The bounce nearly sent them both through themattress. Taylor started to laugh.
“What the hell was all that about?”
Will held up a small bottle of complimentary handcream.
“Ah.” Taylor nodded approval. “Good thinking.”
“Assume the position,” Will told him, and Taylorwriggled more comfortably into the disarranged bedding and liftedhis legs.
Will squirted some pale, scented lotion into hishand and lazily stroked Taylor. The liquid felt cool and slick onheated skin. Taylor murmured approval.
“Hedonist.” Will tickled his balls, which began totighten. Taylor sucked in a breath as Will’s fingers grazed thecrevice beneath his cheeks.
Will squirted more lotion into his palm. He tracedup and down the moist curve of Taylor’s buttocks. Taylor groaned,gazing dizzily up into Will’s gravely smiling face. “Oh God. Yes.Do it to me, Will.”
Will slipped his fingers inside, making Taylor cryout sharply and toss his head against the flat pillows.
“Shhh.” Will threw a guilty look at the doordividing their room from their prisoner’s.
Taylor acknowledged the warning, but the feel ofWill’s fingers moving inside him was exquisite. He stretched andpushed down, aiding Will in that quest to find the spongy nub ofhis prostate.
“Good?” Will watched his face.
Taylor swallowed. Nodded. Hard to find words in theface of pleasure that intense. He closed his eyes and simplyfelt. The scent of musk and flowery lotion, the prickle ofhair and fingernails…
As always there was the little regret when Will’sfingers gently withdrew. But the next moment, Will’s thick cock waspressing into him, pushing, piercing him slowly, deeply.
“Tay,” Will breathed.
There was a brief pang of resistance, the alarming,stretching pull of skin and muscle, the almost unbearable pressure,and then the instant overwhelming pleasure.
Taylor wrapped his legs around Will’s lean waist.His hands rested on Will’s broad shoulders, smoothing, absentlyurging him on. Will began to move into a more powerful rhythm, andTaylor pushed back into it, the blood-hot clutch of flesh on flesh.Fevered, damp, restless…he rode the tiger, absorbed the poundingflash fire inside himself, both their bodies slick and shining withsweat, incalescent…
The pleasure of his coming was almost painful, soferocious it racked him. The sun seemed to fill the room withlight, brighter and brighter, burning him up — and then pinchedout.
* * * * *
“You’re right,” Will said sometime later. “I didscrew up out there last night. With the Mad Russian. I could havegot us all killed.”
Taylor turned his head on the pancake pillow. Therewere lines in Will’s face he only remembered seeing once before.That had been the afternoon he’d thought he was dying. Theafternoon they’d both believed he was dying.
“Sometimes it does get in the way. My feelings foryou. I can’t…”
“I can’t either,” Taylor said. “But we agreed thatit was better to take our chances together than apart. We knew itwould be hard sometimes.”
Will’s jaw worked. Taylor brushed his knucklesagainst the tight, smooth skin. “That why you feel you need fivethousand miles between us?”
Will shook his head. “That’s not fair. You know whyI want this job.”
Taylor turned his face away. Stared at the dark,scarred paneling. “I know.”
“I’m not running from us. I’m not runningfrom anything. You said yourself it’s a huge opportunity forme. It’s the chance of a lifetime. I can’t turn it down. It wouldbe stupid to turn it down.”
Taylor closed his eyes against Will’s pain — and hisown. “I know. Sorry. I’m being a jerk.”
“Taylor, you know I love you.”
Taylor opened his eyes, turned his head, and Will’sface was for once unguarded, all his feelings there to be read. Hisown throat closed. He nodded.
“I know you don’t believe it, but it’s just the samefor me. It’s exactly the same for me. The thought of thesetwo years is killing me. But if I don’t take the posting, I’mafraid of what it will do to us. I’m afraid I’ll resent thatdecision later on.”
Taylor nodded. “I know. I’m afraid of that too. Youneed to go.”
But two years? Two? He missed Will when theywere working apart just for a couple of days.
It would be a mistake to cry, not least because he’dnever get over the humiliation, but he was about as close to tearsas he’d ever been in his life. It was a real struggle, and hewasn’t totally sure he wouldn’t drown in all that backwash ofdammed-up emotion. He kept his eyes screwed tight, but forexpediency’s sake, he had to open his mouth and drag in a soggybreath.
Will groaned. “Don’t. God. Don’t.” He gatheredTaylor tight, burying his face in Taylor’s shoulder. He could feelWill shaking with the same effort at control.
Paris seemed a long way away.
Chapter Seven
The heatshimmered off the cracked asphalt and seemed to settle on thedrooping leaves of the pecan trees along the wide street as theywent into the coffee shop next to the Mountain Inn motor court.
“I don’t understand why we’re flying out ofRuidoso,” Hedwig said once they had been seated. “There’s anairport here.”
“Because if anyone is following us, they’ll expectus to fly out of the airport here,” Will told her. “Besides, ifwe’d waited for a flight out of here, we wouldn’t have been able toget a connecting flight to Los Angeles from Albuquerque thisevening.”
She gave him a long unreadable look from behind herglasses and picked up her menu.
Will shook his head inwardly. Through the coffeeshop’s plate-glass windows, he spotted Taylor, wearing a new pairof aviator sunglasses, walking from the parking lot.
A moment later, the glass door pushed open. Will’sheart skipped in that funny way it had a habit of doing these daysat the sight of Taylor’s lean, rangy figure.
He raised his hand, and Taylor crossed over to themand sat down in the crescent- shaped booth across from Will. “We’reall checked out at the motel, and the rental car is in the parkinglot behind this place.”
“Good.”
Taylor’s face was unreadable behind the shades, butWill had the sense that Taylor wanted to tell him something.
He raised his brows. Taylor gave a slight shake ofhis head.
Will asked, “Do we have time for lunch?”
Hedwig looked up in surprise.
“Why not?” Taylor picked up a menu.
The waitress arrived, and Hedwig, presumably eatingfor
