The house was quiet and unusually peaceful, with only Jason in the kitchen, quietly working around Tristan. Laptop and books cleared from the kitchen table, he wandered outside. He finally found Colby near the barn, coiling up a hose that clearly hadn’t been used in a decade, and looking absurdly good while doing it.
“There you are,” Tristan said, stopping short to admire the faint flush on his cheeks, the rolled-up sleeves that were straining over his muscles, the way he glanced up and smiled like Tristan was something precious. “You know you don’t actually have to doallthe chores.”
“I know,” Colby said. “But I feel better when I’m doing something. Besides, I want to help.”
The honesty in his voice made something in Tristan’s chest curl, warm and tight.
“Come on,” he said. “Dinner’s in half an hour. You want to shower first?”
Colby paused. “Is that a polite way of saying I smell like goat?”
“You do smell like goat, yet inexplicably, you’re still hot as hell,” Tristan informed him, and grinned when Colby’s cheeks flared a deeper red.
They walked back to the house together, brushing arms now and then. It felt like a promise for later, when he’d have Colby in his bed again and they could touch properly, kiss, and maybe more.
Shit, he’d need to stop thinking like that in the middle of the yard. He thought back to all the reading hehadn’tmanaged to get done, and the sheer amount of work ahead of him slowly calmed his cock.
The kitchen was beginning to hum with the low-level energy that always came before pack dinner. A couple of pans were steaming on the stove, Jason was guarding the chopped veggies from a predatory Jesse, and Dave was arguing with Riley about whether fruit belonged on pizza.
Colby paused in the doorway, uncertain, until Tristan reached for his hand. “Shower first,” he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Although Jason watched Colby move through the kitchen with cautious eyes, the rest of them didn’t seem to notice, and Tristan knew they were well on their way to accepting him.
In the bathroom, Tristan set the water running and turned to find Colby already stripping off Karl’s borrowed clothes with efficient movements. His face was calm—determined, even—but Tristan could see the way his hands shook slightly, how he folded each piece with too much care.
“We can shower separately, you know. You don’t have to if you’re not—”
“I want to,” Colby said, not looking up. Then, more quietly, “I wantthis. You.”
Tristan swallowed as an uprush ofwantwashed through him. He undressed quickly, trying not to stare at Colby and failingmiserably. He couldn’t stop looking, appreciating the way Colby’s broad shoulders tapered to a hard waist, the sheer strength in his body. Tristan longed to touch him, to feel the warm, taut planes of his chest and stomach.
The bathroom was full of steam by the time they stepped into the shower. Tristan reached behind them and tugged the cubicle closed, trapping the warmth around their bare skin.
Colby turned under the spray and sighed, tipping his head back. Water coursed down the smooth skin of his back, over faint scars, his waist and then… Tristan’s mouth dried. Colby’s naked ass wasspectacular. Kind of like Michelangelo’s David—so maybe Tristan didn’t have many frames of reference for hot naked guys—but more muscular. Just as perfect. Just as likely to have people traveling from all over the globe to admire it.
“Are you just going to stare?” Colby asked, glancing over his shoulder, a teasing lilt in his voice.
That was new, andsowelcome. Tristan stepped in behind him, close enough that their skin touched in places. One of those places being Tristan’s hardening cock. “Maybe.”
Colby’s eyes darkened. “Then maybe I should give you something to watch.”
Before Tristan could respond, Colby turned and kissed him—slow, open-mouthed, filthy with want. It knocked the air right out of Tristan’s lungs.
Their hands slid over wet skin, exploring, memorizing. Tristan’s fingers skated over Colby’s hips and up his spine. With Colby’s tongue deep in his mouth, driving him out of his mind with need, it took all his control not to run his hands down to Colby’s ass, to touch, to drag him even tighter against Tristan. But he retained just enough brain function to remember that Colby might need more time, more gentleness, before anything that might feel to him like a demand.
Tristan didn’t actuallyneedto drag him closer, he realized, because they were plastered together, their bodies aligning like they were made for one another. Their cocks pressed together, and that was it—fire in his blood, lightning behind his ribs and Tristan pushed even tighter against Colby, rubbing his cock against wet skin.
Colby gasped into his mouth, hips jolting forward.
“Shit,” Tristan muttered. “You feel—God, Colby.”
Colby groaned, deep and low, and pressed closer. “Touch me?”
Tristan reached for the bottle of lube he kept in the rack and squeezed a little into his palm, warming it between his hands. Then, drawing back so he could watch Colby’s face, he slid his hand between them, and wrapped it around both of them, slick and hot and perfect. Colby closed his eyes, and the little sound he made was pure pleasure as he shuddered under Tristan’s touch.
“Tell me if I need to stop,” Tristan murmured, his mouth moving over Colby’s neck, lips and tongue exploring.
Colby’s answer was a whimper, his hips jerking helplessly into Tristan’s grip. “Don’t stop. Please don’t—”
