“I love being up here.”
“I love being with you.” Michael kissed the nape of Nikita’s neck and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her tight against his body.
Nikita smiled as her husband nuzzled her neck affectionately. Reaching out with one hand, she palmed his cheek. In response, he kissed the tips of her fingers. Breathing a heartfelt sigh, she continued to look out their bedroom window.
Situated in an area that was surrounded by forests and mountains alike, the chateau et environs gave its occupants the best of both worlds. Though Michael had updated it to include every modern convenience, the chateau still had an old-fashioned charm that nothing could dispel.
“Everything seems so simple here.”
“It is.”
Carefully disentangling herself from Michael’s arms, Nikita turned slowly to face him. “I wanted Adam to feel at home here.”
“Are you sorry we grounded him?”
“No, no, I’m sure it was the right thing to do. It’s just—the timing is so—“
“I know. But he’ll have the rest of the summer to put things into perspective.”
Draping herself over her husband’s muscular frame, she smiled faintly. “Always so sensible, Michael.”
“Not always.”
She arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “If that’s so, you’re holding out on me.” Sliding her knee between his legs, she pressed gently, feeling his body’s immediate response. “Mmm, you *are* holding out on me, Michael.”
His hands trailed down her back to cup her hips. “Like I said…not always sensible.”
Twining sinuously through his arms, she reached up and captured his mouth. With feline grace, she daintily licked his lips from top to bottom and side to side. “Feel like giving in?”
Michael swooped down on her like a bird of prey, seizing her lips between his teeth. “More like taking over,” he whispered against her mouth. Unlike her polite flicks of the tongue, he used his sharp white teeth to nip and nibble until her lips were wet and swollen.
“I love it when you take charge,” she chuckled.
In answer, he pushed her against the wall next to the window. Anchoring her there with his hands at her waist, he lowered his head to her shirt, nudging it upwards to uncover her bare abdomen. With a broad swipe of his tongue, he laved her navel, making her squirm restlessly.
When he raised his head to look up expectantly, she pouted. “I was admiring the view.”
“So am I.”
With a shrug, Michael turned her to face the window again. “There’s your view.”
She nodded absently.
Michael pulled Nikita’s shirt over her head, tousling her long, pale hair. He stood behind her and let his fingertips lightly graze her breasts. Her nipples shaped themselves into sharp, hard peaks, betraying her desire at once. “This is mine,” he said hoarsely.
She closed her eyes for a moment, whispering “What if someone sees us up here?”
His teeth sank into her right shoulder, provoking a sensual hiss in reaction. “It’s *our* home, doucette. We can do anything we want.”
Her blue eyes flew open wide, her gaze filled with amusement rather than anxiety. “We can? Okay, what have you done with the real Michael?”
He laughed. His hands pulling impatiently at her hair, he smoothed it back from her face and her forehead. “I want to make love to you.”
“I have a million things to do.”
“Do me instead,” he said with a half-smile, feeling light-hearted for the first time since their arrival.
“Now how can I refuse an offer like that?”
He lifted her into his arms, letting her slide down against his already aroused body. They kissed, warm, wet, open-mouthed kisses that melted away her resistance, turning her bones to water. Suddenly she was so hot, she couldn’t bear to be this close and not be part of him.
Their clothes fell away, and Nikita suddenly stood before him, feeling almost shy. “Love me,” she entreated, opening her arms wide.
“I do,” he said breathlessly, walking into her embrace. They kissed again, Michael nudging her lips apart for his tongue to gain access. As they kissed, she backed up, again and again, until her back connected with the wall. Michael slid a hand between their bodies, caressing the heart of Nikita’s femininity, finding it slick and ready. Positioning himself between her legs, he pushed his way inside, none too gently, and the way she immediately rocked against him let him know that he was not hurting her.
Burying his face against her neck, he tried to hold back, but couldn’t. “I love you,” he cried, his voice muffled by her hair. “So much,” he whispered over and over until it became a chant. Arching his back, he groaned as he finally spilled himself deep inside her. Seconds later, he felt the tug of her inner muscles that presaged her climax, and he tried to meet her shallow thrusts to help her over the edge.
“Ohh, Michael, I love you,” she managed to say softly, letting her head fall forward onto his shoulder.
He couldn’t tell her why, but he felt the strongest urge to stay joined with her as long as possible. Slowly lowering her to the carpet without dislodging his rapidly fading erection, he gathered her into his arms and held her.
They fell asleep, dreaming of each other.
Sometimes all we have is our dreams.
Sometimes it’s more than enough.
Michael woke to the touch of his wife stroking his cheek with the back of her hand. Welcome shining brightly in his now more green than gray eyes, he smiled up at her. “Hi.”
“Hi.” She leaned on her right elbow and studied her husband, rubbing his chin with her thumb as she did. Michael had a little more gray at his temples, but he was essentially the same as the man she married all those years ago.
“What time is it?”
She kissed the tip of his nose, giggling when he held onto her so that he could kiss her back. “Mmm, it’s almost time to start dinner.”
“We slept the day away?”
Nikita’s blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “Not exactly. Or don’t you remember? Maybe I need to refresh your memory…”
“You do, and there won’t be dinner for either one of us,” he warned.
“Food is highly overrated anyway,” she said, planting a kiss on his lips. He opened his mouth obligingly, his arms sliding down her naked back to her hips. The fact that they were now lying on the carpet deterred neither one of them. Michael rolled onto his back, taking her with him, and she settled comfortably against him, her breasts abrading his chest.
She kissed him slowly, taking her time to relearn his body, and this time, Michael allowed Nikita to take control of their lovemaking. The only concession he made to his own desire was to pull her more deeply into the vee of his legs.
Nikita gasped as she felt the first faint stirrings of Michael’s arousal against her groin. “Ohhh, yes. Can we go slow?” she whispered.
“We can try,” he murmured against her lips, likening their lovemaking to a barely-controlled roller coaster ride in his mind. Sometimes he knew exactly what to expect. Sometimes he could only hope to hang on. The only thing that didn’t surprise him anymore was the intensity, no matter who initiated making love.
Whether he lost himself in her or she succumbed to him really never entered the equation. They were two halves of the same whole, unhappy apart, always straining to be together, and once joined, inseparable.
An inordinately loud knock at the door made both of them freeze, Nikita arched above him, Michael’s hand on her breast. “Is the door locked?” Nikita hissed, suddenly unsure that it was.
“No,” Michael replied quietly, his only concern shielding Nikita from prying eyes. He wasn’t ashamed that they were making love in the middle of the afternoon. He knew he was a lucky man. But if he ever wanted it to happen again, he would have to find something to cover their bodies with.
At the exact moment that Chris entered, Michael managed to snag the edge of the comforter, pulling it on top of them.
“Dad?”
Michael schooled his face into a bland expression he once favored above anything else. “Yes?” he inquired, feeling the vibration of Nikita’s giggling thrum through his chest. Her pale blonde head was under the comforter, and just to throw things further off-balance, her mouth was actively seeking one of his nipples to suckle.
“Can we talk?”
“It’s almost dinnertime. Can it wait?” Michael tried not to sound too anxious, but he could feel time slipping away from them with each passing moment.
Chris hid his disappointment. “Oh. Sure.”
Nikita’s teeth fastened around his nipple and bit at the tiny nub. “Ow!” Michael exclaimed, more in surprise than in pain.
Frowning, Chris asked, “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” Michael didn’t need Nikita’s urgent whisper to “Talk to him, Michael” to know where his priorities lay. But he had no intention of discussing *anything* with his son while his wife made love to him, no matter how carefully concealed she might be.
He knew what was driving her now, and it wasn’t sex. It was that sometimes capricious sense of humor that he hoped desperately had skipped a generation. Unfortunately, he could already see it beginning to develop in his oldest daughter, Faith.
He would have murmured to her in French, but he knew that Chris would understand every word, probably better than Nikita herself. Putting his arm around his wife’s shoulder, he hugged her. Right before he yanked her hair and pulled her out from under the comforter.
Circumspectly, of course. He wasn’t certain that Chris was quite ready to see his mother as a sexual being just yet, and this was hardly the time.
But he needn’t have bothered. Chris was every bit as aware as Faith was. He simply didn’t show it. Much like a certain former field operative.
Nikita’s tousled blonde head popped out from under the covers. Her blue eyes looked blurry, as if she’d been sleeping or something. Or something, Chris quickly decided.
‘Hi, Mom,” he said quietly.
Leaning on Michael, Nikita smiled. How could she be embarrassed? They had always been very open about how much they loved each other. All of the kids knew the difference between sex and true intimacy. She could only hope that someday they found loving relationships half as good.
“Mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
“There’s a sock in your hair.”
So much for not being embarrassed.
“I’ll come back later,” Chris said in a small voice.
Michael nearly hurt himself trying to prevent Chris from leaving. With a hushed apology to Nikita, Michael managed to wrap the comforter around her while grabbing his shorts. “Chris, wait! If you’ll just give me a minute to get halfway dressed—“
Halfway across the threshold, Chris turned and nodded, his young face curiously somber. While Chris waited, Michael turned his back to don his underwear, not bothering with the rest of his clothing at the moment. Meanwhile, Nikita sat on the floor, feeling strangely discomfited now.
“How about if we go to your room?” Michael asked his son, attempting to give Nikita some much-needed privacy.
“Oh, hey, I can go into the bathroom. Honestly. It’s no problem,” Nikita blurted out in her rush to leave the two of them alone. She was sure that she knew what Chris wanted to talk to Michael about, and she wanted him to take all the time that he needed.
Jumping to her feet, she hurried into the bathroom, the ends of her makeshift robe trailing after her. As soon as Michael heard the bathroom door click, he gestured to Chris to sit down in a chair opposite the bed.
Chris sat painfully still, his back rigid, his feet planted firmly on the floor. To Michael, a man well-used to hiding his emotions behind an almost impenetrable wall of silence and negative body language, the signs of Chris’ distress were obvious. Taking a seat directly across from his son, Michael asked, “What’s wrong? Is it that you almost caught your mother and I—“
“God, no!” Chris exclaimed. “I interrupted you!”
“You knocked—“
“Yes, but I never should have come in. I should have waited.”
“We might never have heard you—“
Chris squeezed his eyes shut and said in a tight voice, “Uh, I’m trying not to think about that, okay?”
“We didn’t mean to offend you, Chris.”
Chris’ brilliant blue eyes flew open, and for once, Michael was grateful to see such unchecked emotion there. “You didn’t offend me, Dad. I know what you two were doing. It’s not like you were running naked through the house or something.”
For a moment, a slight smile curved Chris’ lips as he apparently pondered that. “Although that *would* be pretty outrageous for you, Dad. Mom, I could see. But you—“
Michael blinked. “I have my moments.”
Chris swallowed the nervous laughter bubbling up in his throat. “Daddy, are you, like, trying to make me feel better or something?”
If Michael knew one thing, it was that when Chris and Faith called him Daddy, something was seriously upsetting them. Leaving his chair for a seat at his son’s feet, Michael grasped Chris’ hands in his. Ice cold. He was more than a little anxious.
“You can talk to me about anything, Chris. You know that.”
Chris’ eyes glistened with unshed tears that he steadfastly refused to let fall. As he had told Nikita earlier, he was not a little boy anymore. But he couldn’t expect them to treat him like the adult he was becoming if he couldn’t handle a few tears, could he?
“I want to tell you something, Daddy, but—“
“Chris, I love you. Nothing you could say to me could ever change that.” Now Michael’s throat started to close, making him feel as though he were choking. No matter what happened, Michael feared that intense emotion was always going to affect him this way. Just one more thing he had to thank Section for.
“Are y-you s-sure, D-Daddy?” Chris whispered.
“Yes,” Michael responded, his eyes darkening to near-black with empathetic pain for his son. His stalwart, soldier-like son who had internalized a code of honor Michael hadn’t even realized he really had. Until it showed up in his son, his would-be knight.
“Chris, I don’t know what it is that’s so hard for you to say, but…” Michael took a deep breath, willing the lump in his throat to clear. “…you are without a doubt the bravest young man I have ever known and—even if you weren’t my son, I would be proud of you.”
Chris huffed gently, a tiny “Oh” escaping him just before he dove into Michael’s arms, burying his face against his father’s neck. “I love you, Daddy.”
Michael heard the bathroom door open a crack and glanced out of the corner of his eye to find Nikita peering at them. He saw her rub her eyes, then gently close the door.
Chris mumbled something against his skin, and Michael shook his head. “What? I can’t hear you.”
“I said—it sounds stupid to be so worried about inheriting the chateau. I mean, I know it’s just a house.”
Michael brushed back the blond hair that fell over Chris’ forehead, seeing more than just a physical resemblance to Nikita in his son. “So much emotion over a house.”
“It’s special,” Chris protested automatically.
“Yes, it is. But it’s still just a house. It has nothing to do with how much I love you or anyone else who lives here.”
“But do you?” For the first time in several minutes, Chris met his gaze directly and with intent.
“Do I what?”
“Love me as much as him?”
Michael looked away first. “By him, I take it that you mean Adam.”
Chris nodded solemnly, his eyes wide with apprehension when Michael was able to look back.
“I love both of you in very different ways, Chris. Just as I love Faith and Skye and Luc.”
“But is it as much?” It was so unlike Chris to be visibly worried about anything that Michael’s heart went out to him.
“Oh, Chris…one of the great things about love is that even if you feel like you can never get enough, the people who love you never run out.”
“Then it doesn’t matter if he gets the chateau, Daddy,” Chris said softly.
Michael sighed inwardly because he knew, in his heart of hearts, that it was one of those things that *did* matter. It was the first time that Chris had lied to him. That hurt. But not because it meant that Chris was bad.
On the contrary, his son the altruist was trying, yet again, to assuage his father’s feelings, assuming, quite wrongly, that his half-brother was more valuable to Michael. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Chris tried to pull his fingers from his father’s grasp, but Michael refused to release him. “Please, Daddy, I have to go. Don’t make me stay.” Michael could see how important it was to Chris to save face. He was afraid of disgracing himself, and Michael, by giving in to the tears that threatened.
But in the end, he couldn’t let him go.
“Chris, I never dreamed that I would get the chance to have a family like this, and I never thought that I would see the chateau again. But I’ve been lucky enough to have both. Whatever legacy I leave behind, I need to leave it to someone who will appreciate it for what it’s really worth.”
He gathered his son into his arms and held him against his chest. “I love Adam, but Adam wasn’t raised here. He doesn’t have a feel for the land, and he doesn’t have an emotional investment in the chateau. The way I do.” Pause. “The way *you* do, Chris.”
Chris began to sob silently, and Michael closed his eyes against his own tears. “I didn’t realize that I needed to tell you this, Chris. But I do. The chateau and its lands will be yours when you come of age. I never thought of giving it to anyone else.”
His arms tightening around Michael’s neck, Chris opened his eyes and saw his mother standing in the doorway of the bathroom, crying openly. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Me? What did I do?” she whispered.
“You told me to talk to Dad.”
Michael blinked and smiled at Nikita before returning his gaze to their son. “I hope you’ll take pity on us and let us stay here once in a while.”
Chris chuckled. “Dadddd.”
“We’ve gotten a bit attached to the place,” he continued.
“Mommm, make him stop,” Chris said with a gentle laugh.
“Now, honey, you know no one can make your father do anything he doesn’t want to,” she replied more cheerfully.
“I wouldn’t say that, doucette,” said Michael, glancing at his wife.
With that, Chris stood up to leave. “I think this is where I came in.”
Adam sat on the weathered wooden planks of what was known as the Wishing Bridge, his long legs dangling over the edge, seemingly lost in thought. Just when it appeared that he was almost asleep, he picked up a stone, skipping it across the water expertly before it landed with a soft plop.
“So how’s your first day out?”
Adam turned his head at the sound of another voice. “It’s okay.”
Chris leaned on the railing, clasping his hands together. “Where’s Jazz?”
“Dunno.”
Resigned to the fact that his half-brother was going to be uncommunicative this morning, Chris sat down next to him, winding his arms around the railing above his head. “I thought you two would be together.”
“Well, you thought wrong.”
“I just wanted to say something, that’s all.”
“Then say it.”
At Adam’s clipped tones, Chris sighed. “I’m not competing with you, y’know.”
“Good. You don’t have anything I want.”
Chris shook his head sadly. “Why are you acting like this? I don’t get it. I thought we could be friends—“
“You and me can never be friends, Chris. We’re too fucking different.”
“But we’re not,” Chris protested. “I think—well, sometimes, I think the problem is that we’re too much alike.”
“Right. You and I have *so* much in common.” Adam turned his head sharply, deliberately invading Chris’ space, intentionally trying to make the younger adolescent feel uncomfortable. “Do you sleep with *guys*?”
“No,” Chris replied with a slightly troubled look in his light blue eyes. “But I don’t have a problem with you and Jazz, Adam,” he said, refusing to be driven off.
“That’s nice.” Adam picked up another stone to skip across the water, but Chris grabbed his wrist and stopped him.
“But I think maybe *you* do.” Adam twisted his wrist free and stared at Chris in disbelief.
“That’s bullshit. I’m in love with him.” Conviction rang out in Adam’s voice now. There was no possible way to doubt that declaration.
“I believe you.” Adam looked momentarily confused, as if that weren’t the answer he expected. “But I think you don’t know how to handle being in a relationship.”
“You stupid little fuck. I’m almost 17. I’ve had tons of girlfriends while you’ve never slept with *anyone*.”
“That’s what I mean,” Chris declared quietly. “You think sleeping with someone *is* a relationship.”
“Oh, why don’t you go somewhere and grow up?”
Continuing as though Adam hadn’t spoken, Chris said, “You’re in love with Jazz. You want to sleep with him, but you can’t.” At the beginning of what seemed to be a protest from Adam, Chris gestured, indicating that he had more to say. “We both know why. Cause you promised Dad. You like to pretend that nothing means *anything*, but we both know that’s not true.”
“So there you are.”
Adam glanced at the younger teenager before casting his sad gaze back out over the water again. “Here I am,” he murmured to himself.
“So how come you came out here alone?”
“Didn’t have a choice.” Adam skipped another stone. Chris studied his half-brother. For someone who had just come through a two-week grounding, he didn’t seem all that happy.
“Jazz didn’t want to be with you?”
The plop of the stone this time was inordinately loud. “Jazz…” Adam sighed heavily. “Jazz wanted some time alone.”
“He said that?” Chris’ eyebrows arched almost all the way to his hairline. “After two weeks away from you?”
“Yeah.” Adam’s voice was barely above a whisper. The pain went too deep for expression of anything but the merest shadow of his feelings.
“I can’t believe that. Jazz was hurting. Real bad. Sasha said so.”
Adam turned to face Chris again, angry tears standing in his dark eyes. “Sasha doesn’t know shit.”
“Something must be going on,” Chris concluded. He was moved by Adam’s very real anguish, but there had to be a way to deal with this—logically.
“Like what?”
“How much do you know about Jazz’ background?”
Adam shrugged. “Just what he told me. Not much. His mom was a dancer—“
“Stripper,” Chris interjected, correcting him.
Adam blinked at that. Maybe he *didn’t* know quite as much about Jazz as he liked to think. “She had problems—“
“She was an alcoholic, probably a drug user, too. She beat the crap out of Jazz from the time he was little.”
He knew that. Of course, he knew that about Jazz. Even though he hadn’t told him outright. It was there for anyone to see. In how he reacted. In how badly he needed Adam’s reassurance.
“He told me that she didn’t want him,” Adam remembered out loud.
Chris nodded solemnly. “That’s true. And Adam? There’s something else you should know. Especially if you’re going to sleep with him someday.”
“What?” Suddenly all manner of horrible things entered Adam’s tortured mind. Jazz had been beaten, abused. What more could there be to tell?
“Half the time he was living on the streets. He—I think he was doing guys for money.”
“You think? How can you accuse him of something like that without knowing for sure?”
“It doesn’t matter whether *I* think it’s true or not, Adam. What matters is what really happened. Only Jazz knows the truth. I’m just saying—you should ask him.”
Adam looked like a man standing at the Gates of Heaven with no hope of redemption. All his dreams, crushed. “I can’t ask him that,” he whispered brokenly.
“Cause you think he won’t tell you?”
Adam swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Cause I’m afraid he will.” He looked up at Chris, desolation in his eyes. “What if it’s true? What do I do then?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Chris’ bright blue gaze shifted past Adam to someone just beyond the entrance of the bridge.
“Jazz!”
“I thought you wanted time alone,” Adam couldn’t help but say.
“I did. I do.”
“Then why are y—“
“Something came up. I—“ Jazz glanced at Chris, and the younger boy rapidly made himself scarce. “I needed to see you.”
“About what?” Adam’s mouth went cotton-dry as his agitated mind ran through the possibilities.
Jazz looked away as Chris passed him on his way back to the chateau, leaving the two of them alone. “I just—needed to see you. After two weeks without you, do I really have to have a reason?”
Adam’s spirits picked up. That was more like the reaction that Adam initially expected. The Jazz he knew couldn’t bear being separated from him. He laughed inwardly, telling himself that he was on one hell of an ego trip if he couldn’t live without Jazz’ obvious adoration.
But it was true. That came as a complete surprise to him. If there was one thing that Adam cast himself as, it was an island. Isolated. Solitary. Dependent on no one.
There was just one problem with that. The moment that he met Jazz, Adam knew that he needed him. He not only needed him, but in return, he needed to be needed. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the heretofore hidden tears that flooded his eyes not long ago.
Pretending an indifference that he wasn’t even close to feeling, Adam asked, “So…what’s up?”
“This.” Jazz handed Adam a small piece of paper. Adam reluctantly unfolded it, noting that Jazz was staring at him as if he was about to disappear. “What is it?”
“Read it.”
Adam shook his head slowly. “It’s addressed to you.”
“I know. Read it anyway.”
Adam’s eyes flew to the end first. He didn’t recognize the signature. “Who’s Sylvie?”
Jazz looked positively haunted. “My mother.”
“Your—shit, I didn’t even think she was still alive. I mean, you’re here with James and Smoke—“
“Not for long.” Jazz’ whisper was a tortured remnant of his normal voice.
Adam nearly dropped the note. “What the Hell does that mean?”
“What do you think?”
“But you said she didn’t want you. You said—“
Jazz’ eyes turned dark, the color of the moss growing near the stream that ran beneath the bridge. “She didn’t. She still doesn’t.” There was resignation there. Acceptance, too. Jazz wasn’t fighting anymore, and that scared Adam to death.
“I don’t understand.” Adam could feel a terrible numbness creeping over him. Its name was inevitability.
“She smells money.”
“From where?”
“I never knew my real Dad.” Jazz twirled a long golden brown strand of hair around two fingers, anxiously winding and unwinding it. Again and again and—Adam thought he would go mad. Finally he reached out and clamped a firm hand over Jazz’ wrist. At first, Jazz looked somewhat startled. Then all at once Jazz’ all-too-expressive eyes reflected Adam’s sadness.
“I thought he was just some guy. A one-night stand. A boyfriend. What difference did it make?” Jazz looked down at Adam’s hand, wishing with all his might that things could be different.
“All this time, he never knew I existed.”
Adam released Jazz abruptly. “And now?”
“And now he does.” Jazz’ face held a curious mixture of anger and sorrow.
“How do you f-feel about that?” Except for the tiniest stammer, Adam managed a noncommittal tone that rivaled his father at his best.
“I don’t know.”
“Is he going to take you away?” From me, Adam’s mind automatically filled in.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure *he* doesn’t want to have anything to do with me either,” Jazz commented bitterly.
“Why?”
Now that Adam had relinquished his grip on his wrist, Jazz found himself restlessly playing with his hair again. “He’s married. With kids of his own. Nice kids. Respectable. Not dirt like me.”
Part of him felt relieved. But almost immediately afterwards, he felt guilt-stricken for even thinking that he was happy because Jazz’ father didn’t want him. “You’re not dirt, Nicky,” Adam reassured, the pet name slipping out unconsciously.
“Doesn’t matter. Mama’s fixing to make a major score now. She thinks he’ll pay, bigtime, to keep his secret safe.”
“And will he?”
“Hell, yes. If you were rich and you had everything, would *you* want everyone to know about *me*?”
Jazz stared directly into Adam’s eyes, as if daring him to disagree. But Adam met them evenly without a single flinch. “God, you have no idea how much you’re really worth, do you?” he whispered.
Suddenly Jazz turned away, unable to face the open reverence in those dark eyes. “Anyway, I just came by to—um—say goodbye.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get over me. Good thing we never like, um, made love or anything.”
“Yeah. Good thing,” Adam echoed without thinking, the numbness rapidly evaporating, leaving unreasoning rage in its wake.
“You stupid little fucker!” Adam shouted. At the sound of Adam’s angry yell, Jazz instinctively cringed, and memories of all the people who claimed to love him but didn’t flooded his mind.
When Adam saw how Jazz reacted, he was stricken to the very core. How dare he treat Jazz like this was his fault? How dare he heap more abuse on the head of someone who defied the odds to survive? Here he was, seeing things only in terms of how they effected him. This wasn’t about *him*.
In that moment, Adam saw things with a greater clarity than he ever had before. Ignoring the fact that Jazz was trying desperately to get away, Adam threw his arms around the younger teenager and held him, rocking from side to side in an effort to calm him down. “Ssh, ssh, I’m sorry, so sorry.”
Jazz lay his head on Adam’s shoulder, the tension ebbing away as though it were never there. “You don’t know how hard it was for me to stay away…and then to come here.” His fingers anxiously twining their way through Adam’s shaggy dark brown hair, he closed his eyes, wishing he could just stay there and feel protected.
“I didn’t mean to make it worse.”
Jazz buried his face in the space between Adam’s neck and shoulder. “No, you’re the only one who can make it better.”
“We can’t,” Adam said with very real regret.
“And now we never will,” Jazz replied.
All thoughts of Jazz’ past life on the streets flew out of Adam’s head. Nothing and no one mattered but the two of them. If it didn’t happen between them, it didn’t exist. Jazz did what he had to—to survive. How could he not see that before?
Jazz’ fingers tightened on Adam’s neck as he hid his face. “All that time—that I was on the streets—I kept feeling like I was waiting for something or someone. And now you’re here.”
It took a few moments to penetrate, but when it did, Adam’s shock was apparent. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Nicky?”
Jazz wrenched himself reluctantly from Adam’s embrace, certain that this last secret between them would be their undoing. With a trembling finger, he traced the outline of Adam’s lips. “Yeah. I walked the walk and talked the talk, man, but when it came right down to it, I—“ Jazz took a deep breath. “I’m a fucking liar.”
“No,” Adam protested.
“Yes,” Jazz insisted.
“Then you’ve never—“
Jazz shook his head, his long, straight golden brown hair swinging back and forth. “They always wanted to touch *me* and—and—I let them. But I never went—“
“All the way?”
Jazz breathed in so suddenly, so sharply, that Adam was startled. At first, he thought it was fear, but then he realized that it was something else. Jazz wanted Adam to think the very best of him, and in his own convoluted way, Jazz was afraid that Adam would be disappointed in him. For not being the jaded punk he sometimes seemed to be.
“Nicky, if you told me that you were with a million guys before me, I would hate it. But I would find a fucking way to deal with it. Cause I *love* you.”
Adam stroked Jazz’ face, his thumb tenderly rubbing across his left eyebrow before it traced its way down his hairline. Somehow he needed to make Jazz know that as explosive as these feelings between them could get, it wasn’t *all* about sex.
“And now, knowing that someday, I get to be the one who makes love to you? I may not be very good at telling the people I love that I care—but I do. I *love* you.”
“And Nicky?” Adam knew he had Jazz’ full attention now.
“We *will* be together.”