“Tell me you don’t want me,” Lawson challenged, dragging out each word like a heated threat as his hand slipped beneath his jeans, cupping himself.
John let out a harsh curse.
A door down the hall opened, and Lawson stepped forward, pushing them both inside the room, and John went, heart hammering. He touched the firm wall of Lawson’s chest, digging his fingers into the muscle around his heart, notsure whether to push or pull. Lawson kicked the door closed with his boot, and it shut with a resounding click.
This is wrong.
This is so fucking wrong.
“Lawson…” John murmured warningly, pushing him against the door, not sure what the hell to do. He couldn’t give in. He knew he couldn’t. Yet his body and mind weren’t working together because his cock was thickening between his legs, causing him to let out a strangled moan of frustration.
“Tell me to fuck off,” Wyatt teased, biting his lower lip.
“Fuck off.”
Wyatt grinned, eyes dancing with seduction. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I know.”
Something passed over Lawson’s handsome face. Being this close to him, he could see the same bags under his eyes that were beneath John’s. And yet, the heat behind his gaze packed a punch to his gut.
John studied the usually smooth, chiseled outline of Lawson’s jawline that was already forming whiskered sprinkles of hair from his last shave.
He remembered how the nurses in the ED giggled excitedly over Lawson when he first started. Blue eyes, classic, strikingly good looks, charming, and most of all, polite as hell. He had the best bedside manner among his new team of residents and went above and beyond for every patient in his care. The nurses were in love with the kid. If only he had a Southern accent and they knew he was actually a cowboy, he’d have nurses actively swooning whenever Lawson walked by or smiled.
Because, fuck, his smile was blindingly handsome. Boyish and sexy all at once.
And now, this cowboy, soon-to-be-doctor, with the most perceptive gaze he’d ever seen, wanted to take care ofhim…
John shivered.
Lawson pushed him deeper into the room, flipping on the lamp, which illuminated the youthful beauty of his face, making John suddenly feel self-conscious about his age.
“I can keep a secret,” Lawson breathed.
Fear and excitement bubbled up in his chest as he let Lawson crowd him, the back of his knees hitting the edge of the bed. The sudden reality of them doing this hit him hard in the gut, and he stiffened. Lawson didn’t know that John had never had sex with a man other than with his hands and mouth. So if Lawson stayed—if he consented to this—he would be surrendering more to him than he would ever know.
Because he didn’t want his sexual inexperience to affect this moment.
This rare, wonderful, stupidly impulsive moment.
“No one can know,” John said in a dry croak.
Lawson’s eyes darkened as though the hunter had just been given permission to kill. Except that wasn’t it at all. Lawson was offering to give, not to take.
“I know,” Lawson murmured. “Can I kiss you now?”
Buzzed, reckless, and wanting to forget the tension in his shoulder, to forget the dark, empty void in his soul, John moved, capturing the strong, stubbled jawline with his fingers and tilting him upward into a crushing kiss.
Lawson let out the sexiest goddamned moan he had ever heard, and his cock responded painfully, pushing with such demand his knees nearly buckled. He forced open Lawson’s mouth, slipping his tongue inside, tasting the whiskey and fiery need that was burning him alive—and fuck—fuck! He tasted too good, and it was his turn to groan.
John hadn’t been unaffected by Lawson’s presence in the ED.
He’d seen how handsome he was, how natural he was at soothing certain patients. He was talented when he was confident, and a bit of a mess when the spotlight was on him. His nerves sometimes got the best of him, and John had seen it often. It was why he pushed Lawson, why he was at his side, encouraging him to take more risks. And Lawson responded eagerly, almost hungrily, to John’s praise. He saw it but ignored it. He’d had plenty of teacher-pet types try to get on his good side, but this—this was something else entirely.
Something more.
