“There are a few other homes here, Baxter. I don't own the whole damn island myself.”
“I didn't know.”
Marek spit out another expletive, but this time he did not turn away. “Forget about it. They're not close enough to worry about. Probably isn't even anybody living in them right now.” Planting his bare feet into the soft grass, Marek crossed his arms against his chest. “What the hell are you doing here again? What do you want with me?” He leaned in a little bit, and his mouth compressed to a thin line. It seemed he tried to soften his voice as he said, “Why were you so scared just now?”
“I was—” Colin sealed his lips shut. Fuck. Here he stood in front of a man who, in Colin's mind anyway, had fucked him hundreds of times. Colin's gut trusted this person, and it pushed him to spill everything and hope for the best. His logical brain, however, which always ran the show in Colin's real life, reared itself and waved a huge sign of caution in front of his face, pulling him to a more familiar, stabilizing place of inner control.
Marek's hands curled and flexed at his sides, and he abruptly pushed past Colin, heading around the side of the house. “Or don't tell me.” Colin barely heard the man's utterance as he walked away. “Suit yourself.”
Colin chased after Marek and caught up to him walking toward the beach. When he got within touching distance, he grabbed Marek's wrist and spun him around. “Yesterday you didn't want to know anything about my presence, and today you're acting offended that I didn't jump to answer your questions. Why do you all of a sudden care?”
Marek looked down at where Colin held his arm and then looked right into his eyes. Shit. Colin whipped his hand away, feeling a burn sear his palm.
“Sorry.” He apologized, again. “I don't usually…handle people the way I have with you today.”
Going back to that military stance, Marek's face did not alter in reaction to Colin's comment. “You wanted to say something yesterday, and today I'm asking you what it was. Tell me.” His gaze shifted to Colin's boat for a second. “Or leave.”
Now or never, Colin. How much do you really believe this man is supposed to be your future?
“You're going to think I'm crazy.” Colin squinted against the sun hanging high in the cloudless blue sky, but shaded his eyes with his hand rather than concealing himself behind sunglasses. “But I've been dreaming about your house. I've also been dreaming about a man.” His heart beat at a dizzying rate, but with sheer will, Colin did not break from the hold of Marek's stare. “That man is you.”
Jesus Christ. No fucking way was this guy for real. Marek could not deal with unbalanced people right now. He barely held his own sanity in check every day. “You're right. I do think you're nuts.” So much for memories of the even-keeled teen Marek recalled from Henderson. Maybe the beating changed him. Marek shut his eyes and clamped his jaw against the hammering of unspoken guilt. “Don't come back.” Dismissing Colin with a scratchy voice, Marek strode back up the beach.
“Wait a goddamned minute!” Colin's voiced cracked across the humid air, whipping Marek to a stop.
Stiffening from top to bottom, Marek held in place, instinctively responding to the sharpness in Colin's tone, but he could not turn around.
“Sorry.” Colin slid in front of Marek again, delivering a sucker punch with his masculine beauty. “It was either shout or grab you again.” A tight smile pulled at the man's wide lips. “You didn't seem to respond well to the second option before.”
Marek started walking again, and Colin skipped backward at a slightly higher speed, trying to keep up.
“I know I sound crazy, but I swear to you I am not. I feel a connection to your home that I cannot yet explain. Somehow, that also involves you. I'm not unbalanced. You can ask anyone who knows me; I'm the most sane, levelheaded person they know.”
Studying Colin, Marek tried to look past the immediate sexual attraction and search for subterfuge. There's no way he's here without a motive. Marek just didn't know what it was yet. “If you're not crazy,” he said, choosing his words very deliberately, “then you're operating some kind of angle on me. Either way, you won't like me when I find you out.”
“I don't know if I like you right now.” Colin's green eyes sparked with passion and lit a fuse in Marek's blood.
Marek chuckled in spite of himself. “All right. That smackdown buys you a few minutes. Start talking.”
“Okay, so maybe the easiest answer to the questions you asked is why I was so frantically looking for you just now,” Colin said. “And the answer is this: last night, for the first time in two years, I didn't dream about this house, or you. I thought that meant something had happened—that you'd done something to yourself—and I didn't have the dream because you were gone.”
Two years? Exactly when Marek had purchased the monstrosity. No fucking way. The timeline had to be a coincidence. Colin's earlier fear suddenly pulled Marek up straight, and he grabbed the front of his shirt. “Wait a minute. Why would you think I'd done something to myself?”
Almost at eye level, Marek couldn't escape the hint of pity that softened Colin's eyes. “In the dreams, particularly the first ones, you're clearly suffering.” Colin searched Marek's face thoroughly, and Marek released his hand from the man's shirt, feeling stripped and flayed bare with one brief, intense stare. “I don't know why,” Colin went on, “but your voice is in my head asking for help.”
Son of a bitch. This could not be happening. Payton… A familiar weight pressed on Marek's chest at the loss. Could… No, this is all too crazy and has to be a
