Page 93 of Too Close To Home

He’d only ever been with Chris, but that didn’t make him naïve or inexperienced. Far from it. Twenty years together had given them plenty of time to discover exactly what they liked and how they liked it. Harrison knew sex. He knew desire. He knew his own body.

What he didn’t know was how to make any of it mean nothing.

He’d never had sex with someone he didn’t love. Never woken beside someone he barely knew. Never had to work out where physical intimacy ended and everything else began, because with Chris there had never been a line between them.

Jake, apparently, knew exactly where that line was.

And Harrison had absolutely no business finding out which side of it Jake’s offer of a lift belonged on. Not when the thought of being alone with him in that van already stirred something Harrison hadn’t felt in years.

Want.

Simple, physical want.

Christ, he remembered that.

“Jake!” Deacon yelled again.

Jake called back, “Aye, fucking hell. Coming!”

His attention returned to Harrison, and for a second, he looked genuinely torn between the stage and staying exactly where he was.

“You sure?” he asked again.

“I’m sure.”

Jake dragged his teeth across the inside of his cheek, still watching him. For one ridiculous second, Harrison wondered what would happen if Jake simply ignored the answer. If he stepped closer, took the decision out of Harrison’s hands and told him he was driving him home whether he liked it or not.

The image arrived far too easily.

Jake close. That rough voice telling him to stop arguing. A hand on his back steering him towards the door.

Harrison swallowed.

You might not object, eh, Harry?

No.

That was precisely the problem.

The realisation tightened low in his gut. Dangerous. Unwelcome. So he straightened, pulling his coat collar higher. “Goodnight, Jake.”

Jake’s reaction was small but unmistakable. His shoulders dipped, as if quietly folding in on himself.

Harrison had to look away.

Because if he stayed there another second, he might do something reckless. Something selfish. Something he barely recognised in himself anymore. He might have stayed. Might have said yes. And he might have let Jake Whitton drag him outside to take his mind off the fact that he’d only ever meant to belong to one man. And whilst that man’s voice remained in his head, he had left his body, and Harrison, behind.

“I know, Harry. I know.”

Now duty was the only thing holding him upright.

And duty did not allow for men like Jake Whitton.

So Harrison turned and walked towards the door, the noise from the stage rising again as the band dismantled their gear behind him.

He didn’t look back.

But he felt Jake’s gaze on him all the same.