“Let us know if you need anything.I’ll have somebody run you both a tray for dinner if he’s not ready to join us by then.I’ll tell the staff that you’re welcome to sleep in Josh’s cabin if he doesn’t feel like moving.You’ve been so much help, Liam.I cannot thank you enough.”
And with that she left, and Liam was free to kick off his shoes and move to the window side of the bed, where he could gaze out at the lovely city above San Juan harbor and enjoy the sudden quiet.
He’d just placed his earbuds in and was settling back on the pillow when Josh murmured, “What did you mean by that?”
“By what, my boy?”
“Stop,” Josh muttered, “with the boy-o, the my boy, the lad.Call me by my name and tell me what you meant when you were carrying me in.”
Liam swallowed.Oh, this was embarrassing.
“You… you were upset, because I was keeping my distance,” he said softly.“This fall.Bo—Josh, you’ve got to understand.I’m a friend of yourfather’s,and you are ten years younger than me and were very, very sick.Of course I felt it last summer.You fell into my arms—that doesn’t happen every day.”He gave a slight smile that Josh couldn’t see.He’d been curled on his side facing the door since Liam had laid him on the bed.“Certainly not as much as you complain about it.”
Josh grunted.“I had the biggest…thingfor this other policeman,” he murmured.“So bad.Hurt my chest.He was married with a baby—like I was going to come betweenthat,you know?”
Liamdidknow, mostly because Danny told him, keeping him ever so subtly apprised of Josh’s life, of his activities, while Liam ever so subtly asked.Both of them knew the tenor of those exchanges had changed the moment Liam had felt that slight weight, tempered by steel, in his arms.
“So your Uncle Danny tells me,” he confessed, and Josh let out a humorless laugh.
“Nick Denning… he wanted me,” Josh confessed quietly.“But I’d already fallen into your arms, smelled you.Did you know you smell good?”
Liam had to smile at that one.“I had no idea,” he said, pleased.Then he sobered.“Funny, you know.How some moments… some moments take over your life.”He was thinking about that moment Danny had spoken to him in the museum.Or the moment he’d found Tienne, covered in his father’s blood and crouched in an alleyway.
Or the moment Josh had stumbled coming out of the electronics van, and Liam had caught him, thinking he was being a Good Samaritan.
He hadn’t realized he was catching his own destiny in a resentful bundle, but here in this quiet cabin, listening to the sounds of the sea—and the voices echoing up and down the corridor—he could think of nothing but the man beside him, talking as though he knew exactly what had been in Liam’s heart since that one moment.
Funny, that.Until this heartbeat, right here, it hadn’t occurred to Liam that it had taken over both their lives, together, and that they’d been bound the entire time, no matter how hard they thought they’d fought it.
Quietly, without fuss, Liam reached out and put his hand on Josh’s shoulder.
Josh reached across his body and laced their fingers together.In a few heartbeats, Liam heard his breath even out in sleep, and he turned his audiobook back on.
Clive Cussler, one of his favorite authors.For an hour he sat there, the book running, and didn’t hear a word.
All he could hear was the regular in-and-out sound of Josh Salinger’s life force, growing a little bit stronger with every beat of his heart.
I Think I’m Falling
And back on the balcony…
JOSH HADbeen kissed a few times in his life—once by a guy he thought he could really love.But he’d had to pull away and remind Nick Denning that he had afamily,for sweet fuck’s sake, and Josh wasnotthat guy.
But he’d never been kissed like this.All those hours he’d spent in the yacht with Liam, playing cribbage, discussing books,baring their souls, and there’d been hugs, falling sleep with his head on Liam’s shoulder, holding hands—subtly, ever so subtly.While Josh’s friends had gone out and played, leaving Josh behind, he and Liam had become quietly close, until Liam’s scent was as familiar to Josh as his own.
There’d been nuzzles on the temple, chaste kisses on the forehead, Liam’s hands on his cheeks, his hair, rubbing soft circles on his back as he tried to get to sleep with the pain of healing still in his bones.
There had never been a passionate siege of Josh’s senses, a sensual warfare, Liam’s mouth plundering his own as his knees buckled and he fought to be closer, closer, merged forever with this funny, bright, kind, and decent man.
Until now.
Liam tore his mouth away, and Josh fought for breath, to orient himself to the here and now on this darkened balcony when his caper, his identity, hell, hislifewas at risk if he didn’t pull his brains back into his ears.
“Dear God,” Josh whispered.
“I’ll be here when you’re done,” Liam told him harshly.“And you and me, boy-o, we’re having this out.No more polite emails.No more telling me not to worry my pretty little head about things.I told you in January, I’m all in.Did you think that didn’t mean you?”
Josh closed his eyes and felt the burn behind them, so discombobulated in this instance he was shocked into telling the truth.
