Conquer the Flames (Langs Down) (21 page)

“
G
OOD
news,” Thorne said when he joined Ian in the living room of Ian’s house after dinner. “I got a call from Walker. He’s back in Australia. He’ll be in Wagga Wagga next week, so I thought I’d drive down and get the rest of my things one day next week. It’s probably too long to drive there and back in one day, though.”

“I think we can spare you for two days,” Ian replied. He forced a grin even as he fought the sudden surge of jealousy. “Or even three if you want to catch up with your friend.”

“That’ll depend on his schedule,” Thorne said. “I don’t know that he’ll have much time off other than in the evenings. I’ll probably drive down, spend the evening with him, and drive back the next day. I want to see him and get my stuff, but I don’t want to be gone too long.”

Ian felt the jealousy subside. “So tell me about him.”

“About Walker?” Thorne asked. Ian nodded. “There’s not much to tell that I haven’t already told you. We were in the Commandos together. We’ve been friends for a long time.”

“What will he think of you staying here on the station?” Ian asked. It wasn’t what he really wanted to know, but it was the best he could come up with to ask.

Thorne pulled the book Ian had been reading out of his hands and set it on the coffee table. He cradled Ian’s cheeks in his hands and kissed him. Ian leaned into the touch, completely addicted after the two weeks they’d spent doing this. “Is that what you really want to know, or are you asking what he’ll think of me being with you?”

“Both,” Ian admitted, feeling his cheeks flush from the kiss and from being caught out.

“He’ll probably be surprised about the station,” Thorne said. “I don’t know how he’ll react to me being with you, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not his decision to make, and his reaction, good or bad, isn’t going to keep me from coming back to you. Yes, he’s a friend, one of the few people I’d actually give that title to, but he’s not a threat to you.”

“Sorry,” Ian said. “I shouldn’t be so clingy.”

“You can be as clingy as you want, baby,” Thorne said as he leaned in to kiss Ian again.

Ian let him take control of the kiss. He’d found it easier and easier to trust Thorne over the past two weeks when they sat together in his living room kissing, and today had only added to that. Thorne had been a model student out in the tablelands, doing everything Ian asked him to and only needing Ian to explain things once. The first time they’d stopped to fix a fence, Ian had to show him how to do it, but the second time, they worked like a team.

Ian tilted his head into Thorne’s hands, trusting their support. Thorne didn’t let him down, and before long, Thorne had wandered away from Ian’s mouth and along his jaw, his beard providing an erotic prickle that always made Ian gasp.

He’d watched Thorne today and had seen the strength in his hands and arms. Pulling a fence was hard work, something a lot of the seasonal jackaroos never managed to do on their own, but Thorne had figured it out the first time Ian had shown him, and then he’d done it with such powerful efficiency that Ian hadn’t been able to stop staring at his forearms. Feeling bold now, he traced the line of muscle in Thorne’s arms with tentative fingers. He didn’t move above Thorne’s elbows yet, not wanting to rush and miss any part of the experience. The skin on Thorne’s arms was covered in hair like his chest, soft black strands that matched the hair on his head, and beneath that, rock-hard muscle. Thorne murmured something incomprehensible against Ian’s neck, but Ian figured Thorne wasn’t telling him to stop, so he took his time with his exploration.

The inside of Thorne’s wrists were exquisitely sensitive, Ian discovered through trial and error, and it made him smile to hear the gasps that escaped each time he dragged his nails over the smooth skin, one of the few patches not dusted with that wonderful dark pelt.

“I wondered if you’d find that spot,” Thorne said between gasps, and Ian smiled even wider to think he’d discovered something about Thorne through his own initiative. It made him wonder what other spots he could find if he were bold enough to look.

He could have simply asked, of course, but he suspected the search was at least half the fun for both of them… as long as he had the courage to follow through.

Thorne still nuzzled his neck, but Ian could tell he was waiting, too, to see what Ian did next. The moment stretched between them, pregnant with significance. Ian could pull back or continue doing what he’d already done, and Thorne would resume his usual attentions, or Ian could try something new and see what kind of reaction that got. He took a calming breath and then another one, reminding himself how Thorne had always respected the limits he set. Thorne would never pressure him to do more than he was comfortable with, but as Ian glanced down at where his hands rested on Thorne’s arms, he realized he wasn’t done. As attractive as Thorne’s forearms were, there was still so much more of him to explore. Maybe he wasn’t ready for everything, but he could move to Thorne’s biceps. That wasn’t much more of an intimacy than what he’d already undertaken.

He cupped Thorne’s elbows in his palms before running his hands up Thorne’s biceps until he reached the edge of Thorne’s T-shirt. He stopped there and worked his way back down over the strong muscles.

“I can take it off,” Thorne offered.

Ian froze at the words. He’d seen Thorne shirtless, but only from across the room. Since his first day home from the hospital, Thorne had been careful to take all his clothes with him into the bathroom and come out fully dressed after his shower. He waited until Ian went to bed at night to strip down to whatever he slept in, and he was always up and dressed when Ian came out of his room in the morning. He knew Thorne had made the effort for Ian’s comfort, not for his own, and that helped settle his nerves and make up his mind. “If you want.”

Thorne shook his head, the gesture rubbing his beard against Ian’s skin again. Ian moaned softly at the contact. “It’s not what I want, Ian,” Thorne said seriously. “It’s what we want, and right now, that’s determined by what you want. I know you’ve been hurt in the past, and I won’t be the one to make it worse.”

Ian’s first reaction was to deny it, but the look on Thorne’s face stopped the words in his throat. Thorne didn’t pity him, but he also wasn’t going to take any bullshit about how nothing bad had happened. He wasn’t demanding answers, but he wouldn’t accept a lie. Ian nodded slowly, trying to go back to the question at hand. What about his shirt? He’d certainly admired Thorne’s chest before, and he didn’t have to do more than look even now just because Thorne took his shirt off. It didn’t obligate him to do anything. “Maybe in a minute,” he said finally before drawing Thorne back into their kiss.

Thorne came willingly enough, and that gave Ian the courage to move his hands over the cloth-covered breadth of Thorne’s shoulders. It wasn’t a daring caress, but it felt like a victory to Ian. Instead of burying his hands safely in Thorne’s hair, he let them wander over Thorne’s back, feeling the strong muscles beneath his T-shirt. When Thorne reciprocated, though, he froze. Immediately Thorne removed his hands and leaned back on the couch away from Ian.

“I won’t touch you unless you ask,” Thorne promised, “but I hope you won’t stop touching me.”

Ian gulped hard once and then a second time as he stared at Thorne laid out on the couch in front of him. With his hands locked behind his head, his chest puffed forward, making him seem even broader than usual. Ian raked his gaze over Thorne’s body, flushing hard when he saw the bulge in Thorne’s jeans. He’d done that, or rather, kissing him had done that to Thorne. Yet even aroused, Thorne put himself completely at Ian’s command. It was a liberating realization.

He reached out again and rested his hand on the curve of Thorne’s chest. He couldn’t meet Thorne’s gaze as he waited for a reaction—he didn’t have that much boldness in him—but the sound of Thorne’s sharp intake of breath reached his ears. “You’re going to be the death of me,” Thorne said, his voice a rumble in his chest that Ian swore he felt as much as heard.

“Will it at least be a good way to go?” Ian asked, plucking up his nerve.

“The best,” Thorne replied.

The words sent warmth of a different kind through him. This wasn’t just lust, although that was a part of it. This went beyond that to something deeper. Thorne tugged at him in a way no one else had ever done, both physically and emotionally.

“Can I…?” He couldn’t get the words out.

Thorne cupped his cheek with his hand again, drawing Ian’s gaze up to his face. “You can do whatever you want, Ian. I’m all yours, remember?”

Ian swallowed hard and nodded as he reached for the hem of Thorne’s shirt. Thorne sat up enough to rip the cloth over his head before returning to his reclining position on the couch. “Whatever you want,” he repeated.

Ian took a moment just to stare. He’d seen Thorne from across the room, but this was different. At this distance, he could see the scars that lurked beneath the pelt of dark hair and the details of the tattoos that adorned Thorne’s shoulders under the cover of his T-shirt, a sword through a boomerang on one side and a series of numbers on the other. He didn’t ask, but he committed the black lines to memory. Another time, perhaps, he’d find the courage to ask the significance of the numbers. If they were dates, as they appeared, the oldest was from more than twenty years ago. The scars told a different tale: a pucker beneath Thorne’s collarbone, a sharply ridged line along his ribs, what looked like the jagged edge of a handsaw disappearing into the waistband of his pants, the shiny remnants of a burn wrapping around his waist to his back. The details drove home to Ian just how hard a life Thorne had lived. Ian had a few marks on his hands and legs from life on the station, where barbed wire had caught him once when he was still a blow-in and had more bravado than brains. Macklin had torn him a new one when he’d found him tangled in the wire and bleeding in more places than he had intact skin, but only a few of the puncture wounds had left scars. Thorne hadn’t been as lucky, it seemed, or if he had, he’d been hurt far more often than Ian.

“They’re all old and long since healed,” Thorne said softly, as if reading Ian’s thoughts. “Line of duty, for the most part, and nothing that bothers me now. I’m not going anywhere unless you ask me to.”

“You’re sure they don’t hurt?” Ian hesitated with his hand above the pucker on Thorne’s upper chest. He wanted to touch, to feel for himself that the wound had healed, but he didn’t want to cause Thorne any pain.

“I’m sure,” Thorne replied, “but if it’ll make you feel better, I promise to tell you if you do anything that hurts.”

“You’d better,” Ian demanded fiercely. He knew what it felt like to be hurt, and he would cut off his hand before he did such a thing to anyone else.

“I will,” Thorne said, “but you aren’t going to hurt me like this. Believe me, it all feels wonderful.” He rested his hand on top of Ian’s. “When you’re ready, maybe you’ll let me show you too.”

Ian swallowed back the automatic denial that sprang to his lips. He’d already done so much more with Thorne than he’d ever imagined doing with anyone. Maybe he would be ready at some point. For now, though, he had the acres of Thorne’s chest to explore, and so he let his fingers wander over the thick chest, enjoying the way the muscles twitched beneath his fingers and the sounds of Thorne’s ragged breathing. When he glanced up at Thorne’s face, his own breath caught in his throat at the passion he saw burning in Thorne’s sapphire eyes. He swore Thorne’s eyes weren’t that dark usually, but now his pupils were blown, leaving only a ring of dark, dark blue around the center, and all that fire was focused on Ian. He felt heat rise in his cheeks again and looked down, needing to escape the intensity of Thorne’s gaze. The view that presented him with did nothing for his composure. If there had been a bulge in Thorne’s jeans before, now Ian could see the outline of his cock beneath the fly, a fence post to rival the ones they’d driven along the property line earlier in the day. He gulped and nearly pulled away, but Thorne’s voice stopped him.

“Nothing you don’t want, remember? That’s my problem, not yours.”

Ian wanted desperately to believe him. Thorne hadn’t gone back on his word yet and had gone beyond the call of duty to protect Ian. He’d come by the hospital every day, even when it was out of his way, and he’d spent the past week on Ian’s couch, never pressing for more than Ian was willing to give him. Today he’d worked tirelessly at Ian’s side, doing whatever Ian asked, no matter how demanding or how trivial. They’d set fence posts, pulled barbed wire, and carried packs of batteries and lamp oil into drovers’ huts, and Thorne had done each task with the same careful determination. Taking a deep breath, Ian nodded and let himself trust. Thorne had returned his hands to their resting place behind his head. Ian could give himself this time to explore.

Thorne’s skin was hot beneath his hands as he ran his palms over the broad expanse of naked flesh. Ian avoided Thorne’s nipples, not sure he was ready for something that would be deliberately arousing instead of simply exploring, but the little buds of flesh peaked despite the lack of direct stimulation, pushing through the mat of hair to draw Ian’s attention. Cautiously he reached out to touch, then snatched his hand back when Thorne inhaled sharply.

“No, don’t stop,” Thorne urged. “It feels good.”

It hadn’t felt good when his foster father had twisted his nipples while forcing him onto the bed, but Thorne’s face showed no sign of pain, so Ian rubbed his thumb over the taut bud.

“Yessss,” Thorne hissed. “Again.”

Ian liked the sound enough to follow Thorne’s command and repeat the caress. Thorne arched into the touch and gasped again. The noises urged Ian on, but more than that, they fed his own awakening need. He’d never imagined he could feel such desire, nor that he would take such pleasure in touching someone else, in bringing pleasure to someone else. Leaving his hands where they were, he leaned forward to kiss Thorne again, reveling in the slightly chapped lips beneath his and the way Thorne’s beard abraded his lips ever so slightly. When Thorne licked across the seam of his mouth, Ian didn’t hesitate to open to the silent request this time. Thorne still tasted of peppermint, but Ian didn’t question it now, sucking Thorne’s tongue into his mouth and enjoying the crispness the sweet candy had left behind.