A Hard Ride Home (20 page)

Emmett waved him off and moved his body. Up and away from the sense of fullness, and then back down. By the third time he moved, it started to feel smoother, and Jesse's prick nudged his insides in a way that wasn't bad at all. It was so far from bad that he yelped out a startled sound and chuckled at himself.

"Emmett?" Jesse's voice wavered somewhere between very concerned and woozy with lust. The lamp beside the bed flickered and went out, and everything went shadowed and gray from the pale light from the window above them.

"'M fine. Full. God damn, Jesse. It's a lot."

"Move a little faster." Jesse pushed up on his elbows and drew Emmett's face down and kissed him once, hard. Then he took a hold of Emmett's hip. "Faster now, Sheriff. Ride me."

The way Jesse said it, his voice all smoke and syrup, Emmett couldn't help but do as he was told. His prick, which had retreated from its excited state for a while, gave a little jerk and grew heavier. Emmett sank his weight fully. "Jesse!"

"Move, Emmett. I swear to high heaven if you don't move I'm gonna blow. You feel so good. Move, move!"

Emmett did. It was still so much, more than he'd expected, but it didn't sting anymore, and the more he moved, the more Jesse's prick felt like it was rubbing him off from the inside, like it was doing something special he'd never imagined. He felt awkward, bobbing up and down, and couldn't manage a rhythm that made sense, but it wasn't half bad for his first try.

Jesse closed his eyes and held onto Emmett's hips and looked lost, his mouth open with low gasps. "Close, Emmett. Damn it. Close, love. Don't stop. Please."

When Jesse came, he cried out like somebody'd slapped him, and he curled forward and grabbed a hold of Emmett and shook. Emmett felt it inside, a hot spurt that warmed him all over, pride and hunger and satisfaction mingling like some fancy cocktail. Jesse seemed busy riding out the trembling finale of his release, so Emmett took it upon himself to grab onto his prick and finish things up. It didn't take much.

With Jesse still thick in him, the pleasure of release crashed through Emmett like a blow. It was almost more than he wanted to feel, which seemed appropriate. He made a mess of Jesse's belly and chest, but Jesse didn't make a fuss about it. He pulled Emmett right down and kissed him and kissed him.

"I want to do it again," Emmett said. He pressed his forehead to Jesse's and stroked everywhere he could touch, feeling the sweat-slick skin and fine heat of muscle.

"You'll have to find yourself another prick then. Mine's wrung out."

"Don't want another."

"I don't either," Jesse said like a vow. The solemnity of it wrapped right around Emmett's heart. He'd be frightened of how fiercely he wanted Jesse if Jesse weren't right there, holding onto him.

They kissed again, softer now. Emmett knew he needed to move, needed to find something to wash up with, but he'd never felt this close to Jesse. Warm and tucked together and safe, like nothing else in the world existed but Jesse's little room and the moonlight coming through the window.

"We should sleep. It's damn near morn," Emmett said.

"Are you staying?" Jesse asked, like he did every night.

Emmett kissed him. "Yes."

Benjamin had never been to a real town before. Not one with a certifiable dance hall where ladies sang on stage in their underthings and lacy bits. It was two weeks before his sixteenth birthday, and on account of nearly being a man, he intended to gaze upon the sweet parts of a real woman.

He managed to get halfway up a stack of pallets under a side window at the Weeping Willow Dance Hall and Inn when Sheriff Grady walked around the corner and stopped and gave him a knowing look.

"Old Elsie sees you, and she'll empty a chamber pot on your noggin," the sheriff said.

Shrinking and hot with embarrassment, Benjamin jumped back down to the ground and kept his gaze low. When the sheriff's long shadow fell over him, he clenched his fists, expecting a beating he rightly deserved for trying to spot knickers through a window.

"Back door's unlocked."

Benjamin looked up, squinting. It was true what they said. The sun followed Sheriff Grady around and blinded his enemies. "Sheriff?"

"I said the back door's unlocked." The sheriff nudged him with a gloved hand. "Go on now. Don't let Mr. Taggart catch you, you hear?"

"Yes sir, Sheriff," Benjamin said, nodding quickly. He'd only been in town for three days and he already knew better than to cross Jesse Taggart. He'd heard the man rode a stallion no one else on God's Earth would mind, and that he'd killed an outlaw cattle baron with his bare hands.

Benjamin set off at a run, scampering round the corner to the back of the Weeping Willow. He smacked right into something narrow and bony, landing in a dusty heap with it, and started to cuss a storm at it until he saw it was a girl.

"Shit," he said nervously, then, "I mean, Ma'am."

"It's Delia. You varmint." She picked herself up in a scuffle, kicking enough dirt at him that he knew she was doing it on purpose, and aiming at his face no less.

"Quit that," Benjamin said, not sure how to handle a girl acting like a boy he'd wallop. He stood too, dusting off his trousers and palms.

"You were trying to sneak in and see Miss Devaux's show," Delia said, putting her hands on her hips. She was scrawny, but built like a woman too, with a tiny waist and a long neck and big, pretty brown eyes.

"Sheriff said I could. The real sheriff." Benjamin paused, licking his teeth. "Didn't say no skinny girl'd be watch doggin'."

Delia snorted. "Sheriff told you that?"

"Well I just said he did. You're right contrary. Now let me by."

Music swelled abruptly, coming from a door on the balcony above them, where the entertainers and folks who lived above the dance hall had their own private staircase for coming in and out.

"C'mere," she hissed out, grabbing him by the wrist and tugging him into the shadows under the stairs.

"What—"

She hushed him by planting her skinny fingers over his mouth, and he went real still and thought about maggots and scabs so his prick wouldn't jump to attention over the way her skin felt soft and nice on his face.

They looked up through the slats on the stairs as a man walked out onto the balcony, his spurs clinking like little chimes. Another figure followed him, boots landing more softly against the planks.

Delia drew her hand away. "Shit," she whispered. "I thought it'd be Mr. Roscoe come out to have a cigar. His wife can't stand the smell lately."

"So?"

"So that's the sheriff, not Roscoe. Dimwit."

"Who's that with him?"

Delia's cheeks went pink like she'd been standing out in the sun. "Mr. Taggart."

"He's mad," Benjamin said, feeling wise, like one of the older boys hanging out in front of the General Store whistling at women and setting bottle rockets off. They seemed to know all there was to know about damn near everything, so Benjamin had been listening all he could.

"Says who?" Delia didn't sound too concerned.

"I—"

"You been hearin' the widow's tall tales?"

"No, I—"

"Shh!"

Benjamin looked up and his breath caught sharply as he got a solid look at Jesse Taggart. The man wasn't nice-looking and soft the way a girl was, but there was something pretty about him, something sweet around the mouth that made Benjamin feel hot and uncomfortable.

It got worse when Taggart smiled and wrapped long fingers around the back of the sheriff's freckled neck and pulled him close, like he had a secret to tell. Instead of telling secrets he kissed him right on the mouth.

And the sheriff kissed him right back, grabbing onto him and hitching their hips together.

Benjamin looked at Delia, expecting her to be scandalized, swooning even, but she just grinned, watching them closely.

"I heard you were back in town," Taggart said, leaning on the balcony rail when they were done kissing like they were fit to eat each other's tongues for supper. His mouth looked wet and red from it, and he wiped his lips with his fingers, smiling all the while.

"I had to stop by the ranch first with papers for Ira. Government's finally ready to make him mayor. Youngest in the state, evidently," the sheriff said, sounding unimpressed.

"Likely the most persistent, too."

The sheriff laughed, tossing his head back so hard Benjamin wondered how his hat didn't fall off. "I'm certain he wrote so many letters they were forced to award him the position to save the trouble of reading."

"We've had some of Sara's new hands in here. They look like they've been at war." Taggart grinned.

"Better them than me. How's Jo?"

"Fine. Insists on dancing until she shows."

"I'd rather pull a badger out of a hole than convince her otherwise."

"That's about what Roscoe said. So she's on, for now. Rose hatched a new act for them. Something about mermaid twins," Taggart said, smiling.

"And you?"

There was a pause, as they stood close, the sheriff reaching out to fool with Taggart's belt buckle, tracing the shape of it and then the line up the middle of his shirt. "Are you free tonight?" he asked, his voice hoarse like he'd swallowed water too fast.

"I'm afraid the inn is booked, Sheriff. I don't have a single bed free. Silver Creek's a busy town, you know."

The sheriff chuckled and removed his hat before he closed the distance between them, tucking his mouth at Taggart's throat. His hair stuck out in loose curls, as shockingly orange as fire.

"Are they gonna shoot us if they see us?" Benjamin asked under his breath, his hands trembling. He felt awful strange.

"Probably," Delia said with a shrug.

Taggart kept talking, strained-like. "Next time, send a telegram ahead, and we'll put your reservation on the books."

The sheriff growled. "Shut up, Jesse."

"Can't wait until tonight. Emmett. Missed you." Taggart pushed his hands into the sheriff's hair, brushing at it and making quiet sounds like he was starving.

"Mmn," the sheriff answered, working his mouth all over Taggart's neck and back to his lips. "Now?"

The music from inside got loud again when the sheriff took Taggart's hand and pulled him back into the inn above the dance hall. When they were gone, it was like Benjamin had imagined it all. Surely he had.

"You tell, and I'll punch your lights out," Delia said, taking Benjamin by the hand and showing him where to sneak into the loud, crowded dance hall through the kitchen door.

Emory Vargas loves writing about first times and amorous cephalopods, though not always at the same time. Emory lives with two scruffy rescue terriers who dutifully alert everyone within a seven mile radius whenever there’s a thunderstorm.