Unsure what to do with himself, Caleb went over to his little house intent on cleaning things up. He lost himself when he entered the bedroom. The smell of McBride and sex was a potent combination that hardened him almost instantly. He looked down at his cock and sighed. Eventually, the excitement would wear off and he’d be able to go an hour or two without thinking about McBride.
Rather than make his bed, he climbed into it and lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling. Did McBride really trust him? Caleb felt that he did, but trust was such a fragile thing. They’d teased and taunted one another for so long that there was a raw edge to their relationship that only time would heal. But even then, much like McBride’s ear, there was always going to be a ragged scar.
“Will we get past it?” Frankly, Caleb thought they had to. They were completely bonded now, so there was no turning back. Not that Caleb wanted to. He was happy with his mate. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He was ecstatic with his mate. McBride was more than he’d thought when he’d been fantasizing about him. His daydreams didn’t remotely come close to the reality of feeling his powerful, hairy body against his own. Part of the attraction was that they were so physically similar, but another part was that they were able to surprise one another. Like McBride surrendering his virginity to Caleb. Not in a million years had he thought that was possible. He always imagined McBride claiming him, not the other way around.
“I’ve never been so happy to be so wrong.”
As he lay there, idly stroking his cock, loving his arousal but not needing to find release, he realized he was also trying to calm himself. Tonight the slammers would return. Caleb hoped that McBride really did trust him, because he had a gut feeling that their faith in one another was going to be sorely tested.
As forthcoming as Timon had been, he hadn’t been all that informative.
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything else.”
“You’ve been very helpful.” McBride reached out to pat Timon’s leg, but he flinched away. Given how the slammers kept him in a cage where everyone could paw at him but not fuck or drink from him, it wasn’t much wonder that he was completely terrified of anyone touching him. Even Ferris’s touch got a bit of a jolt, and Timon trusted him completely. With time, his anxiety would ease.
“All I really know is they want Caleb more than anything. He’s a key to whatever it is they’re trying to do.”
And that was the issue right there. McBride had no idea what that might be. He left Timon and Ferris in the parlor, making his way over to the shed. He was curious how Easton’s mechanical training was coming along. McBride heard the grunting and groaning long before he got to the door, so he didn’t enter. Given the sound, he thought it was probably Easton and his mate, Jared. Not that it mattered. The one and only thing he knew for certain was that it wasn’t Caleb in there.
With a dozen long-legged strides he found himself at Caleb’s door. He entered without knocking and kept right on going back to the bedroom.
“You slacker.”
Caleb lifted one lid. “Join me?”
McBride thought of all the million and one things they could be doing, but something prompted him to toss his list out the window. For some reason, he felt compelled to spend as much time as he could with Caleb. The compulsion was disturbing, because they had the rest of their lives together. He shook off his premonition of doom by dismissing it as worry over the slammers’ visit. Tonight they would return and Caleb would tell them he was interested only if he could stay out on the farm and they stayed in town. That way, they’d have the best of both worlds. But for some reason McBride didn’t think it was going to go that smoothly.
“You joining me or what?”
“I’m enjoying watching you.” McBride undressed while he kept on looking at Caleb gently tugging on his own cock.
“I think we’ve done enough of looking and not touching, don’t you?”
“No.”
Both eyes opened, pinning McBride with that dangerous sage-green gleam. “No?”
“I will never get enough of looking at you.” McBride slid his knee onto the mattress, leaned over, and kissed Caleb. He did this as softly as he could. They had gone after one another like hungry beasts, but now he wanted to show Caleb he had a softer side, too.
“Why does this feel like it might be our last time?”
McBride startled but didn’t pull away only by exercising his iron will. “You’re just nervous about tonight.” But the truth was, he’d felt that everything was slipping away faster than he could hang on. He wasn’t certain what caused the feeling, but it was there nonetheless.
“It’s not that. I know what I’m going to do.” Caleb relaxed a bit into the bed, allowing McBride to straddle his hips.
“Will you tell me something?”
“What?”
“Jonas.”
Caleb groaned. “Now?”
“I want to know.”
“I forgave him. I realized with Ollie it was mutual, and I let it go. Why can’t you?”
“Because that isn’t what infuriated you. Your brothers say that you hated him from the moment you went to his house.”
“When we were sold, I wasn’t allowed to take my things with me from prison.”
“That’s standard.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier!”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“It was bad enough I lost everything, but then Jonas wouldn’t let me…” Caleb winced his eyes closed. “I don’t want you to think I’m soft.”
“Soft as in wimpy?”
“Yeah. No. Something like that.”
McBride remembered watching Caleb from his bedroom window. Caleb would sit at his tiny kitchen table doing something that McBride had never been able to figure out. He was dying to know. If it was even half as good as discovering the truth to the flickering light, he wouldn’t be disappointed.
“You really want to know?”
“If you trust me.”
Caleb’s look softened. “I do. I’m just…I’ve never shared it with anyone.”
“Maybe it’s time.”
“Trust.”
McBride nodded.
“Okay. Let me up.”
McBride climbed off Caleb.
Caleb got up and went over to the closet. He opened the door and then reached up to the shelf above his clothing. He pulled down a large pad of bound paper. Turning to face McBride, he handed it over.
Carefully, McBride opened the cover and what he found made him gasp. As he flipped through the pages, he found a series of detailed drawings of the farm. Caleb drew the buildings, plants, and people.
“You might not want to look in the back.” Caleb met McBride’s gaze briefly then looked away. “But then again, maybe it’s best we get this over with now.”
“Caleb, these are amazing.”
“Thank you.” But he didn’t seem thrilled with the praise.
“I really don’t understand your attitude.”
Caleb took the book from him, flipped to the pages in the back, then handed him the book.
McBride’s mouth dropped open. What shocked him wasn’t the stunning nature of the drawing itself, which was just as detailed as all the others, but it was an image of McBride. Again, that wasn’t all that surprising since McBride was a part of the farm just like everything else in Caleb’s book. What was shocking was what the picture depicted.
“Is this how you see me?”
Caleb had drawn himself bound in the stocks with McBride standing behind him. It was clear from the look on McBride’s face he was violently fucking Caleb, whose head was up and back, howling in pain. It was a brief moment in time that was rendered so perfectly it was as if it had actually happened.
“That’s what kind of a man I am.” Caleb sighed as he looked away.
“This shows me as the monster, not you.” McBride found himself unable to look away. Worse, he was so aroused he had to lift the book off his lap or he would have creamed all over the back.
“It shows me wanting you to abuse me.” Caleb’s voice was so quiet he was almost inaudible.
“Is that what it is?” McBride considered. “Maybe we’re just playing a game.”
“Yeah, well, when Jonas found the sketches I did of him, he wasn’t so willing to see them as anything other than terrifying.”
“You mean you drew this same thing but with Jonas violating you?”
Caleb made a face. “Fuck! Like I’d let that dainty little waste of space anywhere near my ass. If I wouldn’t let him bite me, I certainly wouldn’t let him fuck me.”
And then McBride got it. “It was a drawing of you fucking him.”
“Yeah.” Caleb dropped down on the bed next to McBride. “He took all my artwork away. I wasn’t allowed to have paper.”
“Why do I have a feeling that didn’t stop you?”
“Because I just used other things and drew on his walls.”
“Ah.”
“Eventually, he gave me back my supplies, but all of my greatest work was left in the prison, and I never forgave him for it. Even now, I get angry when I think about having to walk away from a lifetime of drawings.”
“I wish I could get them for you.” If he could, he would, but it was certainly long gone by now. It had been three years since the Morgan brothers were bought by McBride’s father and given to Jonas.
“You’re not mad?”
McBride considered the drawing again. Caleb’s attention to detail was staggering. Every line on McBride’s face was faithfully rendered, even the little lump behind his right earlobe where the communication device used to be was there. It was a testament to Caleb’s artistic ability, but also his seemingly endless depravity.
“McBride?”
“I love it.”
“You do?”
McBride nodded as he flipped through the other pictures in the back of the book. More wickedness teased his senses. “It’s all fantasy.”
“Well, yeah, but a lot shows you as a bad guy, I guess.”
“Oh. My.” McBride’s eyes went wide, and he hastily moved away from an image of himself contemplating all the bound Morgan brothers. Even a brief peek showed him that he was hard as hell and probably going to fuck every single man’s ass before he was satisfied. Again, almost against his will, McBride found the image arousing. He would never act it out, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the fantasy of having seven hot, hung, and hairy brothers laid out for his erotic needs.
“Yeah. That’s not the worst one.” Caleb flipped over a few pages.
McBride’s alter ego was back, but this time, he had more exposed holes to choose from. “Did I enslave the entire town?”
“Yeah.”
McBride laughed as he traced his finger over Caleb’s ass in the drawing.
“How did you know that was me?”
“I’d know your butt anywhere.”
“So you’re really not mad?”
“I’m really not.” McBride handed him the book, which he set aside. McBride looked down at this lap. “Clearly, I’m not upset about a thing.”
Caleb’s grin turned downright lascivious. “You pervert.”
“I am.” McBride got out of bed and knelt down so that his upper body was on the bed while his knees dug into the carpet.
“What are you doing?”
“Let’s pretend that I’m bound up in the stocks.” McBride put his hands out at roughly where the device would hold them.
“But I didn’t show you—damn.”
“I knew you had to have one in there.” McBride grinned. The fact that Caleb shared something so intimate and personal with him made him want to reciprocate as best he could.
“No wonder you’re a lawman. You’re very good at figuring men out.”
“I am.” McBride recalled something. “Not too long ago I saw you at the table, but you were writing something.”
“Oh. That. Yeah.”
“What was it?”
“A good-bye letter. I burned it before I left. I thought it was way too revealing, but I ended up telling you everything that was in there anyway.”
“Ah.” McBride understood. “Now, are you going to fuck me or what?”
“Oh, I’m going to fuck you, Sheriff. And I’m going to fuck you slow.”
McBride made a series of faux struggles. “No matter what you do to me, I can’t get away.”
Caleb’s grunt of pleasure told him that he more than liked that idea.
McBride closed his eyes and pictured himself bound in the stocks. As curious as the notion was, he felt unrestrained by being bound, even symbolically. Everything was up to Caleb. Not being in charge was oddly freeing.
Unable to see him, McBride still knew that Caleb had knelt down behind him because he felt his breath against his back and then his hands parted his buttocks. After a teasing breath, his mouth was there, buried between his cheeks, his tongue plunging into his ass. The raw sexuality of his movements combined with the animalistic sounds brought McBride screaming right up to the edge of release. Just when he thought he was going to go over, Caleb moved away.
Bound as he was by his own willingness, McBride stayed right where he was, waiting and wondering what Caleb would do next. After a moment he was back, and now his oil-slick fingers were pumping hard and fast into McBride’s hole. It was rough and hot, making him squirm. His cock was trapped between his body and the bed, allowing him to rock his hips until Caleb caught on and pulled his cock so it was on the edge of the mattress. McBride could still pump, but with far less satisfaction.