Defiance (The Protectors 9)

“I’m not giving up the bed to the injured damsel in distress, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“You want to share?” I asked stupidly. Was he kidding?

“What I want is irrelevant,” Vincent returned as his eyes slid over my body. Jesus, was he…was he checking me out? I barely heard him say, “What I’m doing is getting ready for bed. What you do is up to you. Take the other side, the floor, no skin off my nose.”

“We can’t share a bed,” I said as I quickly climbed to my feet. “It’s not…appropriate.”

“Fine,” Vincent said easily as he shucked his pants and tossed them over the end of the bed. He snagged one of the pillows and threw it at me. “Enjoy the floor, Nate.”

Nate?

No one ever called me Nate.

I ignored his attempt to irritate me further and reached for the top blanket.

“Nuh-uh,” Vincent said as he put his hand on the blanket to stop me from moving it. “I get cold at night in just my skivvies.”

Ass.

I knew he was just messing with me, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his shit. Mostly because it was exactly what he wanted.

“By the way,” Vincent began as he got settled underneath the covers. “Not all of us fudge-packers are interested in every hot piece of ass we see…especially straight, uptight asses that already have sticks shoved so far up them that they could probably spit up a decent amount of lumber.”

There were so many parts of that statement that warranted a response, but I was still stuck on the beginning of it.

“You’re gay?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yep.” He cast me a glance and said, “But I’m sure you don’t have a problem with that, seeing how progressive you are.” His snide tone had me stiffening my spine. “I mean, you’re all for equal rights and all that shit now, right? Gay pride, love is love,” he added, pumping his fist slightly.

“You really think daring me like a ten-year-old is going to work?” I asked.

“Yeah, you just proved my point,” he said before reaching over to turn off the light next to the bed. He hit the button that controlled both the lamps on either side of the bed so we were pitched into darkness. Part of me told myself to leave it alone, but I told that part to fuck off and hit the switch to turn the lights back on.

“What point?”

Vincent sighed and rolled on his back. His hand came up to absently stroke over his chest. At least, it looked like just a casual move, but as I watched his fingers glide over his pecs and down his muscled abdomen before moving back up, I had to wonder if he wasn’t doing it on purpose.

“Don’t worry, Nate, people will buy it,” he said as he turned to look at me. That damn hand kept up its movements and I struggled to keep my attention on him and not those calloused fingers.

“Buy what?”

“Your story. Good ol’ Southern boy goes against the grain and stands up to his rich, conservative daddy. You spout off all the right bullshit to get the votes you need…gays, minorities, immigrants…promise them exactly what they want to hear, and then fuck ‘em the second you sit down in that fancy office on Capitol Hill.”

“You think that’s what I’m doing?” I asked in disbelief. His words had done what my brain hadn’t been able to do and taken my attention off his roving hand. I was completely focused on him now.

“That’s what you do,” he said simply. The inflection as he said “you” had me realizing he really wasn’t talking about me at all.

“So, it really is all politicians, then,” I murmured.

I barely noticed him stiffen. He reached back over to flip the lights off. Before I could even think to turn them back on, he growled, “Turn them back on and see what happens.”

God, the guy really was an ass.

I went to drop the pillow on the floor, but then thought better of it and tossed it on the bed. Fuck him if he thought he had me all figured out. And why the hell should I be uncomfortable all night long? He’d already made it clear that he had no interest in me sexually.

Which didn’t bother me, by the way.

No, not in the least.

Right.

I let out an internal curse as I crawled under the blanket. Yeah, when I’d been younger I’d believed that bullshit I’d been fed about gay people trying to lead good Christians astray with the lure of their bodies, but I most certainly didn’t believe that crap now. And contrary to what the asshole next to me thought, I did believe in equal rights for everyone. Sure, it had taken me time to figure that out, but it wasn’t just some elaborate scheme to get votes. Hell, I’d practically been assured of the Senate seat under my father’s tutelage. After all, South Carolina was and had been a red state for a long time, which meant I was fighting an uphill battle as a Democrat. I’d managed to win the primary in a surprise landslide, but the general election was a whole different thing. I was going up against the incumbent who’d held his seat for more than thirty years. His original plan had been to retire so I could take over the reins, but when I’d changed parties, he’d decided to run for another term.