GENRE: Gay Erotic Romance
LENGTH: 25,037 words
RATING:

Chicago PD Detective Michael Branham reluctantly calls in the federal marshals when he gets wind of a dangerous fugitive. Ken “Sully” Sullivan flies in as the Agent-in-Charge. After a futile car chase during a blizzard and a resulting car accident, the two men take shelter in an unused stable.

Wounded and cold, Sully and Michael lower their defenses and admit their attraction to each other. Sully's comfortable with his bisexuality, whereas Michael has some self-admitted attraction to men but has never done anything about it.

Months later, Michael has a family funeral in the DC area and arranges to meet Sully again. The heat still smolders between them. Then disaster hits Michael -- the kind only another cop can understand.

Sully rearranges his life to support Michael, who is still uncertain about their new relationship. Can two men with high stress jobs from different cities find a way to meet each other in the middle?

EXCERPT:
Note: may contain sexually explicit scenes of a homoerotic nature.

I heard the slow ticking sound of cooling metal. My head was a fog of pain and it took me a while to realize I was upside down, dangling from the seatbelt. My left shoulder and upper arm hurt like hell. I blinked and fumbled for the seat belt release, and crashed into a heap in the inside of the roof. Fuck. Bad plan. It took me another minute or two to catch my breath and get my scrambled brain cells going again.

Where the hell was Sullivan? I glanced around the inside of the car. The passenger side door looked like it had been ripped off. I crawled out the opening and damn near fell over top of him. Sullivan was sprawled mostly face down in a snow bank, limp and unconscious. I felt for a pulse. It was fast and steady. Thank God. But how bad was he hurt? I ran my hands down along his body. The only blood I saw was from a gash on the side of his scalp. Nothing felt broken, but what the hell did I know? He could have some massive spinal injury.

Sullivan groaned and made a floundering attempt to roll over.

"Don't move. You got flung out of the car when we rolled." I put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from flopping around anymore.

He wiggled his fingers and feet, took a deep breath and squinted up at me. "My head hurts like hell and I'm kinda banged up, but I don't think anything's broken." Snow was coming down hard. Maybe down was a misnomer, the wind was whipping the icy wetness in almost blinding gusts.

I groped in my coat for my phone. When I pulled it, I realized it was useless. Not only was the screen shattered, part of the back was broken off. "Where's your phone?"

He patted his own coat, shoved hands in his pants pockets, and came up empty. "No clue."

"Well, shit." I looked around as best as I could in the whirling snow. It had probably gone flying when Sullivan did. We had no way to call for help.

"Honest, I'm more or less okay. We can't stay here. We can't possibly be that far outside of town."

"Okay. I guess. Sit up slowly. Tell me if anything hurts, well hurts bad anyway." It was the best I could come up with. I helped him sit up.

He flexed his arms and legs. "There's some aches and I'm probably gonna be black and blue tomorrow, but I think I can walk." He slowly got to his feet, standing there a little unsteadily once he was up.

"You were out cold when I found you. Chances are you have a concussion."

"And there's absolutely crap all we can do about it right this minute." He took a few steps and braced a hand on one of the tires. The car vaguely resembled a dead bug, all four wheels sticking up in the air, the body and frame crinkled and mutilated. He stood there looking at it, then glanced back at the depression in the snow where he'd been lying. "Why the hell am I still alive?"