Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 165476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 827(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 827(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
He should. It was only appropriate after receiving such a lifesaving favor, and it didn’t matter if he’d really been in danger or not.
“Was it a dry bite?” Ned asked in the husky voice of a man who’d spent a week in the desert. He leaned forward to rub the blood off Cole’s cheek with the side of his hand. “You got—yeah,” he muttered, still gasping for air.
Cole licked his lips and rose, arm untangling from around Ned’s thigh without hurry. Instead of taking his hand away, Cole rolled it past Ned’s thigh and rested it on Ned’s shin.
“Might be. The skin isn’t really changing much, but we shall see,” he commented, indicating the reddened area he’d just been sucking with the fervor of a newborn calf.
Ned swallowed, staring at the man still sitting between his legs. The strange intimacy of this position wasn’t what he’d expected when he had the spontaneous idea to fake a snake bite, yet here they were.
He’d recognized Cole as a handsome man the day they met, but in this moment he realized something else. Eyes dancing with the bright light from the fire, dark hair stuck to his flushed face, parted lips stained by blood… Cole was stunning.
The most stunning man Ned had ever seen, and the fact that no one in Beaver Springs had ever made such an impression on him struck Ned in the face like a branding iron. He wanted to know everything about Cole. Where his parents were from, and even how he looked naked. Was all of his form strong and graceful like a stallion’s?
Maybe Cole’s beauty seemed more intense due to Ned’s own inadequacy as he sat there like an idiot with the leg of his union suit ripped, pants pulled down to the knees and the face of a country boy allowed his first peep under a whore’s skirt.
Cole shifted, curling one of his legs in the grass while raising the other knee so it pointed to the sky. He then pushed back his black hair and cleared his throat, tawny skin glowing with a reddish tint. “How do you feel?”
Ned finally managed to take a deep breath and rested his weight on his elbows. “Sweaty like a man who just got his life saved. Don’t worry, your wife doesn’t need to know about this.” He dared a smile. Any traces of the earlier animosity evaporated. Something more happened as well, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. Ned pulled his pants up, trying to forget that his dick had started to fill out of the blue.
Cole cleared his throat and opened his flask, glancing at Ned again as he took a sip from it. “There’s no wife. I’m a free man.”
Ned reached out to Cole in a silent plea for drink. “Suppose a man like you wants to be liberal with his attentions.”
“Don’t want no children neither,” Cole said but offered Ned the flask. “This world we live in isn’t safe for anyone.”
Ned’s anxiety eased a little the moment liquor rolled down his throat. It tasted like whisky but had the aftertaste of something sweet. “I was inches away from never having children. The dang snake made a dash for my prick when I was pissing. Maybe it thought my cock invaded its hunting grounds?” He gave a nervous laugh and drank more than he should have in the company of an outlaw. He tried to divert his thoughts, but his mind kept returning to the way Cole’s lips had rubbed against his flesh. So he babbled on, spurred on by alcohol. “An oyster wouldn’t do that,” he said suggestively. Not that he’d seen a cooch in detail, but he’d heard of them. A lot. “An oyster wouldn’t try to snap at a man’s privates. If anything, you’d have to chase one to stick your cock in it. But a snake is always out to get you.”
Cole didn’t laugh, instead he looked thoughtful as he took another sip from the flask they shared. “I’ve heard of snakes found hunting together.”
The liquor helped Ned relax and once another sip made its way into his stomach, he couldn’t help but steal another glance at Cole. Cole Flores. Even his name had a ring to it. “‘Suppose it’s safer, more efficient to have a friend look out for you.” He nudged Cole with his boot.
The other man swallowed, his gaze never darting away from Ned. “My father could have used a friend like that years ago. You’re easy to kill when on your own.”
Ned remembered how remotely his own family had lived and how detrimental that had been to their eventual demise, but this wasn’t the time to wallow in his own suffering. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Cole shrugged. “It’s all right. Only remember glimpses of him. Was four years old when they shot him up. What about yours?”