The year is 1883. Eduard van De Lier is a Dutchman overseeing a spice plantation on the island of Java, in the South Pacific. His obsessive attraction to dark-skinned men is just one of his many secrets. His wife Marien knows of his indiscretions, but as she's content with their Colonial lifestyle, she stays silent. Until a former lover of Eduard's shows up in their parlor with thoughts of blackmail. Reza was a crewman on the ship that brought the van De Liers to Java. During the passage, Eduard spent many a night in the younger man's arms. Two years have passed, and the last person Eduard expects to find in his drawing room is Reza, a letter in hand that could destroy the life he and Marien lead. Seeing him again ignites Eduard's lust for his first dark lover. He hopes to retrieve the letter, either through seduction or subterfuge, and the longer Reza eludes him, the more his desire grows. But they're on shaky ground, and before things can heat up between them, their world explodes -- literally -- when the unstable island of Krakatoa erupts.

All Shook Up

He cuts me off. “You think you love me.”


“Okay,” he concedes. “You do. You love me, and I love you. But it’s not a romantic sort of love, is it?”


I rub a hand across my nose, which has begun to run. “I think so,” I admit. “At least, for me it is. I…” With a shuddery sigh, I whisper in a very small voice, “I think of loving you, like that, sometimes. And I think of you when I’m…”


Having sex,I want to say. Jerking off, Joey, okay? I think about you when I come.My throat refuses to say the words.


“Brian,” Joey sighs, exasperated. “I’m a guy, right? And you like guys. So maybe somehow you look at me and think—”


“You’re perfect,” I tell him, hoping to clear things up. “Damn it, Joe, you’re everything I ever wanted in a lover, all right? Timothy even lookslike you…”


Chapter 47