Chapter 20
Noah
“All right?” my uncle asks.
Realizing I’d been stuck in my head, I nod and turn off the burner. The eggs are done. I plate up my own breakfast, as well as my uncle’s, and take a seat.
“What’s this?” he says, holding up a strip of bacon.
“What’s it look like?”
“I dunno. That’s why I’m asking.”
I huff. “It’s turkey bacon.”
My uncle frowns in a way that manages to convey his deep disappointment. “Now why would you go and buy fake bacon when the real thing exists?”
“Walt,” I say, unable to hide my chuckle. “Don’t start. It’s better for you.”
He looks at me over the lens of his glasses. “And who said I need better? I’ve been doing perfectly fine.”
Oh, your doctors, maybe? I keep the thought to myself. It’s not a battle worth waging.
“Just eat your bacon. I’ll get the real stuff next time,” I tell him, knowing balance is better than attempting a complete overhaul of his system. The man is too stubborn for that.
“You sign up for that treasure hunt in a couple weeks?” my uncle asks, ignoring his bacon in favor of his eggs.
“Not yet, but I figure I might. It’s for a good cause.”
“Looks like fun, too. And Lord knows—”
“I could use a little more fun in my life,” I fill in, deadpan. “Yes, I’m well aware of your feelings on the matter.”
My uncle mumbles something that sounds like stubborn boy , and I shake my head.
Guess we’ve got that in common.
I leave Walter with a freshly cleaned kitchen and the morning paper as I head out for work. I’m scheduled to shoe Marie’s temporary horses again today, which means there’s a good chance I’ll run into a certain farrier who’s been radio silent for the past week. Not that I expected another call after that…unexpected conversation we had. But the man has been mysteriously absent, as if in hiding.
I wouldn’t put it past him.
Marie isn’t inside the spacious arena when I arrive, nor the adjoining stables, but I prepare an area and set to work, knowing the ropes by now. I’m on my second horse when the door at the end of the hall opens.
I don’t even have to look up to know who it is. I can feel the shift in the air. The quiet tension as Colton walks forward, his footsteps heavy.
“Morning,” I say just as he’s passing.
He falters for only a second, but then he keeps on, grunting out what I assume to be his form of a greeting. His bag thunks lightly to the ground, some rustling following.
“Sleep all right?” I ask.
Absolute silence.
I look over my shoulder in time to see Colton’s gaze darting away. He finishes taking off his jacket, draping it over a hook on the wall. “Fine.”
The color on his cheeks has me smirking to myself. “No more midnight…distractions?”
His gaze whips my way. “What? No. None of your business.”
I hum, going back to clipping my horse’s hoof. After a moment, I add, “’Cause if you needed a hand—”
“I do not need your hand,” Colton says hotly, slapping his chaps into place. He starts loading tools into the pockets, huffing as I chuckle. “Why are you like this? Why are you fucking with me?”
“Do I really needa spell it out?” I ask, grabbing my rasp.
Finally, Colton says, “Yes. I think you do. Because I can not, for the life of me, figure out what’s going on here, Noah.”
The sincerity in his voice has me setting down my horse’s hoof and standing upright. Colton has his hands on his hips, his jaw set and lips in a straight line, but the fire in his eyes is dimmer than usual. Only a flicker.
I’ve known all these years that Colton was hiding a side of himself from me. I could see it in the way he talked to others. In the smile he never aimed my way. I knew there was kindness in him somewhere. That kindness just didn’t extend to me.
What I didn’t realize until recently is that Colton is also vulnerable. He’s so quick to snap and snarl, but the man who melted at my fingertips inside my barn and trembled against me outside the club… The one who fell apart on a phone call he could have ended at any time if he wanted… He’s fragile in a way I never expected of town golden boy Colton Darling.
I wonder if anybody sees this side of him. Anybody but me.
I can pretend I want to fuck with the man all I want. Hell, even the prospect of it has me smirking to myself. But the truth is there’s something else that keeps me coming back, and it’s not Colton’s vitriol.
“Maybe I like seeing that flush on your cheeks when you’re angry,” I tell him. “Not to mention when you’re turned on. Maybe I like making you fall apart.”
His chest rises and falls in a big, swooping breath. “Why?”
“Because you let me.”
His eyes rove over my face, as if searching for answers. “I don’t…”
“You do,” I say firmly, taking a step closer. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not ever going to force you, Colt. You’ve gotta know that. But sometimes I just wanna shake some goddamn sense into you.”
He moves his head back and forth slowly, as if at a loss.
I step closer. “Why do you try so hard to hate me?”
“I don’t have to try,” he says quietly. “I’ve always hated you.”
“Why? Because I was new to town? Because I was a threat to your business? To your standing here?”
He shakes his head again.
“I’m thirty-eight years old, Colt,” I say with a huff. “I’m tired of bickering like kids.”
“It’s…it’s always been personal with you,” he says, brow furrowed. “Don’t lie and tell me you haven’t hated me just as much. All the times you’ve tried to screw me over. All the ads in the paper and…and the horses you’ve stolen from my care.”
“Colton,” I nearly growl, shooting my arms wide. “We’re the only two goddamn farriers in town. It was never personal for me. It was business . Is business. You really expect me not to advertise? Not to try my best? I never had the advantage of folks knowing my name. Not like you.”
“They know your name now,” he shoots back, him stepping closer now. “Goddamn King . Well, you’re not mine, you hear? I don’t need you laughing at me from your throne—”
“When have I ever ?”
“And I don’t need you , period. Got it?”
“Then why the fuck is your hand wrapped up in my shirt, Colt? Why are you—”
His mouth slams against mine, bruising and filled with bite. “Shut up,” he growls. “Shut up, shut—”
He kisses me again, snarling as he presses me against a stall. Metal digs into my back, Colton’s hands tugging at my hair as he tries his damndest to convince me this is nothing but an attack.
“I don’t need you,” he says, biting at my lip, his leg driving between my own. “I don’t.”
I hear the words he’s not saying. The ones he maybe can’t.
I want you .
I wrap my hand in his hair, tugging his head back. His lips part, blue eyes staring at me. “You’re going to drive to my house tonight when it gets dark.”
“No.”
“And you’re gonna wait for me in the barn.”
“Fuck you,” he says, rubbing his crotch against me, his breath hot on my lips.
I grab his ass, stilling his movement, my hand in his hair tugging again. “You’ll come to me, little Colt. Don’t make me find you.”
“You wouldn’t,” he pants.
“I will,” I promise. “Do you believe me?”
He doesn’t say anything for the longest time, staring at me with a mixture of anger and longing. It’s the latter that allows me to let go. Colton stumbles back a step, and I straighten my shirt.
“Get to work, Colt. We both have a job to do.”
He stands in place for a minute longer, his breaths evening out, his stare on my back as I resume filing my horse’s hooves. Finally, Colton brings his first horse of the day out, not speaking a word to me. In fact, he doesn’t say another word for the rest of the morning or afternoon.
But more than once, I find him watching me like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to solve.
I take a shower when I get home. Cook dinner and eat with Walt. We even play a game of chess before he retires to his room to read.
I stay in the living room, occasionally looking out the window at the front of the house. My motorcycle is parked inside the garage, my truck in the driveway. The road is dark, no headlights passing.
He better come. If he doesn’t…
Well, my threat to collect him was not an idle one.
It’s half past ten when headlights pass through the sheer curtain. I hop up, watching as the lights go dark. Colton doesn’t move from his truck for a long time. Several minutes, in fact. Finally, he opens his door and heads toward the backyard.
My pulse is heavy as I wait another minute. Two. Just to make sure Colton doesn’t run back to his truck and hightail it out of here. Once I’m fairly certain he’s waiting for me like I asked, I go out the back door.
The barn is open. The lights on. There’s a good chance Colton is looking through my collection right now. Examining the secrets I’ve kept hidden.
It was a calculated risk. An invasion of my privacy I’m allowing in exchange for his trust.
Is it wise of me? Maybe not.
But none of this is wise.
I stop in the doorway, pulse hitching as I see Colton’s fingers drifting carefully over the unfinished metal crown on my workbench. He freezes when he spots me, his hand dropping to his side.
“Don’t make it weird,” he says as I approach. “This doesn’t… It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I know,” I tell him, taking his face in my hands.
His mouth pops open, his hands bracing against the table behind him. “It’s not… I don’t…”
“I know,” I repeat.
When my mouth covers his, Colton groans. It sounds like relief, and I encourage it, lifting him onto the table and sliding in close. I keep one hand in his hair and undo his fly with the other.
“Shit,” Colton murmurs, his grip tightening against me, his lips going temporarily slack.
I free his cock. Wrap my fingers around it. He stutters out a breath when I give him a stroke.
“Lemme hear you, little Colt.”
He manages a single breathy, “Ahh,” but that’s it. I kiss him again, hard, before pulling back. When I spit down onto his cock, he lets out a string of curses.
“Should I stop?” I ask, gliding my fist over him smoothly, loving the way it makes me feel like a literal king to have this man’s pleasure in the palm of my hand.
“No,” he rasps, locking his heels behind my legs.
“Then tell me what you want,” I say, tugging his head to the side so I can bite his neck.
He jolts, groaning against me, the sound near to a cry. “Want you to make me come, goddamn it.”
“Like this?” I ask, twisting my fist on the upstroke.
“No,” he says wryly, the one word endlessly sarcastic. “I’d rather have your lips wrapped around my cock.”
I can tell he meant it as a taunt. He doesn’t expect me to do it.
I give him a smirk before bending low and taking the head of his cock into my mouth.
Colton shouts, his hips jerking, his cock throbbing against my tongue. I’ve never had a dick in my mouth, but I don’t hate it. I suck on the end as I stroke his base.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Colton yells, his hand grabbing my hair. I pluck it off my head, pulling both of his hands behind his back and holding his wrists tight. Without an extra fist to stroke him, I let my mouth do the work, bobbing once, twice.
Apparently, that’s all it takes.
Colton shoots into my mouth with a hoarse grunt, his hands and thighs shaking, his heels digging against me.
“Fuck, fuck,” he mutters. “Shit. What the fuck was that?”
I pop off his cock, spitting his cum out onto the ground before letting his hands go to wipe my chin. “Told you all you have to do is ask,” I tell him, unbuttoning my pants. I take myself in hand, grabbing the side of Colton’s neck and rubbing over the small bruise I left there.
His eyes rake over me, wide, before he flicks my hand off his neck and tugs me closer with his heels.
“Fuck,” he mutters again, and then he’s grabbing my cock. He stares right into my eyes as he strokes me, defiant almost, like he’s waiting for me to do or say something to piss him off.
I have no intention of pissing the man off. Not when he’s playing so nice.
“Fucking good, little Colt. Your hand feels perfect wrapped around my dick.”
He looks surprised by my words. But he doesn’t stop stroking me. And he doesn’t protest this time when I trace the bruise blooming on his neck.
“Like seeing you hurt for me,” I say, pulse hopping as his grip tightens. “I could make you hurt so good.”
“Fuck you,” he breathes, the sentiment falling flat considering he’s still willingly stroking my dick.
“Mm. I think maybe you first.”
Colton’s shocked— aroused —face is all it takes to have me hurtling over the edge fast. I don’t even have time to warn the man, only grab hold of his hair to anchor myself as I spill over his fist. The sound he makes is full of wonder and need, as if it’s him painting his shirt instead of me. The man is too fucking innocent for his own good, and it makes me want to dirty him all the more. To see how far his curiosity extends. To find the limit of what he’ll allow me to do.
When I heave out a breath and lean back, Colton’s eyes flick up to mine before darting away. I can see the shutters pulling down, see the way he’s already trying to protect himself.
I don’t stop it, but I do hand Colton a rag to wipe his shirt.
“You couldn’t have aimed elsewhere?” he grumbles, shoving his soft cock into his pants and attempting to clean the cum off his clothes.
“Who had a hold of my dick, hm?”
He shoots me a glare, tossing the rag aside before running his hands through his hair. “You mind?” he says, motioning to me.
I wait with a raised eyebrow, his legs still clasped around my hips. He flushes, unwrapping them and pushing me away so he can drop to the ground.
For a second, he looks like a lost lamb. And I don’t know if my instincts are one of the shepherd…or the wolf.
He’s halfway to the door when I say, “See you tomorrow, little Colt.”
He pauses. “What?”
“Marie’s. We both have more work to do.”
“Right,” he says on an exhale. “Yeah, uh. Yeah.”
I chuckle to myself as Colton heads out of my barn, and I know, from the fleeting glance he throws my way before he’s out of sight, this bad idea we’re both indulging in is far from over.