Ian's Way by Reese Gabriel Page A

to send up a flare. The group found me. I told them all to huddle for body warmth and not to worry because we would all be just fine.
    “It was a lie, or at least it should have been. No way the rescuers should have been able to find us in time. Call it blind luck or fate. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital. I knew it was bad. There was this hollow feeling, as if I was outside myself, but there wasn’t any light, no tunnel. It hurt like fucking hell and then I heard nurses and doctors shouting in mixed foreign languages.
    “I don’t think I was supposed to be alive, much less conscious. Everything went black again and after another eternity I was flat on my back, able to stare at the ceiling. These doctors talked to me in English. I remembered how funny the words sounded, all grave and technical—Latin terms with a Swiss accent.
    “Rehabilitation came next and that is about the most deadening fucking thing you can imagine, endless stretches of nothing—hearing the medicine drip and the mops in the hallway, and every now and again, an interlude of madness, men with hell hands who could have worked for the SS except they kept on saying it was for my own good.
    “That’s when I really wanted to die. I crawled in deep, as far inside myself I could go. I got back as far as the accident itself and that’s when it hit me. I had never been alone. There had been an angel with me, or the memory of one at least.”
    “Great, so now I’m an angel and a goddess.”
    Ian grinned. “There wasn’t anything too holy, don’t worry. It got to be a running joke how the nurses found me every morning with a hard-on.”
    “You poor thing,” she said sadly. “And you couldn’t do a thing about it.”
    “Not unless I wanted to rip out a million wires and tear apart all the carefully knitted bones. Hell, I don’t think there was a part of me that didn’t break. I have the scars to prove it. But you got me through it. The only thing that got me through it.”
    Nikky touched his eyebrows, smoothing them. “I am glad you healed up, Ian Hamilton. Now you don’t have to fantasize anymore.”
    Her hand was weighing his tight balls.
    “What are you doing?” he queried. “You wanted more questions.”
    “Hardly seems fair to put you through hoops.”
    “Okay, I will have one of my own. Why did I want to make love to you for one night only?”
    Nikky kissed his chest, letting her hair fall over his hard stomach. “Because your reservation for the room was going to run out?” she ventured.
    “No, that is not it. And don’t say it’s because I didn’t want to spoil the magic by too much contact with you. That’s a load of crap and I hope you know it. Any man with half a brain and half a libido would have his hands full with you for the rest of his life.”
    “Is that a compliment?” She kissed the head of his cock. It strained in response, lying hard against his belly, just like in the hospital.
    “I would say it’s halfway between a compliment and a conundrum.”
    “Now you’re using big words so an airhead like me can’t figure it out,” she teased.
    “Oh no, nothing gets past you, Nikky . It never has.”
    “Well, give me a clue at least.”
    Ian answered the question with another. “Ever heard the saying, ‘ If you love something set it free’?”
    “Meaning…”
    “I wanted you to have no obligation to me. I was so hell bent on righting other people’s wrongs that it never occurred to me how badly I wanted to be the man to set your heart on fire because I have always known I am the one who will never hurt you.”
    She looked at him strangely. “You’ve really been in love with me, haven’t you, all this time?”
    “I’d say it’s a good hypothesis.”
    Nikky rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a true geek. So where do we go from here, oh high-and-mighty partner in the laboratory of life?”
    “We steer clear of Bunsen burners for one thing. Other than that we take everything real