Page 10 of Depths of Desire (The Saints of Westmont U #4)

SIX

OLIVER

The light woke me before the alarm ever could.

It came in through the cabin window, soft and golden, dusting the wood-paneled walls and casting long stripes across the bed. I lay still for a moment, listening. The wind had died down, and the storm had passed. The world had righted itself, more or less.

Beside me, Lennox was still asleep.

He lay on his stomach, one arm flung over the pillow, the sheet low on his hips.

His hair was a mess, flattened on one side.

I had a vague memory of tugging my fingers through it in the dark and of him whispering something against my jaw that made my stomach clench.

I shut my eyes for a second and let the image dissolve.

It had happened. That was all. A storm, a bed, and a kiss that turned into a night of raw passion. No regrets. No need to revisit it now.

I slipped out from under the comforter without waking him and found my clothes in the faint light, pulling them on quietly. The air was cool against my skin, a sharp reminder that we were still up in the mountains, still snowed in, still sharing a cabin that only had one bed.

I padded into the bathroom, washed my face, and avoided looking at myself in the mirror for too long.

By the time I emerged, Lennox was awake and sitting on the edge of the bed, stretching. He smiled when he saw me, sleepy and real. The kind of smile that wanted to drag me back to the mattress and tangle up again. His semi-hard cock out in the open tugged me toward him even more.

I didn’t let it.

“Morning,” he said, voice scratchy. He looked around and spotted his briefs.

“Morning,” I echoed.

That was it. No tension. No weirdness. Just two guys who had shared something and weren’t about to make it heavier than it needed to be.

“Want to hit the restaurant?” he asked as he got up and pulled the briefs up his legs. “They probably have one of those country-style buffets with sausages the size of your forearm.”

I shrugged. “Could eat.”

His grin widened. “That’s the spirit.”

He threw on sweatpants and a hoodie, combed his fingers through his hair like it was a full grooming routine, and we headed out into the cold together.

The resort had a long, lodge-style dining hall with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a field blanketed in snow.

The air inside smelled like coffee and maple syrup and cinnamon rolls.

Lennox led the way to a buffet that looked like it had been designed to feed an army of hungry tourists who had absolutely no plans to move for the rest of the day.

He grabbed two trays and handed me one.

“Truce?” he said, a little too lightly.

I gave him a look. “Was there a war?”

“No,” he said, loading up with eggs and bacon, “but I was kind of expecting you to vanish before I woke up.”

I ignored that. “The storm’s over. We’ll get back on the road after breakfast.”

“Sure,” he said, but there was something unreadable in the twist of his mouth.

We sat by the windows. He faced the view, I faced him. Not on purpose. It just happened that way.

It was quiet at first. We both ate. He was humming under his breath, some off-key tune I couldn’t place. I drank my coffee black and hot and tried not to think about the night before. His hands. His mouth. His heartbeat against my palm.

I failed.

“So,” he said after a while, “how weird would it be if we just stayed here through New Year’s?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Instead of going home?”

“Exactly. We build a pillow fort, burn firewood irresponsibly, and you teach me how to do that turny-flip thing you swimmers do. I’ll teach you how to skate backward without breaking a leg.”

I didn’t smile, but my mouth twitched. That was about as far as I let it go.

“It’d be easier,” he added, a little softer. “No expectations here.”

I met his gaze for a moment too long, then looked away.

There was something dangerous about the ease between us this morning. Not the heat of last night. That was done. It was the familiarity that crept in now. The comfort. The way my shoulders weren’t tense for once and the silence between us didn’t feel like a failure.

That was the kind of thing I couldn’t afford.

“Thanks for breakfast,” I said, finishing the last of my eggs and pushing the plate aside.

Lennox leaned back in his chair, coffee mug cradled in both hands. “You talk more in the morning than I expected.”

“I talk when I have something to say.”

He didn’t press. Just nodded like that made sense to him. It did, apparently.

We finished the meal with minimal small talk. Outside, the parking lot had already been salted and cleared. People were beginning to pack their cars and head back down the mountain. I watched them through the glass, a quiet ache tightening somewhere behind my ribs.

Lennox caught the look, but he didn’t ask about it. Just stood and said, “Guess it’s time.”

“Yeah.”

I followed him out into the cold, snow crunching under our shoes. We were both quiet again, but not in the same way as yesterday. This wasn’t tension. It was understanding. Mutual, if unspoken.

Last night had been a moment.

This morning, we moved past it.

There was nothing else guys like us could afford to do anyway.

“Look,” Lennox said as we neared our cabin. “About last night…”

I shrugged. “We don’t need to overthink it.”

He stretched his lips into a smile that went all the way to his eyes. “I just wanted to say that it was great.”

“Yeah?” I asked, a touch of pride worming its way into my heart.

Lennox gave a strong nod. “I needed it.”

I searched for words that would mean something to him, but I failed to find them. “Yeah. Me too.”

Lennox switched to totally casual as he took another step toward the cabin and hesitated. “And hey, ten days back home is a long-ass time. If you’re ever bored, hit me up.”

Yes , I thought, heart leaping forward and dick stirring before I could control myself.

Hastings was a cute place, but boring, and my family was intense.

To carve out an hour and lose myself in Lennox seemed like an opportunity I couldn’t miss.

Except, if I lost myself in him, I doubted I would find my way back so easily.

Lennox grinned, although it drained out of his eyes. “Or not. Whatever, you know?”

He was being kind, and I respected it. “It’s just…I don’t have that luxury right now to commit to anything. And…” I shrugged, leaving the rest unsaid.

But as we stepped into the house to pack our things, the words welled to my lips and begged to be said. And if I see you more, I’ll have no choice .

We didn’t rush packing, but we didn’t linger, either. The cabin felt smaller in the daylight. Less like a secret and more like a place that had served its purpose.

Lennox tossed our bags in the back of the car while I brushed the last of the snow from the windshield. The sun was out now, bright against the fresh snow, and the sky had that sharp, cloudless clarity you only get after a storm.

He drove. I watched the mountains fall away behind us, their peaks shrinking in the rearview. The heater hummed, and music played low. At some point, he passed me a protein bar and didn’t say anything about it. I took it. We drove a little farther.

By the time we hit the main highway, the last of the snow had turned to slush. I rolled down my window an inch and let the cold air in. It helped clear my head. Maybe a little too much.

Lennox said something about the interstate being clean all the way home. I nodded. That was good. It meant we’d be there before dark. Back to reality. Back to the plan.

Neither of us said much more after that.

There wasn’t anything that needed saying.

What would I say, anyway? “Don’t wait for me.

” That was stupid. It presumed that he was yearning for more of me.

In reality, Lennox had gotten exactly what he had wanted, and so had I.

Brilliant, blazing, devastatingly passionate, and, most importantly, temporary.

It was when he pulled up before my house in the early afternoon that we sat in the silence for a few moments.

We didn’t need to, but a sort of reluctance came over me.

Just a few paces away was the entrance to my parents’ house.

Snips waited inside, my parents, too, and a life I had left behind like a broken and glued vase you didn’t want to throw away.

Even if I had the time for it, even if he wanted it, even if stars aligned, where would I bring him?

I saw my parents so clearly in this moment, the memory fresh as if it had just happened.

It wasn’t so bad. Not the way I heard horror stories of guys coming out and getting thrown out of their homes.

My parents didn’t say anything nasty. They didn’t say anything at all.

I had video called them to break the news before the tabloids could, and I saw the way their cheekbones dropped a little when I uttered the fateful words.

“Thank you for telling us,” Mom had said, and Dad had cleared his throat.

After that, nothing. When we spoke, it didn’t come up.

When I visited, it was life as usual. Snips asked, of course, but she was smart enough to do it when we were alone and young enough to ask all the wrong questions.

“So, are you dating? Is he handsome? I bet he’s blond.

” Yet my parents never mentioned it again.

It was as if I hadn’t come out, and the news hadn’t spread.

It was as if this part of my life was irrelevant—worse, nonexistent.

Was that a place where I would want this cheerful, smiling guy to enter? To have dinner with people who would do everything in their polite power to pretend I’d brought home a buddy, not a lover? Hell no.

But it didn’t matter. We weren’t lovers, and we had no time to become lovers.

“Well, thanks for the…everything,” I said, gesturing vaguely.

Lennox shot me his signature grin, the kind that melted the frost from the corners of the windshield. “My pleasure.”