Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 48446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 242(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 242(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
I breathed against his ear and felt the shudder go through him. “No, I won’t, but I will put you over the couch in the living room when we get home if you can’t make it to the bedroom.”
“Fuck,” he half yelled, squirming like his clothes were suddenly too tight.
“Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” he whispered fiercely, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears. They leaked out from under his long, thick lashes anyway. “I want you to stay. God, Weber, I have never needed anyone like I need you.”
“Same here.”
His eyes popped open, his head tipped up, and I was swallowed in his golden-brown gaze.
“I love you,” I told him, and it finally felt good to say instead of terrifying.
“You do?”
“Of course,” I grumbled at him. “You know that.”
He lunged at me, wrapped his arms around my neck again, this time hugging me tight. He was trembling, and with that realization came a new understanding.
Normally, we were insular. I wasn’t there long enough to see anyone but him. We spent our days and nights naked except for the occasional dinner with his friends. And with it being just us, it was easy to see where he ended and I began. He lived there, in the city, in his house on the hill, and I was a drifter. Our lives did not, could not mix except in the short term.
But this time…this time there was a whole village of people I was exposed to. Not only Lyn and her boys, but his parents, and Brett and Rachel and their kids. So many more people to know, and the circle got bigger and bigger. I met the doctors and nurses Cy worked with, nannies doing the same job I was, and Micah’s lovely psychologist. The crazy part was, every single person who saw me in Cy’s life, saw me as fitting in.
I held on to things like neurosurgeon versus ranch hand, or neurosurgeon versus drifter, but no one seemed to care but me. And in the cab on the way there, it hit me that if not for my pride, I could have this all the time. I could be the guy Cy had dinner with every night, the one who watched television with him and shopped for groceries. I could be the one he called to pick him up because he was drunk.
When I reached him, and he saw me, I could read it on his face plain as day. The man truly and completely loved me. And he didn’t love me because I was a cowboy, and he didn’t love me because I was some romantic ideal, but because I was me. He loved plain old Weber Yates, poor, out of work, and clueless. He worshipped the ground I walked on. It made no sense. We were as different as we could be. I was nobody, and he had the world at his feet, but apparently, he didn’t see it like that, and finally, neither did I. The most important part, though, was that for Cy, he didn’t have everything unless he had me. He saw me, cherished my heart, recognized how much I loved him, and knew it would never occur to me to stop. There could be no mistake. We would be in this for the long haul if I could let us really, truly start. And honestly, why would I not? The only thing standing between us was my pride, and it was not strong enough to keep us apart. I was not a vain man, but I realized when I was needed and when I alone would do.
It had been brewing since I arrived, the understanding of what I was in his life, the revelation of what I alone brought out in him, and what we could be together. Dr. Erin was right; it did take a village. All those people, in one way or another, especially his family, whom he wanted to know me, had shown me the way.
I kissed Cy hard, the epiphany rolling through me a lot to take, sharing it with him, letting him feel it in me, all I could do.
“Oh God,” he shivered, pulling back just enough to look at me. “You feel different. You sounded…different right then.”
“Did I?”
His smile was blinding. “Oh shit.”
“Nice,” I said with a grin.
“Weber,” he gasped, and then lost it, tears, trembling lip, body shaking. It all happened at once. But he was drunk off his ass, so I understood. “You’re going to stay? Tell me you’re going to stay and move in with me and live with me until I die.”
“I’ll pass before you,” I told the most hopeful, happy, terrified pair of eyes I had ever seen. “You may be older on paper, but I’m older inside.”
He climbed me, and I had to laugh because the man had his legs wrapped around my waist, arms around my neck, and his tongue shoved down my throat in seconds. The kiss was hard and devouring and ravenous, and breathing was an afterthought. He ravaged me, and after long minutes, I became aware of the applause before he tore his mouth from mine to look up.