Dare to Hope Read online

  Chris clenched his hands into fists at his sides and shook his head, stepping back from the slim black case in his travel bag that seemed to be screaming at him for attention. He shouldn’t have brought it with him, not if he really wanted to get better, but he hadn’t been able to just leave it in his apartment back home either. He fixed his hair, brushed his teeth, threw on some shorts and a T-shirt, and smiled as he realized which tee he’d grabbed first. A giant rainbow rooster lay across his chest. It’d been a Christmas gift from Bran, and it made him a little happier just looking at the ridiculousness of it. If nothing else, it proved to be a good distraction from where his thoughts wanted to go.

  “Chris?” Samuel called from outside the bathroom door.

  His moment of privacy gone, Chris tried for normalcy, or some imitation of it anyway. He really needed that. “You’re welcome to come in and join me. Your shower looks like it’s plenty big enough for two.”

  Samuel sounded like he was choking on whatever he’d intended to say after that, but Chris didn’t let him linger there for long before he opened the bathroom door. “Hey.” He leaned against the sink and saw Samuel give him a thorough once-over. Coming to New Zealand and seeing Samuel hadn’t been about sex, but if they chose to go there, Chris certainly wasn’t going to be upset about that turn of events. Sex was healthy for most people, and he trusted himself with Samuel where he knew he’d be a mess with anyone else.

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  Plastering his brightest smile into place, even as it felt as if he was cracking around the edges, Chris picked up his things and left the bathroom with a deliberate sway in his step. “Of course I’m okay. I’m always okay. Now, where am I staying?” he asked, running a finger over Samuel’s muscular abs with his free hand, while the other was currently clutching the duffle bag in a white-knuckled grip. Samuel’s stomach was hidden from his view by a shirt, but that did little to diminish the hard abs Chris remembered being there the last time he’d had a glimpse of Samuel’s stomach and now traced.

  “Spare bedroom. I’ll show you where.”

  It wasn’t a secret that he wanted Samuel, and the last time they’d seen each other, Chris had been practically begging Samuel to screw him. But he could see that the silence he’d let stretch between them had confused, and might have even bothered, Samuel.

  “I’m here now,” he said, even though Samuel hadn’t spoken a word to make him say this.

  “Yes, you are. But we’ll both see how long you end up staying this time around.”

  Chris frowned at his back as Samuel turned away from him and started heading toward a bedroom. “That’s unfair,” he mumbled, but he knew it was the truth and exactly what he deserved.

  After Samuel had him put his things in the extra bedroom, Chris knew his time was up as he turned to see Samuel sadly watching him, a thousand questions swimming in his gaze. He’d lost weight, and a good deal of it too, but he knew he didn’t look that bad because of it. Definitely not enough for Samuel to be staring at him the way he was now.

  “Question time now?” Chris asked him with some trepidation.

  Samuel gave him a slow nod and stepped aside so Chris could leave the bedroom. “Downstairs, on the couch. We’ll be comfortable there.”

  Chris led the way, and once Samuel was sitting next to him, he pulled his feet under himself and turned toward him. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, answer any question you want,” Chris promised him with a soft smile as he ran his finger down the side of Samuel’s neck, finishing his path along Samuel’s collarbone.

  Samuel swallowed thickly, and Chris leaned forward to press his lips to the side of his Adam’s apple before he leaned back a little.

  “It can’t be that easy to get answers out of you. What do you want in return?” Samuel asked him.

  He had to be normal if he wanted this to work; to flirt like he had nothing to lose, to act like he only lived for sex. Just like every other time he’d been around Samuel. So he gave Samuel his biggest smile and moved his fingertips to Samuel’s sternum, then lower to Samuel’s stomach, before resting his hand with the gentlest of touches on the front of Samuel’s pants, right over his zipper.

  “I think you know what I want, Samuel.” Chris played with him in the sultriest voice he could possibly manage. When Samuel’s eyes went wide, Chris knew he had to tread carefully if he hoped to get anything at all. “Not sex. Not yet.” He gently kissed the side of Samuel’s throat and felt Samuel’s racing heartbeat hammering against his tongue when he flicked it out to taste Samuel’s skin. “Something much easier than that. I want to be on my knees for you, my mouth wrapped around your cock, your hands in my hair.”

  He squeezed Samuel through his pants and kissed his throat again when he felt how hard Samuel was for him already. He was so close to getting exactly what he wanted, if only he could control his excitement long enough to enjoy it.

  “You want my secrets. I want to watch you come. I’ve been thinking about it since Montana. That’s my bargain. Do we have a deal?”

  When Samuel hesitated and Chris was sure he’d turn him down, he decided to backtrack a little or risk losing out on Samuel altogether. “Or a kiss for each little secret if you’d rather. I know you want answers, and I’m not going to push you into something you don’t want. We’ve kissed before, if you remember. It wasn’t a big deal then, and it doesn’t have to be one now either.” That was a lie, as just being near Samuel was pretty massive for Chris and the first time they’d kissed nearly broke his heart. He pulled his hand away from Samuel, but he wouldn’t change where he was sitting. He liked being able to feel Samuel’s warmth through his shirt too much to move to the other side of the big couch and give Samuel some space.

  He’d tried so hard to be good after Montana but knew he’d failed at it. Needing to leave Manhattan in a hurry was enough evidence of that. Being here with Samuel, Chris knew he should have tried harder. And he should have left New York a lot sooner than he had. Maybe then he would still feel a little like he had some sanity left.

  Samuel frowned but nodded slightly. “Kisses I can do, but before anything else happens between us, there needs to be some truth on the table first.”

  “You were nice enough to let me visit, so I guess I can do that. Ask me anything you want. I won’t have secrets from you.” Realizing that, even as he was saying it, shocked him more than a little. He’d been keeping something big from Bran for the past four months yet somehow seemed ready to spill everything to Samuel despite hardly knowing him. But it was as if he did know him, like Samuel had been a part of him since the first time he’d laid eyes on him in the farmhouse in Montana nearly a year before.

  Chris expected Samuel to fire away, now that he had Chris’s permission, but instead the man seemed nervous and almost fearful. Samuel swallowed hard and stared out the window at the beauty outside. And Chris couldn’t resist leaning forward and kissing his neck again.

  “What is so bad that you’re hiding away from Bran?”

  Each word resonated against his lips as Samuel spoke them softly. Carefully.

  Chris nodded, supposing it was best to get to the most awful truth right away. “I’m cutting myself again,” he quietly whispered, leaning his head against Samuel’s shoulder for support as he trembled.

  “Cutting? You’re hurting yourself? Why would you do that?” Samuel’s eyes were filled with shock, and he pulled back to stare at Chris.

  With the taste of Samuel’s skin still on his lips, Chris reached for the button of his own shorts.

  “You said no sex,” Samuel reminded him.

  Chris couldn’t look at him, not while he was about to show him what he’d been hiding most of his life, so he simply shook his head and pushed his shorts down a little, making damn sure not to expose himself or the intricate tattoo flowing over his ribs in the process. The scar was small, but against his tanned skin, it was easy to find, even after so many years of trying to forget about it.


  “I was ten the first time I opened up my pocket knife and cut myself,” he slowly began, his voice a trembling mess as he tried to get the confession out. There were dozens of other scars on that hip alone, and if Samuel had asked him, Chris would have bared each of those small marks to him. But when he didn’t say a word, Chris quickly fixed his shorts and pulled his shirt down as far as he could over them, covering himself up again even if he knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Samuel knew his terrible secret, and he was afraid to look at Samuel and see what he thought of him now.

  “Living with my dad has always meant there was a lot of pressure on me. I excelled in everything, but I did so because I had to, not because I had any real desire to be better than anyone else. Romanoff men aren’t failures, he would tell me. And anything less than the absolute best was failing. My college career was planned out before I was eight. If my father could have gotten away with it, I’m sure he would have arranged my marriage to some pretty little girl and had the names of our children picked out for us before we were in high school.”

  Chris shook his head and groaned as he looked up at Samuel, who watched his every move. “I felt like I was suffocating all the time and had no control over any part of my own life. I didn’t pick out my own clothes, my own music, what I ate, where I went, what I did with my time, who my friends were, none of it. Looking back, there isn’t a single thing from my childhood I can actually point to as being something I did simply because I wanted to. It was all in an effort to make him happy, to be the best son I could be for him. Misha wasn’t a disappointment to him by any means, but now that I’m an adult, I feel like he made different choices with Misha, had lost control of him and his future somewhere, and didn’t want to make the same mistakes with me.” He took a deep breath and wished Samuel would say something instead of continuing to stare at him like he was a freak.

  “So I started cutting to release all that stress. No child should be under that much pressure, that much absolute need to be perfect all the fucking time. I still did everything I was supposed to do and never faltered even once. But every night I was making little marks on my hips. Never my wrists or anywhere else that someone could see, always just where my underwear would cover. It was how I took control of it all. I didn’t get a say in anything else, but when I was cutting, everything was mine. I decided how deep I went, how far I cut, and for how long. Sometimes it was enough that I just put the knife against my skin and held it there, not cutting at all. Others it was all I could do not to cut so deeply I hoped that I bled out.”

  Samuel’s dark skin had gone pale while Chris opened his heart and spilled all of himself to a man who might not want anything to do with him after his fucked-up confessions, but Chris forged on. He felt like he had to, now that he’d begun talking.

  “When I was eighteen, I went to college, and everything changed. I was no longer under his thumb all the time. He still controlled when I came home, the degree I got, and what my extracurriculars were. But I got to have some actual fun for once. And I met this crazy kid who was just sixteen and wanted to do everything I did and more. I was so scared the first time I had sex, but I was also drunk, and I’d had a fight with my dad about taking more classes and getting an additional degree, even though I promised to be a lawyer and be everything he wanted for me.

  “After that first time, I realized sex gave me power and control, even more so than cutting did. I stopped needing to drink to have sex with guys and instead drank because it was fun. I had sex with anyone I wanted to and got as extreme as I possibly could. I would pick a guy at a party or in a bar, no matter who he was or who he was with, and knew I could get him to have sex with me. Even while his girlfriend or wife was waiting for him to come out of the bathroom, I could have him. And I never had to work for more than an hour to get someone to come with me.

  “After Montana I tried to be better. I stopped drinking, stopped having sex, and for a while there, I was completely fine. Misha was over all the time, and even though I didn’t have Bran right down the street, we still talked daily. Then Misha left for the Middle East, and I started to slip a little. I don’t want Bran knowing I went back to cutting. In Montana I bombed into his life, and he doesn’t need that again. I know he’d drop everything for me and that he loves me enough to come back to Manhattan with me just to make sure I don’t hurt myself anymore, but I don’t want that for him. He’s happy here with Kaden, and he deserves to have that kind of a life with the person he loves. I won’t ruin that for him. You know my big secret now, so whatever you do with it, don’t tell Bran. It’ll hurt him if you do, but if you need something from me to keep your mouth shut, I’ll do it. Whatever you want.”

  Chris sighed as he realized he’d left out one of the more important things. “When I called you, I’d had a rough night. It was stupid to react badly to something my dad had said, but I did, and I cut myself deeply in my frustration and anger. I called you right after since I knew I needed a break from all of it. I can go to a hotel if you want. I am thankful that you let me run here, and I do understand if you want me gone now too. It’s a lot to deal with. Sometimes I feel like I’m even more screwed up than Bran ever was.”

  Samuel wiped his hand over his face and his short hair before pinning Chris to the spot with icy gray eyes. “I think you may be right about that last bit. But why the hell would I let you out of my sight when I know you are doing this to yourself? I won’t be able to sleep without checking on you to make sure you’re not cutting yourself and perhaps going too far.”

  Chris appreciated that; he really did. But he didn’t think it was fair of Samuel to take that kind of responsibility on either. “My safety isn’t your responsibility, and you can’t have that all on your shoulders. Are you going to tell Bran?”

  Samuel sat forward and invaded his personal space. “Leave Bran out of this for now. I decide what’s my responsibility or not, and the first time you kissed me and I returned that kiss, that’s where you became part of my responsibility. You claimed you wanted me, and this, caring whether you live or die, bleed or not, that’s part of wanting someone in your life.”

  “I think all of those confessions deserve at least one kiss,” Chris tried with a weak smile to lighten the mood some when Samuel didn’t say anything else. There was anger there in his expression, and Chris knew he deserved it. But he hoped at least some of Samuel’s rage was directed at his father too. Chris had been mad at him most of his life, but the feeling had been getting steadily harder to ignore. In the past few months, there had been times when he’d been sure he nearly hated the man, which left him feeling sick.

  Samuel cleared his throat. “I’m so angry right now—firstly at your waste of space of a father, at your equally useless mother for not ever stepping in to stop the asshole, at Misha for promising to keep an eye on you and then fucking off and leaving you alone without letting us know. And I’m mad at you, so mad I wish I could spank your sassy ass, but all I want to do right now is kiss you.”

  Samuel grabbed his face between two warm palms and pulled him forward. He leaned back against the side of the couch, almost pulling Chris over his chest to kiss him.

  Being in Samuel’s arms again felt great, but they’d never been like this before. In Montana, the few kisses they’d shared had been nearly innocent. This was anything but. He felt as if Samuel was being possessive of him, nearly squeezing him too hard as Chris lay over him and crushed his own mouth against Samuel’s. Unlike their kiss in Montana, Samuel held nothing back from Chris this time. He parted Chris’s lips with his tongue and swept inside to taste all of him. Samuel sucked on his tongue and dragged a stroke over his teeth, as if he couldn’t get enough of Chris, and for the second time, Chris lost his heart and mind over the man whose strong tattooed arms protected him from the big scary world he’d always feared.

  He felt wanted and needed. But there was guilt there too, because Samuel was too good to him and he’d brought his cutting tools into Samuel’s home, all neatly wrapped u
p in a shiny black case. He should have left them in Manhattan. He felt like he should have somehow known he wouldn’t want them there with him.

  Reluctantly Chris pulled away. “One second. I need to get something from upstairs.”

  “It can wait,” Samuel said, sounding unwilling to let him go.

  But if there was one thing Chris was absolutely certain of, it was that Samuel would never force him to be where he didn’t want to be, and when he tried to get up, Samuel released him without a fight.

  “I’ll only be a minute,” Chris promised as he headed back upstairs.

  Chapter Three

  SAMUEL WATCHED as Chris disappeared up the stairs, wondering what was important enough for Chris to interrupt their kisses. It wasn’t long before he heard Chris come down again, and he walked right up to Samuel and held out a small black box to him.

  “Here. I’d like you to hang on to this for me. I shouldn’t have brought it with me, but now that I have, I think that if you have it, maybe you won’t have to worry about me hurting myself so much while I’m here with you. I will need it back, so please don’t lose it.”

  Realization dawned, and Samuel stared at the innocent-looking item in Chris’s hand before reaching out and taking possession of it. He hoped he never had to give it back to the man, because he hated Chris hurting himself.

  “You can look at it if you want,” Chris offered, but Samuel couldn’t get himself to open the little case. Not yet. Maybe never.

  When Samuel didn’t open it, Chris shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “Are you okay? You hardly said anything while I was talking. If you do want me to go, that’s fine. You can keep the box with you, and then you won’t have to worry. I’ll pick it up before I go back to Manhattan.”