The Cowboy and the Hacker (Farthingdale Valley #5)

27. Zeke

Chapter 27

Zeke

R ight now, in the wake of Cal’s absence, Zeke needed to be active, so he went to his tent, shoulders hunched against the rain, gathered his laundry from the trip, and dragged it back to the small hut behind the mess tent. There, he threw everything, darks and lights, into the wash, and while the machine went through its cycles, he went back to his tent, and took out the rifle that he’d stored beneath his cot.

On their trip to rescue the mustangs, the rifle had gotten used, exposed to the weather, bounced about. He took out the small pouch of cleaning cloths and tools, and set the rifle to rights, soothing himself with the task, focusing on the small details until his heart calmed down and he could think straight. At least straighter than before.

He’d never cared that Galen was gay, or other men were, or women, or who anybody loved. Love was love, he knew that. But how did the idea of it apply to him? Did it change him if he admitted how he felt about Cal?

He had no idea.

At dinner, he sat with Galen and Bede, because the two of them were wrapped up in each other, laughing over some private joke such that they barely noticed Zeke didn’t say a single word.

Across the mess tent, he saw Cal sitting with Gordy, and if the two of them talked more than five words to each other, Zeke wouldn’t have believed it. Cal still looked white faced and bruised around the eyes as if dark internal thoughts were pulling him to bad places.

Zeke longed to go to him, but Cal had asked for distance, so Zeke would give it to him.

Cal deserved better than Preston. That was one thing Zeke knew for sure.

His whole body shivered with the memory of how he could have given Preston a good beating to begin with. It was the wiser choice to just send him on his way, but the foreign feeling of violence, the desire to harm, tightened the back of his neck. That wasn’t like him, not at all.

Zeke cleared his place, his dinner half eaten, and left the mess tent because it was going to be movie night, on account of the steady rain. Zeke had no energy for conversation, no desire for hot buttered popcorn. No wish to watch Cal from afar, and stay hands off.

In the morning, it would feel more normal, he was sure of it. So he headed back to his tent, grabbed his things, took a long shower, and lay in his cot for a while, pretending he was reading, pretending that he planned to take the rifle back to its secure locker in the supply hut behind the mess tent.

He didn’t do any of these things, merely lay on his cot and listened to the rain and wished with all of his heart that he and Cal were up in Aungaupi Valley, snug in the single tent, while the rain came down and they listened to the river roar. Listened to the sound of each other’s heartbeats.

He finally crawled into bed and clicked off the light. The last few days had brought him an amazing adventure, the kindest touch, and now heartbreak. Or maybe he could man up, and pull Galen aside, and ask him what the hell was going on with him so he could figure out what he needed to do.

He fell asleep to the sound of the rain, the constant patter patter sound so rhythmic and natural that he thought the burst of light that awakened him was lightning. But it wasn’t. It was the light from a flashlight, draped in a bandana, being held by someone sitting on the floor of his tent, curled up to the size of a slender dark shadow.

“Cal?” asked Zeke, his voice thick with sleep and some confusion. “What are you doing on the floor?”

For a moment, there was only the sound of the rain. Then Cal took a breath and said, “I wanted to be near you, but I didn’t want to wake you.”

Zeke’s heart thudded in his chest, a bright spark of gladness that Cal was wiser than he was. Whatever happened, they would work it out.

He lifted the sheet and blanket from his body, and shivered at the cool air from the rain.

“Come on in. You don’t need to sit there all night.”

In a heartbeat, Cal was shucking his boots and blue jeans, damp button-down shirt, and had slithered into the bed, into Zeke’s arms. There he nestled, the top of his head brushing the bottom of Zeke’s jaw.

Zeke’s whole body sighed with pleasure at the rightness of this moment, except for the fact that Cal was trembling.

“You okay, Cal?” he asked, stroking Cal’s back in long, slow pets.

Cal made a sound in his throat.

“You aren’t, are you,” said Zeke. He could feel the slight movement of Cal’s head, short hair tickling his skin, the movement he couldn’t define. It might have been yes or it might have been no. Zeke needed to make sure.

“I don’t like your friend,” he said.

“I don’t like him either,” said Cal, almost whispering, clutching at Zeke’s t-shirt. Letting go, clutching again. “I came because I was shook, the way he always makes me feel shook. Ever since we got back, I wanted to go back. Back to the valley. With you.”

“I feel the same, Cal.” Zeke could not add to that, could not speak past the burst of pleased discovery at Cal’s words. He cupped the back of Cal’s neck and kissed his temple, and sighed as he kissed him again. “I’d go back in a heartbeat, if I could. Take you with me.”

He smiled as he dipped his chin. “In a heartbeat.”

Cal curled tighter in his arms. “This here, with you, is the closest I could get to that.”

“I reckon between us we’ll figure it out.”

“I reckon we will,” said Cal, and Zeke heard the smile in his voice.

Cal turned off the flashlight and, except for the rain, the night grew dark and still around them, comforting, peaceful. It felt easier now.

He and Cal could talk this through and between them, figure out how they wanted it to go. He was still unsure, but he had Cal in his arms, and that made everything better. Surely that was a good sign?

“Last year,” said Zeke, smiling as he felt Cal lift his chin to listen. “Galen asked me out. I didn’t know what to make of it. I said no and thank you, and ever since then—” He broke off and stared through the darkness of the tent, as if he could get his answers there. “Ever since then I wondered, why did he think I was gay? Am I? I don’t feel gay.”

Cal laughed, and kissed Zeke’s neck, and snuggled even closer.

“I’m no expert,” Cal said. “But there are all kinds of ways to be gay. Just like, you know, there are all kinds of ways to be straight.”

“What about Preston?” Zeke stopped. He’d not known he was going to bring up the subject of Cal’s old boyfriend, but there he had, bold, like he had a right to know. “I don’t mean to pry. You don’t have to answer that.”

“He’s kind of a jerk,” said Cal.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realize that at first. I broke it off a few times, but it never stuck. Finally, when I got arrested, I thought that was it, you know? Only it wasn’t.”

“Is he going to keep coming around?” A part of Zeke secretly hoped that he would, so Zeke could teach him a lesson, which wasn’t like him at all .

“I hope not,” said Cal. He ducked his head and kissed Zeke’s neck, and beneath that kiss, Zeke’s skin shivered and twitched with pleasure. “But I don’t know how to stop him. He’s pretty set on me going back home with him.”

“Restraining order,” said Zeke.

“Tissue paper to him,” said Cal.

Zeke sighed and wrapped his arms more firmly around Cal’s middle. Here was the cuddle he needed, and hopefully Cal didn’t mind. Zeke didn’t think he did.

He fell asleep with the soft feel of Cal’s hair on his neck, beneath his jaw. And when he woke up, Cal was still in his arms.

The rain had stopped, and he could hear birdsong through the tent flap, sense the warmth of the sun on canvas. He also sensed Cal stirring in his arms, coming awake.

But instead of Cal sliding out of bed, getting dressed, and heading to breakfast, urging Zeke to join him, he slid his hands from Zeke’s waist to between his legs.

Slender fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his briefs, and for a breathless moment, Cal paused.

Zeke realized Cal was asking permission whether to continue or stop. The sensations in his body felt new and everything felt sweet and his breath picked up and his head tipped back and his soul said Please, please, please .

Cal did. His fingers were slow, tight and slow, soft then stern, and quite magical. Before any of this, before Cal, when he’d had sex, he’d taken off his clothes and gotten down to business. It had been nothing like this, bold and a little shy, sweet all the way around, the way Cal touched him and stroked him and whispered kisses against his mouth.

It was worshipful and playful at the same time. Zeke absorbed every second of it, from the tickle of Cal’s fingers across the head of his cock, to the tease across his balls, that tightened hard against his body, centering him to a single spot inside of him, which, when he came, expanded to surround him in a warm, loving blackness.

When the blackness cleared, there was Cal, looking at him, and his sleep-glazed eyes had a mischievous glint in them.

“That’s a way to wake up,” said Zeke, his voice rough. “The best way I’ve ever known.”

“Glad to hear it.” Cal leaned on his elbow and swirled his fingers in the sparse hair on Zeke’s chest. “If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

“I am.” Zeke rolled to face Cal, adjusting the waistband of his briefs, tugging the sheet up, out of reflex, it seemed, an instinct to keep Cal warm against the slight chill of the morning breeze coming in through the partly opened tent flap. Moths flew to the top of the zipper.

“Sorry about that,” said Cal. “I was trying to be quiet and the zipper just sounded so loud.”

“Any time, Cal,” said Zeke, his throat tight at the power of those words. “You wake me any time.”

“You want to try?” asked Cal, with a quick little tug on those chest hairs, sending shivers up and down his body.

For a moment, Zeke paused, his mind catching up with what Cal was asking about. Then Cal took Zeke’s hand and placed it on his groin.

Yes, reciprocity in bed was important, but this felt a little different than it usually did. Still. This wasn’t just any man, it was Cal.

“What would you like?” asked Zeke, pushing his hand against the stiff warmth of Cal’s cock, which pulsed in eagerness beneath the thin cotton of Cal’s briefs.

“Whatever you like,” said Cal with a laugh. Then he explained. “That’s from a movie. Eddie Murphy, I think.”

“I like—” Zeke stopped, then curled his fingers around Cal’s cock, stretching the cotton, feeling the warmth. Inhaling Cal’s scent. “Guess I never thought about it, out loud like this.”

Cal ducked his chin, looking up at Zeke through his lashes.

He was impossible to resist, and Zeke didn’t want to. Cal smelled good, and he felt good under Zeke’s hands, and Zeke found himself ducking down, leaving a quick kiss next to Cal’s belly button.

“Can I do this?”

“Why, yes you can,” said Cal with a small laugh. “I’m never going to say no to that.”

Zeke felt like miles of a fool, fumbling with that strip of elastic, wondering where his hands should go, and how he should start.

Just start, that was always the best way. So Zeke did, nuzzling low, inhaling Cal’s scent, laughing at himself for being brave and scared at the same time.

Being careful of the sore places on Cal’s body, he left kisses as he went, curling his fingers into the hair below Cal’s belly button, kissing him all the way down.

It felt rather like the point of no return—like a turn-back-now-or-never moment—but when Cal shifted beneath him, Zeke heard a low sigh. Perhaps made in anticipation, Cal’s body settling into the pleasure to come.

Zeke knew he never wanted to go back from this, so he ducked down and licked the head of Cal’s cock, heart hammering as he got the first taste of a man’s body, of Cal’s body.

It was good, all very good, so he went all in, giving the length of Cal’s cock a long lick. And yes, his hand shook as he stroked long and slow, but then he steadied into it, especially after Cal sighed again, deep and slow, as if the ripples of pleasure he was feeling were simply too much to resist.

“Yes?” asked Zeke, even as he moistened his mouth, prepared to fully go down on Cal.

“Always good,” said Cal, husky and low. “Always.”

The first blow job went a little fast, since Zeke couldn’t pick up the rhythm of Cal’s body, and Cal’s cock kept slipping out of his mouth at the wrongest orgasm-killing moments. But it was fun, like stumbling through a dream that wasn’t scary, but was very new.

And it was fine because they both laughed after Cal had come, and now Zeke was faced with a mouthful of salty fluid he didn’t quite know what to do with.

“ Just —” Cal howled with laughter as he waved both his hands as if shooing away a bad idea. “Just spit it into the sheets. Not everybody swallows, that’s a myth, oh my God ?—”

The rest of what he meant to say dissolved into more laughter. Zeke spit into the sheets, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat up, smiling at the lovely sprawl Cal made, his body relaxed, as if the stress of being in prison, and dealing with Preston was starting to dissolve.

“I’ll get better at that,” said Zeke, tugging at his lower lip.

“You will and I will,” said Cal, stoutly. “Practice is part of the fun, after all.”

Zeke leaned back, a smile so big it felt almost foreign to him, and shook his head. “I didn’t know it could be like this between men.”

“The beauty of it, sweet Zeke,” said Cal as he planted a kiss on Zeke’s hipbone beneath the cotton. “It can be however we want it to be.”

That statement implied a future of possibilities, unknown and untested. He’d always been a prepare-in-advance kind of guy, from every bronc ride he’d ever gloved up for to ordinary tasks, even one as ordinary as grooming a horse. This was different, wide open and new, and a little disconcerting.

Into the silence, Cal looked up at Zeke, his eyes wide and worried, and said, “We don’t have to decide everything today.”

“No,” said Zeke, as he caressed Cal’s face.

“But we should talk.”

“I’d like to,” said Cal. “But not right now.”

Zeke leaned forward to kiss him. The kiss unbalanced him so that he had to catch himself on both hands, fingers buried in the mattress of the cot, lest he crush Cal.

Now he could kiss Cal even better, only there were sounds of men walking past and if they didn’t hustle, they’d miss breakfast. Moreover, someone might come looking for them both.

Who they became to each other was Cal’s business and his business, and nobody else’s business. When they were ready, they could go about making their relationship public, or keep it private. It was up to them, but Zeke didn’t want to get caught off guard.

It wasn’t that he was ashamed, just that he was a tad uncertain how it would go. Or maybe it would be a lot like when he’d started dating Betty Lou, where people were mostly concerned about their own lives.

And maybe he and Cal should give each other courage, and exchange bear scares for good luck.