By CLARE LONDON (27 page)

I was rambling in my mind. I missed my friends. I wished I had their help now. “I just can’t believe the way you talk about it, Seve. You told me once I was too melodramatic, but you… I don’t think I know you at all. Aren’t you scared of anything?”

“Of course I am.” His hand slipped away from my neck and he pulled back on the couch. “I’m scared of you.”

“Me?” What the hell?

“Of the look on your face now,” he whispered raggedly. His eyes were wide with what looked like genuine fear. “Of your withdrawal from me. Of losing you.”

I HAULED myself up from the soft luxury of the couch and went over to the window. I opened a couple of inches of the blind and the morning light flooded in, careless of either material obstruction or human angst. It spilled a thin pale band across the carpet and Seve’s bare feet, then dappled on the couch cushion beside him. His hands were clenched tightly, his body tense. He was holding back from following me—touching me. I was sure he wanted to use his desire to influence me. That had always been his way in the past. Our way. Why would I expect him to change overnight? Or myself to change, for that matter. Because I’d felt the same arrogance for so long now that it’d become as much me as my skin. “I am as I am,” I boasted to anyone who’d listen—maybe not directly, maybe not intentionally. But it was there in everything I did and said. I carried my baggage like a prize while all it did was drag my arms to the floor like I was a fucking gorilla.

But things—and people—did change, didn’t they? Whether it was deliberate or not, welcome or not. We all had baggage from the day we were born. And as we limped along in life, lumps of experience bounced off us like tiny meteors, and we gathered even more. But how far did you let it drag back your progress into the future?

“You’ve kept me at bay as well, Max,” Seve spoke quietly.

I spun around to look at him. “What?”

“You haven’t told me everything about you. From your friend’s murder to your reluctance to allow me time to make things good between us.”

“No,” I said sharply.

“I think that you want it to be all about the sex. I admit, it was for me at first. But we have moved on from that, haven’t we? Don’t you think we can be together, just as ourselves? For ourselves?”

I turned back to the window, stunned. Was he right? Had I seen him as the one always in control, whereas I’d been just as guilty of calling the shots? Topping from the bottom, Louis would call it. He was one of the worst offenders, so he should know. Hours ago, I was bandying around words like “love” to describe the draw I felt toward Seve, the fascination, the hollowness of not being with him. But had I ever let him know about that? Why was I hiding it? To be realistic—or to protect myself?

“I don’t know,” I said. Seemed my vocabulary had deserted me along with my wits. I wanted him to touch me, now, and to touch him back. Didn’t know how to say yes. Didn’t know whether to say no.

Seve sighed. “I see.”

“No,” I said. The distress had eased, but I knew the mess remained. My head was still throbbing. “I don’t think you do. I’m just trying to say that this isn’t exactly what I want, Seve.”

He raised a thin eyebrow. “What do you want, Max? Would you want to go back to the time before you met me?”

It felt like a hole had opened up at the bottom of my gut, just at the thought. “Yes, I would,” I said, brutally honest. “I was starting out all over again—a new life, good friends. I was going to make something good of it all.” Seve’s face was still pale. I could see the sweat drops on his forehead. I knew how salty-sweet they’d taste. I threw my head back in frustration. “But, shit—I can’t ever do that, can I? Not now! Meeting you has turned the whole fucking show up on its arse. I’m different now, and it’s because you’ve changed me. I can’t remember a time that anyone disturbed me so much, that I was ever so absorbed in someone.” That I was ever so alive!

“Not even Stewart?” he asked softly. Like he was ashamed to say it but had to. Like his possessiveness was a habit he couldn’t break just yet.

I felt the need to talk swelling inside me—the need to tell him how I felt. Was it now or never? Caution got hurled to the winds. “That was my old life, Seve. He was a really good friend and I’ll never forget him, but I came back here to move on.” I heard Seve suck in a breath, though he didn’t speak. “But it was a sham, I think—my new life. It was never going to work like that, not long-term. Do you remember, you once said that I loved the risk and the spontaneity as much as you did? That was honest, even if I didn’t think so at the time. You’ve made me realize I was just hiding it all inside. Just hiding my true nature—that passion in me you talked about. I thought it was the only way to make my new start, to mold the new me. To keep it all buttoned up, to repress my desires. After all, those were the feelings that always got me into trouble.”

“Max,” he whispered. He stood up slowly.

“But then I met you,” I hurried on, “and it all just burst out! So wild that I thought I’d lost control. It felt fucking good, but I didn’t welcome it, and I’ve been fighting against it even as I leaped right in with both feet. And although I feel like shit right now, I know I’m more comfortable in my skin than I have been for a long time. I’ve let you drag it all out of me—all the things I thought I wanted buried. When really, I needed to think of a different way to control them.”

“But that’s good?” he said.

“Yes. And no.” I sighed. Just be together as ourselves, he’d said. As if we knew each other well enough already—as if it wouldn’t take a hell of a lot more work to make that happen. Yet… it was what I wanted. “I want more, you know? Not just more sneaking about in corners and fucking, though that’s been so damn exciting I have trouble walking straight at times, just thinking about it all.”

Seve’s smile was wary.

“But more of you,” I whispered. The deep whirlpool of his eyes caught and held me and churned up every sense beyond sense. “I want to sit and hold you and talk to you. Play cards with you and make meals together. I want to watch a film with you and argue about the casting and the plot holes afterward. I want to take you back to meet the guys and maybe go out for a drink together—just sometimes, because Louis’s social expectations can be a little overwhelming for long periods of time.” I ran my eyes over his body—the smooth, softly heaving chest. The muscles clenched along his upper arms. The tasty little hollows between his neck and his collarbone. The juicy, lush pads of his earlobes. “I want more sex with you, Seve, but I want to do it without condoms, if we can. Fantastic and impulsive sex is way more than fine, but I want to be around you long enough so we can check it out. And….” I shrugged, suddenly flushing. “I think I’d like to try top with you, just once in a while. That thought kind of nags at me at night. Basically, I want it all. And not just doing it, but to talk about it, and to laugh and bitch about our day, and to plan a weekend, and to sit in sometimes and be bored together, and… fuck.” All sorts of things that I’d never realized, that I’d never allowed myself to think about.

He let out a small gasp that brought my attention back to him. He was swaying slightly, and his expression was pure astonishment. I was breathing heavily with the rush of words, and when he put out a hand to steady both of us, I let it rest on my shoulder.

For a soft, silent moment, we leaned into each other. Nothing more than a hand on a shoulder, the warmth of a palm on my knotted muscles. A fingertip’s gentleness ghosting across the taut skin of my neck. He was like a breath seeping into my pores. They opened for him. I opened for him. My hands came up from my sides, and they slid underneath his arms, and I let him gather me into him. His torso was warm under my touch, and my chin rested gently against his chest. He held me there and we breathed together.

I’d told him, hadn’t I? About the love thing. Not in so many words, but… I’d be eternally grateful I had.

EVENTUALLY Seve drew us both down to sit on the couch. I felt shaky and maybe he did too. “You must know how much I want you, Max.”

I know, I know. I nodded to him.

“No,” he murmured in my ear as if I’d said it aloud. “Not just the sex. I also want all that you said. I think that the sex has distracted us from the start. But you are a disturbance beyond that.”

“Is that how you see me?” I laughed, but it didn’t sound quite right.

His hands tightened on me, perhaps to stop me drawing away. “I’ve always been used to being in control, Max. I’ve always had what I wanted, been praised and groomed for success. It is what I do—it is what I am! But now… I’m adrift. I have been for as long as I’ve known you. The ropes slipped their knots that very first time, though I’d never have admitted it. That first time, when the danger was no longer entirely in my hands… I kept saying to myself—I do not do that. I do not get involved, I do not stay around.”

“I thought that was my line,” I said quietly.

“It was like an addiction,” Seve said, ignoring me. His eyes sparkled, though his expression was very serious. “I was consumed with the need to have you again. To hold you, to fuck you—just to see you again. I watched you with your friends, only waiting for when you could be with me. I watched you laugh, and walk to me, and argue with me, and touch me where I didn’t mean you to.”

I couldn’t recognize the Seve I knew. Or—let’s face it—thought I knew. Strange, intimate words were tumbling out of him into my ear and my neck, and the breath was warm, so it must be real, mustn’t it? The hands on my waist were the ones that had lifted me on and off the kitchen table. The lips that brushed my cheek were the ones that had kissed me and teased at my nipples under the sheets in the dark. It was Seve—and it wasn’t. But how welcome it was!

The low voice thrilled as always, but it was less than steady. “You’ve taught me many things, Max. Whether you meant to or not, and whether I was willing to learn or not. I’m learning not just to be angry, which you’ll understand I’ve had plenty practice with. But also to be desperate, to be unsure… to question myself. To open my mouth to talk, not just to demand.” He sighed. “It is my turn to say what I want, yes? I want you.” His lips whispered over my forehead, and I felt my face turning up to him. “I want to be inside you. Every night. I want your hair loose and tangled against my neck. I want your hands teasing at my thighs. I want your generous mouth over my cock, sucking me, laughing, licking me.”

He was almost kissing me—almost. There were a couple of millimeters of hot, charged breath between our mouths. I wanted him so badly that I felt as if my heart had stopped and my body was tapping its watch, waiting for reconnection.

“When I eat, I want you. When I walk, I want you. When I smile, when I dress, when I wash—I want you. When I breathe….”

“Shit.” I groaned. “When you learn to talk, you talk, you know?”

He ignored me. Or rather, he kissed me. Just with his lips—firm, moist lips that pressed his need into mine and breathed his desire through my body. I kissed back, and I took it further. I pressed my tongue to the sides of his mouth, and I lapped at him until he opened his lips for me to slide in. Who was in control now? No-fucking-one. He tasted of tension and anger and sweet, sweet lust, but underneath it all he tasted of Seve. Pure man. Pure proud, arrogant, newly lyrical man.

“What does it mean, Max?” he murmured.

I drew back, licking at the delicious taste of his saliva that lingered on my tongue. I trailed a hand on his chest because I couldn’t resist the warmth of his body anymore. “This is the best thing I’ve ever had, Seve.”

“So….”

“And maybe the worst as well.”

He paused. “Isn’t that what we’ve been saying? It needn’t be. We can just do what we want.”

I gave a rueful smile. “I can’t do impulse any more, Seve. Look where it’s got me.”

“You did. You came to me, from the start.”

“Yeah.” And damn, it was great! “But now I’m fucked, in all senses of the word. It’ll take me months to get over it again.” It was, perhaps, another of my feeble jokes. Or perhaps I really meant it.

“Why do you need to?”

He didn’t understand, of course. “What do you think, Seve? Don’t you see where we are this morning? There’s a dead man in the kitchen and a maniac with a power complex out there, threatening both you and your mother. I know I need to go to the cops with what I know, yet I’m holding back because I’m afraid of getting you into trouble, when all I want is to see you safe and alive. I’m fucking worn out with turning it all over in my head and finding just more things to sort out. You think we can just roll back into bed and carry on as before?”

“What do you want, then?” he asked, with more than a note of frustration. “If you go to the police now, we’ll both be wrapped up in this mess from the minute we walk in the door of the station. Mama will be left in danger and your past will be dragged up for all to see. I don’t want that either.”

“I know.” I put my fingers to his face and traced the worry line across his forehead. His breath huffed against my wrist. Then his face changed. He seemed to draw himself up, and the cool mask slipped efficiently back over his features. He was, again, the Seve Nuñez I had met that first time: the man who had nodded to me, oh so slightly, and lifted a glass in invitation. The man who controlled Compulsion. Who controlled a lot of things. But not me.

And he knew it.

“You said you wanted to get out of this life, Max. Perhaps I do too.” I realized he wasn’t looking for my agreement or even my sympathy. He was just stating his case. “I want the chance to be different, now I’ve met you. Isn’t that what you wanted for yourself?”

“I… yes, I guess so.”

“I want out, Max.”

God, it sounded so simple, the articulate words, the confident tone. Seve was a man who’d rarely been refused anything in his life. A man with his personal charisma might well make anything happen. “Seve, do you think it’d be that easy? How would you do it? Become Mr. Ordinary, like me. Without your job, your family support, your money. And nothing’s settled yet. There are too many things coming out in the open now. It’s gone way beyond just us.”