Love in Troubled Times

by Gayle Riley

  “Hey, yeah, this place is yours?” She looked around, gesturing expansively at the polished shop floor. “What were you doing in New York then? Also, it’s Barb, please.”

  “It’s my side business, Barb. My partner, Leo, runs most of the day-to-day operations. I just come out when I need some time in the country.”

  “Your… partner?”

  “My business partner and friend, not… I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I didn’t mean it in that way,” Nate waved a hand vaguely. “He stays out here most of the time while I dart off where I’m needed for my other concerns. I’m from around here originally, and I bring money into Remlow Creek from outside, so it’s a pretty nice deal all around.”

  “So, wait. You commute from the city to here?”

  “I do. It’s more of a recreational thing for me than a strictly business venture.” Nate glanced sidelong at the woman. “Is there something I can get you, by the way? You didn’t know I would be here when you came in, after all.”

  “That must be nice, to be able to do that. I’m here for… horse… things?” Barb shrugged, the gesture flowing down from her shoulders through the rest of her body and communicating a great deal of dissolution in the process. “My grandpa owns a little ranch out here, there are horses that don’t have whatever tools we’d need to ride them, and… to be honest, I probably should have brought along a list. Not that I’d even be riding them like this….”

  Trailing off, Barbara gestured down her body, her palm running over the swelling of her belly, that little detail that changed everything about how Nate saw her.

  “Baggy clothes and dim lighting do a lot of favors for a pregnant lady,” Barb said, looking him full in the eyes as she answered the question he was very pointedly not asking. “Yes, I was hiding it from you, but you seemed awfully down for some fun and I needed that. Are you constantly going to look at me like we actually met months ago and it’s yours? Because I’ll stop coming back of that’s the case.”

  “No! Sorry, it’s just distracting me a little,” Nate said, shaking his head and smiling apologetically. “Please consider the Hard Tack for all your future horse needs. How about I just show you some basic riding gear and we’ll go from there? You can come back later if you need anything more.”

  “After all,” Leo said, poking his head around the corner, from where he had to have been at least partially listening, “We are sort of the only game in town.”

  “It’s a small town,” Nate nodded in agreement.

  Chapter 3

  In the end, Barb did come back, many a time, though perhaps not for the reason of acquiring more “horse things.” She came to chat as much as she came to shop, a state of affairs that both Nate and Leo found themselves amenable to. Outside of the noise and gloom of a bar or club, the blond woman proved to be a delight to talk to, an energetic person whose sheer newness filled the Hard Tack with a degree of positivity that it hadn’t seen in a long while. It was too easy to get into a rut with just the two men at the helm; another recurring face varied their routine just enough to engender a quick-forming, rapidly deepening friendship between the three.

  When there came a day when she and Leo were alone together in the shop, perhaps what happened next was inevitable.

  Nate left early that day, heading down the sloping hills toward the town of Remlow Creek proper to visit the post office, where a number of specialized stock deliveries awaited. In the quiet morning that followed, Leo found himself at something of a loose end, the Hard Tack largely stocked and ready to go. With no other customers to deal with, Barb’s appearance was a welcome distraction, something that Leo leaped at. As they spoke, Leo found it hard to get distracted further, the woman having opted to show off a little more skin than she usually did. His eyes strayed, no matter how he tried to keep himself focused on the conversation, to the heavy curves of her breasts, only grown larger in the weeks she had been coming to visit.

  Judging from the deliberately low dip of her neckline, Leo sensed that perhaps this was intentional.

  So, by the way, did the slight, consistent edging closer to Leo that Barbara did, drawing further into his personal space whenever the opportunity arose. Slowly, the words began to come further apart, trains of thought dropping away in favor of lingering looks, the occasional speculative glance around the store to confirm that, indeed, they were both still alone. When Barb’s hand stayed just a moment too long on Leo’s arm, he reciprocated, placing a hand of his own upon her hip.

  “I was wondering how long it’d take you,” Barb’s mouth slipped into a crooked smile, one that spoke of mischief and fun. It was a smile that made Leo reflect on the fact that here in Remlow Creek, the woman was just as unmoored from consequences as she had been the day before she had come here. Whatever they did here, she would eventually flit away from here, and Leo would be left behind. There would be no great challenges to whatever fun they wished to devise.

  “Nate’s gonna be away for a while yet.” The dreamy note in Leo’s voice did not go unnoticed.

  “Enough time for a little fun?” Barb crooked one immaculately groomed eyebrow. For a moment, her mouth crooked down. “Because that’s all it would be, guy. You’re cute and all, but let’s not have any illusions.”

  “Fun is good for me,” Leo answered quickly, then grabbed Barb by the hand. Without so much as a gesture he hustled them toward the door and locked it, flipping the sign from “open,” to “closed.” From there, he pulled her to the stairs and up to the second floor, through a series of back rooms toward the bedroom he kept in one of the rear corners, the one with a pleasantly big bed. In the back of his mind, he questioned how clean it was, before bringing a girl to it.

  It would have to do.

  The room itself was rustic and charming, clad in varnished wood and billowing curtains the color of lilacs. The window was open to the elements, a gentle breeze wafting in from the other side, causing the curtains to sway with a pleasingly rhythmic cast to them. Looking back, Leo could see Barb cast her eyes around the room appreciatively; not only did it seem that whatever mess there was didn’t bother her, but the simplicity of the place, its wood-clad charms, evidently struck a chord with her. Finally taking the initiative to stride ahead of him, Barb slipped past Leo and perched herself on the edge of his bed.

  “Nice digs,” she grinned, leaning back on her palms so that the contours of her body were more attractively displayed. “Are you sure we won’t be interrupted?”

  “Pretty sure,” Leo both nodded and shrugged at the same time, a set of gestures that was wildly unhelpful. “I mean, we live in a world of uncertainty, but at the same time Nate should be gone for a good long time. We’re good.”

  “That was all possible responses to that question, but okay. C’mere.”

  And then, all concerns about being found out dissolved away under the weight of Barb’s lascivious gaze, her blue eyes shining with desire under stress. From what Leo had managed to gather, the woman was around a large segment of her extended family while she was here, and the normal vacation rigors were beginning to wear her down. Family was not something to be borne in close quarters for long periods of time, it was part of the reason Barb came out to visit the Hard Tack on her own so often, but now it was clear that the pregnant woman needed something a little more. Something a tad transgressive…

  Sex with a casual acquaintance would fit the bill nicely, it seemed…

  Not one to complain, even if he was technically being used, Leo approached with speed enough to suggest eagerness. He stood over Barb, looking down openly into the window of her cleavage, a beautiful body heaving as she breathed heavy breaths, as she reached forward and took Leo by the hips, drawing him closer, between her parted knees. Her thumbs ran along the line of his belt, rubbing against the fine leather, following the stitching until she reached the buckle. Her eyes never left his as she tugged the loop free, let the two ends hang loose, the metal clacking against itself as Barb moved past it. Nex
t came the button, the fly, the jeans themselves descending, but only a little.

  Barb held them there with one hand pressed into Leo’s ass, an assertive gesture that he found himself not minding at all, even as his pants sagged and folded around her hand. That her free hand was stroking confident, light fingers across his crotch certainly helped with that.

  “Hold still, now,” the smile she wore carried in Barb’s words, a lilt that promised an entire day fooling around in bed, if they could get away with it. Hooking her index finger into the waistband of his boxers, she tugged Leo’s cock out into the open air, where it bobbed, semi-hard, in front of her appreciative eyes. Her thumb rubbed a gentle line up and down its underside, as she took hold of it and held it between her fingers. “At least, to start out….”

  Before Leo could reply, any possibility of words was taken from him as the blond woman leaned forward and slid the tip of his dick into her mouth, pursing her lips over his quickly throbbing head. Her tongue rose from the floor of her mouth, its tip pressing hard into the underside of Leo’s erection, moving with practiced inexorability into the sensitive place just below the soft, purple helmet. From there it traveled, following the ridge of his tip, as Leo tipped his head back and inhaled sharply in pleasure.

  “Christ, you do not mess around, do you?” he asked, in a voice made unsteady by sensation. Gently, he rolled his hips, the buckle of his belt tinkling against itself, the sound lost to the day as he pushed himself gradually forward, into the woman’s mouth. She moaned as she took him, the sound its own kind of assent, her eyes lifting to meet his as she swallowed his cock, took him to the root in a single, smooth motion. Withdrawing brought with it its own sort of delights, Barb’s tongue sticking out of her mouth and dragging down his shaft as otherwise pursed lips massaged Leo’s sensitive member. She did it again, and again, pausing only for the briefest of moments to take a breath before pushing him once more to the back of her throat.

  Occasionally she would stop there, the tight depth of the penetration squeezing at the head of Leo’s cock, her teeth providing a gentle scrape, tongue moving in sinuous, unfamiliar patterns against him. He had never gotten a blowjob like this before, something so slow and deliberate, thoughtful and sensual, an act of concentration as well as lust. It was as though Barb was an artist at her craft here, not merely performing a sexual act but composing some new sensation, pleasure as sheet music, a unique sucking made for Leo alone— a custom-made blowjob.

  She certainly had no trouble finding the man’s many sensitivities, uncovering precisely the right way to lick at his shaft, the correct means of fondling his balls or moaning into his tip, to elicit the perfect shudder of restrained pleasure in return. Leo lost himself to the sensation of it almost immediately, stood with his eyes heavy-lidded and his fingers stroking encouragingly through her hair, as Barb worshiped his cock with her mouth. Perhaps it was that only moments passed, minutes at most, but Leo allowed himself to luxuriate in every second of it, let time proceed as it did, fully prepared to spend the whole day here, doing this, if Barb willed it.

  There was, he was vaguely aware, a shop downstairs that he had closed early and that, under normal conditions, would require tending. But these were anything but normal conditions; this sort of thing happened more in New York than it did here. In fact, before today Leo could confidently say that it happened exclusively in New York.

  He did not mind the change.

  After a particularly nice extended moment in which Barbara held herself down at the base of Leo’s erection, squeezing and massaging him with the full extent of her mouth, Barb pulled back. She then flopped down onto the bed with a smile on her face and a hitch in her breathing. Winking suggestively, she reached down to the hem of her shirt and pulled, drawing it gradually up to her chest, over the roundness of her pregnant belly, and over heavy breasts with dark nipples, clearly in the midst of their own maternal transformation.

  “You’ve got a nice cock, Leo,” she said, with a somewhat desirous voice. “Come fuck me with it.”

  Her legs spread. There was a skirt in the way, but this was an obstacle Leo was equipped to deal with, sliding it up into a rumpled line about her hips, the pads of his fingers running smoothly up Barb’s thighs. Her smile widened at the enthusiasm running through him, a giggle bubbling on her lips as he bodily pushed her further up the bed, falling upon her from above. Strong, muscled arms came down at either side of her head, framing her as the man descended, the sheer heat of his hardness pressing into the inside of her thigh. A groan escaped her then to feel it, soft, near imperceptible below the shuffling on the bed and the creaking of the frame.

  But Leo heard it. He pressed his lips to her throat, trailing a line of kisses up the line of her jaw to try and replicate the sound, to draw it out of her again. Nothing he did seemed to work. Though he could pull a great many entertaining sounds from Barb, that primal, small sound of desire was not one of them. It didn’t stop him from trying, however, each new noise spurring him on to greater heights. By the time he finally slid his hardness into her, Barb’s pink panties pushed to one side to allow him entry, she was already sopping and throbbing around his length, her hips rolling instinctively into his probing member. The pair joined together almost instantaneously, Leo pushing into Barb to the hilt, his teeth sharp and nipping at her neck.

  Her belly was a constant presence between them, a pressure on his abdomen that caused Leo to arch his back around it. Steadying himself with one hand on her hip and the other against the bed, he moved first in slow, gradual thrusts, the kind that felt a woman out, rather than plunging all the way in. A silence settled between them, broken only by the rough panting of unsteady breaths, the shifting of sheets below them as they began to fuck. It was a delightfully simple process, an exchange of pleasure with no strings attached, no expectations beyond this moment, this grind of skin on skin.

  Perhaps, Leo hoped, Barb could be convinced to make this a recurring deal. As her back arched and her lips parted in a shivering moan, she certainly didn’t seem to dislike the arrangement.

  His eyes scanned her body, taking in every pale detail. As he worked inside her, Leo allowed himself to stare openly, to enjoy the woman moaning and writhing beneath him, to lean in and sample her looks and sounds and scents and tastes. Her skin was salty against his tongue, licking a line to the hollow of her throat as he thrust in especially deep, so that the muscles in her neck flexed against him in time with Barb’s moaning. Her every motion a subtle delight. Leo allowed his grip on her to tighten just slightly, holding her in place as her hips rolled and her ankles locked behind him, joining them together so that decoupling would need to be a conscious act. Parting even by accident seemed distinctly tragic to the pair, giving up a moment of this pleasure something neither wished to countenance.

  The back of Barb’s heels pushed at Leo’s ass, holding him closer, reducing his thrusts to small, deep things, the majority of his cock inside her at all times. Her wetness seeped around his shaft, her head tilted back so he could no longer see her expression, but the harsh pant of her breath told Leo all he needed to know. With a sudden restlessness, Barb’s hands rose from the bed, where they lay splayed and limp in their fucking, reaching for her own chest, fondling her heavy breasts, pinching her nipples. One slid, quickly and smoothly, over the bump of her stomach and between her legs, just above the undulating thrusts of the man, locating her clit and holding it between two fingers. Stroking and flicking at the center of her pleasure, Barbara bit her lip, moving purely on instinct now.

  It was here, completely incorporated in their communal action, absorbed in one another and the place where they had joined, that Leo and Barb were reminded that they had left the door open.

  “Whoop!” The sound was stark and clipped, an exclamation of surprise that began close by to them, but quickly pulled away. “Don’t mind me!”

  There was the clomping of heavy boots on the stairs as Nate descended, rather more rapidly than he had ascended in the first
place. Leo and Barb both stared out through the open, now empty door for a while, stillness replacing the grinding, thrusting movement of sex, before looking at each another. For a moment, it was clear to Leo that the two of them shared a feeling of being caught, perhaps even of having done something they weren’t supposed to be doing, in a guilty flush that ran between them, communicated through widened eyes and a sheepish tilt to their brows.

  But Leo’s rational mind caught the problem quickly.; Nate had no real claim on Barb, and even if he did, Barb could make her own choices. Nate wasn’t exactly a parent to either one of them, though he might be considered Leo’s boss. It wasn’t as though he had never darted off on some lustful adventure and closed the store in his absence, either.

  Barb giggled. Leo shrugged. They both stayed in the bedroom and finished, of course.

  In the afterglow, when Barbara leaned over and purred into Leo’s ear, attempting to convince him to stay for another round, it was hard to argue against that.

  Chapter 4

  Nate stayed out of the Hard Tack for most of the day, electing to keep the store closed and give the couple copulating upstairs some space for their fun. The shock of seeing them like that lingered, an energy that had nowhere to go, bearing in mind that it wasn’t like either of them owed him anything. He had just been a one night stand for Barb, just as she had been for him. There was simply no reason to feel any particular way about what he had seen, aside from perhaps briefly embarrassed that they had all, as a group, been put into that situation.

  It wouldn’t even be the first time that Nate had walked in on two of his friends fucking before.

  If they wanted to keep the store closed for that, then it was their choice. The Hard Tack, no matter how much it actually brought in under its own steam, was not exactly hurting for money. Nate knew that, in the event that there was a big sale that they had missed out on, Leo was good to make up the difference. Nate himself was never lacking in things to do, and with his home’s main body currently occupied with things he didn’t particularly wish to see, he took himself instead to the corral and barn attached to one side. A ring of sturdy fences, hewn from whole wood pieces, swooped out from the side of the Hard Tack, encircling a patch of lush grass, carefully tended and cut. The outer edge of this patch, hugging the inner rim of the corral, consisted of tamped down growth, worn through to the brown earth beneath in places by the incessant pounding of hooves. One could envision, looking at that defined track in the pen, the slow canter of well-cared-for horses, ridden and directed by a small group of men who nevertheless knew their way around the beasts easily.