Page 112 of Blood Stone

“I missed you,” Roman said, his voice so low, it was nearly bodiless.

Garrett’s heart squeezed.

“It was my fault,” Roman added. “I’m sorry.”

He pulled away. Garrett spun to face him, not willing to let him slip away this time. Roman was sliding his jeans back on, half-turned away.

“So what is this, then?” Garrett asked. “Are you trying to play catch-up, Roman?”

Roman grinned. “Two hundred years of some of the best sex I can recall?” He grinned. “I should be so lucky.”

“Then what?”

“You started this,” Roman reminded him. “You tell me.” He stood looking at Garrett, waiting for an answer, genuinely interested.

Garrett picked up his jeans from where Roman had tossed them and shoved his legs into them one at a time, giving himself time to think. “I don’t know,” he admitted truthfully.

Roman scowled. “Would your answer be any different if you weren’t fucking Kate every time I turned my back?”

“I’m not—”

Roman grabbed his shirt and twisted, dragging Garrett closer and holding him still. “I cansmellher on you, Calum. Jesus wept! Tell me you wouldn’t be hedging your bets if you weren’t thinking about her right now!”

Garrett suddenly wished he had Winter’s ability to calm himself on demand. His heart was running out of control. It had been doing way too much of that lately. He fought for a steady tone as he looked Roman in the eye. “It doesn’t matter what I’m thinking or what I might have answered. It is what it is now. You were a fatalist once. You know this better than I.”

Roman let him go as suddenly as he had grabbed him. “You can’t straddle the fence forever, highlander. You talk about fate like you know it, but you’ve forgotten that fate will choose for you if you fail to make a decision.”

“I remember,” Garrett assured him. He straightened his shirt. “But doesn’t the decision really rest with you? I’m just the side-dish in all this.”

Roman’s face darkened. Then he suddenly grinned. “Ah, we’re fooling ourselves, Calum. You know who is really going to decide in all this?”

“Kate,” they both said together.

They looked at each other.

“Five hundred years,” Roman said. “I never thought I’d see you dangling at the behest of a human and a woman again.”

“Times are changing.”

“So are you,” Roman replied.

Garrett shook his head. “That’s the point you’ve missed in all this.” He tucked his shirt back in with sharp, annoyed thrusts.

“And now you’re the one that’s pissed.”

“Because this, whatever the hell this is, was all about you.” Garrett grabbed the back of Roman’s head, moving fast so he wouldn’t have a chance to duck it. He kissed him, hard and deep, and let him go. “I’m not changing, Roman. I’m changingback. I’m returning to what I once was and you don’t like it. That’s why you’ve suddenly realized you miss me — because youaremissing me. The old isolated me is gone. You did so much damage it crippled me for two hundred years, but I finally got past it and you can’t stand the idea that I can move on without you.”

Roman’s fist whistled through the dark in a text-book upper cut that, had it connected with Garrett’s jaw, would have knocked him flat on his back. But Roman’s response to being in a jam hadalwaysbeen violence and Garrett was ready for it. He blocked the fist in his hands, using the advantage of his few inches of extra height to press down on Roman’s hand and keep it down.

Roman struggled to drive his hand higher, then simply to release it, the tendons in his neck straining, his black eyes locked furiously on Garrett’s. But while Roman had always looked stronger, they had in fact always been evenly matched. Garrett waited out Roman’s struggles, until he gave up.

“I’m changing, but you haven’t changed an inch,” Garrett told him. He let his fist go, tossing it back against Roman’s chest. “You’re predictable, Roman. You’re still looking out for yourself and screw anyone else who is in the way.”

“Bastard,” Roman muttered in Greek.

Garrett strode back to the trailer, his black Celtic temper high and hot, careless of the security cameras or of anything else. He wanted a drink. He wanted a punching bag.

He halted with his hand on the door of the trailer and spun away. It was too small, too cramped in there. He leaned his back against the cool metal.

He wanted someone to tell his troubles to, but Nial and Sebastian were busy and everyone else he knew that he could possibly talk to were human or needed sleep like humans.

He wanted Kate.

He wanted Roman.

He was so completely screwed.