Riding Tall (4 page)

He led the mare to her pen and watched her walk straight to her favorite patch of sandy dirt. He never spent a lot of time grooming her after a ride because no matter how clean he got her or how carefully he massaged away any possible itches, this was always the first thing she did when he let her go. Her knees buckled, she lowered her muscular body to the ground, and she rolled, staying balanced on her spine for longer than any horse he’d ever known, twitching from side to side as if she was trying to erase any possible evidence of human contact from her skin.

“She looks like she’s going to get stuck,” Mackenzie said from surprisingly close behind Joe.

“She never has. But I put those boards along her fence, there, to make sure she doesn’t get a foot caught in it.”

“You take good care of her.”

“She’s valuable. A total bitch, but a hell of a good worker.”

They watched the horse until she clambered to her feet and shook the dust off. Joe turned to go back to the barn, but Mackenzie didn’t follow him. “You okay?” Joe asked.

Mackenzie’s expression was strange. “I can’t help noticing that you didn’t exactly leap at the ‘go to the house’ suggestion.” His smile seemed a little forced. “I think this is the first time you’ve turned me down. I was just wondering whether there was a reason for it.”

“I didn’t turn you down,” Joe protested. Sure, he hadn’t thrown Mackenzie over his shoulder and sprinted for the bedroom, but there was some middle ground, surely. “I needed to look after the horse. She’s not an ATV; I can’t just park her and go do something else.”

“The horse is taken care of,” Mackenzie said calmly, “but we’re still here. Not at the house.”

Joe looked at Mackenzie. There
was
something wrong, he realized. A tiny bit of resentment, probably something stupid or petty, but enough that he hadn’t jumped at the chance to make Mackenzie feel good. He coiled the lead rope in his hands and tried to figure out the problem, but nothing came to mind. Probably best to ignore the whole thing, he decided. So he smiled, slow and easy, and stepped closer to Mackenzie. “You seem really interested in
the house
. And we have a nice soft bed down there, no doubt. But is it really the
bed
you’re interested in?”

For an awkward moment it seemed like maybe Mackenzie really
was
interested in just the bed, like he’d been planning a nap and Joe had twisted it all into some sexual innuendo. But then he raised his eyebrows and looked around slowly. “Where’d you have in mind, cowboy?”

“
Not
a roll in the hay,” Joe said quickly. “That’s really itchy. And it’s kinda cold out here. How about… blowjobs in the feed room?”

“Sexy?” Mackenzie said, his voice laced with doubt.

“Focus on the blowjob part,” Joe recommended.

Mackenzie nodded slowly. “Yeah, that helps. Okay, I’m up for it.” He stepped aside and waited for Joe to precede him into the barn.

But Joe didn’t move right away. Instead, he waited, watching Mackenzie, then said, “You have no idea where the feed room is, do you?”

“There’s a couple rooms in there,” Mackenzie said defensively. “It’s hard to keep them straight.”

“One’s filled with tack,” Joe said. “That’s not the feed room. One’s got nesting boxes for the chickens in it. Also not the feed room.
One
room is filled with different feeds.” He waited for Mackenzie to draw his own conclusions.

“Is there a ‘kiss my ass’ room? ’Cause I think that’s the one we should be heading for.”

“I’ll kiss your ass in any room you want,” Joe promised.

“Except for the bedroom, apparently.”

They weren’t really squabbling, but there was more of an edge to their teasing than they usually had. Joe wasn’t sure whether it was coming from him, from Mackenzie, or from some weird combination of the two. But he knew he didn’t like it. So he held out his hand. Mackenzie looked at it doubtfully but then stretched out and wrapped his fingers through Joe’s. Joe stepped closer and reached for the other hand, then focused on Mackenzie’s face. He’d been away for almost three full days. He’d been working hard, apparently, although Joe still wasn’t quite sure what the hell models did all day that could be that tiring. He’d spent one day hungover, one night on a friend’s sofa, and then he’d come back to a smelly barn and a grumpy boyfriend. That would suck. Joe kissed him gently. “Let’s go to the house,” he said. “I can shower off some farm smell, we can go to bed, maybe eat something before I come back out….”

Joe could feel the tension draining out of Mackenzie’s body.

“I was kinda looking forward to the feed room,” Mackenzie said with a mischievous grin. “But maybe something more than blowjobs?”

“There’s no lube up here. And are we still okay for no condoms?”

The stunned look on Mackenzie’s face had to be a pretty good mirror of Joe’s own expression. He hadn’t known he was going to say that. Hadn’t even known he was thinking it.

“I mean…,” Joe started, and then he stopped. He let go of Mackenzie’s hands and took a big step backward. What the hell
did
he mean? “I know we’re together. Up here. Just us. But… I don’t know; it’s different when you’re away, maybe. You’re back with your old friends, you’re in clubs, it’s a different vibe. Right? I just….”

“That’d be okay with you?” Mackenzie asked. His tone was unreadable.

“Okay? Not… not
okay
, no. It’s not what I want. But if it’s what I have to accept, I guess I could. If I have to. But I’d want to know.” He frowned, then hastened to add, “Not details! But I’d want to know in general terms. Not just because of diseases or whatever, but because….” Another frown as he tried to figure this out.

“So you could do the same,” Mackenzie suggested. He still wasn’t giving any clues about his feelings on this topic.

“No,” Joe said. He was pretty sure that was true. He didn’t want an open relationship, didn’t want to fool around with some other guy. He’d been terrified of coming this far in the relationship, but he’d made it and he wasn’t interested in taking any steps backward. But if it was what Mackenzie wanted…. “I guess I just wouldn’t want to be the stupid one. I’d want to know just… just to know.”

Mackenzie’s expression was becoming clearer now, and Joe wished it would go back to being unreadable. “I was with Nathan for more than
five years
, and I never cheated on him! I have never given you a single reason not to trust me! You honestly think I’d fuck around just because I was away for a couple nights? You think I’m such a slut that I couldn’t control myself if I went to a few clubs?”

“You were so drunk you can’t remember how the night ended! You told me that five minutes ago! I mean, if you were so in control of yourself, how’d you end up getting so wrecked the night before a big day of work?”

“You think every time I get drunk I fool around with the first guy I see?”

“Not the
first
one, maybe.” Okay, that hadn’t come out quite right. “Fuck, Mackenzie, I just
asked
. If you say nothing happened, I believe you. It just seemed like the sort of situation where something
might
have happened, and I wasn’t sure we’d ever really had a conversation about it, so… I guess I just wondered. That’s all.”

“Because we hadn’t had a conversation about it?” Mackenzie’s outrage seemed to be growing with each attempt Joe made to explain. “You know what? We haven’t had conversations about
lots
of things! We’ve never explicitly said that I shouldn’t pour bleach down your throat when you’re asleep, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it!”

“Okay, I think having sex with someone is a
bit
more tempting than killing me with bleach. Jesus, Mackenzie, that was the first thing that popped into your head?”

Mackenzie huffed out an exasperated puff of air. “Okay, yes, that was a strange example. But, seriously? If I’d gone down there and fucked around for two nights and come back up here, that would have been okay with you? I mean….” He looked like he knew he shouldn’t say the next part, but then he decided to say it anyway. “Nathan would have kicked me out for even thinking about it. But you’re just all casual—”

“No,” Joe said quickly. “Not casual. And it wouldn’t have been okay. But, I guess… I guess if it came down to having you on those terms or not having you at all, I’d take you on those terms. You know?”

And now Mackenzie’s expression was back to being unreadable. Finally, he stepped forward and reached for Joe’s hand. “You’re an idiot,” he said as he tentatively entwined his fingers with Joe’s. “And I forget that sometimes. I think that just because I’m crazy about you, and just because I tell everyone I know how crazy I am about you, and just because it’s sickeningly obvious to anyone with eyes that I’m completely crazy about you… I think you might actually see that yourself. Silly me.”

Joe didn’t really want to argue on this one. “Sometimes I need things spelled out for me,” he admitted.

Mackenzie nodded, then stretched up to give Joe a gentle kiss. “First letter is I.” He stepped back far enough to get a good view of Joe’s expression. “Second letter is L.” He was still watching Joe closely, as if expecting him to bolt. “Then O,” he whispered.

Joe was frozen. Things were happening too fast. Well, not in general. He’d been thinking about saying what he was pretty sure Mackenzie was saying. Thinking about it for a while. But ten seconds ago they’d been fighting, and now this? He was a bit dizzy, but he wasn’t sure that was a problem. “V?” he asked.

Mackenzie nodded with a relieved smile. “V,” he confirmed. Then, “E
,
” followed by a kiss, and then a grin as he said, “U. Because I don’t want to waste any more time spelling when my lips could be used for much better purposes.”

And that, at least, was an area where Joe knew what he was doing. It was familiar now, kissing Mackenzie, but still special. The thrill of the unknown had been replaced with the comfort of familiarity: Joe knew how Mackenzie liked to be kissed, knew how to touch him to make his breath catch and his body shudder with pleasure he didn’t even try to control. When Joe eased his hand inside Mackenzie’s jacket, then under his shirt to find the warm skin beneath, he felt Mackenzie’s body tensing in anticipation.

“Maybe I’m not going to,” Joe teased. “Maybe this time I won’t.”

“Right,” Mackenzie gasped, his head thrown back to give Joe’s lips access to his neck. “You found my on switch. You know you’re going to use it.”

“It’s only
one
of your switches,” Joe said with a grin, and he nipped Mackenzie’s earlobe, another spot that always got a response.

Mackenzie gasped and dug his fingers into Joe’s back. When Joe followed with a hard tweak of Mackenzie’s nipple, Mackenzie turned his fingers into claws, both of them dealing pain and pleasure to the other.

The earlier negotiations about location seemed ridiculous now. There was no way they were going to make it down to the house. Even the feed room was too far away. They were already rutting against each other through their jeans, Mackenzie pulling Joe’s hips in harder with every stroke. Joe managed to work his hands between them to get both of their flies undone, and Mackenzie wrapped his fingers in Joe’s hair, pulling his head in for another long, sloppy kiss. “Fuck me,” he whined, his words halfway between an order and a plea.

Fuck, yeah. “Get me wet,” Joe said, gently pushing on Mackenzie’s shoulders. He felt Mackenzie easing his pants and underwear down, then staggered a little as Mackenzie enveloped his cock with his perfect lips. But instead of one of Mackenzie’s traditional and greatly appreciated cock-worshipping sessions, this was quick, almost cursory, clearly more focused on spreading spit than creating pleasure. Which was just fine, because Joe was as eager as Mackenzie to get to the next part of their plans.

Mackenzie shrugged his pants down as he straightened, turning an ass that was already developing goose bumps in Joe’s direction. He arched his back, presenting a target he knew was irresistible, and Joe let his hands rest on the two perfect mounds of muscle. Then he dug his thumbs in a little, spreading and massaging and tantalizing himself. Mackenzie looked back over his shoulder, his eyes hungry and demanding, his lips parted in a perfect, perpetual gasp.

Joe leaned forward, easing his cock into the crack of Mackenzie’s ass and working it toward its target. He added a little more spit and eased in, watching Mackenzie’s face closely. There was no sign of anything but pleasure, and Joe let himself relax, let the glorious pressure and friction register. He bottomed out and kissed Mackenzie, both of them distracted by other stimuli but still connected, still together.

“Fuck me,” Mackenzie whispered. “Come on, Joe….”

There were times when Joe liked to hold off as long as he could, teasing and torturing, but this wasn’t one of those times. He pulled out, drove in, felt Mackenzie’s body reacting and pushing for more. Mackenzie’s gasps and words of encouragement were as exciting as the physical sensations, and Joe let himself gorge on them, his endless hunger never sated. By the time Mackenzie stopped using words and was just repeating Joe’s name on an endless, beautiful loop, Joe’s own body was aching for release. He could feel his climax building but refused to give in. He wanted to come, but not yet, not yet, not yet….

Mackenzie shuddered, his voice became a long, syncopated moan, and Joe let himself go. He kept moving as he came, his cock gliding more smoothly with the extra lubrication, thrusting and filling and laying claim.

They rested together, Joe still inside, kissing lazily over Mackenzie’s shoulder.

“I missed you,” Mackenzie finally whispered.

“I missed you too.” Joe was scared of the next part, but he knew he wanted to say it. “And I love you.”

Mackenzie smiled at him. “Damn right you do. I’m awesome.”

“Yeah, you’re okay,” Joe agreed, and they stayed like that until the cold wind reminded them that they needed to get dressed.

Chapter 4