A Cowboy's Home (28 page)

Sam got as far as the trees outside the cabin
before he kicked something. Unfortunately it was a tree trunk, and
it hurt like a fucker, but at least it focused him.

Friends. Yeah, that would work.

Determined, he turned right and up toward Jay
and Nate’s place. They wouldn’t have left for Carter’s yet, and
he’d force them to take him to the bar, right now, and he could
work off some of this misplaced lust.

And if they weren’t there, then he’d call a
cab, because
he
sure as hell was
going to get shitfaced tonight and not be able to drive.

“Sam!”

He stopped at the sound of his name, tension
crawling into his mind as he turned to face Justin, who was
hurrying up the path.

“What?” Sam said. “I have places to go.”

Justin looked past him to Jay and Nate’s
place. “Fuck, Sam,” he said with heat.

“What?”

“Don’t go with Nate and Jay.”

“Seriously, what?”

“I’ll fuck you,” Justin said a little
desperately.

Sam looked at him steadily as Justin stepped
closer; only moonlight showed the pathway. Had he heard Justin
right? “Sorry?”

“Don’t go to that bar. If you need something,
I’ll give it to you. You don’t have to look at me, but I could make
it good for you, and you wouldn’t be with a random stranger.”

Sam opened his mouth to ask what the hell
Justin was talking about, and then just as quickly shut it. Didn’t
Justin realize that Sam’s being with him to save—what? Sam’s
virtue?—was the last thing he wanted. “Let me think—” He tapped a
finger to his lips. “—fuck off.” He said heatedly and resumed
walking up the hill.

Justin reached him in a couple of steps and
yanked urgently at his shirt. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Justin, I don’t want you touching me.”

“Please, Sam, this is stupid.”

Sam stabbed him again with a finger. “You
kissed me, and then you jumped out of my window. You haven’t spoken
to me much since that night. Hell, you go out of your way to avoid
me.”

“I don’t know what to say to you.”

“How about ‘hey Sam, how are you?’”

“We’re past that!”

“Are we?”

Justin placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “What
we had back at the cabin—”

“You were mostly unconscious.” Sam shrugged
off his hand.

“We connected. You grounded me. You made me
think that I could stop, that I could be something else.”

The conversation was moving so fast that Sam
couldn’t keep up. “But you didn’t stop. You left to finish your
list. Which, hey, I understand, you needed closure. But you aren’t
exactly warm and fuzzy now you’re done.”

“What do you expect from me?” Justin snapped.
“I didn’t get to the end of the list, okay? I found Jamie, the last
one, and he was… hell, he was a victim too, and I worked hard,
okay? I made deals, all so I could come home. And Sam, I’m not sure
I’ll ever be warm and fuzzy.”

Sam shook his head, clearing his thoughts,
and yelped a little as Justin manhandled him into the trees,
pressing him back against the nearest trunk and bracketing Sam’s
head with his hands.

Sam should feel nervous, right? Justin was
all coiled power behind that young face, all lethal and focused,
and right now all that focus was on Sam. And hell if that wasn’t
entirely too much for his body and brain to handle. He was hard,
desperately hard, and all he wanted… everything he wanted… was
right in front of him. He remembered the weight of Justin, the
shape of his cock, the taste of his lips, and he wanted it
again.

“I need you,” Justin said, his lips only
inches away from Sam’s own. “To make things right in my head, to
balance
my
life, to be my
everything, to give me hope. And all I’m doing is fucking things
up.”

“Justin—”

“But I don’t know what to say, or how to get
you to see that, or even think that I deserve you.”

Sam dragged him in for a kiss, fisting
Justin’s shirt and swallowing any further words. He wasn’t going to
listen to another reason why they couldn’t do this. At first Justin
attempted to pull away, but Sam didn’t let go, insistently pressing
his tongue to the seam of Justin’s mouth.

Then Justin groaned and kissed back.

At last.

Justin’s taste was intoxicating, heat and
promise, and for a while he let Sam set the pace before stepping
closer and pressing Sam to the tree, pinning him there with his
body a little off-center, pushing his thigh between Sam’s legs
until they were firmly slotted together. Sam raised himself up a
little, he was shorter, the fit not quite right, until Justin
slumped, took Sam’s weight, and forced him back. And there—that was
just right.

They were hard, and Sam scrambled to find a
hold, moving his hands around Justin’s back, over his hard muscles,
and up to his neck, linking his hands there and holding on for the
ride. Justin cradled his face, tilted his head, and took control of
the kiss, and it was more than Sam had hoped for.

They parted every so often for breath, and
although it was too dark to read Justin’s expression, Sam knew
exactly how he felt and what he wanted, just by the way he wasn’t
letting Sam go.

For the first time in his life, Sam might
just get off on kissing alone, but Justin had other ideas. He
pulled back from the kiss—just his face, nothing else moved—and
slowly rolled his hips. Sam keened.

“Can we take this indoors?” Justin asked.

Sam tightened his hold around Justin’s neck.
“Will you change your mind between here and there?” The question
was a fair one. He didn’t want Justin to have time to think ever
again.

Justin eased away, supporting Sam’s weight as
he pulled away from the tree. “I promise you, I need you
horizontal.”

In silence, they trekked down the hill toward
Branches.

“This way.” Sam led them to the rear of the
building. Inside, Ashley was visible cleaning tables; it was her
late night, and Sam wasn’t surprised that Gabe was there too,
helping her. So much for the wedding preparation excuse to get out
of dinner.

Sam unlocked the back door, let Justin in,
and locked it behind them.

They climbed the stairs to Sam’s small
apartment. Only they didn’t get far. Justin kissed Sam on step
three, had his shirt off by step five, and was sucking heated marks
to his skin before they even reached the top.

Not that Sam was hanging around. He wanted
flesh as much as Justin did, and he pushed hands under Justin’s
T-shirt, finding soft skin and pushing the shirt up and over
Justin’s head. It caught on his neck and Justin laughed, a genuine
laugh, and it was a lovely thing to hear.

They stumbled into Sam’s bedroom. Sam didn’t
even care that his bed was unmade or his clothes were hanging off
the back of a chair, all he focused on was Justin walking him
backward to the bed without stopping kissing, his hands hooked in
Sam’s belt.

“We have too many clothes on,” Justin
murmured.

Sam’s legs hit the bed and he tumbled back.
Justin stalked him to the mattress, crowded him and covered him,
and all the time, kissed him as if they were never going to kiss
again. They somehow eased higher up the bed; Justin was a lot
stronger than his slim frame showed. Then he was back at Sam’s
belt, opening it, all the time kissing while loosening the buttons,
his hand inside Sam’s boxers, closing his fingers around Sam’s
cock.

The kissing stopped. Abruptly, Justin eased
up a little and away, and rested his forehead on Sam’s own.

“Justin?”

Justin moved his hand, twisted it just so,
and then eased down material with his other hand. Sam wriggled,
doing his best to help, until his jeans and boxers were down to his
knees, imprisoning his legs and fully exposing him to Justin’s
heated gaze.

“Need you so much,” Justin muttered, arching
his back as he spoke. With no finesse but with absolute focus, he
swallowed Sam down.

Sam heard himself yell something, anything, a
random noise of passion that escaped him, uncontrolled.

Justin released the suction just long enough
to demand, “Your hands in my hair.” He waited until, shakily, Sam
pressed his fingers into the soft blond. Justin pressed against the
hands and Sam got with the program. He twisted his fingers, finding
purchase in hair that was longer than he remembered from the cabin.
Then, as Justin sucked him down, Sam tugged tighter and got an
answering groan from Justin.

How the hell was he going to last? Justin’s
hands pressed on Sam’s hipbones, pushing him into the mattress.
Sam’s legs were in a prison of denim, his balls trapped, and the
tension exquisite. If he stopped to consider what the most erotic
thing ever was, it would be that.

Sam tightened his hold on Justin’s hair the
closer he got, but he didn’t want to lose it so fast, so he pulled
Justin up and away, ignoring his murmurs of complaint and yanking
him up to kiss again. “All of it. Off.”

Justin rolled off the bed, stripped in record
time, then reached for the small lamp next to the bed; he turned it
off, plunging the room into darkness. Sam was way too far gone
to ask
what the hell was going on,
too close to the edge to tell Justin he wanted to watch
everything.

Justin was back, caging him on the bed. More
kissing and Sam lost himself in clutching Justin’s hair and rocking
against him.

“So close.” Justin’s voice was ragged.

Sam loosened the grip of one of his hands and
ran it across Justin’s back, his fingers smooth over the ridges
there, then rested it on his ass. There was scarred skin there too,
and Sam pressed his hand firmly to the area and urged Justin on.
“More.”

Justin was happy to push for more, groaning
as he pressed and retreated, lifting a little between Sam’s spread
legs and sliding his cock behind Sam’s balls. The head of his cock
nudged Sam’s asshole, and the thought of Justin being there,
pushing inside him and fucking him into the bed, was too much.

Sam’s orgasm was explosive. His
shout
of completion was lost in the kiss. Justin
followed soon after, shooting the heat of his come onto Sam’s balls
and his ass.

Justin fell onto Sam and lay there, spent,
and Sam held on tight.

Never letting him go.

At some point, Justin made a half-hearted
attempt to clean them up, and then he lay back in the one place Sam
wanted him—right between Sam’s legs, covering him.

“You turned the light out,” Sam observed.

Justin nodded, stole a heated kiss, and then
pulled back a little. “Habit.”

“To hide the scars, you mean? You know I
don’t think anything about them.”

Even as he said it, Sam considered how Justin
could know that. It wasn’t as if he’d gone out of his way to talk
about how brave Justin had been or how much pain he must have been
in. So to give credence to what he was saying, Sam wrapped his
hands around Justin’s back and held him tight before caressing the
scars, running his fingers over every raised bump. He wanted to
show Justin with actions instead of trying to put everything into
words.

“The scars are one thing, but it isn’t just
that.” Justin’s breath was warm against his skin. “When you’re with
someone like this, there’s no way to hide what’s in your head, and
I don’t want anyone inside my mind.”

Sam refused to take that personally, because
he had every intention of getting inside there. Then he felt
inspired. He wriggled out from under Justin, who flopped on his
back, his arms over his head.

Sam drew the drapes first, something they
should have done when they first got in the room. Who knew who
could see in the window, even this high up? Then he moved around
the bed, tripping only once, and turned on the small lamp before
rummaging in the top drawer and triumphantly holding up lube and
condoms.

Justin quirked an eyebrow.

Sam scrambled back onto the bed, sitting next
to Justin, who had his back against snowy white pillows. “Let’s do
this.” He made it a statement so there was no debate about what he
wanted.

Justin rolled onto his side and looked up at
him. “Sam?”

Sam nodded. “I need this, and I want to show
you something you’ve been missing in the dark. Just promise me
something.”

“What?” Justin looked suspicious.

“No touching. Not until I say so.”

Justin’s suspicion turned to a frown.
“Okay….”

Sam insisted. “Promise me.”

“Fuck, I promise.”

Sam shuffled a little; finding exactly the
right position, then coated the fingers of his right hand liberally
and moved them to his ass. All the while he fixed his gaze on
Justin. He eased the first finger inside—just the tip. A sigh left
his body, unbidden.

“Shit.” Justin scrambled up and reached for
Sam, but at Sam’s pointed look, he dropped his hands into fists.
Sam watched him carefully. Need and lust were clear in Justin’s
expression, and boy, did Sam put on a show. With every press and
stretch, he moaned and writhed, and the state of Justin’s cock was
evidence of how much he was into it too.

“Want me to add more?” Sam asked when he had
three fingers stretching him. From this angle he wouldn’t be able
to add any more, but Justin could.

Justin nodded, stared up at him.

“You can touch. Help me.” Once Sam gave his
permission, Justin moved so fast that it would have been funny if
Sam weren’t so needy.

Justin moved closer and kissed him soundly,
and that right there made Sam’s heart swell. It was more than sex;
it was connection… more even than that.

Justin pressed one of his fingers in beside
Sam’s and abruptly it was game on.

They laughed and pushed, and when Sam rolled
a condom on Justin, he couldn’t believe he had him here in his bed.
Sam tried to move onto all fours, but Justin stopped him, kissed
him hard, and moved up the bed until his knees spread Sam’s thighs.
He pushed a pillow under Sam’s ass.