Conquer the Flames (Langs Down) (19 page)

F
OUR
hours later, Ian slumped at the kitchen table, absolutely exhausted. Dinner had gone exactly as he would have predicted if asked. Everyone had come over to check on him, and once they were sure he was cleared, they’d insisted he come to the bunkhouse after dinner to have a “welcome home” beer. One beer had turned into several, until Ian was pleasantly loose. Even better, Thorne hadn’t left his side since they’d walked out his door to head to the canteen. For that matter, Thorne was still right there, hovering over Ian as he set up the nebulizer. “Sit down,” Ian grumbled when he finally had everything ready. “You’re ruining a good buzz.”

Thorne glared at him but sat down in the other chair, so Ian figured that was acceptable progress. He could have done without the glare, but he could live with Thorne being protective, even if he didn’t really need it. He couldn’t talk while he used the nebulizer, so before he started, he looked up at Thorne and said, “Tell me about your day. It’ll make the treatment go faster.”

Ian listened in silence as Thorne talked about the situation with the fires and the number of hot spots they were still worried about. He mentioned more fires farther to the north and how the captain had diverted resources there. Ian worried for a moment, but Thorne smiled at him. “I told him I was staying here, with the Firies or on my own, it didn’t matter. He didn’t tell me not to, so I guess that means I’m still one of the Firies until the last men are called north. Then I’m all yours.”

The words sent a heady rush through Ian’s system that had nothing to do with the medicine or the beer and everything to do with the man sitting across the table from him. He wasn’t sure he was ready to contemplate everything involved in Thorne being “all his,” but he wanted it no matter how bad it ended up being. Thorne was nothing like Ian’s foster father. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t about power and pain like it had been back then, and Ian wasn’t the scrawny helpless boy he’d been at sixteen.

“You have the strangest look on your face,” Thorne said. “Did I overstep my bounds?”

Ian shook his head. He didn’t want to explain his past or the memories Thorne’s words had stirred up. They didn’t have any bearing on the matter at hand.

“Are you sure? I can leave if you want.”

Ian shook his head again and reached for Thorne’s hand. He didn’t know a lot of things about how this would work, but he knew one thing: he didn’t want Thorne to leave.

Thorne smiled at his gesture, the expression taking years off his face, and Ian resolved to make him smile more often.

Finally he finished with the breathing treatment. He put the supplies away and flopped onto the couch. Thorne joined him a moment later.

“Tired?”

“I shouldn’t be,” Ian said. “I haven’t done anything all week.”

“Except recover from nearly dying, and I’ve been in the hospital before. I know how restful they are—nurses coming in every few hours to check on you, noises out in the hallway at all hours.”

“Not very,” Ian agreed.

“Not at all,” Thorne insisted. “You don’t have to stay up and keep me company. It’s already late.”

“I haven’t got my kisses yet,” Ian said with a pout.

“That’s because you wanted to go to the bunkhouse,” Thorne said. “I could have come back here right after dinner and kissed you all night.”

Ian thought that sounded wonderful, but he yawned before he could say so.

“Go to sleep,” Thorne said. “I’ll be here in the morning.”

“Are you sure the couch is comfortable enough?”

“It’s better than a bedroll on hard ground,” Thorne replied. “So unless you’re inviting me into your bed, baby, you need to stop tempting me, because I’d really love to carry you in the other room and hold you all night long, but I promised we’d go slow, and I’m trying to keep that promise.”

A curl of warmth moved through Ian’s heart and belly, but he knew he wasn’t ready. He could sit on the couch with Thorne all night. He could probably even sleep in Thorne’s arms on the couch, but someone in his bedroom, in his bed, had always ended with him bleeding and begging for it to stop.

“Thank you.” Ian gave Thorne a soft kiss before rising from the couch.

“For what?”

“For not pushing.”

“There is more to life than sex,” Thorne said. “I don’t know how you got to be your age, looking like you do, and still skittish, but while I hope you’ll trust me with that story someday, it doesn’t need to be now. Regardless, I’m not ruled by my dick. We won’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

Ian tensed a little at how close Thorne had come to guessing his secret. He supposed it wasn’t hard to figure out the bare bones of it. He just hated the idea of anyone actually knowing what had happened. He knew intellectually that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that he hadn’t asked for what happened to him, but it didn’t stop the embarrassment that still lingered or the sting of the filth his foster father had heaped on his head when he came to Ian’s room.

S
LEEP
was a long time coming after Ian stripped down to his underwear and climbed into bed. He’d shut the door, as he did every night, but that thin piece of wood suddenly seemed like no barrier at all. Images of Thorne flashed though his mind: appearing through the smoke to rescue Ian like some majestic hero from any of a hundred quest fantasies, playing with Dani at dinner so Neil and Molly could eat, laughing with the other jackaroos in the bunkhouse as he nursed his one beer, giving Ian that intimate smile of his when Ian had said he wanted Thorne to stay. Mostly, though, he saw Thorne in that
bloody
towel, looking good enough to eat and dangerous enough to set off every one of Ian’s warning bells. Ian wasn’t a big guy, not like Thorne. He was five foot ten in his boots, which meant Thorne had six inches on him. Ian lived a very active life and was as strong or stronger than the average man his size, but Thorne wasn’t average. He could have been carved out of the stone beneath their feet, and he was bigger. Ian had no hope of getting away if he had to.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Ian said aloud, forcing away the doubts that wanted to crop up. “He isn’t like that. He all but said tonight that he’d be fine if we never had sex.”

That was the problem, though, and Ian knew it. Thorne might be fine with that now, and he might even remain fine with it, but Ian wasn’t. He finally had the chance at a relationship with a man who might be capable of respecting Ian’s limits, and Ian couldn’t take the first step.

“That’s not true,” he muttered to himself. “I did take the first step. I kissed him. I’ve kissed him quite a bit.”

They’d been amazing kisses too, every single one of them, even the hard, fast one as they escaped the wildfire. And for once, kissing had led him to wanting more as much as he feared it. He wanted to be pleased with that, but it only added to the terrible sense of uncertainty. He’d never allowed anyone else to touch him intimately since he was old enough to leave DoCS custody. He’d never met anyone he trusted to touch him intimately.

Until now.

Ian’s stomach churned as he let the thought settle into him. He wanted to know how it would feel to touch Thorne. He was getting hard just thinking about the eyeful he’d got earlier, when he’d walked in on Thorne getting dressed. The man was gorgeous, with heavy, powerful muscles under the dark pelt of fur across his chest, and Ian wanted to touch. He didn’t think Thorne would turn him away, but he wasn’t sure he could handle what would come next. If Ian gave in to his desire and explored Thorne’s body the way he wanted to, Thorne would want to reciprocate. No sex was not at all the same thing as one-sided sex, and that was what it would be.

He rolled onto his side and concentrated on his breathing. He wasn’t accomplishing anything by going through this repeatedly in his head. He needed to sleep. Everything else would wait until morning.

H
E
MOVED
his hands slowly over the hard body, the mat of fur tickling his palms. The gesture elicited a gasp and a smile from the man below him, lying back so trustingly as he explored. He was safe. As long as he was here, he was safe. No one could touch him with Thorne around.

He leaned down to kiss his lover and sucked eagerly on his lips. When Thorne swept his tongue across Ian’s lips in retaliation, he drew it into his mouth and sucked on it instead. Thorne liked that, to judge by the way he bucked beneath Ian. Ian liked the way their bodies felt rubbing together, so he rested a little more weight on Thorne’s chest and rubbed a little more purposefully. Thorne rumbled something beneath him, but the words were too indistinct for Ian to make them out. It didn’t matter anyway. They hadn’t been a sound of protest, so Ian took the seductive sound as encouragement and pressed even closer, splaying his legs wide across Thorne’s hips.

Heavy hands settled on Ian’s hips, startling him and stilling his movement at the same time. “Don’t rush.”

Ian woke with a sharp cry. Even before he could get his bearings or really register that he was alone—
safe—
he heard a knock at the door.

“Ian? Are you all right?”

Bile rose in Ian’s throat. He swallowed it down. “I’m fine. Just a strange dream.”

“You’re sure?” Thorne asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Ian repeated, heart pounding as he waited for the door to open, but it stayed closed.

“All right. If you need anything, just give a shout. I’m here.”

Ian felt his pulse return to normal slowly. Thorne had listened. He’d taken Ian’s words at face value and hadn’t insisted on coming in to check on him. He’d respected the closed door.

He took a deep breath and tried to settle again after his dream. Even his subconscious, it seemed, had accepted that Thorne wouldn’t rush him. Dream Thorne had touched him, yes, but only to slow things down between them when Ian got carried away. Not that Ian had felt carried away in his dream until Thorne slowed things down.

He’d never dreamed like that, and certainly never about a specific person. He’d had nightmares with his foster father’s face in them, but this had been no nightmare. He hadn’t been scared, hurt, or forced. He’d been the one in charge, the one making Thorne feel good, even as he got more and more aroused himself.

Now that he thought about it, he was still half hard, even with Thorne coming to check on him and the dream fading. He still had no idea how any of this would work, but he was becoming more certain he needed to try.

Fourteen

T
HORNE
tensed as Dani came running across the grass toward him. It would have been much less stressful if the road hadn’t been between them. Thorne didn’t see any cars, but that wasn’t the point. Dani had no sense of self-preservation, and Thorne just knew one day she’d walk up behind him, trigger a flashback, and get hurt. The thought made him sick to his stomach. Dani didn’t deserve that, but even worse, Macklin would be justified in ordering Thorne off the station if that happened, and that would mean losing Ian. Things were going well between them, but Thorne didn’t delude himself. If it came to choosing between Lang Downs and Thorne, Thorne would lose in a heartbeat. Furthermore, if it came to that, Ian’s choice would be the right one, however much it hurt. Ian deserved someone he could trust in his life and in his home.

“Hi, Dani,” he said, scooping her up into his arms. “You should be more careful running across the road.”

“Mum said no cars,” Dani replied as she gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek above his beard. “No cars, safe to cross.”

“If you say so,” he said.

She wrinkled up her nose. “You stinky.”

“Not after today,” Thorne promised. “The fires are out. I don’t have to go back and smell like smoke anymore.”

“Good. Smoke stinky.”

Thorne chuckled. “Were you a good girl for your mum today?”

“I watched her for Molly today.”

The unexpected voice behind him sent Thorne’s instincts into hyperdrive. He spun around, curling his body protectively around Dani.

“Laura!” Molly scolded before Thorne could react further. “What did we tell you about walking up behind Thorne?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I forgot.”

“That’s a dangerous rule to forget,” Thorne warned her. “You remember what happened the last time?”

“Thorne scared?” Dani asked, putting her tiny hands on his cheeks and turning him to face her.

“Scared something was coming to hurt you,” Thorne replied honestly.

“Nobody hurt me. Only snakes, but they only go in sheds,” Dani said.

“I know Laura wouldn’t hurt you,” Thorne said. “But it startled me and that made me want to protect you.”

She squirmed in his arms to be let down. He set her on the ground, and she scampered over to Laura. “Say sorry.”

“I already did.”

“Say again,” Dani demanded imperiously.

Thorne stifled a chuckle. Dani had picked up her mother’s ability to run the world, it appeared.

“I’m sorry,” Laura said again. “I really didn’t mean to surprise you again.”