Let It Go (16 page)

“Doesn’t hurt,” Creed whispered. “Feels so nice. Never been like this before.” He didn’t know what he was saying. Eli’s large hands cupped him, holding him, keeping him from falling. He felt so good inside, hot. Pleasure. Sex never held much pleasure for him. “Want you. Scares me.” He couldn’t catch his breath. He moved, rocking against Eli, until he took all of him. “Shit.”

Eli moved farther back into the truck, off the tailgate onto the flat bed itself. He lifted his legs and braced his heels to keep Creed from falling to the ground below. Rough hands caressed Creed’s back, gripped his shoulders, twined in his hair. “Fuck,” Eli said, his voice low, hoarse. “Love this.”

“Yeah,” Creed agreed, grinding his body against Eli’s, short, hard thrusts that hit his spot. Pleasure shot to his toes. “God. More. Feels so fucking good.” He held Eli’s head captive, his fingers tangled in his hair. He didn’t dare blink for fear of missing everything that Eli’s gaze held. He didn’t dare. “Eli.”

“Love you, Creed. Love you so damned much.” Eli’s eyes went round; his breath hitched in his throat. Fear, real fear spiraled throughout Creed’s being, cold, snapping, relentless fear. He couldn’t breathe. Love. Eli didn’t know the meaning of the word.

“Harder, Eli, going to come. Oh, shit, shit. Harder.” He let Eli set the rhythm, his big hands on his hips moving him, guiding him. Holding him suspended above the ground. Trust. Creed trusted him. He’d never trusted anyone before. “Going to kiss you.”

“Okay.” Eli breathed out the word, and Creed touched his lips to Eli’s, testing. The rush of air between his lips caught him by surprise and kissing Eli became the only thing he could think about. Tongue, his tongue tasted so sweet. Teeth, tongue, lips, hot. So fucking hot. He needed to get closer. Eli must have needed that as well; taking over, he tumbled Creed onto his back on the gritty truck bed. Everything. Kisses. Oh God, his kisses. “Can’t stop, Creed. Going to come.”

“Me too. Shit, Eli. So good. Harder. Harder.” He wrapped his arms around Eli’s shoulders and held him tight against him. Electricity buzzed throughout his body. Pleasure, pain, sharp, cutting him until he bled. He came. He pressed his lips to Eli’s. “Feels so good.” He swallowed Eli’s gasps, his whispered words that Creed knew he wouldn’t remember in the morning. Heat filled him. Eli tried his best to make them one person. Sand from the truck bed abraded his back. “Me, too. Fuck. Me too.” The moon looked down on them. The horses whuffled nearby. Strange insects and amphibians trilled all around them. Peace washed over him. This, this, he wanted this. This peace. “Me too.”

Chapter 12

He stretched, trying to stay asleep, but his inner clock was blasting in his head. The room was warm, the air damp from the open windows. Light filtered through his closed eyes. He sensed someone watching him. Creed. He could feel him, hear him, everything him. Creed. Eli opened one eye to survey the man beside him. Creed lay on his side, elbow propped supporting his head. Sheet wrapped over his hip, all that golden skin exposed and maybe a little sweaty. He grew hard wanting that, just that. “What time is it?” he whispered—well, slurred more than whispered.

“Nearly noon. We slept in.” Creed yawned, his eyes unfocused for a moment. He pushed his hair behind his ears and bit his lip. “It’s been a long time since I went to bed after four.”

“Two weeks at least.” Eli chuckled. Had it only been two weeks? “And I remember seeing the sun rise this morning.”

“Didn’t say to sleep, just bed.” Creed laughed, his gaze moving over Eli like a warm washcloth. “I’ve been thinking about playing connect-the-freckles on your back. With my tongue.”

“Well since you added that last part… mmff, Creed, shit, man, I just went all needy,” he groaned, wanting nothing more than to have Creed’s mouth all over him. Again. “We can sleep in longer. I don’t think the cows will miss us anytime soon.”

“Think the boss will care if we don’t show up at all?” Creed smiled, biting his lips in that almost shy way of his that was sexy as hell. “Want to do more than just lick your back.”

“Fuck, Creed, dirty talk makes me horny. I’ll talk to the boss.” Eli groaned again when Creed smiled. Shit, the man needed to smile more. “You have the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.” He hadn’t meant to say that, but the blush that spread over Creed’s golden skin made him tingle in the strangest places. He remembered saying things last night. Words he’d never said before. Words that weren’t returned.

“You just say that because you want, maybe, more of last night,” Creed said, some of the laughter seeping out of his eyes. Eli didn’t answer before long fingers grazed his back, hitting one of the spots he’d rather not talk about. There was no feeling there. Pressure. He could feel the pressure of Creed’s fingers, but not his touch. “There are ten scars.”

“You counted? How long were you awake?” He tried to make light but Creed’s jaw turned stubborn. “Yeah, sounds about right.”

“Are you going to make me ask?” Creed lay on his arm, his face even with Eli’s, his eyes filled with—what? Concern. Love. This wasn’t headed for love. No way. Creed was too damned cold to ever love him. But he wasn’t cold right now. Eli closed his eyes, trying to block that day out, but it came to him crystal clear almost like watching it on television. The reenactment of the day he nearly died.

Warm fingers on his cheek brought him back to reality. Creed once said he had scars. Eli hadn’t found more than the one on his hand, which looked surgical, and the bite marks on the other wrist. He didn’t have anything like Eli carried on his back. “Oklahoma City, March, nine years ago. Someone saw me kissing my boyfriend at the time. He ran. I wasn’t so lucky. I managed to curl up on the ground. My back got the worst of the lash. My ribs took a boot. I don’t know how many kicks. Or how long I lay there bleeding. I woke up in the hospital.”

Creed’s face went very pale; his eyes seemed so green against the stark backdrop. His breath turned shallow.

“Who did it? Do you know?” His words were strangled. Fear entered his eyes. Fear so stark that Eli had to catch his breath.

“No,” he lied. “No one saw him closely enough.”

“What about your boyfriend?”

What about him? Eli often wondered what he had seen. He ran fast enough. And never came back. “I never saw him again. Guess barely missing being gay-bashed is enough to end a relationship, huh?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Creed burrowed beneath his shoulder, dragging Eli’s arm over him. His eyes were quiet now, the fear gone. His lips tasted sweet, almost like toothpaste. Eli pushed Creed’s hair out of his eyes and kissed his nose.

“Because you’ve never been attacked?” Eli asked, but something wriggled in his memory. A night of drinking. Images of long hair and blood. Bright green eyes. Pleading with him. But it didn’t come in clearly. Creed held his hand to his chest, absently stroking the scar there.

“Because I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

Eli caressed Creed’s forehead with his thumb, smoothing one eyebrow. The words weren’t teasing; there was no angling for something neither of them was ready for. Just a truth. Creed wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Fucking rodeo, never in one place long enough to form any kind of relationship. If we didn’t meet at the next event then we probably didn’t see each other for weeks or months. Hated it. Couldn’t be normal. School. Yeah, well, that was loads of fun. Scramble and cram. Tutors. Homeschooling. Whatever you want to call it in the back of an RV with five other kids whose fathers dragged them around the country.”

“I was dropped on distant relatives, stayed just long enough to get used to a school before moving on. There at the end, well, let’s just say truancy officers in three states had my father on speed dial. It was easier just to quit than try and keep up. Other kids had homeschooling. I was lucky to have a place to sleep most nights. Okay, you know I was thinking about sex and somehow that derailed.” Creed half laughed and looked away. “Guess we should probably get up and find food. Or something.”

“Hey, don’t blame me, you were the one who got me all hot and bothered and it was you who changed the subject. Namely, you were going to do artistic tongue things to my freckled back.” Eli caught his arms and dragged them over his head; pressing Creed flat, he crawled on top of him. “I still have this little problem though. Namely, a hard dick and a turned-on ass and shit…” The gleam in Creed’s eyes stopped him cold. He couldn’t explain what he saw. A shining something that made his heart beat too fast. He’d told him he loved him, last night. He remembered saying the words. The look in Creed’s eyes threatened to tear those same words from his lips again. In the bright light of day.

“What? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Creed flipped him onto his back and held him down. Eli let him. Frozen in place, it was all he could do to keep the words in check. This wasn’t love. This was a beautiful man and sex. Just that. Nothing more. Fucking around with his rival. “Eli? Come on, man, say something. Do I need to call 911 or something?”

“Creed?” He had no idea what he wanted to say. Not one thing came to mind except those three scary as hell little words. “I—it’s your turn. Want you to fuck me.”

Surprise washed over his face. “Okay,” Creed said slowly. Almost as if he was expecting something else. He moved to reach for the drawer.

“We’re past that now.” Eli stopped him. He trusted him. Trusted when he’d said there was nothing to worry about. He’d never trusted a soul, not where sex was concerned. “This is probably the closest thing to monogamous that I’m ever going to get to. You … I trust you.”

A ghost of something passed over Creed’s face. His eyes took on that eerie shuttered look. “That implies that you want something long-term.”

Did he? Fear flittered through his brain. Is that what he wanted? With Creed? “Like you said, this is just fucking around. Exclusive fucking around. Because there isn’t another soul for miles.” Every word out of his mouth felt like a betrayal. Creed lost the warm, sleepy bedroom eyes. Probably for good. Over the past week the cold, distant distrust had slipped away. Eli wanted the warm, sleepy bedroom eyes back. “But I could do long-term. In a heartbeat.”

“With me?” He sounded so young. Lost. Innocent. Eli’s heart damn near exploded in his chest. “Why me? Why now? You’ve never seemed the type. But then all I ever knew of your type was your fist in my face.”

Eli ran his hands over Creed’s thighs, loving the prickling flesh his touch left behind. He leaned up and wrapped his arms around Creed’s shoulders. Holding him much like he had last night, he could feel the tightly controlled power vibrating just below sculpted muscles. Insecurity blazed in his eyes. “I’m sorry for that. I was angry. It had nothing to do with you, Creed, you just happened to be the first one to put me in my place. I couldn’t control my temper. I couldn’t control anything. I made you an enemy when I’d rather have made you a lover.”

“I can’t be your lover, Eli. Not like you want. I can’t—I’m not what you think I am. I can give you now. That’s all I have to give.” Creed looked everywhere but at Eli, his jaw tight, his fingers clenched on Eli’s shoulders.

“You’ll leave when you’re cleared?” Somehow just knowing that Creed had no intention of staying made him ache. He’d said the words last night. Words he’d never said to anyone. Words he would not hear returned.

“I don’t know, Eli. I don’t. Maybe this is a good place to start over. I don’t know. I don’t want to think about that right now.” Creed slipped a long-fingered hand into his hair and held him, his gaze intense when he finally met Eli’s. “I love being with you. You make me feel things I’ve never felt. Sex. I didn’t lie when I said it’s never been like this before. I’ve been with so many men I’ve lost count. Three years ago … I can’t make promises. Want to be with you, just like this, but I can’t make promises.”

“Okay.” Eli hated the pain that twisted his face when he mentioned that time. What the hell happened three years ago? What the hell kind of demons were riding Creed? “Just fucking around. I want that. I can do that.” He ran his hands down Creed’s arms to twine their fingers together. “We’ll paint my house pink and fuck on the tailgate of my truck until it’s time for you to leave.”

“I’d rather fuck in bed. So much better on the knees.” Creed bit his lip; this was his flirting face. Eli held their hands up, his stocky and huge, Creed’s long and graceful. He kissed the small bite marks on the inside of Creed’s wrist. He kissed Creed’s lips. Pulling him close, he sucked Creed’s tongue into his mouth, Creed’s whispered sigh enough to send blood pumping through the part of his anatomy that was tired of being teased.

“Can we get back to the fucking part, because I might die from lack of orgasm pretty damned soon if we don’t?”

Creed’s laugh should have warned him. He grasped at air but still ended up flat on his back, his ankles trapped in long, surprisingly strong hands. “Oh, yeah, baby, going to make you squeal like a little pig.”

“Ugh, now I have Ned Beatty squealing in my head; thanks for killing a good erection,” he said just as Creed pressed inside him. Dry. But god-damn he wanted it. So damned much. Creed closed his eyes, his mouth going slack. “Slowly, Creed. I want to watch your face. I want to see everything you feel.”

“Right now, I feel so damned good,” he replied as he reached across the bed for the drawer and the bottle of lube they kept there.

“Fuck me, Creed, make love to me,” Eli begged, his body arching into him as the cold gel touched him, Creed’s cock sliding in freely now. Slick heat followed. With a grunt he fell over Eli; his breath caught, his eyes alive with fire and lust and, Eli imagined, love.

Slow, so goddamned slowly, Creed held onto him, moving with him, his tight muscles flexing under Eli’s hands. “Fuck me. Love this.” He held on to Creed. Wrapping around him. Lips found his, just touching, soft kisses, feather-soft gasps, and the words Eli wanted to hear. “Me too,” he replied and let himself go.

* * * *

Creed stood at the kitchen sink eating a slice of cold pizza when Eli walked in, dressed in only a pair of shorts, his hair slick from his shower. He stopped chewing, forgetting for a moment that he had food in his mouth. Swallowing hard, he almost choked. A cough and a sputter. Oh hell, not good. Somehow, Eli had become his entire damned world.