He was way too much of a temptation.
And not just in the I-want-to-pin-you-to-the-wall-and-fuck-your-brains-out kind of way.
Nolan’s eyes darted around us as we made our way back to the driveway. Just before we rounded the corner, he stopped and looked at me. “Dallas, do you-”
That was as far as he got before he shook his head and began walking again.
Five steps later he stopped and turned so he was suddenly facing me. “Do you…do you by any chance need any help around here?”
The question caught me off guard.
“I mean, it’s a big place and I didn’t see any other cars out front or any people and maybe that means you do all this by yourself or maybe it means they’re just not here but if they aren’t maybe it means you need help and I could help if you need help.”
He stopped the verbal diarrhea only long enough to suck in some air. Anxiety was practically wafting off him as he jammed his hands into his jacket pockets.
“I’m a really quick learner and I’ll work hard, Dallas, I swear. I mean, I know I’ve only ever played the violin, but it doesn’t mean I can’t learn and I’ll accept whatever you’re paying and it isn’t true what you might have heard about me. I never stole that violin. Trey, he only said that so he could-”
And just like that, his tirade came to an end and his eyes went wide.
“Oh God,” he whispered. He turned on his heel and hurried toward his car.
I was still trying to catch up to everything he’d said, but my instincts had me hurrying after him. I reached him just as he was opening his car door. I put my hand on the doorframe to stop him. I ended up pressed against Nolan’s back, my body trapping him against the car, my hard cock practically nudging his ass. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dallas. Just…I’ll go, okay? Just pretend I didn’t say any of that.”
He was shaking hard, and I could hear the tremor in his voice that hinted he was on the verge of another breakdown.
What the hell had happened to him in the years since he’d left Pelican Bay? Stealing a violin? Desperate for a job? None of it made any sense. He should have had the world at his feet.
“Dallas, please,” he whispered, and I wondered if he was still begging me for the job or asking me to let him go.
Or maybe it was something else he needed so desperately.
I leaned into him and carefully wrapped my arms around him before I realized what I was doing. I heard a sob catch in his throat and then his hands were closing over the arm I had pressed against his chest. I was nuzzling the back of his neck before I could stop myself.
But for whatever reason, hiding the fact that I was gay from Nolan just didn’t seem to matter right now. Hell, what I was doing wasn’t even about sex. I just wanted to…
What?
What was it that I wanted?
I wanted to go back in time and wrap my arms around Nolan long before those assholes could pelt him with eggs. I wanted to protect him from all the cruel jokes and names that had been lobbed at him over the years. I wanted to insulate him as he went out into the real world and learned that the cruelty he’d faced as a child was only the beginning.
Remarkably, Nolan had managed to hold back the tears I sensed were a constant threat. When the tremors in his body seemed to ease, I carefully turned him around, but, predictably, he wouldn’t look at me. He wiped at his eyes.
“I’m sorry, I should go.”
His voice was still thick with emotion, but there was something else, too. Something I really, really didn’t like.
A finality of some kind.
Like he was giving up.
Yeah, that just wasn’t going to work for me. Not after I’d watched him fight all those years ago. Even if he’d never won, he’d never backed down from his tormentors. He hadn’t pretended to be something he wasn’t just to mollify them.
Not like me.
I was still using my body to keep Nolan from moving away from me. I gently grabbed his chin and forced him to look up at me. I put my hand to my ear in the universal sign for a telephone.
“No, you don’t need to call someone for me,” he murmured. “I’m okay.”
I shook my head and did the move again, then pointed to him. It took Nolan a moment to say, “You want my phone?”
I nodded, and he immediately took the phone out and unlocked it before handing it to me.
I opened the notes app and typed my message.