Meteor Strike

Astro-physicist Matthew Dansk falls for one of his colleagues during a research trip, but Alan won’t tell anyone he’s gay and he never goes out with the same man twice. Matt is looking for a serious relationship and he doesn’t date men who are in the closet. When the two men part ways, Matt does his best to forget his feelings for Alan.

Months later, Alan winds up in the hotel room next to Matt’s at a conference, and both men realize the chemistry between them hasn’t diminished. As they spend time together, Matt sees a different side of Alan. When he realizes Alan’s feelings for him run deeper than he’d thought possible, he begins to hope that they can be together after all.

Dedication

To my favorite physicist, my husband. This book wouldn’t exist without you.

Meteor Strike by Silvia Violet

Copyright © 2013, 2016 by Silvia Violet

Cover art by Meredith Russell

All Rights Reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Smashwords Edition

Published in the United States of America.

Meteor Strike is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are fictionalized. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CHAPTER ONE

I flinched when someone knocked on the door of Dr. Greg MacIntyre’s office. I already felt sorry for whoever had the nerve to disturb us. Greg was in no mood for visitors. We were leaving for the annual American Physical Society conference in a few hours, and Rajiv, one of the grad students in our research group, had just discovered some mathematical errors in the presentation he’d put together. After Rajiv had been dressed down with great vigor, Greg sent him to get things straightened out and then discovered the flash drive with the last of the slides he needed to add to his own presentation was missing. Greg had very little tolerance for other people’s mistakes and absolutely none for his own. To say he was not at his best didn’t begin to cover it.

He rolled his chair across the office, jerked the door open, and immediately turned back to his desk. His kilt flapped up and nearly gave me a full peep show. As it was, I saw a delicious swath of muscular thigh.

What do you want? Greg barked. He hadn’t noticed it was his partner standing in the hall.

I found your flash drive. The smile on Blake’s face said he was used to Greg’s moods.

Greg spun around so he was facing his man. Blake.

Blake smiled. Yes, it’s me.

Greg rolled his eyes before taking the flash drive Blake held out to him. He started to lay it down by his computer, but then he passed it to me. Matt, pull up my presentation and add the rest of the slides.

I took the flash drive from him and started to do as he asked, but he shocked me by crossing the room and giving Blake a kiss so filled with passion I couldn’t help but envy Blake. I’d had a crush on Greg from the first day of my astronomy class at Berkeley. When I found out he was gay, my obsession only got worse. Then a year ago, when Greg announced he’d be moving to LSU, my graduate advisor had pushed me to apply for a postdoc position with him. I’d done so even though I wondered how I’d ever be able to concentrate on work when he was nearby. So far I’d managed to keep from thoroughly embarrassing myself, but if Greg started making out with Blake in front of me, all bets were off.

When Greg ended the kiss, Blake’s cheeks were tinged pink. Wow, he said, shaking his head as if to clear it. Remind me to find stuff of yours more often.

Quit telling me to pick up all the time and you will.

Blake laughed. Then he looked Greg up and down and raised a brow. You’re wearing that to the airport? He gestured toward his partner’s kilt.

Yeah, Greg responded. Why wouldn’t I?

Well… The pink in his cheeks grew darker. Getting into your seat might present a challenge.

You afraid some passengers will see more than they want to?

Blake snorted. More like exactly what they want to. And what if you’re seated next to one of those overly curious types who think they have the right to peek just because you’re wearing a kilt?

Are you trying to protect my virtue? Greg laughed.

Not exactly.

Because I’ve got nothing under there to be ashamed of.

Blake’s cheeks reddened even more. No, you certainly don’t.

I resisted the urge to fan myself and wondered if the AC had quit working. I’d fantasized about lifting Dr. Mac’s kilt hundreds of times myself. The man was hot enough in pants, but when he wore one of his many kilts…it was all I could do not to drop something so I’d have an excuse to get down on the floor and take a peek.

Greg patted Blake on the shoulder. Don’t worry. I can handle grabby hands. I’ll just give them the look I give new grad students.

That will work, I added, wanting to make sure they remembered I was there. The way the conversation was going, I didn’t want to end up witnessing more of their togetherness than I could handle. Having a heart attack before attending my first conference after getting PhD attached to my name would really suck.

Greg grinned. See, Matt agrees with me.

Blake grinned. It works on some people. Others just like a challenge.

My cheeks heated. I was one of those. I never liked men who made me feel comfortable. Instead I always fell for ones who were already partnered or acted like assholes or were my current project supervisor. The crush I had on Greg was nothing compared to what I’d felt for Alan, the postdoc I’d spent six months working with at Arizona State.

Greg ran his hand along Blake’s arm in a possessive gesture. Yeah, some people do enjoy that.

The air in the room was suddenly too thick to breathe, like I was standing outside and it was July rather than March.

Then Greg laughed, breaking the sexual tension that snapped between him and Blake. At least the kilt will make it easier for the TSA when they feel me up.

Blake shook his head, but he was grinning at his lover, and I couldn’t help but be happy for them. They loved each other. Anyone could see it. But watching them made me feel my own solitude more keenly than I had in a while.

The conference wouldn’t do anything to improve the feeling either. Most people envisioned a science conference as a bunch of geeks listening to long presentations about math and going back to their rooms at eight p.m. to make love to their laptops. In reality, evenings were spent drinking heavily and finding hookups among the array of graduate students, professors, and industry researchers. Old flames reunited. Graduate student fuck buddies got together for the first time since they’d moved on to postgraduate positions. Relationships were started, and more than a few were ended by cheating. Professors solidified their professional connections in lurid ways, and lots of people made stupid, alcohol-induced decisions. In short, it was basically the same as any other conference—lots of adults behaving badly.

It was going to be a long week.

CHAPTER TWO

The trip to Atlanta went about as smoothly as anyone could expect. Greg didn’t get felt up, either in a security check or by an aggressive admirer on the plane. Our flight left on time, and only one out of our group of five had his luggage fail to make it onto our plane.

The line to check in at the hotel was long, and I considered stowing my luggage and getting some lunch first, but I waited it out, got my room assignment, and headed up to the sixty-ninth floor. I was juvenile enough to grin at the number. Not much chance it would be prophetic for me, though. I wasn’t the hookup type, not even after several cocktails.

I wrestled with the key card, but I finally got the little light to turn green, and I entered the space I had to myself for the entire week. Every time I’d been to a conference since I started grad school, I’d had to share with other students. My advisor at Berkeley never had the funds to get us our own rooms, and I couldn’t afford to pay the extra myself. But now, as a postdoc living in a town with a much lower cost of living than Berkeley, I could afford some privacy.

It would be pure bliss. No