There was a German chocolate cake on the table in the breakfast nook. Will’s card was propped next to it with a couple of others: To Our Son, To My Son, To My Brother, What is a Brother? Happy Birthday, Uncle. Greetings from the whole tribe. To the side of these was a wine bottle-shaped science experiment gone awry.
“What the hell is that?” Will peered more closely at the pickled contents of the wine bottle. What it was, was a fucking cobra. The cobra stared back sightlessly at him, fangs bared.
“It’s my snake. I’ve been waiting all day to show it to you.” Taylor wiggled his eyebrows salaciously.
“Funny,” said Will, glancing at him. “Where did you get it?”
“It came in the mail.”
“Who sent it?”
Taylor shrugged.
“You don’t know?”
“The card must have got lost.”
They both studied the bottle.
“What is the liquid?”
“Rice wine.”
“Is it poison?”
“It’s not supposed to be. In fact, it’s supposed to be a cure-all — and an aphrodisiac.”
“I bet bourbon works just as well, and you don’t have that nasty cobra aftertaste.”
Taylor’s smile was preoccupied. Will gave him a closer look.
“You don’t have any idea who would have sent something like this?”
Taylor shook his head. Will laughed and threw an arm around his wide, bony shoulders.
“Spooked?”
“Nah.” But Taylor’s brows were drawn together as he continued to gaze at the bottle. “Weird, though, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Taylor had some weird friends. And weirder acquaintances. He had been in the DSS longer than Will, signing on right out of college, and he’d been posted to Tokyo, Afghanistan, and briefly, Haiti. The next time he was posted overseas it would be as a regional security officer responsible for managing security operations for an embassy or for a number of diplomatic posts within an assigned area. That was one reason Will was hesitant to move in with him. Not a lot of point in setting up house when one or both of them could be stationed overseas within a year or so.
Taylor didn’t see it this way, of course. Taylor’s idea was they should move in together immediately and they’d deal with the threat of a future separation when — if — it happened. He’d always had a tendency to leave tomorrow to take care of itself, but getting shot had cemented his determination to live every day as though it were his last.
Will understood that. He even agreed with it, in principle, but what happened to him when Taylor was posted overseas for three-or-so years? Things weren’t as simple as Taylor liked to pretend.
He glanced at Taylor’s profile. He was frowning, and Will did not want him frowning on his birthday.
“Hey,” he said softly. Taylor’s head turned his way. “Want to open your present?”
“Sure.” Taylor started to pull the gold ribbon on the parcel he was carrying. Will put his hand over his.
“Your other present,” he said meaningfully, and Taylor started to laugh.
* * * * *
Will stretched out on Taylor’s wide bed in the cool, dark room that looked out onto the overgrown garden with the broken birdbath and the tumbledown garden shed, and he rested his face on his hands and spread his legs.
So gorgeous. So casually, unconsciously gorgeous. Wide shoulders, strong, lithe torso, long legs. There was a tiny velvet mole above his left butt cheek and, on his right shoulder, a small griffin tattoo that he’d acquired the night before he went into the Marine Corps. Will, his brother, Grant, and their three cousins all sported those griffin tattoos on their right shoulders. Some kind of male-ritual, family-bonding thing.
Taylor had heard this from Will. He’d never met Will’s family. Never met the brother or the cousins or Will’s dad, who had been a sheriff in a small town in Oregon. Maybe one of these days.
He stroked a slow hand down the long, sleek line of Will’s back, and Will shivered. Taylor bent his head and kissed Will right over the tiny velvet mole. Will shivered again.
Anticipation or something else?
Taylor enjoyed being fucked.
In fact, he enjoyed it so much, it made him uneasy. He’d never told Will that, but Will probably knew. Will was scrupulous about keeping the scales perfectly balanced, because they always took turns. However, though that particular evening was Taylor’s turn to be fucked, Will — in honor of Taylor’s birthday — offered his own taut, tanned ass up for Taylor’s pleasure.
And it was Taylor’s pleasure. Doubly so because he sensed that Will didn’t enjoy being fucked nearly as much as he did, and he was humbled to receive this gift. Taylor had never let anyone shove his cock in his ass besides Will; Will was more fair-minded and had probably taken turns with his other lovers.
Taylor didn’t like thinking about Will’s other lovers.
He took his time preparing, squirting the exotic oil he’d purchased — ginger, jasmine, rose, black pepper, sandalwood, and ylang-ylang in a slick, silvery liquid that warmed his fingers. A sweet scent like spicy flowers.
“What’s that?” Will asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“Passion oil. You’ll like it.”
Will resettled his chin on his folded arms. “You’re into some strange shit, MacAllister.”
True enough. He’d done some wild things when he was younger. Will didn’t know the half of it. But in other ways he’d been very conservative. In fact, the first time he’d let Will fuck him, something had seemed to snap in his brain; made him fear he was having some kind of psychotic break. Alerted him to the fact that he probably had one or two sexual hang-ups after all. Before Will, it was unthinkable that he’d let anyone take him. Occasionally one of his lovers would ask to fuck him, and if they pushed it, that was usually Taylor’s cue to end the relationship. His relationships never lasted long anyway.
Will was the exception. In every way. Though Taylor had always tried to be an inventive and skilled lover, he took special pains that everything be good for
