Confessions of a Wild Heart (10 page)

None of the white-bread American bros wanted to give him the time of day. Then, one day he’d wandered into Bar None, a local watering hole, and run into a nurse he’d seen around work. Dustin and Ase hadn’t wasted any time getting into bed. That didn’t mean they were compatible beyond that.

But Dustin was worth the time and effort. They had a good time. Even out of the bed, they weren’t always at odds.

Dustin wasn’t the kind of guy Ase had ever seen himself moving in or building a life with. The man even admitted he planned to move to Dallas at the end of his current semester. Ase had been clear that after his residency, he’d probably end up back in California. God knows he had enough responsibility there that he couldn’t stay away forever. That kiss, though. He deserved it if Dustin told him to bugger off.

Time to stop feeling sorry for yourself.
With that, Ase opened his laptop, closed his e-mail, and went to shower. He’d just come out in a pair of sweatpants when he heard a knock on the front door of his apartment.

Only one person would be stopping by at this hour, knowing he’d be crawling into bed in another hour. Early to bed, even earlier to rise due to his resident rotation. He’d had to pull an extra double to get the Saturday night off to help Dustin out. Of course, he may not have to now.

He swung the door open, and heat pooled in his groin the way Dustin raked his naked torso with his eyes. “For me, Dr. Ramirez?”

“Dustin,” he said, trying for contrite.

Dustin cocked his hip and shook his head. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” Ase responded, leaving the door open and wandering back into the apartment. He loved his apartment. It was small, but there was a wall between his bedroom and living room, and the shower wasn’t shared with two other apartments like the one he’d had just off campus in San Diego. In fact, he could afford much larger if he liked, even with sending a huge chunk of his paychecks to California. But this had suited him fine. Besides that, his spending less on rent meant he had been able to afford decent furniture that was a step above IKEA and a bed that more than handled the acrobatics he’d put it through.

“Would you like a drink?” Ase called over his shoulder, as he opened the refrigerator in his sectioned off kitchen. “I’ve that disgusting honey green tea you insisted I try.”

Dustin walked in, leaning on the counter with his arms crossed over his chest. He had obviously stopped at his own home—his mother’s home, if one were to be technical—before he came by. His curly black hair had the soft, fluffy look it had when air-dried after a shower, and he’d changed from his scrubs to his everyday clothes—black band t-shirt and loose-fitting jeans. He looked younger than his twenty-two years.

“What was that about at the hospital today?”

“What was what about?” Worst deflection in the history of the practice.

Dustin laughed at Ase fondly. “Oh, I’ve known you too long now for that to work.”

Ase walked around Dustin, stalling as he pulled a clean glass from the dishwasher. Dustin was right. He knew Ase well. They’d been doing their dance for well over four months, seen each other almost daily in that time as well. Which is why Dustin deserved better than a brushing off, but Ase felt a complete fool for the entire ordeal so he wasn’t sure how to respond yet.

“Ase, come on. On an awkward scale of one to ten, that was a twelve. And I don’t appreciated being used that way.”

Ase winced, knowing he’d been a jerk. “Sorry.”

Dustin didn’t seem angry, though he wasn’t one for histrionics so far as Ase had seen. “You, Mr. Badass with his tattoos and his bike and his mysterious… thing.” Dustin waved his hand up and down like he couldn’t find the word. Ase rumbled a laugh at Dustin’s endearing quirkiness. “I have known you long enough to know you’re more than that. But, dude, that today was scary.”

Ase’s brows went up. “Scary?”

“You saw that guy, and you were an open fucking book.”

Ase scoffed. “He’s just someone I met once when I was traveling.”

“Who happens to live in the random town in Texas you moved to? Out of all the med programs in, hell, not just the state, but the city.” Well, dead-to-rights there. The little fucker wasn’t as unassuming as those big brown eyes might lead a man to believe.

But Ase always had been shit at reading people. He had an ex in San Diego who would attest to the fact.

Which didn’t make him feel much better about how he’d not given Jase a chance to recover that morning.

“You looked like you’d found a puppy you’d lost ages ago.”

Ase scoffed again, shoulders tensing and he turned to pull the vodka bottle from the cabinet above the stove. “Want a
drink
drink, or some water?”

Dustin was silent for a long while. Ase almost thought he’d left the kitchen until he looked over his shoulder and saw the man studying him. “You know he works for my uncle, right?”

Ase paused. In the silence after that, the sound of opening the soda mixer was loud. He poured his drink then turned back to Dustin. “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry for earlier. It wasn’t fair to you. I pride myself in being an ass but I’d prefer not to hurt anyone.”

“It didn’t hurt me, Ase. But it did piss me off. If you want to make some old hookup jealous—” Ase went to rebuke that but Dustin continued. “And don’t lie to me and say that’s not what he is. You were too hurt. Scratch that, so
obviously
hurt by the closet-case blowing you off, that you couldn’t have done better than that.”

“How do you know he’s a closet-case? And do you really think he was blowing me off? I thought I’d overreacted.”

Dustin rolled his eyes. “First, as far as the closet-case thing goes, my uncle would have mentioned if he had a homo on his payroll. He’d have told my mother if nothing else, because she’s the Texas version of a Yenta and would have hung him by his balls if he hadn’t mentioned it, and a piece of ass like that got swooped up, and I hadn’t had first dibs.

“I hate meddling in this because I’m gonna lose out on some grade-A dick if I’m right, but I sense some unfinished business.” Ase hadn’t been prepared for that, so the tea bag he’d been holding dropped from his hand with a
plop
into his mug.

“Then don’t meddle,” Ase snapped. He hated being so short with Dustin, but he really didn’t need this tonight. Not ever. He’d ridden his motorcycle for miles and miles until he realized that wasn’t going to stop the burn of anger and humiliation… The thrumming need in his veins when he’d seen Jase.

It’s not like he’d spent the last four years pining for the man. Their e-mail correspondence hadn’t lasted longer than eight months after their meeting before fizzling out. Yes, at first he’d ached to touch that strong body again, to rake his fingers over the buzzed hair on the back of that perfectly rounded skull just once more. And fuck it all if seeing Jase with his hair grown out so you could see the perfect gold color of it, his face having sharpened in its definition with age hadn’t made Ase hate he’d never get to touch him again.

But Ase didn’t
fawn
over people. Ase didn’t
need
people. And they’d stopped talking for a reason. Ase was beyond a mess, and everything had blown up. After they’d brought Lizeth from Oaxaca, Ase’s need to cut off silly hopes and pipe dreams, overwhelmed his need to hear how Jase was on his happy homestead with his babbling brooks and beautiful girlfriends. “I assure you, he was a vacation fuck. I knew him a weekend and over a few e-mails. I was obviously an experiment. And it was ages ago. We’d barely even count as friends these days.” Dustin didn’t look convinced.

Ase narrowed his eyes and rumbled in his chest, prowling toward Dustin. “And he’s not here, is he?”

Dustin swallowed audibly as Ase crowded him against the refrigerator, his scent musky with a hint of honey, sweet like his pert ass.

Dustin places his hands on Ase’s pecs, lowering them down his abdomen, tracing the new tattoos peeking out from Ase’s ribs as he went. He was breathing heavily, his tell. The man was a firecracker in the sheets. Exactly what Ase needed tonight. No more thoughts of silly, angst-ridden crushes from a time in his life he didn’t want to think on.

Ase lowered his face, moving it closer to Dustin’s. “You want me to eat you out? To fuck you until you can’t talk, until you can’t walk tomorrow without thinking of me?”

Eyes closed, Dustin almost closed the space between their lips. But he stalled. He opened his eyes, apology filling them. “Oh, Ase. I’d think about you anyway.”

That made Ase flinch.
Fuck.

“This isn’t about him,” Ase said. It really wasn’t. His mind was whirling with thoughts of Dustin’s creamy white skin and his lush, perky ass cheeks.

“The problem, Ase, is that even if it’s not about him, it’s not about
us
.”

“Us?” Ase asked, taking a step back, his ardor cooling.

“I know there’s not an us. Never intend for there to be. We have great sex. I know that. And we get along. But call me romantic, I hate for you to ruin something, or hide from something, even if it’s a long shot, by burying yourself in me. You, Dr. Ramirez, are more soft than you are hard inside, and I don’t want to be a crutch.”

Ase reeled at the words. Fuck this man for thinking he knew Ase. Fuck him.

           Dustin reached for Ase, gripping his arm tight when Ase tried to pull it back. “Even if you don’t talk to him, don’t settle for sex from me because I’ll give you a second glance.”

“I don’t think of you like that,” Ase said. And he didn’t.

“I know you’re not
that
callous, idiot. But I know we’ve probably been doing this a little too long now.”

Ase chuckled, letting Dustin see—probably the first person since Jase—that he’d read Ase right. Ase knew he was eighty percent bluster. Walls of steel and ice had protected him the last few years. But if Dustin could call a spade a spade, Ase could at least give him the benefit of honesty, even if it made him feel raw for the ten seconds he did.

“There
you
are, Ase. And you should be with someone who you are okay being
that
Ase with every day.”

“This is the nicest break up I’ve ever been through.”

“Hey, I’m not saying no to one last dick-down, baby. Plus, you still have to do the photography for my uncle this weekend.” Dustin fluttered his lashes.

Ase rolled his shoulders and boxed Dustin in, placing an arm on either side of the fridge. Dustin’s breathing grew loud again. “Ah, Dustin,” Ase said, deeply. “Gotta keep the artist happy.” And with that, he stopped all the sharing and talking the best way he knew how, placing a brutal, punishing kiss on Dustin’s lips.

The next afternoon, Ase was all too happy to be finished with his rounds. He grunted a few goodbyes, gave Dustin a private slap on the ass, and left the hospital behind, happy to be free for two consecutive days.

           He’d gotten the better bargain than Dustin and his uncle in Ase’s estimation. Yes, he’d had to juggle one extra rotation more than usual, but that was nothing completely out of the ordinary. Dustin’s aunt and uncle got a photographer, whose skill level was that of an enthusiast rather than a professional, after a cancellation, and Ase got a couple hundred extra dollars in his pocket; a few orgasms from a certain grateful nephew with a prize ass, free food and booze, and a weekend off. So he’d be taking photos of happy families and local politicians brown-nosing for a few hours tomorrow night. He liked taking photos and he might very well end up with a few decent ones.

           That couldn’t take away from the fact he had almost two full days away from the hospital. This would be the first time he’d managed that since he started med school. It was practically a holiday not to have to rush to work with a hangover for two days. That was reason enough to have gone through everything to get the time off. Though, he didn’t mind any of those other perks.

           After he’d arrived home, Ase decided to tune up his bike. Living in Texas, he’d learned a car was necessary as well, and had purchased a decent used car. But he’d put all his time and sweat and savings into replacing the bike he’d had to sell to pay tuition the fall out of his
outing
. He’d felt guilty, what with all the money he had to send back home, and he wasn’t making all that much. Regardless what people thought of doctors, he wasn’t loaded, and he had student loans to pay off—though, not as much as most, with his parents’ help and the scholarships he’d busted his ass to get in the beginning.

           He babied his new bike.
Who needed a partner when you had a baby like this?
He roamed his hands over the sleek, blue gas tank of Matilda II. Flashes of Jase doing the same, reverently admiring Matilda I on a noisy street corner one night four years ago assaulted Ase. He snarled and jumped to standing from the crouching position he’d been in.

           He was fucking tired. He’d been unnerved by Jase’s reappearance in his life yesterday, and he’d only seen the man for forty-five seconds. A mere blip.

           He had been unnerved by Dustin reading him like a book, again all because of Jase, who’d officially cracked him open for the first time in his life when he’d given himself to Ase.

           Ase had always been a bit on the rebellious side, despising the conventions and religious fanaticism with which his parents had raised him. They’d barely forgiven him for the first tattoos he’d gotten when they found out their dear oldest son would not marry his chosen bride. Then when they found out he was a homosexual… He still had scars from that day, inside and out. And one of those scars was from Jase being ripped away without the closure he’d wanted. And he despised that need inside him.

           Ase really hadn’t fallen in love or had some fairy tale notion of that night. It’d been a hook-up, an experiment for a straight boy and a farewell to Germany fling for Ase, as he’d told Dustin. But he’d let himself go for it, let himself be naked to Jase because something in those green eyes had been what Ase had needed then and there as he questioned his life. Jase had represented a hope, a wonder if he could love and give himself. He’d thought, as they rode down in that elevator, that maybe he could fearlessly love someone. Not necessarily Jase, but someone. Giving in, not fighting against
everything
for one weekend; being gay and free and wild with abandon had been nice. And he’d seen the same thing in Jase when he’d let go of his inhibition.