plik

Carnal Passions Presents

Search Me

L. A. Witt

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in
this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed
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One

Gun in both hands, I inched down the hall of Nick's

apartment. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, my nerve
endings tingling and my senses on high alert for any indication there
was someone here. So far, the apartment was empty. Nothing had
been disturbed.

"Nick," I said over my shoulder, keeping my voice down.

"Did you leave your bedroom door open or closed?"

"I don't know," he said. "Probably closed."
I pursed my lips. Up ahead, the door was ajar.
As I took another step forward, I said, "Stay up against the

wall."

Fabric rustled behind me, so I didn't look back to make sure

he'd done as I asked. Instead, I continued toward the door, listening
for  any  movement  beyond  it.  If  Jesse  was  here,  he  could  be  in  any
state  of  mind.  Lucid.  Volatile.  Going  through  withdrawal.  In  the
middle  of  a  high.  The  kid  was  mentally  ill  anyway,  plus  he  was  a
crack  addict.  After  he'd  attacked  Nick  the  other  night,  breaking  his
nose and nearly strangling him, there was no predicting what would
be going on in the kid's head now.

At the door, I paused for a moment, listening. Then I nudged

the door open with my foot.

Everything happened so fast. So goddamned fast. He must

have been completely still, completely silent, and I didn't see him
until he raised the gun. Until the muzzle flash startled me, sent me
stumbling back in the same instant fire ripped across the side of my
arm and a donkey kick's worth of force hit the center of my chest.

Nick tried to steady me, but we both went down.
As he scrambled to his feet, I gripped my upper arm. It was a

minor wound. Grazed me. My chest ached where my vest had
stopped the second bullet, and breathing took some extra effort, but it
was nothing serious.

And Jesse was still here.
"Andrew, are you okay?" Nick asked. Concern and fear were

etched all over his bruised, cut-up face.

"The gun." I coughed, then spoke through clenched teeth.

"Get my gun."

The pistol that had been in my hands had fallen just beyond

the open doorway, so Nick took the revolver from my ankle holster.

From the other side of the doorway came a hysterical,

familiar voice: "Oh God, oh God, oh God…"

"Jesse, put the gun down," I called out. I moved to my knees.

"Jesse…"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry," came the

shrill, shaky response. "I didn't mean to, Mark, I didn't—"

"Jesse, just calm down." I kept my voice low. The kid only

knew me by my undercover name, and probably had no idea I was a
cop.  He  was  already  delusional  and  had  long  ago  bought  into  a
charade my partner and I had put on for months. As I tried to figure
out  how  to  defuse  this  situation,  I  noticed  Jesse  had  dropped  his
weapon. The noise and the kick must have scared the shit out of him.
That,  or  he'd  realized  he'd  hit  me—not  Nick,  the  one  he  probably
wanted to shoot—and freaked.

Dropping my voice a little lower, I said, "Nick. His gun. It's

on the floor." I nodded toward the bedroom.

Nick looked. Then he turned to me and mouthed, "What do I

do?"

"Just stay there." I gestured at the revolver in his hand. "Aim

the gun at the doorway."

He cocked his head. "Aim the—"
"Just do it. He goes anywhere near either gun, do not hesitate

to fire."

Nick nodded and drew the hammer back. He swallowed

hard, his Adam's apple bobbing between the purple and red welts
across the front of his throat. I thought he shuddered. He had to have

been scared out of his mind, but he did as I said, adopting the
shooting stance I'd taught him and aiming his weapon at the bedroom
doorway.

"Jesse, move where I can see you," I ordered.
"No, no, I can't, it's—"
"Jesse, move where I can see you. Now."
Tentative, unseen movement shuffled across carpet.
"Jesse, I'm not fucking around." I sucked in a breath as I

gingerly pushed myself to my feet, still clutching my wounded arm.
"Get in front of the doorway with your hands in the air and don't
touch that gun. Come on, Jesse."

Another step.
"Can you see him?" I asked.
"Not yet," Nick said.
"Come on, Jesse," I barked. "Now."
"Please don't shoot me," came the shrill voice from the other

side. He was crying now, almost hyperventilating.

"I'm not going to shoot you unless you reach for a gun,"

Nick said. "Come out now, or I'm coming in."

Jesse stepped into view. His eyes were wild with fury and

probably no shortage of chemical influence, but also red from crying.
His hands were up and his face was blotchy, vertical streaks marking
where tears had cut through the dirt on his skin. He struggled just to
breathe in between sobbing, and when he looked past Nick and saw
me, he cried even harder.

"Oh, God," he moaned. "I'm sorry, Mark, I'm sorry…" He

whimpered and shook, brushing frantically at his arms like he had
unseen insects crawling all over him. His legs trembled under him as
he rocked back and forth. Fuck. He was probably coming off a high,
maybe even a binge, and if ever a crackhead was going to be volatile
and dangerous, this was it.

"Jesse, put your hands back up," Nick said calmly.
Jesse's hysteria shifted to anger when he glared at Nick.
"Fuck you. I wanted to hit you, not…" He looked at me

again and crumbled into renewed crying. "Mark, oh God, I'm sorry, I
didn't mean to, I'm so..." He mumbled something after that, sobbing
and struggling to speak. He started to sink to the floor, way too close
to my gun for comfort.

"Stand up, Jesse," Nick said sharply. "Stand up and put your

hands where I can see them. Now."

Jesse obeyed, but stared at Nick with nothing but rage in his

eyes. "You killed Chelsea." His voice cracked and he blinked
rapidly. "You killed her, I saw you, I saw you, I tried to save her…"

"Jesse, I didn't kill anyone." Nick's voice shook, but the gun

in his hands stayed rock steady.

"Listen to him, Jesse," I said. "He didn't kill anyone.

Chelsea's alive. She's fine."

"No, she's not," Jesse said. "I'm not stupid, Mark. I saw her. I

fucking saw her."

"And you damn near killed me," Nick growled.
Jesse crumbled into incomprehensible crying and mumbling.
Struggling to keep my voice calm, I said, "Chelsea is not

dead, Jesse."

"You're both lying." Jesse's voice inched toward even greater

hysteria. He tore at his own hair, wavering back and forth on shaking
knees. "She's dead, I saw her, and they moved everything out of her
house and took it all away, and—"

"Jesse, I can call her," Nick said. "We'll let you talk to her.

She's alive, I promise."

Jesse clutched his hair and shook his head and fidgeted.

"You're lying. You're lying. I'm not stupid, Mark, I'm not stupid and
she's dead, I saw her, I saw what he did to her, I saw it, you—"

"She's not dead, Jesse," Nick said.
"You're lying!" All at once, Jesse went for a gun on the

floor, and Nick fired. The sound and recoil must have caught him off
guard, especially with the vertigo from his concussion, and he
grabbed the doorframe for balance.

Jesse dropped to the floor, screaming. For about two

seconds, I thought he was neutralized and this might be over, but
then he lunged for one of the guns.

"Nick! The gun!" Without thinking, I shoved Nick out of the

way. A gunshot. Pain. More shots.

I dropped to my knees, holding my arm. The wound was

worse than it had been earlier. Far worse. No, no, it wasn't. This was
a new one. A deeper, bloodier one, right through my upper arm.

"Oh, fuck…"

A hand materialized on my shoulder.
Nick's voice sounded far away as he said, "Are you—"
"Get the gun," I said through my teeth.
Nick left my side. I was vaguely aware of movement, of

Jesse moaning beside me, but more than anything, I was aware of the
hot blood slipping through my fingers and over the back of my hand.
My head spun. I slumped forward, my vision turning black, and from
nowhere, Nick was beside me again.

"Easy," he said. "Lie back." He guided me onto my back,

which slowed some of the spinning. Then he was gone again. Panic
rose in my throat, alternately directed at the wound, my waning
consciousness, and Nick's absence.

His voice and presence returned. "Look, I'm a paramedic and

one of these guys might be bleeding out." Who is he talking to? "I
need both hands to do this. Just send help and send it now."

A second later, something clattered beside me. A gun? A

phone? Fuck if I knew, because the pain in my arm worsened.
Someone was moving my arm. Squeezing it.

"Keep a tight grip on this," Nick said, guiding my hand to a

towel he'd wrapped around my arm, "and hold it against your side.
It's going to hurt like hell, but don't let go of it."

I gripped the towel, which sent daggers of pain shooting

through the wound. "Fuck, that hurts."

"It's going to. But don't let go."
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I looked around at

the blood and bullet holes in the room. "Looks like you're fucked for
your damage deposit," I muttered.

Nick chuckled. "And I thought I had a dark sense of humor."

He nodded at my arm. "Keep holding that."

He started to stand.
Panicked, I seized his wrist. "Wait, where are you going?"
Nick gestured at Jesse. "I have to help him. He's bleeding

badly. I'm not going far and help is on its way."

"Nick…" My heart pounded. My head spun faster.
Don't leave me like this. Nick, don't leave. Don't go, please.
But he got up. As I fought to stay conscious, to see through

the pain and my fading vision, he got up and walked away.

He walked away.

He walked away.
Nick…don't leave me like this…

~ * ~

My eyes flew open and I pulled in a breath.
That same fucking dream again.
I wanted to tell myself it wasn't real, that it was just a

damned dream, but I knew better. Sighing I rubbed my eyes. The
dull ache in my other arm reminded me that no amount of "it's not
real" would change the fact that the dream was real. It had happened.
The better part of a year ago, yes, but whether it had happened back
then or just now, it was anything but "not real".

I fidgeted, then cursed under my breath. No wonder my arm

ached:  it  was  pressed  between  the  back  of  the  couch  and  me.  I
moved  just  enough  to  free  my  arm,  then  raised  it,  bending  and
straightening  my  elbow  gingerly.  Same  thing  happened  last  night.
One of these days, maybe I'd learn how to sleep on the couch without
fucking up my arm. Like facing the other direction or something.

Then again, it would all be a moot point if I just got up and

stayed in the bedroom, but I couldn't. Not now.

I couldn't sleep in the bedroom because Nick was gone.
I was used to spending nights apart, but this was different.

This  wasn't  like  when  he  stayed  at  the  firehouse  for  his  three  day
shifts. During his rotations, he was gone for a few nights, and when
that  was  over,  he  came  through  the  front  door,  sleepy-eyed  and
exhausted, in the  morning  before  I  went  to  work.  Not  this time.  He
was  really  gone  this  time.  Not  moved  out  yet,  but  all  it  would  take
was  a  borrowed  pickup  truck,  some  cardboard  boxes,  and  a  few
hours to take care of that.

He hadn't decided yet if this was permanent, but it didn't feel

temporary to me. There was too much finality in the click of the
front door two nights ago. He didn't storm out. He didn't slam the
door. He just quietly said he had to go, needed to go—Nick, please,
don't go—and slipped through my fingers.

I exhaled and rubbed my forehead, swallowing the lump that

kept trying to rise in my throat. We'd had problems for a while now,
but I'd been so sure we'd be all right. Even when we'd fought and
couldn't stand the sight of each other, when we went days on end

Two

"You, my friend, look like hell." Detective Macy Lombardi,

my partner, dropped into her chair at the desk in front of mine.

"Good morning to you, too," I muttered.
Concern knitted her eyebrows together. "You and Nick still

having problems?"

"Oh, just a few." I reached for my coffee cup, but when I

picked it up, it was empty. Just like it had been twenty minutes ago
when I realized I needed to go refill it.

She folded her arms on the edge of the desk and cocked her

head. "Have you guys talked?"

I pushed my empty coffee cup aside and closed my eyes.

Rubbing my forehead with two fingers, I tried to ignore the noise of
the precinct—ringing phones, chattering voices, shuffling papers,
scraping and rolling chairs, doors banging closed—but even if the
place was dead silent, my head still would have been throbbing. Lack
of sleep, not enough caffeine, generally feeling like—

"Andrew?"
I looked at Macy. "We haven't talked. Not since he left."
She scowled. "You aren't giving up on him, are you?"
"No, I'm not." I rubbed the back of my neck and avoided her

eyes. "Can't say the same about him, though."

"Well, you know where I stand on the issue. You guys either

need  to  talk  this thing  through,  right  down  to  all the uncomfortable
shit that I  know you haven't discussed, or throw in the towel before
the stress kills you both."

Sighing, I said nothing. She was right, after all. Wasn't she

always?

"Shit." Macy stood suddenly, and I looked up. "It's almost

nine. We should get out of here if we're going to meet with Haines
on time."

"Crap, already?" I looked at my watch. Sure enough, we

didn't have a lot of time, so I got up, grabbed my jacket and keys,
and we headed down to the parking garage.

After our respective injuries during an undercover job, not to

mention having our cover blown, Macy and I were mostly relegated
to  desk  detail  these  days.  Our  faces  were  too  well  known  in
Masontown—the  seedy  neighborhood  that  served  as  the  hub  of  the
city's  thriving  drug  trade—for  us  to  be  on  the  streets  much,  but  we
still discreetly met with informants in other parts of town as part of
the  ongoing  investigation.  It  wasn't  the  same  as  our  more  intense,
firsthand involvement,  but we  were  both  content  to  work  with  a  bit
less excitement after each getting a little too closely acquainted with
the Grim Reaper.

On a day like today, when my mind wanted to focus on one

thing and one thing only, I welcomed the opportunity to get out of
the precinct. It kept me busy, kept my mind on my work, and didn't
let me wallow at my desk. Even if the informant was an asshole who
was going to wind up with a bullet through his balls if he kept
leering at Macy and smarting off to me.

"I'm going to hand that guy his ass one of these days," I

growled into my coffee at a diner down the street from the precinct.

Macy laughed. "You're so adorably protective, Andrew."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, whatever. He's a jackass."
"We're not pretending to be married anymore," she said with

a smirk. "You can stop playing the territorial husband."

At that, I laughed. "Macy, darling, if we were still pretending

to be married, I'd tell him to have at it."

She scoffed and glared at me. "What? You asshole."
I shrugged. "You married me."
"Only because the chief told me to."
"What?" I put my hand to my chest and feigned offense. "So

it was just an assignment to you? Just… a marriage of convenience?"

"Convenience, my left tit," she muttered, lifting her coffee

cup to her lips. "Isn't like you ever put out or anything."

"Sorry, my dear." I shrugged again. "You're not exactly my

type."

She snorted, very nearly choking on her coffee, and we both

laughed.

Then the bells on the diner door jingled behind me, and

when Macy looked past me, her eyebrows rose slightly. "Pity I'm not
that man's type, let me tell you"

I didn't even have to turn around. "Do I have to tell Tony

you're ogling other men again?"

She waved a hand. "Considering every man who catches my

eye these days is gay, he'll probably just laugh."

I chuckled. "Good point."
A second later, the object of her momentary affection slid

into the booth beside me.

"Sorry I'm late," Eric said. "Brian had to bail, though."
"What?" Macy released a melodramatic, exasperated breath.

"Here I thought I'd be spending my lunch surrounded by beautiful
gay men, but now I'm just stuck with two of you?"

Eric laughed. "Guess you'll just have to make do."
The three of us made small talk which segued into shop talk.

We were all involved in the same investigation, after all: after Eric's
deep-cover investigation ended a few months ago, he resigned from
the  DEA  and  went  to  work  with  our  department.  Brian,  his
significant  other,  worked  over  in  homicide,  but since Eric  had  been
in tight with countless players in the drug trade—after all, he'd spent
months  posing  as  James  Merrill,  the  kingpin  of  one  particular
operation—he came to the narcotics unit. We'd become good friends
over  the  last  couple  of  months,  which  I  supposed  was  inevitable
between  working  together  and  the  fact  that  he  was  dating  my
longtime friend. Now if Nick and Eric would stop striking sparks off
each other…

Which will probably be a moot point sooner than later

anyway.

The thought made my heart sink.
"Hey," Macy said. "Andrew?"
I blinked, then looked at my two lunch companions. They

were both staring at me, and I wondered how long I'd gone quiet
before she'd gotten my attention.

I cleared my throat. "Sorry, what?"
Eric cocked his head. "You all right, man?"
"Yeah. Yeah." I muffled a cough. "I'm fine."
They both exchanged glances, then eyed me skeptically.
"We were asking if you remembered whose turn it was to get

the check," Eric said.

"I, um…" I absently reached for my long empty coffee cup.

"I think it's Macy's."

She huffed. He laughed.
"I told you." He shoved the check across the table. "Go pay,

woman."

"Woman?" She glared at him. "Do we need to take this

outside?"

He put up his hands. "Are you arguing with me? I mean, you

are—"

"Oh, fuck you." She picked up the check and stood. As she

walked past him, she shoved his arm, and all three of us laughed,
though I was pretty halfhearted about it.

After she'd gone, Eric turned to me, his expression more

serious.

"You sure you

're all right?"

I sighed and pushed my coffee cup away. "Yeah. I'm just

still stressed about everything with Nick."

He pursed his lips. "You guys still having problems?"
Not for much longer, at this rate.
"You could say that," I said quietly. "How are you and Brian

doing?"

"Oh, you know." He shrugged. "The longer he goes without

drinking, the less touch-and-go things are."

"I can imagine," I said dryly.
"We'll be all right, though." He furrowed his brow. "You

think you guys will pull through?"

"Don't know." I sighed. "He left the other night and hasn't

been back. Hasn't moved out, but isn't exactly running back in
either."

"Oh, shit," Eric said quietly. "Have you—"
"Talked to him?" I kept my tone even; my frustration wasn't

directed at Eric, so I didn't want to snap at him. "Not yet. I need to."

He nodded. "No kidding. Sooner than later, if he's already

out the door."

A knot twisted and tightened below my ribs. Eric had a

point. The longer Nick and I let this sit, the more likely it was to
settle into something permanent. Assuming it hadn't already, and I
was just too stubborn to accept that.

By the time I had a few minutes to myself at my desk that

afternoon, I couldn't wait any longer. Nick was leaning toward
checking out and calling it quits, so if anyone was going to bridge
this gap, it needed to be me, and it needed to be now.

Heart in my throat, I took my phone out of my pocket and

thumbed a quick text.

I'd like to talk. Face to face, if we can.
I stared at the message for a long moment, second-guessing

myself and wondering if—

Fuck it. I pressed the send button, and before I could decide

if I regretted it, the message was gone.

I set my phone beside the stack of paperwork that needed my

attention. I glanced at it. Again. Again. Minutes passed by. More of
them. A dozen. Two. Three. An hour.

Exhaling, I scrubbed a hand over my face and pretended my

stomach didn't sink a little lower with every passing minute. Nick
was hardly one to ignore a text, even from me. Especially from me,
if only because he couldn't relax or concentrate if there was
something unresolved in his world. Then again, maybe for him this
was resolved just shy of a moving van.

I took a deep breath and released it slowly. He was probably

on a call. Whenever he was on duty, long silences were usually
broken with a text that began sorry, I was on a call.

He had to be on a call. He wouldn't ignore me, especially if

he was pissed at me.

Come on, Nick. Come on. I want to work this out.
Almost an hour later, about the time I was ready to shut off

my phone just to maintain my sanity, a text came through.

Sorry, I was on a call. We can talk if you want to. I'm on duty

until tomorrow morning, though.

I exhaled. Well, it was a start.
I wrote back, I can bring dinner by the firehouse tonight.

My heart pounded as I sent the message. Deep down, I

expected him to suggest we do this over the phone, from some kind
of safe distance.

After a full minute, a reply:
I'll be around.
The message was non-committal and unenthusiastic, but it

wasn't a no. At this point, I'd take that.

At around seven thirty that evening, I walked into the

firehouse  with  some  takeout  Chinese  food.  Nick  was  in  the  lounge
with  some  of  the  other  guys,  and  when  I  walked  in,  he  looked  up
from  watching  the  game,  but  didn't  look  too  thrilled  to  see  me.  His
expression was flat, blank, as neutral as he was capable of, and that
did  nothing  to  settle  my  nerves.  I  had  hoped  for  a  flicker  of
something to give  me a hint how this evening would go, whether it
was an irritated scowl or a not-quite-suppressed grin, but he gave me
nothing.

One of the firefighters, Bentley, wasn't quite so poker-faced.

As soon as he saw me, he scowled, but didn't say anything as he
turned his attention back to the game on television. He'd never said a
word about his distaste for Nick's relationship with me, and neither
of them let their mutual dislike get in the way when they were on a
call together, but his quiet annoyance still got under my skin.

Nick and I left the guys to their game and headed out of the

lounge. The night was warm, so we went outside as we often did.

"It's been a busy night." Nick pushed the door open and

gestured for me to go out ahead of him. "Can't promise I won't get a
call."

I shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time it's happened during

dinner."

He offered a tight-lipped chuckle, but said nothing.
We took a seat on our usual bench beside the concrete patio,

and neither of us spoke as we pulled some cartons of Chinese food,
packets  of  soy  sauce,  and  cans  of  Coke  out  of  the  plastic  bags  I'd
brought with me. The silence continued as we ate, and I tried not to
notice  how  the  scattered  cartons  filled—and  almost  masked—the
distance between us on the bench.

Though neither of us spoke, I cast a few surreptitious glances

at him in the silvery light from a single mercury vapor lamp above

the door.

He was obviously exhausted, as was I. Both of our jobs were

demanding, and the hours could be brutal, especially in his line of
work. His shoulders slumped under his blue uniform shirt, and every
motion—manipulating his chopsticks, opening the tab on his soda—
seemed to require every bit of energy he had.

The thin, pale scar, slightly off-center on the bridge of his

nose, was the only visible reminder of the night Jesse Kendall tried
to kill him. Most of the time, I didn't even see the scar, but once in a
while, the light caught it just right, reflecting off the sliver of slightly
shinier skin. The light above the firehouse door glinted off it, and in
my mind's eye, all the marks that had long since healed re-emerged:
the bruising under his eyes, across his forehead, and down the length
of his nose. The deep, angry marks across his throat from the tire
iron Jesse had used to try to strangle him. The bloody scratches from
Nick's own efforts to pry that tire iron off so he could breathe. He'd
looked like hell the morning after the attack, but his appearance that
night, when he was still lying on the floor of that hallway after a
neighbor chased Jesse off, haunted me to this day. The sight of blood
didn't bother me, but that much blood covering my boyfriend's face?

I shuddered.
"Cold?" Nick's voice startled me.
"No, I'm fine." I shifted, rolling my shoulders to ward off a

chill. One fleck of light off that scar, and it had all came back, and
with it, the deep-seated fear that had brought me here tonight in the
first place: the realization of how easily I could lose him.

Nick cleared his throat and idly played with a flap on the

carton in his hand. "So, you wanted to talk?"

I nodded and set my Coke can beside me on the bench.

"Don't you think we should?"

With his chopsticks, he unenthusiastically picked at the

chow mein in the carton. "We have talked. And we've argued. And
we've…" Shaking his head, he put the carton aside and turned to me.
God, his eyes looked so tired, and his voice was heavy with fatigue
as he spoke again. "How much longer do we keep doing this before
we realize we're more miserable than we are happy?"

"I want to figure out why we're more miserable than happy,"

I said. "I don't want to lose you, Nick." I'm scared to death I already

have.

He shifted his gaze away.
Barely whispering, I asked, "Do you want to make this

work?"

Nick swallowed. He didn't respond right away, which wasn't

unusual for him. No man could mull things over like he often did,
but I had hoped that question wouldn't require as much thought. The
answer was a no-brainer for me, and every second of silence hurt a
little more than the last.

Finally, he drew a breath and looked at me. "I want this to

work. I do. It just seems like we've been a million miles apart for so
long, I can barely remember what it was like before that."

I flinched. "Then how do we get back to what it was like

before?"

"If I knew, I'd throw it out there," he snapped.
I put up a hand. Forcing my tone to stay even, I said, "Okay,

you're right. But maybe we need to figure that out. Together."

He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "The thing is, I'm

not sure it's even a question of wanting to make it work. It's a
question of whether or not that ship sailed a long, long time ago, and
we just need to accept it."

My heart sank. "Do you think that ship has sailed?"
He met my eyes, and his voice fell to little more than a

whisper. "I don't know. I really don't." He drew a long, deep breath.
"All we do is fight, Andrew. Things haven't been the same since we
both got hurt, and I…" For a moment, he was quiet. Then, shaking
his head, he went on, "It's been like that longer than it wasn't like
that. So it's hard to imagine we can—"

The bell went off.
A second later, over the loudspeaker: "Code four, medical.

Jackson and twelfth. Code four, medical. Jackson and twelfth."

"I have to go." Nick pushed himself to his feet. "We'll finish

talking about this later."

I barely had time to draw a breath, never mind speak, before

he was across the patio and the door had banged shut behind him. I
exhaled hard and dropped my gaze into the carton of rice that wasn't
going to get any more appetizing tonight. His abrupt exit didn't
bother me. In our lines of work, personal problems took an instant

backseat to professional commitments.

Even if he did make that exit even faster than he usually did

when an alarm interrupted us.

I blew out a breath. We really were fucked, weren't we?
On my way out, I left the untouched cartons of Chinese food

in the lounge for the guys, and took the rest with me.

The drive home was longer than usual. The road was clear,

and  my  speedometer  needle  hovered  well  beyond  the  posted  speed
limit,  but it felt like  hours before the  highway  finally  led  me  to the
thin strip of unmarked asphalt that would take me to the dirt road on
which  I  lived.  All  the  way,  mile  after  mile,  I  replayed  our
conversation in my head. More than that, I replayed the hopelessness
in his voice and the sadness in his exhausted eyes.

Nick was a stubborn son of a bitch. It was one of the things I

loved and hated about him. It also made him the last person in the
world to raise a white flag and accept—embrace—defeat.

All we do is fight.
I sighed. We hadn't even done much of that over the last few

weeks. We'd stopped fighting. We'd stopped fucking. If I was honest,
things were a hell of a lot easier when we were arguing all the time.
Lately, we weren't even talking enough to disagree on anything. It
was like neither of us could muster the energy to fight. Like maybe
this wasn't worth fighting for.

Maybe Nick was right. We were miserable more than we

were happy. Maybe I was just too stubborn to admit this was a lost
cause, especially since he didn't seem to have it in him to fight for it
anymore. As it was, the only time he didn't keep me at arm's length
was in bed. That was the only time I could get close to him anymore,
because he wouldn't let me any closer. And how long had it been
since I'd been even that close to him?

I sighed. Something in him had drawn me to him from day

one. There must have been something that drew him to me. I refused
to believe it was simply the fact that we'd both survived a terrifying
close call the day we met. That moment may have been what made
our paths cross, but I refused to believe that was all that kept us
coming back to each other.

We needed to find that something again. Whatever it was

that had pulled us each to the other in the first place. But we both had

to be willing to look for it, to search each other for it, or what was
the point?

It was worth a try, though. I hoped.
The endless strip of unlined asphalt finally conceded and

gave way to the pothole-riddled dirt road. In turn, the dirt road
eventually brought me to my driveway, and I parked in front of the
garage.

I walked into the house on tired, leaden legs. After I'd put the

leftover Chinese food in the refrigerator, I paused, eyeing the freezer
door for  a  moment,  wondering  if  I  should  pull  out  a few  ice cubes,
drop  them  in  a  glass,  and  apply  a  generous  amount  of  bourbon.  I
wasn't one to drink myself senseless, especially when I had to work
the  next  day,  but  a  little  alcohol  to  dull  these  frayed  nerves  was
awfully tempting.

Tempting, but not tonight. I settled on a long, hot shower

before trudging out to the living room to call it a night. I lay back on
the couch, this time making sure my bad arm wasn't up against the
cushions. After the last surgery, things were healing nicely, and if I
didn't do something stupid like sleep on it, maybe my arm wouldn't
hurt tomorrow.

Now if I could just get some sleep, maybe I'd be in good

shape, but that didn't look promising tonight. Sighing, I stared up at
the living room ceiling. Sleep. Sure. That was happening.

Sheer exhaustion kicked in after a while, though, and

drowsiness took over. I closed my eyes and was just starting to slip
off into something resembling sleep when my phone beeped.

Furrowing my brow, I reached for the coffee table. The

message made my heart skip, and I had to read it three times before I
was sure I'd comprehended it properly:

Is it okay if I come home after my rotation?
I closed my eyes and released a breath. I didn't want to find

hope where there wasn't any. For all I knew, he just wanted to know
it was okay to come back and pick up his things. Still, it was
something.

Finally, I sent back, Please do.
And I hoped to God he did.

Three

"Hey, Chief, it's Carmichael." I leaned against my kitchen

counter, resting one hand on the edge and holding my phone in the
other. "Listen, I have something I need to take care of this morning,
so I'll be in late."

"All right," he said, his voice taut with waning patience.

"Just get here as soon as you can."

"Will do. Lombardi and I are meeting with a couple of

informants this afternoon. I'll be there in time for that."

He wasn't thrilled, which was to be expected. I was low on

time off and even lower on favors. It would have been prudent to
preserve as much of my sick and vacation time as possible for
doctor's appointments, physical therapy, and the possibility of one or
two more surgeries on my arm.

This was important, though, and it just couldn't wait.
Still leaning against the kitchen counter, I drummed my

fingers beside my phone and listened for an approaching car engine.
One of the perks of living out here, miles from the city out in the
middle of the woods, was the silence. I could hear a car long before
it passed or turned down my driveway. On the flipside, when I was
listening for a particular vehicle, the silence was almost maddening.
Like a resonating insistence that no, Andrew, that car was not really
coming here this morning.

I flipped open my phone and scrolled to Nick's text from last

night.

Is it okay if I come home after my rotation?
He wouldn't bail at the last second. He was the one who'd

suggested this. Maybe he had a different idea than I did about how
this morning would progress once he got here, but he hadn't called or
texted to say he wasn't coming.

The tiny digital clock in the corner of my phone's display

said it was a little after nine, which meant his rotation had ended an
hour and a half ago. Allowing for traffic and the sheer distance from
the firehouse to our house, he'd be here any minute now. Any
minute. Any fucking minute.

The faint rumble of an approaching engine made me close

my eyes and pull in a long breath. I followed the sound as it came
closer, closer, slowed…

Turned down the driveway.
I gulped and opened my eyes again. Here we go.
Gravel crunched under tires, and the car came to a gentle

stop outside. Then the car door opened. Closed. Dull footsteps on the
concrete walkway sent my pulse skyrocketing.

The front door opened, and goose bumps prickled the length

of my spine. The familiar thud of Nick's duffle bag hitting the floor
in the foyer made me shiver. He was here, but would he stay?

As he always did when he came home off a rotation, he went

from the foyer to the kitchen, undoubtedly in search of coffee. Only
Nick would need a cup of coffee while he wound down before
crashing for a few hours of much-needed sleep, but that was his
routine. And that was why I waited for him in the kitchen.

When he appeared in the doorway, our eyes met and my

heart skipped. He stopped, and we just held each other's gazes for a
moment.

The circles under his eyes could have been a result of a busy

night, or like the shadows under my own eyes, they could have been
evidence of a night of lying awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering
what would happen today. What would happen here and now.

He broke eye contact, and his gaze drifted down, then back

up.  It  wasn't  the  suggestive  down-up  he'd  often  given  me.  If
anything, he was curious. Puzzled, if the furrow of his brow was any
indication, and I guessed it was because I would normally be on my
way  out  the  door  in  a  few  minutes,  but  I  wore  only  a  pair  of  jeans
now.

He met my eyes again. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for

work?"

I shifted my weight. "Boss knows I'll be late."
His eyebrows jumped. Then he released a breath and

dropped his gaze. "Andrew, I need to sleep. It was… a long night. I
don't have it in me to discuss this right now."

I pushed myself away off the kitchen island and started

toward him. "Neither do I."

"Andrew…"
I reached for him. "I don't want to talk right now."
He stiffened when I touched his waist, but he didn't pull

away. As I slid my hand from his waist to the small of his back,
drawing us closer together, he sucked in a ragged breath and closed
his eyes, but still made no effort to move us back to a comfortable
distance apart.

"Nick," I whispered. "Look at me."
He opened his eyes, and I could barely breathe.
My God, you have the most beautiful eyes…
I drew him a little closer, and some of the tension in his

posture eased. When I touched his face, he pressed against my hand,
a sigh escaping his lips.

Has it really been that long since I've touched you like this?
I leaned in. So did he, but then he hesitated.
"This isn't going to fix anything," he murmured.
"Doesn't hurt anything, does it?"
"No." His hand curved around the back of my neck, and he

kissed me. I melted against him, sinking into his embrace like there
wasn't a damned thing wrong with us.

His grip tightened on the back of my neck, his fingers

digging in as his other arm snaked around my waist. We kissed
furiously, violently, the way we always did when one of us had had
the day from hell or when we'd needed to channel a fight's worth of
aggression into something less destructive. His erection pressed into
my hip, and in between kisses he drew those sharp, rapid breaths he
only drew when he was turned on to the point of madness.

Sex wouldn't solve everything. It wouldn't solve anything. I

just needed to know we still had something. Some common ground,
some spark of the way things were before they started falling apart.
This was all we had left right now, and I needed to know we still had

it.

His hands drifted down my sides, then hooked in the front

pockets of my jeans. He pulled me back a step toward the kitchen
doorway. Toward the hall. Toward the bed.

I didn't need any more encouragement than that. Tangled up

in  a  kiss,  tearing  at  clothes  and  demanding  access  to  each  other's
mouths  and  releasing  sharp,  hot  breaths  on  each  other's  skin,  we
shuffled  and  stumbled  toward  the  bedroom.  How  long  had  it  been
since we'd needed each other like this? To the point of bumping into
furniture,  brushing  against  walls,  almost  tripping  over  each  other's
feet? Fuck if I could remember, but I needed him like that now, and
it wasn't a moment too soon when we made it into the bedroom.

He toed off his shoes and kicked them out of the way. I was

thankful I hadn't bothered with more than jeans, or this would have
taken  seconds  I  didn't  want  to  spare.  We  both  unbuttoned  Nick's
shirt,  and  when  I  shoved  it  over  his  shoulders  in  the  middle  of  a
desperate, passionate kiss, a seam or something ripped, but neither of
us  missed  a  beat.  It  wasn't  the  first  time  we'd  damaged  one  of  his
uniforms, and I hoped to God it wouldn't be the last.

With the last thread of clothing out of the way, Nick leaned

against the bed and pulled me to him, dragging his fingers through
my hair and kissing me hungrily. I wrapped my arms around him and
returned his kiss with equal feverish fervor, desperate for every taste
of him I could get. I wanted to fuck him, but it had been so damned
long since his skin had been against mine like this, I couldn't bring
myself to pull away just yet.

But then Nick pressed his hips against mine, shifting to one

side, then the other, letting our cocks rub together in the most
deliciously tantalizing way, and I couldn't take another minute
without being inside him.

"Let me fuck you," I growled against his lips.
He groaned and kissed me once more. I thought we might

get  lost  in  a  long  kiss—in  our  past  life,  it  wasn't  unlike  us  to  get
carried  away  with  making  out  instead  of  fucking—but  he  put  his
hands  on  my  chest  and  nudged  me  back  a  step.  Our  eyes  met,  and
fuck but I'd missed seeing that intense, raw hunger in his.

We both reached for the nightstand. I took out a condom. He

picked up the lube. While I rolled on the condom, he poured lube

into his palm. Then he pushed my hand out of the way and stroked
lube onto my cock, squeezing just enough to make my breath catch.

Nick capped the bottle and put it aside. He looked at me,

eyebrows up, and I nodded toward the bed, masking a shiver as he
licked his lips.

He turned around and leaned over the side of the bed, resting

his weight on his hands. This was a position we'd used time and
again to keep the weight off my injured arm, but it was also one of
his favorites. One of mine, too, because goddamn, the view…

Breathing slowly to stay in control, I guided myself to him.

We both gasped when I pressed against him, and as the head of my
cock slid into him, my vision blurred. It had been too long, way too
damned long, since I'd fucked him, and every stroke—each a little
deeper than the last—took my breath away.

All the way inside him, I stopped.
Already breathless, Nick whispered, "Don't… stop…"
Resting a hand on his hip, I reached around with my other

and closed my fingers around his cock. He gasped, shuddering as he
leaned back against me.

"Fuck, Andrew…"
I kissed the side of his neck, just below his hairline, as I

stroked his cock. "Like that?"

He just moaned.
Stroking him slowly, I rocked my hips back and forth just

enough to keep my cock subtly moving inside him. So he couldn't,
no matter how hard he might have tried, forget I was fucking him,
just not the way he wanted me to. I wanted to fuck him that way too,
but not yet. Not quite yet.

His head fell forward. I kissed the back of his neck,

deliberately letting my stubbled chin brush his flesh the way I knew
he liked it, and he rewarded me with a shiver. I stroked him slowly,
mirroring with my hand the gentle motions of my hips. He tried to
thrust into my fist, but I kept him pinned against the bed so he was
completely at my mercy. A delirious, aggravated growl raised goose
bumps on my back.

I grinned against his neck. "You like that, don't you?"
"You're a fucking tease."
"Because I know you like it." I thrust once, just enough to

make him moan. "Don't you?"

The helpless sound he made was close enough to an

affirmative, and I gave him a little more, withdrawing less than an
inch before forcing myself into him again, all the while stroking his
cock and kissing his neck.

"Oh, my God…" He sounded like he was on the verge of

tears. "Andrew, please, fuck…" A shiver straightened his spine and
forced a whimper from his lips. I had him right where I wanted him
now: on the edge, caught between begging and breathing, walking
that fine line between pleasure and frustration. .

I released his cock, then shoved him down onto his forearms.

He went down with no resistance, just a moan of anticipation. He
knew what was coming.

I grabbed his hips and thrust into him. Deep. Hard. Violent.

Until I was damn sure it hurt, because I knew he didn't want it any
other way, and he cried out in pain-ecstasy-pain as his fingers clawed
at the comforter and his back arched and oh, God, Nick, I can't get
enough of you…

I slid one hand up his back to grip his shoulder for leverage,

thrusting  harder  as  he  fell  apart  beneath  me,  and  my  God,  he  was
beautiful  like  this.  Powerful  arms  and  broad  shoulders  quivering,
beads  of  sweat  glistening  on  his  neck  and  back,  dark  hair
disheveled…I  could  have  stared  at  him  like  this  all  damned  day  if
my impending orgasm didn't blur my vision and roll my eyes back. I
gritted my teeth, forcing myself not to come yet. Not until he did.

It had been so long since we'd had sex, I didn't think we

could possibly last, but I had to. I needed him, and I needed this to
go on as long as I could make it last. It had been weeks since we'd
touched. I couldn't even begin to tell him how badly I craved every
second I could have with his skin against mine.

"Jesus Christ," he moaned. "Don't stop. Don't fucking stop.

Oh, God…"

I clenched my jaw and fucked him as hard as I could.

Shuddering, he released the most spine-melting cry of surrender, and
I couldn't hold back any longer. I kept thrusting until every stroke
was too fucking intense, until the world turned white and my knees
turned to liquid.

Entirely too quickly, it was over, and I rested my forehead

against the back of his neck, breathing in his scent as I panted. The
cool, electric aftershocks of my orgasm rippled through me as I held
myself up on my precariously unsteady good arm.

Nick moaned softly as I withdrew, and shivered when I

kissed the back of his shoulder.

"I'm going to grab a shower," I murmured against his sweat-

dampened skin. "Want to join me?" Panic rushed through me.
Please, don't say no…

He didn't speak. Just nodded.
In the time it took for us to get from the bedroom to the

shower, the chilly distance settled back in. We didn't speak. We only
touched as much as the narrowness of the shower stall demanded
when we needed to trade places, or when we grazed fingertips while
handing off soap.

With each passing minute of that short, silent shower, regret

pressed  its  weight  onto  my  shoulders.  Not  regret  that  we'd  finally
broken the ice and a long dry spell, but regret that it wasn't enough—
or that I'd somehow thought it would be enough—to bridge the space
that  remained  between  us  after  the  heat  of  the  moment  had  cooled.
There was a time when sex was enough to break the silence and get
us  talking.  Now  I  supposed  it  was  just  something  to  do  that  wasn't
fighting.

Nick turned off the water and we both got out. We

wordlessly dried off, not sparing so much as a glance at the other's
reflection, never mind right at each other. Christ. It hadn't even been
this awkward the morning after we'd fucked for the very first time.
But then, I supposed that time, I'd expected us to be strangers.

In the bedroom, Nick put on a pair of jeans and nothing more

while I got dressed. The roles from earlier were reversed, in a way.
He'd been on his way in from work. Now I was on my way out to
work. And we were no closer to resolving a goddamned thing.

He leaned against the doorframe between the bedroom and

bathroom, quietly watching me button my shirt.

After a while, he spoke. "Maybe we can…" He paused,

dropping his gaze. "I guess, tonight we could talk some more. When
you get home."

"Will you still be here?"
He was silent for a long moment. "Yeah. I'll be here."

The resignation in his tone tightened the knots in my gut. I

took a deep breath. "Look, I know things aren't good right now, but I
want to work this out."

Nick looked away. "I want to work it out, too." There was a

faint catch in his voice, like the prelude to an unspoken "But…"
After a moment, he met my eyes. "You should get ready for work. I
don't want to make you too late."

I swallowed. "I guess I should let you get some sleep."
He nodded slowly. "It would probably help if one of us

wasn't always getting pulled away to go to work."

I tried not to lean too heavily on the glimmer of hope his

words sparked in the back of my mind. "Maybe we need more than
one evening to sort this out, too," I said. "It took us a while to get to
this point in the first place, after all."

"True." He exhaled hard. "And one of us is always either on

our way out the door to work or ready to collapse after a long day."
He laughed softly, but it was more of an exhausted sound than a
bitter one. "I guess our line of work isn't conducive to resolving shit
like this."

I chewed the inside of my cheek.
He swallowed. "Maybe we need to save this for an evening

where we're not exhausted from our jobs."

"When would that be?"
He looked at the floor between us for a moment. Then he

shrugged and exhaled. "I don't know."

"Maybe we need to get out of here for a while, then," I said.

"A vacation or something. Even if it's just a weekend away. You
know, so the stress is out of the picture. See if we can…" Salvage
this. Figure out what the fuck we're doing. Stop torturing ourselves if
that's what we need to do. "…work this out."

"I suppose we could both use some time away," he said with

a vague nod. "But do you even have any vacation time left?"

"Enough." Barely. Scheduling more physical therapy and

such would be tricky from here on out, but so be it. "I'll figure that
out. But maybe once we've both had a chance to rest a bit, clear our
heads, get away from work…"

He chewed his lip. Then he shrugged with one shoulder. "I

don't see how it could hurt anything."

"Can you get any time off?"
"I have a week or so left on the books." He raised his

eyebrows. "I'm more concerned with you being able to take—"

I put up a hand. "Don't worry about me. I'll work it out with

the chief."

He hesitated. "All right. I'll talk to Switzer today. Might be a

week or two before I can leave."

"Whatever you can do," I said quietly.
"In the meantime…" He looked at me through his lashes.

"Should I… um…"

"Stay here?"
He nodded.
I was afraid of the answer, but I asked anyway: "Do you

want to stay?"

He shifted his gaze away from mine. He looked at the bed,

and I wondered if he wondered, like I did, how it was possible that
less than an hour ago, we were up against that bed, as close as two
men could get.

Finally he laughed softly and shrugged as he turned back to

me. "Well, I'm already here. I… might as well."

"Yeah." My stomach twisted into tighter knots. "Might as

well."

Four

Since this was spur of the moment, a cabin in the foothills of

the  forested  mountains  a  few  hours  out  of  the  city  was  the  best  we
could do. Not that I was complaining; I preferred places like that to
some  of  the  more  popular  vacation  hotspots.  My  only  hesitation
stemmed from not knowing anyone who'd visited this place. All the
way  there,  I  had  visions  of  rotted  floorboards,  massive  hordes  of
vermin,  and  Bronze  Age  plumbing.  That  was  to  say  nothing  of  the
locals.  Maybe  I'd  seen  too  many  variations  of  Wrong  Turn  and
Deliverance,  but  even  after  living  out  in  the  sticks  for  the  last  ten
years, I was a little unsure of staying out in an uncharted middle of
nowhere.

I'd just have to hope for the best, I supposed.
Nick and I drove up separately. I needed to get there early

enough  in  the  afternoon  to  check  in  without  forfeiting  our
reservation,  and  Nick  didn't  get  off  work  until that  evening.  Part  of
the  deal  with  getting  the  three-day  weekend,  apparently,  though  I
quietly  wondered  if  it  actually  made  him  more  comfortable,  being
able to leave if he needed to. After all, there was a chance that this
could be it for us. I supposed driving back together after deciding to
call it quits would be awkward.

No, I wasn't going to think about that now. We could work

this out. If anyone on this earth could work things out, it was us.
We'd made it this far. We could do this. We had to.

I checked in at the cabin marked "Office" at the base of a

hill. The owner, a weathered old man dressed like a lumberjack, gave
me the key and directions, and sent me on my way. About half an

hour later, after driving through thick forest on a wet dirt road, I
found the sign indicating the correct place.

I parked in a gravel driveway tucked into the trees. As I got

out of the car, I looked up at the rustic log cabin that would be our
home away from home for the weekend. It was two stories, but not
huge. Big enough for a family of four, according to the website, so
more than enough room for us.

From this side, the exterior was mostly uniform horizontal

logs, a few small metal-framed windows, and at the top of three red
cedar steps, a door painted green to match the cabin's trim. I
chuckled at the sight of the satellite dish perched on the peaked roof.
Who the hell came out to a place like this to stare at a television,
anyway?

I went around to the passenger side and picked up my

overnight bag and a plastic grocery sack. Though we were millions
of miles from nowhere, I locked the doors out of habit, then went
inside.

The cabin's interior was gorgeous and pristine. Certainly no

chance of a comedy of errors of trying to keep the place from
crumbling beneath our feet while we ignored the problems we'd
come up here to sort out. Guess we were stuck doing what we came
to do.

Hardwood creaked under my feet as I crossed the tiny,

cedar-scented living room. Late afternoon sunlight poured in through
a  giant  picture  window,  and  the  long  shadows  of  evergreen  trees
spiked across the floor and furniture. I could get used to a place like
this.  I'd  always  said  I  wanted  to  retire  to  a  cabin  in  the  mountains
someday,  and  the  idea  was  even  more  appetizing  now  that  I  was
standing in one. Though I supposed the miles and miles of dirt road
leading  up  to  this  place  would  be  a  problem.  Might  have  to  find  a
new home for my Corvette if I wound up moving to a place like this.
The  mere  thought  of  driving  her  through  a  ding-and-dent  gauntlet
like that was almost enough to make me break out in hives.

But at least for the weekend, while the Vette was safe in my

garage, this was home. I dropped my overnight bag on the faded but
inviting armchair. Then I took the grocery sack and went into the
kitchen.

The kitchen was decorated with a country style. It was all

right, I supposed. I never did understand the attraction to paintings of
chickens  in  huge  floppy  hats  and  ducks  with  bows  around  their
necks.  Whatever  floated  the  owner's  boat.  Then  again,  even  if  I
leaned  toward  more  spartan  and  utilitarian  methods  of  decorating,
the  stacked-log  walls  wouldn't  have  looked  right  if  they'd  remained
bare, and I supposed a motif of zombies and wanted posters wouldn't
quite fit. Chickens in hats it was.

I chuckled to myself and shook my head, wondering how

long I'd been idly staring at the ridiculous picture hanging between
the window and the door that led out to the deck.

Ignoring the décor, I set the grocery sack on the counter.

Nick and I weren't heavy drinkers, but I didn't see us getting through
this weekend without something to settle the nerves. I'd picked up a
bottle of bourbon—Maker's Mark, of course—on the way up here,
and it was only fair to get something for him too, so I'd grabbed a
bottle of Crown Royal.

I'd also brought a plastic ice cube tray, which I filled and put

in the freezer. I preferred my drinks cold, but could drink them at
room temperature in a pinch. Not Nick, though. Any beverage that
was less than ice cold or boiling hot disgusted him.

While the ice froze and Crown cooled, I went upstairs.
The bedroom was as quaintly appointed as the rest of the

house. Still not quite to my simple and perhaps unrefined taste, but it
was homey. The bed was a little smaller than the one at home, and I
tried  not  to  get  my  hopes  up  about  using  it  for  more  than  sleeping.
Though  I'd  have  been  happy  just  to  sleep  in  it.  Both  of  us.  In  the
same  bed.  We'd  spent  the  last  several  nights  together,  so  I  was
hopeful about that continuing.

I glanced at my watch. Nick would have been off work about

three hours ago, which meant he'd be here in the next hour or so.
Plenty of time for me to get a shower and unwind a bit.

Unwind. Sure. If I wanted to do that, maybe getting an early

start on diving into that bottle of bourbon was a better idea, because
as soon as I was under what should have been a soothing stream of
hot water, my mind started working double time. With Nick on his
way here, I wanted to come up with a solution before he even came
through the door. Of course, if that was possible, I'd have come up
with one a long time ago, but it didn't stop my mind from trying.

I'd never fought with someone as much as I fought with

Nick. It wasn't like we'd just had some ridiculous misunderstanding
or gotten too comfortable in our relationship and forgot to
communicate. At best these days, we were each other's worst enemy.
At worst, we were strangers.

I couldn't put my finger on what the problem was. I mean,

there  were  plenty  of  them.  We  both  felt  guilty  about  the  other's
injuries.  An  error  in  my  judgment  resulted  in  Nick  being  assaulted
and  half-strangled.  Someone  stalking  him  resulted  in  me  taking  a
bullet  through—and  nearly  losing  the  use  of—my  arm.  A  triaging
mistake on his part almost resulted in me bleeding out. We wouldn't
have even met if I hadn't made a bad call that damn near got Macy
and Nick, who was a stranger to me at the time, killed.

At times, we resented each other for those same injuries.

When my arm or his recurring headaches interfered with sleep. Or
household chores. Or work. Or our sex life. Neither of us ever came
out and said it, but I knew what I felt, and Nick wore his aggravation
on his sleeve.

About the only time the bitterness didn't creep in was in

relation to our dreams. We both still had nightmares about
everything that had gone down, and even nearly a year after the fact,
a week didn't go by without one of us waking the other in the throes
of a dream. PTSD, the department therapists had told us both. I
supposed it would help if either of us actually sucked it up and went
to the therapists more often than when our respective chiefs told us
to, but Nick didn't like shrinks and I didn't want to talk about it. So
the dreams still plagued us both, and that was the one thing we never
got pissed at each other about. It didn't make sense, it wasn't rational,
but it was something we didn't fight or snipe about, so that was one
gift horse I wasn't looking in the mouth.

And it didn't help when Brian needed me to put Eric up

during a murder investigation. I'd trusted Brian's judgment that Eric
wasn't a cop killer, but Nick wanted no part of it. I didn't blame him.
I was, after all, harboring a murder suspect, whether Eric was guilty
or not. Plus, with someone else in our house, we didn't want to fight
or even snipe at each other, which turned the whole goddamned
place into one tense pressure cooker. After the investigation was over
and Eric left, Nick and I fought for a solid week about everything.

And it definitely didn't help that every everything went down

between  Eric  and  Brian.  When  Eric's  real  identity  came,  their
relationship  had  recovered  quickly.  They  were  better  than  ever.
Flourishing,  even. They'd  been  on the  verge  of splitting  up  already,
but survived that insanity. Now they were what we were supposed to
be, and they made it look so fucking easy. Oh, they had their issues,
especially after Brian learned that James, the man he'd thought was a
serial cheater, was actually Eric, the deep cover agent, and they had
to  get  to  know  each  other  all  over  again.  Then  there  was  Brian's
ongoing struggle to quit drinking, but even that hadn't damaged their
relationship  like  these  stupid,  pointless  arguments  were  destroying
ours. With the two of them providing such a bleak contrast to us, our
mutual  resentment  deepened  and  the  distance  widened.  Those  two
would make it. Us? I had no idea anymore.

It would have been so much easier if we fought over

something  tangible.  If  there  was  some  sticking  point  that  we  could
focus  on.  But  there  wasn't  one  particular  thing  that  kept  setting  us
off. One night, he didn't bat an eye at me having a drink. The next,
he'd  make a snide comment about it becoming a habit, and we'd be
off and yelling. Or I wouldn't mind his habit of not bothering to wash
the bathroom towels until we were down to the last one, but then I'd
suddenly  flip  out at  him  for  leaving  it  on  me  to  do it,  since  I  never
waited that long. One day, we were like a couple of brand new lovers
with  stars  in  our  eyes.  The  next,  we  may  as  well  have  been  the
Hatfields and the McCoys. It was just as well the nearest neighbors
were the better part of a mile away; between the sex and the fighting,
they'd have gotten as little sleep as we did.

How did we get so volatile, Nick? You're not like this. I'm not

like this. How are we like this?

So much for relaxing, indeed.
I got out of the shower, and as I dried off in the bathroom, I

made  the  mistake  of  glancing  in  the  mirror.  Not  a  wise  move  with
my  current  state  of  mind,  because  as  it  always  did,  the  scar  on  my
arm caught my eye. I turned my head to look at the real thing instead
of  its  reflection,  and  absently  ran  my  fingertips  over  the
asymmetrical  spiral  of  thick,  knotted  scar  tissue.  Subsequent
surgeries had left a spiderweb of small, straight scars, and the whole
thing might have been impressive had there not been quite so many

memories tangled up in it. It struck me as funny—and more than a
little ironic—how Nick and I had once compared battle scars, joking
about whose was more impressive or had the best story behind it.

He didn't laugh whenever this one caught his eye. Neither

did I.

Sighing, I went back to drying off, and made a point of not

looking at the mirror or my arm. The scar wasn't like the one on the
bridge  of  Nick's  nose.  Even  though  that  one  was  in  plain  sight,  the
right lighting could mask it. I usually only noticed it when it caught
the  light  just  right.  Mine,  however,  wasn't  something  that  escaped
notice.  I  didn't  wear  short-sleeved  shirts  unless  I  had  to  now,  or
unless  my  arm  was  bandaged  from  some  follow-up  procedure  or
another.

And therein lay one of the problems between Nick and me:

that  fucking  scar.  We  were  both  the  type  who  used  sex  to  unwind
and  blow  off  steam.  Work-related  stress,  family  drama,  a  fight
between  us,  anything.  Fuck  first,  ask  questions  later.  That  was  fine
and good until there was a goddamned visual reminder of one of the
biggest  sources  of  tension  in  our  relationship.  I  used  to  love  sex
when  we  only  removed  enough  clothing  to  get  the  job  done—
nothing  was  hotter  than  a  half-dressed  fuck—but  now  I  spent  the
whole time wondering if it was just an excuse to keep that stupid scar
out of sight and out of mind. If  my arm wasn't hurting too much to
kill  the  mood,  then  Nick  would  accidentally  touch  the  scar  and
quickly move his hand. Or he'd glance at it and shift his gaze away.

So much for forgetting our problems long enough to fuck

them out of our systems.

I need a drink. Like, right now.
Once my scar was safely hidden in the sleeve of my

sweatshirt, I went back downstairs to get that drink. The cupboards
had plenty of glasses and dishes, and I found one that would suffice
as a highball glass. The ice wasn't quite frozen yet, so I just poured
some bourbon by itself. Room temp would do.

Glass in hand, I wandered from room to room, exploring the

cabin. Out onto the balcony, back inside, out onto the balcony, back
inside. I told myself I was just checking out my surroundings, but
knew better. I quickly went through most of the glass of bourbon,
and I kept fidgeting out on the balcony, restless in spite of both the

alcohol and the serene environment. Totally just checking out my
surroundings. Of course.

Wandering into the living room for the fortieth time, I

resisted the urge—almost resisted the urge—to look at the clock on
the DVD player. Nine fifteen. He could be here any time now.

On my way to the kitchen, I took a sip of bourbon and rolled

it around on my tongue. I wasn't sure if I was more nervous about
him showing up or not showing up.

Not that it mattered, because about twenty minutes later,

tires crunched on gravel outside, and I suddenly didn't have nearly
enough alcohol in my system. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath,
then let it out slowly. One drink was enough. Maybe a second while
Nick had one, which I fully expected him to do. Getting drunk or
even buzzed wouldn't make this go any smoother.

Whatever. I threw back what was left in my glass, then went

into the living room to meet Nick.

He came through the door, and my pulse went through the

roof. His presence was unnerving, but also a relief. And what could I
say? Even in our worst moments, the man could still raise my heart
rate for very pleasant reasons.

In spite of the tension that furrowed his brow and tried to

hide in his eyes, he looked more relaxed. The pressed blue shirts of
his  uniforms  always  made  his  shoulders  tense.  Literally  made  them
tense.  Nick  loved  his job, but like  mine, it  was a  stressful  one. The
mere  act  of  buttoning  up  one  of  those  shirts  turned  his  neck  and
shoulders to steel, just like putting on my shoulder holster had every
muscle in my body bunching with pre-emptive stress.

Walking into the cabin, Nick didn't look completely at ease,

but with his shoulders calmly set back beneath his Colts sweatshirt,
the spring wasn't coiled quite so tight.

He set his overnight bag on the chair where mine had been

earlier. "Sorry I'm late. Got a call fifteen minutes before I was off,
and it took a while."

I waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. Nature of the beast

with your job."

He snorted. "Tell me about it."
"Want a drink?" I gestured toward the kitchen. "I picked up

some Crown on the way up here."

A tired smile spread across his lips. "Oh, my God, you're a

saint."

I bit back a comment about knowing what he liked, though I

wasn't sure why. Letting the thought go, I led him out of the living
room.

As I poured a couple of drinks, he looked around the kitchen.

His gaze stopped on the picture of the chicken in a ridiculous hat,
and his lips pulled into a vague smirk. I half-expected a smartass
comment about how something like that would look in our—my?—
kitchen, but he just chuckled to himself before turning to pick up his
drink off the counter.

"Nice place," he said.
"Yeah, it's not bad." I looked around myself in spite of the

fact that I'd already checked out the kitchen a few hundred times.
Then I nodded in the direction of the deck. "You should see the
view."

He glanced at the window. "I suppose that'll have to wait

until the sun comes up."

"Oh, I don't know." I started toward the door. "Not every

view requires sunlight to be appreciated."

"Good point."
We stepped out onto the deck, and I turned off the porch

light so we had an unobstructed view of the night.

The lake and the forest were shrouded in darkness now, but

the silhouette of the mountains created a jagged edge beneath a jet
black sky. Though I was used to the beautiful night sky out where I
lived, that didn't hold a candle to the pure, deep darkness of a place
like this.

And of course, there was that cavernous, echoing silence. A

light wind ruffled tree branches, but otherwise, the stillness out here
was unbroken. It might have been peaceful enough to calm my
frayed nerves if it didn't do such a damned good job of emphasizing
the silence between Nick and me. The silence I had no fucking idea
how to break. We both knew what we came here to do. The question
was, how to start? And when? Wait until he'd had a chance to wind
down from work? Jump right in and be done with it?

Crap, no wonder we were falling apart. We didn't know how

to start this conversation, let alone finish it. As the silence went on, I

was half-tempted to pick a fight just to get us talking, but I kept that
to myself.

I cleared my throat. "So, busy day?"
"Oh, yeah." He made a quiet sound that may have been a

subtle laugh. "If I had a dime for every call I responded to in
Masontown…"

"Doesn't surprise me at all." Masontown was a destitute,

drug-infested neighborhood, easily the worst in the city, and we both
knew all too well how dangerous it was. Nick and his crew were
forever responding to calls for both the abysmally poor and
perpetually drug-addicted. Obviously today was no exception.

Just to keep the conversation rolling, I said, "Anything

unusual? Or just routine calls?"

"You know how it is. No routine is the routine." Nick sipped

his drink, then set the glass on the railing a few inches from mine.
"Same old shit with people getting hurt and sick in every strange and
bizarre way imaginable."

"Word around the precinct was there was another shooting,"

I said. "You guys respond to that one?"

"I didn't, no. I was already on a call when that one went

down." He paused, looking out at the darkened landscape. "Didn't
sound like anyone was seriously injured this time, though."

"That's what I heard." And what a relief that was.

Responding to shootings were part of his job, but it always made me
nervous these days.

Silence crept back in. I chewed the inside of my cheek,

throwing surreptitious glances at him in the darkness and wondering
if he did the same.

This time, he spoke first. "Anything new in your

investigation?"

I shrugged. "A few leads that didn't lead us anywhere.

Witnesses who haven't seen shit. Informants who can't find their own
asses with both hands and an anatomy chart."

Nick laughed softly. "Same unpredictable shit, different

day?"

I chuckled. "Pretty much."
A long, unnerving silence shouldered its way between us

again. I hoped he'd say something. Tried to find something to say

myself. Wished I could telepathically beg him to say any damned
thing.

Finally, I gave in and spoke. "At least there aren't too many

dull moments in either of our jobs."

"Right." He laughed again, and sounded almost relieved, like

he'd been hoping I'd speak first. "Says the man who doesn't have to
inventory hypodermic needles."

"True, very true." I chuckled. "But hey, I still have to do

mounds of paperwork."

"As do I. So much for never a dull moment, right?"
"Point taken."
We looked at each other, though he probably couldn't see me

any more than I could see him. At least then he probably couldn't see
anything  to  give  away  the  nerves  that  had  me  chewing  my  lip  and
barely  fucking  breathing.  After  a  moment,  we  both  turned  our
attention  to  picking  up  our  neglected  drinks  and  taking  a  sip  while
we waited for the next attempted conversation.

On one hand, we were avoiding everything we didn't know

how to discuss. On the other, I couldn't deny it was nice to just
interact, if one could call it that, without sniping at each other. Hell,
if the conversation had come a little easier and the pauses hadn't been
so palpably loaded with tension, I might have been able to convince
myself all was well. Maybe. If I'd had a couple more drinks in me.

Nick gestured over his shoulder, ice clinking off the inside of

his glass. "Looks like they have a pretty impressive collection of
movies." He gave a quiet laugh that sounded forced. "You'd think
they'd be worried about someone stealing them."

"I would imagine they just add it to the bill." I paused. "I

didn't look, but did you see any interesting titles?"

"A few." Turning to me in the darkness, he said, "Want to

watch something?"

We need to talk, Nick.
That's why we're here.
But being together and not fighting just sounds so, so good

right now.

I shrugged. "Why not?"
We picked up our drinks and went back inside.

Five

"Andrew, are you okay?"
"The gun. Get my gun."
"Oh God, oh God, oh God…"
"Nick! The gun!"
Gunfire. Confusion. Pain.
"Oh, fuck…"
Don't leave me like this.
"Look, I'm a paramedic and one of these guys might be

bleeding out."

Nick, don't leave.
"Wait, where are you going?"
Don't go, please.
"I have to help him. He's bleeding badly. I'm not going far

and help is on its way."

Nick… don't leave me like this…

~ * ~

"Andrew?"
Nick's voice startled me out of one dark, confusing reality

and into another one.

Breathing hard, I looked around, trying to match the

unfamiliar shadows with… with something. Anything. This wasn't
the living room. Not my bedroom. Not Nick's old apartment.

The cabin. With the connection came relief, and I exhaled,

reaching up to rub my eyes.

Nick's hand moved, drawing my attention to its gentle

presence on my arm. "You all right?"

"Yeah." I faced him in the darkness. "You know how it is."
He made a quiet sound of agreement.
"Go back to sleep," I said. "Sorry I woke you up."
"Don't worry about it." Already his voice was slurred with

sleepiness, and in moments, he was out cold.

This wasn't unusual. One of us dreamed, the other shook him

out of it, I'm sorry, don't worry about it, go back to sleep. Same shit,
different night.

I rubbed my eyes again and released an aggravated breath.

On the plus side, at least we were in the same bed now. These stupid
dreams  were  infinitely  easier  to  deal  with  when  I  woke  up  beside
him.  Problems  aside,  nothing  anchored  me  in  reality  and  reminded
me that the incident with Jesse was long over like Nick touching me
gently  without  telling  me  to  put  pressure  on  a  damned  gunshot
wound.

As it always did, the panic from the dream gave way to

irritation that it had disturbed my already restless sleep. Before long,
that irritation surrendered to fatigue, and I drifted off beside Nick.

Thankfully, I didn't dream for the rest of the night. When I

woke up, the sun was up and the old clock beside the bed read
quarter to eight.

And Nick was gone.
A moment of half-asleep panic made my heart skip—did he

give up and take off already?—but the scent of coffee soothed my
nerves. Sure enough, when I made it out of bed and down the stairs,
he was out on the deck, resting his forearms on the railing and
cradling a white ceramic mug in his hands. I poured some coffee for
myself, then joined him outside.

He looked over his shoulder and offered a vague smile.

"Morning."

"Morning." I sipped my coffee. "Sleep all right?"
He shrugged and shifted his gaze back out to the lake and

forest. "Oh, I can't complain. You?"

"All things considered," I said. "Same." As we looked out at

the scenery, last night's silence tried to set in again, so I quickly
added, "Want to check out some of the trails today? I hear the hiking
is second to none."

He watched his thumb trace the curve of his coffee cup's

handle. "Hell, why not?"

"Unless there was something else you wanted to do?"
Nick shook his head, and his eyes flicked up to check out the

scenery while his thumb continued making those slow, idle arcs on
his mug. "Sounds like it's either hiking or boating around here this
time of year, so…"

"I'll pass on boating," I said with some forced humor. My

arm ached just thinking about trying to do anything resembling
rowing.

He pushed himself up and, with a watery smile, finally

looked at me. "Hiking it is, then."

After a mostly silent breakfast, we laced up our boots and

wandered down to the narrow access road that encircled the lake.
The access road itself was recommended for an easy, leisurely hike,
but occasional trailheads branched off into the thick forest, leading to
hikes of varying difficulty. We hadn't yet decided where we wanted
to go yet, so for now, we just wandered the access road.

Fall had come early this year, so red and brown leaves

formed a wet blanket over one side of the muddy dirt road while
their absence overhead let the morning sun pour in like the rain must
have done during the night. The farther we walked, the muddier the
road became. Leaves floated in wide puddles, and our boots sank
into the thick, wet clay.

At one point, Nick chuckled and glanced at me. "Guess this

wouldn't be a good place to take the Vette for a spin."

I scoffed as I stepped over a puddle. "What was your first

clue?"

"Oh, come on," he said with a grin in his voice. "A little mud

on her tires might give her some character."

I made a horrified, choked sound, and Nick laughed aloud. I

had to admit it was good to hear him laugh, even if it was at the
expense of my beloved Corvette.

"So, no off-roading, then?" he asked.
"No. No off-roading."
"Damn."
We both laughed and continued walking.
Though the road was wide enough for one vehicle, the

puddles forced us to walk close together. Sometimes one after the

other, sometimes side by side. On one particular stretch, we didn't
have to walk in single file, but we had to stay close together. Closer
together than we'd walked in a long, long time.

I wondered a few times if they would, and finally they did:

the backs of my fingers brushed his.

We both jumped, glancing first at our hands, then at each

other. To my surprise, though, he didn't recoil from the brief,
accidental contact, and even when the passable terrain allowed us to
walk farther apart, he didn't try to put more space between us. Even
after he sidestepped a puddle, he came back to that disconcerting
closeness.

Holding my breath, I reached for his hand. I let my fingertips

graze the side of his index finger just to test the water. He didn't draw
away, so I curved my hand around his. When he let me slip my
fingers between his, I slowly released my breath.

We didn't look at each other. Neither of us said a word. We

just… let this be.

After a while, though, the relief of not fighting faded and I

couldn't get comfortable in this silence. That wasn't why we were
here.

I took a deep breath. "I suppose we should get to why we

came up here in the first place."

Nick's posture stiffened. His hand tensed in mine, and the

relaxed, gentle contact became stiff and tentative. I was more aware
of the rigidness of bones and tendons than the soft warmth of skin.
We were still touching, but the gap between us had noticeably
widened.

"Nick…"
He exhaled. "You want to talk about this? Now? Out here?"

He gestured at our surroundings with his free hand, and I tried not to
notice the way his other hand inched toward breaking away.

"That's what we came up here to do, isn't it?"
He said nothing, but his fingers slipped free from mine and

neither of us tried to reestablish that contact.

"Look, as long as we're here," I said. "We might as well.

Let's just, you know, figure out what the fucking problem is. Now is
as good a time as any."

"Maybe so, but perfectly honestly?" He glanced at me. "I

really don't want to talk about this."

"I don't either," I said. "But it's the only way we're going to

resolve things."

"Or it'll make things worse."
"Got any better ideas?" Immediately, I wished I hadn't asked.

He did have another idea, and it was one I couldn't stand considering
until we'd at least given this a last ditch, pull-out-all-the-stops, hail
Mary attempt to repair our relationship.

I started to divert the conversation, but he beat me to it.
"Maybe we're just not compatible," he said. "We've both had

relationships fail in the past. Maybe this one is going to be another
one like that." He sounded so resigned. Almost… at peace with the
idea.

"We are compatible, Nick. We just—"
"How do you know we are?" he asked. "We only had a short

time to get to know each other and get our feet under us before all
this shit went down, and ever since all of that happened—" he waved
a hand and shook his head "—it's been downhill for us."

"The fact that we made it through all of that says something,

doesn't it?"

His head snapped toward me, and his eyes were narrow with

sudden fury. "So am I obligated to stay with you because you took a
bullet for me?"

The question hit me like a fist to the chest. I stopped dead

and stared at him, lips parted and no air moving between them.

The anger in his expression dissipated, and his eyebrows slid

upward like he was surprised to realize the words had actually come
out. He swallowed, and when he spoke again, his voice was calmer,
but the undercurrent of frustration remained. "I'll be grateful until the
day I die that you saved my life, and I'll never forgive myself for
what that cost you. I mean that. But at what point is it acceptable for
me to say we're better off with other people?"

I pulled in a breath. "Is… is that what you want?"
Nick dropped his gaze. "I don't know. I don't fucking know

what I want, Andrew." Anger crept back into his voice. "I'm tired of
the guilt. I'm tired of feeling like I have to stay so I'm not the asshole
who left the man who took a bullet for him."

"Nick, you don't have to stay with me because of—"

"Tell that to my fucking conscience," he snapped. Then he

blew out a breath and looked away. "I'm just sick of feeling guilty
and feeling trapped. And that's all I know right now."

My throat ached, but I forced myself to speak. "You're not

the only one who feels guilty."

He gave a tired shrug. "So we both feel guilty. What do we

do now?"

"That's what we're here to figure out. You know, maybe

there's a way we can find our way back to the way we were before
we got hurt. We had something really good then."

"Had, Andrew," he said. "We had something good. We had

something great. But we can't magically make the past disappear. I
don't know about you, but I can't just forget it and pretend it never
happened."

"Neither can I, but do you have any better ideas?"
His eyes met mine. They were narrow with exhaustion and

frustration, and cool water trickled through my veins as I
remembered once again that he most certainly did have another idea.

Before he could bring that idea to life, I said, "Do you still

love me?"

His eyes widened, then narrowed again, this time with pure

fury, and he set his jaw. "Don't you dare question that."

I put up both my hands. "Then give me something, Nick.

You've been shutting me out. We've fought for months on end about
fuck knows what. You're all but moved out, and now you're hinting
that all that's keeping you here are guilt and obligation. If you don't
want me to question it, then for fuck's sake, give me a reason to keep
believing it."

He winced. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"Yes," I said with a slight nod. "But I'm starting to wonder

why."

He stared at me, his lips pressed tightly together and his eyes

unreadable. After a moment, he forced out a breath, shook his head,
and threw up his hand. "Is this what you wanted? More of the same
shit, just in a different setting?"

"Not at all," I said through gritted teeth. "I don't care if we do

this here, at home, in the middle of the fucking freeway, but we need
to do it."

Swearing under his breath, he shoved a hand through his

hair. "You know what? I can't… I…" He blew out a breath and took
a step back. "I need to fucking clear my head. I can't do this right
now."

With that, he turned on his heel and continued down the trail.
Not speaking, not moving, I watched him go. Once he'd

disappeared around a bend and his soft leaf-crushing footsteps had
faded, I shook my head and turned around to go back to the cabin.

There was no point in following him. Once Nick decided he

needed to clear his head, there was no reasoning with him. No
arguing with him. He'd shut down and shut me out until he sorted
things out in his own mind, and this was one storm I just had to let
pass.

So I went back to the cabin and let him walk.

Six

Nick made it back to the cabin about two hours after I did.

He  left  his  boots  by  the  door  and  didn't  say  a  word  before  he  went
upstairs to get a shower. Judging by the mud caked on the his boots
up to and above the ankle, he must have gone down one of the side
trails.  A  long  hike  down  a  muddy,  undoubtedly  hilly  trail  was
probably  the  closest  he  could  get  to  his  usual  outlet,  which  was  a
hard  run.  Well,  that  was  his  other  usual  outlet,  anyway.  I  didn't
imagine his favorite outlet was high on his list right now.

While he showered, I went out onto the deck. Fifteen or

twenty minutes later, I wasn't too surprised to hear the door open
behind me, but the sound still sent my heart racing.

The door clicked shut, and his footsteps stopped.
I took a deep breath, then faced him.
His hair was wet and half-heartedly arranged into its

customary messy spikes. Under his sweatshirt, his shoulders
slumped, and he had his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Looking at
me through his lashes, he just said, "Hey."

"Hey."
Silence descended. He looked away. Then I did. The

forested mountain's peaceful atmosphere unnerved me. It
emphasized the tension up here on the deck, every rustle of wind or
chirp of a nearby bird underscoring all the things we weren't saying.

Finally, Nick spoke. "Listen, I'm sorry. About earlier." He

swallowed. "I'm just… frustrated."

"So am I," I said softly. "But ignoring this isn't fixing it."
He nodded. "I know."

"And if it's something we can't fix, then…" I shrugged. After

a moment, I shook my head. "Then it's something we can't fix. But
we won't know until we at least try."

Nick nodded slowly. "I guess I can't argue with that." He

took  his  hands  out  of  his  pockets  and  folded  his  arms  across  his
chest,  shifting  his  shoulders  a  bit  like  he  was  trying  to  get
comfortable.  His  posture  didn't  come  across  as  defensive.  A  failed
attempt at looking less tense, but not defensive.

I pushed myself off the railing. "The bugs will be coming out

soon. We should probably take this indoors."

"Good idea."
At least that gave us an excuse to move. Anything that

wasn't standing here and not speaking was good enough for me right
now.

"Living room?" I asked as I closed the kitchen door behind

me.

"Sure. But first, I need something to drink." Nick reached

into the freezer and took out the ice cube tray. "You?"

It probably wouldn't help matters, but what the hell? "Sure."

I pulled a pair of glasses out of the cupboard, and unscrewed the cap
on the bourbon while he picked up the bottle of Crown.

Drinks in hand, we went into the living room. I sat on one

end of the couch. He sat on the other.

And there we were. We'd had a false start earlier. Now it was

time to try again. Maybe a different approach as in order, but I'd been
lucky to come up with the failed approach this morning. God  knew
what  the  hell  we  needed  to  try  this  time,  though  I  was  pretty  sure
hiding  in  our  drinks  on  opposite  ends  of  a  couch  wasn't  the  best
choice.

Nick pulled his knee up on to the cushion and balanced his

glass on it. "Hey, do you remember when we went to my family
reunion a few months ago?"

Okay, maybe this wasn't the right approach either, but the

memory made me laugh, so I ran with it.

"Well, most of it, yes." I chuckled. "Has your aunt ever

forgiven me for that?"

He snickered and shook his head. "Probably not. She's still

convinced you're a drug addict."

I clicked my tongue. "I don't suppose the sling on my arm

tipped her off about why I was hopped up on painkillers?"

He laughed aloud. "Well, I'm sure it did, but then she saw

you holding my beer, and—"

"I only held it for like two minutes!"
"Yeah, well." He shrugged apologetically, but the effect was

lost  entirely  when  he  smirked.  "That's  what  she  saw."  The  smirk
faded  to  a  smile  that  looked  as  nostalgic  as  it  was  amused.  "The
whole  thing  cracked  me  up,  though.  Especially  with  the  number  of
people  who  said  you  had  a  genius  approach  to  Swain  family
reunions."

I laughed. "I won't argue with that. I love your family, Nick,

but…" I whistled and shook my head.

'Tell me about it." He grimaced as he brought his glass up to

his lips.

"In all fairness, my family isn't much better," I said.

"Remember my cousin's wedding?"

Nick groaned and rolled his eyes. "God, don't remind me."
"Oh, come on, it wasn't that bad." I absently ran my finger

around the rim of my glass. "I mean, once you've had a few drinks,
they're actually a pretty fun crowd."

"After a few, yes," he said with a nod. Then he shot me a

pointed look. "Except I think your cousin's in-laws could have done
without what happened when we'd had a few drinks."

I put up my hand and shrugged as I brought my glass up to

take a sip. "What? It was one dance."

"Uh-huh." He snickered. "And it was just one comment

about how I was a trained paramedic who could give the bride's
father mouth-to-mouth if the two gay men gave him a heart attack,
right?"

I choked on my drink, and Nick laughed too. Neither of us

was normally so in-your-face about our sexuality or our relationship,
but my cousin and his new wife were furious on our behalf for the
way her parents behaved. When I made the snide comment, the bride
had laughed so hard, Nick damn near had to do mouth-to-mouth on
her instead of her horrified, homophobic father.

After a moment, I regained the ability to breathe, and

coughed once more for good measure. "Hey, everyone else thought it

was funny."

"True, they did." He raised his glass in a mock toast. With a

wink, he added, "Though I think you disappointed three of the
bridesmaids when you danced with me."

I laughed again, my cheeks burning. "I don't know about

that."

"Believe what you want." He raised his eyebrows. "I know

what I saw."

I cocked my head. "Nick, are you gloating?"
"Me?" He batted his eyes. "Gloating because three women

wanted you? No, no, why would I do that?" He flashed a toothy grin
before taking another drink.

Shaking my head, I chuckled. Taking a sip of my own drink,

I  let  myself  get  lost  in  the  memory  for  a  moment.  Homophobes
aside, my cousin's wedding was a fun night. It was the first time I'd
ever  danced  with  a  boyfriend  outside  of  a  gay  bar,  and  even  the
nagging  ache  in  my  arm  hadn't  been  enough  to  put  a  damper  on
things. We hadn't done it for show, we hadn't done it to fuck with the
bride's  parents.  It  just  happened.  A  few  drinks,  some  lowered
inhibitions, and a look from Nick, and there we were. It wasn't until
later  that  I  knew  it  had  bothered  anyone.  The  thought  hadn't  even
crossed my mind, if I was honest with myself. I'd just gotten caught
up in the moment, in being on a dance floor, looking at him like no
one else—not the three allegedly jealous bridesmaids, not the bride's
homophobic  parents,  not  the  family  members  who  I  found out later
were almost moved to tears watching us—existed in the world.

Swallowing my drink without even tasting it, I looked across

the expansive space between us. Nick's humor had faded. He held his
glass an inch or so from his lips, slowly moving his jaw like he was
rolling  some  whisky  around  on  his  tongue,  and  his  eyes  had  lost
focus. I wondered if his mind was still at that wedding, or if he'd let
the  memories  carry  him  to  hours  later  in  our  hotel  room.  Things
hadn't  been  great  between  us  for  a  while,  but  just  for  that  night,
everything was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

All at once, Nick shook himself back to life and cleared his

throat. He tilted his glass, and frowned at the ice cubes. "Damn it. I
need a refill. You want any more?"

I looked into my own glass and realized I was down to ice

myself. "Why not?" I started to get up, but he gestured for me to
stay.

"I'll get it." He took my glass, and I relaxed against the back

of the couch while he went into the kitchen.

While he was gone, I chewed my thumbnail and listened to

the sounds of ice cubes crackling and glass clinking in the other
room. I couldn't decide if the way things were going was a step in the
right direction, or if it may as well have been a wake for our
relationship. One night of drinking to us, an evening of talking about
the good times, then we could go back to the land of the living and
move on separately. Lay it to rest or bring it back to life.

He came back a minute later with two glasses.
"Thanks," I said, and we exchanged smiles as he handed me

my drink.

He eased himself onto the couch beside me, and I tried not to

notice he didn't sit quite so far away now. Certainly not intimately
close together like all those nights we spent curled in front of
movies, but one less mile of upholstery divided us now. I'd take it.

I sipped my drink, then leaned forward and set the glass on

the coffee table. No sense drinking too much too fast. It was still
early, after all. That, and sooner or later we'd get past the reminiscing
and make it to the difficult subject we'd been avoiding. I needed a
clear head to deal with that.

I rested my arm on the back of the couch and pulled my leg

up  onto  the  cushion.  Nick  glanced  at  my  knee,  at  my  eyes,  at  my
glass.  He  took  a  long  swallow  of  Crown,  then  set  it  on  the  table
beside mine. When he sat back this time, he mirrored me, pulling his
knee  up  and  resting  his  elbow  on  the  back  of  the  couch.  Had  he
extended his arm, our hands would have overlapped, but he casually
scratched his neck and, even after that, kept his elbow bent.

His eyes were fixed on the drinks sitting side by side on the

edge of the coffee table. Then he gave a soft, nearly inaudible laugh
and looked away.

"What?"
"Nothing."
"You sure?"
He took a breath. "This just…" As he gazed at our drinks

again, his smile fell, and sadness replaced that fleeting glint of humor

in his eyes. "Just brought back some memories, I guess."

"Of?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then he shook his head and

reached for his drink. "Nothing."

Ice clinked on the inside of his glass as he brought it to his

lips. When he set the drink beside mine again, leaving just a fraction
of an inch between them, a memory of my own sparked to life. One
from the very earliest weeks, maybe even the earliest days, of our
relationship.

Heart pounding, I reached for my own drink. I paused, my

hand hovering over the rim of the glass, and glanced at Nick.

He swallowed hard. Our eyes met. Then he cleared his throat

and dropped his gaze.

"Something wrong?" I asked.
"What?" His eyes darted toward my hand. "No. Nothing."
I watched his face as I rested my hand on the glass. When I

dipped my middle finger into the cool bourbon, Nick's Adam's apple
bobbed, and I knew without a doubt we were on the same
wavelength.

You do remember that night, don't you?
"Ugh, I've never been able to drink room temperature drinks,

alcoholic or otherwise," he'd said. "Ice cold or steaming hot. No in
between."

"I don't know," I'd replied, pausing to roll a sip of bourbon

around on my tongue, "I think if the right drink was served the right
way, you might take it at whatever temperature it came to you." And
I'd known at that moment that he was putty in my hands.

Especially when he cleared his throat and said, "Is that so?"

Three words that may as well have been, "Put your money where
your mouth is. I dare you."

I withdrew my finger from the glass, and Nick moistened his

lips.  Leaning  closer  to  him,  I  brought  my  hand  up,  and  his  eyes
flicked  from  mine  to  my  finger  as  I  brought  it  toward  him.  With
every  inch  I  gained,  he  squirmed  a  little  more,  and  his  breathing
deepened. Slowed. Intensified.

Oh yeah, he remembered.
Just shy of touching my fingertip to his lip, I brought my

hand back and slipped my fingers into my own mouth, holding his

gaze as I sucked the bourbon off my skin.

Nick gulped, and a shiver straightened his spine.
I grinned. "Something wrong?"
He pushed himself off the cushion and lunged for me.

"You're a fucking tease," he growled, and claimed my mouth in a
deep, demanding kiss. His tongue forced my lips apart, and I grabbed
fistfuls of his shirt and dragged him closer to me, almost on top of
me, and returned his kiss with equal fervor.

Damn it, we need to talk.
Andrew, hello? There's a reason you're here, and this isn't it.
Fuck it.
If only for tonight, just a little while in the living room of

this remote cabin, we were back at the beginning before things got
complicated, and I intended to savor that for as long as he'd let me.

Still kissing him, I put a hand to his chest and gently pushed

him back until he was against the back of the couch. Once I had him
where I wanted him, I unbuttoned the top of his jeans, and his fingers
curled in my hair as I drew his zipper down. A low growl escaped
the back of his throat when I wrapped my fingers around his erect
cock. I stroked him slowly, gently.

He gripped my shoulders and tried, as much as he could in

this position, to move his hips in time with my hand. His kiss faltered
now and then, to the point our lips occasionally just touched without
even moving, but then he'd whimper and kiss me with renewed
desperation.

I touched my forehead to his. Panting against his mouth, I

whispered, "Stay there."

Nick licked his lips, but didn't move. When I leaned toward

the coffee table, he gulped, and I thought he might have whimpered
softly as I hooked my fingers under an ice cube and pulled it from
the glass.

I grinned. "Something wrong?"
Eyes still fixed on my hand, he shook his head. "No. Not at

all."

"I didn't think so." I slipped the ice cube into my mouth.
"Oh, God," he breathed.
I moved to my knees in front of him, and he closed his eyes

and let his head fall back before I'd even touched his cock.

"Shit, Andrew…" He shivered, moaning softly as I took him

slowly into my mouth.

His fingers alternately grasped and combed through my hair

as I teased him with my tongue, the ice cube, my tongue again. The
vague aftertaste of bourbon in my mouth paled in comparison to the
familiar  salt  of  his  skin,  and  the  ice  cube  did  nothing  to  temper  his
body  heat.  My  own  erection  was  almost  painful  now,  straining
against  the  front  of  my  jeans  as  every  taste and every  sound  turned
me on.

I steadied him with one hand and stroked him with the other,

ignoring the dull ache in my upper arm because it was no match for
the one below my belt. I wanted Nick so goddamned bad it hurt to
even breathe.

The ice melted slowly as Nick's moans deteriorated into

helpless whimpers. The hand in my hair twitched and tensed, and he
reached back to grab the back of the couch with his other. His back
arched and his breathing quickened.

"Don't stop, Andrew," he whispered. The couch creaked as

his back arched off it. "Oh… shit…" A low, helpless groan came
from the back of his throat, and goose bumps rose under my shirt.

I didn't stop. His arousal turned me on more than anything in

the world, and I did everything I could to turn him on. Teasing him
with the shrinking ice cube, stroking him, fluttering and flicking and
swirling my tongue, driven by the soft, delirious sounds he made as
he slowly fell apart.

"Oh, God," he groaned, shaking and writhing on the couch.

"Oh  God,  just  like  that.  Fuck,  Andrew,  fuck…"  His  entire  body
tensed,  trembled,  and  he  released  a  soft  moan  an  instant  before  he
came  on  my  tongue.  I  continued  stroking  him,  though  slower  now,
and kept my lips around his cock until he relaxed against the back of
the couch.

I sat back, wiping my lip with the back of my hand, and he

stared up at the ceiling. Closing his eyes and licking his lips, he ran
an unsteady hand through his hair, then swore under his breath.

I grinned. "You all right?"
He opened his eyes and reached for me. Grabbing the front

of my shirt, he said, "Oh, you know I'm just fine." I didn't even get a
chance to make a playful retort before his lips were against mine. His

kiss was aggressive and deep, and the ache below my belt was
almost unbearable now because Nick's mouth left no doubt in my
mind that he was taking over now. I'd gotten him off, and now I was
his for the teasing, and I knew he'd capitalize on that.

"Let's go upstairs," he murmured. "More comfortable up

there." He let his lips brush mine. "More room to move."

I shivered.
Upstairs, we wasted no time stripping out of our clothes. We

didn't bother undressing each other or taking everything off piece by
piece. I didn't know about him, but I needed him too badly for any of
that nonsense.

And just as I knew he would, Nick took over as soon as we

were in bed. He pushed me onto my back and, supporting himself on
his forearm, reached between us. I gasped and closed my eyes as he
wrapped his fingers around my cock.

"You know, when you tease me like you did downstairs," he

growled, pausing to kiss my neck, "I have no choice but to seek
revenge the only way I know how."

"Oh?" I bit my lip. "And how is that?"
"By teasing you." He kissed my neck again. Lower this time.

Lower. A little lower. Kiss by soft kiss, he worked his way down. I
closed  my  eyes  and  squirmed  beneath  him.  No  one  in  the  world
knew  as  many  ways  as  Nick  did  to  drive  me  wild  with  his  mouth.
Dragging his lip along the side of my throat. Nipping my collarbone.
The  lightest  contact  of  his  tongue  to  my  nipple.  A  gentle  bite  just
above my hipbone that fucking unraveled me every damned time.

And with every inch he gained, moving slowly downward, I

lost a little more of my mind to delicious, agonizing anticipation. My
back lifted off the bed every time his lips lifted off my skin. Holding
onto the headboard, I dug my teeth into my lip and screwed my eyes
shut, biting back pleas for him to please, please suck my cock. He
knew I wanted it; if I begged him, he'd only tease me more, and
tonight I needed him to just fucking do it.

He ran the tip of his tongue along the underside of my cock,

and I gasped as electricity surged up the length of my spine. A warm
breath of laughter teased my skin, and his tongue retraced that path.
Again. Once more just in case I had a few scraps of sanity left.

Then he pushed himself up on his arms and rested his weight

on one. When he steadied my cock with his thumb and forefinger
around the base, I almost came un-fucking-glued, because I knew
what he was about to do.

He looked up at me and grinned. "What's wrong, Andrew?"
"Nothing at all," I said.
"That's what I thought." And oh, Christ, he went down on

me.

Nick could deep-throat like nobody's business. I couldn't

breathe as he slowly took me, a fraction of an inch at a time, into his
mouth. Then he rose just as slowly, paused to tease the head of my
cock with the tip of his tongue before descending on me once again.
The second time he came up, his hand followed his mouth, squeezing
just right to set nerve endings ablaze and drive a helpless groan from
my lips. He went down again, and again, moving just a little faster
now and not taking me quite so deep, letting his hand do most of the
work on the shaft while his mouth—holy fuck, that man's mouth—
teased me right to the brink of an orgasm.

His eyes flicked up and met mine, and all the air left my

lungs at once, and when he doubled his efforts—squeezing, stroking,
swirling with his tongue—I didn't stand a chance. Gripping the
headboard for dear life, I closed my eyes and surrendered, and just as
I came, Nick groaned, and both the thrum of his voice and the sheer
ecstasy behind it sent me spiraling even deeper into pure, sweet
oblivion.

I might have said something, or I might have just moaned. I

wasn't sure. All I knew was, right about the time my vision cleared
and my body sank back down to the bed, Nick was over me, hot skin
touching hot skin, his mouth salty and demanding against mine. I
gripped his hair and the back of his neck, kissing him hard even as I
fought to catch my breath.

Nick broke the kiss and pushed himself up enough to look at

me. I touched his face, letting my fingertips drift over the coarse
stubble on his jaw.

His lips curved into a tired smile. No, that wasn't right. He

didn't look tired. With a sinking feeling in my chest, I realized he
looked sad.

Stroking his cheek with the backs of my fingers, I said, "You

all right?"

"Yeah," he said, and the sad smile turned into an equally

unenthusiastic laugh. "Guess we're still good at this part."

"True, we are."
The laugh evaporated, but the sadness lingered in his eyes.

He shifted onto his side, propping himself up on one arm. He slipped
his other hand into mine and watched his thumb draw gentle arcs
along my skin.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "You just went from turned on and

enthusiastic to… well, this."

"Sorry." He sighed, then moistened his lips. "I guess I was

just thinking. It… sometimes it seems like sex is the only good thing
we have, you know?"

"In the beginning, it was the only thing we had," I said. "And

we still turned this into something more. It's just… life happened."

"That's one way to put it, I guess." Nick laughed softly,

though it was a halfhearted sound. "Well, we may suck at a
relationship, but like I said, at least we're good at this part."

"Yeah, we're good at this part, I'll give you that." I hesitated.

"Question is, do you think the rest of it is worth it?"

Nick sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I want to say it

is, but I just don't know."

I put a hand on his arm. "What's holding you back?"
He fell silent, his eyes losing focus. Undoubtedly mulling

over his answer, if I knew him.

"Nick, talk to me," I pleaded softly.
Another quiet moment passed before he finally spoke.
"I do love you, Andrew, I just don't know if that's why I'm

still here." He spoke slowly as if every word took intense effort and
concentration.  "One  minute,  I  think  we're  here  because  we  want  to
be. The next, I think it's because you feel guilty about what happened
to me, or I feel guilty because of what happened to you." He exhaled.
"Ever  since  it  happened,  that  day  has  defined  us.  And  our
relationship  was  so  new  at  that  point…  of  course  I  loved  you  then
and  I  love  you  now."  He  met  my  eyes,  and  the  pain  in  his  was
palpable.  "But  I  can't  figure  out  where  those  feelings  end  and  that
day begins."

"Are you sure those feelings do end somewhere?"

Nick dropped his gaze. Shaking his head slowly, he

whispered, "I'm not sure about anything." He reached up and rubbed
his neck with both hands, tilting his head to one side, then the other,
as if the muscles were painfully stiff. Finally, he lowered his hands
and raised his gaze.

"Even when we fight all the time," he said, "you still want to

keep doing this?"

"I'd rather fight with you than lose you."
He fell silent again.
"Give me something, Nick," I whispered. "I need to know

where you stand."

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. "I still love you. I

mean that." He looked at me. "I just, I don't know how to get things
back the way they were. I don't know if we can. Or how we can even
get to a better place than we are now. And I'm… I'm tired. When I'm
at work, I'm—" His voice cracked, and he paused to clear his throat.
"At work, I'm stressed because of my job. When I come home, I'm
on edge because either we're fighting or we're going to be."

I couldn't argue with that. The air in our house was always

taut with a recently concluded fight, a fight that was brewing, or the
certainty there was a fight on the horizon. I couldn't remember the
last time it didn't feel like that.

Nick went on. "The thing is, even when things are good, I

just feel like… like it's just a commercial break, and I'm waiting for
the  regularly  scheduled  program  to  come  back  on."  He  rested  his
hand on my side, but didn't look at me. "I mean, everything was fine
in  the  beginning,  but  now  we  argue  all  the  time.  About  everything.
We had a few good weeks, and then we both got hurt, and it all went
to  shit.  We've  been  like  this  longer  than  we  were  like  that.  And
I'm…" He chewed his lip. Releasing a ragged breath, he looked me
in the eye, and the glint of tears in his eyes took my breath away. His
voice  was  painfully  unsteady  as  he  whispered,  "I'm  fucking
miserable, Andrew."

Like nothing else he'd said up until now, those four words hit

me where it hurt.

I squeezed his hand and kissed the backs of his fingers. "I'm

sorry." What else was there to say?

Stroking my hair, he didn't speak.

"So what do we do?" I asked.
Nick shook his head. "I've been trying to figure that out for

months."

Silence. Long, uncomfortable, unproductive, skin-prickling

silence.

He trailed his hand down my arm and onto the scar, but he

didn't  recoil  when  his  fingertips  drifted  over  the  disfigured  flesh.
Instead,  he  watched  himself  trace the  edge, his  brow furrowed  with
some expression I couldn't read. The anger and frustration from this
morning  were  gone,  and  he  just  seemed…  contemplative.  Worried.
Scared, even.

"What's on your mind?" I asked.
Nick drew a deep breath. Held it. Parted is lips like he was

about to speak.

Then he lifted his hand off my arm and released his breath.

"Nothing."

Bullshit.
I raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
He swallowed hard and nodded. "Yeah. Don't worry about

it." Before I could decide whether or not to press the issue, he said, "I
guess this is a start. It's… all out on the table."

Is it? "Yeah, I suppose it is. Question is, what do we do with

it?"

He shook his head. "No idea. Maybe we just sleep on it and

take it from there."

I glanced at the clock beside the bed. "A little early to try to

sleep on anything, isn't it?"

"Maybe." He slid his hand over my waist and moved closer

to me. "But we can define 'sleep' loosely in this case."

"Can we?" I shivered as his fingers drifted up my spine.
His lips brushed mine. "Got any better ideas?"
I didn't have any better ideas. We could have spent the whole

evening and into the night dealing with everything that was finally
out in the open, but it was easier to kiss him. And run my fingers
through his hair. And whisper "fuck me" in his ear.

And get close enough to him to forget we were falling apart.

Seven

I dreamed that night, but Jesse didn't shoot me this time. He

didn't try to shoot Nick either. There was a hallway, yes, and danger.
Blood. But it wasn't Nick's apartment. Just a long, dark, unfamiliar
hallway that was alive with activity.

I was running. I'd followed someone. Flashing red lights

from outside had intermittently flooded the stairs on the way up here,
but now it was dark. Mostly dark. I couldn't remember where I was
or why I was here, but there was no time for questions.

Scared. Disoriented. Running on pure adrenaline and a fierce

protective instinct that trumped all my training and the years as a cop
that had given me a cool head in the face of extreme danger. Calm,
almost furious instead of afraid, ready to draw blood to protect… to
protect…

Nick.
I remembered.
I'd been at the firehouse waiting for him to return from back-

to-back  calls  when  the  alarm  went  off  again.  As  soon  as  the  words
"…two  wounded  EMTs…"  slipped  off  someone's  lips,  I  was  going
with the crew and that was all there was to it. They didn't argue. Not
even  Bentley.  Shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  fire  truck,  we  hadn't
exchanged  a  dirty  look  or  a  cross  word.  Two  members  of  his  crew
were  down.  One  of them  may  have  been  my  lover.  Now  wasn't  the
time for anything except getting to and helping Nick and Leon.

And now we were in this dark place. This unfamiliar place

that was familiar all the same. One of those rundown apartment
buildings in Masontown that made my skin crawl. Aside from a

weak, pale beam in one of the upstairs windows and a few flickers of
the emergency lights below, there wasn't a light on in the entire
place, giving the building an even more ominous appearance.

The firefighters and EMTs wasted no time. They grabbed

jump kits and a stretcher, and ran inside. I followed, taking the stairs
two and three at a time, hoping to God I didn't misjudge a step in the
darkness.

On the top floor, we followed shouts and a bobbing

flashlight beam down a short hallway.

Leon, Nick's partner, sat against the wall. I didn't know how

bad his injuries were, though I assumed he was hurt too, but he was
obviously conscious and coherent.

When I saw Nick, my heart fell into my feet. I'd seen all

kinds of grisly and horrific things in my career, but Nick, oh God,
Nick…

He was on his side, and completely motionless. His shirt and

the  bulletproof  vest  I'd  given  him  were  on  the  floor,  and  they  were
both  bloody.  As  I  came  closer,  horror  constricted  my  throat.  A
flashlight  cast  sharp  shadows  across  his  face,  slicing  through  the
mess  of  blood  that  covered  his  mouth  and  nose.  The  bridge  of  his
nose was split open, and his forehead was bloody and abraded.

While one of the other medics helped Leon, I dropped to my

knees beside Nick and took his hand. His hand was warm, thank
God, and he was breathing, but the wheezing was enough to turn my
stomach.

Bentley knelt and touched Nick's arm. "Nick, can you hear

me?"

Nick's eyes fluttered.
"Talk to me, Nick," Bentley said. "Can you hear me?"
Nick blinked a few times, like he was struggling to focus.

His brow furrowed slightly, and I wondered if he even knew where
he was.

"Nick," I said. "Squeeze my hand twice if you can hear me."
To my great relief, he gave a weak squeeze. Then another.
Bentley leaned down, looking closer at him. Then he swore

and turned to Leon. "His throat's swelling. I need an oh-two mask."

"His nose is broken," Leon said. "How are we going to put a

mask on him?"

"We don't have much choice," Bentley said. "He probably

needs to be intubated."

"We can't," another firefighter said. "Not here, while he's

awake."

"Not much time," Bentley said. "Get him on that stretcher.

We have to get him out of here."

Nick's fingers loosened their grasp.
I gripped his hand. "Nick, are you still with me? Nick?"
Then we were in the ambulance. Nick was on his side on the

stretcher, blood pooling inside the oxygen mask and on the stark
white sheet. I sat in front of him, gripping his hand in both of mine as
he drifted in and out of consciousness. A thin cloud of condensation
grew on the inside of the mask, then faded, then bloomed again,
marking his weak, uneven breathing.

"We're almost there, Nick," Bentley said. "Just hang in

there."

I squeezed Nick's hand. "You'll be fine. Just stay with me." I

stroked his hair, praying my hand wouldn't shake enough to let on
how terrified I was.

"Keep talking to him," Keller said.
I nodded, then leaned closer to Nick. "Hang in there," I said

softly, cursing the unsteadiness in my voice. "You'll be all right, just
focus on the sound of my voice, all right?"

"He's still getting enough oxygen," Keller said. "But not for

much longer at this rate."

"They're going to tube him anyway as soon as he gets to the

ER," Bentley said.

"Not while he's awake, they'll—"
"Guys, his vitals are getting worse," Leon said. "We may not

have much choice."

Nick's eyelids slid closed, and his hand loosened in mine

again.

"Nick, look at me," I said. "We're only a couple of minutes

from  the  hospital,  you'll  be  all  right."  I  kept  combing  my  fingers
through his hair, and there was no stopping  my hand from shaking.
Not  when  every  breath  he  drew  took  far,  far  too  much  effort  and
made  a  sickening  wheezing  sound.  He  tried  to  cough,  and  the
wheezing worsened.

"I'm tubing him," Bentley said, and no one tried to stop him

as he lunged for one of the plastic compartments on the side of the
ambulance.

I shuddered, and pushed myself up. I leaned over the

stretcher. "Nick, stay with me."

Wait, this isn't how it happened.
"Hang in there, Nick." My voice shook now, but I didn't

care. "Nick, stay with me." His pulse was rapid but weak. What's
going on? I could feel his heartbeat thumping against my hands,
against my skin, but I didn't understand how.

This isn't how it happened.
His eyes closed. Fluttered. Stopped.
What's going on?
The hint of steam on the inside of the oxygen mask cleared,

and it didn't fog up again.

No, no, this isn't right.
"Shit, tube him now!"
"I don't have a pulse."
Nick, stay with me.
The words wouldn't come. I couldn't tell him to breathe

because I couldn't breathe myself.

Nick, come on.
The medics and firefighters shouted. There was movement.

Frantic, rapid movement.

Don't leave me like this.
"He's not breathing!"
Nick, don't leave.
"Clear his airway!"
Don't go, please.
Of course he couldn't breathe.
Nick…don't leave me like this…
My hands were around his throat.

~ * ~

"Andrew."
I sucked in a lungful of air. When I opened my eyes, it was

dark, but not the same dark as the inside of that hallway. After a few
rapid, panicked heartbeats and a few breaths—have I been holding
my breath?—I settled back into reality. Another dream. Big shock.

Nick—alive and well and fully conscious—squeezed my

arm. "You all right?"

"Yeah." I put a hand over his, closing my eyes and exhaling

as the warmth of his skin reassured me he was all right. "Sorry I
woke you up."

"Don't worry about it." His voice wasn't slurred and sleepy

like it usually was when one of us woke the other with a dream.

I turned toward him, looking for some hint of his features in

the darkness. "Were you already awake?"

"No," he said. "You startled me." His fingertips trailed down

the side of my face. "You don't usually dream quite so… violently."

Heat rushed into my cheeks. Caressing his forearm, I said,

"Sorry. I guess—"

He cut me off with a gentle kiss. "I mean it when I say don't

worry about it." He kissed me again. "How many times have I done
the same to you?"

"Still…" God, Nick, if you only know what I just saw…
"It's okay. Why don't we try to get some sleep?"
"Good idea." I lifted my head to kiss him one last time. "I'll

try not to wake you up again."

He laughed softly, but didn't say anything. After he turned

onto his side with his back to me, I slid up next to him, draping my
arm over his waist and molding my body around his. He didn't push
me away. In fact, he slid his hand over mine.

It should have been a relief to hold him like this. In a way, it

was, but that had more to do with my dream than just being close to
him like this for the first time in ages. Any other night, I could have
lost myself in his body heat, just savoring the lack of distance, but all
I could do now was—whether or not it was rational—breathe a small
sigh of relief every time his chest rose and fell beside me.

Nightmares were pretty much routine now, and they still left

me  with  ice  water  running  through  my  veins  every  damned  time.
Even  dreams  where  things  didn't  quite  line  up  with  reality,
sometimes  deviating  in  horrifying,  skin-crawling  ways,  weren't
entirely  unusual.  Sometimes  Jesse  shot  Nick  before  I  could  shove
Nick out of the way. Sometimes I couldn't move. The subconscious
is a twisted thing, and I dreamed of all kinds of  "what if" scenarios
that gave me chills.

Two nights in a row, when things were really bad a few

months ago, I'd dreamed I didn't even try to push Nick out of the line
of fire. I knew what would happen if I didn't, but I consciously and
deliberately planted my feet. I let Jesse fucking kill him.

Both times, I woke in a cold sweat and couldn't get back to

sleep. The thought of passively standing by and letting Nick die,
even in a dream, was enough to make me sick to my stomach even
now.

But the dream I'd just had…this one shook me to the core

like no other. Holding him now as he slept beside me, I couldn't get
the dream out of my head. Even as I breathed in his familiar scent, I
swore my nose still stung with pungent antiseptics and the metallic
smell of blood. Everything about that fucking dream was still raw,
still fresh, and more disturbing than anything that had ever wandered
through my subconscious.

My hands. Nick's throat. Squeezing the life out of him even

as I silently begged him to stay with me, stay with me, please, stay
with me.

Then, another memory came back, this one much more

recent and all too real:

"I'm fucking miserable, Andrew."
As Nick's shaking whispered words echoed in my ears, the

image of the bloody oxygen mask flickered through my mind. The
cloud of condensation shrank, shrank, shrank, and didn't grow again.
The plastic cleared, and no more breath came to fog it up again.

"I'm fucking miserable, Andrew."
My heart sank deeper and my stomach twisted into knots as I

held him tighter. His chest rose slowly within my embrace, then fell
just as slowly, his breathing easy and relaxed as he slept.

"He's not breathing!"
Nick, don't leave.
"Clear his airway!"
"I'm fucking miserable, Andrew."
I closed my eyes and pressed my lips to the back of his

shoulder. It hadn't occurred to me that being together might tear him
up the way being separated tore me up. Was I really strangling him?

Sleep didn't come for the rest of the night. Between being

afraid I'd have that dream again, and the thoughts running through

my head, there was no way in hell I was doing anything that wasn't
lying awake, listening to my own heartbeat and Nick's slow, relaxed
breathing.

Around the time the sun came up, I got out of bed and left

him to sleep as long as he wanted to. I was exhausted from not
sleeping, but still restless. Wound up. Coffee was probably the last
thing I needed, but it was something to do with idle hands, so as soon
as there was enough in the pot to fill a cup, I poured it into one of the
white ceramic mugs. Then I went out onto the balcony.

I stared out at the scenery, but didn't see it. Held my coffee

in both hands, but didn't drink it. The same thoughts that had needled
at me all night kept at it now, and I couldn't decide if they were
easier to deal with now that I wasn't holding on to Nick.

Some undefined amount of time passed. It could have been

ten minutes, it could have been two hours. I had no idea. I'd all but
forgotten where I was until then, when the door opened behind me,
and the skin prickled on my neck.

A moment later, Nick set his coffee cup on the railing as his

other hand materialized on my lower back. I turned my head, and he
offered a tired, uncertain, but genuine smile.

"Morning," he said.
"Morning."
We held each other's gazes for a few tentative seconds. Then

he leaned in and kissed me. It was just a light kiss, but we drew it out
past the point of anything obligatory or habitual. I resisted the urge to
wrap my arms around him and get lost in this. No point in kidding
myself any more than I'd be kidding him.

Nick pulled back first, and we exchanged cautious smiles

again. He lifted his hand off my back and picked up his coffee cup.
"How long have you been up?"

"A while." I absently ran my finger up and down the side of

my cup, which was cold now. "Couldn't sleep."

Usually, he'd ask if my arm was bothering me again, but he

said nothing. He probably knew full well it wasn't my arm that kept
me up this time.

That customary, uncomfortable silence settled in between us.

The tension wasn't as pronounced, at least not from his end, but I
didn't even try to delude myself that everything was okay. Even if

we'd come to some sort of ceasefire, if we'd stripped away the anger
to get to the raw emotions, it didn't bring us closer together. Sex had
broken the tension last night, but it didn't fix what I now realized
couldn't be fixed.

I took a breath. "When you dream about…" I paused. "About

everything that happened, does it always happen the same way?"

"You mean, is it always exactly what really happened?"
Without turning to him, I nodded.
"Most of the time, yeah." His coffee cup clicked quietly on

the railing. "Sometimes it's different. Different… endings, I guess.
Why?"

I took in a slow, deep breath. "The one I had last night was

different."

"How so?"
I swallowed hard, but still couldn't quite bring myself to look

at him. All morning, I'd tried to figure out how to explain everything
to Nick. What I'd dreamed, the conclusions I'd come to from that
dream, all of that. I was no closer now to finding the words than I
had been when I got out of bed, and just thinking about that dream in
Nick's presence made my stomach turn.

He stepped a little closer and put a hand on my arm.

"Andrew?"

Finally, I shook my head. "It was just… different."
"Care to elaborate?"
I shuddered. "Not really. I just brought it up because…" I

love you Nick. I don't want to hurt you. I've never wanted to hurt you.
I don't want to do this to you. I cleared my throat, then took a deep
breath. "Listen, I'm… gonna pack up and go."

Nick's posture straightened, and his hand tensed on my arm.

"What?"

I made myself look at him. "You're miserable, Nick. You've

said it, I can see it. I hoped we could find a reason to keep—" My
voice caught. I cleared my throat again. Then I gently moved my arm
out from under his hand and reached for my still full coffee cup.
"Let's just quit torturing ourselves. I don't want you to have to stay if
you're unhappy." I took a step toward the door. "Just, you know, give
me a call when you want to come get your things."

Nick moistened his lips and shifted his gaze out to the forest

beyond the deck.

"When you leave," I said. "Just drop the key at the office at

the bottom of the hill."

I pushed the door open and started into the kitchen.
"Andrew."
Hand on the doorknob, I met his eyes over both our

shoulders. "Hmm?"

"Are you sure about this?"
No. I don't want this. I don't know if I can take this. I don't

know how else to make you happy. No, I'm not sure about this.

Without a word, I continued into the house. The door clicked

shut behind me, and the hardwood floors creaked beneath my feet as
I crossed the kitchen and went upstairs to pack.

Fifteen minutes later, I got into my car and left.
And Nick didn't try to stop me.

Eight

I assumed Nick crashed at a friend's house or the fire station

that night, because I didn't hear from him and he didn't come home.
The next day, though, he didn't waste any time getting in touch about
coming to pick up his things. I was only three sips into my first cup
of coffee when his text came through, and there went my ability to
focus for the day.

Macy didn't ask. She knew, that much was obvious. Every

time she looked at me, her eyebrows climbed and her eyes said
nothing if not, Oh, Carmichael, I see right through you. But she
didn't press me about it.

Brian and I ran into each other in the parking garage, and as

soon as he saw me, his eyes widened with alarm. Eric had the same
reaction when I went by his desk to ask about the latest
developments of a wiretap situation. Like Macy, though, they didn't
ask. The fact that all three of them left well enough alone made me
wonder just how much I was wearing on my sleeve, because under
normal circumstances, they were all the type to back me into a corner
and pry information out of me.

When the day wound to a close, I considered staying to put

in some overtime, but there wasn't much point. My concentration
was shot. I had to go home eventually. Might as well just get it over
with.

On my way out, Macy caught up with me in the elevator.
"Hey." She forced a smile, but the furrow of her brow all but

announced she was weighing whether or not to pry.

I exhaled and looked at the numbers above the door instead

of at her. "No, it didn't go well."

She was quiet for two floors. As the elevator inched toward

our stop, she said, "So, what happened?"

Exhaustion pressed down on my shoulders. Going through

the motions had been difficult enough. Rehashing it meant tapping
into energy I simply didn't have.

"It's a long story," I said. "But he's… he's moving out."
The elevator stopped, and we both stepped out. As we

walked toward our cars, she said, "He's really going for good this
time, then?"

I nodded. "Yeah."
"Are you guys still…" She paused, looking at me like she

was trying to read my expression. "Still friends?"

"I…" Were we? I hadn't even thought about that. Nick and I

had been lovers since the day we met. This was hardly a nasty split,
but I wasn't sure we knew how to function as just friends.

I moistened my lips. "I don't know. I really don't."
We stopped behind her car, facing each other but not

speaking for a long moment.

"Are you okay, Andrew?" she asked softly.
"I will be." I think. I gestured toward my own car with my

keys. "I should, um, get going."

"Okay. You know you can call me any time you need to."
I forced a smile. "I know. Thanks."
She stepped toward me, arms out, and as much as I just

wanted to get the fuck out of there, I let her hug me. Resting my chin
on her shoulder, I closed my eyes and put my arms around her. Up
until now, I hadn't realized how much effort it took just to keep
standing on my own two feet, and now it took all I had not to lean on
her.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out," she whispered.
"Me too." My voice tried to crack, so I didn't say anything

more.

She pulled back and looked at me. "Take it easy tonight. If

you need to come in late tomorrow or anything, let me know. I'll
cover for you."

"Thanks." I managed a slightly more genuine smile. "I'll be

okay."

"All right," she said, but the lines in her forehead may as

well have said "Keep telling yourself that, because I sure as fuck
don't believe you."

She let it go, though, and I continued to my car.
All the way home, I dreaded turning down my driveway.

Either his car would be in front of the garage or it wouldn't be, and
my stomach coiled itself in knots as I wondered which option was
more likely. I hoped he'd already been there and gone. The emptiness
of our—my—house would be tough to deal with, but I wasn't sure I
could watch him leave again.

Just my luck, when my headlights lined up with the

driveway and illuminated the front of the house, Nick's car was in its
usual spot. He didn't have a rented or borrowed truck, which meant
he either intended to make more than one trip in his car, or he'd be
back another day with a larger vehicle.

God, please, let him come back while I'm at work.
For the moment, though, he was here.
I parked, walked past his car, and went inside. He looked up

from the couch, where he wrapped a picture frame in newspaper. A
few boxes—some sealed, some collapsed, some partly filled—
occupied part of the hallway and living room, just like they had when
he'd moved in. Already the shelves and tables looked bare without
the photos, books, and odd decoration he'd brought with him.

I cleared my throat. "So, you have a place lined up already?"
"Not yet." He dropped his gaze to the picture frame in his

hands.  "Zoe  and  Leon  said  I  could  crash  at  their  place,  but  I'll
probably just stay at the firehouse for now. This stuff—" he gestured
at the small pile  of boxes —"I'm just putting it in storage for now."
His  eyes  flicked  up  and  met  mine,  but  quickly  darted  back  to  the
safety of cardboard and newspaper. "Figured I'd, you know, get all of
this out of your hair sooner than later."

"Oh. Do you, um…" I couldn't even remember what

language I spoke. "You need any help?"

His eyebrows jumped slightly, as if he hadn't expected my

question. He looked at the half-wrapped picture frame in his hands,
turning it like he'd forgotten he was holding it, let alone packing it.
Then he half-heartedly pulled the last piece of newspaper around it.
"Uh, no. No, I'm good. Thanks."

"Okay, well…" I was about to say something, wasn't I?

Words. A thought. Something. "If you change your mind, I'll be
around."

"Sure. Thanks." He looked at me and offered a watery smile.
I returned it, then left him to packing. I didn't bother going in

the  bedroom  to  change  clothes  because  I  didn't  want  to  see  how
much  he'd  already  cleared  out  of  there.  Instead,  I  went  into  the
kitchen  and  draped  my  jacket  over  one  of  the  chairs  beside  the
island.

A drink was tempting. Several were tempting. I resisted,

though. After Nick and his things were gone, then I could drink.

Newspaper crinkled in the other room.
I winced. Oh, yeah. Once he and his stuff had left, I had an

urgent meeting with that bottle of Maker's Mark.

Desperate to get away from the sounds of wrapping and

packing,  I  went  into the  garage  and  flicked  on  the light.  For a  long
moment, I just stared at my car. The eighty-one black Corvette was
my  pride  and  joy.  My  hobby  when  I  had  time,  my  escape  when  I
needed one. I'd already detailed her the night Nick decided to leave,
and  again  the  next  evening  when  I  couldn't  get  used  to  the  empty
house. I supposed I could do it again, but right now, I couldn't muster
up the energy.

This was almost over. Even if I couldn't see myself making

peace with the ending, it would be easier to deal with than this. As
soon as he was gone, I could settle into his absence. Somehow.
Eventually. Maybe.

The door opened behind me.
I turned around, and even though there wasn't another soul

within half a mile of this house, Nick's presence startled me.

He let the door close behind him, then he leaned against it.

"I, um…" He bit his lip and dropped his gaze.

Furrowing my brow, I watched him, completely at a loss to

figure out what was on his mind. "What's up?"

He took a deep breath, but didn't look at me. "I just… after

you came in…" He gestured over his shoulder toward the rest of the
house. "While I was packing…"

I inclined my head, watching him silently.
He coughed into his fist, then scratched the back of his neck

in what I could only guess was a failed attempt to look less tense
than he was. "I just realized you're not trying to stop me. From
leaving, I mean."

"No, I'm not."
He met my eyes, but didn't speak.
Anger, frustration, and hurt twisted in my chest. "What do

you want me to say?"

He still said nothing. His lips thinned into a bleached line,

and he dropped his gaze, but he stayed silent. Knowing him, he was
trying to make sense of what was in his head before he put it into
words. Usually I could be patient with that—it was just part of who
he was—but the silence was killing me, especially since the longer
we stood here like this, the longer this whole process would go on.

I couldn't take another second of it. I opened my mouth to

speak, but Nick beat me to the punch:

"Do you want me to go?"
I sighed. "I won't try to make you stay if you want to go.

And I want this to be over with because it fucking hurts." Looking
him in the eye, I struggled to keep my voice even as I said, "But
don't make me say I want you to leave."

Nick took a deep breath. "Is it… too late to say I want to

stay?"

I swallowed. "I'm not sure. Is it?"
"I don't… I don't know." He chewed his lip. When our eyes

met, I wasn't sure I'd ever seen him looking so lost, and his voice was
quiet and uneven as he said, "I don't want to stay out of obligation,
but now that I'm leaving, it's…"

I shifted my weight. "Maybe it'll be easier once it's over

with."

"Maybe."
But he didn't move.
I reached up to massage some tension out of the back of my

neck. "Nick…" I couldn't even find the words. I didn't know what I
wanted to say. Or how to end this conversation so we could get on
with ending this.

He finally moved, but it wasn't toward the door. Instead, he

sat on the stool in front of my workbench and took a long breath.
"After everything that happened, when we both got hurt, I guess I

started  resenting  you  because  I  felt  guilty.  It  just,  it  pissed  me  off,
you know? That we had something that good, and then we both got
fucked  up,  and  suddenly  our  entire  life  seemed  to  revolve  around
that. The PTSD, you having all the problems with your arm, neither
of  us  being  able  to  sleep,  me  getting  headaches  all  the  time…"  He
made  a  sharp  gesture.  "And  even  when  we  both  recovered,  I  don't
know. I guess I kept thinking about all of that. I felt guilty. I resented
you. And I forgot about the big picture."

"And the big picture is…?"
He was silent for a long moment, chewing his lower lip.

"When you were in surgery after the shooting, and I was in the ER
waiting room, I was…" He paused again. Then he exhaled. "I'm not
good at this, Andrew."

"That makes two of us."
"Yeah, well, that's just it, I guess." He sighed. "We both suck

at getting the words out. And Jesus, all the time we were fighting and
resenting each other, I guess I didn't want to think about it, but…"
His brow furrowed, and his lips tightened. This wasn't like him at all.
Neither of us was great at discussing emotions, but it was like
whatever was on his mind kept eluding him.

Then he looked at me again, and my breath caught at the

sight of the extra shine in his eyes.

"I almost lost you that day, Andrew," he said softly. "I

thought I did lose you. And I've been afraid ever since of something
else happening to you."

"You don't think I've been afraid of losing you too?" I asked.

"Christ, Nick, you had a gun to your head two minutes after I met
you. The possibility of something happening to you has always been
a painful reality to me, and when I saw you in that hallway after
Jesse attacked you…" I shuddered.

"And I had to fucking walk away while you were bleeding

out," he whispered unsteadily. "I had to make a call, and I almost.
Fucking. Killed you."

"You didn't know," I said. "You couldn't have."
"But you still almost died because of it." He sniffed sharply

and  blinked  a  few  times.  Then  he  cleared  his  throat  and  went  on.
"And  you  wouldn't  have  been  shot  in  the  first  place  if  you  hadn't
been  trying  to  protect  me."  He  made  another  sharp,  frustrated

gesture. "The point is, I've been so damned scared of losing you
again, I pushed you away myself."

"I'm still here, Nick." I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"The question is, do you want to be?"

"Yes," he whispered.
I took a step toward him and held out my hand. "Then stay."
He rose, took my hand, and the space between us collapsed

in on itself. In a heartbeat, his arms were around me, and my God, I
couldn't  remember  the  last  time  we'd  kissed  like  that.  In  fact,  I
couldn't  say  we'd  ever  kissed  like  that.  I  backed  him  up  against the
workbench just to keep us both on our feet, and we held on to each
other with unsteady but unrelenting hands, fingers combing through
hair  and  grasping  clothing  and  not  letting  go  for  anything.  That  in
itself  wasn't  unusual,  but  the  desperate,  hungry  undercurrent  was
different  this  time.  We  weren't  desperate  for  sex  or  hungry  for  an
orgasm, just this. We held on to each other and kissed like this was
what we needed and wanted and craved, not like it was an outlet or
an escape from something unpleasant.

We pulled back enough to look at each other. God damn, it

was good to see him like this, without all the hostility and bitterness
hanging between us. As I reached up to touch his face, though, I
realized there was still something hiding in his expression. His smile
was genuine, and it echoed in his eyes, but the creases in his
forehead suggested our conversation wasn't completely over.

Then he broke eye contact, and his Adam's apple bobbed

once. He stood a little straighter, which meant drawing away from
me, and I couldn't help thinking the gap between us was widening
again.

I rested my hands on his waist, not forbidding him from

moving, but trying to maintain some contact. "Something wrong?"

Nick slowly drew in a breath. "Just… something I've been

trying to figure out how to ask you for a long time. And I think I
need to before we go any further."

My heart beat a little faster. "And that is?"
He took one of my hands off his waist and clasped our

fingers together between us. "I'm not even sure how to word it.
Without it, I mean, coming out wrong."

"Just try." I squeezed his hand. "If it comes out wrong, then,

try again."

He laughed softly, but without a trace of humor. "I'll try.

And you don't have to answer, but…" He bit his lip and kept his gaze
fixed on our hands. "But if you do, be honest. Completely honest."

"Okay…"
Nick pulled in a breath. "The night Jesse shot you," he

whispered, "when you took the bullet for me." He met my eyes.
"Would you have done that for anyone else?"

The question pushed the air out of my lungs. I would have

loved to tell him I would have done it for him and him alone. Deep
down, I wished I could convince myself of that. And the truth was, if
time had stopped and I'd had time to think things through and weigh
all the potential consequences, I still would have done it in a damned
heartbeat.

But there hadn't been time. No thinking, just doing. In the

heat  of  the  moment,  it  really  hadn't  mattered  that  he  was  my  lover.
Instinct and training had taken over, no matter how much I wanted to
tell  myself  it  was  some  romantically  noble  act  of  self-sacrifice  to
protect  the  man  I  loved  more  than  life  itself.  There  was  a  weapon
brandished, a person in danger, and an instinctive act. Nothing more.

I moistened my lips. "The day we met, you put your life on

the line to treat my partner, right? Even though she was a total
stranger?"

Nick shuddered. "Yeah. It's my job."
"And protecting you was mine," I said, cringing inwardly at

the admission.

He looked at me, searching my eyes for…something. "So,

you would have done it for anyone, then." It wasn't a question.

Shifting my gaze away from him, I nodded once.
Silent seconds ticked by. Then Nick exhaled, and… he

laughed. Just a quiet, tired laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

Furrowing my brow, I looked at him. "What?"
He ran a hand through his hair and met my eyes. "You don't

even know how much of a relief that is."

"It… it is?"
"Fuck yes. Do you have any idea how much weight that has

been on my shoulders all this time?" He swept the tip of his tongue
across his lower lip and released a long breath. "I guess, I don't

know… the burden of being someone you'd take a bullet for while
also being the same someone who'd walk away from you and let you
bleed…" He trailed off, then shook his head. "It doesn't make any
sense, does it?"

"You mean it doesn't bother you?"
"No. Quite the opposite." He was quiet for a moment, his

eyes  unfocused  and  his  brow  furrowed.  "It's…  hard  to  explain.  I
guess  it's  just,  that's  been  eating  at  my  conscience  ever  since,  but  I
was  afraid  to  ask.  I  wasn't  sure  I  wanted  to  hear  the  answer.  You
know, there's that romantic notion about someone who'd step in front
of a train or take a bullet for you, but…" He shook his head. "I don't
want  that.  I  can't  carry  that  kind  of  weight,  you  know?  Not  that  I
don't feel guilty knowing you got hurt, regardless of whether it was
for me specifically or because you were doing your job, but it's… a
little easier to carry, if that makes sense."

"It does. More than you probably realize." I touched his face.

"I acted on instinct and training that day, Nick. So did you. And
when all was said and done, you were still here. That was all I cared
about." My voice wavered slightly as I added, "And I don't want to
lose you now, but if you're unhappy…"

Nick didn't say a word. He just wrapped his arms around me

and kissed me.

Nine

We stumbled past boxes and half-packed belongings, past all

the evidence that this was as good as dead, and into the bedroom.
Shoes came off, and we managed to get my tie and shoulder holster
off before Nick dragged me down on top of him on the bed beside a
folded stack of his clothes.

I bent and kissed his neck. One breath of his skin, and I

damn near fell apart. I'd been so sure the last time was the last time,
and touching him, tasting him, inhaling his familiar scent like I
needed it more than air, I couldn't believe this was real.

Nick moaned, and when I raised my head, he grabbed both

sides  of  my  neck  and  kissed  me  hard.  I  sank  against  him,  and  we
kissed like we did the very first time, when we'd needed each other
and  didn't  care  if  we  shouldn't,  and  we  kept  kissing  like  that,  kept
kissing  until  we  were  both  breathing  too  hard,  and  even  that  didn't
stop us from trying.

Desperate and shaking, we tore off clothes and didn't give a

damn  where  anything  landed  while  we  made  out  like  this  was  the
first  time  we'd  ever  touched.  Neither  of  us  flinched  when  a  button
snapped  off  my  shirt,  and he  probably  didn't  even  notice  when  that
stack  of  clothes  toppled  beside  us.  From  time  to  time,  between
desperate  kisses  and  the  breathless  curses  that  came  with  trying  to
get clothing out of the way, we paused, meeting each other's eyes. He
stared at me like he'd never seen me like this before, and I stared at
him like I'd never thought I'd see him like this again, and in seconds,
we'd be at it again.

And finally—fucking finally—the only fabric touching flesh

was the comforter beneath us. I pinned Nick on his back and pressed
my  erection  against  his.  He  whimpered  and  squirmed  beneath  me,
pushing  back  with  his  hips.  Hands  rushed  over  hot  skin,  mouths
skimmed  over  mouths,  necks,  collarbones,  shoulders;  any  place  we
could kiss or touch, we did.

You weren't supposed to be mine anymore. I nipped the side

of his neck, shivering when he gasped. I thought you were gone. I
followed his throat up to his jaw. Let me taste you again. Brushed
my lips over stubble. Let me memorize you again. Found his mouth
with mine. I can't even tell you how much I love you, Nick.

Gripping the sides of my neck in both hands, Nick broke the

kiss and touched his forehead to mine. "Fuck," he whispered. "I want
you so bad right now," and he pressed his erection even more
emphatically against mine as if he didn't think I'd believe him
without feeling for myself how turned on he was.

I rested my weight on my good arm, and cupped his face in

my other hand. "Maybe we should get a condom, then."

He closed his eyes and moaned softly. "God, yes."
Almost coming unglued from anticipation alone, I reached

for the bedside table with a shaking hand. I pulled out a condom and
the bottle of lube, but Nick plucked the condom from my fingers.

"Get on your back." He locked his eyes on mine as he tore

the condom wrapper with his teeth, and I almost fucking came just
from the intense need in his expression. As he rolled on the condom,
I grabbed a pillow to put under my hips and moved onto my back.

Nick put on some lube and sat up over me. He grinned down

at me as he parted my legs and ran his hand up my inner thigh until I
sucked in a breath through chattering teeth.

"Don't fucking tease," I slurred. "Please… fuck me…"
"I should tease you," he said, the grin broadening. But then

he  pushed  my  legs  a  little further  apart  and  looked  down,  watching
himself guide his cock to me.  "But then I'd just be torturing myself,
wouldn't  I?" As he pressed against me, his lips parted, and his eyes
flicked up to meet mine again before darting back down in the same
moment  the  head  of  his  cock  slid  into  me.  He  pushed  in  a  little,
withdrew,  pushed  in  a  little  further.  The  third  time,  he  worked  his
way deeper still, and with every stroke, he picked up speed.

"Oh my God," he whispered, closing his eyes and letting his

head fall back as his smooth, slick strokes quickened.

"That feels amazing," I murmured. "Jesus, Nick…"
"You're telling me." He eased himself down onto his

forearms. His lips brushed mine, and a shudder drove him deeper
inside me. "You feel so damned good, this is…" He moaned, and
neither of us even tried to speak again. We just moved. Slow enough
to savor, fast enough to make my eyes water from the mind-blowing
ecstasy of taking his cock again and again.

I blinked until my vision cleared and looked up at him. Fuck,

he was beautiful like this. His eyelids were heavy, his pupils blown,
and  every  breath  hissed  unevenly  between  parted  lips.  Exertion
flushed  his  skin  and  brought  out  the  cords  in  his  neck,  but  his  face
was  the  picture  of  the  same  pure,  delirious  bliss  that  consumed  me
with every motion of our bodies.

Closing his eyes, he let his head fall beside mine. Cool,

sharp breaths rushed past my neck as he fucked me with long, slow
strokes, his arms shaking and shoulders quivering each time he rose
above me.

I tried to dig my fingers into his arms, but they slid across

his hot, sweat-dampened skin, following the grooves and contours of
his muscles.

"Oh, fuck," I breathed. "Fuck, just like that…"
"Jesus Christ, you feel amazing," he growled. He kept one

hand under my shoulder for leverage, but with the other, he reached
back and hooked it under my knee. He drew my leg up just a little,
and the very next stroke was so intense my eyes welled up.

"Oh, God," I moaned. "Oh, holy fuck…"
The hand under my shoulder tightened, and he thrust harder.

Groaning softly, he kissed the side of my neck, letting his stubbled
chin brush my skin just right to raise goose bumps wherever they
weren't already standing at attention.

Nick pressed his lips to the base of my neck, just above my

collarbone, and when he groaned, the sound vibrated against my skin
and  drove  me  out  of  my  fucking  mind.  The  ache  of  my  impending
orgasm  inched  toward  unbearable,  but  paled  in  comparison  to  the
intense sensation of every damned thing he did. Every thrust hit just
the  right  spot,  and  everywhere  our  flesh  made  contact  may  as  well
have  been  electrified,  nerve  endings  dangerously  close  to  nerve

endings that sizzled like live wires, and his breath heated the side of
my neck like an incendiary wind fanning a wildfire.

I rocked my hips back in time with his. Took him deeper,

took him at just the right angle to turn my vision white and make him
groan against my neck. There was no holding back, so I surrendered,
my back arching beneath us and my eyes rolling back, and the instant
before I let go, Nick dug his teeth into my skin, and I lost it. I didn't
remember taking the breath that came out as a helpless whimper, but
then I realized even through the toe-curling oblivion that the
whimper wasn't mine at all. His body shook against mine, shuddered,
forced his cock deeper as I came and he unraveled and we came
apart together.

I released my breath. Nick relaxed over me. Both panting,

both shaking, we just let the moment linger as we both came down.

As the heat of the moment cooled, a chill prickled along the

length of my spine, all the way up to my hairline. Even after our
conversation in the garage and the way we'd just made love, part of
me still worried that reality was only a moment away from settling
in.

Nick pushed himself up and looked down at me. Heart

pounding, I held his gaze and held my breath. I didn't want him to
pull out, because then he'd pull away, and this moment would pass.
We'd be back to distance and fighting and the kind of ice that didn't
turn us both on.

He withdrew slowly, gasping as we both shivered. Irrational

panic rippled through me, certain we'd reached the end of this, but
then he leaned down to kiss me again.

Just before our lips brushed, he whispered, "I love you."
Relief pushed the air out of my lungs. I wrapped my arms

around him and returned his kiss.

When he broke the kiss, I murmured, "I love you too."
We separated, and he got up to get rid of the condom. We

both cleaned up, then got into bed and pulled the sheet over us. For
the longest time, we didn't speak. We just held each other close and
kissed lazily and, for the first time in too long, tenderly. Nick draped
his arm over my waist, and I couldn't stop caressing his face or
running my fingers through his hair.

I had no idea how much time passed, but eventually, we

pulled apart and just looked at each other. He trailed his fingertips
along my jaw.

"I just want you to know," he said so softly I wouldn't have

heard him if we hadn't been so close together, "even when things
were at their worst and I was on my way out the door—" he paused,
swallowing hard "I—never once stopped loving you."

I forced my voice to stay steady. "I never stopped loving you

either, Nick."

"I know," he whispered, and kissed me gently. "That was…

that was what kept me from leaving for so long." His eyes met mine.
"Do you think we can do this, though?"

"Do you want to?"
He moistened his lips and nodded. "Yeah, I do."
I smoothed his hair. "Then we'll figure out how to do it. It

might not be easy, at least for a while, but I think it'll be worth it."

Nick smiled, and it was a real smile, one that made it all the

way to his eyes and wasn't hindered by some unspoken thought. "Me
too."

"And as much as we both hate the idea, it might behoove

us…" I hesitated.

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Counseling?"
I nodded.
"For each of us, or together?"
I swallowed. "Both might not be a bad idea."
Exhaling, he absently ran his hand up and down my arm.

"You're probably right." Then he inclined his head. "So you'll take a
bullet for anyone, but you'll go to counseling just for me?"

I eyed him. "Is this a trick question?"
We held each other's gazes, each with a straight face, but

when the corner of his mouth twitched, I couldn't help laughing.
Neither could he. Pulling me closer, he touched his forehead to mine,
and we both laughed, probably as much from his deadpanned
comment as sheer relief that we could laugh together again.

The moment passed, but we didn't let each other go. He

lifted his head and looked in my eyes, reaching up to caress the side
of my face. "I love you," he whispered.

I ran a hand through his hair. "I love you, too."
He moistened his lips. "I do want to make this work. I'm

sorry it took me so long to figure out everything that was in my
head."

I shrugged. "Wasn't like I was getting us any closer to

resolving it either. Honestly, I'm just glad we made it to this point."

"Me too." He leaned down and kissed me gently.
"We'll take it a day at a time," I whispered, running my

fingers through his hair again. "Talk to some counselors, figure it out
as we go, all of that. We'll make it work."

Nick smiled. "I know we will." He kissed me again, and as

his tongue teased my lips apart, a shiver worked its way up my spine.

We sank into an embrace that promised to last the better part

of  the  night,  and  for  the  first time  in  I  didn't  know  how  long,  there
wasn't that nagging certainty that a Sword of Damocles dangled over
us. If our relationship and my line of work had taught me anything, it
was  how  quickly  life  could  change.  Things  could  go  from  good  to
bad  and  bad  to  worse  in  seconds,  and  I  wasn't  one  to  take  a  single
moment for granted.

But tonight, for the first time since a bullet ripped through

my arm instead of my boyfriend, life didn't feel so precarious, like a
disaster was right around the bend. For all I knew or cared, the world
could end tomorrow, but with Nick in my arms like this, I could
breathe again. I could finally breathe again.

The road ahead would be bumpy and unpredictable. More

than likely, there would be some sniping and arguing and fighting
along the way while we sorted out all the finer points of rebuilding
our relationship. I had no illusions that this would be simple or easy.

But Nick was here. I was here.
And no matter what hell came our way in the future, we'd

make it through together.

About L. A.

L.A. Witt is a M/M erotica writer who, after three years in

Okinawa, Japan, has recently relocated to Omaha, Nebraska, with

her husband, two cats, and a three-headed clairvoyant parakeet

named Fred. There is some speculation that this move was not

actually because of her husband's military orders, but to help L. A.

close in on her arch nemesis, erotica author Lauren Gallagher, who

has also recently transferred to Omaha. So, don't anyone tell Lauren.

She's not getting away this time….

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