Summary: Ezra finds himself in doubt about what exactly is happening to him since becoming involved with Vin. As he lies in bed thinking that luck has deserted him, he finally comes to an unhappy conclusion. It's up to Vin to turn Ezra's thinking around.
Ezra Standish could not fathom what had come over him. Never in all his life had he ever done anything remotely like this. Knowing exactly where his world had begun to come apart was no help. Silently cursing the day he'd seen those men in that saloon and agreed to accept employment along their sides, he'd been lost. Of course at the time, it had seemed the only course open to him but now he realized his fatal mistake: being lulled into an overwhelmingly false sense of security which had led to his downfall. As distasteful as it was, he had to face the truth.He was in love.
No longer able to fool himself into believing it was a passing crush such as he'd had when young or his usual short dalliances with men so similar to himself, he might as well have been looking into a mirror, he was forced to cross his own personal Rubicon and admit that he had fallen quite precipitously in love.
For a few days, he'd tried to wriggle out of it, actually rehearsing the words which would have set him free but those barbed wire slashes tearing runnels through his heart had caught securely in that betraying muscle and led him to these dire straits. Lord help him because no one else could.
He loved with every ounce of pathetic strength left to him.
Sullenly, he stared down with something akin to loathing at this beautiful, half-wild creature he'd somehow managed to capture, now innocently slumbering next to him in his bed. Not many people who had seen his current focused, serious, and stern look still lived. It was the face those he'd killed at close range saw. The visage of a killer. Cold. Detached but with some smoldering hint of anger.
"Your fault, damn it all to the nine hells," he murmured, not sure whether he was referring to the recipient of his churning feelings or to himself, crossing his arms across his chest in unconscious protection of his heart as if from a gunshot. Oh, no, surely a gunshot to the heart would be a kinder fate.
Thunking his head back against the headboard of his bed, he lifted his eyes heavenward, not really registering the watermarks and heaven knew what other substances stained the expanse between him and the stars his lover so treasured staring at as if they actually meant something to him.
How could the fates and luck all have deserted him at once? Down on his luck at times in the past, he'd never been this close to despair in his life.
While he waited for the fires of hell to come licking his bones to drag him from his predicament into the damnation he surely deserved, a gentle hand suddenly covered his and he couldn't prevent the startle which shook him as he looked down into a pair of sleepy, amused eyes.
~~~~~~
Vin Tanner's mother had been smiling, telling him everything was going to be all right. He was doing the right thing in giving himself to the man he'd fallen in love with.
"I love you, Mama," he told her happily and she faded away.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the most beautiful sight which had greeted his eyes in quite a while and the one person he loved harder and purer than anyone since losing his mother. Pushing back the covers, he reached out a hand and covered those wondrous, talented, supplely smooth fingers he loved feeling against his skin. Ah, the things those hands could, and did, do.
Laughing when Ezra jumped about a mile, he pulled himself up to a sitting position, shoulder to shoulder with his lover, pulling the hand into his own lap, clasping it with both of his own. His own little captive.
"Feelin' guilty 'bout somethin', Ezra?" he grinned, alert on awakening as always.
"However did you manage it, Vin?"
Momentarily thrown off by Ezra's rare use of his Christian name and immediately aroused by the caressing way that mouth formed the simple word, stretching it out so it seemingly had extra letters, the tracker took a moment to wonder what it could be he'd done now. Their loving last night had been fierce and almost wild. Had he hurt this man somehow and not even known? How? So attuned to the responses and feel of that cherished body, he'd been absolutely sure there had been no hurt between them.
"I have never been in such agony…" the words were accompanied by a heart-stopping, devastating sadness in Ezra's eyes.
Sitting up straighter, Vin felt his world narrow, fearing the worst. Something he'd done had damaged Ezra. Although delicate looking clothed, Ezra was actually very sturdy but who knew? Vin had seen people die of relatively minor injuries and the thought of losing this man because of something he'd done was unbearable. "Where did I hurt you? I'll get Nathan…"
A slender hand pulled him back down mid-rise. "You fool. No one, not even our esteemed healer can repair what you have done to me."
"No. I won't believe that. Let me get help!" Heart hammering in desperation, he tried to pull away again but those deceptively strong hands stilled him once again.
"You, Mister Tanner, have brought about the destruction of the old me and resurrected in me a man I do not recognize when I look in the mirror."
Meaning hit him with the force of a blow. Ezra had realized he was with someone so far beneath him, it was ruining his life. "You want me to leave?"
"Never. For if you did, I would surely die."
Realizing everything was all right and Ezra was just having one of his momentary panics when it occurred to him that he might not be worthy of loving, Vin felt sweet relief flood through him. And he had just the medicine the other man needed. Thinking he could address all the fears at once, he ticked each one off with a soft kiss. "I ain't gonna leave you, you ain't gonna die on me, and you're the one I want.."
Worry had settled into those clear eyes which could usually read situations so well that this doubt was beginning to worry Vin. He grabbed Ezra's jaw firmly but gently. "You look at me and stop that fretting, Ezra Standish. I trust you. I need you to trust me. You're mine. I'm yours."
"Well, let us hope you never come to your senses, then." The false smile could not hide the fear still holding the gambler stiff and unresponsive in his loving arms.
Time for a different tack then. "I came to my senses the day I saw a no-good gamblin' man face a saloon full of angry men mostly with his smarts. Damn, but he had the sweetest, tight ass in those fancy pants and that mouth…"
Not surprised to have that mouth suddenly on his own, kissing his breath away, made him laugh against those fine lips. Then the confident voice he loved murmured, "You were not the only one who was aware of the attributes of a fine-looking man. You are not the only one who needs, Vin. I need you and I never can seem to convince myself why on earth you would ever want a man like me."
"Just one of those mysteries of life Josiah's always lecturin' on, I guess." Allowing the hand that had been gripping the steeled jaw to relax, Vin let his fingers run down the finely sculpted chest and abdomen. "Now how 'bout we slide down and learn us some more mysteries, like how to get rid of that look in your eye like I'm gonna disappear in a puff of Ol' Scratch's smoke just for ya lovin' me."
Laughing in spite of himself, Ezra threw off his earlier melancholy. "Sounds like a sure thing to me. Agreed. And, you should watch yourself. I may just be the one to disappear from your arms leaving nothing but the stench of brimstone."
"In that case, Ol' Scratch'd have to watch out for a hell of a tracker following..."
"...to affect my emancipation?"
"Nah, probably to join ya. Hear they got some nice hot baths down there. Figure we could soak a bit together in one of 'em before givin' the devil something to talk about."
"Think he'd talk about this?" Clever hands began an interesting "card trick" with Vin's manhood.
Eyes closing and head falling back in pleasure he wasn't about to resist, Vin gasped. "He might wanna talk but I seem to be havin' a little trouble with my words right about now."
"I might have a few words."
"You..." Another gasp as Vin gripped the carved wooden headboard behind his head. "...always do..."
Not releasing Vin's rising cock, Ezra stretched far enough to whisper hotly into his ear, "But I might have trouble forming them with my mouth full..."
A moan from his captive audience made Ezra chuckle as he slithered down, hands sliding over chest and ribs and finally, hips in order to reach his goal. A breath away from taking Vin into his mouth, he hesitated.
In fact, he hesitated so long, Vin opened his eyes and looked down...directly into sly green eyes, which any regular person, not knowing Ezra as he did, might fear. That look only served to excite Vin. "What do I have to do this time?"
The hoarseness in his lover's voice had given away his need and that made the ends of Ezra's mouth curl upwards just before the grin covered his entire face. "I want the words."
"What damned words?" Now it was a puzzle and Vin wasn't sure he was in the mood or had the patience for one of Ezra's puzzles. In fact, he knew his cock wasn't in the mood for the other head to have all the blood in his body. It wasn't willing to share.
"The ones Mrs. Travis taught you this week. I know she makes you learn two a day. I want them."
Flashes of the embarrassment he had felt when he'd swallowed his pride and asked Ezra to write down his poem filled his mind's eye and that was the wrong memory for Ezra to have sparked. Vin tried to push the other man away. "You son of a bitch..."
"No! No..." Attempting to soothe Vin, Ezra stroked Vin's body until the tenseness subsided. "I didn't mean it the way you took it, Vin. I am not interested in humiliating you. It's just that it...it made my heart swell when you came to me after she agreed to teach you and you forgave me for hurting you that night. I had thought myself irredeemable. Remember your promise? You made a vow to gift me with the words you learned. To learn the ways of something so dear to me. Words. I want them now. I want them to pour over me. I want them to fill your chest and spill over your lips. I want them between us and around us and in us and...and I want them to flow with your seed into my mouth..."
Hard and panting again, Vin's nostrils flared with the force of his pride. "I ain't givin' you her words. They have to be mine."
"Even better."
Leaning his head back against the headboard again, Vin closed his eyes. "I see..." he began, but had to lick dry lips.
"What do you see?" Ezra whispered, gently kissing lower belly, then each thigh.
"I see... Dusty pines..."
Spreading thighs which had once again tensed, this time in anticipation, Ezra settled between them and delicately scraped his teeth along the length of Vin's cock. He paused until Vin took the hint and spoke again, then followed the same line his teeth had taken, this time using the flat of his tongue.
"Green where there ain't nothing soft...nothing but scrub and brush."
Sliding his flattened palms under Vin's bottom to tilt his hips up a bit, Ezra glanced up at his lover, enjoying the sight, especially the way that lower corner of Vin's bottom lip was caught between his teeth just before being released during a drawn out exhalation, almost a hiss, as Vin's whole body reacted to Ezra's attentions.
"Yes," encouraged Ezra softly, sliding his open mouth half-way down the hard shaft before withdrawing, the tip of his tongue tracing the vein.
"Layers of rock...stained all the colors of the sunrise..."
Accepting the small thrusts which began to push up deeper into his mouth, Ezra wrapped one fist around the root of Vin's manhood, using the backs of his knuckles to knead the sack below it, his dexterity allowing him to push the stones apart, then draw them together, stroking and releasing like manipulating a coin across the back of his hand.
"Worshipping the sun...grounded by the earth..."
The last word had ended in an open-mouthed groan, Vin's head beginning a side to side rocking motion that looked like a denial but Ezra knew was another signpost on the way to loss of control. Ezra needed Vin to lose control and give himself to him.
"Ah...ah...." Cords in Vin's neck strained, his spirit earth-bound but longing to soar, ready to break free. The rhythm of thrusts picked up and Ezra sucked harder, moved against the hard heat to draw the essence further toward him, inviting the spill, needing the fluid of life on his tongue to know he, himself was alive. Alive and with this man who somehow completed something within him that he'd long denied himself.
The words all ran together as Vin panted them out, desperate to reach the peak Ezra was driving him toward. "Sunset red coat...green eyes the color of life...warm wood hair...hot...burning me...burning me...Ezra!"
The world burst into the white of release for Vin while it turned into the red lava flow of seed behind closed eyelids for Ezra. He accepted the fluid and swallowed it to make it his own as his own cock, having rubbed against the sheets and joined in while his mouth had taken in every thrust Vin had made, then matched Vin's rhythm and spurted his own release.
Sliding up to rest his head on Vin's rapidly rising chest, he pulled himself as close as he could against his lover's sweat-slicked side. Muscles sliding under the flat belly, Vin leaned forward a bit and Ezra felt a little peck on the top of his head before Vin collapsed back onto the mattress, then wrapped strong, sinewy arms around him.
Now he knew the truth. That fickle bitch Luck hadn't deserted him. Damn him to hell if she hadn't actually rewarded him this time, although he knew he didn't deserve it a whit.
Chuckling at the swiftness with which Vin had fallen asleep again, Ezra looked up into Vin's face once more and had never been more sure of anything in his life. This wasn't a fall. It wasn't even a thunderbolt of well-deserved punishment. He hadn't captured this creature, it had come up to him and tamely eaten from his hand. He wasn't surrounded by the vicious new barbed wire tearing into his flesh, but enfolded within a generous heart. Why hadn't he seen any of this before? Was he that closed off to feeling?
"Ezra, stop frettin' so and settle down. How'm I supposed to get the strength to go again if I don't get no rest?"
"How very boorish of me to deprive you of your well-earned slumber." There was no way Vin, through the one eye that was peeping at him, could miss the sparkle he knew was in his own eyes.
And Vin didn't, judging from the mischievous grin on his face as he closed his eye and wriggled a little in an attempt to get comfortable, obviously aware of what his hair-roughened thigh was doing to Ezra's cock nestled against it. "Damned right it is. And you call yourself a gentleman. Humph."
Grinning, Ezra felt a little tit for tat might be in order and slid one leg over Vin's thighs, hooking his foot under the far leg's knee. Now he'd see who was teasing whom with a thigh heating a cock. "I am lucky to have you to school me in manners, Mr. Tanner, and ever so grateful for it."
"Well, good to see you're so grateful." Clearly, Vin couldn't hold the snicker in and it turned into shaking laughter.
"You are no match for me, son," drawled Ezra with a wink. "Give up gracefully."
"You know me, Ezra. I don't never give up without a damned good fight."
"I had best get some sleep to prepare for it, then."
The arms around him tightened in a little squeeze, then loosened to allow him some movement within the ring of a comforting embrace and he relaxed, sure in the knowledge that this was one man who accepted him the way he was. At the same time, he was learning to accept the complicated man he was getting to know. Neither of them were who most thought they were but that was all right. Both of them knew just who they were dealing with and now, Ezra knew he wouldn't have it any other way.
THE END