Nickerie swished his tail and sidestepped in the opposite direction before finally obeying the pull on the rein and moving in a circle. Rick stood in the stirrups to avoid the roughness of the trot as he focused on getting control of his spirited colt. Rick guided the colt into smaller and smaller circles. Tiring of the tight circles, Nickerie slowed his gait into a fast bouncy walk, and then gradually into a normal walk.
Rick leaned forward, patted his colt and said, "Well at least we got to practice your trot." He reined the colt in Horatio's direction. As the horse and rider approached, Horatio, who looked like he'd been holding his breath, said, "Well done, Rick. I'm beyond impressed." He reached out and ran his hand gently down the colt's face, and then clasped the rein near the bit. Rick took a deep breath himself and exhaled, widening his eyes briefly at the same time. "Thank you." "Are you OK?" the redhead asked, smiling yet studying his lover with concern. "Yeah," the brunet answered. "I'm fine. Nickerie just needs a lot of work and hours under the saddle. But I think he's worn me out for tonight." "No," Horatio said, his eyes probing his brunet lover, taking in just how handsome the man looked astride his horse. "I..." he paused for effect. "am the only one who gets to do that."
Rick had dismounted from Nickerie and both men had led him back into the barn where Rick removed the tack, and carefully slipped a halter on the colt. The brunet crosstied the tall animal and began to go over his coat with a soft brush. Rick had his back to Horatio who was sitting on a couple bales of hay enjoying the view of his lover's tight buns, so snugly held by the material of the riding pants. "Is there anything I can do to help?" the redhead asked, his voice almost catching. "No, I've pretty much got it; I'm just going to check his hooves." "Is anyone else still here at the stables besides us?" "No, I think we're the only ones here." Rick said, bending down to brush the colt's foreleg. "Is this stall here empty?" Horatio was looking at the stall diagonally in back of him with its door open. "Yes, it is for now," the brunet said. "But Carl was telling me it's going to be occupied by a new stallion who's supposed to arrive tomorrow. That's why the stall has fresh straw in it." "Yes, I was noticing that." But the empty stall wasn't the only thing Horatio was noticing. Rick was bending over the grooming kit which was on the ground. He was fishing around for something. His buns were pointing right at Horatio. Horatio was starting to feel fidgety. He thought he could see the brunet's skin showing through the material. Doesn't he know what he's doing to me, showing me that kind of view? the redhead wondered to himself. "Where is that dang hoof pick?" Rick grumbled as he rummaged in the container, bending his long legs more, so bending over wouldn't be such a strain on his back. That does it, Horatio thought. The material of the riding pants had stretched even tighter over Rick's buns and Horatio could see every dip and curve. Horatio sprang up from where he sat, coming up behind the brunet. "Wha--" the brunet exclaimed, feeling hands on him. The redhead's voice was a low rumble as he said, "Nickerie isn't the only one who's going to feel a rider on him tonight."
Rick's fingers had just found the hoof pick, but his grasp on it faltered as his senses responded to his lover's insistent touch. He moaned and trembled, wanting to give in immediately to the love offered to him. But he knew he couldn't. "Horatio..." Rick began. He was trying to get his fingertips underneath the redhead's tightening grip around his waist. "You ... have to let me put ... Nickerie away." He felt the redhead's hot, dangerous breath through the back of his shirt. "OK, Rick, but do it quickly," the redhead whispered intensely. Then he squeezed around the brunet even more tightly for just an instant before releasing his grasp. Rick staggered, almost falling forward. He could feel sweat on his brow... among other things. He didn't dare turn around and look into his lover's eyes. Those blue eyes... he might never get the colt back into the stall if he saw those eyes. At least not for awhile. Rick's hand scrambled in the kit, finding the hoof pick. He picked up each one of Nickerie's feet quickly, but carefully, checking for any rocks that may have wedged in there during the colt's earlier antics in the arena. Then he guided him into his stall, removing the halter, closing only the lower part of the stall door. He had seen that Nickerie still had some oats left in his food bin, but he would give the colt more after he and Horatio were done sowing some of their own.
Rick now turned and met the gaze of his lover who was standing in the middle of the aisle between the stalls. His azure eyes glinted like diamonds under the overhead lighting, and he beckoned Rick to follow him. Rick followed Horatio into the stall that had been prepared for the soon-to-be-arriving stallion. The redhead closed both the lower and the upper parts of the stall door to ensure that he and his lover would have privacy just in case someone else was still on the grounds of the stables besides themselves.
"What should we do if we hear someone coming?" Rick asked after he watched his lover seal them into the comfy straw-filled enclosure. Horatio chuckled. "Neigh. Whinny; Make horse noises." "Like this, Horatio?" And Rick let out a long peal of a whinny that seemed to shake the sides of the stall. They heard a distant whinny in return from a horse somewhere on the grounds. Both men burst out laughing. "You are so cute, Rick, and you're living up to your nickname." Horatio stepped up close to his lover. "Now hold still while I remove your 'tack.'"
Rick sank helplessly into the deep, clean scented straw as he could feel his lover's hands work their magic over his clothing. "Horatio, your hands are on fire like you've been doing blacksmith work and...you're working them, clawing your way to me too, like a cat trying to claw its way out of a burlap bag..." the brunet tried to make his words humorous, but desire caused his voice to hitch, soon he wouldn't be able to speak coherently. "Hush now, I've only been thinking about this all day...what you'd be smelling like: horse flesh, delectable man flesh and well tooled leather...If I'm wriggling around like something on a baited hook, can you blame me?" the ginger haired man's words were coming quickly and he was trying to be loving and gentle but instead of his tone taking on the form of hitching, it quickly took a commanding tone, one he knew that Rick would like. "I...always wanted to try something like this..." Horatio continued in triumph, as deft hands reduced them both to their birthday suits while the redhead looked to his lover like an untamed thing, with bright cobalt blue desired filled eyes and sweet smelling straw cascading down his bare shoulders, with random pieces of it entwining in his hairs on his head. A shudder went through both men as the crimson haired man took his hand and caressed and kissed his way up his lover's legs, nibbling on the leather of the boots- he started at the calf of the boot and worked his way up from there, quickly, but with an intensity that made up for the pace. "My very own daddy...long legs..." Horatio paused right at the top of the boot at the knee to marvel at the rest of the graceful long leg ahead of him. Also, he fixed the brunet with a lusty gleam in his eye that made Rick shake with the kind of anticipation he had only felt in the past when he encountered a wild mustang. Rick simply pulled his lover down close to his own body, eager to feel the flame heated skin that warmed his body, heart and sent pure ethereal heat straight to his very soul.... As the two lovers began to sow their oats, Nickerie pawed the ground and began to move restlessly in tandem; he was no longer interested in his food, but rather, found his own nostrils flaring wide with the need to take in ever deeper amounts of air.
**About 40 Minutes Later** The two lovers lay side by side in the now quiet stall. The once-smooth straw around them, however, was now in a very roughed-up state. It kind of reminded Rick of how the wheat in those pictures of crop circles looked after the supposed UFO had come and done it's deed. Rick emitted a giggle at the thought of that. "And what are you giggling about, my colt?" the redhead asked, turning towards the brunet. To Rick, Horatio looked like a straw-framed glowing ember. And the redhead was still trying to catch his breath from their exertions. It must've been the boots, Rick thought to himself, his grin increasing.
"What?" the redhead wanted to know. "You're glowing like an ember." "I think we both are." "Look what we've done to the stall." Rick repeated his giggle. Horatio looked around and raised his eyebrows. "Yes, we'll have to try to return it to some semblance of --" The redhead started giggling himself as he laughed out the last word -- "decency." And he playfully picked up a handful of straw and sprinkled it over Rick's head. "Hey, that's not going to help fix the stall," Rick protested. "And two can play at that game." The brunet picked up a huge handful of straw and dropped it onto the redhead's neck and chest. Horatio picked up the straw that had landed on him, and started throwing it back at his brunet lover. A sort of snowball fight with straw began, until both men heard a noise from outside the stall somewhere. "Sshhhhh," the redhead warned. The couple became very still and listened. The sound happened again. It was a knocking noise. "What is that?" the brunet whispered. "I don't know, someone might be out there," the redhead whispered back. "Do one of your horse noises." Rick nodded an OK and snuffled out a very realistic nicker and whinny. Not too loud, but just loud enough to assure whoever it was that all was normal in the barn.
Horatio had to clamp a hand over his mouth to prevent a burst of laughter. Then, they both heard a loud whinny in response from a horse nearby in the barn. Then, the knocking sound again, louder than before. It was coming from a nearby stall right outside, across the aisle. "Oh, man," Rick whispered. "I think that's Nickerie." Horatio chuckled. "I think you're right." The redhead moved quietly over to the door of the stall they were in and slowly opened the top part just a crack. He peered through and saw Nickerie's head craning over the top of his stall door across the way. Nickerie seemed to sense that someone was looking at him and started bobbing his head up and down, and then knock knock knock. Horatio laughed softly and turned to his lover. "That sound is your colt hitting the inside of his stall with his hoof. But we should probably get out of here in case someone does show up." Rick laughed. "Yeah, I guess we should." He bent down to pick up his clothes. Horatio did the same. "Go give Nickerie more oats, Rick, and say goodnight to him, and I'll go find a straw fork and try to make this stall look like it didn't get hit by a cyclone."
The two men proceeded to complete their appointed tasks in record time; by the time Rick came back from Nickerie's stall, he found Horatio smiling triumphantly as he put the pitchfork back into its place. "I didn't know that you knew your way so well around stables," Rick patted Horatio on the back. "I did some riding as a child; my Momma really wanted that for me, but I got lots of practice from the time I was in New York; I used to ride in parades or in official events there in uniform; naturally, I'd be asked to help put the horses away and such too," the redhead blushed slightly at his lover's compliment. "You rode in New York? I'll have to learn a lot more about that, but time for us to scram," Rick gave him a boyish grin and with not another word to be said, the couple got into their vehicles and left. @@@@@ About 35 minutes later @@@@@ "I think we got away with it." Rick exhaled a breath of relief as he was remembering how Carl had taken a cursory look around Nickerie's stall as well as the empty one for the new stallion that was arriving soon and all he did was wave goodbye to the two men as he began to lock things up for the evening. "Yes we did and by the skin of our teeth too," Horatio replied, with a teasing tone in his voice as they entered their home. "That was an opening for a line if I EVER heard one," Rick inspected his boots, noting that there were at least two or 3 sets of nibbles and bite marks on them. "How am I ever going to explain these to the staff at my shoe repair shop?" he sighed, but at the same time, he gave his lover a knowing glance. "...well, I did try to control myself. I mean after all, I spared the rest of your legs, from the knees on up, didn't I?" the ginger haired man used his best innocently sounding voice. "Okay, okay I'll consider myself fortunate then....I think," the brunet laughed in response and took his beloved into his arms. "Your stomach is going to growl any minute, my angel so, what if I order something Chinese for delivery? That place you mentioned before. I see the menu right here on the table," Rick picked up the menu after reluctantly ending their embrace. "I've an idea. Why don't you order and then we can each get showered enough just enough to get comfortable to put on our robes and eat. Then after we eat, we can take a deep, long soak in the tub," Horatio replied. "Sounds wonderful, but why don't you go first in the shower, then I'll go. If we shower together..." Rick began but couldn't complete his sentence as his lover nodded in agreement, stopping him from speaking any further by taking the brunet's chin in his hand, pulling his jaw and lips close for a very romantic kiss.
"Shall I ask for chopsticks?" the brunet broke the intimate contact in order to breathe and to speak, as well as tilt his head to one side in a certain way that he knew the redhead liked. "Sure, I know how to eat with them," his beloved responded, smiling and nodding at the head tilt; he was remembering that the main couple in the movie, entitled: 'The World of Suzie Wong' performed the same action when they were in the middle of a kiss. Horatio responded by tilting his own head in such a way so that their lips met once more for another kiss, one that would have been a lingering one if not for the couple hearing a sudden sound of a solid thump right at their feet. It was their pet, Smokey who placed a rather chewed up looking house slipper right by both Rick's and Horatio's feet; his blue eyes going from one caregiver to another. While Rick could see in those eyes anxiety, probably because he had been left alone for many hours, Horatio saw in them annoyance too, a look beneath the obvious one that made him pause and think that if he were a cat himself, he too, might be giving such a glaring glance at his caregiver, chiding him in a fashion for neglecting him.
"...I can tell that it's not going to be easy to make this up to him," Rick broke his embrace from his lover and leaned down to grab the slipper. "More teethmarks and scratches. I'm caught between the coils of two cats, both blue eyed, both with tempers and they both have a fetish for attacking my footwear..." Rick said, giving the feline his best hang dog expression, but unlike Horatio, Smokey tilted his head up and away in a huff- he was not going to be placated so easily. "You're lucky he's not an orange haired cat or something," the ginger haired man said sympathetically- "then you'd really be in the stew pot. There are worse things than having one's slipper eaten up, you know..." he reached down to pick up the fussy kitty, who surprisingly allowed him to. "Now don't you be giving that miniature image of you any ideas. My slippers are not to be a substitute for a litter box," Rick said in an authoritative tone, but his eyes betrayed sincere remorse. "If I cuddle you now after calling for our meal and if he does the same after his shower..." the brunet began. "...and we let you curl up at the foot of our bed all night tonight too," Horatio crooned as he stroked the cat's fur and caressed its small tummy, "will that help to begin to make up for things, will that help, little fella?" the redhead used a voice so pleasant to the ears that his lover couldn't help but respond to it himself- he went behind Horatio and wrapped his arms around his shoulders and neck. "I try to make peace with our kitty and you attempt to seduce subtly...insatiable are you not?" the redhead broke into quiet laughter as the blue smoked colored feline began to purr and lick the redhead's hand in a peace gesture. Rick decided to move one of his hands carefully down until he reached the cat too and just like the redhead, he got a sweet hand lick as a peace gesture. "Well, time to keep our promises then. You hold the "warm fuzzy" here, while I call in our orders for delivery," the brunet disengaged from his companion in order to complete his task.
**45 Minutes Later** Smokey had been tended to and was eating some nutritious moist food in the kitchen. Rick and Horatio sat in their robes at the dining room table, enjoying their Chinese food. Horatio had turned the setting on the chandelier's lighting down just low enough to resemble candlelight, and gentle shadows from the subdued lighting played over both men's features as they took their bites of food and watched each other. "I still can't believe Carl came back to the stables like that," the brunet commented as he watched his lover insert a long, thin chow mein noodle into his mouth. "He had told me he was leaving and drove off." Horatio slowly sucked the noodle all the way into his mouth until it disappeared. "Well, you can never be too careful; that's why I made sure to latch us into that stall so securely...and told you to make your horse noises." Rick laughed nervously and poked at the dumpling on his plate. "We really came close to getting caught -- if he had come back ten minutes sooner...he would've wanted to check that stall--" "Life is an adventure," the redhead said, chuckling. "We would've had to have gotten dressed in a hurry and come up with some plausible explanation of why we were in that stall." Horatio took a brief swig of his beer, contemplating his lover's worried expression as the man pushed a hot sauce-laden dumpling into his mouth. "I think you're worrying too much because you're tired," the redhead noted. "We would've come up with something to tell Carl." "I know." Rick took a swig of his own beer though he hadn't finished chewing the dumpling. "You need that long soak in the tub; it will do you good," Horatio said, munching on an eggroll. "How was the sauce--hot?" "Yeah." Rick chewed and took another swig of beer in an effort to dilute the spiciness and wash everything down. "When we're in the tub, I'll have a better kind of sauce for you; I have just the thing."
Rick shook his head, laughing softly at the redhead's last remark and after noting that they both had finished the last of their beers, the pair got up and quickly cleaned up the residue left behind by their meal. Both of them spent a few minutes with their furry roommate, assuring him that he would be getting some long, overdue quality time with both of them, after their long soaking bath. As the blue eyed kitty understood what they were saying and decided to go upstairs to their bedroom in order to claim his spot on couple's large bed; Horatio followed after him and went into the bath area to fill the large, deep copper tub as he had in the past. He picked a neutral, scented, herbal based solution that would cause healing and relaxation to overworked muscles and sore bodies. By the time his lover was upstairs and had walked into the bath, the copper tub was full and looked quite inviting. The ginger haired man's eyes were bright with anticipation as he noted how his beloved, albeit somewhat weary and as he would say jokingly, quite *saddle sore*, decided to make a little show of things by slowly removing his robe, revealing his tempting lean frame-his own anticipation had made the tempting chest fur damp with desire; instead of curling, it was flat, already slick with sweat and as Horatio could not help but ease himself into his lover's arms, placing his mouth at the furry chest, he delighted in his lover's scent; a pure aroma that came from his own unique body heat. As Rick whispered into the ginger haired man's ear, which was already turning pink with his own body heat, the redhead cocked his head and laughed at the softly spoken remark. "A pool cue? surely I can remind you of something else..." the redhead turned his head away and pretended to be in a huff. "Yes you DO remind me of other things, too" and without any warning, Rick deftly scooped up his lover into his strong, steady arms and plopped him unceremoniously into the steaming, beckoning waters...