The blaring alarm clock jolted Alex awake. He threw out an arm, slapped it silent, and shoved the infernal device off the table to the floor, the least it deserved for being so rude. Groaning, he blinked open his eyes, meeting the shadowy gray light of predawn morning. On a stretch and inhale, consciousness came flooding back. The pleasant ache in his thighs and back, the lingering smell of sex, his morning wood eager but not desperate. Satisfied after a night of multiple rounds. He rolled onto his back, seeking out his bedmate, and met . . . nothing.
Alex shot up, his first instinct to panic and think the worst, chest clenching against an impending wave of familiar heartache. Dane had left again, had set him aside once more. He’d been on the edge of sleep, but Alex swore he’d heard Dane promise to never leave again. And the same promise had been in every kiss they’d shared yesterday. Had Dane broken that promise already? History lent itself to that conclusion, but fuck if Alex hadn’t thought they’d changed the course of history last night. His and Dane’s future finally headed a different direction, together.
He’d believed him.
Bracing a hand on the empty side of the bed, Alex felt warmth under his palm. Dane hadn’t been gone long; maybe he was still in the apartment. Alex inhaled a shaky breath, preparing to call out his name, and swallowed the scent of freshly brewed coffee instead. The ringing in his ears waned, and Dane’s deep Southern drawl came through. The words were muffled, Dane speaking low on the phone, but the familiar rumble calmed Alex’s racing heart.
But not his racing thoughts. He collapsed back on the bed, staring up at the popcorn ceiling. Dane was here in his apartment, had been here in his bed last night and at his family’s farm yesterday. He was really here, but for how long? Was that his parents on the phone? What would they threaten him with this time? Everything about Dane’s actions yesterday and his lovemaking last night showed Alex he loved him, but was that love strong enough to withstand the inevitable assault? From Dane’s parents, the press, from whatever they faced with USOC.
USOC.
Test results.
Alex shot up again and swung the rest of the way out of bed. He grabbed a pair of clean sweats, hauled them on, and made a beeline for the kitchen table. On it, the computer continued to run commands in the black box. Still not done yet.
A warm breeze wafted around his legs, and Alex followed it to the open patio door. Dane stood outside on the tiny cement balcony, phone to his ear, the other wrapped around the back of his neck. Dressed in his sweats from last night and nothing else, with the first rays of sun peeking over the horizon, his pale skin glowed and his red-gold hair shone like fresh-struck kindling.
Alex was so entranced by the sight he almost missed the words.
“Roger’s on board. We might lose a couple sponsors, but we’ll gain more.” A pause, then a transformation came over Dane similar to the one outside the kitchen earlier this week, when he’d faced down his father. Hand dropping and fisting at his side, he straightened his spine and shoulders, tipped up his chin, and held his head high. But when he spoke, Dane’s words carried a certainty Alex had never heard before. “I don’t care what the press thinks, and I sure as hell don’t care what your congregation or customers think. I love him, and I won’t turn my back on him, ever again.”
Dane was here. He wasn’t leaving. This was real.
Warmth filled Alex’s chest, chasing away the chilly tendrils of doubt and propelling him forward. He laid a hand on Dane’s lower back so as not to startle him, then glided it around his waist. He circled Dane’s chest with the other, hugging him from behind and nuzzling the crevice of his spine.
Dane tangled their fingers together on his chest. “You can keep your money,” he said into the phone. “And you can keep your mansion. My home is wherever Alex is.” Dane didn’t give them the chance to respond. Just hung up and tossed the phone on the little wrought iron patio table, the clatter loud in the otherwise quiet morning. He blew out a shaky breath, and Alex hugged him tighter, happy to shoulder the extra weight, especially after witnessing that stand.
“You might have a new roommate, when this is all said and done.” Dane lifted his hand, kissing the palm. “I hope Carla doesn’t mind.”
Alex turned him in his arms and held his face in his hands, staring into scared but determined blue eyes. “I love you, Dane Ellis.”
Heat warmed the cheeks beneath his palms, and Dane cast his eyes aside, suddenly shy. “You didn’t say it last night. I didn’t know.”
Alex wove his fingers into Dane’s hair, furthering the charming disarray. “I wasn’t sure it was real, that you wouldn’t be gone in the morning.”
Dane’s eyes cut back to his, a spark of mischief there to match the smirk curling his lips. “Even after round three?”
Alex leaned in for a lazy, languid kiss. “I woke up and wasn’t in your arms. I panicked, but then I smelled the coffee and heard your voice. Heard what you said to your parents.”
“I meant every word.” Dane pulled back, hands wrapped around his wrists. “Every word I said to you last night and to them just now.”
“I believe you.” Alex brushed a kiss along his jaw, the auburn stubble tickling his tongue and stirring blood in other places. Morning wood hardening past merely eager.
Dane was right there with him, capturing his mouth in another kiss that quickly ratcheted up to needy. Flipping them, Alex pressed Dane’s back against the glass door while Dane slipped a hand inside his sweats, palming his ass. Alex groaned and lifted his ass, forcing Dane’s fingertips to skim his crease. Dane didn’t like to top, but that didn’t mean Alex didn’t like to be teased too, to be filled too, one way or the other.
Dane took the bait, dipping his hand lower, running a finger around his rim, and Alex ground his erection against Dane’s, showing his appreciation. “Round four,” he mumbled, and Dane’s smile curled against his lips.
Then died when the computer inside pinged. A tiny beep as loud as thunder rolling across the open plains. He tensed in Dane’s arms. Would there be anything they could use in the decrypted files? What if they found nothing? His career and future, and now Dane’s too, were on the line.
Big hands clasped his shoulders, lightly shaking him out of the rising panic. “We’re going to find a way out of this,” Dane said.
“What if there is no magic bullet?”
Dane rubbed his thumbs over the sensitive spot at the hollow of Alex’s neck, tongue following in its place, obviously trying to distract him. “Then you come to Madrid and cheer on your boyfriend.”
Distraction working, Alex looped his arms over Dane’s shoulders. “My family needs me here.”
“Then we make sure our phones don’t have roaming charges, and you watch your boyfriend on TV win the relay gold and dedicate it to you.”
Alex nuzzled his temple, chasing away the lingering disappointment with the much better part of that sentence. “You like that word, don’t you? Boyfriend.”
“I do.” Dane tilted his face in for a kiss, grinning. “And I’ll come home and put my gold next to my boyfriend’s in that awesome carved case next to his bed.”
“No more medals with sex toys,” he said in mock scolding.
“I’m never gonna live that down, am I?”
Alex laughed. “Nope, babe, sorry.”
Head hung, Dane peeked up through his lashes, smiling wider. “I love it when you laugh.” Dane grabbed his hand and pulled him inside. “Let’s go, we’ve got work to do.”
At the table, Dane pulled the computer to him and was opening windows and sifting through information faster than Alex could comprehend. It was hard enough to comprehend that Dane, the lost love of his life, had returned, was a hot computer nerd, and was sitting shirtless in his apartment, hacking USOC records.
“This is yours, right?” Dane asked, pointing to the screen.
Alex leaned over his shoulder, examining the test results. His name and medical ID number were in the right spot, and the blood draw date on the left, above the results, was also correct. As was the first drug listed, Verapamil, a medication he took daily for esophageal spasm, a condition he’d been diagnosed with in college. He tapped that line. “That’s how I know it’s me. Daily medication.”
“All right, give me a few minutes, and let me dig for an older version of this file.”
“Coffee, then?”
Dane glanced up, lips puckered for a kiss, which Alex gave to him.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“There will never be a no to that question.”
Laughing despite his nerves, Alex worked in the kitchen, filling their mugs, Dane’s more cream and sugar than coffee.
“Gotcha!” Dane shouted with a smack to the table.
Alex hurried back over. “What’d you find?”
“It was buried deep, but I found a ghost of the first version.” He had two test results open on the screen, side by side. “That’s it, right?”
Alex checked all the markers again. “Yes, that’s the same one.”
“Except not.” Dane highlighted the differing results for the performance-enhancing drug. POS on the later version Alex had been shown. NEG on the ghost of the original. “Notice anything else different?” Dane asked.
Alex shook his head.
“Because it’s hidden.” He made a couple clicks and keystrokes, and another number popped up in the footer. “User ID for the person who entered the data.”
“They’re different too.”
“Exactly.” He hovered the cursor over the one on the second set of results. “This is the person who sank you. The person my parents are paying.”
“Can you find out who that is?”
Dane nodded, and Alex slid into the chair beside him. Knees bouncing, Alex cracked all the knuckles on his hands. Then his toes.
“That’s my nervous tic,” Dane mumbled.
“See how fucking annoying it is.” And see how nervous he was, doing the thing that usually amounted to nails on a chalkboard to him. Unable to sit still, Alex went back to the kitchen for their coffees. “What do we do when we find this person?”
“Tell Coach, tell the Committee. Get the person to sign an affidavit admitting what they did and why.”
“Would they really implicate themselves?”
“Maybe it won’t be as bad if—” Dane slapped the laptop shut and shoved back from the table, staggering to his feet, the chair tipping over behind him. “No fucking way.” He stared at the computer like it’d bitten him.
Setting the mugs on the table, Alex hadn’t seen what was on the screen to cause such a reaction. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good. “Dane?” He glanced back and forth between his boyfriend and the computer. “What’d you find?”
“That’s not . . . That’s not what I expected.”
Stomach in knots, but needing to know the truth, Alex opened the laptop and stared in utter shock at the picture on the screen.
Betrayal ran hot and deep, scorching through his veins and burning away the knot in his gut. Burning right through it. No, that’s not what they were expecting at all.
Their plane touched down in San Antonio just past noon. They hadn’t been able to secure a private hangar, but they had snagged a main concourse gate near the airport exit. They needed to book it, every second one Dane couldn’t afford to waste. The clock was ticking down on getting Alex’s suspension overturned. The team had one more open practice this afternoon, one Dane was expected to be at, then they were scheduled to fly out to Vienna for international training tomorrow.
“Are you sure about this?” Dane asked as they hustled up the Jetway. “We could have taken this straight to the Committee.” That had been Dane’s suggestion, clearing Alex his number one priority. After last night’s near run-in, they knew the chairman was still at USOC HQ. But Alex had insisted on confronting his betrayer first, anger perhaps eclipsing logic.
That anger held firm, just shy of boiling, judging by Alex’s clenched jaw and fiery eyes. “I’m sure,” he said. “I need to know why he did this.”
“Because my parents paid him a lot of money.”
“You sweet-talked the family banker on the way here. No unusual transfers.”
“Maybe they haven’t paid him yet.”
Hand on his arm, Alex halted on the concourse-side of the security gates, other exiting passengers parting around them. “This isn’t just about me. I’m the captain. He’s our teammate. I have to know why he’d do something like this to me and the rest of the team.”
Alex, always bearing responsibility, which, Dane had to admit, when it was fueling Alex’s confidence instead of weighing him down, was one heck of a turn-on. Without thinking, he leaned in for a kiss, but a chorus of “There they are!” stopped him short.
Head whipping to the side, he glanced through the security gates, and sure enough, a herd of reporters were converging, jostling exiting passengers out of their way to get to him and Alex as soon as they stepped on the other side of the security glass.
“Shit!” Alex cursed, and Dane’s gaze swung back to him. Worry crept into those brown eyes, but it was kept at bay by anger still. “Who the fuck called them?”
“Someone who wants to stall us so he can cover his tracks.”
“How? You have copies of everything already.”
“Are the doping rumors true?” one of the reporters shouted. “Are you off the team, Alex? How does it feel to go from captain to cheat?”
Great, just what they needed. An airport full of people, of fans, hearing the false story they’d tried to keep under wraps.
“What’s your involvement with this, Dane?” a different reporter called out. “Were you suspended too? Why did you bring Alex back?”
“Dane,” Alex snapped, captain-tone demanding his attention. “Can he cover his tracks?”
“No, but he may not know that. Or maybe he just wants to cause maximum damage. To both of us.”
Alex tilted his head toward the gathering crowd. “Exposing you like this doesn’t fit into your parents’ plan.”
“It does if I disavow you. I threatened the other day to call my own press conference. They’re calling my bluff.”
They’d set up the last airport ambush, during which Dane had conceded to their demands and backed down. They were betting on that Dane to resurface, the old one who turned his back on himself and those he loved. The Dane who cut and run when the going got tough or when the truth hovered too close to the surface.
Alex connected those same dots, a sharp inhale acknowledging the cliff they stood at the edge of. Before yesterday, Alex, resigned to the belief Dane would always leave him, would have made the jump himself. After last night and this morning, though, Dane was beyond pleased, the tightness in his own chest loosening, when Alex held out his hand, offering Dane a chance to prove the declarations he’d made.
Believing he’d stay.
Dane didn’t have to think twice, sliding his hand into Alex’s. “I said I’m never leaving you again. I meant that. But if you don’t want to be thrust into the spotlight, I’ll distract them while you find another way out. Or if you want to handle this on your own, I’ll leave.”
“You’d give up the spotlight?”
“If that’s how you want to handle it, yes. This is your call, Cap.”
Alex interlaced their fingers. “We stand together.”
“Let’s do it.”
They exited to the gathering crowd of reporters and onlookers, and TSA ushered them out from in front of the security gates into one corner of the check-in area. The press continued to lob questions at them, about the doping rumors, Alex’s suspension, and why Dane was there.
“I’d like to make a statement,” Alex said, projecting his voice. “On our behalf.”
Our echoed through the crowd, and their clasped hands received renewed notice, cameras clicking a mile a minute.
Alex talked over the racket. “Yes, I was accused of using a banned substance. We have evidence, however, that proves the test was falsified. I have never used drugs of any sort.”
“We were on our way to tell Coach Hartl that until you lovely people interrupted us,” Dane said, laying on the charm, big smile and all. “I have no doubt Alex will be cleared, reinstated, and back to captaining the team at this afternoon’s practice, where he’ll run my tail into the ground for missing yesterday’s practice.”
“What substance? What evidence?” several reporters shouted.
“Dane,” another called out, “why were you sent to Colorado after Alex?”
He glanced at Alex, who gave him a nod. Moment of truth. Now or never.
Jump.
“I wasn’t sent to Colorado. I chose to go there. Snuck there, actually,” he said with a smile. “I went there to help my teammate, my captain, my boyfriend.” He smiled even wider on that last word. He did like the sound of it. A lot.
Drugs forgotten, the cacophony of clicking cameras, shocked gasps, and shouted questions was thunderous.
“Dane, have you always been gay?”
“Did Alex turn you gay?”
“What do your parents think?”
“I have always been gay,” Dane answered, same as he had the night before last to his teammates. “It took me a while to accept and admit that. Twenty-six years, to be exact.” He chuckled at himself, and some of the crowd laughed with him. “And this incredible man—” he drew Alex closer, against his side “—who I’ve been in love with going on a decade, gave me another chance I didn’t deserve, and I’m just so happy and grateful to be here with him.”
“How will this affect the team?”
“Are the doping and this revelation connected?”
Alex pulled captain’s rank and tone again, commanding attention. “My teammates have never had an issue with my sexuality or anyone else’s on the team. I don’t expect they’ll have an issue with Dane’s. As for the doping allegations, an official statement will be forthcoming after we speak with Coach Hartl. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we sort this out.”
“And on that note, ladies and gents,” Dane cajoled, flashing his press-practiced smile and feeling honest about it for a change. “Now, if you’ll please excuse us, we’ve got a name to clear.”
“How about a kiss for the cameras?” one reporter shouted, and a round of applause broke out among the onlooking travelers who were standing watching.
Dane directed his answer to them, to the people they swam for, to their fans. “You’ll get a kiss when we win the gold.”