Stonegate Stables - 36. Chapter 36

The alarm went off at six, startling all three of us. During the night we had shifted positions. I was on my back, as usual, with Vincent on his side facing away from me, his warm butt against my right hip. Danny was facing me, one hand lightly holding my upper arm, his drawn-up knees pressed into my leg.

“Morning,” I told him with a smile, as he blinked sleepily at me. "Sleep okay?"

"Uh-huh," he said, stifling a yawn.

Vincent rolled over and climbed on top of me, humping his morning hard-on into mine with lots of exaggerated huffing and puffing. Danny chuckled at him until Vincent slid over onto him and did the same thing. Danny’s mouthed dropped open in surprise and he grabbed Vincent’s ass to increase the pressure. I watched Vincent’s face go from silly to serious as he felt Danny’s fat cock against his own.

“No time for that, boys,” I reminded them, smacking Vincent on the ass with the flat of my hand. He rolled off Danny to go start the shower, and I followed with Danny trailing behind, rubbing his fat dick with one hand.

"Jesus, Sean," he suddenly exclaimed.

I turned to him, startled. "What?"

"You can see the marks from my hands last night. I bruised you."

I twisted around to look at my left hip where small purple marks from his four fingertips marred my otherwise white butt. Vincent turned me by the shoulder so he could see them, and then grinned at Danny.

"Hot," he commented, and climbed into the shower.

We made it downstairs in time for breakfast with Matt, who had come home sometime after we'd gone to bed. He gave Danny a long look, a slight smile widening his mouth as he watched him dive into a stack of Maria's blueberry pancakes. I hugged Matty from behind and planted a noisy kiss in his ear, laughing as he flinched and swatted at me.

As Danny was chewing his last bite of sausage, Matt left the room and came back to hand him a pencil drawing in a small frame. In it, a man had his back to the viewer, standing next to a horse, bent over with a rear hoof between his spread legs. You could see the suggestion of his heavy thigh muscles, corded with the effort of holding the horse steady.

Danny studied it carefully, comprehension slowly dawning on his face as he realized who it was.

"That's me?" he asked in amazement, looking up into Matt's smiling face.

"Yes, Danny, it's you. Who'd you think it was?"

"God, I don't know." He looked more closely at the alluring curves of his ass molded by the snug denim of his jeans, and started to grin. "That's really what I look like?"

I nodded, looking over his shoulder at the drawing as I reached for his butt with both hands. "Yes. You have a world-class ass. Why do you think we all wanna hold horses for you? We practically fight over who gets to do it each Tuesday. Can't beat the view."

I gave him a good squeeze, and he actually blushed, his face and neck going a deep pink as he tried to maintain his cool. "Well, shit. Thanks, Matt. I, uh, I'll hang it in my new room."

We explained Danny's relocation to Matt, who watched Danny's face go still as thoughts of his argument with his dad came back.

“Your dad may come around and he may not,” Matt commented, “but even if he doesn’t, you’ll be okay, Danny. I didn’t have any family at all until Vincent found me and brought me home to Sean.” He paused, glancing at the two of us with a warm smile. “Your real family doesn’t have to be the one you were born into. Sometimes your friends love you more.”

I looked at him, thinking what a wonderful thing to say - then looked at Danny, who was staring intently at Matt. “He’s right, you know," I confirmed. "You have the three of us, TJ, Wade and Cody, Adam, Gabriel, Jesse and Ben. That’s a pretty good start.”

Danny nodded as he looked down at the drawing in his hands. He blew out a long breath, and then looked up at Matt. “Thanks.”

Matt smiled as he pulled Danny into a hug, his slender frame almost disappearing in the circle of Danny’s muscular arms. “You’ll be okay,” he told Danny again. Matt broke the embrace after a few moments, explaining that he needed to get out to David’s before the light went flat. Danny watched him go, and then glanced at the drawing one more time before looking up to me.

“Nice kid.”

“He’s a great kid,” I agreed.

We all trooped out to the garage - me with a cooler full of leftovers for Kelly, Vincent with a briefcase full of restaurant paperwork, and Danny with a heart full of our love. We did goodbye hugs and kisses with Vincent getting carried away in Danny’s mouth until I cleared my throat. He turned to me with a grin, devouring me with lusty growls as I giggled and fought him a little.

Danny shook his head with a laugh. “You two are…..." He shrugged, unable to come up with a suitable adjective. "Thanks a lot for everything. I mean it, Sean,” he added seriously. “I don’t know what I woulda done without you.”

“Well, if you'd never asked for that blowjob, you’d probably be happily married right now.”

He shook his head ruefully, huffing out a breath. “Nah. Even with the hassles with my old man, this beats that all to hell.” He paused for a moment, then a grin slid across his face. “Last night was better than…… anything.”

“Tip of the iceberg,” Vincent assured him.

“Yeah, I know,” Danny said, the grin getting wider. “I been looking on the internet.”

On that note, we all left for work.

We got Danny moved in on Friday. He didn’t have much furniture, so I sent Gabriel and one of the stable boys to help him. There were two master suites in William's old home - one at either end of the house. TJ had settled into one, and Gabriel had taken the other. Each had a slightly smaller room next to it. Danny had chosen the one at Gabriel's end of the house, a sunny room that looked over the meadow, and in the distance, the barns of Stonegate. I stopped by on Sunday to make sure he was settled in okay, and to take him a housewarming 6-pack of beer.

He answered the door in cutoff jeans and a white muscle tank, and I forgot my own name for a moment.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed when I'd recovered my voice. "If you shoed horses like that, we could charge admission."

He laughed, shaking his head at me as he stepped back to let me in. We hugged, and he led me down the hall to his room, nicely filled up with several pieces of old oak furniture, all in the same style. A tall dresser was against the wall opposite a lovely sleigh bed. Next to the door to the patio, sat a large rocker and a big desk took up one corner.

Matt’s drawing of Danny's butt was hanging over the desk, next to a picture of Danny with his mom and dad. It had been taken at a rodeo twenty-odd years ago when he was seven or eight. He had on boots, chaps, and a big old cowboy hat, and was standing in front of his father with his dad’s hands resting on his shoulders.

I’d never met his mother - she’d died when Danny was twelve - so I studied her as Danny put the beer in a small fridge next to the desk. He’d gotten his looks from her - the black wavy hair, the shape of his face, his full mouth. She was pretty.

Danny’s dad was built solid like Danny, with strong legs and wide shoulders. His ears stuck out a little under his hat, and he was smiling at the camera. Danny came and stood next to me, gazing silently at the photo. When I glanced at him, he turned to me, his expression one of resignation. I put a hand on his bare shoulder, feeling the heat of his body as I spoke to him.

"Don't give up on him, Danny. Stay in touch and let him get used to the idea."

He nodded, and walked out onto the patio where we sat and talked for a while. He loved the house and his view of the fields, and said he'd probably like to stay if it was really okay with me. I assured him that it was, and when I got up to leave, he gave me a long hug, no passion in it, just a warm embrace that I returned in kind.

"You're a lucky son of a bitch, Sean," he said as he walked me to my car. When I raised an eyebrow at him, he waved a hand to indicate our surroundings. "Everything. Stonegate, Vincent. You got it all."

I nodded as I replied, "Yeah, and as much as I love Stonegate, I'd chuck it in a heartbeat for Vincent."

"Good choice," he laughed, and leaned into the window to kiss me goodbye.

The rest of August and early September went by in a blur of rodeo preparations, another gymkhana, and TJ’s birthday.

Danny came for dinner every Tuesday, and we played in the hot tub each time. Matt joined us once, staying out of the action, but jerking off with us at the end. Danny was developing a wicked blow job, and I helped him discover the joys his ass could provide.

The first time, he was standing on the ledge with his dick in Vincent's mouth, bent over like Vincent had been that first time, which put his ass at the perfect height to play with. I started by sliding my hands up his legs and massaging his beautiful, round butt. Then I lubed up my finger with spit and began to rub his hole lightly, getting him used to the idea. When he started to push back into it, I pressed slowly in, feeling him tighten, then relax.

He stopped fucking Vincent's mouth, and his breath quickened as I slid my finger all the way in. All three of us were motionless for a few seconds, and then I began to reverse course. He groaned and squatted slightly, his mouth hanging open as he panted.

"Goddamn, that feels good," he growled, grunting each time I slid into him. I stroked him slowly, but between Vincent's mouth and my finger, he didn't last two minutes, spewing cum all over Vincent as his body jerked. He spent the night once, but didn't seem inclined to fuck around, so I didn't push it. He was a little quieter than he'd been in the past, a little more introspective, but he was relaxed and comfortable with us, and seemed to be doing all right.

Gabriel, on the other hand, was fit to be tied. That Wednesday I'd told him and TJ that Danny was moving in. TJ said, "Cool," and went back to work, but Gabriel found me later in my office.

"How long's he gonna stay?"

"I have no idea. I told him he could make it permanent if it suited him. That okay with you?"

"Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. What bedroom's he gonna take?"

"I don't know," I said carefully. "Which one would you like him to take?"

I was getting curious now. Gabriel had never opened up to me; I knew as little about him now as I did back when he started working here. Obviously, Danny moving in was a big deal to him.

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I, uh, I'll help him move, if you like," he offered, trying not to look too eager.

"That'd be great. I was going to ask you. Take the four-horse and one of the boys. Check with Tommy."

I stared at the doorway for a while after he'd left, wondering what was up with him. He'd had TJ right there - gorgeous and willing - but he hadn't made a move, at least nothing TJ interpreted as a move. Maybe Danny was more his style. I mentally shrugged and went back to filling out sale papers on a horse that Amanda wanted to unload, hoping that the three of them would get along.

The rodeo was scheduled for the second Saturday in September, and on Tuesday, cowboys started showing up, parking their rigs in the big pasture. Most of these guys traveled from rodeo to rodeo, usually with a buddy to share the expenses - someone to talk to on the long drives and the lonely nights. Wednesday afternoon, I was in the back room of the concession stand, bent over a table sorting entries, when I heard a gravelly voice.

"Thought I recognized that prime piece a ass," Levi drawled, patting my butt as he came into the room.

He'd lost a few pounds since I'd seen him in Amarillo, and he looked good. He'd shaved off his beard, but had kept a long handlebar mustache, gray like his hair, and it suited his rugged features. He looked like something out of Lonesome Dove. Looking at him fired up all my cowboy/daddy fantasies, and my dick perked up. He wrapped me up in a hug, and since he was the size of Wade, it was a big hug.

"You just pull in?" I asked.

He nodded his head out the door, smothering a jaw breaking yawn. "Yup. Came over to piss, then I was gonna unload the horses and take a nap. Been a long day for all three of us."

"Well, go piss, then follow me back out onto the road, and up to the stable. You can put the horses in the barn, and stay at my place, if you want, instead of camping out in your trailer."

"I'll take you up on that. All I need's a shower and a bed."

"Well, we'll feed you, too," I assured him.

We got the grateful horses bedded down in the western barn, and then he followed me to the house. It was almost three, so he took a quick shower and fell into bed with a promise for me to wake him for dinner. He was snoring before I left the room, and I thought, not for the first time, that following the circuit - any circuit - isn't an easy life.

Since it was Wednesday, David was there for dinner. Vincent had brought home a tray of lasagna, and we made a big salad and lots of garlic bread to go with it. I let Levi sleep until about fifteen minutes before meal time, and then sent Matt up to wake him. Matt came back into the kitchen a few minutes later with mussed hair and a flustered smile. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Friendly guy," he said, with a chuckle.

Levi wandered in five minutes later wearing low-slung Levis with the top button undone, a cowboy shirt hanging open over his hairy chest, and bare feet. As I began to introduce him, David turned toward Levi and stopped dead as his eyes widened slightly. Apparently, I wasn't the only one with cowboy fantasies.

They shook hands at first, looking at each other for a moment before Levi pulled him into a hug. David flushed as Levi squeezed him, waving a buttery knife in one hand while the other fisted in the back of Levi's shirt. He staggered a little when Levi let go of him, clutching the counter with his free hand. He blinked a couple times, and then went back to the garlic bread, re-buttering two pieces before he got a grip. Levi watched him with a smile, looking him up and down.

We ate on the patio as Levi told rodeo stories. He was a natural-born story teller, embellishing the tales just enough that you weren't quite sure if it really happened that way or not. We laughed our way through dinner and dessert, and then wandered down to the hot tub for a while before bed. Levi shucked his jeans and shirt with abandon, tossing them over his shoulder as he got naked as quickly as possible and hopped into the warm water.

"Ah, Jesus," he sighed, giving me a tired smile. "I need to give up this traveling shit and get me one a these."

David was across the tub from Levi, but after a few minutes, Levi moved over next to him. I watched as they talked quietly, Levi keeping his eyes on David, and David glancing up at him now and then, obviously nervous, but intrigued. From what David had told me of his previous partner, Levi seemed an unlikely successor, but who can argue with chemistry, right?

Around ten, we headed back up to the house. Levi walked David to his car, and was gone for several minutes. He came back in looking thoughtful, but just thanked me for my hospitality before he went up to bed.

I spent a good portion of Thursday at the rodeo grounds taking in the atmosphere. The pasture had turned into a gypsy campground, with horses staked out everywhere and laundry strung from truck to truck as the cowboys caught up on their housekeeping. I wandered around talking to them as they did their chores. They all knew each other, and the bullshit flew fast and furious.

The livestock arrived that morning and the bulls were magnificent; huge, scary-looking creatures in all different colors, some with humps, some with horns. They came off the truck one after another, moving along the chutes into the pens I'd had built. I punched Vincent's number on my cell as I walked slowly to the fence, stopping a few feet away when the bull closest to me lowered his head and snorted.

"Hey, can you get away for an hour?" I asked him.

"Jesus, Sean, we just fucked this morning," he laughed, and then a bull bellowed about three feet from me. "What the hell was that?"

"A bull. You need to come see them, they're amazing."

He showed up twenty minutes later, his chef's whites sparkling in the morning sun. He joined me at the fence, staring at the two-thousand pound nightmare on the other side of the stout rails.

"My god…… I had no idea. They're enormous. Look at the size of his balls. They're giving me an inferiority complex."

They did have humongous testicles - orbs the size of baseballs swung pendulously in a foot-long scrotum. Made you wonder what the cock looked like that went with them.

That evening after dinner, Levi suggested we go back out to the campground. Vincent and I piled into his truck, and as we got closer, I could see the glow of a campfire. They'd dug a pit and had a nice blaze going, about thirty of them sitting around it in small groups. Some were chatting while others stared into the flames with the lonesome expressions of men far from home.

Levi pulled his guitar out of the truck as I set up the lawn chairs we'd brought. One guy had a banjo on his knee, and nodded at Levi as we sat down. He began to pluck out a melody, and Levi picked it up, singing along in his gruff voice. Vincent draped his arm across the back of my chair, rubbing his thumb up and down my arm as he hummed along. It was a wonderful way to spend the evening, sitting there under the stars listening to a medley of voices harmonizing from the shadowy edges of the fire’s light.

Friday I saddled up Calvin and rode him through the fields. About a quarter mile from the livestock pens, he stopped dead, his head high and his nostrils flaring as he scented the bulls. I gave him a few minutes to get used to it, but when I asked him to go forward, he planted his feet in the dirt and wouldn't budge. This was a horse brave enough to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he wanted nothing to do with the bulls.

I finally got him moving again, and we circled away from the pens, riding instead through the campground. Calvin was almost a foot taller at the withers than most of the Quarter horses staked out in the pasture, and he got long looks from a few of the cowboys. One guy squinted at me for a second before smiling in recognition.

"That the horse was in the papers back in December? Almost won that jumpin' thang?" he drawled, referring to that crazed photo of Calvin and me that had made the news. I nodded. "Looks a might more calm now, both of you."

I laughed. "Yeah, that was a wild ride."

I continued on, and by the time we came to the bulls, Calvin was ready to stand still and look at them. He was tense under me, his sides quivering between my legs, but he stood his ground, snorting loudly every time one of them bellowed.

Vincent and I had a quiet evening. It had cooled down abruptly late in the day, so we lit a fire in the den and took our supper of Maria's enchilada soup in there, sitting on the floor with our backs against the couch and our bowls on the coffee table. When we finished, he pulled me up onto the couch so that we were facing each other. The flames flickered on one side of his face as he took my hands.

"My dad wants to retire." He gazed steadily at me as he continued. "Says it's time for the next generation to start doing the work."

I laughed - Vincent had been running Corleone's for years. "And you want to buy the restaurant."

"I want us to be partners in it, along with Tony."

"Really…… Isn't it a family-held deal?"

"Jesus, Sean, you're family."

"You know what I mean. What about your twenty other cousins? Don't they want a piece of it?"

"We had a big family meeting this afternoon after Dad made his announcement. Everybody's okay with you, me, and Tony buying him out." He squeezed my hands. "What do you think? Wanna add a restaurant to your holdings? Free garlic bread for life….." he tempted me with a grin when I didn’t reply immediately.

I agreed, of course, and we spent some time discussing the details - lawyers, money, timing. He was yakking away about changing the daily lunch specials, waving his hands in the air like he did when he got excited about something. I watched him, thinking that Danny had been right – I was a lucky son of a bitch.

"….does that sound?" he finished, then frowned at me. "You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

"Something about lasagna," I replied as I pushed him over backwards and climbed onto him. He started to protest my lack of interest in menu changes, but by then I had his dick out and he shut up to better enjoy my blow job.