Wyatt craned his head to meet Linc’s gaze, and he had to remind himself this was temporary… that it was over. No matter how perfect Wyatt was. No matter how much Linc wanted to put him back together. It had to stop. They could only get away with it for so long without getting caught, and that was a Pandora’s box he could never close if opened. The consequences would be too far-reaching.
When Wyatt finished his water, Linc handed him the orange slices he’d pilfered from the crystal bowl on the counter. Once again, Wyatt flicked his gaze to Linc, smirking. “Afraid I’ll get scurvy?”
“I’ll bet you fifty bucks you don’t even know what scurvy is.”
Wyatt scoffed. “A vitamin C deficiency. Most people think it only affected sailors, but it’s been around since the thirteenth century. Napoleon’s army got it from consuming horse meat.” When Linc blinked at him, he batted his lashes. “True story.”
“I’m not paying you fifty bucks,” Linc warned.
“Hah, my father paid almost fifty grand a year for me to go to that pretentious-as-fuck private school, the least I could do was pay attention.”
Wyatt was full of surprises, or maybe Linc had just made assumptions based on the limited information his father had supplied. Now that Linc understood what Wyatt had endured growing up, it wasn’t hard to see why he acted out like he did. It wasn’t any excuse for drinking and driving—he was lucky he’d hurt nobody but himself—but it shed a light on Wyatt’s state of mind. Graciela had warned him that Wyatt wasn’t stable. Jackson had used the word suicidal. The signs that Linc should turn and run weren’t just there, they were flashing in red neon, but Linc couldn’t do it, at least not professionally. Somebody had to watch over Wyatt.
Linc dropped an absent kiss onto Wyatt’s curls. “Eat, you stubborn boy.”
They fell silent as Wyatt gave in and ate the sections of orange. Once finished, he started to fidget, clearly uncomfortable in the quiet. “I’m fine now. You can go.”
Dismissed. Linc didn’t think so. “I’ll go when I’m ready… when I thinkyou’reready.”
He peeled open the two sides of Wyatt’s unzipped hoodie like he was unwrapping a present, running his fingers across his flat belly, noting the smattering of moles dotting his fair skin like constellations.
Linc relished Wyatt’s sharp intake of breath, but then his hands captured Linc’s wrists. “I said I’m fine,” Wyatt muttered, not escaping Linc’s arms but tensing within them.
“Stop,” Linc warned.
“I don’t want to do this with you.” Wyatt’s voice was small but angry.
Wyatt wasn’t used to discipline, didn’t know the effects what they’d done could have, but Linc did. He couldn’t just leave Wyatt alone. He didn’t want to. “Look, just because you think you’re fine, it doesn’t mean you are.” Wyatt’s nails dug half-moons into Linc’s wrists at those words. Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say. Linc had no idea what the right words were. He didn’t do feelings or relationships or long-term, especially not with inexperienced kids like Wyatt—beautiful, broken Wyatt. Linc easily slipped his wrists from Wyatt’s grasp, tilting his chin upward. “I’m not ready to let you go just yet.”
“What about what I want? Does that matter?” The rawness in Wyatt’s words was a sucker punch to the gut.
“Do you even know what you want?”
Wyatt deflated, the fight draining from his body, his head falling back against Linc’s shoulder. “I know nobody ever really cares what I want.”
Jesus. “Turn around.”
Wyatt ignored him, staring down at Linc’s hands.
“Turn around and look at me. Now.”
Wyatt begrudgingly turned until he was straddling Linc’s lap, dragging his eyes upward. This close, he could see the smattering of freckles across his nose and that his sea-glass eyes were ringed with gold. “I care,” he finally said. It wasn’t a lie. Linc really cared about Wyatt, wanted him to have a life out from under his father, the life he deserved. “What do you want?”
Wyatt looked startled at Linc’s question, his full lips pulling down at the corners. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” Linc didn’t know why it mattered or why Wyatt should care that it mattered to Linc. It shouldn’t. But he needed Wyatt to know that under different circumstances, he’d want this… them. Whatever they fucking were. “I care about what you want. So, what do you want, sweet boy?”
Wyatt opened his mouth like he was about to confess a secret and Linc saw the exact moment the boy chickened out. Instead, he cupped Linc’s face, running his tongue over Linc’s lower lip. “What if I said all I want is you?”
Linc wondered what shameful, secret desire Wyatt hid, but he let it go. They barely knew each other, even though it didn’t feel that way to Linc. Instead, he addressed Wyatt’s words. “I want you too. Just because we can’t keep doing this, doesn’t mean I don’twantto keep doing this,” Linc insisted, pressing his lips to Wyatt’s forehead, his cheeks, his chin, before finally pressing a kiss to his pouty, unrelenting mouth. “There are so many things I want to do to you that it would take me the next five and a half months just to list them, but we both know if your father found out it would be a nightmare—for both of us—and I can’t afford to lose this assignment.”
Wyatt’s face was a storm cloud, his mood darkening. “Because of your family?”
Linc frowned. How did Wyatt know that? “Yes, because of my family.”
“How does your wife feel about you fucking men?” Wyatt asked, tone icy.
Linc’s brain froze. “My… what?”
