Still, Maris was unsure. “You say that now, but—”
“I will say it tomorrow, too.” He took Maris’s hand into his and led it to his groin so that he could press it against his hard cock. His gray eyes burned Maris deeply with their love and sincerity. “Just think about it, Mari. Trust me. If you’re still here when I close, then I can promise you a night you won’t soon forget. And if you leave... I’ll be heartbroken. But I’ll understand and we can go on as nothing more than civil, platonic friends.”
Yeah, but like Ture, he wanted more. He craved the same fairytale that Darling shared with Zarya. To have that one person in his life he could count on. To go to sleep and wake up in the arms of someone who would grow old with him. Someone he could trust not to hurt or judge him for things he couldn’t help.
Someone who accepted him, faults and all.
Maybe his family had been right. Maybe he didn’t deserve anything.
Still, he hoped.
And he hated himself for it.
Praying he wasn’t about to make another awful mistake, Maris nodded.
Ture pressed his face against Maris’s hair so that he could inhale his scent. “I won’t hurt you, Mari. My heart is scarred and in pieces, too. I don’t trust lightly, but I want to trust you.”
Those words brought tears to his eyes. He cupped Ture’s face in his palm. “I will be here. Waiting.”
“Then I will close quickly...before you change your mind.” He gave him a light kiss then pulled away.
* * *
T
errified Maris would grow bored and leave, Ture rushed to close and get everything cleaned and cleared so that his people could go home and he could be with Maris. But for some stupid reason, it took twice as long to do the simplest task.
Please don’t leave, Mari...
Damn you, fate, for conspiring against me.
By the time he returned to his office to do the last bit of paperwork, he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was too late.
It evaporated the minute he opened the door and found Maris sleeping on his couch. A slow smile spread across Ture’s face as he noted how very boyish and sweet Mari appeared. His long legs were bent, and yet they still dangled over the edge of it. He’d taken his jacket off and used it as a makeshift blanket while he had his head resting on his arm. Never had he seen Maris more at ease.
Or more delectable.
The need to rake his hand over that luscious sight was so compelling that he wasn’t sure how he resisted. But he didn’t want to disturb him until he could give Maris his full attention. Silently, he started for his desk. But the instant he moved, Maris shot off the couch into a lethal pose.
He relaxed as soon as his gaze focused on Ture. “Sorry. I should have warned you that I’m a light sleeper.”
No kidding. One who came awake like a soldier, ready to battle.
Ture filed that away as a warning not to make any sudden move while Maris slept. “No problem. I have a little bit of paperwork to finish in here, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Maris picked his jacket up from the floor. “Do you need me to leave?”
“No.” Ture blushed as he realized how fast and forceful that response came out. “I mean—”
Maris cut his words off with a laugh. “Why are we so nervous around each other? I haven’t danced around a man like this since the days before I told Darling I was gay, and I was terrified he’d find out and hate me.”
Because I’ve never been in love with a man like this before...
Ture barely caught those words. They were the truth. He had a hunger for Maris unlike anything he’d ever known. But it was too soon to tell him that. “I don’t know. I think it’s your fierce aura that intimidates me.”
“My fierce aura?”
Ture nodded. “It’s like being in the same room with an exotic wild beast. You’re sleek and beautiful. Every movement is a symphony of grace. And at the same time, I know how easily you can take a life and not blink. How fast you can erupt into a bloodthirsty assassin.”
“I’m not bloodthirsty.”
Ture closed the distance between them to straighten the folds in Maris’s shirt. “But I’ve seen you kill without remorse. And I’ve had a bad run of people who’ve hurt me. So...yes, you make me a little nervous. I don’t want you to have some bad flashback and kill me.”
He cupped Ture’s face in his palm as those dark eyes scorched him with their intensity. “I would never hurt you, Ture.” Maris lowered his lips to his and gave him the gentlest kiss he’d ever known.
Ture closed his eyes and savored being held again. How he hoped this wasn’t the mistake Maris feared it to be. “I think my paperwork can wait.”
Maris pulled back with a deep, sweet laugh. “Work first. I’ll still be here and I’ll still be hard for you.”
His eyebrow shot north at the last bit. It was so out of character for his prim and proper soldier-statesman.
Maris kissed his brow and stepped back then gently nudged Ture toward his desk. “Quicker you get done...”
Quicker he could dine on what he hungered for most.
Biting his lip, Ture went to run the receipts and batch the credit slips while placing reorders for the morning. All the while, his gaze kept wandering over to Maris, who sat on the couch with his link in his hands. “What are you doing?”
An adorable smile curled his lips. “I’m a fierce gamer. Right now, I’m slaughtering Hauk who’s playing against me.”
That surprised him. He would have never guessed Maris was one of
those
. “You game?”
Maris shrugged. “It was part of our training when I was a soldier and while I don’t relish a real kill, fake body counts entertain me to no end.”
“I would never have thought that of you.”
“I know, right? Underneath all this mountain of incredible sexiness beats the heart of a little kid.”
Ture laughed at the image in his head. A part of him envied Darling for the long past he’d had with Maris. “What were you like as a child?”
“Brooding. Aggravating. Temperamental... Haven’t really changed, now that I think about it.”
“I wouldn’t classify you as brooding or temperamental.”
Maris flashed a grin. “No disclaimer on aggravating. Noted.”
Ture laughed again. “You are not aggravating, Mari.”
“Just wait. You haven’t seen me in the morning. I assure you, I have PMS until two...sometimes three in the afternoon. Not even Darling wants to deal with that bitch.”
“I’ve heard sex cures those symptoms.”
Maris looked up from his game. “Excuse me?”
Ture shrugged playfully. “It’s what the women who work for me say. Not that I know. I’ve never slept with a woman. Have you?” He knew from what Maris had told him a few weeks back that, unlike him, Mari had at least made an attempt. But he didn’t know if Maris had ever gone through with it.
A nice shade of red crawled up from his neck to cover his face. “I was engaged to a woman once.”
That disclosure floored him. Funny how that had never once come up. “Really?”
Maris nodded as he returned to his game. “I love her still, but not like that. She’s more of a little sister. Which is why I couldn’t go through with the wedding and how I knew beyond a doubt that I was gay. She wanted children and I didn’t want to force her, and them, to live a lie with me. And to answer your earlier question, I had more than my fair share of women. Believe me, I tried everything I could to be straight. I really did. The last thing I ever wanted was to tell my family of blue-blooded ruthless military heroes and assassins that their son wasn’t like everyone else. I knew none of them would take it well, and they did not disappoint my fears.”
“It must have been hard for you.”
Maris sighed. “I don’t think it’s easy on anyone. No one wants to be different, especially not when they’re young.”
That was true. Like Maris, he’d done his best to deny it, too. But in the end, it’d been a futile battle. No matter what he did, he kept coming back to the undeniable fact that his body just didn’t react to a woman the way it did to a man.
Neither did his heart.
“So how did you break it to Darling?”
Maris laughed. “I didn’t. He caught me drooling.”
Cringing, Ture couldn’t imagine how frightening that had to be. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, he couldn’t have cared less. That’s what I love about him. He told me that it made no never mind to him that I was gay, but that if I ever grabbed
his
junk, I’d be missing mine.”
Ture arched a brow.
“It was funnier when Darling said it. Usually I’m funnier, too. But I’m back to that nervousness you evoke.”
Ture left his desk and moved to stand in front of Maris. “I find it hysterical that I make
you
nervous when you’re the one who’s been trained to kill.”
He turned the game off and rose to his feet. The heat in his gaze seared Ture. “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t even be contemplating this.”
“I told you, Mari. I’m a grown-up. I don’t play those childish games with people’s emotions. I respect what you share with Darling and I always will. All I want is a chance to prove to you that not everyone is an asshole. That I can share you and treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”
He cupped Ture’s cheek in his hand. “Don’t break my heart, Ture. It’s been shattered enough.”
Ture pulled him into his arms so that he could show him just how much he wanted to be a part of his world. Closing his eyes, he breathed Maris in. “Come home with me, Mari. Let me hold you like I’ve been dying to since the moment I saw you skidding into my cell with both blasters blazing.”
He laughed at that. “All right. Take me home and I’m yours.”
Without another word, Ture locked up the restaurant and led him to his transport.
Maris was even more nervous than he’d been as he watched the shadows and light play against Ture’s perfect features. While his body was still healing from the damage the League had done to him, Ture had very few external injuries left. Maris hoped none of his own healing injuries interfered with his plans tonight. All he wanted was to make love to Ture until they were both unable to walk.
“What do you do in the rain?” Ture asked out of the blue.
“Excuse me?”
“Weird random thought about when you were in the pool. You said that torrential downpours could expose you. What do you do on rainy days?”
“Try to stay in. If we have to go out, we wear a lot of rain gear and make sure the rain doesn’t touch our skin.”
“Have you ever been accidentally exposed?”
“Not as an adult. The last time it happened, an asshole at school had thrown me outside the locked doors of our gym in a record storm while I was changing clothes. Darling came out to find me and helped me to hide it until I went back to normal.”
“I can see why you love him.”
“Yeah... He’s seen me through a lot of hell.”
Ture turned a corner. “I’m amazed, given your uniqueness, that your parents sent you to a school with humans. Is that normal?”
“Not at all. Most Phrixians never even meet a human. The few who do usually only meet them in battle. I was the unfortunate exception.”
“Why?”
“League mandate. They wanted a member of the immediate ruling family to study human behavior so that we wouldn’t be so warring against them. They couldn’t take Kyr because he was heir at that time, so my father held a random drawing for the rest of us, and mine was the name the computer spat out.”
Ture heard the bitterness in Maris’s tone. “You really don’t like humans, do you?”
“I didn’t like my classmates. Humans are all right so long as they’re human.”
He couldn’t agree more. “Did the League’s plan work?”
“Might have had the gay son not been sent. As it was, my father blamed my personal choice on the exposure to an inferior species at such an impressionable age. In the end, all it did was fuel Kyr to rise up in the League ranks and wage his own war against the rest of the worlds. And my father now hates all humans with an unreasoning madness.”
“I’m sorry, Mari.”
“Thanks, but you didn’t do it. I don’t know what happened to Kyr. He wasn’t soulless until he was seventeen. Something he won’t talk about changed him forever. Whatever it was, it killed what little compassion he had and turned him into the monster he is today.”
Ture heard the sadness and regret in Maris’s tone. “You still love him?”
“He’s my brother. I’m not the one who disowned him. And even though I don’t agree with his actions or opinions, it doesn’t sever the blood tie we share.”
That was the heart that had won Ture’s affections.
Ture pulled up to a small parking garage and docked. Maris got out first and waited until Ture joined him. It was a nice apartment building just a few blocks from the restaurant. A uniformed doorman let them in.
Maris didn’t speak as they entered the lift that took them to the top floor. Ture’s place was at the end of a long, elegant hall.
Ture unlocked the door. “I’m hoping Anachelle’s asleep.”
“She’s not asleep,” Anachelle called from a bedroom in back. “But she’s closing her door and putting on her noise-cancelling headphones. You two have all the fun you want and don’t even think about me being here. My room fridge is fully stocked and I’m locked up for the night.”
Maris laughed. “I really like her.”
“So do I. Let me check on her and I’ll be right back.”
Maris stayed in the living room, but he could hear their playful exchange as Ture fussed at her for being awake and not resting.
“Go mother the boyfriend you don’t have and tell him that yes, my feet are up. I’m fine, Grandma.”
Ture was still smiling as he returned, shaking his head. “She’s incorrigible.” He headed for the kitchen. “Would you like some wine?”
“I better not. I don’t want to be tipsy.”
Ture arched a brow at that.
“I had a bad drug and drinking problem for a while. Really don’t want to go back to it.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know.”
Maris draped his jacket over the back of a chair. “It’s not something people wear on a scanable collar around their necks. Hey, Universe, I’m a recovering addict.”
“If it makes you feel better, I had a brief bad period myself.”