The Ranchers Son (16 page)

Adam tugged Ethan
away from the house and up the path, passing his place and the Todd house, and
beyond, to the tree line.

“We were walking
up here after we did the cabins, crossed the river at the steps, which had Gabe
worrying I would fall in.”

“Jesus, Adam.”

Adam smiled at
Ethan to placate him. The “steps” were a series of boulders in a wide part of
the river where the water was deep but a hell of a lot calmer.

“It was fine. I
was fine, anyway. So Gabe is telling me this story about when we were ten or
eleven, maybe, and we had a fort in the forest that backed onto his house, and
I remembered it. Like, before he showed me, or anything.” He couldn’t help
sounding excited, little memories trickling back into his head made him feel
hopeful everything would come back soon. “This way.” He plunged off the path
and into the woods.

Ethan didn’t let
go of his hand, holding it with their fingers entwined, and followed him close.
They finally reached the clearing, nothing more than a space created by two
fallen trees that had somehow begun to grown into one, with a hole beneath.

“I never knew
about this,” Ethan said.

“Nope, you didn’t,
and I know why.” Adam couldn’t keep the mischief out of his voice. “We didn’t
tell you. Justin, Gabe and I, we wanted a place to talk about girls and shit,
and you and Nate were all interfering and annoying. So we found our own space.”

Ethan stopped next
to the tree and peered into the hole. “That is small. How the hell did you last
long in there?”

“I think maybe
that’s why I remembered it, because I would sit outside and whisper, and the
other two would be inside. They called me the guard, but I knew it was their
way of making me feel better, even then.”

Ethan chuckled and
the sound was a good one. Adam had been worried, overhearing all that stuff
about Ethan being born a rancher’s son and his dad hating that he’d become a
cop. Ethan had looked like he’d been hit by a plank over the head, so
shell-shocked and miserable.

“Wait,” Ethan said
suddenly. “Girls? You were talking about girls?”

“Well, not so much
me. Mostly Gabe—he was the first to get a girlfriend, and he would explain in
great length about kissing her, and Justin and I would tease him because she
was at least six inches taller than him, that being before he grew a little.”
Adam pulled Ethan in for a soft kiss. “There was where I first said I didn’t
like girls. I mean, I didn’t say I liked boys so much, but I was dead set on
the girl-hating part.”

“Wow,” Ethan said.
“You remember all this?”

“A lot of it. The
old stuff seems to come back to me easy, and this time I didn’t faint when I
recalled the details. That’s a breakthrough, right?”

“You have any
recollection of the day we kissed back then?”

Adam’s chest
tightened. “Is this a Justin question? I still don’t know anything about what
happened that day.”

Ethan cut off any
further talking with a kiss, this time more heated, and with an added press
against the tree and a groan low in his throat, which was all kinds of sexy.

“No. That was an
‘I want to kiss you more’ type of question.” Ethan shifted so it was his back
against the tree, supporting Adam’s weight, forever conscious of Adam’s rib
injuries. His hands landed firmly on Adam’s ass and held on, pressing his hard
cock to Adam’s, and Adam couldn’t help the smile he gave into the kiss. This
was what he wanted, Ethan holding him and making him feel. They kissed and
moved against each other, and the heat between them was incredible.

“I want you so
much,” Ethan muttered between kisses, and the words made Adam want to kiss
harder, deeper, with his eyes closed and the fresh scents of April mixing with
the smell of Ethan’s leather jacket and his shower gel.

Adam widened his
legs a little, wrapping himself around Ethan and holding tight, kissing him thoroughly.
His lip held up, didn’t split, and there was no blood, just the taste of Ethan.

“I can’t believe
we’re doing this up against a tree,” Ethan said, grinding against him.

“We could go
home.”

“I need to… I have
to….” Ethan shuddered a breath and eased Adam away enough that there was space
between them, his hands moving to Adam’s hips. “Let’s go.”

They walked hand
in hand back onto the path, neither saying a word. Nights where they slept
together and kissed and maybe even got off were one thing; this was different. It
wasn’t in darkness; it was real, a choice they both made.

Adam didn’t sense
Justin’s ghost hovering in Ethan’s eyes; it was sex and they both wanted it. He
hurried his steps a little, but his breathing faltered and he had to slow down.
Ethan slowed to stay with him. They reached the Strachan house and climbed the
steps; Ethan stopped at the top.

“I love you,”
Ethan announced. “I never stopped loving you.”

“Ethan….”

“If that is too
much, if that scares you, if you think Justin is a part of this, you have to
tell me to stop.”

Adam collected his
thoughts, lifting his right hand to curl his fingers into Ethan’s hair.

“It doesn’t scare
me,” he said. “And Justin will always be a part of you, part of us, however
much we say it’s not true.”

“I will find him,”
Ethan said with conviction.

Adam pressed a
kiss to his lips, a promise without words. “Like you found me.”

Ethan was the
first to move, pushing the door open and letting Adam in before shutting and
locking it behind them.

“I don’t have
anything here. No condoms or whatever…,” Adam said, embarrassment washing over
him. Why was he embarrassed, he didn’t know. He was familiar with the mechanics
of it all; he’d had sex before.

Another memory,
and one he didn’t immediately feel the need to share with Ethan.

“I don’t either.” Ethan
grinned at him. “We’ll improvise this time.”

Improvising had
them stripping and falling over each other to get into bed. There was no way
Adam was having sex in his old room, and he hoped his big brother didn’t really
care that Adam and Ethan were making love in his bed. Not that Cole had lived
here for a while, but still… awkward.

“Your tattoos are
beautiful,” Ethan murmured, spending the longest time fussing about getting
Adam in exactly the right position for whatever he wanted to do. Which, to
start with, was kissing his way over Adam’s chest, to one shoulder, then the
next, stopping for the longest time to worry at each nipple. One of the tattoos
ended by his right nipple, and Ethan ran his nails over the hard nub, then
traced the tattoo up to his shoulder and upwards to his throat.

“What does yours
mean?” Adam asked. He could see the tiny tattoo right over Ethan’s chest, a
simple circle design with tiny lettering inside.

“Initials. Me,
Justin. I had it done a few years back.”

“I should get the
same thing done over my heart,” Adam said, his muscles tensing as Ethan moved
back to his nipples, sucking one into his mouth while pinching the other. Adam’s
nipples were clearly
hardwired
to his cock, which was hard and had nothing to rub
against. He moved restlessly, attempting to find friction, but there was
nothing, only air between them.

“I’m getting
there,” Ethan promised.

And get there he
did. With little finesse or teasing, he scooted down until he was level with
Adam’s cock, circling the base with his hands and swallowing the rest in one
movement.

Adam nearly shot
there and then, gasping, tensing, and then cursing when pain hit in his chest
and wrist.

Ethan looked up
with worry. “Are you okay?” he asked, his lips red, his gray eyes filled with
concern.

Adam ignored what
pain he could and consciously relaxed his muscles. “God, yes.”

Ethan smiled, and
then the smile turned into more sucking and kissing and licking. Then Ethan
moved a little lower, and fondled Adam’s balls with his free hand, humming
around his cock.

“I’m going to… no…
Ethan… off.”

Ethan stopped
sucking, but he didn’t stop moving his hand the length of Adam’s cock. “What?”
he asked with a definite smirk.

“Turn around. I
want to suck you as well.”

They tried and
failed a few positions. Adam couldn’t lie on his side—his wrist was too weak,
his ribs too sore—and in the end Ethan straddled his face. Finally Adam managed
to get a taste of what he wanted.

The texture, the
weight, it was all unfamiliar, yet at the back of his mind he could see himself
doing this before. It would be hard to believe any man of twenty-eight wouldn’t
have had sex at some point in his life; Ethan probably had a long list of men
wanting inside him.

The thought made
Adam pause, but only long enough for his subconscious to tell him that Ethan
was his. Ethan was here, and he was sucking Adam, and hell, Adam was
reciprocating with enthusiasm.

“So close,” Ethan
warned.

Adam didn’t stop.
If anything, his movements, while erratic—because hey, Ethan was sucking his
cock—grew more focused, faster. The tip of Ethan’s cock hit the back of his
throat and he didn’t even gag.
That was good, right?

“Fuck,” Ethan
cursed as that happened. “Fuck, Adam…”

Adam felt like the
king of the world—or at least the king of blowjobs—twisting his hand, sucking
deep, and Ethan stiffened, trying to tug away, but Adam wouldn’t let him. He
swallowed everything Ethan had for him, and it felt absolutely right.

He released Ethan,
and all Ethan did was move faster on Adam’s cock and, way too soon, Adam’s
orgasm hit him hard in a mix of ecstasy and pain. He cursed his completion and tried
to pull away, but couldn’t.

Ethan kissed his
way along Adam’s body, finally lying next to him, and they exchanged slow
kisses.

“If we do that
with blowjobs, imagine what we’ll be like when we go further,” Adam said.

“You think you’re
a top? Or maybe a switch?”

“I don’t know,” he
answered truthfully.

Ethan kissed him,
then left the bed, padding naked out of the room and coming back with two bottles
of beer, an opener, and a laptop.

“Porn,” he
announced as he opened the computer. “Let’s see what turns you on.”

Adam closed his
hand around Ethan’s semi-aroused cock. “This turns me on.”

Ethan copied the
motion. “Back atcha,” he drawled. Then with a kiss and a soft “I love you,” he
signed into the laptop and scrolled to the drop-down menu blatantly entitled “Porn.”

The first scene
was set outdoors beside a pool; some cheesy shit about a delivery guy, but
hell, when the guy on the bottom looked at the screen, with his mouth wide in a
paroxysm of orgasm, Adam felt like he could come without touching his cock. Not
helped by the fact Ethan was stroking his cock, fondling it, testing the weight
of his balls, and staring at Adam as Adam watched the porn.

When his orgasm
hit, Adam wasn’t as tense and it didn’t hurt as much. Softer but more intense
than the one before, it rolled from his center to his toes, and his breath left
him in a startled gasp.

“So?” Ethan asked
softly, wiping a finger in Adam’s spend, then grabbing a discarded T-shirt to
wipe the rest away.

“That’s my shirt,”
Adam protested.

All Ethan did was
smile and shrug. Then he asked again, “So, which do you want?” He leaned over
Adam, peppering his face with small kisses between his words. “You want me to
stretch you with my finger, press lube into you, then crook my finger and find
your sweet spot, all while I’m sucking you down? Or do you want to do it to me?”

Adam’s cock
attempted to fill again, and he groaned into the last kiss, “All of it.”

Ethan chuckled,
deepening the kiss and then pulling back. “Thank fuck,” he said with feeling.

“We need to get
supplies, then.”

Ethan looked
serious for a minute, staring down at Adam with focus in his gray eyes. “Let’s
wait a bit until your ribs are mended. Until we’re sure.”

Adam was confused.
“Aren’t you sure?”

“I’ve been sure
since the moment you came back into my life.”

“Why do you think
I’m not?”

Ethan sighed and
rolled away, lying next to Adam and staring up at the ceiling. “Because you
don’t know what has happened to you over the past twelve years. Let’s enjoy
this, but let’s get you healed in mind and body before it gets serious.”

“I call what we
just did pretty serious.”

Ethan hesitated and
then murmured, “That was just sex.”

Adam knew he
didn’t mean that, was sure he was looking for some intelligent response from
Adam, but all the insecurities about his past, his future, and his injuries all
came to the surface. So he said what was in his heart.