When the Dust Settles Read online

  “No. You don’t.”

  “Maclain, I—”

  “Rand and the rest of the Holloway men are big, scary alpha-dog type guys, and you are not that.”

  But I was.

  “Maybe you were, maybe you used to be when you were shooting poison into your body and—”

  “How did you know about the steroids?”

  He rose and sat up, and I had Mac where I never thought I ever would—straddling my thighs.

  I immediately moved my hands to touch him, stroke his skin, and map the contours of roping muscle that made up his legs.

  “Look at me.”

  But I was savoring the feel of him.

  “Hey.”

  I lifted my eyes to his.

  “I knew you didn’t lose weight. You just lost all that bulky ’roid-rage muscle that was never you but was probably more about fitting in on the ranch than anything else.”

  “I don’t belong on a ranch,” I told him.

  “Not as a cowboy, no,” he agreed. “But that’s not what Rand needs, anyway. He needs you because you’re a member of his family, and he wants you around him and Stef and Wyatt, and he needs your skills with people because he has none.”

  I chuckled.

  “Don’t get me wrong, the man inspires lifelong loyalty from his men, but that ain’t what I’m speakin’ of.”

  I knew that too.

  “You know as well as anyone that Rand has a very direct way about him that puts people off right quick, and trying to talk to him about it is like tryin’ to walk snakes.”

  God, he was beautiful, and listening to him felt so natural, like we’d been doing this forever. I was going to say something, tell him how I felt, when he squeezed my hips with his thighs and I jolted in pain.

  “Oh shit,” he gasped and in seconds he had us trading places, me on top and him below me on the thin padding on the cot. “Better?”

  I was sitting with his wide, thick cock nestled between my ass cheeks; I was light-headed, with just the feel of him, that’s how much better it was.

  “Maclain,” I whispered.

  “Lift up,” he directed me. “Push back just a bit and take the lube in your hand and grease yourself up real good.”

  But looking at his length standing rigid and dripping between us, I had other thoughts.

  “You’re going to need to lift my legs up on your shoulders when you shove inside me, and I need you to be—”

  “Maclain.”

  “Glenn,” he said playfully, smiling up at me.

  “It doesn’t make you feel….” How was I supposed to ask this?

  “Talk to me,” he prodded, reaching up to trace over my left eyebrow.

  I smiled down at him. “You like my face.”

  He nodded. “I do. I trip over things when I’m walking whenever you look at me.”

  “No. That’s me. I trip all the time.”

  “When you’re tired and worn out, yes,” he agreed. “But not normally. You run at night in the dark, honey. You’re pretty fuckin’ coordinated.”

  I glared down at him. “How come you’re only saying nice things to me now?”

  He reached behind me and pinched my ass. “Because you’re naked, and I don’t just mean that you’ve got no clothes on.”

  “What?”

  “I see you,” he said pointedly. “You try so hard at everything. And some of it’s shit like trying to be as big as the other men in your family when clearly you were made leaner, smaller, with them long lashes and big eyes and that mouth that makes my dick hard just lookin’ at it.”

  A pulse ran through me, and the lube I’d squirted out and dumped in my palm got slathered on his dick instead of mine. I wanted to stroke his flesh, not my own.

  “You try to carry all the people who work for you on your back.”

  “How do you—”

  “I’ve been in there to eat. I talk to them, but mostly I listen.”

  “I’ve never seen you.”

  “You’re always running. Literally.”

  “Are you stalking me?” I asked hopefully.

  “I check on you,” he conceded.

  “What’s the difference?” I asked, squeezing his cock, tugging gently, watching as it seeped pearlized drops of precum.

  “I—” He closed his eyes for a moment and I watched him take a breath in and hold it, wetting his lips before he opened his eyes. “What?”

  Curling over him, I took his mouth, made him open for my tongue, and I sucked on his as I kissed him long and slow and deep.

  His throaty groan was full of yearning and I chuckled against his lips.

  “You know you have power over me and you’re getting off on using it,” he said hoarsely, hands fisted at his sides, griping the metal sides of the sturdy cot.

  “Why aren’t you touching me,” I teased, taking hold of his now-slippery cock and pressing the head to my entrance. “Don’t like me anymore?”

  “If I put my hands on you, hurt or not, virgin or not, I will flip you over and bury myself to the balls in your ass.”

  “No, I don’t think you would,” I said, confident in my belief even as I pushed back, taking in only his glans, the stretch and burn sucking my breath away.

  “Can we not talk anymore,” he pleaded, rough and shaky. “I really can’t—oh please, Glenn, honey, take me all in.”

  But it hurt and my own erection was flagging until he put his hand there, jerking me back to hungry need in seconds, making me crave his touch and even more, wanting him inside.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he promised, leaning up, kissing my eyes, my cheeks, my nose, and finally my mouth, so tenderly I felt the ache for him blossom in my chest and storm through my body like sparks of lightning.

  I bucked against him and pressed back farther and farther each time, taking more of him inside me until finally his groin was flush with the curve of my ass.

  “Take a minute to let your body adjust to—Glenn!”

  I couldn’t wait. His cock was dragging over that spot I’d read about, and my body, which had been hesitant, was quivering with fresh arousal and a renewed sense of urgency. I wanted to impale myself on him, get him in harder and faster, so I leaned forward, letting him slide out, and then eased back until he was buried to the hilt again.

  “You are so tight,” he marveled, hands on my face as he stared into my eyes. “And slick, and I need you to let me put you on your hands and knees.”

  “Can you do it faster like that?”

  “Yessir, I can,” he swore, his voice whiskey smooth, edged in smoke.

  Scrambling off him, I dropped to the tent floor and into position, waiting only seconds before he was behind me. Hand on the small of my back, he spread my cheeks and speared inside, thrusting deep in one smooth stroke.

  “Oh God, why would anybody ever wanna top,” I mewled, taking a trembling breath as he eased out and then rammed back inside, pounding into me again and again, piston fast, exactly as I wanted.

  “Because you feel amazing, that’s why,” he answered me. “I have dreamed about having you wrapped around my cock, and I cannot wait to get you in my bed.”

  His bed?

  “In my house, on my sheets, under my blankets—tell me I can, tell me you’re going to come home with me and sit on my porch and eat in my kitchen and sleep in my bed.”

  My heart, in the midst of the best sex of my life, threatened to explode. “You’re sayin’ you wanna see me?”

  “I am,” he said plainly, grabbing hold of my ass, careful with my wounded hip, his fingers ready to leave bruises on the opposite side. “A lot. Just me, just you, us, no one else. So say I can.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “And swear you won’t do this with anyone else until one of us says.”

  “I promise,” I rasped, in absolute lust and like with Mac. The lusting was not new, of course, but the liking certainly was.

  “Good,” he said, laughing softly in my ear before kissing me there and turning my head s
o he could ravage my mouth for a moment before I was ordered to grab my dick. “I need you to come before I do so—”

  “Just let go and hammer me.”

  “Oh yeah, fuckin’ made for me,” he growled as he pummeled inside of me as my muscles clamped down around him.

  “Maclain!” I yelled, coming apart beneath him as I splattered the ground beneath me.

  He emptied into my ass and I realized at that moment I had never felt closer or more connected to another person, ever. Sex wasn’t love, I knew that, but I was changed because of this, and not merely because now I knew what I’d been missing. He knew me, truly saw me, and he was the only one who had ever cared enough to look.

  “Oh Glenn,” he croaked, lifting me up from my hands so I was upright but still on my knees with his cock pulsing inside of me. One of his hands was wrapped around my throat, the other pressing down on my abdomen. “You are so fucked.”

  I scoffed. “Well, yeah, I was.”

  “No,” he whispered into my hair. “You have no idea what you just did.”

  “And what did I do?” I asked, leaning back, letting my head bump his, our cheeks scraping together, my short beard and mustache on his stubble.

  “You gave yourself to me.”

  I had. “It was stupid, what I thought before.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I thought I wouldn’t be a man anymore if I was on the bottom.”

  “You thought you’d be less.”

  “Yes.”

  “But now you know that’s stupid because top or bottom has nothing to do with being a man. You’re doing what you want and what feels right at the time.”

  All I could do was nod.

  “But that doesn’t mean that we can’t switch it up next—”

  “No,” I said quickly, my voice thick with lingering passion and emotion. “I’d like to have you—I want it just this same way again.”

  “Whatever you want,” he husked, easing gently from my sensitive channel.

  The feel of his slick cum brought another thought to mind. I cleared my throat. “Maclain?”

  “You’re worried about the condom,” he said, taking my face in his hands so he could ease me to a sitting position.

  “Not worried, just—I mean, I’ve never been with… and it’s been well over some years since there was a girl and I’ve been tested and I’m fine but I should have told you that and I have the results in my e-mail if you—”

  “I have mine saved on my phone,” he explained, pushing my hair out of my eyes and tracing over my cheeks with his thumbs. “I can show it to—”

  “No, I just wondered why you didn’t put one on.”

  “Well, because I know there hasn’t been anyone for you, and I’m always careful, so I wasn’t worried about it.”

  “How did you know there was no one for me?”

  “Remember how I told you I’ve been keeping tabs on you?”

  I did. “Yeah.”

  “What I didn’t say was that any guy lingering around your restaurant waiting for it to close, waiting to get a chance at you… I’ve quietly discouraged them.”

  “You’re lying.” I chuckled, my heart beating wildly, hoping it was true. To someone else it might seem a bit scary; to me, staking that kind of claim was crazy, stupid hot.

  “Oh no I ain’t,” he promised me, his eyes, still dark with hunger, riveted on my face. “And since just thinking about being inside of you has forced me to take more cold showers than I can possibly ever count, I was sure as hell not going to offer to glove up for no good reason.”

  “Because you knew we were safe.”

  “I did,” he admitted, his gaze never wavering as he drew me in for a kiss. It was tender but thorough, and when he was done checking my tonsils, he gave me a smug grin. “I would never put you at risk for anything. Not ever. I swear.”

  “I believe you,” I sighed, so sated, so calm, realizing that being in bed with someone who knew what he was doing and wanted me as much as I wanted him was a blessing to go to church and light a candle in thankfulness for. “As long as it’s just us, we should never use a condom, don’t you think?”

  “I agree,” he sighed, brushing my hair back again. “This got long, huh?”

  “Yeah. It needs to be cut.”

  “Awful pretty to cut,” he said wistfully before he kissed me again. “I like the beard and the mustache too.”

  I smiled at him. “You seem to like a lot of things about me.”

  “No ‘seem,’ I do like everything about you,” he said adamantly, and I got another kiss. “Now don’t move. I wanna take care of you.”

  “You did already,” I told him, and that time he bit my ass, a quick nibble, to shut me up.

  I stayed frozen as he pulled everything off the cot and arranged it on the ground before prodding me to lie down.

  Sprawling out, sighing deeply, not remembering when my body had ever been so sated or my mind so still, I grinned when I felt the T-shirt being used to clean me up.

  “I’m still gonna smell like sex and sweat and have your dried cum all over me,” I remarked cheerfully.

  “Yeah, that’s really not a bad thing,” he said, falling down beside me, bumping me, snuggling tight, his mouth on my ear and behind it, on my skin, sucking, licking, trailing lines of endless, rough kisses that, along with the bites, were going to leave marks. “You can go around with me on you all the time.”

  “You’re a possessive man, Maclain Gentry.”

  “You have no idea, Glenn Holloway,” he said, snorting out a laugh as he nuzzled the hollow of my throat. “Man, I knew you were gonna smell good.”

  “You thought a lot about me.”

  “Night and day.”

  “How come?”

  “Simple things.”

  “Like?”

  “You’re nice to look at.”

  “You too,” I sighed.

  “I’m addicted to those eyes of yours.”

  His storm-washed-sky ones were nothing to scoff at, either. “Ditto.”

  His chuckle was sexy, low and seductive and dirty in that way where now I knew carnal pleasure awaited.

  “You’re making my dick hard again when you laugh like that,” I drawled.

  “Oh, I knew you were gonna be good in bed too. Hell if I didn’t.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “How fast you get mad, all that passion, plus watching you eat, the way you devour your food and suck all the meat off a chicken bone—it’s hot.”

  I laughed at him, and he rolled me to my back to bury his face in my belly, kissing me there before scooting up to lay his head on my heart.

  “It is. You enjoy your food and your beer, and watching you eat strawberries last summer was a religious experience.”

  “Same as watching you walk,” I sighed, my hands in his hair as I tugged him up to kiss me. “I love to watch you walk.”

  He opened for me and I kissed him lazily, taking my time, because I could. He didn’t belong to me… yet… but I had a great start.

  After rolling him to his back, I spread myself over him, loving the feel of all that virile male power lying dormant under me.

  “We’ll be back from the drive on Sunday afternoon. I want you to be at the Red when we get there so you can come home with me.”

  “Yeah?” I asked anxiously, almost holding my breath because he sounded so good, like he was making plans, making promises, and I was excited just thinking about spending long periods of uninterrupted time with him.

  “Say you will.”

  “I will.”

  “Good,” he said, reaching up to squeeze my ass and dip his middle finger into my crease, making me shudder with the contact. “Now tell me truly, do you feel all right with what you did? What I did?”

  I made a noise that could not be classified as speech and rolled to my good side so he could spoon behind me.

  “Glenn?” he asked. I heard the cap on the lube snap open. “Tell me.”

&n
bsp; “How can you even ask that when I’ve never felt better in my life?” I said gruffly, bucking forward as he curled two fingers inside of me and rubbed over my gland.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “No.”

  “I have the need to gorge on you in case I wake up in the morning and this is all just a really fuckin’ hot dream.”

  “Not—” I gasped as he withdrew his fingers and replaced them with the head of his long, beautiful cock that already I needed inside me again. “—a dream.”

  “That’s good,” he said, going slow, pressing forward, stretching me, filling me, and not stopping until I was clenched around him.

  He slid out a fraction and then pushed back in, gentle, tender, and with an agonizing languor that built a ravenous need in me almost instantly.

  “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

  “Then tell me now that you’re okay,” he ordered, slipping his hand down my hip, careful not to touch where the stitches were before taking hold of my straining, twitching cock. “Or not, and we’ll talk about it, but I want this settled between us.”

  “Nothing needs to be settled,” I confessed. “I’m good.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I thought, before….” I moaned, the feel of him stretching me and filling me so good, the slide and the push more exquisite than I could have imagined, making it hard to keep a coherent thought in my head. “That bottoming would make a difference, that I’d care what I did, but it doesn’t because I’m still me, nothing’s changed at all.” Nothing was taken from me by giving myself to my lover. I was still me, no less powerful, no less a man. Inside, I was the same except for knowing what my body was capable of feeling. “I just didn’t know, and there’s so much bullshit everywhere and it messes with your head.”

  “You didn’t know how you’d feel, and there’s a misconception that the guy on the bottom isn’t just as strong or powerful, that submitting somehow makes you weak.”

  “Which is stupid.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, his voice cracking as he surrendered to his own need. “And remember, however you want me, however you need me, I’m all yours. All of me… just yours.”

  I had a feeling we were talking about more than his body, but I had a confession. “Maclain?”