It was enough to make him ache that entire day. And when they stopped for the night, and Thomas pushed him to his knees before he even bothered to set up camp, Leon was salivating long before the heavy tip pushed past his lips.
Thomas jerked him off after they'd stretched out next to the fire to sleep. The hour in between swallowing the man's come and feeling his strong hand around his cock was the longest of Leon's life.
The second day was more of the same, as was the third. The landscape blurred into the same old, over and over again, but at least it got warmer. There wasn't as much need for Grady's body heat when they slept. Nonetheless, Leon woke the morning of the fourth day, nestled in Thomas's chest, Thomas's morning erection poking into Leon's ass.
The fire was long out, and his stomach growled. Behind him, Thomas stirred, and he felt the brush of the man's beard across his neck.
Leon stretched his fingers to poke into Grady's stomach. “Sun's up, lazybones.”
He couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard Thomas groan in protest. He gripped Leon's hip and pushed forward, grinding his cock against him. “Sun hasn't been up for long.”
Leon's prick jumped in response. “Since when has that stopped you?” Thomas had been awake earlier than him ever since that first morning. “Unless you just want to set up camp here for the day. No need to go rushing into Sacramento on my account.”
“We haven't been rushing anywhere.” Thomas's voice was gravelly from sleep, and his hand slid down Leon's hip to brush across his shaft. “If I were in a rush, we could have traveled faster.”
Which Leon was more than grateful for. He was in no hurry to end up in jail. That didn't stop him from saying, “True, but then you wouldn't have me to fuck around with as long. I don't see your prick being very happy about losing out.”
Thomas sighed and pushed away from him. He stood, then yanked Leon to his feet without a trace of anything like tenderness. “I think my prick, and the rest of me, will be just as happy with a big bag of money.”
As soon as their bodies were separated, Leon missed him. He missed the hard wall of muscle of his chest, the firm prod of his cock. He missed the heat and the rough hands and the breath drifting down the back of his neck. More than anything, though, it pissed him off that he missed any of it. The man was hauling his ass in for a reward. He didn't give Leon any thought except what he could get from him in the interim.
“So how much are they willing to give for me these days?” he said, striving for some sort of normal conversation.
“Last time I saw a poster, it was a thousand for the pair of you. I guess I'll have to go after your other half after I take care of you.”
Leon's blood ran cold. The last thing he needed was for Grady to go looking for Kenneth. “You'd be wasting your time.” The answer came smooth; when the lie mattered, he could sell it with the best of them. “He didn't make it.”
“Really? I heard that he was the only reason you got away from Marshal Behan when he shot down your horse.”
“He was. But he pushed himself too hard, trying to get me someplace safe. The winter caught us out.” He held up his weaker foot, wiggling his ankle. “Why do you think I'm still gimpy? He would've broken himself in two to see me right if he could.” And he had, but Grady didn't need to know that.
Thomas responded by reaching for his saddlebags and pulling out jerky and hardtack. It was hardly a decent meal, and Leon wished Thomas would at least go shoot a rabbit or something, but at least he was always generous with sharing the portions. Leon went to his side and turned his back so Thomas could undo the knots at his wrists. He always let Leon have a few minutes to eat, claiming he had no interest in trying to feed Leon like a child.
“At least there's decent food in Sacramento,” Thomas said as he loosened the rope, “I'll treat you to some.”
The offer stunned him. “Thanks.” He rubbed his wrists as they came free, working the feeling back into his fingers. After the first night, Grady had kept the fetters looser—not so loose he could escape, but not nearly as tight as to cut off circulation. They ended up getting stiff more than anything else, and the rope chafed slightly where it occasionally met bare skin. “So dinner, then the marshal's office? Is that the plan?”
“Yes, that's the plan. Then you'll probably be transported back to Utah for your trial.”
Trial. Just the word made him shiver.
Taking the jerky Thomas offered, Leon sat down on a stump, shaking his head. “That's not going to go well. If they can trump up murder charges, you can bet they're going to do everything they can to make the trial unfair, too.”
“The justice system doesn't revolve around you. You'll get the same sort of trial everybody else does.”
Leon rolled his eyes. “Yeah. You just go on believing that. I'm sure it helps you sleep at night.”
“My clear conscience helps me sleep at night. Do you lay awake and think about all the ways the world is out to get you?”
“The world
is
out to get me. Aren't you proof of that?”
“Yeah, how dare anybody expect you to pay for the money you've stolen and the life you took. What do you think? You should just be allowed to do whatever you want without any consequences?”
Anger bubbled inside him, and he jabbed with his jerky in Grady's direction. “The money, I'll grant you. But I've never killed no one. I've never even hit someone when I took a shot. Anything those posters say about that, they're lying.”
Thomas shrugged. “I don't care. The posters also say you're worth at least five hundred.”
“You'd care if you were the one they were accusing.”
“Difference is, I've never given anybody a reason to accuse me of murder.”
“Neither did I. I never even shot my gun this last time. Only reason they're doing this is they're sick of not being able to catch me.”
“Except now they have. Well, I have. Maybe I should have done it sooner and saved you a murder charge in the process.”
Disgusted, Leon turned away. It was pointless arguing with Thomas. He wouldn't believe him, even if he'd been there to see it with his own eyes.
They finished the meal in silence, but when Thomas started to break down the remains of their camp, Leon rose to his feet and stretched.
“You mind if I go take a piss before we head out?” he asked.
Thomas nodded at a tree a few feet from camp. “Don't go past that point.”
Leon ambled off, grateful for the chance to work his ankle some more. He stopped at the tree Thomas indicated and looked back, noting how the bounty hunter was paying more attention to his saddlebags than he was to Leon. Just to be contrary, he rounded the far side of the tree and stood out of sight as he undid his pants.
Five hundred. That was what a man was worth. Thomas was going to sell him off to the marshals, and he wouldn't even give a damn that Leon was likely to spend the rest of his life rotting in jail, if he ever made it to a cell. The way Behan had worked the story, he wouldn't be surprised if there was an “accident” on the way to the courthouse.
Time was running out for him, no matter how he looked at it.
Tilting his head to the side, Leon watched Thomas work for several seconds. Thomas never looked back. He never even glanced in Leon's direction. Even when Leon was done and buttoning himself back up, Thomas continued to work on packing his gear.
The silence was deafening.
Time's running out.
There was only one way he wasn't going to end up in custody by the end of the day. Only one way to avoid what was an inevitable death sentence. He had to take the chance while he had it.
Without taking his eyes off Grady, he crept silently away from the tree. Away from their camp. All he needed was a place to hide, to wait Grady out while the man searched for him.
As Leon moved farther from the camp, he realized he wouldn't lack in places to hide. The underbrush was thick, and the valley was lush and stretched for as far as the eye could see. A good cave, a barn, even a tree if he found one with strong limbs, would suit his purposes. He'd hide during the day and travel at night. Grady was good—there was no denying that—but there was a reason nobody had been able to catch Leon before.
The more feet he put between himself and Thomas, the faster he moved. He couldn't break out into a dead run, but he loped along rapidly, his body better rested and equipped to handle being pushed. But he knew he wouldn't have much of a head start on Thomas, and the shouted curse behind him was his first warning.
He didn't wait to hear more of it. He pushed as hard as he could, still not able to match the lithe speed he'd had prior to breaking his ankle. The brisk morning air whipped past his cheeks, invigorating him to go even harder. His blood pounded. He'd had a good head start on Grady. He could do this. He'd gotten away from better men than he.
His confidence increased when he realized Thomas was running, instead of chasing him down on Max. He could never outrun a horse, but he could easily outmaneuver Grady. His lungs began to burn. His ankle throbbed. But the adrenaline pumping through his veins easily made him forget about the pain he was in. The pain didn't matter. It belonged to somebody else. All that mattered was moving.
Until a large hand on his back drove him into a tree.
All the air vanished from his lungs, forced out by the violent contact with the rough bark. Leon gulped for breath, lashing out with anything that was free at the same time. His foot connected with Grady's shin. An elbow slammed into the man's side. He tried to swing a fist around at his face, but Grady was too far away, his arms long enough to pin Leon like a bug.
“Son of a bitch!” Leon snarled. “Let me go!”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Leon barely heard the question. He heard his thudding heart, and beneath that, the unmistakable sound of Grady's gun sliding out of the holster. Right before the tip of the gun pressed against his nape.
“Is this what you want?”
He froze. He'd fight any man tooth and nail if he had to, but a gun was a different matter. There was no reasoning with a bullet. It was one reason why he was always so careful never to hit anybody when he had to use his.
“You really want to be hauling my dead weight around by using that?” he bit out. “Go ahead. Should've expected it a lot sooner from a man like you.”
“We're only about ten miles from Sacramento, and I have no qualms about throwing your carcass over my horse. But I don't think you want to die, do you?”
“Wouldn't have run if that's what I wanted.”
“How much do you want to live? I want to hear it.”
Was Grady an idiot as well as a bastard? What man in their right mind wanted to die? But...
“Told you already. I don't beg.”
Thomas pulled the hammer back. Leon heard. Felt it, even. “You better start.”
Rising panic made his skin crawl. “I already told you I didn't want to die. You really think I would've risked running otherwise? I'm not stupid. I just don't want to spend whatever time I've got left behind bars. If I even made it that far.”
“None of that is my problem. My problem is five hundred dollars. Did you really think you were going to get away from me? You don't get away from me until I say so.”
Thomas wasn't an idiot. He was obsessive. He had to be, to be as good of a bounty hunter as he was. He needed to be single-minded, focused on his quarry.
That made him just as dangerous as any gun he might have aimed at the back of Leon's head. More so. Because that meant anything that got in his way was expendable.
“I did what I had to do.” He deliberately changed his tactic. It was the only way to avoid getting a bullet in the brain. “You would've done the same. You would never have sat back if you had a chance you could take.”
“Sure. But I guess that means I better not give you another chance.” Thomas slowly eased the hammer back into place. He holstered his gun and then his hand was on Leon's belt. “Put your hands behind your back.”
He'd already learned the hard lesson that he couldn't overpower Thomas, but his arms moved before he even thought not to do it. They curved into the by-now familiar position and remained still as Thomas looped the rope around his wrists.
“If what you want is money, I've got that. I can give you the same as what you'd get from turning me in.”
“Oh yeah?” The rope was tighter than it had been for the past three days. “There's nothing to stop me from taking your money and turning you in anyway.” He pressed against Leon's back, his mouth close to Leon's ear. “Do you get that?”
What he got was an immediate hard-on. That powerful body in such a familiar position meant one thing to his well-trained flesh. Especially with his hands bound. For some inexplicable reason, the restraints made him throb even more.
“Yeah,” he acquiesced. “I get it. Do I get anything else?” To accompany his last question, he squirmed against Thomas.
“You want me to fuck you?” His rough fingers closed around Leon's neck, though he barely applied pressure. It was just a reminder. “Is that it?”
“Isn't that what you usually do when you have me like this?” The words slipped out on their own. As soon as they hung between them, Leon realized he might have pushed too far this time.
Thomas pulled Leon's belt free with his other hand, then pushed his hand past Leon's waistband to grip his erection. The hand on his throat tightened at the same time. “Because I can. Because you wouldn't stop me even if I untied you.”
It was an awful truth, but truth nonetheless. He couldn't deny the effects when Thomas had an iron grip wrapped around his aching cock. He couldn't even deny that he wasn't aroused by the surety of his other fingers digging into his neck. Breath was more precious, but he could still manage in short, shallow gasps. It left him more than a little lightheaded, and he was thrusting into Grady's hand before he could think not to.
“Maybe one of these days you'll remember that my arms like this get in our way. The only good thing about this position is I can do this.” He groped blindly, but it was easy to find the man's arousal. It strained behind his pants, and Leon scratched its length through the coarse fabric.