Chapter 7

Wings under my skin,

Fighting to break free.

I need a razor to cut them out,

So I can live as I’m meant to be.

A drop of music, A sip of wine.

Watch the sky when I fall

I’m sure I’ll be fine.

—Falling

HE WOULDN’T cry. Connor’d promised himself that, but it was hard going, especially when his father pulled back and gripped his shoulders tightly. Shaking, Con let go of the dank, foul fear he’d held in his lungs, and Donal reached a hand up to cup his face, his broad fingers tapping Con’s cheek.

“Yer trembling, son. Why?” If Connor thought his father’s disappointment was his greatest fear, it was nothing compared to the pain in Donal’s eyes when he whispered, “Did ye think I’d stop lovin’ ye for this? Did ye really think so low of me, Connor boy, that I’d walk away from ye because of who ye are? Have I done such a bad time of it being yer da?”

The tears came then, hot and silent, as Connor pressed his mouth together and grabbed his father back into a hug. He couldn’t speak. It was too much effort to get around the emotions clotting his throat with their thick, viscous tendrils.

“No,” he choked out, but the word was barely audible over his clenched-back crying. “No, Da. I just don’t… I didn’t know what. This is all fucked up, and I don’t know what I’m doing with this. I never wanted this. I don’t want this now, but here it is, and I’m drowning in it. I want this fucking shite to go back to wherever it came from, but I can’t stop from thinking about him—worrying ’bout him, and it’s making me crazy.”

“Let’s be talking first about why ye’d think I’d be disappointed, Con.” Donal pulled back and wiped his eyes, smearing away the tears his son’d brought to his face. “What were you thinking, boyo?”

Connor’s face ached, pressure from the vent of emotions inside of him. There were too many threads of whys and why-nots in his mind, reasons he’d felt he failed his father in this one thing Donal asked of him—to be a man like Donal—to be someone others could look up to, a man who’d pick up the family’s burdens on that one horrific day when they’d need him the most.

And the words came, pouring from him as if he were a five-year-old confessing to eating the last donut, a horribly heavy and dense donut he’d baked solely to anchor himself in life.

“I needed to be you, Da,” Connor heard himself whisper. Every word grated in his throat, raking barbs through his heart and soul before bleeding off his tongue. “I don’t know when, I don’t know why, but there it’s been. In me. All this time. Everything I do—everything I am.”

“Oh, Connor boy, I never meant for you—” A look of horror crept over Donal’s face. “Are ye a cop because ye think that’s what I’d want for ye? Please tell me—”

Connor gave his father a rueful look. “Maybe. In the beginning of it all.”

“Ach, Connor.” Donal said something in Gaelic, too low and too soft for his son to hear. “I’d never have wanted any of my children to take up the badge if they didn’t want it.”

“I was a little boy, Da,” he explained. “And you came home wearing a uniform and carrying the world. How could I not want to be that man? Be you? And yes, I probably wanted to be a cop because you were one, but I love it. It’s who I am. It’s the part of me I don’t question.”

“But ye question this man in your life? That ye love him?”

“I don’t know if I love him. Maybe. Maybe I’m just… I don’t know.” Connor collapsed back into the soft couch, rubbing his face in frustration. “Everything’s gone cattywampus and upside down. I had a plan—career, house, and then a wife. Children. And now….”

“No one is saying ye can’t have those things. Well, except for the wife. This Forest boy might be having a problem with that,” Donal teased as he ran his hand through his son’s hair.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that. For this.”

“I’m going to ask ye a question, and I want ye to think about it before ye answer,” Donal said gently. “Is he the first man ye’d thought about this with? To be with?”

Connor leaned into his father’s touch, a comforting, firm hand on the back of his head. They’d sat so many times in the same position, often in the dimly lit study while his father watched footie games on the television or while working on his reports. Donal’s touch anchored Connor as much as his dreams had, a forever kind of tether to the world around him.

He’d feared he’d lose that touch, that anchor, when he’d spilled his secrets to his father, and now in the light of a Sunday afternoon, Connor found himself adrift, even with his father holding him steady and firm.

“I’d watch Rafe,” Connor admitted softly. “When we were in school. Something about him. Before we were really close, and he was just Sionn’s friend, I’d watch him. I used to tell myself it was because he was… lost, because he needed saving of some kind, but now I don’t know.”

“Rafe’s a handsome boy,” Donal replied. “A bit of a fuck-up, but he’s worked hard to be back on his feet. He’s had a rough time of it from the start.”

“I couldn’t fix him, Da. And we tried.” Connor shook his head at the years of frustration he’d had with Rafe in his life. “But he was the first, I think. The first time I wondered, but then I put it all away. I couldn’t… think on that. There were women—and I love women. I love the way they smell and feel on me and how their skin tastes on my tongue, but there’s been times when I’ve wondered—when I’ve thought about how it would be.”

“Lately?” his father asked. “Before yer Forest? Or just about him?”

“About Miki—but just for about a second, Da,” he confessed, shunting his gaze away from his father to stare at the opposite wall where their lives played out in framed photos. “I wondered how it would be with him—just for a few moments when Kane introduced him. Something about him kicked me in the gut, and I had to take a step back. I’d never touch him—he’s Kane’s—but it was there. That wildness about him. I could see why Kane wanted him, and I’d never had that before—that recognition of why a man would touch some part of me.”

“And now Forest.” Donal sighed and rubbed at Connor’s head once more before sliding his hand down his son’s back to pat at his shoulders. “Ye can’t let him go, then? Do ye even want to?”

“He haunts me, Da. Worse than a sunburn I cannot wait to heal but at the same time tightens my skin so I can’t not feel him. I see him, and I want to touch him, to hold him, because I don’t think he’s been held enough or been told someone cares about him. He’s had a shite hippie who took him in off the streets and who probably loved him but didn’t give him any kind of self.” Connor pulled himself away from the wall of family and friends. “He’s not had any of this, and I want to give it to him. I want to lie in bed with him when it rains and listen to the water hit the roof. I find myself wondering how the coffee foam on his lip would taste on my tongue or if I could make him smile by blowing a raspberry on his belly. It’s not just want, Da. It’s need. I need him. And for the life of me, I fucking don’t know what to do with that. I wanted to be like you, Da. And I don’t know—”

“All I want is for ye to be Connor,” Donal cut in and looped his arm around Connor’s shoulders, giving him a quick squeeze. “Ye don’t need to be me. I don’t want ye to be me. I want ye to be the best Connor ye can be. That’s the man I raised, not this Ken doll ye’ve built around yerself.”

“And if that means I want to be with a man? Then what?”

“Then ye’re with a man.” He shrugged. “What difference does it make who ye love so long as ye love? That’s what I told yer brothers. That’s what I’m telling ye. Are ye telling me they’re less of a man than ye because they love who they love?”

“No, I’d fucking kick anyone’s ass who said so,” Connor spat back.

“Then why aren’t ye letting yerself have as much of that right to happiness as they do? Why won’t ye fight for yerself as much as ye’d fight for yer brothers?”

Connor sat, silent and stunned. He’d die for any of his siblings, but he was especially close to Kane and Quinn. Hell, his knuckles still bore scars from being bashed into bullies’ teeth for taunting Quinn during school. His awkward, brilliant young brother deserved to smile every day. He’d just never really thought he deserved that same pleasure.

The revelation—such a small tidbit of truth—took Connor’s breath away.

“Is he gay?” Donal patted his son’s back and reached for the abandoned whiskey bottle. After taking a swig, he handed it to Connor. “Does he know you feel this way?”

“Yeah, he’s gay.” Connor took the bottle from his father when it was offered and took a mouthful, knowing he’d fit on the couch or one of the spare beds if he needed it. “And no, I haven’t told him.”

“Then I’ll tell ye what I told ye the first time ye’d come to me to tell me ye wanted to ask Amy Patterson out to a dance.” His father nodded and patted Connor’s thigh. “Be respectful, be honest, ask sweetly, and hold yer head up if he says no. But yer my son, and knowing the man ye are, Forest would be a right idiot to say no to ye, and if he’s that stupid, then he doesn’t deserve ye. So go forth and ask for him to be in yer life, Con.”

“And the family? What do I tell—”

“Ye’ll do nothing. Ye’ll say nothing or everything if ye want to. Ye don’t owe anyone—including yer kin—any explanation for where yer heart lies,” Donal informed him. “If I’d had done that, ye wouldn’t be here, boyo, because let me tell ye—if ye think yer mother’s a pain in the ass now, ye should have seen her back when I first met her. Follow yer heart, because no matter where it takes ye, the journey is worth it—especially if it’s love.”

MORE THAN an hour passed, and Jules made a show of looking at her wrist. Forest caught her at it for the third or fourth time before tapping her hand and whispering, “You don’t have a fucking watch, remember?”

“He’s late,” she sniped back. “I want to see him before I head back to my mom’s for dinner, but then I’m heading home. She’s doing the whole church thing with the priest coming over. Randy’s doing penance for being an ass to you. She got a load of avocado in, and he’s chopping it up for the fire pit. I promised I’d be home so I could rub all over his sweaty, manly body.”

“And while gay, I am still grossed out.” Forest pulled a face, then yelped when Jules kicked him in the shin. “I’ve been dripping sweat after a gig. It does not feel sexy.”

“I’ve seen you, and yeah, it’s not attractive. You look like a drowned rat—a dumbo rat named Bon Bon or something, with your ears sticking out of your hair.” She laughed at him. “Randy’s different. He glistens, and there’s sawdust on him. It’s kind of sweet. I like showering with him when he’s like that.”

“And the mental image just crumbled upon the introduction of the vagina.” This time, Forest dodged the blow, jerking his leg out of the way. “Besides, you can’t wash with that cast, right? It’s got to be all wrapped up.”

“Yeah, it sucks. Like wearing a sarcophagus on my arm.” Jules waved it about. “It’s not dead! Just resting! Seriously, he’s kind of late for ‘be over soon.’ Maybe he blew you off?”

“Nah, I think he lives up the hill or something. You know it’s a bitch to get past Ghirardelli. He wouldn’t do me like that. He’s a nice guy,” he said. “I got the feeling his family doesn’t raise shitty kids. Maybe you get one fuck-up, and then they set you out on the iceberg because you’ve shamed the clan. They’ve got enough of them. I don’t think anyone’d notice if one goes missing.”

“Anyone gay? Maybe he can hook you up? Or, you know, he could take a walk on the wild side with you.”

“Yeah, went over that. Apparently no.” Forest laughed. “Very straight, and the gay ones are either taken or broken.”

“Straight, huh?” Jules asked, picking up a fingertip of foam from her new coffee. “So then tell me, why is he standing out there looking like he’s about to ask you to the homecoming dance?”

Forest turned to stare out of the Amp’s remaining picture window. Connor stood there, in the damp foggy afternoon, looking like a handful of sex and want dressed all in black and a leather jacket so buttery smooth Forest could still feel it against his skin. He barely heard Jules get up or felt when she patted his arm, but suddenly he was alone with the man he’d lusted over since the first day Lt. Connor Morgan came in to order a cup of coffee.

He took a step toward the black-haired Irish cop, unsure if he was going to punch the shit out of him or steal a kiss so fiercely deep, it would get him punched in return. The phone call had only whetted his appetite, and he still smarted a bit under his skin from the back and forth of his emotions. There was too much going on—too many pieces and parts left up in the air from Frank’s death and then the attack on the coffee shop. He was drowning, and for some reason, Connor Morgan’d thrown him a lifeline.

Raising his hand to say hello, Forest took another step toward the front door. Then the walls came tumbling in, and any thought Forest might have had about stealing a kiss was lost under a tidal wave of bricks and pain.

A FEW cups of coffee, some hastily gulped down food, and Connor was back on the road. He’d had a short conversation with himself—very short—about texting Forest to tell him he wouldn’t be there.

It was a very short conversation.

He didn’t even bother to answer himself.

The parking lot behind the Amp was mostly empty, a few cars parked in defiance of a sign announcing the space as solely being for customers of a now blown-out coffee shop. As if by some unspoken suspicion, the spot where Frank’s RV once stood remained wide open, the black smear marks on a nearby concrete slab nearly washed away by the bay’s intermittent rains.

Connor stared at the blackened lines, wondering how Forest could stand waking up every morning to a view of his father’s murder scene. Hell, he still felt guilty about finding the man, even though Frank Marshall was long dead before Con hit the RV’s front door.

“Fuck of a lot stronger than me, Ackerman.” Shaking his head, he got out of the Hummer and keyed the alarm.

An icy wind sliced up the street, cutting through the neighborhood with a howling vengeance. Even with his jacket on, Connor felt its bite. Then he turned the corner and found the man he’d come to see sitting down with a cup of coffee in his hands, his lips turned up in an enigmatic smile but the faint hint of laughter touching his soulful eyes.

Something hit him, grabbed him in the chest and stomach, then twisted Connor around. Seeing Forest lightened the press of darkness he’d not realized he’d been carrying, and the dread of walking up to his father—the fear of not being the man he’d thought he wanted to be—lifted away, leaving behind an effervescence he could feel in his heart.

“Shite,” Connor slurred the word, feeling it roll around on his tongue. “I’m in love with a man.”

Forest spotted him, and the smile tugging at the man’s mouth became broader and solely his. Connor grinned back and, out of the corner of his eye, caught an odd movement—a red-and-black blur where one shouldn’t have been.

The van hit the front of the Amp, slamming through its remaining window and plowing into the dining area. The brilliant spark of light shimmering in Connor’s chest burst, and a foul sickness bloomed up into his throat. Around him there was screaming, something harsh and wild coming from a feral animal, and his ears rang with the horror in its cries.

He took a step toward the building and realized the screaming was his and his alone.

There wasn’t a question about who to go to first. He was in the building, climbing through rubble before his throat realized he’d screamed it raw and bloody. Glass shards and steel ribbons blocked his way, and Connor caught something on his temple, a heavy chunk of debris cutting him deep enough for blood to drip into his eyes. He tumbled forward, smearing the blood with a swipe of his hand, and spotted Jules moving sluggishly a few feet away.

Her cast was busted open, exposing the metal pins piercing through her arm, but for the most part, she seemed fine. Blinking at Connor, Jules tried clearing her throat, spitting out a mouthful of dust, but only a squeak came out when she spoke. The panic in her eyes was enough to spur Connor into action, especially when he realized Forest was nowhere to be seen.

“Get out if you can walk,” he shouted at Jules. Nodding, she struggled to get to her feet. Using a chair to brace herself, the woman toddled out of the building’s damaged front, stepping carefully through the trickle of debris still coming down from the broken wall.

The initial sting of cracked stone on his hands smarted, but a flash of a Converse logo buried under a pile of wooden chunks drove Connor to dig faster. He couldn’t tell if he’d been at it a minute or a moment—either felt like an eternity, especially when he couldn’t find the man he was looking for. The logo turned out to be a flyer, something printed on a sales postcard, probably slid through the Amp’s mail slot, and Connor’s heart sank, a hot, prickly stone cutting through his soul with its sharp-edged fear.

Hands bleeding, he went to work on the larger pile of crumbling red brick, then through the crackle of falling stones. A faint noise lifted away any pain shooting through him. It was a murmur—a golden dip of something precious he’d not quite held in his hands but coveted beyond reasoning.

And in typical Forest fashion, it was laced with profanity and a healthy dose of mad.

“Fuck—” Anything else Forest might have said was buried under the sound of crushed stone sliding from the table he’d slid under when the van hit. Rising out from under the protection of sticky laminate and oak, the drummer emerged, his gold-streaked hair turned white from dust and mortar. He spotted Connor and smiled, off-kilter with a peek of a skewed canine behind his full lips. Winking as he stumbled free of the pile, Forest said in a shaky voice, “P-p-please, Raoul. I can give you stars. Just drop the refrigerator on my head one more time!”

Connor climbed, falling forward and reaching for the man at the same time. His arms ached from the strain of moving heavy beams and enormous chunks of brick, but none of that mattered. The next breath he took was cold with the hint of rain from outside coming in, and his exhale frosted the warmer air near Forest. His hands shook. Then he smeared blood and dirt over Forest’s cheeks when Connor cupped the man’s face in his palms.

Connor’d never felt this kind of fear before. Certainly not the true spine-rippling terror he’d had just moments ago. He thought he knew the sink of terror. After all, he’d taken fire while huddled with his team in a raid gone south and experienced moments of stuttering pain when they’d almost lost Brigid after she’d given birth to his youngest sister, Ryan. He thought he’d known fear when he’d found Quinn on the roof of their school’s highest building, his brother’s face wet with tears and his feet balanced on the edge. There’d been a rush of heart-stopping jerks and starts during those moments—nothing like the deep blackness swelling up to consume him as it had a few moments ago. Connor couldn’t seem to find his lungs, no matter how hard he pulled air in to sustain himself. With the anguish fading away, he was left with a shaking truth carved out by his fear’s unforgiving blade.

He’d been scared of losing the man who’d shaken off life’s beatings as if they were raindrops during a light spring drizzle, and Connor knew he couldn’t—wouldn’t—risk losing Forest ever again.

Forest tasted of sweetness and coffee, a hint of tang from something he’d eaten, a whiff of citrus on his tongue. Connor needed more, and he pulled the man in closer, needing the length of the man on him. Delving deeper, Con found more than sweet in Forest’s mouth. There was a sensual, velvety darkness with promises of pleasure and maybe a hint of pain from the nip of Forest’s teeth on the edge of Con’s lip—then Connor realized he’d taken the man into a deep kiss and had no intention of letting go.

Their world became a tight space, heated not by the sun but from their bodies pressed in tightly together. Forest’s hands trembled at Connor’s waist, his slightly cold fingers sliding into the warmth under Con’s leather jacket and then around to caress the small of Con’s back.

It was so very different of an experience. Discounting the dust caught between their lips or the singsong wail of sirens circling closer like sharks to bloodied waters, Forest felt different, tasted different, and in ways Connor couldn’t wait to explore.

Forest’s cheeks were slightly rougher than a woman’s, although not by much. The slight burr of a scruff felt good on Connor’s work-roughened palms, tickling more than just his hands. His cock stirred in its denim prison, aroused by the small stroking circles Forest’s fingers were making on Connor’s hips. Pressing in, Connor suckled and tasted his first kiss, experimenting with the touch of his tongue on the roof of Forest’s mouth and then along the slick polish of the man’s teeth.

The taste of him—of Forest—filled him. Connor needed more. Wanted more. He wanted to find someplace soft and dark so he could explore every inch of the man’s body, if only to feel the texture of Forest’s skin on his lips. He’d known pleasure, but in that moment, Connor wondered if he’d even begun to understand it. Temptation teased him, flirting with the seductive pull of Forest’s length, and then a small, husky laugh escaped the man’s mouth, and that resonance—a puff of air carrying a dollop of sound—poured into Connor’s body, and he was finally complete.

Connor couldn’t find his English. Instead, a guttural crawl of Gaelic flowed from his mouth and spread over Forest where Connor’s lips touched his skin. The man’s hands dug into his sides, and Connor loved the sheer strength of them, a tumble roughness he’d never had before. There was a solidity to their touch, a whispering pledge from Forest’s muscular body that he was able—and more than willing—to take anything Connor could dish out. And perhaps even give Connor back more than he could ever imagine.

They’d kissed for only a hiccup of an eternity when Forest drew back and moved his hands out from under Connor’s jacket. He took a breath, then clutched at Con’s biceps, wrapping his fingers around Connor’s thickly muscled arms. As Forest rested his forehead on Connor’s chest, Connor cradled the man to him, thankful for the table Forest found to hide under, grateful for his father’s love and assurance he could love anyone he wanted and still be the man Donal would be proud of, but most of all, astonished at the reality of Forest in his arms.

“By all that is holy, I am in love with you,” Connor whispered into Forest’s tangled blond hair. His mouth stung from their kisses, but his fingers itched to explore. There was so much to discover between them, and Connor wondered if he could bring more than a wisp of a smile to Forest’s mouth.

“Whoa. Did you just kiss me?”

“Aye, I did.”

“Did you mean you’d catch me?” Forest whispered, weaving slightly in Connor’s embrace. “If I fell?”

“Yes.” He frowned at the man. Forest’s brown eyes were blown out to black, and he blinked under Connor’s intense stare.

“Good, good. ’Cause I think I’ve got a concussion.” Forest nodded. Then a green cast spread under the blush of his cheeks. “So I’m going to pass out right now, and I might really need that catch you promised me.”