Sad eyes.

“Come on. Come on.” Low stared down at the phone, quietly urging on his Uber driver. Five minutes away, and Low was here…

Barely upright on weak knees.

Face to face with the man responsible for his cousin’s death, and he was unsteady. Grappling with grief and fear and confusion. Wanting to do more than retreat. Aching to wipe away the implacable expression on Renzo Vega’s fucking face with his fist. The club owner was one of Atlanta’s most notorious criminals, involved in guns and drugs and God knew what else. Low had never even heard about Renzo until his cousin—and best friend—Kenton went to work for him.

Not long after, Kenton ended up dead. Their family didn’t know about Renzo’s connection to Kenton, because Low couldn’t find it in himself to tell his aunt that her son chose that kind of life. No one was ever arrested and now, Renzo was walking around Atlanta while Kenton was six feet under in Douglaston Cemetery back home in Grenada. And that man had the nerve to look at Low, to taunt him with his eyes, with his smirk.

With his sad eyes.

“Lowell Scott.”

He lurched forward at the sound of his name. Spoken by a voice he’d now be able to identify anywhere. When Renzo Vega walked toward him, shedding the shadows like a snake getting rid of its skin, Low’s heart swam up into his throat. He stiffened, contemplating shrinking against the wall at his back. But Renzo was a predator, he’d pounce at any display of weakness. He stood in front of Low, his lithe frame blocking Low’s line of sight of the parking lot.

His pulse took off at a gallop, but Low lifted his chin, fingers squeezed tight around the phone in his palm. “Are you following me, Mr. Vega?”

One blink and Renzo was in his face. Chest to chest, bringing the most intoxicating scent that invaded Low’s nostrils. “Do you want me to follow you?”

“What the fuck do you want?” He really hoped this new-found bravado stuck around.

“Do I scare you, Low?” Renzo’s expression was all innocent curiosity, eyes bright and gleaming where they rested on Low’s face.

So close. Why was he so close? “I’m not afraid of you,” Low told him in the firmest voice he could muster. The words still rocked and rolled, each one stamped Liar!

The glint in Renzo’s eyes said he knew it, too. “I don’t want your fear.” He touched Low, just under his left ear, the slightest brush of his bare knuckles along Low’s jaw.

Low’s breath hitched.

Renzo’s eyes flashed, a companion to the sudden and breath-snatching ache that bloomed hot and languid in Low’s belly. His lips parted as he struggled.

For air.

For words.

For—

“I want everything else,” Renzo murmured those words at his ear, breath prickling Low’s skin. “I’ll take everything else but that.”

The warmth of him wrapped around Low, making it difficult to remember things. Crucial things.

“Fuck you.” He knocked Renzo’s hand away. “You got my cousin killed, you son of a bitch!” Every time he thought of Kenton, Low wanted to just drop to his knees and bawl. Every time he thought of Renzo’s part in it, he wanted to hit someone. Like the man standing before him.

His throat closed up as he tried to breathe normally, tried to act like he wasn’t coming undone for this man who unarmed him so expertly. Renzo’s cavalier attitude after what happened to Kenton angered Low, but it was his awareness of Renzo that confused him. His awareness of the way Renzo looked in the dark suit and matching knee-length coat. His awareness of the five o’clock shadow on Renzo’s square jaw.

His awareness of Renzo’s eyes, seeing things, cataloguing everything but giving none away. Except the sadness. It was as if he couldn’t hide that, couldn’t contain it.

Renzo’s head bent toward him, and this time Low had no choice but to retreat. His back hit the wall and he swore he saw a flash of triumph in Renzo’s gray eyes before he whispered in Low’s ear.

“Allow me to warn you against speaking on subjects you know nothing about.”

His tone was calm enough, the words innocuous enough, but they chilled Low just the same. He suppressed a shiver and dared to push back. “Yeah? You plan to do to me what you did to my cousin?”

Renzo straightened, meeting Low’s gaze in silence. They stood there in the dark corner outside of the club, practically hidden by the shadows Renzo Vega seemed to fucking live in. Breaking the stare off would seem too much of a surrender, so Low didn’t. But he wanted to. Renzo’s expression gave him nothing, yet Low found himself searching, looking for things he couldn’t name. Pretending all the while he couldn’t feel Renzo’s body heat. Pretending every inhale didn’t send Renzo’s woodsy musk into his lungs.

Into his blood.

Heat.

Under his collar grew damp, itching his skin, but he didn’t dare scratch it. Didn’t dare tug on his clothes.

“I like you, Lowell Scott.”

Breath left Low in a gulp. “Don’t call me that.” It felt like more. As if Renzo was confessing secrets when he spoke Low’s name like that.

“No?” A dark eyebrow shot upward. “What should I call you?” He hadn’t moved away from Low’s personal space, not one inch. And now, with his voice turned hoarse and sounding like it was laced with strong white rum, Low seriously considered ducking and running.

“Don’t-don’t call me.” He was suddenly stuttering, words stumbling around before tripping and falling from his mouth. Fuck, man. “Don’t call me anything.” It was almost a plea, but right now he couldn’t afford anything else. Something was happening, something that made him feel exposed.

On display for only one pair of eyes.

Bereft of anything resembling safety.

“That doesn’t work for me.” Renzo’s lips were back at his ear, barely touching him, but Low felt him. He couldn’t not feel him. “Because you and I, Lowell Scott? We’re about to burn each other to the ground, and I will speak your fucking name when I’m covered in the ashes of us.”

Just like that he stripped Low naked, fucking him to his knees here in the dark.

The heat in his belly warned him.

The sweat sticking his shirt to his back warned him.

His cousin’s dead body warned him.

The phone hurting his palm vibrated. His ride had arrived.

“Step back,” he ground out. “Step fucking back.”

A car honked behind Renzo, who took one single step backward, eyes inscrutable, face expressionless.

The phantom weight on Low’s chest eased and he gulped in air. “Come near me again and I don’t know how or when,” he croaked. “But I’ll make you fucking sorry, you feel me?”

The mask cracked for a second there and he saw admiration in Renzo’s eyes. He saw lust. He saw sadness. It was the last emotion that sent him running away from the barrier Renzo presented in more ways than one, toward the silver Nissan Altima that pulled up.

He dove into the back of his ride, urging the driver to pull off quickly. His phone trembled when he held it up to dial. His ass was planted firmly in the car’s seat, but he still felt so unbalanced. The phone knocked against his ear, reminding him of Renzo’s whispers.

“You okay, man?” The driver asked. “You don’t look so good.”

Fuck. He wasn’t good. He was nowhere near the vicinity of good. “Yeah,” he scratched out. “I good.”

The phone rang in his ear. Six rings before Chance picked up. “Hey.”

Low glanced at his watch. “You sleeping?”

“Yeah, I have an early shift.” He cleared his throat. “What’s up?”

As a part time EMT, Low met Chance Lee over at DeKalb Medical Center where Chance worked as an ER doctor.

“Can I come over?” Low licked his lips and pinched the bridge of his nose.

A pause echoed through the phone. Chance knew what coming over meant, and what it didn’t mean. What it would never mean. Usually, Low didn’t drop by on nights Chance had to get up early, but tonight…

Tonight, he needed a distraction. He needed the feel of someone else, the smell of someone else. “I don’t-I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Yes.”

He appreciated the weight of Chance’s quiet concession. They knew what it meant. Chance wanted, but Low could never give. Only take. Which made him the most selfish of bastards, but Chance had known what it was from their first fuck.

Nothing would change that, not even the threat of Renzo Vega.

Twenty minutes later, he was under Chance, begging.

Something he never did.

Tonight was different, he knew it the instant Chance touched him. The aggressive way Low took over when he usually granted control to Chance. The rough carpet rubbing his knees raw as he buried his face in the couch cushion, unable to meet Chance’s eyes. They’d been doing this long enough that Low was afraid Chance would know…

It wasn’t him.

It wasn’t his face Low saw.

Wasn’t Chance’s hand on the back of his neck, forcing him lower. Wasn’t Chance inside him.

No, it was another man.

A dangerous man with his sad, sad eyes.

He came muffling his cries with a purple accent pillow, and as soon as Chance pulled out Low was up, wobbling on his feet and yanking on his jeans. Racing out the door before Chance got the condom off.

Outside, he collapsed against the side of Chance’s building, guilt and shame hiccupping in his chest. His secrets had him acting less than the man he knew he should be. But those secrets made it impossible to be anybody but who he was right now.

Incapable of lingering beyond the time it took to get dressed after sex.

Unable to give more than his body.

Unwilling to move whatever it was he had with Chance beyond the small one-bedroom apartment Chance rented.

Closets didn’t really give you much room to maneuver.