John didn’t want him to take back the words. And a part of him was terrified of hearing it again, because only a few months ago he had been steps away from the black void in his soul. And he wasn’t sure he was ready to let love in yet. No matter how much he wanted it—needed it. How much he felt it for Wyatt.
“I ran,” John acknowledged in a harsh grate.
Wyatt’s pale blue eyes sparkled against the orange light of the fire. “I suppose after life-altering orgasms and almost getting your head cut off aren’t exactly the best times to confess anything.”
Once more surprised by Wyatt’s levity and lightness, John pressed his firm kiss into his knuckles. Or maybe it was the best time, he thought.
“Where did you go?” Wyatt asked quietly.
His eyes searched his, frowning.
“Samuels was worried about you when you left my room. He mentioned he saw you take the stairs.”
John swallowed, averting his gaze, unable to hold it. “Outside. Just went to get some air.”
Wyatt nodded slowly, knowingly. “On the roof?”
Fuck.
“Only quiet place in the whole damned hospital,” John said, noting the defensive armor pushing against his chest, wanting to protect himself.
“Look at me,” Wyatt’s voice was direct and low.
Something told him not to, to run again—to not let him see how scared he was. Because in this moment, he knew Wyatt would see it again, the love and the fear, meshed together in this horrible fucking knot that he couldn’t untangle, that was stuck in the hollow of his throat and in the pit of his soul.
He finally did, sucking in a deep breath and staring head-on into the face of the man he couldn’t hide anything from.
Wyatt’s gaze was unexpectedly soft, almost tender, as he drew his hands into his lips, kissing each finger one at a time. Not in a sensual way, but an affectionate one. “I’m not worried, just so you know.”
“About?”
“You.”
The aching pit tightened in his stomach and he trembled. He hadn’t expected that. He had learned at a young age that armoring himself, suppressing his emotions with family and friends, was a way to control not only what they saw when they looked at him, but also to protect them from worrying. Especially his parents.
“Why not?” John asked tightly.
“I think you believe that being sensitive makes you weak. It doesn’t. It’s the strongest thing about you. And you run from it because you have some shit in your head about, I dunno, being a man? A failure? Enough?”
He sucked in a breath, disconcerted at how paper-thin his armor was against Wyatt.
“You don’t ever have to hide it from me,” his cowboy whispered. “I wish you didn’t feel ashamed about the most incredible part of you.”
The invisible weight strapped to his shoulders slowly began to slide down his back and off his body.
“Your emotions don’t scare me, John.” Wyatt reached for the back of his neck, dragging him into a tender kiss. “It’s your armor that does.”
Speechless, emotion gripping his heart like a fist, Wyatt once more pressed his lips against his before leaning back to begin rubbing his shoulder again, and he let out a hiss of pain.
“When Samuels said you tackled that asshole with your shoulder, I knew you’d be sore.”
A weak laugh spilled out and his incredible, sexy, compassionate cowboy rubbed his shoulder down, humming low and throaty, forcing John to relax again.
After several minutes, John was sprawled out on the sofa, shoulder thoroughly taken care of, sipping wine and stroking his fingers through Wyatt’s soft hair. He loved the feel of his head on his lap as they gazed into the fire and the dark landscape of his backyard.
“Tell me about your dad,” Wyatt asked softly.
Maybe because he was so relaxed, he felt that he could talk about his dad. Or maybe it was because it was Wyatt asking. “He was diagnosed last year with dementia. We had been seeing signs for a while, though. He’d forget small things, telling the same stories, losing his sense of direction in the grocery store he’d been going to for nearly twenty years.”
