Page 55 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

Back in my little office, I sat down. Then shifted to one hip to take the three horse cookies out of my pocket and lay them on the desk, neatly lined up.

I could put those cookies back in their bin. Or I could wait until Jake said it would be okay to give them to Buddy. Two for Buddy, one for Snowball. That’s what I’d do.

It was a good fifteen minutes before I heard Jake’s tread on the threshold to the office. I whirled around to see him shut the door and lock it, turning the old brass lever with a click.

He was tall enough to fill the room, and he’d just shut and locked the door.

He’d hung up his hat. Rinsed off the dust as best he could, raked his fingers through his dark hair. Water trickled down his cheeks and dampened his shirt. His gaze was focused on me, his eyes like diamonds.

“What is it?” I asked, wishing I could read the expressions that flickered across his face. A face that only a week ago I’d deemed expressionless.

“We almost had to shoot him.” His voice shook. “He was coming at us. So thin. Starving. We’d have been within our rights. Protecting the herd. Ourselves. That beautiful animal?—”

“Gunner fired warning shots, you said,” I reminded him, as though he needed me to explain his actions. “The cougar’s alive.”

“Barely,” he said. “Skin of its teeth.”

I got it now: Jake was on the mountain lion’s side. This was the man who considered the needs of the fox before the foolish city man driving at dusk.

“It’s all right,” I told him, as though he were the animal in need of comfort. “It turned out, didn’t it? You did good. You and Buddy did real good.”

I made a gesture, I didn’t know exactly what. For him to come to me so that I could hug him or comfort him in some way.

He stepped forward, boots loud on the floorboards. A direct line from the door to where I was sitting. He went to his knees in front of me, clasping my hips, head bowed. I touched his damp hair. The back of his neck was still dusty.

“Tired,” he said. He laid his cheek upon my knees, just for a fraction of a second, before lifting it, keeping his head bowed, eyes down.

Of course he was tired. For the past week, he’d been working backbreaking days. Riding into the night. Going without sleep. Without rest.

Other ranch hands were working just as hard, and Lucas, I knew, was not unaware. But at that moment, I didn’t care about any of them.

“I know you are.” I petted his hair, dark and silky beneath my palm. “You should rest.”

He raised his head just far enough to shake it, as if he were mid-prayer, asking for absolution.

“No?” Surely he could take a break now. He’d done a good day’s work already; he deserved a nap, at least.

“No.”

For a moment he was still. I listened to his breaths slow, feeling the heat of his hands on my hips. Sensing something building inside him, only I didn’t know what.

“Jake,” I said, and I was on the verge of saying something else, something comforting, soothing. Then he tugged at the waist of my jeans, and I figured he wanted me to go with him. Follow him.

I was about to get up when I realized his fingers were undoing the button at my waist. Pulling down the zipper to reveal my boxer briefs, held in place by a safety pin, silver against the blue cloth.

“Sorry,” he said.

“I’m not.” He could cut up all my clothes and toss them in a fire for all I cared.

He undid the safety pin, pulled apart the cloth, then redid the pin along the waistband so it wouldn’t get lost. So it could be used again—a sense of economy that he must have learned long ago.

Then he tugged hard. My jeans and briefs slid halfway down my thighs. His head, still bent, was close enough to my skin that I could feel his warm breath.

My cock, somewhat startled by this, lay against the fold of cream-colored cloth. I knew what was going to happen before it did, though I wasn’t quite ready when Jake’s mouth found me. When his warm tongue licked me. When he sucked me into his mouth.

His hands were on my hips, holding me there, though I had no plans to leave.

The sensation of his mouth upon me was like floating on a small boat in dark water, a vast sea beneath a starless sky. I had no control. Didn’t want any.