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  He rounded the corner from the office to the front of the house and grimaced. He’d just been triple sat with two big parties and table 22, and holy fucking hell.

  He said hi to the parties first, gave them drink menus, and made his way back to 22.

  They were both casually dressed in jeans and hooded sweatshirts. Toby had gotten his hair cut, and he was sulking over the menu, but Carson mostly ignored him.

  He wasn’t interested in Toby at all.

  “Hey,” Carson said, letting his grin escape.

  “Hey yourself,” Dale said, those damned blue eyes taking him in. He shook the sun-bleached curls out of his eyes and smiled challengingly. “You been taking care of what’s mine?”

  Carson nodded, eager as a puppy. “I wouldn’t damage your property, Dale. I swear. I wouldn’t even take it to Jersey.”

  Dale’s eyes widened. “You get offers to go to Jersey?”

  Carson swallowed, suddenly aware of how very, very narrowly he’d missed being a mob flunky. “Yeah, but I already turned ’em down.”

  Some infinitesimal tightness relaxed in Dale’s frame, and Carson wanted those long brown arms around him like nothing else. “That’s good to hear. I might have some plans for you after all.”

  Carson swallowed, wanted to kiss him badly, but didn’t. “Well, whatever you want,” he said, his voice gruff. “It is your property, after all.” A sound from the crowds called him back to the here and the now. “Here,” he said brightly. “Let me get your drink order. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  He sort of ran his ass off for the rest of the night. He got Dale and Toby their drinks and their dinners, but mostly he jogged between tables with trays and trays of sodas and white wine spritzers. (O’Leary’s served the best corned beef on the planet but didn’t always attract the most erudite crowd.)

  By the time he was done and the rush was over and he was ready to check out, he looked up to table 22, and his heart fell.

  They were gone.

  He stepped out into the brisk night air and started walking toward his bus, hardly noticing when a guy in a hooded sweatshirt fell in step next to him.

  A guy who smelled achingly familiar.

  “Where’d you go?” Carson asked, because the past half hour had felt like the worst sex ever—disappointing and sordid and depressing. He’d wanted Dale there, dammit!

  “Dropping Toby off at Stassy’s. One of the waitresses knew where he lived, so we had to figure out the bus system and everything.”

  Carson let go of some of his disappointment. It was something Carson himself would have done.

  “Yeah, okay. Here, you got an El pass?”

  “Not yet.”

  Carson led the way to the platform, and they trotted up the two stories’ worth of steps. “Mine’s full. We’ll use it twice.”

  Dale looked around the platform when they got there, smiling happily when he saw how the passes worked and hopping on the train with enthusiasm. The train was moderately full, but Carson was too excited to sit, too nervous to cuddle. He stood and Dale stood next to him, and for a minute, he couldn’t breathe, just looking into Dale’s eyes.

  “I’ve never been on a train before,” Dale confessed, just a hint of shyness in his smile.

  “I figured you for a natural,” Carson said, meaning it. It was that simple command thing. It just looked so easy. “There’s kids here, nine or ten, who can use a pass, take themselves to dance lessons, do a little shopping, and get home safe. Some of us, it’s in our blood, I think.”

  “Yeah?” Dale said, thinking hard. “Is there a cure?”

  “Love,” Carson said boldly, and Dale’s smile was all he needed, there on the train.

  They stayed quiet as they walked into Carson’s building, and the doorman returned Carson’s “hello” with a smile and a tip of the head. The elevator was old and small, and Carson stood shoulder to shoulder with the guy he’d been hungering for, smelled the sweat from his shift and from being hella nervous, and said, “I’ve got to shower,” into the silence.

  “Procrastinator,” Dale mocked gently.

  Carson shook his head, unable to even look at him. “I can still smell Ivan’s cigars,” he said, his voice so low he was surprised Dale could hear him. “I need to wash that shit off.”

  Dale bumped his shoulder then, and Carson knew he understood.

  The apartment was teeny—all of the apartments on this floor were. One room, one bathroom, a kitchenette, a bed, and a couch. He ate on the coffee table and kept his books in cinder block shelves. His old computer sat in the corner, not even a laptop but a tower, threatening to die of obsoleteness at any hour.

  Carson disappeared, hanging his coat up on the hook by the door and leaving Dale to his own devices while he pulled himself together in the shower.

  Dale was here. He was here. And all Carson wanted was for things to be like when Carson was there instead. His heart was beating so loud in his ears that he barely heard the water hitting the yellowing tiles, much less the stereo coming on.

  But the stereo was on when he came out of his bathroom, toweling his hair and wrapping his other towel around his waist. Gavin Rossdale was singing “Love Remains the Same” into a darkened room, and Carson had to look hard to see Dale’s profile against the window.

  As Carson got closer, he realized Dale had stripped off all his clothes and folded them into a neat pile on the couch. Dale turned to him in the darkness, his blue eyes glinting in challenge, his body completely, gloriously naked.

  “C’mere,” he said gruffly, and Carson’s feet would have taken him even if his brain hadn’t bailed and let them call the shots.

  He drew even and swallowed, and Dale leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Put your hands on the window frame, Carson. I want you to look at your city when we do this.”

  Carson did, spreading his arms, bracing himself, and the first slide of Dale’s hand across his shoulders left him weak.

  “You’re not worried about peepers with binoculars?” Carson said through a gritty throat.

  “No,” Dale said, his voice hard. His lips were soft, though, along Carson’s back, his neck, his ear. “Let them look. You’re all mine.”

  Carson’s cock gave a throb, hard enough to dislodge his towel, which slithered down his thighs to a puddle on the floor. He didn’t even try to stop it.

  Dale cupped his cheek and slid two fingers into Carson’s mouth. Carson opened without question, without worry. Dale had lived up to his promise. He’d come to get his boy. Carson sucked hard, getting those fingers nice and wet, because he knew where they were going. While he suckled, he leaned against that warm, comforting hand, closing his eyes.

  Dale pulled his head to the side, the better to whisper in his ear. “I like your city, Carson. Can you see it in front of us?”

  His mouth full, Carson had no choice but to nod and pull extra hard on the fingers stroking his tongue.

  “Good.” Dale pulled the fingers from Carson’s mouth with a wet pop and moved his hand behind Carson. He felt that hand behind him, parting his cheeks, probing, massaging, invading. He gasped, and Dale bumped his nose along Carson’s neck and nibbled on his earlobe the entire time those probing fingers were stretching, claiming territory that had never been conquered by anyone else. “You look at that city while I’m inside you, Carson. You go ahead and say good-bye.”

  Dale pulled his fingers out then, and in the quiet, chilly pause that followed, Dale vanished. Carson heard the little snick of the lube bottle without hearing it; he was too occupied trying to keep his eyes open when all he wanted to do was bend over and lift his bottom and beg.

  Dale’s warmth at his back reassured him, and Dale kissed the nape of Carson’s neck, then pulled his head over to kiss his lips. “You ready?” he whispered, and Carson nodded, beyond words. “Good. Hold on now. It’s gonna be rough.”

  Well, sometimes good-byes were, Carson thought distantly, and then Dale was at his entrance, thrusting forward, breaching him, stre
tching him, possessing the part of him that had been lost and the part only Dale had found.

  Carson gasped and pressed his cheek against the cold double-paned glass, and Dale kept up a slow, subtle glide of possession. The city was beautiful in front of Carson’s eyes, but he had to close them.

  There existed only the man behind him, moving inside of him, thrusting, taking him over, rolling him like the ocean rolled an unwary swimmer, catching him in the undertow and taking him home.

  One week later

  BRIDGET really did come to see him off, and Stassy and Toby moved into his room and picked up his lease. Ivan didn’t say a word when Carson turned in his last notice, so that was nice. Carson didn’t need his blessing to find a job down south.

  But he still felt naked. Toby and Stassy kept the furniture, so all he packed in the back of Dale’s truck was his clothes and his books.

  Dale assured him that even the clothes weren’t going to be necessary, but Carson figured he’d still be performing when he wasn’t waiting tables. His stomach was a little fluttery when they pulled away, but only a little. Dale sat in the navigator’s seat for the first leg, and that was all he needed.

  Sharing the driving, the trip went damned quick. They were back in St. Aubrey by 2:00 a.m., nearly two days after they left Chicago. Carson was driving, and he had to wake Dale up, because he never did learn all the ins and outs of Dale’s little run-down suburb, full of tiny houses and lots of underbrush and the occasional alligator.

  “Yeah,” Dale said, yawning. “Turn left on Road 312.”

  Carson grimaced and remembered his first trip down. “Hey, Dale,” he said, squinting into the darkness. “Where’s St. Truth-be-Well?”

  Dale blinked and sat up a little. “St. Who-the-Hell?”

  “When I first came down here, I was using Ivan’s GPS. I got butt-fucking lost—”

  “No kidding, bottom boy—”

  “No! Seriously! I got so damned lost looking for this road called St. Truth-be-Well. I seriously haven’t seen it, not the two weeks I spent down here and not tonight!”

  Dale squinted. “Wait, was this, like, the talking GPS?”

  “Yeah!”

  Dale laughed softly. The sound filled the car, and it was the same laugh Carson had fallen completely in love with two months earlier. “Damn, baby, that’s almost prophetic.”

  “What is?”

  “It was the GPS. It mangles shit down here. It just said the name wrong.”

  “What name?”

  Dale gestured to the state road sign. It said “St Rd 312.” “State and Saint—same abbreviation. Damned thing just made it up. We’re on St. Truth-be-Well.”

  Carson looked into the darkness and realized the best thing about it was he was probably a mile from home. “Well, damned if we’re not,” he said, wondering. It really was almost prophetic. “Left on St. Truth-be-Well. Imagine that.”

  They were still laughing when they pulled up at Dale’s little house. Dale had cleared out the yard since Carson left and paved a few extra places. A freshly mounted sensor light shined light in the darkness, and not a snake was to be found. Cletus was nowhere to be seen.

  In truth, all really was well.

  About the Author

  AMY LANE is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, Chi-who-whats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever, or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while at the gym, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/gymnastics/band oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate to keep her tethered to reality—which he does, while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.

  Website: www.greenshill.com

  Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com

  E-mail: [email protected]

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167

  Twitter: @amymaclane

  Romance from AMY LANE

 

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Romance from AMY LANE

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Romance from AMY LANE

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Romance from AMY LANE

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Copyright

  Left on St. Truth-be-Well ©Copyright Amy Lane, 2013

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  5032 Capital Circle SW

  Ste 2, PMB# 279

  Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

  USA

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Art by Aaron Anderson

  [email protected]

  Cover content is being used for illustrative purposes only

  and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the Publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 5032 Capital Circle SW Ste 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA.

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-018-0

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  July 2013

  Table of Contents

  The Bird Bates Hotel

  The Morning After

  Ignoring the Law

  Surfing Foreign Waves

  Skittering Critters

  Benefits of Guardian Alligators

  Home and Shit

  About the Author

  Romance from Amy Lane

  Copyright