by Ruthie Knox
They talked until it had grown dark outside and the wind off Lake Erie began lashing the windows, rattling them in their panes and sending icy slivers of air through the cracks. Gradually, she took the conversation deeper, and Judah told her what it had been like growing up as a closeted gay kid in Family Values, Iowa. Knowing from a very early age that he didn’t fit, that he’d never fit, and not knowing what to do about it.
He told her about his first crushes, about the camp counselor who’d taught him how to kiss and how to give a hand job, the high school best friend who’d become his lover the summer after graduation.
He told her about the months he’d lived in Louisville and the show he’d played at the High Hat with Paul in the audience. How he’d moved out to L.A. and made it big within six months.
He told her a lot of things she was fairly sure he’d never told anyone. But he didn’t say a word about the messages.
Sean ate and typed out of earshot on the far side of the room, ignoring both of them except for the occasional obscure question for Judah:
“When did you last play a show in Minneapolis?”
“Are you a Beatles fan?”
“How long did you live in Louisville?”
He didn’t stutter when he asked the questions. He hadn’t stuttered since they’d entered the suite. Because of Judah? Because the work took his mind off his speech? She didn’t know.
Finally, around eight, Sean closed up the laptop and stood. “I’ll give this back to you tomorrow,” he said to Judah.
“No problem.”
“See you,” he announced to no one in particular before walking from the room without a backward glance.
Katie watched him go. Judah started singing “Man on the Run” under his breath.
“Maybe I shouldn’t sleep with him,” she said, not sure whether she was joking or serious. “He’s kind of strange.”
“No, you should,” Judah said. “But you’re going to have to catch him first.”
Chapter Seventeen
Sean ran as fast as he could.
It wasn’t all that fast, given the snow pack on the shoulder of the road and the bitter wind, but he ran fast enough to make his lungs burn. He’d long since lost feeling in his toes, his cheeks, and the tip of his nose. A rime of frost covered the light gloves he wore—his own sweat, frozen as soon as it met the air—and he knew he was courting danger staying out here.
It was fucking cold, dark as pitch, and only a complete asshole would be outside running in the streets of Buffalo, New York, in early February at nine o’clock at night.
She drove him to new heights of idiocy.
He ran harder. Twenty more minutes, and he’d be wiped out enough to sleep.
Of all the outcomes he’d considered when he drove over to Katie’s house this morning, he hadn’t really thought she would come with him to Buffalo, and he’d certainly never imagined he would find himself in a situation where sex with her started to seem like a distinct possibility.
A possibility he had to make damn sure to avoid.
It was his own fault. He’d stepped way out of line—first at the club in Louisville, then at her house, and again in the truck. The problem was, where Katie was concerned, he had no self-control. None.
For a man who’d spent a decade practicing control like a religion, that was a bitter fucking pill to swallow.
Turning onto Delaware, he slowed to a walk. The lit facade of The Mansion beckoned from down the block. Sean tugged his hat down over his ears as a fresh runnel of sweat hit the back of his neck and chilled in two heartbeats.
Hot shower. Bed. A decent night’s sleep. He’d wake up in the morning fortified against Katie and the threat she presented to his mental well-being. Tomorrow, he’d shoot her a quick email about the case and hole up in his room until he’d made some headway on Judah’s psycho.
If he just kept away from her, he wouldn’t have to think about the way she’d looked in the car, half-dressed with that red bra peeking out of her shirt. Eyes closed. Breasts arched toward him in invitation. Hands sliding restlessly over her thighs.
Everything about her saying Touch me. Every instinct he had screaming at him to oblige.
She’d just come out the other side of a divorce. She thought she wanted some fun, but he couldn’t be the one to give it to her. If he kissed her again, he would give her too much of himself, and then he would have to break it off, because the last thing he needed—the absolute last fucking thing—was another reason to remain in Camelot. It was impossible.
Any kind of physical relationship between him and Katie Clark had “bad idea” written all over it.
He passed through the parking lot and let himself in the side entrance, peeling the traction cleats off his running shoes and trying to knock most of the snow out of the coils before he came fully indoors. The Mansion hosted wedding receptions in its plush downstairs rooms. It was no place for a smelly, irritable guy to be dropping chunks of ice and snow.
On the way up the stairs, he pulled his jacket over his head, knocking off his hat in the process. The lightweight wool shirt he’d worn as a base layer was soaked with sweat, and he barely had the strength left in his legs for the second flight.
He definitely didn’t have the strength for the sight of Katie knocking on the door to his room with a bottle of wine tucked awkwardly under her arm and two mugs dangling from her free hand.
He’d just have to find some.
“What do you wuh-want?”
Focused on the door, she hadn’t heard him coming. When she turned, her free hand went to her throat. As he approached, her eyes raked over him, head to toe and all the way back up.
“Sweet Baby Jesus,” she said. “You were running? Outside? It’s, like, minus two hundred degrees out there.”
According to the outdoor thermometer, it was 3 degrees, not counting wind chill. The sight of Katie’s smooth, bare shoulders was nearly enough to make him break a sweat.
She wore her flannel pajama pants and the sleeveless top she’d had on in the car. What the hell was she doing with bare arms in the middle of the winter?
Sean brushed past, careful not to touch her, and opened the door to his room. “Go away, C-Clark.”
“Don’t be rude,” she said. “There’s a Jackie Chan marathon on, and I brought wine.”
“Chicks don’t like Jackie Chan.”
“I do. You want me to tell you all my favorite parts of Rumble in the Bronx to prove my credentials?”
“No. I wuh-want you to g-go away.” He walked into the room, leaving her in the doorway and hoping she’d take the hint and quit torturing him. The red bra straps weren’t peeking out from under her top anymore, which could only mean one thing.
No bra.
Sean dropped his jacket, hat, shoes, and cleats on the towel he’d left inside the open door to the bathroom. Katie walked in like she owned the place, setting the wine bottle and mugs down on the table by the TV.
“Hey, no fair. Your room is bigger than mine.” She peeked into the bathroom. “Your shower is bigger, too.”
When she looked back at him, he was staring at her, hoping she’d be intimidated by the glare he sent her way.
“What?” she asked.
“Are you ffflirting with me?”
“Maybe. Would that be really bad?”
“Yes.”
She stepped closer, giving him a view right down her shirt. She had small breasts. Soft swells on either side of her sternum. Shadows and valleys, a dozen places where his mouth would fit.
He closed his eyes.
He hated this. This weakness. The sound of his own voice, choking on feelings he didn’t want to have. The sound of him losing his grip.
“Okay,” she said. “Then I’m not flirting with you.”
He exhaled and searched for some kind of response. Some way to get Katie out of his room before he fucked up irrevocably.
“I’m n-not sssleeping with you.”
Smooth.
&
nbsp; She narrowed her eyes and parroted back the line he’d given her a week ago. “I didn’t ask you to.”
The challenge in her eyes was unmistakable, though. She would play it this way, I just stopped by braless in my jammies with a bottle of wine, as buddies do, and anything that happened would be an accident. It would be his fault for not being able to keep his hands off her.
Damn it, he wouldn’t play along.
“You d-did, c-coming over here d-d-dressed like that.”
She looked down at her flannel-clad legs. “It’s not like I’m wearing a French maid outfit.”
“You haven’t g-got a b-bra on.”
“I hardly have any boobs. What’s the big deal?”
“The b-b-big d-deal is I c-can ssee your arms and yuh-your …” Sean gestured at the expanse of her chest and her neck.
“My arms, Sean?” Her voice sliced at his composure. “You think I’m trying to seduce you because you can see my arms? Is your virtue that easy to compromise?”
“That’s n-not what I m-m-m—”
“You seem like a civilized guy. Can’t you control your animal impulses?”
Because he wanted so badly to grab her and kiss her until she shut up and glazed over and turned into an animal, too, he grabbed two fists of shirt at the back of his neck and pulled it over his head. Then he edged even closer, so he was breathing right up against her, his bare skin separated from hers by a millimeter of empty space charged with sweat and sex.
“C-can yuh-you?”
She didn’t say anything, but her eyes jumped around, flitting from his chest to his shoulders, his neck, his face. His cock grew heavy and began to ache.
“Want to watch a m-movie, ssweetheart?” he asked. “Want to ssit on the c-couch, getting drunk and not t-t-touching each other for a few hours?”
Katie raised her eyes to his. “Holy shit,” she said. “Sean. Oh my gosh, Sean, look at you.” She placed one palm flat on his chest, over his heart, and he knocked it away.
“Don’t p-p-play with me,” he warned her. “We’re going to be p-partners. That’s all.”
A perplexed frown knit the space between her eyebrows. “You were hitting on me in the car.”
“I knuh-know.”
“And at my house, right? I didn’t just make that up?”
He shook his head, disgusted with himself. “I wuh-was. Buh-but I sh-shouldn’t have. We’re not g-going to watch m-movies together, and we’re not going to ffflirt, and we’re not g-going to sleep together.”
Katie’s gaze slid below his waist and held there for a moment, then meandered its way back up. When she met his eyes, hers held a single question. Why not?
He looked away from her and counted to twenty. It didn’t help. “I’m luh-leaving t-town.”
“What? When?”
“Ssoon. When we ffinish the c-c-case.”
“Why?”
“I have a juh-job b-back in C-c-california. A c-computer sssecurity c-company I ruh-run. I nuh-need to g-get b-back to it.”
The furrowed forehead again. “I thought you’d moved back to Camelot.”
Sean shook his head. “N-no. I’m juh-just … It’s t-temporary, the juh-job with your brother. I’m luh-leaving. So I d-d-don’t wuh-want to …” He raised his arms out to the side, palms flat, a gesture that encompassed his bare-chested self and her compromising outfit. The room. The bed. The entire situation. “I d-don’t wuh-want to.”
Katie flinched, but Sean couldn’t think of any way to take it back without actually taking it back.
“You’re being a gentleman.”
“Sssort of.”
“Don’t. The last thing I need—the absolute last thing—is for you to be a gentleman. You know, people do have meaningless flings. It’s a thing. I keep hearing about it from, like, every form of popular culture ever.”
“N-no.”
She crossed her arms and took a step back. The confidence had drained out of her, and she looked younger. Smaller. “You’re confusing.”
“I know.” He sighed. “I’m ssorry. It’s c-c-complicated.” He clenched his hands into tight fists. It was even harder to keep from touching her when she looked so bewildered and hurt. Hard not to comfort her, but he knew where that would lead.
“It’s really not.” She fiddled with the ties to her pajama bottoms. “The way I remember it, it’s super simple. Kind of an Insert-Tab-A-into-Slot-B thing. I might be remembering wrong, though. I haven’t had sex in almost two years.”
Two years. She hadn’t been with anyone since Levi—which meant she probably hadn’t been with anyone but Levi—and now she wanted him, and he was turning her down. He was out of his fucking mind.
“Fffind someone else.” Even as he said it, the thought of her having sex with another man made him homicidal.
She lowered her eyes to the carpet. “No,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I think I’m all tapped out.”
Slowly, it sank in.
First Levi, then Judah, now him. The third man in a row to tell Katie she wasn’t good enough. She’d gathered up her courage and come over here, maybe not throwing herself at him but at least open to the possibility. She’d done it because he’d encouraged her to, the way he’d talked to her at her house, and in the car. And now he was turning her down.
Not gently, either. Badly. Clumsily.
“I’m ssss—” He couldn’t make the word come out, but he had to. She deserved a decent apology. He tried again. “I ap-p-p—”
She flapped a hand and turned her back on him. “Don’t worry about it. You want a drink?” She popped the cork out of the wine and poured two measures into the mugs. “Hope you don’t mind, I already started the bottle. Liquid courage and all that.” Turning toward him, she lifted one mug in invitation.
“I n-n-need a sh-shower.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Well, it’ll be here.” She put one mug down on the table and settled onto the couch with her own drink. The remote was on the coffee table, and she lifted it, turned on the TV, and began flicking through channels.
“Go shower, Sean,” she said after a moment.
He didn’t move. He couldn’t figure out why she was still in the room, much less talking to him.
Katie raised the mug to her lips and drank down the contents in four long gulps. She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth and sighed.
“You don’t want me,” she said without turning around. “It’s not a crime. I know I’m not, like, centerfold material. It’s fine. We’ll watch kung fu movies and work our way through this bottle of wine. You’ll stay on your side of the couch, I’ll stay on mine, and by the time I go to bed after three or four hours of Jackie Chan, we’ll be friends, and I’ll be able to sleep.”
He stared blankly at the back of her head.
Balls. Katie had balls.
She went through life with her heart on her sleeve, saying what she meant, telling people how she felt, what she wanted, what she needed, and she got slapped for it. But she didn’t let it set her back.
He couldn’t remember ever having been like that. Not one day in his life had he been that unguarded.
She found the right channel, and the screen filled up with a young Jackie Chan wearing a tank top, high-waisted jeans, and what looked like a woman’s belt while he beat the crap out of three bad guys.
“Take a shower,” she said flatly. “I don’t want to sit by myself in my room feeling like a complete waste of space, okay?”
He didn’t know what to say, so he grabbed some clothes from his bag and headed for the bathroom, leaving her alone, bathed in the flickering light of the television.
Chapter Eighteen
“Pass me the bottle,” Sean said.
Katie leaned forward and hooked the wine bottle off the coffee table with two fingers. She handed it over, careful not to touch him, and smiled at the image of Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan, drunk as skunks in two Old West bathtubs.
“This scene is totally homoerotic,” she said.
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Sean poured himself a few inches of wine. “Nothing homoerotic about it. The side-by-side bathtub scene is a c-classic.”
“Right. Two guys naked in tubs, a few feet apart, and you’re telling me they’re not thinking about doing each other?”
“It’s just efficient. There was only so much hot water, and somebody had to fetch it and c-carry it. They might as well both bathe at once. And anyway, they’re going to do the prostitutes after they get c-cleaned up.”
“Maybe, but they’ll still be thinking about doing each other. Like in Brokeback Mountain. All those lonely hours on the range …”
She glanced at him. He was grinning, his teeth half hidden behind the cup he’d raised to his lips. “You’re the expert,” he said.
“On what?”
“Gay subtext.”
She threw a pillow at his head and succeeded in knocking it against his cup, causing wine to slosh on his hand. He slurped it off, laughing.
“Give it back,” she said, holding out her hand.
He obligingly leaned over to retrieve the pillow and handed it back to her. Katie shoved it into the crack between the back of the couch and the arm and settled her head against it, relaxing.
This was better. She’d created a disaster, but now she’d fixed it with the wine and a bunch of smart-ass jokes while they watched the movies.
Sean had come out of the shower, all wet hair and lean muscle packed into track pants and a clean T-shirt, and she’d stayed on her side of the couch as promised. He smelled unbelievably good, and he looked even better, but whatever. She’d shamed herself enough for one decade. She would make the first move again when hell froze over—and even then, she’d pick Beelzebub over Sean. The devil probably wasn’t too choosy about his sex partners.
It had taken more than an hour for the sick rush of shame in her veins to subside, the knot in her stomach to loosen and relax in a wash of wine. But now, sitting beside Sean in the darkened room, she felt okay again. Almost okay. Kind of wrung out, her eyes squinty and aching as if she’d been crying, but fine.