Inherit the Sky (Lang Downs 1 ) (24 page)

before dinner.”
“Or I sh-should have,” Caine replied, stroking his hands down
Macklin’s back to cup his buttocks. “G-g-god, I’ve n-n-never g-gotten
hard again this f-fast.”
Macklin chuckled. “I’m a good ten years older than you and
you’ve got me hard again.
Not
boring in bed, pup.”

Chapter Sixteen

 

“TH
-
THIS time you have to l-l-let me m-make love to you,” Caine
insisted, squirming out from beneath Macklin. “I want to touch you too.”

The flicker of unease Caine had seen several times before passed across Macklin’s face, but Caine didn’t back down. “P-please? I’ll sstop if you say to, but I want to make you f-feel as g-good as you made me feel.”

“I’ll try, pup,” Macklin said, “but I’m used to being in charge, at the station, in bars, wherever. It’s hard to let that go.”

“Surely you can handle a hand job,” Caine joked.
“It’s not that easy,” Macklin said. “Fucking around is one thing. Being with you is something else entirely. Being here, just lying here in

this bed with you, scares the hell out of me, pup. You’ve been at Lang Downs for a couple of months. You still don’t know what it’s really like, year in and year out. Every man who comes to the station thinks he’s hot stuff, tough as nails and strong enough to move mountains. They respect me, they listen to me because I’m tougher, stronger, harder than they are.Without that, I’d lose all control over them.”

“You’re the boss. They have to listen to you.”
“No, they had to listen to Michael. They might have to listen to you, but I’m foreman because they know I’ll kick their arses if they don’t do as I say,” Macklin insisted.

“And how is me giving you a hand job different than you giving me one?” Caine asked, still not following Macklin’s argument.

“It’s giving someone else the upper hand,” Macklin explained. “Aside from that one week when I came to Sydney the first time, I’ve never let anyone have the upper hand in anything, and even that was just fucking. This is different.”

“So you’re somehow less gay if you give me a hand job than if I give you one?” Caine asked incredulously. “That doesn’t make any sense. It’s a hand on your dick. You’re a guy. You’re going to react to that no matter whose hand it is. Putting your hand on me is far more indicative of your sexuality than letting me touch you.”

“But I’m still the one in control,” Macklin explained.

“F-fuck that,” Caine said. “You can b-be as in control as you wwant out in the outback. I’ll be the first to admit I n-need you in control out there, but in p-private, when it’s just us, I don’t need someone who just wants a b-body to fuck when it’s convenient. I need a p-partner who’s going to share my life, not r-run it for me. I thought m-maybe that would be you, but if you can’t even let me t-touch you, how will you ever let me l-love you?”

Furious, Caine climbed out of bed, shivering as he looked around for his underwear. He swiped at the drying mess on his stomach, hating its presence now as much as he had reveled in it minutes before. He grabbed a clean pair from his bag and pulled them on before turning to look for his shirt. Macklin intercepted him before he could reach it.

“Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?” Caine snapped, pulling away and grabbing his shirt.He couldn’t stand there half-dressed anymore, not when he felt so vulnerable.
“What you said about loving me,” Macklin said softly.
Oh, shit, did I really say that?
“It doesn’t matter now,” Caine said, keeping his back to Macklin. “You won’t let me.”
“I warned you I didn’t know what I was doing,” Macklin reminded him, his hands coming to rest on Caine’s shoulders. “And

you told me relationships were about negotiation and fighting sometimes until you could find a way to make it work.”

 

“You aren’t trying to make it work,” Caine retorted, shrugging Macklin’s hands off and pulling his pants on. “You’re trying to make me just another fuck. I won’t do it, Macklin. It’s all or nothing. I won’t be your piece on the side.”

“You couldn’t be farther from that,” Macklin swore. “The things we’ve done together…. Bloody hell, Caine, I’ve never touched anyone the way I’ve touched you. I’ve never wanted to. The kisses, sleeping together last night, spending the night together tonight. I’ve never shared that with anyone but you, so whatever fucked-up idea you have in your head, get rid of it. I’m struggling here. I haven’t the slightest idea how to give you what you want because I’ve never done it before, but the fact that I’m trying, the fact that I
want
to give it to you in the first place, should tell you how different this is from anything in my past. You’re asking me to change overnight, and that’s not an easy thing to do.”

“So what happens now?” Caine asked slowly. “We seem to have reached an impasse.”
“I don’t know,” Macklin replied just as carefully. “You can get dressed and go downstairs, check into another room, and forget this ever happened, although I hope that won’t be your choice. Or you can stay and we can try to find a way forward we can both live with.”
“Do you really think there is a way forward?” Caine asked.
“I don’t know,” Macklin said again, “but I know I want there to be one.”
“My grandmother always said, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ I guess we keep searching until we find it.”
“Don’t scare me like that again, pup,” Macklin demanded, pulling Caine into his arms. “I can deal with dead sheep, bloody snakes, power outages, and everything else the outback can throw at me. I can’t deal with you walking out on me.”
“Then don’t give me a reason to,” Caine replied, fighting the urge to sink back into Macklin’s embrace. It would be so easy to give in and pretend everything was better now, but that wouldn’t actually fix anything.