by Helena Maeve
“What’re you—”
“You’ll have to do a lot worse than that to run me off.”
Robin blinked fast, as though trying to hold onto his self-flagellation. “Jesus, you shouldn’t be with me. I’m trouble, remember?”
“I got the memo,” Ulysses bit back and brought up his knee, rocking into the flat of Robin’s lower belly.
“That’s not fair.”
“Yeah? Take it up with someone who cares.”
Fair had gotten him six weeks of yearning. Fair had cost him time he could’ve spent getting fucked into the mattress by any one of Robin’s sleekly designed toys.
Ulysses twisted his head to mouth at the inside of Robin’s wrist. “Do you still want to fight?”
It was a slow unraveling, but tension slowly seeped from Robin’s frame. He didn’t release Ulysses’ hands, but his grip gentled. At length, he twined their fingers together, palm pressed against palm. “Something tells me you’ve got other ideas.”
“Better ideas,” Ulysses corrected.
“Yeah?” Robin swallowed audibly, a challenge in his brown eyes. “Show me.”
* * * *
Ulysses woke to light creeping through the blinds and the soft droning of a radio somewhere in the depths of the house. It was a long moment before his vision focused. He made out the dresser against one wall, vaguely nautical knickknacks collected atop it, and a self-standing mirror. An armoire that looked about as old as the house itself.
No sign of sex toys or condom wrappers anywhere in sight.
Outside the bedroom window, seagulls zigzagged like white boomerangs against a cloudless, pale blue backdrop.
He slowly pushed himself upright, jetlag pounding behind his eyes with the whisper of a migraine. His clothes were neatly folded on a chair by the window. His shoulder bag was just inside the door.
Robin must’ve been up a while, if he’d taken the time to tidy up.
Ulysses tugged on a pair of clean underwear and tried the door. The low warble of the radio became louder. He followed it to the living room he’d seen only in passing yesterday, and the open kitchen beyond it, where Robin was buttering a piece of burnt toast. He froze mid-slather when he saw Ulysses.
“Morning.”
“Is that breakfast?” Ulysses’ stomach offered a noisy growl.
Robin held out the bread slice, then seemed to realize what he was doing and said, “Hang on, I’ll get you a plate—”
But Ulysses seized his wrist, cutting off the retreat, and took a bite of the buttered corner. Robin flushed all the way to the tips of his ears.
“I’m going to have a shower,” Ulysses informed him, chewing another bite.
“Okay.”
“And maybe later we can revisit that collection of yours.”
Robin’s expression softened. “Oh. Okay. If we must.” He steadied himself with a hand just above the waistband of Ulysses’ boxers as he fed him the rest of the toast. “How long do we have?” It was asked too softly to bring up the specter of last night’s quarrel.
“How long do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
Delicately, Ulysses pried the last wedge of toast with his teeth and grazed Robin’s fingertips with his tongue. The shudder that rippled through Robin was more gratifying than any sweeping declaration.
“Figure it out,” Ulysses counseled. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Also available from Pride Publishing:
Seat Sixty-Five
Helena Maeve
Excerpt
Chapter One
Trembling raindrops slithered up the windowpane in meandering rivulets. Felix tapped his fingertips against the glass, measuring the progress of the fattest tears. The rain had followed him east from Innsbruck, little more than a trickle to start but ramping up with faithful precision over the long miles.
Lightning slashed the night sky toward the German border, blasting blue-white light over the flat country plains.
Felix knew he was perfectly safe inside the train car. That didn’t stop him squirming in his seat when thunder roared. Loud noises sparked discomfort in the pit of his stomach. He reached into the folds of his parka and slid out the MP3 player. It was an old model, greedy for battery life and congested with music Felix couldn’t manage to delete. He ramped up the volume. Deep Purple vibrated in his eardrums to drown out the storm.
It wouldn’t be long now—another hour or so and he’d be in Vienna. He would find a hostel, get some sleep and hopefully make it to the airport in time for his flight. His insides churned if he thought about the next leg of his journey, yet once he started, it was difficult to guide his attention elsewhere.
His father had sounded less than thrilled to hear that he was coming back. He’d made it clear that Felix would have to find other living arrangements than his childhood home.
No surprise there…
The last time he’d talked to his father had been at the wedding. Alcohol and gaiety should have softened his old man’s heart. Instead, when he saw Felix show up with his then-boyfriend, all hell had broken loose.
Felix hunkered down in his seat, cowering at once from the memory and the storm outside.
The stiff chair was neither upright enough to let him rest against the window, nor sufficiently reclined to dub as a bed. Attempts to sleep had yielded little success in the past three hours.
At least the cacophony of screaming children and chattering travelers had dimmed some.
Felix’s seatmate was a woman blessed with generous curves and a Sophie Marceau nose. She dozed with impunity, cheek cushioned on the faux-fur collar of her cashmere sweater.
Envy simmered in Felix at the sight. He looked away. His reflection in the rain-spattered windowpane revealed the curl of his upper lip more plainly than he would’ve liked. Innsbruck had drawn out the worst in him. It showed in the sallow curve of his pale cheeks, the circles under his eyes. He was a ghost of his former self. A mean ghost.
A few seats away, across the aisle, a dark-haired man caught his eye in the glass. Taken one by one, his features seemed vaguely familiar. The whole rang no bells.
Just some guy.
People-watching was a commonplace hobby on public transport, no doubt every bit as familiar to the heavily-pierced punk-rocker slumbering in the seat beside the man as it was to the pristinely dressed elderly woman with the severe widow’s peak in front of them.
For politeness’ sake, Felix did not let his gaze linger.
Out of nowhere, a silver bolt struck somewhere ahead of the train, possibly in the wheat fields not far from the tracks. Felix startled so badly at the bright flash that he knocked shoulders with the slumbering woman beside him.
Diffidence washed over him as she jolted awake.
“Oh, I’m…”
Before he could finish, the lights inside the train car quivered and died. A dozen voices rose up in answer, some amused, most not. Thunder drowned them out.
“Damn storm,” Felix’s seatmate tittered. She had a smoker’s voice, all sandpaper and wire-brush.
He mustered a smile, his creepy watcher forgotten.
“You’re not afraid of a little thunder and lightning, are you? Faraday’s cage,” she added, wagging a finger. “We’re perfectly safe as long as we’re inside.”
“Safe?” Felix repeated, plucking his earbuds out. The blood whooshing in his ears made it hard to keep up with the music.
“If we’re struck by lightning.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to him. He sat up, trying to peer over the darkened seats in front. Other passengers had the same bright idea, heads poking up as though in a game of Whac-A-Mole. Moonlight was scant on such a cloudy night and the security lights only revealed the simmering agitation inside the car.
Exhausted, fearful travellers deprived of that most basic of human security blankets—light in darkness—made for a disturbing change of pace.
Felix swallowed hard. “Good… Good to know.”
Frantic
crowds triggered stampedes, brawls. Stampedes cost lives.
On instinct, he gathered his parka closer to himself. The impulse to flatten his back to the seat and pull his knees to his chest was almost more than he could control. Protecting the soft of his belly was no guarantee of safety.
His seatmate remained oblivious. “Hmm, does it seem like we’re slowing down?” she asked, peering down the aisle.
Were they? Felix looked to the window. The upward slant of the raindrops had dimmed, droplets arrested mid-trickle. As the train car gradually slowed its progress, they began to sluice down in glossy rivulets. The fast-changing reel of rugged dogwood and blackened fields settled into a more leisurely panorama.
“This isn’t Vienna,” Felix forced out.
“Oh, no. I reckon we just passed Weiselburg.” The traveler squinted down at her watch. “Yes, more or less.”
“Then what—?”
“Ladies and gentlemen, please, if I may have your attention? Ladies and gentlemen!” The conductor was a black-clad shadow in a long, toothed line of shadows. The vague air of authority in his voice was all that helped identify him.
“We’ve stopped,” cried one of the passengers.
“What the bloody hell is going on?”
Felix winced. A countryman of his didn’t even stoop to attempting German.
“Unfortunately the tracks were hit by the storm and we’ve lost power to the engine—”
Disbelief rippled from one end of the car to the other, pocked with requests for translation, elaboration. Felix gripped the cushion of his seat and struggled to keep his breaths even.
“We are doing everything we can to restore power!” the conductor bellowed over the growing outcry, a faintly plaintive note in his voice. “Everything we can,” he tried again, in English. “If you could please remain calm…”
“How long will it take?”
“Can you at least get the lights back on?”
“We have small children here!”
Lightning revealed the sheen of perspiration on the conductor’s brow as he shambled between the rows of seats en route to the next car. “We’re doing everything we can,” he repeated.
If it wasn’t for the ball of tension blooming in the pit of his stomach, Felix would’ve felt for the man. As it stood, he felt only faintly seasick and vindicated. He’d known something would go wrong if he left Innsbruck. He never should have left.
Birmingham didn’t want him back—his father had no desire to make amends.
He should have stayed where he was. What was a weight on his chest when he was trying to sleep, or a finger wriggling around in his eye socket? He was needed in Innsbruck. He could’ve made it work.
Heart vaulting and thudding against his ribs, Felix dug his fingernails a little tighter into the seat. This train wasn’t going back. Even if it started up again, he was eastbound.
The door at the rear of the railcar snagged shut with a whisper. Trapped. We’re trapped.
Felix sucked in a shaky breath and, with some effort, tore his gaze away from the bobbing shadows. Calm. Your. Shit.
Cool glass beneath his brow banished the rising fever, fogging with breath. Now and again, the rain-dappled window reflected indistinct, restless bodies—the sight of other passengers panicking, not him—and the single still point of the dark-haired stranger, assessing.
The window mirrored the man’s nod when Felix met his gaze and held it for a beat too long.
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About the Author
Helena Maeve has always been globe trotter with a fondness for adventure, but only recently has she started putting to paper the many stories she’s collected in her excursions. When she isn’t writing erotic romance novels, she can usually be found in an airport or on a plane, furiously penning in her trusty little notebook.
Email: [email protected]
Helena loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.pride-publishing.com.
Also by Helena Maeve
Courting Treason
Misfit Hearts
Flight Made Easy
In the Presence of Mine Enemy
Fault Lines
Seat Sixty-Five
Shadow Play: Best Kept Lies