Chase the Stars (Lang Downs 2 ) (6 page)

“You’re the one who lectured me on letting little cuts get infected,” Caine replied, “so don’t argue.”
Macklin gave in gracelessly, holding out his hand so Caine could examine the bruised, scraped knuckles where Macklin’s fist had connected with someone’s jaw. He shook his head as he pulled Macklin toward the sink so he could clean and disinfect the cuts.
“Chris is going to need a lot of help adjusting over the next few weeks,” he said as he scrubbed Macklin’s skin gently.
“I’m more worried about Seth.”
“Seth?” Caine asked, pouring hydrogen peroxide over the cuts. “Why?”
Macklin hissed as the cool liquid seeped into the sores. “He’s sullen and angry. He’s behind in school. He’s gotten used to not having any structure. He’s going to resent being forced to do schoolwork, probably resent having to work as hard as he will here. He’s sixteen, and this isn’t the life he’s chosen for himself.”
“Really?” Caine asked, reaching for a tube of antibiotic ointment. “Are you sure? I didn’t get that impression at all.” He smeared the gel on Macklin’s knuckles. “I got the impression of someone so grateful not to be living on the streets again that he’d do anything we asked not to have to go back there.”
“Maybe I’m misreading him,” Macklin said. “I just know how I felt at the first station I worked on.”
Caine wiped his hand and nudged Macklin back toward the bedroom. “You want to tell me about that now?”
“Not really.”
“It wasn’t a question, Macklin.” Caine had let various comments from Macklin go in the past, either because Macklin had refused to talk, as he’d done the first time it came up in the early days of their acquaintance, or because it had come up at a bad time, as it had when Chris was in the hospital.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything there is to know about you. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
Macklin scowled. “You already know everything that matters.”
“If it doesn’t matter, then you won’t mind telling me about it,” Caine retorted. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to push this, but Macklin had been pensive since they’d rescued Chris and Seth. Caine had learned to live with taciturn, but pensive didn’t fit Macklin at all.
Macklin’s scowl deepened. “Why is this so important to you?”
“Because it’s important to you,” Caine replied. “You’ve been out of sorts since we found them, moody and withdrawn. You haven’t f-fucked me since we left to go hire the new hands.”
“We can fix that,” Macklin offered, pulling his shirt off and advancing on Caine.
“Oh, n-no,” Caine said, backing away. “Not until you tell me about how you came to Lang Downs.”
“I already told you,” Macklin said. “I ran away from home and Michael took me in.”
“N-not g-good enough,” Caine replied.
“I think it is,” Macklin said, catching Caine’s arm. “You’re already stuttering. You know how that turns me on.”
Caine rolled his eyes even as Macklin leaned in to kiss him. He still hated to stutter, but given he only stuttered rarely these days unless Macklin was making love to him and given Macklin’s clear pleasure in Caine’s reaction to him, he’d stopped fighting it. He wouldn’t win anyway. He returned the kiss eagerly, determined to lull Macklin into relaxing before trying again to find out what he wanted to know.
He bided his time as Macklin stripped him to the waist, giving in to his lover’s dominant side because it felt too good not to. When Macklin pushed him toward the bed and started undoing his own jeans, Caine shook his head, shoving Macklin’s hands out of the way so he could bare his lover himself. Macklin looked like he might protest, so Caine pulled out the big guns, dropping to his knees and nuzzling Macklin’s erection through the cloth of his underwear.
“W-want t-t-to b-blow—” Caine got out with difficulty.
“Be my guest,” Macklin said with a grin, settling back on the bed and spreading his legs.
Caine scowled up at him for the interruption. He hadn’t finished his sentence, but he had what he wanted, Macklin sprawled on his back across their bed, waiting for Caine to make love to him, so he didn’t bother complaining. He simply tugged at Macklin’s pants and underwear until he had his lover completely naked. Kneeling between Macklin’s feet, he kissed the inside of Macklin’s knee, licking his way slowly up one hair-dusted thigh toward his ultimate goal: Macklin’s cooperation.
Working his way higher, he nuzzled Macklin’s balls, letting the hint of whiskers from the day add the slightest bite to the softer touch of his lips and tongue. Macklin gasped, making Caine smile as he lifted his head. “T-t-tell me the s-story.”
“Bloody hell, pup,” Macklin roared, his fingers pushing on Caine’s head. “Finish what you started.”
“Only if you t-tell me the story,” Caine insisted. “After if you w-want, but you have to t-tell me.”
Macklin looked so troubled that Caine almost relented, but he doubted he’d get another chance at this. The entire situation had Macklin ill at ease, and Caine needed to know why.
“After,” Macklin said finally.
Caine didn’t question Macklin’s promise. His lover was a man of his word. Now he had to remind Macklin he wasn’t telling this story to a stranger, but to his partner, the man who loved him and intended to spend the rest of his life supporting him. He lowered his head again, licking the musky skin of Macklin’s perineum. Macklin might not be comfortable letting Caine top yet, but he’d taken to rimming like a duck to water, and Caine intended to use that to his advantage.
Macklin lifted his legs, making it easier for Caine to reach his target. He didn’t immediately dive between the spread cheeks, though. He wanted to linger, to make Macklin so eager he’d accept not only the rimming but anything else Caine felt like doing to him. As hard as the thought of driving into Macklin’s tight heat made Caine, he knew that wouldn’t happen tonight, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t introduce his lover to other delights.
Peeking up at Macklin’s face and seeing his lover’s eyes closed, Caine sucked on his index finger, wetting it thoroughly before licking Macklin’s entrance. Macklin gasped again and squirmed, his delight in Caine’s attentions obvious in every line of his body. Caine smiled and continued what he was doing, using everything he knew about Macklin to lavish pleasure on him. When Macklin started groaning and thrashing on the bed, begging Caine to let him come, Caine decided the time was right.
Pulling back slightly, he replaced his tongue with the tip of his finger, wiggling it just inside the still tight entrance. Macklin froze but didn’t pull away, so Caine took that as permission, licking around the entrance a few more times to add to the wetness already there. He pressed his finger a little deeper and left it there as he sucked Macklin’s balls into his mouth, teasing them with his tongue.
By the time he’d licked his way to the tip of Macklin’s cock, he had his finger inserted to the second knuckle and could press on Macklin’s gland. With a grin, he sucked Macklin’s erection into his mouth at the same time he flicked his finger across the little bump of flesh. The shout Macklin let out echoed off the walls of the room, making Caine grin wider. He hoped Chris and Seth were sound sleepers, because if not, they were about to get an education.
“Bloody hell,” Macklin shouted when Caine continued to work his sweet spot while taking Macklin down his throat. “Stop, Caine.”
Caine ignored him, doing everything he could to push Macklin into climaxing right then and there. It took a gratifyingly short time to shatter his lover’s usual control, a hot gush of fluid filling his mouth as Macklin’s barely loosened guardian muscle squeezed his finger mercilessly.
Licking his lips with a self-satisfied smile, Caine rocked back on his heels. “Now t-tell me the story.”
“Fuck.”
“Not until you tell me the story.”
Macklin glared at him, but Caine didn’t back down.
“Fine,” Macklin huffed, sitting up and pulling the covers over his lower body. “I told you Michael took me in when I was sixteen. I ran away when I was fifteen because my father had a temper and quick fists. For as long as I can remember, he hit my mother. Eventually I got old enough to protest, and one time—I was maybe twelve—he turned on me instead of on her. I was big for my age, already bigger than she was.”
That hadn’t changed. Macklin’s size had struck Caine from the moment they met. “So what happened next?”
“So I decided I’d do it deliberately. If he was hitting me, he wasn’t hitting her.”
“He shouldn’t have hit anyone. Didn’t someone report it?”
“I don’t know if anyone did or not,” Macklin said, “but nothing ever came of it if they did. I got good at pushing his buttons, at sensing when he was about to lose it with my mum and choosing that moment to draw his attention to me. I didn’t manage it every time, but enough that she stopped walking around in long sleeves all the time to hide the bruises on her arms.”
“It wasn’t your job to protect her,” Caine said softly. “She should have called the police.”
“She should have,” Macklin agreed. “I can say that sitting here at forty-three, but at twelve, all I knew was her begging me not to call the police and not to interfere. I couldn’t stop, though.”
“So how did you get from there to Lang Downs?”
“Mum found out about me,” Macklin said, his hands clenched so hard around the quilt on the bed that his knuckles turned white. “I never figured out how. She told me she loved me no matter what, but that I couldn’t live in the house with my father and be different. He’d kill me. I wanted to say ‘Let him try,’ but she was right. I’d listened to him rant for too long about poofters and pillow biters and every other foul name you could think to call someone. I begged her to come with me. We’d leave together, go somewhere he couldn’t find us, but she said she’d made her choice and she’d live with it, but I shouldn’t have to suffer for her weakness.”
And yet he so clearly had that it tore at Caine’s heart. “You listened to her eventually.”
“He broke my arm,” Macklin replied, his voice completely devoid of emotion. “I’d been named goalie for our footie team, and I missed a block. He went into a rage that night and broke my arm. He said I wasn’t using it anyway so what did it matter?”
“Over a lost soccer match?”
“That’s the worst part,” Macklin said with a bleak smile. “We won. I started stocking up as soon as we got back from the doctor, making a stash to hold me through as long as I could. An extra tin of beans, a jar of Vegemite, every penny of spare change he left lying around, anything I could hide in my room. A week after the cast came off, I left, and I have regretted it every day since then.”
“What?” Caine said. “Why would you regret it? You have a life because you got out of that hell!”
“I got out,” Macklin said. “She didn’t. I didn’t have the courage to stay or the strength to take her with me.”
“You were fifteen,” Caine reminded him. “It wasn’t your job to be the strong one.”
“You weren’t there,” Macklin said. “She was a meter and a half at the most. He was almost two meters tall. She didn’t stand a chance against him. I shouldn’t have left her.”
The self-loathing in Macklin’s voice nearly brought Caine undone.
“So you left,” Caine said, “but you didn’t get here until you were sixteen, or that’s the story I’ve always heard.”
“I was almost sixteen when I left, but it took me about six months to find my way here,” Macklin said. “I worked odd jobs to get across the country, never staying for more than a few weeks, until I ended up in Boorowa.”
“That’s where Uncle Michael found you?”
“That’s where Charles Taylor found me,” Macklin said. “Devlin Taylor’s father.”
Caine frowned at the thought of their neighbor. Taylor had been as good as his word and left the men of Lang Downs alone after firing the jackaroo who had sabotaged Caine’s fences earlier in the winter, but that didn’t mean Caine liked the homophobic grazier. He gestured for Macklin to continue.
“I took a job at Taylor Peaks. It was the only thing I could find in the area, and I didn’t have enough money to get even to Yass. It was work for him or starve.”
Macklin stopped after that, his face pensive. Caine tried to find a way to prompt him to continue, but he couldn’t think of anything. Before he gave up on subtlety, Macklin shook his head and gave Caine a wan smile.
“It wasn’t awful at first. Charles was a better manager than his son. He worked us hard for not a lot of pay, but he was fair,” Macklin recounted.
“So what happened?” Caine asked. “I mean, why did you leave?”
“He hired a drifter who wanted room and board in exchange for a few weeks’ work. The man was a bully, but Taylor never saw it. He just saw me trying to fight back and blamed the situation on me. After all, I was the punk kid. He told me to leave. I didn’t know up from down in those days so I started walking and ended up going north instead of south to Boorowa. I ended up on Lang Downs. You know the rest.”
Caine wasn’t entirely sure he did, but he’d gotten far more out of Macklin tonight than he ever had before or than he’d really expected to get. Scooting closer to his lover, he kissed him softly. “Thank you. I know how hard it must be to talk about it.”
“It’s not something I think about anymore,” Macklin said. Caine doubted that, but he didn’t challenge it. “I’ve been on my own for so long that I don’t dwell on it. It made me who I am, but it doesn’t have the power to hurt me anymore.”
Caine wondered if it could really be that easy. He wouldn’t bring it up again unless Macklin gave him a reason to, but he’d keep an eye on the other man. He needed Macklin strong and steady. “I love you.”
Macklin smiled and pulled Caine into a kiss.