The fact that I wanted what he seemed to be saying to be true was not a good sign. I said doubtfully, “You can’t mean you wanted to work with me.”

“I don’t know if I’d put it quite like that,” he admitted. “Although you do have a knack for setting things in motion. But, yeah, I wanted a reason to see you -- to talk to you. To see if we could salvage a friendship. And I know a mystery to you is like catnip to a cat.”

I said slowly, “But you didn’t come up with the idea?”

“No.”

“It was Paul Kane’s idea.”

He said softly, “Did I ever tell you that you talk too much?” And he leaned forward, his mouth covering mine in an expert and persuasive kiss. Warm lips and the funny little click of teeth as the kiss deepened into unpredictable hunger, and his tongue was insinuating its dark and secret way into my mouth, me opening to it, wanting it -- my hand gripping his upper arm, fingers digging in, returning that kiss with single-minded hunger.

Strangely, my mind filled with the memory of our first real kiss -- the first time Jake had really kissed a man.

Deep and slow, searching… His hand cradling the back of my head, drawing me closer, tasting me. Me tasting him back, breathing in gentle unison, filling each other’s lungs with our quiet exhalations.

Except I hadn’t been the first man he kissed. How could I have been? He’d been with Paul Kane for two years before he ever met me, right? And this was all…what? Besides serving to keep me distracted? And that kiss had only meant so much to me because I had kidded myself it meant so much to Jake -- that he had trusted me with something precious. But the only precious things were my memories -- and they were precious for the wrong reason.

I made myself let go, pushed him away, and got up from the sofa -- none too gracefully.

“I don’t even know who you are,” I told him. “And I have trouble believing you were yearning for my company when you’ve spent the last five years fucking Paul Kane. Or, vice versa. We won’t even bring your wife into it.”

He stared at me with narrowed, tawny eyes. “I did what?”

“You and Paul Kane. He said you’ve been lovers for five years.”

“Lovers?” He said the word like it was repellent.

There didn’t seem to be much doubt about the genuineness of that response. Not that his distaste for the concept was exactly the stuff that dreams are made of, but I did feel a spark of relief that it hadn’t all been lies or my imagination.

But then his face changed, and I saw I had once again been trying to convince myself of something when any fool could see what was true.

Jake stood up too -- and he was watching me like I was the dangerous and incalculable one. “I’ve known Paul for five years,” he said. “That’s true. And I did keep seeing him for some of the time you and I were together.”

“I must have blinked,” I said. “I don’t remember us ever being together.”

“Don’t laugh about it,” he said very quietly.

The expression on his face dried my derision. There was a time in my life I’d have given a couple of years to see that look on Jake’s face.

He said, still quiet, still steady, “I have feelings for Paul, but you could not remotely describe the thing between me and Paul as love. Not the way someone like you uses the word.”

Horrifyingly, I felt that burn in the back of my eyes. “And what way would that be?” I asked.

He said simply, “The same way as me.”

I turned away. No way -- no fucking way -- was I ever shedding another tear over him. I walked to the window and stared down at the street below, distantly noting that it was emptied, that it was getting late, that streetlamps were coming on.

Jake walked up behind me. He didn’t touch me but I could feel him all down the length of my body, feel his heat, his…urgency.

“I would give almost anything to get back what we had,” he said. “And you know why.”

Not really. Although we both certainly knew what the almost anything was that he wouldn’t give up. But I closed my eyes, not resisting when his arms slipped around me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

We left the lights on, a seasoned brightness that allowed a few unthreatening shadows. It was strange and familiar. Sweet and bitter. Frightening -- and, yes, reassuring. Because we knew each other, once past the talk when we were down to the language of hands and mouths, we knew each other. Had always known each other. Our bodies fit together just right, and we rocked together gently at first, easy and slow, taking and giving comfort.

Jake groaned, rolled onto his back, taking me with him, settling me down the length of his own long, broad body -- the press of my arousal was caught between our tightly joined bodies as he thrust powerfully into me. It felt so good -- hot and shivery and frantic. We twisted and writhed, circular pressings of belly on belly. He was all fierce muscle and sinew and bone. I put my hands on either side of his shoulders, raised myself on my palms, thrusting back, then pushing him deeper inside my body. His hands closed on my hips, urging me on.

So good.

So…good…

Jake came first, crying out, grabbing me tight, hips jerking against me, face buried in my chest. There was wetness on his cheeks. Beneath his lashes. Tears? The idea brought a grim smile to my own face. More likely perspiration. And I came a moment later, spurts of sticky moisture spilling between us, wetting our already damp bodies. I collapsed on top of him and his breath whooshed out unsteadily against my ear.

Little bright lights flashed behind my eyes and once again I had that sensation of flying…like I was floating through the air in a pirate galleon, sailing dizzily through the stars and clouds and swooping over the sparkling seas like the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland -- flying away to Never Never Land. And I probably never should have -- I could hear the too-hard thump of my heart in my ears -- too big for my chest -- but it was done now and no regrets.

I smiled hazily into Jake’s tiger eyes. He kissed me, a soft kiss sweet as melting sugar, slid his arms around me, rolling me onto my side, spooning me, tender and all encompassing.

Second star to the right and straight on till morning…

* * * * *

We drowsed and woke and moved together again, but it was lazy and gentle, and the tightness in my chest, the flutter in my throat was emotion, nothing more. Something dangerously close to happiness, but…not. Because even quiescent and content, I knew this was the lull before the storm. But it was nice to pretend that it was old times, that Jake did not have a wife and another life to go home to in another hour or so. That it all might yet work out between us. Nice to lie here and kiss and pet and explore each other as though we didn’t know the contours of each other’s body, the stroke of thumbs and fingers and flat of hand on satin-smooth skin.

The hand that had been leisurely rubbing my flank slowed. He said almost angrily, “Christ, you’re thin. What’s the matter with you, Adrien?”

I batted my lashes, playing Bacall to his Bogie. “Nothing you can’t fix.”

He gave a little snort of unwilling laugh, his exploring hand arrowing down to the swell of my ass. He pinched me, and I jumped, and then he smoothed away the hurt.

“Bastard,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

We rested there for a moment, and he was smoothing his hand over my ass. “Still beautiful, though,” he murmured. “The most beautiful guy I’ve ever known.”