Red Dirt Heart 3 (15 page)

Trav grinned and, like he had all the time in the world, got up from my desk and walked over to the door, slowly closed it and slid the lock in place.

By the time I’d moved my laptop and the piles of not-doing-tonight paperwork and cleared the desk, Trav was standing in front of me. Then, not taking his eyes off mine, he slowly sat on my desk, pulling himself back so the backs of his knees were at the edge and his feet were off the floor.

He was playing this out, getting off on it, savouring every second.

I stood between his legs, put my hands on his arse and dragged him forward so our hips met. I leaned over him, half pushing him backward, my face just an inch from his, our hardened cocks pressed together through the denim of our jeans. And then I kissed him.

Trav’s body jerked under mine, and he groaned into our kiss. His hands were over my sides, my chest and then—finally—undoing my jeans. He slipped his hand around my length, causing my breath to stutter against his mouth.

Both my hands were framing his face, holding his head as I kissed him. Tasted him. Consumed him. Trav fumbled with his own jeans until he had both our cocks in one hand, sliding them together.

“Oh fuck,” I gasped. It was too much, and I was going too fast. “I’ll come if you keep doing that.”

Trav grinned, his lips swollen, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded. “Not until you’re inside me,” he said.

I stood up straight, and fisting his shirt, I pulled him upright. When he was on his feet, I spun him around and pushed his shoulder down toward the desk. Then I pulled his jeans and briefs down over his hips, exposing his arse. Trav groaned when I grabbed the lube. He knew what was coming. He wanted it. Like me the other night when I craved his dick in my arse, that burning need was rolling off him. He gripped the top edge of the desk with both hands, spread his legs a little, and whispered, “Please, Charlie. Just do it.”

I slicked his arse first, then my fingers and slid first one, then two inside him. He knew I’d never rush this part—I would never hurt him—but it wasn’t what he wanted. He pushed back a little and groaned, but it was a frustrated sound. He was too full of need and all out of patience. “Fuck me, just fuck me.”

My jeans were still around my hips, his were around his thighs, too impatient to undress any further. I poured more lube up the length of my cock and some more over his hole, gripped his hips and pressed my engorged head against him. “Is this what you want?” I asked.

All he did was nod, and I pushed inside him. He groaned out, long and low, pressing his forehead against the desk.

I eased into him, then slowly back out and in again, and soon picked up rhythm. I buried myself to my balls in his arse with each thrust, and he moaned every time. He was so tight and so hot, so wanting, all I could do was fuck.

It was rough and fast and so fucking good. A familiar warmth spread from my balls to my belly, up the backs of my thighs and across my chest as my orgasm built and built and coiled, and then I couldn’t stop it. I slammed into him once, twice, three times, and pleasure ripped through me, unloading into his tight heat.

I didn’t even try to be quiet. God only knows what fucking sounds I made as I came, an orgasm so intense, I collapsed on him, my face between his shoulder blades. “Jesus,” he panted. “You all right, Charlie?”

I slowly pulled out of him and stood up as the room still spun around me. I couldn’t even speak. I just pulled his jeans up over his arse, took his hand, leading him to the door. I fumbled with the lock until he laughed at me and unlocked the door himself, and then I led him through the darkened house to our room.

This time, I lay him on our bed, pulled his boots off, then his jeans, kissing up his thighs. “I’ll go get a washcloth,” I said.

“No,” he said, his voice husky and deep. He took his half-hard cock into his own hand and started to stroke himself. “Your work here isn’t done yet.”

I stripped off and crawled up his body. “Are you okay?” I asked him. “I was a bit rough.”

He barked out a throaty laugh. “That was fucking hot,” he said.

I blushed, embarrassed by my lack of control in my office. “Oh.”

Even though the bedroom was dark, I knew he could see the flush spread over my cheeks because he put his hand to my face. “Don’t be shy now,” he said. “You certainly weren’t shy before.”

“Are you sure you’re not sore?” I asked, dreading that he would say yes.

He snorted. “What I am is ready for round two.” He still stroked himself, his accent distinctly slower and sexier. “Now you can do me again, slower this time, and I come first.”

I laughed at his forthrightness. He always just said what he wanted. And I was happy to oblige, of course.

* * * *

I spent the whole next day with Ernie and Billy checking calving cows. Bacon and Travis finished re-sheeting the roofing iron while Trudy was the one on the ground, passing stuff up to them.

It was a three-day plan. Me, Ernie and Billy would be out all day, but home every night, and Trav, Bacon and Trudy would do work at the house. I’d specifically chosen the teams to give me and Trav some space. We’d agreed some time ago that space was a good thing, and considering we’d just spent every day together for three weeks straight—three weeks I’m certain I wouldn’t have got through if he hadn’t been with me—a few days apart would do us good.

Billy was on a motorbike, Ernie in the old Land Rover and I was on horseback. And man, it felt good to be in the saddle again. Shelby was a bit pissed at me for being unridden so long. She nudged me into the fence post and stomped her foot and huffed a bit, but as soon as we were out in the paddock, she settled right into our usual rhythm.

The sun was warm, the breeze was cool and the desert looked particularly pretty. If Trav thought sex was the best way to de-stress me, this was a very close second. Okay, well maybe not that close. But I loved it. It reminded me of who I was, why I was here, like it was just me and this beautiful and cruel country, and even if just for a few hours, I could forget the responsibilities back at the house.

Before lunch, we found three abandoned day-old calves, one dead and another too far gone to save. I took my .22 from my saddle holster, put the end of the barrel to the poor thing’s head, and pulled the trigger. It was an awful part of my job, but it would be worse to let the dying calf suffer.

It was an unfortunate fact of life farming cattle.

By the time we called it a day, we’d found four calves that would need around-the-clock feeding. That number would grow over the next two to three weeks. As a kid I used to love this time of year, but as I got older, feeding so many calves got old real quick.

We’d no sooner got the newborn calves into the holding yard back at the homestead when Travis walked across to meet me and shoved a fussing Nugget and a bottle of milk in my chest. “This little shit still won’t feed.”

I had Nugget on his back, tucked in under my arm and a bottle in his mouth in less than two seconds.

Travis growled and threw his hands up. “I give up.”

I laughed, which, of course, was the wrong reaction apparently. He raised one it’s-not-fucking-funny eyebrow at me.

“I got you something,” I told him, nodding toward the calves we’d brought back with us. “Four somethings, actually.”

Travis looked then, seeing the newborn Brahman calves with their knobbly knees, big brown eyes and floppy ears. He watched them for a long second and a slow-spreadin’ smile lit up his face. I knew he’d love them.

“Ernie’s getting the poddy feeder from the back shed,” I told him. “He’ll show you how it works, how much to feed ’em, how often. We’ll try and get surrogate cows for ’em, but it doesn’t always work.”

Trav nodded, still smiling. Then he walked over to me and prodded a still drinkin’ Nugget lightly on the tummy. “At least these guys’ll let me feed them,” he said. “Not like you.”

Completely oblivious to Travis’s rant, Nugget didn’t give one fuck. He just kept on taking his bottle. “He can’t help it, Trav,” I said low enough only he could hear. “He thinks I’m his mum. Or his dad. Or whatever.”

Travis looked at me, rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’m not really pissed at him,” he said with a soft smile.

Just then Ernie and Billy carried the poddy feeder around the side of the homestead, each holding one end. It was a long plastic frame with twenty teat slots. Trav’s eyes widened. “What the hell?”

I snorted. “Feeding four by hand with bottles is fine, but feeding thirty at the same time will get you trampled,” I told him. “We hook that on to the outside of the fence, the teats go on the inside of the yard for the calves, and viola! Instant poddy production line.”

Once we got it all set up and installed the new teats, we got the formula mixed up and all the while, little Nugget dug in the dirt and got under my feet, almost tripping me a couple of times. I picked him up, again, and looked into his little blinking eyes. “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?”

Travis was in the holding yard with the calves. He grinned at me. “Maybe I could get you one of those baby papoose things that you strap on like a backpack, but it carries the baby at the front.”

I stared at him with my mouth open. “Shut the fuck up.”

Ernie and Billy both laughed, just as Nara called out from the front veranda that dinner was ready.

Walking inside, I put Nugget back in his bed box and went and got cleaned up. I helped Nara finish carrying everything to the table, and by the time I sat down, Travis had named the four calves.

John, Paul, George and Ringo.

And nope, he wasn’t even kidding.

Laughter broke around the table, and there was the usual chatter during dinner, though Trudy was still quieter than normal. She ate well and even smiled a little, but something was wrong. I didn’t want to say anything in front of anyone else, and then I wondered if her and Bacon were fighting, then I wondered if I wanted to know at all.

I didn’t need more things to add that ever-growin’ list of things to worry about.

After dinner when the others had gone and Travis was out checking on the Beatles, I called George. He said Ma was doing better every minute of the day. She was up and walking, assisted of course, but she tired easily. George said they were still waiting on results from more blood tests and ultrasounds, and he’d let me know if anything else went wrong.

The boxes we’d found in the roof of my childhood mementos were still in the lounge room, so I packed them on top of my filing cabinet in my office. I didn’t want to think about any of that right now. I had enough to worry about. Instead, I re-tidied up the mess of papers in my office that got discarded last night during Travis’s insistence on desk sex, smiling as I opened my emails.

Sitting nice and pretty in my inbox was the proposal and contract from Blake. I’d opened the contract and got as far as page three before I realised I hadn’t understood a single fucking thing. Why did legal documents need to be written in old English. I’m pretty sure Shakespeare himself wrote this fucking thing. It was a hundred pages of I’m-too-dumb-to-read-this-shit legal jargon, which just added to my list of frustrations.

I closed the document and emailed it directly to our solicitor. I quickly explained the situation and how I wanted him to read through the pages of legal crap and to break it down into words I understood.

I just happened to look up when Nugget raced past my office door and then, ten seconds later, raced back.

Sighing, which was probably more of a groan, I followed him into the lounge room. He had his nose shoved under the sofa, so I grabbed him. “Oh no you’re not,” I said, picking him up. “You’re not scratching the shit outta the furniture or the floor, you hear?”

He wriggled in my hold, scratching me on the stomach until I put him back down again. “Where is Rumble Bear?” I asked, more to myself because fuck knows wombats don’t speak English.

The teddy bear wasn’t anywhere. “Did you carry it somewhere?” I asked stupidly. I’d seen him pick it up in his mouth and move it around, but not from room to room.

I scouted the room, looking behind the door, in the hall, then I upended his bed. It wasn’t there.

I heard the front door open, and knowing Travis would be in the hall taking his boots off, I called out, “Hey, Trav, have you seen Rumble Bear?”

He didn’t answer.

“The stupid teddy bear he rumbles with,” I explained. “Have you seen it?” Then it twigged. I remembered where Nugget was trying to burrow himself. So, getting down on all fours, I looked under the lounge, and lo and behold, there it was wedged in at the back.

“How the hell did you get him in there?” I asked. Nugget just twitched his nose in a what-a-stupid-question way.

I reached in and pulled the bear out, and then sitting back on my haunches, I said, “I think we’re gonna need to Nugget-proof this house. He’s worse than a bloody baby.”

I looked up, expecting to see a smiling Travis in the doorway. But it was Trudy. I’d been meaning to talk to her all day, but it had got away from me. She looked at me, at the wombat I was holding, then the teddy bear, and burst into tears.

“Trudy, wait!” I called, chasing after her. I passed a very surprised and shocked Bacon in the hall. I grabbed her arm, and immediately pulled my hand back, because I’m sure there are employer/employee rules about improper touching.

But there are no rules for friends, or sisters even, because that’s what Trudy was to me. She was more a sister than an employee, a fact I hadn’t realised until I saw her in tears.

Thankfully she stopped just near the kitchen doorway, and she groaned, a sound that was pure frustration. “Ugh. Fucking hormones,” she said, running her hands over her face and up through her hair. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Just forget it. I shouldn’t have come here, sorry.”

I’d never seen her cry. Not ever. I’d seen her angry, I’d seen her threaten to punch people, I’d even seen her laugh so hard she had to pee. But I ain’t ever seen her cry. Hell, she didn’t even cry when, three years ago, she broke two fingers when baling wire fought with gravity and she instinctively tried to stop it.