Page 17 of Buried Past (First in Line #3)

"In the second week, I helped lead a canoe trip down the Connecticut River. Twelve kids, six canoes, and I pretended I knew something about wilderness navigation." Dorian tucked the blanket closer around his chin. "Everything was going perfectly until we stopped for lunch on a little island."

"Let me guess—not actually an island?"

"Oh, it was an island. But it was also home to the most aggressive colony of hornets I've ever encountered.

" He shifted in his chair, and the blanket slipped from his shoulders.

"I was setting up sandwiches and giving my prepared speech about Leave No Trace principles, when Tommy—eight years old, gap-toothed, and built like a linebacker—decided to investigate what he called the angry buzzing tree. "

I pictured it: A younger Dorian desperately trying to maintain his cover while chaos erupted around him.

"Hornets attacked like we'd declared war. Kids screaming, canoes drifting away from shore, and me diving into river water cold enough to stop my heart to avoid getting stung into anaphylactic shock." He laughed—genuine and unguarded.

"Glad to know you survived the experience."

"Barely. Had to explain to twelve sets of parents why their children came home covered in mud and talking about Mr. Dorian's legendary hornet war."

When the laughter faded, we sat in comfortable quiet. Rain continued its assault on the windows. The cabin felt smaller and more intimate.

Dorian stared into the fire. "Thank you. I'd forgotten that I used to be someone who could laugh at hornets and muddy children." He paused, and I held my breath. "Forgot that person was still in here somewhere."

The fire crackled between us, filling the silence with small explosions of sound.

"Sometimes I catch myself in mirrors and don't recognize..." His breath hitched. "I became so good at being no one that I forgot I used to be someone. more real."

I watched his hand tremble against his chest.

"That person—the one who worried about sunscreen and made terrible sandwiches and cared if kids had fun—" His voice cracked completely. "I thought Hoyle had killed him along with so many others."

I reached across the space between our chairs and stroked his hand on the armrest. Only fingers against knuckles, warm skin against warm skin. No demands.

"He's still there. I can see him."

I traced one finger along his knuckles, following the ridge of bone. His breathing changed—slightly faster and more shallow.

Turning to face Dorian, I asked, "What do you want? Not tomorrow. Not next week when this is over. Right now, in this moment, what do you want?"

He glanced at me and then stared back at the flames. "Warmth. The kind that doesn't come from running or hiding or staying three steps ahead of people who want me dead."

It was a professional answer. Safe answer. The kind of response designed to deflect deeper inquiry while appearing cooperative.

I waited.

Finally, Dorian turned to look away from the flames and focus on me. When he spoke again, his voice had shed its professional distance.

"You." The word came out rough. "I want to be seen by someone who doesn't want to use me for information or leverage or as a weapon against someone else." His hand turned under mine, palm pressing against palm. "I want to matter to someone who isn't calculating my value in exchange rates."

For a second, I couldn't breathe. I knew that want and had built my life around it. And yet somehow, it still stunned me to hear it out loud.

I stood slowly, careful not to break the contact between our hands. His mug sat cooling on the chair's wide armrest, tea gone cold while we'd talked. I lifted it carefully and set it on the mantelpiece beside a collection of river stones.

When I turned back, Dorian watched me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "Stand up," I said.

He rose from his chair in one fluid motion, blanket sliding from his shoulders to pool on the floor. The firelight caught the lean lines of his body through the thin fabric of his borrowed shirt, highlighting muscle and bone.

We faced each other across three feet of cabin floor. There was no sudden grab for contact.

Dorian took the first step.

The space between us disappeared without ceremony. No collision or desperate rush—just the inevitable conclusion of a conversation that had been building since the moment he'd appeared bleeding on my doorstep.

He reached out for the front of my shirt, fingers spreading across the fabric.

I gripped the hem of his borrowed sweater. He lifted his arms without hesitation, letting me pull it over his head and drop it beside the forgotten blanket.

"Your ribs." My fingers hovered near the bandage.

"Better. Much better."

I traced the edge of white gauze with one fingertip, feeling the warmth of healing skin beneath. No swelling or raging infection heat. Only the steady rise and fall of breathing that had finally reached a normal rhythm.

His fingers moved to my shirt buttons. When he pushed the fabric off my shoulders, his hands moved across my chest with raw hunger, fingers spreading wide like he wanted to touch all of me at once..

We shed the rest of our clothes without speaking, and each piece of fabric was another barrier between us removed. I pulled cushions from Marcus's chairs, arranging them on the floor beside the hearth.

Dorian knelt beside me on the makeshift bedding.

The rigid control that usually defined him had cracked wide open, revealing raw want underneath.

When he reached for me, his caress was greedy—palms that burned against my skin, and fingers that claimed my flesh like he'd been starving for this contact.

I traced the hollow of his throat where his pulse hammered, gripping his hips to pull him closer. Every mark on his body told of violence endured, but I cared only about the way he responded to my touch. He gasped when I found sensitive skin, and his body demanded more.

He caressed the raised tissue where shrapnel had carved its signature across my chest. Tracing the scar's length with his thumb, he followed damaged nerve endings that fired in patterns I'd forgotten were possible.

Then, he leaned forward and ran his tongue along the scarred skin. The wet heat of his mouth sent fire through nerve endings I'd thought were dead, his lips and tongue working across the damaged skin like he was claiming every part of me, even the broken pieces.

The rain outside settled into a steady rhythm, drumming against windows and roof.

I pulled Dorian down until we lay facing each other on the blankets, legs tangling together under wool that smelled like cedar and years of mountain air.

When I kissed him, his mouth was warm and eager. He opened for me without hesitation, tongue sliding against mine as his fingers dug into the back of my neck, gripping the corded muscle like he couldn't get enough.

He pressed his hips against mine, the friction electric through our skin. Every brush of his fingertips was a question—will you, can I, is this still allowed—and the answer, every time, was yes, yes, God, yes. He hooked a leg over my thigh and ground into me, breath ragged, heartbeat frantic.

I slid a hand down the flat of his back, over the curve of his ass, pulling him closer, grinding our cocks together. The brush of his body was almost too much. I'd gone so many months without full-body intimate contact.

I braced myself on my forearm, holding Dorian in place to watch his face as I rocked against him, savoring the way his lips parted and the flush crept up his throat.

He shifted, rolling us so he straddled me, bracing with one hand on my chest and pinning my hips with his thighs. He leaned down, breath hot against my ear. "Let me," he said, his voice rough with need.

He slid down my body, kissing a line from my throat to my collarbone, and then tracing the dip between my pecs. He stopped at my abs, staring for a heartbeat, then dipped his head and licked a slow, deliberate path down to where I was already hard and aching for him.

He ran his tongue along the length of my cock shaft, teasing, and then took me into his mouth. The shock of wet heat made my hips jerk, but his hands held me in place.

His tongue flicked and circled in maddening patterns until I balled up the blanket in my fists. He hummed low in his throat, a vibration that shot straight up my spine.

I'd never been with someone who took so much pleasure in the act itself, in the slow dismantling of their partner.

Dorian watched me as he worked, eyes dark and intent, as if he wanted to memorize every sound I made.

When I gasped, he smiled—a genuine smile—and hollowed his cheeks, intensifying the friction and taking me even deeper.

My hips bucked, and he pressed me down, pinning my thighs to the improvised bed. He cupped my balls, squeezing gently, then ran a hand up the length of my thigh, fingers splayed, possessive.

The need to come rose up fast, too soon, but I bit the inside of my cheek, holding back, wanting this to last, needing a thousand years of Dorian's mouth because it was the only thing that had felt truly right in a long time.

He swallowed, slow and deliberate, and pulled me off with a final, gentle lick that made my nerves crackle. He crawled back up, settling beside me with his breath ragged and lips slick.

I reached for him, dragging him into a rough kiss that tasted of salt and sweet. His cock pressed hot and insistent against my thigh.

My limbs were heavy and every muscle ached, but I wanted to give him the same release he'd just given me. I slid a hand down the tense length of his body and wrapped my fingers around him.

He was already slick, and the head of his cock flushed an impossible color in the firelight. I pumped my hand slowly, thumb circling the tip, and Dorian groaned, teeth sinking into my shoulder.

He buried his face in my neck, with his breath coming in short, desperate bursts. The muscles in his back flexed under my palm, tension building too fast for either of us to pretend this would be slow or measured.

Thrusting into my fist, every motion was on the edge of losing control. I tightened my grip, twisting just enough to make him gasp, and he arched against me, body taut as a drawn bow.

He reached out for my jaw, tilting my face up so he could watch me as he came. The first hot pulse sent cum across my hand as his whole body shook. He yelped and shot the rest of his load onto my skin and the wool beneath us.

Afterward, we lay tangled in blankets and firelight, breathing hard against each other's skin. Dorian rested his head against the hollow of my shoulder, his dark hair soft against my throat.

I watched shadows dance across the cabin walls and listened to the rain continue to pound on the roof. The fire had burned down to glowing embers, casting gentler light.

Dorian fell asleep curled against my side, one arm draped across my chest, his breathing more deep and even than I'd heard yet. No unconscious tension coiled his muscles.

I pulled the blanket higher around his shoulders, tucking the soft fabric against the curve of his neck. He didn't flinch when I moved. Didn't reach for a weapon. Didn't even stir. And somehow, that undid me more than anything else.

While I held the most dangerous man I'd ever met, I let myself imagine futures where danger came from ordinary things—job stress, family dinner politics, and whether we remembered to pay the electric bill on time. I thought about tomorrow not as something to survive, but as something to build.