Chapter 83

Zane turned towards the fridge. At least that mostly hid Rory from prying eyes. Rory had definitely lost his desire for beer, and sex, too. Although judging by the hard pole still up his ass, Zane was still up for it, literally.

“Ror, get the fridge door, will you?”

Wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible, Rory did so, grabbed the beer, and closed the door. Zane swung them around, giving Wayne an uninterrupted view of Rory’s junk. Although Rory was sure his dick and balls were doing their best to shrivel up and hide.

“See you in the morning,” Wayne said to their departing backs. “Though hopefully a bit less of you.” 18

Early mornings had become Rory’s favorite time of day. He liked to wake before Zane and spend some quiet quality time touching, kissing, and generally just loving on his man. But this particular morning Rory needed to think. And he couldn’t do that with Zane so close. So he climbed out of bed, got dressed, did his thing in the bathroom, and made his way across the yard to the barn. The paths that had been cleared the previous afternoon were covered with fresh snow.

Feeding horses and mucking stalls should be mindlessly repetitive enough to allow him to think, although there was the ever-present ache in his ass to remind him of the previous evening’s activities.

They’d continued to have sex after drinking their beers, although Rory’s heart hadn’t really been in it. If Zane had noticed, he hadn’t said anything. They both came, Zane more loudly than Rory, then, after a quick visit to the bathroom—Zane carrying Rory—Rory had feigned tiredness so they’d settled down to sleep. Zane had drifted off quickly, Rory had only dozed fitfully.

Sliding the barn door closed behind him, Rory flipped on the lights and breathed in the comforting and familiar equine odors. And to think, when he’d first shown up on the ranch, he’d hated the smell and was more skittish around the horses than they were around him. However, the peace was almost immediately broken by innumerable nickers and hoof stamps as the horses poked their heads out of their stalls and realized a human was present, which meant it was feeding time.

“Hold your horses!” Rory called out as he moved down the aisle with the feed cart, tossing a couple of flakes of hay into each rack. “I’m moving as fast as I can.” It was still fucking early. Dawn wouldn’t break for a couple more hours.

Things were a great deal quieter when Rory moved down the aisle a second time with grain and food supplements.

Rory gathered his muck bucket and pitchfork, put them in the muck cart, and started down the aisle once again.

“You finished breakfast already?” Rory asked Moonlight Shadow when the big stallion popped his head over his stall door and nickered for attention as Rory approached.

Shadow was a rescue horse who’d been badly mistreated by his previous owners. No one had been able to get near him without being bitten or kicked. But for whatever reason, Shadow had taken an instant liking to Barry and would do anything for the man.

Before Barry had gone on vacation to England, he’d brought Rory to Shadow’s corral and told the horse that while he was away, Shadow had to play nice with Rory. Rory had been highly skeptical that Barry’s words would have any impact on the highly strung animal. But amazingly the horse had seemed to understand and permitted Rory to pet him, feed him treats, groom him, and even exercise him. However, Rory hadn’t pressed his luck by trying to put a saddle on him and ride him.

Barry had had a similar conversation with his dog Rex. During Barry’s absence, Rex had stuck pretty close to Rory, but the moment Barry returned, Rex only had eyes for his master once again. Rory had believed something similar would happen with Shadow, but was pleasantly surprised when the horse remained friendly upon Barry’s return.

“Hope you had a better night than me.” Rory fed the horse a piece of carrot and rubbed his neck.

Shadow nodded his head a few times.

Rory yawned. “Yeah, couldn’t have been worse.”

Rory opened the half door. “You gonna let me muck your stall?” The horse dutifully moved to the side and Rory entered with his muck bucket and pitchfork. “Good boy!” If he didn’t know better, Rory would swear Shadow understood everything he said. Setting down his tools and facing the large stallion, he asked, “You ever been in love?”

Shadow hooked his head over Rory’s shoulder and pulled the man in closer to his chest. Rory had only ever seen the horse do that to Barry.