“That’s my mama you’re fixing to say something bad about,” Dare said, lowering his hands and glaring fiercely at Chiz. “Don’t talk bad about my mama.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Chiz pointed at the door. “Get the hell out of my place! I don’t have the patience for dumbasses with mommy issues. And brother issues. And prison goals. Get!”
Chapter Four
After what was probably the most humiliating moment in Dare’s life, getting bitched out by his mama was nothing. In fact, his mind kept sneaking out of the shouting and cussing she was doing at him and instead replayed images of the two sexy men he’d confronted.
Not that the confrontation had done any good. Now the guys would think he was a total loser—true, but still—and if he ever saw them again, Dare would probably just drop dead from sheer embarrassment.
Although, with the way Mama was railing at him, Dare would never get to set foot in the club again.
Bar. Mama says it’s a bar ’cause it ain’t classy enough to be a club. Dare had tried to fix the place up some. It looked better than before he’d taken it over, and fixing the club—bar—up had let him do what he truly enjoyed—carpentry, building things with his own hands, fixing things that were broken.
A sharp slap knocked him out of his thoughts. Dare knew better than to make so much as a whimper. Mama’s slaps hurt like a fucker, though. She wasn’t a small woman.
“Are you even listening to what I’m sayin’, you dumbass?” Mama rasped, her smoker’s voice making her sound rather masculine, as deep as it was. “You let your brother get jumped!”
“That’s not what—” Dare turned his head just enough to make the second slap less painful. He stumbled back to avoid any more hits. “Mama! Stop it!”
“Oh, you think you’re gonna tell me what to do?” Mama bellowed.
“He’s a pussy, Mama. Always has been,” Earl said.
Dare glared at his brother. “Yeah? Well I’m not the one who got his ass beat by a little guy! And your two buddies got their asses kicked too!”
“There were five guys!” Earl shouted. “And they jumped us!”
“Did not!” Dare yelled right back. “I know it was two guys, and I know you and your rats were gonna do bad shit to them!”
“Don’t you talk about your brother like that!”
Dare dodged another slap—his mama was as fast as she was mean. “I ain’t lying! You know what he went to prison for!”
“That boy lied,” Mama snapped. “You know it! And he was an adult anyway, so it wasn’t like he was forced!”
No, Dare didn’t know any such thing, and his mind was utterly boggled that his mama was linking age with consent, as if once a person hit eighteen, they wouldn’t ever say no.
“Earl and Marty can take over,” Mama said firmly. “Once Marty’s out of prison. Meanwhile, I’ll set Cousin Andy to workin’ at the bar, too.”
Dare shook his head. “Mama, you know he’s violent when he gets in one of his moods. I can run the—”
“No you can’t. You don’t have the balls to do the job right.” Mama nodded at Earl. “You don’t have to let your parole officer know any of this. Dare ain’t gonna tell, and no one else will, either.”
Dare turned away. She was right. He wouldn’t narc on his brother. That made him a shitty person, he realized, because if Earl was willing to rape two men in a bathroom of a club—bar—he wasn’t running, what would he do once he thought he was in charge?
Dare shuddered. He’d already been forgotten by his family, who were now talking about how they were going to start running drugs through the bar.
It was safe for Dare to slip out through the back door and head for his own tiny apartment on the bad side of town…which didn’t put him far from his family, but there were good people around, too.
He just wasn’t related to any of them, and most ‘good’ people stayed far away from him and his family.
As he pulled out the key for his place, Dare felt a moment of panic. He didn’t have a job now—how was he going to afford rent? There was some money he’d hidden away, but that would only cover his bills for a few months.
No need to panic. I got time to try and find another job. He wished he could get on at the Carpenter’s Union, but he’d never gotten past eighth grade in school. He was fairly certain they wouldn’t want jack shit to do with him.
The apartment was rundown but clean. Dare hated a dirty space. His mama had never cared about picking up or anything like that, but Dare had a hatred for roaches and trash that was unparalleled. He’d scrubbed the entire apartment from ceiling to floor when he’d first moved in three years ago, and he repeated that cleaning every two months.
It was a miracle he hadn’t scrubbed away the floor and walls.
Dare wanted to repair everything there, but Mr. Bosco had vetoed him doing anything to it.
“That’s just gonna raise my property taxes,” Mr. Bosco had complained. “No way am I lettin’ that happen!”
Well, Dare could dream. He sat at the small table he’d sanded down and refinished. His sketch book was hidden under the table, where he’d added in a shelf just for his pad and pencils. Dare didn’t want his family to ever know that he still liked to draw. His mama had tried to ‘beat the sissy’ out of him. Dare had just learned to be a liar and tell her he didn’t care about drawing anymore.
But he needed the freedom it gave him, though he wasn’t particularly talented at it. Still, he could sit and sketch out the way the apartment would look if he could renovate it.
Or he could draw his own dream home.
Or… Dare gave up fighting it. He could draw the two sexy, naked men he’d gotten whopped by. Dare wasn’t great at portraits, but he took his time, putting in every detail he could remember about the men.
.
Chapter Five
After a nudge to his butt, which almost made him squeal, Chiz was ready to snap the head off whoever had touched his ass.
Chiz glanced up from where he was crouched in the grocery store. He had a jar of Smucker’s Goober Chocolate in one hand, and he was dressed in his rattiest shorts and tank. Definitely not his best look. “Well, this is awkward.”
Bowen smirked at him. “Didn’t mean to spook ya.” Then he squinted at the jar in Chiz’s hand. “You eat that crap?”
Chiz didn’t, normally, but Bowen’s disdain for the peanut butter and chocolate spread stomped out Chiz’s indecision over buying the stuff, and he dropped it into his basket. “Yup. It’s how I keep my boyish figure.”
Bowen snorted and laughed. “Ain’t anything boyish about you, Chiz, and you know it.”
Chiz stood as smoothly as he could manage. For some reason, he felt the need to be in control and, well, smooth around Bowen.
Because you like him, a lot, and you want him to like you, too. How perfectly junior high of you.
Chiz pushed back a few strands of hair that were sticking to his forehead. “I just finished a five-mile run and need some sugar and carbs,” he found himself saying.
Bowen leaned over, then ducked his head and sniffed right beside Chiz’s ear. “Mm, I love the scent a man carries on him after workin’ hard.”
Chiz shivered as goosebumps pebbled his skin. “Yeah?”
Bowen exhaled over his skin again. “Yeah. Making me hard right now. Too bad you need that sugary junk to…energize you. I was kinda hoping you’d want to come back to my place for a while.”
Chiz hadn’t seen Bowen in over a week, not since the great Dare Debacle. “Hadn’t heard from you. Figured you got what you wanted.”
Bowen pulled back. “Yeah? You ain’t called me either, bud.”
Chiz set the basket on the floor. “Uh, excuse me? You said you’d be in touch right before you hauled ass out of the door.”
Bowen crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “I didn’t haul ass! And you said you’d—” He broke off and closed his eyes.
Chiz watched him and knew exactly when Bowen remembered wh
o said what. Bowen blushed and opened his eyes. He unfolded his arms and sighed. “Goddamn it, I did say that. I thought—well, obviously I didn’t think at all. And no, I ain’t done, unless you’re done, then I guess I am done.”
“You two are talking gibberish and blocking the damn aisle,” snapped an older woman with gray and white hair. “Make up and move out of my way!”
“Jesus,” Bowen hissed, but he moved to stand at Chiz’s side. “Wanna get your stuff and come back to the ranch?”
Chiz’s heart raced. “The ranch?”
“Yes, he said the ranch. Are you deaf?” the lady asked. “Stop wasting time and go do whatever it is men do together. You’ll be old and won’t have any sex drive before you know it.”
“Never,” Chiz countered. “I’ll die fucking.”
The woman cackled at him. “Sure, you think that now, but once you see the price of those ED medicines, you’ll accept impotence as a fact of getting old.”
“I will not,” Chiz argued, though there was a little ball of terror building in his gut. Dying young sounded better all the time. Or dying young-ish. He’d rather wait until he’d done some more living.
“Will too,” the woman said, almost singing the words.
Chiz decided she was just out for blood and he was done. He slipped his hand in Bowen’s, feeling brazen at performing such a small action in public.
Bowen didn’t pull away, only clasped Chiz’s hand firmly. “No junk food?”
“Sex,” Chiz replied, casting a sideways glance at the lady still watching them. “And lots of it.”
She gave him a thumbs-up then bent and took the Smucker’s Goober Chocolate and hummed.
Chiz shook his head. People never ceased to amaze him.
“I really thought you’d ditched me,” Bowen said as they left the store. “Don’t know where my head was. Well, that’s not true. Had a couple of foals get sick on me. Lost one of them.”
Chiz could hear the sadness in Bowen’s voice. “I can’t imagine having to deal with that. I mean, I cried when I ran over a frog the other day.” It had made a really gross noise. “It just hopped right out in front of my car.”
“You cried over a frog?” Bowen asked.
Chiz glared at him. “Yes, I did. It was a living thing and it popped under my tires.”
Bowen paled at that. “That’s…that’s disgusting, actually.”
“No kidding. I felt bad for the frog, but I felt bad for me, too.” Chiz shrugged. “I hate killing anything except for flies and roaches. Those things need to die. But—” And why oh why am I babbling? “When I was a kid, I had two pet frogs. Kept them inside and in a tank except for when it was playtime for them. I cried when they died, too. Mom said I’m too tender-hearted.”
Bowen had opened the truck door for him by then. Chiz hesitated to get in. “Er, did you want to buy some groceries or something?”
Bowen took him by the elbow and encouraged him to get in. “Nope. Saw you lope in there and had to work up the nerve to approach you since I thought you’d ditched me.”
Chiz got in and waited for Bowen to join him after shutting the truck doors. “Do I intimidate you?” Chiz asked jokingly.
Bowen started the truck. “Actually, yeah, maybe. I’m…I’m trying to work out what’s happening between us.”
Chiz grinned. “Well, you promised me sex.” And they’d agreed that they liked each other, kinda. Chiz thought about letting it go, but he couldn’t. “I thought we were going to, I dunno. See each other.” He was afraid to use the d-word.
“Date?” Bowen apparently had no such concerns. “That what you meant? Or you just wanna fuck when we can?”
Chiz bit his bottom lip. It wasn’t like him to be so nervous about speaking up. He didn’t care for it at all. “I want to fuck, definitely, but…more than that, too.”
Bowen nodded. “Got it. We can…we can do that. I ain’t dated anyone in a long time. Maybe never.”
“Seems like you should know whether you’ve dated before or not,” Chiz said, but decided not to press the matter. “So, I’m really going to get to see your ranch? Or were you planning on me leaving after we bump uglies?”
Bowen barked out a laugh. “Ain’t anything ugly about what parts we’ll be bumping together, and I, er, I kinda wanted you to stay over, if you want to. Tomorrow’s Saturday, and I could use help mucking the stalls since the part-time hands are off.”
“What?” Chiz borderline-screeched. Then he saw Bowen’s grin. “Oh, ha ha! I don’t know what mucking out stalls is, but it doesn’t sound like anything a person would do on a date, so I’ll pass.”
“Aw, now come on. You help me muck out the stalls—use a pitchfork to shovel up the horse shit and hay—then we could go riding, if you want.”
“Riding?” Chiz blinked. “As in, a horse, or me riding you?”
Bowen sucked in a sharp breath. “Uhn. Both.”
“But not at the same time?” Chiz clarified. He had never ridden a horse, and it sounded terrifying. Him, on top of a huge animal… He’d stick to riding men, or one man, for now. Wait! Does that mean we’re monogamous? I don’t… Chiz was getting himself worked up over nothing. He shook his head.
“It’s been done, but I’d prefer not to get thrown off mid-fuck,” Bowen was saying. “Heard stories about guys breaking their parts that way.”
“You’re killing the mood, you know that, right?” Chiz joked.
Bowen reached over and cupped Chiz’s cock through the thin jogging shorts. “Let me see if I can revive it.”
“You’re reviving it just fine.” Chiz closed his eyes and leaned his head back before he pumped his hips. “Oh, yeah, just like that.”
Bowen massaged Chiz’s dick and balls for most of the drive to the ranch. By the time they got there, Chiz’s shaft was hard enough to chip wood—ha!—and Bowen had a nice bulge going himself.
The sun was just beginning to set when Bowen shut the truck off. “Out,” he said gruffly. “Get out and get ready to be fucked hard.”
Chiz clenched his ass and was out of the door in seconds.
Bowen must have run because he was there, at the passenger side, grabbing Chiz and dragging him to the back of the truck. They were out in the wide-open, with a barn and house and…and horses staring at them.
“People—” Chiz began.
“No one else here but us and the horses,” Bowen said as he lowered the tailgate. He put Chiz in front of him and pushed between his shoulder blades.
Chiz bent willingly, but he glanced back. “That horse is watching us. It’s creepy.”
Bowen pulled Chiz’s shorts down and trailed his fingers the length of Chiz’s crack until he teased at Chiz’s hole. “Let ’em watch. Maybe they’ll learn a thing or two.”
Before Chiz could say anything else, Bowen used his other hand to press on his nape. Chiz put his head down and moaned when Bowen pushed two semi-slicked fingers into his ass.
“Little dry,” Bowen observed. “Spit don’t always do it.”
“I—” Chiz moaned again. “Ungh. Like the burn.”
“Won’t when I’m fucking you,” Bowen warned.
When liquid hit Chiz’s hole, he quit thinking about what was making him wet and simply fucked himself on Bowen’s fingers.
“Pretty sight,” Bowen said after several minutes. He worked another digit in. “Someday I wanna fist you.”
“That—ungh—sounds long-term,” Chiz muttered without inhibition. Had he been able to think, he wouldn’t have said such a thing.
“Maybe.” Bowen thrust those fingers in harder, faster. “If we both want that.”
Chiz didn’t know what he wanted, besides a good fucking. He tried to spread his legs, but his shorts were down around his ankles.
Bowen used his own legs to close Chiz’s. “Nope. Gonna make your ass even tighter.”
“It’s—” Chiz gasped when Bowen pulled his fingers out. The rest of his sentence died as he heard Bowen opening the condom package. “You can
fuck me without it. I’m on meds—”
“Not yet.” Bowen lined up his cock. Chiz shivered. Although Chiz took the meds as a precaution, he’d never had anyone fuck him without a condom on. He’d never offered his ass to anyone like he’d just done with Bowen. Part of him was relieved Bowen had said no.
Then all of him was on fire with lust as Bowen thrust into him, burying his thick cock all the way in, his balls slapping against Chiz’s, the burn and stretch too much but too good to ask Bowen to stop.
“Good boy,” Bowen growled, then he pulled back and slammed in again.
And again.
And again.
Chiz mewled as his hips crammed against the tailgate, but he didn’t want Bowen to stop. He wanted more, harder, until every part of him ached from being fucked so supremely.
As if Bowen knew what he wanted, Bowen powered into him with more force. He grabbed Chiz’s hair and pinned his head down. A low, long growling sound emanated from Bowen, and it didn’t sound human.
Chiz was so turned on, he barely held back long enough to grab his dick. He jacked himself two times, then Bowen roared, and bit him, and pain and lust and so many things exploded inside Chiz, not the least of which was his climax.
His vision was blurry when he tried to open his eyes. He blinked and wondered why Bowen’s hand looked hairier than normal, then closed his eyes again and wrote it off as a sex-fueled delusion.
Bowen kept biting him, and pounding into Chiz so hard that at times his teeth clacked. It was rough and perfect, and he had a mini-climax when Bowen slammed in hard and stopped biting him long enough to shout.
Chiz was vaguely aware of a buzzing in his ears, then darkness washed over him and the annoying sound stopped.
Chapter Six
Dare woke up in a warm sweat—none of that cold shit for him, especially not after the dream he’d just had. His dick was hard and aching, and his entire body felt like one living sensual thing. The sheets made his skin buzz with need, and his nipples were peaked, sticking up like pebbles. He slept with a nightlight on, and it cast just enough light for him to see by.
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