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Eli stared at the surveillance equipment in his apartment. He knew Kyra's father had gone and, thanks to Bast's threats and coming face-to-face with the firepower lined up to protect her, might not come back. Still, Eli wanted to be ready.

It also gave him something to concentrate on rather than the tall man looming behind him. Eli knew he should have slammed the door behind him and not let Wade get a foot inside. That would teach him to take one slow.

“I am done fighting with you and being your convenient booty call.” Eli didn't look at Wade as he delivered his speech because truth was he'd give in on the latter in a second because his willpower when it came to Wade sucked. “Get out.”

“I don't want either of those things.”

Eli heard the door click shut and turned around to see Wade still standing there. “Then why are you here?”

Seeing him affected Eli as it always did. His mind went blank and his body got ready. He'd come to appreciate the simple things he had with Wade—watching movies and talking over dinner—but that stance, those shoulders, always put Eli at the ready.

“Why did you protect Kyra?”

“She's a human being.” Seemed obvious to Eli but then Wade didn't think too highly of his former lover, so the question shouldn't have been a surprise. Still . . . “How much of a dick do you think I am?”

“Tell me why, Eli?” Wade started walking then. Getting closer as his gaze stayed steady.

“I just told you.” Eli felt stalked, hunted. The small space didn't leave a lot of room for maneuvering, and Eli knew he needed distance here.

“We're not doing this dance again.”

Eli had no idea what that meant but he forced his body to stop moving. This was his fucking apartment after all. Running struck him as pathetic. “You know what? You should go.”

Wade stopped right in front of him, only two feet away. Close enough for the heat to pour off his body and into Eli. “I'm going to ask some questions, Eli, and you're going to answer.”

“You think you're in charge?”

Wade talked right over Eli's outburst. Acted like the man in front of him wasn't two seconds away from squirming out of his skin. “Was your father really a preacher?”

Eli froze. “How do you know that?”

“I'll take that as a yes.”

“Don't, because calling him that insults religious people. My father hid behind the church until the church booted him then he took his crazy preaching to these weird meetings in the middle of the woods.” Memories zoomed through Eli's head. The angry people in town and getting evicted from their house. The tents hidden among the trees and the nightly prayer sessions that spun into hate-filled rages against everything and everyone.

“He knew you were gay.”

There was no reason to pretend that awful day didn't happen. Wade clearly knew something about it and wanted him to bleed, to spill it all and have nothing left. Maybe it was the final punishment.

Fine, Eli would take it then shut the door for good between them. “He walked in on me with another boy when I was a teenager and then kicked me out in a huge display in front of everyone. Happy?”

“Not even a little bit.”

A pain seared across Eli's chest. He rubbed his hand over the sore spot but the burning would not go away. “Do I make sense to you now? A fucked-up kid from a fucked-up family.”

“You were alone.”

“You're there for Kyra. I respect that.” Eli envied it. “My siblings scattered after the brain tumor took my dad and my mom ran off.”

“Have you tried to contact them?”

They were believers. He was the outcast. “Being gay pretty much ended all hope of a reconciliation.”

Wade's intense gaze bored into Eli. “So, you are gay?”

The word mattered so much to Wade. It once condemned Eli, ripped him apart from everything he knew, so he wasn't a fan. “I hate the label.”

“Tell me what you feel.”

“I . . .” No way could he go there. Exposing his background was one thing. His soul was another. “It doesn't matter.”

“Elijah, please.”

Eli really looked at Wade then. The pleading in his eyes and pity right there on his face. “Call me whatever you want, but yes, I'm gay. There? Are you fucking satisfied? According to my family I'm doomed, but at least I said the word for you.”

Eli needed room. He pushed away from Wade and headed for the hall with no particular destination in mind. He just needed to move. “Now you can go.”

“Why did you step in to help Kyra?”

Clearly Wade wanted more. Eli didn't have the energy left to fight. It drained out of him and puddled on the floor at his feet. “Your father was being a dick.”

“He's my stepfather, which makes him nothing to me but a nuisance. Now answer the question.” Wade closed in. “Why?”

Anxiety pummeled Eli. They stood on the edge of something and he didn't want whatever it was. “I was right there.”

“Why, Eli?”

“No.” He couldn't take this step. Wade would have the power and the fury and Eli would never survive it.

“I need you to say it.”

The words welled up out of nowhere and spilled out of Eli before he could call them back. “For you. Okay? I did it because I love you. Jesus, do you really not know that? I love you and it makes me sick I lost you.”

He tried to look away but Wade pushed him against the wall and held him there. “Look at me.”

Eli couldn't do it. Couldn't open his eyes and see the smug satisfaction and know he'd failed to hold back the one piece that made him sane. “Let yourself out. I'm done with this.”

In the still quiet, fingers brushed over Eli's check. The caress went right through him.

“I love you, too.”

Eli's heart stopped and his eyes popped open. “What?”

“All of you. Every fucked-up inch. Every insecure bone.” Wade rested his hand against Eli's chin. “From that hot body to that complex brain. Your face. Your temper. All of it.”

“Why are you saying this?” This didn't make sense. Eli tried to push him away.

Wade shoved him back against the wall and anchored him there with his long legs. “You want logical and I can't give you that.”

“You hate me.” He'd said it and showed it every day for more than a month.

“I was furious with you because I felt betrayed. Your words only struck so deep because I gave a shit.” Wade flashed a lopsided smile. “Then you were gone and I realized I'd actually been dumb enough to fall for you.”

“You can't—”

Wade leaned in. “Look at my face, Elijah. You know I'm telling the truth.”

Then Wade's mouth came crashing down. Eli's hand went to Wade's broad back and he grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. Anything to hold him close and have a connection, to believe if only for a second.

The kiss dragged on. A mix of rough and panting. Wade's tongue swept inside and his teeth nipped at Eli's bottom lip. It was hot and sexy and it made Eli hope when he'd long given up on that idea and when he was desperate to protect his sanity and fight the feelings off.

When they finally broke apart, Wade's hand rested against the back of Eli's head and their bodies pressed tight against each other. Eli struggled to breathe as his heart and mind raced. “So, now what?”

“We both stop fighting it.” Wade kissed Eli's neck. “I want you to move back to the condo, but I think you need this place. For now. Like the job with Bast, this apartment does something for you.”

They'd moved so fast Eli couldn't keep up. “This can't be happening.”

‘Believe.” Wade's fingers went to Eli's fly and the sound of the zipper screeched across the room as Wade lowered it. “Right now I'll settle for going into your bedroom and trying to convince you.”

“You want—”

Wade's hand slipped into Eli's shorts and those fingers wrapped around his cock. “To stay all night.”

“Here?” Eli couldn't hold on to a single thought. The feel of Wade's mouth against his ear and his hands all over him had his brain stuttering.

“I plan to spend most nights with you from now on.” Wade's big body slipped down until he hit his knees. Tugging on Eli's pants, he had them down to his thighs and his cock free.

“I don't understand any of this.”

“Let's try it this way.” Wade took Eli in his mouth. Swirled his tongue around the tip of his cock, then plunged down deeper.

Eli flattened his palms against the wall behind him. “Holy shit.”

“Seems appropriate after our discussion.” Wade chuckled as his hand massaged Eli's balls. “We're going to go into your bedroom and then, after a lot of touching and kissing, and a round or two of me taking your cock into my mouth and sucking you off, I'm going to get on my hands and knees and you're going to push inside me.”

Something shifted inside Eli. “This is more than sex. You love me.”

Wade looked up as he dragged a hand higher on Eli's chest, opening buttons as he went. “And I plan on doing that forever, so it would be good if you caught up here and we got started.”

The unthinkable waited in front of him. This time Eli grabbed it. He might fuck it up later, but at least he'd have this one last chance to get this right. “Any chance we could do the hands-and-knees thing first?”

“I'm happy to let you convince me.”

And when Wade lowered his mouth again, Eli decided he didn't care what order they moved in so long as it was forward. “Let's go.”

•   •   •

Bast moved around his kitchen in a trance. He listened for any noise from upstairs but the slamming of the guest room door was the last thing he heard.

“Your day sucked.” Jarrett stood by the sink with his hands resting on the counter behind him.

“You didn't need to come over here to tell me that. I lived it.” Bast didn't have the strength to stand. He pulled out the nearest chair and dropped into it.

“Becca is with Kyra's friend and I wanted to make sure you're okay.”

Bast appreciated the check-in. He knew after texting about the run-in with Kyra's father that Jarrett would rush in. The man's friendship was the one dependable thing in Bast's life.

“I walked in and saw Kyra and Eli with a gun on her father. No, I'm not okay.” Saying it now, Bast relived it. Every terrible fucking minute.

“I heard you issued a few threats of your own. Always knew a fighter lurked under that suit.” Jarrett smiled as he talked.

“Something like that.” Bast couldn't recall the words but he guessed Wade called in with a report, or returned to fill Jarrett in. “If Kyra hadn't been standing there I might have killed the guy.”

“So, you are in love.”

Bast rested an elbow on the table and rolled the empty sugar packet he found there between his fingers. Anything to keep from thinking. “That's a bit of a leap.”

“Is it?” Jarrett pulled out the chair across from Bast and sat down. “You started something with her when we both know you have plenty of self-control and wouldn't have if you didn't want to. You moved her in here when you could have stored her at my place. You lost your cool when you found her in trouble.”

It sounded so simple when Jarrett spelled it out. Also seemed obvious that the guy he talked about was stupid in love and unable to see straight.

“All true.” Bast pressed his hand against the table to keep from fidgeting.

“And you don't think you deserve her. You with your big degrees and financial security and bone-deep decency. You think she can do better.”

Didn't take long for Jarrett to drive home his point. Bast got it and knew Jarrett thought the concerns were crap, but they weren't. “She can.”

“You are the only one who thinks so.”

“You don't—”

“Get it? Yeah, I do.” When Bast reached for the sugar packet again, Jarrett moved it out of reach. “Was I this much of a dumbass when it came to Becca?”

Thinking about those days still stunned Bast. He loved Becca with Jarrett now but that early period of reconciliation scared the hell out of him. He worried for Jarrett's sanity every minute. “You were a mess.”

“Have you looked in the mirror?”

If he did he'd have to face up to the facts. They rang clear and true all of a sudden. Sitting across from his friend, trying to deny and ignore. None of it worked.

Somehow he'd fallen for Kyra. Young, sexy, bold and fierce. She'd worked her way under his skin until he couldn't think of anything else. “She thinks I believe she was in on her dad's con of me.”

“Do you?”

“Of course not.” Never, not even for a second. When she mentioned it, his brain had shut down.

“Go tell her that.” Jarrett moved the mug and the placemat and every other thing out of Bast's reach. “And while you're at it, stop with the other shit. Drop the first-marriage baggage and take what you want with Kyra. She's good for you. Even I can see that.”

Bast leaned back in the chair, ignoring the squeak of the wood joints and facing his best friend. “She's twenty-three.”

“And she loves you.”

Air hiccupped out of Bast's lungs and he let out something close to a gasp. “How do you know that?”

“Wade told me. Said he saw it in her eyes and now he's worried you're going to fuck this up.”

He remembered her face and the way she stomped up those stairs. “I think I already did.”

“Then I have two simple words for you, my friend.”

“Which are?”

“Fix it.” Jarrett shook his head. “Do it before she starts believing your bullshit about her needing someone else. Take it from a guy who lost it all and had to fight to get it back. You don't want that road.”

Rage at the imaginary boyfriend swamped Bast. In that second, he saw her holding another guy's hand. Taking him to bed. The back of his head almost blew off. “I want her.”