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“I was bluffing. You confirmed it for me now.” Ian had assumed as much, but it still hurt. The apartment he had visited so many times had been curated to present the character Alek had created for him.
“That’s cheating.” Alek elbowed Ian in the stomach with his broken arm.
“If you move that arm again, you won’t like what happens.”
“Oh?” Alek’s voice dripped with seduction. “What sort of punishment have you thought up that I wouldn’t enjoy?”
Ian hadn’t, actually. It was hard to punish someone with a propensity for kink and an insatiable sex drive.
With apparently no concern for how obvious it was that he was stalling, Alek cut his sausage into bite-sized pieces, one of which he ate, and then washed it all down with a gulp of instant coffee. Alek feigned a gag and thunked the mug down on the table.
“This coffee tastes like at least thirty-percent ground-up desiccated cockroaches. Are you sure you can’t pop home and plug the espresso machine in here?”
“If you’re buying time to select a suitable lie, I’d like to remind you again that lies aren’t allowed. Why did you move into the Wells Building?”
“I don’t need reminding. I have a concussion, not dementia.” Alek ate another bite of sausage before continuing. “You wouldn’t reply to any of my attempts at contact.”
“Where did you live before then?”
“I have a place south of Big Sur.”
That fit. The rugged stretch of coastline was sparsely populated. Sometimes mudslides made the roads impassable. It was right up Alek’s alley.
“I want to see it,” Ian said.
“Okay. We’ll go. Whenever you want.”
“Good. Now answer the question. Why did you move?”
“I already answered that.”
“Only in the most literal way. Why me?”
Alek pushed his eggs around his plate. “What reward do you have for me today?”
“You naked. Me with a basin of soapy water and a hospital rag about as excoriating as sandpaper.”
“A bed bath?”
“Yeah, but if you’re not interested…”
Alek wet his bottom lip. “I’m interested.”
“Then stop stalling.”
Alek held out a plastic fruit cup. “Open this, please.”
Ian snatched it from his hand and chucked it into the trash can.
Alek raised his eyebrows and smirked. Ian inhaled deeply. He wouldn’t let Alek win so easily next time.
“At first it was because you surprised me,” Alek began. “In that alley, you were stronger than me, more unpredictable than me. You scared me, and it made me feel alive, for the first time in a very long time. I wanted more.”
“So it was a sex thing?”
“Of course, it was a sex thing. You said no lies, but that wasn’t the only reason. You never lost control. I knew you wanted me, but you stopped yourself. You didn’t give in.” Alek met Ian’s eyes. “Do you know how rare that is? Someone who makes you feel safe and scared at the same time?”
Ian wouldn’t know. Loving Alek made him feel like he was walking a tightrope over a crocodile-infested canal.
