“No? I asked him to get you, Tay. I wanted you there because I had to know.”
“Know what?” Taylor’s voice had taken on a breathy edge, and he was staring at Johnny like his entire world was collapsing.
“I had to know if you… if you felt something for me. Outside of…” He gestured to the space between them. “This.”
Jesus, it felt like his stomach had twisted into a million little knots. Was he doing this? Was heactuallydoing this?
Taylor shook his head. “I don’t… What do you… Why is this happening? Why did you kiss me, JP? In the drive-through, why—” Taylor abruptly cut himself off and just stared at him.
What Johnny should have done was touch his face and kiss him on the mouth, gently, that time. He should have said that he’d kissed him because the scales had tipped in that moment, and that over the last few hours Johnny’s future had flashed before his eyes. How, after sharing a body and a bed again, he knew with absolute certainty that continuing to go on as they were was going to drive him to insanity. How, now that Johnny knew how Taylor tasted, his grip on his own self-control would erode pretty fucking fast, and that it probably wouldn’t be long before he kissed him again. Maybe at work, maybe at the packhouse, or maybe at home when they were under the covers watching Taylor’s latest obsession.
Taylor would blame himself, run away and probably fuck the first omega who batted their eyelashes at him. Johnny couldn’t do it, because he would rather die than have Taylor come home with someone else’s scent on his skin.
He should have said all that, but instead he just snapped, “Because I wanted to. Okay?”
The silence that stretched out between them was heavy and cold, and Johnny couldn’t fight the urge to fill it. “Because I’ve wanted to kiss you for the last fourteen years.”
Taylor shook his head, looking at Johnny with wild confusion. “No. No, you haven’t. I’ve… I’ve done something to you, haven’t I? The biting… it’s messed with your brain and now you think… Oh God, now you think… Oh fuck. I need to go, JP. I need to move out. I need to leave. I need to get as far away from you as?—”
Johnny’s wolf suddenly surged to the surface, growling as he reached under Taylor’s seat and slammed it all the way back. Before Johnny could even get a grip on himself he straddled Taylor’s legs and pushed down hard on the headrest.
“Look at me,” he snapped, shoving his forehead against Taylor’s. “And listen so you understand. I love you. Not like friends. Not like brothers, but like I want to bury my knot so deep inside you that you taste it on the back of your tongue for the rest of your life. I. Am. In. Love. With. You.”
Taylor’s mouth was moving, and sound was coming out, but nothing that even remotely resembled words.
“Being with you last night,” Johnny continued, scalp suddenly hot and tingly. He slid his face down Taylor’s throat and pressed it to the empty space at the front of his stab vest. “It was like pressing my mouth to a glass of cold water after years ofwalking in the desert. And I… I can’t do it anymore, Tay. I need… I need to know if there’s something more for us.”
There was silence again, made heavier by the tight confines of the car. He’d have almost preferred it if Taylor would have raged or shouted, because at least then he’d have something to work with. But instead, there was nothing.
“Could you say something?” Johnny eventually whispered.
Taylor’s breath was shaking against his hair, and he gripped the sides of the seat with both hands as he said, “JP?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you seriously just call me a tall drink of water?”
Johnny squeezed one of his eyes shut, mouth splitting into a grimace. “Shut up,” he huffed, head-butting Taylor’s chest.
“Oof, okay. Got it. Won’t take the piss.”
Letting his head loll to the side, Johnny rested his cheek against Taylor’s collarbones.
It hadn’t come out how he wanted. In fact, he had no idea how or what he should have said because in all honesty he’d planned to keep it a secret for the rest of his life. Taylor had been through so much as a kid, and the last thing Johnny wanted was to make him feel like the only way he could be a part of the pack was to pretend like he felt the same way.
One of Taylor’s hands drifted from the seat to the gap between Johnny’s neck and stab vest, and he gently ran his nails through his hair. “I don’t know any shit metaphors like you, JP.”
Okay. Ouch.
“But… I guess… Do you know why I loved taking care of my guns so much?”
Johnny looked up, finally meeting his gaze. Taylor’s pale cheeks were flushed and his lips were wet.
“Because you like keeping your hands busy?”
“Well… yeah, but—” Taylor shook his head. “It’s because I knew that if the time came and I had to shoot someone, it wouldn’t be to protect the public. It would be to protectyou.”
Johnny blinked, the tightness in his throat easing a little.
