Breaking the Stallion: Hell Bent for Leather, #1

By Rain Carrington

With a less than fulfilling relationship in his rearview mirrors and a fifty thousand dollar watch in his pocket, Elijah James heads out on the open road, in search of something real. And, in search of himself.

What he finds is peace. His bike breaks down on the side of the highway and a quiet rancher comes along to help him off the road. At Noah Oliver's ranch, Eli finds everything he's ever needed, including a man with his own painful past and the love of a lifestyle Eli enjoys.

Something Eli didn't count on, however, was that Noah had plans for him. Noah sees the nearly shattered man and knows what he needs. As he would a wild horse, he knows he must break through Eli's pain without breaking the man's spirit.

Will Noah gain Eli's trust, respect, love, and finally, his submission? Find out in Breaking the Stallion today!



PLEASE SEE TRIGGER WARNINGS INSIDE BOOK!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rain Carrington
• Release date: Jun 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227455857

Rain Carrington

I love writing, it's been my dream for many years, and in October of 2013, when my first book went live on Amazon, that dream came true. Writing love stories that are centered on flawed but lovable characters is my passion. Finding love between people isn't easy, nor should it be. Even in a book, there have to be obstacles for the story to feel real. I am a mother of three amazing people, and three adorable fur babies. I live in Colorado but love many other places besides my home. One state in particular is New Mexico, the state where I was born has always held a place in my heart. People and places make my stories what they are. Each character I've written is a part of me in some way. Each place I write is as well. Adventures come in many ways, and each of my stories has taken me on an adventure that I treasure. Come with me on my adventures and fall in love with my characters, as I have. I promise, you will love the ride. www.raincarrington.com https://twitter.com/RainCarrington https://www.facebook.com/rain.carrington https://www.facebook.com/Rain-Carringtons-Bear-Lake-Chronicles-104627634658342 https://www.instagram.com/raincarrington/ https://www.bookbub.com/authors/rain-carrington https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/rain-carrington/ https://mewe.com/i/raincarrington https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7082503.Rain_Carrington https://www.raincarrington.com/newsletter

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Breaking the Stallion

Rain Carrington

Copyright © 2023 Rain Carrington

Cover Copyright © 2023 Rain Carrington

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The purchase or rental of this eBook allows you to only one legal copy for your own personal reading on your own personal device or computer. You do NOT have resell or distribution rights without the permission of the publisher and copyright owner of this book. Do not copy in any way.

Warning: This book contains scenes of sexual situations between two or more consenting men. There are also scenes of BDSM. Please to not attempt any of the activities in this book without knowing how to be safe.

Agreeing to read this book, please understand that it’s fiction. Not all agreements and acts will be spoken about on page, but it’s understood that each act and agreement is safe, sane and consensual.

Trigger warnings: Humiliation, name calling, bondage, extreme bondage, Master/slave elements, corporal punishment, forced time out, violence in war setting, descriptions of death, financial abuse, violence, guns, extreme sex toys, fisting, PTSD, ADHD, whipping, chastity, denial of orgasms, denial of erections.

Contents

1.Chapter One

2.Chapter Two

3.Chapter Three

4.Chapter Four

5.Chapter Five

6.Chapter Six

7.Chapter Seven

8.Chapter Eight

9.Chapter Nine

10.Chapter Ten

11.Chapter Eleven

12.Chapter Twelve

13.Chapter Thirteen

14.Chapter Fourteen

15.Chapter Fifteen

16.Chapter Sixteen

17.Chapter Seventeen

18.Chapter Eighteen

19.Chapter Nineteen

20.Chapter Twenty

21.Chapter Twenty-One

22.Chapter Twenty-Two

23.Chapter Twenty-Three

24.Chapter Twenty-Four

25.Chapter Twenty-Five

26.Chapter Twenty-Six

27.Chapter Twenty-Seven

28.Chapter Twenty-Eight

29.Chapter Twenty-Nine

30.Chapter Thirty

31.Chapter Thirty-One

32.Chapter Thirty-Two

Also By Rain Carrington

Chapter One

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The shelling was in the distance, far from where I was, so I kept working on the Humvee. I watched a line of oil run from the hole in the pan, then it hit.

The sound was everywhere, like the world had been nuked, but it was a simple bomb, made by the rebels that used US troops for target practice. They saw the stalled convoy, lined up in the middle of the dusty road, the first two trucks having hit rocks and busting holes in the undercarriages, so they knew they had easy victims.

There was a blinding light, then almost complete darkness and screams…

That was the worst was the sound of bloody screams coming from somewhere in that darkness. Some of them were human, some the screeching of metal twisting, and still others sounded like demons, coming for my soul.

Some of the darkness lifted, but through the smoke, I saw things that made me wish for the darkness again. I saw blood and body parts. Half faces where the other half had been blown away.

A piece of shrapnel hit my leg, but I didn’t feel it until one of my buddies pointed it out as they ran around the area, ducking behind the other vehicle to find survivors from the front of the convoy.

There were none.

Farther back in the convoy, men and women were shouting, all calling out for others they knew in the other trucks. Thick smoke was blowing with the sand in a cloud, making it hard to breathe.

My buddy got me behind one truck and called over a medic to quickly patch my leg, the wound gushing blood. That was probably why I got dizzy, but I didn’t know that then.

It played out like it was in slow motion, and felt as if it lasted days, but in reality, it was two hours of sitting there, waiting for support to come in and collect all of us. All I could do when they were getting me away from it was watch them check the bodies for signs of life.

I woke with sweat pouring down my face, and the pillow and sheets were drenched too. Harvey lay sleeping peacefully; thanks to the Xanax and Ambien he took in the evenings to relax.

The sheet stuck to my sweaty skin when I tried to ease it off me, and when I was finally free of it, I crept over the warm tile to the bathroom, where I shut the door and leaned against it, catching my breath.

I hated the dreams, but they wouldn’t stop coming. If I had to speak to one more therapist, I’d scream. If I could find someone that had lived through it, that understood, it might help, but they sat there with their casual cardigans and little recorders, and I could barely get out what I felt.

Harvey was no help. I figured maybe, just maybe, he was making things worse. No, I had to stop lying, at least to myself. He was a big roadblock for me and my headspace. Every time I thought the day was going well, he’d come home and trash it. There was nothing I could do right, and he’d lost all affection for me he’d ever had. Not that I was some cuddler, clinging to him, but a kiss now and then might be nice, more than a peck on the cheek or forehead.

I pushed off the door and padded to the mirror. The place was grand, nice as anything I could have imagined, having grown up in a small house in a smaller town. The mirror was nine feet across, and under it lay three vessel sinks, one larger in the middle, the two on either side half the size.

There were white marble counters, and the faucets brushed brass. Harvey loved his brushed brass.

The rest of the bathroom was the same, cold and beautiful. Dark fixtures on white marble, a shower with three huge heads of the same brushed brass, a tub, one that could fit three grown men inside of it, also white, perfect. And who cleaned everything? Me. No maid was hired, like all the other residents of the building. No, he didn’t need to hire a maid when he had one for free.

My name is Elijah James. My mother, the one that ran out on me when I was five, leaving me with her mother, supposedly named me after the father I’ve never met. James, well, that was her last name, my grandmother’s last name too, so all I had was a first name to hint at my paternity.

In the mirror, I saw a man, Eli, as most called me, the same Eli I’d seen every day. Only the man in the mirror was pale, eyes with dark circles under them. I barely recognized myself.

Around my neck was the chain that held my dog tags, proclaiming my name, blood type, B+, and other information needed if someone was to find my dead body on the field of battle. I don’t know why I still wore them, three years after returning home, but I couldn’t bring myself to take them off and put them away as so many of my buddies had.

They lay on my chest, and I saw how thin I was getting. Back in the army, I was cut and ripped like a gym rat on steroids, but since moving in with Harvey, the weight was shedding just like my self-esteem.

I’m not a fucking crybaby. I know I got myself into the relationship. I was lonely and fucked up from the war, but I had suspected all along that Harvey wanted a trophy boy to show off to his rich friends. That was me, the trophy, hot, or I had been.

My dark eyes were a few shades deeper brown than my hair, which I kept shaved on the sides and long on top, usually in a short ponytail. I shaved the sides because I still felt like I was in battle, every day fighting the same fights. The long hair on top was my streak of rebellion. I had a history of that.

So why, being rebellious, had I ended up being completely controlled by some dumpy fucker who had money and not much in the way of looks or personality? It was the kink, maybe. He’d been kinky, and I liked kink. Nothing else in my life had ever taken me out of my head like getting dirty with a man. Pain, humiliation, all of it. Drugs hadn’t done it. Booze only made me sick. No, it was all kink.

Not that we did that anymore. What Harvey did was reel me into being with him with promises of dirty play for the rest of our lives. No more searching the dark backrooms of kink bars for a playmate for the night. No, he was there, willing to take me to the places I wanted to go.

Until he gained control. That’s when everything stopped. Where I wanted someone to at least attempt to control me in bed, and sure, out of bed too, he just wanted someone to do his dishes, make his meals, and go with him to events, dressed in a tux or two grand worth of suit. No friends of my own, no job, nothing to occupy my time except to pick up his clothes from the cleaners and grocery shop with the credit card that had a tiny limit.

A limit he closely monitored.

I’d traveled around after I came home from Afghanistan. My best buddy, Burke, and I got on our beloved bikes and rode through the country. I spent my savings on that, and on Grandma, before she passed a year later. I had nothing left, no money of my own. My bike, that’s it, and that is what I planned to use to leave if I ever got the guts.

As I stared into my eyes that morning, the complete picture I saw in the mirror was pitiful. Thin and pale, even my ink looked like it was fading. I used to love getting ink, sitting in that chair, having someone put marks on me. It felt like part of my cherished kink.

Harvey, though, had said enough. No more. He didn’t want me to look like some biker, even though that’s what he said drew him to me in the first place…

Enough crying. Enough of feeling sorry for myself. That’s never been me. Harvey, I could blame for a lot, sure. But I was a grown man, and I was responsible for myself.

So, that morning, he was drinking coffee at the table in the kitchen, the one that overlooked the city. We were twenty stories high, and I knew he liked that so he could look down on people. I knew I had to leave that morning. After watching myself in the mirror and after the dream, the thought hadn’t left me for a minute.

I thought of telling him. I poured him a second cup of coffee and sat across from him, feeling the words pushing up in my throat, making it dry, and I had to swallow around them a few times.

Did you need something?

The question threw me for a loop. Huh?

He set his phone on the table and gave me his full attention, which included that scowl on his flat face. His green eyes were unmoving, blond brows drawn together so tight, they appeared to be one long eyebrow.

Looking at him at that moment, I wondered why I’d stayed at all. There was no care in his eyes for me. And to be fair, I didn’t care a bit for him anymore, either.

Did you need something? I have about ten minutes before I have to leave.

Leave… that was the word, right? I wanted to leave, but to tell him made me feel like my balls had shrunk and I had no tongue at all. All I did was stare at him for a few seconds, then I lowered my eyes to the table.

Eli, I don’t have time for your theatrics.

Theatrics? I asked him, then looked back up to see that impatient face he gave me whenever he thought I’d have some complaint. I’m sitting here, that’s it. If you want theatrics, I can give them to you.

Sure. Listen, table this until tonight. I’ve got to go to work, and you have things to do around here, isn’t that right?

I thought, sure, I do. I need to pack my shit.

See, there comes a time in every relationship that was maybe a little abusive, in subtle or big ways, that a person knows they need to go. It’s funny that it’s usually something small that pushes it right over the edge, and for me, that morning was him claiming I was being theatrical when I was just sitting there quietly.

As soon as he left, I threw my clothes into a duffle bag. It was one I’d had forever, and it fit a lot, but I didn’t care to take much. I’d leave the fancy suits I’d wear out with him and the three-hundred-dollar socks. I laughed as I picked up a pair of them, folded, never rolled, in order of color, and wondered why anyone would pay that much for fucking socks.

Suddenly, all the guilt I was feeling was gone as I stared at that pair of fucking socks. His snide face, the stupid socks, all of it sloughed off me like I’d taken a bath in acid, and all the crap burned away in that moment. Sure, I’d already decided to go, but I had felt weird about it until then.

The only problem was money. I had none. I’d kept my bike up, and I had always known why. To have the means to escape. I didn’t have the time to ride much, and Harvey hated when I rode, anyway. He pretended it was out of concern, but I knew better.

I walked over to the closet, which was as big as my first apartment, and went inside the thing, seeing all of Harvey’s suits lined up on three walls, in order of color, of course. They went from whites to blacks, with every color in between, but that wasn’t why I’d gone into the room.

Another wall was filled with shoes- dress, workout, tennis, jogging, and business. Under those shelves were the drawers that were filled with Harvey’s jewelry.

Thankfully, he wasn’t one for pinky rings or thick gold chains, but he loved his watches. He had rows and rows of them, and another five drawers with cufflinks. Any of the pairs of cufflinks or one watch would finance me for as long as I needed until I could get somewhere, find a place to live and work.

I stared at the yellow gold, the titanium, the white gold. I stared at the ruby cufflinks, the diamond, all set in gold or other precious metals.

Back to the watches. I picked up one of those that Harvey loved but rarely wore, being he didn’t particularly like the reddish-brown, alligator leather used for the band. It was an A. Lange & Söhne, and if I remembered correctly, was worth nearly fifty large.

Fifty thousand dollars for a watch. Another thing I hated was that someone could throw that kind of money around, like it was nothing, for him to show off to his friends. I picked that thing up and hated Harvey for it, for all of it. A burst of hatred so bad ran through me that I felt like smashing all the fucking watches in all the drawers, then slash the suits to top it off.

I didn’t. I got ahold of myself long enough to close the drawers, but not before I stuck the A. Lange & Söhne watch into my pocket.

Sure, I knew it was wrong. I’m not stupid. At least, most of the time I have a decent head on my shoulders, but fuck him. Fuck him.

Less than an hour later, I was on my bike and heading out of the city. The cars around me felt like they were leading me away from the half-life I’d been living. I rode with the wind in my face, with the sun on my arms, and the air blew away so much.

I felt free again, and that was a feeling that was so great, I didn’t recognize it. It had been a long time since I’d felt free.

I waited for two towns to pass before I found a pawnshop, and that one took one look at the watch and then at me, and the guy that had a huge mole over his right eye laughed in my face. Well, so much for that one. With only ten dollars in my wallet that had been there for almost two years, I worried that I’d be sleeping under a bridge for a while, begging for temp work.

Even that didn’t sound all bad compared to the apartment with Harvey.

The next shop was friendlier, and I soon found out why. That guy, older, casual-like, almost too casually, said, I’ll give you four hundred bucks.

I heard the number, and everything in me wanted to yell at the guy to take his four hundred bucks and shove it, but then I realized, as I stared into the light blue eyes of the man, that he would not ask for a receipt, and he wouldn’t call the cops to see if the watch was stolen. The amount offered was for no questions asked, so that’s exactly what I did.

With the four one-hundred-dollar bills in my wallet, I felt the world closing in on me. I had that full-chested fear that I’d felt back in the war. The desert sun beating on my head, the smoke choking me, my chest constricting…

But I had to snap out of it, so I composed myself enough to get on my bike and take off, getting back onto the highway in search of a life that had to start with four hundred and ten dollars.

Chapter Two

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I’ve always loved to ride, ever since building my first dirt bike when I was fifteen. I’ve lived just over twice that, but that was possibly the best time of my life.

I’d found parts in the old salvage yard that was down the road from my best friend, Rudy’s house. It was like a Disney World for mechanics, as there were every model and year of cars, trucks, and motorcycles anyone could need.

The place was spread out over five acres, and I’d walked nearly the entire thing at one time or another. The smell of old metal and grease was an elixir for me. I became creative. I was never one for art of any kind. I could barely draw stick figures, but with a wrench, I was a wizard. It was there that the army sent me after basic training, to work on Hummers, trucks, even a few helos. If it needed fixing, my superiors knew it was me they could come to.

I missed that old bike, but I grew and so did my needs. I got a Sportster two years after I graduated from high school, making it my primary mode of transportation. It was cheap on gas, fun, though I had it a year before trading it in for a Road King.

My leathers were for two reasons, riding motorcycles and the other kind of riding. That which came with the new thing I was learning, kink. Riding to a city for the first time, feeling so good I wanted to add sex to it, I found a bar, but it was no ordinary gay bar. The moment I walked into that first Eagle; I was hooked. The sights and smells of the place, leather and cum. I wanted to live that life.

So, I did.

That was, until the army, but it was amazing what out of the way leather bars I found in the places I was stationed. I’d find them and play when I could, thinking about it when I couldn’t.

Out on the open road again, I let the fear and guilt go, the heavy vibration of the bike under me, the cooler air of the afternoon making me wish I’d have put on my jacket. When I pulled off the road at a diner, I ate a basic burger, one of the cheapest things on the menu, and that was the best food I’d had in years.

Gourmet food, sauces, and pork loin, lamb, veal, all that shit was fine, sure, but I’d craved basic food. Burger, greasy fries, a fountain Coke, that was living.

I got my jacket and chaps out of the saddlebags to resume my journey. Though I thought about getting a motel, I didn’t want to stop riding. After gassing up at a place near the diner, I got back on the road.

I didn’t check my phone; I didn't want to. In fact, I thought it was a good idea to get rid of the thing. I could always get another down the line, taking my contacts off the Cloud if I needed them. I had most numbers memorized, and I knew that made me a bit of an odd duck. No one memorized numbers anymore, but I did.

That day on the open road was a great day for me. I thought my life had finally become mine again, which was amazing. I was no one’s trophy any longer, no one’s maid and the occasional vanilla fuck. In fact, if I could have found a bar that had even one gay man, I’d have fucked for days.

As it was, however, riding so many miles, three hundred by the time I stopped, after not going farther than through a city for years, I was stiff and tired enough to sleep for a week once night hit. I found a cheap motel and parked my bike right up on the sidewalk outside the door, and laughed to myself the minute I saw the place.

Old box TV, bolted to the metal stand, bedspread with three cigarette burns, carpet that was red and stained. It was a haven, and I fell on the bed, laughing out loud.

Oh, I didn’t say it yet, maybe because it’s stupid to bitch about, but I am a right side of the bed sleeper. Had been all my life, even on the twin bed as a kid. I’d huddle on the right side, which was away from the wall. That was maybe when it started, because the wall was cold, being an outer wall.

But with Harvey, I had to sleep on the left side of the bed. He insisted on the right, and thinking it was stupid, I gave into that demand easily. For the first time in years, I rode my bike all day, and I’d get to sleep on the right side of the bed.

I guess I’m easier to please than I thought.

I was hungry, so I ventured out to the vending machine and grabbed a couple bags of Cheetos, then got some ice from the ice maker down the walkway. I drank water and ate Cheetos, feeling like a king.

Sure, I had very little money, even less after paying for gas and the motel, but I felt on top of the world. The money, the fact Harvey would be home right about then to find I’d left, all that was trouble for another day. That night, I was my own man.

When I woke from the best sleep I’d had in ages, I thought about those things. Worry crept into my paradise with the holes in the bedspread and boxy television. Ticking like an old clock, my thoughts filed through money, work, theft, jail…

My mind did that, ran and ran at times, never slowing. Sometimes, just to keep a thought out of my head, I’d do just about anything. That day, there was nothing to do except let them all crowd in.

I had regrets, sure. But I also knew he owed me. I didn’t own a thing in that house, and wasn’t allowed to work, at least work that would make money. I did everything in the house and felt a little owed for that.

I secretly suspected that was bullshit, but I didn’t care. I’d stopped caring about a lot over the last couple of years. Maybe longer.

When I rode into the next state, I was in the mountains, and there was no better place to ride than through the mountains. The cool air, the scenery couldn’t be matched. It kept a person on their toes, with the curves in the sometimes narrow roads, and the slim shoulders that were a challenge even for me on my bike. The grades were a trip to me, and there were times I felt like I was riding straight down, then climbing so steeply that most of my vision was only sky.

The smells were hypnotic, pine and fresh… everything! Soil! I smelled the very soil under those pines, spruce, fir, and aspen. So many cars and other vehicles around me were driving fast, like they had some place to go, and they probably did, but not me. I was riding, letting the road take me where it wanted.

I never wanted it to end. And it didn’t, not for hours. Sure, I hit some plateaus, flat spots where the road opened, some to allow more cars and more shoulder, but then I was on the winding mountain roads again, and I felt like those tall hills on each side of me cradled me somehow. There was mesh over the rock faces of the places they’d carved through to make the roads. I imagined those huge boulders crashing down on top of the roofs of cars.

Then I’d pass sheer drops that were only guarded by thin pieces of metal and thicker pieces of wood. Neither would do me any good, as my front wheel would hit and I’d fly over the handlebars and soar like the huge raptors that flew around the canyons. Only mine wouldn’t end in the kill of a mouse or rabbit.

Those thoughts rarely gripped me. Offing myself never seemed a true option. I wasn’t religious, raised by a grandmother that had some very select words for a church she detested. It wasn’t God that made me treasure life; it was life itself.

That’s why, when my bike sputtered, then the engine cut-off while I was going around a particularly hairy curve in the road, I felt my heart jump up into my throat, choking me on something that pulsing and tasted bitter.

Pure fear.

I remember that taste in my mouth. Bitter maybe wasn’t the best description, because it was worse than bitter. Bitter could describe a lemon, and I loved lemons. No, this was metallic, harsh, and it spread until I felt like my entire body could taste it.

I downshifted and got the bike pulled over to the shoulder, but again, that shoulder was tight, maybe a foot in width. It was right on the curve, and with the stone wall the way it was, a blind curve.

Was it karma? I’d left the apartment without so much as a note, and I stole a fifty-thousand dollar watch to finance my flight. Would a semi come along and make quick work of me, getting back at me for those things?

Were they ghosts from my past? The men that I’d seen die while I walked away with a simple leg wound? Were they hunting me?

I got off the bike as soon as I set down the kickstand and knelt as closely as I could to the bike, away from the road, checking everything I could think of to check.

The gas tank was half full, as I’d gassed up fully a couple towns back, and all the hoses and cables were connected. The battery had juice, not that it would cause the engine to stop, usually. Nothing was wrong that I could see outright.

I heard a vehicle coming, and my body flew into action, moving to my feet and jumping behind the barrier, though there was only about three feet of ground before the landscape plunged down two hundred feet straight into a river.

My hands gripped the guardrail, the metal biting into my skin I held on so tightly. It was cold, and my mind latched onto that for a hot minute before I saw the pickup coming around the curve, not fast, not slow, at least not until the driver saw me.

The truck pulled over in front of my bike, and I was both relieved and more scared as I knew he stuck out in the road a lot more than my bike.

An older guy in a straw cowboy hat got out of the truck and jogged back to me, complaining, This ain’t the place to pull off, son!

I was shaking and just that second realized it. I didn’t exactly mean to.

Broke down?

Yeah!

I was frustrated, scared and my voice was probably a little aggressive because of it, but that didn’t seem to bother the guy, thankfully. Well, shit. How attached are you to this thing?

Pretty attached, being it’s about all I own in the world, I answered, regretting it immediately. It felt like a whine, but it was the truth, after all.

Well, shit! Can you hang on for about twenty minutes or so? I can go get some lumber, and we can get this thing on my truck with it. Stay on that side. Folks come around this curve like they’re trying to beat the devil.

I wasn’t going to argue. Yes, sir, I’ll be right here.

I’ll be back, he vowed, nodding his head to me, and I felt relief, though it wasn’t complete. He pulled away and I felt vulnerable, scared out of my wits, but better. I believed he’d be back. I believed he’d save me from the fucked situation where I found myself. Why? I don’t know. He could have easily driven off, deciding the ordeal was too much for him, and he could have left me there.

Instead, he was good as his word, and that was the day I met the man that would completely change my life…

Chapter Three

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I sat on the ground for what felt like hours. Looking behind myself every little while, like I expected the ground where I sat to fall away any second, taking me with it.

When no cars would pass, I could hear the river below, what sounded like pure whitewater. The sound of the water crashing into the big stones tried to lull me, but not much could. As soon as my heart would calm a little, a vehicle would start closing in, and my mind went right to the video in my head of it crashing into my bike, pushing it into me and sending the whole kit and kaboodle soaring over the edge.

It didn’t happen, of course. The guy in the pickup came back in less time than I imagined, as shown by the time on my phone.

My phone. Well, I hadn’t been that worried about having it before, as I was on the move. Even if Harvey called the cops, I was two states away already. But I suddenly got nervous, and so, before the man in the red pickup could finish backing up to my bike, I tossed the phone over the edge of the embankment and watched it fall, end over end, catching the sun when the screen was on top.

Taking my eyes from the phone to the truck parked and the man getting out of the driver’s door, I saw the guy for the first time, at least, I paid attention for the first time.

I’ve always had my tastes in guys, though I am pretty flexible in that direction. One guy I have had on my list of celebrities I want to fuck was Sam Elliot.

Yeah, I know Sam Elliot’s straight, and me and just about every gay man and straight woman alive that’s older than thirty lust over the man, but when looking at this guy? I immediately got those Sam vibes, and they headed straight to my crotch.

Sam in Mask, when I watched that as a kid on some classic movie channel. That was this guy. Salt and pepper hair and beard, though the pepper was actually light brown hair.

Strong jaw covered in that trimmed, beautiful almost-white beard framed his lower face nicely, the beard unable to cover the inwardly curved cheeks, sharp but subtle cheekbones. He was gorgeous, in a rugged way that I found immensely attractive.

His eyes, crystal blue, squinted, like he was constantly looking into the sun straight on. He looked to be fifty, or was getting close, but he’d aged well. His western shirt, plain, blue and white striped, fit him well enough to see lean, hard muscles.

I was diverted from my fear for the moment just looking at him. It was good, and calmed me enough that my shaking stopped, and I could jump over the guardrail and help him set up the two long, flat boards on the open tailgate.

That bike, it’s heavy, and these boards aren’t gonna hold it if we don’t get it up there quick.

I’d loaded bikes into trucks before, but I’d always had metal ramps. Are you sure it’s going to hold at all?

Should, he said simply.

I had no choice but to trust he was right, so I put the bike in neutral and got it off the peg, pushing it toward the board, which, to me, looked too thin. Another problem, I saw, besides it not holding, was my aim.

I had to keep it, using the handlebars, on that narrow makeshift ramp.

Before he grabbed the bike to help, the guy came over and set a strong hand on my shoulder, then with a squeeze, looked right into my eyes. It disarmed me. Then, a rumbly, deep voice came out, and I felt I could accomplish just about anything.

You got this. We’re gonna get this motorcycle into the truck on the first try.

I couldn’t do much else than blink, as I think he’d rendered me speechless, but I managed a curt nod to the guy and gripped the handlebars tighter.

For those that don’t know it, motorcycles, especially Harleys, are heavy. It’s hard for some to keep them upright before they take off and the force of the movement kept them from falling over, but moving one uphill, without it running, was rough.

Still, like it was nothing, the guy jumped into the truck, grabbed onto the handlebars with me, our fists touching, and pulled while I pushed. The board bent hard, but like he’d said, it held up. As long as we kept it moving, the bike went up, and both wheels were on the board only for a moment before the front wheel was in the truck bed, and the back half was rolling right after it.

The man was strong as an ox, getting it into place with little help, and after he’d turned the front wheel for it to better fit in the bed, he grunted, "This is why I like horses. If it breaks down on