Page 74 of The Fire Line

“Okay. And if this happens again—”

“It will.”

The words were out before Harris could think better of them.

Jay went still. Then his smile arrived slowly. “That is not the rebuttal you think it is.”

Harris caught the front of his shirt and kissed him again.

* * *

They rode back toward the line cabin in the long evening light without saying much. The important things had already been said. What remained was the considerably stranger problem of how to sit on horseback beside someone after having his hand around your cock.

The trail helped. Where it narrowed through timber, Harris rode ahead, but whenever the ground opened enough for two horses, he slowed until Red came alongside.

That was new.

So was knowing what Harris’s mouth tasted like, how rough his stubble felt against Jay’s face, the sound he made when control finally left him. Trail conditions had become unexpectedly difficult to concentrate on.

On one wider section, Harris looked over. Jay met his eyes, and Harris’s gaze dropped briefly to his mouth before returning to the path.

Jay nearly guided Red into a pine branch.

Professionalism was going extremely well.

By the time they reached the cabin, exhaustion and routine gave them something easier to do with themselves. They unsaddled the horses, checked legs and water, carried the gear inside, and reheated the remaining stew. The familiar sequence of small tasks settled around them, unchanged even if almost everything else about the day had shifted.

Dinner was nearly normal. Harris asked whether Jay had enough battery for the route back, and they talked about the weather moving over the western ridge and whether the lower trail would turn muddy if the forecast held.

Neither mentioned the lookout. They didn’t need to.

The knowledge of it sat easily enough between them until Jay finished eating and carried his bowl toward the stove just as Harris stepped away from it.

They stopped nearly chest to chest.

Harris smelled like smoke, horse sweat, and the faint trace of soap beneath both. Jay’s attention dropped to his mouth.

Harris noticed.

For a second, the space between them seemed much smaller than it was.

Then Harris stepped aside.

“Need sleep.”

“Yeah.”

Jay set down the bowl and went to his bunk. The stove settled into a low red heat while darkness gathered around the cabin, and from only a few feet away came the occasional shift of Harris’s sleeping bag.

Jay lay on his back with a smile he was glad Harris couldn’t see.

Sleep took a while.

* * *

A little after five, Jay woke to Harris feeding another piece of wood into the stove. The cabin remained mostly dark, orange light moving across Harris’s shoulders as he straightened.

Harris made coffee while Jay sat up in his sleeping bag and watched him with the still-new awareness of knowing exactly what those hands felt like on his body.