Clouds and Rain

head. “If anything, he tries to hold me back. Tells me I have to do it gradually.”
    “Yeah, but gradually isn‟t in your book, is it?” Flynn wiped the hair away from Gable‟s face. “Nothing gradual about the way you seduced me either.” He chuckled.
    “I don‟t deserve you.” Gable couldn‟t look straight at Flynn. He couldn‟t even face how much he needed his lover right now.
    “Let‟s not go there again. I think we‟ve established by now that we totally deserve each other.”
    Gable let himself roll onto his back again and stared up at the ceiling. To his surprise, Flynn threw back the covers and turned on the light.
    “Let me look at your leg?”
    Gable displayed a pained expression and shook his head.
    “Gable,” Flynn cautioned, his face very much like one of the schoolteachers Gable remembered from his childhood. He‟d feared for his life every time she looked at him that way, and although he knew he had nothing to fear from Flynn, he also knew better than to protest.
    Flynn sat up in bed and let his hand travel down Gable‟s bad leg to the stump. When he took the sock off, it looked red and there was a small abrasion on the side near the surgical scar. “That does it,” Flynn declared. He got out of bed and retrieved the first aid kit from the bathroom, then sat down and started cleaning the small wound with antiseptic.
    Gable lay back passively, not even hissing when Flynn swabbed the abrasion with the cold liquid or looking up at Flynn when he returned from the bathroom after putting the first aid kit away, carrying a bottle of hand cream he‟d found at the back of the closet.
    Flynn didn‟t let on he noticed. He simply warmed the cream in his hands and started rubbing it over Gable‟s knee and around the stump, carefully staying away from the small wound. Gradually, Gable started to relax. Flynn didn‟t talk. He moved his ministrations higher, massaging Gable‟s thigh and dipping under Gable‟s boxers to rub his buttock. When he was done, he put the elastic sock back over Gable‟s 160

    Clouds and Rain

    stump and crawled into bed, wrapping the blankets around them, before turning off the light and taking Gable back into his arms.
    “You‟re as stubborn as a mule. You do know that, don‟t you?” Flynn asked.
    Gable didn‟t answer.
    “You don‟t have to say thank you. I‟m your lover, it‟s implied,” Flynn teased.
    “Thank you,” Gable murmured, barely audibly. “How did you know?”
    “I broke my ankle shortly after I left my dad‟s ranch. Couldn‟t walk on it for a while, and when I finally could again, I remember the first day my ass hurt really badly. Plus, I‟ve been sleeping next to you for months, Gabe. I know your aches and pains, even when you pretend you‟re fine.”
    “I‟m not good at….”
    “Yeah, I know,” Flynn said, rubbing Gable‟s back. “You think you can sleep now?”
    “Tell me about this afternoon?” Gable asked instead of answering Flynn‟s question.
    “This afternoon? Oh, you mean me catching Hunter and Grant coming down from the hayloft?”
    “Coming down…?” Gable extricated himself from Flynn‟s arms and sat up. “What were they doing up there?” Flynn chuckled. “Beats me, but they were flustered and very bothered and I don‟t think it had a lot to do with me pointing a gun at them.”
    “What do you mean?” Gable asked as Flynn pulled him down to the bed again.
    “I mean, I think they were doing more than „checking up on their investment‟.” Flynn paused for effect. “I think they were doing what two people do in a hayloft, and it isn‟t stacking bales.”
    “That‟s ridiculous,” Gable said, dismissing Flynn‟s idea. “Grant doesn‟t like to admit he sleeps with men and Hunter isn‟t gay.”
    “I wouldn‟t be so sure.”

    161

    Zahra Owens

    “Flynn, Hunter may be the only man around a ranch full of women, with his mother and three sisters still living there, but that just means he‟s got too many women nagging him to find himself a wife. It doesn‟t mean he‟s gay.”
    Flynn looked at his lover, his eyes adjusted to the darkness well enough to see his face by now. “Why do I half-expect you to tell me you know this firsthand?”
    “I just know.”
    “Yeah, right,” Flynn replied. “So tell me this. Grant has a big enough mouth to speak for Hunter, and Hunter, being his boss, rarely calls him on it. They communicate silently, with looks and gestures.
    We can do that, Gabe, but