“Stop!” Matt’s dream was as vivid as daylight. He tried to ignore the alarm. For hours, he’d woken up every half hour and now, it was six-thirty and the world was telling him it was time to wake up…alone…without Thomas. How can I wake up when I was about to make Thomas come? For a second, he allowed himself a satisfied smile. That last tumble in the living room the day before had been awesome. Matt grew hard just thinking about it.

He bunched up the pillow beside him, hugging it. Twelve hours ago, it was Thomas he’d been holding. Thomas….whom he’d spent hours learning and pleasuring. They had spent every possible second together at that wonderful house in Black Point. Their island idyll had prompted talk of the future. They reached out for one another in repose, finished each other’s sentences in their waking hours. They wore the same size clothing and shoes. Their conversations had turned from the impossibility of how things could work out when Thomas lived in Canada and Matt lived in California to their love being able to conquer everything.

Thomas had snuggled into him, and Matt loved the feeling of the dark head on his shoulder, the trust shimmering back and forth between them. He wanted, with all his soul, to be with Thomas, to love him, protect him and make all his dreams possible.

Matt punched the pillow, turned over and sighed…he had come home empty-handed. He didn’t appreciate his twin brother Ryan joking that the state of Hawaii would appreciate him coming home with nothing but memories and photographs. Photographs. He’d taken a few provocative photos of Thomas, and he knew already these would be cherished possessions. No full frontal nudes…but near enough. It had been the perfect introduction to two men meeting and falling in love.

And then the north wind blew, or so it seemed to Matt. It started in the shower they took together right before leaving for the airport.

“I can’t wait to soap you up like this every morning,” Matt said, and something dark glittered in Thomas’ eyes. He let the moment pass until they returned the car at the airport.

When Matt tried to pin him down to their next meeting, Thomas hesitated. “I can’t leave Canada. I have a business. I have to work, you know, apart from my writing career.”

“I can come to you. I need to be with you,” Matt said instantly.

“You’d move to Canada for me?”

“Yes.” It would be a wrench leaving his close-knit family, but he had stated it as fact. I will move to Canada if that’s what it takes. I want to be with you.

Thomas had smiled, suggesting they visit each other. Let’s not rush into things…Matt’s heart sagged at Thomas’ parting words. Boy, did he feel set up. He’d tried to be open and honest, and Thomas had thrown him under a bus.

“…Now how’s this for a heart-warming family story?” Matt felt himself tugged from his maudlin thoughts back to the present as radio host Bill Handel related a tale of a married woman who took a part-time job to help support her family during a rough financial patch.

“…and she’s working in this fast food restaurant…true story, folks, and just as she’s closing, three masked robbers hold her up at gunpoint. Unfortunately, she still managed to recognize them. It was her mother, her father and…wait for it, her husband!”

Matt laughed out loud.

“Did she report them?” Handel’s co-host asked him.

“Hell yah, she reported them. Can you imagine, though? Sticking a gun in your wife’s face? Your money or your fries. That’s grounds for divorce right there.”

“Especially if there was no ketchup handy…”

Matt reached over and turned off the radio. Love sucked for a lot of people, it seemed. Six thirty-six. Christ, can I be acting any more of a lovesick loser? He touched his lips. They were still chapped from all the kissing he and Thomas had been doing. They were perfect together. They loved each other. They both said it. In three days, they had fallen into blissful love, not arguing about a single thing. Until…Let’s not rush into things…

He couldn’t forget those words. Would Thomas still be traveling? Nope…by now, he’d be home. Why hadn’t he called? Matt had sent two text messages, left a voicemail and sent an email. He threw the bed covers back. He had his typical morning hard-on. “Oh, is that for me?” Thomas said the first morning they awoke together. “You must be psychic, Matty. I love sucking cock first thing in the morning!”

Matt sagged back down onto the bed. He was too depressed to masturbate, and too…in love to do more than ponder the thought. His body still ached from the righteous fucking he’d enjoyed, and he wished he could feel this way forever. He threw on sweatpants and a T-shirt and padded into the kitchen. He was out of coffee, out of milk and just about out of patience.

He’d come home on the overnight flight from Oahu and there had been no food service, even in first class. He, Ryan and Ryan’s husband Cole had persuaded the space waiter to take pity on them with tiny bags of macadamia nuts. Starving, he had stared at his cell phone, his computer screen, praying for a text, an email…anything. He tried to kid himself he was going to write. And instead, for two hours, he stared at old emails from Thomas, whom he’d always thought was female romance novelist, Rose Carter.

The sum total of his work efforts were two words: Chapter One. For the first time since he’d accepted his downsizing movie company’s golden parachute, he had not been able to meet his self-imposed thousand-word daily quota. Unless you counted Thomas. Delete. Thomas. Delete. He knew he needed food, and knew how impossible he was in the morning without coffee. He needed Thomas. Delete.