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jackson

H ot water soothed the perpetual ache in my muscles as I stood under the shower. It did nothing, however, to calm the chaos in my mind. And it wasn’t so much chaos as it was uncertainty and sadness—feelings that were becoming synonymous with West. The more he divulged about himself, about his life, and about the little ways he felt, the more out of my depth I felt.

I had no idea what I was doing. And what little I was doing, was it enough? Was loving him through this enough? It hadn’t been for Peter’s brother. I didn’t want to lose West because I didn’t do enough.

The glass door slid open, and I turned just as West stepped in—completely naked, of course. My heart stuttered at the sight of him. Working the ranch had given him more muscle and tanned his skin. He was sinfully hot with his tattoos and piercings.

I shut down that line of thinking real fucking fast.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. It wasn’t that my shower didn’t have room for the two of us—it did—but I was a little confused as to why he was joining me. After everything, I didn’t have a clue where he and I stood in the physical department of things.

I moved aside, his body brushing against mine as he stepped under the water. The audible little sigh he let out was sexy as hell, and it shouldn’t have been.

“There’s no hot water downstairs.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It is. But you’re not down there.” Yeah, that was hard to argue with. The idea that he wanted to be around me was a nice one. “Why the hell do you have so many soap containers?”

“Let me guess, you have one bottle for everything?” I retorted. “Actually, I don’t want the answer to that.”

“It’s a bar, not a bottle,” West told me. There was something akin to amusement in his voice, and I couldn’t tell if he was fucking with me or not. I decided he had to be. No self-respecting man would use a bar of fucking soap for everything. At least, I fucking hoped not. “May I?”

He reached around me to grab the shampoo bottle. His body slid across mine in more places than I could acknowledge. All I knew was it set my nerves on fire, awakening everything all at once, and I tried real damn hard to get my dick in control. I thought of the stupidest shit I could come up with out of respect. I could handle one shower with West without my dick running rampant. Maybe.

“Turn around, cowboy,” he ordered. I scrutinized him for a hot minute before relenting. What I didn’t expect was the way he massaged shampoo into my hair. It was hard to be on edge when his fingers worked magic over my scalp. “Why’d you cut the long hair?”

“What?” I frowned.

“Your hair,” he repeated. “It used to be long. Why’d you cut it?”

My hair had been long once–like down to my shoulder blades—but that had been years ago.

“How’d you know about that?” I replied instead.

“I kept up with you over the years,” West admitted. He what? “Just your career. Shit the public knew. The tabloids were fun there for a while. They liked you. The League’s only openly gay cowboy with his long golden hair. ”

I knew those articles, but I was a little too stunned for words. I’d just assumed he’d up and left—forgotten everything like I tried to forget him. It never occurred to me that he kept up with me that much.

“That,” I cleared my throat, “stupid commentary was why I cut it. Someone said I looked like a wannabe country singer.”

“They clearly haven’t heard you sing,” he muttered. I couldn’t even be offended with that one. I couldn’t sing if my life depended on it. “Head back.”

I complied easily, shutting my eyes while he rinsed out the soap. There was something undeniably comforting about how he ran his fingers through my hair—taking careful mind to the way he handled me. This kind of intimacy was foreign to me. Wonderful but foreign.

“Are you one of those weird people who fucking conditions their hair?” West asked when he was done.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask that,” I retorted. Apparently, I had to teach him a thing or two about proper hair care.

“Do they make it in a bar?” The amusement in his voice was unmistakable. I turned to chastise him, but he cut me off by kissing me. His tongue stroked mine as he took advantage of my surprise. Fingers wove through my hair as his body pushed flush to mine. The weight of his cock and the smoothness of his barbells pressed hard against my hip.

And there went any hope I had of controlling my dick.

But I had to focus.

“West…” I began. I wasn’t sure what the fuck to do. My dick had its own ideas from how it stood hard at attention between us—his too—but was this okay? I didn’t want to pick him up off the floor again and send him into the wild because something we did together sent him spiraling. I’d rather take care of myself so to speak if it meant protecting his headspace.

“It’s not your job to fix me,” he whispered.

“I ain’t trying to—”

“I want normal, Jackson,” West said over me. The desperate edge in his voice tugged at my heart. “How are we supposed to be normal if I don’t fucking try? I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I’m here and I’m fucking trying. That’s something, isn’t it?”

It was fucking hard to argue with his logic. I wanted him to feel safe—to feel like we could be whatever he needed. His stables, his rules. How was I supposed to argue with him wanting to try when I kept pushing the control in his hands?

“You tell me to stop if you need me to, you understand?” I replied. When he opened his mouth to protest, I shook my head. “I mean it. Don’t push yourself if you don’t want it, West—even if that changes somewhere in the middle. I don’t care. You’re more important than anything we do together.”

I hated that I even felt the need to say it, but I did. Fuck, if I had to reiterate that every time, I would.

“Okay,” West whispered.