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Once I got the glass cleaned up, I made my way to the back door just off the kitchen. I wasn’t a particularly handy guy but figured I could manage to pound some nails through a piece of wood to board up the window until I could hire someone to come out and replace it. For once, the Seattle weather had cooperated and laid off the rain for the last few days, but I wasn’t going to push my luck since angry storm clouds had been rolling across the sky all day.
It took me several minutes to find a piece of wood in my little garden shed that I thought would work. I left the shed with the intent of seeking out a hammer and some nails in the garage, but the second I turned around, I let out a hoarse shout and dropped the piece of wood. And on my own damn foot, no less.
“It’s just me,” the shadow standing near the fence line said.
Since I recognized the voice, I didn’t hesitate to growl, “Jesus fucking Christ,” as I slumped back against the shed door and tried to catch my breath. I didn’t normally swear, but I figured the hulking figure lurking in the darkness not ten feet from me was reason enough to let the F-bomb fly. Not to mention my foot hurt like a son of a bitch.
“Matias?” I asked when my terrorized heart finally began beating again in my chest. The man hadn’t said a word during my tirade.
He still didn’t. Instead, he stepped into the light cast across the backyard from the motion-detecting floodlight. The man was as dangerous and intimidating as he had been just three days earlier and I couldn’t help but wonder if he stood in front of a mirror and practiced getting the look just right.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I tried not to react to the fact that Matias was walking straight toward me.
He should have stopped a few feet away.
Or, at the least, a foot away.
Hell, even half a foot would have been reasonable. Pushy, but still reasonable.
But no, the man just kept coming until he was so close that I could feel the heat radiating off his body and I could smell the spiciness of whatever aftershave or cologne he used. The guy clearly had no concept of boundaries, but with my back against the shed door and his big body in front of me, I had no way of subtly escaping his too-close-for-comfort proximity.
I knew I should probably ask him what the hell he was doing in my backyard, but I was too busy listening to my mind and body going at each other. My brain was telling me to flee while my body was fine with right where it was. In the end, I didn’t have to make either decision because Matias made it for me when he leaned in so his mouth was practically brushing mine.
Almost.
But not quite.
With that one move, he pretty much answered the question of whether he was gay or not. I would have rejoiced over that fact if the man hadn’t chosen that moment to open his mouth and ask the one question I was least expecting.
“When will your husband be back?”
Chapter 3
Matias
I should have just kept my mouth shut because it didn’t really matter where the guy’s husband was. I didn’t care if Sam was married.
Well, okay, I cared, but only because I didn’t usually fuck around with men who were taken. It made things way too complicated and the last thing I wanted was some guy whining to me about how he’d left his husband or boyfriend because of me.
But if the only way I could have Sam was to deal with the baggage he came with, like an absent spouse who didn’t even have the common sense to get his ass back home to protect what was his, then so be it. It was the guy’s loss.
And my gain.
I’d foolishly thought that my need for Sam would wane once I left his house and the adrenaline from the night’s events had worn off, but if anything, being back in my small apartment had only served to make me more restless than usual. I’d spent several hours just walking the streets of Seattle, but it hadn’t done any good. By the time the sun had started to cast its rays over the horizon, I’d already been sitting in my car watching the neighbor’s house where Sam and his kid had gone to stay after the incident.
And I’d pretty much stayed there for the past three days.
Ok, well, maybe I hadn’t stayed there the entire time. I’d spent part of it lurking in first the neighbor’s backyard and then Sam’s in the hopes of getting a glimpse of the man.
