Hay and Heartbreak (18 page)

Barney was bobbing his head. “He did, Carlos. I tossed him your phone and he put it in his pocket. It ain’t his fault if it fell out. We’re been ridin’ rough for hours.”

Carlos closed his eyes and grimaced. If Hector were going to bet on it, he’d say Carlos was trying really hard not to lose his temper. Finally, Carlos opened his eyes again. “Can I use your phone, Hector?”

“Sure.” Hector handed it over.

Barney had his out. “Damn. Mine still doesn’t have signal. This carrier’s supposed to be the best in the nation. My ass.”

“I swear I had it,” Curt kept repeating.

Carlos checked in with Will and Troy. Hector heard him ask one of them to call and have his cell phone shut off, adding, “I’ll be damned if I’m gonna risk having the twisted fucker who hurt Joaquin and Sebastian findin’ it and usin’ it. Y’all stop where y’all are and we’ll be there in less than half an hour.”

By the time they made it home, it was late and he was exhausted. Ian had insisted on interviewing each one of them as soon as they’d all met up, instead of waiting until they all returned.

Hector supposed it didn’t matter how Ian did it. They all would have had to tell him what had happened before they could have gone home anyway.

He parked his ATV in the garage along with the others. As tired as he was, anticipation was giving him an adrenaline rush. He was nervous, scared and hopeful that Dan would be awake still, waiting for him.

I’m not gonna blow this, damn it.
Hector walked out of the garage and almost collided with Dan.

“You’re okay.” Dan hugged him so tight Hector could hardly breathe.

He returned the embrace just as enthusiastically, then he nudged Dan’s cheek, and suddenly their mouths were lined up perfectly, and Hector was kissing Dan, unable to hold back the wellspring of lust and other more intense feelings bubbling up in him.

Dan parted those sweet lips so easily, and soft, needy sounds slipped form his mouth to Hector’s.

It was tempting to let the physical desire rule, so very tempting. Hector shook with the force of restraining himself from doing so.

This was important, he reminded himself. What he wanted to build with Dan was more than the sum of two bodies fucking.

Hector gentled the kiss, bringing it down from the near mouth-fucking it’d been. He sipped at Dan’s lips, then brushed them with his tongue before sighing and hugging Dan again. “Talk. We gotta talk.”

Dan’s groan almost made Hector laugh.

“You know we do,” he added. “I’ve got some groveling to do.”

Dan pulled away. “No, no you don’t. I was—”

Hector kissed him, unable to keep from tasting him again. Then he linked his fingers through Dan’s, and together they walked to the bunkhouse.

Barney and Curt were jabbering with everyone else about what had happened.

Duke and Frankie fielded any questions that came Hector’s way.

“Thanks,” Hector mouthed to them.

Frankie gave him an encouraging smile, but Duke’s look held a very clear, ‘don’t fuck this up again’ message that Hector couldn’t miss. Hector nodded to them both.

“My room,” he urged when Dan hesitated in the hall. “Please.”

Dan ducked his head.

“Don’t.” Hector cupped his chin, encouraging him to look up. “Don’t hide from me.”

“I wasn’t,” Dan said, his eyes going wide. “I…I’m just ashamed of acting like a brat last night.”

“You had every right, and I never should have let you walk away from me.” Hector opened his door and tugged Dan in with him. “Not before I made sure you knew I was sorry, so sorry for hurting you. It wasn’t even you I was mad at. I wanted to smash Curt’s face in for bringing out your past to everyone. And I hated feeling like they’d laugh at me because I didn’t know about it. Stupid of me to feel that way. These guys are my friends. Most of them. It’s that damned ego. Gets me in trouble sometimes.” He framed Dan’s face with his hands, the sharp curve of Dan’s cheekbones tantalizing against Hector’s palms. “None of that made what I did right. I was an idiot, and even though we haven’t known each other for long at all, I feel this connection with you that starts right here.”

Hector moved one hand to rest above his own heart. “It’s not a point lower down. It’s not just sex. I look at you and I want to know you better. I want to try to make something with you, a relationship, I mean.”

Dan smiled tremulously. “I want that, too, but—”

“No buts.” Hector caressed Dan’s cheek. “None. If it’s the drugs you’re fixing to bring up, we’ll talk about it. Later.”

“Not later. I can’t leave that out there not dealt with,” Dan protested. “Especially after what you went through.”

“What I went through, what my family went through, was hell,” Hector confessed. “I don’t know much about recovering from addiction except that it’s probably a lifelong battle for some people, and others, it’s easier, like it is with any addiction. Maybe that’s oversimplifying things, maybe it isn’t. Here’s what I learned, though. You can’t make someone quit drugs, or anything else. If they’re determined to use drugs, they will. Suzie and Abe, they wanted to party and have fun and feel however it was they felt when they were high. That’s what they wanted more than anything else. Nothing any of us did changed that. Have you come close to using since you’ve been out of prison?”

Dan took a moment to answer. He stared at his hands as he twisted them together. “No. I don’t have that craving. I think…”

Hector made an encouraging sound.

Dan stopped fidgeting. He looked Hector square in the eyes. “I don’t want to be the same person I was before. Ten years of not using, ten years of knowing what drugs got a person—prison, death. Practically the same things, that’s what I thought sometimes. I don’t want to be that messed up kid, don’t want to be a mess of a man. I don’t want to let
me
down like that, much less anyone else. That’s why I won’t find a dealer. I deserve better. I
am
better, stronger than that.”

“Yes, you are.” Hector was edging closer and closer to that scary emotional precipice, that fall into love that he was truly beginning to yearn for. “You hit me like a spring storm, just caught me out and washed me in everything you are. So fast, sweetheart. It happened so fast.”

Dan licked his lips. “Does that mean it isn’t real? It won’t last?”

Hector moved closer, his gaze dropping to the wet sheen on Dan’s lips. “No, it doesn’t mean that at all. It means we’re lucky we don’t have to wade through weeks or months of wondering if we should give us a shot. We should. It’s right. You know it, just like I do.”

It wasn’t love, not yet, but he knew it could be, if they took care and nurtured the fledgling emotions they shared.

“I do know it. It scares me, and yet I…I want to try.”

Dan’s whispered admission was enough for Hector. “Then we’ll make this work.” He grinned at Dan. “You should probably know, there hasn’t been a divorce in my family. Not that I know of.”

“What? We’re not getting married,” Dan protested. “We don’t even really know each other!”

Hector’s smile grew. Dan had no idea how much he loved a challenge. “No, not any time soon, but if it did ever happen, I’m just letting you know, you’d be stuck with me forever. That’s a conversation for the future.”

Dan nodded quickly. “Way in the future.”

Chapter Thirteen

For a minute there, Dan had thought Hector was proposing, which was just crazy! It was also romantic—all of it. Dan hadn’t ever thought he’d have someone say the kinds of things Hector had said.

“You’re thinking too hard on everything,” Hector rumbled right before he spun Dan around and walked him backward to the bed. “I’ve got a cure for that.” He waggled his eyebrows.

That playfulness aroused Dan as much as the hand Hector placed on his ass did. “Oh yeah? What’s the cure?” Dan asked, happy to flirt back.

Hector’s smirk was disarming.

Dan waited, slowly arcing one eyebrow at him.

“The cure is for you to take that pretty, pretty dick of yours—”

Dan grew very warm.

Hector continued. “And put it where I really,
really
want to feel it. Will you make love with me, Dan?”

“Y-yes.” Dan reached down and had to adjust his cock, it’d grown hard so fast. “Yes, I—” He didn’t know what hit him, what impulse took him over. Dan grabbed Hector and spun him around, then pushed and sent him tumbling onto the bed.

“I like this side of you,” Hector said breathlessly.

Dan liked it, too. “I don’t know where I want to start the most.”

Hector rolled his hips. “I have a suggestion.”

Dan chuckled, and it felt good to be so happy. “I bet you do. But I think I’ll start here.”

He helped Hector take off his boots and socks. Dan toed his own socks off. “Scoot over.”

Hector moved to lie in the middle of the bed, though he tossed the pillows on the floor. “I don’t want them in the way.”

Dan stretched out on top of Hector, aligning their groins.

“God, that’s nice,” Hector said.

“Nice?” Dan thrust, driving his cock over Hector’s.

Hector’s breath gushed out of him. He grabbed onto Dan’s hips. “Again!”

Dan kissed him, pushing his tongue into the welcoming warmth, the familiar yet still new taste of Hector spiking his need even higher.

He pushed up and grabbed Hector’s shirt. “Off with it.”

Hector nudged him. “Sit up.”

Dan moved back until he was straddling Hector’s thighs. He started in on Hector’s belt and quickly had it unfastened. “Now your jeans.” He might have sounded a tiny bit gleeful.

“Yes, strip me down,” Hector encouraged.

Dan unbuttoned his jeans then lowered the zip. Hector’s cock was already leaking pre-cum, darkening his blue briefs with a wet spot.

“Nice.” And Dan meant it. Seeing how he affected Hector cranked up his own desire. He moved down more then leaned over and licked at Hector’s covered cock.

“Fuuuuuuuck,” Hector dragged out. “Dan, please!”

Dan mouthed the fat tip, licking, sucking, working himself up and, judging by the moans and curse words coming from Hector, him, too.

His lips felt hot and swollen when he sat up and tapped Hector’s hip. “Raise your butt up.”

Between the two of them, they got Hector naked. Dan sat back. “Let me look for a minute, please. You are so fine, Hector.”

Hector rolled his eyes. “I’m not a muscle head, just a guy.”

“A fine, fine one,” Dan tacked on. Hector’s chest had a little fuzz, but not much. Dan approved. Very much. “So sexy.”

Hector’s cheeks turned ruddy with a blush that spread down his neck to his chest. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Dan got up and stripped off his sweats and T-shirt. He took a few condoms from the nightstand, and set them with the lube.

“You are damned hot yourself,” Hector said. “That taut little ass and a dick that’s gonna make me come apart.”

Dan stroked his cock idly as Hector watched him. Dan’s shaft wasn’t as thick as Hector’s, not all the way down, but he had a broad cockhead and the widest part of his penis was about halfway down.

“Ever think of getting it pierced?”

Dan repressed a shudder at Hector’s question. “Thought about it. Too scared, and the healing time is really unappealing.”

“Takes a while?” Hector asked.

“Weeks to months, depending on if it gets infected, and we can just drop this subject.”

Hector grimaced. “Yeah, we can. You wanna bring that beautiful dick up here so I can suck it?”

Dan had something like that in mind. “Well,” he drawled. He got back on the bed. “How about this?”

“Oh fuck yeah,” Hector rasped when Dan moved around to line them up, faces to cocks. “Mmm, I can’t wait.”

And he didn’t, either. Hector loosely gripped Dan’s shaft and sealed his mouth over the tip.

Dan’s eyes almost rolled back in his head as pleasure rushed up from his groin. He rolled Hector onto his back and buried his face in the thick black pubic hair surrounding Hector’s cock.

Hector moaned his approval and Dan felt it all over. He licked the base of Hector’s dick, then his balls. Hector spread his legs.

Dan licked and suckled his nuts until they were hard and the skin over them wrinkled. He had been stridently trying
not
to think about how wonderful what Hector was doing to him felt. Dan didn’t want to come yet, or first.

He took a few minutes to enjoy it, though, pushing deeper and deeper into Hector’s mouth, breaching his throat a time or two.

Then he held Hector’s cock in place with one hand, and opened his mouth around the head. He went down with one steady bob, relaxing his throat, swallowing, licking, sucking.

Hector left off blowing him and jerked like he’d been poked in the ribs. He cried out, and his heavy dick pulsed, cum spurting from the slit.

Dan swallowed each salty, bitter release eagerly, wanting to have Hector’s seed in his belly. Once the last of the semen had dribbled out, Dan let Hector’s softening cock slip from his mouth.

He maneuvered himself around until he was kneeling between Hector’s legs. Then he stretched out on top of Hector again. “Feels so good, touching you like this.” He writhed until his skin was sensitized everywhere he touched Hector.

Hector ran his hands up and down Dan’s back. Dan soaked in the caresses even as he slid down so he could lick at Hector’s nipples.

“Oh God, fuck, do that harder,” Hector begged.

Dan caught one nipple between his teeth and cautiously bit down.

“Ungh!” Hector’s legs came up as he thrust, and he buried his hands in Dan’s hair, holding his head where it was, with Dan’s mouth still on his tit.

Dan pinched and rolled the other nipple at the same time. He wanted to fill Hector up with more than his dick, he wanted to give him so much pleasure, so much
good
, no,
great
experiences that Hector could soar from them.

He left love marks all down Hector’s chest, on his belly, down above his pubic line. Hector tried to get him to move faster, but Dan wanted to savor every second of this first time with Hector. They’d been together, yes. This was different, not just because Dan was topping, but because of their discussion before then.