Page 28 of When The Dust Settles

I had an idea of what went on in Rand and Stef’s bedroom because of what I knew of them as men, and I knew what everyone else thought, but maybe we were all wrong. Maybe my big scary half brother liked Stef to have his way with him. Maybe they switched, and not like it mattered, not like I truly cared, but all of it had wreaked havoc on what I thought I was supposed to do and be and made me think I was looking for one thing when something else—or someone else—was what I needed.

Pushing him back, I stared into Mac’s now dark charcoal eyes, clouded with passion, heavy lidded with blown pupils.

His breath hitched. “Why’re you waiting?”

I had no idea what I was supposed to do. “Maclain?” I understood the mechanics of the act, the lube, that there was prep involved and not simply me shoving myself inside of him. There were steps, but initiating them was lost on me.

“Honey,” he rumbled. “It’s taking everything in me to not attack you, so if I’m what you want, get the lube out of my pack right there and fuck me.”

I concentrated on keeping my voice level. “You’d let me do that?”

“I would beg you to do that if that’s what it would take.”

Jesus.

He wanted me so bad that it didn’t matter if he had me or I had him. How fucking hot was that? It didn’t make a difference to him even though the first thing he’d said to me was when I sat down on his bunk that I wasn’t a top, which must have meant that his plan was for me to be on the bottom. And when he’d said it, I had been excited, not scared, not questioning, not anything but made of yes. “But you don’t even… like me,” I ground out.

“Idiot,” he murmured before he lunged at me, knocking me back down onto his bunk, and I was caught under 240 pounds of rugged, hard burled man.

Even after such a short time, I was already used to the ravenous toe-curling, spine-melting kisses and returned each and every one as I took the tour with my hands, touching him everywhere I’d always wanted to, his thick dirty-blond hair, his wide, sculpted back, my fingers tracing down over his ribs before moving to the solid, defined chest. When he had to breathe, I kissed him everywhere else, across his clavicle, up his throat, over his jaw, my kiss-swollen lips abraded by stubble before they settled, again, over his.

“Wait,” he insisted, about to lift away.

I caught his bottom lip so he couldn’t, tugging on it with my teeth, making it clear he had no choice but to kiss me.

“That was fast,” he sighed as I rolled him to his back, sitting up, straddling his thighs.

“What?”

“You showing me what you wanted,” he answered, taking hold of my thighs so I couldn’t move. “Now why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind so I’m not the only one naked.”

“I like looking at you,” I confessed, slipping my hands on his chest down to his abdomen. “And I never thought you’d ever let me touch you.”

“Any man would let you touch him, Glenn,” he assured me, “and beg for the privilege. You have no idea how lethal that smile of yours is, how much I’ve wanted to touch them thick lashes of yours when they’re restin’ on your cheek, and how many times I’ve stopped myself from putting you flat on your back ’cause I knew how bad you needed to be kissed.”

I sucked in a breath. The revelation that he thought I was appealing surged through me, and it felt so good. But I pushed it aside, needing to be clearheaded when I talked to him. “Listen, I don’t wanna be fucked and just left after—I’ve been runnin’ from that.”

“You’ve been runnin’ from everything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shook his head. “You realize you’re usually mean enough to hunt bears with a hickory switch, right?”

“Me?”

“Hell yes, you.” He snorted. “I ain’t never seen a man piss off so many people so fast who only want to keep him ’round.”

“Keep me?”

“For fuck’s sake, Glenn,” he replied almost angrily, “all any of us wants is for you to be out on the ranch.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You know.”

I shrugged, thinking of my conversations with both Rand and Zach and what they’d also said when they thought I was asleep yesterday. “Maybe a little. Now.”

He rolled me to my back and settled over me gently, as to not put any pressure on my side, but holding me down at the same time so I couldn’t get away.