Chapter Seventeen

As Dallas lay in only his underwear, Marius watched him from the doorway while Ruben was showering. He was reading something on his phone, his head lying over his bicep, the pillow forgotten.

Ruben came to the doorway of the bathroom, and he, too, watched Dallas. His eyes were watching Dallas closely, heated. Marius knew exactly what he was feeling.

Dallas licked his lower lip after smiling over something he'd read. His blond hair was tousled from the wind outside and the sex inside the house, and his ankles crossed casually while he moved only enough to become more comfortable.

His free hand rubbed over his perfect stomach, the light hairs over his chest and stomach catching the light, making him sparkle like a stripper ready to do a show on the main stage.

The black underwear fit perfectly over his round globes, long legs stretched and muscled even while he relaxed. That was a gay man's dream. Well, it was his dream.

Then there was Ruben. The guy was amazing looking, this face that was chiseled like a sculpture. Sharp, high cheekbones that left his face long, and his big, beautiful eyes were filled with mischief and sweetness in equal measure. His hair was thick and dark as midnight that shone in the sunlight, but in the doorway, it only managed to frame his face like a fine painting framed in onyx. Man, the first time he'd seen Ruben, he wanted him. Now, it was a lot more.

Two men, two beautiful, sexy men who both wanted him. After all the backroom trysts, he'd finally found not one, but two men that he'd do anything for.

Dallas looked over to him and said in a husky, sexually heavy voice, "You coming in?"

"That look in your eye…it tells me I'll be riding in pain tomorrow if I go over there."

"Ya, that's what I'm thinking. Maybe I'll be nice and bring a pillow along."

Marius walked into the room while pulling the shirt over his head and discarding it on the floor. He crawled onto the mattress that Dallas had asked for and promptly got after the night they'd spent on the hardwood. Once he was down on the mattress, sitting with his legs kicked over beside him, Dallas's eyes grew dark and malicious.

"How about I'm real nice and just let you fuck the hell out of his mouth again?"

With a chuckle, Marius turned his head and eyes to Ruben, who paled a bit. "I'd like that just fine."

Dallas sat up, glowering over at their smaller companion. "What do you think of that?"

"What were my safewords again?"

Marius laughed at that. "So soon we forget. Conveniently."

There was a shy little smile on his lips that his darkening eyes snitched wasn't real. Ruben could play a part, that was for sure. He was a total brat that played the sweet, shy boy that couldn't possibly manipulate the two of them. Marius and Dallas both knew better.

Before any fun could start, however, Dallas got a call. He held up his finger to wait for him, and answered, "This is Dal."

After listening, he nodded as if the caller could see him.

"Got it. I'll be there and I'll bring some help." He started to get to his feet as he told them. "We have gotten our grain load in early, and the truck driver needs to get back on the road to pick up another load bound for Nebraska. We have twenty-five thousand pounds of grain to unload and only one forklift."

"How much?" Ruben squeaked.

"Yeah, a lot, but it's for the horse and the cattle. It's organic grains, all varieties, so the diet for the cattle we have, their calves and the new cattle coming into the ranch will have a good head start on organic shit."

"Are we getting more cattle?" Ruben asked as he started to get dressed.

Marius grabbed his shirt off the floor and Dallas threw him his corduroy jacket. "Here, you'll need this." To Ruben, he answered, "Not until spring, but Hunter wanted us to get them used to it. We can't sell the cattle we have because of the hormones and drugs Harrison has us pumping into them, but we can start off getting some of the other crap out of their systems and have a nice clean slate for the calves when they're born."

"They're already grass-fed, with all the land," Ruben explained to Marius, who was clueless what they were talking about. "Then, in winter, they get supplemented with grain and hay. It's winter."

"It's fucking September," he said, broken that it was about to be a hellscape of snow and ice.

His two guys both laughed at the city boy. Dallas ever jeered, "Wait until we're snowed in for a week. It happens all the time."

"That don't sound so bad."

Ruben scoffed, "We still have to work, so we dig out."

Marius pictured the house covered entirely with snow, and them digging out tunnels. If it was that bad, he was going to bow out of the entire ranch. "Dig…out. You dig out?"

"Got to," Dallas said, then headed for the door the second his boots were on his feet.

They were all redressed and headed for the main floor, Dallas practically running down the stairs. They traveled together to the barn to see the semi in front of it and all the hands. As Mary Sue deftly ran the forklift, taking the pallets off the truck, the hands were cutting the plastic that covered them and taking two or three bags each into the barn.

Marius pitched in with them all, but his eyes kept moving to his men.

Again, as much as he could, he watched them. Dallas, of course, outdid everyone, taking three and hour bags at once. Even with a T-shirt covering his chest, Marius saw the muscles moving under it, the sweat spreading between his pecs and down his hard back.

No slouch himself, Ruben wasn't carrying as many bags, but he was faster than all of them, taking two at a time, but returning so fast that he was doing twice the carries of the rest of the hands, him included.

He started carrying four, like Dallas, and knew he'd feel that in the morning. He worked out daily, weights, and cardio, but he'd never in his life did the work that the men on the ranch did. He used muscles he'd forgotten he had.

When they got back to the house, it was late and they were exhausted. Sleeping together wasn't abnormal for them, but that night, it was different. Dallas was in the middle, his arms stretched out under both Marius and Ruben. They clung to him like he was their big, furless teddy bear.

He snored a little, which was cute rather than annoying, and Ruben mumbled in his sleep. Marius could never make out words, but it was adorable.

The light of the moon shined through the window, right on the two of them as Marius watched, memorizing every detail of their faces. He began to silently laugh when Ruben's lips parted and he drooled on an unsuspecting Dallas.

When he did fall asleep, he evendreamed of them. It was incredible to him, the guy that had never dreamed of a guy that wasn't a sex dream. That one? They were walking together, through a town that had yet to be built, being greeted by other happy couples and throuples, out in the open, admired, genuinely liked.

He woke to hear an argument. That brought him out of sleep hard, and he groaned a little before he heard a crash and the shattering of glass. He was on his feet and running to the bathroom, seeing Ruben standing in the middle of a floor that was riddled with shards of glass.

"What the living fuck happened?"

"Fuck," Dallas said and then pointed to Ruben. "Don't move!" Marius watched in awe as the big cowboy walked right over broken glass to Ruben, grabbing him up in his arms and walking back to the doorway of the bathroom, shoving him into Marius's arms. "Take him."

Leaving a trail of bloody footprints in his wake, Dallas left, muttering loudly, "I fucking hope some dumbass thought of leaving a goddamned broom around here! Fuck!"

Marius took Ruben to the mattress and gently placed him there. "What happened?"

"It was my fault. My temper."

"I heard you both yelling."

Ruben was guilt-ridden, and tears fell from his eyes. "I can't believe I broke the shower door. It was so beautiful."

"Why did you break it?"

Ruben shook his head and whispered, "I want to go look around the property, like you both are doing." His voice began to rise with every word after that. "I could have taken one of the other hands, but he freaked out and told me no! Like he has a fucking say!"

Marius sighed heavily. "He does have a fucking say, dumbass! He's your boss!"

Ruben opened his mouth to argue, but then it slowly closed as he realized Marius was right. "I…I thought he was just being a bossy boyfriend."

Marius kissed his forehead. "He is a bossy boyfriend too, Ruben. Have you never had a dominant man before? They tend to be pretty bossy, and you happen to have two of them now."

"You don't boss me around."

"I haven't yet, no. Dallas took me by surprise, being more dominant than I am, and I'm enjoying trying to be the submissive for him. Like right now. We should be helping him to clean up that mess and take a look at his feet."

Ruben jumped up like a five pound spider was after him and he ran for his shoes, slipping them on before he went into the hallway to start searching the linen closet for a first aid kit.

"I think he's got one in his truck," Marius called to him.

"Right!" Ruben yelled and he heard his footfalls on the stairs.

Dallas was back, still cursing, "Mother fuckers didn't leave a broom. How the fuck do you clean up construction debris without a fucking broom?"

He started to head back into the bathroom, but Marius stopped him and ordered him for one. "Go sit the fuck down on the bed. We're gonna look at those feet."

Dallas must have been so angry, he hadn't noticed he was bleeding all over the floor. "Fuck! I'm sure the mother fuckers didn't leave a mop either!"

Dallas sat, but he was pissed, and Marius was becoming so. "What has you so damn mad?"

"I knew this was going to happen, Marius! I fucking knew me fucking my employee was going to cause problems! I knew it, but there I was, falling in love with the little mother fucker and now he thinks I will give him special privileges and send him out into the land, when men are fucking going missing!"

That was a lot to take in, but Marius went through it quickly and knew what the real problems were. He looked over the soles of Dallas's feet, which had at least five cuts, but there didn't seem to be any glass inbedding in them.

"These aren't bad, I don't think you'll need stitches, but they'll need bandaging. How long since your last tetanus shot?"

"Two years. Stepped on a fucking nail."

"Good enough," he said, then his eyes cut to Dallas's face. "Are you…still pissed?"

"Am I an asshole for not wanting him out there, even with me?"

Without hesitation, he answered, "No. I don't either. We're not giving him credit for being able to take care of himself, Dallas."

"His sister has been looking out for him forever. I…I'm afraid for him."

"Me too, but sometimes we have to keep those feelings to ourselves."

Dallas grunted, his eyes sliding to the window. "If anything happened to him, I'd never forgive myself."

"It could happen here too. We can't be these overbearing assholes or we'll lose him."

"Me, you mean."

"No," he said, cleaning more blood from Dallas's feet. "Both. I'm glad I'm not his boss. I wouldn't let him go, no matter what he wanted."

"Prick," he said, then sighed. "Okay, I'll take him tomorrow with me, but that's it. Not with anyone else."

"Okay," Ruben said from the doorway before he walked through and handed the first aid kit to Marius. "I…I overheard you guys. You just care about me, right?"

Dallas hooked a finger and wagged it to call Ruben over to him, and Ruben got on the mattress and he was immediately pulled into Dallas's arms. "I'm fucking sorry, man. That was uncalled for."

"I broke the glass. I'm sorry, Dallas. I'm already ruining our new house."

"It's not ruined, but I do think I'll ask to replace it with a rod and shower curtain."

Marius smiled as the two made up from what he guessed was the first fight they'd ever had.

As they kissed, Marius took the first aid kit and got antibiotic ointment and bandages on them. "Good thing you're riding today. I wouldn't suggest you try to walk."

"They're scratches."

"If you don't mind your feet all cut up, then you are definitely a pain-loving slut, and Ruben and I should be whipping your ass."

"No, no, no," he said, then kissed Ruben a little more.

Marius couldn"t help but smile at them. "Ruben, go take your shower, if that's what you were doing, and then get your butt to work. We'll see you later."

Ruben winked seductively at Dallas then moved off the mattress and leaned over to kiss Marius. "Yes, sir. I live to serve."

After smacking his ass when he stood up straight, Marius laughed darkly. "I'll see a lot of you later, sweetie pie."

Ruben playfully wiggled his ass. "You definitely will."

Dallas got his boots on, but despite trying to act so tough, he winced when he did it. Marius helped him down the stairs, and he groaned, "Some big tough Dom I am."

"Tougher than fuck. I'd be in bed crying about my feet, and you're still determined to go to work."

"I can't take a day off. I'm the damn boss and I don't even know what all that means anymore."

"Yeah, you do. Everyone from Jace to Dante is impressed by you. Stop worrying."

"Yeah, whatever," he said and Marius knew he was in his own head again, worrying over things that he shouldn't be. For that, Marius knew he needed some relief, and sex didn't seem to take all the stress. He needed more.

After helping Dallas into the passenger side truck, all while he bitched and moaned about wanting to drive, Marius went around and got in behind the wheel and told him, "Hush. Let someone fucking help you."

"I don't need help driving."

"Sure, you do, and you aren't going to like riding a horse today either." He started the truck and got them on their way before he said, "Get on the phone and have someone saddle the horses or whatever the hell they do."

"Good lord, what are you doing on a ranch?" Dallas asked, laughing.

"Falling for two guys that are crazy country boys, that's what."

"Fair point. Okay, I'll have someone saddle the horses for us."

Marius laughed triumphantly. "Good boy."

"You are fucking pushing it." He set his phone to his ear and when someone answered, Dallas grunted, "Hey, get two horses saddled for me, both calm ones. Gentleman Jack and Frosty will work."

He listened a bit then ended the call without saying goodbye.

As Marius drove, Dallas slapped his leg suddenly and said, "Holy fuck. Holy fuck, I just had a great idea!"

Marius swerved and corrected as he cussed up a storm. "What the fuck? You scared me."

"Big tough mobster."

"Wiseguy. We prefer to be called wiseguys."

"That's not just a movie thing? Hell, that's weird."

"Yeah, cowpoke, cowpuncher, shit kicker."

"Touche, okay? Now, do you want to hear my brilliant idea?"

Marius laughed and said, "Sure."

"A fucking stagecoach. A stagecoach!"

Confused, Marius glanced over at him, seeing how his chest puffed out with the idea. "What about it?"

Huffing, "We were wondering about little buses and stuff to take the guests to and front the cabins where they're staying, and now that they've decided to make the club itself farther from the little town, they would need transportation for the guests. Instead of a bus, why not an old-fashioned stagecoach?"

Marius's foot came off the accelerator, he was so shocked. "That is fucking brilliant! The guests would love that shit!"

"It's supposed to take the modern world away, right? What better than not having some ugly bus traveling town?'

"That's the best idea for the town yet. It can stop in front of the hotel, in front of the saloon, or the shops and then go to the cabins to pick up more guests, drop them off? Fuck, I'll call Dante and Jace while you're doing your meeting."

"Damn. Some days, I feel terribly brilliant. Others, I feel like an idiot, thrown in a job I was never meant to have."

Marius's heart just slammed in his chest. The man needed some confidence. "I get it. We all feel that way sometimes, but, Dallas, please know that you're amazing at this already. I'm not saying that because we're together. I'm saying it because it's true."

Dallas gave him a shy smile that was the loveliest thing he may have ever seen. Those light lashes lying over his blushing cheeks was right up there, though.

As Dallas limped into the bunkhouse, Marius got his phone from his pocket and called Jace. "Marius, hey, what's up?"

"Dallas had a fucking genius idea just now. You know how we were talking the other day about how to get the guests from points A, B, and C?'

"Sure."

"Stagecoach."

He listened but didn't hear anything at first, then Jace began to laugh, and the laughing raised in volume the longer it went. Before he said anything to Marius, he hollered for Roland, "Dallas just solved our transportation dilemma!" To Marius, he said, "If it's up to me, he's getting a raise, but it's not, so maybe don't say anything. That is the best idea yet. Tell him thanks for me and I'm going to call Dante now."

"Glad to be the messenger, for once."