Free Beyond Eden by Kele Moon Page A

powerful political couple.
    Paul could still serve his country and make his father proud. “Paul Guy.”
    He sighed in frustration and then rested his hand on the hood of Eve’s car and turned to look back toward the house to see Danny step off the porch. Paul closed his eyes as a ripple of lust washed over him. Danny was beautiful in the sunlight, wearing only a faded pair of jeans. His hair was still mussed, his eyes heavy lidded, reminding Paul of the way he looked after fucking when he was sated and lazy.
    The weak link in the chain of Paul’s life had the name Danny Boy etched all over it. He was his liability, his Achilles’ heel. Every politician had a skeleton in their closet. Paul’s would be Danny until the day he died. He wanted to hate him for carving his own niche in Paul’s already Eve-scarred heart, but Danny was a hard person to hate.
    Every day without Danny was a test of resistance. Every step back from him was a trial of endurance. Paul was getting better. He was slowly and efficiently building up the barriers around his heart against him. He and Trisha planned to announce their engagement next month. They planned to get married on New Year’s Day. That gave
    Paul six months to clear his head of Danny and all the tempting, deviant sexual activities that came with him.
    Paul really doubted his country or his father would appreciate what he was planning on sacrificing for them. Once he married Trisha he planned to close off his mind and body to the fetishes he enjoyed more than anything. His one escape from the world would be gone and he was going to have to spend the rest of his days being a servant in a way that most certainly didn’t get his dick hard.
    That thought was almost as depressing as the knowledge that his Achilles’ heel was about to fuck the love of his life senseless.
    He really had to give it up for his father. When he had yelled and screamed at Paul that he could fuck up his life better than anyone, he sure had pegged it. Life didn’t get much more fucked up than this.
    “I need to talk to you,” Danny said as he walked up to Eve’s car.
    Paul looked back to the engine rather than stare at Danny with the morning sun shining off his shoulders. “So talk.”
    “I want permission to do Eve,” Danny said in a rush of breathless excitement. “She said she needs your approval. You’d do that for me, right? You won’t be an asshole.”
    Paul looked at his watch. “Wow, that took you less than an hour.”
    “Will you give her permission to date me?” Danny asked pleadingly, sounding like a child begging for a new toy. “Please.”
    “No,” Paul said, not meeting his eyes as he leaned farther under the hood and used a wrench to tighten a loose nut. “Giving Eve permission to fuck you would be the equivalent of throwing her to the wolves. I’m not doing that to her.”
    “I knew you’d be an asshole,” Danny growled under his breath. “Why can’t you do this for me? You’re marrying Trisha. You can’t have Eve even if you wanted her— which you don’t.”
    Paul turned around to glare at Danny. “Wanting and having are two different things. Just because I can’t have her doesn’t mean I don’t still want her.”
    “I need her,” Danny whispered in anguish. “I’ll die without her.” “You won’t die.”
    “What am I going to do when you move out? I don’t want to be alone. I get mean when I’m lonely. I don’t want to be mean.”
    “You are mean, lonely or not,” Paul said simply as he reached down and rubbed one hand against his shorts to get the dirt and sweat off his suddenly clammy palms. “Anyone with a pain fetish and the means to pay you two thousand dollars an hour knows that.”
    “That’s not nice,” Danny whispered behind him. “You know I’m retired. I haven’t had a client in ten months.”
    “Are you gonna tell Eve you used to rent yourself out to kinky politicians and millionaires? Will you key her into the fact that there are