I threw back the last swallow of my beer and bent to pull a new one from the fridge.

“You’re letting all the cold out, fucker,” Angus remarked, jumping down from his perch on the counter in the galley style kitchen at the back of his apartment.

It was two o’clock in the morning, and I’d only gotten home an hour ago. Too amped up from my night in the kitchen, I’d tromped upstairs intent on a long, hot shower. That’s when Angus, an artist who kept fucked up hours like me, stuck his head out the door and invited me in for a beer and a toke.

During my wilder days, I’d been into some seriously hardcore shit, but now I limited my vices to weed and cock.

As indiscriminate with my bed partners as I’d been with my drugs, I’d fucked anyone and everyone who’d offered … and let them fuck me right back. But ever since I’d cleaned up my act and got my shit together, I’d picked a team and stuck with it. The truth was, I preferred the hard angles and strong limbs of a man—a body so like my own that I knew how rough I could be, what felt good and didn’t.

Which had me thinking about Liam again and the innate strength that radiated off him in waves. He was commanding, a leader of men. I’d watched a few YouTube videos of his matches, and he was an animal. A warrior. A modern-day gladiator. Now, with my eyes closed, I pictured him moving over me, his callused hands pushing me down into the mattress as he pounded into me with brute force.

With another hit of the joint, I pushed that picture out of my head. I was pretty sure Liam was straight. I’d waffled on it, but then when he’d mentioned having a few girls on rotation back in Dublin, I’d told myself not to go there. Then there was his reaction when those assholes at the party had hinted he was gay. Given the two, I’d decided I was barking up the wrong tree.

Except, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t.

I didn’t think I’d imagined his pupils dilating with lust when I’d tease him with innuendo and double entendres, or the way he’d watch my hands in rapt fascination as I prepared food in front of him. And then there were his groans of frustration when he’d glance away from me every now and again for no reason that I could make out.

So often these last few weeks, I’d wanted to test my theory. Instead of inviting Liam to the party, I’d been tempted to ask him upstairs to fuck me until we both passed out from exhaustion. But with that offer on the tip of my tongue, I’d pulled it back.

Which was a shame because I really fucking wanted him.

I pulled a lungful of smoke into my lungs and held it in for a beat. When I blew it out, Angus reached for the joint and the cherry flared to life in the dark.

“Hey, do you know Liam Donnelly?” I asked suddenly.

Angus knew every gay man in the city, and maybe half of the ones in London and Manchester, too. If Liam were gay, not only would Angus know, he’d be able to rifle off a list of everyone the object of my desire had ever fucked. I didn’t know how Angus knew everything he did, but my neighbor was a walking encyclopedia of gay hookups.

He chuckled and shook his head. “He’s not into dudes, dude.”

“That’s not what I was asking.”

“No?” he said, taking another hit and holding his breath. When he exhaled, he said, “Because you have that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you’re hungry for some guy’s cock.”

I glared at him as I reached for the joint, hating that he could see right through me.

“Fine. Why do you want to know?” he asked, his gaze probing.

“Just curious,” I answered, waiting for Angus to spill the beans. He would; he just needed to fuck with me first.

He laughed and started coughing. Waving the smoke away, he said, “You don’t like athletes, remember?”

As a rule, that was true. Jocks tended to take themselves way too seriously and were some of the most repressed motherfuckers I’d ever met. Over the years I’d known a few gay soccer players, but they’d been so far in the closet that all they ever talked about was pussy. Meanwhile, I’d been sucking their cocks or taking their asses when no one was paying attention.

Even so, I’d never held it against them. Fuck, I could even understand their predicament. No one liked the idea of a gay athlete—especially one who was supposed to be big and braw, the picture of modern masculinity.

But that didn’t mean I had to be their secret fuck buddy either. At thirty-two-years-old, I didn’t have the time or the inclination to be sneaking around or playing games.

Well, not those types of games at least. Because there were quite a few I wouldn’t mind playing with Liam Donnelly. What was the saying—Ruck me, maul me, make me scrum? Yeah, I could be down with that.

Provided he was too.

“What else do you know about him?”

Angus rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I told you. You’re barking up the wrong goal post. He’s straight as a board.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked, stretching out on the sofa.

“Haven’t met him myself, so I can’t say for certain. That’s just the word on the street. Why?”

“It’s not the impression I get is all.”

“Oh really?”

I ran a hand through my hair and fisted it at the roots, releasing some tension. “We’ve hung out a few times, and unless I’m mistaken, he’s giving off some pretty obvious signals.”

“You’ve hung out how?”

“He comes into the restaurant a couple nights a week, and I took him to Claude’s on Friday.”

Angus coughed and sat up. “Wait, that was Liam Donnelly?”

“You saw us?”

Angus laughed uproariously. “No, but he made quite the impression on the others. I heard he almost shit himself when Rowena asked him to paint her. Gregor said he wouldn’t even look at her tits.” Angus tugged on his goatee. “Maybe he is gay. Those things are spectacular.”

“You don’t like tits, remember?”

“I’m an artist, Lachlan. I can appreciate the human form without wanting to stick my dick in it.”

“Nice,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “I don’t know, man. If anything, he looked disgusted when he overheard Gregor say he might be gay.”

Angus answered, leaning back on the sofa. “Was it disgusted like he wanted to puke at the idea of fucking a man,” Angus asked, leaning back on the sofa, “or was it disgusted like that’s exactly what he wanted, and he hated himself for it?”

I tried to recall the look on Liam’s face to interpret which it might have been, except I couldn’t be certain. “None. Both. I don’t know. It was just regular old disgust.”

“You like him?”

“Yeah,” I answered with a resigned sigh. “I do.”

We fell into a relaxed silence for a few long moments. Eventually, Angus asked, “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He said he wants to be friends.”

“Friends?”

“Yeah. Just friends. If he wanted anything more, he had the perfect opportunity to tell me. At first, I thought that’s where he was going with this whole nervous speech, but then he friend-zoned me.”

“Can you do that—just be his friend? I can’t imagine hanging out with someone I wanted the way you obviously want this guy, all the while knowing I couldn’t ever have them.”

“I don’t know,” I breathed. “You’re probably right, except …”

“Except what?” he asked, stubbing out the joint.

“I don’t know. You didn’t see him.”

“See what? Was he batting his eyelashes at you like a besotted fool?”

I waved away his ridiculous teasing. “No, of course not. But he was looking at me. You know the look I’m talking about.”

Angus’s face took on a dreamy, far away quality. “You mean the one where his eyes follow your every move, and you know he’s watching you even when you can’t see him actually doing it.”

I rubbed my hand across my stomach, Angus’s question causing something dark and molten to shift in my core. “Yeah, that one.”

“Fuck, I miss that,” he said, shooting out of his seat and heading toward the kitchen. “The hunter and the prey. The primal need to conquer and fuck.”

I closed my eyes and pictured it: Liam stalking me, finding me in a dark corner, pushing me up against the wall. Him biting my shoulder as his hand reached around and cupped my cock. The tight squeeze he’d give it before growling in my ear that he was going to make me beg.

“I could help you out with that,” Angus said from above.

When I opened my eyes, he was staring down at the bulge in my jeans and licking his lips like he couldn’t wait to taste me. We’d fucked a few times, so I knew first-hand he was a champion cock sucker. While in the past I would have jumped at the offer, his wasn’t the mouth I wanted. “Nah, but thanks for the offer.”

Angus shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, dropping into a chair on the other side of the room. “But all this talk of fucking has me hard, so if you don’t mind …” He unzipped his trousers and pulled out his dick. Fisting it, he stroked up and over the head, his eyes trained on me—welcoming, daring.

Despite the thrum of desire coursing through me, I made my way to the door. Even if I gave in to my body’s demands for release, afterward I’d be unfulfilled and wanting more—wanting something and someone I couldn’t have.

“Nah, I’m going to try and get some sleep,” I answered, stepping out into the hall with my hand raised in a wave of goodbye.

But I didn’t sleep. At least not right away. I fucked my hand as I pictured Liam’s eyes watching me watch him. And when I woke up the next morning, my dick hard and my balls full, I did it all over again.