Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
FLYNN
Hospital.
I wasn’t sure if I’d said the dreaded word out loud even once, but it kept running on a loop inside my brain.
“Flynn?”
The sound of my name seemed loud in the car, but I dismissed that as the fine craftsmanship of the European vehicle. Surely, Jules was speaking at his regular volume.
The reminder of why I was in the car in the first place drew me out of the mental fog I’d been in for God only knew how long.
We were sitting in the Range Rover just beneath the iron arch bearing the name of the ranch. My only choice was to go right because there was only one road that led down the mountain. So at some point, I’d managed to get the car going, turned it in the right direction and driven straight a few dozen feet, but that was it. How long had we been sitting there?
Warmth sparked to life at the base of my thumb. What a strange place to feel warmth while the rest of my body was numb. I looked down at my hand to determine the source and was surprised to see another thumb. The smaller, slimmer digit was rubbing gentle circles into my skin. As the finger moved to my wrist, warmth followed. I drank it in like the purest of sunlight. My eyes stayed on those fingers for a long time as they worked their magic. It was only when they reached my fingers that I realized I had my hand wrapped around the gearshift of the car. My knuckles were bloodless as I gripped the object like it was the only thing tethering me to Earth.
It wasn’t until Jules’s fingers rubbed over mine that they gave up the battle and released the gearshift. Instead, they wrapped themselves around Jules’s hand.
“Jules?” I murmured absently as I eased my foot off the brake pedal. I didn’t say anything else because I didn’t have any questions for him. I just liked saying his name and knowing he was really there.
“Yeah?” Jules responded. He was waiting for the question I didn’t have. I couldn’t help but glance at him. There was a softness in his eyes that was unreachable… untouchable. I forced myself to look back at the road since driving down a mountain road wasn’t really the time to get lost in looking at anything , let alone anyone .
I didn’t respond except to get the car moving. The silence was unbearable. Jules was no longer touching me, but I could feel his eyes on me.
“What?” I asked as I shot him a quick glance. His expression was soft. Welcoming. But all that went away with the harshness of my question.
“Nothing, it’s just… stupid stuff,” Jules murmured before looking out the window.
“I happen to be a connoisseur of stupid stuff,” I nudged.
Jules went quiet for several beats before he shifted his body in the seat so he’d basically be able to watch me as I drove. “You first,” he murmured.
“What?”
“You tell me something stupid and then I’ll tell you my stupid thing.”
“We were talking about you—” I began.
“Forget it,” Jules said with a huff. If I hadn’t heard the disappointment in his voice, I would have laughed at the sight of him pouting.
The prospect of losing the tenuous connection I’d forged with Jules bothered me more than I wanted to admit, so I considered what he’d been talking about. Whatever it was, it was obviously important to him because he wanted the same from me.
Something personal. Something that carried enough weight that Jules wouldn’t feel like the only one making himself vulnerable.
I didn’t do vulnerable. I might be good at empathizing with someone else’s troubles, but I didn’t share my own… at least, not with anyone on two legs. My horse always got a good laugh out of all the stupid shit I talked about when whatever canopy of stars I was sleeping under weren’t quite bright enough to hold my attention.
Then I noticed that with the way he’d turned toward me, he’d had to cross his good arm beneath his bad one to keep his fingers near mine.
He’d comforted me. Jules had picked up on the change in my voice when I’d told him where we were going, and even though my jackass behavior had caused him to release my hand, he was keeping his fingers close in case I needed him again. The reminder of why we were even in the car had me focusing on speeding up enough that we’d get down the mountain faster, but I wouldn’t be risking our lives in the process. I removed my hand from the gearshift and placed it on the steering wheel so that Jules wouldn’t be able to touch me again.
With that one move, it was all gone. I could see Jules’s physical retreat, but I could feel it a thousand times more. He was taking the removal of my hand from the gearshift as a rejection, which it definitely hadn’t been. I’d done it to protect myself from all the unwanted feelings he’d stirred up within me using nothing more than the gentle touch of his fingers. And just like in the stall, I’d driven him away to save myself.
Before Jules could finish straightening so he’d be staring straight out the front window, I blurted, “My horse’s name is Banana Jammies!”
I could practically feel the heat crawling up my neck.
Seriously, Flynn, that’s what you come up with to talk about?
“What?” Jules asked in confusion. He’d stopped turning away from me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road to look at him directly.
Just leave it at that. Just stop talking. I shared.
“Obviously I don’t call him that in public, but when it’s just the two of us at night, I call him that instead of just ‘BJ.’”
“When it’s ‘just the two of you at night’?” Jules asked, shock mingled with confusion.
I replayed my words in my own head before saying, “What, no, it’s not like that?—”
“Good talk, Flynn,” Jules said awkwardly. “I’ll just let you, um, focus on the road, ’k?”
I hit the brakes on the super-responsive car just a bit too hard because instead of the gentle halt I’d intended to bring the vehicle to, it instantly stopped, throwing both of us forward. I was able to catch myself, but poor Jules wasn’t in the best position to do the same. In fact, he slammed his burned arm into the dashboard and immediately let out a little cry of pain. I had enough sense to pull the SUV off to what little shoulder area there was before I quickly released my seat belt and leaned across the console.
“Fuck, Jules, are you okay?” I practically bellowed. I gently examined his arm as Jules hid his face in his shoulder. His body was trembling as he desperately tried to stifle his sobs of pain.
“Shit,” I said helplessly. “Jules, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” My gut kept twisting into tighter knots the more Jules tried to get himself under control. I couldn’t help but reach for his chin. “Baby, look at me,” I whispered. I carefully turned his face toward me. I owed him an apology for so much more than just the additional pain I’d caused him with my reckless driving. I’d been a dick to him from the moment I’d overheard his conversation with Brooks.
Jules’s eyes were squeezed shut, but the tears sliding down his cheeks were proof enough of his physical state.
“Jules,” I whispered as I ran my thumb across his damp cheek. “Talk to me. What can I do?”
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting him to say, but it didn’t really matter because I wouldn’t have been able to guess it even if I’d been given the opportunity to try. Instead of lambasting me for my idiotic driving that had caused him more pain, Jules snorted.
Actually snorted.
Right before he burst into a fit of laughter that rattled through my ears. What the hell?
“Jesus,” I breathed, more out of relief than anything else. If the man could laugh his ass off at me, then he surely wasn’t dying from the pain. “Asshole,” I muttered, but before I could draw my hand away from his cheek so I could get us back on the road and moving, Jules’s hand from his uninjured arm came up to cover mine. He buried his face in the leather seat and continued to laugh so hard that he was crying.
“You dick, do you know how badly you scared me? Fuck, I thought you were going to lose the damn arm,” I groused. It was the only way I could cover up my own embarrassment.
I once again tried to draw away from him, but he refused to release me, and I didn’t want to risk hurting him by jerking my hand from his cheek. Instead, I turned my humiliation into anger. “Are you done yet because I’d like to get the asshole who spilled stew on himself?—”
That was all I got out before Jules pulled me down and lifted himself at the same time. When his lips closed over mine mid-tirade, it caught me by such surprise that I immediately ripped my mouth from his.
“I’m sorry,” Jules said, still laughing and crying at the same time. “‘ When it’s just the two of us …’” he repeated in a voice that I supposed was intended to mimic my own when I’d been trying to explain about my horse’s unique name. Jules was caught in the kind of fit of giggles that only got worse the more you tried to stop them. “I’m sorry, Flynn. The look on your face when I said I’d let you focus on the road?—”
I should have been pissed. I should have been telling him what a prick he was for making fun of what had been true terror for me. Of course, he wouldn’t have known that. Just like he probably had no clue why I’d been a prick about him not being strong enough to carry the pot of stew.
“If it helps,” Jules managed to say between fits of laughter, “my arm hurts like a motherfucker.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. There were drops of moisture clinging to his eyelashes and his cheeks were bright pink against his pale skin. But that smile. Damn, I could live a thousand years on the image of just that smile.
Completely uninhibited and one hundred percent pure. My entire body was already on point because of that kiss he’d voluntarily laid on me, but the sight of his joy made me feel like the most powerful man on the planet. To have been able to give him those few moments of laughter… well, it would have been nice to do it in a way that hadn’t caused him more physical pain, but the more he tried to talk his way out of the situation, the faster he was plucking at something inside of me… scratching an itch that I’d never noticed before.
Jules must have recognized my intensity, but he didn’t know why it was there. The energy in the vehicle changed instantly. He was no longer laughing or crying, and I had yet to remove my hand from his cheek.
Just like he had yet to remove his fingers which were holding mine in place.
With our lips just inches apart, I forced myself to admit something without really admitting it. “Jules, tell me there’s no Stewart,” I murmured. “There’s no guy from the motel who’s coming back?—”
Jules answered me with a demanding kiss. “No,” he managed to puff out when we were forced to come up for air. “No one.”
The green-eyed monster that had been eating me from the inside out since I’d heard Jules telling Brooks all about his three-day hookup with some stranger turned into a white-hot inferno of lust and need. Jules still had his seat belt on, so his ability to move was limited. It wasn’t a problem, though, because it gave me the excuse to lean farther across the console and take command of his mouth. Jules whimpered as his greedy fingers slipped through my hair so he could keep me from pulling away.
I could taste the salt on his lips and skin as I pressed soft kisses along his cheeks and jaw when we were forced to catch our breaths. The fingers that had been threaded through my hair were now toying with my beard. The simple move had me pulling back enough to look Jules in the eyes. His gaze was on my mouth, though, so it gave me every opportunity to study his reactions. He seemed fascinated by the neatly trimmed hair as well as the texture of my lips because he was caressing both like he wanted to memorize what they felt like. I pressed a kiss against his fingertip. That got his attention, and when he looked up and met my eyes, I shook my head in disbelief because it was real. That genuine curiosity, the sensual need, this strange sense of an unspoken promise… they were all there in his luminous green eyes.
I dipped my mouth and gently kissed him. “How bad does it hurt, really?” I asked.
Jules didn’t answer for so long that I was the one who had to lift his head. All the certainty in his pretty eyes began to disappear. I could practically read the younger man’s thoughts just by looking into his eyes. If I’d just kept kissing him, the haze of lust would have kept us both under its spell. Instead, my ill-timed question had woken something up inside of him. I had no clue why my question had caused him to mentally retreat from me, but that’s what was happening. Certainty was replaced with mistrust, laughter became fear, and the man I’d been so certain was a representation of the real Jules disappeared just like that.
“We should probably get going,” Jules said, moving back enough that there was no risk of our lips coming into contact as he spoke.
I held his gaze for several beats, but I lost the staring contest pretty fast because the man I was looking at was one I no longer recognized… actually, that wasn’t quite true. I did recognize him. He was once again the man who was way too young to have such a sizeable chip of mistrust on his shoulder. I thought back to the first time I’d met him. The unusual clothing, the makeup, the nail polish—how big a piece of him were those things? Did they bring him that same joy he’d just shown me? Or was I the sole reason for stealing that light? The one I’d never realized was even there.
“You’re right,” I agreed as I carefully released him and sat back in my seat. Between my body’s protests as I tried to tamp down my lust and my mind’s confusion over what exactly it was that had just happened between myself and the young man sitting next to me, I couldn’t come up with anything else to say. Once the car was moving, I focused on driving and our ultimate destination.
The hospital.
The last place I wanted to be.
Jules had sensed that somehow. Maybe not the hospital part, but he’d known as we’d been leaving the ranch that despite him being injured, I’d been the one suffering.
“I don’t like hospitals,” I said. I didn’t say the words because I was distracted. I didn’t say them to fill the awkward silence of the vehicle. I said them because they were true.
And it was something no one else knew about me.
Now someone did. Now there was another soul on the planet who’d been given a sneak peek into just one of the ways my mind worked.
I wasn’t expecting a response, so when Jules once again maneuvered his fingers so they were linked with the ones on my right hand, it scared me, but only because I’d been so afraid he wouldn’t do it.
“I ran away from home,” Jules murmured. There was no humor behind the words, just hurt.
By the time I pulled the SUV into a parking spot just outside the emergency room doors, two things remained true.
One, we hadn’t spoken a single word to one another the rest of the way down the mountain.
And two, our fingers remained linked together until the moment I was forced to put the car in park.