Chapter Three
ANOTHER CLEAR NIGHT, another punctual end to an otherwise weird work week.
Friday is when family style dinner is served in the dining hall, but Jeremy is starving for something besides food.
There is little resistance on Jeremy’s part as Barry throws him against the darkened alley wall and hungrily bends his head to lick against Jeremy’s neck.
It’s been over a week since the last time they made each other cum, very much overdue for the climax.
Jeremy is tugging at Barry’s jacket to maintain his balance as he bends his neck every which way to fend off the sloppy attacks.
Their legs intertwine as Barry moves his head forward, pressing his forehead against Jeremy’s and daring to get an inch closer to his lips.
He rolls his hips into Jeremy’s pelvis and the hard outline of his dick trapped in his jeans rubs against Jeremy’s own engorged member.
Their hushed moans are synchronized as their cocks line up and slide against the other.
“Shit,” Barry snaps, “I’m so ready to fuck you.”
Jeremy mirrors that sentiment, pushing with his hips up on Barry to give himself some room and voice dark as he offers his private bedroom in the bunkhouse, “C’mon, let’s get outta here while everyone’s still eating. Quick.”
“What’s the rush?” A completely different voice asks them.
Jeremy and Barry push each other away, fearful eyes looking over the source of the unwelcome voice behind a bright light.
An incredibly gorgeous woman with sphinx eyes grins back at the them.
She’s squeaky clean with an angelic golden glow in the dimmed light of the early evening, wearing expensive athletic wear and holding her cell phone flash light up to the two men.
Jeremy dares to say he recognizes her from the movies, although it’s hard to tell from here.
She bats her mascara laden eyelashes and pouts innocently, “What?”
“May we help you, miss?” Barry asks, leaning against the wall as casually as possible.
“Missus,” she corrects, eyeing Jeremy’s groin, “Mrs. Laurelai Radison.”
“Oh, ma’am,” Barry sputters so much it looks like he’s about to bow, “Sorry. Didn’t recognize you at first.”
“And you two?” She asks even though she suddenly sounds bored.
“Barry Loweman,” he offers freely. Jeremy shoots him a look that clearly reads for him to shut his damn mouth but Barry is already spitting out the rest under the spell of being star struck, “And this is Jeremy Munday.”
“Oh, Jeremy?” She slowly struts over to him, “You’re the modern day cowboy, no?”
He gives her a once over before nodding, “Yes, ma’am.”
Pivoting on one foot and looking over her shoulder as if striking a pose, she tells him, “Come. Clark wants you at our’s for dinner tonight.”
“Ah,” Jeremy glances over to Barry but he’s no help, fending for himself, “That’s mighty kind of y’all, but I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Uh, well, because I-”
“It’s his turn to clean up,” Barry interjects, finally coming to life, “After dinner. He’s in charge of the mess this week.”
Laurelai looks between the two men with a raised brow before finally pointing out, “Weren’t you two just about to leave to go bang each other?”
So she did see. They share a glance of mutual horror. If old man Wilcox had caught his ranch hand and cowboy necking then they would be packing up without a spare breath. But Laurelai looks at them expectantly, not with anger or disgust.
Defeated and not wanting the situation to get any worse, Jeremy steps forward and asks, “So, dinner?”
Laurelai triumphantly smirks between them before tossing her head of long hair back and walking along. Horny and sad, Jeremy turns back around to Barry to throw him an eye roll and shrug. Barry watches him leave, slumping back into the shadows.
“So, what is Barry?” she suddenly asks as they walk along, heading for the main house.
“Uh, he’s a ranch hand, ma’am.”
“No,” Laurelai says slowly, as if speaking to a child, “What is he to you?”
“Oh. Um,” suddenly choked, Jeremy can’t find a good enough answer. He shrugs, incredibly uncomfortable and giving her the most innocent answer possible, “A friend.”
“Huh. You treat all your friends like that?”
Chewing on his lip, Jeremy looks down at his feet and huffs an explanation to Clark’s wife, “I don’t know. No. We just started doing that a while back, it doesn’t mean anything. We’ll stop. Promise.”
She laughs, “Why? I don’t care.”
“Really?” He looks over to her, a hopeful twinkle in his eye.
“Oh, yeah,” Laurelai throws a smirk over to him, her own mischievous glint in her gaze, “It’s hot.”
Jeremy could fall over dead from embarrassment. He rubs at his reddened neck, ducking his head down again bashfully. Another horrid thought comes to his mind, summoning up the courage to ask her, “Say. Will you not tell anyone about this?”
“No.”
Blinking, Jeremy looks back to her shit eating grin and asks, “What?”
“What?” She looks like she could skip, “I am one hundred percent telling Clark at the very least.”
The house is close now, Laurelai picking up the pace and making Jeremy feel like he has to race to fend for his life. He pleads, “Well, could you please not do it right in front of my face?”
“Ooh, I didn’t even think of that,” she giggles, hair bouncing as she hops up the steps to the well lit front porch.
Jeremy hesitates, wondering if he should just book it now and save himself the devastating shame. Turning around at the top of the steps, Laurelai looks back to see Jeremy still at the bottom. She taps her foot and orders him, “Come on. I’m hungry.”
Chewing on his choices, he buys himself some time by asking, “What is this about?”
“Now you want to know?”
Jeremy stays quiet.
She rolls her eyes and answers, “I don’t know. Maybe he wants to fuck you.”
Jeremy loses face and steps back, Laurelai smiling big at his reaction before whipping her hair behind her and walking inside. Shocked into submission, Jeremy dumbly walks up the steps and enters the house after her.
The foyer is expansive, huge double staircase leading up to a grand balcony.
In all his years working on Willmaker Ranch, Jeremy has never stepped foot in the head house.
He’s taking it all in when Laurelai’s big laugh echoes through a hallway to his left.
His heart rate accelerates, wondering if she’s just told Clark and they’re both laughing at his expense.
Going down the hall and through an open door, he enters a lush sitting room where Clark rests on a chaise lounge with Laurelai on the sofa arm.
They look over to Jeremy as he enters as if he’s an alien that’s just been beamed down from the sky.
He blinks and remembers his manners, taking off his hat and running his fingers through his mess of dark wavy locks.
Clark cracks a smile and says, “Finally. God, what took you two so long?”
“That’s so funny you asked,” Laurelai’s eyes shimmer with raw malice as she tells him outright, “I interrupted Jeremy.”
“Oh? Doing what?” Clark chuckles with interest, sipping at a few fingers of whiskey.
Jeremy feels as if he’s watching an expensive vase fall right before his eyes, just out of reach, as Laurelai tells him, “Making out with a ranch hand.”
“No way!” Clark laughs loudly, eyeing Jeremy and asking excitedly, “For real? The girl with the short hair? Huh. I thought she was gay.”
Laurelai’s sinister smile spreads, leaning forward, “Well, actually-”
“Mrs. Radison?” A tiny voice says from behind Jeremy, making his tense shoulders relax from the timely interruption. They all turn to look at the young woman with a wiggly and sniffling child in her arms. She looks terrified as she gets the matriarch’s attention, “River’s fever has gotten worse.”
“Where’s Ocean?” Laurelai stands, marching over to the terrified nanny.
“Oh, um, eating dinner,” the woman explains as Laurelai scoops the sick little boy from her arms and fusses over him. She leaves with the nanny trailing after her without another glance back to her husband or her victim. Jeremy’s immediate relief is immense.
“Poor li’l pal,” Clark clucks his tongue.
Jeremy turns back to him and asks, “Everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah. I think it’s just allergies. He’s very prone to the slightest change in his environment, so this new mountain air is really getting to him,” Clark explains.
Nodding, Jeremy doesn’t really understand but doesn’t care to hear anymore either.
Clark suddenly stands, asking as he heads to the stocked bar, “Want one?”
“Uh, your wife said something about dinner?” Jeremy asks hopefully, stomach grumbly.
“Ha, my wife,” Clark chuckles to himself as he pours Jeremy a glass of whiskey too. He shakes his head and eyes Jeremy from across the room, saying, “Laurelai, you mean?”
Jeremy taps his hat against his thigh, suddenly feeling awkward. He nods, “Right. Laurelai.”
“Thanks for entertaining her tonight. I was going to send somebody for you but she insisted on grabbing you herself,” Clark walks back over to Jeremy and hands him the glass, “Wanted to get a better lay of the land. She’s always been independent like that.
Clay’s been giving her riding lessons too. Cheers.”
Jeremy raises his glass to Clark’s before sipping in compliance.
This is going to hit his empty stomach like a ton of bricks, but something tells him that he’ll need some liquid courage for whatever this conversation is going to entail.
He replies after swallowing and rolling his lips, “Yeah? Good for her.”
“Mhm,” Clark walks over to the tall window and out to the dark night, continuing, “She wanted to get out of LA. I think she was thinking North Cal, not my old hometown in the mountains. But she’s adjusting. I hope her kids will get used to it too.”
“Right,” Jeremy feels stupid for not having any better responses, offering, “It takes time.”
“Ha. Yeah. Okay,” Clark drinks, “It’s just hard leaving so much for work. I hope they’ll be happy here while I’m gone.”
Jeremy dares to take a step forward, asking, “Are you going somewhere?”