Cocking his head, he listened, focusing... and heard again a strange,
slight jangle. A sound not unlike the noise of Dief's sled harness. 

The bedroom door was ajar.

That was what he told himself later.

The door was ajar, and curiosity up, he bent his head in. Merely to ascertain
the source of the sound. 

He saw--

Ray. Spread on the bed, shirtless and yearning, the gleam of sweat highlighting
the line of his collarbones. 

He was leaning on his elbows, his mouth slightly open, his eyes locked
on the man who stood before him. 

The standing man, also shirtless, had broad shoulders and fair skin,
strong thighs cased in denim. The dull grease black of engineer boots.
A sharp face; a small, sensual mouth. An impression of chinlessness overruled
by eyes of a startling green-- 

And a prosthesis.

This stranger had only one arm.

Ray made a soft, needy sound, and writhed... distractingly. Fraser did
his best to keep his eyes from the come-hither hitch of Ray's hips. 

Instead he focused on the standing man, the sweep of dark hair, the arch
of his brows. 

He was... attractive.

With a negligent glance, the stranger dropped his false arm on a nearby
chair and ran his good hand lazily down his own smoothly muscled chest.

This seemed to incite Ray to further ardor.

"I'm not good at waitin'," Ray warned.

"I am," the other man said, and did not smile.

He leaned forward and cupped Ray's jaw... possessively.

Fraser bit his lip. For a moment, he thought he might lose the lock on
his knees. But he endured. 

That well made hand, that unknown hand, dropped to Ray's waist and skimmed
across Ray's golden belly, to the plateau of his sternum, between nipples
that were, to Fraser's eyes, sweetly pink. 

"Strip. Face down." 

Ray moved to comply, shoving his unbuttoned jeans down his narrow hips--

Shaking, shaken, Fraser retreated.

But the scene would not be moved from his mind's eye.

And, with his hot cheek pressed to the blessedly cool wall, his ears
supplied him all the information he needed to set that mental scene in
motion. 

Soft exhalations. The crinkle of packaging--

Moaning.

Ray was moaning. Low, muffled crooning that made Fraser's erection full
and insistent. 

Good god, what was he doing to himself? To Ray? To invade his privacy
was inexcusable. To remain was... despicable. 

And yet, Fraser was rooted to the spot. Listening.

"Alex, Alex, Alex," Ray gasped, urgent.

"Hold still. Still. Hold it." A silent pause. "Good. Now *move*." 

Ray's breath catching, the other man's voice, approving, controlled...
Leading Ray through imagined feats of flexibility. 

Fraser blinked hard, to clear his blurred vision.

"Alex!--"

"Come."

Shuddering cry of release, then--

A grunt, and the flat, abbreviated slap of a hand on flesh. A touch that
signaled the end of a bout. A reassurance. A condescension. 

The squeak of bedsprings, rustle of clothing.

The end of their coupling.

The end and the beginning of Fraser's thrall.

END