Page 7 of Feeding the Grump

CHAPTER FIVE

DAVID

Bumping back up the track in my pickup truck is a completely different experience from going down.

This time, Benji’s pressed against me, his hand placed proprietarily on my knee.

Around the time we hit the gravel road, he starts to run his fingers up the inside seam of my jeans, making me grip the steering wheel hard.

“Careful, or this pickup truck is going to end up in Old Thompson’s hayfield,” I grate out.

It’s not until we pull up in my driveway that nerves arrive in my stomach like a swarm of locusts.

The evening light paints long shadows across my front yard as we climb out of the truck. Benji follows me up the path to my front door, and my hands shake so much I drop my keys. Twice. He leans down to pick them up the second time.

“Maybe I should handle the door opening around here,” he says, his hands steady as he unlocks the door.

I stumble in after him and find myself standing next to him in my hallway, the familiar smell of grass and sheep dogs and home suddenly seeming different with him here.

When I’m brave enough to glance at him, I find his eyes dark and intent on mine.

Fuck. What do I do now?

It feels like the first time Dad let me drive the tractor alone, that same mixture of fear and wanting so badly to get it right.

Benji steps forward, closing the distance between us.

He reaches up to touch my face, his fingers calloused from farm work but so careful, like I’m something that might spook.

“You okay?” he asks. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

At the sensation of his fingertips on my cheekbones, everything I’ve been denying myself crashes over me like a wave that drowns out doubt and hesitation. My heart pounds a deafening rhythm against my ribs as I pull him closer.

His stubble scratches against my palm as I cup his jaw. He makes a low noise in his throat that unravels something deep in my gut, something that’s been wound tight for longer than I can remember.

I catch his bottom lip between my teeth and his hands fist in my shirt like he’s afraid I might change my mind. He doesn’t seem to understand that I couldn’t stop this now any more than I could stop the seasons from turning.

Somehow, we end up with Benji pinned against the wall, me crowding against him.

His back arches as my hands find their way under his shirt. I’m dizzy with the taste of him, honeyed and familiar in a way that makes no sense. It’s like finding a path in real life that I’ve walked a thousand times in my dreams.

Benji’s breathless and panting when our kiss finally breaks.

“Fuck, it’s always the quiet ones,” he says.

“Didn’t hear you complaining,” I manage to grind out as I catch my breath.

“Oh, trust me, I’m not complaining about anything right now.” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing before he fixes his green eyes on me. “When did you realize that this was…this?” He waves his hand between us to illustrate what this he’s referring to.

“In the hedge today,” I admit.

He grins. “I’ll have to thank Pepper next time I see her.”

“My sheep do not have names,” I growl, but it only makes his grin grow wider.

“What about you? When did you figure it out?”

“About two years ago.”

“Two years?” I grunt the words. I clear my throat, but my voice still sounds rough as I continue, “You never said anything.”

He shrugs. “Didn’t want to spook you. And you’re a smart guy. I figured you’d catch up eventually.”

I’ve never been particularly good with words, so I answer him in what feels like the most logical way—by pulling him closer and claiming his mouth with mine.

To let him know I’ve definitely figured it out now.

We stagger toward my bedroom, making it to the bed. My bed with its mismatched sheets and the quilt Emma gave me two Christmases ago. The frame groans beneath our combined weight, which I’d find alarming if I could think straight, which I decidedly cannot with Benji’s breath hot against my neck.

It should be awkward coming together like this for the first time. God knows I have limited experience with anyone in the bedroom.

Instead, it feels like the most natural thing in the world to unbutton his shirt slowly, kissing every bit of newly exposed skin, methodically, deliberately, making sure I don’t miss an inch.

I touch his skin the same way I touched blackbird eggs and four-leaf clovers when I was a kid, when they’d been my most treasured and cherished possessions.

Benji’s shirt falls open under my fingers, revealing skin that’s tanned golden where the sun catches him working outside and pale as fresh milk everywhere else. I can’t help tracing the boundary line between those two tones with my lips.

His breath hitches, and he reaches for my shirt.

When he finishes undoing the last button and pulls off my shirt, he splays his fingers across my chest, rough palm catching on the coarse hair.

When he lifts his gaze to mine, his eyes are molten.

“Holy fuck, David. Why the hell don’t you go shirtless more?”

“Pretty sure that would scare the livestock,” I reply.

And then Benji is kissing me again as we struggle with belts and zippers, knees bumping, hands fumbling.

Benji’s boxers—purple, which doesn’t surprise me—slide down his legs, and I’m suddenly breathless. My underwear joins his, and I feel exposed in a way that has nothing to do with nakedness and everything to do with how he’s looking at me like I’m the last green paddock in a drought.

To have Benji Gange stretched out naked in my bed sparks something primitive inside me. The need to possess, to claim, to mark him as mine.

I kiss down his chest, following the trail of dark hair, mapping every muscle and scar with my tongue.

His hands fist in the sheets when I reach his navel.

“This is just another way to torture me, isn’t it?” he asks, but his voice is too wrecked to contain much snark.

“You know I like to do things thoroughly,” I reply.

And Benji doesn’t seem to mind my thoroughness as I head lower. I press my mouth to that crease where thigh meets hip, tasting salt and skin, reducing him to breathless curses and pleas.

His cock is rigid, the head glistening. The desire pulsing through me feels like someone’s replaced my blood with lightning, every heartbeat sending sparks through my veins.

How the hell have I noticed every detail about this man except for how much I’ve wanted him?

I press my lips to his inner thigh, hesitating, feeling his pulse flutter under my tongue.

I’ve never done this before. My heart hammers against my ribs.

Then summoning my courage, I finally wrap my mouth around his cock.

The unfamiliar fullness makes my jaw ache in a way that’s strangely satisfying. He’s smoother than I imagined, warmer too. The taste of him, salt and musk, floods my senses, making my hips rock involuntarily against the sheets, seeking friction that isn’t there.

The sheer intimacy of him trusting his most vulnerable part to my inexperienced care makes my own desire spike sharply, my body responding to each muffled sound he makes. His hands clutch my shoulders, fingertips pressing into muscle as I take him deeper.

I hollow my cheeks, determined to apply the same stubborn focus to this that I do to everything else in my life.

Then I touch the soft skin behind his balls, feeling him tremble under my calloused fingers.

He grabs my hand and pushes it farther back, and I circle his hole with a teasing pressure that has him cursing my name in ways that would make a shearer blush.

“You’ve got lube anywhere?” he asks desperately.

“Top drawer.” I nod, suddenly grateful for Lance’s Christmas joke gift that isn’t quite as funny anymore.

“What about a condom?”

“There should be a box in there too.”

Benji doesn’t comment on the unopened box of condoms, instead ripping through the plastic, his usual precise movements clumsy.

“I’m open to ditching these once we get tested,” he says as he passes me a condom.

Fuck. I can’t help cringing at his words.

A frown creases his forehead, and he fidgets with the edge of the sheet. “It’s going to be just us, right?” he asks quietly.

My cringe fades.

“Of course it’s going to be just us.” Shit, I didn’t mean for that to come out as such a possessive growl.

“Then why did you cringe?”

“Just imagining having a conversation about getting tested with Doc Wilson,” I admit.

He laughs, and I watch the laughter transform his face, almost in awe at the quirk of his lips.

I kiss him again, and we sink into the kiss, the taste of his laughter sweet on my tongue as I press him back into the pillows.

Then we’re fumbling with the condom and lube, any competence deserting us as we try to coordinate limbs that seem to have multiplied since we hit the bed.

“I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing,” I admit, staring at the bottle of lube like it’s a piece of farm equipment with missing assembly instructions.

Benji’s eyes soften. “It’s okay, I’m pretty sure you’ll be a quick study with the proper motivation.”

And he kisses me deeply, grinding his hard cock against mine, which definitely provides me with the right motivation.

He guides my hand back. “Just go slow. Think of it like... checking a ewe for lambing complications, except with more finesse and significantly less wool.”

“Jesus, Benji. That’s the least sexy comparison you could have made.”

His laugh is warm against my neck. “Sorry. How about, it’s like testing soil, but instead of checking for nutrients, you’re looking for?—”

“If you finish that sentence with any kind of agricultural metaphor, I might reconsider this whole thing,” I say.

Benji places his hand on my cock and strokes me, making me shudder as pleasure rocks through me.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not reconsidering anything,” he says with absolute certainty, and he’s right.

I’m not quite sure what I’m doing as I press a slick finger inside him, my weathered farmer’s hands feeling too rough and clumsy for something this delicate.

“Am I hurting you?” I ask, freezing at the sharp intake of his breath.

“God, no. Just…curve your finger a bit.”