Raising the Bar

by Leigh Dillon

  It could happen, he thought, warmth spreading through his chest. Maybe it’s insane, but we could make this work if we tried.

  A shaft of sunlight lanced through the leaves overhanging the bench and speared into Destin’s eye. He disengaged from Tonio and looked up at the sky, shading his eyes with the flat of his hand.

  “What?” Tonio also looked up.

  “It’s afternoon,” Destin said. “I didn’t realize we’d been up here so long. We need to start back down or it’ll get dark on us, and this trail is a bitch in the dark.”

  Tonio stuffed the last bit of sandwich into his mouth, rolled up the plastic bag, and stood. “This trail’s a bitch in the daylight. I sure as hell don’t want to be up here at night.”

  They went to their respective horses and packed their picnic things away, sneaking little glances at each other and grinning like idiots when they caught each other’s eye.

  The trail upward wound and snaked, but the trail down wasted no time descending. The horses moved slowly, bracing against the downward drag. Destin leaned back, shifting his weight to Butternut’s hindquarters, and eyed the steep drop-off at the left-hand side of the trail with increasing nervousness. Behind him, he heard Spot huffing in deep concentration. The appaloosa, with his short, stout legs and muscular body, kept better control on the downslope than the leggy Butternut, and Destin began losing sight of the two of them now and then as he and his horse gathered speed, first around sharp bends, then for longer periods around gentler curves.

  Halfway down a steep, heavily forested stretch, Destin heard noises behind him, noises that made him pull up and turn around, heart pounding—the crashing of a small animal running uphill through the trees, a volley of cursing, the much larger, slower and heavier crashing of something stumbling downhill off the trail, and finally a loud, all-too-familiar thud.

  It was the sound of a horse falling.

  Chapter 15

  “TONIO?” DESTIN spurred Butternut back up the trail, praying silently. He found Tonio and Spot both standing a few yards downhill from the edge of the trail, among the trees and at the end of a churned-up furrow through the fallen leaves. Tonio’s vest and breeches were smeared with dirt. Spot had mud ground into his knees and right side, and his saddle hung sideways off his back.

  “Oh God! Are you all right?” Destin panted, reining Butternut to a halt.

  “I’m fine. I know how to take a fall.” Tonio sounded irritated, impatient, his attention centered on Spot. Blood seeped through the dirt on Spot’s right knee. Tonio ran his free hand down Spot’s leg, then hitched the reins over his arm and felt with both hands.

  “What happened?” Destin asked, sliding out of the saddle.

  “Fucking rabbit.” Tonio finished his inspection, stood, and brushed off his hands on the seat of his breeches. “Flushed right in front of us, Spot spooked, and next thing I knew, we were plowing a ditch down the mountainside. I don’t think the skinned knee is serious, but he’s a bit tender in the back of the joint. Might’ve strained something.”

  Destin sucked his lip in and chewed it, calculating. “This is about the steepest part of the trail. If we can get Spot down another eighth of a mile or so, we can take it slow and gentle all the way back to the parking lot.”

  “Yeah.” Tonio grabbed Spot’s listing saddle and repositioned it on the appaloosa’s broad back. He checked the girth and tightened it, then removed his water bottle from the carry case, unscrewed the top, and poured some over Spot’s bloody knee. “Just a scrape,” he grunted as the dirt sluiced away, revealing a raw spot.

  Destin let out a huff of relief. “It could have been a heck of a lot worse. What about you? Are you all right?”

  “I’d say something if I wasn’t.”

  Destin sighed again. “Okay. I trust you.”

  “Good. I think I’ll walk Spot down instead of trying to ride him. You can go on ahead if you want.” Tonio gave Spot’s reins a tug, and they limped and scrambled back up the slope to join Destin.

  “Not a chance.” Destin turned Butternut the way they’d been riding, toward the trail bottom. Tonio did likewise with Spot, and together they picked their way along the last segment of the steep downhill stretch.

  Spot seemed to be favoring his right foreleg, but not badly. When the trail leveled off to a gentler slope, Tonio remounted, and they continued down toward the Rolling Meadows Trail they’d taken to the base of Lost Mountain.

  “Thanks,” Tonio said, drawing alongside Destin as the Lost Mountain trail opened into the wide-open expanse of the Rolling Meadows.

  “Thanks for what?”

  “Oh….” Tonio gave Destin a sheepish grin and rolled his shoulders. The gesture seemed almost apologetic. “For trusting me. For giving a shit if I was okay.”

  “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Tonio gave him a quick, sideways glance. “I took a pretty bad fall in the ring last year. You know what the guy I was dating back then said to me?”

  Destin couldn’t imagine, and he said as much.

  “He said, ‘You better be current on your insurance ’cause I’m not paying your hospital bill.’”

  Destin swiveled around and looked at him. “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why the heck were you with him, then?”

  “He was cute.” Tonio smiled a tight little smile, then immediately dropped it. “I never meant to get serious with anybody. I never thought….”

  “Thought what?”

  Tonio took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve been a million places, but when I drove up your driveway and saw your house, with the red brick and white porch, sitting there like it had been there a million years, I just had this feeling like I’d come home. It just felt right. I don’t even know how to explain it. Then I met you, and even though you were kind of a stuck-up asshole, you felt right too.”

  “I wish you’d said something.” Destin stared out across the old pastureland, afraid to meet Destin’s eyes. “I… admired you, but you were so different, I didn’t think you could ever care about me.”

  “Funny. I felt the same way about you. I mean, George Washington’s next-door neighbors don’t sleep with Hialeah trailer trash, so why even try?”

  “But you did.” Destin stopped playing coy and looked Tonio straight in the face. “And I can’t tell you how glad I am that you did, because I don’t think I ever would have.”

  “Why? Is there, like, some Code of the Bellinghams? Never let the peasants know you have the hots for them?”

  A flush burned up from Destin’s collar. “Now that’s not—”

  Tonio’s laugh once again echoed across the landscape. “Kidding!” he gasped. “Boy, do we ever need to work on your sense of humor.”

  Destin smiled in spite of himself. Maybe he did need to work on his sense of humor. If nothing else, to keep Tonio from getting the drop on him all the time.

  The Rolling Meadows Trail took them around the edge of the scrubby, thorny expanse they traversed on their way to Lost Mountain, but they crossed the same stream. They returned to the trailhead in the last golden glow of late afternoon and untacked the horses. While Destin haltered their tired mounts and loaded them into the trailer, Tonio took a scrub brush to his breeches and removed most of the rest of the trail soil from the weatherproof fabric.

  Before they left, Destin took one last look back at Lost Mountain. The side facing them stood in blue shadow, but the setting sun outlined the western slopes in a rim of fire. He always loved that mountain, in all its moods and seasons. But today, looking up at its still form outlined against the sky, he felt a new connection and saw a new beauty. It could never again be Lost Mountain to him. Not when he had found something so wonderful there.

  Chapter 16

  LIGHT POURED invitingly from the doors and windows of the stud barn when Destin drove up the driveway and parked. The night watchman in charge of overseeing the broodmares came out to see who was there, recognized Destin, gave a shy w
ave, and went back to his station in the aisle on a pile of straw bales.

  Destin retrieved some bandages, swabs, and antibiotic ointment from the medicine cabinet in the tack room while Tonio unloaded Butternut and Spot. Butternut pulled impatiently at the lead shank, eager to get back to his stall and his feed bucket, but Tonio cross-tied him and rubbed him down while Destin hosed Spot’s legs and tended to his scraped knee. Nothing serious, so Destin smeared the wound with ointment and took him back to his stall. Once both horses had full hay nets and a serving of alfalfa and oats—carefully measured, in Spot’s case—Destin turned his attention to Tonio.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Destin asked. “You’re kind of holding your arm down by your side like your ribs hurt.”

  “I’m good. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I do worry about it. Plus you’re my rider. You can’t work with Sam if you’re laid up.”

  “It’s just a bruise. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

  “Maybe, or maybe you’ll be really sore and hobbling around like you’re ninety years old. I’ve got arnica gel and that muscle-strain liniment you use on horses. Take off your shirt and let me see what you need.”

  Tonio’s eyebrows shot up, and a knowing smirk lifted the corners of his lips. “We’re making progress,” he crooned. “Now you want to see me naked.”

  Heat invaded Destin’s ears. “Just the top half. Don’t get too crazy on me now.”

  “You sure know how to take the fun out of things, don’t you?” Tonio put on a mock pout as he shucked his vest and unbuttoned his shirt. “It’s tender as hell, but I’m sure nothing’s broken. It would hurt a lot worse if it were.”

  Destin nudged Tonio’s arm aside and touched his ribs. Even bruised, Tonio’s torso felt like a sculpture under Destin’s hand—warm and soft, yes, but chiseled. The urge to put his other hand on Tonio’s waist, to pull him close and kiss him, to run his fingers up and down the muscular curves of his back and buttocks, consumed Destin’s brain like wildfire burning through dry brush.

  What is wrong with me?

  Destin closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear the desire away.

  A gentle touch on his face pulled him back to reality, and he opened his eyes again to find himself staring into Tonio’s, only inches from his own.

  “Hey.” Tonio slipped his other hand around Destin’s waist, burrowing under the thermal shirt to find bare skin. “Don’t fight it. For once in your life, just do what you want to do.”

  Destin leaned forward. Tonio met him halfway. Their lips touched, teased, and then pressed together. Destin wrapped his arms around Tonio’s lean body, pulling him tight, and opened his mouth, desperate to imbibe as much of Tonio as he could take in. Tonio responded, sucking Destin’s tongue into his mouth, yielding suggestively to Destin’s eager exploration.

  After a minute or two, the realization that Rigoberto was still in the barn with them seeped through the fog of Destin’s arousal. He pried Tonio off his front and cast a guilty glance around the aisle, but Rigoberto was nowhere in sight.

  “What?” Tonio asked impatiently.

  “We’re not alone. The night watchman’s right around the corner.”

  “So?” Tonio leaned in for another kiss.

  Destin swallowed. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  Tonio froze. A wicked, delighted smile spread across his face and then broadened into an absolute grin. He lifted one leg, unfastened his riding boot, and pulled it off. He did the same with the other boot, and followed up by unbuckling his belt and shucking his breeches and underwear off with one lithe motion. His cock popped out of the tangle of clothing, long, slim, stiff, and bucking like a wild pony with its first saddle. He laughed at something, probably the expression on Destin’s face, and marched toward the stairs to the apartment, his tight, pale buttocks twinkling in the gloom.

  Barely able to breathe with excitement, Destin followed him. He didn’t even feel the stairs under his feet. He could have levitated up those steps, for all he knew.

  The apartment looked about the same as he remembered. Tonio had brought almost nothing of his own to the space. Everything remained just as Greg had left it, and Destin’s ardor cooled a little. It felt weird to undress in the manager’s apartment, as if he and Tonio were trespassing, and Greg would walk in any second and catch them defiling his living quarters.

  The way Dad caught me up here with my first boyfriend.

  For just an instant, the memory of his father’s face as he stood in the doorway slashed through the fog of arousal. The expression hadn’t been anger. Anger Destin could have dealt with. No, the look on his father’s face had been one of shock, and hurt, and betrayal. In that one instant Destin had gone from son to stranger, and there had never been the time or the will to bridge the rift.

  I should have talked to him instead of running away. He must have thought he was such a failure.

  “Something wrong?” Tonio looked up from pulling the bedclothes back.

  Destin scrubbed his hands over his face. “There’s some history in this apartment,” he said. “I just realized I owe somebody an apology.”

  “Ghosts of old lovers?” Tonio grinned.

  “Ghost, yes. Lovers, no.”

  Tonio’s grin vanished. “I know the feeling. Do what you gotta do, but you better do this first!”

  He flopped onto the bed and patted the mattress beside him, and Destin’s flagging lust revived tenfold. He pulled his shirt off and unbuttoned his fly. His cock was so ready for action it was almost painful, and he eased it out into the cool air as gently as he could. He started to shove his pants down the rest of the way, then remembered his boots. He hobbled over to the bed, sat, and wrestled his boots off. He was still sitting there, right boot in hand and his jeans halfway down his legs, when the toilet flushed and Tonio bounded into the room, stark naked and a little damp.

  He stopped short and stared at Destin. “Holy fuck,” he announced.

  Destin dropped the boot. “What?” he asked, prickling with alarm.

  Tonio crossed the room, his gaze fixed on Destin’s crotch. “I wondered what you were hiding down there.”

  “Hiding!”

  “Not very well. I am—” Tonio leaned over Destin’s knees and kissed him, a slow, wet, lingering kiss. “—highly impressed,” he finished, whispering into Destin’s ear. Without waiting for a reply, Tonio hooked his fingers into the rolled-up waistband of Destin’s jeans and pulled them the rest of the way down, kneeling to get them over Destin’s ankles and feet. He tossed them aside, placed his hands on Destin’s knees, and gently but decisively pushed them apart.

  In a disembodied daze, Destin let him.

  This is happening. This is really happening. He watched from afar as Tonio’s lips drew closer and closer to Destin’s turgid, twitching cock. Tonio’s tongue came out, and its first hot, moist touch on the underside of Destin’s cockhead brought him crashing back into himself.

  “Arrrgh!” Destin arched his hips off the mattress, helpless to stop himself.

  Tonio pushed him back down and ran his tongue up the underside of Destin’s shaft, ending again at that sensitive spot under the head. He paused while Destin wrestled to get himself under control, then swirled his tongue around the head and closed his lips over it.

  Destin shot off like a cannon. It had been so many months since he allowed himself any sexual indulgences, and he felt so strongly about Tonio, that he had no hope of holding his orgasm back. He jerked and bounced in the throes of utter release, and somehow Tonio managed to follow him, milking him with his tongue as Destin writhed and spurted. When the flood finally stopped, Tonio quite matter-of-factly swallowed the evidence, gave Destin a final tongue swipe, and sat back on his heels.

  “Sorry,” Destin said, watching his cock wilt.

  “Been a while?” Tonio asked.

  Destin nodded. It was nothing to be ashamed about, given the circumstances, but he’d fantasized that his first encounter with Tonio would l
ast a lot longer and be a lot more, well, mutual.

  “Don’t sweat it,” Tonio said, grinning. “If you’ve been starved for action, your golden boy probably won’t take long to get back in the game.” He stood, bringing his own erection eye level with Destin. “In the meantime, I know some fun ways to kill a little time.” He took Destin’s hand and guided it toward his cock. “Don’t be afraid to touch the goods. They don’t bite.”

  Destin closed his hand around the length of Tonio’s cock, reveling in its heat and sumptuous softness. Tonio’s head dropped back, and a little sigh of pleasure escaped his parted lips. Destin slid his hand back and cupped Tonio’s tight, plump balls nestled in their tangle of jet-black pubic hair. Tonio’s thighs trembled, but unlike Destin, he didn’t lose control. Destin reached farther, teasing the deep cleft between Tonio’s buttocks. Tonio arched his back, and Destin’s cock, only half-satisfied, began to stir again.

  “You’re right,” Destin murmured against Tonio’s flat belly. “It didn’t take very long to get back in the game.”

  “Good.” Tonio pulled away and rolled onto the bed beside Destin. He handed Destin a little plastic tube and drew his legs up toward his stomach, giving Destin a good look at his glistening asshole. “You’ve seen me ride. Now let’s find out what kind of rider you are.”

  Chapter 17

  LIKE A swimmer surfacing from a deep dive, Destin woke from a delicious dream into a room flooded with sunshine. Not his room, and the dream, he slowly realized, had not been a dream. He rolled over onto his back, wincing a little as the sheet rubbed his sore nipples and cock. How had they…? Oh yes, he remembered now, and he laced his fingers behind his head and smiled.