Limitless Love: A Polyamorous Charity Anthology

Chapter 1

The universe had woken up and chosen violence, and Keenan Atkins was ready to run it over with his patrol car. Twice. Maybe a third time for good measure. Couldn’t be too careful with these things. “Turn around,” he ordered his partner and current nemesis.

“Nope,” Drew Webster said joyfully. He twisted to look at Keenan, his hazel-green eyes twinkling under the streetlights they were passing under.

“Seriously. Sirens and everything.”

“There’s a reason I don’t let you drive, and this is it.”

That was bullshit. Drew didn’t let him drive because he hated having to push the seat back if they needed to switch. It wasn’t Keenan’sfault he’d stopped growing at five foot two. The universe could suck his dick.

“I asked for six sugars, Drew. They don’t get to decide how many sugars I get. I’m a paying customer. I ask for it, they give it to me. That’s how retail works!” He hadn’t even been an asshole about it. He hadn’t even talked to them, in fact. Drew had ordered.

“Look, a man can ask for whatever he wants,” Drew said. “I’m not here to police what a person drinks or eat, so long as they’re not breaking the law.” He pointed at Keenan’s takeaway cup and Keenan instinctively moved it out of reach, just in case Drew went for it. “Except for that. If it’s not illegal, it should be.”

“Fuck off.”

Drew laughed and ran a hand through his thick blond hair, messing it up even further as if it didn’t already look like sexy bed hair. “It’s supposed to be coffee, babe, not syrup.”

Keenan scowled and ignored the way his stomach flipped at the word babe. It was second nature for Drew. It didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t let it mean anything, because they’d agreed six months ago to just be friends because they couldn’t afford for it to get in the way of their jobs.

And most of the time, they stuck to that.

“I’m not drinking this swill,” Keenan muttered, shoving it into the cup holder, with prejudice. Why had he even been protecting it? It didn’t deserve that.

They’d been on patrol for almost ten hours now, with one bullshit call after another all night—wasn’t even a fucking full moon tonight—and were heading back to the station, finally. The drive through stop had been the first opportunity they’d had to get something. The least the universe could do was let him have a decent cup of coffee. Was that so much to ask?

“You can add sugar to it when we get back to the station.”

“Then it’ll be cold?” Keenan folded his arms over his chest, fingers curling into the pockets on his black police vest. He wasn’t drinking cold coffee: he wasn’t an animal.

“That’s what microwaves are for.”

Keenan scrunched his face up in disgust. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, so we can still be friends.” If he wasn’t driving and in charge of keeping them alive currently, Keenan might have contemplated opening the door and shoving Drew out of it. Microwaving his coffee. What the fuck kind of horror story was that?

Drew snorted out a laugh. “I’ve seen the way you eat a burger, Kee. If that doesn’t stop us being friends, then I think we’re good.”

Keenan wasn’t responding to that.

The radio crackled to life, asking for anyone who was free to back up responding officers to a disturbance call at a local restaurant not far from where they were.

Keenan blinked. “Did he just say the place was called ‘Pasta La Vista, Baby’? How have we never been there?” He liked pasta, and he could appreciate a Terminator pun. Did they have meatballs? He glanced at Drew. If he disappeared for a second to put in an order, that was fine, right? Totally fine. Drew wouldn’t even notice. Keenan was good at getting lost in crowds. It was the only good thing about his height.

Drew shrugged. “Maybe it’s new?” He leaned forward, letting dispatch know they were responding and on their way.

Three patrol cars were spread across the small parking lot of the pasta place when they got there. Keenan stretched as he got out, glancing around. “Didn’t this used to be a pizza place?” All he could remember was that they weren’t very good, and he’d never gone back.

“That was six years ago,” Drew said, falling into step beside him. He was six foot two, so it wasn’t like it was hard for him to catch up, the asshole. “Then it was a fish-and-chip shop. And, uh… I think there was a steak place? Do you even pay attention when we drive?”

“This isn’t part of our route,” Keenan muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets.

He pushed through the doors first, irritation prickling at him. He settled a hand on his hip, close to his firearm, and surveyed the situation. Whatever had gone down had done a number on the small business. Spaghetti on the wall, all over three tables, broken plates and bowls on the dark wooden floors. Four officers were already inside, two standing with a crying male, one more with a woman who looked two seconds away from throwing another plate. The fourth stood with bystanders and someone gesturing wildly who had to be either an owner or manager of some kind.

Keenan exchanged a glance with Drew and then they divided and conquered—they had been paired up on patrol so many times over the years that they didn’t need words to decide who was going where. Drew headed for the two officers with the man, and Keenan went for the woman. He liked the difficult ones.

“He doesn’t get to do that to me!” she blustered as Keenan approached. “He’s lucky I even deigned to give him the time of the day, and he doesn’t get to take me to some shitty pizza place and break up?—”

“Pasta,” Keenan interrupted.

She stopped abruptly and turned to sneer down at him. “Excuse me?”

“It’s a pasta place,” he corrected. He was being pedantic. They’d serve pizza, most likely, and even do takeaway if they wanted to maximise their profits. But it had stopped her tirade, and now she was focused on him, just the way he liked it.

The officer—Eric Cohen—bit back a smile and cleared his throat. “Officer Atkins.”

“’sup.”

Eric turned, bending a little to hover at Keenan’s ear. “Thank God you’re here,” he breathed.

Keenan smirked. “I got this. You want to check the rest of the rabble?”

“Please.”

Keenan slapped him on the back and then grinned up at the woman, whose face was getting redder as the seconds ticked by. She stepped forward and jabbed a finger at him. He sidestepped with a scowl. “Do that again, and I’m gonna cuff you. Sit there,” he ordered, pointing to a nearby chair.

“You can’t arrest me! Do you know who I am?”

Keenan stepped closer, hating that he had to tip his head up a bit. She was already tall as fuck; what did she need heels for? If anyone could use them, it was him. “Lady, I don’t care if you’re Jesus. Sit your ass down and shut the hell up.”

Her mouth snapped closed. Keenan stared her down until she did as she was told. Luckily, he and Drew had gotten there too late to do anything but stand guard, and any paperwork wasn’t his shit to deal with. The two officers who had been first on the scene got the lucky job of cleaning up this clusterfuck.

Drew came up behind him, chuckling. He hooked his thumbs in his belt, totally relaxed in the chaos surrounding them. “How’s it going over here?”

Keenan shot him a look, and his smile only widened.

“I demand for that idiot to be arrested and for me to be on my way.”

“Be quiet until we ask you a question,” Keenan said dismissively, ignoring the idiot jab. If she wanted to hurt his feelings, she’d have to do better than that. “You have the right to remain silent, remember?”

“Am I being arrested?”

“You will be if you don’t exercise that right,” Keenan warned her.

Her mouth closed again with another audible snap as she glared at him. That was a look he was familiar with.

“Great night, huh?” Drew said, laughter in his tone, crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He smiled too much, the fucker.

“A real fuckin’ ball of laughter.” They’d been five minutes off ending their shift. If they hadn’t stopped for the shit coffee, they would have been too far away to respond. The universe hated him, and “great” wasn’t the adjective he was planning to use here. “Let’s hope this wraps up quick. I have a frozen burrito and a movie with a lot of action and gore in it waiting for me at home.”

“Big plans there, Kee.”

“Fuck off.” After a ten-hour shift, they were the best plans in the entire fucking world. No plan could be finer. The question, “You want to join me?” was out of his mouth before he could call the words back.

“Join you, or join you?”

The innuendo was dangerous. Giving in backslid them every time. Keenan tried to keep the distance between them, professionalism drawn in the sand, but when Drew gave him that look, offered even a glimpse of that skin he knew tasted so fucking good, they ended up back in bed together. They’d been on a teetering tightrope for half a year, and neither of them were particularly good at not falling off.

Inviting Drew over was the worst plan he could make for the night, but now that it was out in the open, he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. It was inevitable that they were ending up naked together tonight. On the couch, in bed, Keenan didn’t care. “The night is yo?—”

His words dried up as he spied a face that he had never thought he’d ever see again. He blinked a few times. Maybe he was seeing things? It couldn’t be.

But it was.

Evan Foley.

Brown-haired, brown-eyed angel that had once given Keenan his heart—the heart that Keenan had stomped all over.

Unfortunately, he’d already spotted Keenan, so his getaway plan was a bust.

Evan’s stunned expression quickly morphed as his face lit up into a bright smile that was so familiar to Keenan. It took him back in time, to a place where he saw that smile every day. Sometimes even because of him.

That crooked smile. Those perfect lips. Brown eyes that were like glass pane. Features he’d traced with hands and lips, and teeth.

“You know him?” Drew asked curiously, glancing between them.

A more loaded question than it should have been. “I used to.”

“In the biblical sense?”

“Are you really asking me that?” Keenan eyed Drew suspiciously. “Who cares?” He didn’t care. It was in the past. And that should always be left there. No use looking back.

“I care. Did you sleep with him? Or date him? Both?” Drew didn’t sound jealous, only curious. Keenan didn’t know if that was better or worse. Their situation was enough of a clusterfuck without adding that particular clusterfuck to it. There was only room for one at a time.

“We… dated.” And spent hours in bed together, but Keenan wasn’t mentioning that. “A long time ago. It doesn’t matter.”

“It looks like it matters.”

“It doesn’t.” He’d forgotten about Evan years ago. What was he even doing back in Sydney? What had happened to his job in Melbourne?

“It looks like it does.”

“Would you shut the fuck u?—”

He clamped his mouth shut when Eric and his partner—Mason Baxter—approached them. “We need to ask”—Mason gestured at the woman—“a few more questions, and then we should be able to wrap this up.”

“Well, thank fuck for that,” Keenan said. “Let us know when we can go home.”

“Are we keeping you away from burritos and an action movie, Kee?” Eric asked, amusement on his face that was way uncalled for. Sassing a man who’d had his coffee made wrong and his home time fucked with shouldn’t be legal. He needed to reassert his dominance. Eat someone’s lunch out of the station fridge while maintaining aggressive eye contact with said person.

“No,” Keenan lied. Too many people knew his habits. He needed to do something random to switch it up and leave them all with their mouths hanging open.

“Let us know if you need us to do anything,” Drew said. “Otherwise, we’ll be here, looking pretty.”

“It’s by far your best skill,” Mason said.

“They say do what you’re good at,” Drew all but sang.

“Jesus Christ,” Keenan muttered, looking away. It was the wrong move because he was drawn right back to Evan. Who was still looking at him. The smile was smaller, warm instead of bright and open, but still there. It was always there. The only times it ever hadn’t been was because of Keenan. When he’d said no to a question that should have been a yes. When he’d broken things off because Evan had opportunities, and Keenan wasn’t interested in leaving the place that he called home.

So much water under the bridge. The bridge itself was gone, washed away years ago.

And yet none of it mattered, staring into those eyes that had once cherished Keenan like he’d walked on water. One moment in time, and it was like they were back where they’d started: their eyes meeting over the crowded cafeteria, through the throng of university students, drawn to each other like magnets. That’s all it had taken then and all it was taking now.

“He’s the ex, isn’t he? The one from university? What was his name?” Drew tapped on his lip thoughtfully.

“Evan,” Keenan said, the word merely a whisper.

“Right, that was it. Foley. I thought he was in Melbourne?”

“He was.” What was he doing back in Sydney? When had he come back? Had he been here a while? Or was it recent? Keenan shouldn’t want to know. It wasn’t his business.

“Not anymore,” Drew mused. “Is that why you and I broke up? Because he’s back in town?”

Keenan jerked in surprise. “What? No!” He swivelled around, making sure no one was in hearing range. “Don’t say that shit here; what if someone hears you?” he hissed, grabbing Drew’s arm and tugging him closer.

“You’re the only one that cared, Kee. We weren’t risking anything, and even if we were? I would have risked everything for you.”

Fucking hell. They could not be having this conversation here. They’d never talked about it, not like this, or said shit like that, not while they were together and definitely not after,because there was nothing to talk about. They were professionals, and they couldn’t date and do their jobs properly. Or be allowed to keep working together. They just couldn’t.

And Drew looked at him the same way Evan used to, and Keenan couldn’t do that. Couldn’t be a person’s world. It was too much responsibility. It was too much… everything. Eventually, they’d realise he was the furthest thing from a catch, and he’d be alone, and he might as well be the first one to end it. That way he was still in control, and being alone was his choice.

“Let’s go say hello,” Drew said cheerfully. He grabbed Keenan’s elbow and dragged him along before he could protest.

They were on a job. They didn’t need to say hello. What the fuck was he supposed to say? Nice to see you again? It wasn’t. It brought back so many things—emotions, feelings, that tugged at his gut that should have been long gone—and he wasn’t ready for any of that.

Evan’s close-mouthed smile was welcoming, and he looked so damn happy to see Keenan. Why? He should be throwing things. Giving Keenan dirty looks. Refusing to even look at him. There were a few unbroken plates he could use if he were so inclined.

Why do you have to be so fucking perfect even after I broke your heart and left you in the dirt?

“Hi,” Evan breathed out when Keenan and Drew were close enough. His gaze flitted over the two of them. “It’s so nice to see you.”

“Yeah,” was all Keenan could think of to say.

“Kee has no manners,” Drew said cheerfully. He stuck out a hand. “I’m Drew, as in, ‘I drew the short straw’ when they were giving him partners.”

“You have to stop using that line when you introduce yourself to people,” Keenan said, rolling his eyes.

Evan laughed softly and took Drew’s hand. “Evan. It’s a pleasure.” Their hold lingered and that did nothing to Keenan’s anything, because it wasn’t a thing, and they were just shaking hands for fuck’s sake. He needed to get out of here.

As he turned, Keenan caught a glimpse of a darker patch of clumped hair. Blood.

“You’re hurt,” he blurted, surging forward without thought. His fingers had already touched Evan’s forehead before he could think better of it. He settled too easily into it, sliding against Evan’s soft skin, a touch that couldn’t be called anything but a caress.

Their eyes met, and the rest of the last ten years faded away. How long had it been since he’d been this close to Evan? Touched him? Seen those beautiful brown eyes?

“Did you get this looked at?” he asked, hating the hoarseness of his voice. He wasn’t twenty-two anymore, and he hadn’t been gone for this man for a long fucking time.

“Uh, no,” Evan stammered. “They wanted to—but I said—I said no because it’s already dried, and it’s fine. It doesn’t need any special treatment or stitches or anything. I’ll clean it when I can go home. Do you know when that might be?”

Fuck that. “Sit down.”

“Okay,” Evan said immediately, knees wobbling like he was going to just drop to the floor from the command.

Keenan took his elbow and led him to a nearby chair. A glance behind him told him that Drew was following with a knowing smirk—which he could wipe off his face—and the rest of the scene was under control. It wouldn’t take long to clear the area and finish dealing with those involved. If the woman wasn’t arrested, she was going to get smacked with some lovely fines.

He sat Evan down and crouched in front of him. It only took a second to realise that wasn’t going to work. Were the chairs made for giants? For fuck’s sake.

He stood and rested a knee between Evan’s legs instead, ignoring the heat pouring off him. And especially ignoring the way his heart sped up. He carefully turned Evan’s head, inspecting where the clumped hair was. It was too difficult to see the damage in the short dark strands.

Drew came up beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed. That wasn’t helping his pulse. Were they trying to kill him?

“Looks like she got you good,” Drew murmured.

“It wasn’t… directly,” Evan said. He didn’t seem sure about where to put his hands. He placed them on his knees, then against his stomach and back again before gingerly resting them on Keenan’s hips.

Keenan should tell him to let go. What he really should do was call a paramedic over—there were still two circling the room somewhere or just outside—and get as far as fucking possible from Evan. He glanced beside himself, where Drew was leaning over him and checking out Evan’s head wound, wafts of his cologne making it hard to think.

Drew too. Both of them.

He needed some air to clear his head. Never in a million years had he ever thought these two men would meet. This was a disaster. Of his own making. And now he desperately wanted to retreat. It was the only thing he was good at.

Running.

“What happened?” Drew asked Evan.

Keenan dropped his hands, and Drew took over, carefully attempting to pry the strands of hair to get to his scalp beneath. Evan hissed in pain, and Drew immediately lifted his hands.

“Shit, sorry.”

“S’okay,” Evan murmured. “It hurts, but it kind of feels nice. Uh—your hands, not the wound bit. I’m not—” His face went bright red, and he clamped his mouth shut.

Drew relaxed and went back to separating the strands. “Yeah? You like a good massage?”

Keenan closed his eyes briefly. They could not be flirting right in fucking front of him. That was not how any of this worked. He reached down, yanking one of his pockets open, and shoved his hand inside. He came back out with a Band-Aid, a single-use alcohol wipe, and an antiseptic cream sachet.

“Still carrying the medicine cabinet in your pocket,” Evan said, a smile flickering.

Drew glanced at him. “He’s always done that,” he remarked. “You know why?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Keenan interrupted shortly. This wasn’t a direction he wanted the conversation going. No trips down memory lane.

He ripped open the alcohol wipe and used it to clean off the blood so that he could see the cut. Evan hissed again, and while Keenan gentled his fingers, he didn’t stop. It had to be cleaned. It would only sting for a little bit.

“I do,” Evan said. “Since it’s my fault. I’d like to point out that I’m much better these days, and I’ve finally learned how to be in control of my own limbs.”

“Oh?” Drew’s gaze was too interested, too intrigued.

Keenan deliberately kept away from it, focusing completely on the task at hand. The cut itself was only small. Those ones always seemed to bleed the worst. He was glad it didn’t need stitches or medical attention.

“I was a bit prone to clumsiness.”

“A bit?” Keenan muttered. He was a walking disaster, is what he was. He couldn’t put a bandage where the cut was, not without some grit or by shaving a section—which he was not doing to Evan’s hair. Since it was small and had stopped bleeding, just cleaning it was good enough.

Evan’s eyes met his, and fucking Christ,why was he here? It had taken Keenan years to move past this. Fucking years. Those goddamn eyes. That face. That fucking smile.

“More than a bit,” Evan amended, with that exact smile that made Keenan’s pulse speed up and his body temperature lift more than a few degrees. “And we were forever asking if someone had a Band-Aid or something to use to stem the bleeding, or get the thorn out, or clean the scrape. He ended up just carrying it all with him.” His fingers slid down Keenan’s hips, and Keenan shivered involuntarily. None of this shit was voluntary. “It’s nice to see that some things don’t change.”

Keenan cleared his throat and took a healthy step back. “Everything’s changed,” he said. They were different people now. A flirt with the past was fine, or whatever, but it couldn’t be more than that. He wouldn’t let it be. “I’m glad you’re okay. Enjoy the rest of your night.”

He turned and walked away before he could ask any of the other questions bubbling up inside him.

What are you doing here?

What happened to you?

Do you miss me the way I miss you?

None of them would do any good. Keenan had chosen his path, and he refused to regret it. It had brought him a career that he loved, and… and it had brought him Drew. Nothing he had ever done could make him regret that even if things were a little shaky right now. Drew was his best friend. They would find their balance. They always did.

“Hey, wait,” Drew said, catching up. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. Do you think we can duck out now?”

“Kee, stop.” Drew took his arm and forced him to halt. “Talk to me.”

“What do you want me to say? It’s time to knock off and go home. Go find someone to fuck and have a good night, Drew.”

Drew’s face tightened. “You hurt his feelings. And mine.”

Keenan shoved his hands into his pockets, a snarl forming on his lips. “Story of my life, isn’t it? That’s all I ever do.”

“That’s not true. You choose to do it because you can’t stand for one second to think that maybe you could have something good and something that makes you happy. I don’t know why you think you don’t deserve that when there’s no one more deserving of it.”

Why would Drew say something like that? How was he supposed to respond? “What do you want from me?”

“All I’ve ever wanted. Just you. You’re the only one that thinks that’s not enough.”

Keenan took a deep breath. He licked his lips and shrugged, a question on his face. He had nothing to say to that. If Drew wanted a deep and meaningful, Keenan couldn’t give that to him. He wasn’t that deep.

“You guys ready to go?” Eric asked, approaching with no idea just what a lifesaver he was.

Keenan could have kissed him. “Are we being let off the hook?”

“Recess is in session,” Eric said, grinning. “Bring me back a fruit roll-up?”

“You wish. Those roll-ups are mine, and I don’t share my candy.” Keenan slapped Drew on the chest with the back of his hand, skin scraping against his bulky vest. “Alright, let’s get the fuck out of here.” A big long fucking drink of vodka was calling his name along with the burrito.

“Night, Eric.”

“Have a good one, guys.”

Not a minute too soon. Keenan was so fucking ready to leave.

Instead of heading toward the door where the exit was, Drew gripped him by the shoulders, turned him around—in the direction of where Evan was fiddling with his phone—slid one arm over his chest, and walked him forward.

“What are you doing?” Keenan asked, resigned. He could dig his heels in, force them both to stop. Part of him needed to, to stop whatever train wreck Drew was leading them toward, and the other part of him didn’t want to. Wanted to see his entire life implode in front of his very eyes. Why not? Who didn’t want some heartache and excitement in their life?

He basically lived on that shit.

Evan’s gaze was warier this time even if there was a hopeful tilt to his lips. “Hello again.”

“Fancy running into you here,” Drew said pleasantly. “We’re heading out now. Can we walk you to your car?”

Keenan tried to turn around to protest, but Drew’s fingers dug into his side, wrapped snugly across his chest, and didn’t give him even an inch. Drew being bigger than him was an unfair advantage in situations like this.

“I didn’t drive,” Evan said. He held up his phone. “It’s my date night, so I took the bus. Gonna get an Uber home, I think. Don’t want to push my luck.”

Keenan tensed.

Date night.

Evan was here on a date.

Of course, he was. Obviously, he wasn’t waiting around to see Keenan again. That would be weird since it had been almost a decade. And Keenan would never have wanted him to. When he’d cut the ties, they’d both known it was permanent. They’d both needed different things, and Evan would never have reached for his dreams if Keenan hadn’t made the decision for both of them.

“Did your date ditch you?” Drew asked, glancing around. “Not very polite. We can find them and put a little fear into them if you want.”

“What?” Evan blinked. Then he laughed. “Oh. No. Date night with myself. I like to spoil myself sometimes. Go somewhere fancy and treat myself to a nice meal.” He ran a hand through his hair and then hissed as his fingers caught in the area around his cut. “Guess that backfired. It usually goes a bit smoother than this.”

Keenan was relaxing against Drew because he felt good, not because he was relieved that Evan wasn’t on a date. That was none of his business. None of this was. Fuck, he wanted to go home.

“Let us give you a ride,” Drew said easily.

Keenan jerked. “Let us what?” he burst out.

Drew tightened his hold, his other hand moving to rest on Keenan’s hip, right where Evan’s had been not that long ago. Was he trying to kill Keenan? There were nicer ways to do it. He even had a list somewhere he could give him. It was a pretty long list, and nowhere on it was this scenario.

Evan sucked his lower lip into his mouth. “Uh. Thank you, that’s very kind. But I don’t want to impose. It shouldn’t take long to get a ride.”

“Ours is free of charge, and the car doesn’t even smell funny. C’mon.”

Evan glanced at Keenan, who was frozen. “O-okay, sure. Thanks. Do you need to—do you have other things to do first? I can wait.”

“Nope, we’re all clear,” Drew said. “Here, anyway. We do need to stop at the station to sign in our guns and exchange the patrol car for mine. That won’t take long. Where are we going?”

Evan gave them an address that wasn’t all that far from there, and by some miracle on the way past the station, so there wouldn’t be any backtracking. As if this was what they’d been meant to do all along.

“Perfect. We’re parked just out the side here.”

Keenan followed them like a puppet on a string, his mind completely blank and unable to comprehend just what the hell was going on. He was about to get in a car with Drew and Evan. Evan and Drew. Two men he’d left behind. He and Drew were only colleagues now, and occasional bed partners when they were weak, even when they both knew it was as far as it could go. They’d tried, and it hadn’t worked, and what was the use of attempting it again? The definition of insanity was doing the exact same thing and expecting a different outcome. Keenan was a lot of things, but he liked to think that he was at least somewhat sane.

A light touch to his elbow as they reached the patrol car made him jump. Evan stared down at him, concern flitting across the shadows caused by the street lights. “You don’t have to?—”

“I… Evan, I don’t know what to say to you. What are you doing here?” he blurted out.

“I already told you?—”

“I meant here in Sydney.”

“Oh. I… I wanted to come home.”

The car unlocked, and Keenan retreated like a coward.

I wanted to come home.

Evan, you were my home.