“So he can tell the truth after all…” Ned teased with a small smile.
“I’m a mess. Stop looking at me like that,” Cole begged, but there was nowhere to go, so he rested his forehead against Ned’s shoulder and breathed in his scent, grateful for every beat of Ned’s heart. He could have lost him. He could have lost him forever, all because of his own stupidity and cowardice.
"Like what?"
"Like you still love me."
Ned sighed and entwined their legs further, as if he were afraid someone might open the compartment and rip Cole away from him. "But I do. There's no one else for me. You know me in ways no one else does. You might be a mess, but I’m stuck picking it up."
Cole wanted to slap him but tightened his arms around Ned instead, basking in the warmth of his words. “I always knew that too. From the moment I saw you at the saloon, I knew you were different. That our paths would be entwined one way or another. Years passed, and I’m still awestruck like that first time,” he whispered, turning his head to rub his lips against Ned’s stubble. “My handsome Ned, both back then and two nights ago, when you looked at me in that fancy borrowed vest.”
Ned groaned. “Don’t you mock me. I was doin’ my best to lure you back in.”
Cole chuckled and leaned back to see Ned in the sparse light. He gave the rough cheek a gentle slap and cupped the warm face, taking it in from the tip of the large nose that made such a perfect statement in the middle of Ned’s features to the stunningly green eyes that shone back at him with more hope than Ned dared express with words.
His heart was so full.
“You don’t need no fancy clothes to be a real stunner, Ned O’Leary. You should already know that I have trouble keepin’ my cock in my pants when you’re around,” Cole purred, feeling a familiar stirring in his balls.
The silly grin, and the sparkle in Ned’s eyes told Cole all he needed to know. They’d be friends. But also much more than that. “Is that so?” Ned shifted to rub his hips against Cole while his hands ran up and down Cole’s back. “You remember tellin’ me your star sign when we first met? My aunt used to say that my future wife would be a Leo. Should I get you a ring?”
Cole let out a choked laugh, met Ned’s gaze, and then crossed the short distance so their lips could finally meet. It had only been a few days since their last kiss, but the ecstatic jolt passing through their bodies struck Cole straight in the heart.
“She was only wrong about a tiny detail, Neddie. Are you sure she hadn’t said husband?” he whispered, pressing his mouth to Ned’s nose and his thigh to Ned’s privates, giddy with happiness.
If the law allowed him to put a ring on Ned’s finger, he’d do so in a heartbeat, but this would be enough. This trust. This touch. The way they understood one another so perfectly. Nobody had the power to take this away from them.
Ned grinned between one kiss and another. “Not so tiny.”
For once, they were aligned like a gun in a holster. Cole’s cheeks were still damp after he’d choked out the truth of his feelings, but while he was embarrassed over the outburst, nothing had been left unsaid. The walls of secrecy that had separated them from the day they’d met had crumbled, and he was ready to hand Ned that loaded gun. He’d gladly point it at his own heart, because Ned would never pull the trigger.
“No. You’re right. It’s a rather large and rigid fact,” Cole whispered, rocking his hips and rubbing his thigh harder against Ned’s groin. The green eyes flashed with pleasure, and he smiled, sensing the hard flesh against his skin.
“How wrong is it that I don’t want to wait for a more appropriate time to fuck you?” Ned squeezed his fingers on the back of Cole’s shirt, his body fragrant with smoke, and the sweet relief of still being alive.
Cole swallowed and pressed his forehead to Ned’s. He smiled when Ned’s stomach stirred under his touch, and he let his hand glide lower while the wagon shook, carrying them away from danger to the sound of drums and trumpets. “It’s very wrong, because it’s never been just fucking with you, Neddie.”
“It hasn’t?” Vulnerability snuck into Ned’s expression, and Cole was quick to kiss it away, basking in the heat of their lust.
“Not one time, Neddie. When you kissed me back that first time, I felt as if I’d found a goldmine of my own,” he said, opening the front of Ned’s pants while they looked into one another’s eyes for so long it felt as if Cole could peek into Ned’s very soul. And for once, he wasn’t afraid to uncover all his cards. If Ned ever had doubts about the sincerity of Cole’s feelings, he could shed those now.
Ned let out a trembling breath and mirrored Cole’s gesture, reaching between his legs. “I can’t even remember who touched who first.” He groaned in pleasure when Cole squeezed his cock, and he rolled his warm tongue along Cole’s lips. “How did that secret kissing technique go, hm?”
“It got me where I wanted to be. With my hand on your hard cock,” Cole said, boiling in the tight space when Ned’s big, rough hand slid into his underthings and cupped his prick.
Ned rocked against his hand, frowning when, in the heat of pleasure, he poked his elbow against the hard wood of the compartment. “I had no idea what I wanted before your tongue fucked my mouth. You’re so good at kissing, Cole.”
The compliment set fire to Cole’s balls, and he dove in, tracing Ned’s lips so thoroughly it made them both gasp in anticipation. But other pleasures couldn’t wait, and he pumped Ned’s prick faster, gasping when it dove under his sleeve and left a damp trail on the inside of his wrist.
“Then I’ll kiss you whenever you want. If you agree to stay with me, I promise to make you happy,” he whispered, choking up once more. This wasn’t how people usually offered one another a forever, but Cole never was one for ceremony.
“Always the sneaky bastard,” Ned murmured, petting Cole’s prick lovingly. “Offering a relationship when your hand’s on a man’s cock. You think I could deny you anything right now?”
Cole chuckled, rocking against Ned’s steady touch.
“How else could I make you stay with the likes of me?”
“Real good cocksucking…”
Ned delved in for another kiss, and the tight box under a wagon could as well have been a cloud in heaven soaked with the scent of his Ned. No bump in the road mattered when Ned held him, because together they’d weather any storm.
He didn’t know what gave him more pleasure—touching Ned or having his own cock milked, but such things no longer mattered when they lay folded into one body. He moaned into the kiss and let desire guide his hands, hips, tongue until waves of sheer joy crashed over him in the hidden box filled with the scent of their lust and the sounds of their urgency.
From now on, they’d never leave one another’s side. They’d trust each other. They’d love each other, like fate intended.
He shook and bit into Ned’s cheek to keep in the low grunts pushing at his lips when his come drizzled Ned’s fingers, but his lover wasn’t far behind him and rocked against Cole as much as the tight space allowed.
“That’s it. You look so handsome like this. Riding me,” Cole teased and squeezed his fingers just behind Ned’s cockhead.