If It Drives (Market Garden, #7)(36)

James stared off into the middle distance. “There’s a funny phase in a divorce when you’re not sure the fighting was actually worse than the silence. Rationally, you know it was worse, and . . . the collateral damage of it, too.” He glanced at Cal. “The kids, we . . . we both knew we’d be putting them through hell whether we stayed together or split up, and I knew once it was over, I’d see less of them than I did before. I kept wondering if we were making a huge mistake. But there’s this moment, one that can drag on for weeks, when you really think the silence is worse than the shouting.” He played with the edge of the duvet. “I realised eventually that the silence leaves room for lots of echoes, and I’ve never learned to deal with them. There was always someone. The nanny, or the dog walker, or the . . . the kids. And now they’re gone. It’s like an amputation. Phantom pain from a lost limb, I guess.”

“But you still see the children,” Cal said softly.

James winced. “Not as often as a father should.”

Cal wished he hadn’t asked. The pain was clearly so raw that it was clawing at James’s soul. Cal had never considered what it might feel like, being a father. Or a husband. An ex-husband. He’d only thought far enough ahead to see himself with a string of boyfriends who’d be more or less graceful about the time he invested in his real career, and perfectly okay if that didn’t happen.

“You’re bisexual, right?” Cal asked, hoping this might steer the conversation into safer territory.

James nodded. “Are you?”

Cal shook his head. “Just men for me.”

Smiling almost nostalgically, James said, “I can’t blame you. I love women, but there’s something about men.” He shifted his gaze up to the ceiling, and the smile was definitely nostalgic now. “You know, I once fell madly in love with a fellow student at Oxford. Lovely man.” His expression darkened slightly. “We went our separate ways eventually, though, and I married a colleague at the consultancy.” Obviously he wasn’t talking about falling in love with her, not with the raw edges of that emotional wound so exposed. It would have made him more vulnerable to talk about how he at some point had loved his wife.

James sighed. Then he shook himself and turned to Cal again. He opened his mouth like he was about to speak, but his breath stopped when his eyes met Cal’s.

“Something wrong?”

James swallowed. One hand still on Cal’s leg, he twisted a little and reached for Cal’s face with the other. “I didn’t bring you here so we could talk about this kind of thing. Why are . . .” His fingertips brushed Cal’s cheek, drawing a shiver out of both of them. “Why are we talking about this?”

Cal absently swept his tongue across his lips. “Because I want to know you.”

James held his gaze for a moment, then shook his head and, as he leaned closer, whispered, “No you don’t.”

Before Cal could protest, James pressed his lips to Cal’s, and the kiss was so gentle and tender, Cal couldn’t hold on to a single thought. Not what they’d been talking about, not what they needed to talk about or shouldn’t talk about or a damned thing except how James’s mouth moved with his.

He sat up, curving a hand around James’s neck and pushing James’s lips apart with his tongue. Moaning softly, James opened to him, welcoming his increasingly forceful kiss. Goose bumps rose along Cal’s spine, and his dick hardened. His breath came faster. He pushed James back against the headboard, pinning him there.

He broke the kiss. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

Panting, James nodded. “Yes.”

I want to talk. I want to know you.

No you don’t.

I just want you.

Gripping James’s neck tighter, Cal kissed him again. He climbed on top, straddling James.

Cal broke away again and bent to kiss James’s neck. “Tell me again why you brought me here.”

James whimpered, squirming beneath Cal and dragging his fingers down Cal’s back. “I . . .”

“Tell me, or I’ll stop.”

James pulled in a sharp breath. “Because I want you. Like this.”

“Like how?”

“In bed.”

“Is that all?” Cal dug his teeth in just above James’s collarbone, enough for him to feel it without leaving a mark.

“N-no. I . . . What you did in the car. I wanted that again. And I didn’t want to wait until we got home, so I—”

“You wanted me telling you what to do.” Cal closed his eyes, pressing his lips to the side of James’s throat. There was more beneath the surface—more to James’s desire to have him like this, and more to Cal’s eagerness to give that to him—but he didn’t know how to get to it. Or if that was a Pandora’s box he really wanted to open right now.

He pushed himself up off James. “Get a condom.”

James lunged for the bedside table and grabbed the strip. He tore one off, then faced Cal, holding the foil square between his fingers.

Part of Cal wanted to order James to top him again. To give himself another chance to be in control and stay in control.

But that raw vulnerability still lingered in James’s eyes. The unspoken pleas. He didn’t just want Cal to be in control right now, he needed it.