Page 58 of His Cowboy Heart

“Actually, he was. God, that man was the smartest person I’d ever met. Even with all the charitable work he did, he knew everything about business, particularly the family business and what would happen once it went public. See, despite being brothers, he and my father weren’t close. They’d each inherited half the business from their father, but while my father was impulsive and focused on money no matter who got hurt along the way, Uncle Ray was more interested in the things that really mattered. He focused on the properties that he and my father had divvied up and made sure they were all in good condition. He didn’t kick out tenants just so he could tear a building down and rebuild it so he could sell off each unit at a higher price. He never forced people who owned small businesses next to or near one of his businesses to sell them to him so he could expand.”

I nodded because I knew where Jules was going. “He played it safe and focused on quality while your dad did the opposite.”

“Yep. And it served Uncle Ray well. I was too young to know it at the time, but when the housing market crashed, my father lost millions, maybe even billions of dollars. While he was scrambling to find new investors, Uncle Ray was quietly buying up shares in the business for pennies on the dollar. He’d saved up enough money to cover the losses caused by the crash and then some. By the time the market recovered, Uncle Ray owned two-thirds of the business, and not one of his tenants had been evicted from their homes because they couldn’t afford to pay their rent or mortgage.”

I smiled. “So by buying up more of the company he became the majority shareholder, which meant he had control of the business.”

Jules returned the smile. “Yep. My father did everything he could to get Uncle Ray to sell him back the shares that would once again make them even, but Uncle Ray said no. At one point, Miles was threatening his own father with shit like having him declared incompetent. None of it worked.”

“And when your uncle passed away…”

“He left everything he owned, including his stake in the business, to me,” Jules responded. He began blinking rapidly like he was trying to fight off tears. “I miss him so much, Flynn.”

“I know you do, baby. He sounds like an amazing man but more importantly, he was the fatherandmother that you needed him to be.”

“He was. He died a few months before I turned eighteen. It was a plane crash. He had his own little Cessna that he liked to fly whenever he had spare time. Something happened when he was landing it one day. The axle broke, causing the plane to flip several times. I don’t know if Ray was still alive when the whole thing caught fire. I have nightmares of him calling out to me but all I can do is stand there and listen to his screams?—”

I pulled Jules up so I could kiss him. “You don’t need to say any more, sweetheart. You’re never going to have to go through that again because I’m going to be by your side every night. I’m going to remind you how much your uncle loved you and the last thing he’d want was for you to suffer.”

Jules nodded. Silent tears streaked down his face as he clung to me. “I failed him, Flynn. When I lost him, I didn’t know who I was anymore. There was no one to love me anymore. I’d learned how to buy friendship when I was younger, but none of those kids had liked me for me. They’d liked me because I’d showered them with gifts since that’s what you did for the people you cared about. Uncle Ray showed me that wasn’t what friendship really was. When he died, I was so lost. So lonely. I went back to my old ways but since I was older, the gifts got bigger, the parties got wilder. I did anything I could to bring back that feeling I’d only ever experienced with Uncle Ray. None of it worked, so I started to become even more reckless. I practically dared people to say something to me by wearing outrageous outfits and so much makeup that I was a completely different person when I looked in the mirror. When the first guy came along and told me I was hot and how bad he wanted to fuck me, I mistook it for a chance at love. I learned real quick that sex didn’t mean love and random sex with strangersnevermeant love. But I became addicted to the high of someone wanting me for something besides money. That was when I changed my last name and lived a life that wasn’t truly mine.”

“You didn’t fail your uncle, my love. You just got a little lost, and as horrible as everything that happened afterwards was, it ultimately brought you here.”

Jules chuckled. “Very true.” He turned his head so that he was looking at me again, though his tempting mouth was now much closer. “Although, if you’d been riding BJ down pretty much any street in Manhattan, I would have known there was a real live hot cowboy in the area, and I would have hunted you down.”

I laughed. “Once you found me, I wouldn’t have let you go. Ever. I would have strapped you to BJ’s back and taken you away from all of that ugliness and shown you the world that existed outside of that city.”

Pleased that Jules was more relaxed and smiling for real, I asked, “How did you end up working for Brooks? You’re obviously brilliant and it sounds like you easily could have financially ruined your father and cousin, but I’m guessing you didn’t.”

“I didn’t really want any part of the company after Uncle Ray died. It was too painful to see those reminders of him every day. So I made sure to put the company in the hands of people I trusted then focused on partying. I met Brooks by pure chance in a gay club. He was like a piece of filet mignon surrounded by a pack of hungry dogs who knew fresh meat when they saw it. I could tell it was his first time in a place like that. I figured he was closeted or in denial about who he was and was trying to find the truth. I struck up a conversation with him and then asked if he wanted to go to this little diner that made the best pancakes in the world. He agreed. I think he was a little put off by my appearance, but once he relaxed, he opened up a bit more. I felt like we were kindred spirits, so when he mentioned he was trying to find a personal assistant to help him at his father’s company, I jumped at the chance.”

“And here you are,” I said.

“Yes and no,” Jules admitted. “Brooks kept me and everyone else at arm’s length twenty-four seven. I really liked him, though—” Jules stopped abruptly then said, “I liked him, but just the normal amount. I mean, I never wanted to… we never?—”

I rolled Jules until I had him pinned beneath me. “You never wanted to do this with him?” I asked as I nipped at his mouth until he was trying to force my mouth down to his. I rewarded him with a deep kiss. Jules had automatically opened his legs for me when I’d put him beneath me, so our dicks were touching. “And you probably never wanted to do this…” I continued as I began rocking my hips so our dicks were sliding against each other.

Jules arched his back, closing his eyes in the process. “God no,” he said. He jerked his head forward so fast that his forehead hit my chin. “Ow,” he groaned. I chuckled and began massaging the small bump that was already forming. “I meant yes to you and what you were doing,” Jules blurted.

“You mean this?” I asked as I began rubbing my dick against his again.

“Fuck, Flynn,” Jules groaned.

I kissed Jules hungrily as I felt our cocks growing stiffer and stiffer by the second. I would have loved to make love to him slowly, but slivers of light were starting to appear through the wooden slats that acted as blinds for the window.

“Next time,” I promised. I continued to grind against him until Jules was moaning. His hands were on my ass, urging me on. “Watch,” I ordered as I shifted enough that he could see our wet dicks making their own kind of love to each other. I took both our cocks in hand. Jules blew out several heavy breaths like he was trying to stay in control, which was the exact opposite of what I wanted. I pumped my hand up and down our dicks without any kind of finesse. Need had overtaken want, so my focus was purely on getting us both off. Pre-cum coated my palm, making it easier to fist our dicks. Knowing he was helpless to do anything but devour the pleasure that was consuming him, Jules wrapped his fingers around my free wrist and held on.

I kissed him hungrily as our dicks fucked my hand. I’d learned enough about Jules to know how close he was, so I made sure to use just the right amount of pressure and movement to make sure we’d climax together. When the simultaneous orgasms hit us, I used my free hand to cover Jules’s mouth. My guy never held anything back when it came to sex, including his vocal appreciation. It was something I’d learned the day I’d blown him for the first time. Now that we were in his bedroom, I’d figured out very quickly that I either had to kiss him or cover his mouth with my hand when he came so he wouldn’t wake up anyone in the house. Since I wanted to see what it looked like when we came together, I put my palm over his mouth.

Jules did, in fact, shout against my palm as we both came. The powerful orgasm nearly made me close my eyes, but the need to watch won out and as waves of pleasure hit me one after another, I watched my jizz mix with Jules’s as he came. I loved watching him come apart as he lost himself to the orgasm. His back was gracefully arched and his lower limbs were entangled with mine, despite the fact that I wasn’t lying completely on him. His fingers bit into my skin where he held on to the wrist of the hand that was covering his mouth.

It took every ounce of control I had not to shout in relief as my balls emptied every drop of semen onto my hand, dick, and Jules’s upper body. I managed to catch my weight as the natural high began to recede, leaving me with jolting aftershocks.

Jules’s body shook a few times and by the time it was over, his eyes were closed and his breathing had evened out. Physically exhausted myself, I would have loved to just crash next to him, but there was no delaying the light of day as it crept over the trees on the east side of the house.

I forced myself to move and quickly cleaned myself up then used a warm washcloth to wipe the sticky white fluid from Jules’s upper body, including his chin—further proof of how hard one or both of us had come. I pulled my clothes on and then dropped down next to the bed and ran my fingers through Jules’s soft hair. I studied his face and realized it didn’t matter to me at all whether he was wearing makeup or not. Jeans and a sweatshirt or a flashy outfit didn’t affect my feelings for him in any way. I would have proudly walked down any street, small town or big city, holding his hand so others would see how lucky I was to have captured the heart of such an amazing, beautiful soul.

Since I didn’t want to wake him, not even by sending him a text, I did the same thing he’d done three weeks earlier when he’d left me a note to say goodbye. I went to the bathroom and searched through his makeup until I found some lipstick. I returned to his bed and used the lipstick to write a quick note on his nightstand. Fortunately, the house was still silent when I went to the bedroom door. Unfortunately, when I looked back at Jules and saw the small smile gracing his well-kissed lips even as he slept, it made it that much harder to leave his side.

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