Chapter 10 #3
“He was a household name there for a while. Not in our league, but it didn’t matter.
He was still something else. He would do a cowboy in, and he knew exactly what he was doing.
He was a mean one. But then you’d have a bull like Yellow Jacket who went out there, bucked off every cowboy who tried to get on him, and then headed home.
He knew what his job was, he knew what he was doing, and he wasn’t out there to hurt anybody. ”
Dawson gave him a long look. “That’s one of the things about being a bullfighter that’s important—You got to know the bulls. You got to watch them. You need to know what any one of them is going to do at any given time and expect them to not do that.”
“Okay, I can see why that’s important.” Seamus got it. It was like playing rugby or something. You had to know what the other team’s specialty was, you had to know what their players were going to do, and then you had to expect that elbow to the face.
“We ready to call it a day?” Dawson looked at Coke, who nodded.
“I think so. I think that was a pretty good run. You’re getting the hang of it, Mr. Seamus, and I’m pleased about your progress. Will we see you two up for the house for dinner?”
“I would love that.” Seamus gave Topher the evil eye when he would have made some mention of Nick. Surely he was allowed to eat with the guys once in a while. Coke had said he was proud of him. It had to be some kind of a banner day.
“You and Mr. Nick are welcome to come too, Chris.” Dawson clapped Christopher on the leg where he sat on the fence line. “I think I’m going to hit the showers.”
“I’ll walk you to the cabins.” Seamus tried real hard to ignore how that made Wyn look at them, because he wasn’t ashamed of what was going on. He was out and he was proud, and he was hoping that wasn’t going to be a problem for Dawson.
“Sounds good to me.” He rubbed shoulders with Seamus as they moved away.
“That’s not going to cause you problems, is it? Having Wyn know about you and me, you know…”
“Nope. And if he has a problem with it, he can stuff it up his ass.”
Relief made him grin. “Oh, all right. Well, as long as that’s all he’s stuffing up there.”
“Honey, if it’s not, I don’t want to know.”
That made him cackle. That Seamus understood on a bone-deep level.
They walked together, and it felt good. Right. “So, the bulls. I know you said that you could pet the one when he wasn’t in the arena, but when he is, he’s sure not friendly. Do they hate it having someone on their back? Is that it?”
He’d watched the bull ropes and everything, and the rumors about their testicles being tied up and them being shocked in the chutes? Nonsense.
He had known better from when he was a kid, but he had seen it up close and personal now, and that wasn’t how it worked.
Dawson shook his head. “No, no man. These guys are bred to do this, like bucking horses. They love it. It’s a job, and the good ones know their job. They do it because that’s what they’re bred for.”
“Really? So they have hard-core blood lines?” That was wild. They were like racing horses.
Dawes’s face lit up. “These bulls have been damn near engineered. I mean, you don’t understand. Some of these straws? They can go for fifteen to twenty thousand dollars or even thirty thousand.”
He didn’t follow. “A straw?”
“So that’s when they collect semen from a bull to inseminate. They’re called straws.”
“Oh, that sounds less than pleasant. They don’t just let them...” He made the eternal humping motion with his hips.
Dawson shook his head. “God no, I mean if they do whatever, but no. You’ve got to put the right bulls in with the right cows, and then they take them to the Futurities, and they buck them when they’re young—two-year-olds.”
Wild. “Who rides them?”
“There’s a machine you strap on them, and they buck for about four minutes.”
“A machine?”
“It’s a weighted dummy. It’s safer for bulls and people, both.”
“I guess so, huh?” He could see that. If the bull weren’t ready to do their job yet, if they weren’t trained, they could really hurt somebody. But that was wild that it was a machine. He’d have to see if he could find video on them.
“What happens after the Futurities?”
Dawson explained it all—how they weeded out the ones who didn’t buck, and how they started at the smaller events and younger riders challenged themselves on them, and some of them went right to the big show, they were really that good.
By the time that was all explained, they were in Dawson’s cabin. Not his. And Dawson was stripping off his clothes. Seamus’s, that was.
He grinned because Dawson was just purely every day about this as if it was no big deal. “What are we doing?”
“We’re going to have a shower. Figured there’s no sense in wasting water. This is New Mexico, after all; we’re in the middle of a drought.” Dawes waggled his eyebrows, and he had to say that was hilarious and it made him grin like a maniac.
Of course he was also thinking about getting hard real fast, too.
“I like a shower, especially after I’ve been working like I did today.”
“See? I knew you were a reasonable man, and I knew you’d be all over this. Then we can go eat and enjoy a real meal that Nick can sit and stew about.”
Seamus started on Dawson’s clothes in return. “Nick isn’t that pouty, is he?”
“Nah, he’s a good guy. He really is. So is Chris. I realize that in the last couple of days, they’re just dudes.” Dawes raised his arms so Seamus could get his shirt off.
“That was my thought too. So, the weekend’s coming.”
“Mm-hmm.” Dawes stripped out of his shorts and his boxer briefs, pushing everything off, including his socks. “What about it?”
“Oh, we found this really amazing inn in Santa Fe where it’s safe for me to stay. I thought you might want to go down with us.”
Dawes shrugged. “Sure, why not. Might be fun to relax and have a weekend on the town.” The easy acceptance made him beam. He really liked Dawson, and he wanted to spend time together, not humping like bunnies.
Although the humping part was great. They were incredibly compatible, but he wanted to see the day-to-day stuff, like actually sleeping together, window shopping, exploring the world outside of the bullfighting school.
“Are your guys okay with it?” Dawes tilted his head, concern right there.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t they be?” It was easy to answer the question because he’d already talked to Nick and Topher both.
They didn’t give a shit. As far as they were concerned, it gave them time to spend together.
“I bet you’ve spent a lot of time in hotels.” Dawson murmured, fingers beginning to trace little trails of lightning along his belly.
“Probably not as many as you.” His eyes crossed. He wasn’t sure they were going to make it to the shower. “If I’m on set for a long time, I just rent a house short-term. Of course, if I’m shooting in L.A. or the Gold Coast, I just have my own house.”
Dawson looked at him, finger headed towards his nipple. “You have more than one house?”
His cheeks heated. “I have a place in L.A., a place on the Gold Coast, and then I have access to a flat in London.”
Dawson shook his head. “You have to show me pictures some time.”
He stepped right into the circle of Dawes’s personal space. “I’ll just take you with me, let you look for yourself. I want to see your place too.”
“All right, I got me a place up in Colorado, little ranch, nothing major. It’s a little piece of land, but it’s all mine.”
“Is it near Vail by any chance? I’ve been there a lot.”
Dawes chuckled softly. “I bet you have. It’s closer to Aspen than Vail, but yeah.”
“One day you’ll have to invite me to come stay.” He bent his face for a kiss, and Dawson gave it.
In fact, Dawson gave it really nicely, their lips clinging together and that tongue pushing against the seam of his to press inside and taste him.
He didn’t feel as if Dawson was evading any kind of question or not wanting to give him an answer.
He thought that talking about things in the future made Dawson kinda hot.
When they did break for air, Dawson rubbed their noses together and chuckled. “I’ll totally have to ask you to come stay. You’ll like the Roaring Fork Valley, I think, and Aspen is the playground for celebrities, so a lot of times they just ignore folks there.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there for a couple of movie festivals and for a ski week. It was totally easy to walk around town. Everybody kind of minded their own business for the most part.” He’d been to Vail more because he liked to ski there, but Aspen was pretty cool. “Are you closer to Snowmass or what?”
“Yeah, I’m out a ways, but it’s easy to get into Aspen from my place, so I would totally take you there and spend a day or two out on the town.”
It sounded like a perfect thing. He rubbed his thumb over Dawson’s cheekbone. It was sharp enough he could cut himself on it. He was fascinated. How amazing this man was.
Dawes turned his face and dropped a kiss in the center of his palm. “We got us a plan. I’ll go to Australia with you at some point, maybe London because I’ve always wanted to see that Big Ben thing. Then you come to Colorado with me.”
Seamus nodded, feeling eager, in fact. “But for now, we’ll start with Santa Fe, yeah?”
His bullfighter took his hand and led him into the bathroom where he turned the shower on. “We’ll start with a shower, and then we’ll work our way up to Santa Fe. After that, we might get on a plane together. You just never know.”