If Ennis hadn't stayed the night, which he often did now, mornings Jack would get the fire going and the coffee brewing then wait for the sound of Ennis's horse's hooves - by then he was usually back in the tent, naked wrapped in the old blanket, trembling with anticipation. First thing Ennis did after his coffee was to unwrap that blanket as though Jack was a present especially for him.
Then for an hour at least they'd make love, Ennis banishing the cold of the mountain and his feelings of loneliness, taking Jack long and hard, warming his soul as well as his body.
Jack lived for these moments when Ennis was most vulnerable and needy and kept quiet when the love-making became rougher – Ennis plunging into him again and again, biting and sucking, continuing the love-making until Jack could barely walk.
One time only, when Ennis was in full flow taking him, had Jack begged him to stop, sore as he was from a full afternoon's love-making the day before. Ennis seemed deaf to his pleas, didn't want to know, turned him about roughly fucking him from different angles, his desire seemingly impossible to assuage.
'Jack FuckinTwist', Ennis murmured between barely parted lips, and continued, pistoning like a machine.
So Jack learnt to keep quiet and take all Ennis had to give, subject to the pleasure and the pain of it, subject to Ennis, realising Ennis loved him and couldn't get enough of him.
One afternoon, tired as Jack was, Ennis took him over and over again and they both climaxed several times one after the other, although Jack had always thought this was an impossibility – they even made love in the little mountain stream scaring the horses, Ennis leaving marks on his arms as he held him down so fiercely.
Then, unable to sit and dead tired, Jack had dressed and stood before the camp fire as Ennis prepared to go up to the sheep. As Jack stood swaying, falling asleep on his feet Ennis came up and held him from behind, rubbing himself against Jack's fine ass. Thinking Ennis wanted to have him one last time before he left Jack moaned in his tiredness and pulled down the corners of his pretty mouth, he ached all over his body. Instead Ennis held him, rocking him, murmuring a song his momma had sung to him, and then saying, 'See ya in the mornin', he mounted up ready to leave.
Jack turned and watched him as he rode away and knew Ennis didn't look back because then he would never want to leave, never get up to those sheep – Jack loved him dearly.
Twenty years later, almost on this exact spot, after a bitter argument, Ennis would drive away and not look back because he was angry with Jack and all that had been said – and that would be the last time the lovers would ever meet…….but for now, unaware, Jack looked forward to the morning.