A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

Clarity

Harry walked into the living room and turned on a lamp, but when Zayn reached out for his hand, he came wordlessly into his arms, kissing him with a silent desperation that matched his own, holding him, crushing his soft mouth, his hands rushing all over Zayn. Zayn clutched him tighter, his lips ravaging him, his hands hungrily memorizing Harry's beloved form.

The shrill ring of the telephone right beside them made them both jump, and Harry reached out a shaky hand to answer it.

Zayn watched him as he lifted it to his ear, and he smiled to himself at the way Harry self-consciously lowered his eyes when Zayn began to take off his jacket.

"Yes, it's true, Mrs. Addelson," he said, "he's really here." Harry listened a minute and then said, "I don't know. I'll ask him." Covering the phone with his hand he gave Zayn a helpless look and said, "Mayor and Mrs. Addelson would like to know if you-we-are free to have dinner with them tonight."

Zayn stripped off his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt and slowly, emphatically shook his head no, watching a gorgeous blush climb Harry's cheeks as he caught the unmistakable meaning.

"I'm afraid we can't. No, I'm not certain what his immediate plans are or his future plans either. Yes, I'll ask him and let you know."

Harry hung up the phone, then hastily picked it up, shoved the receiver under a sofa pillow, straightened, and nervously rubbed his palms against his thighs. Dozens of questions raced through his mind as he stood there looking at Zayn, doubts and uncertainties and hopes, but over it all was a feeling of joyous unreality that Zayn was actually standing there, in his living room, his eyes gentle, amused, sexy. "I can't believe you're here," he whispered aloud. "A few hours ago, everything seemed so-"

"Empty?" Zayn provided in the deep, compelling voice he'd longed to hear again. "And meaningless?" he added, walking toward Harry.

He nodded. "And hopeless. Zayn, I-I have so much to explain if you'll let me. But I-" His voice broke as Zayn pulled him into his arms and Harry touched his face, his fingers trembling. "Oh, God, I've missed you so much!"

Zayn answered him with his mouth, parting his lips with his own; pulled the scarf out of his hair, and shoved his fingers into the luxuriant mass, and Harry crushed himself against him, answering his passion with the same wild, exquisitely provocative ardor that had haunted Zayn's dreams in South America and awakened him in a sweat in prison. Zayn dragged his mouth from him. "Show me your house," he said in a thickened voice he hardly recognized. He really meant, show me your bedroom.

Harry nodded, knowing exactly what he meant, and he led him straight where he wanted to go, but when he stepped through the doorway and saw the white wicker furniture, the lush green potted trees, and the froth of white ruffles on the bedspread, canopy, and dressing table, the room was so identical to his imaginings that he stopped short. As if Harry understood the direction of his thoughts, he said hesitantly, "How did I do?"

"It looks exactly as I imagined it when-"

Harry watched the tension on his face and ended his unfinished sentence for him, Harry's voice somber: "When you were lying in bed on your boat, you mean, imagining me here in this room because I asked you to do that on the phone. When," he continued with brutal honesty, "you still believed I was going to be there with you ... when you never believed I would trick you into coming for me and betray you to the FBI and get you beaten and sent back to prison."

Zayn looked at him, a grim smile touching his mouth and eyes. "When all that was true."

Harry sank down onto the bed, his face turned up to his, eyes honest and searching. "Could we lie here for a little while and talk first?"