by Riley Knight
And Malcolm, no matter how he tried, couldn’t seem to stop looking into Kyle’s eyes. Kyle had always seemed to have this barrier up behind his eyes, making them opaque and enigmatic, but that barrier was down now, and he felt like he was really, truly, maybe for the first time, looking at Kyle. Who Kyle was, behind all of the protective bullshit.
And he liked it. That was, probably, the worst part. It was bad enough to want Kyle, but actually to like the guy, too? The man who was doing his best to take away everything that Malcolm had worked so hard for, everything that his father had built?
It was unfathomable, but it was true. Of course, he wasn’t about to give up on his ranch, but at that moment, he thought he could almost understand what Kyle was doing. Like he could even see some regret for it in his eyes. The man was doing his job. It was just unfortunate that his job would involve what it did.
Then there was no more of that. All thoughts, everything but sensation, was seared right out of his mind by the force of the release which was building inside of him, sending sparks scattering through his whole body, making his balls draw up tight and hot as the two of them churned and rocked and thrust together.
It was too good. Part of Malcolm had hoped, that when it was all over and done, he would have gotten this out of his system. That he would discover he didn’t even like sleeping with men, that he didn’t like bottoming.
But he loved it. Every single last second of it, from the moment of penetration up to the climax which was racing toward him with the speed of a runaway freight train. His nails, short as they were, clawed down Kyle’s back and he whimpered frantically into his kiss like an animal as he slammed his hips up, fucking himself roughly, with no mercy, on that perfect cock.
“Mal, baby,” Kyle whispered, and if they hadn’t been so intimately locked together, Malcolm might have objected to the intimate nickname, as well as the term of endearment. Only a very few people, all of them family or, as in Logan’s case, near enough to it, were allowed to call him that. And yet, right at the moment, it just seemed like it was one more acknowledgment of this glorious connection, this intimacy, between the two of them.
It was what finally sent him over the edge, what made him spill his hot release all over his own stomach. Kyle hadn’t even touched his cock, what with the smaller man’s relentless assault on his prostate, he hadn’t had to. He was snatched up, sent rocketing up through the sky, each thrust inside of him sending him up one more level into something that felt more real than anything he had ever felt before.
What he had thought was sex wasn’t. This was sex. Everything else had been nothing but a pale imitation, and now that he’d had this glorious experience, would he ever be able to be satisfied with anything else again?
Kyle came, too, hauling Malcolm against himself so tightly that even the bigger man could barely draw breath. At that moment, as ridiculous as it undoubtedly was, it didn’t even feel like he and Kyle were two separate people. Joined by sex and sweat and release, they had become something more, some joining of the two of them.
It was nothing but a fantasy, of course, and a dangerous one, at that. When the pleasure was over, when the sweat was starting to dry on their bodies, Kyle pulled away from Malcolm and Malcolm, of course, let him go. It was better that way. Far better, no matter how much it hurt.
Kyle dealt with the condom, and Malcolm watched him, hating himself for not being able to look away. Kyle didn’t seem to have any problem with breaking that connection between the two of them. Maybe it was just that he hadn’t felt it the way that Malcolm had. Maybe Malcolm was a complete idiot for ever allowing this thing to happen.
Silently, Kyle got dressed, and Malcolm had to deal with the fact that he wanted Kyle to come back to bed, even the small, uncomfortable, narrow hospital pallet. He wanted Kyle’s arms around him, wanted to feel that tight, slender body against his own. He wanted to be held back.
Who would have known that he would end up being a cuddler? It was probably for the best that Kyle didn’t seem to feel the same thing, though, he had to admit to that.
“Mal …” Kyle started, fully dressed once more, and while Malcolm had developed a thing for the expensive suits that Kyle had worn when he first came, he sort of liked the sight of him in jeans and a t-shirt. Like Kyle was starting to go native. And he liked, too, even after the sex was over, the way that Kyle shortened his name. It sounded almost affectionate.
Malcolm waited, holding his breath while trying to act like he wasn’t, but Kyle didn’t say anything else. He just shook his head and turned to leave, while Malcolm closed his eyes and focused on simply breathing.
How could something be so powerful? How did it have the power to make him feel so good, and so incredibly shitty seconds later? He wanted to call after Kyle, to ask him if they were ever going to be able to do that again.
But he was still proud. That and he was too terrified to know the answer. Even now, he wanted to hold on to some hope, and that was the hold that Kyle had over him. It was impossible and hopeless and nothing could happen between them for so many reasons, and Malcolm wasn’t stupid enough to hope otherwise.
But even as he thought that the sight of Kyle, dressed in his jeans and t-shirt, his casual clothes which were nothing like the suits he had worn when he arrived, made him wonder what he would do if Kyle did, by some miracle, ever want to stay.
And that was when he truly realized just how screwed he actually was.
THIRTEEN
It must be written all over his face. Anyone who looked at him was going to know what he and Malcolm had done in that hospital room. He might as well, he was suddenly convinced, have a glowing neon sign over his head, flashing that he had just screwed a man.
His stomach churned and his cheeks flushed, and that was when he knew the truth. He needed a drink. He had not been drinking nearly as much at the ranch as he was used to, probably about half as much. He hadn’t gotten full blown passing out drunk since he’d been here, but that was exactly what he needed to deal with this.
He was so stupid. So incredibly, impossibly stupid. He had known almost immediately that he and Malcolm should never give in to the tension between them, to the heat that they generated between themselves without even trying to, but he had. He had let himself have it, and now he was going to pay the price.
Because he was going to fail, he thought.
He had taken this job on in good faith. It was an unusual thing for a lawyer to be called to do, but he had meant to do it. And now, he was going to have to call his boss and quit. Tell him that he couldn’t do this, and maybe even advise him just to give it up.
Kyle had known for a while that he couldn’t do this. He had to admit that he had never tried as hard as he should have, he had never been as dogged and stubborn as Wyatt had expected him to be because it hadn’t taken him very long to start seeing things Malcolm’s way.
Wyatt had said that the ranch was failing, and Kyle didn’t have access to the paperwork or anything, but he had seen no real sign of that. Sure, Malcolm wasn’t rolling in cash or anything, but Kyle had been watching closely, and everything that he saw would indicate that the ranch was turning a profit. Had Wyatt lied to him? Or was it just Kyle’s inexperience showing up?
He would love to get his hands on the books, he suddenly realized. He had always been good with numbers, had considered being an engineer or even an accountant before law had gripped him. And, of course, his parents would far prefer that he be a lawyer, which had always mattered to him in a way that unsettled him. His parents approved of so little that he did.
Well, he was going to disappoint them now. And probably he was going to lose everything. Maybe a lawyer, a good one, shouldn’t care about right and wrong, but Kyle did. In a lot of cases, there were shades of gray to consider, but in this one, it had become too clear to him, even before he’d slept with Malcolm, that he wasn’t doing the right thing.
So he would get drunk, as drunk as he could, and then he would throw the dice an
d see where they landed. Most likely, he was going to have to return the money that Wyatt had already given him. Also likely, he was going to have to close down his practice, as young as it was, and then …
And then, what? He didn’t know. He had no idea. Every time he followed his thoughts to the logical conclusion that was where they cut off. What would he do in Seattle once he had failed at getting himself set up as a lawyer? He could always get a job as a state prosecutor, maybe, or legal aid. There were jobs for a lawyer out there.
Somehow, none of that felt right. Was that just his pride talking? Or was it, as he was starting to suspect, more about the hold that this wild, rugged land was taking over him? Over the affection he had for the people who lived on the ranch?
For Malcolm?
He left the hospital, not doing more than nodding to Logan and Mary Anne and Anna. When he saw Logan, with a vaguely alarmed look on his face, take a step toward him, he forced a smile onto his lips and shook his head, warning him off without words. He didn’t need Logan, with his observant blue eyes, to look at him right now. That was probably the last thing that he needed. The last thing that Malcolm needed.
Malcolm, who hadn’t asked him to stay. Malcolm, who had just watched him leave without saying a word. Did the other man regret it already?
Kyle was used to being sure of himself. He was used to knowing what he wanted and going after it. He had learned that he was the only one who would advocate for himself, that he would sink or swim based on his own talents. His parents had given him money, but Kyle had hated taking it and had kept track of every penny, fully intending to pay it back once he made it big. And he had hated it every time he’d had to ask, dreading not just the inevitable lecture but the sense of shame that he would feel.
The situation was impossible, and the truth was, Kyle wasn’t used to dealing with impossible. So he did what he always did when he was struggling with something, though he was positive that he had never had a situation as truly impossible as this one was.
He found a bar, and he drank until the room was spinning, and he wasn’t thinking any more about anything, and he was so clearly unsafe to drive that the bartender called him a cab. Without even thinking about it, he gave the ranch as his home address, even though he had originally thought that he was going to go to a hotel so that he didn’t have to face Malcolm again.
It wasn’t Malcolm who was there when he stumbled out of the cab, thrusting money at the driver, who must have seen many drunk people before but was still looking at Kyle with what really seemed to be slightly disgusted sympathy. It wasn’t even Logan, but a man that he had never seen before.
“You’re Malcolm’s brother,” he commented, and it was a statement, not a question. He was very sure of himself on this one, because this man, whoever he was, had eyes that were the exact same size and shape and color as Malcolm’s. As drunk as he was, Kyle couldn’t see anything else, but something about those eyes made him trust the other man immediately.
“Yeah,” the man replied, and he wrapped one strong arm around Kyle’s waist, showing that he had one more thing in common with his brother other than his eyes. He was incredibly strong, enough that he could support Kyle’s almost entire weight. He wasn’t able to help that much on his own. “I’m Derrick, who are you?”
“Kyle,” he murmured, his voice dreamy, and with the introductions out of the way, with complete trust that Kyle never would have shown sober, he allowed himself to be helped into the living room and lay down gently on the couch to sleep it off.
* * *
When the sun rose, Kyle groaned and rolled over, shoving his face into the couch to try to escape the punishing rays of light. Honestly, he drank enough that he didn’t normally get hangovers, but it seemed that the night before had been a special exception.
He couldn’t even remember much, not at first. But the house was waking up around him and the smell of coffee filled the air, making him groan as he turned his face carefully, eyes still squeezed tightly closed, toward the appealing aroma. The smells of breakfast cooking churned his stomach, but coffee, he could go for.
“He’s waking up,” a familiar voice, Logan’s, said, and then added, “do you know who he is?”
Slitting his eyes open just a little, Kyle saw Logan standing near the easy chair nearby, looking down at the occupant. But Logan was so big that he mostly blocked the view, and it wasn’t until the person sitting in the chair spoke that Kyle remembered who he was.
“No. I sort of just guessed he had the right to be here,” Derrick admitted, “the way he stumbled in. I figured Mal hired someone else because you weren’t pulling your weight.”
There was a slightly flirtatious edge to the teasing comment, Kyle was almost sure of it. But then, Kyle was hungover as hell, so maybe he imagined it. Either way, these were clearly two men who knew each other, and maybe even had some affection for each other. Which made sense, because as far as Kyle could tell, Logan was pretty much an unofficial brother to Malcolm.
“Very funny,” Logan said with a slight edge to his voice. No one could push your buttons like someone who had known you for a long time. Kyle knew that very well. His own best friend Skyler was the perfect example of that, and he hadn’t even known the man as long as these two must have known each other. “Wyatt sent him.”
“Wyatt? My brother?” Derrick sounded confused, and for the first time, it occurred to Kyle to think more about these other brothers. Wyatt had claimed that they were not into keeping the place, but Kyle hadn’t actually thought he would ever meet any of them.
If he still wanted to try to get Malcolm to sell, they could be allies. But, of course, he had given up on that, and getting raging drunk hadn’t done anything to change that. The situation was the same as it had been before, and he couldn’t, in good conscience, keep this up any longer.
“Yeah. He wants to get Mal to sell the place.” There was a slight edge to Logan’s voice, one that Kyle didn’t really know how to interpret. Logan had always been so friendly to him, but maybe it was just that Kyle had turned him down.
Derrick snorted softly. “Good luck to him,” he said, somewhat ambiguously. Who was this Derrick, and what was his story? And what was with the weird tone of voice when he addressed Logan?
But he was now eavesdropping on a private conversation, so he yawned and stretched very obviously as he opened his eyes and sat up. The bright morning sunshine spilled offensively through the room, making his head pound and throb, and he winced and instinctively shaded his eyes to try to protect them.
“Oh look. Sleeping Beauty is awake.” Logan turned toward him and grinned, though there was a strange edge to that grin that Kyle just didn’t have the brain power to figure out right at the moment. Around him, Kyle was able to see the man who had helped him into the house last night, Derrick. Malcolm’s brother.
Derrick was equally handsome, somewhat sharper and more angular, even taller than Malcolm but more slender. The family resemblance was slight, but it was there, particularly in those large green eyes. Anyone looking into those eyes would be able to tell right away that they were related, Malcolm and Derrick, but otherwise, not so much.
Logan’s comment had Derrick shooting a sharp look at the other man, and he abruptly stood up off of his chair. His clothing was disheveled, and Kyle couldn’t help but be touched when he realized that Derrick must have spent the night in that chair, just making sure he didn’t choke on his vomit or something.
“Hey. I’m Kyle. Sorry about last night,” he admitted, a little bit embarrassed. He usually handled his alcohol better than that, but then, he had drunk far, far too much the night before, even for him.
“Derrick.”
Malcolm’s voice was neutral enough, Kyle supposed, but there was a hint of the same frost in it that had been in Malcolm’s tone back when he had first realized who Kyle was and why he was there. Who was this man, and what were all these undertones going around in this house?
“Yeah. I told you I’m done
with classes for the semester.” Derrick’s voice sounded defensive, his hackles obviously up. “Or isn’t this my home, too?”
Kyle looked back and forth between the brothers. There was a lot that he didn’t know about these two, about their relationship, and honestly, he hadn’t even thought about it that much. He had never expected to meet any of the Hart boys, except for Malcolm.
“I mean, it was before you ran off.” It was Logan who spoke, not Malcolm, who had his arms crossed over his chest. Kyle was having a distinct feeling that he shouldn’t be there, but just as he was standing up to go, ready to make some sort of excuse to get away, Logan was storming away in one direction, Derrick in another.
“Sorry about that.” It was just Malcolm left now, a Malcolm who still, even hungover, looked way too good to Kyle. He wasn’t sure that he actually had the energy to become aroused, and yet, there was still a chance of it when he looked at Malcolm’s stocky, strong body, and he remembered how it had been with Malcolm spread out over the hospital bed for him. It had been uncomfortable as hell, but at the time, Kyle had to admit that he hadn’t even noticed.
“You look like shit,” Malcolm pointed out, and Kyle, who had slept in his clothes on a couch, just gave a shrug. He had to admit that he probably did. “Where were you last night?”
From a lot of people, that sort of question would have bothered Kyle. Not from Malcolm. A warm flush of something softer and sweeter than arousal went through him. Malcolm cared. Malcolm, from the look of him, had worried about him, as amazing as that was to Kyle.
“Got drunk. It’s no big deal.” He frowned, looking at the man who had been his lover, if that was the right term for it, far too briefly. For a moment, he considered telling him that he was going to quit the job that had sent him here, that he would be gone and out of Malcolm’s hair soon enough, but just as he was opening his mouth to do so, Malcolm was walking toward him and putting an arm around him.
