“Did you get in trouble?” Ian’s soft question jerked him back from his rambling thoughts. He looked over to find Ian’s brown eyes had become worried. “I saw that federal agent shouting at you.”
Hollis winced. He’d really hoped that Ian had been too preoccupied with the kids to notice he’d slipped away. He’d gotten more than an earful from the feds, the state troopers, and then on the phone from his own boss. Because they’d gotten so many kids and cracked Jagger’s trafficking ring, he might be able to escape jail, but he was in pretty big trouble.
“Nothing I didn’t expect,” he said with a shrug.
Ian stopped walking and turned to face him. He gripped Hollis’s forearm with his free hand, holding him tight. “Did you lose your job?”
“Not officially…yet.”
“But you will?”
“Any chance you’re hiring for a dishwasher?” he joked but Ian’s face twisted in anger.
“They can’t do that! You risked your life tonight. You—”
“I didn’t follow the rules,” Hollis gently interjected. “I broke the rules—a damn lot of them—and I’m lucky I’m not sitting in a jail cell right now.” And it was possible he could still end up there.
“But…”
“But I don’t regret what we did. Yes, we could have handled it differently, but I was tired of Jagger and his men slipping away at the last second. I wanted to handle this.” He stopped and smiled weakly at Ian, who looked so sad. He lifted his hand and brushed his fingertips across Ian’s red, cold-chapped cheek. “I knew what would happen, and it doesn’t change my decision. I’m just glad that you weren’t hurt.”
Ian’s cheeks grew redder and he turned away from Hollis but didn’t continue walking. Hollis realized they were standing several feet away from a small, overgrown graveyard. The same fucking graveyard where men had hunted Ian down and raped him. He couldn’t stop his fingers from tightening around Ian’s. He wanted to draw Ian close, pull him into his own body to protect him from his past. He wanted to bulldoze all the crumbling headstones and then nuke this small patch of earth, wipe it clean away. And then he wanted to nuke the men who’d touched Ian.
“Is it weird that I feel happy right now?”
Ian’s strange question snapped Hollis from his own dark thoughts, jerking his gaze from the twisted dead weeds to Ian’s smiling upturned face. “What?”
“I thought if I came back here I’d fall apart from the memory, but…I’m happy,” he said with a soft laugh. “I’m standing here with you.” Ian paused and swallowed hard. His eyes sparkled but they weren’t with tears of sadness. “I have you. Jagger’s men are going to jail. We freed ten kids and they are going to be safe. No one is going to hurt them. And I know that we are so close to finally getting Jagger. He didn’t win. I’m going to win. I know it.”
Hollis released Ian’s hand so he could use both hands to pull him close and capture his mouth in a rough, consuming kiss. Ian leaned into him, immediately opening at the first touch of his lips. The groan rippled between them, but Hollis wasn’t sure if it had come from him or Ian. He broke off the kiss only to pepper more along his whisker-rough jaw to his ear.
“I am in awe of you,” he whispered, his voice choked up with emotions he didn’t want to put names to. “Every second I am around you, I am humbled by your strength and your will.” He broke off and snagged Ian’s lips in another kiss to keep from saying the three words that were fighting to break free. He was afraid that it would be too much. That maybe Ian wasn’t ready to hear them. Not now. Not in this moment already tainted by thoughts of Jagger. Soon.
Of all the things he’d encountered in his life, Hollis knew one thing. He was in love with Ian Pierce. The young man had taken up permanent residence in his heart, claimed his soul as his own, and he would never be the same again. He just had to find a way to be worthy of such an amazing man because he didn’t think it was possible to move on without him.
The rumble of an approaching van broke them apart. Low tree branches scraped on metal and tires grumbled across rocks and dirt. Hollis reached up and rubbed his thumb across Ian’s lower lip as Ian smiled at him.
“Guess we should go find Tarzan and Jane,” Ian murmured.
“If we must,” he sighed, taking Ian’s hand as they turned back toward the schoolhouse. “You know I was serious, right?”
“About what?”
“Are you hiring for a dishwasher?”
Ian grunted playfully, bumping his hip into Hollis’s thigh as they walked. “You’re too good at protecting people. You can’t be a dishwasher. Maybe you should go work for Rowe.”