Safe Heart (Dreamspun Desires Book 102) Read online

  But Cash had him—knew it with that lick of the lips. Glen wanted him, principles be damned.

  “Why don’t you kiss me and see what game we’re playing?” Cash said archly.

  Glen shook his head grimly and went to push himself up, and Cash knew right then and there that he’d regret it if he let this one slip away.

  Cash scrambled to his feet and stopped him with a hand on his chest.

  “Kid—”

  “Man,” Cash corrected.

  Glen shifted on his feet. “Yes. You’re a man,” he said gruffly. “You’re quite grown. I get it. But you’re—”

  Cash kissed him, parting his lips immediately, slipping his tongue inside Glen’s mouth and taking over.

  Part of it was pride—he’d been getting laid since he was sixteen, and damned if this guy was going to make him feel small.

  But most of it was want. Not one of those others had shown kindness or even chivalry, and God, Cash was tired of being on his own. For this night, with this man, he wanted to pretend he’d have someone there to help him find his friend, someone to help make things square with Clive, someone who could help fix his life.

  Glen tightened, though, pulled his head reluctantly away, and stilled Cash’s wandering hand on his abdomen.

  Cash was losing him.

  “Cash, you don’t really want me—”

  “I do,” Cash whispered, chest aching.

  “I’m easy—”

  “You’re good,” Cash told him. “I want you.”

  “Cash—”

  And Cash gave him the most honesty he’d ever given a man. “Please.”

  If only for the night, he didn’t want to be alone.

  That did it; Glen broke. He parted his lips and took over Cash’s mouth, dominating him, bearing him down onto the mattress.

  Cash wrapped his arms around the broad shoulders and his legs around the lean hips and held him close.

  “Only cowards tease, flyboy,” he mocked, raising his chin so Glen could pillage his neck.

  “If I go get into my shaving kit, are you going to jackrabbit behind my back?” Glen taunted.

  “Ah!” Glen bit his earlobe softly, and Cash lost the thread of their banter for a moment. He grabbed at Glen’s madras shirt and wormed his hands under the tank beneath it. Oh wow. His skin was blazing, searing the palms of Cash’s hands, making him want to stroke Glen’s whole body in the hopes all that heat would warm the depths of Cash’s cold soul.

  Glen reared up enough to rip Cash’s button-down over his head, along with the tank underneath. “Not gonna answer me?” He lowered his head and pulled in a nipple, tantalizing it with his tongue.

  “You’ll never know unless you try,” Cash panted, and Glen shoved his hand down Cash’s pants.

  “Only cowards run, pop star,” Glen rasped, and then he stroked Cash’s cock expertly through his briefs.

  Oh! Gods! It had been months since Cash had taken a lover—or had it been years? Cash gave up on the conversation completely and bucked against Glen’s touch.

  “Won’t run,” Cash moaned. “I might come while I’m waiting, but I won’t run.”

  Glen sat up and grabbed both his hands, placing them above his head. “Don’t touch. Don’t undress. Just lie here like this and decide what you want me to do to you first.”

  Cash wanted to laugh, but everything was sensitive, and rubbing his nipples or his cock against his clothes might set him off.

  “I want you to fuck me!” he complained. “Is that so hard?”

  Glen snorted while he was rooting through his flight bag. “You young people. No imagination. Think my cock’s the only thing I can use?”

  Cash’s brain stuttered. He could give a first-class blowjob—but he wasn’t on the receiving end all that often. That was his job, to give them, to give the other guy something in return for the fucking he was about to give Cash. If it couldn’t be commitment or emotional availability, it could at least be a blowjob.

  “I….” Now he sounded uncertain, and he hated that. “I give the blowjobs,” he said with a certain amount of dignity.

  Glen turned toward him, condoms and lube in one hand, the other hand working at his fly. His cargo shorts clattered to the floor right as he stepped out of his boots.

  “So that’s all you got?” Glen muttered, eyes glittering. “Mr. I’m An Adult? Mr. I’ve Had All The Sex? You can bend over or you can give a blowjob?”

  “I know my place,” Cash snarled, surprised at the bitterness as it washed over both of them.

  “Do you?” Glen threw the objects on the bed and stripped off the rest of his clothes. When he was done, he came to Cash and stripped off his shorts and briefs, leaving them both naked in the humid little room. The ceiling fan swept over Cash, and he shivered, and for the first time in forever, the act of baring himself in front of another man—in front of a sex partner—made him vulnerable.

  “I give the blowjobs. I take the cock in the ass,” Cash said, and he’d meant it to be brazen, sexual, keeping the tenor between them raw and carnal and impersonal.

  But Glen slid his palms down the inside of Cash’s thighs, and the sensuality of it made Cash shudder. Glen’s thumbs brushed Cash’s balls—on purpose—and Cash had to work hard not to roll to his side and draw up his knees.

  This man was seeing him naked. This man seemed to be staring at Cash’s soul through his skin, ignoring his pleasing concave stomach and toned muscles, ignoring his shaved balls and decent cock.

  He wasn’t looking at Cash’s body.

  He was looking at Cash, and all those men Cash had slept with and kept at arm’s length were suddenly printed all over his skin. It wasn’t the sex, Cash felt in his bones, it was the disregard.

  Glen bent before him and kissed the inside of his knee.

  “What if,” he said, his voice like raw silk over sandpaper, “what if….” He kissed up a notch, to Cash’s thigh.

  “What if what?” Cash asked on a shaky breath.

  “What if neither of those things happen? What if you don’t give me the blowjob? What if you only get a finger in your ass? What if I take your body so sweetly, you come just from—” Glen licked a swipe across his balls. “—foreplay.”

  Cash tried to laugh, but he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs. “Think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

  Glen allowed the gentle edge of his tooth to scrape along Cash’s thigh. “I think enough,” he murmured as Cash pushed up against him. Oh wow. This… this had never happened.

  “You afraid to fuck me?” It was a weak sally at best—Cash knew it.

  “You afraid to let someone at you who knows what they’re doing?” Glen asked, arching a superior eyebrow. “If I’m not some callow kid pawing at your dick, maybe you’ll have to drop the attitude and let me see you.”

  Cash almost rolled off the bed because it was like Glen had read his mind.

  “No….” It came out a low moan, and he tried to fix it. “This is it,” he said. “This is all me.” To his horror, he sounded near tears.

  Glen plied his tongue again, this time under the bell of Cash’s circumcised cock.

  “Oh God!” He was going to come undone. He was going to come all over Glen Echo’s face, and Glen hadn’t even fucked him yet. He tried to shove himself up on his elbows so he could take over, could blow Glen into submission, could get out of this moment of being completely exposed.

  And then Glen popped the head of Cash’s cock into his mouth, and Cash’s arms went out from underneath him.

  He wasn’t going anywhere until Glen Echo was done with him.

  “Mm….” Glen licked around his bell and then pulled back again. “You taste sweet.”

  “I’m not,” Cash told him, that naked feeling not going away.

  Glen grinned at him up his body. “Or maybe you just don’t know your own taste.”

  Cash imagined coming all over his fist and Glen’s hot eyes as he licked it off. He reached down to take himself in hand—and to g
et a handle on this situation—only to have Glen lace their fingers together and then release him, his arm falling harmlessly by his side.

  He expected Glen to finish him right there—Cash was so primed right now, it wouldn’t have taken much to finish him off—but Glen surprised him, which served Cash right.

  Thinking Glen Echo would be an easy lay whose touch would shuck off as effortlessly as the condom had been a big mistake.

  Glen parted his thighs again and then parted his cheeks with two rough thumbs. “Mm…,” he mumbled, licking under Cash’s balls. “Someone taught you grooming—that was kind of them.”

  Cash washed himself by habit, never sure where his day would take him, but he wasn’t going to say that now.

  Glen had slid his tongue right over Cash’s hole, and he couldn’t say a goddamned thing.

  More and more and again and again. The promised finger came into play and then stayed, stretching, fiddling, while Glen used his talented, fearless mouth to work over Cash’s cock. Cash was beyond words at this point—and a part of him, deep in his stomach, was afraid. This wasn’t even fucking. What would happen if Glen Echo took him, fucked him, hard, and Cash came until he passed out?

  The thought of it, coupled with Glen’s teasing finger, made him undulate, moving his hips, chanting gibberish when he wanted to beg.

  “What’s that?” Glen whispered, his breath teasing Cash’s cock. “You want more? You think you’re ready for fucking?”

  “Ye-ye-yesss!” Cash bucked into his mouth, but Glen pulled back, leaving Cash’s cock wet and exposed.

  “I’ll think about it,” Glen told him, sounding perfectly reasonable.

  Then he added one more lubed finger and took Cash all the way to the back of his throat.

  Cash came so hard he saw stars, and there was no body covering him. He was naked, having come undone in front of Glen Echo, while Glen hadn’t even lost his composure, much less his come.

  “Please,” Cash whispered, and he should have been ashamed of the begging in his voice. Anything, anything not to feel like this. “Please come inside me.”

  Glen shoved up alongside Cash, his beautiful heat warming Cash’s core. His face was glazed and his lips swollen, and he gave an evil smile before he took Cash’s mouth. Cash kissed him back, helpless as he’d never been, and wrapped himself around Glen Echo shamelessly. He rutted, cocking his hips, catching Glen’s head at his entrance, and Glen pulled back right before he would have thrust in.

  “Kid, you are trying my patience. You don’t even know my status—and I sure don’t know yours.”

  “Oh hell,” Cash muttered. “I… here.” He fumbled on the bed for a condom, feeling like he was sixteen all over again. “Negative. I’m negative. But here. Put this on.”

  Glen complied, and he was as fast and as smooth as his lovemaking had promised so far. In seconds, he was lubed and positioned where Cash needed him most, pausing in the moonlight.

  “Fuck me!” Cash demanded, feeling empty. So empty.

  “I’m loving you, Cash Harper,” Glen vowed, but the expression on his face was a warrior’s expression, and he thrust in, conquering Cash completely.

  This was more than fucking, bigger, and not just the size of Glen’s generous erection. Cash’s body was soaring at Glen’s pleasure, and every thrust, every stroke, brought him closer to heaven—and closer to pitching brutally to earth.

  But Cash had asked him in, invited this man into his body, dared him even. He hadn’t known—hadn’t even dreamed—of how vulnerable his emotional barrier would be to a man who listened, a man who promised safety and pleasure.

  To a man who delivered.

  Time disappeared, and while he was probably begging, he couldn’t even imagine words. Glen’s speed picked up, the slapping of their flesh growing brutally loud, and Cash tilted his head back and cried out, orgasm taking over his body before he even knew he was close.

  For a moment, he was in freefall, terrified of the crash back to his body, but it didn’t happen that way. He floated down instead, sweating, panting, Glen arching above him, his moan shaking both of them as he released, beautiful warrior’s face fierce in the throes of his own climax.

  Cash cupped his neck, gentling him in his fierceness before he even knew what he was doing.

  Glen settled on top of him, his weight grounding—reassuring even—and Cash struggled to return his breathing to normal.

  Glen’s mouth claimed his without words, without promises, but it didn’t matter.

  Cash could feel them, in his blood, in his bones, in his soul.

  And that was just round one.

  Toward the end, Cash was able to get in his blowjob, but it didn’t matter. The damage had been done to both of them. The claim of “just sex” had been annihilated by what had roared between them that night.

  Two hours before the sun rose, he slid out from Glen’s possessive arm, his body aching from hard use.

  His heart ached from regret, even after he dressed silently and slid out the door.

  Research

  Present

  GLEN spent his entire shower trying to stop his traitorous heart from pounding.

  God, Cash was here.

  Five months of worry. Five months of yearning. Five months of tracking down every shred of information on Tranquilo Paz and Cash’s friend Brielle so Glen would be ready when Cash showed up.

  Yeah, Glen had known he’d show up—it had been inevitable.

  Like it had been inevitable that Glen tracked the little shit down after Cash disappeared from the hotel room in Las Varas.

  Glen shook his head, unwilling to think about that—not right now. He had to look at Cash, had to act indifferent. He’d made promises to the kid. Yes, kid. Kids ran. Men stayed. But Glen had made promises, and he was damned if Cash’s habit of bolting like a bunny was going to keep Glen Goddamned Echo from fulfilling his part of the bargain.

  He tilted his face into the spray and closed his eyes, forcing the memories back. That thing in the hotel room in Las Varas where Cash yielded so sweetly, looked at him with eyes that were full of wonder and fear—that didn’t happen.

  That empty void in the pit of Glen’s stomach when he woke up in the morning, alone—he’d imagined that.

  The money he’d forked over for information so he could chase the flea-bitten horse Cash had bought to get to Tranquilo Paz? Well, he’d call that money lost on a bad bet.

  He swallowed through a tight throat. But Cash hadn’t been a bad bet. Not really. Yeah, sure, he’d bailed in the hospital—but he’d been there, talking to Glen the whole time when they’d been trapped under that fucking wall, hadn’t he?

  He took a deep breath, then another, trying hard to pull himself out of that dark place. God—they’d been so close to getting Brielle out, in spite of Cash’s critical errors, and just when they thought they could call for backup….

  Shit.

  The memories weren’t going away, and he couldn’t breathe.

  He closed his eyes and let the memories flood him.

  Past

  HE caught up with Cash hours from Las Varas, spotting the horse that the previous owner described as “three ribs away from death” outside a tiny bakery in Agujero en la Roca.

  He killed the engine of his motorcycle and strode into the bakery, eyes grim, mouth flat.

  Cash turned from purchasing tiny iced cakes from the woman at the counter and gave Glen a green smile.

  “Hola,” he said, and then, in fluent Spanish, “are you here to purchase a cake from this nice lady—she mostly sells to the town.”

  “I ate,” Glen said in English. “But I’ll have one of yours.” He pointed to one of three little round tables in the mostly empty bakery. “Sit,” he ordered, gratified when Cash dropped obediently into the wooden chair. Yeah, sure, he knew it was for show—but God, if he could get the little asshole to listen to him, they might not have to run this song and dance again.

  Glen looked at the woman at the counter, who e
yed them curiously. She appeared to be in her late forties, with black hair twisted in a bun on her crown. It was July in Nayarit, and she was wearing a peasant blouse and skirt, probably in deference to the heat rather than for tradition. He asked her courteously for some water and got a ceramic pitcher and mug.

  The bakery itself was built of stone and was stifling, probably because the stove itself was woodburning, and Glen kept a sigh in his chest. This town was so small it was more commune than city—these people wouldn’t have a police force or people equipped to bust into the kind of setup Cash had described and then power his friend out.

  They were going to have to break the girl out themselves.

  Glen drank deeply from the mug and then poured himself another cup. “So how much did that guy charge you for ol’ Glue Factory outside?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Five hundred dollars,” Cash said, his voice sinking in shame.

  Glen spit out his mouthful of water. “Are you fucking insane?”

  “He looked like he needed it more than I did!” Cash defended, and Glen cocked his head.

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll be counting your pity for the next year. Which is way longer than that horse is going to live.”

  Cash scowled and had the grace to look ashamed.

  “I mean, seriously, kid—you almost start a war hustling poker and blow the wad on that fucking horse? I thought you were smarter than that. But then, I thought you wanted help.”

  “You don’t want to help me,” Cash muttered. “I’m nothing but trouble.”

  Glen grabbed one of the pastries and tore it in half, setting the other half down in front of Cash. “Well, I won’t argue with you there. But whether you’re trouble or not, I promised. Now, this town doesn’t have any law enforcement. There’s no sheriff you can go to who’ll bail your friend out. Can you tell me what your plan was here?”

  Cash clenched his jaw and shook his head. Apparently throwing himself on the mercy of the authorities had been it.

  “Do you mind if I share a few thoughts with you?” Glen took a bite of the pastry and smiled, his jaw unclenching for the first time since he’d woken up that morning. He looked at the proprietress and told her, “This is delicious, ma’am. I’ll take three more to go.”