Chaps and Hope (Mossy Glenn Ranch 1) (5 page)

“You always said don’t discuss politics or religion with customers.” Fred’s voice quivered at first, but he sounded pretty damn sure of himself by the time he finished chiding his father. “It’s bad for business, and you just said we needed his business.”

“Get started on the list while I get the paint,” Asshole snarled. Troy turned to see if Will was still outside, thinking he’d go join him because the hardware store had sure as shit lost its allure. The sidewalk was empty.

“Don’t think you’re gonna get away with talkin’ like that to me, boy,” he heard Asshole growl, meanness thick in every word.

Troy closed his eyes, still facing the window, and searched for a calm spot in his head.

“No, sir,” Fred answered quietly.

Troy’s fingers ached from the fists he’d curled them into, but he kept his mouth shut, listening as the other two men went off to gather the items on the list. He was torn between the need to help and the need to butt out. The last thing Carlos wanted was trouble here, and interfering in the fucked-up relationship between Fred and Asshole was sure to cause lots of it. Some people would say that Fred was an adult, and he chose to stay under his father’s thumb, but Troy knew better. Family could fuck your head up like no one else, and once they did a number on you, you might never know you could be free.

Like Fred, who wondered why he didn’t get to college. Shit.
Troy wasn’t going to be able to figure this out on his own. He opened his eyes and craned his neck, finally spotting Will, all smiles and laughter, chattering away to another woman. Troy needed that happiness more than he needed the air he breathed. There was just no point in existing without it.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he said to whoever the hell was listening, then he walked out of the hardware store and headed for Will.

Chapter Five

On the drive back to the Mossy G, Carlos listened to Troy describe the scene in the hardware store. Will was quiet, something kind of scary considering he almost never shut up. Carlos was afraid that hearing about the kid, Fred, and his possibly abusive father was bringing back memories of Will’s own past from not too long ago. Will had been abused past childhood and into adulthood, conditioned to accept it as his due. Except Will wasn’t tameable, and he had a spirit no one could break. Good thing, considering Carlos and Troy loved the ever-lovin’ crap out of the guy.

“I don’t remember having a problem with Fred Sr,” Carlos said once Troy finished. “He wasn’t the friendly sort, and I sure wouldn’t have wanted him as a buddy, but he didn’t give me any shit.”

“Maybe he saw Troy talking to me or something, or just, you know.” Will shrugged big enough that Carlos felt it against his side where Will sat between him and Troy. “I don’t think I remembered my super-butch act the whole time I was in town.” Will tilted his head up towards Carlos, worry creasing his brow with a fine line.

Carlos took one hand off the steering wheel long enough to rub at it. Will would shit bricks if he got a wrinkle there permanently. “It ain’t your fault, Will. If that was the reason, you surely didn’t turn Fred Sr into a bigot. He’d be that all on his own lack of merits.”

“Yeah, maybe—” Will slapped a hand to his forehead and rolled his eyes up. “Was there a line, a wrinkle?
Was there?”
he demanded before Carlos could even answer. “Oh my God, tell me there wasn’t. Lie to me, even. I’m not even thirty, I can’t have wrinkles yet!”

“Carlos looks fucking sexy with his,” Troy pointed out.

Carlos was damned glad he had thick skin and didn’t delude himself about his looks. He was a cowboy who’d spent years, decades rather, working outside. Sunscreen wasn’t an option if you wanted to remain in the closet, at least it hadn’t been. He’d make it a requirement at the Mossy G, for liability reasons if nothing else.

“Well duh, of course he does! He’s our sexy, studly cowboy. Makes me hard just looking at him.”

“I’m sittin’ right here,” Carlos groused, even as his pecker began to firm up. “You ain’t making it easy for me to drive, either.”

Will squirmed, all eager, horny man, and ran a hand up Carlos’ thigh before cupping his balls. “Oh, yeah.”

Carlos grasped his hand and pulled it away. “Don’t make me paddle your ass.” Which, of course, Will wanted, and so did Carlos, but they liked to pretend otherwise sometimes. Or at least he did. Will was more direct, batting his eyelashes and wriggling excitedly.

“I thought you’d never offer.”

Troy snorted and Carlos pinched Will’s hip, giving him a little taste of pain to keep him happy. “Later, baby. Right now we were talking, and we got work to do at the ranch when we get there.” He gave Will his full attention for a moment once he stopped the truck by the Mossy G’s entrance gates. Carlos let every bit of heat and need show as he seared his gaze to Will’s. “Once we’re done with the chores for the day, then I’m gonna—” He stopped, grinning wickedly as Will whimpered. “Well, you know what? I think me and Troy will just surprise you.”

“What!” Will yelped, his mouth flopping open and closed. “That’s just evil, teasing me. You just wait—”

“No, you just wait,” Troy interjected right before he cupped Will’s chin and turned his face around for a scorching kiss. It was loud and sloppy and Carlos was going to be walking around with a hard-on for a while just from watching the two men kiss, but it was worth a bit of discomfort. Troy raised his head and looked almost as dazed as Will. “I promise it’ll be worth it all.”

“Always is,” Will slurred.

Carlos was going to make it worthwhile for
both
of his men. Troy needed some rough lovin’ too.

“So about this kid, what do you want to do?” Will asked minutes later when Carlos parked the truck.

“Don’t know what we can do,” Troy answered, echoing Carlos’ thoughts. “I mean, the kid—Fred, he’s an adult. We can’t just report the abuse like we could for a minor, or if we do, nothing’ll come of it.”

“Troy’s right. Fred would likely just tell anyone who asked that he tripped or something similar.” Carlos tugged his cowboy hat down a little lower to keep the sun from blinding him, and because he knew Will was thinking about his own past and how Carlos and Troy had helped him get free of it, he offered a longer explanation. “It ain’t the same as it was with you, ’cause we surely wanted you something fierce, and you were ready to ditch your family and their abuse. Fred might not be to that level yet, he might never get there, and we don’t feel anything for him like we did, and do, for you. It’s just…different.”

Will made a grumbly sound and slammed the truck door harder than necessary. “You don’t have to want to fuck him to help him.”

“No, that’s true enough.” Carlos waited until Will glared at him. Sometimes Will liked to be stubborn just for the sake of it. He should know by now that neither Carlos nor Troy were the kind of assholes who’d let a person get hurt if they could help it. But the fact was, sometimes you couldn’t help someone who didn’t want it. “Can’t make someone take help, either. Best we can do, I think, is make it so Fred Jr knows he’s got somewhere to go if he needs it. Even doing that might turn his daddy into an enemy, but I’m willing to take that risk. We can shop elsewhere.” The local hardware store wasn’t as cheap on prices as one of the bigger retail home supply stores would be. “I’d like to keep most of our business going to the smaller shops, not the huge chain stores, but we’ll do what we have to.”

Will sucked on his bottom lip as Troy joined them, having got out of the truck and walked around to the driver’s side. Carlos slipped an arm around Troy’s waist and let his hand rest on the hard plane of Troy’s rigid belly. The man was fucking built, that was all there was to it.

“If I can make a suggestion—and it’s only a suggestion,” Troy clarified, already holding a hand up like he knew Will was about to get pissed. He probably did, which meant Troy was going to say something sure to spark Will’s temper. “I don’t think you should go in there, Will.”

“Why the fuck not?” Will snapped, and Carlos wanted to bend him over and fuck that anger right out of him. That would surely make them both feel happy and boneless, but now wasn’t the time. Besides, he knew fucking wasn’t the solution for every problem.

Troy edged closer to Will. Carlos kept his grip on his bigger lover, but his gaze on Will. Troy touched Will’s chest, then rested his hand further up at the base of Will’s neck. His voice was husky with desire when he spoke again. “Because, you fucking sexy stud, poor Fred had seen you before, at some point, and I’m thinking he wouldn’t mind fucking your sweet ass a time or two.”

Well, that yanked a growl right out of Carlos, the possessive streak flaring bright and hot in him. He barely kept from snarling threats of his own in regards to Fred Jr. Only knowing it would upset Will more kept Carlos’ mouth shut.

Will’s eyes lit with excitement, but not the sexual kind, or else Carlos didn’t know what he might have done. But Will bounced up on his toes and started waving his hands in the air as he talked. “See? Then I
should
go in there and talk to him. He’d probably be more likely to listen to me—”

Carlos shook his head. “Not necessarily. If he’s lusting after you or crushing on you, whatever you wanna call it, he’d be too nervous and horny to pay attention. And if he really is gay and his daddy beats him for it, you going in there might cause more pain than not to the kid.”

Will’s expression crumbled and he seemed to shrink into himself. “You think he got hit because of me?”

“No,” Carlos barked at the same time Troy did. They looked at each other. Troy nodded at him, so Carlos went on as he gathered Will for a hug between him and Troy. “No way, baby. If he got hit because he got caught looking at you or something like that, then it’s all on his daddy, ain’t it? You didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did Fred if he was looking.” Carlos didn’t like the young shit looking, but he couldn’t blame him either. Will was damned sexy. “We’re just guessing, anyway. Not a one of us knows for sure Fred’s daddy is abusing him, and we sure don’t know why he’d be doing it, either.”

“Because he’s an evil fucking asshole,” Will grumbled, clinging to both him and Troy. “There’s never an excuse for beating on your kid.”

“Nope, there sure ain’t.” Carlos turned so that Will was truly pinned between him and Troy. He kept a hand on Will’s waist and used his other to palm a handful of Troy’s backside. Carlos squeezed it as he dipped his head for a kiss from Will. Will put more teeth than tongue into it, trying to goad him into that spanking and a fucking, but Carlos had already laid down the rules and he wasn’t going to bend. They had work to do. “Later. You keep that up, and you’ll be watching me tie Troy up and fuck him raw instead.”

Will’s eyes rounded and his dick felt like a fiery spike pressed against Carlos’ leg, even through their jeans. Troy shuddered and exhaled gustily, his lips parting and glistening as if he’d been sucking on them. Oh yeah, both his men needed it, and he’d give them what they were wanting—but first he’d let it build.

“You could do us both,” Will said, proving that he seemed to have an inside line to Carlos’ dirty thoughts.

Carlos barely kept himself from grinning at Troy as Troy’s eyes went dark with need, his pupils expanding and chasing out the brown almost completely. Carlos ran his hand up to Troy’s nape and he jerked the bigger man’s head down. Will was going to get a little squished, but since Will enjoyed that kind of thing, it’d be all right.

Carlos pressed his mouth to Troy’s almost violently. It hurt, but in that good way that made his balls tingle. Troy moaned and met him bite for bite and thrust for thrust, until finally Troy submitted and softened his mouth, opening wider and letting Carlos have at it. Carlos plunged his tongue in deeper, owning every inch of space he could reach. He felt a hand on his dick, palming him through his jeans, and knew Will was holding both of them in his hands. If he wasn’t careful, Will would have him and Troy coming and that was not the way it was going down.

He sucked hard on Troy’s tongue, felt him moan as much as heard it. Carlos eased back, but kept his hand on Troy’s nape. “You think about that while you’re working on those windows. Think about what I’m gonna do to you once we’re done for the day.”

“Oh, fuck,” Will gasped, rubbing Carlos’ and, no doubt, Troy’s cocks. “Oh, oh, I’m gonna have to beat off or something, guys. You know I can come as many times as you want me to, so please, please let me—”

Carlos thought about saying no, but Will really did come quick and easy, and often. He just wasn’t cruel enough to deny him such a pleasure. And he knew just how he wanted it to go down. Carlos made sure Troy held his gaze long enough to get the message—Carlos was going to make sure both of his men knew they were his tonight.

Troy gave a slight tilt of his head, and Carlos saw his Adam’s apple bob. He liked Troy being a little nervous, and Troy needed it, needed to be pushed. Carlos squeezed his nape then stepped back. He took Will by the shoulders and spun him around, pressing him to Carlos’ chest.

“Oh yes, yes, yes,” Will started chanting, hips already undulating. Carlos looked Troy in the eyes and locked his arms around Will, pinning the man in place. He unfastened Will’s pants and wasn’t surprised to find him commando. Will was all about easy access.

“Get down on your knees and suck him,” Carlos ordered.

Troy’s nostrils flared and he tipped his head back, as if he wanted to challenge Carlos. That was all right if he did. Troy liked to pretend he hated being bossed around, but in truth he craved it even though he was afraid it made him weak.

Maybe he wasn’t afraid so much anymore, Carlos thought. Troy dropped to his knees so quickly it made Carlos cringe and want to rub his own knees. He’d have had to kneel slowly or risk staying on the ground for a good while. Carlos shoved aside such musings and clasped Will’s neck, right below his jaws. “You keep it down to moans and whimpers only. I don’t want to hear a word from you since you’re getting to get off and we ain’t. You’ll take what you’re given.”

Will bobbed his head, or tried to. A little pressure from Carlos where he held him at the neck, and Will stopped. He gave Carlos a very hopeful look, but Carlos wasn’t ready to delve into breathplay yet. Will wasn’t going to rush him on that, either. Carlos kept that hand right where he had it without altering the pressure. His other hand he kept clamped to Will’s hip, restricting his ability to thrust.

“Take it all, Troy. Open that mouth up and suck his dick all the way in. Show me you want it.” Carlos had to let go of Will’s neck to hold him at the chest instead, and slide his other hand across Will’s pelvis to keep him in place when Troy swallowed Will’s long, thin cock.

Will’s mouth opened as if he meant to shout, but all that came out was a strangled sound. His arms jerked, but since Carlos had them pinned at his sides, all Will could do was watch while Troy sucked him off.

“Squeeze his balls, Troy. Make him shoot in under a minute and I’ll tie you up real good before I fuck you.” They really had a lot to get done, but besides that, he loved watching Troy eagerly lick and suck Will’s dick.

Troy’s cheeks turned ruddy and he grunted as he hollowed his cheeks. Will moaned and jerked in Carlos’ arms. Carlos caught at Will’s hair with his teeth, tugging the silky strands hard once he had them firmly in his grip. Will keened and Troy pulled back, cum spilling from the corner of his mouth.