Well Traveled

by Margaret Mills

  The man was really a gentleman, because he flushed a little at such direct reference. “Ahem.” He gave up the effort as quick as he’d tried to pull it on, though, sensing a kindred spirit. “Yeah—and worth the dollar, too. Those ladies weren’t just lovely, but classier than I expected. Warmed me on plenty a night,” he added, a whisper that barely carried above the noise of the crowd.

  Gideon let his smile broaden, thinking about the dollar tip on top of the dollar entry fee. Good for Belle. It bothered him that the show had been running in San Jose so recently, though. They wouldn’t have stayed more than a few days there, then they’d have stopped in Palo Alto and ten days at most in San Francisco. They could tear down and pack out from any stop in a day or two, which meant he’d need to push harder on the last leg of their journey if he was going to catch them before they moved on. Still, it was nice, familiar, being surrounded by folks he didn’t know, each and every one of them with their own story to tell if he was of a mind to tease it out of them. He satisfied himself with George Rowland, the gent on his way back to New York after a summer taking in the sights of “this great county,” as Rowland called it. Gideon couldn’t deny it. He’d seen more of it this trip than he ever had before, or at least he’d seen it more intimately. He almost felt like a part of it, and he figured he owed that feeling to Jed.

  He and George shared smiles and easy conversation as they eyed the pretty bar girls, but once he’d finished his drink he decided he was past ready for more quiet and intimate company. The urge to be with Jed grew steadily stronger, and thinking of San Francisco made him miss Jed already, so he pushed his empty glass across the bar, said his thanks to George for the company, and darted around the crowd dancing in the middle of the room to get to the door.

  It was full dark now, but the lights of the saloons and open businesses combined with the scattered streetlights made finding his way easy enough. The night air was crisp and cool, and it cleared his nose of the smell of smoke and people, though he knew both would probably cling to him. Enough that Jed would notice, anyway. But then, Jed noticed everything about him.

  He quickened his steps and found his way back to the Edmundson’s place in good time. The oldest son, Zachariah, was reading his Bible in the receiving room when Gideon walked in. He nodded politely but didn’t speak, so Gideon did the same.

  Gideon eased into their room quietly, not believing for a second that Jed was asleep, not with the muted thunk of his boot heels on the carpeted hallway floor, the scrape of the key in the lock, the tiniest creak of the door hinges. But he was happy for Jed to pretend for him, if only so he could look his fill. A lamp burned on the table just inside the door, its wick turned low, and he closed and locked the door, leaving the key in so no one else’s could do mischief from the other side. Jed had taken off his shirt and stretched out on his back, and his dark skin contrasted with the clean white sheet that was pulled up to his chest. The darker points of his nipples made Gideon lick his lips, and the way that long, black hair spilled out onto the pillow made Gideon want to brush it with his fingers. Jed’s eyes were closed and his features lax with peacefulness—a sight to behold, Gideon thought fondly, deeply enjoying these few seconds of watching.

  “You get tired, waiting?” he asked, his voice just barely more than a whisper. It was early enough that guests and the proprietors could still be up, and he didn’t want to raise Jed’s worries. His gaze traveled down Jed’s body, outlined under that white sheet, and paused at the only part of Jed he wanted to raise tonight. It looked like it was well on its way without any help from Gideon.

  Fingers tightened, crumpling the sheet, and Jed drew in a deep, slow breath before he opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. “No. No, I did not.”

  Gideon eased off his coat, hanging it over the door knob just to be extra careful—he’d checked the room for peepholes first thing, too, and found none, just a clean room with a wide iron bed, the side table where one of three lamps sat, two chairs, and the vanity. It really was a damned nice room to share, he thought as he hooked his thumbs under his suspenders and shrugged them off, letting them fall past his hips. “You lie there thinking about what we might get up to? How’s that bed, anyway?” he asked before Jed could answer the first question. Wasn’t like Gideon didn’t know Jed would deny having thought anything at all.

  “Too soft,” Jed said, a not-quite grumble that made Gideon smile. Jed was used to sleeping on the ground, and from what Mrs. Edmundson had said, it sounded like plenty of Indians opted for the thick rug on the floor over a bed even when they did take a room. Jed rolled onto his side to prop his head on his bent arm, and there was no creaking of springs or bed frame; that was good. That was real good.

  Jed didn’t say anything, but he watched, so Gideon took his time stripping down, liking that they had light to see by, liking that Jed’s eyes on him heated him up almost as well as Jed’s hands or his mouth or his dancing. By the time he’d shucked boots and shirt he was already hard, and he unbuttoned his fly quicker than he’d planned, easing his pants down carefully over his rampant cock and leaving just his cotton drawers. Jed’s gaze had drifted down to his hands, and Gideon liked how his eyes widened as he tented the cotton, widening further when Gideon undid the buttons and pulled it out. It was all Gideon could do not to palm it right there and then. He wanted… he wanted. He just plain wanted.

  He took long strides to the bed and reached for the covers, peeling them back, unsurprised to find that Jed still wore his buckskin pants. No way would he have lain there naked and alone in a white woman’s hotel. Gideon pushed the covers to the foot of the bed and reached for the laces of Jed’s pants, slowing down now to enjoy the anticipation.

  “Gideon,” Jed whispered, the word slow and airy. “We must be careful—please.” He shifted, one hand coming to rest on Gideon’s, pressing it into the bulge under the lacings. “This is not a safe thing—”

  “We’ll be quiet,” Gideon whispered in return, even as his fingers kneaded at the hard flesh under leather worn soft as a glove and warm from Jed’s body.

  Before Jed could say more, Gideon crawled carefully onto the bed, straddling Jed’s thighs. “Hell, you’re quiet as a church mouse, most times, and me—I know how to behave. I do,” he said, promising with his eyes and hoping he could deliver on it.

  Jed was stiff at first and frowning up at him, trying to nudge Gideon’s hand away without making a fight of it, likely more because he feared a fight would be noisy than out of any concern he couldn’t win it. But Gideon used a couple of tricks he’d learned over their nights together. He stretched his fingers back and onto the sensitive space above Jed’s balls, pressing a little, rubbing a lot, and at the same time, he leaned forward and drove his tongue deep into Jed’s mouth, as far in as he could go. He knew he’d won when he felt the sigh and heard the faint—and cut off—moan.

  Easing back to kneel over Jed’s thighs again, he went back to work on the buckskin’s leather lacings. “Want to give you what you’ve been givin’ me so many nights,” he said, barely more than a whisper and keeping his eyes on his hands. “But I ain’t so dumb as to think either one of us’d be any good at staying sensible if we did that.” Once he’d got the buckskin flaps open he tugged, gentle-like, until Jed lifted his hips, and stopped when he got the leather down around lean thighs. Gideon stretched out on the bed then, right on top of Jed. His cock rubbed against the hard plane of belly, and he rolled his hips, bringing their shafts up against each other, rubbing two sticks together to start a fire.

  Jed’s hands grasped his butt, not gentle at all. “You think any of this is sensible?” he breathed, voice quieter now than it was when he chanted, and just as heavy with meaning.

  Propped against Jed as he was, he turned his hands inward over Jed’s chest to twist his nipples. “No. No, it ain’t,” he sighed.

  “No,” Jed murmured, and Gideon stared at the wet sheen on his lips from where they’d kissed. “We can do this,” he said, worming his hand be
tween them and taking Gideon’s cock in it, stroking it slow, “but nothing else. Not here.”

  This—this was good, Gideon thought vaguely as his pleasure climbed. It was almost more than he’d expected, anyhow. Jed’s touch was perfect now, practiced and just tight enough to draw everything up. “You—” He stopped, swallowed. “You want to go second, then?” Jed’s frown was brief, but the smile that followed it lingered.

  “Yes,” he said, clearly glad that Gideon was respecting him even if Gideon wasn’t exactly understanding. Gideon watched Jed’s mouth move, though he couldn’t quite hear the sounds. Yes. You come first.

  Gideon nodded and held himself over Jed’s body, looking down between them to admire it, looking further to watch as that dark, skilled hand that knew him so well stripped his shaft, up and down, not too slow and not too fast. Jed liked to pause at the tip and brush the slit with a gentle fingertip, and he did it at the end of almost every stroke. That simple touch undid Gideon tonight as it had so many nights past. He was panting in what seemed like seconds, and his body felt too big for his skin, everything felt so raw and ready. “If I start to make a noise,” he whispered, panting, “I’ll just kiss you, okay?” he half-asked, half-promised.

  Jed nodded. His grip tightened, and his other hand wormed between them, taking up Gideon’s balls and rolling them gently in their sac, sending little sparks of pleasure everywhere. “You may kiss me now, as well,” Jed breathed back.

  Gideon did, even though Jed was probably teasing him some. He kissed Jed, and he kept on kissing him, open-mouthed and wet and full of tongue and desire and a desperate need for quiet that made his throat ache with it. His body shuddered when the come hit him, and he felt the heat of it pour through his belly and out his shaft, felt the slickness as Jed gathered droplets of come on his fingers and slid them around the crown of Gideon’s quivering cock. His straight arms trembled, holding his weight up like this, and he knew if he dropped his body down, his come would rub between them, slicking their bellies and Jed’s hands.

  So he did, still kissing, trapping Jed’s hands between them, and let his own hands work their way into the silk of Jed’s long hair while he panted his pleasure into Jed’s wet, open mouth. His skin tingled everywhere, toes curling, and his heart pounded like a drum.

  His pleasure waned by tiny degrees. When he could think clearly again, he thought maybe he’d lied just a little, because he decided to slide down Jed’s body and take Jed with his mouth, tasting the bitterness of his own come from where their cocks had rubbed together, then tasting the thick bittersweet taste of Jed’s when Jed stiffened, his hips arching up off the mattress, his body curved like a bow while his cock pumped its load down Gideon’s throat.

  He might have been panting louder than Jed when he finally lifted his head, and he smiled at the way Jed’s hands tangled in the bed sheet, twisting it up, holding himself so rigid and silent through his pleasure. He palmed the cock that was slick with spit and smiled up at Jed’s face even though Jed couldn’t see. Jed’s eyes were scrunched shut, his face pinched tight and hard as he gasped, open-mouthed. One last, tender tug up the shaft teased the last drops out of Jed’s cock, and Gideon bent back down to lick them off the head, taking the time to stare at the pretty little stallion in the lamplight, the way the dark head flared above that tight knot of skin, the way the shaft plumped out just beneath the head, the skin so smooth and gleaming.

  Jed made a tiny questioning sound after a minute or more had passed, and Gideon let go of the shaft, laying it gently against the smooth belly. “See?” he said when he dragged himself up and dropped heavily beside Jed. “Locked doors and beds can be real good.”

  Jed tilted his head to the side and blinked at him. “Yes,” he agreed, so simply that Gideon knew he meant it.

  Gideon sighed, teasing his fingers through Jed’s hair. The lamplight made the clean strands shine, let him see the tiny tangles his fingers made, and he worked carefully to draw the long strands straight and smooth against the pillow. “I could get used to this,” he sighed.

  “I—” Jed stopped, frowned, and reached for Gideon’s wrist, dragging it away from his hair and nudging it gently away from any other part of his body. “I could not,” he said, and looked away.

  Gideon wondered if Jed meant the bed, the hotel room. But probably, Jed meant him. He pursed his lips and rolled onto his back to tuck himself back into his underdrawers. “You’d best lace up,” he said. He had to stretch to blow out the lamp, and the acrid smell of smoke in the darkness reminded him more of campfires than the saloon. Behind him, Jed’s movements made the mattress dip, and when Gideon settled back down, he dropped his hand to the space between their bodies, his wrist just brushing the supple leather that covered Jed’s hip.

  He shouldn’t have expected this to be perfect, shouldn’t have expected Jed to say the right words—hell, Gideon wasn’t even sure what the right words would have been. He knew this Indian didn’t even like being in a town like this. This wasn’t no courtship, and it sure as hell wasn’t no romance. In a couple of weeks, he’d be headed south with the show and this Indian would be headed… wherever the hell it was he’d go.

  With a soft bed underneath him and a familiar body next to him, it took him longer than it ought to have to get to sleep.

  Chapter 7

  HE WAS up with the sun the next morning, and while he could tell that it surprised Jed, nothing was said about it. They didn’t talk at all, really, because Jed was keeping to himself and Gideon couldn’t think of anything to say. It was an uncommon experience for him, and he spent more time talking to the farrier who worked with Star and then to Star, once they were on the road, than he did to Jed.

  He tried not to dwell on it. He’d meant what he’d said, foolish as it had been. If Jed was bothered by it, there was nothing Gideon could do.

  But as the day wore on, and they got farther from Carson City, the tension eased some. About midafternoon, Jed started his chanting, and Gideon realized that it’d been a while since he’d heard it—since the conversation the day before about them going into Carson City, in fact. Maybe it wasn’t his words that were bothering Jed. Maybe it was being around all the people. Jed was moving them at a fast-enough pace to get them as far away from Carson City as he could, that was for sure.

  By the time they settled that night, at a mountain stream under a copse of trees, even Jed was dragging. They’d spent much of the day climbing along the jagged slopes of the eastern Sierras, and while the views were truly breathtaking, the climbing did its own job stealing his breath, and it made his calves ache. Jed moved down stream to fish while Gideon settled his horse and started a fire. As dusk fell, Jed cooked the fish, and Gideon watched him, trying every now and then to make small talk. Jed answered, his voice low and his answers direct, but it didn’t go no further than that.

  When they got ready for bed, Jed placed his blanket on the far side of fire, the first time he’d put such distance between them. It stung, and Gideon stood there staring for long enough that he knew Jed would fall asleep if he didn’t say something. He opened his mouth, but he wasn’t even sure what was wrong. Eventually, he mustered, “What’d I do to make you mad?”

  Jed looked up at him, his face as inscrutable as a wooden cigar store Indian’s. “You did not anger me,” he said quietly. “We should rest. Tomorrow will be another long day—”

  “You trying to get this over with?” Gideon asked, sliding his hands into his pockets. “That it?”

  Jed stared at him, blinking slowly before he answered. “We are many days past the schedule I promised you. We have many miles to go, much of it not as easy as the land we have crossed so far. We should rest as we can. We should not be wasting ourselves—”

  “That what we’ve been doing?” Gideon asked, taking a step closer. “Wasting ourselves? I didn’t think so—thought this was something special, especially these last few days.”

  Jed pushed up and finally stood, rubbing his hands against his thighs. “Y
ou said you had been with men before,” he said slowly. “You know the difference between pleasure and love.”

  Gideon drew a breath but let it out on a long, tired sigh. “Yeah,” he said after a few seconds. “I do.” If he hadn’t before, he’d sure learned it on this trip, and he couldn’t make Jed feel things just by wishing it.

  Jed nodded once. “We should sleep.”

  Gideon shrugged and heeled off his boots, burrowing into his bedroll because the altitude made the air chill. They could’ve solved that problem by sharing blankets, but he wasn’t going to ask. The damned stubborn Indian held every little thing against him, and next time he was going to make a point of telling him that. If there was one.

  After Jed banked the fire for the night, they both lay awake and alone. Gideon knew his companion wasn’t sleeping, and the fact that he could tell by the way Jed was breathing was an irony that rankled now. He knew Jed well, too well—but not well enough.

  He was cursing himself for that as the waxing crescent of the moon drifted in its lazy arc high across the sky. The night wandered on and the cold got colder, until a rustle of blankets made him turn his head. Jed stood and walked the short space between them, barefoot but dressed in his pants and shirt.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, pushing up onto his elbows and listening for unwelcome sounds.

  But Jed dropped to his knees beside Gideon and reached out one hand, two slender fingers pressing against Gideon’s lips. “‘Shh,” Jed said just before he leaned in and replaced his fingers with his lips.

  It was unexpected, especially after the way Jed had been acting today, and even though he gave in at first, after a while, Gideon pushed against the other man. “Jed,” he murmured, propping Jed over and away. “I think—”