Just a Bit Heartless (Straight Guys 13)

“What—of dying?”

“Yes.”

Damiano made a contemplative noise. “I don’t want to die because I don’t like losing, but everyone dies eventually. Only people who are emotionally attached to someone are scared of death—because they are leaving behind people who need them. I don’t have such a weakness.”

Jordan felt a pang of infinite sadness for this man and tried to quash the ridiculous urge to hug him close.

“My baby brother went missing last year,” he said, looking at the crack in the ceiling. He knew he probably shouldn’t be telling Damiano this—it would be easy to find out that Nate didn’t have a baby brother if Damiano bothered to run the most basic background check. But he needed to say it. To tell him something real. “By now everyone presumes he’s dead.” Jordan swallowed. “And frankly, he probably is. But just because he died and left all of us heartbroken doesn’t make love a weakness. Aiden might be gone, but we had twenty years with him. Memories. Even if he’s dead, he lives on in our memories. Mom still celebrated his birthday this year—it’s not less of a cause for celebration just because he’s gone.”

“So what’s the moral of the story?” Damiano’s voice was extremely dry. “That love isn’t a weakness?”

“No,” Jordan said, closing his eyes. “It absolutely can be a weakness. Personally, I’m not a fan of showing much emotion at work myself—it can be perceived as weakness by my… co-workers.” Subordinates, Jordan nearly said, but the issue had been relevant back when he’d been a simple programmer too. When he’d started working for the Caldwell Group, he’d had to pretend to be an aloof, emotionless asshole because he didn’t want to be a young, hot piece of ass for his co-workers to thirst over. He’d played that role for so long that sometimes it felt more authentic than his normal self. Jordan sighed. “But love can be a strength, too. Something to live for when you feel down. Life can beat you up, but it’s people who love you that give you the strength to pick yourself up.” He had felt like shit after his divorce, but going to his mother and letting himself be babied for a few days had made him feel so much better. There was nothing quite like his mom’s hugs, no matter how old he was.

His heart clenched as he remembered that Damiano had never known what it felt like to have a mother’s loving embrace around him. All he had were stories—of his mother rejecting him and hating him. Jesus. No wonder he had turned out the way he was.

“And it’s not true that no one needs you,” Jordan said, threading his fingers through Damiano’s hair. “I do.”

Damiano tensed up on top of him. “All you need is a crutch to deal with your claustrophobia,” he said, his voice hard and nasty. “Don’t worry, the moment I’m dead, you’ll be taken out of here and returned to Raffaele for ransom. They aren’t risking contacting anyone while I’m alive. So you should hope that they’ll kill me. When I’m dead, you can live your happily ever after.”

“God, you’re such an asshole,” Jordan said, yanking at Damiano’s hair. “I don’t want you dead, you ass. I don’t want to be saved if that means you’re dead.” Frankly, the mere thought made his stomach knot up. It was fucking scary how badly he needed Damiano to be okay. How attached to him he’d gotten.

Damiano was very still against him. “Then you’re an idiot,” he said at last.

Jordan smiled humorlessly. “I know.”

He was perfectly aware what a terrible idea this attachment was.

But he had no idea how to remove it. Its roots were already too deep to be pulled out.

Chapter 13

Damiano Conte had never been so unsettled in his life, and the fact that he had been betrayed, kidnapped, and tortured had little to do with it.

It was the American.

He befuddled him.

It’s not true that no one needs you. I do.

Try as he might, he couldn’t find an ulterior motive in his actions or words. The guy didn’t have to treat his injuries or take care of him while he had been feverish and delirious. Damiano had never been one to rely on another person, no matter how dire the situation was. He simply didn’t trust anyone enough to do it.

But somehow, over the past nine days in the basement, Raffaele’s boyfriend had managed to slip past his guard.

Damiano wouldn’t go as far as to say that he trusted him. He trusted no one. But he didn’t distrust him, either. It was hard to distrust the man who had treated his injuries with such gentleness and allowed him to use him as a glorified mattress in order not to aggravate his back—while he stroked Damiano’s hair. The latter felt… nice.