Chapter 1 #3
We would spend the day outside, covered in grass and sweat and cum, if he didn’t stop kissing me.
He tried to shove his tongue down my throat, and my rumbling laughter made him shake in my arms, which were wrapped tight around him.
It would’ve looked strange if anyone had come upon us.
I was completely dressed; he was gloriously naked except for his socks and a very expensive watch.
I finally broke the long, wet kiss and smiled into his gorgeous eyes, brushing the hair out of his face as I asked him if he still wanted to see me later that night.
“What?”
I shrugged, grinning wide. “We sort of had dessert before dinner, didn’t we?”
“Are you kidding? I want to go there now. I want to eat and lie in bed, and I want you to tie me down when you fuck me next.”
I grunted, kissing him again, something about the shape of the man’s mouth and the softness and firmness of his lips, along with his taste, driving me right out of my mind. It really was lucky there was no one around to see me completely come apart.
“Promise,” he said, breaking the kiss so he could gulp air, “that you’ll meet me at seven. Swear to me.”
“Oh, I swear,” I assured him, tipping his head back with my nose, devouring his throat, nibbling up the side, inhaling his scent and sucking hard.
I was going to leave marks all over him.
“You best put on your clothes.” I chuckled, sliding a hand down the silky skin of his back to the firm, round ass.
I grabbed a handful of it, and he bucked against me.
“Before I break down the door of this here shed, shove you in, and fuck you so hard, you won’t be able to walk. ”
“And this is a threat?”
I smiled. “Tonight, before you see me, wash up real good, and I’ll show you what I can do with my tongue.”
He had to brace himself before his knees gave out.
I squinted at him. “You like me some already, don’t ya?”
It was cute how his eyes widened. “Yes, just a little.”
My eyebrows waggling made him groan loudly.
Watching him walk away from me—I had to give him time to return first, as well as get rid of the used condom someplace out of the way—was very nice.
The man’s ass, even under dress slacks, was a work of art.
When he looked back at me over his shoulder, it was hard to breathe.
No one had ever submitted to me so completely and so sweetly in all my life.
He was a gift, and it was a damn shame I wouldn’t be able to keep him.
Later that night, lying in bed with him in the Willow Tree Inn, I understood how much space there actually was between a bull rider and a neurosurgeon.
He lived in San Francisco. I had no home. He was worth millions, probably. I had forty-two dollars to my name until I got paid my wages that Friday. Then I would have three hundred and forty-two dollars, enough to get to Kansas by the first week of August for the rodeo in Dodge City.
“That’s what you do? You’re a bull rider?”
“Yessir.” I smoothed a hand gently over his hip, drawing him closer.
“So you go all over the country, then.”
“I do,” I answered, letting him push my shoulder down and pin me to the bed before he bent forward. He stopped, his lips hovering over mine.
“Don’t do that,” I told him, smiling up at him, reaching a hand around his nape. “Don’t worry about how you look or how you sound or feel bad for wantin’ something. Just fuckin’ take it.”
His lips melted over mine, and the kiss was tender and soft before I opened for him and his tongue swept inside my mouth. The hoarse moan made me smile as I rolled him onto his back, wanting to drown myself in him for as long as he’d let me.
“Come see me,” he gasped, breaking the kiss, hands on my face, thumbs sliding over my eyebrows as he stared up at me. “Take my address and cell number, and if you’re ever near California, like in Nevada or New Mexico or—”
“That ain’t real close.”
“It is to me, Weber.”
I squinted at him. “You don’t have to do nothin’ for—”
“Please.” He huffed out a breath, his legs lifting, wrapping around my thighs. “Web.”
Why would I argue? “I would like that.”
The shivering when I took possession of his mouth made my heart race. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life, and to have him want to spend any time with me at all was a gift.
“Web.”
“Sorry.” I grinned sheepishly, brought back sharply to the present, embarrassed even though he couldn’t see me. “And I’m sorry you’ve got to drive all the way out to Oakland to fetch me. I fell asleep and missed the stop that would have put me down on Mission Street—”
“I don’t care. Just don’t leave. Stay.”
“Like a dog,” I teased him.
“Yes, just like that.”
“Okay.”
He exhaled a deep breath. “Okay.”
“I should walk around and see if there’s somewhere open to grab a bite.”
“No. I have stuff at my house. You can take a shower, and I’ll make you something to eat.”
Just to sit in his kitchen and watch him cook, be clean and warm and dry, was a blessing.
Forty had been a revelation to me. I was surprised I lived to see it, and there was the realization that I was not going to be a rodeo star.
Never had I broken into the real money. I didn’t have a sponsor, and the chances of it happening diminished with every passing year.
At the point I was at now, I needed to find work on a ranch and hope that after I proved myself, I could stay on permanently.
I was on my way to a winter job in Alaska that Aidan Shelton, a friend of mine from the rodeo circuit, set up for me.
His brother owned a fishing lodge, a forty-five-minute seaplane ride out of Anchorage, and he needed a handyman for three months.
Aidan and I had crossed paths in Louisville at the North American Championship, and after I got hurt in the qualifier, he approached me with the offer.
It had been really decent of him, as had been the meal he bought me later that evening.
He even invited me to stay the night with him, and since there was no money coming, I had appreciated that as well.
When I came out of the shower and he was bare-assed in the middle of the second twin bed in the tiny motel room, and asked me what I was waiting on, that too had been a blessing.
It was lonely on the road and far too terrifying sometimes to take a chance on a stranger.
“Web?”
“Sorry.” I sighed. “I reckon I checked out for a minute. I got to thinkin’ how nice it’ll be to sit a spell in your kitchen and simply talk to you.”
“Where are you going next?”
“Alaska. A friend of mine has a job for me.”
“You’re not going to a rodeo?”
I scoffed. “No, sir. All the rodeos been held already this year, even the big one in Las— Wait, this here is the beginning of December, ain’t it?”
“Yes. Don’t you know? What did you do for Thanksgiving?”
“I don’t remember.” When he made a hurt sound, I felt like crap. “Aw, Doc, I don’t mean to tug at your heartstrings none. You know that ain’t me.”
“I know.” He cleared his throat. “Finish about the rodeo.”
“Well, the last big rodeo of the season was in Las Vegas, but I was too tore up to even give it a go. Even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t have the entrance fees or anything else. My gear was all beat to shit so…no more rodeos for me.”
“You’re done with bull riding, then?” He sounded both hopeful and sad.
“Yep. Can’t afford it. You got to train, and have money for supplies and gear, and…well, I ain’t got none of that.”
“You need a sponsor.”
“Honestly…” I yawned because, God, I was tired. “I think over this past year I lost my love for it. It was in my blood for so long, but now… I’m fixin’ to go to Alaska for three months, and then I’m gonna find me a ranch in Texas.”
“What changed with the bull riding?”
“Like I said, my body can’t take it no more. I’m old now, you know.”
“You’re forty. That’s not old.”
“How did you know I was—”
“You had a birthday at the beginning of August.”
I sighed deeply. “I expect you’re the only one anywhere that knew that.”
“Which should really tell you something,” he snapped, “but it won’t.”
“Doc…”
“Just forget it.”
I coughed softly, wanting to restore the ease between us. “Forty is old.”
“It’s not. I’m forty-two, and I don’t consider myself old in the least.”
I laughed. “Well, we ain’t exactly doin’ the same things to our bodies.”
“So you’re really going to quit?”
“Yessir. Rodeo is a young man’s sport, and if I keep at it any longer, I’ma get hurt permanent.”
“Did you… Are you hurt now?”
“No, just bruised up some. But I punctured a lung a while back and—”
He gasped. “Jesus, Weber.”
“I’m all right, darlin’.” I smiled into the phone.
“It’s just that I’m forty now, like I said, but I feel like I’m seventy, and I don’t wanna risk gettin’ crippled.
I ain’t got no health insurance. If the rancher who saw me get hurt hadn’t paid for me to get fixed up after the bull, I would’ve been a goner.
When I was finally better, I promised I’d pay him back, but he said no need, us Texas boys gotta stick together.
” After a moment I said, “You don’t meet a lotta men like that. ”
“You’re making me crazy. Just sit down and wait for me. I’m bringing the BMW. Watch for it.”
“Do you even know where you’re goin’?”
“Well, yes, Weber. It’s called GPS. Ever hear of it while you’re out there hitching rides on the road?”
I chuckled. “You have a whole idea of what it’s like for me out here, don’t ya.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“I’ll watch for ya.”
He hung up, and I did too.
After stepping from the phone booth, I walked over to a bench.
It was out of the rain, under the overhang, and I took a seat.
I pulled the gray straw cowboy hat down low over my eyes and flipped the collar up on my shearling-lined denim jacket.
I would definitely need something heavier for Alaska and had been thinking of stopping in Oregon and working for a couple of weeks to pack away at least a thousand dollars in cash for essentials.
I needed snow boots, a parka, and gloves.
I had to figure out the timing of everything, as I needed to be at Aidan’s brother’s place before Christmas.
I had two weeks to get there, and as I thought about it more, I realized I would probably only be able to stay one night with Cyrus, two at the very most. It made no sense to stop, but the desire to see the man’s face had outweighed everything else.
If I could, whenever I could, I had to see him. There was never a question.