Mine is four... 🦃 + 🐓 + 🐖 + 🐄

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Hey, you!

This is going to be my last Monday email to you for a while. I'm switching to Tuesdays for a bit, because Mondays are a hectic day and I am 95% likely to regret having another thing I'm supposed to do at the very beginning of a week. I really enjoy sending you these emails, and I think giving myself a little room to enjoy writing them instead of feeling like I'm in a rush to get them out will be a good thing.

American Thanksgiving is coming up this week, and I'm fortunate to have just one assigned side dish to bring to our various family gatherings. No hosting for me, which means I don't have to clean my house, either!

Someone suggested a dressing recipe with chunks of chicken included, which surprised me, because--shouldn't it be turkey?

But then I realized that if my husband brings a beef brisket to our family Thanksgiving, and I make the dressing, four species from the animal kingdom would be represented on the table. What's your number?

What I'm reading

I've been fortunate to be handed an early copy of a few friends' forthcoming books. But rather than teasing you with what you can't have, I'll share how much I've been enjoying Aftermath by L.A. Witt. It is lovely to see representation of a character with chronic pain, and I can never resist a single dad.

What I'm writing

I thought last week I'd finish Night & Day, but it turned out that one chapter wasn't quite enough to wrap everything up, so I'll be writing at least one more over on Discord! As always, your new chapter is right at the bottom of this email, and it's a steamy one. 😍

I'm still working on As the Tallgrass Grows. I was sure I'd finish it yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that... but it just keeps getting a little bit longer every day. I know better than to fight a story over how how it should end, so I'm just going with it. It will be complete when it's complete.

Have a great week.

xo,

Rachel

find me in more places

Website | Rachel's Party Barn on Facebook | Instagram | Discord

my books

Long Winter | Signs of Spring | Burning Season | As the Tallgrass Grows

Jaywalking | Sleepwalker

***

NIGHT & DAY

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Ty woke up with his arms locked around Jonathan's waist and his face pressed into his naked back. He grimaced at the lingering smell of smoke which must have transferred from Ty's skin and hair to Jonathan’s, not to mention the sheets and pillows. The smell was faint but the memories of terror it triggered, when he'd seen the house in flames, made him shudder.

But his fears had come to nothing. Sam was safe. And so were his parents, which concerned him less, but was still a relief. The house, though… well, that place had as many bad memories tangled up in it as good ones. He wasn’t sure he cared.

The moment passed, and Ty relaxed against Jonathan, puzzling out how he might have ended up as the big spoon the night before. He wasn’t complaining, but he'd first lain down with his head on Jonathan's shoulder, a second or two before falling right to sleep. Apparently they'd renegotiated their positions while they both slept.

Ty liked it. Jonathan's bigger body was still lean, and his back was just as nice as the rest of him. From here, Ty could study the spread of his shoulders and the groove of his spine, and how his dark hair fell on his pillow, mussed from sleep the way it absolutely never was during the day. 

But the smell of smoke was cloying, and Ty didn’t linger for more than a few minutes before he had to get in the shower. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but the constant vigilance of caring for infants meant he had to get cleaned up while he had the chance, because Isabel could wake at any moment.

Beneath the arm Ty had wrapped around his waist, he felt the even, steady breaths of a man still unconscious, so Ty extracted his arm from beneath Jonathan carefully so as not to disturb him, then disentangled himself from the sheets too and slipped away to the bathroom.

When he came back, Jonathan was still asleep. He'd rolled onto his back, though, and kicked off the sheet. Ty stood frozen in the doorway for a few long moments, blinking at the sight of Jonathan, his gorgeous body in repose and displayed against the rumpled white sheets. Long arms and legs, lightly furred with dark hair that matched the patch on his chest that narrowed to a trail down his toned stomach. His cock was half-hard in the usual way of dicks in the morning, and at some point after Ty had left, one of his hands had drifted to the crux of his thighs and he was lightly cradling his own balls.

Ty's mouth twitched, spell broken by that little detail, for some reason. He walked back to the bed on light feet and slowly crawled from the foot of the mattress up between Jonathan's spread legs, gently petting the soft hair on his calves, pausing to kiss the inside of one of his knees.

"Mm," Jonathan murmured, stirring at the small touches. Ty, crouched on the bed, naked and only half-dried from his shower, looked up through the locks of wet hair that had fallen into his eyes, and watched. As Jonathan emerged from sleep, he blinked his eyes a few times, then propped himself up on his elbows to stare down at Ty. His puzzled expression quickly turned heated, and then tentative. He bit his lip.

That someone who looked like him, and who took such easy command of a room, and who argued with people for a living, could look so fucking shy... Ty instantly felt a little wild at how sexy it was.

They had things to talk about, but right now, Ty could only grin at Jonathan and stroke higher up his legs, rubbing his thighs. "Good morning."

Jonathan's cock jerked as he chuckled and said, tightly, "Good morning."

"Can I?" Ty murmured, giving Jonathan's swelling cock an avid look. It was long, slender, just like every other line of Jonathan's body. Perfect.

Jonathan bit his lip again, and surprised by the hesitation, Ty paused, his hands withdrawing to rest on Jonathan's knees. He leaned back. "Oh, do you not want...?" He wasn't sure if he was embarrassed, exactly. More, bewildered. He could remember exactly zero instances where a guy had ever turned down a blowjob.

"I do," Jonathan said hastily, giving his erection a pointed look that made Ty smile tentatively back. "But I'm not... in the past, I haven't necessarily..." He groaned, averting his eyes with obvious frustration.

"You haven’t always liked it?" Ty tried.

Jonathan glanced back with something like gratitude in his cautious eyes. "No, I haven’t."

Wrestling with the part of him that wanted to ask, incredulously, Really?, Ty kept his expression neutral and nodded. "I can try, and if you don't like it, you can tell me to stop. Would that be okay?"

Jonathan seemed to relax a little more, but his erection had wilted, and his cheeks were pink. "Yes, it would."

"Good," Ty murmured, "because I really want to." He resumed stroking Jonathan's thighs, and stretched out more comfortably between his legs. He bent one knee so that he could nestle his own happy dick firmly in the warm nest of blankets. "You're so sexy. I could spend all day down here between your legs."

Jonathan made a little sound, and his cock was back at attention. Ty smiled against his inner thigh, then experimentally licked and nibbled the pale, soft skin there, until Jonathan was sighing and trembling. Ty worked his way up where Jonathan’s body hair grew in a thicker layer, and breathed in the faint, musky smell of the sweat between his legs. He pressed his tongue into the crease at the top of his leg, nuzzled his cheek against the silky, sparse hair on Jonathan's balls, then turned his head to pay each of them some attention with his mouth too.

He wasn't patient enough to give them more than a couple of licks, though, before he was tugging himself further up the bed so that he could swipe his tongue up the bottom of Jonathan's shaft, which made Jonathan suck in a breath and a pearl of precum appear on the tip of his cock.

One of Jonathan's hands stroked the back of Ty's head, encouraging him, and he thought smugly that Jonathan must have decided that he'd like for Ty to proceed. But he looked up the unbelievably sexy length of him, into the hooded eyes staring back at him, just to be sure.

"Should I keep going?" he asked, making his eyes wide and innocent. He slipped his tongue past his lips so he could give Jonathan's tip an experimental lick, tasting the drop of liquid there. Maybe it was his imagination, but he swore it was actually sweet.

"Yes!" Jonathan said, curving his fingers around the back of Ty's head.

Ty had never had great control over his gag reflex, which he'd tried to make up for with enthusiasm and creative integration of his hands. If Jonathan noticed that Ty couldn't deep throat him, he didn't complain, just fell back against his pillow, the hand on Ty's head never pushing too hard or pulling at his hair, but constantly moving... petting him, lightly raking his nails against Ty's scalp, until he knew his hair had to be even more chaotic than usual. Maybe Ty had some kind of head-petting fetish, because giving Jonathan the long, slow suction he'd discovered he liked best and feeling Jonathan's gentle, fingers raking encouragingly through his hair had Ty desperately close to coming just from humping the mattress.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when Jonathan sat up, cupping Ty's jaw and gently pushed him off his dick. The fist that Ty had been pumping him with was slick and wet from saliva, and the bottom of his tongue was sore from shielding his teeth.

"I'm not going to," Jonathan said, blinking down at him like he was trying to talk in the midst of a dream, fighting for coherent words. "It feels amazing, but I won't..." He trailed off.

"Come?" Ty supplied.

Jonathan nodded, then averted his eyes, his hand falling away from Ty's face.

"Do you want to come?" Ty asked. It was the first thing that came to his mind, and earned him a sharp look.

"No one's ever asked me that.”

Ty had surprised himself a little too, but it was clear his instincts had been onto something. "That's fine. I just want to do what you want to do. To make you feel good." He almost couldn't say the rest, but looking at Jonathan, who was obviously facing something in this moment that required a little bravery, Ty made himself be as vulnerable. "I just want to make you happy."

Jonathan's frown melted away at once. "You do." He put both of his hands to Ty's face and bent in half so that he could kiss his forehead, then the corner of each of his eyes. Ty pushed himself up and crawled up Jonathan's body as Jonathan lay back against the pillows again, their mouths still joined. Ty practically sobbed into their kiss as he settled his weight against Jonathan's body, it felt so good to be stretched out on top of him, Jonathan's cock soaking wet against Ty's thigh, his own cock grinding against the lean contours of Jonathan's stomach.

"Just tell me what you want me to do. I'll suck you all day. Don't care if you come."

"What about you?" Jonathan asked, his hands grasping Ty's ass with the same gentle assertion he'd used on his hair. "Do you want to come?"

"Uh huh," Ty said immediately, which made Jonathan chuckle, and then rub his ass with one long-fingered hand that almost spanned both cheeks, and slid the other up his spine and back into his hair. Ty's whole body was lit up. "I want to come on you," he confessed, hardly realizing he had the idea until it came to him. "Want to jack myself off and come all over you." Mark him, claim him. It was ridiculous, but at the same time, now that it had occurred to him Ty's back arched just at the thought.

"Jesus," Jonathan groaned. "Yes. Do that."

Ty pushed himself up off Jonathan's chest, gripped his shoulder with one hand, and then spat into his hand and clutched his cock, whimpering at his own touch. "Fuck. It's not going to take me long. Oh, God. I... you make me..." He interrupted himself with a gasp as his orgasm rolled through him, and he shot against Jonathan's chest, just like he'd promised, and might have seen stars if he hadn't had his gaze so riveted to the proof of what he'd done, a creamy spatter across the fine hairs of Jonathan's beautiful chest.

Mine, thought a fierce voice in his head that he was pretty sure he'd never heard before.

Jonathan groaned and pulled Ty down to kiss him, then arched up his hips so his cock, still hard, was pressed firmly against Ty's ass. Even in his delirium, Ty felt a spark of want at that... the idea of riding Jonathan, just like this, maybe lubed with his own cum. He clumsily reached behind himself and gripped Jonathan’s shaft, and Jonathan's tongue swept through his mouth before his own, bigger hand closed around Ty’s so they could pump him together, their knuckles grazing Ty’s back. 

The pace and pressure were all Jonathan; getting an effective grip or finding a rhythm with his arm at this angle would have been impossible for Ty, but Jonathan’s grip stayed locked around his, telling him he liked his hand there, and within a dozen strokes Jonathan’s cock jerked in Ty’s palm and he felt the hot pulse of him coming against the small of his back. He shuddered when a few drops trailed past the cleft of his ass, his hole flexing as he imagined it deep inside him instead.

Next time, was his last vague thought before Jonathan rolled them onto their sides and neither of them moved for a long—while except to kiss lazily and let their hands wander up and down each other's sticky bodies.

"You're going to need another shower," Jonathan said eventually. Ty pushed his face against his sternum and laughed.

"Yes. I can't believe we haven't heard Isabel."

"She's an excellent sleeper, now, thanks to you," Jonathan said, his voice a rumble against Ty's cheek. He stroked Ty's hair, then added in a different tone, "I used to think of myself as not particularly sexual."

Ty's hand had been wandering idly up and down along Jonathan's thigh. He paused briefly at that, then continued, saying nothing.

"My first few experiences, I didn't consistently... perform. I was young at the time. Easily humiliated when my body didn't do what I assumed it should. And then there was Natalie."

Ty had never been more curious to know more in his life, but there was no way he was going to put any pressure on Jonathan to share in this vein. When he was sure Jonathan wasn't going to say more, Ty tilted his head back to look at him. Jonathan had a faraway look fixed on the ceiling, but as Ty stirred, he smiled down at him faintly.

Ty chose his words carefully. "Everyone's a little different. And maybe every two people are different together?"

He immediately wondered if he was making any sense, or if he should have kept his mouth shut. 

But then Jonathan smiled at him warmly and bent to rest their foreheads together, and he assumed it must have been okay, after all.

"I'm certainly different when I'm together with you," Jonathan agreed quietly. Jonathan's room without parting in the hallway, stripped down to their underwear and crawled back under the rumpled blankets they'd left a few hours before.