40. Chapter 40
After the extreme volume of the celebration at the track, the silence of the drive to Beau’s house felt like a physical presence in the cab with them.
Beau hadn't said a single word to him since he'd told him to bring it in except clipped, short commands.
Camila had caught it, too, which meant that he and Camila had a talk coming. She was gonna kill him.
If Beau doesn't do it first.
Beau parked the truck and got out like his joints were wired shut.
Colt let loose a long puff of air and unbuckled his belt before opening his door and hopping out, too, his legs not quite long enough to step down from the lift of Beau’s truck like Beau could.
He watched Beau unloading for exactly forty-five seconds, muscles shifting under Beau's Jackrabbit t-shirt, shoulders unbelievably tense.
Then he turned on his heel and walked toward home.
The ache in his chest had been building for damn near three hours, and he was done.
“Where do you think you're going?” Beau’s voice carried across the drive, low and tense.
“Oh, so we're talking now?” Colt spun back around to find Beau standing by the hood of the truck, arms crossed.
Beau raised both eyebrows at him like Colt had said something out of left field, and cold anger bloomed in Colt’s chest.
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Excuse me?” Colt seethed. He stormed over until he was right in Beau’s space and shoved him in the center of his chest. He didn't move because he was a fucking giant, but it made Colt feel better anyway.
“‘What am I supposed to say?’ Fucking—Jesus Christ, Beau!
Anything! I just won. Not mid-pack, not P3.
I fucking won, and you've barely spoken to me since.”
He shoved Beau again, and Beau just…let him. And that pissed him right the fuck off. “You're being such an asshole, Beau. Fuck you. I'm going.”
Again, he started walking away, but this time Beau grabbed his shoulder before he'd gotten even a step. “Going where?”
“Where someone gives a shit about me, about this, about one of the craziest moments of my career.” Colt turned back around, shrugging off Beau’s hand. “Sam's still in town. At least he cares enough to—”
Beau was on him before he could finish, grasping both of Colt’s hips with those fucking hands, huge around Colt’s body.
His thighs brushed against Colt as he backed him up to the truck before lifting him like nothing.
He dropped Colt onto the hood and slid his hands down to push apart Colt’s legs and this was bullshit because Colt was mad and getting hard.
Goddammit. Beau stepped between Colt’s legs, his sides burning hot against Colt’s inner thighs.
“What the fuck, Beau?” Colt hissed as he tried not to squirm. “You think you can shut me up by—by manhandling me?”
“Don't talk about him to me,” Beau murmured. He grabbed the back of Colt’s neck with one hand, and slid the other one to Colt’s thigh, his thumb pushing up the shorts Colt had changed into after a hasty shower at the track.
Colt chewed the inside of his lip and spread his legs wider—dammit. Why was he like this? He was supposed to be mad.
He pushed against Beau’s chest again as one of his legs hooked around Beau's stupid thick thigh. For balance. “You're gonna go all caveman on me about Sam? That's bullshit, Beau. Tell me why you're being like this!”
The hand at the back of his neck moved to his jaw as Colt shoved him another time, and Beau pushed closer, snarling through clenched teeth. “Boy, you're playing a dangerous game. You wanna act big and try to push me around?”
“No.” Colt shoved again, both hands, and Beau's grip on his jaw tightened. “No, I want you to act big and tell me why the fuck you just ignored me for three goddamn hours after I—”
“After you just nearly killed your fool self on the fucking track?” The words cracked into the still night so sharply it cut the crickets off.
Colt froze with one hand still on Beau, ready to shove again. “What?”
Beau’s chest was rising and falling underneath his palm—rapid, heavy. “That move. That—Christ, Colt. The way you took that turn. Do you have any idea—”
Beau’s voice had gone ragged, and he snapped his mouth shut like he couldn’t bear to taste the words anymore.
“But I won.” Colt shook his head because what the fuck? It was a good move. “It worked. Winning is the whole point, isn’t it? That’s what I wanted. What you wanted. ‘Show ‘em that grit, boy.’ Right?”
“Not like that. Not with that risk.” The thumb at the hinge of his jaw eased its grip, and Beau stroked just this side of too hard. “You could have spun out and taken P1 with you. And you’d have flown straight into that wall in a heap of metal. The whole pack was behind you, Colt.”
Oh. Oh, shit. This wasn’t about Sam at all, was it?
Colt ran his hand across Beau’s chest and gently gripped the front of his shirt. “But I made it, Beau.”
“You could have easily not made it. Don’t you see that? I was watchin’ you on that screen, and I knew what you were goin’ to do the second you decided to do it.” Beau swallowed. “And I thought—”
Beau cut himself off again, working his jaw, still breathing too hard. Pupils small, mouth twisted under his mustache—Beau was scared.
Colt ran his thumb across Beau’s collarbone. “You thought I was gonna crash and not walk away from it.”
Like Sutton Tate had.
‘Sutt was a reckless idiot, and I loved him more than I've ever loved another person,’ Beau had told him all those weeks ago. ‘He was reckless, and he died for it. And I'll miss him all my life.’
And maybe Beau would never love Colt the way he’d loved Tate, but they were friends.
Colt knew they were, even if Beau was an emotionally constipated ass who had trouble admitting it.
They were friends, Colt was the first person Beau had let into his life since Tate had died, and he’d had to watch Colt do something that had very likely made Colt look just as much of a reckless idiot as Tate had been.
All the fight drained out of Colt, and he moved his free hand to the side of Beau’s face. “Beau, I’m right here. I’m safe.”
I’m not Sutton Tate.
The hand against his jaw moved to the back of his neck, and Beau wrapped his other arm around Colt’s lower back to pull him closer until he could press his forehead against Colt’s. “Yeah. Yeah, you are.”
“What do you need, Beau?” Colt asked as he slid his hand back from Beau’s cheek to the hairs at the base of his skull. “Tell me how to get you out of this.”
Beau squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t going to answer, was he? He was going to pull back like he always did. Which was fair. Colt wouldn’t pretend to understand how actually watching your person die that horrible death changed you. If he needed to walk away—
“Kiss me,” Beau said, and Colt’s heart jumped into his throat. “Let me—I want to touch you. Want to feel that you’re—”
Real.
Here.
Alive?
Colt tipped his head and leaned forward until their lips touched, and Beau made a sound like he’d been starving for it, the kind of sound that went straight to Colt’s already hard dick.
He kissed like he was trying to swallow Colt whole, open-mouthed and wet, his mustache and stubble scraping Colt’s chin raw as the hand at Colt’s back moved to his side and fisted his shirt.
Beau yanked the shirt up and dug his fingers into Colt’s bare skin.
Demanding, that’s what Beau was as he pushed his tongue between Colt’s lips and stole all of Colt’s thoughts except heat, wet, fuck.
Colt’s head spun, and he was starving, too, God.
He twisted his other leg around Beau’s waist and shoved both hands under the hem of Beau’s shirt to finally, finally get his palms on all that hot muscle buried under a layer of softness.
Beau broke the kiss just long enough to rip Colt’s shirt over his head, followed by his own, and then he was back, not even giving Colt a chance to look at all that exposed skin—which, fuck, he wanted to see and lick and suck and finally learn what the texture of Beau’s chest hair felt like against his lips, his tongue.
Beau pulled him closer and Colt’s smooth stomach brushed against Beau’s, rough and oh, God, skin.
So much skin. He was such a big fucking man.
Colt mapped the muscles and scars along Beau’s back, his fingers snagging on the ripples of a jagged mess along his right shoulder blade.
Where had that come from? It was huge. And hot.
Every part of Beau was hot. Colt rocked his hips forward and tried to rub himself against any part of Beau he could reach, straining painfully in the confines of his stupid tight shorts.
“Beau, fuck, we” Colt husked as Beau let go of his mouth and pressed hard, insistent kisses along his jaw.
His teeth caught the skin between Colt’s jawbone and neck, and Colt made a hushed, needy sound.
He grabbed a handful of Beau’s stupidly sexy chest and groaned, ran his thumb along Beau’s hardening nipple and savored the way Beau sucked in a breath against Colt’s collarbone.
“Wanna taste you. God, I’ve been dying to taste you, Beau, please. ”
Stubble scraped along his chest, and Beau opened his mouth, engulfing half of Colt’s pec in burning, wet heat as his tongue flattened against his skin.
Beau’s groan vibrated against Colt’s chest, open and wanting, like Colt was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
Heat gushed down Colt’s body, and pre drizzled out of his tip, cooling against the front of his shorts as Beau palmed the whole of Colt’s other pec and sucked against him and oh, shit.
God. He’d never in his life been touched like this.
“Please,” he whined, pushing his hips up and dragging himself against Beau’s stomach, the heat of that body shooting sparks of sensation through him.
“Let me—shit. Let me get on my knees for you. I’ll be so good, I’ll—or you can sit on my face, yeah, fuck—yeah, do that, I can take it, I swear I can. You’re so fucking gorgeous, please—”