DefeatedbyLove by Samantha Kane

your tone,” Daniel said. He walked by and
swiped the glass out of Barnabas’ hand and took a much-needed drink.
    “I rarely alter my tone,” Barnabas said, and it was true. “I
say bend over the exact same way I say how do you do.”
    “That explains your lack of progress in society,” Daniel
muttered.
    He reached his desk and leaned against it, facing Barnabas.
He was struck, as he usually was, by his fiercely handsome looks. While Wolf
Tarrant was predatory in the way of a sleek African cat, Barnabas was predatory
like a wolf or a boar. Frightening with his cold eyes and harsh features and
thick shoulders. He looked as if he was always braced for an attack, no matter
that he aped the delicate postures of a social animal. He wore a severely
tailored jacket and trousers, both black, though in the latest fashion. His
olive skin and thick, dark hair, along with his blade of a nose, marked him an
outsider here in England, an interloper with a hunger for the weak and
helpless. Daniel didn’t actually know his ancestry. His mother was reportedly a
singer and his father a seaman, but that could as easily be rumor as fact.
    For a man who had been his lover on and off for over ten
years Daniel really knew very little about Barnabas. He was in love with
Daniel, he knew that. He’d never said the words, but his silence and his
actions said as much. Not for the first time Daniel wished he could return his
feelings. Although he felt affection for Barnabas, it wasn’t love. He’d been in
love and this wasn’t it. But he was thrilled, just the same, that a man of
Barnabas’ tastes and experience and stature wanted him, even pursued him on
occasion, like today.
    “Have I passed inspection?” Barnabas asked, amused. “I wore
my best jacket.”
    “You’re wearing a jacket?” Daniel asked with a little grin.
“I didn’t notice.”
    Barnabas grinned back, and Daniel shivered just a little.
Barnabas looked a bit like the Devil, alluring and tempting and oh so bad for
your conscience. “Good,” he told Daniel, stalking him slowly and quietly. “I
was afraid you were going to be angry and put out with me again for showing up
uninvited.”
    “When have I been angry and put out about that?” Daniel
asked, putting down the tumbler of brandy beside him. He knew from experience
Barnabas was going to pounce soon, and he was giddy with anticipation. He
hadn’t had a good fuck for weeks, and his aggravation over today’s events
needed some sort of outlet.
    “Every time I do it,” Barnabas said, amusement dripping from
every word. He veered off course to walk the perimeter of the room and Daniel
frowned. “Dare I hope this means whatever has had you running around London
today will not require my assistance?”
    Damn, damn, damn, thought Daniel., He knew that
Barnabas, as the head of some mysterious agency at the Home Office, had the
resources to help. But he’d been adamantly refusing to go to him. First of all
he’d already gotten Barnabas tangled up in Very and Wolf and Michael’s problems
last year, and as a result he’d been lured back into an ill-advised affair with
Barnabas that he’d ended several years ago. And second, he did not want to
involve Barnabas in anything concerning Harry. The two had met during the war,
and Barnabas had saved Harry’s life before arranging for his return to England.
But there was no love lost between the two and Daniel knew Barnabas would like
nothing better than to make sure Harry stayed gone. Daniel might have agreed
with those sentiments not long ago, but now he needed Harry back here to take
care of his wife.
    “Not at all,” Daniel lied. “Why would you think so?”
    Before Barnabas could answer there was a knock at his study
door. “Come in,” he called out quickly, glad for the reprieve.
    His relief did not last long. Christine Ashbury walked in
and then stopped short, a look of surprise on her face when she saw Barnabas.
She looked particularly pleasant this evening in