Cowboys Down

by Barbara Elsborg

  Please, please, please. Calum wanted to come. Didn’t want to come. Jasper pressed into his slit with the tip of his tongue and as he felt Jasper’s cock swell in his mouth, Calum’s balls detonated. Come flooded up his shaft and spilled into Jasper’s mouth, as Jasper emptied himself into Calum’s. Calum sucked and swallowed and swallowed as he shook in the grip of an orgasm so exquisitely mind-blowing, he thought it was a good thing he was lying down.

  Jesus. He’d never done that before, come at exactly the same time while he had a guy’s cock in his mouth. He licked Jasper clean as Jasper did the same to him, and then Calum turned and crawled up to wrap him in his arms.

  “You taste good,” Jasper whispered.

  “So do you.”

  “You taste better.”

  Calum laughed. “I needed that.”

  “The laugh or the blowjob?” Jasper licked Calum’s nose.

  “Both.” He took a deep breath. “I want…” Calum looked into Jasper’s dark eyes and sagged. The words had log jammed in his throat.

  “What?”

  Calum’s mouth opened, but he closed it again without saying anything.

  “Shall I guess? You want a drink of flat, slightly disgusting champagne? Your father to tell you he’s okay with your being gay? A way to cast bronzes? To fuck me?”

  “You to fuck me,” Calum whispered. “Only…”

  Jasper’s jaw twitched. “We were fine until the ‘only’. Tell me.”

  “Did you kill your brother?” Calum blurted. Fucking hell. Am I a complete asshole? Where the hell did that come from?

  Jasper stiffened in his arms.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Calum mumbled.

  “No. I didn’t kill Ben. In a way, my father did when he hit his horse with his car. I can’t imagine how he must have felt when he realized what he’d done. Then my father sort of killed Ben again when he committed suicide five years after Ben came home from the hospital. He sat at the kitchen table and put a shotgun under his chin. I found him and that killed something inside me too.”

  “Oh fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push.” Tears welled in Calum’s eyes.

  Jasper put his finger on Calum’s lips. “It’s okay. It’s my past. It’s what happened. I can’t change it. I have to live with it. Though seeing my father…yeah, well that was hard. I had to keep my mother from going into the kitchen. It was after that, Ben asked me to kill him. And I couldn’t.” Jasper brushed a tear from Calum’s cheek. “He died in the operating theatre having an operation I’d talked him into that might have let him breathe on his own. I knew Ben hoped he wouldn’t come round from the anesthetic. He said goodbye to me that morning and I think…we both knew it was the last time.” Jasper took a deep breath. “Want to tell me what happened to you?”

  Calum closed his eyes and released a shuddering sigh. Jasper had opened his heart, now he had to do the same. Say it, say it, say it. “Two guys raped me,” he whispered. He’d never told anyone that before. His squeezed his eyes tighter shut. His entire body tensed. Why had he told him? He’d kept quiet all these years. Why now? I’m so stupid.

  “Oh God, Calum.”

  He felt Jasper’s lips on his eyelids, kissing him. Jasper’s arms tightening around him and he couldn’t breathe. Nothing would be the same now. The rape would always be there in Jasper’s head. I should have kept quiet. Calum jerked away, scrambling for his clothes.

  “Don’t feel fucking sorry for me,” he snapped. “It happened. I got over it.” He yanked on his jeans and grabbed his shirt.

  “Calum—”

  “Shut up. Shut the fuck up.”

  Jasper caught his arm. “Don’t run away.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. He took a deep breath. “I need a minute. Okay. Just let me get my shit together. Sorry.” Calum fled.

  Jasper stared at the closed door and sighed. Shit. He had a feeling Calum had never told anyone he’d been raped, and he could guess what it had cost him to say it. But Jasper had just confided the darkest secrets of his own life and if the bastard cowboy thought he was going to get away with running from this, he had another think coming. Jasper pulled on his clothes. He’d begun to despair of the cab ever arriving and now he didn’t want it to.

  When the door opened, Jasper expected to see Calum standing there looking sheepish, but two men burst into the room, black hoods over their faces. Stunned bewilderment wrecked Jasper’s chances of escape. In the couple of seconds it took him to react, they were on him. Propelled backward onto the bed, the bigger of the two wrapped an arm around Jasper’s throat and slapped a hand over his mouth.

  Fear galloped through him and Jasper thrashed and kicked out. He tried to bite the hand plastered on his face and received a thump in his side that sent such a sharp pain shooting through him, for a moment he couldn’t move. Their hold on him slipped as he went limp and by some miracle Jasper managed to wriggle free. He fell onto the floor, opened his mouth, but before his scream for help was voiced, something hit the side of his head and the room lost focus. Jasper lurched to his feet, stumbled toward the door and this time he was whacked on the back of his head. The next blow targeted his stomach and the air rushed out of his lungs. As Jasper tried to straighten, a fist connected with his chin and he fell back onto the bed wheezing. What the fuck? Were they trying to kill him?

  “Not his face,” one of the men hissed.

  That voice…

  Jasper saw a piece of wood arcing toward him and tried to roll out of the way, but it hit him and pain radiated through his skull.

  Note to self: Don’t lose con—

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jasper came back to awareness slowly. He was moving, more accurately he was being carried, his wrists and ankles tied, a gag over his mouth. His head pounded and his stomach ached. Oh God, and my jaw. He lay across someone’s back, the guy had an arm looped around Jasper’s neck, the other hooked around his knees. Jasper felt more and more nauseous with every jolting step. Except being sick wouldn’t be wise when he had something tied around his mouth. The only good news was that he could still get some air through the material.

  Oh Christ, what are these guys going to do to me?

  He was reluctant to open his eyes fully. Better that whoever held him thought he was still unconscious, but he couldn’t stop himself taking a quick peek. Jasper thought they were still on the ranch, but he couldn’t be sure. Suffocating fear rose alongside his fury and fear won. Whatever these two wanted, it couldn’t be good. That voice—it had sounded like Pete. Was this Calum’s father’s doing? The guy wanted him gone? But Jasper had been trying to leave all bloody day. Well, most of it.

  The guy carrying him was panting. Good. Jasper would have made carrying him a damn sight more difficult if he could, but with his ankles bound, and arms tied behind his back, even if he wriggled free, he couldn’t run. Where were they taking him? If they wanted him dead, wouldn’t they have killed him already? Jasper clung to that faint hope.

  In a sudden brainwave, he twisted his hands until he could get his fingers on Angie’s bracelet. He tugged hard to break it, gathered as many beads as he could in his fists, then let them fall one by one.

  Jasper heard the sound of a door being opened and then closed, and then he was dropped to land on his back in the dirt. The fall knocked the air out of his lungs. The pain in his hands and his back made him arch in agony.

  “Oh shit, he’s seen my face.”

  He hadn’t, but idiot that he was, Jasper looked up. Ring. Oh God. Somehow that wasn’t a surprise. The hood over his head must have come off as he’d dropped Jasper. The other guy sighed and pulled the cover off his face. Pete. A foot landed in Jasper’s side, rolling him onto his face and he groaned behind his gag. Christ that hurt. Had he heard a rib snap? It felt like it. It hurt to breathe. Jasper kept his fists clenched and the remaining beads hidden.

  “Stop fucking kicking him,” Pete whispered.

  Jasper lay facedown in the dirt, struggling to drag air through his nose
and inhaling dust. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  A foot rolled him back again and Jasper blinked in the dim light. They were in a barn he didn’t recognize. Pete held a rope with a noose at the end. Oh shit. Jasper tugged at his wrists, desperately trying to get free, but he was bound tight. Same with his ankles. When Pete tossed the rope over a beam, Jasper’s entire body chilled. His fear escalated and his breathing grew more frantic.

  “He’s got blood trickling down his face from two places. This isn’t going to work,” Pete said. “It was supposed to be one tap on the head to knock him out. Fucking fag’s got a thick skull.”

  The rope slithered down to land beside Jasper. He didn’t dare feel relief. They’d planned to hang him. And they wanted it to look like suicide. Oh fuck. Jasper didn’t think that was too much of a jump in logic. He wished it was.

  The two men stared down at him, no hint of concern on their faces. What have I done? I was leaving. For fuck’s sake. Please. Please. Please. Only Jasper knew there was no point pleading, even if he’d been able to. One way or another, they intended him to die. It pissed him off that he didn’t know why. Because he was gay? Because of his relationship with Calum? Or had some megalomaniac partner at his London office arranged to have him killed? Oh God, oh God. He’d done nothing to deserve this.

  “If we don’t have him hang himself, what we gonna do?” Ring asked.

  Pete kicked Jasper’s ankles. Jasper cried out behind his gag as a steel toe cap made contact.

  “Make Calum responsible,” Pete said. “They had some sort of fight out here. Calum accidentally kills him and then dumps him. Actually, that’ll work better. I should have thought of that earlier.”

  Jasper was stupidly incensed they hadn’t even taken the trouble to work this out.

  Pete smiled down at Jasper. “Don’t you be thinking a cab company’s going to turn up. You called to cancel.”

  Oh fuck. Jasper sent a mental plea for Calum to come back to his room, find his luggage, come and look for him.

  “So we need to rough him up some more?” Ring asked.

  Hadn’t he been roughed up enough already? Jasper’s heart beat so hard, it hurt. But then all of him hurt.

  “If there’s no marks on Calum, it’ll look strange if this one’s beat up too bad,” Pete said.

  “This guy’s nowhere near as tough as Calum.”

  That was painful, even it was true.

  “We can tell the police that Calum had a temper,” Pete said.

  “The police?”

  Pete gave an exasperated sigh. “They’ll interview everyone. I told you that.”

  Ring frowned. “Yeah, I know, but this isn’t what you said would happen. You keep changing things. First we were going to arrange for him to have an accident at the camp then you said he’d kill himself. Now you—”

  “Shut the fuck up and listen.”

  Keep talking. The longer they talked, the more chance Jasper had of someone coming.

  “It’s better that nothing happened at the camp,” Pete said. “The more distant we are from this, the more innocent we’ll look. Everyone thinks we’re out there with the other guests. I listened to enough drivel from Melissa. ‘Do we have pillows? We’ve changed our minds, we’d like a tent. Where can I plug my in flat iron?’ The woman’s a moron.”

  “You told me to chat her up.”

  “She doesn’t need brains. She has a rich daddy. You should have done more sweet-talking instead of yapping about your bull riding. Christ, anyone would think you’d done it for years.”

  Jasper stayed still and quiet. Maybe they’d forget he was there. Maybe they’d argue and kill each other.

  “She was impressed,” Ring said. “I was going to make a move on her tonight until you came up with this plan. Except you keep changing it and now I’m confused. Couldn’t we hide him someplace to give us some time?”

  Yes, hide me. Just don’t kill me. That way there was at least a chance. Jasper wrapped his fingers tighter around the remaining beads.

  “Hide him where?” Pete asked.

  “Bottom of the grain store?”

  Oh fuck. Jasper began to shake.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Pete said. “He’ll be found next week when the grain’s delivered.” Pete looked down at him. “Or maybe not. The publicity will be bad whatever. British tourist goes missing from the Neilson Ranch. Jasper Randolph found dead. Police launch a murder enquiry. Yeah, Erik will be finished.”

  So it wasn’t about him at all, Jasper thought, but disgruntled employees trying to hurt Erik Neilson. The pair of idiots would surely be caught. All this was for nothing. You morons.

  “We need to get rid of his luggage,” Pete said. “We can hide it somewhere on the ranch. No fingerprints though. We need to be careful how we handle it.”

  Why did Jasper find that funny? They’d be careful with his luggage but not with him.

  “I better carry him up the ladder,” Pete said. “I’m stronger than you. You keep a lookout.”

  “You going to kill him first?”

  “The fall will probably do that. He’s not going to get out of there. He’ll die one way or another. Drag him to the far door. I’m not carrying him any farther than I need to.”

  Ring grabbed hold of Jasper’s shirt and pulled him along the barn floor. Jasper let a couple of beads trickle from his fingers. It was the only thing he could think of to do. He needed Calum to come back to his room, see his bags before they were moved and wonder where he was. Or even better catch these guys taking them. He needed Angie or Calum to see the beads and follow the trail. Fast.

  Oh God. Please help me. Calum. Calum.

  Ring let Jasper’s head drop and then kicked his shoulder. Jasper gasped behind his gag. He desperately tried to suck in air through his nose. If his nose became blocked, he’d suffocate. Jasper’s face felt wetter and he guessed he must be bleeding more heavily. Or crying. Both.

  His helplessness distressed him. He wanted to fight back and there was nothing he could do. Jasper’s mind drifted to his mother, about to lose another son, though depending on her state of mind when the news was broken, she might not even remember she had one. To Calum, who, in time, maybe could have been his. In just these few days, Jasper felt more for him than he’d ever felt for anyone. At least he had that. He’d found someone to love. His friends in London would miss him for a while. His employer and clients would be pissed off at the inconvenience.

  Jasper struggled as Pete hoisted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Ring smashed his fist on Jasper’s head. The world wavered and the next thing Jasper knew, he was falling, slithering down a slope of grain that avalanched with him.

  When he stopped sliding, he lay still in the darkness, heart pounding, barely able to breathe, his face pressed into the gravelly grain. He heard the sound of the cover sliding back into place and then feet descending the ladder on the outside of the storage unit. Surrounded by absolute blackness, Jasper’s heart banged against his ribs. Oh God, is this where I’m going to die?

  He was afraid to move in case he slid down into the grain. He’d be trapped and suffocate. But his breathing had become more ragged. If he didn’t get the gag off his mouth, he’d die anyway. Jasper dug into the grain with his heels and whimpered in his throat when almost immediately he touched something solid. The base of the silo. At least he wasn’t going to sink. He rolled onto his knees and arched his back to force his bound wrists under his backside. Everywhere hurt, but his chest was so painful, he saw stars in the blackness. One attempt. That’s all he had the energy for.

  Jasper needed to regulate his breathing, but he was too frightened to slow his frantic inhalations through his nose. When his arms slid under his butt, Jasper groaned behind his gag. He dropped to his side then rolled onto his back and curling up tighter, reached between his legs for his mouth. A desperate scrabble by his fingers was followed by success as Jasper forced the strip of cloth—ah, my fucking tie—down over his chin. He sucked in air, tried to fill hi
s lungs, but he was so crunched up, it hardly made any difference. He could call out now, but he didn’t want to until he was sure Ring and Pete had gone. Only how could he tell and what was the point? Would anyone be around at this time of night?

  He was reluctant to try and maneuver his legs all the way through the loop of his arms. Jasper was flexible but not that flexible, though he might be able to untie his ankles while he was in this position. He tried and couldn’t. When his breathing worsened, he gave in and returned his arms to their former position behind his back. The air in the grain silo was thick and heavy. He could taste it, feel it coating his airways, blocking his lungs, slowly killing him. Jasper turned until his feet rested on the metal wall and began to kick. He’d call out every ten kicks because he needed to save his breath, but at the first kick, a flurry of grain slithered over his head and he jerked up, gasping.

  Afraid to try again until he’d worked out what was happening, Jasper scooted around, exploring with his hands and his body. He found the wall of grain he’d slid down that probably saved his life, but had no idea how high it was. Maybe the outlet was at the bottom of that, but not a way out for him. In fact if the outlet was opened and he was caught in the grain, he’d be sucked to his death. If nobody came, if for any reason that wall of grain fell to settle on him, if his asthma took hold, Jasper was dead. He retreated as far as he could from the worst danger, lay on his side and kicked and kicked again at the metal.

  Calum lay on his bed, with his heart pounding. Why the fuck had he told Jasper about the rape? He’d kept it buried all these years and then just blurted it out. It had happened a long time ago. Why did it even matter? He’d gotten over it. It was done, finished, not forgotten, but— Oh shit. Calum rolled and buried his face in his pillow. What was he so scared of? Jasper wouldn’t hurt him. The guy had opened his heart and Calum had repaid his trust by running. I’m such an asshole.