Page 5 of The Cowboy's Second Chance
Three
Logan
Honestly, it did occur to Logan, for a half a second or so, that he could leave. He even knew that it might be the best idea, but he stayed. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he was staying because he couldn’t make himself go.
No one had ever made Logan feel like this before. No one had ever captivated him this completely with little more than a kiss. And for just a second or two, though he wasn’t normally the kind of person who ran scared when things got a little bit intense, he had the almost overwhelming urge to do just that.
It was Derrick himself who held Logan there. Utterly transfixed, he stared at the gorgeous young man, fascinated by the way he moved, the care which he took for the horse. Charmed by the fact that this man, who wore his disdain for anyone without a college education clearly on his face, could still care enough about the horse to do it right, he couldn’t take his gaze off of Derrick.
Logan had been intensely turned off by Derrick’s obvious scorn when he left to go to school. He had almost seemed to be shaking the dust of the place off of his feet, moving on, and back then, Logan could remember turning to Malcolm and just looking at him as Derrick drove away. They wouldn’t see him again. Logan had been sure of it.
And he’d been wrong. Derrick hadn’t exactly come rushing back home at every opportunity or anything, but he had come back much more frequently than Logan would have imagined. It was almost worse when he left, though, because Malcolm got pouty for a month. When Malcolm’s brother Craig joined the military and Wyatt moved to Seattle, it only got worse. Although no one was shedding any tears about Wyatt leaving, it was more of a relief than anything else.
Wyatt was the sort of guy who made Derrick look devoted to the family ranch. Seattle was almost far enough away for Logan, who had never liked him. He got along well enough with Craig, and Derrick, well, that whole situation was complicated. But Wyatt could not be far enough away from Logan to please him.
But Derrick, on the other hand, Logan was starting to wonder about. He took care of that horse like he cared about it, and he kept coming back, which was more than could be said for his brothers. To be fair, Craig was overseas and hardly able to come sprinting back, but still. Was it possible that Derrick didn’t have the same disdain for the ranch that he’d had two years ago when he’d left it?
It was a stupid thing to hope for, but Logan hoped for it anyway. Derrick intrigued him in a way that he never had before, in a way that no one ever had, and even though Malcolm would kill him if he ever found out that Logan had laid a hand on his precious little brother, it might just be worth it.
Maybe that was why he stayed. Or why, the moment the horse was safely taken care of, he gripped Derrick by the shoulders and turned him, gently but insistently, toward himself. He had surprised the other man, that much was clear, and that sort of pleased him. Someone as staggeringly brilliant as Derrick was wasn’t easily surprised.
“Follow me,” Logan murmured. He was incredibly aware that the things that he wanted to do were not the sort of things they would want anyone walking in on. So he led the way up to the hayloft, his body intensely focused on every movement that Derrick made as he followed Logan up the ladder.
There was no talking, not after Logan’s two-word invitation. They both knew why they were there. They had both been there the night before, and Logan had only stopped it, he had to admit, because it wasn’t right to molest someone who was drunk. But he had given an invitation then, too. He had told Derrick to come find him if he still wanted him, and Derrick had done just that.
So the moment they were up, safely hidden from anyone who entered the barn or even anyone who didn’t climb right up the ladder, Logan was on Derrick. He had never had a problem being the aggressor, and this was no different. He wanted Derrick, and that confused him a little, but he wasn’t going to let that hold him back.
He seized Derrick’s lips in a desperate kiss, the sweet scent of the hay rising all around them as he eased Derrick down into it. It prickled terribly, but Logan, at least, didn’t really mind at the moment. Derrick didn’t seem to either, from the way that he wrapped his arms around Logan and reclined back against a bale, half propped up on it as he tugged Logan on top of him.
That seemed like a pretty clear sign to him, and Logan decided, then and there, just to ride this out as far as it went. He didn’t know how far Derrick would want to go, but whatever happened, he was more than willing to go with it.
Still, he moved a bit more slowly than he might normally have, giving Derrick time to protest, if he wanted to. He pushed his hands up into Derrick’s shirt, caressing over sweet, hot, smooth flesh, devouring it with his fingertips. And somehow, by some miracle, Derrick didn’t protest, didn’t so much as hint that he wanted this to stop.
Instead, Derrick’s hands slid over Logan’s chest, down to his belly, but he didn’t go up under Logan’s shirt. He might be younger, but he was, if anything, bolder than Logan was, because he gripped the buckle of Logan’s belt and slid it open.
It didn’t seem as though Derrick was any more interested in derailing this than Logan was, and when Logan realized that, he relaxed a little. It wasn’t like Derrick wouldn’t let him know if he went too far, and it didn’t seem like that was even going to be hard to do.
Derrick was interested, and that was all that mattered to him.
Logan shifted his hips away a little bit, feeling the thrilling brush of Derrick’s fingertips against the waistband of his jeans, so close to the aching, throbbing, leaking head of his cock. It was such a tease that Logan found himself groaning with something like pain as he arched his back and pressed his hips closer, suddenly desperate for friction.
How he had resisted this the night before, he had no idea. But what he did know was that he wasn’t going to be able to do it now. He needed Derrick, needed his hands on him, needed to see him and touch him and be touched.
Their bodies danced together, rubbing slowly, and from the look in Derrick’s eyes, he was having the same issues believing that this was happening at all as Logan was. But they just both kept taking it one step further, and then one more, until it was almost like they were challenging each other. A game of chicken, to see who was going to back off first.
It took only a second for Logan to slip the shirt from Derrick’s body, and when he had, he pulled back and whistled softly. He had been able to feel when he touched just how toned Derrick was, but that was nothing to seeing it. The bookworm had a body on him, firm and ripped and slender, with smooth, subtle curves. With his clothes on, Derrick looked tall and maybe too thin, if you didn’t look too closely, but with the shirt off there was no way to miss those broad shoulders, toned arms, flat belly, and slender waist and hips.
He was perfect. Achingly beautiful, the sort of man who wouldn’t be out of place on a catwalk or in the spread of a magazine. And the more Logan saw of him, the more that became obvious.
You’re beautiful.
Logan thought it, but he didn’t say it. That would just introduce talking again, and then, he had the sense at least, things would get awkward. That was the last thing that Logan wanted, to risk stopping this before it had even gotten started, so he swallowed the words down before they could come out.
Derrick, meanwhile, had the most incredibly endearing expression of concentration on his face as he worked Logan’s pants down off of his hips. Logan helped as much as he could, squirming out of them as he watched Derrick’s face, kissing him over and over again as they devoured each other’s bodies with their hands like they had been starving for it.
Logan, at least, sort of thought that he might have been.
Clothing was pulled off, heedlessly tossed aside, until they were both naked and pressed together against the length of their entire bodies. Logan was bigger. He was smugly pleased to note. Derrick was big, but Logan was heavier, taller, definitely broader.
