There was no doubt about it; Yamane’s knight was just a bit shinier than his other lovers had ever been. It made Yamane feel a little tarnished himself, and perhaps a little sad. What would it be like, he wondered, to have his heart?
Yamane put that thought away for some other time because it brought with it a dull pain he was only beginning to comprehend.
“I think there’s some kind of multimedia presentation, and then you go see the aquarium. I read that Long Beach has an aquarium, but I was too busy being fed to the fishes to see it. Besides that, I was totally broke.” He laughed. “This one’s free, though.”
The two men found Caesar’s Palace and entered with the intention of finding the Forum Shops where the show began every hour. Rory was unusually silent as they strolled around while waiting. As people passed, Yamane could see him looking at everyone, as if searching for something specific.
“Rory?” Yamane asked as they walked past an egregious display of high-end fantasy goods. “Is something bothering you?”
“It’s nothing. It’s not like the world has always felt safe to me. There’s the bayou and nature. I’ve hunted and fished, and I’ve seen firsthand that death is a natural part of life. Then there’s weather, which up until recently seemed like something we humans could outsmart or work around. But I’ll tell you, Yamane, it’s costing me something personal to look at everyone I meet and wonder whether they’re going to try to kill me.”
“Oh, Rory.” For the first and only time, Yamane wished they had never met. “I’m so, so sorry. The world was never safe at all though, really.”
“I thought I could rely on people being basically good.”
“I hate that you lost that because of me.”
“It’s almost time.” They returned to the fountain in time to find a nice niche to watch from before the crowds formed. “Watch your man-purse, Yamane.”
“Hey,” snapped Yamane, “It’s a messenger bag.” But he put his hand over it anyway. “After this, we’ll meet Avery at the Venetian.”
“Am I going to be allowed to watch you play this time?”
“No. I’m sorry, I’d be nervous if you were there. For you, I have to maintain my aura of knightly infallibility.”
“Right. I’ll go back to our suite and enjoy its amenities by myself.”
“You can fill up the bath with the blood of virgins or do whatever it is that makes you so beautiful.”
“Right. How long have you been playing poker?”
“My standard reply to that is ‘What time is it?’” Rory laughed. “I started playing tournaments when I came of age. I have to admit that the very same naïveté you have pointed out on occasions too numerous to mention has led to some disappointing results for the enemy.”
“I imagine you’re a formidable liar as well, when you want to be.”
“I can lie. I don’t like it, but one must pay for one’s education, and with my parents rebuilding their house, it’s been a little tough lately. I don’t rely on poker for money. It has its windfall moments though.”
“So it seems.”
“It’s better when you play as though someone’s life depends on it. All the Delaplaines men are fearsome card players. A fact that never fails to make my stepfather rather cold toward me.”
“Your real father played?”
“Yes, and he and my stepfather were best friends. My father died in a car accident when I was ten and after that my mom was lonely, I guess. She married Charles, my stepfather, when I was thirteen.”
“I wondered why you always talk about your grandparents but never your parents. Don’t you get along?”
“Well, as to that…” Rory picked up an abandoned paper cup from the floor and threw it in a trash bin. “Along with a certain inability to read a card table, my stepfather came with a not-inconsiderable talent for putting away strong drink. My mother and he… It’s not fun at home. I spend most of my time with Grandmère and Grandpère Delaplaines. I’m trying to help Mom and Charles rebuild and that takes money. Plus I had to pay my way through school. Now that I’m a teaching assistant, tuition is free, hallelujah.”
“Rory, I just realized I hardly know anything about you.”
Rory smiled at him. “All you really need to know is that we’re going to get through this together, and when it’s over Amelia will no longer be a threat to you or I’ll no longer be alive.”
“What a buzzkill.” Yamane punched Rory’s arm.
“Nice boys shouldn’t move like that, should they?” Avery said as Rory threw himself wholeheartedly into some sort of line dance. “Rory is one part John the Baptist, one part John Holmes the porn star, and one part Elmo from Sesame Street.”
Yamane agreed with her completely. That was Rory? “Crap,” he said sourly. “He really is all that and a bag of homemade potato chips, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Just when you think you have a handle on exactly what he is, he just --”
“He just gets better.”
“You could be out there too,” Avery reminded him.
Yamane shook his head. “I never learned how.” Never mind that Rory was in the center of a crowd of interested women.
“He’s into you, you know? I’ve never seen him act like that.”
Yamane kept his eyes on Rory. “Like what?”
Avery was quiet for a minute. “What do you see when you look at Rory?”
“I see a sweet young man. Intelligent. Loyal. Innocent. Someone unbelievably honest and decent. I see someone I’d trust with my --”
Avery smiled. “If you asked any woman he ever dated at school? Do you know what they’d say?”
“No.”
“They’d say Rory is charming and hot.”
“Yes.” Yamane colored faintly. “Well, he is that.”
“No, you don’t get it. They’d say that’s all he is. That he’s like vapor, you know? You never get hold of any part of him. He’s as ephemeral as fog, like a mirage. Rory Delaplaines, he comes and goes.”
“Oh, no.” Yamane laughed and shook his head.
“Well. Yeah. Literally. But as far as I know, he’s never let anyone have any part of him. And you own him, Yamane. Can’t you see it? He’d do anything for you. He’d die for you.” “I’d rather he didn’t.” Yamane’s hand trembled, and it made the ice rattle in his glass. “I know.” Avery put her hand on his.
“All that doesn’t change the fact that the plumbing is all wrong, and I’m sure there’s a woman out there that he’ll feel exactly the same way about. In the meantime, he’s the best friend I’ve ever had.” Yamane looked on wistfully. “Maybe the only friend I’ve ever had, and I’m not going to screw that up.”
“Yamane.” Avery leaned over to talk to him, but a group of people walking past them got so loud and raucous he didn’t hear a word she was saying.
Rory finished up his dance, doing the nastiest grind that Yamane had ever seen, and he came back to the table. Suddenly, the sweet moments they’d shared in his hotel room in Long Beach before Amelia came flooded back to mock him. Yamane sucked it up.
“I had no idea you could dance like that!” Yamane practically downed his bourbon in one gulp. “You never fail to amaze me.”
Rory looked at Yamane closely. “Is everything okay?” he asked. “I didn’t embarrass you, did I?”
Yamane shook his head. “No, of course not, Rory. You were wonderful. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.” Well, that much was certainly true.
“If you’re sure you’re all right,” Rory said in his ear. “It’s almost time for us to leave. Can I do anything? Get you anything before I go?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll get myself something to eat from the room service menu.” Yamane smiled. “Plus there are all those virgins to find for my bath.”
“Well, good luck with that in this town.” Rory rolled his eyes.
“Hello, does anyone want to explain that?” asked Avery, who was gathering her purse and the light denim jacket she carried.
“No, not really,” said Rory. “It wouldn’t do to give out Yamane’s beauty secrets.”
“Yamane’s secret is all about DNA, sugar,” said Avery. “Damn him.”
They walked to the exit, laughing. Yamane saw Rory and Avery into an elevator going down and pushed the Up button for himself, intending to return to the room alone.
“You know,” said a voice behind him, “I was on pins and needles to find out who would end up with whom in your little party.”
Yamane turned around slowly but couldn’t help clutching his messenger bag in front of him. “Are you talking to me?” He willed his voice to remain calm. He told himself this could not be Amelia’s doing; she couldn’t possibly have found him yet.
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” said an attractive man in his late thirties, wearing a badge that identified him as belonging to a cardiologist group. Yamane began to breathe again. “I’ve been watching you and your friends with complete fascination. Here we had three tremendously attractive people, and it wasn’t entirely clear for any one moment who went with whom. That is, until your red-haired friend danced.”
“And then?”
“And then I knew you wanted him. He’s oblivious, I presume?”
“Not entirely. I might have mentioned something.” Yamane liked confident men. This one wore an expensive designer suit with casual grace over a crisp white shirt and a wonderfully patterned tie. He was approximately Rory’s height and build, with dark hair and brown eyes. Older. More elegant. Yamane was afraid that for the rest of his life he’d compare every man he met with Rory Delaplaines.
“I’m Edward,” the man said. He kept his arms folded across his chest in a considering kind of way, as if Yamane were something he was trying to figure out.
“Hello, Edward, my name is Yamane.”
“You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” said Edward, stepping closer. “Do you have the time?”
Yamane considered him. “I don’t wear a watch,” he murmured, backing into the wall where the elevator button glowed.
Edward stepped forward again, removing the large expensive watch from his wrist. He lifted Yamane’s good right hand and placed his watch on the delicate wrist. “Now then, as long as you wear this and we’re together, you’ll have the time for me, right?”
“Pretty forward.” The watch rested next to the bracelet Rory gave him.
“Well, yes, it is, isn’t it? But I’m counting on you to give me the time all night.” When the doors opened, he swept Yamane into the empty elevator and kissed him deeply. “Do I stand a chance with you, Yamane?”
“How refreshing,” said Yamane, when at last he could speak. “A man who doesn’t exactly beat around the bush.”
“Well, as a cardiologist, I can tell your heart is already engaged, but still -- possibly -- open to a fairly bold attempt at seduction, so I thought --”
“Where? Surely not in an elevator?” Yamane hated himself for enjoying this. Edward picked up a ribbon of Yamane’s hair. “Where’s your room?”
“Oh, it can’t be mine. I share with my redheaded boy. Yours no good?”
“Mine’s fine. It’s in the tower. I just thought if I came to your place I could monopolize you longer. You look like someone who hits and runs, and I like to cuddle.” Edward had an endearing way of lowering his lashes when he spoke that made Yamane want to draw him out. This was a master of the game.
“I’ve been known to stay for an encore if the show is good,” said Yamane. What he had with Rory was…inexplicable. He understood this, however sordid it was. Yamane closed his eyes against what casual sex with a stranger could cost him with Rory. He promised he’d never lie, and he wouldn’t. If the subject came up, he’d have no choice but to tell the truth.
Yamane looked at Edward, a perfectly handsome, urbane man, who wanted him. That he wanted Edward -- and the sexual gratification he promised to deliver -- didn’t particularly surprise him; he was more surprised by any momentary hesitation he felt on behalf of Rory, who had, after all, said, “I can’t.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I was wondering if I should tell my new cardiologist I’d like to find somewhere to smoke.”
Edward laughed. “I don’t care. Smoke in my room; it will give my colleagues something to bitch at me about.”
“Fine then, thank you.” Yamane’s thoughts returned to Rory and his determination to personally eradicate smoking. “I can see chivalry is not dead.”
Edward took Yamane’s face in his hands and kissed him again. “I want to see every inch of you, Yamane.”
Yamane relaxed against the wall of the elevator and let Edward touch him. When they arrived at their floor, they stepped out together, holding hands. They found the room in the tower where Edward was staying, and then literally tumbled through the door as Edward unlocked it. Edward caught Yamane to him and kissed him harder, walking him to the sofa in the living area of the suite without breaking the kiss.
He backed Yamane down to sit and kneeled between his legs, removing the ties that held Yamane’s jacket on. “I love these knotted ropes. They’re so… I love the way this unties. I wanted to untie it the minute I saw you across that dreadful room.”
Yamane said nothing, just allowed himself to be swept away by the sweetness of physical sensation. Edward ran his hands down Yamane’s chest and unbuttoned his shirt, moving his hands around in further exploration. When he felt the nipple ring, he uttered a surprised exclamation and moved the fabric aside to unearth it. His mouth closed around flesh and metal as he pushed Yamane backward, holding Yamane’s arms trapped gently above his head. Soon his expert surgeon’s hands were plunging Yamane into an abyss of mind-numbing pleasure, and Yamane stopped thinking at all.
Yamane lay on his back on the bed, his head on Edward’s outstretched arm, smoking a cigarette while Edward stroked his hair. He brushed his thumb over Edward’s slightly bruised, full lips. “You look like you’ve been making love,” he said idly. “Your lips are swollen.”
“Does that make you want to kiss me again?”
“Actually, yes, it does.” Yamane leaned in. “Sorry about the cigarette taste.”
“Don’t be sorry. I quit about five years ago, but when I’m under pressure I still feel like I’d kill just to lick someone who smokes. I tell my patients that nobody ever really quits.”
Yamane kissed him again deeply. “I really like you.” He smiled. “Even though you cried out someone else’s name when you --”
“I did not!”
“Oh, yes you did!” Edward laughed and tugged at Yamane’s hair. “I assume Rory is your little red-haired boy?”
Yamane hid his face.
“It’s okay. I could see how you felt about him, but how shall I put this? Want to go again? I must warn you -- this time I won’t allow your mind to wander.”
“Mm…promise me?” Yamane put out his cigarette.
When the morning light intruded, Edward, still naked, helped Yamane dress.
“That was…legendary.” Edward stood by the door as Yamane gave him his watch back. “What, no more time for me?”
“Not this trip, no,” Yamane murmured into his lips. “Thank you.”
“I hate to let you go.” Edward went to the couch and fumbled in the pocket of his abandoned suit jacket. “Here, take my card. If you’re in Boston, call me at my office.”
“I’m not likely to do that.”
“I know. But I’m a pretty good cardiologist. If your heart’s ever really broken, call on me. At least think about it.”
“Thank you again, really.” Yamane smiled against a lingering kiss. He was still smiling when he left.
Trying to be quiet in case Rory was there, Yamane entered their hotel suite. Seeing it empty, he hung up his clothes. He ran a bath and added bath salts. He hadn’t made any mistakes with Edward’s name again because Edward had bitten him on the shoulder right where it joined his neck the second time when it had seemed likely that Y
amane would scream. Yamane looked at his back in the mirror and was moderately amused to see a number of marks, including a pretty clear bite.
Keeping his hand out of the water and in a plastic laundry bag for safety, Yamane let himself gratefully down into the lovely warmth of the bath to soak out any lingering soreness. As he recalled the night before, he experienced a moment of exquisite shame, submerging his head under the water, hair and all.
When he heard rustling next to him, Yamane woke from a vivid dream about an Edward who had red hair and danced. He found Rory in the other bed, staring at him. He checked the clock and realized that he must have been sleeping for hours.
“You’re blushing,” said Rory. “Did I wake you from a sweet dream?”
“Must have.”
“I’m thinking about lunch. Have you eaten?”
“No, and I’m starving. Do you want to go out?” Yamane swung his legs over the side of the mattress and started toward the bathroom. He wondered if his hair covered the marks on his back.
“Sure. I can’t believe the size of this place.” He came back into the room and Rory turned over. He still looked tired from the night before, and Yamane wondered how long he’d slept, or even if he had.
Yamane wanted to ask Rory how his evening went, but wondered what he’d say when Rory asked him what he’d done all night. Instead, he retreated into a sleepy kind of silence and allowed Rory to change the dressing on his hand. The puncture wounds were healing and the swelling was going down, although the hand was still black-and-blue.
“This is the worst thing.” Rory swabbed the puncture wound with a premoistened Betadine wipe. “I can’t imagine the inhuman cruelty it takes to inflict something like this.”
“Oh, she’s capable of worse, as I recall.”
“I bought you another present. I did fairly well last night. I’m playing here at the Venetian tonight.”
“And here I thought you were this uncomplicated country boy. It turns out you’re James Bond.”
“Hardly. I’m finding it kind of fun. Did you know you could ask the concierge to get things for you, like tickets to shows? I told him I wanted tickets to see Cirque du Soleil. Would you like to see it tomorrow? I don’t play cards on the Sabbath. Family taboo. Big curse; bad juju.”
Drawn Together Page 10