CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When he got the text finally giving in to lunch, Cam had to replay it three times to make sure he’d heard it right.
Even now, in the car with Six at his side, he replayed the message and his reply.
Six had a very strong opinion on what he was doing today. “I still think this is stupid.”
“So you said.”
“Mitchell was sniffing around what you’re doing, and you know your dad will use any excuse to put him in as co-manager. Going on a date with a hooker has to be right up there as a reason to push you aside.”
“And like I said every other time you mentioned that, this is my hotel, free and clear. There’s nothing Dad can do.”
Six muttered something that Cam couldn’t hear, and he didn’t want to know what it was because he had lunch to concentrate on.
“He’s standing waiting for you,” Six informed him when the car stopped.
“What’s he wearing?”
Six paused, and Cam could imagine him giving Cam a look of despair.
“Jeans, kinda faded, a plaid shirt, mostly blue, and he’s got a Stetson on his head. Hell, the man’s gone full-on cowboy.”
Cam smoothed his own jeans—new, designer—and thought about the shirt he was wearing. It was blue, the same shade as his eyes, or at least he assumed so. The braille inside just said blue, which implied that it wasn’t light blue or dark blue, because if it were either of those it would say so. At least he could tell the collar was flat, and Six wouldn’t let him go out looking like a moron.
And yes, he was freaking out, just a little.
“I want it on record that this is a fucking insane idea,” Six growled.
“Noted.”
“I don’t get it. Do you think he’s gold under the tarnish, a hooker with a heart, like this is a Hollywood movie?”
Cam pulled at the material of his pants. What did he say?
“There’s a connection, Six. Something real.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why? Because I’m blind?” Cam snapped, and made to climb out of the car.
Six stopped him. “Really? After all these years, you’re going there?”
The sentiment behind the words—sadness, a bleakness that hit Cam squarely in the chest—had him turning back in Six’s direction. “No, I’m not, but after all these years, you know I have as much of a sixth sense as you do.”
“But what about Adam?”
“He was a mistake. I should have listened to my gut, but I was desperate for something, a connection, and I never had that with Adam, which shows how much of one I think I have with Gabriel.”
“You think you have. He’s damaged goods, Cam.”
That made Cam smile. He knew that. But hell… “I’m part of a dysfunctional family that equates blind with useless and gay with weak. I haven’t had a hug from my parents since they sat in that doctor’s room with me and heard there wasn’t anything anyone could do to stop me going blind. I think I’m damaged goods as well. You’re more my dad than my own father.”
“Jesus, Cam,” Six said with feeling. “You know I’m only… Jeez…”
“It’s okay,” Cam murmured, and opened the door, the heat of a Texas summer flooding into the car. “I never say the right things.”
This time Six pulled him back, held him, and it was tight and close and Cam leaned into the hug.
“I’ll be here,” Six said.
Cam nodded into the hold. “You always are. Thank you.”
With the car door shut behind him, he didn’t know which way to face, but he didn’t need to worry, because Gabriel was there, standing close to him, the scent of him subtly changed. Instead of cologne, it was work, and soap and normality, and it was sexy and endearing all at the same time.
“Gabe?” Cam asked. He wanted to pull Gabriel into his arms and kiss him so hard, but he wasn’t sure Gabriel would want that. Was he even on the same page?
And then he was under no illusion on exactly what Gabriel was feeling.
Gabriel cradled his face and kissed him in the summer sun, and the kiss was deep and needy. Every single worry, every doubt, every word that people sent his way to get him to back off, they all vanished. He loved this man, wanted him. He wouldn’t say it, but for him this could be forever.
Cam wound his arms around Gabriel’s neck and held on tight. Six couldn’t move the car while he was pressed against it, but none of that mattered.
“I missed you,” Cam said between kisses.
“I have so much to tell you,” Gabriel said back, but he didn’t let go. He was hard against Cam’s thigh.
I want you to come. I want to feel you…
Gabriel finally backed away and tugged him along, slowing when there was uneven ground, which he warned Cam about as they walked. The ground didn’t become floor, and the heat of the sun was still there, so they weren’t heading indoors, and then the scent of horses hit him.
“I want you to meet Pixie,” Gabriel said, and guided Cam to a hard wooden fence. “Put out your hand.”
Cam did as he was told, completely trusting that Gabriel wasn’t setting him up for something stupid. Something pushed against his hand, soft—velvet-soft, actually—and he smiled.
“Tell me about her.”
“She’s a dark brown quarter horse, stands fifteen hands tall, and she has this white strip on her nose. She’s my horse.”
Gabriel said it so proudly that Cam’s chest tightened. “You have a horse.”
“Everyone at Legacy gets a horse—it’s a therapy thing.” Gabriel didn’t sound resentful of the idea of therapy. If anything, he appeared laid-back and accepting.
“She’s beautiful,” Cam said, stroking the soft nose and laughing at the snort of breath on his neck as the horse nuzzled him. “If I’d known, I would have brought a carrot or something.”
“Thank you,” Gabriel said, leaning into him.
“For the carrot? I didn’t actually bring one—”
“For what you and Six did. For coming to get me.”
“Always,” Cam said. They kissed again, but were broken apart by a huffing Pixie, who evidently thought kissing in a barn was a bad thing.
Cam couldn’t agree with that.
“I’ll show you my room, hold on.” The terrain changed from rough and hard to smooth floor, and it was cool in here. “So there’s a bed, a small bathroom, and every room has a desk you can put photos on and study at, that kind of thing.”
“Are you going to be studying?” Cam said, and felt for the bed, sitting on the side of it.
“I don’t know what I’m doing from one day to the next. I know I feel changed—not better, but different. I’ve been speaking to this woman called Clair who’s helping me get my head around everything, and also to Jason. He’s the boyfriend of the guy who runs this place, and he used to work the streets for money. We have a lot in common.”
“What you did is a very real part of you,” Cam said. He wanted Gabriel to hear that Cam wasn’t going to forget what he’d done, had to do, been made to do. That was Gabriel’s journey to here, and it wouldn’t change.
“Clair is helping a lot.” The bed dipped as Gabriel sat next to him. “And I have you as a friend.”
“I’ll always be your friend,” Cam insisted. “But, it’s more than just friendship for me.” He wanted to talk about the connection between them, about the future and the past, and he wanted to tell Gabriel that he wasn’t going anywhere. He said none of it, because the time wasn’t right. It would be one day, just not today. Seemed like Gabriel had other ideas.
“I don’t get why you’d feel that way. You could have anyone. You have money, and a hotel, and the chance to hook up with a hundred eligible guys who your family would approve of.”
They didn’t get a chance to talk about it further. A knock on the door and a shouted “Food!” had Gabriel standing up. “C’mon—Kyle and Jason are doing food, and I want you to meet them. And Marianna—she’s my friend, but you need to be careful with her, because she’s kinda hurt.”
“Okay.”
“So eat all the food, talk to the people, and then we get some quiet time. Right?”
“I want time alone with you,” Cam confirmed simply, and evidently that was all Gabriel needed to hear.
The afternoon went too fast. They ate barbecue, but there was a lot of time when it was just Gabriel and Cam. Six even joined them for food, but that didn’t last long, and he made his excuses and sat inside with a book, with Clair who had arrived just after lunch. Cam wanted to talk to her, to get a feel for what he could do for the best.
Not least at the moment when they sat with lemonade under the shade of a tree and the conversation turned serious.
“What if I’m never fixed?”
“You’re working hard,” Cam reassured him. Because what else could he say? He had to believe that Gabriel would get to the point where he was able to move on from Stefan.
“I never told you what happened before Stefan,” Gabriel said.
“I don’t need to know,” Cam said hurriedly. The last thing he wanted was for Gabriel to have to dig deep into his past when Cam was happy to wait.
Thing was, Cam really fucked up, because Gabriel stood up immediately, agitation in his voice, and anger. “Okay, I get it, you don’t want to hear about the real me.”
Cam heard him walk away, which was kind of shit, because he’d misunderstood Cam and also abandoned him under a tree somewhere.
“Gabriel!” he shouted. “Stop being an asshole! I meant I didn’t need you to… Shit, come back and freaking listen to me.”
“I’m here,” a soft voice said right close to him. Seemed Gabriel hadn’t walked that far.
Cam turned to the voice and held on to Gabriel’s shirt. “I didn’t mean anything wrong, or…hell, shit, I just meant that you’ll tell me when you’re ready, and if you feel like you can’t talk now, you don’t have to—not just for me.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said sheepishly. “I was pushing you away. Clair explained that it’s a coping mechanism. She even drew a picture in case I didn’t get it. I like Clair; she listens to me. But I still have nightmares, Cam, about what led to me being on that street corner where Stefan found me.”
Cam pulled him close and hugged him. Clearly talking was happening today. “I’m listening,” he said.
“My mom was a housekeeper on this big ranch in Southern Texas, the Bar Five, and when she died they took me in. Or I guess I just got lost in the system somehow. I lived in this room over a barn, and I went to school for a while, and I never said anything. I don’t know how they got away with it, but I know that slowly, as I got older, it was decided that horses were my thing, not book learning, so I stayed at the ranch. I didn’t know any better, but one day it all changed.”
Cam held Gabriel’s hand, trying to be brave enough to listen to this, and inside he was scared to hear.
“There had been this young guy at the ranch, and he left, he got away, and I was next on Hank’s radar, Hank being one of the brothers who owned and ran the Bar Five.” He spoke so casually, but the words he used were choppy and harsh. “He was a fucking bastard; he got off on other people’s pain. My pain. It wasn’t just sex, but humiliation, and he would charge people for time with me.”
Cam heard a sound—a low, keening groan—and realized it was him who’d let it out. Gabriel momentarily buried his face in Cam’s neck, and Cam swore he could feel Gabriel’s tears on his skin.
“One day, I ran. I don’t know why I thought I’d get away—youthful optimism, I guess—only I didn’t get far, and they broke my legs with baseball bats. It was…” He stopped talking, and now Cam was crying as well. “Horrible,” Gabriel ended. How could he think of a word that would encompass everything he’d been through? Was there even a word that could describe that much evil?
“Then there was another boy, I don’t know his name, but they killed him. Not outright—he hung himself. I stood in court, and I cried, and I told them everything, and Hank is in prison, and the Bar Five is gone.”
“Jesus, Gabriel,” Cam whispered, wiping at the tears that wouldn’t stop. “You’re so brave to have lived through that.”
“And you can decide whether you need to step back, and I wouldn’t blame you. Clair explained that even the best of men could back away because they couldn’t understand how I didn’t fight back—”
Cam kissed him, a sloppy kiss with tears that was just off center, then toppled him to the ground, half lying on him and kissing him hard.
Gabriel tried to talk again, but Cam wouldn’t let him, and they lay kissing under the tree until all the horrible words were lost in the kisses.
Cam felt powerless; he couldn’t take away the memories, he couldn’t save that ten-year-old boy, but he could love the man the boy had become.
And tell Gabriel that it mattered, that the things that had shaped him mattered, but that between them they could handle everything.
So that was what he did tell him, and Gabriel cried some more, but when they headed back to the ranch and Cam kissed Gabriel goodbye, the tension between them was different, easier.
“Text me,” Gabriel demanded.
“Always,” Cam answered, and shut the door. He wished he could watch Gabriel as they drove away, but worrying about not being able to see him was useless.
“Your dad called me to tell you to answer your damn phone, and he’s at the hotel with Mitchell.”
Cam smacked the back of his head against the headrest and cursed. Just what he needed.
The drive back to the hotel was quiet. Six didn’t ask any questions or make comments, and Cam was fine with that. He had a lot to think about.
The meeting in his office was heated, Mitchell denying the reports that Cam had, implying that Cam didn’t understand, and Sebastian defending his choice of Mitchell as both son-in-law and co-manager of the Dallas Royal. Cam let it all flow over him, listening to everything they had to say. Sebastian genuinely felt that Cam was overreacting. The only way he’d be able to get his dad to see anything would be for Sophie to be sitting there and telling her dad what Mitchell was really like.
“You’ve read the reports, Dad,” Cam said for the third or fourth time. “I have several staff members accusing Mitchell of crowding them and touching them inappropriately.”
No wonder victims didn’t come forward when people like his dad refused to believe that kissing or prolonged, unwanted hugging was anything more than Mitchell playing around. The door opened, and he knew who it was before she said a single thing. Sophie. Six moved from the corner of the room, where he’d been waiting quietly. Cam relaxed, knowing that Six was looking out for Sophie.
“Mitchell,” she said, so softly it made Cam’s heart break. He swore if she showed any sign of going back to Mitchell, he would whisk her away to a desert island until she changed her mind.
“Sweetheart, I’ve been worried,” Mitchell said. “I can’t believe Cam has fed you all these lies—”
“Enough, Mitchell,” Sophie said, her voice louder, more strident, with a thread of iron in it. “Daddy, Mitchell and I are getting a divorce,” she announced.
There was a flurry of movement and a loud grunt.
“Stay right there,” Six ordered, and Cam guessed he was saying that to Mitchell.
“I’m staying here in Dallas, right here with Cam, and I’m finishing my degree.”
“And if she wants it, there’s a role here in marketing,” Cam said, abruptly convinced that was exactly what he wanted. The idea of having his sister close made him smile.
“There is?” she asked, then he could hear the smile in her voice. “You’re on, Cam. I’ll be citing Mitchell’s unreasonable behavior and emotional abuse as grounds for divorce, if that’s possible. He hurt me, he changed me, and I don’t want him here.”
Silence. Fuck, what was happening now? He gripped the desk when he sat down, suddenly furious that he could do nothing but sit there. And then his dad broke the silence.
“Six, escort Mitchell off the premises and call my lawyer.”
Then Cam slipped from the room with Six. He didn’t have to see to know that dad and daughter had a lot to discuss.
Visiting Legacy a few days later was the calm and peace to the chaos that had taken over his life. He’d grown used to the scents of horses and the ranch, and associated it all with Gabriel. Six wasn’t staying today—this was a big celebration barbecue, and he’d organized a date with Clair, apparently—so Cam had decided to stay over. Picking up his overnight bag, he climbed down out of the cab and said his thank-yous and goodbyes even as Gabriel took his hand.
“This way,” Gabriel said, and led him away from the SUV and over the bumpy ground to the ranch house, then along to where he knew Gabriel’s room was. “See,” he said triumphantly. Then, “My bad. I didn’t mean see, because you can’t… What I mean is, look, we have a… Shit. It’s a bigger bed.”
Cam couldn’t help but tease. “Describe it for me,” he said.
“Oh, it’s a bed, with a mattress and…covers, they’re pale blue…and… I don’t know what else to say.” He sounded adorably confused, and Cam couldn’t help but pull him in for a kiss, which soon turned heated. Gabriel shut the door, and from the sound of it he locked it for good measure.
“Does it have four legs?” Cam deadpanned.
“What? Of course it— Wait… You’re an asshole, Stafford,” Gabriel said without heat.
“It sounds like a good bed,” Cam began, letting out an unmanly squeak of surprise when Gabriel pushed him back onto the bed, then drew the blinds. Cam could hear them rattle as they fell. So if they were locked in, with no way of anyone seeing in, was this going to be the next step?
Cam gripped material and realized Gabriel was wearing a T-shirt, which he had up and over his head in an instant, running his hands over bare skin and letting out a hum of appreciation.
“Your turn,” Gabriel said, and helped Cam to remove his shirt, and all the time he was talking. “I’ve been practicing, you know. I’ve been getting off and actually coming and everything in my head has been you. You holding me down and sucking me off, you fingering me…you want to do that? I’ve never done it for love before. I’m not sure it would make me come, but I could try.”
They stripped off jeans and underwear until they were nude and in a tangle of limbs. Gabriel was hard, Cam was harder, and they rubbed against each other, lost in a mess of kisses and whispered words. Cam swapped them so he was lying on top, kissing his way down Gabriel’s chest, pausing at his navel and kiss-biting a trail to hip bones and down to his thighs, bypassing Gabriel’s cock and hearing the mewl of disapproval.
“I want you to suck me,” he said. “You need to get your mouth on me. I can move so that we could sixty-nine, then you could fuck me with your mouth.”
Exasperated, Cam climbed back up Gabriel’s body and kissed him hard. “Shhh,” he whispered.
“What? You want me to talk dirty. You said you liked it, it got you off—”
Cam slapped a hand over Gabriel’s mouth, gyrating his hips a little so their stiff cocks brushed against each other. “I need you to feel this for real,” he said, with more kisses to Gabriel’s throat. “Will you stop talking?”
Gabriel nodded, gripping Cam’s ass tight and pushing up against him.
This was important; this was singularly the most vital sex that Cam would have in his life. This wasn’t just sex, it was making love. He knew that, even if Gabriel didn’t yet.
He moved his hand and kissed Gabriel hard, then felt Gabriel pushing something into his hand. “Lube,” Gabriel murmured, “please… I’ve been practicing.”
God, that was more arousing that all the porn talk Gabriel could ever use.
Cam slicked his fingers, slid down the bed a little and swallowed Gabriel down, then nearly choked when Gabriel sat upright in a flurry of motion. “We need to talk,” he said.
Cam moved away a little, and Gabriel reached up to the shelf above the bed. “Condoms and a letter,” he said. “I had tests. I’m okay, right, but I’m not ready to do this without you covering me.” It sounded like that was a rehearsed line, and Cam couldn’t have been prouder that Gabriel was taking control of his body and what he did and didn’t want.
He wasn’t sure he could fall more in love, but he did.
“I know you can’t see them, but I can read them to you. I want to. You can trust me, I promise these are real.”
Cam settled back on his knees. “Go on,” he encouraged, because it was important to Gabriel.
Gabriel cleared his throat and proceeded to read the entire report from the heading to the footer. Then there was silence before the noise of rattling and tearing.
“It’s on,” Gabriel announced, then wriggled. Cam rested his hands on Gabriel, moving them to his thighs. Sex with Gabriel was going to be a hundred kinds of fun. “Sorry about the taste, but we could get some flavored ones if we do this again.”
“If?” Cam said, and got back into the position he wanted to be in, locating the lube and squeezing it into his hand. He didn’t care if it went everywhere; he wanted to feel Gabriel as he sucked him down, and he wanted to push inside.
Now who’s thinking in porn terms?
He concentrated on the feel of Gabriel underneath the taste of the condom, and then he rubbed and sucked and pressed his cock against Gabriel’s leg. It wasn’t enough. He didn’t want Gabriel coming in his mouth like this; he wanted to kiss him and tell him he loved him, and he released Gabriel’s cock and kissed his way back up. He imagined Gabriel’s expression. He’d been so close, and all it would take would be his fingers, the rhythm of their cocks rubbing against each other, and the kissing.
Oh god, the kissing.
“I’m coming,” Gabriel said, his voice dripping with wonder.
“I love you,” Cam said, his body tightening with the need to come, and then he felt Gabriel, the tension in his muscles, the exhalation of air, and there it was—Gabriel falling apart in his arms.
They hugged close, only moving when someone banged on the window and told them to break it up, which made them laugh but broke the incredibly intimate connection they had.
“One day, do you think you can love me?” Cam asked as they dressed. He was scared to hear the answer, unsure if Gabriel even thought he could ever love anyone. There was so much to fix, and so he thought the question should be out there, but it wasn’t something he was expecting an answer to.
Gabriel sighed and wrapped his hands around Cam’s waist. “I think I already do, but I have all this stuff in my head, about me, and how I see myself, and I want you to know I’d understand if you couldn’t handle that.”
Cam’s chest tightened. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Gabriel kissed him then. “It’s when you say things like that I know I could be in love and really mean it.”
“Then I want to say it again. Gabe, I love you.”
“And I love it when you call me Gabe.”
They laughed into the kiss. Everything would be okay.
“I need to ask you a huge favor. I have something I need to do, and I need you to hold my hand when I do it.”
“Okay.” Cam didn’t know what he was agreeing to, but he would do anything for Gabriel.
Dressed, they made their way outside, and the noise of a group of people grew larger as they walked along the uneven ground.
“Cam,” a voice shouted, and he recognized it. Riley was there, which meant maybe Jack was, and the extended Double D ranch, kids, family, friends. Riley had talked at him for an hour about his family a couple of years back, about adoption and weddings and falling in love with Jack.
Everything had sounded so good. Sue him, but he’d craved that, even had a standing invitation to visit, but hell, how would he have fitted in?
“This way,” Gabriel said, and tugged him away from Riley’s voice. They passed by people who tried to say hello, but Gabriel didn’t stop. Finally they came to a halt, and Gabriel’s hold on his hand tightened.
“Darren?”
“Hey, Gabriel,” a voice said.
“This is Cameron Stafford,” Gabriel said. “Cameron, this is Darren, and his partner Vaughn.”
Cam thrust out his free hand, and it was shaken twice.
Then Gabriel cleared his throat.
“Darren, this is for you.” There was some movement as Gabriel passed something over.
“What is it?” Darren asked.
Vaughn chuckled. “He’s giving you his dirty washing.”
There was the sound of a zip, then a soft curse from Darren. “Shit, Gabriel, this is full of money, what the hell?”
“All of what I saved, except five hundred, which I will get to you as soon as I can. That is all the money you sent me from the sale of the Bar Five.”
“That was for you.”
“No,” Gabriel said, cutting Darren off. “I don’t want it. I want it to go to charity. I want you to choose.”
“Okay, I can do that,” Darren said. Clearly whatever expression Gabriel had going on was enough to make Darren think he should stop the debate right there.
There was a short silence, then it was Vaughn who spoke. “So you and Cameron here, then, you an item?”
“I’m working really hard on loving him,” Gabriel announced.
And for want of something to say, Cam smiled and pulled Gabriel in for a kiss.