Alex stood there, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, and Dane gave serious consideration to putting that open mouth to good use. Since seeing the pictures from the club and experiencing the flood of memories that came with them, kissing Alex again had shot to the top of Dane’s to-do list. Second only to helping him get his spot back on the team. But seeing Alex dressed down in worn jeans and a threadbare Broncos tee had kissing vying for first place. The ravaging would have to wait, though, until Alex’s family wasn’t looking on.
A jingle of metal off to their sides snapped the scene back into action. Two leashed cattle dogs fought the leather straps held by one of Alex’s brothers, Dane guessed, given the striking resemblance.
“Didn’t know we were having visitors,” the brother said.
“Manners, Rafe.” The younger of the two women on the porch descended the steps. “I’m Carla,” she said, hand outstretched.
“Dane Ellis,” he replied, shaking it. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Why don’t you come inside, Dane,” the older woman said. Alex’s mother, standing between his father and other brother, was worryingly frail, but the smile on her face was as bright as the colorful scarf around her head. “You’ll fry out here in the sun.”
Dane pushed his rolled shirtsleeve up his arm, flashing his sunburn. “A week in the Texas sun, ma’am. Afraid I’m a lobster already.”
She smiled wider. “All the same, come inside.” She turned into the house, calling over her shoulder. “Alex, help your guest with his bags.”
Your guest.
Alex must have told her at least some of what was going on. Carla didn’t let him dwell long, looping an arm through his. A warm hand brushed his other shoulder, Alex slipping his computer bag off, leaving little shocks in his wake. Dane bit back a whimper as Alex’s touch lingered. He wanted to reach up, cover that hand with his own, or bend his head and drop a kiss on his knuckles, taste his skin again, but they’d put on enough of a scene as it was.
Carla led him up the front porch steps, Alex on their heels. The farmhouse’s yellow paint was faded and peeling in some places, but everything had its place on the porch, and all of it was colorful. Vases of fresh sunflowers, pink and green throw pillows in the giant white rocking chairs, and stained-glass wind chimes dangling in the space between each porch column.
The color came into Alex’s mother’s cheeks too when, inside, Dane kissed the back of her hand, deploying his full Southern charm as he introduced himself properly. He didn’t know what Alex had told them about him, but in any event, he needed to be on his best behavior. Alex’s father, Manny, was more reserved, assessing the situation. Noticing the orange knitted blanket on the back of the couch, and the framed Bronco’s poster and tickets on the wall, Dane asked questions about the team’s upcoming season, and the big imposing man was talking animatedly within minutes.
Rafael and Javier also introduced themselves, before disappearing back outside, claiming work. Manny followed, once he settled Maria at the kitchen table. Alex hung back, dropping Dane’s bags on the floor by the door. Dane tried not to read too much into it, telling himself Alex had set them there out of the way and not as an indication he wasn’t welcome.
He followed Carla down the hallway, taking time to survey the pictures lining the walls. Alex had a big family that worked hard and loved hard, if these photos were any indication. Pictures like this didn’t exist in Dane’s house. Every family portrait, school photo, and publicity still were cold posed affairs. None of them genuine. Never candids of mother and father kissing by the barn door. No blurry shots of brothers wrestling in the cornfields. No pictures of brothers looming over what appeared to be their little sister’s prom date.
Carla sighed dramatically beside him. “Worst day of my life.”
Dane laughed as they continued into the kitchen.
“When’s the last time you ate, Dane?” Maria asked from her chair at the table.
“You don’t need to feed him,” Alex said, shoulder leaned against the doorjamb. “He can fend for himself.”
“He cooks too?” Carla said, brow raised.
“He claims. But he also gets altitude sick. Go easy until he adjusts.”
“In that case . . .” Maria reached behind her into a cabinet. She righted herself and tossed Dane a long, narrow pack of crackers. “Saltines. Good for an upset stomach.” She would know, as both a mother and chemo patient.
“Gracias,” he said, palming the crackers. “These always do the trick,” he continued in Spanish, earning another smile as he popped one in his mouth.
“Have you ever made empanadas?” Maria asked.
He shook his head and swallowed before answering. “No, ma’am.”
She shifted her gaze to Alex. “Why don’t you show Dane around, and when you’re done, bring him back here.” Her dark brown eyes, the same as Alex’s, swung back to him, sparkling with mischief. She was giving them privacy, on purpose. He might like Mrs. Cantu, and it seemed she might like him too. “We’ll see about those cooking skills then.” She switched back to Spanish. “Have to know you can take care of my Alex.”
“I want to,” he answered. “He takes care of all of us,” he added, then startled when the screen door banged shut behind him, Alex gone.
“Go,” Maria said. “And don’t go easy on him,” she added with a wink.
He snagged two more crackers, shoved them in his mouth to settle his stomach, and tossed the package on the counter on his way out.
Rounding the corner of the house, he saw Alex disappear into one of the big white barns. Dane hurried inside after him, stumbling when the sudden dim lighting and bales of hay conspired to take him down.
Alex wrapped a hand around his biceps, steadying him. “Careful.”
That gravelly voice, the heat of Alex’s body close, the smell of his sweat that triggered another rush of weekend memories, moved kissing Alex to the top of Dane’s to-do list.
Leaning in, he rested his forehead against Alex’s and brushed his lips over the corner of his mouth. After all he’d cost him, this had to be Alex’s choice, his move. Didn’t mean Dane wouldn’t beg. “Please, Alejandro,” he whispered. “This has been the worst two days of our lives, and I just need to kiss you, to rewind to Saturday, to ten years ago. Just, please.”
Alex groaned, the sound going straight to Dane’s dick. He canted forward, his grip loosening and becoming more of a caress, lips brushing.
Then gone. Nothing but air.
Hitting the brakes, Alex tore out of his arms and reeled back. “What are you doing here? You should be in the pool.”
Dane started forward, like a magnet inside him had been switched on and he couldn’t stand to be apart from his paired end, even a few inches too far. “The team’s covering for me.”
Alex held up a hand, forestalling his advance. “While you do what?”
“Help clear your name.”
Alex’s eyes grew wide, before he ducked his head, shaking it. He sat heavily on a stack of bales, hands braced on his knees. “This is my fight, Dane. One I’m not sure I can even win.”
Determined, Dane ignored Alex’s caution and stepped between his spread legs. He skirted a hand under Alex’s chin, senses firing at the midday scruff tickling his palm. He ignored the shot of desire and lifted Alex’s face, forcing his gaze. “I brought this fight to you. It’s our fight. You don’t have to do everything on your own.” He glided his hand up to cradle Alex’s face. “You shouldn’t have to. Please let me help you. I think we can win this.”
Alex nuzzled into his palm, sending a surge of warmth racing to Dane’s heart, expanding his chest, and making the collapse that came with his next words almost unbearable. “How do I know you’re not going to leave?” Alex said, barely a whisper, eyes downcast. “That you won’t change your mind again tomorrow?”
Hand lowering to curl around Alex’s neck, Dane lowered himself too, kneeling between Alex’s legs. He wasn’t sure his legs would hold him after that last deserved blow, but more than his own potential humiliation, he didn’t want to stand over Alex. He didn’t have the right to, not when he was the one begging for forgiveness and another chance he didn’t deserve.
“You don’t know,” Dane said. “And that’s my fault. I’ve never given you a reason to think otherwise. But I’m here now.”
He squeezed Alex’s neck, drawing his gaze. Eyes locked, Dane stretched up slowly, lifting his other hand to Alex’s cheek, thumb skating over his bottom lip, making his intention clear, and giving Alex the out he’d given him on the dance floor. He didn’t take it, and Dane brought their lips together, gently, despite the blinding desire bubbling just below the surface. Instead, he gave Alex a slow, thorough kiss, full of all the promises he’d only just found the courage to make, delivered in the sincerest gesture of his life.
He pulled back and waited for Alex to open his eyes, pleased to see them darkened. “Let me prove it to you. Please.”
Alex held his stare, and Dane held his breath, praying he’d done enough to make his case. He needed to do this for Alex, who’d never compromised himself, who’d shown him what it was like to live honestly. Dane would be damned if he allowed his parents’ lies to bring this good man low, not when he could do something about it.
Alex blinked. “How can we win?”
Dane blew out a huge, relieved breath, and Alex laughed, the sound music to Dane’s ears. “Hard part’s done.” He shifted back on his haunches and dropped his hands, landing atop Alex’s on his knees, squeezing. “There’s this thing I can do with computers.”
“What sort of thing?”
“I can find things.”
Alex tilted his head, a grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “You’re a hacker?”
“A passably good one.”
“Like your cooking?”
Dane smiled, eager to show Alex another of his secret skills. “Better.”
Alex’s grin widened, but only for a second, before it dimmed. “You can’t just change the results. That’s no better than what was done to me.”
He patted his knee. “I wasn’t going to. I need to get into USOC’s system, here at headquarters so I’m behind their air gap firewall. Once I’m in, I can search for a ghost of the original record.”
“A ghost?”
“A lingering copy. If I can find that, it’ll establish a record of the original test results, before the negative was changed to positive. I may also be able find the user who made the change.”
“Then what?”
Dane pushed to his feet and held out a hand to Alex, hauling him up. “Then we confront the culprit and convince them to tell the Committee my parents paid for the switch.”
Alex’s hand spasmed in his. “You’ll be implicating your parents.”
“It’s no worse than they deserve. And maybe it’ll be enough to get their hands off my trust fund and contracts so I can live my life the way I want to.” Using Alex’s hand in his, Dane pulled him closer, chest to chest. He ran his other hand up Alex’s arm, entranced by the motion, across his collarbone, pinpricks rising in its wake, and down over Alex’s chest, landing on his pounding heart. Alex shivered, and Dane lifted his eyes, meeting warm dark brown around blown-wide pupils. The slide into his future was so very sweet. “With you.”
“I don’t want to be the one who turns your life upside down.”
“Too late. You did that ten years ago.” Dane closed the scant distance between them, skimming his lips along Alex’s strong jaw, tasting the lingering tang of sweat. Desire roared back to life. “For the better, even if I’m just now figuring that out.” He traced a path up to Alex’s ear, those dark curls, that smell he couldn’t get enough of, tickling his nose as they stood cheek to cheek. “Now I’ve turned yours upside down, and not for the better. I need to do right by you, Alejandro. Let me, please.”
Alex’s warm breath painted the side of his face, then lips brushed the corner of his, returning the earlier tease. “Yes.”
Dane didn’t have to ask if Alex’s answer was to more than just his question. Alex angled his face in and captured his mouth in a kiss filled with so much need, mirroring Dane’s own, that Dane staggered backward. A stall door broke their fall, providing the surface they needed to stay upright while devouring each other.
Mouths connected, tongues tangling, Dane reached for the other parts of Alex he craved. Fingers creeping under the rough cotton tee, he clawed at the smooth, hot skin beneath. Abs, ribs, pecs, all of it defined, hard, undeniably masculine. Undeniably Alex.
What—who—Dane wanted.
Groaning into his mouth, Alex clutched his ass and jerked Dane’s lower body flush against his, rocking their hips together. Cocks hardening as fast as they had on the dance floor, friction and release were the only imperative.
Dane wanted, plain and simple, and everything he wanted was in his arms.
“Alex! Dane!” Maria’s shout jolted them apart. “Come inside now and help me with these empanadas.” She was calling from a slight distance away, the porch likely, but still too close for the comfort they’d been about to engage in.
“Fuck.” Alex threw out a hand, bracing it next to Dane’s head against the stall door. “I can’t believe she can still do that.”
Dane lifted a brow.
“Four kids,” Alex explained. “She knows exactly how long to leave one in the barn with a boy or girl before the good stuff starts to happen. Which is when she always hollers and interrupts. It’s like fucking ESP or some shit.”
Dane reached down, palming Alex’s erection through his jeans. “Right on time.”
Alex’s arm gave way, and he sagged back against Dane, the weight on top of him heavy, wonderful and perfect. And relaxed, which Dane counted as a win. If nothing else went as planned today—if they didn’t get the evidence they needed to clear Alex, or if Dane didn’t get what he needed to break free of his parents—at least he’d given Alex this moment of peace.
He nipped and pecked at Alex’s lips, knowing they had to wind this down, for now.
Alex pushed back with his arm, trailing hand lingering on Dane’s face. “Thank you,” he said, smiling softly and caressing Dane’s cheek.
Dane turned into the touch, kissing his palm. “For what?”
“For also being right on time.”
Another win. Dane was racking up the medals.
Now, he just had to make sure Alex got his too.