When he sees entrepreneur Mitch O'Shea whirling around an empty building, contractor Ben Behr is enchanted. Even though his two brothers are gay, Ben always thought he was a ladies' man until he met Mitch. Despite his feelings, Ben knows San Francisco native Mitch is totally out of his league. What could Ben possibly do to get out-and-proud Mitch to notice him? Turns out Mitch is just as attracted to Ben. As they compete in car rallies, camp in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and tour the bars Mitch owns in the city, they realize how stifled they've been their entire lives. Maybe looking over the fence and jumping it to explore what's on the other side are good ideas. When these two seemingly opposites get together, will Ben and Mitch find out they have the world at their feet and might even have love in their hearts?

Waking the Behr

If that wasn’t enough drama for one night, Mitch said the deadliest four words in the English language to me.


I knew only too well what those words meant.


Having never been in a serious relationship, I was finding that I was in deeper with Mitch than I’d ever been with another person—male or female—other than my brothers. But they were family, so they didn’t count. Since I’d met him, I’d been sometimes walking, occasionally creeping, but always moving closer and closer to the essence of Mitch.


As I fell harder for him, I realized I barely knew anything about his childhood or upbringing other than he hadn’t graduated from high school but seemed to have sprung fully formed to open a successful neighborhood bar and had reinvested his money to create three others.


Chapter 29