, the cellist transitioned smoothly from the third suite to the fourth.
Fwip. Fwip.
When the fifth suite started, David couldn't suppress his outburst for another second. "God, where are they?"
Ethan looked up. "Where are who?"
"Everyone." David gestured helplessly at the empty room. "Receptionist. Bellhop. Concierge."
"Oh, them." Ethan looked back down at his magazine. Fwip. "We don't have any of them."
"I'm sor---what?"
"No receptionist." Ethan spoke with exaggerated care, as if he were talking to a particularly slow child. "No bellhop. No concierge." He rolled his eyes up to consult a mental list. "No masseuse, cabana boy, valet, bartender, room service waiters, or laundry attendants. Oh, and no chambermaids."
David gawked. "But that's...that's not possible. How could they run a successful world-class resort without any kind of staff?"
"By 'they', do you mean the nonexistent people I just told you about, or their nonexistent employers? Either way, to answer your question, they couldn't." Ethan pulled the magazine closer, apparently to squint at a photo caption. "Fortunately for them, not to mention their equally nonexistent shareholders, this is a nonexistent resort."
David felt as if he'd tumbled down the rabbit hole. Or maybe, he thought with a sudden rush of hope, he was still asleep on the plane and just having a dream.
Another of his many unsettling dreams about Ethan.
"What do you mean, a 'nonexistent resort'? The brochure says..." He yanked open his carry-all and dug out the brochure, flipping pages frantically. Phrases he had all but memorized in the preceding weeks leapt up at him.
A private playground of the privileged few where every need is anticipated and every desire fulfilled...
...where windswept beaches and turquoise waters invite you to explore the corners of your very soul...
Let the magic of sun-kissed solitude tempt you to let go of your fears and reach for your dreams...
Relax, recover and rediscover the very best, suppressed part of yourself...come away to a place you've never been, and find yourself again.
"Here it is. Right here." David tapped a page for emphasis. "'Welcome to Cayo E'tan, an exclusive resort hideaway and private island spa unlike any other on earth.'"
"Oh, that." Ethan glanced dismissively at the brochure. "Yes. Well. I wrote that. And now that you read it back to me, I do see that I may have exaggerated a little. I see, in retrospect, that my words imply a certain...resort-ness...to this place. When, in fact, it has none."
"Imply... You wrote..." David's voice failed. His eyes swung from Ethan to the brochure. With a jerk, he let it fall and drew back, as wary as if a scorpion had crawled from the glossy pages and tried to sting him.
Welcome to Cayo E'tan. He felt suddenly, unutterably stupid. E'tan. That's not even a word, is it?
He tried to swallow back the rising tide of trepidation.
"For God's sake, Ethan. Why on earth would you do such a thing?"
Ethan let the magazine fall to his lap and gazed directly into David's eyes.
"To con you into coming here, of course. To lull you into packing a bag and walking, of your own free will and on your own two feet, onto an airplane...and then a boat...and then a helicopter...and then this island. In short, David, to get you to stop running---at long, final, fucking, overdue last---and come to me."
David gaped at Ethan like a paralyzed rodent staring into the opening maw of a hungry snake.
"If it makes you feel any better..." Ethan shrugged, "...I wasn't entirely sure it would work."
For a moment, there was no sound in the room.
Then David began to laugh.
To his own ears, the sound was slightly hysterical.
"Damn if you didn't finally learn how to bluff, Ethan." He smiled weakly. "But I did my due diligence. I read the reviews on the top travel sites. I made arrangements through my frequent flyer program. I put the deposit on my Visa, and I've already seen the posted charge."
Ethan rose from the couch, stretching his long body like a cat. "Thing is? I wrote those reviews too. All of them. And I designed the web site, uploaded the photos and wrote the testimonials. I even designed the logo."
He tossed the magazine onto the end table. It landed with a thwap.
"Moreover, I have a controlling interest in your airline. As you may imagine, the perks are a bit bare bones in an economy like this, but I do get extra peanuts when I fly. And, it turns out, I do have some influence over very...specific...frequent flyer program offers."
David's skin felt hot, but his blood needled through his veins like ice.
"But why? Why would you trick me into coming here? To an island in the middle of nowhere?"
"Because you and I have unfinished business. And because I finally gave up hope that you would---without, shall we say, assistance?---come to your senses and return to address it with me."
Unfinished business?
David had to push his words past a throat that would barely let him take in air. "Do you...do you mean revenge? Are you actually talking about some kind of crazy-ass payback?" He gestured with a shaking arm. "You...you bought a private island...built a nonexistent resort...conned me into coming here---just to get back at me? For something that didn't even hurt you? For...changing my mind about going into business with you three years ago?" His voice was starting to crack, and he swallowed. It was like trying to swallow a rock. "Jesus! Couldn't you just let it go?"
"Oh, David." Ethan's voice was surprisingly gentle now. "I did let it go. I went on that crazy adventure all by myself. I took the company we dreamed up together and I built it without you, and I poured blood, sweat and tears into it without you, and when the time came, I took it public and made it worth billions. Without you."
He moved to the glass to stare out at the waves. His tone grew darker. "And don't for a second kid yourself that it didn't hurt me to do it. It about broke my fucking heart, because that was our dream, and it was supposed to be our adventure. Our success.
"Still. I'm a big boy, and so are you. This is a free country...well, not this island, specifically, but, you know, America...and a man is entitled to make whatever fully informed choices he wants about his own life." He turned his head and raised an eyebrow. "Even a really stupid, self-destructive, financially suicidal choice like setting a winning billion-dollar lottery ticket on fire, which is fundamentally what you did."
"I...I had my reasons."
"You didn't have good ones. You didn't bail on our little startup because you'd decided you wanted to do something else with your life. You didn't leave me hanging because you'd discovered a different passion and needed to chase your bliss. That, I could have respected. I could even have wished you well. After all." His voice grew rough. "The heart wants what it wants. Right?"
He tilted his head in an unconscious gesture that tugged at every one of David's best memories of his college years. But his eyes...
His eyes were knowing.
David's cheeks grew hot. He jerked his gaze away before they could burst into flames.
"But you weren't running to something you wanted. You were running from what you wanted. From everything you wanted. You were starting to feel things that scared you to death, and instead of coming to me and talking to me about them, you chose to run away. You actually chose to turn your back on everything you'd worked for, everything you'd ever dreamed of having, rather than face some scary truths about yourself. Rather than face me."
He returned his gaze to the little beach. "And that choice was not fully informed. So I have decided not to respect it. Not anymore."
David licked dry lips. It might have helped if his tongue weren't dry too.
"What, exactly, are you saying?"
"I'm saying it's time. Time to go back and finally consummate the relationship the way we should have, back when we were trying to get the business off the ground in the first place."
"Goddamn it, Ethan, you're not making any sense." David hated the way his voice shook. "A lot of the original code was mine, sure, and most of the patents, but I signed over my entire interest in the company to you. Years ago. You know that. I've never made any claim on Locke Enterprises, and I don't intend to. I have my own successful consulting firm now. What would be the point in consummating a long-dead business relationship?"
"No, David," said Ethan quietly, turning to face him. "Not our business relationship."
David's legs made it clear they didn't want to hold him up anymore, and didn't plan to. He sank into a chair.
"You can't be talking about---about sex." He swallowed thickly. "Jesus. That's laughable."
"And yet I don't feel like laughing. Do you?"
David stared. Deep in that place where he had long ago learned to imprison all unwelcome thoughts and feelings that could not, would not, be allowed to run free, he could feel dangerous things stirring...waking up from hibernation and moving restlessly about in their cells.
No. He slammed a mental door on those whispering things. He had worked too damned hard and given up too damned much to move past all of that. He was not going back there.
"But you're not gay." Desperation sharpened the edge of his anger. "And I sure as hell am not."
"You don't seem to have the first fucking clue what you are. And you certainly don't know what I am. You never even bothered to ask."
"I didn't have to ask! It wasn't..." He fumbled helplessly for the right word and grabbed hard for it as it flapped past. "It wasn't relevant! And you dated half the women's swim team your junior year!"
"Steroid use being what it is these days, that actually proves very little." Ethan's eyes flashed with dark humor, but David refused to let himself smile.
"Stop it. This isn't funny."
"No." The light in Ethan's eyes faded like a candle going out. "It isn't. It's really quite serious. As am I."
He turned a chair backward and straddled it with casual grace. The posture was relaxed, but his gaze was not. "And the serious fact is that while you have spent the last three years pulling your horizons in ever tighter around yourself, I have been pushing mine out. I've come to realize some important things about myself, and about you. Things I'm going to tell you." His lips curved into a provocative smile. "And show you."
For a moment, David could hear nothing but the blood pounding in his ears.
"You're crazy if you think I want to hear anything you 'figured out' about me on some pompous little journey of self-discovery."
"You need to hear it. You're suffocating. Don't you know that? Ever since Santa Fe, some part of you has been dying a slow death and praying I'd find a way to close this circle. To force your hand."
"Force my hand? That sounds dangerously like you think I want to be raped." David's voice shook a little on the last word, and he tried to ignore the unease swirling in his belly. Fear? Something else?
Ethan's voice was steady. "No. That's not what I said, and it isn't what I meant. No one wants to be raped. But I think you have been longing for someone somehow to make it safe for you to try the things you've been dreaming about. To take control."
"Jesus." David shook his head wildly. "Did you ever even know me at all? I'm not like that. I don't do that. I don't just hand over the reins to anyone else. Not ever."
"It certainly isn't something that comes easily to you. Your need to manage everything and everyone around you has probably even contributed to your success in business. But it hasn't made you happy."
"Who the hell are you to say whether or not I'm happy?"
The light shone through the window behind Ethan and lit the edges of his hair. David's breath almost caught in his throat at the beauty of it. "You know who I am," he said softly. "You've always known. It's time for you to find out who you are. I'm going to help you do that."
"Fuck that." David scraped back his chair. "And fuck you. I thought we were friends, but this..." He gestured, taking in the room, the house, the island. "This isn't what friends do. This is fucking insane. I'm going home, and if I ever see you again, if I ever even see your initials show up on my caller ID, I swear I will kick your ass."
He tried to ignore the coldness curling in the pit of his stomach at this thought---at the renewed sense of loss and loneliness. He hoisted his bag to his shoulder, marched to the door and twisted the knob.
It wouldn't turn.
At first, the truth of it didn't register, and his hand kept twisting forward even after the knob stopped moving.
Locked. It was locked.
Jesus.
He was locked in.
Panic flooded him. He fought to keep his head above it. "Open. This. Goddamn. Door. Now, Ethan."
"In a minute. We're not finished. There are some things you need to understand."
"Oh, we're finished." David bit back rising hysteria. "We couldn't be more finished, in every way. Open the door."
"That's not the door you really want me to open for you. That's not the door you need me to open."
David shook his head sharply. "Last chance. Open it now, or I kick it down."
Ethan shrugged.
Wild-eyed, David stared at the door. He wasn't even sure he could kick it down. It looked as if it might have been hewn by a giant out of a single piece of some dark hardwood. If he tried and didn't succeed, he was going to feel a bit like a little boy throwing a tantrum---weak at a time when he wanted desperately to look strong.
On the other hand, he could feel adrenaline coursing through him, flushing his skin and making his heart hammer. Didn't people under stress sometimes perform amazing feats of strength? He was pretty sure he'd read about mothers lifting burning cars off babies. Hell, this door couldn't weigh as much as a car. Could it?
He dropped his bag to the floor. "Fine."
He stepped back a few strides, planted his legs, and hurled himself at the door. The wood slapped hard against his body, and the force of the collision stole his breath. This was probably how it felt to hit the ocean from several hundred feet up. His spine vibrated from the impact. Fuck, that's going to hurt later. Goddamn you, Ethan.
The door hadn't budged. He hadn't even felt it shift in its frame.
He stood back and looked at it, hard, trying to assess any points of vulnerability. It appeared to be very tightly fitted. No daylight leaked around the edges. He raised one foot and kicked twice at the handle. The sole of his shoe slipped a little on the polished knob, but the surrounding wood didn't crack or even creak.
Breathing hard, he tried to think what to do next.
"Are you finished?"
"Fuck you." Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. "I'm finished fucking around here, I can tell you that. I mean it. Open this door, now, or...or I'll call someone."
Ethan lifted one sun-bronzed shoulder and let it fall. David saw absolutely no fear or uncertainty in those gold-flecked depths.
He grabbed up his bag and pawed at the zipper. It was hard to get a grip on the little metal tab, but he managed to make an opening large enough to plunge a hand into. He clawed blindly at the bag's contents, his fingertips recognizing objects both comforting and useless, much as a thousand-dollar bill might be to a man stranded in the desert with nothing but his wallet. Sunglasses case. ChapStick. Laptop.
Where was it? He was suddenly, desperately afraid he might not have brought it. Who had he been expecting to call, after all? He was on vacation. And who was likely to call him here? He was between projects. There weren't any clients who were going to need to reach him. He'd even told Marla she could take her own vacation, along with her teenage boys and math teacher husband, and had left outgoing messages with an efficient answering service that the office would be open again in a month.
And Susan? How likely was it that Susan would ever call him again after that last dinner together? And did he even want her to? Even now?
The thumbscrew of panic took another terrible, tightening turn. Then his index finger brushed against the side of a small, rectangular object.
With a triumphant cry, he pulled the cell phone up and out, holding it aloft like a winning raffle ticket.
Please let it be charged. Please let me not have run it down.
He made himself look at the battery indicator. Thank God. Two-thirds full. Plenty of juice to call 9-1-1, even if he didn't have a clue what he'd say when they answered. Help, I've been kidnapped by a man I once thought of as my best friend? Come and rescue me: I'm being held against my will on an island paradise by someone who haunts my fucking dreams?
He held up the phone and tilted it from side to side. "Last chance, Ethan."
Ethan just stretched out his long legs on either side of the chair and laid his chin down on his folded arms, holding his gaze steady on David's face. David got a glimpse of a bare ankle at the base of those rough, well-worn jeans and felt that traitorous little flip beneath his belly button again. He flicked his own eyes away.
"All right." He flipped open the phone. "Can't say I didn't warn you."
He used his left thumb to press 9, then slid it up to hit 1 twice. After a second's hesitation, he hit Send and pressed the phone to his ear. Now that he was actually doing it, actually making this call, he half expected Ethan to launch himself up from the chair with that casual, almost catlike grace he'd always had. David curled around the phone, shielding it with his body while he waited for the familiar sound of ringing to bubble up from the earpiece.
"Swear to God, I can't believe you're making me do this."
"To be clear, I haven't made you do anything. Yet." The last word was sensual and suggestive, and something inside David clinched at the sound of it. It took him a few seconds to refocus his attention on the phone, and a few more to realize he wasn't hearing any ringing. Just empty, unconnected air.
Had he remembered to press Send after dialing the number? Sometimes he forgot to do that even in everyday, non-stressful, not-being-kidnapped sorts of situations. Just to be sure, he let his thumb fumble again for the Send button and pressed it.
Still nothing.
His heart rate was creeping upwards again. Maybe 9-1-1 didn't work out here. Maybe you had to dial the fucking Coast Guard or something directly.
No worries. That's what operators were for.
Glaring at Ethan, he pressed End to clear the phone, forced himself to wait a few seconds, and then pushed O and Send, and pressed the phone back to his ear.
Empty air.
What the fuck?
Now he wasn't able to hold in a small, whimpery groan from sliding out of the back of his throat. It embarrassed and frightened him, that sound. It didn't sound like control. It didn't feel like certainty. He yanked down the traitorous phone and stared blindly again at the display.
And this time he saw it, waiting in the corner where it must have been all along.
A branchless cell tower icon.
No bars.
Even after he registered it, David kept staring at the phone for a few seconds, trying to get his breathing and his heart rate under control. Idiot. He was an idiot. Of course there was no cell signal out here, on an island he'd had to take a goddamn helicopter to get to, for Christ's sake. Where, exactly, had he expected the cell towers to be erected---on the backs of whales? Why hadn't he ever invested in a satellite phone?
Oh, sure. Because of course any rational man prepares himself to be held against his will on a tropical island by a guy he should have forgotten years ago.
"Open the door." He hoped he didn't sound as defeated as he felt.
"Sit down. We need to talk first."
He didn't want to hear it. Whatever Ethan was going to say, he'd tried very hard for three years not to hear it.
"Listen." He was powerless to slow the rush of pleading words. "Just stop this, whatever this is, now. It isn't too late. We can both go back to our regular lives. No one needs to know. This probably went further than you meant it to, and I'm sure I overreacted a little. It's just a misunderstanding. It's certainly not worth losing a friendship over."
And now Ethan did move, standing so fast the chair he'd been straddling lazily actually tipped over. Before David could brace for the assault, he found himself pressed against the door and Ethan leaning over him, palms flat on the door behind his head. This close, David could see each long lash framing Ethan's hazel eyes. He felt pinned in place by the intense scrutiny of those eyes, at once so familiar and utterly alien, darkened as they were now with emotion and some kind of raw, animal need. David could not look away from the danger bearing relentlessly down on him.
One jean-clad thigh pressed slightly between his legs. He realized that if he moved at all, it would touch his crotch. Let it, whispered a traitorous little voice in his head. Go on, move. See how it might feel to rub yourself against Ethan's leg.
Against Ethan.
David held perfectly still, heart pounding. His gaze fell unwillingly to Ethan's lips, so close to his own. They looked incongruously soft beneath those hard, flashing eyes.
"Damn it, Eath, back off. You'd really better---"
"David. Shut up."
Ethan's voice was commanding and quiet, menacing and seductive, all at once. The sound of it dragged David's focus forward, out from the fog of his panic.
"Listen to me, because you need to really hear what I'm telling you. Are you listening?"
He said nothing.
"David?" Ethan leaned a little closer. Now there was a thread of steel in his voice that frightened David. And there was something in addition to the fear too, something he couldn't bring himself to look straight at.
Something like excitement.
With practiced ease, he shoved the unwelcome feelings deep down where they couldn't bother him and forced himself to stare right back into those unblinking eyes. "Go ahead. The floor is entirely yours."
"Yes. It is. In fact, that's kind of the crux of the matter."
For a heart-stopping second, he leaned in. David froze as those chiseled lips came closer, sure that Ethan meant to touch him with them, oh Christ, actually kiss him...but Ethan only pushed himself off the wall and stepped back.
"Now sit."
"I'd prefer to stand."
"Sit that tight little ass down, or I'll do it for you." Ethan's voice was silky with menace. "Don't try me. Or..." and again, there came that sardonic half-smile, "...do."
A beat passed while they stared at each other.
Finally, with a studied casualness he did not feel, still clutching the useless cell phone in one hand like a talisman, David crossed to a chair and sank onto it.
Ethan picked up his own overturned chair with one hand, set it right side up in front of David's, and straddled it backwards.
"Now. The floor, as you say, is mine," he said quietly. "So are the walls, the roof and everything in between. You are on my private property, at my pleasure, and at your own behest. In fact, not only did you make all the arrangements to come here, but you've actually paid to be here. To get away for a little R&R, as they say. No one dragged you here, kicking and screaming. No one abducted you off the street."
David's mind spun.
"Moreover, you signed a number of contracts and legal waivers. Did you even read them?"
What had he signed? He remembered paperwork; he'd assumed it had been the usual assortment of liability waivers that resorts used to shield themselves from frivolous lawsuits by guests who drank too many daiquiris and stabbed themselves in the eye with a tiny paper umbrella.
"In that paperwork---admittedly, a bit buried down, and I was a little worried your secretary or lawyer might point it out to you, except, of course, that you don't really trust other people to manage much of anything for you, do you?---you specifically acknowledge that the fees you've paid cover your transportation out here and entitle you to be here on this island. And to nothing else. You have not paid for food or water or shelter. You are not guaranteed the use or availability of a landline. You are not even promised transportation off this island.
"You are, of course, free to make your own arrangements in all of these regards...or, more accurately, to have made them already." Ethan nodded meaningfully at the nonfunctional cell phone. "You may find it somewhat difficult to take care of them now."
"Are you saying that I'm stuck here?" David's voice rose like a startled bird. "Until...until when? Until you decide to let me go home? And when exactly will that be?"
"When I'm satisfied." The sudden gentleness in Ethan's voice stole David's breath. "That you have finally fucking opened your eyes."
To what? He clamped down hard on the question before it could fill his mouth, but still, it crackled between the two men like an electrical current.
"Or what?" He croaked a mirthless laugh. "You'll let me starve?"
Ethan's lips curled into the familiar half-smile David had never been able to forget. But he'd tried. Oh, how he'd tried.
"God, I'd forgotten how melodramatic you can be. No. There's no need for you to go hungry, or thirsty. There's plenty of food here, and water, and a nice shower, and a bed, and everything you could need for physical comfort. But all of these things are mine. And I have rules. The sooner you acknowledge that I'm the one in control now, and give over to it, the better off we'll both be."
David's voice stuck somewhere in his throat.
"Give over to you, you mean." He expected Ethan to flinch from the accusation, but he only smiled.
"We'll see."
"You think...you think I'm gay."
Ethan tilted his head. "Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Use that word, gay, as if it were some kind of weapon. Some kind of knife you want to use to hurt yourself."
"It's not me I want to hurt right now!"
Ethan stretched long legs out on either side of the chair. "Davo, I don't frankly care whether you're gay or bi or a secret fan of Discovery Channel documentaries on sweaty mongoose love. What I can't---what I won't---let you continue to be is incomplete. You've locked away entire parts of yourself. You've shut down any thought or dream or fantasy that makes you embarrassed or uncomfortable---and you've shut out anyone who reminds you of what you won't let yourself feel. That's why you ran from me back in Santa Fe like a frightened rabbit. And it's why you never called me back."
"God, is that what this is about? You're upset because I failed to return a couple of phone calls? Jesus, Ethan, excuse me for being fucking busy."
Ethan nodded. "Yes, I imagine you have been busy. I imagine it takes an enormous amount of time and energy to build up armor thick enough to shut yourself out along with everyone else." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I know you spend a lot of time every day of your life polishing it, but that fucking armor has got to go---and it's going to go before you do."
David's hands shook. "Cut the psychobabble bullshit. Let's get down to brass tacks. You're saying that I can't leave---"
"You can leave any time you like. I'm saying that I'm not providing the mechanism for you to leave."
"Fuck semantics! Brass tacks, I said. You know damn well I can't swim two hundred miles, and I can't fucking fly. I can't leave until you decide to let me go. I can't call anyone for help. You'll give me food and water and shelter, but only if I follow your rules---which, by the way, sounds an awful lot like extortion to me, and I expect will continue to sound that way to my lawyers when I get home, whatever trumped-up paperwork you may have tricked me into signing." He was hyperventilating a little now, and it was making him lightheaded. "Is that about the sum of things?"
Ethan tilted his head. A beautiful shock of hair swung with the movement. "Yes, that's a fairly cogent synopsis. It would seem the time you spent learning to boil down complicated ideas for our presentation to the VCs in Santa Fe didn't go to waste after all."
His voice went flat. "You remember that presentation, don't you? The one that was supposed to kick-start our new company? Oh, wait, no---you suddenly had somewhere else you needed to be that day. Family emergency, was it?"
It wasn't a real question, and David didn't bother to answer it.
"Call it what you like. This is a kidnapping."
Ethan's eyes filled with a tender regard that almost undid him. "No, Davo. This is an intervention. This is me stopping you from shutting yourself away in a box. From closing your eyes and pretending that there are no stars and that you don't want to see them anyway. This is me making it safe for you to---how did you put it?---hand over the reins and put yourself in someone else's hands." He grinned. "Into my hands."
David's groin throbbed, and at the unwelcome sensation, a sharp blade of panic twisted through his stomach. "You have lost your fucking mind. You've gone completely around the bend if you think I'm ever going to let you touch me like...like that."
Ethan reached out and brushed David's hair out of his eyes. "You'll be surprised what you're going to let me do. What you're going to beg me to do."
David jerked his head away and blinked back the sting of frustrated, frightened tears. "Jesus. Do you really hate me this much?"
Ethan went still. A sudden flash of pain in his eyes jolted David to his core.
"I don't hate you. I pretty fucking far from hate you, and I think you know it. As for why---" He ran a hand through his hair and let it fall. "You gave me no choice. You ran away, and then you shut us both out."
He crossed the room to stand by the door.
"Maybe I'll be able to help you find yourself here. At least I'll know that I tried. And yes. Absolutely." He locked David's gaze with his own. "That is absolutely worth losing a friendship over."
He flipped a lever on the switch plate by the door and stepped aside. Even from across the room, David could hear the heavy inner lock disengage. Ethan had made no secret of the switch's location or function, and David knew without having to ask that the door would never be locked against him again. He was free to leave the house and go wherever he liked.
Anywhere he liked on a small private island two hundred nautical miles from the nearest signs of other civilization.
The door didn't matter. David understood that now.
The island itself was a cage.
He knew, he completely understood from the outset, that it was useless, but he had to try. He had to see for himself if there were any way out---anything Ethan had overlooked.
Ethan Locke, the finest engineering mind he had ever known.
Ethan Locke, who had founded one of the most successful startups of the Internet age and turned it into a two-billion-dollar company in just three years.
Ethan wasn't the sort to overlook things, and David knew it in his bones. But he wasn't about to just roll over like a beaten puppy and lick Ethan's hand.
Or anything else of his, for that matter.
After all, he was a successful engineer too. A proven problem solver with years of experience unraveling impossible knots.
He tightened his grip on the strap of his carry-all and shoved past the other man.
"Don't wait up. I won't be back."
"You will." The quiet certainty in Ethan's voice was unsettling. "When you're ready to eat or drink or sleep in a bed. Unless you'd rather just skip this nonsense and get down to...what was that charming phrase you used? Brass tacks?"
"Fuck you." David's tone was almost conversational.
Ethan nodded as if he had expected nothing else. "Of course. Well, whenever you've had enough of the great outdoors, you have my permission to come back to this room."
"Don't hold your breath."
"But don't try to go anywhere else in the house. You might not like the consequences."
Permission?
Consequences?
He stomped down the stairs. Which way? There was a little stretch of beach in front of him, with gentle waves rolling forward and back. The horizon was an unbroken line of blue. Above him, clouds rolled across a sky empty of airplane contrails. To the left, he could see the path that led back to the empty helipad, and closer to the beach, a stand of tropical trees with broad leaves. To the right, the foliage was denser, scrubbier, as the land climbed upward toward some sort of peak.
He couldn't stop himself from glancing back at the porch. Ethan was leaning against one of the posts, one leg crossed in front of the other, just watching him. His bare, tanned feet gripped the sandy stones comfortably. He looked cool and calm and casually, unconsciously sexy, like something off the cover of a damn magazine. Maybe Billionaire's Life, or E Fucking Q.
Cursing, David strode off toward the cover of the trees on the left. He felt pretty damn near crying, and he was not going to do it in front of Ethan. He wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.
That satisfaction or any other.
But something in the hollow of his belly curled involuntarily at the thought of satisfying Ethan, and David didn't feel very sure of anything anymore.
Even a few strides from the house, the wet heat seemed to suck and drag at every part of his body. Though the land rose only slightly, he felt as if he were slogging up a steep incline.
He reached the little copse of trees and kept walking until he couldn't see any part of the house. Then he knelt to catch his breath and think. What the fuck was he supposed to do now?
Get a grip. Think of it like any other problem. First, what do you have to work with?
He laid the bag's contents out on the damp sand and rocked back on his heels to inventory the pathetic harvest.
Sunglasses. A single tube of ChapStick with sunscreen. A laptop. Two pairs of shorts. A half-finished bag of peanut M&Ms. A pair of flip-flops. A couple of changes of underwear. Three shirts. Chargers for the laptop and the cell phone. The phone. A black Sharpie marker. The cap of a Bic pen, but not the pen itself. A mystery novel he'd read half of on the plane and had already mostly forgotten.
That was all. No socks. No sunscreen. No bottled water. He liked to travel light, and he'd assumed he'd be able to buy whatever he needed on the island. He'd envisioned a well-stocked honor fridge in a sumptuous room...a palm-fronded bar on the beach...a willing army of waitresses smiling behind trays of tempting tidbits.
The panic started to rise again, and he pushed it back.
He had no food beyond what was left of the M&Ms. He stared at the crumpled yellow bag and tried to judge how many ounces of sugar and protein it still contained. As if it even mattered. How far would five pounds of M&Ms take him here? How many days?
He realized with horror that his stomach was rolling in lazy, warning waves. He was hungry. Already, he was hungry. When had he last eaten? At the airport? He thought with bitter regret of the sandwich he had turned down so stupidly on the plane, just because it hadn't sounded appealing. What had he been thinking? The point of food wasn't to be appealing; it was to hold the gnawing pangs of hunger at bay for a few more precious hours.
He stared at the little pile of odds and ends. They didn't look like salvation. They didn't look like hope. They looked like exactly what they were: the hurried, half-assed packing job of a guy heading off to a vacation on a tropical island where he'd expected to need to bring almost nothing and to have his every whim fulfilled by a friendly and well-paid resort staff.
What the fuck was he going to do?
You know what you're going to do. What you're going to have to do. He hasn't left you a choice this time.
And isn't that what you've always wanted?
"No." The word tasted like a lie. But he whispered it again and again, as if sheer repetition could make it true. "No. No. No."
Three hours later, David collapsed against a palm tree. Why did it have to be so fucking hot? And why, oh why hadn't he chosen to go on a cruise to Antarctica? Now there was the place for a vacation---all beautiful snow and penguins and ice so thick your ship had to have a specially strengthened hull just to crush through it.
Of course, if he had gone to Antarctica, it probably would have been to find that billionaire madman Ethan Locke had simply taken over a research station and trapped him there. Apparently, there was nothing a man could not do if he had enough money and enough time on his hands.
And enough determination.
He shivered and tried to push Ethan from his mind.
Like that ever worked before.
It had been a depressingly unproductive afternoon. He'd walked and walked, for all the good it had done him. The island was beautiful, but small. The same idyllic green scenery that had looked picture-perfect on that Venus flytrap of a travel brochure now mocked him with its indifference to his plight.
He'd seen nothing that had given him any real hope of escape. He'd found an empty dock about fifteen minutes' walk from the house---but there'd been no boat tied handily to the pier with its engine idling and a foolproof navigation system ready to guide an inexperienced sailor back to civilization.
No conveniently posted flight schedule indicating that the helicopter would be coming back soon---or ever.
No casually discarded work order to suggest that any deliveries were scheduled.
He hadn't even stumbled upon a helpful cluster of mango trees or other fruit-bearing vegetation. What kind of self-respecting island couldn't rustle up a coconut tree?
He was very hungry now. The M&Ms hadn't lasted the afternoon. There had been thirteen of the little round candies left in the plastic bag, and he'd meant, he'd really meant, to ration them out over several days, but the futility of the gesture had depressed him. In the end, he'd just eaten them mechanically, one after the other, not even attempting to savor their sweetness or to make it last.
He was sweat-soaked and exhausted, and for the last half hour, he'd been limping. He could feel blisters forming on both heels, and a larger one between the fleshy halves of his left sole. His canvas shoes had not been designed for hiking, and the sweat had caused his feet to slip and rub painfully inside them.
David loathed blisters. They could fuck up his normal exercise routine for days. That meant no running, and he needed to run. Running---really running, hard, building up a sweat and letting the whole world tunnel down to just the sound of his blood rushing in his ears, the beat of his heart, and the regular, comforting jolt of his feet hitting the ground in unbroken, repetitive rhythm---allowed him to turn off his mind.
But he hadn't expected to need to run here, so far removed from all his normal life. He hadn't even brought his running shoes.
God, how could he be so fucking useless? Other people did this, didn't they? Planes crashed, and people survived on desert islands until they were rescued. Tom Hanks had done it in that one movie. And season after season, he'd watched people on Survivor, people just like him, transform from softened city folk who'd only ever had to flip a switch or open a fridge to get heat and food into toughened, shrunken, nature-wise contestants who could build fires and eke raw protein out of shells and termite nests.
The thought of eating bugs made his stomach flip with nausea...and hard on the heels of that reaction came a new clench of hunger.
Of course, the Survivor contestants had volunteered for their circumstances. David had always wondered if it made the game harder or easier for the players to know that they were always just a vote or two words---"I quit!"---away from a hot cheeseburger and a cool shower.
Well, there was no need to wonder anymore. He was in exactly that situation now. He could quit this part of the game any time. And maybe he should. Because he couldn't win it. He knew he couldn't win it.
And maybe you don't even want to.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up," he whispered to whatever part of himself was talking.
He didn't have any real hope it would listen.
Things are never so bad that they can't get worse.
David reflected on the wisdom of this cheerful little homily through the afternoon as the sky darkened and the clouds swelled. The dry, broad leaves of the trees lifted and rattled warningly, shaken by a hot, insistent breeze that seemed to have blown up from nowhere.
Even a city boy like him could feel the storm coming.
He searched with increasing desperation for some kind of natural shelter, hissing with pain each time a blister slid into contact with the side of a shoe. He supposed a nice, dry, snake-and scorpion-free cave---preferably with indoor plumbing, electric lights, and a stocked bar---was out of the question. But maybe he'd find some trees growing close enough together that their leaves would keep the worst of the rain off his head.
He didn't.
Eventually, along the beach, he came upon a rocky outcropping that flared up slightly from the base to provide a slight overhang about six feet high. It looked woefully inadequate as a shelter for even a gentle storm, and again, David felt the pressure of frustrated, frightened tears behind his eyes. He shook himself. Beggars can't be choosers. Man up, Holmes.
As the first drops of rain began to fall, he tucked his carry-all between himself and the rocky wall, intent on using his own body to protect his electronics and dry clothes as best he could. After a moment's thought, he slipped off his shirt and socks and shucked out of his jeans, and tucked them into the bag, too. They were already damp from his exertions, but not as wet as they'd get if he were really pummeled by a downpour.
When the sky opened, he scrunched backwards in the sudden torrent, feeling the hard corner of his laptop jab against his back through the bag. He loved that computer. It was the latest in a long line of personal laptops, and the most expensive one he'd ever bought: fast, expansive and unbelievably lightweight.
When the panic attacks had started, he'd found it helped to write---that the laptop drew pain and stress from him like poison. He wrote things on it that he could barely say to himself, and typing them there, onto a calm, backlit screen that never expressed judgment or scorn or disgust, felt a little like locking them away in a vault where they could do him no more harm.
His journal had become as necessary an escape as his running. And now, despite his best efforts, rainwater was probably seeping into his precious laptop, killing it.
Damn you, Ethan.
Water beat at him now, stinging his face and forcing his head low over his knees. He tried to catch the rain in cupped hands, but it slanted hard and uncooperative, most of the drops just striking his skin and glancing away. Finally, he threw his head back and simply opened his mouth to the storm.
He drank long after his raging thirst had subsided, and wished he had something he could use to collect the downpour. Sated as he was, he knew he'd be miserable when the sun rode high and merciless in the sky again.
As things turned out, he was miserable long before morning.
The sky continued to darken as night fell, but the rain hardly let up at all. David pressed against the rocks with his legs drawn up, soaked completely through and shivering. He'd never have believed earlier in the afternoon that he could feel cold in this tropical place.
From time to time, his exhausted body slipped into a fitful sleep, but he jerked awake with each change in the storm's tempo. By the time the sky and the rain finally began to lighten, he was sure he'd never been more tired in his life.
He woke with one cheek pressing firmly into a jagged rock. For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was. Then something moved, inches from his face. With a startled scream, he sprang up and away, landing on his butt in the sand and scrabbling backwards from the biggest fucking spider he had ever seen.
Okay. Not a spider. But close enough. Eight legs? Check. Malicious expression? Tendency to skitter about in a manner that could only be described as skin-crawling? Check and check.
Now that he thought about it, weren't crabs and spiders related? Members of the same order or genus or whatever the fuck thing?
Ethan would know. Ethan knew everything about animals. And he had an instinctive understanding of what made them tick. David thought of the starving, bone-thin dog with ragged ears and a broken tail that had turned up by the garbage bins outside grad student housing the morning before he and Ethan left for Santa Fe. She'd growled and snapped at anyone who'd come close. Concerned that she might bite some litigious student---and that the college would lose half a year's research grant money in the resulting lawsuit---the resident advisor had called for animal control to remove her to the pound.
Before the truck had arrived, Ethan had somehow coaxed the frightened retriever into his car and whisked her away to a friend's house. "Hey there, beautiful," he had crooned to the most raggedy, broken-looking dog David had ever seen. "Ciao, Bella."
David still remembered how the terrified animal had gentled in Ethan's hands, responding instinctively to some kind of magic in his voice. How her crooked tail had dipped and wagged uncertainly, her thin haunches trembling slightly beneath the gentle caress of his long fingers.
And you wished it were you. Maybe you still do.
He glared at the shiny black creature clinging to the rock above his bag. The only thing he was wishing for was to be as far away from that thing as he could get. He liked his crab with drawn butter, not scuttling about, waving wicked little pincers around in the air and staring at him with beady little alien eyes.
He reached out, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the creature, and found the leather strap of his carry-all. He tugged it a safe distance from the rock and then reached inside to see how his clothes had fared in the storm.
His fingers touched damp denim and something else, a hard, slimy something that clicked and chattered wetly and moved.
"Oh, fuck!" He dropped the bag, spilling the topmost contents onto the sand as he danced backwards yet again. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
From beneath his toppled jeans, a second crab scuttled out. It looked at him with irritated disdain and then headed, its insectile legs folding and unfolding, for the shade of the rocks.
He didn't try to stop it.
Taking the bag by its corners, he tipped out the rest of the contents, catching the laptop in an unsteady hand. He shook each item to make sure it didn't harbor any additional unwelcome visitors. As he'd feared, all the clothes were damp. The ones that had been closest to the edges of the bag were outright wet. He didn't hear sloshing when he shook the computer, but had no idea whether it still worked. He didn't try to turn it on.
He slipped back into the previous day's shirt, but couldn't bear the sandy, wet briefs for another second and peeled them off. Both the remaining pairs seemed just as damp as the ones he'd removed, and since one of the pairs of running shorts felt marginally drier, he put those on instead. He tugged his jeans up over them. They were heavy with damp and sure to make him hot within hours, but they would at least help to protect his skin from the sun. He tied one of the damp shirts around his head like a bandana.
Tired as he was, he wished fervently for his running shoes and a long stretch of road to lose himself on. He wanted to shut all of this out and just go to that familiar blank place where nothing intruded and nothing mattered. But this rocky island of Ethan's hadn't allowed him even that small comfort.
Of course, that was the whole point, wasn't it? Ethan didn't mean to let him run.
Not this time.
As the second day crawled by, David's hunger dulled to an insistent, ever-present ache. He began to think wistfully about the crabs, long gone now, and to wish he'd at least tried to figure out a way to eat them. But he didn't think he could stomach raw shellfish and wasn't sure it was safe to try. Plus, even if he'd known how to start a fire, he hadn't found any sticks or bark that hadn't been soaked through by the storm.
In the late morning, after a particularly painful step, he wrenched off the damn boat shoes and flung them away. He put on his flip-flops instead, but these turned out to be even worse. Not only did they rub blisters on the inside of both big toes, but they kept trapping bits of rock and shell beneath his feet.
Finally, he tried going barefoot. But within an hour, he managed to step on a sharp bit of shell jagging up from the sand. The resulting cut bled incessantly, and he soaked it in the ocean, hissing as salt water surged into the wound. He wrapped the foot with one of the shirts from his carry-all and tied the empty sleeves into a makeshift knot.
Oh, this just got better and better.
The afternoon passed in a blur. At one point, he tried to eat a palm frond, but it was bitter and leathery, and when he attempted to swallow the gooey, sodden mass, he gagged uncontrollably and had to spit it out. Several times, he fell to his knees and lapped at puddles of rainwater that had collected in rocks or in the sand, not knowing if it was safe to do so and finding he no longer cared very much.
With the night came more rain. At least this storm was lighter, but he still wasn't able to sleep in more than bits and snatches. He opened his eyes at about three a.m. to a clear sky with stars burning overhead, brighter and clearer than he could remember seeing them.
This is me stopping you from slamming your eyes shut and pretending that there are no stars and that you don't want to see them anyway.
David closed his eyes against that voice, against the stars, and thought.
He thought for a long time, hugging his knees and shivering while the sky warmed from indigo to robin's egg. In the end, all of his half-baked ideas boiled down to the same plan. The only plan.
He didn't have to go to Ethan. Surely, if he could just hold on a little longer, Ethan would leave the house and come looking for him.
And really, how long could that take? No doubt Ethan was already wondering where he was. Was probably even concerned. After all, what if he'd managed to do something really clumsy, like stumble off a cliff or topple out of a palm tree? What if he was lying somewhere, hurt?
All he had to do was watch and wait.
All he had to do was get back in the house---and then lock Ethan out of it.
Then he'd be able to rest. He'd be able to think. He might even be able to find something he could use to get help. Like a satellite phone, or a radio. Or a magic carpet pulled by winged monkeys.
If nothing else, there was sure to be a kitchen. With food.
Ethan said you wouldn't like the consequences if you went anywhere in the house but the great room.
True. But if David's plan worked, there would be a massive immovable door between him and Ethan's consequences.
And at this point, the consequences of not trying were even harder to think about.
He hauled up the carry-all. All right then.
Here goes nothing.
Ethan didn't come out until early the next evening.
By then, David had been watching the house for several hot and uncomfortable hours from a concealing patch of scrubby trees. Every muscle in his body ached from too much exertion and too little sleep. He struggled to stay alert, but kept sliding off into disjointed dreams.
At first, he thought he was dreaming when he opened his eyes to see Ethan on the porch, stretching like an athlete before a marathon.
He was naked.
David took in a sharp breath and, for one horrifying moment, was sure that Ethan had heard---that he knew exactly where David lay hidden in damp sand and rotting palm fronds. But the other man didn't even glance in his direction as he uncapped a tube and started to apply sunscreen.
David couldn't stop staring. Ethan wasn't bulky anywhere, just...tight. Tight everywhere. He looked like a Michelangelo statue come to life.
Big deal. Anyone with a billion dollars could look that good. He probably bench presses stacks of money all day long.
Ethan squeezed more sunscreen into a palm. Something on his chest glinted briefly, flashing back the slanting sun. A chain? A cross? David couldn't remember Ethan ever wearing jewelry back in school, but a lot could change in three years.
Yeah. Like, a guy could make a few billion dollars and buy an island to live out his domination fantasies.
Ethan was bent over his calves now, rubbing in the lotion with firm, practiced strokes. As he moved upward to cover his thighs, his wrist brushed his cock, and it wagged lazily at the casual contact, thick and sleepy and impossibly long. David swallowed, licking lips gone suddenly dry.
Even relaxed, the pendulous organ looked...intimidating. His body tensed as he imagined its velvety head nosing the back of his thighs, soft but insistent as it sought the sheath it desired. He imagined Ethan kneeling above him, stroking him, gentling him, with one hand while gripping his bare hip with the other and pressing firmly forward, filling him.
A frisson of something tingled down David's spine. Fear?
Anticipation?
No. A trickle of sweat stung one eye, and he rubbed at it furiously. Ethan was crazy. He didn't want that. He never had. And he sure as hell didn't want it like this, as part of some crazy revenge plot to get back on him for walking out on Ethan and their plans.
Glistening a little now, Ethan walked down the beach and waded straight into the surf, his strides slowing as the water reached his thighs. Then he dove forward and began to swim parallel to the shore, his powerful arms curving and falling like sturdy windmill blades.
David watched balefully. Of all the thoughtless, irresponsible... And what would happen to him if Ethan went and got himself eaten by a shark?
Then your private-island getaway will be twice as private as before. Unless you can find a way off this rock. Don't you think you'd better go and look for one?
He crawled from the copse, staying low in case Ethan was somehow watching the house between strokes. It wasn't a long distance, but he was winded and lightheaded by the time he reached the porch. Struggling up the steps felt like running through quicksand. The carry-all dragged on him like an albatross.
For a moment, he was afraid even to try the door. Would it be locked after all? Had the long wait been for nothing?
The handle turned silently and easily beneath his hand.
"Thank Christ." Flinging himself inside, he slammed the door and pawed at the switch plate. The lock engaged with a soft click, and for a moment, he just stood and tried to catch his breath.
He'd done it.
The elation was paralyzing, and he had to make himself clamp down on it.
Stop celebrating, you fool. You've done exactly nothing yet. Get moving.
There was no time to waste. Ethan might not have seen him, might still be taking some kind of fucking daily Iron Man constitutional in the ocean. Or he might be pounding, wet and naked and determined, back to the house even as David lollygagged here like a vapid gazelle waiting for a cheetah to get close enough to leap on its neck. Were there other doors he should lock? Was there a phone somewhere? If so, where would it be?
He turned from the door and scanned his surroundings. Across the room, he saw a short, wide hallway with a small room, probably a bathroom, on one side. On the other loomed a large, bright space. The kitchen, maybe?
There were other doors, too, all of them closed. He raced from one to the next. Every one was locked.
Never mind that for now. Food. Find food.
The kitchen gleamed like the lost city of El Dorado.
David actually had to stifle an urge to genuflect before the refrigerator, a burnished column of stainless steel. Its quiet, expensive hum whispered of culinary riches. Filet mignon. Caviar. Dom Perignon.
Hell, he'd settle for a bologna sandwich and a warm Coke---anything to tame the snapping, growling beast in his belly. Relief bubbled up in him like carbonated joy. He closed his hand around the silver bar handle and pulled.
The door didn't budge.
For a moment, he kept tugging on the bar, even as his disbelieving eyes registered the tiny combination lock pad beside the handle. What the hell? He gave the handle one more helpless, useless yank. Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me, right? Right?
He tried to resist the urge to break down. This wasn't over yet. There was still the freezer.
But joy and relief had fizzled away, and he stared at the other appliance without much hope. It was the silvery twin of the fridge, except that it had no water dispenser and its hinges were on the opposite side. But what did that matter? Door swing directions, cabinet depths, who the fuck cared? The only really important thing was the second implacable lock pad lurking just to the right of the handle bar.
He felt a ridiculous urge to stamp his foot like a frustrated child. Goddamn it.
Ethan had known he would try this.
Well, of course he had known. What else had there been to try?
Already understanding that it was useless, David whirled to face the cabinet doors, methodically groping at each in turn. None of the handles would move beyond the first quarter twist. Crushing disappointment rose in his throat, a whimper determined to be born. He tightened his teeth around it. He didn't want to let that sound out into the open where he could hear it. He might unravel if he did.
He scanned the spotless granite counters for anything edible that Ethan might have left out. A piece of fruit? A box of stale crackers?
Nothing. Of course there was nothing.
Don't give up. Keep looking. Keep thinking. Just how good were those cabinet locks? If the locks were solid, perhaps the doors themselves were vulnerable? Maybe he could pry them open? Break a hinge?
He reached up and ran a hand over the nearest cabinet. The upper bank was a lost cause. He could see that almost at once. The hinges were inaccessible, hidden beneath a curling extension of each gleaming steel panel, and there was no seam beneath into which he could wedge a tool to try to lever them open.
But his thumb did find a groove beneath the doors on the bottom row. Whether these were likely to contain food or just dishes and glassware, David couldn't begin to guess. It didn't matter. He had to try.
He needed to find some kind of a hard, flat-bladed tool he could use to try to pry open one of the doors. Maybe a knife, or even the handle of a fork or a spoon? The tip of a meat thermometer?
He pawed at the drawer nearest the sink, the choice a simple reflex. He'd always kept his own knives in that drawer at home because his mother had always kept her knives in that drawer...because her mother had, and so on, probably all the way back to their caveman ancestors and the storage of spear heads for chucking at saber-toothed tigers.
The drawer was locked.
All of the drawers were locked.
"Fuck!" He slapped both hands down on the granite counter. The impact stung his palms and zigged upwards to his elbows.
His frustrated gaze fell on a cylindrical container beside the island. A garbage can, he realized. Without a second's hesitation, he stomped on the release pedal, managing to aggravate a blister. Pain shrieked through his foot. Fuck! Eyes watering, he fell on the can, clawing at its lid like a pearl diver prying open a clam.
He didn't know what he expected to find...an apple core? A melon rind with nothing but bitter, green, tooth-marked pulp still clinging to it? Slimy, smelly coffee grounds? It didn't matter. At this point, absolutely anything and everything edible in that can was going into his mouth.
He yanked the lid back and stared, uncomprehending at first, into the pristine, vanilla-scented depth of a virgin trashcan liner.
With a cry he could no longer suppress, David pushed the can away, hard. It clattered to the floor and rolled lopsidedly away, coming to rest with its lid ajar. Why, that's me, he thought, with a sudden, hysterical giggle that sounded so loud in the ringing silence that he had to clap his hand over his own mouth to keep it in. Empty, and slightly unhinged!
And suddenly, he couldn't hold it together for another second. A huge sob tore through his chest and shook his whole body. Heels slipping, he scrabbled backwards on the gleaming wood floor until his back fetched up against something hard and smooth and he could go no farther.
Then he drew up his knees, buried his head in his arms, and let the tears come.
"I told you, David." The voice was calm and gentle. "I'll give you what you need."
With a startled cry, David scrambled to his tortured feet, dashing frantically at the shiny, telltale tracks on his cheeks with the heel of one hand.
Ethan lounged in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He was wearing jeans again, and nothing else. His hair was still wet from his swim, and even from across the room, David could smell a tangy, spicy scent, something reminiscent of salt and sweat and falling night.
"I also said that you weren't to wander the house. I think I mentioned consequences?"
"Stay away from me." David limped a few steps to the side, trying to keep the kitchen island between them.
"Oh, you've got it a little backwards there." Ethan pulled his hip away from the door and straightened. "It's you who's come to me. Again." He took a step into the kitchen. "Just as we both knew you would."
David couldn't move. Ethan's beautiful honey eyes were dark and smoky with intent. Something at his neck glinted briefly, and David realized it was a chain, with...charms of some kind? No. Keys. He could see them clearly now, three glittering keys---bronze, silver and gold.
He wrested his eyes away from them. "Just stop it, okay? Joke's over. You've had your fun, or revenge, or whatever. You win. I'm hungry, and tired, and my feet are killing me, and I am just done, with all of this. We're even now, for whatever I did to make you so crazy."
Ethan chuckled ruefully and pushed his hair off his forehead, just as David had watched him do a thousand times back in school. "Oh, Davo. It isn't what you've done---it's what you won't let yourself do, or think, or want, or have, that makes me crazy. Like the way you used to watch me sometimes out of the corner of those green eyes, as if you couldn't even admit to yourself that you were looking.
"As for having had my fun..." His voice grew more serious. "I assure you, the fun part hasn't even started yet. For either of us."
He took another step.
David swept the stone counter behind him wildly, his clutching fingers finding nothing to grasp. He couldn't seem to stop their agitated searching even though he knew the counter was empty, knew there was nothing there he could use to halt Ethan's implacable approach. As Ethan took another step toward him, David took another painful hop away, biting back a yelp as he landed on another angry blister. His hip banged into something. The handle of the dishwasher.
Dishwasher?
He had overlooked it entirely in his earlier, frantic search. Maybe Ethan had overlooked it too? David grappled blindly for the handle. He saw Ethan's eyes follow the motion and widen in realization, heard him cry out and dip his shoulders in preparation for a sudden lunge.
With a cry, David yanked at the handle and let the heavy door fall. The hinges groaned and clicked as the accelerating door slammed to the bottom of its arc and bounced up slightly. He heard a muffled oath from Ethan and now the man was really moving, reaching out for him. Heart hammering, David ducked down and snatched something hard and shiny from the utensil basket. Please don't let it be a spoon. I can't bear it if he laughs at me after all of this.
A knife.
Oh, thank God, a knife.
"Back the fuck off, Ethan!" He swung the knife up and held it clumsily out in front of himself. His right hand began to sting, and he realized he must have slid his palm and fingers along the blade as he'd yanked the knife mindlessly upward.
Ethan drew up short and held up his hands. It was a classic gesture of surrender and conciliation---but to David's annoyance, he didn't look at all worried or beaten.
"Put it down, David."
"Keep coming at me, and you won't like where I put it." To his own ears, his voice sounded more scared than certain. Theatrical rather than threatening. What had Ethan said in the great room a lifetime ago? I'd forgotten how melodramatic you can be. He gripped the knife harder and winced.
"Look, you've cut yourself. You're bleeding. Put the knife down, and let's take care of that hand."
He sounded so damned reasonable.
"Back off." David didn't dare look down at his hand. For one thing, blood had always made him feel a little squeamish, and he didn't really want to see how long or deep the cut was. For another, some instinct told him that breaking eye contact would leave Ethan an opening---like looking away from a hungry mountain lion.
"David." Ethan folded his arms. "Don't be an idiot. I don't want to hurt you, but I'm not going to let you hurt yourself. Put the knife down on the counter, now, or I'll have to come over there and take it away from you."
Put it down? It was all he had. Couldn't Ethan see that?
"You can try. I wouldn't recommend it, though." With dizzying bravado, he threw Ethan's words back at him. "You might not like the consequences."
Disconcertingly, Ethan laughed. "Well, I'll give you that: You never did back down from a challenge." His smile grew rueful. "Except the one time it really mattered, of course. But we're going to fix that."
Nervously, David adjusted his grip on the knife, and fresh pain bit through his hand. At the sudden sting, he couldn't prevent himself from glancing down, half expecting to see blood seeping between his fingers.
And Ethan was on him. It happened so fast that David could barely process the movement, had no time to set himself for the attack. Without thinking, he brought his arm up defensively...felt his wrist wrench backwards and the blade twist in his hand as the knife made contact with something...heard Ethan hiss in pain. Horrified, he relaxed his fingers to drop the knife even as he felt Ethan's stronger hand cocking back his wrist hard to open them. With a cry, David tried to move away. The open dishwasher door caught him in the shin and he went down, slamming his knee and one elbow hard and grunting as he hit the floor. Ethan fell too, still clutching David's wrist, and knocked the wind out of him.
David lay on his stomach. Ethan sprawled on top of him, his longer arm reaching out to shove the knife, spinning furiously, across the kitchen floor, well out of David's reach. Moaning, David kicked out, and Ethan cursed again, readjusted to pin David's leg with his own. He was part-straddling David now, and even in his disoriented, dizzy state, David could feel Ethan's cock pressing against his hip.
It was hard.
At the realization, David felt something flip low and unbidden in his belly. For a moment, every other thought fled his mind, leaving only the image of Ethan kneeling over him, holding him easily in place with his legs spread and thrusting into him, long and deep and powerful. Taking him right here on the kitchen floor.
Horrified, David felt an involuntary, answering swell in his own groin.
Panicking, he began to thrash. He was making a sound he didn't even recognize, a kind of a keening, humming drone high in his throat.
"David, stop." Ethan gritted out the words. "Stop."
But David couldn't stop. The hand around his wrist tightened insistently, and suddenly, Ethan's other elbow was on the floor by David's right ear and a strong hand was pushing down on his head, pressing his cheek firmly to the floor.
David tried to buck his hips, to knock Ethan off. It was a futile gesture with his head pinned.
"Damn it, stop wiggling." Ethan breathed the words, low and shaky, right into his ear, and David was stunned to hear the tremor in his voice. "I'm trying...I need...goddamn it, David, just hold still, now, if you want me to be able to stop."
Did he? Did he really?
David shoved the thought away, drew a shuddering breath, and forced himself to lie still.
For long moments, the two men lay entangled on the floor. David's heart pounded. All of his senses telescoped down to this moment, this man, this space. He could feel Ethan's hair, damp and silky, brushing against his exposed cheek. He could hear Ethan's harsh breathing, feel it on his ear and neck---could feel his heartbeat, fast and ragged in the wrist above his ear as he fought for control. He could smell sweat and ocean salt and musky arousal. Ethan's? His own? He didn't know.
Most of all, he could feel Ethan's cock, hard as pipe, throbbing in its denim prison against his hip...and his own erection, thickening traitorously and uncomfortably beneath one pinned leg.
Go away, he thought at it, and at Ethan. Go away. Go away.
An eternity passed.
Gradually, Ethan's ragged breathing slowed and grew even. A warm thumb brushed David's ear in a gentle caress, toying gently with the lobe and then stroking upwards, soft and slow. His blood tingled at the sensation.
When Ethan spoke at last, his voice was controlled and quiet. "Now listen to me. I want to look at that hand. There's a table and some chairs over in that corner, opposite the counter island. If I let you up, will you walk calmly and quietly over to that table and sit down?"
David said nothing.
Ethan sighed. "Let me try that again. We're going to get up now and walk together, slowly and calmly, over to that table, and you are going to sit down, and I am going to look at your hand. If you try to hurt me in any way, I will put you down by whatever means I deem necessary. And then I may find something else to do that will make the whole bothersome exercise worth my trouble. I am not fucking around. Your ass is going into a chair now, and that is a simple fact. It's up to you how---shall we say interesting?---the journey is. Do you understand me?"
"Fuck." David ground the words out through clenched teeth. "You. Ethan."
"You're not ready, Davo." Ethan sounded wistful. "Now. You, me, up, walk, chair, no trouble. Got it?"
With a grimace, David nodded once.
"I need to hear you say it. And so do you."
"Damn it, get off me!" David yelled as loudly as he could with another man sitting on him. Claustrophobia was a black, roiling sea sucking at him. "I can't breathe."
"Whenever you're ready." Ethan was unruffled and unmoving. "Take your time."
"Yes! Damn you, yes, okay!"
Choking out the words felt like surrendering. To Ethan. To exhaustion and panic. To some treacherous emotion he couldn't quite name.
Or wouldn't.
The pressure on his head and back lifted, and Ethan pulled him up. David hissed as his abused feet took his weight again, and at the sound, Ethan looked down and sucked in his breath.
"Oh, Jesus, David, your feet." The honest concern in his voice was unsettling. "Where the hell are your shoes?"
David stared down, uncomprehending. "I don't." He tried to find the words. "I can't---"
Ethan swept him up then, and carried him, as effortlessly as if he were a child, toward the dark wood dining table. Too wrung out---too startled---to do anything but cling, David let his arms curl around Ethan's neck. Powerful shoulder muscles bunched and smoothed beneath his hands, and he fought an annihilating impulse to bury his face in the curve of the other man's neck and just breathe him in.
In that moment, this wasn't crazy Ethan Locke, who had tricked him and trapped him. This was simply Ethan, who had shared his room and his dreams and his life for two magical years. Who had taken him to the student infirmary when he'd had that god-awful ear infection. Who had listened to his ideas and liked them, and wanted to build an empire with him.
Who had driven him for six hours on fifteen minutes' notice to LA when his grandmother had her final heart attack, and then simply held him, giving him something safe and solid to cling to in that terrible, ravaging storm of grief.
David had been the one to slip his moorings, but now he was bone weary of life adrift---and even when Ethan lowered him to a cushioned dining room chair, he couldn't make himself unlock his hands.
"David." Lips brushed his ear. Ethan's voice was low and gentle. "Let go, baby."
Face burning, David snatched his hands away. His right hand left a smear of blood on Ethan's shoulder. Blood streaked across his own shirt, too, and he realized it corresponded to the long, angry cut on Ethan's chest. The sight of it made him sick with remorse.
He opened his mouth to say that he was sorry, but his throat had become thick and impassable. He could feel tears beginning their insidious ambush, intent on unmanning him in front of Ethan. In front of his captor.
Desperate to distract himself, he squeezed his eyes shut and started to count.
Then he heard a sudden click and stared down to see a black nylon strap circling his left ankle and the chair leg. Confused, he tried to pull his leg away from the chair to get a better look, but the strap pulled tight after just an inch or so, locking his leg firmly to the chair. Ethan was kneeling now at the other ankle, snapping a second strap---no, a restraint, thought David stupidly, it's a restraint, he's actually tying me to the chair---into place.
Panic descended like a black curtain.
"No!" He began to flail and beat weakly at Ethan's head and shoulders. Ignoring the blows, Ethan grasped David's left hand and lassoed another strap around the wrist. This one, he connected via some kind of extender to the back left chair leg. Then he crouched by the chair, sympathy lighting the gold in his eyes.
"Davo. I know. And I'm sorry. But I need to look at that cut, and I don't trust you to sit still and let me do it. Try to relax." With a few long strides, he disappeared from the room.
David stared after him incredulously. Relax? When he was tied to a chair? He jerked furiously, uselessly at the straps, but the heavy chair rocked only slightly in response to his efforts.
With a curse, he reached down as far as he could with his one unfettered hand to grapple blindly at the mechanism of the strap holding his right ankle immobile, but his stinging, blood-slicked fingers couldn't make any sense of the clip.
From the other room, he could hear cabinet doors opening and closing, the clink of glass on a counter, the running of a faucet. Then Ethan was back and setting a tray down on the table, carefully out of the reach of David's unrestrained hand. David could see an odd assortment of supplies. Towels. Bandages. Bottles and tubes. A small can of orange juice. Some metallic instruments. And...what the hell? A pillow?
Ethan pulled up another of the heavy chairs and sat, facing him. He reached for David's free hand, but David jerked it away and held it tightly behind his chair, grimacing at the sudden wrench in his shoulder.
"Come on." Ethan left his own hand lying palm up on the table. "Don't make me tie that one down too."
David stared down at Ethan's waiting hand. It was so familiar and yet so strange. The nails were short and even, the way Ethan had always kept them. He could see the faint scar along the base of the index finger where Ethan had sliced it badly while trying to cut a bagel left-handed. There were unfamiliar scars too---shiny, puckered stars on Ethan's palm that he couldn't remember having seen before.
After a long moment, he surrendered his cupped hand, and Ethan took it gently. David's fingers curled lightly over the palm, sticky with clotted, already drying blood, and Ethan opened them with care. David looked away, wincing as Ethan's manipulations flexed the edges of the cut.
"Let's see what we're dealing with," he heard Ethan say, and then the sound of water dripping back into the bowl as a towel was dipped and wrung out.
Cool, wet terry cloth scrubbed gently over his hand, was pulled away again, dipped, wrung, and returned for more scrubbing. Then Ethan was manipulating the hand between his own fingers, gauging the depth of the cut. His touch was warm and gentle. David shivered a little as Ethan's thumb stroked along the bottom of his palm, and he froze, horrified. Had Ethan noticed?
"Good news. It's not deep. You don't need stitches."
"Hooray," said David tonelessly.
Ethan held David's hand, palm up, over the bowl, and opened the plastic bottle with one hand. Then he tipped the bottle up and squeezed it, covering the cut liberally with a colorless fluid. For a moment, David felt only cool liquid pooling on his hand; then his hand yanked backward involuntarily against Ethan's firm grip as antiseptic fire raged across his palm.
"Son of a bitch, Ethan!"
"Sorry. Hold still." With one thumb, he uncapped a tube and squeezed out some ointment along the cut. He pressed a sterile pad over the wound and bent David's fingers over to hold it in place while he reached for a bandage spool. He wound the bandage in slow, careful loops, wrapping it both inside and under the thumb.
David stared down at Ethan's handiwork. "Jesus, are you sure that's enough? I think there's still some bandage left in this hemisphere."
Ethan grinned and clipped the end of the wrap. "I know it seems like overkill, but that's life on a tropical island paradise for you. It all looks very idyllic, but there are some real nasty critters lurking about on the microbe level, just waiting for any opportunity to get a foot in the door and turn your whole world upside down."
"Gee. I can't imagine what that would feel like."
Their eyes met, and for a moment, as they shared the joke, David felt an echo of the camaraderie they had known in the old days. On its heels came such sweeping homesickness and grief that he had to turn away from Ethan's laughing eyes.
"Touché." Ethan kept his tone casual. "But you really do have to be careful out here, maybe even paranoid, about infections. Especially when it comes to any cuts you get walking around on rocks or coral. It's why I always keep a good stock of antibiotics on hand, topical and oral. Speaking of which..."
He plucked a small brown bottle from the tray and used a syringe to measure out some liquid into the plastic tumbler. Then he popped the top on the OJ can and poured it in.
"I remember you're allergic to sulfa drugs." He swirled the liquid in the cup. "But you're not allergic to any of the broad-spectrum antibiotics are you?"
"Not that I know of."
"Good." He curled the fingers of David's bandaged hand around the tumbler. "Bottoms up."
David stared into the cup and briefly considered flinging its contents into Ethan's face.
Ethan read his expression and shrugged. "Have you ever seen an out-of-control infection? It's really quite amazing the way a tiny cut or puncture can just balloon up into a devastating biological wildfire. People have lost limbs to what they thought were minor skin breaks in a tropical environment. For mindless organisms, germs are really amazing, unbelievably efficient little machines."
He turned away. "Of course, I guess it's a bit easier to admire the ingenuity of the machinery when you're not the one providing fuel for it."
David had an unwelcome image of his hand swelling up, red and shiny and painful. Suddenly, an intense course of antibiotics seemed like a smarter idea than showering Ethan with orange juice.
Besides, the orange juice smelled good---tangy, citrusy, and sharp. Food, his shriveled stomach insisted. It's food. Give it to me, now.
He drained the contents of the tumbler in six long swallows.
"Good. Now, give me your wrist."
"What? Why?" Suspicion quickened David's pulse.
Instead of answering, Ethan lifted another nylon strap from the table, adjusted its length slightly, and looked meaningfully from David's bandaged hand to the arm of his chair.
David felt a vise tightening around his chest. "No. Please. You know I...I can't. It's just one hand. What could I possibly do to you with that?"
The words reverberated in his head, and he felt his face flush with embarrassment.
Ethan laughed softly. "Someday, I promise I'll show you. But right now, I want you to give me your wrist."
"No, wait, listen." David fought to keep his voice steady. "I'll just hold onto the chair arm and not let go until you tell me I can. I promise, okay? You don't have to tie my hand."
"David. This is not a negotiation. I'm cutting you some slack because I know you've had a tough couple of days. But you need to understand how things are going to be here. When I tell you to do something, you don't argue or try to bargain with me. You just do it."
"But why? Why do you need to tie it?" David hated the begging, pleading note in his voice. He struggled uselessly as Ethan secured the strap.
"Because I don't want you to slam your elbow on the floor when I do this."
Before he even had time to process Ethan's words, David felt his chair being tipped suddenly backwards. He cried out at the sensation of falling, his body straining forward in an instinctive attempt to counterbalance. He pulled against the straps as the chair's back legs tilted past the point of return and tried to brace himself for impact. But it never came. Ethan eased the chair the final few inches to the floor, and instead of slamming onto unyielding wood, David's head came to rest on something soft. The pillow.
"Damn it, Ethan!" He rocked violently from one side to the other. "What the hell."
Ethan scooted his chair forward to sit close to David's upturned legs. Then he reached out for David's left foot, cupping it gingerly in his palm and taking care to avoid touching the angry, swollen bubbles on the heel. He whistled.
"Yikes. That's quite the little collection of blisters."
"No thanks to you." David jerked his bound arms helplessly. "Let me up."
"I'm going to have to lance some of these." Ethan's voice was matter-of-fact.
"Fuck, no! Keep your damn lance to yourself."
"Sorry." The sharp scent of rubbing alcohol bloomed, and David heard a metallic clink as Ethan picked up an implement and set it to soak. When he lifted it again from its antiseptic bath, David could see that it was something like a scalpel. Light glinted off a tiny, precise blade.
"Ethan, goddamn it, no." He whipped his head from side to side helplessly as Ethan bent over his foot.
"Jesus, David! Stop being such a baby. Hold still and this will be fast and relatively painless. Keep jerking around and I may accidentally cut off a toe or two. This thing is seriously sharp."
Trembling tightly, David forced himself to stop moving and sucked in his breath. Again, he felt Ethan gripping his toes for leverage, then the distant sting of the scalpel tugging a line across the stretched skin of one of the larger blisters.
"There, that's got it," breathed Ethan, and David heard the clatter of the blade back down onto the table. He felt fluid oozing from the deflated sac, and suddenly, strangely, he felt as if it were his own energy seeping out of him. He was dimly aware of Ethan applying more antiseptic and some gauze to the site, and then repeating the entire process with his other blisters and cuts.
"Almost there." Ethan's voice seemed to be coming from very far away now. "Last thing, I promise." He squeezed some cream from a flat tube and smoothed it over the angry reddened skin of David's sunburned insteps.
It was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open. He closed them and just let himself drift beneath this devastatingly tender assault. Whatever Ethan had put on his sun-ravaged skin was working anesthetic magic. And now, gentle hands were squeezing the sides of his aching feet, carefully avoiding the dressed blisters and cuts.
Even with his eyes closed, David could see those hands so clearly---the long pianist's fingers, the broad-padded thumbs, the sharp-angled wrist bones. Dimly, he felt them move from his feet to his ankles to his calves, stroking and rubbing away tension from aching muscles. It felt good. It felt safe.
How could it feel safe?
Ethan had kidnapped him, tied him to a chair, and practiced some kind of voodoo field medicine on him. And now he was touching him. Caressing him, really. So why didn't he feel like struggling? Why didn't he want to do anything but lie here and let these blissful sensations go on forever?
"Um sinks ron." His tongue was thick and inflexible. It wouldn't shape the words right.
With an enormous effort, he forced up his eyelids. He saw Ethan's beautiful face, framed by hanging hair and frowning a little in concentration as his fingers worked to loosen a knot in David's calf. His gaze slipped past Ethan to the empty orange juice tumbler on the table, and even through his haze, suspicion ran an insistent, icy finger down his spine.
"Bra spectra? Ani-dawdics?" His words sounded very slurred now, even drunken, but the tone of accusation came through perfectly.
Ethan followed his gaze and nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry. The spectrum in question was a bit broader than simple antibiotics."
David groaned.
Ethan reached out and brushed the hair from his forehead. "Shh. Don't fight it, Davo. Just let it happen. You need to sleep, and it's okay to let go now. I've got you."
Fuck, Ethan. That's what I'm afraid of.
He closed his eyes and let himself float away.
He woke in a very large, very comfortable bed.
Alone.
Light poured through gauzily curtained windows and painted patches of sun on the floor. One of the windows was open. He could smell the sea and hear waves crashing on the beach.
He could smell and hear other things, too, from much closer by. Rattling, clanking, water running, someone whistling, and...and something sizzling, dear God, the only word he could use to describe that sound was sizzling. And the smell...his stomach clenched like a fist. Was that ham? Bacon?
He swung his feet to the floor and then stared at them in disbelief. Still pink and tender, they were nothing close to the lobster red of the day before. He remembered Ethan covering them with some kind of ointment. Miraculous stuff, obviously. What had it been?
He pushed himself up and waited to see if he could stand without falling. He felt a little lightheaded, but it was nothing like the dizzy disorientation of his last day outside---and certainly nothing like the swimming, sleepy sensation Ethan's treacherous little cocktail had produced last night.
He padded gingerly to the bathroom. Like the rest of the house, it was big and bright and airy. A beautiful glass sink sat above the counter, and faucets floated above it, curving down from an expansive mirror.
When he saw himself, David drew up short and stared. At home, he rarely spared his reflection more than a passing glance on his way to or from the shower, usually throwing on or peeling off an old T-shirt as he went. But he'd never seen this man before.
One hand rose involuntarily to touch the stubble along his jaw. His torso was bare. The back of his neck and areas of his face were darker from sun exposure. Green eyes glittered back at him in the fluorescent light. He was wearing loose, drawstring pants that rode soft and low on his narrow hips. Dark blue, cotton. Not his own. Ethan's? How had Ethan managed to get him into them?
Ethan.
Hungry as he was, he couldn't, wouldn't face Ethan at any more of a disadvantage than he had to. He needed to feel as much like himself as he could. He needed to feel clean. He made brisk use of an electric razor lying on the counter, then grabbed a fluffy green bath towel from the rack by the sink, unwrapped his hand, and raced through a shower, biting his tongue to keep from moaning aloud his pleasure in the hot water.
Dried and back in the borrowed pants, he ran wet fingers through his towel-rumpled hair. Then he tried the bathroom cabinets. To his utter lack of surprise, every one was locked. But he did find a new toothbrush in a plastic tumbler on the counter, along with a virgin tube of toothpaste.
For a moment, he hesitated, questioning the wisdom of putting anything Ethan had provided into his mouth. Then he realized he'd actually prefer another twelve-hour nap to twelve more seconds of fuzzy teeth, and went to work.
Back in the bedroom, he spied his black carry-all bag lying on top of a tall dresser. Good. Maybe his jeans had even dried out a little. Surely at least one of his shirts wouldn't be too damp to wear.
He tugged on the bag and knew instantly that something was wrong. The carry-all slid forward far too easily. Close up, it looked deflated and abandoned, like an empty cocoon.
Heart pounding, he jerked back the zipper and groped inside, rooting frantically through the ragged collection of objects. His fingers touched the tube of lip balm, the worthless cell phone, the black Sharpie marker. Every piece of clothing was gone, but this, he barely noticed in the grip of the larger horror. Somehow, he felt feverish and frozen all at once---as if he might burst into flames and fracture into ice shards in the same moment.
His laptop was gone.
Ethan had his computer.
Well, so what? What had he got, then, exactly? David didn't keep any sensitive financial information on that machine. No credit card or bank account numbers. Nothing that could be used for identity theft. A few business proposals, but nothing really confidential.
Oh, like billionaire Ethan Locke needs your pathetic bank accounts or paltry lines of credit. He probably owns the banks that underwrote those lines of credit in the first place. And why on earth would he want to steal your identity? He's already stolen you.
True. But he still felt a terrible unease. For a moment, he couldn't trace it to its source---then full realization hit, and his legs went boneless. He had to grab onto the dresser for support.
If Ethan had his laptop, then Ethan had his journal.
Dear God, no.
That file wasn't a diary. It was a radioactive waste container. A catch basin for all the toxic things he couldn't let himself feel or face...things, born of nightmares and panic attacks, that had become too overwhelming and too insistent to keep pushed down.
He could hardly bring himself to write those things.
The thought of anyone reading them---particularly Ethan---was unbearable.
He tried to slow his panicked breathing. It would be okay. The machine was password-protected. The file was password-protected.
But these thoughts gave him little comfort.
You might not like the consequences, Ethan had said. And Ethan wasn't just familiar with high-tech security and cryptography---he'd practically invented it.
For a long moment, David just stood, heart pounding, mind revving uselessly like a race car stuck in a traffic jam.
"Morning." The word was rife with annoying good cheer.
"Is it?" David managed to keep all inflection from his voice. He tossed the towel onto the bed and turned to face Ethan, arms folded. "Gosh. How one does lose track of time when one has been drugged."
"Yes, 'morning has bro-ken'." Ethan sang the Cat Stevens tune with a happy disregard for pitch, ignoring David's thunderous expression. "Blackbirds and all. Well, not here, of course. Parrots, maybe. Or possibly fruit bats. May I trust that you slept well?"
"You may trust that I slept the sleep of the deeply, chemically unconscious," snapped David. "And that I dreamt the restful dreams of the soon-to-be-pressing-criminal-charges."
Ethan laughed. "Good for you. It's important for a man to have goals, even ridiculous ones he has no hope of achieving. Ready for breakfast?"
David ignored the howling, twinging spasm of need from his stomach and affected an expression of bland indifference. He even managed a slight shrug. "In a minute. Where's my laptop?"
"The little computer? It's perfectly safe."
"How reassuring. I'd like it back. Now."
"I'm sure you would. But for the time being, I'm afraid you're going to have to consider it confiscated."
"Confiscated? What do you mean?"
"I told you that you weren't to go anywhere in the house but the great room or there would be consequences. You chose to disobey the rule. Consequently, you have lost your laptop, until I decide you've earned its return."
David's jaw dropped. "What are you---my kindergarten teacher?"
"Kindergarten? No." Ethan grinned wolfishly. "Though I am looking forward to showing you how to play well with others."
David clenched his fists. "Damn it, Ethan." His voice was tight, and growing louder as he spoke. "That machine is my personal property. You had no right to touch it at all, much less remove it from my bag, and certainly not to keep it from me. I want it back."
"Yes." Ethan's own voice rose not even slightly. "I'm sure you do."
David forced his hands to relax. "I see. You've decided to add petty theft to kidnapping and wrongful imprisonment. You really are determined to keep those high-priced lawyers of yours busy, aren't you?"
"Well, I do like to make people feel useful. Come eat."
And without a backward glance, he strode from the room.
David's toes flexed and ached to obey his stomach's insistent orders that they carry it directly to the source of those wonderful, mind-bending smells, and right now, damn it, right now. But he ignored them and tried to think through his options. Were there any?
Sure. He could take that tube of toothpaste and go out the window. There had to be some nutrition in that; there was sugar in everything these days. And he could grab the toothbrush too, and use a rock or something to sharpen the end into a point. They did that in prison, right? What did they call it? A shiv? A shank? Maybe he could even use it to pick one of the locks in the kitchen.
Sure. He could go right out the window in nothing but his bare feet and Ethan's spare pajama bottoms. And maybe then he could hunt down a wild boar with his trusty plastic shank-shiv, and paint his face in scary tribal patterns with mud and pig's blood, and sip mango juice from its hollowed-out tusks, and weave a warrior's necklace of teeth and feathers and claws, and wait for Ethan to give up this crazy vengeance scheme and fly him home.
Or he could face reality.
There was no question Ethan could outwait him. That Ethan would outwait him. He'd already waited three years.
The man was a damned pit bull when it came to getting something he wanted. If only what he wanted now wasn't revenge. If only he wanted...
Expertly, David shut down that line of thought.
And what about you? What do you want?
Unbidden, Ethan's face rose in David's mind as he had seen it during their final encounter three years earlier. He remembered, too well, the play of emotions across that familiar face. Surprise...and something else. Horror? Embarrassment? Disgust? He shoved away the image and answered himself out loud.
"I want my laptop. And I want food."
In the kitchen, David found Ethan standing barefoot in front of the stove, jean-clad legs slightly spread, plucking fat sausages from a saucepan and setting them on a paper towel to drain. The smell of food squeezed David's stomach like a fist.
Ethan gestured with the tongs. "Welcome to the Ethan Locke Island Diner. Gratuities are appreciated and shared equally by the host, chef, waiter, and busboy. I am, of course, all of the above, which only marginally increases my chances of not having my tips stolen. Please seat yourself."
David looked toward the table. Pulled slightly from the table and set at a deliberately inviting angle was the chair from the previous night. The empty wrist and ankle restraints dangled, loose and open now. Waiting.
He faltered at the sight of them.
"Go on. Sit if you want to eat." The command was punctuated by the hiss of liquid batter being poured into a hot waffle iron.
The smells were impossible to walk away from. Miserably, David perched on the very edge of the treacherous chair. It was ridiculously comfortable, for a trap.
On the table, he saw empty plastic bowls, tumblers, and two plates, but no utensils. Inwardly, he snorted. He sure as hell wasn't going to offer to set the table.
Ethan pulled a butter plate from the fridge---open now, David noted bitterly, the door's lock pad LED emitting a contented green glow. "I'm assuming you're still a breakfast maniac."
"Really." David folded his arms. "You think I'm the maniac in this scenario."
"Didn't you even manage to talk Res Ed into some kind of customized meal plan that let you skip lunches?"
"I had classes during lunch hour."
He'd made sure he had, every quarter. It was the only way the university would permit him not to buy a lunch plan, and for a kid scraping by on scholarships and work study, it was important to stretch every dime until he could read his overpriced textbooks through it.
Breakfasts were half the cost of the institutional lunch. And the food was portable. "All you can eat" was supposed to apply only to food consumed in the hall during scheduled meal hours---but if a person were careful to evade the watchful eyes of food service staff, he could usually manage to smuggle out some extra bread or fruit or a couple of hard-boiled eggs in his backpack. With that, he could hold through to dinner, or even skip it altogether, if he had to.
David had had to, more often than not. Dinners were even more expensive than lunch, and Res Ed didn't require students to purchase a dinner plan.
"Oh, I remember your perennial scheduling conflicts. But admit it. You always liked breakfast best, anyway." Ethan lifted a saucepan from the stove and poured something slightly runny and sweet-smelling---hot maple syrup?---into a small ceramic pitcher. "It was where you scored your drug of choice."
"As I remember it, you were the one with the continuous caffeine drip."
"No one is talking about precious, life-affirming coffee, Davo. I'm referring to that nutritionally deficient garbage you tortured your pancreas with on a near-daily basis."
"Cap'n Crunch was not deficient! It was fortified with twelve essential vitamins and nutrients."
Ethan snorted. "It was a toxic cocktail of chemically engineered, carcinogenically colored sugar lumps. Even a horse that tripped over itself and got kicked repeatedly in the head during the Kentucky Derby would have had enough sense not to eat that crap."
David felt a paralyzing wave of warmth and homesickness. God, he had missed this. The easy camaraderie. The good-natured teasing.
The man on the other end of both.
Ruthlessly, he tried to smother the little flame inside before it could catch and scorch him anew. It certainly wouldn't help to remember those school breakfasts, or how much he had loved them. Not because they were cheap. Not because of the bland-but-plentiful food.
Because Ethan had made them fun.
He wasn't even sure when it had started. At some point, his self-proclaimed night owl of a roommate had begun dragging himself out of bed when David got back from his early morning run and tagging along with him to the food service hall, complaining all the while about the ungodliness of the hour and questioning the sanity of anyone who was actually willing to be conscious at it. He never ate much---mostly just nursed a cup of coffee and picked at oatmeal while David stuffed himself for the day.
And Ethan had taken up smuggling food from the hall, too---pastries, oranges, once an entire loaf of raisin bread. He insisted he was liberating unjustly held assets from a fascist food service regime---that the university's draconian dining hall policies forced him to engage in this guerilla warfare to get full and rightful value for his room-and-board dollar.
Strangely, though, his interest seemed to be primarily in the game of winning the food in the first place---he rarely retained any interest in the loot once it had been added to their communal "room stash."
"Here, eat this," he might say to David, thrusting an older bagel at him to make room for the new ones from that morning's heist.
"Why? What's wrong with it?"
Whereupon Ethan would fix the offending bagel with a disdainful stare---yesterday's prize grab having lost all its former luster. "What's wrong with it? Are you blind? It's stale, man. It might just be adequate for a peasant like you, but my more cultivated palate requires finer things. Worse, it's taking up room that I need for my new prize bear claw. Ah, look at it. A thing of beauty, is it not? A magnificent specimen of the pastry sciences. Look how perfect the icing...how precise the placement of the raisins. Soon, my pretty," he might whisper to the bear claw. "Soon, we will know each other's secrets. Perhaps tomorrow."
And perhaps tomorrow, the bear claw would indeed be gone from the stash. But just as likely, it would still be there, and thrust into David's hands in a repeat of the routine.
David loved being included in Ethan's crazy, undeclared war with campus food service, though he didn't understand why Ethan never tired of the game, even during exam weeks when he'd have expected him to want to sleep through breakfast after late-night study sessions. For some reason, he had never asked.
Bullshit. You know why you didn't ask. You were afraid you'd show him how much you liked having him with you in the mornings. How much it mattered to you. That he'd freak out and stop coming.
Well, it might have been better if he had. Look at them now.
"Too much repetition in those breakfast menus, though." Ethan set the pitcher of syrup down on the table. "Too many eggs. Not enough waffles."
"I never noticed."
"Of course you didn't. The good Cap'n killed too many of your brain cells. Not to mention that you were so food-oblivious you forgot to eat dinner four nights a week. Tell me, do you still do that?"
The siren song of sweet maple was making it hard to think. And David didn't want to think about this anyway, not about the lame excuses he'd made up for not joining Ethan at the dining hall on the nights he couldn't afford to eat---that he'd forgotten about dinner, or had lost track of time, or hadn't been hungry. He hadn't wanted his rich, easygoing roommate to know how strapped he'd really been. He still didn't.
He looked away and shrugged.
Ethan leaned on the table and spoke quietly. "No, David. I told you yesterday what the rules are. When I ask you a question, you answer it."
"Jesus, Ethan, do I forget to eat dinner? How could it possibly matter?"
"You're still not hearing what I'm telling you. You don't get to decide what matters to me. You proved yourself to be very, very bad at that three years ago, and I have revoked your decision-making privileges. Right now, you just need to get yourself used to the idea of answering my questions---anything and everything I might choose to ask---honestly."
"Or?"
"Or we could go right to the non-verbal portion of today's exam. Would you prefer that?"
David said nothing.
"I'll ask the question a different way. Do you still try to save money by skipping meals?"
The old shame painted David's cheeks. So Ethan had known, all along. Well, it was hardly surprising that a genius was capable of connecting a few fucking dots.
"Not that it's any of your business, but I'm not exactly a penniless student anymore. I may not have your stock portfolio, but I don't have to cut corners to pay for food now."
"You didn't have to do it then. I was right there."
The hurt in his quiet voice was disquieting, and something clawed at David.
Was that guilt?
He clawed back.
"Well, so the hell what? So you had more money than me. That didn't make me your charity case or your responsibility or your...your project."
"I never thought it did. I thought you were my friend. I thought you knew I was yours."
"I could take care of myself."
"Oh, I never doubted that. What I didn't understand was why you thought you needed to keep proving it---or whom you were trying to prove it to. Did you even know? Do you, now?" He reached into a cabinet for a plate. "And you still haven't answered my question."
David threw up his hands. "Fine. My answer is that I eat when I'm hungry. Except, of course, when some billionaire sociopath is trying to starve me into submission."
"I don't need to starve you into submission. Submission is in your nature already. I'm just going to help you get in touch with that part of yourself." His voice dropped. "Actually, I'm going to help us get in touch with that part of yourself."
David pretended not to hear this, or to feel that unwelcome surge of heat deep in his belly. "And anyway, isn't that the whole point of college? To learn how to stand on your own two feet?"
"Ah, but you already knew how to do that. You've always known. What you need to learn requires taking your feet out of the equation." He nodded toward the loose restraints dangling from the chair's legs. "Reach down and strap in your ankles."
"What?"
"There's a trick to releasing the clips, but snapping them closed is pretty self-explanatory. Do it now."
"No, wait, why?" Claustrophobia clawed at him. "I thought we were past all this."
Ethan slammed the omelet pan back down on the stove, hard, and David jumped. Ethan bowed his head and took a deep, steadying breath. When he spoke again, his voice was low and tight and controlled.
"I told you last night, David. And I'm not going to keep repeating myself. I'm the one who gets to decide what happens to us now. You're the one who gets to find out what it feels like to have no input in decisions that affect your life.
"And just in case you really don't know," he added, lifting his head and pinning David with unblinking eyes, "which I doubt---because you were many things back when we were friends, but stupid was never one of them---you and I aren't past anything. You may not be a penniless student anymore, but in every way that really counts, you're still stuck in Santa Fe." He smiled tightly. "Which is ironic, considering that I'm the one who got stranded there without a rental car."
"Goddamn, I knew it! I knew this was all just some stupid, petty revenge scheme! Fuck, Ethan, this is so crazy. Don't you see that? I admit that what I did back then may have been stupid and immature and...and thoughtless---"
Ethan barked a sharp, humorless laugh. "Oh, I'm pretty sure you thought about it. Your problem was never in under-thinking things."
"---but what you're doing now is petty and vindictive and criminal. And it's beneath you."
"Beneath me," said Ethan silkily, letting his eyes rove suggestively down David's body, "sounds like a great plan. Anytime you're ready."
Stunned into silence, David just sat and blinked.
"Come on, David. You're just wasting my time, and yours." Ethan's tone was suddenly brisk. "I thought your coming back to the house meant you were ready to start working through some of our unfinished business. But maybe I misread you."
David thought of another day---hell, another minute---on his own outside and tried not to blanch. He forced himself to fold his own arms and lift his chin. "Fine. I'll just take a couple of happy meals to go then, please."
Ethan's eyes flickered and the muscles around his mouth twitched, but he didn't smile.
"Make up your mind. Strap in or get out. Either way, it's going to be a bumpy ride."
His expression was implacable and unyielding. Briefly, David considered rushing for the sausages on the counter, but he knew he wouldn't even get close.
"Goddamn it." He bent over and picked up the first strap with shaking hands. It felt sturdy and slightly slippery beneath his fingers. He fumbled as he wrapped it around his left ankle, hesitating a moment before pushing the ends of the clip together. The audible click as the clip closed reverberated through his fingers like a heavy jail door slamming shut. "Fine. This is so fucking ridiculous. Give me a real choice or admit that you won't. Make up your mind."
"Now the other one."
David realized he was breathing hard and tried to get control of himself. He bent over again and reached for the other strap, wrapped the ends around his right ankle and locked the clip.
Click.
His head swam as the panic sucked at him and tried to pull him under. His eyes shot to Ethan's face as if it were a lifeline. Which made no sense---but then, his body never had had a lick of sense when it came to Ethan.
Ethan's own expression was assessing, but he wasn't looking at David's face.
He was looking at his hands.
David began to tremble. He hated himself for showing this weakness, any weakness, but he couldn't help it.
"No." Humiliating, frightened tears burned the backs of his eyes. "Ethan, no. Please."
"David, relax." Ethan crouched in front of the chair and set a surprisingly gentle hand on his knee. "I won't tie them. Not unless you make me. But I need something from you."
David struggled to slow his breathing and focus on what Ethan was saying.
"I need you to hold onto the chair arms until I tell you that you can let go. Do you understand?"
David blinked furiously to clear away the last of the threat of tears. "And you're expecting me to eat exactly how? Through a straw?"
"That didn't sound like an answer to my question. Try again."
"All right. Yes."
"Good. Do it now."
David dragged in a deep breath and brought his elbows down on the chair's arms, closing a fist around the curve at each end.
"Thank you, David."
A bing sounded, and Ethan turned to tug a crisp golden circle from the waffle iron with bare fingers, hissing and sucking the sting of heat from them. Pulling up a chair and sitting close enough for their knees to touch, he held up a small box. "Premium Plastic Knives---perfect for picnics!" it promised, in cheerful yellow letters.
"Also perfect for people who can't be trusted with dangerous sharp edges and pointy bits."
David glanced involuntarily down at Ethan's chest. Framed in the open vee of his shirt was the trailing end of yesterday's angry red cut.
Ethan followed his gaze down. "It's okay," he said gently. "It looks much worse than it actually is. And I assure you, I've taken my antibiotics too."
David tried for flippancy. "I'd say I was sorry to hear that, except, of course, that I need you not to die while I'm tied to this chair."
Ethan laughed. He spread a generous pat of butter over the hot waffle. David watched in the grip of helpless desire as the butter melted tantalizingly into the waffle squares. His stomach growled, and he blushed. He didn't want his body to telegraph weakness and need to this man. Not for food.
Not for anything.
Ethan rolled up the cuffs of both shirt sleeves and stared directly into his eyes.
"Here's what's going to happen next. I'm going to feed you."
Ethan broke off a piece of the waffle. A golden rivulet of melted butter ran down the side of his hand. He tilted his head and slowly licked the butter off, never looking away from David's eyes.
Jesus. David felt his groin tighten. "Fuck that. I'm not a mental patient. You don't trust me with utensils, fine, but let me use my hands."
Ethan reached for the pitcher of syrup, poured some into a bowl and dunked the piece of waffle in it. Hypnotized by the sheer proximity of food, David watched the syrup drip off the waffle and Ethan's fingers in slow, thick ropes, back into the waiting bowl.
"But autonomy isn't what's important for you right now, David. Submission is. Obedience is." He pinned David's eyes with his own. "Trust is."
David swallowed. His gaze dropped back to the syrup-soaked bit of waffle.
"I'm supposed to trust someone who's still crazy pissed off about something that happened about a million years ago? A guy who's kidnapped me and drugged me and tied me to a chair? Who thinks I'm going to just sit back and let him do I don't even know what sort of things to me?"
"You do know what sort of things." Ethan's voice was slow and lazy. "I expect you've probably imagined most of them, maybe touching yourself while you did. God knows I have. And yes." His dark eyes probed David's, the gold flecks in them flashing a little in reflected sunlight. "It's long past time you learned to trust me. The way you always could have, with anything. I still don't know why you wouldn't let yourself. Do you? Did you really imagine I would hurt you?"
Hurt me. Hate me. Laugh at me.
Leave me.
"I don't know what you're talking about. And even if you weren't spouting the purest Grade-A bullshit right now, how could I possibly have known what you might do? I sure as hell never imagined you could do anything like this."
Ethan looked around the room and smiled ruefully. "That makes two of us." He stared at the glistening bit of waffle in his hands for a moment, then looked straight back at David. "You wouldn't take anything from me. Wouldn't even let me buy you a damn hamburger on the nights you couldn't afford food service. But you're going to let me feed you now."
"Don't." David blinked rapidly. "Don't do that. Don't talk like you know what I'm going to do. Like you know me."
"I do know you. Better than anyone. That's why I have to be the one to introduce you to yourself." Ethan gestured lightly with the dripping waffle. "Now. You want this."
David's eyes locked onto the food in Ethan's hands like a magnet to an iron bar. Fuck, yes, I want it.
I need it.
Ethan's voice was soft and sure. "Trust me, I'm going to give you what you want. This isn't the half of it. But first, a couple of rules. Only two, so they won't be hard to remember, even for an ABBA fan like you. Are you ready?"
David's eyes flickered up to Ethan's and were held there by the intensity of the other man's gaze. "Yes."
"Good." Ethan leaned a little closer and dropped his voice. "First rule. Anything I put into your mouth, you swallow. If you spit anything out at me, breakfast is over. Do you understand?"
"Yes." It was more of a croak than a word.
"Second rule. You will not bite me. If you bite me, I will lay you out. I don't want to do that, but if you try to hurt me, I will not hesitate. And breakfast will be over. Do you understand?"
David nodded.
"Out loud."
"Yes."
"Here we go then," said Ethan softly. "Open up." He leaned all the way in and lifted the first sweet, dripping morsel.
David opened his mouth and closed his eyes. Here it was. Food, at last.
Ethan. The inner voice would not, could not be silenced. Ethan, at last.
He felt the ragged square of waffle, so warm and sticky and sweet on his tongue, and he couldn't stop an involuntary groan of pleasure, couldn't keep himself from tightening his lips in reflex around the food...around Ethan's fingers.
He froze.
Don't bite down.
Somehow, he controlled the urge...stilled and waited, the sweetness melting on his tongue.
"That's it." Ethan breathed the words. "I'm going to pull my fingers out now, slowly. I want you to suck the syrup from them as I do. Use your tongue."
His tongue and lips obeyed of their own accord, tightening around Ethan's thumb and index finger and tugging gently at the last drops of maple stickiness clinging to them as Ethan slowly pulled them from his mouth. He could taste the sweetness of the syrup and the saltiness of Ethan's skin, and the combination was somehow intoxicating and impossibly heady.
Then Ethan's fingers were gone and only the melting remains of the waffle remained on his tongue. He had to remind himself to chew. To swallow.
Again, demanded his stomach.
Again, demanded that irrepressible inner voice.
"Again," said Ethan huskily, and without a moment's hesitation, David opened his mouth to him. His tongue rose to meet another bit of syrup-laden waffle, and his face heated as he sucked syrup and melted butter from the fingers that carried it. He felt powerless to control his body, as if he were standing outside himself and simply watching his own behavior, unable to intervene in any way.
"That's right." Ethan's voice was shaky. "That's exactly right. Slowly, now."
Again and again. The food. Ethan's fingers. David shut down his mind. He refused to let himself think about what he was doing, and concentrated only on the whirl of sensations, flavors, textures, pressure.
He tasted squares of waffle with crispy surfaces and soft, fluffy dough beneath...bites of perfectly cooked omelet, fluffy egg pockets of melted cheddar cheese, succulent bits of ham, and tender, sautéed mushrooms...and through it all were Ethan's fingers, brushing against his lips, pressing into his mouth, stroking his tongue. The intimacy of Ethan's touch was a revelation. Unbearable.
"Open your eyes, David." Ethan's voice was soft. "I want you right here, with me."
Where else could he be? There wasn't any place but here. But David forced his eyes open. It was too hard to meet Ethan's eyes, so he picked a spot over his shoulder instead and stared at it intently without seeing it.
"You're going to love these." Ethan picked up a plump sausage link from the platter. "I discovered them in Vermont a couple of years back. Apple-smoked, I think."
He dunked the link in the pitcher of syrup and smiled wistfully. "Remember how we used to pour syrup on our sausage patties at Mickey Ds? A combination so fucking good, so fundamentally right, even that fake maple crap in the little plastic boxes couldn't ruin it. I can feel type 2 diabetes setting in and my arteries hardening just thinking about it."
David said nothing. Of course he remembered those weekend jaunts to McDonald's. He'd rarely had pocket change, but sometimes, Ethan would stake him in their floor's regular Friday-night poker game, and David, a careful, competent player, would have winnings to spend. On those mornings, he'd felt worlds away from student housing and campus instead of only a few miles. Most of all, he remembered the furtive joy of being out with Ethan in a real restaurant, even just a fast-food restaurant, like normal people living normal lives might do on a weekend.
Like normal couples, you mean.
Shut up, thought David, without much hope. He and Ethan had been roommates. They had planned to be business partners. That was all.
"You're not going to bite down on this yet. All you're going to do is suck the syrup from it, just like you've been doing with my fingers."
"Hell, no, I am absolutely not going to do that." David's face flamed, but his eyes wouldn't look away from the amber-glazed sausage in Ethan's hand.
"Just like this." Ethan lifted it to his own mouth, let his tongue catch it from beneath and tug it inside. His eyes held David's as he drew on the link, cheeks hollowing in rhythm with his tongue. His Adam's apple rose and fell slightly as he swallowed.
With a small sucking noise, he pulled the sausage from his mouth, giving the tip one last lick. It dangled clean and smooth from his fingers. David stared helplessly at it, unable to look away.
"God, that's good. Sweet and savory. Here, you try." Ethan dipped the sausage back into the pitcher, stirred it lazily in the syrup, and raised it, sticky and dripping. "Come on. Open for me."
"I---"
Ethan took advantage of his momentarily unlocked lips to slide the sausage forward, and the sweetness and thickness of it filled David's mouth like a surprise. Reflexively, he started to lift a hand to pull at Ethan's arm.
"Uh-uh." Ethan grabbed his wrist and held it firmly down on the chair arm. "Relax. I'm not pushing it in any farther than this. Just let your tongue explore. That's it, just like that. Like a popsicle."
David clamped the sausage against the roof of his mouth and curled his tongue around it, sucking with increasing pressure at the sweetness and the emerging meat juices. Even with his hunger so much abated, the combined flavor of sausage and syrup was delicious and heartbreakingly familiar, a ghost from some of his most cherished memories.
"Hold it there, Davo...right there."
Through half-lidded eyes, David watched Ethan lean toward him, hypnotized by the slow approach of those tantalizing lips---lips that were parting now, and softening, the way he'd once watched them soften into laughter and whispers and kisses for shiny-haired college girls with bright eyes and quick smiles. He had the sudden disjointed thought that he knew the curves and lines of those lips, of Ethan's lips, better than his own.
Then he could think of nothing but the feel of Ethan's hands pressing down lightly on the backs of his own, on his wrists, though he was certain he'd have been powerless to lift his arms in any case. And suddenly Ethan's breath was right there, right on his cheek, and Ethan's beautiful mouth was opening to take in the rest of the sausage link, and his lips were closing on it, just brushing David's as Ethan bit down, cutting the smoky link neatly and pulling away with half of it. "Go ahead." Ethan's words were a little muffled by sausage. "You can bite down now."
Head swimming, heart beating crazily, David chewed the smoky meat in his mouth and swallowed. He barely even noticed the delicious flavor that bloomed and dwindled on his tongue.
Ethan's lips...Ethan's mouth had been on his.
He couldn't stop thinking about it as Ethan fed him more pieces of sausage and carefully tipped tumblers of ice-cold orange juice into his mouth. Only gradually did he realize that he and Ethan were working in almost perfect unison, performing these intimate motions of giving and receiving as smoothly as if they'd practiced them for years.
What was he doing? He was acting almost as if all of this were normal.
No. Not normal.
Inevitable.
At last, there was a pause. David blinked to bring the world back into focus and saw that all the plates on the table were empty. He felt the strangest mix of relief and disappointment.
"Still a little syrup left." Ethan picked up the bowl. "Can't let this go to waste. This is the good stuff, not that fake corn-based crap you fast-food philistines seem to prefer."
As David watched, Ethan looped his thumb over the edge of the bowl and began to turn it, coating his thumb with liquid sweetness. Then he leaned close again.
"Come on, open up for me. Just a little more," he said softly, brushing David's bottom lip with his thumb.
And that touch, those words, that look were all it took to tumble him back into his feverish fugue state. Helpless to resist, he couldn't look away from Ethan's eyes as he let that thumb press past the giving rim of his lips and into his mouth. Ethan's fingers slid along the side of his jaw and cupped his chin so gently, holding it as he stroked David's quivering tongue deeply with his thumb, forging a trail of sweetness and fiery sensation that shot clean through him.
"Suck it clean," he heard Ethan breathe, and mindlessly, he obeyed, closing his mouth like a clinging tunnel around Ethan's thumb as it turned slowly in his mouth and pulled away.
"One more time." Ethan's own voice sounded shaky now. He pressed deep into the syrup bowl for a final coat of honeyed amber. But this time, instead of bringing his thumb to David's mouth, he pressed it to David's bare chest. His eyes never left David's as he brushed and circled one startled nipple, coating it with sticky sweetness. The little nub pebbled instantly beneath his touch, and David's hands tightened on the chair.
Ethan dropped his gaze and just stared down at the glistening nipple for several beats, at David's chest, rising and falling in quickening, shallow pants, and then he lifted his eyes back to David's. The raw desire in them rocked David to the core.
"Don't. Move," said Ethan thickly.
Move? How the hell would he move? He couldn't even breathe.
Ethan lowered his head and leaned forward, letting his lips close on David's nipple. His tongue and mouth worked gently, tugging and sucking. One hand splayed possessively over David's body, the thumb resting just beneath his breast, the fingers curving around the side over his ribs.
David groaned and arched his back. He couldn't...couldn't help it.
He stared down blindly at Ethan's beautiful, streaky hair...at the head nuzzling and suckling at his naked chest. He could feel the stubble of Ethan's jaw scraping against the heightened nerves of his bare skin. Could feel his tongue, licking and pulling at him. His hands tensed on the chair arms, but even in this state of unbearable, dizzying intensity, his body wouldn't let his hands let go of the chair...wouldn't let him disobey Ethan.
And what would you do if your hands were free? Push him away, or pull him closer?
Ethan raised his head and pinned David with his eyes. David was trembling now, his breath coming in convulsive little gasps, and he knew his own eyes must be hazy with desire and panic.
"I don't," he ground out thickly, shaking his head. "I don't want this."
Not like this. Not when you don't mean it.
He felt Ethan shake a little with laughter and need as he reached up to smooth away the hair that had tumbled into David's wild eyes. "Oh, Davo," he said, and his voice was low and unsteady. "Who exactly are you trying to convince?"
And then Ethan was tugging one of his hands off the chair arm. Never looking away from David's eyes, Ethan pulled the unresisting hand down to the insistent bulge at the warm crotch of his jeans, pressing David's nerveless fingers along the length of his imprisoned erection. David could feel Ethan's cock throbbing insistently as it strained against his fly. At the contact, David's arm trembled and jerked, and he would have pulled his hand away, as from a hot stove, had Ethan not held him there.
"Is it me?" The question was low and husky.
Then he lifted the hand and placed it over the answering rigidity in David's own pants. He didn't even look down first to check that it was there. "Or yourself?"
David slammed his lids tight on those knowing eyes. "Please. This isn't...isn't fair."
Ethan exhaled, a long shaky breath. "No. But then, 'fair' hasn't exactly worked for us up to now. And you know what they say...everything's fair in love and war." He trailed a bent finger down the side of David's face, in a caress that felt both possessive and heartbreakingly tender. "Or else nothing is."
That was for sure. If anything about this scenario were fair, David's ankles wouldn't be tied to a chair, and he'd be about four miles away already and just finding his rhythm for the long haul, pounding out all the unwelcome voices and feelings and thoughts in long, punishing strides that could go on forever.
But Ethan had made damned sure he couldn't run...had engineered this crazy little reunion in a place with no roads, limited stretches of flat space, and no escape routes. David was as trapped and edgy as a caged cheetah. He drew in deep, ragged lungfuls of air and tried to shut Ethan out, tried to concentrate on regaining control.
"Listen to me. This doesn't change anything. Just because you've always been able to...just because maybe I got a little...confused...where you were concerned...doesn't give you the right to...I never asked..."
"No, you never did. I often wonder how things might have turned out if you had. Don't you?"
David stared mutely at Ethan's inscrutable face, desperate to read eyes that gave nothing away. All's fair in love and war. But which was this? Love or war? Redemption or revenge?
"If I...if I begged you, Eath." His voice was so low he could barely hear it himself. "If I told you how truly, deeply sorry I am for walking out on you in Santa Fe...would you stop this then? Would you let me go?"
"Not a chance." Ethan's voice was quiet too. "I'm sorry, but no."
"Then what?" David pounded his fists down on the chair arms. "What now? Are you going to bend me over the table and take what you want? Tell yourself I asked for it? That I wanted it? If so, why not just get it the fuck over with and let me go home?"
"I'm not bending you over anything. Or giving you what both of us want. Not until you do ask for it. And you will. I think I've proved that this morning, to both of us."
David made himself breathe. In and out. In and out. "All you've proven is that I, like any other organism on the planet, can be made to react involuntarily to suitable environmental stimuli."
"Oh? Is that what you've decided to pretend I am?" Ethan looked amused. "How very...scientific. Well, then, I guess I'll just have to concentrate on being as suitable...and as stimulating...as possible."
At the suggestive note in his voice, David's belly flipped again. Goddamn it, he thought angrily at his body. Stop responding to every fucking thing he does or says. You're just playing into his hands.
Oh, sure, said the inner voice. Since you asked so nicely and all, I'll just stop responding to the man who has starred in your most private fantasies for the last six years. And while I'm at it, how about I just quit metabolizing your food, and regulating your core temperature, and pushing blood through your veins?
David squeezed his eyes shut. "You're wasting your time. I'm not going to give you what you want."
"There are many subjects on which reasonable men may reasonably differ. This is not one of them, of course, but then you aren't reasonable. Still, for now, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Let's go for a walk."
"What?" The sudden change in conversational direction was dizzying.
"A walk." Deftly, Ethan unclipped the straps around David's ankles. "You know, like what you runners do, only in much slower motion. Come on. I need some fresh air, and we could both use a change of scenery."
Then he was loping away down the hall, calling back over his shoulder. "Your stuff is in the wash. You'll find some jeans and shorts and things laid out on the bed. Shoes are by the door. Grab whatever works for you and meet me outside in ten minutes."
David sat blinking in confusion and bewilderment. His legs were free. His hands were free.
His cock, on the other hand, ached like a son of a bitch.
An annoyingly upbeat voice trailed back to him. "Cheer up. Consider the bright side. At least you're not hungry anymore!"
No, he wasn't hungry anymore. He could still feel Ethan's thumb pushing past his lips to stroke his tongue. Not hungry.
Ravenous.
Fuck.
On the bed, David found a pair of dark blue jeans, some running shorts, and a couple of Tshirts. The denim looked soft and worn. The running shorts looked brand new.
The red T-shirt read "ABBA Sucks".
In tiny, professionally printed letters, the blue T-shirt read "I, David Holmes, acknowledge that ABBA, though the pride and joy of the Swedish people, is inferior in every way to every other band and, indeed, form of music that has been invented or has yet to BE invented, including, but not limited to, opera, classical, rap, country and western, rock-and-roll, Tuvan throat-singing, drunken frat-boy Karaoke, helium-fueled renditions of 'Happy Birthday', and also the sounds emitted by ducks choking on electric eels. I apologize profusely for the part I have personally played in helping to inflict this bleak and hellish soundscape, this unremitting and remorseless source of aural pollution, onto a world of unsuspecting innocents, chief among them my erstwhile roommate and selfless architect of my eventual musical salvation, Ethan Locke."
David snorted and grabbed the red T-shirt, turning it inside out and slipping it over his head. As he pulled it on, he found himself staring down, uncomprehending at first, at newly revealed text that had been printed inside the shirt.
"Any way you look at it, ABBA sucks."
God. And Ethan said he overthought things.
He reached for his carry-all.
He found Ethan in front of the tall gate beside the porch. An insulated cooler bag was slung over one shoulder.
Ethan glanced at David's shirt, modified now through careful application of a few Sharpie marker strokes to read "ABBA Rocks", and grinned.
"Thought I'd invite an old friend to join us," he said, typing a code into a keypad on the gate. "Hope that's okay with you. She could use the exercise too."
"A friend?" David's mind stuttered. How could Ethan risk letting him have contact with anyone else while he was here? Who on earth would risk being charged as an accomplice to kidnapping?
And why did the sudden realization that he and Ethan might not be alone on this island after all make him feel... Christ, was that disappointment?
As the thoughts roiled around in David's brain, the latch popped open with a click, and Ethan swung the gate open.
A massive explosion of golden fur and pink, lolling tongue cannonballed through the gate and launched itself right at David, bowling him over into the sand.
He tried unsuccessfully to fend off the assault of tongue and scrabbling paws. "What the... Bella? Is that Bella?"
The animal was a rolling, wiggling missile of excited, ecstatic energy in his arms. Twisting and wagging and licking at him, she panted great exhalations of doggy breath into his startled face. Ethan grinned.
"Well? What do you think?"
"I think you're a sociopath." David twisted his face from side to side and tried unsuccessfully to shield himself from the determined sweeps of the retriever's generous tongue. "I'm not going to visit you in prison, and I'm going to attend every one of your parole hearings...to make sure the bleeding hearts don't release you onto an unsuspecting public. But this...Jesus, Eath, this is...damn, she looks good. No, better than good. She looks great. Happy. I can't believe this is the same animal." He grabbed the dog's twisting shoulders and pushed her back a little to stare intently into her grinning face. "Is this the same animal?"
"In some ways. Amazing how certain wild creatures will gentle in your hands if you give them regular meals and a safe, comfortable place to sleep." Ethan grinned suggestively. "Of course, you have to learn to pet them in just the right way."
David blushed and shot him a glare. "Very subtle. Not. I'm not your damned dog."
"You're not as well behaved as my dog, that's for sure. I'm not even one hundred percent certain you're housebroken. That's why I took up all the good rugs."
He clapped his hands and whistled. Bella immediately stopped trying to crush David beneath her wiggling, welcoming assault and dashed to Ethan's side, crooked tail waving high and happy. He threw a stick toward the beach, and she raced after it, her paws kicking up little sprays of sand as she ran.
"Come on."
They walked along the beach. The tide had withdrawn, leaving behind a shining strand of firm, wet sand that felt comforting and supportive beneath David's feet.
It felt good to move. He marveled at how pleasant it was to be walking along this same beach with Ethan, a beach that had only yesterday (yesterday?) seemed impossibly hostile and inhospitable.
Bella trotted along in front of them. David couldn't stop staring.
"I can't get over it. I tried to touch her, just once, and she showed me more teeth than a great white. I'd never have thought anyone could bring her back from that edge. How the hell did you do it?"
Ethan stooped to pick up another stick and throw it. "It took a really long time." There was no teasing in his voice now. "For a while, I didn't think I'd pull it off."
Bella's tail waved like a flag as she ran.
"She was just so damned scared. Of me. Of everything. The phone used to send her into a full-scale panic. I had to unplug it in the evenings. Goddamn telemarketers." He glanced at David. "Can you believe she was even afraid of squirrels? And not just those intimidating Jurassic ones, either---you know, the ones that look like they could gang-rape a raccoon? Naw, even the really little timid ones about gave her a heart attack. Honestly, I'd have been embarrassed for her if I hadn't been so worried."
Bella brought back the stick. Ethan threw it again.
"Sounds like she was a challenge."
"She was an unholy mess. She peed on my bed. She just about scratched through a door I shut to try to keep her from hiding away at the back of my bedroom closet all the time. She'd wake me up barking herself hoarse in the middle of the night, for no reason I could see." He cut his eyes from David's. "She ran away from me once. And she bit me. Twice."
"She bit you?"
Second rule: If you bite me, I will lay you out.
Ethan read his face and stopped walking. "Jesus, no. Of course I didn't hit her. Not that you should let that give you any unwise ideas. You should continue to take my zero-tolerance biting policy very seriously. Bella got special dispensation for being a dog. Even if she did draw blood."
"Deep, then?"
"She wasn't fucking around, I can tell you that. She absolutely meant to hurt me, both times. That was right there in her eyes, along with this awful mix of hope and resignation." He exhaled deeply, shoving both hands into his back pockets.
"It was the weirdest combination of warning and defiance and supplication. Like she was trying to scare me away by showing me her worst, and begging me to love her anyway."
Bella bounced back with the stick and plopped her butt down in the sand, panting from exertion. Her wagging tail sketched half a sand-angel's wing. Ethan knelt to kiss her head. She tolerated the attention for a few seconds before lifting her hips and shaking herself, covering them both in a spray of seawater. Then she trotted back to the beach to explore some kelp.
"I'd never even had a dog before. I took her to a vet, and she snapped at him. He had to put a muzzle on her to do the most superficial exam. It took three of us just to get her on the scale, and people two counties over probably thought we were trying to disembowel her with our bare hands." He shook his head. "He actually had to sedate her to get X-rays."
"Did he find anything?"
Ethan shrugged. "Some nasty old bone breaks that had healed badly. Impossible to say whether she'd been hit by a car or kicked around by some abusive asshole getting a drunk on. Whatever had happened, he said it had ruined her. That was the word he used: Ruined. Like she was a watercolor painting someone left out in the rain. Like the damage was irreversible."
David felt a catch in his throat. He watched the beautiful dog splashing in the waves, her fur glowing like gold in the sun, and he thought about all the kinds of damage people could see, and the kinds they couldn't.
"I asked him to give me the name of a good obedience school. And he wouldn't. He said she was dangerous. A lawsuit waiting to happen. I should put her down. He wasn't an asshole about it or anything, but that was his recommendation, and I could tell he wasn't going to back off of it. And the worst part of it was, I knew he wasn't wrong. She wasn't a small dog, even then, even as thin as she was. The bites were...painful."
He flexed and rubbed at his hands subconsciously as he spoke. David stared at the silvery, slightly puckered scars. So that's where they'd come from.
He felt a fresh stab of pain. Things had happened to Ethan since he'd left, and he hadn't known about them. Hadn't been a part of them.
Well, what had he expected? Had he thought everything would just stop for Ethan? The way it had for him?
Of course not. He'd had plenty of evidence that Ethan's life had gone on in the intervening years---articles in business journals and nightly news stories about the rising Internet star and all his successful ventures.
But somehow, none of that---not the pictures or the YouTube footage of Ethan smiling as he delivered speeches at trade conventions, or standing with his arm around some stunning socialite at a charity event, or the running commentary by industry analysts who charted the continuing, crazy success of the company he and Ethan had planned to start and run together---none of those things had stabbed at David as much as those scars did.
But that was stupid. He hadn't thrown anything away, not really. The life he'd given up hadn't been real. The one he'd wanted hadn't been possible. If he'd stayed, Ethan would only have come to hate him.
Oh? Looks like that happened anyway. Fondness and good feeling don't usually inspire complicated revenge plots. And if you'd stayed, at least you'd have been able to build more memories to live on before the train pulled into this station.
With unconscious grace, Ethan half fell, half sat into a circle of shade cast by a couple of intertwined trees and leaned back against a trunk. David sat stiffly beside him. Together, they watched Bella splash into the surf, snapping at the retreating tide.
"I did think about it." Ethan broke the silence. "About putting her down, I mean. I didn't want to. But what if she bit someone else? What if she bit a kid?"
David swept his arms wide. "And in the end, you risked everything to help her face the demons of her tragic puppyhood. Taught her the secrets of dog-fu! Helped her to win the tournament against the neighboring dojo of Doberman pinschers and saved her sensei's martial arts studio from foreclosure by greedy, soulless bankers!"
Ethan laughed. "Something like that."
"It's a very touching story. Disney will probably offer you millions for the movie rights. You should take the deal. It will help you pay for your defense attorney."
"I'll keep that in mind."
They sat and watched the dog play in companionable silence. David relaxed, a gentle languor stealing the rigidity from his muscles. It felt disconcertingly good to be sitting here. He felt calm and rested and completely sated for the first time in days. Maybe weeks.
Years.
He shook off the thought and realized he was gazing at Ethan sideways, without turning his head. Drinking him in peripherally, so as not to get caught looking.
How annoying to find, after three years, that the old habit had not died.
He dragged his gaze away from the spot where Ethan's hair started to curl just above and behind one ear and spoke to cover his discomfiture.
"Why didn't you, Eath? Why didn't you just walk away? Anyone else would have. It wouldn't even necessarily have been unkind."
"I couldn't." Ethan turned to face him. His eyes were very clear. "I couldn't lose her too."
There was something in that hazel gaze that was hard to look straight at. Accusation? Compassion?
Pain?
David wrested his own eyes away.
"And anyway, you know me. She was a challenge. The worse things got, the more determined I got. I replaced doors. Refinished floors. Ripped up carpets. Hell, I even moved twice to get away from lynch mobs. Turns out nothing unifies neighbors faster than midnight barking volleys. But in the end, I got it. I found the key."
His face lit in an uncomplicated grin.
"You want to know what it is? The secret to soothing the most savage of savage beasts?"
"It's breasts, not beasts." David rolled his eyes. "God, how is it even possible that you can have run a Fortune 100 company and still be such a cultural illiterate? It's like a college education was completely wasted on you. Please never tell anyone we went to the same school."
"It was a Fortune 50 company. And the answer is consistency. You say what you're going to do, and you do it. Each and every time. You never let a positive behavior go unrewarded. You never let a negative behavior go uncorrected. You never, ever punish a genuine fear response, but you never walk away from one, either---not until you've pushed through it. You have to get a positive reaction. Even a tiny one."
"Sounds like brainwashing to me." David didn't know why Ethan's words were making his heart beat faster. "You sound exactly like a brainwasher. Do you know that? Don't get me wrong: I'm sure you mean well. Cult leaders almost always do, right up to the orchestrated mass suicide."
Ethan shrugged. "In some ways, you're not far wrong. Despite your many obvious personal biases and deductive shortcomings. And poor musical taste." He grinned at David's shirt.
On the beach, Bella was launching herself now, barking joyfully, at a loose group of birds standing in the tide and pecking at the sand whenever the sea sucked itself momentarily away from the strand. The birds raced away from her comically on fast-moving, spindly legs, only taking to reluctant wing when it became clear that they couldn't actually outrun her.
"What I finally came to realize is that a fair part of achieving happiness comes from understanding your own programming. And a fair amount of getting what you want from other people comes from understanding theirs."
David felt lightheaded, barely tethered to the ground.
"Really. And what is it that you want?"
"Right now? I want a beer." He unzipped the cooler bag and withdrew two cans, tossing one to David, who managed to catch it deftly despite his surprise. He held the icy can between his hands and watched Ethan pop the top on his, holding it out to let the fizzy overflow run off into the sand.
On the beach, Bella barked and snapped at a seagull.
"Leave it, Bella!" Ethan slipped off a canvas shoe and flung it without great force in the dog's direction to distract her. She pounced gleefully, shaking the shoe and growling.
Ethan fell back into the sand beside David and took a sip. When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet, and something about it set off little quakes of hyper-awareness all down David's body.
"What I want, David, is to explore what we might have had if you hadn't run away. If you'd had the courage to reach out for what you wanted. I want to see if the people we were are still somewhere inside the people we've become."
He looked up. "I want to see if I can break down all of your very carefully constructed defenses and lay you bare. In every sense of the word."
Now he leaned closer, his eyes fixed on David's mouth. David couldn't move.
"I want to touch you in ways---in places---you've never been touched. I want you to give yourself to me and to surrender to whatever I might decide to do. I want you to trust that I will give you exactly what you need."
David could scarcely breathe. He could only watch, wide-eyed, as Ethan leaned closer, those lips coming nearer and nearer his own until suddenly they brushed past his jaw to breathe the rest, soft and warm, into his ear.
"That's what I want. And as you can see, I don't much care anymore about the consequences of trying to get it."
David felt a shock of raw desire slam through his body, so hard that he trembled with it. He popped the top on his own beer, just to give his fingers something to do besides wrap around the back of Ethan's neck and pull him closer.
"And what about what I want?"
"Oh, you're going to get what you want too."
"A first-class ticket home? An appointment with the district attorney?"
Ethan smiled. "No. A connection. A real one. The kind that comes from letting go. Risking. Trusting."
"There you go again." David tried to keep his voice steady. "Even I know what those words are code for. You do whatever you want with your own sex life, but leave me the hell out of it. I'm not into whips and chains. I'm sure there's no end of sad little people ready to line up and put on leather hoods and nipple rings and...and rubber ball gags, or whatever you call them...and give you what you want. I still don't know why I'm here."
"There's nothing sad about knowing what you want and reaching out for it. And I'm sure you're right. There probably are whole crowds of people who would step up and do exactly that for me, if that's what I wanted. If they were what I wanted. But it's not. And they're not."
He looked directly into David's eyes.
"You're here because for me to get what we both want, I'm going to have to break down some very solid walls. I know you put them up to shut the scary stuff out, but all you did was shut yourself in."
David's lips felt like tissue paper. "My walls are none of your business. Go huff and puff at someone else."
"Oh, I'm going to take them down." Ethan's voice was liquid silk. It flowed effortlessly under David's barricades and lapped at his toes. "Brick by brick."
He took David's wrist in one hand. David was too shocked to pull it away.
"Brick one," said Ethan quietly. "You have no interest in experiencing sex with another man. With me."
Now he was tracing little circles on the inside of David's wrist. It trembled.
"Brick two. You don't burn to find a safe place to give up control."
David could feel his pulse hammering beneath Ethan's fingers.
"Brick three. You can't let yourself trust anyone. Not with anything truly private...personal...or real."
David snatched his hand back and held his throbbing wrist firmly against his thigh.
"That's it? Three bricks?" He'd meant the words to sound mocking, but they came out curiously...curious. He raced to blanket them with sarcasm. It felt like dabbing at the Great Chicago Fire with a gasoline-soaked potholder. "That's not a wall. That's not even a...a highway divider."
"Ah, but you're a very capable engineer," said Ethan, smiling. "And they're very large bricks." He took a long sip of beer and set the can down in the sand. "Don't worry, though. I've thought it all through. I have a plan." He turned his gaze back to the retriever.
David raised his beer with nerveless fingers. "Oh? Let me guess. You'll take me to the beach to chew shoes and chase seagulls. Are you going to teach me to lie down and roll over, too? To sit up and beg?"
"Yes, in a manner of speaking." Ethan didn't take his eyes off the scene on the beach. "I'm going to make you come."
The words caught David in mid-sip, and his throat convulsed. He sputtered and choked as the beer slipped down the wrong pipe.
"I'm going to touch you," said Ethan softly, when David could breathe again. "With my fingers and my mouth, until you think you'll die from the sheer pleasure of it. That you'll explode from it...until you do explode from it. Onto my tongue, or your belly, or my cock, or into my hands, or wherever I choose. And Davo?" Hazel eyes caressed green. "You're going to let me do it. You're going to ask me to do it."
And before David could think of a single thing to say, or even try to remember how to form words, Ethan was standing and tugging off his remaining shoe, letting it fall to the sand beside his abandoned beer. Then he walked toward the beach, clapping his hands and whistling for Bella.
David stared after him, his beer forgotten.
What planet was Ethan on to think David would let him do something like that, much less ask for it?
He tried to push away the image Ethan's words had created, but it was burned into his mind's eye. Ethan, kneeling between his legs, his dark eyes finding David's and holding them, gold flecks flashing, as he took David's throbbing cock slowly, deeply into his mouth... Ethan, sucking and tonguing him, driving him to the very edge of control---and then forcing him beyond it. Ethan, holding his hips in two strong hands, his fingers curved firmly around his bare ass cheeks as David shuddered and jerked and spurted deep into his throat, crying out from the intensity and intimacy of the act.
David took several determined swallows from the can in his hand. It might as well have been water.
On the beach, Ethan and Bella were engaged in a good-natured tug-of-war over Ethan's shoe. With a shout of triumph, Ethan finally managed to wrest it away from the retriever and hold it high over his head. The canvas was slimy with seawater and dog spit, and the rubber sole was lovingly gnawed.
Barking, she whipped around Ethan's legs like a furry golden cyclone until he toppled over her and landed on his butt in the wet sand. Gleefully, she launched herself at his face, licking and nudging him with her cold nose. He shrieked laughter as he tried to push her away and find something solid beneath himself to push up against. A shallow incoming wave caught him as he wriggled on the sand with the dog, and though he'd managed to find his feet before it withdrew, it sucked sand out from beneath him as it went, unbalancing him so that another bump from Bella sent him right back down into the surf.
David's breath caught in his chest as he stared at Ethan. The man was a walking disaster area. Damp hair framed his head in tufty little spikes. Wet sand caked on his shoulders, elbows, the backs of his legs, and the seat of his jeans. A light dusting sugared his cheek and his eyelashes. His bare chest hitched with laughter as he held one protesting hand up to the dog, trying to push her away and groaning as she endeavored to coat his chin and nose with dog slobber.
He looked ridiculous.
Clownish.
Impossibly gawky.
Hopelessly uncool.
Heart-stoppingly beautiful.
Despite Bella's enthusiastic attacks, Ethan managed to get to his knees, his legs spread slightly to brace himself against both the dog and the shifting sands beneath him, and unbuttoned his wet shirt, peeling it away from his chest. David's gaze lingered helplessly on the bare skin there, tracing the curves and swells of muscle, the gorgeous, sun-kissed skin marred only by that single angry red line. From his neck dangled the golden chain and three keys that David had not yet seen him take off, and he wondered fleetingly again what locks they fit.
Ethan began wringing the wet shirt out over the sand, the muscles in his arms and shoulders flexing smoothly as he twisted and squeezed. Barking, Bella began leaping and snapping at the dangling arms of the shirt, ready to engage in whatever new game this might be. He jerked the shirt up and out of her reach, laughing and admonishing her.
His eyes flicked idly over to David's---ridiculous dog; but what's a guy to do?---but whatever he saw on David's face in turn made him freeze in mid-tussle with the oblivious retriever.
"Bella." Suddenly, Ethan's voice was low. Commanding. At the change in tone, the dog instantly abandoned her playful crouch and assumed a focused, waiting posture, ears pricked forward. Ethan's eyes never left David's. "Go home."
Bella barked once, spun, and raced away down the beach.
Caught in that smoldering, unblinking gaze, David could only stare in alarm as Ethan rose from the beach and started to climb purposefully up the sandy incline toward him.
Oh, fuck. What now?
Heart pounding, David retreated from the unmistakable intent in the other man's eyes, bending and straightening each knee mechanically, digging his heels into the sand and kicking backwards on autopilot until he felt his back come up against something hard and unyielding. A tree, he realized dimly. Nowhere to go.
Reaching the perimeter of the shade, Ethan dropped to his knees. Slinging his wet shirt over one shoulder, he fell forward onto the backs of his hands, leaning on long, strong arms and arching his back just slightly as he crawled toward David, graceful as a leopard slinking through tall grass toward its prey.
Hypnotized, David watched him approach, his left knee still drawn up to his chest.
"Ethan. Don't." His voice cracked a little. "Seriously."
"Seriously, don't what?" Ethan's voice was liquid, wicked innocence.
David drew his other knee up so that his legs formed a bony barrier between himself and the other man. It felt ridiculously inadequate. "Don't whatever you're thinking of."
"But, Davo. What I'm thinking of is so interesting." Ethan hooked one arm easily under David's bent legs and pulled hard. With a startled cry, David felt himself slide down onto his back into the cool sand, his legs pushing out straight as he tried to right himself, twisting to seek some purchase in the slick sand with his elbows.
In a flash, Ethan had straddled David's legs and was crouched over him, the wet denim of his thighs pressed tightly to either side of David's hips. David bucked and twisted, but couldn't unseat the larger man. One flailing wrist knocked against a half-finished can of beer---his? Ethan's? ---and he heard the sound of liquid gurgling out onto the thirsty ground.
"Don't worry." Ethan ignored David's wriggling and reached out with a long arm to pluck the can up before it had completely emptied. "I've got it."
He twisted the can down into the sand by his thigh so that it was within easy reach. Then he slid his hands up under the edge of David's T-shirt, finding the soft, quivering skin of his bare stomach and sides and stroking it with knowing thumbs. At his mere touch, David's whole body jerked involuntarily and his chin lifted, his head pressing back into sand.
"Damn it, Ethan," he exhaled on a tremulous breath. His hands found Ethan's forearms, pushed at them weakly. "Hang on. Let's talk about this."
"The problem with drink," quoted Ethan, plucking up the beer can with one hand while using the other to push David's shirt up higher, exposing his midriff, "is that it makes men mistake words for thought."
Using one arm to block David's protesting hands, he tipped the can slowly over David's exposed skin, let the golden, sticky liquid pool in his belly button and the hollow of his stomach. The beer was still cold and fizzy, and David gasped at the sensation: icy, crackling, electric.
"That's according to Samuel Johnson, of course." Ethan leaned down over David's quivering stomach. "And Hemmingway tells us to always do when we're sober what we said we'd do when we were drunk...because that way, we'll learn to keep our mouths shut." His lips closed over the little puddle of beer, his tongue sliding tantalizingly over the skin just above David's waistband before dipping suddenly, shockingly, into his belly button.
David gasped and arched his back. Jesus.
"Christ, you taste good." Ethan's tongue swept over David's shivering skin in long, fiery strokes.
David writhed a little beneath the other man's insistent ministrations. "Well, damn it, that's not exactly an accomplishment, considering that you keep pouring food on me!"
Ethan tipped his forehead onto David's stomach and laughed, his shoulders shaking. Then he returned his mouth to David's belly, and continued to suck and stroke and bite gently at him, sliding the shirt ever higher as his fingers danced over bare skin, sending little electric shocks wherever they touched. His lips closed on each nipple in turn, flicking and tonguing and sucking at the sensitive buds until David's knees drew up of their own accord, his legs spreading slightly and his heels pressing hard into the sand, lifting his hips unconsciously.
Damn it. Once again, his cock was wide awake and throbbing almost painfully inside pants that seemed suddenly much too tight. If he could just get away somewhere and release some of this pressure, he'd be all right.
But there was no getting away from the pressure, no getting away from Ethan's roving hands, his knowing fingers, his warm, wet mouth. David's hands beat weakly at Ethan's shoulders, pausing, suddenly nerveless, whenever a new sensation paralyzed him. When Ethan's lips and tongue found the ridge of his collarbone, the hollow at the base of his throat, and began to suckle him there, David gave a whimper that sounded to his own ears like half ecstasy, half exasperation. He tried to choke it off as soon as he birthed it, his hands stilling for a moment in Ethan's soft, damp hair.
"No, Davo." Ethan's voice was assuring and amused. "That's a good thing. Let it out." His fingers tented lightly on David's sides high up under his arms now, his thumbs stroking the quivering skin at the junction of arms and chest and then stretching to brush first one and then the other saliva-glistened nipple with a dizzying, feather touch. "For this exercise, little animal noises are not only permitted, but encouraged."
David sucked in air and writhed. "God, where's the damn dog when I need her? The one with special dispensation to bite you?"
"I had to send her away. I thought you'd be...nervous...with an audience." Ethan laughed gently against the corner of David's mouth, his lips so close now to David's own, so close.
David turned his head slightly away. "That's...just...that's stupid. There's nothing to see. And nothing to be nervous of. About. For. Whatever. I'm not...not afraid of you."
"Really? You're not the slightest...bit...afraid...of this?"
One finger curled around David's chin and tugged his jaw gently back around. Helplessly, David stared into Ethan's eyes, dark with intent, at the little grains of sand that sparkled on the lids and stuck to damp, spiky lashes.
"Are you sure?" Ethan tipped his forehead against David's. His voice was low and a little unsteady. "Because you know I can't just walk away from a fear response. I have to push through it. Get a positive reaction."
David panted and blinked up into those smoldering eyes. They were above him---so how could he feel as if he were falling into them?
"Fine. Here's a positive reaction for you. I'm positive that I want you to take your stupid theories about programming and...and submission, and soothing savage beasts, and shove them up your ass, and I'm positive that I want you to take me back to the house and leave me alo---"
His voice broke off into a sharp, hissing intake of breath as Ethan, without dropping his gaze from David's, shifted his hips, brushing David's imprisoned cock briefly--- accidentally? unconsciously?---with his own crotch.
"I'm sorry." Ethan raised an apologetic eyebrow. "I missed that last part. What were you saying?"
"I said that I'm positive," repeated David carefully when he could trust his voice again, concentrating on each syllable, holding onto the words as if they were life preservers in this sucking, roaring whirlpool of sensation, "that I want you to take me back to the house and leave me---"
Again, Ethan's hips moved, and again, David's words evaporated into an insensate groan as his body responded immediately, helplessly, his pelvis rocking upward to seek Ethan's.
"Again, I apologize." Ethan sounded not even remotely sorry as he leaned forward and tugged the shirt off David's body, right over his head, sliding it off slack, nerveless arms. His eyes dropped to David's bare chest and watched it rise and fall for a few moments as David struggled unsuccessfully to slow his excited breathing. Ethan held David's left wrist loosely in one hand while he drew the backs of his fingers slowly down the soft, sensitive skin on the inside of David's arm, all the way down the armpit and the ticklish skin at his side. David's body jerked and quivered at the caress.
"It's very rude of me to keep interrupting you like this. One more time. What was it you thought you wanted?"
"Damn it, Eath, I said that I want you to take me---"
"Oh, Davo. That makes two of us." He closed his mouth over David's, and the shock of it surged through him like a lightning bolt.
The world fragmented into flashes of awareness, snapshots of sensation. He could feel sand and stubble rubbing gently against his chin and the corner of his lips. Ethan's hands. The pressure, the gentle suction of Ethan's mouth, was the most compelling sensation he had ever known, and he responded helplessly, unable to hold back a whimpery groan from somewhere deep in his throat.
And then Ethan's tongue, God help me, thought David, tumbling helplessly in the whirling maelstrom of sensation, it's Ethan's tongue, Ethan's, was licking and sucking at his bottom lip, and then teeth were nibbling at it, so gently, so tenderly, tugging and coaxing David to let his mouth open, to relax, to permit entry...to invite entry.
"Come on." Ethan whispered the words against his open mouth. "Give me your tongue."
Powerless to refuse, David obeyed, moaning involuntarily against Ethan's tongue as it slid against his own, stroking and sucking at him. He could taste alcohol and sun and the salty sweetness of Ethan's mouth. His fingers clenched in the sand, but there was no resistance there, just grains that poured away between his fingers and left him clutching nothing.
He closed his eyes and sucked in breath in shallow, shaky pants. He felt lightheaded and out of control, teetering on the edge of some steep precipice. He felt as if he might come just from this. Just from having Ethan's mouth on his. At his sides, his hands fluttered and twitched. He couldn't think what to do with them. He wanted to bury them in Ethan's hair and pull him closer, but he couldn't let himself do that.
Could he?
"Hang on, David. I'll give you something to hold onto."
David kept his eyes closed. He felt Ethan take his wrists and pin them on the sand above his head, holding them there in one hand. He felt twisting and vibration in Ethan's body as the man leaned forward and did something he couldn't see. Each time the lower half of Ethan's body brushed or rubbed against David's pelvis, he had to stifle a groan.
"Open your hands for me."
David's fingers uncurled of their own volition, exposing his palms. Into each one, he felt Ethan press what felt like a length of strong, damp fabric and then close his hands around it. The cut along his fingers stung and then quieted as his fingers clenched.
"Now, hold tight onto that, and don't let go until I tell you you can."
The position Ethan had placed him in, with his elbows bent lightly and his arms extended loosely over his head, arched David's upper back slightly, thrust his chest up and forward. He felt Ethan sliding down his body again, felt his lips close again on a quivering nipple, and he jumped. His arms tensed and his hands clenched around the cloth he held, feeling sudden resistance to his reflexive downward pull.
His eyes flew open and he tilted his head back, stared upward at what he was holding. It was Ethan's shirt, he realized, still damp from the surf. Ethan had wrapped it around the base of the tree and closed each of David's hands around an arm, one extending from each side of the trunk. As long as he held onto the cloth in his hands, he would be unable to lower his arms farther than the tough wet chambray would stretch.
David stared at the tree, at the shirt, and let the implications shudder through him with each pounding heartbeat.
His hands were not tied.
His hands were only...restrained...as long as he obeyed Ethan's command to hold on to the cloth. He could let go at any time. He could let go and use his hands to---to what? To stop Ethan? Did he want to? Did he even think he could?
Yes. Far from making him feel safe and empowered, the realization made him feel boneless and even more panicky. The truth was that he was certain he could stop Ethan, even now---because some deep, primal part of him understood that what Ethan wanted from him was not just a frantic, forced sex act on the beach, but something much scarier.
Ethan wanted him to submit. To surrender. To relinquish control of his own body without knowing what Ethan would do with that control...without knowing what it would mean, now or afterwards.
To trust.
His heart pounded against his ribs, and he could feel the insistent pulse everywhere---in his ears, in his chest, in his cock. It felt like a drum. I can't, it seemed to say. I can't, I can't, I can't.
"Davo?" Ethan's voice was low. Questioning.
David was unable to respond. He felt paralyzed, caught in a web between what his brain shrieked he didn't want, mustn't want, and what his body ached for. You're not GAY, yelled his mind, ticking instantly and defensively down a list of every woman he'd ever been attracted to, slept with, satisfied and been satisfied by.
But none of them had been Ethan. He'd never wanted any of them the way he wanted Ethan.
And also, his brain insisted, abandoning the first tact and leaping effortlessly to its second line of defense, you're not some kind of pathetic, twisted little pervert who needs to be tied down and dominated to get aroused.
But damn it, he was aroused---so very aroused, more than he could ever remember being. His need, the heat in his groin, was so sharp and insistent that he thought it might split him in half.
He's going to hurt you, David's brain shrilled, sensing itself losing control of the situation entirely. That little voice of reason was getting harder and harder to hear over the rush of blood and mindless, pulsing need, but it tried valiantly nonetheless to keep sounding all the alarms. He doesn't want you. He wants to humiliate you, to get back at you. Give in to him now, and he'll punish you for it later.
Maybe. But that's later, said the other voice, the one he tried so hard in his daily life to suppress. Unlike the logical part of his brain, the part that was terrified of losing control, this voice was getting easier to hear. In fact, it was getting harder to ignore. This voice coaxed and reassured him, rationalizing the choice he wanted to make---needed to make.
You can have what you need, here and now. It's only sex, David. A simple physical release. No different than any you've ever had with a woman, or by your own hand. It doesn't have to mean anything. It doesn't have to give him any power.
The voice was insidiously persuasive, but David thought that last part might be a lie.
He brought his eyes up to Ethan's and shuddered at the fierce, almost predatory desire he saw there. No, there was nothing simple about any of this. What he saw in those hazel eyes was pure hunger---to brand, to claim, to possess.
"Davo," said Ethan again, and David knew he had to choose. If he hesitated any longer, Ethan would pull away from him. He didn't think he could bear it if that happened---his whole body was throbbing now, caught somewhere between pleasure and pain.
Stretching his arms higher over his head, he twisted his wrists so that the arms of the shirt he held wrapped around them and provided greater stability to pull against. He flicked his gaze away from the shattering promise in Ethan's eyes.
"Oh, do what you want." He tried to sound disinterested, resigned even, in spite of the wildfire that was raging now in every vein, every sinew, every cell of his body. "You will, anyway."
Ethan sighed and curled his beautiful lips into a sardonic half-smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. He leaned back a little, careful not to make any contact with David's swollen cock this time. "Sorry. You're going to have to do better than that."
It took David a few moments to understand what Ethan had said, and then every nerve ending in his body seemed to erupt in a soundless wail of disappointment. His body had sensed the nearness of relief, had been counting on it, and Ethan's withdrawal felt like the withdrawal of hope. He imagined this was how a drowning man might feel if a life preserver were first thrown down to him where he bobbed, helpless in the grip of pounding waves, and then yanked cruelly away. The distress was a physical pain.
He squirmed. His hips kept rising of their own accord, his crotch seeking Ethan's, but Ethan carefully held his own body away. David's face flushed from the humiliation of being brought to this fever pitch and then denied. His whole body burned and ached and craved solace. Was this Ethan's plan? To make him beg and then leave him hanging?
But if it were, would Ethan still be waiting, still straddling him and staring down at him, his own expression such a mix of smoldering desire, sharp-edged frustration, and tender compassion that it made him want to cry?
"Damn it. I don't know...what you...want from me!" His fingers clenched around wet fabric as he tried to distract himself from the insistent need pulsing through his body. Whatever it was, whatever Ethan demanded, he would give. He would do anything.
"You do know. I want the words."
David squeezed his eyes shut. Anything but that.
"But I know you want...this. I'm telling you I won't fight you or try...try to stop you. Isn't that enough?"
Ethan stroked his sensitive sides again, making him quiver and gasp. "You know it isn't. They're important words. They're just as important for you to say as for me to hear. If you can't say them yet...then you're not ready for me to do this."
He slipped one thumb beneath David's waistband and stroked the sensitive, shuddering skin there, coming within a hair's breadth of touching the head of his cock. David was unable to stifle a trembling sob of pure frustration.
Ethan drew in a shaky breath of his own. His voice was husky with need. "I want it, too, David. I want you to be ready. But I can't let you consent just by failing to push me away. I won't deserve your trust if I let you lie to yourself, or to me."
He let his eyes fall to the insistent bulge at David's crotch, let his hands rest lightly at the side of David's hips. He swallowed, hard. Then he looked back at David, and his eyes, dark and dilated with desire as they were, were determined. "You have to give me control. Explicitly. I won't take it until you do."
David moaned and closed his eyes, gritting his teeth and trying to hold still against the storm raging inside himself. Damn you, Ethan, help me.
"Please," he heard Ethan whisper huskily, and he felt the other man stroke the soft skin of his belly. "Please let go. Let me give you what you need." David had a sudden vision of the devil himself---an impossibly handsome devil---tempting him with everything he had ever wanted or could ever want. "All you have to do is ask."
He opened his eyes and stared up into Ethan's---into those hauntingly familiar eyes that had never stopped smiling out at him from his dreams, not in all the years he'd spent running from them. He felt as if he were drowning now in their tender depths.
And within himself, he felt some resistance start to crack, to give way beneath this irresistible onslaught of persuasion, sensation, and raw animal need.
"All right." His throat constricted around the words, trying to swallow them back even as he spoke them in a small, barely audible voice. "I'm...I'm asking, all right?"
Ethan caught his breath and grew very still. But still, he waited, rigid, for some signal that had not yet been sent.
David tried again. "Ethan, please." A blush, hot and unstoppable, colored his cheeks.
Ethan's voice was rough velvet. "What do you want me to do? I need you to say it."
David felt something tight and knotted deep inside him begin to unravel beneath Ethan's unmoving vigil and the intensity of his own desire...felt some part of himself let go its lifelong stranglehold on his inhibitions and fall away into a molten center of heat and pure, unadulterated want.
He managed it at last, his voice no more than a whisper. "Please...make me...make me come."
A storm of emotions flickered across Ethan's face, each one so fleeting, so transitory, that David might not have recognized it if he hadn't spent years studying that beautiful face. Relief. Joy. Determination.
Ethan shifted his weight to one knee, lifting the other from the outside of David's hip and wedging it between his legs, using it to nudge them slightly open. Then he brought his other leg too, inside the warm valley of David's spread thighs. David felt exposed and vulnerable and embarrassed. Despite his resolve, he had to force himself to keep from tensing, from trying to close Ethan out.
Ethan's hands traveled lightly up David's thighs to the fly of his jeans, nimble fingers tugging and twisting to unfasten each button. The release of pressure on his imprisoned erection was such a relief that David groaned aloud, pressing his head back. He could feel his cock springing forward, crowding into the opening Ethan had created.
Touch it, he begged silently, wildly, feeling a cool breeze blow teasingly across every nerve ending of his exposed cockhead. Oh, please, touch me.
"Tell me what you want, David."
"I want...I want..." He squirmed in embarrassment and need. He felt so naked, so exposed. Why were the words so hard to say? It wasn't as if he could hide his desire from Ethan. His raging erection made a lie of any claim of indifference.
"Is it this? Do you want this?" Ethan tented his fingers down around the top of David's cock, gently stroking upwards along all sides of the velvety helmet until his fingers met together again at the top and lifted away.
"Y-ess." David's cock strained urgently up after Ethan's fingers.
"Then say it."
"Please...please touch me." David's voice exploded from him in an exhalation of complete surrender. "Oh, God, I need you to touch me."
Ethan's fingers closed around David's shaft, and he almost screamed from the relief of the contact. He could not remember a previous sexual encounter this intense. All his erotic nerve endings were vibrating in tune beneath Ethan's hand.
His balls drew up involuntarily, swelling and tightening in anticipation, and he despaired as he felt the first stirrings of a powerful wave starting to crest, threatening to pull him over the edge long before he was ready to go. He was going to come. He was going to spurt all over Ethan's hand like some kind of randy teenager.
"Not yet." Ethan took his hand away.
Was he kidding? Did he think David could control this?
"You can control it." David jerked, wondering how Ethan had read his mind. "You have to, or I won't give you my fingers again."
He was shocked to feel his body responding to Ethan's words. The treacherous wave seemed to freeze in mid-build. He lay stunned, his mind blank, afraid to move a muscle, a finger, a cell, lest he set the interrupted explosion back into motion.
"But you...you said you'd give me what I need."
"I will. I am. You have to trust me to know what that is." Ethan dropped his eyes. "See?" he said softly. "Your body knows. You may not be sure yet whether you can trust me, but your cock is."
David blinked. He realized that the immediate danger had passed. His penis still lay throbbing on his belly, hard and tight as iron, but he no longer felt as if he was about to be dragged helplessly along on the back end of an orgasm with a mind of its own, a disorganized, muted explosion that would peak too soon and fizzle quickly without his full involvement. For the moment, he was back in control.
No. Scratch that.
Ethan was.
The thought both terrified and thrilled him.
"I'm going to take your pants off now. Keep your hands exactly where they are. If you let go of that shirt, everything stops."
Then Ethan was scooting backwards in the sand on his knees, away from the pulsing center of David's heat, his need. David's breath caught in distress, but Ethan didn't go far.
"Tilt your knees together and lift your hips."
He complied without hesitation, pushing up from the sand with both heels and pulling hard on the shirt in his hands for added stability. He felt Ethan's thumbs hook into the front pockets of his unfastened jeans and tug them down. As the confining jeans were dragged completely from his upper legs, David began to let his thighs fall open again and his hips settle back to earth.
"No, David. Keep your hips lifted until I tell you to drop them."
At the command in Ethan's voice, David felt his cock jerk. He lay on his shoulders with his hips and lower back lifted off the ground, feeling the tension increasing, gathering in the backs of his thighs and his gluts. Dimly, he was aware that Ethan was spreading something on the ground beneath him.
Thank God for all the running. What if he'd spent the last three years just sitting at a computer instead of developing hard muscles that could handle this torture?
"All right. Relax."
Exhaling in relief, David let his hips fall and felt his ass land on soft fabric rather than cool, gritty sand. He realized that he was lying on his own T-shirt, and he felt a stab of gratitude to Ethan for this unexpected comfort. Distantly, he felt the other man tugging the jeans the rest of the way down his calves and off his body, and he was suddenly, shockingly aware that he was now lying completely naked and exposed to Ethan's eyes.
A flush rose, heating his throat and flaming his cheeks. He was lying here on the ground like some kind of trussed virgin sacrifice, totally naked in front of another man---a man who was still basically dressed. The disparity in their level of clothing only heightened David's awareness of the power differential between them. Swallowing, he tried to fight the urge to sit up and curl over his own erect cock in an attempt to hide his body from Ethan---or, at the very least, to let go of the shirt and cover himself with his own cupped hands. He was just barely able to make himself keep holding onto the shirt, but he couldn't stop himself from bending his knees up and tilting them together, trying to shield his most private parts from Ethan's unblinking gaze.
"No, don't." Ethan's voice was hot and intense. "Don't hide yourself from me. Spread your legs wide, and then bring your knees up toward your chest."
David shivered, realizing that the position Ethan was demanding would expose everything to the other man's gaze. Not just his erect cock and swollen balls, but the sensitive, slightly stretched skin beneath them, and most embarrassingly, the puckered pink ring between his cheeks.
"I....I don't think I can." He braced himself for Ethan's impatience.
"You can," Ethan said, and it was tender, murmured. He reached out and circled the veined length of David's cock with a gentle thumb and forefinger, ringing it expertly from base to tip and back again. David whimpered at the touch, automatically drawing up his knees and letting his legs fall slightly open in response.
Ethan nudged himself back between David's open legs and leaned down to lick and nibble at David's belly button. David felt something cool brush against his scrotum and jerked a little. The keys, he realized. When Ethan leaned forward, the keys on the chain around his neck dangled down and dragged over David's sac. Thinking about those keys reminded David exactly who was in charge here, and another unbidden rumble of excitement thundered through him. He groaned and lifted his hips slightly, felt his cock waving and straining eagerly toward Ethan's mouth.
God, what are you doing? Rational thought flashed through his head, shrieking. Do you really want another man to suck your cock?
Yes. Right now, he wanted this man to suck his cock. He wasn't sure he'd ever wanted anything more.
"See?" Ethan dipped slightly and used one shoulder and arm to push David's knees gently up toward his chest, rolling the backs of his thighs upward and exposing them to the caress of a strong hand. He watched David's face as he brought the hand closer and closer to the center, to the place where David's legs and cheeks came together. When he found it, he laid his warm hand all along that sensitive seam, the thumb curling up and underneath one side of David's scrotum. His palm hugged the sensitive stretch, his fingers lying lightly and possessively along the crack, and David cried out from the shock and pleasure of the intimate caress.
"Let me, David. Let me look at you."
David blushed furiously. He couldn't believe he was doing this. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited, mortified, for the inspection to be over.
"Open your eyes. You're hiding from me."
Well, yes. That was the whole point.
Suddenly, shockingly, he felt Ethan blowing warm air along his crevice, a soft but directed flow that tickled and cooled the musky skin. His scrotum contracted and spasmed slightly at the unfamiliar sensation, and he gasped. His eyes flew open and met Ethan's. The man had the audacity to grin.
"That's better. Now keep 'em open." His hands gripped the backs of David's thighs where they swelled into his nether cheeks, and pressed them gently but insistently farther apart from David's center, letting his gaze fall into David's open and exposed crack. He looked down into it for a long time.
David thought he might die from embarrassment. What was Ethan thinking? Was there something wrong with him down there? He squirmed and waited on pins and needles for Ethan to make some kind of joke.
"Davo?"
"What?"
"Don't come yet."
And Ethan brought his mouth down.
David's body jerked, and he keened helplessly.
Ethan's warm mouth sucked and tugged, gradually moving upward to take one of his balls deeply into that warm, clasping cavern. He spread one hand possessively over David's belly and slid the other beneath his bottom, the fingers splaying across the cheeks and the thumb resting lightly in the narrow valley between them. His thumb stroked, and his tongue circled and licked at the sensitive sac, tickling and tantalizing until David didn't think he could bear for it to continue another second...or for it to stop.
"Ethan." He tensed and shook his head from side to side. "I need...I have to..."
"Not yet." Now Ethan was kneeling right up close between David's legs, his knees pressed intimately against the backs of David's upturned thighs. David could feel the damp, rough denim of Ethan's jeans on his naked skin, a reminder of how completely bare and open he was in contrast to the other man.
"Not until I say you can. Trust me. I'm going to make it good for you."
David writhed, his whole body on fire. He stared into Ethan's eyes, tried to focus on them, to use them to tether himself to something solid in this hurricane of sensation.
"Eath... Jesus. What am I doing?"
"Exactly what you need to be." And then Ethan was grasping his penis, pulling it gently up from his belly and lowering his head until his lips were just touching the soft crown.
David couldn't tear his eyes away.
Ethan's tongue flicked out and gently tongued the little slit in the head of his cock, then slid languorously down and around the underside of the helmet. And then his tongue was pulling on David, and his lips were closing over the crown and pressing down over it, his head lowering impossibly farther and farther over the rigid shaft, and David was being sucked in, tugged in, to the pulsing, warm, wet cave of Ethan's mouth.
His whole body shook from pleasure. He could feel his toes tensing, curling as if they sought some kind of purchase in the empty air.
How was this happening? He felt suddenly, feverishly as if he were two people, one lying naked in the sand and the other watching the tableau disbelievingly. That was Ethan. His cock was in Ethan's mouth. Was he dreaming this?
Now Ethan was relaxing his throat muscles and taking David in even deeper, impossibly deep, his throat clenching and releasing David's engorged cock in little swallowy spasms while his tongue and lips gripped and licked at the base. David could feel hands curved beneath his ass, fingers pulling his cheeks gently apart and thumbs pressed tantalizing into the musky creases at the tops of his thighs, reaching occasionally forward to stroke his balls.
"Ahhhhhhh." He cried senselessly, arching his back and tilting back his head, his arms gripping even tighter on the shirt in his hands. The urge to drop it was overwhelming. He wanted, he needed, to reach down for Ethan's head, to grip it firmly and thrust hard into his mouth with powerful, rooting digs until he splattered semen deep into his throat.
If you let go of the shirt, everything stops.
He shuddered and panted and fought to hold on.
Between his legs, Ethan slowly pulled his mouth from David's cock, clenching and releasing the throbbing shaft with his lips and fingers all the way up and finally laying it gently back on David's belly. It lay there, purple and harder than he could ever remember it, twitching and shiny with saliva. A sudden sea breeze reached them, and he jerked from the cool finger of air that licked along his turgid length.
He could feel a trickle of pre-come seeping from his tip now. He looked and saw a little puddle of it glistening stickily on his belly. It embarrassed him, this fresh evidence of how firmly he was caught in whatever trap Ethan had set for him...of how completely he was within Ethan's control at this moment.
Later. Worry about it later. For now, just be.
He raised his eyes to Ethan's. They were hooded and hazy. As he watched, Ethan raised an index finger to his mouth and sucked on it, pulling it back shiny and saliva-wet. Slowly, Ethan reached the wet finger to the little spill of fluid on David's belly and slid through it, turning and stirring gently to coat the fingertip. The intimacy of the gesture made David's breath come faster.
Without breaking David's gaze, Ethan slid his hand down, down. David could feel Ethan's other hand spreading his cheeks apart, the palm pressing firmly and tantalizingly against the base of his balls...and then, that moistened fingertip, pressing gently but firmly on the shrinking pucker of his anus.
Instinctively, reflexively, he clenched his sphincter muscle tight and tried to close his thighs, making a guttural noise of protest, of fear.
"Ethan..." No one had ever touched him there. "Eath, I---"
"Shhhh." Ethan murmured soothingly, stroking and fingering him gently, maddeningly, along the surface of his rim, the insides of his thighs, the base of his shaft, the sac of his balls, the musky inner skin of his crevice, setting off a firestorm of sensations that made it impossible for David to hold onto any thought for longer than a splintering second. "You can. This is what you want. This is what you need."
Even as he spoke, Ethan was rubbing gently and insistently down along the skin beneath David's balls, flooding him with intense shivers of pleasure. Despite himself, David felt the tension draining from the back of his thighs, his legs falling open once more.
Then Ethan's mouth was on him again, sucking and tonguing his scrotum, sweeping the skin beneath the balls in long, raspy licks. One hand grasped David's shaft, a thumb sliding to the tip and pressing slightly into the wet slit, slicking itself with pre-come, and then sliding back down to rub gently against the ruddy glans. At the same time, suddenly, shockingly, David felt Ethan's tongue on his anus, darting around the outside rim and moistening the tight ring with saliva.
"Wait." He tensed again in trepidation. "I..."
In the next second, he had thrown his head back with a little scream and almost lifted his body off the ground just by pulling on the shirt, the tendons in his arms standing out like ropes. Ethan had simultaneously squeezed his cock and thrust the tip of his tongue into David's ass, rimming him with little curling licks of pressure.
David panted as if he'd just run a four-minute mile, trying to catch his breath as the world righted itself again. What the hell? That had not just happened. He had just not had another man's tongue in his...in his...
Then Ethan was on his knees again, watching David's eyes as he took David's cock back into his mouth. At the same moment, not taking his eyes away from David's, he brought the wet index finger back to David's ring and laid it gently against the contracting pucker.
"Trust me, baby. Open for me." He ran his tongue around the tip of David's cock, letting it slide beneath the crown, and at the same time, began to press the slippery finger inside.
David gasped at the intrusion, the feeling of being stretched. His cock was thrumming, throbbing, pulsing in Ethan's mouth in little shocks of pleasure. At the same time, he could feel his body slowly opening to Ethan's fingertip, the tight ring of muscle that guarded his entrance reluctantly giving way to the implacable forward intrusion. There was an edge to the feeling of entry, a slight crushing sensation...not quite pleasure, not quite pain...but incredibly intense and compelling.
And it was just a finger. What else was Ethan going to want to push into him? He could feel himself tensing up again.
"Davo, stop thinking so much." Ethan spoke softly, lifting his head. "Stop worrying about what comes next. This is all we're doing right now. Just this. Just my finger. Right there...feel that? That's me, David. Inside you."
David drew in a shuddering breath and tried to blot out any thought. He could feel his body clenching, still surprised, around the intruding finger, the tight ring of muscle pulsing in time with his heart, his cock. It was such a little thing, a finger...until it was another man's finger, slid firmly and possessively into your ass and held there. Holding you there. He felt impaled on that slender, insistent digit. Stretched. Trapped.
Mastered.
The realization made his heart kick up a notch.
Gradually, he felt his thighs relax a little. The sense of pressure, of being filled, dominated, did not abate, but somehow, his body seemed to accept the intrusion.
And his cock was hard as a rock.
"See? You're taking it." Helplessly, David opened his eyes and stared into Ethan's, whimpering a little as Ethan began, with obliterating gentleness, to withdraw his finger and push it forward again. His other hand pumped David's cock, finding an easy rhythm. Squeeze. Thrust. Squeeze. Withdraw. Squeeze. Thrust.
David groaned, long and slow. He had never felt anything like this. He could feel a tightening in his groin, building.
"Feel how your body is clamping around me? How you're stroking my finger? Imagine what it's going to feel like when I'm fucking you with my cock."
David quivered, sucking in a shuddering breath.
Ethan's lips lowered, hovered above the glistening crown. David stared into his dark eyes and tried desperately to focus on his words.
"Now, baby," Ethan murmured. "Fly for me."
And then Ethan's lips were clamping over his penis again, were sliding down over his pulsing shaft, his tongue and palate gripping and squeezing him, his cheeks suctioning to provide the most delicious pressure. His hand gripped David's cock at its root, squeezing and stroking upward in short bursts of exquisite timing.
Against his nether cheeks, David could feel the firm press of Ethan's other hand, and inside him was Ethan's finger, buried now to the knuckle, stroking his channel and grinding against the tight, clamping opening...now drawn out on a slow, tantalizing slide...now pressing forward again...triggering again and again that thought-annihilating sensation of being invaded by someone stronger than himself, and of yielding to the invasion.
And now he could feel Ethan stirring the finger inside him from the base of his hand, increasing the crush of pressure on the ring of muscle at his most private opening and magnifying the sensation of being stretched wide.
David whipped his head to one side and bit his own arm, squeezing his eyes shut and tensing his shoulders in an effort to hold back the storm. The pressure, the pleasure, was everywhere. He wanted to come, knew he was going to have to come, but he also wanted to stay right here, forever, in the middle of this maelstrom of throbbing, building ache...in this dazzling place where he didn't have to think or worry but only feel.
On the other side of coming, he and Ethan would be adversaries again. On this side, they were...what?
Lovers?
Jesus. Suddenly his mind was warring against itself, full out. How had he let this happen? He couldn't give someone else this kind of power. Not even Ethan. Especially not Ethan.
Because Ethan didn't want this. Ethan didn't want him. Not really. Maybe this was revenge, maybe it was an experiment, but either way, it wasn't real. Letting Ethan do this now was just opening himself up to all the pain he'd run away from.
All the pain he'd given up everything to avoid.
"I...don't think I can do this." He fought now to hang on---to take back control of himself, of his senses.
"You can." Ethan lifted his mouth briefly from David's glistening cock and nuzzled his belly. "Let yourself have what you need, baby. Let me give it to you."
"I...uhhh....uhhh." David felt himself going under the waves, and the sound seemed to be yanked up from a secret place, one that was deep and low and liquid and lost.
Shockingly, then, he felt Ethan bend his buried finger and stroke him firmly and knowledgeably somewhere deep inside, rubbing some sensitive, magic spot...and the effect was immediate and explosive. Heavy, itchy pressure ballooned up and up and up, pulling him irresistibly with it.
Dimly, he was aware of Ethan's mouth covering his cock again, sucking him deep and tonguing his jerking shaft. And then the crisis was on him, and he was powerless to stop it. His buttocks tensed and flexed, and his pelvis rocked hard up against Ethan's lips, thrusting as deeply into the other man's mouth as he could. He threw back his head and cried out, long and hard, as the unstoppable rush of semen needled up through his cock like a hot, bright wire, shooting from his pulsing tip to splash in violent spurts against the back of Ethan's throat.
He could feel his whole body convulsing in a powerful orgasm that seemed to go on forever. His channel contracted and convulsed around Ethan's wicked finger, and his cock jerked and shuddered with the force of each eruption. Reflexively, he arched his back and pulled hard against the shirt, letting his hips piston forward again and again as he shot fiercely into Ethan, felt the other man's throat muscles work his shaft, milking it, as he swallowed.
Finally, David lay still, his limbs suffused with languor, his body still trembling and twitching in little aftershocks of pleasure.
"Jesus." He shuddered again. "God."
Distantly, he felt Ethan pulling his mouth from his cock. Another aftershock jolted his exhausted body, and Ethan used the spasm to slide his finger gently away. David felt himself clenching and gripping at the finger as it withdrew, and when it was gone, he felt suddenly, strangely empty.
Almost bereft.
He was starting to feel other things as well. Less welcome things. As the last echoes of pleasure faded, a rising tide of self-awareness began to fill the space where need had raged unchecked only moments before.
"Jesus," he said again, and now he could hear mortification in his own voice. No longer caught in the iron grip of intense sexual need, his mind raced to replay recent events on a horrifying mental video. Had he really allowed---no, asked, practically begged---Ethan to suck him off?
Had he really just surrendered control of his body and his will to the man who had kidnapped him?
Had he really made himself that vulnerable to the only person on earth with more power to hurt him than himself, and every reason to do so?
Oh, God, had he really let Ethan finger-fuck his ass?
Yes, screamed his rational brain angrily. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I tried to tell you!
Yes, whispered a deeper voice. Yes, and it was better than any other sex you've ever had. Better than you ever imagined sex could be.
He wanted to yell. He wanted to run away. He wanted to punch Ethan in the nose.
He wanted to do it all again.
He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. He longed to pull up his knees and curl away, but Ethan was still kneeling between his legs.
"David." He felt a gentle hand stroke his belly lightly, and he jerked away.
"Don't touch me."
A mocking echo rang in his ears. Touch me. Touch me. Touch me.
The fingers stilled. After a moment, he heard Ethan sigh---a long, resigned exhalation---and felt him pull his hand away. Despite his words, David immediately wished it back. His belly felt cold and exposed without Ethan's warm touch.
"David, look at me."
Uh-uh. No way. Not gonna happen.
"Come on. Open your eyes. I need to talk to you."
It was so much easier to ignore Ethan when he couldn't see him. How had he never realized before how underrated eyelids were?
"Damn it. Open up, or I swear I'll finger your ass again."
Good. Go ahead.
Damn it.
He snapped his eyes open and staring unwillingly up into Ethan's. In those gold-flecked depths, he saw hard determination, unslaked desire, and a flash of pain, quickly buried. He realized he could still feel Ethan's cock, lying ramrod straight through his jeans, against the back of his thigh. He felt hot and unsettled and pissed off.
Yeah, he'd go with pissed off. Pissed off was safe.
"Well, what is it, Ethan? Are you going to fuck me now? Tell yourself it isn't rape because I...because you think I wanted you to suck me off?"
Ethan flinched as if David had slapped him. Then his eyes narrowed, and he smiled tightly.
"I'm not the one with the bad habit of telling myself things that aren't true. And I said I would give you what you need. Getting fucked isn't what you need. Not yet."
"Here we go with the bullshit mind games again. What I need is for you to leave me alone."
"For once, you're exactly right. Except that you also need this."
He laid something cool and hard on David's chest. It glittered there, metallic and shiny, flashing back light as his chest rose and fell. A key.
The bronze key from Ethan's neck chain.
"I don't really want to give you this. But I know you. If I'd left you any way to run from me, you'd be half a continent away by now. And if I don't give you a way to punish yourself now, you'll find one. I'd rather it be this than something worse."
"Punish myself? For what?"
"For letting yourself experience a little happiness. For accepting a little pleasure from me."
"God. Full of yourself much?"
"The key fits the room with the blue door. You'll find what you need there. Be careful of the steps down. Light switch is on the right."
"What I need? You're giving me a key to a satellite phone with the Coast Guard and Interpol on speed dial? And all I had to do was let you suck my dick? Jeez, you should have said something earlier."
The words hung in the air like unpleasant smoke. For a second, Ethan looked stricken, as if David had hit him in the face. Then the blank mask fell over his eyes again, and he smiled tightly. "Seriously, David. Go easy."
"Seriously, Ethan. Go to hell." David felt himself ratcheting up and up, even though he wasn't sure exactly what they were arguing about. "You don't own me, and you don't tell me what to do."
"Oh?" Again, he caught that transitory flash of sadness in Ethan's eyes before the smile turned mocking. "Then why are you still holding onto my shirt?"
Cheeks on fire, David dropped the shirt ends as if they were vibrating rattlesnake tails. He folded over himself and scooted backwards in the sand, grabbing up the T-shirt he'd been lying on and draping it over his crotch in a futile attempt to look---and feel---a little less naked.
Ethan shook his head in exasperation and rose to his feet, his hands moving to fumble at the buttons of his own fly.
"What are you doing?" David's voice squeaked a little as Ethan yanked down his jeans. Freed from confinement, his still-erect cock wagged in the air. David couldn't stop staring at it.
He refused to imagine how it would feel to have that massive organ pressing inside him. Refused to imagine Ethan holding his hips firmly as he pushed forward, nuzzling David's neck with gentle lips and tensing his shoulders with the effort of pushing past the tight anal ring.
Would it hurt?
Would he care?
"Oh, relax." Ethan shucked unselfconsciously out of his pants and left them in a heap on the sand. "I'm going for a much-needed swim. You obviously need some alone time, and I need to...to cool off." He looked down at himself meaningfully. "Have a nice afternoon."
Without another word, he strode down to the beach and pushed into the surf, one hand holding his distended cock firmly against his belly. Waist-deep, he threw himself forward, his arms pumping the water furiously as he stroked away.
David stared after him for a while. Then he gazed down at the little key in his palm.
The room with the blue door. You'll find what you need.
"Fuck you, Ethan," he yelled at the uncaring trees, the empty beach, the cloudless blue sky. "I don't need anything from you!"
He clenched his fists and felt the key's tiny teeth press into the flesh of his thumb. I should just throw this key into the goddamn ocean and be done with it.
But he didn't.
He walked back to the house alone. On autopilot, he'd dressed again in the jeans and T-shirt, had even gathered up Ethan's jeans, the cooler and the beer cans. He wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe he just didn't want to remember the beach as having been left littered with junk.
Not that he'd be remembering the beach, or even giving it another thought, ever. Particularly not late at night when he was in bed alone, not thinking about Ethan.
When he reached the house, Bella got to her feet from where she'd been lying on the front porch, tail wagging, and barked a friendly greeting at him. She leaned against his legs, alternately glancing up at him and back down the little stretch of beach.
He knelt and hugged her. "Sorry, Bells. It's just me. The lunatic of the house will be home later."
At least, he hoped so. Once again, his mind flashed on images of sharks...riptides...sudden, debilitating cramps...drowning...and a cold blade of fear slipped into his belly. God, what if something happened to that maddening, arrogant son of a bitch?
What if something happened to Ethan?
"It'll be okay." He stroked Bella's ears and wondered if she felt more reassured than he did. "Your master will be back soon."
She thumped a tail against the porch and gave him a knowing look. He could read it astonishingly easily. What do you mean, my master, Kimosabe?
He stared at her with a jaundiced eye. "Oh, what do you know? You're just a dog."
She licked his nose.
When he stood at last in front of the blue door, the little bronze key was still biting into his thumb.
He wasn't so sure he wanted to fit it into the lock. Cold and hard in his hand, the key felt like hope. Like a promise. Like it could be anything. Actually finding out what he had been given a key to, on the other hand, was likely to prove...unsettling. He wasn't sure how much more unsettled he could stand to be.
What if it was a key to a phone? Or to a hangar with a helicopter and waiting pilot?
Then he'd go. Get the hell out.
Wouldn't he?
I don't really want to give you this, Ethan had said, and you'll find what you need.
But Ethan didn't know what he needed. Ethan didn't know him. Not really. He'd probably just gotten so used to having the world pucker up to kiss his ass that he'd become an unchecked egomaniac. More than likely, he'd filled a room full of blown-up posters of himself and a running loop of all his press conferences on a wall-sized bank of video screens. David bet the whole setup looked like something out of a bordello, all crushed red velvet and tasteless neon mood lighting.
Angrily, he shoved the key into the lock and twisted it. The bolt shot back easily, and the door sighed open. Groping the wall, he found the promised switch. Light filled the room.
It took him a few seconds to understand what he was looking at.
The room was spacious and quiet, simply finished with light grey walls and soft carpet. One whole wall was mirrored. There were no pictures. Spaced around the room were high-end cardio machines. A stair-stepper. A stationary bike. A NordicTrack. A treadmill.
A treadmill.
David's gaze fixed immediately on that machine, on its quiet promise of exhaustion-induced oblivion and relief from the ceaseless inner refrain of unwelcome voices and thoughts. His breath caught on a wave of gratitude so intense it almost knocked his knees out from under him.
Unaware how tightly he was gripping the stair railing, he approached the machine as if it were a mirage that might wink out at any moment.
It waited patiently---a massive, monolithic structure, sturdy, black and obviously expensive. He knew without turning it on that its motor would be whisper-quiet, even if he kicked it up to a high speed and a calf-busting incline.
Something about the machine's setup looked slightly strange to him, but he couldn't immediately pin down what. It appeared to be powered and functional. LED lights flickered and flashed over the control panel. A clean T-shirt and a pair of his own running shorts were draped over the handrail, along with a couple of pairs of socks.
And there was something else---a cardboard box sitting on the treadmill's deck.
He bent to pick it up and saw that it was addressed to Ethan at his corporate street address in Florida. Bewildered, he realized that he recognized the return address too. He opened the box and gaped at its contents.
A pair of worn running shoes.
His own running shoes. He recognized the mismatched yellow laces in the left shoe from a late-evening jury-rig he'd had to effect at a convenience store.
How on earth were these here?
An envelope was tucked between the shoes, his name scrawled over the front in a familiar hand. He tore it open with shaking hands and withdrew two pages of rose-scented stationery.
Dear David,
I hope these get to you in time to be of some use. Your friend Ethan called to say you'd forgotten to bring any with you on your vacation, and asked if you'd left a pair here by any chance. As it happens, I have come across several of your things and had been setting them aside for you, so it was no problem to pull these out of the box and send them on.
I must say, I was a little surprised you'd want them. I thought you were thinking to go to a tropical paradise in the Caribbean or someplace? More of a snorkeling spot than a place to jog, I'd have thought, but then, I know how you are about your running! I told Ethan you probably didn't want to hear from me and might prefer just to buy a new pair, but he reminded me it takes a while to break in running shoes, and said you'd rather have these. He gave me his FedEx account number to send them right away.
I couldn't believe I was talking to the Ethan Locke. At first I was sure someone must be having me on, so I insisted on calling him back. I dialed the number on the Locke Enterprises corporate website and asked to be transferred to his office. I really didn't expect anything more than to be laughed at and hung up on, but they put me straight through. I babbled like an idiot when I realized it was really him.
Your college roommate, David? For two years? Most people would never stop talking about a connection like that. But I guess it's just another of the things you keep locked away.
You were absolutely right when you said that everyone has some secrets...but I hope that some part of you realizes that I was right too, when I said that I didn't think you'd ever really feel comfortable holding me less than a full arm's length away. I hope you'll come to understand why that couldn't be enough for me. I need more from a lover and a life partner.
And David, whether you know it or not yet, so do you.
You are one of the kindest people I've ever known---generous and caring and funny---and I want only the best for you. I still hope that someday, you can find your way back to being my friend.
Wishing you many, many happy miles in these running shoes, and in your life,
Susan
Mechanically, he refolded the letter and stuffed it into the envelope, set it back in the box with the shoes. Then he fumbled at the buttons of his fly, his fingers barely feeling them, and tugged down his jeans. He kicked off the canvas shoes and yanked the running shorts from the machine. A small spool of gauze fell to the floor and rolled toward him. He saw another short note pinned to the roll of bandage, this one in a different hand.
D---
I know I can't talk you out of this, and that even trying would just make you more determined to hurt yourself. But I'm leaving this gauze here in the hope that you will make some effort to pad your cuts and blisters. Maybe it will help to remind you that you'll get farther if you take care of your feet.
---E
David blinked at the note. Then he ripped the end from the roll of gauze and began to wind his feet, his movements jerky and mechanical. So Ethan had known about Susan. He probably knew what her letter said too, though he hadn't opened it.
Susan. Something in David's chest twinged a little as he tugged on the socks. He still couldn't pretend to be devastated that she had ended things, but he had liked her---still liked her. Nothing had changed for him. She was the one who had given up on them. She was the one who had walked out on the relationship.
What relationship? You were barely more than casual friends. You never talked to her. Not in the whole eight months you went out. Not about anything important. Not about anything real. You went to dinner and the occasional movie. You drove her to work when her car was in the shop. You had sex.
"Good sex." He wedged the first bandaged foot into a shoe. "Great sex."
Really? Was it anything like what you felt with Ethan this afternoon on the beach?
A shudder of remembered pleasure rippled through his body.
He grimaced and yanked angrily at the shoe's laces. No. It was nothing like with Ethan. Susan had respected his personal space. She would never have used anything she knew about him to trick him---to get inside his head and make him think about things he wasn't ready to think about, or do things he wasn't ready to do.
The lace snapped in his hands and he glared at it.
Susan hadn't known him well enough to get inside his head. Or his life. Or his heart.
Not because she hadn't wanted to. Not because she hadn't tried.
Because he hadn't let her.
You always keep me a full arm's length away. She'd used the phrase at their final dinner too, her mournful blue eyes glistening a little as she spoke. Until the tears fell, he hadn't even realized that she was distraught---hadn't picked up on the warning signs that there was anything different about that particular evening's outing. He'd just kept pushing his organic radicchio around on his plate and letting his gaze roam the restaurant, quiet even for a Monday night, only half-listening to what she was saying.
Nothing new about that.
"Shut up." David tied the pieces of the broken lace together. People got comfortable with each other, even took each other a little for granted. It happened. It didn't mean they didn't love each other.
No. And it doesn't mean that they do. Particularly when it isn't a state of affairs that they gravitated into, but one that they never evolved from.
That night, when he'd finally grasped that Susan was ending things---that she was, as he'd once heard it described, "giving him his walking papers"---she'd suddenly had his full attention, possibly for the first time in their dating life.
He'd blinked across the booth at her sad but determined face and waited for the pain to hit. The lifeblood of country songs. The hurt. The heartbreak. But he'd felt nothing but a wistful pang that she hadn't waited until after dessert to drop the bombshell. The restaurant made a killer cheesecake.
His utter lack of emotion had terrified him.
That, and the little curl of relief.
For a while, he'd tried to trade afraid for defensive. His girlfriend was walking out on him, and now she was looking for a way to rationalize her behavior. She was probably fucking someone else. She'd probably been cheating on him for months already.
But he knew better.
It hadn't been Susan's fault that he'd held her at a distance.
And it hadn't been her imagination, either. Describing it as "a full arm's length" was another kindness on her part. The actual distance could probably have been measured in terms of light years.
He shoved on the other running shoe and jerked the laces tight. Well, and what of it? Keeping your distance was safer, for everyone involved. Look what happened when you let someone in. You formed...feelings. Dangerous attachments. Vulnerabilities. You lay yourself open to being rejected. Laughed at.
Left.
It was better to pre-empt that hurt. Better to leave before he left you.
She, he corrected himself, squeezing his eyes shut. Before SHE left you.
He stepped onto the treadmill, and only then did he realize what seemed strange about it. Unlike the other equipment in the room, it faced away from the mirrored wall. Staring down at the carpet, he could actually see the indentations where the rear wheels had once rested, the front wheels now biting into the carpet near those old marks.
Ethan had deliberately turned the treadmill around so that he would be able to run without having to face the mirror.
Yeah. You're right. The guy doesn't know you at all.
He jabbed at the buttons on the panel until the belt beneath his feet began to move. He leaned against the controls to increase speed until the belt was flying beneath him and his shoes were pounding on the sturdy deck, the shock of each impact rattling him from striking heel to hip to spine to shoulder to skull...shaking him. Interrupting thoughts before they could fully form. Every blow was like a hard reset of his tortured internal hard drive.
Finally. His whole body almost sagged with relief as it relaxed at last into the familiar ache, the exertion---into a pain that was only, blessedly, physical.
As long as he was moving, focusing solely on the intake of breath and the outflow of energy, on the simple exchange of calories and electrolytes for hard, forward momentum, the voices in his head were quiet---either because they had nothing to say or because they were simply unable to make themselves heard.
Either way was fine with him.
He ran.
And ran.
Until an ankle gave out, a foot slipped, and everything went black.
Susan and Ethan were dancing, and it made David's head ache to watch them.
"You're wearing my shoes," David said to Susan.
"Gave you your running shoes," she said. "Gave you your walking papers."
She pirouetted, Ethan's hands at her hips. Both her shoes had long yellow shoelaces now, David saw, that wrapped and spiraled up her calves like the ribbons of ballet slippers. The ends waved and hovered around her knees like the gentle tongues of mesmerized snakes.
"I put them on to know you, David," she said. "You can't really know another man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. Walked a mile, talked a while, shared a smile."
"Shared his bed," said Ethan, dipping her gently. "Slipped the tread. Hit your head."
"But I need them," David said.
"Confiscated," Ethan said, staring at him, his dark eyes twin bonfires of desire. "Complicated. I'm running for you, Davo."
"Gunning for you." Susan had a purple rose between her teeth now, and she and Ethan were performing complex tango steps, but there was no music, just the painful drumming in David's skull.
"One-on-one, we've just begun," sang Ethan. "We'll run 'til we're done, 'til I'm laid, 'til I'm paid what I'm owed and you've showed that you've slowed on your road..."
"On the road where you ran from the man with the plan," sang Susan. "And how many roads can a man run down, David? How many roads?"
How many, how many, how many...
"Come on, David, how many?" Ethan's voice was louder now, more urgent. "Jesus, come on. Open your eyes and tell me how many fingers you see."
Wincing, David pried open an eyelid. Sudden, stabbing light ratcheted up the pounding in his head to a frenzied beat, and he groaned and slammed the eye shut again. Tentatively, his fingers came up and reached for the back of his skull, touched a sore, swollen place. He hissed.
"How many fingers?" There was a tightly wound note in Ethan's voice.
David cracked his eyes again and batted Ethan's hand away.
"Get your fingers out of my face, Eath. I know where they've been. And turn that thing the fuck off. It's like a knife in my brain."
"Jesus." Ethan let his hand fall, switching off the penlight he'd been shining in David's eyes, and fell gracelessly back against the side of the treadmill. "You scared the holy shit out of me. God, I knew this was a bad idea."
"That is what I have been trying to tell you from the moment I got here." David scrunched his eyes against the pain on the inside of his head and the bright room lights banging Congo beats on the outsides of his eyelids.
"Not that, you idiot. That was the smartest idea I ever had, and I speak as a man who holds twenty-three patents. I'm talking about this." Ethan glared at the spider crack in the mirror where David's skull had hit it when he'd slipped off the back of the treadmill. "Leaving you unsupervised in a home gym is apparently like leaving a toddler in a room with a loaded gun."
"You're right. You're a bad, bad kidnapper. Someone should call Abductee Protective Services and ask them to send someone out to do a home inspection. Just hand me the phone, and I'll do it right now."
Ethan laughed shakily and passed one hand through his rumpled hair. He looked wrung out, like someone who'd spent hours in a hospital waiting room waiting for word on a loved one after a risky surgery.
Probably just afraid I'd die on him and that he'd have to explain my disappearance.
Ethan leaned forward and picked up a book that had been lying open, spine up, and consulted it, flipping pages. "Obviously, you know who and where you are. I suppose there's no point in trying to convince you you're the president of the United States, or Mahatma Ghandi, or my willing love slave."
David's heart missed a beat. There was that treacherous "L" word again, determinedly popping back up to the surface. Again, he pushed it away.
"Let's see." Ethan consulted the book. "Distorted facial features?" He stared appraisingly into David's face.
David scrunched up his face and stuck out a tongue.
"No," said Ethan, ignoring him. "Slurred speech? No. Fluid draining from nose, mouth, or ears? No."
"I could spit at you, if you like."
"Irritability, clumsiness, lack of coordination," read Ethan out loud from the first-aid manual. "Oh, check, check and double-check."
"Fuck you." David felt moderately more cheerful. The pounding in his head was abating slightly.
"You have a pretty good egg on the back of your skull, but your pupils are equal in size and responsive to light. Your breathing seems normal. You don't seem confused---beyond your usual state of self-delusion and denial, I mean. Is there anything else I should know about? Blurred or double vision? Nausea? Stiff neck? Can you move all your limbs?"
"And if I said I was seeing three of you? Would you take me to a real hospital, or would you tie me to a chair and open my skull with a can opener to relieve pressure?"
"In that event, all three of me would strap you into the MRI machine in my basement and run a scan to check for signs of an intracranial brain bleed."
David stared at him. Ethan stared back, poker-faced. Then he blinked twice and widened his eyes very slightly.
"Bullshit." David grinned hugely in spite of the ache. "Oh my God. I don't believe it. You've made gazillions in the cutthroat world of business, and you still have that ridiculous tell? Fuck the first-aid. Let's play cards. Seriously, no limits. You can spot me a couple billion for the first few hands. I should be fine after that."
"Don't mock the tell, Holmes. It paid for your tuition shortfall one quarter, if I remember correctly. You should respect the tell, like the Indians respected the buffalo that fed them through the winter. Also, you should tell me what it is."
"Can't. I owe it to the world to keep this secret safe."
"All of your secrets are safe with me." The teasing note was gone from Ethan's voice now. His soft words hung in the room.
David couldn't find his voice. Safe? He wasn't sure he even knew what the word meant. Or maybe safe was an entire language he didn't speak.
Ethan flipped another page.
"All right, listen. 'Most head bumps are minor, because the human skull provides a lot of protection.' A really thick skull, like yours, probably provides even more."
Back on solid ground, David grinned in spite of the headache.
"Bite me."
"'But the brain can slam around inside the skull when there is a head injury, and get bruised.' I assume that this is especially problematic when it is a very small brain rattling around inside a preternaturally, almost mutantly large skull."
"Bite me harder."
"Obviously, we don't want there to be any permanent damage to your brain." Ethan's voice was thoughtful. "Even though it might be difficult, in your case, to actually discern a difference between 'damaged' and 'undamaged.' We have to watch for signs of swelling or bleeding, in case we need to seek medical attention for you."
"And those signs would be what, exactly?" asked David innocently. "I'm only asking out of curiosity, of course."
"Things you don't need to trouble your fractured head about, because I will be watching out for them." Ethan snapped the book closed. "In the meantime, we should get an ice pack on that bump. Do you want something for the headache? You can have acetaminophen."
"You don't have anything more interesting in your magic bag there, Mary Poppins? Oxycontin? Vicodin? Percoset?"
"Jeez, did you come here directly from the Betty Ford Clinic? Or did you stop on the way to refill some forged prescriptions?"
"Be nice to the man with the cracked skull. Advil?"
Ethan waved the first aid manual. "Sorry. The book says no ibuprofen or aspirin. It also says that head bumps from falls are usually accompanied by other injuries. How's your neck? Did you hurt your back?"
"Well, there is this annoying pain in my ass. But I don't think Tylenol is going to make him go away."
Ethan's eyes swept him head to toe, as if he could discern internal injuries just by staring really hard.
"What happened?" he asked softly. "I heard a crash and ran down here to find you laid out on the floor like a crash test dummy."
The worry in those eyes was too naked. David had to look away. "I'm not really sure myself. I don't even remember falling. One second, I was running, and the next, I was on the floor being attacked by a crazy man with a flashlight and delusions of formal medical training." He paused. "And I had a really weird dream."
"A dream? Was I in it? 'And you were there, Auntie Em, and you, and you,' that kind of thing?"
David rolled his eyes. "God, again with the complete self-absorption. 'Enough about your harrowing brush with death, David. Let's talk about me. Tell me, David, as you hovered over your own unconscious body, trying to resist the angel's siren call to go into the light, how did my hair look?'"
"Stop trying to change the subject, and tell me more about this dream in which I obviously starred."
"Much as it pains me to feed your overbloated ego, yes, you were in it. You and my...friend. Susan. There was...dancing. It was like some kind of mad hatter tango party. Ethan in Wonderland."
Ethan groaned. "Me, ballroom dancing? You're in worse shape than I thought. Did you twist your ankle?"
David squeezed his knees, his ankles, his calves. "Nothing...hurts, exactly. Not like that, I mean---not like I sprained or tore anything. Everything just aches, like I ran a marathon and made the mistake of lying down for a nap afterwards. I might have overdone things a little."
"Jeez, you think?" Distressed hazel eyes searched his face. "What can I do? What do you need?"
A swell of emotion threatened to capsize him.
I need to go home.
I need to stay.
I need to be able to trust you, Ethan. Can I trust you?
He swallowed. "Hot shower. Carbs. Protein."
"Can you walk?" Ethan put out a hand. David's knees and ankles twanged as he was pulled to his feet. Some vicious imp stabbed at the inside of his skull with a red-hot poker.
"Ow, ow, ow." He couldn't hold in the whimper, and then felt embarrassed to be acting like such a baby.
But Ethan made no comment---just opened an arm. Without a moment's hesitation, David limped into that supportive embrace and hooked his own arm around Ethan's neck, leaning on him all the way up the steps and down the hall to the kitchen chair where he'd started the day, about a thousand years ago.
At least he wasn't tied to it this time.
"Hang on, Davo. I'll get you some water."
A-ha! Here's my big chance to escape! David imagined himself lurching across the kitchen like a zombie, wincing and jerking as each movement wrested new pain from tortured joints and frozen muscles, and he actually laughed.
Ethan turned from the sink to meet his eyes, a tentative answering smile flickering automatically across his face at the sight of David's. Ethan looked away first, as if he wanted to remember this small exchange in just this way, before David's expression could cloud over again. He set the water on the table and let two capsules fall into David's outstretched palm.
While David swallowed the pills, Ethan pressed a frozen blue gel pack gently against the swelling on the back of David's head. "Hold that there."
Their hands touched as David reached back for the gel pack, and David did not pull his hand away. For another moment, they stared at each other, Ethan clearly trying to mask his surprise.
To David, the moment felt oddly tender. Peaceful. Even serene. The ache in his head had faded substantially already, even before the pills had a chance to kick in. But more importantly, so had the frustration and fear that had been plaguing him for days.
Maybe the running had helped. Or maybe his brain really was bleeding, and he was about to slip into a coma. Whatever. It felt good just to sit and gaze at Ethan without feeling a sharp twist of emotional pain for the first time since...since...
Since before Santa Fe.
Finally, Ethan stepped back. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but didn't. Instead, he returned to the freezer and took out a box.
"It'll have to be microwave, I'm afraid. For some reason, Domino's just refuses to honor its thirty-minutes-or-it's-free guarantee out here."
"Good help is so hard to find." David felt a little like he was floating. A sudden cold sensation on his leg made him look down. Bella nosed him again, and he reached a hand out to stroke her soft ears.
Ethan slid the pizza into the microwave and pressed buttons. "Okay, carbs on the way. Next on the list: a hot soak. Come on, Bella, honey, move."
The retriever obediently stood and backed away as Ethan bent beside David and helped him to his feet. Together, they hobbled down the hall to the bedroom. But instead of steering David into a warm shower, Ethan walked him past sliding french doors into an open-sky atrium.
Plants flourished and flowered everywhere, little white lights sparkling from their leaves and mirroring the stars in the cloudless sky. Electric candle lights flickered orange warmth from wood lanterns set into walls and benches.
"Hang here for a minute." Ethan lowered David to an overstuffed deck chair and walked to a control panel by the doors. With a quiet hum, the cover in a step-down area retracted into the surrounding deck, releasing clouds of steam into the night air.
A hot tub.
Kneeling by the chair, Ethan lifted a foot, tugged off the sock and began to unwind the gauze. David stared down at his bare foot cradled in Ethan's hands and wondered why he felt no urge to pull away.
Ethan inspected the ankle, squeezing it gingerly, and then reached for the other foot.
"Hmmm." David closed his eyes and just let himself enjoy the fingers on his skin as the other sock was pulled off, Ethan's thumb pressing deliciously into his sore instep for a moment.
"Davo."
David thought he could get lost forever chasing the gold flecks in those beautiful eyes.
"I want to take off your shirt and shorts. You're going to have to take them off eventually anyway, and you'll be more comfortable on the other end of this soak without having everything sticking to you. But I'm not up to fighting with you at the moment, so you tell me. On or off?"
David looked back at Ethan quietly for a moment, considering, and then raised his arms in the air, one hand still holding the gel pack. Without a word, Ethan rose and pulled off David's shirt, then tossed it aside.
David parted his knees slightly and rocked forward onto Ethan's shoulders, allowing him to pull down his shorts. For one delicious moment, David let his cheek rest in the crook between Ethan's neck and one shoulder and just breathed in his comforting smell. Spicy. Salty. A hint of musk. Ethan. His body clenched painfully with desire.
"God, Eath, you're forever trying to get me out of my pants."
"Can't help it. You're just so much more cooperative when you're naked. Ready?"
David nodded. Ethan steadied him as he sank into glorious heat.
"Jesus. That's so good."
Submerged jets kicked into life, driving miraculous pulses of hot water against tender muscles.
"Let me have the ice pack for a sec. Okay, lean your head back now."
David rolled his head back, felt it cushioned and supported by the thick towel Ethan had positioned at the edge of the tub. The gel pack pressed coolly against the sore spot, soothing and numbing it.
"Are you good for me to get the pizza? I don't want to take any chance you're going to pass out and drown in my hot tub. I just had it cleaned."
"Those are my choices? Drown or starve?"
"Pretty much. But you sound passably conscious, so I think I'll risk it. Bella, bark once for 'He's drowning' or twice for 'He's using your towel'. Bite at your own discretion."
Within moments, he was back, bearing a tray with the pizza, plastic plates, tumblers and icy cans of Coke. The smell of piping-hot pepperoni and tomato sauce mingled pleasantly with the steam of the tub and the more distant perfume of the sea. Bella watched them intently as they ate, vigilantly snapping up any fugitive bits of pepperoni that came flying in her direction.
David hummed pure contentment.
"God. I'm beginning to think I should launch myself off a treadmill and into a solid wall every day. Maybe twice on Sundays. I could get seriously used to this."
"There are a lot of good things you could get used to. If you'd just let yourself."
David opened one eye and studied Ethan's face. He was surprised to find that he was still feeling that surreal sense of serenity. There was no silver knife edge of panic to his thoughts. He wondered just how far he could go without knocking over the dominos.
"You still think you know all my innermost dreams and desires, Ethan? That you can fix me?"
Ethan kept his tone equally casual. "Well, I'm sure I don't know all your innermost desires. And there are probably some fantasies best left unexplored. Like your dream of fronting your own ABBA cover band."
"God, you're obsessed. And, obviously, a deeply closeted fan. I bet you have every album, on original vinyl."
"It's a theory. As for fixing you..." Ethan's voice lost its lightness. "I don't think you're broken. I just think you're kind of...stuck."
"But why? You and I are very different people who have led very, very different lives, both before we were...friends...and since." David gestured helplessly. "Sharing a fridge and a shower with someone in college doesn't mean you know anything about what's going on inside them."
"I never stopped being your friend." There was no uncertainty in Ethan's voice. "And I've always understood you, much better than you thought."
"What, exactly? Why I wanted the bed farthest from the door? Hell, everyone in the building understood that. It was so you wouldn't trample me running out of the room if there was a fire, no doubt shrieking and waving your hands in the air like a little girl."
"Like, for one thing, how ashamed you were of being poor," said Ethan softly. "Which I didn't get, and still don't, since what's the point of feeling embarrassed about something you didn't cause and couldn't control?"
David's mouth felt suddenly dry.
"And that you were painfully shy. Afraid of not fitting in." Ethan stirred the water with one leg. "Of letting anyone get too close or see too much. Almost like you thought they'd realize you were some kind of imposter and shut you out. You were absolutely terrified that you weren't good enough, in almost every arena---academic, social, financial...personal---and that sooner or later, someone was going to realize it." He stilled his leg, and looked up at David. "That I was going to realize it."
David opened his mouth to protest, but could think of nothing to say.
"You were claustrophobic, but it was hard to say which was worse for you---the fear of feeling trapped or the fear that people would see you as weak because of it. You were forever putting yourself down, as if you thought you could disarm your critics by taking the first jab at yourself. Oh, and despite all that crazy, unjustified insecurity, you were talented. Ambitious. Driven. And smart. So goddamn smart. And funny as hell."
David closed his eyes. His heart was pounding. "God. You sound as if you're delivering my eulogy. Or possibly being interviewed for your questionable insights after I've turned out to be a serial killer."
"I was getting to that part. You were quiet, always kept to yourself, and were---"
"---kind of a loner," they finished together, grinning at each other.
Bella raised her head from her paws and thumped her tail on the deck. She reminded David of a stern librarian tapping a pencil on the desk to chastise a pair of students who were making too much noise. Ethan reached to his plate and tossed her a rind of leftover pizza crust. She snapped it out of the air.
"Okay, Eath. I admit you're not exactly unobservant. But it's not like I was really working at hiding anything."
"Bullshit." Dark eyes bore into David's. "Oh, maybe not at first, you weren't. But I'd say that by the end there...by Santa Fe...working at hiding things from me had become pretty much a full-time job for you, hadn't it?"
"I..." David's words trailed off as he felt the first small rise of unease. "I don't know what you're..."
"Stop it. We're past all that now. There's no one here but us chickens. It's time to talk. About Santa Fe."
The teasing note was gone from Ethan's voice, and now the panic flooded in, from nowhere and everywhere. David could feel all of his systems tightening down, hard, and all of his defensive impulses snapping belatedly into place. His knuckles went white around the edge of the tub. "My head hurts. I want to go lie down."
"Don't. Don't shut down, and don't shut me out. Why did you run away?"
David's cheeks were so hot now that he thought his face might melt off. That might not be a bad thing. No face meant not having to face this man, right?
"Ah, shit. You know why."
"But I'm not sure you do."
Kill me now, God. Please. Hit me with a lightning strike, meteorite, embolism, falling frozen airplane waste, anything, I don't care, just do it now, now, now, please. Don't make me think about this. Don't make me talk about this. Not with him.
But that horrifying inner reel had already begun to play, as it sometimes did when his guard was down, or when he was very tired or depressed or lonely and couldn't short-circuit it by getting to his computer or going out for a long run. He felt trapped in yet another encore private screening of a movie he wished he'd never seen---one to which he would close his eyes permanently, if he only could.
Images, flickering.
The plane trip from California.
Ethan trading seats with him so he can sit on the aisle.
The drive up to Santa Fe from the airport in Albuquerque in the little silver rental car.
The glorious pink of the setting sun on desert rocks and the little patches of early November snow.
Ethan joking about alien autopsies in Roswell.
The two of them, checking into the fancy hotel in Santa Fe. Ethan pays, of course, but for once, David doesn't argue, because this is the beginning. This is the start of the company they are founding together, the one that will make them famous and wealthy beyond imagining. They have five meetings scheduled with potential VCs and angel investors over the weekend---and unbelievably, all those people have come to them.
"We're going to be able to structure the deal the way we want." Ethan's eyes are lit up, flashing gold excitement. "We're not going to have to give up control of our own company just to finance it. In the world of high-tech startup capitalization, that's like being able to give birth to your brainchild without having to sign away custody in advance just to cover the hospital bills. God, do you realize how rare that is? No, fuck rare. Rare is for steaks and sapphires. This fucking never happens."
They grin and high-five each other, as excited as two little kids riding up the long initial incline in the roller coaster, secure in the certainty of the thrilling ride to come.
The dark-haired girl in Reception smiles shyly and gives them their room keys, two each. According to her pin, her name is Ida Lise, and she is not a desk clerk, not a receptionist, even, but a "Guest Comfort Specialist". How can we excel at serving you today? reads a small plaque on the reception desk. It is the first time David has ever been given a magnetic card key in a hotel, and he tries not to look like a small-town, small-time hick by marveling openly at it.
"Here." Ethan hands him the extra keycard to his own suite and plucks David's spare from his hand in turn. "You never know. One of us might need to run up and get something from the other's room."
It is all magical. The smooth, round kiva fireplace in David's suite...the plush duvet on the luxurious bed...the paintings in his sitting room and in the exquisitely appointed hallway just beyond---beautiful watercolors scenes of Native American women in blankets, of desert canyons bathed in late-afternoon light, of magical Appaloosa horses in impossible shades of turquoise and amethyst.
That first evening, they bypass the fancy restaurant in the hotel and go exploring. They discover a delicious Mexican restaurant just off the square and toast themselves and their futures with improbably large margaritas. They join the wait staff in an enthusiastic rendition of "Happy Birthday!" to a blushing young woman at the next table.
After dinner, they walk around the town. Ethan chatters animatedly about his plans for the future of the company. Their company. David lets Ethan's excitement flit all around him like a hummingbird. Impossibly high overhead, stars beam magnanimously down on them, like beneficent stewards of a kind and giving universe.
"The sky's the limit." Ethan is basking in wild hyperbole, bathing in it, and David is in too good a mood to call him on it. On that glorious night, the sky seems like no limit at all.
School is coming to an end---but his time with Ethan is not. He's starting a new adventure with his best friend that will throw them together for long hours over a period of years. And even if Ethan and his latest fling, Amanda (or Manda Bear, as she gigglingly and gag-inducingly insists that Ethan call her) somehow get serious, David will still see him almost every day.
The future is a magical country that beckons and promises only good things...and there is no cloud in sight.
Back at the hotel, they step off the elevator and head to their rooms. Tomorrow's first appointment is an early one---a breakfast meeting with an eager potential angel investor in one of the hotel's sumptuous private dining rooms.
"Here's to getting everything you ever wanted," Ethan says at the door to his room, slightly drunk on happiness and excitement and margarita. He pulls David into a sudden, tight hug. "Everything we ever wanted. It's going to be great. I love you, man."
I know what he means, David tells himself. But it still counts. "Love you too, Eath." He keeps his own voice casual, makes sure he is the first to break contact. "See you in the morning."
Back in his own room, he gets into bed, but soon realizes he isn't going to be able to sleep. His mind is buzzing like a fluorescent light. For a while, he flips through the channels on the room's television, but he can't focus on any of the cable movies or late-night talk shows. Finally, he decides to take one last look at the next day's presentation.
That's when he realizes he's left his computer in Ethan's room. He can even see it in his mind's eye, the slim laptop lying on the table, concealed beneath the state map they'd been consulting to figure out how long a drive it would be from Santa Fe to Los Alamos (Ethan's choice) or Carlsbad Caverns (his).
He glances at his watch. Twenty-five minutes, tops, since they parted for the evening. Ethan is probably still up, but even if he isn't, that's okay. This is exactly why they exchanged room keys.
He knocks first, quietly...striving for a volume level that will be heard by Ethan if he is awake, but won't wake him up if he is sleeping. There is no answer.
He slides the key into the lock. When the little LED flashes green and the door clicks open, he leans his head in around the door. "Eath? I need the computer."
Still no answer.
Quietly, he slips into the room, closes the door behind him. The light is muted, and soft classical music streams from a CD player. He recognizes the mastery of Yo Yo Ma. Bach's cello suites. And beneath the music, there is another sound: gentle, localized rainfall.
Ethan is taking a shower. It seems David isn't the only one who can't sleep.
He eases the computer out from beneath the map on the table. Sudden movement catches his eye, and he lifts his gaze to the large, full-length mirror on the wall to track it.
Freezes.
In the mirror, he can see Ethan in the shower.
The shower is an architectural marvel. Glass bricks curve gracefully to form a shallow crescent, but the stall is deep and expansive and completely open. There are no doors or curtains, just a raised edge to keep water from spilling out onto the floor. Three powerful faucets gush down water from multiple directions.
In the middle of the downpour stands Ethan, steam curling around his legs.
Clutching his forgotten laptop, David backs from the table until his legs bump into the bed behind him and he falls onto it. The mirror is too far from the bathroom to fog, and every detail of the scene is framed there, sharp and clear.
Ethan's body, beautiful, muscled, glistening.
Ethan's hands, smoothing lather over his skin.
I should go. I have to go.
But David's legs do not move.
His eyes are too full of Ethan.
Mesmerized, he watches as Ethan's hands, slick with soap, slide down between his muscled thighs and along the length of his cock, watches as that enormous shaft thickens beneath his knowing touch.
He is transfixed by the sight of Ethan's sex rearing to life between his hands.
He is unaware of setting the laptop aside on the bed. Unaware of unsnapping the buttons of his fly and taking himself, already hard, into one hand. Unaware of squeezing and releasing his own bucking shaft. Of pressing his other hand down into the warmth between his legs, rub-stroking the sensitive flesh beneath his balls.
He is aware only of the mounting pleasure, the building heat, and the smell of steam and soap mixed with arousal.
Somehow, sitting unseen and unsuspected on Ethan's bed in Ethan's room, David feels Ethan's hands on his own cock. It is his shaft Ethan is tugging, his balls cupped in Ethan's warm palm.
And when at last Ethan throws back his head with a stifled cry, his buttocks clenching as his twitching cock shoots come violently upward against the raining water, David feels that powerful release as if it were his own...and then it becomes his own, and he is closing his eyes and letting the tremors shock through his body, again and again...letting the pleasure bear him away on a rising, receding tide.
For that one moment---somehow both an eternity and a flash---he feels completely happy, and happily complete.
Then he opens his eyes.
And meets Ethan's---startled, wide and disbelieving---staring back at him in the mirror.
"Out loud, David." Ethan's voice pulled David back to this water, to this moment. His dark eyes seemed enormous in the muted light. "Why did you run?"
"I couldn't---I didn't... Shit, Ethan, I didn't know what else to do."
"You could have stayed. We could have talked about it."
"Talked about it? I couldn't---Jesus, I didn't want to talk about it. Fuck, I don't want to talk about it now!"
The embarrassment crawled up his insides like a fire smoldering along electric wires. The terrible heat of it made him itch and writhe. Once again, it triggered an irresistible impulse to go, to run, to do whatever he had to, to get away---even if it meant leaving one of his limbs behind.
Or his heart.
"I can't do this. I won't do this. We're done here."
"You're not going anywhere. Not this time. Not until we've had this out."
"The fuck I'm not." He struggled to get his feet beneath him, ignoring the shriek of protest from his abused knees and ankles. "Go ahead and shut me out of your little Shangri-la, if that's what you want to do. I'd rather starve. I'd rather sleep in the sand for the rest of my life than talk about this."
He lodged a knee on the edge of the tub, reached for a towel to cover himself. But before he could pull himself from the tub, there was a blur and a splash---and suddenly, Ethan was there behind him, right there in the water behind him, his jeans and the bottom of his shirt soaking through. Without a word, he grabbed David around the waist and yanked him down from the edge, pulling him firmly back into the tub. David cried out, startled.
"I'm sorry, David. That offer has expired. There is no either/or anymore. There's just here and now. Now talk to me, damn it."
David's heart rate kicked up a notch as he stared up into Ethan's beautiful, determined face. There was no softness and no uncertainty in it.
"What the fuck." He turned away and reached again for the tub's polished edge.
Ethan grabbed him by a leg and pulled him back into the tub, spinning him away from the edge. This time, David took in a mouthful of water and spit it out, coughing. He shook his head, setting off an echo of the earlier pounding in his skull, and glared up at Ethan. He was standing with his arms crossed. The ends of his hair were wet now, and his shirt was thoroughly splashed, with just a few remaining dry spots near the neck and one shoulder. He was breathing hard and staring down at David, looking very much like a fisherman who intended to follow his catch all the way into hell rather than let it swim away with his best hook.
He was standing between David and the steps. Between David and retreat.
Between David and escape.
"Let me out, Ethan." Claustrophobia closed in hard and fast, crowding out the anger. "Let me out, let me out, let me out." The words ripped out of him on a rising howl of panic, and he couldn't stop them. Trapped. The familiar, insensate fear beat its escalating mantra on his pounding head. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped.
Through the rising haze, he saw Ethan tighten his jaw, set his stance. Here and now, he had said, and he clearly meant it. For David, there was to be no time but now and no place but here---in this shrinking box of water that had seemed so inviting and so spacious just minutes ago.
Fear closed over his head.
Suddenly in the grip of a full-scale panic attack, he was rushing at Ethan, thrashing, kicking out and beating at his chest and face with flailing arms...and Ethan was cursing and ducking, then grabbing his shoulders and saying something to him, but David couldn't understand him, couldn't hear him, couldn't hear anything---not the water splashing as he and Ethan struggled, not Bella barking, not Ethan hissing as David's flailing fists and feet made bruising contact, not himself crying out as Ethan swept his knees out from under him, dunking him for a moment, letting his head dip beneath the churning water for a terrifying second before spinning him hard and yanking him back up and out, gasping, all the world's air and noise rushing back into his body on the same screaming wind.
This is how it felt to be born, thought David disjointedly as the world exploded back into sound and light. Strong arms wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his side and pulling him back, hard, against a heaving chest.
"Shhh, Davo. It's okay. You're okay. I've got you. Just breathe."
David panted, his heart beating against his ribcage like a trapped bird. He couldn't breathe. His lungs had forgotten how.
"You can." Ethan's voice was calm. Certain. Soothing. "You can breathe. I'm right here."
Unbelievably, the giant fist around his chest loosened. David felt his breathing slow...felt his whole body yearn backward toward that voice, toward the comforting thud of the larger man's heart through his wet shirt...felt his muscles lose their rigidity and his body actually begin to relax into Ethan's.
His eyelids shuttered. How? How did Ethan have this effect on him? His arms were holding David tight. Pinning him. Caging him. He should have been climbing out of his own skin. Instead, he was...
Home.
"See? Your body knows it can trust me." A gentle thumb stroked his ear. "So how come you don't know it too?"
David sucked in another deep, shuddering breath.
"How come you didn't know it back in Santa Fe?" Soft fingers traced a tender, caressing line along the edge of his jaw.
He squeezed his eyes shut and twisted, trying halfheartedly to break away, but Ethan held him fast. Soft lips brushed his ear.
"Now tell me, baby. Tell me why you ran."
Not a sledge hammer. Not an explosive charge. Just baby, and the dam crumbled.
"Because we were...we were friends. We were going...going to be partners. And I...I ruined it. I ruined everything. I watched you while you...while you... I spied on you. I didn't mean to, not at first, but then I... And then you...caught me...watching you while I...and you knew I...and I disgusted you... God, I disgusted myself...and then everything was...over, every...thing was...just...gone."
The words tore from him, ragged and sharp-edged and broken, and then his voice broke too, and he was folding forward over Ethan's arms, half-sobbing, hyperventilating, gasping for air again. How could he still be drowning? Wasn't his head above water yet?
"Breathe, babe." Ethan tipped his forehead against the back of David's bowed neck. David felt a hand slide up to stroke his hair and rub his shoulder...felt lips nuzzling his neck. Gently. So gently.
He sucked in air, his head spinning. Gradually, the whirling rush in his ears slowed.
"Now listen to me, David. Because this is really, really important."
"God, please, no. No more. Go away. Please."
Ethan's hands slid up to pull his hands from his face. Still holding them, Ethan wrapped his own arms around David's waist, folding their arms together and pulling him closer.
His ear brushed David's.
David shivered. For the second time that day, he was naked and pressed up against this man he'd cut out of his life three years ago and never expected to see again. He could feel the wet, rough denim of Ethan's jeans pressing along the backs of his legs, and the damp cotton of Ethan's soaked shirt against his back.
"Listen to me." Ethan's voice was a throaty rumble. "You didn't disgust me. You shocked me. You shocked the hell out of me, in fact."
David closed his eyes. "Cut the crap. I saw you." His voice was a whisper of defeat and loss. "I saw you see me."
"Oh, I saw you, all right. I just wish you could have seen you. Sitting there on my bed with your cock in your hand. Coming like a fucking geyser. Like you couldn't help yourself. It was probably the most shocking thing I'd ever seen. And possibly the hottest."
David caught his breath.
"Disgusting? No." Ethan was rocking him a little now, right there in the bubbling water, as if they were slow-dancing to music only he could hear. "And you wouldn't say that, you couldn't say that, if you'd seen your face. It was a goddamn revelation. You were so open. To that place and that moment. To what you were feeling. Everything was right there. All the things you usually worked so hard to keep locked away. Suddenly, you were wearing them all on your face. And Davo?"
Ethan grew absolutely still and turned his chin to murmur, low and thick, into David's ear.
"I knew it was all for me. All that wanting. All that need. That sudden...utterly unexpected...shocking...complete...loss of self-control from someone who never, ever lost control. It was because of me."
David shook.
"I have never felt that powerful. I have never felt that wanted. It was like a whole universe opening up in front of me. Like holding someone's beating heart right in my hands. My best friend's heart." Ethan laughed tremulously. "I literally could not move."
They stood for a moment, quiet.
"It was a betrayal," said David at last, but he felt something flutter deep inside for the first time in years.
Something that felt like hope.
"It was a gift. The weirdest fucking gift anyone had ever given me, I admit. And I don't pretend I had any idea in that moment what to do with it, or whether I even wanted to do something with it. But damn it, you never gave me the chance to decide. Before I could even try to understand how I felt about it..." he shook his head helplessly, "...you just---ran."
"Well, of course I fucking ran." David's cheeks flamed. "There was absolutely no coming back from that. No way to face you. Not then. Not ever."
Ethan sighed heavily and leaned backward, settling on a submerged bench against a corner of the hot tub. "God, you are such an idiot." His voice was a study in exasperated affection. "Come here." He tugged David into the vee of his open legs, pulling him back against his body, wrapping one arm around his hip and the other around his chest. Enclosed him utterly.
For a moment, David stiffened, but his body didn't want to pull away. He let himself become a rag thing, spineless and unresisting. He let his head relax against Ethan's wet T-shirt, felt the pulse in Ethan's neck flicker beneath his ear.
"I went after you, did you even know that?" Ethan's breath was warm above David's ear. "Practically killed myself slipping in that goddamned shower and then raced out into the hallway, dripping wet, in nothing but a towel. You were already gone. I banged on your door and yelled like a crazy person. A couple of other people stuck their heads out in the hallway to tell me off, but I must have looked like a madman, because they all slammed their doors shut right quick and not one of them said a word. And then it turned out I'd locked myself out of my damn room, and I had to wait for housekeeping to come up and let me back in so I could get dressed."
David closed his eyes, let himself just feel the rumble of Ethan's voice vibrating through his chest.
"I went all over that fucking hotel. I called you and called you on your room phone. I called you on your cell phone. I left messages everywhere. Hell, I fell asleep in a chair in your room, waiting for you. But you never came back."
No. He'd had the keys to the rental; Ethan had slipped them in the laptop case when they'd checked in. His wallet was in the glove compartment. An extra pair of shoes waited in the trunk, along with the rest of his running stuff.
"There...there wasn't anything in my room. Just clothes."
"I was there, damn it. Fuck, David. Where did you go?"
"I just...I knew I had to get out. Out of the hotel. Out of Santa Fe."
"Out of my life?"
The pain in his voice ripped at David.
"I wasn't thinking of it like that. I wasn't thinking at all. I just...walked. All over Santa Fe. It's a complete maze once you get off the square. After a while, I found myself back on the street with the restaurant, the one where we had dinner? The restaurant was closed, but the bar was still open. I went in. They remembered me from before. They gave me a table in the back, and they let me just sit there and type on my computer. They could tell I was...upset. They were very nice. They didn't even make me order anything."
He paused. "That's where I wrote the...the letter. It was the only thing I could think of to do. The only way I could imagine apologizing to you."
Ethan stiffened a little, and automatically David began to pull away, but Ethan's arm tightened around him.
"That wasn't an apology," said Ethan brokenly. "It wasn't even a letter. It was a fucking divorce decree."
David cringed. Had it seemed like that? Certainly, he'd tried to think like a lawyer, had actually found some measure of refuge in the mechanical exercise of erecting a contract---even one designed to protect someone else at his own expense.
Closing his mind to the horror of what he'd done and focusing only on the problem now to be solved, he'd been able to keep the panic at bay. Writing that document had almost felt like engineering...like he was building something instead of dissolving it.
I, David Marion Holmes, hereby grant to Ethan Christopher Locke, without exception or reservation, all intellectual and commercial property rights to any and all ideas, code, contracts, trademarks, patents and products relating to the business enterprise known informally to us both as HolmePage, including, but not limited to, the following...
He had gone on to describe the business plan and assets, real and intellectual, of the company he and Ethan had planned to found together. The code names and descriptions of their plans, their products, all blurred together in his mind now, but he could still remember snatches of the document.
Being of sound mind and free of any duress or external influence...
...hereby withdraw immediately as partner in name or fact of...
...permanently and irrevocably disclaim any right to any compensation, share, profit, return, or royalty relating to the success of this or any related business enterprise, past, present, or future...
He'd typed and saved, edited and resaved, using words---insubstantial shadows on a computer screen---as bricks in the wall he had to build between himself and Ethan.
Between himself and the memory of how he had murdered his own best chance at happiness.
Finally, he could think of nothing more to add---no additional way to cut himself away from the fledgling business so that Ethan's balloon could soar. He'd packed up the laptop and thrown a few bills down on the table, shaking off the protests of the kind-hearted waitress who had brought him nothing but water. For a while, he'd sat at the fountain in the square and waited for the dull ache in his chest to ease.
It hadn't.
In the hotel's deserted business center, he'd printed out the document, along with all the notes and presentation materials for the meetings he and Ethan had scheduled over the next two days.
Ida Lise was still working in Reception, still excelling at Guest Comfort Specialization, even into the wee hours of this November New Mexico night, and she had given him a warmer-than-strictly-professional smile when he'd approached the desk.
Yes, she'd said, masking her obvious surprise. Yes, the hotel did have a licensed notary on staff. Two, actually. Neither was usually available at this late hour, but on this particular evening, one of the women had agreed to pick up another employee's shift in order to get an extra day off for herself at Thanksgiving.
David had folded the document so that just the blank signature lines showed---one for himself, one for the notary, two for witnesses. The witness signatures were probably unnecessary, but having convinced himself that amputation was the only course, he wanted nothing now but for the cut to be swift and sure.
He showed his driver's license, signed, numbly pressed his thumb into an inkpad, and rolled it along the waiting space in the notary's book. He signed both pages of the document and watched blankly, wiping the ink from his thumb, while she signed and stamped the pages. She'd handed the pen to Ida Lise, who signed with a flourish, smiling uncertainly at him, and passed the pen to the bored night-shift bellhop.
Ida Lise had found him some envelopes and a sticky note pad emblazoned with the hotel's name and logo and retreated to the other end of the reception counter. David stared at the blank note paper and tried to find the words to...what? Fix things? There weren't any. Finish them? He'd already written those.
In the end, he just scribbled:
E---
I'm sorry.
---D
He stuck the note to the notarized document and scrawled Ethan's name and room number across the front of the envelope in a trembling hand. He slid the presentation materials into the larger envelope and asked Ida Lise to make sure everything was delivered between six and six-fifteen a.m.
"It's very important," he'd told her dully. "If you haven't reached him by seven, you'll find him in a breakfast meeting in the Sierra room."
Of course, she assured him. She would see to it herself. And was he...was he all right? She didn't like to pry, particularly not into the private affairs of guests, but she thought there might be something...was there something wrong?
He could only stare at her. Of course there must be something wrong with him, or he'd have been down here at Reception, hitting on this beautiful girl, instead of jerking himself off in the shadows of Ethan's room.
Too empty to lie, he'd simply turned and left. He hadn't understood then about the staying power of loss---had actually thought it was possible to escape the things he wanted to leave behind just by walking away from all the ones he didn't.
Blank as a zombie, he had retrieved the rental car from the garage. Driven back to the airport in Albuquerque, oblivious to the beauty of the sunrise. Caught the first flight back to San Jose. Ignored the urgently flashing light on the answering machine. Packed everything he owned.
Disappeared.
"You took the car." Ethan's voice struggled to be light. "You took the laptop. You left me holding the bag with all those meetings. Left me alone to explain your absence to our potential investors---basically sharks in business suits, every one of them---when I couldn't even explain it to myself. And okay, so maybe none of that was the end of the world for me, but it sure as hell wasn't convenient, either."
"I'm...sorry."
"And bad as all of that was, the worst of it was so much worse."
David could feel tight coils of tension all down Ethan's body.
"You wouldn't answer your phone. You wouldn't answer my emails. You left me that note---that fucking, heartless note. And when I got home...you were...just...gone. Everything that mattered was gone."
A hand circled David's wrist and held it. A thumb stroked the soft skin inside his arm.
"What did I ever do to you that you thought that I'd be okay with that? That I'd want that?"
David blinked back the sting of tears.
"You had a girlfriend, Ethan, remember? An endless string of girlfriends. Brainless bimbos, all, but girls every one, through and through. Even the ones from the swim team."
"You'd had a few yourself. And more since."
"But don't you see? That just made it worse. That made the whole thing look personal. If I'd been dragging guys home every weekend for one-night stands...maybe I could have expected you to laugh the whole thing off. A crime of opportunity. A thoughtless, stupid, drunken lapse of judgment. Late-night horniness gone horribly awry."
He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. "But I knew how it looked. How was I ever going to convince you it was just too much alcohol, too much excitement, too little sleep? You'd never have believed me."
"Oh, no, you're right about that." The arm around David's chest tightened gently. "I'd never have swallowed that particular crock of happy horseshit. Not then."
The other hand slid up insidiously to circle a nipple, brushing and teasing it to a throbbing point. "And not now."
His voice had taken on a velvety roughness that made every nerve ending in David's body sit up and take notice.
"Because it was personal, wasn't it? You weren't drunk. Or tired. Or nervous about the meetings. Not in that moment. In that moment, you were sober, and focused, and mine. One thousand percent mine."
He hooked his calves around David's legs and tugged them apart.
"I told you, Davo. I saw your face. You wanted me. Me. And when I played it all back, when I knew what to look for, I saw it so clearly. You'd wanted me for a long time."
His hand drifted down in the water, curled lightly over David's hip. David moaned a little and caught his lower lip in his teeth.
"You still want me." Ethan let his fingers slide closer to where David suddenly, desperately wanted them...needed them to be. "And we both know it. You may have managed to shove your mind into a box and nail down the lid, but your body---your body sings for me. Begs for my touch."
His fingers drew maddening circles along the insides of David's thighs, coming close, closer, to his yearning cock but never quite making contact.
The sweet torture made David groan and arch back against him.
"Beg me now," Ethan whispered into the hollow of David's neck. "Beg me to touch you."
David sucked in his breath and tried to hang onto his rational mind. How on earth was he supposed to think with Ethan's hand roving relentlessly over his parts?
"Damn it, Ethan," he ground out. "Haven't we been down this road already today?"
To his shock, Ethan bit him.
Wet, clasping heat closed on the curve of his neck and shoulder. He felt the sudden nip of teeth, then the soothing of a wicked tongue that licked and sucked at the unexpected sting. In the same moment, Ethan slid his hands beneath him and hauled him hard up against his own bulging crotch.
David gasped. This wasn't tentative or seductive. This was rough. It was commanding. Something inside him went white hot and molten.
"Don't care. Like this road." Ethan nuzzled and nipped at his neck, at the pulse jackhammering in his throat. "Am planning to go down it a lot."
David panted and shuddered.
"Except this time, I'm taking off my goddamn pants."
Fingers twisted insistently beneath him. Knuckles rubbed and buttons scraped against David's skin as Ethan's fly gave way to his fingers. And then his swollen cock, freed from the confinement of clothes, was springing up against David's leg like a velvety jack-in-the-box and rubbing against it. Rubbing against him.
He gasped and flinched away. But Ethan's hand was on his hip, pulling him firmly back into the masterful embrace. And now that veined shaft was sliding silkily along his backside, riding into the groove between his cheeks and kissing the small of his back with its crown as Ethan bucked slowly and sensuously against him.
"There." Ethan's sigh was half relief, half torment. "There." He leaned forward and scraped his teeth against David's shoulder, his hands curving possessively around David's slender hips.
Oh God. David clung to the very edge of the tub, of control. What if he wants...? What if I can't...?
"Three years," rasped Ethan against his ear, letting himself slide along David's cleft in a long, lazy thrust of skin on skin. "Jesus. Three years, I've dreamed about touching you like this."
David's heart ratcheted up about sixteen gears in that single instant. He was terrified and traumatized and oh, so very turned on. How was it possible to feel so reluctant and so eager all at once? And how could anything feel so soft and so hard as Ethan's cock, riding against him like a bar of iron wrapped in velvet?
"How...nice for you." He struggled to keep his voice steady, as if there were nothing remarkable about any of this. "Me, I've been dreaming about curing cancer...achieving world peace...maybe inventing a car that runs on dirt. But I guess buying a private island so that you can kidnap a guy and...get naked with him in a hot tub is also...a worthwhile objective."
Ethan chuckled, his body shaking against David's in a disconcerting way. "I do try to set realistic goals for myself."
He kicked and shucked his sodden jeans the rest of the way off. The shirt went next, slapping onto the deck in a wet clump.
"Goals I'm sure I can achieve."
Completely naked now, he pressed himself against David, rubbing his chest and his cock along David's back and buttocks, groaning at the delicious friction of skin on skin. He slid a hand down and lifted David's leg, turned him and drove against him, pushing him up against a wall of the tub.
"You might even say..." He tilted his head to kiss David's collarbone in a trail of fiery little licks and nips. "...that it's the secret of my considerable success."
He arched his lower body and fit their hips together. David gave himself over for a moment to the dizziness, to the wonder, as Ethan rocked his pelvis and ground against him...groaned as his own engorged cock collided with Ethan's and slid against it, hard and slick in the warm water.
Fascinated, he flicked his gaze down to those two rigid organs, straining and rubbing against each other.
Another man's cock.
Ethan's cock.
It was just like his. It was nothing like his.
Hard, yes. Veined and velvety, yes. Long and thick. Warm satin skin wrapped loosely over a hot rod of need. Throbbing and leaking with want.
But hard for him.
Wanting him.
Obeying an irresistible impulse, he reached out for it...let his trembling fingers close over it, let them stroke the shaft once...and was rewarded by a violent twitch that seemed to jolt up through Ethan's entire body.
Then Ethan was pulling his hand firmly up and away.
David felt a swell of dismay at the gentle rebuff. He tried to read Ethan's eyes, but Ethan had ducked his head and was nudging his legs apart, squeezing and tugging at his checks with warm, insistent hands. And now, he was stroking one finger between them and letting it play right over David's puckered opening.
Unable to help himself, David clenched up, his whole body tensing.
"Shhh." Ethan leaned his head against David's and breathed the words against his cheek. "Relax. It's just my fingers. I know you're not ready for anything else."
Fingers? Plural?
"Don't be afraid." Gentle lips nuzzled his throat. "We're home this time, not on some godforsaken sandbar. I have everything I need here to take you a little further without hurting you. Okay?"
David shuddered and nodded, responding without conscious thought to the persuasion in Ethan's voice. His heart stuttered a little at Ethan's words.
We're home this time.
Home.
He fought to yank back the reins of his runaway thoughts before they could drag him off a cliff. This wasn't home. He was thousands of miles from home.
No. You're thousands of miles from where you pay rent. I'd say you're about eight hard inches from home.
He slammed a heavy door on that insidious inner voice and tried to focus. Ethan was returning a small green bottle to the little row of jars behind the back rim of the tub. He held up shining fingers.
"See?" He pressed his fingers to David's, transferring a measure of the slipperiness and then rubbing David's thumb and forefinger together so he could feel how easily his digits slid against themselves. "No friction. And this stuff doesn't wash away in water, so you'll stay nice and slick for me."
David's mouth went dry. "How...reassuring. Did that line get you a lot of action from the women's swim team?"
"What is this strange fascination you have with swimmers?"
"What's your fascination with runners?"
"They're fun to chase. Even more fun to catch. Come here, little runner."
He pulled up one of David's knees and leaned it against his chest. Stroking a quivering haunch, he reached beneath to spread David's cheeks. Bubbling water licked a fiery tongue along David's crack, and he jerked as Ethan laid a gentle finger inside his cleft, just above the shrinking aperture.
"I hope you know," David said, his breathing increasingly erratic as Ethan's finger began to play around that sensitive rim, "that if I hadn't fallen off that damn treadmill...if I still had my running shoes on...you'd be playing with yourself right now. Making this pretty much like any other Saturday night for you."
"Lucky for both of us, then, that you're still such a clumsy oaf. Lean back, baby."
The command, coupled with the casual endearment, made something in David's belly flip again. His head fell back to rest on the towel at the edge of the tub. His blood was pounding in his ears now. He couldn't seem to stop himself from babbling.
"And I'm adding criminally crappy nutrition to the rest of the charges I'll be filing. Where are the antioxidants?" Screw the antioxidants. Where were Ethan's hands? He licked dry lips. "The vegetables?"
"There were mushrooms on the pizza. Now hush."
"Mushrooms aren't---oh."
Silky and warm, Ethan's finger pushed into him, searing past the surprised, clasping ring of muscle and curling against his inner walls, stretching and stroking and impossibly intimate. In the same instant, a gentle thumb brushed over the tip of his cock.
"Fuck," cried David, the word torn from him as his body convulsed and tightened around Ethan's finger. This time, the knife-edged pleasure of the intrusion felt familiar...even welcome. He writhed and panted, unable to look away from Ethan's eyes, so full of determination and candlelight and humor and indecipherable, incinerating tenderness.
"That's it, David. Just let go. We can talk all about the charges you'll be pressing later."
David's head fell back on a helpless mewl as that knowing finger stroked and stoked him, turning him inside out. Decimating control. Crumbling walls.
"Someday," Ethan murmured, "when you're ready...when you ask me for it...you're going to feel my cock in you. Just like this...but deeper. So much deeper."
"Yeah?" David's breathing was hard and uneven. He was gripping Ethan's forearm like the guard rail on a plummeting rollercoaster car. "What...makes you think I'd ask for that...instead of something I really want? Like a Ferrari?"
"You don't want a Ferrari."
"I don't?"
"No. A Ferrari's just a car." Ethan kissed the inner thigh of the leg bent against his chest.
"It's a very nice car. It goes from zero to sixty in three-point-five seconds."
"But I can take you there in one. See?"
His thumb found a magical spot beneath David's balls, and David's knuckles went white on his arm.
"Jesus, Ethan." He ground the words through clenched teeth. "I can rev my own damn engine, thank you very much!"
"Yes, but it's better to leave the driving to a professional."
"God." Laughter ended on a gasp. "Were you always such a raving egomaniac?"
Ethan grinned. "Well, you know what they say about blowing your own horn."
"I know they say dogs are the only animals anatomically capable of blowing their own horns. I guess this proves it."
Ethan's shoulders shook.
"I must not be giving you enough to think about. Not if you're still able to dredge up random tidbits from Animal Planet. Let me see what I can do to fix that."
He withdrew the first finger, added a second, and pushed slowly back inside, staring deeply into David's eyes as he did so, as if intent on drinking in every flicker of response from them. Again, he stroked the sensitive crown of David's cock as he pressed the fingers home. Then he scissored them slightly. Twisted them. Raked them gently over that hidden sweet spot.
"Unnnhh." David threw his head back. Words flickered at the edges of his mind, but he was momentarily unable to find or form them. Everything else was crowded out by the sensation of invasion, of yielding. He felt his body stretching to accept both of Ethan's fingers. This time, the pressure of entry was tinged with a harder edge of pain-pleasure---but again, somehow, Ethan's tantalizing grazing of his cock head turned the sensation into something else.
Far from making him want to withdraw from Ethan's fingers, that something made David want to grind into them. His erection was launching off his belly, waving in the water, straining for relief.
As if in answer, he felt Ethan's penis slough against his leg, rigid and insistent, and again, he reached mindless fingers for it.
Ethan pivoted his hips away so that David's fingers only brushed his thigh.
What the hell.
"Just relax." Inside and out, wicked, knowing fingers stroked...squeezed...fueled the growing fire. "Let yourself go where I want to take you."
But he wasn't. He wasn't taking David anywhere. He was sending him. Alone. And holding himself back.
Just like on the beach.
Suddenly, the distance Ethan seemed determined to maintain between them felt like a bottomless chasm yawning open beneath David's toes. He was suddenly, dizzily certain that if he fell into it, he'd never be able to climb back out.
"No." He steeled himself against the insidious pleasure, not even aware at first that he had spoken out loud. "Not like this. Not by myself."
Ethan's hands slowed.
"By yourself? Better check your math, Holmes. Phi Beta Kappa's going to want their key back if you've forgotten how to add to two."
"No. You're not here." He shuddered. "I don't--- I can't feel you."
Ethan trailed a lazy hand over his leaking cock, and David arched helplessly.
"Your body says that you feel me just fine."
"Fuck, Ethan. My body says it's a good idea to eat ice cream for breakfast and try to nail drunken call girls outside free VD clinics. I'm not in the habit of letting my body call the shots."
Ethan's fingers resumed their tantalizing work. His voice was mild. "As we've discussed, you're not in the habit of letting anyone else call the shots, ever. But I told you: I'm driving this bus."
"No." David bit the words out desperately, literally writhing beneath Ethan's expert touch. "You're not. You're...pushing it off a cliff. With me in it. That's not the same thing."
"Again with the melodrama. Stop worrying so much, babe. Just let yourself enjoy the ride."
Fingers moved. David gasped and grabbed tight onto the sides of the tub. Words burst from him in a gathering flood of exasperation and need.
"Damn-it-Ethan-I-swear-to-God-either-you-stop-fucking-around-and-get-on-the-bus-or-I'm-getting-off-I-mean-not-getting-off-right-the-hell-now-I-mean-it!"
Ethan's hands froze. "What?"
Yeah. Okay. That had come out a bit muddled. But it was definitely time to ditch the bus, even if the door did open out onto dizzying nothingness.
David took a deep breath and found Ethan's eyes. Holding tight to hazel, he made himself step out over the drop.
"Come with me. Come...inside me. Please."
Ethan stared down at him in shock. For a moment, his expression was entirely unguarded. He looked suddenly younger, the cynical set to his mouth completely softened by surprise. For a moment, he looked exactly the way David remembered. Before Santa Fe.
Before I hurt him.
The realization slammed into him with unexpected force. For a moment, he just turned it about in his mind, really seeing it for the first time.
Of course he'd known that sneaking away like a thief in the night would upset Ethan. He'd expected Ethan to be disappointed. Pissed off. What was the word he had used? Inconvenienced.
But he saw now that he'd thought of Ethan's likely reaction only in terms of how it would relate to the business, and of the implications his departure might have for it.
He hadn't considered Ethan's feelings for him as a friend.
He hadn't considered Ethan's heart.
His own heart beating fast, David held his breath and waited as Ethan's gold-flecked eyes turned inward on the echo of his words...and then searched his face, as if trying to decide whether he'd really meant them.
Had he meant them? Sure, it was the only card he had in his deck, but was he really prepared to play it?
Yes. Because you know it's where he's taking you anyway. You know, deep down, that it's where you want to go. And if you have the power to make Ethan Locke look like that, even for a moment...to make him look as if he thinks there might be a Santa Claus after all? Jesus Christ. Play the fucking card, David.
"No." Ethan shook his head, his expression closing up. "You're not ready for that. And it's not your call."
"You said it was," brazened David, lifting his chin.
"It's not your call tonight." Ethan sounded annoyed.
"Then we're done," David shot back, "until it is."
For a moment, there was no sound but the gentle hum of the tub's jet motor and the bubbling of the water.
"Be very careful, Davo. Need I remind you that it was your poor impulse control and crap-ass instincts that got us here in the first place?" Ethan's voice was velvet menace. His fingers moved inside David in a long, maddening stroke of pleasure. This touch wasn't seductive or persuasive. It was burning. Possessive. It seemed designed to remind David who was in charge.
Or possibly just to brand him forever.
He hissed, but managed to hold himself in check. Just.
"Fuck you, Eath. I have...great instincts." He tried to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head.
"Any instinct you have ever had or ever will have that involves running from me, or pulling away from me, or holding any part of yourself back from me, is a bad instinct."
"I'm not...the one...who's pulling away now." David forced himself to meet Ethan's fiery eyes. "You are."
With a muffled roar, Ethan moved close between David's legs and pressed a hard thigh commandingly against the sensitive swell below David's balls.
David groaned and arched up, gripping the edge of the tub.
"Your pupils are contracted." David stared, mesmerized, at the gold flecks in those flashing eyes. "The pulse in your throat is racing, fast as a butterfly's wings. I can feel you tightening all around my fingers. You're getting closer, every moment, no matter what you say. No matter what you think you want. No matter how you try to fight it."
He dipped his head to nuzzle at David's throat with lips and teeth, and his voice lost its hard edge, became cajoling again. Irresistibly gentle and tender.
"So stop fighting it. Stop fighting me. Come for me now, baby. Come apart in my hands."
He wanted to. Christ, he wanted to. But he couldn't. It was too dangerous, for both of them. Couldn't Ethan see that? Too many times like this---of Ethan pushing him over the edge while standing back from it himself---and a permanent wall would go up between them. One so thick and high that they'd never be able to scale it, or break through it.
God, is that what you want, Ethan? Is that your revenge? To take my body and my heart, while shutting me out of yours?
"Can't." He stiffened against Ethan's hand. "Won't. Not like this."
Green and hazel eyes locked hard, like the antlers of dueling bucks.
"Oh, but you will." Ethan's words were pure, purred determination. "You're going to explode in my hands any second now. And you're going to scream out my name while you do it."
David bit his own tongue. Hard. It made his eyes water, but took his mind off the building pleasure.
For about two seconds.
"I'm sorry. Did you say something, Eath? My mind was wandering a little. I was trying to remember if I paid my electric bill before I flew out last week."
Hazel eyes narrowed above a lethal smile. "Afraid they'll shut off your power, are you, Davo? Leave you sitting all alone in the dark? Well, you can stop worrying. I'm right here. And I'm about to light up your world."
He leaned down and laved a nipple. Drew the pebbled peak deeply into his mouth. Nipped it in a sudden, firm pinch, then soothed the sting again with a suckling tongue. At the same moment, he cocked a wicked finger below.
David hissed. Fuck. He needed a plan, and fast. How did guys usually keep themselves from coming before they wanted to? It had never been a problem for him before---not even that first, fumbling time he'd been with a girl---and he had no experience to draw on. He tried to remember every movie he'd ever seen that had even touched on the subject.
As best he could remember, the most popular approach to staving off imminent orgasm seemed to be engaging in a mindless recitation of baseball statistics.
Well, shit. He should probably have learned something about baseball.
He'd better think of something he did know something about, and quick---because now Ethan's thumb was rolling insidiously over the head of his cock, pressing into the pre-come pooling in the slit at the tip and sliding back and forth over bundles of nerves that were applauding and giving him a standing ovation for his efforts.
Any minute now, those traitorous suckers were liable to start a wave.
Math. People did math problems, didn't they? In situations like this?
There are no situations like this.
Of course they did. A person couldn't come while he was focusing on a difficult multiplication problem. It was practically a scientific fact. He was pretty sure. Squares. He'd calculate squares. And not the easy ones. He'd start with something hard. Fifty-three.
For a moment, he managed to shut out everything, managed to create a blank slate in his head and write out the problem.
"Two thousand, eight-hundred and nine," he cried out triumphantly.
Ethan cocked an eyebrow and gazed at him with an unreadable expression, but his hands didn't miss a beat.
Okay, next. Fifty-four.
Four times four is sixteen, carry the one. Four times five is twenty, plus the one is twenty-one.
David squeezed his eyes tighter, struggled to stay focused on lining up the numbers in his mind, to ignore the increasingly urgent signal flares his balls were sending up.
Five times four is twenty, carry the two. Five times five is twenty-five, plus the two is twenty-seven, goddamn it, Ethan, is that your tongue, two hundred and sixteen fuck, fuck, fuck, if he touches me there again, I'm going to spontaneously combust, plus two thousand seven hundred is...
"Two thousand, nine hundred and sixteen." His body arched up out of the water, toes curling.
"Really? That's how you want to play? Fine." Ethan licked David's ear and stroked the hollow of his throat, walking fingers slowly down David's chest, sliding them flat over his quivering belly, and coming to rest again on his throbbing cock.
"Fifty-five. Three thousand and twenty-five," he whispered in David's ear, circling his cock and starting an insidious up-and-down slide. "Fifty-six. Three thousand, one hundred, and thirty-six. Fifty-seven. Three thousand, two hundred, and forty-nine. Fifty-eight---"
"Damn it, Ethan!" Numbers scattered irretrievably to the corners of his mind.
Damned movies never said anything about how to keep yourself from coming when you were being seduced by a fucking math wiz.
He took a deep breath, tried to set a new problem for himself and focus on it, to visualize the numbers over the sensations that were driving him mad.
"Eight hundred sixty-four squared," he muttered, going wildly off sequence. "Four times four is---"
"Seven hundred and forty-six thousand," whispered Ethan, his fingertips setting off little explosions behind David's eyelids, disintegrating the numbers into a million jagged pieces. "Four hundred and ninety-six. Enough. Let yourself come, baby. Shoot off for me now. Come into my hand."
And he cocked a buried finger against that sensitive gland.
Holy mother of God. David jerked violently in response. Somehow, he kept his face passive. That's going to take years off my life.
Hanging on to sanity now by nothing but fingernails and sheer force of will, he made one last, superhuman effort to shut out the ecstasy that was hammering hard on every door of his consciousness, demanding that he let it in, in, in.
He snapped his determined gaze back to Ethan's exasperated eyes.
"Not. Without. You."
For a long moment, Ethan stared disbelievingly down at him. He was breathing hard now, too, some part of David noted, actually shaking in the grip of some powerful emotion. Anger? Frustration? Lust?
Whatever it was, he wasn't in as complete, cool control of himself as he'd seemed. And despite David's own growing trepidation, he felt a small flash of satisfaction. Of hope.
With a strangled curse, Ethan slicked his fingers from David's body, curled a strong arm beneath him, and simply lifted him from the tub in a single, lunging movement, laying him on the deck just beyond, his hips raised on one of the folded towels. David cried out from the shock of the sudden movement, but before he could move again, or even decide how he should move---sit up? Roll away? Do somersaults?---he felt insistent hands on his knees.
From a bracing stance in the tub, Ethan pushed his legs wide apart, curled a hand around the top of each thigh, and yanked him forward a little, until David's ass rested right on the edge of the tub and he could feel Ethan's balls and the root of his cock pressing right up against his butt cheeks.
"This is really how you want it?" Ethan's voice was thick. "All right. Just remember that you asked for this."
He leaned over David's quivering body for the green bottle and squirted more lube into his hand.
Keeping hard eyes on David's, he palmed his own massive erection and slid his hand over and around it, spreading the lube with each stroke. Under his fingers, his cock reared and wagged, grew shiny. He made no attempt to hide it or downplay it, but thrust it deliberately into David's line of sight, almost like a challenge.
Almost as if he were trying to scare him.
Oh, no worries there, Eath. You get full props on that score.
He kept his gaze carefully averted from Ethan's arousal---kept his gaze trained instead on those dangerous eyes.
He could see the anger in them. Determination. But now that he was looking for it, he could see the pain too. And suddenly, he understood.
Ethan expected him to pull away again. After. That was why he'd been holding back.
He was trying to protect himself.
From David.
The irony of it left him reeling.
Another squirt from the bottle.
Still not looking away from David's face, Ethan spread David's cheeks and slicked the lube against the small pink hole there, greasing him with oiled fingers until David felt as if he were bathed in the slippery stuff. Every angle in Ethan's body---every line of his grim expression, every clipped syllable of his speech---telegraphed frustration, impatience and anger...but his touch was heartbreakingly gentle.
Well, of course it was. This was Ethan. Even beyond pissed, he won't let himself hurt me.
The realization helped David to slow his breathing.
"You're probably right." Something in Ethan's voice sounded broken. He tossed the bottle back onto the deck. It hit with a thump and rolled in a lopsided circle. "We might as well do it like this, since you're just going to pretend this is how it happened anyway. Right?"
He stepped closer, pressing his hips against the backs of David's thighs. Reaching forward, he pushed David's erection and balls up to expose the vulnerable ring beneath them.
"Well, David?" The challenge was blunt. "Are you ready?"
"Are you?"
He matched Ethan tone for tone, but he could feel himself clenching up everywhere. Ready? Hell, no. Who could ever be ready for this?
Never had he feared anything more...or wanted it as much.
Ethan's shoulders seemed to quake a little as he reached down and took himself in hand, fitting the blunt head of his engorged cock to David's flinching entrance and pausing there. He slammed the other hand down on the deck beside David's head, leaned his weight onto that arm and hunched over David's trembling body, staring down at him with blank eyes.
"Tell me you want me," he demanded flatly. "Tell me you want this."
David drew in a shuddering breath. Forced himself not to flinch from the coldness in Ethan's face, from the emptiness in his eyes. I know you're in there, Ethan. I know it.
Gripped by impulse, he turned his head and kissed Ethan's wrist...a hot, slow, open-mouthed kiss of grazing teeth and caressing lips. Against his tongue, in the curve of the wrist just above the thumb, David could feel Ethan's hammering pulse, and he sucked gently, desperately, against that tiny drumbeat.
Don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me.
Then he turned his eyes back to Ethan's and lifted his chin.
"I want you, Ethan. I want this."
Ethan slammed his eyes shut and a tremor seemed to run over his face and down his entire body, like a curtain of rain washing across a windowpane. He looked for a moment as if he were trying very hard not to cry.
David reached out a hand and laid it against Ethan's chest, directly over the long shallow cut that marred that beautiful bronzed skin...felt the other man's heart pounding beneath his fingertips. At his touch, Ethan's eyes shot open and he flinched away a little.
Stifling the sting of rejection, David wrapped his hand around Ethan's wrist.
"I want this," he repeated, searching Ethan's eyes. "I want you."
At his words, Ethan's face twisted again. A shimmering veil of pain and need flickered through his eyes, flashing against the frightening emptiness like northern lights in a frozen sky.
"Fuck." He closed his eyes and turned his face slightly away. His voice shook. "I didn't think...we'd be here. Not tonight. I don't...have anything...right at hand."
Condom. He means a condom. David felt fractured anew to realize the thought had not even occurred to him---to him, a person who had never, not even once in his life, experienced sex without a shield of latex.
Exhaling shakily, Ethan went on, still not looking at him. "I know you're clean, David. Don't ask me how; you can be pissed at me later. I'm safe, too. You're safe with me. But if you're...not sure...about that...then we're going to stop. At least until I'm gloved up."
"Jesus, Eath," said David, in genuine surprise, touching Ethan's face. Again, he felt Ethan quiver a little beneath his hand, but this time, he did not pull away.
"If you tell me you're clean, then you are. You're a kidnapper and a sociopath---and, apparently a flagrant violator of federal HIPAA rules, God, there's another charge---but you're not a dick."
Ethan bowed his head, and more of the tension went out of his face. Again, David saw a flash of the younger Ethan he remembered in those softening planes.
"And if..." David spoke the words before he'd even finished thinking them. "If we're really going to honest-to-God do this...then..." His eyes locked again on those hazel, gold-flecked circles, wide now with something that looked like hope. "I want to feel you."
At his words, a fault line finally splintered. Fractured. Gave.
With a guttural moan, Ethan dropped to one elbow. He brushed his jaw against David's, the bite of five o'clock shadow shocking and gritty against his throat. One hand reached up to grip his shoulder, but whether to hold him steady or keep Ethan himself anchored, David could not tell. The other hand still pressed the head of Ethan's cock against his opening. He could feel the backs of those trembling fingers brushing the sensitive skin where his thighs and buttocks joined.
"Last chance." Ethan's voice was really shaky now. "Fair warning."
David reached his free hand up to Ethan's face and laid his fingers along the strong jaw, the delicate ear. "Nothing's fair in love and war. Or else everything is."
Ethan gave a hoarse, drawn-out cry and bit into the curve of David's neck and shoulder, pulling firmly down on him as he rocked his own hips slowly forward. The well-oiled head of his cock surged shockingly into David's contracting aperture, crushing heavily into the tight ring of muscle just inside.
At the overwhelming fact of it, the thick, relentless feeling of intrusion, David cried out and grabbed hard onto Ethan's arm.
Instantly, Ethan stopped moving and held himself exactly where he was. His handsome face was strained and terribly drawn. His arm trembled, not from his weight, David realized, but from the sheer effort of controlling himself, of holding his own raging need in check---of keeping himself from pressing on and burying himself inside David to the hilt in a single, searing thrust.
Fuck. Oh, fuck. I can't do this. Nerve endings David had never even realized he had were suddenly wide awake and clamoring for attention, all of them at once...and in that bedlam of sensation, in that melee of uncoordinated outcry, he couldn't immediately decipher whether those nerves were cheering or screaming.
He could feel himself tensing, could sense himself sliding precariously down that slippery slope between pressure and pain. The edge seemed perilously near, and he sensed that just beyond it lay a dark chasm full of unseen, jagged peaks. Just the thought of them made him feel as if he were pinwheeling his arms for balance---as if falling were inevitable.
And as if the sensation overload wasn't enough...that, and the growing fear that he was about to topple off whatever impossibly thin tightrope made it possible for his brain to meld pain and pleasure...now he could feel the familiar talons of claustrophobia ripping and slashing at him too.
I'm trapped, began the insidious refrain in the animal part of his brain, I'm hurt, I'm trapped, I'm being held down, I'm pinned, I can't get away...
"Davo." Ethan's voice cut smoothly across the panic. "Look at me. Come on, baby. Look at me."
Panting, David struggled to get control of his breathing, to lasso his fear. He snapped his eyes to Ethan's and felt those familiar hazel circles catch and cradle him, solid and sympathetic now, and oh so tender. Ethan's eyes felt like an island of safety in these dark, unfamiliar waters---a sanctuary from unseen things swimming all around him. Hungry things, with teeth.
In the warmth of that golden, hazel glow, he felt the knife edge of panic subside a little, like a switchblade folding back into its handle. But the discomfort below remained, sharp and unabating.
"It's okay." Ethan stroked his hair. "I'm here. I'm right here."
David gasped a little. "Well, see, now, that may actually be the problem."
Ethan bowed his head and laughed ruefully. "No, baby. Trust me. That's the solution. I'm right where we both need me to be. Almost." He nuzzled David's throat.
David swallowed hard. His whole body felt tense and stretched, unbearably racked between pain and pleasure. Between dread and desire.
He shook his head, his voice small. "I'm...I'm sorry. I think...I may just be too tight to do this. Or else I'm doing it wrong. It...hurts."
"I know it does, baby." Ethan stroked David's bottom lip with a gentle thumb. "But it won't. And you're not doing anything wrong. You just need a little time to adjust to this kind of love. And a little help getting where you need to go. I'm going to give you both. Trust me."
David caught his breath and closed his eyes.
This kind of love.
He means sex. I know he just means sex.
He turned his face away. "Ethan? All bullshit aside. I am more than a little scared here."
He felt Ethan take his chin and tilt his face toward his own until their cheeks were touching, right to right. He could feel the sweep of Ethan's eyelashes as he closed his own eyes.
"All bullshit aside." Ethan kissed the corner of his mouth and then leaned his forehead against David's. "I know you are. Trust me. I won't move an inch. Not a millimeter. Not until your body tells us both that you're ready."
"But what if...what if I don't think I can do this?"
"Then we stop," said Ethan simply, brushing his cheek with one finger, "until you think you can."
David stared up into those clear hazel eyes with a kind of wonder. And he would stop. Even now. "How are you so sure? How can you be so damned sure this is going to work?"
"Because it's us." Ethan seemed genuinely surprised by the question. "You and me. We were always amazing together, in everything we did."
He leaned forward to kiss the jumping pulse in David's neck. "Now, relax," he ordered against David's throat.
"Oh, okay, right." David rolled his eyes. "Relax. Why didn't I think of that? You should have said something."
The petulance in his voice made Ethan's body shake again with repressed laughter. When he'd regained his equilibrium, Ethan placed a finger over David's lips. His eyes danced, but his voice was stern.
"Hush. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to your body. Unlike you, it actually listens to reason from time to time."
"If you mean that it listens to you, that's only because it doesn't know you like I do."
"Oh, but it's going to," promised Ethan in a voice like rough velvet, letting one hand stroke languorously down David's quivering side. Somehow, his touch managed to tickle, soothe and ignite little erotic sparks, all at the same time. "It's going to know me really, really well."
His fingers tightened possessively around David's hip. As if on perfect cue, David felt his body clenching responsively and involuntarily around the tip of Ethan's cock.
David opened his mouth to say something---he didn't really even know what---but before he could utter a single syllable, Ethan had leaned forward and tugged his bottom lip into his mouth.
He felt himself tumbling helplessly into that kiss, into Ethan's tongue, now darting into his mouth and slicking against his own tongue. He felt Ethan's fingers on his cheek, caressing his ear so gently, and then traveling down, down, down to find the place between them where David's cock lay, rock hard and eager, against his belly.
David moaned.
The sound surprised him. It didn't sound like pain. It sounded like...purring.
As Ethan's hand closed over him and began to slide and stroke, David felt his back arching and his toes curling against the edge of the tub. Little bursts of pleasure started to stack up and spark in his brain. Inside him, down at the junction where he and Ethan were connected, he felt the overwhelming pressure changing. Not lessening, exactly...but becoming something else. Ballooning into something that was tipping the balance...reversing the slope...sliding him away from the edge that loomed over terrifying, jagged places and toward the edge that eased down into a warm sea of stars.
His breathing was becoming shallower, more rapid.
And not from fear.
Ethan brushed one of David's cheekbones with a gentle thumb as he stroked David's quivering shaft. "Well? How am I doing? Do you want me to stop?"
Stop this? Hell, no. I'll die if you stop this.
He stared helplessly up at Ethan, his eyes dazed and dreamy, his cheeks flushing, his lips parted. He couldn't seem to find the words. His speech center seemed to have shut down early for the day, leaving a hastily lettered sign taped to the front door: Sorry. Can't talk now. Getting off.
Ethan stared deeply into his eyes and grinned.
"Good," he whispered. "That's good. I'm going to move now, baby. Just a little bit. I'm going to pull back and then come forward again."
No, why? I like it right here.
But before David had time to tense up, to steel himself against the expected pain of a renewed onslaught below, he felt Ethan palm his own quivering erection hard against his body. Then Ethan tilted his hips away, withdrew a fraction of an inch, and thrust shallowly forward again, slowly, his eyes never leaving David's. As David gasped, Ethan caught the cry in his mouth, licked David's bottom lip and drew it in, sucking on it. Trapped between them, David's erection slid and scraped against Ethan's hand in a delicious friction as Ethan's body moved.
Oh. Oh. But that...that felt good.
He felt the wave of sensation tingle through his cock, his balls, and along the extended opening between his cheeks, stretched impossibly wide around Ethan's hardness. Pleasure, pressure, pain, all merged into a single something new that was greater, more compelling than any one alone. Something that made David ache to give himself up, give in, give over. He felt his whole body shaking from the intensity of this experience.
He couldn't take it for another second.
He needed it to last forever.
Again, Ethan withdrew just slightly. This time, he leaned down and sucked one of David's nipples into his mouth, thrusting gently forward again at exactly the same moment he let his teeth graze the sensitive peak.
Again, the exquisitely timed sensations merged and mingled---the too-much and the not-quite-enough combining in a way that took David's breath away.
He let it go with a cry of surprise, of wonder.
Again and again, Ethan pulled back and then pushed forward, never pressing farther than David's body would readily take him. Each time he repeated the motion, each time his cock's head grazed over the sensitive nerves clustered at David's entrance, his fingers or tongue did something wicked and delicious to David's cock, his nipples, his mouth...tugging, stroking, clenching, sucking---interrupting and reshaping pain signals; diverting David's attention; shifting his focus expertly from pressure to pleasure.
From fear to feverish need.
In the front of his mind, David felt nothing but ecstasy. And buried somewhere beneath those compelling, demanding sensations, he was aware of the pressure of Ethan's entry easing, knew it had to be, because dimly, distantly, he could feel each thrust taking Ethan a little deeper inside him.
Once more, he felt Ethan begin the mesmerizing motion, felt him drawing back slightly, and then pressing gently forward again. Only this time, Ethan didn't touch David anywhere at all, except at the place where they joined...and to David's shock, his body still lit up all around him like a Christmas tree---responded as if the sensations he was feeling now were purely pleasurable.
"Ohhh. That's...that's...oh, wow."
Of their own volition, his hands wrapped around Ethan and roved blindly over his bare back. Inexperienced as he was in this kind of lovemaking, his fingertips instinctively worshipped Ethan's strong body, stroked his back, his hips, reveling in his warmth, his skin, his solidity. His thighs hugged Ethan's sides; his calves found Ethan's flanks.
"David." His name was a groan on Ethan's lips. "Listen."
He struggled to focus.
"Am I doing something wrong?"
Ethan gasped. "No. You're doing everything just exactly right. Better than right."
A gentle thrust.
Sparks.
"But I need...I need to tell you something."
Slide.
Stars.
"Weird time...to get...chatty, Eath."
"I know." Ethan dipped his head. "But...I've really missed you. I know...you didn't choose to come here. Not...really. And you fight me, but...you want me too."
Yes. David groaned as Ethan rocked against him again. Want you. Want this.
"And it's just...we have these...flashes...of what we used to have...of who we used to be." Ethan pulled back in that tantalizing slide of hips and cock. "And it makes me remember, makes me...happy...and then it...makes me hurt. And I can't help but wonder if maybe...we could have that back...if I could have that back...if I'd only give up this..."
His body moved again, and again, David's heart kicked right up into his throat as he felt the biting pleasure-pain of the deepening invasion and withdrawal. At the same time, Ethan's thumb grazed the tip of David's cock, sliding into the moisture seeping from the slit there.
Ethan stared down at his slick thumb for a moment, rubbed David's fluid between thumb and forefinger.
Then he locked his eyes with David's. They were hazy and dilated with need.
"You're ready for me now," he said shakily. He looked down, splayed a hand on David's belly, stretched his little finger to stroke the side of David's straining cock. "You're absolutely primed and...ready for me to take you. All the way. Aren't you?"
"Yes," David whispered. Whimpered.
Ethan swallowed, his Adam's apple jerking. Gently, he closed David's hand around his own penis, began to guide him in a slow dance of self-stimulation.
"And if I do that..." He shuddered. "If I do what I want to do more than I want to take my next breath...if I bury myself inside you as hard and deep as I can...there won't be any...going back. We'll have...crossed a line. Are you ready for that?"
David gaped. Ethan's hand still led his in that tantalizing dance of friction and release, and it was hard to form thoughts, much less words. "You're...kidding, right? You kidnap me...tie me to a chair...you're...feels like about a mile inside me...and you're worried about crossing a line? Oh Ethan. Take my word for it. That line...has been well and truly...crossed. That line has been crossed out."
"Yeah." Ethan grinned, moving his hips lazily again in those maddening shallow circles. He looked suddenly, completely, uncomplicatedly happy. "I know. Just wanted to make sure you did."
David rolled his eyes. "For the love of..." He groaned, arching his back again. "Fuck you...and the horse you rode in on!"
"No, baby." Ethan lifted his hand from David's, leaving him to fist his cock alone. His own hands closed on David's shoulders, and his eyes found David's, held them tight. "Just me. Now."
He rocked his hips firmly, powerfully forward. This time, the crown of his penis pushed determinedly through the resistant ring of muscle, pushed through the pleasure-pain, and now his shaft was surging forward and he was really inside David, deep inside, in a way no one had ever been, in a place where David could never have imagined anyone else.
"God, Ethan." David cried, shocked, his hand tightening around himself. "Jesus, yes."
Ethan was wrapped all around him, holding him in his center like a precious thing, like something to be cherished, protected from a storm. But the storm was inside David now. There was no protecting him from it. He didn't want to be protected from it.
"So tight," Ethan groaned against David's mouth. "So hot...all around me..."
He thrust his knee up between David's legs, arched an arm beneath David's body, and simply lifted them both, towels and all, a foot away from the tub, pulled out almost to his crown and drove hard back into David's yielding body. Another lift, another foot, another thrust. His head jerked back in an involuntary cry and his balls slapped against David's upturned behind.
Again, David gasped. Physical and emotional signals crashed together in a blinding, deafening cacophony of sensation. He felt Ethan adjust his angle slightly, felt the head of his cock scrape deliciously over that magical place, and his blood sizzled. He felt like crying and laughing and singing and screaming, all at once.
He floated, staring up at Ethan's joy-filled face, at the stars. He felt so filled, so stretched beyond anything he had ever imagined, ever believed possible. He felt Ethan's strong body driving forcefully into him again and again, pushing him forward with each strong thrust, catching him on the other end with hands that gripped and pulled him back. Every thrust pushed his own cock into his fist; his other hand clutched at Ethan's shoulder, the back of his thigh, trying to pull him closer.
Was this what he had run so far and so furiously from?
No. From fear. Fear of wanting it. Of never having it.
Of losing it.
"Can't hold on..." Ethan buried his face in the curve of David's neck.
David's senses were on overload. He could smell sweat, and musky arousal, and the water from the hot tub, and beneath and above it all, Ethan's own familiar, intoxicating scent. Beneath his hips, the long-suffering towel had given up its clean, even folds and scrunched up into a jumble of terrycloth. Distantly, he could feel his shoulders rubbing against the hard, smooth surface of the deck with each of Ethan's thrusts, knew that he'd probably be bruised and stiff later, but for now, it was just another sensation, and all sensations were good, were part of the excitement and the ecstasy.
Ethan's breath was coming faster now, more ragged. David felt a powerful shudder begin in the root of Ethan's cock, right where it was swallowed by his own body.
"Eath?" he quavered.
"David, I---" panted Ethan. "I need...I have to...I..."
Wordlessly, David lifted his legs and locked them behind Ethan's body. With a growl, Ethan reached down and gripped David's buttocks, pulling his lower body completely up and off the towels and holding him now in powerful arms. His fingers curved demandingly into David's cleft, spreading him wider and shucking into his narrow sheath harder and deeper than ever.
David was sure he felt Ethan's orgasm start even before Ethan did---felt the rhythmic, unstoppable tremors begin to roll down the entire length of that hard, veined shaft, clenched so tightly by his own body that it felt as if it were part of him, had become part of him, even before he could see the wonder of it etched into Ethan's beautiful face.
"David."
As the quake began for Ethan, David watched his face light from within with perfect joy---watched it transform into something so unconsciously reverent, so filled with rapture, that he almost felt as if he were eavesdropping on a prayer.
He felt unspeakably grateful that they were face to face, so he could watch Ethan take wing.
Watch ecstasy lift him high.
And then Ethan was crying out and driving into him, holding his hips and thrusting harder, deeper even than he'd been before. And he was throwing back his head, the tendons in his neck standing out in harsh relief, the beat in his throat jumping against the skin like a fish out of water as he thrust so hard, so deep, and then held himself there, right there, trembling---and David felt the throbbing explosion deep within himself, felt the warm flow of Ethan's seed bursting inside him.
And that was all it took. The heat from Ethan's conflagration set off his own, and David went up like dry grass. His back arched and he screamed his pleasure, screamed his surprise, screamed Ethan's name. His own semen shot violently through his fingers in the most powerful orgasm he had ever known, drenching his belly and the hand that gripped and slid against his cock.
Each time Ethan's penis jerked and shagged into him, raking over his sensitive gland, it ignited a new spasm in David's body. His climax answered Ethan's with violent, uncontrollable shocks that made his body clench rhythmically all around the cock inside him. With each jolt, David felt himself milking and stroking that jerking shaft from root to buried tip.
Their bodies locked together, shuddering and jerking and spilling. Hands gripped, stroked, and clung. Cries sounded, echoed, and faded.
Until finally, with one last clenching spasm of David's body, Ethan slipped from him, and they became two people again.
Separated, but no longer separate.
Ethan fell heavily to the deck by David's side, and they stared up at the stars. Their bodies still shook, touching only lightly now at constellation points. Shoulders. Upper arms. Backs of hands. Heads.
"Ow," groaned Ethan after a long while, with a rueful chuckle. "Remind me not to make love to you on a hard deck again. I'm an old man. My knees can't take it."
"You're twenty-seven." David's nerve endings still sparked with little electric aftershocks. "And a billionaire. You can buy new knees."
Ethan laughed and let the backs of a couple of fingers nudge David's. David lifted an index finger in response, and their fingertips intertwined loosely.
Exhausted by this minute effort, they lay quietly again for a while.
"I'm sorry," said Ethan at last. "That was...rougher than I expected. Than I intended. It's just...I've been holding that back for...for a really long time."
"That," said David simply, "was not something I ever expected at all."
"You imagined it, though. Yes?"
There was a moment of silence.
"Yes."
More silence.
"Like that?"
"No." Tired as he was, amazement rang in David's voice. "I could never have imagined that."
Silence.
"Beautiful night," said Ethan, staring at the sky.
"Uh-huh."
"What are you thinking now?" Ethan's voice was all casual curiosity, but David could hear the faint ribbon of unease.
"Honestly, I'm too tired to think. You wore me out."
"Good." Ethan nodded. "Perfect."
"Tomorrow, though." David turned his head to look at Ethan's profile. "I don't know how I'll be doing tomorrow. I think parts of my brain are...I don't know...dysfunctional, or something. There's...stuff...I just don't seem to have very much control over. You have to bear with me."
"I know." Ethan squeezed David's fingers. "We'll worry about it tomorrow."
They watched the sky some more. David felt a deep and unfamiliar contentment settle into his bones. He thought he might never want to move again.
Finally, Ethan pulled himself up and reached for one of the towels scattered around them on the deck like hurricane-strewn debris. He leaned forward and dipped the corner of the towel into the hot tub, squeezed it out. Then he brought the warm, moist terrycloth to David's body, spread his legs gently, and began, with infinite tenderness, to clean him.
Out of nowhere, David felt the sting of hot tears. He felt completely defenseless and wrung out, realized he had no strength left to stop them. Horrified, he covered his face with his hands.
"It's okay, baby," soothed Ethan, rubbing David's leg as he rinsed the semen-streaked towel in the hot tub and brought it back to David's body. "Let it out." He hugged David's leg to his chest and kissed the inside of his knee as he stroked gently between his cheeks again.
David's chest shook as he sobbed. Somehow, Ethan's touch as he performed this intimate task was undoing him in a way sex had not---could not. It felt so gentle. So tender.
So loving.
He had no more strength to push the word away.
Again, he heard Ethan squeezing out the towel. This time, he felt the moistened cloth swipe gently at his belly and chest, where his own seed lay drying.
Dip. Rinse. Squeeze.
Next, the cloth was tugging gently on his spent cock, carefully erasing all traces of stickiness from the folds.
Finally, Ethan held his hand, wiping at his fingers, and David was reminded of how gently Ethan had dressed his knife cut. Could that have been only yesterday?
It felt like a lifetime ago.
And then Ethan was lying beside him, pulling him close, and pressing another towel, this one soft and dry, into his trembling hands. And David was curling up into Ethan's body, and pressing his wet face into the towel, and Ethan was just holding him while he shook. Stroking his hair and rubbing his shoulders while he cried, kissing the back of his neck and murmuring little soothing things into his ear.
Eventually, the storm passed.
"So much for your clean hot tub," David sniffled, his voice still hitching.
"Fuck that. That's what filters are for." Ethan kissed David's neck softly. "You okay?"
David closed his eyes and rubbed at them again with the towel. "Yes. No," he sputtered on a half laugh, half sob, and then paused until his voice felt steadier in his chest. "I wasn't crying because of tonight."
"Actually," countered Ethan softly, stroking his back. "I think you really kind of were."
"I meant, I wasn't crying because I changed my mind about tonight."
"I know that."
"I loved how it felt," David whispered. "I loved how you made me feel."
"I know that too." Ethan kissed a shoulder blade.
"How do you do this to me?" David's voice was small and confused. "How do you make me feel this way? I'm not myself...with you."
"You are," said Ethan calmly, pulling him closer. "You are exactly yourself with me."
"I don't see how that can be true. Then who am I all the rest of the time?"
"That is a mystery," Ethan said, letting his fingers curl idly in David's hair, "that may be worth exploring."
"Too tired." David closed his eyes again.
"Bed now. Explore tomorrow."
Yes. Tomorrow.
Tomorrow came in annoying increments all night long, courtesy of Ethan's first-aid manual, his watch alarm, and his neurotic concern about the bump on David's head.
"David." Hands, gentle but insistent, shook him. "David, wake up."
He didn't want to wake up. He was warm and comfortable and sleepy and cocooned, and he was having a nice dream. In it, Ethan was curled around him, not angry at him at all, not hell-bent on getting revenge, or humiliating him or stripping his emotions raw and hanging him out to dry...just comforting and protective and sexy as hell.
Also, there were waffles.
"Come on, David, brain-check time. Talk to me."
David growled.
"Head injury, baby, remember? Say something to prove your brain isn't bleeding. Convince me that you're coherent and not concussed. Let me look at your pupils. Tell me how many fingers you see."
A penlight flashed on in the dark, stabbing at David's eyes with its cruel beam. He groaned and pulled his pillow over his head, muffling his words. "But I am confused. Why, I ask myself, are you such a ruthless, hard-hearted bastard? Why won't you let me sleep? Why has no one shoved that fucking flashlight up your ass?"
"Good enough." The light switched off. "See you in a few hours."
Shaking.
Light.
"David. Davo, wake up. Follow the light with your eyes. How many fingers?"
"I'm going to have to kill you, Ethan. Even if it means I'm stuck on this godforsaken island forever. I'm going to have to stave in your head with a coconut and feed you to the dog. Leave me alone."
"In a minute, babe." Ethan tugged him up to a sitting position and wrapped one of his hands around a cool glass. "Take these first, so your head doesn't start to hurt."
David swallowed the pills obediently. "Know what else makes your head hurt? Having it staved in with a goddamn coconut."
"We'll order one for you," Ethan promised, taking the glass away and wrapping himself around David again. "From Coconuts R Us. They can overnight it."
"Drop shipment," breathed David, letting the tide take him back out. "You stand beneath."
"Open your eyes, baby. How many fingers do you see now?"
"Goddamnit, Ethan. How many fingers do you see?"
"Just the one, Davo," laughed Ethan. "Just the one."
"Perfect," he said, and drifted back to sleep.
When he woke again, it was early morning. The curtains filtered soft, purple light.
Ethan was spooning him. One arm was draped over David's hip, and a knee was bent up into the crook of his own knee. Ethan's chest was pressed against his back, and his breathing was deep and even.
I should move. Before he wakes up.
The thought felt like habit rather than urgency. Meaningless. He didn't move.
He should, though. If he didn't, Ethan might...get the wrong idea.
Or the right one. Relax, David. Let yourself be happy for a change.
He held his breath. Is that what this was? Was he happy?
He had sure as hell slept better than he had in years. Since Santa Fe, probably. Unless you counted the deranged psychopath in bed with him, waking him up every five minutes.
Kind of sweet really, when you thought about it.
He didn't want to think about it. He wanted to pee. Right now. Carefully, he slid out from under Ethan's arm and padded to the bathroom. Stiff muscles howled with every step.
Washing his hands, he studied himself in the bathroom mirror. Green, clear eyes stared back at him. They didn't look any different than they had the morning before.
How was it possible that they did not look any different?
I had sex last night. With a man. He stared into his own eyes, waiting for some change, some flicker of shame or revulsion to cloud them. I let another guy put his...his cock...in my ass. I asked him to do it. I...liked it.
The eyes gazed back at him calmly.
I want him to do it again.
The eyes did not look away. He shut off the water and rocked back a little on his heels, gripping the sink for support.
Who ARE you? And what the fuck happens now?
The eyes watched him steadily, but offered no answers.
David turned away from them and limped back to his side of the bed. He stood there for a few moments, staring down.
Oh, God. He had a side of the bed with Ethan. What did that mean?
Without opening his eyes, Ethan held up the sheet and comforter. "C'mere." His voice was slurred with drowsiness. Irresistible.
David crawled back in and let Ethan scoop him close once more. Closed his eyes. Reclaimed sleep, and let it reclaim him.
Whatever it all meant---whatever was going to happen next---could wait.
When he woke again, Ethan was gone.
He could hear distant noises---pans rattling, Ethan talking to Bella---and smell something delicious. Breakfast.
He limped to the bathroom again, brushed his teeth. As he sat back on the bed, Ethan came in with a tray. Bella trotted straight to David with a small bark, tail wagging.
"You little slut," accused Ethan.
David's wide eyes shot up, and Ethan gave an exasperated laugh. "Not you. I was talking to my dog. The one who would sell me to a hungry pit bull for a mere whiff of ham."
"Who can blame her? I'd sell you for a piece of fresh fruit."
"No need." Ethan set the tray down in the middle of the bed with a flourish. Two plates almost overflowed with steaming omelets, puffy with ham, spinach and tomatoes. Glass bowls cradled cold wedges of fresh strawberries and melon, sprinkled with blueberries and cut grapes.
David sighed. "No fresh-cut flower? You know I'm going to have to note that in my TripAdvisor review."
"Somehow, I'm not worried about a drop in my reservation rate." Ethan sat cross-legged on the bed across from David, the bed tray between them. He picked up a fork and offered it to David, handle-first.
David looked at it. The utensil was stainless steel, not plastic. He met Ethan's eyes for a moment and then reached out and took it, their fingers brushing. He let the fork rest in his fingers for a moment, feeling the cold reality, the balance of it. Considering.
"I do actually have a box of Cap'n Crunch in the pantry," Ethan offered drily. "If you'd prefer to continue the slow nutritional suicide you began back in school."
David cut himself a bite of omelet. Fluffy. Warm. Perfect. He loosed a long-suffering sigh. "That's okay. In time, one grows accustomed to even the blandest institutional food."
"Gracious of you to lower your standards to your surroundings." Ethan speared a strawberry and kept his voice casual. "Apart from that indignity, how are you doing this morning?"
"My head is pounding like a stop on the STOMP tour. My ankle hurts. I've got nasty bruises I can see, and probably some that I can't."
"Okay. But how are you doing?"
Not casual anymore. David's fingers tightened on the fork.
"Oh. You mean, am I okay from landing on my head when my world view got turned upside down?"
"Is that what happened?"
"Isn't it? Reality took a hard right and I kept going, right through the windshield." He sipped some orange juice. "And if you're going to insist on playing psychotherapist, I think your next line is, 'And how does that make you feel, David?'"
Ethan smiled. "How does that make you feel, David?"
David didn't smile back. "It makes me feel fragile. It makes me feel fragile and conflicted and fucking confused."
"Why?"
"You know why. I'm not who I thought I was. You're not who I thought you were."
"No?" Ethan sounded curious. "Who did you think I was?"
David shrugged. "Ethan. The Guy Most Likely to succeed. Cheat at cards. Score higher than me on exams." Run screaming from me after Santa Fe. "Gifted. Smart. Unpredictable." Straight.
Ethan set his plate aside and leaned closer. "And who do you think I am?"
"You're...Ethan," David said helplessly. The Guy Most Likely to kidnap me. Draw me out. Pull me in. Tie me into knots.
Tie me with knots.
He couldn't make himself say any of it out loud.
Ethan's gaze caressed his bottom lip. "Never mind. It's not nearly as important as who you think you are."
"Ah." David laughed sharply. "Well. As to that, I no longer have the first, faintest fucking clue."
"Of course you do."
David's fingers bunched and pulled at the comforter on the bed. Memories were suspect. Feelings were treacherous. What did he know? "I know I'd never have come here, if I'd known you were here. And I'd never have stayed if you'd given me any way to leave. I swore I wouldn't let you touch me, and I meant it."
He closed his eyes, felt his cheeks heat. "But I did. In just four days. I let you do things...I asked you to do things...that I'd never, not in a million years, have believed I would let anyone do."
"You didn't let 'anyone' do them. You let me."
"I'm not sure that's a meaningful distinction." David's hands plucked blindly again at the bedding.
"You know it is."
"I know that I...I liked it. That I wanted it."
He paused. Compassionate hazel eyes regarded him without a glimmer of judgment. Ah, fuck it. In for a penny. Hanged for a sheep. No pain, no gain. Any other idioms he could stall for time with? No?
"I still want it," he admitted with a shaky exhalation. "And that scares me to death."
"Why? Isn't it scarier to not be who you are?"
David bit his lip. How could he make Ethan understand? He couldn't even say the words. Not out loud.
I've found ways to live with whatever I am, Ethan---or, at least, to get by. It's scarier not knowing who you are, or what you really want from me. What is all of this to you? A game? An experiment? A chance to even the score? Or worse, to satisfy a passing curiosity?
It can't be that for me. It could never have been that for me.
If I understood nothing else three years ago, I understood that.
"You don't know. You can't know how it feels. When I'm around you, when you touch me, sometimes when you just look at me, it's like something comes over me. Like I'm hypnotized. Remember last night?"
Ethan's voice was suddenly intense. "Every second."
At the sound, David felt a corresponding flutter in his groin. He held out a trembling hand as if he thought he could stop an oncoming train.
"When I got into that hot tub, I was in complete control of myself. Well, relative control, anyway. When I got out---well. If you'd announced you were going to take me in front of a camera linked directly to the television set at my aunt's annual Thanksgiving dinner, I'm not honestly sure that I wouldn't have gone along with it." He laughed painfully. "Me. Can you maybe see why I'm a little freaked out here?"
"But one of the reasons you trust me is precisely because you know I never would ask you to do something that would hurt or humiliate you like that."
"Do I? You kidnapped me." He held up a finger to head off the expected semantic protest. "Yes, I understand that no one grabbed me off a street into a van and shoved a bag over my head. Maybe the charge wouldn't stand up in court. But that doesn't change the fundamental reality, for either of us."
He drew a deep breath. "You say that I can trust you---that some part of me already does---but I just don't see how that's possible, under these circumstances. And if it isn't, then what the hell is happening to me here? Is this Stockholm Syndrome?"
Ethan groaned. "David. When are you going to get that you can't magically understand something just by slapping a ready-made label on it?"
"It's not like I'm organizing a fucking filing cabinet. I'm trying to figure things out."
"This won't help. Think about it. Gay. Bisexual. Bicurious. Ambidextrous. Expi-allidocious. Does the shorthand matter? Does it really make anything clearer? Does it change how you feel about yourself, or about me? Let go of the labels and focus on what's real."
"Damn it, don't you get it? I don't know what's real anymore!" His voice was shaking.
Ethan took his hand. "You do," he said quietly. "You really do."
David stared at him blankly.
"Do you fantasize about having sex with guys? Brad Pitt? Whoever is this year's Sexiest Stud, or whatever Time Magazine calls it?"
"Not in general. No."
"Just with me, then."
David couldn't look away. "So far," he tried to joke. But he didn't feel like laughing.
"Would you kick Angelina Jolie out of bed?"
David blinked. "No," he said automatically, and then thought about it. "No. But I've never felt anything like...like last night."
"Ah." Ethan didn't quite manage not to look pleased. "Gay, straight, or somewhere in between---and most of us are somewhere in between---there are all kinds of reasons sex with one partner might be more intense than with another. More chemistry. Better psychological match. Different hormonal balance." He grinned suggestively. "Something really good on the hotel porn channel."
David smiled, but inside, he felt a pang. Nothing about emotion. Nothing about love. Of course not. Because to Ethan, this was just sex.
Ethan angled his head to aim a teasing smile into downcast eyes. "Seems to me that what you're really struggling with is a straightforward case of the long-term hots for your best friend. A man so universally admired, so exceptionally charming, that no mere mortal could resist his appeal."
David rolled his eyes. "George Clooney isn't my best friend. I've never even met him."
Ethan laughed. "Seriously, Davo. Crushing on an impossibly charismatic role model like me is so vanilla, they make movies about it and shelve them in the family section at the video store."
"Seriously, Eath. They have pharmaceutical remedies now for delusions like yours. You should look into them. And those movies you're talking about? They're called chick flicks. That's because the shorter star invariably has two x chromosomes."
"I know." Ethan's face turned serious. "But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen like this too."
He stood and picked up the bed tray, carried it to the dresser. Helplessly, David found his gaze drawn to Ethan's butt as he moved away, tight muscles bunching and releasing beneath the draping, loose fabric of his pajama bottoms.
He suppressed a groan. God help me. I am so screwed.
Ethan tossed a few cubes of leftover ham to Bella and padded back to the bed, drawing up his knees and resting his heels on either side of David's hips. "When I said your body trusts me, I wasn't blowing smoke. Sometimes, the subconscious makes decisions based on information the conscious mind hasn't even begun to perceive." He smiled wryly. "You can see why the front brain starts having kittens. There it is, chugging along with the hind brain in perfect lockstep, and suddenly, it's yanked off course and set on a new path with no explanation it can accept as logical. It feels as if it's been hijacked."
He ran a slow hand up David's leg from his knee to his hip. Instantly, David closed his eyes, felt his breath catch and his body sway toward Ethan's touch. Ethan pulled back and waited for David to open dazed eyes and look at him.
"It's not the kidnapping that's making you crazy. It's the hijacking. Your subconscious knows that it feels good to give control over to me, and that it's safe to do it. The rest of your brain just kind of gets dragged, kicking and screaming, along for the ride."
Again, his hand found David's leg. This time, it curled around his upper thigh and rested there. Heat flared in David's belly, and his breathing quickened. Ethan leaned closer.
"I'd like to see if maybe we can change that. The kicking and screaming part, I mean."
David felt a familiar kick of unease. "You're talking about submission again, aren't you? About me submitting to you."
"Yes," agreed Ethan without a trace of equivocation. "But not just to me. I'm also talking about you surrendering to yourself---by giving in to what you want. What you need."
David felt his body jerk slightly in response. Denial? Fear? He couldn't honestly say anymore.
He could see Ethan had felt his response too. Ethan lifted his hand and ringed David's wrist with one hand, letting his thumb rest over the quickening pulse. "I know that it's a hard idea for you to accept. I think that's partly because you have this strange idea that submission equals weakness. That giving control over to someone else means you're pathetic or spineless. That even wanting to makes you some kind of deviant."
David winced as the words hit home. A parade of painful images from comic movies and late-night sketch shows paraded through his mind. Collars. Piercings. Plugs. Leashes. Ball gags.
Apparently, Ethan had learned to read minds as well as make killer omelets. "Relax, David. I'm not talking about acting out some sort of whips-and-chains scene."
He tightened his hand around David's wrist and watched David's face. At even this modest sensation of restraint, David's breath quickened, and he had to fight not to try to snatch his hand back.
It's Ethan. He's not going to hurt me.
But his arm still shook a little.
"I'm talking about an intense, private bonding between a dominant personality and a submissive one. Between two people who have chosen to make a loving gift to one another of themselves...not just of their bodies, but of the parts of themselves that they hold back from the rest of the world. The control dynamic in a relationship like that may look uneven, but the power is really quite...balanced."
He raised David's hand and kissed the inside of his wrist, suckling the skin gently there for a moment. Then he slid his lips forward---his jaw, slightly prickly, scraping over the fleshy base of David's thumb---and tongued the very center of David's palm.
With a shock, David felt a bolt of lightning shoot directly from that spot to his balls. He groaned, and then blushed.
"That kind of power exchange doesn't have to be a dirty joke. It can be as romantic and sacred as the marriage bed. It should be."
David shivered. Relationship. Loving gift. Marriage bed.
He took his fantasies firmly in hand. Ethan was just speaking generally. They were just words. As meaningless in their own way as the labels Ethan claimed to reject.
But his heart was thumping harder.
"True submission comes from a place of strength," Ethan said softly, "because submitting means choosing to make yourself vulnerable to another person. It takes real guts to do that. It isn't weakness at all---exactly the opposite, in fact."
David felt his stomach clench. "I don't know if that's something I can do."
"I know it is. You do have that courage. You showed it last night when you gave yourself to me. I could see you were petrified, but you still put yourself on that line and opened yourself up to whatever I would do. You submitted. You trusted me."
"I didn't know what I was doing. You'd started to feel so...far away, somehow. I was just trying to...to...I needed to..." Even now, he couldn't find the words to explain the strange compulsion that had ruled him.
"You were trying to connect," explained Ethan gently. "You needed to bond. And your subconscious understood instinctively what it needed to do to engage mine, because the submissive in you recognizes the dominant in me just as surely as if our bodies were flashing pheromone-soaked signal flags at one another."
He smiled and rose. "For all I know, maybe they were. Maybe they've been doing that for a long time. Scoot up."
David leaned forward. He felt the bed dip behind him as Ethan slid between him and the headboard, bringing his thighs against David's hips as he stretched his legs out on either side. Warm hands slid up beneath David's T-shirt and caressed the quivering bare skin of his back for a moment before starting to rub the sore muscles in earnest.
David groaned with pleasure. His shirt lifted higher as Ethan worked his thumbs beneath his shoulder blades.
"We have a unique opportunity here." Ethan let his lips graze David's neck. "To explore this untouched part of you. I'd like to do that. I'd like you to do that with me. Will you?"
Explore giving up control to Ethan? Part of David---his subconscious?---was cheering wildly and giving the idea a standing ovation. It had gotten a taste of something darkly addictive last night---a special kind of sexually heightened serenity that it had never previously experienced---and it wanted to go on that ride again.
Now, if not sooner.
But there was also that other, panic-prone, more conservative part, and it was not cheering. It was waving red flags and sounding baleful alarms. It was pointing out that everything Ethan had said was about David. Not one word about what was going on in his own head. It was as if David were a piece of problematic code to be studied and debugged.
And what would happen when Ethan was finished exploring? Was David supposed to just go back to his empty apartment and lonely dinners and nighttime panic attacks? To his post-Santa Fe, Ethan-less world?
Ask him. Fucking man up and ask him.
Instead, he heard himself say, "I don't know. Do I have a choice?"
Ethan's hands stilled. "Which answer do you need? To say yes?"
David felt himself withdraw from the coolness in Ethan's tone. He understood it was a reaction to what he had said. Even to his own ears, his words had sounded petulant and uncooperative. He hadn't meant them that way. But he didn't know how to take them back. And even if he could, he didn't know what words to replace them with.
"What would happen...after?" It was as close as he could come to asking for reassurance.
Ethan was quiet for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough. "Three days. Give me three more days."
David's heart skipped a beat.
"Three days of complete submission. Sexual submission, I mean---I don't want or expect you to act as some kind of mindless house slave. I can do my own damn dishes, thank you very much."
"Good," David shot back. "Because frankly, I don't like the way dish soap dries out my delicate skin."
"I'm serious. I'm talking about complete submission in any sort of sexually charged situation. Psychological, emotional, or physical. Agreeing to this bargain would mean doing whatever I ask of you, without question or hesitation. Even if it's something that makes you feel uncomfortable or afraid. It would mean trusting that I will not ask you to do something that will hurt you, and giving yourself over to me."
His hands stilled on David's body.
"Will you try?"
David's mind raced as he struggled to balance excitement and despair.
"Three days. That's all...you want? Three days and I can just---can go...home?"
The last word came haltingly to his lips, as if he no longer knew what it meant. Did Ethan want him to go?
Well, and what if he did? Wasn't that what David wanted? Wasn't that what he'd wanted from the moment he'd realized he was stuck in this sand trap?
Ethan's hands froze again, just for a second, before continuing their tantalizing dance over David's back and shoulders. His voice was careful. "Three days. That's what I said."
"And all I have to do is...is---"
"Whatever I want."
David considered these frightening words. "Will you...will you tie me up?"
"I'm sorry." Ethan's voice was gentle. "But I'm not going to give you a checklist. The entire point of this exercise is to see if you can find your way to trusting me, no matter what. I promise I won't cause you any lasting physical harm. I won't make you bleed. Beyond that, accepting this bargain means you'll be going into it blind."
David blinked. Inside, he could feel panic rearing like a wild horse, rolling its eyes and getting ready to bolt in any direction. Every nerve ending felt suddenly raw and exposed, ready to telegraph the signal that would spark a flat-out gallop: Danger! Danger!
But there was another message too, burbling gently beneath those flailing hooves like a brook hugging the earth. And instead of giving free rein to his thrashing, rearing fear, David surprised himself by crouching down a little and holding himself still, the better to hear that other, quieter sound.
Pleasure, it burbled happily. Ethan. Pleasure. Ethan.
Three days. Thirty-six hours.
Could he do it? He suddenly realized he could see Ethan's face in the bathroom mirror through the slightly open door, and he studied it for any clue to his intent. What would he ask me to do?
Part of him was terrified to find out.
Part of him was desperate to.
"What happens if I can't do something you want me to?"
"Not can't, David. You mean won't. What happens if you won't do something I want you to?"
David nodded, his ears reddening.
"If you flat-out refused to do something, then the deal would be off."
"And if that happened? Or if I don't agree at all?"
"I don't honestly know. And I'm not sure I would tell you if I did. Frankly, I don't want you to accept my proposal because you think it's the best of two bad choices. I want you to take it because you're as curious as I am to know how it could be between us if you really tried this."
David bit his lip.
He couldn't deny that the moments in which he'd given up some measure of control to Ethan had heightened his sexual awareness to a pitch he'd never experienced previously. But he still wasn't sure that completely surrendering power was something he was ever going to be able to do.
Still, if he didn't agree to this strange bargain, then what? Would Ethan send him home right away?
Send you home? You mean "allow you to leave", right?
Right?
Ethan was studying his face in the mirror. "I'll make it even easier. We'll set a timer. Every evening from six to nine, starting tonight. That means nine hours, over three days, when you're completely mine to...command. The rest of the time, we're just...friends, or roommates, or whatever you want. At nine-oh-one p.m. on the day after tomorrow, I will put this key into your hand."
He leaned over David's shoulder and held out the silver key on his neck chain.
"This key is to the kitchen cabinet with the red door. That cabinet contains, among other things, a fully charged satellite phone with not one but two clearly labeled helicopter services on speed dial. I have accounts in good standing with both, and either will pick up passengers from this island on one hour's notice."
David swallowed as he stared at the key. Teeth lined only one side. So why did it put him in mind of a double-edged blade?
When had the proverbial carrot started to look so much like the stick?
He took a steadying breath. "I don't know if I can do what you want. But I will try."
Ethan's arms tightened for a moment around his waist.
"And afterwards...you'll let me go," said David dully.
Back to the emptiness. Back to what's passed for my life since I slipped out of yours.
Ethan's reflection stared back at him from the mirror, unwavering. "Yes."
The hazel eyes in that reflection blinked twice and then widened, almost imperceptibly.
Well, now.
Well, now, that was interesting.
Suddenly, David was feeling so much better.
Eight hours later, David willed himself to relax. He refused to glance in the direction of the alarm clock on Ethan's nightstand, but even peripherally, he could see that it was six-oh-five.
"Panic is a strange and powerful thing," said Ethan, lighting another candle. It seemed as if every horizontal surface in the bedroom now sported two or three, all tucked down safely inside wide-mouthed glasses, their orange tongues flickering and licking at the air. "And powerful instincts aren't always good ones."
David only half-listened. He was concentrating on staying calm. His breath was coming a little fast. How many candles would it take to suck all the oxygen from a room?
He tried to relax by thinking back to the afternoon. He and Ethan had snorkeled, grilled some steaks and dozed in the shade of the trees. They'd gossiped about old classmates and argued about music. Ethan had even suggested a possible solution to a technical problem David had been struggling to solve for a client.
All in all, it had felt like a return to a simpler, happier time. There had been no mention of sex, either coy or overt, or of Santa Fe, or of the strange bargain they'd struck that morning. David had felt more relaxed, more settled, than he had in years.
But now it was after six o'clock, and he was naked in Ethan's bedroom, on Ethan's bed and on Ethan's time, and every muscle was rigid and waiting to see what would be asked of it. He realized his fingers were curled tight into his palms, and he straightened them.
"For instance." Ethan sat on the bed and drew up his knees. He was bronze and bare and beautiful and utterly unselfconscious. "You know what horses do when their barn starts to burn down?"
Horses? "Race for the hills?"
"Typically, no. They panic. Sometimes, even if the stall door is standing wide open, they'll try to run up the wall to get away from the smoke. To a horse, the stall represents safety, even if it's literally burning down around him. It's not unusual for a horse that has been successfully led from his burning stall to race right back to it if you don't tie him up somewhere."
Almost unconsciously, Ethan let his hands fall to one of David's feet and begin to rub it. The casual, unthinking intimacy of his touch made David's blood stir.
"I read about this one barn that burned." Ethan's eyes were soft and distant. "Twenty-two stall doors were opened, but only two horses came out on their own. The rest just tried to shelter in place, even though their boxes were filling with smoke and flames, and the shelter was no shelter at all. The force of their panic was literally that strong."
A thumb pressed into David's sole, fingers tenting lightly over his instep. "That's why people cover horses' eyes to lead them out of fires."
"Is this your roundabout way of telling me you want to blindfold me?" David's lips felt suddenly dry. "Because I'm not sure I can let you do that. Though I'd be willing to consider ear plugs if they'll get me out of the rest of Equine Psych 101."
"When I want to blindfold you, you absolutely will let me, and you'll thank me for it. But for now, no. You've been blindfolding yourself, for years, and I don't think that's worked out so spectacularly well. For either of us."
David swallowed and looked down at Ethan's fingers. "Then what is the point of your charming animal parable?"
Ethan's palm slid slowly up David's leg and rested on his shin. "My point is simply that a horse panicking in a barn fire thinks the devil he knows is safer than the one he imagines, and he's wrong. The same way you're wrong. The nature of your panic response is different---you bolt where the horse freezes---but the panic itself is just as debilitating. And just as self-destructive."
"God, you make it sound as if I'm crazy. I'm not. Flight is a perfectly rational response when the world is burning down around you."
"Maybe. But it's a major overreaction to simply feeling a little...heat."
A finger drew gentle circles on David's skin, edging gradually closer to his knee.
"That's...not fair."
"Isn't it? Think about it. Your brain spends half its time convincing you the barn's on fire, and the other half trying to convince you that not only is there no fire, but there's no barn, either. Honestly, it's a wonder you're still sane at all. Or that I am."
"Who says that you are?" David waved a hand, the gesture taking in the house, the island. "Look how you reacted to a little smell of smoke."
Ethan flashed his trademark half-smile. "Ah, but that's not the same at all. My reactions may be extreme...but they're also focused and responsive. I figure out what's wrong. I make a plan. I fix it."
Their eyes locked.
Ethan shook his head to flip soft brown hair out of his eyes. David had a sudden, unbidden memory of that curtain of hair brushing his bare belly as Ethan took him deep into his mouth. He had to stifle an urge to reach out and touch it.
"And this is your plan for tonight?" he challenged, feeling suddenly incautious. "Talking me to death? I mean, it's your dime, and all. But the clock is ticking."
"It is indeed." Ethan's eyes flashed with amusement and intent. "So let's not waste another moment."
He leaned over and reached under the bed. David's breath caught in his throat. What would Ethan be pulling up from that hidden place? Feathers? The Kama Sutra, re-imagined for same-sex partners? Restraints?
His throat tightened at that last thought. Anything but that.
His mind was so focused on his fear that when Ethan pulled up the thing he'd been reaching for and set it on the bed between them, David didn't even recognize it at first. His eyes stared blankly for a moment before widening in shock.
His laptop.
His fingers itched to shoot out and caress the sides of the little machine. But he kept his hands in his lap and darted suspicious eyes up to Ethan. He looked calm.
Calm and determined.
"It's my computer."
"I'm glad to see yesterday's nosedive didn't scramble your brains. Go on. Power it up."
David's fingers responded automatically to the command, one actually touching the power key before he was able to jerk it back.
"Why?"
Ethan shook his head. "Uh-uh." His voice was both a warning and a caress. "That's not how this works. You want to earn that key, you're going to have to do better than that."
David felt a clench of dread. He wasn't sure he did want that key. But he was pretty goddamn sure he didn't want to do this.
Whatever he wants. You promised.
Damn it.
He pried the dark screen away from the keyboard. Opening the computer felt like spreading the jaws of a trap. He pressed the power button and watched the LEDs along the front panel flash as the little machine whirred into life.
All too soon, against a sea-blue screen, the computer flashed a password prompt. David stared at it as if he had never seen it before, afraid even to glance at Ethan.
"Go on."
He jabbed the required keys in sequence. At least the computer displayed the letters as asterisks. At least Ethan wouldn't see his password.
Right. Because when you were dealing with one of the world's most brilliant encryption experts, blanking out a typed password wasn't the least little bit like bolting the proverbial barn door.
God, another barn reference. Now Ethan had him doing it.
The computer's drive spun as it unlocked the screen.
David kept his eyes on the keyboard. He didn't want to see the little icons waiting on his computer desktop. He especially didn't want to let his gaze fall on the one in the lower right corner.
"There's nothing here you could possibly want, Eath."
Ethan's hand fell over his wrist and stroked it, setting sirens blaring along already anxious nerve endings. "There's a great deal here that I want," he said softly, not even glancing at the computer screen. "Now open it."
"Open what?"
"You know what. The filed called maintenance\_records.doc."
Blood rushed in David's ears like a wildfire. His journal. Camouflage-named with the least interesting subject he could think of. How had Ethan known?
He's already been on my computer. He's already hacked this file. That means he's already read... Jesus.
He groaned and folded over himself. "Damn it. Didn't anyone ever tell you it was offensive to read someone else's private thoughts?"
"This is how you want to sound?" asked Ethan without heat. "Really? Like an angry nine-year-old stamping her foot because her annoying brother stole her diary?"
"If the Mary-Jane fits, then shove it up your ass." He shrugged, the gesture jerky with anger and embarrassment. "I really don't know how anything you do could still shock me. But I can't believe you'd spy on me like this."
"I wasn't spying." Ethan settled calmly back on his elbows. "If anything, I was catching up on my mail."
"Your mail? What the fuck are you talking about?"
"You heard me. You've used that goddamn laptop for three years as a substitute for talking to me directly, and you know it. Every time you sat down to type, you were practically stuffing a message into a bottle."
David stared into maddeningly serene hazel eyes. Of all the... Anger and embarrassment made it impossible to complete any thought. Arrogant bastard.
"Even if that were true," he said hotly, "they were not bottles I intended to have wash up on your shore."
"Nonetheless. A letter you didn't send is not a letter you didn't write."
David's hands were shaking. He forced them to lie still on the keyboard. "Seeing as how you've already violated my privacy, what are we doing here? Or did you get off so much the first time that you're jonesing to read all of this again?"
"I don't need to read it again. You do."
David's hands flew off the keyboard as if it had come to life beneath them.
Ethan's voice was steady, but his eyes were intense. "You said you aren't yourself with me. I say that you are. This..." he nodded at the computer, "...says that you are. If you can't let yourself believe what I tell you, maybe you'll believe yourself."
David gaped at the file icon. He felt clammy and overheated, like the first time he'd stood at the top of the high-dive back in elementary school, with everyone staring at him---unable to back down, but terrified to take the plunge. He'd known intellectually that jumping off wouldn't kill him, but that hadn't made it feel any less likely that he was about to splatter his insides all over the hard blue surface so far below.
Ethan watched his face, his forehead creased. Then his eyes widened with sudden, shocked understanding. "Never? You've never read any of this stuff back to yourself, ever?"
David reddened. "Why on earth would I? The whole point of the freaking exercise is to get this shit out of my head."
"Like poison?"
Angry as he was, David's heart broke a little at the despondent note Ethan couldn't quite hide.
"No," he said honestly, giving in to the inexplicable urge to reassure his...my what? My captor? My tormentor?
My lover?
Again, his mind shied away from the word.
"Not exactly like that. More like pressure. Like...like those blisters you drained." His grip tightened on both sides of the computer. "Writing stuff down is like lancing something painful. It relieves the pressure enough so that I can go on walking."
And sleeping. And breathing.
"But there's a valve on the tank, Ethan. It's meant to be a one-way trip."
"Not anymore. Open it. Read."
He settled a pillow beneath his head and interlaced his fingers over his stomach. One knee curved over the edge of the bed, toes on the floor.
David dragged his gaze away from that sculpted leg and double-clicked on the file icon. When he was prompted to enter the file-level password, he flicked his eyes over to Ethan's face, as relaxed in repose as if he were sleeping. Not likely.
"Exactly how long did it take you to hack my computer and private files?"
Ethan's chuckle was gentle. "Stop stalling. And quit beating yourself up. You and I both know you hadn't taken any steps to protect it from someone like me."
No. Because there isn't anyone like you.
There's never been anyone like you.
When the file opened, David glared at the cursor flashing patiently at the top of the screen. It was usually such a welcome sight---one that promised relief from an unbearable build-up of tension or sleeplessness.
And all he had to do to get it was write. All he had to do was let the pain flow out in a cathartic stream of consciousness that didn't require good grammar, correct punctuation, or even spell-checking---and that sure as hell didn't require, or even brook, revisiting.
But tonight, Ethan had managed to transform that friendly flashing cursor into an electronic Ghost of Outpourings Past. And now, just as if this were some kind of warped version of A Christmas Carol, he expected David to let it take him by the hand and drag him along on an up-close-and-personal tour of the past he thought he'd buried forever.
"Did you need something to get started? A glass of water? A primer in public speaking?" Ethan grinned wickedly and nodded down at himself. "I think the basic trick is to imagine your audience naked. See how easy I've already made it for you?"
"Ha, very ha," said David, looking pointedly away.
He stared, unseeing, at the words that lined the top of the screen. His "journal" wasn't a carefully labeled, chronologically ordered record of days recalled in loving detail. Entries weren't even dated, and sometimes sentences just ran out mid-thought. Whenever he felt the need to write, he'd simply open the file and start typing, not even bothering to scroll down to the bottom of the file first.
Just do it. Get it the fuck over with. Start anywhere. He picked a paragraph at random.
"'God.'" He tried to distance himself from the words, to let them flow through him as if he were nothing more than an OCR program converting printed syllable clusters into automated speech with no understanding of their formal meaning. "'Crappy day. Missed a deadline because of a bug in the latest CAD update. Saw...'"
His voice trailed off. He cleared his throat and went on.
"'Saw E. on the news again.'"
As he read, David felt himself slipping back into the moment when he'd typed these words, into the mindset of loneliness and longing that had compelled him to find some way to voice thoughts he could never say out loud. It was the strangest feeling to don that emotional mantle again here in front of Ethan---a little like slipping into the skin of a ghost.
...I guess there's been some kind of delay with the new software release, and one of the independent blogging sites was banging away on it and the story got picked up by CNN. E. looked tired and a little frustrated, but polite and determined to keep smiling through it all. I don't know how he does it. I'd have punched someone, I think---probably that weasely reporter with the shit-eating smirk and a hard-on for trying to bring down anyone more successful than he'll ever dream of being. But E. was always preternaturally calm like that, even on the days when I was ready to mow someone down with my bike. He always had the patience of Job. Where did you find it, Eath?
David blinked. His skin was prickling, and his pulse was pounding in his head. This must be how corporate dumpers felt when the toxic ooze they thought they'd gotten away with pouring down a storm drain came bubbling back up to the surface of their own swimming pools.
...tried the Xanax. it doesn't help. i sleep, but i'm still so tired when i wake up, and in a fog. And i'm pretty sure i'm still having the dreams; i'm just too drugged to remember them afterwards. i was looking for something that would give me my nights back, but this stuff is just stealing my days, too. this isn't peace; it's sedation...
...Susan suggested I see her psychiatrist about my "disorder." I knew it was a mistake to sleep over. Now that she's seen one of my nightmares, she won't be satisfied until she's fixed me. She says there's nothing shameful in seeking therapy, that I'm just like everyone else if I have "demons to exorcise." I told her I was already talking to someone. I know she means well, but I can't see another psychiatrist, can't have some other stranger plumbing around in the dark, trying to dredge something up from murky depths. I already know where all the wrecked ships lie. I can already imagine all the once-beautiful things that have rotted away, like ragged skeletons with fish swimming in and out of empty eye sockets. I don't want to drag those ghosts back up to the surface. And I don't have to. I only have to wait. Time is an infinitely patient ocean. Eventually, it wears everything away...
David rubbed fiercely at his eyes, willing the words to blur and become unreadable. But they swam stubbornly back into focus.
...Bad enough that I've let myself become a walking, talking cliché...worse, that I can't even decide which cliché I am. Ahab or the whale? The mariner or the albatross? Crazy Dr. Frankenstein, or his doomed, heartsick monster?...
...susan is so beautiful, but for me, it's like model beauty, like statue beauty, like something i'd admire from behind a rope at an art museum. she touches me, she gives of herself, and i am nothing but remoteness and distraction. what does she see when she looks at me? can't she tell i'm not really in here?...
...Got the Wolfe Corp. contract today. Marla's thrilled; I gave her a terrific bonus and a personal day to thank her for all her hard work on the proposal last month. She looked so happy when I gave her the good news. I can't remember the last time I felt the way she looked at that moment. What the fuck is wrong with me? I have so much to be grateful for. I make good money; I set my own schedule; I am my own master. Most people would feel lucky to have what I have, to live the life I live. To be me. Surely, it can be enough for me, too. Please let it be enough for me...
... Fucking panic attacks, fucking night sweats, fucking wet sheets, fucking heart thundering and crashing like a derailing train, fucking waking up gasping for air and swallowing at the dark, as if I didn't have enough of that inside already...
Frozen, mouth dry, David stared at the screen. The words went on and on and on.
Three years? he thought in disbelief. Three years I've been living in this...this black hole?
"Are you okay?"
He darted his eyes to Ethan's face and met hazel eyes filled with tender concern.
"No. Yes. No. This isn't," he started to say, and then stopped and ran his tongue over dry lips. "This isn't...real. You've gotten the wrong idea, or at least, an incomplete one. This..." He gestured helplessly at the screen. "This isn't actually...representative of my life. Not really. These were just...bad moments."
"Yes," said Ethan kindly. He pulled up his knees and reached out to touch David on the ankle. Heat radiated from his fingers, warming David both where they touched and somewhere deeper. "I can see that they were. But when the number of bad moments reaches a certain volume, statistically speaking, they become representative. Don't you see that?"
David stared at the ocean of words and felt as if the tide were pulling him under.
"Scoot over and scroll down." Ethan came up to slide in behind him. The gentle friction of his naked skin against David's felt good, calming, even though his next words set off more of those annoying internal alarm bells. "I highlighted something I'd particularly like you to read."
"God. Haven't we had enough fun already?"
Ethan reached out to guide David's fingers over the tiny joystick. Text rolled up the screen. Helplessly, David watched, trying not to wince as he caught words, phrases, and fragments of thought that all telegraphed depression, despondency, desperation. Darkness.
Ethan pulled his hand away when a paragraph that had been highlighted in yellow rolled onto the screen. "There. Read that, please."
"'Susan took me in---'" As his eyes took in the next few words, David's voice trailed off and his cheeks flamed. "Hell, no. I can't read this out loud."
"Of course you can. There aren't any children present." His fingers swept hair from the back of David's neck and lingered there. David fought a sudden urge to lay his head back on Ethan's shoulder. Instead, he gritted his teeth and forged on.
Susan took me in her mouth tonight. Usually, I can figure out a way to distract her, forestall her before she starts. But if I'm off my game, I don't pick up on the signs until it's too late, and then I can't think how to stop her without hurting her feelings. Guys are supposed to love blow jobs, right? Aren't they the great equalizer---beloved of bums and presidents alike? But I can't relax. Mouths are too...personal. Too intimate.
David swallowed. Ethan's arms came around his middle, locking him in a gentle embrace. He wondered if Ethan, too, were remembering the beach.
"Go on," Ethan said quietly.
Maybe it's that I can't believe anyone would really want to do that to me. It's like having all the waiters gathered around singing "Happy Birthday!" to you at a restaurant, and you know that no matter how much they cheer and clap and whistle, not one of them knows you at all, and they're only singing to you in the first place because it's their job, that they probably resent it, and there you are, the center of all that focused, fake attention, and instead of feeling liked and celebrated, you'd rather be anywhere else on earth. I can't imagine anything more embarrassing.
David let his head thump down on the edge of the keyboard. "Well, I can now," he muttered into the keys.
Ethan chuckled gently against David's shoulder blade. "Did I ever tell you how much I enjoy the crazy, insightful way you have of looking at the universe? You have the most interesting thoughts."
"Private insights," groaned David, without lifting his head. "Personal thoughts."
"Don't stress, baby. It's not as if I forwarded any of your more anarchistic rantings to the Department of Homeland Security. No jackbooted thugs will be showing up on your doorstep anytime soon to haul you off to prison."
"Gee. Prison." David tried to keep his voice steady in spite of what Ethan had begun doing to the back of his neck with his tongue. "Yeah, that'd be awful. Imagine. Someplace I wouldn't be allowed to leave. Where I'd be trapped with other men who viewed me as some kind of personal plaything."
"A horrifying scenario, certainly. Read on."
But tonight, something happened. There was Susan, trying so hard, doing all those things with her tongue that should have been magic, would have been for anyone else, but I could tell it wasn't going to work, and I could feel myself starting to flounder for something I could say to let us both off the hook---I'm so tired, baby, my head is killing me, I jerked off in the car on the way here...And then suddenly, just staring down at her, I found myself wondering what it would be like to do that for someone else. And suddenly, I just had this image. I imagined...
His voice trailed off and he stared at the screen. He could not go on, could not say the words that followed. Could not. He shook his head mutely.
He felt Ethan's arms tighten around him, and then Ethan was reading the rest of it for him, and David was just sitting numbly and listening to his own words breathed life by a voice that had never been meant to speak them.
"...I imagined that I had walked into that shower back in Santa Fe, not even undressed, just dropped to my knees right there in the shower, water raining down on us both, and taken him right into my mouth. And suddenly I was hard, so hard for Susan...and everything else was easy. Except that now I can't stop thinking about it, and wondering what it would have been like. Not just whether things would have turned out differently, but what it would have been like. Would he have pushed me away? Would he have touched me? Held my head? Would I have been able to do it? To finish it?"
David squeezed his eyes shut and closed his throat hard around a groan. It felt as if the blush were suffusing his entire body now. Any minute, he was probably going to spontaneously combust from mortification, and that was okay, that was good, that would mean he'd never have to turn around and look Ethan in the eye.
Ethan's hand reached out and tilted down the laptop screen, picked the little machine up, and slid it onto the nightstand, careful not to knock over the burning candle in its glass.
"Do you still want to know?" There was gruff tenderness in that familiar voice, and absolutely no laughter in it anywhere. Lips nuzzled the rim of one of David's ears.
Oh, fuck. What do I say now?
But his answer took wing even before he knew he'd let it go.
"Yes."
And then Ethan's hands were supporting him as he slid down off the bed to kneel on the floor at the side of the bed, his knees cushioned by pillows, and now he was face to face with it all---with Ethan's arousal, and with his own terrifying, exhilarating curiosity.
He felt Ethan's hands stroking his hair. "Just relax. It isn't hard."
"Um," said David, staring pointedly at the ramrod-straight cock jutting up over Ethan's belly button.
"Oh, ha, very ha," quoted Ethan wryly, letting one hand fall to David's neck and stroke-rubbing him there in the curve of his shoulder. "Listen to me, baby. This is easy. You already know how to do this. Just think about it as if it were your own. It's all about lips and tongue and pressure and relaxing your throat."
David's eyes were full of that heavy erection. "Breakfast rules," he said, his voice slightly mesmerized.
Ethan laughed as understanding dawned. "Yes. Absolutely no biting. And---"
"And anything you put in my mouth," David finished, his throat dry. "I swallow."
Ethan's cock jerked against David's cheek. His voice was tight. "Whatever you want. But you certainly won't hear me object."
"But what if I..." David threw all caution to the winds and raised uncertain eyes to those hypnotic, gold-flecked circles of hazel, the pupils dark and dilated with desire. "What if I can't? Fuck, what if I choke? Or gag? What..." His voice trailed off, small and embarrassed. "What does it taste like?"
"Oh, baby." Ethan laughed shakily and leaned forward to kiss him on the head. "Stop worrying so much. It tastes like me. Like me wanting you."
David closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. Then he leaned forward and took a first, tentative lick, letting his tongue swipe that compelling place where the shaft and the head joined. He smelled musk and tasted salt, and he heard Ethan suck in his breath.
Oh. He felt an inexplicable rush of power as Ethan trembled and slid a little along his lips. That velvety head seemed suddenly more vulnerable, needier than he could remember it being before---seemed somehow lost and fumbling out here in the open, candle-scented air of the room. He let his lips part and his head dip slowly to bring it inside.
The shaft surged slowly along his tongue and soft palate, polite, hesitant, as if not entirely sure of its welcome. David had all the time in the world to take its measure with lips and a tongue that wanted to learn, to lave, to love---and with hands he'd forgotten he had, fingers that had risen of their own accord to stroke Ethan's quivering thighs and the delicate sac between his legs.
Somehow, he could feel Ethan holding his breath, holding himself back from pushing forward or moving in any way that might communicate aggression or assertion or command---and he understood that whatever it might be costing Ethan in self-control, he was determined to let David set the pace and depth of this exchange.
David's lips gripped and released as he experimented with depth, learning to relax his throat, to swallow without tightening his jaw. As he explored, he thought about all the vulgar slang and hostile jokes he'd ever heard to describe this act, from inexperienced boys in high school locker rooms, and from tight knots of hard-eyed businessmen gathered around corporate water coolers---of the sly, low-pitched punch lines and ugly laughter---and suddenly, none of it, none of it, made any sense to him. Doing this didn't feel dirty. It felt...holy. A little like worship.
A little like love.
He felt Ethan's shaft throb, and his tongue swirled instinctively over the slit in the tip. Fluid was seeping helplessly from it now, and David tasted Ethan's desire for the first time. Oh, he thought again, feeling the strangest sense of recognition, and relief. But of course. Ethan. He closed his eyes and tightened his lips a little, let his mouth and tongue tug harder on that velvet-sheathed arousal.
"Oh." Ethan's fingers tightened reflexively in his hair, and at the honest surprise in his voice, the incongruous note of innocence, of wonder, something in David's own groin kicked hard. "Yes."
And after that, it was easy. It was like running on a new road, a place he'd never been before, but that felt nonetheless smooth and familiar and safe.
Except that this time, it was Ethan who gave up control, who trusted, who let himself be pulled where David wanted to take him.
And when Ethan's hands tightened on him, clenching in his hair and pulling him even closer---when Ethan shouted his name, straining and shuddering along his tongue to spurt bittersweet streams deep into his throat, branding him from the inside out with possession and desire and untamed, untamable need---David felt something ancient and primordial inside himself cry out in answer.
And then, he was riding his own sudden release---was tossed like a ragdoll by a powerful, unstoppable wave that sucked long, milky streams from his body and painted his belly and chest with them.
But how? I never even touched myself.
Rocking and shuddering with ecstasy, his body didn't know, and didn't care.
When it was over, he still knelt, stunned, in a stupor of sensual overwhelm, until Ethan reached down and scooped him up. Dazed, David stroked Ethan's hair as the other man bent over his body to nuzzle and lick away the pearly contrails of his orgasm.
"See." Ethan's mouth looked soft and relaxed, and his eyes were half-lidded with sleepy satisfaction. "I told you. You're a natural. You're a total rock star."
"I'm ridiculously suggestible, is what I am."
"Uh-huh." Ethan nodded solemnly. "But I can help you with that."
"You can?"
"Oh, sure." He cleared his throat and began to speak in a hypnotic, ghostly tone. "I am the Great and Powerful Ethan-zini! Relax, David Holmes! Relax and listen to the sound of my voice! Hear only the sound of my voice!"
"It's kind of hard to hear anything else. The Great Ethan-zini sounds like Daffy Duck. On crack."
"You are getting sleepy, Davo! Verrrry sleeeeepy!"
"Or maybe meth," David amended, closing his eyes. "A blend of meth and helium. And horse tranquilizers. And old cheese."
"Be silent, that you may better hear only the sound of my voice! Count backwards from ten! When you open your eyes again, David Holmes, you will be...slightly less suggestible! About some things! Having mostly to do with Amazon Gold Box offers on digitally remastered pop music recordings by overrated Swedish bands!"
"Will I? That's a relief. What about my inexplicable desire to suck off Ethan Locke?"
"Oh, that." Ethan's voice smiled. "That, you will want to do again. And again and again and again. And also some other stuff that the Great Ethan-zini may suggest. Pretty much anything he suggests, in fact."
"Wow. Thank God you were here. In the hands of a less ethical hypnotist, I might have been in real trouble."
"Uh-huh." Ethan's voice was starting to drift, and his fingers tangled gently in David's hair. "You never can be too careful when it comes to selecting a practitioner in the dark art of mind control. But you're safe here. I've got you. There's nothing to be afraid of."
Except for every damned little thing, thought David, knowing this was true, but feeling curiously untroubled about it. And a couple of big ones.
Much later, as the candles burned ever lower, David noticed the green LED flashing from the nightstand and realized the laptop was still powered on. He tugged it back onto the bed, careful not to wake Ethan.
His finger slipped over the tiny joystick as he tried to close the open document, and he accidentally scrolled further down the file. His eyes snagged on another entry, written much earlier than any of those he'd read aloud.
He realized he remembered this one---not just writing it, but the night that had occasioned it. It had been about six months after he'd fled Santa Fe, and he hadn't yet given up on trying to exhaust himself through the midnight panic attacks.
On this particular night, he'd picked up a girl in a bar. He remembered dark curls...the clinical smell of latex...the joyless, almost frantic coupling. He couldn't remember the girl's name, and wasn't sure he'd ever even known it.
...Another dream. Santa Fe again. But this time, I didn't run. I couldn't. My legs didn't work. I just sat there on the bed with my heart pounding so hard I thought it would burst while Ethan came out of the shower and stood right in front of me, dripping on the carpet. He was already hard again. "David," he said, and his voice was light and teasing, like nothing had happened at all, like we'd just been joking around. "You want this?" he asked, and he rubbed himself against my hip. "You want me?" God help me, I wanted to say yes. What would happen if I said yes? In my dream, Ethan isn't angry or disgusted, and nothing is broken. In my dream, I feel safe, and everything is sane. I woke up crying, and the stranger in my bed asked if I was having a nightmare. I said yes, and it wasn't really a lie. Sometimes, waking up is the nightmare.
David stared at the words.
Ethan had highlighted them too.
And beneath the entry, there was a line of text---one David was sure he had never typed.
Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep
He let his finger circle on the keys for a moment. Leave it to Ethan to work Shakespeare into a conversation they'd never even had.
Most people probably wouldn't get the reference. But you couldn't live with someone who quoted regularly from his favorite plays without some of it rubbing off on you, like paint in an automobile collision.
Just like Ethan probably knows the lyrics to at least five ABBA hits. Like "Money, Money, Money". And "Winner Takes It All". Yeah. Those two are probably his personal anthems.
He shut down the machine and slid it carefully back onto the nightstand. Ethan's arm tightened over his hip, and David let his mind fill in the second half of the couplet as his slumbering lover tugged him closer.
If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep.
The bard had it right. Maybe Ethan did too.
At six p.m. on the second night, David kneeled, naked and nervous, on a floor cushion by the fireplace.
When Ethan came into the room, fully dressed, David saw that his arms were full. At first, he thought Ethan was carrying a pile of clothes, but when he got a better look, all of his emotional hackles went up.
"What's that?" Trepidation thudded through his body.
Ethan dropped the little pile of velvet-lined cuffs and lengths of silk on the bed and began to tie the first scarf to a bedpost.
"No." David's voice shook. "I can't do that, Ethan. Damn it, you know I can't do that."
Ethan finished the first knot and then came to crouch beside him. He took David's chin gently and looked into his eyes.
"Reality is shaped by the things we think we know. It's time to question some of those things."
"What things?"
"That you're claustrophobic, for instance. That you can't stand to feel trapped, or pinned, or caged. That you can't bear to have your hands restrained."
He stroked David's hair and stood, pulling off his own clothes and letting them fall. David watched rigidly, his heart pounding.
"Those aren't things I think I know. I do know them. I've learned them the very hard way."
"What you think you've learned is only giving your fear power over you. Your mind races so hard to find a way out that you can't even see you're building your own cage."
He moved from corner post to corner post, tying one end of a long silk scarf to each. David couldn't tear his eyes away. He shivered with sick dread.
I can't do this. I can't. I can't.
Ethan climbed into the center of the bed and knelt, patting the mattress.
"Come here."
David felt paralyzed. His eyes strayed helplessly to the restraints and lengths of silk lying curled in each corner of the bed like coiled snakes.
"David."
He jerked his eyes back.
"Come here to me." The command was firm. "Don't look at the cuffs. Don't look at the scarves. Keep your eyes on me. Only on me."
Feeling as if he were pushing through some kind of thick, viscous liquid, David forced himself to walk to the bed. He put first one knee on the mattress, then the other, and crawled to Ethan. He kept his eyes on Ethan's, even though they wanted desperately to dart to the wrist and ankle cuffs. He could feel those traps lurking just on the periphery of his vision, ready to snap around his limbs and hold him fast.
Ethan curled a hand behind David's neck and leaned their heads together. "Good, baby. Now, on your back, please."
David's body was shaking. "Please, Ethan. Don't tie me down."
"Stop worrying about what I might do. Just stay in the moment."
David stretched out on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. He lay very still, holding his arms stiff and tight at his side.
He felt Ethan reach out and take his left arm. He fought hard not to yank it from that gentle grip. Every nerve, every synapse in his body seemed poised and waiting to feel the snap of a restraint around his wrist.
But Ethan didn't pull his arm toward the scarf in that corner of the bed. He just held David's wrist in his lap, turning the hand palm up and stroking the sensitive inner arm. Then he rubbed his palm over David's in flat, broad, circular strokes. In spite of himself, David began to feel some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders and elbows.
"I want you to think of yourself as a separate person for a moment. Someone you can stand outside of and look at objectively. You know what that person is thinking or feeling, but you are not thinking or feeling those things. Okay?"
David swallowed.
"What exactly is that person afraid would happen to him if I were to restrain his hands and feet?"
David's muscles snapped back to full rigidity.
"Come on, baby, relax." Ethan took David's index finger in his hand and rolled it sensuously between his own thumb and fingers. The effect was calming and utterly hypnotic. "We're not talking about this you. We're talking about that other David. I want you to look into his head, but I don't want you to put yourself there. Stay here with me. Absolutely nothing bad or scary is happening to you here."
David felt his body melting into the bed as Ethan's warm hands stroked and rubbed, coaxing tense muscles to let go.
"Try again. In that other person's imagination, what's the worst that could happen if I were to bind these?" His fingers briefly encircled David's wrists and then released them as he spoke.
"I don't--- Fuck. I don't know. Anything could happen. That's the problem, isn't it?"
"You're right. If your hands and feet were tied, I could do absolutely anything."
Hands stroked David's chest, brushing one pebbling nub with a gentle thumb.
"I could tease your nipples with my teeth and tongue."
He grazed a lazy finger along the ridge of David's collarbone.
"I could close my mouth right here, on the curve of your shoulder, and suck the blood up to the surface of your skin so that it left a mark for anyone to see."
He laid a hand over David's stirring shaft.
"I could take your cock into my mouth and tongue you to climax."
He pulled his fingers back to David's hands and resumed the gentle, hypnotic rubbing of his fingers. "But I don't believe any of those things is what scares you so very much. So tell me what it is that does."
David squirmed.
You promised you'd try.
"Being hurt." He ground the words out through clenched teeth. "You could hurt me."
Ethan nodded. His fingers found the tight muscles at the base of David's neck and began to work gently at the knots there. "How could I hurt you?"
"In ways too many to count and too terrible to think about," David sidestepped, with a humorless laugh.
"Try again. What, exactly, makes you afraid? What might I do to you?"
David closed his eyes.
"You could...you could bite me. Or hit me. If you wanted to, you could pierce me, or cut me, or burn me. You could take pictures or make a video and broadcast it anywhere. You could force yourself on me." His cheeks flamed. "Into me."
Ethan tilted his head. "Wow. That's quite a list."
"Damnit, Ethan, don't you fucking laugh at me," David cried out, immediately moving to sit up and move away.
Strong hands pressed down on his shoulders, holding him where he was.
"Shhh." Ethan rubbed and stroked until David's muscles lay loose and receptive beneath his fingers again. "I'm not laughing at you. I don't find anything remotely funny about the idea that you actually think you're afraid I might rape you, or burn you with a red-hot iron, or bludgeon you with a steel pipe."
"No, I..." David frowned. "That isn't what I said."
"Isn't it? Piercing? Branding? Cutting? At my hands? Really? Can you really see that? Try. Don't run from the image this time. Close your eyes and really try to envision it."
David closed his eyes. Safe. He was safe. It was just a picture in his head. It couldn't hurt him.
He saw himself naked, wrists bound and arms extended to the ceiling by chains. He seemed to be in some kind of grim, abandoned warehouse, an image pulled from the requisite hero-torture scene in just about every action movie ever made. He was shivering and terrified. Water dripped into dirty puddles. Firing a blowtorch, Ethan strode forward, the very picture of malevolent determination, intent on...on...
...and suddenly, without bidding, the image changed, and now David was lying in a bed with his bound hands extended over his head on a pillow. Ethan was leaning over him, hot and naked and smiling wickedly, and David was laughing and gasping as Ethan tipped warmed wax onto David's body, then leaning forward to catch David's cries in his own mouth as he ran an ice cube tantalizingly over David's quivering belly, letting the chill pool in his belly button before sucking it out and then tipping warm wax again until David could no longer bear the delicious swing from one extreme to the other and thrust his midriff up to Ethan, offering his impossibly sensitized flesh to Ethan's mouth to soothe with his lips, to love with his tongue, and then they were...
Wait. What the hell?
Where had that image come from?
And why did it fill him with a disquieting feeling of jealousy---envy for that other David?
For fuck's sake, stop fantasizing. That's not what you're supposed to be doing.
He shook his head and tried again.
Hitting me. Okay, here's Ethan tying me up and hitting me.
He imagined himself bent uncomfortably over a rough wood sawhorse in a garage that stank of oil, his hands bound to the beam, splintered wood poking jaggedly into his soft belly and the exposed surface of his naked thighs. In the cracked side mirror of a rusted truck, he could see Ethan standing behind him, donning a hooded mask and snapping a cruel whip with sharp metal bits woven into its strands, making it crack terrifyingly through the air before turning to move purposefully toward David's vulnerable body. Through the slits in the mask, his eyes were small and mean and they---
---they were laughing down into David's where he lay bound in their bed, his wrists wound in silk strips tied to the posts behind his head, and those hazel eyes were warm and filled with something that looked a little like worship, a little like love, as Ethan pushed David's bound ankles up, bringing his knees to his chest and rolling him forward to expose his bare bottom cheeks, caressing them with the flat of his hand, and gazing into David's eyes for a long moment, readying him, before pulling his hand back and slapping it against the skin in a sudden, startling smack, and David's body was jerking with the shock of it, with the excitement of it, and his breath was catching in his throat, and Ethan was rubbing away the sting and leaning in to kiss him, and---
"Well, David?" Ethan's voice broke his concentration and sent the disquieting image flying. Gentle hands drew warmth from his skin and gave it back again. "Can you see it? Can you actually see me burning you with a cigarette? Savaging your jugular with my teeth? Painting you in full clown's makeup and posting the video on YouTube?"
"No." His head still reeled from the detail of those compelling images.
"No," agreed Ethan, smiling now and letting his thumb rest tantalizingly on the pulse in David's wrist. David could feel his blood beating against that soft pad.
"What else? What else might I do?"
David groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. "Fuck. You just don't let up."
"Not when it matters. Come on, what else? Spill it."
"You might...laugh at me," said David, feeling himself loosening his internal grip just enough to free this larger fear from its cage. It leapt forward like a great cat, growling and looking for someone to ravage.
"Oh, baby," groaned Ethan, burying his face in David's shoulder. "Please don't make me promise not to laugh at you. You're funny. You've always been so damn funny. No one else has ever made me laugh the way you do. It's one of the things I love most about you."
David's heart stuttered. It was one of the things Ethan loved most about him.
Ethan loved something about him.
Multiple somethings, apparently.
What did that mean?
You know how you could find out, right? You could fucking ask. You could stop being such a pussy and ask.
Right. And then he could rip his heart from his chest and offer it to a slavering wolf for safekeeping.
He tried to pick up the thread. "I'm serious. You say that you want this control, that you believe I want to give it to you---but I'm afraid that if I do, you'll look down on me."
Ethan frowned. "Look down on you?"
"Oh, come on. It's not a stretch. Sure, right now you think you want to truss me up like a Thanksgiving turkey, but if I let you do it, I'm pretty sure your first thought is going to be, 'God, what kind of asshole would let himself be tied up like this?' And your very next thought is going to be that you never really liked white meat."
Ethan groaned and bowed his head, shoulders shaking helplessly. Then he straddled David's hips and took his head in both hands.
"David." A solemn gaze caressed his face, full of pleading. "I have felt a great many things for you over time. Fury. Frustration. Longing. Lust. Despair. Admiration. But I have never felt contempt. I don't think my body would have the first fucking idea how to even do that where you're concerned.
"So please. I'm begging you. Please don't tell me I can't laugh at you. I might rupture something I need."
Despite himself, David felt a tug on the corner of his mouth.
"Now, what else?" Ethan let his thumb brush David's bottom lip. "What else are you afraid of?"
David couldn't keep his eyes on Ethan's. "Nothing else."
"Liar," said Ethan lightly, trailing his fingers down David's neck and letting them gather in the hollow at the base of his throat. "We're still not down to it. You haven't told me the one thing you're most afraid of, and we both know it. So, come on now. You promised. Complete submission. That's the deal. And it doesn't just mean letting me touch you. It means answering my questions honestly and completely."
"I have." His voice sounded thin and unconvincing. "I am."
"You haven't." Ethan sighed and unstraddled David's hips. "And if you really think you have, then you're lying to yourself as well as to me. So let's try this a different way. Roll over and come up onto your knees now."
Heart pounding, David got onto his hands and knees and waited. Ethan stacked some pillows and tucked them beneath David's belly, then pressed a firm but gentle hand between his shoulder blades, pushing him down until his shoulders were lower than his hips. He slid another pillow beneath David's head.
"Imagine yourself just like this. Naked, on your knees, with your legs spread slightly and your ass in the air." His fingers stroking David's sides. "Your belly is supported on pillows to keep your hips tilted up and your body in position for me."
David shivered.
He felt Ethan move to kneel behind him on the bed. Then Ethan's palms were flat on his buttocks, his fingers curved lightly around David's hips.
"You're so open to me." Ethan pushed David's cheeks slightly apart. David groaned. Ethan began to slide his hands, tantalizingly slowly, up and down the sides and backs of David's thighs. Then both hands came around the top of one leg, loosely encircling it, fairly high up the thigh. David felt the wrist between his legs brush against his sac, and he gasped a little at the contact.
"Imagine strong, silk scarves wrapped here, and here, around your thighs." Ethan let his hands tighten just slightly around David's leg before removing them to encircle the other thigh and repeat the sensation. "Those scarves are tied to the bedposts, preventing you from bringing your knees any closer together. Helping you keep them right where I want them to be."
David shuddered. He wasn't tied, knew he wasn't tied, but he could see so clearly the picture Ethan was creating. And Ethan's hands on his thighs felt so warm, so good.
So close to his swollen cock.
"Your shoulders are lowered. You're supporting the upper part of your body on your elbows. Your head is bowed and your forehead is tipped forward, resting on a pillow." Ethan was bending over David's body now, his arms wrapping around David from above to take his unresisting hands and lay one across the other. "Your wrists are crossed and bound, wrapped firmly in a scarf tied to the headboard in front of you."
As he spoke, Ethan encircled first one wrist and then the other with his fingers.
David shivered. He could almost feel the silky tug of the scarves on his skin.
"I'm right here in the room with you, Davo. I'm looking at you, and I am so aroused, baby. I can see every part of your body. Every inch of you is open and ready for my touch. Desperate for my touch."
David felt Ethan's warm hand stroking up his bare back, slowing as it curved over one naked cheek and slid tantalizingly close to his center.
His head bowed and curved over the pillow, and his knees opened a little farther. His toes curled. He could feel his breath coming in warm little pants now against the sides and backs of his hand.
"So there we are. Me, naked and so hot for you. You, naked and so ready for me. Bound. Every part of you utterly exposed to my gaze...fingers...teeth...tongue...cock. Vulnerable to any whim I might choose to follow. Completely, utterly, at my mercy."
Ethan leaned over David, his distended cock kissing the back of David's thigh, and brushed David's ear with his lips. "Now tell me. Tell us both. What is it you're really afraid I'll do? Is it truly that I'll bite you?"
With that, he let his teeth close strongly over the crook of David's neck, hard enough to pinch, to sting, and held them there, letting David feel the firm, possessive clench of bone over muscle. To his surprise, instead of panic, David felt a liquid shudder of desire in the pit of his belly at the sensation of being held down in this way. His inner eye showed him a sudden, lightning-flash image of a powerful stallion covering his mate.
Something inside him simultaneously rose to meet that power and bowed down before it.
The two of them froze in that position for at least a minute, David utterly still except for his increasingly ragged breathing, his head thrown slightly back and his mouth slightly open, his pulse pounding in his throat. Then Ethan was slowly withdrawing his teeth and licking and sucking to soothe the indentations in reddened skin.
"No?" murmured Ethan. "Then, is it really that I'll hit you?" Coming up higher on his knees and turning slightly, Ethan stretched a strong arm over David's back and curled it down and around, sliding his hand between David's belly and the pillows so that David was held firmly in the crook of his arm. The other hand stroked idly down the small of his back to lie warmly for a moment across his ass cheeks.
Then it lifted away.
David knew what was coming, was expecting it, found himself waiting for the blow with the strangest, most unsettling mingling of dread and anticipation---and still, when the flat of Ethan's palm slapped against one upturned cheek with a ringing crack, he jumped like a startled deer. Ethan's strong arm held him in place, and David felt himself leaning into that arm as if he wanted to be there.
He did want to be there. Badly.
The spanking hand rested against the quivering cheek and caressed it, rubbing away the sting and slipping deliciously between his legs for a moment. Then it rose and came down again in another tingling smack.
David gasped and squirmed. His skin felt electric, raw and new, where Ethan had struck him.
And his cock was hard as granite.
He didn't understand this. He wasn't into pain. He wasn't.
So how come he could cut glass with his cock right now?
Because this isn't about pain, imaginary Ethan answered in his head. It's about sensation, and trust, and submitting to both.
Between David's legs, an insidious hand was sliding now to take measure of the throbbing engorgement there.
"No," Ethan observed, delivering a long, slow rub that made David mewl with helpless pleasure. "That doesn't seem to be what you're really afraid of, either."
He drew himself up and knelt behind David. His head still pressed down into the pillow, David heard Ethan pump the bottle of lube. Then he gasped as Ethan's fingers brought the cool, liquid silk between his cheeks, fingernails trailing electric arcs around the puckered rim for a moment before Ethan began, ever so gently, to ease the slickness inside his body. David couldn't hold back a guttural moan as Ethan reamed his tight opening with slow, seductive precision, stretching him first with one finger and then two.
"You're not afraid that I don't know where to draw the line, David," Ethan whispered, opening his fingers slightly and tracing fiery trails inside that clenching tube. "You know that I do."
David hollowed his back slightly and made a pleading sound, high up in his throat.
"And you're not afraid I'll push you farther than you'd let yourself go on your own." Ethan added a third finger to the melee. His other hand squeezed and slid over David's distended cock, and his voice roughened. "You know that I will."
David gasped at the building crescendo of sensations. His hands, still crossed at the wrists, clenched and released. He held onto Ethan's words as the only solid thing, the only real thing, in a world that was flashing and splintering all around him. It was like trying to hold onto the tail of a comet.
Gently, Ethan pulled his fingers from David's body and slid his warm hand down to press fingertips against the base of his balls and then slowly up the cleft, squeezing and rubbing the flesh in between in a way that seriously interfered with David's ability to breathe.
"But you know all of this already. I can feel down to my cock that you do. So what is it, really? What are you really afraid I'll do once I've got you tied down?"
David's mouth worked, but he couldn't make the words come out. Even the idea of saying them out loud made him feel more naked, more exposed, more vulnerable than he already was.
A warm, caressing palm stroked his back. He resonated, mad and tight as a quartz crystal, beneath the promise of that possessive touch.
"Come on, baby." Ethan's voice was cajoling. Irresistible. "I think I know, but I need you to say it. So tell me. Tell me what you're afraid I'll do. What you've always been afraid I might do."
David's resolve teetered like a ball on the edge of a net. Deeply ingrained instincts for self-protection warred with an equally primal need to please this man. To obey him. He held his breath and waited to see which way he was going to tip.
Warm breath licked at the back of his neck---licked at the very edges of his soul. "Tell me what you were so afraid I'd do that you practically set your feet on fire making sure you did it first."
There was so much compassion in that beloved voice, so much understanding. David took a deep, shuddering breath and let himself fall.
"Damn it, Eath. I'm afraid that you'll walk away, all right?" Choking the words out loud gave shape to the nightmare at last, and his elbows shook beneath him as he breathed the rest of it into the pillow. "That you'll leave me all alone."
Ethan's hands tightened for a long moment on David's body, one on his hip and one caressing the center of his back. Then he curled over David and kissed the small of his back. "Yes, baby," he breathed, a long exhalation of relief and gratitude and something that sounded oddly like pride. "Yes. Thank you."
"For what?" He felt suddenly as drained as if he'd just run a marathon.
Hands stroked David's skin, warm and reassuring, making his toes curl. "For trusting me," Ethan said, his voice low and deep and rich, "with something so important."
The hands lifted away, but Ethan's voice remained, still caressing him. "Trust me again now, sweetheart."
David's body shook as he waited. He heard a rustling behind him, soft as an owl's wings, and then Ethan was threading something between his legs. Something slid fluidly against his skin, insubstantial as a silken breeze.
A scarf. One of the scarves tied to the posts at the foot of the bed.
Ethan wrapped it around David's left thigh twice and tied it off to itself.
David's heartbeat ratcheted up, but he did not move. Did not demur.
He felt another scarf encircle the other thigh like a silken snake wrapping itself around a branch. Felt it tighten in turn.
Now his legs were held open. Now, he couldn't close them if he'd wanted to.
He didn't...didn't want to.
"You doing okay?" Ethan's hand rested lightly on the small of his back.
"Yes," he heard himself say.
"Good. I'm going to come into you now."
Trembling, David felt Ethan guide the silky head of his cock into his cleft and poise it like an arrow over his entrance.
"Hear me, baby." Ethan slid a hand up David's spine to brush the hair gently off the back of his neck, then brought that hand back down and under, curving it around David's trembling side and splaying it over his belly, his little finger brushing the tip of David's jerking cock. His other hand spread David's cheeks slightly as he began, with infinite care and tenderness, to ease himself into David's body.
"I will never," murmured Ethan, breaching the outer ring. David's body quivered beneath the now-familiar burn, the crushing feeling of entry. The hand on his belly slipped down to squeeze and slide over his cock, its tip weeping now with a steady stream of pre-come.
"Never," said Ethan again. The crown of his penis pressed deeper into David's tightness, caressing him, pushing need and sensation before itself like a plow. Tasted resistance. Withdrew slightly.
David groaned. He did not move from the position Ethan had placed him in. Did not want to move.
"Never..." Ethan's cock pressed forward again, a tender, merciless ram battering at David's body, his brain, his heart.
"...tie you down..." said Ethan, his voice fading and gaining strength as he moved, "and then walk away from you. That is simply never going to happen."
Beneath David, knowing fingers rubbed gently against the sensitive nerves along the ridge of his cock head. He moaned and suddenly found himself pushing instinctively back against Ethan---inadvertently impaling himself a little deeper on that questing hardness.
He hissed from the shock of it, and he heard Ethan gasp, as well. For a moment, they were both still, both regrouping.
"When you are tied," said Ethan, catching his breath and moving forward again, "I will never be walking anywhere but toward you." The hand that wasn't busy loving David's cock slid down his haunch and tightened over the scarf binding. "No. Fuck that. I will be running."
His hand tightened so that his finger and thumb gripped David's thigh, while his other fingers clenched the scarf where it stretched from David's body to the bedpost. The effect was not enough to move David's leg, but enough to remind him the tie was there.
As if I could forget.
At the feel of Ethan's hand there, of his fingers touching David's skin possessively, right over the silk he had bound him with, David felt an irresistible, powerful bolt of desire. It shocked him to his core. He moaned, a throbbing, liquid sound of need, and began to rock himself against Ethan. The scarves tightened and slackened as he moved.
When Ethan had taken him the first time, David had felt him huge and high inside, filling him impossibly deep. But this time, he felt as if Ethan were absolutely everywhere... Inside him, where David's tight opening squeezed the tip of his cock...wrapped around him, where his hand fisted David's own throbbing erection...and somehow, also at the other end of a web he'd spun with silk bindings that stretched from his fingers to the bed on one side and to David's body---and directly into his psyche---on the other.
He felt crazily sensitive to every variation in pressure of Ethan's fingers on that silk binding. It was as if the silk was a rein and Ethan was riding David, using it to guide him expertly toward something they both had to have---to a place they both wanted desperately to be.
"Please," David begged, his fingers curling tight. "Now. I need it. I need you."
"I'm here, baby," promised Ethan, his voice a velvet rumble. "I'm right here."
His hand clenched firmly around David's cock, and he thrust powerfully forward. The tight ring of muscle gave way before that implacable, undeniable pressure, and with a guttural, possessive moan, Ethan sank deep.
"Unghh." David threw his head back on the groan. Ethan. Inside me. Loving me with his body.
There was nothing like the feeling of being filled by Ethan. Even the momentary pain of entry was something David knew he craved now. It made him feel mastered. Possessed. Desired. It was as if his bones themselves shifted to make room for this man, exactly the way something in his heart had shifted all those years ago, in school.
Please.
He didn't even know who he was praying to. God? Ethan?
Please don't take this away from me. It's water. It's nourishment. It's the air I need to breathe. It's why I couldn't let myself want him. Fuck. How am I ever going to give this up?
"See, baby?" Ethan's voice was heartbreakingly tender as he moved in David. "Not such a bad thing, is it?"
David moaned and curled his head.
He was tied to the bed, and he didn't feel trapped. He felt lifted.
The silk bindings weren't just holding him---they were connecting him. To the bed. To Ethan's commanding hand. To the movements of Ethan's body. To this place and this time and this man.
"Do you get it now?" Ethan asked, tilting back his hips and then rolling them forward in a long, mind-blowing stroke that raked David's sweet spot. "You can trust me."
"Yes." David's voice was full of wonder.
"I will not burn you...or break you...or make you bleed," murmured Ethan, thrusting. "But I will bite you."
Teeth scraped tantalizingly against David's shoulder blade, and he shuddered with pleasure.
"I will not cut you." Ethan pushed deeper. "But I will spank you."
David moaned. "Yes."
"And I will never, ever force you, David. But I will seduce you." David could hear the grin in Ethan's voice now. "Every fucking chance I get."
"Yes."
And then David was crying out, loud and long, as he ejaculated. This time wasn't a violent, razor-edged flash fire. It was sweet and rich and hot---a molten flow of love and need that incinerated any last, lingering vestiges of resistance to anything Ethan could or would ask of him.
It seared him everywhere it touched, burning away any hope he might still have harbored that he could ever bear to walk away from this man.
From Ethan. His lover.
His love.
It should have made him feel hollow, that long, sweet emptying---but before it could, Ethan was filling him again, pouring love back into him, exalting him with hands that held and stroked and gave more pleasure than they took. Even as David spurted and spilled over the hand wrapped around him, Ethan's other hand was curving around his thigh, tracing the path of the silk binding there and pulling David hard against his body.
"David." Ethan folded himself tight over David, his voice hitching as his body surged and jerked. "Can't...stop this..."
"Don't," whispered David, his body quaking beneath each welcome thrust. "Don't ever stop."
Ethan's fingers were so gentle as they loosed the silken knots. Then he was tugging David over onto his side and rubbing the muscles in his thighs and haunches, soothing the tension of an unfamiliar position held overlong.
David burrowed backwards into Ethan's body, unable to speak.
"You okay?" Warm fingers stroked his side, his chest, his belly.
No. Unshed tears needled the backs of his eyelids. I am not okay, Ethan. I am not any kind of okay. I love you. You are my everything, and I am your...experiment. One you're almost finished with.
Tell him, demanded a frustrated inner voice.
But David said only, "Mmm-hmm."
Idiot. Wuss. Chicken-shit, gutless moron. You deserve what you get. Or don't.
A gentle hand stroked his hair. David squeezed his eyes shut. How long would he remember how it felt to be touched like this when he was home again? Alone again?
"I think you wore me out, Davo. I'm actually feeling a little lightheaded. I'm going to get a glass of milk. Do you want anything?"
Yes. I want you to tell me you love me, Eath. Tell me you love me just a little bit back. Tell me you aren't really just going to let me go.
The words filled his mouth like a jumble of kamikaze parachuters crowding around the door of a plane, ready to risk everything on that single glorious, terrifying leap into freefall. He opened his eyes and his mouth to let them go.
But all that came out was: "Just sleep."
"Okay," said Ethan. He stood and grimaced suddenly, putting his hand to his side. "Ow. I don't care what you say. I am an old man. I think I actually pulled something that time."
"Oh, I know you did."
"Laugh it up, smart ass." Ethan hobbled to the door and set a foot into the hallway. "But you should know one thing, funny boy."
"Mmmm?"
"Tomorrow? I'm going to tie your hands too." With a grin, he was gone.
David's eyes shot wide, all his sleepiness gone.
Thighs were one thing. Ankles, even.
But as long as his hands were free, he'd know he could cover his eyes...or plug up his ears...or even try to free himself if the panic took him really hard. He wouldn't have to actually do any of those things. Just knowing he could would be enough to let him relax, to let him give Ethan the control he wanted.
As long as his hands were free, he wouldn't feel afraid. As long as his hands were free, he wouldn't need to use them. He'd proven that already, to himself and to Ethan. He could still surrender himself, even if his hands weren't actually tied. He knew he could.
Surely, that would be enough for Ethan. Surely, David could make him understand.
Not now, though. He closed his eyes and cast himself adrift on sleep's wide tide. Tomorrow. He'd figure out some way to tell Ethan tomorrow. And maybe...maybe some other stuff, too.
Tomorrow.
But by then, Ethan was really sick.
It came on in the middle of the night. Ethan had been sleeping fitfully for hours, and he woke complaining of bad stomach cramps.
He switched on his bed lamp, apologized to David for waking him and told him to go back to sleep. He took three steps toward the bathroom and then doubled over and vomited.
"Fuck," he groaned, yanking one dripping hand out of the puddle of sick.
David threw back the covers and ran to soak a hand towel in warm water. He wiped Ethan's face and his fingers and supported him to the bathroom, holding him up while he turned on the shower.
"Hang on."
Ethan groaned again.
David helped him pull off the fouled shirt and pajama bottoms and got him into the stall. Ethan huddled on the built-in tile bench while David took the sprayer in hand. He kept the shower as short as he could. The water seemed uncomfortably warm to him, but Ethan had begun to shiver in earnest.
David babbled, trying to sound upbeat. "Well. This is certainly not how I expected to be spending my last day here."
Ethan flashed him a look that was difficult to read.
"Nursing me through a bout of flu," he said through chattering teeth, "is not...sexual submission. This...doesn't count. You owe me another day."
"I'm not sure your health plan is going to cover that." David kept his tone light, but he was not feeling at all lighthearted about the way Ethan looked.
Ethan was clearly dizzy as he bent down to step into clean pajama bottoms, and David reached out automatically to steady him, tightening both hands around Ethan's waist as he began to list. As David's fingers pressed into his right side, Ethan cried out and doubled over, grabbing onto David's shoulder for support.
"Jesus, Eath! I'm sorry! What...what happened?"
"Fuck. Worst cramps ever. Food poisoning is a bitch."
David grimaced, and did not point out that he'd eaten the same dinner.
The bedroom stank of vomit, and Ethan was shivering badly now. David got him back into bed, managing not to walk either of them through the wide splash of sick, and then searched through the closet for a couple of extra blankets.
"Christ," Ethan chattered. "I thought...fucking tropical islands were supposed to be...you know, tropical. I've a good mind...to demand a refund."
"Well, I hope you held onto your receipt and all the original packaging. I hear Islands Depot has a really strict return policy."
David emptied the bathroom's wide-mouthed plastic wastebasket into the kitchen trash and set it by Ethan's side of the bed. Then he headed back to the bathroom for a couple of hand towels to mop up the mess. He'd have to rinse them out in the kitchen sink, along with Ethan's sweatshirt and pajama bottoms.
As he picked up the clothes, something slipped from the folds of the sweatshirt and landed on the bathroom rug with a muffled clink. He stared down, not understanding at first what he was looking at.
Ethan's chain.
Ethan's keys.
The chain must have come off along with the sweatshirt.
How long before Ethan noticed it was missing?
David set the clothes on the counter and went to wipe up the floor. When he'd finished, he gathered up the soiled towels, along with his own shucked-off jeans from the previous day, and took them back to the bathroom.
What are you doing?
He shut out the question and unscrewed the chain's clasp, slipping off the silver key. Then he dug through his jeans pockets for the key Ethan had given him to the treadmill room. He slipped it onto the chain and hefted the links experimentally. The weight felt about the same as before. The little golden key clinked against its bronze twin in metallic reunion.
Would Ethan notice the switch? In dim light, and sick as he clearly was, there was a good chance he would not---if David could somehow get the chain back into his possession before he realized it was missing. He thought his best bet would be to leave it on the floor by the side of the bed with the clasp undone, as if it had dropped there during the night. With luck, Ethan would assume the clasp had come undone in all the tossing and turning.
With luck, he might count the keys, but not study them carefully.
David hoped for luck. He didn't think Ethan was in any shape to take the silver key away from him. But he didn't want to fight. Or to argue.
Do you want to run away? Again?
No. This wasn't about closing off options. This was about keeping them open.
He tucked the silver key deep into one pocket and slipped the chain into the other. Then he carried the clothes out to the kitchen and rinsed them in the sink while he heated some water in the microwave for tea.
"Thank God." Ethan reached for the steaming mug. "I'm freezing."
David tried to sound cheerful. "Look at the silver lining. You've stumbled onto the solution to global warming: Just pump up everyone's body temperature a few degrees, and presto---no more need for air-conditioning." He grinned at the only billionaire he knew. "All you have to do is figure out how to market it, and you'll be very, very rich."
Ethan vomited twice more during the night. Each time, David carted away the wastebasket and rinsed it out in the kitchen sink.
The second time he brought it back, he let the keys drop to the carpet beside the bed. He wouldn't let himself even glance at the little crumple of chain---just hoped that it had fallen in a way that looked inadvertent rather than deliberate.
Ethan sipped listlessly at tea and juice, but didn't seem to take much in. He lay curled on his left side, dozing and waking in fits, his legs moving restlessly against the sheets.
By the time purple morning light began to fill the room, David was sitting up in bed and thumbing restlessly through the first-aid manual.
It wasn't the vomiting or the fever that scared him. People got sick, all the time. They got the flu, got chills, got sleep, and got better.
But the addition of belly pain was worrisome. Ethan kept dismissing the discomfort as "cramps", but something about this combination of symptoms was ringing an alarm bell in David's mind.
He ran his finger down the index, searching.
Abdominal pain, causes, p. 14
"Would you put that down and relax already." Ethan's groan was muffled by a pillow he'd pulled over his face to block light from the windows. "It's just a touch of flu. Or food poisoning. You're not getting out of our deal that easily."
"Shush. I'm trying to bone up on STDs here."
A weak snort came from beneath the pillow. "Why? What else are you planning to bone up on? Or should I say whom?"
"Like you care. It's not like you're exactly looking up to the job at the moment."
"Oh, I care."
There was the oddest note in Ethan's voice, but David had no focus to spare for it.
Food poisoning. Colitis. Appendicitis. Gallstones. Hepatitis. Kidney abscess.
He tapped the page, considering...then flipped back to the index.
Appendicitis, signs and symptoms, p. 72
He skimmed the page. Fever. Nausea. Vomiting. Malaise. Fatigue. Severe cramps. Intense, centralized abdominal pain starting in the navel area and then progressing to the lower right abdomen.
He read quickly, ignoring the anatomical diagrams and rambling speculations as to the appendix's purpose. Two paragraphs at the end of page seventy-three caught his full attention.
Other, more benign conditions can mimic the signs of appendicitis, but whenever these signs are present, do not wait to seek medical attention. An inflamed appendix may rupture, spilling infectious bacteria and pus into the abdominal cavity. This can lead to peritonitis and/or septic shock.
Both are life-threatening conditions. Septic shock, in particular, has a mortality rate of between 40 and 75 percent, according to some estimates. The sooner antibiotics and fluids are administered, the greater the chance of recovery.
Most of the text blurred in a gray jumble, but a few words stood out in stark, terrifying relief.
Life-threatening.
Mortality rate.
Do not wait.
He closed the book and struggled to keep his voice casual.
"All joking aside, I think it's time to call in a doctor. Or get you out to see one." He made himself smile. It felt horribly fake. "Unless you really do have that MRI machine tucked away in your basement, of course."
"Nice try. But my bad enchilada is not your ticket to freedom."
David quelled a flash of terrifying helplessness. "Seriously---"
"Yes, seriously." Fever-bright eyes bored into David's without the slightest flicker of uncertainty or capitulation. "Fuck that. I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you. We are not finished here."
For a long moment, they just stared at each other.
Then Ethan was struggling to the edge of the bed and throwing up into the wastebasket again.
Two hours later, David's hands shook as he fit the silver key into the lock on the red kitchen cabinet.
He shouldn't be doing this. It might be nothing. It might be flu. It might be food poisoning.
And it might not be.
That voice scared David most of all. It was the one that had always pushed him toward Ethan. If it was encouraging him now to do this other thing, then maybe the situation really had become as bad as he feared.
The key turned smoothly, and the cabinet door popped open. Inside, a black, rubber-encased phone lay on its back. David weighed it in his hand. It seemed impossibly light. A week ago, it would probably have felt like freedom.
"It won't...do you any good. Not without the PIN."
He jumped and spun, almost dropping the phone. Ethan swayed behind him in the hallway. His throat and chest gleamed with sweat, and his eyes burned like stars in his pale face.
One fist curled tightly around the keys on his neck chain, and his eyes swung from the open cabinet to the phone in David's hand. His breaths were so shallow, his chest barely moved. David thought of a dragonfly skating over a pool, its wings raising not a ripple from the surface.
"Sorry...Davo. But you know...how neurotic I am about security. Back up the system. Back up the backup. That phone you've stolen...can't be used until you unlock the number pad. Might as well try to dial...out of here on a rock."
David managed to smile tightly at the phone, just as if he weren't considering throwing the useless fucking thing against a wall.
"And yet, somehow, I don't remember you mentioning anything about a PIN when you promised to give me this phone. Was that just another trick? Like asking me if I were allergic to antibiotics before drugging me with something else?"
"All's fair---"
David cut him off. "Give me the PIN, Ethan. Now. Stop fucking around."
"No. Three days. You promised. You owe me...another day."
"Deal's off." David shook his head. "You need a doctor. You may need surgery."
"What I need is a little time to sleep off this bug without...having to watch you like a goddamn...babysitter. Because that's all it is, David. A bug. A twenty-four-hour flu, or maybe some bad guacamole." Ethan was listing now, a ship in full sail on an angry sea. "I'd know if it were something worse. I'd know."
David's heart drummed. The phone lay in his hand between them, hard and cold as an accusation. The look of betrayal in Ethan's eyes made him feel as guilty as if he'd been caught screwing someone else in Ethan's bed.
In our bed.
He sent the thought packing. He didn't have time for fantasies right now. "I can't take that chance. I won't take that chance. I think you're really sick."
"Yeah?" Ethan's voice was bitter. "And I think you're just too fucking scared...to see our bargain through. You've been looking for some way to run again...from the second you got here. But I don't have to let you cheat us this time. And I won't let you...pretend that running away has anything to do with protecting me."
David stared at Ethan in disbelief. He looked deathly ill. How could he not see it? How could he not feel it? His hair hung lankly over his glistening face. One arm curled unconsciously over his abdomen. He couldn't even stand up straight.
He's going to pass out soon. And if his appendix really has burst, he could already be going into septic shock.
If David didn't get him to a hospital...if he didn't get the fucking code out of him before he blacked out or started hallucinating or slipped into a coma...he could die.
Ethan could die.
You know what you have to do, right?
Yes.
He had to make Ethan let him go. He had to say whatever it took to make Ethan let him go.
He had to find a way to lie convincingly to the only person who'd always been able to see past his bullshit, even when he couldn't.
He gave Ethan a face carved from ice, and a voice to match. "God, Locke, would you get over yourself? I'm not scared. I'm bored."
Ethan flinched as if he'd been slapped.
"We're done here---but you know that, right?" David smiled quizzically, as though he weren't sure the person to whom he'd just told a complicated joke had been smart enough to understand it. "I mean, what difference does it really make whether we have this conversation now instead of tomorrow? A few hours here or there won't change the fact that this little experiment of ours has pretty much run its course."
"What...experiment?"
"You were right, Eath. I'm not too proud to admit that. You totally opened my eyes. I can get it on with whomever I want, whenever I want, without the world crashing down around my ears. I don't have to be a slave to labels. I don't have to choose between gay and straight. And I sure as hell don't have to settle---not for my old life, and not for this one."
"Stop it." Ethan leaned heavily against the wall. "Stop pretending that all of this has just been a bet, or a dare, or...some kind of fucking object lesson. That you didn't come apart in my hands like water every time...I touched you."
"No question, the getting off has been great." David threw up his hands in mock surrender. "Hell, I'd have paid double for this little trip if I'd known the entry price included twice-a-day booty calls from my own personal cock jock. Really, you'll want to mention that little detail in your next brochure."
"No. What I showed you...was...real. It was amazing."
"Oh, it was. It absolutely was. You showed me that sex can be white hot even when the connection is just physical---maybe especially then. You showed me that I can shoot off like a fucking cannon no matter whose hand is on my cock. And please don't think I'm not grateful. After all..." he grinned lewdly, "...you've literally doubled the number of bars I can go to if I'm ever desperate to get my rocks off in a strange town."
Ethan staggered against the wall and slid down it, curling over himself. David stifled the desperate urge to fall on his knees beside him and kiss away the hurt from those wounded eyes, that beloved face.
Instead, he made himself shrug.
"But honestly, I don't see that I have anything left to learn here. And you're not looking so hot. So, whatever it is you think you still need from me, just tell me, and let's not waste another fucking second getting down to it."
He tilted his head and regarded the other man with clinical detachment. "Shall I masturbate for you? Bang the dog? Suck you off while doing a one-armed handstand and performing the Star-Spangled Banner in sign language?
"I won't let you tie my hands, of course---we don't have that kind of trust. But anything and everything else is on the table. So whatever the fuck the hold-up is here, spit it out, and let's just get that bad boy done already so I can go home."
Ethan closed his eyes tightly. When he spoke, David barely recognized his voice. It was wrapped around itself, somehow, like a fist clenched around a delicate seed. "I know...what you're doing, David. All's fair...in love and war, right?"
"This isn't love, Ethan." Somehow, his own voice stayed steady and indifferent. He could barely even hear it over the howl in his heart. "This isn't even war. I just don't care enough for it to be war."
"Bullshit." Ethan's eyes found David's and held onto them like a drowning man gripping a lifeline. "Fuck that. You care. I know...you care."
But his voice sounded uncertain.
David let his own fill with terrible pity. "Oh, Eath, really? Did you really think this was love? Love is just a word, don't you know that? Another meaningless label. I don't let those rule my life anymore."
Ethan tucked his face into his shoulder, as if he could block out David's voice, or his words, with his own body.
David crouched beside him. He ached to gather Ethan up in his arms and just rock him, murmuring nonsense words of apology and reassurance and love.
"Don't get me wrong," he said gently. "I'm not saying I hate you. You'll always have a special place in my heart, as the guy who gave me my first taste of dick."
Ethan's shoulders jerked, and David reached out an impersonal hand to brush the hair from his forehead. The skin beneath his fingertips was sweaty and clammy, and the very feel of it made him desperate to call someone, anyone, for help, even if it meant standing on the beach and screaming at the top of his lungs.
Instead, he pressed on...forged words like knives and used them to stab and slice.
"But seriously? Getting back to those familiar brass tacks? Right now, you look a bit like death warmed over. And the fact is that if something happens to you, I'm going to be stuck here until whatever safety backup you undoubtedly have in place kicks in. Frankly, I don't want to have to wait that long. Things to do, you know?" He smiled grimly. "People to fuck."
Ethan made a small, terrible noise in the back of his throat. David leaned in and pressed his lips close to Ethan's ear. Against his cheek, he could feel the heat coming off Ethan's body in waves, and it terrified him---gave him the strength to finish this.
At least he didn't have to see Ethan's face as he spoke the words that cracked his own heart in two.
"Now give me the fucking PIN, Ethan." His voice was as cold as the ice in his heart. "And let me get back to my life."
Ethan opened his mouth and closed it again. His Adam's apple worked, and he blinked furiously.
"Twenty-seven," he finally said, and his voice was terrifyingly flat. Empty. "Eighty-three."
"Thank you." Relief and despair warred for control of David's voice.
Ethan dropped a hand to the floor and rolled away, trying unsteadily to stand. Instinctively, David reached out to help him get to his feet, but Ethan yanked his arm back. His voice was still that quiet, frighteningly soulless imitation of itself.
"Don't touch me, David. Don't touch me again."
David rocked back as if Ethan had slugged him in the jaw. Frozen, he watched Ethan lurch to his feet. He saw him stagger, swaying and leaning against the wall for support, back down the hall. He saw him collapse onto the bed and pull himself into a tight, fetal curl.
Then he couldn't see anything anymore, and he was stumbling blindly for the front door, wrenching it open and half-falling down the steps. On the bottom stair, he lost his footing altogether and went down, landing hard and cutting a ragged gash in one knee.
He didn't feel it.
He was running again almost before he'd gotten his feet back beneath him. Blood pattered to the sand in dime-sized splotches.
He didn't hear it.
When he stood at last on the beach with an unobstructed view of the sky, he clawed up the phone's antenna and pushed buttons until an animated welcome sequence displayed on the screen. He stabbed in the code.
2. 7. 83.
His birthday.
After a moment, a tiny LED came on and glowed steadily to signal that he was connected to the world again...and shut off from the person he loved most in it.
His legs failed him then. He sank to his knees in the sand and let his shoulders curl over his head. Let the heartache spasm up and pour from his body in wretched, stinking strings. Let loneliness and loss blow through him like a desolate wind.
When he thought he could control his voice again, he scrolled to the first helicopter service in the speed-dial menu and pressed Send.
David sat on the edge of the uncomfortable chair where he'd been waiting for hours and tried to focus on the tired-looking woman in surgical scrubs.
"Now, we just have to let the bacteria drain," she was saying, rubbing her temple with tired fingers. "And give the antibiotics time to do their thing. Look, he'll be asleep for hours. You should go and get some rest too. We'll call you if there's any change."
David drifted like a ghost ship through the maze of hallways. He got lost almost immediately, limping with no awareness past the same stuffed giraffe in the gift shop window three times before the cashier called to him and asked kindly where it was he was trying to go.
When he told her, she pointed out the colored lines on the floor. He'd been in such a daze that he hadn't noticed them at all.
"Just follow the yellow brick road," she said, smiling at the joke she no doubt made hundreds of times a day.
He shuffled along the yellow line to the front lobby like a mindless subway train, grateful for the track that lifted choice and thought mercifully out of his hands.
Behind the Visitor Information desk, an old man with impossibly bushy eyebrows sat working a crossword puzzle. He glanced up, and the eyebrows flew like birds.
"How's that friend of yours, son?"
"He's okay, I think." Only in saying the words did David feel the full force of his relief. He tasted them again. "He's okay."
"Slept through all the excitement too, I bet. Anyone can see from looking it's you who's been to hell and back." The man pulled his glasses off and folded his newspaper. "Always harder to wait for someone under the knife than to go under it yourself."
He opened the little gate, coaxing a sleepily blinking Bella from behind the desk and passing the leash to David.
"Thank you so much. I don't know what I'd have done."
"Ah, she's a grand girl. Spent the whole afternoon under my desk. Hospital sharks would probably have had three kinds of seizures if they'd known, but she never made a peep."
The dog pressed close to David. "Can I offer you anything for your trouble?"
"Nah, nah." The old man flapped a dismissive hand and looked wistful. "I was glad of the company. It was like having my old Goldie back, for a little while." His voice grew gruff as he gazed at the retriever. "Hurts something awful when they go, but I guess it's like they say. Better to love and lose than never have that at all, right?"
Bella had become a golden blur, but David could feel her, warm and comforting, beneath his hand. A living connection to Ethan. He nodded.
"Well, now." The man sounded a little uncertain. "You look as if you could use directions to the closest motel."
David nodded again.
"Go straight out these double doors and right along that sidewalk to the corner. Turn right and go three blocks. You'll see the sign for the motel on the left." He smiled at Bella. "It's a pet-friendly place, but you'll have to pay extra for your Goldie, there."
David let his fingers curl in Bella's fur, and did not correct her name.
At the hotel, a bored checkin clerk told him there would be an additional cleaning deposit of twenty-five dollars for Bella.
David took the room for two nights and said there would be no need for housekeeping to come in during his stay. He took the proffered key card dumbly and let himself into a featureless studio.
He saw nothing he could use as a water bowl, so he stopped up the tub and ran the faucet for a while. Bella lapped at the water and followed him back into the living room. There, David sat at the little round table and tore one of the cheeseburgers he'd picked up from the fast-food place across the street into pieces, feeding them to Bella in between bites of his own meal.
She wolfed her food down and grinned pointedly at what remained of the other burger. David sighed and let her take the rest of it from his fingers.
"Fine. But if you throw up tonight, I will seriously rethink the fast-food policy."
Her tail wagged.
He sat on the bed and tried to think what to do next. He felt more drained than he could ever remember---even during those first few terrible nights on the island. His knee was really stiff and painful now. Closing the cut had taken sixteen stitches, but at least it had helped to pass the time while Ethan was in surgery.
Bella leaped onto the bed next to him and curled up, laying her head in his lap. He lay back, settling grateful hands into her mane.
"Long day, huh, Hells-Bells?" David said to the ceiling. Bella did not lift her head, but pumped her tail once in response.
He had no idea if dogs were normally allowed on helicopters, but when the medevac unit had arrived with what was apparently Bella's "regular" harness in tow, he'd realized he was witnessing firsthand the magic way money had of smoothing over obstacles before they were allowed to arise---of silencing protests before they were even voiced.
He had felt nothing but grateful relief. He could neither have stayed behind himself while Ethan was whisked away to an uncertain future, nor left Bella alone on the island.
The crew had fastened Bella into her harness with practiced hands and lifted her into the helicopter without incident, her golden fur ruffling like wheat beneath the spinning rotors and her ears flattened against the noise. David had watched her tranquility with envy. The damn dog was more of a jet-setter than he was.
He'd felt so extraneous. Since giving him the PIN, Ethan hadn't spoken a word to him or acknowledged his presence in any way. And since Ethan had been conscious and able to answer the EMTs' questions directly, they hadn't really needed to talk to David either, aside from attending to the oozing gash on his knee.
He'd spent most of the flight huddled in a corner gripping Bella's harness, and she'd seemed to understand that he needed her. She'd leaned against him, tail wagging gently from time to time.
Now, he just let his hands rest on her warm body and drew comfort from her. He knew he should take off his shoes and get into bed, but while he was still trying to work up the energy to do that, he fell asleep.
"Last name?" asked the desk clerk.
At least, David thought she was a desk clerk. Were hospital desk clerks required to wear scrubs? This one was wearing cheerful pajama-looking things populated with wildly colorful cartoon circus animals and balloons. David had to struggle to keep his eyes on her face. It was a bit like talking to someone who'd been thrown up on by a clown.
"Locke. With an e."
She typed, her fingers a flurry on the keys. "First initial?"
"E."
More typing. A frown.
"There seems to be some kind of hiccup in my system this morning. I'll just call the main records desk. First initial E-as-in-elephant, Locke-with-an-e-also-as-in-elephant, right? And your name?"
"David. David Holmes."
"Just a sec," she said, picking up her phone and pushing numbers. After a moment, she lifted her chin, focused on nothing about eight inches in front of her eyes, and began to speak. Then she cut off and listened. Her eyes flickered up to David's and then away. Her whole body turned slightly, and she lowered her voice.
David began to feel uneasy.
Returning her handset to the cradle, the girl turned brightly back to him. "Well, I haven't exactly found your friend, Mr. Holmes, but your name is in the system. Would you please take a seat? Someone will be along to speak to you directly."
"My name? Why? Is everything all right? Is---is he okay?" Unease flash-froze into fear. He found he literally could not speak Ethan's name.
The desk clerk gave him a professional, sympathetic smile. "I promise someone will be right out to speak to you. Please, just sit." She turned her attention pointedly back to her computer screen.
David lurched to a chair on legs he could no longer feel. He was vaguely aware of the rhythm of morning bustle. Of the casual conversational exchanges between nurses. Of the perky banter of the early-morning talk-show hosts on the waiting room TV.
All around him, the world positively vibrated with the energy of people who did not know him, who did not know Ethan, and who were going about their lives as if nothing at all were wrong. As if no one had been asked to sit and wait for news when everyone knows that news you have to sit and wait to have delivered to you is not news you want to receive.
A million years later, he heard his name over the roar of blood in his ears.
He looked up. He did not recognize the tall woman standing before him. She was quite beautiful, with an easy animation in her face that suggested she was little conscious of her looks. Silky black hair waved from her crown to the shoulders of her immaculate silk blouse, and blue eyes met his with confident warmth. She smiled as if she knew him. He wondered if he should know her. She was not the surgeon from the night before. She was not wearing scrubs, and there was no nametag pinned over her breast.
Hospital administrator, maybe? She didn't look sad. That was a good sign, right? Wouldn't a person look sad if they were about to tell you---
His brain refused to complete the thought.
"Mr. Holmes? I'm Tilda Markham."
He rose automatically to take the extended hand. "I've been trying to find out about the condition of my...my friend. Ethan Locke? He had an emergency appendectomy last night?"
"Come with me." She inclined her head. "It's just this way."
Numbly, David followed. The hallway was thick with nurses and orderlies wheeling gurneys and breakfast carts. Here and there shuffled patients in hospital gowns, gripping IV poles for balance. Some were trying to hold their gowns closed in back. Probably they were the ones who were going to live.
He shook himself. He needed positive thinking right now, not gallows humor.
Halfway along, Tilda Markham turned down a quieter, carpeted corridor and led David past a maze of doors and reception desks. Eventually, she stopped at an unmarked door and opened it, gesturing for him to precede her inside.
His heart plummeted when he saw only a desk and chairs...a dark computer monitor...a telephone. An office, then. One with no signs of personality. No plants. No pictures. No favorite coffee mug with the screened graphic faded and half rubbed away. It was as if this room were kept empty and reserved for private consultations.
Or, perhaps, the private conveyance of bad news.
He whirled on his escort.
"What's happened? What's happened to Ethan? He's not in the system anymore."
"No," Tilda said calmly. "Mr. Locke was transferred this morning to a private facility at his request. At his insistence, I should say."
David blinked, dumbstruck.
"He's...he's gone?"
"Yes." She leaned against the desk, her expression sympathetic.
David sank into a chair. "I don't...I'm sorry. I don't understand. Is he all right?"
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to divulge---"
"Please." Sudden tears flooded his eyes, and he dashed at them angrily. "I'm not asking you to tell me where he is. I'm just asking you to tell me if he's okay."
Tilda touched his arm.
"David," she said softly. "May I call you that? David?"
He nodded, unable to speak.
She took his hand. Upset as he was, he did not try to pull away. Her fingers were cool and comforting.
"As you know, the initial surgery went very well. So far, there have been no complications, and we don't expect any---though, of course, his doctors will continue to watch for them. A ruptured appendix and peritonitis are nothing to take lightly. But Ethan is healthy, young and strong, and there's no reason he shouldn't recover fully."
She squeezed David's hand. "That being said, David, you did really well to get him here. I don't know you well enough to ask how you did it. But I do know Ethan---and I am sure that it wasn't...easy."
David closed his eyes, remembering the ugly words, and the pain in Ethan's face.
"Whatever you did or said, you quite literally saved his life. And until he's able to thank you for that himself, please accept my gratitude. From the bottom of my heart."
He realized there were tears in her eyes. Not a hospital administrator, then. He felt another crack in his chest. Girlfriend?
Fiancée?
Funny how the hits could keep coming---how the tiny, jagged pieces of his heart could be shattered into even tinier pieces, and yet still beat, still move blood and oxygen around his body.
"You know him." His voice was dull and flat.
She looked surprised. "I should hope so. I've been his personal assistant for almost three years."
"Oh. And how long have you...and he..."
She laughed then, but it was a gentle laugh, and her eyes were true and kind. "Oh, David, no." She wiggled the third finger of her left hand, drawing his eye to a sparkling diamond and a plain gold band. "I've been happily married to the one and only love of my life for five years. As for Ethan---" She tilted her head and smiled. "I believe his heart has been firmly committed, as long as I've known him."
David stared into dancing, compassionate eyes. How much does she know? He was surprised to realize he didn't care. There was just something about this lovely woman, a kindness shining from within her, that made him feel safe.
"You're very quiet," she said. "What are you thinking, I wonder?"
"I am thinking that whatever Ethan is paying you, it's not enough."
She grinned and rolled her eyes. "So I tell him. All the time." She crossed her feet beneath her chair.
"Now, David. I'm meeting with you today for two reasons. The first is because Ethan asked me to. Before he left this morning---against medical advice, I might add, but he says if that were meant to be taken seriously, they'd call it 'we're-not-fucking-with-you rules', not advice---Ethan left something for you, and he asked me to give it to you personally. He didn't want to leave it at the front desk, because he said it was a matter that required discretion and security---and the attention of hospital staff is, as it should be, entirely focused on matters of life and death, not on providing personal delivery services for obstinate billionaires with stubborn, self-destructive streaks."
David raised an eyebrow.
"Okay. He didn't actually say that last part."
Rising, she selected a key from her ring and unlocked a drawer in the desk, withdrew a business-sized envelope printed with the hospital's return address. David's name was scrawled across the front in a familiar hand. The envelope tipped down in one corner, as if it contained a coin.
He took it with shaking fingers.
"Before I give you a few moments alone, may I tell you something? Of a personal nature?"
He nodded, clutching the envelope as if he thought it might shatter if he dropped it.
"In so very many ways, Ethan Locke is...extraordinary. As his assistant, I've seen him perform acts of anonymous philanthropy on a scale that would knock the world flat if it knew to connect him with them. And, too, there have been literally hundreds of smaller acts of uncredited charity---random acts of kindness that, I can assure you, didn't feel at all small or random to the people on the receiving end."
She glanced up as if she might find the words she was looking for printed on a ceiling tile. "I think this...forgive me...vacation...that he arranged for the two of you was the first entirely selfish thing I've ever seen him do. That it was the first thing I have seen him spend serious money on just because it was something he desperately wanted for himself. That time with you. Do you understand?"
David gripped the envelope.
Tilda sighed. "I want him to be happy. I would give anything to help him find a way to be happy. I'm a facilitator, by profession and by nature. It's my job to smooth rough edges and remove obstacles from my employer's path...and I'm very, very good at my job."
Her lips tightened into a disheartened smile. "But there's little I can do when he is himself the obstacle." She took a breath. "Of course, I'm not privy to the details of your relationship, or the reasons for your estrangement these past years...but would I be wrong to assume you know a little about that kind of thing yourself?"
David stared into guileless blue eyes. They did not look away from his own.
"Tilda, I may hold the patent on getting in the way of one's own happiness."
She laughed.
"Well, if you do, most of the world owes you royalties. Including me. Which gives me even less standing to ask for a favor."
His own smile faltered. He couldn't pretend not to understand her. "It's not in my power to grant."
"Yours, and no one else's." Her gaze managed to tease and sympathize, all at once. "You saved his life. Now, won't you please save the really important stuff?"
The writing on the envelope blurred. "I don't know how."
"Maybe not today." She stood and crossed to the door. "When I come back, we'll talk about whatever assistance you may need from me in terms of travel arrangements back to San Jose. I can make any hotel reservations you may require, should you want to take a roundabout course home. And I'll take Bella off your hands whenever it's convenient for you."
David stood too, the polite gesture automatic. Tilda paused and stretched a hand to his cheek. Again, he was surprised to feel no impulse to pull away from this near-stranger's touch.
"I am so glad to have a face to put with your name at last. That was my other reason for wanting to meet you today. You've been the ghost in the room for too long. Please don't fade away again."
David swallowed thickly and waved the envelope. "It isn't about what I want."
"It's hard to see things clearly when we're hurting. As you are. As Ethan is. But I believe that there can't be pain where there isn't love."
She pulled the door closed behind her.
David stared at his name in Ethan's loping hand and felt the dangerous stirring of hope. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Ethan had written to tell him he understood now, that he forgave him and that he'd be in touch as soon as he could.
He turned the envelope over. In addition to its own seal, someone had added a line of Scotch tape. He worked a finger into the small gap in the upper left corner and tore the envelope open.
Inside, he found an open-ended, first-class airline ticket in his name. It had been printed two months earlier, and appeared to have no expiration date. Stuck to the front of the ticket jacket was a small orange Post-It note.
D---
I'm sorry.
---E
The words swam before David's eyes.
The envelope fell from nerveless fingers and hit the floor with a dull clink. David's eyes automatically tracked the sound, lighting on a metallic gleam spilling from one torn corner of the envelope like golden oil.
A chain.
He reached for it with numb fingers. They came up with the chain tangled between them in a one-handed cat's cradle. Dangling from it was a familiar gold key.
So that was it then. A ticket, a fuck-you note and a key to some undoubtedly still-locked door on an island he'd never see again.
Well, what had he expected? If Ethan wanted to see him, David would be sitting by his bedside right now, feeding him ice chips and playing Crazy Eights, or whatever one did to try to cheer up a billionaire with an IV needle in his arm and a drainage tube in his nose.
After a while, the door opened. Tilda leaned against the wall and joined him in staring at the key.
"Ah. And did he tell you what it's for?"
"He did not," said David tightly. "Do you know?"
"I'm sorry. It isn't my place. But if he gave it to you, he must intend to find a way to let you know." She seated herself at the desk and uncapped a pen. "For now, let's talk about getting you home. Do you want a morning or an afternoon flight? Would you like to stop over anywhere? Multiple anywheres?"
David stared down at the airline ticket in his hand. Tilda waited without fidgeting or tapping her fingers or shifting her weight or rushing him in any way at all.
"No." He set the ticket deliberately down on the desk. "No flights. I want a rental car. I'm going to drive home." He gazed directly into her eyes. "And I'm taking the dog."
She smiled.
"Boss, I sent out those letters and renewed the copy machine service contract." Marla leaned into David's office. "If it's okay, I'd like to try to get over to the school before all the parking is gone."
He blinked at her. "What?"
"I'd like to get over to the school," she said again. With a guilty pang, David realized that Marla had been having to repeat herself to him a lot lately. "It's about ten minutes early, but I'm all done---unless there's something else you need?"
David glanced at the clock. Jesus, five-twenty? Already? Hadn't he just gotten here?
"No, go on. Wish Trevor luck for me in the big game. Do you say 'break a leg' for basketball?"
"Definitely not." She grinned. "See you tomorrow."
As the door closed, David returned his gaze to the CAD plans on his computer screen. He wasn't particularly interested in them. There didn't seem to be much at work that interested him these days. He'd been going on auto pilot for months now, each featureless day blurring into the next.
The evenings were better, though. He'd found that he liked running with a companion...even one with twice the feet and not even half the shoes.
Ethan hadn't shown up to demand Bella's return, and David still couldn't decide whether this surprised him or not.
Absently, as he always did when Ethan crossed his mind, David fingered the little gold key around his neck. He'd long ago given up studying it for clues. The featureless metal gave nothing away.
He didn't know why he still held onto the thing, except that Ethan had given it to him. Had it been some kind of angry rebuke for David's stealing the phone key? Was it meant to be a reminder of the time they'd spent together?
He didn't know. He supposed he might never know.
He was still rubbing the key between thumb and forefinger when he heard the outer office door open and hurried footsteps clicking across the floor. Marla filled the doorway again, this time clutching a large box and gasping for breath.
"I'm so sorry, David. I was halfway out the lot before I remembered. This came while you were at lunch. I put it in the corner so I wouldn't trip over it, and then forgot about it completely. Please tell me it wasn't anything time critical?"
David glanced at the box with only idle curiosity. It was probably just some kind of promotional bulk-mailing from a vendor. "Don't worry, I'm sure it's---"
His voice trailed off as he took in the shipper's address on the computer-printed label: Locke Enterprises, 1265 Johnson Avenue, Miami, Florida.
"It's fine," he managed to finish, his voice hardly squeaking at all.
"Are you sure?" Marla edged toward the door. "I can't believe it slipped my mind like that."
"Go on." David pasted on a smile. It felt like a grimace, but it must have looked okay, because she smiled back. "Have fun."
Only when the sound of her engine had faded entirely did David dig through his desk drawer for a utility knife and set it to the cardboard. Inside was a second, smaller box nestled inside a thick layer of cushiony packaging materials. He lifted it out and opened it carefully.
More packaging. Inside that, an old friend.
His black carry-all bag.
With shaking hands, he opened it and pulled out his laptop.
Feeling something he couldn't define in the pit of his belly, he sat and stared at the little machine. He couldn't help remembering the last time he'd seen it, touched it. His fingers curved over the hard plastic keys. He felt no impulse to talk to the computer anymore. He'd almost forgotten it even existed. Now, he talked to Bella instead.
Except, of course, that he knew he was really talking to Ethan. That he'd always been talking to Ethan.
He switched the computer on and watched the screen light with the familiar succession of startup screens until he was prompted for his password. He typed it.
But instead of the familiar desktop screen, the computer whirred and chugged and then displayed a text document. That was weird. Could he have picked up a virus?
Then he saw his name at the top of the document, and for a moment, he couldn't breathe.
David.
I am sorry that I stole you from your life, even if it was just for a little while.
I can't say now why I thought I had to do it. I've been looking back and trying to find myself from before, but it's all mixed up now.
All I can say is that I know I believed my intentions were good. For what it's worth, I believed I understood something about you, and about us, that you just couldn't let yourself see...and that you would be unhappy until you understood it too.
Shit. That makes me sound like a fucking stalker. (And now I can just hear you saying, "Well, Eath, if the shoe fits...")
I used to hear you in my head like that all the time. It wasn't the same as having you with me, but it helped a little after Santa Fe. Since the island, though, I can't find you in my head so well. Maybe that means some part of me believes you're happy now?
I hope you are. I want you to be happy. You were the best part of the best part of my life. Being with you again, even just for a few days, was like coming home after spending years alone in some strange country where I never quite understood the language. It was the first time I've felt whole since you left. Like something broken had finally been put back the way it was supposed to be.
It felt so much like that to me, I think, that I let myself believe you felt the same way.
I realize now how unutterably, unforgivably, presumptuous it was of me to think I could ever know what you were feeling. To think that I, or anyone, could possibly know the secrets of your heart better than you do yourself.
For that, more than anything else, I am truly sorry.
The key is to box two-forty-six at the First Bank of Santa Fe. I know that's not exactly convenient to where you live now, but when I set it up almost three years ago, I couldn't think of anywhere else that made sense. I didn't know where you'd gone, and I didn't have the resources at the time to try to find out.
I have not been back to the bank since that day. Two years ago, when I hired Tilda, I sent a letter to the bank instructing them to change the authorized signer for the box from myself to her. You now have the only key (aside from the bank, of course).
When you're ready, please call Tilda to make arrangements to meet at the bank and retrieve your property so that I can close out the box at last and, like you, move on with my life.
What's waiting for you in Santa Fe is yours, David. I've looked after it as best I could, but it is time you took it back. Like your heart, it was never mine to claim. Unlike your heart, I never tried to.
Ethan
David rocked back in his chair and stared at Ethan's name on his screen. His hand moved to the key that dangled from his neck and closed around it, tight.
"You ready?"
David nodded. Tilda signed the card with a flourish and handed it to the bank account manager, who compared it carefully to the signature on file and smiled to David.
"This way, sir."
He followed without a word, half-expecting her impossibly high heels to leave melting imprints in the carpet like footsteps in snow.
They passed through a couple of doors that had to be buzzed open by unseen hands and eventually came to a vault lined with safe deposit boxes. Something about the row upon row of sterile, silver-fronted drawers made David think of morgues he'd seen in television dramas, and he shivered a little.
With practiced ease, the bank manager located box two-forty-six and inserted her key in the first lock. She stretched out her hand for David's key, and he surrendered it, realizing with a pang that this was the first time it had left his person since he'd opened Ethan's envelope at the hospital.
His escort pulled the box smoothly from its moorings and carried it to a spartan privacy cubicle. She nodded to a call button on the wall.
"When you're finished, just push that buzzer. A bank employee will come to escort you and your box back to the vault.
"Take your time," she added with pleasant, professional patience, and then she was gone.
David stood by the chair. The box was small, and he couldn't imagine it could hold anything that would take so much time to peruse that he'd need to sit. For a few moments, he just let his fingers trace the box's sharp contours. Finally, he tugged the lid off and stared down into the drawer's exposed belly.
Paper.
At first, all he registered was paper. Then printed words began to swim meaninglessly across his vision, and he reached to pull out a sheaf of pages, torn in half.
A dark X had been drawn across each ripped page, and the word "VOID" written in bold red ink. David studied the fragments of text beneath, and his heart skipped a beat as he recognized words.
I, David Marion Holmes, hereby grant to Ethan Christopher Locke, without exception or reservation, all intellectual and commercial property rights...
He flipped through the torn pages. Familiar phrases assaulted his memory. He could almost smell the tangy scent of margaritas that had permeated the air when he'd typed them.
Being of sound mind and free of any duress or external influence...
...hereby withdraw immediately as partner in name or fact of...
...permanently and irrevocably disclaim any right to any compensation, share, profit, return, or royalty...
He let his hands fall. Ethan had torn up his formal resignation from the company they'd planned to start. Why?
Setting aside the question along with the scraps, he turned his attention to the box's remaining item: a large manila envelope. With trembling fingers, he opened it.
A stock certificate.
In unnecessarily flowery calligraphy, it proclaimed that David Marion Holmes held seventy-five hundred shares in Locke Enterprises.
He fell into the chair.
This couldn't be real. Locke Enterprises stock was worth...what now? He tried to remember the last time he'd Googled the stock out of curiosity. He thought it might have been hovering around five hundred dollars a share.
If he was right, then seventy-five hundred shares would be worth...
Almost four million dollars.
Blood roaring in his ears, he gathered the envelopes. He didn't bother to buzz anyone to escort him and the empty safe deposit box back to the vault, but simply left it sitting looted on the table, its secrets spilled and its lid open to the acoustic ceiling tiles.
When Tilda saw his face, she took him by one arm and steered him to a small meeting room. The door muffled the lobby noise, but David could see curious glances from tellers peering at them through the door's glass inset as they helped other customers.
"Are you okay? I know it's an awful lot to take in."
David tried to catch his breath. "He didn't have to give me anything. I told him. I signed it all away."
"I know. You signed it away without asking him, and he signed it back without asking you."
"But I don't understand. He's the one who made the company a success. Why would he just give me four million dollars? Did he think he needed to buy me off not to bring charges against him?" He felt the sting of unshed tears. "Did he actually think I'd do that?"
Tilda's eyes widened. "He didn't give you four million dollars."
"He did." David plunked the certificate down on the table and slid it over to her. "It shocked the hell out of me too. Seventy-five hundred shares. He gave me seventy-five hundred shares."
Tilda didn't even glance at the certificate. She just slid it back across the table. "Check the date."
He picked up the certificate and frowned at the date. The certificate was slightly over three years old.
"Okay. So it wasn't meant to be hush money for keeping me on the island. Not unless he was planning that little escapade all the way back then, and I don't see how he could have been. But then why?"
Tilda shook her head. Beautiful black hair waved around her face like dark water. "You still don't understand."
He looked at her blankly.
"These seventy-five hundred shares that Ethan gifted to you? They represent almost exactly half of the slightly more than fifteen thousand shares issued by the company upon its origination."
She stared at his face, clearly waiting for the penny to drop.
"I'm sorry. I don't really understand stocks."
"When a company is formed, some number of shares is authorized from the outset. That's the number from which all shares that are ever to be issued will be drawn. In setting up Locke Enterprises, Ethan chose to authorize twenty thousand shares, and to issue fifteen thousand and one. Of those, he gifted these seventy-five hundred to you, and issued seventy-five hundred and one to himself." She glanced up at him. "Are you with me so far?"
"Fifteen thousand and one? That's an odd number, isn't it?" The question echoed in David's ears, and he blushed. "A strange one, I mean?"
She smiled. "Not so very odd, considering. You see, he'd wanted to make the division exactly fifty-fifty---seventy-five hundred shares to you, and seventy-five hundred to himself. But he couldn't. He needed that one extra share to keep a controlling interest in the company so that he'd be able to make certain kinds of decisions without your having to vote to approve them. Remember, he didn't even know where you were."
David floundered. "What decisions?"
"Basically, anything that would require majority shareholder approval," said Tilda. "For example, taking the company public."
"I remember the IPO," said David. "There was a lot of buzz about it."
Tilda smiled. "Yes, it was a very hot stock. Ethan wanted to grow the company, but not to give up control. From the remaining unissued five thousand shares, he gave the underwriters approximately three thousand to sell---equivalent to twenty percent of the total number of shares you and he already held."
"You mean the VCs did."
"There were no VCs, David."
He stared at her. "But...we were...he was lined up to get seed money from VCs. Millions."
"That was the plan when you were going to start and run the company together. Ethan wanted you to be on equal footing from the outset, and he worried you'd feel like less than a fully equal partner if the startup money came from his family. When you...withdrew...he decided there wasn't any reason not to hold the company privately. He took a personal loan from his grandfather of one hundred thousand dollars and paid it back within six months."
David whistled.
"By the time of the IPO, company assets were valued at about fifty million. That made each of the shares Ethan gave the underwriters to sell worth about thirty-three hundred dollars."
David sputtered.
"You're right, David. Not too many people would be able to buy shares at that price. That's why the underwriters promptly split the stock 9-to-1. The resulting shares were offered to the investing public at approximately three hundred and sixty dollars apiece. They were snapped up at the price." She grinned. "Thanks to Ethan, Tom and I were able to buy...several...ourselves."
David returned her smile. He could at least understand why she sounded happy about that. If Locke Enterprises shares stood today at five hundred dollars, the Markhams had made a handsome profit on their investment.
"Of course, that split affected your and Ethan's stock as well. And the stock has split twice again since then. That means that the original seventy-five hundred shares Ethan gifted to you have split three times since they were issued."
She stared at him with raised eyebrows, clearly expecting that the clouds would now part.
David hated to disappoint her. He liked Tilda. He didn't want her to think he was stupid.
But maybe he was.
Or maybe his brain was just having a little trouble catching up with the fact that he'd just been handed four million dollars.
"You're going to have to just spell it out for me, Tilda. What does it all mean?"
"Fundamentally, David, it means that the 'seventy-five hundred' on that certificate in front of you is more symbolic of the proportion of the company you own than a literal number of shares."
David stared at her. His heart was starting to pound in his ears, and his skin was prickling everywhere, as if his blood were trying to decide whether to keep moving through his veins or just stop and take a rest.
More. She's saying it's more.
"I see." His voice seemed to be coming from a long distance away now. "So what...what is my literal number of shares at this point?"
"The actual number of shares you own right now," Tilda said, setting down her pen and looking him straight in the eye, "is one million, three hundred and fifty thousand."
"But that..." David's voice trailed off. "That would mean...they're worth..."
"Yes, David." Her face shone now with a wide, beautiful smile. "Six hundred and seventy-five million dollars."
David sat in the dark and waited.
He'd gotten good at waiting in the last three months. Waiting for things that didn't happen.
Waiting to feel better.
Waiting to feel rich, or to want to do anything with the stock certificate that now sat, still untouched, in a newly acquired safe deposit box in San Jose.
Waiting for Ethan to reach out to him.
Waiting to wake up one morning and feel as if he were finally ready to move on.
His only comfort was that Ethan wasn't in any better shape.
"He's a mess," Tilda had told him a few weeks after the day at the bank. The long-distance connection made her voice tinny, but did nothing to dispel the warmth.
"Honestly, I've never seen him this bad. He's walking around like there's no one inside his skin."
"Is he...is he seeing anyone?"
"Seeing anyone? David, he's barely able to dress himself and stand upright."
It couldn't be that bad. Could it? For Ethan's sake, David hoped she was exaggerating.
On the other hand, the idea that Eath hadn't been able simply to shrug off their time on the island together and reassume the media-bestowed mantle of carefree billionaire-playboy-at-large made him feel...what? Avenged? Exonerated?
Hopeful.
The next time Tilda called, a few weeks later, she reported that Ethan was still moping about, still a veritable shadow of his formerly vibrant self. This time, David said it out loud: "It can't be that bad."
"Oh? David, when I was seventeen, my grandmother died."
"I'm very sorry." David reeled slightly from the sudden subject change.
"And I love you for caring. But hush. I'm trying to tell you something important. My grandmother left me her watermelon tourmaline ring, because she knew I'd always admired it."
"Okay."
"I put that ring on my finger the day my mother gave it to me, and I wore it everywhere. Until one day, I took it off to wash my hands and set it on the edge of the sink, and while I was drying them, I accidentally knocked it into the sink, and it went down the drain."
"I've heard this song before," said David. "Hasn't everyone? Why on earth do women keep setting their jewelry on the sides of sinks?"
"Hush up and listen. When my ring went clinking down that drain, I felt terrible. But I didn't feel hopeless. Not even close. After all, the sink was in my very own bathroom. And my mom was a master plumber. I knew she'd be home at six o'clock. Until then, I wasn't going to have that ring on my finger where it belonged, and I knew nothing was going to feel quite right without it there. But it wasn't lost. I knew where it was, and I knew it would eventually be returned to me."
"And the point of this story is?"
"I'm trying to tell you. That's how Ethan always used to look. Like something important was missing, but like he knew he was going to get it back. Now he looks like he dropped his grandmother's ring into an active volcano."
David's hand tightened around the phone cord. "And am I supposed to be the ring in this charming mixed metaphor? In this troubled tale of magma and p-traps?"
"We must have a bad phone connection." Somehow, Tilda managed to marry sarcasm with sympathy. "That's why you sound as bad as Ethan looks, right?"
David closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, all humor flowing away on a tide of longing and regret. "Oh, Til. Falling into a crater of molten lava would be an improvement."
"I know, honey. I know."
As the weeks dragged by, David and Bella settled comfortably into a routine of morning and evening runs. Something about the exercise felt different to David now. It wasn't cathartic anymore---wasn't about punishing his body to deaden his mind. He no longer felt as if he were running from something inside himself.
With Bella stretching happily out by his side, he was able simply to let endorphins fill and lift him. Sometimes, they'd drop by a fast-food restaurant on the way home and pick up a cheeseburger for Bella. Other nights, they'd just go home, where Bella would lap thirstily at her water bowl while David sank into the welcoming embrace of a hot shower.
From that first night in the hotel near the hospital, Bella had insisted on sleeping on the bed with David, and he hadn't objected. Her presence was warm and reassuring, even if she did tend to sprawl so much in her sleep that he often woke to find that occupying forces had taken over two-thirds of his bed's available real estate, apparently for the purpose of chasing dream rabbits.
Despite this, David was sleeping better than he had in years. He felt a pang of guilt to learn from Tilda that his old insomnia seemed to have passed from him to Ethan like some kind of curse.
"He looks like a raccoon. Or maybe a zombie. Quite pale, with big dark circles under his eyes. Very Goth. Of course, the vampire look is all the rage these days, so he'd probably be able to take his pick of undead groupies if he had the slightest interest in clubbing." She sighed heavily into the phone. "It's been months. This can't go on."
"I don't know how to fix it."
"You have to see him. You have to talk to him. It's time."
David exhaled. "I'm the last person he wants to see or talk to. And he wouldn't believe a word I said at this point."
"I don't believe anything could change the way he feels about you."
David shut his eyes and rubbed his temple. "You didn't hear the things I had to say to him. You didn't see his face. Afterwards...it was as if he'd just cut off his own leg and taken a vow never to even look again at the place where it used to be." He let his head fall against the wall. "He'll never trust me again. I don't know if I could, in his place."
"Nonsense. Sometimes, we have to lie, just a little, to the people we love, because we love them."
David frowned suspiciously into the phone. "Tilda? You still haven't told him we've been to the bank? That I know about the stock?"
"It hasn't exactly been a difficult fiction to maintain. You haven't sold anything."
"But why? Why are you keeping him in the dark?"
"Damn it, I'm trying to bring him out of the dark." Her voice grew almost prim. "That's my job."
He smiled in spite of himself. "I thought your job was to be a facilitator."
"The best you'll ever see. A legend, really. Being brought to my knees by my apparent inability to facilitate a simple rapprochement between two very miserable, very stubborn men."
She gave an exasperated sigh. "I swear, I'm seriously considering resigning my post to pursue an easier goal. Like achieving peace in the Middle East. But before I pack my bags and offer my services to the State Department, I have an idea."
"I'm literally terrified to hear it."
She drew a deep breath. "I want to tell Ethan that the bank never received his request for a change in authorized signor on his box. I want to tell him that they won't process that change now unless he brings identification and comes with me in person to the bank."
"In person." David's heart lost a beat. "To Santa Fe."
Tilda's voice became tentative, as it always did when she broached the subject of Santa Fe---a subject she didn't fully understand, but knew was an emotional powder keg. "It seems...fitting, somehow. Isn't that where everything kind of started?"
It was where everything had ended, once.
Silence stretched from coast to coast. Neither of them rushed to fill it.
"And what happens there?" David asked at last. "In Santa Fe?"
"That part would be up to you. To the two of you."
David thought about it. "We'd need time alone."
"Do you have somewhere specific in mind?"
He closed his eyes and saw Ethan's face, wreathed in shower steam.
"Yes." He exhaled. "But he won't want to go there. Hell, he won't want to make this trip at all. You'll never talk him into spending the night."
"I'll tack it onto the tail end of some other trip out to the West Coast, to minimize the emotional impact. And he'll grit his teeth and do it because---I'm sorry---he'll think it's the last step to cutting off all personal ties with you."
Her words stabbed him like gentle knives.
"As for spending the night." He could hear the shrug in her voice. "Lots of things can delay a scheduled departure. Planes get grounded because of fog, or lightning strikes, or raining porcupines. Technical issues can crop up, even for the most carefully maintained aircraft. An inconveniently timed conference can book up almost every hotel in town."
David shook his head. "I can't let you do this. I can't let you risk your own friendship with Ethan just to try to save whatever we might have had."
"Honey, we can do this the easy way." He could almost see her dark eyes flashing down the line. "Or I can just shackle the two of you together, like in one of those chain-gang escape movies. And before you decide, remember that those guys usually get pushed out of at least one fast-moving train."
"Tilda, I---"
"Onto a steep and rocky slope," she added. "With rattlesnakes."
"But you---"
"And cactuses."
"Cacti," he corrected automatically.
"Do you want to argue about Latin inflections, or do you want to tell me what you think?"
He closed his eyes and just basked for a moment in the long-distance, Florida sunshine that was this woman's voice. He had her friendship, and Bella, and relative peace, for the first time in forever. He had a life. It felt good not to be alone anymore.
But he wanted so much more than just not to be alone.
"I think," he said at last, "that Ethan is very lucky to have in his corner a legendary facilitator who wants so badly for him to be happy."
"Damn straight."
"And Tilda?"
"Yes?"
"So am I."
Now David sat in the dark, arms outstretched and waiting for the one person on earth he wanted to fill them.
All pretense of control was gone...gone with two simple, metallic clicks.
Nothing remained but jangling nerves...and beneath them, gleaming, slippery hope.
Very distantly, his ears tuned to every sound from beyond the room in which he waited, he heard the ding of the elevator, and then the muffled voices of the passengers it disgorged.
"Oh, damn." Tilda's voice, from the hallway. "I left my folder in the car. You go on ahead. I've got to run down and get it. It's got all the bank docs in it and my cell phone too. Mark's scheduled to call me in five minutes."
"That's okay, Til. Go on."
David felt his whole body thrill to the sound of that voice. Something inside him seemed to sit bolt upright and cock its ears toward the mere sound.
Damn it. He grinned. He really was no different from Bella.
"I'll be back in five," Tilda was saying. "We can go over the schedule for tomorrow, and then maybe head down to the hotel restaurant for dinner?"
"Sorry. I think I'm going to call it an early night." Ethan's voice sounded flat and lifeless. "But please do drop off the docs before you go on to dinner. I'd like to get things wrapped up at the bank first thing in the morning. Please let Geoff know to keep updating you on airport conditions. I'll want to get out of here as early tomorrow as I can."
"All right then. I'll be right back with those papers." Tilda's voice was moving down the hall.
David's breath was coming very fast now.
He heard the card key being inserted into the door of the suite. Heard it open and close. His fingers clenched automatically, and he had to force them to relax.
The light in the living room came on.
He heard Ethan shuffling around in the suite's front room.
God. What if he turns on the TV out there and just zones out in front of it?
But now he could hear Ethan coming toward the suite's still-dark bedroom.
David tried to school all nervousness and uncertainty from his face. Here we go.
For a moment, Ethan was silhouetted in the doorway and leaning in and fumbling to find the light switch. Then the room lit up, and Ethan was crying out sharply in surprise.
"Hello, Ethan," David said, as calmly as he could.
Ethan stared at David, his face loose with shock. A lock of hair had fallen over one eye, but he stood frozen, making absolutely no move to push it away. His lower jaw hung open, his bottom lip sticking slightly out. One hand still rested on the light switch; the other still gripped the soft leather satchel.
David returned the stare without blinking or dropping his gaze. His own parched eyes drank in every detail of the man before him---Ethan, thinner and paler than he remembered, his hair a little longer, circles under his eyes just as Tilda had reported, but still Ethan.
"I believe," said David, "that you still owe me a day."
Ethan's lips moved, but nothing came out but a slightly strangled noise. His gaze just flickered around the scene, apparently taking it all in---from the cuffs that bound David's wrists firmly to the decorative iron bedposts, to the sheet that draped his obviously naked body, to the key that dangled far out of David's reach on a chain around his own neck.
His mouth opened and closed as if he couldn't find words for whatever thoughts were ticking over behind those shocked hazel eyes.
Finally, with an unreadable expression, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
A few seconds later, David heard the hotel suite door open and close firmly.
His heart plummeted.
When you are tied...
How clearly he remembered Ethan's voice, a love letter that still whispered to him across all the lonely days since that magic night...could still feel how Ethan had moved in him, worshipping David with his own body.
...I will never walk away from you. It is never going to happen, David.
But now it had.
He had come here and offered Ethan everything that he had and all that he was. He had handcuffed himself to Ethan's bed, taking the leap he'd never believed he could take and giving himself completely and willingly into the control of another human being.
And Ethan had understood what David was offering---must have understood---and had chosen to walk away. To leave him alone.
Head bent, David waited for the burst of pain that would mean his heart had broken. He waited, already mourning, to feel the death of his trust in Ethan---trust that Ethan had once cared enough to build so carefully, so painstakingly.
But he didn't feel it.
What he felt instead was an unshakable belief that even if this was how things had to be right now, they would not always be this way.
He closed his eyes and felt hope and determination rising above the tears needling at his eyelids. I knew it was a risk. I hurt him badly. It may take some time for him to be willing to risk himself with me again. It may take a long time. But at least he knows that I want to try. And that's a start.
He waited for me. I will wait for him. However long it takes.
David let his head fall forward and exhaled. Tilda had a room key, and she would surely come and let him out of the cuffs as soon as Ethan had stormed past her in the lobby. The thought should have been embarrassing, but he could feel little at the moment past numbing disappointment.
Then he heard a noise and glanced up, startled, to see Ethan step back in the room.
"Oh," David said, his voice faltering. "I thought...I thought you'd gone."
"Gone? Hell, no." Ethan flipped his key card onto the dresser. "Are you kidding me? I was putting out the Do Not Disturb sign. I like chocolates on my pillow as much as the next man, but right at this moment, I do not want to be interrupted by a maid coming to do a turndown service."
His words were flippant, but his eyes took in David's distress and they flashed to his, filling suddenly with apology and compassion. I told you I'd never do that, those eyes said uncertainly. Don't you remember?
"Oh," David warbled, laughing a little. A tear escaped down one cheek, but with his hands restrained, he couldn't wipe it away. He didn't care. "We don't have any of them."
Yes. I remember. And you didn't. You're here. You're here. You're here.
Ethan stared. "What do you mean?"
"No maids." David's voice was apologetic, but his heart sang with happiness. "No turndown service. No bellhop. No concierge. No receptionist."
Ethan tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. "And yet..." He grinned, extending his hand out from his side and letting the fingers fall open so that his satchel dropped heavily to the floor. "I just checked in with one downstairs, not five minutes ago."
David nodded. "I know. But since then, there's been a change in management. All nonessential staff have been given the evening off. Extraneous services have been temporarily suspended. If you were to dial the front desk now, I'm afraid the phone would just...ring and ring and ring."
"Oh? How can that be?" Ethan kicked off first one shoe and then the other. He peeled off a sock with careless grace and took a first barefoot step toward the bed. "I'd always heard such...good things about this place." His hands paused on the buckle of his belt, his eyes dancing darkly. "I'd always remembered such good things about this place."
"Well, you know how it is with new ownership." David conveyed a c'est la vie gesture as well as he could with both wrists immobilized.
Ethan let the belt thud to the carpet and began to shrug off his jacket. "It's always such a shame," he said, and now his voice was throatier. "When a fine old establishment loses its way."
His fingers moved to his shirt and began to fly over the buttons.
"Oh, I didn't say that." David's own voice was starting to tremble. His lower body was already at full attention, and the sheet over his groin was tenting upwards. "Guest...comfort...remains the hotel's very highest priority. I'm sure you'll find all standards in your room are fully up to your expectations."
Ethan was naked from the waist up now. His eyes were filled with heat. His fingers yanked at the strap on his wrist, and an expensive watch went flying onto the sofa in the corner. He didn't even turn to see where it landed.
"I don't know." His gaze dipped to David's lips. David felt his tongue dart out involuntarily to wet them in response. "I'll try to keep an open mind. But my expectations are exceptionally high."
Ethan's hands moved to his zipper and tugged it down. His thumbs hooked into his waistband and underwear and dragged them down in one powerful movement.
Only Ethan could make that move look graceful. If I tried to do that, I'd be on the floor with my ass in the air and my jeans wrapped around my windpipe.
"So far, I've got no complaints about the room serv---" Suddenly, Ethan's sultry, teasing expression vanished, replaced by a look of horror. "Oh, crap." He looked suddenly very distracted and apologetic as he swept up his pants from the floor and snatched for the cell phone off his waistband. "I'm sorry, David: I have to head her off. Tilda's coming right back up here with those fucking bank docs."
"No, Eath." David gave him a slow, wicked smile. "She isn't."
Ethan stared at him, eyebrows raised. After a moment, he opened his fingers and let the cell phone fall to the floor.
"I see." He shook his head and laughed ruefully. "Whatever I'm paying that girl, it's not enough."
"So she tells you." David grinned back. "All the time."
Ethan crouched at the bottom of the bed and took up the corners of the sheet in his fingers. Slowly, his eyes never leaving David's, he began to pull the sheet down David's body. David hissed as the fabric slid tantalizingly over his bucking, engorged shaft.
And then the sheet was gone, and he lay naked and fully exposed to eyes that were hazy and dilated with desire. For a long moment, Ethan just gazed at him, letting his eyes sweep and linger over every inch of exposed skin. David blushed and fought the urge to try to roll away from that hungry stare.
"God, David," Ethan breathed---and somehow, those two words were all at once a prayer, an entreaty, and a claim, as indisputable as a brand seared into David's skin.
Into his heart.
Ethan bent a knee onto the bed and leaned slowly down to lick the head of David's straining cock. Then he straddled David's hips and settled his groin firmly against David's, just as he had on that first day on the beach. David groaned at the feel of Ethan's erect penis caressing his own. It felt like velvet lightning---soft skin over hard flesh, soothing and shocking and electric.
"So, Davo." Ethan's hands trailed lightly along David's quivering sides. "Let's talk."
"Talk?" quavered David. "About what?"
Ethan looked stern. "You stole my dog."
He leaned down and kissed one nipple.
"She was mine for a cheeseburger," David taunted daringly.
"And apparently," Ethan went on, ignoring this, "you've stolen my trusted assistant's very allegiance."
His mouth moved to David's other nipple and suckled at it in turn. This time, he bit lightly at the hardened bud, creating a tantalizing sting of erotic pain-pleasure.
David jerked against the restraints.
"That was slightly more difficult," he admitted, when he could speak again. "She made me promise to give her a job if you fired her for this. A job and a cheeseburger."
Ethan growled and bit gently into the curve between David's neck and shoulder.
"You stole my heart," he whispered against David's throat, and now there was something new in his voice. A note of supplication. An entreaty for reassurance.
Without a moment's hesitation, David followed his soul mate off the emotional cliff. He wasn't afraid of falling anymore---not if he was doing it with Ethan. And instead of falling, he soared.
"Ah, but that wasn't theft at all. That was an even trade."
Ethan drew back to drink in David's face. There was a world of promise in his joy-filled eyes.
Worlds.
David couldn't wait to explore every one of them with his lover. His love.
"So what's possibly left," Ethan murmured, one finger gently rubbing away the tear streak still moist on David's cheek, "for you to steal?"
"Well." David turned his face into Ethan's gentle hand. "For another hundred and eighty measly little shares, I guess I could steal control of your company."
Ethan laughed.
"Our company, you shameless thief. It was always our company. I just watched it for both of us until you could find your way back to me."
His lips found David's then. For a few seconds, the kiss was chaste and worshipful. Then tongues met, and the edges of the room began to flicker and char behind David's eyelids.
He felt Ethan's fingers reach out to touch the tiny key around his neck. "Is this to the cuffs, love?" Ethan asked quietly.
David nodded.
With gentle fingers, Ethan undid the chain and pulled the key away. "Next time, baby," he promised, unlatching the first of David's wrists and letting his thumb rub over the slightly reddened skin. Hazel eyes gazed directly into green. "This time, I need to feel your hands on me while I love you. And I need to feel your arms around me while you love me back. Okay?"
David nodded again, his eyes filling with happy tears. When his second wrist was free, he let his fingers curl around Ethan's straddling thighs and then slid his palms up until they settled on the man's hips.
"Does it hurt?" David asked quietly.
Ethan looked a little quizzical and bent his hips forward to let his engorged cock slide against David's. "Not for long," he promised silkily.
"No." David blushed. "Not that." He reached trembling fingers to touch the short, angry-looking red line between Ethan's hip and his pubic bone. "This. Does this hurt?"
Ethan looked down and watched David's fingertips trace the raised edges of his surgical scar for a long moment.
Then he curled his hand tenderly over David's and guided it up his body, up and up, sliding it slowly over belly, bone, and breast until both their hands rested, Ethan's fingers splayed lightly over David's, over Ethan's heart.
His gaze locked with David's. Pure happiness shimmered in those gold-flecked eyes, and David almost lost his breath at the beauty of it.
"Not anymore," Ethan said.
About the Author
To learn more about Indigo Wren, please visit www.indigowren.com. Send an email to Indigo at Indigo.Wren@yahoo.com.
Love never hits a wrong note.
Seeking Kokopelli
© 2010 Shelley Munro
Ever since Nate McKenzie hired on as a roadie, musician Adam James has lusted after him. So far Adam has kept his distance, knowing Nate is mourning his dead wife. But lately Adam has caught the man returning his stares. Maybe it's time to test the waters.
Besides, there isn't much chance Nate will find out that Adam was once his people's Kokopelli. His powers were stripped from him, along with the magical tattoo on his chest, when his orientation was discovered.
Nate is going crazy with guilt. Before his wife's death, he never looked at anyone else, woman or man. Now his dreams are filled with Adam. He tries to keep his mind on his job and off Adam's sexy body, but in a moment of weakness they share a kiss that sends them both up in flames.
Their relationship risks both their hearts and Adam's female fan base, but the attraction is too strong to ignore. Then someone takes a shot at Adam---and his tattoo begins to reappear, forcing him to come clean with his lover. And Nate to decide exactly where his future lies...before a killer steals it away from them.
Warning: This book contains rockin' music, smoky pubs, the mystical legend of Kokopelli and lots of playful, hot manlove.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Seeking Kokopelli:
Nate woke slowly, his erection cuddled up to a warm ass. Remaining still, he breathed deep, drawing the familiar scent into his lungs. It was the best way to wake in the morning. With a contented sigh, he pressed closer.
"I never pegged you as a cuddler," Adam drawled.
Fully awake now, Nate jerked away with a heartfelt curse.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to tell anyone. Your secret's safe with me."
"Fuck, do you ever shut up?" Nate rolled off the bed and jumped to his feet, his heart pounding as if he'd run a hundred-meter sprint. "Why didn't you wake me?"
"You were tired. I didn't see the point of waking you. You want to go for a run?"
Nate scowled, his eyes narrowing while confusion pummeled him. "What are you trying to do to me?"
"Don't make too much of this," Adam said. "A run. That's all. We've run together before."
"I...yeah. Okay." Nate dragged a hand through his hair and turned toward the door, the desire to touch Adam throbbing through him like an aching tooth. "I'll grab my gear." He would not touch. He would not.
"Five minutes?"
"Yeah." Nate paused and strode back to Adam, his feet taking him even though his mind warned him of the big mistake he was about to make. He dragged Adam into his arms and kissed him. Hard. Their noses mashed together. Teeth clacked before they managed a fit for their lips. The kiss was rough. Fierce and unrestrained. Nate catalogued the differences with part of his mind while he sank into the intimacy of being so close to another person again. Adam's lips were soft, but the contrasting rasp of stubble made the kiss different. The hard body rubbing against his own was different as well, with none of the cushioning curves he'd enjoyed with Rosa.
Rosa.
He wrenched from Adam's arms and hurried to the door, yanking it open. His breath came in loud gasps, almost panicked. "There. No big deal. It's over and now we both know."
"Know what?" Adam padded up behind him and pushed his hand against the door. It shut with a sharp click. "What do we know?"
"That we don't work together. We're plain wrong." Nate stared at the paintwork of the door, tried to ignore the note of panic in his voice, but he knew it was there. So did Adam. And the blood crowding his cock didn't lie, either. He wanted more.
"Practice makes perfect," Adam whispered close to his ear, placing one hand on either side of his body and effectively caging him against the door. "Turn around."
Nate swallowed. He could feel Adam's body along his back, the heat of him. Smell him---clean, musky male. Damn, he couldn't show fear. He had to bluff his way out of this, pretend the kiss hadn't made him crazy and backfired on him. Instead of disgust, he wanted to explore Adam's body. Worse, he wanted to kiss and touch every inch.
Shit! Who'd have thought a single kiss would cause so much trouble. He should have walked away instead of following his stupid impulse to try to prove to Adam he was wrong about an attraction between them.
"I wouldn't have taken you for a coward."
Indignant, Nate turned to glare at Adam. "I'm not a cow---"
Adam stopped his heated words with a kiss. This one, it was nothing like the first. It started slow, a mere brushing of lips, the gentleness of it sending signal fires darting through Nate's body. He gasped, and Adam took advantage, stroking his tongue over Nate's, deepening the contact. Adam didn't move, didn't do anything except kiss him.
Somewhere along the line, Nate forgot he was kissing a man and went with the soar of sensations racing through him, the pleasure. The yearning.
Slowly, Adam pulled away, and Nate realized he gripped the other man's shoulders. He snatched his hands away, a tide of embarrassment spreading across his cheeks. That couldn't happen again, which was a shame because he'd enjoyed the kiss. Innate honesty made him admit it to himself, and the fact that he wanted more. And worst of all, he'd never thought of Rosa the entire time.
"We'll get even better with time," Adam whispered.
"There won't be another time." Maybe if he said it enough, he'd come to believe it.
"No? I didn't take you for a liar, either."
"Fuck, will you stop touching me?" Fury sped through Nate, and he shoved Adam, his hands curling to fists at his sides. "I thought you wanted to run."
"Whatever." Frustration shaded Adam's voice this time. He stepped away to sit on the corner of the bed. "But remember this. No matter how hard and fast you run, you can't outrun the truth."
Nate opened his mouth, about to tell Adam where to shove his truth. Something made him bite back the words, and he jerked the door open, then stomped outside.
"Five minutes," Adam called after him.
Nate strode to his room and used his key to open the door. It was light out, but with the lack of noise and bustle that characterized the early hour. Perfect for a run. Snorting, he pushed inside the room. Once he realized Keith had returned and was still asleep, he made a conscious attempt to keep the noise down. Even knowing he should stay far away from Adam, Nate rifled through his bag for a pair of shorts and a tank top. Rapidly stripping, he ignored his hard-on and dressed for running.
Adam was right. He couldn't run away, not when their lives and work intertwined so intimately. But he could ignore the man and the traitorous feelings that zapped him each time they were together. Nate laced his shoes and, after shoving the key in the zip pocket of his shorts, walked outside.
Adam was waiting, already working through a series of stretches. Nate joined him and commenced his own stretching routine. Neither man spoke. Somehow that was worse than discussing the topic sitting like a ten-ton elephant between them.
"Where do you want to run?" Nate's words were a husky growl. Damn. That wasn't the impression he wanted to give. He felt Adam's gaze stroke his face, drop briefly to his lips, and Nate uneasily shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"Why don't we head for the forest reserve?"
Nate's head jerked up at the suggestion. "That's a long run." Adam wasn't as fit as him. The run would challenge him.
Adam shrugged. "I need a good workout."
Nate skewered him with a sharp look even as he stiffened at the suggestion buried in Adam's words. "Let's go." He started running, taking the lead because the more of Adam he saw, the bigger his erection grew. Running was gonna hurt like hell, although the alternative didn't work for him, either.
"Stop thinking so hard," Adam mocked, running easily at his side.
"One of us has to think straight."
"Why? What's so wrong about spending time with people you like? Because that's what it comes down to."
Nate upped the pace a bit, hoping Adam would tire. Didn't happen, and he slowed again to an easy pace, one he knew they could sustain all the way to the reserve. "This is a bad idea."
"Why?" Adam demanded again. "Spell it out. Give me reasons and maybe I'll agree."
A little push and pull makes the heart grow stronger.
The Distance Between Us
© 2010 L.A. Witt
After ten years together, Ethan Mallory and Rhett Solomon are calling it quits. They're more than ready to dump their heavy emotional baggage. The only thing they can't seem to unload is the house. They're stuck living as roommates with a hefty mortgage hanging over their heads...at least until they can bring in some extra money to pay it down. Solution: rent out a room.
Enter Kieran Frost. Suddenly, the only thing Ethan and Rhett both want more than getting away from each other is getting close to their single, young, hot roommate. Complicating things is the fact that Kieran doesn't mind the attention from both, and he certainly doesn't mind sharing.
Their combined chemistry ignites something else that Ethan and Rhett had thought was long dead---the mutual attraction that drew them together in the first place. Except bitter jealousy over Kieran could only push them even farther apart...
Warning: Includes multiple threesomes, angry sex, makeup sex, and a little peeking.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Distance Between Us:
I was somewhere in that hazy state between asleep and awake when something brought me back to full awareness. Blinking in the dark, I tried to locate the sound that had pulled me into consciousness.
Down the hall, the sliding glass door hissed, then clicked shut. Shuffling footsteps moved across the hardwood floor of the living room, toward the hallway. No voices, just footsteps. Uneven, almost stumbling. Bumping into furniture, struggling for balance. I wondered just how many bottles of wine Ethan had gone through. He wasn't usually the type to get fall down drunk, particularly not while he was trying to lay the charm on someone. Or maybe it was Kieran. He wasn't as familiar with the layout of the house, and since there was no strip of light under my door, he was probably trying to work his way through the darkness.
Fabric brushed against plaster. Again, with a little more force this time. Definitely Kieran. Between the dark and the wine, he must---
A low murmur, something I couldn't understand, ending in enough of a lilt to indicate a question.
Then a response. The reply was deeper, quieter, so low I almost felt it rather than heard it. And it was a voice I knew all too well: The hoarse growl of a very aroused Ethan.
Fabric rustled again and they continued down the hall, past Kieran's bedroom, toward the stairs.
You two didn't waste any time, did you?
For the first time, I was aware of every creak of the stairs and wished we'd put down carpet. At least then I wouldn't hear their shoes tapping and shuffling, occasionally even squeaking, as they worked their way up to the third floor.
The house was absolutely silent except for the nearly---but not completely---inaudible sounds they made on their way into Ethan's bedroom.
Ethan's bedroom, which was directly over mine.
I closed my eyes and let out a frustrated breath. One of the selling points of this house was that it was in an exceptionally quiet part of Capitol Hill. Just this once, I wished we'd bought a place right beside the freeway. At least then the roar of traffic would have been enough to drown out the muffled sounds of my ex getting it on with our new roommate.
My eyes tracked across the ceiling, following the sound of their footsteps as if I could see them. Pulling off clothes, stumbling over each other's feet, kissing like only Ethan knew how to kiss.
I shivered. It didn't matter how or why we'd split or how we felt about each other, the fact remained that no one kissed like Ethan Mallory. Oh, Kieran, you lucky son of a bitch.
The lips were only the beginning. Right about now, Kieran was probably discovering just how many erogenous zones Ethan could find on someone's neck, or what his perpetually stubbled jaw felt like when skin brushed skin, or what Ethan's voice felt like when he moaned into a deep kiss. I ran my tongue stud along my teeth, remembering the way Ethan would tease it with the tip of his tongue.
Just wait until you find out what else his mouth can do, lad.
They stopped moving. I could hear nothing except for the beating of my own heart, but my mind's eye filled in everything that was probably going on. If I knew Ethan, he was anything but silent right then, kissing his way up and down Kieran's neck while whispering in great detail all the ways he'd make him beg for more.
And if I knew Ethan, he wasn't exaggerating. Whatever he said he would do, he did. Promises of a rough, hard fuck, or a long, spine-melting blowjob, even a gentle, oiled massage that would no doubt lead to much more. I could almost feel Ethan's lips and voice against my neck as he breathed all his promises.
The distant, muffled sound of a belt buckle made me shiver. Clothes hit the floor; jeans, I guessed, if I could hear it that clearly. Footsteps moved above me, then bedsprings creaked softly.
I closed my eyes again. I wanted to be angry, I wanted to be jealous, but just the thought of either of those men, naked and horny, made me want to be there. And whether I liked it or not, my body wanted to be there too.
Reaching under the covers, I closed my hand around my cock and stroked slowly, barely even breathing so as not to drown out the faint sounds from upstairs.
They were mostly silent now, save for the occasional gentle creak of the bed accommodating movement. Knowing Ethan, he probably had his hand and mouth around Kieran's cock. He'd be stroking and sucking, his occasional enthusiastic, aroused moan sending Kieran into the stratosphere. The man gave head like he could feel everything he did on his own cock.
Biting my lip, I stroked my cock the way I remembered Ethan doing it: Slower, faster, slower, faster, pausing now and again just to keep me on the edge. I tried to imagine Kieran's face, his eyes screwed shut and his lips parted with breathless, soundless cries, until he reached that point of no return and his eyes---those incredible, hypnotic green eyes---flew open just as he came in Ethan's mouth.
I could barely breathe, taking uneven gasps whenever I could think to do so. Above me, more motion, more urgency and speed. Kieran was probably right there, getting close just as I was. What I wouldn't have given to have been the one about to make him come like that.
Closing my eyes, I held my breath as the faint, distant vibration of Kieran's voice slowly crescendoed into a moan, then a deeper sound and, just before I couldn't hold back anymore, I realized it wasn't Kieran's voice at all. Ethan came with a whimper that I could barely hear, but it was enough, and in that same instant, I came too.
When I could finally draw a breath, my body relaxed and my spine sank back down to the bed. I hadn't even realized I'd arched my back like that, but the force of my orgasm had nearly levitated my entire body. With a trembling hand, I reached for the tissues on my bedside table.
Above me, there were more sounds of movement. Then, the all-too-familiar sound of the nightstand drawer opening, then closing. I couldn't help but shudder, imagining Kieran fucking Ethan. Not only that, but by the time Kieran was done, Ethan would probably have recovered. He may have been a few months away from forty-two, but he had the kind of stamina that rivaled men half his age.
If Kieran could keep up with him like I could, the sun would be coming up around the time they finally collapsed.
Ethan's bedframe groaned in protest of more movement, then fell into a rhythmic creak, filling my mind with all manner of sexy, frustrating images.
If Kieran could keep up with him like I could, they were going to kill me before this night was over.
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