Pairing: Chris/Ezra
Chris did not quite know how he had allowed Ezra Standish to talk him into taking a vacation trip together. Even now, he could not help snorting at the thought. Chris Larabee did not take vacations; much less rent rooms in the fanciest damned hotel he had ever seen. But somehow in a weak moment - all right, he could admit it, a drunken moment - he had agreed to the idea of a holiday; a sorely needed escape from the doldrums of everyday life, to borrow Ezra's phrasing. The other five men had certainly raised no objection to his leaving town for a few days; in fact they seemed almost eager to get rid of him. That told Chris exactly how much of a bear he had become lately and so, grouching and grumbling the entire way, he had gone.Denver was a nice place, he had to admit, and Ezra had practically salivated at the sight of the theaters, restaurants, gambling palaces and other entertainments readily available.
The hotel had been a harder sell. Chris had complained bitterly over the extravagance of velvet curtains and satin sheets when he had first seen the room Ezra had insisted upon, but the gambler had insisted that only the finest would do. Just to be contrary, Chris had rented a separate room on the other side of the hotel, the plainest and cheapest one they had, though even that was decadent compared with his accommodations back home. Ezra had looked outright disgusted when he had seen the room, which made Chris even more satisfied with his choice. What was the point of a lot of frippery for two saddle-bums - and oh, hadn't Ezra loved that term - when they were supposed to be here just to see the so-called sights of the big city, he had asked? Ezra had replied archly that if he preferred to spend his nights in a hovel or occupying some hard chair in a saloon down the street, he was more than welcome. Ezra was going to enjoy this unusual opportunity for luxury.
After spending the evening on his own with an excellent dinner and a couple of expensive whiskeys, Chris had started to feel bad about starting this trip on such a sour note. He had taken a walk to think things through, enjoying a cigar in the cool evening air as he faced up to the fact that he had been wrong to take out his bad temper on Ezra. It wasn't like the other man had insisted that he pay for the fancy hotel, after all. On the contrary, he had generously offered to share his large and lavishly appointed room at no charge. It wasn't his fault that Chris had been feeling bored and irritable lately and had been itching to start a fight, just to clear his head. Buck would have understood that he simply got that way sometimes, but Ezra . . . ?
No, he thought, letting go a gusty sigh. Ezra might brush off the event as unimportant, but deep down he would care, a lot. He would be hurt by such a rude and curt reaction to his attempts to be a good friend.
Apologies were not Chris's strong suit, but the gambler had not deserved to have his head bitten off just for trying to insure that they both had a nice time.
~*~*~*~*~
Not knowing whether Ezra would have gone back to the hotel or be holed up in one of the many gambling dens peppering the city, Chris decided to go up to that fancy room and wait for him. It was no trouble; each of them had taken the extra key to the other's door as a precautionary measure, so Chris trudged up the stairs and let himself in.
At the threshold, he paused. Gambling was hardly the only pleasure that could be purchased in a town this size. What if, expecting to be alone for the night, Ezra had bought himself some pretty company?
Easing the door open a couple of inches, Chris listened. Nothing but the crackle of flames from the large fireplace at one end of the room. Satisfied, he opened the door the rest of the way and walked in.
The room was lit by a single lamp and as his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Chris sucked in a surprised breath. His friend was here, after all, and it looked as though his first guess had not been totally off the mark. Ezra had stated his intention to fully enjoy the opulent surroundings he had purchased, and by the looks of things, he was enjoying those surroundings very much indeed.
A tiny sound, barely loud enough to heard, floated from the bed to Chris's ears as he crept further into the quiet room. Flickering tendrils of fire light danced teasingly over the shimmering satin sheets as they moved sinuously across Ezra's sleeping form. The gambler laid face down in the huge bed, hugging the pillow with both arms while minutely grinding his pelvis into the deep mattress. He was uncovered but for the top sheet, and the soft material clung to him, shifting across his skin as he moved. It was obvious from the clearly defined outline of his body that he had gone to bed naked, wanting to fully enjoy the caress of the luxurious bedding.
After a couple of minutes, Ezra began muttering in a soft sleepy voice, the words barely intelligible but voiced with such passion that Chris felt his groin tighten. It was apparent that the other man was dreaming of a lover. It surprised him, though he was not sure why it should, to realize that Ezra held tender feelings toward someone. He was even more surprised by the sharp spike of jealousy he felt at that realization.
Chris bit his lip to stifle a groan when the other man twisted around to lie on his back, pushing up against the sheets and leaving no doubt about how good they felt against his bare skin. His stiffened cock was clearly delineated by the thin satin.
Long fingers twitched and then clutched at the pillow instead of touching himself as Chris had expected, making the gunslinger wonder exactly what Ezra was dreaming of. He smiled as he watched the other man's head grind back into the deep down pillow as he gently humped the satin sheet, hopelessly disheveling his neatly combed chestnut hair. Chris had never expected to see Ezra so mussed and wanton, and though he knew he should not be watching such an intimate performance, that he was violating his friend's privacy in doing so, he could not tear his gaze away.
Eyes never leaving the sleeping form, Chris moved a little closer. He would not touch, had no right to interrupt Ezra's fantasy with his own unexpected lust, but he would enjoy this sight for however long it lasted. If Ezra woke before the end, he would fall back on his intention to apologize and claim that he had heard what sounded like a nightmare and let himself in. He would play the situation off with terse disinterest, the way he always did with Ezra when he needed to hide his true feelings. He had no desire to get shot for being a peeping tom, even if he probably deserved to.
Suddenly, Ezra gasped and arched, making Chris groan aloud in response as he noticed the hard beading of his companion's nipples and the fine sheen of sweat that was breaking out over the surface of that smooth chest. The sleeping man's hips were jerking lightly, indicating that he was nearing completion and Chris barely noticed that he had reached a hand inside of his own trousers, stroking along in silent encouragement.
Would Ezra really come from nothing more than the brush of satin against his cock? Chris shook his head. He had always known that the other man was a hedonist, but . . . damn. At least he understood Ezra's insistence upon these particular accommodations now, he thought, chuckling at the thought that he might have been planning this all along.
Ezra's breath hitched at the sound of the warm bubble of laughter and Chris turned, ready to duck out of the room, but Ezra's voice froze him in his tracks. "Chris," he breathed. "Oh, Chris, please."
The stiffness extending from Chris's trousers grew even more pronounced at the soft, pleading sound of his name on Ezra's lips. Ezra was dreaming about him? If that were the case, then perhaps shooting him would be the last thing on the southerner's mind if he should discover that he'd been observed.
Well, there was still a very good chance that he would receive a bullet for this, but it suddenly seemed worthy of the risk. And truthfully, Chris Larabee had never been one to back away from something just because it might be dangerous.
Mind made up, he quickly removed his outer trappings, setting them on a chair as he toed out of his boots and socks, tore his shirt off overhead and pushed black trousers down his lean hips to kick them away. Crossing silently to Ezra's side he knelt next to the bed and for a moment, he simply observed from this new closer vantage point. He reached out one hand, tracing it over Ezra's cheek and forehead and pushing his rumpled hair back from his face. Ezra seemed to appreciate a gentle touch and Chris was curious to see how he would like this one.
Ezra smiled, some of the tension leaving his upper body. His fisted hands let go of their death-grip on the pillow and he seemed poised to relax into deeper sleep.
Chris shook his head. Nope, not even close to the reaction he had been hoping for. He needed to do something fast, before the dreams shifted away in some innocent direction and Ezra's lower region likewise relaxed.
Raising his other hand, Chris poised it over the outline of the still-heavy erection, allowing the heat of his skin to make first contact. Ezra shifted minutely, seemingly sensing the change, and Chris took that as encouragement to touch. Pressing the satin between Ezra's legs, he tested the weight of his balls, pleasantly surprised by the unexpected girth, then lightly stroked his way up the shaft. Impressed by its length and thickness, he grinned. Everyone was always saying that Ezra was a cocky son of a bitch, and it amused him to discover just how true that was.
Ezra responded to his increasingly sure stroke with a groan, hips lifting to press against Chris's palm. Chris smiled and gripped the turgid cock more firmly, sliding the glove of satin teasingly over sensitive areas. The gambler released a throaty moan and thrust harder into his hand, long lashes fluttering as his dazed green eyes opened. "I'm dreamin'?" he mumbled.
"Not any more," Chris replied. Licking his lips, he slid the sheet down a few more inches, groin tightening at the sight of his prize. Replacing the cool satin with the warm moisture of his mouth, Chris grinned around Ezra's thickness, enjoying his helpless groan. He had always loved having this done to him, and clearly Ezra was no different.
The gambler choked off a gasp and reached one hand down to thread through Chris's rough blond locks, resting the other upon his own chest to pinch at one tightly bunched nipple.
Chris worked him with his mouth for a couple of minutes, encouraging the soft noises of pleasure that were emanating from Ezra's throat. Then, wanting better leverage, he released him with a long slurp. "Scoot over."
Ezra wasted no time debating the command. Sitting partially upright, he dragged himself across the smooth sheet so that he lay diagonally on the mattress. Leaning back on his elbows, Ezra raised his knees and spread his thighs wide in invitation, jade eyes gone dark with desire. His heavy cock jutted proudly away from his body, its dusky pink surface glistening with Chris's saliva.
Chris groaned and stroked himself as he climbed onto his knees on the bed. It had been a long time and Ezra was beautiful in his blatant desire. Chris dove down on the large organ, sliding his lips and tongue over the surface, tracing each pulsing vein and sucking hard, then harder still when he discovered that doing so made Ezra burst into a spate of mindless, ecstatic swearing, his hips jerking and snapping as he instinctively tried to plunge down his partner's throat. Chris grabbed hold of the lean hips, preventing Ezra from choking him.
"Ohhh, fuck," Ezra ground out, his extensive vocabulary completely deserting him when Chris pinned his pelvis in place with a strong forearm so that he could devote that hand to pumping the base of Ezra's shaft while the other squeezed and played with his balls. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck . . . "
Releasing him, Chris laughed. "You got a real dirty mouth there, Ezra. Reckon I'd better do something about that." Pushing up, he clumsily tackled his bedmate, using the entire length of his body to pin Ezra to the mattress as he thrust his tongue inside the gambler's mouth, ravaging his lips with single minded determination.
Ezra's arms wrapped around him, kissing back with such passionate intensity that Chris's neglected cock pulsed with pleasure. He wriggled atop Ezra, grinding him into the smooth sheets as their cocks stroked and bounced against each other. Ezra cried out, hands sliding down Chris's back to grip his ass and pull him even closer, strong thighs pinning Chris's hips in place as he moved frantically against him.
Chris groaned in pleasure at the sensation, then grinned when Ezra gasped and nearly bucked him off, releasing a hot gush of seed between their bellies. Knowing how close his friend had already been when they started, he was not surprised by Ezra's lack of restraint, but knew that he still had a few minutes before he would reach that point himself.
Rolling to his side, Chris lounged comfortably on one elbow, giving his partner a couple of minutes to enjoy the afterglow.
Ezra's heaving breath slowed and the dazed look slowly passed from his eyes. Licking his lips, he smiled at Chris. "Well, that was a most unexpected wake-up call." Green eyes traveled slowly across the long naked length of Chris's body, a familiar expression of greed sparking in their depths. He blinked when he noticed that Chris was swiping at something sticky on his torso. Wiggling backward to awkwardly fumble his carpetbag out from beneath the bed, Ezra fished out a clean handkerchief and tossed it to Chris. "My apologies. I should have warned you that I was so close."
"I knew," Chris told him easily, wiping up the spilled fluid and then reaching to do the same for Ezra, who looked very pleased by the unexpected action. "Didn't care."
Tossing the cloth away, Chris covered Ezra's body with his own again, kissing him slowly and thoroughly. Ezra moaned low in his throat, tongue darting and dancing with his own. Chris could feel himself growing harder as they dueled. "You take?" he asked bluntly.
Understanding what was being requested; Ezra nodded and wriggled out from under him. Rolling onto his stomach, he groped for the carpet-bag again and began to rummage. Faced with the vision of firm white cheeks bobbing mere inches from his face, Chris grinned wolfishly and helped himself to a bite of one temptingly rounded globe. Ezra yelped and jerked violently in surprise at the unexpected nip, sliding right off the bed with the force of his movement against the slippery sheets.
Seeing Ezra sprawled in a naked indignant heap on the plush carpet, glaring up at him with messy hair and a still half-erect penis, looking so thoroughly, deliciously debauched, Chris started to chuckle, then to laugh hard. Ezra struggled to maintain his affronted expression, but quickly gave in and laughed along. "That was not nice, Mr. Larabee."
Winking, Chris licked his lips. "I thought it was. You, Mr. Standish, have one very tasty little ass."
He felt wickedly delighted when Ezra blushed from crown to cock at his teasing words. Holding out a hand, he helped the other man to his feet, then pulled him back down onto the bed, encouraging Ezra to cover his body as he had done Ezra's, wanting to feel again that hard form pressing against him. "Satin sheets are a good choice for you," he commented, gliding his hands over the soft skin and hard muscles of Ezra's back and buttocks. "You feel like you're covered with it; satin over steel."
Ezra peppered his neck and upper chest with quick nibbling kisses. "I never suspected you of being a sensualist," he purred, lifting a little on his arms and undulating his torso against Chris's, teasing his partner's still unsatisfied cock with light intermittent contact. "Nor did I ever suspect you of being one to willingly indulge in sexual gratification with a man, such as myself."
"All got our secrets, I guess," he groaned, jerking in Ezra's grasp as one strong hand closed tightly around his erection. "Never knew how bad I wanted you until I walked in tonight and saw you puttin' on a show, pleasing yourself against this fancy bedding. If I hadn't realized you were asleep, I might've jumped you right then and there."
Ezra clamped his teeth around one straining nipple and bit down hard enough to hurt, grinning when Chris's cock jerked against him. "I'm very pleased that you waited," he commented. "I would have hated for either of us to miss the preview performance in your haste to reach the main attraction."
"Put on a good enough show and I'll give you a curtain call," Chris teased, flipping them over again and reaching for the jar of hand cream that Ezra had unearthed from his satchel before his unexpected tumble.
Wasting no more time on verbal by-play, Ezra's eyes flared with desire as he asked, "Would you prefer me on my back or front?"
"Front. I want to take you from behind."
Ezra chuckled. "Why does that not surprise me?"
"You mind?"
"Not at all." Suiting deed to word, Ezra spread his knees wide and rested his hands on the bed, tilting his ass high. Chris grunted happily at the willing action. Scooping up a generous finger full of cream, he applied it to the rosy pucker awaiting his pleasure. Ezra moaned as he was penetrated and prepared, the sound causing Chris's cock to twitch in anticipation.
"Feel good?" he asked, gathering more cream and stretching Ezra thoroughly as he took another, gentle nip of one tight little buttock. He just could not help himself.
Ezra jerked a little at the love-bite. "So good. I'm getting hard again just from this," he confessed dreamily.
The admission was more than Chris could take. Setting the jar aside, he gripped Ezra's hips in both hands, positioned himself and gave a strong steady push, allowing his painfully rigid cock to be enveloped by the other man's welcoming body.
"Dear God, even my best dreams had no comparison with this," Ezra moaned, rocking forward and back as the hardness began to move inside of him.
"You dream about me?" Chris asked, even though he already knew that this was the case. He felt almost like he was in a dream himself as he pushed slowly in and out of the smooth well-lubricated passage, awash in the sensation of that tight massaging heat.
"Mmm," Ezra moaned, avoiding an answer as he heaved a long shaky breath, pushing firmly against Chris in a mute inquiry for more. When Chris complied and sped his strokes, pushing deeper with each one, Ezra sighed in ecstasy. "Lord, but you're good at this. You put Mr. Wilmington's braggadocio quite to shame."
Chris laughed a little too. "So, you're telling me that you and Buck . . .?"
Looking horrified, Ezra glanced over his shoulder, then grinned when he realized that Chris was teasing him. "I mean only that you could cultivate considerable bragging rights of your own, if the populace of our fair hamlet were to be apprised of your hidden talents. Oh, my lord, right there!"
Grunting with effort, Chris snapped his hips faster; giving a grinding little twist at the end of each stroke in response to Ezra's gasping reaction. Feeling himself to be only seconds away from completion, he leaned forward and groped around Ezra's body, finding his cock fully engorged again and bobbing wildly in response to their hard rhythm. Gripping the organ tightly, he jerked it in time with his thrusts.
Ezra's whole body tensed in anticipation and then seemed to convulse as Chris climaxed inside of him. Raising a hand to his cock, Ezra jerked and twitched through the throes of his second completion of the evening.
It was not until Chris pulled free and allowed Ezra to turn around and face him that he realized that the gambler had used his hand to block the ejaculate from spilling onto the satin sheets. He snorted. So much for getting lost in a passionate moment. "You're as bad as a fussy old lady in her Sunday parlor, even when you're having sex."
Wiping the mess from his palm into a second handkerchief he fished from his luggage, Ezra smirked. "I assure you that this is no reflection upon your considerable prowess, my friend. I simply have no wish to advertise to the proprietors the use we have been putting their fine bedding to. Nor do I wish to sleep in the evidence."
Chris laughed. "Yes sir, a real romantic."
"Care to stay awhile?" Ezra asked casually. "The bed is more than large enough for two."
Chris looked at him carefully, smiling when he did not see any trace of nervousness or prevarication. It was an honest question, and Ezra would be fine whichever way he chose to answer. "Should've just stayed here in the first place when you invited me," he admitted. "I been a real bastard and you didn't deserve getting growled at. That's actually what I came up here to say to you."
"You came to apologize?" Ezra looked surprised. "Before our unexpected bout of mutual tension relief?"
Grinning at his choice of phrasing, Chris told him, "That's right."
A bright smile creased the gambler's cheeks. "In that case, I accept, and gladly. Now, I am feeling quite pleasantly fatigued, so let me reiterate my offer. Would you like to stay the night with me?"
"Love to."
Feeling a wash of pleasant weariness settle over his own body, Chris rose to bank the fire and put out the lamp, while Ezra straightened the disarranged bedding. No awkwardness overcame either man as they slid back between the luxurious sheets, facing one another and settling in together as naturally as if they had been sharing a bed for years.
"Chris," Ezra said drowsily as Chris's callused hand glided along his ribcage and came to rest upon his hip. "I'm curious. As you seem to have no personal taboo against intimacy between men, and you evidently find me desirable, may I inquire as to what took you so long?"
Chris smiled as he felt the warm body snuggle up to him, strong arms sliding around his torso to pull him in close. It seemed that Ezra was a cuddler. "Guess I never realized you thought of me that way."
"I did. It seemed as if our joining would be a rewarding experience," he mumbled, snaking his tongue out to tease his lover's nipple in the dark. Chris responded by stroking his back and giving his butt a squeeze. Ezra's long fingers found his quiescent penis and began to fondle it; reaching back to give his balls a gentle stroke.
Chris sighed. He felt sated and much too tired for another go-around so soon, but he was enjoying the feel of the soft intimate caresses. Ezra seemed to understand and be content with this, merely employing this new opportunity to touch and be touched. Chris searched out Ezra's mouth in the dark and kissed him deeply. "Guess maybe I just needed a vacation to get my head on straight."
Ezra chuckled. "I knew you'd come around to the idea."
"Let's get a little shut-eye and maybe in the morning I'll show you a few other ideas I been working on," Chris suggested. He kissed the other man again. "Seems to me this show still needs a second act."
He felt Ezra smile against his lips as he whispered, "Encore!"
The End