Conquer the Flames (Langs Down) (36 page)

“Love you,” Thorne murmured into Ian’s hair.

“Love you too,” Ian replied and pressed a kiss to Thorne’s neck. He took a few more deep breaths and lifted his head. “I didn’t think I could feel this way.”

“Loving someone or having sex with someone?” Thorne asked.

“Either,” Ian said. “They tend to go together, and sex wasn’t an option before.”

“Speaking of sex,” Thorne said, shifting on the couch a little, “we’re going to be very uncomfortable here in a few minutes if we don’t get out of these sticky pants. You wrecked me, you know that.”

“I kind of guessed it, yeah,” Ian said, flushing a bit.

Thorne sat up and juggled their arms and legs until Ian was sitting on his lap. “Want to join me in the shower?”

Ian froze.

“Just to rinse off,” Thorne assured him.

Ian swallowed hard and focused on how good it had felt to rub off against Thorne and then to remember all the things he’d dreamed about while they were apart. “And if I want to do more than rinse off?”

“Baby, you can do anything you want to me anytime you want.”

Ian grinned, grabbed Thorne’s hand, and pulled him toward the bathroom.

T
HORNE
braced himself for the teasing he was sure he and Ian would receive as they walked into the canteen for breakfast the next morning. They hadn’t made it to dinner last night, and he figured that would earn them at least a few off-color comments. They’d be mostly off base, since other than a few tentative caresses in the shower—he was already completely addicted to the touch of Ian’s hands and only hoped Ian was starting to feel the same about him—he and Ian had spent the evening talking, not fucking, but nobody else would know that. They’d see a couple separated for weeks and imagine how they would spend their reunion.

To his surprise, although everyone looked up and smiled or waved when they came in, no one catcalled or reacted to their presence in any way out of the ordinary.

“Is Neil watching out for us again?” Thorne murmured as he joined Ian in the line for breakfast.

“Probably,” Ian replied, “but I’m not going to complain. He’s been really protective of my feelings since you left. I, um, I told him everything. He was a little annoyed at me for not telling him sooner.”

Thorne smoothed a hand over Ian’s side. “You weren’t ready to talk about it before now.”

“And he gets that,” Ian said. “He just feels the need to make sure nobody else makes it worse now that he knows.”

“Does that include me?” Thorne asked.

“If he thought you were making it worse, maybe,” Ian replied, “but he knows you’re the one making it better. I’m pretty sure you’re now included under his protective umbrella too. If there’s one thing Neil is good at, it’s defending the people he calls his own.”

Thorne squeezed Ian’s hip and let go to grab his tray. He could live with being one of the people Neil called his own. It meant he’d been accepted here in a real and tangible way. They made their way over to a couple of empty seats, and Thorne couldn’t help but smile as Chris and Jesse scooted over to make room for them.

“Welcome home,” Chris said. “Are you glad to be back?”

“Very glad,” Thorne said. “I missed everyone.”

“Uh-huh,” Jesse said. “You mean you missed Ian.”

“I did miss Ian,” Thorne said, because he could hardly deny that he’d missed his lover, “but I missed the rest of you as well. Lang Downs has become home.”

“It does that, doesn’t it?” Jesse agreed. “I’ll get Titan saddled up for you. I imagine you’ll want to ride out with Ian today.”

“I have to talk to Caine and Macklin first,” Thorne said. “I have a contract to sign.”

Ian smiled at him, the light in his eyes nearly blinding in its intensity. “We’ll be out as soon as that’s done,” he told Jesse. “It shouldn’t take us long.”

The rest of breakfast passed in the same vein, the other year-rounders welcoming Thorne home and offering any assistance he needed in settling in. By the time they finished eating, Thorne felt completely overwhelmed. Ian smiled at him as they walked toward the station house.

“Doing okay?”

“I’m fine,” Thorne said. “Just a little surprised at how much everyone seemed to miss me. I mean, I knew you did, but there’s no reason for everyone else to have noticed, much less cared.”

“There’s every reason for them to have noticed,” Ian disagreed. “We’re a family, remember?”

“You keep telling me that,” Thorne said, “but it’s been so long since I’ve had anyone but Walker….”

“And now you have more people than you know what to do with,” Ian said. “I remember how overwhelming it was when I first got here. Some of the faces have changed in that time. Michael is gone and some of the older year-rounders from the first few years have retired and chosen to go elsewhere, but the feeling hasn’t changed in fifteen years. You just have to trust us.”

“Welcome back, Thorne,” Caine said when he opened the door to the station house. “Are you ready to sign that contract now?”

“I am,” Thorne said. “I shouldn’t need to go back to Wagga Wagga for any extended period of time now, but I will need to log in to the station’s Internet on my days off. My therapist wants to continue our sessions via Skype.”

“That’s easy enough to arrange,” Caine said. “Get the password from Sam. We only have it protected because of the station accounts on the computer.”

“You’ll have to teach me how to use that,” Ian said. “It would be easier than driving to Cowra once a week, since I’m not exactly done either.”

“We’ll get you sorted,” Caine promised, the Australian idiom in Caine’s Yank accent making Thorne smile.

Amusement aside, Thorne finally believed it. He’d arrived at Lang Downs three months earlier a broken man. He didn’t claim to be healed yet—he wasn’t sure such a thing existed with all the black marks on his soul—but he was better than he’d been in years. Best of all, he had Ian now, and he’d do whatever it took to protect that. Caine set the contract in front of him. Thorne skimmed through it and picked up a pen.

This was a contract he’d willingly spend the rest of his life honoring.

About the Author

A
RIEL
T
ACHNA
lives outside of Houston with her husband, her daughter and son, and their cat. Before moving there, she traveled all over the world, having fallen in love with both France, where she found her husband, and India, where she dreams of retiring someday. She’s bilingual with snippets of four other languages to her credit and is as in love with languages as she is with writing.

Visit Ariel’s website at http://www.arieltachna.com/ and her blog at http://arieltachna.livejournal.com/.

Lang Downs Book 1