Earth and Sky

me when we get back?” Hunter asked, not even blinking. “I want to feel you inside me again.” He reached for Grant’s groin to reciprocate Grant’s earlier actions and felt Grant’s hard length right through his jeans.

    “Does it feel like I’ll be able to wait until we get to our room?”

    Hunter laughed. “Well, you’d better, because I don’t want to run the risk of a ticket again by doing it at the side of the road. Besides, I want you naked and spread out on the bed so I can ride you like a real cowboy would.”

    “Fuck, Hunter!” Grant shouted, laughing. “I should have known that even when you bottom you like being in charge.”

Chapter 21

    Hunter had a spring in his step when he walked into his office Monday morning. The weekend had left him sore to the point that he didn’t feel like climbing onto a horse first thing, and he was both tired and still pretty high from his little getaway. He didn’t mind locking himself into his office for a few hours so he could check stock and send out feed orders.

    “Hey, bro,” Izzie said, walking into the office without knocking. Like most people who came in, she was in full working gear: oilskin duster, jeans, chaps, boots, and a hat.

    “Still raining out?”

    “Yup.” She nodded. “Horses are all huddled together on the drier patches. Ground is soggy as hell. So how was the weekend?”

    The lack of transition didn’t faze Hunter. He could tell from Izzie’s expression she pretty much knew what he’d done. Okay, maybe not the details. He hoped.

    “Weekend was good,” he answered evasively. He expected her to lay into him, ribbing him for leaving the ranch for her to take care of by herself, but she didn’t. She simply turned to the notice board, where everyone left little notes for Hunter about the goings-on at the ranch and which items needed to be ordered from the suppliers.

    Hunter got up from behind his desk and stood next to her. “Looks like I’m not the only one who’s happy this morning?”

    “Looks that way, doesn’t it?” she answered. He recognized her enigmatic look, thinking they were alike, he and his middle sister.

    “Did you get lucky this weekend too?” he asked, quite happy that the focus had moved away from his activities.

    “You could say that,” she answered.

    Hunter reached for the door and closed it, leaning against it to prevent others from barging in. “Come on, ’fess up!”

    She smiled, uncharacteristically shy. “Let’s just say I didn’t sleep at home on Saturday night.”

    “That makes two of us,” Hunter confessed. Not that it was much of a confession. He was admitting to more than just not sleeping in his own bed, though. He’d asked Izzie to cover for him over the weekend and had to tell her he’d be away. She hadn’t asked questions, which was just as well, since Hunter was pretty sure he wouldn’t have given her a straight answer anyway. This morning he was dying to tell someone, though, and Izzie was possibly the only one he trusted with the news, since she’d sussed him out anyway.

    “I know,” she replied softly. She leaned a little closer, invading his personal space, and he put a brotherly arm around her, ignoring the wetness of her coat. Suddenly she looked up at him. “Was it nice? With… Grant?” She seemed a little hesitant to give him the opening, but he smiled at her anyway.

    “It was more than I could have ever hoped for.”

    Izzie smiled back at him, giving him one of her genuinely warm smiles. “I’m so happy for you.”

    “You look like I should be happy for you too. Did you meet someone?”

    She shrugged, but the corners of her mouth remained curled up, and her eyes shone. “More like a repeat offender.”

    “Please don’t tell me it’s Delco?”

    She laughed. “Hell, no! The farther that man stays away from me, the better!”

    Hunter let out a breath. “Phew, I’m glad.”

    She turned serious. “I can’t tell you who it is yet, so please don’t ask. He makes me very happy, though.”

    Hunter nodded in understanding. “I hope one day you will be able to bring him home.”

    She shrugged. “Well, either the four of us should run away together, or we’ll all have to come out of the closet.”

    “Depends,” Hunter quipped.

    “On?”

    “On whether I get along with him.”

    She pulled away from him and pushed him away from the door. “Oh, you like him all right.” And with that, she walked out, leaving Hunter to