Chapter 17
Damon followed Cain up the steps, their fingers threaded tightly together, his breath catching with every stride in a way that had nothing to do with the climb or the strain on his leg, and everything to do with the sexy man in front of him.
Christ. Had he ever wanted someone so badly? He couldn’t remember it, if he had. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever wantinganythingso fucking badly - not his hard-won education, not the job he loved, not even getting his name and his life back.
Andthatknowledge was terrifying as hell. How had this guy become so important to him so quickly? How had Cain managed to get under his skin and somehow, with his sweetness and his sly humor, with his strength and his submission, take the neatly-ordered list of Damon’s life-priorities and rearrange them all?
Cain paused when he reached the top of the stairs and turned to face Damon, who was one step below. “So, um, the hot tub is out there.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, where a small sitting area led to another sliding glass door and what appeared, in the dim exterior light, to be another deck just like the one downstairs. “This is the room where I usually sleep,” he said, pointing to the door opposite the stairs. “The other bedrooms and my dad’s office are down there.” He gestured down the hall.
He bit his lip when he turned back to Damon. “I’m pretty sure we have bathing suits around here somewhere, if you want?” His voice was husky, his eyes were glowing with desire, but he was strong enough to put his own needs aside and make sure Damon was totally comfortable, that he wasn’t imposing or assuming too much.
Fragile and strong andsweet.Maybe the better question was how he hadn’t fallen for Cain even sooner.
Damon took the final step, bringing himself flush against Cain, then kept advancing, walking Cain into the wall behind him. “Cain?”
“Y-yeah?” Cain’s deep blue gaze fluttered from Damon’s eyes to his lips and back again.
“Wewon’tneed swimsuits.”
“Oh—” Cain began, but then Damon’s lips met his, and anything else he’d been about to say seemed irrelevant in the face of the overwhelming fire that seemed ready to burn them both up.
He was dimly aware of Cain’s fingers sifting through his hair, grabbing onto it as if Damon was the only point of stability as the world shifted around them. And maybe he was; Damon was holding onto Cain just as tightly. His tongue plundered Cain’s mouth, cataloging every note of his sweetness, every sensation of his tongue, placing them all in a treasure box in his mind where everything about Cain was stored.
Damon broke away just long enough to strip Cain’s shirt off, carefully avoiding his bandage, and throw it on the floor of the landing. He turned them so he could back Cain across the seating area to the sliding door, kissing him all the while. It was not the safest course, given the furniture directly in their path, but when the back of Cain’s leg hit a coffee table and he stumbled, Damon was there to pull him back up, laughing as he claimed Cain’s mouth once again.
Damon broke away to wrench the door open while Cain’s hands reached for the hem of Damon’s shirt, then that, too, was on the sitting room floor. Damon grabbed Cain around the waist as they tripped their way outside, the skin-on-skin heat of their embrace sending a shock through his body as surely as the cold night air.
“Jeans,” Cain whispered against his lips as his feet hit the edge of the tub. The steam from the frothing water lent the night a foggy, mysterious air. He toed his shoes off, and Damon followed suit, but when Cain would have stepped back to remove his pants, Damon pulled him closer, pulling Cain’s bottom lip between his teeth.
“Do you know how badly I want you?” he whispered, loving the blush that climbed Cain’s cheeks.
“Yeah?” Cain asked, breathless and hopeful.
Jesus, how could he doubt it? Damon was rock-hard, not a single thought in his head besides how to pull Cain so far inside himself, meld them so firmly together, that none of the bullshit in their lives would be able to tear them apart. He’d imagined it was obvious.
But apparently Cain needed convincing.
He pulled back slightly, and Cain looked confused. “Wha-?”
“So handsome.” Damon pushed both of his hands through the thick fall of Cain’s dark hair, rubbing his fingertips along Cain’s scalp as Cain arched helplessly toward him. The pink scars crisscrossing Damon’s arms were silver in the dim light, and it should have looked strange or wrong for his hands to be touching Cain’s perfection, but instead it looked incrediblyright.“I love touching you. I fuckinglovethe way you respond to me.”
He moved his hand to cup Cain’s jaw, running his thumbs along those high cheekbones, the clean lines that seemed like they’d been carved from marble, and stared into Cain’s eyes. “Those eyes. So blue, baby. And always so open and honest.” His voice was hushed, deep and shadowy as the night around them. “I sometimes wish I could see the world the way you see it - like everything is better and more important than it is, likeIam better and more important than I am.” Those blue eyes softened, wide and almost bewildered, and Damon lifted one corner of his mouth in a smile. “Wish you could see yourself the same way.”
He traced his fingertips over the perfect cupid’s-bow curve of Cain’s lips. “Remember the first time we kissed?” God, that mouth. So lush and expressive, fascinating to watch even when Cain was giving him shit. Hell,especiallywhen he was giving Damon shit. “Even before our lips touched, it was like… an earthquake, an electric shock.” He shook his head at his own corny metaphors, but Cain didn’t laugh or roll his eyes.
“I thought you didn’t remember it,” he whispered.
“I remember every single second,” Damon promised him. “It was like this moment of clarity in the middle of the haze.” He smiled. “To be honest, every time I’m with you is like that. You take me out of myself, cut through all the other stuff and remind me what’s important. You remind me there’s a future out there for me, and you make me believe I can find it.” He could feel himself blushing. Forty years on the planet, and he’d still rather take a beating than spill his guts like this.
“Youcanfind it,” Cain lifted his hands to Damon’s shoulders, then ran them up his neck. His gaze was calm and steady, reassuring, and Damon found himself speaking another truth.
“I think I already have.”
He held steady while Cain looped his arms around his neck, let Cain draw his head down to kiss him, hot and sweet, like he’d put his entire soul into the kiss.
And then the heat that swamped him every time he was with Cain flooded his veins again, burning up all his words and all his control.
“Cain,” he groaned, reaching for the button of Cain’s jeans and stripping them down his legs so quickly that Cain laughed helplessly. Cain’s boxers soon followed.
