Page 117 of Captivated

A moment later, Nate’s heartbeat quickened a little.

Am I in those thoughts?

Zeeb’s name was no longer just a sound but a feeling, rough as rope and warm as worn leather. It had grown in him over two weeks of long silences, slow-building trust, and the calloused gentleness of a man who probably knew horses better than people.

A man who saw Nate better than most of the people Nate had ever known.

The fire crackled loudly, and Nate blinked.

He isn’t the only one who sees me.

There was Sol who’d helped untangle Nate’s mess of thoughts to form something more coherent. The hands, most of them gruff and foul-mouthed, sure, but all of them kind.

His gaze returned to Robert and Toby, Butch and Sol.

I believed the kind of love they share wasn’t meant for me.The aching kind. The safe kind. It had been hidden from Nate’s sight, locked behind a wide door with no visible keyhole.

Only now, it was open, and he could peer inside. And for the first time he could think about what lay there.

What waited for him.

And then there was Zeeb, solid beside him, his arms bare under a rolled-up flannel, open at the neck, the firelight licking shadows into the hollow of his collarbones.

Nate caught himself looking. Staring. Again.

Zeeb’s description of Eli flickered into Nate’s mind, how people had gravitated toward him, had circled him as though they were orbiting planets. All of a sudden Nate saw himself in those words.

Zeeb pulls me in. Draws me to him.

A pull Nate didn’t want to resist.

Zeeb could feel them watching. Walt was the worst, barely hiding a grin as he elbowed Matt and made some crack Zeeb didn’t quite catch. Teague’s gaze was more subtle, the narrowed eyes of a man who’d known him too long and said too little.

Sol’s gaze drifted in Zeeb’s direction now and then, but Zeeb couldn’t read his expression.

Zeeb kept his face forward, tried to focus on the fire, but Nate was a heat at his side that tugged at something raw and restless in him.

What came to mind was that rubdown.

This is stupid. It was just a massage.But the second his palms had met Nate’s bare skin, his back so much tenser than it had any right to be, Zeeb had known the truth. There was no getting around it anymore.

I wanted to keep goin’. I wanted to touch and stroke…

To kiss.

The sound that had tumbled from Nate’s lips, low and grateful, had unfurled something deep and secret. And here they were, sitting shoulder to shoulder, and every time Nate shifted a little closer, even unconsciously, it was as if someone ran a wire between Zeeb’s ribs and tugged.

Hard.

He glanced at Nate who was gazing into the fire, his jaw tense.

Zeeb swallowed.I should move. Say something dumb to kill the moment.

Instead, he said in a low voice, “Storm’s comin’ after all.”

Nate turned his head toward him. “You can feel it?”

Zeeb nodded. “Pressure’s dropping. Sky’s too quiet.”

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