How to Train Your Dom in Five Easy Steps (27 page)

Back from the dead…and back to square one.

No Distance Left to Run

© 2014 L.A. Witt and Aleksandr Voinov

The Distance Between Us, Book 4

The night before Chris and his best friend Joshua were sent thousands of miles apart on their respective Mormon missions, they finally gave in to their mutual desire. Left trying to make sense of what happened, Chris’s already shaky faith crumbled altogether a year later, when Joshua suddenly died.

Inconsolable, ostracized by his family and the only community he’d ever known, Chris found his way on his own. Now he’s going to school and loves his job as a bartender at Wilde’s. Years after Joshua’s death, he’s finally moving on.

Then a familiar face rocks his world. Joshua isn’t dead. He’s back in Seattle to make peace with his dying father, with a new name, a new accent…and old feelings for Chris that are alive and well.

Forgiveness doesn’t come easy for anyone, but just as Chris is accepting that the man he loves isn’t going to run away this time, their families threaten to pull them apart all over again…

Warning: Contains two lost boys who need to make up for a hell of a lot of lost time. There’s also a military uniform, a tuxedo, and a knife. In the same scene. And yes, it’s that kind of scene.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
No Distance Left to Run:

“Well, this is the place.” I waved a hand at the interior of my apartment.

Joshua—
Julien
—set his rucksack down beside the door. “It’s nice. No…” His eyes lost focus, and he made a frustrated gesture. “Uh, no… Fuck, what’s the word?” He snapped his fingers. “Roommate. You don’t have a roommate?”

“No roommate.” I smirked. “Relearning English, are we?”

He laughed, and his cheeks colored. “You’d be amazed how quickly another language takes over.”

“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, you who were practically fluent in Spanish while the rest of us were still trying to remember how to say ‘water’.”

Julien chuckled. “Still, it’s different when it’s all you’re speaking. It was hard at first, but before I knew it, I was even thinking in French.”

“Wow.”

Our eyes locked.

God, so many questions.

Before I even realized I was speaking, I whispered, “Why, Joshua?”

He lowered his gaze and ran a hand through his short hair. “Would any explanation I gave you change anything?”

“It might make things a little easier to stomach.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I lost my best friend.”

“I’m back now.”

“For how long?”

He didn’t answer.

Sighing, I pressed my shoulder against the wall, just looking for some support since my knees weren’t all that reliable when he was around. “I lost my best friend. I… God, I lost my
mind
after I found out.”

He flinched. “I’m so sorry, Chris. That’s… I don’t know what else I can say.”

“Just tell me why.”

Without looking at me, he said, “It wasn’t you.”

I blinked a few times, wondering how the hell to take that. “It wasn’t me? Except it was me—and everyone else—you left behind.”

“I know. I know I did. And—” He made another frustrated gesture. “I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never even made sense of it myself. I just… I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Any of it.” He exhaled. “Being the perfect son, the perfect Mormon, the perfect student, the perfect…the perfect everything. I had to be the best at everything, Chris.” He turned away, rubbing his neck with both tanned, weathered hands. “I couldn’t just graduate, I had to be valedictorian. I couldn’t just be on the football team. I had to be the star quarterback. And whatever career I pursued? I had to be at the top. Always. Always, Chris. It was just too fucking much pressure, and I didn’t know what to do. All I knew was I couldn’t anymore. And when I met some guys in the Legion, it was a chance at a different life where no one cared that I was Joshua Hawthorne.” He faced me again, and when he met my eyes, there were tears in his. “No one even knew that was my name. To them, I was just another soldier.”

I swallowed hard. “But… God, Joshua, we—”

“Julien.” His voice wavered slightly, and his eyes narrowed. “My name is
Julien
.”

“Okay, okay.” I showed my palms. “Look, I’m still getting used to the idea you’re even alive. You’re going to have to cut me some slack if I’m not used to calling you by a different name.”

He seemed to deflate a little and leaned back against the front door.

A hundred emotions simmered beneath the surface, and a mix of grief and anger reached the top first. “Your family had a funeral for you,” I said through clenched teeth.

Julien grimaced. He looked up at the ceiling, his Adam’s apple jumping as he swallowed.

I forced my voice to stay even. “They wouldn’t let me go.”

“What?” He looked at me again, eyebrows up.

“I was still on my mission, and I couldn’t—” My voice cracked, and I coughed quickly to recover. “They wouldn’t let me go.” I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering how that town in South Korea had suddenly closed in on me, how the homesickness I’d felt for the last few months hadn’t held a candle to my sudden desperate need to get on a plane and—

The gentle touch of a warm, rough hand on my cheek startled me. I stumbled back, but the wall stopped me.

Julien was so close now. Close enough to touch me. Even closer than that—a breath away from being against me. Oh God, he was Joshua now. The man who’d been even closer to me than this the night before we’d gone on our respective missions.

His hand met my cheek again. “I never meant to hurt you, Chris. And you might not believe me, but…that was one of the hardest things for me to cope with. Knowing I’d left you behind while—”

I kissed him.

I didn’t know what else to do. Every word he said hurt, and he was…damn it, he was
there
. And alive. And kissing me back.

He was startled at first, hesitated, but then relaxed against me. He slid a hand around to the small of my back, the other up into my hair, and holy fuck, he didn’t kiss like a scared Mormon virgin anymore. Oh, how things changed in six years. I couldn’t even pretend we were back where we’d started, two terrified kids who’d finally given in and kissed in the back room during a pre-mission farewell party. We both knew too much now. Julien wasn’t so timid, encouraging my lips apart with his tongue, and I opened willingly for him, without all the nerves I’d had back then.

I ran a hand down his back and pulled him closer so his cock rubbed against my—

Oh my God, what are we doing?

I broke away, pulling back as much as the wall would let me, and our eyes met. His were wide, the same question written across his face—
what
are
we doing?
That kiss was nothing like the first one all those years ago, but this moment was pure déjà vu. I couldn’t remember how we’d gotten to this point and had no idea where we went from here. Last time, we’d kissed again, and then we’d fumbled our way through the only sexual encounter that had ever haunted me, that sweet, nervous sex with another virgin, that first and last time with a friend who’d be gone before I could make sense of it.

This time…

This time I didn’t know what to do.

And there were no rules for this—none. It wasn’t friends-with-benefits. I didn’t even know if he still qualified as a friend, or if I cared about the benefits enough to take the risk that he’d reconsider and be gone tomorrow when I woke up. He wasn’t a one-night stand, because I knew him (and yet I didn’t at all), and he sure as hell wasn’t a boyfriend. He fit none of the boxes. Back then, he’d fit
all
the fucking boxes, apart from being gay, did everything people expected him to do, but none of that applied anymore, and I was completely adrift.

And it would be easy to fall into bed with him now and see what else had changed.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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How to Train Your Dom in Five Easy Steps

Copyright © 2014 by Josephine Myles

ISBN: 978-1-61922-366-0

Edited by Linda Ingmanson

Cover by Lou Harper

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: September 2014

www.samhainpublishing.com