“These are some of Ray’s old clothes I’ve been meaning to drop off at Goodwill,” Dot continued. “You two are close enough in size that his shirts will do you fine. Jeans might be a smidge short, but they’ll keep you clothed until we get you to town to buy your own.”
“Thank you, Dot,” Travis said quietly. “I appreciate it.”
She nodded and smiled warmly at him, then laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Your room is ready. Go sleep as long as you need.”
Travis nodded, and his gaze dropped to the clothing. His shoulders hunched forward just enough to make him look tired and beaten down. Something in his demeanor shifted infinitesimally, and he seemed lost, vulnerable. Ray just wanted to pull him into his arms and make him smile, make those heavy-hearted eyes dance.
“Good night, boys,” Dot said as she turned and left the kitchen.
“’Night, Dot,” they returned in unison.
Travis didn’t move for a moment, and Ray wasn’t quite sure what to say or do. Clearly their interrupted conversation had lost its momentum and looked like it wasn’t going to be continued. Travis had retreated inward, out of Ray’s reach.
Travis lifted his free hand and ran it over the shirt on top of the folded pile. It had been one of Ray’s favorites, with blues and greens running in thick vertical bars. The material had softened with age and had always felt warm and comfortable, like coming home. The elbows had blown out, but Dot had patched them with a square of soft leather.
Ray watched Travis’s hand as it traced a lazy S over the shirt like a caress. He carefully lifted the garment, slid his arms slowly into the sleeves, and buttoned it up with deliberate focus. He rolled his shoulders back and ran his hands down each forearm, smoothing the material.
Seeing Travis in his shirt shifted something inside. Something he couldn’t quite name that had been off-kilter before and now seemed to have locked back into place, where it belonged.
Then Travis raised his eyes—still magnetic, even smoke burned and bloodshot—and they collided with Ray’s gaze. The moment stretched with visible energy, and Ray felt like he was still standing at the edge of the fire again. Blood rushed south; the muscles in his lower abdomen clenched sharply. He cleared his throat and abruptly stood from the table, breaking the charged connection.
“Well, I’ll let you get settled then.” Ray groaned inwardly at the ragged sound of his voice. Without risking eye contact again, he nodded and made his way to the door. He paused before going through and over his shoulder said, “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Ray took four deep pulls of refreshingly cool water and mentally followed its path as it quenched his mouth, raced down his throat like a waterfall, and splashed into his stomach. He placed the glass on the counter beside the sink and leaned against the edge, hands splayed on the grooved tile surface, as he stared out the kitchen window.
Twenty-four hours had passed, and still he hadn’t slept more than a few of those hours in fits and starts.
The moon was shining in all her brilliant glory again tonight. Stars glittered and sparkled in the heavens like tiny diamonds scattered on a bed of black silk. The night was still, the earth and all its beings in quiet repose. Except for him.
How the hell was he supposed to sleep, knowing Travis Morgan lay just down the hallway? All bare skin and hard muscle stretched out and inviting. Ray dropped his head and bunched his shoulders. He wanted the man. God, how he wanted the man. He wanted him to stay, wanted him to want to—if it were possible, if it were a perfect world.
But it wasn’t a perfect world, and he wouldn’t take the risk, wouldn’t ask. Even if he did, Travis would either pick up and leave anyway, or worse, he’d stay and eventually resent Ray for it, and then leave. No matter how he spun it, it all came back to Travis leaving. That cowboy just wasn’t made to stick.
And why the hell did he keep torturing himself over something that couldn’t be? Something he shouldn’t—
didn’t
—want anyway?
He promptly squelched the little voice in the back of his mind that knew a lie when it heard one. He didn’t want to think on that.
Ray inhaled a long, deep breath, held it for a three-beat, and then exhaled just as slowly. Somehow, someway, he had to distance himself from the sexy cowboy. Just two more months, surely he could endure that. After all, he’d been denying himself for more than three decades. Another sixty days or so should be a drop in the bucket. He huffed out a weak laugh. Who did he think he was kidding? He’d already lost the battle and now it was only a matter of limiting the casualties.
Letting his shoulders drop back down, he picked up his glass and swallowed the last mouthful of water, then rinsed out the glass and placed it in the dish rack. He turned away from the counter, took one step, and froze.
Travis was leaning against the door frame in silhouetted luminescence, clad only in an old pair of pajama bottoms,
Ray’s
old pajama bottoms. His arms were folded across his bare chest, one foot crossed over the other. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes were damn near glowing as bright as last night’s bonfire—and Ray was trapped under that intense gaze, rendered immobile. His heart sped up and banged around crazily in his chest, his pulse boomed in his ears, and he suddenly felt light-headed as his blood made a rapid charge to one central location.
But he couldn’t move.
Travis pushed off from the wall, their gazes locked as he stalked across the darkened room with that confident swagger of his. The linoleum floor looked like a chessboard under his bare feet. Pale blue-white light speared through the kitchen window and gave the white squares an ethereal glow.
Sleek curves and angles of muscle caught in the lambent light created a beautiful display of motion and grace as Travis approached.
Ray felt the soft material of his own cotton pants shift to accommodate his swelling cock.
And still he couldn’t move.
Travis didn’t slow as he closed in on his prey, intent and determined. Didn’t stop when he reached Ray and grabbed him roughly behind the neck. Even as he crushed his mouth to Ray’s in a demanding kiss, he continued to move forward. It was the small of Ray’s back slamming into the immovable counter that stopped the driving momentum.
Ray’s paralysis broke and without even a second of internal argument, he wrapped his arms around Travis and returned the kiss with fervor. Their tongues fought for dominance; teeth ground together, and unshaven chins scraped. And it was like nothing Ray could remember experiencing. It screamed an angry roar of release, of banked desire and denied need, and the moan that rumbled up through his chest drew a match from Travis. The hand on Ray’s back seared into his flesh like a branding iron and pulled him into the solid blanket of heat that was Travis’s bare chest.
And the fierce avarice of their joined mouths had yet to abate.
Ray slid his hands down the smooth, hard expanse of Travis’s back until the pajamas waistband impeded his exploration. Undeterred, he dipped beneath the stretchy band and filled his palms with a firm ass. Ray squeezed, and Travis rocked his hips into him, the erotic flex of muscle drawing another rumbling moan from Ray. Travis ground into Ray while the edge of the counter gouged his back.
And it wasn’t enough. It could never be enough.
Ray let go of that incredible ass and pushed hard against Travis’s chest, finally breaking their frenzied kiss. Travis stumbled back a couple of steps, his expression dazed. Those captivating eyes were heavy-lidded, blazing with bronze fire and glazed with lust. Their heavy breaths echoed in the quiet kitchen, and chests heaved in rapid unison.
Holy shit, had anyone ever looked at him like that before? Wanted him that much? Had
he
ever wanted someone that desperately? This enigmatic, carefree, dangerously handsome cowboy was going to be the end of him, and at the moment he really couldn’t find it in himself to care. Travis was the only thing he wanted.
“God, Travis. I want to fuck you so bad.”
Ray reached out and grabbed Travis by the hand and dragged him, just shy of a full-out gallop, to the downstairs bedroom.
Chapter Fourteen
Ray shut the door behind them and spun Travis around by the hand he still held until Travis’s back connected with the cool, painted surface of the wooden door. But Travis didn’t notice, because Ray was on him before he could take a breath. Mouth and tongue and teeth nipped and bit at his neck and shoulders and chest; sure hands ran down his sides, over his abdomen and back in a quest that felt as desperate as his own. Travis was lost in sensation. Lost in the heady scent of sandalwood and suede and their mingling arousal. Lost in the feel of Ray’s hot flesh against his.
Travis pushed into Ray and walked him backward to the bed, mouths fused as they moved. Ray hit the mattress and fell back, and Travis didn’t waste the advantage. He leaned over Ray, grabbed his pajama bottoms by the waistband, and pulled them off. He stood back for a moment, the soft material slipping forgotten from his hand as he stared down at the most incredible man he’d ever known stretched out before him.
Moonlight shone through the bare window and captured Ray’s strong body, encasing him in a soft ethereal glow. Skin lightly dampened with perspiration glistened like a million diamonds flickering in the sunlight as his chest rose and fell with each rapid breath. Travis’s gaze was riveted to the beautiful, fully erect cock that rested thick and rigid against Ray’s taut stomach. It was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen.
Ray folded his hands behind his head and opened his knees.
Travis groaned at the silent invitation and roughly shoved off his pajamas. He dropped to the bed on his hands and knees and crawled up Ray’s body, straddling him without touching. Finally he had the sexy rancher exactly where he wanted him, and he was going to savor every single inch of him as long as humanly possible. After this night, there wouldn’t be any part of Ray Ford he wouldn’t know intimately.
Ray reached up as Travis lowered his head to take Ray’s mouth in an unhurried, sensual exploration. He slid his tongue against Ray’s in a slow undulating tease, traced the shape and smooth surface of each tooth, and sucked on the lower lip before gently releasing it. He nipped and licked and kissed his way down the strong, thick neck, over solid pectorals dusted with a downy layer of dark hair, and pulled a hard nipple into his mouth. Ray groaned a curse and clenched his hands in Travis’s hair, lifting his hips, but Travis kept himself just out of reach.
Travis moved to the other nipple and shifted his weight to one arm. With his free hand, he swept an open palm over Ray’s torso, following ridges of abdominal muscle, plowing rows through soft hair with his fingertips, and stopping on the rise of hip. He kissed a path downward and dipped his tongue into an innie belly button that earned a sharp intake of breath from Ray.
“Goddamn, Travis…” he panted.
Travis smiled, pleased with his effect on the stoic, serious rancher, and continued his journey. He kissed and licked down into Ray’s inner thigh, avoiding the thick shaft but letting it slide against his cheek as he went straight for Ray’s sac. He sucked one ball into his mouth and rolled his tongue around it as Ray writhed and groaned and mumbled unintelligible words, the fingers in his hair twisting. Travis slid his hand down to cup and squeeze Ray’s balls, freeing his mouth so he could run his tongue up the length of Ray’s straining erection.
His own body was coiled tight with need and desire, but he fought it back to give Ray everything he had. He would take what Ray gave, but right now he had to give Ray something to remember, had to leave his mark on this man somehow so he’d always be a part of him.
He swirled his tongue around the head of Ray’s hard shaft and lapped at the escaping precum, swallowing with a purr that surprised him. He’d never purred for any man in his life. He closed his mouth around Ray and, with steady pressure of his lips, slid down the rigid length as deep as he could. Ray rocked his hips upward with a long growl, and Travis relaxed his throat, letting Ray take what he needed. Travis let go of the tightening ball sac and rested his hand on Ray’s stomach, feeling it rise and fall in rapid succession.
And holy fucking hell, Travis was on the verge of his own orgasm without even being touched.
Then Ray was pulling painfully on his hair, but Travis didn’t care. Ray could do anything he wanted to him. Anything.
“Travis…” Ray pulled harder, forcing Travis to release him with a complaining groan.
“I want…” His voice was a hoarse rasp. “I want to come inside you.”
Travis trembled with anticipation, but all he could manage was, “God, yes.”
Ray flipped him over so he was the one who was straddled, but Ray didn’t tease. He forced himself between Travis’s legs and lowered into the cradle they made. He rolled their hips together and took Travis’s engorged shaft in a firm hand. Now Travis was the one making incoherent sounds as lit nerves snapped up his spine and short-circuited his brain.
“You have what we need?” Ray asked.
“Shit,” Travis said as his heart plummeted. “The fire.”
Ray dropped his forehead to Travis’s chest and groaned. After a second he took a deep breath and then lifted himself off Travis and jumped from the bed.
“Don’t move,” he warned in an authoritative voice. He pulled on the closest pair of PJ bottoms, which weren’t the ones he’d been wearing before, and raced from the room.
Without the heat of Ray’s body over his, Travis shivered as the cool air attacked his exposed skin. He pulled the bed sheets up to keep warm while he waited for the sexy rancher to return, praying he wouldn’t come to his senses now that their sexual momentum had been broken. He looked over at the night table, but there wasn’t a clock in Travis’s room; he didn’t even wear a watch. He had no idea how long Ray was gone.
Though it seemed longer, probably less than a couple of minutes had passed before Ray came back into the room with more condoms than they’d need in one night—unless Ray was Superman—and a bottle of lube clutched against his chest with one hand. He shoved off the pants and said, “I told you not to move.”