Prologue

1999

The wiry kid almost got away with it.

“Hey!” Rhone chased the teen down and shoved him against the airport wall. Dark, belligerent eyes battled his, but Rhone didn’t give a shit. He grabbed the kid by the arm before he slipped away. “Nice try,” he said coldly. “Now give me back my cell phone.”

The kid struggled against Rhone’s hold. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, asshole.”

“Don’t bullshit me; you’re not that good.” Rhone looked the olive-skinned teen up and down, quickly assessing the well-fit jeans and button-down shirt that didn’t tend to scream “street kid” or “thief.” He looked like he could be a member of any number of the families rushing to get to their plane on time. “Although I’ve got to say, the clothes are a smart choice. Lets you blend right in.” Rhone bared his teeth, but nobody looking in his eyes would mistake it for a smile. “You picked the wrong guy to bump and run today. Hand over the phone now, or I haul you off to airport security.”

The kid snarled back with equal venom. “You’re gonna do it anyway.” He did, however, dig into his back pocket.

“Don’t question my integrity.” Rhone practically growled the words. Didn’t matter that he didn’t know the kid, the judgment still pissed him off. “If I say something, I mean it. The fact that you live a dishonest life that causes you to think suspiciously about everyone around you doesn’t have anything to do with me. Don’t lump me in with your belligerent beliefs about the world.”

The teen slapped Rhone’s cell into his outstretched hand. “What do you care?”

“I don’t.” Rhone slid the phone into the pocket of his pants this time, rather than his jacket, which he had draped over his carry-on luggage. He knew better. Rookie move on his part. “Facts are facts, though, and I like for them to be straight.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever, nothing,” Rhone said. He stepped away to get back on his schedule, but something in the kid’s eyes made him pause. Intelligence, maybe, paired with a healthy dose of skepticism that grated on Rhone’s nerves. The young man might have no faith in the whole damn world, but Rhone survived on his integrity, hoped to build a business that required people to trust him. “You want a little piece of free advice, kid?”

“You’re still holding me here.” The teen stared down at his wrist pointedly. “Unless I want to make a scene, I guess I don’t really have any choice.”

Rhone hadn’t even noticed he’d wrapped his hand around the kid’s forearm. He dropped it quickly. “There’s always a choice.” He didn’t know what in the hell had compelled him to grab the teen. He’d done it without conscious thought.

Sullen, leaning back against the wall, the young man held his ground. “So, what did you want to say?”

“Get out of this line of work.” Rhone recalled the teen “stumbling” over his bag and apologizing profusely before speed-walking away. “You’re not very good.”

“I did okay until today.”

“Don’t brag about your myriad of successful crimes. It’s not something in which you should feel pride.”

“I gotta do what I gotta do.”

Something about this young man spoke to Rhone. Although for the life of him, he could not figure out what it was. “Maybe you ‘gotta do’ something else with your life.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his card. Damn it all, he did not know why in the hell he did it. His brother would kill him. “Maybe it’s time to try something new.” He did it anyway, and handed over his business card. “You decide you want to do something different with your life, you give me a call, and I’ll give you a job.”

Adam fingered the business card with the fancy, raised lettering. He touched it only. Didn’t dare look down and confirm with another sense that it was actually real.

He looked up at the big, dark-haired dude. “You trying to lure me into some kind of trap?” He snorted. “Ain’t no person in a fancy business suit gonna hire a kid who picked his pocket and hinted at doing other crimes.”

The man raised a thick eyebrow. “Maybe that’s just the kind of employee I need.” Shrugging his shoulders, the guy slid his hands into his pockets. “You’ll never know if you’re too afraid to give it a chance.” He backed away and lifted his hand in a mock, two-fingered salute. “You’ve got one week,” he added. “The second number on the card is my business cell” -- by the glint in the man’s eyes, the irony in that was not lost on him -- “so you can reach me whenever you decide. Seven days, kid, and then the offer expires.”

There’s no way this guy is legit. Adam put the card between his fingers and started to tear.

“I wouldn’t do that,” the deep voice wafted back to Adam through the fast-moving crowd.

Adam shivered. How in the hell had the man known? Was he a psychic?

Adam flattened the partially torn card and looked down at it. Rhone Quinn. Security and investigations to meet your personal or high tech needs. Two phone numbers followed.

“Shit.” Adam couldn’t believe it. Security? No way. Still, he found himself pushing through the clusters of families and businesspeople, all moving on automatic pilot. He searched for the strong, wide back he had so arrogantly thought an easy mark just a few minutes ago.

Adam spotted the man in line at a newsstand. Suddenly, his feet became dead weights, not allowing him to move. His heart raced, and he felt the trickles of sweat run down his back. God, what was wrong with him? Adam saw the man -- Rhone -- and a warring fear and excitement churned in his gut, nauseating him. He got by okay right now, even if he didn’t always have a roof over his head. Did he really think himself special enough to deserve more than that? That this one guy, who didn’t even know him, really wanted to give him a job and help him out didn’t make sense to Adam.

A newspaper suddenly hit him in the chest.

Adam lifted his gaze and found pale gray eyes looking down on him.

“Read that.” The man tapped the paper with his index finger. “The best thing you can ever do for yourself is to be informed. Second, it’s not that hard to look around and find someone worse off than you. Most of them don’t turn to illegal activity to make their lives better. That’s all I have to say.” With that, he walked away.

Adam had the fleeting thought that he might be walking right into some mass murderer’s trap. He took off anyway, and once again chased the big stranger down.

Moving in beside the guy, Adam gave him a guarded gaze. “My name is Adam Reyes.” He held out his hand, his face heating when he noticed that it trembled.

“Rhone Quinn.” The man pretended he didn’t see the tremor and clasped Adam’s hand in the strength of his. “Good to meet you, Adam.” He let go and slipped his hand back into his pocket. “Let’s talk.” He started to walk.

Fighting a “flight” instinct that told him chances like this didn’t happen to people like him, Adam forced himself to put one foot in front of the other and follow.

Chapter One

2000

Rhone watched Adam out of the corner of his eye. The kid stood at the door to Rhone’s apartment, trying to maintain a cool façade. Rhone’s chest ached at the wideness in the guy’s gaze, making him even more curious about the specifics of a past that Adam never discussed.

Clearing his throat, Rhone tossed Adam’s duffel bag on the couch. Adam held a tight grip on the only other piece of luggage he had, a backpack. “How long have you lived at that cheap-ass motel?” Rhone asked. Christ, the place had such a bad stench about it that even the hookers steered clear of it. Rhone walked into his small kitchen, trying his damnedest to behave in a casual manner, hoping to make the young man feel more comfortable with the situation.

Rhone gave the kid a silent cheer when he followed. “Ever since my first paycheck with you and Canin.” Adam mentioned Rhone’s brother and partner in Quinn Security and Investigations. “The place really wasn’t that bad.”

“It was a shithole, Adam, and you should have said something.” Rhone turned on Adam, his passion for the intelligence and quickness this guy showed him every day overriding his usual cool. “I don’t want to have to ID your body because you’ve been knifed for your cash. No. You stay here for however long it takes you to save enough to put a first and last months’ deposit down on an apartment.”

“No. I can’t… No.” Adam’s face blanched of all its olive coloring, leaving someone behind who looked younger than his eighteen years. “You’ve given me so much already. I can’t take more. It wouldn’t be right. I can’t give you anything in return.”

Rhone leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. Cocking an eyebrow Adam’s way, he asked, “Can you cook?”

Adam flinched, but just as fast, he straightened his spine and lifted his gaze to Rhone’s. “I had an aunt who taught me a few things. I can do a lot of Spanish and Cuban stuff.”

So he finally admits to something personal. Rhone already knew a few of the impersonal facts of Adam Reyes’s life. He might have offered Adam a job on the spur of the moment, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done a basic background check. Adam grew up in one of the more economically depressed areas of the city and had dropped out of school at age sixteen. He didn’t have a criminal record, and while Rhone could have dug deeper and found out why Adam left home, something in Rhone wanted Adam to look him in the eyes and tell him on his own, because he wanted to share, not because Rhone already knew the truth anyway.

Shaking off the curious sensation, Rhone offered Adam a fast smile. “Well, I can’t cook for shit, so you’re hired. If you do the cooking and a little bit of cleaning in exchange for a place to sleep, then I don’t see us having a problem sharing a living space for a little while. As long as you don’t mind crashing on the couch in the computer room. Okay?”

Adam turned his head down and spent the longest time looking at the black-and-white tiles alternating on Rhone’s kitchen floor before finally facing Rhone head-on once again. “Deal.” Adam stuck out his hand.

Rhone clasped it and shook.

* * * * *

2001

Rhone scratched his balls as he headed for the bathroom, navigating the dark hallway through eyes still half-closed. Moving on memory, he stumbled to the commode, pulled his dick out, did his business, shook it off, and stuffed it back in his flannel bottoms. Swearing as he jammed his fingers on the faucet, he turned on the water, cursing some more as the freezing liquid quickly numbed his fingers while he washed. He wiped his hands dry on his pants, not even bothering to feel around for a towel.

Exiting the bathroom, he figured he could probably get two more hours of good sleep in before he absolutely had to get up, when the rustling of bedclothes and a soft moan hit Rhone’s ears. Chuckling, Rhone wondered who in the hell might inspire a sex dream in his houseguest -- well, after staying so long, he couldn’t exactly call Adam a guest anymore -- when another muffled groan and a raspy “Please, please, you’re hurting me” grabbed Rhone in the chest and had him running for the computer room, all traces of his former tiredness gone.

Rhone found Adam rolled on his side in a ball, his bare upper body perspiring profusely as he rocked himself, his eyes moving around erratically under his closed lids. The young man obviously lived inside his dream, trapped in another place.

A bad place.

“Adam.” Rhone reached out and rubbed Adam’s upper arm. Christ, the man sweltered like an inferno. “Adam.” Rhone put more force in his voice and shook the sleeping man again.

“No! Dad!” Still clearly in the throes of his dream, Adam whooshed his arm up and hit Rhone in the throat with incredible power, knocking Rhone onto his ass. “Stop. Please stop.”

Ignoring the shot from Adam’s forearm, Rhone popped back up and grabbed Adam’s shoulders, pinning him down to the couch. “Adam!” Rhone fought against Adam’s natural, sleep-induced battle, ending it by crawling onto the couch and straddling Adam’s waist. “Adam! Damn it. Wake up.”

The body beneath him suddenly jerked as if someone had put a thousand live wires to his chest. Adam’s eyes snapped open, all dark and wild. “What?” He darted his gaze around, and his body heaved as he took in great gulps of breath. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. What did I do to you?”

“Nothing I won’t live through,” Rhone answered, his voice dry.

“Whatever it was” -- Adam’s entire body flamed with heat beneath the layer of sweat, sinking into Rhone in a way that induced a shiver -- “I was dreaming. It didn’t mean anything.”

Narrowing his gaze at Adam’s choice of words, Rhone said, “I think it means your dad was a bastard who beat you, and you had every right to take a swing at him.” Rhone lifted a hand to the tenderness in his neck. “I’m happy to serve as the punching bag if it helps you rid yourself of that demon.”

“Sorry.” Adam lifted up and drew Rhone’s hand away, whistling as he looked for himself. “Damn it. That’s going to leave a bruise. I’m so sorry.” Adam covered the tender area with his own hand and soothed, transferring such warmth the sting immediately started to dissipate. “I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

Rhone’s breath caught in the back of his throat, and a strange racing that he didn’t understand coursed through his blood as he caught Adam’s sorrowful gaze. “I know you wouldn’t. You thought I was your dad.”

Adam went rigid, all the heat left his body, and his dark, expressive eyes went flat. The chill from the man beneath him swept through Rhone, waking him up to the fact that he sat on Adam’s lap. Scrambling away, Rhone threw himself in the desk chair that sat adjacent to the couch. Everything about Adam screamed “hands off,” but Rhone had witnessed Adam in the midst of that nightmare and couldn’t make himself walk away.

“He beat you, Adam, didn’t he?”

Adam darted his attention up from his lap, his pupils pinpoints in almost equally dark irises. He sat quietly, staring for the longest time before he finally spoke. “My father never had a lot of time to spare for me when I was little. As I got older and started to reach his height, if not quite his build, he decided he didn’t like me very much and made sure I knew every reason why.”

Alpha dog threatened in his own home. It did happen. Even when the up-and-comer happened to be your own child. “So that’s why you ran away.”

Rhone watched closely and so saw the little shiver roll through Adam. He noticed the hands twisting in the younger man’s lap too. “My father is the reason I hit the streets, yes.”

So many things about Adam Reyes remained a mystery. That didn’t bother Rhone. Adam would learn to trust Rhone in his own time. Well, Rhone and Canin, because of the business. They had to establish trust for the sake of Quinn Security. The fact that Rhone happened to think Adam an all-around good guy was just gravy.

“My dad checked out on me and Canin when our mom died,” Rhone shared, breaking the small silence. He owed Adam something personal after what Rhone had witnessed tonight. Telling himself that allowed Rhone to go on revealing things about his family he had never spoken of with anyone else. “I was four and Canin was five when she passed. Our grandmother came and lived with us after that. She raised us. She’s who I think of as my family. Her and Canin. I can’t really remember my mother, and my dad doesn’t deserve the respect of me claiming him. You know what I mean?”

Adam nodded, his eyes never leaving Rhone’s. Leaning back against the arm of the couch, Adam said, his voice achingly soft, “Tell me about your grandmother.”

Without hesitation, Rhone did.

Chapter Two

2002

Rhone kicked his feet up on the desk while glaring at his brother. “Why do I have to do the job?” He glanced at the file again. “You interviewed the client, you said we’d take the case, and you took her money. Why in the hell do I have to do the shit work now?”

“Because while you do that, I will be having dinner with another potential client.” Canin leaned back in the visitor’s chair and linked his hands behind his neck. He had a big ol’ satisfied grin on his face. “She is a beauty, sharp as hell, and since you won’t kiss the asses of these damn people, I have to sit there and do it for both of us.”

“Oh, yes, poor you.” Rhone rolled his eyes. “It’s so hard for you to eat dinner and flirt with prospective female clients. No fucking way, man. Let me do that, and you follow the professor with the wandering eye. I promise I’ll be appropriately enamored with anything the woman says.”

“You’ll try, but you’re god-awful at small talk, and you won’t be able to finesse your way from the friendly benign chatter to the business end of the meal.” Leaning forward, Canin flipped open the case file once again. “Come on, bro, do this job. We can’t give up the tail work yet. The PI stuff has to help pay the bills for at least another year.”

“Don’t tell me what I already know.” Rhone clenched his jaw hard enough to make it ache, and then bit off, “Fine, I’ll do it. Christ --” He rubbed his face, feeling the bone-weary boredom and tiredness kicking in already. “Just what I wanted to with my Friday. Follow around a cheating husband. Damn it, what I wouldn’t do to get a break from this kind of crap every once in a while.” A thought suddenly hit Rhone, and it was as if a hundred-pound weight lifted off his back.

Shooting out of his chair, he yanked open his office door. “Adam!” Rhone didn’t see the kid -- well, not a kid anymore. The guy had turned twenty a few weeks ago. “Adam, are you here?” Adam did all of the grunt work for Quinn Security, so he could very well be out of the office right now running an errand.

Deflating, Rhone had almost given up when Adam poked his head out of Canin’s office. “Yes?” He straightened immediately and moved to stand in front of Rhone. “I’m trying to fix Canin’s printer problem. Did you want me to do something else?”

Rhone sighed. “No, Adam, just relax.” Adam made Rhone want to strangle him sometimes. He did a great job, and Rhone and Canin told him so often enough, yet Adam continued to work every day as if on trial and one misstep away from Rhone throwing him back to his old life. Never gonna happen. Rhone smiled slow and easy, liking his plan more and more with each passing second. “How do you feel about getting a promotion and graduating to some field work?”

Adam’s dark eyes widened with shock. “Seriously?” Rhone actually saw a little tremor roll through Adam’s wiry body under his jeans and white shirt. “You want me to work with you and Canin?”

Canin moved to the doorway and filled the space with his giant frame. “Great idea. We should have thought of it sooner.” He stuck out his hand to Adam. “Welcome to the wonderful world of surveillance.”

“Don’t let him seduce you, Adam.” Rhone stepped in front of Canin, blocking most of his brother’s body. “It’s not nearly as romantic as it sounds. Just a lot of following and taking pictures of people who are mostly doing stuff they shouldn’t be, and then reporting back to the client and confirming his or her worst suspicions. However, if you want to do it, I’d like to train you. What do you say?”

A tremulous, but engaging smile transformed Adam’s normally cautious face. “I say I’m in. Tell me what I have to do.”

Rhone smiled back, and with a start, recognized the frisson of excitement that skittered through him.

Rhone couldn’t wait to show Adam the ropes of this side of his work.

“Do you still have that backpack you had when you moved in with me?”

“Yeah.” Twin orbs of red fused Adam’s cheeks. “I can afford to move out now --”

Rhone raised a hand and cut that thought off at the knees. “Don’t worry about that right now. That’s not a concern.” He cuffed Adam on the shoulder and laughed. “Go get your backpack, man. We get to spend a fun day trolling around a college campus looking for a bastard who cheats on his wife with his students.”

* * * * *

Adam let himself into the apartment, ignoring the flutter in his belly that always came over him when he stepped inside this place. Sharing such a nice place with Rhone -- and paying his own way -- lifted Adam in a way nothing else in his life ever had. A few months ago, Rhone up and announced he wanted a bigger place, and without missing a beat, included Adam in his plans. Adam knew he should get his own apartment, but having a roommate filled the hours he didn’t spend at work. Besides, he liked being close to Rhone. Privately, Adam basked in the glow of the man’s confidence, patience, and strength. And if Adam occasionally wondered what it would feel like to lean in over the dinner table and kiss him, he stuffed it back down before it got out of hand. Rhone didn’t deserve Adam’s misplaced affection, and Adam would never burden him with his mentor adoration that had grown way out of hand.

Shaking off everything Adam couldn’t let take root and grow, he thought only, “I get to work with Rhone. I get to work with Rhone.” Adam strode through the apartment to his room and threw open his closet door, certain he still had his ratty old backpack.

He ought to; it was the only thing he took with him from his home. His parents had not allowed him to take anything else.

Spotting the hunter green fabric sticking out over the edge of the high shelf, Adam yanked the bag down and emptied its contents onto the floor. One thing caught his eye, the tattered edges of a magazine Adam hadn’t dared look at after leaving home, but perversely, its significance wouldn’t let him throw it away.

Adam’s hand shook as he touched the curled, glossy paper. With reluctant fascination, he opened it, sending him back to that moment five years ago, a few minutes that changed his life forever…

Unlocking the half-dozen locks on the door, the smells of bay leaves, garlic, and onions wafted through the apartment and tickled Adam’s nose. His aunt must be home from her visit with a friend down in Miami, because his mom sure never bothered to cook from scratch. Having skipped lunch, Adam’s stomach rumbled as he thought about black beans and yellow rice for dinner. Maybe Aunt Loretta had even baked a chicken to go with it. She usually did.

“Hi, Tía.” Adam threw his backpack down on the couch, moved into the kitchen, and accepted the brief hug from the ample woman at the stove. He swung his head out of the way, just barely missing her sideswiping him with a wooden spoon. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

The woman raised a brow and went back to her big pot on the stove. “They should be home from work soon, niño. How are you?”

“Tired.” Adam threw himself down in a chair. His feet tingled from a long day at work. “I hustled my ass off today.” Adam stocked and worked the floor at a sporting goods mega store. “I always do. They better say yes when it comes time for raises, or I’m getting the hell out of there and looking for something else.”

“Language, Adam.” Loretta waved her spoon at him. “God does not like to hear those kinds of words spoken from a good Catholic’s lips.”

“I’m not a good Catholic.” Explicit images of the many dreams Adam had begun to suffer in the last year tormented him. Hot, muscular male bodies, all of them touching each other in ways he knew they should not. Adam had already received a warning about this tendency, but when he slept he could not make them stop. “In fact, I don’t even know if I’m a very good person half the time.” Cheating on a test certainly didn’t qualify him for sainthood, and he had done that only yesterday. Knowing he shouldn’t have, Adam justified it by telling himself he could take the time to study every subject to the fullest of his abilities, or he could go to his job every day. There weren’t enough hours to do both.

His aunt opened her mouth, but before she spoke, the sound of the door creaking open and the murmur of a booming masculine voice and a softer feminine one reached his ears. The sudden, jarring ring of the phone made Adam jump in his chair, and then his father’s low, “I’ll get it. I’m expecting a business opportunity to come together today.”

The hushed sound of his father’s half of the conversation didn’t register loud enough to reach Adam’s ears, but he didn’t care. His dad had a lot of big ideas, only none of them tended to have any follow-through or work out. His mother didn’t want to know her life wouldn’t get any better than this hovel they called an apartment, and she spent her nights and weekends drinking wine so that she didn’t have to see it. Adam just wanted to get through the next year and a half of school and get out. He never wanted to come back. Except maybe to see his tía.

Adam shifted in the chair to ask her what time they would eat, and right then a big paw of a hand cuffed him in the head. The blow hit with such force Adam flew out of the chair into a sprawl on the tacky linoleum floor. His ear ringing from the smack, Adam’s father threw down on him, landing punch after punch after punch all over Adam’s much lankier body, bruising him and robbing him of breath.

“Stop. Please.” Adam curled into a ball and covered his head to protect it from the attack, but he could not shield all of his body and suffered brutal hits to his back, ribs, and legs, the rage in the man doing the beating lending even more strength to his intimidating size.

Aching with hacking coughs, the sharp, coppery taste of blood seeped into Adam’s mouth. He could barely process the screams from his mother and aunt as they tried to pull his father off him. Adam’s father abruptly stopped, cursing Adam in his native tongue the entire time. He leaned over Adam and spit on his face, and then hit him with a rolled-up magazine before throwing it on his chest.

Oh, God, the Playgirl he kept hidden in his backpack.

“We take you to speak with Father John so you can confess to this sin and cleanse your dirty mind, and less than six months later, you’re back to bringing that filth into my home!” Adam’s father’s face mottled with the redness of rage, and his entire body shook as he clenched his meaty hands into fists at his sides. “I go into your bag to look for a pen and find that! What if my associate had been there in the living room with me, huh? You disgust me, looking at pictures of naked men. You are not my son. I don’t know where you came from, but you are not of my blood. Get out.” He pointed at the door. “I don’t ever want to see your face again. If I do, even on the street, I swear to God I will kill you.”

“Mom.” Adam crawled around his father’s legs, tense in preparation for the kicking to start. He grabbed the leg of her jeans. “Please.”

“Ay, pobrecito.” She touched his hair, rubbing his head as she had once done when he was still a small boy. Then, she stepped away. “You know this is wrong. A sin against God. Father John told you that you shouldn’t encourage these thoughts, and yet you keep looking at these pictures.” They had caught Adam last time with similar images he had ripped out of a photography book of nudes he found in a bookstore. He didn’t dare try to steal the entire coffee table sized book. After taking the pictures into the bathroom to jerk off, a noise had surprised him, and he’d left one on the floor. “We told you, no more. I cannot help you.”

As if she had ever helped him. “Some people say it isn’t wrong to feel this way.” Adam stumbled as he got his legs under him, but managed to get to his feet. He turned to his Aunt Loretta. “Do you think it is?”

In the worst blow of the night, his aunt only shook her head and turned away.

Grabbing up the magazine, his final act of open defiance, Adam shoved it into his backpack and never looked back.

At least, until now.

Adam shook off the ugly thoughts and threw the magazine in the trash beside his bed. Trying to get to school and work every day when he didn’t have anywhere to safely rest during the hours in between school and his job, let alone a place to sleep at night, quickly overwhelmed Adam to the point where his grades dropped dramatically, and he dropped out. Shortly after that, he got fired from his job for tardiness and a lack of being able to focus while at work. He couldn’t seem to organize himself or function for months after his parents kicked him out, and truthfully, it never got any easier for him as the time went on. Surviving those eighteen months on his own, Adam’s desires and curiosity about men had taken a backseat to the most basic of needs. And after Rhone gave him a shot… Well, Adam refused to let anything screw it up. He worked every minute he could and then some to prove himself worthy to the man who had given him this one chance to build a respectable life for himself. He couldn’t afford to think about the dreams that had started up again.

Fantasies that starred a tall, dark-haired, very specific man.

* * * * *

Rhone yanked Adam into an alcove and pulled the younger man into his arms. Adam jerked against him, but Rhone slid his arm around Adam’s waist and held him close. Leaning back against the brick wall, he tucked Adam against him in a lover’s embrace.

While watching the street out of the corner of his eye, he dipped down and put his mouth against Adam’s ear. “Tell me you can see him from over my shoulder.” He pretended to nuzzle Adam’s neck. Christ, the man really did have the warmest skin. “If you look to your right, he should be seated outside that pretentious little bistro.”

Chuckling, Adam dipped his forehead and rested it against Rhone’s shoulder, stifling a bigger laugh.

“Well, I’m not wrong,” Rhone said, affronted. Still, Adam shook with suppressed amusement, so Rhone squeezed him around the waist to get him to stop. “It’s an uppity little place that charges twenty-five bucks for a fancy burger and fries.”

“Did a date not go well there?” Adam asked softly. His breath tickled against Rhone’s neck, and the hairs on Rhone’s arms under his shirt stood on end. Before Rhone could concern himself, Adam shifted excitedly against him. “Wait, wait.” Confidence and new life suddenly infused his voice. “Someone just joined our guy. A young woman. Damn it, she just kissed his cheek, and we didn’t get it. Let me get my phone.” As Adam dug his hand into his front pocket, his knuckles grazed the front of Rhone’s jeans. Rhone’s cock twitched automatically, seeking the touch. Quickly, Adam pulled his hand from between them. “God, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Rhone whispered harshly. “Take the fucking picture so we can get out of here.”

“I am, damn it.” Adam adjusted slightly again, and Rhone could feel the flat of the phone resting against his shoulder. “I’m not gonna blow this chance to prove myself to you. I’m not an idiot.”

“I never said you were.” A couple walked by, and Rhone caressed his hand down Adam’s back to his ass, cupping and kneading the firm cheek. Letting his palm linger and the tips of his fingers slide between Adam’s legs from behind, Rhone watched as the man and woman gasped and hurried by, noticing only that one man touched another intimately. They never even glanced at the phone Adam had poking out over Rhone’s shoulder. Jesus, Adam feels all sleek and full of hard muscle under my fingers.

Curling his digits against a bizarre desire to reach farther in, Rhone slid his hand back up to the small of Adam’s back. “How are we doing? Have they done anything else?”

“Whoa.” Adam whistled low, brushing more warm breath against Rhone’s neck. “He just ate about half the girl’s face in a kiss I don’t think the people sitting next to them appreciated seeing. Will that do for the wife, or do we need to trail them and see if they hit a motel?”

A familiar pain settled in Rhone’s heart. Christ, he hated this part of his job. The cheating spouse never disappointed him. “No, that ought to do it. If she wants more, we’ll follow him around again tomorrow.”

“I don’t think I’d want to see it,” Adam murmured. He pulled back, showing Rhone solemn, dark eyes. “I feel bad that I got excited for a minute catching the husband being unfaithful. We did the job, but now I feel a little sick.”

“That’s because you have a good heart.” Rhone resisted the strange urge to hug Adam and promise him that plenty of good people still existed in the world, ones who didn’t cheat on their significant others. People like Rhone. God, where did that come from? Instead, he reached down and took Adam’s hand, linking their fingers together. They had a job to finish.

Adam’s gaze widened and darted up to Rhone’s, full of panic and questions.

“In case the professor or his woman friend saw us duck in here,” Rhone explained. He tugged Adam out into the sparse flow of foot traffic. “Just like if we were a man and woman, we need to maintain the image of a couple until we get back to the car.”

Adam straightened and walked by Rhone’s side, their fingers intertwined, swinging just a little bit in what made them look like a new, eager, young couple. Adam’s palm sweated terribly, but he couldn’t make it stop.

Rhone squeezed and gave Adam’s hand a little shake. “Don’t worry so much. You did a great job. You maintained your focus over the course of a long day, and you asked me a lot of good questions.” Rhone’s voice remained steady, and he maintained their leisurely pace to the vehicle. “You’ve earned the promotion from gopher to trainee. I know I won’t regret it.”

“Thanks.” Adam felt his face flush.

He had the fleeting, terrifying thought that he wished they’d parked the car a million miles away.

Chapter Three

2003

Adam lay in bed in the dark, waiting for what he knew would eventually come. Rhone had a date tonight, his fifth with this woman, and ever since the third, they always came back to the apartment to cap off their evening.

For about six months now, Adam had shared in Rhone’s fun, even if no one could ever know it. The walls were not the thickest, and Rhone was not the quietest lover, a combination that left Adam envious of the occasional girlfriend in Rhone’s busy life and horny when he greedily listened in. It would horrify Rhone if he knew of Adam’s feelings, and it would destroy Adam if Rhone ever discovered what Adam did in the privacy of his own bedroom while Rhone fucked his women. At the same time, Adam ached over the things he had abstractly dreamed of doing with a man since his teen years, but ever since meeting Rhone had no interest in exploring with any other male.

His ear tuned to Rhone’s comings and goings, Adam stiffened, shifting to full alert at the slam of the apartment door. Anticipation raced through his bloodstream, making his body hum. Never one to finesse or beat around the bush about what he wanted, the soft murmur of Rhone’s deep voice and a lighter, feminine one moved past Adam’s bedroom door to Rhone’s.

A patch of silence followed, wherein Adam imagined Rhone removing his clothes, revealing sinewy ropes of muscle, fit, with a little bit of bulk, and the hard flesh of his chest sprinkled with a light dusting of hair that trickled down his belly into his jeans. Adam had seen parts of that body enough over the years they shared an apartment. He even got a glimpse of tight, tan ass once when Rhone went from the shower to his bedroom, his towel slipping off before he got his door all the way closed. Rhone didn’t really wear shorts, so Adam didn’t get to study the man’s legs, but he had seen enough of them that he knew he would love to feel their long length wrapped around his waist, holding Adam inside his ass for a good, hard fuck.

Adam moaned, excitement titillating his nerves on all ends. He wanted Rhone inside him, but just as much, he craved knowing what it would feel like to push his cock deep into Rhone’s snug, hot ass channel, taking him with vigorous thrusts until they both cried out and spilled.

The squeak of bedsprings and a mingling of laughter told Adam Rhone had likely thrown Trisha on the bed and quickly climbed on top of her to get this thing moving. Closing his eyes, Adam rolled to his side and reached for his toys, his cock rearing for it, his rectum still a little nervous about what would come. Adam had purchased these toys recently. Up until this relationship of Rhone’s, Adam had only used his fingers in his ass and his hand around his dick to help him get off. A few weeks ago, he had caught himself staring at Rhone in a particularly old, worn-out pair of sweats he liked to wear around the house. The outline of the man’s penis, clearly defined as it lay against his right thigh, aroused Adam to the point that he’d excused himself and went to the bathroom, beating off twice before emerging and watching the rest of the Cubs game on TV. From that point on, he knew he needed something similar in size to Rhone in order to play out his fantasy and so with terror had ordered a dildo and a silicon masturbator appropriately named Head Honcho.

Knowing he would hit the breaking point very fast, Adam waited until Rhone’s first moan reached his ears before he made a move. When that deep, hot sound came to him through the walls, he forced the ultra-tight, slicked-up silicon sleeve over his cock. He panted through the first concentration of fierce pleasure, the little nubs torturously playing along the surface of his cock as he slid the device to the base of his penis. Rhone would have an exquisitely narrow, snug ass, and Adam reveled in the glove that fully encased his almost too-hard erection.

More base, sexual noises filtered through the wall to Adam’s ears, where he managed to weed out the one he didn’t want and focus on the one that was slowly becoming his very life. A throaty, growling sound worked its way through the barrier of thin plaster into Adam’s brain. In fast response, Adam reached behind to his bare ass, sliding the head of the lubed, fake phallus down his crack until he reached his pulsing bud. He rubbed the thick head over his opening, drawing a moan from low in his throat as he imagined Rhone behind him, eagerly searching for a way in. Adam pushed back on the pressure against his anus, and at the same time, Rhone’s voice filled his ears with, “Oh, yeah, open for me, baby, just…like…that.” Adam shoved the dildo home, stifling his cry into his pillow as his entrance burned and pulled to accommodate the penetration.

Nothing inside Adam could care about the brief flash of pain, and nowhere in his head did he picture a disembodied, flesh-colored dick sticking out of his hole. He could swear he felt the heat of Rhone’s labored breathing against his neck as his burning hot cock dug in and out of Adam’s rectum in a fast, hard pummeling of his sensitive tissues, rocketing Adam near to orgasm in record time. Adam rolled onto his stomach and pulled a pile of pillows under his chest, pressing his shoulders into the elevation as he worked the cock in his ass with one hand and pulled on the suction around his dick with the other. His hips writhed in a frenzy of movement as he took it on both ends. Rhone surrounded Adam in every way and took over his very being, intoxicating Adam with the promise of a passionate, forever love.

“Ohhhh, God, Rho --” Adam caught himself, trapping the words inside, a panic of discovery and loss rearing its ugly head. Biting his lip to keep the carnal needs hidden, the words reverberated within Adam instead, entering the fiber of his being and taking over control.

Take me, Rhone, oh, please, please, fuck me good. The cock in his ass surged in deep to the base, choking Adam as he struggled to take the full breadth of Rhone’s desires. Determined, Adam pushed back and circled against the heat behind him, and then pulsed up and down along the thick, hard length in fast pumps. The walls of Adam’s dark tunnel screamed with delight, and Rhone surged deep again, grunting as he pushed Adam past the point of comfort. Adam wanted all of it, and he wanted Rhone begging for it too. He squeezed his ass muscles all around Rhone’s sheathed cock, and at the same time plunged into the tightness that fisted his own cock. Rhone suddenly started pulling in and out in hard, fast strokes, and an answering groan tore out of Adam in response. Oh, oh, oh, God, don’t stop. Adam’s nuts swelled and swayed heavily between his legs. In a flash, they sucked up hard and fast, and with barely an ounce of control, he ripped the masturbator off his dick and started grinding and jamming his cock into the bed. Orgasm came fast, and just as Rhone shouted his completion, Adam let rip a sharp cry too, unable to keep it locked up inside where it needed to stay.

Adam panted, his chest heaving as he basked in the glow of release. He swore he felt a warm, sweaty weight on his back, pressing him into the bed, and knew he had satisfied Rhone too. Then, another high-pitched scream hit Adam’s ears, tearing the cloak off his delusion. Rhone didn’t fuck him. He had Trisha under him -- or maybe on top of him -- in his own bedroom.

Rhone didn’t want Adam in that way. They were friends. Maybe even good friends. But that would all go away in a minute if Adam ever crossed the line and tipped off his terrible crush. Adam didn’t dare let it happen.

Plummeting back to reality, Adam pulled the dildo out of his ass, wincing at the tenderness he had created for himself. Tossing the toy aside, he swore he would never play with it and risk detection again.

Adam didn’t need a lover.

He wasn’t sure he would survive losing his friend.

* * * * *

2004

Adam started his thought without glancing up. “Good afternoon, Ms. Saldan. I will take you to Canin’s office…” Adam looked up to smile at their newest potential client, and his throat closed, cutting off his ability to speak.

The plump, coiffed figure of his Tía Loretta stood at his desk, new lines of age bracketing her mouth and eyes. “You look well, Adam.” Her voice held the slightest tinge of an accent, and its familiarity washed over Adam, rushing through his blood. “You have filled out in all your skinny places and become a man.”

“I’ll never be a man.” Hardness iced Adam’s voice. “At least, not according to you.”

“He is my brother, miho; I could not go against him.”

“You mean you chose not to.” It did not even matter to Adam that he had never acted on the desire he had to see and touch other men. The cut of his aunt’s rejection left a scar on him that he rarely let himself feel. Maybe more than that of his parents. “It was more acceptable to you that I live on the streets than look at pictures you deem immoral.”

“I think you are misguided, but I have never taken you out of my heart.” His aunt clutched her hands together against the plumpness of her breasts, a place Adam used to lay his head and find such incredible comfort and love. “You are a handsome young man. You should be thinking about finding a wife and starting a family.”

The pinpoint of soft memories for this woman sealed up inside Adam and died. “Is this what you tracked me down to tell me?” He thanked God both Rhone and Canin had their doors closed, and that Kasey, Quinn Securities’ other junior associate, had an appointment out of the office this morning. “If so, you’ve said it. You can go now.”

“I’m here to speak to you about your father.”

Adam just barely held in check the need to punch the wall. “I want to hear about him even less than your opinions on my damned soul.”

“He is in the hospital, niño.” Adam snapped his head up, and his aunt nodded. “Very sick.”

Heaviness thudded in Adam’s stomach, sitting there like a soured, overly rich meal. “You should get back to him, then.” The sick feeling curdled in Adam’s belly, intensifying, but he ignored the discomfort and pushed a flip smile to his lips. “Wish him well for me.”

“You should come and see him.” Adam shot out of his chair at that, but his aunt held her ground. “For you, Adam. You should go to him one more time, just in case God does not give you another chance.”

Adam very deliberately sat back down and folded his hands on his desk, worked with everything in him to control a shortness of breath. “I have nothing to say to him.”

“Maybe you will not think so until you stand beside him again.” His aunt pulled a slip of paper out of a flap in her purse and set it on his desk. “You always had a sensitive soul, and I think you would regret not going.”

The door to Adam’s left opened. Rhone popped his head out, obvious curiosity filling his light gaze as his took in Adam’s aunt. “Everything all right here?”

“Absolutely.” Smiling big and bright, Adam added, “This nice lady just had some information she wanted to share. I’ll take care of it. Nothing to worry about.”

Rhone scrutinized Adam for an uncomfortable length of time. “All right,” he finally said. “I’m going to go over some last-minute bullet points with Canin.” He glanced at Loretta again before shifting his focus back to Adam. “Join us as soon as you can.”

“Will do.”

Aunt Loretta grinned at Rhone too, waiting for him to disappear into Canin’s office before finishing her thought. “Think about it. It would be an opportunity to see your mother again too.”

“I won’t go.”

Aunt Loretta offered a smile, but it appeared filled with sadness to Adam and only made his chest hurt more.

Without another word, she left.

* * * * *

Of course, Adam went. Feeling perverse and out of sorts all day, he couldn’t stop thinking about that slip of paper until he fished it out of his trashcan, cursing himself as he did it. He didn’t know what kind of sick, masochistic game he played with himself, but he stood outside the door to his father’s hospital room, in a position he had vowed never to repeat.

Adam told himself he did it to get closure for himself. What better revenge than to show up the guy who had spent his life putting Adam down? Only twenty-two years old and Adam already had a decent life for himself. Did a damn sight better than his old man ever could have dreamed for himself.

Adam wrapped his hand around the knob, squeezing it hard to stop the shaking, and pushed open the door. Three heads shifted in his direction, and in a rush that swayed him where he stood, Adam felt transported back in time. The pictures in his head went beyond the horrible last year he had spent at home to those first years when the four of them had moved from Miami to Chicago hoping for success and opportunity after his father had changed jobs. His tía lived with them and took care of Adam while his mother and father worked. Unfortunately, his parents quickly learned that not having the readily available support of a community that looked the same as you did and understood your plight made surviving in a tough world that much harder. Resentment had steadily crept into their lives on the heels of the move, and the embarrassment that transplanting to a different city hadn’t worked out prevented Adam’s father from admitting he’d made a mistake and taking them back home.

The three of them -- his mother, father, and aunt -- as they appeared before Adam today, put Adam back in that place of hope he had experienced at ten years old after first making the move. A long-buried need to belong to his kin raced through Adam’s belly and chest, automatically forcing one foot in front of the other until he stood by his father’s bed.

Then, his father opened his mouth. “Get out. Only family is welcome in this room.” The jab hit Adam in the gut, stunning him with the fresh wave of pain. His gaze automatically shifted to his mother, but her dark eyes, so like his own when he looked in a mirror, appeared even emptier than he remembered. He could find no love there.

“This was a mistake.” Adam backed up to the door. Just as quickly, his aunt rounded the bed and grabbed his arm.

She pulled Adam to the foot of the bed. “Reynaldo.” She wrapped her arm around Adam’s elbow. “Please. He is your son.”

“A faggot is not a man. I have no son.” Bitterness bracketed the man’s mouth. Flicking his disdainful gaze from Adam to Loretta, he added, “And if you want a roof over your head tonight, you don’t have a nephew, either.”

Adam felt his aunt’s fingers grow cold against his skin, and her hand fell away from Adam. “You don’t mean that. I am your sister.”

“You should respect my wishes in all things,” Adam’s father said. “You never should have brought him here.”

Loretta started, her face paling.

“Yes,” Reynaldo continued. “I know you arranged this. You always coddled him.” His lips twisted in a sneer. “You probably made him what he is.”

Rearing back, Loretta covered her mouth. “No. Don’t say that.”

Unable to stand this for second longer, Adam felt bitter bile rise in the back of his throat. “Forget it. Forget every damn bit of it. I never should have come today.” God, what had made him think a little revenge would be worth this nightmare? He barely spared his mother a glance. “Good-bye.” Refusing to give his father the right to even look upon his face ever again, Adam turned to his aunt. “I’m sorry. This never should have happened.” He struggled with the heavy door, holding his breath until he finally got through to the clean air on the other side.

He staggered a few steps away and bent over at the waist, sucking in deep breaths of cleansing air until the buzzing in his head went away. Why had he come here? What twisted part of his soul pushed him into voluntarily placing himself in the middle of such hatred? He could never please those people. He could swear on a stack of Bibles that he would never look at pictures of men or act on his desires, but it wouldn’t be enough. Adam would still harbor those feelings in his heart, and his father would see it in Adam’s eyes, always knowing what existed beneath the surface. He would always belittle. He would always hate.

“Niño.” His tía’s voice reached his ears, and within seconds, her hand touched the small of his back. “I’m sorry. He is so sick I felt certain he would wish to heal the rift between you. I underestimated his stubbornness.”

Adam lifted up, determined not to show weakness in front of any of these people ever again. “You mean his intolerance and bigotry.”

“He believes what he believes,” his aunt answered. “I thought for his son he would put it aside. I was mistaken.”

“And you believe the same thing.”

“I cannot go against the Bible, Adam. Do not ask me to.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything.” Kicking the toe of his shoe into the speckled flooring, Adam met his aunt’s gaze, one petal of hope still floating inside his heart. “Except maybe open yourself up to the possibility that how I feel isn’t against the word of God so much as it is against very powerful religious leaders who have interpreted it as being against God.”

His aunt did not respond, and Adam knew he hadn’t penetrated her belief system with even the tiniest chink. Hell, what did he care? He couldn’t believe he stood here trying to win a philosophical debate about something he had yet to practice. He hadn’t so much as kissed another man, let alone anything deeper.

Nevertheless, I feel the desire in my heart, and nothing else matters.

“I’m sorry you can’t accept me, Tía,” Adam finally said. “Maybe someday you will. Come and see me then.”

“Adam --”

“No.” Adam held up his hands as he backed away, his heart cracking for this particular loss, a thousand times more painful than that of his parents. “Until you can sit at a table with me with another man at my side” -- as if he would ever have one -- “you are not welcome in my life. Good-bye.” His throat closed up, and tears filled his eyes. “I love you.”

Adam tore down the hallway, mindless of the people he flew past. He just knew he had to get away. Bypassing the elevators, he hit the stairs running, welcoming the tightness that filled his lungs with each flight he took. He didn’t understand how, after all these years, these people could still get to him, but now that he didn’t have to worry about looking indifferent in front of them, he could barely hold back the flood of memories, hurt…and terrible love he still carried in his soul, desperate to share.

Pushing through the front doors of the hospital, Adam fell back against the wall, blinking hard as he looked down at the sidewalk. He searched inside, in dire need of regaining the equilibrium that had held him so well these last years. He could not go home and risk Rhone seeing him like this.

A shadow suddenly loomed over Adam, and a moment later, strong arms encased him, warming him and freaking him out at the same time. Rhone’s clean, woodsy fragrance, mixed in with something deeper that was all man, took over Adam’s nostrils and sank into his pores. Rhone moved his big, capable hands up Adam’s back to his neck and tucked Adam’s head against his chest. Adam burrowed in and slid his arms around Rhone’s waist, the temptation for comfort too great.

Rhone wrapped Adam up good, surrounding him in every way imaginable. He rubbed his hand up and down Adam’s back and rested his mouth on the crown of Adam’s head. “Don’t hide things from me, Adam. Okay? I can always tell when something is wrong.”

“That was my aunt in the office earlier today,” Adam confessed. Something in the way Rhone held him drew out some of the pain of Adam’s many shames and secrets. Some. “She tried to mend a rift.” Terror of losing Rhone kept the specifics locked in Adam’s heart. As long as Adam never acted on them, Rhone didn’t need to know. “Only, none of them really wanted it. Nothing has changed since they kicked me out.” He thought he’d had his aunt for a moment there in the hallway, though, and Adam’s chest constricted again. “I don’t think it ever will.”

“You know you always have a place with me and Canin, right?” Adam couldn’t swear it, but a shiver rolled through him, convincing him that Rhone had pecked a kiss to the top of Adam’s head. “You have earned your place in Quinn Security a thousand times over, and we won’t ever let you get away now.” He squeezed Adam and tickled him in the ribs. “You’re stuck with us in this, whether you want it or not.”

“I like being stuck with you. With both of you, I mean.” Adam pulled away, heat fusing his skin as he looked up at Rhone. “And Kasey. At Quinn Security.”

“Good.” His smile lopsided in that way that clamped tightly on Adam’s heart, Rhone reached out and rubbed his thumb across Adam’s cheek. Adam held his breath, his skin coming alive where Rhone touched, not breathing again until Rhone finally let his hand fall away. “So, I think you need to have some fun. What do you say?”

“I say, I’m in.” As much as it felt like playing with fire, Adam smiled back, his heart lifting in this man’s presence. “Let’s go.”

* * * * *

2005

“Fancy place,” Adam whispered. He looked around the empty, swank office building, fighting the voice inside that said he didn’t belong. He moved smoothly in his new world, but he still suffered moments that made him feel every inch the street kid he used to be. He walked around the empty floor of the complex and glanced at Rhone. “Who are we meeting here?”

“No one.” Rhone smiled like a kid in a candy store, and Adam quickly glanced down so Rhone didn't catch him staring. “Actually,” Rhone added, “we’re meeting Canin and Kasey, but I wanted you to see it first because I have something to show you.”

“What?” Adam put his head on a swivel, trying to take in all the expensive details as Rhone walked down a wide corridor to a set of frosted-glass doors.

Punching in a code on a security pad, Rhone led them through to an open, airy office space with another hall and a half dozen closed doors. Rhone turned in a circle and met Adam’s gaze. “So, what do you think? Nice, huh?” He started throwing open doors, each leading to outer offices with more doors and bigger offices beyond. “There’s a pool on the roof and a full gym and sauna on the sixth floor. I think a client who comes here would feel very confident that he or she is getting the very best in high-end security. How ’bout you?”

“I… Um…” Adam’s legs almost buckled on him. With all the years he had worked for Rhone, he still had a hard time accepting that Rhone talked to him so openly about the business, and often even asked for his opinion. Clearing his throat, Adam met Rhone’s pale, expectant gaze. “It’s an impressive suite of offices. Your clients are really going to understand from top to bottom that you offer only the best and finest, whatever their needs may be.” Rhone chuckled, and Adam realized he sounded like a walking promotional tool for Quinn Security to the one man who certainly wouldn’t need Adam to sell him on the company’s merits. God. He felt his face burn with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right. I’m glad to hear you say it, as that’s just the message we want to convey to the client.” Rhone leaned back against the wall between two doors. He crossed his arms and made a jerking motion down the line of offices with his head. “So, which one do you want?”

Adam shrugged his shoulders. “You pick whichever one you like, and I’ll be fine in the outer office.” Over the last year, he had officially become Rhone’s assistant. He glanced down the hall and then came back to Rhone. “I know you don’t like any distractions when you’re trying to work, so if I were you, I’d take the one at the end of the hall.”

“I’ll probably do that,” Rhone agreed casually. “That is, if you don’t want it for yourself.”

Adam furrowed his brow. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes, Adam, you do.” Pushing away from the wall, Rhone moved to stand in front of Adam. He slid his hands into the pockets of his charcoal dress slacks and met Adam’s gaze. “Put the pieces together and believe that the conclusion you’ve reached is the right one.”

Adam’s heart raced, pounding painfully against his sternum. He looked in Rhone’s glittering eyes, but couldn’t believe the truth he found living there. “No…huh-uh.” This didn’t happen to people like him. Adam took a step back, unable to feel such hope, only to find himself grievously wrong. “You don’t really mean to make me a partner.” God, Rhone knew Adam so well now. Knew he hadn’t finished school and had only gotten his GED at Rhone and Canin’s urging and support. How could this man possibly see Adam as his equal?

Rhone took one step forward for every one Adam took back. “Yeah, man, I do. You know I don’t joke about my business. Canin is in full agreement with the offer. You’ve earned the opportunity to buy in; so has Kasey. We will offer her a partnership, too, but I wanted to tell you myself and let you have first pick of the offices. That’s why we came a little early. Also” -- his smile hitched a little sheepishly -- “as a partner, you need to agree to this office space before we commit to it. Don’t tell me you don’t have the money, because I know you don’t spend a fraction of what you make.”

“Neither do you,” Adam challenged back.

“Touché.” Rhone dipped his head. “You would know, since we’re pretty much together all of the time.”

“Helps that we both have cheap taste.” Adam chuckled. Heat rushed up his neck and flamed his face. “And that we both pretty much live at work.”

“All the more reason you are my ideal partner.” Rhone’s cheeks suddenly turned a little ruddy too. “You know what I mean. We may have to have nice offices to impress the clients, but otherwise, I want someone who’s as worried about the bottom line as I am. Let Canin and Kasey schmooze the clients while you and I do the actual work. We’re growing so fast that I need some help. I need someone I can trust.” Rhone stuck out his hand, all big, tan, and strong. “What do you say? Partners?”

Adam’s hand shook as he reached for Rhone’s, much as it had done on that day in the airport so long ago. Again, Rhone pretended that he didn’t see it. “Partners,” Adam said thickly. Rhone’s hand engulfed his, and Adam briefly slid his eyes closed, trying to breathe through the rush of adrenaline that broke his neck out in a sweat.

“Don’t be so nervous.” Rhone pulled him in close and gave him a quick, manly thump on the back. “You’re already doing the job, only now, you’ll have your own office and assistant while you do it.”

“Right. I know.” Adam couldn’t help the tightness that clogged his throat, though. Rhone was giving him everything he secretly dreamed of having and more.

Except for the one thing Rhone could never give. Didn’t matter. Adam would never risk what he had with Rhone. He could live with work and friendship. He already knew he wouldn’t live through losing Rhone.

Chapter Four

2006

Adam got home as soon as he could. Canin came out of the hallway to greet him.

“Where is he?” Adam threw his briefcase on the floor by the door and rushed toward the hallway. “Has he come out yet?”

“No.” Canin stayed close on Adam’s heels. “He locked the damn door and won’t let me in. He won’t speak to me, either. I’ve tried everything, even threats of kicking in the door, but I can’t get him to respond. I thought maybe you could get through to him.”

Thirty-six hours ago, Rhone and Canin had lost their grandmother in an interstate pile-up involving some twenty cars and three trucks. Getting the news at work, the blow clearly had devastated both men. Kasey and Adam had kept all appointments and the business running while the brothers dealt with making arrangements, but a half hour ago, Canin had called Adam, frantic about Rhone’s behavior. Adam had left a late meeting right then and there, asking for no further explanation from Canin and giving no excuses to the client.

“Listen” -- God, Adam hated to do it, but knew both men would want him to -- “I know you don’t want to, and it’s shit timing, but I left Kasey alone at the TechCor meeting…”

“Yeah, of course.” Canin nodded, even as his bloodshot gaze drifted back to his brother’s bedroom door. “You…and him…it seems like you guys can talk about anything. Maybe I’m too much a reminder of how we grew up and how much we needed our grandmother all those years. I don’t know, damn it. He won’t talk to me.” Dark circles stood out stark on a washed-out face, the lower half covered with two days’ growth of stubble. Canin’s eyes brimmed with sudden wetness, betraying how much it killed this man to ask for help with his baby brother. “Find a way to get in there and take care of him, Adam. Please. I can’t lose him too.”

“I’m not leaving his side. I promise.” Adam looked to the door himself and almost felt as if he could see through it to the broken man on the other side. His heart ached in accompaniment, beating with something well beyond friendship or a crush. “I’ll take good care of him and call you on your cell with updates. I know it’s a lot to put on your shoulders, while you’re trying to deal with this loss too, but if you can be available for Kasey while she takes the lead right now… I know Rhone wouldn’t want to lose clients because we’re all focused on him.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” Canin’s hard face softened with open love for his brother, and Adam fleetingly wondered why he didn’t feel for Canin that magnetic pull he suffered every time he got within ten feet of Rhone. “Don’t worry about me; I can take care of myself, and I’ll make sure the business doesn’t suffer, either. Just focus on Rhone. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Canin left, and Adam took off his suit jacket, preparing to do battle. He tried the knob on automatic, but other than a rattle, it didn’t turn. “Rhone?” Adam knocked softly and then opened his palm against the wood. “Rhone, it’s Adam. I’m worried about you. Can you open the door, please?”

Pressing his ear against the cool surface, Adam strained to hear something, anything, on the other side. He didn’t even get a rustle of bedding or the padding of feet on hardwood flooring. Trying again, Adam added, “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I just need you to open the door and show me that you’re all right.”

Nothing.

God, Adam didn’t want to break down the door. And with the hinges on the other side, taking it off wasn’t an option. Besides, he would never violate Rhone’s need for privacy while he grieved. Adam just had this frantic racing in his heart that told him he needed to know that Rhone was okay on the other side of this door. Not to mention that if he didn’t get a response within a few hours, Canin would do something drastic, out of fear for his brother’s safety.

Rhone would hate that.

Adam slid to the floor. Pressing his shoulder against the outer frame, he laid his head against the door. “Rhone?” Desperation registered Adam’s voice a little bit high and scratchy. Through his constricted windpipe, he said, “Listen to me. You don’t have to let me in; you don’t have to say a word. Just give me something. Please.” He looked down and saw the glimmer of what was probably a lamp, giving off a hint of light from the bedroom. “Just slide your fingers under the door so that I know you can hear me and that you haven’t hurt yourself. That’s all I ask.”

An agonizing moment passed wherein Adam held his breath the entire time. Then, the blunt tips of three fingers and a pinky appeared through the crack at the bottom of the door. A small sob escaped Adam, and he clutched his hand around those digits, needing to feel them as well as see them. Rhone didn’t pull away, so Adam kept Rhone’s fingers under his, unwilling…no, unable…to let go.

“Thank you,” Adam whispered through the barricade of the door. “We’ll just sit like this for a while. However long you need.” He settled his shoulder and head in a more comfortable position, holding onto Rhone as he adjusted for a long night.

* * * * *

Hours later, Adam awoke with a start, groaning as his back tightened in a spasm from the awkwardness of his position. Coming alert quickly, Adam breathed a sigh of relief as the tingle from Rhone’s rough fingers still holding onto his shot up his arm and straight into his heart. Unfortunately, pressure pushed against his bladder and made its need clear too.

“I have to use the bathroom.” Adam slid his hand off Rhone’s fingers. Coldness immediately prickled goose bumps all along his arms. “I’m not leaving you. I promise I’ll be right back.”

Hating to part from Rhone even for a minute, Adam pissed quickly, pausing only long enough afterward to make another call to Canin. After giving him an update and getting specifics about the funeral arrangements, Adam made his way back to Rhone’s bedroom. He didn’t see Rhone’s fingers sticking out from under the door and had two seconds of panic that he had lost his small foothold with the man. Then, Adam noticed the smallest crack in the door, and his entire body seized with longing and the need to nurture and comfort.

Oh, God, he’s letting me in.

With his fingers shaking, Adam pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside. Rhone lay on the bed, curled on his side with his back facing Adam. His bare back. He wore only sweats. Adam couldn’t help the way his cock twitched any more than he could his desire to rain a thousand kisses over every inch of bare flesh he saw, not stopping until he found a way to make Rhone moan with need for him, rather than the occasional date he brought home.

Cursing himself and his misguided, misplaced, inappropriate thoughts, Adam moved to the bed for a closer look, just to assure himself Rhone really was okay. His knees hit the edge of the mattress, and he leaned over, seeing eyes closed and a mouth set with hard lines creating new brackets on his face. A little bit of gauntness echoed through too, and Adam wondered when Rhone had last eaten. Probably the last business lunch he and Adam shared two days ago, before going back to the office and an hour later hearing the terrible news.

Adam would fix something and force Rhone to take a few bites whenever he woke up. Rhone always teased Adam about how much he liked Adam’s cooking. Adam stepped away to do that, but the manacle of a steely hand grabbed his wrist, hard enough to rub bone on bone.

Rhone didn’t turn around, but from over Rhone’s shoulder, Adam could see that his eyes remained closed.

“Stay with me.” Rhone’s voice grated thick and raspy in a way that let Adam know the grief of tears this man had suffered. The sound reached deep inside Adam and locked on tight. “Please.”

Rhone shifted, making room on the bed, and Adam didn’t need any more than that. Mindful of keeping a respectful distance, he crawled in. Rhone’s fingers slid down from Adam’s wrist and clasped their hands together in a tight hold.

Adam had no interest in ever letting go.

* * * * *

Adam awoke plastered to Rhone’s back, spooning him in a lover’s embrace. The deep, even breathing from the man in front of him told Adam that Rhone slept, blissfully unaware, and for that Adam said a silent “thank you” to God. With his face snuggled into the back of Rhone’s neck and his arm riding low around his waist, Adam took one selfish second to let sink in how it would feel to wake up in Rhone’s bed every morning. The incredible heat he emanated blanketed Adam all over, to the point where he didn’t need any bedding to stay warm. And his musky, manly smell, God, he could get used to that too. Moving ever so carefully, Adam lowered his face into the crook of Rhone’s neck and breathed in, letting his scent coat Adam on the inside, branding him in some way, even if only he ever knew it.

Just then, Rhone moaned and rolled over onto his back, giving Adam barely a second of warning to shift aside or get crushed. Clearly still deep in sleep, Rhone slid his hand down his belly and pulled out his morning wood. Rhone’s cock looked like seven or eight inches of thick meat with a wide slit cutting across the tip. Right before Adam’s eyes, Rhone started pulling on his pole with slow, deliberate strokes.

Adam’s own prick pushed hard against his pants, throbbing for a touch. The walls of his rectum rippled too, imagining Rhone ramming his ass in a rough shafting every time his cock pushed through the makeshift hole of his hand. Jesus, Adam still wanted that so damn bad he hurt with it.

Taking a glance up to Rhone’s face, Adam took in the extreme exhaustion beneath the new expressions of pinched pleasure that took front and center while he jerked himself off in his sleep. Adam knew he shouldn’t, that he risked everything, but after eight years of wanting, he couldn’t stop himself. He shifted the sheet over his lower half and worked down his pants and underwear, freeing up everything for his touch. His cock bounced up against his stomach, smearing a drop of spunk near his navel. Excited beyond belief, Adam never took his eyes off Rhone as he wrapped his hand around his own dick and started to stroke. He kept the pressure light, knowing that he wanted to keep that fast stab of pleasure under control.

He didn’t want to come to his hand holding his penis. Not this time.

Sliding three fingers into his mouth, Adam pushed them in all the way to the base and slicked them up good, wetting them with lots of saliva before pulling them out and reaching between his legs. He delved through his cheeks for his pucker, bucking just a little bit at first contact. Adam rubbed the tips of his fingers over the textured starburst pattern, waiting, waiting, waiting for the right moment. Rhone grunted next to him and lifted his hips off the bed, and right then, Adam rammed two fingers inside his asshole, biting down a cry that held equal amounts of pleasure and a sharp stab of stretching pain.

Adam’s ass squeezed around his digits and grabbed for more, easily falling into the scenario of Rhone’s dick filling him to the hilt. Watching Rhone play with himself, Adam timed his thrusts into his hot hole to Rhone’s push and pull through his hand, the combination of motion and fantasy sending his chute into a frenzy of delight. Adam thrust his hips up and down on the invasion of his fingers and pulled on his spike-stiff cock with his other hand, quickly creating enough natural lube to pump himself more vigorously without concern that he would hurt himself. Experiencing carnal delight in a way he never had before, Adam needed to feel more. He scissored his fingers, stretching his entrance, swallowing a moan as he forced a third finger into his anus. Sawing his digits in and out in perfect timing with Rhone’s small movements, Adam gritted his teeth as unbearable sensation consumed him whole. He writhed on the bed like a wanton, his jaw hanging slack as he pictured Rhone on top of him, fucking him, out of control, ravishing Adam’s mouth with deep kisses in the way Adam had covertly watched Rhone do with some of his women.

Hearing Rhone’s moans right next to him, after only having them to jerk off to through the muffling effect of bedroom walls, Adam found himself reaching the peak faster than he wished to go. He pulled direct contact off his sweet spot, but couldn’t bear to withdraw his fingers from his ass and kill the fantasy. His balls drew up tight anyway, pushing him to the breaking point.

Desperate for just a little bit more than he had a right to steal, Adam shifted down on the pillow and turned his head to Rhone. Plowing his fingers into his chute all the way to the base, Adam leaned into the man next to him and, just as everything exploded inside him, he pressed his lips against Rhone’s shoulder in a tender kiss. Every muscle in his body bowing tight, Adam held his cock against his belly as he came, guiding his steaming flow of cum onto his stomach and shirt, away from the man he adored more than life itself.

While slowly pulling his fingers out of his ass, Adam let his lips cling to the smooth, warm flesh covering Rhone’s shoulder, taking more, like the greediest little thief in the night. Rhone arched off the bed and cried out, shooting a line of jizz straight into the air before it showered down on his exposed pubes, hip bones, and flat belly.

Fascinated, Adam reached out, just wanting to touch one of the splatters of semen, when Rhone rolled over onto his side. Adam whipped his hand back, his gaze darting to Rhone’s face, certain to find angry eyes judging him. Rhone remained asleep, and Adam fell back against his pillow, weak and spent. He gave himself about two seconds of down time, and then felt the bunch of his pants and underwear twisting around his knees and his bare ass riding Rhone’s sheets. He scrambled to get his slacks back up with the zipper done, and then he curled on his side, wondering if he had time to take a quick shower and change before Rhone woke up. As Adam eased to the edge of the bed, Rhone curled his hand under Adam’s arm and wrapped his hand around Adam’s shoulder.

Certain Rhone would call him out at any second, Adam lay absolutely still, trying with everything in him not to lean back into Rhone’s front. Adam watched the digital clock right in his line of sight, every minute that ticked by a torture of possibilities that he could never let be.

Fifteen endless minutes passed before Rhone’s gruff voice broke the silence. “I want to tell you more stuff about my grandmother.”

Everything else forgotten, cum on his stomach and Rhone’s, Adam relaxed against the wide chest at his back. “Tell me.” He curled his hand into a fist on the bed so that he didn’t pull Rhone’s hand down around his waist. Adam finished with, “I want to hear everything.”

Chapter Five

2007

Rhone fell onto the couch, physically exhausted, but for one of the first times in what felt like forever, smiling like a big, goofy kid. “Thanks, man.” He rolled his head to the side and glanced at Adam where he relaxed back into the recliner, his hands steepled against his stomach. Christ, the guy just had a way of making everyone around him feel special and extra alive. “You always find the best things to do to celebrate.”

Kasey came in from the kitchen with a bottle of beer in each hand. “I’ll second that.” She handed one over to Rhone and then perched her luscious figure on the arm of the chair next to Adam. “It’s not every day we land a million-dollar client, and it’s not every night I go to the batting cages with a couple of handsome men to celebrate.” Smiling, she ran her fingers through Adam’s dark hair.

“A couple?” Canin growled from the archway to the kitchen. He popped a soda and threw himself into a swiveling chair. “You had three men there with you tonight.”

“I know.” Kasey raised a brow Canin’s way. “And a couple of them were handsome. I did not misspeak.”

Canin cursed and sputtered while Kasey smiled in a way that said, “Got ya.” It surprised Rhone that she didn’t lick the tip of one finger and draw a point on an imaginary scoreboard. Canin’s cell phone went off, but before getting up to take the call, he threatened that the conversation wasn’t over. Rhone glanced Adam’s way, met his dark, twinkling gaze, and exchanged a discreet grin. Canin’s temper and Kasey’s control had become legendary at work, just as Adam’s warm professionalism and personal touches had gained him the complete respect of every employee in their fast-growing company. Rhone said a silent prayer of thanks that he had Adam, a man who, for all the turmoil in his early years, simply did not do drama. In the day-to-day running of Quinn Security, Rhone didn’t want any other person in the operation at his side. He considered himself lucky that Adam was his, in a way, while Kasey tended to, surprisingly, work very well with Canin.

He wouldn’t want it any other way.

Rhone rolled onto his side and rested his head in his hand. Looking at Adam, he thought over the events of the day, and another smile wrapped itself around his lips. “Hey, Adam, are you seeing anyone right now?”

Adam pushed upright in the recliner. “No.” His gaze darted wildly before coming back to Rhone’s. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I asked out that pretty lawyer who works for the firm on the second floor, and she says she doesn’t do single first dates.” Rhone couldn’t muster up any motivation for dating since his grandmother’s passing, but he’d pushed himself today. He could only pull on his own dick for so long. It was time to get back in the game. Looking to Adam, he explained. “She has a friend; I think she said she’s a paramedic or an EMT, something like that. I got a description, and she sounds like a knockout. What do you say? Can I call the lawyer and set up a double date for us? What do you think?”

Adam’s stomach roiled, and he thought he might throw up. “I… I…” He looked at Rhone, his gray eyes so alive with expectation that Adam deflated back into the cushioning of the recliner. “Sure.” Ignoring the stab that pierced his chest, he added, “Go ahead. Set something up.”

“Excellent.” Rhone glanced at his watch and shot up off the couch, full of life. “It’s not that late. I think I’ll call her and make a plan right now.”

Adam followed Rhone out of the room with his eyes, devouring the man’s strong back and long-legged lope until it disappeared down the hallway. Adam sighed, so tired inside, wishing with everything in him that his need to be near Rhone, at any cost, would go away forever and give him some peace.

“I know.” Kasey’s voice assaulted Adam’s ears, shooting his back ramrod straight. He had forgotten that she still sat right on the arm of his chair. “I’ve been there. Crushes are tough.”

Adam reared back, feeling as if someone had punched him. Kasey’s all-too-knowing green gaze felt as though it pierced right into his soul. He stood abruptly and paced away from her stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” No, no, no, no, no. What had possessed him to stare as Rhone walked away?

“Of course you don’t know.” Kasey’s voice, far too patient and kind, evoked panic in Adam’s heart rather than calm. “Not a tough guy like you. However, if you ever decide that you do, I’m here. Maybe I can help.” She smiled. “Or at the very least, I could be a damn good distraction.”

Just then, Rhone reentered the room. “A distraction from what?” he asked, his focus landing on Adam first and then drifting to Kasey. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Kasey said. She leaned across the chair and whacked Rhone in the arm. “Stop being so possessive. Adam belongs to everybody, not just you.”

“I didn’t say he did.” Rhone moved to Adam, though, and looked him over closely. Too closely for Adam’s comfort. “Adam, are you all right?” Putting his hand under Adam’s chin, Rhone drew his face up to the soft light in the room. His warm fingers rubbed up over Adam’s cheek, and Adam barely suppressed a visible shiver. “You look a little pale.”

Adam forced a grin to his face. He couldn’t disappoint Rhone. “I’m fine. Just thinking about how we’re going to impress a lawyer and an EMT on our date.”

Rhone smiled back and cuffed Adam’s neck before letting go. “Your batting cages idea tonight already gave me the answer to that. A Cubs game. What do you think?”

“Sounds great. I love the Cubs.”

“I know you do. We’re gonna have a great time. Christ, I haven’t been out on a date in almost a year. I can’t wait for Saturday night.”

Adam couldn’t rally the same enthusiasm. Watching Rhone date a woman and have to pretend he didn’t care, or God, worse, that he didn’t want that date for himself, might be the thing that broke Adam down for good. He didn’t know what to do.

Smiling, he finally said, “I can’t wait, either.” For the first time since Rhone came into his life, Adam felt a little piece of his soul die inside. Of its own accord, his gaze drifted to Kasey. The understanding in her eyes tugged him toward a sympathetic voice and temporary relief.

He wondered how long he would hold out before he broke down and took her up on her offer.

* * * * *

Rhone stumbled home in the wee hours of the morning, sated by his evening in the lovely lawyer’s company, if not entirely satisfied. Expecting to crawl into bed and sleep half the Sunday away, he paused, his stomach growling as he sniffed the warm sweetness of blueberry muffins coming from the kitchen. Damn, Adam really was the best roommate Rhone had ever had. Christ, he sometimes still couldn’t believe what had become of that kid who’d tried to pick his pocket all those years ago. What a valuable asset he would end up finding in that spontaneous act in the airport. What a great friend. Best one, really.

Moving to the kitchen, Rhone leaned his shoulder against the arch. “Celebratory breakfast?” he asked, chuckling as Adam jumped about a dozen feet in the air.

Adam clutched his chest. “Goddamn it, Rhone. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Then you must have had an even better end to your date than I had with mine.” After the baseball game and some dinner, Rhone’s date had deemed him worthy of some alone time and the two couples had split off on their own. “Because you were about a million miles away just now.”

“Thinking, actually.” Adam pulled out one of the chairs at the table, his gaze barely meeting Rhone’s. “Can you sit down for a minute? I need to talk to you.”

His chest suddenly pumping hard in a way Rhone didn’t like, he took a seat and folded his hands on the table. “What’s up? You’re scaring me, Adam. You look so serious.”

“It is serious.” Adam took the chair opposite Rhone, his dark eyes finally steadying and holding on Rhone.

Rhone decided he didn’t like that one bit, either.

“What?” Rhone spit out, his mouth going dry. “Just say it. What?”

“All right. I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I’ve decided to move out. I’m gonna get my own place.”

Rhone reeled, expecting just about anything except that. “What? Why? After all these years? I don’t understand.”

“It was only supposed to be temporary, Rhone.” Adam pushed out of his chair and started to pace the length of the kitchen. “I made you feel sorry for me, and you let me stay for --”

Rhone shifted in his chair, following with his eyes, searching for something deeper than Adam’s words. This couldn’t be happening. “No, Adam. I never felt sorry for you. It wasn’t ever that.”

“Okay.” Adam dug his fingers into his thick tufts of disheveled hair, showing agitation that Rhone couldn’t comprehend. “Then we got comfortable with it.”

“What prompted this?” Rhone couldn’t help feeling stupefied, and he really disliked not being privy to full disclosure. About anything. “You’ve never even hinted that you wanted out before.”

“I just… I just…” Adam swooped into the chair next to Rhone, his eyes beseeching and bright. “It’s not you; it’s not me. It’s not either one of us; it’s just the situation itself. God, I’m twenty-five years old. I think it’s time I lived on my own.”

But you need me to look out for you! screamed in Rhone’s head. Outwardly, he said, “I didn’t realize I was cramping your style.”

“You’re not. You never have. I’ve had some of the best times of my life here with you.” Adam’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment, hiding something, Rhone felt sure of it. Before Rhone could fathom a guess, Adam came back to him, clear and in control again. “But now I feel like I need to try it on my own.”

Snippets of their time together, of the two of them watching TV, trading parts of the paper, or sharing meals flipped like a photo album through Rhone’s mind, stunning him with the amount of time he and Adam spent together. Moments they wouldn’t have anymore if Adam went away.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Everything in Rhone told him Adam needed Rhone in his daily life to keep those old family demons away. “If you think we each need more space, we could just get a bigger place. We can definitely afford it now.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Adam didn’t look any happier than Rhone felt, which just stirred up even more heartache and confusion on Rhone’s part. “I need to try something different for a while. It’s past time.”

Rhone forced a smile to his face, when in reality he wanted to hit something. Hard. And repeatedly. “I suppose I understand.” Christ, he didn’t want to lay a guilt trip on Adam. “I’m just being selfish because I’m gonna miss your cooking.”

“Right.” Adam chuckled, but his gaze sobered as he got to his feet. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” The soft relief in that thank you made Rhone grateful that he didn’t kick up more of a fuss. Even if on the inside he wanted to lock the front door and never let Adam leave. “What else is a best friend for?”

“One last meal?” Adam went to the refrigerator, and Rhone jerked a little in his chair, realizing he would never get to watch Adam move around the kitchen with such fluid grace while he cooked again. Rhone never even realized he did it -- on a daily basis, no less -- until just this moment. “Eggs and bacon to go with the muffins?”

Shaking off the disturbing random thought, Rhone said, “Sounds good.”

Rhone grabbed the sports page, reading as he listened to Adam murmur to himself in broken Spanish while he cooked. Damn it, Rhone turned the page, he would miss that little quirk too.

Chapter Six

The Present

Holding back at the door to his brother’s office, Rhone watched Adam from across the length of their suite of offices where he chatted with Kasey, his hands and arms animated in what looked like a heated discussion. Almost a year had passed since Adam had moved out, and even though Rhone saw him at work every day, he still hadn’t gotten used to waking up to a quiet apartment and not having Adam there at night.

At first, he told himself it would be great. He could bring a date home and start something up on the couch in the living room if he wanted to, or even the kitchen, if the mood struck him. Rhone only had one hiccup in that plan. He had yet to have a date he wanted to take home and get naked with, no matter the room. He basically went home to crash now. Otherwise, he worked. With business booming, he didn’t even have to make excuses for his ridiculously long hours.

Canin finished a call and joined Rhone at the door. His gaze drifted in the direction of Rhone’s. “Thinking about killing their weekend and keeping them working along with you?”

Rhone whipped his attention to his brother. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you have worked yourself to the point of exhaustion, and that is not good in any business, but most especially not in security.” Canin’s tone brooked no argument. “You are taking an early weekend and leaving right this minute. You do not step foot in this office unless there is an emergency and I call you myself to come in. Are we clear?”

“Who in the hell died and appointed you God?”

Canin flashed a fast smile. “Self-appointment. Now go.” The quick grin flattened to a familiar, tight line. “I’m serious, man. You need a break.”

Without conscious thought, Rhone’s gaze drifted to Adam again. Adam glanced up, and something pulled hard inside Rhone, tugging him to the point of hurt. It just…damn it. It didn’t feel right standing across the room from the man, wondering what he spoke to Kasey about, but knowing they wouldn’t meet on the couch over a beer later on that night so that he could ask. Rhone should have gotten used to the separation by now, but the shadows in the apartment didn’t dissipate, and Rhone began to think they never would.

Jesus Christ, he wondered if in the beginning crazy people realized they were losing their minds.

“You know what?” Rhone tore his stare off Adam and forced it back on Canin. “I’m going to take you up on your offer. Don’t call me for the next sixty hours unless the business is under attack.”

“I promise I won’t.” Canin clasped Rhone on the shoulder. “Go. You deserve it. I’ll see you in a few days.”

Rhone couldn’t help looking Adam’s way one more time as he left. He saw the man purse his lips and nod, and again he wondered what in the hell had him so agitated. Not that Rhone couldn’t ask come Monday morning or even just call him, for that matter. Wasn’t the same, though.

It didn’t compare to sharing a meal and a couch under the same roof.

Rubbing his chest as the tightness hit him again, Rhone let himself out.

* * * * *

Adam cried out with forbidden delight as the dildo shafted his ass yet again.

“Say his name!” Kasey’s throaty, feminine voice assaulted his ears. She worked him over from behind, swirling the fake dick in his tingling channel, sending frissons of delight down his bare legs and into his toes. “Tell me who you want!”

“No!” Adam curled his fingers around the edge of his desk, squeezing hard enough to cut into his skin. “I won’t.” He pushed back on the false cock, so close in size and shape to what he really wanted, letting it fill him to the brim. “Please.” He whimpered as Kasey punished him by pulling the invasion away. “I can’t.”

“You can.” Kasey’s hand traveled up his sweaty back, but she didn’t have the size or roughness he needed to arouse his senses in any way. She tunneled her fingers through his hair gently, then grabbed hold tight and yanked his head back. He looked into her girl-next-door face and fiery green eyes. “Because I’m getting damn tired of doing this for you, Reyes, damned tired.”

She jammed the thick, long toy back inside him to the base, as she had done to him for almost a year. “Ahhh!” Adam howled at the deep penetration, his office door flying open at the exact same time.

“Where’s the fire, Adam? What the hell is TechCor having a fit about now?” Rhone bitched. He took in the scene before him and raced across the office. “What the hell are you doing to him?” He pulled Kasey off Adam and pushed her across the room. His severely handsome face twisted, mottling with rage. “You get the hell out of here right now, Kasey. We’ll buy you out within a week. Don’t you dare step foot in this building again.”

“No, Rhone, no.” Panic and mortification filled Adam, but he forced his naked body in front of Kasey’s like a shield. “It’s not her fault. She only did what I asked.”

Rhone’s lips narrowed down to a hard line. “Fine,” he bit off, the word a bullet in the over-bright, silent office. The entire floor seemed to echo the sound of Rhone’s displeasure throughout its empty halls. “But you get the hell out of here, anyway, Kasey.” He pointed at the door. “You’re not the one I need to talk to right now.”

Kasey nodded, offering Adam a small smile as she slipped out, closing the door behind her.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Adam willed this moment away to another of his many nightmares of Rhone discovering what Adam was. More, what Adam felt. For Rhone.

Adam blinked, forcing back the pressure behind his eyes, and lifted his gaze to the space in front of which he stood. Rhone, beautiful -- to Adam anyway -- sexy, big Rhone waited for him, his pale eyes unwavering. Adam’s focus shifted behind Rhone to a big, antique mirror. His own dark brown eyes looked back at him, wild with fear, full of his heart. Oh, God, Rhone would see and figure out everything. Adam’s heart sank into the pit of his stomach.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Adam’s brain screamed at him to run away, but his feet wouldn’t lift from the carpeted floor. Belatedly, he moved his hands in front of his jutting cock. A feeble attempt, at best, to cover his erection, something only getting obviously harder standing so close to Rhone. “I’ll never use the business offices for anything like this again. I don’t know what I was thinking, except that it’s Saturday night, and I didn’t think anyone would be com --”

Rhone covered Adam’s lips with his big, warm hand. “I don’t want to hear excuses.” He took his hand away and started to pace, his long legs somehow graceful in his jeans. “Just tell me what in the hell is going on with you and Kasey. You’re so professional around the offices, Adam. I never even sensed an attraction between the two of you.”

“I made a mistake.” Adam followed Rhone with his eyes, his legs still unable to move. “I brought personal business into the office, even though I know you and Canin are sticklers against office romances. Whatever penalty I have to pay, I understand. I won’t fight it.” Thickness filled his throat. “Even if you want me gone.”

Rhone swooped in on Adam. “I didn’t say I want you gone, damn it. You earned your place here, Adam. I’m not trying to take it back.”

“You have rules,” Adam insisted. “You like your rules.”

“I’m not a rigid fucking monster.” Frustration laced Rhone’s words. He shook his head, swearing under his breath, “Damn it, I can’t talk to you with that thing sticking out of your ass.” Rhone reached around Adam and, in a shot, yanked the dildo out of his tender anus.

Adam cried out, wetness filling his eyes as his rectum swelled with pain at the less than gentle withdrawal.

“Sorry, man.” Rhone curled his fingers around Adam’s shoulder and squeezed. “I didn’t think.”

Adam’s flesh caught fire under Rhone’s hand. Ever since he had begun this fantasy world with Kasey, his desire for Rhone had grown to epic proportions, rather than dissipating as he’d hoped.

Before Rhone could see his feelings, Adam dropped his gaze to the floor. “It’s okay,” he murmured, his voice thick and rough. “You wouldn’t have any reason to realize it would hurt.”

Rhone’s thumb grazed the nape of Adam’s neck. Adam whimpered, the accidental touch close enough to lover-like that his penis reared under his hands.

“What is it?” Rhone lifted Adam’s face out of hiding, showing the tears still in his eyes. “Christ, I didn’t realize I’d hurt you so bad.”

“You didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.” Rhone cupped Adam’s face and wiped the wetness from his cheeks with the pads of his thumbs.

“No, don’t.” Adam covered Rhone’s hands with his, desperately needing him to stop. His eyes slid closed as everything he had ever felt for this man rushed through his being, leaving him breathless.

“What, Adam? Jesus, man, you’re killing me here.” Rhone brushed the slash of Adam’s sharp cheekbone again. Adam shivered, all of his pent-up feelings for Rhone, as well as his blood, racing to his dick. “What?”

The probing concern in the second “What?” pushed Adam to the breaking point. His hands fell to his sides, and he moved into Rhone’s heat, his entire being shuddering at the closeness of their bodies.

Rhone murmured a soothing “It’s all right,” and that did it. Adam moaned low in his throat and came hard and fast, his cum spraying in hot spurts on Rhone’s jeans-covered thigh.

Adam pulled back and shoved his hands over his mouth, horrified to his core. His chest heaved, wheezing with the beginnings of terror. “Oh, my God, oh, my God, I’m so sorry.” He could not tear his gaze away from the absolute shock darkening Rhone’s eyes to storm clouds in a black night. “I’ll leave the business tonight; you won’t ever have to see me again. I’m so sorry. Please” -- Adam’s voice hitched in his clogged throat -- “I beg you, forget this ever happened.”

Unable to stand the torment of Rhone knowing everything, Adam turned and raced for the door.

“Adam!” Rhone’s voice thundered from behind. “Don’t you dare take another step!”

“No!” Adam couldn’t afford to listen, the cracking in his heart at the thought of never seeing Rhone again spurring him forward. He hit the door and fumbled with the lock, his hands too shaky to function properly.

Rhone slammed into him from behind and shoved Adam’s body into the locked door.

Twin forces of unmistakable pleasure and absolute fear assaulted Adam from every angle. Adrenaline surged through him, and he struggled against Rhone’s cover. Fear of seeing revulsion in Rhone’s eyes filled Adam to the brim, the overwhelming horror of Rhone’s discovery of Adam’s feelings more acute than all the tender feelings he had ever experienced for Rhone, combined. Problem was, at six feet three, Rhone stood taller and wider than Adam’s lankier six feet of height. The bigger man subdued Adam with very little effort, and he had his wrists pinned to the door with the twin manacles of his hands in a shot.

“Please.” Adam’s plea came out in almost a sob. “You won’t ever have to see me again. I won’t fight the buyout. Just let me go.”

“Tell me what just happened,” Rhone said, his voice achingly soft and gentle, too kind for Adam in his vulnerable, still half-aroused state to handle. Rhone’s breath ruffled the hair on top of Adam’s head, sending aching desire straight to his cock. “What made you come against my thigh?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry.” Adam scrambled, his very life and dreams tangled up in this one conversation, right here, with this man. “Kasey excited me. I like it when she gets rough with me.”

“No you don’t.” Rhone cut down that excuse in a shot. He squeezed Adam’s wrists and banged them against the door. “You hated the violence in your young life, so don’t try to sell me a load of bullshit like that right now. You don’t get off on someone handling you roughly, Adam -- not you. Stop lying to me, damn it.” Rhone slid Adam’s arms up the door over his head and transferred them to the prison of one big hand. “Now tell me what in the hell is going on before I start getting angry.”

Adam pressed his forehead into the cool wood and set his teeth in a hard, grinding grit. “I can’t,” he whispered, his soul bared open in those few words. “Please don’t ask me. I don’t want you to hate me.”

Rhone slid his free hand around Adam’s naked waist, down the muscles trembling in his lower belly, and right over his straining cock. “Jesus Christ.” Rhone covered the length of Adam’s penis up and down in a long, searching swipe. “You just came, and you’re half hard again already.” Rhone’s hand moved in reverse, until his open palm rested against Adam’s belly. The perfection of that night when they so intimately shared a bed assaulted Adam, crippling his resolve. “Tell me why you have another boner, Reyes. I can’t respect a man who won’t own his truth. Tell me why Kasey is shoving plastic dicks up your ass. Tell me why you just dumped a shitload of jizz on my leg without any provocation at all.”

“There was a reason.” Adam slumped into the door, finally accepting that Rhone would never let him get away without knowing everything. Adam didn’t have anywhere left to hide. Rhone never let up until he got his answers. Adam laughed at the irony. One of the things he most admired in Rhone -- his determination -- would now out him to the only person he had ever loved. “There was you, Rhone,” Adam confessed, heat infusing every cell of his body, filling him with horror…and relief. God, hiding had pushed him to the point of exhaustion. “You touched my face, and you had concern in your eyes that you had hurt me. It didn’t take anything else. I didn’t want to admit what I felt when you first brought me into your company, and when I finally let myself see it, I fought it like hell, but the truth wouldn’t let me be free. I have been in love with you for ten years. It gets stronger every day, and any time I get to spend with you is when I am happiest to be alive. That won’t change. I can’t make it go away.” His chest constricted painfully, anticipating the hurt of his next words. “I wouldn’t make you uncomfortable for the world, though, so I think it’s best that I leave and never come back.”

Rhone let go of Adam’s wrists, and Adam’s arms thudded to his sides. He swallowed convulsively, his throat tight, and wrapped his hand around the doorknob. “Good-bye,” he uttered thickly, the hardest, worst word he had ever spoken in his life. “I’ll miss you. Good-bye.”

Adam turned the handle, and Rhone’s hand shot out to cover his.

Rhone dipped his head down and put his mouth oh-so-very close to Adam’s ear. “You’re so scared you can’t even feel it.” His breath tickled against Adam’s ear, moist and hot. “Move back, Adam. Unglue yourself from the door and lean back into me.” He pried Adam’s hand off the doorknob and slid it over Adam’s stomach. With pressure from Rhone’s hands, he rocked Adam into him.

Adam froze. All blood drained from his brain and went straight to his penis.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Rhone rubbed the bulge in his jeans against Adam’s bare ass. “I don’t understand it. I’ve never felt it for a man before, but I got half hard the second you moaned and came on me. I don’t think anything has ever turned me on so unexpectedly or so quickly. Then you went and said what you just did, and my erection shifted to full-on raging. I’ve missed you so damn much, and you have me so aroused I think I’ve already leaked a stain as big as yours onto the front of my jeans. If you had bothered to turn around, you would have seen it right from the start.”

Terrible, terrible longing filled Adam, stroking at his long-buried need for this man. He couldn’t slow the racing in his heart, and he couldn’t yet face Rhone’s eyes. Teasing from Rhone -- or worse, pity -- would kill him.

“What does this mean?” Adam asked, tentative strings of hope trying to tie a bow around his vulnerable, exposed heart. “What are you saying to me?”

“Right now, all I know is that I want inside your ass right now. Anything else we’ll have to talk about later when all of my thoughts aren’t fully centered on fucking you until I hurt with it.” Rhone rubbed his hands over Adam’s flat, taut belly, offering a real caress that Adam had dreamed of forever. “What do you say, Reyes? Can you deal with just that, for now?”

Adam turned around. For the first time ever with this man, he had his heart on full display in his eyes. “Where do you want me?”

“Jesus Christ, we shared a place forever. How did I never see it?” Rhone unbuttoned his shirt, his eyes glued to Adam. “You keep looking at me like that, and I’m gonna come before I get a condom on. Shit!” He tore his gaze away and paced, cursing some more. “I thought I was coming here for a meeting. I don’t have any fucking condoms on me.”

Adam moved to his desk and hoisted himself up. He and Kasey had already cleared it previously. Lying back, he bent his knees, turned his head, and found Rhone across the room. “You would never hurt me or put me at risk,” he said, his voice steady, his gaze full of trust. “You tell me you’re clean, and we don’t need a condom between us.”

Lightning flashed in Rhone’s pale gray eyes. “I’ve never been with a woman without protection, and I’ve never been with a man. Period.” The rest of Rhone’s clothing flew off in a flash, leaving his heavily veined, erect cock on full display. He stalked across the office and climbed up on the desk between Adam’s legs. “You know as much about my relationships as I do. I’m closer to you than I am my own brother. I don’t have any diseases, and I know damn well you don’t, either.”

Adam reached over the side of the desk and grabbed the tube of lube that had dropped to the floor. He tossed it at Rhone, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. “Then slick yourself up and fuck me, friend.” He reached between his legs and fingered his puckered hole. The tight O of flesh automatically clenched at the touch, but Adam got what he needed. The slippery texture told him lube still slowly leaked out of his ass. “I’m still good from the dildo. You won’t hurt me.”

Rhone’s gaze slid to the toy on the floor. “I’m a little bigger than that thing.” He covered his thick, jutting cock with lube, smearing it all along his length.

“I know. It was the closest I could find in size to you.” Adam felt heat creep up his neck to his face. “I saw you once, but I couldn’t take a precise measurement. Or touch you so that I could learn every inch of you, the way I really wanted to do.”

Rhone’s hand squeezed around his prick, eliciting a yelp. “Christ Almighty, Adam,” he muttered. “You’re gonna do me in before I even get inside.”

“Can’t have that.” Adam hooked his knees with his elbows and drew his legs up, splitting his crack wide open, exposing the rosy flower of his asshole. “Take me, Rhone, please. I’ve wanted you inside me from almost the day I met you.”

“I fucking can’t believe I’m doing this.” Rhone guided the head of his penis to Adam’s sphincter, stopping when the tip kissed the ring. His hand shook a little bit. “I can’t damn believe how nervous I am because I want to make this good for you.” He chuckled, his gaze sliding up to Adam’s. “I’ve never wanted a man before, but right now I’m hotter to get inside you than any woman I’ve fucked in twenty years of sex.”

“I want you there.” Adam bit the edge of his lip. “I promise I do. Please.”

Rhone pushed down on Adam’s entrance, nudging against his quivering hole. Adam’s entire body quaked. He stared between his spread legs, transfixed, as Rhone bore down again, a little harder this time. He did it again just as Adam rocked up. They both watched, gasping as Adam’s ass gave way, and Rhone sank deep inside.

Rhone took Adam right to the root on his first stroke. Adam grunted, chanting, “Oh, God, oh, God,” as his channel stretched unbearably to take Rhone’s thicker size. Adam had woefully misjudged the size of that dildo; Rhone’s cock was much bigger all the way around.

“Jesus, Adam.” Rhone started to thrust, hissing on each deep stroke in after pulling almost all the way out. “It’s so fucking tight and hot.”

“I’ve never done enough with anyone before to tell you what it would feel like.” Adam jammed his hips up to meet Rhone’s penetration, delight tingling beneath the new thicker, deeper taking of his ass. “I’ve never fucked a man before.” He gritted his teeth as his walls contracted tight around Rhone’s roving cock. “Or a woman in the ass.”

Possession, anger, flashed in Rhone’s eyes. “No one but me, Reyes.” He moved Adam’s legs around his waist and slid his hands up Adam’s thighs, his fingers digging into different, harder, hairier flesh than he had certainly ever felt before while in the throes of sex. “No goddamned other person but me.”

Adam locked his ankles at the small of Rhone’s back, his heart practically exploding at the harshness in Rhone’s voice. “I don’t want anyone else.” He ran his hands up Rhone’s chest, his flesh taut and searing under Adam’s fingers. “I never have.”

Rhone groaned and grabbed Adam’s hands, stilling his caress. “Not right now,” he said. “I can’t take it.” He took Adam’s hands and stretched them over his head, locking their fingers together over the edge of the desk. Rhone’s face dropped to only half a foot away from Adam’s, so close Adam saw every sexy cut and groove around Rhone’s eyes, every tick of his jaw as he clenched his teeth, every gasp of pleasure as he took Adam’s pulsing anus to the hilt.

“I love you.” Adam couldn’t hold the words inside. A dam had been broken that he had no hope of repairing. He lifted his hips, following Rhone’s cock as he pulled away, unable to bear being apart even for one penetration. “You’re so beautiful. I love you so much.”

“Don’t.” Rhone gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t say it right now. I’ll lose it too fast.”

Adam pushed against the hold of Rhone’s hands, reminding him that he fucked another strong man, no matter if he closed his eyes. “I love you, Rhone Quinn.”

Rhone cursed and shafted Adam’s ass in lightning-fast strokes, the movement sending the sensitized walls in Adam’s rectum to fast, confused life. God, all the dildos in the world never could have prepared him for the feel of Rhone’s real cock in his ass.

“No matter what happens tomorrow” -- Adam could not shut up -- “I’ll love you until the day I die.”

Rhone’s eyes popped open and for only the third time gave Adam the opportunity to see into his soul. “No dying,” Rhone said, his voice rough and hard. “Promise me you won’t leave. Ever.”

“I wouldn’t survive away from you,” Adam confessed. Rhone’s renewed vulnerability drove Adam to new heights of risk. “Kiss me, Rhone. Please.”

Rhone’s gaze darkened to mercury, flashing silver light. He swooped down and took Adam’s mouth in a grinding, marking kiss. He let go of Adam’s hands and clamped his fingers around Adam’s jaw, pushing down until Adam opened up and let him inside. Rhone sank into Adam’s mouth, rubbing his tongue along the length of Adam’s, merging their bodies in yet another way. The kiss slowed the powerful ramming in Adam’s channel, seemed to settle Rhone down. Ecstasy raced through Adam, shooting zapping lines of pleasure to every nerve ending in his body, creating a symphony of music inside his soul.

Adam took possession of Rhone’s tongue, sucking the nubby appendage into his mouth, tangling it with his. His fingers drifted up, touching almost tentatively over Rhone’s rough-hewn face, fluttering his fingertips over his forehead and thick brows. Rhone shuddered above him and drove his cock deep into Adam’s ass, somehow lodging it farther inside than it had yet gone. Adam tunneled his hands into Rhone’s dark, wavy hair, brushing it away from his forehead, tucking back behind his ears the flyaway edges that needed a trim.

Rhone pulled away, his eyes wide, almost frightened-looking, before they squeezed shut. “Oh, Christ,” he muttered, his voice raspy. His skin pulled taut over the harsh lines of his face, and just like that, Rhone came, wet heat from his dick filling Adam’s asshole to the rim. Rhone didn’t move, he didn’t ram, he just stayed absolutely still as cum rushed like a faucet out of his cock, heating Adam’s clenching channel from the inside out in a way he had never felt before.

After long minutes of bracing himself on his hands, Rhone dropped onto Adam’s chest and belly. Tucking his face into the nape of Adam’s neck, he murmured, his voice a little breathless, “It has never happened like that before. Complete calm and knowing exactly how much time I have left, to coming only a split second after I felt it building in me. That’s not usual for me. I normally know I have enough time to take care of my partner first.”

“It’s all right.” Adam ran his palms lightly down the hard line of Rhone’s sweat-covered back. He reached Rhone’s tailbone and paused. “It was incredible, more than I ever could have dreamed possible. God, man” -- Adam wiggled his ass, gasping as he reminded Rhone that he still had his cock inside Adam -- “you fucked me. What more can I ask than that?”

“You didn’t want to stop your hands just now,” Rhone said. He levered himself up and looked into Adam’s eyes. “You wanted to touch my ass, but you don’t know if you’re allowed to do it. Am I right?”

“It’s okay.” A blush warmed Adam’s face. He turned his head, hiding his need. “I would never ask you to give more than you already have.”

Rhone forced Adam’s face back to his. “Adam, you’ve got a hard-on riding my stomach.” Rhone rubbed his belly over Adam’s sandwiched dick. “You think I can’t feel it? After just fucking you, you think I don’t know exactly where you want to put your prick until you come too?”

Adam opened his mouth, but for the longest moment, nothing came out. “I…we…you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Adam!” Rhone grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled. “Be the man I know you are, and tell me what you want.”

Adam blinked, his gut twisting, forcing up primal emotion that he wished he could conceal. “I want to make love to you, Rhone. I want to fill your ass with my penis and fuck you until you love it just as much as I do. I want to suck your dick and eat your balls until your cum coats my tongue and throat. I want you to do the same to me. I want to come inside you, in your mouth, in your ass, on your chest, marking you as mine in a way you can feel even when I’m not by your side. That’s what I want. It’s what I’ve wanted ever since you told me I could have a different, better life and then took the time to care and to show me how to care about myself. I want everything you can give, and I want to offer you everything that I am.” He reached up and fingered Rhone’s starkly handsome face. “All that I have become, because of you.”

“Jesus Christ” -- Rhone turned his head and pressed a kiss into Adam’s hand -- “I had no idea you were a poet. Tell me how you want to take care of that spike digging into my stomach, and we’ll deal with the rest later.”

Adam caught his reflection over Rhone’s shoulder. He bit his lip, trying to fight back an involuntary smile of anticipation as he came back to Rhone. “I want you in front of a mirror on all fours. I want to take you from behind, and I want both of us to watch as I do it.”

Rhone chuckled, but it sounded more like a groan. “I can’t believe I’m even thinking this, but that sounds fucking hot to me too.” His attention shifted down, and they both watched as Rhone slowly withdrew his cock from Adam’s tender hole. He sat back on his knees, his eyes meeting Adam’s once again. “Better this time?” he asked. Rhone even gently rubbed Adam’s crease where it now once again shielded Adam’s rosy ring.

Adam trembled, the gesture so caring he almost cried.

“Yeah.” He lifted upright, his legs straddling the desk. “A hundred times better. It was nice of you to remember.” Without weighing it, Adam acted on his first romantic impulse ever with this man. Adam leaned in and scraped his lips against Rhone’s, letting the touch linger for a moment. “Thank you.” He smiled. If he had a sleeve, his heart would be on it.

Rhone touched his own lips, flickering over them with the tips of his fingers. “It feels so different when you kiss me. Harder somehow, laced with aggression, even though it wasn’t.”

“I’ve dreamt of your lips for a long time.” Adam swung his leg over and slid off the desk, his eyes darting to the tall, six-by-twelve, antique-framed mirror that hung centered on one of his walls. It began a foot off the ground and was perfect for Adam’s naughty thoughts. He turned back to Rhone. “I’ve had fantasies of doing a few different things to other parts of your body too. Are you willing?”

Chapter Seven

Trepidation skittered through Rhone’s heart. Christ, do I really want another man’s dick rammed up my ass? He loathed the very thought of having his prostate checked, procrastinated for as long as he possibly could when the time came to make the appointment. His gaze drifted to Adam’s cock, so incredibly longer and thicker than his doctor’s fingers. Adam’s penis stuck out from his fur, straight, proud, and hard. Without seeing or thinking more than that, Rhone’s thirty-five-year-old dick roused with the beginnings of new life. He hadn’t experienced such rapid recovery in at least four years. Rhone didn’t understand it. He had never thought of Adam as a potential sexual partner before, but right now, the very thought of Adam ever seeking relief in the arms of another man made him growl and shoot to his feet.

Rhone stalked Adam and snaked his hand around the man’s neck, jerking Adam’s downturned head up to him. “You take your desires out on no one but me, do you understand?” He crushed his mouth down on Adam’s, pushed his way through the seam of Adam’s lips until Adam cried out and granted Rhone full access to his mouth. He kissed Adam with all the aggression he’d accused Adam of feeling before, knowing now that those feelings lived within him, all churned up for Adam. He slanted his lips against Adam’s and forced his jaw open wide, taking voraciously and carnally, no fear that Adam would recoil from his strong appetite if he accidentally drew a little blood.

He slid his hands down Adam’s back and cupped his ass, so hard and smooth, so very different from the flesh of any woman he had ever touched so intimately. He felt his own sticky cum draining from Adam’s hidden hole. His mark, on another man. On Adam, the guy who knew more of Rhone’s secret wishes than even his brother did. The one man to whom Rhone always listened with patience, never tiring of hearing Adam’s thoughts about business. The one man -- no, one person -- Rhone never grew bored being with, no matter what they talked about or did. Was that all it took to change friendship into desire? Christ, Rhone wanted to discover more and find out.

Sliding his hands around Adam’s slim hips, Rhone reached between their stomachs and grabbed both of their cocks in his hand. He squished them together and rubbed, the heat so familiar, yet completely new at the same time. The thrill of discovery raced through Rhone, exciting him unbearably, more than he ever imagined another male body could.

“Take me however you want.” He panted heavily against Adam’s mouth, felt equally hot breath tingle over his lips. A fisting need raced to his heart. “Do whatever you want to me. Do everything to me. I want to please you just as much as you pleased me.”

Adam pecked a quick kiss on Rhone’s lips and pulled away. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Adam raced across the office to a hidden door -- his private bathroom -- and disappeared inside. Within seconds, he returned with two towels. One damp and one dry.

Rhone lifted a puzzled gaze to Adam. “Do you want me to clean you up?” He remembered the slippery lube and the tacky cum coating Adam’s crack and very likely slowly working its way down between his legs. His face heated. “I know I pumped you full of ejaculate, and it has to go some --”

This time, Adam covered Rhone’s mouth. “No, I don’t want to wash you away from me yet.” His face reddened in color just as deeply as Rhone felt his own must appear. “I have never felt anything better than you coming inside me. I know I’ll have to eventually, but right now, I don’t ever want to wash the proof of it away.”

Rhone grabbed Adam’s head in the cradle of his hands and tilted up his face. “I don’t know how you didn’t have a thousand girlfriends.” He dipped down and sipped from Adam’s lips, lingering in a way he could not remember having done in a very long time. “Or boyfriends, I guess,” he corrected. He dropped a line of kisses up Adam’s cheek to his temple. “Because, Christ, you have the most amazing, open way of expressing yourself, baby. I could listen to you talk about just about anything and get excited by the choice of your words.”

Adam’s face paled, and he took a step back. “You just called me baby. I’ve never had anyone do that before.”

Rhone’s soul cracked open a little more for Adam. He didn’t know how it was possible, but his heart pounded hard against his sternum, giving him proof that it had. Adam had overcome such enormous obstacles and pain at the rejection of his family, and survived. Thrived, actually. Without him having to say it, Rhone finally knew the reason why. Adam’s sexuality. What a loss for them. Losing out on this wonderful man. Far from shocking Rhone, it suddenly amazed him that he had gotten through all these years without feeling this kind of attraction to Adam once he had become a man.

“That’s just a crying shame, baby,” Rhone finally said. He tugged Adam to him again. “Darlin’.” He pecked a kiss high on Adam’s cheek. “Honey.” He touched his lips to Adam’s forehead. “Sweetheart.” Tucking Adam’s face into his chest, he kissed the crown of his head and then moved his lips to Adam’s ear. “Love.”

Adam shuddered. He slid his hands around Rhone’s waist and hugged him tight, the wet and dry towels rubbing against the small of his back. “I want to make love to you, Rhone.” Adam kissed his way down Rhone’s torso, a line of little touches that reared Rhone’s penis back to full, hard life. “But I need a few minutes to get myself back in control.” He dropped to his knees in front of Rhone, his mouth mere inches from Rhone’s poking pole.

Adam’s gaze slid up Rhone’s body, his dark eyes wide, his pupils dilated as if high. But Rhone knew the truth now. This drugged look came about through pure lust, directed at Rhone.

“What is it?” Rhone cupped Adam’s cheek. “Tell me what you want. If I can give it to you, I will.”

“I want to clean you up and then suck you off until you come in my mouth. Is that all right?”

Rhone groaned as longing and desire sliced through his insides. “I don’t know a man alive who would turn down an offer like that. Yeah, baby, you can eat my cock. I’ll even feed it to you, if you want.”

“I want.”

Adam lifted the wet towel to Rhone’s penis and gently cleaned him from root to tip. Rhone rocked into the feel of the warm, damp fabric, the light touch more than enough to titillate the ultra-sensitive skin covering his cock. Adam slid his hand between Rhone’s legs and nudged his stance wider open, then covered Rhone’s heavy balls and washed them too. Rhone moaned low in his throat as the tender ministrations went on, knowing full well that his arousal stemmed just as much -- if not more so -- from the loving nature of Adam’s touch as it did from the warm, moist cloth working over every nerve ending in his sex.

“Enough.” Rhone took the towel out of Adam’s hand and tossed it to the floor. Damn it, his prick couldn’t stand the anticipation for a moment more. “Any more of that and I won’t make it to your mouth.” He cupped the base of his dick and held it out in offering.

Adam steadied himself, bracing his hands on Rhone’s hips. His chocolate eyes darkened to almost black, and he opened his mouth.

Jesus, Rhone had never been so hot for a blowjob in his life. He stepped forward just a little bit, and the head of his cock slipped past Adam’s lips. Adam immediately closed his mouth and sucked, and Rhone nearly came on the spot.

Rhone dug his fingers into Adam’s dark, glossy hair and forced more of his penis inside. Adam lapped eagerly, and Rhone’s toes curled into the carpeted floor with delight. “Damn it, Adam, you’ve got a hot little mouth.” Rhone looked down, staring, rapt. He pulled his fat, red prick almost all the way out and then pushed it back through Adam’s sexy lips. Rhone didn’t know when he’d started thinking of Adam’s kiss-swollen mouth as pretty, but Christ, watching himself fuck the man’s mouth in deep, steady strokes, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to see it as anything but damned arousing ever again.

Pushing deep, Rhone didn’t stop until the head of his cock put a stamp of his piss-slit on the back of Adam’s throat. Rhone circled his hips, mashing Adam’s nose into his pubes before reluctantly releasing his hold and dragging out. Rhone fairly whimpered with pleasure, never having experienced anything close to this level of fellatio in his life. Adam swirled his tongue around Rhone’s fat, mushroom head and took a long, deep suck on the pole, his cheeks caving in with the power of what he did. Rhone would have held Adam’s head there for a thorough mapping, but Adam pulled out of Rhone’s grip on his hair, forcing Rhone’s dick to slide free and pop out of his mouth. Aching, unfamiliar loneliness welled up in Rhone, a hollow feeling of loss that unexpectedly rocked him to his core.

“What…what are you doing?” Vulnerability assaulted Rhone at Adam’s withdrawal. He didn’t think he had ever felt so exposed. It was unfamiliar, and he didn’t like it one damn bit. He turned away, giving Adam his back, not wanting the man to see this new raw need in his eyes. “Did I push too deep and make you uncomfortable? Why did you stop?”

Strong arms encircled Rhone’s waist from behind, and a tender kiss grazed the small of his back. The side of Adam’s face came to rest against Rhone’s lower spine, so intimate that Rhone trembled.

Adam murmured, “Now you’re as scared as I was when you walked in on me with that toy shoved up my ass.”

Rhone nodded, but realized that maybe Adam wouldn’t see it. “Yeah.” His voice sounded grainy to his ears. “It’s not something I’m used to feeling.” He heaved a deep sigh. “And damn it, I can’t understand why I all of a sudden feel it so strongly for you. I don’t like what I can’t take apart and understand. You know that.”

Adam nodded, his cheek caressing Rhone’s sensitive flesh. “You don’t like being out of control.”

“That too.” But Christ, it was so much more that merely letting go. Rhone covered Adam’s arms on his stomach and rubbed, taking strength from the power within the other man that manifested itself in such gentle, kind ways. “More than that, I don’t like wanting something so badly that I can’t walk away from it.” Rhone chipped away at his granite exterior a little bit and gave Adam a newly discovered piece of his soul. “In one short evening, I think I’m already starting to feel that with you.”

“You didn’t have to get worried before.” Adam leaned down and nipped Rhone’s ass. “I only let go of your cock because I want to taste your balls. I want to feel their weight on my tongue.”

Rhone had never been with someone so innocently, openly carnal in all his twenty years of sex.

Turning around in Adam’s hold, he wrapped his hand around his penis and pressed it up against his lower stomach, out of the way. Between his thighs, his balls hung heavy with cum. “Take them fast, honey, before you make me come just with words.”

“Can’t have that.” Adam’s smile turned downright wicked. “Tell me when you’re close,” he added and burrowed between Rhone’s spread legs.

He licked all around Rhone’s furry nut sac and even flicked his tongue against that crazy little patch of super-sensitive skin between Rhone’s scrotum and anus. Rhone choked on the lovely sensation and started pulling on his dick in great, long strokes.

Without moving his head from between Rhone’s legs, Adam reached up and slapped Rhone’s hand away from his straining erection. “Don’t touch. That’s mine.” The order reverberated against Rhone’s balls, sluicing shivery lines of pleasure straight up his spine. Letting go, Rhone clenched his hands at his sides, obeying at once.

Adam quickly rewarded his compliance. Opening wide, he took Rhone’s entire sac into his hot, wet mouth. Rhone hissed as sensation after sensation rocked through him, the ramifications so great he doubled over on Adam’s back and had to grab on tight.

He took a deep, steadying breath and forced himself to stand back up. “Jesus Christ, that’s so damn good.” The enthusiastic, sexy bastard didn’t have a damn bit of fear anymore. Wasn’t afraid to drive Rhone to the edge of lunacy, either. Adam circled his magical tongue all around Rhone’s balls, leaving no millimeter untouched by his tongue bath. He sucked a little, drawing Rhone’s nuts away from his body, and Rhone swore it curled every follicle of hair on his head.

“You’re an eager little cocksucker,” he muttered thickly. “Aren’t you? You like to eat a little nut too, don’t you?”

Rhone’s testicles slid, all wet and juicy, from Adam’s mouth. “Nothing little about ’em.” He laved his tongue over the head of Rhone’s leaking prick and drank up all his precum. His dark, lust-filled gaze drifted up Rhone’s torso to his eyes. “Nothing small about this, either,” he teased, and slurped Rhone’s cock into his mouth, all the way to the root.

“Ahh…” Deep, fisting pleasure punched Rhone all the way to his core, and he began to fuck the tight O of Adam’s lips in piston-fast strokes, unable to grab hold of himself and calm down. “Yeah, that’s it, that’s it…” He held Adam’s face to his crotch and shoved his prick halfway down Adam’s throat. “Damn it, you’re killing me. Fucking eat that cock up good.”

Adam grabbed the base of Rhone’s penis and started working him over with his hand as well as his mouth. He jerked Rhone off and licked the flat of his tongue up and down the underside of his prick, knowing just where to hit that spot on the lower side behind the bulbous head. It felt so damn good it hurt. Rhone’s testicles tightened and drew up, signaling the end. Adam took him all the way back inside the warm cavern of his mouth, swirled his dexterous, hot tongue all the way around, and then slowly dragged his teeth down Rhone’s excruciatingly sensitive length.

Rhone practically lost his legs; the move was just that damn perfect. Christ, how did the man instinctively know every move Rhone secretly liked? Rhone’s nuts squeezed from the inside out as the first wave of pleasure rocked through his core. He sank his fingers into Adam’s scalp, every muscle in his body seizing as his semen raced from his balls to his cock. In a flash of release that bordered on pain, Rhone roared like a beast at completion, pumping his cock deep into Adam’s mouth. Cum gushed through his dick like a tidal wave and shot out his slit, dumping in great jets down the back of Adam’s throat. Adam didn’t let up or pull away for one second. He grabbed Rhone’s hips and held on, his fingers denting hard into Rhone’s skin -- bound to leave bruises, his hold was so damn tight. Rhone shuddered and spurted a little more. Jesus, he liked the thought of bearing Adam’s mark on his body come tomorrow.

Eventually -- and truth be told, Rhone had no idea how long he stood there slumped over Adam with his now-limp cock resting inside Adam’s mouth -- Adam pulled back and rocked on his heels. Rhone’s penis slid free, aching at the separation from its new home.

Rhone started and stood up straight. How in the hell did he so easily think of Adam as his new home when less than two hours ago he’d never even considered sex, let alone something more, with another man? You’re in love with him, a little voice whispered in his head, terrifying him to his core. Rhone was thirty-five damn years old and had never loved anyone but his grandmother and his brother. It didn’t make a bit of sense that he could turn on the feeling like a switch just because this man had said “I love you” to him in such a beautiful way. Just because this man had been with him for ten years, through every business low, until they finally reached the first high that allowed them to leave the PI work behind. Just because Adam alone had been able to reach Rhone after the loss of his grandmother, quietly there all the time without pushing Rhone to a place he didn’t want to go. Just because when anything good happened to him he wanted to tell Adam first, because somehow Adam always knew the absolute perfect thing to say and the best ways to celebrate, even if it just involved the two of them catching a game on TV over beers and a pizza. Just because Adam possessed every quality Rhone had ever dreamed of in a spouse, only had never considered it before because he had a dick rather than tits and a pussy.

And most relevant, nothing had felt right in Rhone’s life since Adam had packed up and moved out of the apartment.

A male partner was so very different from anything Rhone had ever wanted up until now, but could another man make him happy and satisfy him for the rest of his life?

Adam rubbed his hand up Rhone’s belly, snapping him out of his thoughts. “You’re thinking too much and making yourself scared about it,” he admonished. “There’s no pressure, Rhone. You don’t have to do anything beyond tonight.” Adam glanced away. He blinked a bunch of times in a way that tore through Rhone’s heart before coming back and meeting his gaze. “You don’t even have to finish this night, if you don’t want.”

Going on gut alone, something Rhone had trusted all of his adult life, he sank down to his knees in front of Adam and took the man’s face in his hands. “Stop assuming you know my feelings about what is happening between us. You’ve apparently been doing that for ten years, and it has potentially cost us a good five or six years of time together.”

“Not more?”

“I never would have taken you before you were of age, nor probably before you had a little more maturity and had done some living first, even if I’d understood and wanted you back. Fuck the law; morally, it wouldn’t have been right.”

“And maybe you wouldn’t have been open to it before now,” Adam said. “I guess everything happens for a reason and in its own time, for however brief a moment in time it’s meant to occur.”

Even if it’s just for one night, sat unspoken at the end of Adam’s thought; Rhone could hear it in his heart.

“I suppose so.” Rhone dropped a quick kiss on Adam’s upturned lips. The man needed to get used to the touch of him on his mouth, hell, all over his fit, sleekly muscular body, actually. Adam clearly couldn’t quite make himself believe that what they had done was more than temporary fire and lust on Rhone’s part, but he would figure it out soon enough.

Adam’s lips would only know Rhone’s kisses for the rest of their lives.

“This moment in time, though,” Rhone shared. “Right now, I think was created for you to finally learn what it’s like to fuck me.” He lowered his hands to the floor and crawled on all fours very deliberately, seductively -- at least, he hoped, sexily -- across the carpet until he reached the mirror. Looking over his shoulder, he wiggled his ass in invitation. “Come on, you’ve waited long enough. Time for relief.”

Rhone watched Adam go down on his hands and knees, scooping the tube of lube into his left hand. He crawled toward Rhone, his eyes dark, his moves sinewy and almost predatory, like a puma. Belated fear assaulted Rhone with the force of a speeding bullet train. Christ, he had just practically begged someone to shove a larger-than-average hard object into his rectum, as if he had done it a thousand times before. His muscles clenched involuntarily. It would very likely hurt. A lot.

Adam moved in behind Rhone and pushed his hands off the floor, but stayed on his knees. He rubbed his palms up and down Rhone’s back, creating a ripple effect through Rhone’s muscles that caused him to arch like a cat. Fuck, it damn near stunned him that he didn’t purr under the petting touch.

Rhone watched Adam in the mirror, couldn’t break away from his dark, open eyes. Hands drifted down and cupped his butt, and a moment later, split his ass cheeks apart. Rhone jerked as cool air hit his crease, popping goose bumps up all along his arms and legs. Fear assaulted him, but still, he couldn’t look away.

Adam squeezed Rhone’s buttocks. His gaze drifted down, and he groaned. “God, Rhone, you have the prettiest little brown asshole.” He rubbed a thumb over Rhone’s puckered entrance, and Rhone jumped. Adam touched again, no pressure, and Rhone accepted it this time without instinctively moving away. Adam whistled low. “I’ve never seen anything so innocent and sweet in my life.”

Adam seduced with words, and Rhone’s sphincter fisted with a strange combination of fright and delight. “I didn’t know assholes could be attractive, Reyes. How goddamned many of them have you seen?”

“Yours is the first,” Adam admitted. “But, God, I have fantasized about it for a long, long time.” Adam folded over and stuck his face into Rhone’s crack. Seconds later, wet flickering teased Rhone’s ring.

“Oh, Christ.” Rhone looked over his shoulder, unable to believe his senses. Adam looked up at him through half-closed lids, the lower half of his face tucked between the tan hills of Rhone’s ass.

The touch caressed his hole again, and Rhone whimpered, moaning, “I can’t believe you’re eating my ass.” The foreign sensation shot shivers of complete awareness of this new erogenous zone straight up his spine to the pleasure centers in his brain. “It shouldn’t be right, but damn it” -- Rhone dropped to his elbows and pressed his forehead into the carpet -- “you make it feel okay.” He pushed back against Adam’s beautiful tongue. “It’s so good. Give me more.”

Adam sucked a little bit, relaxing Rhone’s asshole, and then pushed through the barrier of Rhone’s sphincter, plunging his tongue inside.

Rhone howled. He pushed right up off his knees, digging his toes and forehead into the carpet in an inverted V. Rhone could literally feel Adam’s tongue licking just inside his channel, and it made him want to crawl right out of his skin.

He reached back and stretched apart his ass cheeks even wider, begging without words for more. The twisting, strange, dark sensation coiled in his belly, worked its way up his chest, and stole all ability to speak right out of Rhone’s throat.

Adam worked like a demon inside Rhone’s anus, licking, swirling, and retreating, but always quickly delving back in for more before Rhone could cry out at the loss. Rhone quickly grew accustomed to the stinging pull around his opening. The pleasure Adam wreaked on Rhone’s sensitized nerve endings with his wonderful tongue completely overrode the small discomfort. It didn’t take long before this tiny prelude to what Adam really wanted -- what Rhone now desperately wanted too -- wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy Rhone’s cravings.

Rhone’s body and mind could process only one thing right now: he needed this man to take him. Fast and hard and deep.

Rhone pulled himself together and forced his body back onto all fours. “Please…” He finally found his voice, thick and animalistic, full of need. “Fuck me. Fuck me now.”

That talented, poking appendage slipped free from Rhone’s ass. His hole snapped shut tight once again, strangely leaving Rhone achingly bereft.

Adam lifted upright, finding Rhone’s gaze in the mirror once again. “Say my name.” His voice held strength and power, and Rhone shivered at the younger man’s new confidence. Adam popped the hinged top of the lube, the sound like the crack of a whip in the suddenly silent room. He dropped a big dollop into one of his hands, and liberally worked it in over the length of his jutting cock. “Tell me who is going to be buried in your fine ass. Say the name of the man you want to fuck you until you come.”

Rhone didn’t know about coming again, he had already done it twice in less than two hours. Didn’t matter. Either way, he wanted the same thing.

“You, Adam.” Adam’s brown gaze darkened to nearly black at those two words. Rhone understood. His desire burned equally strong. He remembered how amazingly connected he’d felt to Adam just before pushing his dick inside Adam’s hole. “Adam Reyes.” New tenderness squeezed Rhone’s throat and chest, stopping him for a moment. He swallowed and tried again. “I want Adam Reyes, a man I trust and respect and admire, to fuck me until I can’t walk.”

Adam opened his mouth, but no words came out. Rhone felt them, though. The depth of what Adam couldn’t speak punched Rhone right in the heart. He wanted to say it back. Those three little words that he had only ever said to family, he wanted to shout it to Adam at the top of his lungs.

Instead, Adam took Rhone’s ass right at that moment, and Rhone cried out with pain. Adam split him open and penetrated quickly, taking him all the way to the hilt. Adam bucked and fucked within Rhone’s flaming channel twice and then once more. Rhone’s face twisted with hurt in the reflection of the mirror as he struggled to accept the invasion. Adam covered Rhone from behind, pumping twice more in Rhone’s ass channel before gritting his teeth and coming to a stop.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Adam tucked his face into Rhone’s nape and wrapped his arms around his waist. “I meant to go slower, I swear. I didn’t comprehend what you would feel like the first time I got inside you. I lost a little control. Goddamnit. It’s so fucking tight.”

“I know.” Rhone breathed deeply as the first wave of pain passed. “It’s okay.” He remembered that he had barely controlled himself once taking Adam, either. “Give me a minute to adjust.” Now that no movement freaked him out, he just felt awkwardly, somewhat uncomfortably, stuffed. Adam’s dick filled him deep, confusing Rhone’s rectum. His walls quivered around the invasion, out of his control. Adam trembled on top of him and squeezed Rhone’s waist with incredible strength, his arms like bands of steel around Rhone’s middle. He didn’t thrust this time, though, or wiggle so much as an inch inside Rhone’s ass. Gratitude swept through Rhone for Adam’s renewed control. Rhone suddenly understood he wasn’t quite as ready to take the hard pounding he had so arrogantly thought he could when he only had a small tongue playing around in his ass.

At this point, he didn’t know if he ever would.

Adam began nibbling on Rhone’s neck, sending new shivers down Rhone’s spine.

“You like that?” Adam asked. He bit lightly and tugged, as if he were a dog with a chew toy.

“Yeah,” Rhone answered, his voice almost inaudible. Adam nipped again and then soothed the biting sting with his tongue. A resurgence of pleasure radiated from the small touch, sending tentacles of slowly building desire through Rhone’s body. Big, capable hands ran up and down Rhone’s stomach and chest. Callused fingers scraped against his flesh, yet another reminder that this coupling differed in every way from anything he had ever experienced in his past. Fingers working in tandem drew tantalizing little circles around Rhone’s nipples, making him growl as they twisted and puckered with joy under the touch.

Adam’s mouth came to rest against Rhone’s ear. “I’ve watched you walk around in the mornings without a shirt a thousand times,” he confessed. He tweaked Rhone’s poking tips, and Rhone dropped his head so he could watch. While Adam touched with such deftness, the tip of his tongue swirled around the shell of Rhone’s ear and then dipped inside. “Every time I saw you without a shirt, I wondered if you liked having your nipples teased. So tell me…” Adam tugged, distending those small discs of skin certainly farther than they should go. Rhone gasped as the lightly painful play pulled down through his belly and stirred his flaccid cock. “…do you like it? Or should I stop?”

Breath trapped in Rhone’s lungs expelled in a burst of need for air. “Don’t fucking stop.” Rhone couldn’t be sure -- it still scared him some to test it -- but he thought he might be starting to like having Adam’s cock buried in his ass. His walls still tingled with complete awareness of the invasion, but ever since Adam started touching him and kissing him, something in his gut told him if they just started moving, the sliding action would scratch the nagging itch inside him and begin to bring him pleasure.

Rhone squeezed the muscles in his rectum experimentally, and a not-entirely-unpleasant ripple waved up and down his channel. At the same time, Adam grunted loudly next to Rhone’s ear. Rhone looked up and saw Adam’s face, his eyes squeezed shut, and his teeth bared like an animal.

Rhone knew that face. He had watched himself take a woman a time or two, and he looked just like Adam did right now when he penetrated slowly, but deep inside wished that he could let go and fuck fast and hard. Adam needed the freedom to take Rhone completely; Rhone could see it clearly in the man’s agonized features. His control had been phenomenal, but the time had passed for Rhone to put up or shut up and let Adam have complete access to Rhone’s body.

Even his frightened, freshly breeched ass.

“Take me, Adam.” Rhone clamped down on Adam’s dick with his muscles again. Adam’s eyes popped open and locked on Rhone’s. Rhone nodded, giving permission in every way. “Fuck me until I can’t remember my own name. Fuck me until all I know is you.”

Adam brought his hands around Rhone’s sides and rubbed his back, but did not move. “I don’t want to hurt you.” His heart shone through his face, melting in his chocolate eyes. “I’d rather walk away than do that.”

“Make me like it.” Rhone nudged back on Adam’s pole, hissing as the foreign feeling in his ass flickered to life again. He pushed once more, forced the feeling to repeat quickly. “Back up your words with action, Reyes.” Rhone moved again. This time, the funky sensation barely flared up at all. The possibility of a different kind of loving bloomed within Rhone, starting in his burning, newly alive asshole.

He met Adam’s gaze, pure heat fusing them together. “Fuck me so good it makes me come,” Rhone ordered. He wouldn’t, but Adam would, and right now, nothing else mattered to Rhone. “Shoot me full of your cum.” Uncertainty remained in Adam’s eyes, so Rhone reached back and grabbed Adam’s hip, forcing him to make a move. “I want it, baby. I swear I do.”

Something finally seemed to switch on inside Adam. His eyes bore holes straight through to Rhone’s soul. Holding there, Adam pulled out, sending Rhone’s channel into a frenzy it couldn’t process as pain or pleasure, just strangeness. Adam slowly pushed back in and rubbed over a sweet spot inside Rhone’s channel, tickling his walls to the hilt. Rhone gasped on the first wave of pleasure zinging through his ass.

“Do that again.”

Adam did, and Rhone clamped his teeth together as more lovely sensations wiggled through to his belly. He pushed back, circling his ass against Adam’s embedded prick. Acute desire rocked through his being, coiling in his stomach and cock, shocking the hell out of him. He whimpered and did it again.

“Oh, Christ…” Everything clicked into place for Rhone right in that second. He could finally give Adam everything he wanted and needed in a partner without fear that a piece would always remain missing. In that moment, something akin to worship for another human being sank into Rhone’s soul and took over completely.

Rhone forced his downturned face up to the mirror, his eyes shining silver with lust and, he was pretty damn sure, love. He rocked back on Adam’s prick, and his own cock twitched to life. “Oh, shit, I can’t believe it, baby, but I think I like having you inside me. Please…” He wiggled on Adam’s dick, and they both shivered at the small slide inside Rhone’s ass. This was it. He could not turn back now. He wanted it all. With Adam. Forever. “Give me everything, Reyes. Fuck me. Don’t hold anything back.”

Buried deep inside Rhone’s fisting rectum, listening to Rhone give his permission to take as he wanted, busted the dam holding Adam’s pure need in check. He pulled out and shoved back into Rhone’s scorching channel, truly making love to this man in a way he had secretly dreamed of doing for a decade. His cock screamed at him to move with speed, to rove deeply and repeatedly, to fuck without fear of revulsion and disgust. Adam grabbed Rhone’s hips, steadied him, and began to do just that.

He shafted Rhone’s tight, hot chute, taking the dark passage to the hilt again and again.

“Oh, God,” Adam moaned and pumped his hips into Rhone, sliding his aching member into a tight tunnel that felt as if the Creator had made it to custom fit him. Tonight, Rhone got everything, whether he wanted it in the light of tomorrow or not. “I love your ass so much. I fucking knew I would.” He looked down and watched his penis disappear into Rhone’s stretched hole. Biting back a fierce wave of pleasure, Adam fought the need to come. Not yet, not so quickly, please. The combination of friction and heat burned Adam alive, and he pounded Rhone’s ass with a half-dozen hard strokes, pushing Rhone forward on his knees with each taking, slowly moving him closer to the mirror with each thrust.

Rhone grunted and spread his legs wider, his face red and his eyes piercing. He reached out and plastered a hand to the mirror, creating an immovable object for Adam’s desires. “Oh, yeah, fuck me, fuck me…” His face twisted in what Adam could only believe was incredible, shocking delight. “Come on, Adam” -- he pushed back on Adam’s plowing cock -- “do it hard. Fucking make me feel it.” He choked on his words as Adam drove in deep and covered Rhone from behind like a stallion mounting a mare in heat. Adam humped Rhone’s ass without control: erratic, choppy, and rough.

“Goddamnit, just like that.” Rhone took everything Adam gave and pushed back on Adam’s dick for more. “Christ, baby, I love you in my ass. You’re gonna fucking make me come.”

Adam reached between Rhone’s legs and touched his fingers over a hot, leaking prick, sticking out so long and rigid the tip almost grazed the floor. “Holy shit, you’re hard as a rock.” He took his hand away and speared a fast, deep stroke in and out of Rhone’s flaming asshole. Rhone cried out, took it, and circled his ass back for more.

“I know.” Rhone grunted and gasped. “You’re making it happen.”

Wonder and shock rocked through Adam’s core. He drove into Rhone deep and hard, no longer afraid of Rhone’s acceptance at all.

“God, man,” Adam uttered thickly. “I think you’re a fucking natural bottom.”

Glazed, stormy eyes met Adam’s in the mirror. “I think with you I am.” Rhone’s hand slipped from the mirror, and his shoulders fell to the floor. “I want to feel you fucking me in every way.” With half of his face digging into the carpet, Rhone reached back and drew a line down his crack until the tips of his fingers grazed Adam’s cock where it disappeared into his ass. “Do it. Move.” He circled his fingers around the stretched entrance. “I want a picture of what it looks like when your cock takes my hole.”

Desire slammed through Adam unlike anything he had ever experienced in all of his days. God, he had no idea Rhone would be so hedonistic. Damn it, he seemed to love having his partner handle him.

“You want to feel everything?” Adam kicked Rhone’s legs out and pushed him flat onto the floor. Adam blanketed Rhone and gave him one plunging thrust to experience with his fingers before tearing them away. He then stretched Rhone’s arms out wide on either side of his body and covered him from shoulder to hand with the full weight of another man. Laying his cheek on top of Rhone’s, he linked their fingers and shoved his palms into the carpet. Adam rolled his hips in a circle and gave the nerves in Rhone’s anus something new with which to contend. “You want me to overwhelm you and take you hard until you come?”

“Yes.” The word came out almost as a groan.

Adam squeezed Rhone’s hands in response, fighting the need to come. He tucked up deep inside Rhone’s exquisite ass channel and pressed his lips to Rhone’s ear. “I love you, Rhone Quinn,” he whispered. He didn’t move his body, only grazed a kiss against Rhone’s dark mess of hair. “If I could marry you, I would. I want to grow old together until all we can do is hold hands and sleep the night away in each other’s arms. I want to love you forever and take care of you, because nobody knows your heart better or loves you as much as I --”

Rhone tensed beneath him, and air rushed out of Adam’s lungs. Rhone’s eyes squeezed closed, and he convulsed, whimpering as his chute squeezed Adam’s dick in a vise.

“Oh, my God.” Adam let go of one of Rhone’s hands and stroked his hair off his forehead. “I can’t belie --”

Rhone opened his eyes and locked on Adam. “You did it.” He pulled Adam’s other hand under their bodies and dragged his fingers over the small spit of semen smearing his belly. “You spoke to me so beautifully you made me come.”

“I…I…”

“I don’t know how or when it happened” -- Rhone slid Adam’s palm up to his chest and covered the pounding in his heart -- “but I love you too, Adam.” Wetness shone in Rhone’s pale eyes. “I swear I do.”

Adam wanted to speak, but there were no words potent enough to express the depth of emotion that filled him up to overflowing. Pure, unfiltered love rushed through Adam’s entire being, too much for Adam to hold inside. He pressed his face to Rhone’s neck, flinching as he felt the end game overtake him. His mouth fell open against Rhone’s nape as it happened. He came, experiencing the sensation of an almost unbearable release, feeling it acutely and deeply as he flooded Rhone’s rectum with his seed. Incapable of movement or speech, Adam’s cock swelled and throbbed within Rhone, spilling hot, endless spurts of cum into Rhone’s ass, marking Rhone as taken, as Rhone had done to Adam a little while ago.

Eventually -- Adam couldn’t say how much time passed -- Rhone’s chute drained the last drip of seed out of Adam’s prick. Both Rhone’s anus and Adam’s penis stopped squeezing and pulsing, and they finally stilled.

Chapter Eight

Uncertain about what would happen in the wake of such intimacy, Adam reluctantly lifted his face out of the crook of Rhone’s neck. “I guess I should get off you, huh?”

“I want to say no.” Rhone had his eyes closed, and he sounded downright drowsy. “But the truth is I’m starting to get a little stiff from being pushed into the floor. I’m not twenty-seven any more.” He reached back and slid his hand down Adam’s haunch. “Like some people I know.”

“Right. Sorry.” Heat crept up Adam’s neck and flamed his face. He couldn’t believe, after everything they had just done to each other, Rhone could still make him feel so flustered. Adam levered up and carefully withdrew his penis from Rhone’s asshole.

“Oh, Christ.” Rhone dug his fingers into Adam’s thigh. “That part still feels really weird.”

Adam wanted to tell Rhone he would get used to it, but now that the heat of sexual gratification had passed, he didn’t want to assume this would happen again. It was one thing for Rhone to fuck him and express affection in the privacy of Adam’s office; starting a homosexual relationship when he’d never even hinted at being interested in men before was quite another.

Rhone shifted to his knees, his joints cracking loudly as he got to his feet. “Damn, I’m gonna feel this in the morning.” He chuckled, but then winced. His gaze flickered over Adam as he stumbled to his clothes and dressed himself. “In more places than my legs.”

Yeah, Adam had gotten a little rough. He remembered the first time he had gone at himself vigorously with a dildo. “A warm bath will make you feel a little less sore.” He got dressed quickly, still unable to make himself clean up and remove any leftover residue from his night with Rhone. “I’m sorry I took you so hard.”

Buttoning his shirt, Rhone moved to Adam. “I’m not.” He curled his hand around Adam’s neck and drew him close. “I asked you to do it. Hell” -- he leaned in and nipped Adam’s mouth, chuckling -- “once I let myself relax and feel you there, I fucking begged for it.”

“I know, but…”

“But nothing.” Rhone took Adam’s hand, linking their fingers. He didn’t cower, and his stare never wavered. “This isn’t going away, Adam. You opened a door, and I’m walking through. You can’t go getting scared now about what I’ll see and do once I get inside.”

Adam was so close to everything he had ever wanted, but if Rhone took it away come morning, Adam knew he would shatter. “What if what’s inside can’t satisfy you for more than a brief period of discovering something new? I would have to go away, Rhone --”

Rhone squeezed his fingers around Adam’s nape, and his face turned dark. “You go nowhere without me, do you understand?” He took Adam’s mouth in a hard, fast kiss, bruising Adam’s lips with his touch. His pale eyes became a storm of gray. “I don’t bed-hop, and I don’t enter into sexual relationships lightly; you know that. I don’t know why I’m all of a sudden so attracted to you; for me, it doesn’t matter. I already sensed that I loved you, I just didn’t grasp that I was in love with you until tonight. You are a good, strong, kind man, and I have always admired the choices you’ve made and the direction you took with your life. Even if the sex went away -- and Christ, after tonight I don’t think it will -- I would still love you and want to be with you, even if we just shared a table under the same roof for the next fifty years or so. I don’t change my mind once I decide I want something, Reyes, and tonight I decided that I want you. Now come on” -- he pecked a sweet kiss on the tip of Adam’s nose -- “I’m tired as hell. Let’s go home.”

Adam let Rhone lead him to the door. Rhone opened it, but Adam tugged before they crossed the threshold.

Rhone looked back, an easy smile turning his sensual mouth up at the edges. “What is it, honey?”

Adam shivered. God, he could get used to this man calling him honey. Even so, it terrified him to take a leap and let himself believe he and Rhone could last in the harsh light of public scrutiny. Rhone was so damned macho, and their business demanded complete confidence in them from their clients.

“Have you considered what you’re saying to me?” Adam asked. “The kind of hope you’re giving me will break me if you turn away from me, if you can’t back it up come the first sign of discovery. It’s easy to say you want to be with me when I’m the only one who knows about it. But what about when other people see us together? Have you thought about what that kind of judgment will do to you? To your business? Your friends? This isn’t pretending in an alley to cover up a surveillance job. We’re talking making a public commitment to each other, every day, in every aspect of our lives.” Fear of future rejection stalled Adam’s feet just inside his office. “It’s a lot to think about, Rhone.”

“It’s nothing to think about for me.” Rhone took Adam’s face in his hands and wouldn’t let him hide. “I’m not going to throw you away if you displease me some day, Adam. Not ever. Let yourself believe in that. Trust in me.”

“Still…”

“Still nothing. No excuses anymore. Hell, do you have any idea how much you wrecked me when you moved out? Until tonight, I didn’t know why I spent the last year moping around that apartment without you. Now, I know. It’s because it’s not my place, Adam. It’s ours, and half of us wasn’t there.”

Tears pushed at the back of Adam’s eyes. But where they stood, this place, meant everything to Rhone. “What about Quinn Security? Our clients?”

Rhone pulled Adam into his arms and settled his chin on top of Adam’s head. As he talked, he tenderly stroked Adam’s back. “I care about the opinion of two people in this world, Adam. Yours and my brother’s. Deep down, I think you already know that. Now, I already know how you feel.” He kissed Adam on the temple. “As for my brother…”

A deep, husky chuckle sounded out from the outer office. “As for his brother” -- Canin’s voice reached their ears through the open door -- “he won’t give a shit, especially since he’s the one who made up the phony emergency that got Rhone to your office tonight in the first place.”

Together, Adam and Rhone whipped around and took a full step out of his office. At Adam’s assistant’s desk, Kasey sat in the chair with her feet kicked up on the surface. Canin had his hip hoisted on the edge.

“What?” Adam croaked. He stumbled. Rhone grabbed him and tucked him against his chest. “What are you talking about?”

Laughter from Rhone rumbled through Adam’s back. “You little shit.” Rhone pointed at his brother. “I should have known you were setting me up when you sent me here to Adam’s office, but once I saw Adam, I didn’t think. How in the hell did you know?”

Canin raised a dark brow, transforming his hard, cynical face to almost handsome. “Because I’m not an idiot,” he said. “You don’t see yourself when you’re looking at Adam, little brother, but I do. I’ve suspected for a long time that if you had the right nudge, you would see that you care about Adam a whole lot more deeply than just about any other person on the goddamned planet. I subtly asked Kasey if she thought she saw something too.”

“He means he cornered me in my office earlier this week and didn’t let up until I told him everything I knew about Adam’s feelings.” Kasey’s tone came across as dry as an Arizona summer.

Ah, so that’s why Kasey manipulated me into having our session at the office. Adam had fought it, but when Rhone trapped him in that gaze yesterday, stirring his desire, Adam couldn’t refuse, no matter the location. God, he never could have imagined this.

Canin sat up straight and turned on Kasey. “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah, genius.” A giant “duh” sat front and center over Kasey’s head. “But only because I so masterfully maneuvered Adam into being here tonight and then conveniently forgot to lock his office door. Your grand idea was to get them in the elevator and then shut it down. What in the hell would that have done? It sure would not have kicked up Rhone’s protective juices and drawn out his jealousy over Adam.”

“We were lobbing ideas around, woman,” Canin shot back, fully up in Kasey’s personal space now. “It was just a thought. I had plenty others.”

Kasey rolled her eyes. “You mean like wait until Christmas and get them both under the mistletoe and make them kiss? I’m sorry, I forgot. That one definitely would have worked.”

The bickering kicked up a notch, and Adam and Rhone might as well not have been in the room any longer.

Rhone rubbed his hands up and down Adam’s arms. Leaning down, he whispered, “See? Feel better now? The other half of our business wants us to be together.” He turned Adam around and tilted his face up. Confidence, ease, and damn it, love, shone in Rhone’s silver eyes. “But even if they hadn’t” -- he pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to Adam’s lips -- “you’re mine now, and I would not have given you up. You can either accept it, and we’ll get started on this thing right away” -- Rhone slid his hand around Adam’s waist and then went lower -- “or I can pursue you. While that would be a lot of fun… Christ, think about the time we’d miss out on sharing a bed until I caught you.” His fingers traced Adam’s crease through his pants. “So, what do you think?”

The familiar sounds of Kasey and Canin fighting in the background settled Adam’s troubled heart. These three people were his family now. They were a strange one, for sure, but being together like this reminded Adam that they were a secure one too. He still held a kernel of hope in his most secret heart that his tía would come to him one day with an open mind and outstretched arms. He knew now that even if she never did, he would be okay. Adam’s fear that his love for Rhone would destroy this makeshift family the four of them had created for themselves untwisted inside him and dissolved, leaving him enveloped in pure, certain love.

Taking Rhone’s shirt in his fists, Adam tugged the man down until they were eye to eye and lips to lips. “I say I love you and am tired of hiding it from everyone.” He took Rhone’s mouth with a slow, sweet seduction, sinking his tongue inside to mate. Rhone moaned and yanked Adam to him, rubbing their cocks against each other through their clothes.

Groaning with need, Adam reluctantly broke the kiss and separated their lower bodies. “No more of that tonight,” he scolded. “Even a miracle wouldn’t get you up a fourth time in three hours, and you’re gonna be way too tender for me to take you again tonight.”

“So…” Rhone stole another quick kiss. Damn, Adam loved having a man who liked touching and showing affection. “What do you want to do instead?”

A wicked idea swept Adam, and he smiled. He kept his hold on Rhone’s shirt and started back-walking them out of the office.

“I know that look, Reyes.” Rhone happily let Adam lead him down the darkened hall. Christ, it was fun being in love with your best friend. “It usually accompanies a killer business idea. Tell me what you’ve got.”

“I say we return the favor.” Adam nodded his head back in the direction of his vacated office. “Your brother and Kasey have been poking at each other like that forever. I think we ought to help them see that what they really want is a whole lot of fucking and even more tender loving.” His dark eyes twinkled mischievously in a way that stole what remained of Rhone’s heart. Damn, how had he lived with Adam right under his nose and never recognized this passionate love burning in him? Rhone would spend the rest of his life making up for lost time. “Are you up for a night of sharing a bed and strategizing until we come up with the perfect plan?”

Rhone threw back his head and laughed. “Honey, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” He slipped his hand into Adam’s, excited about his future in a way he had never thought possible.

Of course, he hadn’t had Adam in it so intimately until tonight.

That made all the difference in the world.

“Let’s go, sweetheart.” Rhone tugged Adam’s hand, lifting it to his mouth as they walked to the elevators. “Time to go home. To our home.”

Adam followed willingly, but knew the truth. He already was home.

Right at Rhone’s side.

THE END