Page 35 of Holiday Pines

The confession hung in the air, suspended between them, like haze on a misty morning.

“What if it ruins everything?” Wes asked.

“It won’t.”

“The farm?—”

“Will be fine. I promise. Whatever happens, the restructuring is already done. Signed. You’re safe.”

Jake’s hand came up, cupping Wes’s jaw.

“Am I?” Wes asked.

Jake didn’t answer. Instead, he closed the space between them.

The kiss was desperate, nearly a week of want compressed into the crush of mouths. Jake made a sound—half gasp, half moan—and kissed back just as hard, hands fisting in Wes’s flannel.

They stumbled backward, hitting the workbench. Tools rattled. Wes didn’t care. He kissed Jake deeper, tasted coffee and need and something sweet he couldn’t name.

“Fuck,” Wes breathed against Jake’s mouth. “Fuck, I want?—”

“Tell me.”

“You. This. I don’t know. Everything.”

Jake kissed him again, harder, teeth scraping Wes’s bottom lip. His hands dropped to Wes’s belt, paused. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah. God, yeah.”

“Lock the door.”

Wes crossed to the door on unsteady legs, twisted the deadbolt. When he turned back, Jake was unbuttoning his shirt with fingers that shook slightly.

“Let me,” Wes said.

He replaced Jake’s hands with his own, worked the buttons slowly, revealing skin inch by inch. When the shirt fell open, Wes traced his palms over Jake’s chest—lean muscle, soft hair, the rapid rise and fall of breath.

“You’re beautiful,” Wes said.

Jake laughed shakily. “No. You are.”

Jake shrugged out of the shirt, letting it fall. His hands went to Wes’s flannel, made quick work of the buttons. They undressed each other slowly, carefully, like unwrapping something precious.

When they were both shirtless, Wes pulled Jake against him, skin to skin. Jake was smaller, leaner, but he fit against Wes perfectly.

“Where?” Jake asked.

“Here. Now.”

Jake dropped to his knees in the sawdust.

Wes had imagined this the night before, his hand on his cock, trying to be quiet so Henry wouldn’t hear. But imagination was nothing compared to reality.

Jake on his knees, looking up at him with those devastating eyes. Jake’s hands working his belt, his zipper, pulling Wes’s pants down. Jake’s mouth?—

“Oh, God?—”

The heat was overwhelming. Jake sucked him slow and thorough, one hand stroking what he couldn’t take, the other squeezing Wes’s hip for balance.