Boyd’s mouth twitched with an attempt not to smile, and there was the soft-edged pity that Morgan didn’t want. The slumming-it regret as he realized the stray dog he’d tossed a sandwich to thought he cared.
“It’s not like that,” Boyd said. “Shay’s—”
“Whatever,” Morgan muttered as he shoved himself up off the bed. His skin felt a size too small from the bruises and the ache of want in his balls. He’d had the brush-off before. The last thing he needed was to sit through it again. “You and the asshole can do what you want. I’m not interested in what he has to say. So unless you’re here for something else….”
He gave Boyd a slow, pointedly lewd once-over, from his short, choppy hair down to his black Vans with mismatched laces. Because obviously Boyd had to be cute as hell as well as hot as fuck. Morgan dragged his mind away from that and shoved it back into his pants. That Boyd made Morgan’s cock hard was just… mechanical, nothing vulnerable in that. It was also—on the way back up, Morgan’s gaze lingered for a second on the hard span of Boyd’s shoulders—very understandable.
When Morgan finally got all the way back up to his face again, Boyd’s whiskey-warm eyes had gone dark, pupils expanded in reaction.
“Oh, I see,” Morgan mocked him. “Want to slum it again? Pretend you’re with—”
“Don’t,” Boyd interrupted. “Don’t be an asshole.”
But Morgan wanted to. He wanted to pull Boyd close and push him away at the same time, to let him fuss over Morgan’s bruises but notneedhim to. For Boyd to forget about this Sammy kid and his asshole brother but not actually ask anything of Morgan.
He wanted to be an asshole and for Boyd to still look at him as though he mattered.
“Go, then,” Morgan said. He sat back down on the bed and leaned over to unlace his boots. “I didn’t ask for your help, I didn’t need it, and—”
The Vans appeared in front of him and then a pair of knees, black denim stretched tightly over them, as Boyd crouched down. He rested his arms on his knees and waited for Morgan to look up.
“You were about to get your ass kicked,” Boyd said. “You needed my help.”
Morgan scowled at him. “I can get my ass kicked without any help from you.”
Boyd rolled his eyes. “You always did—”
He stopped halfway through the sentence. There it was—the dead kid in the room. Morgan cupped his hand around the back of Boyd’s neck and pulled him in close. Boyd lost his balance and caught himself with one hand on Morgan’s thigh. His eyes were wide, warm, and close enough that Morgan could see the thin rim of plastic that explained why Boyd wasn’t wearing his nerd glasses.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Morgan told him. “Not what I always did, not who I always was. Stop looking at me like you’ll find someone else under my skin.”
Then he kissed him, because what the hell else was he going to do?
Chapter Nine
THERE WASsomething Boyd was meant to remember, but the itch of it skirted the edges of his brain. He couldn’t quite put his finger on exactlywhatit was—not with Morgan’s fingers against the nape of his neck and his mouth blood sweet and unexpectedly careful against Boyd’s lips.
It’s important, Boyd’s conscience poked at him. He fobbed it off with a halfheartedlateras he ran his hand up Morgan’s thigh. There was nothing soft about Morgan’s body. He was all hard muscle, clenched tight under Boyd’s touch, and strung-wire tension. Boyd traced the solid ridge of Morgan’s cock through his jeans, not sure whose groan it was that pressed against his lips, and he wasn’t about to complain about that.
Or, he supposed, the rest. It was just…. He was used to being the hot one.
Humor at the arrogance of that thought tugged at his mouth. Morgan broke the kiss and leaned back, gray-blue eyes wary.
“What’s so funny?”
Boyd licked the taste of Morgan off his lips and grinned sheepishly. “You make me wish I’d done a few more sit-ups at the gym.” He bit his lip as he pushed his hand under Morgan’s T-shirt and spread his fingers over the taut ridge of abs. “Or alotmore.”
It took a second, but the amusement cracked Morgan’s guard. The set of his mouth softened as he leaned back in to slant the ghost of a kiss over Boyd’s lower lip and down his stubble-rough jaw.
“I’d have suggested a shave,” Morgan mocked against the curve of his jaw as he scraped his teeth over the skin. Then he sprawled back onto the mattress, a study of muscle and blood-stained cotton framed incongruously against the inn’s curated cutesy bedspread. He braced himself on his elbows, and there was something dangerously hungry in his eyes as he cocked his head to the side. “Go on, then. You’ve seen me naked, more or less. Your turn, and this time no one’s going to interrupt. Strip.”
Heat crawled up the back of Boyd’s neck and made his scalp feel sweaty. He didn’t know why. There was nothing wrong with his body. He wouldn’t have a job if he weren’t a certain level of fit, and no one had ever complained. His personal issues were why his relationships never lasted that long, not his shoulders.
Or maybe—Boyd’s conscience finally got purchase—it was because this thing was kind of fucked-up.
Boyd groaned and sat back, the polished wooden floor hard against his tailbone. His cock felt uncomfortably trapped behind his jeans, pressed against the cold ridge of the zipper as he folded his legs in front of him.
“Fuck,” he said.
