After the Sunset Read online

  “What would you have Rand do about that, Sheriff?”

  “You’re a smart boy. You understand what I’m saying to you.”

  I squinted at him. “Papers have been signed, Sheriff. Mitchell Powell has come and gone with deeds and rights and more lawyers than Rand said he ever saw in his life. The people who sold their property to Rand did so under no duress. We both know that the Silver Spring and the Twin Forks have been dead for years, and the Bowman place… well, all Carrie wanted to do was sell and move to Oregon to be close to her son. Running a successful ranch in this day and age is hard work, and for some it’s easier to simply get paid and get out. Rand found use for land that was going to waste, and because of that, his own ranch can be that much bigger and that much more lucrative and even more capable of supporting the men and their families, who live and work on it. Now I understand that you’re concerned about Winston, but Rand had to do what was best for the Red Diamond, and in the process, he ended up doing right by the town.”

  “The mayor doesn’t see it that way.”

  “I suspect Rand won’t give a damn.”

  He scowled at me. “I suspect you’d be right.”

  I smiled back.

  He visibly deflated.

  “It’s not your fault, you know. I know that you weren’t one of those who wanted Rand off the board.”

  His eyes searched mine.

  “I know your only reservations with Rand stem from the fact that sometimes he can be kind of an ass.”

  “Sometimes?”

  I chuckled, smiling bigger, unable to stop myself. “It’s late, Sheriff. Are you not eating at home tonight?”

  “No. Mrs. Colter is visiting her sister in Abilene.”

  “Well, would you like to come by the house and have some dinner? I have more than enough for three.”

  “No thank you, Stefan, but I do appreciate the invite. I’ve got to go over to the Drake place and talk to them about Jeff.”

  It took me a minute because nothing at all ever happened in Winston. It was why Rand and I had been such big news. “Oh, the drag racing,” I chuckled.

  “It ain’t funny. They could get themselves killed doin’ that.”

  “On the tractors,” I said, trying really hard not to sound patronizing. “Yes, I’m sure they could.”

  He thrust his hand at me to shake. “Call me when you’re makin’ the lasagna again.”

  “Yessir, Sheriff, I sure will,” I promised, taking the offered hand in mine.

  He gave me a smile before I turned to get in my car.

  “Stef.”

  I looked back at him over my shoulder, opening the door.

  “Call me if you’re makin’ the pot roast too.”

  “Oh, okay,” I teased him. “I didn’t realize you had favorites.”

  “Damn right,” he told me before he suddenly froze. “You ain’t makin’ any of those tonight, are ya?”

  “No, sir, I’m not.”

  He grunted before he got in the mammoth car.

  It was actually really nice that the man had favorites. Before I began my life with Rand, my culinary skills were basic at best. But the restaurants in Winston were both barbeque places, and while they were good, sometimes variety was nice, so one of us had to learn to cook, and of the two of us I had more time. He really enjoyed it when I slaved away in the kitchen for him; why, I had no idea, but the look on his face when he came in the house and found me in the kitchen was enough to melt me through the floor. He really enjoyed the hell out of me being domestic.

  I watched as the sheriff moved his SUV, honking as he drove away. The deputies both followed suit, and when I was headed for home, I had time to think about the transformation my life had gone through in just a short amount of time.

  TWO years ago, Rand Holloway and I had gone from enemies to lovers in sizzling style over the course of his sister Charlotte Holloway’s four-day wedding blowout. The bride, my best friend in the world, had asked, ordered, commanded me to be her man of honor, and because she needed her brother there as well… Rand and I were forced to share space. It was a recipe for disaster, as he and I could barely manage to be civil for any extended period of time.

  Rand and I had never been anything but a horror to each other, but that weekend the reasoning for ten years of guerilla warfare had become clear. Rand liked me, had always liked me, and in fact it was actually way more than that. He was sort of crazy about me. But putting an out and proud gay man together with a cattle rancher from Texas had been a tough idea for him to come to grips with. Once he had, though, once he had figured out the truth about himself, what he needed and what he wanted, he had been ready to let me know.

  The path to true love had not been an easy one. While Rand and I were navigating the change from enemies to friends to lovers, my ex-boss, Knox Bishop, had been trying to kill me and frame me for fraud and embezzlement. It had been a very interesting week of my life and one that had, in the end, prompted my move across the country to live on a cattle ranch. And though I loved the man desperately, the transition was anything but easy.

  Rand was a cowboy, and I was a city boy used to having access to all the things a metropolis had to offer twenty-four hours a day. Not that I didn’t love the ranch or the man who owned it, but there had to be a happy medium, and I ended up making all the changes while Rand’s life stayed pretty much the same. And while I understood that there was no other way for that to work—his ranch was the unchangeable, unmovable piece in the equation—even though logically I did get it, I ended up angry nonetheless.

  I took my frustration out on Rand until I realized that the person I was really mad at was me. I was trying to live my old life and my new one all at the same time, and it wasn’t working for anyone.

  What was nice was that I even had the opportunity to try out what didn’t end up working in the first place. I had been able to make the transition from Chicago to Lubbock because I was hired by Abraham Cantwell, my best friend’s new father-in-law, to restructure his financial office. Unfortunately, with the changing economy, my new job was short-lived. Mr. Cantwell had to let all but two of his staff go and eventually closed his business, retiring later that year. In looking for new gainful employment, I had been faced with the decision to either look for a job in an even larger city than Lubbock or stay there and take a position at a much lower salary than what I was used to. I could either commute, and keep an apartment in Dallas or Houston and visit on the weekends, or I could stay in Lubbock and go home every night to Rand. It was time to make a decision about my future, and since I had dived into the deep end two years earlier, I chose my cowboy and life on the ranch, even though the idea of losing myself there terrified me. When I fell back on my minor and took a position at the community college teaching Intro to World History, Rand had been beside himself.

  “I have no idea why you’re so happy,” I had told him as I set up my small—tiny—cubicle of an office in late August in preparation for the fall semester.

  “You chose us, Stef,” he had said simply, his smile out of control as he looked around the broom closet that was posing as my new work space. “I don’t think you know what you really did here.”

  But I did. I had trusted him and believed in him, put faith in the life we shared, and had chosen to lean on him instead of standing alone. I had been halfway in and halfway out for two years and had finally, completely, committed.

  “Stef.”

  I looked over my shoulder at him and realized how big he seemed in the tiny office.

  “You know I just signed that three-year agreement with Grillmaster to be the beef supplier for their entire restaurant chain.”

  He had spoken so casually, but I knew it was a big deal. I had helped him get ready and coached him on the contract. His lawyer had appreciated my help, and now, apparently, it was all signed, sealed, and delivered. I was thrilled for him and his ranch and so rushed across the five feet and launched myself into his arms.

  I was surprised when
he caught me and put me down on my new desk, wedged himself between my legs, his hands on my face, in my hair, as he looked down at me from his towering height.

  “This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to the ranch, Stef.”

  It was a huge account, and one that I knew Rand and his lawyers—there were four now—had been working on for a while. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked excitedly. “We have to go out and celebrate

  and—”

  “You know why I wanted that deal so bad?” He cut me off, stilling me.

  “Yeah, so you could be that much closer to financial—”

  “It was for you, Stef,” he told me, pushing my hair back from my face, tracing my eyebrows with his thumbs, my cheekbones, to my chin. “That account is yours to take care of and grow and work. It was your idea to begin with. I wasn’t even gonna bid on that contract, but you convinced me to try. Without you being my champion, I would have never thought that I could do something like that.”

  I smiled up at him, sliding forward on the desk, my hands on his hips, inhaling him, the smell of the summer sun on his clothes and sweat and the musky scent that was just Rand. “I’m happy to be the voice of reason in your head.” I teased him.

  His thumb stroked over my bottom lip, and as he looked at me, his eyes narrowed to slits of electric blue. My stomach flipped over.

  Slowly, he bent toward me, and when I felt his fingers on my jaw, I tilted my head back as he wanted and received the claiming kiss. His mouth slanted down over mine possessively, his tongue parting my lips, rubbing over mine. I moaned deeply, and his hands were on my thighs, lifting, wanting my legs wrapped around his hips.

  “Why are you wearing that shirt?” he asked me, the words spoken against my throat, his hot, wet breath on my skin.

  “What?” It was a strange question.

  “Why are you wearing my shirt?” he asked pointedly.

  From the low, husky sound of his voice, I understood that my wearing his clothes had touched something very primal inside of him. He liked it a lot. “Because it was clean, and we need to do laundry,” I said, shoving my groin against his abdomen, pressing into him.

  “It’s so fuckin’ hot.”

  There was nothing remotely sexy about me dressed in an old practice T-shirt of Rand’s that had his number on it, seven, from back when he played football in high school. I had noticed that there was a rip in it only when we were halfway to the college, but had no intention of driving all the way home just to change. It wasn’t a huge hole, more a tear that you would only notice if you stared. And he had promised me a walk to the creek after we visited my new office and had lunch, having taken off the whole day like he never could or did, just to spend some time with me. So because my day would be filled with just us, I had seen no real reason to change. And now I was glad I hadn’t.

  “You know, between that there shirt and your hat, I bet none of these folks ’round here expect you to be faculty.”

  “No, probably not,” I gasped because his hands had closed on my ass and squeezed tight.

  “Fuck,” he growled, and moved fast, taking off his hat, doing the Frisbee throw with it to the chair, and bending to shove the T-shirt up so he could kiss my bare stomach.

  “Rand—”

  “Sometimes I just wanna lick over every piece of you.”

  Oh God.

  He pressed his lips to my abdomen and kissed and licked and suckled and nibbled until I was writhing under him on the edge of the desk. My belt was hastily unbuckled, the snap tugged on and the zipper roughly pulled. I felt his hands spreading the flaps, sliding over the elastic waistband of my briefs and then his fingers grazing the skin above my shaft.

  I lifted up and he peeled everything down, jeans, underwear, and my cock bobbed free, hard and already leaking with just the promise of attention. I shivered when, without a word of warning, he bent and took me down the back of his throat.

  “Rand,” I called his name, hands in his hair, loving the feel of his hot mouth and the fierce, exquisite suction, the cold hard wood on my ass, the taboo of being in an office, and the knowledge that we were the only ones in the entire six-story building. School was out until the first week in September, and I was so very, very glad.

  The man who had been a novice at blowjobs two years earlier was now well-practiced, with a sense of his own power and an acute knowledge of all my hot buttons. He knew it had to start fast and end slow, knew that I liked it best when he dripped saliva down my crease and pressed fingers inside me at the same time, and knew, finally, that I would come loud and hard if I was manhandled and held down and fucked until I screamed.

  “Let’s try somethin’ different,” he growled, and I was bent in half, my knees, still trapped in my jeans, shoved against my chest, his hands on the back of my thighs as I felt his tongue slide over my entrance.

  “Rand!”

  He pressed his tongue inside me, and I had to grip the edge of the desk not to jolt under him. It felt so good, the stubble of his beard on my tender skin, the slow, sensual stroking, and his mouth against my fluttering hole. When he added a finger, my back bowed up off the desk.

  I heard him spit, felt the second finger slide in with the first, coated in saliva, and scissor inside me.

  “Oh Rand, please.”

  He fucked me with his fingers, as his other hand slid over the clenching muscles of my abdomen. “You are so beautiful, Stef,” he got out, his voice gruff and low, as he reached for my jeans, yanking them off my left leg, not bothering with the right, just needing to be able to part my thighs, and spread me before him.

  “You get off on looking at me like this, holding whatever position you put me in.”

  “Yeah,” he almost snarled.

  “You want to fuck me anywhere you want, mark me, and put me on my knees wherever you please.”

  There was only a growl from him.

  “So fuck me,” I begged him, pushing back on his thrusting fingers, wanting to be fuller, needing deeper, needing more.

  “You’re so tight.”

  “Fuck me!”

  Slowly, he withdrew his slippery, talented digits, and then grabbed hold of my ass, my cheeks, spreading them as I felt the engorged, leaking head of his cock press against my puckered hole.

  I lifted up, ready for him. “I need you.”

  “And if we had lube, I would bury myself in you so hard you’d fuckin’ scream my name, but we’re gonna go slow until I feel your body wrap around me all tight and wet.”

  The man had his own, aching, demanding need, but for him, always, I came first. He pressed forward into me, pushing gently but insistently, letting my inner muscles relax and remember the pleasure the intrusion would bring. They rippled with anticipation.

  “Oh fuck, Stef, you feel so fuckin’ good.”

  He eased back a fraction and then pushed forward, my channel clenching around the thick, hard silky length of him, precome and saliva mixing together, the slide not as smooth as usual, but the slight burn felt amazing, the pinch sending sizzling heat racing over my skin.

  I lifted higher, forcing him to thrust inside to keep me still, and when I lifted a leg, resting my calf on his shoulder, he tugged me forward, and buried himself inside me, sheathing his enormous cock deep inside my ass.

  “Rand!” I screamed his name.

  His balls were against my ass as he began pumping into me, the smack of skin on skin like a hammer in the tiny room.

  He felt too good. I was so full, stretched like I always was, as his shaft slid over my prostate, and he wrapped his fingers around my painfully hard, leaking cock.

  I whimpered and moaned, lifting my other leg to his shoulder as he bent over me, driving inside, pistoning in and out of me, the desk shaking with the force of each driving thrust.

  “Fuck, Stef, I gotta see!”

  He moved me so easily, pulling me close, the angle changing so I was impaled for a moment, the sensation of him so deep that I caught my breath for a second be
fore I was shoved face down on the desk.

  “Oh fuck yeah,” he groaned. “Look at your ass take my cock.”

  Rand loved to watch his massive dick slide in and out of my small, round, tight ass. Even more, he liked to fist his hand in my hair, yank my head back, and hold there as he pounded into me. His kink was to see the slope of my back, watch my pink hole as it swallowed the veined shaft of his inch by inch. I felt him tremble with lust.

  “Fuck me so I feel it, Rand,” I told him. “Fuck me hard.”

  The first plunge took my breath away.

  “Jerk yourself off, baby.” His voice cracked, lowered. “I can’t do it. I gotta hold on.”

  I understood.

  His part was to clench my hip so hard he’d leave bruises, tighten his grip in my hair so I was immobile, and give himself over to the orgasm roaring through him as he drove into me with brutal, savage intensity.

  I didn’t have to touch myself. When he nailed my prostate on the second thrust, I came on my desk, shooting my load over the cheap polished wood.

  “Stefan!”

  My name was howled as my channel was filled, thick and hot, and he fucked me through his orgasm and mine, pumping hard as my muscles clamped down, squeezing him, milking him dry, ringing every last bit of pleasure from our savage coupling in my new office.

  “Great way to christen my desk, Rand.” I laughed as he finally took a breath, wrapping his arms around me, straightening me up without pulling out, his chest plastered to my back.

  He bit down into my shoulder, and I shuddered in his arms, reveling in the feel of him even through his clothes and of his now-softening cock still inside me.

  “I feel so good when I’m inside you, Stef, and not just because it’s fuckin’ heaven, but because I can feel your heart. You are all mine when I’m inside you, and I know it, and I just wanna brand you or something.”

  I grunted. “Do not get any ideas.”

  He laughed, and I felt his mouth open against the side of my neck. The man did like leaving his mark on me. I was lucky that school didn’t start for three more weeks; a hickey on the first day would not make a good impression.