Love for the Cold-Blooded Read Online Free

on the bed.
    Turned out Pat had tragically low standards. Sad, but hardly a surprise.
    Whatever, Pat could deal. He’d start working on developing a more lofty set of standards once he’d gotten a good amount of sex in first. Right now, his philosophy was that if low standards were going to get him laid, he’d be there with bells on.
    “This is a whole lot like bad porn, you realize,” Pat said, stepping out of his boxer briefs. He sometimes had trouble shutting up, especially when he was nervous. Not that he was nervous now — except, well. The downside of low standards was that the guy he found himself unexpectedly naked with was kind of a douche, and was presently occupied with prowling slowly closer, staring at Pat like this was one of those wildlife shows where something intense and toothy pounced on something cuddly and harmless. “You know, rich playboy orders pizza and thoroughly debauches innocent delivery boy. Well. Innocent for a certain value of —”
    “No,” Nicholas said, flatly.
    Pat blinked. “No what? No you changed your mind and don’t want to do me after all, no you are not a Gemini, no you do not think Marciano Marcianas is the hottest new starlet to —”
    “No, we are not roleplaying the rich playboy and the delivery boy.” Nicholas’s stare was inching closer to pyrokinetic all the time. If practice really did make perfect, Pat was going to end up astronaut shish kebab at some point. Or maybe caveman shish kebab, whichever most applied.
    He tried a grin, and threw in an eyebrow waggle for good measure. “We kind of are, bro. By virtue of, you know. Being us. But it’s all good, I won’t tell if you won’t.”
    “We aren’t — oh, honestly. Just get on the bed,will you?” Nicholas paused his advance to rub the skin between his eyebrows with two fingers, as though trying to stave off a threatening migraine. Which also meant he wasn’t staring so fixedly anymore, so Pat counted it a win. “You are odd beyond measure, Patrick.”
    Pat snorted. “If only you knew how wrong you are. See, the entire world is populated by these really weird dudes, and I’m the only normal one. Nobody but me ever seems to get that.”
    Ha! Score! There it was — that had been a grin, definitely a grin. Tiny, lopsided and reluctant, but entirely present and accounted for. It was gone again so fast Pat would almost have suspected he’d imagined it, if he hadn’t been watching for it so closely.
    One grin was enough to break the tension. Pat returned it delightedly, relief rushing through him as he plopped down to sit on the edge of the bed. Nicholas had a very springy mattress, and Pat bounced on it once just because. Then he bounced on it again because it’d made Nicholas’s brows rise. And bingo, score again — that slight huff definitely contained amusement, among other things.
    Had to happen, really. Most people were won over by Pat’s quirky charm at some point. Well, some people. Okay, a certain smallish but undeniable percentage of all people. (An even smaller but equally undeniable percentage tried to punch Pat in the nose, but fortunately, this evening did not look to be heading in that direction.)
    Continuing his earlier streak of no-frills bossiness, Nicholas gestured for Pat to scoot back until he was entirely on the bed. Then, he put a hand to Pat’s chest and pushed him down.
    Was this dude for real? But a moment later Nicholas was crawling up the bed like some kind of improbably sinuous predator, and Pat decided that yeah, okay, the guy had no style, but Pat was kinda into it.
    And then Nicholas was right there, covering Pat’s body with his own and framing his face with huge hands.
    At this range, the stare wasn’t half as daunting. Alternately, maybe Pat was getting used to it — maybe it was just the configuration Nicholas’s face fell into naturally. Normal people looked bored or stern or lost in thought when they were on neutral. Nicholas…
    “Dude, has anyone ever told