Out To Get You: An MM Gay Romance

by J. P. Oliver

  I couldn’t deny it, but neither was I going to admit it. My silence was enough.

  “Whitt,” she said, “You should be careful. You know how conservative Quinn Maitland’s reputation is…”

  I threw Mac’s reins back over his head. This conversation didn’t need to continue, especially not in the direction it had taken.

  “There is nothing to worry about.” I gave Sherry a tight smile. “Reece works for me. I have a contract with him. That’s as personal as it gets. Besides, you recommended him to me, so he must be trustworthy.”

  Without waiting for her to comment, I swung into the saddle and collected Mac’s reins.

  “I should get home.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “I know I recommended him but be careful. Call Jordy Edgerton and get his side of the story. You might find it substantially different than Reece’s.”

  The rest of the ride back to the barn, my thoughts went back and forth like an endless tennis volley. Reece claimed his client had dumped him. Sherry claimed he’d run out on him. Reece was unfailingly professional with everyone from what I had seen and treated animals and humans with overwhelming kindness. Sherry had gone out of her way to help me, even recommended Reece to me.

  And that was strange when I came right down to it. Ever since she’d recommended him, and I actually hired him, she had talked behind his back.

  After untacking Mac and rubbing him down, I turned him out in the pasture and watched him roll before I wished Ricky a good day and headed to the house. I was no closer to clearing my confusion by the time evening rolled around.

  The house was way too quiet without Reece and Ripper moving around, and my bed was going to be way too big and lonely again tonight. What if he didn’t come back? Well, that was stupid. He would have to come back. He’d left a horse behind.

  Had he left me behind too?

  I used the computer to locate Jordan Edgerton’s phone number. Doubts gnawing at me, I finally tapped the digits into my house phone and waited for an answer. When the line was answered by a man who sounded just a little older than me, I introduced myself.

  “This is Whitt Dailey. I hired a trainer I believe you used to use…Reece Wilder.”

  “What is that two-faced son-of-a-bitch up to now?”

  From there the conversation went downhill. Everything that left Jordy Edgerton’s mouth simply reinforced the negatives that Sherry had voiced to me. Reece was unreliable. He used people for what they could give him. All he wanted was the right financial backing.

  “That horse he’s riding? Satin? He found her for me,” Jordy told him, “but kept her under wraps because he wanted her for himself. The only horse he showed me was the gelding I ride. As if that wasn’t enough, then he started entering the same classes as me at the last minute, refusing to withdraw even when I said I would reimburse his entry fees.”

  I finally ended the conversation, staring out the French doors to the barn. The lights were still on, so Ricky must be finishing for the evening before he headed to his apartment.

  The entire day had left a bad taste in my mouth and growing doubts about Reece. All I had were his word against what appeared to be an ever-increasing number of people who painted a very different picture of the man I thought I knew.

  The man I had allowed into my house…and my heart.

  18

  Reece

  The entire drive back from Lexington, all I could think about was sharing Satin’s success with Whitt. From the disaster of Saturday, Satin had turned in perfect rounds in every class I entered on Sunday, and I had the checks from the stakes classes to prove it.

  Sure, what I had was probably pocket change to Whitt, but it was big money for me. If she could turn in the same kind of performances at the Maysburg Autumn Classic Horse Show, I’d be over the moon.

  I had gotten a later start than I intended because I had taken time to look at a couple jumper prospects that were for sale and a quiet, rangy hunter I thought might make Whitt an even better mount than Bondage or Trixie. It was late in the afternoon before I backed the trailer to the barn. Ricky came out to help me unload.

  “You just missed Mr. Dailey,” Ricky said in greeting as I rounded the back of the trailer. “He worked Bondage in the ring and took him in a loop around the pastures.”

  I glanced up the hill to the house.

  Ricky clapped me on the back. “Why don’t you head on up there. I’ll take care of Satin, get her settled in, then move the truck and trailer.”

  I grinned. “Thanks, man. I owe you.”

  “I’m sure I’ll need a favor sometime.”

  It felt good to stretch my legs. Ripper was in absolute agreement, sniffing all his favorite spots as though he had been gone a lifetime rather than two days. As always, we came in through the back. I kicked off my boots and padded through the kitchen toward Whitt’s office. At this time of the day, it was where I felt sure I would find him.

  I was surprised when he wasn’t there. After a glance into the den showed he wasn’t there either, I dashed up the stairs to the master suite. I found him stretched out in his whirlpool tub, a glass of bourbon dangling from his hand. A lock of dark hair had fallen over his forehead.

  For once, he looked totally and completely relaxed…and heart-stoppingly handsome.

  “Hey,” I said softly, afraid to startle him.

  His gray eyes opened and focused on me, a flash of welcome there that he quickly squelched.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  I looked at the tub, big enough for the two of us. “Mind if I join you?”

  “If you like.” He took a sip of his drink, his gaze never leaving me as I stripped off my clothing. Having him watch me was enough to make my dick stand at attention. Whitt licked his lips and scooted up to make room for me.

  I eased myself into the swirling water, closing my eyes and sighing with pleasure. “God that feels good.”

  His glass clinked on the ceramic tile surrounding the tub.

  “So? How did she do?”

  I opened one eye and smiled. “We won the high point award. I took the stakes classes I entered, so I’m now a few thousand dollars richer.”

  His hand curled around my calf beneath the water’s surface. “That’s fantastic, Reece. You must be ecstatic.”

  If there was some flatness to his tone, I chalked it up to him being tired. I couldn’t think of any other reason he would be ensconced in his tub with a glass of bourbon in his hand unless it had been a shitty day.

  “I am. I’m also ecstatic to be back home.” Our gazes held. My heart pounded. “I’m sorry I was such a dick about the show Saturday.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I took my frustration out on you. That’s not cool.” Without giving him time to answer, I switched positions in the tub, so I straddled his thighs with my knees. I leaned forward and took his face in my hands, right before kissing him with everything I was worth.

  I had missed talking to him, missed sleeping next to him, and missed making love to him.

  With my hand, I brought both our cocks together and began stroking them. Whitt groaned against my lips.

  “Did you miss this too, baby?” I whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “You want me to fuck you good like I did before?”

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  I laughed a little against his lips, ignoring his silence as I kissed my way across his chest, tonguing his nipples while he moaned. Man, he was sensitive.

  “Turn over for me, Whitt. I can’t wait.”

  “Me either. There are lube and condoms next to you.”

  I located the supplies, prepped him and covered my cock. We both shouted as I pushed inside him, sinking into his tightness while I stroked the muscles in his back and leaned over to kiss the back of his neck. The heat and bubbles from the whirlpool combined with the desperation that poured through me. I wasn’t going to last long, but I sensed Whitt wasn’t either.

  I stretched my arms out over
his, twining our fingers together as I had before. His grip was nearly painful. His face was turned sideways on the cool tile bordering the tub, his eyes closed, and his brow furrowed.

  “Tell me you’re okay,” I gasped near his ear. “Tell me I’m not hurting you.”

  “It’s perfect,” he muttered and nearly undid me when I noticed the faintest tremble in his lower lip. The sensation of him gloved around my cock, though, was too overwhelming. There was no stopping to find out what was going on.

  As I speeded up, I reached around with one hand to stroke Whitt with the same rhythm. Our shouts of pleasure were one right after another, his seed coating my hand as the last spasms shook my body.

  I stood on shaky legs and located towels, taking them from the heated towel rack and handing one to Whitt. He sat on the edge of the tub area, swallowing the last of his bourbon and refusing to look at me.

  I had just experienced what might arguably be some of the best sex of my life, and my lover was staring into an empty whiskey glass. I knelt on the floor in front of him.

  “What’s wrong, Whitt? Please. Talk to me.”

  He looked at me then and stroked the side of my cheek. “Nothing, baby. You’re home. Everything’s great.”

  I searched his expression, but it revealed nothing. A sense of impending doom lurked in the back of my brain, and I had no idea what to do about it. If he wouldn’t talk about it, I didn’t have a lot of options.

  We spent the rest of the evening together, lying on the couch in the den, Ripper curled on Whitt’s lap, while we watched one of those reality survival shows. When we went to bed, Whitt curled around me, spooning me, while Ripper took the bottom third of the bed.

  When I awoke, Whitt was already gone.

  Whitt

  The vibration of my cell phone had awakened me before dawn. It was my assistant, Will.

  “Sorry to wake you so early, Whitt, Maitland’s executive assistant called me wanting to schedule a breakfast meeting with you at his club. Apologized for the short notice but said there were some urgent matters he needs to discuss with you.”

  My mind was clicking through possible subjects as if I was flipping through a file drawer. I could only think of two: he had somehow found out about my relationship with Reece, or there was something going south with our deal. Of course, it could be both.

  “Accept the meeting. What time do I need to be there?”

  “Seven. This isn’t the club in Maysburg. It’s the one in the capital.”

  “Shit,” I muttered rolling away from Reece who was still sleeping. “Call me a limo and driver. Have them here in a quarter hour.”

  “Yes, sir. You want me to meet you there?”

  I thought about a discussion that might focus on Reece and me. “No. If I need something, I’ll text, and have you push it out over our phones.”

  “All right. I’ll keep my phone close, then.” I heard the relief in his voice. Will liked working from his home.

  Rather than disturb Reece, who slept as though he’d had as little rest the past couple nights as I had, I gathered my clothes and went downstairs to the bathroom off my office. When I stepped out the front door twenty minutes later, Fred was standing next to the limo.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Hey, Fred. Nice to see a familiar face.” I slid into the back with my thermos of coffee and my tablet. I tried to keep calm about what I might be facing, but the possibilities kept turning over in my head. What I could gather from the situation was it couldn’t be good. Maitland had never requested a meeting this early, especially when we were so close to signing off on the deal.

  My mind kept coming back to Reece. Sherry had even warned me to be careful, though I had refused to confirm her suspicions that Reece and I were friends on the most intimate of levels. What answer would I give Maitland if that was indeed the purpose of this morning’s meeting?

  I was no closer to an answer when Fred opened my door outside Maitland’s exclusive club. A doorman, in full fancy uniform held the door to the building while I stepped inside. Maitland was conversing with a couple of men, but the moment he saw me, he excused himself and strode over to me.

  His usual hearty smile was missing as he shook my hand. “Dailey, glad you could make this on such short notice. I’ve booked us a private room where we can dine and discuss business.”

  “Of course.” My smile of greeting felt frozen, but I was determined to let him lead the way. I had to get a handle on what exactly this emergency entailed.

  Maitland kept up some casual small talk, mentioning that his wife had seen me at the horse show, and asking about how the horses were doing. However, there was no additional mention about coming to hunt with him.

  I tried to tamp down my nervousness, but I couldn’t help wondering if the invitation was going to be rescinded. His next words only made that fear start to bloom.

  “I wanted to meet with you this morning because I received an anonymous phone call over the weekend.”

  Here it was. It was almost a moment of déjà vu. An anonymous phone call was how coming out to my parents had begun.

  “Quinn,” I began, but he held his hand up.

  “I’m not a big fan of calls from people who refuse to identify themselves, but this caller raised some concerns about the deal we’re working on and the legitimacy of the figures I received from you with regard to recycling tonnage.”

  Was it bad of me that my first emotion was relief that I could still keep my relationship with Reece private? Probably. Reece would certainly see it that way.

  “Those figures are absolutely legit,” I insisted. “Will and I both checked them, but I can have Will go over them again with someone from your company working on it too, if that will restore your confidence in the numbers.”

  Quinn leaned back in his chair with a smile. “I don’t think that will be necessary. You’ve just done that. Your very willingness to allow my guys in to help rework the numbers tells me everything I need to know about the veracity of my caller’s information.”

  While my brain sagged with relief, I casually sipped the coffee that had been poured for me, and Quinn continued.

  “I’ve thought a couple times about hanging it all up, retiring, and letting my son, who handles our operations in West Virginia, take over the whole shebang. Mary and I could finally take that foxhunting trip to Ireland we’ve talked about for years.” He leaned forward again, long, lean-fingered hands clasped together in front of him. “But you restore my confidence. It’s nice to know that honesty and integrity are still out there today.”

  I nearly choked. I had been anything but honest with him. I had kept how much Reece Wilder meant to me as closely guarded as a state secret. In fact, I had made a point of what a professional Reece was, a friend, but with the clear implication that it was nothing more.

  “You know, honesty is at the heart of every good relationship whether it’s business, friendship, but especially marriage.” He laughed. “I’m rattling on. Eat your breakfast. We need to pin down a timeframe for getting all the contracts in order.”

  Damn if that didn’t sound like we had this nailed, but there was no way I was taking anything for granted until I had Maitland’s signature on every line. And at this point, if Maitland discovered how dishonest I had been about my relationship with Reece, it could tank everything.

  19

  Whitt

  After Fred dropped me at the house, and I tied some loose ends on other deals I had in the works, it was after lunch before I could finally get to the barn. I still had uneasy feelings about where Reece and I were headed. My meeting this morning with Maitland hadn’t changed that, just the focus. Now my concern was not the relationship itself as much as it was having kept it under wraps.

  But how did I go public when I had been so insistent that our friendship was exclusively a professional one?

  So that was the mindset in which I walked into the barn to find Reece doing an inventory of all the tack in the tack room.
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  “What are you doing?” I asked, not at all sure what I was seeing other than what appeared to be bits and pieces of bridles and saddles scattered across the room.

  “Checking stitching and wear and tear to the leather. Maysburg is this Saturday. You’re supposed to hunt Sunday. I can’t afford to have a stirrup leather or a rein break at the wrong moment.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  Reece raised his blue gaze to mine for a moment. “Get your horse ready if you’re planning on a lesson.”

  There was no spark there, nothing personal. I nodded curtly and turned to grab a lead shank so I could bring Bondage in and put him in cross ties before brushing him. For maybe the first time, I truly felt that I was little more than the student footing the bill so Reece could concentrate on his own horse.

  Sherry and Jordy’s comments were taking root. I tried to ignore it as I went through the routine of getting Bondage ready to ride, but it was hard. Every time I stepped into the tack room where Reece continued to work as though I didn’t exist, I was reminded. The truth in what they had said was right there in front of me.

  “I’m headed out to the ring,” I told him a few minutes later, sticking my head in the door before leading Bondage out without waiting for a reply. I mounted and began warming up as I usually did.

  Reece appeared a few minutes later, putting Bondage and me through some gymnastic grids before having me practice with opening and closing a gate while mounted. There was nothing wrong in the instruction, just a feeling that Reece was going through the motions.

  His usual grin was gone. After successfully completing a series of jumps and backing through a grid of ground poles, Reece called out, “Okay. That’s enough for this afternoon. Cool him out.”

  In the past, he had always stuck around to talk to me while I walked Bondage on a loose rein. Today, he disappeared inside the barn. I dismounted, ran my stirrups up, secured the leathers, and began walking around the ring while the horse’s breathing returned to normal.