Note: Many thanks to the wonderful Kaeru Shisho, for the equally wonderful comments and suggestions.

Chapter 37:

In the end, we didn't get back to my place until after eight. We'd walked along the beach for a bit, and watched the sunset, and I'd tried my best to show Quatre just how very sexy I found him. Maggie never did receive her training lesson, but she'd enjoyed herself, even if she hadn't liked her first taste of salt water.

'Everything OK?' I asked as I pulled up outside my gate. He'd been mostly quiet on the drive home, singing along softly to the radio, and stroking Maggie, who was curled up on his lap, with one hand, and the other resting gently on my knee.

He nodded, but there was just this faint little frown on his forehead. 'I'm just a little worried about Maggie meeting your cat. What if they hate each other? Maybe we should leave it 'til some other time.'

'They'll be fine.' I gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. 'Honestly. They have to meet each other at some point, right? They're both young enough to make friends. And Maggie's so small, he shouldn't see her as a threat.' I leaned over to give him a quick kiss. 'Trust the vet on this one, honey.'

'I do trust you,' he said simply. Just one little sentence, but it gave me a nicely warm feeling. Quite unlike the other feelings my body had been producing all day.

We decided to leave the stuff I'd bought in the car 'til morning, collected Quatre's stuff from his car, and headed indoors.

Leo, sitting on the couch, took one look at the new animal and fled.

'Oh dear.' Quatre scooped up his little dog, who was obviously all too ready for a nice game of chasing. 'What should we do? Maybe if you brought him back, we could introduce them to each other?'

'I think the best thing is just to leave them alone. Leo isn't very sociable, but he's curious. He'll probably come back in a while to investigate. And meanwhile, we can start dinner. I don't know about you but I'm starving.'

'Me too,' he assured me, and then placed Maggie carefully on the floor and proceeded to give me a very exhaustive kiss.

'Keep doing that and there won't be any dinner,' I warned huskily. Actually, that didn't seem like such a bad option, all of a sudden. If he really wanted to skip the preliminaries, well, it would just be rude to refuse, wouldn't it?

Given that he already had some insecurity issues?

'Oh, really?' His mouth twitched into a very kissable hybrid between a pout and a smile. 'So I'm not allowed to kiss the cook then?'

'Kissing the cook is always allowed,' I told him, grabbing him and demonstrating just how allowed it was. He even gave me a nice, needy little moan when I let him go. Oh, very nice. I could really, really get used him being around.

It would be great to have those delicious kisses on tap, whenever I wanted, plus that bright smile, and his enthusiasm, and the way he seemed to be interested in pretty much whatever I said.

'So what's for dinner?' Quatre was looking up at me expectantly, and I realised I'd totally zoned out and into a little domestic daydream.

'Thai green curry with prawns.' I found the bowl of sauce in the fridge and dipped one finger into it. 'Taste that. I just made it last night.'

'Spicy,' he commented, licking and sucking at my finger. OK. Concentrate, Barton. Dinner first. Then - whatever he was up for. Oh, God. No pun intended there. 'Did you really make this yourself, Trowa? It's delicious.'

'I really made it. I'll show you some time if you'd like. It's pretty easy; you just pound up a lot of herbs; lemongrass, chili, ginger, basil and add it to coconut milk and a few other things.'

Actually, cookery lessons could be kind of fun. I had a nice little vision of showing him how to use a pestle and mortar, my hand over his and my back pressed against him

Of course, in my imagination, we were both naked. . And the pestle and mortar, they were really just a metaphor.

Shit. I was really going to have to stop having all these little visions of naked-Quatre.

Still, maybe I'd be getting the live show later.

'So….how do you survive if you can't cook at all?' I poured him a glass of wine, and pulled out a stool. Just having him there, in my kitchen, was rather nice. Even with clothes on.

Urgh. Having him anywhere, in any possible sense, would be way more than nice.

'I'm very accomplished at using a microwave. And I eat out quite a lot. Duo loves cooking, so I just never bothered when we lived together.'

'Oh, I see,' I said mournfully. 'You're only with me because I can cook.'

'That's pretty much it,' He gave a solemn little nod. 'Of course I do need some help with training Maggie as well.'

'Fair enough. I'm only with you because I need this place renovated. And because your dog's cute. And, oh yeah, I love your couch.'

'That's strange, because I'm only with you for your futon,' Quatre laughed, effectively ending the game. Hard to tease someone when you're kissing the hell out of them, and they're being very responsive.

Dinner turned out to be perfect, God knows how. My mind hadn't exactly been on timings and quantities. Not with my dreamy Quatre watching me, and needing frequent reminders of just how gorgeous he was.

The poor guy had some sort of self-confidence issues; it was up to his concerned boyfriend to remedy all of that. And I was just the man to suit those needs, being in the health and healing business.

'Talking of futons, my friend Sally emailed me about a sale some furniture store is having at the moment. It's called Futon Confusion or something.'

'Futon Fusion,' he corrected. 'I love that shop! And they have really good discounts in their sales.'

'That's what Sal said. So would you be interested in taking a trip there with me? The futon Wufei lent me is OK but it's a bit too short for me. I either end up with my legs hanging over the edge, or else I wake up with a cramp.'

'I'd love to go with you. I'll rather miss the futon though.'

Well, there was a leading line. Whether he'd intended it or not. 'You don't know it well enough to miss it, hon. Not yet.'

'Maybe we need to get a little better acquainted then,' he murmured. 'You could always introduce us properly.'

'Quatre, meet Futon. Futon, meet Quatre,' I suggested, rising to my feet and pulling him up from his own seat.

'I believe I was promised dessert earlier,' he gave me the cutest little teasing look from under those long lashes.

'And I believe I promised you I was going to help broaden your horizons a little bit. How about we take dessert into the bedroom, and see if we can find some fun ways to share it?'

'Oh! I'll just go and - um…I'll just be a moment.' Clutching his backpack, he vanished into the bathroom.

'Well,' I remarked to Maggie, who was watching me, head on one side. 'That turned out a lot easier than I expected.' By the time I'd got her settled in her basket, and collected a bowl of chocolate mousse, Quatre was already sitting on the edge of the futon, looking like it wouldn't take much to send him bolting back to the bathroom.

I'd just have to work hard to convince him to stay. I could do that.

I wanted to do that.

I wanted to keep him. In my bedroom, practically naked. Hair slightly tousled, cute blue briefs. Very cute body, from what I could see of it. Still, totally naked would be better….

No reason whatsoever for the shy look on his face. He glanced up quickly when I walked through the door, and then went back to studying the carpet, while I put our dessert to one side and stripped. All the way, just to give him a bit of an incentive.

'Hey, gorgeous. I see you and the futon are making friends.' He let me pull him into my arms, relaxing just a little as I rubbed his back. 'Told you I was going to make sure you had loads of fun, didn't I?'

Oh, God, he was gorgeous. I pushed him gently down on to the futon, and just looked at him. His nipples were such a delicately pretty colour against all that pale skin, and just crying out for attention. And I was going to make their owner cry out himself soon, see how many ways I could get him to gasp my name.

'Trowa, stop!'

OK, that wasn't one of the ways I'd been planning.

'What's wrong? I thought you liked that?'

'I do! It's just…your cat is watching us.'

'Damn! I thought I'd put him in the sitting room!' Leo, in fact, was crouched on top of the wardrobe, giving us the benefit of two unblinking green eyes. 'Just give me a sec. Don't move!'

In my defence, my mind wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders; not with the warm, nearly-naked object of all my fantasies sprawled deliciously a few feet away. Making a sudden grab for a skittish cat is never a good idea. Five seconds later, Leo had retreated to the back of the wardrobe, nicely out of arm's reach, and my arm was sporting a thin red line where his claws had met skin.

It took almost fifteen minutes to coax him out, as well as his favourite toy, and some salmon-flavoured treats.

Quatre was laughing though when I came back to the bedroom, cat securely locked in the sitting room, all traces of his earlier unease vanished.

'Sorry about that.'

'It was rather sexy, actually. I hadn't realised there was going to be a floor show.'

'The show's just starting, honey. Now, can you remember where we left off?'

'I think I was just about here, actually.' He pressed a kiss to my mouth, and then started a lingering journey downwards. His briefs had managed to shed themselves at some point while I was cat-hunting, along with that streak of shyness. Instead, he was being nicely creative; I'd caught little hints of a mischievous streak before and that was definitely out in full force tonight.

Then the doorbell rang and Quatre just froze, his mouth poised over the most sensitive part of my anatomy.

'They'll go away.' I pressed one hand to the back of his neck, trying to keep him in place. 'Quatre, please. Don't stop.'

And the doorbell buzzed again.

'Trowa! Trowa, it's Mrs. Elton.'

'Shit! It's my landlady! I'd better see what she wants.'

I wrenched the door open, having dragged on the first things that came to hand; my own jeans and Quatre's blue sweater. I really hoped the damn woman wasn't psychic. Or homophobic.

'Oh, Trowa. I'm so sorry to disturb you. But one of the taps in our bathroom seems to be stuck; I can't turn it off and I'm afraid it's going to start flooding our floor, and then dripping down into your bedroom. I've tried calling a plumber, but no one wants to come out this late on a Saturday. Is there a chance you might come and have a look at it? My husband can't do that sort of thing since he had his hip operation.'

'Well, I'll come up, but I don't really know a lot about plumbing.

Scratch that; I didn't know anything. But the poor woman was almost in tears, and I happened to have a handy boyfriend stashed in my bedroom.

Shit.

Maybe if he could fix this fast, I'd get to see just how handy he could be before I exploded from sheer frustration. Maybe.

Quatre took the change of plans in his stride, accepting that he'd be spending the next hour attending to his boyfriend's landlady's plumbing needs, rather than said boyfriend's desires. And plumbing needs.

'Of course I'll try to help. It's probably just a washer needing to be tightened or something, but if I can't fix it, I'll turn the water off at the mains, and she can get a plumber in the morning.'

I'd offered to go with him, but he asked me to stay with Maggie instead, and left wearing my green shirt – very cute on him – and blowing me kisses as he walked out the door.

It took him almost half an hour; I was just about to go and find him when he turned up again, bearing a tin of homemade cookies he'd been given in thanks.

'Aren't you useful?' I asked grinning, relieving him of cookies and clothing and hauling him back to the bedroom,

He laughed at me. 'Let me show you just how useful I can be when I want.'

Oh, yes.

Finally. Almost three weeks since we'd met and I'd finally got him in my bedroom, nicely naked, and raring to go, in every imaginable sense.

And then my 'phone rang.

'Don't answer it,' Quatre groaned. Well, it sounded like that, but his mouth was otherwise occupied and it wasn't easy to make out the exact words.

Damn! The thing was, I had to. This late at night, it had to be some sort of work-related emergency. It wasn't, though. It was my best friend.

'Wufei, what's wrong? It's almost midnight!'

And I have a hot, naked blond on my futon - OK, your futon - who's been promised a night of fun and passion.

'Is it?' He sounded distracted. 'I hadn't realised it was so late. I'm sorry; I'll let you go back to sleep.'

'Wait!' I said quickly, trying to wrench my brain away from Quatre-fixation - not easy since his fingers were softly stroking my chest - and think about my best friend. 'What did you want? Is this about your date with Zechs?'

'I suppose so.'

Shit. Wufei and I had known each other since we were twelve years old, and he chose this particular moment to want to discuss his personal life.

'Just give me a minute.'

'Just a minute,' I mouthed to Quatre, and then slid out of bed, heading for the sitting room. Leo, not happy about being banished from my room, was busily shredding one of the armchairs, and glared at me when I walked in. I'd be shredding the furniture myself, out of sheer frustration, if I couldn't get a bit of uninterrupted time with my boyfriend. Soon.

Maybe I was just being paranoid, but the entire universe seemed to be conspiring against us.

'Was it terrible? You haven't killed him or anything, have you?'

'No,' he said slowly. 'It wasn't terrible. It was rather pleasant actually.'

Wow. 'Really?'

'Yes. Nothing like I expected. We had dinner at a small country inn, and then he drove me home.'

'And?'

'And what?'

'What happens next? Come on, he must have asked you out again.'

'He intimated he would like to see me again.' He paused, and I could hear his breathing. 'I told him I currently have neither time nor interest in pursuing a relationship, and he apparently accepted that.'

'Is that what you want?' I asked. He didn't sound like it was what he wanted; he actually sounded rather miserable.

'What I want is immaterial. He's flying to Paris tomorrow morning for a week. By the time he returns, he'll probably have forgotten my existence. And I can get on with my life.'

'You know,' I said carefully, 'you could just call him.'

'Why would I want to do that?'

'Because I think you like him. And it's pretty obvious that he likes you.'

'It's nothing of the sort!'

'Wufei, trust me. The guy's crazy about you. I've seen you two together, remember? Both times, he couldn't keep his eyes off you.'

He snorted dismissively. 'You're being ridiculous. He doesn't know anything about me. And I refuse to be simply used as a sexual plaything for some bored aristocrat.'

'You don't know that's what he wants. It's been pretty obvious from the start that you're not just going to jump into bed with him. And he still asked you out tonight. Maybe you should think about that before you make any decisions never to see him again.'

'Perhaps you're right,' he conceded reluctantly. 'I should let you go back to sleep. I'm sorry to have disturbed you so late.'

So you damn well should be….

'It's no problem. Listen, I'll call you tomorrow, OK?'

'Is everything all right?' Quatre was sitting up, wrapped in the blanket, and looking concerned.

'He's fine. I'll tell you about it tomorrow. I've disconnected my 'phone so there shouldn't be any more interruptions.' I felt a tiny bit guilty about that actually, but if there was a genuine emergency, Cathy could call my pager.

'Oh, goody!' He reached up to twine both arms around my neck and pull me down for a kiss. 'No more interruptions, not even if the room goes on fire.'

'I kind of like the idea of setting you on fire,' I murmured, pressing him down to the mattress.

'I rather like that too,' he purred, squirming deliciously against me. On the plus side, all that waiting hadn't really diminished any of his eagerness. The opposite, if anything, by the feel of him. And the sounds…little moans and whimpers and gasps, and …howls?

'Oh, that's Maggie! What do you think is wrong?' He tensed suddenly, at a very inopportune moment, listening for another sound from his dog.

'She'll probably stop in a couple of minutes if we don't pay any attention,' I suggested, not too hopefully.

Quatre bit his lip but nodded and then she whimpered again, and he was straight out of bed.

'Oh, Trowa, I'm sorry. But it is her first night here. Maybe I'll just go and sit with her for a little while, so she knows I haven't left her all alone in a strange place.'

'Wait.' Damn, what was I going to do? Let him sit with his dog in the kitchen? No way. 'We can bring her in here for a minute; when she falls asleep, we'll put her back in the kitchen.'

'That would be super, if you really wouldn't mind?'

'It's OK.' I bent down and kissed the top of his head. 'You'll make it up to me, right? And there's no rush. We've got all night and all day tomorrow and all night, and we can always call in sick on Monday if we need more time.'

Maggie was ecstatic to see me, hurling herself on my legs and licking my face when I picked her up.

'I need you to help me out here, OK?' I murmured. 'You get to be in the bedroom for a little while, and then you leave him to me. Deal?'

'Here you go. One dog, as requested.' I dropped her on to his lap – the one place where I so desperately wanted to be – and she gave me a smug glance before cuddling up to my boyfriend..

Bitch.

Still, she was only a dog, however appealing. I had other advantages, ones that her master seemed to be rather susceptible to. 'This might be a good time to have a little snack. We still haven't touched the chocolate mousse.' Too busy touching one another. 'Would you like a glass of wine with it?'

'Oh, that would be lovely.' He gifted me with the most radiant smile. 'Thank you. I'm sure she'll fall asleep in a minute.'

I took my time collecting wine, glasses and a bowl of whipped cream. Always nice with chocolate mousse, cream. Or with cute blond guys, come to that.

If we ever made it to the actual coming part…

Maggie, as expected, was fast asleep by the time I went back to my room.

The problem was, so was Quatre. Curled on his side, with his dog on the pillow beside him.

Well, shit.