Chapter Twenty

Aiden woke up to the sound of birds beginning to sing quietly. He glanced out the window and saw that the sky was just beginning to grow lighter though the sun had yet to pop over the horizon.

Yesterday had been a long and stressful day. It had been filled with fear, hope, death—highs and lows that had caused him to feel as if he were in a ship on a raging sea. But finally a new day was dawning. There were no men coming to kill him, he and Nick were no longer going to be forced to hide what they meant to one another—at least not at the ranch, and it seemed as if life was going to be better...

That was if the women and the men still approved of them this morning. Maybe yesterday had been a fluke... Maybe the women would want them gone or the men would have decided they really didn't want two men like Aiden and Nick staying around them. Maybe everyone would treat them differently or keep their distance as if afraid to catch their disease. Maybe.....

"You keep thinking that hard about things and your brain is gonna start smoking."

Aiden felt a smile curve his cheeks as he raised his head from Nick's chest and looked up to see those storm gray eyes full of amusement as they gazed down at him, "I'm worried about what's going to happen when we leave this room. Can we just stay in here forever?"

"I don't know about forever—" Nick admitted, "—but I reckon we have a few more minutes at least."

Aiden lay his head back down on Nick's chest. With his body pressed close to Nick's this way Aiden felt desire fill him. Nick was tall, broad, hard and masculine. He still had that familiar scent of horses and hay clinging to his clothes and his chest rose and fell slowly with his steady breathing. Aiden wanted to know what their skin would feel like when it touched...he wanted to know what every inch of Nick felt and tasted like. Would it be just as tantalizing as the man's kisses?

Those thoughts were causing Aiden's trousers to tighten and his heart to race as he lay there against Nick. Aiden could feel his face reddening as he rested his hand against Nick's chest and then ever so slowly began to move it lower.

Inch by painstakingly careful inch, Aiden let his hand drop. His fingertips danced over the shirt covering Nick's hard stomach and then brushed the waistband of his trousers.

Aiden could hear the way Nick's heart was racing beneath his ear and Nick's breaths had become a bit harsher. Aiden was completely out of his element. He had never been with a man this way. Nick had even been his first true kiss, though Aiden was in no hurry to tell him that! How did one go about seducing someone....?

Aiden glanced down, at some point in the night they had kicked off the blanket and he could see the bulge growing in Nick's trousers. Aiden could still remember what that bulge had felt like beneath his hand that day in the wagon and though his fingers were shaking, he was eager to feel it once again.

Swallowing hard and moving quickly before his nerves could get the better of him, Aiden lowered his hand and gripped Nick's impressive arousal through the front of his trousers.

Nick let out a hiss of breath and then Aiden nearly cried out with shock when he was flipped onto his back and Nick was suddenly hovering above him. Their eyes met and locked for a split second before Nick swooped down and devoured Aiden's mouth with a hungry passion that stole his breath.

Nick's mouth left Aiden's and began burning paths along his neck, "When you touched me in the wagon that day I nearly took you right there," he growled against Aiden's ear.

Aiden felt a jolt of lust like he had never felt before in his life pass through him. He began to claw at the buttons on Nick's shirt, desperate to feel his skin beneath his palms. It took only seconds before the buttons were undone and Nick was shrugging from the shirt, without ever taking his hungry mouth from Aiden's neck.

Aiden stared at that impressive chest—it was broad, hard and covered in a dusting of hair that felt like heaven beneath Aiden's palms.

He might as well have died and gone to heaven with the way his body seemed to be floating right up off the bed. He could feel Nick's body above him, his heavy arousal pressing hard against his thigh. Nick's lips found his again and the heat that Aiden felt sent his body even higher.

Nick's fingers began undoing the buttons on Aiden's shirt and then Aiden forgot how to breathe as Nick's mouth moved lower. His lips grazed over Aiden's chest and caused his heart to thunder so loudly he was sure Nick would feel it pulsing against his tongue.

Aiden was lost. He wanted more... more of Nick. He reached down and fumbled with the button on Nick's trousers. He wanted to caress that arousal against his palm without those stupid pants serving as a barrier.

"Oh my gracious! I'm so sorry!" Susie's voice filled the room and then the door,(which Aiden had not heard being opened), was slammed closed.

Nick leapt away from Aiden and quickly buttoned his pants. Aiden glanced out the window and realized that somehow they had missed the dawn lost in their kisses and the sun was now painting the skies with brilliant oranges, pinks and purples.

The beauty was lost on Aiden who simply grabbed the blanket and pulled it over his entire body, burying even his head deep beneath and curling into a ball. "Well we're goners now," he mumbled.

"She should have knocked," Nick grumbled.

"For all we know she could have! I didn't even hear the door open with you kissing and touching me that way!"

Aiden tried to hold tight to the blanket but it was yanked off of him as the bed dipped and he found himself staring into Nick's gray eyes, "I was enjoying myself—you know-- until she interrupted."

"I was too.." Aiden admitted, though his voice was little more than a squeak. Susie had seen them! Of all people it had to be church going Susie! They'd be run off the ranch and out of Bakerstown before noon and that was for sure!

"Aiden, I think we should talk about you and I—"

"Can this wait?!" Aiden demanded as he stood from the bed and began to button his shirt with his shaking hands, "I was terrified to face everyone before we got walked in on and now.... "

Nick sighed and his shoulders sagged as he stood, "Okay it can wait but not for long. I want to have this talk with you soon."

"We'll have all the time in the world once they run us off," Aiden mumbled.

"I think you're worrying too much," Nick assured him. "They know we're together and didn't run us off last night."

"That was before Susie walked in and caught us...um.. doing.. well..." Aiden's face flamed again and he threw himself down in the bed.

"I have chores to be getting to. Do you think you'll be coming out anytime soon?" Nick asked with exasperation in his voice.

"Nope. Never. I'm going to curl up in a ball right here on this bed and die."

"Okay then. I'll see you whenever you decide to pull your head out of the sand," Aiden watched Nick put on his hat, boots and gun belt and then walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Aiden had never been so embarrassed in all his life and he had no idea how he was going to face everyone... And poor Susie! The woman was probably disgusted and sickened to her very core by what she'd witnessed.

And Nick wasn't going to help matters since the man had strode from the room with his shirt undone. Aiden let out a long groan and once again buried himself beneath the blanket.

***

Nick was just as embarrassed as Aiden by Susie's intrusion on their private moment but he had meant it yesterday when he'd said he was done running—and he was equally as tired of hiding who he was.

He was a man who loved a man. He was in love with Aiden and, dammit, it wasn't fair that he should have to hold back from showing that love just because someone else would see it as wrong.... Still he'd just as soon not have one of the owners of the ranch walking in on him and said man in a hungry embrace.

He had just finished buttoning up his shirt and was tucking it in when he stepped out onto the porch and found Susie standing there wringing her hands.

She saw him and her eyes instantly went down to the front of his pants before her face turned more red than Nick had ever seen even Aiden's turn and she began to pace and move her hands in wild motions as she spoke, "I am so very sorry! I never should have just barged into the room like that! I was wanting to check on Aiden so I had Ryder bring me out here before we have to be in town and I knocked but no one answered and I was worried.. I had no idea you had spent the night in the room with him! Ryder had told me that Aiden was in bad shape last night when he left so when I knocked and he didn't answer I was terribly worried. I do hope you all aren't angry at me for barging in—"

Nick held his hand up to silence her rambling and she swallowed hard, took a step back and stared at him with tears in her blue eyes. Her dark freckles were sticking out sharply against her pale skin and her lips were drawn in a thin line.

"Susie, I..."

"I just knew it! You're angry!" Susie slipped past him and fled into the house.

Nick watched her disappear and stood there scratching his neck and wondering whether he was supposed to follow after her—it only took him seconds to decide that he didn't want to follow her. He just wanted to get to his chores and pretend that Susie had never walked in on anything at all.

"Where'd Susie go?" Ryder asked as he popped up onto the porch without warning.

Nick laid a hand over his racing heart and then hooked a thumb toward the open front door, "She went inside," he replied, "She seemed upset," he added, knowing that Ryder would make sure she was okay and take the pressure off of him.

"What did you say to her?" Ryder asked, frowning as he looked at the doorway.

"Not a thing," Nick replied honestly.

"Is your man okay this morning?" Ryder questioned even as he headed toward the door.

"Yeah," Nick nodded. "Yeah, he's fine." He watched Ryder disappear into the house and was happy that at least Ryder didn't seem too upset at the knowledge that Nick and Aiden were together. Nick had known he wouldn't though—Ryder was the quite simply the kind of man who liked everybody.

The real test would come at the bunkhouse with the other hands. Cookie was just now getting the cooking fire roaring to prepare breakfast. Nick had the sudden urge to turn around and hide himself under the covers with Aiden and simply stay there forever—but he knew that eventually he'd have to face the other men.... Better to get it over with now than prolong the inevitable.

The bunkhouse was tense and quiet when Nick stepped inside. Fourteen sets of eyes turned to look at him as he walked to his cot and sat down on the edge of it without making eye contact with anyone.

"Let's get out of here and get to work, boys," a hand named Curly mumbled.

"Watch yourself there, Curly. Nick'll ram you from behind if you ain't careful," Burt laughed harshly.

"Fucking Atkinson's are either gonna have to let him go or lose me. I ain't working with some goddamn freak like that," Graham snorted as he strode from the bunkhouse.

Nick swallowed back his hurt and anger as one by one the men he had worked beside for months walked out of the bunkhouse to show their disapproval of him.

Nick kept his focus on his calloused hands and then he heard footsteps approach him and he saw the worn out toes of a pair of boots shifting beside his cot. His cot dipped as the man sat down and Nick looked over to see Wendell with a sad smile on his face, "Small-minded bastards, every one of them," Wendell offered.

Nick chuckled quietly and shook his head, "You should go with them, Wendell. All you're doing is painting a target on your own back."

"Aww hell, Nick, I already got a target on my back. These judgmental bastards around here think it's wrong for you to love a man and me to love a whore."

"Them walking out is better than what happened last time I was found out," Nick admitted quietly as he looked back down at the dusty floor.

"What happened last time?"

Nick felt his heart twist a bit but the pain from his past was a distant memory these days and didn't cripple him the way it once had, "I got shot—and my lover died."

"Holy hell..." Wendell mumbled. "Well I got your back, Nick; yours and Aiden's. We'll make sure the past doesn't repeat itself."

"I still say you should go with them. You're just asking for trouble by siding with me."

Wendell sneered, "The way I got it figured they're gonna find something to judge and somebody to hate—it might as well be us."

***

"Susie?" Ryder called out as he stepped into the ranch house. He wondered what could have made her so upset that she would hide herself in the house. Whatever it was Ryder would make sure it got taken care of. No one was allowed to upset his Susie. That was one of the only rules he believed in and enforced.

"I'm in here," her voice squeaked from down the hall.

Ryder smiled and went to the door of her old bedroom. He tried the handle but it was locked, "Should I walk around and come through the window for old time sake?"

The door handle turned then and he looked down at Susie. Her blue eyes were full of tears and her cheeks were red as she wrung her hands, "Susie, what's wrong?" Ryder asked with alarm as he grabbed her soft body and pulled it into his arms. Instantly, the whirring in his brain that had plagued him since birth was stilled and silenced as he held his beautiful wife, "Did someone do something to you?"

"No—I did something and now they hate me!"

Ryder shook his head and kissed her golden hair, "No one could hate you, Susie. You're like a big plate of fresh pancakes smothered with maple syrup," Ryder pulled away enough to look down into her eyes, "No one hates fresh pancakes smothered with maple syrup."

Susie stared at him a moment and then her brow rose up on her forehead, "Did you really just call me a pancake?"

"With syrup," Ryder nodded, reaching for the umbrella in a stand beside the door so he could twirl it in his hands.

Susie let out an exasperated breath and threw her hands in the air as she moved away from him, "You don't understand, Ryder! I was trying to check on Aiden and I knocked but no one answered so I thought something was really wrong with him and I walked into the room and I....." Her face reddened and her freckles stuck out sharply, "I walked in on them."

Ryder frowned a moment as he tried to understand what Susie was talking about, "Walked in on them what?"

Susie looked at him as if she feared for his intelligence and motioned with her hands, "I walked in on Aiden and Nick... together... sharing a moment..."

Ryder stared hard at her and then he burst out laughing, "Is that all?!" he demanded, balancing the umbrella on the palm of his hand.

"All?" Susie gasped as she snatched the umbrella away and put it back in the stand, "I was mortified, Ryder! And surely they hate me now for interrupting such a private moment!"

Ryder shook his head and closed the door behind him, turning the lock slowly. "What are you doing?" Susie asked quietly, though he could hear the passion already forming in her voice.

"What were they doing, Susie?" Ryder asked, stepping closer.

"Don't ask me that!" Susie gasped.

Ryder took another step toward her and she backed up until her legs were against the bed. Ryder could still remember the first night he had spent in this bed with Susie simply holding her while she slept. Still to this day that remained the single best moment of his life—though every moment he spent with Susie ranked up there pretty high.

"What were they doing, Sue?" he asked again as his gaze went to her lips.

"Kissing," she whispered.

Ryder put his hands on her hips, tugging on the soft yellow fabric of her skirt to pull her closer. "Like this?" he questioned, just before descending on her and pressing his lips against hers in a light caress.

"No.... lower," Susie's voice was shaking now and her breathing had quickened.

"Lower huh?" He moved his mouth to her jaw line and felt her tremble.

"Lower."

Ryder grinned against her soft skin and took his mouth to her neck, "Is this low enough?" he whispered as he let his breath wash over her heated skin. He was hoping it wasn't because he was now itching to taste a whole lot more of his Susie.

"I believe you'll have to undo my blouse to get low enough, Ryder," Susie informed him.

Ryder did five hundred leaps of victory in his head, "As you wish."