Wild Hearts Read online

  “Wild Hearts”

  M/M Gay Romance

  David Horne

  © 2020

  David Horne

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.

  Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life. If you’re not sure where to start, see here: http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com/safe-sex-resources/ (courtesy of Jerry Cole).

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images and are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  Edition v1.00 (2020.05.04)

  http://www.DavidHorneauthor.com

  Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: Bob, RB, JayBee, Naomi W., and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Free Book “Princes of Westlake”

  Chapter One

  “A single’s cruise? Really?” Edwin snorted in amusement as he looked at the woman that was standing next to his desk. She was a tiny thing with wide doe eyes and a bright smile. And she was pointing that smile right at him at the moment, not that he paid any attention to it. “Why would you even do something like that?” He thought that she must have lost her mind or a bet to do something like that.

  “What’s so wrong about that?” Helen laughed as she spoke the words in her normal chipper tone. “I could keep myself cooped up in the house all day writing and never talking to anyone instead, but that’s your job.”

  “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” He did enjoy these minor verbal duels. They kept him sharp.

  Helen shook her head. She had a soft smile that was slowly growing wider, it was almost as if she had some sort of plan rattling around in her head. He had seen that same look every other time that she had tried to talk him into starting to date again. And he just didn’t have the time to date anymore.

  It wasn’t an excuse that even he bought. He had the time to date; he just chose not to do that. Dating was a scary prospect. Frustrating and terrifying. He didn’t like to think about it. He didn’t want to start dating again. People just didn’t date these days.

  But she continued with what she was saying, not giving him a chance to interject or interrupt. “Talking to me isn’t meeting someone. I’m just an assistant. You’re a good-looking guy, you could get out there and see the world, find things that you could do with actual people.”

  “Are you saying that you’re not actual people?”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “But it’s what you said.”

  “I’m serious, you should come with me.”

  “Someone has to pay your salary so that you can afford the single’s cruise.” Edwin retorted.

  “Is that the game you’re going to play?” She rocked back on her heels as she watched him for his next response.

  “Not a game.” He took his turn to smirk and picked up a peanut butter cracker to shove in his mouth. He always kept a stash of them next to his desk.

  “You could come with me, you know?”

  “Why would I do that?” Helen had been his best friend for ages, but he had never been the type to just get out and do things. This was why after his first novel was published to critical success, he had hired her to help him out. She did his shopping and helped him brainstorm his ideas when he needed a little push in the right direction.

  “Because you’re stuck in a rut.” She countered his weak attempt at an argument. “And maybe this would help you out.”

  Edwin pushed his light brown hair back out of his eyes. Time in the sun would usually cause the color to fade to a dark blond, but he didn’t go out in the sun much anymore. It had grown long and shaggy and he hadn’t even attempted to go to a barber lately. It wasn’t like he got out of the house and did much of anything anyway. He had no one to impress, he was a writer and publishers were used to meeting the unkempt artist type. He had no intention of changing that view of him. “Or you could stay here and keep working.”

  “You just don’t want to deal with the change.” She wasn’t going to fall for that.

  “I had to try at least.” He shrugged.

  She was smiling. “Look, I’m cashing in my vacation.”

  “I know, I know. I’ll make it just fine without you.” He laughed and glanced back down at his laptop. “Watch me finish this novel by the time you get back.”

  “You’ll be back to working alone. You just might.” She was teasing him with a sing-song voice. It drove him crazy to hear it coming from her. “And you think you’ll be able to get stuff done?”

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because as much as you hate to admit it, Edwin, you need people.”

  He laughed and shrugged. “Maybe I do, but maybe I could use some time just stewing in my thoughts.”

  “Are you saying that I’m a distraction?” She put her hands on her hips and feigned being insulted.

  He shook his head, chuckling softly under his breath. “The best kind of distraction at least.”

  “That’s because I’m your best friend.”

  “You are.” He nodded.

  “You need people, you know?” She pointed out. “You need people to bounce ideas off. You need people to answer your questions, to tell you about their experiences.”

  “The internet exists.”

  She shook her head. “But you’re not comfortable with people from the internet. They aren’t as easy to talk to as someone in real life is. Otherwise, you would have found sounding boards on the web.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  She laughed. “Somedays I think I know you better than you know yourself.”

  “Do you really think that?” He squinted at her.

  “Yeah, yeah I do.” She had a sparkling smile. “And who knows, maybe I’ll meet someone there that makes me want to cut down my hours.”

  “It’s a single’s cruise. No one there will be looking for anything permanent.” He shook his head. “They’ll be wanting to hook up.”

  “What would be so wrong about that?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a good hook up, just don’t expect anything to come out of it.”

  “Maybe you could go out and find yourself a hookup.”

  “Or you could find someone for me and bring them here.” He shot back, getting into the debate now. He mentally cataloged a few ideas for his next novel, hoping that it would get him somewhere in the writing that had been plaguing him so much. “You pick up everything else I need.”

  She nearly doubled over in laughter. “Right, like it’s possible to just go out and pick up a random guy for you.”

  “You could make me an account on one of those hookup sites or something like that. Find me someone to spend the night with.” He issued it like a big challenge.

  “What kind of something are you looking for?”

  “Nothing permanent, just someone that I can stand for an entire evening.”

  “This sounds like a trap to me.”

  “Because I hate people?” He smirked at her as he asked the question that they both already knew the answer to.

  “Because even if you don’t hate someone, you would just act like you do to avoid getting to close to them.” She shook her head, laughing.

  “That’s what makes it a challenge, doesn’t it?”

  “Impossible tasks aren’t challenges.”

  “You wouldn’t lose anything if you fail, does that make it easier for you to handle?” He was teasing her now. It’s not like she would ever do it.

  She gave him an appraising look, carefully studying his face. It was something that she did when she was trying to figure out how serious he was. “You trust my judgment that much?”

  He decided to make it clear that he was serious and willing to put it all on the line. “Yeah. Tell you what. We’ll make it a bet. You find me a date that I can stand before you leave for your cruise and I’ll pay your wages while you’re gone. Without you taking any of your paid time off.”

  “A bet for a paid vacation. I think I can do that, but I’m not just going to make you an account on some app to do it. You’
re going to have to come out with me.”

  Edwin laughed. This was a crazy plan and he just knew that it wasn’t going to work. “Do you honestly think that’s going to happen?”

  “Yeah, I do, because you’re just as curious about the possibilities as I am. We’re going to the bar tonight. Get dressed.” She pointed at the bedroom in the back of the small house. It wasn’t a big place, just large enough for him to live in and have a spare bedroom that was used more for storage than for any company he might get, which wasn’t much of it.

  “Bar?”

  “Yeah, I’m taking you to the club and you’re going to talk to people.”

  He was taken aback, surprised by what she had suggested. “You can’t mean that, can you?”

  “Sure, I can.” She crossed her arms. “And I’m going to take your bet and you’re going to go out and see people.”

  “This feels like an ambush.”

  “It was your idea.” She smirked at him, that same look on her face that she had earlier when she had her initial plot. “I just turned it around on you.”

  “You do know that I pay your salary, right?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

  Her smirk turned into a grin. “And I also know that you wouldn’t stop paying me just because I dragged you to a bar.”

  “You’re pretty confident about that.”

  “I am, yeah.” She kept her arms crossed in front of her chest and that grin on her face. “And you’re going to come to the bar with me tonight. And you know that I’m going to win.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because you know I’m right.”

  “Fine. I’m going.” He got up with a sigh.

  “About time.”

  “About time for what?”

  “That you stopped fighting me.” She shooed him back to the room.

  He groaned and walked to the bedroom, opening his closet door. There wasn’t much in there. He was in desperate need of clothes shopping, and he hated doing that, so it had been avoided. Maybe he should have bought those shirts online, but it had been too much effort at the time.

  A knock sounded on the door. He knew who it was. There was only one other person in the house and he was sure that Helen wasn’t going to barge in.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you need some help in there?” Helen probably knew exactly what he was going through.

  He sighed. “Just trying to figure out what to wear.”

  She let herself into the room, picking up a few wrappers as she looked around. She sighed. “You’re making a mess.”

  He groaned at her. “I could have been naked, you know?”

  She smirked at him. “I figured if you were you would have said you were getting dressed, not deciding what to wear.”

  “Some people get naked then choose clothes.”

  She laughed. “I know, but I didn’t think you were one of those people.” She nudged his rib cage with her elbow, smiling as she watched his green eyes travel over the t-shirts on shelves and jeans on the hangers. He didn’t have a lot of options out there. That was painfully obvious.

  “There’s not exactly a lot of options.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve had a reason to look nice?” She shook her head in disappointment. “How long?”

  “Too long, probably. I guess I just don’t worry about that stuff anymore.” He shrugged. “It’s just something that I don’t have to worry about now that I don’t have to go to an office.”

  “We can still get you looking good with jeans. There are some nice ones in here.” She walked into his closet and started to look through the list. “I think we’re going to go geek, lean into it a bit.” She examined a t-shirt carefully, feeling the fabric between two fingers. He didn’t know why she did it. It was a t-shirt. T-shirts were all the same.

  He laughed. “Really? Lean into being a geek?”

  “You do write science fiction; not sure what else you would lean into?” She teased him again.

  He was smiling about it. It felt human to be teased by a good friend. He had odd moments of feeling like he was brought back down to earth and most of them were spawned by Helen. That was part of her job, and honestly part of the reason he had hired her.

  She slowly sorted through his clothes before settling on a superhero shirt and a pair of jeans. “These jeans hang just right on you.”

  “What?”

  “They make your butt look nice.” Her smile widened.

  “Are you going to talk about my butt now?” He scoffed as he reached for the clothes.

  “Mhm.” She kept an infuriating smirk on her face, the one that said that she knew she had won the fight.

  “Not long enough to stop you from getting those clothes on.” She stepped out of the room. “I’ll be waiting out here.”

  Once the door was closed, he took a moment to wonder what the hell he had gotten himself into. He should have known better than to bet with her, but she managed to drag it out of him anyway. She always won these bets, and always used them to her advantage.

  He had lost this one already, but he wasn’t going to back out of it now. He had at least some honor still left in him, even if he had spent years hiding from the world and writing post-apocalyptic stories about a world when just about everyone was dead and society had collapsed. It was his thing, and it would be a lie if he claimed to not enjoy the isolation that he had brought down upon himself. Privacy was important.

  But he also knew about the problems with it. He knew that he was lonely and in pain and that Helen had become his primary contact with the outside world and that was a depressing state of being. He had just never been good at communication or dealing with people and he didn’t like crowds. Helen was the social butterfly, bringing him the news and word of the outside, like a lifeline to the rest of life. His access to current events was through this woman, and he didn’t mind living like that. It was comfortable.

  Chapter Two

  The engine of the motorcycle rumbled down to silence. The gas station lights made the shine of his helmet stand out as he pulled it off his head. The guys that surrounded him followed his motions. “Gas up, boys. We’ll be back home tonight.”

  “It’ll be good to get home.” Someone in the group called out.

  “Ready to go back to accounting.” Someone else tossed out a tease.

  “Not an accountant.” The other guy shot back, countering the offensive.

  Lloyd King laughed at the casual banter, it made him feel human. Not that he lamented the way that his life had turned out, but he didn’t always feel comfortable with all the changes that had happened in his life recently.

  Someone else walked over to him. He grinned at the guy and slapped him on the shoulder. “Ready for a break?”

  “Yeah.” A big brute of a man smiled. He had a disarming smile for someone his size, a gentle giant when he didn’t need to be hard or violent. That’s why they called him Teddy. Because he was the teddy bear of the group. “What do you think, King? A good place to grab a bite and some gas, right?”

  “Yeah, thirty minutes, get what you need. I want to be able to hit the bars again tonight.” The leader wasn’t as imposing as some of the men around him were, but they seemed to appreciate his ability anyway, deferring to him as the group dispersed, some of them heading inside while others filled up every available gas pump to fill up the tanks in a somewhat orderly fashion.

  He pumped his gas first then headed inside of the building. The guys were in there, all loading the counter with beef jerky and six-packs of beer. He smiled at it. Most of the guys thought that drinking at home was better than any club or bar, and cheaper too. They spent enough money on their machines that they were happy just hanging out at one of the houses and drinking a beer while they talked about work and motorcycles.

  He liked doing that sort of thing too, but sometimes he liked to get out and have a drink in a bar and just be around people outside of his little circle. It didn’t help that most of his guys had old ladies already, so his dating pool was seriously limited. Maybe he would find someone to go on the back of the bike someday, but he wasn’t exactly getting his hopes up.

  He was dedicated and single for life, it seemed, the type of guy that kept his focus on his work and friends, with occasional hookups, but he hadn’t always been that way. It was easier to be that guy that ran with different lovers every time he decided he wanted to be near someone else. It suited him.