“You can wash all you want. I won’t leave you in peace. I know how thirsty you really are for this,” he uttered once his stomach pressed to Ned’s meaty backside.
He’d submitted to Ned several times since that first fuck, but Ned was far gentler with him than the other way around—and thank God for that. They hadn’t discussed it, but that showed how well they tuned into each other’s needs, adjusting every time they found something new about one another. And while Cole enjoyed a hot fuck blanket, which squeezed him tight as it poked him, Ned was happiest being Cole’s prey—scratched, gripped, and fucked with a vengeance.
The abandon with which he took Cole’s cock was a thing of beauty. How he squirmed and begged for pleasure, how he didn’t care to control his expression, or how he squeezed Cole’s prick in his hole with the enthusiasm of a man who didn’t know the word shame.
Maybe there wasn’t such a thing as shame when it was just the two of them.
Cole pushed Ned forward, placing his hand between his shoulder blades and withdrew, watching his prick pump out from between Ned’s freckled cheeks. With his other hand ghosting across Ned’s back and sides, he settled into a rhythm they’d both learned to enjoy, alternating between the most arousing view in this world and pressing tightly against Ned to taste his skin and smell the herbs, fresh sweat, and leather that made up his masculine aroma.
“You’re so damn good around me.”
Ned turned his head, flashing Cole a blissful smile. Eyes closed, breath quick, cheeks flushed, he made such an exciting picture Cole fucked him faster. “Grab my cock. I wanna come with you still in me.”
He could have done it himself but wanted all the pleasure to come from Cole, and denying him was beyond Cole’s overheated brain. He reached around Ned and pulled him close with one hand while squeezing the other around the rigid girth. Two seconds in, Ned’s prick fucked it at the same speed as Cole moved inside him, ever faster, harder. Were someone to creep up on them now, Cole wouldn’t have noticed a thing before it was too late, but it didn’t matter, because this moment of lusty madness was worth all and any risks.
Ned bit the side of his hand when he came, muffling his moans as his seed dripped down Cole’s fingers. Ned’s hole pulsed, and squeezed, and milked him so good there was no stopping his own climax. He settled for Ned’s salty shoulder as his gag and rose to his toes, planting his seed as deep as he could.
Past and present melted into one, and as he stirred, rocked by the throbbing in his balls, he could have sworn he was holding his Neddie, the Wolfman, and this older Ned all at once.
Fatigue made his muscles heavy, but he wouldn’t let go. Starved of Ned’s warmth after days of barely touching, he pressed hot, soothing kisses on every freckle he could see.
So handsome.
So beautiful.
More arousing than any other man in Cole’s life. But also—baggage Cole did not want.
A liar.
A cheat.
A murderer.
They’d go to Denver together and fuck on the way, but nothing more. As long as Cole didn’t open his heart, he couldn’t get stabbed there.
Chapter 19
A drunkard. A six-fingered orphan. And a three-legged dog. What a joke.
All Cole’s burden.
At least all three horses were in a sound enough condition, but as the vast swathe of urbanized land came into view, spreading among the mountains like a bucketful of colorful pebbles flattening the grass. The city had spread since Cole had seen it last, and it dominated the landscape like a huge anthill that had eaten up its neighboring colonies and would never cease consuming the land around it.
It still wasn’t on the scale of New York City, but the magnitude of the mountains made Denver seem yet more ravenous and aggressive with its tall buildings of brick, parks, tall church towers and even taller chimneys exhaling clouds of black smoke.
It was a world neither Ned nor Tommy had seen, and perhaps the shock of this first day would sweeten the fact that it would be their last together. Once Cole fulfilled his obligation to bring Tom’s son to safety, he’d be free to go wherever he pleased.
There was the matter of Ned’s presence, of course, but they were both adults and not tied to each other in any way.
“You’ve never seen a city this big, have you?” Cole asked, grinning at Tommy, who’d seemed unusually grim since morning. Cole figured the boy didn’t want to once again end up deserted by adults he trusted, but life wasn’t a fairy tale. And if princesses couldn’t marry the peasants they loved, then orphaned children couldn’t choose their fate either.
Both Tommy and Ned shook their heads.
“I don’t know if it’s grand or terrible. Maybe both,” Ned said with a deep frown.
Tommy bit his lip. [So much smoke. As if everything is on fire. Scary.]
Cole shrugged. “In my experience, the more people around, the scarier the world gets. You hear a lot about folk getting robbed on the road, but cities like this aren’t safer. Some years back, a mad governess murdered her four charges, all girls under the age of twelve.”
Ned scowled. “Here?”
Cole shrugged and made a broad gesture toward the city. “Yes, here. The girls’ parents were away in Boston for some time when she did it, so nobody found out what happened for a while. They’d been playing in the garden one day, and gone the next.” Cole narrowed his eyes at Tommy, but when the boy faced away and hugged Dog, he leaned closer to Ned and went on in a lower voice. “She choked them to death one by one. And then set them on fire with kerosene.
“The mansion’s been deserted ever since, and even the most hardened criminals fear stepping inside. They say that you can still hear the girls laughing in the cellar on some nights, then you smell kerosene, and poof, everything’s dead silent.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Ned asked, wide eyed.
Cole wiggled his eyebrows. “I promised Tommy some fun when we arrived in Denver. We could go to the Crying House and explore. Check if we can smell the kerosene?”
But instead of the excitement Cole expected, the boy shook his head so fast his blond curls bounced like little springs.
Ned voiced the sentiment the two of them seemed to share. “I ain’t going into no house filled with ghosts and murder. Are you out of your mind? Don’t toy with the spirit world, goddamn it!”
Not this again.
Cole exhaled and nudged Carol’s sides, trying to see if he could spot the roof of the mansion in the far-off distance, close to a church tower with a very steep black roof. “Don’t worry, Tommy. If they even exist, ghosts have better things to do than scaring good little boys. They’re far more interested in mountain men with heavy consciences,” he teased.
Ned spoke, ignoring Cole’s last comment. “It’s a zebra,” he told Tommy, as if he felt the boy needed a distraction.
They’d been travelling for three weeks now, and while Ned had learned a number of basic signs, his communication with Tommy went beyond gestures. It included a few different whistles, a bit of Morse code, and at this point it was Cole who needed to catch up every now and then.
Tommy raised his eyebrows to signify his question, and Cole took in the poster that had triggered the boy’s inquiry. Three zebras, each standing on top of the other, a woman’s seductive eyes framed in kohl above the animals, and bold letters announcing—