Reece’s blue eyes glowed. I saw a reflection of the love and happiness bubbling up inside of me. I kissed him, trying my damnedest to keep my passion leashed, so it would be all the sweeter when we did end up in bed.
We dried each other off, hands lingering and stroking until we laughingly broke apart, gasping for breath.
“You think we’re going to make it through dinner?” Reece asked. “Cause, I have to tell you, I’m starving.”
He had just pulled on a pair of silky sleep pants. “I’m starving too,” I told him, my voice sounding like gravel.
“Stop staring at my ass, Whitt.”
“How do you know I’m doing that?”
He eyed me over his shoulder, his brow quirked. “You get this really deep sound to your voice, like the big bad wolf.”
“Feeling that way.”
He grabbed my arm. “Dinner.”
Maggie had left beef bourguignon with fresh bread. I checked beneath the dessert cover and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Reece asked.
“She left us chocolate gateau.”
“I guess finding the other one half eaten in the bedroom was a giveaway?”
“Probably. Maybe I should smear it all over you and lick it off.”
Reece’s eyes widened. “Okay. Body not feeling like we’re taking this slowly.”
I laughed. “Sorry. You said you were starving, so let’s eat. Dish the beef bourguignon while I open the champagne.”
Over dinner, I filled Reece in on my conversation with Maitland, and the discussion I’d had with Sherry Rowland. I shook my head in disgust. “I let my fear that no one could love me blind me, Reece. You were right about Maitland being more concerned with my honesty and also right about something odd going on with Sherry. I should have listened to you.”
Reece’s grin was lopsided. “Well, I’m sure you won’t make that mistake again, and I’ll be able to claim I’m the personal consultant to the brilliant banker, Whitt Dailey.”
I covered the hand he had resting on the table with mine. “I’d rather you were my partner. Will you stay, Reece? Give us a chance to see exactly where this goes?”
I was so nervous, I bit the inside of my bottom lip to stop it from trembling. His hand turned over in mine, his work-roughened fingers squeezing mine with the gentleness he showed everything. “Yes to everything.”
I nodded, sucking in a deep, relieved breath. “Let me pour some champagne.”
We toasted everything we could think of while we consumed Maggie’s fantastic meal. We even tasted some of the gateau before Reece stood and pulled me to my feet.
“I can’t wait any longer, Whitt.”
With the glow of the candles all around us, I took him in my arms, running my hands over the sculpted muscles of his back. From his broad shoulders, I skated to the dip at his waist and on to the firm globes of his ass.
“You are so damn sexy,” I murmured. “You have no idea how I lust after this tight ass of yours.”
Reece’s hands were untying the string of my sleep pants and dipping inside to circle my cock. “I think I might have some idea, but I probably need to get a better look to be sure.”
He released me to tug the pants off my hips so they dropped to the floor. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, dropping onto the edge of the bed and pulling me close. He kissed my navel and let his tongue glide lower, licking up and down my shaft.
With my breathing coming in short pants, I curled my fingers in his hair and held him away. “This is my turn to make up for being such an ass. Lie back.”
Reece scooted into a position where he could recline against the pillows, one arm curled behind his head.
“Lift your hips.” As soon as he did what I asked, I stripped the silky pants off him and took a moment to marvel at the sheer perfection of him. Golden body hair glinted in the candlelight, his prick lying stiff against his sculpted abs. I licked my lips, so ready to show him everything I felt.
I started at his feet, working my way up with kisses and caresses until I wrapped my mouth around him and took him deep into my throat. I worked him relentlessly until he tugged at my hair.
“I want to come while you fuck me,” he told me, his eyes glazed with passion.
I straddled his hips, my arms braced along his shoulders and leaned down to kiss him. My heart pounded as I let my body sink on top of his, enjoying the feeling of being skin to skin.
“I will never get enough of you,” I whispered to him.
I eased back so I could spread his legs. Grabbing a bottle of lube, I squirted some on my fingers and teased his opening, laughing with sheer joy as he moaned my name.
“Need you, Whitt, so damn bad.”
“Me too, baby.” I couldn’t wait anymore. I ripped open a condom packet and covered my aching cock. After making sure we both had enough lube, I pushed into him. “Love you, Reece.”
He brushed his hands over my chest, resting them at my waist as our gazes locked. With incredible slowness, I rocked my hips and used one of my hands to jerk him off as I fucked him. The sight of him so hard for me was amazing, earth-shattering, but it wasn’t until I looked into his bright blue eyes again and saw the love shining there that I finally lost it.
He was everything I thought I would never have. As I came, tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Whitt?” Reece shifted, pulling me on top of him. “You okay?”
I nodded. Reece hugged me closer. I was way more than okay. I was loved.
25
Whitt
So, Reece had his big day at the Maysburg Autumn Classic. Now I had mine. Even though we had ridden over the hunt territory, nothing had prepared me for the thrill of so many horses and hounds gathered together in the crisp air of an autumn morning. Quinn and Mary Maitland were chatting with us as we stood in a group, mounted and ready to ride.
I glanced at Reece and caught him watching me with a smile on his face. “Think you’re ready for this?” he asked.
“I hope so. I hired the best trainer around to make it happen.”
Quinn laughed. “You’ll make a fine fox-hunter, Dailey.”
Mary leaned over and touched the arm of my jacket. Her smile was serene as she said, “I’m so glad you and Reece have worked things out. You two make a lovely couple.”
Before I could reply, the huntsman blew his horn to signal to the hounds that we were moving off. The masters of the hunt had invited Reece and me to ride closer to the front so we could see the hounds working. As we trotted toward a wide trail into the woods, I felt as wide-eyed as a kid on Christmas morning.
Reece leaned over my way. "Don’t be surprised if it’s a little slow this morning. The weather’s been pretty dry, so scent might not be good. Still, it’s a good idea to always be ready. If the hounds find a scent trail, we could be off in a flash. Bondage knows what he’s doing, so trust your horse to take care of you.”
Truer words were never spoken. Despite Reece’s predictions of a dry day, hounds ran three or four different lines while we were out. I was secretly relieved when every fox they chased got away.
“Is that pretty common?” I asked Quinn as we rode back toward the meet where all the trailers were parked.
“More often than not,” he replied. “Unlike other parts of the world, once the fox has gone to ground—gone into a hole—we don’t pursue it. The chase is what we’re after, not killing the animal.”
He looked at me and laughed. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you dirty before, Dailey. Makes you look a lot more human and approachable.”
I glanced forward to where Reece and Mary were deep in conversation. “I’m not sure it’s the dirt. I think it’s the man who’s making me more human.”
Quinn’s eyes were on his wife. “I know what you mean.”
Once everyone had taken care of their horses, the custom was to gather around for what Reece called a tailgate. Looked to me like a feast laid out on a couple of picnic tables. In fact, Maggie had left u
s a hamper to bring with us. As we walked over to where everyone was gathered, my phone began chirping.
Now that the deal with Maitland was pretty well in the bag, I had put in additional calls on the West Coast deal I was working on. I reached into my pocket and pulled it out, studying the screen. My thumb hovered over it.
“Really?” Reece asked. I glanced up at his steady gaze and flicked my thumb to decline the call. If there was one thing I had always understood, it was the fine art of negotiation and compromise.
Reece grabbed the phone and put it inside his pocket before leaning over to give me a kiss.
“Damn, I love you,” he told me.
And that was the best deal I had ever sealed.
Book 4
A Roll In The Hay
Peter Styles
© 2019
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.
This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).
1
Jeffrey
When the sun rose on Nitter Valley, it was almost picture perfect, like something you could find on a postcard. The sky was clear nearly every day, and the rare clouds we had were painted in lovely pinks or purples instead of being a dreary, hostile grey. The town was always sleepy, but it almost seemed abandoned before seven in the morning. Except for other farmers, I was surely the only one who stretched and got out of bed by five.
From my window, I could see how nice the sky looked once again. I could stare out and admire it for hours, honestly –- but that didn’t mean that I always liked to be out there to enjoy it firsthand. You did what you had to do, though.
With a sigh, I threw back the covers, heaved myself up, and got started once again on a brand-new day. My routine was automatic by now. Wash up, shave whatever stubble had crept up during the night, and dry my face with a towel.
I picked out a fresh cotton shirt and some blue jeans, tugged on my socks, and quietly made my way down to the kitchen to rummage around for some food. After I poured myself a bowl of somewhat stale Wheatio’s and munched them down quickly, I headed out through the back porch. The door squeaked in protest as it moved –- a reminder that I would need to come back and oil the hinges later.
Just another thing to add to my already massive to-do list. As it turned out, keeping up a farm more or less by yourself was a difficult job. It only made me more impressed with my old man and what he’d been capable of. All those years running the whole thing on his own, and I’d never heard even one complaint.
That was why I didn’t complain either, even though the sun always managed to hit my eyes at the exact angle to blind me, and the cows were always ornery so early in the morning. The seasons had started to turn already, leaving splotches of yellow and orange spattered through the oak leaves on the trees that lined our property. Mist usually crept in, too, sneaking its fingers through the grass as it swayed.
I pulled my coat a little more tightly around myself, ignoring the chill that still managed to seep through. It wouldn’t be long before I was warmed up, anyway, with all the work that I was about to do.
I hit up the stables first, where our handful of dairy cows were already shuffling around, discomfited by the changing weather. I took a bag of feed from the corner and filled up the troughs, careful to make sure that the meal being dispensed was exactly as much as they needed.
When I’d first taken over the various farm duties, I didn’t know how to monitor the food intake of the cows, and always ended up giving them too much to eat. They didn’t just stop themselves from eating when they were full, so we had a few very round ones in just a few weeks. Fortunately, that mistake was pretty easy to learn from.
While the cows were working through their meal, I pulled up a stool and sat on the other side. Milking them was one of the easiest parts of the day, despite their cantankerous tempers. My old man used to let me do it when I was still a kid. I was always so excited to help out around the farm, even in small ways like that.
Now I was the only one who did the milking in the mornings. Since the task was mindless, the stark loneliness of being the only person outside at such an early hour could sometimes creep in and bother me. I tried not to let it.
After I collected several buckets of fresh milk and moved to store them away, it was time to do a little property maintenance. Dealing with so much land all by myself was pretty tough. Ma would sometimes help where she could, but the farm was definitely too much for her deal with, and so I’d taken up the mantle for my father.
I started with the weeds. I hated them the most. They always popped up in the least convenient spots, ruining the careful maintenance of our beautiful flower garden, or crowded around the base of our ripening fruits and vegetables to steal their nutrients away.
In a way, I got satisfaction from ripping those suckers up out of the ground and dumping them in a big old pile to turn into compost later. It took a little while, but when I was done, the sun had risen higher in the sky and our garden was once again pristine.
The porch was next. Being on a farm meant things got dirty real quick. I would go to bed with a clean porch at night and wake up to one covered in dirt just six or seven hours later.
Scrubbing it down was a simple matter. My trusty bucket was hung up in the corner, and it was second nature to fill it on my way to the pig troughs by now. I hummed a little tune to myself as I worked.
My back warmed as the sun rose higher and higher still, telling me that it was getting close to the time I needed to leave for work. Tending to the farm didn’t actually pay for itself, after all, as much as I wished it did.
After I had wrung the mop out and dumped the dirty water next to the porch, I headed back inside. My keys were right by the door, along with the half-apron for my job. I worked at a feed store, so most of what I did revolved around physical labor and heavy lifting. I still didn’t know why our manager made an attempt at an employee uniform, but the dancing chicken mascot printed on the apron was charming.
I hopped into my truck and headed down to the city center. It had to be about seven in the morning, since the town was starting to wake up but sleepily dragged its feet. The parking lot at the feed store was still completely empty by the time I pulled up, except for a beaten-up old green station wagon that I recognized as my manager’s car.
As I walked through the door, a bell chimed to announce my arrival. Dan, said manager, glanced over from where he was sorting through a stack of receipts and gave me a warm smile.
“Morning, Jeffrey!” he cheerily greeted, chipper as no other human could be so early in the day. Dan always seemed to be in a good mood, somehow.
I smiled back and waved a hand as I slid my keys into my pocket. “Morning, Dan. We got a new order in already?”
“Yep,” he said, and gestured toward the back room. I could already see pallets of food through the window, stacked up and ready to be sorted and moved. Sometimes I considered asking Dan if we could buy a forklift for the bigger loads, but in the end, it would probably still be quicker to move them by hand.
“I’ll get started on that right away,” I replied with a nod.
As I left, Dan called out after me. “We got donuts in the back! Customer brought it in. Nice guy.”
I couldn’t resist indulging in a little treat before the daily grind started, which I knew would be grueling. I plucked a plain glazed cake donut from the top of the stack and shoved half into my mouth. After making a sound that
could probably have been correctly interpreted as a thank you, I strode off to start my work.
Running a farm alone was hard, but the work at a feed shop could be harder. There weren’t many other employees who could do this much heavy lifting, outside of me and a few seasonal workers.
I dragged bags of feed from the back of the shop to the front. I stocked shelves. As customers started coming in, I helped them load their trucks up with their hauls.
In just a couple of hours, I was sweating, and my back had begun to hurt. Even when you used proper lifting techniques, hefting heavy things day in and day out for hours could still take a toll.
By ten, I had moved more pallets than I wanted to count. The store was full of other farmers and animal owners who looked at our feed options and perused the shelves. Fortunately, none of them had made selections yet.
I was taking a little break and rubbing the soreness out of my lower back when the bell rang again. From the front, Dan called out, “Welcome — oh, Rosie! You here for Jeffrey?”
My attention perked up, and I stepped out to take a look. Rosie, my ma, stood there with a bag in her hands, smiling brightly. Everyone around her smiled back and greeted her fondly.
Ma was the kind of person everyone in town knew. She would always volunteer for events. She checked on neighbors without prompting, and made sure no one went through a weekend without a good, home-baked treat. Everyone loved her.
My old man had been like that, too.
“Oh, Ma … I didn’t wake you up this morning, did I?” I asked, walking through to the front of the store. After I wiped my hands on my apron, I reached out to give her a hug.
Ma smiled and shook her head. “No, you were quiet as a mouse! You always are.” She laughed and held the bag out with a mischievous look on her face. “Just like how you’re always forgetting your lunch.”
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