Touch of a Wolf

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Copyright © 2010 by Jez Morrow

All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For
information address Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680

Cover illustration copyright Alessia Brio

Used with permission

ISBN: 978-1-61040-457-1

Printed in the United States of America.

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Torquere Press, Inc.: High Ball electronic edition / July 2010

Torquere Press eBooks are published by Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680

Chapter One

A motion disturbed the mist under the streetlamp haloes up ahead. Matt could just see a hazy figure
resolving out of the icy murk, walking toward him.

There was no one else on the sidewalks and few cars moved down these streets at this hour. No one
was out here who didn’t have a better place to go.

Matt didn’t.

He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think about anything but his loss, grieving as if he were the only
person in the world who ever broke up with a cheating lover.

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He knew he presented an easy mark. He had left the safety of the gayborhood behind, and this was no
kind of place for cruising.

There were worse neighborhoods in Philly. But not too much.

Matt shouldn’t be out here. He was asking for it.

Fine. He didn’t care who was coming at him. Just so he could feel anything other than what he was
feeling now.

The figure took on shape in the misty gloom.

The stranger was bare-headed. His trench coat flapped open to the seeping November cold and he
didn’t seem to give a rip, while Matt hunched in his short navy pea coat, its wool collar turned up around
his ears, his hands fisted in his pockets.

Even at a distance, the stranger looked forceful, dangerous, from the proud set of his shoulders to his
swift gait. He held his head bolt upright except for the quick alert turns to either side. He had the look of
a man owned the street and you can just back the hell off.

Crossing the street would have been a good idea right about now, but Matt was locked in a
moth-to-flame spiral.

The man’s features came into some sort of focus passing under another streetlamp—white guy, overdue
for a haircut. He was wearing mainstream clothes complete with a necktie, except that the knot was
pulled away from his throat so that the tie hung like a noose. Even at a distance Matt could see the face
was hard with eyes that had seen everything.

The man’s gaze connected with Matt’s and locked. Matt could not look away.

Closer, Matt could see the man wasn’t too much older than he was. Twenty-something, but fearless and

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definitely like a man who had been around a long time.

They were on a collision course, and both of them knew where this was going.

I don’t do this kind of thing.

The inevitability hardened as the distance between them closed.

This was going to happen.

Matt couldn’t say how he knew. He just knew.

Every fiber in his body was awake, ready, begging. His breaths became shallow. His cock stirred. His
heartbeat stepped up to an expectant thrum. Common sense flew away. He didn’t feel the cold anymore.

The distance between them disappeared.

And the man was here—close enough to smell—walking past him so close Matt felt the edge of the
stranger’s coat slap against his thigh. Passing.

Matt’s hopeful fear plunged into a bewildered letdown.

Then a strong hand closed round his upper arm.

Matt’s breath caught. He could have cried for joy if he were not so terrified as he was pulled off the
sidewalk and into the blackness of an alley.

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It was very dark. Matt could see with all the clarity of a dream.

The stranger pushed him up against the wall. Matt felt the hard, cold brick at his back through the wool
of his coat. The man’s knee pushed between his thighs, wedging his legs apart. The man’s hipbone
pressed against Matt’s groin. Then the man shifted so his sexual bulge pressed against Matt’s own
swelling erection. Even clothed, the touch sent a thrill through Matt’s body like soothing fire.

The man’s body was warm, utterly male, utterly here. Matt felt another heartbeat, another desire close
to him, and it was all he wanted.

Matt’s arms draped themselves around the man’s shoulders. The cold fabric of the trench coat felt
starkly real under his palms. Matt opened his mouth in relief and hunger to receive the stranger’s plunging
kiss. Matt had come to the streets lost, goaded by inexpressible need. Now he knew what he was
searching for. He needed this. He needed him.

The man lifted his hands to Matt’s face, holding it almost tenderly. His palms were hot against Matt’s
wind-stung cheeks. His mouth covered Matt’s, his tongue filling him. The man’s breath seared down his
throat, and Matt inhaled to take it in. He tasted the stranger’s lips, felt his teeth, felt the prickle of
unshaven bristle edging his mouth. His strong pulse pounded against Matt’s chest.

It was a kiss like Matt had never been kissed. The stranger’s hard breaths jetted hot on his face,
needful, ardent, longing. His own breaths came tremulous and uneven through his nostrils. The back of his
head stung a bit pressed against the brick, and he could hear strands of his own hair roll between the
brick and his scalp. He didn’t care. The man’s tongue rolled in his mouth, feeling him, filling him.

Matt cracked one eyelid to see his partner’s eye. It was nearly shut, but there was a tiny gleam between
his lashes, the stranger’s eye, barely open, was watching him back.

The man’s lips dragged away from Matt’s mouth to lavish kisses on his jaw, his ear. Matt felt the raspy
brush of a bad shave on his cheek, the heated wetness of the man’s tongue on his earlobe.

Matt slid one hand up to let his fingers weave through the man’s hair. It was smooth on top, curled at the
ends. The curls fit themselves around his fingers, as if embracing them.

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The man brought one strong hand forward between them, just under Matt’s jaw, groping to unfasten the
top button of Matt’s wool coat. He folded back the lapel to bare Matt’s neck.

One hot, rough-skinned, wonderful hand fit itself to Matt’s neck, holding it like something treasured and
beautiful, as his mouth bathed Matt’s throat with kisses. Matt’s Adam’s apple moved up and down
under the flat of the stranger’s tongue. Air moved in a cool rush on Matt’s wet skin as the man inhaled
deeply his scent.

The man pulled back. Their bodies parted only far enough for the stranger to get the rest of Matt’s coat
buttons undone. His head was bowed, straining to see what he was doing in the darkness of the alley. His
brow tightened as if undressing Matt was a critical operation, all the while keeping Matt pinned against
the wall with the pressure of his crotch pressed against Matt’s as if Matt might make a break for it. That
was the very last thing on Matt’s mind. Matt felt the stranger’s sex move within the confines of his
trousers.

Matt rolled his hips to rub himself against the man. That made the stranger lose his place and fumble a
button. Matt saw the flash of a smile or impatient grimace, and he heard a snort. The man got Matt’s coat
open.

The stranger pushed Matt’s shirt up around his armpits and slid his arms around Matt, inside Matt’s
coat, lifting him away from the wall. The heat of his hands, the passion of his embrace surrounded Matt.

The stranger’s body heat radiated through his shirt, warming Matt to the core as their bodies pressed
tight together. The man’s arms felt powerful around him. His palms roamed the bare skin of Matt’s back
inside his clothes. He dragged kisses across Matt’s collarbone.

Matt let his head fall back, watched his own breath rise in icy clouds. The stranger’s hair felt nice under
his chin. He heard a sniff. There had been a couple of those. Matt had been trying to ignore them. They
didn’t have the congested sound of a cold. It had the empty sound of a cocaine sniff.

The stakes just went up. Users were deadly.

But Matt didn’t have the sense to be afraid. He could hardly string two thoughts together. The stranger
ducked under Matt’s bunched up shirt to cover his bared chest with kisses. Matt’s nipples tightened. His

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balls clenched. He should stop now and didn’t know how.

Matt cradled the stranger’s head, kissed his hair. The man smelled slightly of cigarettes, as if he’d been
around smokers. He didn’t taste of it.

The stranger disengaged from their embrace so he could get Matt’s belt undone. He unsnapped Matt’s
jeans and slid his hand down inside Matt’s fly.

Matt wore nothing underneath his jeans, so the stranger’s hand met with nothing but raw, needy sex.
Sensation leapt to a starry blaze. Matt gasped. The stranger moaned a deep guttural moan.

The stranger eased Matt’s zipper down with great care for the teeth. His palm slid meltingly down
Matt’s rigid shaft. Matt shuddered at the edge of endurance. The man took Matt’s balls in his hand.
Pre-come seeped from the tip of Matt’s cock. He gave a whimper, his face screwed up, trying to hold
on, to extend this moment forever.

The stranger withdrew his hand so he could let his own erection free because Matt was too intoxicated
with sensation to get the job done. Matt looked down as the man’s sex emerged from his fly. His naked
cock looked huge in the darkness between their bodies. Matt moved his hand to touch it, but no sooner
was it out than the man was shoving Matt back hard against the wall, body to body, sex to sex. They
moaned together. The sounds the man made were deep, carnal. They resonated inside him.

Matt got his hands inside the man’s coat, needing to touch his body.

And they both froze. Matt felt his own eyes grow big as wall clocks. The stranger met Matt’s stare
cautiously.

That was definitely a holster Matt’s fingers had just run up against.

The man murmured in a low, gravelly voice, “Don’t touch the gun.” Then he clarified, “Not that one.”

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“Wouldn’t think of it,” Matt mumbled back. He moved his hand cautiously past the holster to wrap his
arms around the stranger and hold tight. Matt pulled the man’s shirt up his back and pressed his palms to
his skin, touching as much of him as he could reach. Their naked cocks slid together. Matt kissed the
man’s neck in wild abandon. The stranger’s stubbled skin was rough against his tongue. Matt tasted salt.
He caught the scent of aftershave long after the shave.

All the while, some buried part of him in the back of his mind fretted, I’m in a dark alley belly fucking a
stranger who has a coke addiction and a gun. The rest of him was gloriously, achingly happy.

The man pulled his head back to look at Matt’s face. “Are you crying?”

“Ignore me,” said Matt.

“Right.”

The man kissed him almost sweetly on the mouth.

Matt slid his hands down inside the man’s trousers to hold his hips. Matt could feel the hard sinew in the
man’s buttocks as the man rode him. The stranger’s cock slid up and down against Matt’s own cock.
The murky night was blazing bright and delicious.

A motion out the corner of Matt’s eye snagged his attention an instant before a blacker shadow crossed
the diffused light from the streetlamp

Fear clutched his insides. There was someone on the sidewalk, passing the entrance of the alley. Matt
held his breath.

The figure stopped. The head turned, noticing them. The newcomer changed direction, coming toward
them with a jaunty, bandy-legged, menacing swagger, reaching for something tucked in his waistband
behind his back.

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He’s going to roll us.

Before the intruder could pull out whatever he was reaching for, out came the gun, straight-armed, and
Matt couldn’t see the intruder anymore because his partner was shielding Matt’s head with his own. The
cluster of curls on the back of the man’s head brushed against Matt’s face. Matt heard his partner’s
breath seething through his nostrils, felt his body tensed in cold wrath. There was a complete absence of
fear in him. In a rough voice, charged with deadly menace, the man commanded the intruder at gunpoint,
“Keep walking.”

Matt heard the intruder’s alarmed apology. “Hey, hey! No big thing!” The footsteps backed out of the
alley then became a fast retreating run down the street.

Matt’s partner sniffed and returned his gun to its holster.

The man took Matt’s face in his hands, steady, in control, coming down from anger. Their breaths
mingled. The man pressed a powerfully gentle kiss on Matt’s lips.

They were both still .hard Matt ran his hands over the man’s iron hard buttocks, ready to get back to
where they’d left off.

His partner gripped Matt’s hips, thrusting his sex hard up and down against Matt’s belly, against Matt’s
cock. Matt clutched at him, trying to draw him closer, harder, faster. The man let go of his hips to push
Matt back against the wall. The stranger leaned his weight into Matt and rode.

Matt wallowed and soared in sensuality. He struggled to hold back his mounting excitement. He wanted
to keep going on and on.

He never wanted this to end. Nothing else existed but him, this man, and the fire between them. His
partner kissed him fiercely.

Heat and desire climbed higher. Their kiss broke as their breaths heaved deep and hard. Matt tried to
hold back. There was a grunt, not sure whose.

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Matt felt the convulsion in the cock sliding against his own. Wet heat poured onto him. The pulse, the
coming, his partner’s ecstatic groans all pushed Matt over the edge of endurance. Matt clung to his lover,
coming hard and bright in spasm after vibrant spasm. He shuddered in the intensity and bit the collar of
his lover’s trench coat, stifling a cry. Matt’s arms wrapped around the man, holding on as if for his life.

Matt felt the man’s guttural moan in his chest, a deeply masculine sound. He felt another spurt of surging
wetness. He shuddered down to his balls.

Matt gave out his last emission, hard. Thought it was his last. But the man reached down and closed his
hand on Matt’s balls with just the right pressure and made him give again. Matt cried out loud. Thought
he was turning inside out.

He clung to the man, panting, bleating a little. His eyes were wet.

For a moment, he felt an emotion that mimicked love—the evanescent thing you feel for someone who
makes you feel this good.

They stood together, sweating, breathing hard and deep, coming down slowly to return to what they
were—two strangers clutching each other on a dismal night in an alley in Philadelphia, with nowhere
better to be.

They stayed there a timeless while, holding each other. Matt blinked against the man’s neck, reason
returning breath by breath. Neither one of their erections had died yet. But they were wet, and Matt was
starting to feel the cold of the brick wall at his back.

The man nuzzled his cheek like a lover.

The man didn’t look at Matt. The stranger spoke into the wall, and Matt felt his lips moving against his
ear. He sounded tentative, almost shy, as he mumbled, “Can I see you again?”

Matt swallowed down a graveyard laugh. He said bleakly, “Sure.”

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The man stepped back. The parting was cold. Matt jerked his shirt down over his sweaty chest. His
come-slicked penis rudely felt the November chill.

The man quickly zipped up. He lifted his hand to Matt’s face. His fingers were sticky and smelled of sex.
He held Matt’s cheek in his palm a moment, gazing into his eyes, then he strode out of the alley with the
quick, forceful steps of someone with a destination.

Can I see you again.

Yeah, Matt was going to hold his breath on that one. The cokehead hadn’t asked for so much as his
name or number.

Jerk. His thought was tinged with fondness.

In the dark of the alley, Matt tucked away his goods, zipped up, snapped up, buckled up. He buttoned
up his coat and turned up the collar. He felt calmer. The inner chill he’d set out with was replaced with a
warm clarity. He could breathe without pain.

Disbelief crept over him as he thought about what he’d just done.

A quickie in an alley with a gun toting stranger jacked up on coke.

That stranger could have been anyone—psycho killer, mugger, werewolf. Okay, his fear was running
way over the top now. Not werewolf. But what the hell had he been thinking?

I could be dumber, but I don’t know how.

It scared him how reckless he’d been. A runaway train of emotion. If that man had tried to bend him

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over, would Matt even have thought to demand a condom?

He wasn’t sure. The tide of passion and raw need had been overwhelming.

This is how people get themselves dead.

He walked back to Doug and Drew’s house. He let himself in quietly and crawled onto the daybed.

The downward spiral of his thoughts had been broken. Now he just needed to keep his nose above
water until the flood tide of grief over his breakup had time to recede. He had to believe the hurt would
fade. It would. Some time this millennium.

If he could just keep his thoughts away from all he’d lost. He had something to distract him now.

He relived the encounter in the alley until he fell asleep.

***

Matt woke, confused. He opened his eyes. This was not his room. This was not his bed. Cord was not
sleeping at his side.

This was Doug and Drew’s sunroom. He was on a narrow daybed.

Then he remembered.

Yesterday the world had changed.

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Matt had left home—the place he’d thought was his home.

It had all really happened.

His soul had fallen through the basement floor into a bottomless pit. He had prayed for help, and God
sent the strangest damned coke-sniffing angel to pull him out of it.

Matt’s life had unraveled yesterday afternoon when he’d come home from class to the townhouse he
shared with Cord Nordsen in the West Wash neighborhood.

Laughter from their bedroom didn’t have to mean that Cord was having sex with someone else.

It didn’t have to mean that.

But that was exactly what it meant.

Matt had dropped his backpack in the great room, climbed the stairs, and opened their bedroom door.

There was Cord on their bed, crouched between a pair of feminine legs, his ass humping up and down.
A woman’s long, brassy hair spilled over the mattress like something out of a hair color commercial.

From the first moment downstairs when Matt heard the laughter he almost expected this scene, but the
almost-expectation didn’t do shit to lessen the shock of actually seeing Cord giving it to someone else. It
didn’t seem real.

At the same time, it felt as real as a fist in the gut.

Cord, on hands and knees, twisted his head round to see Matt in the doorway frozen in the classic
deer-about-to-become-road-kill pose. “Hi babe, want to join us?”

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The woman, pretending to be shy, just giggled into Cord’s chest.

“No.” Matt pulled the door shut softly.

He made it down the stairs then stood there in the great room of Cord’s townhouse for some eternal
amount of time. Reality sank in with the shaking.

Stomach, knees, lips, skin—everything quivered. There was a stinging in his mouth. He tasted sourness.
He felt hollowed out except for the wool in his head.

Like a cartoon character, he’d been standing on thin air and just now noticed it. And now he felt the
sickening fall.

He knew he had to leave. There was nothing for him here. What he had just vaporized. It had never
really been here.

He started gathering up what was his and piling it in the middle of the floor.

Boxes. He would need to get boxes. He would need a place to go.

Stay in motion, he told himself. It was the only way not to fall completely apart.

Cord and the woman came down the stairs laughing, their arms around each other. The laughter stopped
when they saw him. Their arms dropped from each other’s bodies.

Matt looked away. Not fast enough. Already the image was burned on his retina, of Cord’s hand on her
hip. Cord always held Matt by the hip when they walked together. Somehow that detail stabbed deeper
even than the image of Cord plunging his sex into her.

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Matt glanced at the happy couple again. He couldn’t help himself.

Cord looked terribly handsome with his blond sunny face. His muscular build was apparent under his
crisp casual clothes.

Cord’s blue eyes fixed on the pile of Matt’s assembled stuff on the floor—his school books, his laptop,
his printer. Cord blinked several times, as if perplexed. He asked, “Do we have a problem?” He
sounded horridly casual.

“Define we,” said Matt, throat tight, eyes burning. He threw a pair of shoes onto the pile a lot harder
than they deserved.

“What are you doing?” Cord asked.

“Leaving,” said Matt.

This was Cord’s house, so Matt couldn’t exactly throw Cord out.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

The woman lifted her black coat from the back of a chair. Matt hadn’t even seen it draped there when
he’d first come in. She said softly, “I should go.” She let herself out. She couldn’t make eye contact with
Matt. She had pretty hair.

“I’ll call you,” Cord said after her.

Matt was pulling more books out of Cord’s mahogany bookcase and moving them to the center of the
room. Cord’s hand landed on his wrist. “Put those back. Sit down and talk to me.”

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“If you have something to say, you can say it to me while I pack.” Matt dropped the books on the floor.
He took the stairs by twos up to their bedroom.

The sight of the joyous, rumpled mess of the unmade bed hit him hard. Like that sight should have been
a surprise. Something sour rose in his throat. He swallowed.

He moved robotically to the closet and pulled his old suitcase down from the top shelf and opened it on
the floor. He threw in several days’ worth of clothes. He moved quickly into the bathroom and pulled his
drawer out of the vanity. His glance strayed downward at the trashcan. There were used condoms in it.
Well, thank God for big favors. Cord was cheating, but at least he was cheating safe. That part hadn’t
even occurred to Matt before.

He carried his drawer out to the bedroom and upended it into his suitcase. He tossed the empty drawer
onto the bed. It bounced.

Cord stood in the doorway, blond Ivy League handsome, his hands in the pockets of his chinos, his
weight on one foot. “I don’t deserve this.”

Oh, wrong tack.

Blood burned in Matt’s forehead. He felt as if a pin cushion had sprouted under his tongue. Cord was
playing the injured party. It was just another blow to Matt, beating him down into God-awful emptiness.

“No one gets what he deserves,” Matt answered. “This is just what is.”

Cord sat on their bed. Just his bed now. “What? What? This?” He lifted the edge of the sheet and let it
drop. “You let this get you wrapped around the axle? This was a romp. This is nothing. This has nothing
to do with you and me.”

It didn’t? Well, it didn’t mean anything to Cord, so there was no use arguing. “Fine.”

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“I am bisexual,” said Cord. “You knew that.”

To Matt, bisexual meant Cord was attracted to the person. Whichever gender that person might be
mattered about as much as eye color.

Matt was only ever attracted to men. Matt was under the delusion that once you found the One, then
that was the One. Since he’d become Cord’s partner, Matt didn’t look at other men and he expected
Cord not to look at other people.

They had been living in an exclusive relationship since June. Matt thought the relationship was exclusive.

“And I’m homosexual,” Matt said back. “That doesn’t mean I can bring other men into our bed.”

“And I have never done that, either!” Cord said, his blue eyes and his handsomely manicured hands
spread wide, blameless. “But I have needs that have nothing to do with you.”

Nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with you. The words echoed through him, hammering.

“Fine,” said Matt.

“This doesn’t look like ‘fine,’” Cord said.

“Bisexual means you can go either way,” said Matt. “Doesn’t mean you get to go both ways—not with
me. Cheating is cheating.”

“It’s not cheating,” said Cord, cajoling. “It’s not another man.”

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Matt paused what he was doing and turned to face Cord. “You think being bisexual entitles you to one
of each?”

Cord blinked as if astonished. “It doesn’t?”

Matt could scarcely talk. “You took another lover!”

“You would deny me my needs?” Cord asked. “I am what I am.”

“Then you go take care of your needs. I’ll take care of mine.” Matt turned back to his packing.

“Matt, listen to me—“ Cord touched his arm.

Matt yanked himself away so hard he lost his balance. He caught his footing clumsily. “You have just
told me I am not enough for you. So there you are. And here I am. What I need is someone who needs
me and only me.”

He lowered the lid of the suitcase and put his weight on it, trying to make the latches catch.

“You, you, you,” said Cord. “You’re being incredibly selfish.”

“Oh for—“ Matt couldn’t finish. There was no point talking any more.

To want one love forever true was selfish?

So be it. He was selfish.

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Matt could not change what he was. Share? Not when it made him feel lower than his toenails. Not a
chance.

Into the silence, Cord repeated, “I am what I am.”

“Fine,” said Matt. So am I.

He was feeling like a doormat right now. But he was not a doormat, and he would not stay down there
on the floor and be walked on.

He thumped down the stairs with his suitcase. He wished like hell there was some way he could turn
back, erase what just happened and go back to being a couple. He and Cord had fun. Cord was his
companion, his lover, his co-conspirator. They'd had plans. They’d had adventures. They’d got into shit
together.

It was all over now.

Cord followed him down the stairs.

“You want me to stop seeing her?” Cord asked, his hands up in the air. “It’s done.” His hands dropped
down to slap against his thighs. “Done. For you. You happy?” A mean edge infected his voice.

“Oh, I’m frikkin’ giddy,” Matt said.

“That was uncalled for. I’m giving you what you want,” Cord said, resentment oozing so thick they were
both wading in it.

Cord was trying to make this his fault. No. Matt was not buying that, either. He was not going to be the
villain in this story. He would not demand exclusivity so grudgingly given.

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Love that must be demanded was not love.

If you have to ask for it, you don’t have it.

He’d thought he was loved. He’d thought he was home.

So now he learned Cord’s needs were not being met. Matt hadn’t known. He’d never suspected. He
was staggered, heartbroken. Or just completely broken. He wasn’t right for Cord, and Cord wasn’t right
for him.

“Oh, this is just great,” Cord said. “You’re going to kick your little feet 'til you get everything your own
way? What the hell do you want from me?”

“I don’t want anything from you, Cord. I’m going to find someone whose needs I can fill.”

The sooner they parted, the sooner each could find what he needed.

“Good luck with that,” Cord said.

Matt pulled on his coat. He unwound the house key from his keychain and left it on the little table by the
door. He nodded at the pile of books and things in the middle of Cord’s floor. “I’ll come back and box
up this stuff tomorrow. I gotta go get boxes.” He opened the door.

“Matt!” Cord cried. “I thought we had something special. You’re awfully quick to throw that away. I’m
willing to work through this. You’re not.”

Matt turned in the doorway. The suitcase thunked against the door jamb. Yeah, you’re better than I am,
Matt thought. He said, “You’re right. I’m not willing to work. I am no one’s second. If I’m not your only
lover, I can’t stay in this relationship. We’re done.”

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“That’s selfish. You’re intolerant. But you know what? We can see a counselor. I’m not ready to give
up.”

Cord was still not apologizing. He was not declaring his love. He was not begging please don’t leave me.
He was establishing himself as right.

Matt was sure Cord could find a counselor who would side with him. Cord could always find people to
get things done his way.

“I’ll get the rest of my shit out of the attic when I find a place.” Matt gave the door a shove shut with his
hip.

And Matt had landed here at Doug and Drew’s place last night, bunked on this narrow daybed in their
drafty sunroom.

Sunroom. That was an interesting name for it. There was no such thing as sun in Philadelphia in
November.

The room was an add-on. It had a lot of windows, and it was cold.

Matt wallowed in suffocating loss, empty, crawling.

He had known what he was since forever. He had also felt the need for monogamy about as long, the
need for one love forever true.

He knew there were other gay men out there who could devote their hearts to one and only one. They
just weren’t as loud as the players. Matt guessed it was the same with straight men. The players made
you believe they were all that was out there, so you may as well just deal.

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No. No. No. Matt fought to reject their supposed truth.

He had twisted in the sheets into the small hours, rehashing arguments, second guessing himself. He’d
wrapped his arms around his midriff, held his middle as if something was going to fall out. His thoughts
twisted and wound and unraveled, then looped around again. He relived the shock over and over.

He kept looking for a way back. But he could not abide how small he felt when he consigned himself to
a role less than one and only.

He would not feel small.

Anyone who made him feel this low was not good for him.

The thoughts went round and round.

Stop. Just stop!

Round and round.

Next he’d tried to concentrate on everything that was wrong with their relationship. And there had been
a lot wrong. But life was messy, and you had to expect and accept faults and irritations. He’d been doing
that. Now he had to concentrate on everything he had been ignoring. He had to explain to himself that
this split was a good thing.

It hadn’t helped the emptiness.

Then he got angry at Cord for not being who Matt needed him to be. Like Cord was angry with him for
not being content to be just half of who Cord needed.

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No matter how he cut it, the knife ended up in his heart.

At last he’d gotten up and thrown on some clothes.

He ended up out on street and found rude solace there.

He’d never had anonymous sex before. It gave him something else to wind his thoughts around. It had
been urgent, uncomfortable, real, intense.

He relived the way the man held his face, the way the man had kissed him, the way he’d shielded Matt’s
head with his own when that intruder reached behind his back for what was probably a weapon. That
sheltering gesture alone filled a big piece of empty inside his soul.

And then there was that stupid question, Can I see you again?

Matt supposed it was a good thing the man hadn’t asked for his name and number. Matt needed an
addict like he needed a hole in the head. And the addict had a gun, so he could’ve provided Matt with
one of those too, he thought brightly.

But the man had been there when Matt needed him, and that was enough.

The encounter in the alley told him there were other guys out there. Not that guy, for sure. But others
who could make him feel alive. He didn’t need to settle for a life with someone who found him
inadequate.

He vowed he would get on with his life.

And eventually his heart would just have to catch up.

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Chapter Two

Matt found an apartment just west of the university. It was a third floor walkup in an old brick building.
The windows were tall and narrow, the ceiling very high. Matt needed to stand on something higher than
a chair to change a light bulb, and Matt was six-foot tall.

Sometime in the 1800s this had been a nice house. It had long since been chopped up into student grade
apartments. Since then the building hadn’t just gone to seed -- it was halfway to mulch.

Water stains rippled the wood floors around the radiators. The whole building was on one thermostat,
so Matt’s unit on the top floor got all the heat when the freezing renters on the first floor took a knife
edge to the locked control to goose the temperature higher.

Matt put out pans of water on top of the radiators to get some moisture back into the baking air. The
water evaporated quickly to leave a mineral crust in the bottoms of the pans, which helped explain why
the water from the tap tasted so nasty.

He and Cord had only ever drunk bottled water. Matt didn’t have the budget for that now.

He unrolled his threadbare rugs and arranged his garage sale furniture he’d retrieved from Cord’s attic.
He set up his computer on a card table, which served as both desk and dining table.

He hit the books and tried to work on his thesis.

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He was staring blankly at the printed words on the page when a sound came from the kitchen, a
scraping noise like the window sliding open. A gust of cold air ruffled all the papers around the computer,
and Matt slapped them down and hunched over them to keep them from taking flight.

He heard a rustling thump, like someone climbing in through the kitchen window and landing on the floor.

He should have been a lot more scared, but he had an odd feeling about this.

When the cold gust abruptly stopped with the window’s shutting, Matt got up from the table.

He peered into the kitchen.

The stranger turned from the window, met Matt’s gaze, and pointed his thumb back over his shoulder.
“You need to bar this window. That fire escape is an open invitation to burglars.” His voice came out as
if dragged over gravel.

Matt hadn’t seen him clearly in the dark alley, but he knew the other man instantly. Matt would have
recognized him even without his khaki green trench coat and his dry sniffs.

The man’s head moved in quick turns, his eyes darting, taking in his surroundings.

His presence filled the whole kitchen. His energy pushed at the high ceiling. He seemed to be sparking.
Matt glimpsed a flash of holster on one of his brisk turns. He was still carrying.

He was a battered kind of handsome. Not as handsome as buff, blond Cord, this guy was a lot more
interesting, harder, leaner, scarred, intense, feral. His cheeks were rough with pock marks.

He wore his hair too long for a guy in a suit. The hair was ash blond, more ash than blond. The curled
ends brushed at his collar.

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“How did you find me?” Matt asked.

“I’m a detective.”

Okay, Matt thought. My coke-snorting, gun-toting, anonymous fuck in the alley who just broke into my
apartment has a badge.

This just got gooder and gooder.

The cop took in his shabby surroundings—the ancient, dingy white appliances, the grime on the kitchen
walls, the yellow linoleum flooring curling up around the radiator, the mouse trap, the roach hotels, the
tendrils of dead ivy that had worked through the window frame.

The man gave Matt a quick kiss on the mouth as he blew past to survey the main room. The kiss sent all
coherent thoughts fluttering out of Matt’s head like dizzy birds.

There was something so intimate about a kiss. Especially this man’s kisses. Even that quick pressing of
lips held in it an instant’s extra attention. It was not a peck. The man did not peck.

Matt lifted his hand to his own lips, felt them tingling with echoes of the kiss.

He followed the stranger out to the main room where he was surveying Matt’s lair, looking over the
makeshift bookcases, the ancient couch, the card table overloaded with Matt’s laptop, books and paper.

That Matt was a student was pretty obvious, so the cop skipped that question and went straight to,
“Drexel or Penn?”

“Penn,” Matt said. “Graduate school.”

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The man’s brows lifted. “You have money?” He sounded really skeptical. His eyes roamed the walls,
reassessing. The curtains were actually sheets, and they were too short for the soaring windows. The
book shelves were nothing more than boards laid across stacked cinderblocks.

No, I’m doing graduate work at Penn. How could I possibly have any money left? Matt said, “I have a
teaching fellowship.”

“You’re smart,” the cop concluded.

“That’s a popular misconception,” Matt said.

Matt was book smart, life stupid, a breed of useless intellect currently dwelling in the black pit of what
the hell am I doing here.

“I’m also in hock up to my eyeballs,” Matt said. “Do you have a name, Detective?”

“John Channing. You’re Matt Winter.”

Channing looked at Matt hard, really seeing him for the first time. “You’re kinda gorgeous in the
daylight.”

Matt dropped his gaze, afraid he blushed.

He knew he was good looking because he’d been told too often that he ought to be a model—enough
times that he ran with that idea and actually paid some bills doing catalog work.

His own self image was stuck on the gawky, bookish geek he had been in high school.

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He was slender, beautiful in a high fashion, intellectual, artistic sort of way, his muscles well-defined on
his loose-jointed, lanky frame.

Others found him an intriguing mix of opposites—very male, with the barest breath of the other side. He
looked young. He had doe eyes and a look of innocence, which he didn’t really care for, but he didn’t
know how to look tough.

His hair was dark blond, rather longish and a bit on the limp side. He thought the bones in his face were
too prominent, his forehead too big, his eyes too deeply set. He didn’t see bones to die for when he
shaved in the morning. He never dwelled on it, but if someone wanted to throw cash at him for wearing
clothes, then yippee. Whatever kept the wolf from the door.

John Channing turned to face the entry door by which he should have come in. He cranked the dead
bolt through its turns and flicked a few loose splinters from the door jamb. On the other side of the door
there were stab marks in the wood. Once upon a long time ago, someone must have tried to gouge his
way in here.

“You should have a police lock on this door,” Channing said, giving it a backhand rap with his knuckles.
“In the early eighties there was a break-in here. The perps tied up the two guys living here with electrical
cords, robbed them, took their keys and stole their car.”

Matt wondered how Channing could possibly know what happened in this apartment back in the early
eighties.

I wasn’t alive in the early eighties.

And neither was John Channing, unless he’d been on all fours with his blanky

Channing appeared to be around the same age as Matt, though he’d lived harder and been around the
block a few more times. His shoulders were broad and held proud. He carried himself with an air of
absolute certainty and purpose, which was probably a good quality in a man who carried a gun for a
living.

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This was the guy who stood guard outside the moat surrounding Matt’s ivory tower.

Matt fell in lust.

“Do you want a drink?” Matt asked.

“I’d better not.”

Matt took that as a real good sign. Matt was pretty damned sure Channing was sniffing coke. For a user
to turn down a drink meant he wasn’t completely in the gutter yet.

“Mind if I do?” Matt asked.

“Knock yourself out,” Channing said.

Matt went back into the kitchen to fetch a glass. Channing took off at a wary prowl, scouting out the
bedroom and the bath. Matt could hear his purposeful footsteps.

“I have to admit, I’m nervous,” Matt said sheepishly coming back to the main room and reaching for the
bottle of Scotch set on a crate that served as an end table.

“What could you possibly be afraid of?” Channing said, in cool irony. He drew his service pistol and
chunked it down onto the top shelf.

Yeah, well that’s one thing, Matt thought.

Channing strode swiftly toward Matt. He took Matt’s free hand, turned it palm up, drew something from

Page 30

his coat pocket, pressed it into Matt’s palm and closed his fingers around it.

Matt uncurled his fingers.

A bunch of condoms sat in the palm of his hand.

There’s another.

Matt laughed weakly.

What was really funny was that neither of those things—the gun, AIDS—were what he was afraid of.

Channing’s eyes were on him, seeing straight through him. Channing’s eyes. Matt hadn’t seen the color
of his eyes in the dark of the alley. They were light brown, with flecks of green, flecks of
gold—complicated eyes.

Channing’s eyes already had Matt’s clothes off.

Something fluttered in Matt’s mid-section. He poured the Scotch neat, his long fingers quivering.

He couldn’t figure why he was so tense. It was not like this was his first time with this guy.

Actually, on second thought, it was a lot like a first time. A big hug in the dark was not a home run.

Matt wanted him. Wanted him desperately. The alley grope had been indescribably splendid, but Matt
had imagined a connection he wanted to feel again.

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He took a swallow of Scotch, felt its heat go down through his chest and warm his midsection.

Channing’s hunger clawed at the walls and pushed at the tall ceiling. He watched Matt’s every swallow
with a look of expectation.

Matt was going to have sex. Real, penetrating sex.

What if Channing was in for a big disappointment? John Channing might not find Matt so enchanting with
the lights on.

Am I what he expects?

The first time there had been no expectations beyond jacking off and not getting beat up.

What if Matt was in for a rude surprise?

Matt glanced down at Channing’s crotch. Channing already had a round in the chamber. He was ready.

The doubt, the fear loomed large.

It was just sex, Matt tried to tell himself.

It felt like more, at least on his end.

It mattered more than it should.

It meant something to Matt. He could hurt me. And that’s what he was afraid of.

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Not a physical hurt. Something much deeper than that. Channing had got inside him. Matt had, against all
reason, let this stranger into his heart where he could do damage.

Matt yearned. I want to get naked. I want to get close to you.

And he was scared to death.

He felt a sudden need to impress John Channing.

Cord had squashed his ego flat. It was important to be impressive here.

Matt went back to the kitchen and retrieved a jar of maraschino cherries from the fridge. When he came
back out, Channing’s brows skewed. “A cherry in Scotch?”

“No,” Matt said, trying to sound playful. He was going to act casual if it killed him. He fished out the
stem of a cherry and popped it in his mouth. In twenty seconds, he stuck out his tongue provocatively at
Channing, the cherry stem now tied into a neat tight knot.

Channing’s brows rose appreciatively high. “Okay, that’s it.” He took Matt’s arm as he had in the street
and pulled him into the bedroom.

Matt went along with Channing’s pull, his nerves humming. He heard a dry sniff and asked, “Are you
high?”

“I wish,” Channing growled.

Matt’s sofa-bed was one of those pieces of furniture specially designed for poor students. It was a pair
of stacked cushions connected by a fabric hinge that could unfold from a sofa base into a mattress—after

Page 33

you threw the back rests across the room. Matt hadn’t made the bed. He rarely did. It lay there unfolded
and waiting for them.

Channing turned around at the bedside and took Matt’s head in his hands. Channing kissed him deeply.
Matt’s mouth opened for him, yielding to a kiss like being fucked. Matt thrust his own tongue into
Channing’s mouth by turns, seeking, tasting, feeling.

Matt slipped his hands inside Channing’s coat, past the empty holster, to get his arms around Channing
and draw him in close. Matt pressed his body against Channing’s, their captive erections rubbing
together.

Matt rocked his hips, moving his groin against that hard swelling.

The kiss, the slow dance went on for a time without time. Matt was drowning in fire, savoring the feeling
of Channing’s arms holding Matt tight, Channing’s sex grinding against Matt, Channing’s kisses deep and
hungry, the fierce desire in his deep breaths.

Channing pulled back from the kiss. He pulled Matt’s shirt up. It was a button-down, but it came off
over Matt’s head, leaving his hair cracking with winter static. His shirtsleeves got turned inside out as they
slid off his arms, then got stuck around his wrists at the buttoned cuffs. The cuffs were now inside out,
button-side in, and they were not sliding off over his hands.

Channing had already moved down to open Matt’s cargo pants. Channing had the button loosed, Matt’s
zipper down, and his trousers yanked down around his knees so Matt nearly lost his balance. He
floundered, his hands bound up his sleeves, his shirt waving like a surrender flag, his legs bound together,
and he couldn’t take a step.

Channing sat down on the edge of the low bed, his hands on Matt’s bare hips. He batted the shirt up
and behind Matt’s head and out of his way. It draped around his shoulders from Matt’s hands like a belly
dancer’s veil. Except the dancer could not let go of the damned veil.

And holy God, Matt felt Channing’s breath on his rigid cock. And then Channing’s tongue. The most
amazing hot wetness surrounded Matt’s sex.

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Part of him wanted just to luxuriate in that hot, sweet sensation, but he could not stay passive.

Yet he was quite literally cuffed in his shirtsleeves. He couldn’t do anything. He groaned on Channing’s
downstroke. Then he yelped, flapping his shirt. “A little help here.”

Channing’s mouth came up, his lips rested on the tip of Matt’s cock. Channing spoke, his lips moving on
the head of Matt’s sex, “You’re doing just fine.” And Channing went down on him again, his lips a tight
ring, his hands holding Matt’s bare ass, his fingertips brushing inside the cleft.

Matt gave a snarling cry. He wrestled with his shirt, terribly distracted by what was happening to his
cock and the strong, rough-skinned hands kneading his buttocks and toying with his anus.

Finally, finally Matt got his hands free of his sleeves. He ran his fingers through Channing’s hair.

Channing’s teeth poised at the edge of Matt’s crown, his tongue circling the tip.

Matt kicked off his shoes. He tried to get out of his cargo pants, but Channing was not letting go of him.
That maddening, blissful stroke of his tongue blew every thought out of Matt’s head. Channing’s mouth
enfolded him. Channing’s lips moved up and down on Matt. Channing’s forehead butted at Matt’s hard
flat belly, his teeth lightly grazing Matt’s shaft, Channing’s tongue tantalizing Matt with rolling wetness.

Matt’s fists closed on the shoulders of Channing’s trench coat.

Abruptly, Channing stood up. He took Matt’s naked body in his arms and fell backward, pulling Matt
down with him onto the bed, Matt’s legs still trapped together by his trousers.

Channing’s fully clothed embrace felt strange against Matt’s bare skin. Matt writhed and kicked out of
his trousers, while Channing tormented his nipples with lips, teeth and tongue.

Finally free of his pants, Matt spread his legs to sit astride Channing. Now Matt was completely naked.

Page 35

Channing still had his coat on. Channing’s trousered legs between Matt’s bare thighs, Channing’s closed
fly against Matt’s balls, the cool canvas coat sleeves surrounding Matt made him feel terribly vulnerable.

Matt tugged on a khaki green lapel and forced himself to sound glib. “Hey you, in the trench coat, aren’t
you going to show me your gun?”

Channing moved his hips underneath Matt, rubbing his clothed sex against Matt’s bare balls. “That
one?”

Matt groaned. “That one.”

Channing made a noncommittal sound and ran his tongue across Matt’s collarbone.

“I feel a little naked here,” Matt said, shivering at the wet caress.

“Looks good on you,” Channing said. He laid his head back on the mattress. He took Matt’s ribcage
between his hands, holding Matt up away from him and let his thumbs circle Matt’s nipples. The low
nubs grew hard. Matt’s nipples were pleasure points few lovers ever found. Channing fondled and teased
them. His warm, working-man’s hands felt splendid on Matt’s chest.

Channing curled up in a quarter sit-up to nip one nipple.

Matt drew his knees up so he could sit up straddling Channing. Channing was not making any move to
undress. It wasn’t a question of not being ready. Matt felt his wanting. Channing just had more endurance
than Matt and way too much patience.

Matt reached down, trying to undo Channing’s belt.

Channing bucked upward and rolled them both over together so that Channing was on top. He propped
his elbows on the mattress on either side of Matt’s chest, his hands underneath, gripping the backs of
Matt’s shoulders. Channing looked down at him with a smug, hungry, languorous smile.

Page 36

Matt’s long bangs were in his eyes.

Matt brought his hands forward and undid a button of Channing’s shirt. Channing watched Matt’s hands
move. His voice went low. “That looks so sexy.”

Matt opened Channing’s shirt just far enough to slide his hands inside to feel Channing’s pectoral
muscles and move his long fingers in Channing’s crisp chest hair.

Channing lifted himself up on hands and knees to give Matt room to work. Matt finished unbuttoning
Channing’s shirt the rest of the way down. He unfastened Channing’s belt and opened his fly.

Channing shrugged out of his shirt, his suit jacket, his holster and trench coat all together. He threw the
bundle behind him and pounced back down on Matt like a hungry wolf.

Matt writhed underneath him, transported by the sensation of skin on skin, of sex on sex, of masculine
hair grinding against his body, of masculine scent filling his head.

He was only wary of the cool bite of the edges of Channing’s open zipper as Matt moved beneath him.

Channing’s hands caged Matt’s head. Channing was panting, straining. He gazed into Matt’s eyes with a
searing connection that jolted Matt to his soul and sent a twisting tendril of fire through him, his gut, his
groin. Channing’s gaze was too hot to hold, to wonderful to look away. Matt seethed with sexual heat.

Channing pushed off and back. He stood up to get out of his trousers and descended back onto Matt.
They wrestled, naked, twining.

Matt was ready. He was ready before Channing kissed him.

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Channing came up from their torrid kiss and gasped, “Where are the condoms?”

Matt gulped. “I—I think I dropped them.”

Channing reached over the side of the mattress and patted the floor, groping for his coat. He found it.
He pulled out a handful of condoms and ripped one packet open with his teeth.

He knelt up, astride Matt’s hips, his erection thrust up rigid. “Put this on me.”

Matt fumbled with the condom while he stared at Channing’s hard cock. He didn’t want to cover it up.
There was a wreath of foreskin gathered under the helmet, pulled back from its bulbous tip. Matt hadn’t
seen that in the alley. He positioned the condom over the head and unrolled the rubber down Channing’s
rigid cock, stroking as he went. The rubber was slippery wet with lubricant.

Matt started to turn over, but Channing stopped him. “No. I want you to look at me.” He made Matt lie
back.

Channing lifted Matt’s legs over his shoulders and moved himself forward, lifting Matt’s ass off the
mattress. Matt felt the wet condom moving in the channel between his buttocks. Channing’s hands
reached under Matt’s ass. Channing moved his cock until it prodded at Matt’s anus. He pressed slightly,
then paused there, hesitant.

His eyes moved back and forth across Matt’s face beneath him. “Are you all right?”

Matt gazed up at him, transfixed. “Perfect,” Matt said.

Channing’s weathered voice murmured low, “Yeah.”

He pushed.

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Matt’s body opened to receive him, welcome him, take him in. And in.

Pleasure lanced through him, electric.

Matt uttered a deep groan. His eyelids fluttered. He felt Channing’s return moan, felt Channing’s breath
on his face.

In and in Channing moved, slow and sweet and carnal. Then out and out. Matt’s own cock rubbed at
Channing’s belly with each slow penetration, rasping against the wiry hair that grew there. Channing’s
skin blossomed with a fine haze of moisture. His muscles gleamed, straining.

In and out.

Matt ran his hands down Channing’s slick sides. He felt Channing’s shoulders under the crooks of his
knees, felt Channing’s chest muscles move against the backs of his thighs as Channing worked hard to
keep control.

Channing gazed down at Matt, his brow taut, his voice a ragged murmur. “Am I hurting you?”

Matt could barely speak, “No.”

Channing quickened. Heat flared between their bodies.

Matt’s head lashed from side to side. Bleating sounds came from out of him. He felt as if some part of
him had taken flight. The sensations were too beautiful to contain, a man’s sex moving inside him, a man’s
hot skin rubbing against his cock. Channing’s head bowed, his heated exhalations spread between their
bodies. Matt felt Channing’s breath cross his damp skin, felt it caress his cock.

Matt moved with Channing’s driving passion higher and higher. He was soaring and falling at once.

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Channing’s hand closed around Matt’s cock, and Matt’s entire being ignited. He cried out. Channing
bowed his head to watch Matt come in his hand.

And in the next moment, Matt felt Channing’s answering pulses move inside him like echoes of his own
shuddering rapture. Even contained in that fucking rubber, Channing’s ejaculation swept through him in
waves of sheer physical joy.

Time extended, drawn out in perfect pleasure, shimmering. If only he could freeze this moment with
Channing inside him, Channing’s hand tight around his erection, climaxing.

The peak hung in eternity. Matt thought he had died and gone someplace he never expected to see.

The fires subsided slowly.

Channing’s head bowed until his forehead rested on Matt’s sternum while his breaths came down from
heated jets to warm sighs. The curls on the back of his neck were soaking wet.

Channing let his sex slip out of Matt’s body, and he lowered Matt’s ass down to the mattress. Channing
lay over Matt and slid his hands behind Matt’s head to hold him, Channing’s face next to Matt’s, nose
alongside nose, eyes shut, as if trying to hold on to this moment, memorize it.

The moment was broken by an inevitable sniff.

Their heartbeats gentled. Channing knelt back and took off the condom.

He sniffed again.

Matt said, “You didn’t bring any junk in here, did you?”

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Great pillow talk, Matt. Just great.

“No,” Channing said. But he didn’t deny that he was using.

Channing got up and went into the bathroom.

Alone in the bed, Matt was thrown back into unknown territory.

Are we done?

Matt wasn’t ready for it to be done. Was Channing going to come out here, collect his clothes, give
Matt a "baby you were great, I’ll call you"?

The bathroom door opened. Channing came out.

And he climbed back onto the bed. He took Matt in his arms. He brushed his lips across one shoulder
and let his hand trail down Matt’s side and over his hip bone.

Matt settled into the close comfort. They weren’t done.

Matt drew light circles in Channing’s palm with his fingertip. There were pox scars on Channing’s wrists.
Strange, because there were none on his torso.

Matt and Channing interlaced fingers, slowly gliding up and down. Matt was not used to anything
touching him between his fingers. It gave him a little thrill of pleasure. He was not sure if he was sensitive
there or it was just Channing’s touch that made it feel so nice.

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Channing murmured against his temple. “You are… you are…” He kissed Matt’s temple. “The sweetest
thing ever.”

“Ever?” Matt echoed. It sounded like a significant number when Channing said it. “Been a lot?”

“A few,” Channing said.

Few had never sounded so much like a whole lot.

Channing couldn’t be that much older than Matt. His skin was supple, if a bit more banged up than
Matt’s. He had some scars, but his body was toned and strong.

Channing got up and pulled on his trousers.

Matt watched him from the bed, wondering if he would leave now.

Don’t go. Don’t go, Matt silently begged, then immediately turned around and commanded himself,
Don’t cling! You’re rebounding, you dickhead. You don’t even know him!

Channing walked barefoot and shirtless to the outer room. It was a very nice body, his back straight and
strong, his muscles beautifully corded. “Got anything to eat?” Channing asked, making for the kitchen.

Matt answered through a giddy smile. “Yeah.” He got up, went first to the bathroom, then threw on his
cargo pants and joined Channing in the kitchen.

They scrounged about for lunch fixings. Matt tried not to grin like an idiot. There was a special intimacy
in the mundane, companionable patter of sandwich-making, asking if you took ketchup or sneering at the
very mention of pickles.

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They moved out to the main room with plates and glasses of juice.

Channing headed for the monster couch, which was draped with several madras India print throws to
camouflage the floral horror beneath. “I wouldn’t sit on that.” Matt gestured with his juice glass. “I think
there’s something living in it.”

“Why’d you move it in here?”

“It was here when I got here. It’s a fold out. It’s got a metal frame, and it weighs a ton.”

The metal feet had lost whatever protective covers they ever had. The bare metal had dug shallow
trenches into the hard wood. The monstrosity had squatter’s rights.

Matt explained, “Me, Drew and Doug where going to throw it off the fire escape, but it decided to
stay.”

Now that Channing knew that three men couldn’t move it, of course he had to set down his food and
give the monster a heft to test its weight. “Jeez.” Channing gave up, then let himself drop down onto it.
He sat in a half sprawl, one arm flung across the back of the couch, his bare feet drawn up on the
cushions.

He looked raw and beautiful, dressed only in trousers. His hair was finger-combed back, its damp ends
curling behind his head. His chest and belly hair gave him the look of a handsome animal.

Channing settled into the sofa. He gave the corner of one of the India print covers a flip. “Well these are
groovy.”

“They were my Mom’s,” Matt said.

“Is Mom groovy?”

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“Yeah. She was,” Matt said. “Unrepentant hippie.”

“She’s gone,” Channing caught that part. “I’m sorry.”

Matt nodded. Matt’s mom had been old enough to be his grandmother.

He wished he had a sound system for mood music. But it would have been of no use anyway. His
downstairs neighbor had come home. Her music was thumping through the floor.

Matt took a seat on the other end of the couch.

They were both barefoot. Their feet caressed each other’s as they ate. There were a few pock marks on
Channing’s ankles.

From the marks on Channing’s cheeks, Matt had expected scarring on his torso, but there wasn’t that
he could see. Matt would need to give it another thorough inspection.

“You’re not cut,” Matt said. “How’d you get away with that?”

Channing blinked, not comprehending. Then he got it. “Oh. Foreskin.”

“You have one,” Matt said.

Channing shrugged. “Just born in the right place at the right time.”

Matt slid his foot up one trouser leg and explored Channing’s hard calf muscles with his toes.

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The sole of Matt’s foot slid over a hard ridge that felt like a welt just above Channing’s ankle. Matt set
his plate and glass aside so he could crawl forward and lift Channing’s trouser leg to see what he’d been
feeling.

There were two heavy scars on either side of his shinbone. Matt thought he felt a thickness in the bone
that may have been an old break. “Break your leg?” Matt asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Channing said meaningfully.

“How’d you do that?”

“Bear trap.”

Matt recoiled. “Ow.”

“Yeah, I got your ow,” Channing said dryly.

Matt leaned down to lick Channing’s ankle bone.

Channing gave a low, sighing moan. He murmured, “Real far from ow.”

As Matt got up to clear their plates and glasses, Channing nodded toward a violin case propped up in
one corner of the room. “You play?”

Matt shook his head. “It was my Mom’s.” He set the dishes in the sink.

He could hear Channing getting up from the beastly couch. Matt hoped he wasn’t leaving.

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Next he heard sounds of the violin case unlatching.

Matt came out to see Channing tightening and tuning the violin strings. Channing tightened the horsehair
on the bow, propped the violin on his collarbone, and played a lively little Celtic-sounding tune.

When he finished with a flourish, Matt said, “Well, that was unexpected.”

“I just wondered if I still knew how,” Channing said. “Apparently it’s like falling off a bike.”

He loosened the strings and the horsehair and put the violin away.

Then Channing took Matt by the hand, tugged. His head canted toward the bedroom. “C’mon. Bring
your tongue.”

They went into the bedroom holding hands. It felt nice. Holding hands was personal, like a kiss.

Channing shed his trousers and lay back on the bed, hands behind his head. His erection stood up
proud. “It’s not a cherry stem, but I can’t wait to see what you can do.”

Matt pushed down his own cargo pants and stepped out of them. He knelt at the bedside. He ran his
tongue up the inside of Channing’s thigh. Matt licked Channing’s balls then took as much of Channing’s
scrotum in his mouth as he could and massaged Channing with his tongue. Matt dragged the broadside of
his tongue up the length of Channing’s cock, then circled his helmet with his tongue tip. He fluttered an
eyelash at the head of Channing’s cock just before he went down on him, sucking and stroking. He
moved his head to pivot screw-wise a quarter turn and back round, drawing sounds of pleasure out of
Channing.

“It’s been a long time since anyone was this nice to me,” Channing murmured.

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Matt moved up and down on his sex. Channing smelled thoroughly male, exotic, earthy. It was a deep
woods, primal kind of scent.

Channing corrected himself, “Hell, no one’s ever been this nice to me.” His hands moved in Matt’s hair.

Matt tasted pre-come. Channing’s labored breaths and straining muscles told Matt that Channing’s
self-control was slipping.

Channing’s hands took Matt’s head and tried to pull him off him. Channing’s voice was guttural,
desperate, “Matthew? Lover? You’re asking for it.”

Matt came up.

Channing tried to turn him around into an invert. “No,” Matt said. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“I can’t sixty-nine.”

Matt was long-waisted, and the position was awkward for him. The cock went that way and his mouth
went this way and he’d been told he had really really sharp lower teeth. “I can’t do it. I lose one end or
the other.”

“Well then, there are other positions.” Channing rolled off the bed and stood up. He took Matt by the
hand and made him stand up, too. “Up against the wall,” Channing ordered, and gave him a shove.

Matt braced himself, palms to the wall. He quivered in anticipation laced with a touch of fear. Channing
kicked his feet wider apart like an arresting cop.

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Channing’s strong, rough-skinned hands braced Matt’s hips.

“God, you’re pretty.”

Matt felt the tip of Channing’s cock drawing paths of wet desire on his ass. Then the cock nestled in
between Matt’s cheeks and slid in the cleft.

Channing let go Matt’s of hips to let his arms circle around Matt’s body. One hand fondled Matt’s
chest, the other reached down to take Matt’s erection. Matt gasped.

Channing worked him, one hand pumping his cock, the other pinching one nipple, his own naked cock
sliding between Matt’s buttocks.

“Put it in,” Matt begged. And damn it he’d forgot about the condoms again. He was past the point of
caring.

Channing was still in control. He stepped away, retrieved a packet from the floor, tore it open, and put
the jacket on himself.

He seized Matt’s hips. The head of his cock found Matt’s anus.

Matt’s cock expressed precome at just that touch. His eyes expressed tears. “Come in. Oh God, come
inside me.”

Channing’s erection pushed through the gates, his hand reached around to squeeze Matt’s cock, and
Matt shuddered in stunned wonder. Condom be damned, that was Channing inside his body, slowly
riding.

Matt felt Channing’s strokes quicken, his excitement mounting. Channing’s arousal pushed Matt higher.
The combination of Channing’s cock inside him and his own cock in Channing’s hand was too splendid

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to endure for long. Matt tried to hold on, hold on. Matt’s heat welled and spilled over Channing’s fingers.
Channing’s grip tightened. Channing’s teeth grazed Matt’s back. Matt came hard, pulsing, long. He felt
Channing’s balls contract against his buttocks, and Matt shuddered again.

He leaned heavily against the wall, his head dropped between his trembling arms. He panted, his body
damp with sweat. Channing was still inside him, still holding him.

When at last Channing’s sticky fingers uncurled from around Matt’s cock and Channing’s cock
withdrew from Matt’s ass, Matt pushed himself off the wall to stand upright. He navigated, unsteady on
his feet, back to the bed. Matt lay back. Channing crawled over him, and they lay together.

Channing lifted his head to look at Matt’s face. It was wet. “What’s with the tears? Am I that bad?”
Channing asked.

“You’re that good.” Matt blinked. His cock tingled in an afterglow.

Channing was a pleasant weight on top of him. Matt’s palms moved across Channing’s bare back,
feeling the hard sinew under his skin. Matt let his nails trail lightly up and down. Channing gave a groaning
purr of contentment into Matt’s shoulder.

Channing lifted his face high enough to look at Matt again from under heavy eyelids with a pleasantly
sated expression. “Can I crash here for a while?”

Matt struggled to rein in his elation. He looked into Channing’s complicated eyes and asked, “Are you
using me?”

“Yeah.”

That was not exactly what Matt wanted to hear, but at this point in his rebound he appreciated bald
honesty. And the sex was great. “Sure.”

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Channing said, “I can stay out on the couch if I get too obnoxious.”

For a moment, Matt wondered why on earth Channing would want to stay on the couch and why would
he be obnoxious. Then he realized out loud, “You’re detoxing.”

Channing meant to go into cocaine withdrawal here. I’m trip sitting a strung out cop. “This just gets
gooder and gooder.”

Channing’s eyes narrowed uncertain, suspicious. He seemed pretty sure, but there was some doubt here
facing an Ivy Leaguer. “Gooder isn’t a real word is it?”

“No,” Matt said. “But it works.”

“Works good,” Channing said. He sat up. “I need to be clean and sober before I testify. I gotta slow
down.” His head turns were too fast, amped, as if he was running on jet fuel. “I need nose hair. They’ll
toss out anything a junkie says.”

“And you came here to get straight?”

“I can’t go to a doctor or a hospital or rehab. They keep records and those can be got by Discovery.
You can’t hide that kind of shit or it’ll get any sentence overturned.”

I should throw him out. I should bar that window.

Hell of it is, I like him.

Channing was a magnetic presence. His air of strength and purpose was compelling. And he played the
frikkin’ violin. He lived hard. Sex with him was like making love. Matt felt, imagined, real affection from
him. Even in the alley Channing had kissed him.

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I can’t do this.

I shouldn’t do this.

Matt gave him his spare key.

Chapter Three

Matt got up early. He and Channing had fallen asleep wrapped around each other. They had made love
two more times before a dawn that came too early. Matt wakened with a bristly chin ground into his
shoulder. Channing was still asleep, snoring softly against Matt’s neck. The radiator was throwing off too
much heat, and he and Channing were both sweaty. Naked skin stuck to naked skin. It was heaven.
Matt’s arm was asleep, and he had to pee badly, but he didn’t want to break this moment.

Still, he had to get up. Matt had to teach a class. He was badly unprepared, but he mushed through it.
He could teach Antho 101 in his sleep. And that was pretty much what he did.

His mood was sky high walking home. He was infatuated. He knew this was a rebound, but he told
himself to stop analyzing it and just enjoy it, stupid.

He came home to find Channing sitting at the card table with Matt’s vibrator standing on end, turned on.
The ten inch dildo was moving at a vibrating walk across the table top.

“You searched my drawers,” Matt said.

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Channing gave his head a wag no. “I was looking for a place to put my clothes.”

Matt noticed that Channing had moved some things in and made himself at home while Matt was at
class. Channing was wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt that showed off his musculature.

Matt totally bought his whole look, his strong profile, the curls clustered behind his head, the way he held
himself, even seated like this with his arm hooked over the back of the chair. Channing was a forceful
sexual presence.

Channing tilted his head at the vibrator. “You were out of batteries.”

Apparently, Channing had bought batteries while he was out.

“I don’t put batteries in it.” Matt had never seen the charm of the vibration. He’d just wanted the dildo,
and it only ever came out of the drawer when he was hot and no one else was around. He didn’t like
toys when he had a real man.

The vibrator walked itself off the edge of the table. Channing caught it falling. He switched it off. “Funny,
it didn’t look depressed enough to jump.”

“It wasn’t going to jump,” Matt said. “It was just real unhappy.” He held out a demanding palm.

Channing placed the dildo into Matt’s hand. Channing held on to his end an extra moment, both of them
holding the phallus, before he let go.

“Who hurt you?” Channing said.

Oh. So he’d picked up on that. He knew Matt was a rebound.

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“Not the guy I thought he was.” Matt returned the dildo to its drawer.

Channing had wasted no time unpacking. He’d brought some clothes, a second pair of shoes, a razor, a
toothbrush.

He’d also installed a doorstop on Matt’s entry door. It was a brace that swiveled up or down on a
hinge. In the down position, it formed a prop that kept the door from opening. There was an air horn
inside it, so if someone tried to force it, the doorstop’s foot depressed and the thing blared louder than
downstairs’ stereo. Channing demonstrated. The noise made Matt jump.

“Keep this in the down position when you’re here alone,” Channing told him.

“A little paranoid, aren’t you?”

“It’s in the job description,” Channing said.

Channing’s protectiveness gave Matt the warm fuzzies, even though he realized Channing was a cop, of
course he was defensive and suspicious by nature. And he traveled in drug circles.

“Who is Cord McClain?” Channing asked out of the blue.

Matt stiffened.

“Fuck him,” Matt said.

“Please don’t,” Channing said.

“Okay,” Matt said.

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“He called while you were out.”

“Did you tell him to fuck himself?”

“Can I?” Channing asked. He was jealous. Matt didn’t mind jealous. It felt good. “Sure.”

Channing got up. He reached inside a pocket of his coat, which hung on a hook beside Matt’s next to
the door. He brought out a piece of paper and handed it to Matt.

Matt unfolded the paper. It was a lab report. It said John Channing tested negative for HIV.

He was clean. Matt lifted his eyes from the report and said apologetically, “I don’t have one of these.”

Channing swept him off his feet, bridewise. Matt gave a startled, “Oh shit!” as Channing carried him into
the bedroom.

They fell into each other on the bed, tearing off each other’s clothes. Channing’s erection nestled
between Matt’s buttocks. There was to be no foreplay. This was happening now, right now. The tip of
Channing’s sex prodded at Matt’s ass.

“Lube,” Channing grunted, urgent.

“Oh fuck,” Matt cried. He didn’t have any.

“Condoms,” Channing said. He pushed off the bed, retrieved a couple packets and slicked the lubricant
from them onto his cock.

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“I can do that,” Matt offered.

Channing shook his head, scowling under the goad of desire. “Are you ready?”

“Since about Wednesday,” Matt said, lying back. He let Channing slide in under his legs and lift his ass
off the mattress.

Channing pushed. Matt welcomed Channing’s bare cock inside him. A current of excitement blazed
through him to the tip of his cock. His breath froze in his chest with a feeling as intense as pain but oh so
no pain.

Matt tossed his head, all his senses shimmering, his heart hammering.

As Channing began to thrust, Matt found his breath in deep gasps. The feeling of skin on skin was
extraordinary. Channing’s naked hardness moved in and out, their flesh joining. It was overwhelming.
Matt could not hold back.

Passion swelled and broke.

Channing’s liquid fire released inside him. Its warmth pushed Matt over the summit. Small shots of white
come painted Channing’s abdomen in scribbles of perfect ecstasy that re-echoed back at him as
Channing convulsed harder and gave again.

Cascading spasms of pleasure rippled away in joyful pulses. Channing stayed where he was, propped
up on his hands, poised over Matt, their bodies locked together, Channing deep inside him.

Channing’s gaze, focused down on Matt, was unreadable, his face in the grip of some profound
emotion.

“That was—“ Matt began.

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“Fast?” Channing asked, his strange expression turning to a rueful smile.

“Needed,” Matt said.

Channing sniffed.

***

Matt and Channing took turns flicking condom packets off the card table, aiming at the wastebasket.
Matt was the better shot.

“So what do you do with an anthropology major?” Channing asked idly, when they were out of ammo.

Matt groaned. He was really really tired of that question. “A lot of things.”

“Anything practical?”

Matt should have answered a simple yes. Instead, he tried give all the possibilities and to explain his
thesis. He watched Channing’s eyes glaze over.

“Matt?” Channing interrupted him.

“Yeah?” Matt said.

“I didn’t understand a word you just said.”

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“I get that a lot,” Matt said, deflated.

Channing cracked one of his books and scowled at a random page. “Is this even written in English? I
don’t even understand the titles of these books.”

“They’re a little esoteric,” Matt said.

“A little,” Channing said, looking up at Matt warily, as if a brain that big might be in danger of exploding.
He slapped the book shut. “Do you belong to Mensa?”

“No,” Matt said. But just enough doubt crept into his voice to set off Channing’s radar.

Apparently the cop’s sixth sense heard a lie behind a truth. “Only because you didn’t apply for
membership,” Channing filled in the missing piece.

Matt shut up. It was true. He had the IQ. He had never cared to join the genius organization.

He was already disconnected enough from the mainstream. He didn’t feel like he quite belonged. And
maybe that was part of what drew him to Channing. The man was grounded, gritty, rough, real.

Channing slid off his chair and crouched down to gather up their misses from the floor around the trash
can. The man was beautiful in a crouch. His trousers pulled nicely across his hard ass. And when he
turned, Matt could see that Channing held his stomach in, even bent down like that. It gave his body a
lean, powerful line.

While he was down there, Channing found a pair of 2-liter cola bottles filled with sand. Channing didn’t
know what to make of them. He lifted one by the neck and offered it up curiously. “You’re a real hard
drinker?”

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“Poor man’s dumbbells,” Matt said.

“Poor seems to be working,” Channing said. “You have an astonishing body.”

***

At midnight, Channing came to bed in sweatpants. Matt was naked.

“Put something on,” Channing ordered him.

“I sleep naked,” Matt said.

“I don’t sleep with you naked,” Channing said. “Put something on.”

“I don’t have anything.”

Channing gave him a pair of boxers and a tee. They almost fit. They were little looser on Matt than on
Channing. Matt felt a nice intimacy wearing them.

Channing gazed at Matt in Channing’s skivvies. “Oh hell, that’s not working.”

The clothes came off right then. And one more time after that before morning.

***

Page 58

Matt stepped out of the library into the early November dark.

Between classes and a marathon study session with Miranda and Bonner, Matt had been away from the
apartment all day.

It was Saturday night, and the undergraduates were partying.

Matt passed through a group of drunken frat boys who were doing strange things to the broken button
sculpture. As Matt moved by, the brothers shifted their sights to Matt. Something about him—his loose
walk, his ambivalent sexuality—set off their predatory instincts. Their lewd catcalls and whistles gave him
chills. He kept walking.

The threatening noises got louder. A pack of them fell in behind him, drunk and ugly. They sounded on
the verge of doing something vicious.

Matt dropped his backpack and spun round to face them. “So, what are you going to do?” Matt
challenged. “What? Make your mama proud! Get your chapter closed down! Lose that scholarship! And
don’t you know a hate crime looks smashing on a vita!”

The ring widened, backing off. The frat boys pretended not to give a shit, but Matt could tell something
of what he said had penetrated their fat heads. They made face-saving raspberries and hooted to tell him
they were not daunted, even though they were.

Matt bent over to retrieve his backpack from where he’d dropped it. He heard the comments on his ass,
but no one was moving in.

They let him pass. They made it sound like it was their idea to let him go.

He was passing underneath the dragon-headed waterspouts of the looming, Gothic, red stone fine arts
library when Channing appeared out of the shadows and fell into step with him. Matt asked, “Are you my
guardian stalker?”

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“You didn’t need me,” Channing said. He glanced back. “You handled it.”

“I speak frat,” Matt said.

“Yeah, I saw that. You read that scene real well.”

Studying societies was what Matt did. He knew exactly which buttons to press to get that sort’s
attention. He had invoked mom, the chapter house, money, and their bright bright corporate futures—all
their sacred cows. Assaulting a gay boy just wasn’t worth risking any of those things.

“What’s a vita?” Channing asked.

“Curriculum vitae,” Matt said.

Channing’s expression was blank, so Matt translated, “That’s Latin for ‘snooty resume.’”

As they walked past the statue of the university’s founder, Channing gave the massive plinth a casual
slap, like a greeting. “Good evening, Doctor Franklin.”

The bronze Ben Franklin gazed benignly over their heads.

On the three-quarter mile walk home, Channing sniffed, hunched his shoulders, and glanced about, as if
seeing things in the shadows. He seemed agitated, unhappy. He didn’t complain, but Matt guessed the
withdrawal was sinking its fangs in.

Matt was still trying to figure out how old Channing was. Every time he thought Channing looked the
same age, something in his presence suggested Channing was much older. Matt supposed that happened
with people who worked for a living. They matured faster than those who dwelled in the strange, insular

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little world of academia.

It struck Matt how very different he was from Cord. When Cord wasn’t feeling well, he got well and
truly surly. Cord was always quick to share the misery.

Channing kept his suffering to himself. Matt remained on the lee side of the storm that was racking
Channing’s nerves.

Toward Matt, Channing got gentler, if anything, as if Channing was afraid of hurting him.

That night, Channing woke thrashing. He shoved Matt and frantically brushed at the sheets with his
hands. Ants, Matt guessed. There were non-existent ants all over the bed.

Channing’s eyes were open, but there was no one home behind the glassy gaze. He was getting more
and more panicked at the imaginary swarms.

“Channing,” Matt said.

Channing mumbled urgently, pushing Matt out of the bed, “Move move move.” He brushed something
off Matt’s arm.

“Wake up. There’s nothing there.”

Channing moaned, despairing, “God!” His blank eyes stared as he tried to get the things off Matt’s arms,
Matt’s body. “No!”

Matt moved away and flipped on the light.

Channing’s eyes shut against the sudden brightness.

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Awareness returned by blinks. Channing sniffed. “Shit.”

Matt sat down and slid an arm around Channing's waist. Channing’s skin was damp under Matt’s palm.
Matt felt the hard muscle underneath, and his quick heartbeat. Channing’s breaths moved his whole
body. Matt sensed fire under heavy containment.

Matt said, “I didn’t know hallucinations were part of cocaine withdrawal.”

Channing pressed his palm heel to his brow, squinting in pain. “They’re not. That part would be the
heroin talking.”

Oh crap. “You took heroin too?”

“When you’re passing as a dirty cop you have to get a little dirty.”

A little.

“Can’t you take something?” Matt asked.

“No. The Defense will find out.” He bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck.

“So?”

Channing lifted his head. Sniffed. “I’m not gonna lie on the stand. I did drugs. Yes. The trick is not to
need drugs to stop doing the drugs. If I need drugs, then I’m an addict, and no one believes the testimony
of an addict. The Defense desperately needs me to be an unreliable witness, because if I’m credible, their
guy fries.”

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Their guy does WHAT?

Matt cried, “This is a capital case?” His insides turned. This must be what it felt like to have kittens.

“Yep.” Channing’s bloodshot eyes slid aside to Matt. “Gooder and gooder?”

“Oh hell, we’re past gooder clear through to frikkin splendid.”

***

Channing spent most of the next day in bed, wrestling with demons.

He got up and dressed at nightfall. He paced like a caged animal.

Then he sniffed and headed for the door.

Matt blocked Channing’s way, Matt’s back against the door. “Don’t.”

“I gotta get some air,” Channing mumbled distractedly.

Matt gazed level into his eyes. “No, you’re going to score some coke.”

“No, I’m not. Get out of the way.”

“If you go, take all your stuff and leave your key,” Matt said. “Please don’t.”

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“I’m just taking a walk.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You think I’m lying?”

“I’m talking to the drugs, aren’t I?”

Channing’s chest expanded with a snarl, about to unleash all the devils of hell on Matt. Then he blinked.
Immediately, his fury collapsed and he admitted, “Yeah. Yes, you are.” Channing set down his keys,
took off his coat and went back to bed.

***

Matt didn’t want to leave Channing alone. That would be an invitation to prowl. So he had Miranda
come over to his apartment to study instead. That was okay with Miranda. Her place was a fairly
grotesque hell hole. The worst Matt had were a few mice and roaches and a recovering addict in the
bedroom, and he hadn’t even seen the mice lately.

Matt pulled the bedroom door shut. Any noise Miranda and Matt made was drowned out by the bass
line pounding from the apartment below.

When Miranda needed to use the bathroom, she crept quietly through the bedroom, politely avoiding
looking at the bed.

As she reached for the bathroom doorknob, the door abruptly opened in front of her.

A naked man stood before her, his unshaven face pinched in sleepy pain, his eyes nearly shut, his hair

Page 64

awry.

“Hello!” Miranda said brightly. She looked down. “Oh wow. I’ve never seen one like that in the flesh.
You know the first pictures of naked men I ever saw were Greek statues, and until I was thirteen I
thought penises were pointy. I see how that works now. It’s got a little hoodie on it.”

Channing’s eyes were very narrow, if open at all. He firmly, gently, took her shoulders and moved her
around so they traded places in the doorway--he in the bedroom and she in the bath--and he pulled the
door shut between them.

He crawled back into the bed.

Miranda came out to the main room. She closed the bedroom door softly behind her and sat back at the
card table with Matt. “Good looking guy!”

“He’s a wreck,” Matt said.

She gave a provisional shrug. “Scratch and dent model, but fundamentally sound.” She patted all the
papers on the table, searching for her reading glasses.

“Head,” Matt said, gesturing above his own forehead.

Miranda pulled her glasses down onto her nose and picked up a book. “I like him better than Cord.”

It seemed a strange thing for her to say.

Stranger still for him to realize, So do I.

“He suffers in silence,” Miranda said. “And I think he’ll clean up pretty.”

Page 65

***

It was close to midnight by the time Matt slid into bed with Channing. He liked to sleep next to a beating
heart under warm skin—warm when Channing wasn’t breaking a clammy sweat, but even that was
human and preferable to sleeping alone.

Channing stirred, looked at the clock. He mumbled, “You two were hard at it. I could hear the brains
frying from in here.”

“Did we disturb you?”

“Hell no.”

In the middle of night that was more like late morning, the light came on. Matt squinted against the
stabbing brightness as Channing commanded, “Get up.”

Channing was pulling up the sheets, searching everywhere. He turned pillows over and over. He
searched Matt’s body, making sure the thing wasn’t on him. Then he was down on the floor, looking eye
level across the wide, wooden boards.

Matt asked, “John, are you awake?”

“Yeah,” Channing said. “Pretty sure.” He sounded lucid. He stood up and moved the bed away from the
wall to look behind it.

Because the bed was nothing but cushions, Channing lifted the bed off the floor and looked under it.

“What are you looking for?”

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“Um. It might not be real.” Channing was rational enough to realize that much. “But it looked very very
real.” He dropped the bed, plucked up a pillow and looked under it again. “Very very very real.”

Okay. “What is it supposed to be?”

“Spider.”

Matt almost laughed at him. “Spider?” All this for a spider?

“Big.” Channing made a circle with thumbs and forefingers of both hands.

Okay. That size was worth a little fear. Matt looked behind the radiator.

Channing went on, “It’s stripy. Orange, yellow, brown. I saw it as clearly as I see you now. It was
coming from the ceiling, straight down on my face.” He swept his arm over the bed, feeling for a strand of
webbing that would prove the spider’s existence.

“You know it’s probably a hallucination,” Matt said.

“Probably,” Channing allowed. “Not good enough.” He scanned the ceiling. “‘Kay, Matt. You’re a
smart guy. Do you know if there are any real spiders that look like that?”

Matt didn’t know anything about spiders. “I know you can’t see colors in the dark.”

Channing stopped mid-sweep. “You’re right.”

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He instantly calmed down, suddenly sleepy again. Channing nodded, satisfied. “That’s a good point. I
like that.” He crawled back into the bed. “You’re the best,” he said, and passed peacefully out.

***

It was Monday. Matt came home between his morning and his afternoon classes. He sat at the card
table, trying to make sense of his tonnage of notes, when a phone call came in on his land line. For
Channing.

Channing was still in the bed, doing a good impression of road kill. Matt brought the phone on its long
cord into the bedroom and put the call on the speaker. He told Channing, “I think this is yours.”

Channing croaked in the direction of the phone, “Channing!”

A hissing whisper came from the speaker. It was someone named Blake, and he was calling on his cell
phone from a court room. “Whatchu doing in bed at eleven o’clock! The judge is livid! You were
subpoenaed! Get your ass in here now!”

“No,” Channing said.

Blake’s voice squeaked horrified disbelief, “No? Whatchu mean no!”

“No,” Channing said. “Make our incompetent lawyer make their incompetent lawyer produce proof of
service.”

“You’re gonna play games with a hanging judge? Channing? Bro? I don’t need a new asshole!”

“I wasn’t served,” Channing spoke toward the ceiling, his arm across his eyes. “Law of the land says
they can’t haul my corpus in there if I wasn’t served.”

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“They sent the subpoena certified! Their lawyer’s got the Post Office receipt.”

“They sent it. Jolly good,” Channing said dryly. “I haven’t picked up mail in weeks. Their lawyer does
not have the signature card.”

“Dammit, Channing, the judge is breathing fire.”

“Grow a spine, Blake. Say no. We fought a war so the king couldn’t just drag us out of our beds
without due process. I wasn’t served. You’re there to uphold the law. Uphold the law.”

“This is game playing, Channing, and you know it. You knew this date. Judge is gonna say you’re a
hostile witness.”

“There’s no one on the planet who doesn’t know I’m a hostile witness! If anyone wants me, they need
to serve me. They didn’t. The judge can’t call contempt on us for making them follow the letter of the
law. All the judge can do is hurt your little feelings. Tell him.”

Blake swore.

There followed a buffeting sound. Matt and Channing were listening to the inside of Blake’s pocket.

In moments, a roaring voice penetrated the pocket sounds.

There came sounds of fumbling. They were being pulled out of Blake’s pocket. Heavy breathing puffed
on the speaker. Blake was back. He whispered, “Channing?”

In the background, there were sounds of fire and brimstone booming from the bench.

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“Yeah,” Channing said, rolling toward the phone. “Is that the judge? Who’s he yelling at?”

“Not me!” Blake whispered into the phone, nearly singing. “This is fun. I love you, man.” The phone
clicked off.

***

Blake called back in an hour. He was bubbling happy. The Defense attorney was getting to spend the
night in jail for contempt.

After Blake was done laughing, he got back to stark reality. “You got ‘em pissed, Channing. They’re
gunning for us now. You know we gotta walk straight and narrow from here on out.”

“I always do,” Channing said, and sniffed.

“Yeah, I hear that about you,” Blake said. He asked in a syrupy, innocent voice, “Those allergies acting
up again?”

“My allergies are under control,” Channing said. Sniff.

“Man, you better be clean by the time you gotta testify or there goes two years of investigation,
gadoosh.” Blake made a flushing sound.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Channing said.

“You can bite me,” Blake said.

“Not if you begged me,” Channing said.

Page 70

***

Channing stayed in the bed all day. Matt looked in, saw him shudder. Channing alternated hot and cold.
He asked for nothing. He stifled anything like a groan.

Matt crawled into bed beside him after midnight. Matt lay awake watching Channing restlessly sleeping.
His brow was pinched tight even now.

The light of a gibbous moon streaming through the tall window fell across his face. Moonshadows gave a
stark depth to the pitted pock marks in his cheeks. The scars only added strength to Channing’s
masculine beauty.

Matt lightly stroked Channing’s hair.

Matt dozed off for a moment. Or maybe it was an hour. He didn’t know. He was halfway back to
consciousness when he noticed Channing’s hair felt strange and furry under his hand.

He opened his eyes to the moonlit face of a fitfully sleeping wolf.

Chapter Four

One side of the animal’s muzzle lifted to flash a fang. Its eyes were rolled back, the lids fluttering. The
wolf gave a little whimper. Its paws twitched in a bad dream.

Page 71

Matt was up and out of the bed like a rocket. He flipped the lights on.

In the literal blink of an eye, the wolf turned into John Channing, waking up, trembling and hazy.
Channing’s upper lip was beaded with sweat. He got up and stumbled into the bathroom. In a moment,
Matt heard the shower running.

Matt peered inside the bath. Channing the man was sitting on the blue and white tiles of the shower floor,
naked, his eyes shut, letting the water fall on his head. Rivulets streamed down his face.

Matt cried, “Jesus Holy Christ!”

Channing mumbled, eyes shut, water on his lips, “It’s okay. It was just a hallucination.”

Matt choked, tried to talk. Sense and words collided.

Angry, confounded, he finally managed to cry, “Hel-lo! I was the one who saw the wolf!”

One eye opened. Channing frowned. “You did?” He closed his eye again, squeezed the bridge of his
nose between his fingers, his brow tightly knotted. “Right.”

He opened both eyes, blinking under the shower spray. He found Matt. Channing gazed at Matt a
moment, water dripping from the shelf of his brow. Droplets bounced off Channing’s lips as he spoke,
“You’re still here.”

“It’s my apartment.”

“There’s a wolf man in your shower.”

Page 72

“Yeah. About that,” Matt said, an invitation for Channing to start talking.

Channing pointedly watched Matt close the toilet lid and sit on it. Matt was not running down the fire
escape. “You’re either brave or clueless,” Channing said.

“Let’s go with brave. It sounds better,” Matt said. He just didn’t feel threatened. Clueless was a definite
possibility. “Am I in danger?”

“I’d like to say no. But it looks like I don’t know for sure what I’m going to do, so I might be wrong if I
say I’m not going to hurt you.”

“This just gets gooder and gooder.”

Channing shut his eyes and let his head fall back against the tile wall, letting the water strike his face.
“Don’t it?”

Matt watched him in a dreamlike state, not even trying to make sense of it, just taking in whatever
impossible strangeness came his way. “How are you feeling?”

“Like regurgitated death.”

“You don’t want to know what you look like.”

“Oh, I can guess.”

“Moon’s not full,” Matt said.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

Page 73

Great. What little Matt thought he knew about werewolves was wrong—that they change at the full
moon and that they don’t exist.

When Channing climbed out of the shower, Matt was waiting with a towel. Matt tried to help Channing
dry, but Channing said, “I never thought I’d ever say this, but don’t touch me.”

Matt took a step back. “’Kay.” He gave Channing the towel.

Channing eyed Matt up and down and said, with longing and apology, “I want to, you know.”

At this point, Matt didn’t know anything. This defied common sense, the laws of physics and basic laws
of nature.

“Are you some kind of government experiment?” Matt asked. It sounded like an asinine question coming
out of his mouth. But he was talking to a werewolf, so all bets were off.

Channing sniffed, his eyes watering. He almost smiled. “Wouldn’t you be all kinds of pissed off if you
knew your tax dollars were going into wolfman research?”

“Are they?”

“No.”

“You’re sure.”

“Absolutely. Believe me. I know my wolfness was not caused by the United States. Or any other
government.”

Page 74

“How can you know?”

“I know.” Channing said.

“Were you born this way?”

“No.”

“Then how—?”

“Bite.”

“Wolf?” Matt asked.

“Wasn’t Alvin the Chipmunk,” Channing said.

Channing picked up his pillow and started for the outer room.

“Come back to bed,” Matt said.

Channing stared at Matt, astonished. Channing drifted back and touched Matt’s face, a caress of gentle
dismissal. Dumb idea. He liked it, but it was still a dumb idea. “I’ll be out there.”

“No. Come on. I’ll take my chances.”

Channing was squeezing and mashing the pillow. “I’m jumping out of my skin here.”

Page 75

He desperately wanted a fix. He didn’t say so, but it was obvious.

“I can’t help you?” Matt asked.

“Do you know how to get to Valley Forge?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Take me there.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

Matt pulled on his jeans, socks, shoes, sweatshirt. He grabbed his coat and his keys.

He had to be out of his mind.

This is nuts. This is nuts.

He could not walk away from something this fantastical. He could not walk away from Channing.

He drove in silence, while Channing hugged himself in the passenger seat. All the questions in the world
piled up behind Matt’s teeth, begging to be let out. He didn’t want to interrogate Channing. Channing
looked abjectly miserable.

Page 76

I’m driving into the Twilight Zone.

Channing was mostly quiet. Sometimes Matt heard a twitch, a sniff, an agitated shifting in his seat as
Channing wrestled with his private torment.

The park was closed at this hour. Matt parked warily. Channing had been taking off his clothes for the
last quarter mile of their approach. As soon as the car stopped, the passenger door opened. A fat, fluffy,
gray tail buffeted Matt in the face as the wolf sprang out of the car.

Matt saw the ghostly gray streak tearing across the darkness into the black woods.

Matt stayed in the van, the lights off, engine on, ready to move if a patrol car came through.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He knew he ought to be questioning his own sanity. But
as strange and impossible as this was, Matt was perfectly aware that it was all real. Channing had turned
into a wolf. The only insane part of this was Matt’s not running away.

The stars shifted. Matt started to get anxious.

A low shadow shape approached out of the blackness at a bouncing trot. Matt leaned across to push
the passenger side door open. The wolf jumped in. Matt had an old army surplus blanket ready for him.
It was heavy, made of scratchy, indestructible wool. The wolf made a motion as if about to launch into a
wet doggy shake. Instead it transformed in a blurry instant into a naked man on the car seat, his knees
drawn up against his chest. Channing wrapped the army blanket around himself. His hands and feet were
muddy and wet. And there was something dark on his nose.

Matt turned on the dome light. He felt his own eyes bug. “What did you do!”

“Huh? Oh.” Channing touched his nose. He brought his fingers down before him to see the blood. “Cold
turkey.” He wiped the blood off his face with the blanket. “Sucks.”

Page 77

He wiped the mud off his hands and feet and pulled his clothes on, shivering.

Matt turned up the heat full blast and shifted the van into gear.

Channing slouched in the seat, almost relaxed. “Thanks.” He shut his eyes.

Matt shook his head to say it was nothing. “What else was I gonna do?”

Matt had lots of questions. He was determined to ask none of them. He resorted to innocuous babbling.
“I come out here most Sunday mornings. Just to see green things. Sometimes, my friend Miranda comes
with me. You met Miranda.”

He glanced aside to see Channing’s eyebrows move above his closed eyes. Channing snorted a near
laugh. “I remember Miranda. Anyone ever tell her she has the right to remain silent?”

“Buncha times,” Matt said. “Doesn’t work. Her apartment is even worse than mine. She lives down by
the cemetery. She told me when the weather is nice she likes to leave the windows open to hear the owls
in the morning and pretend she’s in the country.”

“Owls?” Channing said, with a weak smile.

They both knew those weren’t owls she was hearing.

Poor Miranda didn’t know the difference between a hoo and coo.

“Sky rats?” Channing asked.

Page 78

“Yep.”

“You tell her?”

“Nope.”

Channing muttered, “Owls in Philadelphia.”

Coming up on the apartment house, Matt saw that he’d lost his parking space. He circled the block,
hunting for another spot. “Did you know you have one white sock when you’re a wolf?”

Channing lifted his right foot. He knew.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Matt said. “Where’d you get one white sock?”

“I’m from Chicago?”

Matt just caught himself before he said really? He said instead, “You haven’t a living clue.”

“Not a one. Anyway, I’m from Boston.”

“The sock should be red.”

“You got that right.”

Matt parallel parked farther down the street. It took more cuts than he usually needed.

Page 79

He tried to keep his questions light. He just wanted to connect with this man—this wolf—with words.
“When did you move to Philly?”

“Long time ago.”

Matt finally got the little van into the parking space. They climbed out and walked back to the apartment
house. Channing put his arm around Matt’s waist. Matt put his arm around Channing’s shoulders and
snugged him close.

Matt was only peripherally aware of a man getting out of the car that had taken Matt’s spot in front of
the apartment building. The man was respectably dressed.

“John Channing.”

Matt and Channing both turned toward the unfamiliar voice.

The man reached into his breast pocket.

Matt gasped.

Channing didn’t have his gun.

The man moved in toward Channing. He brought his hand out from his coat. He was holding a fat
envelope.

He tapped Channing on the shoulder with it.

Page 80

Channing’s mouth twisted. His eyes turned up to the heavens. His shoulders slumped a bit as if he’d
been tagged out in a child’s game.

“Can I get you to sign for this, Detective Channing?” the man asked.

“No, sir,” Channing said. “You’ve done your damage.”

“Yes, I have,” the man said decisively, in a tone of game over. In a more careless, offhand voice, the
man said, “You’re going to want this.”

Channing put out his hand. The man briskly slapped the fat envelope onto Channing’s palm, then turned
and got back into his car.

“What was that?” Matt cried, as the car pulled away from the curb.

Channing flipped his fat envelope in a see-saw between his fingers. “I have been served.”

“Court,” Matt said, alarmed. “You mean in court.”

Channing nodded. Sniffed.

“No!” Matt cried. “You’re a wreck. You can’t take the stand!”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make it.”

“How?”

Page 81

“Know anything about the law?”

“Almost nothing.”

“Well, unlike what you see on TV, it doesn’t move fast. I have time. I’ll be ready.”

Matt hoped to God Channing knew what he was doing.

Back upstairs, Channing dropped onto the couch, as if settling in for the rest of the night.

Matt took his hand and tugged him toward the bedroom.

Channing gaped at him, amazed. “You’re kidding.”

Matt shook his head. He wanted this man in his bed.

Channing asked again, as if hesitant to believe his luck. “Still? Even now?”

Matt gave him a sleepy smile. “Come back to bed, turkey breath. Just brush your teeth first.”

In the bed, they held each other, Matt’s head pillowed on Channing’s chest, his leg over Channing’s
thigh. Matt listened to Channing’s heart.

Matt wanted to be with this man, this strong, tormented man. He did not want to wake up with a shaggy
animal, but he had to risk it if he wanted to be with the man.

***

Page 82

When Matt came home from class, Channing was in the kitchen. Matt kicked the door shut behind him
and dropped his books on the table. Matt started into the kitchen to kiss Channing hello.

The entry door re-opened behind him. Matt hadn’t locked it.

He spun around.

There stood Cord.

Someone else must have buzzed him into the building. “Matt—“ Cord started.

Channing came out quickly from the kitchen, took one look at Cord, and he snatched his gun down from
the top shelf where it lived these days.

Channing held the pistol pointed down at his side, but it was there. Channing hadn’t shaved, and he
looked gaunt and a little wild.

Cord backed out the door real quick. He shouted from the hall shrilly, “You’re threatening me with a
gun? Matt! Call nine one one!”

“Just controlling my piece,” Channing shouted out to the hall.

Cord stepped out from around the corner where he’d taken cover. He came back into the apartment.
Seeing that Channing wasn’t a raving maniac, Cord got his bravado back.

Cord spread his arms to show he wasn’t scared. “So, you got a gun. Go on! Shoot, tough guy!”

Page 83

Matt pushed Cord out the door and made to follow him out, but Channing caught Matt’s arm, stopping
him. “Careful.”

“He’s okay,” Matt said quickly.

Channing said softly, “Your chances of getting killed by an ex-lover are way higher than being killed by a
wolf.” He let go.

Matt chased Cord down the stairs.

Outside on the sidewalk, Cord spun on him. “Christ, Matt, call a cop!”

“Cord, you barged in without knocking, and he had his gun left out in plain sight. He didn’t do anything
he shouldn’t have.”

“Are you quite, quite insane?”

“Well, not quite,” Matt said.

Cord turned away, turned back. “Damn, Matt, you didn’t waste any time did you!”

“A mourning period is only in order for a death. Since you didn’t have the decency to drop dead after
betraying me, I don’t feel obligated to mourn a decent interval.”

“You traded me in for that?”

It’s about him. The realization came to Matt bitter. Not me. It was always about Cord. Matt didn’t
know what took him so long to see that.

Page 84

“You traded me,” Matt said. “Now you’re pissed that another team picked me up?”

“I didn’t trade you. You ran away.”

“Uh, because someone else was in my bed?” Matt suggested.

“You have this expectation of monogamy. What’s that about? So I’ll know who’s your baby’s father?
The whole concept is irrelevant between us. But you know what? Forget that. Forget everything. I’ll give
you a free pass if that’ll make us even. You had your revenge sex. Now come home.”

“I’m not doing this to get even,” Matt said.

“Well, you’ve done it. I want you back. If it means giving up half my sex life, I want you back.”

Big of you. Time apart made Matt see things he’d been purposefully blind to.

“I don’t want your sacrifice, Cord. It’s not right for either of us. I wanted you to want only me.”

“That’s not realistic.”

“You’re right,” Matt said. “You’re right. So I’m not coming back. I think deep down I knew we were
not made for each other. I was only staying because I thought I had to compromise. No one gets
perfect.”

Cord suddenly flashed a big, strained smile full of bright white, perfectly even teeth, pretending
revelation. “I get it! I get it now! You were cheating on me! When I took Layla to bed, I just gave you an
excuse to go all righteous on me. You were way ahead of me. Oh, well played. Bravo.” Cord gave a golf
clap.

Page 85

“N—“ Matt caught himself before he could finish denying it. What Cord said wasn’t true. Matt hadn’t
cheated. But telling that to Cord really didn’t matter. He said instead, “Sure. What ev.”

That gave Cord an angry satisfaction. He liked the high ground. “So, what’s your superman got? It’s
sure not looks. Don’t tell me that’s his crapmobile there behind my Lexus? You left me for that? Jeez, he
must be hung like a horse.”

Matt turned around to go back inside.

“Don’t you turn your back on me!”

Matt shook his head and kept walking. He opened the outer door.

Cord yelled at his back, “If you gave me AIDS I’ll kill you!”

Matt let himself into the foyer.

And discovered that he’d locked himself out.

He had to buzz Channing and ask him to let him back up.

This time Matt made sure the downstairs door was firmly shut and locked behind him before he climbed
the stairs.

Channing was waiting for him at the apartment door. “Your ex is an idiot.”

Page 86

Matt shuffled in. “Sometimes.”

Channing placed his gun into a drawer in the bedroom. “Matt, do you know what we call it when a guy
says, ‘Go ahead, shoot?’”

Matt shook his head.

“Last words,” Channing said. “Don’t ever say that to someone with a gun. They’ll do it.”

“You didn’t.”

“I’m a cop. I don’t get to shoot the asshole. Not like I didn’t want to. He’s dangerous, Matt.”

“He’s not. Really. He can be mean when he’s not getting his way. Or when he’s sick. Or when he’s had
too much to drink.”

“He a drinker?”

“No. Hardly ever. Once in a blue moon. When he does, he’s not nice.”

“The true guy comes out under the influence,” Channing said.

“No. That’s not him.”

Channing looked doubtful, but said nothing more.

Matt brooded a while longer.

Page 87

Cord had come after him. Cord had challenged a man with a gun for him.

Was that love?

Was there something there to salvage?

Matt wasn’t sure he wanted to salvage it.

Cord had never been Matt’s fantasy love. But no one ever gets his fantasy.

Matt was beginning to wonder if Cord hadn’t meant for Matt to walk in on him with that woman. Once
Cord got the woman in their bed, Matt would just have to accept it if he wanted to stay with Cord.
Apparently, Cord never imagined that Matt would actually walk out and stay out. Cord must have been
certain Matt would come crawling back and accept the new world order.

Things not had not gone Cord’s way at all.

Matt turned it round and round in his head. You’re trying to make it work because you’re both adults
and you know you have to compromise. And you think you’re compromising, but you’re actually selling
your soul. And you do that because you love him and he should have your soul. It’s only after you’re
clear that you see you don’t love him after all. You thought you needed him. But you don’t.

“I don’t.” He said it out loud.

Channing turned his head. “What’s that?”

“I don’t need him.”

Page 88

“That’s for damned sure,” Channing said.

This would have been a good time for Channing to say something like I need you. But he didn’t.

***

Matt was seated at the card table studying. Channing came out, showered and shaved. He sat on the
couch, ran a towel over his damp curls, watching Matt pore over the books.

“Do you ever come up for air?”

“I can’t,” Matt said. “I’m real close to pulling a B minus average.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Channing said, exasperated. “Isn’t passing good enough?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Jeez, give yourself a break.”

“No. I mean passing is good enough. But I’m not passing. You carry a B minus average here in graduate
school, you’re asked to leave.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“No,” Matt said. “I’m not.”

Page 89

“Damn!” Channing said. “Tough crowd.”

Matt looked at Channing. Channing was clear-eyed, not shivering. He didn’t move his head with quick,
hawk-like turns. He seemed relaxed. “You’re looking better,” Matt said.

“Yeah. I’m starting to think I might live.” Channing jerked his head over sideways to get water out of his
ear.

“Something to eat?” Matt offered.

Channing nodded. “That’d be good.”

Channing followed Matt into the kitchen. He raked his fingers back through his damp curls and asked,
“How good are you at finding out where records are kept?”

“Finding information is a survival skill in grad school,” Matt said. “What records are you looking for?”

“Things like where all fingerprints are stored. DNA records. Where is that stored?”

“I’d think you would have access to that. CODIS. NDIS.” Matt mentioned two databases for starters.

“I have access to search and view,” Channing said. “What I want to know is how to delete the raw data
and destroy all the copies without Homeland Security taking me away.”

“Whoa.” Matt put down the butter knife and faced him. “I’m allergic to data tampering. I’m a
researcher! It’s like asking a doctor to poison someone.”

“Just tell me how,” Channing said. “I’ll do my own poisoning.”

Page 90

A tremor set up shop in Matt’s stomach.

‘Kay, I’m sleeping with a gun-toting man I banged in an ally, hopped up on cocaine, who wants to know
how to tamper with identification records without the Feds finding out. Oh yeah, and he turns into a wolf.
And he’s got me wrapped around his cock.

“Are you really a dirty cop?” Matt asked point blank.

“No.”

“Are you a terrorist?”

“No,” Channing said. “No one is a greater patriot than I am. But you know I’m different. A lot of
paranoid people in power positions don’t like different.”

Different. Yeah, a werewolf was different. Werewolf was frikkin’ impossible. Matt felt himself nodding.
Channing wasn’t trying to tamper with evidence in a court case. He didn’t have criminal intentions. He
was trying to cover his own paw prints in self defense.

Channing leaned on the kitchen counter. “If I wanted to disappear and start over without raising any red
flags, how do I erase my trail?”

Matt shook his head. He wouldn’t know where to start. “Do you have funny DNA?”

“My DNA is on file somewhere. It might be funny and it just got logged without anyone analyzing it. I
don’t know how closely anyone looks at those reports until they have to match your DNA to a corpse or
hit you up for child support.”

Page 91

“You have kids?” Matt asked.

“You pregnant?” Channing said back.

Matt guessed that was a no. Apparently Channing was not bisexual.

“Why do you have to go anywhere?” Matt asked. He hoped his fear and disappointment didn’t bleed
into his voice. Channing hadn’t made any hint of taking a companion with him in his disappearance plans.

Channing left the kitchen and came back with his wallet. He pulled out his driver’s license and passed it
to Matt.

Matt’s eyes moved first to the photo, which wasn’t too bad for a driver’s license shot, then to his birth
date. “1969,” he heard himself speaking. He looked over the card to Channing and back. “No way
that’s right.”

“It’s not,” Channing said, reaching to take back his license.

“This is a fake ID,” Matt said, surrendering the card. “Who are you really?”

“John Channing.” He tucked the license back in his wallet. “I need to become someone else. Someone a
lot younger than this.”

“I don’t know. Maybe if you went someplace less digital,” Matt suggested. “Canada or Mexico.”

“I will not leave this country,” Channing said.

Matt heard a lot of heat behind that declaration.

Page 92

“Okay. Then honest to God, I don’t know how you’d pull it off.” I don’t want you to pull it off. “All
important databases are backed up off site. Probably in multiple places. You can’t erase your trail. If you
started over as someone else, you couldn’t be anyone who has to undergo a serious background
check—like a cop. You couldn’t be a cop. You’d need to live under the radar.”

Channing didn’t like the answer. All he said was, “Hm.”

I’m falling in love with him, and he’s planning to leave me after this court thing is done.

Matt would have to let him go.

Don’t cling. Don’t cling.

***

On the morning of the hearing, Matt gave Channing a hair cut. The cut ends curled on the floor. Matt
ruffled what was left of the hair between his fingers.

Channing took a shower, shaved and came out to the main room dressed in a suit.

Matt blinked. “Damn, you look respectable.”

“Do you have a tie that goes with this?” Channing asked.

“What? You got donut crumbs on all yours?”

“They’re coffee stains, smartass,” Channing countered, then the real answer, “I forgot to bring one.”

Page 93

Matt gave him a tie and tied it for him. Matt smoothed Channing’s collar down, then let his hands rest on
Channing’s chest, feeling his heartbeat, feeling his heat. I love living with this guy. “You look good,” Matt
said.

The intercom buzzed.

Channing answered it. “Yeah?”

The voice came scratchy through the speaker. “It’s Jenna.”

Channing buzzed the downstairs door open.

Matt heard tired footfalls ascending the stairs, then a plodding walk up the hall and a half-hearted knock
on the door.

Matt opened the door to let in a beleaguered woman weighed down with an overstuffed briefcase that
hung on a strap over her shoulder. She was a shade of black between Barack and Michelle, dressed in a
black suit, white blouse, and flat, black shoes. Her face was downcast, her carriage a ground down
trudge, as if to her doom. She lifted her eyes to look at Channing.

Her jaw dropped. Her face brightened in shock, then utter relief, then jubilation. “Channing. Wow.” She
lifted a tired high five. Channing clasped her hand.

Jenna sat down laughing in disbelief. “Oh, my God, we’re going to nail ‘em. You must be Matt.” She
offered her hand up. Matt took it. She had a firm grip.

Her name was Jenna Jefferson. Public Prosecutor.

Page 94

She turned back to Channing, giving him a critical up and down. “The flag pin is a little over the top.”

Channing’s hand clapped over his little flag. “I am not taking it off.”

“Okay. It’s not going to hurt.” Jenna surrendered that point.

They went over Channing’s testimony.

Channing didn’t sniff once.

At last the chairs scraped back, Jenna and Channing were getting up to go to court. Jenna did a
metronome thing with her pen between Matt and Channing. “Are you two a couple?”

Matt stared blankly. That’s a good question.

Channing said, “Is that relevant?”

“Not at all. But they could bring it up.” She snapped her bulging briefcase shut. “I hope they do. It’ll
make ‘em look desperate.”

***

Concentrating on his thesis was impossible. Matt was too anxious waiting for Channing to come back.
As if the outcome of this hearing meant something to Matt.

Yes, of course Matt wanted the judge to rule in favor of the good guys. But either way, he was losing
Channing. When this was over, there was no reason for Channing to stay.

Page 95

He got up from the card table at least twenty times to look out the window.

Channing came back when Matt wasn’t looking. The key turning in the door startled him.

Matt jumped up. The door opened to Channing, looking bright eyed and cocky.

“Got ‘im!” Channing said. He threw his arms around Matt and lifted him off his feet.

“Oof,” Matt said.

Channing set him down. “I was a credible witness. And you. You were incredible. I couldn’t have done
it without you, Matt. I mean that.”

“Sooo, what does this mean?” Matt asked hesitantly.

Channing did not answer the question the way Matt meant it. Matt wanted to know what this meant for
the two of them. Channing was still jazzed on the case.

“The Defense tried to throw all kinds of snow. Judge didn’t buy a bit of it. He made Deeter—that’s the
murderer—submit to a DNA swab right there in the courtroom. When his DNA comes back from the
lab as a match to DNA on a victim, we’ve got a lock on a conviction and a death sentence. Unless
Deeter wants to roll over on some big time dealers. It’s a win for us either way.”

“So, where do you want to celebrate?” Matt asked.

“Next door.” Channing cocked his head toward the bedroom.

They lay down together. I love you. Matt wanted to say the word and couldn’t. You first, he thought at

Page 96

Channing. Either it’s there or it’s not. If it wasn’t there, Matt did not want to step off that cliff into empty
air.

Channing made love to him with a special fervor, intensely gentle.

It felt like a last time.

Matt made love with all his skill. Trying to bind Channing to him, hold him, make him stay. Matt moved
beneath Channing, trying to touch and be touched everywhere.

Looking up into Channing’s eyes, Matt ran his long fingers over the strong, scarred face. Channing’s
eyes glistened, suffused with things unsaid.

He loves me. Matt had to believe that. He must.

Neither of them said it.

***

Channing got up early with Matt the next morning. Channing had the coffee ready when Matt got out of
the shower. Rattling around in the kitchen together made the grungy apartment feel warm and homey.

There was nothing different in their parting kiss as Matt left for class.

Still, Matt came home after the morning class with an apprehension bordering on panic. His heart
pounded. His mouth was dry as he climbed the stairs to the third floor.

He opened the door and instantly felt the emptiness within. There was no trench coat on the hook. No
extra pair of shoes.

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A prickling chill gripped him inside. Useless hope and stupid denial made him go check the bathroom.

Channing’s electric razor was gone.

Matt pulled open Channing’s drawer. It was empty. Channing’s things were gone. A giant void gaped in
Matt’s world where a dynamic life presence should be. Matt moved through his shoddy apartment like
his own ghost. He felt sick.

He came back to the card table. His extra key lay on a sticky note. The handwritten note read only:
Thank you.

Matt sat down, quivering. Oh no. Tears spilled. The moment he dreaded was here. It had happened too
fast. There were no goodbyes. That must have been the idea.

No. Matt didn’t want it to end that way. That’s not the way it was going to happen.

He snatched up the telephone and dialed Channing’s cell phone. The number was no longer in service.
He fumbled the receiver back down into its cradle.

That was the way it had to be.

John Channing was really gone.

Chapter Five

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The days continued to get darker.

End-of-term panic took the place of self pity. Miranda came over to study with Matt. She sat across
from him at the table with her left hand in a fist. Her fingernails were gnawed down to the quick.

For the exams themselves, Matt had no idea what he wrote. And then Christmas was upon them.

Miranda went home to her parents’ house out of state. Most of the student population cleared out, too.

Matt wasn’t sure, but he might have been the only one left in his whole apartment building.

He never thought he could so miss the whomping beat of his downstairs neighbor’s stereo.

The building felt like a mausoleum.

Two nights before Christmas, he woke to the blare of an air horn. He convulsed in the bed. It took a
moment for him to realize that someone had just tried to force his door open.

The noise stopped as abruptly as it has started.

Matt threw off the covers and came out to the main room.

He found the door pushed in a half inch. The deadbolt had been shoved through the rotten wood of the
door frame. It had been Channing’s doorstop that held the door against a break-in.

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Matt peered out through the spy hole. Of course he saw no one.

His first thought was that burglars were taking advantage of the Christmas exodus to loot the building.
But he hadn’t heard sounds of breaking and entering from any of the other units.

Then he remembered that the process server for the murderer’s lawyers had tracked Channing here.

This might not have been a burglar.

Did the murderer’s friends think Channing still lived here?

Suddenly, staying here alone felt like a real bad idea. Matt left a message on the superintendent’s
answering machine to fix his door and he packed up to seek shelter elsewhere.

Doug and Drew had a house full of relatives in for the holidays and there was no room for Matt. They
were very sorry.

But there were still Jerry, Sarah, Sarah, Aaron and Marv who shared a house in Center City. They
hadn’t left town for the Christmas break, and they had a couch. They took him in.

Thank God for Jews.

Matt slept wearing a pair of Channing’s boxers and a T-shirt that had been hidden at the bottom of the
laundry hamper when Channing had disappeared.

It was the solstice. This was the darkest, lowest, longest night ever.

After breakfast, Matt helped Little Sarah and Big Sarah in the kitchen with the dishes. Little Sarah was

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taller than Big Sarah, but Big Sarah had the rack.

Little Sarah asked Matt, “So, how are things going with Mister Rebound?”

“How’d you know about him?” Matt asked, drying a dish and passing it to Big Sarah, who put it away.

“Miranda blabbed. So, how is he?”

“He’s gone.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry,” Little Sarah said, then double checked, “Am I sorry?”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “I really liked him.”

“Sooo,” Little Sarah began, as if wading cautiously into dangerous waters. “Are we supposed to be
telling you that you and Cord still have a shot, or that Cord was never right for you and good riddance?”

“Let’s go with Cord was never right for me.”

“Oh, thank Gawd.” Big Sarah caved in relief. She nearly dropped the coffee cup Matt passed her.

Apparently the Sarahs never liked Cord.

“He’s still crazy for you,” Little Sarah said.

“Operative word crazy,” Big Sarah said.

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Matt felt duty bound to defend his former lover. “There was some good stuff. There really was.”

“Don’t go there,” Little Sarah scolded. “Don’t you go back there.”

“I’m not,” Matt said. “I’m over him.”

Channing had opened his eyes to how mean Cord could be. Matt had always excused Cord’s moods.

Channing had had a lot more reason to be surly than Cord ever did. Yet even strung out, in pain or
fanged, Channing never ever took it out on Matt.

“So, why so sad?” Big Sarah asked.

“I really miss Mister Rebound,” Matt said.

Little Sarah smacked him upside the head with her dish rag. “No! He’s an ass!”

“Why is he an ass?”

“He dumped you.”

“He told me he was going to use me. He did. And he left. How can I get mad at him for that?”

“I could!” Little Sarah said.

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“I hurt,” Matt said. “But how can I blame him for being true to his word.”

“Easy!” Little Sarah said. “He was supposed to fall helplessly in love with you and stay. The man failed
to learn his lines.” She connected gazes with Big Sarah. “Hate that.”

Big Sarah nodded knowingly. “Hate that.”

***

After New Year’s, when everyone came back to campus, Matt returned to his apartment. There was a
new doorjamb on his apartment’s entryway. His answering machine was filled with hang ups.

He collected his mail. His grades were in. He’d pulled a B minus.

He was asked not to return to university for the coming term.

***

The miles rolled up under John Channing’s wheels. He was almost out of Wisconsin. The Mississippi
River was coming up.

The weather had turned to shit. Rain was icing on his windshield.

He could not stop thinking about the poetically-built young man he’d left behind in Philadelphia. When
Channing first saw Matt, Channing thought he’d made him up. He still wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t.
Maybe he’d conjured him out of the mist.

John Channing thought he’d seen, done everything. He’d thought there were no surprises left in life. Then
out of the Philadelphia gloom came this being. A sweet young thing dressed like a refugee in a jacket

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from an Army Navy surplus store, a Big Mart polycotton shirt, and old jeans.

Beauty. Channing had seen beauty before, but this man had it in every part of him— his open heart, his
labyrinthine mind, his gentle spirit, his sweet, hard body, his heat, his strength, his passion. His full lips, his
light brown eyes, his dark blond hair. Matthew Winter was an amazing creature.

At first, Channing had thought him innocent. He wasn’t. Matt just had a vulnerability Channing mistook
for naiveté. There was no hard shell on him. Matt ought to have a crust on him by now—he was
twenty-five for God’s sake. He was still gentle, with a quiet power such as some women have.

There was so little common sense in that big brain. Channing worried about him. But Matt was resilient.
He would survive. And he was better off without a wolf in his life.

Matt attended Ben Franklin’s school. Of course he was destined for bigger things than John Channing.

Matt didn’t just read lots of thick books. He was going to be one of those who writes the books.
Maybe he would be a diplomat.

Matthew Winter had a life that didn’t include running and hiding with a wolf man. He was going to do
something significant. He could not just disappear.

Unlike those of us who won’t be missed more than a few months.

Channing shook his head, even though there was no one else in the car to see. What had possessed him
to move in with Matt?

He possessed me.

And Channing was still possessed. He saw Matt’s face in vivid daydreams, saw his eyes. Haunting him.

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Missing Matthew was carving him up inside.

Matt was perfect, and Channing shouldn’t fuck him up. Leave him alone. Let him finish his studies and
discover something that would change civilization, like Ben Franklin had done.

Channing had to get himself straight. He’d traded one addiction for another. He craved Matt Winter.

He seized on a funny idea that if he could just get across the river, that magic divide, he could get his
head clear.

And here was the bridge. The mighty Mississippi wasn’t quite so mighty this far north, but it was
significant. It was a major crossing.

After you cross the river, you will not think of him again.

Matt’s eyes. Channing had fallen into those eyes the first time he saw them, down and down, and he’d
never come out.

The car started into its spin. Real time. This was not a daydream.

His wheels had struck black ice on the bridge.

“Shit!” Channing snarled out loud. The car bounced off one guard rail, crossed all the lanes and bounced
off the other. And spun.

Time extended, the way it does when there is nothing to do but cast your fate to the universe and it will
let you know if you live or die.

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***

Matt was brushing his teeth when someone mashed on the buzzer to his intercom. They kept buzzing and
buzzing. Matt couldn’t help the hope from leaping, even though he knew it wasn’t going to be Channing.
He quickly spat, wiped his face, then peered out a window. He didn’t see Channing’s car anywhere on
the street. He didn’t see Cord’s Lexus either, so he didn’t know whose voice to expect when he pressed
the intercom button, “Yeah?”

He held his breath, hoping against hope that it would be Channing’s voice he heard.

“It’s Jenna Jefferson.” The prosecutor.

Matt’s heart fell. He hadn’t realized it had climbed quite so high.

Jenna said sharply, “I need Channing.”

“He’s gone,” Matt said.

“He can’t be. I need to kill him.”

Matt buzzed her up.

Jenna’s footsteps came stomping up the stairs this time, not trudging.

Matt let her in. Her dark eyes moved up and down the new doorjamb. She didn’t comment on it. She
was here on a mission.

Jenna Jefferson was angry near to tears.

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She looked around quickly, as if she needed to see for herself that Channing was not here.

Something had gone wrong. Last Matt knew, Channing’s testimony and the DNA evidence they’d got
from the man named Deeter were supposed to convict this Deeter person of murder.

“What happened?” Matt asked.

Jenna glared at him suspiciously.

He must have looked honest because her anger turned away from him. She pressed her full lips together.
Matt could tell she intended not to speak, but she did anyway.

“The DNA was not a match. The DNA of the man Channing swore under oath he saw kill Alvarez is not
a match to DNA of whoever really did kill Alvarez.” She opened her mouth and her hands, searching for
something to say, something to grasp. “I believed him!” she cried. Her tone said How could I be so
stupid?

“The Defense is going to skin me!” she railed. “And the judge is going to let them! I believed him! I
believed him! I believed him! And Deeter—oh Christ, Deeter is going to sue me personally for every
dime I don’t have.” She paced back and forth across the floor. “You don’t have any idea where that
bastard went?”

Matt shook his head, stunned.

A mouse peered from the kitchen. Matt hadn’t seen a mouse since Channing had moved in. The return
of the mouse made Matt want to cry. His wolf was really and truly gone. He looked to Jenna, at a loss.

Jenna didn’t want to believe him. She wanted him to be hiding Channing so she could force his location
out of him.

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But she did believe him. She looked at him with an expression horribly like pity.

She opened the door to let herself out. She told him sternly, “Do not ever trust a user.”

***

On Sunday morning, Matt drove out to Valley Forge alone. Miranda didn’t come with him. She had
passed her courses. She was reading up for Monday’s classes.

Matt stepped out of the van. Snow crunched underfoot.

He found a park bench, cleared it off with his gloved hand, sat, poured a cup of hot coffee from his
thermos and watched the snow fall.

The deserted grounds were beautiful in a bleak cold sort of way.

The windless, gray morning was peaceful. A gentle snowfall softened the white mantle over the ground.

I am going to climb out of this hole.

Matt didn’t need a man. He sure didn’t need a wolf. He had already determined that he was going to
petition for re-instatement at the university.

The trees stood quiet watch. The oaks kept hold of their dead leaves long after the other trees gave up.
The oak leaves hung from their limbs like brown tatters of ragged sentries.

This place of a long suffering winter, misery, and death was a monument to steadfast courage. What
Matt was going through was nothing next to what others suffered here.

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I can get through this.

A motion amid the woodland stillness caught his eye—a gray ghost of a shape moving about the trees.

The wolf threaded between the oaks into the clearing.

It stopped at the forest edge, its orange eyes on Matt.

Snowflakes alighted on its muzzle. The wolf licked its nose.

The apparition was quiet, unreal, strange as a vivid dream.

It padded up to Matt with soundless tread and set its muzzle on his thigh.

Matt pulled off his glove with his teeth and gave the animal an ear scratch as if it were a dog. He sat for a
while under the lightly falling snow.

Eventually, the wolf took the edge of Matt’s pea coat between its jaws and tugged.

Matt screwed the lid on his thermos, got up from the park bench and let the wolf walk him to the van.
He opened the driver’s side door. The wolf leapt in first and took a seat on the passenger side.

Matt climbed in and started the engine. He turned on the heat and the fan.

The green army blanket was still in the back. Matt dragged it forward and threw it over the wolf.

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In the next blink, the being in the passenger seat was a man with snowmelt in his curling hair.

They sat together a while longer, not speaking.

Then, as if no time at all had passed, as if they had never been apart, Channing started.

“Do you know what this is?” Channing brushed his own slightly-pitted cheeks.

Matt didn’t understand the question. “What? The chickenpox scars?”

Channing shook his head and corrected him, “Smallpox scars.”

Matt’s eyes went huge.

Dread gripped him inside, like an ancient curse rising from a mythic crypt. Smallpox?

Matt supposed he should have known the scars weren’t from chickenpox. The pattern was all wrong.
Chickenpox scarred the torso. Channing’s scars were on his face and wrists and feet.

But there was no way Matt could have thought of smallpox. Outside of a laboratory, smallpox was
extinct.

So, how in the name of God did anyone get smallpox in the twenty-first century?

Was this some government experiment? A covert terrorist strike?

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Torn between asking how or when, all that came out of his mouth was, “Wha?”

“I had a reaction to the inoculation,” Channing said.

“Vaccinations don’t use live viruses,” Matt said.

“Inoculations do.”

Matt sputtered. “Who the hell uses a live smallpox virus!”

“No one, anymore. I was inoculated in Boston in 1771.”

Matt let the jolts pass through him. He didn’t even try to fight the impossibility of the words.

Because he was talking to man who could turn into a wolf, Matt didn’t doubt for a moment Channing
was telling the truth.

It took him several moments to pick something to say out of the thousands of thoughts and questions
whirling through his head.

“You lived because you’re a wolf?”

“I wasn’t a wolf at the time. I got a small infection from the inoculation. It wasn’t that bad.” He regarded
the few scars on his wrists. “It was the last time I ever caught anything. It took me a long time to realize
that I wasn’t getting sick anymore.”

Channing wiped frost off the passenger window with the side of his hand. He was giving off more heat
than Matt, and his window was opaque with frost.

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Channing spoke. His eyes were fixed forward. He sounded far away. “The war came. I was living in
Philadelphia by then. We had to pull out of town. Rittenhouse told us to take all the bells. All of them. So
the redcoats couldn’t melt them down into musket balls to use against us. I’m marching escort for the
wagon hauling the mother of all bells up Route 309,” He gave a toss of his hand in the direction of the
Bethlehem Pike.

“It’s a long way on foot. There were hundreds of wagons. So my team, we’re hauling this big ass State
House bell from Philly to Northampton. Weighed a living ton. And we’ve got to keep it covered so no
loyalists can see what we’ve got. And then the fucking wagon breaks a fucking axle in Bethlehem and
there we were.”

Against all reason, Matt was connecting the improbable dots. A big bell in the Patriot withdrawal from
Philadelphia in September 1777. Channing was being literal. It weighed a little over one ton.

The State House Bell. Old name for—

Matt said, “Not—!”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Liberty Bell.” Matt was nearly jumping out of his seat. “You’re talking about the Liberty Bell.”

“Aye. Only that wasn’t what I was calling it. We were fucking stuck. Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t
crack it. All the other little bells went on to Northampton. The teamsters were bringing up another
wagon. I went into the woods, foraging for I forget what. I met—“

He stopped, blinking, picturing a remarkable memory. His face had an expression like beholding a
vision. His brow contracted slightly. “A Red Indian. Stark naked. Gorgeous. Tall. Strong. Long, dark
hair.”

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“I get it,” Matt said, with a stab of jealousy. “Was he Minsi?” He winced as the question came out. It
was an idiotic knee jerk question from an anthropology major. The Bethlehem Pike was the old Minsi
trail.

“No idea,” Channing said. “I had a knife I kept in a sheepskin sheath, wool-side in. Unprocessed wool
is really greasy, and the steel we had wasn’t stainless. The lanolin in the sheepskin kept rust off the blade
back in those days. Well, me and my Red Indian put our blades in the sheath and we discovered
America. Only time I ever submitted. I don’t really care for that end of sex, but I let him have his turn
because he was the neatest thing I’d ever seen. His people were descended from the Round-Paw.”

“Round Paw means wolf,” Matt said.

Channing blinked as if he hadn’t known. “No shit?” He made a face as if something was just then
clicking into place. “He asked me for my knife. I don’t know if it was the blade or the sheath he wanted,
but I gave it. And in return,” he paused, scowling. His face looked perplexed and a little angry. “He bit
me.”

Channing pressed lips his together, then he went on. “I was so pissed I might have shot him. But then he
turned into a wolf and trotted away into the woods.”

He stopped.

Snow collected on the windshield.

After a while, Channing took up the story again. “Well, we got the heavy fucking bell onto another
fucking wagon and it went on into hiding all safe and snug in a church cellar. My unit pulled back here.”

Snow was falling in Valley Forge.

“It was that winter—here—that I discovered I had a fur coat.”

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Here. Holy Christ.

Apparently Matt was not done being astounded.

That winter.

Matt’s own voice didn’t sound real to him. “You were at Valley Forge with George Washington.”

Channing nodded. His gaze was very far away.

The man was here, real, now. Channing suddenly looked different to him. In the different light of
knowing, things about him became clear. His sense of age and experience had not been Matt’s
imagination. The man really had seen and done just about everything.

“If you’re looking to write a paper, Anthro major, I can’t help you. It was hundreds of years ago,”
Channing spoke at the windscreen. “I’ll tell you what I remember. I remember the stench and smoke in
the huts. I remember guys dying, but I couldn’t tell you their names anymore. I remember there wasn’t
any food. I remember that I could smell field mice under the snow. That’s how I kept from starving. By
spring I started to wonder if I hadn’t lost the ability to fall sick.”

He turned to meet Matt’s gaze. Channing’s eyes, green and brown and flecked with golden lights, were
truthful. “You asked how I know I wasn’t a government experiment. There was no U.S. government at
the time. There was no science in the world that could create a wolf man back then, any more than
anyone could do it today.”

Matt remembered something else Channing had also told him. Matt murmured, “No one more patriotic
than you.” It had sounded a bit melodramatic when he’d said it. It didn’t now.

“I was one of the few men by an icy river. I am not leaving this country.”

He was a freedom fighter. He valued freedom more than life.

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Or was it really more than life? “Are you immortal?” Matt asked.

“I wouldn’t say that. I need to eat. I can bleed with the best of ‘em. The bullets don’t need to be silver,
and we can be trampled and gored to death. I know that for a fact.”

We.

“There are others,” Matt said.

“There are.”

“And you had to return to your own kind.” Matt was trying to understand why Channing left him.

Channing shook his head. “It’s not like that. I’m not in love with any of those guys. We just watch each
other’s backs. I left you because I thought I had to. I should have stayed away. I couldn’t leave like that.
I tried.”

The words were magical, but Matt had no illusions. Well, he had few illusions. Channing came back.
Didn’t necessarily mean that this miraculous being had come back for Matt.

Matt said dryly, “I guess you heard from your lawyer.”

The confusion on Channing’s face looked real. “No,” he said slowly. “Why?”

***

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John Channing decided to face Jenna Jefferson at Matt’s place. She would be breathing fire, and he did
not want to set foot in her office.

The prosecutor glared murder into Channing’s eyes across Matt’s card table. Channing had to drop his
gaze. That forced him to look at the two sets of printouts laid out on the table between him and the
prosecutor.

Matt was hanging back. He was a comforting presence, but couldn’t help Channing now.

John Channing was in deep shit.

The printouts showed results of two DNA analyses.

The two sets of graphs set side by side looked nothing like each other.

One graph showed the analysis of the blood evidence that the killer left on his victim.

The other graph showed the DNA from Deeter, the killer. Channing saw Deeter commit murder. Saw it
with his own eyes.

The graphs didn’t match. They weren’t even close.

Jenna’s arms were crossed, her legs were crossed. Her foot twitched like the tail of an angry cat.

Jenna’s voice was brittle. “So, John. What did you really see?”

Channing couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. The graphs were calling him a liar.

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“Come on, John. Let’s have a story. The truth this time.”

“No.”

The voice gave Channing a start.

Jenna looked around as if the couch had spoken.

It was Matt, stepping into Channing’s personal disaster area.

Matt told Jenna, “You’re taking the wrong approach.”

Channing should never have got that sweet young man into this. Matt was smart, but he didn’t know
snot about this case. All he did was piss off the prosecutor.

Jenna stood up, irritated. She gathered up her stuff from the table. “We should take this to my office,”
she said tightly. She jammed the damning printouts into her briefcase.

“Please listen a minute.” Matt put his hand up. His long fingers were big-boned, manly and sensual. They
made Channing crazy. The man was gorgeous. Matt should just stay out of this.

“I don’t want to hear any more crap!” Jenna said. She flapped her hand at Channing on the word crap.
She yelled at Matt. “Goddamn user said he saw Deeter ice Alvarez!”

Channing flinched inwardly. “That’s what I saw,” he said.

Jenna’s face darkened. The whites of her eyes flared like lightning flashes.

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Matt touched her arm and softly insisted, “You’re assuming Channing is lying or mistaken.”

“Um,” Jenna started with great restraint, a dull razor edge in her voice. “One of those two options
happens to be the fact here.”

Channing thought she was actually pretty composed for a lawyer who has had her star witness implode
and her whole case blow up in her face leaving her looking crooked or stupid.

“I get it,” Matt said. God, the kid had a sympathetic voice. He could calm a bonfire. “It looks that way.
But there is another possibility.” Matt seized the printout of the DNA analysis from the stack of papers
Jenna had just shoved into her briefcase. “Whose DNA profile is this?”

Jenna’s eyelashes fluttered in a look of pain. She spoke as if to an unusually stubborn two-year-old. “If
you read that label—that’s the box right there—the label says Adolph Deeter.”

“I see that,” Matt said. “How do you know the label is right?”

Her jaw was tight. “Here. See if you can follow this. We obtained a court order to allow us to collect a
DNA sample from Deeter. We swabbed his mouth, just like you see on the television—in front of the
judge and everyone. We sent Deeter’s spit to the lab for a DNA analysis. There is a chain of evidence
that makes sure that the glob of spit we collected from Deeter actually got to the lab. The lab ran the
analysis of Deeter’s spit. The lab produced that DNA profile you’re holding there. And here.” She
withdrew the other DNA printout from her briefcase. “Here is the DNA analysis of the blood the
murderer left on our dead guy. Here’s the murderer’s DNA printout. See yours? See mine? Not a
match. Do you see that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are we done here?”

“No, ma’am,” Matt said. He gave the printout in his hands a small shake. “This isn’t the raw data.”

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“Of course it’s not raw data!” Jenna Jefferson shouted back at him. “The raw data is Deeter’s spit!”

Matt’s voice stayed friendly, coaxing. “And you need a machine to translate the raw data into something
a judge can read.” Matt held up the paper between his hands. “This is a printout. It’s a printout of what?”

Jenna scowled at him. “Are you being purposefully thick?”

“No, ma’am,” Matt said. “What is this printout of?”

“One more time,” Jenna said. “It’s a printout of the DNA analysis run at the lab on Deeter’s spit.”

“That’s what you were told,” Matt said. “And that’s what it’s labeled. But all you really know for sure is
that this is a printout of a report that came out of a machine in the lab.”

“Okay, I see where you’re going now,” Jenna said, her rage backing down just a click. “You think
someone switched the report. Nice reach, but no. This report didn’t come from the Defense. This was
our test of a sample we sent to an NDIS certified lab.”

“Which is why no one thought to question its authenticity,” Matt said. “The lab tech could have had
someone else’s report queued up in the printer. He could have run the DNA analysis on the spit. But I
guarantee that this is not the report he pushed out the printer queue.”

“Oh? You guarantee? No spit?” Jenna said with false sweetness. She turned stern again. “What part of
NDIS certified lab don’t you get? There are protocols in place.”

“And I’m sure they were followed right up to the moment the lab tech hit PRINT.”

“Why?” Jenna’s question cracked like a gunshot.

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“I don’t know,” Matt said, then suggested, “Some underpaid lab tech who needs to pay off his crushing
student loans took a bribe to swap out the report.”

“That is such a stretch,” Jenna said, shaking her head, but she wasn’t shouting anymore.

“What will it cost you to check?” Matt said. “Please just check the analysis logged in the database
against this printout and see if this really is what it says it is. I’m telling you this is not the analysis of the
DNA sample you took from your guy Deeter.”

Jenna glared at him, trying to stare him down.

Those clear eyes of Matt’s held her gaze, unwavering.

Jenna rounded on Channing. She planted both hands on the card table and got right in his face. Her
breath smelled of breath mints and tobacco. “Are you sticking to your story?”

“Deeter murdered Alvarez,” Channing said. “I saw it.”

Jenna collected the printouts, muttering to herself, “I guess I can’t look any more pathetic and desperate
than I do now. But I’ll let you know. Anything you want to tell me before I go?” she asked threateningly.

Channing shook his head.

Jenna slammed the door on her way out, leaving Matt and Channing alone together.

The silence fell between them and stayed. Channing didn’t know how to break it. Matt seemed angry
with him.

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Channing was accustomed to being the strong one in any relationship he had. Here he was helpless
before damning evidence, and it was Matt who stood up swinging.

But Matt didn’t seem so sure now that he’d done the right thing. He was waiting to see what Jenna
found. In the meantime, he’d apparently decided he was angry at Channing. It had to be easier than
putting himself out there again after Channing deserted him.

The downstairs neighbor came home. Channing welcomed the noise of her booming stereo to mask the
tension between them.

Matt paced to the window. He moved the sheet curtain aside and looked up and down the street. He
found where Channing had parked.

“You dented your car,” he said tonelessly.

“Yeah,” Channing said.

Only to close his eyes and he was spinning again, the car out of control. He knew that drunks and babies
were often the only survivors of crashes. Channing could only let go and leave it to the angels. He went
limp as a dead drunk. He pictured Matt’s face.

When the world stopped turning and banging, Channing lifted his head. His car had come to rest against
the guard rail, facing the wrong way on the interstate.

Oncoming traffic honked at him and flashed their lights.

Yeah, yeah, I’m facing the wrong way, Channing thought growlingly at them.

He took it as a sign.

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I’m supposed to turn around.

Hours later, a heavy hand landed on the buzzer and stayed there until Matt buzzed up Jenna Jefferson.
She hadn’t said anything over the intercom.

She blew into the apartment and dropped her overstuffed briefcase down on a chair at the card table.
“Well, Matt.” She straightened up tall. “You were wrong.”

Channing’s heart sank. He hadn’t really believed Matt’s wild theory, but he had hoped.

Matt looked dumbstruck. “Can’t be.”

“About the crushing student loan of the lab tech,” Jenna finished her sentence. “It was a crushing credit
card debt.” She broke a crocodilian grin.

Matt stared a stunned instant before breaking a huge smile. He gushed happily, “Oh, you bitch.”

Jenna cackled. “The lab tech accepted ten thousand dollars to switch out the report.” She held up two
DNA prints. “Blood on our vic’s body.” She shook the one in her left hand. “Spit from Deeter.” She
waggled the right hand graph.

The graphs were identical.

“We don’t just get to put Deeter away, but I get to send his lawyer to the pen. I had to come over in
person to shake your hand, Matt Winter.”

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She gave Matt’s hand a hearty shake in both of hers. “You have got to be the most analytical man on the
planet.”

“Gee,” Matt said, sounding rueful. “That’s not very sexy.”

“I think it’s sexy as hell,” Channing said, feeling the weight of a Greyhound bus lift from his chest.

“I’m outta here,” Jenna said. “Be safe, you two.”

After the door shut, Channing sat, very quiet.

He had just dodged a career bullet. He gazed at Matt in humbled wonder. Finally he asked, mystified,
“How did you know?”

Matt answered simply. “Because you said you saw Deeter kill that man.”

The depth of trust shook Channing to the core.

I left you. “And you believed me.”

“Yes.”

“Against all evidence.”

“The evidence had to be wrong,” Matt said. And he moved away stiffly.

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He was trying to put up a defense. Channing could tell he was angry.

Channing got up and followed him. Channing laid his hand on Matt’s nape, half expecting him to jerk
away but Matt melted into his touch. There was still no shell on the young man. Matt’s heart was right out
there.

When Channing turned him around, Matt yielded to his kiss.

***

Matt tried to resist, tried to hold fast to his resentment. The attempt was pathetic. Channing took
ownership with a single kiss. Matt moaned into his mouth. Matt took in every part of him he could taste.
Their tongues stroked together as they tugged at each other’s clothes, stumbling into the bedroom.
Buttons popped and rolled. Matt tripped out of his trousers. He twisted and fell face first on the bed.

Channing pounced on him and rode him from behind, Channing’s cock sliding between Matt’s cheeks.
Channing got one hand underneath Matt, under his cock, so Channing’s every thrust at Matt’s ass
rocked Matt’s sex against Channing’s palm.

Matt closed his eyes, enjoying the ride, feeling Channing’s hot exhalations wash across his back.

When Channing withdrew his hand and his weight lifted from Matt’s back, Matt tried to turn over, but
Channing pushed him back down. The next sensation was Channing’s tongue between his buttocks,
lathering wetness there, so startling and hot Matt almost came right then.

Channing grasped Matt’s hips and pulled him up and back so that Matt was up on hands and knees on
the bed. Channing’s cock glided through the wetness between his cheeks, then pressed tentatively at the
gates. “Can I?” he asked, in a low ragged voice.

“If you don’t, I think I’ll die,” Matt said.

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He penetrated Matt’s body with tantalizing slowness.

So starved for this joining of flesh, Matt could scarcely hold back.

Channing reached around him with both hands to fondle his erection and his tightening balls.

Stars exploded before Matt’s eyes. Fire welled in his groin. Desire seized and pulsed. He came.

In answer, Channing’s come released inside him, sending him soaring to whatever heights existed
beyond heaven. He surrendered to bliss. Channing was here, with him, in him, and he could not want for
anything more in this world in this moment.

***

Channing was in the bathroom. The shower had just shut off. Matt had just pushed the sheet curtain
aside to look out the window to the street below. His shabby surroundings never looked so beautiful.
Channing’s presence changed everything.

Matt caught himself smiling. I like him.

He liked Channing’s body. He liked being with him. Channing was a wild dog to Matt’s domestic cat.
Channing was uncircumcised. He carried a gun. His hands were used hard. Channing had lived.

A motion down the street caught Matt’s eye. He leaned forward until his forehead touched the window
pane. “Hey, Channing. I think your insurance adjuster is here.”

“I didn’t call an insurance adjuster,” Channing called out from the shower.

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“Well then, someone’s stealing your—“

The explosion rocked the block.

All the pigeons rose flapping from the rooftops and sidewalks.

A piece of headlight hurtled up and cracked against the window frame. It made Matt jump back.

Black smoke rolled up. Tires squealed all down the street. Horns honked. A hubcap rolled down the
sidewalk. Someone was crying in what sounded like pain.

Matt let the curtain drop.

“—car.”

Chapter Six

Channing came out of the bathroom, naked and dripping on the tired carpet. He moved the curtain and
peered out the window.

“Looks like the perp offed himself. Gotta love an inept bomber. I hope he didn’t take anyone with him.”

Matt hadn’t seen any bodies in the street. He came to Channing’s side. There was someone sitting on

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the sidewalk rocking, screaming, and holding his arm. Traffic was backing up on the one-way street.

Channing snapped the sheet curtain shut and pulled Matt away from the window. “Pack up. We’re
going. Where’s your van?”

Matt stood shell-shocked, shaking.

Channing was detached and cool as only a two hundred-year-old werewolf who has survived smallpox
and a winter in Valley Forge could be.

Matt broke from his trance and cried, “Channing, someone just tried to kill you!”

“Yeah,” Channing said, matter of factly. “Come on. Whoever’s after me doesn’t care who he takes
down with me.”

“Where are we going?” Matt said, lost.

“Road trip.”

Sirens bounced like pinballs between the brownstones outside.

Matt was unhurt, untouched by the explosion. Yet his heartbeat felt like a solid buzz. The sirens echoed
inside his skull.

Channing was methodically packing what was necessary. He emptied the fridge into a cooler and pulled
the plug.

Matt asked, his voice quavering, “We’re not waiting for the police?”

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“No. You can’t stay here.”

Outside, Channing’s gutted car sat burning and belching smoke. Gawkers hung out all the windows on
the block. Traffic looked to be backed up to Center City.

Fire and rescue managed to come up the wrong way on the one way street.

Matt and Channing carried several loads of stuff back through the alley to the next street north. They
loaded up Matt’s van. Matt’s mother used to call it her magic bus. They removed the back seats to make
room. Matt took his laptop, his sleeping bag, food, and his mom’s violin.

In short order, Matt and Channing climbed into the front seats and they were on the road, Channing at
the wheel.

Matt was shaking. Channing glanced aside. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine,” Matt said. His voice had picked up a vibrato. “Um. My body just has other
ideas.” He held his hands out in front of him and watched his long fingers trembling. Everything inside him
vibrated. “I didn’t know I was such a girl.”

He hadn’t taken so much as a scratch. There was no need for this kind of reaction.

“You’re not. Let me know if you need to hurl.”

“No. I’m good,” Matt said.

He changed his mind in no time. Channing stopped the van so Matt could lean out and vomit.

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Matt pulled the door shut, blew his nose, and fished a soda out of the cooler to get the taste out of his
mouth. He felt ridiculous.

Channing reached over to squeeze his knee. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

***

They left the city. Channing drove for several hours through the Pennsylvania hills. They stopped for gas.
Matt got some money out of an ATM.

Matt took the wheel for a while, much calmer after a few hundred miles.

Somewhere in Ohio, I-80 teamed up with I-90. Night had fallen quite some time ago. The signs were
confusing. Matt was afraid he’d missed an exit. “Which way?” Matt asked.

“Keep going ‘til you hit Buffalo,” Channing said.

“Buffalo’s back that way.” Matt pointed over his shoulder.

“Buffalo, Wyoming,” Channing said.

***

Past Chicago the van rumbled across the surface of the moon, otherwise known as I-90, through Illinois
into Wisconsin.

They took turns driving. The interstate was endless. Channing nudged Matt awake to point out the
Mississippi River and his dents in the guard rail. “This is where I turned around.”

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Matt didn’t know the destination. He just took his turns at the wheel, trusting, rolling past a dreamscape.

Channing crawled into the back of the van and unpacked the violin. He played spry, little Early
American tunes.

“How come you learned to play?” Matt asked. He didn’t know anyone who could play the violin, much
less a detective in the Philly PD.

“Hell, everyone used to play. What you got in the back of your van is an Early American juke box.”

Nothing seemed quite real. Matt was driving cross country with a centuries’ old wolf man on the run
from a drug lord’s hit men.

And just two or three months ago he’d thought a quickie in the alley with a user was reckless.

***

At the next stop to get gas, two girls filling up their red Mustang on the other side of the pump eyed them
then cast withering looks at the minivan.

Channing leaned against the van, waiting for the pump to shut off. He said to Matt, “I’m guessing mom
was a soccer mom?”

“I played soccer,” Matt admitted.

“I can see that.” Channing’s eyes traveled down his long, lank frame. “I bet you were good.”

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“I got through undergrad school on a soccer scholarship.”

“Where’s your father in all this?”

So, Channing had noticed that Matt never mentioned a father.

“I don’t have one,” he said, and hoped Channing would drop it.

“Ah. He split,” Channing concluded. Well, that was logical. It was also wrong.

“No,” Matt said, his voice gone hard, precise. “I don’t have a father.”

“Immaculate conception?”

Channing must have thought he was joking.

“There wasn’t any sex involved,” Matt said tightly. “I was a designer baby. The sperm came from a
bank. It was selected for good looks and high IQ.”

“You came out of a test tube?” Channing’s expression was an amazed near smile.

“Artificial insemination. You know, I was angry enough to find out that I was got on the wrong side of
the sheets, then I was real angry to find out there weren’t even any fucking sheets. It made me sick to my
stomach to think of some egotistical guy with a plastic cup, a magazine, and his right hand in a doctor’s
office.”

“I got news,” Channing said cheerily. “Those of us who were made the old fashioned way have a real
hard time picturing that act, too.”

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Matt had never told anyone how he came to be. It repulsed him. But he could tell Channing anything.

He’d never told Cord. Cord never asked.

“I wasted a lot of time being angry about it,” Matt said. “I felt like a freak.”

“Wah,” Channing said in a deadpan brat cry. He replaced the cap on the gas tank.

“You’re ruthless,” Matt said. “You’re also right. I’m alive, and I had one person on this earth who loved
the hell out of me.”

“She died young,” Channing said, more sympathetic this time.

“Ish,” Matt said. “She was running out of biological clock when she had me. But you’re right. It was too
soon. Sixty-five seems real young anymore. She died of pancreatic cancer. It came up so quick. Four
months after the diagnosis I was standing next to a pine box.”

“Time enough to forgive her?”

“I didn’t forgive her,” Matt said. “I apologized to her for being a selfish prick.”

Channing’s hand clasped him behind his neck. “Good man.”

“Life is funny,” Matt said.

“Life is real funny.”

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They went inside the gas station. Channing stood front of the coffee machine looking between the caf
and decaf dispensers. He lifted his Styrofoam cup. “Who’s your daddy?”

Matt sputtered into startled laughter. It put things in perspective.

It didn’t matter.

“Prick,” Matt said smiling.

“Yeah,” Channing said. He put his cup under the caffeinated dispenser. “Come to papa.”

***

Somewhere around Minnesota a winter storm moved in. Matt took the wheel. Channing fell asleep in the
back of the van.

When Channing woke, Matt was driving through near white out conditions. Channing elbowed his way
forward to stick his head between the front seats.

“Where are we?”

“South Dakota I think,” Matt said. “There’s a lot of it. And it’s white.”

At last they had to stop. The sun had set, not that Matt had ever seen the sun today. It was snowing
relentlessly when they pulled into a truck stop. They parked in a row of semi-trailers that left their engines
running all night long. Matt turned the van’s engine off.

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The van was a heat sink, but with the two of them huddled together in the back in the sleeping bag
between piles of their stuff, it became an almost cozy den. The wind could howl and buffet the sides of
the van. They were safe in their private shelter. They frosted the windows solid white.

They made love with their clothes on, zippers down, with hands and lips and cocks.

Matt wanted to say I love you. But he was afraid. This was the dead wrong place to be if the answer
didn’t come back I love you, too. It could be a real long drive to wherever they were going.

***

Clouds gave way to a pure blue sky overWyoming . Snow had piled up pristine white. Spiked
evergreens amid bare aspens jutted up between the rocks.

Majestic was a word custom made for mountains.

Channing pulled off the interstate onto God’s roads.

In the middle of nowhere, he pulled into a sort of drive. It was partially plowed.

A metal gate, chained shut, barred the way. The sign on it read PRIVATE.

Other signs on the fences read POACHERS WILL BE SHOT.

Channing pulled the emergency brake on and climbed out of the van. He unfastened the chains, opened
the gate, and motioned Matt to pull the van through.

Channing closed the gate behind him and re-fastened the chains. He climbed back into the van on the

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passenger side and nodded ahead for Matt to drive.

The van trundled up an eternally long, snow-packed approach road between enormous rocks and thick
stands of pine trees.

Finally, the road fed into a large, flat area below a sprawling log lodge built amid outcroppings of rock.

The building was not picture pretty like a resort lodge would be. Its logs were blackened with age. But it
looked solid. Smoke curled from several stone chimneys. A line of snow lumps in the level area were
probably parked cars and pickup trucks hibernating for the winter.

Matt parked next to a half ton pickup truck equipped with a snow plow. He shut off the engine.

We’re here.

“Let me go first,” Channing said.

Matt got the drift that the welcome might not be all that warm.

Channing stripped off his clothes, cracked the door, transformed into a wolf and jumped out of the van.
He climbed the wide steps up to the porch. He trotted to the massive wooden door and scratched.

Matt got out and waited by the van.

The heavy door opened to a burly, black-bearded mountain man with wild, black hair who glared down
fiercely. He growled something at the wolf on his porch, then opened the door wider to allow Channing
inside.

Channing turned around and transformed into a man. He stood up, naked, and whistled with a big wave

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for Matt to come on.

Matt hurried up the steps. He slipped inside to warmth.

Red and green blotches of after-glare swam before his eyes.

The hulking man snarled at both of them. He threw a horse blanket at naked Channing with a gruff,
“Ugh. Put ‘em away.”

The man’s dark eyes were small and nearly black. He gave Matt the once over. He didn’t like what he
saw. He breathed a vulgarity and groaned to Channing. “You still have to be that way?”

He meant gay. He didn’t have any problem with the wolf part.

“It’s what I am,” Channing said, wrapped in the blanket. “Someone tried to kill me.”

The man shrugged huge, rounded shoulders, not surprised. “Happens.”

“As a man.”

“You bring that out in people, Channing.”

“Bo,” a mildly scolding feminine voice chided the mountain man with his name.

Bo and Channing turned toward the voice.

A heavy-set woman with olive skin and long, black hair descended a massive set of log stairs. She

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wasn’t young. She wasn’t old. Bo answered her, “Well, he does.”

The woman ignored Bo and spread her arms to welcome Channing with a warm smile for a long lost
friend. “John Channing.” Her alto voice was mellow. Her shawled arms enfolded Channing like wings.
She kissed him.

Then she saw Matt. She took in a startled breath like a smitten girl. Her left hand rose to her broad
bosom as if her heart was doing the pitter pat. “And hello.” She extended her right hand.

Matt took the woman’s hand. She pressed it warmly. Matt thought he had to look bedraggled from the
road and he needed a shave, but she said, “Has anyone ever told you you could be a model?”

“Don’t get all excited, Londa,” big hairy Bo snarled. “He belongs to Channing.”

Channing’s name sounded disgusting the way Bo said it.

Matt winced. Oh great, I get to stay under a homophobe’s roof.

He turned around and went back outside to get their stuff, starting with clothes for Channing.

***

Matt and Channing were given a room on the second floor. The walls were rough-hewn timbers, the
ceiling low. There was a big metal radiator like in Matt’s Philly apartment, except this one didn’t leak.

Any light came from the windows or the Coleman lantern. Matt hadn’t seen anything electric in the
lodge.

The bed was hand-hewn and not a standard size. The mattress was made like a futon, with a thick

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feather bed laid over top to cushion it and thick, woolen blankets and deerskins laid over that.

“What’s the room charge?” Matt asked Channing, who was pacing.

Channing shook his head to say no charge. “You pitch in or they pitch you out.”

Matt’s mom would have called it a commune.

Matt climbed onto the bed. A sense of motion still had him, a tingling, unsettled feeling, as if he was still
on the road.

“Is this home sweet home?” Matt asked, trying to relax.

“No. This is one of the places we come when we need to get out of town.” He moved from wall to wall.
The wide rug under his pacing feet looked like a very old native weave. “The FBI thinks we’re
survivalists up here. Which isn’t really far off. We’re just a bunch of strays come in from the cold.”

“How do you find each other?” It was a vast country. He’d just seen exactly how vast. Matt was still
rolling from the highway. He couldn’t imagine how wolf people hooked up.

“We go where wolves are.” Channing tapped the side of his own nose. “You can smell the difference
between one of us and natural born wolf.”

“Maybe you can,” Matt said.

“Right.” Channing kept pacing. “Oh, and we’re all gray wolves. If you meet up with a timber wolf or a
red wolf, do not try to say hello. The property runs up against the national park, so all kinds of animals
track through here.”

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“Yellowstone?” Matt asked.

“No. That’s way down the road.” Channing nodded toward the window at the rampart mountains
beyond. “Those there are the Big Horns.”

Pictures only gave a suggestion of what a grand thing a mountain was. In person, they overwhelmed.
They towered. They breathed.

Matt could hear other people talking and moving elsewhere in the lodge.

“How many people live here?”

“Only Bo, Londa and George live here. The rest of us come when we have to and go when we can.”

Matt didn’t hear any children. He hadn’t seen any small furniture or tripped over any toys. “Where’s the
pitter patter of little paws?”

“Wolf folk don’t breed.”

“Really? Where do little wolves come from?”

“There are no little wolves,” Channing said, grave. “If you bite a child, the child dies. Then we kill the
biter.”

“We who?”

“Any of us wolves who know about it. We don’t put up with that kind of shit.”

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“Is there wolf law?”

“Not really. Whatever the alpha says goes. That’s it.”

“Is Bo the alpha?”

“Bo? Hell no! That would be Londa. And what’s with the interview? Are you writing a paper for
lycanthropology class? I’m not your science project.”

“I don’t normally sleep with my science projects,” Matt said. “You’re pacing. Come lie down.”

“I can’t. I need to figure out how I’m going to get back to the world.”

“Get your foot off the accelerator before you drive yourself into a wall.”

“What?” Channing stopped mid-pace.

“You’re still in withdrawal. You’re clean, but now you feel something missing. You’re looking for a new
high.”

“I—“ he seemed about to say am not. He finished instead, “—am. Oh, crap.”

“It takes more time than you’re giving it,” Matt said.

Channing hung his head. “I want to be Superman.”

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Matt lay back on a pile of feather stuffed pillows. “Come here, Superman.”

Channing crawled onto the bed, muttering.

“Do I stink?” Matt asked. They’d been on the road a long time.

“Not ever,” Channing said. “You know we can move over to the stables if you don’t like it here.”

“What’s in the stables?”

“Electricity. TV. Noise. Your downstairs neighbor.”

“We can check it out later,” Matt said. He pulled Channing’s foot toward him and slid Channing’s shoe
off. Channing pulled his foot back, wary. “What are you doing?”

“Relax,” Matt said.

Matt rubbed Channing’s foot until Channing was moaning in contentment. Channing kicked off his
remaining shoe and gave Matt his other foot.

Matt worked on his other foot. “Don’t tell me in two and half centuries no one has ever given you a foot
rub?”

“Never.”

“You gotta hang out with more women.”

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“No, I don’t.”

“No, you don’t.” Matt set Channing’s foot aside and crawled over top of him on hands and knees. He
looked down at Channing’s face, hovered nose to nose, with his long bangs hanging down. “Did you
know travel is an aphrodisiac?”

“Yeah?” Channing said, and pulled Matt down. “Prove it.”

Matt moved his whole body against Channing in a slow slither. His tongue rasped up Channing’s throat,
over his Adam’s apple and under his chin. His lips found the pulse in Channing’s throat, caressing the
sensitive skin there deftly up and down.

Channing gave a purring growl that rose from deep in his chest. Matt felt Channing’s pulse quicken
under his wet kisses. Matt dragged his mouth up to Channing’s earlobe and took it between his lips.
Some men were sensitive there. Channing was one of those men.

Matt’s warm breaths softly caressed Channing’s ear. Channing’s hands moved all over Matt’s body,
feeling his muscles flex and flow through his clothes, enjoying the slow friction between them.

The long miles were falling away, and Matt was wide awake, all stiffness from the road fast fading with
their rising heat.

They were both seized by the same thought at the same time. They let go of each other and rolled apart
to get their clothes off now. Right now.

Matt’s blood rushed within his veins. His nipples tightened. His lips felt fuller and fat, wanting kissed. His
cock felt full, just wanting.

His skin yearned for the touch of Channing’s skin.

They fell back together in a groping knot. Matt took Channing’s body between his legs. He ground his

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nipples against Channing’s chest hair. They rubbed together, belly to belly, cock to cock.

The air was thin, and Matt gasped for breath.

Channing’s kisses moved lower down Matt’s body, from the hollow within his collarbone down to his
smooth chest to his nipples.

Matt lifted his knees and wrapped his legs around Channing, his balls to the wall of Channing’s stomach
muscles, his heels at Channing’s ass. There was something so extraordinary about the feeling of a man
between his thighs. It was a place no one ever goes who is not loving you.

Matt’s hands roamed across Channing’s strong back, feeling the hard blocks of muscle and taut cords
straining. In rising excitement, he held Channing tighter, his hands grasping and re-grasping, pressing
Channing nearer to his heart, his body, his sex.

At least one of them had the sense to grab the lubricant before they’d got naked. In passion Matt’s cock
pushed his big brain right out of his head. Channing lifted himself just far enough apart to get a palm full of
slithery gel on his own cock. Then he slid both hands underneath Matt’s buttocks to lift Matt’s ass off the
bed. Channing’s erection slid back and forth within the furrow between Matt’s cheeks.

Then in a wondrous moment in which Matt held his breath and the rest of the world stood still, he felt
Channing’s erection penetrate him. Channing slid in smooth and slow.

Matt’s hands splayed wide against Channing’s hard thighs, feeling them working, thrusting. Through
barely parted lids, Matt saw Channing’s face above him, screwed up in an extremity of feeling.
Channing’s eyes shut, and he bowed his forehead against Matt’s chest for the last drive.

Channing’s one hand reached between their bodies to clasp Matt’s erection tight against his abdomen.
The sensation set Matt on fire.

Matt felt Channing’s sex kick and surge inside him. And that was the end of restraint.

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Sounds came out of him—those naked sounds you make when you are out of control, your dignity
stripped away, and no shred of civility remains. Matt was left with his own essential need, his soul laid
bare, and he surrendered to his body’s hunger and his heart’s desire.

Little death? No way. It was a big, fat, ball-wrenching, turn-yourself-inside-out death, go straight to
heaven, do not pass Saint Peter, just sing hallelujah. Matt’s cock convulsed under Channing’s hand and
spurted wetness against Channing’s body.

With the spasms, Matt had the sense of his soul rising up above him, like floating ash from the raging,
carnal fire down below.

***

Cooking aromas were filtering up from downstairs. Matt was wearing nothing but his watch. Channing
turned Matt’s wrist over to check the time. He reached for Matt’s shirt and dropped it on Matt’s face.
“Londa makes you dress to eat dinner at the table. C’mon.” Channing rolled up to sit and look around
for his clothes.

“I didn’t pack anything good,” Matt said.

“Dress means you have to wear clothes.”

“Um.” Matt considered Channing’s phrasing. He guessed, “Some people don’t?”

“Some wolf men are more wolf than others. Those guys eat in the kitchen on all fours. Sometimes their
food is even cooked.”

“Is ours? Cooked?”

“Yeah. But how good it is depends on who’s got kitchen duty today.”

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There were some thirty people sitting at the long, massive table. The seats were benches, not chairs.
Giant timbers held up the ceiling.

Channing spoke aside to Matt as they climbed over the bench to sit side by side, “I don’t know most of
these people.”

Matt didn’t have any trouble introducing himself to the people seated around them.

Londa sat at the head of the table, Bo to her right. An older black man, whom Channing pointed out as
“George,” sat to her left, mostly silent. George had a deliberate, patient way about him.

Dinner was noisy and lively as a high school cafeteria, but airborne food was discouraged.

Matt sat on Channing’s left, so Channing’s hand spent most of the time on Matt’s thigh under the table.
The rest of the time it was on his crotch.

Someone called from the foot of the table, “Hey! Can I get some coffee down here?”

Matt reached for the carafe near him, but the woman seated directly across from him said, “Stud, you
touch that and I’ll bite your arm off.”

Matt called an answer down to the foot of the table, “That would be a no.”

The man sitting across from Channing was named Horace. Of course everyone called him Hore. Hore
pointed with his fork between Matt and Channing. “Are you two gay?”

Matt answered warily, “Yeah.”

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“Oh, thank God,” Hore said, and to Matt’s puzzled look he explained, “Have you seen the odds here?”

Men outnumbered women two to one.

Hore draped his arm around the shoulders of the woman seated across from Matt. Her name was
Manuela. Manuela threatened to bite off Hore’s arm if he didn’t keep it to himself.

It was a mixed crew of races, mostly young-looking. Matt tried to guess who was really young and who
was actually a few centuries old.

Matt was getting the idea that black George was really really old, and he wondered if George hadn’t
been a slave, but there was no polite way to ask.

He tried to ask Channing but couldn’t bring himself to say the words. “Is George—? Was George
ever—?” It was a god awful question, and he couldn’t do it.

Channing heard the question Matt couldn’t ask, and he answered, “George is older than I am.”

“Got it,” Matt said, and shuddered.

He promised himself not to intrude on the man’s carefully guarded peace.

Hore asked Matt, “You guys just back from the world?” He almost sounded like a fellow Philadelphian.

“Uh, yeah,” Matt answered.

“I forget how long I’ve been here. I gotta get out. I don’t know how. The twenty-first century is passing

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me by.” Hore jabbed his fork into a slab of meat.

Matt glanced aside at Channing. They had talked about this problem once. What to do when your face
says you’re half the age of your driver’s license and you didn’t graduate from high school in any recent
century.

Matt had been thinking about it ever since Channing first brought it up.

Matt cupped his hands alongside his mouth and called up to the head of the table, “Hey Bo. Bo!”

“What?” Bo yelled back, showing food in his mouth.

“Do you have internet here?”

“We have something called wi fi.” Bo pronounced it carefully, like a foreign word.

“Outstanding,” Matt said.

Hore’s face lit up hopefully. “You can get me back into the world?”

“Yes,” Matt said. “I can.”

***

George fashioned embossers to give Matt’s forged documents an authentic look and feel.

Matt presented Hore with his new birth certificate and Social Security card. “Memorize these, Rick,”

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Matt told Hore. “Your name is Richard Strasser. Get used to it. Here are your parents’ names, your
mom’s maiden name—don’t forget that one. Here’s your high school diploma. Don’t ever go near your
home town. In fact, stay out of Pennsylvania altogether. Here’s your work history at the grocery store
and the car wash. You’re eighteen again. You’re going to need to take the test for a driver’s license. And
don’t forget to register for Selective Service before your next birthday. You’ll need to get your
Associate’s degree all over again, which you’re going to have to do anyway because nobody uses
COBOL anymore.”

Hore’s smile was wider than the room. “Man, I’d hug you if you weren’t gay.”

“It’s not contagious,” Matt said.

Hore grabbed him, hugged him and gave him a wet kiss on his cheek. Rick Strasser ran over to the
stables to pack his stuff.

In no time, Matt had a throng of other wolves around him, wanting passports back to the world.

Matt created files on all Londa’s people and gave the files to Londa. She considered every wolf in this
refuge as hers. Matt told her to get a dedicated phone for work references and employment verifications.
“Whenever this phone rings, answer, ‘This is Human Resources, may I help you?’ And don’t ever let Bo
pick up.”

Londa nodded with a closing of her soft, almond eyes. She touched his face. “Thank you for doing this.”

***

There were extra pairs of boots in the lodge. Matt and Channing borrowed some to take a walk in the
deep snow. The sun reflected blinding bright on the white field under a wide wide sky. The mountains
loomed, adamant, immediate. High, wispy clouds trailed from their peaks like thin veils. Spikes of bare
aspens pointed up amid stands of evergreens.

In the high, thin air, Matt drew in deep, cold breaths and still couldn’t take in as much air as he wanted.

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He and Channing walked holding hands.

“Were you at Little Big Horn?” Matt asked.

“With that dumb ass Custer? Hell no,” Channing said. “Me and Bo buried the dead. I did the battle of
1812. World War One. World War Two. Desert Storm. I’m done for awhile.”

“When did you come out here?”

“I don’t know. Eighteen something. I lived out here a few years with a Red Indian. That’s what we
called them back in the day.”

“What tribe?” Matt asked.

“Lakota. I made him a wolf.”

Old lover. There had to be a few of those left behind after two and half centuries. Matt felt a sting of
jealousy, and another of unease.

“Why did you break up?” Matt asked. He didn’t want to know. He had to know.

“We didn’t,” Channing said.

“Is he here?” Matt asked, trying to keep his voice level through his sudden, leaping panic. He thought he
might be sick.

“No,” Channing said.

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Lord Almighty, couldn’t the man just give a full answer? Matt shook his head. “What happened to him?”

Channing’s brow knotted. He spoke at the horizon. “We tried to bring down something too big for us.
We dragged down a caribou calf. Mama caribou—” He broke off, shook his head. “I tried to draw her
off. She—” He pressed his lips together. Matt could see him reliving his lover’s dying. A tremolo worked
its way into his voice. “I hated that animal like I’ve never never hated anyone, anything. I’m sure she felt
the same about me. I killed her. Then I finished off her calf. God, I was angry.”

Channing took in a long breath through his nostrils, then heaved out a sigh, letting go. “It was a long time
ago.”

Somewhere during the tale he’d let go of Matt’s hand. Matt felt the connection break.

“You were in love with him,” Matt said. He felt far away.

“I—?” Channing paused to think. “I loved him. I did love him. In love? That’s a tough one. You gotta
know—we couldn’t talk to each other.”

It dawned on Matt then. “He was Lakota.”

“I don’t speak Red Indian,” Channing said.

***

After two weeks, Matt had returned seven wolves to the world. Yet there were more wolves in the
lodge and the stables now than when Matt and Channing had first arrived. They came to see Matt. Matt
turned them around with new identities as fast as he could.

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In the middle of one night, when Matt and Channing were thinking about loving again, a big, heavy, cold
beast burst into the bedroom, jumped onto the bed and walked over them with huge, wet paws, its
shaggy fur dripping ice. Its breathing was heavy, guttural, and quick.

Matt convulsed, sputtered under the big, stumbling paws, “What!”

The giant wolf transformed in a giant, unlovely, wet, naked man who demanded, “Which one of you is
Matt?”

Other residents rushed in to pull the intruder off. Matt was their treasure. Matt needed his sleep. But the
brute was here, and he wanted Matt to give him a new identity now. Right now. He bared fangs.

The she-wolf padded into the crowded bed chamber and sat on the woven rug like a queen on a throne.
Matt had discovered from the internet that the broad-striped rug on the bedroom floor was actually an
old chief’s blanket.

Funny how Matt could tell that the she-wolf was Londa, even though it was dark, even though he’d
never seen her in wolf form. She had an unmistakable gracious air and attitude of calm absolute authority.
She was large for a wolf. Her fur was thick, gray-black. Her eyes were soft brown. She wasn’t angry.
Her hackles lay down smooth. All she need do was sit down. Everyone else got quiet and slipped out.
The intruder needed to wait until morning to see Matt.

Matt had the brute reinvented and on his way by lunch time.

The next intruder was a lot worse.

Matt and Channing were in their room when the massive front door to the lodge blew open to a loud,
excited voice shouting, “Vickie’s here!” The call was picked up by another, “Vickie’s here!”

“Oh, bloody joy,” Channing said, in the same tone one might say Oh joy, a root canal. “Vickie’s here.”

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Matt got up and went out to the railing to watch the new arrival down below.

Bo grumbled as he stalked to the door. He looked out at someone on the porch. “Oh, that’s it. There’s
too much faggage in here already.” Bo slammed the door shut.

The door re-opened, and in strode a devilishly handsome young man with dark dark hair, gleaming, dark
eyes, a chiseled face, and dazzling white teeth. Vickie stood a bit shorter than Matt and Channing, who
saw eye to eye. Vickie wore a Union jacket.

Vic gave Bo a rakish smile. “Scared?”

“No,” Bo snarled.

Vic ran a finger down Bo’s beefy arm and said silkily, “A big studly hunk of manhood like you should be
scared.”

“Ugh.” Bo brushed off his arm. “Get off! Just git! Go stay over there!” Bo banished Vic to the stables.
Bo called the stables the animal house.

Channing came out of the bedroom to join Matt at the second floor railing. Channing seemed
uncomfortable.

“Who is Vickie?” Matt asked.

“Vic McKay. Big mistake,” Channing said, terse. His lips pressed together tight, holding back
something..

“Your mistake?” Matt asked. A twinge of jealousy turned in his chest.

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There was a telling hesitation. Channing couldn’t lie. “Yeah.”

Channing had nothing more to say about Vic.

Matt tried to fight back the jealous burn that sat on his heart. Past was past. He knew Channing had
lovers. What two hundred and half year old wolf man wouldn’t have past lovers? It should have
comforted Matt that Channing wasn’t at all happy to see Vic. But the way Matt saw it, Channing’s
irritation only meant that he still felt something strong for his old flame.

Just how old the flame was, Matt couldn’t know. He wondered if Vic McKay was the original owner of
that Union jacket.

At dinnertime, when the wolves gathered in the great hall at the lodge, Vic tried to kiss Channing.
Channing had the decency to straight-arm him in front of Matt. Channing took a seat as far away from
Vic as he could manage.

Vic held court at his end of the table. Vic McKay was glib, brash, callous. Some people thought he was
funny. Matt wasn’t one of those. Vic tried to convince old George to change his name to something more
up to date like LeBron or Donte or D’something.

George stayed silent.

A Super Bowl party was on tap over in the stables after dinner. For Matt a place front and center on a
couch was reserved. The wolves took good care of Matt.

Matt brought his laptop with him to work on crafting a new identity for a wolf currently named Amelia,
soon to be Emily.

“Oooh, I like that name,” Amelia said.

Amelia draped herself over Matt’s left side so she could look over his arm at the computer screen.

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Channing sat on Matt’s right. Occasionally they would glance up at the TV and yell. Amelia would be
cheering while Matt shouted, “No no no! You catch that man!” amid cheers and moans and thrown
nachos.

When Channing got up to get rid of some beer, Vic moved in. He leaned over the back of the couch, his
face right next to Matt’s. “Hey, Professor.”

Matt ignored him, eyes locked on his computer screen.

“Professor.”

Amelia said, “I think he means you, Matt.”

Matt knew that.

“This is a party, Professor,” Vic said, with beery breath. “What are you doing? This looks like work.”
He made a reach to pull Matt’s laptop shut.

Amelia’s hand shot up to intercept him. “You leave him alone, Vickie.”

Another wolf who was waiting his turn for a new identity told Vic, “Do NOT disturb the Professor.”

Amelia told Vic proudly, “The Professor making me an identity. I’m going back into the world.”

“Yeah, right,” Vic said, smug, knowing. He seemed pleased to burst her balloon. “You need a Social.”

“Really?” Matt said, as if the need for a Social Security Number never ever occurred to him. “Wow.”

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“You got one?” Vic was suddenly real interested. He spoke into Matt’s ear so his lips brushed Matt’s
hair. “How’d you do that?”

Matt waved his hand, as if brushing away a fly, and oops, smacked Vic in the face. “Not telling.”

“Can you do me?”

“How would you like to be done, Vic?” Maybe with a meat hook?

“Can you get me a new ID?”

Matt looked up at the television and shouted, “Face mask! Aw c’mon ref, call the penalty!” Other
wolves were laughing or booing.

Vic was still waiting for his answer. “Me. Can you do me?”

“Ever been fingerprinted?” Matt asked, not looking at him.

“Yeah.”

“Then no,” Matt said, pleased as hell at not being able to help Vic. “Go do yourself.”

***

Londa asked Matt to carry something into the lodge for her. Bo commented loudly that he didn’t know
if Matt’s wrists could take the weight.

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That really was one past the last homophobic slur Matt was willing to let go. Matt pulled off his work
gloves and faced the huge, shaggy man. “You know Hagrid, I’m getting tired of the remarks. You want
to step outside and settle this old school?”

“Sure,” Bo said, as if he’d been waiting for a challenge. “Bring it, lily white boy.”

Londa’s horrified intake of breath sounded at his back. “No! Bo! He can’t. He’s a two-foot!”

All the wolf people sitting around the hearth turned with horrified stares.

Bo rounded on Channing, stunned and angry. Bo hadn’t known. “You brought a two-foot here?”

Matt hadn’t thought it was a big secret that he wasn’t a wolf until suddenly it was out. God, if he’d
known he was in the closet, he would have stayed there.

Everyone was staring, hushed, aghast.

Damn, damn and damn.

Matt’s face burned.

Bo got right up into Matt’s face, growling, “You’re a two-foot?”

Matt hadn’t heard the term before. He didn’t like the sound of it.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “I am. Let’s do this.”

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Bo stepped back and jerked his stout thumb at the door. “Then bag your ass outside. I’ll be quick with
you.”

Londa cried, “Matt! Don’t go out there! He’ll tear you apart!”

“No, he won’t,” Matt said. “Channing, give me your Glock.”

Channing drew his service pistol. He never left it in the room. Not with this crowd. He passed it to Matt,
grip first.

Bo suddenly looked a little pale behind his bristling, black beard. “Whoa. That’s not fair.”

“Sure it is,” Matt said. “Let’s see how you like opposable thumbs now, White Fang. Oh, and FYI,
you’re not on the endangered species list anymore!” He chambered a round and stalked out the door.

Bo’s sudden laugh boomed to the rafters, shattering all the fear and anger to splinters.

Bo laid a big hairy paw of a hand on Channing’s shoulder, fight forgotten. “He’s got some bite in him,
that one does.”

***

The pack settled back, accepting their two-foot “Professor” like a mascot or a favorite pet.

Matt found a soccer ball in the animal house and kicked it around in the snowy yard. Soon he was
surrounded by wolves, gamboling and frisking around the ball like boisterous dogs. Someone in human
form called him “Plays Soccer With Wolves.” Matt liked that name better than Professor, but
unfortunately it didn’t stick.

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His cheeks, nose and lips were stung red, his eyes shining bright as he came in from the cold. Channing
had been looking askance at Matt’s nimble footwork. He muttered, “I don’t ever want you kicking any
ball of mine around.”

***

It was still February, colder here than February ever got in Philadelphia, but brighter than it got in
Philadelphia—ever. The sun shone blindingly on the snowy mountains.

Matt was working on another identity in a quiet room in the main lodge. Outside the window, on the
bright snow, a half dozen, shaggy-haired, massively thewed men were splitting logs with axes. One of
them was Bo. Matt had seen the others before. He was pretty sure they had rooms in the main lodge, but
they never came to the dinner table. They looked like they might prefer to run down their own meals.

He guessed he knew now where the logs in the fireplaces came from.

Vic sauntered into the quiet room and shut Matt’s laptop. “So. You’re a two-foot.”

Matt’s shoulders slumped. He was feeling shitty enough already. He’d managed to step on a nail a few
days ago. He’d been trying to ignore it, but his heel hurt and it was starting to look bad and smell. He
was having trouble concentrating.

So let’s play games with Vickie. Why the hell not. Matt looked up from his closed laptop. “Last I
counted, yeah,” Matt said. “Two.” He’d conceived an instant hatred for this guy. He didn’t even try to
talk himself down from it.

Vic’s handsome smile was evil. “Maybe you can answer a question for me.”

Okay, I’ll bite. “What do you got?”

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Vic draped himself across Matt’s work table, posed like a torch singer on a grand piano. “It’s about the
wolf who made me. There’s a bond there. You can’t get any closer than that.”

An unsubtle reminder there that John Channing made Vic. A mistake, Channing had called it.

When Matt didn’t speak, Vic went on. “Well, my wolf has got himself a pretty two-foot. And I know
he’s just using it, because, well, it’s a two-foot. So, he obviously hasn’t done the ultimate act with it.”

The ultimate act must be biting—making someone a wolf. Making him your own. He’s trying to get to
me. One of Matt’s two feet was throbbing. And he’s doing it.

“So my maker is just parading this pretty thing around to make me jealous. I mean, I know what he’s
doing. So, how should I act? What should I do?”

“’Kay, here’s what you do,” Matt said, exasperated. “You have a pen?”

Vic snatched up Matt’s pen. “I do now.”

“Take the pen between your left thumb and forefinger,” Matt instructed.

“Like this?”

“Uh huh. Now turn the inky end toward you.”

“Like this?”

“Yes.” Matt nodded.

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“Okay,” Vic said, ready and waiting instruction.

“Now jam it as far as you can into your left eye socket.”

Vic flashed a bright white smile, his black eyes sparkling. He set the pen down. “Ah. I get it. No more
Mister Nice Guy.”

“That’s Professor Nice Guy to you,” Matt said. He picked up his laptop and limped out of the room.

I’m in a cat fight with a werewolf. I should go.

Matt was part German, part whatever nationality of sperm had been swimming in the plastic cup.
Whatever it was had made Matt very European, very white. Channing apparently had a thing for First
Nations folk. There was the Minsi who made him and the Lakota he’d made. And Vic, with his black
hair, bronze skin and striking bones. Channing obviously had a favorite type, and Matt Winter wasn’t it.

Channing had never even floated the remotest possibility of making Matt.

The ultimate act.

Matt’s foot was killing him. It was funny that Vic said that Channing was “just using” his two-foot. On
their first night together, Matt had asked Channing, “Are you using me?” And Channing had said yes.

Matt was useful. Was that why Channing brought him here?

Was that why Channing turned around and came back for him? Channing had abandoned Matt just as
soon as he was done being useful, but then Channing had got to thinking on his way home to his pack
about the problem of wolves returning to human society. And somewhere around the Mississippi River,
Channing had a brain flash—hey, I’ve got an anthropologist! Let’s take him home and serve him to the
wolves.

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I should go.

The sex was beyond great, but Matt’s heart was ensnared here. And Channing’s wasn’t. This was Cord
all over again. No. This was way worse than Cord. Matt really had thought Channing was the One,
without compromise.

If Matt caught Channing in bed with Vic, something inside him would die. He had to get out of here
before that happened. His injured foot was a wakeup call. Channing was a wolf. Matt was not. Channing
had expressed no interest in closing that divide.

The more Matt thought about it, the worse his situation looked. The bigger the brain, the less the
common sense. On the common sense level, Matt Winter was an idiot. Matt saw now that he’d brought
Channing home to his lover, Vic. And Matt had used his mother’s van to do it. How could he let himself
be more used?

Head burning, Matt asked Bo if he had any antibiotics in the lodge.

Bo snorted and shook his shaggy head. “Meds are for two-foots.”

“Then I need to find a doctor.” Matt limped into the mud room to find his coat on a hook. His keys were
in the pocket.

Word spread in a blaze. The Professor was sick. He was leaving the lodge.

A pack of concerned wolves clustered around the mudroom. They begged Matt not to go. They were
afraid he was leaving them.

Londa stepped to the fore of the group. “There’s a simpler answer to this.”

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Matt knew what she meant.

Wolf bite. Become a wolf, and he would never get sick again.

“No,” Matt said.

That seemed to shock them all. As if the alpha Londa had suggested the greatest gift. And he turned it
down.

Matt didn’t want their gift. Not like this. He was an outsider among outsiders. A part of him wanted to
take the offer. Wanted it badly. Londa’s voice was warm. It made him feel wanted. But he knew she
was only offering for the good of her pack. Of course she must look out for her pack. Matt Winter had
to look out for Matt Winter.

“I have to go,” he said.

“Are you coming back?” Londa asked. A crease appeared in her smooth brow.

“I don’t know.”

He limped out in the snow to his van.

As he kicked the fender-bergs out from behind the tires, he felt a sudden drag on the back of his jacket.
He went down on his back. He woofed an exhale, the air knocked out of him. A heavy weight landed on
top of him.

He looked up into open jaws.

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Matt shouted into the fangs, “Don’t you dare!”

Instantly it was a naked man on top of him—Channing—looking surprised. “You don’t want it?”

Matt didn’t. Not like this. Not for pity. Not for convenience.

Channing wasn’t saying I love you and I want to share my wolf life with you. He didn’t say I can’t face
forever without you. Channing’s intent to bite Matt was just an expedient to clear up the Professor’s
infected wound real quick.

“Get off me,” Matt snarled.

Astonishment crossed Channing’s face just before the rough, handsome face changed back into a wolf’s
muzzle. Paws pushed off Matt as the wolf jumped aside.

Matt got up, brushed off the snow and climbed into his mother’s magic bus. He didn’t dare look back at
Channing or he wouldn’t be able to leave.

It was a long, bumpy drive down the winding, pitted driveway to the gate. Matt’s heel ached dully
except when he had to step on the clutch. Then it stabbed.

Matt was blinking quickly, pissed near to tears. What the hell was Channing thinking? He was going to
make Matt different from everyone he knew and derail every expectation Matt ever had of life—all
without a commitment. Not for love. Just because we don’t have any antibiotics in the house.

Damn him. Damn him.

Damn him for making me love him.

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Damn him for not loving me back.

At the gate, Matt put on the emergency brake and climbed out to unchain the gate. His thick gloves
made it clumsy work. He heard something behind him besides the idling engine and the wind whispering
across the snow.

He whirled around.

There was nothing but his idling van.

He finished unknotting the chains and opened the gate.

Suddenly he was on his face in the ice.

He felt the teeth sink into his back.

***

Rebuffed by his lover, Channing ran off angry. He was hurt. He was stunned. He caught something furry
and killed it.

Matt had refused him. That was the last, last, last thing Channing had ever expected. Channing took it
like a knife in the heart. He didn’t come back to the lodge until after nightfall.

Vic was still up, sitting by the hearth in the main lodge when Channing came in. The hearth was a good
place from which to watch comings and goings.

Vic was not anyone Channing wanted to see right now. Channing gathered up his clothes from the coat
room where he’d left them and tried to slip past to the stairs, but Vic uncoiled from the fireside. Vic

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sashayed across the great room and scolded Channing casually, “You fickle dog. I thought you said you
didn’t go through with it.”

“Go through with what?” Channing asked, distracted, brooding. He didn’t know what he was going to
say to Matt. He dropped his shoes and stepped into his jeans. He didn’t like being naked in front of this
man.

“Making Matt yours.”

“I didn’t do anything to Matt,” Channing said, angry. “He refused me.” That hurt even to say. He pulled
his sweatshirt over his head. It was backwards. He jammed his bare feet into his shoes. The backs
folded in uncomfortably. He didn’t care.

“Oh. Oh,” Vic significantly said. “Well. Sorry I brought it up.”

“What? What are you—? Brought what up?” Vic was being coy and pissing him off. Vic was always
good at pissing him off. Channing just wanted to get past Vic and up to his bedroom. He hoped Matt had
come home by now.

“Nothing. Nothing,” Vic said. He started away with a loose-hipped walk, then on a second thought, he
turned, deciding to talk. “Apparently he didn’t refuse someone else.”

Channing felt gutted, then sick near to passing out. Someone else bit Matt? Was that what Vic was
telling him? It couldn’t be. Matt wouldn’t stand for it.

“Matt’s a wolf?”

Vic said nothing.

“Is he—Is he back from town?” Channing demanded.

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“He never went.”

Channing ran up to their bedroom and threw open the door. But Matt wasn’t there.

And all Matt’s stuff was gone.

Channing raced out to the dark parking area. The van was there. Channing ran back inside. He tore
open all the doors, checking all the couples and singles in their beds to see if one was Matt. Matt wasn’t
here.

Channing thundered down the stairs and roared at Vic, “Where is he?”

Vic shrugged. “How would I know? Try the animal house. But don’t look in my room. It’s a mess. You
know me.”

Channing ran across the snow to the stables. Most people here were still awake. Lights, TVs and
stereos were all on.

Channing found Matt in a room, alone. He was in bed, nursing a distinct wolf bite on the back of his
shoulder. His navy pea coat was on the floor with teeth holes in the back.

“Matt!”

Matt growled at Channing without turning. “Stay away from me.”

Channing backed out, shaken.

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***

Matt curled up in the bed, hugging himself tighter. Party noises surrounded him. Staying in the animal
house was like living in a dorm. The music was on from noon, when the animals woke up, to four in the
morning, and it was loud. The denizens were lively. The wooden floors were grooved and gouged with
claw marks.

Matt’s shoulder ached where the fangs had penetrated. But his foot felt vastly better, even without
medication. The swelling had gone way down, and his fever broke.

And that scared him. This could not be happening.

His nail puncture wound was just getting better on its own. It had to be. He could not possibly have
turned into a werewolf. Surely he would know if he had changed from a man into some other kind of
being.

Every time he went to the bathroom, he inspected his bite. He wanted to see pus. He wanted to be sick.
He wanted to be human. But the wound was healing cleanly.

He tried another thought. It had been very cold outside. He’d been wearing a thick coat. Maybe he
hadn’t got any saliva in the wound. Maybe the bite hadn’t taken. He didn’t know how long it took to
know. He wanted to know. He didn’t want to know.

He prayed. Jesus God, no. Jesus God, no.

He tried to sleep.

When fur tickled his nose and cheeks, his eyes flew open in anger. He was about to scream at
whichever wolf was in his face.

His scream came out an animal bark.

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The furry thing brushing his face was his own tail.

Chapter Seven

Matt shook himself out of his clothes and nosed his bedroom door open. He ran out into the main room
to find a mirror. Heads turned. Several voices sounded, “Who is that?”

“Shit if I know,” someone said.

They were talking about him.

He skidded to a halt before the full length mirror where people checked their look before they went out.
Matt already knew what he was going to see, sort of. He’d already seen his paws galloping under him
and the eternal length of muzzle stretching out in front of his eyes. The exact reflection was a shock.

Oh, bugger.

“It’s the Professor!” someone cried.

The wolf staring back from the mirror was white, really white, with just a pale dusting of gray on its
back. But mostly it was white. Everyone else was grey, or black, or both. Bad enough that he was no
longer human. He wasn’t even like all the other wolves.

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He turned tail and ran back to his room. A scatter of cheering and applause carried through the door,
welcoming the Professor to the pack.

Matt paced the room, naked, frantic. He wasn’t sure how he’d changed back into a man, but he had.
Rather, he’d turned back into the likeness of a man. He wasn’t a man anymore. Life had changed. He
hadn’t had a choice in it. And there was no way back. He breathed as if he’d been running hard. He felt
his pulse racing. He trembled. He tried to calm down. He told himself this wasn’t a death sentence.

No, it’s a god damned life sentence!

And no one had asked him if he wanted it. Oh, Channing had almost sort of asked.

And I said no. I said no!

***

Channing waited until Matt finally came outside. Matt hadn’t come to the lodge for meals for the last two
days. Someone had to be bringing him food, because Channing hadn’t seen a strange wolf outside
hunting.

At last, Matt came out in human form. Channing found him helping George haul coal to the boilerhouse.
Channing moved in. He walked to the snowpath and waited there.

Matt ignored him. Matt maneuvered his loaded wheelbarrow around Channing as if he were a tree.

Channing stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting until Matt came back this way pushing an empty
barrow.

At last Channing spoke. “Come back and stay with me.”

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Matt kept his narrow gaze straight ahead over the bow of his wheelbarrow. He said, “No.”

“You’re avoiding me,” Channing said.

Matt shook his overgrown bangs out of his face. He sniffed, a wet, wintry kind of sniff. “I’ve been doing
a lot of soul searching.” He squinted up at the immense, bright sky. “I mean that literally. Do I have one?
I’m for damn sure not in God’s image anymore.”

“Matt, whatever happened, it’s done. Don’t—”

Matt stared at Channing in anger. Matt’s eyes were rimmed in red, as if he’d been crying for two days.
“It’s done, and I should just deal? Is that it? Since when do you make my decisions for me?”

Channing shook his head, stunned. “I didn’t bite you.”

Matt paused. “Okay.”

That threw Channing off balance. “Okay?” That was it? Okay?

“Yeah.”

“You believe me?” Channing asked, so very not convinced.

“Why not?” Matt said, tight.

Channing stared at him. Matt was preternaturally quiet. Channing recognized it as the dangerous quiet
just before you run screaming for Auntie Em. “You’re pissed at me,” Channing said.

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“You could say that!” Matt cried. Now he sounded convincing. “You couldn’t even do your own dirty
work! You sent someone else!”

“I—“ Channing shook his head, angry. Sent someone? He started to argue, explain, then gave up. “You
know, for a smart guy you can be amazingly thick!” Channing walked away, more furious than he’d been
in a hundred years.

***

After nightfall, Matt came down from his mighty wrath. He’d been shooting out in all directions, not
caring who he hit. I’m being stupid.

Fact was he didn’t really know who bit him. He only had guesses about that.

He knew for certain that Channing and that rat bastard Vic used to be lovers. Channing was acting like
the affair was all over, but Vic wasn’t. And Matt wouldn’t believe a word out of Vic’s mouth. Trouble
was, he didn’t need to take Vic’s word. Channing told Matt for himself that he made Vic a wolf. Matt
had a huge blind spot right where John Channing was.

It was no good guessing. Yes, life as he knew it had been ravaged beyond recognition, but this pout was
useless and childish. It was time to be a man, or a wolfman, and just ask Channing where he stood. Did
you and Vic do this to me?

If yes, then it would be time to consider shooting Channing with his own Glock.

No. That was a runaway thought. Matt couldn’t shoot anyone in his angriest fantasy. Matt pulled himself
together. Go talk to the man.

He got up, dressed and went outside. His breath rose in clouds against the stars. His head cleared a
little.

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Channing didn’t do this to you. How could Matt even have thought so? Channing had always respected
Matt’s will. The worst Matt could say about Channing was that he wasn’t in love with Matt. That was
heartbreaking, but it wasn’t Channing’s fault.

Matt crossed the grounds to the main lodge. He was going to go to Channing’s bed and apologize.
Maybe they could even make love. Then Channing could give him some advice on living.

Matt hadn’t transformed into wolf form since the first time. Not even in his sleep. He refused. It would
be like surrendering to his attacker. It was time to turn and face the stranger.

The stables had still been awake and rocking when he left. The lodge ahead of him was slumbering, dark
and quiet. Matt let himself into the lodge and pulled the massive door softly shut behind him so as not to
disturb the sleeping house. He glanced up the wide stairs just in time to see Vic, naked, slipping into Matt
and Channing’s bedroom.

Matt felt suddenly empty. All his fears were true. He’d been had.

He swallowed down sourness. He quivered and watched the door, scarcely breathing.

He waited a minute. Two. Three. Minutes were long when your heart waited on the edge.

Channing and Vic were together in their bedroom. Vic was naked. Channing should have thrown Vic
out by now if the visit was unwelcome.

More minutes passed. Seven. That was time enough for a quickie. It didn’t matter now if Vic came out
of the bedroom or not. The damage was done. There was no talking to Channing now. Not ever.

Matt retreated outside. He couldn’t breathe. He blinked and blinked.

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He fell forward onto all fours. He looked down at his forepaws. He was a wolf. He didn’t know how
that happened, but he guessed it was what he wanted. He shook himself out of his clothes and ran. He
kept running.

When he ran into a fence, he shimmied under it and kept going. He may have crossed into the National
Park.

He howled at a heartless moon. A wolf’s howl always sounded so lonely to him. It sounded worse
coming out in his own voice.

Patches of earth poked through the snow under the sheltering trees. Scents came to him keenly, pine
resin, old leaves, lichen, other animals. He looked up at a sky so deep he felt as if he could fall up. The
stars sparkled icy bright.

He wandered the forest and got lost in wonderland. Somewhere back there his thoughts stopped
tangling up on themselves. To the wolf, everything was simple, right here, right now. There was complete
clarity and ruthless simplicity in the forest. Life was immediate, unforgiving, brutal and honest.

He broke ice with his paw and lapped water from a stream.

A distinctive stink reached his nose and raised his hackles. Human. All his muscles bunched under him,
and he bolted away.

A sting stabbed in his side. He plowed face-forward into the snow. In the bright moonlight, he glimpsed
a red dart sticking out of his haunch. He snapped at it, feeling dizzy.

A distant, rational part of his brain realized he’d been tranq’ed. He fought to stay awake. He was not
sure what would happen if he went under. He might turn into a man. Or he could stay a wolf and get
skinned.

His last conscious thought was I am screwed.

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***

Channing came late to breakfast. He looked up and down the table. “Where’s Matt?”

A shaking of heads moved down each side of the table with blank looks. No one had seen the
Professor.

Channing stalked down the table to Vic and hauled him up from his bench by the collar. “Did you do
this?”

“Hey hey!” Vic protested, strangled. “I asked you first if you did him. Remember?”

Channing dropped Vic and stormed outside. A lone set of paw prints led off toward the mountains.
Channing found Matt’s jacket on the snow. He picked it up, smelled it, hugged it. He found the tooth
holes in it.

He went back to the lodge and roared down the long table. “Who bit Matt?”

No one was owning up. Channing raged at them all. They flinched, skulking in their seats, except for
George, who had been through too much to get excited at anything.

Finally, Londa rose. She walked to the far end of the table and touched Channing’s arm. “That’s
enough. There’s thirty of us here who don’t deserve this.” She returned to her seat, knowing she would
be obeyed.

Channing stayed where he was, shaking inside. He swallowed down a knot that formed in his throat. It
killed him to need to ask the others, “What does he look like?”

He had never seen Matt as a wolf.

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“He’s white,” Amelia/Emily said. “You can’t miss him.”

Channing ran outside. He dropped down to all fours and ran out of his clothes. He followed the trail at a
flying gallop until the wind obliterated it and the scent was dead cold.

He knew, without knowing how, that Matt was in trouble. He paced back and forth, waiting for Matt to
come back the way he’d gone.

Channing didn’t eat. He kept vigil until the sun went down.

The thin air in the high country got damned cold after sunset. Ghostly smoke from the several hearths of
the warm lodge rose in gray tendrils over the horizon behind him. He stayed out on the snowfield all night
under a thin sky of icy stars, waiting.

He curled up, tail over his face. Wolves could cry.

***

Dawn came hazy with a pearly mist rising from the snow.

A shape appeared blurry white in the distance on the snowy horizon. Channing’s ears went up.
Something. There was something moving out there. It was probably just a deer, Channing told himself.
He tried to keep his heart in check so it wouldn’t fall so hard when it turned out to be a deer.

The ghostly thing took on substance as it came nearer. It wasn’t a deer. It was built low to the ground,
and it moved at a loping trot. Channing could scarcely see its features, it blended so well with the snow
field.

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It was white.

Channing got up on his haunches, the better to see.

It was a wolf.

Channing sprang into an all out run, tearing up the distance between them. The shape became clearer
and clearer. It really was a white wolf.

Channing overshot, then circled hard about, tripping over his own feet. He danced around the white
wolf. He knew that scent. He was flying.

The white wolf carried himself with a hang-dog look, his ears held flat back, as sheepish as a wolf could
possibly be. He had a radio collar around his neck.

The two came back to the lodge side by side at a trot, Channing prancing, head up, ears up, the white
wolf at his flank holding himself like a dog caught peeing on the carpet.

Channing raced ahead the last quarter mile. He became a naked man on the lodge steps, wrenching
open the door and yelling, “Bo! Get the shears! The greenies got Matt!”

Tree-hugging scientists. Gotta love ‘em, they protected the gray wolves. But they could also be a pain in
the neck.

Bo lumbered down the broad front steps carrying a set of metal shears. He shooed the naked man,
Channing, inside. “Go do something with those. I don’t wanna look at ‘em. I got this.”

Bo cut the collar off Matt’s neck and smashed the radio.

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***

Matt the wolf walked to the broad steps on all four paws, dog tired. The heavy lodge door was standing
open. Good. He didn’t want to transform into a man here and show Bo his jewels.

Vic was leaning against a porch post at the top of the entry steps, his body languidly posed in a sultry
S-curve. As Matt passed by him, Vic commented, “Lassie came home.”

Vic’s scent reached Matt’s nostrils, clear, sharp, distinct. Matt’s sense of smell had got very keen, and
he had smelled that scent before. He turned round on Vic and sank his fangs into Vic’s ass.

Vic screamed and transformed into wolf form. Matt lost his hold. He snapped again. His jaws clamped
down again on Vic. An unearthly screel pierced the air. One of Matt’s fangs had punctured something
valuable down there. Matt only bit harder. Vic howled bloody murder. They tumbled down the steps
together. Each step jarred Matt’s ribs. He would not let go.

The shotgun blast startled Matt out of his grip. He staggered backward, unexpectedly human again, and
fell on his ass. The snow was shockingly cold against bare skin. He tasted blood. He spat and spat.

Vic was doubled over, hands between his legs, crawling away, moaning, blood trickling down the inside
of his thigh.

Matt spat again. He wiped his face on his forearm.

Vic snarled in pained rage, his face wet with tears. “He attacked me!”

“Returning the favor,” Matt said, still spitting.

Vic was sobbing. He bleated, “He got one of my balls.”

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“Oh, I’m sorry,” Matt said, hard. “I missed one. Come here. I’ll make them match.”

Bo cocked his shotgun again.

Londa came running out. She looked from one naked man to the other. She made her decision without
an instant’s hesitation. She faced Vic. “Get out.”

“Me?” Vic squealed. Vic turned and appealed to Bo. “You can’t let her—“

Huge mistake. Bo shrugged, not about to cross Londa. The alpha bitch had spoken.

Bo cocked his head toward Matt. “He’s useful. You’re a tick.” Bo turned away, muttering approvingly,
“Knew he had some bite in him.”

Matt made a face, wishing he could spit out his own tongue. “Mountain oyster. Sucks.”

Old George quietly brought out a horse blanket and a bottle of beer for Matt. Matt spat out the first
draw of beer, then swallowed a few gulps.

George nodded. He drawled in his slow, mumbly voice, “Wish I’d done that a long long time ago.”

By then, Channing had reappeared. He came out to the porch. Matt noticed Channing had thrown on
some clothes. He knelt at Matt’s side, acting like he’d rescued Matt or something.

“You all right?”

Matt gave a slow blink and told him coldly, “Sorry I messed up your boy toy.”

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Channing recoiled, stood up. “God you’re an ass!”

***

Matt showered and shaved in the animal house. He rinsed out his mouth he didn’t know how many
times. He didn’t go to the lodge for lunch. He didn’t want to see Channing. Shut up in his room, Matt
opened his laptop. He hadn’t checked his e-mail since he’d fled his apartment back in January. He’d
pretty much left the real world behind.

It was almost March. It was time to get to work reassembling the wreckage of his life. He fought down
bitterness. How massively convenient that he was a student of human societies and that was exactly what
these people needed. Channing brought them an anthropologist. And Matt had let himself be useful. It
had gone way past too far. He never signed on to leave his species.

His door pushed open without a knock.

“Hey, Professor.”

Matt looked up to a young woman whose name he didn’t know. She was thin, hard, with sharp features.
A tattoo in a pattern of barbed wire circled her thin neck. Her dark hair was blunt cut. A look of
resentment lurked in her eyes. Her mouth was tight. Her skinny arms were crossed.

Matt waited for her to speak again. He expected her to ask for a new identity. But she said, “Why you
so angry? Being one of us is a good thing.”

He couldn’t be angry with her. “So is sex,” Matt said. “But not against my will.”

He turned his face back to his computer screen.

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He sensed her, still there in his doorway.

He looked back up and asked in a softer tone, “Does that make sense?”

Her thin mouth twisted. She said reluctantly, “Kinda.” She started out, turned, and said, sounding hurt,
“We like you being one of us.”

The statement was so frank, so simple, so loaded, that emotion pressed at the back of Matt’s eyes and
clogged his throat. He didn’t dare speak, afraid he’d cry. He could only whisper, “Thank you.”

He blinked at his e-mail inbox. One message leapt out at him. It was from a scholarly journal. He knew
what this was. A rejection, of course. He had submitted an article to the journal. It was a very prestigious
publication. Submitting the article had been a long shot at best. He opened that message first to get it
over with.

It wasn’t a rejection. The journal had accepted his article. Matt Winter was going to be published.

He wanted to be ecstatic but there was no one around here he could share the news with. No one in this
world could understand how huge a deal this was.

An instant message popped up on the lower corner of his screen. It was from Miranda.

U there?

Matt typed. Yeah.

Miranda typed, Where are you? People R looking 4 U.

Matt typed, Who?

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Your advisor is trying to find U. He’ll endorse your reinstatement at the university. Everyone heard U R
going to be published. I hate U.

She inserted a smiley face.

The journal had copied Matt’s advisor on the acceptance e-mail. Everyone had heard the news except
Matt.

Miranda kept typing, I guess U want your apartment back.

Matt blinked at the screen. He typed, What?

Who could have taken his apartment?

Miranda’s words formed on the screen. I just moved into your place. They fumigated my apartment, and
something died in the wall. Don’t worry, I’ll pay your rent.

In a panic, Matt ran out to the common area of the animal house. He found someone with a cell phone
he could borrow. He punched in the number to his Philly apartment as he retreated to his room. Pick up!
Pick up!

Miranda’s cheery voice sounded over the cell phone.

Before she could finish saying, “Hi you!” Matt was yelling at her. “You can’t stay there! Someone’s
trying to kill Channing, and they think he lives there!”

There was silence.

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“Miranda?”

“I’m here.”

“You’ve got to get out!”

“Um. You don’t know.”

An awful chill started in Matt’s gut. “Know what?”

“Um. The car bomber,” Miranda said, and nothing more.

The car bomber what? Matt prompted. “Yeah?”

“Who hired him.”

This was getting badder and badder. Couldn’t the woman just finish a sentence? Matt dared ask,
“Who?”

“Are you sitting down?”

Matt yelled into the phone, “I am not an elderly lady, and this isn’t the movies! Just tell me!”

“Cord.”

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“Cord is dead?” The words sounded unreal coming out of his mouth.

“No, no, no! Cord doesn’t know how to set a car bomb.” Miranda sounded annoyed. “But it doesn’t
look like the guy he hired could, either.”

I think I’ll sit down now. Matt dropped into a crouch.

“You still there, Matt?”

“Uh, yeah.” Oh God. Oh shit. “I gotta go. Bye.”

All the blood left his head.

Channing had not got him into this. Matt wasn’t out here because drug lords had bombed Channing’s
car.

Matt had got Channing into this. Cord had tried to kill Channing—because of Matt. That was why they
were on the run. Because of Matt.

He sensed about a dozen wolf folk pressing their ears against his door. After a dizzy while, the door
pushed open a crack. A low, gravelly voice said quietly, “Matt?”

“Leave me alone. I’m gonna throw up.”

“I don’t care.” Channing let himself in and shut the door behind him. He knelt beside Matt on the floor,
took him in his arms and held him.

“You didn’t bite me,” Matt said into Channing’s chest.

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“I know,” Channing said. Of course he knew.

“You slept with Vic,” Matt said.

“I what?” Channing sounded sincerely shocked, even angry.

Matt lifted his head from Channing’s chest. “Okay, you fucked Vic.”

“Not ever. What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie to me. Please don’t try to lie to me. I saw him go into our room! Naked! In the middle of the
night! Remember? And you didn’t throw him out.” Matt’s voice started to lose stability.

Channing’s chin pulled in. He blinked and said, “Did, too.”

“I know you didn’t because I waited!” Matt cried. “I was watching the door.”

“Well, Vickie left through the window,” Channing said. “I got some hang time on that throw, too, let me
tell you.” Their bedroom was on the second floor. “I didn’t know you were watching the door.” In a
moment, Channing added bitterly, “But I’m sure Vickie did.”

Oh shit. Oh shit. Matt started to shake. Vickie, the manipulative son of a bitch, could have seen Matt
crossing over from the animal house. How else would Matt just happen to walk into the lodge and look
up at the precise moment that naked Vickie entered the bedroom?

Matt was so sorry, he couldn’t even say he was sorry. Channing had not let go of him. Channing was
stroking his hair. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” Matt said.

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Matt was afraid to get too close to this magical being. He’d thought he had to make the break before
Channing did. He’d thought if you assume the worst, you can’t be disappointed. But that was a crock.
You can still fuck up everything.

He told Channing, “That car bomb wasn’t Deeter’s people. It was Cord.”

“I know.”

“You knew?”

“I talked to Blake.” Blake was Channing’s partner on the police force. Channing sounded amazingly
patient. “I never figured it for Deeter’s people. Are you kicking at me to see if you can chase me away?”

“No,” Matt said. Then, “Maybe. I guess so.”

He was. He’d been pushing Channing away. Because I’m scared of losing him. Where was the sense in
that? Matt blurted, “Why did you leave me?”

“Leave you?”

“Back in December. I came back to my place to serious no one there. Remember that?”

That wound was still open—Matt’s coming home to his empty apartment right after Channing won his
court motion. Channing had abandoned Matt for the darkest days of the year.

“Why didn’t you ask me to stay?” Channing countered.

“That’s a reason?” Matt cried.

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Channing nodded. “Yeah! If you wanted me, why didn’t you ask for what you want?”

“Love cannot be demanded,” Matt said. “If I have to ask for it, I don’t have it.”

“You can have it and not know it because your lover doesn’t want to get turned down anymore than you
do. I’m not going to stay where I’m not wanted. You don’t let me know what’s on your mind.”

“I—” Matt’s eyes were watering. He had to look anywhere but into Channing’s eyes. I want this too
much. He shook his head. “Cord said I’m desperate and clingy. I don’t want to be that.”

“Clingy?” Channing’s back straightened right up in surprise. “Cling to me, you dumb shit! I like it!”

Matt clung.

Channing kissed the top of Matt’s head and murmured into his hair, “I tried to leave you. I knew I was
going to turn your world on its head. If I could bring myself to leave, I thought I must. But I couldn’t. I
can’t. I won’t. Not ever.”

Tears streamed down Matt’s face. He was still fighting his luck. He couldn’t bring himself to believe in
miracles.

“Ever?” asked Matt. “Won't you get tired of me?”

“Just as soon as I get tired of my own beating heart,” said Channing. “You’re the one. I knew. I’ve
known from the first. And you are the last.”

“There’s no such thing as love at first sight.”

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“Oh yes there is.”

“It defies reason.”

“That assumes you know everything. You know how love happens. You know all about love.”

Matt paused to think. He concluded, “I don’t know squat.”

“Well, I do.”

“If you knew from first sight, what took you so long to say something?”

“I can get scared,” Channing said. “When it means too much, I can get terrified.”

“Then how can you know I’m not a mistake?”

“You’re not.”

“But how do you know? I mean, you made Vic!”

“Matt,” Channing said, with a surprised almost-smile, as if Matt had just said something incredibly,
amazingly, profoundly dumb. “How are we made?”

“A bite. We’re made by a bite.” The ultimate act.

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“Yeah. And was that a love bite you gave Vic?”

“Not hardly,” Matt said.

“Well?” Channing said, inviting Matt to connect the big fat dots, then went ahead and spelled it out for
him, “I bit Vic for the same reason you did. I was pissed!”

Matt laughed himself back to tears. He felt ridiculous. “Oh, shit.”

Channing took Matt’s face in his hands. “Matt. I get it. You got burned once. Bad. But you’ve got to
know I’m not that guy.”

Matt shook his head between Channing’s hands, gazing up in amazement. “You’re really not that guy.”

Channing kissed his lips. Matt dropped his gaze and confessed, “John, I’m really a little bit terrified. I
need to rebuild my life. My very very long furry life. I’m afraid of what I am.”

Channing spoke with gentle strength. “I’ve got you, Matt.”

Matt threw his arms around Channing and pressed his face against Channing's neck. He felt Channing’s
pulse against his cheek, felt Channing's chest expand with his deep even breaths, felt his warmth filling the
empty places in his soul. This man had pledged his heart forever. How could Matt be afraid of his new
life while Channing was in it?

“You’ll land on your feet, Matt,” Channing said, stroking his hair. “All four of them.”

Matt pulled back and sheepishly dried his idiot tears. He fumbled for what he wanted to say. “I’m not—
I mean I won’t — What do I mean?” He pushed out the real question. “Am I accidentally going to turn
into a wolf while we’re making love?”

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“No,” said Channing.

That answer came awfully quick. “You’re sure?” Matt asked.

“I’ve been a wolf for a little while now,” said Channing. “In over two centuries I’ve never got wood
while I was a wolf.” He trailed his hand lightly over Matt’s collarbone. " So, Professor, are you going to
do me next?”

Matt sniffled. He traced Channing’s mouth with his forefinger. “How would you like to be done?”

“I don’t know.” Channing slipped his hand inside Matt’s shirt. “You’re the expert.”

“But you’re real hard.”

Channing growled, “You have no idea.”

Channing gathered Matt up and lifted him onto the bed. As Channing pulled off his coat, first thing Matt
did was unbutton his own shirt cuffs. He was not about to get stuck in his clothes again. Matt got himself
out of his trousers before Channing could get out of his jeans.

Matt lay back and welcomed naked Channing into his arms. Matt’s legs wrapped around Channing’s
hard torso. Matt hands found their way around Channing’s body with hungry touch, feeling his hair and
grasping at his wide shoulders.

Their cocks pressed together between their hard bellies. Channing rode with an urgent stroke. The
coarse hair on his chest and abdomen ground against Matt’s smoother nakedness. Matt inhaled
Channing’s scent. Matt tasted him. Channing’s chest expanded within Matt’s embrace.

Channing captured Matt’s head between his hands and kissed Matt’s lips hard. Channing’s breaths
labored deep in the throes of primal lust and powerful need.

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Channing drew back from his rough kiss and gazed into Matt’s face with burning intensity. Matt got lost
in his eyes—eyes of green and brown with flecks of sunlight. Matt saw in those eyes everywhere this man
had been, everything he had seen. He saw desire. He saw love.

Matt held in his arms every fantasy he ever had and few he forgot to make up.

“Don’t leave me again,” Matt spoke into Channing’s eyes.

“I will be with you wherever you go. Always,” Channing said. “I need to be inside you. Now.” He
turned Matt over. Matt felt Channing’s rigid cock slicken with pre-come, riding within the cleavage of his
ass.

Channing slid one hand underneath Matt so his every thrust pushed Matt’s cock against Channing’s
callused palm. Matt felt Channing’s kisses on the back of his shoulders. He felt Channing’s animal
hunger.

Then he felt Channing’s teeth closing on his shoulder, piercing his skin where Vic had bit him. Matt
gasped and melted into the pain. Channing’s teeth clenched tight, his tongue licking the wound. When
Channing let go, Matt spoke into the bed, “Why did you do that?”

Channing’s voice came out ragged, “It should have been me.”

Matt turned his head, his cheek resting on the mattress. “John, it’s only you and me here. There’s no one
else in this room. There’s no one else, period.”

Channing held tight to Matt’s body, his face pressed to Matt’s back.

“Are you crying?” Matt asked.

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“Ignore me,” Channing said.

Matt almost laughed. “Right.”

Channing lifted away from him. Matt instantly missed his heat as their bodies parted.

Channing crouched on the floor to retrieve a tube of lubricant from his coat.

Matt’s brows contracted. “You already knew I was going to go down for you when you came here?”

Channing shook his head, looking a little perplexed himself. “A girl with a barbed wire tattoo around her
neck tossed this to me when I came in the front door.” He tossed the tube to Matt, who bobbled the
catch. Channing knelt before him. “Do me.”

Matt warmed the gel in his palms before he took Channing’s thick cock in his hands and stroked it until
Channing snarled and made Matt turn over. Now.

Matt drew his knees in under him to let Channing in. His body, his world, heaven itself opened to receive
the piercing sweetness. Channing’s swollen hard sex inside him was raw paradise. Their bodies moved
together, heat building.

Channing reached around to take Matt’s cock in his hand. Matt gasped at the thin air. His muscles
quivered. He strained not to come too quickly. He wanted to extend this moment for a lifetime.

Channing’s sex glided in and out. Matt rocked back needfully to take Channing in deep with every
thrust. His own sex wept its first drops. Then the heated glow in his groin rose up and spread in licking
flames. Passion shot through his body, needing climax. He couldn’t hold it in.

The world was on fire.

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Desire, goading and splendid, burned on the cusp of torment and pleasure. Pleasure broke free—hot,
hard and more vivid than anything in life. Channing responded, groaning, pulsing inside him. Their joined
climax extended, high, high, in wave upon wave of ecstasy.

They fell together in a sweaty, panting embrace, arms draped strengthlessly across each other.

Matt thought absurdly that it was a very fine finish to a conversation started in a dark alley.

When he caught his breath, he mumbled at the ceiling, “I’m glad I didn’t cross the street.”

“What?” Channing said.

Matt just shook his head, smiling. He moved closer, skin clinging to damp skin.

Sometimes you really do get the fantasy prince, Matt mused, listening to his lover breathe. He wondered
if the frogs were required before you finally found him. Well, fine. He had arrived. John Channing didn’t
need to be Matt’s first.

Just his best and only ever after.

The End

About this Title

This eBook was created using ReaderWorks®Publisher 2.0, produced by OverDrive, Inc.

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