Page 67 of The Fire Line

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Heat flooded Harris’s face.

Navarro stood exactly where Harris had left him, one hand half raised between them. He hadn’t moved, touched Harris, or kissed him back.

Harris had crossed the space between them and put his hands on him because he’d spent weeks wanting something badly enough to convince himself it was mutual.

He’d been wrong.

Completely fucking wrong.

“Sorry.” The word came out rough and immediate as Harris took another step back. “I shouldn’t have—”

He stopped there because there wasn’t a useful end to that sentence.

He had fucked it up. Not only the kiss, but everything that had come before it—the strange ease they’d finally found, the trust Harris had spent weeks learning to give him. They still had another night out here, then a ride home, then weeks of filming. Harris would have to look at him across the barn and sit across from him at dinner knowing he had made this stupid, presumptuous mistake.

Worse, Navarro would have to do the same.

Harris turned toward the stairs, ready to put some real distance between them.

“Harris, wait.”

He stopped and looked back. Navarro still stood beside the open doorway, several feet between them now. Harris could feel the scowl already set on his own face. Better that than whatever else might show.

“Just—” Navarro dragged a hand over his face. “Give me a second to catch up.”

Harris stayed where he was.

“You surprised me.” Navarro gave a short, disbelieving laugh and shook his head. “My brain went completely offline.”

Harris looked at him more carefully then.

Navarro rubbed his thumb along the edge of his jaw where Harris had held him. “I wasn’t asking you to stop.”

Oh, fuck.

Navarro hadn’t gone still because he didn’t want Harris kissing him. He had gone still because Harris had surprised him.

The tightness in Harris’s chest eased enough for him to breathe properly again, and for the first time since pulling away, he let himself really look. Navarro’s cheeks were flushed, his mouth still slightly parted, his attention fixed entirely on Harris.

He wanted this.

Navarro took a slow step toward him, giving Harris plenty of time to understand what he was doing. Harris stayed where he was, hardly trusting the conclusion yet.

“I’m caught up now,” Navarro said.

One more step put him within reach.

Harris searched his face, making certain, and Navarro’s eyes dropped to his mouth.

That was enough.

Harris caught him by the back of the neck and kissed him again.

This time Navarro kissed him back immediately. His fist closed in Harris’s shirt and hauled him closer, and whatever restraint Harris had managed to recover disappeared. He drove Navarro backward through the open doorway until he hit the old wooden wall with a dull thud, the sound swallowed by the noise Navarro made into his mouth.

There was no shock in the second kiss, no hesitation Harris could mistake for refusal. Navarro opened for him, fingers already in Harris’s hair. Their tongues met awkwardly once. Harris barely registered it before Navarro angled his head and kissed him harder, coffee and salt and the apple he’d eaten at lunch mixing with the rough drag of stubble across Harris’s mouth and chin.