Page 20 of Hurricane Love

“Or maybe you’re just enough,” Diego said.

“Maybe.” Wylie looked bashful all of a sudden. This was a risk for him too, being interested in a man like himself. Diego could be gruff at times and cold. He tended to detach when things got too personal. And his bad moods were no cakewalk either. But he wasn’t going to focus on the negative.

“I should probably get going,” Diego said and pulled out his phone to order a ride.

“Take my car,” Wylie insisted.

“What about you and Hannah?”

“I’ll borrow Nancy’s car in the morning and take Hannah back to her car.”

“How will I get your car back to you?”

“That family dinner is tomorrow, right?” Wylie asked.

“Yeah,” Diego said with a heavy sigh. Just the thought of it left him feeling emotionally depleted.

“You want me to go with you as backup? If it sucks, we can leave, no problem.”

Wylie was willing to endure it for him? But he really didn’t know what he was getting into. “Are you sure? I have a big family,” Diego warned.

“Free food right?” Wylie gave him one of those cavalier smiles. “Besides, gotta meet the parents some time.”

“Too fast,” Diego said, but he was grinning.

“Think about it. You have my number. You can let me know tomorrow. Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

Wylie laid a hand on the back of his neck, similar to that night at the pit, and guided him down the stairs. Diego wondered if the younger man liked to take charge in bed too, and would he like that? The surge of desire coursing through him suggested that hemight. That part of him had been interrupted before it even had a chance to fully develop. He didn’t even have a full picture of what he liked sexually.

Beside the car, Wylie unclipped the fob from his key ring and passed it over to Diego. “Take care of Charlene, all right?”

“Charlene? Yeah, I will. I’ll treat her like my own.”

They were standing close to each other now with the light from the motion sensor falling over Wylie’s masculine features, his face half in shadow. His jaw was freshly shaven and military sharp. His breath smelled sweet like cloves with a faint fume of vodka, and Diego wanted to know what he tasted like too. But he’d told Wylie already to go slow, and he didn’t want to send mixed signals. Still, the dark look in Wylie’s eyes told him the lustful feelings were mutual.

Wylie leaned his forehead against Diego’s. “See you tomorrow,” he said, then gave him the slightest brush of his lips at the corner of his mouth, enough that Diego wanted to chase that mouth with his own.

Instead, Diego got into the car and pretended to fiddle with the controls while Wylie slowly backed away and climbed the deck steps, watching him pull out of the gravel drive with a smirk on his face and eyes that knew too much.

As Diego left the island behind and crossed the bridge heading back toward the mainland, he was struck by a haunting certainty that everything was about to change–a storm brewing on the horizon. Something beautiful or something terrible? Diego honestly didn’t know.

CHAPTER 7

WYLIE

Wylie awokethe next morning with his face pressed against something rough—not his pillow—and with dried drool crusted on his mouth. He head throbbed, the harsh morning light making it worse, as he slowly opened his eyes to realize he’d been sleeping on the couch.

That’s right, Hannah had stayed over due to her boyfriend being a Grade-A asshole. He was definitely hungover but didn’t feel as terrible as he should, probably due to the fact that he’d hydrated the night before. And then he recalled his conversation with Diego on the roof. A warm, fuzzy feeling started in his stomach and unfurled lower, to his groin. The night hadn’t gone as expected, but it had ended well enough, if his memory could be trusted.

And he might even have a date tonight.

He adjusted his morning wood, tugging lazily at his cock while thinking about Diego’s expressive honey brown eyes and gruff exterior, so at odds with one another, but the man had revealed a softer side of himself last night. His doubts and fears, the fact that he’d never been in a relationship before. He’d asked Wylie to go slow with him. Never before had a man asked for that. Usually it was a race to see who could pull their dick out thefastest, but Wylie was tantalized by this slower approach. He could let Diego set the pace.

And he wondered, yet again, what Diego looked like naked. All those tattoos, each one with a story. He must have gotten them when he was young. The man had been through some shit and had walls that were thick as brick and difficult to penetrate. The key was to invite that softer, more expressive side to come out. Wylie would break him down slowly, map that beautiful body with his hands, see if Diego liked his nipples played with while he slowly sucked his cock, edging him into oblivion. Would Diego moan with pleasure or keep himself locked up tight? What might it take to make the reserved man really unravel?

His stomach growled, interrupting the fantasy as he reluctantly remembered his house guest and the need for breakfast. He pulled his hand out of his boxers, climbed off the couch, and stretched his back, peering through the mini-blinds to check the weather. Sunny, muggy, and hot. A good day for pressure washing.

Wylie ducked his head into the bedroom to find Hannah still asleep, snoring softly with her mouth partway open, wearing one of his old high school drama club t-shirts and a pair of his boxers. Rather than poke the bear, he decided to go see about borrowing Nancy’s car. Tugging on some sweatpants and a raggedy old t-shirt, he slipped on the slides he kept by the front door and stepped outdoors. The sun was too much for his throbbing head, so he reached back inside to grab his sunglasses off the countertop. Not even nine in the morning and it was already 90 degrees outside.