This Red Rock (6 page)

He dived swiftly back into the bucket again, sluicing the

water over his arms and chest, scrubbing at the wet skin

with the stick of soap. It was at this point that I realized that

he"d just slapped me with a hand covered in cow fluids and I

pulled a face, making a sound of protest. He laughed.

“Whassamatter, San Diego? You don"t like being dirty?”

“I object to vaginas,” I muttered, without thinking, and

hauled the shirt off over my head.

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Louise Blaydon

36

My only thought, in that moment, was to get the thing

off
me. I don"t think there was really anything too disgusting

on Oro"s hand. He"d been washing himself between searches,

anyway—if you don"t do that, the cow"s liable to die of

infection, even if you managed to calve it properly—and I felt

nothing damp when he touched me. But the thought of

having any kind of cow stickiness smeared on my T-shirt

was more than a little off-putting. Wrestling it over my head

seemed the only reasonable response. It was only after I"d got

rid of it, when I was standing in the straw with my hair

sticking up at odd angles, that I realized what I"d said. What

I was
doing,
more to the point. And what Oro was doing,

crouched in just his jeans in front of me. His arms still

dripped water, rivulets streaming from his fingertips as he

rose slowly to his feet.

“I thought that might be the case,” he said.

My heart skipped nervously in my chest. “You—I"m

sorry?”

He laughed, stepping cleanly over the bucket. The cow

was now very engaged in cleaning off her calf, and there was

nothing else between us. I took a half-conscious step

backward and swallowed hard, part of my brain calculating

the percentage chance that this was just some incredibly

vivid dream. Stuff like this didn"t happen to guys like me.

Hell,
this
was probably just a misreading of the situation on

my part. This
was probably just—just—

Oro"s fingers grazing the bolt of my jaw, tracing gentle

and sure down to my chin. Oro"s smile, open-mouthed, not a

foot from my face. “I"ll tell you a secret,” he said, voice low-

pitched and soft. “Unless it"s an emergency—” he inched

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Louise Blaydon

37

closer “—a
birthing
emergency—” I could feel his breath now,

warm on my cheek “—I object to vaginas, too.”

By this juncture, my entire body felt as if it had seized

up, arrested in place by the shock of his closeness, the

warmth of his chest half an inch away from mine. I tried to

breathe, failed, and turned my head for a second attempt,

my eyes closing of their own accord. He misinterpreted the

movement—or, perhaps, he perceived it correctly before I

understood it myself. At any rate, when I opened my mouth

for air, what it encountered were his lips, a soft warm press

with an edge of dampness. I stumbled, hand darting up to

clutch at his bicep. He chuckled, soft vibration of it against

my lips. The next thing I registered were his arms, the warm

strength of them supporting me as I clung to him, drawing

breath from his mouth. “Oro,” I breathed, question and

prayer and thanks. “Oro, maybe….”

I think he knew before I did that I had absolutely no

idea what I was going to say. Oro isn"t the type to bulldoze

another person"s opinions, if they want to exorcise them. But

Oro
knew
that I was only stalling for time, fumbling my way

around this strange new thing with words I hadn"t even

found before they were tripping out of my mouth. My hands

on his arms were altogether more reliable a guide to what my

body wanted as it angled itself toward his, my breath on his

mouth quickening as his hands palmed the muscles of my

back. The next word, whatever it was, was swallowed in his

mouth, one of his hands sweeping up my spine to tangle in

my hair as he licked across the curve of my lower lip.

It occurred to me, as the tip of his tongue sought

entrance, stroking over the seam of my mouth, that I had

never envisioned this, in all my surreptitious thoughts of

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Louise Blaydon

38

Oro. I had thought of his arms, the strength of them holding

me steady; of myself on my knees, his cock smearing stickily

over my lips. But I had never paused to wonder if he might

kiss like this, his tongue stroking over mine, learning the

insides of my teeth and the ridges of my soft palate. Perhaps

it had seemed too intimate, too presumptuous, even, for a

fantasy of an untouchable co-worker, a man I was already

desperate to call my friend. Kissing was somehow more than

fucking, more than me
working hard for Oro.
Kissing wasn"t

wanting sex, but wanting
me.

Oro was kissing me now, fervent and deep, licking fully

to the back of my mouth as his jaw worked mine loose and

open for him. Oro was kissing me like he wanted this as

much as I did. I brought up my hands; raked them through

his thick dark hair, curling damply where his sweat had

caught it at his hairline. Oro made a desperate sound in the

back of his throat, and thrust me back blindly against the

wall.

The unexpected collision was harsh on my back, and

jarring; our teeth clicked together for a moment before he

found his pace again, and went on kissing me. Part of me

wanted just to submit to it; to arch into the gentle touches

his fingers were now trailing down over my arms and sides;

to dig my fingernails into his back and pull him flush against

me. But the rest of me had suddenly registered exactly where

we were and what we were doing: consuming each other,

half-crazed and half-naked, in a barn where a cow had just

completed a difficult birth. Someone must have sent Oro up

here to help with the calving; what if he came back to make

sure everything had gone smoothly? Even without that, it

was a little weird to be doing this in front of a cow and, well,

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Louise Blaydon

39

a cow and a half. I had no doubt that the cow would

probably not mind in the slightest, but I did. I gripped Oro

firmly by the shoulders, and steered him away, detaching my

mouth from his reluctantly, catching it again; licking

apologetically at the corner of it and then withdrawing, my

hands in his hair holding him at arm"s length.

“Oro,” I breathed, fighting a sudden urge to laugh, “I

don"t think—the cow—”

“I don"t think she cares,” Oro pointed out, mouth

turning upwards. It was the expression of his that had

charmed me so much in the first place, and seeing it now

almost undid me, my resolve weakening under the urge to

lick the amusement right off his face. But the cow, blessedly,

chose that moment to moo sonorously in our direction, and I

raised an eyebrow pointedly in Oro"s direction.

“
I
care,” I said. “Can we just—maybe in there?”

I gestured, vaguely and one-handed, in the direction of

the little room adjoining the barn, where the sink was

plumbed. Oro realized then, I think, that I had no intention

at all of
stopping
him, of detaching myself from the onslaught

of his kisses for good. After that, the idea of moving didn"t

seem to bother him. He shrugged, and smiled, and leaned in

to kiss me again. “There"s not much room,” he murmured

against my mouth, “but if you insist.”

He was tugging at my arms, half-lifting me away from

the wall. I let myself melt into him, let him guide me; his

arms encircled my waist, holding me steady. He knew this

barn like the back of his hand, I knew; knew every divot in

the flagstones, every obstacle in our path. I trusted him, and

I let him haul me across the room. The next thing I knew

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Louise Blaydon

40

was the slam of the door behind us, and coolness at my back

as he pressed me unceremoniously up against it, his mouth

seeking out my pulse-point, laving the fine skin below my

ear. I squirmed at that, one hand coming up to clutch at his

hair. “You like—
fuck—
you like taking charge, don"t you?” I

accused him, breathless and amused.

“You like it when I do it,” he murmured, his smile

tangible against my skin. His mouth drifted, down to the

hollow of my throat, and lower, to trace the jut of my clavicle.

His hand was drifting, too, tracing circles down over my

chest and stomach and then shifting to press between my

legs, palming the evidence of just how much I liked it. I

surged up, hips bucking involuntarily against his hand, back

arching away from the wall.

“Christ—Oro—”

I could feel him humming his pleasure at my reaction,

the soft sound setting my skin trembling. His fingers traced

the outline of my cock through my jeans, drawing a teasing

trail of diffuse pressure from root to tip. When he reached

the crown, he waited a moment, and then pressed
,
the tips of

two fingers finding me and pushing directly through denim

already faintly damp with pre-come. I cried out again,

despite a half-hearted resolution not to. I"ve never quite

mastered the art of discretion during sex.

“Oro,” I gasped, lips stumbling over the word even as my

fingers skittered over his shoulders. “Oro—God,
please—”

“Please?” he prompted, sealing his mouth in the hollow

of my throat. His fingers resumed their stroking as he

sucked, drawing the blood firm and fierce to the surface of

my skin. The suddenness of it was startling, almost painful,

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Louise Blaydon

41

but what pain there was found an echo of electricity in my

cock, so that I tipped back my head and moaned. Oro laved

at the sore spot on my throat; kissed it with near-reverent

gentleness. “Please what, Alex?” He nipped at my clavicle;

licked at the bone under the skin. “Tell me what you need.”

I panted helplessly, a hard rush of air that brought with

it a mewling, involuntary whimper. “Anything,” I managed,

as my hands stroked over his shoulders, palming the

muscle, feeling it glide sweat-slick under my hands. “Fuck,

Oro, God, Oro.” And my fingers were pushing, constant and

unconscious and clear. Oro smiled, and let himself be

pushed, falling to his knees on the floor and stroking his

hands up the insides of my thighs through my jeans.

I hadn"t
meant
to be so ungentlemanly about it,

honestly. The gripping and tugging and pushing of my hands

had been barely more than a reflex, somewhere beyond my

conscious control. But now that he was down there, grinning

up at me as he worked open the button of my jeans, I

wanted nothing so much as to submerge myself in him; to

thrust into his mouth and spend myself in his throat and

then, lax with release, have him fuck me to a second coming.

As far as I could gather, Oro seemed in full agreement with

this plan. He tugged down my zipper; spread wide the flaps

of my jeans, and smoothed the denim gently, teasingly flat

over my hipbones. Unconstrained, now, by the unforgiving

fabric, my cock swelled toward him through the thin cotton

of my boxers, already mostly translucent where my slick had

soaked through. Oro leaned forward, mouthing at the shape

of it through my underwear, and I could not hold back the

shout that rose up in my throat, my hands fumbling and

clutching at the back of his hair. “
Fuck
,” I rasped, as he

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Louise Blaydon

42

nuzzled me, wet-kissing through the fabric, “Oh, fuck,

please, come
on
.”

Oro"s breath was stuttering, now, too, and when he let

out a moan against my shaft, I felt it resonate right to the

base of my spine. “I want to fuck you,” he said, in a voice

gone smoky with want, rough in a way I could almost taste.

His fingers slipped deftly under the waistband of my jeans

and underwear together, tugging them down over my hips,

freeing my cock entirely. It separated stickily from my

underwear, clear fluid pooled at the tip of it, smearing