Free Shawn's Law by Renae Kaye

with pineapple and Pasito. It’s fruity and packs a huge punch, but it’s not exactly a manly look. Every time he visits me, we get smashed on our favorite drink in secret, but otherwise I stick to Coke with bourbon. It puts hair on your chest.”
    Well that was the wrong thing to say. Harley’s attention immediately dropped to my tubby chest and stuck there. I squirmed in my seat, trying to look like I was used to the attention of the sexiest man I’d ever met—who I knew was wearing no underwear.
    “I’d like to see that,” he said, and I nearly fainted with shock. Harley wanted to see me ?
    While I was still gathering my wits from that thought, he stalked nearer to me and grabbed my face between his hands. Now, I know that he kissed me in Kings Park during our first date, but I thought that was just because it was expected. After all, we were having a good time and it was dark. He could’ve forgotten what I looked like. Now that his head was lowering to mine during broad daylight, I didn’t know how to react.
    Apart from responding. His lips descended and suddenly we were kissing. Lip-locking. Pashing. Sucking face. Whatever you want to call it, we were doing it. Lips, tongues, teeth, and mouths. It seemed like hours before we came up for air.
    I glanced down and saw that thankfully I wasn’t the only one who was fully erect.
    Harley chuckled. “Lunch first. I promised myself that. We’ll eat a meal like civilized people before I jump your bones.”
    I thought it would be the other way around—me jumping his bones—but my brain wasn’t functioning enough to be able to string two words together. He opened the fridge and pulled out a tray of meat for the barbeque. “Follow me,” he called as he made his way through the sliding glass door and onto the patio.
    I bit back the word “anywhere,” followed him out the back, and closed the door after me to keep the cool air inside.
    The backyard was perfect. Absolutely gorgeous. Harley had mentioned he was renting, so I knew it wasn’t his design, but I couldn’t help but say, “Holy crap. This is great. How fantastic.”
    The house was situated on the very top of the hill, backing onto the railway tracks. I knew they were there because I lived in the area and could hear the freight trains come through every couple of hours, but once you’d lived with them for a while, you stopped noticing. I wondered how loud they were this close to the tracks. The noise would be a pain, but it would be great not having any neighbors over your back fence. I strode closer to the rear wall and stood on a garden bench to look over.
    “Just the substation over the back,” Harley said. There was a large drop to the railway line, since Harley was on the top of the hill, and I could see there was nothing beyond that but bushland and giant transformers.
    I turned back to view the pure blue swimming pool. It was rectangular, with a two-foot waterfall at one end, an enclosed spa area, and pale limestone paving surrounding it all. Add a green fence to keep the kiddies safe and a number of decorative plants in pots, and it was paradise. It shimmered invitingly in the midday sun, and I wished that I’d brought my bathers. Maybe Harley had a pair I could borrow. That would require me to take my shirt off and show my tubby body, but it seemed like that wasn’t a big deal to Harley.
    To the west of the yard was a fully enclosed, Balinese-inspired gazebo. It had a thatched roof and bamboo walls about five feet high, leaving a gap between the top of the wall and the roof for sunlight and airflow. There was an opening facing the pool and waterfall, and I could see that a circular bench ran the entire way around the inside of the structure. A plastic sun lounger had been dragged inside, and I could imagine Harley spending time in there, next to the cooling waters of the pool but away from prying eyes.
    I looked around the perimeter of the yard and realized it was virtually private. Next to