This one is well into the story, hotter but still squeaks in as PG-13–I think! Its hot but basically “clean,” LOL. Not for kids–none of my stories are–but no explicit details. You’ll have to buy the book to get them! 😉
Eric has come out to the ranch and helped Damon gather some cattle. They ended up that night with a hot encounter where Brandi, the visiting granddaughter of Damon’s old foreman and his wife, serves as catalyst. Damon is very shaken and confused. Next day Eric comes back and offers Damon a ride on his motorcycle. They stop at a view point on a nearby mountain road.
***
Eric stopped the bike, cut the motor and kicked the stand down. Damon swung off first and fumbled out of the helmet. He felt a little claustrophobic in the damn thing to tell the truth. It felt good to breathe freely again. Eric flipped his off with a practiced hand, then slung it onto the handlebar. Damon hung his on the other side. Together they walked over to the low stone and cement wall that edged the half-moon shaped space.
Damon stood, one foot propped on the edge of the wall, waiting to see what Eric would do. Eric sat down straddling the wall, facing Damon. For a long moment he studied Damon in silence, his gaze probing, but somehow gentle. Finally he spoke.
“I wasn’t expecting this or looking for it, but it hit me almost at once, the day you came in with Dixie, all bristled up and defensive.” He grinned. “Like John Wayne, you know?”
He looked out across the valley for a moment, then returned an intense gaze to meet Damon’s. “I’ve known most of my life that, if not totally gay, I was at least bi. I can get excited about a woman now and then, but it isn’t the same. I’ve known for years that if I ever found a soul mate, it would have to be another man.”
He exhaled sharply, almost a sigh. “I thought with one of my roommates in vet school that I’d found the one, that things would work out. We’d be together, go into practice and work side by side. It didn’t happen. He had other plans and after a year he let me know. After that, I knew I had to be patient, wait and see… There’re times it’s lonely as hell, you know?”
Damon nodded. “Yeah, I know. Somehow I always expected to live my life alone. My mother almost died when I was about six. She was pregnant and had a miscarriage during a bad storm. The road was washed out so bad that Dad couldn’t get her to the doctor. When she got well enough, she left. I knew right then I could never ask a woman to share the ranch life, although ranching was the only thing I ever wanted to do. But I know about being lonely. Most of the time I might as well be a monk, too. Sex is something I don’t have time for…”
Eric hesitated for a moment, a slight frown creasing his brow. “I know it’s far too soon to make plans, but I want to get to know you. I think we may have something here, something too good to let it slip through our hands. Maybe last night was a fluke, but, for me, Brandi was just a catalyst–everything she did meant less by far to me than being with you, holding you, feeling you come apart with pleasure. And her being there let us get together. Yeah, we were both a bit drunk, but there was more to it than that. I’m sure about this, but how about you?”
Damon took a deep breath and let it out. What he was about to confess was going to turn his idea of himself on its ear, yet he knew he had to be honest. Eric was too important to blow this off just from pride or some misplaced sense of what was right or wrong.
“I never expected the right person–the one I didn’t think I’d find anyway–would be male. I never let myself think of that. Oh, I remember a couple of friends when I was in high school. I guess I felt an attraction when I look back, but at that time, in this community, we could never have come out with it. The idea scared us spitless. We backed off before we got even close to expressing any feelings, much less acting on them. I put all that in a box and taped the lid down real tight.”
Damon shook his head, feeling the rueful half-smile twist his face. “Yeah, I felt whatever it is between us that first day, too. Scared me all over again. If I hadn’t been three-quarters plowed last night, I’d have run out of that bedroom like a fresh-branded calf about the time the three of us hit the bed. I’m still scared, Eric. You’re going to have to help me, work with me. Like a timid virgin, I guess.” He laughed a little at his own awkward joke.
“I’m good with scared and hurt animals, Damon. I can hear them, feel them, sense their needs. People are just critters on two feet with the ability to talk, although often not much more flare for expressing what they really feel. I’m not saying you’re the same as that injured dog or the horse tangled in barbwire, but I’m trying to tell you I can be as sensitive to you as I am to them.”
Damon moved the half step that put him touching close. He bent down slowly, settled a hand on Eric’s shoulder, then lowered his face to the same level. Eric’s eyes were very blue, the exact same shade as the sky near the distant horizon. His mouth was firm, warm, tasting faintly of mint and coffee. His lips meshed with Damon’s perfectly. For a moment they seemed to hang there suspended, as if their melding lips were supporting them. In a flash, Damon knew he wanted more, a great deal more.
He straightened. “Let’s head back to the house. I don’t know about you, but riding that damn hog of yours is about the most potent foreplay I can imagine. I was getting horny as hell, even before our talk here, even after last night.”
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