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  “Yes,” Morgan confirmed, and Chris saw him swallow tightly. “That. And also for inviting it at all. It was rude, inconsiderate, and dangerous. I apologize.”

  The actual apology was probably difficult for Morgan, Chris realized later, but at that minute he could only focus on one of the other words. “Dangerous? The fuck, dangerous? Are you not clean, or something?” There had been a brief mention of it when it happened, Chris remembered, but he had stupidly assumed Morgan would tell him if there was something Chris needed to know. He felt a slight panic rising within him at his own stupidity.

  Morgan smirked. “I’m negative. But you didn’t know that. Therefore, dangerous.”

  Chris regarded him. “I didn’t know that because I didn’t ask. My fault.”

  Unexpectedly, Morgan laughed. “Okay. Both of our faults, then. But I’m still sorry enough to pay for breakfast.”

  Chris watched as Morgan laid down some bills. “See me not arguing.” He grinned and wiped his mouth. “Oh, man. I need a nap.” Chris managed to hold back a yawn but felt his eyes water.

  They walked out together into the bright morning—afternoon, Chris amended, seeing as how it was almost twelve thirty—and Morgan seemed reluctant to go home. It was confirmed when he looked at Chris and said, “So… can I talk you into a movie or something?”

  Chris looked at him. “Um. You know, normally I’d think about it, but I’m really fucking exhausted. I’ll take a rain check for that date.”

  Morgan looked startled. “For that… oh God, no!” His expression went from surprised to horrified, and Chris started to feel unexplainably stupid. “No. Not a date. It’s just….” He trailed off and laughed ruefully. “I’m moving. Today’s the day they’re tenting my house for termites. I can’t go home until tomorrow. I’ve got a room for tonight, but nothing to really do today. That’s all.”

  Chris didn’t know whether to feel relieved or insulted that he wasn’t being asked out, and settled on relieved. Insulted would have brought up too many questions. The next sentence was out before he thought better of it. “You can come over, if you want.”

  It wasn’t until Morgan appeared to mull it over that Chris realized he had fully expected the man to say no immediately. “You said you needed a nap,” Morgan pointed out.

  Chris shrugged, still not sure where the impulse had come from. “So? I got a television. And a DVD player. Plant yourself on the couch and do work or something. I’ll sleep.”

  “Okay, Mr. Matthews.” Morgan grinned. “I’ll come over and play at your house.”

  Chris regretted it already.

  WHEN HE unlocked his front door, Chris prayed it was a day that his housekeeper was scheduled to come. He was so tired that he couldn’t even remember what day of the week it was, however. Not like that was much different than any other day. Shift work often made days run together, and most firemen had to check their watches when asked the date.

  Maria had been in, much to Chris’s relief. His dirty towels had been put in the laundry, and a glance in the kitchen showed that the week’s dishes were sparkling clean and drying in the dish rack. “Well… this is it,” he said to Morgan, gesturing around his small living room.

  Morgan nodded and looked around with interest. “Been here long?”

  “Couple years. I bought the place after living in an eight-hundred-square-foot apartment. This seemed like a mansion at the time.” Chris glanced around, suddenly aware of how small his house actually was.

  “I like it,” Morgan said unexpectedly, crossing the room to study a framed photograph of the desert on the wall. “Who took this?”

  “Uh, me,” Chris said. It had been on one of his desert rides, and it had been taken with a small digital camera, but it had actually printed out quite nicely. The sun was setting, but it hadn’t been just a normal sunset. A storm was threatening, and that was visible in the distance. The light had turned an odd shade of orange as the sun sunk lower, with the clouds taking on vague undershades of yellow and pink. Chris wasn’t one to take random pictures of things, so it had been an impulse to snap the shot.

  “It’s good,” Morgan said. “You should think about entering it in the fair.”

  Chris blinked. “The Del Mar fair? Like, with the photography contests and shit?”

  Morgan turned around and nodded. “That’s the one. Prize money isn’t big, but it’s a good contest for amateur photographers.”

  Chris wondered briefly how Morgan would know that before shaking his head. “Nah. I’m not a photographer. That was just a lucky shot.”

  Morgan shrugged and dropped his briefcase on Chris’s coffee table. “I’ve got some work to do,” he said, extracting a nice-looking laptop. “I won’t be loud, so you can sleep.”

  “Okay,” Chris said, watching Morgan make himself comfortable on his couch. “There’s soda and beer in the fridge, I think. But not much else.”

  “Fine, fine,” Morgan said dismissively, and immediately Chris felt the old familiar frustration rise. He snorted and shook his head as he turned toward the bedroom, but Morgan caught it and called after him. “Problem?”

  Chris just answered, “Nope,” and kept going down the hall, but he should have known Morgan wouldn’t give up so easily. Chris heard him set papers aside and get up from the couch, following him down the little hallway.

  “You have a problem with just about everything I do or say,” Morgan said from behind him.

  Chris stopped in the doorway of the bedroom and turned around, knowing incredulity was written all over his face. “Are you fucking serious? You think I’m the one with the problem? You decided not to like me from day one!”

  Morgan narrowed gray eyes, and Chris noted briefly that Morgan’s eyes seemed to flash silver when he was in a mood. Which was probably most of the time. “I didn’t decide not to like you. Your crap attitude decided that for you. You firemen are all alike.” He said the now-familiar words with a practiced sneer.

  He didn’t know if it was because he was so damn tired or he’d just finally had enough, but Chris reacted without thinking. Reaching out, he slid one hand behind Morgan’s neck and yanked him forward, crushing their lips together and kissing him hard.

  There was no sound in the room for at least fifteen seconds, save their panting and the sound of their kissing. Morgan was good at it; Chris found himself opening under Morgan’s questing tongue even though Chris had been the one to start the kiss. “You bastard,” Chris whispered, trying to tangle his hand in Morgan’s hair but finding it too short.

  “Asshole,” Morgan hissed back, clutching at Chris’s T-shirt with one hand and sliding the other one around to rest at the small of his back.

  There were a few more choice names Chris knew he could call Morgan, but fuck, the man tasted too damn good for Chris to want to stop kissing him. It was some mix of coffee and syrup, lightly hinted with just plain Morgan. Chris didn’t know how he was already becoming familiar with the taste of him, but he figured having the guy’s cock in his mouth was a good precursor to actually kissing him. Morgan tasted amazing.

  He felt himself being backed toward the bed and knew he had to take some control of this situation before it ended up like the last time. Chris wasn’t one of those guys who had to top, but he knew there was no way Morgan was climbing on unless Chris gave him permission.

  Morgan’s hands were under his shirt now, callused fingers sliding and catching on Chris’s skin, sending gooseflesh over the rest of his body as they kissed and fought and tasted. In a fit of frustration, Chris yanked his shirt off over his head just before grabbing at the buttons on Morgan’s. “You have to invest in some T-shirts,” Chris muttered, his fingers shaky and clumsy.

  “Jesus, here,” Morgan hissed and undid his top two buttons before shucking the whole thing off over his head.

  If it weren’t for the urgency of the situation, Chris would have stopped and taken a minute or two just to look at the smooth expanse of Morgan’s chest, the flat planes of his stomach. The ta
nned skin. Chris wanted to start mentally listing all of the things that Morgan kept regrettably hidden beneath his clothes, but he was being pushed toward the bed again and there was no time for laundry lists, no matter how much Chris would have liked to take a minute and appreciate Morgan’s physical charms.

  When the back of his knees hit the bed and they both tumbled over, Chris realized how hard he was when Morgan landed full-length atop him. Chris jerked upward reflexively, seeking the pressure of Morgan’s body, and Morgan responded in kind by grinding down as he kissed Chris. They spent a minute or two frozen in that position, kissing desperately and clutching at each other while they moved and sought friction. Chris would have been happy to rub off right there on Morgan’s still-clothed hip, because damn if the man didn’t feel so fucking good lying there on top of him, but apparently Morgan was having none of that.

  Morgan struggled to rid himself of his remaining clothes while still trying to kiss Chris and slide against him, and it turned into a frustrating battle that Chris finally ended by pushing at him until both of them were able to reach pesky buttons and zippers. And then there was just skin. Long, smooth expanses of skin that Chris wanted—no, needed—to taste, so he did. He leaned over to the closest nipple and began mouthing it, smelling that morning’s soap and the specific, almost-familiar scent of Morgan beneath it.

  Chris nearly didn’t realize when he’d crawled nearly on top of the man, so intent was he on tasting him, but when he looked down he found Morgan lying perfectly still beneath him, eyes squeezed shut. Chris bent his head to the other nipple and felt a slight tensing, and out of the corner of his eye he caught Morgan clenching a fist in the bed covers. Chris kept one eye on Morgan’s hand as he suckled, using his tongue to flick the nipple in his mouth into a hard nub. Sure enough, Morgan’s knuckles turned whiter and whiter as Chris played, and Chris filed away the very valuable information that Morgan liked his nipples played with.

  It was only after another few seconds that Morgan grew restless beneath him, and Chris had no warning at all before Morgan shifted and managed to flip Chris to his stomach. “Lube,” Morgan growled at him, two strong hands already parting Chris’s asscheeks. Chris lifted his head to see how far away his nightstand was and reached for the drawer, extracting the tube and handing it over his shoulder.

  He held on to it tightly, however, when Morgan went to grab it. Chris looked back at him while both of their hands were on the tube, each pulling slightly in an unspoken play for power. Chris silently counted to five before he let go, his eyes never wavering from Morgan’s, and when Morgan nodded at him, Chris knew Morgan understood that he was being granted permission.

  “Condom?” was the next question, and Chris bit his lip as he tried to remember where the hell in his house he might have left his condoms. It had been a damn long time since his bedroom had seen any action—he preferred not to bring guys he barely knew to his home address—so he knew his rubbers weren’t in the vicinity. Oh Jesus, Chris prayed maybe the box was in the bathroom.

  Morgan snorted and Chris felt fingers tracing the curve of his ass. “Don’t tell me you don’t have goddamn protection.”

  “I have it,” Chris snapped, wondering how Morgan still managed to sound pompous with the head of his dick brushing against Chris’s ass. “I just… don’t know where.”

  There was a put-upon sigh, and then Chris felt the bed move as Morgan got up. Chris ignored the odd sense of momentary loss and looked over his shoulder in time to see Morgan dig through his discarded pants for his wallet. Finding it, Morgan flipped it open and extracted a small foil packet before holding it up for Chris to see.

  “You were a Boy Scout, I’m betting,” Chris muttered as Morgan returned to the bed and knelt over him again.

  “Eagle Scout,” Morgan confirmed, and Chris could hear the grin in his voice.

  All talk of scouting was forgotten, however, when Chris felt two cool, slick fingers probing him, stretching and slicking him more gently than Chris would have thought possible. He arched and hissed, gathering fistfuls of sheet and trying to angle himself enough for Morgan to reach his prostate. Wow, maybe it had been longer than he’d thought.

  Then there was a strong hand at the small of his back and something much more blunt than fingers nudging at his opening. Chris had a minute to feel regret that he couldn’t actually look at Morgan’s cock before Morgan breached him, holding himself perfectly still over Chris and waiting to feel Chris adjust and relax around him.

  “Okay?” Morgan asked, only a slight strain evident in his voice.

  In response, Chris bucked backward, impaling himself on Morgan’s cock and making them both groan in unison. “Do it,” Chris growled, and dropped his head in time to see a crystal drop of precome fall from his prick to the bed.

  Morgan took Chris’s command to heart. Morgan’s strokes were neither slow nor gentle, and he gripped Chris’s hips tight enough to leave red marks. A fast, quick, perfect rhythm, and Chris put one hand over the head of his own cock and squeezed tightly. Lord, if he came before Morgan? Chris knew any battle of power they might be having would be lost.

  The only sound in the bedroom for long minutes was their harsh breathing. Morgan managed to find Chris’s gland almost instantly and was hitting it with perfect precision, rubbing his cock over and over it until Chris had to sink his teeth into his bottom lip to keep from crying out.

  Chris didn’t realize exactly when he’d gone from squeezing the head of his dick to stroking himself, but he sure as hell knew he didn’t have much longer. Morgan was practically the only thing keeping him on his knees, the strong grip on Chris’s hips pulling him back over and over again onto Morgan’s cock. Chris was just about to squeeze his eyes shut and pray when he felt Morgan stiffen behind him, fingers digging in even more tightly.

  “Fuck,” Morgan whispered, just one word, but it was enough. Chris stroked himself twice more before feeling the shudder start from the pit of his stomach, working its way out to his extremities until he finally jerked hard against his hand and came with a gasp.

  He was aware of Morgan holding himself perfectly still except for a very slight trembling, and Chris could feel Morgan’s cock pulsing inside him as he came too. Chris chanced a look over his shoulder and drew in a breath at the sight of Morgan with his eyes tightly closed and a muscle jumping in his hard jaw. Fuck, there was no doubt the man was pretty.

  Shaky muscles gave out and Chris couldn’t hold himself up anymore. He collapsed face-first to the bed with Morgan still lying atop him, liking the heavy warmth. “Wow,” he managed, and smiled to himself when he heard Morgan grunt in agreement.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHRIS HAD never been one for dwelling on sex or any of the emotions associated with it. He usually didn’t have much emotion afterward anyway, other than “cool, that felt good.”

  So it was especially frustrating for him that he was lying on his bed, watching Morgan get dressed, and had all kinds of things running through his head that had never occurred to him before. For example, “stay” was on the tip of his tongue, but that got replaced by “get the fuck out” when he realized Morgan actually had no intention of staying.

  The fact that his jumble of emotion was nothing new where Morgan was concerned also hadn’t escaped notice. And, as usual where Morgan was concerned, Chris felt himself growing irritated to the point of anger.

  “I’ll be sure and replace the condom you used,” Chris finally snapped, then regretted it. He really had to get a better handle on speaking before he thought.

  Morgan paused in zipping up his gray cords. “Only if you can find yours,” he said lightly. “Since you don’t seem to know where they are.”

  Chris tightened his jaw and suddenly felt too vulnerable lying there naked while Morgan was nearly fully dressed already. He reached over the side of the bed for a pair of shorts and stood, slipping them on but not bothering with his T-shirt. Chris chose to ignore the glance Morgan flicked over Chris’s bare chest. “They’re
in the bathroom,” he replied, keeping his voice even. “Grab one on your way out.”

  A sardonic brow arched. “Chris. Don’t bother with the whole jilted-lover bit. It doesn’t become you. You were the one who kissed me, may I remind you, and you had plenty of opportunity to say no.”

  The fact that it was true didn’t make it any easier to stomach; in fact, Chris had always hated the truth when it was presented to him in any kind of cold, logical manner. Coloring and softening harsh realities had always seemed much kinder. Not the best sort of communication, but still. Chris preferred it that way.

  “You could stay” was the next thing out of his mouth, and even though the tone was snotty, the words still sounded pathetic. Chris winced at himself and made a note to try to get over that habit of blurting out whatever thought popped into his brain.

  Morgan paused, fingers hovering over the last button on his pin-striped shirt. “Are you asking me, making a suggestion, or giving an order?”

  “Uh. The second one. I think.” He sank back down to the edge of the bed and knew he wasn’t normally this ridiculous sounding. Fucking Morgan Daniels made Chris insane, clearly.

  Morgan finished with his buttons but didn’t tuck his shirt back into his cords, choosing instead to leave it hanging out while he studied Chris carefully. Chris kind of liked the rumpled look on him; he didn’t think Morgan was usually so mussed or wrinkled. “I could stay,” he repeated. “This is true. Do you want me to?”

  A yes answer would give Morgan what he wanted; a no answer wouldn’t be the truth. Chris didn’t know which one was more satisfying, so he settled for shrugging and examining his thumbnail.

  Morgan snorted and sat down on the edge of the bed, shoulder to shoulder with Chris. “Don’t tell me you’re getting coy now, especially after what we just did.”

  “Coy? Jesus. No one’s ever called me that.” Chris looked up at him in disbelief.