Hazard picked up Somers’s mug. “Patio, please. I keep you around because you’re handy for things like this.”

At the sink, though, Somers pressed up against Hazard, his chest to Hazard’s back, and his hand ran down Hazard’s stomach, undid the button on his jeans, and slid past the waistband. Hazard tried to set down the mugs carefully, but one of them rattled against the sink. Somers’s mouth traced a line of kisses down Hazard’s neck. His hand moved slowly and steadily inside Hazard’s compression shorts. Now Hazard groaned, leaning into the touch, and Somers pulled back until only his fingertips made contact.

“This is coming off,” Somers whispered, tugging on Hazard’s Death Cab for Cutie tee.

Hazard had never taken off a shirt that fast before, he was pretty sure.

Somers turned him around, his free hand and his mouth running over Hazard’s chest: little kisses and bites and caresses, still offering nothing more than his fingertips below the waist. Part of what made their lovemaking so exciting was the way the dynamics shifted. Hazard’s legs were shaking, and even though he’d healed nicely after the gunshot, he still had to lean against the sink.

Somers’s last kiss landed on the trail of fine, dark hair above the elastic of the compression shorts. Then he grabbed the elastic, went to his knees, and pulled the jeans and shorts down together. He went to work, and Somers, for a guy who’d been supposedly straight until a couple of years before, had a pretty good idea of what he was doing.

All too soon, Hazard’s fingers caught hard in Somers’s hair.

“John,” he whispered, trying to pull Somers off. “John, I’m—”

Somers shook his head and kept going, and a moment later, Hazard groaned. His knees buckled, and he closed his eyes as the world crested and broke over him: the textured heat of Somers’s mouth; Somers’s hands on his thighs, on his belly, on his balls; but more than anything, feeling loved and cherished by someone who saw him and knew him, the good and the bad. He caught himself on the sink with an elbow and managed, after another moment, to stand.

Somers was still on his knees, his face flushed, wiping his mouth and chin.

When Hazard held out a hand, Somers didn’t move.

“I want to take care of you,” Hazard whispered.

Somers just smiled, cocked his head, and said, “I love you.”

“I know you love me. Why are you still on the floor?”

“I love you so much that I don’t even understand it sometimes. It’s like this thing that’s bigger than me and I just get to . . . be part of it, I guess.”

“I love you too, John. What is going on? Why are you still on the floor? You already proposed to me, so what is this?”

“This,” Somers said, leaning forward to nuzzle Hazard for a moment, “is me seducing you.”

“I did kind of get that point.”

“And now that you’re putty in my hands, I’m going to ask you for something, and you won’t be able to say no because I just gave you the best blowjob of your life.”