Page 64 of Close Quarters

“Do you know?” Dom asked me, ignoring Elliot as the man continued to try to shove the glass closer to Dom’s face.

The truth was, I didn’t know, and I didn’t care to know. Trying to deal with my own shit was enough of a struggle. Worrying about someone else’s life was just unnecessary. The problem was Elliot had stopped trying to get Dom to acknowledge the ‘crime’ he had committed and was staring at me eagerly. Which meant Elliot was hoping I knew and might be able to tell him if Dom was going to be tight-lipped.

And it wasn’t often I got the chance to torment him.

“I’m not going to sit around and gossip about his love life,” I grunted, turning away from them.

“That’s a no,” Dom chuckled.

“No, that’s a yes!” Elliot exclaimed, and I could hear him scrambling to get out of his seat. “Reno, come back here and tell me!”

“I’m going back to work,” I told them.

Which was the only motivation Elliot needed to follow me back to the wood pile to continue cleaning up. Well, I would clean up and try to block him out as much as possible while Elliot would inevitably jump from pestering me to pestering Dom to get answers. Once upon a time, I would have found his persistence over something so ridiculous annoying and a good reason to continue blocking him out.

Yet even an hour later, watching him squirm in the discomfort of being out of a loop he didn’t know I didn’t belong in was just the kind of ‘cute’ I could stomach.

ELLIOT

Peering up at the sky, I shielded my gaze and tried to catch sight of even a wisp of white. There wasn’t, of course, which meant I would only get the slightest hint of shade if I crawled under a cactus. I’d tried that once before, and the results had been…well, I wasn’t going to try that again anytime soon.

I turned on my horse to eye Reno, whose head was down, as he watched the ground in front of us. “You ever had to have a grown man pick cactus spines outta your ass?”

His face pinched in that way I was growing used to. It said, ‘I really do not want to respond to this’ while saying, ‘but I absolutely will because I can’t help myself.’ As much as he tried to act like I drove him absolutely crazy, I think a not-so-small part of him enjoyed it. Maybe he had always enjoyed it deep down, or maybe it had just taken a few doses of hot, sweaty, sexy time with me to unlock it in his brain…or break something in it. I’m sure that would be his theory.

“Does this involve you doing something stupid and potentially dangerous?” he asked with a resigned sigh. “Because I’m not going to pick cactus spines out of your ass. You can ride back and have someone else do it.”

“Aww, you wouldn’t carefully take them out for me? Care for me?”

“If you’re stupid enough to get spines in your ass, there is no caring for you. Unless you want the Old Yeller treatment, I might be able to give you that.”

“We’re not allowed to have guns.”

“Alright, the oldest one in the book…well, a book anyway.”

“Huh?”

“Cain and Abel. Your head, a nice hard rock.”

“Wow, you really know how to make a guy feel special.”

“Hey, at least I’m trying to make it as quick and painless as possible. I’ve got limited tools.”

“It’s just cactus spines in my ass!”

“Ahh, and it’s a fine ass. One I will miss dearly,” he said, smirking.

The only reason he was talking so openly was because we were alone. Every now and then, someone forgot to close a gate properly, a part of the fencing was damaged, or an act of God for all I knew. The result was that something would inevitably get out, usually a sheep or two…or ten. That meant someone had to fetch the animals and bring them back.

They didn’t typically go too far from the ranch, usually within a few miles. In this case, we were told to go toward a large outcropping of…well, I didn’t know what to call them. They were too big to be rocks or even boulders, not quite soft enough to be hills, but too small to be mountains. Mini mountains? Whatever they were called, the sheep usually liked to journey there in search of shelter from the heat, taking refuge in the small cave system formed by the…mini mountains.

“I guess it speaks to Leon’s trust in us that we were sent out here, huh?” I asked, getting away from the topic of my ass and his enjoyment of it. Not that I was worried we’d be overheard. Horses hadn’t learned human speech, so I thought we were pretty safe from them telling anyone. The problem was his being so open about liking my ass was a quick way to get me thinking intensely about what he could do to my ass and what I’d like him to do to my ass.

I might be tempted if we weren’t out on some sun-burned plain with cacti, the only living things other than us and our two horses. I wasn’t that good at resisting temptation, especially when it came in the form of a six-foot-tall redhead with anger issues, a great dick, and even better skill at using it. So it was better to change the topic before I found myself with gritty dirt in uncomfortable places and a sunburn on bits that shouldn’t be exposed to direct sunlight…my ass got sore enough as it was.

“It wasn’t Leon,” he said, reaching down to stroke his horse’s neck and murmur something I couldn’t make out when she pulled to the right a little.

“Really?” I asked, curious now. “So, Mona then?”

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