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pieces of things Marcus had revealed about himself, most of them inadvertently.
    Thomas had been able to balance Marcus’ dark side, calm it, where friends who’d known him longer couldn’t even touch it. When Thomas had asked Marcus about that, to determine if he was imagining it or not, Marcus had been sitting on the balcony staring out in the night, seeing shadows Thomas didn’t understand.
    “It’s because you’re an artist, Thomas. I don’t mean a person who paints or sculpts, though that’s one form your perception takes. You see into the souls of others more easily. It should make me want to close all doors against you, because my soul is the last thing I want anyone to see. But—”
    “But…” Thomas had prodded. But Marcus had said nothing else, his green eyes
    lost in the darkness.
    “I just want to know you’re taking care of yourself,” Thomas said, coming back to the present. “You matter.”
    Marcus left the driver’s side, came back across the gravel in his Italian shoes.
    Thomas held his ground as Marcus picked up his hand and ran his fingers over the tip of the injured one. “Same goes, pet.” Though the shades concealed Marcus’ eyes, Thomas felt the intensity of his focus. “Come to the Berkshires. The address is written on the back of the ticket. Don’t say no. Just think about it and be willing to give it a try.
    One week.”
    “One week when you’ll try to get me back in your bed.”
    “Oh, there won’t be any trying on that one, Thomas. We both know that’s not
    what’s in question.” Marcus’ lips curved. Thomas felt his cock respond as if on a chain that Marcus could jerk to attention whenever he wished.
    “You’ll be in my bed.”
    25
    Joey W. Hill

Chapter Three
    Marcus managed to drive to the end of the dirt road, weaving through the flanking trees that put him out of sight of the hardware store. Then he had to stop. He gripped the steering wheel, fighting the urge to pound on it. He wanted to destroy something inside the car, rip it apart to make it match the way he felt inside.
    God, he’d wanted to just eat him alive. Eat him alive and then force him into the car, drive away from the deceptively picturesque rural scene that was tinted with the backlight of hell, because it was a prison for Thomas.
    “Jesus Christ. And here comes the warden,” he muttered under his breath.
    Thomas’ mother stopped her late model SUV behind his rental, got out and moved
    with purpose toward his window, a steely glint in her blue eyes. Marcus toyed with the grimly amusing idea of rolling the car forward just a few feet to see if Elaine Wilder would chase him. Instead, he pushed the window control, met her stare for stare as she squared off with him and crossed her arms.
    Her face was hard and strained, unattractive in this light, showing all that had happened to her over the past year. He wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic right now though, even as he acknowledged the wear and tear.
    “You can’t leave well enough alone, can you?” she said. “He didn’t come back into the store. Just walks away from us. Across the field, as if he’d rather be anywhere else.”
    “Imagine that.”
    Her lips tightened. “This is his home. Where he belongs. You don’t know him the way you think you do. He needs roots, a home. He doesn’t belong in a big city like New York.”
    “That’s right. There are no families in New York. We’re all just a bunch of
    wandering nomads addicted to Starbuck’s.”
    “Don’t get fresh,” she snapped. “I’m not saying people can’t be happy in that life.
    But he can’t live that way. If you care for him at all, you know it. Someone like you is not going to be happy with my son forever.”
    “Please tell me this is not the crap about gay men being unable to commit.”
    “Your unnatural sin, and the fact you’ve dragged my son into it, isn’t the point.
    You’re far more sophisticated than he is. Older.”
    “Not by much.”
    “You