A Shock to Your System (Dangerous Creatures #2) by Mandy Rosko Page B

punched him
in the gut. The man had actually liked him, and not in the
little-kid-with-a-first-crush sense of the word either. In the few
times they'd been together, Ethan had been hopeful for calling
Jamie a friend, and maybe even, eventually, more than that.
Meanwhile, the whole time Jamie had thought of him as a
boyfriend.
    Ethan hadn't realized that things had
progressed so quickly for the other man. He might not have been
inwardly calling Jamie his boyfriend, but he had hoped for it. He'd
enjoyed meeting the man, and looked forward to seeing him the few
times they made plans together.
    And the sex had been fucking amazing. Ethan
had to think all kinds of disgusting things at that very moment
just to keep his cock from getting hard beneath the sheets as he
recalled some of the fun they'd had: the look on Jamie's face as
he'd moaned, his eyes squeezing shut, the smell of his musk hanging
in the air as Ethan thrust inside of him.
    Now everything was so fucked up between them
that Ethan could hardly see straight.
    It was better that Jamie not know about all
of that. It would be too hard when it came time for them to part
ways, and this was already hard enough for Ethan. No point in
rubbing salt into the wound.
    "We hung out a couple of times and had sex.
That was it," Ethan said. "It's better if we don't try and make
anything more of it than that."
    There. A perfectly logical explanation to
the completely illogical situation they were in. It shouldn't have
made him feel so damned bad, or made him not want to look Jamie in
the eyes.
    That hesitation pissed him off. He was
making something out of nothing and reacting badly to it. Like a
bratty child not getting his way. Had this been any other break-up,
if it could even be called that, Ethan wouldn't have felt like such
a prick and his mouth wouldn’t be so damned dry. He needed to get
over it.
    Jamie didn’t have to cringe about it,
though. Another thing to send the guilt signals flying inside of
him.
    “ That was it?" Jamie
asked, not looking at Ethan either, not even looking at the
bed.
    Ethan shook his head, glad that Jamie wasn't
looking at him. He wasn't sure he could handle looking into those
sad frost blue eyes. Jamie really could look like a kicked puppy
when he wanted to.
    Jamie took in a long, deep breath, and then
he let it out and nodded. "Okay," he said.
    The room was so damned quiet after that.
    Then they looked at each
other at the same time. Ethan didn’t know about Jamie, but it felt
to him like his body had forced him to crane his neck over so that
he had to look at
the other man.
    More romance novel bullshit, as if they were
meant to suddenly be staring into each other's eyes or something.
If this was a real romance novel then Jamie would have tied him
down onto the bed, or handcuffed him with his own shackles to the
crappy bed posts, spreading him out and making him helpless, while
simultaneously fighting off the lust that putting a former lover
into such a position would've naturally produced.
    Ethan shouldn't be thinking about things
like that. Imagining sex while tied up was just making things stir
down below, a fantasy he wouldn't have minded otherwise was causing
him problems now, so he had to stop. He told himself he was going
to stop.
    So then why was he having trouble not
looking at Jamie’s mouth, or imagining them at work on Ethan's
body? Jamie’s eyes were very clearly flickering down as well, his
blue gaze lingering on Ethan’s lips, as if he was thinking the same
dangerous things.
    Then Jamie was leaning forward, as if pulled
by that same invisible force.
    Oh fuck, why not have one more kiss?
    The sudden knock at the door made them both
jump. Ethan hissed from the pain as his stupid fucking heart
launched itself into his nose. He instinctively reached for his
tranquilizer guns that weren't there. Right, as if he could protect
Jamie in the state he was in now.
    Jamie’s eyes were as wide as a scared rabbit
about to be put into the