Chapter Thirteen #2
The room felt different. Smaller. The pine walls pressed closer. The chest of drawers against the far wall, bare except for my belt and pocket knife, looked like it belonged to someone else—someone tidier, someone who believed surfaces should be functional or empty, and there was no middle ground.
Mitch and Caleb created middle ground simply by existing in it. Mitch’s hat on the bedpost. Caleb’s flannel draped over the chair. Evidence of occupancy that I would have cleared away any other night and tonight left exactly where it was.
Mitch lounged on the edge of the bed. Boots off, socked feet stretched out in front of him, his weight braced on one elbow like he’d been sitting there for years.
His eyes tracked me from the doorway—hazel, shifting in the lamplight, that direct, unhurried gaze that cut through every defense I’d built and landed somewhere behind my sternum.
“You’re thinking again,” he said.
Not a question. An observation delivered with the flat certainty of a man who had been reading my face since approximately week two and had gotten very good at it.
I said nothing. My default setting. Mitch had learned to treat silence as participation, which was either generous or delusional, and tonight I was leaning toward generous because the alternative meant acknowledging how transparent I’d become.
Caleb stood by the window. His back to the glass, the night solid black behind him, and his arms were crossed loosely over his chest. Flour was gone from his forearms. His hands were clean, nails short, and the lamplight caught the line of his jaw and turned it gold.
“You’ve been studying maps since Tuesday,” he said. His voice was soft. Unhurried. The particular warmth he brought to observations that landed like direct hits. “Eastern perimeter. Contour lines. That boot print photo you’ve looked at approximately seventeen times. I counted.”
“I’m working,” I said. The words came out sharper than I’d intended. Defensive. Transparent. “Not thinking.”
Mitch laughed. Low, warm, the sound bouncing off the low ceiling and the pine walls and landing in my chest with the clean, tactical certainty of something that had been waiting for permission and had just decided it didn’t need it.
He pushed off the bed in one smooth motion and crossed the room to me, three strides, covering ground at that pace that still surprised me, and stopped close enough that I could smell pine soap and something that was just Mitch—warm, earthy, the particular scent of a man who had been working hard all day and didn’t care if anyone noticed.
“Bullshit,” he said. Pleasant. Certain. His hand came up and cupped my jaw, thumb rough against stubble, and the contact was electric—warm, deliberate, possessive in a way that made my pulse do something I hadn’t authorized.
“You’ve been thinking about this since approximately the hallway incident.
Maybe before. I’ve seen the look. Caleb’s seen the look.
The entire ranch has seen the look, Sterling. You’re not subtle.”
“I’m extremely subtle,” I said.
“You’re about as subtle as a freight train,” Caleb said from the window.
He hadn’t moved. His arms were still crossed, his posture loose, and the smile playing at the corner of his mouth was warm and certain and entirely, devastatingly present.
“A very handsome freight train. With excellent tactical instincts. But still a freight train.”
Mitch’s thumb traced the line of my jaw.
Slow. Deliberate. The kind of touch that said he’d been thinking about this for longer than he wanted to admit, and the admission was written plain on his face in a way I’d rarely seen—the joke drained away, replaced by something steadier, warmer, the man underneath the performance deciding he was needed.
“Stop hiding behind your defenses,” Mitch said.
His voice had dropped. Rough. Lower than usual, the tone he used for things that mattered, and the fact that he’d spent it on me, directed at me, was its own kind of confession.
“You’ve been building walls since we got here.
Good walls. Impressive walls. I’ve watched you do it.
Caleb’s watched you do it. And right now, in this room, with the door closed and the lamp low and both of us standing here looking at you the way we’ve been looking at you for months, those walls are coming down.
Your call how it happens. My call how thorough it is. ”
Caleb pushed off the window. Crossed the room in that light, unhurried stride that covered ground without seeming to try, and stopped on my other side. Close.
Their shoulders nearly brushed—Mitch to my left, Caleb to my right, flanking me in the doorway with a coordination that was either practiced or instinctive, and with the Pruitt twins the distinction hardly mattered.
“You don’t have to decide anything,” Caleb said.
His voice was softer, but no less certain.
Warm. The kind of honesty that cut through pretense because pretense had never occurred to him in the first place.
“We’ve decided. Both of us. Together. That’s the offer.
You can take it or you can stand here thinking about maps until sunrise, but the maps aren’t going to change and neither are we, and I’d rather have you than the thinking. Plain fact. No apology.”
I looked between them. Mitch’s grin, wide and unrepentant. Caleb’s warmth, steady and certain. The lamplight caught them both—amber on Mitch’s stubble, gold on Caleb’s hair—and the sight of it did something to my chest that I couldn’t name and didn’t try to.
My jaw worked. The muscle in my cheek jumped hard, once, and Mitch’s thumb stilled against my skin because he’d felt it, of course he’d felt it.
Something gave. Not dramatically. Quietly. The way I did everything—in increments, measured, each decision standing on the one before it until the structure was sound enough to hold weight.
I’d been building toward this since morning. Since yesterday. Since the first time Caleb had kissed me in the hallway and I’d stood there with my back against the wall and my heart doing something complicated behind my ribs.
I reached for Mitch first. My hand found his hip, fingers curling into the denim, warm and certain, and I pulled him closer.
His breath caught—short, involuntary, the kind of sound that came from somewhere behind his sternum when the argument was over and the truth had won—and then his mouth was on mine, hot and demanding, and the kiss was thorough and urgent and completely without apology.
Caleb’s hand settled on the small of my back.
Warm through my shirt, his palm flat against the muscle there, and he leaned in and pressed his mouth to the side of my neck, just below my ear, and the combination—Mitch kissing me hard, Caleb’s lips warm against my skin—short-circuited something fundamental in my nervous system.
I made a sound. Low, rough, punched out of me against my will, and Mitch swallowed it and kissed me harder, his hand gripping the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair with a certainty that said he’d been thinking about this for months and had no intention of being gentle about it.
The lamplight held. The window stayed black. Beyond the glass, the ranch stretched cold and silver toward the eastern ridge, and whatever threat waited there—the cut fence, the boot prints, the dark truck on the county road—didn’t matter.
Not tonight.
Tonight the only perimeter that mattered was the one being dismantled by Mitch’s mouth on mine and Caleb’s hand on my back and the warmth of two men who had decided, without debate, that I was worth keeping.
I stopped thinking. Started feeling.
The maps could wait.
I pulled back from Mitch’s kiss and turned to Caleb because Caleb had been waiting longer, or it felt that way, or the order didn’t matter and my body had decided anyway.
His mouth was warm. Softer than Mitch’s, patient in a way that cut through the urgency building in my chest and replaced it with something slower, deeper, the kind of heat that built from the ground up rather than the top down.
I kissed him slow. Deliberate. My hand cupping his jaw, thumb rough against the stubble there, feeling the way his breath caught—short, involuntary, the needy sound of him surrendering to something he’d wanted for months—and his hands came up to my face, warm and certain, fingers threading into my hair with a grip that was firm without being tight.
Behind me, Mitch’s broad chest pressed into my back. Solid heat, muscle and warmth, his hands settling on my hips with a possessiveness that made my cock harden against my jeans.
His mouth found the side of my neck, teeth grazing the tendon there, not hard, just enough to make me suck in a breath, and the combination—Caleb kissing me slow, Mitch’s teeth on my neck—short-circuited something fundamental in my nervous system.
“Bed,” Mitch murmured against my skin. His voice was rough. Lower than usual, the tone he used for things that mattered, and the fact that he’d spent it on one word, directed at me, was its own kind of confession.
We moved. Not rushed. Not hurried. I didn’t hurry; I moved with the long, unhurried stride that covered ground at a pace that surprised people, and right now that stride was directed at getting horizontal, and I was entirely on board with the plan.
Mitch’s hands on my shoulders were firm, guiding, the care in them not softening the intent behind them one bit.
He got my shirt off first, one smooth pull, popping the top button, dragging the fabric over my head.
He pulled my boots off next while Caleb worked my belt, his fingers deft and certain, and then my jeans were around my ankles and I stepped out of them and stood there between them, naked, vulnerable, seen in a way that should have been uncomfortable and wasn’t.