by Lisa Henry
“That’s it.” Grady bent down and stroked the globes of Elijah’s ass. He was pale in the gloom, his bound hands fluttering against the small of his back. Grady caught his fingers, cupped them in his hands until they stilled. “That’s it. Relax now.”
He’d known men before who liked it rough, and maybe he’d figured at first that Elijah was one of them. But Elijah’s need for pain was subtler, more pervasive. It wouldn’t be satisfied with cruelty alone.
Grady reached for the other rein and looped it. He smacked the loop against Elijah’s ass, and Elijah jerked and stifled a gasp.
“It’s okay,” Grady said. “It’s just a few licks to warm you up. You want that?”
For a moment Elijah didn’t move, and then he nodded his head. “I want . . .” Elijah’s breath hitched. “I want a man to make me.”
Grady nudged the toe of his boot against Elijah’s thigh. “I’m fucking making you now, ain’t I?”
“Yes!”
“Then, when I’m done, I’m gonna take some time with you. Show you where you gotta be. You hear me?”
Elijah nodded again.
Grady knelt behind him. He raised his arm and brought the leather down hard against Elijah’s ass.
The sharp crack echoed in the enclosed space, and Elijah jerked and cried out. “Gr-Grady!”
Grady swiped his palm over the welt on Elijah’s ass, marveling at the raised skin and the heat already radiating from his flesh. His skin trembled as Grady touched him, the shocked muscles underneath twitching and jerking.
“Again!” Elijah moaned.
Grady raised his arm.
Crack.
Elijah’s entire body jerked like a landed fish.
Grady rubbed the reddened flesh again, soothing and teasing at the same time. Then he explored the cleft of his ass, his thumb grazing Elijah’s hole. Elijah rocked his hips, and Grady withdrew his hand. Sent it under Elijah’s hip this time, sliding against his heated skin, seeking out his cock. Elijah was hard, leaking, painting the saddle with pre-cum.
“Again?”
Elijah groaned as Grady curled his fingers around his cock. “Please, Grady!”
This time the blow was clumsier; Grady’s grip on Elijah’s cock made it difficult to get enough of a swing with his other arm. The leather smacked against Elijah’s left cheek, right where his thigh joined his ass. Elijah’s body shivered, and he kicked his left leg out. Grady rubbed his lower back, trailing the leather across his skin, while Elijah found his balance again.
“You’re still hard, Elijah.”
“Y-yes.” There was no shame in his answer. It was need he was breathless with. “Again?”
“A few licks, I said.” Grady released Elijah’s cock and shifted behind him. Rubbed his ass, opening his cheeks with his thumbs while Elijah moaned. “You ready for me, Elijah?”
Elijah mumbled something and shifted. His sweaty stomach squeaked against the leather saddle.
Grady opened his pants. His cock had been hard ever since Elijah had stripped. He shuffled forward on his knees, each small movement shifting Elijah’s legs further apart. Reached for the liniment and pried open the jar. Hooked two fingers into it and brought out a glob.
Elijah shuddered as Grady pressed his fingers against his hole. He made a noise in his throat like an injured calf. Grady pushed his fingers in, working on loosening up that tight muscle enough so this part didn’t hurt.
“Okay now,” he said, crooking his fingers to make Elijah jerk. “You’re ready now, I reckon.”
“Please,” Elijah moaned. “Please.”
Grady angled his cock toward Elijah’s hole. Notched it and gave Elijah a moment to refuse him. Elijah tugged at his restraints and tried to push back. Grady put one hand on his hip to gentle him, then began to enter him. Elijah was tightness and heat, and Grady had to bite his lip to stop from sheathing himself in one rough thrust. He fought the urge to close his eyes, because he wanted to read every one of Elijah’s reactions.
Forward a fraction and back again when he hit resistance. He opened Elijah slowly, patiently, watching Elijah writhe against the saddle. Watching his fingers open and close like the pale petals of a rain lily. Watching his spine move like a snake across water.
There was only heat between them now. Heat and sweat.
Grady pressed in until his balls were pressing against Elijah’s ass. “You good?”
“Mmm!”
Grady straightened up and gripped Elijah’s hips. He withdrew until the head of his cock was tugging at Elijah’s ring, and then sank inside him again in one long, smooth movement.
“Uh!” Elijah arched toward him.
“I got you,” Grady said, thrusting again and pulling Elijah’s hips back to meet him.
Again and again, trying his hardest not to come too soon. He hooked one arm under Elijah and found his cock again. Closed his fingers around it and jerked it until Elijah was half-crazy, moaning and squirming.
“Come on,” he urged. “Come on, kid.”
Elijah keened, his body shaking as he came. His muscles clenched tightly around Grady’s cock.
Grady managed one more thrust before he was coming too. He fell forward onto Elijah’s back and kissed the knot at the top of his spine. Tasted his sweat. “You good, Elijah?”
“Mmm.”
Grady rolled off him. “Come on over here.”
He helped Elijah back up onto his knees and unfastened his wrists. Elijah shuffled around to look at him. Grady searched his face. “I ain’t giving you up, Elijah.”
“You ain’t?”
“Not for nothing or nobody.”
“Say it again,” Elijah said.
Grady raised his eyebrows at the smile Elijah was struggling to hide. “I reckon you heard that just fine.” He hooked a finger under Elijah’s chin and tilted it just right. Leaned in for a gentle kiss. “But I’ll tell you again. I ain’t giving you up.”
“Not for nothing or nobody,” Elijah whispered.
“That’s right.”
“And I ain’t . . .” Elijah wrinkled his nose.
“You ain’t what?” Grady asked.
Elijah’s smile was caught someplace between shy as all shit and wicked as sin. “I ain’t cleaning the saddle.”
The next morning, they scrubbed the walls of the cabin with lye and threw handfuls of aspen leaves on the fire to mask the last of the stench of gangrene. Grady hauled in the bundled furs from the stable and dragged them over to the fireplace. The furs were full of dust, but they were dry and they were warm.
“Oughta sell those,” he said to Elijah. “Before someone else finds ’em.”
McCord wasn’t barely in his grave, and Grady was talking about taking his stuff. He was either as bad as Dale, or as practical.
He paused suddenly.
“Elijah, what do you want to do?”
No answer.
When Grady turned around, Elijah was looking through the jars on the shelf. Grady rose and joined him. “We might winter here.”
“Here?”
“I mean, we went to the trouble of cleaning it,” Grady said. “And it’s well stocked.”
Grady had aching muscles and chafing after so long in the saddle and figured Elijah was feeling the same. Shouldn’t take too much to convince him.
“Be just us here,” he said.
Elijah threw him a grateful look. “Can we stay?”
Grady glanced outside just in time to see the first flakes of snow drifting toward the ground. “We can stay all winter.”
Snowed in with Elijah Carter.
Nothing to do but keep the fire from going out and share warmth.
Nothing to do but learn every inch of the kid’s body, laid out like some kind of offering before Grady’s hungry gaze. Learn to read his eyes, to figure out when he wanted pain and when he wanted comfort, and when he wanted both at the same time.
Got to hear that laugh of his again too, a few times.
When the snows melted and they head
ed back to Ham’s Fork, they wouldn’t be staying.
They’d go west.
As far as the Pacific coast, maybe.
Find a nice town. Find jobs. Find a place to live.
Be brothers.
And spend every night together, as long as the world let them.
The California Dashwoods
Two Man Station
Adulting 101
He Is Worthy
The Island
Tribute
One Perfect Night
Fallout, with M. Caspian
Dark Space (Dark Space #1)
Darker Space (Dark Space #2)
Playing the Fool series, with J.A. Rock
The Two Gentlemen of Altona
The Merchant of Death
Tempest
With Heidi Belleau
Tin Man
Bliss
King of Dublin
The Harder They Fall
With J.A. Rock
The Preacher’s Son
When All the World Sleeps
Another Man’s Treasure
Mark Cooper versus America (Prescott College #1)
Brandon Mills versus the V-Card (Prescott College #2)
The Good Boy (The Boy #1)
The Naughty Boy (The Boy #1.5)
The Boy Who Belonged (The Boy #2)
Fall on Your Knees
Writing as Cari Waites
Stealing Innocents
Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.
Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.
She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.
She shares her house with a long-suffering partner, too many cats, a dog, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.
Connect with Lisa:
Blog: lisahenryonline.blogspot.com
Twitter: @lisahenryonline
Goodreads: goodreads.com/LisaHenry