The Delicious Series: The First Volume

by Stella Starling

  Mace’s frown deepened, and he glanced at the open alarm box near Delicious’s door. He quickly tapped in the code to arm it, then caught up with him.

  “You forgot the security system, Danny. What’s wrong?”

  “Oh my God,” Danny said, spinning around.

  Mace caught his arm, stopping him. “I already set it for you, baby.”

  “You know the alarm code?” Danny asked, cocking his head to the side as he nibbled his lip.

  “You usually say it out loud while you punch it in,” Mace reminded him, his lip quirking up.

  “Right,” Danny said, rolling his eyes with a self-deprecating laugh. Some of the tension went out of his shoulders, but not enough. “That’s stupid of me, right? It’s my birthday, it’s not like I’m going to forget it. But God, I can’t believe I forgot to set it. Gav would kill me if I’d screwed that up.”

  Danny was usually pretty easy to read—he expressed himself with his whole body—and right now everything about him was telling Mace that something was wrong. It made him want to pull Danny close and hold him, kiss him until all the little signs of strain went away, then figure out what had happened so he could fix it. But even though the neighborhood was pretty quiet, it wasn’t completely empty, and Mace wasn’t sure how Danny would feel about that kind of PDA. For now, he’d have to content himself with just asking.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Danny said. “Everything’s fine. It turned out fine.” He started walking again, but he was still jittery—every movement nervous-looking, rather than powered by the happier kind of energy that usually spilled out of him. “I mean, I handled things,” he added, even though he still hasn’t said what the “things” were that had needed handling. “But I’m for sure going to start carrying that pepper spray you gave me once I find it.”

  “What?” Mace asked, the word coming out too harshly. He stopped walking, rubbing the back of his neck and taking a deep breath. The mention of pepper spray had scared him, but he reminded himself that Danny was right in front of him, and he’d said he was okay. “What happened?”

  Danny stopped walking, too. “I went to the park.”

  For a moment, Mace thought Danny might be planning on leaving it at that since he paused and started nibbling on his lip, but then the jitters he’d been displaying ever since Mace had startled him in front of the bakery seemed to erupt out of him, words spilling from his mouth in a hot torrent the way they always did when he got worked up.

  “I decided to have lunch there even though you were busy. Gone, I mean. You were gone on your date. Your lunch date, which is obviously totally fine. You can have lunch with whoever you want. And besides, you’re not the only reason I go to the park. I went to sketch some flowers, which I did. Some of the summer ones. God, they’re so gorgeous this time of year, you know? But then, on my way home, I thought I probably shouldn’t let one bad experience scare me off, right? And the azaleas aren’t really in bloom anymore—”

  “Danny,” Mace interrupted, grabbing Danny by the shoulders as the reminder of Danny’s previous attack sent adrenaline slamming through him. If it had happened again… “Did someone hurt you?” he asked urgently, needing to know.

  “No,” Danny said, which sent a wave of relief through Mace that almost made his knees buckle.

  He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, his hands tightening on Danny’s shoulders before he realized what he was doing and made himself let go.

  Danny was fine. Keyed up, but fine.

  Thank God.

  Thank fucking God.

  “I kicked him, Mace,” Danny said, a wide grin blooming on his face as Mace sucked in a breath and tried to get ahold of himself. Danny mattered to him, and Mace… well, Mace couldn’t say that about very many people. He needed Danny to be safe.

  Danny’s nerves were turning into an excited energy that had him practically bouncing, and when he started walking toward his apartment again, Mace tamped down his urge to protect and defend and walked along next to him, letting the torrent of Danny’s words wash over him as he tried to calm his racing heart.

  “I remembered and did it just like you said,” Danny gushed, demonstrating with an adorable little kick in mid-air. Then he blushed, grinning, and added, “Well, okay, it was my knee, not an actual kick, but whatever. And I told him to back off. Loudly! And it worked, too. I wasn’t sure it was going to, but it totally did, and then this woman and her dog came and Onion Breath took off and I was fine. I did it. He left me alone. But like I said, I’m definitely going to find that pepper spray in case it happens again… although the lady’s dog was there and I don’t know if pepper spray would have hurt it? Not that I would have sprayed the dog, of course, but still, I think I’d rather have it with me next time. I mean, hopefully there’s not a next time, but in case there is…”

  Danny kept right on going and Mace recognized it for what it was. Not just his usual excited babble, but, Danny’s way of burning off his own adrenaline from the attack. Mace, on the other hand, wasn’t doing a very good job of letting his go.

  Earlier, with Kelsie, her neediness had sucked at him, draining him. Apparently, Trevor had been arrested for some petty crime, and she’d been looking for someone to take care of her. It wasn’t going to be Mace, though. He’d done it for years, and he was only now realizing how exhausting it had been. With Danny, it was something different. Where being with Kelsie left him feeling used up and worn out, being around Danny always lifted him up. Made the world seem brighter. Better. He wanted to take care of Danny, and even if Danny didn’t exactly need him to, he still couldn’t help wanting to rush in and make things right.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Mace asked before he could censor himself.

  Danny stopped mid-sentence at the interruption, blushing and looking away.

  “I don’t know. Um, I’m not sure where my phone is, and I didn’t want to bother you. And I figured, I mean, if you showed up after I got off work, then I could tell you then. I mean, now. Which I am. You came, and I’m telling you now.”

  “Danny, if something happens to you, I’ll always want to know,” Mace said. They’d arrived at Danny’s apartment building, and Mace reached for him, needing to touch him. He stopped Danny before he could head up the stairs. “I’ll never be too busy for that. You’re...”

  Not something I could ever bear to lose.

  Which was dangerous. Good things didn’t last, although this time, with Danny, Mace could almost believe that they could. But for the moment at least, the important thing was that Danny was safe.

  Still, Mace hated that Danny had been threatened again. That he might not have been safe, and that Mace hadn’t even known. That Danny wouldn’t realize he needed to know.

  “Shit,” he said, huffing out a breath as he tried to find the words to state what he’d thought was obvious. He had… feelings for Danny. “I knew I should have called you after the lunch with Kelsie.”

  “You were going to call me?” Danny asked, crinkling his brow. “You don’t usually call me. Were you going to tell me something?” He swallowed, looking nervous. “Was it about… her?”

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Mace said, forcing himself to try and put those feelings, the ones that felt too big to talk about even if he’d been more used to saying things, into the right words. “Seeing Kels again made me remember what it was like when we were together. It made me realize that I don’t want—”

  “Oh my God,” Danny whispered, cutting Mace off. He’d gone pale.

  “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “Just say it already,” Danny said, looking like he was braced for a blow. “Please, Mace.”

  Mace was missing something. This wasn’t a bad thing, at least, he hoped it wasn’t, but Danny’s reaction made it seem like he thought it might be. Like Danny had told him, though, he needed to talk to make it work between them. So he did.

  “I was just saying, I don’t want the same things I used to think I
did. Kelsie hasn’t changed at all, but being around her, I could tell that I have. She and Trevor and I used to talk about having this better life, but none of us had really figured out what that ‘better’ was supposed to look like. We could only talk about the shit we didn’t want, but getting rid of all the bad stuff without having anything to take its place just sort of left a vacuum. Kels and Trevor, it’s like they’ve never found anything to fill that vacuum, so they keep getting sucked into the same old shit, you know?”

  “You were going to call and tell me all that?” Danny asked. Mace couldn’t quite read the expression on Danny’s face, but at least he’d quit looking like he was waiting for an ax to fall.

  “No,” Mace said, suddenly feeling sheepish. He’d gotten worried when Danny had looked so upset, and he’d gone and exposed a different part of himself than he’d meant to. What he’d meant to say was that Danny mattered to him. More than mattered. He swallowed, but got it out. “I just wanted to call because… I was thinking of you, Danny. All that, it made me think of you. And yeah, maybe I was feeling a little bad for Kelsie and Trevor, too. Because they haven’t found it yet, and I have.”

  I hope.

  Danny blinked. “You’ve found what?”

  You. This. What I couldn’t have ever found before because I didn’t know what it really looked like, even though Kelsie and Trevor and I always talked about it.

  Mace couldn’t say all that, but he could sum it up. “My better life.”

  Danny still looked confused though, which made Mace wonder if maybe he was assuming too much. If Danny didn’t feel the same. But Danny did matter, so even at the risk of getting shot down, Mace had to make things clear. He had to hope that maybe, after a lifetime of getting shit on, this one thing might go right for him if, instead of locking it away, he put himself out there and let Danny in.

  “Danny, it’s you,” he said, squeezing Danny’s shoulders were he still held them. Skimming his hands up to cup Danny’s face. Staring down into the eyes he could get lost in and hoping. “My better life is you.”

  14

  Mace

  Danny stared up at him with his heart in his eyes, and even though he didn’t say anything back, not at first, Mace knew. He wasn’t the only one who felt feelings that were too big.

  And then Danny was kissing him, up on his toes with arms wrapped around Mace’s neck and their bodies pressed together from chest to thighs as his actions answered Mace’s question about whether or not he had an issue with public displays of affection.

  PDA had never really been Mace’s thing before, but everything was different with Danny.

  Everything was perfect.

  It was almost terrifying, but Mace pushed that aside. He wasn’t going to think about losing what he’d found, or how badly it would hurt if he did. He didn’t want to jinx it.

  Eventually, they stopped, and Danny was still glowing as they walked up to his apartment. As soon as they got there, though, he started doing his self-conscious thing, darting around the colorful space like a beautiful little hummingbird, tidying things that Mace wouldn’t even have known were out of place.

  As if Mace gave one single shit about that kind of thing.

  As far as he was concerned, anywhere that he got to be with Danny was pretty much perfect by definition, but if Danny needed to fuss a bit to feel better about inviting him into his space, Mace wasn’t going to try to stop him. Besides, it was kind of cute.

  Even though they’d spent most of their free time together that week, up until now, it had generally been at Mace’s place or at the park. This was the first time he’d been back to Danny’s apartment since the self-defense lesson, and Mace couldn’t help smiling as he looked around at the jumble of beautiful things that his—well, that Danny surrounded himself with, here where he’d truly made the space his own.

  There was an empty easel in one corner, paints and brushes scattered on a low table next to it, but he wondered if Danny ever bothered to use it. There were pictures hanging around the room that he could tell Danny had done—they had the same mix of bold color and whimsical detail that characterized his work at the bakery—but they looked like they’d been painted right where they hung. As if Danny was either too impatient to set his canvases up on the easel or else found it too confining.

  “You drew on the wall,” Mace said, walking over to stand in front of one of the paintings. It was a scene under the water, shells and swaying plants and other things. A long, fishy tail could be seen, swimming out of the picture, and there was just enough detail to make him suspect it wasn’t supposed to be a fish at all. The vibrant colors of the underwater scene had been splashed onto the wall all around the canvas, layered and textured into something that almost looked three dimensional and gave the impression that the water was real, like it was moving... but somehow also blending into the wall’s original color, so it was almost hard to tell where the fantasy ended and real life began.

  “I think it’s an improvement,” Danny said, giving him a cheeky smile. “Besides, the canvas wasn’t big enough.”

  “I love the way you see things,” Mace said, meaning it completely.

  “Really?” Danny asked, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Because I’ve been wanting to show you something.” He grabbed his sketchbook, flipping through the pages while he talked. “The first time I saw you, I could see the edge of your tattoo peeking out from under your sleeve and I was trying to figure out what it might be.”

  “That time in the rose garden?” Mace asked, smiling again. Or rather, still. All the smiling he did around Danny was making his cheeks hurt, his facial muscles not familiar with the move, but he figured he’d get used to it. He wanted to.

  Danny nodded, catching his lip between his teeth as he looked up. “You remember?”

  Of course he did. Mace hadn’t been able to walk away. Still couldn’t. Was pretty sure he might not ever want to. He cleared his throat, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You were drawing my tattoo?”

  “Yes,” Danny said, his face bursting with one of those sunshine-smiles as he stopped flipping pages. “I mean, not exactly, since I didn’t know what your tattoo really looked like back then, but I drew… well, I guess you could say I drew what I thought would look good on you. Want to see?”

  Always.

  Everything.

  Every glimpse Danny shared with him of the beautiful world that lived inside his artist’s soul was a gift, and Mace treasured everything Danny shared with him.

  He nodded, just one short jerk of his chin, suddenly feeling too much. It stopped his throat. Danny had been thinking of him. Drawing him. It wasn’t just a gift, it was as if all the hope Mace had spent a lifetime training himself not to feel was turning into a promise.

  Dangerous, but he wanted it. Wanted it to last.

  “Okay,” Danny said, biting his lips again as his cheeks went pink. He turned the sketchbook around, showing Mace the page he’d stopped on.

  Mace was naked in the picture, shown from the waist up, and the idea that Danny had been sitting there watching him—sketching this—instantly turned him on, his arousal all the hotter because of all the hope and promise and feelings swirling around inside him. The drawing was incredible, of course, but the sudden surge of want that it sent through Mace made it hard to concentrate on the beauty Danny had come up with. He tried, though. Danny had wanted to show him the art, not get pounced on.

  He shifted his weight to try to adjust the pressure of his hardening cock and forced himself to focus on the image. It was definitely him, but—and Mace felt a little warm for entirely different reasons as his eyes skimmed over it and took in the detail—maybe an improved version of him? He wasn’t quite that cut. But regardless... damn, the flowers Danny had covered him with in the sketch were fucking gorgeous. And suddenly his pulsing hard-on was a little easier to ignore, because his heart felt full enough to steal most of his attention.

  There was no way Danny could have known when he’d made the
sketch—they’d been strangers—but seeing what he’d done, what he’d envisioned for Mace’s tattoos, it was like he’d reached inside Mace and pulled out all the things that he loved the most. Things that Mace had thought were hidden. Or, at least, things that he’d assumed no one would ever bother looking for.

  “I like it,” Mace said, clearing his throat.

  It was an understatement, but it was all he could manage.

  “You do?” Danny asked, beaming as he put the book down. He stepped closer to Mace, eyes flicking over him like he was a canvas. “Now that I’ve seen the real thing though, I’d probably design it differently.”

  “Show me,” Mace said, taking off his shirt as Danny’s attention made him feel almost dizzy.

  Danny’s breath hitched as Mace bared himself, but then the moment of lust that had flashed in his eyes was replaced was something even more intense. He took a step closer. There was no doubt that art was Danny’s passion, what he was made for, and Mace’s blood sang as he watched it spark to life. And, just like he’d hoped, as he let his shirt flutter to the floor, Danny’s hands were instantly on him, running over his skin and making it buzz with those little tremors of excitement that only Danny had ever made him feel.

  “I still like flowers,” Danny said, tracing a complex pattern on Mace’s arm with his finger and acting one hundred percent oblivious to what his touch was doing to him. Mace bit back another smile. Danny in artist mode was fucking sexy. “But this is important. It means something, and the flowers should, too.” He traced the word someday inked onto Mace’s arm. “I think I’d let them twine around the letters. Starting here, with just some green, like vines…” He trailed off, his eyes moving up and to the right, as if he were seeing something in his mind. He pulled Mace over to the table near the easel, reaching for his brushes. “You need color,” he said, opening the little tubes of paint scattered across the table.

  Danny sent the brush dancing across his skin, and faster than Mace would have believed, he’d made flowers bloom across Mace’s shoulder and spill in a bright cascade down his chest. They were beautiful, and the soft, wet strokes of the brushes was strangely erotic, but Mace couldn’t look away from Danny’s face as he hummed and mumbled and darted around Mace’s body and turned it into living art.