Hidden Heart Read online

  But Preston didn’t do sarcasm well, and he was cracking up because he’d told a joke, and Damien was nodding at him and winking because Preston didn’t always know if his jokes landed or not.

  There was more laughter, and then Elsie and Theo helped him stand up. He gave Belinda a kiss on the cheek and thanked her special and then waved good-night to everybody before grabbing his crutches and making his way through the front door. The sight of the little golf cart—and it looked pristine, putting the lie to everything Preston had just said—made his sore body sag with relief.

  He allowed his mind to wander as Theo piloted the little cart up the rise to the trailer, Colonel riding happily in the back. He looked at the sky and saw that the fog of the day had burned off, leaving the sky bright as new diamonds, and he sighed.

  “What’s up?” Theo asked, pulling to a stop under the overhang that shaded the kitchen window and moving around to help Spencer out of the cart with his crutches.

  “Pretty night,” he said. “But tired.”

  “Mm.” Theo opened the door and waited patiently for him to make it up the ramp after Colonel beat them both in. “That didn’t sound like a tired sigh. That sounded like a sad sigh.”

  God—it was like living with Jiminy Cricket. But he really was too tired to argue.

  “I would like to open the shades on a night this pretty, maybe in the summer when it’s not quite so nippy, and make love to you when we can see the stars. But I’m tired and I’m sore, and I don’t see that happening,” he admitted, trying not to be bitter. It had been a good night, after all.

  “Well, open the blinds when you get to your room,” Theo said, “and strip to your boxers. I… I would like to do that some night too, but not when you’re too tired. I’ve got an idea.”

  Spencer followed his directions, lying down on his good side and pulling the blanket up over his shoulders because they were close enough to the bay for it to still be chilly in the evening in April. In the other part of the trailer, he heard Theo moving around, talking briefly to Colonel and telling him to stay. Theo had brought in a dog bed for the living room, and Spencer wondered if his not-stupid dog would know that Theo meant business. Then he heard Theo checking on Stupid, and—probably—taking off his pretty shirt and putting on his pajamas.

  His eyes were closed when he heard the door to his room open, and Theo whispered, “Spence? You still awake?”

  “Barely,” he admitted.

  “That’s okay.”

  And then, without asking permission, Theo slid in behind him, and he wasn’t wearing pajamas. He was, in fact, down to his boxers, just like Spencer.

  He moved silently at first, nuzzling the back of Spencer’s neck, kissing down his spine. Sliding his hands to Spencer’s chest and mapping his pecs and his nipples with his palms. He dragged his hands to Spencer’s nipples one too many times, though, and Spencer blinked awake and rocked his hips forward and back, getting his second wind.

  “You like that?” Theo murmured. He returned his palm to Spencer’s chest and then started using his fingers, playing at first, twiddling, rubbing, pinching lightly, and Spencer’s lassitude fell away as his body started screaming things at him.

  Things like, You haven’t thought about doing this in over a month!

  And, Fuck a MONTH! You haven’t had sex with more than your fist in over a YEAR!

  That thought alone had his groin tingling and blood flowing to his cock, swelling his balls, and he whimpered a little.

  “You may want to stop that,” he murmured. “You’re making me a little—oh!”

  Oh, Theo was bold. He slid his hand down Spencer’s stomach, pausing a moment to feel that it was tightly concave, and then snuck it under Spencer’s shorts.

  Then he palmed Spencer’s cock.

  Spencer moaned, awake but not at 100 percent, still, and unable to do much more than accept Theo’s ministrations in pure gratitude.

  “Theo,” he gasped, surprised and confused, “you are going to make me come!”

  “Good,” Theo murmured in his ear. “Because you are too.” And with that, he ground up on Spencer’s backside, and what followed was a glorious bout of Theo’s hand stroking his cock and Theo rutting his own cock up against Spencer’s ass. It was simple and hard and fast, and it took about two minutes before Spencer grabbed Theo’s hand over his shorts and squeezed—and squeezed hard—until Theo repaid him by squeezing his cock just as hard.

  “Ah!” he cried out, his body spasming, his muscles catching—God, even his calves clenched and ached—but not before he released himself in a wonderful, cleansing climax that left him covered in his own come and thrusting backward against Theo’s rutting cock to help drive him a little faster.

  “So close!” Theo gasped, and Spencer reached behind him and put his hand on Theo’s ass, shoving him up against Spencer. The pressure itself was probably not that much, but Theo moaned and ground up hard, his hand in Spencer’s shorts shaking, his breath coming in agonized pants. One thrust, two— “Yes!” he moaned, and Spencer felt the heat of his come spreading through their underwear and against his skin.

  “Wow,” Spencer said softly.

  “Yeah.”

  “I…. Thank you.”

  “Thank you too. I’ve wanted to hold you like this for a month. The lovemaking—that was a bonus.”

  Spencer wanted to say, “Wait until I’m on my feet!” or “I can give you something to remember!” but neither of those things happened. What happened was his eyes closed, and in spite of the knowledge that he was falling asleep with his drawers full of come, that’s exactly what he did.

  He woke up a couple of hours later, needing to hobble to the bathroom, and found that he was naked and clean.

  And so was Theo, and he’d been pressed up against Spencer’s back, holding him tight as they slept.

  Spencer pondered that as he leaned against the wall to make it to the bathroom and used the facilities. He washed and dried his hands and hopped down the hall and then slid into bed again.

  He made sure Theo had his arm wrapped around his waist as he fell asleep again. It felt like that’s where Theo belonged.

  Reaching

  “HE seems to be getting on all right,” Elsie remarked, and Theo nodded, distracted from watching Spencer crutch his way across the tarmac, clipboard in hand.

  He’d been back from the hospital for three weeks—but after two he was begging Glen so hard for something to do that Glen decided he and Theo could come in and start managing the office, since that would give Spencer time to rest in the office.

  The decision left Theo wondering if Glen was seriously fit to fly.

  They were supposed to come in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—Damien helicoptered them in on Monday, but they’d driven the truck that Wednesday morning so they could make a supply run for Preston on their way back. Monday, Spencer had been excited, happy to be going, talking a mile a minute.

  The truck ride that morning had been a 180-degree turn—he’d been taciturn and bitchy, and Theo couldn’t figure out why.

  Because before that moment, it had been going great. There had been no talk about sending Theo to the guest room. He’d slid in behind Spencer every night, and some nights they just kissed, long and luxuriously, palms skimming bare skin in the dark. Some nights they ground up against each other until they spent or gave each other thrilling climaxes in each other’s fists. Theo felt like he was exploring new worlds with each moment in Spencer’s bed, and every world was more glorious than the last. He thought of it as Phase 1 Sex. While it was great—and could be a solid basis for any relationship—he was pretty sure that with Spencer’s self-proclaimed manwhore status, there was a Phase 2 and a Phase 3 lurking in there somewhere, and as soon as Spencer’s healing body was up for it, Theo would be too.

  But the last two days had been… hard. Spencer had been distant, not meeting Theo’s eyes, exhausting himself on the weight equipment, trying to walk on his own in the trailer and failing. That morning
, Theo had awakened to a thump and a clatter and had rushed in to find Spencer struggling to stand up in the shower.

  “What the…? C’mon, Spencer. You’ve got a perfectly good shower seat—were you even using it?”

  “No, I was not,” Spencer growled back. “Because I am a grown-assed man!”

  “Then act like one and don’t take risks like that. Man, the nurse is going to be here in half an hour to change your bandages, and you are bleeding again!”

  Spencer struggled to sit on the shower seat and covered his eyes with his hand. “Theo, could you just… just go for a few? Let me wash my hair and soap my pits in peace? Don’t… don’t look at me when you can count every fucking rib? Can you do that for me, please?”

  And Theo had come to the realization that they’d made love in the dark every night for a reason, and it had nothing to do with Spencer not liking the way Theo felt underneath his admittedly skilled fingers.

  So now, as Elsie noted Spencer’s determined pace across the tarmac, Theo didn’t have an answering smile.

  “No?” she replied to his silence. “Not all right?”

  “He was fine until he came back to work,” Theo said. “Now it’s all about the stuff he can’t do, and it’s making him bananas.”

  “Oh shit,” she said. “Speaking of—Gibby! Stop that shit!”

  But their newest employee—Collie Gibbs, aka “Gibby”—who shifted freight and greeted the people dropping off and picking up outside the hangar, was about to smash into Spence with the electric-powered hauler. The hauler made a squeaking noise as the backend jackknifed and Spencer stopped short and tried to backpedal, falling to his knees right in front of the platform.

  Theo and Elsie were running toward the debacle before he even hit the ground, and Theo could see his face go practically green with pain.

  Spencer squeezed his eyes tight and flat-palmed the hauling platform, making a mighty bang. “Goddammit, Gibby! What the fuck are you fuckin’ doing here?”

  “Sorry!” Gibby gasped, barely remembering to set the brake as he scrambled out of the driver’s seat. “Sorry, Mr. Helmsley. So sorry! Goddammit! I didn’t see you there… I… sorry!”

  But Spencer was beyond hearing apologies. He was resting his forehead against the side of the hauler, working hard on his breathing, and banging on the panel with the flat of his hand with steadily decreasing regularity.

  Elsie, Theo, and Gibby all waited, breath held, for that hand to stop pounding, because that, Theo knew, meant he had the pain under control. Finally, his hand fell to the ground, and Spencer rasped, “Elsie, can I have some help up?”

  Theo’s heart dropped, although he tried to tell himself it was because Spencer had trusted Elsie longer and for no other reason. He took one arm and Elsie took the other, and together they hauled him to his feet and got his crutches under his arms.

  “Let’s have Gibby get you back to the hangar, Spencer,” Theo said quietly. “I need to check your bandage.”

  When Spencer spoke, it was like he was gasping for air. “Yeah, fine.”

  “And I’ve got your pain meds. When was the last time you had one?”

  Spencer looked away, and Theo suddenly knew the answer to that question, and his own temper hit the flashpoint.

  “Goddammit, Spencer! Why in the fuck would you not take a pain med in three goddamned days!”

  “Theo…,” Spencer practically whimpered, and Elsie moved out of the way. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”

  “Yeah,” Theo snapped. “Yeah, we will. Get him to the hangar, Gibbs. I’ll be right there.”

  “After you take a lap around the hangar,” Elsie cautioned, “because right now you are coming in hot!”

  Theo took a deep breath in through his nose and let out a growl. “I may kill him,” he said pleasantly when the growl was done. “How’s that?”

  “Well, you knew he was a handful,” she said. “But you need to tell me why this pisses you off so bad.”

  Together they took off, striding toward the hangar, which was far enough away that Theo thought they might do without the lap around it.

  “Because we were doing so damned good!” he told her, stung. “We were doing great! And suddenly he gets angry and withdrawn, and it’s because he’s in pain, and why would he do that?”

  “Maybe you should ask him,” she said, and she was in prime shape, so she wasn’t breathing hard even though he was going pretty fast, but something told him it would be polite to slow up a tad anyway.

  “I will,” he declared, and then he blew out a breath. “But first I’ll give him some pain meds and something to eat to go with them. And then I’ll ask him if he’s stupid.”

  “Good plan,” Elsie said, humor lacing her voice. “But you know he’s going to tell you that he’s fine—it’s the cat who’s Stupid.”

  Theo managed a chuckle. “You are just like him,” he said, but the words were laced with admiration. He got it, why Spencer would bond to Elsie like glue. He didn’t need to argue with that.

  “Now you’re getting nasty,” she said, but he could tell she was pleased.

  They neared the hangar, and Theo took a deep breath, hoping he could get his temper under control. When he got there, Glen was finishing up with a rewrap and capping a bottle of Advil, which wasn’t as strong as the pain reliever Theo had, but it was probably easier on Spencer’s body, so Theo got that.

  “You ready to take this asshole home?” Glen said mildly.

  “But you said three days!” Spencer burst out.

  “I said if you were up to it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go reattach Gibby’s head, since you have apparently ripped it off, and I hate to see a grown man cry when he’s got no head!”

  “Glen—”

  “One more week, Dumbass. Now talk to your boy there, or I’ll make it two.”

  Glen stalked away muttering to himself, leaving Theo glaring at him, arms crossed.

  Spencer took one look at Theo and glanced away.

  “You know,” Elsie said, “I’m going to go get the truck, since it’s parked in the back forty. You two, do that thing. You know. The thing. With your mouths. No… no… not a blowjob—wait, I got it. Communicate, assholes! You got twenty minutes!”

  She stalked off, and Spencer continued to stare at the floor. It occurred to Theo that he was the emotionally mature one in this scenario, and he figured he had to break the silence first.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  Yup. Theo was the grown-up today.

  “Since Monday, Spence? You haven’t taken a painkiller since Monday?”

  “Sunday night,” Spencer admitted reluctantly.

  “Because….”

  “Because I’m at work!” Spencer snarled.

  “You’re not in the air!”

  “But I’m around airplanes—”

  “And this is bullshit anyway, because you didn’t even take ibuprofen!” Theo crouched down by Spencer’s chair. “I’m not getting the connection here, Spencer. Come on, help me out! Why would you start work and stop taking painkillers and become the world’s biggest asshole! I….” His hurt started to seep through. “I thought we were doing okay. Why would you do that to me?”

  Spencer’s shoulders hunched, and he looked miserable. “It’s taking forever,” he said sullenly. “It’s taking fucking forever. And my leg—it’s not getting better. It’s going to be months before I can fly. It’s going to be months before we can… before I can….” He gave Theo a sideways glance and shook his head. “I just thought if I wasn’t half-stoned, I could, I don’t know. Function better. Get on my feet faster. Get my wings faster.” Again, that half-embarrassed look at Theo. “Get everything done faster.”

  Theo had to take several deep breaths to try to process this.

  He decided to take it one issue at a time.

  “Spence, you’re not going to be in the air next week, or next month. If you’re lucky, you may make it by the end of the year, but
that’s pushing it. I’ve talked to the doctors. I’ve talked to Damien, whose leg was broken into a zillion pieces, and he, too, had an infection and muscle and bone loss. You fell out of a helicopter, and instead of going splat, you’re wandering around making the rest of us miserable. But we’re still glad you didn’t go splat, so maybe stop making us miserable, okay?”

  Spencer shook his head reluctantly. “I, you know… I hate being a charity case,” he said sullenly. “Preston doesn’t even charge me rent.”

  “Yeah, but Glen doesn’t pay that well either,” Theo said, and Spencer snorted. Glen was a small businessman, and he and Damien had worked their asses off to grow the company. Fact was, pilots didn’t make a fortune. But they did get to do the thing they loved while getting paid. Glen offered full benefits and all sorts of perks that didn’t come with a price tag, and Theo knew he and Spencer had landed on their feet.

  “I don’t want to overburden him,” Spencer grunted.

  “Well, don’t rip the head off his perfectly good cargo grunts and I think he’ll be okay. If you’re up to it next week, you could come in five days a week, because with the two new pilots and one contractor, I could actually use some help, and that’s not a lie. We do need your help, Spence. We just need you to not be, I don’t know, bleeding and in pain when you’re here.”

  Spencer nodded but still kept up that maddening lack of eye contact.

  “And that brings us to that other thing,” Theo added grimly.

  “It’s not import—”

  “It’s important to me!” Oh dear heavens, Theo was going to kill him. “What… what exactly is it that you feel you haven’t done for me personally, Spencer? Spell it out. Use short words. I’m all ears.”

  The supreme look of disgust Spencer sent him told Theo that he’d been right on target. And then the creeping red around Spencer’s ears sort of took Theo’s breath away.

  This mattered to him. This thing between him and Theo and whatever he was feeling about it—it really mattered to him.

  “I haven’t exactly been showing you all the bells and whistles,” Spencer confessed, not looking at him. “I mean, it’s one of two things I’m supposed to be good at and….” He shrugged, still studying the far side of the hangar.