Vision Quest Page 2

  "Tell you what," Blaze said, thoughtfully. "If you want to meet me for coffee in the morning, then I'll be in the shop by the lobby around nine. You don't want to, then don't. No worries. No guilt. No regret. Your choice."

  "And if I do?"

  Blaze smiled. "Then you do."

  Hotel hallways always seemed strange to Arik. The lack of outside lighting and the similarity of space seemed labyrinth-like. It was always noon in a hotel hallway. And you were always in the same hall, on the same carpet, looking at the same row of doors.

  And for once, it didn't depress him. It occurred to him, yes. He always thought about it, tonight was no different. It just didn't affect him. And that realization made him smile.

  It took him a second to dig out the card for his door. He had a moment's panic when he didn't find it right away—visions of the card sitting on Blaze's floor, of the humiliation of knocking on Blaze's door, "I think I might have dropped something..."

  He was grinning when he reached for the door handle, card aloft, eyes tired and heavy, and was startled when a charge of static leapt between finger and metal—a visible electric flare.

  Fascinating, Arik thought, looking down at his bare feet and noting the cool air-conditioned current in the corridor.

  "Infused," his mind whispered, "by flame."

  Arik paused for a long minute, staring at his finger and the handle, and then he shook his head and pushed the door open. He needed sleep. It was late. And he had plans for the morning. At least, he was pretty sure he did. He'd see what tomorrow brought.

  Yet it was not the bed that called him. Rather, Arik walked to the window and yanked open the heavy drapes. The lights from the street and the hotel illuminated the darkness and cast a radiating glow that seemed to set the night ablaze. He felt... different somehow. Warmer. Brighter. Lit.

  "Bed," he told himself with a sigh. He had to shut down his mind before he started thinking like a fool. Besides, the night was moving onward, and the morning wouldn't wait for him. He tossed his weary body to the mattress and rolled to his side, staring at the blaring red numbers of the clock. And he fell asleep thinking of silky red curls, golden eyelashes, and baby-blues.

  Blaze

  "That'll be six-fifty," said the curvy, dark-skinned woman behind the hotel coffee shop counter. Blaze smiled, dug out the cash, and slid it to her. Their fingers touched, but there was no spark, no moment of clarity, no vision, and Blaze relaxed. So far, the only target he had was the one he'd acquired last night. Most pleasantly acquired, in fact. It was nice when Blaze's fortune ran to the pleasurable instead of other alternatives. Sometimes Blaze's encounters ended in tears or death or mayhem, not sweat-slick-spent bodies, shy smiles, and bewildered grins.

  "Thanks," Blaze said, picking up the coffees and then carrying them to the condiment counter. He kept glancing toward the elevator doors while he added cream to his drink. He was going to leave the other coffee black, but reconsidered, adding a bit of sugar and stirring until the crystals had dissolved and done their sweetening job.

  Blaze recapped the coffees and carried them to a glass pane near the coffee shop's open entrance. He balanced the cups in one hand, dropped his black duffle on the ground, and rested a hip against a metal beam, waiting. He didn't need a watch or a clock to tell him it was around eight-fifty-five. Blaze knew time like summer knew sunshine. He held the coffee under his nose, as it was still too hot to drink, and he watched the golden doors.

  At five after nine, Arik Beltrán emerged in a tailored suit and shiny shoes. It didn't have the hot and lazy factors that the hoodie and Adidas pants did, but there were all sorts of kind things to say about a man who knew both how to dress down and dress up. The creamy shirt looked good against Arik's dusky skin, and Arik's dark hair wasn't mussed like it had been last night, from sleep and tugging and grasping. Arik had his briefcase, and Blaze realized the man had to be at the hotel for a reason. A conference, maybe, or a business meeting. Blaze chuckled to himself, wondering what Arik would think about Blaze's version of a conference call, and then Arik spotted Blaze, and Arik's entire countenance changed. Worry dissolved into abject wonder, and Blaze's insides warmed. He loved these moments. The, oh-holy-shit-you-are-real moments. When they were sweet, they made life worth living. When they were fearful, they made Blaze wish he had another path.

  Arik approached with a purposeful stride. He was taller than Blaze, but then, most men, at least in this country, were. At five-six, Blaze was on the short side of this age's average. It had advantages, though. Last night when Arik had picked Blaze up and thrown him on the bed, Blaze hadn't minded his height in the least.

  Through the doorway, around the counter, and to the table near where Blaze leaned, Arik came, and Blaze slowly turned to follow the progression. He held out the coffee when Arik was within range, and Blaze smiled again, this one less for show. "Morning," Blaze said.

  "Hi," Arik blurted. He stared at the coffee. "Is this for me?"

  "No, it's for the other man I fucked last night."

  Arik jerked a look at Blaze, checking for seriousness, and Blaze had to laugh. "Black, little sugar. It's yours."

  "Thank you." Arik took the coffee, but set it on the tall table. "Who are you?" he asked, bluntly and like he couldn't quite help himself.

  Blaze didn't answer right away. He noted, instead, the drawn tightness around Arik's dark eyes that spoke of weariness. Blaze could relate. He'd not slept at all, waiting for Arik to pass by his room, and when Arik had left after they'd finished and caught their breaths, Blaze had slept, but it'd been to dream more of Arik. Not restful, the Vision sleep.

  "Sorry," Arik muttered. "That was rude. I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry."

  "I'm Blaze Zaituc," he said.

  "Nice to meet ..." Arik frowned. "Zaituc?"

  "It's Romanian," Blaze said.

  "It's unusual."

  "I'm unusual."

  Arik's lips twitched, and Blaze wanted to kiss them. After the last Vision Quest that had ended so badly, enjoying this one was a gift from the gods. "I can see that," Arik said. He drew closer, and Blaze gazed up at Arik's face, enjoying the scent of aftershave and soap and freshly laundered clothes. "What are you doing here, Blaze?"

  Oh, Blaze liked it when they played the part of seducer and not mere victim of fate. A thrill chased a victory down Blaze's spine. "You, mostly," he quipped.

  Arik enjoyed that answer. He glanced at Blaze's bag. "Checking out so soon?"

  "Only had the room for a night."

  "Passing through?"

  "No." Blaze slid a hand over the back of Arik's where it rested on the tabletop. Blaze squeezed Arik's wrist. "Told you. Here for you."

  Arik's face was more expressive than Blaze bet the man liked. Blaze watched Arik try to sort out if Blaze was flirting, teasing, didn't know when to stop playing the game and start giving real answers, or, possibly worse and possibly better, if Blaze was telling Arik the absolute truth, which raised all kinds of questions. Blaze watched Arik decide that reality was impossible, but answers were needed, but he didn't want to anger Blaze, scare Blaze off, or lose Blaze's interest. Blaze would have liked to tell Arik that it'd be quite impossible to shake Blaze off the Quest now that he was on it, but he'd done this dance far too often to take such a misstep so early in their tango.

  "Well, I'm here for a few days," Arik said carefully.

  "Then I'll stay," Blaze said, massaging the bone of Arik's wrist with a soft touch. A spark like a tiny electric shock shot through Blaze's fingers. He saw himself, naked and face down in Arik's bed. He saw Arik approaching. He saw a clock on a nightstand, a man with dirty blond hair, a lit cigarette, and Arik's eyes full of tears. The imagery was gone in a blink, and determination steadied Blaze. He tightened his grip, and, as though on autopilot, Arik flipped a palm to grasp Blaze in return.

  Despite the physical response, Arik was adorably confused, but still trying not to crack the certain and sure façade. "But how will you stay, without a room?"
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  Blaze shrugged one shoulder, made a show of reaching for his coffee so he wouldn't stop touching Arik, and took a sip. "If you're busy, I'll find something to do while you're gone. If you want company during the day, you'll have it. And tonight ..." Blaze met Arik's eyes, direct and simple. "I'll be where you'd like me to be."

  Arik swallowed, and suspicion warred with heat in his lovely brown eyes. "Is that so?"

  "I hope it will be," Blaze said, honestly. He caressed Arik one last time and withdrew his touch. "The choice is yours," Blaze said, and that, too, was the truth. Arik could make Blaze's purpose as easy or as difficult as he liked. But Blaze was here for a reason larger than either of them could comprehend, and Blaze had no choice when it came to his life's course.

  So he smiled at Arik, letting the man think, and around them, people went about their lives, oblivious to the pivotal moment in their midst.

  Arik

  "Told you. Here for you."

  The words played through Arik's mind like a song being whispered by unseen, unknown spirits through treetops. And he answered them, albeit it in silence: well, now, that's probably a whole lot of foolish.

  A prick of sweat lifted the hairs on the back of Arik's neck. One ... he told himself. Two. Three. But before he was granted the liberty to continue the journey of his mind's eye, Blaze countered with speech.

  "You do far too much communicating with yourself than you do out loud. That seems ..." Blaze paused, considered, "pointless."

  Arik lifted the coffee to his lips in an effort to hide a grin. He tried to tell himself that the brew needed a touch more sugar, and knew it was a lie. It was perfect. As though Blaze had counted the granules, and weighed them with scientific accuracy against the preferences of Arik's tongue.

  Fascinating.

  "Did you sleep well?" Arik asked, his eyes drifting to the clock that hung on the wall behind the counter.

  Senses sharpened to the movement of the arms of the piece, the incessant click, click, click that monitored the passing seconds and turned them into moments. And his head took him to places long gone and instances passed, while his father drew on his cigarette and forced Arik's chin to wherever it needed to be in order to make Arik's eyes follow, "Are you watching? Arik? Are you really, really watching?"

  "Segue?" Blaze's voice forced Arik's attention back. "Or attempt at distraction?"

  He felt a frown crease his forehead and caught Blaze's gaze. "Casual conversation."

  "For what purpose?"

  Arik's expression softened with a smile, and he caught all other thoughts together, drawing them by the ends of their reins into his fist and tying them to the side. Out of the way. Kept, for future reference and consideration, but contained for the time being. He had a beautiful man in front of him. A man who, apparently, had a skill for tweaking caffeine into the perfect elixir, and an obvious interest in Arik's ... something. That's where his focus needed to be. That was, at least, where he was damn well going to put it. Regardless of advancing clocks or possible theories on time and place.

  "Let's just say that I want to get to know you." Arik lowered his eyes to the bag on the floor of the coffee shop. "Is that your luggage?"

  He registered Blaze's nod, considered the brevity of the gesture, and felt his attention get drawn back to it. "So are you local then?"

  As Arik had packed, his expectations had been for three days. One to arrive, one to scope, and one to make good on whatever the hell he'd been led there for. Even with that limited duration, his suitcase was twice the size of Blaze's bag, and had been shoved so full that Arik had to force the clasp.

  "No," Blaze shook his head to match movement to word. "I travel light."

  While his lips twitched into a grin, Arik reacquired Blaze's eyes with his own. "Damn. Here I thought maybe that bag of yours would be full of the kinds of things a person just felt too self-conscious to leave in his room. Guess it's probably just clothing, then?"

  "Would you like it to be?" Blaze asked, the quip of his tone lightening the cryptic nature of his reply.

  "Full of clothing?" Arik asked innocently, drawing out the game.

  He felt the connection of Blaze's eyes with his skin. Once again long, slim fingers lifted, tripped up the length of Arik's forearm, and God-be-damned and Christ-almighty, but Arik would have sworn he felt a charge leap from digit to limb. Clarity sharpened, like something was tuning the focus in Arik's brain. "What are you doing here, Blaze?"

  Blaze paused. Pressure suggested the contemplation of disconnection, but something must have made Blaze reconsider because, instead, Blaze laid his palm flat on Arik's arm and wrapped his fingers around the muscle. His voice was slow and careful when he spoke. "Should I know that answer any more than you do?"

  Something creepy and unwelcome slithered down Arik's spine. "I know why I'm here, Blaze. I'm here to soothe a petulant customer and convince him that it's way too late in life to start thinking about modifying his retirement visions."

  Blaze tilted his head. "Are you now?" He didn't give Arik a chance to reiterate. "That sounds like something that could be easily done by telephone or web conference."

  Arik shook his head. "No. Not this time. This was—"

  "Different," Blaze finished for him.

  Tension shouldn't have been tightening the otherwise broad expanse between Arik's shoulders. There was no reason whatsoever that his stomach should twist. More than anything, however, there was no justification for the warning that hinted Arik should be very, very careful. Of course, that particular nuance could have had more to do with history than any instinct serving self-preservation.

  Arik tried again. "Not so much different. More like, well ... I needed—"

  "To be here." Blaze nodded, blue eyes trained on Arik's. His expression was intense, direct, and though it spoke of decades, centuries—millennia even—of hard-learned secrets, it was honest. "You needed to be here."

  There wasn't anything Arik could think of to say. Instead, he parroted it back. "Yes. I needed to be here."

  "Do you know why?"

  Arik shook his head. He answered with what he thought was the obvious expectation. "To meet you?"

  Blaze leaned back, took a sip of his coffee and shrugged. "Do you think so?"

  "If I could answer that, I wouldn't have phrased my reply in the form of a question." Arik's smile took the edge off his comment. At least, he hoped it did. Because 'fascinating' was quickly turning into 'frustrating.'

  "To be honest, I think you might know more than you're saying, Blaze. You caught my eye in the lobby. You spoke to me in the elevator. And you had to have been watching for me in the hallway. Unless you have some kind of mystical way of just knowing ..." Arik let his words drift when the corner of Blaze's lips twitched into amused. "Actually, do me a favour and don't answer that."

  "I won't," Blaze grinned. "Besides, I have this overwhelming urge to start quoting sayings about kettles and pots and the spoken blackness thereof."

  Arik lifted an eyebrow and pursed his lips. "So tell me something, Blaze." He paused until Blaze was driven to raise one hand, palm up, fingers wide and ask him to continue with sight alone. "Would you care to go for a drive?"

  Blaze

  "Sure," Blaze said, finishing the last dregs of his coffee. Arik seemed to be making up his mind whether or not he was happy about Blaze's easy acceptance. Blaze tossed his empty cup into the trash. "Taxi?"

  "Rental," Arik said, fishing in his pocket and pulling out a key ring with a plastic tag.

  "Cool." Blaze scooped up his bag and slung the strap across his chest. "You drive."

  "I was planning on it," Arik mumbled, mostly to himself, Blaze thought, and Blaze followed Arik out of the shop and into the hotel proper. Guests and staff milled about, their strides and stances screaming of self-importance. Arik held the door for Blaze, who smiled his thanks, and Arik pointed to the parking garage next to the hotel.

  "Lead on," Blaze said over the sound of horns honking and traffic steadily roll
ing past the hotel on the busy downtown street. The row of buildings narrowed the sky above to a slim strip of blue. Cloudless, haze-less, a gorgeous day in the making, not too hot and not too cold; perfect early autumn weather.

  A group of businessmen split and streamed around Arik and Blaze like a school of fish around a rock, and Blaze instinctively grabbed his long t-shirt sleeves, tucked his hands into them, and put his hands into his pockets. Arik glanced over his shoulder to check that Blaze was there, and then hurried across the street while the light was still flashing. Blaze jogged along, watching the movement of Arik's slacks across Arik's ass, and the way Arik's upper body worked with the swing of Arik's muscular arms, and Blaze cobbled together what he knew.

  The first dream had been the city's skyline, moon above and lights below ...

  The sign read Davenport Conference Center, and it was next to a fountain set in a downtown street sidewalk. A man wearing comfortable clothes walked out of a shadowy parking structure and disappeared into the grand front entrance of the hotel, rolling a carry-on bag behind him.

  ... the second dream was all Arik ...

  Hands opened a suitcase, hung a suit in the hotel closet. A razor sliced in careful rows across stubble on cheeks. A fork lifted a bite of food to a well-shaped mouth. A pair of eyes crinkled with laugh lines at the corners. Comb in dark hair, socks on feet, and a full image of irritated exhaustion, a credit card sliding across a counter.

  ... the third dream left Blaze breathless ...

  Flush on cheeks, parting lips, gritting teeth, sweat rolling down the center of a wide back ... A low moan, a whisper of a name ... A turn of a head, out of rhythm and out of time, seeking out Blaze who watched ... a whisper ... again ... Blaze's name ... beckoning ... inviting. And skin rolled over the top of a hard cock, a flat stomach heaving as release sprinkled a kempt patch of pubic hair and the jut of a hipbone.

  ... the fourth dream had been on the train coming into the city ...

  Room numbers 1107 and 1143.

  The blond man, the sad eyes, the cigarette, Blaze in bed ... A phrase, SINS OF THE FATHER, and the top of a flyer jutting out from a book. The flyer had been from a church, perhaps, the scrawling single word the only color in the black and white dream: