Two Spirits

by Jory Strong

  "Patricia trashed my place. That's why I'm here."

  "What the hell happened to giving you protection? You could have walked in on her. Or you could have been home when she showed up."

  "The Feds don't need me to testify as a witness or anything. They figured she'd flee, not come after me."

  "They figured wrong."

  He shrugged, but there was no denying that Tenino's reaction was pushing him deeper into dangerous territory, at least where his heart was concerned. "The Feds had a solid case against her father and her two uncles before they approached me. But there were a couple of links in the distribution chain they couldn't pin down. Finally they figured out it was because the guys only dealt with Patricia. That's what I did for them mainly, glued myself to her side, passed on anything I heard or saw. They weren't sure how deeply she was involved in the business until they launched simultaneous raids on every place connected to a Veron. And like I said, they thought she'd flee the country, or at least go into hiding."

  "A fucking bad call," Tenino said, growly-voiced. "You came home and found your home trashed. The Feds are lucky they didn't show up and find a dead body—yours."

  "I know. She destroyed anything important to me. She burned all my pictures, of my mom, of me as a kid, of the classes I've taught, along with awards and anything else that could go up in flames in the bathtub. What couldn't be burned she ruined some other way. One of my shirts ended up on top of the pig. That's why she missed it, otherwise she'd have smashed it. She knew it meant something to me. She went with me to Tanya's funeral."

  Tenino hugged him. "You did the right thing helping the Feds, even if it cost you."

  "I know. I'd do it again. The Verons needed to be stopped."

  He pressed his mouth to Tenino's mouth. Said with clinging lips, the thrust of his tongue and the rub of his erection to Tenino's, what he didn't dare put into words. I'm falling hard for you.

  The kiss was like a carnival night, thrills and chills, cotton candy and spicy mustard on salty pretzels. Rides that left down feeling like up and up like down, that made hearts and stomachs flip and spin, while barkers called to the crowds, step right up men and win a prize for the one you love.

  "Target practice first, fun second," Tenino said. "We'll stick to hand guns. And then you're going to beg for a fuck."

  Trey dug his fingers into Tenino's muscular ass, preventing him from escaping the rub of hard cock against hard cock. "What if I start begging now?"

  "Start begging now and I'll think you want to come any way you can, even if it means having to change your pants." He grasped Trey's bare nipples, squeezed and sent icy-hot flashes of painful ecstasy streaking downward.

  Trey's hips bucked, his cock leaked. "What about payback being a bitch?"

  "I think I proved last night I can take it. Didn't I?"

  Trey's mind flashed to lying on top of Tenino, thrusting, coming and the sudden burn at the base of his spine warned that coming in his sweats was a distinct possibility.

  He took his hands off Tenino's ass and stepped back. His cock screamed in protest but his heart soared when Tenino's expression revealed that the loss of contact cost him too.

  "Let's get going," Tenino said, voice husky, eyes heated.

  Trey pulled on the Maroon 5 tee then fished a black, long-sleeved shirt out of the duffle, and finished getting dressed while Tenino grabbed guns and ammo and a couple of folded targets.

  At the doorway Tenino thrust a bag containing cans into Trey's hands. They stepped out under a low ceiling of gray clouds and went around to the back of the cabin.

  Trey laughed at the size of the satellite dish at the far corner. "And who says bigger isn't better."

  "Hey, I live alone in the middle of nowhere. I get tired of playing with myself."

  Trey blushed at imagining Tenino surfing live porn sites and jerking off. And Tenino, reading him perfectly, snorted and said, "Get real. I don't pay to peep and I don't hook up online to masturbate. I'm talking Xbox live. World gaming. You've got a dirty mind for a teacher."

  "You set me up by saying you got tired of playing with yourself."

  Tenino stopped. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of Trey's sweats and pulled him forward. "Yeah, well now that you're here, playing with myself isn't going to be necessary—unless I do it so you can watch."

  He delivered a quick, hard kiss, then walked on, like he hadn't left Trey's heart bouncing around like it was caught in a game of dodge ball. Did Tenino want more than a casual fling? Or was he just reading more into the statement than Tenino meant?

  They walked toward a tree line about half a soccer field's length from the cabin. Birds called in the damp mist. A breeze whispered through forest creating shadow figures that danced and merged at the edge of the woods.

  It was reminiscent of what he'd experienced sitting in the diner across from Tenino. Except now he'd swear a distant drumbeat was accompanied by chanting.

  He shook his head and smiled at his own flight of fantasy. Laughed silently as an internal voice intoned, Blond-haired, blue-eyed Anglo schoolteacher relies on Native American warrior for protection in a remote wilderness.

  How clichéd was that? Even if the warrior wore a badge and dressed in flannel and jeans instead of buckskin and beads, and the teacher was male instead of female.

  They reached a tree stump, tall and wide enough to serve as a table. Tenino put the ammo bag and guns on it then headed to where two wooden frames waited for targets to be clamped onto them.

  Trey followed with the sack of cans. As Tenino put up paper targets with a human-shaped torso in the center, Trey placed the cans, some tin, some aluminum, on small logs.

  They returned to the stump and Tenino was all business. He was as tough as any instructor at a police academy firing range and Trey fell a little bit more in love seeing that side of him.

  Trey thrilled each time he fired and a can jumped into the air or skipped across the ground. And Tenino's praise each time they stopped to check the paper target and found he'd hit it…

  Better than a report card full of As, a swimmer's gold medal, or a Teacher of the Year award.

  They shot their last round of ammo and removed the ear protection. Trey asked, "So where's the closest bookstore?"

  "Are you hinting you'd rather be reading a book than shooting guns?"

  Trey slapped a hand over his heart and tried for an affronted expression. "What! You think I don't enjoy manly pursuits like decimating cans and pretending to kill people? Next you'll be expecting me to wear pink and put on mascara."

  Tenino snickered and snaked an arm around Trey, pulling him against the front of his body. "I bet you look good in pink."

  He pressed his lips to Trey's, slid his tongue in for a very thorough, very arousing kiss. Trey groaned, rubbed his cloth-covered erection against Tenino's.

  The phantom singing he'd imagined as they crossed the clearing returned, only louder this time, the drum beating in time to his heart, in time to the need pulsing through his cock.

  In his mind's eye, the two of them were standing bare-chested in this spot under a summer sky, shedding their clothing, driven by a sudden urgency to fuck after target shooting. He shivered and ran his hands over Tenino's back. "Should I start begging now?"

  * * * * *

  Chapter 5

  Oh yeah, Tenino thought, teaching Trey how to handle a gun had definitely flipped some switches he hadn't known were there. "Let's get back to the cabin first." Because if he didn't get some relief soon, he was going to be the one begging.

  They packed up the guns and spent ammunition, collected the shredded cans and took down the bullet-riddled targets.

  "I like it here," Trey said as they retraced their earlier steps.

  "Wait'll you see the rest of it." Not just Hohoq or the places his relatives called home, but the land.

  They stepped into the cabin, bringing in the scent of gun powder. And damn if he could ignore years of training or fail to show Trey the right w
ay to do things. "Taking your virgin ass is going to have to wait. Put the guns on the kitchen table. I'll grab the cleaning kit."

  Minutes later the distinctive smell of solvent and gun oil filled the air. He loved the scent, usually found it relaxing, but Trey's working the cleaning rod, thrusting it in and out of the gun barrel along with the bore brush, was torture.

  Erotic images crowded in along with memories. True, he wasn't usually on the receiving end when it came to his partners, but the intimacy of having Trey above him, his face showing every emotion, including how much he liked to fuck, had lit him up. A repeat was possible, no, make that probable.

  The instant the last gun was clean, he pushed away from the table and stood. Unbuckled his belt, struggled to breathe as color streaked across Trey's cheekbones and blue eyes heated.

  "There's something about guys and guns," Trey joked, sliding from the chair and onto his knees, unbuttoning the top button of Tenino's jeans and pulling the zipper down, freeing his cock so it stood full and proud, more than ready to see some action.

  "Now," Tenino said, thrusting his fingers through Trey's blond hair.

  "Is that an order?" Trey teased, his heated breath followed by the quick flick of his tongue over Tenino's cock head.

  "Fuck yeah. Suck me. If I have to cuff you, you won't be able to wear pants or sit for a week."

  Trey snickered and Tenino grinned despite the way his cock throbbed with savage eagerness and his balls were tight and already aching with the need to empty.

  "Sounds like you do have a fetish for bondage. Maybe I'll let you indulge in it."

  Tenino's comeback was lost with Trey's hand circling his straining length and Trey's mouth claiming everything his fingers didn't. Tenino moaned, thrust.

  Need tangled with desperation and hope, and maintaining control was already ancient history. He panted, shuddered. Said Trey's name as he fucked through a fisted hand and yeah, anyone listening might just say it sounded like he was begging.

  His hips bucked. His thighs bunched. He tried to draw it out but Trey made it impossible.

  Trey's lips and tongue seared him. Drove him into a frenzy that could only end one way.

  Tenino shouted as he came. Hot waves of ecstasy shot through him as jets of semen erupted, leaving him lightheaded, swaying, his heart thundering and his fingers clenched mercilessly in Trey's hair.

  "Damn." He wished he could do better but he couldn't. He was lucky to manage the one word.

  Trey's hot mouth left him and only pride kept Tenino from whimpering, or worse, passing out from the pleasure still resonating through him.

  "Damn, you're good," he said, managing a grin as Trey stood, face flushed, blue eyes holding a knowledge and a confidence they hadn't when he'd stepped into the sheriff's office yesterday and Trey'd been doing his best to disappear into the heavy black jacket.

  Shy? Hell no, guy had just been a virgin, that's all. And still was, at least when it came to his ass.

  Time to change that. He pulled Trey forward, captured the lips that had just blown him away and tasted himself.

  Instant hard-on. The guy was more potent than a cocktail of Viagra.

  He guided Trey to the bed and said, "Get rid of the shirts."

  And fuck if Trey didn't take his time unbuttoning, shrugging out of the long-sleeved shirt then slowly peeling the tee over ripped abs and a broad chest. Talk about solicitation…

  Tenino slid the handcuffs from his back pocket. Watched Trey's lips part and his pupils dilate.

  His own cock bobbed, pulling away from his abs and trying to get back to Trey's mouth. Not happening he told it. Putting you to a different use.

  He locked the cuffs around Trey's wrists. Said, "Lie down. Hands above your head." He would have gone off again, or gone down on Trey if Trey had lost the sweats.

  He improvised, used an athletic sock to secure Trey's bound hands to the headboard, and had to put a strangle hold on his own dick. Why had he thought cuffing and tethering Trey was a good idea? Because damn, the sight of Trey helpless was probably a lot like that very first use of meth for someone who'd then spend a lifetime never being able to shake the habit.

  Tenino jerked Trey's sweats down and off, would have come at the tremor of want that went through Trey and the I need this more than I've ever needed anything in my life look in his eyes if he didn't have a death grip on his own dick.

  Fuck, Trey just did it for him and there was no getting around that fact, not that he had any desire to. He stripped out of his shirt, kicked off his shoes and pushed the jeans down and off, and yeah, having Trey's eyes on him made him want to flex his muscles.

  He opened the nightstand drawer, pulled out a condom and the lubricant. Grinned at the way Trey's breath caught and his ass tightened defensively.

  They'd get to that, but first… He dropped the rubber and the lube on the stand and rubbed his fingertips over Trey's nipple.

  Trey moaned, the flush across his cheekbones darkening, his hips jerking off the mattress and the tip of his cock glistening with arousal.

  "Can we just say I've already done the begging?"

  Could they?

  He put a knee on the mattress. Swept his hand downward, over Trey's taut abs. He claimed Trey's cock, loved the way it throbbed against his palm and leaked.

  Part of him wanted to lean down, suck it into his mouth and reduce Trey to begging. But the part of him that'd cuffed Trey to the bed was after something else—complete and total submission, complete and total acceptance along with an admission that this wasn't casual or pure experimentation.

  Yeah, he'd enjoyed letting Trey fuck him and they'd revisit the scenario again—maybe often because he was finding he could be more flexible than he'd thought possible—but fundamentally he wasn't wired that way. At his core he was dominant.

  He wanted to be the man on top, the man shoving his cock into his partner's ass, making him scream and come.

  Tenino brushed his thumb over Trey's cock head. He smeared liquid arousal over the smooth head, silently calling himself a pervert for liking Trey's circumcised penis, for thinking it made Trey seem more vulnerable—as if Trey's virgin status wasn't more than enough to bring out some primal urges.

  Damn. The thought of being Trey's first was mind-blowing.

  The thought of anyone else fucking Trey was enough to make him crazed, and that told him more clearly than the constant erection and ever-present threat of a terminal case of blue balls that this attraction to Trey was serious.

  He'd never been the jealous type. He didn't like to look closely at it now—but there'd been stretches in his life where a quick, anonymous fuck or blowjob suited him fine.

  No names. No commitments. Nothing except a physical release that didn't involve his own hand.

  He fisted his cock. Slid his hand up and down, worked his dick in the same rhythm he worked Trey's and seriously thought about letting go and coating Trey's abs with come.

  He reduced Trey to writhing, begging. And fuck, nearly brought himself close to doing the same.

  How torqued was that? Trey was the one in cuffs while he was the one who was supposed to be in control.

  Trey spread his legs. Lifted his hips. "Fuck me."

  White noise filled Tenino's head. His dick echoed Trey's demand.

  He leaned down, kissed Trey until they were breathless. "That didn't sound like begging to me."

  Trey's laugh was a sound of want. "Fuck me, please."

  He released Trey's cock, then his own. Squeezed lubricant onto his fingers and pressed them to the tight ring of Trey's ass.

  Trey jerked. "You could have warmed the stuff up first."

  "It'll warm up soon enough," Tenino said, eyes so fierce they reminded Trey of a bird of prey. "Bear down. Push out."

  Trey's cheeks flamed but he complied and Tenino opened him, stretched him, prepared him. And if he'd thought everything they'd done before this felt good…

  He tugged at the restraints. "Hurry the fuck up."

 
Tenino laughed. "Not exactly teacher language." But he put on a condom, then lay on top of Trey, lining his cock up and pushing into him.

  Trey's buttocks clenched protectively while his dick throbbed in eagerness.

  "Don't fight it," Tenino said, his voice husky and Trey forced himself to relax, to push out as Tenino pushed in.

  It was exquisite, nearly unbearable. Earth-shattering. He jerked against the restraints. Wanted his hands free so he could spear his fingers through Tenino's hair.

  "Kiss me," Trey begged, wanting the ultimate intimacy, needing it, and was lost when Tenino's lips touched his, when their tongues tangled as Tenino forged deeper and deeper.

  Tenino thrust and Trey couldn't have fought the pleasure if he'd wanted to. Nothing had ever felt as good, as right as having Tenino on top of him, inside him.

  This is who I am. This is what I want. But not with another man.

  He memorized Tenino's face, eyes like dark, heated pools that poured liquid warmth straight into his heart. Lips that lifted and thinned as Tenino held his own need in check. Lips that returned to his again and again.

  He clenched on Tenino. Moaned as Tenino rocked, shallow thrusts becoming deeper. Slow thrusts becoming faster, all of them pushing pleasure through his ass and into his shaft.

  His cock strained, licked across his abs and Tenino's abs. It pulsed with Tenino's name, need and hot pleasure swelling, building, exploding in a searing rush of satisfaction that intensified with Tenino's shouted, shuddering release.

  The sound of rapid, labored breathing filled the air. Beneath it a phantom drumbeat echoed and raced in time to Trey's pulse, as if signaling to the world that his heart and body had been claimed.

  He forced his eyes open and found Tenino's face inches above his. For long moments their gazes held.

  "You okay?" Tenino finally asked, his voice whisper-soft, rough-edged.

  "Yeah. Better than okay though I definitely need a shower."

  Tenino planted a quick kiss on Trey's lips then rolled to his feet and disposed of the condom.

  Trey tugged at the restraints. "A little attention here."