Chapter 4
Chapter Four
JULES
So it was true.
Despite all the guys I’d been with by the time I’d reached adulthood, I still had room in my stupid heart for the fairy tale that had plagued me from the moment I’d inadvertently stumbled across a gay porn website while I’d been trying to search the internet for the answer to why my chest always grew tight and butterflies floated around my belly whenever Matt Bixby looked at me from across the row of desks in my fifth-grade math class.
The stuff I’d seen on the website hadn’t led to the fairy tale I’d been waiting for, of course, but it had filled in a lot of blanks for me. After that, my brain had started to weave the fairy tale. Instead of the hot guy falling for the weird, quirky yet true to herself girl at the end of most chick flick movies, he always fell for the weird, quirky, unsure of himself, introverted nerd who also happened to be another boy .
The more I’d come to accept my sexual identity and the traits that had come with it, the more sensual my fairy tales had become. They’d always had the same happily ever after at the end, though, no matter how dirty the middle of the tale had been.
Right now, it was pretty damn dirty.
And hot.
Really hot… as in my dick feeling like a hot poker between my legs kind of hot.
Problem was, all of that was overruled by two things and they were both sweet.
Fucking, over the top, sugar rotting your teeth sweet .
Despite the hard-on that had made it that much more uncomfortable to climb the stairs to my room, my hand wasn’t reaching for my dick. Instead, my fingers were caressing the shiny bottle of nail polish the cowboy had put in my hand just before he’d limped out the front door.
Sweetheart.
An endearment and a movie-worthy gesture all in one.
Welcome to Jules’s world of kind of sorta happened but didn’t really mean what you wanted it to mean.
Throughout my entire sexual identity crises years, I’d always known that the body I’d been born in was the body I’d identified with, but damn, what I wouldn’t have done for just a few seconds to be the “miss” that the hot cowboy had wanted me to be.
As soon as the thought hit me, it turned everything else into an ugly mess of emotions and colors that had been swirling around in my head for years.
“Idiot,” I murmured to myself as I closed my hand around the bottle of nail polish. The fact that Hot Cowboy had grabbed the polish after the fray I’d had with the three assholes who’d taken issue with my purchase of the item in the first place didn’t mean anything. At best, he’d probably taken it and hung on to the little bottle to hand off to whatever woman he met next. The fact that he’d returned it to me and then topped the action off by calling me “sweetheart” had all been his way of getting me back for the rude way I’d treated him.
True, he had made me lose my footing on the stairs while carrying the laundry basket, but I doubted he’d done it intentionally. I had some aches and pains from the tumble down the stairs, but since I’d ended up wrapped protectively in Hot Cowboy’s arms when we’d come to a stop on the century-old wooden steps, my injuries had been paltry at best. The gash on Hot Cowboy’s head hadn’t been anything to laugh about, and if I hadn’t been so embarrassed that he’d mistaken me for a woman for the second time in a matter of days, I would have insisted he lie down on the couch so I could watch over him to make sure he didn’t nod off into a sleep he’d never wake up from.
Just like after he’d rescued me from the assholes in the alley, the last few minutes had left me feeling the same way. Desperate, weak, confused, and worst… ashamed. Despite all the “straight” guys I’d been with who’d only hooked up with me because they could remind themselves that they’d only shoved their dicks into my mouth or ass because I looked like a girl, none of those encounters had left me wanting more. I’d always joked with Brooks about wanting to turn a straight guy gay, but I knew there was no such thing, and even if there were, the last thing I needed in my life were games that made me question who I was.
I’d barely closed the door to my room when I heard footsteps rushing up the stairs. I didn’t know why, but I quickly hid the nail polish in my pocket.
“Jules?” Brooks called at the same time that he threw the door to my room open. “Are you okay? I saw the laundry?—”
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Just tripped on the steps.” With a forced laugh, I added, “Considering it was my first time doing laundry and everything came out the same color as when it went in, a little stumble on the stairs is nothing.”
Brooks didn’t laugh, which made me nervous. Despite having known each other for years, the man and I weren’t super close. For whatever reason, we shared certain things with each other, but somehow we’d silently agreed to where the line was drawn when it came to our personal lives.
“Where’d your stud do you today?” I asked with a waggle of my eyebrows. For some reason, I felt like a fraud. Actually, I’d felt that way from the moment I’d landed in Wyoming a few days earlier.
No, that wasn’t true. There was one particular moment after landing in Wyoming and meeting up with Brooks when something had shifted inside of me. It was when I’d watched as the hardened man who was the epitome of strength—the one Brooks had been in love with since he was a kid—had begged Brooks for one simple thing.
Not asked.
Begged.
He’d begged Brooks.
Xavier, the man who’d betrayed Brooks when they’d been younger and had been cruel to my friend from the moment he’d returned to his true home, had begged Brooks not to let me touch him. Not to let anyone touch him.
That had been the moment Xavier, the hardened ex-con who’d pretended to care about no one but himself, had confirmed that he’d fallen just as hard as Brooks had. He hadn’t cared that there’d been strangers milling around other motel room doors, he hadn’t known that my relationship with Brooks was completely platonic, and he’d been absolutely clueless as to how desperately in love Brooks was with him, but none of it had mattered.
I’d literally watched a man offer up a painfully soul-wrenching admission through what appeared to have been one simple request.
As much as I’d hated the man for how cruelly he’d treated Brooks, he’d cemented a truth within me that even I hadn’t known I wanted.
For someone to want me that much. To need me that much. To know me for who I really was and still be willing to give a piece of himself to me.
I didn’t want it from Xavier, of course, and I definitely did not want those things from Hot Cowboy who’d managed to mess with my head not once, but twice now. I wanted them from someone out there who’d see me for who I really was. I wanted to see those things in them…
My envy of Brooks’s newfound reality made me feel like a major asshole, so I turned my back to him and went to my dresser, pretending to examine my array of makeup, most of which I hadn’t worn after having the crap beaten out of me in that alley. I doubted I’d be wearing any of it anytime soon, either.
The ploy worked because I could hear the pure joy in the loud rush of air that Brooks let out before he plopped down on my mattress. I turned to see him staring at the ceiling, though I doubted it was the ceiling that was making his cheeks bright pink. He probably didn’t even realize he was running his hand over his chest.
I went to the bed and lay flat on my back next to him. “Tell me.”
“His bed,” he said in bewilderment, like he still couldn’t believe it.
“Honey, you and I never really had ‘the talk’ before, but it’s okay to think outside the box when it comes to?—”
“Shut up,” Brooks said with a light smile and a nudge of his shoulder against mine. He went silent for a moment and to my surprise, I felt his fingers link with mine farther down the bed where our arms were nearly touching. “It was the first time,” Brooks whispered.
“First time… wait, haven’t you been fucking like bunnies?—”
“Jules!” Brooks interrupted. I loved how flushed and awkward he got when it came to talking about sex, especially when it came to colorful language.
I chuckled. I felt light and free for the first time since I’d stepped off the plane in Casper. Actually, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this way.
“Okay, okay, so you did it in his bed. Tell me there were at least some toys?—”
“Would you please shut up?” Brooks barked before slapping his hand over my mouth. He ended up rolling to face me, so I did the same thing. “Uncle Curtis will hear you!”
I rolled my eyes. “Ten bucks says if I called your uncle in here right now, he’d be a whole lot less personal with his questions.”
Brooks smiled. A real smile. Another of many that I’d seen since I’d arrived in Eden and seen Xavier and Brooks starting to deal with the intricacies of their newfound relationship.
“Okay, what’s so special about his bed?” I asked. “And by the way, I know you’ve been doing it in his bed and yours since I got here. The walls aren’t that thin, my friend.”
I hated the pang of envy that gnawed at me as I watched my friend’s face light up while he continued to relive whatever he’d been doing with Xavier for the last several hours.
“ His bed,” Brooks said, his eyes meeting mine expectantly like I was supposed to understand what he was talking about. “Before you got here, he was, um… he moved out of this house and into the foreman’s house he’d been working on.”
My friend’s joy slipped away for a moment. I knew the time he was talking about. It was the reason I’d flown to Wyoming in the first place. Brooks hadn’t given me the specifics, but I’d known Xavier had hurt him deeply.
“The little shack in the woods behind the barn?” I asked.
“It’s not a shack,” Brooks corrected. “He’s fixing it up.”
I hadn’t seen the place but since we were straying off topic, I didn’t really care what we called it. “So that’s where you and he?—”
Brooks nodded, that expression of joy back and shining brightly.
“Okay, so he fucked you in his house for the first time.”
“No… yes… no…” Brooks sputtered. “The first time we were together was in his house but not the bed.”
“Got it,” I responded with a nod. “Making a mental note to come back to that a bit later,” I added.
Brooks gave me another shove and then started to get off the bed. I pulled him back down. “Okay, okay, Juliet. Tell me all about you and your Romeo’s special day.”
“We never did it in a bed until after you got here.”
I lifted my eyebrows at that. I opened my mouth to ask what role I had played in their sex games, but Brooks covered my mouth with his hand again. “Before he came to that motel to find me, we’d only done it a couple of times and it was just sex, you know?”
I doubted any moment the two men had been together had been “just sex,” but I held my tongue and merely nodded.
“Since then, we’ve made love in all these different places, but today he took me to his house. His house.”
“It changed things,” I offered because I understood what Brooks was trying to explain now.
Brooks nodded. “I thought it was going to be like the first time, but at some point he’d put a mattress on the floor in the master bedroom. There wasn’t any furniture in the house before. There were also all these candles all around the room.” He sighed contentedly.
“He let you in,” I said simply. Xavier had taken Brooks to a place that represented Xavier’s future. Making love in that place gave Brooks a hopeful glimpse into a future he wanted desperately to include him.
I automatically opened my mouth to warn Brooks not to read too much into Xavier’s romantic overture, but then I shut it. I couldn’t protect Brooks’s heart, no matter which way this whole thing ended up playing out. The most I could do was be there for him regardless.
“You really do love him, don’t you?” I asked, more out of wonderment than anything else. I’d had plenty of sex and even what I’d thought had been a real relationship until I’d learned the guy was married with two kids and a third on the way. Before I learned the truth about the asshole’s marital status, I’d been certain he was it for me, but after I’d kicked him out of my bed and out of my life, I’d realized it wasn’t love I’d been feeling. I’d been waiting for the fairy-tale ending, but between the guys who only wanted me for one night and the fucker who’d lied to me, that little sliver of hope had gotten stomped on so badly that I wasn’t sure if it was truly there anymore.
Damn hot cowboys with their stupid hats and hot asses in snug jeans and their caveman mentality that couldn’t even help them recognize one gender from another.
Brooks didn’t say anything, but he did nod. His smile faded. I could practically see his own ray of hope being crushed by doubt and insecurity. If this thing ended badly, I knew it would break him.
“Sweetie, I’ve seen the way that man looks at you. And that shit at the motel…” I shook my head slowly back and forth. “Poor sap looked like his heart was gonna break then and there when he realized the hot little number you were about to do in that motel room?—”
“Jules,” Brooks said in mock irritation before flopping on his back again.
“Okay, okay,” I said as I sidled closer to Brooks so I’d be able to look him in the eye. “You guys might have a lot standing in your way, but I don’t think being in love is going to be an issue for either of you.”
“You think so?” Brooks asked, his voice steeped with hope.
“Do hot country boys suck dick just as good as the city ones?” I joked.
He chuckled. I returned to my position so, like Brooks, I was staring at the plain white ceiling.
“So those extra days in Casper were… productive?” Brooks asked.
My stomach twisted into knots because I hated having to lie to my friend, especially since he’d been so forthcoming with me. I turned my head, masking my expression. “You know me,” I said with a grin. “I’m the?—”
“—life of the party,” Brooks finished for me.
Since there was no reason to tell Brooks that after he’d left with Xavier, I hadn’t done anything more than hide out in the motel room eating shitty delivery food and being the honored guest at my own one-man pity party, I remained silent. My thoughts automatically drifted to all the guys who’d offered to keep me company in that room. I’d coyly said no to them before closing the door in their faces. I’d stared at the shabby bed for a while, wondering what each guy would have done to me in that bed, or what I would have had to do for them, and then I’d turned to whatever bottle of alcohol I’d decided to indulge in. That was the only thing that I’d held between my lips and sucked greedily on for those few days. I’d also paid the price for it when I woke up with the hangover from hell.
“Because you seem… different,” Brooks said. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t after what those assholes in town did?—”
Since the assholes and Hot Cowboy were the last thing I wanted to talk about, I sat up and said, “Not really worth glamming it up when I’d melt like the Wicked Witch of the East or West or wherever the hell she came from. You said it was hot out here, but man, that sun makes me sweat more in five minutes than Studly Stanley did when he reamed me on your dad’s desk the night of last year’s Christmas party.”
“Liar,” Brooks murmured. “We both know Studly Stanley blew his wad about five seconds after you guys locked yourself in the bathroom of my office.”
“Shit, you heard that?” I asked in disbelief as I whipped my head around.
“It’s a wonder the entire party didn’t hear it. I saw you go in there and was about to knock on the door and tell you and Studly Stan to take it somewhere else because I had work to do, but the guy started wailing like you were killing him in there. You may be good with that mouth of yours, my friend, but no one’s that good.”
Before I could even respond that Studly Stanley had turned out to be Dudley Stanley, Brooks’s face went all soft and glowy again.
“Actually, there is one guy?—”
“Okay, we’re done here,” I said as I grabbed his hand and tugged him to his feet. “Go find your man and do it against a hay bale or something.” I practically shoved Brooks out of the room.
“Been there, done that,” he called just as I shut the door in his face. I couldn’t help but envision the scene in my head, though the main stars most definitely weren’t Brooks and Xavier.
Goosebumps began to pop up along my arms, and my dick automatically hardened as I felt the harsh scrape of hay against my exposed skin while being bent over one of those hay bales. One of Hot Cowboy’s hands was holding me down while the other was wrapped around my hip so I couldn’t move as his thick, hot dick slammed into me from behind over and over. The sound of his heavy balls slapping against my skin had me sliding down the door until I was sitting on my ass. My fingers were burrowing into the hay, and I had my head buried against my arm as I took everything he gave me. He’d ordered me not to come, but the scrape of his zipper along my ass every time he thrust into me was making me crazed.
I could see the picture we made. Me, half naked and bent over the hay with my pants wrapped around my ankles, and him, fully clothed, taking ownership of me, of our bodies. It wasn’t until his dick began hitting my prostate that I knew I was going to pull a Dudley Stanley and blow my wad too soon. Hot Cowboy had promised that if I held out long enough, he’d reward me handsomely, but I already had my reward.
His words.
The ones I’d been so desperate to hear.
Then he was grunting my name as he spilled himself deep inside of me. He kept shoving into me, his release heating my overstretched muscles. I was being burned alive from inside of my own body and it wasn’t enough. His order for me to come wasn’t enough. The weight of his heavy body collapsing onto mine even as his cock continued to jerk inside of me and thick semen began to slide over my rock-hard balls wasn’t enough.
It was one word that did it. One simple word that no man had ever said to me before, during, or after fucking me.
Jules .
I cried out as jet after jet of jizz began to shoot out of me. He kept repeating my name, his lips a soft whisper against my ear. He rammed into me to heighten my orgasm with every wave that tore through me, but the way he said my name never changed. Not through the mind-blowing orgasm that left me sobbing in relief or the soft kisses he placed along the back of my neck as the aftershocks of pleasure rolled over me.
In fact, the way he said my name never changed after that, and I knew it never would.
“Jules, I’ve got my cell on me if you need me!”
Brooks’s shout and subsequent quick rap on my door as he walked past it ripped me from the safety of my fantasy. That little light that had started to warm my entire body was once again snuffed out. Problem was that the light hadn’t been the only part of my body that had reacted to the delicious daydream.
I was still sitting on my ass by the door, but my spent dick was lying limply between my fisted hand that was covered in semen. I could barely breathe. My muscles seemed in no hurry to make me move. And that damn whisper kept floating around in my head.
Fantasy Hot Cowboy’s whisper. Fantasy Hot Cowboy who had somehow learned my name and a whole lot more about me than I would have liked.
I dropped my head back against the door. I still couldn’t believe that at some point, my fantasy of being fucked over a hay bale had mixed with reality and I’d actually jerked myself off to the point that I had come in real life at the same time I’d come during the fantasy.
“Shit,” I muttered. Not only was I stuck with Hot Cowboy’s presence during my waking hours, I had a feeling he’d be back every time I let myself have a moment of quiet.
Okay, so problem solved.
Stay away from Hot Cowboy for however long I was in the ironically named town of Eden.
Keep busy enough to prevent Fantasy Hot Cowboy from making appearances in both night and day dreams.
Get my now very eager ass back on plane and far away from every version of Hot Cowboy.
“Easy enough,” I said with a shrug, ignoring the cooling cum on my skin or the fact that my limp dick was growing less and less limp by the minute. “Easy,” I repeated as I began cleaning myself up as best I could so I could get started on my plan.
Easy.