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Tor snorted. "Lonely and bored isn't a good combination for you, is it?"

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"Nope. Look, the bank says we got a pile more money than we do. I'm gonna have to go in tomor-

row and get this sorted out, find out--"

"Whoa, hold up. More money?"

Jake nodded. "Almost twenty-five hundred dollars, Tor. This is fucked."

"Hang on, let me think a minute. You got the books there?" He could hear Tor moving, could picture him pacing in whatever tiny motel room he and Elias had, walking back and forth between the

beds and the bathroom.

"Got the statement from the bank, all the receipts for the last six weeks, the check register…" He moved a few things around and added, "And the payables."

"Get the ledger, Jake," Tor said evenly. "And goddamnit, we're switching the books to the fucking computer. Time you stopped being so stubborn about this."

It was the latest argument, but one Jake wasn't nearly so wound up about as Tor. He didn't care if

they got the books on the computer or not, but it would definitely mean they'd need a new com-

puter and they couldn't really afford that until the end of the year. Unless the bank really was giving them a bunch of cash, anyway. The only thing Jake was standing firm on was that they weren't going to buy a computer on credit.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, crossing to the filing cabinet and getting the heavy ledger. Instead of putting everything on the desk away to make space he carried it to the coffee table and turned on

another lamp. "Tell me you sold some fucking cows today. I need some good news."

"Some. Elias is out closing on another deal, think it'll pan out. Got the books?"

"Yep." Jake flipped the book open and started turning pages, looking for the current spreadsheet.

"Oh, hang on, left the statement on the desk." He got up and almost grinned when Tor sighed in his ear. "Okay. What am I looking for? Aside from a huge-ass deposit?"

"You're not looking for a deposit."

Jake blinked. "We got income I don't know about? Little something on the side?"

"Shut up and listen to me." Tor didn't sound amused anymore, just tired, and Jake got the feeling he was missing something a bit bigger than a decimal point. "We went over the books two weeks ago,

yeah? Payday? You wrote out the checks for the guys hired on for hay."

Jake nodded. He knew that, and he knew the books had been spot on then. There certainly hadn't

been extra money. He scanned the columns for the last couple of weeks and nodded again. "Yeah,

everything looks right. But those numbers aren't on the statement, it's backdated. So even if the

numbers are right in the ledger, they could still be--"

"Jake, turn the fucking page." The tired was getting growly, but a touch of humor was threading through it again and the knot in Jake's gut loosened a little.

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Jake turned the page and closed his eyes. "What the fuck is that?" he said, proud of how even his voice was. He wasn't going to string Tor up by his balls, because the paperwork of suddenly being

sole owner of the ranch was too much trouble and he'd have to do all the cooking. But he suddenly

wished Tor was right there so he could slap the jackass up the side of the head.

"Turn back a page and find… damn. Last column over, under 'sundries'. Same total, right? I carried it over, and the total at the very bottom, the actual real live balance, should be what's on the statement, adjusted for the last few weeks' activity."

"Hang on. Actually, call me back. No. Stay there, just… shut up." Jake dropped the phone and went to get the calculator and the register. It was surprisingly easy to ignore the tinny sound of Tor's

laughter.

It only took a minute to bring the numbers on the statement up to date and find that the ledger bal-

anced; whatever Tor had been tracking on the back of the current spreadsheet was withdrawals on

paper, but not out of the account itself. "Okay," he said, picking up the phone again. "What is this?

And why don't I know?" That part kind of pissed him off.

"On the register, see just about two hundred dollars at the start of every month marked as a debit?"

Tor asked patiently.

"Uh-huh."

"Marked 'DPS'?"

"Yes, Tornado. I can see it. What I want to know is what the fuck it
is
."

"Calm yourself. You know what it is, Taggart. Dance party savings." Tor said it with such calmness that Jake was sure he was holding all the smugness right there in his facial expression, safely a

few hundred miles away where Jake couldn't see him.

"Dance party savings," Jake said dumbly. Dance. Party. "Ah, fuck."

"Uh-huh. Remember the hell we went through paying it off last year? You said--"

"I said we couldn't just pay for something that big without budgeting for it," Jake groaned. His head fell back on the couch, his eyes closed. Not only did he say it, but he'd told Tor to leave the money

in the account and just take it off the register.

"You scared me," Tor said in his ear, his voice soft. "Thought something was really wrong."

"I thought something
was
wrong," Jake said, just as quietly. "I forgot, I guess. And then I panicked, and you weren't here and I kinda…"

"Got twisted."

"Yeah."

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There was a pause and Jake stayed there, his head back and his eyes closed. He was mostly re-

lieved, but embarrassment was creeping up fast. "I should go to bed," he said.

Tor snorted in his ear. "Running away from me, cowboy?"

"Just a little."

"Stop that."

Jake growled and got up, slamming the ledger closed with one hand and holding the phone with the

other. "I hate this. I hate that I can't keep track of everything, I hate that I forget, I hate that you're not here."

"I know," Tor said with a sigh. "But, Christ, Jake. Despite whatever I say in bed, you're not a god.

You
can't
manage all that on your own, and you don't have to. Doug never did, and you can't ex
-

pect yourself to. Partners, yeah?"

"I know," Jake mumbled, putting the ledger back on the shelf. "I do. But it's easier when you're here."

"Yeah. And maybe next time it'll work out better."

It wouldn’t, though, and Jake knew it. One of them had to go to auction, one had to stay and run the

place. It made sense and it was only a few days a couple of times a year. "Maybe," he said anyway.

At the desk he started to gather the receipts into a pile.

"You're still pissy."

"Yep." He was. He should probably start trying not to be, but he'd had a rough hour and before that he'd been working on a good sulk. He was in the groove.

"You know what I'd do if I was there."

"You're not."

"But you know what I'd do."

"Yell back?" That would be good; a nice little fight and then off to bed.

Tor laughed darkly in his ear. "Nope. I'd shut you up, distract you."

"Yeah, well. That's not gonna happen, is it?" Jake tossed the paperwork back in the drawer and glared at the check registers before throwing them in, too.

"It would if you'd shut up and just go with this."

Jake rolled his eyes. "You can't be serious."

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"Tell me you're not half-hard anyway. I know you, Taggart. You get riled, you get hard, and then

you get off and go to sleep. Wake up bright and cheery."

Jake frowned and glanced down at his jeans. "Shut up. I'm not doing this."

"Not yet, anyway. C'mon, the kid's in bed and Elias isn't here. I can make you feel better," he wheedled.

"I feel stupid when we do this," Jake said bluntly.

"Only until you get into it. Just… sit on the couch, okay? Don't even do anything, just listen to me."

Jake sighed to himself and turned out the lights. He always felt awkward when they had sex on the

phone, like he was trying for sexy and missing by a country mile. Tor never seemed to be embar-

rassed, though, willing to just talk and go on about things that Jake felt but couldn't ever find words for. "The things I do for you…"

Tor laughed softly. "I know. You hate jerking off."

Jake snorted and threw himself on the couch. "All right. Couch."

"Cool. I'm on the bed… well, I will be in a second."

Jake could hear the thumps as Tor's boots hit the floor, and the rattle of the phone as it was set

down so Tor could strip. Grinning to himself and shaking his head, he twisted on the couch and

stretched out his legs. He wasn't anywhere near getting naked yet.

"Still there?"

"Nope," Jake said. "I went to get a drink of water."

"Funny. You're not going to make this easy, are you?" There was more than a little hint of a pout in Tor's voice, and even though Jake knew it was most certainly fake, he relented.

"Do I ever make it easy?" he said with a smile. "If it helps, you're right. I got riled, I got sort of hard. Knowing you're naked isn't making that go away."

"Oh, good," Tor said dryly. "Now just shut up, I'm busy here."

"You are?" Jake teased. "With what?"

"Trying to figure out the fastest way to get you panting in my ear. I love when you do that, the way your breath catches. It's even better than hearing you stroke your cock. I can usually judge just how

far along you are by how fast your hand goes."

Jake blinked and licked his lower lip. "Oh. Uh."

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"Of course, watching is better," Tor went on, his voice dropping a note or two. "I mean, you know what you look like. And when you're jerking off, you get so damn focused. Your stomach gets

tight, your legs flex and you just… your eyes, Jake. Your gaze turns inward and everything is right

there, everything you want, and you take it, you make it. Your hand on yourself, that fucking ring

shining and flicking and then you just do whatever it is you need to get you there."

Jake had no idea what to say. This wasn't the usual 'think about me licking your balls' shit, this was

something else. He knew he was blushing. "Tor."

"What? It's true, nothing like watching you, Jake. Even when I'm fucking you, when I'm buried in

your ass, I watch. I watch your back, your body, every fucking muscle. When you're in me, all I

can do is feel, watch your face and listen to your voice. When you say my name it's like sparks,

when you get close to coming you make a noise that's like a rumble I swear I can hear in my gut."

Jake licked his lip again, completely unprepared to realize he'd undone his jeans and had one hand

down his pants, fondling his cock. "I like saying your name," he whispered. "Sometimes it’s the only thing I can say. Usually it's the only thing I can think."

There was a short pause and Tor took a deep, unsteady breath. "Damn. This is different. I thought I was going to tell you about slamming you up against the wall."

"Yeah." Jake slid his hand up his cock and hissed as his palm grazed the head. He toyed with the ring a second, looking down his body to it, the metal catching the tiny bit of light from the kitchen.

"It's working, though. I'm really fucking hard, here." He tugged the ring and hissed again.

Tor gave him a little laugh, thready and darker still. "What are you doing?"

"You can't tell?"

"If I have to guess, I'd say you're tugging on your ring and trying to figure out if you really do have to wiggle out of your jeans to get to your balls. And yes, you do. No room in there for your hand,

too."

Jake laughed and lifted his hips. "And you've got your hand around your dick, still loose, and moving faster than when you're serious about getting off." He shoved at his jeans and got them down

just enough to give himself some room. "Right?"

"Nope. Got tighter already. Kinda stuck on the image of you with your hand down your jeans. You

ever jerk off when you're out on your own?"

"What, when I'm supposed to be watching cows or fixing fences? Of course." He did, too, though not much lately. "I like leaning on the fence posts and taking a break. Sometimes just knowing all that land is ours gets me hard."

"Uh-huh," Tor agreed,
his
breath catching a bit. "Any time I come back from swimming in the river you can be pretty sure I've been having a good afternoon."

Jake groaned. He'd seen Tor swimming, long before they'd gotten together. He'd sat on River's back

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and watched Tor start to touch himself, laid out on top of a rock, water drops running off his skin

and shining in the sunlight. He'd spent months getting off to that image and it had just resumed its

place on his list of fantasy material. "That's… good to know," he said, his hand tight as he used a long stroke.

"Wish I was home," Tor said. "Want to see you."

Jake closed his eyes and with his free hand pushed his T-shirt up over his belly. One leg was braced

on the floor, the other on the couch, and when he dragged a fingernail over his nipple his hips

rolled, shoving his cock through his fist. "Just see?" he said, voice rough.

"No. Want to suck you. I want to hear you, feel your hands on my head when you let go."

Jake knew this part, knew that at this point it didn't matter if he'd felt silly ten minutes ago or not. It might still be ridiculous, but they were in the same place and they were after the same thing, and it

was right. There wasn't anything to hide, not from Tor.

"Tor, I'm gonna come soon," he said, more to hear the way Tor moaned than to really warn him. He was sure that Tor already knew. "Think we can do it together?" He had to stop for a second, give himself a hard squeeze just under the head of his cock to keep from going off early. He loved it

when they went at the same time.

"Give me… oh yeah. Hang on." Jake could hear Tor better then, the slick sound of his hand on his erection, the sound of skin shifting and meeting. Faster. He could hear Tor moan, in between