Stefan awoke on a choked cough. His shoulder and hip ached from his awkward fetal curl on unforgiving tile, the slick ceramic chilly against his skin. His mouth tasted of rancid meat and the bathtub was inches from his nose.

Christ. Naked on the bathroom floor. Again.

He rolled to his hands and knees, shivers chasing over his body. His brain tried unsuccessfully to beat its way out of his skull, the relentless thump ten times worse than the last blackout, twenty times worse than the one before. He peered at the window, a pale square in the darkened bathroom. The light was coming from the wrong direction for morning. What the hell time was it, anyway? He’d never lost an entire night and day before.

Shit. That Scotch was evil. No more. Not. Freaking. Ever.

He hooked his fingers on the edge of the sink and levered himself up. After he lit the oil lamp on the vanity, he dashed his face with frigid water, and rinsed his mouth. He pressed the heels of his hands against his temples to counteract the throb and realized the pounding wasn’t only inside his head.

Someone was knocking on his door.

The police. His trembling increased, and he clenched his teeth against their clatter. He hadn’t believed Luke would turn him in, not really, not so soon, and surely not without more evidence.

But could prison be worse than this? Never knowing whether he was certifiably insane or just a garden-variety, blackout drunk? Funny how his life hadn’t seemed nearly so pointless and empty before Luke had shown up like a self-righteous yardstick of success.

Stefan stared at his reflection—reddened eyes, pale cheeks, haystack of ill-kempt hair. Yeah, that guy looked capable of anything, up to and including hawking a bad forgery of Whistler’s Mother to Whistler’s father.

His throat tightened, and he took a deep breath. The hell if he was going to prison impersonating a naked scarecrow. The art police could damn well wait until he got dressed.

“Hold on a goddamned minute!”

He cleaned up, pulled on a pair of sweats and a flannel shirt, and staggered through the dim living room. When he yanked on the door, it jammed an inch past the threshold.

“Great,” he muttered. He didn’t know whether it was the cabin’s age, poor maintenance over time, or the effects of the weather, but sometimes the doors seemed to have minds of their own.

He huffed out a breath, braced one foot against the wall, and heaved, ready to brazen it out with his unwanted visitors with his piss-poor I-don’t-remember defense. But when he finally wrestled the door open, Luke was alone on the porch, a grocery bag in one arm and a determined set to his mouth.

Stefan’s stomach lurched, and he squinted in the fading light, scanning the clearing and searching for the trick, the trap. But Luke’s rental car was the only vehicle in sight and no posse stood at his back.

He mustered up some bravado. “Here to beat a confession out of me?”

“Damn it, Stefan.” Luke shifted the paper bag on his hip. “How’d you manage to lose another ten pounds in less than twenty-four hours?”

“If that’s your best pickup line, it needs work.”

“I get that a lot.” Luke grinned, flashing his dimples.

So unfair. Accusatory assholes shouldn’t be allowed dimples. Stefan nodded at the bag. “Did you bring along your collection of interrogation tools?”

“Actually, it’s trout.”

Stefan swallowed against another hit of stupid desolation. Trout. His favorite. A reminder of their best times. Luke couldn’t have picked a better torture device if he’d thought about it for a month with both hands. Stefan would have preferred the classic rubber hose or a little friendly water-boarding.

He rubbed his gritty eyes. “Why bother to feed me? I’m sure they have food in prison.”

“Stef. Look at me.” Luke’s voice dropped to his deepest register, the one full of heat and gravel, the one Stefan could never resist.

He lifted his gaze as ordered. Although the promise in Luke’s voice didn’t reach his eyes, at least they weren’t hard and narrow with anger anymore.

“I’m sorry. Can we start there?”

Stefan lifted his chin. “Groveling would be better.”

“How’s this?” Luke dropped to his knees, wincing, and offered up the grocery bag. “Forgive me for being a dick and allow me to make dinner for you, because you look like a goddamn skeleton.”

“You were doing okay until that last bit.”

“Please?”

Stefan wrapped his arms tighter across his chest. I’m sorry didn’t equal I was wrong. “Still think I’m a forger?”

“Let’s say I’m willing to entertain other . . .” Luke waggled one hand back and forth. “Possibilities.” A grin. Goddamn it.

“Oh, get up.” Stefan took the bag and peeked inside. String beans. A thread of warmth sneaked up his spine, and he couldn’t help the tiny flutter of hope in his belly. In spite of last night’s insults and accusations, Luke wanted to make dinner for him and had gone to the trouble of finding the out-of-season vegetables because he’d remembered that Stefan loved them.

Luke rocked side to side on his knees. “Shit. Damn fucked-up hip. Give me a hand?”

Stefan ditched the groceries inside the door, grasped Luke’s hand, and pulled him to his feet. Luke overbalanced and grabbed Stefan’s shoulder. For a moment they were eye-to-eye, hands still clasped, chests almost brushing.

This close, he couldn’t miss Luke’s pupils widening, his lips parting. Stefan had a horrible feeling his were doing the same, because his cock started to perk up.

Oh, hell no. Bad idea. Terrible idea. Colossally, suicidally stupid idea.

Stefan freed his hand, stepped back, and pointed at the counter. “Stove’s propane. Matches are in the drawer. I’ve got to shower.”

He made it a cold one.

Afterward, shivering but in control of his libido, he donned a fresh set of clothes and followed the aroma of browned butter and sautéed onions into the main room. Luke had lit a half dozen oil lamps and the soft golden light suited him, catching the copper threads in his chestnut hair and warming his hazel eyes when he glanced up from the stove and caught Stefan staring.

Stefan shuffled into the kitchen, fidgeting with the buttons on his shirt. “Smells good.”

“It’ll taste better.” The grin Luke flashed undid the work of the cold shower.

Shit. Going commando could be damned inconvenient. Stefan opened the refrigerator to hide his misbehaving groin. If he didn’t end up in jail, first thing he’d buy after he sold a painting? Underwear. Tight underwear. Because you never knew who might drop by. “You want a beer?”

“Got anything stronger? The hip could use some anesthetic.”

“Only Scotch. Will that do?”

“Depends. Show me what you’ve got.” When Stefan flourished the bottle, Luke whistled. “Fifteen-year-old single malt. Not bad, Stef.”

“Don’t thank me. Thomas stocks the place. I just run up the tab.” Maybe someday he’d be able to pay it. He splashed a couple of inches in a highball glass and set it on the counter next to the stove.

“Thanks.” Luke picked up the glass and saluted Stefan, his eyebrows lifting when Stefan poured a glass of water. “Not indulging?”

Stefan shuddered. “Hell no.” He was so done with Glenlivet.

He sat on the rickety wooden stool at the counter and leaned his chin on his fist. After yesterday’s fiasco of a reunion, he’d never expected to see Luke again, and yet here he was, puttering around the shabby kitchen. It was like an open invitation to ogle. Why the hell not? After all, he might never have another opportunity. So Stefan surrendered unconditionally to temptation.

The muscles of Luke’s back bunched and flexed under his blue Oxford shirt as he tossed the onions in the sauté pan. His hips swiveled as he moved from stove to sink and from cutting board to pan, an unconsciously sensual dance.

Stefan could watch him forever. Except . . . Stefan sighed. “Luke, what are you doing here?”

Luke cast a grin over his shoulder and took another swig of Scotch. “Cooking dinner.”

“No, I mean what are you doing in Oregon? You never said.”

“Yeah. Guess not.” He busied himself with the trout, dredging them in flour.

“Do you have a show somewhere? On the coast? Portland?”

Luke’s hands stilled for an instant. He took a gulp of Scotch and grimaced. “I’m not an artist.” He splashed another inch of Scotch in his glass, his thumb leaving a floury print on the green bottle.

“You’re not? But—” Stefan frowned. Luke had had more passion about painting than anyone else in his class, his intensity often overwhelming. The other students had been terrified of him.

Luke wiped his hands on the kitchen towel tucked in his belt loop and took another hit from his drink. “Nope. Haven’t lifted a brush since I left the conservatory.”

“I thought . . . But isn’t that why you went to Europe? To study at a school there?”

“I studied. But not painting. I’m certified in cultural property protection, preservation, conservation, and security.” He dropped the trout into a deep cast-iron skillet in a sizzle and spit of hot oil.

Stefan’s empty stomach clenched. “Security? Christ. You’re not just an informer. You’re the art police.” He struggled to stand, his feet tangling in the legs of the stool. “Are you here to arrest me?”

Luke took a giant stride across the kitchen and grasped Stefan’s wrist. “I’m not a cop. I’m only an investigator.”

“But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Stefan’s teeth began to chatter in spite of the heat from the woodstove. “Because you think—”

“Calm down.” Luke stroked the underside of Stefan’s wrist with his thumb. “Yeah, I’m here on an investigation, but I had no idea I’d run into you. Tonight, I’m here to make dinner.” Luke ducked his head and peered up into Stefan’s eyes. “No judgments. Okay?”

Stefan jerked a nod, uncertain whether he wanted to increase the distance between them or eliminate it completely. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Luke released him and turned to the stove. “Because I haven’t made this recipe in a long time and I need to pay attention.”

Yeah, pay attention, Stefan. He didn’t show up yesterday because he was looking for you. “It’s a good recipe.” Stefan grabbed his water and took a huge gulp. “Why didn’t you make it for anyone in Europe?”

Luke studied the trout as he made further inroads on his Scotch. “Jean-Pierre hates seafood. I got out of practice.”

“Jean-Pierre.” The water turned into a lump of ice in his belly. Of course there was someone else. A Jean-Pierre, no less. A much classier name than Stefan Cobbe, silent e or no silent e. “French?”

“Belgian.”

“What’s he like? Other than anti-fin?”

“Blond. Blue-eyed. A competitive downhill skier.”

“Ah.” Christ. A thrill-seeker. Stefan couldn’t even face walking into his own freaking studio. The icy lump grew spines. “Intrepid.”

Luke tossed a spoonful of minced garlic in with the onions. “Maybe. Or maybe just foolhardy. He certainly had no patience with caution. Or fear.”

“‘Had’? What happened to him?”

“Same thing that happened to my hip and my femur.”

Guilt washed through Stefan for indulging in petty jealousy when Luke must be grieving. “Oh, God. I’m sorry, Luke. Was he—”

Luke held up a hand. “No. He’s still swanning around Vienna as far as I know. He left me after the accident. Hospitals and rehab? He didn’t sign on for that.” He drained his glass and set it down on the counter with a thump.

“I’m still sorry.”

“Thanks.” Luke stared at the floor, scuffing his loafer against a worn spot in the linoleum. “I’m sorry, too. About Marius.”

That made two of them, but not for the reason Luke probably imagined. “It’s okay.”

“No. It’s not. I should have been there. Stood by you at the funeral.”

“I doubt you’d have gotten any closer to the funeral than I did.”

Luke’s brows drew together over his Roman nose. “What?”

Stefan drew circles in the condensation on his glass. Zeroes. His total worth to Marius’s family. “The Prescotts wouldn’t let me past their fancy wrought-iron gates.”

“You stood at the— Shit.” Luke poured another double and knocked half of it back. “They seriously blocked you from the funeral?”

“They weren’t exactly onboard with Marius’s . . . well . . . everything. That’s why we lived in Indio, about as far away from Connecticut as we could get. Maybe that’s why his sister didn’t have a problem locking me out of the house. I wasn’t a person to her. Just one of Marius’s less respectable possessions.” Something to pack up and remove from the house, along with his clothes and books and half-empty liquor bottles.

Luke flung the beans into the pan with the onions and garlic. “Jesus. How could she kick you out of your own home?”

“Wasn’t mine anymore. Not with Marius gone.” Stefan laughed, the sound broken and mirthless. “Hadn’t been for a while, actually.” He met Luke’s somber gaze. “I was about to leave him. Car packed. Ready to walk. Made it so freaking easy for her. All she had to do was impound the car.”

“She took your car, too?” Luke’s voice rose in outrage, and he sucked back more Scotch.

Maybe I should warn him off the Glenlivet before he ends up naked on the bathroom floor with no memory of an entire day. “My theoretical car. It was a gift. Everything was a gift, right? But he kept it all in his name. He never could let go of anything, even when he gave it away.”

Luke snorted. “Yeah. Bastard dearly loved owning things.”

“I think the only reason he made such a determined play for me was because I belonged to— Because I didn’t belong to him.”

“Fuck, Stef.” Pain flickered across Luke’s face and creased his forehead.

Stefan ducked his head, so he didn’t have to see it. “I don’t care about the car, the clothes, the Rolex, or the damn ring. What matters are the four paintings I finished the month before the crash. For all I know, she burned them.” Possibly the last pictures he’d ever remember painting.

“Listen, if you need—”

“Don’t.” Stefan could see it coming—another well-meaning, humiliating offer of monetary assistance. But if he’d learned one thing during his years as Marius’s appendage, it was that nothing sucked away self-respect faster than financial dependence. The arrangement with Thomas didn’t count—Stefan had to believe that. Thomas would get all his money back, with interest, when Stefan’s work started to sell again. Stefan nodded at the stove. “Your fish are burning.”

“What? Shit.” Luke spun around, catching himself on the edge of the counter when he wobbled a little. “No. It’s okay. They’re supposed to look like that.”

He lifted the fish onto a platter and scattered the crisp dark skin with diced lemon. He picked up the pan of browned butter. “Ready?” The sizzle of the butter as it hit the trout echoed the buzz in Stefan’s blood at Luke’s grin.

Luke slid the beans into a serving bowl and set it on the table along with the fish platter and a bowl of rice pilaf. “Soup’s on.”

Stefan settled at the table. “This is . . .” Amazing. Unfair. Heartbreaking. “Great. Thanks.”

Luke sat down adjacent to him, and by the glint in his eye and the jut of his jaw, he hadn’t finished with the subject of Marius. Christ. No more. Stefan needed a diversion. He picked the one that scared him most. “Tell me about this Arcoletti.”

It worked. Luke’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re the second person today who’s said that.”

“Who was the first?”

“My employer. William Franklin. Apparently, his brother Edward was Arcoletti’s lover.”

“Franklin’s your information source on Arcoletti?”

Luke shook his head and shoveled a half bushel of green beans, fragrant with garlic and caramelized onions, onto Stefan’s plate. “No. Apparently, he picked me because I’m kind of an Arcoletti groupie. I saw his one publicly owned picture in Amsterdam after I left the conservatory and I was hooked. He fascinated me. Maybe because of our similarities. Working-class roots, although his were Italian, not Jewish.”

“Italian? With a name like Jeremiah?”

“He started life as Giacomo. Changed it when he left home.” Luke held up his scotch in a toast and pointed to himself. “Explosive temper. Gay, although that wasn’t publicly acknowledged. He disappeared in July of 1945, along with all thirteen paintings slated for a major show in San Francisco. His mystery—his disappearance, the lost collection—is what got me started as an art investigator.”

“If the collection was lost, how do you know about it?”

“He described it in excruciating detail.” Luke added a bucketful of rice next to Stefan’s mountain of beans and arranged the trout on top. “Eat up.” Luke glared at him until he took a bite of fish. “His patron was Ruth Gordon.”

“The actress?” Stefan said, trying to keep his mind on the conversation and not on the freaking awesome flavor of trout with lemon and hazelnut butter. Real food. Something other than krab kakes. God, he’d missed it.

Luke nodded, fixing his own plate, then pouring himself another shot. “He wrote reams of letters to her. It’s a wonder he found time to paint or screw, yet he apparently did both with astoshening—” Luke hiccupped. “A-ston-ish-ing regularity.”

“Another similarity?”

Another hiccup interrupted Luke’s laugh. “Not these days. She introduced him to her inside circle in Hollywood and New York. That’s who bought his paintings. Theater people. Film stars. But in spite of hobnobbing with celebrities, he fell in love with a bourgeois nobody. Go figure.”

Stefan dropped his gaze to his plate, jabbing several beans with his fork. “Now that’s another parallel.”

“Stef.” Luke’s tone held unmistakable command. Stefan fell back into the achingly familiar pattern and looked up. “You’re not a nobody.”

“I notice you didn’t contradict the bourgeois part.”

Luke’s lips twitched. “Not much point, right? But who says there’s anything wrong with that?” He took a bite of fish. “You don’t need that fucking e at the end of your name to make you better. You’re good the way you are.”

“Not good enough apparently.” Stefan shoved the too-large forkful of beans into his mouth and tried not to choke as he chewed.

Luke glanced around the cabin. “Your latest patronage arrangement is a little sketchy, I admit, but not everyone’s a Prescott. Like I said, being an artist is tough, and you wouldn’t be the first to take cash flow management in a . . . creative direction.”

“That’s not what I—” Stefan caught the edge of anger creeping into his tone and took a breath. Now is not the time for that conversation. Keep Marius out of it. Keep Thomas out of it. If only he could keep himself out of it. “What else?” He focused on Luke’s voice as he recited the sparse facts of Arcoletti’s life, but that coal of anger still burned low in Stefan’s belly, ruining the best meal he’d eaten in two years.

If I’m that good, why did you run?

Man, this Scotch was the real shit. It blurred the hard edges in the room, turning it into a chalk drawing, smudged by a careless artist. Blurred the hard edges in Luke’s mind too, blunting all the bullshit worry. So what if Stefan’s hair was overlong and his collarbones stood out like bas-relief ivory? The lamplight burnished his skin and the soft-focus lens of the alcohol allowed Luke to relax and enjoy the view.

“I’ve missed your dinners,” Stefan said, chasing the last of his rice across his plate.

“Only my dinners?”

“Well, lunches too.”

“What about my midnight snacks? My breakfasts?” Luke took another gulp, bared his teeth against the burn, and lifted one of Stefan’s hands. “God, I remember these hands. I can’t count the number of times I tried to draw them. Failed every time.” He traced the square palm, the row of calluses at the base of the long, tapered fingers. Stefan tried to pull away, but Luke tightened his grip. “You ever want something so fucking badly that you’d sacrifice anything to get it?”

Stefan stopped resisting and sucked in a sharp breath. “Yes,” he whispered.

“That’s how I felt about painting.”

“Oh.” Stefan snatched his hand away, but Luke recaptured it.

He fit his own hand over Stefan’s, matching palm to palm, fingers to fingers. “Yeah. I dreamed of being the best damned painter in the twenty-first century.”

“It’s a good dream.” Stefan’s voice wobbled, as unsteady as Luke would be if he tried to walk across the room right now.

“I loved you so much then,” Luke said. “You have no idea. But every time I looked at you, I knew I’d never be the best. You’d always be better.”

“Christ, Luke.” Stefan covered his face with his other hand. No good. Luke needed to see his eyes. He grasped Stefan’s wrist and pulled, caging both Stefan’s hands between his own.

“Yep. Every single time, I’d compare my shit to yours and I knew. That dream was fucking dead.” Funny how that didn’t seem to matter so much now. This Scotch totally rocked.

When Stefan yanked his hands away again, Luke didn’t fight him. Instead, he picked up the bottle and refilled his glass.

Stefan’s mouth tucked in at the corners, the familiar sign he was about to drop a bomb that Luke would rather not deal with. “You should have told me.”

“Why? Not like you could do anything about it. My dream. My problem. If I couldn’t draw something that beautiful and be happy with it, I’d never have been good enough to suit myself. Not willing to settle for second-rate. Second best.” Luke peered at Stefan through his glass. “Second choice.”

Stefan hugged his chest and clamped his hands under his arms as if he was afraid Luke would try to grab them again. “Is that why you left?”

Luke shrugged and swirled the liquid in his glass. Did he really want to admit this? Marius had added another element—jealousy—to his relationship with Stefan. He’d already been both proud of Stefan, yet envious of his talent. If Marius had succeeded in luring Stefan away, Luke would have had nothing left but the envy. He hadn’t been able to take that risk, the risk that his love might turn to hate, tempting him to destroy Stefan out of spite.

“I was on a quest.” Luke flourished his glass. Empty. Huh. Got to fix that. “A quest for something else to be passionate about.” He made a grab for the bottle, missed and tried again. Gotcha. “Sounds kind of stupid now, doesn’t it? Probably should have just become a drug addict like every other mediocre artist.”

Stefan pushed away from the table and stood up. “Oookay, that’s a quarter bottle of Scotch talking. Time to ease up.” No wobbles in his voice now. He sounded exactly like Luke’s killjoy high school algebra teacher.

“Nah. I’m good.”

“Trust me. That stuff packs a killer hangover. You’re switching to water.” Stefan plucked the bottle out of Luke’s hand mid-pour and set it on the sideboard.

Fucking spoilsport. Luke leaned his head on his fist and tracked Stefan across the room, savoring the flex of his ass under those threadbare sweats. Damn.

When Stefan returned and leaned over to set the water glass on the table, something escaped from the open collar of his worn flannel shirt and swung in the air next to Luke’s face: a tiger’s-eye pendant on a leather thong. The sight went straight to Luke’s dick in a knee-jerk Neanderthal response. Mine.

Stefan noticed him staring, and a blush painted those killer cheekbones as he tucked the necklace back under his shirt.

Luke had bought the pendant because it contained all the colors of Stefan’s hair, from the pale-gold highlights he got in the summer to the darker gold and sugar brown of winter. Luke grabbed his wrist. “You hocked Marius’s watch and ring, but you kept that?”

Stefan shrugged one shoulder, his blush deepening. “The other stuff was Marius trying to . . . to decorate me. Make me more acceptable to his circle. And to piss you off a little, too.”

Luke snorted. “It worked.”

“This meant something.” Stefan smiled, a lopsided quirk of his full lips. “You lived on ramen for a month after you gave it to me.”

“So did you. We shared the same pantry.”

“Yeah, but for me, ramen was business as usual. For you, it was torture.”

It had been, but God, it had been worth it. Every glimpse of that necklace around Stefan’s throat had arrowed straight to Luke’s heart—his insignificant gift was important to Stefan because it came from him. It had given Luke hope that he stood a chance, even against Marius Worthington Prescott the fucking Fifth.

Huh. Maybe Stefan was right about easing up on the liquor. If Luke hadn’t had one too many fingers of Scotch, he wouldn’t be thinking of other things his fingers could do, all involving some entertaining part of Stefan’s body.

Ah, screw it. He took a last, fiery gulp and scooted his chair closer to Stefan’s, so he could breathe in his scent. That unique blend of soap, musk, and oil paint. A whisper of acetone. The combination of man and art was more intoxicating than any mind-altering substance, although the Scotch sure as hell didn’t hurt.

It’s been too long. Too long since I’ve touched his skin. Too long since I’ve kissed him.

Fuck if he was going to waste this chance.