Hutch entered the apartment first, Starsky stomping after him like a one-man band with cymbals clashing. Slam! went the door behind them, and Hutch just kept on going. Let Starsky start it.

Which he immediately did: "I can't believe you told Dobey you didn't think there was a case. Of course there's a case! We were just workin' on it, weren't we? Are you the DA now?"

"It's done, it's over with, forget it." Hadn't he said that about three times already in the car? What they needed was a diversion, so he went on through the living room into the greenhouse, his yapping Jewish Chihuahua faithfully bouncing along behind him.

Damn if Hutch was going to act like this argument mattered. He bent over one plant, reached up to finger another one. The star jasmine was definitely off-color. "What's the matter, baby?" he asked it. The water trap had a little in it, not too much. "You're fine for moisture."

"Talk to me, not the friggin' plants. Talk to—oh, what the hell!" Starsky gave a bark of sarcastic laughter. "That's just it, ain't it? If you'd talked to me before you shot off your mouth today, we wouldn't be—"

You wouldn't be, Hutch corrected, but knew better than to say it aloud. "I need more fish emulsion," he said, starting a new hare. "We'll have to make a plant store run, maybe tomorrow."

Starsky raced right after it. "Not in my car we're not. Not at all, if I have my way. You put that stuff on the plants, makes 'em smell like shit. What the hell's the point of having a flower with a pretty smell if you put that shit on it?"

Shooting fish in a barrel. So Hutch went on down the line and touched this plant and that, not even looking back at his enraged lover. "And you need repotting, don't you, sweetie? You, too. I think I have enough soil left for that."

"What the hell you doin'? Who you talkin' to? Don't you ignore me—goddamnit!" Starsky snatched at his partner's shoulder, but the blond slipped effortlessly out of his grip.

Turning to the potting table, he picked the bag of fertilizer, opened it, and reached in. "Maybe I could use this, at least as a stopgap until we get the fish emulsion."

"Jeezus, that's the shirt Mom gave you! Don't get the cuffs all—"

Still not looking, Hutch took a step away from the table and unbuttoned his cuffs. He rolled one sleeve up almost to the elbow; then he did the other. He stroked down to his own wrist, and Starsky had a momentary hallucination of the golden peach-fuzz under his own fingertips.

"Hutch—"

There was no need to see Starsky's expression when that tone came into his voice, so Hutch tugged on his shirttail with a flip that made the sleeves slip down again. "Well, fuck it," he said, unbuttoned the shirt, and tossed it on the floor behind him, knowing that Starsky would say—

"You'll ruin it, you asshole!"

He hated to be the one picking up after both of them, but he couldn't just leave that good shirt in a heap on the floor, either.

Hutch reached around and rubbed his lower back, fingertips dipping into his waistband, just to keep his lover's mind where it belonged. Starsky wasn't the only one who'd been brooding and waiting to get home all afternoon.

But then, suddenly, Starsky stopped playing. "Hell with it. Doodle around with the plants all night, if ya want. I'm goin' t' bed."

He stormed out—clear back to the bathroom, where he took a defiant piss, then into the bedroom where he flung himself on the bed—which Hutch had of course not made—fully clothed.

It was stupid to let Hutch get him so riled up. Starsky lay looking up at the featureless ceiling and breathing deeply. This was supposed to work, to calm a person down. It just made him think of Hutch with those long dark-gold lashes on his cheeks, sitting like a Buddha and so far inside himself that Starsky couldn't reach him with a fishing pole. Gorgeous and remote. Selfish bastard.

He clenched one fist in the wrinkled sheets and rubbed his confined prick with the other, unable to untangle the urge to slap Hutch upside the head and the urge to strip him and . . . . Sometimes the man just needed . . . . He ought to get . . . .

Lying here with a hard-on while Hutch futzed with the plants was just ridiculous.

To Hutch, it seemed like every single last time Starsky couldn't let an argument go without getting the last word. He heard the creak of the bedsprings, a moment of silence, then his partner's step, lighter now, just outside the greenhouse. The lamps in the living room had been lit, and their low illumination silhouetted the dark figure in the doorway until he was the shadow in last night's dream and in all the dreams before.

When Hutch caught sight of the tube of KY that Starsky was tossing from one hand to another in short, little jerks, a fierce, glad adrenaline shot through him; he bared his teeth. Starsky merely covered the last few feet between himself and the blond, snatched at him, and kissed him.

They bit each other's tongues and grabbed at one another as if they were on the edge of a cliff, heedless of pain while they kept from falling. They pushed at each other and resisted pushing, swaying, shifting their feet like wrestlers. Yet they were moving, slowly as dancers on a crowded floor. The edge of the potting table cut across the back of Hutch's thighs.

He braced himself and used one foot to kick at Starsky's ankle, shoving his stance farther apart. Starsky lurched to one side, recovered, and moved between Hutch's legs, one hand full of hair that he tugged while they fought with lips and tongues and teeth, breath whistling and puffing between them.

I'mhereI'mhereI'mhere. You'remineyou'remine.

Hutch began to pull on the cloth of Starsky's shirt—the collar, the arm, the back where it was tucked in. He dug in hard, not caring if the cloth tore or the buttons gave. Starsky kept his fistful of hair but snaked the other hand between them to fumble with his shirt-buttons.

The shirt came off somehow, and Starsky felt Hutch's fingertips along his sides and up and down his back. Their mouths parted with a wet sound.

"I know what you've been doin'," Starsky snarled. "No more games."

Hutch grinned smugly. "You're always one step ahead of me—you just never know it."

The compliment stung, and Hutch's smile said it was meant to. "Fuck you," was all Starsky could think of.

"Oh, yeah."

Starsky half-shoved, half-punched at Hutch's bare torso—and the potting table slid away behind them, its wrought-iron legs screaming against the tiled floor like the Torino's brakes on tarmac. The noise alone was startling, but the stench of spilled fertilizer was worse. Hutch spun in place, grabbing for the bag but only succeeding in spraying more on himself and Starsky.

"Goddamn—Starsk—what the fuck?!" Hutch, trying desperately to scoop up fertilizer before any more of it went off the table-edge, only succeeded in suddenly exceeding Starsky's limit; the brunet let loose a roar of pent-up laughter.

Hutch continued to curse. Starsky stepped away, bumping his head on a hanging plant that dumped dirty water on him as it swung back and forth.

"My orchid!" Hutch yelled. "Shit, Starsky!"

Starsky could only laugh harder.

"—big plans—" he gasped, "—gone to shit—"

Hutch shoved a utility towel at him, and he sobered while he was rubbing his hair.

"OK," he managed. "We both smell like a stable. Let's get this stuff off." He unbuckled, unzipped and pulled down his jeans, peeling his briefs down with them. But when he looked up, Hutch had turned his back and begun messing around at the table again.

"Let me just clean this up."

"What're you talkin' about? Get those off. I'll throw 'em in the wash, we'll get back to what we were doin'—" Starsky scrabbled at the cords' waistband, but Hutch batted his hands away.

"Get off, I just need a minute—"

Then Starsky realized. "Oh-ho." He ran his own fingertips around, back and forth, and feeling the shivering skin, reached around and grabbed the rod that was waiting for him, tight against Hutch's fly. "Somebody is havin' a good time. Was it the neckin' that gotcha goin' or the dried shit?"

Hutch stood very still. Starsky just gazed for a few moments too, letting the mood shift. The blond's head was bent, his hands quiet on the table, as if he were lost in thought. But it wasn't thought. The strong body trembling, and Hutch's fair skin was pink with flushes that grew while Starsky watched. Shadowy leaf-shapes moved across his back as he took deep breaths.

Gently, Starsky turned Hutch around without trying to meet his eyes, undid the cords and pulled them down. Hutch stepped out of each leg; Starsky folded the two pairs of pants and went out to hang them over the back of the couch.

When he got back to the greenhouse, though, Hutch was facing the potting table again. Starsky couldn't quite figure out what was going on in that flaxen head, so he thought he'd go with what he knew was going on in the little heads and let the rest work itself out. He put his hands loosely on each side of Hutch's waist and said, softly, "Ask." Slid his palms up, down, up to the smooth shoulders. "Admit it." Leaning in, he could smell the sweat in Hutch's hair and feel his own breath blow back into his face. "Talk to me. Tell me what you want."

Hutch sighed, sounding exhausted. "Starsk,"—another deep breath, surrendering—"I need you in my ass like a kid's Christmas toy needs two fucking 'C' batteries to work."

Starsky nuzzled the bright hair at the back of Hutch's neck and then laid his chin on Hutch's shoulder, smiling. "I like the way you phrase things when you're climbin' a tree, schweetheart."

"I would like to climb a tree. I would like to sit on one."

Kissing the soft spot under Hutch's ear, Starsky ordered softly, "Put your head back on my shoulder." Hutch complied immediately, exhaling heavily and closing his eyes.

Starsky reached down again, his hands curving from the outside of Hutch's ass in towards the cleft. He lifted the cheeks away from one another, opening and exposing, and froze for a moment, his warm breath gentle on Hutch's throat.

Hutch didn't say anything about the inaction. He just waited, compliant, his arms stretched out with palms flat against the greenhouse wall. His light panting was almost inaudible.

"I like the way you obey me," Starsky purred, voice deep. "I like the way you fight me."

"Starsky," Hutch whispered, not moving, "I hurt . . . I hurt so bad."

"I wouldn't want'cha ta hurt, Blondie," Starsky murmured, suddenly pushing both lubed index fingers into Hutch's tight opening, driving them in deep, then stretching the other man's asshole wide; massaging the slick, hot walls of his partner's rectum. "Never want'cha ta hurt."

Hutch made a series of pleading, inarticulate sounds.

"I think we should have your nipples pierced, blondie," Starsky teased, low and seductive, "Just so's we'll always know who's boss. You'll have'ta start wearing sweaters t' work, though. People see those things through your shirts, they'll be chasin' you around like the bitch in heat you are."

"And you having t' fight 'em all off," managed Hutch.

"Tolerant little thing, aren't'cha?"

"Oh god jee-zus, Starsky!" Hutch exploded. "Have pity! Have pity, oh please, you bastard . . . ."

Starsky withdrew his fingers at the same time he shoved his lubed cock smoothly up Hutch's ass. For a moment, a long moment, Hutch thought, big cock plus two fingers equals . . . more . . . more than what?

He screamed, not entirely in pain.

"My little bitch likin' this?" Starsky kissed the soft spot again; chewed at Hutch's earlobe.

"Yeah—" gasped Hutch, knowing that there was no other answer.

Starsky's slippery fingers danced around to toy with Hutch's balls, then grabbed his considerable hard-on and slid strongly up its length. "Want me t' move, handsome? Angel?"

"Move," sighed Hutch. "Move me through the goddamn wall, into the next fucking dimension."

Starsky moved. Hutch moaned as he felt each vein in the brunet's cock slide past every ring of muscle in his own sphincter to nail his prostate as though Starsky had a hammer between his legs. "Praise the Lord, I'm gonna die and go to heaven," he gasped with real feeling, right before he twisted like a trout breaking water and came down hard on Starsky's cock, driving it into his rectum as though it were a hook.

I'm never gonna be able to control this, thought Starsky, frantically. He's too goddamn strong and he's way over the top, and I just can't handle it like I useta . . . .

He found himself moving just as fast and desperately as if he was out on the street again, albeit with a—marginally, if nothing else—more agreeable opponent. His sudden withdrawal left Hutch speechless, and what he intended to say would, if given enough time, raise the blond to a level of infuriated anger that Starsky himself didn't want to experience. So he didn't allow any time.

"Right arm behind your back!" he yelled—and thank god, Hutch, who probably had a microsecond to wonder what the hell?! did it. Starsky cuffed the right wrist and, before Hutch could react, shouted, "Now both arms in the air! In the air!"

Hutch was puzzled out of his head, but Starsky chose that moment to reenter him, twitching his cock just to keep the blond's thoughts moving in the right direction. The loose end of the cuff, almost unintentionally, flew over the greenhouse pin beam and Starsky disengaged again, nearly climbing up Hutch's broad back to grab it and secure the left wrist on the other side.

Hutch jerked and snarled, "Dammit, Starsky, I can't move this way! It's too tight; I'm almost on tiptoe . . . ."

"Good deduction, Sherlock." The brunet moved around in front of his captive and cocked his head, a loose curl falling across his forehead. He smiled the Thousand-Megawatt-Smile.

Hutch lurched at him so suddenly that Starsky, stunned, actually had to step back. The pure strength in those muscled arms and that powerful torso had dragged the cuffs along the beam almost three inches. Hutch's eyes were slits, ice blue staring out from beneath the lids, pupils blackened pinpoints. Under the moustache, his mouth had a cruel curl to it that Starsky didn't want to contemplate. The blond's whole aura said, you underestimated me, motherfucker. You underestimated my need for you. Again.

Starsky sidestepped, trying hard for a blasé expression, and picked his jeans up off the couch.

"You're—you're getting dressed? You son—of—a—bitch! Get back here and finish what you started or I'll skin you alive, I swear, you piss-poor excuse for a—!"

Starsky pulled the braided leather belt out of its loops, twitching it past the snags, and then wrapped it slowly around his fist. He smiled over at Hutch innocently, relaxed. "What'cha say, lover, Angel? What'cha say again, my hot lil' bitch? 'Cause I didn't hear ya the first time."

Hutch stared at the belt. He looked up at Starsky. He shut his mouth with a snap. He swallowed. He tested the strength of the pin beam without trying to seem as though he was.

Starsky let the belt roll out again, keeping hold of the buckle end, and let the thing swing just a bit, in a rather leisurely fashion.

Hutch looked away and shuddered.

"Ya know, Hutch," mentioned Starsky, strolling back to his now-trembling partner and eyeing his chest appreciatively, "I think those nipple thingies would be a great idea, actually. And we could run a rope chain between 'em. White gold. It's stronger than yellow. That's what Suz, that pretty little blonde in PR, says, anyways."

He bent his head and bit at the tip of one of Hutch's taut brown nubs hard enough to cause the taller man to roar and literally whip his long legs up around Starsky's waist in a punishing hold. Starsky wheezed and had to reach down and give Hutch's cock a persuasive twisting stroke to distract him long enough to slip free. He coughed while he was doing it, never having dreamt Hutch could carry that much weight on his wrists alone and embarrassed that he had forgotten about those legs, of all things.

The blond bayed mournfully as his prey broke free and shook his head, hair flying out around his face and shoulders in a sparkling nimbus. He looked like nothing so much as a lion that had just caught the scent of estrus: aroused and enraged; ready to hump a boulder and chew it to rubble in the process. Starsky had never been so glad that the man was securely restrained.

He pushed his curls back from his sweat-covered face; then shook the dark mane like a dog that's just run through a sprinkler. Hutch didn't flinch as the droplets hit his body. Starsky knew his partner better than that. Trussed up like a steer waiting to be dressed, his only reaction was to make a low rumbling sound in this throat, and Starsky tossed his hair again, preening, running his fingers through the thick curls.

Hutch whimpered. He needed to touch, and the Archangel Rafael was standing right in front of him, waiting to have his image painted onto the roof of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. The vision moved back a bit, so that Hutch could fully appreciate the beautiful, dusky cock that slapped Rafael's sculpted abs. Hutch felt his own cock sob in response, fluid running from the slit and along the underside, like rain down a flagpole.

Starsky sauntered back to flutter his free hand down Hutch's chest, lapping gently at both nipples, making sure to yank back at any sign of motion from those legs. Hutch writhed sinuously and keened softly. Starsky took a few satisfying bites of Hutch's abdomen and Hutch arched towards him, making yielding, greedy sounds; then the brunet knelt and swallowed the rosy cock down to the damp ash public hair at its base, and Hutch made a noise quite unlike humans make; an almost primeval howl.

Starsky could literally feel the blond's balls tighten up against the underside of his chin as his cock went steel-hard and huge; and just at that moment, the darker man pulled off, stepped back, and laid the belt hard across Hutch's backside. The loud crack of the leather against flesh drowned out every other noise in the room.

But Hutch didn't make a sound. He quivered and looked at Starsky with those glacier eyes, and a sudden tension that Starsky hadn't known he'd held evaporated. He'd never hit Hutch before; not like that, and somewhere inside himself, as well as he knew his mate, he'd been afraid that the blond would have been hurt and furious. He was neither. Hutch turned his shining head slightly to one side, not moving his gaze, and waited.

Starsky swung the belt fractionally. Hutch stopped breathing and regarded the braid intently, his whole body as tense as a wound watch spring. His cock tapped his belly, as though to remind him of its presence.

Starsky stepped closer and cupped Hutch's face tenderly in his free hand.

"I love you, don't ever forget. I want to give you what you need, what you want, what I want. I love you more than the moon, more than the sun. More than myself."

"I know it. I trust you. Kiss me. Do it like you mean it."

"I always mean it, my golden boy, my magic man. I always mean it." And Starsky kissed his other half, deeply, ravenously.

Suddenly Hutch started sobbing in a way that Starsky didn't recognize; a way that made his heart want to break. He pulled out of the kiss, wondering and worried, but Hutch, tears streaming down his cheeks, simply hissed, "Do it again! Harder this time. Then fuck me and tell me how much you love me. Do it!" He nearly choked on his own words. "Please, Starsk," he wept. "Show me how much you love me."

"Give me a child lest I die," murmured Starsky, mortified for a reason he couldn't identify.

"What?" gasped Hutch, still crying.

"Nothing, baby blue. Just something a lady named Hannah once said." She was askin' for somethin' good, but she was askin' for the wrong reasons. Just like you, my love. My life.

He had never hated Hutch's parents more than he did at that moment.

"Blondie, I . . . ."

"Ah," whispered Hutch, without listening, and his whole body began to vibrate. His eyes slipped shut and his head fell back, fanning his bright hair across his shoulders. He looked so erotic, stretched out like that in front of his partner, his trembling, fair skin sheened with sweat, his cock rigid and pointing towards the ceiling, those incredible legs spread as far apart as possible, toes barely touching the ground. The red stripe left by the belt was almost lurid against the rounded whiteness of his ass.

Starsky felt his own body surge with adrenalin, and noticed with a sort of detached fascination that he couldn't ever remember being this aroused. Ever. The skin of his own cock was so distended he thought it would split at any second, and he couldn't bear to have anything touch his chest; his nipples were so sensitive even the presence of the hairy pelt surrounding his aureoles was acting like a goddamn electrical prod.

He had never felt so in control and so controlled in his entire life. He was sure he would never feel this way again with anyone but Hutch.

The next bite of the belt had much more strength in it, and the five blows that followed in quick succession were like snake strikes: fast, hard and nasty.

Hutch didn't even whimper, but he was shaking so badly that the links of the cuffs rattled against the metal of the pin beam. His hands had curled into fists.

Starsky let the belt hang from his left hand and relubed his cock using an almost cruel movement with his right. He dropped the KY on the floor, then swung the braid of leather around Hutch's chest so that it covered his nipples, gripped both ends, and used them and the strength in his chest and arms to haul himself up his partner's back.

Hutch cried out as Starsky's weight drew the belt across his nipples with a vicious jerk.

Starsky ignored him. The tip of his cock found the blond's anus as though he were being drawn by a magnet, and at the first soft contact with that spasming muscle he felt himself go crazy: with lust, with anger, with love, with some sort of howling hunger. He snapped his hips up and forward, violently, and entered Hutch deeply; withdrew; entered again; withdrew; and entered again with thrusts that drove him so far into his partner's snug, scalding heat he was sure the blond would have to vomit his semen.

"Gonna—" breathed Hutch, harshly.

"Naw, you're not," panted Starsky, and pulled out to dance away again. A tickle of fear rolled through him like summer lightning when he got a good look at Hutch's eyes following him. The blond's irises were glowing with such lambent heat that the darker man felt his own blood pressure rise ten points.

"Gonna come anyway—" rasped Hutch, starting to go.

It wasn't a truly conscious thought; just a desire to delay the inevitable: Starsky flipped the belt around and swung the metal end at Hutch's buttocks with such force he could almost feel his old stitches tear. Hutch hissed at the contact and then was strangely quiet again, the orgasm forestalled, building. He tipped his head and regarded his partner with an intensity that was almost preternatural. Every muscle in his body was quaking as though from some tremor along an emotional San Andreas Fault.

"No," growled Starsky, taking deep breaths. "Not until I say so. Unnerstand?'

When Hutch couldn't get his response out quickly enough, the brass came down again on tender scarlet skin so violently that Starsky grunted with the effort.

The blond avoided screaming by biting down on his lower lip so hard he drew blood. Then he stuttered, "Y-y-yes—" It didn't matter that he never finished the answer. Starsky had heard the second sound start and knew that only four letters in the alphabet required you to bring your lips together while pronouncing them: b, p, w and—m. The omnipotent Mother word. Hutch didn't say it, but what came out was a cold whisper: "Yes, sir. Yes, Starsk."

Starsky had a moment to think, Someday I'm gonna get my hands on that bitch and strangle her, slow. Then I'll do his father. Wish I could cut off his cock, but men like that don't have 'em.

Instead, he tried to move the anger into love; then leaned forward and crooned, "Beautiful, my beautiful precious one. My baby blue; my choirboy. You make me so happy, Angel. So damn happy I wanna cry. You're my universe, Hutch. I love you somethin' terrible."

The blond couldn't stop the awful sob that choked its way out of his throat, but he tried to mitigate it with his gasps: "I'd die if you left me. Don't leave me, please. You're the only thing that's ever worked in my life; the only person who's ever stayed. No one else. You taught me how to love; how could there have been anyone else? Don't ever leave—" His voice was almost a sigh, "Please."

Starsky slipped into his partner gently this time, fondling the brand-hot buttocks with delicate, possessive, calming caresses. He could feel the warmth of the marks straight through the fur on his own abdomen. "Adonai, Adonai, how I worship you." He was unsure if he was speaking about God or Hutch. At the moment, they seemed like the same thing.

"David," murmured Hutch, and the words sounded like sea foam hitting a white beach.

They both ejaculated at the same moment, too euphoric to even try using their vocal chords. Starsky figured they were pretty much past "ecstatic" at that point, anyway.

"What was goin' on tonight, babe?"

Hutch was curled up in a fetal position, his back to Starsky. The down comforter had been pulled up to his neck.

"You already know."

"Yeah. Baby blue, look at me."

"I'm tired; I want to go to sleep." A pause, while Starsky sucked air into his lungs. "Please?" asked Hutch, wearily. "Please? I feel shitty enough already. Please, can I just sleep with you? Can you just hold me?"

So of course Starsky said yes and they did, drifting off warm and wrapped in each other's safety.

"You don't get off on it, do you?" asked Hutch, almost casually, biting into a piece of toast, looking around the kitchen at nothing in particular.

Starsky swallowed his mouthful of Eggs Benedict and glanced up at his partner. "I . . . I never thought I did." Hutch was silent, so he continued, "But . . . just watchin' you; seein' the way you trusted me to do the things I did; the way your body moved—" Starsky stopped abruptly. "Geez, I'm throwin' a rod just thinkin' about it," he mumbled. "What a chump."

"I'm the chump, I think." Hutched blushed; looked back down at his plate. "I never told you. How were you supposed to know? It's just a fetish. I don't even really think about it that much."

"You were thinkin' last night. You got me thinkin' right now."

Hutch rolled into a different subject without even drawing a breath. Or maybe it wasn't a different subject.

"My parents traded off when we were on the phone yesterday. Took turns bitching at me. Felt like I wanted to yank the phone cord out of the wall. Would've, but the phone company'd probably charge us an arm and a leg to reinstall it."

"I don't even unnerstand why you try. All they do is beat you up." And a bell went off in Starsky's head again; he filled his mouth with more eggs.

"But I have to!" Hutch was almost yelling now, and hunting around for his words. That was something Starsky had rarely seen him do before. "They're my parents!"

Starsky just stared at him, not even chewing.

Hutch grew even more agitated. "Starsky—" He sighed with exasperation. "You're angry because of last night. But it's not that way. It's not. When Mother was. . . oh, God . . . when she, she hit me, or when she yells at me, it's—don't you see, can't you see? She wasn't paying attention to Father. Or to her Bridge Group. Or to Cook. Or to anyone—anyone else in the world, except me!" Suddenly, unexpectedly, he burst into tears. "Me! Just me! For five lousy minutes, or however long it would take her to do it, she didn't look at anyone but me!"

"And that means she loves you? When she does somethin' like that? To a little kid? A grown man?!" Starsky was almost incredulous.

"Yes. Yes! Of course she did—does! Otherwise, she'd just ignore me!" The blond's voice took on a cold and challenging tone. "She'd ignore me—like he does."

Starsky lowered his eyes to his plate and swallowed slowly. He shoved what was left of his breakfast back and forth on the dinnerware listlessly, and the sound of his fork's tines on the ceramic made Hutch wince.

The blond ran his fingers through the fine silk of his hair, off his forehead and away from his eyes, but his face ended up buried in one palm nonetheless. "You don't—can't begin to understand. You're too full of—oh, geez. Life. Too full of life. Like every day is Christmas Eve."

He looked up at Starsky, his eyes red.

Starsky got up from the table and walked around it; he took Hutch's face in his hands and tilted it up, and then he leaned down and caressed the blond's lips with his own, with as much care as if he were touching a gardenia.

"Oh, I know, I do, Sunshine," he whispered between gentle kisses. "I know where y'hurt. That's fine with me. I just—I'm not crazy about bein' the one doin' it."

"You're not hurting me, Starsk."

"Couldn't tell, from the way you were actin'."

There was a pause while Hutch drew in some air; let it out slowly.

"If you were hurting me," he whispered, almost inaudibly, "I would have said, 'Stop, Starsk. You're hurting me.' And you would have stopped."

Starsky stood up, looked down at the bright, bent head. "You sure 'bout that?"

Hutch smiled wanly. "Yes, I'm sure. I trust you. I respect you." The whisper became almost inaudible. "I know you feel the same way about me."

There was no way Starsky could not put his palms on the blond's reddened cheeks, cup his face and look into his eyes—but instantly, Hutch caught both Starsky's shaking hands in his own. His eyes were wide; the pupils dilated.

"It's between us," he murmured. "Just between us. Do you know what a turn-on, what a rush of control what you did gives me?"

"It didn't seem like you were the one with control, Blondie."

Hutch reached up to ruffle Starsky's hair gently. "I could give it up," he responded, his voice singsong. "I could give it up to you, because I know you cherish me. And I'm not a ten-year-old anymore, Starsk. I'm all grown-up, and I'm your lover." Hutch's eyes glittered, almost too bright to look at. "Your lover."

"Yeah," Starsky sighed.

They both gazed silently for uncounted moments, enthralled, breaths braiding into unison.

Then Starsky said, "What if I had to give you a spankin' if you didn't have breakfast ready on time tomorrow mornin'?"

Hutch's smile widened. "Maybe some mornings it will be ready. Maybe some mornings it won't."

Starsky chuckled. "Works for me."

Hutch purred like a satisfied cat and surged up out of the chair. Now they were nose-to-nose and Hutch brushed a kiss onto Starsky's lips. The blond's eyes had narrowed to slits, the irises hot and icy at the same time. His breath came harsh and fast.

"How's about you put your legs over my shoulders, little one?" Hutch growled softly.

"Who's gonna make me?" responded Starsky, sassily.

Hutch laughed again, deep in his chest. It only took him six minutes to convince Starsky to do what he asked. That damned belt came in awful handy.

They'd get better at it with practice.

END

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