Timber Lake (The Snowy Range Series, #2) (12 page)

Sonny inched close enough Michael scented his sweat and body heat, with a subtext of anxiety, anticipation and desire pouring off the man in waves. It was a heady feeling having that kind of effect. He’d yet to move other than to turn his head, compelling blondie to do his bidding with his voice alone.

But bottom line, what was at stake was his ego and the fact he wanted Seamus Rydell more than he’d ever wanted anyone else. He’d never been especially risk adverse, as past actions proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. That was his career M.O. What he did hold tight was his heart. He’d built a thick, impenetrable wall around his emotions, but Sonny was slowly chipping away at the foundation.

What all the introspection boiled down to was him waiting for the no and praying for yes.

“You ready, Tex?”

Wrinkling his nose, Sonny snarled, “I’m not from Texas, asshat. I’m from Jersey.”

After letting Sonny stew in his own juices for a few seconds, Michael said, “That might be, but it sure as hell doesn’t sound near so good if I called you Jersey Boy, now would it? Besides, I think that one’s been taken.”

“Oh right, like Tex hasn’t.”

Getting Sonny back on track, he reminded him, “You didn’t answer my question. Are you ready?”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What is it you want to do?”

“Fuck.” He spit the word out, letting it bounce around the small enclosure, building momentum for maximum effect.

Tilting his head, Sonny gave him a knowing smirk, then rolled over and pulled his kit toward him. He fished around inside for a few moments. Satisfied, he rolled back over and chuckled. “Is that all? Took you fucking long enough.” He tossed a handful of condoms and a tube of lube on Michael’s chest.

Flashing his pearly whites, Sonny said, “Now it’s my turn.”

Michael was still staring down his nose at his chest and the foil packets arrayed in a cascade of promise. Sonny poked him, reminding him he was supposed to be participating in a game of
what the hell is going on here?

Muttering, “Yeah, right. Your turn,” he licked his lips, feeling like he’d just fallen down the rabbit hole. A minute ago he had sad-eyed puppy dog at his beck and call. Now he had master dom, don’t fuck with Mister Zero, looming over him. He swallowed and mumbled, “What’s your pleasure?”

“Ah, Warden Brooks, excellent question. You got it in one.”

Michael’s senses thrummed with pressure behind his eyes, in his belly and against his jeans. Long-fingered hands squeezed his wrists, pinning him in place with exquisite weight and bulk.

Sonny husked, “My pleasure, as you so aptly put it, is to bottom you so hard you scream my name when you cum.”

Michael whimpered, “I don’t want to scare the horses.” What he really didn’t want was to scare himself.

Sonny grinned and held up a bandanna. “In that case, I think I know just where to put this.”

Sweet Jesus...

Michael shut his eyes, his neck extended so far back the tendons popped and stretched with delicious tension. The first bite had him sucking air, the second put stars behind his eyelids. He realized, at the last minute, right before Seamus Rydell possessed his mouth, that if were asked again what he wanted, his answer would be...

...he really wanted to fuck with Mister Zero.

Put Away Wet

––––––––

S
onny stood with his hands on his hips glaring into a stream that had morphed from picturesque to raging torrent overnight. Nice how Mother Nature had such a sense of humor, mirroring his state of mind. Raging, as in he was still horny as hell. Plus, he was pretty sure disgusted embarrassment with a side of fuck this shit filled in the chinks in his armor, should anyone care to inquire about his mood.

Best they didn’t.

Wisely, Michael was tending to the stock, moving them to another location so they could reach fresh grass.
I’m fine, really. I can do this while you do that... That
boiled down to him trying to figure out how to swipe two buckets of water without getting his hiking boots soaking wet again. It wasn’t looking good.

Muttering, “Crap, this sucks,” Sonny kicked his boots off and rolled up his jeans. They were stiff as boards, filthy dirty and getting tighter by the minute.

I’m not looking at him, no I’m not.

If he looked back at Michael Brooks, he doubted he’d be able to focus on keeping his shit together. How had he gotten to this juncture, melting into a puddle of goo at the thought of his warden riding him hard, putting him away satisfied? Instead, he’d been put away frustrated after a night holding up the tent from the inside while Michael had gone out to battle with the elements in a desperate attempt not to lose the only shelter they had.

His warden had managed to stabilize the damn dome by piling their panniers and saddles around the edges as hurricane force winds pummeled them mercilessly. He’d crawled inside, snow-covered and half frozen, the footprint of the space shrunk by half, leaving them no choice but to cocoon together and wait it out.

Michael’s inelegant solution meant their hanky-panky got tabled in favor of survival and keeping them from becoming somebody’s archeological find. He’d lain awake, listening to an incessant drumbeat of sleet, rain and snow on the collapsed roof, emptying his mind of fear and the small regrets of denial. At twenty-eight, he had little other than determination at his disposal. No wisdom, no body of experience to guide him to better choices.

To his shame, he’d wallowed in the sting of disappointment of leaving this earth with dreams unrealized, of never having fulfilled his promise to Michael. Or to himself. He’d wanted to hear Michael howl his name, passing from pain to pleasure, measuring their heartbeats with feral thrusts and savage nips.

Until last night, Sonny rarely thought about dying. Sure, it was going to happen someday. The inevitability of it freed him to set it aside as consideration for another time, another place. But that night, a night that took on the ominous tones of eternity and a day, had him reconsidering his mortality.

But not just his.

As Michael had clutched him, quaking with the pain of cold so deep, so achingly sharp you had nowhere to go, nothing you could do to halt the transformation of blood turning into sludge, he’d been hyperaware that he was all that stood between losing Michael and maybe even losing himself.

I’m fine, I’ll take care of this, you do that.
The flash of appreciation in Michael’s eyes had been instantly shuttered with machismo and false pride, and Sonny had allowed himself to be complicit, to let the man crawl out of the tent, business as usual.

Nature had ridden them both hard last night, reminding them to give her the respect that was due. She wasn’t going to give a shit that he felt more resentment than a healthy regard for her power and mercurial moods. His disappointment at losing an opportunity had been selfish, his epiphany was how much he cared.

Both sensations confused and bothered him. He needed order and precision in his life. Michael Brooks was none of that, leaving him pondering what had happened to topple simple attraction into something entirely different.

He’d been looking for benefits. He’d found a friend.

As he bent to pick up the buckets, Sonny muttered, “I hope your map shows us the way out of here, Brooks, ’cause I don’t mind admitting I’m fucking lost.”

Wading into the stream, he tensed against the current, not wanting to be swept away to who knew where in that godforsaken place. The collapsible buckets ballooned and filled with icy cold water that had Sonny’s teeth chattering. Backing up, he fought the suction pulling his feet deeper into the mire. They were already numb.

Everything was numb. His fingers, his ears, the tip of his nose.
Never not summer
took on new meaning in the weak light of the new day. He could learn to hate the Snowys, hate the flip-flopping temps, the bipolar mania of clear, warm days lulling you into a calm suspension of all your cares and woes, only to hurl you over a cliff on a whim.

Warm arms wrapped around his waist, lifting him effortlessly out of the mud. Michael murmured, “Don’t worry, Tex, I’ve got you.” He swung Sonny in an arc, setting him gently on a patch of grass where the icy snow had already melted off. “Give me those buckets. I’ll run them up to the highline, see who’s thirsty. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

Wobbling on feet he couldn’t feel, Sonny watched Michael trot uphill, envying the man his acclimation to the altitude and a level of fitness that had him bouncing back from hypothermia as if it was an everyday occurrence. If ever there was a time he felt fragile and unprepared to deal with his situation, it was right that minute.

The sun on his back was warm, the air piggybacking on his skin with the reminder they’d dodged a bullet. He wondered how many you got to avoid before one hit the target... you. Michael offered water, patted each animal and once more checked to see they were secure and happy. Sonny wanted nothing more than to have Michael shower him with that kind of uncompromising care and attention.

For someone who hadn’t given a rat’s ass about dying, Sonny found himself mulling over how he’d die a happy man just to have Michael Brooks touch him, gently, tenderly. Making love with his fingertips and his mouth. The denim board resisting his aching erection turned into an obsessive need for release. Undoing the button, then the zipper, he sighed with relief, never taking his eyes off Michael sauntering down the hill.

Even from a distance Sonny knew he had Michael’s undivided attention. Fingers thick with gnarled joints, pads roughed from hard work and exposure, unsnapped the denim jacket, the flaps lazily swinging in synch with the man’s rolling gait. Jerking to a stop, Michael kicked off his boots and dropped the jacket to perch on top of them.

Sonny counted the buttons as Michael unwrapped a body muscled into perfection, the tight silk thermal underwear outlining every mogul and bulge. Michael’s upper layers followed the jacket and the boots. Then he waited. Stroked and waited, content to frame the bulge in his jeans. Teasing Sonny...
See what’s waiting for you, Tex? If you want it, come and get it.

Did he... want it?

No, a thousand times no. Want had nothing to do with it. It was like him saying he wanted to breathe, as if it was ever a choice. With his left thumb he pressed on his throat, his right hand sliding past the rigid fabric to cup his balls, squeezing and pressing until his ears thundered with the echoes of the vacuum of pleasure so intense he sank to his knees and willed Michael to approach.

The sun burned a cross of desire thick and relentless on his bare skin. He had no remembrance of stripping, no sensation of flannel caressing skin webbed with desire. His knees, saturated with the final submission of snow to heat, balanced on cloth bunched as a hassock. Fists locked tight, he bowed his head in supplication.

He heard nothing, saw nothing, eyes and ears blindly worshiping the image of Michael poised above him, knowing what waited for him was the kind of heaven only hell delivered.

****

W
hen Michael had curled into Sonny’s embrace, helpless and close to succumbing to the cold, he crossed the line from giving up to the more subtle sense of submission, a line he’d never quite understood until that moment when the man’s warmth and bulk had possessed him so completely there was no longer a me or a him.

They’d both been playacting to that point, testing their boundaries, using power play to titillate and explore who would give in first. Sonny had dared him, taunted him, and challenged him to accept new terms and conditions. The lure had been masterfully cast. He’d taken the bait and the promise of a glorious battle to see who was the stronger, elevating an outcome that was never in question.

Long, elegant fingers once more claimed his flesh, kneading into thick muscle and drawing him closer. Pressure points pinged a warning as thumbs punished and pleasured at random. His body shivered, consciousness focused to a single point in time. His skin recognized the clarity of warmth, the tantalizing sensation of lips tracing a single-minded path inward and upward.

Michael widened his stance, rebalancing under an onslaught of sensual teasing, first with dry lips, then moist tongue darting in attack and withdrawal.

“Jesus, Tex, keep doing that and...” He shivered and rocked back on his heels, hands clasping his own cheeks and ears and neck in a silent howl of approval.
Oh shit that feels good,
hips rocking into the rhythm of pressure behind his balls, his supplicant finding the sweet spot to exploit his advantage. A punctuation of
there, there, oh fucking hell, there
vocalized and echoed, only to be swallowed by the music of a silver rush of water and the sharp chink of steel hooves on rock.

Squinting against the light, Michael groaned and oscillated his hips as a playful flick of tongue teased his slit while nimble fingers slid the foreskin away, then back. Gripping the shaft, Sonny penetrated the loose fold, using his tongue to roll and circle, the sensation so intense it nearly undid him. The actions were hidden by a halo of angel hair gleaming blond-white in the ribbons of sun cutting across the meadow.

Was this business as usual?

Do me, then I’ll do you... Wham bam thank you, man. No expectations. No regrets.

That was enough, wasn’t it?

The spruce formed a natural canopy of spires supporting a vault of powder blue still watery with the creep of thin high cirrus clouds and the remnants of the squall lines that had danced across the meadow, leaving them cowering in disgrace and awe.

He’d been the one to cry uncle.

Now he simply wanted to cry as his body and his mind realigned to acknowledge that what he wanted and what he needed were light years apart. The touch of the night before, when he’d tried to crawl inside the man’s skin... that was the touch he wanted now.

Throat dry, he rasped, “Stop, please,” and gently cupped Sonny’s head, pressing back so he could sink to the ground to come even with the long, lean body and pale flesh rosy with passion. Lips glistening with the dew of his own pre-cum, those were the lips he longed to kiss. Wavering in place, he pleaded, “Dock with me,” and leaned in to savor his own essence with quick flicks as Sonny whimpered agreement. He asked, “Have you ever done it before?”