Retribution (The Protectors #3)

TATE

I wasn’t able to take a deep breath until Hawke removed his hand from mine. The contact had been brief, seconds only, but my whole body felt like it was on fire. Desire wasn’t an entirely new feeling for me, but I’d never felt it to this extreme.

Growing up in a small, rural town in Eastern Texas hadn’t exactly provided a lot of options for a teenage kid with a homophobic father and brother to explore his sexuality, but I’d lucked out when I’d discovered that a classmate I’d been tutoring in English Lit, Reggie Kimball, was hiding the same secret I was.

Reggie had been two years older than me and had already fooled around with a couple other guys when he’d cornered me in the gym’s locker room at school one day and kissed me.