Cowboy Gangster 03 - Outlaws of Love (2 page)

♦

“Should we go?” Angel sat forward on the sofa and glanced toward the hall. His movement disturbed the pup who’d been stretched out across his lap and Angel set it on the floor. Jonah trotted into the kitchen to his food dish, found it empty then began nosing around the floor for stray kernels of puppy food.

Dane watched the pup absently. “No,” he murmured. “I don’t think so.”

“I know Clint said everything wasn’t okay when he came in,” Angel looked at him. “But he wasn’t talking about him and Axel, right? I mean, they’re okay…” He looked at the hall again where muffled echoes from the bedroom drifted out. “…They
sound
okay.”

Releasing a slow breath, Dane told him, “That sound can be deceiving.”

“What do you mean?” Angel asked anxiously. “You don’t think Clint is going to…leave…do you?”

“I don’t know,” Dane whispered. That look of distress on the cowboy’s face when he’d come in…something wasn’t right. The man had ‘leaving’ in his eyes.

“Do you know why he left in the middle of the night?” Angel asked. “Did Gabe say?”

Dane shook his head. “No. I’m not even sure Clint gave him any details. But he knew something was seriously wrong. He said Clint sounded…scared. And Axel said so as well. And that’s just not Clint.”

Sliding back, Angel rested against Dane’s chest and laid his head on his shoulder. “Even if something was really wrong, why would it make him leave Axel? I mean, he
can’t
. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Axel so happy. He
needs
Clint. And…” Angel pulled Dane’s arms around him. “And I think Clint needs him, too.”

Dane sighed and kissed Angel’s head. “Yeah, babe,” he whispered. “I’d be willing to bet on that also.”

“So, he’ll stay…right?”

“
That
…I wouldn’t bet on,” Dane said quietly.

Angel cinched his arm tighter and turned his face into Dane’s neck. “If he leaves,” he trembled with a strained voice. “He’ll crush Axel. How could he do that to him?”

Shifting on the sofa, Dane wrapped both arms around Angel and held him closer. “Clint lives a hard life, baby,” he murmured against his hair. “And with a hard life, comes hard decisions. If he makes the choice to leave…” He kissed Angel on the head again. “…He will believe he has no other option.”

♦

The look in Clint’s eyes ripped holes in Axel’s heart like bullets from a gun. What the hell was wrong? Why wouldn’t he tell him?

The questions ebbed at the edges of his mind, then swirled into a mist and drifted away as Clint hugged him tighter and thrust harder inside him, the desperation in the man that was undeniable. Axel’s back hit the mattress as Clint shifted them on the bed. He gripped Axel’s wrists and pinned them gently to the pillows then slid his hands across his palms, locking his fingers with Axel’s as he stared down into his face and pushed inside him again and again.

The starburst pendant hung on the chain from Clint’s neck in the small space between them, swaying gently with the thrusts of Clint’s body.

“Kiss me,” Axel whispered, trembling. Clint dipped down and his lips brushed Axel’s mouth. The cool metal pendant touched Axel’s chest and rested lightly against his damp skin and caused Axel’s eyes to sting. Had it only been last night that he’d fastened it around Clint’s neck? It felt like a lifetime ago.

A hard groan pushed up Clint’s throat and through their kiss. His thrusts intensified and he squeezed Axel’s hands tighter. Axel curled his tongue around Clint’s, drawing it in deeper, and lifted to the man’s driving hips, taking him eagerly, never wanting this to end –for fear that something terrible awaited them after.

But there was no holding back the release. Axel felt it in his body and whimpered loud into Clint’s mouth, then broke loose of the kiss, panting erratically. “Clint!” His fingers curled fiercely around Clint’s hands as the man’s hard, slick stomach raked forcefully against Axel’s stiff member, pinning it between them. “Oh fuck!”

Clint released one of his hands and reached between them. He grabbed Axel’s cock and stroked him with urgency. “Come on, baby,” he shuddered against Axel’s lips. “Come with me.” Clint picked up the pace, fucked him harder, desperately. His face strained with the need to come and…a storm of emotions. “For me, Axel,” he panted unsteadily, quietly. Tears glazed his eyes.

A sob caught in Axel’s throat and he cried out as the orgasm seized him. He arched beneath Clint and unloaded. “
Fuuuck!
Clint!” He clutched the back of Clint’s head and pulled him into another kiss as the man let go of his cock and engulfed him in his arms, fucking him with pure desperation.

“Axel,” Clint gasped with a broken cry and shoved his face into Axel’s neck as he emptied himself inside him, his strong body strained with tension as he continued to push into Axel until every last bit of his strength abandoned him and he sank down against him, shudders rippling through his muscular frame.

Axel held him and stroked his fingers through his damp hair. When Clint had come home yesterday, he’d had this same desperate need to have Axel in his arms, make love to him. And he’d said there was something he had to talk to Axel about. But they had never talked…Clint had run out in the middle of the night. Was his sudden departure linked to what he’d wanted to tell Axel? And who was
Cory?
Axel had registered enough last night to know it was this
Cory
that had Clint worried and frightened. Had something happened to him? Surely he wasn’t…

“Clint…” Axel whispered, breath shaky. “What…What did you want to talk to me about last night?”

Clint slowly lifted off him and rolled over onto his back, and shoved his hands through his hair, his eyes on the ceiling. His throat worked as if he meant to speak, but nothing came out. No answers. No explanations.

“Who’s Cory?” Axel asked cautiously. “Is he a friend of yours?” He stared at Clint’s face and watched it pinch with tension, emotional strain. “Did…something happen to him?”

♦

Cory
.

There had been no time to be discreet last night. Of course Axel would be asking questions today, after the way he took off, with no explanations, nothing to help Axel understand what was going on. And now –what the fuck was he supposed to tell him?

You should’ve just done what you came here to do. Why the fuck did you make love to him again?
He had just complicated things a hundredfold by taking Axel to bed rather than just getting the whole fucking thing over with. He had backed himself into a corner, and now he had to tell Axel something.

“He’s a friend,” Clint murmured thickly. “I’ve known his dad for half of my life. Cory…he…” Clint swallowed thickly, an ache knotting his throat. “…He almost died last night.”

“How?”

Clint shook his head slowly, tears slowly welling. “It’s not important,” he whispered.
What the fuck are you doing here lying in bed –when you should be at Cory’s side? You need to get your ass back there.

“Is he…” Axel licked his lips. “…A part of your world?”

“Yeah,” Clint said quietly as his throat closed tighter and the tears burned hotter.

Axel shifted beside him, moved closer and laid his head on Clint’s arm. “Was he…shot?”

Was he shot?
Clint closed his eyes and the tears seeped out as he heard Cory’s voice on the phone again, so weak and scared and lost…wounded and alone in an abandoned warehouse…clinging to Shay’s dead body.

Clint drew in a shaky breath. “You don’t need to know the details.”

“Why?” Axel caressed his fingertips lightly down Clint’s arm. “You can tell me anything.”

“No.” A sudden tightness squeezed Clint’s voice, startling both himself and Axel. “I
can’t
.” His chest tightened until he could barely breathe.
Just do it! Just get it fucking over with!

Axel recoiled and stared at him with uncertainty. “Why can’t you?” he whispered.

“Because I’ve brought enough
shit
into your life, Axel,” he said stiffly, his voice straining.

Confusion masked Axel’s face. “No,” Axel trembled. “My life was shit
before
you came into it. Why would you say that? You make my life good.”

Clint looked away and closed his eyes.
Good.
Because of him Axel had almost been raped and killed. He’d brought his world into Axel’s life and all the threats and danger with it. “I’m not a good guy, Axel. I don’t make
anything
good.”

“Why are you talking this way?” Axel whispered, tears forming. “What
happened
last night, Clint? Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

His breath quickening, Clint opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, then sat forward and swung his legs off the bed. His head sank into his hands and he sat motionless, his back to Axel. “Bad shit went down.” His voice shook as he slowly squeezed fistfuls of his hair. Sobs built at the base of his throat and he swallowed hard to keep them down. If he broke…he would never be able to do this. “And it was my fault.” Clint trembled as the image rose in his mind of Venetti’s son going down beneath the force of Cochise’s bullet. “All of it…was
my
fault.”

Clint took the blame. He shouldn’t have hesitated to put Venetti down –not after the man had set up Cory and Shay. Fuck his reasons
why
. Clint
wasn’t
his old self –because
that
Clint wouldn’t have thought twice about offing the motherfucker for getting one of their boys killed.

“What…what happened?” Axel asked with a tremor in his voice. “How was it your fault?”

Clint squeezed his eyes tighter, the pain of Shay’s death and what Clint was now forced to do hitting him all at once. “Because I got distracted by…” He went rigid then abruptly stood. “…By a fucking
dream.”
His voice tightened and chest heaved. Anger and anguish coiled inside him, weaving through his veins and pumping into his heart. “I let myself get caught up in a fucking illusion and I didn’t see what was right in front of my fucking
face!
” He snatched his jeans off the floor and stuffed his legs in them. “I stopped paying attention and everything got
fucked!”

“What’re you talking about?” Axel trembled, his throat knotting with tears. Clint tugged the Wranglers up over his hips without answering. Visible panic gripped Axel and tore through Clint. “What…what’re you doing?”

“What did you think, Axel?” Clint’s tone shifted, turning brittle…bitter. He fought the tears, shoving them down with all his strength as he fastened his pants with urgent hands. “That all of this was real? That you could fucking
domesticate
me?” He grabbed his shirt and slipped it on, his fingers stiff as he fastened the buttons. He turned his back to Axel as some of the tears forced their way to the surface. He blinked quickly, trying to focus on the buttons as the hated words spilled out of him. “What I am…a little sweet talk and love making isn’t…” His voice broke and faltered. He swallowed hard, his brow furrowing. “…It isn’t going to undo it.”

“Clint, stop,” Axel whispered, shaking. The tears in the boy’s voice punched him in the chest, knocking the air from his lungs. “What’re you talking about? Why…why are you saying this? I wasn’t trying to change you. I like who you are.” His breath caught and hitched with a quiet sob. “Please,” he choked. “Just…just come back to bed…please. I swear, I just want you, the way you are.”

Clint’s fingers faltered on the buttons. His chin trembled and he struggled to control his emotions as he shook his head. “You can’t say that.”

“Yes I can,” Axel cried quietly.

“
How?
” Clint turned on him suddenly, his jaw clenched and vision blurred. “You don’t even fucking
know me!
You don’t know the things I’ve done. You don’t fucking know what
I am!
”

Axel ducked his head as if struck by a physical blow. His arms curled around his shaking body. “I know what you are to me,” he cried. “And that’s all that matters to me. I don’t care about the rest.”

“You don’t know
shit!”
Clint shot back, trembling, then lunged toward the bed, hating himself more in this moment than ever in his life. He was in Axel’s face before the boy could withdraw. “I
found
those fuckers who almost raped you in the alley! Do you know what I did to them, Axel?
Huh?
Do you want every last fucking
detail?
You say I can tell you
anything
–do you want to know? Do you
really
want to see
what I am?
” He drew back, shaking, as Axel tucked his chin to his chest and slid his hands up behind his neck, fingers gripping as he sobbed quietly. “That’s why I was so late getting back yesterday,” Clint’s voice lowered yet retained a coarse edge. “I was torturing them, Axel. Because that’s what
I am
and that’s…what
I do
.” He stared at Axel as the boy blurred and shimmered before him. “I
don’t
belong in your world. And you sure as fuck don’t belong in mine.”