Rough Canvas

Chapter Twelve

 

  Marcus knew Thomas had been surprised to see him actually smoking the cigarette he'd bummed out of a pack Walter left on a barrel outside the side door. It was something he hadn't done in awhile, but the acrid burn had suited his mood. Marcus also knew that his foul mood was spawned more by watching Thomas with Cathy than watching him with Walter.

  It mattered to Thomas. His mother's love, her approval. The sense she was behind him. Do my parents love me? The Achilles heel that every child was infected with at birth like a virus, and spent adulthood trying to overcome in order to be who they were meant to be.

  They stayed at the rental house for the next couple days, with no plans for excursions. Marcus encouraged Thomas to spend the time roaming the property acreage for inspiration. Apparently today Thomas had enough crowding into his head, for he'd never got further than the outside deck. He'd sketched most of the morning and part of the afternoon, sometimes standing at the rail, sometimes sprawled over the lounger.

  Now he was sitting on the deck, letting his feet hang down off the side of the deck, using the middle railing to prop his sketchbook. As he tore off sheets, he used several empty coffee mugs he'd taken out there to guard against them being blown away by the breeze.

  Marcus stayed inside, working in the living room on phone calls and paperwork, but positioning himself where he could watch Thomas through the glass doors.

  Thomas was listening to a track by Staind. While the insulated glass blocked out all but the reverberation, Marcus felt the poignant, hopeless, visceral anger to it. Totally fucked up except when you got to be with the person who made it all unfucked up. But you could spend a life functioning while being fucked up. Until it killed you.

  Thomas would be going home in a day or two, and maybe that was good. The shadows kept rising. Marcus didn't have time to get trapped in a morbid fog. He had gallery showings. . . things to do. Plenty of opportunities for. . . something. He sat there, staring out the glass at Thomas until the cell rang, breaking his concentration.

  "Julie, how are you?"

  "I'm stalking your fine ass, of course. Heard you're in the Berkshires, and guess what? Girlfriend crisis, so I am too. What do you think of. . . "

  * * * * *

  Julie Ramirez ran a theater near Marcus' gallery. He'd been her first patron, now one of many. He'd come to his gallery on a Saturday, dressed casually to pull some receipts, and seen the short, voluptuous brunette hauling out a load of dusty boxes too heavy for her to lift and too bulky for a hand truck. With the same powers of persuasion she'd apparently used to get the landlord to sign a five year, dollar-a-year tax write-off lease on the building she intended to turn into a community theater for the arts, she got Marcus to volunteer his whole afternoon to her.

  It wasn't until a week later she learned he was the affluent gallery owner up the street. By then, he was impressed enough with her commitment, her background in a theater family and her willingness to stick her neck out that he was more than willing to hand over a check. Which she cheerfully and unabashedly hit him up for as soon as she learned that "he was mega-loaded".

  At the end of that first day, however, he'd sat on the edge of her truck, covered in dirt and cobwebs, his hair yanked back and held by a rubber band they'd found in the debris. She'd leaned back on her elbows and given him a thorough look. "Jesus.

  Someone who can be that filthy and look that pretty needs to be beaten with a stick. Can I buy you dinner for helping me? Offer you sex? Dinner and sex?" Marcus grinned, leaned back on his elbows next to her, his shoulder brushing hers companionably. He tried not to be a tease with women, but they were so easily, physically affectionate, sometimes it was hard to stay out of range. Just because he preferred a man for sex didn't mean he didn't like the touch of a woman's hand, their different texture and pressure, the rich emotional language they conveyed so easily.

  And because they'd been bantering all day, he put a little stretch into the leaning back, drawing her attention to his upper torso, the strength of his arms, biting back a chuckle as she snuck a quick glance at his groin area.

  "All right. " She punched his shoulder. "You're doing that on purpose. Don't be such a tramp. "

  "I'll take you up on dinner, but I'm afraid I'm going to pass on the sex. I'd be a disappointment. "

  "Oh. " She digested that. He was prepared to add more clarification if needed, something to salve the ego, but then she brightened. "Oh, for Christ's sake, you're a man. It's sex. Can't you close your eyes and pretend I'm a guy? We can turn off the lights and I'll talk deep, like this. " She mimicked what he thought sounded like a frog with a bad cold. "You can even do me from behind, but I'd kind of like you to get my preferred orifice, if you don't mind. "

  It startled a laugh out of him, and he'd been delighted with her a hundred ways since. When he met Thomas soon after and introduced them, Thomas had been equally enamored of her in no time.

  Marcus considered her a true friend, not only because she was honest and forthright in a brutal, New York way, but carried a heart of gold that came straight from her home state of Oregon.

  Unfortunately, Marcus knew while she had a limitless heart for friends and her theater, she'd always fallen for the type of guy who would take advantage of her nature. As a result, at thirty-five, she'd never been married. She still dated, but not too seriously, telling Marcus she'd decided she preferred to be a pathetic hanger-on to the platonic physical affections of gay men and their enjoyable company than fucked over emotionally by a straight male.

  "Besides," she'd told him later, after he'd met Thomas. "I keep hoping you'll come up to my place and just stand next to my bed naked and hold the vibrator. Now if you and Thomas did it. . . hmmm. . . like Thomas would hold me on his lap. . . he'd be naked too, of course, and you'd do the vibrator thing, and it would be like a real fantasy. I wouldn't have to worry about the stilted 'I'll call you' bullshit conversation. You guys would even fix me breakfast. Those pancakes you make are so good. " When Marcus mentioned Julie's birthday was coming up, it was Thomas who said,

  "Let's go give her that fantasy she wants. If she chickens out, we'll buy her a pizza from the Greek place around the corner she loves. "

  That was after they'd been together for a year, when Thomas had become more adventurous, always within the protective shadow of Marcus' sophistication. But Marcus still hadn't expected him to suggest it. It had been one of those remarkable confluence of events. The right mood, the right timing. . .

  They'd shown up with a bottle of expensive wine, pancake fixings and a vibrator, giving her exactly the fantasy she'd requested, something even now she said she couldn't believe she'd been seduced into doing. Even though she simultaneously claimed it was one of the most intensely sexual experiences of her life.

  While Marcus teased her ever after, claiming that was just a sad commentary on her love life, he had to admit it had been quite a charge for him and Thomas as well.

  As she'd said, they were guys, and even though women were not their preferred bed partners, watching Thomas sit behind her on the bed shirtless, holding her arms, had made Marcus hard in no time. He'd let loose his full Master nature upon her, commanding her to spread her legs, taking the vibrator in deep as she undulated.

  Thomas' arm muscles tightened to hold her as she pulled against him in response, his eyes fastened on Marcus' hand, his attention coursing down Julie's naked body to Marcus' equally bare one. . .

  When she fell asleep at last, curled between two male bodies, another fantasy, they gazed at each other in the dim light, wanting each other fiercely, but not moving. At least until she mumbled, "Guys, guys - you're going to impale me". She'd clambered over Marcus like a cranky sister, but then placed her hand on his back in quiet wonder as he turned Thomas, took him from behind. Marcus had felt the pressure of her palm, her caressing fingers as his back flexed under her touch. Felt her stillness as Thomas groaned, as they both found their climax.


  They'd had a fleeting worry that the night would somehow make things awkward, but the next day, Julie was Julie. She gave them both hugs, her eyes wet, told them it was the best present she'd ever been given, and asked, "Where are my damn pancakes?"

  * * * * *

  Thomas glanced over his shoulder as Marcus came onto the porch, phone still in hand. "You remember Julie Ramirez?"

  Thomas slanted him a grin. "Uh, yeah. . . Let me see. Isn't that the woman who runs the theater across the street from your gallery?"

  "The same. " Marcus gave him an equally droll look and spoke into the phone. "He thinks he remembers you. Vaguely. " He glanced back at Thomas. "She happens to be in the area visiting a friend and wants to know if we'd be willing to take them to a place where the men aren't interested in women. They want to dance. "

  "Only if groping is allowed. "

  "You got that?" Marcus paused, chuckled. "She says only if you're willing to follow through and make it worth her while. "

  "Spoilsport. " Thomas grinned more broadly. When he did, the agonizing fist around Marcus' chest loosened, just like that, and things felt better. "Sure. " It told Marcus he wouldn't send Thomas away one moment sooner than he had to.

  Every agonizing moment was worth it, just for that smile. He was lost. Fucking gone.

  That was it. Just lost, taken over by the soulful brown eyes of a North Carolina farm boy who somehow knew how to reach inside people and read their hearts, while being as unworldly as a duck living in a pond. It was the genius of his art. He explored the universe of people's desires inside and out, while he'd never hardly been anywhere but home and New York City.

  It made Marcus remember what Julie had said, when she'd found out Thomas was gone for good. She'd sat next to Marcus on the edge of her stage that was set up for the evening's presentation by some as yet unknown playwright.

  Marcus didn't know why he expected something normal, the usual empty platitudes. He'd even steeled himself for them, but then she looked steadily at him a moment and said, "You fucking dumbass. Why aren't you going after him, hauling his butt back here? He's the one for you, Marcus. He was it. You've got to get him back, okay? Because you're only going to be half of you without him. "

  * * * * *

  When they got to the nightclub in Connecticut, Julie was waiting. She went right for Thomas and pulled him down to her for a hug while Marcus went to park the car. "Hi, Thomas," she said softly, holding him. "It's so good to see you. " It twisted Thomas' heart in his chest, the unqualified acceptance. She pressed her face into his neck. "I've missed you. He's missed you, dammit. So much. Where did you go? Have you told him you missed him?"

  "Yeah. " In a way.

  As if she heard his thought, she held him tighter. "Have you told him you missed him? With your mouth? Not just your penis?"

  Thomas grinned despite the squeezing pain the words caused. "Aren't you ever going to learn tact?"

  "Tried that once when I was eight. It didn't work for me. " Marcus was coming across the parking lot. Thomas saw a man completely in control, the Maserati in the background, his mouth firm and sensual, hair loose on his shoulders, body moving with a grace that fairly screamed how good he was at sex.

  Julie sighed. "You know, I see him every day, and I still can't keep from drooling.

  He could just walk up and down the street and people would throw money at him all day long just to look at him. Do you think you'd doubt his love if he looked like me?"

  "What?" Thomas pulled his attention away to give her a startled look.

  "When you love someone, you tell them. Unless you're afraid they don't feel the same way. You and Marcus were together, how long, and neither of you ever said it?"

  "He did. Recently. " Thomas stopped, pressed his lips together.

  "So the problem is you. " Julie's eyes twinkled, but her mouth remained serious.

  "What I'm saying is, what if he looked like me, an ordinary, average-looking person who has bills and a toilet that needs fixing? Who, like most of us, starts each morning thinking, 'can I get out of bed and do all this without totally fucking up?'

  "Who fights with vanity pounds, looks at the gray sneaking into her hair and thinks, 'God, I'm only thirty-four. '" She nodded toward Marcus. "He may look like someone who stepped out of the pages of some romance novel, but he's real, Thomas.

  So real that when you put the fantasy and the reality together, you have this fascinating, complex person with a lot of layers, which makes him good at burying the things you don't want to see. "

  "You've thought a lot about this. " It made him uncomfortable, to hear an echo of Walter's observation in her own.

  "The two of you matter. A lot of us don't get the chance at what you have. " Thomas looked away. "Your toilet needs fixing?"

  Making a face at him, she pinched his arm hard enough to make him wince and shoot her a narrow glance. "Yeah, Mr. Avoid-the-Issue. That one crossing the parking lot is useless when it comes to plumbing. But I let him tinker with it awhile just to watch him bend over and wear a T-shirt. " She pushed away from him as Marcus made it to the curb.

  "I can't believe you wasted one of your hugs on this riffraff. Are you trying to convince him to feel sorry for you and come fix your toilet?"

  "Well, since your firm ass isn't getting him to stay, I figured maybe the offer of being up to his elbows in sewage would. "

  Thomas noticed she softened the words by putting her arms around Marcus and giving him an equally generous hug. It tugged at his heart painfully again, the reminder of the life he'd left when he left Marcus. He'd spent over a year in North Carolina convincing himself he'd never fit in New York, that there'd been a lot of moments he'd been homesick. Yet with one hug, Julie had reminded him he'd also found a place there.

  Pushing those thoughts away, Thomas followed Julie's gesture toward a woman approaching from a separate part of the parking lot. She wore a simple black cocktail dress, more suited for a country club than the nightclub scene, and her brown hair was pulled back from a too-thin face. She hesitated as she was passed by two fairly demonstrative couples. The men were joking and making passes at each other. At her nervous glance, one of them called out, "You lost your way to your bridge club, sweetie?"

  "Ellen. " Julie waved her over and linked their arms. "Ellen, Marcus and Thomas.

  M&T, Ellen. Let's go dance our asses off. And since I've got a lot of ass," she wiggled it for emphasis, "that's going to be a lot of dancing. "

  "Julie, are you sure? That man who just passed me, he wasn't being very nice. . . "

  "He was just being catty," Marcus assured her. "If he bothers you again, Thomas will bitch-slap him and send him home crying. "

  Ellen managed a small smile. Julie hugged her shoulders, giving both men a significant glance. "C'mon, sweetie. Let's go have some fun. "

  * * * * *

  The club was noisy and festive. It didn't have the glitzy polish of a New York City club, but the men there were in high spirits, intending to dance, drink, have a good time and find some action. Julie led the way through the crowd, hauling Ellen by the hand.

  Anticipating the open-mouthed stares that usually attended Marcus' entrance into such a place, Thomas nevertheless didn't realize he'd tensed up until he felt a hand settle around his waist, a firm palm over the curve of one buttock. Marcus' other hand latched into Thomas' shirtfront to haul him in for a firm, open-mouthed kiss that was hot, possessive. His fingers caressed Thomas' nipple, his thigh pressing firmly against his groin.

  "Mine," he murmured in his ear. "Got it?"

  As he started to ease back, giving Thomas an even look, the fist of tension was replaced by something just as fierce, but a lot more welcome. Before he could think too much about it, Thomas clamped his hands on Marcus' hips and brought him back against his body to return the favor, plundering Marcus' lips, lashing him with his tongue.

  "Same goes," he muttered against Marcus'
mouth, even as he slid his hand between them, boldly cupping his lover's stiffening erection in the discreet press of their thighs, covered by the crush of people around them and the darkness of the club, the flashing lights.

  When he drew back, Marcus' eyes were blazing green. "Christ," Marcus swore softly as Thomas' fingers slid away. "You're going to pay for that. "

  "I hope so, Master. " Thomas gave him a quick grin, slipping away as Julie bounced back between them. She seized Marcus' hand as the DJ ripped open a fast tune.

  "My God, a trip back to the eighties. Paula Abdul. I was so afraid it would be that hip-hop mess. "

  "You can hip-hop. I've seen you. " Marcus forced himself to tear his eyes away from Thomas' broad shoulders flanking Ellen as he guided her toward the dance floor.

  "Yeah, but I've never been able to do it with a straight face. " Julie shouted in his ear to be heard as they got closer to the speakers blasting the music. "Not since I realized hip-hop in fast forward can look like someone who needs to go to the bathroom hopping up and down, grabbing their crotch. "

  Laughing, Marcus grabbed her by the waist and swung her onto the floor. "We'll see if we can't get him to do some Ricky Martin after this. Something sultry. "

  "Oh God. " She rolled her eyes. "If you go all Antonio Banderas on me, I will wet my panties. "

  Thomas found Ellen a good dancer. The trick was getting her to relax, so he kept it easy, stayed attentive, worked through a few steps with her. It was hard not to get distracted watching Marcus laugh, twirl Julie out and back into him again. He held her up against his body in a couple Dirty Dancing moves to tease and flirt, but of course Thomas didn't do the same to Ellen. Not only was she too uptight for that yet, his body's reaction to watching Marcus would make it downright embarrassing.

  That kiss was still making his lips tingle. Paula Abdul was denying that it was her man's wealth or looks that got her going, that it was just something indefinable about the way he loved her. Though he'd never be such a geek as to own up to the idea that an eighties dance song was speaking straight to his soul, it didn't change the fact that Thomas felt as if she was delivering the gospel down from the mountain, packaged in a sultry rocking beat.

  Marcus was beautiful, he was rich. Hell, he was the prince of anyone's fairy tale. But it was deeper than that. Julie had caught it as well. Good at burying the things he doesn't want you to see. . .

  Somewhere behind the impossible green of Marcus' eyes, the truth lay. It was closer to the surface in these three days than it had been during their almost two years together. Possessiveness. Violence. Flashes of sorrow and an almost desperate hunger.

  I love you.

  Did he? Was that what Thomas' own burning ache was, like his soul was being scalded every time he thought of being without Marcus? He'd stopped painting at home, like an addict going cold turkey, because it was that feeling that made him paint himself into a near fatal frenzy. As if by losing himself in his art, Thomas could be pulled into the canvas and become it, never again to emerge into the desolation of a life that couldn't include Marcus.

  Emerging into that reality after an intense art session was as stark and cold as being born, leaving his soul naked, shivering, defenseless. So sensitive to light and sound, his mother's innocuous call to come to dinner made him want to pummel something organic with his fists until it was a mass of blood and bone.

  Julie called out to Ellen, got her to laugh at their antics. Thomas pulled her up close and spoke into her ear so she could hear him over the noise. "Let's show them how it's done. All you have to do is trust me. " He winked at her, making her flush, and spun her into a fast turn, a modified ballroom step that he turned into a dip and then pulled her up before she could get worried and stiffen up.

  Dancing was the first thing he'd ever done that shocked the hell out of Marcus, who assumed that no Southern boy with his background would dare to be a good dancer.

  But his mother and sister loved to dance, and his father wouldn't. His mother had taught him all her favorites before he was ten, and he and Rory would take turns impressing her with moves they incorporated into it, acrobatic feats, using Celeste as their test victim.

  Rory gave it up when he joined sports and the other boys called him a fag, the ones Thomas pointed out sat on the sidelines at school dances while he and Rory got to turn, twist and gyrate with any girl they wanted to ask.

  Back then, he'd covered any doubts about his behavior with comments like that.

  His intimidating physique that could lay out anyone who got into his face about it didn't hurt, either. However, the basic plain fact was he loved to dance. Dancing with or near Marcus. . . it didn't get better than that. Marcus' grace at dancing was unpracticed, powerful and unselfconscious.

  But Thomas had a few moves of his own. He gave Marcus a challenging wink now and went straight into a full pull-through, making Ellen shriek as he took them into the bebop era to the cranked up Stray Cats tune. Bless the eighties for its unapologetic ebullience, tinged with the naivety of a teenage virgin trying to appear worldly. By the nineties all that was over, of course.

  "Want to try something even better?" he shouted at Ellen. She nodded, smiling, flushed with the exertion. He realized now she was a very pretty forty-something. She had a few appealing lines, more gray in her long brunette hair than he would have expected. But she had lively green eyes that, when sparkling with nervous laughter, made the shadows and sadness markedly evident in her face less so.

  He transitioned into a two-step with the switch to a song from the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, catching his hand gently on the back of her neck as he turned them, holding her hand at his waist and adding some fancy heel-toeing that had Julie hooting and other dancers calling out encouragement.

  "Oh, it's on now," Marcus called back. When the next song started, a sultry Latin number, he launched into the tango.

  Thomas couldn't hold a candle to him on Latin moves, and Marcus knew it well enough that it could be called cheating. But watching Marcus dance Latin, who the hell could possibly care? Marcus was just so easily sensual. . .

  When he pulled off those decidedly macho sequences, his expression going all serious and stern, moving around Julie, to all appearances holding her bound to his will, Thomas couldn't even think about dancing. Marcus finished with a quick throw that brought her up against him and slid her down to a resting place on his thigh, his hand low on the small of her back.

  Ellen was chuckling. She rose onto her toes and spoke into his ear breathlessly. "I think we're going to have to surrender on that one. " She didn't know the half of it. Trying to take his mind off the desire to get Marcus alone somewhere and rape him, Thomas gave her a mischievous grin. "How about a nice, slow shag then?"

  A giggle escaped her at the double entendre. She put her hand to her mouth, embarrassed, but he caught her fingers and whirled her into another dance.

  * * * * *

  A half hour later, Julie collapsed in a booth and accepted the rum and Coke Marcus brought her. He sat down next to her, knee bumping hers companionably. "Wow," she said. "I haven't danced like that in forever. And look at them - still going. Oh Lord, the Macarena. If they burst into YMCA, I'll have to go back out there. "

  "It's a provincial gay dance club, dearest. Count on it. " Marcus gave her a smile, tapped his Shiraz against her glass.

  "So. " She cocked her head. "You're even deeper gone over him than you were before he left. That must suck. "

  Marcus lifted a shoulder. "Relationships move on. I'm glad he at least wanted to visit. Ah. . . Christ. You little bitch. " He stopped, squirmed, stuck his hand down his shirt to grapple with the ice cube she'd dropped down the front of it.

  "God only knows what's been done in the shadows of this booth, probably ten times already tonight," she said dryly. "I don't want to be up to my knees in bullshit as well. "

  Marcus lunged at her, ice cube in hand. Shrieking, she knocked it out of his
grasp and sent it skittering over to the next table, earning a startled look from the group of men there.

  "Straight girl. " Marcus waved apologetically. "Loss of motor control due to all the unavailable testosterone in the room. "

  Satisfied, they went back to their conversation. He narrowed his gaze at her.

  "Revenge is best served cold, anyway. No pun intended. "

  She smacked him in the arm. "Asshole. "

  "Busybody. "

  "So why not just chain him in your secret dungeon room this time? Surround him with canvases, take away his clothes?"

  "Are you trying to turn me on?"

  "When it comes to Thomas, it doesn't take much. It never has. Being around you two is like being around an erotic film fest, all that barely suppressed sexual heat. I've burned out vibrators in one night after hanging out with you two for an hour. "

  "There's a visual I'm not sure I needed. "

  "Oh, shut up. " Julie settled back, laying her head on Marcus' shoulder and subsided, sipping her drink.

  "You really need to get yourself a man and stop being such a fag hag. " He made his tone light, teasing, but she rolled her head around and looked up at him, brushing his chin briefly with her fingers.

  "You know that night, why I never tried to get you to make it an annual event, like any sane woman would have? Hell, weekly. It's the way the two of you did it. So in concert, as if reading each other's thoughts. Then the way you looked at one another. If you don't have that, and you really want it, then it's too hard to be around bare naked displays of it too often - no pun intended. "

  She smiled. "That vibrator's the best lover for me right now. I haven't even gotten close enough to the real thing to have my heart broken, not really. The guys who hurt me, they hurt me because they didn't love me. When your heart's broken by someone who loves you back, that's the only heartbreak that's worth the risk. There's always a chance it will come back to you even after the heartbreak. If I can't have even a chance at that, I'll settle for something I know up front is fake. " Marcus wasn't sure what to say to that. He watched Thomas try a new step with Ellen. She was the instructor this time. She laughed as he took the step, made it his own and gave it a little more panache.

  "Sometimes I think when he walks out, that'll be it. I'll just. . . break. Never pull it back together again. It's like somehow he crawled in and replaced all the shit I'd been using as glue, and now. . . " Marcus stopped, realizing he'd never spoken such thoughts before. He'd barely acknowledged them in his own head. He shook his head. "Never mind. "

  "Marcus. " Julie put her hand over his, her face reflecting her surprise. He pulled away from her touch, ostensibly to pick up his wine. "You aren't giving up, are you?" Wistful piano notes and a sax accompaniment introduced Aretha Franklin's Ain't No Way. Her poignant opening line, about loving someone who wouldn't let her give him everything that she was, filled the club. The song was so powerful a stillness spread into every corner, pushing the fast dancers to the shadows and bringing lovers to the floor.

  Marcus shook his head. "Hell, no. " He downed the rest of a whiskey he'd bought to chase the Shiraz. Rising, he offered her a hand. "Help me go do a partner switch. I don't want to cut in on Ellen and leave her hanging. "

  Ellen had looked uncertain when the slow song started, but Thomas drew her into his arms and was doing a slow mix of waltz and two-step movements with her, holding her as she relaxed in his arms. The music was far too loud for talking, so she'd just put her head on his shoulder and swayed with him. To make her smile he'd been making short comments in her ear about the other dancers.

  He'd noticed her wedding ring. Though it was on her left hand, the way she touched it so often, as if for reassurance, he was willing to bet she hadn't lost her husband to divorce.

  "Mind if I cut in?"

  He'd tried to take his mind off Marcus for about two minutes, but here he was, larger than life, the pulsing heat of the club as intimate a cocoon as being wrapped together in a much smaller space.

  Ellen looked between the two of them. "Why no," she said, smiling uncertainly.

  Julie stepped neatly in front of Marcus and took the hand Thomas had released, pulling Ellen over to her. She winked. "Sweetie, in a place like this, when someone asks to cut in, you need to realize he could be cutting in for either partner. "

  "Oh. Oh. " Ellen flushed. Thomas reassured her with an easy grin and a quick stroke of her hair as Julie tugged her into female arms. "This song's too good to waste. Let's you and me dance. You can close your eyes and I'll whisper to you in Gaelic. You can pretend I'm a really short Liam Neeson. "

  As Julie maneuvered her away, Thomas shifted his gaze to meet Marcus'. His smile faltered at the edges. They'd danced in clubs before, but usually to something fast. He'd actually never slow danced with a male lover before and wasn't exactly certain how to go about it.

  Marcus moved closer, his arm sliding around Thomas' waist, fingers hooking into the belt loop of his jeans as he took Thomas' other hand and brought it to a reverse position on himself. Thomas felt the shift of Marcus' hip and the muscles above it as Marcus moved them into a slow, easy rocking step, allowing a gentle bump and shift on the downbeat. He rested his other hand on the side of Thomas' neck, his palm curving around so his fingers played beneath the collar of Thomas' T-shirt, caressing the skin damp from the heat of the dancing.

  It left Thomas with his other hand resting naturally on Marcus' biceps, moving with him. Since he'd mainly done this type of intertwined dancing with women, adjusting or working out leads should have been difficult. However, Marcus simply took the lead and Thomas just as easily followed it. As they made the slow turn, Marcus' thigh shifted so it pressed between them. His hand drifted lower, sliding into the back pocket of Thomas' jeans, pressing him more firmly against him. Thomas' left leg brushed Marcus' hardening groin.

  "If you try a dip, I'm punching you out. " Thomas attempted to dilute the intensity of the moment.

  Marcus didn't respond. Not in words. He held Thomas closer, until they were moving as one creation, managing it so easily Thomas noted some admiring glances, but it was a vague awareness. Marcus stretched his other arm high around Thomas' back, holding him with a grip on his opposite shoulder so his head found a natural resting place alongside Marcus' jaw and temple, his lips close to that tempting throat.

  Eventually Marcus brought his other hand out of the jeans' pocket to cover Thomas' on his hip, while Thomas slid his free arm around his lower back, holding him, moving in the same rhythm, feeling him against him, heart to heart as they turned, stopped, turned again. Marcus' body guided him, arms holding him, making Thomas achingly aware of his touch.

  Here in front of everyone, where sex wasn't an option, Marcus had gone for the more devastating tactic of intimacy, the slow possession of Thomas' senses. He turned his face, mouth brushing Thomas' cheek, and Thomas' fingers reflexively convulsed on his hip.

  It was sexual, but it wasn't about sex. Not with Aretha pleading for her lover to just let her love him, so she could give him all he needed. She begged for him not to tie her hands. When Marcus' hand tightened on his shoulder, Thomas knew he was listening to the words as well.

  "Everything you hold in your arms is yours, pet," Marcus murmured.

  "Everything. "

  Thomas pulled his head back, intending to kiss Marcus senseless, anything to shut him up, but Marcus wasn't letting him get away with that. And Aretha wasn't going to shut up, either, building to a wailing crescendo capable of wrenching his guts out.

  Marcus caught Thomas' head, cradling the side of his throat with one hand, holding him with a thumb placed on his lips, a light but unshakable collar. It put them eye to eye, turning and moving to the soulful song, unable to hide from what was in each other's gaze.

  One more day. They had one more day together like this.

  In four days, Thomas had gotten inspired enough to sketch out a solid dozen ideas.
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br />   He could say it was caused by the removal of the dam he'd built inside himself, but he knew that was bullshit.

  He'd been a talented artist. But Marcus had opened the well inside Thomas to connect to a muse whose inspiration was pure magic, drawn from what the heart of love and life was all about. What Marcus was to him. Whenever Thomas was immersed in a creating session, it was as if he was somehow guarded by the explosive yearning that being part of Marcus' existence kept switched onto high volume.

  Even before Marcus, his muse had been inspired by the belief that there was something like what he felt for Marcus out there. So while his art hadn't needed Marcus before he met him, Marcus had taken him to higher levels, capable because of the way Marcus made Thomas feel. Not just about Marcus, but about himself. About anything, everything. There was no settling or going back from that.

  If he left Marcus, his muse would die again. Thomas finally realized it. The muse was a two-way street. She drew from his heart as much as he drew from hers. Instead of an expression of his life, his art would again become the self-destructive drug he would inject into himself to get through the rest.

  With an oath, Thomas broke free. Aretha blessedly faded away and was trounced by a vacuous techno-pop dance beat that would allow him to go through the empty, mindless motions of turning and dancing.

  Much the way his life would be after this week was over.