Page 94 of The Fire Line

“Pretend I know when I don’t.”

Jay studied him. “That’s a more ambitious promise.”

“Yup.”

“Are you sure you can keep it?”

Harris considered lying about that too and decided the irony would be excessive. “Nope. Can try.”

The last of the tension in Jay’s face eased.

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Temporarily acceptable.”

Harris nodded toward the doorway. “Meeting adjourned?”

“Almost.”

Jay pushed away from the wall and came toward him.

There was nothing ambiguous about the direction he was headed, but he moved slowly enough to give Harris every chance to object. Harris stayed exactly where he was.

“You sure?” Jay asked.

The question was about more than a kiss. Harris knew that now.

“Yup.”

Only then did Jay close the remaining distance.

The first contact was restrained, almost careful, which Harris tolerated for perhaps three seconds before sliding a hand behind Jay’s neck and pulling him closer. The low sound Jay made against his mouth went straight through him.

Whatever anger remained sharpened the kiss without turning it cruel. Jay’s fingers caught in the front of Harris’s shirt, pulling as much as holding, and Harris answered by walking him backward until his shoulders met the saddle rack with a muted knock.

“Quiet,” Harris said against his mouth.

Jay pulled back just far enough to give him a look of bright, offended disbelief. “You put me here, asshole.”

Harris kissed him before he could elaborate.

Jay came fully against him this time, chest and stomach and thigh solid against Harris’s body until every point of contact registered at once. A horse struck one hoof against a stall door outside. Noah laughed somewhere farther down the aisle.

The ranch continued around them, oblivious and much too close.

Harris knew he should step back. Instead, the awareness of where they were seemed to sharpen everything—the heat of Jay’s mouth, the hand at the back of his neck, the pressure when Jay dragged him down and met every bit of force Harris gave him with more of his own.

Harris was learning that about him. Jay pushed back. Not against Harris exactly, but in answer.

He liked that quite a fucking lot.

Jay’s hand slipped beneath the back of his shirt, warm fingers spreading over his lower back before finding the waistband of his jeans. His palm disappeared beneath it, gripped Harris’s ass, and pulled their hips together hard enough to leave no question about what either of them wanted.

Then the touch changed.

Jay’s fingers moved into the crease of Harris’s ass, and every muscle in Harris’s body went still.