“I… I don’t want to think about them. I don’t think they think about me.” He met Dillon’s eyes, needing Dillon to understand. “I walked away from Aaron that day, left him behind. It’s gone. My life started when I met Danny Scott and he let me ride.”
God, he’d been a shitty bull rider for all of three weeks before the bullfighting team had surrounded him and taken him in.
“I’m glad you did. I mean, I needed you to be here.”
“It’s been pretty good, hasn’t it? You and me?”
“Good doesn’t begin to cover it. Even if you have this huge extended family of batshit crazy people.” Dillon grinned, lines easing around his eyes and mouth.
“Yes, well. I can’t really bitch. I sorta chose them.” And comparatively? They weren’t bad.
“I know! Freaks, all of them. Good thing I’m social.”
“Liar,” Coke dared to tease. Dillon could be downright hermit-like.
“Not so! Well, okay, you’re way better at the constant company thing. I guess that makes sense, huh? You weren’t ever alone.”
“No. Not really. Sometimes when I was at the house, but it didn’t last.” He wasn’t good at it.
“I can take it.” Dillon thumped his own chest like a Brazilian about to tie his hand in the rope.
Coke laughed and grabbed Dillon up, kissed him hard. “I damn near died, scared that you wouldn’t love me no more.”
“Never,everworry about that.” Dillon clung to his arms, cheeks hot, blue eyes heating up, too. “I’m in for the long haul.”
“Me too.” He’d known that since Dillon had come home from being with David. Well, not with-with, but in the same room-with. Even though, to Coke’s credit, there had been naked shower with-ness. And Dave calling Dillon Lonnie, which Dave didn’t do no more.
“So, what do we do now?” Dillon batted those long, blond-tipped lashes at him. That should have been so silly.
“Now we just get on with living, I reckon. We love each other hard and we let Aaron and Anthony be dead.”
“I like it. A lot.” Dillon kissed him again, this time with real intent, he reckoned. “Is it weird, to want to make out on Beau’s bed?”
“It ain’t Beau’s any more than it’s mine or Tag’s. We’re equal owners.”
“You have investments everywhere, don’t you?”
“Investments? Nah. I got land.” Land was just what it was.
“Uh-huh. I will organize your shit if it’s the last thing I do. Former accountant.” Dillon dragged him toward the bed.
“Mine.” That was the important part, right. “I don’t deserve you, but you’re still my own.”
“Yep,” Dillon said, sounding cheerful as hell. “Now you need to prove it.”
“Prove what? That you’re mine?” He chuckled and grabbed Dillon’s ass, steering him the rest of the way to the bed.
“Uh-huh.” Dillon flopped down onto the sheets and spread his arms and legs. “Alllll yours.”
“I like it.” Coke stood at the foot of the bed and gave Dillon a once-over. “It going to be weird if I fuck you into next week? I’d hate to be strange, but I’d hate missing a chance at your ass even more.”
“No. Making up requires hot monkey sex.” Dillon wiggled out of his shirt and started on his shorts. “Dogs are in the little dog run. I fed you. Beau and Sam won’t stop by for two more hours…”
“I could get you off three times in two hours, guaranteed…” Coke felt like a huge weight had been lifted from him, like his chest had remade with more room inside. It was dizzying and made him feel young, down deep.
Younger than he’d been since he was fifteen.
He laughed for the sheer joy of it, and Dillon laughed with him, always willing to find joy. He reached down and grabbed one foot, pulling the flip-flop right off.
