Eli Bell is the only son of a police chief inspector and a forensic scientist. He's grown up wonky in a world that only deals with the straight and narrow -- and his new boyfriend isn't helping. Rob Hawkes is six feet of muscle, tattoos, and arrest warrants. A career criminal and a former guest of Her Majesty's Prison Service, he'd rather hit Eli's parents than sit down to dinner with them. One wrong move, and Rob could destroy Eli -- and his family -- without a second thought. But this isn't what it looks like. Rob's not in control here -- and Eli's the one to blame.

What It Looks Like

“Oh, Rob, this isn’t playing fair,” Eli murmured when he found the third gift—a new collapsible tripod. He fumbled for his phone. In leaning over to grab it from his abandoned jacket, though, he caught sight of a folded piece of paper in the bottom of the box, and stooped to retrieve it


It was a booklet, roughly stapled together. When Eli flipped through it, he found lots of handwritten notes. IOUs. 1 ticket 4 me 2 drive u out to the peeks for 1 of ur photoshoot things and 1 ticket 4 camping 1 night at stanage and the like.


Eli’s heart shivered. Rob hated nature. He wasn’t big on camping, and photography bored him—usually he dropped Eli off and went to the nearest pub to play on his phone until Eli texted asking to be picked up again. A whole booklet of tickets to get him out into the wilderness…


Eli sighed and retrieved his phone. Thank you for the box, he sent, and started to put everything back into it to take upstairs.


“Eli! When did you get home, dear?”


Chapter 32