by Cameron Dane
Hunter’s chest started to pulsate faster along with the quickening of blood in his penis. He scrambled for a way to talk himself down from attaining full wood. “Umm…” He gripped the steering wheel with every bit of his might. Phantom sensations of his missing pinkie and ring fingers completing the grip created a wiggle of odd feelings up and down his arm and brought a twisted focus to Hunter once more. Didn’t mean he dared look Alex’s way again, though.
Eyes forward, Hunter asked, “How many houses are you going to build?”
“Eighteen, if you count the Compton refurbish,” Alex replied.
“That’s all?” Hunter looked at Alex without thinking, his shock at the small number overriding all else. Long-suppressed hunger overrode the tension twisting Hunter’s gut and dragged his attention back down to where every red-blooded gay man’s would go. Another glance at those perfectly shaped balls and the tantalizing hint of cock flooded Hunter’s mouth with saliva. Fuck. This isn’t going to work.
“You have… You’re not…” Even if Hunter didn’t look, his proximity to body parts he hadn’t seen, touched, or loved on another man in too long filled him to the point where he couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Feeling the blush suffusing his face, Hunter commanded his focus back to the empty road. At the same time, he made an ultrafast point toward Alex’s crotch. “I can tell you’re not wearing any underwear.”
“What? Crap, I’m sorry.” Mortification filled Alex’s tone. “Here I am stretched out like I own the place --” A sudden groan mixed with a “motherfucking shit” from Alex seared through Hunter, prompting him to stop the truck. Fuck this. Hunter looked and saw all the color had fled from Alex’s skin. He had his teeth clenched too, and the hurt etching his face overrode all else.
“You shouldn’t have to be in pain,” Hunter said, drawing Alex’s gaze to his. Eye contact trapped Hunter and put an uptick in his heart that beat out seeing this man’s cock. Clearing his throat, Hunter murmured huskily, “Put your leg back up. There’s a towel in the glove box you can use to cover up.”
It probably lasted a second, two tops -- Hunter couldn’t be sure because he couldn’t break eye contact -- but it felt like Alex studied every millimeter of Hunter’s face for an eternity, mapping, assessing, judging, before a small smile edged up the tight lines taking over his lips.
“Thank you,” Alex finally said and reached for the latch. “This has got to be one of the most embar --”
Ice suddenly froze Hunter’s blood. “Wait! No!” He reached across and slapped Alex’s hand away. Christ, I forgot all the other stuff I have in there. Grabbing the latch himself, Hunter hung in suspended animation as his mind raced with his next move.
Paralyzed too, Alex narrowed his stare. “What’s the matter?”
Stop freaking out, Tenny. Hunter averted his gaze. “Nothing.” Think. Alex didn’t have any idea Hunter cut himself on a regular basis. Without full information or a window into Hunter’s brain, Alex wouldn’t assume the antiseptic or burn creams and salves in his glove compartment were anything but a haphazardly thrown together first-aid kit for his vehicle. As for the box cutter and small skinning knife, those weren’t entirely out of place in a ranch hand’s truck either.
Silently commanding himself to open the glove compartment in the same manner he’d opened the passenger side door just a few minutes ago, Hunter pinched the latch and slowly lowered the hinge door. “It’s just overstuffed with my crap. I didn’t want everything spilling onto the floor and under the seats just because I hadn’t given you fair warning.” He grabbed the rolled white towel, dropped it onto Alex’s lap, and closed the door with the natural pace of a sane person. “There you go.”
Barely registering Alex’s “thank you,” Hunter took his foot off the brake and got them moving again. “Tell me about your plan for the houses,” Hunter said, scrambling for normalcy. Within moments Alex had his shoe nestled against Hunter’s hip again, and Hunter knew the man had shifted his leg back onto the seat. From his peripheral vision, Hunter saw Alex drape the towel over his lap. Clearing his throat, Hunter added, “If you’re allowed.”
“No worries.” Alex’s grin was one of a man accustomed to owning the world. “They’re not top secret, and even if they were, it would be my decision to break it. Short story is I liked the area, the land was good for building, and the community was ripe for another tier of home ownership. I decided to see if I could buy some land. I was successful. As for the Compton house, I loved the architecture of it and decided if my architect and contractor thought it was worth saving, we would. The house has only had patch-job upgrades for nearly forty years. It’s a hundred years old, but they both feel we can save the historical and structural integrity while updating it to include all the modern amenities. I was pleased to hear that. It’s a beautiful, charming house someone will definitely want to own.”
Ahead, Hunter took note of a painted plank of wood with Sandavow’s old steer head logo. “But word of saving that home isn’t convincing people of your good intentions?” Conditioning had Hunter clicking on his blinker even though he had yet to encounter a single vehicle on this road.
“I can’t help that.” Alex braced himself against the dashboard as Hunter turned onto a bumpy dirt road. “As I said, because it’ll be early May when we start, we’ll only build two other houses this year. My plan is to build the other fifteen over the course of the next three years. No two will have the same exterior design or exact interior layout but will be within similar square footage. Each property will have a lot of open land for the owners to do with what they like.”
As Hunter pulled to a stop in front of a silver trailer that looked like a foil-wrapped baked potato, Alex’s gaze strayed out his window to the vast expanse of green as far as the eye could see. “I can’t control it, but I’m hoping the buyers will decide to leave the landscape intact. I’m hoping they’ll want the open space and wild beauty of nature to serve as their back-porch view.”
“That sounds almost romantic of you,” Hunter murmured. Whoa. What the hell made him keep saying inappropriate shit to this man?
Alex only shrugged, and Hunter allowed himself to exhale.
“It’s hard to get people to believe in a newcomer,” Hunter shared, his thoughts straying to locals on an entirely different continent. The frustration and sense of impossibility in gaining trust from a people who couldn’t even communicate with each other in the same language emerged anew. “Blind trust in an outsider is difficult in the world we live in today.”
“Yeah, I know.” Alex’s nod was sharp and quick. “And if you Google my company -- as I’m sure most of Quinten’s residents have -- you’ll find I have hotels in many major cities and tend to build condominiums and office complexes in those areas as well. This project is a first for Quick Holdings. People will need proof before they believe.” He shrugged again. “I can live with that.”
After turning off the engine, Hunter braced his hands on the steering wheel, his focus on Alex. “It’s good that you have patience. You’ll need it.”
Alex gingerly folded his leg and lowered it back to the floor. “What I have is a sound financial investment and a determination not to let anyone or anything deter me from my goal.” Always, Alex maintained eye contact, sometimes just sideways glances, but enough to keep Hunter riveted and on the edge of arousal. “Erupting on people who don’t agree with me or who can’t yet see my vision isn’t good business.”
“Good luck to you.” Hunter’s voice sounded incredibly husky to his ears. Crap. His pulse picked up, stirring the rest of his body into awareness too. Stop it. He quickly cleared his throat and averted his gaze. “Well” -- he gestured to the trailer plopped in the middle of vast, open land -- “this is it. Home sweet home.”
Alex chuckled, and once again the rich depths of the happy sound drew Hunter’s attention. The man stared through the windshield to his temporary accommodations with something of a wistful light in his eyes. His mouth softened too.
“Don’t let its gleaming, aluminum-foil likeness fool you,” Alex said, glancing Hunter’s way. “I’ve lived in houses that were smaller and less well thought-out than this trailer.”
Flashes of dark nights where sleep didn’t come shimmered in front of Hunter’s eyes like a mirage. “I’ve lived in tents and even holes that were smaller still,” he shared.
All traces of humor left Alex’s stare. In the stillness, palpable between them, Alex studied Hunter with a piercing intensity that clutched at Hunter’s very soul. Sweat began to trickle down Hunter’s back.
Across the short distance between them, Alex closed the gap with just his gaze. “I can’t even begin to imagine the conditions you’ve lived in, slept in, and worked in while you were overseas.” He reached out and covered Hunter’s hand on the steering wheel.
Oh Christ. With extreme training and will, Hunter suppressed the shudder fighting to rip through him. For a span of seconds that felt like years, Hunter stared at Alex’s long fingers squeezed around the back of his hand and worked with everything in him to disconnect himself from the contact. He mentally tried to sever his arm from his shoulder, but too much warmth from Alex’s touch had already snaked up Hunter’s arm and teased its way to other parts of his body, infecting too many places to cut away just one.
Unable to tolerate the warm touch, Hunter snatched his hand out from under Alex’s. He curled it in his lap and cleared his throat for an entirely different reason than unwanted attraction. “Most people can’t understand.” The worst of Hunter’s nightmares, of any surviving veteran of combat, had nothing to do with living conditions. They had to do with people. With all the crushing loss that could never be reversed.
“I’ve stirred memories,” Alex said softly, his gaze solemn on Hunter. “I apologize.”
No. You don’t get to see inside me just because of a few kind words. Nobody does.
Hunter pushed open his door and simply said, “Let me help you inside.”
“Absolutely not. Stay where you are.” After waiving Hunter off, Alex pushed open his door and slid to the edge of the seat. “You’ve done too much already.” With half his body out of the vehicle, Alex reached across the seat and shook Hunter’s hand. “Not to mention I’ve probably already made you late for work. Oow.” Alex stumbled rather spectacularly on his exit. He ended up precarious, with his ass perched on the edge of the attached footstep he’d so recently used to climb into Hunter’s truck. “Fuck.”
Hunter couldn’t believe it, and it wasn’t nice of him, but as he rushed around the truck to Alex, he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Elegant, Alex wasn’t.
Stooping down, Hunter searched a too-attractive face made full-on approachable by the severity of its blush. Green eyes did enough laughing for both of them, though. The sight dug sweet talons into Hunter’s chest, paining him in a way that tweaked good and bad things inside him.
Right now, a mostly pleasant sensation hummed inside Hunter, and his skin hardly itched for a bloodletting at all. Success.
Hunter braced his hand next to Alex’s leg and looked straight into the man’s still-twinkling eyes. “Do you want to rethink my offer of help?”
Alex didn’t hide, but the red infusing his face raced furiously down his neck and even pinked his chest. “Probably a good idea.” As on the roadside, he slid his arm around Hunter’s shoulders. “I gratefully accept.”
Once Hunter got Alex to his feet, the man’s hold slipped to around Hunter’s back, befitting Hunter’s superior height. Hunter got Alex situated against his side and started them moving. This time Alex definitely struggled with putting pressure on his cramping leg, and Hunter took more of the man’s weight.
“I think you might have more than a simple charley horse.” Hunter attached Alex to his side in order to get him up the trailer’s narrow set of steps, even as his gut told him to pick Alex up and deposit him back into the truck. “Maybe you should let me drive you to the ER after all.”
Alex lifted a leather cord from around his neck and slipped the attached key into the doorknob. “I’ll take a shower and put some heat on it first. If it keeps tightening on me by the afternoon, then I’ll have one of my guys drive me into town.” His tone brooked no argument.
A diplomatic way of saying butt out. Fair enough. Never let anyone say Hunter was a hypocrite.
“I’ll let you get to it then,” he said, backing down the stairs.
Alex whipped out his arm and grabbed Hunter’s hand. Hunter’s injured, gloved hand. “Thank you for stopping.”
Jesus God. Hunter went tauter than a drum. The man almost seemed to fucking massage the ridged landscape where Hunter’s pinkie and finger used to be. Leather might as well not have been between their skin at all.
Eyes on Hunter, Alex never looked down at what he held. “When you saw me, you could have kept right on driving.”
“No.” More of that damned thickness filled Hunter’s tone. “I couldn’t have done that.” Once again Alex’s touch started flickering more phantom contact up Hunter’s arm, across his neck, and down his spine, inducing that shiver he’d been able to conquer before. Hunter quickly twisted the hold into an awkward handshake, and then turned to head to his truck. “Bye.” He tucked his head down and didn’t look up again.
That was, until he climbed behind the wheel. Hunter glanced up as he got ready to put the truck in reverse. Movement through the trailer’s window grabbed his attention. And then -- holy fuck -- the sight stole his breath. Beyond the curtainless rectangle of glass, Alex stripped out of his shorts. Hunter’s truck sat high enough for him to get a complete, unobstructed view. He saw a tight ass with a paler hue than his legs and back, proving Alex often ran outdoors in those or a variation of those little shorts. Without those shorts, Alex’s slim hips and long legs made his back and shoulders appear that much wider. Hunter knew working at Hawkins Ranch would quickly help him regain the breadth of his shoulders and create an overall thicker frame than Alex possessed, but that didn’t for one second mean Alex was anything less than perfection. Right where Hunter sat, his nuts started to swell with seed.
Just then Hunter noticed Alex grab onto a cabinet, righting himself before he swayed. He took a step and then shifted -- almost out of view. But not entirely, and good Christ, Hunter got a throat-drying view of Alex’s long, slender cock, jutting a decent amount out from the nest of white blond curls. He’s getting hard.
It didn’t take looking at Alex another second for Hunter to grow painfully erect behind his unforgiving jeans. Without thinking, he started unbuckling his belt, desperate to get his hand around his dick and gain some relief. He got the loops open and the button on his jeans undone when his heart seized and his hand went still. What the hell am I doing? Before Hunter could think twice, he gunned the engine and peeled away, his heart racing. Alex could have looked up at any moment; he could have noticed Hunter still there. He might have walked outside, saw Hunter with his prick hanging out, jerking off while staring in the man’s window. What the fuck kind of pervert have I become?
Wildly disturbed, Hunter got back on the road. He headed toward work, but his thoughts lay back on Alex’s doorstep. Acknowledging that he’d peeped on Alex in such a private moment made Hunter’s stomach churn with sick, yet at the same time he couldn’t erase the image of the man’s erection. It had been full-on stiff by the time Hunter had come to his senses and driven away. Hunter had been getting boners for long enough to know that on certain days the right breeze could bring on wood. Still, Alex had touched Hunter’s hand, twice, and he’d held Hunter’s stare more than once during their drive to the trailer. He’d looked without the discomfort a heterosexual man would often exhibit when in such a situation with another male.
Doesn’t matter. Hunter screeched the direction of his thoughts to a grinding halt. You can’t let something happen. If they got naked together, Alex would see everything. He would see all the disgusting ugliness mapping your body. Alex would likely think the scars were from IED shrapnel
taken during his time in the Middle East, but the thought of such an incorrect assumption only made Hunter more nauseous. Sickness moved from his gut into his throat. He could evade or outright lie to Alex, to anyone for that matter. A person who’d never served time in a war would believe the story. Hunter could never do it, though. He knew too many fellow soldiers with severe, real injuries sustained in just such situations, and he could never denigrate their suffering for an easy out to embarrassing questions. Alex -- nobody -- could ever see Hunter naked again.
Hunter laughed out loud, the sound awful as it filled his empty truck. So what? The physical complications didn’t even take into account the fuckstorm in Hunter’s head. It wasn’t like he could be intimate with Alex, even if the man wanted it. Hunter’s mind was so screwy he would freak the guy out within five minutes of time alone together. Except you were mostly okay when you helped him just now. You kept control of your heart rate and hardly got panicky for your knife at all.
Hunter rolled his truck to a stop in the Hawkins Ranch employee parking area, his jaw on his chest as that truth hit him. He’d been nervous, yes, but not to freak-out levels. Buzzing with attraction and awareness of Alex, Hunter had dealt with it as any normal man would. Maybe he could overcome his need to self-injure, just as he’d read on the Internet. With a little experimentation, and some insane willpower, he might not only get his relationship with Sarah back but one day be able to have something with a man too.
As he got out of his truck and said hello to another cowboy, Hunter didn’t feel quite so heavy a press on his shoulders as he had just the Friday before.
* * * *
