Page 10 of Heatstroke

Daniel didn't take it.

He didn't speak.

And that silence—sharp, aching, deliberate—was the beginning of everything that came after.

Thierry moved first.

Not quickly, not recklessly—but with the deliberate precision of a man who knew the weight of every motion, every touch. Who understood that desire, like woodcarving, required patience, reverence, the slow surrender to shape. His fingers found the edge of Daniel's linen shirt, damp from the night's rain, clinging translucent to his skin like a second, desperate confession.

He didn't ask. Didn't hesitate. He simply took the hem between his fingers, the fabric lifting, dragging achingly slow over the planes of Daniel's torso, catching for a heartbeat on the scar just above his right hip.

A long, pale line.

Thierry paused.

His breath stilled. His fingers followed the ridge of it, tracing the memory of violence, the ghost of something Daniel had tried to bury.

Daniel tensed, every muscle in his body drawn wire-tight. He hadn't thought of that scar in months, but now it returned to him like a blade pressed to his throat—old pain, half-healed rage, a wound stitched shut but never forgiven.

His shoulders hunched instinctively, not from shame, but from the animal urge to protect, to hide.

Thierry said nothing. His thumb brushed the scar's edge, feather-light, before he bent his head and pressed his mouth to it—not a kiss, not quite. Something more dangerous. A benediction. A claim.

Daniel flinched.

Not from pain. Not even from surprise.

From recognition.

He knew what this was. This tenderness. This unbearable softness. It was not what he had come here for.

Thierry didn't pull away. His lips lingered, warm and deliberate, before lifting just enough to speak against Daniel's skin.

"What happened?"

Daniel's voice was rough, stripped raw. "Bad decisions."

A beat passed. Thierry nodded, as if that were answer enough. Maybe it was. He rose then, his gaze traveling over Daniel's bare chest like a man mapping a country he intended to conquer.

His eyes caught next on the tattoo across Daniel's arm, the one he’d noticed the first time they met.

"You picked it?" Thierry asked.

"I earned it," Daniel said.

Thierry's mouth curved, dark and knowing, before he kissed him there too, gently against the skin that was almost healed.Slow, deliberate, his lips tracing the lines of ink like a man reading a story written in a language only he understood.

Daniel's hands stayed at his sides, but his breath betrayed him, turning ragged, uneven, as if the act of holding himself together was beginning to fracture.

He hadn't meant to come here.

Hadn't meant to let it go this far.

But Thierry gave him warmth and certainty, and Daniel felt himself unraveling, adrift in a current too strong to fight.

When Thierry stepped back, gesturing toward the hammock with a look that was both invitation and command, Daniel didn't follow at once. He watched the way Thierry moved—graceful, effortless. He settled into the swaying net like he was born to it, bare skin against rough weave, head tilted, one hand resting lazily on his thigh.

Daniel hesitated.

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