AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I wish I’d met you first,” Hunter heard himself admitting and for once, the truth didn’t feel so wrong.
* * *
Roman knew that if he leaned down just a little, he could get another taste of Hunter. Maybe if he did, he’d discover that last night was some anomaly – that whatever emotion had twisted and rolled through his body last night as Hunter had sealed their mouths together was the result of a waning adrenaline rush and nothing else. But then again, if it were that simple, would he really have spent the whole afternoon feeling like a complete and utter asshole for the callous retort he’d thrown at Hunter before calling off the hike? Would he have spent most of the evening pacing the floor of his crappy motel room before trekking off into the dark Montana night to find Hunter so he could apologize for his behavior?
And Christ, that fucking admission that Hunter wished he’d met him first!
There was no doubt in his mind that if he’d met Hunter last night in the club, he would have done anything and everything to get him back to his hotel room, his youth and inexperience be damned.
Roman forced himself to tear his eyes from Hunter. One more kiss would just fuck everything up. For him, for Hunter. He needed to get things back on track.
“That thing you said about some kid and his mom tearing out pictures of my resorts-”
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Roman. I swear.”
“I know. It’s just…I never even realized it until you said it.”
“What?”
Roman felt sick even voicing it. He’d spent the whole day obsessing over how he’d become so sidetracked by money and prestige that he hadn’t ever made the connection himself.
“I was so proud of myself for building these beautiful places that my mom always dreamed of visiting that I never even realized she wouldn’t have been able to. I made them completely unattainable to people like my mom – every single resort I’ve built would have been just another dream for her.”
“You wanted to be successful,” Hunter offered.
“No,” Roman said, shaking his head. “I wanted to rub people’s noses in it. I wanted to show them that I could be someone despite my last name…despite where I came from.”
“Any people in particular?” Hunter asked cautiously.
Roman chuckled. The kid was too damn smart.
“My father and his wife.”
“Is that who you went to live with after your mom died?”
Roman nodded. “My older half-brother, too.”
Hunter was quiet for a moment before saying, “Your brother was older than you? Your dad was married before he met your mom?”
“Nope. I’m what they used to call a bastard back in the olden days,” Roman muttered. “My father was having an affair with my mother while he was still married to Gray’s mother. Gray is my half-brother.”
“Fuck,” Hunter whispered. “Wait, so you had to go live with your dad and the woman he was cheating on?”
Pain radiated through Roman’s chest and for a brief moment an irrational fear went through him that he was having a heart attack. But as he struggled to draw in breath, he realized that for all the times he’d remembered his shitty childhood with Victoria and Walt, it was a hell of a lot different to be talking about it out loud.
“Hey,” Hunter whispered as his hand settled between Roman’s shoulder blades. “We don’t have to talk about this, okay?”
Roman managed a nod and tried to focus on catching his breath as he felt Hunter’s fingers begin massaging the back of his neck. His cold skin instantly heated at the touch and when Hunter urged him to lay down on his side and then settled along his back after covering them with the blankets, Roman felt the tension start to ease from his body.
“What’s in Missoula?” Roman asked as Hunter’s body heat began to seep into him. His unruly body began to betray him as his anxiety switched over to desire.
“I go to school at the University of Montana.”
Right. Hunter was still a teenager for God’s sake. That fact should have settled Roman’s ardor but it didn’t – not one fucking little bit.
“What are you studying?”
“Political science.”
