Royce set his laptop on the couch in Marc’s family room, then walked back through the house to the courtyard. He stepped outside and closed his eyes as the cool night air dried the sweat on his body.

He’d just screwed up. Royally.

After years working at Ward Security, this was the first time he’d ever been tempted by a client and instead of handling it with his usual strength of will, he’d just busted through all his own personal rules as well as those his company set. Not that anyone ever lost their job for fucking clients—but still, it pissed him off that he’d given in. Damn. Just…damn. Marc Foster was so sweet in bed, he made Royce’s teeth ache.

Lifting his eyes to the night sky, he didn’t see the moon and stars; he saw the sensual curve of Marc’s back and his tight, perfect ass. He saw the way the man had rolled beneath him with a grace Royce had never seen, and he’d spent a year living with the most graceful man he’d known before this.

He ran his fingers over the archangel tattoo, tracing a face he knew from memory. It had been five years, but he still missed Michael just as fiercely as he had in the beginning. The universe had taken him from the world, viciously snatching him away before he’d reached his twenty-sixth birthday. Before Royce had a chance to give him the ring he’d taken a few extra rougher jobs to pay for.

One of those jobs had been the reason for Michael’s murder.

Guilt and nausea slammed into his stomach so hard, he groaned and staggered back into the stone wall. Memories of that slim body covered in blood played through his head, and he gritted his teeth, because they came as fresh as they had in the beginning. And he knew why. Being with Marc had felt similar. Not the same, no, but the strength of his reaction to the man—that was close. Too fucking close for his peace of mind.

Cursing under his breath, he stalked back into the house, grabbed a glass out of the cabinet, and filled it with water. It took two full glasses to kill the dryness in his mouth and throat.

He took a third with him to the couch and booted up his laptop. The dark room smelled like vanilla. He’d noticed Marc liked the scent because the house was full of candles, potpourri, and other vanilla-scented things. Sometimes, it seeped into his hair, filling Royce’s senses when he nuzzled into it for the benefit of Lilah.

Royce snorted. Yeah, he nuzzled because of Marc’s sister. He could keep telling himself that all he wanted, but it wasn’t going to make it true. He couldn’t keep his nose, nor his hands, off the man. And now that he’d tasted him, and had his dick inside him, it was going to be even harder not to cart him off to the bedroom every chance he could.

He hadn’t wanted anyone this badly since Michael.

Quinn’s software loaded, and he propped the laptop on his legs, determined to focus on his damn job. He pulled up the recordings from the cameras in the house. He watched Gabriel, Richard, and Lilah walking through Marc’s home like they owned it. Saw Richard poking around the library. Royce’s hands curled into fists. He didn’t understand their proprietary attitudes toward their baby brother. They gathered in the kitchen, and he wished they’d set up cameras with sound. They were at angles that made it impossible to lip-read more than the occasional word here and there. Lilah talked with her hands a lot, and when she disappeared through the door to the wine cellar, he wished they’d set up a camera down there as well.

That would be remedied tomorrow. He shot off a quick note to Quinn.

Luckily, she wasn’t down there long enough to have done anything to the other bottles—not that he could imagine. Could someone poison a closed wine bottle? Maybe with needles through the cork? He’d have to look that up.

But why do that? It wouldn’t be a guarantee of someone’s death. A bottle of wine could go unopened on a rack for years. Or so he thought. He’d never been much of a wine drinker.

While Lilah talked and opened the wine, Gabriel walked out of the camera’s view. Royce switched to the hall one and watched him go into the formal living room and start the gas fireplace. Watched him go through the magazines on the end tables. He left the room, and when Gabriel went back to the kitchen, he didn’t show, so Royce flipped through the different cameras until he saw that the hall bathroom door was shut, with the light showing underneath.

Back in the kitchen, Richard and Lilah were cutting into cheese and eating it with crackers.

Around this time, he and Marc had been riding around the city with Rowe and Noah. They’d maybe killed half an hour or so—certainly not long enough to warrant the yelling that had gone on upon their arrival.

His chat notification popped up and he smiled when he saw it was Quinn.

Q: What are you doing up?

R: What are YOU doing up? Not with the dick tonight?

Q: Ha ha. Regrettably no. He’s out there somewhere in their jacked-up stakeout van with Hollis.

Hollis Banner was another private investigator, a former cop. One Royce saw often because he was with one of Rowe’s closest friends, Ian Pierce.

R: Let me guess…you’re at the office?

Q: What of it?

Royce chuckled and glanced over his shoulder when he heard a noise.

R: Hold on. Need to check something. BRB.

He padded through the kitchen and the rest of the house and found nothing but a closed master bathroom door in Marc’s room. That would explain the sound, so he went back to his computer and the couch. He pulled a soft throw blanket off the back and wrapped it around his shoulders.

R: Have you found anything on Marc’s brothers or sister yet?

Q: There’s suspicious activity on all three.

R: ?

Q: Richard recently sold his lake house, but I haven’t found where the money went. Gabriel takes more vacations than I knew a doctor could. Expensive ones, too. And Lilah’s in debt.

R: That’s not what Marc thinks. Even with her inheritance?

Q: She spent most of that educating her loser of a husband. He’s a piece of work.

Royce frowned. That could explain a lot of her attitude issues.

Q: I’m going to keep digging…What’s it like being around Marc all the time?

He followed that question with a small graphic of a man fanning himself.

R: You think he’s hot?

Q: Yeah. Don’t tell me you don’t because it felt like I was balancing on the tension wire between you.

R: Tension wire? WTF?

Q: Shut up. I’m no writer. But something was up. You definitely think he’s hot.

Royce didn’t answer right away because he didn’t know what to say. Quinn was probably the closest thing he had to a best friend, but he hadn’t let himself get close enough to actually share personal feelings or information.

Q: Royce?

R: He’s fucking stunning and he’s driving me crazy.

His fingers froze in shock.

Quinn sent a dancing man emoji.

R: It’s not funny.

Q: Ward’s Dating Service is back in full effect, I see.

R: We’re not dating.

He had no intention of admitting to anything else they’d been doing, and he needed to get the conversation back on the job.

R: Can you look into whether any of them have worked on cars or studied them?

Q: All they’d have to do is Google. I repaired an Xbox by watching a video on YouTube when I was a teenager.

R: Freak

Q: Spoiled freak. I miss my coffee in the mornings.

He grinned. Most mornings, he swung by a coffee shop near the office and grabbed Quinn his double chocolate mint mocha with extra espresso. Crazy kid had a crazy sweet tooth in the morning.

R: Awwww, you missing me?

Q: Yeah, you’re the only one who can make Dominic behave, and he’s been whining about some guy who won’t give him the time of day. It’s pathetic.

R: Really? Dom is hooked on ONE guy?

Quinn sent a little shrugging man. He’d actually somehow either made or found these little dudes that looked like him. Tall, skinny, with black glasses. Royce kind of wanted a little bearded, tattooed man for himself. He rolled his eyes. He’d obviously been spending too much time with the computer geek.

Q: I gotta go. The noises coming from down the hall aren’t exactly business-like. I think Rowe and Noah don’t realize anyone is still here.

R: TTYL

He was laughing as he shut down the program and went back to watching the camera footage. He could only imagine what those two were doing in what they thought was an empty office.

* * *

Blue.

It helped.

The massive painting was spiraling swirls of blues with little hints of white and a tease of pale green. But for the most part, it was blue. Deep, beautiful blue. And it gave Marc peace. A sense of calm on the outside, that with enough time, he could drag into his body, and make his own.

Marc needed it following the gallery showing, the false fire alarm, the showdown with his siblings, sex with Royce…and his inevitable disappearance.

Insanely, with all the chaos threatening to sink his life, it was the fact that Royce had walked away after sex that he was struggling the most to deal with.

After a painfully silent and awkward morning at home, they arrived at the gallery to find that Toni had come up with the brilliant idea to call the fire alarm a “performance piece” geared to awaken the art world to the atrocities suffered by women and give a sneak preview of the next artist he was planning to promote. Luckily, he’d had two of her newest pieces on hand in his office.

The gallery patrons had nodded, murmured their support, and resumed the party—with most claiming exclusive spots at the next showing—while Darla dealt with questions from both the police and fire department. Fines were being levied, but more paintings were sold than he’d expected. And considering the waiting list that was already developing for the next show, it had a high likelihood of being a massive success.

The buzz about the show had spread as well. Darla had a stack of messages waiting for him from his regular clients, demanding a time for a private viewing as well as promising not to miss the next show.

So, despite the chaos of the fire alarm, the show was a huge success. When he finally closed out the current one, he would have to give Darla and Toni raises. They’d definitely earned them. He was even considering asking if they’d travel to his Hong Kong gallery for a year. Sales there had slowed, and he was becoming worried that he wasn’t keeping up with trends as much as he should. Darla and Toni’s creativity and brilliance could give it new life.

After a morning of returning calls and checking the books, he should have been elated. But he was restless and anxious. He couldn’t meet Royce’s eyes. Didn’t want to think about the man. It was just easier that way. To not think about how good it had felt to touch him, kiss him, to have his weight on top of him, pressing him into the mattress. Stretching…

Fuck. It was an endless cycle.

When Royce stepped away to use the restroom, Marc escaped his office and retreated to the second floor of the gallery. Toward the back hung Blue. The painting had been christened with a more complicated name, but since Marc had acquired it for his private collection, he’d started calling it Blue. He had a piece he personally owned in each of his galleries. He kept them there because they helped him find his center, focus his mind.

And since returning to Cincinnati, he’d been spending more and more time with Blue. His assistants didn’t question it. In fact, that afternoon, a chair was already placed in front of it as if they’d expected him to need some quiet time after the previous night’s chaos.

He didn’t need to tell them that the reason for his anxiety had nothing to do with the fire alarm and everything to do with the man probably prowling the gallery in search of him.

Royce was different.

He’d mentally said those words a least a dozen times since first meeting the man. Royce wasn’t like the long line of mistakes he’d made with regard to men and sex in his early twenties. And Royce had been different. There had only been pleasure behind all that strength and control. They’d both enjoyed themselves, finally getting the release they both so badly needed after a week of touches and kisses that had left them on edge.

Then why the fuck had it hurt so badly when Royce hadn’t returned to the bedroom afterward?

In the past few years, there had been a somewhat steady stream of random hookups, where Marc walked away at the end of the night and didn’t feel a thing about it. Didn’t need to call the person the next day. Didn’t want to wrap around the person and fall asleep against him, only to wake the next morning to start it all over again.

But Royce was different.

He knew more about Royce than any of those other men. They’d been living together for more than a week. He knew that Royce loved action movies and those goofy spoof comedies. He loved rock music and would hum in the shower. Of course the only personal information that he’d managed to get out of Royce was that he had only his mom when it came to family and that he’d lived in Virginia for several years before moving to Cincinnati. He’d brought his mom, Cathy, with him.

The point was, they talked and shared and laughed. They took turns cooking dinner…and then ordering out when it often went wrong. And they talked the whole time. They watched movies together and pointed out their favorite parts or why they hated certain actors. He was starting to figure out just the right kind of little quip that would get Royce to smile, and he knew just how to lean into him to get Royce to wrap his arms around him.

And he loved it.

Footsteps echoed across the hardwood floor, alerting him to Royce’s approach. The man could be frighteningly silent when he wanted to be, so the noise was a courtesy. With a soft sigh, Marc leaned back in the hard, plastic chair and stretched out his legs. Blue wasn’t helping as much as he’d hoped. His mind was too full of Royce.

The bodyguard stopped when he was standing behind Marc. From the corner of Marc’s eye, he could see him with his hands shoved into his pockets. The silence settled over them for a couple of minutes before Royce finally broke it.

“I like it.”

That had Marc sitting up. Royce had never once commented on any piece of art—whether in his home or at the gallery. He hadn’t a clue as to what the man preferred or even if he noticed the art around him.

“What’s it called?”

“I call it Blue.”

“You painted it?”

“No, I simply own it.”

“I like it. Reminds me of the sea after a storm. Everything churned up and swirling together. Powerful but…” Royce’s voice drifted off and he frowned. Marc watched the uncertainty crawling across his features, digging in lines. “Is that what it’s supposed to be? The ocean?”

“Could be.” Marc settled back in his chair, staring at the painting. “I never met the artist, so I don’t know his intention. I bought it because it gives me peace, and I like that feeling.”

Royce grunted softly, and the silence stretched for another minute until Royce shifted from one foot to the other. “Are things weird between us because of the fire alarm or the sex?”

And this was just one of the things he loved about Royce. His wonderful bluntness. After spending his life surrounded by people who were always putting forth the perfect words and censoring what they really thought or felt, Royce cut straight to the heart of the matter, and it was amazing. Refreshing.

“The fire alarm was not a problem for the show. It turned out great.”

“So the sex?”

“The sex was great as well.”

“Then you gotta help me out here.”

“It’s not you. It’s me.”

Royce huffed out a laugh and strolled over to the painting. He turned and leaned his shoulder against the wall next to it so that he could look at Marc. “There are the most hated five words in the English language.”

Marc smirked. “And here I thought it was, ‘I think the condom broke.’ ”

Royce gave an exaggerated wince before chuckling. “Yeah, that’s up there.”

And just that quickly, some of the tension that had tightened his shoulders evaporated. It wasn’t supposed to be this easy being around someone.

“My brain knows that it was just sex, and that we were having some fun, but the past week…everything else…it feels real, even when I intellectually know it’s not. I need some time to sort it all out. To remind myself that it’s not real. That I’m just a client, and you’re doing a job.” He looked up at Royce and forced a smile, trying to find a way to continue their joking, but he wanted to be honest with Royce. He spent so much time censoring and picking words that wouldn’t make other people feel uncomfortable. He didn’t want to do that with Royce.

“Marc…” Royce said on a sigh.

Jumping out of his chair, Marc shook his head. “If you’re going to say something about seeing me as a friend or that I’m a nice guy, I might just say fuck the whole thing and punch you.”

Royce closed the distance between them in two quick steps. Grabbing Marc behind the neck, he pulled him down until their noses brushed. “I was going to say that we’ve blurred a lot of fucking lines in the past week. You’re not the only one who’s struggling to keep things separate, especially when this feels so good.” Royce paused and brushed his lips slowly across Marc’s, but the second Marc tried to deepen the kiss, Royce pulled back, staying just out of reach.

“Do we have to keep it separate?” Marc tried to push closer again, deepen the kiss his whole body was aching for now. But Royce tightened his hold, staying just out of reach, even though he could feel Royce’s lips brush against his as they stretched into a smile. Oh God, he was so close…

“It would be smart.”

“Soooo tired of smart.”

Royce laughed. The hot puff of breath brushed against Marc’s face before Royce’s smile disappeared. “My past…my life…it’s not pretty. There are a lot of things…we’re not a good match. You’ve got this whole life that’s so different.”

“Maybe we should just continue as we have been, before we decide that our lives are just too different. It’s not like we don’t have to worry about me staying alive first.”

“And the sex?”

“We just see what happens.”

Royce pulled back from Marc, a smile full across his lips and dancing in his eyes. Fuck, he had a killer smile. Still too rare, but killer. “Yeah, I see so much restraint on our parts.”

Marc snorted. “I’m the king of restraint.”

Royce jerked Marc back to him and kissed him deeply, plunging his tongue into his mouth like he owned him. And Marc melted against him in an instant. He didn’t give a damn. Fuck restraint. Fuck the job and his would-be killer. He just wanted Royce.

Wrapping his arms around Royce, he slowly trailed his hands down his back, following the wonderful contours of the muscles down to cup his ass. He needed time to memorize all those muscles. To memorize the smell and taste of him. Fuck restraint.

The sound of heels clomping across the floor pulled Royce’s lips from his, but Marc didn’t release him, his hands still full of Royce’s ass.

“Having fun?” Royce drawled.

“You have no idea.”

Royce just raised one eyebrow. Well, he likely had some idea since Marc’s hard-on was pressed against his hip.

Darla cleared her throat. “Marc, your next appointment just arrived.”

“Tell Christian that I’ll be down in just a minute,” Marc called, without looking at her.

“No problem.” There was no missing the amusement in her voice, but he still held Royce until he heard her retreating footsteps.

Royce shook his head, his smile dimming. “This is a bad idea, and you know it.”

“Maybe, but I think it’s worth a shot.” He just hoped that they both didn’t come to regret it.