(excerpt from Chapter Two)

 

I am at the third deck helm, the moon roof slid back.  The wind is on my face, salty and tight.  The bow of the yacht bounces over the swells.  We leave a trail of froth and bubbles.  I see dolphins cavorting in the distance.  Beyond that is an endless horizon of still, deep nothing.

 

I breathe easy.  I float.  For this moment, I am no longer that orphan boy bent on revenge.  I simply fly.

 

For an hour or so, we churn the crystal waters.

 

Then suddenly there is a shout from Iggy.

 

I lean over the glass railing, slowing a little on the gas.  Tiny drops of salt spray spill into the wind.

 

He’s running up the starboard side, his bare feet hitting the Fiberglas like a drum.  His large fist waves.  He shouts.  “Over there!  Over there!”   Iggy does not normally wave his hands around like that.  Nor does he shout.

 

“What?” I yell back.

 

“Something…it’s something…!”

 

I slow even more.  “What?”  I try to squint in the direction he’s waving, but the sun is glaring, the water glistening so gold.

 

“I think!  I think it’s…a boat?”

 

At that I come to a full stop, drifting forward, and lean further over the siding.  Then I see it.  Something in the drastic blue that stretches all around us.  Something different.  Misshapen.

 

I hit the gas and pilot us in closer, circling, careful.  It could be anything.

 

First there is Day-glo yellow which morphs into an oval shape.  Then it comes more into focus, grimly clear.  It’s a life-raft.  And in it is a slumped, motionless man.

 

Paranoid as I am, the thought crosses my mind that it is a trap and I consider piloting away and putting the scene forever out of my mind.  This isn’t one of “my” men.  This isn’t my problem.

 

But as I contemplate the raft it’s all too real.  And there’s a raw scent, a feeling in the bright air that takes me back to when I was fifteen on my knees at my parents’ grave, adrift, lost.  I could not imagine in that past moment, abandoned as I was, how I might go on.

 

I look at the motionless man drifting in the middle of nowhere, possibly already dead, and I pull in closer.  I order my men to lash onto the raft with our ropes as I maneuver the yacht until the stern is right up alongside it.  Then Iggy jumps into the raft and with an effortless motion sweeps the body into his strong arms.  Jadan is waiting, leaning over, helping him back onto the yacht.  Max comes with a bottle of water and gently wets the man’s lips.

 

I lean over them all just staring in shock, contemplating my next move.  Do I really want to do this?

 

The man’s tattered clothes are covered in blood.  He has at least a three day’s growth of sandy beard.  The once tan skin on his nose and cheeks is peeling and leathery.  His hands and lips are chapped red.  “Is he alive?”

 

Jadan touches the man’s throat.  Max puts a hand to his mouth.  He turns toward me.  “There’s breath.”

 

I look at Iggy.  “Bring him in.”  He’s a tall man, but Iggy picks him back up as if he were a child.  Shaggy hair hangs in clumps about the man’s ears and neck.  It looks brown and dirty but I expect after a wash it will actually be blond.

 

A European?  An American?  Out here?

 

*

 

(excerpt from Chapter Eleven)

 

I wake to a muffled gasp and the struggles of Alec’s long body knocking into me.  In the dimness I see his eyes are closed, his mouth a tight grimace.  Low, strained moans escape him.

 

I reach out to his shoulder and grasp it.  “Wake up.  Alec!”

 

His eyes flash open.  Air comes from his lungs in a long whoosh.  I move closer to him to calm him and he turns toward me, into me.  He is hard and I can feel the erection through his shorts push against my naked thigh.  He jerks back when he realizes his condition, eyes widening.

 

Afraid he will skitter away to his rooms again, I say matter of factly, “Hell, it’s all right.  Nothing to panic over.”

 

He draws a shaky breath.  Slowly, his eyes move to meet mine, blue and hurt but also containing something else.  A heat, maybe.  A delicate curiosity.

 

“Really.  You’re fine.”  I swallow.

 

Still no words.  But his fist clenches against the sheet between us resting lightly against my ribs.

 

Deciding to take a risk, perhaps my biggest gamble ever, and hoping I’m not reading him entirely wrong, I lean toward him and brush my lips to his.  They are half open, slightly moist.  As I did in the shower, I barely touch him.  Pull back.  He keeps looking at me but does not move.  For long seconds nothing moves but the fan and the air.

 

I am the first to lower my gaze.  “Do you find me even a little attractive?” I ask.  It sounds awful, so self-serving, but my frustration has never peaked so high.

 

“Huh.”  Almost a snort.  “Course I do.  You’re gorgeous.”

 

Something tingling and spiced starts to heat my veins.  His words.  That was all it took.

 

“Diego.”  On his soft voice the syllables of my name sound almost like a prayer.

 

My palm comes up from his arm to rest against his cheek.  He does not look away and it feels like a miracle.

 

“Diego,” he repeats, “it’s just that I don’t remember.  I know the language of things, how things work.  But I don’t remember actually…”  He stops, swallows.

 

Hell, it’s like fruit to a starving man.  I can’t resist him.  I lean further over him, my shadow upon him but not yet my full weight.  “It’s all right.  I’ll take care.”  I swallow hard, inhaling the soft salt sweat of him.  “Let me take care of you.”

 

I move back so I can push the robe from his shoulders.  He trembles.  His cuts are almost all healed but there are many scars.  However, they do not mar his beauty.  In fact, they only make my desire for him stronger because they remind me of how close I came to never meeting him, and that my actions have saved his life.

 

His pupils grow large, the blackness a mirror to the golden moonlight which runs all up and down his body, making it shine.  He takes his arms from the sleeves of the robe but the cloth remains under him.  I move my head down and kiss him again, his lips parting for me as I capture them more readily this time with my mouth.

 

Slowly I move my body to his side again and run one hand underneath the waistband of his shorts, pushing.  Amazingly, he obeys the signal and lifts just enough so that they slide off, all the way down his legs.  I drop them to the floor.