So Cole shifted closer and leaned against the warmth of Ned’s body, allowing himself to smell him as he rested his head on the broad shoulder. “Can I help you somehow?”
The hope that lit up in Ned’s eyes was like several hammers attempting to crush the walls around Cole’s heart all at once. “Could you please stay a while longer? I’m just… I don’t think I’m ready to be alone. You got rid of my booze, but if you leave me now, I know I’ll struggle real bad, and my resolve might not last.”
So perhaps it was just a ploy to keep Cole around, but Cole wanted to believe Ned. “A week more then, but you have to promise to never again put liquor in your mouth.”
Ned swallowed, challenging Cole with a level gaze. “A month.”
Cole burst with laughter. “Maybe you’d like to play poker over it.” But before Ned answered, Cole provided a counteroffer, already sensing a tingle at the back of his spine. “Two weeks.”
“Three.”
“Seventeen days.”
Ned leaned in and nuzzled Cole’s cheek, triggering a jolt of hot pleasure that made Cole’s toes curl. “Eighteen.”
“Fine,” Cole said and leaned in to seal their deal with a kiss.
There was no point in lying to himself about things that would happen in the next eighteen days.
Chapter 14
Late May 1887
Two months and three days later
Cole had never been the kind of man to deny himself pleasure. He liked to eat well, and emptied his balls whenever there was an opportunity for it, but never before had he fucked as much as in the past two months. With no one to hide their desires from, Cole and Ned had settled into a comfortable routine of sucking, poking, rubbing, and everything between. And on days when their cabin was particularly well-stocked with firewood, they didn’t bother putting on clothes for most of the day, blissfully comfortable in the suits nature made them.
There was no one to see.
No one to judge.
No one to express their disgust at a desire that in the past had led to Cole’s fall yet had also made him so very content.
And when Cole stretched in the armchair close to the fire, with Ned’s muscular form kneeling between his thighs, he was able to forget the past and focus only on the warm, inviting touch of Ned’s tongue.
Ned had filled out in the past weeks, and his body was such a joy to ogle—wide shoulders dotted with freckles, a powerful chest, and arms thick as if he cut down trees for a living.
Flushed from both the nearby fire and arousal, Cole moaned when Ned sucked his cock harder and squeezed Cole’s thighs, sending yet another jolt of excitement to his swollen balls.
“That feels damn good,” Cole said with a chuckle, pushing his fingers into Ned’s short red hair. Languidly caressing his scalp, he leaned forward and watched the slick head slide out of the tempting lips. The cool air was almost painful on the rigid length, but Ned sucked it back in before Cole could have flinched.
From his position, he could see Ned rocking his hips back and forth in a way that reminded Cole of how he’d buried his cock deep in Ned just yesterday. It was pure joy to fuck a man this strong yet also pliant. With Lars, he’d always had to stay on his toes—
But thinking about anyone else became impossible when Ned’s fingers caressed Cole’s sac.
Cole let out a strangled groan and his inner thighs tingled, as if there were ants crawling through his veins. “Look at me—”
Ned’s green eyes were instantly on Cole, and seeing him like this, naked, on his knees, mouth full of dick, almost made Cole come on the spot. He was so darn close.
Cole licked his lips, leaning over Ned, so his bare stomach met Ned’s forehead. Greedy for more touch, he moved his palms onto the hot nape, and then lower, to Ned’s firm back, grabbing at the skin and flesh as if it were sweet dough for him to knead. He wanted to pick out all the brown freckles as if they were raisins.
“You’re so greedy,” Cole said with a smile, because so was he. Greedy for Ned’s lips and his spunk. For his warmth in bed, and for the coffee Ned made each morning. He loved sinking his cock inside Ned and watching his eyes blur with ecstasy. Even submitting to a prick in his ass, which he’d been so uncertain about, felt like striking gold once he’d gotten used to it.
And he had no doubt he’d never do that with anyone else than Ned, so he needed to gorge himself on the act until their time together was over.
When his cock sank into Ned’s throat, he came so hard white spots replaced the darkness under his shut eyelids, and he clawed his nails over the sides of Ned’s hips. As Cole released his spunk into Ned’s waiting mouth, he inhaled the hair oil he’d made for Ned with the herbs stashed in the pantry. It was sweet, almost like desert sage, and reminded Cole of the stolen hours of careless fucking away from their camps in Arizona.
Fatigue sank into his muscles as he held on to the warm body, trailing kisses along Ned’s arm, his neck, then his cheek, all the way to the mouth that was still so plump from working for Cole’s pleasure. He didn’t always enjoy tasting himself this way, but when Ned was the one who’d drank his juices, diving his tongue into that hot, salty mouth prolonged the moment of passion.
Ned latched on to him, grabbing the sides of Cole’s head and rising to his knees. He hadn’t come yet, and as he huffed through his nose in excitement, his hot breath tickled Cole’s skin. Even though they’d spent the last two months in only each other’s company, Ned still never had enough of Cole, starved for affection after seven years of solitude.
“You know, Ned, you look damn handsome on your knees like that,” Cole mused, swirling his fingers through the hairs dusting the upper part of Ned’s stomach, teasing him without the intention of moving his touch lower yet. He liked to keep Ned wanting, to bring him to the edge, where Ned was ready to drop all inhibitions just to have Cole relieve him.
Ned gave him the dreamiest smile, thirsty for compliments as he was for Cole’s seed. “Handsome enough to deserve being tossed off, I hope.”
Cole held on to both sides of Ned’s head and stretched his arms out to study the flushed skin, the big, freckled nose, the sheen of sweat and red dots of stubble. Below it, Ned’s chest rose and fell, pumping hot air, but that cock… perhaps it wasn’t the most impressive Cole had been acquainted with, but it didn’t matter when it was still his all-time favorite.
He suddenly realized that he’d miss it once he left this homestead.
With his throat tightening, Cole smiled at Ned and rubbed his thumbs along the strong cheekbones. “Will you let me take a picture of you like this?”
Ned swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Me? You mean naked?”
Cole nipped on the tip of Ned’s nose. “With this throbbing cockstand.”
Ned chuckled, like a schoolboy with a flush deepening on his face, and nodded. “But you can’t sell it.”
Cole stalled, out of breath. “I—what? I would not.” Nobody else would ever see that picture if Cole could help it. The print would be his secret pleasure, kept with the compass, the tree carving, and the photograph from their youth.
Ned spread his arms, looking up. “Where do you want me?” he asked with a bold grin.