Would have driven Glen crazy, but that was Preston.
“Mm….” Cash pretended to ponder. “I don’t think so.”
Glen waited for Cash to climb up. “Take it easy, Elsie!” he called before he disappeared into the plane. “Remember, contact—”
“I’ll contact you if I need anything. Get your ass inside, Glen Echo, so you can come back and micromanage from home.”
“Your boyfriend’s a fuckin’ saint!”
“I’ll tell him so! Now go!”
Glen got inside and realized that he really didn’t have any choice about sitting next to Cash. They wouldn’t be tight up against each other since the walkway was between them, but the walkway wasn’t that fucking wide. Preston and the dogs would be in the next row behind them, then their packs in the row after that. The rest of the interior had been made to hold emergency supplies. Everything from parachutes—God forbid—to cold-weather gear and scuba equipment was stored neatly in boxes, along with bedding and dog food. There was room for a stretcher along one side of the plane and a jump seat at the foot, just in case. The Cessna Grand Caravan was meant to hold ten to fourteen people, but Gecko Inc. really wasn’t a taxi service—it was a rescue service, and that’s where Glen had put his startup money.
“Ooh… fancy!” Cash murmured as he checked the arm compartment of his chair and found chilled water and soda. He checked the other side and found the snacks that Glen and Damien stocked as a courtesy. “You guys really do fly right.”
“You should see what we did with that Black Hawk Damien used to drag us out of Agujero en la Roca with. You wouldn’t recognize it now.”
The helicopter had been bought from a farmer because Damien had been desperate for a way to get Glen down the mountain after they’d dug him out of the rubble. By the time he’d gotten Glen and the other victims of that brutal aftershock to the hospital in Guadalajara, the thing had been belching black smoke as well as practically flying sideways. If Damien hadn’t been Damien—and desperate to get Glen and Preston to safety—he never would have made it.
“Cleans up nice?” Cash asked. “Some of us do, you know.”
“You clean up fine.” Glen kept his voice mild, not wanting to admit how good Cash looked. He’d combed his brown hair carefully, then put a little bit of Spencer’s product in it and tousled it, and he looked mussed and delectable, and it wasn’t fair. Glen still remembered the warmth of his body, how good it felt to wrap an arm around Cash’s chest and have the man in his bed. “And what did you mean, ‘I don’t think so’?”
“Hm?” Cash found a soda that apparently really rang his flippin’ bell and cracked it open as Damien and Spencer warmed up the plane and contacted the tower.
“I said only Damien got to call me that, and you said you didn’t think so.”
Cash studied him for a minute, and then his eyes flickered to Damien and Spencer in the front of the plane, and then to Preston right behind them. Nobody was paying them any attention, and Glen got the feeling they were very much alone.
“Remember that night in Las Varas, and I was trying to be all tough about not needing anyone and not wanting any commitments, and how that was only a hookup?”
“Yeah.” Glen swallowed, his chest tight.
“That’s not what I want anymore.”
Glen tried to breathe. “Exactly what do you want?”
“I want exclusive. We’ve got a six-month head start on it—why the hell not? And when I say exclusive, I mean I am very, very territorial, and there is no pet name I won’t co-opt.”
Glen scowled mulishly. “Damien and I—”
“Are brothers, bonded, share the same DNA…. Look, I get it. I’m just saying you are going to make room for me.”
“We’re not even a thing again!”
“Six months?” Cash cocked his head. “Yeah, Gecko, O Mighty Lizard—I think we’re a fuckin’ thing.”
Glen turned away from him and watched the tarmac whipping underneath the plane. God, he loved to fly. He was tired—and he’d probably sleep as soon as Damie hit cruising altitude, but as he sat here and listened to Damien and Spencer bitch at each other in their own rhythm, he thought wistfully that he’d rather crash in an airplane than sleep anywhere else in the world.
The only place that felt more like home had been next to Cash the night before.
Glen tried to scratch that thought out of his brain, but the wheels left the tarmac and he realized Cash had stopped playing with the amenities and was now gripping the armrest with white-knuckled tension.
It was like his hand took on a life of its own, became an alien being, lifted up off his lap and laced his fingers with Cash’s to ease some of the desperation in that terrible grip.
“This is leather, son,” he drawled. “Don’t poke holes in it.”
Cash squeezed his hand. “I’ll leave your precious upholstery alone if you stop calling me things like ‘son.’”
Glen breathed through his nose and tried to tug his hand free. “That’s not a good trade.”
But Cash was having none of it. He kept Glen’s hand right where it was and raised Glen’s knuckles to his lips. “It’s ten years, Gecko. Not twenty. I’m not a teenager. I am literally a grown-assed man. You may think it’s going to help you keep your distance, doing that, but I’m telling you it’s only going to make you feel like a creepy old man when you cave.”
“How do you know I’m going to cave?” Glen asked. “I’m usually pretty damned good at keeping my promises, and I promise you—”
“Don’t say it,” Cash ordered. “That’s another thing that’ll make you feel like shit. It’s going to happen because you still care about me. And it has to happen because I don’t think I can care for another man like I care about you. So unless you want us to spill our guts right here on the plane in front of dogs and everybody, I suggest you stop writing checks with your mouth that your body can’t keep.”
Glen couldn’t help it. Oh my God, the pun… it was right there… shiny and silver and beckoning to distract him from all the serious heartache this man was promising him.
“And you’re gonna be the one to ‘Cash’ them?” he asked, practically giggling with the perfection of it.
“You know, someday I’m gonna top,” Cash told him, his brown-eyed gaze absolutely unimpressed. “And I’ve never done it before, but I’m going to do it with you, and you are going to be at my mercy. Now ask yourself—how badly do you want to piss me off before then? Because you need to pick your battles.”
Glen snorted. “You’re very cute—ah!” Cash turned Glen’s hand up and bit gently on the callused pad of Glen’s palm, letting his teeth scrape down the tender middle.
Glen was suddenly, achingly, ferociously aroused, and this time when he tried to snatch his hand back, Cash let him.
“You are a forward little shit, aren’t you?” he muttered.
“I am not dicking around.” Cash’s eyes softened. “Now get some sleep, and maybe you won’t be such an asshole when you wake up.”