by Willa Okati
“Because what I’m really looking for is someone whose arm I had to twist.”
“Please. Robbie needs someone to give him a nudge. You know that, same as I do. And he’s not happy the way he is. He hasn’t been for a long time. Right about as long as you’ve been gone, come to think of it.” Cade lifted his head. “He’s given us a lot, you know? Just about everything, and he keeps on giving. I’d say he got out of the habit of taking for himself, if he’d ever been in it to begin with.”
Ivan snorted. “Okay, that much is true.”
“See? I’m not as dumb as I look.” Cade scratched his chin. “‘Cause here’s the thing—he thinks we’re still young enough to need looking after. Maybe I didn’t grow up that great, but I did grow up. Nathaniel, too. And here you come along at just the right time with a second chance, clearly still stupidly in love with him, so why would you not grab it?”
“Because he said no.”
“Did he?” Cade cocked his head. “Or was it more like he thought he ought to say no? Pretty big difference between the two.”
Ivan frowned and bit his lip.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” Cade pursed his lips. “I understand more than Robbie would like to think I do about soulmarks.”
“You’re twenty-five, Christ, I’d hope so.”
Cade offered him a middle finger, almost cheerfully. “And Robbie thinks I’m still fifteen. That’s all right. I’ll find my way. Anyway. Point is, I don’t have a soulmark yet. Maybe I’ll be one of the guys that doesn’t. I’d be just about as glad not to, as much trouble as they are. But Nathaniel, now. Nathaniel, he already has one. Robbie just doesn’t know about it.”
“Wait, what?” Ivan took two steps forward, moving into Cade’s space. Cade didn’t budge. “That baby? When did this happen?”
“A while back,” Cade said. “I don’t know who his mate is, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. That’s Nathaniel’s business. What you should notice here is not so much that Nathaniel hasn’t told Robbie—hell, I only found out when I walked in on him dressing one day—but that Nathaniel knows who this man is, and he isn’t with the guy. Do I have to spell it out for you?”
Ivan’s soulmark gave a faint pulse. He covered the mark with one hand. “And you think it’s because Robbie and I didn’t work out.”
Cade shrugged. “Maybe. I might be fucked up. You can take that on your shoulders or not. Up to you. I did most of the fucking, so I’m fine carrying the weight. But Nathaniel? He deserves better. Set a good example for him.”
Ivan held his tongue. It’s not that easy, he wanted to say, and wanted to add that the day he took advice from Cade was the day pigs flew.
Except Cade wasn’t wrong, was he?
“You two were better together than you remember, you know, even if you had your share of problems and you were ‘too young’, whatever that means,” Cade said. “And then you grew up, same as we did. Robbie gave us everything. If I can give something back, I will. That’s all I’m saying. The end.”
He pushed away from the door and loped off. Ivan watched him go, feeling oddly half off balance. He wasn’t wrong. Which meant Ivan wasn’t right.
If he went to Robbie right now, he wondered, what would happen? What would happen if he took that chance?
Ivan didn’t know. But he had a feeling that he might not be able to live with himself if he didn’t find out.
Did he dare, though? Did he dare?
Only one way to be sure…
* * * *
“What are you doing?” Abram had asked. What, indeed. Robbie had thought for sure he’d have to pack up everything that shouldn’t be unpacked, but Cade and Nathaniel had left the hotel room cleaner than a whistle. Nothing to even hint they’d occupied the place for a night, except their shared duffel parked by the inside of the door.
They had grown up, hadn’t they? And grown up well, too. Robbie touched his soulmark. It’d gone cold, seemed like. Smoother. Receding beneath his skin.
He wondered if Ivan’s was the same. Likely. They were mates, after all. Mates…
Robbie ran his fingertips over the embroidered wrist cuff Abram pointedly hadn’t taken off him. Might as well leave it in a drawer as anything else. Housekeeping would find it, toss it in the lost and found box, and no one would ever be the wiser. At least yet.
“Dangerous,” Abram had said. God. Understatement. Anyone could have seen the look of besotted love Nick wore as proudly as a crown, but if he or his Barrett grew a mark for someone else…
Love, he thought—and not for the first time—might be the highest heaven for some, but Abram wasn’t wrong—the way humans handled it, they set themselves straight on the slippery slope bound for hell. And all because they wanted to do the right thing.
Robbie’s hand drifted down to his pocket. He could call Ivan—but wait, no. He couldn’t. Never had gotten his number, had he? Idiot, he chided himself. All the same, he took the phone out and balanced the case on his palm.
The wallpaper that popped up wasn’t his own. Robbie blinked at the garish tie-dye design. That’d burn out a man’s retinas if he wasn’t careful. Had Cade—but no, Cade hadn’t had a chance to get hold of his phone. Ivan? Maybe, but not likely. Ivan would put something like this on his own phone—
Ah. Robbie saw the dings and nicks along the outside of the phone’s casing now. An older model. His phone was new. They looked so much alike, he’d snagged Ivan’s by accident. He’d have to leave this at the lost and found, too.
Or…
Eye-watering background aside, the apps on Ivan’s phone looked much the same as Robbie’s. He kept his photos in the same place. Not many of them, Robbie noted even as he scolded himself for snooping. Yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He flicked past pictures of Nick, of Abram with an older man, of a firecracker with blue streaks in his hair who had to be Barrett. He slowed to linger on a photo someone had snapped of Ivan working late, tie undone and shirt sleeves rolled up. Then, on the very last one, he stopped cold.
The last picture showed himself and Ivan in the broad warmth of the lodge bed. Robbie asleep, and Ivan very nearly so. Ivan squinted at the camera with one eye as he held the camera out at arm’s length.
They looked good together, didn’t they? Robbie touched light fingertips to the surface of the phone. They looked like they belonged. He had a picture much like this, taken when they were younger, only he’d been the one to hold the camera and Ivan hadn’t really been dozing, no, but stifling a giggle in the pillow and tickling Robbie to try to distract him.
Bump! Thump!
Startled, Robbie switched the phone off and turned sharply to face the door, and the racket out in the hall. Ivan? When nothing happened, he put his eye to the peephole. After a moment, he huffed. Tourists, by the look of it, with suitcases too big to manage on their own, digging gouge marks in the fresh plaster and paint. Not Ivan.
But you wouldn’t be sorry if it was.
“No. I wouldn’t. What the hell, indeed,” Robbie said out loud, to himself. “What the hell am I doing?”
If he hurried, he could still catch up to Ivan. If not, he had the man’s phone. He wouldn’t get too far. Robbie wouldn’t let him. Catching up the duffel and tossing it over his shoulder, he wrenched the door handle open and—
“Ivan,” he said, the duffel falling to the floor between them. He took two steps forward, then a third, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck. He’d almost lost this. God. Never again. Never. “Ivan.”
Not exactly what Ivan had imagined would happen when he opened the door, but by God, he wasn’t about to complain. Besides, while it might not be what he’d pictured, it was exactly what he’d wanted.
“Robbie,” he said into the mouthful of wild, silver-streaked hair. “We’re buying you a box of hair dye. I’m too damn young to be soulmates with an old man.”
Robbie’s laugh was rich and deep and smoky, and cut off when he pulled Ivan’s head down to kiss him as a lover should. The touch of his t
ongue to Ivan’s lips coaxed them open with no need for argument.
Though Ivan couldn’t just leave it at that. “I don’t care,” he said, between kisses, between finding soft, lightly furred skin to warm his hands on. “I don’t care how hard it might be. All right? I shouldn’t have listened to you back then, and I’m not listening to you now.”
“Good,” Robbie said, when Ivan gave him a chance to breathe—which wasn’t, it had to be said, often. “What did you want to do that for, anyway?”
“Trying to do the right thing.” Ivan licked his lips, kiss-warm and tasting of Robbie. He held Robbie tight to him and didn’t let go, nor did he have any plans to risk that in the near future. “God, what idiots we were.”
“Then or now?” Robbie asked, wry to the last.
“All of the above.” Ivan smoothed a stray lock of Robbie’s hair back. It sprang free of his fingers. He wrapped the strands around them instead, tight as a knot. “We’ll make it work. It won’t be easy, and we’ll drive each other half mad—”
“Better than listening to the silence because it’s too quiet,” Robbie said. “I don’t know how we’ll make it work. I don’t know who’ll move in with whom.”
“I’d start taking bets now on who’ll tease us more, your brothers or my brothers in arms.”
Robbie scoffed and tweaked Ivan’s ear. “Does it matter?”
“No. And it’d be both anyway.” Ivan cradled Robbie’s cheek in his hand. “Worth getting punched for.”
“Wake-up calls are never fun,” Robbie said. “I was going to walk away. I was going to let you walk away.”
“I don’t think you would have,” Ivan mused. “Somehow or other, we’d have met again. I’d have been glad if it didn’t take another ten or twelve years, but…” He pressed his forehead to Robbie’s. “I’m not kidding. Be warned, it won’t be easy.”
“I know. But that’s just as well,” Robbie said. If Ivan held him a little too close, Robbie returned the favor. “Not sure if you noticed, but I’m not good with easy.”
“I might have picked up on that a time or two,” Ivan said, and kissed Robbie until the air ran out. “As luck would have it? Neither am I.”
Yes, Robbie thought as he laid his hand over the mark at Ivan’s heart. There. Just what he hadn’t thought he’d wanted all along, finally his.
A chance to make things right, and not alone. A man couldn’t ask for much more than that. A lucky man would be glad of exactly this, and Robbie was. Done and done. He drew Ivan down to him for one more kiss to seal the deal.
And if he took more than one, or two, or an even half-dozen, no one there cared to count anymore.
ONLY YOU
Book two in the Soulmarked series
Lovers and best friends, the unmarked Nick and Barrett risked everything to present themselves as a bonded pair. They thought they were safe, but things are changing…
Nick and Barrett aren’t soulmates. Lovers for years, they’ve rolled the dice and taken a gamble on presenting themselves as a bonded pair. They knew the risks, but think they’re safe. They’re well over the age when soulmarks usually appear, and none of their friends or family are any the wiser.
Until now. After exposure to the incendiary reunion between his friend Ivan and Ivan’s soulmate Robbie, Nick’s soulmark has begun to emerge.
And Barrett’s hasn’t.
Faced with a devil’s choice, Nick and Barrett are forced to confront the real possibility of being driven apart—unless they can fight the animal urge to find their mates. Do they have what it takes to stand in defiance of double jeopardy, all for the sake of love?
Dedication
For J.L. Langley and Kimberly Starrett, with thanks (again!)
Trademark Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmark mentioned in this work of fiction:
Google: Google, Inc.
Chapter One
“Which way do we go?”
“What? Oh. Left here. Sorry.” Nick shook his head, trying to clear the tangle of cobwebs from his thoughts. He’d had a head like a rainy winter morning for hours now. Not a usual thing for him, and he couldn’t say he cared too much for it. “I’m so used to this route I forget it isn’t second nature for everyone else.”
“To say the least.” Abram’s amusement at Nick’s expense, indulgent at worst, didn’t chafe. Abram probably got away with more than anyone rightfully should by virtue of being a friendly giant. He certainly managed to poke his nose into almost everywhere it didn’t belong without worrying he’d get called out for it. “How long has it been since you and Barrett moved out here?”
“Coming up on almost a year, I think?”
“I think, he says.” Abram clicked his tongue in mock disapproval. “As if he doesn’t know by heart.”
Nick laughed. “Beats the old apartment, though, doesn’t it?” He watched Abram squint through the windshield at the gradual change from low-slung ranch-style homes to old-school farmhouses, both those growing older gracefully and those that most definitely weren’t. “Even with dial-up Internet.”
“God. Better you than me. Don’t think I could do it.” Abram tapped the steering wheel almost idly. “You’re a million miles away. Something on your mind?”
Nick shrugged with one shoulder. He rested his arm on the truck’s cab window and idly surveyed the ever more rural scenery gliding past. “Hell of a weekend, that’s all. Can you blame me?”
“That I cannot,” Abram said. He whistled soft and low and tugged his earlobe with its obsidian widower’s bead, as if for luck. “Never thought I’d live to see the day when Ivan and Robbie would mend their fences. Good for them, but there’s likely many a betting man who lost money in that pool.”
Right. The crux of the problem.
Nick frowned. “And there I was, not knowing there was a pool at all. Or a reason for a pool.”
“Is that what’s been eating you? It was Ivan’s business. If you hadn’t figured it out on your own, it wasn’t my story to tell.”
“Not exactly,” Nick said. He’d tried for hours to find the right way to put it, and he’d had no luck yet. “I haven’t known Ivan as long as you. And I’m glad as can be he’s patched things up with his soulmate, don’t get me wrong. It’s just…”
“Not the way life’s supposed to work?”
“Unexpected, I was going to say.”
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Abram said with a philosophical shrug. “Save me from starry-eyed young’uns in love.”
“No blame, no shame.” Nick stretched out his legs. Abram had a roomier truck cab than most to accommodate the man’s long legs, but no one could ride for three hours straight without starting to dream about solid ground off-road. “Barrett’s going to murder me in cold blood when he finds out what he missed.”
“Not likely. Cut one of you, and the other bleeds.” Abram cocked his head. “Why was he not along this weekend, again?”
“Parent-teacher conferences. Couldn’t get out of them.” The rubber band on Nick’s braid broke with a muted pop and snap as it bounced off the window. “Damn it! Knew that was going to happen,” he said through a tangle of hair. Thicker, curlier and heavier than a new fleece, it took more than elastic to restrain the mess. He’d have cut it, but anything longer than a buzz left him looking like a startled dandelion. “You didn’t get snapped, did you?”
Abram patted his shaved head with a dash of admittedly deserved smugness. “I’ll live. Thought you had a leather tie thing?”
“So many questions,” Nick chided, not seriously. He didn’t mind letting the man have his fun. Most of the time. “Lost it somewhere. Probably in the stands.”
“Lost your hair tie and your wrist cuff and your illusions. Not one of your best weekends on record.”
The amusement ebbed out of Nick. He resisted—just—the urge to clamp his hand over his too-long, all-encompassing left sleeve and chafe the wrist be
neath. Abram wouldn’t have taken it amiss. Soulmarks were private and kept protected.
As far as Nick could tell, no one knew he and Barrett’s wrists were still bare. That neither of them had any mate’s soulmark, much less a matching set.
But that didn’t mean Nick wanted to tempt fate. “I’ve still got what matters,” he said, clipped. “Good enough.”
Abram raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I wasn’t saying otherwise.”
Nick eyed Abram, suspicious but not sure how to put the question. Maybe better to let it pass. He cleared his throat. “A pool, did you say?” He didn’t work with Abram or Ivan at the police station, but given his job as a paramedic for a relatively small area, their paths crossed plenty. “Big pool?”
Abram’s grin reappeared. “It’s been going for years.”
“And you’re going to tell everyone about it, aren’t you?”
“I am what I am.”
The houses they passed were even more familiar now, and the relief of finally, home made Nick shift restlessly in his seat. Nearly there. Nearly back to Barrett. “An old troublemaker, that’s what you are.”
“And good at it, too. Not half as good as Callum was.” Abram chuckled. “He’d have come up with some elaborate scheme for the reveal. Something subtle. I’ll have to settle for ‘cash or check will do’.”
Nick snorted. “Because you won.”
“No one else held out any hope after they’d passed the seven year mark.”
They wouldn’t have, would they? Nick’s restlessness lost its edge. He sized up the dark, sturdy bulk of the man beside him, amused. “Such a softie.”
“I’m a softie and a troublemaker? Ambitious of me.” Abram tilted his head in thought. “I would rather describe myself as experienced. I’ve seen it all, or enough to know they were still crazy for each other. Especially once I saw them together again.”