The Deeper He Hurts

by Lynda Aicher

  Sawyer played with the ends of his hair, each light brush of his fingers sending a wave of hope and despair to his chest.

  “Are you all right?” he asked again when the shadows lengthened. The breeze brought a hint of the encroaching fall chill while still carrying the summer scents of cut grass and growth.

  He turned his head to capture the musky-sweet fragrance that was all Sawyer. Would he remember it when he was gone?

  “It was a fire.” Sawyer’s voice was raw, the husky tones cutting through the hushed moment to intensify their importance.

  Ash stilled, thoughts spinning until they caught up with Sawyer’s words. It was a fire. The randomness scrambled, then solidified. Sawyer’s past. His pain. The secrets he’d dodged and avoided until Ash had accepted he might never know them. But now…

  His pulse jumped with another shot of hope and he tried to shift up, but Sawyer tightened his hold. Ash hesitated, questions racing before he gave in and relaxed back into him. He could listen, even if he couldn’t see his expression—would listen to everything.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he found himself saying. After weeks of wondering and cursing the knowledge he did have, he’d willingly stay in the dark if it meant saving Sawyer some pain.

  Yeah. That was the man, not the sadist, shining through.

  The stroking resumed in his hair, each slow caress a comfort, but every sense was waiting for Sawyer. He hadn’t prayed in a long time, yet he did it now. God might not be listening, but he offered up the words anyway, that whatever Sawyer said or did next, would free him—even if it drove him away.

  —

  That night hovered on the edge of his mind, knocking so close Sawyer silently cringed on reflex. Going back had never helped before. No wishes or what-ifs could return his family or change the outcome that’d left him orphaned and alone.

  But…

  He floated on a cloud right now, Asher keeping him grounded with his tender hold and easy touch. The fresh scent of his shampoo surrounded him on every inhale and covered the scorched-flesh stench he’d feared would never leave.

  “An electrical fire,” he said, the words hitting the silence with a dull flatness. Any emotion had dried up with each dose of pain, each year that’d passed with no one around him. “It started in the wall. Took over before my family could get out.”

  Bright orange and yellow flames against the dark expanse of the endless night. Billowing smoke rolling up beneath the crackling roar of death.

  His breath hitched, stuck. Asher slid his hand down, a light touch on Sawyer’s dick bringing his breath back in a gushing exhale. Pain rippled outward from his shaft, spread through his groin until it slithered over his abdomen and down his thighs. A pulsing throb centered on his dick that matched the beat of his heart. Consistent, grounding, his.

  His mind mapped each line of Asher’s name, burned into the one place he’d never have expected. It was too personal, both the name and the location. Yet this was the closest anyone had gotten to him since…

  The fire.

  “I was sixteen.” He cleared the tears from his throat, blinked to ease the sting in his eyes. “I’d snuck out to meet a…friend. He was…my first boyfriend.” Asher’s soft kiss landed on his pec, the lingering touch spiking into his heart. “The flames were visible for miles across the valley, but the house was remote and the fire trucks arrived too late.”

  Sirens blaring through the small town had been the first warning of danger, one he’d ignored in the arrogance of his youth. He’d never imagined something so horrific could ever happen, though. Pain spread from his heart, the muscle contracting to hold in the bitterness and anger.

  “There was nothing anyone could do. The second story was fully engulfed when the volunteer firemen arrived. By the time I got there, my family was already dead.”

  Burned in their beds. All four of them.

  “I tried to rush in to save them anyway. I was determined to reach them.” Ash hugged him tighter, his quiet support sinking through Sawyer’s resistance to ease the hurt. He stared at the fading outlines of the trees against the midnight blue sky, the words tumbling out in a purging of his past mistakes. “Smoke burned my throat, so thick and black I couldn’t see. The heat was…” A blistering inferno. Surrounding and trapping him. “I made it to the base of the stairs before I collapsed. They yanked me back out, barely conscious.” The stairwell had been impassable, the bedrooms cut off.

  “The rest is hazy after that.” Days lost in the dark seclusion of pain, both physical and emotional. “I was rushed to the hospital. Treated for smoke inhalation along with first- and second-degree burns on my arms.” He stared at his pristine forearm. The scars there had faded years ago.

  Asher shifted up and he let him this time, afraid of what he’d see, yet needing to know. He had no idea if he was ready, no idea what he wanted. He couldn’t hide, though. Not from Asher. Not anymore.

  Everything was out there now, his empty heart exposed and vulnerable. Years of resisting any level of affection shattered by the pain and kindness Asher gave as freely as he took.

  Shadows brought them closer, somehow emphasizing the empathy and amazement etched on Asher’s expression. He was braced on one arm, still touching him, still close. So very close.

  “You…” Asher began, then stopped, throat working. He cupped Sawyer’s neck, thumb rasping over the stubble on his jaw. “You’ve lived through so much pain. Lived with it.”

  The raw ache burned in Sawyer’s throat, grew from his chest and inched its way closer to the surface.

  “I was empty after that,” he admitted, the last of of his walls tumbling down. “Everything inside me shut down.” Emotions, dreams, desire—they’d all died with his family. “I should’ve been with them.” His voice broke, the admission ripping from the darkness to expose the single truth that still ached within his heart. “I should’ve been with them.”

  “No.” The soft but fierce insistence caressed his cheek before Asher’s kiss landed on his temple. “No.” A gentle touch by his ear. “No.”

  Sawyer squeezed his eyes closed, but Asher was right there. With him. Holding him.

  “No.”

  The word whispered down his ear and wove its way through the darkness to spark a fragile nugget of hope.

  “No.”

  Sawyer dug his teeth into his lip, the pain swelling behind his clamped hold.

  “No.”

  The warm touch of lips over his heart, firm and lingering, sunk so deeply it shattered the pain until all that remained was the hurt. The lost kid and lonely man. The empty stretch of isolation that beckoned and repelled.

  His breath escaped in a swell of relief and rejection, the rough cough an attempt to keep it in. But his arm tightened around Asher, his hand digging into his hair to hold him there. Close.

  “If you’d been with them then you wouldn’t be here.” Asher lifted his head, his eyes filled with that thing he’d denied himself but was afraid to define. “And I want you here.”

  Here. With Asher.

  How? Why?

  His heart broke open, the hurt rushing free from beneath the pain that’d locked it tight. Could he trust it? Believe when he’d stopped believing?

  Asher caught his mouth in a kiss that wiped away everything but him. The hot sweep of his tongue, the gentle dip and swipe obliterated the doubts and let him be.

  No past or future. No doubts or hesitation or fears.

  The kiss chased away the dark and let the color in. A bright, bursting light of wishes and acceptance. Of dreams that could be.

  He didn’t question any of it. Not this moment, or Asher, or tomorrow. Not when he had this right now. Asher in his arms, his lips telling him everything without a word.

  Desire rose on a slow crest of gentle nudges and exploring touches. A brush of tongues, swipe of fingers, tease of skin that sunk so deeply he forgot the hurt. Asher guided him everywhere, his tenderness both foreign and known. The light tickle down his side, a
ghost of a breath near his ear.

  He gave himself over and never once questioned. No safeword was needed when he embraced the fear.

  Asher eased them to their sides until he was spooned behind Sawyer, skin sliding over skin in a dance so natural he didn’t doubt its rightness. In this he followed, his hips rocking in rhythm with Asher’s easy roll.

  Touches peppered with kisses, down his neck, over his shoulder. Swipes down his abdomen, around his scars. His brand stretched and pulled as his erection grew, the burn swirling with the pleasure. He rode them both until they blended into something new and good. Right.

  There was nothing to hide behind, and he didn’t try to hold back. His moans fed the air as Asher stripped his emotions down to nothing.

  He clutched at Asher’s hip, urged him closer while pushing back. “I need you,” he whispered the truth to the pillow and forgot to care. Not when Asher grumbled his agreement, his dick nudging at Sawyer’s hole.

  He panted his desperation, knee hitched up to open himself more. A swipe of lube, the tear of a condom wrapper, then Asher was pressing in, the stretch and sting so welcomed tears clawed up his throat.

  Asher didn’t stop, didn’t pull up or slow down until his hips were snug to Sawyer’s ass. The first tear slipped out to be soaked up by the pillow. Asher surrounded him, filled him, and held him closer than anyone ever had.

  This was fear and pain, love and hope rolled into one.

  “I love you.”

  Asher’s promise ghosted over his ear, tingled down his neck, and embraced his heart. Every glide and thrust reinforced the truth and ignited something so deeply buried he’d thought his capacity for it was dead.

  He scrambled to hold on, to ground himself to the only thing that’d keep him from shattering. He clutched at Asher’s thigh, dug into the solid strength as he stretched his neck, searching for that last connection. Then Asher’s mouth was on his, the kiss sloppy and fumbling with the urgency pounding in his groin and hammering through his chest.

  “Sawyer.”

  A demand or a plea? He couldn’t decipher the tone and didn’t try. He was lost now in everything that was Asher. The musky scent of sex and him. The hard plunges so intense he couldn’t breathe. Every touch that pulled him closer.

  “Asher.”

  His sadist. His friend. His love.

  His orgasm built from his groin but burst from his heart. It slammed through every fiber, tore from his chest in a long cry, and pierced through the hurt to wipe out the pain. He shuddered, come pumping from his dick, muscles contracting until there was nothing left except Asher.

  Chapter 24

  Morning broke with the annoying caw of a damn bird that’d taken a perch too close to where Sawyer was sleeping.

  “What the fuck?” he mumbled, rolling to his side, only to flip back with a hiss. He cringed through the initial blaze, breath held until the burn on his dick faded to a throbbing sting that matched the beat of his heart.

  Holy fuck. He blinked his eyes open, the dim light of dawn pasting the room in shallow shades of blue and gray. Asher’s bedroom. He jerked his head around, Asher’s dark head and amused expression greeting him.

  “Morning.”

  Sawyer groaned, rubbed his eyes, the gritty residue of last night’s purging scraping over his eyeballs. That quickly, the evening flooded back in a gut-twisting wash of exposure.

  Asher had broken through the last of his walls, smashed them down and held him up when he’d crumbled with them. Now everything was oversensitized, raw and exposed with nowhere left to hide.

  His pulse jumped, heat flashing up his chest to clench his throat. He couldn’t do this. Wasn’t ready. Had no idea how to handle a “morning after.” Especially after what they’d shared.

  How much he’d revealed.

  He rolled from the bed, careful of his branded dick. and shuffled to the bathroom. Nature called, and that was the best excuse to get the space he needed before the walls closed in on him. His long, slow breaths slowed his heart but did little for his racing thoughts. He couldn’t get attached.

  Couldn’t stick around.

  Couldn’t love Asher—even though he already did.

  A cramp constricted around his heart, rammed through his lungs and sucked the air from him. He gasped, hunching forward as he scrambled to breathe. The room spun, darkness encroaching around the bright pops of white and yellow lights.

  No. No. No.

  The knock on the door jarred him up. “Sawyer?”

  Shit. He scrubbed his face. Swallowed.

  “Can I come in?”

  He worked to find his voice, but it wasn’t happening. Fuck. This was crazy. Last night didn’t have to mean anything—not if he didn’t let it. He’ll only see what I show him.

  He cleared his throat. “Give me a second.” Pissing with a gauze bandage wrapped around his dick wasn’t a sharing moment.

  Business done, he washed his hands before easing the wrap off. The petroleum jelly Asher had applied kept it from sticking, the blisters a pale yellow against the ruby skin of his penis.

  Asher.

  The sadistic fucker had branded his name onto Sawyer. On his fucking dick. A part of him loved it. Loved everything about the depravity and the possession behind it.

  But he couldn’t let Asher know.

  He had one last weekend at White Salmon and then he was gone from here. Free to head home and…what? Hide some more?

  “I’m coming in.” Asher’s warning arrived a second before the door swung open. His frown was layered beneath concern as he eyed Sawyer. His gaze zoomed in on Sawyer’s flaccid dick, the appendage blazing the depth of their relationship better than words. “Is it okay?”

  It. His dick. Not him. He could talk about his dick.

  “Yeah.” He grinned, his cheeks stretching to make it believable. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch today.” He’d probably resort to wearing his shorty wet suit to keep it protected.

  Asher crouched down, the groove deepening between his brows. He tilted his head back and forth, lifted Sawyer’s dick to check the underside. “We should put some aloe gel on it before we rewrap it.”

  They were really discussing his dick. Which was so much better than the other things they should be dissecting. And those “things” were probably next on the list.

  “Shit.” Sawyer stepped away, stretching to see the bedside clock. “What time is it? I need to head out to make it to White Salmon on time.”

  Asher stood, his nakedness a thing of beauty Sawyer couldn’t afford to appreciate. Not right now. He nudged around him and strode into the bedroom. His bag was sitting on Asher’s dresser, and he dug through it, not caring what he grabbed to wear.

  Shove it back. Don’t think about last night. Don’t show how exposed you are.

  “Let me—”

  “I can take care of it,” Sawyer cut Asher off. “I’ve handled burns before.” He froze. Asher did too. The fucking chirp and twitter of the bird perched too close to the open window danced through the tension on a sour note of discomfort.

  Asher cleared his throat, and Sawyer strode back to the bathroom, clothes in hand. He tried to ignore the hurt that slashed across Asher’s face, remained firm when his guilt urged him to relent.

  I love you.

  He wasn’t prepared for love. The pressure alone threatened to drag him under. The responsibility of it—terrifying.

  This wasn’t Asher’s fault, though. None of it was. His fears were his own, just like his faults. He’d make it up to him—later. Call. Text. Something.

  Right now, he needed the space and a safe place to hide.

  He hadn’t been homesick his entire time here. But right now, it was the only place he thought of. The one place where he could seclude himself in safety.

  Where he’d be alone. Only now he knew how good it could be with someone else. No, not just someone. Asher.

  Too bad he wasn’t strong enough to have him. Not now. Probably not ever.

  Chapte
r 25

  Ash leaned on his truck and squinted against the sun. Heat sizzled over the pavement, the late August heat wave baking into everything—including him. He swiped at the sweat on his forehead and stared up the street, hope ebbing away to doubt the longer he stood there waiting.

  He’d waffled through so many different emotions over the three days since Sawyer had walked out of his place, he was amazed to feel anything. Sawyer had blazed into his life on a challenge and a cheesy line. Now he was about to leave with nothing more than a goodbye.

  Ash glanced back at the house, heart twisting. Everything he valued was in there. Or it had been. Family, connection, home—the foundation of his life. He’d treasured those things so deeply he’d hidden some of the most important things about himself to keep them.

  And now…

  Sawyer’s SUV came down the street, sunlight glaring off the windshield as he pulled up to the curb.

  Ash released a long breath, uncertainty chasing his fears until he shut them down. He’d spent days thinking about this. Hours and hours analyzing options, weighing the rationality of each of them. In the end none of it had mattered, because this wasn’t about data or numbers and nothing about it was logical.

  “Hey,” Sawyer called when he opened his door. His grin was in place, dimple declaring his ease. “Have you been waiting long?” He shielded his eyes and studied the tree-lined neighborhood. “Why are we here?”

  So I can be a better man.

  He sucked in his fill of Sawyer, his rolling stride and cocky assuredness soundly in place. They’d been in place Friday morning, too, smart remarks and distance carrying him out of Ash’s home and back to White Salmon. Their night of emotional revelations had been dismissed, along with the significance of his first overnight stay, and Ash had let him go.

  He swallowed, shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for what he couldn’t have. “Thanks for coming.”

  Sawyer cocked his head, frowning. “What’s up?”

  A hundred questions charged up to clog his throat. This casual display was all he’d gotten since Sawyer had opened himself up. The chasm was growing, the distance already there even though he stood only five feet away.