Page 17 of Down in Flames

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said flatly, turning his back on him and starting toward the motel, “but I’m going to—”

“I’m talking about this.” Catching West by the good arm, he yanked him forward and crushed their mouths together in a hard kiss.

It was like being hit by a cruise missile. West let out a shocked gasp, air rushing out of his lungs only to be caught and inhaled a second later by Michael’s sharp breath. Even in his inexperience, West recognized that it was only a kiss in the strictest definition of the word. There was no softness, no affection, just the press of firm lips and the warm, satin glide of a closed mouth against his own. But it was enough. Too much. It rocked him to his core, shooting a bolt of pure lust through his belly that tingled all the way to his balls.

It ended just as abruptly as it began. Michael pulled back, his breath a puff of cool mist between their panting mouths. It was like suddenly breaking free of an undertow. West filled his lungs with ragged gulps, battling the creeping sensation that he’d narrowly escaped drowning.

Michael still held him by his good arm, imprisoning him with an iron grip around his wrist. West tried to retreat a step, but he followed, backing him up against the chain-link fence and hooking the fingers of his free hand in the links, caging West in the brutal frame of his arms.

“You must think I’m blind,” Michael gritted out between his teeth.

“No,” West gasped. His heart felt like it was seconds away from jackhammering right out of his chest. He couldn’t catch his breath. “But I hoped you were.”

The blue in Michael’s irises had been nearly swallowed by his blown-out pupils, making him look positively evil as he growled, “When did I ever treat anyone differently because of who they love?”

Oh, God. Love. This was bad. Every ounce of tension the heat therapy had cured came rushing back, amped up, and dialed all the way to eleven. A better man might have sucked it up, chin high, chest out, and faced the truth. But not him.

“I don’t think of you like that,” he blurted out like a coward.

“Now that’s a damn lie,” Michael drawled, leaning so close that the scruff on his cheek dragged against West’s temple. “You and I both know that I’m the only one you’ve been thinking of for a long, long time.”

“But you’re not…” West didn’t know what he was trying to say. He wasn’t what? Gay? Interested? Desperate enough?

“No,” Michael agreed calmly. “I’m not gay.”

“I knew that.” West nodded like a bobblehead. Of course, he’d known. Michael Whittaker was a ripped-shirt-and-blue-jeans roughneck, a man who could peel women out of their panties with just one look, and everyone knew it. He didn’t date around after Mary died, not even a whisper of a long weekend or a tavern hookup, but that didn’t mean anything. Not from a man as loyal as him. Still, hearing the words out loud was like taking a boot to his gut.

Michael sighed and released him, running a hand through his damp hair and slicking it back from his face. He kept it longer than was fashionable in a small town, and West had never decided if it was a throwback to his youth listening to Nirvana or just a side effect of a lifetime of putting other people before himself.

“I should have said something a long time ago, but I didn’t want to complicate things. I didn’t want to make life harder on you than it is already. Not until this little crush of yours had burned itself out.”

“Jesus Christ,” West groaned, mortified. He buried his face in his good hand. “It’s not a crush.”

Michael shook his head dismissively. “Whatever you want to call it. I figured it wasn’t any of my business…but then you went and made it my business. I remember the way you touched me in the hospital. Like you could put me back together with just your desperation alone. Even when I was loaded up with morphine, I knew you were there. It was your voice pulling me back.”

West hung his head, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing the concrete would split right there and swallow him. Compared to this man, he felt so small. Not worthless. Michael had always gone out of his way to appreciate him. Just...less. Even daring to dream about him in the hidden corners of his own mind seemed offensive.

"I thought I had a handle on it," he said, barely recognizing the strain in his own voice.

“I know.”

“But then I watched them pull you out of that burning stable and it just got…it got hard. I was going to come back. I just needed some time. I just…” His throat closed up on him and he hung his head, swamped by the memory of his despair and shame.

All he could think about was how close he’d been to losing him completely, and how he still might. His secret was out. Things were about to get complicated, and the only kiss he'd ever get from him was just to prove a point.

Barely a kiss at all.

Helplessly, he reached out with his good arm and clasped Michael by the back of the neck. It felt daring in a way that touching him never had before. Michael watched him, nonreactive and curious, going along with it when West tugged his head down and kissed him again. Kissed him the way it should have been all along. Slow, sweet—and Michael let him. He let him. He stood docile as a newborn calf, unhesitating, letting West take charge and kiss him the way he'd always dreamed about. Heat sparked low in West’s belly, glowing like an ember and spreading delicious warmth through his arms and legs. Time seemed to slow, dragging him along in a molasses-thick moment that he wished would never end.

But it did. The peculiar tension in Michael’s body, the strange passivity, finally penetrated his foggy brain. It jerked West back to reality. Hard.

They broke apart, and only then did he realize that Michael’s arm around his waist was all that was keeping him on his feet. His other hand was still clenched in the chain links.

In the sudden silence, the ragged sound of their mingled breath was strangely erotic.

Dropping his forehead to rest on the soft cotton of Michael’s shoulder, he croaked, “Why did you really track me down this weekend?”

Michael’s brows drew low, as if the question irritated him, and he said flatly, “You’ve been avoiding me for months. Catching you in the act was the only way to finally get some honesty.”

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