On the Clock (Market Garden, #8)

Finally, they came up for air. Blake was vaguely aware of some distasteful sniffs and horrified stares, but no one said anything to them, and Blake wouldn’t have cared if they did. “You’d better go,” he whispered.

“I know.” Jason kissed him once more, paused, and they broke the embrace with a half step back apiece. “I’ll, um . . . I’ll see you next time. In London.”

“Yeah.” Blake nodded, struggling to find his breath. “I’ll see you then.”

Jason smiled.

He took another step. Then another.

And then he turned, and he found his stride, and Blake’s heart thudded as he watched Jason go.

At the door, Jason glanced over his shoulder, offered a smile and a wave, and then disappeared into the terminal.

For a moment, Blake stared at the doorway, as if Jason had simply vanished and might materialize again at any second.

There were too many other cars waiting to drop people off, though, so he got into the Land Rover and pulled away from the curb. As he left the airport, patiently inching through traffic, something didn’t feel right.

More to the point, he wasn’t feeling something he was sure he should’ve been feeling. With Newark International in the rearview, he didn’t feel like he’d just dropped off a prostitute.

What the hell is going on?



Blake didn’t bother speeding down the country roads on the way home. Or maybe he did. As he pulled up to the garage and waited for the door to yawn open, he didn’t remember much between the airport and here. For all he knew, he might’ve been pulled over, lectured for speeding, and blown the cop to get out of the ticket.

He parked beside his Porsche and stepped out of the Land Rover. On his way into the house, he paused, rocking back and forth from his heels to the ball of his feet, and then turned around. Heart still thudding like it had when he’d watched Jason go, he stared at the idle Lamborghini. He’d caught himself grinning at the car a few times since he’d brought it home, but it grabbed his attention for entirely different reasons now.

You were right, Jason. I can never look at this car without remembering how you feel.

Question is, how do I feel?

He tucked the Land Rover’s keys into his pocket, and carefully pulled the cover off the Lambo. The sight of the car’s sharp angles and sleek planes made his heart race like it often did, but . . . differently. He was almost certain if he slid into the driver’s seat right now, he’d catch a lingering trace of Jason’s cologne.

And so what if he did? Jason had been there. He’d also been in Blake’s bed. There was no doubt still an impression in the pillow where he’d been lying, snoring away this morning before they’d had to go to the airport. It wasn’t like he’d evaporated into the ether, leaving behind no trace and making Blake wonder if he’d conjured the past week out of thin air.

A smudge on the hood made his breath catch. Any other time, he’d be scrambling for a rag, but he just stared. Though he’d made sure to clean off the car after they’d finished, he’d missed the spot where Jason’s hand had left the faintest print on the finish—nearly transparent, smeared slightly, but when the light hit it just right, the outline of his palm and slender fingers was visible.

Blake put his hand over the handprint. His fingers were too long, his palm too wide—there was no fitting it precisely the way Jason’s would have.

He jerked his hand away, put the cover back on, and went into the kitchen as his stomach started somersaulting.

What the fuck is the matter with me?

The heaviness of Jason’s absence pushed down on his shoulders. The echo of his own footsteps in the garage had given him goose bumps. The handprint on the hood with no one around whose hand would fit over it . . . he couldn’t decide if he needed to clean it off, or if he should leave it there for posterity. Everything conspired to make his skin crawl and make him restless—he couldn’t sit down and work. He couldn’t sit still at all. Going into the office would be pointless. Staying here would drive him insane. And going out for a drive in any of his vehicles would make him crazy because his mind was already superimposing Jason in the passenger seats.

I’m losing it, aren’t I?

This seemed, more than anything, like a hangover. The empty, achy feeling that was the price for a good time, and the undeniable realization that the good time was over. And no amount of hair of the dog would help this time, because Jason was well on his way back to the other side of an ocean that had no business being that big.

He briefly entertained the idea of hauling ass back to the airport and begging Jason to stay another week. Or longer. After all, they never had gotten to the touristy places Jason had wanted to see.

But that would be stupid. Jason had a life in London. Blake had one here. There’d be other trips. They’d see each other again.

So he grabbed his laptop and sat on the couch to peruse his email.