Read No Place Like Home for Free Online Page B

babe.” I picked up my cup, glad of something to do.
    Michael said, “Malachi’s been in Brazil. Just got back three days ago and blazed out here. He seems to think I’m in dire straits.”
    “Oh, surely not!” I met Malachi’s eyes, hoping he’d give me a chance to talk to him before he went further. He blinked, slow as a cat, and I took that as agreement. “I’m glad you got my letter, though. If you’d gone looking for Michael in New York, you might have been pretty worried.”
    He gave a nod. “Yeah.” And he wiped his face in a telling gesture.
    “Can you stay for a while?” I asked. “We have plenty of room.”
    “I’d like that. Got some time.” His voice was devastating, even more so than Michael’s. Not only that carrying baritone, but laced with a drawl as slow as a Southern river. “Thank you.”
    “Good,” I said. “Shane, why don’t you get the bed made in the blue room? And put out some clean towels.”
    “Got it.” He hopped up with a kind of enthusiasm that made me frown. What about Malachi caused this excitement?
    “You looked wiped out, bro,” Michael said. “Why don’t you go grab a shower and some sleep? I’ll make a big supper and you can tell me about your adventures.”
    Malachi pushed his fingers through that thick, damp hair. “All right.” He stood up and then bent down again, all long legs and arms, and gave Michael a hug. I liked him for that—a lot of men these days won’t hug even their brothers.
    “We’ll eat in a few minutes,” I said. “Sure you don’t want to wait and have some sandwiches first?”
    “I’m pretty beat. Had some doughnuts at a quickstop a little while ago.” His smile was rueful.
    “Come on, then, and I’ll show you where you can put your stuff.”
    I waited in the living room for him to get some things from the bike—an impressive thing, by the way, with saddlebags and all the extras. A bike for long trips, and one that had made many by the wear on it. He took a heavy, well-worn canvas bag off the back.
    I watched him from the shadows where he wouldn’t be able to see me. He was a very watchable man. A sex god. My type exactly, even though you’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now.
    Don’t mistake me—I’m not talking about pretty. Or just good-looking. Most really good-looking men are so self-centered they aren’t worth bothering with. I’m talking about an entirely different quality.
    Billy had it. So does Shane, even though I try not to think about it. Michael, for all his beauty, doesn’t, because he’s gay. I guess maybe gay guys see the same thing in him because he never lacked for love, but I’m talking strictly the man-woman thing.
    Malachi moved easily in his skin, rare in anybody, but really rare in a man who must have to duck under doorways constantly and buy his clothes from special shops. He was that big. Lean, but very powerful through the shoulders and chest, probably from that hale life he led. At least six-six, and neither skinny nor ripped-up like some silly wrestler, but perfectly in proportion so that you wouldn’t really notice he was so big until he filled a doorway.
    And his size doesn’t say it, either. My dad is five-six and he has that quality and a name to go with it: Romeo. Women have been falling all over my father since he was a baby. I’m sure they’d been doing the same for Malachi.
    It’s a look, a way of moving, an awareness quotient. A man who is present now, in this minute, his attention on whatever is right in front of him. I knew he’d be able to tell somebody that my eyes were brown, that my hair reached my waist, that I had more flesh on me than was strictly allowed these days, but that it was arranged in a way that people could call voluptuous instead of fat. I suspected he might be able to tell the color of my bra, too, because I’d almost caught him taking a long look down my shirt when I stood up. He lifted one eyebrow, like
couldn’t help myself,
which is really