Hay and Heartbreak (13 page)

Hector ended the kiss and rubbed his nose alongside Dan’s. “I like you wearing my jacket. Go on and get it. Might want a cap for your head. It’ll be cool to you outside. I’ll meet you on the porch.”

“Okay.” Dan left the kitchen.

Hector swiped a hand over his mouth. Even the brief kiss they’d shared had knocked Hector for a loop.

The threat of potential heartbreak wasn’t going to make him back away from Dan. He’d just be careful, keep reminding himself that they were only having some fun. As many times as Hector had screwed some guy or another, he’d never had an actual relationship. It seemed unlikely that he’d have one now, not when Dan was going to be leaving.

Hector retrieved a few things from his room then headed for the porch, and noticed the living area had cleared out except for Frankie and Duke. He stopped to ask Duke if he wanted to go fishing tomorrow.

Duke put a hand over his heart. “Why, Hector, are you butterin’ me up ’cause you want my little brother?”

Hector snorted. “Not hardly. Just heard you’ve been a grumpy fucker and thought I’d save Frankie and Dan from having to listen to you whine.”

“I don’t
whine
!” Duke flipped him off. “Much.”

“He’d love to go,” Frankie informed Hector. “Thanks.”

Hector tipped his head toward Frankie then went on outside. The night air was a little cool, he guessed, but not cold yet, not at all. He loved the scents the wind carried—horses and even the cattle, hay and pine. Other things he’d smelled all his life and that signified home to him.

He heard the screen door open and turned to smile at Dan. The man was just as appealing as ever. And he looked damned fine in Hector’s jacket and cowboy hat.

“The moon isn’t full tonight, but it’s still pretty as ever.” He took a hold of Dan’s elbow, unable to keep from touching him. “And I thought I’d show you the barn.”

“The barn? I’ve seen it. Are you…?” Dan cleared his throat. “Are you trying to get in my pants?”

Hector leered at him. “Damn right, sweetheart.”

Dan’s laugh was gruff, but it was wonderful to hear. Hector decided he’d do what he could to get Dan to laugh more often. Then he remembered his thoughts on keeping a distance of sorts. Hector was torn, and confused about what he wanted. What he should risk.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Dan observed. “I guess I could talk more. I was thinking, you told me about your past.”

An unaccountable bolt of fear swept through Hector. There was something about the scars and Dan’s reticence to talk about his past in the first place that concerned him. Tonight, he didn’t want to deal with it. He just wanted to spend some time with Dan. “Later, okay? Unless you feel like you have to get something off your chest.” He opened the barn door and ushered Dan inside before flipping the light switch.

“No, I— It’s fine.” Dan squinted at the light. “Don’t know why I was expecting an oil lamp. Stupid, but that’s what I remember seeing in the Westerns I used to watch as a kid. I don’t remember there being a light on when we came in here to get Maisy and Vil.”

“With the doors open, and the stalls not locked up from the corral behind the barn, there’s plenty of sunlight coming in during the day, so we don’t use the overhead lights then.” Hector walked over to Vil’s stall. “Hey, buddy.” Vil nickered and lipped Hector’s hand. “Yeah, yeah, I didn’t bring you a treat this time, you spoiled thang.”

Dan stepped up to stand beside Hector. “You’re really going to give me a tour of the barn?”

Hector gave Vil’s nose a soft rub, then hooked a thumb through Dan’s belt loop on his hip. “Nope.” And with that, he backed up, taking Dan with him, until they were out of nipping range. Hector let loose with all the lust and want that had built up over the last two days, all the need he shouldn’t have been feeling for Dan, not this fast, not that deep. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he confessed before sealing his mouth to Dan’s.

The first taste of the man, the scent of him filling Hector’s nostrils, sent a rush through him unlike anything Hector had ever experienced before. He couldn’t get close enough to Dan, couldn’t touch him enough.

Dan whimpered, the soft, broken sound a greater aphrodisiac than anything of folk tales. Hector growled as a surge of protectiveness and possessiveness consumed him.

He wanted to devour Dan in passion, to build something unbreakable with him, something rare and precious that would fill them both in ways they’d never known.

Hector clenched his hands, grabbing fistfuls of material. He needed Dan naked and under him,
now.

And he wanted to darken the marks he’d left behind.

Hector backed Dan up to the hay bale covered with a thick blanket. Curt had been teasing him for a damn good reason—he’d seen Hector preparing that hay bale earlier.

Now Hector reaped the fruits of his foresight. When Dan’s legs hit the hay, Hector leaned forward, and Dan went backwards.

Together they tumbled down, with Hector careful not to let his weight fall too much on Dan. He wanted to love on the man, not hurt him.

Dan spread his legs and hooked one heel around Hector’s left thigh. The positioning made it so easy to rock their groins together, rubbing and rutting as passion flared hotter, until it was scorching Hector, threatening to send him into a mindless release he wasn’t yet willing to capitulate to.

Hector buried his face against Dan’s neck, licking, sucking, biting. He felt crazed with the intensity of lust and need for this one man, as if all of his holding back emotionally in the past was now rolling down on him.

Dan clutched at his back and arched beneath him.

The bob of his Adam’s apple drew Hector’s attention. He sucked it for a second or two then pushed up onto his knees. “Get these off,” Hector demanded once he was able to speak past the desire constricting his throat. He felt so tightly wound that he wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up coming just from watching Dan strip.

And Dan was definitely trying to get naked in a hurry.

Hector stood and pulled off Dan’s boots and socks. Then he went about unfastening his own belt and pants. He wanted his cock out, and beyond that, didn’t care about his own state of undress. Shoving his jeans and underwear down his thighs, Hector hissed through his teeth at how sensitive his dick was. The rub of fabric over it almost did him in.

Dan was moving with sharp, desperate tugs and pushes, flinging off the shirt and jacket, the cowboy hat having fallen off when they’d hit the hay.

Hector went for Dan’s belt and whipped it off. “I’m going to fuck you,” he said, watching Dan closely.

“Thank God,” Dan rasped, turning onto his belly. “Help me get these out of the way so you can fuck me. I’ve got a condom and lube. Back left pocket.”

“We both came prepared.” Hector dug them out of Dan’s pants then stripped the remainder of Dan’s clothes off. “Are you sure this is okay?” he forced himself to ask before he lost complete control.

“It won’t be okay if you don’t hurry up and get inside me.” Dan reached back and pulled one ass cheek aside, exposing the tiny pucker nestled there.

“Goddamn, that’s a sight to see.” Hector tore open the condom package. He rolled the rubber down his cock, paying attention to what he was doing so as not to put either of them at risk. “Going to open you up for my dick, sweetheart.”

Dan groaned. “You can just shove—”

“No,” Hector said in a firm voice. “No. I won’t risk hurting you.”

Dan closed his eyes and pushed up to his hands and knees. “You won’t.”

“Damn right I won’t, because I won’t rush this part,” Hector vowed, using half the packet of lube to coat his shaft, and the other, he split between two fingers and Dan’s hole.

When he slid his thumb over it, Hector felt that little band of muscle contract. “Shit, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted inside someone so bad in my life,” he admitted. He ran his hand down the seam of Dan’s ass.

“I told you, just put it in me. I can handle it.” Dan pushed his rump back.

“And I said, no.” Hector rubbed over the silky skin between Dan’s balls and asshole. “The sooner I’m in you, the sooner this is all over with. I want to take my time.” A moment ago, he’d nearly been raging to fuck Dan, but now…now he wanted to drive the man crazy with need before satisfying them both. “Make you beg for it. Think I can do that?”

“Hector,” Dan said. Just his name, nothing more.

Hector grinned and tapped the inside of Dan’s leg. “Spread ’em more for me.”

Dan huffed a little as he parted his legs, offering Hector access to everything.

Hector caressed Dan from the top of his spine all the way down to his hole. With his other hand, he cupped and rolled Dan’s balls.

“Hec—Hector, I-I need—” Dan’s entire body went taut as Hector pushed one finger slowly into his ass. “Yes, oh please, more!”

Hector relished every word Dan gave him. He fucked Dan with that one finger for several minutes, moving it in and out faster, harder, then slower, shallower. When Dan was panting and trying to shove back onto Hector’s digit, Hector worked the second one in with the first.

The silky heat of Dan’s inner walls was amazing. The way they rippled and pulled against Hector’s withdrawals, as if trying to keep his digits in… He could hardly wait to get his dick inside Dan.

But Hector forced himself to go slow, curling his fingers, giving Dan’s gland a little nudge here and there.

“Hector, please, please, fuck, please,” Dan began to babble as Hector held his hand still and let Dan do the moving until finally, Hector couldn’t wait any longer.

“Now,” he said, pulling his fingers out. “Like this.”

“How—” Dan yelped when Hector flipped him onto his back. “I haven’t ever, not like this.”

It filled Hector with pride and made him want to declare Dan his, just knowing he’d be the only man who ever took Dan face to face.
Wait. Wait! Be the
only
man?
Hector told his brain to shut the fuck up. Logic wasn’t dependable when his blood was so hot with lust.

“Well, now you’re gonna be taken just—” Hector pulled Dan’s legs up, propping his heels on Hector’s shoulders. “Like—” Then lined his cockhead up to Dan’s sweet little hole. “This.” And with that final word, he thrust, sinking into Dan in more than just the physical sense, their gazes locked, Dan’s eyes wide, his lips parted on a primal keen.

Hector was every bit as tangled up in Dan as he’d feared he’d be, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about. Wasn’t sure he wanted to do anything about it. His thoughts scattered as his body took over, his balls pressed to Dan’s ass.
Mine!
Hector ground against Dan’s bottom.
Mine!
He bared his teeth and growled as he pulled back.
Mine!
He knew it, as he shoved back in. Dan was his, and letting him go was going to rip him to shreds.

But for now, he was going to make sure he left as big a mark on Dan, in his life, as Dan was leaving in his.

He folded Dan nearly in half, and gripped Dan’s shoulders as he powered into his ass again and again.

Dan had a hand on his own cock, and soft, broken sounds of pleasure kept spilling from his lips.

Hector relished every clench, every ripple and contraction of Dan’s ass around his dick. Never had he felt to attuned and in synch with another man. Dan shoved his hips up, meeting Hector for every thrust.

He pressed messy, hungry kisses to Dan’s mouth, craving everything he could get from Dan.

Then Dan’s eyes shot wide open and his ass gripped Hector’s cock so tight, Hector could hardly move. He went up on his toes, trying to get in deeper, and deeper still.

Dan’s inarticulate cry shattered the split-second of silence that had surrounded them. His cock pulsed and cum splattered on Dan’s chin and chest.

Hector was stripped of everything but his physical needs. He rutted like a wild beast, grunting, cursing, coming so hard his vision went gray.

Every jet of spunk that left him seemed to suffuse him with a deeper level of ecstasy, until he was dizzy and gasping, weak and unable to hold himself up. He let Dan’s legs slip down and collapsed, catching himself on his elbows.

For several minutes, he remained in a chaotic state of post-orgasmic bliss, but eventually he had to move. His cock began to soften, and he reached down between them to make sure he had the condom in place before letting his shaft slip from Dan’s warm hole.

Hector flopped onto his side by Dan.

“Jesus,” Dan rasped, “Christ.”

Hector had just enough energy to chuckle.

After a moment or two, Dan said, “I didn’t know sex could be like that. Every time with you, it was… It was— It’s been—” Dan groaned. “I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t have to. It’s the same way for me with you.” Hector didn’t have words to describe it any more than Dan did, but he felt that connection between them, the beginning of something more than just physical desire for each other.

He wanted to talk to Dan about that, see if they had some possibility of being together for longer than his visit with Duke and Frankie.

Some advice about never having a relationship conversation after sex came to mind, though, so Hector kept his wondering to himself. Surely he’d find time to speak with Dan about it in the next few days.

Chapter Ten

Telling Hector about his past while spending the day with him and Duke seemed like cheating somehow, as if having Duke there in case Hector blew a gasket over Dan’s drug use as a teenager was unfair. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Dan, and yet it did. Hector’s actions and words might be censored by Duke’s presence, and so Dan decided to wait until they were alone to bring up the past.

He wasn’t concerned too much about the manslaughter charge, though it would be embarrassing to share how stupid he’d been. He’d been exonerated—there was indisputable proof that he hadn’t even been in the area when Ephraim Allen had been killed. And, according to Edward, there was proof that Manning himself had been the one to end Ephraim’s life. That was the last bit of news Dan had received from Edward yesterday.

There were questions he’d considered asking, but when it came down to it, he didn’t think he needed to know anything more about the detective who’d framed him. Dan wanted to let go of the anger and fear he’d carried for so long. He couldn’t gain back the years he’d lost. What he
could
do was not give any more time to events from the past.