Cherish the Land (26 page)

“Yes,” Seth said hoarsely. “Tell me how you want it.”

“You’re flat on your back,” Jason said. “I straddle you and sink down on you like we were made to fit together. You’re so thick inside me. If you filled me any fuller, I’d burst. Touch yourself, Seth. Squeeze tight. That’s my arse taking you in, making you feel good. Does it feel good?”

Seth didn’t have the words for how good he felt right now, not just physically but with the way Jason talked about them, like this was a regular thing, a part of their lives together. But Jason was waiting for a reply, so he forced his thoughts to coherency. “So good. So tight.”

“You rock up into me as I push down,” Jason said. “You could just lie there and let me do all the work, but you never do. You always take such good care of me. You’re getting my sweet spot on every pass now, fucking me just right. It’s fast and frantic and I’m not going to last long. Not tonight.”

“Me either,” Seth gasped. “Come for me, Jase. I want to hear what you sound like.”

Jason stopped talking after that, but the moans and gasps that came through the phone were all Seth needed to hear. The sounds sped up. “Talk to me,” Jason gasped.

Seth’s inexperience caught up with him without cues from Jason to guide him, but he couldn’t let Jason down. He might not know what to do, but he could say other things instead. “You’re so gorgeous like this. You were made to ride me, weren’t you?”

“Made for everything we do together,” Jason said. “Seth!”

Harsh panting echoed through the phone. Seth tightened his grip as his climax overtook him. He groaned as his body shook with his release. He tried to say Jason’s name, but he couldn’t get his mouth to work right.

He lay there for several minutes, just listening to Jason’s breathing.

“I love you,” Jason said finally.

“I love you too,” Seth replied. “I promised Jeremy I’d get the tractor and combine running right again, but as soon as that’s done, I’m coming home.”

“I’ll be here waiting,” Jason promised. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Seth didn’t know about ready, but he had to try. Jason had painted a picture of a life together that drew Seth like a moth to a flame. Maybe he’d get burned, but maybe, with Jason there to help him, he’d finally get it right.

I
T
TOOK
another three days before Seth got everything running well enough that he felt comfortable leaving. He excused going through all the utes and other equipment instead of just the tractor and combine with the thought that if it was all done, he wouldn’t have to come back in a week or two. He could wait six to eight weeks and then come back for a couple days and do all the maintenance work at the same time. It was a delay—he’d even admitted as much to Jason during their nightly phone calls—but it meant a longer stretch of stability when he finally went home.

He couldn’t delay any longer, though. He’d done everything he could around Taylor Peak. It was time to go home.

He packed everything in the boot and headed east toward Lang Downs. Toward Jason.

Toward home.

By the time he crossed the property line between the two stations, his hands were shaking and his breath came in short pants. He’d lost count of how many times he’d reached for his phone to call Jason for reassurance, but Jason would still be working, and Seth didn’t want to disturb him. He could handle this. He just had to keep driving until he got to Lang Downs. Jason would be there waiting for him and everything would be okay. Jason wouldn’t let him falter.

His phone chirped at him.

Can’t wait for you to get here. Come home soon.

Just like that, Seth’s breathing eased and the tightness in his chest loosened. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve Jason, but he was going to do his damnedest not to fuck it up because nothing—not even the bite of his razor—settled him like Jason could.

He stopped long enough to text Jason back.
Just crossed onto the station. Home in an hour or so. Love you.

Love you more.

Seth laughed, as he was sure Jason intended, even if it wasn’t possible for Jason to love Seth more than he loved Jason. They didn’t need to argue over it, though, so he didn’t reply. He didn’t stop grinning the rest of the way into the valley.

When he reached the station proper, he debated where to park. The seasonal jackaroos all used the car park behind the tractor shed and drove the utes while they were on the station, but most of the year-rounders left their vehicles near their own houses.

Begin as you mean to go on
. How many times had his first-grade teacher said that? He couldn’t count, but it had stayed with him all these years. He drove right up to Sam and Jeremy’s old house—it would take longer to get used to thinking of it as his and Jason’s—and parked there. He’d barely stepped out of the car before Polly came running up to him, tail wagging.

“Hey there, girl,” he said as he scratched her ears. “Where’s Jason?”

“Right here,” Jason said from behind him. “I saw you drive in, but Polly got here first.”

“I’m always happy to give her ears a good scratch,” Seth said, “but I’d rather say hi to you.”

When Jason came close enough to reach, Seth pulled him into a tight embrace. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Jason said. “It wasn’t home without you here. It never has been.”

Seth took a deep breath. “Help me take my stuff inside?”

“Here?” Jason asked. “Or at Chris’s house?”

Begin as you mean to go on.
“Here. I may still fuck this up completely, but I’m going to give it all I have anyway.”

“You won’t fuck it up,” Jason said. “I won’t let you.”

Seth smiled. “That’s what I love about you.”

They grabbed Seth’s bags from the boot and carried them inside. “I’ll unpack later,” Seth said as soon as the door closed behind them. He dropped the bag in his hand and reached for Jason. Jason met him halfway, their mouths crashing together as Jason ran his hands up Seth’s back. Out of patience, Seth grabbed Jason’s hips and pulled their bodies flush. Jason undulated against him, rubbing their growing erections together through their clothes. “Oh, fuck,” Seth gasped when he broke the kiss.

“I won’t last that long,” Jason said with a groan. He pulled Seth toward the couch. Seth crowded behind him, keeping as much contact between their bodies as he could. Jason turned into his arms and fell back onto the cushions, pulling Seth down on top of him. He squeezed Seth’s arse and then worked his hand between them so he could attack the button on Seth’s jeans.

Seth lifted up onto his knees long enough for Jason to get his jeans open. When he slipped his hand inside and wrapped it around Seth’s cock, Seth shuddered. Jason’s hand was big and hot and callused, and it felt so fucking right on his body. He fumbled with Jason’s clothes, wanting to return the pleasure Jason was giving him.

Jason groaned the minute Seth found skin beneath the layers of fabric. “God, I love your hands,” he said. “So much better than phone sex.”

Seth’s hand shook as he tried to find the right angle, tension, and rhythm to make Jason feel good, but Jason didn’t seem to care beyond getting Seth’s hands on him in the first place, and Jason’s hand on him was too distracting for him to do more than mimic Jason’s motions. His whole body ached, and his pulse pounded in his ears, making it hard to hear Jason’s moans.

“Kiss me,” Jason demanded, pulling on Seth’s neck. Seth braced himself as best he could with one hand and leaned into the kiss. Jason latched on to his mouth, sucking and biting at his lips. Seth moaned into the kiss as his grip on Jason’s cock faltered. It was too much all at once and yet not enough, and his head was spinning and sparks jumped along his nerves, and he thought he’d die right there from the sheer fucking joy of it.

He got his hand moving again, determined not to leave Jason hanging when Jason was making him feel so good. Jason moaned and tangled his tongue with Seth’s. A second later, Jason’s cock twitched in his hand and covered his fingers with stickiness.

He slowed his movements, trying to take in the fact that he’d made Jason come. Holy fuck, he’d made Jason come. He’d done that, inexperience and all. He’d wrapped his hand around Jason’s dick and….

His climax broadsided him, and he spilled all over Jason’s groin, mixing with the mess already on his hand.

“Oh, God,” he gasped as he broke the kiss. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t….

“Not God, just me,” Jason said with a grin.

Seth laughed despite himself. “Better than phone sex?”

“Not even in the same universe as phone sex,” Jason said. “But we’d better get cleaned up. It’ll be dinnertime soon and we can’t go to the canteen like this. Take a shower with me?”

Seth’s gut tightened and his throat started closing up again. Before he could find a way to deflect the question, the dinner gong sounded.

“Damn, better not,” Jason said. “I’d be too tempted to linger. Give me two minutes to clean up and you can have the bathroom.”

“Another time,” Seth said. “We don’t have to do everything tonight.”

Jason laughed. “Good thing. You have to give me time to recover first.” He kissed Seth again and sat up. “I hope there are towels in the bathroom.”

Seth watched him go with sweaty palms that had nothing to do with mind-blowing sex. He could handle the sex. He might not know what he was doing, but he’d managed to make Jason feel good anyway. Sex wasn’t the problem. It turned his brain off. The problem arose when his brain turned back on again. He went to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. Given their positions on the couch, Jason had borne the brunt of their mess. A quick wipe and a thorough hand scrubbing would erase most of the evidence of what they’d done from his body. Nothing could erase it from his mind. He would cherish this memory until the day he died.

He found a washrag under the sink and used it to clean himself up. He’d toss it in the laundry when he was done with it so no one would accidentally use it on any dishes. When he was clean, he zipped up and put himself back together as best he could. His lips felt swollen from the force of their kissing, but their relationship wasn’t a secret. Nobody had to know it had gone beyond kissing to a frantic hand job on the couch.

They’d probably all think they’d gone straight to the bedroom to fuck like mad. They’d never hear the end of the teasing tonight at dinner.

He rested his head against the cool metal of the refrigerator. Why had he wanted to come home again?

Jason wrapped his arms around Seth’s waist. “You okay?”

Oh yeah, that’s why.

“Just thinking we’re going to catch hell in the canteen tonight,” Seth said. “If my lips are as swollen as they feel, everyone will know what we were up to.”

“Do you really care?” Jason asked. “All the year-rounders are living with someone at this point, so it’s not like they aren’t having sex whenever they feel like it. And the seasonal jackaroos will all be jealous because they aren’t getting any on a regular basis. Besides, as often as we’ve dished it out, we can’t be bad sports now that it’s our turn. I distinctly remember you giving Chris and Jesse shit about it when they first got together.”

Seth grinned. “Yeah, they deserved it.”

“Then so do we,” Jason said. He pressed a kiss to Seth’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re home. Let’s go eat and then we can unpack your things and talk a little before bed.”

S
ETH
’
S
CHEEKS
still burned from the teasing he and Jason had been
subjected to at dinner as they walked back to the house later that night after gathering the rest of his things from Chris and Jesse’s house. It had all been in good fun, but Chris hadn’t pulled his punches either. And every time Seth had tried to correct an assumption, Neil had made a big deal of covering his ears and going on about not wanting details. Of course Ian had turned on him at that, making Seth wonder what the private conversations between the two best friends were like, but Thorne hadn’t seemed bothered so maybe Seth was missing a joke somewhere. He’d been gone long enough for that to be quite likely.

They walked inside and Jason sat back down on the couch, patting the space next to him for Seth to join him.

“Didn’t we just do this?” Seth teased as he sat down next to Jason.

“This time we’re going to talk,” Jason said.

Seth had been afraid that would be his answer. “Yeah, I guess we should.”

“We brought your bags in here when you came back, so I take it you’re going to move in, but I’m trying really hard not to make assumptions or pressure you. So you have to tell me what you want. Do you want me to stay in the bunkhouse?”

The very thought of Jason moving in made Seth’s stomach clench, but he had given in to his panic once. He wouldn’t do it again. “No. I can’t promise to make it easy, but I want you here with me. I came home for you, not for an empty house.”

“It’s not either-or,” Jason reminded him. “I can keep the room in the bunkhouse as long as I need to, whether I stay with you or go back there to sleep. This isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition.”