Androgynous Love

Unexpected complications

Tatum lay stunned, steeped in the afterglow as if he were floating on a glittering cloud of sensation. But the cloud dispersed as Andrew eased out of his tender flesh.

He shifted and slipped out from under him, aware of all the places his untried body ached.

He'd been so careful, so cautious with Tatum. Despite his need. But his care and attention only terrified Tatum more.

Tatum'd been falling in love with him without admitting it to himself for two months. But there would be no escaping the truth now.

He grasped a towel from the warm tiles and wrapped it around his trembling body, but as he turned ready to run, Andrew caught his wrist and drew him round to face him.

Thank goodness he'd donned his wet trunks, but even so, the sight of him—so tall, so rugged, so scarred and yet so beautiful—had the mortification firing into Tatum's cheeks and the panic clawing at his throat.

"Where are you going?" he asked his tone as raw as Tatum felt.

"I...I need to shower," he said. Then I need to run.

Andrew was a billionaire. And he was his employee. But far worse than that, Andrew was a man who had been scarred by the trauma of his past. Trapped in his estate, desperate for human contact without even realizing it.

Tatum had insinuated himself into his life, revelled in his attention and the brooding intensity he could see lurking in his eyes. Tatum'd convinced himself he could rescue him when what he'd really been doing was taking advantage of him.

He nodded but didn't ease his grip. "Why did you let me take your virginity?"

"It's not important," he said, mortified now as well as guilty. How could he have assumed Andrew'd never guess when Tatum knew how observant he was? Then again, Tatum hadn't expected his first time to be anywhere near as overwhelming either.

"It matters to me," he said, the cynical edge making the guilt grow.

Tatum swallowed around the brutal lump of emotion. Then forced himself to tug his hand free. "I need a bit of time to myself."

Andrew studied him, the brutal combination of cynicism and suspicion in his gaze only crucifying him more—but doing nothing to douse the heat still pulsing at Tatum's core.

"I didn't use a condom," he said, his voice flat and remote, reminding Tatum of the man he'd met that first morning. "Are you using contraceptives?"

"I don't need to I am recessive and you didn't knot me, I can't be knotted without me being in heat and you in a rut, neither of those happened. Frantic now to get away—to shore up his defences—before his heart began to shatter.

He was that boy again—who had been sure his daddy would return until he didn't.

He'd rescued wild things because he wanted them to love him too. But they never did, they just needed him for a little while, and then he was forced to let them go. And then he'd missed them—until he found another wild thing to save. And he'd repeated that pattern again and again. Why had he never learned?

You can't make a wild thing love you—no matter how much you might love it back.

Andrew raked impatient fingers through his hair. And he saw the agitation, the penetrating, probing gaze—the wariness as vivid as it had ever been.

You brought this on yourself, Tatum, for believing in something that was never real.

"Go have your shower in my suite, then we'll talk," he said.