Love for the Cold-Blooded. Or: The Part-Time Evil Minion’s Guide to Accidentally Dating a Superhero.

Chapter One

Be confident as you stride towards your ultimate destiny.

Everything started with mushrooms. Velvet pioppinis, to be exact. Pat had never even heard of those before, but apparently they were actually a thing, rather than the off-color joke they sounded like.

Personally, Pat had always kinda felt that a mushroom was a mushroom was a mushroom. Well… obviously not when you were wondering whether to dry and smoke it, or to simmer it in a nice cognac sauce. But when it came to mushrooms on pizza, the choice was pretty binary: take ‘em or leave ‘em. Right? But no. To judge by the contents of the mushroom drawer in Nicholas Andersen’s (aka Silver Paladin’s) industrial-sized stasis fresher, mushrooms were a science unto themselves. There were clamshell mushrooms. Truffles. Maitakes. Shiitakes. King oysters. Chanterelles and portobellos and —

The mansion’s AI pinged at him again. Mr. Andersen has requested a pizza with velvet pioppini mushrooms, chorizo, parma ham, smoked duck, and an extra portion of aged gouda cheese. Delivery is to take place fifteen minutes after the order. We are at six point four minutes. Please confirm.

Yeah, yeah, I’m on it. Keep your virtual shirt on. And by the way, dude, Andersen has no taste. Way too much meat, seriously.

The AI ignored him, which was not surprising because it couldn’t hear him. It continued to fill the room with the soft throbbing sound that signaled an urgent task awaited doing, and someone had better get on it double-quick. For all that it was quiet, the throbbing was pretty annoying, and also managed to convey an astounding level of judgment.

Pat supposed he couldn’t blame the mansion’s virtual manager for being a judgy wanker. What could you expect from a being when the closest thing it had to a parent liked to dress up in quantum armor and fly about being all self-righteous and heroic? That kind of thing was bound to scar a person. (Virtual entity. Whatever.)

Aha — score! Velvet pioppini mushrooms. Pat fished the neatly labeled box from the farthest corner of the fresher drawer, set his prize on the counter with a triumphant flourish, and sauntered over to the AI interface at the end of the kitchen island. Hitting the ‘confirm order’ button shut the thing up at long last.

Another minute later, he’d cajoled the AI into putting €linore’s new album back on. The mansion had a wicked sound system, even down here in the night kitchen, and with a properly cool soundtrack, work was a snap. Pat bopped rhythmically around the kitchen as he snagged one of the prepared pizza dough rounds from the stasis fresher and spread it with the chef’s special sauce. Do it right, go all night, bi di bip bip di bip bip! He executed a neat turn as he sprinkled on way too much cheese and danced around the central kitchen island while carefully distributing the assembled toppings. Turn up the sound! It all comes round!

Pop it all into the hot stone pizza oven for a quick bake, just long enough for Pat to do a dance-through of the next song on the playlist. Slide the pizza into the box…

Yeah. Billionaire, genius scientist and famous superhero Nicholas Andersen liked to have his middle-of-the-night in-house pizza served in cheap cardboard take-out boxes. Whatever; Pat didn’t judge. He figured that when you had as much money as three major governments, you got to do pretty much whatever you wanted. Besides, pizza boxes were pretty cool. You could throw the crusts and any weird icky bits on the lid, and when you were done you just closed it all up again and let the leftovers congeal in peace. Convenient. Billionaire superhero geniuses were just normal guys in the end, right?

Except, of course, that billionaire superhero geniuses had a personal five-star chef to prep all the ingredients for their midnight pizza experience, the stasis field to keep everything nice and fresh… and the night manager to prepare the pizza according to the ten-page instruction manual, which detailed exactly how it was to be assembled, baked and cut in order to conform to said billionaire’s personal preferences.

Pat added a careful sprinkle of fresh herbs to the perfectly cut pizza before boxing it up and arranging it in the dumbwaiter. A bowl of lemon water and several snowy linen napkins, silver cutlery, a long-stemmed glass, and a bottle of red wine that probably cost more than several years’ worth of Pat’s salary — and it was done.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s another beautiful pizza goal for Patrick West! He shoots, he scores!

Pat high-fived the AI interface, and then high-fived it again with his other hand because he’d missed the ‘delivery ready’ button the first time around. The AI paused the music in order to ping acknowledgment, proceeding to purr contentedly as the dumbwaiter’s steel doors whizzed shut. Another instant, and the contents were whisked off to their destination.

Unsurprisingly, the AI neglected to start up €linore again. Pat took this as a passive-aggressive comment on his taste. Whatever — Pat wanted to study now, anyway.

He quickly typed up the pizza event and sent the account off to the mansion’s database. Then, he tidied up and settled down at the small table in the corner, kicking up his feet comfortably. The huge chromium coffee machine was just within reach, if he tipped back the chair. He’d perfected this maneuver his first two nights and now hardly even thought about it, balancing on two legs of the chair like a pro while he stretched back to mash the button with his cup, quickly swerving to catch the resulting stream of coffee.

Right, then. Back to the drawing board. Or rather, the books; he wasn’t at the drawing board stage yet, though he’d already put his name on the waiting list for Urban Design Studio I next semester. It was History and Theory of for now, though. Which, no problem there. Pat dug that stuff, especially environmental theory, which was wicked cool.

He’d just sunk his mental teeth into a particularly recalcitrant article on environmental management (the author appeared to think he could score points by wrapping up simple concepts in impenetrable phrasing) when the AI chimed another demand at him.

Direct unclassified request by principal, location private laboratory. Recording available. Please press 1 to play and 2 to repeat playback. Was it Pat, or did the AI’s pleasantly bland voice sound a bit perkier than usual? Maybe it got bored during the night shift, when there was nothing much to do but cater to Andersen’s predictable midnight pizza cravings.

It might well have just been Pat, though, because: Cool, his first unclassified request! So far, the most exciting thing that had happened on one of his shifts was Andersen’s unprecedented request for mousse au chocolat. This job was a front-row seat to the wild nights of the obscenely wealthy, seriously.

So, send up a guy, said the recording. The sound quality was crystal clear, the voice unmistakable, even if Pat had so far only heard it on TV. He replayed the message twice, but there was no more information to be had. Andersen wanted to talk to someone in person. Maybe he had some kind of dire pioppini emergency he could only adequately convey face to face.

The official manual How to Take Care of the Rich and Famous went on about this kind of thing in three hundred pages of tiny print. Not that Pat had read it, of course, but Suze (officially Assistant House Manager Susan Wainwright, aka AHM Wainwright or Ma’am to you, Mr. West) had held a stern speech about it, too. Plus there’d been that one-week training seminar which had basically boiled down to ‘get it done, stat, and be pretty, neat, and preferably invisible while you do it’. Rule Number One was, simply: Whatever Andersen wants, make it happen.

Incidentally, Rule Number Two also applied: Don’t question. (In extreme cases of lack of information, phrase your inquiry in a way that makes it clear you are at fault for failing to read the rich guy’s mind.)

Pat wasn’t sorry to get a break from this weirdo author’s convoluted sentence structure, that was for sure. His brain had gotten all knotted up trying to follow the man’s train of thought. Plus, Pat would get to see the lab, and come on, who wouldn’t want to see Silver Paladin’s lab? Pat was only human.

~~~~~

"On an uninhabited planet that can sustain human life, with only the tools they could fashion themselves from whatever raw materials they found at their disposal, said the guy in the faded Ghost Matter (Ghost Matter? really?) sweatshirt. Given an equal number of opponents and an inescapable necessity of conflict. Who would win — astronauts or cavemen?"

Pat had to laugh, the question was that dumb. What, are you shitting me? Cavemen, dude. That’s a total no-brainer.

Andersen looked different than he did on TV. Granted, he was usually on TV in the Silver Paladin get-up, all skin-tight quantum armor, mirrored visor, and glowing force fields. But Pat had seen him give interviews as himself, too, and somehow he’d assumed the dude was… whatever, he didn’t even know. Andersen wasn’t short or anything (in fact, he was probably half a head taller than Pat, which made him pretty damn tall by anyone’s standards). Young for a rich scientist-type dude; maybe a handful of years older than Pat, but not ancient. He looked pretty built, too, as befitted one of the world’s foremost superheroes. His shoulders even strained the sweatshirt a little.

It was just, he looked so normal. Right down to the half-annoyed, half-startled look he was wearing right now, and the way he was eyeing Pat as though he wasn’t certain whether or not he’d heard right. Pat got that look a lot, so he recognized it right away, even on a face he’d previously only seen in ‘public speech’ mode.

Hey, come on. Pat rolled his eyes. It was a dumb question. Cavemen weren’t any less intelligent than astronauts are. Homo sapiens sapiens, man. There’s no diff, if you’re talking evolution. But if you’re talking skills and knowledge, whoa. That’s where the cavemen shine. They’re used to working with low-tech tools they make themselves, right? And they know how to survive in that kind of environment and make it work for them. Meanwhile, astronauts are used to flying around in technical constructs getting all their food in stasis bags, literally relying on fancy-schmancy tech even for breathing.

Fancy-schmancy, Andersen said, slowly.

Which was when the backdrop of equipment in the hangar-like laboratory came into sudden, sharp focus in Pat’s mind.

Ooops. In the cavemen v. astronauts scenario, there wasn’t much question which side of the divide Silver Paladin — with his force fields and stasis shields, power lances and other high-tech gizmos — would be on.

Pat could feel his face heating under Andersen’s stare. The dude had really dark eyes, and he could stare like nobody’s business. Like he was going to set you on fire with the power of sheer derision or something.

But come on. If he couldn’t handle the truth, he shouldn’t have asked, should he? So Pat shook off the brief touch of embarrassment, shrugged lightly, and grinned. Totally no contest, man. Astronaut shish kebab. His grin broadened, acquiring teeth. "Astronaut goulash."

Astronaut… goulash.

Well, what’s your answer, Mr. Techman? Pat made a big deal of looking around the lab, which — okay, wow. Pat wasn’t a physicist or chemist or anything, but this set-up was enough to make even him drool a little, deep down in that part of him that was still the kid who’d wanted to become a mad scientist, before his sisters had gotten their hands on his chemistry set and used up all the good stuff. Let me take a shot in the dark here. In your world of total delusion, the astronauts win?

Seriously, this place was awesome. Daylight-bright and white and silver and crammed with more mysterious devices in various stages of assembly than Pat had seen in any real-life mad scientist’s lab, ever. He wasn’t an expert, but he was pretty sure that was an electron microscope over in the far corner. Not to mention the place was huge, with high ceilings giving it an almost cathedral air. The two far walls were completely mocked up with screens pretending to be windows opening on a blasted alien moonscape.

No wonder Andersen spent pretty much all his spare time here. Pat wouldn’t want to leave, either. The parties you could have in here — and imagine connecting a GameBox to those screens. It’d be like you were right inside the Dungeon of Doom, or drifting through time and space in the Vortex of Ahrd, or prancing in the middle of the Magical Unicorn Herd. (Not that Pat played Dream Prancer Unicorn, of course. Just, as a kid he’d had to practice to make sure his sisters didn’t beat him too often and get smug. Basic sibling rules. And now he had to keep his skills fresh, because that’s what you should do with skills — keep them fresh.)

Pat was pretty sure he’d been gawking for too long. When he looked back to Andersen, the dude was smirking, a self-satisfied little lift to his mouth that destroyed any remaining hint of resemblance he might have had to the heroically square-jawed Silver Paladin persona.

Yeah, sure, Pat said, answering the unspoken boast. Andersen might not have said it aloud, but Pat wasn’t deaf; he’d heard it loud and clear. Very impressive and all. If you had this stuff along, you’d grind those cavemen into a fine powder. Big deal, dude, because without it? Not even goulash. Chowder, with crunchy little science croutons on top.

A short beat of silence followed this pronouncement. There was a distinct judgmental cast to the narrowing of Andersen’s eyes. Pat probably shouldn’t have grinned, at least not quite as broadly as he did, but he couldn’t help it. Total debating slam-dunk.

You’re blond, Andersen said abruptly. Also, you’re short.

Wow, rude much? Rich people really did think they were an entirely different species, didn’t they. For your information, I’m 1.78, which is considerably above average. You, on the other hand, are freakishly tall. But good call on the hair. Stellar observational skills there. I can tell the tales of your intellectual prowess aren’t exaggerated at all.

Andersen gave a disgusted snort, like he was being the bigger man or something. Never mind, it’s fine. What’s your name?

The inept way Andersen was leading the conversation was actually pretty amusing. Obviously the dude didn’t get out much, at least not when he wasn’t dressed all in silver and wrapped in glittery force fields. Gallivanting around smashing things didn’t give you much of a chance to hone your social skills, looked like. Pat. Pat West. Actually Patrick West, but I like Pat, you know? Everyone calls me Pat. Most of the time I don’t even feel like people are talking to me when they call me —

Pat, Andersen said, in exactly the same kind of flat tone he might have used for shut up. My name is Nicholas.

Yeah, I know. Nick.

That netted him another ‘if I was pyrokinetic I would set you on fire with my mind, and if you bug me some more I will spontaneously evolve to become pyrokinetic by sheer force of will’ stare. Nicholas.

No nicknames, huh. Pat might (or might not) have rolled his eyes the tiniest bit. He suspected he needed a bit more practice at the ‘serving humbly and invisibly’ part of this job, but in his defense, Andersen — Nicholas — was making it pretty difficult to take him seriously. Pat’s parents had taught him better than to take superheroes seriously anyway, and right now, wearing that vaguely confused, vaguely pissy expression, the man looked constipated more than anything. It was neither a very imposing nor a very heroic look.

Of course, Pat supposed superheroes got constipated just like everyone else. It just wasn’t the kind of thing you usually associated with them. Unlike awesome powers and booming voices and bulging muscles, and being all one-dimensional, judgy and prone to blasting first and asking questions later.

Anyway. Pat rallied and tried a pleasant smile, gathering himself into an agreeable nod. Sure thing, bro. Clearly Andersen — Nicholas, whatever — was never going to get to the point if left to his own devices, so Pat would have to step in and help him along. So, Nicholas. What can I do for you?

Apparently, the answer to that was ‘stand right there while I take off my sweatshirt, my t-shirt and then my jeans, and in case you were wondering, yes I do work out a lot, thank you for noticing’.

Uhm, said Pat. The bulging muscles stereotype clearly existed for a reason, although ‘bulging’ was kinda the wrong word. Pat would have chosen ‘perfectly sculpted’. You know, if anyone had asked.

Well? said Nicholas.

Which — was that him asking? It certainly looked like the guy was expecting a comment of some kind, considering he was standing there in his boxers, staring at Pat as though Pat was the one behaving like a confirmed nutcase.

‘Perfectly sculpted’ jumped to the tip of Pat’s tongue. He bit it back just in time. No need to give Silver Paladin’s civilian alter ego a swelled head. Gorgeous broad shoulders and ridiculously lickable abdominal muscles notwithstanding.

Pat hmmed thoughtfully, trying hard to look unimpressed, as though people suddenly threw off their clothes around him all the time. Not bad, I guess. Congratulations on the abs. Nice home gym and personal trainer.

Honestly, Pat hated to admit it on principle, but the man seriously deserved to be congratulated for — well, his everything, basically. For all his faults, he sure wasn’t hard on the eyes. Pat couldn’t be blamed if his attention caught a little on the subtle trail of hair beginning just beneath Nicholas’s navel, leading the eye down over his perfectly flat stomach to where his boxers obscured the view. Or the vague outline visible beneath his underwear’s soft fabric. Or the long, lean line of his legs. Or…

When Pat managed to drag his gaze up to the man’s face again, Nicholas was rolling his eyes. Seriously? Dude, spontaneously undress in front of a guy and even crazy rich superheroes had to expect a little ogling.

Still, in a way, Pat’s familiarity with that particular expression — caught halfway between complete exasperation and reluctant amusement — was almost comforting. Familiar and comforting, in fact, in exactly the way the next words out of the man’s mouth were not. Are you going to have sex with me or what?

Yes, said Pat’s mouth, completely without intervention from higher brain functions.

Wait. What?

A moment later, Pat’s mind had caught up with his vocal chords. He boggled in what couldn’t have been a very attractive or intelligent manner (there might have been some bugging eyes, even). Fortunately, Nicholas had turned to the side to fiddle with a control panel of some kind, and so entirely failed to witness the display.

See, the thing was: Pat had no game. Like, no game at all. He had a good excuse for his lack of dating prowess (in fact, he had a bunch of excellent excuses all lined up and ready to go, just ask him), but the whys and wherefores didn’t really signify when it came to end results. Basically, the cold hard bottom line of his 24 years of life experience so far had been that Patrick West sucked rocks when it came to getting laid. He wasn’t ugly or anything, but nobody was ever so eager to fuck him that they spontaneously volunteered.

And now a mostly naked hot guy came right out and asked if Pat was going to have sex with him? Come on, how was that even fair? What was he supposed to say?

Okay, if you wanted to be pedantic about it, Pat guessed that he was pretty definitely supposed to say no. It wasn’t even the Silver Paladin thing, although sleeping with a superhero was plenty skeevy (his mom would disapprove like whoa). It was more the thing where Pat was Nicholas Andersen’s night manager.

Some of the pages of fine print in Pat’s 300 pages of instructions no doubt had a thing or two to say about sleeping with the rich employer (always called ‘the principal’ for some reason, maybe to make Pat feel like he was back in high school). Fraternizing, or whatever, seemed pretty unprofessional. Plus there might be ethical stuff to consider. Plus Assistant House Manager Suze was really keen on having Pat develop what she called a serving heart, and Pat gathered that the serving heart was a loyal and sincere, but politely distant kind of heart. Not, Pat suspected, the kind of heart that was so hard up it would eagerly seize its first chance to jump into bed with its hot employer. (Principal. Whatever.)

Maybe it hadn’t even been a real question — more a hypothetical thing, like the one about the cavemen and astronauts. Sure, it was weird, but for all Pat knew, the nakedness might be purely incidental. Just another weird-ass thing billionaires did that everyone pretended was totally normal, like asking for their gourmet food to be served in take-out boxes.

Except that when Pat trailed after Nicholas to a door in one of the walls not covered in screens, he discovered there was a bedroom attached to the lab, built on the same ridiculously huge and opulent scale as everything in this ridiculously huge and opulent mansion. The bed alone could have hosted a soccer tournament.

Nicholas turned around too quickly for Pat to get his eyes back up front and center. It was possible Pat had been staring at his ass a little while he walked. It was a spectacular ass, round and muscular and definitely worth a lingering stare or two.

He’d never wanted to develop a serving heart, anyway. To be honest, it sounded kinda off-putting. An ‘effortless studying’ heart would be way more useful. Or maybe —

Nicholas stepped right up to him, grabbed two handfuls of Pat’s t-shirt, and unceremoniously dragged it up to tangle about Pat’s head. Pat squawked a little in surprise, but not very loudly, and anyway he was half-smothered in shirt at the time. So really, it was fine. And this was definitely a sign that things were heading in the right direction, where the right direction was the one that included Pat getting laid.

There was a brief, graceless interlude in which Nicholas almost managed to suffocate Pat with his own t-shirt before Pat could struggle free. His baseball cap was knocked off in the process, and he hastily raked his fingers through his flattened curls to fluff them a bit. Maybe he should find the time for a haircut one of these weeks.

Nicholas didn’t seem bothered by Pat’s lack of perfect hair. He was looking at Pat’s bare torso with a narrow-eyed concentration that had Pat nervous for a second — just a second, though. He worked out four times a week and swam almost every day. Plus, his sisters were all gorgeous, so it was obvious he had good genes.

Instead of hunching in on himself, Pat straightened up, chest out and shoulders back as though he were waiting through the university anthem before a swim meet. Pat was pretty sure that his body had never been a contributing factor in his lack of game. He might not be as built as Mr. Silver Paladin here, but he had no reason to hide.

You’re in good shape, Nicholas said, a hint of approval coloring his tone. If he sounded more like a trainer or doctor than a guy who’d just all but torn Pat’s head off along with his clothes, then hey. Pat wasn’t a critic.

Yeah, well. Pat couldn’t help puffing up a little, although he did make a serious attempt not to look too smug. I am on the varsity swim team. His times weren’t as good as he would have liked, what with working to pay the bills and trying to actually study on top of that, but even so. He’d been all about swimming for years before urban design had come along.

Nicholas blinked, looking up from his appraisal of Pat’s physique in obvious surprise. Really?

Okay, what the fuck? Dude. Why shouldn’t I be on the swim team? I’m an awesome swimmer. I have a life, I don’t exist merely for your convenience.

Nicholas blinked several more times in rapid succession. Wow, the man was hopeless when it came to people. I know that, he said at last, speaking slowly, clearly feeling his way through a potential minefield of social blunders. I didn’t mean to imply — it was merely —

Yeah, yeah. Pat made a ‘yadda-yadda’ gesture with one hand, rolled his eyes and decided to move events forward a little. This conversation wasn’t heading for a good place, and besides, talking wasn’t actually what Pat wanted to be doing with a mostly naked hot guy interested in sex.

Nicholas’s shoulders were warm and solid to the touch, powerful muscles shifting beneath Pat’s palms as he ran careful hands over them. He almost got stuck then because he didn’t really know how to go on; in the end, he shrugged to himself and slid his hands down Nicholas’s chest, simply because he’d wanted to touch it from the moment he saw it.

Smooth and hairless like a swimmer’s, not too bulky, muscles bunching beneath Pat’s exploring touch. Nicholas’s nipples were small and hard; his heart beat steadily, but swiftly. Pat was pretty sure his own heart was nowhere as steady.

Nicholas was staring at him, breathing shallowly through his mouth. His eyes really were very dark. When Pat slid one hand down further, over rigid abs to the silken-soft fabric of his boxers, Nicholas’s gaze caught Pat’s own and wouldn’t let him go again.

The weight of his cock lay warm and heavy against Pat’s palm. Nicholas wasn’t all the way hard yet, but he was getting there, and when Pat touched him, he exhaled a long, slow breath. Pat curved his fingers around him experimentally, the boxers’ fabric dragging against his fingertips.

It was a surprisingly stereo experience, so much more than just his hand on someone else’s cock. When he’d imagined this kind of thing, Pat had never thought of adding in the closeness of another man, how he just kind of loomed near, all muscle and warmth and intensity. How Pat could feel Nicholas’s breath on his cheek, smell a faint hint of expensive cologne. The way Nicholas’s breathing was adjusting to match the slow movement of Pat’s fingers on his cock…

How much better would this be without Nicholas’s boxers in the way? Pat was about to find out — except that before he could, Nicholas pushed him away, stepping out of reach. Get undressed and get on the bed.

Seriously? This dude had less game than Pat.

Pat was pretty solid on the fact that tearing off your clothes, asking your date (or whatever) if they were going to have sex with you or what, and then ordering them to strip and hop on the bed was not an acceptable way of seducing someone. Not that he claimed to be an expert — his idea of hook-ups was pretty much entirely theoretical, and strongly influenced by a combination of romantic comedies, porn and bragging fratboys (and, okay, maybe a couple of supernatural romances). But he’d grown up with three older sisters. If anyone else in the entire city had as large an inventory of cautionary ‘date of horror’ tales as him, Pat would be very surprised.

By rights — or, to be exact, by the time-honored West Sister Dating Rules — Pat should have collected his shirt and cap and slammed the door on his way out, preferably vowing bloody vengeance, though that part was optional. What Pat actually did was kick off his sneakers and struggle out of his jeans in preparation for getting on the bed.

Turned out Pat had tragically low standards. Sad, but hardly a surprise.

Whatever, Pat could deal. He’d start working on developing a more lofty set of standards once he’d gotten a good amount of sex in first. Right now, his philosophy was that if low standards were going to get him laid, he’d be there with bells on.

This is a whole lot like bad porn, you realize, Pat said, stepping out of his boxer briefs. He sometimes had trouble shutting up, especially when he was nervous. Not that he was nervous now — except, well. The downside of low standards was that the guy he found himself unexpectedly naked with was kind of a douche, and was presently occupied with prowling slowly closer, staring at Pat like this was one of those wildlife shows where something intense and toothy pounced on something cuddly and harmless. You know, rich playboy orders pizza and thoroughly debauches innocent delivery boy. Well. Innocent for a certain value of —

No, Nicholas said, flatly.

Pat blinked. No what? No you changed your mind and don’t want to do me after all, no you are not a Gemini, no you do not think Marciano Marcianas is the hottest new starlet to —

No, we are not roleplaying the rich playboy and the delivery boy. Nicholas’s stare was inching closer to pyrokinetic all the time. If practice really did make perfect, Pat was going to end up astronaut shish kebab at some point. Or maybe caveman shish kebab, whichever most applied.

He tried a grin, and threw in an eyebrow waggle for good measure. We kind of are, bro. By virtue of, you know. Being us. But it’s all good, I won’t tell if you won’t.

We aren’t — oh, honestly. Just get on the bed, will you? Nicholas paused his advance to rub the skin between his eyebrows with two fingers, as though trying to stave off a threatening migraine. Which also meant he wasn’t staring so fixedly anymore, so Pat counted it a win. You are odd beyond measure, Patrick.

Pat snorted. If only you knew how wrong you are. See, the entire world is populated by these really weird dudes, and I’m the only normal one. Nobody but me ever seems to get that.

Ha! Score! There it was — that had been a grin, definitely a grin. Tiny, lopsided and reluctant, but entirely present and accounted for. It was gone again so fast Pat would almost have suspected he’d imagined it, if he hadn’t been watching for it so closely.

One grin was enough to break the tension. Pat returned it delightedly, relief rushing through him as he plopped down to sit on the edge of the bed. Nicholas had a very springy mattress, and Pat bounced on it once just because. Then he bounced on it again because it’d made Nicholas’s brows rise. And bingo, score again — that slight huff definitely contained amusement, among other things.

Had to happen, really. Most people were won over by Pat’s quirky charm at some point. Well, some people. Okay, a certain smallish but undeniable percentage of all people. (An even smaller but equally undeniable percentage tried to punch Pat in the nose, but fortunately, this evening did not look to be heading in that direction.)

Continuing his earlier streak of no-frills bossiness, Nicholas gestured for Pat to scoot back until he was entirely on the bed. Then, he put a hand to Pat’s chest and pushed him down.

Was this dude for real? But a moment later Nicholas was crawling up the bed like some kind of improbably sinuous predator, and Pat decided that yeah, okay, the guy had no style, but Pat was kinda into it.

And then Nicholas was right there, covering Pat’s body with his own and framing his face with huge hands.

At this range, the stare wasn’t half as daunting. Alternately, maybe Pat was getting used to it — maybe it was just the configuration Nicholas’s face fell into naturally. Normal people looked bored or stern or lost in thought when they were on neutral. Nicholas…

Dude, has anyone ever told you that your neutral default expression makes you out to be a — murderous pyrokinetic psychopath?

But Pat never got to finish that sentence, on account of Nicholas’s mouth blocking the rest of his words.

Nicholas kissed slowly and thoroughly, almost methodically. It wasn’t a surprise, exactly; Pat hadn’t had a theory on what the man would kiss like. Plus, he didn’t have the attention to spare for surprise, what with everything else going on. Like the heavy weight of Nicholas pressing Pat into the bed — wow, who’d have thought that would be such a turn-on? And he was right there, one hand sliding slowly into Pat’s hair, fingertips dragging against his curls. And his thigh was snugged up against Pat’s cock, which, holy fuck, Pat wasn’t entirely sure he was up to processing how good that was just yet.

Somehow, Pat’s hands had ended up on Nicholas’s ass. It felt even better than it looked… all muscle, ridiculously firm and more than enough to grab hold of. This was actually happening. Pat was allowed to touch.

Dude, I gotta touch you more, he gasped into Nicholas’s mouth.

Nicholas grunted and nipped at his lower lip. Pat had never realized how great kissing could be — but, no. He wasn’t going to let himself get distracted here. He wanted to touch more, now. Hang on, okay. Back up.

It took a little squirming, but Nicholas did back up. He proceeded to stare at Pat like a particularly grumpy murderous pyrokinetic, but by now Pat was used to the guy’s face doing that particular thing. He just went ahead with shoving Nicholas over onto his back and letting his hands roam.

Pat found himself trembling as he stroked along Nicholas’s collarbones, down his arms all the way to the strong wrists… up his firm, trained stomach and chest. A confusing rush of greed and nerves swirled in his gut, mingling oddly with the intoxicating feeling of soft warm skin over hard sculpted muscle. And Nicholas obviously wanted this as much as Pat; it was easy to read in the way he tipped his head back to let Pat skim avid fingertips up his throat, how he held his breath when Pat leaned forward for a taste of the delicate skin over his pulse. How he watched him with glittery dark eyes all the while.

Nobody ever looked at Pat like that. It was doing weird things to his head.

Nicholas was still wearing underwear, which was clearly entirely wrong. Pat attempted to remedy the situation by tugging at the offending boxers, but didn’t get anywhere until Nicholas sat up to strip them off and toss them off the bed.

Outside of porn, Pat hadn’t seen an awful lot of erect penises that weren’t his own. Objectively speaking, Nicholas’s cock was probably entirely unexceptional. Except, it was right there in front of him, just as hard as Pat’s own and attached to a gorgeous man he was allowed to touch. Kinda hard to be objective when his hands were unsteady with lust, the blood rushing in his ears.

Suck it, Nicholas rasped. He’d flushed a hectic, uneven pink, a feverish gleam edging into the pyrokinetic stare. It was a startlingly good look on him, and… yeah. Pat might have hesitated for the merest second there — talk about jumping in at the deep end — but… yeah, sure, he could do that. Absolutely.

Nicholas’s erection felt improbably hot and heavy in his hand. When he stroked it once, experimentally, Nicholas gave a stifled sound that made Pat’s heart skip a beat; he only realized he was biting his lip when he looked up to find Nicholas staring at his mouth.

Go on. Suck my dick, you little slut.

The words came out so flat — almost bland — that they took Pat a moment to process.

Uhm. Suck my dick, you little slut? Seriously?

The hotness of the idea was gone immediately, vanished in a cloud of awful dirty talk, just like that. Pat barely managed not to snicker, caught halfway between amusement and disbelief. A bit of seductive competence would have smoothed the way nicely. But what did Pat get? A no-game superhero spouting awful porn dialog.

Whatever, man. He pushed himself back up the bed, running a not-quite-idle hand up Nicholas’s stomach. Maybe later.

It wasn’t even a real brush-off, but the guy had the nerve to look taken aback. What — why aren’t you —

Definitely not the right moment for a discussion, so Pat tried a grin, waggling his eyebrows. Hey, I’m not just for looking at, you know? Feel free to touch, or whatever. I bet I feel pretty good. I mean, I am in good shape and all, you —

He never got to finish. The confusion cleared from Nicholas’s face, and half a heartbeat later Pat was sprawled on his back, with no idea of how he’d gotten there. Nicholas was crouched over him, gaze smoldering and lips slanted smugly. Lie still, he growled. And — oh gods yes.

Nicholas’s hands sliding over Pat as though he wanted to consume him. That was — Pat didn’t even know. Being touched like this, with open desire and even need…

He thumbed Pat’s nipples roughly before smoothing his palms down his stomach; rubbed one thumb tantalizingly just beneath his belly button while leaning forward to bite at Pat’s jawline. Pat wriggled rather desperately to get the touch to settle just that little bit lower — but a large hand was on his hip, holding him down, steel fingers wrapping all the way around his side as though he really were as diminutive as Nicholas had made him sound.

He could feel Nicholas’s breath against his neck, cool on moist skin. There were teeth setting carefully into the sensitive skin at the base of his throat, and the steady touch on his abdomen was making Pat ache and burn, tension ratcheting higher with every torturous, slow swipe of the thumb.

Come on. That wasn’t a whine. Pat didn’t whine, it was only — Come on, man, don’t tease —

The touch vanished. Pat’s eyes flew open — when had he closed them? — in time to catch Nicholas giving him a look heated enough to make his breath catch. You’re beautiful like this. His voice was so gravelly he sounded angry. Pat shuddered. The small sound that escaped him wasn’t a squeak, honestly it wasn’t, and even if it was — I’m going to fuck you so hard.

Pat gave an inarticulate, choked sound and had to remind himself to breathe as Nicholas knelt to slide slow hands up his legs, thumbs pressing into the sensitive skin of Pat’s inner thighs. He spread his legs without prompting, and gasped involuntarily when cool fingers stroked lingeringly over his balls before slipping lower to press at his hole. Nicholas’s free fist closed around the base of Pat’s erection in the same instant, and for several chaotic moments, the flood of sensations was too much for Pat to sort out. He moaned and arched mindlessly into the touch, twisting on the bed as a rush of sparking delight tumbled through him.

Okay, Nicholas said.

Hell yeah, everything about this was okay. He had never been this okay, and might never be again.

Except that Nicholas stopped touching him, and that — no, that was not okay. Pat rasped an incoherent protest and reared up off the sheets to grab for him, but Nicholas’s hands were on his hip and shoulder again, and —

Pat wasn’t short or light, whatever Nicholas had claimed, but he almost felt like it when he found himself flipped onto his stomach with ridiculous ease. Before his mind had finished processing the change in position, Nicholas was already lifting Pat’s hips up off the bed and kicking his knees apart. And Pat liked it. It was amazing how much it turned him on to be manhandled like this… arranged just the way Nicholas wanted him.

Uncoordinated with lust and nerves, it took Pat a moment to get his arms under him and his face off the mattress. Nicholas was warm, solid muscle all along his back, one arm wrapped around Pat’s middle. Nicholas’s erection pressing between