Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Jules had practically bitten the technician’s head off when he ordered her to turn off the beeping sound on the machine. He’d then sat down on the edge of the bed and ordered me to lean forward. His surprisingly strong hands had begun massaging my neck and shoulders all while he’d made me close my eyes so he could walk me through every little detail of how the mountains had looked the day we’d gone to see the wolves.
My man’s methods had worked. I’d gotten through hours of testing and monitoring as well as the wait for the on-call cardiologist to reach my personal doctor back in New York so he could learn everything about my medical history. By the time I’d been given the all clear to leave, I’d fallen asleep with Jules’s hands wrapped around mine.
They’d been there when I’d been roused from my rest. Jules had kept his word that no matter what, I’d never wake up in a hospital bed with no one there to greet me.
The first week of following Jules’s mother hen care had been pretty easy, but mostly because so much had taken place on the ranch in that time. Xavier’s name had been cleared of any wrongdoing in the so-called attempted murder of Brooks’s father when they’d been kids. The motion to have his criminal record expunged was working its way through the judicial system.
Additionally, Xavier and Brooks had stopped hiding their relationship, and Curtis had announced that the man he himself had loved for most of his adult life, Del Tipton, Curtis’s one-time foreman before his death, would be known as Del Sterling. Sterling was Curtis’s last name. The pair had secretly been married in Vegas and while they had been forced to continue to hide their marriage afterwards, we’d learned the night we’d been up on the mountain to find Xavier that Curtis had been visiting his husband’s grave on a regular basis for years after his death. It’d been a heartbreaking scene to witness, but it’d changed something in Curtis. He’d started wearing his wedding ring, and he’d had Del’s headstone changed so it included his married name and an epitaph that made it clear what Del had meant to Curtis.
While all the ranch hands had been stunned to learn about Curtis and Del, most had suspected what’d been going on between Xavier and Brooks and many had congratulated the two men. Only a couple of ranch hands had revealed their bigotry by leaving the ranch for good, but as far as Jules and I were concerned, that’d been a good thing.
Jules and I had agreed to keep our own relationship under wraps until we’d made some decisions together that would affect our immediate future.
But first I’d had to get through Jules’s list of rules. Week number two had found me breaking several of the rules repeatedly. I’d tried to sweet-talk my way out of the so-called discipline Jules had warned me about, but all that had earned me were responses that were both heaven and hell combined. Instead of verbally sparring with me if I didn’t follow the strict heart-healthy diet he had found on the internet, Jules had simply refused to keep up with his nightly visits to my room where we spent most of the time just lying in my bed talking until we fell asleep. I’d been determined to hold out so Jules would put an end to the rules, but what I ended up with was a kind of sensual torture I’d never expected.
Every night during that second week, instead of coming to my room, Jules had begun to send me pictures and videos of himself. Only they hadn’t been traditional videos. They’d been designed to send me to the brink but drop me before I had a chance to fall over that cliff of pleasure. The first couple of videos and pictures had been of Jules in his room at night doing what I’d at one time made him promise he’d do for me.
He'd played dress-up.
Each night I’d get a glimpse of him applying makeup or showing me clothes on a hanger that he’d been planning to model for me in person. Everything about the videos was as erotic as if I’d been there in his room with him. Even the act of Jules applying makeup and explaining to me about every step of the process and all the color palettes he was using had made me hard as a rock. Jules may have acted innocent, but I’d known better. The man had taken every opportunity to tease me. The way he applied lipstick or gloss to his lips, the way he ran his hands all over his body as he talked about how good the material of each outfit would feel against his skin had driven me crazy. I’d jerked myself off many times after my second heart attack, but there’d never been any true pleasure in the act. It’d become a biological need and nothing more. But the more Jules had teased me, the more I’d found myself jerking off in the shower or on my bed while watching the less-than-explicit videos. My orgasms had been incredible, but I’d instinctively known that the real thing would be so much more.