Earth and Sun, Cedar and Sage Read online

  “That is one reason, yes,” Jed agreed. “I am honoring you.”

  Gideon felt it again, that loosening in his chest and belly that meant things to him he didn’t understand yet, just recognized as important. He sat as still as he could, hands on his knees, while Jed worked around him, and after a time Jed started humming. The native words soothed him, made it easy to accept the soft scrubbing of his skin, the drag of the cloth over his neck and shoulders, down his arms to each individual finger and back up into his armpits. Jed washed his front with gentle, slow swirls of the cloth, scratching through the sparse hair on his chest and belly, stopping only when he reached the waterline right at Gideon’s hips.

  Again, no words; Jed tapped his hip, encouraging him to rise up, and then picked up the cloth again, worked it around his thighs and into the crease of his ass, down between his thighs to cup and clean his balls, then his cock. He couldn’t not get hard, but a quick glance to Jed revealed no censure, and he spread his knees as wide as the tub allowed so Jed could clean his legs, too.

  Jed pushed at his shoulders to settle him back in the water and used his cupped hands to rinse him, dropping handfuls of water again and again over his shoulders and chest and back, using his hands to smooth the soap away.

  He felt about as clean as he’d ever been, and as content as he could imagine being, even with his cock still hard between his legs. “Can I wash you?” he asked, feeling a reverence that seemed unnatural to the task.

  Jed nodded and stood, held a hand out to help him to his feet, and grabbed up the blanket they’d sleep under later to wrap it around him. He watched as Jed finished stripping, surprised to find that he wasn’t the only one with a rebellious prick, and he took up the cloth as Jed knelt in the washtub.

  He tried to remember exactly how Jed had done it and started with his neck, sliding his long hair to one side. He was as thorough and more careful with Jed than he was with himself. Jed’s stomach tightened, but he made no sound, didn’t even a sigh as Gideon touched his hip, bidding him to rise to his knees. It was hard not to linger between Jed’s legs and strange to touch his hard shaft without lower intentions. It was strange, but it was good too, and when he let go of Jed’s cock to run the cloth down over his thighs, he realized he’d started up Jed’s chant again, without even knowing what he was saying.

  He looked up to catch Jed smiling at him with such fondness that Gideon couldn’t help but smile back. “Am I doing this all right?”

  “Yes.”

  Gideon nodded and stood up to strip off the blanket and hold it out for Jed. “Uh, anything else?” he asked.

  Jed stepped right up against him, wet and warm and clean, wrapping him in the blanket that hung around his shoulders and resting his hands at Gideon’s hips to nudge their groins together. “Yes.”

  Gideon sucked in a breath of anticipation. “We ain’t got to do anything, Jed,” he said, affirming his promise. Giving his respect.

  Jed just tilted his head to look at him, and the blue-gray of his eyes looked almost black in the flickering firelight. “Yesterday, I asked the spirits to guide me,” he said quietly. “I thought maybe I should leave you, for both our sakes. But the spirits answered me today. I will not leave.”

  Gideon was frankly shocked by the straightforward words, but he realized he wasn’t that surprised. Jed was strong, maybe the strongest man he’d ever known; it was part of what Gideon loved about him. Jed could leave him—would leave him, if he thought that was what was best for either of them. It scared Gideon, how fragile this love of theirs was, and how strong too.

  “I hate that I made you ask ’em that,” he said earnestly, meaning it.

  “I know.” Jed leaned in to kiss him, and Gideon used all the restraint he’d learned at his parents’ knee, working with spirited animals and crowds of paying customers. He didn’t even put his arms around Jed, not yet; he just stood there and let them work each other’s mouths, slid his tongue into Jed’s when he was invited, shared spit and love and everything he had to share.

  When Jed broke the kiss and drew a few inches away, he was panting slightly. Gideon was worse. “I do not want to make you change,” he said slowly.

  “Nothing in the world is a sure bet but change,” Gideon said. In his twenty years he’d seen the shift from horses to trains and trolleys, from wild lands to settled territories that Bill Tourney’s Traveling Western show had traveled through, seen gaslights crop up in the forward-thinking cities, replacing street fires and chasing away the night from homes and factories. He could just barely imagine the changes that waited for him and Jed. “I just want to meet it with you, Jed,” he said, the words as heartfelt as any he’d ever spoken.

  Jed’s arms tightened around him even though it made the blanket fall off him and puddle on the floor. They stood there together, naked and clean and warm, and Gideon chewed on his lips, waiting, determined that Jed was going to guide them this time. At least this once, they had the time and Gideon had the patience.

  “Lie down,” Jed said after a moment, and Gideon did, stretching out on the mattress and shivering without Jed’s warmth against him.

  Jed moved to put the bar of soap on the edge of the hearth to dry and then walked naked to the Christmas tree and blew out the candles. Gideon couldn’t help but look at his lover’s fine form, so trim and smooth, no lines to mark the sun on him because his skin was already brown. He was proportioned right too, even though he was small, his legs straight and strong, his ass curved and lean, his waist narrow and his ribs widening up to flat, square shoulders. Gideon felt himself get hotter just looking, watching how Jed’s long hair split at his neck and fell forward over his shoulders to reveal that long neck, and he flat-out could not understand how anybody, man or woman, could look at Jed and see anything to hate.

  The candle on top of the tree, the one for the Bethlehem star, Jed left burning. He walked over and knelt down beside Gideon, placing his hand on Gideon’s quivering belly. “I will do for you now,” Jed said.

  Gideon didn’t know quite what that meant, but he sure liked the sound of it. He smiled and reached up, and Jed fell down on him, matching their bodies from mouth to knee. It was so good, with Jed—everything was so good. He put his hands on Jed’s firm ass, held tight, and rubbed his hips back and forth, pleasuring both of them while they kissed. Jed pulled back, propping on his straight arms, and looked down at him before moving away for the little tin, and Gideon sucked in a hard breath; Jed meant that.

  He couldn’t get Jed to fuck him much, mostly because Jed liked it the other way best, but Gideon had never said no, and he wasn’t about to now. If this was his Christmas reward, he’d take it with a smile. Sure enough, when Jed returned to the mattress, he walked up into the space between Gideon’s ankles, and Gideon kicked his legs wide to make room for his lover. Jed smiled at him, his soft eyes shining in the firelight until he bent forward and all that long hair fell over his shoulders, hiding his face.

  Gideon reached and buried his fingers in it, thick strands like tiny cords of rope that were as soft and cool as any silk he’d ever felt. Jed tilted his head and glanced up; then he bent lower and put his mouth on Gideon’s shaft. Gideon couldn’t help it; he bucked up and groaned, sliding his cock deeper into wet, sucking heat. This was better than anything he’d imagined—and he had imagined a lot to warm himself on cold trails.

  Jed drew back, fighting his clutching hands, and swirled his tongue over the head, and Gideon groaned again. He tried to swallow it down but gave up in the end; no one was around to hear, and Jed would tell him— He let go of Jed’s hair and propped on his elbows to stare down at him. “You’ll tell me, if I do something you don’t like?” he asked.

  Jed replaced his mouth with his hand, holding his cock tenderly, and looked up at him. “I like everything you do, in this,” he said.

  “I mean—” Gideon swallowed, because the picture of Jed down there between his legs did awful, wonderful things to him, “I want you to promise you’ll tell me.
If I get too loud for you or something.”

  Jed’s face looked serious and sober in the shadows, and he nodded. “I will tell you.”

  “Jed,” he said, desperate enough to reach down and catch his lover’s cheek, “tell me before you ask the spirits, tell me before you think about leaving. I- I don’t think I could bear to lose you ’cause of something I did. Hell, hit me if you have to, but give me the chance to make it right.”

  Jed held his gaze, his eyes serious. Then he turned, his lips touching Gideon’s palm with gentleness. “I will tell you,” he said, looking back to Gideon. “If you give me cause.” It was all the agreement he was going to give, but all that Gideon could ask for.

  Gideon dropped back flat to the mattress and shifted his hips, hungry for more, and Jed returned to his task, but Gideon could hear the scrape of metal on metal and knew more was coming. Sure enough, as Jed tilted his head to take more of Gideon’s cock, his free hand pressed up underneath Gideon’s balls, fingers slick with the grease. Gideon groaned and dug his heels into the mattress to lift his ass up and make more room for Jed down there.

  More suckling as two straight, narrow fingers breached him, and little shocks of pleasure shot through him. “Jed, I—”

  Jed lifted off him again, and Gideon realized his lover would probably do that every time he started to talk. It was a damned good incentive to get him to keep his mouth shut, he thought with a smile. “This is my gift to you,” Jed said. “Let me give it.”

  Gideon bit his lip and nodded, and Jed’s fingers pressed deeper into him, opening him slowly. “You ain’t careful,” he said, keeping his eyes closed, “and I’ll come before you get far.”

  Damned if Jed didn’t rise up off his cock again. “You do, and we’ll start again. We have time.”

  The words sent their own excitement through him, and Gideon just let go and let Jed in, let him do whatever he wanted. Two fingers became three, making his hole loose and slick, even as Jed’s lips tightened on the tip of his shaft. This was—he didn’t have any words, which was probably a good thing. Jed’s free hand squeezed at his hip, urging him to thrust, so he did, riding between those two points of bliss. He was getting close already, and if just two days without did this to him, it was no wonder Jed’s patience with him would run thin.

  “Gettin’ close,” he warned anyway, and he got his answer when Jed pressed forward, pulling the head of his cock all the way down his throat and swallowing.

  That was all it took: his muscles seized and his balls tingled and he started spilling down his lover’s throat as that deep pleasure jerked through his insides. He tried to hold the noise down to a quiet yelp, but he didn’t think he was successful. The lights he saw sparking might just be the candle that flickered at the top of the tree, but it seemed like more, like a whole sky full of stars exploding in his head, and all the while Jed’s fingers moved in and out, feeding his body more pleasure than it knew what to do with.

  He didn’t know how Jed could swallow with his cock so deep in Jed’s throat, but it wasn’t a thought he spared much attention on. The pleasure was too good, too real and rich, tingling from his toes up to his hips, from his fingertips up to his heart. He lifted his head to see, watched the fluttering curtain of Jed’s hair where it veiled his groin completely, hiding the sight of his cock in Jed’s mouth.

  Gideon loved that, too, that picture, all that hair… he sighed and reached out with weak hands to cradle Jed’s head while he gasped and whimpered and little spasms of pleasure raced over his skin, through him and into Jed. “Jed,” he said, just because he knew Jed would lift his head and look up at him.

  Jed did, and his lips shone with spit or come, and even that little detail, so simple and erotic, made it all better. Gideon swallowed then coughed to clear his throat. “Come up here,” he croaked.

  The fingers eased out of him, and he squeezed his butt cheeks against the looseness there, and Jed stretched out on top of him. His body felt stiff with tension, and Gideon didn’t like that at all. “Let me suck you,” he breathed.

  Even though his hips thrust involuntarily at the words, Jed shook his head and then rested his cheek on Gideon’s chest. “We will wait,” he said.

  “How can you do that?” he asked, wonder and envy evenly matched inside him.

  Jed grinned. “Age. Experience. Patience.”

  “More patience than I got,” Gideon said, willing to admit the truth.

  The quiet huff of breath, the barest of chuckles, startled him. “That would not require much.”

  Gideon tried to frown, just to return the joke, but it took too much effort and went too hard against the pleasured affection he felt for this man. “You funnin’ me?” he asked anyway.

  Jed’s nod made his hair spill and sway, tickling Gideon’s chest and armpit. He flinched, reached past Jed’s head to scratch at the itch and push some of that long hair back, and sighed as the smell of sage mixed with familiar Jed smells wafted out of Jed’s hair. The scents went a long way to reviving him, and he dragged a hank of it up to his face, rubbed the silk of it over his jaw, and breathed in the smell that was earth and sun and Jed. “Well, what can I do, then? While we wait?”

  “You can just be, Gideon,” Jed said lazily.

  Gideon didn’t know what that meant, but he wasn’t going to argue about it. He also wasn’t sure he could just lie here, even as satisfied as he was, with Jed’s firm little cock poking his hip. But before he could decide how to express any of that, Jed started chanting, and with his face and neck pressed against Gideon, it felt like the sound echoed into his chest before it reached his ears. He sighed and held Jed a little tighter, turning his head to watch the flickering candle at the top of the tree and how the firelight caught out the colors of the apples and ribbons.

  Softer still Jed’s voice dropped, and the tone rose a few notes, steady and strong, so that when Jed put his hand on Gideon’s thigh, Gideon opened his legs wide, hopeful. Jed’s fingers slid back into him, started a steady, slow thrust in time to his native words, and Gideon felt that itch in his balls that heralded arousal.

  “It is good, to be young,” Jed said, noticing.

  He wished he was younger, because he wasn’t firming up as fast as he wanted, but what Jed was doing to his insides felt so good it almost didn’t matter.

  Maybe it didn’t. “Get inside me,” he whispered.

  “You are not ready,” Jed said evenly.

  A squeeze of his muscles sent a pleasure as sharp and fast as any shot of liquor into him. “I think maybe I am,” he said. “I…” his mouth was dry and his heart was pounding. “I think maybe my cock doesn’t care, Jed.” He blinked up at his partner. “Get in me? Please?”

  After a thoughtful pause, Jed nodded and pulled his fingers out. “You are still tight,” he warned.

  “Maybe. Gotta tell you though, I don’t think I care.” He wrapped his legs around Jed’s waist when Jed slid onto him. He used his hands to grab Jed’s butt and help position him, urgent now, hungry for it even though his flagging cock hadn’t caught up to the rest of his body.

  “Remember you said that,” Jed warned him as he hunched back to line himself up. He pushed inside with a grunt that Gideon echoed; all right, maybe Jed had a point there. But in spite of the pain, he wanted more and he wanted it now.

  Jed had his own pace, though—as always. He pushed forward, but it was slow and steady, despite the pressure of Gideon’s heels on his ass or the pull of his fingers on Jed’s upper arms. “Patience,” he said when Gideon whimpered, “you will like it.” When he was flush against Gideon, as deep inside as he could go, he held there.

  “Move,” Gideon urged, wanting more.

  “Feel it,” Jed countered. “Feel me inside you. Breathe, Gideon, and feel me.”

  He almost resisted, almost cursed Jed for his demands, but the memory of the story haunted him, that and the ritual that made them as much a part of each other as this did. With effort, he drew a deep breath and smelled the cedar and the
sage, the soap and the scent of Jed himself. Then he felt it, the steady, rhythmic pulse of Jed’s heart. It beat against his chest where they touched, but more, it seemed to beat inside him, where Jed was lodged and waiting.

  “Breathe,” Jed said again, and Gideon did. The same smells, the same rhythm, but something more. As Gideon studied on it, on the drumbeat of Jed’s heart, he felt it in his own chest.

  “We honor each other,” Jed whispered as he slowly drew back just a little then slid forward. “We are one.”

  Gideon drew another breath, and the smell of the herbs cleared away everything but the feel of Jed. His cock lay heavy on his belly, and though it was ready and they both wanted it, it was not the thing that drove Gideon now. He wanted this for Jed, as Jed wanted it for him. When Jed moved, Gideon felt it all through his body, in his heart and his head. They breathed together, moved together even as the need for each other drove them faster. Gideon heard his own grunts and gasps, but they were matched by Jed’s, and by his soft clear words: “Breathe, Gideon, know me.”

  He had never before wanted not to come as much as he wanted it now, never before wanted something go on and on for as long as possible. As the need for release grew, pushing up from his balls into his belly, he tried to keep it at bay, reaching down to catch his cock, trying to hold it back. But Jed took his hand, drawing it away and replacing it with his own. “Spill for me,” he whispered. “Share this with me and I will share it with you.”

  Gideon stared up into the eyes he knew like no others and came.

  It was like nothing he’d ever felt before, ripping his soul out of him and sending it to heaven, maybe, somewhere warm and soft and smelling of cedar and mint and sage, with Jed as part of him, mixed into him so that he knew his thoughts and fears and love.

  He came back to himself to find Jed heavy on top of him, cock still deep inside, the ends of his hair tickling Gideon’s ribs. His legs were beginning to cramp, and he shifted, wondering if he could stretch them out without disturbing Jed, when Jed slowly pushed up. He smiled as he stared down at Gideon, a soft, sweet expression that made Gideon aware all over of what it would do to him to lose this man.