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T
HE
following morning, I woke from the best sleep I’d ever had to find my head on Pete’s belly, my arms locked tight around his waist and his fingertips fluttering over my bare back. I raised my head, found his eyes, and he grinned. It was a lazy, lopsided grin. The warmth from it hit me. Suddenly I was wide-awake.

I moved up the bed and captured his lips. Perhaps I should have said something or paid attention to the fact we were both naked from the night before, but I didn’t. I just kept on kissing him until his widening grin made it impossible.

“What are you grinning about?”

Impossibly, his smile got bigger. “Maybe I’m just pleased to see you.”

I shifted to the side to take my weight off him. “Is it late?”

“No, it’s barely seven.”

Despite his mellow smile, his voice was ragged. I tilted my head, trying to decipher the emotion flickering in his tired eyes, but I couldn’t, and the harder I looked the more it faded. “Are you working today?”

“Not until tomorrow morning.”

I stared at his suspiciously hooded eyes, the same eyes he’d brought home from his double shift the night before. “Have you slept?”

“Some. Doubles fuck me up. If I sleep too much now, I won’t crash later.”

He’d explained that to me before, but I wasn’t convinced. I suspected he’d stayed awake because he was worried he’d wake up alone. Fuck. Did he really think I could run out on this? On
him
?

Pete rescued my bottom lip from the clutches of my teeth and let out a soft sigh. “You worry like an old woman. Maybe
you
should go back to sleep.”

“Maybe I’m not tired either.”

He answered my smirk with one of his own, and suddenly, the lack of clothes between us was impossible to ignore. Pete stretched up and met my lips in a searing kiss. He gripped my hips and rolled us over. I let out a measured breath and let him have his way. There was something totally captivating about watching him arrange our bodies the way he wanted them: me on my back with him straddling my waist. It was an unfamiliar position, and not one I’d ever considered before, at least not in a positive light, but I went with it, ignoring my pounding heart. Pete’s playful, dark eyes were enough to distract me from just about anything.

Pete slowly rolled his hips, grinding himself back on my already hard dick. “Are you game for some fun?”

My head hit the bedframe with an audible thud. “
Fuck
!”

Pete kissed his way along my jaw until he got to my lips. “Trust me, Ash, I’m going to.”

And he did, because it turned out his idea of fun was to push me up against the headboard and ride me until I was a shuddering, moaning mess. When it was over, he caught me in a fuck-hot kiss before he pulled away with a wink. “Good, huh?”

L
ATER
, after a shower that was much longer than strictly necessary, we spent the morning lounging on the couch and eating cereal out of the box. Pete was watching some shitty old western, but I was distracted. I had my hand under his sweatshirt and was tracing patterns on his chest, but though that shit was amazing, it wasn’t enough to stop the typical introspection spinning around in my head. “How did you know?”

Pete set down a box of Lucky Charms and dusted off his hands. “Know what?”

“That it would be good,” I clarified, hoping he’d know what I meant.

He did, obviously. Somehow he’d figured out how my weird brain worked. “Because I’d done that before,” he said. “I got lucky when I first figured out I was into men. I met an older guy who taught me a lot.”

I frowned. “Like what?”

“Like how being the bottom doesn’t mean you have to be submissive.”

“Submissive?”

Pete shrugged. “Yeah. I like balance. I’ve never believed that being with a guy meant I had to give up any part of myself. I like being fucked, and I like fucking, and despite what I know you think, there’s no reason I can’t do all that from the bottom.”

I pondered his words in silence. I’d always had full control of my sexual encounters, but I had no desire to dominate Pete. Having him on top of me had been incredible. I’d never done anything like it, and it blew my mind. I just didn’t get how he knew it would. The first time I ever fucked a boy was for a dare in the group home. I was fourteen and I didn’t know any better. Until Pete, sex had never held any kind of emotion for me. Building a relationship around it was bizarre, and I felt totally out of my depth.

“Can I tell you something?”

I glanced up from twisting the cord of his hooded sweatshirt around my fingers. Damn. I’d cut off the blood supply and I hadn’t even noticed. “Sure.”

“Do you remember that blowjob I gave you last week?”

I swallowed thickly. Like I was ever going to forget
that
blowjob. He’d jumped me as I was emerging from the bathroom, fresh from the shower. I already had my clothes on but somehow, I’d ended up naked again with him on his knees in front of me. It was the first time he’d given me head, but the moment my dick hit the back of his throat, I knew it was going to be the death of me. Pete was a sensible kind of guy, and he always knew what he wanted to say, but whenever I blew him he turned into a jabbering idiot. That day, it felt like he was on a mission to exact his revenge and he didn’t let up until I was ripping the damn doorframe from the wall.

Now who’s incoherent, huh?

I swallowed again. “I remember.”

“That was the first time I’d ever done that.”

I blinked. “What?”

Pete shrugged. “I never wanted to before. It never appealed to me until I met you.”

“Not even with your sex coach?”

“Nope.”

“Why me?”

He shrugged again. “Because sex isn’t just about getting off. It’s about making someone you care about feel good and paying it forward.”

I never understood when people talked in riddles at me. Ellie did it all the time. She’d throw some bullshit cliché at me as though it explained everything and expect me to understand. I knew that wasn’t what Pete was doing, that somewhere in his words he was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t get it. Until him, my sex life had consisted of finding a willing partner—guy or girl: it didn’t really matter—and fucking them until the urge had been snuffed out. But Pete’s sentiment struck me, because I was finding out that unless he distracted me first, nothing was more important than making him feel good.

Beneath me, he shifted and lay back down. His faint grimace brought me out of my musings. “Are you okay?”

He made a noncommittal noise, closing his eyes as he stretched his back. “Yeah, it’s just been a while.”

“A while, huh?”

He hummed again and left the bait hanging. His last encounter with a woman had been his ex—the girl I’d seen him with just a few weeks after I met him. It didn’t bother me; the idea of him with a chick was strangely hot. Conversely, though, thinking about him with a
man
turned my stomach. But I still wanted to know.

Pete sighed and opened his eyes. “You know you’re loudest when you don’t say anything at all?”

“Um, no?”

He shook his head slightly. “Never mind. After I broke up with my ex, I hooked up with a few guys. The last one was a week after you moved in, but not a lot really happened. You were under my skin already and it felt all wrong.”

I thought for a moment. His reasoning made sense. My experience with the girl from the bar that I’d ditched had been similar. “What did you do with those other guys?”

Pete interpreted the real question lurking beneath with a wry smile. “Both. I told you, I’m happy either way. But this isn’t just about me. When did you last fuck a guy?”

“Back in Philly,” I said. “I lived in a halfway house. Lots of people came and went. There were a few guys I hooked up with. The last one was just before I came here.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know. He was just some guy who lived across the street.”

Pete shifted his arm and tugged me down to lie on him more. “Lots of one-night stands, huh? Babe, they’re bad for the soul.”

I snorted and ignored the way his casual term of endearment made me feel warm from the inside out. From what I could gather, he had his fair share of one-night fucks scattered around the city. “You’re not a one-night stand.”

“That’s sweet.”

I punched his arm. He grinned briefly before he fell serious again. “What about before that? You were in Philly a long time before the hostel.”

I frowned. “Do you mean on the street?”

“Yeah, I’m guessing you didn’t get much action there, unless….”

He trailed off, as though he wished he hadn’t asked, but for once, the unspoken question wasn’t lost on me. I knew exactly what he meant. He was asking me if I turned tricks on the streets. “I wasn’t a hooker, but I wasn’t… celibate?” His nod reassured me I had the right word. “Yeah, I wasn’t celibate either. There were other kids about who liked to mix it up.”

Pete looked contrite. “Hey, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ve told you before, I don’t care about any of that shit. I was just curious. Anyway, how did you have actual sex on the street without getting arrested?”

I pressed my lips to his neck to let him know I wasn’t pissed as I considered his question. “Quickly and quietly.”

Pete chuckled and the vibration rumbled through the couch. “I can do it quickly, with you at least. You’re bad for my stamina. Not sure about the quiet part.”

“You are pretty loud.”

Pete grinned easily. He wasn’t shy about the noises he made, and I loved that about him. He was so comfortable in his own skin.

“What about condoms?” he said suddenly. “Where did you get those?”

I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t know they existed until I read it on a poster, but don’t worry, I’m clean. I got tested when I came off the streets and every three months for a year after that. I get tested every six months for work now. Ted makes us all go together.”

“Wow. I think that’s the most you’ve ever said in one breath.”

“Shut up.”

He made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a yawn. I didn’t have to look to know he was falling asleep. I watched him for a while, and when I was sure I wouldn’t disturb him, I got up and fetched my work book. I had shit to do, and relaxing with him sleeping beside me had put me in the perfect mood to do it.

I
DIDN
’
T
look up as the first sirens passed by the shop. It was midmorning. I was already on my second piece—a gothic sleeve that required my full attention—and I wasn’t paying attention to the world around me. The guy I was working on was the silent, stoic type, and that suited me just fine. With my tattoo gun and a head full of Pete, I had plenty to keep me occupied.

Pete had been working what he called graveyard shifts for the past few days. Apart from a snatched breakfast together, I’d hardly seen him, though we’d found enough time for other things. A smirk threatened to split my face. I mopped some stray blood from my client’s skin. It was rare we didn’t find time for
that
.

Despite all the fun, though, our physical relationship had become a learning curve. Pete wasn’t kidding when he said he was versatile, and I was beginning to understand what he meant about balance. When he was tired and grouchy, he wanted it hard and rough, like he wanted to be so worn out by sex he forgot everything else. That was fine by me—that kind of sex I knew well—but it was the other side that I enjoyed most… those lazy mornings, or midnight encounters when he would climb up over me and teach me how to fuck a different way. I was learning, slowly, and I was damn sure enjoying the lessons.

“That’s the fourth in the last ten minutes. There’s some heavy shit going on somewhere.”

I blinked. Sometimes I forgot there was a person attached to the skin I was working on. I followed my client’s gaze to the window. “Fourth what?”

“Fire truck; three ambulances too. Something big is going down.”

I frowned and changed the needle in my gun. Pete didn’t work in Lincoln Park, but it wasn’t unheard of for him to be called to another district. I tried to ignore the nagging worry in my stomach. He wasn’t home when I left for work at 8:00 a.m. It was nearly midday now. They wouldn’t send him out on a big job when he’d been working all night, would they?

Even as I thought it, I knew it was wishful thinking, but there was little I could do except swallow my concern and get on with my work.

When my next client didn’t show, Ted sent me out to buy sandwiches. I left the shop in a world of my own, distracted by trying to remember what everyone wanted and how much money they’d given me, but the moment I stepped onto the street I knew something was wrong. The city felt wrong. I glanced around and observed the people hurrying along the busy streets. There seemed to be more of them than usual—businessmen, construction workers, women in weird shoes—and they were all walking in the same direction. I closed my eyes, trying to convince myself to give a mental snicker. People walking on the streets? Seriously, what was so strange about that?

Agitation crept over me. I ducked into a convenience store and got in line to buy some cigarettes. I’d been smoking less since I’d moved in with Pete. It had a been a day or so since I’d smoked at all, but as my hands twitched in my pockets, I knew I needed them.

I waited in line, drumming my fingers on my thigh. When I got the front, the cashier turned and retrieved my usual brand. I handed over the money, keeping my head down, but the cashier was the chatty kind, the kind who talked to you whether you talked back or not.

“Long walk home?”

I shook my head. “Nah, I live a few blocks away.”

The pimply kid whistled through his teeth. “Lucky you, everyone else has got to schlep across the city.” I stared blankly as he counted my change into my hand. “L’s closed at the Loop,” he elaborated. “Big pileup right outside the station. A bus, a truck, and a bunch of cars.”

“Was it bad?”