Wild Trail (Clean Slate Ranch #1)(46)

He found Miles on the front porch with a mug of something steaming, wrapped up in a sweatshirt, despite the warm evening. “Hey, man,” Wes said with a smile.

Miles nodded. “Where’d you disappear to?”

The almost accusatory tone made Wes pause and take in Miles’s sad expression. “Dude, you okay?”

“Fine, just a little tired.”

He was always fine and a little tired lately, and it was really starting to bother Wes. Maybe once they got back to the city and away from all this fresh air, Wes would sit Miles down and pick his brain. For now, Wes perched the edge of his butt on the porch railing. “Since you asked, I was with Mack. In his cabin. And his bed.”

Miles’s eyebrows jumped. “Have fun?”

“Totally. To be honest, it was probably the best sex I’ve ever had, and we didn’t even fuck. That will probably kill me, when we do.”

“So this wasn’t a one-off?”

“Nope. I mean, it’s still a vacation fling, but I’m here for four more days, so there’s plenty of sex left to be had.”

“Just...be careful?”

“Always am.” Wes decided to leave the subject alone and cast out for something else. “Um, so what’s on the schedule for tomorrow?”

“A hike, I think.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

Miles’s lips twitched. “You are such a drama queen.”

“Yes, I am, and it’s time for this drama queen to hit the sack. You coming up soon?”

“Probably.”

“Cool.”

Wes went inside, stupidly eager to feel his thin mattress beneath him so he could sleep for a while. And dream. Oh yes, he very much hoped tonight’s dreams were full of a certain sexy cowboy bear and his very talented mouth.





Chapter Twelve

Mack was not happy about waking up on Wednesday morning with a raging boner, thanks to a very vivid dream about Wes. The little shit was under his skin in a bad way, especially after how...well...perfect the sex had been last night. Wes was the most responsive guy Mack had ever had in his bed, and if the guy shot like that after just some rimming and frotting, Mack couldn’t wait to see how he reacted to actually being fucked.

Last night should have been a one-time deal. Only neither one of them wanted to be done, so why not indulge a little? It had been years since Mack had had sex with the same guy more than once, and while he liked the lack of complications that came from hookups, he missed intimacy. Real, genuine intimacy with someone who didn’t mind taking hours to explore each other. To hold each other.

His club hookups, like last weekend’s, were about getting off quickly. Those moments were pure sex, and Mack always used condoms for oral. With Wes, though...beyond the obvious physical attraction, there was something about Wes that made Mack want to please him.

He’d had fun exploring Wes’s body, looking for all the places that made Wes yelp and squirm. And it had been a long damned time since he’d rimmed anyone, because that wasn’t for hookups. It was for guys he genuinely wanted to wind up, and yeah, he’d been tempted by Wes’s panted demands to fuck him, but Mack respected Wes too damned much to risk Wes regretting it later. He never wanted Wes to regret his time with Mack, no matter how brief.

He wasn’t looking for a relationship with Wes, but they could sure as shit enjoy themselves while Wes was at the ranch.

Reyes was up and in the shower, so Mack fisted his erection and started to jack himself. Closed his eyes and imagined that his fist was Wes’s mouth, with that little silver ball that had driven Mack nuts every time it rolled over his dick. Pretty pink lips stretched around him, wicked blue eyes peering up his body. Wes was walking temptation, and he knew it.

Mack’s balls drew up tight, and he came in his boxers just as the shower shut off. He wiped his hand on the fabric, then shoved his blankets aside. Reyes exited the small bathroom a moment later in a cloud of steam, a towel wrapped around his waist.

In all of the years they’d known each other, Mack had never been attracted to his best friend, but he could appreciate the visual aesthetic of the man. Tall, broad-shouldered, with defined muscles and swaths of bronze skin. But more than that, it was the tattoos that he hid beneath his Clean Slate Ranch polos. Intricate, identical tribal patterns decorated each shoulder and upper bicep; similar patterns wove a circle across his chest and pecs, just below his collarbones; a small sun circled his navel, its individual beams of light stretching out several inches from the center.

In the small of his back was his first tattoo, inked by an older cousin when Reyes was only fourteen. A gang symbol that had haunted him for years, especially once he’d realized that life only led to violence and death. But more than twenty years later, he still hadn’t changed it or had it removed. Mack tried asking why once, but Reyes refused to talk about it.

He also refused to talk about the swaths of burn scars on his legs and feet, or the incident that had both put him in the hospital and been the impetus for Reyes quitting his dream job as a firefighter.

“How’d your date go?” Reyes asked as he reached into his dresser for clothes.

Mack had been fast asleep whenever Reyes got back to the room last night. “A lot better than I expected it to.”

“Why’s that?” Reyes dropped the towel and slipped into a pair of boxer briefs.