...When Rick Granger was fifteen, his dad caught him having sex with Paul, the boy who lived next door. Rick had been in the process of coming all over himself, screaming his head off, Paul buried inside him for the very first time. Up until his dad walked in, Rick had been in heaven. Him and Paul had messed around, gotten each other off, figured out blowjobs, but both of them had started getting more curious. There hadn’t been any discussion about who would do what, and Rick had liked where he’d ended up. But in the four years since, he’d never bottomed again. It made him too vulnerable ever to consider it after that day, and the scar on his forehead from his father’s West Point ring was a reminder never to be that accessible again.

Standing here in the shadows of Danny Coughlin’s apartment building now, Rick felt very vulnerable. He’d been seeing Danny for two months—his longest stretch ever—but something was going on with Danny that made him think the end might just be near. That maybe Danny wasn’t getting everything he needed from him.

He couldn’t lose him, though. Just couldn’t…because he loved Danny.

As fucked up as his life had been since that fateful afternoon with his father and Paul—who’d gotten out of there as fast as possible and never looked back—Rick knew what love was because he felt it every time he saw Danny. Like right here, as the big man pulled into his parking space, the car vibrating with the bass from the radio, Rick felt hot and jittery. He wanted to rush over there and hear the end of whatever classical piece of music Danny listened to this time, ask him about his work at the bar, tell him he loved him desperately, then take him inside and show him.

But twice, once last month and once this month, Danny had gone away for three days and come back exhausted and making up stories about what he’d done while he’d been gone. Danny was a terrible liar. Rick had been left to imagine, and his imagination had created a guy kept on the side, who was so exciting he drained Danny of his energy after three days of adventurous fucking. Rick couldn’t have that. He had to show Danny that he could be exciting, too. That he could be all Danny needed.

Rick stood there in the shadows under the stairs, his car parked a block away, wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and black jeans, handcuffs in his pocket. He’d kidnap his lover and take him up to the lake to fuck the life out of him. He could do spontaneous. He could do exciting.

Tears burned Rick’s eyes as Danny got out of his car, unfolding a beautiful, thick, six-foot frame from the ugly little Honda he loved so much. Even in the harsh glare of the parking lot’s lights, Danny just radiated dark, angelic beauty. His face was perfect, like a model, and the black hair flopped in his eyes on one side only made the blue of them that much brighter. And those lips! God, every emotion Danny had showed through his kissable mouth. Rick had never kissed a boyfriend half as much as he kissed Danny. Once they’d even spent two whole hours kissing and caressing each other. With their clothes on! It had been such a sweet heaven.