Eric sputtered, that moment of tension gone. “Well, thank God for that,” he said, and his natural, wicked grin was…oomph. Right in the solar plexus. “But no….” His expression went sad again, not distant. “I’mnota nice man,” he said ruminatively. “But I wouldreallylove to take you to bed.”
Brady should have argued. He should have said, “I don’t really do one-night stands,” or “I like you too, but I don’t see how this could have a happy ending.” But that little shiver of awareness, oflikingthat had beset him from their conversation watching the sunset, had evolved into full-grownwant, an enormous, needy ache in his stomach that he couldn’t ignore.
And even if hecouldhave ignored it, where was he?Whowas he? He’d wanted to be a cop so badly—it was who he was, who his father was, even, God rot him, who his uncle was—and now? Now that identity wanted to kill him.
This entire day he’d been crouched behind his cop shop, screaming for backup that wasn’t coming—until he’d gazed into Eric-not-his-name’s not-so-icy blue eyes.
Why would he ignore the one thing that seemed to make sense to him in a chaotic and uncertain universe?
“I’m probably as bad in bed as I am in law enforcement,” Brady joked weakly, his voice cracking.
Eric’s hand on his as it rested on the table made his breath catch.
“You’ve had a really shitty day,” he said softly. “It doesn’t have to be forever. You don’t even have to look at me in the morning. But for tonight this could be the thing to save your life.”
Brady gazed into those eyes, by rights arctic blue, but now warmer, the tight, close blue of a glorious autumn day. “I wouldn’t be ashamed of sleeping with a kind man,” he said. “It’s not nice to turn away from the person offering you a lifeline when you’re drowning.”
“Let me clean up,” Eric told him, pulling the back of Brady’s hand to his mouth and kissing it so gently Brady wanted to cry. “It’s nice of everybody to offer you a place to sleep, but I would prefer you in my bed, no matter how temporarily. Finish up, and we’ll leave.”
THEY LEFTthe pool lights on, which made the entire moment seem ephemeral, more like a stolen heartbeat in a fairy grotto than any real time.
Brady allowed himself to be towed across the street, his eyes focused on the stars peering down intrusively from the void above.
“What do you see there?” Eric asked, turning to pull Brady into his arms.
“Judgment,” Brady said, feeling despair edge in.
“Fuck ’em,” Eric said, and suddenly the stars were gone because Eric blocked them out, and all Brady could see was his face in the moonlight.
He was so beautiful.
Brady closed his eyes and met his mouth, the heat welcome, the seduction unnecessary. Eric’s smooth hands framed his face, and Brady allowed himself to be guided, placed, pillaged.
The groan came from Brady’s soul, and he lifted his own hands, no longer passive, to hold Eric’s face in turn. The sound that came from the other man’s lips was almost as desperate as Brady’s had been, and a tiny piece of Brady’s mind engaged on how Eric had been almost as lonely as Brady before this moment.
Brady found that connection, followed it as the kiss gained momentum, exploded, pulled them both into that secret cave of loneliness and lit it with their need.
Brady barely noted being hauled into the camper and shooed down the narrow hallway. He did remember to ask about the kittens, to which Eric replied, “They’re at Ernie’s. He’ll watch them.”
And that was all Brady needed. He undressed in the bathroom, careful of his knees and elbows in the cramped space, and left his wet clothes hanging on the efficiency-sized shower. The bedroom was just steps away, and Eric met him there, his skin cool and his warmth radiating, and Brady fell into him greedily, palming that smooth skin, welcoming the heat between them as it blossomed until his skin burned for Eric’s next touch.
Brady balked a bit as Eric bent him over the surprisingly soft bed, and he turned in his arms, scooting until his ass was completely on the sheets, his legs spread.
Eric knelt between his knees and moved up to kiss him some more, smoothing his hair back from his temples tenderly. “I wanted,” he said between feathering his lips along Brady’s cheekbones, “to give you plausible deniability.”
Brady swallowed at that, reality temporarily intruding. Whowasthis man? Where did he come from? But in the end it didn’t matter. Today he’d saved Brady’s life, for whatever reason. Tonight, when Brady had thought he was as lonely as a star, this man had warmed him like the desert sun.
“What kind of coward would I be,” Brady asked, “if I didn’t look a kind man in the face when he was making love to me?”
A special sort of pain crossed over Eric’s fine patrician features. “And that,” he murmured, “is why it’s making love.”
He took Brady’s mouth again and then moved down his body, taking time at his pleasure points: his neck, his nipples, his hipbones, his….
Ah, God! His mouth, hot and merciless and tender and brutal, worked Brady’s cock with abandon, and Brady, already in that world, propped his feet against the mattress, cupped Eric’s skull through his short hair, and thrust without shame, without propriety, crying out in arousal because his body demanded his sounds.
Eric’s tentative finger, already slicked, played with his entrance, and Brady actually whimpered.
“Hurts?” Eric asked, glancing up Brady’s body, and Brady shook his head.
