Red Dirt Heart

by N. R. Walker

  “Ignore you?” I pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Yes. You don’t need to fight it anymore. I think we’re past the I wonder if he’s interested thing.” When I didn’t say anything, he added, “Two years, really?”

  I snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, thanks for not bringing it up twice or anything.”

  He laughed this time. “It’s just a really long time. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “It’s just a really long time for a twenty-five-year-old to go between drinks, if you know what I mean?”

  “Not many single gay men come out this way.”

  He put his hand on my chest. “Well, I’m here now, so you may as well take advantage of the opportunity.”

  I frowned, dreading saying out loud the very reason I was afraid in the first place.

  I took a deep breath and said, “Um, when we’re working… during the day…”

  “Charlie, I get it. During the day, we work. At night, we play.”

  I snorted at that. “So what am I? A working holiday conquest?”

  He grinned that bloody smug smile, then leaned in and kissed me. It started soft and sweet, but then he cradled my face with his hand and he pulled himself over to me. Putting his hand on my stomach, he slid his hand under the elastic of my briefs and wrapped his fingers around my cock.

  “We may as well only get cleaned up once,” he whispered against my lips.

  I ran my hands over his side, laughing when he squirmed. “Are you ticklish?” I asked.

  He grabbed my hand and put it on his hardening dick. “Not here I’m not.”

  I palmed his cock and gripped him, making his tongue stutter in my mouth. I smiled against his lips and he replied by cupping my balls and kissing me harder.

  Lying on our sides, kissing, stroking, it was slower this time. More… intimate. I was soon thrusting into his hand, unable to help myself. Unable to stop the pressure building, unable to hold back.

  The more I wanted release, the more I pumped him, and he was soon bucking into my hand. I stopped kissing him so I could watch him this time, and as his eyes closed, his mouth opened and his neck corded as he flexed into my fist. His cock swelled and spilled hot cum onto both of us.

  Travis’s whole body jerked, and swatting his hand away, I took my own cock in hand as my orgasm rocked through me. Travis was on me then, while I was coming, rolling onto me and thrusting his tongue in my mouth.

  Our kisses became languid as our bodies simmered, and Travis eventually rolled off me, lay flat on his back and chuckled.

  Then I started to laugh. “We’re a bit of a mess.”

  “Shower?”

  He leapt up, took my hand and pulled me off the bed. The house was quiet and God only knows if Ma and George heard what we’d just done. Part of me was horrified, and part of me didn’t care. Travis got in the shower first; it wasn’t hardly big enough for two. He scrubbed himself down, and I watched him be all wet and naked in the shower.

  He had no other tattoos, just the star on his chest. He was lean but muscular and tanned, his uncut dick heavy and spent.

  “Enjoying the view?” he asked.

  “Sorry,” I said. It was different now, being all out in the open in a well-lit bathroom as opposed to a darkened bedroom.

  He shut the water off and stepped out of the shower, dripping wet and smiling. “Don’t go getting all shy now. You weren’t shy ten minutes ago. Or half an hour ago in the hall, for that matter.”

  I chuckled a bit and looked at floor. “I’m not used to this,” I said, waving my hand between us. “Are you always so forthright?”

  He plucked his towel off the rack, and without an ounce of modesty, wiped his face and hair dry, still buck naked. “Uh, yeah.”

  I stripped out of my clothes, trying not to feel self-conscious by being naked in front of him, which was stupid, considering what we’d just done. I smiled at him and got into the shower, quickly washing myself. Water wasn’t something we had in great supply, so showers were always short. By the time Travis had brushed his teeth at the basin, I was out and had the towel around my waist.

  Travis was at least wearing his towel now, and a grin. “So? Third time’s a charm?”

  I scoffed. “Uh, I think sleep actually might be the charm.” I opened the bathroom door and waited for him. “After you.”

  “Are you holding the door so you can check out my ass?”

  I laughed. “No, I was just being polite.”

  “I’d rather you checked out my ass,” he said as he walked to his bedroom door. He stopped. “My bed’s awfully big and yours smells like sex, so if you wanna sleep in here with me…”

  I turned the light off and walked to my bedroom door. “I think mine’ll be fine.”

  Just as I was about to say goodnight, he spoke. “Charlie?”

  “Yeah?”

  He walked up the hall, and leaning in, he kissed me softly. “You don’t have to be scared of me anymore.” I tried to say something back to him, but he lifted my chin and kissed me again. “Goodnight.”

  I nodded. “Night.”

  I shut my door and got into bed. I was trying not to think about what he said, but he was right about one thing. My bed really smelled of sex. I rolled over and smiled into my pillow, and I slept like the dead.

  * * * *

  I woke up late, very unlike me, and met a smug, grinning Travis in the kitchen. Ma was there getting breakfast ready, oblivious to the look he was giving me.

  “Sleep okay?” he asked with a knowing grin. “You look like you just woke up.”

  “I did just wake up,” I said, my voice still croaky with sleep.

  “Oh.” Ma turned then. “You feel okay? I thought you were up and outside already.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, taking a cup from the tray and pouring myself a tea.

  Travis grinned behind Ma, but then he picked up the tray of tea and coffee and took it to the dining room, and I had a sense of dread that what we’d done last night was a mistake. I had told him explicitly that no one could know, and the very next morning he was all too-knowing-smiles and innuendos.

  But when we were seated at the table, he never even looked at me. It was like any other day. He laughed with Billy about their day in the top paddocks yesterday, retelling the stories of how he’d almost fallen off Texas, making everyone laugh as he did.

  Even me.

  He was playing his part perfectly. If scenes from last night weren’t so fresh in my mind, if I didn’t know how the hands he talked so animatedly with now felt on my skin, I’d wonder if it had happened at all.

  When everyone had finished eating, George asked me, “What’s the plan for today?”

  I swallowed my last mouthful of food and sipped my tea. “Trudy and Fish head northwest, Bacon and Ernie northeast, open the gates and turn the water off. The cattle will come down on their own. Do a run for stragglers, herd them down. Go on the bikes, give the horses a rest.” I didn’t have to tell them to take their supply bags, walkie-talkies and a satellite phone. It was standard procedure. “Billy and Travis did their run yesterday. They can help out here.”

  George gave his usual nod, and as we all stood and headed out, he said, “Billy, Travis, you’re with me.”

  Travis didn’t bat an eyelid. Just took his hat off the hallstand, fixed it on his head and without so much as a backward glance, he jumped off the veranda as he followed George into the yard.

  I had some paperwork to finalise on the ear tags, registering numbers. It was mostly done electronically these days, which saved time. We’d section off the yearlings, females and breeding stock and tag them accordingly, releasing them back into the paddocks. I spent the day running holding tape, making temporary fences in the southern paddocks, only hearing the occasional burst of laughter from the storage sheds.

  Later that night when Travis and Billy were finishing up, George stood on the veranda with me. “How’d the boys go today?” I asked cas
ually.

  “Real good. That kid is a worker, ain’t no two ways about it. Didn’t even have to tell him to do, he just gets in and does it.”

  I nodded and bit the inside of my lip so I wouldn’t smile. “Billy said he held his own yesterday. Normally a full ten-hour day up in those top paddocks will bring ’em home wrecked or crying. But he came back laughing.”

  George snorted out a laugh. “Is that why you paired him with Billy? Not many folk can keep up with him.”

  I smiled this time. “Maybe.”

  “Or was it to get rid of him for the day?”

  I snorted and probably blushed a little. “Maybe.”

  George smiled, something he didn’t do too often. “Anyways, he’s worth his keep. Shame he can’t stay on a bit longer, huh?”

  I didn’t answer that one.

  George looked from me back out to Travis. His voice was quiet. “That’s what I thought.” He grinned at me, clapped me on the shoulder then yelled out for the two of them to get cleaned up for dinner.

  Travis actually played his part so well, by the end of the day, I thought maybe he didn’t want to do anything again. He didn’t ignore me, but I kept waiting for some look of recognition or a hint of suggestion in a passing comment, but it never came. Apart from the grin and eyebrow waggle first thing this morning in the kitchen, he’d not even really looked at me.

  It was exactly what I asked him to do. I couldn’t fault him for that. I just wondered if I was that easy to resist, to ignore. Was I really that forgettable?

  Like every night, I spent a few hours after dinner in my office. I could hear Travis and George talking from where they sat on the veranda. George was trying to explain Australian Football, and it wasn’t going well. Travis couldn’t seem to get past the fact it was played on an oval-shaped field, and it would make me smile every time George had to re-explain something.

  Then they started on cricket.

  He had the patience of a saint, but in the end, George gave up and called it a night. I heard the front door open and close again, but the house was quiet and I presumed Travis had gone to bed too. As much as I wished it otherwise, I couldn’t ignore the lump of disappointment in my belly.

  I stared at my office for a while, lost in my head, and I didn’t hear the door open. “Are you avoiding me?” Travis asked quietly. He was leaning against the doorframe, his bare feet framed by his jeans and blue-and-white-checkered shirt. The sleeves were rolled to his elbows. He startled me, and smiled when I put my hand to my heart.

  “I thought you were avoiding me,” I replied.

  His eyes flickered with confusion. “You told me to.”

  “I know I did.” I shook my head at how stupid I sounded. “Sorry.”

  Travis smiled warmly and walked into my office. He leaned his ass on the side of my desk like he owned it. “So if you’re not avoiding me…”

  I closed my laptop and stood up, not really wanting to have this conversation anywhere besides the privacy of my room. I went to walk past him. “I’m not avoiding you. I just don’t think here is the best—”

  His hand on my arm stopped me. “Everyone’s gone to bed,” he whispered. He was still leaning against my desk and he pulled me toward him and smiled. “Ever had desk sex?”

  “Travis,” I hissed at him. “Not here.”

  He frowned and looked down at the desk over his shoulder. “We could try carrying it into your room, but it looks heavy.”

  I laughed, despite trying not to. “That’s not what I meant.”

  He grinned. “I know.” Then he stood up, and with his hand still on my arm, he leaned in close. His body heat, his smell made my head swim. He ran his nose along my ear, making me shiver, then nudged his nose against mine in an almost-kiss. “I’m going to bed. I think you should come with me.”

  He walked out, and I had to adjust myself before I followed him. I turned off the lights, closed the front door, and by the time I got to my bedroom door, I wondered if he meant my bed or his. I hesitated, which he must have heard, because there was a chuckle from my room.

  “Shut up,” I said, walking in and closing the door behind me. “I didn’t know which room you went into.”

  The room was dark, my eyes not yet adjusted to the lack of light. He laughed again but then his hands were on the button of my jeans. I ran my hands up his arms and over his naked chest and back, over his ass. He was only wearing briefs. Then I did something I’d wanted to do all damn day.

  I kissed him.

  Hard.

  I held his head in both hands and kept his mouth pressed to mine. I fed him my tongue and his hands stopped on my jeans, falling to his sides, and he melted into me, totally owned by this kiss.

  When I finally slowed and pulled my mouth from his, he groaned. “Goddamn,” he said breathily. “Fuck… kiss me… like that…”

  I’d rendered him speechless. I chuckled and kissed him again, softer this time. He went back to undressing me.

  I pulled his underpants down, releasing his cock, feeling it spring against me. He shoved my jeans and briefs down over my hips and I stepped on them, trying to get out of them without using my hands. I didn’t want to stop touching him. I wanted to feel him everywhere.

  Travis slid his hand around my cock. “You didn’t answer my question about desk sex,” he whispered in my ear.

  I laughed against his neck, kissing down his collarbone. “Get on the bed.”

  He was quick to obey and I crawled up over him. He had his hand on his own dick, and I swatted it away, licking him instead. I was rewarded almost immediately with precum, making me groan.

  His whole body jerked and he moaned loudly. I smiled and slid my lips over the head of his cock, swirling my tongue and sucking. It had been a long time since I’d given head—and I’d forgotten just how much I loved doing it.

  Travis squirmed underneath me, then pulled me off him. “Stop.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Get up here,” he said, his voice gruff. “Turn around. I want to taste you too.”

  He sat up on the bed, took my face in his hands and pulled me in for a quick kiss, then lay back down diagonally on the bed. He put his hand on my hip and urged me to face the other way. Leaning into position, I swung my leg over his chest and gave him what he wanted.

  He took me into his mouth as I did the same to him. It took every ounce of control not to fuck his mouth but to keep my hips still and let him move as he wanted. I worked him over, and as we gave mutual blowjobs, mutual pleasure, it wasn’t long until I was close to coming.

  I pulled my mouth off his cock to warn him, but he took hold of my hips and slid me in deeper as I came down his throat.

  Still riding my orgasm high, I somehow managed to remember to keep sucking and pumping him until he arched under me. “God, gonna come,” he warned, and I wanted it. I wanted to taste him, drink him, so slid my fingers over his balls, and he bucked, filling my mouth with cum, and I swallowed hungrily.

  I rolled off him, collapsing at his side. I wanted to kiss him but was facing the wrong way, so I leaned over and kissed his thigh instead. Travis chuckled and convulsed as an aftershock wracked through him. He tried to pull my arm. “Get up here,” he mumbled.

  I shuffled up so I was lying the same way as him with my head on a pillow. Travis lifted my arm off my chest and nestled himself into my side, using my chest as a pillow. My arm fell comfortably around his shoulder, holding him. Without realising what I was doing, I pressed my lips to his forehead. He leaned up and kissed my lips softly, then put his head back down and draped his arm over me.

  It was an intimate thing to do. It was unexpected but comforting. And really fucking wonderful.

  I had every intention of telling him he couldn’t sleep in my bed, but before I knew it, it was morning.

  And I was alone.

  * * * *

  The next two days were the same. All work during the day—never once giving anything away—and all playful and fucking sexy as hell a
t night.

  He fell asleep in my bed each night, waking up sometime earlier than me to go back to his room. I never asked him why; I presumed it part of the discretion clause I’d put in earlier.

  We hadn’t had intercourse. We’d done just about everything else, but there’d been no penetrative sex. I’d had my finger in his ass, but nothing else. I wanted to, I wanted to be inside him so bad, and I was going to ask him if it was something he’d consider.

  Some guys didn’t like it, and that was fair enough. Throughout my few years at college, I preferred to top. Maybe that was more to do with my impatience and need to fuck as much as I could. That said, some of the best sex I’d had was when I bottomed. With the right person, a patient and tentative person, it could take you to places of pleasure you never knew existed.

  And if all I had for the rest of my life was a few short weeks of sex and fun, then I wanted to do it all. But only if Travis wanted that too. I didn’t even know if he topped or bottomed. I had a feeling if it came down to specifics, I wouldn’t care.

  It was late on Friday night when I got a call from my closest neighbour. Greg Pietersen had run Burrunyarrip Station for as long as I could remember. He’d helped me out when my dad passed away, driving the two-hundred-and-fifty-kilometre trip across the Queensland border to come over.

  It was mustering time across the Outback, and all stations kept in touch so we knew what the other was up to. Sometimes we borrowed staff or equipment, sometimes we lent it out. This was one of those times.

  Greg’s helicopter, same as ours, was out of action. The part would take a week to get in, but they were rounding up these next two days, and even with such short notice, he wanted to know if I’d help.

  “Of course,” I said into the phone without hesitating. “I can come over and help out tomorrow.”

  George stood in the doorway and heard enough of the conversation. He was probably already getting things organised in his head for me to head out the next morning, gave a nod and waved goodnight.