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The question was whether it was worth it to him to give himself a week of Marcus again, now that he knew how intolerably hard it was to walk away from him, be

without him. Knowing he’d have to sever that link and do it to himself all over again at the end of the week.

But Marcus and his art together…even if Thomas had to let Marcus go again, if he rediscovered his art, he could have that. Maybe that would help fill the aching void enough that it wouldn’t be as difficult this time.

And maybe Thomas wanted Marcus so much he just didn’t give a damn how hard

it was going to be to walk away again.

“No,” he said. “No. I won’t.”

Marcus nodded. “Hold onto the ticket. It’s yours to use or not to use.”

Thomas held it out. He couldn’t afford the temptation. “No. You take it back. Give it…” The words “to someone else” hung on his tongue as if he were pierced by a fish hook whose barbed tip he couldn’t dislodge.

He’d tortured himself with images of other hands on Marcus’ body, other men

seeing that thick cock, Marcus thrusting into them. He woke from dreams about it, wanting to smash and tear something. He usually settled for going out in the middle of the night in nothing but his pajama bottoms to chop wood, the pain singing through every muscle, his fingers knotting with the agony of clenching the axe too hard.

“I can’t, Marcus. I just can’t.”

Marcus turned for his car. Didn’t take the ticket. Thomas clutched it with the check Marcus had picked up, smoothed and handed back to him. He swallowed. Goddamn it.

“Marcus, are you—” He bit it off, knowing it was wrong to show how he felt. As

powerful as the physical attraction was between them, it was even more dangerous to give Marcus the edge of knowing how much deeper it went for Thomas still. In fact, if he was forced to look at himself in a mirror and be brutally honest, Thomas knew he hadn’t realized how much he loved Marcus Stanton until he left him. He was pathetic.

Marcus turned at the driver’s side door. He’d put his sunglasses back on, distancing himself, and Thomas felt exactly like what he was, an awkward, gangling kid dealing 24

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with a man who was one step ahead of him on everything. Swiss watch, self confidence and a strong sense of his identity.

“What, pet?”

The endearment was uttered in a neutral tone Thomas knew could hide anything

from hurt to scornful amusement.

“Are you…are you being careful? I’m not…fishing. I don’t have any right to be, to ask anything. And I’m not,” he added quickly. He just knew Marcus. Knew that there was a reckless side to his personality, odd moments of melancholy that had once been known to compel him to go out for an evening’s entertainment wherever he could find it, not giving a damn about protection. It was a side of Marcus few knew about, and he’d only picked up on it from bits and pieces of things Marcus had revealed about himself, most of them inadvertently.

Thomas had been able to balance Marcus’ dark side, calm it, where friends who’d known him longer couldn’t even touch it. When Thomas had asked Marcus about that, to determine if he was imagining it or not, Marcus had been sitting on the balcony staring out in the night, seeing shadows Thomas didn’t understand.

“It’s because you’re an artist, Thomas. I don’t mean a person who paints or sculpts, though that’s one form your perception takes. You see into the souls of others more easily. It should make me want to close all doors against you, because my soul is the last thing I want anyone to see. But—”

“But…” Thomas had prodded. But Marcus had said nothing else, his green eyes

lost in the darkness.

“I just want to know you’re taking care of yourself,” Thomas said, coming back to the present. “You matter.”

Marcus left the driver’s side, came back across the gravel in his Italian shoes.

Thomas held his ground as Marcus picked up his hand and ran his fingers over the tip of the injured one. “Same goes, pet.” Though the shades concealed Marcus’ eyes, Thomas felt the intensity of his focus. “Come to the Berkshires. The address is written on the back of the ticket. Don’t say no. Just think about it and be willing to give it a try.

One week.”

“One week when you’ll try to get me back in your bed.”

“Oh, there won’t be any trying on that one, Thomas. We both know that’s not

what’s in question.” Marcus’ lips curved. Thomas felt his cock respond as if on a chain that Marcus could jerk to attention whenever he wished.

“You’ll be in my bed.”

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Marcus managed to drive to the end of the dirt road, weaving through the flanking trees that put him out of sight of the hardware store. Then he had to stop. He gripped the steering wheel, fighting the urge to pound on it. He wanted to destroy something inside the car, rip it apart to make it match the way he felt inside.

God, he’d wanted to just eat him alive. Eat him alive and then force him into the car, drive away from the deceptively picturesque rural scene that was tinted with the backlight of hell, because it was a prison for Thomas.

“Jesus Christ. And here comes the warden,” he muttered under his breath.

Thomas’ mother stopped her late model SUV behind his rental, got out and moved

with purpose toward his window, a steely glint in her blue eyes. Marcus toyed with the grimly amusing idea of rolling the car forward just a few feet to see if Elaine Wilder would chase him. Instead, he pushed the window control, met her stare for stare as she squared off with him and crossed her arms.

Her face was hard and strained, unattractive in this light, showing all that had happened to her over the past year. He wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic right now though, even as he acknowledged the wear and tear.

“You can’t leave well enough alone, can you?” she said. “He didn’t come back into the store. Just walks away from us. Across the field, as if he’d rather be anywhere else.”

“Imagine that.”

Her lips tightened. “This is his home. Where he belongs. You don’t know him the way you think you do. He needs roots, a home. He doesn’t belong in a big city like New York.”

“That’s right. There are no families in New York. We’re all just a bunch of

wandering nomads addicted to Starbuck’s.”

“Don’t get fresh,” she snapped. “I’m not saying people can’t be happy in that life.

But he can’t live that way. If you care for him at all, you know it. Someone like you is not going to be happy with my son forever.”

“Please tell me this is not the crap about gay men being unable to commit.”

“Your unnatural sin, and the fact you’ve dragged my son into it, isn’t the point.

You’re far more sophisticated than he is. Older.”

“Not by much.”

“You and I both know there’s a big difference between a man’s mind at twenty-

seven and a man’s mind at forty. And you’re the type of person who runs in circles most of us around here only see on TV.”

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“Are you saying he’s not good enough for me?” He delivered it with sarcasm,

knowing being a wiseass was not going to help the situation, but he wasn’t in a peacemaking mood. Not even close.

“No. I’d never say that.” She lifted her chin, stared him down. “I’m saying that’s not what will make him happy.”

Marcus had to swallow the urge to swing open the door and knock her off her

sturdy and hideously ugly garden clogs, but she continued, her voice cold. “My son is special, a pure soul. But I can see your soul, Marcus Stanton. You’re the kind of man who won’t look past your own selfish interests to see what he really wants and needs.”

“Well to borrow one of your quaint country sayings, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?” he snapped. “Have you looked at him lately?”

At her blank look, his control broke. Marcus unbuckled the seat belt and came out of the car, abruptly enough she started back. He slammed the door behind him, making the vehicle rock from the impact.

“He’s dropped thirty pounds since I last saw him. He’s got pits under his eyes, so he’s not sleeping, and what the fuck is this nervous tic he’s got going?” He took his hand, rested the heel of it on his hipbone and pressed his thumb into his abdomen above the navel area, below the rib cage. “He did this four times while I was talking to him. His stomach is bothering him.”

“You don’t realize what this family has been through, what—”

“We all go through shit,” Marcus said bluntly. “None of it gives any of us the right to crush the dreams of the people we love.”

“He’s lost his father. His brother is crippled. He has a lot of responsibility—”

“All of which you’ve dropped on him and made him turn his back on what he was

meant to be. An artist.”

“His art celebrates a lifestyle damned in the eyes of God. If he has to give that up, it’s the sacrifice he must make to save his soul. You dragged him into that lifestyle.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Nothing is going to make your boy straight, Elaine. I didn’t drag him into anything. But you’re absolutely right. This is a battle for his soul, and while you may think I’m Lucifer, you sure as hell aren’t God. This isn’t about you or me. It’s about the gift that defines his soul more than you or I will ever hope to do. If he doesn’t have that for himself, neither of us will have anything.”

She opened her mouth to retort and he took another step forward, shamelessly

using his height to intimidate her. To her credit, she planted her feet this time and clenched her fists, but he pressed on.

“And while we’re on the whole God thing, would you like to know what an

ignored ulcer is? It’s a suicide.”

Being a Catholic, she snapped to attention, as he expected her to. “What are you—”

“When a person who is torn between who he is and who everyone wants him to be

gets an ulcer, and then ignores it, it’s because some part of him hopes for the day it 27

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explodes into something that allows him to escape the frigging Prometheus’ rock he’s chained on.”

“You’re talking nonsense. He just needs to get his mind straight here, marry

Daralyn…”

“What?” Marcus’ eyes narrowed. Apparently his expression became cold enough to

make her hesitate. “What the hell are you talking about?”

The profanity snapped her spine straight. “Daralyn. He’s been seeing a girl while he’s down here. They’ve talked about being engaged.”

“Really?” He lifted a brow. “Poor girl, if you actually screw up Thomas’ head

enough to get him to go along with that.”

“Before he came to New York, he never showed any inclinations—”

“Oh, bullshit,” he snarled.

Her hand flashed out, slapped his face. The sting and the shock of it reverberated between the two of him. During a long, frozen moment, something shuddered up from his gut, a primal, violent urge he hadn’t unleashed in a long time. Apparently Elaine recognized it, because her voice went up an octave, becoming shrill.

“That’s the last time you’ll curse at me,” she said.

“That’s the last time you’ll ever raise a hand to me, unless you want to be slapped right back. And I hit harder.”

He didn’t bother to modulate the menace in his tone, even took some pleasure in the paling of her expression. As if suddenly realizing how isolated she was on this part of the road with him, Thomas’ mother took another step back, her eyes widening.

“Don’t believe everything Rory tells you about fags,” Marcus said, low. “I can

assure you that most of us are
not
pansies. You lie to yourself all you want, but you won’t lie to me. The mother is almost always the first to know. You noticed it when he was young, maybe even three or four years old. You probably weren’t experienced or worldly enough to put your finger on it, but you knew your son was different

somehow. Something about his makeup that set him apart from Rory or Celeste.

“It isn’t always the stereotypical things,” he continued, “but very often it is. You saw it, you knew it as he got older and particularly as the world changed, enough that it touched even your closely sheltered life.

“Thomas is a gifted erotic artist who focuses with absolutely unparalleled passion on the male form. He’s got more talent than anyone I’ve ever seen, with one exception, and I think he’ll match that man in time. A man who, by the way, pulls in well over a million a year now from his art.”

“Money is Satan’s tool.”

He nodded. “It’s God’s tool too. Otherwise, I expect churches wouldn’t have

collection plates. It can keep this place going as well.”

Shaking her head, she backed away, this time he suspected from the threat of his words instead of his fists. Her jaw tightened, visible evidence of the wall she was 28

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between him and Thomas. Seeing the tears she was struggling not to shed in front of him, he knew she recognized everything he’d said, and didn’t want to hear it. He shouldn’t have taken it this far. He’d stepped hip deep into the well of blind, impotent fury goaded by her bigotry and his roused feelings about Thomas’ situation.

Thomas would kill him for locking horns with his mother. But damn it, she’d

tracked him down, and her timing was lousy. He was beyond rage, seeing the lost weight, the hopeless resignation in Thomas’ eyes, the fucking cut on his hand from handling a fucking wood chipper, for God’s sake.

Thomas lived in his right brain, where creation took place. He mislaid keys and credit cards regularly. He’d leave his car running on the street outside his pathetically small warehouse lease to go back in and get something. While he was there, he’d get an idea for a painting and start sketching it out, completely forgetting about the car or where he’d been going until Marcus stopped in and found the car had run out of gas.

And then he’d just shrug, smile that beautiful smile, his lashes sweeping down as he kept at what he was doing.

Marcus had concluded that Thomas’ guardian angel had to be the one who guarded