By the time they stopped in front of the gate again, he was glad for a chance to get out and breathe cool air.
Shane opened the passage, but Ros couldn’t force himself back into the truck, and leaned against it, struggling to steady his increasingly frantic inhales. Just as he’d thought he had his life under control, his body chose to betray him again.
“Drive through, Ros,” Shane said from a few feet away.
Ros lifted his hand to signal that he’d heard him and managed to speak despite every word feeling like barbed wire in his throat. Driving out of the junkyard would mean facing the real world again and Ros didn’t want to leave the safety of this artificial world of metal, plastic, and rubber yet.
“J-just gimme a minute.”
Shane stilled, but then approached him in a couple of fast steps. “What is it?” he asked, placing his hand on Ros’s back. In the dark, away from anyone who could have seen them, the touch felt almost too hot, and Ros pressed his face to the side of the truck, looking for relief.
“I don’t wanna go to prison,” he choked out, surprised by the sob that came out of him right after. “I’m not usually such a whiny baby,” he added, but couldn’t hold in another sob as his eyes dampened uncontrollably.
“You’re not going to. There’s no body. As long as you and Brad keep this quiet, you’ll be fine,” Shane said, rubbing his palm up and down Ros’s back in soothing circles.
Ros wrapped his arms around Shane’s neck and hugged him, still struggling for breath. He’d never been such a mess, but then again, no night in his life had involved such extreme fear.
“Thank you for being there. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” He kissed Shane’s ear, his jaw, his neck, driven by the growing need to express how much Shane meant to him.
Shane remained still, like a bronze statue that had been standing in the sun all day and was now exuding heat to banish all of Ros’s fears. “It’s nothing.”
“That’s not true,” Ros whispered against his neck and slid his hands down Shane’s sides, to rest them on his hips. “It feels like I’ve known you so much longer. I need you to understand you can depend on me too.”
“Yeah?” Shane’s breath was sweet on his face when they looked at one another, and his big hands left a burning trail wherever they touched. Ros’s eyes fluttered shut as Shane rolled him against the truck until Ros’s back was flat against its metal body.
The stars gave very little illumination, but the glow of the truck lights was as comforting as a warm blanket on a cold, cold night.
Ros’s throat felt tight when he stared into Shane’s eyes in the dark and pulled his hand to the middle of his chest. “Yes, I’ll keep all your secrets here.”
The thick, calloused fingers twitched. And then Shane’s mouth was on Ros’s, hips rolling against his, arms surrounding him like vines.
“What are you doing to me, boy?” Shane whispered in a soft rasp.
“Trapping you, of course.”
Ros couldn’t help himself and rocked against Shane. The little moan he uttered surprised even him, but after the terrible events of tonight, he was just desperate to become one with Shane and let passion take away his troubles. Shane had opened up in a whole new way, and that felt as if an invisible wall separating them had crumbled.
Shane gasped into his lips and pushed his hand under Ros’s clothes, rubbing warm, bare skin. His touch was like fire, and when nails raked down Ros’s stomach, he threw his head back, all worries forgotten in the frenzy of Shane’s kisses. The muscular thigh pushed his apart, rising to press at his groin, and in the darkness of the remote junkyard, Ros hung on to his lover, letting the storm take over.
“I need you inside me,” he whispered breathlessly, but something was off the moment he voiced his desire. “What’s that sound?” Alarmed, he glanced over Shane’s shoulder, where the repetitive slapping came from.
Shane blinked, but his face twisted as he turned toward the faint glow of the moon. The noise became even more pervasive, and it was only when Shane pulled away that Ros noticed a crouching form perched on the roof of an old truck on the other side of the road.
Ros’s eyes went wide. “Is that—?”
Shane pulled away with a scowl. “Are you fucking kidding me? Get a TV if you want porn!”
Before Ros knew it, Shane turned around and charged that way, grabbing an old microwave from the ground.
The figure dashed off the roof, rolling into the truck’s bed. It managed to evade the microwave Shane threw at him by a margin. Instead of yelling anything back, the man hissed and growled at them, backing away to where Ros couldn’t see him anymore.