Page 3 of Heatstroke (Private Encounters #15)

THREE

FRICTION

The rain came down in sheets, sudden and slanting, as though the heavens had waited precisely for the moment Daniel stepped outside.

He was halfway across the veranda of Ital Brisa when it began, a thunderclap rumbling through the belly of the island like some ancient, restless god clearing his throat.

A few patrons groaned in unison, dragging their drinks and beach towels inward. Daniel remained where he stood. The fine linen of his shirt had already been clinging to his spine, the air dense with ozone and salt.

He had not intended to come here. In fact, he had not even intended to leave the guesthouse of The Breakline. But they had run out of bottled water, and the market, too thick with people and unwelcome sensation, had become intolerable by noon.

Ital Brisa was a bar a few streets away. It was tolerable, usually quiet during the day. He had entered with every intention of taking a table in the back—alone, dry, undisturbed.

But then the scream came.

It cracked across the bar like a blade, small and high. A child's panic, unmuted by rain. In a moment Daniel was already out again, bare feet thudding down the stone steps to the shore, through puddles that had not existed two minutes before.

A boy lay at the edge of the shallows, no more than ten, perhaps less.

His arm was curled inward at an unnatural angle, skin torn raw and blooming red where the coral had kissed him.

His mother knelt beside him, speaking a frantic mixture of French and English, her own hands trembling too much to help.

Thierry was already there, crouched beside the boy. Rain sluiced down his bare back, his eyes darting over the injury with that odd blend of calm and concern that Daniel had begun, reluctantly, to associate with him.

Daniel's voice cut through it all, firm, low, the kind of tone that expected obedience without having to demand it. "Move. Let me see."

The mother didn't hesitate. Thierry did.

"He cut it bad," Thierry said, not moving from his place.

"I can see that. Let me in."

Something in his tone—or the authority that laced it like steel under silk—made Thierry finally shift aside.

Daniel knelt, the wet sand seeping through his linen trousers, and studied the wound with a clarity that came as instinct despite the rain.

He asked the boy's name—Andre—and kept his voice calm as he examined the arm.

Dislocated at the elbow. Not broken. Laceration across the radius, deep enough to need stitching. Coral embedded. Not life-threatening, but it would scar if left untreated.

"You're going to be all right," he murmured to the boy, whose breath came in hiccupping sobs. "I'm going to move your arm. It'll hurt for three seconds. I need you to be brave for four."

The boy, pale now, nodded once. Daniel looked up at Thierry. "Hold his legs. Tight."

Thierry didn't argue. He moved in beside the boy, murmuring something low and steady into his ear, one hand on each small thigh, anchoring him.

Daniel braced, counted under his breath, and moved the arm back into socket with a sure, precise motion that earned a single, strangled cry from Andre—and then silence.

Daniel exhaled.

Despite the rain, which had softened just the slightest bit, a small crowd had gathered—tourists, locals, staff—all watching with a kind of reverent stillness.

Thierry glanced at Daniel as if seeing him properly for the first time. "You're not just here to tan and sulk, then."

Daniel didn't answer. He didn't look up. He tore a clean strip from the hem of his shirt and began wrapping the arm with practiced hands.

Minutes later, the boy was stabilized and handed off to his frantic but grateful father for transport to the clinic. Daniel stood again, wet through his clothes, sand clinging to his knees.

The rain had slowed to a steadier rhythm now, thick drops pattering against the thatched awning above the bar. Thierry stood beside him, still barefoot, still golden, even under bruised sky.

"You're really not going to say anything?" Thierry asked, voice low, amused. "That was... impressive. That other kid too, a few days ago."

Daniel shook water from his wrist, jaw tight. "I didn't do it for applause."

"I didn't say you did."

A gust of wind swept up the shoreline, warm and erratic, sending palm fronds into a noisy dance. Someone inside called for rum. The bartender obliged. Daniel turned to leave, but Thierry moved with him, not blocking, not interfering—just there. Always there.

They ducked back into Ital Brisa, the wooden floor damp beneath their feet. The inside was almost empty now, save a few diehards nursing their drinks and watching the downpour like a boring film they'd seen before.

"Looks like we're stuck here till it passes," Thierry said. "Unless you want to swim home."

He spoke to the bartender in the local Patois, too quick for Daniel to understand right away. The bartender reached below the bar and gave Thierry two towels. He tossed one to Daniel.

Daniel caught it and wiped the back of his neck. "I've been stuck in worse places."

Thierry led him to a U-shaped booth tucked into a corner, unseen from plain view, and tilted his head. "That what you were doing wherever you came from? Being stuck?"

Daniel's eyes narrowed. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"That thing where you pretend to be asking casual questions."

Thierry shrugged, undeterred. "It's not casual. I'm curious. You act like no one should look at you too long, but you keep showing up in public."

Daniel snorted softly. "You think I'm performing solitude?"

"I think you're bad at it."

Daniel glanced out at the water, now silvering under the murky light, and said nothing. Thierry waited.

"You don't know me," Daniel said at last.

Thierry leaned forward. "Then tell me something. Anything."

Silence again. The kind that pulled tight rather than soothed. Daniel let the towel fall across his lap and finally sat, slow and wary.

Thierry smiled. "See? That wasn't so hard."

"I'm not here to talk."

"You keep saying that," Thierry murmured, "but your eyes say otherwise."

And for a moment, Daniel said nothing, because the man wasn't wrong, and that was the most dangerous part.

The air between them was no longer neutral.

It pulsed now, damp and faintly charged, like the stillness before another storm.

Beyond the warped wood of the bar's open shutters, the sea heaved slow and gray beneath the bruised afternoon sky, and rain pattered softly on the corrugated roofing like a secret trying to be kept.

Thierry hadn't looked away. His gaze, direct and unreadable, bore into Daniel like a tide neither resisted nor acknowledged. There was no grin now, no irony, no performance. Just a stillness, coiled and watchful.

And beneath it, something dangerous yet irresistible. Something that asked nothing but demanded everything.

"I'm going to kiss you now," Thierry said, voice calm, as though it were a forecast rather than a proposition.

Daniel's jaw tightened. He didn't move. Didn't nod. But he didn't retreat either—and that was enough.

Thierry reached out, one slow hand behind Daniel's neck, not tentative but measured, as though they'd done this a hundred times in another life. The touch was warm, damp from the rain, the fingers sure. And then the kiss.

It was not soft.

It was not careful.

Their mouths met with a clash that was more collision than courtship. Thierry pressed forward, Daniel pulling him in harder still, their teeth clashing briefly in the hunger of it. It was all instinct now.

Daniel's hands found Thierry's dreadlocks, dragging him close by the roots, yanking until Thierry moaned against his mouth, that low, involuntary sound of surrender that shot straight through Daniel's spine like a live current.

There was no grace to it, no rhythm—just heat and fury and the unbearable inevitability of it. The kiss was not a yielding. It was a bursting dam, a reckoning.

Daniel bit Thierry’s lip and tasted blood, salt, rain. Their breaths tangled, heavy, ragged. Thierry grabbed at Daniel's waist, fingers curling into damp cotton. He was murmuring something now, into Daniel's throat, half-words lost in skin and breath.

Daniel didn't care. He pressed him against the bar's wood paneling, kissed him deeper, and let himself vanish into the pressure, the feral want of it, the throb in his temple.

And then, as quickly as it began, Daniel tore himself away.

He staggered back like he'd been struck, chest rising hard, mouth red and wet and open. Thierry looked dazed but not surprised. His lip was bruised. His hair hung loose in damp ropes where Daniel had pulled it. His eyes, darker than usual, stayed on Daniel as if tethering him in place.

"What the fuck was that," Daniel rasped. It was unclear whether he was speaking to Thierry or to the room, or to whatever reckless piece of himself had just detonated without permission.

“A kiss, Daniel.” Thierry's mouth curved—crooked, slow. Daniel realized this was the first time he’d heard the man say his name. "I'd say you liked it."

Daniel stared at him a moment longer, a dozen responses snarling behind his teeth, none of them coherent. He turned.

He walked.

Out of the bar. Into the rain. Down the steps. Past the stone path. Past the palms. He didn't run, not at first. Not while Thierry could still see him.

But as soon as the building fell from view—he ran.

Barefoot on the muddy path that curved inland from the shore, the drizzle thickening again into proper rain, leaves slick beneath his feet, the scent of petrichor dense in his nostrils.

He ran as though something might catch him, as though what had just passed between them might still be on his skin, might linger in his mouth.

His breath came short. His throat burned. His lips— God , his lips—still tingled with it. With the taste of him.

What the fuck was that?

The question rang through Daniel’s skull with every pounding step. Not disbelief. Not denial. Something worse. Recognition.

He stumbled once, caught himself, and he realized he was close to getting lost. He circled back, kept going, finding his way back to the narrow trail that led to the guesthouse. The trees leaned in overhead, full of rain and insects and old gods that watched and said nothing.

By the time he reached the porch of The Breakline, his shirt was soaked through and his heart still galloped like it hadn't realized the danger was past.

But the danger wasn't past.

It had just begun.