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Good Christ, he wasn’t going to grope Marcus. What was the matter with him?

Lifting the glass of iced lemonade to his lips, Thomas reached over and laid his free hand on Marcus’ beneath the table. If Walter glanced over at just the right angle, he’d see it, but if he saw it, he saw it. Closing his hand over the top of Marcus’, Thomas let his thumb rub Marcus’ palm. Gave him a slight squeeze.

At one time, he’d known Marcus’ moods better than his own, but how Marcus

reacted to certain things could be unpredictable, which was why Thomas tended to be cautious about public displays. In this case, however, Marcus’ fingers shifted, coming up between Thomas’ to overlap his fingertips, pressing down more tightly than he’d expected, as if drawing some elemental reassurance.

Then, just as quickly, Marcus released him and leaned back, stretching his arm over the back of Thomas’ chair as he spoke to Cathy about the symphony. When he hooked his fingers in the slats, his thumb stroked a small spot in between Thomas’ shoulder blades.

“How long you boys been together?”

This from Walter, a question that seemed to take even Cathy by surprise. A flash of alarm crossed her face before she apparently processed that he’d asked it in a neutral, not argumentative, tone.

“I met Thomas about four years ago,” Marcus said, glancing over at him. “We were together for two and a half years after that. He’s just visiting right now, working on some new projects. He wanted to go out today and paint in a natural setting.”

“How did you meet?” Cathy asked, a tentative smile in her eyes.

“Thomas was sharing some of his work in a little co-op hole-in-the-wall I

periodically checked out. The owner had an eye for good talent, but little money. There was terrible lighting in the place. It was a wonder anything ever sold. Of course, it probably helped some of the work get bought.”

Thomas’ unexpected touch had steadied Marcus more than he wanted to admit. He

didn’t want to feel this absurd squeezing sense of panic sitting at the table of a pleasant, average enough farmer and his wife. So now, to keep the boat of his emotions rocking on an even keel, he glanced at Thomas—scooping up blackberries with his spoon, his face in profile, his quick smile at Marcus’ joke—and remembered that first meeting.

* * * * *

Thomas had brought in his own lighting. He’d run a drop cord and just finished

duct taping it to the wall so it would be out of the way. He wore secondhand jeans and a T-shirt for some BBQ place Marcus had never heard of. As he straightened, he hitched 128

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up the jeans, giving Marcus a brief impression of a very nicely shaped ass, then he flicked on the mounted light and angled it over the painting.

Based on the way the man was dressed, Marcus would have assumed he was a

maintenance guy, except for several things. One, Richard couldn’t afford a maintenance guy. Two, there were flecks of paint on his fingers, as well as the ones he’d missed on the nape of his neck where the hair was shorn away with all the finesse of a sheep shearing. Finally, the dead giveaway—the careful way he arranged the light as if it mattered as much to him as the arrangement of a blanket did to a mother pulling the edge of it up around her baby’s shoulder.

The painting had some rough elements. But Marcus knew he was looking at

phenomenal talent that wouldn’t be raw for long. Or whose rawness might even be a key element to how captivating it was. As he took a closer look, stepping forward, his sharp eye caught it. It was deliberate, that layering effect, and doing it deliberately took more control and ability than doing it by accident.

The subject matter was a man sleeping. There was a poignant loneliness to it, his hand hooked on the iron rail of the headboard, holding it as if holding onto someone, the other hand out of view, somehow managing to convey without crudity that perhaps in half sleep he was touching himself, wishing or dreaming it was the hand of a lover.

The tautness of the arm gripping the headboard was intriguing, the build toward release it conveyed.

Often Marcus didn’t know what it was about a piece of art that told him it would sell, that it had something special that would make it irresistible to the specific buyers he would contact about it. But he had a gift for it that made him take risks on work his peers wouldn’t touch. When his gaze shifted back to the artist, he lingered, studying him with the same intent scrutiny.

Thomas hadn’t had any polish, no style whatsoever. Just a straightforward man

with a shy smile and not an ounce of artifice to him. Surrounded by all the highbrow urbanity of New York City, he didn’t try to fit in, nor did he try to be James Dean and pretend he didn’t care or go out of his way to appear different. He was simply himself.

In time, Marcus would learn the city hadn’t chewed Thomas up and spit him out,

because he staked out his piece of ground and held it. He listened, he learned, he adapted, but he didn’t lose who he was. And the restless demon in Marcus’ soul was attracted to that. As much as Thomas thought otherwise, Marcus knew it wasn’t

Thomas who’d been the moth drawn to the flame, but him.

When his “maintenance man” at last noticed him, he’d done a double take. Marcus was so used to it he usually didn’t even acknowledge the reaction, but suddenly he was glad he had something to capture his attention. He made a point of never getting involved with the artists he represented, but he wanted the man
and
his art fiercely, immediately. They wouldn’t come as a separate package anyway. With true talent, it never did. He knew it because his own soul had been crafted out of the art created by others, after all.

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“It’s rough,” Thomas had said self-consciously, an amateur’s mistake, downplaying his own work. Marcus shook his head, stepped forward, close enough to smell soap and aftershave, and to hunger to taste. He cocked his head, appearing to study the painting, and part of him was.

“You can tell the artist became enthralled with the beauty of the model. He stopped, left his palette and touched him in his sleep, which would explain that smudge of paint on his shoulder there, and on his hip. Wouldn’t it?” He gestured.

He could feel the young man’s attention on him, and it was as if he could already feel the touch of his hands. “Yes,” Thomas said at last. “Most people don’t get that at first. But I think they sense it.”

Marcus turned to face him fully then, only a few inches between them. Thomas’

dark eyes coursed over his mouth, then he looked away, the lashes sweeping his

cheeks.

* * * * *

“He begged me to take on his work. Embarrassing really, but I had a weak

moment.”

Thomas choked on his piece of toast, shot him a glance. “Not how I remember it.”

“And how do
you
remember it?” Marcus gave him a curious, open expression, all innocence, while the hand on the back of his chair caressed, stroked the small spot between Thomas’ shoulder blades, a gesture that spoke as clearly as words.
Do you
remember how I had you in my bed that very night, fucking your brains out?

A dull flush started creeping up Thomas’ neck, but he covered it with a cough and glanced at Walter and Cathy. “Cathy, could you pass the lemonade, please?”

Walter was studying them, and now his gaze touched on Marcus’ hand, which had

shifted to rest on the juncture between Thomas’ shoulder and neck. For once, Thomas tried not to worry about what was going through the man’s mind and focused instead on the way it felt to have Marcus treating him with such easy affection and intimacy.

Like Andrew and Ben.

Walter had touched Cathy as they moved around the kitchen together, a hand to

her waist, a brush of thigh, almost unconsciously. Squeezing his arm, she’d gestured to him to show Thomas the upstairs. When he’d grunted, given her a surreptitious pat on her generous bottom before he complied, she’d swatted at him with a spoon.

“Well, if you’ve got more to do, you’re welcome to use my property for it.” Humor crinkled Walter’s eyes. “And if another of my girls goes into labor and you can handle that between sketches, that would be appreciated.”

“Can I see what you were doing?” Cathy asked, stealing a glance at the sketchbooks Thomas had stacked neatly on the side chair.

Thomas cleared his throat. “I’m an erotic artist, Mrs. Briggs.”

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“Really?” A mischievous grin crossed her face, dropping twenty years from it.

“Well then, I definitely want to see it. If something in these fields can inspire those kinds of thoughts, then maybe I’ll join Walter on his morning walk more often.”

“Cathy.” Walter chuckled, waved at Thomas. “Bring them to the table, let’s see

them. I’m sure it’s the closest we’ll ever to get to them, what with the prices they charge at those New York galleries.”

Thomas hesitated. Marcus squeezed his neck. “You’ve nothing to be concerned

about, pet. They’re brilliant, even in pencil.”

“Cathy did some painting in college. She even turned her hand to it again these past couple years, since we’ve hired summer help.”

“Walter, I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear about that. It’s nothing like what he’s doing.”

Walter snorted at her, rose and disappeared into their bedroom. He brought back a small framed picture, a detail of a purple wildflower Thomas was sure proliferated here in the spring.

“Walter, put that away. That’s like a crayon drawing next to what this boy does, if his work is shown in New York.”

“Pfft.” He arched a brow at Marcus. “She painted it for me when I was sick with pneumonia in the hospital and couldn’t be here to see ‘em. So it’s not available to your fancy gallery at any price.”

Thomas laid his sketchbooks facedown on the table to reach across Marcus and

carefully balance the small piece in his palms. “This is silk painting,” he said, impressed. “You used batik wax on the resist lines. Vibrant color. Cathy, this is really good.”

As she flushed with pleasure, Thomas added, “And you created it out of love.

That’s all that matters.” He handed it back to Walter. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to sell it. You can’t set a price on that. My mother got magnolia blooms and floated them in a bowl of water for my brother when he was recovering from his

accident. Not sure he cared much about it, but just knowing she did it for him when he was scared was enough.”

Marcus rose. “I’m going out for a cigarette.”

Thomas gave him a quizzical look. When his head was turned, Cathy reached for

the sketch pad and drew it over to her place before he could stop her, though Thomas reached out in automatic reaction. She gave his knuckles a light smack and winked.

Marcus stopped at the door and turned, eyes narrowing as she and her husband

bent over the sketchbook silently. Thomas waited, tension in his shoulders. It was the one of the embracing bodies, etched into the waving pattern of the grasses. He’d done it in graphite, since the charcoal was a more difficult medium to do on-the-go renderings without smudging, but Thomas had tremendous talent with the pencil and Marcus

knew where he was going with the ultimate work would be clear.

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Cathy tilted it up to the light from the window. “I bet you do these as easy as I breathe. I never could do people. But look at them, Walter. It’s like you can feel the wind on your skin, and this is just a sketch. You’ll have to drop us a postcard when you have a showing, Thomas. I’d love to see what it all looks like finished. Walter can take me to see the Rockettes like he’s been promising.”

It was a homey picture. The three of them together, sunlight making Cathy’s tidy brown hair gleam. Thomas was watching her, and Marcus could tell he was just

dumbfounded. He’d told Marcus he’d never shown his work to his own mother or

father. Never been invited to do so. Not since they’d found out his preferred subject material.

Marcus stepped out, closing the door.

Thomas looked over his shoulder at the soft click, watched Marcus move past the windows and disappear around the corner of the house.

“He doesn’t smoke, does he?” The question came from Walter.

Thomas shook his head, took the sketchbook back from Cathy when it was offered.

“No. I think…”

He wasn’t sure what made him say it to the two sitting before him, but the words seemed to tumble free without thought. “I think this reminds him too much of what I’ll be going back to at the end of the week. My family. North Carolina. A fiancée, of sorts.”

“A fiancée?” Cathy’s brow furrowed. “But…”

“My family needs me. She needs someone…undemanding, to take care of her.” He

said it quietly, zipping the sketches into the portfolio. “We’re friends, she and I. If I can’t be with Marcus, it doesn’t really matter. And I can’t be. My mother’s Catholic and where we live…”

He put the portfolio down on the floor carefully as if it were glass, because suddenly he had to control the overwhelming urge to pick it up and throw it. The raging frustration rose like bile in his throat, fast and dizzying. “Daralyn. She needs someone. She doesn’t know…but she knows I don’t love her like that. She’s delicate, just needs someone to…” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“You probably haven’t been able to tell anyone else, have you?” Cathy said softly.

“It’s in your face. You’ve got enough misery in those brown eyes to break a mother’s heart. Sometimes it’s easier to tell a caring stranger than the people who are too close.”

“What kind of girl wants a man who doesn’t love her?” Walter asked, brows

drawing down.

“A girl that’s been abused by the people she should have trusted most,” Thomas

said flatly. “Her dad and her uncle. They shared her, since she was six.”

“Oh my God.” Cathy put her hand to her mouth.

“The father’s dead, the uncle took off a few years back, so she’s got no one but my family. My mother took her under her wing at fifteen. She thinks it’s divine destiny.