Nowhere Ranch (8 page)

The trouble with Loving's operation was that he wanted it to be organic, but he kept getting stuck on all the problems that come up with going that route. He had been at this long enough to figure out you didn't just turn the animals out and watch them graze, that with sheep especially you had to get in there and trim hooves and move them around. That was the big change I'd made. I had them trimming more often and moving pasture twice as frequently. Tory was good about anticipating and preventing problems with the cattle, but he and Loving both tended to wait for a fire to start with the sheep before they did anything.

Which was why I had just taken it on myself to check the sheep every day. They'd come to know me, and much as they didn't care for my hossing them around and pecking at their hooves, they enjoyed the alfalfa pellets I kept in my pockets, so I was still pretty popular.

When I found an injured wether, I lured him out of the pasture with pellets, went back for some scrub, and cleaned him out good before I bandaged him. One of my goals for the year was to convince Loving to vaccinate for tetanus and other disease prevention. I'd made some calls and verified he could still certify organic with some of them, but he's all about purity.

On my way back to the house, I stopped by my place and raided my pantry. I carried my supplies back in a Walmart sack, heading straight for the kitchen, where I planned to roll up my sleeves and get serious.

Loving was up and sitting at the counter, sipping coffee. I hesitated when I saw him. He looked happy to have me there, but I'll be honest, I'd been looking forward to cooking alone. But that was rude, so I gave him a nod as I came through. “Morning.”

He nodded back and watched me work. I'd worried he was going to get kissy on me, but he stayed where he was, and bless him, he didn't talk, just watched me work. I poured myself some coffee and got to it.

“You were serious about the kitchen,” he said eventually.

I nodded and went back to cooking.

“Omelet?” he ventured as I whisked eggs.

I nodded again. “There'll be one for you.”

“Thank you.”

They were not much. Ham and cheese with a bit of onion and pepper. I like bacon, but I put that on the side, next to some toast. It isn't as good a bacon as I could have gotten back home, but bacon was bacon, kind of like coffee. Loving seemed to think this was some kind of gourmet feast, though.

“If you weren't so good with the sheep, I'd hire you as a cook instead,” he said between mouthfuls.

I frowned at him, because that was just a damn ridiculous thing to say.

He had the bit between his teeth now though. “Seriously, would you be willing to do this more often? I could get a line of credit at the grocery store.”

“Eat your bacon,” I told him. I didn't like the idea of shopping for him. Not with his money. It was too weird, like I was his wife. Maybe I shouldn't have included the kitchen in the deal. But then I looked down at the omelet that had been so easy to make with counter space and hadn't burned on one side while being raw on the other, and I decided I could manage this if I stuck to my guns.

Thankfully he seemed to get the hint that I didn't like the way his mind was turning, and he settled down and ate. He ate every damn bit of it. He also shooed me out and insisted he would do the dishes. I wished he hadn't, because that made me restless, so I gave myself a tour of his house instead.

It was mostly empty. There were more empty rooms than there were furnished ones. The living room where we had made out had a nice leather couch and recliner and had a nice TV with a lot of receivers and players underneath it. There were bookshelves too, with lots of books in them. But there was this whole empty side at the other end with just a fireplace, nothing to sit on in front of it. There was an empty formal dining room and another empty room. The basement was finished, but it just had boxes in it. There was one room I couldn't get into because it was locked up tight with a padlock, for storage, I supposed. In the upstairs he had three bedrooms. One had his bed, one had a guest bed, and the other was empty.

It was kind of depressing.

But there was plenty of stuff in his four seasons room out back. You got to it through the living room and the empty room, but once you were there it was like you finally hit the actual house. He even had plants in there. A lounger, four other chairs—one that rocked—a rug, decorations on the walls, and lantern lights on a string all around the edges of the room.

And there was the hot tub.

It was a nice-sized hot tub. I don't know how many people it was officially for, but it seemed to me that you could get six in there or maybe more if you were determined. Of course, the idea of being in a hot tub with six people, even guys, was not something I had a personal yen for. But two guys could get in there no problem with lots of room for extracurricular activities. It was covered, so I lifted up a corner and peered underneath. The smell of chlorine filled my nose, and dark water rippled as I bumped the side. I thought about being in there with Travis and got a little bit excited.

“Go on and take the cover off,” he said from behind me. I jumped and let the cover fall back down, but he came over and peeled it back himself. He folded the squares over one another and set it aside before turning to me.

I went still, but my heart kicked up a little. He had a look in his eye that had no hints of conversation or accounts at the grocery store and everything to do about fucking me. My ass, still tender, sent up a few waves of misgiving, but my cock choked those off at the pass, pointing out there were plenty of other body parts that still wanted to play.

He nodded to the open tub. “Take off your clothes and get in there.”

My cock bobbed in my pants and sent out a hum through my body. “Yes, sir.”

I skimmed out of my clothes and climbed into the water in under thirty seconds, then stood in the middle, waiting for my next instruction. But he only pushed a button to start the jets and waved me down. “Sit,” he said, “and relax. I'm going to get a few things.”

I sat down in a corner, though I moved quickly because the jet there was a little bit too strong and went straight up my ass. Normally that could be a party, but not today. Mostly I moved around the tub, sitting in different places, watching the door. My body was humming as it anticipated what was coming.

I had not expected Loving to come back with rope.

He had a small bag too, but mostly I was fixated on the rope. It was nylon cord, like clothesline, except it was cut in nice tidy sections which I knew from experience were just enough to bind hands and ankles. He hadn't been gone that long, so these had already been prepared.

“Somebody's a Boy Scout,” I observed, nodding at his supplies.

He grinned. “I was. I was a city boy, but I loved the outdoors. Always have.”

“You didn't get out this toy kit in Rapid City,” I said.

He was arranging things on a small table off to the side, but he had propped a plant up between us so I couldn't see what he was doing. “I don't bring things like this with me when I go cruising, no.”

“This for when you and Tory feel like playing, is it?” I was aware that now I was the chatty one, but I really wanted to figure this mystery out.

He stopped arranging and glanced over at me. “When I first came here, I came with a lover. It had been our plan to run Nowhere together, but he discovered he didn't have as much taste for it as I did. And I discovered I wanted to live on an isolated Nebraska ranch more than I wanted to be with him.”

The careful way he said all that promised there was a lot more to the story, but I had enough to follow along. I also noted that in a way he was saying I was special, if he was trotting out these toys and fucking me here at the house. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but this was not the time for worrying. I settled back against the side of the tub as much as I could and tried to let the warm water and the bubbles relax me.

Eventually he stopped arranging and stripped down too. I lay back with my arms over the edges of the tub and watched the show, feeling the hum deepening in me as he exposed more and more of his body. But before he climbed in, he grabbed two lengths of rope.

“Stand up and turn around.”

I did as he told me.

“Bend over and grab hold of the rail.”

There were metal rails around the edges of the tub to help people get in and out. I held on to one of them, and no sooner were my hands there but he was threading the rope around my wrist and onto the rail. He tied me tight and fast with a skill that made my stomach dance.

He glanced at my face as he finished the first hand. “I still remember what ‘no’ means for you.”

“You just surprise me is all,” I said. “You acted in Rapid City like you hadn't done much of this kind of thing.”

“I have, but only with one person, and we pretty much made our own rules. I don't know quite what you expect. It feels like starting over to me.”

He moved around to the other side of me and began to bind the other hand. “Well, I have only played around with this stuff. There were a few tense moments a couple times, so yeah, I don't court it.” He glanced at me again, and I glared. “I didn't say stop. And anyway, you're different.”

That, I realized too late, had been a stupid thing to say, but he fussed over that confession less than I would have figured. “Because I'm your boss?”

“Thought you said that was Tory,” I shot back, but I had to work to make it come out grumpy.

I wasn't ready for him to grab the back of my head, pull it back and come down on my mouth like he was going to take it over. It was so strong and so unexpected that I just sort of melted and let him dive into me. When he finally lifted his head, I was really hard.

He nipped at my bottom lip. “I'm your boss today, boy.”

That made me buzz. “Yes, Mr. Loving.”

He nipped me again, then ducked under my arms and sat down on the bench between them. He grabbed my hips, and I came forward to straddle him, hands still lashed to the sides of the tub. After plunking me on his lap, he let his eyes wander over me, and his fingers wandered all over my chest.

“You have questions all over your face,” he said at last. “I want to hear them.”

Fucking hell. Him and his talking.

“Not so much questions as things I don't get,” I said. “Like how sometimes you seem so nice-guy, and now here you are a real kinky bastard who has a bag full of toys and dreams of sticking his arm up my ass.”

He looked almost disappointed. “Really? You have a hard time believing I could be both?” His tone said that he would have expected better of me.

“I don't mean it like that,” I said hurriedly. “I meant that you seem like you're innocent. And then you're so nasty.” I realized I really hadn't altered my statement much. “Forget it.”

He kept stroking my skin, his fingers grazing my nipples more than they didn't. “That was one of the reasons I didn't want to get another teaching job. Why I wanted to do something like ranching where I didn't have to socialize.” He pinched one of my nipples absently. “Though maybe I misunderstood what you're noticing. Maybe I still have more of my old guards than I know. Because I used to work very hard so no one could see what I thought were my dark sides. I played the game so well I sometimes fooled myself. For me sex with men always had hard edges, even when it only happened in my mind. I made love to my wife like she was a fragile egg, but I dreamed of holding a man down and digging my nails into his skin as I pounded into him. It made it easy to believe that wanting men was wrong, a disease in my head.”

I didn't like him vulnerable, even in the past. “You do it right,” I told him. “You're rough sometimes, and you're twisted, but it's in a good way. You make it safe to play. Safe to let go.”

His eyes darkened, and he smiled. “Thank you.” His hands skimmed down my sides. “So I'm kinky, am I?”

“Yep,” I said. I wiggled against him a little.

He pinched my nipple hard, and I gasped. “I'm sorry. I didn't hear you.”

He kept tight hold of me, getting tighter every second. I fought for breath until I could say, “Yes, sir.”

His nipple grip lessened, but only a little. His other hand skimmed over the curve of my ass. “Kiss me, boy.”

I leaned forward and brushed my mouth against his, but the fingers that were rolling my nipple started to pinch again, and after a yelp I opened my mouth and let him in. He took hard, deep kisses from me. They made me soft and willowy against him. I had to bend just a little to get to him, but it was so good. Our cocks were hard and rubbing against each other, but I couldn't grab them and hold them together because my hands were tied. And somehow the water made everything sexy. It lapped around me, the foam coating our chests. Underneath my thighs I felt the hair of Travis's legs rubbing against mine.

He shifted the angle of the kiss, and somehow it turned into this openmouthed thing with lips and tongue that I don't know quite how to explain, but it was hot. It was like we'd come at each other with our mouths open, and then our tongues would dart out and kind of meet, and then our lips, but they never sealed. Our breath mixed in between the kiss too, and between that and the steam and the heat of the water, I felt like I might go up in flames any second.

He broke the kiss and nipped my earlobe. Then he ducked beneath one of my arms, slapped my ass with a splash before climbing over the side, and he was gone, messing around with something else in his bag.

I stood up to pull more of my body out of the water. It occurred to me that we had to be careful messing around in this hot water, though to be honest Loving didn't keep it as hot as some I'd been in. I tugged a little at my wrists, checking the knots he'd made. I really couldn't get out of them without his help. The thought sent a dark shiver through me, and I realized that if it weren't Travis—

I shook my head to clear it. I kept trying to turn him back into “Loving” in my head, but it wasn't working. He was wedged in there now as Travis, the man who took me to a rodeo when I was out of sorts and fucked me raw until I was incoherent, and then he made me say his name and offered to get me an account at the store and tied me up to his hot tub and kissed me until I was weak, and I wanted it now, wanted to say it now, wanted—wanted—