A Limited Engagement Page 3

  When his cock finally slipped from my body, he rolled off me, and the loss felt too familiar -- like it could get to be a habit. But he put his arm around me, pulling me close, and we lay for a time on the rug. The rain beat on the roof in steady soothing rhythm, and the fire crackled in counterpoint, and our breathing slowed and steadied and evened out.

  After a time he said, “And you think love is enough?”

  “Sex helps.” He didn’t laugh and I said, “I think love is the point. Because anything else is just a business contract.”

  He said wearily, “I had my life all planned out.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re not a very good actor,” he said. “I’ve known from the first that you were in love with me.”

  “You’re not a very good actor, either,” I said.

  The firelight moved across the ceiling beams in lazy, flickering shadow.

  He said, “There’s a justice of the peace in Greensboro.”

  “Is there?”

  He turned his head and pressed his face into my hair. I felt his lips move against my forehead as he said, “Do you have any idea of what I should do with an unused marriage license?”

  “I do,” I said.

  A Limited Engagement

  Copyright © 2008 by Josh Lanyon

  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Torquere Press, Inc.: Sips electronic edition / September 2008

  All profits from the sale of this book will be donated to organizations supporting the legal defense of marriage for people, regardless of gender.

  Torquere Press eBooks are published by Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680