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  Mostly Logan remembered the moments that followed. When, with Milo’s mouth still tasting him, still capturing his cock inside that worshiping well of moist heat, still drawing the last drops of liquid from Logan as if he simply could not get enough, Milo uttered a little purring sound deep in his throat. It was a sound that said Milo was content having Logan near, drinking from him, fulfilling Logan’s need and letting Logan fulfill his own.

  Carefully, Logan cuddled closer, still savoring the feel of Milo’s body against his, holding him as tightly as he dared without waking him up. He looked far too peaceful to disturb. And far too beautiful.

  Lying alongside Milo’s small frame, Logan felt clumsily large. As if he was taking up all the space in the bed, all the air in the room. Milo was more ethereal, more gently present. If this were an artist’s studio, Milo would be a soft swath of muted color on a pristine canvas, Logan a big fucking glob of thick paint on the artist’s shoe. Logan grinned at the analogy. Then his grin faded as he remembered how, when they were standing, the top of Milo’s head was at the perfect height to tuck neatly under Logan’s chin. Logan liked that. He liked it a lot.

  But what Logan liked even more was Milo’s way of seemingly absorbing what he wanted from Logan even while he slept. That touched a place in Logan’s heart that had not been touched since Jerry left. Logan enjoyed Milo snuggling close to him like this. He enjoyed Milo holding on to Logan as he snored softly against him. He enjoyed knowing there was something in Logan that Milo felt was worthy of claiming even when Milo lay lost inside his own contented sleep. There was a giving nature and a goodness in Milo that Logan had not sensed in any other person since Jerry left. There was also clearly something in himself that Milo felt a need to lay claim to. And that, perhaps, was what Logan enjoyed most of all.

  Then there was the way Milo had taken control the night before, the way he had led Logan through pleasures Logan had all but forgotten existed. And how it had all left Logan a little in awe of this man beside him.

  Milo had surprised Logan last night. Surprised the pants off him. No pun intended, Logan smirked quietly to himself as he lay there in the dark. After all, Logan had expected sex. Had expected it and longed for it. But what he’d received was far more. There was a sweetness in Milo’s lovemaking that had taken Logan’s breath away a dozen times during their coupling, and still pulled at him now, at this very moment, just thinking back on it. The oh-so-gentle but confident stroke of Milo’s hands. The kneading of his fingertips. The tender way Milo had cooed softly while happily exploring the terrain of Logan’s body, and the way he freely and unashamedly allowed Logan to explore his own. Offering everything, fearing nothing, never holding back.

  Logan had never known a first time with someone to be so faultless and utterly trustful. Even with Jerry there had been a good deal of stumbling at the beginning. They had needed to learn what pleased the other. They had needed a few trial runs on certain more invasive acts of love. They might have laughed their way through those exploratory runs, but they had still been awkward.

  With Milo there had been no awkwardness at all.

  Logan closed his eyes again, willing sleep to reclaim him. Yet he didn’t really want to sleep either. He was so content lying there with Milo’s hand resting lightly on his belly, Milo’s slim, warm fingertips nestled entwined in Logan’s pubic hair, brushing lightly against the base of his sleeping dick. Logan fought against the arousal he knew was only a breath away. He didn’t want to lose this moment. It was too precious to be wasted on hungers of the flesh.

  Once more, he lightly pressed his lips into Milo’s sun-streaked hair and breathed in the scent of the young man cuddled next to him. When Milo mumbled in his sleep and his lips pushed harder into Logan’s armpit as if the hair there were beginning to tickle him too, Logan smiled. God, the guy was just so damned cute.

  And without warning, Logan’s mind was suddenly filled with Jerry’s face. It was as if Jerry had reared up at the foot of the bed and stood there now in the shadows, watching him. Watching them.

  Logan opened his eyes wide and stared out at his own memories, hovering there in the darkness before him. Jerry. But he wasn’t really there, of course. He couldn’t be. His still, breathless body was penned inside that horrible concrete box in the wall of the mausoleum in Calumet City, two thousand miles away. Could Jerry really know where Logan was at this very moment? Did he know that Logan had finally shaken himself free of all the guilt and loyalty and love that once bound him to Jerry and given himself, at least physically, to another man for the very first time since Jerry left? And if he did know, was it all right? A year had passed. A year to Logan at least. God knows how many lifetimes a year is to someone no longer here, no longer on this plane. To Jerry, did that passing of time feel like a century, or did it feel like an instant? Or did it feel like anything at all?

  Was death simply dark, timeless nothing? Could the closing of life really be that empty?

  Milo’s fingers twitched over Logan’s stomach, a reflexive act, perhaps, as if he relished Logan’s feel even in his sleep. Just as quickly, Milo’s hand fell still again, his fingers lay motionless, unknowingly cradling Logan’s cock in a protective fist now. Logan squeezed his eyes shut, loving the way that warm, caressing hand felt around him, loving the way Milo’s hot breath flowed across his ribs as he continued to snore like a buffalo. Despite his best efforts, Logan’s blood began to flow, and he felt his cock harden and lengthen inside Milo’s gentle, sleeping grip.

  God, it had been so long since he had felt like this with anyone.

  Without warning, a blade of guilt stabbed through him, as sharp as a sliver of glass. Jerry’s sweet face appeared yet again in the darkness at the foot of the bed. Jerry neither smiled down at him nor frowned. His handsome face, which Logan knew by heart, merely floated there watching, emotionless, unaccusing, unmoved. All the accusations were in Logan’s head, not Jerry’s eyes.

  Stifling a cry, Logan eased himself away, sliding free of Milo’s hand, cradling Milo’s head before it fell, lowering it lightly onto the bed. As if suddenly finding himself untouched, his connection to Logan broken, Milo curled into a fetal position and snuggled into the tangled sheets, still sound asleep.

  Logan unfolded his long legs and rose slowly. Standing naked in the darkness, his cock still hard and pulsing, he stared down at Milo on the bed before him. Milo was silent now; his snoring had stopped. A sliver of moonlight lay along his pale hip, where his golden tan didn’t reach. Logan longed to touch it, to stroke that swath of moonlight-blue skin. To make it his own once again, just as he had done last night. To lay his lips to it and taste it. To ease Milo onto his back and take his hardness into his mouth and coax him into another explosive climax. To savor the juices that spilled from him, and have his own juices savored in return.

  Gnawing at his lower lip, suddenly desperate to get away, Logan turned from the bed. Trying to be quiet because he didn’t want a confrontation, didn’t want to have to explain why he was leaving, he carefully maneuvered his way through the shadows in the unfamiliar room. He found his clothes where he had left them the night before when he dressed for swimming. Gathering them in a bundle and snugging them to his chest, he padded softly outside to the patio, aglow with moonlight and the green shimmer of the underwater pool lights. There he stood barefoot on the cold concrete and slipped them on. He found his shoes beside the chaise where he’d kicked them off earlier. Turning, he spotted Spanky, standing at the edge of the pool watching him. Logan knelt, and Spanky walked up to him, tail wagging. The old dog rested his gray snout on Logan’s leg while Logan twiddled his ears and whispered quiet words.

  When Logan turned to leave, the dog followed, his toenails tapping along behind him across the kitchen floor, then falling silent as he trailed him through the rest of the carpeted house.

  Logan slipped outside and quietly pulled the front door shut, leaving Spanky safely locked inside. He tried the knob to assure himself the lock had clicked. When the
knob didn’t turn, he walked slowly along the street to his car. Ducking inside and closing the car door behind him, Logan breathed in the familiar scent of his own belongings. Funky gym clothes in the back seat. A hamburger wrapper with secret sauce balled up on the back floorboard. Years-old cigarette butts moldering in the ash tray from when he used to smoke. God, he really should clean that thing out one of these days.

  The smells were mundane, and somehow emptily lonesome, compared to those he had just left.

  Logan lifted his forearm to his face and sniffed. Wonder of wonders, there it was. Milo’s scent. It still lay on his skin. He breathed it deeply in, thinking back over the night behind him. He dropped his arm and, with a sigh, stared out through the windshield at the empty street. After a while, he turned the key in the ignition and slipped the car into gear.

  But still he didn’t want to go back to his apartment. Not yet. So he simply began driving, not thinking of a destination at all.

  An odd sadness, and an equally odd elation, followed Logan as he explored the abandoned streets in this unfamiliar city he now called home. It was after four in the morning. He slid the car windows down so the cool night air would rush through the cab. There was almost no traffic at all. He shuffled through the untidy stack of CDs on the passenger seat, but just as quickly pulled his hand away, leaving them where they lay. He didn’t feel like sharing his headspace with Adele or Katy or Usher. He didn’t want them steering the route his thoughts would take. He wanted to steer his own thoughts.

  Thoughts of Milo Cook.

  He smiled remembering how Milo had thought it was cold when the wind whipped over them as they treaded water in the pool. He closed his eyes and stupidly blocked out even the street he was driving down when he recalled the sound of Milo crying out when the semen gushed from his body. And the way he had cried out too at that same moment. Letting himself go. Sharing with Milo as Milo was sharing with him.

  Logan wasn’t sure he could ever remember a climax quite like that one. Even with Jerry. There was something about Milo that had set Logan’s inhibitions free last night. It wasn’t the beer. Hell, he’d only had three or four. No, it was Milo.

  And suddenly Logan was furious with himself for leaving. His foot rose off the gas pedal, and for a second he thought he’d just turn around and go back. Knock on the door, pound on it if he had to, until Milo answered. Plead with Milo to let him back in. Lead Milo back to bed and gather him in his arms.

  But just as quickly, Logan knew he couldn’t do that either. It would be too… crazy. Too miserably, pathetically desperate.

  He fed the car a little gas and traveled on. Tired of driving aimlessly around, he turned at the next street corner and headed for home. Before he got there, he found his brain teeming again with thoughts of Milo. Milo clothed. Milo naked. Milo laughing at a joke. The curve of Milo’s ass as he cannonballed into the pool. Milo arching his back in orgasm. Milo stooping to pet the dog.

  Milo just being Milo.

  As Logan drove, the roar of the wind rushing through the open windows was the only music he needed to hear. In fact, he barely noticed the absence of music at all, which was strange. Logan always had music blasting in the background. It kept him company. It helped him think. It helped him not think. It made him feel less alone.

  But not this time. This time, it wasn’t the silences in his life that made him lonely. It was Milo not being there that did it. Suddenly, he knew, his life was no longer empty at all. Nor did he want it to be.

  And just what the hell was he going to do about that?

  MILO AWOKE the next morning feeling like he had spent the night with his head attached to one of those clattering machines they use at Home Depot to stir paint. He wasn’t hungover. He wasn’t sick. On the contrary, he was flat-out euphoric. It was just that his brain seemed a little scrambled. And why wouldn’t it?

  Holy cow, what a night!

  Milo thought back to everything he and Logan had done together. The roughhousing in the pool, the talking over beers as they floated in the water, the way Logan had looked damned near naked in those droopy swimming trunks Milo had loaned him.

  And the hours they really did spend naked, wrapped in each other’s arms in the bed. Jesus.

  Milo had woken up starving because in the excitement of their being together, neither he nor Logan had thought to eat dinner.

  He sat now at his computer, trying to will himself to write. He had an industrial-sized bag of potato chips beside him—breakfast of champions—and as hungry as he was, he hadn’t touched them. Staring at the words on the screen he had written only minutes before, he realized with dawning horror that they made no sense whatsoever. They might as well have been typed in Swahili. Maybe they made no sense because all his little gray cells were taken up with a far more important problem.

  Trying to figure out why Logan had slipped away in the middle of the night. That was the problem. Another problem was why Milo, waking alone in his bed with the scent of Logan on the sheets beside him, felt so crushed that Logan had gone.

  Milo’s hand reached out for the phone, but he quickly pulled it back. Would he sound desperate if he called Logan so soon? Would he sound accusatory if he demanded to know why Logan had left? And if he did, would it matter that he sounded desperate and accusatory? Well, yeah, it would. Milo didn’t want to come off as some lovesick dipshit who falls for a trick after one blow job and a cuddle.

  Still staring at the phone, he squeezed his fingers into a fist and frowned. Somehow, he didn’t like thinking of Logan as a trick. Christ, it had been more than that, hadn’t it?

  More confused than ever, he glanced at the meaningless words on his computer screen, then shifted to stare through the window that looked out over the pool. God, he longed to see Logan again. Standing there. Right now. Right this minute. In Bryce’s old swimming trunks, maybe, his beautiful tall body glistening with pool water, the dark hair on his strong sexy legs slicked down by the water sluicing off him, eyes laughing, one perfect dimple etched into his cheek. Or in the bed, flat on his back, his long muscular arms wrapped around Milo’s hips, drinking from Milo at the moment of climax. Just as Milo was drinking from him.

  Milo remembered it all. Everything about last night was seared into his brain. Just recalling all he and Logan had done together—talking, laughing, making love, wrestling in the pool, all of it—made Milo’s heart start to hammer against his ribs. Even his breath quickened when he remembered how Logan’s skin felt beneath his hands, how Logan responded to his touch, and how his own body responded to Logan’s touch.

  As if sensing his feelings, Spanky rose from the floor and rested his chin on Milo’s leg, staring up lovingly into Milo’s face with his soulful golden eyes. Milo gazed down with a sad smile and stroked his snout.

  “I’m in trouble now, aren’t I, boy?” Milo quietly asked, already knowing the answer.

  His worried eyes wandered to the telephone again. At that moment, he heard a tentative knock on his front door.

  Milo and Spanky both jumped. Spanky howled like a banshee and took off running for the door with Milo right behind him. Hope swelled in Milo’s heart, and maybe in Spanky’s too, considering how excited he was. Or was that just a figment of Milo’s imagination?

  Milo licked his lips and tried to run a few fingers through his sleep-tangled hair. Gazing down forlornly at his crappy pajamas and wishing he had donned something a little more presentable in case it was Logan on his front porch waiting to be let in. And really, who else could it be?

  Without giving himself any more time to fret or freak out about it, he yanked the door wide open.

  And there stood Bryce.

  Chapter Eight

  BRYCE GAVE a rather uncharitable grunt. “Well, you look like shit.”

  Milo just stared. Finally he was able to bury his disappointment that it wasn’t Logan and mutter, “Bryce. It’s been a while.” Not long enough, of course. “I thought you moved away.”

  “Well, now I’m back.
I’ve been back for a while, actually.”

  Bryce smiled wide, showing off those handsome teeth he had always been so fond of flashing when he wanted to get his way. “It’s good to see you, Milo. Are you going to ask me in?”

  Milo blinked, then reluctantly stepped back, holding the door open. “Oh, yeah, sure. Come on in.”

  Even after all this time, Bryce strolled inside as if he had never been gone at all. Milo watched in consternation as Spanky pranced around at Bryce’s feet, tail wagging, showing off that gray-muzzled smile of his and giving Bryce a far more convincing welcome than Milo had. The traitor.

  Bryce dropped to his knees and gave Spanky a hug and a backrub, which sent Spanky’s ass trembling in ecstasy. “Wow,” he said. “He remembers me.”

  Milo fought valiantly not to roll his eyes. “Imagine that.”

  Still occupied with Spanky, Bryce gazed up at Milo standing by the door.

  “I guess I interrupted your writing. I seem to recall you always did look like death warmed over when you’re in the middle of one of your books.”

  Milo tried to drag out a smile, and he did finally manage it, but he doubted it was very convincing. “You know me too well,” he said, his voice sounding flat even to his own ears. Never taking his eyes from Bryce’s face, he reached out to close the front door behind him with a faint click.

  Bryce looked good, Milo had to admit. Of course, Bryce always looked good. He was the only man Milo ever knew who could jump out of bed in the morning looking like he had not been asleep at all. Hair reasonably neat, eyes clear, body limber. Milo inevitably woke up groaning and bitching, looking like he’d been run over by a garbage truck and dragged ten blocks through rush-hour traffic.