CHAPTER SEVEN One Bed at Sundown House #2
The word carried more weight than an answer should.
Gideon removed his hat.
Jude took it from him and placed it on the chair.
Then he reached for Gideon’s gun belt.
“May I?”
Gideon looked at his hand resting near the buckle.
“Yes.”
Jude opened the belt.
The gesture mirrored the cave, but Gideon’s hands were steady now. He could remove it himself. He allowed Jude to do it because the surrender had become chosen.
Jude drew the leather slowly through the buckle. The back of his hand brushed Gideon’s stomach.
He lifted the gun belt away.
Instead of placing it beside the bed, Jude carried it across the room and set it atop the wardrobe.
“Can you bear being unarmed for one night?” he asked.
“My rifle is by the bed.”
Jude glanced toward it.
Gideon crossed the room and moved the rifle beside the wardrobe.
Jude’s gaze returned to him.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
Gideon approached him.
“What do you want?”
Jude looked toward the washbasin.
“First?”
“Yes.”
“I want the desert off my skin.”
Gideon poured water into the basin.
It was cool, but cleaner than anything they had used since Red Mesa. He wet a cloth and reached toward Jude’s face.
“May I?”
Jude leaned forward.
“Yes.”
Gideon washed the dust from him.
He began at Jude’s forehead, guiding the cloth around the healing bruise and down his cheek. Sand had collected along the scar through his eyebrow and beneath his jaw. Gideon cleaned each place carefully.
Jude watched him without speaking.
Gideon passed the cloth over his mouth.
The split lip had nearly healed.
“Pain?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you want me to continue?”
“Yes.”
Gideon washed Jude’s neck.
He opened the top button of Jude’s shirt, then stopped.
“May I remove it?”
“Yes.”
The buttons came undone beneath his fingers.
Jude stood quietly while Gideon exposed his chest, stomach, bandages, and scars. When Gideon slipped the shirt from his shoulders, Jude lifted both arms freely.
No cuff trapped the sleeve.
The simple movement affected Gideon more than expected.
Jude could take the shirt back.
He could turn away.
He remained.
Gideon washed his shoulders, chest, and arms. The cloth moved over hard muscle, old scars, and the dark hair at his sternum. Water ran down Jude’s stomach.
At his waist, Gideon stopped.
Jude took his hand.
He guided it lower, placing Gideon’s palm against the bare skin above his waistband.
The answer was unmistakable.
Gideon washed there.
Jude’s stomach tightened beneath the cloth.
“Still yes?” Gideon asked.
“Yes.”
Gideon opened Jude’s trousers.
He helped him step free, pausing when his cracked ribs made the movement painful. Jude balanced with both hands on Gideon’s shoulders.
A laugh escaped him when one boot refused to release his heel.
“What?” Gideon asked.
“I imagined this differently.”
“You imagined it?”
“Repeatedly.”
“And the boot cooperated?”
“In every version.”
Gideon knelt and pulled the boot free.
Jude looked down at him.
The humor faded.
Gideon’s hands rested at Jude’s ankle. His mouth was level with the hard plane of Jude’s stomach.
He could feel Jude’s attention like heat.
Gideon rose slowly.
Jude reached for his shirt.
“May I?”
“Yes.”
Jude opened it one button at a time.
Each movement exposed another part of Gideon. His throat. Chest. The old saber scar. The healing bullet wound beneath his ribs.
Jude pushed the shirt from his shoulders and let it fall.
His hands returned to Gideon’s body.
Not with a cloth.
With bare palms.
He touched Gideon’s chest, tracing the hair over his sternum. His fingers followed the scar beneath Gideon’s left collarbone, then moved down his side.
Gideon’s breath deepened.
Jude stopped above the fresh bandage.
“May I touch the places that don’t need healing?”
Gideon closed his eyes briefly.
“Yes.”
Jude’s palms moved over him.
Across his shoulders.
Down both arms.
Over his waist and the hard muscle of his stomach.
He touched the unscarred parts with the same care he gave the damaged ones, as though Gideon’s body was not merely a record of survival.
Gideon remained still until stillness became impossible.
He caught Jude’s wrist.
Jude stopped immediately.
“Wrong?” he asked.
“No.”
“Too much?”
“No.”
Gideon lifted Jude’s hand to his mouth and kissed the center of his palm.
The outlaw’s breath caught.
“May I kiss you?” Gideon asked.
“Yes.”
Their mouths met.
The first kiss in the room was slower than the one at Dry Mercy. It began with recognition: the shape already learned, the pressure remembered, the split in Jude’s lower lip avoided until Jude deliberately changed the angle and asked for more.
They undressed between kisses.
Not gracefully.
Gideon’s suspenders tangled around one wrist. Jude nearly fell while removing his second boot. The bed struck the wall when Gideon backed him toward it, producing a sound so loud both men froze.
The saint in the painting stared down at them.
Jude laughed first.
Gideon tried not to.
“You’re doing it again,” Jude said.
“Doing what?”
“Laughing.”
“I am not.”
“Your face nearly changed.”
Gideon kissed him to end the argument.
Jude fell backward onto the bed and pulled Gideon with him.
The mattress groaned.
Gideon caught himself above Jude, one hand planted beside his head and the other at his waist. Their bare bodies met along the center.
Heat moved between them.
Jude’s eyes darkened.
Gideon lowered his mouth to his throat.
“May I?”
“Yes.”
He kissed the pulse there.
Jude’s hands moved across his back. Fingers traced scars, followed muscle, and finally settled at Gideon’s hips.
Gideon moved lower.
He kissed Jude’s chest, the old white marks across his ribs, and the uninjured skin between them. When he reached the bandaged graze, he stopped.
Jude touched his hair.
“Still yes,” he said.
“That is not the question.”
“What is?”
“Does this hurt?”
“Less than stopping.”
Gideon looked up.
Jude’s expression held hunger and humor together.
“Honest answer,” he added.
Gideon kissed the skin beside the bandage.
Jude’s fingers tightened in his hair.
They touched without haste until haste became unavoidable.
Each permission opened another place.
May I touch you here?
Yes.
Closer?
Yes.
Do you want this?
Jude answered by taking Gideon’s hand and placing it where he wanted it, his gaze never leaving Gideon’s face.
Gideon listened to every word and every change in breath. He watched Jude’s body for tension that meant pain instead of desire. When Jude’s ribs protested, Gideon stopped.
Jude cursed softly.
“Pain?” Gideon asked.
“My body has poor timing.”
“We can stop.”
“No.”
“Jude.”
“Move to your left.”
Gideon adjusted.
The bed frame struck the wall again.
Jude laughed against his shoulder.
Gideon felt the laughter move through both their bodies.
“This is not amusing,” he said.
“It is a little.”
“I am attempting to be careful.”
“You are attempting to conduct this like an arrest.”
Gideon raised his head. “Do you object?”
Jude looked at him.
“No,” he said more softly. “I like that you keep asking.”
Gideon kissed him.
“But believe me when I answer,” Jude added against his mouth.
“I do.”
“Then closer.”
Gideon obeyed.
The night became heat and skin.
Jude opened to him without disappearing beneath him. Gideon refused to let urgency turn Jude into something taken. He watched his face, felt his hands, and stopped whenever uncertainty crossed either man.
When there was no distance left between them, Jude’s breath broke against Gideon’s throat.
Gideon became still.
“Look at me,” he said.
Jude opened his eyes.
“Still yes?”
Jude placed both hands around Gideon’s face.
“Yes.”
Then Jude drew him closer.
They moved together slowly.
Not perfectly.
Gideon’s stitches pulled. Jude’s ribs forced them to change positions twice. At one point the mattress shifted from the frame, pitching them sideways and leaving Jude laughing into the pillow while Gideon tried to restore order without abandoning the bed.
The imperfections made the intimacy more real.
No dream contained cramped rooms, healing wounds, dust in the sheets, or two men negotiating which angle hurt least.
This did.
Jude turned Gideon onto his back and straddled his hips carefully. Gideon placed both hands at his waist, holding without directing.
Jude leaned over him.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Gideon looked at the man above him.
Jude’s hair fell around his face. Scars crossed his chest and shoulders. Desire had softened his mouth but not erased his strength.
“You,” Gideon said.
“For tonight?”
The question carried more danger than the touch.
“For as long as you choose.”
Jude searched his face.
Then he kissed Gideon with a tenderness that nearly undid him.
Their bodies found a rhythm without chain, command, or necessity. Jude guided when he wanted control. Gideon followed. When Jude surrendered, it was never mistaken for weakness.
The room filled with their breathing, whispered permissions, rough laughter, and the involuntary sounds neither could conceal.
At the final moment, Jude held Gideon’s face and kept their eyes together.
Gideon had never allowed himself to be seen so completely.
He did not turn away.
Afterward, neither man moved.
Jude lay across Gideon’s chest, breathing hard. Gideon’s arms closed around him, one hand at his back and the other in his hair.
The storm scraped sand against the shutter.
Inside the room, everything had become still.
“Alive?” Jude murmured.
“Presently.”
“You stole my answer.”
“I confiscated it.”
“Federal authority?”
“Professional habit.”
Jude kissed his chest.
Gideon felt the smile against his skin.
Gideon used the remaining water to clean them.
The gesture carried no embarrassment now. He washed Jude’s skin gently, checked the bandage at his side, and drew the blanket around him when the room cooled.
Jude returned the care.
He cleaned the reopened edge of Gideon’s wound and replaced the linen with a strip torn from the tracker’s shirt. Then he settled beside Gideon, one leg crossing his and one arm draped over his chest.
No steel joined them.
Jude stayed close anyway.
For a long time, Gideon listened to the storm.
Jude traced the scar below his collarbone.
“Who was Samuel?” he asked.