Page 21 of Caged Hunger

“Whoa!” Cameron shouted, losing his balance and suddenly falling toward the floor.

He didn’t fall far before a pair of large, muscular arms wrapped around his body, catching him and pulling him tight against a solid chest.

The familiar, masculine scent he knew so well suddenly flooded his senses.

Cameron took in a breath and almost creamed himself.

The man smelled like dude and sweat, two of his favorite scents in the entire world.

For a moment, he thought he had died and gone to gay heaven.

Once his brain had finally come back online, he looked up into the gentle gray eyes of his savior—Basher.

Cameron’s body suddenly stiffened when he realized that Basher’s amazingly hot body was firmly pressed against him.

Now he was truly certain he had died and gone to gay-boy heaven.

“Oh! Hey! Umm, thanks! You saved my ass,” Cameron gushed, suddenly forgetting how to talk and act like a human.

He was okay with speech when he was low-key stalking Basher and watching his every move from afar. But when the guy showed up out of nowhere and wrapped his muscular body around him… all sense of thought and speech disappeared.

“You okay?” Basher asked in his usual growly voice. The man wasn’t much of a talker, but when he did talk, he had the ability to make anyone’s panties wet.

Cameron nodded, partly because he was embarrassed for being such a klutz and partly because all his blood was rapidly flowing away from his brain and down to his cock.

Basher set him down gently on solid ground but didn’t remove his hands from his hips.

Neither of them moved or said a word. They simply stood there, lost in each other’s gaze. Basher’s hands rested firmly on Cameron’s hips, while Cameron’s fingers curled gently around his bulging biceps. The silence stretched on between them, heavy with unspoken thoughts and a tension neither seemed willing to break.

If there was one moment Cameron could make last forever, it would be this one. As he gazed into Basher’s pale-gray eyes, he didn’t see the fearsome biker so many others claimed to see. Instead, he saw a man struggling to find his place in a world that seemed determined to reject him. A world that didn’t embrace differences or unconventional appearances, that looked down on anything it didn’t understand, and that treated anyone who strayed from society’s narrow definition of “normal” as an outsider.

Gazing up into the eyes of his silent Hero, Cameron used all his self-control not to lean up and kiss him.

Slowly, he felt the warmth from Basher’s body pull away from him. The loss of his touch was already heartbreaking.

Cameron cleared his throat once Basher’s hands had dropped from his body.

“Sorry, I tried to fix that box and must have lost my footing.” He pointed up at the mostly fixed box and felt his cheeks begin to flush.

Eyes still locked on Cameron’s, Basher reached up and slid the box back a few more inches.

The bastard didn’t even have to stand on his tiptoes or use the stepladder or anything.

Chuckling, Cameron turned and headed for the stairs.

“So, what are you doing here? I thought everyone had gone home for the night?”

“Was fixing a leak in the men’s restroom. The sink was dripping,” Basher explained.

A man who knew how to fix things. God, could this guy get any hotter?

They walked up the stairs and back into the main bar.

Shit. He had forgotten to bring up the stock they needed for tomorrow.

Fuck it. He would come in early and grab it before they opened. He had been humiliated enough for one night. He didn’t have to add forgetful idiot to the mix.

“Are you all done?” Basher asked, following close behind him.