Chapter 1. 

Night in the garden was the best time. It was quiet, and there were no people around. In the day time, the community garden was a happy place, full of life and chatter in half a dozen languages as Guatemalan teenagers flirted with local university students and Syrian refugees compared notes with Italian-American grandmothers. It was all good, but loud and busy, and sometimes it got to be a bit much for him, even though it was the sounds of success.

After midnight, the surrounding downtown area of the city was quiet and he had the garden to himself. Once his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see every plant and every shadow, and every motion, no matter how slight. Usually the movements were of small things, leaves moving in the wind, neighborhood cats or the little rodents they hunted. There was a rhythm to night in the garden that he found soothing, far more so than he did the chaos of being surrounded by people.

Tonight the intruder was large, and definitely didn’t belong there. Jon kept still and tracked the man’s progress among the garden beds as he bent over to look at one and then another, poking into the soil and murmuring quiet comments to himself as he moved.

Jon knew all of the members of the community garden, and this man wasn’t one of them. A thief or a vandal? Either way, Jon was going to stop him. These garden plots meant a lot to the people who worked them, and Jon wasn’t going to sit by while their hard work was destroyed.

When the intruder was close enough, Jon lunged to his feet.

Unfortunately, he’d been sitting still for too long and his bad leg gave out as he jumped up. The confrontational move he had planned turned into a rough tackle as he grabbed onto the big man to keep himself from falling over. And it was a big man, there was no doubt about that. A very big and very well built man. Okay, maybe this hadn’t been such a good plan.

The big guy took him down easily, landing on top of him on the soft path, cradling his head with strong hands, maybe to keep him still, maybe to protect him from the hard edges of the raised beds. It couldn’t be just to hold onto him, could it? And why did it feel so good, just for a second, to be held by someone who might want to take care of him?

“Whoa, sweetheart, take it easy there. Don’t want to hurt yourself.”

Jon decided to be offended by something about that, although he wasn’t sure what.

“I’m not your sweetheart,” he ground out.

“Oh, sorry. My little carrot? My not so little carrot?” There was no doubt that their groins were rubbing together and his body was reacting to the attention. But, dammit, so was the stranger’s. And the big guy didn’t have to be laughing about it.

Then he thought about that for a minute. He hadn’t had this kind of physical reaction to anyone in a long time, had even wondered if it was possible. All of a sudden, pushed down into the fertile soil by a strong man, his body was feeling a lot like he was fully functional again. He rubbed his erection up into the man’s belly, and felt an answering hardness pushing back down into him.

“Um, sweetheart?”

Jon moaned, and kissed the soft neck that was right above his mouth. He hadn’t known he had a weakness for soft necks, but obviously he did. He nibbled at it, and considered biting it. He worked his way up to the earlobe and did bite that, and the man cried out softly in pleasure.

Great, now he was rolling around in the dirt with a stranger, with an aching hard-on, practically begging the guy to – what? Where exactly did he want this to go? Silly question, when he was rubbing up against the man and making needy noises. He buried his face in the big man’s neck and moaned again. Lord, what was he doing here?

The big man on top of him braced up on his elbows, removing his weight from Jon but leaving the confusion. It would have been a good time to at least try to get up and run for it, if he hadn’t been pinned down, and if he had been sure his leg would hold up. And if he had wanted to. He could at least have pretended to struggle a little bit, just for the sake of appearances. He didn’t.

In the moonlight, he could see the dark eyes smiling down at him, and lips getting closer to his. He really didn’t want to run. He moaned again, softly, and then the lips were on his, and his were opening further in invitation, and that firm mouth was owning his, tongue pushing insistently into his mouth, the hands on either side of his head suddenly more urgent.

His tongue tangled with the big man’s, and he sank his fingers into the soft dark hair above him, pulling him closer. He wrapped one leg, his good leg, up over one of the big man’s legs, and locked their bodies together as they rolled on the ground.

The big man pulled them both over, taking Jon’s weight on his, giving his strong hands freer access to play. Jon felt fingers sinking into his butt, then stroking down his crease, and almost lost it right there. It was the intruder’s turn to moan now, against Jon’s mouth, and his body thrust up into Jon’s as Jon pushed down against into him.

God, that felt good. Strong hands pulling him in closer, firm lips against his, pushing his mouth open and inviting more. Jon tangled his fingers into that silky hair and invaded the mouth under his, pushing his tongue in, feeling the big man sucking on his tongue eagerly, just like he might be sucking on something else that Jon would be pleased to offer … 

Jon pushed his hips down urgently, trying for more friction, more connection, more anything. There was just need in his mind now, everything else was gone. Strong hands pulled him closer, and he rubbed down eagerly against that warm body, pushing into it with increasing need. He kissed and bit at a mouth that was as hungry as his, moaning, swallowing the stranger’s moan.

And then he woke up. Damn. Every night he’d been having the same dream, and every time he had come a bit closer to finding release in this stranger’s arms. And every time he’d woken alone and aching, with nothing but that brief memory of what it felt like to be with someone. If this was dream therapy, he really needed it to go one step further if it was going to leave him really satisfied.

If the big man of his dreams was really here with him, how would he make love? Greedily, but not roughly. There was a hunger in his dream lover, he could feel that, a lot of passion and desire, but no violence. Love even? Yes, that’s what he was looking for. Not just someone to make love to, but someone who he could love, and who would love him. No wonder it was just a dream.

And yet he still closed his eyes and fantasized that it was his dream lover’s hand on his aching cock, taking long strokes, faster and faster until he climaxed into his fist. Damn, again. His hand was just not a good substitute for pretending that he had a lover, and then he had to deal with the reality of having nothing. And then he felt like an idiot. Empty bed or not, he still had a lot more than nothing, even if his dreams left him wanting more.

He should be happy enough with a few good friends, a nice apartment and a job that put him at the center of a thriving multi-cultural community. It all brought a great deal of satisfaction, but now he was beginning to want more. A tall man with strong arms and smiling dark eyes? He wasn’t even sure what he needed. To be feeling safe, warm, protected - these were childhood things, weren’t they? Desire, passion, wanting and being wanted, needing and being needed, release inside a warm willing body, someone to hold onto, to talk to, to share his life with? Very adult things. Crazy thoughts, thinking that he could have all of that in one man who existed only in his imagination.

His body was healing, that was all, slowly after all these years, and as it woke back up his imagination was keeping pace. Back in the hospital they had told him that it was as much psychological as physical, and the mind and the nerves would both take time to heal. No-one had said ‘never’, he was the one who had written off ever having a love-life again, with deep scars slashing across his hip and thigh that had come a bit too close to home.

After the injury, after they had finished cutting the last of the shell fragments out of him, he had decided that no-one would ever want him, and talked himself into believing that he wasn’t functional anyway. His dream lover was here to wake him up and let him know that he could have a full life again. That was what it was. Jon liked to think that he was a rational man, and as much as part of him wanted to believe that he had a real version of the dream lover waiting for him somewhere, common sense said it wasn’t likely.

He sighed and rolled out of bed, being careful not to disturb the cats. It was still early, but he had a lot of things to get done, and he wasn’t going to get back to sleep now.

And he had another award ceremony to go to tonight, which was great for the Community Garden, even if he wasn’t truly comfortable in crowds. One more plaque for the wall, a cheque they needed to expand the gardens, shaking hands with someone who’d never got their hands dirty, photo-op, move along. It was an essential part of the job, and he’d learned to play it well enough. In the meantime, he had a busy day ahead of him.

Once he got to the Garden everything was good. He loved the satisfaction of working in the sunshine, digging in the soil, and talking to people who’d had it a lot rougher than he did. He spent the day at the gardens smiling and greeting people, admiring produce and grand-babies, and left early on the excuse of getting ready for the dinner. Everyone was congratulating him, although it wasn’t really his accomplishment. He was just the public face of it - the achievement was a group effort.

He brushed the cat hair off his best pair of pants, and shook out the embroidered shirt that some of the grannies had made for him a couple of years ago. That meant more to him than any damn awards, and he saved it for special occasions. That and the brightly colored woven belt that the Peruvian ladies had made for him, and the beaded necklace from Columbia. The ladies would all be there tonight, and would notice. Small things to make them happy, after all they’d been through.

He debated adding a hand-painted head-band as well, but knew that it would look a bit too much like he was some old hippy, although not so out of place with his shaggy red hair that needed a cut again. He still had a bit of the military look about him, although he downplayed that by keeping his hair long. Too many of the immigrant children had bad memories of men in uniforms. He walked a line between old hippy and old soldier, and for the most part it really didn’t matter which role he played. Although, at twenty-nine, he was hardly old, he just felt it sometimes.