It Takes Practice Read online

  He looked—not old, but mature.

  Nathan could have punched him for that, only the longer he looked, the more he remembered the times that hadn’t been all bad. No. The times when he’d thought himself the happiest man alive, even with Fitz thin, wiry and ready to leap into action at the craziest plan anyone could imagine—

  Maybe that last bit hadn’t changed much.

  Nathan stood fast in the doorway. “You want the honest truth?”

  Fitz shrugged as if inviting Nathan to bring it on.

  “I expected that the next time I saw you—if I ever did—it’d be as a sidebar on the eleven o’clock news.”

  “That’s harsh.” Fitz cocked his head to the right. “What kind of report? Darwin Award winner? I was a fuck-up back then, sure, but I’d at least have tried to be worthy of a solemn face from the anchor.”

  “Not funny.”

  “Not really supposed to be.” Now Fitz met Nathan stare for stare. So he was taking this seriously too. It wasn’t as satisfying as Nathan might have thought it would be.

  “We need to discuss this.”

  Fitz nodded. Nathan could already see him setting his jaw. Stubborn. That was another thing Fitz had been, and it looked like he still was.

  “Everything all right over there?”

  Nathan’s muscles jerked with the shock of a voice not belonging to himself or Fitz. He’d always heard good fences made good neighbours. If they were seven feet high and soundproof, maybe. His, let the record show, were not. His next-door neighbour Mrs Pinna had put in an appearance when he hadn’t been paying attention, ostentatiously sweeping her driveway free of falling leaves.

  Normally he liked her, but the old woman was drawn to gossip. Just in case there had been any doubt about her actual purpose, Nathan couldn’t help but notice she’d accidentally started drawing the broom across the grass.

  Nathan exhaled, counting to ten. He was a doctor. He had responsibilities. He did not care to make the news himself, not even the local grapevine, though it might be far too late already. What did she need to stare for? He dated. Sometimes. Every now and then.

  At least once since he’d moved in. Hadn’t he?

  “Dr Rey, dear,” Mrs Pinna pressed, “don’t tell me this handsome young man is our new nurse? Oh, my.”

  In front of him—close enough to touch, to want to kiss despite it all—Fitz’s lips twitched in the hint of a grin that hit Nathan with the force of a fist to the gut. He remembered that smile, as crisp and tempting as late summer apples.

  For the love of… Fine. No choice.

  “You’re right, we need to talk, but not outside.” Nathan held the door open, making the offer he’d come to believe he’d never give again in this lifetime. “Come in, Fitz.”

  Chapter Two

  Fitz slipped around him, bags on his shoulder, for all the world as if he were a welcome guest Nathan had invited to crash a few days while his roommates partied too loudly for even his taste. There’s another memory for you. Wasn’t this how he had teased his way in the first time, way back when?

  Nathan didn’t move, except to shut the door. If he budged too far from his spot, he didn’t know what he’d do, but odds were it wouldn’t end well for either of them. He could feel the slow, bubbling boil of anger rising—an anger at rapid war with a rush of memories of Fitz’s body moving past him, against him, in him.

  If he’d had some warning, he’d— Hell. Nathan had no idea what might have come to pass then.

  He pressed his back to the smooth coolness of the door and waited to see what Fitz had in mind. He’d let Nathan know soon enough.

  He could tell Fitz sensed his mood—Fitz shifted gears, suddenly far too casual in stowing his bags in a corner of the front room. His glance at the résumé lying in plain sight couldn’t have been more transparent. “I wondered if you’d wondered,” he said. He looked wary.

  Nathan waited.

  “Guess I can stop wondering. The name didn’t ring any bells for you?” Fitz asked. “Really?”

  “Interesting thing about that,” Nathan said, his voice tight. “After seven years you develop an immunity to looking up every time a Mike Smith crosses your path, and funnily enough it doesn’t take nearly that long for you to stop hoping it’s the man who walked out on you.”

  “Huh.” Fitz picked up the résumé and flipped through its pages. “There’s a list of all the colleges I went to.”

  Nathan’s temper frayed, wearing dangerously thin. “Some things never change.”

  “Say again?” Fitz’s head came up.

  “This is just what you always used to do.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ‘What?’ me. You did that too. Ignore anything you don’t want to hear and act as you damn well please.”

  Fitz spread his hands wide apart. “I’m talking. You’re the one who wanted to talk.”

  “And you’re the one who misinterpreted that. On purpose. Not for the first time, is what I’m thinking, so let’s start again. What the hell are you doing here? Talk fast and talk good, and don’t unpack, because you’re not staying.”

  “Two out of three isn’t bad. I am staying.” Fitz planted his feet firmly on the floor. “You need me.”

  Nathan’s mouth dropped open. “Say that again?”

  “I read the letters from the agency. You needed me a week ago. You needed someone the night your regular lady ran off. I’m here now. Ergo, you need me.”

  “That’s thin, Fitz.”

  “So are you.” Fitz gave him a once-over that irritated and inflamed things best left alone. “You’re not eating.”

  “I think you gave up the right to worry about me a long time ago.” There. A shirt draped over the top of the couch. Clean? No.

  The corner of Fitz’s mouth lifted. “You still have trouble with wandering clothes? Here.” He knelt to dig in his bag. “I’ve got a spare set of scrubs. The pants would be too short, but the shirt ought to fit.”

  Nathan refused to take the wisp of blue fabric Fitz held out to him. He had to. Give in once and give in for good. That had been Fitz then, and he doubted it could possibly be different now.

  Fitz tossed the shirt at him regardless. “I had my reasons for what I did.”

  “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “Good ones.”

  “Somehow I doubt that even more.”

  Fitz nodded at the shirt in Nathan’s hands, waiting patiently for him to take what was on offer. Nathan did not miss the metaphor dropped with all the subtlety of an anvil. Fitz conceded that to him with a slight tip of the head when he said, “You don’t want me here. I get that. Why do you think it took me this long?”

  “Ask me why I think you left in the first place.”

  Fitz grimaced. “Because I’m an ass,” he said. “I told you, time and again, I wasn’t a good guy.”

  “And yet you’re here, to be my nurse now, and I should trust you why?”

  “Because that was seven fucking years ago.”

  “And that’s your argument?”

  “You didn’t let me finish.” Some of the old fire sparked to life in Fitz. Nathan remembered how he used to blaze when he was angry, truly angry…and what the sex had been like after a fight. Swear to God, sometimes he’d picked a fight just for the fun of making up.

  Fitz pressed on. “You knew me then. You need to know that I’m good at my job now. That’s why I’m here.”

  “If you think I…” Nathan shook his head. “Be straight with me. I’m owed that much. Taking a job isn’t the only reason you’re here now, is it?”

  “It was never your fault,” Fitz said, startling Nathan into silence. “What I did, I did for you.”

  Right. Nathan could read between those lines. He scoffed. “Hurt me more than it hurt you, is that what you were thinking?”

  “I was thinking the last thing you needed was a halfway-to-alcoholic millstone stoner looped around your neck next to your stethoscope, dragging you down. And don’t you dare te
ll me that thought didn’t occur after I’d been gone a while.”

  Nathan’s mouth snapped shut.

  Fitz rubbed his face, the only sign of stress he betrayed. Otherwise? Steady and smooth. Hell-bent on pursuing his course. “I wasn’t a good guy. I’ve tried to become one.”

  “You—”

  Fitz didn’t let him finish. “Here. See for yourself. You got the résumé from the agency, but here’s the stuff that matters.” He unzipped a side pocket on the bag he’d brought in and drew out a fat, manila folder, then tossed the folder at Nathan. Nathan caught it reflexively. “Letters of recommendation. Photos of people’s grandkids. Newspaper articles. Operation Smile. Haiti, after the quakes. I spent a year there. Learning. Becoming the man I wanted to be. For you.”

  Nathan paged through the material. His brain didn’t want to process what it saw. He knew he should have been impressed. With anyone else, he would have been startled at how much one man had accomplished. Qualified? Good at what he did? And then some, plus experience with the kind of patients that made up the most of Nathan’s clientele.

  It couldn’t be denied he needed a nurse. May Chelle forgive him, but a male nurse would be his choice. His patients might be laid up in bed, sometimes, but more often they were stubborn with age, still surprisingly strong and uncooperative. And then there were the times his Jeep got stuck in the mud after it rained.

  Fitz was perfect on paper.

  But—

  “It wasn’t what I’d planned on,” Fitz said. He took the scrub shirt from Nathan and smoothed out the suitcase wrinkles. “But if I’d walked up to you out of the blue, would you have given me this much, or just slammed the door in my face?”

  He had a point. He knew it, too.

  “All I’m asking for is a chance,” Fitz said. He offered the shirt a second time, and faced Nathan man to man. “A chance to say this, at least—you’ve never meant any less to me than you did back then, and you meant the world. Understand that.”

  Understand that? It knocked the breath out of Nathan, but Fitz never had done anything halfway, had he? “I ought to turn you over my knee.”

  “If that’s what you want, I won’t say no.” A submissive-sounding statement, but Fitz was without mercy. He pushed forward, into Nathan’s space. “Anything you tell me except ‘no’ without a chance to prove myself, I’ll be good for.”

  “And after that?” Nathan’s mouth had gone cotton-dry.

  “If you give me one chance, maybe you’ll give me two. A chance at what, I don’t know. It’s up to you.”

  Nathan could smell the cleanness of soap and the ozone tang of winter winds that clung to Fitz’s skin, which seemed as soft and smooth as it’d always looked.

  Want. Hunger. More.

  His throat dried. “It’s never up to me when you’re around.”

  “Yes,” Fitz said, closer still, drawing nearer all the while. God. He took Nathan’s breath away. To look at him was to lust for him. “You might want to kick me out on my ass right now, but you need me.”

  Nathan could read between those lines, too.

  “Or is that the problem?” Fitz touched him. The past and the present collided. If Nathan shut his eyes he would be able to recall the exact smell of the tile and the soap from that shower. The last time they’d been this close… “I know exactly how you’re reacting to me. I can react to you too, if you want.” Fitz ghosted his fingertips across Nathan’s chest. “Seven years looks good on you, and I haven’t forgotten a thing.”

  “No?”

  “Oh no,” Fitz breathed, coming as close as he possibly could without—

  But of course he didn’t stop there. Nathan shut his eyes tight when Fitz’s lips touched his, and the past burst fully free of the makeshift lockbox he’d sealed it so imperfectly in.

  Being with Fitz was the same as Nathan remembered—contained chaos. Playful and playfully dominant, clearly meaning to cheer him up as well as to say Hello, I remember you. I missed you.

  Fitz had been a brilliant kisser in days gone by, and he hadn’t lost his touch. His lips were soft, the bow and arch of the top and the velvet fullness of the bottom slipping open on a breath. The way he shivered when Nathan licked at the separation, instinct and memory and impulse his guides, that was the same too.

  Fitz’s sensual shudder travelled from his lips to the arch of his throat, and to the width of his firm shoulders. Nathan wanted to follow it with his mouth. He moved his hand, from breadth of chest to sleek side, to the narrowness of Fitz’s waist and the dip and rise of his tapered back, the angel-wing angles of his shoulder blades.

  Nathan breathed between Fitz’s lips, drawing Fitz’s air deep inside. He tasted different. Coffee, not beer. Sugar, not hashish. All changed.

  The quivering eagerness for him that he evoked within Nathan was still the same.

  Fitz raked his hand through Nathan’s hair, tousling it up and laughing when Nathan sputtered, silencing him with a kiss. Pressed so close, Nathan could feel the heat from his body, far warmer than any cosy fire in a country hearth.

  Nathan’s knees wanted to give way. He wanted to drop, to… To…

  Fitz beat him there. He dropped to his knees, his fall almost graceful, touching down exactly where they both wanted him. He eased Nathan’s legs apart, making short work of catch and zip, drawing jeans and briefs down his hips. Careful, so careful. Almost gentle, even with both of them knowing full well he wouldn’t take no for an answer if it’d been stencilled on Nathan’s dick—his traitorous, stiff dick, pointing at Fitz as if to say, here, have at it.

  “Shh,” Fitz murmured, though Nathan hadn’t made a sound. He licked around the crown of Nathan’s cock, then blew a cool stream of air across the path his warm tongue had taken. Nathan bit back a curse. He flattened his hands against the wall.

  “I’m not talking,” he said.

  “You just did,” Fitz replied. He slid down the length of Nathan’s shaft and drew off far too slowly, torturing Nathan’s over-sensitised nerves. “Don’t be a gentleman. Grab my hair, if you want. Fuck my face.”

  Nathan gaped at him.

  Fitz laughed, and he should have looked ridiculous on his knees in a set of scrubs, dishevelled from kissing, hard-on tenting his trousers, but he didn’t. Dear God, how he didn’t. “Never hurts to ask. Unless you’re asking to be hurt.” He kneaded Nathan’s hips. “Be rough. Go on. Give it to me good. I deserve it. I want it.”

  Nathan did not growl—Fitz would call him on it—but if Fitz wanted it rough, then by God he’d get it rough. He knotted his fists in Fitz’s hair till his knuckles went white and he had to be hurting the man, but, given the pleased noise Fitz made, apparently he didn’t mind.

  His wicked, clever tongue underscored the fact. And did away with the last of Nathan’s self-control.

  You’re sacrificing too many battles for tactical advantage in a war, Nathan’s logical brain reminded him.

  Getting laid now, his lizard brain responded.

  Fitz, his heart said in a soft echo, the name repeating, overlapping in ripples. Fitz, Fitz, Fitz, Fitz—

  Fitz closed his eyes as he bobbed his head in earnest. As if he wasn’t only trying to get on Nathan’s good side by getting him off. As if he was enjoying this. He sucked wet and messy—saliva dripping down his chin. “Never forgot the way you taste,” he rasped, wiping his chin before going back for more. He nuzzled Nathan’s groin and moaned. Nipped with the lightest touch and drew the flat of his tongue over Nathan’s balls.

  What the hell, what the ever-loving hell…? “Oh God,” Nathan gasped. “There. Right there.”

  Fitz’s laughter reverberated against electrified nerve endings. Nathan barely held off. Barely.

  “It’s okay if you don’t last long,” Fitz said. “I won’t.” His lips were swollen and pink, his mouth debauched, as if they’d been at this all day. Nathan had forgotten how filthy-gorgeous he could be, but now—

  Oh, he remembered.

  Nathan covered his eyes wit
h one arm. His fingers ached from holding on so tightly. He gritted his teeth to keep silent and fought against the urge to come so soon. He’d show Fitz stamina, he’d—

  But there was another thing about Fitz—he played by no man’s rules. With neither a word nor a warning, he took Nathan deep into his throat, humming, or purring. Nudging deeper, Nathan’s cockhead bumping the ridged palate, then the back of his throat, and more, God, more. Tightness constricting around him when Fitz swallowed, working his throat in sinuous motions. And that wasn’t enough for him, no sir. He pressed a finger behind Nathan’s balls, hitting his sweet spot from the outside, and when a man like Fitz with Fitz’s elegant fingers pulled that move—

  Nathan knocked his head against the wall when his orgasm punched its way through him and left him gutted, breathless. And still coming, emptying his balls of all the spunk he’d saved up from being too frustrated or too tired to jerk off.

  And still Fitz clung stubbornly to Nathan, Fitz’s throat working as he swallowed. He had a hand between his legs, jerking himself off hard and fast.

  Nathan didn’t know why he did what he did. Why he let go of Fitz’s hair and gripped his shoulder, and not-quite-groaned, not-quite-begged, not-quite-ordered, but Fitz let it happen. Came willingly as Nathan pulled him to his feet. Hissed at Nathan’s knocking his hand away from his dick and replacing it with a tighter grip. Nathan shuddered. He remembered the feel of this flesh so well. Changed yet not changed. A man, not a boy. Grown into himself, grown no less gorgeous, no less dangerous—

  Fitz panted, butting his head against Nathan’s shoulder. “Come on,” he muttered. Still goading. Or was it begging? “Please. Dreamed about it, dreamed about you, swear to God you have no idea how much— Nathan, love, come on—”

  Fitz rattled their bones, both sets, when he let go. So much for the clean jeans, Nathan thought, dazed. Fitz soaked them with his cum, messy spurts dripping through their fingers.