Chapter 2

Quinn watched as she practically dragged Drum out of the place: he shook his head, but before he could say anything, our dinners were brought out and placed before us.

“Would you like some grated cheese, signori?”

“Ah, let’s live dangerously. Knock yourself out,” I told the waiter, and he sprinkled cheese over my dinner like snow.

Quinn laughed. “All right, why not? I’ll have some on my pasta.” He signaled when he was satisfied with the amount.

“Buon appetito.” The waiter left us.

I picked up my fork. “Y’know, Quinn, I wish I knew what Major Drum has against me. I’m really a nice guy.”

“You are, Mark.” He appeared to be categorizing the shellfish in his stew. ”Did you notice he mentioned your ass? He does seem to have a fixation with it. Quite frankly, I think there’s a latent lust for you under all that hostility.”

I started choking on my eggplant parmigiana. “Oh, Jesus, I’m going to have nightmares over that for months.”

“Well, if you do have nightmares, I’ll just have to wake you up.” He frowned for a second. I wondered if there was something in his meal that didn’t please him, and I started looking for our waiter. But then Quinn fished a mussel out of the bowl before him and loosened the flesh from its shell with one of those tiny forks. He tipped his head back and let the contents of the shell slide into his mouth. He swallowed thoughtfully before touching his napkin to his lips. “What would be a good way to wake you up, babe?”

As if he didn’t know. I growled at him and forked up a bit of eggplant.

“Are you free next weekend?” His foot went back to rubbing—no, not rubbing, caressing—my ankle. “I’ve got tickets for The Phantom on Saturday evening; I can give them to Mother if I have to, but I’d rather not. I promised you.”

“Yeah, I remember.” When he’d taken me to this restaurant for my birthday, almost seven months before. “I’ll check my schedule.” But I intended to make sure I was free.

* * * *

I spent most weekends with Quinn when I wasn’t working, and most times we wound up in his town house in Alexandria. Almost as much of my wardrobe was in his closet as there was in my own in my apartment in DC.

But this time I brought a garment bag with me. It contained a three-piece black suit, a white dress shirt, and a black silk tie.

They were all new. The little tailor at Putting on the Ritz nearly had an orgasm when he realized I was going to buy a made-to-measure suit.

“I like the way you look in that suit, Mark.”

“Thanks, Quinn. You’re looking pretty edible yourself.”

His suit could have been the twin of mine, although his shirt was pale green and his tie a darker shade of green. Color was high on his cheekbones as he approached me.

He stood toe to toe with me, and he pulled my head down to lean his forehead against mine. His breath was hot on my mouth. “I want to strip that suit off you and fuck you over the couch.”

My cock began to swell. Usually I was the one who fucked him. I reached for him, and my fingers flexed on his hip. “But…?”

He sighed. “It would make us late.”

“We could be fashionably late.”

For a moment he wavered but then said, “Don’t tempt me.”

“Spoilsport. Okay, fine, Quinn. We’ll just consider the entire evening as foreplay, then. But when we get home….” I sauntered out of the door ahead of him, leaving my promise hanging.

* * * *

I’d planned to torment him throughout the entire play, but our seats were in the orchestra, it was a sold-out performance, and fuck if I didn’t get caught up in the action on stage.

I poked him with my elbow. “That isn’t the Phantom,” I whispered, indicating the red-costumed, skeleton-faced figure coming down the stairs at the masquerade. “Watch the way he walks. That guy is shorter too. Jesus, those people are stupid.”

“No one’s ever seen him. Not and lived.”

“I’ll bet the Wardrobe Mistress has. How would she get all those letters she keeps whipping out of her pocket?” I tapped my fingers restlessly on the arm of my seat.

Quinn placed his hand over them. “Mark, you’re supposed to suspend disbelief.”

“Yeah, well, they are stupid.”

“Yeah, well”—he squeezed my hand—“suspend.”

* * * *

“Did you enjoy it, Mark?” We’d stopped for an after-theater drink and now were on the road back to Quinn’s town house.

“Yeah, it was pretty good.”

I had to feel sorry for the Phantom. Poor bastard. He was ready to give that woman his heart, and what did she do? She went sailing through the Labyrinth with that “insolent boy,” Raoul. So, okay, he had a thing about killing people who crossed him. That didn’t make him a bad person. What the Phantom should have done when he had Raoul swinging in that noose was yank his pants down and fuck the idea out of him that he was the one for Christine. Then he should have fucked her, and then he should have thrown them both out of his Opera house.