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  Jordan snorted. "He was a baby."

  Ian looked up and caught Jordan's eyes. "So were you."

  Jordan closed his eyes and turned his head, breaking the held gaze and avoiding the potential for another one. "Sometimes I feel like I still am."

  Ian closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around Jordan's waist. He held their bodies close, almost too tight, and whispered in Jordan's ear, "You're doing just fine."

  It was only seconds before Jordan's arms circled Ian's neck. "I'll see about school, okay?" Jordan said quietly. "I'll figure something out."

  There were more tears, unseen with Jordan's face against his neck, but felt on his skin regardless. He worked his fingers into Jordan's hair. "I just don't want to see you lose him, Jordan. If someone finds out …"

  "I know." The reply was huffed against the skin of Ian's neck. "I'll figure it out. Ian, please … can we just not talk about it anymore? Like, for tonight?" Speech became quick, light kisses. "I promise, okay? I just … let's just … let's not, all right? Anymore?" He pulled his arms forward and dropped them underneath Ian's, pulling Ian closer with the front of Ian's belt. He turned his face to align their lips.

  Ian had to force the smile, but he gave one nonetheless. "I take it you don't want me to leave anymore?"

  "I never have," Jordan told him. "Not since day one."

  Be it lie or truth, the admission made Ian's heart jump. He completed Jordan's movement and brought their mouths together. Without a minute's delay, Jordan's fingers began to work Ian's belt open. "I need you," Jordan whispered when Ian caught his eyes. "Please?"

  "We don't have to do this—"

  "I want to," Jordan insisted. "I want to feel you. Let's stop thinking and just feel, okay?"

  There was no way Ian could deny that request. He stripped Jordan's pants with the same desperation that Jordan did to his. While pants slipped off Jordan's slim hips and pooled at his ankles, Ian's were pressed back and down. "Step out," Ian directed, helping Jordan keep his balance as he kicked away the clothing and the moment Jordan was free, Ian reached around him, scooped him up and carried him to the kitchen table. "How strong is this?"

  "Not very."

  "Hope for the best then," Ian grinned, resting Jordan's hips on the table, pressing his shirt up to his chest, and urging him to lie back.

  Cool laminate touched warm skin and Jordan flinched and grinned. In contrast, Ian used the heat of his palms to trace Jordan's arms and shoulders, chest and belly. Muscles twitched under his fingers, hips began to grind against him, and Ian lifted his hands from Jordan's waist back to Jordan's arms to begin the process all over again. He sighed slowly, dragging out his breath. "I could touch you all night."

  Jordan chuckled and stretched his arms back, finding the edge of the table and gripping it with both hands. "But you're not touching the right spots," he complained.

  "Oh?" Ian began to trace Jordan's hipbones, his thumbs dragging enticingly close to the eluded request. But rather than fall in and seek out hardening cock, Ian fanned his hands out and over Jordan's hips, circling them around to grip both ass cheeks. Then he rolled slowly against Jordan's body, kneading flesh back and forth. "How's that?"

  "Better," Jordan smirked. "But not quite what I had in mind."

  "Hmm," Ian frowned in mock concentration. He leaned over the table, shifting his hips to seek alignment while resting on one hand. He wrapped his other hand around both their cocks. "How about this then?"

  Jordan closed his eyes and chuckled. "Yeah. That'll do just fine."

  "Slow?" Ian teased, moving his hand as suggested. "Or fast?" He sped up the movement for a few breath-stealing strokes. "Light?" he loosened his grip. "Or firm?"

  "Ian …" Jordan growled.

  Ian chuckled and pressed a kiss on Jordan's chest. Then he pushed himself upright and released his grip altogether. "Be right back," Ian laughed.

  Jordan's eyes flew open. "What the—"

  Ian heard Jordan slide off the table with the nasty squeak of skin dragging on unforgiving surfaces. He'd already procured the recently found bottle of lube and one of the condom packets, refusing to read the side for fear of expiration dates and further delays when he heard Jordan's footsteps padding into the room behind him. He pressed against the wall with his head turned towards the entrance and just as Jordan passed, Ian tackled him playfully. "Who said you were supposed to get off the table?"

  Before Jordan had a chance to answer, Ian stepped forward and pushed him over the edge of the couch. "Someone needs a lesson in behaving."

  With one hand, he held Jordan down—face to cushion, ass in the air—and with the other hand he snapped the lid of the liquid and upended it. The first drop found skin as Ian breathed the word "spread" and nudged Jordan's heel with his toe. Jordan complied with a pleased hum and Ian caught the slippery droplet with the pad of his thumb. With only one swipe and quick circle of opening, Ian used the slick to sink his finger inside Jordan's body.

  Perfect heat, that hold that exceeded anything Ian had felt in a long time; a deepening in the groan that Jordan offered him and a quickening in his own blood; an almost head-lightening rush of euphoria. "These are the things I can't live without anymore," Ian told himself silently. But it wasn't just the way Jordan's body opened under his questing, nor was it the way his own cock strained towards the space occupied by his fingers. It was the way that Jordan watched him when Jordan thought he wasn't looking. It was the way Jordan's lips fell apart to pull harder for oxygen. It was the strangled sound of pleasure that Jordan made when Ian's free hand began to stroke Jordan's cock.

  "More," was the only word Jordan had to gasp to entice Ian into removing his fingers and entering with his cock. He took Jordan in one steady push, not stopping until he was balls deep, pulling a hoarse sound from Jordan that was a heady mix of pain, satisfaction and lust. And he didn't wait. He drew out immediately and followed with another of the same. With every push Jordan's body rippled to make way for him, with every pull it felt like it was trying to hold him in. Jordan's face flushed. His ass still displayed the fading marks where Ian had clutched him. It took everything within Ian's self-control to continue stroking Jordan's cock and not grab back on that firm ass with both hands and just pound it.

  "This is what you do to me," Ian wanted to say. "How perfect you are, how perfect you feel, this is why it's so hard to think right when I'm with you." Instead he leaned over Jordan's back, rested his lips on Jordan's shoulder blade, moved his fist in time with his hips and whispered, "Damn, Jordan. You're fucking beautiful."

  Thigh muscles tensed against his own, feet on tiptoe clenched into the carpet, and Jordan gasped. He shoved his hips back, forward into Ian's fist and back again. And while there was no change in Ian's movement, no change in Ian's drive, Jordan begged, "Don't stop. Please, fuck, don't stop."

  Opposing thrusts—Ian, forward, Jordan, back—intensified friction and depth, the synchronized sway heightening sensation past reasonability until it got so Ian had no idea who was conductor and who was the instrument. When Jordan began to mumble incoherent words of adulation, Ian gave up trying to. Orgasm hit Ian without warning, one second merely advancing and the very next sweeping in and taking over, making his stomach jump and his legs all but give out underneath him. It wasn't until he thrust his final shot deep inside Jordan's body that Jordan gave into the crest and came as well. Jordan's hand scrabbled to still Ian's stroke, gripping palm over knuckles, while deep breaths danced with the softened cries that took their prompts with the liquid pulses over Ian's hand.

  Ian bit back a smile at the whine that left Jordan's throat when he pulled out and away. Jordan slumped into the couch while Ian removed and tied the condom and fumbled in to the bathroom to wash. He was still on the couch when Ian returned and detoured into the kitchen for water.

  Seconds later, Ian heard the clunk of taps and the hum of the shower, but he was already in Jordan's bed and four-fifths of the way into sleep before Jordan slid in beside him. T
here was no talking as they wound their bodies around one another and drifted off to sleep.

  Rubato

  Ian didn't lift his head from his desk but still managed to sneak a quick check of the clock on his monitor through peripheral alone. Eleven. Which meant if Jordan had got Cole out of bed by eight-thirty, to be at the school for nine, and say they had to wait to see someone … well, then there would be explanations and reasoning as to why Cole had no scholastic history so far … but still, even so, surely Ian should have heard something by now?

  For the hundredth time that morning, Ian admonished himself for not insisting that Jordan bring him along. Regardless of how many times Jordan said they'd handle it alone. What if Jordan got in trouble? What if, at that very moment, a stern woman from the school board, in a navy skirt suit with sensible walking shoes, was clacking down the hallway of the school, clipboard in hand, lips pursed and spine stiff, to the room where Jordan and Cole waited hopefully, and what if, when she steps through the door, she yells, "Secure that child!" and two burly men from behind her rush Cole and pick him up as Cole begins to shriek while she eyes Jordan, cowering and terrified, and tells him, "You disgust me …"

  Ian sighed and eyed the empty mug on his desk. He really needed to cut back on the coffee. Or stop reading so much fiction. Maybe both.

  It was times like these when he despised the fact that Jordan didn't have a phone. "I should buy him one," Ian told his empty office. "A phone and a piano." He ignored the tug at his heart that said he should just force Jordan and Cole to move in with him. Even he knew, as painfully practiced in the fine art of falling dangerously head-over-heels as he was, that a month was not enough time to get to know someone. Nor was it enough time to decide he could be a daddy, even part-time.

  He stared down at the income statement he was reviewing and pushed it away. Then he turned his gaze to the telephone on his desk and willed it to ring.

  It didn't.

  Forty minutes later however, when he'd finally retrained his thoughts back on to work, it did. And it made him jump in his seat like he'd been stung in the ass. He grabbed the handset so quickly he knocked his paperclip holder and his pen into the far reaches of the office. "Ian James."

  "Meet me for lunch," Aubrey said.

  Disappointment darkened his tone, "I'd love to but I can't—"

  "That wasn't a request, love," Aubrey continued. "It's important."

  "Not as important as what I have planned," Ian told her firmly. "I have to run over to Jordan's and see about—"

  "It can wait," she insisted. "It has to."

  "It really can't …"

  The annoyance in her voice intensified. "Trust me, Ian. It can wait. This won't. You don't have a choice in this."

  Ian sighed. As good a friend as Aubrey was, nothing in her life could possibly take precedence over his need to know what was happening with Jordan and Cole. "Can't you just tell me?" he prompted.

  "Ian, please." He'd never heard Aubrey quite so clipped before. Sarcastic, yes. Caustic, even. But the barely-contained frustration and underlying fury was disconcerting. "If you're not in one of the booths at Fresco's when I show up, my next stop will be your office. And trust me, you don't want anyone overhearing this. You really, really don't."

  She disconnected the phone before he could say anything else. Instant aggravation fell over him and Ian had to fight not to grab a line and call her right back. The only thing that finally convinced him was the knowledge that Aubrey didn't get wound up for no reason. She was the calm one. She was the one that told him not to get upset.

  He dropped the phone and bit his lip. Okay, as much as the fact had the potential to make Ian's brain explode from the worry building within it, Jordan would have to wait.

  *~*~*

  The restaurant was quiet, their booth was private, and from the look on Aubrey's face, that was a very good thing. She'd already been there, standing impatiently and eyeing the clock when Ian arrived. When he'd asked her what the hell was going on, she'd silenced him with a lifted finger and a directive towards the table.

  "I have a story to tell you," she said as they sat across from one another and waited for the waiter to return with a soda water for him and a glass of wine for her.

  "Good to know I hurried over for that," he grumped.

  She began to dig in her purse, a monolith of a thing with shiny clasps and chain-link, and pulled out a forest green folder. "It's a very interesting story," she promised. She set the folder on the table, still closed, and put a finger over her lips as if trying to figure out where to start.

  "Once upon a time," she finally began, "there was a young man."

  "Well, at least you found a way to grab my interest," he teased, frowning when she waved off the joke.

  "This young man had a baby brother that was born with a complicated illness. For reasons undisclosed—perhaps in a fit of teenaged rebellion, perhaps he was angry with his parents, maybe for no other reason than he was having a bad day—this young man decided he was going to leave his parent's home and strike out on his own. Not an unheard-of phenomenon, especially considering the young man was eighteen at the time, but what makes this story interesting is that this young man didn't leave home alone."

  A knot started to form in the upper levels of Ian's stomach.

  "With nothing more than the three hundred and some dollars the young man had in his bank account and a couple of suitcases of clothing …" Aubrey slipped a finger under the cover of the folder, pinched the first piece of paper and pulled it out. She laid it on the table, turned it towards Ian, and slid it closer. "Justin Matthews removed his baby brother from his bed in their parent's home and abducted him."

  Except … it couldn't be, Ian thought. The photo marked "Justin Matthews, Graduation, 2008" was no Justin. The hair might have been longer, curling over shoulders, and the boy a tad more slender, darker even–but the smile and the eyes were unmistakable.

  "Jordan," Ian whispered.

  "For four years, the parents have had no idea where their boys are. The police found Justin's wallet in a mailbox not too far away from where he made the last withdrawal from his bank account. All of his identification was still inside it."

  The next photo turned his way was of two adults, one woman and one man, standing alongside Jordan, ("Justin," his mind corrected and Ian pushed the thought away) at what had to be the same graduation as noted in the first photo. Cap and gown. Blue sky and shining sun. Bright future and happy smiles.

  "The parents," Aubrey told him.

  She paused while Ian struggled to maintain control over his breath. "Justin would be twenty-two. He'll turn twenty-three in November. A Scorpio." She finally smiled. "Never would have believed you to be the type to be attracted to a Scorpio, Ian. I always figured you for a Capricorn kind of person."

  He ignored the tease and pushed the photo back towards Aubrey. "This could be anyone. And there are a lot of twenty-two-year-olds in the world."

  "Funny thing about the brother's illness," Aubrey said, fingering the corner of the folder. "It was a form of autism. A word I'm not familiar with. Asperger's, I believe. It would have been very difficult for Justin to change things in his brother's life. The boy wouldn't adapt well. Not with the issues that are common with the syndrome. He might have been able to get away with switching up his own name, if it was something similar. There's not a lot of name's out there that are similar to Justin, are there? Austin, maybe? Dustin?" She caught Ian's eye. "Jordan."

  Ian's stomach clenched painfully. A fire began to grow in that familiar spot just under his rib cage.

  "But Justin would have a hard time convincing the child to respond to anything other than his own name." Another piece of paper, another photo, and the sounds around them began to dim as Ian stared at it. "Meet Cole Matthews."

  Four years changed the face of a child so much more than the face of a young man, Ian mused. The chubby cheeks were gone, the lips not quite so round and the eyebrows denser, but the blank look in th
e child's eyes was the same. Ian wept without tears, spoke without words, to the younger version of his lover lying in print across the table. "Oh, God, Jordan. What have you done?"

  Ian gritted his teeth, "Where did you find this?"

  "They have this nifty thing called the Internet," Aubrey told him. "It's an amazing little tool. You'd be surprised what you can find."

  "How do you know it's reliable?" Ian asked, drawing the papers together and taking a long, hard look at each one. "Anyone can say anything …"

  Aubrey smiled at him but her voice softened. "These come directly from the National Missing Person's Registry, love. I think they're pretty reliable."

  The fire in Ian's guts grew to blaze. He breathed out a long, drawn breath. "Have you told anyone?"

  A cheery, chipper voice broke into their conversation. "Are we ready to order then?" and Ian resisted the urge to smash the waiter's face into the table in retaliation.

  "We are not," Ian said through gnashed teeth. "We'll need some time."

  A knowing look crossed the waiter's face and Ian almost laughed violently at the "Oh, God, she must be breaking up with him" expression. He couldn't though. For fear that opening his mouth to such a degree would force the burn from his guts up through his throat and have him literally breathing fire.

  When the waiter had apologized and walked away, Aubrey looked up and caught his eyes. "I haven't. Yet. But I will. I just wanted you to know first."

  "Aubrey …" Panicked desperation made the word tremble. Ian swallowed hard and tried again. "Aubrey, you can't. You don't understand. There has to be a reason. Jordan wouldn't … Justin wouldn't …" He had to pause and taste the new name on his tongue. It was bitter.

  "Not without a cause. Maybe there was abuse. Or … something … I don't even …" Ian's right fist went to his guts and he pressed where the internal burn was consuming him. "He's a good father."

  Aubrey shook her head. "He may very well be a good brother, Ian. But he is not that boy's father. And if there was a problem, then there was a right way to resolve it." She tapped the papers on the table. "This wasn't it. This was abduction."