The Third

"We shouldn't, not here," she gasped. But her body sought his independent of her brain.

"Mm, why not?"

"It's dirty!" she giggled, then put her mouth on his throat, his strong neck. He growled. He broke their embrace and pulled her down the aisle toward the bunk room.

She pulled back. "No, Baby, we shouldn't."

He grinned. "I think we should." He kissed her again, and it was a hard demand that shot fingers of sensation through her belly, into her sex. He knew. He slid his hand into her pants, curled his fingers and cupped her, and she went weak against him. "So wet for me, Beautiful," he murmured against her neck.

The door stood ajar. There was nothing personal about the little room. The cot was made up with old quilts from her linen closet, and everything was tidy, almost sterile. Elliot pushed her till the cot was against the backs of her knees, then he kissed his way down her body, over her clothes, pulling her jeans down as he went. He was on his knees, sliding his hands back up under her shirt over her breasts. He kissed the triangle of curly copper hair, then looked up at her and said, "Sit."

She gladly obeyed.

He spread her knees, and his tongue was inside her, exploring her walls, swirling and stroking. He moaned and purred and hummed, and she invited him deeper while his hands teased her breasts.

He moved to suck and bite her clit, lick and bite her thighs. He curled his fingers inside her. She rocked her head back and groaned.

Elliot's back was to the door. He didn't see the boy. But she did, caught the surprised then excited look in his eyes. She heard her own noises as though they were something apart from her. Elliot was stripped to his trousers, and when she begged for him, he unfastened them while he devoured her mouth, the taste and smell of herself strong on his face.

She watched the boy leaning casually, almost arrogantly against the door frame, his hand cupping and rubbing his jeans front, while Elliot slid inside her with his usual maddening, intoxicating control, teasing and leaving and coming back deeper. She took Elliot's face in her hands and looked into his eyes and told him she loved him. Their mouths met. Then she said softly, "I want him," and pointed at the door.

Elliot stilled and looked over his shoulder. They were two bull bears, sizing one another up. But there was no contest. It was clear Elliot was in charge. He slid back to her pussy, kissed her, licked her, and the boy came into the room and shrugged out of his clothes. Naked, he took her breath away. His broad shoulders tapered into a hard stomach, into a round ass, and his phallus was long and thick and upright with youth. His thighs bulged but his legs were graceful. Everything about him screamed rut. He stood behind them and stroked his shaft and waited.

Elliot looked at her. "What do you want?"

She pulled him up to her mouth and whispered in his ear. She could not bring herself to be heard, couldn't bear the thought of her voice in the midst of this, whatever this was. He kissed her and stroked her hair, looked into her eyes and told her he loved her, and not to be afraid. She was trembling. She didn't know if it was nerves or arousal. Did he?

She was afraid to look at the boy. Elliot moved to her side, his warm, known body stretched beside her, his foot gently caressing the length of her shin. He motioned to the boy. He leaned away from her and said something low, something that sounded like a threat and that she thought was a warning the boy wasn't to put his mouth on her.

The boy was just a cock. Elliot had said that. Elliot meant that.

The tension in the tiny room was thick as the sex, as the steamy odors of horses and green curing hay.

Anne couldn't look at the boy. She was thankful for the blouse that still partially covered her. She was self-conscious of her imperfect and aging body, the softness around her middle, the dimples on her thighs. She felt tears, and intense arousal and fear, and she kept her face turned toward Elliot. Elliot, who never made her feel less, always made her feel more. Elliot, who lived and breathed her when they were together. Elliot, with his soft round face and thick, forgiving body and beautiful cock that he joked didn't show up for the second half of puberty. Elliot, who was fiercely protective of her, but knew to respect the independence that ran through her core. She tried to read his face as she felt the boy's hands on her and she instinctively shrank from them, wanting, but afraid to want at the same time. They felt good, but they were not Elliot's hands. Fat tears skated over her cheeks.

Elliot stopped the boy and took Anne's face between his hands. He smiled at her and kissed the wet off her cheeks. "Do you want to stop, Beautiful?" he whispered. "Nothing happens that you don't want, do you understand?"

She nodded.

"Do you feel how hard I am for you right now?" He removed one hand to find hers and put it on his throbbing need. He cupped her face again, his eyes never leaving hers. "Feel me, Babe, " he whispered.

She kept her hold on him, stroking him, and with the other arm embraced his head and buried her face against his neck that smelled faintly of aftershave and Marlboros. He held her and rocked her, and she felt his hand on her breasts, pushing aside the fabric and gliding his palms over her nipples, awakening her body as only he could. He continued to stroke her and murmur reassurances against her hair, fucking her hand as their excitement built.

She focused on him, focused everything in her on Elliot. When she felt the boy's hands on her belly and thighs, and then between her legs, they were disconnected from everything but Elliot and the sensations racing through her body. She arched and moaned, opened her mouth on Elliot's throat, and let his scent and heat engulf her while the hands on her brought her to near climax, the fingers on her clit, inside her, on her breasts, and Elliot's hips thrusting against her hand.

She whispered his name, and he said, "Yes, Beautiful?"

She could only groan and will him to understand what she needed.

He kissed her hard, filled her mouth with his tongue, before leaving and putting his hand over hers on his phallus, and pointing at her chest and saying something else quiet to the boy.

The boy complied and straddled her midsection and gently lifted and pressed her heavy breasts up and together. Elliot's hand squeezed hers, reassuring her, and he looked in her eyes and gauged her reaction. He kept their fingers laced when he moved behind the boy, and at the same time Juan pushed his swollen member between her breasts, she felt Elliot's familiar mouth on her sex, and she sighed and shuddered deep in the center of herself. She kept a tight hold on his hand; he made her feel like she was the center of this thing that was happening.

The boy pumped his hips against her breasts, and she felt a boldness afforded by the intense levels of arousal; she took the tip of him into her mouth. He groaned, and his body started to fold forward, but Elliot's mouth left her for a moment, and the boy sat up, and kept his rhythm slow, almost gentle.

Elliot's hand let go, and he touched her thighs, guiding her legs over his shoulders. Then her thighs were sandwiched between their bodies, and Elliot filled her and began pushing her; she saw one of Elliot's hands on the boy's hip; she could tell by their rhythms that he was syncing them up, that he was directing the boy at his pace, because Elliot knew what she needed, how long it took, and how to give the most pleasure. The boy's thrusting through her breasts into her mouth soon perfectly matched Elliot's into her pussy, and the feelings were exquisite.

The rhythms escalated until she was falling over the edge into sweeping indigo waves. She let her head fall back and let the sounds out of her body that were as much a part of her climax as the clenching muscles and crackling bolts of electricity running the length of her limbs. The boy was suddenly gone and it was Elliot's beautiful face above her, and he was coming with her, pushing her beyond any physical boundary she'd ever erected for herself. His mouth devoured her throat, her breastbone, covered hers and swallowed her almost panicked cries. She clasped her body around him, her arm, legs, pussy, and held on for what felt like her very life.

The boy didn't return. When the world came back into focus, he was gone. They'd left the bunk room for their own bed and slept the sleep of the spent until well after dawn. When Anne finally made it to the barn, she saw his possessions, meager though they were, cleared from the bunk room. She knew he wouldn't be back, and felt both relief and disappointment.

She pulled the bedding off the cot and carried it to the house. Elliot poured a cup of coffee at the counter, stirred in cream and sugar, and turned to look at her.

"He's gone?" he asked.

She nodded, shoving the bedding into the washing machine hidden behind a slatted door between the great room and kitchen.

"Are you happy about that?" Elliot sipped the coffee.

They hadn't said much about the experience. She shrugged. Talking about it might make it real. Or unreal. She wasn't sure which was worse.

"Come sit," he said. There was something in his quiet voice that she obeyed without question. She followed him into the living room and sat beside him on the couch. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him, and she felt his mouth against her hair. "Tell me what you're feeling, Beautiful."

How could she tell him something she didn't know? "I think maybe I'll miss him." Her voice cracked a little. She cleared her throat, and he handed her his coffee cup. She took a sip and grimaced at the sweetness of it. He took it back and grinned at her.

"Is that okay?" she said.

"What, that you'll miss him? Honey, whatever you feel about it is okay. You feel what you feel."

"But maybe I'm also glad he's gone. I don't know that I could have faced him."

He kissed her hair again, and she felt safe. "I get that too."

"Would you have let him stay?"

His answer was quick. "No."

She sat up and looked at him. "Why not?"

His brow furrowed and he took another drink. Cleared his throat. He had that intent look as though he were selecting and testing his words like picking out produce at the market. "It would have been awkward."

She snorted. "Since when are you bothered by that?" she accused. "No, really. Why not?"

He looked at her, reached up and thumbed across her jaw and chin. "I think I'd be a little jealous. I think it would be too easy for you to be with him, without me, after something like that. I'd worry you felt more for him." His eyes were serious, dark. It was insecure Elliot speaking, and it made her want to hold and comfort and assure him. But she was too unsure of her own standing.

"Feel more for him than for you?" She whispered it, but her incredulity still came through. "I didn't-- don't feel anything for him, Baby."

"I think I know that." He tried to smile, but it just made him look more sad.

She caught his face between her hands and kissed him. Kissed him over and over. "There's no room for anyone but you."

"An experience like that changes the dynamics of relationships," he said when she released him. "And even if I could have gotten over my feelings, and gotten past the awkward moments, there would still be that matter of whether we allowed it to happen again, if we let him keep watching, if we let him just come and go at will. Far too complicated."

She nodded. "We'd have had to make rules."

"Right, and we'd have had to consider his feelings while making them, which would personalize him."

"And he wouldn't, couldn't be just a cock," she finished.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the sun filtering through the picture window, watching the horses grazing in the short wet grass.

"Would you do it again?" she asked.

He didn't hesitate. "Fuck yeah. I think that's the hottest thing I've ever experienced, seeing you like that. You?"

"Yes. I think so. Under the right circumstances."

"As in?"

She shrugged. "I just always need to feel you there. It has to be about you and me. I'm not a whore, Elliot."

He grabbed her close, "Annie!"

She twisted and met his eyes. "I'm not!"

"God, who said you were? Do you think I see you any differently?"

When she tried to look away, he caught her face and made her look at him. "Do you think I see you differently?" he repeated, carefully and quietly enunciating each word.

"Maybe. I loved the way it felt."

He let her face go and pulled her against him again, so tightly she had a hard time breathing. "You were supposed to love the way it felt. That was the whole point. That was our purpose, mine and his, to give you the most pleasure you could possibly experience."

She stayed silent.

"Nothing has changed, Beautiful. Not between you and me. Your happiness is all I care about."

She still wondered vaguely in the back of her mind how he could not see her differently, but she believed him. She always believed him, because he always spoke the truth. "Thank you, Baby," she finally whispered.

They sat for awhile longer while the sun climbed in the sky. He never loosened his hold on her. She thought if they stayed like this for the rest of their lives, resting in the clutch of their love for one another, life would be pretty close to perfect.

"I have a lot of work to do, since it's just me today," she finally said.

He squeezed her. "I'll give you a hand, Beautiful. And when we're done, we can ride into town and put in a help-wanted."