Page 44 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight
Grady was fully there now, so he sat up and reached for the condom on the dresser. He kept pumping his fingers in and out of Charmaine, and she rode his hand and moaned. He got the condom on, got between her thighs and fucked in. Her nails ran down his back as her thighs came around him, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck. Her smell was perfume and lavender soap, and he rocked into her and lost his erection almost as fast as he’d gotten it.
He got a hand between them, rubbed her clit, and she came quickly enough with some cursing and moaning. Grady pulled out. He rolled to sit on the edge of the bed and got the condom off. He stood, threw it in the wastebasket and grabbed for his sweats. He could hear her sitting up behind him. He knew she was about to ask the question and felt the moment she decided to swallow it down.
“I gotta shower,” he said and went out.
He stepped under the scalding spray and breathed. Charmaine had said she was only staying the weekend, said something about a big trial coming up and that’s why she was down now, in case she was late in the spring. Grady always liked having her here. So why was he counting the days until Sunday night when she’d leave? It wasn’t being late with the sheep. Cole had mumbled over dinner about how he’d ride out tomorrow with Lady and get it done. And Grady nodded and knew he would. Charmaine had seemed surprised, but she said nothing on it, just remarked on what a hell of a rider Cole must be to do that on his own. Cole had nodded, his eyes grave on hers, but he said nothing.
Grady got out, dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist. He went out just as Cole was coming out of his room. Grady had his hand on the towel, and Cole was running a handthrough his hair, and they froze like that, looking at each other across the hallway.
Cole moved first, coming forward, his head down.
“Gotta piss,” he said under his breath as he went by Grady and into the bathroom.
Grady followed him in and shut the door. Cole tensed at the sound of the door closing but got his dick out, and after a moment the stream started up. Grady listened to the drip of the shower and Cole’s piss splashing in the bowl and wasn’t sure what he was doing. Cole finished and shook himself. He washed his hands. He turned back slowly, met Grady’s eyes, and even in the shadows of the bathroom Grady could see the questions and accusations there, the hurt. He didn’t understand a one of them. What he did understand was that his dick was hardening up, and Cole was moving forward to go out the door, and Grady needed him.
He grabbed Cole around the waist as he went to go by and spun him. He walked them back to the wall next to the door. The air was still foggy from the shower, the drip of the tap pattering softly as it petered out. Cole’s lips parted as Grady loomed over him. He was close enough to kiss him. He brought his hand to Cole’s shoulder, curled his fingers and pushed. Confusion and surprise flittered over Cole’s face, but muscle memory must’ve kicked in because he was sinking to his knees at the same time as Grady was losing the towel. His dick slapped his belly, thick and hard, and Cole reached for it. Grady grabbed him by the hair and angled his head so Cole was forced to look up at him. With his free hand, he brought his index finger to his lips, telling Cole they had to be quiet.
Cole nodded and then sucked Grady down, his eyes staring into Grady’s like he was daring him to keep that order. And fuck, Cole was going to make that a challenge from the get-go. He was sucking him like a pro. Grady fucked into that beautiful mouthand bit back his groans like his life depended on it. He brought his other hand down and traced Cole’s bottom lip where it was stretched around his girth and felt Cole swallow the responding moan. Grady panted and lost himself in the feeling of how good it was. He knew he couldn’t take his time, but goddamn, he wanted to.
But Cole knew it too, and he added suction and then relaxed, his eyes looking at Grady as if to say, ‘Well, come on then.’ Grady fucked his mouth, came and rode that orgasm while biting his lip to stop the sound.
Grady was panting in shallow breaths as Cole let him slip from his mouth. Grady released his hold in his hair. He brought his palms up against the wall to steady himself. When Cole stood, he was caged between Grady and the wall. Grady brought one hand down and found Cole hard. He slipped his hand inside his sweats, then pulled his hand out again and pressed his fingers to Cole’s lips. Cole sucked them in and got him all wet. Grady suppressed his groan. He took his fingers back, wrapped his wet hand around Cole’s shaft and jerked him off with slow pulls at first, enjoying the way Cole was desperately trying to be quiet.
“Fucker,” Cole whispered between them.
Grady smirked. He tightened the pressure, jerked Cole off with more speed and watched as Cole thrust into his fist. Cole let his head fall forward, burying his groans into the bare skin of Grady’s shoulder. His lips caressed the damp skin in a way that was alarmingly good. Grady sped up and felt the shudder ripple through Cole as he came, his little moan cut off as he bit into Grady’s skin.
Grady cradled his dick as Cole came down. His other hand found its way to Cole’s back and slipped under his shirt to stroke his skin as he got his breathing back under control.
Cole pulled away and met Grady’s eyes as he tucked himself away. Black, solemn—demanding something Grady couldn’thave named. He turned, forcing Grady’s hand to slip out from under his shirt, opened the door and went out. His feet padded down the hall quietly, and his bedroom door closed.
Grady turned and washed his hands. He grabbed for his sweats, tugged them on and went back to his room. He got back into bed. Charmaine was dozing, but she rolled over and stretched along his side. He brought his arm up and tucked her against him. It was a clear, moonlit night and he stared at the crack in the ceiling, traced its path from the center of the plaster to the cornice and back again, not a part of him tired.
When Grady got up in the morning, Cole was already gone, Lady and Chloe gone with him.
26
H
e and the missuswent into town for lunch at the bar later that day. They passed the Willys, and Charmaine stopped to talk to them. Grady watched as Old Man Willy’s wife fawned over Charmaine and her city clothes and exciting career lawyering in the city, all of it delivered with the barbs of a woman stuck out here. Nevertheless, Grady knew what he and Charmaine looked like. The two of them together on the mostly deserted street—the only sound the odd truck starting up, revving, idling and then puttering on to the road before driving off and being swallowed up by the distance and nothingness around them. They looked like what Old Man Willy and his missus wished they’d looked like in their heyday—fit, tall and tan, with blonde hair and blue eyes—all the quintessential elements of attractiveness. But that was all surface, wasn’t it? And Grady might not know much about much, but he reckoned the heart of it wasn’t what Old Man Willy’s wife was coveting with her deferential yet carefully concealed look of judgment.
Grady nodded as Charmaine extricated them from the conversation, her pressed white pants, black flats and hundred-dollar designer t-shirt at odds with Old Lady Willy’s fading floral dress billowing in the cooling wind. As he held the door open for Charmaine to go in first, he thought consciously for the first time if that was the reason he’d married her—she was someone you wanted to be seen walking down the street with. Ever out of place here, sure, but envied all the same and able to weather that envy like it wouldn’t and couldn’t touch her. She was city-born, the daughter of his mother’s best friend from high school, and their match when Grady was nineteen made his mama smile when not much else did. He didn’t marry her on account of that, but made his peace with needing to have a wife and figured she was a fine choice. And all the better because her work as a prosecutor kept her in the city and left him to the solitude he’d grown comfortable in after the first hellish year finding his feet running things on his own at seventeen after his daddy died.
She sat, picked up the menu, tucked her hair behind her ear and gave Grady a flirtatious smile from where her head was tilted down. And yeah, Grady got why he married her, the few years she had on him adding a layer of sophistication to the beauty, but for the first time he recognized that it’d never had anything to do with love.
“Tell me about this trial,” he said.
“You want to hear about my work?” Her smile grew, and she raised an eyebrow.
Fair enough. Grady cracked a smile.
“White wine and a garden salad?” he said and got up to get it.
“Thank you.”
Charmaine was gazing out the window at the barren street when Grady sat back down.
“It’s a shitty case,” she said, eyes outside. “The guy’s gonna get off.”
