Conquer the Flames (Langs Down) (30 page)

“As long as you understand you can say no or back off or whatever anytime you need to,” Thorne said. “I’m not going to deny I want everything I can get with you, but I don’t want to pressure you into more than you’re comfortable with. There’s something to be said for taking our time and enjoying each stage for what it is. I’d forgotten how good it felt to just kiss someone until you reminded me of that.”

“It is good,” Ian agreed, “but I want more. I’m just afraid to take it.”

“What happened to you?” Thorne asked. “I know you said you’d tell me after Christmas, but I feel like I’m walking through a field of land mines, not knowing.”

Ian shook his head and kissed Thorne instead of answering. He attacked all Thorne’s sensitive places: the nape of his neck, the inside curve of his elbow, the spot on his side just below his ribs, whipping his passion into a frenzy. Thorne groaned into the kiss as Ian shifted in his lap, bringing their erections together. He couldn’t help himself. He thrust up into the contact, needing more friction, needing to make Ian feel as good as he felt.

Ian jumped like he’d been burned, fleeing across the room in the blink of an eye, leaving Thorne on the couch panting and at the end of his rope. “Ian, please,” he said. “Tell me.”

“I…. I can’t,” Ian said, his eyes wide and wild. “You’ll hate me.”

“Ian,” Thorne cajoled, “I couldn’t ever hate you. I love you, but I need you to tell me what happened so I can stop scaring you without meaning to.”

“You can’t love me,” Ian all but shouted. “I’m damaged. He… he broke me. He came into my room when nobody else was at home and he forced me, and when he was done, he told me I couldn’t ever tell anyone because nobody would want a fucked-out whore. I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t….”

Thorne tasted bile, but he forced it down. He needed to keep it together for Ian’s sake. “You aren’t damaged,” he said, enunciating every word as clearly as he could. “Whatever he did, that’s on him, not on you. You didn’t ask for any of it.”

“He said I did,” Ian said, his voice breaking. “He said I flaunted myself. He said I made a spectacle of myself and that he was just giving me what I was asking for.”

Thorne couldn’t sit still and listen helplessly. He had to do something, even just pace the room. He knew he was scaring Ian, but his anger was barely caged beneath his iron will, and if he didn’t find some outlet for it, he’d do something he’d regret.

“How old were you?” Thorne demanded.

Ian flinched and backed toward the kitchen.

“S-s-sixteen.”

“Bloody motherfucking bastard,” Thorne spat. “Who was it? I’ll kill him. I’ll rip his prick off and stuff it down his throat.”

Ian’s eyes grew wider for a moment before he bolted, leaving Thorne alone in the living room with his righteous anger. A second later, he heard the bedroom door slam and the sound of furniture being dragged across the floor.

“Fuck!” Thorne cursed. His vision narrowed with his anger and the world went blank around him.

R
EALITY
filtered back in slowly. Thorne breathed deeply and tried to take stock of where he was and what had happened. The last thing he remembered was Ian running from him like he was the one who’d raped him, not the filthy pedophile who’d somehow got his hands on Ian. It hadn’t been dark then, had it? It was dark outside now, so he’d been out of it for a while, possibly as much as an hour.

He took another deep breath and opened his eyes. He was sitting on the floor in the living room, so he’d either stayed there or had made his way back there after he was done with his rampage. A quick glance showed he was still dressed as he’d been when he blacked out, but that didn’t eliminate much in the way of possibilities other than forcing his way into Ian’s room and making love to him the way he deserved. Whatever he’d done, it hadn’t been that, for which he could only be grateful.

He looked around the room more carefully. The papers Ian had given him with the design for the cabinet were scattered across the floor in front of the couch, but when he picked them up carefully, he could see they were undamaged, so they’d been knocked aside, not destroyed in a fit of rage. The rest of the furniture was still in its usual place as well.

He clenched his fist as he walked into the kitchen, hoping he hadn’t done any damage to the beautiful cabinets Ian had made for that room. His knuckles stung, drawing his attention to the torn and bloodied skin. Fuck, he’d hit something while he was out, hard and possibly repeatedly, if the state of his hand was any indication. His knuckles were already swelling and he’d be lucky if nothing was broken. Far more importantly, though, he had no idea what he’d hit.

The kitchen was pristine, so he hadn’t torn it apart in his rage, but that only added to the mystery of what he’d hit. He turned back into the living room and studied the spot where he’d been sitting. A few feet to the right, he spotted a mark on the wall. Upon closer examination, he had his answer. He’d apparently pounded his fist into the wall, because the wood paneling had a blood splatter on it now. He muffled another curse and grabbed his shirt to wipe the mark away. Fortunately the blood wiped right off the varnish, but Thorne couldn’t do anything about the dent he’d left.

He sank back down to the floor and rested his head against his knees. He couldn’t do this. However justifiable his anger on Ian’s behalf, he’d lost control tonight to the point that he’d blacked out. He could have done anything while he was out of it like that, and the fact that the worst he’d done was try to put a hole in Ian’s wall didn’t change anything. Next time, he could try to put a hole in someone instead, and if it happened around someone like Laura or Dani, they might not have the strength or speed to get away from him. He was a danger to the station that had become home and to the people he loved, and that was unacceptable.

Leaving wasn’t an option either, though. The people here had taken him in as one of their own. Caine and Macklin were expecting him to sign a contract in the morning. Neil’s daughter called him Uncle Thorne. Chris and Jesse had promised to invite him over for a beer. He had
plans
, damn it, and he wasn’t going to give those up. And then there was Ian, if Ian still wanted him after this debacle. He would understand if Ian never wanted to see him again, but if Ian would give him half a chance, Thorne would spend every waking minute winning Ian’s trust again. He’d thought he’d known what love was at eighteen in an attic bedroom on a cool spring night with his best friend, but that paled in comparison to what he felt for Ian. Whatever it took, he would find a way to win Ian back, but before he could do that, he had to get help. He’d tried telling himself his issues would get better as he adjusted to civilian life again, but they weren’t going away, and he feared they were getting worse. He’d talk to Caine and Macklin in the morning and then go to Wagga Wagga and check himself into the mental health unit there. He’d do it right this time and answer the questions honestly instead of playing the game and giving the “right” answers like he’d done when he’d had to see a shrink after his unit was killed. He’d get himself together, and then he’d come back and ask Ian to forgive him.

He’d find a way to make this work.

He had to, because the alternatives were unthinkable.

I
AN
couldn’t stop shaking. He’d managed to stop himself from crawling under the bed or into the closet in his quest for safety, but he’d still ended up cowering in the corner between his bed and the wall, as far away from the door as possible. He knew Thorne wouldn’t hurt him. He knew Thorne’s anger was directed at Ian’s foster father, but that hadn’t been enough to quell his fear when Thorne started shouting.

Then the pounding had started. Ian didn’t know what Thorne was hitting, but he could hear the rhythmic thuds even through the closed door. The noise had stopped now, thankfully, but Ian feared the silence nearly as much as the noise. At least if he could hear something, he would know where Thorne was and could track his progress around the house. Silence could mean anything from him leaving—
oh God, don’t let him leave!
—to him lying in wait outside Ian’s door, just looking for the opportunity to get in—
he wouldn’t.
He
did that, not Thorne.

When the silence continued, he made himself get up off the floor. The cedar chest he’d pushed in front of the door in his panic was right where he’d left it, a silent reproach to his lack of faith. Grimly, he made himself put it back where it belonged at the foot of his—
our, damn it, it’s our bed
. He pulled on a T-shirt, took off his jeans, and climbed into bed. Even as hot as it was in the room, he shivered against the cool sheets without Thorne there to keep him warm. The other man was a regular furnace. Ian could have used the heat now. He felt like every ounce of warmth had been sucked from his body with his revelations and Thorne’s subsequent explosion.

Thorne’s absence nagged at him like a toothache, but he couldn’t make his legs work. He wanted to go out there and tell Thorne to come to bed, but he didn’t know how to face his lover—
did Thorne really tell me he loves me?
—after everything he’d revealed tonight. He couldn’t bear to see the look of disgust on Thorne’s face, or worse, pity. Thorne had survived far worse in his life, with his parents’ deaths and everything he’d gone through in the Commandos. Compared to that, Ian’s life had been a walk in the park. Sure, he’d had a few bad years, but then he’d found Lang Downs and a safe haven. Thorne hadn’t known safety in twenty years.

He couldn’t go out there and face Thorne, but he’d learned the first night that a closed door was all the barrier required to keep Thorne out. He couldn’t go out there, but he could let Thorne know he was welcome if he came to check on his own.

His legs still trembled as he crossed the room to open the door, but he kept his feet, and once the door was open and he headed back to bed, he felt steadier. He hadn’t managed to ask Thorne to come to bed, but he’d at least left the choice up to Thorne instead of barring his entrance.

Everything else would have to wait until tomorrow.

Twenty-Two

T
HORNE
woke the next morning with a stiff neck and sore arse from leaning against the wall all night long. He’d slept in worse conditions, but that didn’t make it any easier to haul himself off the floor. He didn’t hear any sounds from Ian’s room or the bathroom, but Ian had to still be in there. He couldn’t have snuck out past Thorne. Even wrung out like he was, he wouldn’t have slept through the front door opening and closing.

He took a couple of steps down the hall to see if he could hear anything as he got closer and caught sight of the open door. Not just ajar, but wide open in silent invitation. Thorne swallowed hard. After everything, Ian hadn’t locked him out of the room last night. Not that Thorne could have faced Ian after everything he’d done, but Ian had forgiven him, it seemed. Thorne didn’t know how that was possible, but the door was indisputably open. Walking as quietly as he could, he made his way into the bedroom, intending to grab a change of clothes and shower so he’d be out of the way when Ian woke.

“Missed you,” Ian murmured sleepily from the bed. “Come to bed.”

A choked sob rose in Thorne’s throat as he crossed to the bed and took the hand Ian had stretched out to him. “Are you sure?”

“Mmhmm,” Ian replied. “Cold without you.”

Thorne didn’t deserve the grace by which he’d earned Ian’s forgiveness, but he didn’t question it. He simply climbed in bed behind Ian and curved around him. Ian snuggled back against him, grabbed Thorne’s hand, and pulled it over his chest with a contented sigh. That only redoubled Thorne’s determination. He needed to be able to give this to Ian every night, and that meant getting help so he could make that promise and be able to keep it.

He pressed a sleepy kiss to the spot below Ian’s ear and relaxed back into slumber. Ian would wake them when it was time. Until then, Thorne was content to stay right where he was.

T
HORNE
didn’t know how long they slept before Ian rolled over in his arms and kissed him. He tightened his hold and kissed Ian back, uncaring of morning breath or anything other than making sure Ian knew Thorne still loved him and always would.

When they finally broke apart to breathe, Thorne rested his forehead against Ian’s. “I nearly did something unforgivable last night,” he said softly, “and I’m pretty sure I left a dent in your wall.” He took a deep breath and plowed on. “I meant what I said when I told you I love you. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it the way I did or when I did, but I’m not sorry I said it, only that I didn’t say it for the first time under better circumstances. But for me to be able to stay here and keep the promises inherent in saying that, I need help. I lost myself last night for a while. I blacked out completely and while I was out, I punched the wall enough times to leave a dent and to tear up my hand. I can’t ask you to live with me like that, and I can’t ask Caine and Macklin to let me stay on the station like that. There’s a treatment center in Wagga Wagga. I’m going to check myself in there until I can get this under control, but I’m coming back. I swear I’m coming back.”