Bas shook his head. “I’ve seen you pissed off, McMann. Your cheeks get flushed and your eyes go cold. Right now your eyes are glassy and your skin is…” He lifted a hand and cradled Drew’s cheek. “Icy.”
He turned to glare at Mark, and in all their thirty years of friendship, Drew couldn’t remember ever seeing Sebastian so angry or so dangerous. “What thefuckdid you do to him?” hedemanded.
“Me? I… Nothing! He had, like, half a glass of champagne!” Mark squeaked, scraping his chair back from the table in an attempt to get away. He pushed himself to his feet. “I didn’t doanything!”
“If I find out differently,fucker…”
“Let’s go, Bas,” Drew said. He looked around the restaurant quickly and saw that every eye in the place was on them, some more overtly thanothers.
“Drew, you’re on a date withme,” Mark said, stepping forward. “If you’re not feeling well, I can help youhome.”
“No. Way. In.Hell,”Bas informed him. “You’re not going to fuckingtouchhim. And if I find out that you were attempting to get himdrunk—”
“He wasn’t,” Drew said, torn between outrage, amusement, and bone-deep satisfaction at Sebastian’s overprotectiveness. “I barely had two sips of champagne.” He smoothed a soothing hand down Bas’s chest, dimly aware that this was not usual for them, but it felt right and it seemed towork.
“You haven’t even had your steak!” Mark bleated, and Drew almost,almostfelt guilty again. “You need tostay!”
Drew fumbled for the wallet in his back pocket, and Bas helped him extract some cash that he threw in the center of the table. “Really, this is for the best,” he told Mark over his shoulder. He added apologetically, “You’re not mytype.”
Bas snorted, grabbing Drew’s jacket from the back of his chair and helping Drew’s heavy arms into the sleeves. He wrapped an arm around Drew’s waist, supporting him to thedoor.
“Oh.” Drew patted his pockets. “My phone. It’s in the middle of the table.” He rolled his eyes. “Could you grab it forme?”
“Happy to,” Bas whispered, and Drew focused all his attention on standing straight. His head was way fuzzier than it should havebeen.
He heard Bas say something to Mark in a low voice, and Mark’s angry reply. He turned his head just in time to see Bas punch Mark in the jaw, sending him sprawling on thefloor.
The other patrons gasped and cried out, but the waiter ran forward to “assist” Mark, while really keeping him pinned to the floor. He turned and gave Drew a nod, and Drew smiled inreply.
Bas grabbed something off the table and hurried back toDrew.
“Feel better?” Drew asked. He could still feel the tension coiled in Bas’s body, but it seemed to dissipate somewhat as he let Bas take more of hisweight.
“Not really,” Bas muttered. “What were you thinking? That guy is anasshole.”
“I was thinking that was the best I could expect of anyone who wasn’t you,” Drewadmitted.
Bas squeezed his eyes shut for a second, then pushed the restaurant door open. The air outside was hard and painfully cold, frigid enough to penetrate some of the cotton wrapped around Drew’s brain. He paused as Bas towed him down the street toward Drew’s own car. “How did you gethere?”
“Cort,” Bas said succinctly. He pushed a hand through his hair, his breath suspended in the air like fog. “Keys?”
Drew extracted them from his coat pocket and handed themover.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Drew told him slowly. “I’m sosleepy.”
“Fuck.” Bas opened the passenger’s side door and helped Drew into the seat, leaning over him to fasten his seatbelt. “We should call thepolice.”
“No.” Drew shook his head, sucking in a deep breath when the action made him nauseous. “Nopolice.”
“Drew,” Bas began, squatting on the sidewalk by the open car door. “Baby, listen. He must have put something in yourdrink.”
“Couldn’t,” Drew said. “It was champagne.” He made a face. “Disgustingshit.”
“It would only have taken a drop of something,” Basinsisted.
Drew shook his head again.Whoa. Jesus. Everything spun. “He’s just so pretentious. I wanted you there to laughwith.”
“Shhh. It’s okay,” Bas told him, stroking a hand over Drew’s face. His fingers were so warm, and his touch so proprietary, Drew closed his eyes to savorit.
