Title	Ride the Man Down #1 in A New World Shaman series
Author	William Maltese
ISBN#	978-1-60820-030-6 (print)
	978-1-60820-031-3 (ebook)
Release Date	July 2009
Cover Artist	Deana C. Jamroz
Paperback:	174 pages
Sexual Content:	Rated Explicit
Available At:	MlrBooks (ebook) Amazon–coming soon B&N -coming soon

The Ridgemonts are wealthy and influential New Mexico Territory landowners. Their status purportedly is purchased by seemingly inexhaustible capital provided by their reputed Deadmen Hills’ gold mine. It’s only human nature that others want to share in their bounty. That these others have to die has less to do with keeping the “mine” location a secret than with concealing other mysteries bequeathed by the long-lived and elusive native-American shaman Calenza. Secrets even the Ridgemonts can likely never fully comprehend.

************************************

Brendon and Eduardo

“Damn, but I love your funky young cowboy ass,” Brendon Ridgemont said to Eduardo Rivera.

The two teenagers were stark naked. Eduardo’s head rested on his forearms that rested atop a fence railing. Brendon squatted behind; his tongue provided another long and leisurely lap from the rear hang of Eduardo’s hairy scrotum to the small of the young Latino’s back.

Nearby, just to one side of a large boulder, two horses, reins dragging the ground, munched what none-too-succulent scrub was immediately available.

“And I love your big cowboy cock, too.” Brendon’s right hand reached around and took hold of Eduardo’s impressively stiff dick to provide a couple of quick but firm up-and-down strokes. “Or, are you tired of hearing how much your body turns me on?”

“Since I so love your studly body, it’s always nice to hear that mine is loved in return,” Eduardo said. His ass provided a small circular movement that rubbed its firm cheeks against Brendon’s face. All the while, Brendon’s tongue flicked, like a frog catching flies, and left dabs of accumulated shiny spit at the puckered entrance of Eduardo’s tight-tight little asshole.

“Actually, I love more of you than just your sexy body, though, don’t I?” Brendon said.

“Do you?”

“Love your radiant personality. Love the way you kiss. Love the way you hug. Love the way you laugh. Love the way you cry. Love the way you smile. Love the way you sigh, especially when I’m eating out your ass, good and proper, like now.” He provided a punctuating long and lengthy lick. “Love the way you grunt and groan, especially when I’ve my cock buried so deeply inside of you that my cockhead feels your heartbeat. I’m just full of love and lust and hot spunk every damned time I’m anywhere near you.”

“The same back to you, buddy,” Eduardo responded in kind. His ass provided another rotation. In pendulum motion, his scrotum slapped the inside of one thigh and then the other. His nuts were so large, and swung with such momentum, that whacking sounds were audible.

“I do so love to fuck your ass,” Brendon said and came to his feet. A step forward placed his stick of a dick vertically within the bun-like embrace of Latino asscheeks. “Love it so much that I can’t keep my cock from it much longer. Not here; not now. Like, if I don’t fuck it soon, I’ll go stark raving mad. My father or Galin will have to take me out and shoot me, because I’ll be no good to anyone, or for anything, having all of this love and lust and hot spunk cooped up inside of me with no place to go. We wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would we, cowboy?”

“Batty Brendon we’d have to call you, before pulling the trigger to put you out of your misery, now, wouldn’t we?” Eduardo asked. His ass thrust back and hard-pinned the back of Brendon’s big stiff dick between Latino buttocks and gringo hard belly. An oozing of clear sticky pre-cum beaded Brendon’s cockmouth, ruptured, and drooled. “Stories to be told of poor Brendon Ridgemont, one day gone loco because one hot Friday afternoon, his cock never made it up his lover’s tight-tight asshole?”

“Everyone knows that you make me crazy,” Brendon said. “Crazy for you. Crazy for your asshole. Crazy for your dick. Crazy for your sweet kisses. Hell, even our daddies know, don’t they? My daddy once just as smitten by yours who was just as good looking, just as desirable, and just as good a fuck in his day, as you are in yours.”

“Try if you can, once again, to picture those two fucking up a storm,” Eduardo said. He shook his head in his own disbelief and ground his ass tighter against Brendon’s belly.

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. It hasn’t been all that long since I ate lunch.”

“Think we’ll really have children one day wondering how you and I ever managed to get it on, and kept it on, for hours on end?”

“Sure we will, even if neither of us remain as keen as our fathers for our dicks to slot pussy long enough to do some baby-making. All this need-heirs mantra continues to be the burrs beneath our daddies’ saddles, not ours, right? Still, we’ll give them what they want and, after that … hey … you and I know theywon’t give flying fucks whether or not we put our hard dicks in our wives ever again.”

“I heard a helluva lot less about empire-building when dad was gambling so much. Hell, everyone — as you well know — thought for sure he was going to lose the ranch in a poker game. At the time, I actually sometimes hoped that he would lose it, too, so I’d never have to worry about getting married and plugging some cunt for a baby.”

Brendon provided Eduardo’s erection with several additional sensuous pumps to stop his best friend and cowboy lover from talking nonsense. “There’s been a Rivera Ranchero, headed by a Rivera honcho, for longer than there’s been a Ridgemont spread,” he reminded.

“Nothing lasts forever,” Eduardo said. “No matter how good anything ever is, even a good fuck, it’s eventually over and done — no matter how long anyone or everyone might want to prolong it.”

“You better let me screw some sense into you, cowboy,” Brendon said. “Your daddy hears that kind of talk coming out of your sweet cock-sucking mouth, and there’s going to be shit hitting the fence post — if not his fist hitting your face.”

“Feel free to try your best to fuck me into thinking otherwise,” Eduardo said. “I’d be deeply grateful if, in fact, you can manage to do just that. Life would be so much easier, or at least seem so, at least for me, if I could better accept that one day, probably sooner than later, my presently perfect sex life with you is going to be tainted by something other than just your cock up my ass, my cock up your ass, and all the variations we manage so well in between.”

“All you’ll have to do is shut your eyes while screwing pussy and imagine you’re deep-sixing my asshole with that big dick of yours,” Brendon said. “Visions of me riding you to another climax will certainly be what get me off inside any bride of mine enough times to get her pregnant. If we’re lucky, we can do all that necessary seeding in the first few tries. After that, it’ll be just you and me back to fucking and sucking up a storm with each other.”

“You really think so?”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Maybe you would, if you actually thought that was how it’s going to work out, even if it isn’t.”

“That’s how it’s going to be, cowboy, so quit worrying about it. Once our wives are knocked up, courtesy of some minimal fucking by us, they’ll have so much to do they won’t even want us pestering them in bed, or out. Until then, let’s stop worrying about what’s coming tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, and get down to what’s coming, very soon, this very day; namely, the shooting of our hot and creamy cum from our hard, fucking dicks.”

“Just, maybe, I can manage that,” Eduardo said. His lower body swung slightly forward to let Brendon’s dickhead drop along Latino asscrack from top almost to butt pucker. Despite the weight of Brendon’s heavy dick, it was too stiff to manage the extra inch of fall necessary to align its bulbous head on the target area. Brendon’s left hand provided the extra bit of necessary downward pressure. His pre-cum wet cockcorona nudged Eduardo’s asspucker. The tan anal rosebud was tacky from spit Brendon’s flicking and licking tongue had put there.

“Knock, knock,” Brendon said. His hips pushed forward. His handhold on Eduardo’s thick cockneck slid loose skin over hard inner core as far as the Latino’s big balls and pressed farther to bring Eduardo’s lower body more fully back, up and over, Brendon’s entering erection.

“Santa Maria!” Eduardo responded. His ass didn’t stop its slide, though, but rolled slightly to twist entering cock inches in a corkscrew motion against the fucked teen’s sensitive walnut-size prostate. “Oh, gringo stud, drive that dick of yours home!”

Brendon did exactly as instructed. Not that he needed instruction, or any other kind of incentive to do the deed. There was very little on God’s green earth that could prevent him from burying his cock to his balls once his dick began its long and steady slide into that well-recognized lusciously tight and sensuously cramped asshole.

“Oh, that feels so good,” Brendon admitted. He was always surprised, considering how many times he had fucked this butt, just how good it was every next time he fucked it.

“I can tell you one thing,” Eduardo said and turned his face into his forearm to bite down, hard, as Brendon’s last inches of bulky prick completed their journey, “you’re never going to find any cunt that’ll make you feel as good as my asshole can, does, and always will.”

“Don’t I know it, cowboy,” Brendon said. His cock now shoved in to his balls, his belly ground to put his dick even deeper. Eduardo’s asscheeks, hard as they were, still flattened slightly beneath the pressure of Brendon’s belly.

Brendon’s body spooned Eduardo’s from behind. Brendon’s lap couched Latino ass like peel hugged the sensuous curve of a peach. Brendon’s belly and chest molded Eduardo’s back. His taut nipples pressed little indents into Eduardo’s wondrously tan and naturally dark-complexioned skin.

Brendon’s head came up and over Eduardo’s left shoulder. Lips moved in close to Eduardo’s ear. Brendon’s breathing was hard and deep and fast — getting harder, deeper, and faster.

“You’re damned right, cowboy,” Brendon said. “No other asshole but yours — forget cunt — can ever give me the kind of pleasure I’m feeling now, this fuck’s hardly begun.” He was one with his lover. He was complete where he never felt anywhere near this way whenever his penile sword was slotted elsewhere than within this specific anal scabbard.

Eduardo jiggled his ass to accommodate more readily Brendon’s submerged manhood.

Brendon drew his prick out a few inches and then reinserted it. With commenced swift in-and-out thrusts, his cock began giving Latino asshole a really good workout. His young balls slapped as audibly against his lover’s hard ass as Latino nuts still noisily slapped Eduardo’s inner thighs.

Brendon’s awareness increased as his thick inches pumped in and out, in and out, between Eduardo’s parenthesizing buttocks, of how intense the resulting vibrations of anal muscles were around and against whatever inches of Brendon’s thick dick that were inserted at any one time.

Brendon’s muscled belly sweated against Eduardo’s ass. His pectorals against Eduardo’s back. His cheek, chin, and forehead sweated against Eduardo’s neck and shoulder.

Brendon concentrated on providing Eduardo’s butthole with every last fraction of fucking cock on each in-slide, with removing his prick all of the way to its flare on each follow-up withdrawal.

“Oh, buddy, you fuck me so damned good,” Eduardo muttered. “Oh, Jesus, but you make it so sweet.”

Hard-gripped by Brendon’s pumping right fist, Eduardo’s dick leaked juice. Each time Brendon’s prick rammed Eduardo’s prostate, the Latino teenager’s dick expelled another gush of pre-cum to slick his cockshaft all the more and make Brendon’s pumping wet fingers all the wetter.

As their sweat-soaked bodies continued to touch and separate, cock sliding in and sliding out, there were accompanying muted smacking sounds. There were other noises, too, from both participants: groans of passion, and sighs of ecstasy.

As Eduardo’s dick leaked into and over Brendon’s masturbating hand, Brendon’s cock basted Eduardo’s anal cavity with natural lubricant that made the slip and slide of butt-fucking erection easier, faster, and smoother.

Suddenly removed, though, from the combined cacophony were those once contributed by four swinging nuts in two flaccid scrota. Ball sacs were no longer loose and limp, like gunnysacks dangling rocky contents. They were compacted and hefted like hay bales lifted high by ropes and pulleys into high barn lofts.

Eduardo indecipherably mumbled into his spit-soaked right forearm. His hands took firmer grips of the railing. Between his belly and the fence, his cock increased its momentum in fucking Brendon’s fist and expanded larger with each ensuing moment his climax approached closer and closer. The taut centers of his nipples were well-defined mountains arisen from their surrounding aureoles and from supporting lower-lying well-delineated pectorals.

Brendon really got into the fuck. Each pull of his dick out to its cockhead saw his knees bend. Each push of his dick in to his balls saw his legs straightened to push his prick inside and made a harder and louder contact of Brendon’s belly with Eduardo’s thoroughly stuffed ass.

The Latino teenager’s asspucker caved inward each time Brendon’s cock pressed home through it; it moued each time the cock slid free from it.

Both young men shared a shrinking world of increasing sensuousness that more and more separated them from everything and anything else. Their bodies performed a well-coordinated dance to the rhythmic cadence of flesh against flesh, heavy breathing, gasps for air, grunts of pleasure, fence posts and railing squeaking in protest as more and more force and weight were thrust upon and against them

How marvelous for Brendon and Eduardo each to feel literally a part of the other!

More sweat beaded foreheads, dribbled in little rivers down the sides of noses. Some of it burned eyes. Black hair went damper with it and stuck in even more wet ringlets to cheeks and foreheads.

Hard cock continued in and out … in and out … in and out … of tight asshole. Hard cock continued in and out … in and out … in and out … of tightly gripping fist.

Climax for both young men wasn’t far away. Brendon and Eduardo were nothing more or less than bundles of taut sinews, tense muscles, and raw-edged nerves. They were charged with electrical energy soon destined for overload and, if they were lucky, wondrously simultaneous eruptions.

“I can’t hold off much longer,” Brendon said in a low grunt-accompanied whisper. He further punctuated his sentence by biting Eduardo’s ear.

Eduardo stopped even trying to hold off ejaculation. “I’m coming! Oh, sweet Jesus, I am!”

Brendon’s hips slammed forward, hard and fast, to a dead-stop against Eduardo’s solid buttocks.

Although suddenly deprived of the friction from movement within the asshole, Brendon’s prick didn’t need any additional stimulus to achieve ejaculation. “Take it! Take it … cowboy … take it … take it … take it … all!”

Spunk coated the inside of Eduardo’s asshole while pearly streamers of similar virile-young-man cream went airborne between the naked Latino and the fence.

Neither Brendon nor Eduardo was recovered from his shared cataclysmic sexual event when Cal Braddey said, “What part of wait-for-Cal don’t the two of you ever seem to understand?”

Title	Forgotten Favor
Author	Angela Fiddler
ISBN#	978-1-60820-059-7 (ebook)
Release Date	June 2009
Cover Artist	Deana C. Jamroz
Available At:	MlrBooks (ebook)

Angela Fiddler’s retired rodeo men accept each other and the black riders.

*****************

Part One

When Mark closed his eyes, he felt the fall. It hadn’t been Butter’s fault. Mark should have seen the change in the ground, but the early morning gallop had felt so good. They had been on the road for almost a month, placing well in the money in several of the small town rodeos. After all that time living in the front sleeping quarters of his horse trailer and riding about in finite spaces, he was home on the ranch where the earth seemed to stretch on forever and there didn’t seem to be an end to the sky. He’d felt free.

He remembered looking down. Just as he was about to pull back on the reins, he felt Butter trip. For a second, he thought that she would recover. Then she stumbled again, and for another heartbeat they both were weightless. He grabbed the reins, his feet kicking free of the stirrups as though on autopilot, and he knew, even as he saw the ground hurtling up towards him, that this was going to hurt. And his next thought was a prayer that Butter would not be.

He hit the ground hard. That was a given. He remembered the sickening crunch from the shoulder but he had no memory at all of Butter coming down on his leg. He supposed that was a blessing, though in his dreams he still imagined the snap.

And also in his dreams, he saw the hooves. Black as night, as death, as sin. The ground was soft, the rational part of his mind knew that, but when the hooves struck it, sparks flew. He also heard Butter’s frantic breathing just a few yards away. His own pathetic attempts at drawing air into lungs too stunned to remember their most basic function was just as hard. There was more than just the two of them in his dream. No matter how hard he had tried to look up, to ask the riders on the horses for help, or for somebody to check on Butter and find out why she wasn’t attempting to get up on her own, he couldn’t breathe.

Through the pain, and stress, and anxiety, he was terrified.

Mark woke up in the hospital. Not for the first time, but for what seemed like the hundredth. He was alone in the semiprivate room, and the television overhead was muted. His leg ached dully, almost resentfully, and he knew from how high the sun was in the sky that it would be another hour before the nurse came with more painkillers.

To distract himself, he stared at the walls that no amount of bleach would ever get truly white again. The washed out green curtains matched the green summer weight blankets on each of the three beds. The get well cards on the table beside him—the last of the accompanying flowers had been thrown out a couple days ago—were buried beneath insurance forms, half finished crossword puzzles and magazines that predicted the outcome for the last set of Olympics.

The worst of the damage was not on the femur, which by itself would have kept him in traction. When Butter had fallen, she had rolled over him. It could have been worse; other than his spleen, there had been no other internal damage. One of the ranch hands had seen him fall and called an ambulance. If Mark concentrated hard enough he could feel the metal plates holding his pelvis and thigh together under his skin. The fiberglass cast kept him from touching the surgery scars, and they woke him at all hours of the night with unholy itching.

Though if he had died, if he was being perfectly honest, hell would not be too different than a semiprivate room that lingered with the smell of dead flowers.

A shadow crossed the door. Mark looked up. As much as he hated being poked and prodded, at least the nurses on their frequent rounds were some break from the monotony of his life. His father had visited, twice, his stepmother more often, but she’d just been there the day before helping him move from the hospital room to the rehab center for the extended care he couldn’t get at the ranch. He still had a stack of books she’d brought him as well. Some of the ranch hands and a few of his roping buddies had stopped by in the beginning, but they tapered off by the time the flowers they’d brought had wilted. He didn’t blame them.

And his father… he didn’t want to think about his father, Edward McCoy. He would use the ranch as an excuse not to come more often, and on the surface Mark accepted the excuse for what it was. Though Edward did own one of the largest cattle ranches in southern Alberta, he also had more managers than some fast food chains and accountants up the wazoo. The fact was they did far better as employer and employee than they ever had as father and son. Up close and personal…well, that wasn’t so good. He had moved out of the big house to the apartment over the new stables when he was eighteen, the disgraced heir apparent. A good year was measured by how many conversations they didn’t have. Things had gotten slightly better once Edward had remarried, but Sunday dinners were still frosty.

The door opened. The man who walked in was familiar, achingly so, but it took Mark an extra second to recognize him. He sat up as much as the traction would allow and swallowed. “Jake Alastair,” he said, and was glad his voice didn’t break. When he thought about the strained relationship he had with his father, he had to think about Jake.

Jake hadn’t changed all that much over the past five years, since the hayloft. He was taller, more tanned, and broader across the chest. He was dressed in Sunday go-to-meeting jeans, and a white western shirt that had obviously never fallen off a horse, but the hat he held nervously looked as though it had survived a stampede of wildebeests once or twice. His blond hair had been recently combed and his blue eyes, always a bit too wide and a bit too deep, were exactly the same. Mark swallowed again.

“Mark,” Jake said. And despite his boyish looks, his voice was low and comforting. Mark couldn’t help but think of the loft again, the smell of the hay, the dust dancing in the sunbeams, and the way Jake’s lips had felt on his throat. Not that anything more had happened. It was bad luck his father had come home so early. Mark had been eighteen, just finished school and hadn’t found Butter yet, and if he hadn’t had his father’s support, he would have had nothing at all. It was a lame excuse to cave in to his father’s threats, but he had. After an awkward year of avoiding Jake for fear of his father finding out they’d had contact, Jake had dropped out of the rodeo circuit entirely.

Jake looked him over, and his mouth twitched when he saw the lump in the bed the cast made. Mark shrugged, though it hurt his shoulder to do so, and motioned to the chair on the other side of the bed. “You can sit if you want,” he said, knowing the words were awkward. There had been long, hot nights in his life where he would imagine what he would say if he ever saw Jake again, but sitting arrangements had never been one of the topics of conversation.

Jake nodded, but didn’t come any closer. “You know my dad got sick,” he said. His mouth opened and closed a couple times. The awkwardness between them was wrong.

“No,” Mark said. “I didn’t. I thought you fell off the planet. Is that why you stopped riding?”

A flash of pain crossed Jake’s face, and he bit his lip. “Mostly,” Jake allowed. “My dad needed help at his ranch. It was a rescue center. Is a rescue center, I mean.”

“Okay.” Mark realized his mouth was dry and reached for one of the plastic cups, the same washed out green as the rest of the room. The water inside tasted plastic as well, but he gulped down half of it. His leg throbbed as though punishing him for not making the pain the center of his attention for the past couple minutes, and he rubbed the cast with the palm of his hand until he could manage the pain again.

When he looked up, Jake’s face was pale despite the tan. He swallowed with a mouth so dry Mark could hear the clicking sound his throat made, and he offered what remained in his cup to Jake. “The pitcher has ice in it, or it did an hour ago.”

Jake took it gratefully, filled and emptied the cup up twice before putting it down. The room was air-conditioned, but he was sweating. Mark frowned. “Are you okay?”

Jake waved his hand and shook his head. “No. I hate hospitals. I never liked them, but after dad got sick, well…”

Mark didn’t ask him to finish. “You didn’t have to come.”

“Yes, I did. I told you, I run a rescue center now.” Jake hesitated. “So when I saw her in the kill pens, I had to save her. I didn’t think you would… I knew you wouldn’t…”

Mark felt sick, like he’d just had an overdose of morphine, and the room started to spin. He gripped the blankets and where he touched it he left damp handprints. “Who’s she?” he asked, forming the words carefully. But he knew the answer. He just needed to hear Jake say it.

“Butter,” Jake said. “She’d been sold on with her papers but I knew it was her the moment I saw her. She was hurt, her knee was pretty banged up, but she’s okay.”

Mark shook his head. “No. That’s not possible. My dad told me she was fine. She was back at the ranch. He wouldn’t –” But he would. Mark felt cold inside. He looked up. Jake continued.

“I have her. The vet says it was just a bone bruise. The x-ray didn’t show anything broken or chipped. We’ve been keeping her pretty immobile and she’s recovering.”

“Thank you,” Mark said. He knew he sounded distant. “I can’t… thank you.”

“You don’t have to,” Jake said. He approached the bed like a marionette controlled by a rank beginner. The hand holding his hat tightened, crumbling the straw brim, but he made it without falling over. He took Mark’s hand, the one attached to his bad shoulder, but Jake’s touch was so gentle that Mark didn’t fear the potential pain. “I missed you.”

Mark cleared his throat. “I missed you, too.” It was an understatement that burned his throat with all the words he wanted to say. “After…” Mark waved his hand over the cast helplessly. Jake nodded, telling him he understood, and Mark relaxed.

“Of course you can come,” Jake said.

The door opened again and a nurse came in with two pills in the tiny paper cup. Her scrubs, with the bright balloons and teddy bears, were the only real colorful thing in the room. She smiled at Mark, a genuine show of affection, and tipped the paper cup so that the pills rolled into his palm. “Your friend can stay, but these will make you really drowsy.”

Jake stepped back from the bed. “I really have to go, ma’am.”

Mark wanted to say something, to be perfectly honest he wanted to ask Jake to stay, but Jake looked so uncomfortable Mark couldn’t do it. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything.”

“Weren’t nothing,” Jake said, sounding double his age, and made his escape. Mark would have given anything to join him. Instead, he took his pills.

Saddles, spurs, Stetsons . . . and love? Sexy cowboys grab hold of more than a saddle in these entrancing stories from four talented authors of the genre. Kiernan Kelly takes us on an adventurous cattle drive to the Oregon Territory with a greenhorn and an old hand. Angela Fiddler’s retired rodeo men accept each other and the black riders. Two men overcome grief, rebuild a ranch and find love in Dakota Flint’s story. And JL Langley offers a light-hearted tale of a city boy and a rancher filled with love, laughter and a marriage of convenience?

*************************

“Ah ha! I should have known.” AJ laughed and leaned against the rail.

Grinning at his brother, Tucker headed up onto the porch. “Should have known what?”

“Where you went. Do you have to smoke when you drink?”

Yes, and he was out of cigars, which is what he preferred with his whiskey. It was good fortune he’d stashed some cigarettes in his glove box. With any luck they weren’t stale; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually had one of them. “Self preservation, there are still guests.” He’d rather face a boardroom of sharks than a horde of teenagers any day. Tucker lit the cigarette then put the lighter into his pocket. He held up his tumbler of whiskey to AJ in a silent toast, pulled the cigarette out from between his lips and took a sip. “I’m surprised you haven’t hit Granddaddy’s liquor cabinet as well.”

“I tried but Granddad and Juan beat me to it. Dad’s out of town so I figured someone in charge should be sober but, I’m hitting it after.” Sitting on the rail, he studied Tucker, his head cocking to the left a little. “I’m glad you came. You need a break. You look tired.”

“I’m not tired. I’m bored.”

AJ snorted. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring work with you.”

Grinning, Tucker pulled out his phone and held it up before clipping it back to his belt. “I’m waiting for word on the Addison deal.”

AJ groaned. “I should have known.”

Something crashed inside and the music stopped. “Shit.” AJ looked towards the door.

Tucker winced. “Want me to-?”

Waving his hand, AJ dismissed him. “I got it. Hell, it was probably Granddad or Juan, they’re as rowdy as the kids. Finish your drink and cigarette, then I’ll have you help me clear the rest of these kids out of here.” Grabbing the doorknob, he took a deep, over exaggerated breath. “Were we this obnoxious at eighteen?”

Tucker shook his head. “I didn’t become a party animal until my first year in college.”

Smiling, AJ opened the door, “here goes.”

Brave man.

Tucker took a drag off his cigarette and walked around the side of the wraparound porch toward the back. Damn, he missed the country. The fast pace of the business world was exciting, but there was just nothing like a spring night out here far from civilization. He should really come home more often.

When he got to the back of the house, he leaned on the rail and gazed out into the back pasture. It was beautiful. There were so many stars. He’d forgotten how many. When was the last time he’d taken time to look at the stars? He’d been stuck in his high rise office working on one project or another plenty of times after the sunlight faded, but the city lights made the stars disappear. Buildings overpowered the horizon. The big city had its own appeal, but out here? Pure magic. The sky looked so big and endless.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” A soft voice asked.

Tucker started, not realizing he had company, but immediately grinned as recognition set in. He hadn’t seen the pest at all tonight. Hell, he hadn’t seen him in over a year. Not since the last time he came home. Taking a hit from his cigarette he turned his head toward the birthday boy and wished he hadn’t.

Micah stood at the top of the back steps, a soft grin on his face. Gone were the smart little glasses he’d always worn. He’d looked adorable in them, but now, without them he was stunning. His usually messy black hair that always fell in his face was trimmed and styled neatly. Who knew he had such big eyes, those glasses had concealed a lot. The red short sleeved polo shirt pulled tightly across a slim but nicely shaped chest, and even showed off toned biceps. He was still small, but he didn’t look like a kid any longer. A pair of tight jeans replaced the normal baggy ones, showing off the leg muscles he’d earned from years in the saddle.

Tucker’s breath caught. Who was this gorgeous man and what happened to the scrawny kid he’d known?

Micah settled beside him, leaning his tanned forearms on the rail. He stood so close the heat of his body warmed Tucker’s left arm.

“Yeah, I’ve missed it. Not as many stars in the city.” Taking a drink of his whiskey, Tucker glanced back out at the deep, endless sky. The soft spring breeze ruffled his hair and blew smoke around him. That “someone is staring at you” feeling niggled at him, but he didn’t look to confirm it. Part of him wanted Micah to be looking. If Tucker didn’t know better he’d say he was lusting after the kid and… well that was just wrong. He couldn’t see Juan’s nephew that way, yet he was. It had him way off kilter. Or maybe it was the three whiskeys he’d had since he arrived.

“Is it all you’ve missed?”

Had Micah’s voice always been that raspy? Apprehension trickled over Tucker, but he pushed it away. This was Micah, the kid he’d taken fishing and rode horses with, not some stranger. “Naw, it’s not all I’ve missed. I miss my family and working on the ranch. I miss-”

Micah took the cigarette out of Tucker’s fingers and took a puff off of it.

It was such an intimate gesture Tucker found himself staring. “I-I miss the quiet.” He watched Micah’s lips pucker as he blew out the smoke, and unbidden the image of those sweet lips kissing up his body sprang to mind. Tucker shook his head and took the cigarette back. “Since when do you smoke?”

“I don’t usually.” Micah shrugged. “Why don’t you come home more often?”

It was the same question the rest of his family asked every time he talked to them. He hated that question. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to come home, but there were always deals to make and companies to sell. Mergers and acquisitions may be work, but it was also fun. He was on the top of his game and couldn’t afford to be taking vacations all the time. “Work keeps me busy.”

Tucker took a hit from his cigarette. It occurred to him that Micah’s lips had just rested where his were. What would Micah’s lips taste like? God damn where had that thought come from? “What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be inside enjoying your birthday party?” Tucker winced at the growl in his voice.

Micah was quiet for several moments. When he spoke his voice was barely above a whisper. “I’d rather be out here with you.”

Sucking in a breath of air, Tucker nearly choked but covered quickly by taking a drink. Something tickled his arm as he set his drink on the porch railing. He glanced down.

Micah’s long dark fingers feathered over his arm, feeling, caressing. It was an innocent touch, but it sent the blood thrumming straight to Tucker’s groin. Fuck. He had to get outta here. This was not good. He dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it out with his boot before kicking it off the porch. “Micah I-” Standing, Tucker turned and glanced right into adoring big brown eyes.

Micah bit his bottom lip and stepped closer. Once again he hesitantly traced his fingers over Tucker’s forearm, moving the hair there and leaving a tickling feeling.

The innocent gesture made Tucker’s cock fill fully. What was the matter with him? This was Micah. Their beloved foreman’s nephew and the kid Granddad called “Tucker’s Shadow.” Christ, he’d known Micah since he was seven, when his parent’s had been killed, and he’d come to the ranch to live with Juan.

Stepping closer, Micah raised up on tip toe, his gaze locked to Tucker’s lips.

He knew what was coming, he even knew he should step away, but he couldn’t. He watched, his focus on the full kissable mouth as Micah came closer and pressed his lips to Tucker’s. It was like a jolt of lightning. It was such an innocent touch, it should have reminded Tucker who was kissing him, and it did, yet Tucker couldn’t not respond. He wrapped his hand around the back of Micah’s head and held him close. His mouth slanted over Micah’s and his tongue pushed inside.

Micah jerked, gasping into Tucker’s mouth. His body stiffened for several seconds as Tucker explored his mouth, then Micah relaxed and wound his arms around Tucker’s waist. He squeezed Tucker tight and kissed back, his tongue sliding hesitantly along Tucker’s. His breath quickened until he panted and his hands clutched at Tucker’s back. He pressed forward, mashing his erection against Tucker’s thigh.

Tucker’s cock lurched and his own breath came faster. His free hand gripped Micah’s firm little ass, urging him closer against Tucker’s thigh. He pulled back, trying to catch his breath, but Micah didn’t stop. He rooted his face on Tucker’s neck, licking and kissing. Grunting, he thrust his hips at Tucker, grinding against him.

Fuck.

This was insane. How had they gotten here this fast? He had to stop this. “Slow down baby.”

But Micah didn’t stop. His ragged breathing turned into moans and his hands were everywhere at once.

When Micah grabbed Tucker’s cock, it was like being kicked in the stomach by a horse. Sanity returned and the voice in his head whispered “this is Micah.” What the fuck was he thinking?

Tucker gripped the thick hair in his hand and tugged Micah’s head back, forcing him to make eye contact. “Stop.” He stared into languorous brown eyes only seconds before they went wide and Micah dropped his gaze.

Micah flung himself backward out of reach, not even looking at Tucker. “I-I-I’m sorry, I-” He shook his head then darted a glance up at Tucker. A tear streaked down his cheek then he turned and ran down the back steps toward the barn.

“Micah-” Tucker reached out before he realized it, then dropped his hand. He watched Micah disappear into the night, feeling like he’d just kicked a puppy. Love, his conscience whispered. He loved Micah. He always had, though he hadn’t actually realized it till this moment, but the lust was new. Tucker shook his head and swallowed the last of his whiskey. Naw, he was mistaken; he hadn’t had a conscience for a long time.