Wild Raspberries (5 page)

Dan frowned. “Are your ribs strapped up?” He was sure they were; he’d felt the bandages under the shirt and T-shirt, an extra layer that shouldn’t be there.

Tyler fumbled at his zipper. “Yes. A little privacy?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.” A moment later, he was on the other side of the door, shivering slightly as cool water dripped down his back. He took the towel from around his waist and gave his hair a brief, thorough scrub with it to get most of the water out. There was no warning sound of a toilet flushing, so he dug out a pair of his new boxers and shimmied into them, not caring that his body was still damp. The cabin was heavy with the stored heat of the day, and it was kind of nice to feel goose bumps anyway.

Despite his earlier nap and the time — barely past nine, for God’s sake — the couch looked tempting, but he’d have to wait for Tyler to go to bed first; he didn’t want to be in the way. He also didn’t want to get dressed again, but he pulled on a T-shirt, in a faded navy blue, philosophical about the way it failed to match the yellow shorts with the rabbits on them. Tyler didn’t strike him as the fashion-conscious sort.

With a yawn he couldn’t hold back, he headed for the kitchen to deal with the leftovers of the meal and the washing up. Time to earn his keep. The bathroom door opened as he walked past, and he paused and handed Tyler his cane.

“Thanks —” Tyler’s eyes widened as he took in Dan’s shorts. “Are you trying to blind me?”

Dan grinned. “You should see the others; this pair’s about the tamest. I thought I’d work up to the ones with pink hearts on gradually.”

Tyler gave a soft snort of laughter. “Yeah, I can see how you’d need to do that.” He raised his eyebrows. “They’re new, though?”

“Yeah. They’re new.” Dan waved his hand at the table, cluttered with the remnants of their meal. “I’ll clear this away. You want anything?”

“You don’t have to —” Tyler stopped himself. “Okay, yeah, I guess you do, or the place will stink by tomorrow. And, no, I’m fine. Might just turn in early. There’s no TV, but help yourself to a book if you want to.”

Dan had seen the packed bookshelves running along one wall of the main room and been impressed, but not particularly interested. Books were for school. He’d grown up in a house that had the Bible and a Farmer’s Almanac and precious little else in the way of reading material. “I’m about ready to fall asleep on my feet, myself.”

Tyler nodded. “Put the garbage in the —”

“I know what to do,” Dan said patiently. Tyler looked like shit, which made it easier to be nice to him. “And anything I can’t figure out, you can tell me tomorrow. I’ll clean up and lock up. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“There’s a sleeping bag and pillow in the chest by the window.” Tyler studied Dan’s face for a moment, making Dan feel transparent, and then made his way to his room without looking back. The door closed behind him with a snick that might have been a key turning, might not.

Dan blew out a shaky breath and got busy. The kitchen was laid out neatly, with a logical place for everything that made it easy to work in. He made as little noise as possible, acutely aware of the man behind the closed door.

So, Tyler had cracked his ribs as well? Dan had done that once after a football game, when a quarterback landed on him and his knee had done a good job of caving in Dan’s chest. It’d hurt like hell to breathe and laughing had been torment — which hadn’t stopped his friends from dreaming up as many jokes as they could when they came over to see him, until he was crying with pain, his face contorted in a grin, the mix of emotions enough to make his head spin.

He remembered his hand pushing Tyler upright, the heel of his hand firm against Tyler’s ribcage; no wonder the man had groaned.

The sleeping bag and pillow were right where Tyler said they were, clean enough, but, as Dan discovered when he shucked off his T-shirt and got into his makeshift bed, not freshly washed. They exuded Tyler’s smell, nothing Dan could have broken down into individual elements, but unmistakably him. He put his mouth against the pillow, breathed out, and then sniffed it, the scent stronger now, clinging to his lips. The soft, down-filled sleeping bag wrapped around him snugly, and he sighed in pure contentment. This beat bare ground studded with stones and twigs. He settled down on his front and just let himself relax into a sleepy jumble of thoughts, most of which were centered on Tyler.

Something different about him… wonder what he does? Can’t live off veggies… God, really thought he was going to pull that trigger — scared the shit out of me, but he’s okay. Nice. Trust him. Shouldn’t trust him, shouldn’t trust anyone… Ten years younger, and I’d crawl into bed with him right now and — fuck, couldn’t do anything to him the way he’s hurting, even if he was interested and he might not be… no, he is. I can tell. I can tell he’s gay, anyway. Maybe not into me? Yeah… why would he be? Seeing as I told him — fuck, fuck, why did I… Older. I don’t go for that, but he’s so fucking big. Strong. Not a kid. Wonder what that’d be like. Doing it with him. He’d know what he was doing, not like Luke, shit, that hurt that time, but I know he didn’t mean to — Luke. God, I’ll never see him again —

He stirred restlessly and moaned, sleep calling him, and fear of what he’d find waiting in his dreams keeping him from answering. His moan was echoed and he froze, jolted wide awake, his heart pounding.

Tyler.

A band of light was showing under Tyler’s bedroom door when Dan looked over the back of the couch, and he could hear the faint, irregular sounds of movement from the bedroom. Caution warred with concern and lost. The state Tyler was in, Dan was sure he could fight him off if he needed to, and if the man was hurting —

He got up and ran his hands through his hair, dry now and snarl-free for the first time in a while. Without bothering to put his T-shirt on, he padded over to Tyler’s bedroom door and tapped on it softly. “Uh, Tyler? You okay, man?”

There was a pause and then Tyler called back, a suggestion of a snarl in his voice, “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep, and you don’t sound fine.” Dan tested the door, surprised when it opened. He peered around it and then pushed it wide and went over to the bed.

The room was bigger than Dan had expected, airy and bare. The bed, high and wide, was covered in a patchwork quilt. Not one like Dan’s grandmother had pieced in neat patterns, with a fancy name and a story behind each one, but a muted rainbow of scraps, cut in the traditional geometric shape, sure, but sewn together randomly, blue velvet next to a garish orange, scarlet silk surrounded by mint green paisley. It shouldn’t have worked, but somehow it did. A bedside table in the same honey-pine as the bed held a lamp, a book Dan couldn’t see the title of, and a glass of water on a coaster. No alarm clock.

A small walk-in closet led off the room, the door open wide enough that Dan could see that it held clothes and some neatly stacked boxes, taped shut.

And on a desk was a computer, sleekly efficient, a world away from the outdated, over-sized ones Dan had used at school and the local library. Maybe Tyler was a writer? Or one of those people who played the stock market from home?

Tyler, like Dan, had gone to bed in shorts — Tyler’s were black cotton, riding up high on his long, tanned legs — but he’d kept his T-shirt on. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, the T-shirt clinging damply to his back, the bedside lamp throwing out enough light for Dan to see that Tyler’s hands were clenched into fists so tightly that the skin over his knuckles was stretched thin and pale.

“Get the fuck out of my room.”

“If I thought you had the energy to make me, I would,” Dan countered. He couldn’t see the bottle of painkillers anywhere, but they had to be in here; he’d have noticed them in the bathroom, or when he tidied up. “Have you taken the stuff the doctor gave you?”

Tyler shook his head. “Don’t want to take more unless I need them.”

“If you can’t sleep, then you
do
need them,” Dan pointed out, reasonably enough, he thought.

“I’m hot,” Tyler said. “If I can cool off, I’ll sleep. If you get out, I’ll go back to what I was doing, which is stripping off so I can cool down. Happy now?”

“I’ve cracked my ribs before,” Dan said, “and I didn’t wear a T-shirt or anything that went on over my head for the first couple of days because it hurt too much getting them on and off.”

“Your point would be?”

“You tried to take it off and you couldn’t, could you?”

There was a short sizzle of silence, and then Tyler took hold of the hem of his T-shirt in one hand and tugged it up level with his armpits, exposing a flat belly, a wide chest dusted lightly with dark hair, and some wide, white bandages.

“Nice,” Dan said approvingly. “Now what?”

He got a goaded look and then, mouth tight, Tyler widened the armhole of the T-shirt and raised his arm to guide it through, elbow first.

“You’d really do it, wouldn’t you?” Dan took a step forward and stopped Tyler before the man bit through his lip trying to keep quiet. Dan peeled the T-shirt out of Tyler’s fingers and drew his arm back down. “Shit, save the macho crap for someone who gives a damn and let me help you. That’s why you let me stay here, remember?”

Tyler looked close to hitting him, but Dan was getting used to that reaction, and after a moment Tyler gave him a grudging nod. “Okay. Help.”

“Okay. Good.” Dan cleared his throat and considered strategies. “Umm. We could cut it off you?”

“Oh, for God’s sake —” Tyler grabbed Dan’s hand and pulled it to his chest. Dan watched his fingers curl into the soft fabric as if they belonged to someone else. “Boy, I can take some pain, trust me, but I’m about ready to drown in my own sweat here. Get it
off
me.”

“It’s not that hot in here,” Dan said. He put the back of his other hand on Tyler’s forehead. “You might be running a fever.”

“I’m just hot.” Tyler rolled his eyes. “Do you always talk this much?”

“When I’m not using my mouth for something else, yeah.”

“Stop flirting with me.” Tyler sounded tired. “I told you: I’m not interested.”

Dan was. He’d never been this close to so much smooth skin and muscle without the need to guard his gaze. He wanted to touch and taste with an intensity that left his mouth dry. The hollow of Tyler’s throat, the flat nipples just waiting to be coaxed to points with his fingers and his tongue; whatever lay beneath those creased, rumpled shorts…

He’d never really seen the point in foreplay before; you got hard, you got off. Even with Luke, it’d been over soon, every time, urgency and the fear of being caught spicing things up. Hell, most of the time they hadn’t even got undressed beyond what they needed to do to get to each other’s dicks. For all he knew, Tyler was just the same; no nonsense, no frills, but even that had its appeal. He’d like to see Tyler needy and hungry, gray eyes dark and focused.

What he really wanted was to have sex with someone
he’d
chosen, his choice, just once, like it used to be, and get his brains fucked out, pounded flat, so he wasn’t seeing anything but the man over him, behind him, in him. Tyler wouldn’t let him remember anyone else — Dan had known the man less than a day and he still knew that. Tyler wouldn’t share him with those sons of bitches who’d left him feeling sick and dirty to the bone; Tyler would know what Dan was thinking about and would make him stop, make it all stop…

Pushing aside his thoughts before his body reacted to them in a way Tyler wouldn’t be able to miss, given the fact he was standing right in front of the man, Dan rolled the T-shirt up at the back, which put him so close to Tyler that he could feel his breath against his bare chest, like the distant memory of a touch. Don’t get hard, he chanted in his head. Don’t do it.

“Put your hands on your knees and kind of lean forward.”

Tyler obeyed him, which had to be a new experience, and Dan took hold of the back of the T-shirt and lifted it up and over Tyler’s head. He hit a problem when the T-shirt didn’t seem to want to go over Tyler’s head, but it was old and the neck had enough give in it to make it work. Dan eased it off without Tyler needing to lift his arms high and then dropped the T-shirt on the floor. When he opened his mouth to say something that wasn’t related to anything he’d been thinking about, he found Tyler staring pointedly at the tented front of Dan’s shorts, because at some point during the struggle with the T-shirt his fingers had touched skin, and that had been all his cock had needed to wake up.

Fuck. Dan swallowed and tried to sound casual and amused. “Not interested. Got it.”

“But you are.” Tyler tilted his head back and stared up at him, eyes speculative. “Given a choice, who do you have sex with?”

“Men,” Dan answered without hesitation. He wasn’t hiding it ever again, no matter what. “Gay. I’ve known I was for years. Is that a problem?”

“I think you’ve found out it doesn’t make your life easy, but if you mean is it a problem for me, well, no.” Tyler wasn’t looking away and until he did, Dan couldn’t either. There was a ring of darker gray around Tyler’s irises, and he had a freckle just south of his cheekbone…

He was sure, but it would be nice to hear Tyler say it. “You, too?”

The corner of Tyler’s mouth quirked up and he nodded. “For complete strangers, we know a lot about each other, don’t we?”

Somehow, Dan doubted that he knew anything about Tyler that the rest of the world didn’t, but he gave a noncommittal shrug.

Tyler’s gaze went back to Dan’s insistent erection. “Still not interested, boy. You’re not my type.”

“You’re not mine,” Dan said frankly, and wondered how true that was. “Way old and you’re just — you’re big.”

That got him a smile. “You still flirting?”

Dan thought he’d lost the ability to blush back on the highway, at the Seven Forks gas station, but maybe he’d found it again. “I meant you’re taller. More muscles. Shit, you know what I mean!”

“Yeah.” Tyler scratched his chin. “So why the show and tell?”

“The what? Oh!” Dan spread his hands. “I don’t know. You’re not my type, but you’re still, well, you’re kinda hot and I just — I wondered — wanted —”