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  Her visitor shook a wondering head and plucked the wadded Walmart shopping bag from a back pocket. Smiling now, the anger once again under control, the traveler shook out the bag—taking extra care to smooth every wrinkle, iron out every twist in the plastic—and hooked it over one wrist for easy access.

  “I see you haven’t fully grasped the situation yet. I’m afraid your days of ruining people are about to end most precipitously and with a great deal of pain.” Evelyn’s cocksureness immediately faltered. “No, please….”

  Ignoring her plea, ignoring the dread on her face, the attacker stepped forward and straddled her bloated body, pulled her hands gently from her face, and tenderly laid them on the floor at her sides. She stared up with a glimmer of hope. My God, the traveler realized, she thinks it’s an act of kindness, that she is about to be helped. Quickly proving her wrong, the attacker planted a blue-bootied foot over each of the woman’s hands and began grinding them into the cheap linoleum.

  The screams that erupted were earsplitting. And just as they reached their highest point, the traveler slipped the shopping bag over the shrieking woman’s head and tied it into a granny knot beneath her chin. The knot was so tight it all but disappeared into folds of fat.

  Happily, since Evelyn had a really annoying voice, her screams were immediately muted by the knot at her throat and the plastic bag wrapped tightly about her head. Her great body thrashed back and forth, still pinned between the traveler’s legs. Tiny bones in her fingers snapped and popped as they shattered like matchsticks beneath each grinding foot. She flailed her head from side to side, convulsing with the agony of her broken fingers, of the many rings tearing into her trampled hands. The plastic bag crackled, swelling and collapsing with each billowing, tortured breath. The bellows of fear and pain grew louder. As the air inside the bag thinned, her bare heels began to pound the floor in a merry tap dance. The staccato rapping echoed through the trailer.

  Off in the kitchen, a haze of blue smoke built. Apparently the good woman had carelessly left a tortilla crisping on the stove. She should have known better. Kitchen fires are one of the leading causes of fatal household accidents. Of course, one can’t die twice, so she wouldn’t have to worry about it too much.

  The swelling and shrinking of the plastic bag wrapped around Evelyn’s head began to slow. Oxygen deprivation at long last began to do its job. The clattering tattoo of Evelyn’s heels banging on the floor abated. With a retch, her body convulsed one last time as the Walmart bag filled with a great gout of vomit. After that, the noises coming from inside it were truly awful.

  The masked intruder stepped back, lifting feet from Evelyn’s ruined, bloody hands, and gazed on in fascination as Evelyn Tomes, aka BookBlogger.com, heaved and shuddered and gurgled, and slowly, oh so slowly, drowned in her own bile, her poor fat ruined fingers trembling crookedly at her sides.

  Staring down as the body finally collapsed into silence, the visitor smiled and pulled off first the stocking mask, then the Playtex gloves. Prodding the corpse with a foot elicited no response. The massive bosom, still speckled with droplets of blood, no longer heaved. The stench of puke was only now beginning to seep through the bag and foul the air.

  With a snort of disgust, the traveler turned and walked back out into the night. The shadowy figure was less than twenty feet away when the overheated skillet in Evelyn’s kitchen caught fire with a whoosh. A moment later the ratty calico curtain on the kitchen window blossomed into flames.

  The traveler stood watching with interest as the flames spread. The old Fleetwood trailer, each and every window now filled with cleansing, golden fire, resembled nothing less than a big fat jack-o’-lantern.

  It was really quite festive.

  Chapter Eleven

  “HI, LOGAN.” Milo beamed, then immediately stared down at his front porch steps. “Hey! Who the heck is that?”

  Logan followed his gaze to the tiny puppy staring up from the bottom step. The puppy was brown and gray and had about a gazillion cowlicks, making his coat look like it had exploded from within. Amid this chaos of hair, two black shiny eyes peered out, taking everything in. The puppy was tethered to a brand-new leash, which was clipped to a brand-new collar, and he had a brand-new stuffed duck, which was twice his size, clamped in his sharp little puppy teeth as if he refused to entrust it to anybody else. The leash was anchored securely to Logan’s hand.

  “That’s Emerson,” Logan said proudly. “As in Ralph Waldo.”

  “His name is bigger than he is.”

  “He’ll grow into it.”

  “You think he’ll grow into the duck?”

  “Maybe.”

  Milo looked doubtful. “If you say so. Umm, I thought you didn’t like dogs.”

  “I never said I didn’t like dogs. I said I didn’t have one. There’s a difference.”

  By this time Milo was down the steps and on all fours, and the puppy had dropped the stuffed duck long enough to rise up on his back legs and go to town on Milo’s face, his little tail whapping a mile a minute, his tongue going even faster. “He’s so tiny,” Milo sputtered around a shower of doggy kisses.

  Logan smiled. “He’s a Yorkie.”

  “I know. Humane Society?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he a loaner? Did you get him on spec?”

  “Nope. He’s mine or….”

  “Or what?”

  “Or… ours.”

  Milo twisted his head up, and they stared at each other.

  “What do you mean, ours?” Milo asked. “You mean like two humans with one dog ‘ours’? You mean like community property ‘ours’? You mean like ‘Here, boy!’ and he comes to whichever one of us looks the neediest because he loves us both equally? That kind of ours?”

  Logan glanced up and down the street, then back at Milo. “Stand up. And can we go inside, please? I’m about to kneel down.” Actually, he was about to pass out, but he didn’t think he wanted to admit that.

  Milo’s eyes grew big as he groaned his way to his feet. “You are?”

  Logan gulped. He suspected his eyes were bugging out too. “Yes, I am.”

  Milo looked worried. “Okay. Then come inside.” He reached over and took Logan’s hand, gently leading him through the doorway, pulling him away from the prying eyes of any neighbors who might be watching. Emerson reclaimed his duck and pattered along behind, his teeny toenails tapping merrily on the foyer floor, looking here and there and everywhere like this was quite an adventure for him. After a puppyhood spent at the Humane Society, Logan supposed it probably was.

  Milo closed the door behind them and turned expectantly to Logan, still holding his hand, still gazing deep into Logan’s bugged-out eyes.

  “Why are you looking so nervous? And why are you about to kneel? Is it to play with your new dog?”

  Logan frowned. This wasn’t going as planned. “No.”

  “I didn’t think that made any sense,” Milo said. “You could have knelt down and played with him on the front porch like I did just as easily as you could kneel down and play with him in here. After all, it doesn’t matter where you kneel down to play with the dog so long as—”

  Logan rolled his eyes and tugged at his collar. “Could you shut up for a minute?”

  Milo snapped his mouth shut like a mailbox.

  Logan inhaled a deep, shuddering breath and dropped to one knee, still holding Milo’s hand.

  Milo looked momentarily horrified. “You’re doing it. You’re actually kneeling.”

  “I told you to shut up.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Logan gazed up into Milo’s face while a trickle of ice-cold sweat slid down his rib cage. Another trickle of moisture seeped from his left eye. That trickle was warmer. He figured it was only a matter of time before the right eye started leaking too. “I want you to trust me,” he said, swallowing hard. “I want it more than anything.”

  Milo blinked in surprise. “What makes you think I don’t trust you already?”

/>   “Because you said you could never trust anybody who didn’t own a pet.”

  “I said that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly what I mea—”

  “Hush.”

  A faint smile twisted the corner of Milo’s mouth as he clapped it shut again and stared at Logan with those incredible green eyes, which always made Logan want to swoon a little bit when they were burrowing into him. Especially at moments like this. Not that Logan had many moments like this. Thank God. He didn’t think his heart could stand it if he did.

  “Why is it so important for me to trust you?” Milo asked.

  Logan glanced down at the floor, but just as quickly raised his eyes back to Milo’s face. “I want you to trust me because I’m a pet owner.”

  Logan knew he was losing him because Milo was starting to look confused.

  “Okaaaaay,” Milo drawled. He had the look of a man who was mentally flailing, clearly trying to understand just what the hell was going on but not succeeding very well.

  “I don’t want Emerson to be just mine, Milo. I want him to be ours.”

  “Ours?”

  “Yeah. Like you said. Like community property.”

  Milo didn’t look so confused anymore. In fact, he appeared to be growing more enlightened by the minute. “You mean, like if we were together?”

  “Bingo!” Logan cried so sharply that Milo jumped like he’d been stabbed with a pin. “That’s exactly it! Like we were together!”

  “Aren’t we together already?”

  “Not officially,” Logan said.

  And finally, Milo understood it all. Everything.

  “Is that what this is all about? You’re asking me to make our relationship official?”

  Logan almost fell over backward with relief. “Yes!”

  “Why didn’t you just say so? And I still don’t understand why you felt you had to get a dog.”

  “I’m begging you, Milo. Please shut the fuck up.”

  Milo narrowed his eyes but dutifully dragged an invisible zipper across his mouth, went through the motions of locking it with an invisible key, then petulantly tossed the invisible key over his shoulder. As if that wasn’t enough, he finished up with a three-fingered Boy Scout salute, then topped it all off by crossing himself like a good Catholic, which he sure as hell wasn’t. “Shutting the fuck up now, boss. Yessiree, I is.”

  Still staring up into Milo’s eyes from his vantage point on one knee, Logan pulled Milo’s hand to his mouth and held it against his lips.

  “I’m nuts about you, Milo.”

  “I know. I’m nuts about you too.”

  “I know,” Logan said, savoring the hair on the back of Milo’s hand as it tickled his nose.

  Milo’s voice sounded fractured. Not unlike his own. “You do? You know it?”

  “Yes. At least I was hoping. And now I feel like I have to tell you how I feel.”

  “Why? How do you feel?”

  “I feel like I’m in love.”

  Milo’s hand tensed against Logan’s lips. “With me?”

  “No. With Spanky. Yes, of course with you!”

  While Logan’s lips played across the palm of his hand, Milo stretched out his thumb and slid it over Logan’s cheek. “It must be going around, then,” he said softly, “because I feel that way too.”

  Logan blinked. “You do?”

  Milo nodded. “Uh-huh. I have for a while now.”

  “You mean like you’re in love?”

  “I mean exactly like I’m in love.”

  “With me?”

  “No, with Vanna White. Yes, of course with you!”

  Milo dragged his gaze from Logan’s face and studied the little dog. “You know, you really didn’t have to get a dog to make me trust you enough to get me to tell you I loved you back.”

  “Did you just say you loved me back?”

  “Yeah. I think so. It wasn’t a very good sentence. And I’m a writer too. You’d think I could do better.”

  They smiled at each other. The moment was oddly innocent.

  Still on one knee, Logan pressed another kiss into Milo’s hand. “Are you mine now?” he asked softly.

  “I’ve been yours since the day we had hamburgers in Coronado.”

  “But we had just met.”

  Milo shrugged. “I know. But my book signing was a bust, and then you came along in those tennis shorts and asked for my autograph. You also bought two books. I guess that’s what did it.”

  “Christ. What would have happened if I’d bought three?”

  Milo’s grin flickered. “I hate to think.”

  Logan saw Milo’s face begin to swim in front of him as his eyes filled with tears. Another tear slid down Logan’s cheek, and he didn’t even bother to brush it away because he was pretty sure there would be others trailing along shortly. “So we’re lovers, then?”

  Milo nodded. Shyly, he asked, “Do you really love me, Logan?”

  Logan nodded back. There was a twitch in his lip. He wasn’t sure if the twitch meant he was about to smile or about to sob like a baby. “Milo Cook, I love you more than anything.”

  Milo laid his warm hand to the side of Logan’s face. He stared down, his gaze gentle. “And you think Jerry will understand?”

  “Yes,” Logan said without a moment of hesitation. “I think Jerry will understand.”

  Dragging Milo closer, Logan wrapped his arms around Milo’s legs and pressed his face into his belly, just kneeling there in front of Milo, holding him tight, clutching him close.

  “I do love you too,” Milo whispered, his fingers kneading Logan’s hair.

  Logan inhaled Milo’s heavenly scent, absorbed his familiar heat. Milo’s legs trembled in his arms. “I’ve wanted to hear you say that for so long.”

  Gazing up, Logan released his grip on Milo’s legs and sat back on his haunches to brush the tears from his face. He smiled weakly but without shame. He was six foot five and blubbering like a baby. So what? Milo didn’t seem to mind, so neither did he.

  He reclaimed Milo’s hand and pressed it once again to his lips. “This isn’t all about us, you know. We should probably introduce Emerson to the rest of his newly adopted family.”

  Milo straightened his shoulders and wiped his eyes since he was leaking tears too. He gave himself a shake as if it was time to get down to business. “You’re right,” he said. Turning and directing his voice out toward the pool, he yelled, “Spanky! Get your ass in here. My lover and I want you to meet your new baby brother!”

  THEY CELEBRATED with a couple of beers and a nude swim in the pool. Treading water, Logan wrapped his arms around Milo, their naked bodies pressed together in the sun-warmed water, as they watched the two dogs over by the fence get to know each other. Emerson, it seemed, was doing most of the work.

  Spanky looked confused and vaguely appalled, as if he couldn’t quite believe there was a guinea pig—or whatever that little ratty-looking thing was—chewing on his tail.

  For his part, Emerson pranced, nibbled, teased, and finally scaled the long slope of Spanky’s back like he was climbing a hill. Once he reached the crest, the area right behind Spanky’s huge head, which was ten times bigger than his, Emerson collapsed into the big dog’s fur, nestled comfortably in, and fell sound asleep. In response, Spanky shot a baleful glance in Milo’s direction, as if asking, “What the hell did I do to deserve this?”

  Logan and Milo laughed and turned to each other.

  “They’ll be okay now,” Milo said.

  “You think?”

  Milo nodded. “Yeah. And I think we’ll be okay too.”

  Logan smiled and tweaked Milo’s chin. “So do I,” he whispered softly as the water lapped at his lips, and he edged closer for a kiss.

  Their erections rubbed together under the water, and Logan thought he had never had a happier moment in his life. He was about to duck his head beneath the shimmering ripples and try to snorkel with Milo’s dick, when Milo’s word
s snagged his attention first.

  “Move in with me, Logan.”

  Logan pulled back just enough to study Milo’s face. “What did you say?”

  “I said move in with me. If we love each other, we should live together. We’ll be sleeping in either my bed or your bed anyway. We might as well move in together.” Milo’s hand slid under the water and his fingers circled Logan’s cock, causing Logan to close his eyes and emit a sexy groan. Milo moved closer and laid his mouth to Logan’s throat. “If you’re my lover, I want you with me. Here in this house. Please. Let’s get your stuff and move you in. Today. Right now. Right this minute.”

  Logan was so lost in the feel of Milo’s fingers and Milo’s lips, not to mention Milo’s words, he could almost ignore the pain of what he was about to say. Almost. He pulled Milo into his arms and rested his chin on Milo’s shoulder. Sliding his hands over Milo’s back to savor the feel of him, Logan sighed and laid his lips to Milo’s ear.

  He died a little just speaking the words. “I can’t do it. I can’t abandon the apartment. I have a lease.”

  Milo snuggled closer too. “We’ll find someone to sublet it.”

  Logan froze, considering the possibilities. “Do you think we can?”

  “Sure. Why not? It’s a great apartment.”

  “But… but do you have room for me here?”

  “We’ll make room.”

  “What about Emerson?”

  “Emerson weighs about eight ounces. How much room does he need?”

  “I have furniture.”

  “What won’t fit we’ll put in storage. Or we’ll put mine in storage and keep yours. I’m not picky.”

  Logan pressed his lips to Milo’s cheek, still holding him close. Milo had released his dick and was now stroking Logan’s back, just as Logan was stroking his. Their cocks were no longer erect. Other thoughts had momentarily pushed the hunger away, but Logan knew it wouldn’t be gone long.

  “You’ll hate my music,” Logan said. “And I play it really loud.”