Phoenix Rising by Theo Fenraven

of me.”
“I was never afraid of you.”
Talis sat on the bed. “Perhaps it wasn’t me you feared, but your feelings toward me.” Artemis said nothing. The smallest smile on his lips, Talis leaned toward him until their mouths were only inches apart. “You want me. You can hardly breathe for wanting me so much.”
A strangled sound escaped Artemis’s throat. “You’re doing some bird thing to me, aren’t you?”
Talis laughed softly. “Bird thing? What are you talking about?”
“You smell like the phoenix. Dark, mysterious…. It”—he drew in a sharp breath—“does something to me.”
Shaking his head, Talis closed the gap between them, touching his lips briefly to Artemis’s. The energy exchange through even that short contact electrified every part of him. The look of surprise on Artemis's face told Talis that he, too, had felt it. “That scent belongs to Phoenix. It soothes and calms and brings a quiet joy to any space he is in.”
Artemis breathed raggedly through parted lips. “Don’t tell me what I’m smelling. It’s the bird. Next you’ll be telling me your human tears don’t heal.”
Smiling, Talis stole another kiss. “I don’t know that they do. I should test it sometime, I suppose. Kiss me back.”
“No.” Even as he said it, Artemis was pressing his lips against Talis’s. The detective’s hands went to Talis’s shoulders, grasping and pulling him forward.
Talis was exalted by the man’s lips and tongue and sweet breath. Lust poured through him, making him ache with need, but he knew, even as Artemis melted against him, that the time was not yet right, and it had to be right. Everything depended on it.
Even as every nerve in his body screamed to move ahead, take him, make the man his, he disentangled and pulled back, leaving Artemis gaping at him in surprise. Lightly stroking Artemis’s cheek, Talis said, “Not yet. This is merely lust, and I want it all.” Talis teased the inside of Artemis’s mouth with his tongue, probing gently before licking across his chin and along his jaw. “You taste wonderful.”
“It’s the soap in the shower.” Artemis gave Talis a push. “You said not yet.”
Laughing, Talis pulled back. “You are irresistible, Artemis, but resist I will. For now.” Rolling onto one hip, he said, “Move over. I need to sleep, and I want to get under the covers.”
“Go to your room,then. You have one, don’t you?”
“I’d rather be with you. No sex, just sleep.”
“I’ll let you stay here on one condition.”
“And that is?”
“You let me call Rachel.”
“Cell phones don’t work here. No signal.”
“I’ll bet you have a landline, though.”
Talis grinned, appreciating Artemis’s persistence. “Call her on her personal phone and I’ll agree. You’ll let me listen?”
“I figured you’d insist on it.”

Chapter Six Artemis
The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
     
“
W
HERE the fuck are you?”
    Rachel’s question made him laugh. It was wonderful hearing her voice again. He’d been away only a couple days, but it felt like months.
    Artemis and Talis were in the library. Every wall was covered with shelves, and on the shelves were books, some on end with spines out, others stacked one on top of another. A laptop was on a desk, and next to it, a phone, which Artemis was using while Talis watched indulgently from a leather couch. He was still naked, and it took all Artemis’s willpower to keep his eyes from dropping to Talis’s genitals as he talked to Rachel.
    “I’m somewhere in Nepal,” he said, looking into Talis’s amethyst eyes. “I’m safe. Make sure my mom knows.”
“Talis left messages to that effect,” she said caustically, “or rather, his PA did. We didn’t get them until after you’d disappeared, though.”
He left messages. Somehow that information warmed him. “I suppose the department is in an uproar.”
“They were on the