Portals and Puppy Dogs - Amy Lane Page 0,4

thing right there.

Simon had needed to swallow against the stirrings of sexual attraction in his stomach.

Alex didn’t have the kind of presence that punched someone in the gut with lust, that was true. But he’d been working for Simon’s firm for three years. Three years of Simon watching Alex arrive wearing bicycle tights and riding gear and then make a quiet, Clark Kent–like transformation in the bathroom to emerge as mild-mannered accountant Alex Kennedy.

Three years of his grounded competence, sly humor, and his ability to think above and beyond whatever the partners had asked of him, go the two steps over to the thing they’d been about to ask of him, and then just deliver it on a silver platter without fuss.

Simon had become increasingly fascinated with Alex Kennedy, had fantasized about the classic—and sexist, of course—boss/secretary scenario, each time running up against the wall of not wanting to perpetrate sexual harassment.

Then Simon’s fascination had grown into hunger, his hunger pitched to need, and practically the moment he’d planned to ask Alex on a very conservative, very aboveboard date to see if maybe it would be worth it for Simon to start basing himself at the other branch so they could see where this attraction might lead…

Chris Lockhart had gotten Alex’s petition to transfer to the other branch instead.

Simon was—he hoped—keeping a good face on things, but it was getting harder and harder to rein in his hurt.

“Nobody pissed you off?” he prodded gently. “Are you sure? It seems damned inconvenient for you to move to the other branch. I mean, we depend on you here in Folsom, Alex. Is there anything we can do to get you to stay?”

They were pausing at a crosswalk as Simon asked this, and Alex cast him a stricken look, holding on to the unusual charm he wore at his throat on a silver chain woven with a green cord.

“Never mind,” Alex said in a small voice, his eyes focused somewhere beyond Simon’s left ear. “I was being… silly. I can manage here. That’s fine.” He took a steadying breath and tried—but didn’t quite succeed—in meeting Simon’s eyes. “I need to be home for sunrise and sunset anyway. That’s hard to do this time of year when you’re riding a bicycle.”

“What is this thing about sunrise and sunset?” Simon asked, bemused. Then, with more focus: “And what is that necklace you’re wearing? It’s intriguing.”

For a moment Alex’s hand tightened protectively around the charm, and then, as Simon reached for it, his fingers relaxed, and Simon took the opportunity to move a little closer. Oh, Alex smelled good. He obviously used the employee showers before he changed, and Simon could smell deodorant and aftershave and… ooh. Something woodsy and natural. Pine? Cedar? And something dark too. Amber? Cinnamon? Oh wow. Whatever it was, it sent an electric pulse down Simon’s spine and made him want to press the smaller, slighter man up against the light post and devour him, starting at his neck.

Simon breathed in hard to control himself and then lifted the piece of jewelry with a fingertip.

That electric pulse zinging along Simon’s nerve endings doubled in charge and intensity, and the hair on the back of Simon’s neck and the fine hairs on his forearms and wrists lifted in response.

“Uhm…,” Simon said gruffly, trying to remember to breathe. “That’s a pentagram, isn’t it? But it’s been molded somehow so the points are lodged into the base, and there’s a… there’s a little symbol carved into the wood.”

“It’s a rune for friend,” Alex murmured. “And another one for protection. My roommate sort of made them for us. All of his friends. They’re sort of… a thing to keep us safe.”

“Safe?” Simon raised his eyes quickly, and this time Alex didn’t look away. Simon met his gaze squarely, close enough that he could see the tiny flecks of gold deep in Alex’s green eyes.

Alex swallowed, loud enough for Simon to hear, then licked his slightly parted lips. “Protection,” he murmured. “Safe.”

But the look in his eyes was anything but safe.

It was Simon’s turn to swallow, and he allowed his thumb to trail from the necklace down the hollow of Alex’s throat. The world stopped, and the only thing Simon could hear was his own heart beating in his ears and then—

“Hey, you guys moving or what?”

Simon shook himself, and a polite social smile popped out all on its own.

“Uhm, yes, sorry about that,” he murmured, moving away from Alex and checking his surroundings before starting