Eleven
Logan
At first, Logan was sure that the loud pounding of his heart had him hearing Derrick wrong. There was no way that Derrick could be saying what it very much sounded like he was. No way someone like Derrick would actually proposition Logan.
Before Logan could ask any questions, Derrick was gone, leaving behind his spicy, musky scent and a very shaky, very aroused, Logan. Was this some sort of joke?
He knew that he couldn’t trust the man. That had been very clear when he had walked into the kitchen to find Derrick deep in conversation with Wyatt, of all people.
We should talk. Derrick, we’ll talk later.
Wyatt’s voice grated in Logan’s ears at the best of times. At the moment, it was even worse than that. It was like Logan couldn’t erase the words from his brain. What was going on with Wyatt and Derrick? Logan couldn’t help but remember the way that Derrick and Wyatt had been talking at the wedding.
It was impossible, of course, what Logan was thinking. Derrick could never turn on the rest of his family.
Or would he? How well did Logan really know Derrick? He had known him since he was a kid, but how well could Logan actually claim to know Derrick as the adult man that he was now?
He didn’t know. And he didn’t know, either, if he had the right to ask. If only Malcolm were here, but there was no way Logan was messing up his best friend’s honeymoon with this crap. Malcolm would come rushing home; that was how much he loved the ranch. Logan couldn’t live with being the one to bring him back.
Logan’s mind whirled as though his head had been picked up and briskly shaken. He should go. He absolutely shouldn’t go; it was the last thing he should do. He should go and demand that Derrick tell him what was going on with Wyatt. He shouldn’t go. He should go. And so on.
His body was aching for Derrick. But it was more than just that. Desire, that was one thing, but the aching that was happening in his heart was far more compelling. He could have ignored, he thought, just wanting Derrick. But the desire to be around him wasn’t just about sex. That would have been far easier.
He wanted to be around Derrick because he had feelings for him. He would never say it aloud, of course, but he wanted to be near Derrick because his heart wanted it as bad as his body did.
The combination of the two was just too damn much. Logan had no way to resist, not really. It was a minor miracle that he had managed to stay away from Derrick as long as he could, but now that Derrick had, Logan was pretty sure, invited him to have sex with him, there was just no way that he could stop himself.
He made just one stop on his way to the hayloft. Feeling strangely furtive, he went to his room where he stuffed a bottle of lube and a condom into his pocket. With his heart drumming a rapid beat against his ribcage, he made his way out into the yard, then the short distance to the horse barn.
What was it that Derrick had said? That he would meet Logan in their hayloft. Theirs. Despite all of the uncertainty that he was feeling, Logan couldn’t help but smile a little bit as he pushed open the door to the barn and stepped into the dim, sweet-smelling structure.
Something would stop this. Something had always stopped them before. There would be someone else in the barn, Mary Anne or maybe even Skyler. Something to keep them from each other. But when he looked around, there was no one there other than the horses.
Which meant that Derrick wouldn’t be there, he thought. Derrick was playing a joke on him, a prank, maybe even annoyed by how Logan had dared to kiss Derrick before. Slowly, rung by rung, Logan swung himself up the ladder, barely daring to look over the top, his knees weak and the taste of his panic and nerves coppery, like blood, in the back of his throat.
Derrick was there.
Not only was Derrick there, but he was already naked. He had made it there first and had used his time well. His golden body was spread out, long and lean and impossibly beautiful, over the loose hay that had spilled out from the bales. His lips were slightly damp and parted with his quick breath, his angular face was flushed, and his cock was half hard already.
It was a sight that Logan knew he would remember for the rest of his life. His first time with another man, because something told him that nothing was going to get in their way this time. Nothing would keep them from what they both wanted.
“Are you just going to stare?” Derrick asked, shifting uncomfortably on the hay. Derrick was, Logan finally realized, just as nervous as Logan was. This was every bit his first time with another man as it was Logan’s. He couldn’t have been surer of that. “Or are you going to come here? It’s not actually that warm here.”
This was the last chance for him to back off, to stop what hadn’t even really started yet, only the fact of the matter was that it was too late and it had been for a while. Maybe from the very first time they had kissed, it had been too late. It had all been leading to this moment.
As Logan made his way through the loft, he stripped off his clothing, too, putting it on the same bale of hay that Derrick’s clothes were draped over already. There would be nothing between them this time. He would worry about the consequences later. For the moment, at least, all uncertainty had disappeared, and it was such a relief to have it gone.
I love you.
The three words almost spilled out of him then, and no one needed to tell him that they would have been a bad idea to say. So he caught them on his tongue and held them back by crawling close to Derrick, kissing him so that his lips and tongue were far too busy to say anything at all.
The reckless urge had passed by the time the kiss ended, and Logan felt safe to ask the question that had been burning in his mind from the moment Derrick had asked him to come here.
“I want to finish what we started,” Logan admitted. “But I want to know what, exactly, you think that is.”
He had his own ideas, of course, but he didn’t want to assume, not with something as important as this was. This had to be very clear for Logan to be comfortable, and he looked into Derrick’s beautiful emerald eyes, almost glowing even in the dim light of the barn.
“I want you,” Derrick confessed, words that Logan could never have expected to hear from him after their history together. “I want you however you’ll let me have you. I’ve never done this before, not with another guy, but …”
