Page 30 of Down in Flames
Silence ticked away in seconds, and then minutes, and he still couldn’t unhinge his jaw enough to speak. Michael watched him with slowly eroding patience.
This is it, West thought, panicked. This is when he realizes you’re only brave when no one is looking.
But Michael hadn’t stopped touching him. His fingers tightened in West’s hair, and he growled, “Listen to me, kid. I bullied an old man and tracked you all the way across state lines just to get you to stop running and face me. This last step needs to be all you.”
Taking a deep breath, West opened his mouth, and…nothing. Not a darn thing. He felt every bit as weak as his family had always thought him to be. Beating himself up on the back of a bucking horse was never going to prove anything.
In that moment, he hated himself more than Derek ever could.
Concern clouded Michael’s expression. He framed West’s face in both hands and leaned down, pressing their foreheads together and staring into his eyes. It felt like getting swallowed by the ocean. All that blue.
“Ask me, West,” he whispered.
His voice trembled. It was the first time West had ever heard him sound anything but certain. Guiltily, West realized that he was still only thinking of himself. His desire. His fear. He’d never once stopped to consider all the loneliness Michael had faced over the years. Maybe he wasn’t forcing himself out of some misguided sense of friendship or responsibility. Maybe he needed to be touched just as badly as West did, and he'd never trusted anyone else to do it. Until he'd noticed West right there in front of him.
It was that realization that finally gave West the strength he needed.
His voice shook as he said, “It won’t be easy. Not in a town like this. Maybe not anywhere.”
“Life ain’t ever easy.”
“But…can we give it a shot?” West gave a hard swallow. “You and me? Something real?”
A soft breath left Michael’s lungs, like he’d been holding it and had finally gotten permission to breathe again.
“Yeah,” he rasped. “Yeah, kid. We can try.”
He curled a hand around the back of West’s neck, tugging him into his chest for a fierce hug. Cautiously, West slid his arms around his waist. He’d never been held like this, by arms stronger than his own. It felt so good. If the men in his family had ever been affectionate, life had pounded it right out of them. He’d thought being held might make him feel weak, but it didn’t. He felt strong.
And that’s when Michael kissed him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
For a man who’d spent his whole life only kissing one woman, Michael knew how to turn kissing into an art form. Gone was the gentle curiosity of their first kiss, replaced by slow, easy confidence. Like everything he did, there was no rush and no need to impress as he tightened his arms and skillfully coaxed West’s lips apart.
The first satin touch of his tongue was all it took to send West up in flames. The longing he’d ruthlessly repressed for years suddenly flared, like pouring gasoline on a wildfire. Lust had taken over, and it was riding him hard all the way to ninety.
Their height difference forced his head back, giving Michael the perfect leverage to freely plunder his mouth. It was a strangely vulnerable sensation, being forced to submit to a man whose strength and size dwarfed his own. Michael was so big, so hard all over, it felt like he had his own gravity. Like a magnetic force rose from the very core of him. Whatever that power was, it wrapped around West's heart and tugged him closer, until they were plastered together from chest to thigh. Until their breath filled each other's lungs, and a shockingly hard ridge pressed against his groin.
In the end, it was Michael who broke the kiss. At least, West thought that was how it happened. He was too busy locking his knees and hoping they didn't buckle. Right now, the only thing keeping him upright were his bloodless fists in Michael's shirt. He rested his forehead against his shoulder, sucking in huge gulps of air while he waited for the world to stop spinning.
“Dear God,” Michael whispered, threading his fingers through West’s hair and cradling the back of his head. “When I think of all the time we could have been doing this, if only I'd been paying attention. You kiss like you’re starving for it.”
West pulled back just enough to look him in the eye. “I guess you’re not the only man who feels funny about kissing a stranger. When your nearest date is some internet rando who lives two hours away, it feels like a business transaction. Not a lot of room for…romance.”
“There must have been someone,” Michael said—kindly, West thought.
Most of the town expected him to live out his days as a sheltered, inexperienced bachelor, until he was as shriveled as the crotchety old men who played cards down at the shop. He was sure that the only reason his family hadn't kicked up more of a fuss about his sexuality was because they hadn't expected it to ever come up. West had been braced to be single his whole life. No one could ever compare to Michael, so he hadn’t bothered looking.
“There’s not exactly a line of guys waiting to crawl into haystacks with each other around here,” he said with a soft laugh. “If Aiden hadn’t been such a horndog when we were younger, I’d have probably been a virgin forever.”
“Aiden?” Michael asked, jerking his head back sharply. “Aiden Doyle? The guy who just spent his day rollin’ around in mud like a little kid?”
West's cheeks heated, and he grimaced. “None of us were exactly spoiled for choice back then," he said defensively. "I was desperate not to die a virgin, and he was horny enough to fuck a mailbox if the post looked particularly fetching.”
“Is he even gay?”
“Not so’s you’d notice,” West drawled, chewing the inside of his cheek.