Fixation

Chapter 10 – Five Years Later


Jou crouched beind the open patrol car door and checked his side arm. The clip was full, there was a round in the chamber, and the safety was off. He heard his badge number over the radio clipped to his shirt collar, activated the receiver, and replied, “Dis is 348.”

“497 wants you and 308 to fall back to the barricade to assist with crowd control,” came the tentative instructions. From the sound of the officer’s voice, he did not want to be the one replaying these instructions. On the other side of the patrol car, his partner started screaming in a rage of Spanish swear words.

“Ah, dat’s a negative,” Jou said carefully. “497 is not on the scene, does not know our position, and we’ll likely get shot if we try to fall back. Tell the big Daddy that 308 has noted his concern...”

Another radio cut him off and a stream of Spanish curse words filled the channel. Jou wanted to rub his temples and shake his head, but he couldn’t reach his head through the riot helmet. He heard people laughing from the patrol car beside them. Luckily, the rant coming from his partner quickly drowned out everything else.

“I cannot believe that asshole! How dare he signal me out like this! As if I’m any less capable of doing my job today than I was last week! I am going castrate him when I get home!” From behind the passenger door, Jou could hear the sound of an assault rifle being primed with typical efficiency. “And to make somebody else do it! I know he’s got a radio sitting on his desk, and he knows damn well that mine is on and working! I’m going to skin that bastard alive, I swear it!”

Ahead of them, their Sergeant signaled for them to get ready. Jou watched the hand signals as the sergeant counted down.

“Hey, if you’re done throwing a fit about the Lieutenant, we’re moving!”

“Oh.”

And then they were moving, shifting in a running crouch from one covered location to the next.

Ahead of them, five officers with riot shields moved forward as two others crouched down to fire pepper spray grenades. Six grenades went through the glass store front, filling the entire connivance store with oily red dust.

Instead of signaling for everyone to surge forward, their Sergeant held up his fist for the team to stay put. Pepper spray was something that was most effective if it had time to work in a contained area. Nine times out of ten, people would come out on their own and surrender if they had to sit in it long enough. Sure enough, the doors burst open and four men rushed out, their hands on their heads. Three others rushed out coughing. It was obvious from what they’d watched before the grenades that the last three were hostages, but in a situation like this, everybody went down, everybody got handcuffed, and the details of who was who were sorted out after the scene was secure. It was standard procedure, and even though Jou hadn’t seen the point at first, he understood now. As his partner had explained to him the first time he’d tried to help a victim after a hostage situation, the hostage could just as easily have been one of the hostage takers who had ordered the hostage to trade clothing with them, or have formed a bond with the hostage taker and now be just as dangerous as the hostage taker.

With all of the professionalism that she failed to exhibit when dealing with her husband, his partner charged forward, assault rifle raised, and shouting. “On the ground! On the ground! Arms out straight beside you! Arms out straight!”

As the special response team carefully approached the still fogged store, Jou holstered his gun, pulled out a pair of handcuffs and approached the closest man’s outstretched hand. Just as he was trained, and as his partner had drilled him to, he slapped one cuff on, secured the man in an arm bar, then shifted over the man to handcuff his other hand. “Bring your other hand around behind your back!” He ordered.

The man beneath him coughed and swore at him, and tried to pull away from the arm bar. Since Jou already had his wrist in a gooseneck, Jou just tightened his grip. “Bring your hand around behind your back! Bring your hand around your back!” After about twenty seconds of squealing, the man complied. Jou secured the other cuff then did a quick search of the man for weapons.

When the man was secured in the back of their patrol car, Jou checked on the rest of the scene and found that every suspect was secure, the hostages were clearly identified and being treated by EMTs, and the riot team had propped the doors to the store open to let the cloud of pepper spray fade. Even from thirty feet away, the shit was making him cough.

His partner was talking with their Sergeant, her head down but nodding occasionally. Probably getting lectured about proper radio protocol when she still, technically, had a trainee assigned to her. As he approached, all he heard was, “I’m going to have to talk to the Captain about it…”

“Yes, sir.”

“Pardon me, Seargant, I hate to interrupt, but can we take this guy back to the DC and get him hosed off? He’s already thrown up once in the car and his clothes are covered in OC. Per policy, we’ve got to get him cleaned up within thirty minutes.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re all headed there anyway. I want reports before you go off shift.”

“Yes, sir,” Jou said with a nod.

In the patrol car, Jou took the wheel while his partner sat brooding. Their passenger asked if he could get a shower a few times, and Jou promised that they were going to do just that. After they brought him to the nearest detention center and made sure that he was cleaned up, Jou started filling out paperwork while his partner sat, still in her riot gear, brooding. He finished his report, printed off a copy, then reworded it and printed a copy for her.

“Esme, you’ve got to snap out of it. He’s just worried about you,” Jou said gently.

“I don’t care. He is not my supervisor, he is not my doctor, and he has no business telling everyone in the department that I’m not fit for duty, Esmecially over the damn radio!”

“I know, I know… But, in all fairness, if he had tried to say it face to face you would have probably knocked his ass out. And if my pregnant wife were about to get shot at, I’d be worried too.”

“It’s not like anything has changed! I didn’t wake up four weeks ago suddenly old, fat, and out of shape! You know right now it’s only the size of an olive? An olive! And it’s tucked behind my pelvis anyway, so even a baseball bat to the stomach wouldn’t be likely to hurt anything.”

“I believe you,” he said automatically. She took the report and scanned it quickly.

In the eight months since he’d graduated and joined the department, he had learned to take his partner seriously, even though she was more of a drama queen than anyone he’d ever met.

Esmerelda Boyle was an excellent training officer, and a great partner. No matter what the situation was, you could count on her to be right there beside you, or charging ahead in front of you if you couldn’t keep up. She was one of the instructors for the department’s special response team—teaching swat members ground fighting, defensive tactics, and weapons qualification classes. The only reason she had not advanced in terms of rank was because of the certainty that she would end up stuck behind a desk if she were to apply for promotion.

Despite her skills, and her impeccable record, her gender worked against her more than it did for most of the other female officers. Esmerelda was beautiful. With an angelic face, tanned skin, and long silk black hair, Esmerelda was known as the department beauty queen. It was a standing joke that anyone assigned as her partner either had to be a woman or gay, because her husband would throw a fit if she were paired with anyone else. It didn’t help that her husband had been promoted quickly and was rumored to be the next in line for Captain. Even though she was easy to work with, anyone who ended up paired up with her had to put up with her husband too, and he was a handful. A nice enough guy, and one who Jou had come to consider a friend, but a handful, regardless. On their first two weeks of night shifts, her husband Luke had shown up at random times to check on them. Occasionally he brought coffee, sometimes tai food, and more than once he’d wandered up on food and ended up riding with them for the rest of the night, making it impossible for them to actually arrest anyone because he insisted on riding along in the back seat.

After Jou assured Luke that he was actually gay, he’d backed off a little. Since Esmerelda had found out she was pregnant with their first child, things had gotten worse.

She handed the report back to him with several typos circled in red, whole sentences crossed out, and illegible notes in the margins. Jou sat back down at the computer to make the changes.

“Well, it looks like lunch is going to be a bust,” she said with a pout. “It’s nearly five. Man, days aren’t supposed to be this busy.”

A soft chuckle came from behind the door. “Almost makes you wish you were back on nights when the only way I could piss you off was setting the alarm clock, hu?”

Esmerelda flug a pair of handcuffs at the open door, followed by two pens and an empty in-tray.

Jou grabbed the desk phone before she could throw it, too. From behind the door frame, her
husband’s blond hair peeked out cautiously. “Has she run out of things to throw?”

“Does she ever?” Jou replied.

“Go away!” Esmerelda yelled, throwing a pair of keys hard enough to chip the paint on the door frame. “Since you obviously don’t think you can talk directly to me, I am not talking to you!”

“Look, I’m sorry about asking Wheeler to move instead of you, but you would have gotten upset if I’d asked you directly!”

“You coward! You couldn’t even do that yourself! You had someone else ask Wheeler to tell me to move!”

“Well, you have been kind of scary and hormonal lately…”

Jou saw her mouth the word ‘hormonal’ and shut her mouth. Jou shook his head and printed out the edited report. Her husband was a nice guy, and a great officer, but he was a bit of an idiot when it came to dealing with his wife.

“Done!” Jou announced, handing her the report.

“Good,” she scribbled her badge number on the report and motioned for Jou to follow her. “You coming over for dinner tonight?”

“Ah,” Jou blushed and rubbed the back of his head.

“Alright, let’s go.” She glared at her husband, her eyes narrow. “If you show up I’m going to throw you in the damn pool. You are not invited.”

She stormed out, passed her flustered husband. They handed in their reports, went their separate ways to get changed, and then Jou met her at her car. She threw another pen at Luke when he tried to approach her in the parking lot, then got in the car, waited for Jou to buckle his seat belt, and sped away. She didn’t have to drive far. She pulled into the driveway of an old Tuscan-style home in a fairly poor Hispanic neighborhood. Six other cars were already crammed into the driveway.

Ever since Esmerelda had introduced Jou to her family, she had been inviting him to her parents’ home for dinner at least once a week. Usually Luke came with them, but since Esmerelda found out she was pregnant, he’s only come along once.

The house was filled with the smell of spicy food, smoke, and with hearty laughter and conversations in English and Spanish. Even though he couldn’t follow a lot of the conversations yet, Jou had never felt more welcome anywhere in his life. Esmerelda’s mother, an old Hispanic widow who didn’t speak a bit of English, always cooked enough to feed an army at these weekly dinners. With seven biological sons, three neighborhood boys who hand ended up staying with her, and now Jou, she had an army to feed. He waved and nodded to some of Esmerelda’s grown brothers as she dragged him into the kitchen.

Her brothers were all similar, and Jou had a hard time telling most of them apart. Each one had dark brown hair, deeply tanned skin, and had stacks of muscle that made them look roughly triangle shaped. The only two Jou could keep straight were Mario and Jesus. Jesus was the youngest, and he spent his time working at a video store and skateboarding. He had built a skateboard ramp in his mother’s back yard as a teen, and every time Jou came over for dinner he tried to get Jou to try it. The one time he tried, Jesus ended up feeling Jou up as he tried to “help” him to his feet after a fall. Jou insisted he was too clumsy for skateboarding after that.

Mario, on the other hand, Jou would have given anything to get felt up by. He was the reason Jou kept coming over for dinner. A martial arts instructor and part time bodyguard, Mario had the physique of a professional body builder. He was quiet, calm, and well spoken, and he had the most charming smile Jou had seen since he’d left Japan. Jou had accepted the offer of ju-jitsu lessons from the other man and had been training with him three times a week. Despite the sexy looks Mario sent him during some of their sparring sessions, the man was a complete professional, never crossing the line physically or saying anything inappropriate. Since it had been a long time since he’d last had sex, Jou was so frustrated that he was pretty sure he would jump the poor guy if he ever got to spar with him alone. Unfortunately, Esmerlda was usually there to act as a chaperone.

Esmerelda’s mother shoved something into the oven, then hurried around the counter and kissed Esmerelda on the cheek, then kissed Jou just the same. Esmerelda plopped into a stool at the counter, dropped her chin into her hands, and began to rant in Spanish—no doubt complaining about how her husband didn’t treat her like an officer any more. Jou lightly punched her shoulder then wandered outside, knowing he’d find her brothers on the back porch watching Jesus trying to break his neck on the skateboard ramp. Sure enough, five of them were sitting on a long wooden rail, laughing and cheering as two other brothers and three foster kids took turns dropping in on the ramp. Mario, who seemed to be nicely dressed for a family dinner, popped open a bottle of beer and handed it to Jou without a word. Jou nodded gratefully and drained most of the beer instantly.

“Figured you might need something, after twelve hours of dealing with a hormonal Esme.”

“She’s not bad,” Jou insisted. “Her husband, though… You’d think he was pregnant himself with how much of a whiner he’s become.” One of the oldest brothers muttered something that sounded like agreement and nodded several times.

“Figures,” said Mario darkly. “You know he actually expected her to quit the police department when they got married? As if a girl who grew up fighting with us could ever be happy sitting around a house with a vacuum cleaner! I keep telling her she needs to come work for me, but she never listens.”

“She didn’t grow up fighting with us, she grew up fighting with you,” another brother called from the end of the porch. “After you taught her all of that ju-jitsu crap, I couldn’t pick on her without her putting my head through a wall.”

“Sorry.”

There was a collective groan as Jesus’ skateboard slipped out from under him while he was trying to land a trick. He tumbled, hitting the wooden ramp with his shoulder and then bouncing off to land face first on the ply wood.

“Is he alright?” Jou asked.

“Who cares?” Mario whispered, standing directly behind him. Jou couldn’t help the way he tensed. Esme’s brother was standing so close to him that he could feel the heat radiating off of the other man’s sculpted body. From the way Mario chuckled behind him, Jou was pretty sure that the other knew exactly what kind of effect he had on Jou.

“He might actually be dead this time,” one of the others suggested, although there was a chuckle in his voice. No one moved to help him, though.

“No, he’s fine,” another insisted. “See, he just moved his arm.”

That seemed to settle their concerns, so Jou didn’t say anything when they all sat by and watched as their youngest brother slowly pulled himself to his feet, or when he promptly fell back down on his ass again.

“Joey,” Mario said softly touching the small of Jou’s back, “Could I talk to you inside for a minute?”

Somewhere along the line of brothers, someone snickered.

Jou’s heart started to race at the feel of another person’s touch. He was sure that his entire body was blushing, so he didn’t dare turn around and face the other man. “Sure,” he said.

He took a step forward then turned around and headed back into the kitchen, avoiding the other man’s eyes at all costs. Once inside, he let Mario take the lead and followed him into the empty living room.

Jou took a deep breath, prayed his voice wouldn’t crack, and finally said, “What’s up?”

“I…” Mario smiled at him with that damn sexy smile he always managed, “I was hoping I could ask you for a favor… You speak Japanese, right?”

“Yeah. I spent eight years there as a kid. I never did get rid of my accent, but I’m better with Japanese than English. What do you need?”

“Well, one of the guys who refers clients to me has a few Japanese executives who want to vacation in Mexico in about five weeks. He’s looking for people with a close protection security license and who speaks Japanese. I’ve got the license and am good at the job, but…”

“I don’t think I can teach you Japanese in five weeks,” said Jou, confused.

“No, no, I wasn’t asking you to. I was hoping you’d come with me. They’re planning a seven day, six night trip. Expenses are all covered, and the pay for the week would be about ten. We’ll have to get you licensed before we go, of course. It looks like he’s putting together a six man team, so two guys per shift. I think you and I could work well together.”

A chance to spend an entire week in Mexico drooling over Mario in a nice suit? Jou was ashamed to admit how tempting that was. An image of a slender body wrapped in a perfectly tailored designer suit flashed through Jou’s mind. He tried to replace it with an image of Mario, but it didn’t work. The way Mario’s shoulders filled out the suit jacket in Jou’s imagination just wasn’t right. His mind kept whittling away at the form, the muscles, and the bulk until he was once again imagining the painfully familiar body of his first crush.

“Well, I have the leave saved up, but I make about fifteen hundred a week as is, and I need the money. I’ve got student loans and a mortgage to pay off.”

Mario smiled at him and shook his head. He let out a soft chuckle. “Ten thousand five hundred dollars. Plus expenses. You’ll need a passport, a vest, a small side arm, and a couple of suits—despite the heat, you’re going to want something heavy enough to not bulge over a holster. And a bathing suit, I’d guess.”

“A bathing suit?”

“Yeah. It’s not a twenty-four hour a day job.”

“Ten thousand dollars as a bodyguard? For one week? You’ve got to be kidding?”

“How do you think I keep my dojo afloat?”

“Ten thousand dollars? Do we have to split it?”

“Nope.”

A chance to earn a lot of money and possibly seduce a man who turned him on almost as much as Seto… It had been five years and Jou still compared everyone to him. He hadn’t even spelt with anyone else. But he was determined to get over the memory of his high school stalker one way or another. “What day do we leave?”

* * * * *

Six months later, Jou found himself in a suit that could have easily cost as much as one of Kaiba’s, standing in the same always-ready posture that he had learned from Mario and Esmerelda. His Spanish was improving faster than it ever had in the police department Spanish class, and now he could easily act as both a bodyguard and translator for their Japanese clients. Across a busy restaurant, the Mario stood in an identical posture, watching both entrances with a patience that often amazed Jou.

Their clients were primarily wealthy Japanese, but lately a lot of Euopeans had been hiring them, too. Mexico was just as dangerous as Jou had always heard, particularly for tourists who had someone in the world who might be willing to pay a ransom to see them alive again. Everyone from the Mexican mafia to the local police targeted tourists, either to rob them or to hold them hostage. Those who could afford to hired agents from American or foreign security firms to make sure that their loved ones or employees returned safely.

Ordinarily, the job was dull. But the first time it had exploded around him, Jou had found himself on an insane rollercoaster of adrenalin. Between returning fire, covering their client, and trying to radio for a car Jou had found himself ducking and running for his life. He managed to find a spot that offered enough cover to keep their client down and took the chance to reload his gun. As a police officer, getting into a tough situation meant sitting tight and waiting for backup.

Despite all of his dreams about action and being a hero, he’d never even fired his gun on the job. While that was usually the hallmark of a good cop, it wasn’t the fast-paced life that Jou had expected when he decided to major in Criminal Justice.

When Mario tossed him an extra clip and told him to get ready to run for the car, Jou realized that they were on their own. The local police were either too afraid of the gangs to do anything, or were on their payroll and probably shooting at them too. Whether or not they lived or died depended entirely on them—their resources, their talent, and their luck. Jou had always been lucky.

That day had taught him a lot about himself, including the fact that he really could stay calm through situations that would have most people blubbering like idiots. He put off dealing with the shock, set aside his emotions and went through the motions, just as he had trained to so many times. That day he had also learned that he would never be happy just being a police officer. The rush of getting out alive had kept him awake for nearly three days. For a while, he wondered if that was what the high from crystal meth felt like—when people seemed to have enough energy to get up again after being shot or hit by a car.

When he finally went back to work after that, the world felt like it was moving in slow motion. Esme had just starter her maternity leave and Jou was bouncing around the department, being assigned where ever the department was an officer short. The end result was that he ended up stuck with old men who preferred to drive through rush hour traffic and provide officer presence to deter speeding. Jou didn’t see how anyone could speed during LA’s rush hour, but apparently it was important for motorist to remember that the police were there. Unfortunately, being stuck in a patrol car for twelve hours made Jou so board that he started memorizing random license plates just for something to do.

After work, he shoved his rumpled uniform into his locker and headed to Mario’s dojo. Esme was very pregnant, so she couldn’t really train with them, but she was still there most afternoons, and Jou was looking forward to having someone to complain to. When he pulled into the dojo parking lot, he found that Esme’s car wasn’t there yet. He headed into the front door anyway, knowing that he would find Mario cleaning up after his afternoon class. Sure enough, he was placing a dozen recently disinfected blue mats on top of a large stack.

“Hey!” Jou shouted, hanging up his jacket and taking off his shoes.

“Hi Joey. Come on it, I’ll be done in a minute.”

“Take your time, take your time. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about anyway.”

“Not backing out on me, are you? ‘Cause with my sister out of commission I really need somebody to spar with.”

“I’m not backing out. But don’t you have students you can abuse, too?”

“Most of them are ten years old. Wouldn’t really be fair.”

“Some of those ten year olds are scary,” Jou insisted.

“Tell me about it. So what’s going on?”

Jou took a deep breath. He really needed to calm down. It wasn’t like he was going to ask the guy out or anything. “I… I put in my two weeks notice today.”

“What? I thought you loved being a cop?”

Jou shrugged. “I guess the job just isn’t quite the same as my imagination. I talked to some of the guys we worked with on that last job. Some of them are kinda tired of freelancing it, and some have a lot of knowledge of the tech stuff, alarms and whatnot. I was thinking about going into business for myself, opening up a security firm. Close protection pays a lot better, and it’s a hell of a job. Plus, I like being able to travel. I was thinking about the whole industry though—residential and commercial security systems, automated monitoring, uniformed security guards, all of it.”

Mario whistled slowly. “Expensive. You’d have to be able to front hundreds of thousands of dollars to be able to get off the ground with automated security. The equipment and monitoring stations alone cost a fortune.”

Jou scratched the back of his head. “Well, I… I sorta put my house up as collateral. I already got financing for the whole thing. What I need, though, is people. Particularly someone to help train new guys, someone who I know to be fully capable of kicking ass.”

“Oh,” Mario smirked. “You’re worried Esme would say no?”

“She already said no,” said Jou miserably. “What do you think? Want to give up the freelance work and work for me part time? I could provide you with an endless supply of adult sparing partners…”

Despite his tanned skin, Jou could see the blush on Mario’s cheeks clearly. “Joey, I… No. You can hire me for specific jobs, and for training, sure, but I can’t work for you regularly.”

Jou kept his smile in place. “Oh. Why not?”

“Well,” Mario smiled and turned back towards the mats, “I was planning on asking you to have dinner with me sometime, and that wouldn’t really work if you were my boss. I mean, if you were the boss everyone would be expecting you to fool around with some hot little secretary, and then there’s be issues on the job… In fact, there are already issues on the job.”

“You wanted to ask me out?”

“Yeah. And to say I really can’t take assignments with you anymore. I can’t seem to keep my eyes on our client when you’re around.”

“Honest?” asked Jou, although he knew from the other man’s smiles that he was. “I guess I’ll have to find someone else, then. So, dinner?”

“You said you weren’t going to back out tonight!”

“Right, right,” Jou smiled.

Jou took a defensive stance and blocked a few half-hearted punches. Mario took hold of his arm with one block and charged backwards, then pivoted his weight around, sending them both crashing to the ground. “Not paying much attention, Joey.”

Jou tried to move his legs but found that both were locked. He had one hand free and used it push the arm holding his other hand up, breaking the grip. He tried to roll o the side but Mario kept his legs locked and kept his hips on the ground. He managed to get half of his body out from under the larger man when Mario shifted his weight. Jou found himself flying through the air. He rolled over Mario and landed face down on the mat. Mario locked his legs again, pulled one of Jou’s arms into an arm bar, and balanced over Jou comfortably.

“So, now that you know… Am I really that distracting, or are you uncomfortable with me now?”

Jou bent his knees, pushed his hips up off the mat and shifted so his shoulder was on the mat instead of his face and head. He tensed his abs and tried to roll forward. Mario would either have to let go of his arm bar or roll with him. Jou felt the fingers vanish from around his wrist. He pushed himself up on both arms and twisted his hips, sending Mario scrambling to get to his feet.

“Not going to answer?”

Jou blocked a side kick, grabbed Mario’s leg, and drove him to the ground. Instead of pinning the larger man down, Jou kissed him. For a moment, Mario returned his kiss and struggled against the hold at the same time. When Mario gained the upper hand, he flipped them over, stared down at Jou for a moment, and kissed him again.

After five years of dating random people hoping to find someone else who made him feel the way Seto had, Jou was desperate for the other’s touch. But as Mario slowed their kiss and gently began to explore Jou’s mouth with his tongue, Jou felt his stomach tighten and sink. He knew that Mario wasn’t trying to be timid, he was trying to be sweet. Unfortunately, his kiss was so gentle that it made Jou squirm, part of him trying to escape even as his brain screamed that he really did want this. Frustrated, Jou rolled over so he was on top of Mario, where he could increase the pressure of his lips on the other mans, increase the pace of their little sparring match.

Mario stopped him trying to rip open his gi and pushed him away. “Instead of going out, why don’t we just have dinner at my place?”

“How about an early dinner?” Jou asked, glancing at his watch.

“Perfect.”

Despite how things heated up between them at the dojo, Mario really did make him dinner. He made an Italian pasta dish, opened a bottle of wine, and even put on some soft salsa music. They made it through the entire bottle of wine and half of the pasta before Mario kissed him again.
Jou tried to lose himself in the kiss, tried to feel the same passion he felt when they were sparring. Just like he had with everyone else since Seto, he tried to follow through. They made it all the way to Mario’s bed before Mario pulled away and smiled down at him, shaking his head with a sad expression on his face. “This isn’t going to work, is it?”

Jou felt humiliated. “Fuck, I’m sorry… I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He leaned forward on the bed, too ashamed to stay still staring up at the man he’d pursued for the last six months.

Mario shifted so he could sit down beside Jou. “I do,” he said simply. “I was hoping I was wrong, but now I know better.”

“Really?” Jou looked up, surprised that other man didn’t sound angry.

“My name’s not Seto,” said Mario, with a wry smile.

Jou felt his expression and his color drain. He had never mentioned Seto. Not to Mario, not to Esmerelda, not to anyone.

“I shared hotel rooms with you for nearly a month altogether. You talk in your sleep, Joey. But that’s not the only problem. I don’t turn you on.”

Jou shook his head. “That is definitely not it. You are one of the hottest men I’ve ever seen. Do you know how hard it is to control myself every time we spar?”

“I know,” said Mario, nodding. “But it’s the fighting that turns you on, not me. Every time I get you pinned your eyes glaze over like you’re in the middle of mind-blowing sex. I was hoping that I might get to see that look in your eyes for me, but it’s not there, Joey. I’m not what turns you on—fighting with me is what turns you on.” Mario rubbed his back in slow circles “And right now, I really wish it turned me on, too. I’m just not really into that whole dominance thing.”

“I am not a sub!” Jou insisted, unsure of why he was so defensive about the accusation.

“You’re a masochist, then?”

“No!”

“Well, either you get off on me dominating you or you get off on me hurting you. Since you don’t get off on my kissing you, those are pretty much the only options left. It’s no big deal. Everyone’s got their kinks, you know. And this way there shouldn’t be any issues with us working together.”

Jou looked at him in astonishment. “You’re still willing to work with me? After this?”

“I think we both need to find new sparring partners, but I think we can keep things cool on the job. So, what are you going to call your company?”

Jou blushed again, thinking of the only name he had managed to come up with. “I was thinking about Guard Dog Enterprises.”

“What? No! You need something professional. Something that makes your clients feel confident, like they’ve got a partner rather than an employee.”

“This is coming from a man whose own business advertisements consist of putting the word Ju-Jitsu on the front window?”

Mario rose to his feet and held out his hand for Jou. Jou scooted to the side of the bed and let the other man pull him to his feet. “It works. It tells people what to expect. Your clients already have expectations, but the name you chose is going to solidify them or break them. You need something that tells them that they’ve got an ally, someone to watch their back.”

“An ally? I’ll have to think about that.”