Bullheaded

heart took flight. Their eyes met and he smiled, knowing this was Johnny’s way of apologizing. He felt as though his failures were forgiven and he vowed he wouldn’t fail again if Johnny gave him another chance.
    Then Johnny flipped him so he was facedown on the bed, feeling his strong hands rubbing and squeezing his cheeks. Cody felt the full weight of him on his back as Johnny pressed the welcome hardness of his erection between his cheeks.
    Cody reached behind him to grab Johnny’s ass and pulled him closer. He had allowed Johnny to fuck him on occasion, even enjoyed it, but he’d never felt the aching need to have Johnny that way. Now he wanted Johnny to be inside him. And then he wanted to make love to Johnny in his turn. The desire to have his cock surrounded in Johnny’s heat and tightness made him rotate his hips, grinding back against Johnny’s groin as if they were already fucking.
    “We’d better stop and slow it down,” Johnny said huskily, “before we go too far.” He rolled off onto his back and covered his eyes with his arm, as if he couldn’t bear the temptation of looking at Cody.
    “Yeah. Right. Guess we’d better keep our clothes on.” Cody gave a shaky laugh and moved away to face Johnny. He reached for Johnny’s hand and began to caress the palm with his fingertips. Stopping was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, especially since they’d had sex so often in the past without any interruption, but this was a new negotiation. It was better to take everything slow.
    Johnny rolled into him and Cody slid his arm under Johnny’s waist. As if his fingers had their own agenda, they slowly pulled Johnny’s shirt out of his jeans. The thrill of a few inches of naked skin made him achingly hard. He ran his hand tentatively under Johnny’s shirt, finding the tattoo from long familiarity, tracing the shape with his fingertips from memory although he couldn’t see it. His touch made Johnny shiver and close his eyes, letting his head drop back with a low moan. With the thin barrier of their clothes between them, both sets of hips flexed and moved, but Cody was too nervous to take it any further. He ran his fingers over the spine he knew so well, grateful to get to feel even that much.
    He felt surprisingly drowsy, even though he was still hard, and all the emotions jostling inside him were too much. It was so nice to simply lie on the bed with Johnny there beside him. It felt right. He didn’t want to sleep and miss any of it, but he couldn’t fight it any longer. Johnny was back. Things would be okay. His eyelids fluttered shut and he murmured, “Thank God you’re back. When we go back to the ranch tomorrow we can talk it over. At least I’ll be able to ride again.”
    The silence seemed ominous to Cody all of a sudden, and Johnny’s body stiffened in his arms before he rolled away.
    “So this is about you staying on top of a bull?”
    “What? No! It’s about us, about you coming back to me—”
    Johnny jumped off the bed and seemed to tower over Cody as if he were twenty feet tall. “I thought it was about us too, but somehow ‘us’ always turns out to be ‘you’.”
    Cody sat up. “Listen Johnny, you’re the one who walked out on me! I would’ve been happy to go on just like we were!”
    “I wasn’t happy, remember? I’m sure it would’ve been great for you if I just kept giving in to whatever you want.”
    “What did I say? What’s the matter with you?”
    “There’s nothing the matter with me except I was stupid enough to think you were actually sorry.” Johnny stamped his boots on with furious energy.
    Cody had to stop him. He couldn’t watch Johnny walk away again. His brain spinning, Cody blurted out, “Look, I never wanted a boyfriend. I didn’t want to be tied down. I knew I didn’t have time for all the emotional stuff. I was fine with one-nighters. I just wanted to ride and win and—”
    “And win at everything! You never give a guy a chance! Well, I’ve got a career too, and I’m not going off to the ranch because you say so! You just go ahead and win your fucking rounds! It doesn’t mean anything to me!” Johnny jammed on his hat.
    “Wait a second! We need to talk!”
    “We never needed to before. You say jump, I ask how high.”
    “No, you run away!”
    “Not like you cared a whole hell of a lot what I did.”
    “I cared. You didn’t stick around to find out. It’s your fault I’m in a slump!”
    “What the fuck! How is