Elliot turned that over in his mind. Fair enough. He had said that at one point. He said bitterly, “I was in shock.”

“I know that now. At the time, you didn’t seem like you were in shock. You were ice cold. And stubborn as a goddamned bloodstain. You would not be moved. You wouldn’t even talk about it.”

“So it’s my fault?”

He stopped, astonished, when Tucker’s hand groped across the sheet for his, interlaced their fingers. “I’m sorry,” Tucker said.

Elliot opened his mouth. Closed it. Whatever he had expected…it wasn’t that.

Tucker let go of his hand. There was a surge of movement, bedsprings squeaking, as he turned over. Elliot could make out the gleam of his eyes in the darkness. “I’ve wanted to say this to you for over a year. I’m sorry, Elliot. Truly sorry. Regardless of what was going on with you, I didn’t handle it right. I…was a bastard. I know. I was angry.”

Again, Elliot started to speak, but Tucker cut him off. “I know it’s not logical and I don’t expect you to understand. I…didn’t want it to be true. I wanted to believe that if you’d try harder, man up a little, everything would go back to normal. We could be like we had been.”

Man up, Elliot.

Elliot turned sharply to stare out the pale bars of moonlight through the slats of the window blinds. It was what he had wanted to believe too, but it was a dream he’d had to let go of fast—the physical evidence being compelling.

Tucker seemed to be waiting for him to speak. He said finally, “There was never a chance I’d make it back into the field.”

“I know. I knew it then too. But I was afraid that if you left the Bureau, it would be over between us. That there wasn’t enough between us—for you—to keep us together. That seemed like what you were telling me.”

Elliot turned his head, trying to read Tucker’s shadowy face. In seventeen months of brooding over possible explanations, this one had never crossed his mind. In fact, he was so sure that Tucker’s rejection had been based on not wanting to be saddled with a cripple that he couldn’t seem to process this new information.

“Do you have any idea what it was like for me? I nearly lost my fucking leg. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to walk again.”

“I know.”

“Maybe I was difficult. Maybe I did shut down. Push you away. I needed you. As a friend if nothing else.” Elliot broke off as, to his horror, emotion clogged his throat. That would be the final fucking straw. To break down in front of Tucker.

“I know,” Tucker whispered. “There’s nothing you can say to me I haven’t said to myself.”

Elliot wiped impatiently at the burning behind his eyes. “Really? Let’s give it a shot.”

“And then you refused to consider a desk job.”

“A desk job.” Elliot punched the leather padded headboard. “Would you have been happy with a desk job?”

“No. I wouldn’t.”

“Then—”

“At least you’d have still been in the Bureau.” Tucker’s voice was subdued. “We’d have still been—still had that in common, something we could share.”

“If all we ever had in common was the goddamned job, we didn’t have enough in common.” Elliot’s response was automatic. What he was really thinking was that it had never occurred to him that their relationship was anything more than sex for Tucker. It was still hard to take in what Tucker was trying to tell him. From the time they’d started, Elliot had warned himself not to take it seriously. It seemed he’d succeeded too well.

Tucker leaned forward, his breath warm against Elliot’s face. “I think we had more in common than that.”

Elliot shook his head angrily.

“I guess I thought maybe if we had more time, you’d figure it out too.”

What did that even mean? Had Tucker really not figured out how much Elliot had cared? How badly it had hurt when Tucker had turned on him? “You had a funny way of showing it. In my book ‘Pull your shit together and be grateful you still have a fucking desk job’ doesn’t translate to ‘I think we have a future.’”

“Maybe I was partly hoping I could snap you out of it if I made you angry enough. Pushed you hard enough. I’m not sure anymore. You didn’t give me a chance to fix it, Elliot. You threw me out and then you wouldn’t see me again, wouldn’t take my calls, wouldn’t answer my emails or my letters.”

“I was kind of busy. You know, learning to walk again.”

“No one would let me near you. I knew I screwed up. I tried to tell you.”

“It was too late.”

Tucker fell silent.

Infuriatingly, Elliot’s eyes kept filling with wet, his sinuses burning, his sodden lungs shuddering. In all these months he had never cried and now he was half drowning with emotion—and the most appalling thing of all was the way his ears strained to hear over his physical distress what else Tucker might say, to hear if he had anything final to add.

“Is it?” Tucker asked eventually into that tight-strung stillness.

All that wordless searching and that was what he came up with? Typical Tucker. Throwing it right back on Elliot. His lips parted. Yes, it was too late. It was seventeen months too late. That’s what he wanted to say, what his hurt pride goaded him to say. But if he said it now, it would be the end.

This was it. This was the crossroads. He thought he’d left it miles behind, that the decision had been made for better or worse, but as though he’d traveled in a circle, here it was again: the turning point—a second chance if he wanted it.

He needed to say something.

The best he could manage was a shuddering sigh. To his astonished relief Tucker reached for him, hauled him into his arms.

“You don’t have to answer. You don’t have to decide now. We could…see where it goes from here.” Tucker’s voice was husky against Elliot’s ear. “It was good between us, Elliot. You know it was. We both know it was. We just needed more time.”

Maybe. Maybe it was true. It startled him how much he wanted to believe it.

When Tucker’s hand reached for him, Elliot thrust up into that familiar, knowing grip, and when Tucker’s hungry, hot mouth covered his, Elliot opened to his kiss.

Chapter Twenty-One

In two swift moves they kicked free of shorts and pajama bottoms, rolling back into each other’s arms. Elliot’s nerves were humming like the wind singing through wires as Tucker’s hand moved on him with easy expertise, a warm, slow glide—the right amount of pressure, the right angle, the right rhythm. He flicked his thumb over the moisture pearling at the tip of Elliot’s cock, making use of nature’s own lubricant, and that incredible combination of salty slickness and rough friction as Tucker’s hand pumped him harder, faster, sent Elliot’s heart flying.

Just the astonishment of being naked together again, of putting hands on each other again. There was something about it, the concession of placing your trust—literally your balls—in another man’s hands. Oh, and Christ the feel of that hard, calloused hand cupping that delicate sack while Tucker’s other hand made those long stroking slides.

Elliot moaned.

“Yeah?” Tucker asked breathlessly.

Elliot’s own breath was ragged. “Yeah. Oh yeah.”

There was just one problem. It had been too long. Way too long. Embarrassingly, Elliot’s body was reacting like an adolescent boy’s. The concept of pacing was about as far removed as metamathematics, and as much as he wanted to do the civilized thing and at least pretend he cared what was happening with Tucker, his body was like a locomotive racing toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

Somehow when he tried to articulate that, the sound that came out was a helpless, inarticulate request for just the opposite.