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But Seth met his glare. Not with a glare of his own but with a pained look in his eyes. He said softly, “You have such terrible nightmares.”
Raider’s body locked up. His brain froze.
Seth winced at Raider’s reaction. “I’m sorry. I’ll let it go.”
Raider didn’t reply. He couldn’t.
Seth dipped the washcloth. “Let me finish this.”
Raider unlocked his voice to say, “No.”
“Please,” Seth said gently.
“No.”
“Please, Raider. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”
The problem wasn’t what Seth had said. The problem, of course, was Raider. He didn’t deserve Seth’s gentleness, his concern. He didn’t deserve Seth at all.
And yet, when Seth moved closer to him, when he cautiously pulled Raider into him, Raider didn’t push back. He was stiff at first, passively resisting, but when Seth closed his arms around him, Raider started shaking. And Seth, damn him, just held on and absorbed it. When the worst of it had passed, Seth resumed sponging the sweat and grit from Raider’s skin, taking care of him.
And even if Raider didn’t deserve it, he wanted it. So fucking bad. He leaned into Seth, trying to draw all that warmth and security into himself. And when Seth cupped the back of his head, the last of Raider’s resistance crumbled. He relaxed and let Seth soothe him until everything else faded away.
CHAPTER 28
SETH WAS RELIEVED that Raider’s mood improved as he healed. Raider had been in dark place for a while. It had been hard to reach him there. He had lashed out, pushed back. He’d made Seth work really damn hard to get close to him.
Though Raider’s recent attempts to drive Seth away had been the strongest, they hadn’t been the first.
The first had been after they’d had sex at the oasis. Raider had gotten hostile in the morning, had sneeringly insisted that sex didn’t change anything. But when Seth had soundly rejected that argument, he’d seen the fear and yearning in Raider’s eyes. The need.
Something similar had happened when Seth had had to dig so hard to get Raider to admit why he’d been upset on that last morning with the Sudai.
And what had Raider said? He’d been upset—though he’d refused to use the word—that it had felt good to have Seth take care of him. It had scared Raider to want that.
For all Raider’s flirtation, for all his casual sexuality, he had a hard time with actual intimacy.
Seth wasn’t surprised to find himself being the one who always initiated it. He wanted it. He fucking loved it. Yes, of course it scared the shit out of him too. But he was past the point of resisting it. All the logical reasons that he shouldn’t let himself get attached to Raider had lost their power over him.
Walking late one afternoon, three days after the sand serpent tunnels, Raider touched Seth’s elbow to get his attention. He pointed to a huge-eared desert fox trotting through some scrub.
Raider smiled and said, “Cute, huh?”
Seth stopped dead. Raider walked on for a moment then also stopped, looking back at Seth with a question.
This man.
Whatever darkness lurked in him, whatever horrors gave him such terrible nightmares, he was so damn full of light. More and more over the last few days, as the haunted look had begun to fade from Raider’s eyes, he had turned his attention to other things. Better things.
It sickened Seth to think that once he might have scoffed at Raider in a moment such as this. Once, Seth had not understood that Raider’s lightness and playfulness was a choice. A damned good choice—and not an easy one. Most people just gave in to darkness. They became bitter, often cruel. But not Raider.
Now, Seth was a little wiser. So he closed the distance between them—and kissed the hell out of this beautiful man.
It clearly startled Raider. Seth had been tender with him but not passionate, not for the past three days as Raider recovered.
Seth had taken the stitches out yesterday. Raider’s body amazed him, as did the way he’d already been walking so far each day. He’d been guiding them, focused, in command of himself and their path.
But even after removing the stitches, Seth hadn’t initiated anything. Neither had Raider.
