by Liz Crowe
Considering what the guy had been through, Ian was hardly in a position to argue with him. So, he’d left him alone. But Nick’s firm, Marine-forged physique haunted his fantasies; although, the prospect of hooking up with Hannah, his nemesis, was finally allowing Ian some measure of relief regarding the non-starter with Nick. It was probably a good thing Nick had kept him at a distance. The whole thing was such a tangle, especially throwing in the fact that the Traynor kids owned the distributor that Ian had been on the verge of cutting loose. Now, of course, he was going to have to, or risk accusations of favoritism, thanks to Gavin and Alyssa’s relationship. He still wasn’t sure how his brother and the hot woman he’d fallen for were going to work out those logistics. But it wasn’t his problem. Not yet.
He sighed, picked up his phone and sent a text, knowing Nick’s phone was equipped with voice recognition software.
Ian: Hey, I hear we’re having dinner.
Nick answered nearly immediately. Yeah. I hear you’re joining us.
Ian: What’s the news we’re supposed to be getting?
Nick: I think they’re buying a house. If so, I’m gonna buy hers.
Ian swallowed hard. That meant one thing: a guarantee of Nick at pretty much every family event going forward. He put his head on the desk. It was not going to be easy keeping his distance. He pictured the seduction he had planned for Hannah, and shoved all memory of the highly erotic connection he’d shared with Alyssa’s brother out of his head. He’d gone from four years of virtual celibacy to being faced with two options, equally frustrating and desirable. And the whole thing had his head in a very odd place—one where he could picture them all together, which was ridiculous.
Ian: Are they getting married or what?
Nick: I don’t think so. Alyssa’s still not ready for that step, but I told her moving in with the guy is over halfway there.
Ian: Well, see you tonight.
It took a while for Nick to answer; by the time his phone dinged with the response, Ian had his head back inside the fermenter, trying to salvage some of the day before waving the surrender flag.
Nick: I’ve missed you.
Ian stared at those simple words and a chill ran down his spine. He sat, trying to decide if and how to respond. Nick had so much bitterness and anger in him. Ian would give anything for the man to let him in, let him help. But he’d refused, so they’d parted ways, both unhappy and unresolved. Ian wanted something more, but Nick would not have it and had made that very clear in the weeks following their hot hook up.
Finally, Ian tapped out a simple answer: I did what you wanted. I left you alone.
Nick: I know. Thanks.
Ian: But I didn’t like it….
Nick: I know that, too.
Deciding there was no good way to answer that, Ian put the phone in his pocket and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly three. He tossed the rag he’d been using to wipe down the sensors inside the fermenter and walked into his office for the weekly brewer’s meeting. No doubt about it—a shit day gone to hell and now he had to be around Alyssa’s brother and pretend he felt nothing for him. Christ, he should have stayed in bed.
Chapter Twelve
“I don’t care what anyone says, I am not letting that asshole call the shots. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Nick ran a hand down his face. He took a breath letting the now familiar scents of his home office give him some comfort. His shoulders and back ached when he stretched them out as he sat listening to his boss make excuses.
He’d started working out in earnest again after nearly a one-year hiatus from the gym giving him a huge measure of relaxation that he’d forgotten even existed. “Listen,” he tried to temper his usual brusque manner. “These guys have a serious security breach. A ton of information has been compromised. Banking and credit card information. Big time serious shit, okay? He has to understand….Okay, fine.” He hung up, unable to tolerate the obtuse politics of this job. Jesus, the military was so much more straightforward. He was the paid expert. People listened to him. He never had to beg anyone to take him seriously.
He pulled his glasses off, rubbed the bridge of nose, felt the dog bump up against his leg, making a concerned noise. He rubbed the animal’s ears absently, letting his short temper cool and hoping his neck would stop aching. Wishing for Ian to appear and take him in his arms but knowing that could never be, Nick closed his eyes letting his brain drift, the ever-present headache never far from the surface but muted, due to a new daily cocktail of meds. He wanted Ian Donovan back so badly it made his teeth ache and the memory of their one night kept washing over him like a warm, erotic wave.
He’d woken with a start when Ian had kissed him, disoriented, sated but with a spinning brain. He got to his feet, felt around for his jeans. Ian had helped him, pulled the denim up his legs, lingering on his softening cock. “That was pretty amazing,” he’d said, helping Nick pull the T-shirt over his head.
“Yeah,” he’d grunted, short, lame and utterly freaked out. He could not do this. He was incapable of even considering a relationship. As much as he was dying to curl up in the circle of Ian’s embrace and really sleep, truly relax in his arms, he wouldn’t. He was the proverbial wounded warrior. Doped up, blind, dependent on everyone around him even for simple things—useless for all intents and purposes. Apparently, even getting dressed it seemed. He stepped away from the other man’s soothing presence. “So, you know, that was fun and all, but, I um, well….” He ran a hand through his hair.
“It’s okay,” Nick heard Ian getting re-dressed, resignation in his low voice. “I get it. Fun, but that’s it, right?”
“Yeah. That.” Nick tried not to contradict himself by yanking the other man close, kissing him and never letting him go.
“So, I’ll see you…around.”
Nick heard him open then shut the front door. The sound deafened him with its finality. “Wait. Don’t leave,” he whispered, as he dropped to the couch, freshly pounding skull in his hands, the dog shoving its worried nose up in his face. By the time Alyssa got home, he was stretched out, in his usual half-asleep state, sounds and nightmares holding him hostage. She’d helped him to his room and pulled the bed covers up to his chin once he collapsed there, mumbling about Ian.
He sighed, opened his eyes, and took hold of reality once more. Grabbing his encrypted phone he played back the audio of the text exchange he’d shared with the man in question in his Bluetooth earpiece. Ian Donovan with his built in family. The small boy that he’d raised from a newborn when the kid’s drug-addled mother had left him on Ian’s virtual doorstep, was, according to Alyssa, a near carbon copy of his father in looks and temperament. Nick was not about to subject that kid to his own personal hell. No matter how drawn he might be to the boy’s father.
The meds, therapies, bone-crushing headaches and sudden scary descents into panic and depression—no, he’d keep all that to himself, thanks. Although, it would be nice to get laid again. He sighed and deleted the conversation so he wouldn’t be tempted to call him, to really talk. Of course, now it seemed he’d be confronted with Ian once more, in the oh-so-familiar confines of Alyssa’s house.
He stretched and cocked his head, listening to yet another odd sound. It had to be the most annoying thing on the planet, this super-hero style hearing he’d developed. In the last six weeks he had gotten past a lot of the overload moments and was able to carry on conversations even when he could hear the next-door neighbors having sex or arguing. He’d tried to develop it, to embrace and not fight it, to keep it from making him nuts. He’d go on long walks, sit by the river, just listening. He did figure out how to discern from birds’ eggs cracking opening in nests nearby to the digging and chattering that went on amongst squirrels and other rodents.
This sound was totally new and something he’d spent the last week trying to figure out. It was a kind of whoosh-whoosh sound, but with a steadiness, like an underwater drumbeat. “Hey,” Alyssa called out from the kitchen.
“Thirsty?”
“Yeah, I’m coming.” He stood, held out his hand and the dog’s lead slid into it. “You bastard, you really are pretty good at this aren’t you,” he smiled when the dog seemed to let out a little woof of agreement. They ambled into the kitchen and Nick sank into a chair, now completely familiar with the house’s layout and no longer earning bruises running into furniture or doors. “What’s up, sis?” He leaned towards her, hearing it again. “What in the hell is that noise?” He took the water and the pills she handed him.
The noise got louder, then receded as she walked away. He gulped down the meds, then touched his earpiece which had started chirping the name of his boss. He shrugged and silenced the ringer, unwilling to engage that guy for the moment. Alyssa moved around the kitchen, getting dinner together, burgers and a couple of salads he’d made earlier using the labels she’d had printed in Braille.
He felt strong today but was getting nervous in anticipation of Ian’s presence. He reached out and snagged Alyssa’s arm as she walked by. She gasped when he pressed his ear to her belly. The maddening noise seemed to emanate from her and it was making him nuts. The whoosh-whoosh-whoosh filled his ear, like a drum beat…no, like a heartbeat.
“Alyssa,” he gripped her hands. “I think you’re pregnant.”
“What?” She jumped back and he sensed her heart start pounding. He put his hands over his ears. Christ in a sidecar—he could hear people’s hearts beating?
“Could you… I mean, do you…shit, it’s not my business.” He could not help but smile when he sensed her collapse into a chair and burst into tears next to him.
“I…I don’t know. How can you tell?”
“I hear something that has got to be a heartbeat. It’s pretty loud if you must know. You should go do a test or something.”
“Oh, God. I can’t be. I mean, it’s not…fuck.” She sighed, letting her sobs reduce to hiccups. He pulled her close, kissed her hair.
“It’s okay. You guys should get married anyway. You’re great together.”
“Um, maybe.” She leaned into him. “It’s so complicated. He said he had a vasectomy. And I’m just getting his kids to trust me.”
“Yeah, well, I could be wrong. So go, get one of those home tests, I’ll hold down the fort if they get here early. Besides, you guys bought the giant ranch, right? Why not start filling it up with spawn?”
She rose and left, trailing that crazy heartbeat noise with her. He smiled, patted the dog, got up and found a glass, drank some water.
Ian. He was going to be within kissing distance of him again, any minute. The headache was taking up residence in his skull once more.
The doorbell rang, and Nick got to his feet from his nervous perch on the couch. The dog was at his side already starting to whine with anxiety matching the level of horny that ran up Nick’s spine the second Ian stepped into the living room. “Hey,” he said, “C’mon in.”
“Where’s Alyssa,” Gavin said walking past Nick into the kitchen. “Babe?”
“She’s out at the drugstore.”
“What? Why?” The worry was clear in the man’s voice. Nick sensed Ian blow out a breath. The door flew open at that moment surprising them all.
“God damn it, Donovan,” Alyssa burst out. Nick tensed.
“Uh, what did I do?”
Ian pulled Nick down on the couch, put a hand on his leg. The combination of lust, worry and a strange sense of rightness surged through him. He could sit here forever, Ian near enough to kiss. He put his hand on the other man’s. “I told you,” he said, directing his comment at his sister, sensing her keen distress. He heard Gavin move towards her, sensed him take her in his arms.
“What is it, baby?”
“You—did you ever go back and get rechecked, you know, after your vasectomy?”
Ian let out a snort of laughter. Nick smiled. Then in an entirely natural move, put Ian’s hand to his lips, sucking in huge breaths of everything that represented him, but the other man jerked out of his grip and stood. Nick sighed and sat back. His own fault, really. He shouldn’t be disappointed. He’d pushed him away, and Ian was not a guy you had to tell anything twice.
“I, uh, can’t remember.” Gavin was saying.
Alyssa’s voice was muffled as if she were covering her mouth. “Well, congratulations. You knocked me up. Jesus.”
Ian laughed. “Well done brother. I can’t imagine a more beautiful woman to knock up than this one.”
Ian kept moving towards the door. He had to get the hell out of here. Nick looked his usual devastating amazing self—even longer hair hanging around his face in gold waves. His dark blue jeans and bright white button down enveloped his amazing physique with an exquisite perfection, dark glasses fixed firmly in place. Ian bit the inside of his cheek to keep from dragging the guy up off the couch and tossing him down on the next available horizontal surface and fucking him until they both begged for mercy. Hannah, remember, Hannah. You have plans for her tomorrow, plans that will quell this stupid need to be with Nick once and for all. He is unavailable to you. Let it go.
“I’m, um, gonna go,” he said, shrugging when Gavin shot him an angry look.
“Wait,” Gavin said, pulling Alyssa to him and turning to face Ian and Nick. “Now that we have this added wrinkle, I want you both to know that we bought the house, the big one by the lake. We’ll be moving out there in the next week or so. Nick is staying here.”
“Alone?” Ian asked, honestly worried.
“Yeah, I’m a big boy remember?” The other man didn’t face him, directed his clipped words to Gavin and Alyssa.
“Anyway, so, I guess we just wanted you to know and um…then there’s this.” Ian’s mouth fell open when he saw his brother drop to one knee, grab Alyssa’s hand and open a small blue velvet box. “Marry me, oh knocked up one?”
She put a hand over her mouth. “You planned this didn’t you, you ass?”
“Well, the buying the house part then asking you to marry me in front of your brother bit, yeah. The other…well…,” he slid an impressive-looking diamond onto her ring finger. Ian saw her hands shake, heard Nick’s sharp intake of breath, and was completely surprised when the man grabbed him and pulled him close.
“Don’t go,” Nick whispered, his voice low and sure.
Ian gulped, unwilling to admit how much he loved the feel of Nick’s arms around him. “Well, I’ll stay for dinner anyway.” He smiled when Nick tightened his grip but resolved not to fall into a sex trap with the guy, not again.
Later, they lay on their backs, naked and catching their breath. Nick took Ian’s hand and put it to his lips. “You’re insatiable, you know that? Not that I’m complaining.”
Ian sighed and closed his eyes, letting sleep pull him under for a brief moment. Gavin and Alyssa had decamped to his place after a thoroughly annoying dinner show of kissing, grab-assing, and sneaking off inside. Nick had declared them banished, shut the door, turned to Ian and held out a hand. “Shall we?” he’d asked and Ian had not said a word, merely slipped out of his clothes and into bed with him in a tangle of naked skin and eager mouths.
Ian was self-aware enough to acknowledge that he now had a serious dilemma on his hands. He absolutely loved Nick’s strong body, firm lips and ass and what it did for him. The undercurrent of emotional vulnerability that was so part and parcel of Nicholas Traynor also tugged at him in ways he couldn’t square. Ian was no caretaker, never had been. His parenting style with Jamie was a combination of buddy-dad on his best days, frustrated-guy-trying-to-cope on his worst. He still didn’t really trust his instincts, but he knew he loved his son with every fiber of his being, so it worked.
But now, this thing with Nick, it threatened to take him places he’d never been and was reluctant to go. The ghostly memory of the hot redheaded woman he’d made an early morning brew date with made him open his eyes and stare at the ceiling, listening to Nick’s breathing even out into sleep. He rolled over, tugging Nick into to the curve of h
is body, forcing thoughts of her away until a loud, hoarse yell yanked him from a dead sleep, terrified and on alert.
Nick sat, hands over his eyes, rocking back and forth, whimpering and calling for someone named Dan. Ian touched his shoulder, felt the clamminess of his skin. But the other man jerked away from him with a surprising violence. “Nick,” he whispered, but Nick clawed at his eyes, leaving red streaks on his skin and making Ian worry for his actual eyeballs. He tried to grab Nick’s arm, to make him stop but Nick threw him off with a surprising strength and Ian had to duck to avoid getting cold-cocked. “Jesus, man, wake up.” He stood and came around to Nick’s side of the bed, tried to pry his fingers away from his face before he really hurt himself. “Cut it out,” he tried to keep his voice calm as a flicker of fear lit his nerve endings.
Before he could blink he was on his ass, on the floor, with Nick standing over him, fists clenched, and face dark with fury. “Don’t fucking touch me,” the man said, voice low and leaving no room for discussion.
Ian held out a hand, realizing Nick was still in a half-dream state. And that Ian, was in danger of getting the shit kicked out of himself by a naked, pissed-off former Marine. He eased back, slid up the wall, keeping plenty of distance between them. Nick’s sightless eyes rolled in his head, his jaw clenched; he was like a tense, live wire. “Nick,” Ian tried to speak softly. “Nick, wake up. It’s me. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s fire. The god damn truck is…shit…I can’t see, fuck!” he clawed his face again, dropping to his knees. Ian crawled over to him, fear and sympathy warring in him. He put a tentative hand on Nick’s sweaty shoulder. The pain was shocking when Nick’s fist connected solidly with his jaw, then again, with his nose making a sick, crunching sound in his head. He lay back, covering his face yelling for Nick to wake the fuck up already. The dog burst into the room, nearly tearing the door off its hinges in his effort to get at his master. Ian watched as Brutus hovered over Nick, whining and licking his face trying to get him to calm.
