» Author: Marie Sexton

Paris A to Z by Marie Sexton

April 6, 2011

Can Zach leave his past behind to secure his future with Angelo? Paris A to Z (m/m) by Marie Sexton, available from Dreamspinner Press.

Sequel to The Letter Z

Zach Mitchell and his lover Angelo Green are headed to Paris (along with their Coda friends Matt and Jared) to attend Jon and Cole’s wedding. Matt will have to face Jared’s former lover, and Angelo will have to spend an entire week with Zach’s ex-boyfriend. Between Matt’s jealousy and Angelo’s temper, Zach thinks they’ll be lucky to get through the week without one of the grooms being punched. But Zach soon realizes he should worry less about Angelo and more about himself. Facing the bittersweet memories of his past and his own guilt over breaking Jon’s heart is harder than expected, but Zach will have to find a way to leave his past behind if he’s to have any hope of the future he wants with Angelo.

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Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novella

Putting Out Fires by Marie Sexton

February 14, 2011

Putting Out Fires by Marie Sexton

A Coda Valentine’s Day Story
Matt Richards has never given much thought to Valentine’s Day, but when his lover of almost three years, Jared Thomas, hints that he feels unappreciated, Matt realizes he needs to do something. He’s determined to make this Valentine’s Day special, but nothing is going to turn out the way Matt plans.

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Genre: Contemporary
Length: Short Story

Strawberries for Dessert by Marie Sexton

August 6, 2010

Strawberries for Dessert by Marie Sexton is now available in paperback and eBook.

When Jonathan Kechter agrees to a blind date with Cole Fenton, he expects nothing more than dinner and a one-night stand… but he gets more than he bargained for in Cole. Cole is arrogant, flamboyant, and definitely not Jon’s type. Still, when Cole suggests an arrangement of getting together for casual sex whenever they’re both in town, Jon readily agrees.

Their arrangement may be casual, but Jonathan soon learns that when it comes to Cole Fenton, nothing is easy. Between Cole’s fear of intimacy and his wandering lifestyle, Jonathan wonders if their relationship may be doomed from the start—but the more Cole pushes him away, the more determined Jon is to make it work.

Genre: Contemporary

Pride In Des Moines

June 12, 2010

Heidi Cullinan and Marie Sexton will be at the Des Moines Pride Festival June 12th and 13th.  Stop by Dreamspinner’s table to say hello and to pick up an autographed copy of Heidi’s latest book, Miles and the Magic Flute.  Hope to see you there!

The Letter Z by Marie Sexton

May 12, 2010

The Letter Z by Marie Sexton is now available in eBook.

Sequel to A to Z

Zach and Angelo have settled into their new lives in Coda, Colorado, finding their place in the community with the help of their good friends Matt and Jared. Zach and Angelo are also working out the particulars of their relationship, but when they make a decision Jared disagrees with, Angelo finds himself at odds with his partner’s best friend. And his best friend’s partner.

When the four decide on a quick trip to Vegas, Angelo thinks he and Jared may be back on the right track. But a chance encounter with Zach’s ex-boyfriend will make Angelo question everything about himself and his relationship with Zach. Matt and Jared have always been there when Zach and Angelo needed help. But when it comes to sorting out their relationship, their friends may do more harm than good.

Goodnight!

March 5, 2010

It was great chatting with you all today.  I love to hear from you, so feel free to visit my site and ask questions or leave comments.

Happy reading from Zach, Angelo, Matt, Jared, and (of course) me!

Marie Sexton

http://MarieSexton.net/

A to Z

March 5, 2010

I don’t usually share my naughty scenes, but I decided to give you all a quickie.  It’s also the first thing you get to see from Angelo’s point of view.

*****

I wake up to hands on my hips and lips on my stomach. Zach’s hair is still wet, and cold drops fall on my skin. He’s lyin’ between my legs, and his tongue is movin’ over the tattoo on my stomach. I’m immediately painfully hard.

“You’re awake,” he says quietly and moves lower. My breath catches. My hips arch up toward him. He’s already anticipated me, and before I expect it, I’m pushin’ through his lips, feelin’ his tongue movin’ around my head.

I grab his hair before I even know what I’m doin’. I feel bad about it right away, though. Know how much I hate it when guys do it to me. “Is this okay?” I manage to ask.

He stops and looks up at me in surprise, and I wish I kept my mouth shut. He smiles. “Of course.” He puts his tongue on the bottom of my shaft, licks all the way up to the top. “Is this okay?”

Can’t believe he’s teasin’ me. I clench my fingers in his hair. “Zach, please….”

“What?”

I push his head back down. Not too hard. Not to be mean. Push just a little and say, “More, Zach.”

He smiles at me. “Anything you want.” His mouth closes over me again.

Seems like everything’s more intense with him. The water drippin’ onto my stomach is cold enough to give me goose bumps, but his mouth is so warm. He spends a lot of time circlin’ my ridge with his tongue, teasin’ that soft spot below my slit. Sucks hard but only on the head. Pressure builds and builds, and I have to push deeper, but when I try, his hands hold my hips to the bed. I try to push his head, but he won’t let me. Just teases ’round the top, over and over, ’til I cry out, “Zach!” Actually feel him smile then, and the pressure on my hips is suddenly gone. I thrust up. I push his head down. That sudden warmth slidin’ down my length is overwhelmin’. Like a damn breakin’. Orgasm hits me so hard, I almost cry out. Bite down on my lip hard enough to taste blood. Pull his hair so hard, I think it’s gonna come out in my hands. He just pulls me in deeper, holds my hips so I can’t pull away. That beautiful agony tears through me, out of me, into him, and still he holds me there, until all that’s left is the shakin’, and I’m tryin’ to catch my breath.

When I open my eyes again, he’s smilin’ down at me. He kisses me, licks my swollen lip. “You can pull my hair anytime, Ang.”

A to Z ebook giveaway

March 5, 2010

I recently finished the sequel to A to Z.  I have a free ebook of A to Z for the first person who can tell me its title.

The Promise

March 5, 2010

A tiny little short I wrote about Matt and Jared.  This takes place not long after the end of A to Z, and over a year after the end of Promises.  It’s short and, as Angelo will tell you, “so fuckin’ sweet it’ll make your teeth hurt.”

*****

The whole thing started because I wasn’t paying attention.

It was a Sunday afternoon in March.  I was sitting on the couch, reading.  Jared was grading homework while he watched TV.  That was when, seemingly out of the blue, he hit me with the question.

“Do you think you ever want to get married?”

In my defense, I was completely engrossed in my book.  I was down to the last hundred pages—the murderer was about to be revealed, justice was about to be served, and the hero was about to get the girl.  I definitely was not paying attention to the TV.

Did I ever want to get married?

I didn’t even pause to think about it.  The word “marriage” still held strictly heterosexual connotations for me.  I immediately pictured a tux.  An enormous cake.  Bridesmaids.

A bride.

I said the first thing that came to me—the worst thing I could possibly have said.  I opened my big mouth and said, “Of course not.”

The only response was a stunned silence, and when I looked over at him, the pain and disappointment in his blue eyes made me drop my book.  “What?”

“Nothing.”  He turned away from me, and I could see him trying to get his emotions back under control, trying not to show me how upset he was by my words.  He gathered up the stack of papers he was grading and took them into the dining room.

I finally looked at the TV, and that was when I realized what an idiot I was.  Another state had finally legalized gay marriage.  Not our state, of course.  But the announcement had obviously spurred the question, which had resulted in my unfortunate knee jerk response.  It wasn’t as if the idea of marrying him had never occurred to me.  It just hadn’t occurred to me at that one critical moment when it mattered most.  And now the man I loved more than anything in the world was hurt and angry and hiding in the other room, trying to distance himself from me.

I could just let it go.  I knew Jared.  He would give me a wide berth for the rest of the evening, only speaking if I spoke to him first, and not making eye contact.  When we went to bed, he would start out on his own side.  At some point in the night, he would move closer.  By morning he would be in my arms.  And we would pretend like nothing had happened.

But that wasn’t what I wanted.

I followed him into the dining room.  He hunched a little closer over the papers he was grading, not looking up at me.  I pulled a chair over and sat down facing him, so that his chair was between my knees.  I put my arms around him and buried my face in his mess of curls.  I loved him so much.  I loved the way his hair always smelled like the Colorado wind, and the stubborn way he would cock his head toward me when he was mad, so that I couldn’t quite get my lips onto his neck.  He was doing it now.

“Jared, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“It’s okay,” he said, even though it obviously wasn’t.  “If that’s how you feel—”

“It’s not.”

“—you don’t need to explain yourself.”

“I thought…”  What was I supposed to say?  “I thought you meant something else.”

If I had left him alone, he would have let it blow over.  But now that I was pushing him, he would push back.  He snorted and pulled away from me.  “I can see how a simple yes or no question might confuse you, Matt.”

And even though I felt like an ass, I knew I had to tell him the truth.  “I thought you meant to somebody else.”

He turned and looked at me with so much rage in his eyes that I backed up a little.  “Somebody else? What the hell would make you think—”

“I thought you meant to a girl!”

He froze, and I could see him processing that.  Jared had been aware of his homosexuality since high school.  I had only accepted my own attraction to him a year and a half earlier.  A year and a half wasn’t enough to completely erase thirty-three years of straight thinking.  He knew that.

He sighed, and some of the anger left his face.  He let me put my arms around him again.  This time, when I pulled him close and pushed my face into his hair, he angled his head away from me so I could get to his neck.

“You caught me off guard, Jared.  That’s all.”  He didn’t answer, but he finally relaxed against me.  “Please don’t be mad.  I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.  I promise.”

“It’s okay,” he said again, and this time I knew he meant it.  “It’s not like your answer had to be yes.  I just didn’t expect your ‘no’ to be quite so definitive.”

I pulled back so that I could look into his eyes.  “Is that what you want, Jared?  If so, just name a place.  Pick a place where it’s legal and I’ll book us on a flight right now.”

He blinked at me in surprise.  “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely.  We’ll go next weekend.  Or we can wait until summer and make a vacation out of it.  We can go alone, or we can take the whole family.  Whatever you want.”

He smiled at me then.  Jared smiled at just about everything.  It was one of the things that first attracted me to him.  “It doesn’t matter, Matt.  If we’re married or not, if the state recognizes it or not,” he shrugged, “it means nothing.”  One of his hands went to the back of my neck, and he put his forehead against mine.  “None of it changes the way I feel.”

I knew what he meant.  And yet, I also knew I wanted to do something for him, to prove how much he meant to me.

“Come to bed with me?” I asked him, and he smiled again.

“I have to finish grading these.  You go ahead.  I’ll be right behind you.”

“That’s not what I want tonight,” I said jokingly, and he laughed.

I was sound asleep when he finally joined me.  I woke up to him cuddling up to my back.  I leaned back against him, and he wrapped his arms around me.  “This reminds me of the first night I spent in this bed with you,” I said sleepily.

He was silent for a second or two, and then said lightly, “That was the second night.  The first night you spent in my bed, I was doped to the gills on vicodin, and you were fully clothed.”

He was right.  How had I forgotten that night?  Jared had been in a bike wreck.  Or, to be clear, he had been riding his bike home when he was hit by a car.  I remembered how it felt, seeing him with road rash all over one side of his body, half of his face a mess of bruises, and a gash on his temple that could have been so much worse.  He had been lucky.  “You could have died,” I whispered, and his arms tightened around me.

Looking back, I could almost pinpoint that night as the turning point for me.  That was the night I started to realize how much he meant to me.  The doctor had told me to keep an eye on him overnight, and to call right away if he started experiencing dizziness or nausea.  I had slept in his bed with him, and it had been all I could do not to wrap my arms around him and hold him close.  It hadn’t been a sexual urge, by any means.  I just wanted to know that he was there, and that he was really okay.  I wanted to reassure myself that he was alive and safe.  I wanted to feel him breathing.  Instead I had wrapped my hand around his wrist, so that I could feel his pulse against my fingertips.  I slept like that the whole night.

I was brought back to the present by Jared’s hand sliding down my stomach.

“Matt?”  It was only my name, almost a whisper, but that one word spoke volumes to me.  I knew what he was trying to say.  I heard in his voice an echo of the same tenderness I was feeling for him at that moment.  I turned toward him and pulled him into my arms, and he relaxed against me with a quiet sigh that was part contentment, part arousal.

Sex with women had always been about softness – soft skin and soft hair and soft curves.  There was nothing soft about Jared.  He was all elbows and collarbones and hipbones.  His arms were hard and strong, and his legs even stronger.  His hair was thick and coarse, and seemed to tangle around my fingers of its own accord.  Even his skin wasn’t quite soft, except in that spot just below his ear.  And if I seemed overly fascinated with that part of his body, it wasn’t because of that softness.  It was because when I kissed him there, I could smell him, and I could hear the low, urgent sounds he made as our bodies moved together.  Even now, after all this time, after so many nights spent together in this bed, I was still amazed at how that lack of softness turned me on so much.

I put one hand into his thick curls and angled his head so I could kiss the pale column of his throat.  “Say it for me, Jared,” I whispered into his ear.

His arms went around me, and for once he didn’t tease me.  He didn’t play the game.  He said immediately, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” I whispered as I wrapped my hand around both of our shafts at once and slowly started to stroke us together.  “You have no idea how much.”

There were no more words after that.  Just warm lips and his quiet moans, his pale skin against mine, legs tangled together, and slow burning passion that rocked me to my core.   There was no way in the world I was ever letting him go.  I knew that.  I had always known it.  But I wanted him to know it too.

He didn’t say anything after that night, and it seemed like he had forgotten the entire incident.  Maybe he had, but I hadn’t.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had failed him somehow, and I had no idea how to make it right.

The following weekend, Jared’s mom Susan asked me to take her and my mother to Boulder for the day.  Brian, Lizzy, and Zach all had birthdays coming up, and they wanted to go shopping.  We parted ways in the mall, and I resigned myself to several hours of boredom.  I was looking for a book store when I saw it: the jewelry store.  And inside, several different couples, shopping for rings.

The figurative light bulb in my head went on.  I knew immediately that was what I was looking for—a symbol.  Something that would show him how I felt.  I felt a little stupid for not having thought of it sooner.

I hoped I could shop without being bothered, but as soon as I started looking at the rings, one of the sales ladies came up to me.   She was about my age.  Pretty, but wearing way too much perfume.

“Can I take anything out of the case for you?”

I pointed out a couple of the rings, and she took them out for me to look at.  I didn’t want it to be fancy, and it definitely couldn’t be too delicate. Anything too soft wouldn’t survive all the mountain biking he did.  “I need it to be tough,” I told her.

“In that case, I would suggest platinum or titanium.  They’ll hold their shape better than plain silver.”

I was able to rule out platinum immediately based on price alone.  I chose titanium bands that were wide and unadorned.  “Can you engrave these?” I asked her.

She cocked her head at me, like she was confused, but said, “Of course.”

“Perfect.”

That same confused head-cock.  “Are you looking for an engagement band in titanium also?  Or do you want to consider white gold?”  She pointed at the next case over, which was full of women’s wedding rings.

I felt myself blush, and my pulse sped up a little.  I hated myself for still being embarrassed by it, but I wasn’t backing out now.  “No,” I made myself say.  “I need two, just like this.”

She wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.  It actually took her a few seconds to process that.  Then I saw comprehension in her eyes and she smiled.  It seemed genuine, too.  “Of course.”

She pulled out a bunch of little plastic rings and had me try them on until she found my size, then asked, “And what about the other ring?”

I had no idea what to say.  Jared’s hands were not as big as mine, but definitely larger than hers.  She saw my dilemma and said quietly, “Look at the others in the store.”

I looked around at the other men.  Specifically, I looked at their hands.  It was one of the other employees whose hands were closest to Jared’s.  I pointed to him, and she winked at me and whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t worry.  I’ll take care of it.”

I had to make an excuse to go back to Boulder a few days later to pick the rings up.  She gave them to me in little grey boxes—the kind with the hinged lid that you always see in the movies, when the guy gets down on his knee and opens the box while popping the question to his lady.  I didn’t know why, but the boxes bothered me.  I took the rings out and put them in my pocket, then dropped the boxes in the trash on the way to my car.

When I got home, I had a whole new dilemma—where to hide them.  Not that I expected Jared to be snooping around for anything, but I was irrationally worried that he would find them.  I finally tucked them inside a roll of socks and stuffed them in the back of my drawer.  Then I had to figure out when to give them to him.  We were past Valentine’s Day.  His birthday was still months away.  We hadn’t ever celebrated any kind of anniversary.  If we had one at all, it would have been in November.  Unless…

I had to check the title on my Jeep.  I had bought it from Lizzy the day after meeting Jared for the first time.  We had immediately become friends.  Of course, it had taken months for it to develop into anything more than that, and another six weeks for me to accept what those feelings meant.  Nonetheless, the anniversary of the day we met seemed like as good a day as any.

Except that day turned out to be Zach’s birthday.

Whether they liked it or not, Zach and Angelo had officially been adopted as part of our family.  Lizzy invited everybody to her house for dinner to celebrate.  After nearly nine months in Coda, Angelo had finally learned to relax a little around Lizzy, Susan, and my mother.  I even caught him smiling at my mom once.  Everyone was having a great time.

Everyone except me.

I wasn’t faking it well, either.  Jared was watching me out of the corner of his eye, and Angelo looked suspicious.  I couldn’t stop being nervous.  I had the rings in my pocket.  I had no idea what I was waiting for—a perfect moment, or a sign from heaven.

I was in the kitchen trying to decide how to proceed when Angelo came in.  He leaned against the counter next to me and elbowed me in the ribs.  “What the hell’s your problem?” he asked in a tone that would have set anybody who didn’t know him on the defensive.

I did know him, better than Zach even, in some ways.  Normally I wouldn’t have fallen for it.  But tonight I did.  “Nothing!” I snapped.

His eyes got a little bigger, but he just grinned at me.  “Okay, man.  Don’t freak out.”

Angelo was the person I cared about most in the world, second only to Jared.  He knew that.  He just stood there next to me, waiting me out.  I finally reached into my pocket and pulled out the rings.  I opened my hand so he could see them.

He looked at them for just a second, then grinned up at me.  “Gee, Matt.  Didn’t know you felt that way ‘bout me.”

I started to laugh, but right then Zach and Jared walked into the kitchen.  I cut my laugh short and quickly stuck the rings back in my pocket.  I could feel myself blushing.  I knew I looked guilty, and Jared was looking at me suspiciously.

Angelo grabbed Zach’s arm and steered him back toward the door.  “Wait,” Zach started to say, “I came to get—.”

“Later,” I heard Ang say to him as the door swung shut behind them, and Jared and I were left alone in the kitchen.  He turned to face me, standing in front of me, only a foot away, but not touching me.

“What were you and Angelo talking about?”

“Nothing,” I said, trying to sound casual.

He looked at the floor for a minute while he decided what to say, but finally looked up at me again.  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

He was smiling at me, but it was a strained smile.  “You’ve been acting funny the last couple of weeks, and it’s worse tonight.”  He stepped closer, but he still didn’t touch me.  I looked into his eyes, and I hated what I saw there.  Because I saw fear, and a hint of panic.  His voice shook a little, but he said, “Are you unhappy?”

“No!”  And this was exactly why I wanted to do this.  I didn’t want him to worry that I would leave.  I wanted him to know how much I loved him.  “No,” I said again, and pulled him close to me.  I grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head back so that he was looking up into my eyes.  “I’ve never been happier.”

He relaxed a little, and his smile finally made it all the way to his blue eyes.  “Then what is it?”

This was it.  I wished it was a better moment.  I wished I had thought it through more.  I wished we weren’t in Lizzy’s kitchen, with a sink full of dirty dishes behind me.  Still, I felt like it was now or never.

“Do you realize we met exactly two years ago today?” I asked him.

He looked at me in surprise.  “I knew it was this month.”  Of course he was smiling.  “I can’t believe you remembered the day.”

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“It is, actually.”

I leaned down and kissed neck, then confessed.  “I cheated.  It was on the title to the Jeep.”

He laughed.  “I’m still impressed.  I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

I reached into my pocket and took out the rings.  I took his hand, and placed both rings in it, but closed his fingers over them before he could see what I had given him.  I held his hand closed.  He was looking at me in amusement, his head cocked a little to the side, smiling like always.

“I thought about what you said Jared, and you’re right.  Whether we do it or not, it doesn’t change the way I feel.  But,” I had to stop and take a deep breath, “I wanted you to have something.  I wanted to prove it to you.”

He still looked a little amused, but also curious.  I finally let go of his hand and let him open his fingers and look down at what I had given him.  He stood there for the longest time, looking at those two rings lying one inside the other in the palm of his hand.  He didn’t move.  He didn’t speak.

“Yours is engraved,” I managed to say, although it was hard to make my voice work.

He took the smaller of the two rings and peered at the inside.  It said, “Yours forever.  I promise.”  He took a deep breath, and I could tell he was shaking as much as I was.  I couldn’t see his face, and he wasn’t saying anything in response.  My heart was pounding, and I was starting to worry.  “Jesus Jared,” I said, my voice trembling, “say something.”

Finally he looked up at me, and the smile on his face was beautiful.  There were tears in his eyes.  That was why it had taken him so long to look at me—he hadn’t wanted me to see that.  “Thank you.”

I pulled him against me and buried my face in his thick curls.  “If you ever want to make it official,” I told him quietly, “just say the word.”

He shook his head.  “This is enough.”

“Are you sure?” I asked him.

“I promise.”

A to Z

March 5, 2010

A quick excerpt from A to Z.

*****

Jared brought a six-pack of Dr. Pepper and a couple of fans, and we started painting. Even with the doors open and the fans on, it was hot. Angelo had his shirt off, and I was surprised by how distracting it was. As the hours crept past, I found my eyes drawn to him over and over again. When we first met, I had simply thought he was a punk. That had changed as we became friends. Still, I wondered why it had never occurred to me to really look at him.

He was rail-thin, but his arms were roped with taut muscles. His skin was dark and he had very little hair on his body. He had a starburst pattern tattooed around his navel and another one between his shoulder blades. His pants hung low on his hips. If they were even an inch lower, I was sure I would have been able to see pubic hair. He was painting the top of a doorframe, his head tipped back, and he was laughing at something Jared had just said.

He was beautiful.

A drop of paint fell and landed on his chest. I watched it slide down his chest, over his ribs, and onto the flat plain of his stomach. I could see the soft, downy hairs there and that white paint against his dark skin, and I had a sudden and ridiculous urge to lick it off of him. I was sure that it would taste just like vanilla ice cream. I knew his skin would be soft against my tongue, salty and delicious. I imagined kneeling in front of him, running my tongue over his ribs, sliding my hands up his thighs to grip his ass. I imagined seeing him with his head thrown back in passion. I felt myself growing hard at the thought.

“Zach?” he said suddenly.

I ripped my eyes away from that drop of paint, looked up at his face. Jesus, could he tell I had a fucking hard-on? He was staring at me with that lopsided grin, looking incredibly amused, but I didn’t think it was over the embarrassing bulge in my pants. Jared, on the other hand, was grinning at me like he knew exactly what was going on.

“What?” I sounded defensive, although I hadn’t meant to.

“Did you even hear me?” Angelo asked.

Had I heard him? Had he been talking? All I could remember was the way the paint had rolled over his stomach, and I had to resist the urge to look down at it again.

“Zach, what’s up with you, man?” he asked jokingly.

Jared made a choking sound, and I knew he was trying not to laugh at me. I needed Angelo to put his shirt back on.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked him.

“No.” He had spotted the paint and was trying to wipe it off. Now he had a white smear across his stomach. At least it didn’t look like ice cream anymore. “Why?”

“It’s cold in here.” In my defense it had finally dropped below eighty-five.

Angelo looked at me like I was crazy. “Then why you sweatin’?”

Jared really did start laughing now. Angelo turned and looked at him in confusion. I did my best to glare daggers at him. He clamped his mouth shut and started putting his brush away.

“What’s so funny?” Angelo asked him.

“Nothing.” But he was obviously struggling to get himself under control. “Listen, it is definitely hot in here. Way too hot for all three of us. I think I better go.”

“Already?” Angelo asked. “Why?”

Jared laughed again. “I gotta go tell Matt he won our bet.” He looked over at Angelo. “Ang, I was listening even if Zach wasn’t, and it’s a great idea.”

Angelo looked extremely pleased, and I was irrationally annoyed that it was Jared who had caused it. “Cool,” Angelo said to him. “We still on for dinner?”

“Sure. Just come on by when you guys are ready.” He was still smiling. He had to walk past me to get to the door, and as he passed me, he said very quietly, “Not blind anymore, are you?” I felt my whole face turn red. “See you later.”

Once Jared was gone, I looked back over at Angelo. He had gone back to painting the top of the door jamb. His skin was moving over the thin, taut muscles in his arms. His head was back. There was a drop of sweat in the little hollow at the base of his throat.

I was getting hard again.

I really needed him to put his shirt back on.

“Hey, it’s almost dinner time anyway,” I said to him. “Let’s go back to the motel and get cleaned up. I could use a shower.” A really, really cold shower.

He shrugged. “Okay.”

First we had to clean the brushes, or they’d be worthless by the time we got back from dinner. We crowded into the mop room and stood next to each other at the utility sink, rinsing out brushes and pans and rollers. There wasn’t much room, and his arm kept brushing mine. At least he had put his shirt back on. Still, I could smell him. He smelled like sweat and shampoo, and paint, and it was sexy as hell. Just standing next to him had me hard all over again. Had he rolled in pheromones that morning or something?

He was talking again and I was finding it very difficult to pay attention.

“The thing I never got ’bout Gone with the Wind was why Scarlett was so crazy over Ashley anyway, you know? Here she’s got Rhett on the line, and all she can think ’bout is Ashley, who’s a total fuckin’ pansy.”

“I never watched it.” I was watching his hands. He was washing out his paint brush, his long, thin fingers working through the bristles, and I thought about what it would feel like to have those fingers tangled in my hair. While I licked paint off of his stomach.

Seriously, this was getting weird.