“I—” Stefan had to brace himself on Luke’s shoulders when Luke’s other hand skated across Stefan’s hip to grip his cock. “I might have heard something, yes.”
“Suppose you show me then.”
“It’s— Christ, Luke, how can I even think when you’re doing that?”
Immediately, Luke let go and retreated a step, leaving Stefan to sway drunkenly at the loss of heat and sensation. “Far be it from me to interfere with your thought processes.”
“Asshole,” Stefan muttered. But two can play at that game. He turned his back and bent over—all the way over, keeping his knees locked—and picked up the discarded towel. His cock was so hard it ached—Christ, it’s been so long—but judging by the state of Luke’s pants, he wasn’t in any better shape. Good. “Now let me think.” He strolled toward the changing room, the towel trailing on the floor behind him. He leaned forward, back arched, and poked his head through the curtain. “Not in here.”
He was rewarded by Luke’s growl, which caused his cock to pulse, bobbing against his belly. Soon. He straightened, then turned, draping the towel around his shoulders like a shawl, leaving his arousal on obvious display. He deliberately didn’t meet Luke’s gaze as he meandered around his easel, peering at the windows, under the worktable (another chance to bend over there), even behind the refrigerator. “I’m not sure where it could be, although—”
Luke grabbed his waist and backed him across the room until Stefan’s back was pressed into the lumpy metal stair railing. “If you don’t get up those stairs and into that fucking bed in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to take you on these stairs, and then we’ll both be sorry.”
Stefan widened his eyes in mock astonishment. “My stars. You knew where it was all along. If only you’d said something . . .”
“Stefan,” Luke growled.
Stefan laughed and ran up the stairs with Luke on his heels.
Following Stefan up the stairs, watching the flex of his bare ass, the play of light and shadow on his skin, was enough to make Luke rethink his plan. It had been too long. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Stefan, and he—and his dick, straining in his pants—weren’t up for the necessary prep time.
At the top of the stairs, Stefan whipped the towel from around his shoulders and held it out to the side like a matador’s cape. His wicked grin, and the erection bobbing against his belly, made Luke’s heart lurch in an unexpected rush of tenderness.
He’s happy.
Six months ago, when Luke had found Stefan in that cabin—gaunt, isolated, haunted—he hadn’t seen the possibility for a change like this. That Stefan hadn’t looked capable of making it to the end of the week, never mind indulging in playful sex.
Luke tugged the towel out of Stefan’s fingers and tossed it on the bed, then cupped Stefan’s face. “God, I love you.”
Stefan’s grin faded as he rested his hands on Luke’s waist, his Gulf-blue eyes serious. “Somehow, I don’t think this is where I smile smugly and answer ‘I know.’ But I do. Know. And I love you too.” He kissed Luke then, his lips firm and soft, a promise and an invitation. “But there’s a problem,” he murmured.
Luke’s head was still reeling from the kiss and the scent of Stefan’s skin. “A problem?”
“A huge problem. You . . .” Stefan nipped Luke’s lower lip. “Are wearing too many clothes.” He yanked the shirttail of Luke’s Oxford out of his pants and popped the bottom button open. “And I—” Pop went the next button. “—have been waiting—” Pop. “—way too long—” Pop. “—to have you naked.” Pop pop pop. “Christ, Luke, why the hell do you still wear undershirts in freaking Florida?” He stripped the Oxford down Luke’s arms, then yanked the undershirt over his head.
Luke instinctively tried to cover the burn scars on his ribs, but Stefan captured his hands and placed them on his own hips. “Now, in case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Investigator, the bed that you’re searching for is right here. Don’t you think we should make use of it?” He leaned in for another kiss, this time feathering Luke’s lips with the tip of his tongue. “Don’t you think we’ve both waited long enough?”
“God yes.” Luke toed off his loafers, then let go of Stefan so he could unbuckle his belt and strip off pants and boxer briefs. He removed his socks with a couple of awkward hops and the accompanying twinge in his hip. When he turned around, Stefan was kneeling in the middle of the bed, his fingers, glistening with lube, in his own ass.
Luke nearly swallowed his tongue. “Stef—” he croaked. “You look . . .” He staggered and fell onto the bed.
Stefan’s eyes were half-lidded. “Like I’m in a hurry? I know you, Luke. You—” He bit his lip, his cock bouncing. “You were about to back off because of some misguided notion of my fragility. I—” He scissored his fingers. “Am not. Fragile.” He drew his fingers out of himself slowly, and Luke was mesmerized by the sight. “So will you please get over here and fuck me already?”
“On your back.” Luke had managed to find his voice. “I need to kiss you.”
Stefan complied in a sinuous movement that Luke, with his game leg, could never match. He raised his knees to his chest and reached out to stroke Luke’s taint with his lubed fingers. “I’m waiting.”
Luke caught the wandering hand. “Behave.” Stefan chuckled, and Luke’s heart stumbled again. He crawled into position, then grabbed the open bottle of lube to slick himself up. Not hurting you. Not ever.
They’d dispensed with condoms three months ago, and as he pushed in, the blessed heat, the velvet grip of Stefan’s ass on his dick made his eyes cross. He had to pause until his brain came back online, and by that time, Stefan was panting underneath him.
“Christ, Luke, move, please!”
So he did. A long slow glide, in and out, in and out, as he dove in for a hungry kiss. Stefan moaned into his mouth, his hands gripping Luke’s shoulders, the stroke of his tongue matching Luke’s thrusts. As Luke increased his pace, Stefan’s sounds grew more frantic. Luke tore himself away long enough to growl, “Jack yourself. Paint your chest with your own spunk.”
Stefan let go of Luke to grab his dick with one hand, drawing Luke down for a bruising kiss with the other. Then he let go on a gasp, and as ropes of cream laced his belly, Luke lost it too, his rhythm faltering as Stefan’s ass clenched around him.
Panting, he leaned his forehead against Stefan’s, his arms trembling as he tried to keep his weight off his leg—and from crushing his lover.
Stefan’s laugh was breathless. “For God’s sake, roll over before your arms give out.”
“Good plan.” Luke pulled out carefully, although Stefan still winced slightly. He collapsed onto his side with a groan. “I think you might have killed me.”
“Not likely.” Stefan looked down at himself. “Ugh. That’s the only problem with this place—the bathroom is downstairs. Luckily, I have an alternative.” He rolled over and fussed with his bedside table, returning with a blue plastic box.
“Baby wipes?”
“Why not?” He took a couple out and proceeded to clean himself off. “If they work for baby shit, they should work for jizz, right?” After extracting another one, he tossed the box on the floor, then raised himself on one elbow, grinning down at Luke.
“What are you going to— Fuck! That’s cold!”
“Yes, but now you’re clean. And awake.”
“That’s debatable.” In fact, Luke could barely keep his eyes open, between his usual post-sex lethargy and residual jet lag.
“Then go ahead and take a nap if you want.” Stefan spooned up next to him, and Luke rolled over, draping an arm over Stefan’s chest, his hand resting on Stefan’s.
“Stop that,” Stefan said, a laugh buried in his voice.
“What? You don’t want me to hold you?”
“Of course I do.” Stefan lifted his hand, with Luke’s piggybacked on top and wiggled his little finger. “I mean this. Feeling me up in the spot where Marius’s signet ring was. It’s not t
here. It hasn’t been there for years.”
“Sorry.” Luke nuzzled behind Stefan’s ear. “Well, not really. I like knowing it’s gone.”
Stefan tucked his hand against his chest. “You know, when I hadn’t heard from you in the last few days, I was afraid . . .”
Luke ran his knuckles along Stefan’s jaw, blond stubble tender and rough against his skin. “What?”
Stefan’s shoulders tensed. “Afraid you’d changed your mind. Decided to stay in Europe again.”
“Hey. Look at me.” When Stefan didn’t respond right away, Luke propped himself on his elbow, so he could gaze down at his lover’s perfect profile. “I’d never run. Not now. This is my home, the only one I need or want, because this is where you are.”
Stefan half-rolled to peer up at him, lifting an eyebrow. “That’s . . . pretty damn sappy, Morganstern.”
“What can I say?” He traced Stefan’s lips with a finger. “Watched a lot of Hallmark movies during rehab.”
“Yeah? What else did you learn from them?”
“That every mystery can be solved in two hours, including commercials.”
Stefan laughed. “Good to know. I’ll make a note of it in case I ever get a TV again.”
Luke shook his head, clucking his tongue. “Lousy phone. No TV. POS car. Don’t you think you’re taking economy to an extreme?”
Stefan’s face shuttered, the way it always did when they talked about money, and he rolled away to sit on the edge of the bed. “No.”
Ah shit. “I didn’t mean—” Luke pushed himself up, scooting across the mattress so he could stroke Stefan’s spine. “That was supposed to be a joke. Sorry if it came off wrong.”
Stefan nodded, brushing at his belly. “I need another shower. I’ve got a model showing up in…” He checked his watch. “Shit, twenty minutes. I’d rather not smell like sex the whole time I’m trying to paint. It’s distracting.”
He stood up and took the two steps necessary to reach his dresser to pull out fresh underwear, jeans, and T-shirt, then trotted down the stairs. Luke draped his own clothes over his shoulders and followed more slowly, the narrow stairs a challenge for his hip. When he got to the studio floor, he was confronted with something he’d missed—and his fixation on Stefan must have been damned intense for him to miss these: half a dozen eight-foot canvases, three of them of an African American guy with the body of Idris Elba and the face of Prince.
“I see you’ve got a new favorite,” Luke said through gritted teeth. “Nice ass.”
“What?” Stefan poked his head out of the changing room and saw what Luke was looking at. “Oh, Rudy. Yeah.” He waggled his eyebrows. “But I like yours better.”
Right. Luke covered his less-than-perfect ass with his underwear. “Is he the one you’re expecting?”
“No.”
“Where’d you find a guy that perfect? Posting ads in all the bars?”
“What? No, I—” His eyes widened. “Shit. I forgot that you don’t know. Signor DiBartolo had a stroke the day you left. Rudy’s his nurse.”
Luke froze with his pants halfway up his legs. Whoa. Talk about a seismic shift in the status quo. “But the gallery, the classes, her own art—that’s a heavy load for one person to shoulder if they’ve got a disabled partner to care for. Do you think they’ll sell this place?”
Stefan scowled at him. “Why do you sound excited by the idea? Kind of shitty, to enjoy someone else’s misfortune.”
“That’s not what I—” Luke pulled his pants up the rest of the way. “I’m not enjoying their misfortune. But I know enough about disability and rehab to know how hard it is to manage yourself, let alone a business and a relationship. This is a huge change for them, and it’ll affect you too. I just want you to know you’ve got options. If they’re giving the place up, you can move in with me.” He zipped his fly and mumbled, “Hell, you could move in with me even if they don’t sell it.” He winced. Probably shouldn’t have said that.
Stefan ran his hands through his hair. “Luke . . .”
“I know you’ve got your reasons, and I get that. I really do.” Luke focused on buckling his belt. “But when I got home last night, I would have given anything to find you there, waiting for me.”
“If you’d told me when you were arriving—”
“That’s the point, Stef.” He looked up, the tightness in his throat making it hard to swallow. “I don’t want to have to make an appointment to see you. I want us to take for granted that we’ll be there, leaving our socks on the floor, our dishes in the sink, the cap off the toothpaste. Bitching about who drank the last beer or whose turn it is to do the laundry. I want . . . I want it to be normal.” His voice broke on his last word. Shit.
Stefan gripped Luke’s shoulders. “I want that too.”
“Then—”
He squeezed, giving Luke a tiny shake. “Not yet. But soon. I promise.”
“Right. Of course.” Luke gave Stefan a tight-lipped smile and broke out of his grasp to limp across the room, past the line of perfect nude men, every one of them a reminder of what he’d never be again.
“Don’t!” Stefan lurched forward. “I mean, where are you going?” There was an edge to Stefan’s voice. Anger or misery? Luke couldn’t tell which, just as he couldn’t tell what was roiling in his own chest.
“To get drunk.” He stopped with his hand on the door, fingers flexing around the doorknob. “Want to come with me?”
Stefan’s hands flopped at his sides. “I can’t. The model will be here in less than ten, and I’ve got two more of Antoinette’s masks to paint. The show is in less than a week. I—”
“It’s okay. Forget it.” Misery. Definitely misery. “If you change your mind and want to share a bottle of tequila, you know where to find me.”
“Stefan?” By the tentative note in Antoinette’s voice, she must have run into Luke and figured Stefan needed propping up. Shit. Would he ever stop giving off that helpless vibe? “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. Luke’s just . . . being Luke.” The dread that had cramped his belly before Luke took off, that had made Stefan want to tie Luke to a chair to keep him from leaving, hadn’t faded completely. He shook his hair out of his eyes and forced a smile for her. “He’s having trouble contacting his client. Finishing this job. That makes him a little prickly.”
“A little?”
Stefan laughed. “Okay. A lot. But he’s got an artifact of some kind to hand off, and his client’s gone MIA for like five weeks. That’s why he was in Italy for so long.”
“Italy? I did not know.”
“Yeah. Some really remote place west of Milan. In . . .” Stefan frowned, trying to remember if Luke had ever told him the name of the town. “In the Piedmont region anyway.”
Her eyebrows rose. “I know the area. Jacques’s family is from there.”
Stefan snorted. “Maybe we should have asked him to intercede—” He winced, mentally slapping himself upside the head. That would have been right after Signor DiBartolo’s stroke. “Sorry. That was . . . insensitive.”
“Please don’t scold yourself, Stefan. It is a new world. We each adjust in our own time.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Will your friend be returning soon? Perhaps I can be of assistance.”
Stefan stared at the door as if he could still see the tension in Luke’s shoulders, hear the pain in his voice. “I don’t know. I hope so. But in the meantime, we have a show to prepare for. Do you have another mask for me?”
“Yes. Or I will. Perhaps not for a day or two, but certainly in time to fire it before the show.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Stefan’s heart bumped sideways, but the man who poked his head in the studio was only his next model. “Hi, Jason. Go ahead and get changed. I’ll be ready for you momentarily.”
As Jason disappeared behind the changing room curtain, Stefan took a deep breath, forcing a smile for Antoinette. Luke would be back. He’d get over it. And after this show, Stefan mig
ht have a significant chunk of change to apply to his debts. If Luke could see that Stefan was trying, was getting closer to the day when he could finally go to Luke unencumbered by financial and emotional baggage, maybe he’d be more patient.
Before Stefan could collect his sketch pad and charcoal, Rudy—in Hello Kitty-print scrubs—filled the studio doorway. He crossed his arms over his massive chest and fixed Stefan with a mock scowl. “Steffie, are you cheating on me with another model?”
Stefan’s smile was less forced this time. “You turned me down last time, if you recall. Something about your real job?”
Rudy fluttered his fingers. “Whatever.” He added a sly leer. “Next time, maybe you should try harder.”
Stefan laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Rudy turned to Antoinette, and his flirtatious manner dropped away. “Ms. A, Mr. G’s meds are set out for you next to the bed. Red cup for dinner time. Blue cup for bed time, plus the injectable if he gets restless again. You sure you want to handle it? I don’t mind staying. I know you don’t like those needles.”
“It is not me who dislikes needles. Jacques has never liked pain of any kind.” She covered her mouth with one hand, like a child who’d been caught stealing a cookie. “I should not have said that. He doesn’t like anyone to know.”
Rudy chuckled and patted her shoulder. “A lot of my male patients are exactly the same. My ladies always handle pain much better.”
“Perhaps because we’re used to it.”
Stefan blinked at the bitterness in Antoinette’s tone. “Are you—”
She waved him away. “Pay no attention to me. I am in a mood today.”
Rudy enveloped her in a hug. “You get a pass, sugar. Be as moody as you like. Steffie and I can take it. Why don’t I stay tonight and give you a break?”
“You are good, Rudy, but tonight I have no engagements, and you deserve a night off.” She patted his massive chest and stepped back. “Next week, I’m afraid you will have no leisure at all as we prepare for the show, so you should not give up your free time when there is no need.”
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