Discovering Dalton(50)

“How can you connect with this guy so soon? Have you known him before and just flicked from friends to possible boyfriends?”

“No. I met him about a week ago. I know how this sounds, Liam, and I'm not here to say this is what I'm doing, I'm here to ask your advice. I trust you, above anyone else I could ask. I’m here with you because you're the only person I want to talk to. I don’t want to lose our friendship. You’ve always said no matter what happens, we would be friends. So here I am, asking you to be my friend, to help me because I don’t know what I should do.”

“If I said I wanted more, if I offered you a relationship, or the chance of one, would it change anything?” Liam played with the zip of his leather jacket.

“Are you offering me that, or is that a rhetorical question?”

“You said you connected with this new guy, that he was special. You’ve spent how long with him exactly?”

Dalton sighed. “Hours really.” Liam flashed his eyes to him and Dalton shrugged. “I know, but it was instant. Not attraction—okay, there was attraction. I'm not going to lie. This guy is beautiful, but he’s more than his looks. When we touched, it was like liquid heat rolling over me. He felt it too. It was this connection. I feel like I'm drawn to him.” Dalton walked to Liam, tilting his head back and looking into his brown eyes, so deep and warm. “It’s different from us, but, Liam… I want you. I mean, I really want you. You don’t know how difficult it is not giving up everything I have to you when we meet, but you don’t want what I need from you.”

“And this guy does? You talked about all this with him, have you, in the few hours you spent together?” Liam swiped off Dalton’s hand, reaching for the spare helmet he loaned to Dalton and thrusting it into his hands. “I don’t know what to say, Dalton, I really don’t. I don’t believe you can have that type of reaction, and I don’t think you're in the right head space to be considering giving this a go with him, with anyone.” Liam met his gaze and they both held it, not moving away, both just breathing hard, feeling the weight of that stare like a ton of bricks on Dalton’s shoulders. “I've never pushed. I've given you space because you need space, Dee. If this guy’s asking for—”

“All he's asked for is space.” Dalton rolled his shoulder.

“Well, so it’s you who’s pushing for more, then?” Liam shook his head, zipping up his jacket and taking hold of his own helmet. “You want him, you want more with him, you connect. He’s special, you say. I guess no one can tell you how to feel or who for. It’s not right for me to tell you to step back and not go for it. Even if I did, would it really change anything?”

Dalton moved closer, taking the helmet from him and placing it on the bike before holding Liam’s face in both his hands, forcing Liam to look at him. “Liam… what do you want from me?” He straddled Liam’s thigh, working his way closer, running his arms around his neck as they held the gaze. “I don’t want this thing to end, but I don’t want to mess you about either. I have no idea where this guy is going to take me, but I'm guessing neither of you are willing to share, not even if we’re just testing the waters and not actually being exclusive.”

“Has he said he wants you and him to be exclusive while he sorts out if he wants you or not, because that’s what it sound like to me, Dee. He’s not ready for you. He’s not sure. He wants to take it slow. You're the one asking for more and wanting it. Maybe this isn’t what you think. I don’t want you to get hurt. T has one bad relationship after another, and no matter how much I tell him to stay away from rebound relationships, that’s all he seems to have. If I could handcuff him to the bed and keep him with me, I'd do it.”

“To the bed? With you?” Dalton narrowed his eyes. They were only foster brothers after all.

“That’s not what I meant.” Liam’s honey coloured eyes burned brighter and Dalton rolled his thumb over those thick lips. “Dee, look…”

Dalton leaned in, placing their lips against each other’s. He wanted to be reminded just how good it felt to be with Liam, to see if he had a strong connection and he’d been imagining what happened with Troy. Yes, when they connected, it was there, the heat, the instant longing and craving, the desire to straddle his thighs and claim every inch of the man, the way Dalton felt held in those powerful arms, the sense of being protected and safe, the scent and familiar body against his own—it made them both react and quickly.

It was different, so very different from Troy, but there was something, something which Dalton couldn’t put his finger on. The way Liam caressed him, the way he felt like the only thing left in the universe when he was held by him. “Liam… what do you want from me?”

“All I've ever wanted was you to be happy, Dee.” Liam pulled him onto the bike, Dalton sliding his leg over it and sitting facing him, his legs now on top of Liam's and their bodies flush against the other. “I don’t know if can do that. I want to. I really fucking want to, Dalton. You're the closest I've ever come to giving up my way of life and going for it, but I can't… I don’t know what would happen at home, with T, with… He’s not… Things don’t work out with relationships. We don’t…” Liam broke off, grinding his jaw while he thought.

“Are you single because you want to be, or because he wants you to be?”

Liam met his eyes and Dalton saw the truth in them shining like the sun.

“Because he can't let you be with anyone, is that right?”

“It goes both ways, Dee. You don’t know how close we are, what we’ve gone through. We’re all we had for years, and that’s fucking hard to let go. We depend on the other. We’re one package and people can't cope with that, so they leave when they see how we are. You'd get hurt, and I won't hurt you.” Liam brushed his finger over Dalton's lips. “All I've really wanted was to see that smile on your lips, and when I'm the one who’s put it there, it’s a great feeling. I want you, Dalton. I… You're special. I always said that, and I meant it. You make me feel a lot where guys I've been with for a lot longer have never made me feel anything. Apart from T, you're the only man I've cared for like this. I wish… I want to make you stay, I want to take you home and never let go of you, but how can I when… You don’t connect with me like him, do you? Be truthful and tell me.”

Dalton held him close. He felt so much for Liam, but Troy had been this supernova. “It was different, but you're both so different, Liam. I don’t know how to describe what I feel for both of you. I feel more for you, and I know you more. I connect to you and I'm drawn to you. I feel like I'm a moth and you're this raging inferno burning me up. I feel like I won't survive if I'm too close, but as soon as I leave your light, I'm lost and on my way back. I need you, and I don’t know if that’s a healthy sort of need or a dependant insecurity thing.”

“I don’t want to lose you as a friend. I don’t want to lose you full stop.” Liam’s grip was so tight it hurt and Dalton kissed his neck, easing him a little. “Maybe we don’t have to stop this. Guy’s aren’t all like you, Baby. He could be cool with you dating other people, or, you know, doing sexual stuff until he’s willing to try out the whole more thing with you.”

Dalton sat back, playing with the zipper on Liam’s thick leather jacket, slowly meeting his eyes. Liam snorted, capturing his face with those big hands of his and smiling softly.

“You won't be though. You want all or nothing, right?”

“I guess so.” Dalton closed his eyes. The realisation he would never be the type of person to mess around and have sex without emotionally attaching himself to the other person shouldn’t have been a shock, but it was and he smiled to himself. “I don’t want a relationship, but it seems I'm not the only one, because all the men I meet don’t want that either. I should be happy with that, but I'm not.”

“I want you, you know I do, Dee.”

“But you don’t. You're not willing to risk your life changing to include me. You're not even willing to try.”

“That’s not how it is. I said I wasn’t willing to hurt you. I’d drag you home right now and give it a go. I'd be with just you. I'd try. I'm just saying…” Liam growled, his hand tensing on Dalton’s back. “For it to work, I'd have to give up a lot, and I'd have to hurt someone I love. Someone who right now… He only has me, Dalton, and he needs me. I'm all he's got. I don’t know how you'd deal with it, and I don’t want to hurt you. Even if it wasn’t for T, I don’t know how to even…” Liam buried his face in Dalton’s neck and just breathed him in. “You don’t know what I'm giving up by saying this because you don’t understand, no one understands. I don’t… you don’t know how difficult this is for me, but I can't do this.”





Chapter 31



Liam spent three hours working out some of his anger with his sparring partner in the local boxing ring, but it hadn't helped, and finally, after wearing out his friend, he turned to the punching bag, wrists aching, knuckles pulverised, body caked in sweat.