11. I’m Caught Up Now #2
The look lifted to Jay’s eyes a fraction too late.
Don’t point it out. Don’t make it weird. Whatever that had been, it could remain perfectly harmless if Jay demonstrated even a modest amount of self-control.
“You know, for someone who keeps claiming that I’m the observant one, you spend a lot of time watching me.”
Oops.
For the first time since Jay had met him, Harris looked genuinely caught. Something almost guilty flashed across his face, followed closely by what might have been anger, before the familiar control came down over both.
“Didn’t mean to,” he said gruffly.
Jay’s pulse struck hard enough to register in his throat, but he kept his gaze on Harris’s face. “Anything you want to say to me?”
Harris was quiet for a moment, his jaw shifting once. “Nope.” His eyes dropped toward Jay’s mouth again.
Wind moved through the empty lookout, tapping a loose sheet of metal somewhere overhead while Red shifted behind them, saddle leather creaking softly.
Then Harris stepped toward him.
Jay stayed right where he was, because surely Harrison Shaw—rugged rancher, Claire’s ex-husband, owner of nine nearly identical work shirts—was not about to cross the remaining space and kiss him.
There had been moments, of course. Harris watching him a second too long, the decision to bring him into the mountains alone, the strange way he could let Jay close and then seem to remember himself and pull back.
Jay had noticed all of it and spent weeks refusing to turn any of it into something it wasn’t.
None of it had prepared him for Harris lifting one hand and catching him by the jaw.
Jay had just enough time to think oh, shit before Harris kissed him.
Their noses bumped, Harris’s mouth warm against his, and Jay’s brain simply… stopped.
This was not one of the versions he had imagined alone in bed, which he would deny under oath.
In those, Jay always knew exactly what to do.
Harris kissed him and Jay kissed him back without hesitation, hands already moving, pulling Harris closer and enthusiastically making every impossible thing he had wanted considerably worse.
Reality, apparently, had other plans.
Harris was kissing him in an empty fire lookout, and the fact was so incompatible with everything Jay thought he knew that his body misplaced the next instruction entirely.
A startled sound caught in his throat, but he didn’t lift his hands or kiss Harris back; he could only stand there while the thing he had wanted, dismissed, and very carefully filed under never going to happen happened anyway.
Even through the short circuit, details made it through: the rough warmth of Harris’s mouth, the broad palm cupping his jaw, leather and sweat and the pine smoke worked into both their clothes from the cabin.
Then Harris was gone.
He pulled back so abruptly that by the time Jay’s body finally remembered it had been waiting weeks for exactly this, his hand closed on empty air.
* * *
Heat flooded Harris’s face.
Navarro stood exactly where Harris had left him, one hand half raised between them. He hadn’t moved, touched Harris, or kissed him back.
Harris had crossed the space between them and put his hands on him because he’d spent weeks wanting something badly enough to convince himself it was mutual.
He’d been wrong.
Completely fucking wrong.
“Sorry.” The word came out rough and immediate as Harris took another step back. “I shouldn’t have—”
He stopped there because there wasn’t a useful end to that sentence.
He had fucked it up. Not only the kiss, but everything that had come before it—the strange ease they’d finally found, the trust Harris had spent weeks learning to give him.
They still had another night out here, then a ride home, then weeks of filming.
Harris would have to look at him across the barn and sit across from him at dinner knowing he had made this stupid, presumptuous mistake.
Worse, Navarro would have to do the same.
Harris turned toward the stairs, ready to put some real distance between them.
“Harris, wait.”
He stopped and looked back. Navarro still stood beside the open doorway, several feet between them now. Harris could feel the scowl already set on his own face. Better that than whatever else might show.
“Just—” Navarro dragged a hand over his face. “Give me a second to catch up.”
Harris stayed where he was.
“You surprised me.” Navarro gave a short, disbelieving laugh and shook his head. “My brain went completely offline.”
Harris looked at him more carefully then.
Navarro rubbed his thumb along the edge of his jaw where Harris had held him. “I wasn’t asking you to stop.”
Oh, fuck.
Navarro hadn’t gone still because he didn’t want Harris kissing him. He had gone still because Harris had surprised him.
The tightness in Harris’s chest eased enough for him to breathe properly again, and for the first time since pulling away, he let himself really look. Navarro’s cheeks were flushed, his mouth still slightly parted, his attention fixed entirely on Harris.
He wanted this.
Navarro took a slow step toward him, giving Harris plenty of time to understand what he was doing. Harris stayed where he was, hardly trusting the conclusion yet.
“I’m caught up now,” Navarro said.
One more step put him within reach.
Harris searched his face, making certain, and Navarro’s eyes dropped to his mouth.
That was enough.
Harris caught him by the back of the neck and kissed him again.
This time Navarro kissed him back immediately.
His fist closed in Harris’s shirt and hauled him closer, and whatever restraint Harris had managed to recover disappeared.
He drove Navarro backward through the open doorway until he hit the old wooden wall with a dull thud, the sound swallowed by the noise Navarro made into his mouth.
There was no shock in the second kiss, no hesitation Harris could mistake for refusal.
Navarro opened for him, fingers already in Harris’s hair.
Their tongues met awkwardly once. Harris barely registered it before Navarro angled his head and kissed him harder, coffee and salt and the apple he’d eaten at lunch mixing with the rough drag of stubble across Harris’s mouth and chin.
A man’s mouth. Navarro’s.
The distinction hit him and vanished beneath the next kiss.
Harris crowded closer, hands moving over shoulders, ribs, waist, learning the solid shape of him by grabbing whatever he could reach. Navarro met every bit of force Harris gave him, one leg shifting between his, his body hard and unyielding against Harris’s chest.
Then Navarro rolled his hips, and their groins met.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Navarro was hard against him.
Not theoretically. Not another private fact Harris could tuck away and examine later when he was alone and sensible again. Harris could feel him through their jeans, solid against his own erection because Harris had kissed him and Navarro wanted more.
Harris shoved against him again.
Navarro’s head knocked softly against the wall. “Fuck.”
The word went through Harris almost as hard as the contact. He kissed him harder, and Navarro caught his lower lip between his teeth before his hand left Harris’s hair and dragged down his side.
Then his palm closed over Harris through the denim.
Harris jerked against him. “Goddamn.”
Navarro paused with his hand still there. “Okay?”
“Yup.”
Navarro squeezed.
“Fuck.”
“That’s informative.”
“Shut up.”
Navarro laughed against his mouth, and Harris kissed the sound out of him.
The touching changed after that, less exploratory and more purposeful. Navarro worked his palm against Harris through his jeans while Harris crowded him against the wall, kissing his mouth, his jaw, whatever he could reach without giving him enough space to move away.
Not that Navarro appeared interested in going anywhere.
His fingers found Harris’s belt, and the buckle opened with a metallic snap that seemed obscenely loud inside the empty lookout.
Harris caught his wrist.
Navarro paused. “Want me to stop?”
Here it was: the line Harris had spent most of his life never crossing.
He wanted Navarro’s hand inside his jeans so badly his entire body hurt with it. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that wanting and doing had always been separate things.
For once, Harris didn’t give himself time to make them separate.
He took a breath and pushed Navarro’s hand more firmly against himself.
“No.” His voice came out rough. “Don’t stop.”
Something changed in Navarro’s face.
Then he kissed Harris and moved at the same time, catching him by the hips and turning them until Harris’s back hit the wall instead. The reversal happened fast enough to knock a startled breath out of him.
Navarro was already back on his mouth, hands moving over Harris’s waist and ribs before one shoved beneath the hem of his shirt.
The first sweep of bare palm over his stomach made Harris grab for Navarro in return.
His hands found the hem of Navarro’s shirt and dragged it upward. Navarro broke the kiss just long enough to help, yanking the shirt over his head and tossing it somewhere behind him before reaching immediately for Harris’s.
There was no graceful way to do any of it. Harris got an elbow caught. Navarro laughed into his mouth. Harris swore at him. Then his own shirt joined Navarro’s on the floor, and they crashed back together.
Bare chest against bare chest.
That nearly undid him by itself.
Navarro’s skin was hot from the ride and the afternoon sun, his chest solid against Harris’s, a light sheen of sweat making every slide of skin register. Harris spread both hands over his back and pulled him closer, feeling muscle shift beneath his palms.
Weeks of looking through fabric had not remotely prepared him for being allowed to touch.
Navarro kissed along his jaw, then down the side of his neck while one hand dragged over Harris’s bare stomach.
And kept going.