Page 18 of Second Song

Only this doesn’t feel like my worst one.

Liam doesn’t press me. Doesn’t push. Doesn’t back me into a corner or take advantage of having more power than me. He even lets go of my hand.

I’m free to leave. To say no. To change my mind and focus on why I really came to Cornwall.

“No pressure,” he confirms quietly, and that’s all it takes. I grab his hand, and who cares if he’s the only one of us who’s had army training?

I still march faster than him.

8

LIAM

There’s a bell over the door of the pub where Rowan’s staying. It tinkles the same way as when I delivered a carrier bag holding the scuffed pair of glasses he wears. Now the creak of old stairs adds to my usual internal radio station, but I tune into a different frequency as soon as Rowan fumbles with something outside his bedroom.

He’s quiet. So quiet that at any other time I might miss his whisper turning shaky. “Get it together, Byrn.”

He’s talking to himself, not to me. That doesn’t stop me from asking, “You okay?”

He holds up an old iron door key. “Yeah. It won’t turn.”

“Good thing you’re hooking up with an ex-Royal Engineer.”

I reach around him, and he surrenders a key I don’t need, because here’s a rule the army hammered home good and early—always assume operator error. I try the handle, and the door swings open.

“You didn’t lock it.”

“Ha!” His laugh is strangled. “Anyone would think I was in a hurry.” There’s plenty of evidence of that, and not only in an unlocked door. It’s right there in the contents of the bag I delivered, chocolate canister and tissue paper now strewn across his bed. He points at that and at a window hanging wide open. “Too late to play hard to get, right?”

“You don’t have to play anything with me.”

We’re still in the doorway. He still has his back to me, which begs for me to press close, only there’s a jittery edge to his next laugh.

I could back off.

Maybe I should, only I can’t ignore this sudden tension that a mirror across the room confirms isn’t my imagination. It reflects a crystal-clear signal that Rowan’s as wary as the first time I saw him. He’s back to holding himself as tightly as he held that lamb, so I offer another option. “Or we could just flick on the kettle and see how that hot chocolate tastes. Is that what you’d prefer, Row?”

His headshake is instant, and so is me sliding my arms around him. My front is pressed to his back, and I’m still half hard after that alleyway kiss. He must feel how much I want to pick up with what he’d seemed on board with.

His breath still hitches, his heart going like the clappers under my palms, and his breath catches again when I kiss down his neck to his shirt collar. That fabric stops me from mouthing any lower, so I touch a button and check in. “Yeah?”

“Y-yes.” He gets with the programme, unfastening his shirt while I yank his shirttail from his trousers and get my hands on bare skin. A final button opens, and I skim a smoother chest and stomach than mine. His nipples are another signal, hard and tight points already despite it being a warm evening. That could be down to the breeze through that open window.

“You still good?”

The open window also lets in the sound of the sea, which blends, thank fuck, with internal noise that can sometimes drive me crazy. Tinnitus means peace is hard to come by, but here, with my mouth on that sweet spot at the base of his neck and my hands roaming, what I hear loudest are the sounds he lets out when I suck, and that’s more than enough confirmation to keep going.

I drop a hand to his fly. He’s hard under the heel of my palm, his groan another positive signal. I move forward, still behind him, taking him with me so the door can close behind us and I can get his fly down in private. His trousers puddle, tangling over his shoes, and he stumbles until he kicks them off. Then I steer him to a bed littered with proof that I haven’t stopped thinking of him, hoping all afternoon that he was okay. I still can’t stop wanting that for him, even now, and the tightening of my arms around him again to stop him tripping over his own feet only confirms it.

We’re a step away from his bed but I can’t let him go yet. I kiss the taut stretch of the side of his neck again, my arms banding so tight around him, and this time, he hums.

That sound usually keeps me company even when I don’t want to hear it.

From Rowan?

I can’t get enough of him telling me without words that he likes this. Being hugged, I mean. By me. Because that’s what this is. I’m hugging him like he hugged that lamb, and thank fuck Matt isn’t watching. He’d never stop laughing at me for ditching him for a good long cuddle.

Or maybe Matt would give me a thumbs-up at Rowan melting like this. That’s what he does when I can’t keep in a happy rumble of my own—he melts as if he’s touch-starved and a good long hug is exactly what he’s needed.

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