Looking for Trouble(24)

He felt those eyes on him as he moved to the cabinet, grabbed a mug, then the creamer, and made himself a cup. While he made it, Clay said, “It’s okay to be nervous, ya know?”

“Oh? It is?”

“You’re being a smart-ass.”

“Speaking of…how does my ass look in these jeans?” He glanced over his shoulder at Clay.

Clay’s eyes darted toward the body part in question. “Like a butt.” He huffed.

“Gee, thanks. You really know how to make a guy feel good about himself. I was looking for something more along the lines of tight…sexy…incredibly fuckable.”

“Trouble…”

“Are you calling my name or talking about my ass?” Dylan questioned.

“Both.” Clay stood. “And that’s your name now, huh?”

“If the shoe fits…”

Clay grinned, and it made Dylan’s heart speed up. Damn it. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Why did Clay’s smile have to be so sexy?

Clay walked over, stepped close to Dylan, so fucking close, boxing him in against the counter. Dylan’s breath caught in his throat. Clay leaned in, and Jesus, Dylan froze, unsure what to say or do, which was a first for him when he was close to a man. Fuck, Clay smelled good. Like fresh-cut wood and soap. He moved in a bit more, his mouth now close to Dylan’s cheek, and Dylan’s knees nearly gave out. Clay was going to kiss him. Holy fuck, he was going to kiss him.

“Drink up, or you’re going to be late for work.” Clay set his cup down and backed away.

“Wait a minute…what was that? You were flirting with me, and then you just backed away?”

Clay shrugged. “Turnabout is fair play.”

“I hate you,” Dylan teased.

“Play nice and I will too. We’re supposed to be good.”

“I don’t wanna be good!” Dylan called after him as Clay walked to his bedroom.

“That’s because you’re trouble,” Clay replied before closing the door behind him.

Holy crap, that had been hot. Totally not a big deal and nothing that should have made him weak in the knees, but it had.

And Dylan was fucked because no matter how much he wanted to do the right thing when it came to Clay, like always, he was pretty sure he wasn’t strong enough to resist temptation.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN




Clay


It was official. Clay was no longer losing his mind—he’d already lost the motherfucker.

He didn’t know what he’d been thinking when he allowed himself to get so close to Dylan that morning. He’d wanted to feel him…inhale him…kiss the cocky grin right off his cute face.

Only the more time he spent with him, the more Clay was sure most of the cockiness wasn’t real. Yeah, Dylan knew he was a sexy little thing. He knew what his body did to Clay and other men, but when Clay thought about how Dylan had broken down that night by the side of the road, or how he’d acted almost like he hadn’t deserved something as simple as Clay running to the store for him, he saw that Dylan wasn’t quite who he thought.

But obviously he was thinking about him a lot. Damn it.

He needed to remember who Dylan was—Mike’s son, the best friend he’d ever had until that fateful night when Clay had broken Mike’s heart, shattered his world. He was going to repay him by helping Dylan, not drooling over how Dylan’s ass had looked in his pants that morning, which had in fact been tight, sexy, and incredibly fuckable.

As soon as he had the thought, a stab of guilt pierced his chest, nearly stealing his damn breath. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the desk in his tattoo parlor, and covered his face with his hands.

“What makes you think you’re too old to start over?”

“I don’t know,” Clay told the man drinking a beer beside him at the kitchen table. Gordon. The man who’d inked his skin…the man who’d taken him home…who’d talked to him all night…who’d held him while Clay lost it and found himself at the same time. Who squeezed Clay tighter when he told him how right it felt to be there with another man…with him. “Renée…”

“You said you told her, yes? And you’re separated?”

But it wasn’t that easy. Admitting to Renée who he was, that so much of their lives together had been a lie, hell, that Clay had been lying to himself too…that was one thing. Moving on, meeting a man, being with him was another. “Yeah, I told her. I’m almost forty years old, and I just left my wife because I admitted to myself I’m attracted to men. Am I really supposed to start over now? I’m acting like a child, leaving her.” He shook his head. Some moments it all felt so right, and in others he felt like he was having some sort of midlife crisis.

He was gay, then he was leaving Renée, then he was suddenly getting a tattoo and spending the night with another man for the first time.

“You still have a couple of years until you’re forty. And you deserve to be happy, Clay. You deserve to live your life, however that may be. You deserve your dreams. You’ve spent too long denying yourself. Don’t you think it’s time you stopped?”

Clay shoved out of the chair, gasping for breath. His chest felt like a boulder sat on top of him. Christ, he wasn’t sure why that memory of Gordon hit him then, why it hit him so powerfully.