Page 30 of Hearts Colliding
“I’ve no reason to tell you anything,” Alex said, turning to him. “Yet…” He exhaled a weary breath, before he began, each word steady and measured.
“My father was a lot older than my mum. He idolised her, worshipped the ground she walked on. She was the woman he’d been waiting all his life for.” A bitter smile twisted Alex’s lips. “It was one of the very, very few times he shared a confidence with me.” His smile fell away. “And when she died, Jesus… To say he fell apart, it doesn’t even come close. He locked himself away after the funeral. I didn’t see him for days and days on end, but I heard his rage as he railed against the universe for taking her away. It scared the life out of me.
“They were as different to one another as it was possible to get, but they loved each other so much, and he wanted all her love, every single drop of it. But of course she loved me, too, which to his mind meant there was less for him. It was all rubbish, but it’s what he believed.
“It didn’t help that as I grew up it was clear I wasn’t anything like him, in any shape or form. I didn’t look like him, I had no interest in all the things he believed his one and only son should have been — all the hunting, fishing, shooting type of stuff. As heir to the august Love name and inheritance, I had a duty to be the consummate country squire.” Alex shook his head and muttered something under his breath, too quiet for Ryan to catch. “Maybe if I had taken after him more, things would have been easier. I don’t know.” Alex topped up his glass again. “Must be the brandy loosening my mouth, and this unbelievable bloody day. I haven’t said that much about either of them in years.”
“Perhaps you should. Talk about them, I mean.”
“I tried that. A friend of mine, he said I should get therapy.” Alex laughed and shook his head. “He bugged me so much about it, I finally gave in. I paid a fortune to be told I needed to make peace with the events of my childhood as that was the only way I’d find closure. Jesus, what a load of fucking claptrap. I told the therapist that the only way I’d find peace was when my father was nothing more than a pile of ash in a jam jar.”
“And now he is, have you found it?”
Alex gulped back his brandy. “Look, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’ve already said far too much. All those daddy issues you said I have? Well, seems like you were right, which no doubt you’ll pass on to the rest of the Stop Alex Love brigade.”
Ryan stiffened. “Is that what you really think? Whatever you tell me about your family, stays in this room. The village is full of gossips, Alex, but I’m not one of them.”
Alex sighed and rubbed his hands down his face. “I’m sorry — it really does seem to be a night for apologies, doesn’t it? And the answer’s no, I don’t believe you’d do what I accused you of. You strike me as a man who’ll keep a promise, and believe me, there aren’t many of those around.” Alex yawned. “I really should get some sleep.” He pushed himself to standing, and Ryan did the same, taking the unwanted cue that Alex had declared the evening over.
“Where will I find the bedroom?”
Alex didn’t answer as instead he sucked in his lower lip.
“Alex?”
“Upstairs. Try the first floor. There are a couple of rooms which still have beds, if nothing else, so you’ll need to take some bedding up with you.”
Ryan’s gaze flittered over to the pile of bedding stacked up on a chair. “Are you telling me you sleep in here?” Under his stare, Alex flushed.
“This is by far the nicest room in the house, so yes I do.” He got up and made his way to the corner. “There’re spare duvets and pillows, and stuff. Help yourself and go and choose which ever room you want. There are five bedrooms on the first floor alone, but I should warn you they’re freezing and dusty. Sorry it’s not much of an offer.”
“I can think of a better one.”
Without thought for what it would mean, or what it would bring, Ryan took a step closer, bridging the distance between them.
Maybe it was the strange events that had unfolded from the moment he’d spotted the stranded sports car, or maybe it was the proximity, forced on them by the storm, or maybe, it was the heady, caramel sweet brandy. Whatever, in that moment, Ryan couldn’t have cared less that they were enemies, entrenched on either side of the barricades. All he knew was that they had been brought together for one night of truce. Placing his palms on either side of Alex’s face, he swept his thumbs along the sharp ridge of his cheekbones.
Alex sighed, and pushed into Ryan’s touch, like a cat seeking comfort. “You haven’t laid out the terms of your counteroffer.” Alex looked up, his gaze meeting Ryan’s own.
“It’s simple enough. I could sleep down here. I promise to be a perfect gent.”
“I said I believed you to be a man who kept his promises. But what if I don’t want you to?”
Ryan’s eyelids dropped to a close as their lips met. Roping his arms around Alex’s waist he pulled him tight into his body, sinking deeper into the kiss, tasting and savouring every part of Alex’s sweet, warm mouth. Ryan groaned in agonised delight at the hard ridge of Alex’s erection rubbing against his own, and his hips answered with a slow rock, as rhythmical as the ebb and flow of the tides.
“Sleep with me down here tonight,” Alex breathed against Ryan’s lips.
Alex’s words reached deep into Ryan’s heart. Alex Love made his pulse race and his breath quicken in a way no other man before had done. Just being with him, it was crossing a line he had no right to cross. Holding Alex Love, kissing Alex Love, fucking Alex Love… All the lines blurred then faded to nothing when Alex pulled him deeper into a soul searing kiss.
In the warm room, with Alex in his arms, nothing else mattered. They were just two men with an overriding need of each other, all their differences pushed aside and out of sight.
Slowly, Ryan unbuttoned Alex’s loose shirt and, easing it from him, it fell to the floor.
“I never imagined you looked like this.” Ryan ran the backs of his fingers down Alex’s smooth chest, across his stomach to the waistband of his jeans, sitting low on his hips. Under his touch, every one of Alex’s muscles quivered.
“Too thin and lanky, you mean?” Alex’s voice was quiet and unsteady, edged with defensiveness.
Ryan shook his head. “No. Lean and graceful. Like a dancer.” Whatever self-disparaging ideas Alex had about his body, for Ryan the man was—
