Summary: Sam Wilson’s in for the ride of his life. (Idk I suck at summaries)
Word Count: 3.2k
Tags/Warnings: 18+ Sexual content. Modern AU. Cowboy!Sam. Slight Angst? Idk. Alcohol consumption. Inappropriate use of stable floor.
A/N: Something about the leaves changing is putting me in the mood for some Sam Wilson lovin’. ma’ams, sirs, non-binaries, I present to you, COWBOY SAM. This is purely born out of thirst, the barely there plot is just a vehicle for it. Yee-motherfuckin’-haw!
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Clear blue skies and soft, white cumulus clouds look just the same above him here as they did there.
It had been the first thing he noticed on that long, quiet car ride home from the airport and the last thought before settling into the checkered sheets of his adolescence. Night, day, clear or grey — it’s the same sky he’s been under his entire life, same backdrop to his last few years at war.
One certain days, he feels blind as a newborn, clutching to his momma’s chest as she quiets his cries. Others, he swears he can see thousands of miles away if only he just squints hard enough.
Today, there’s sweat stinging in his eyes, so he only sees wide pastures through a blurred filter.
Sam Wilson holds his father’s hat in one hand, uses a forearm glowing bronze beneath the sun to wipe away the dampness over his brow. He’s known heat, spent hours baking under the hot sun in full fatigues. This is a different kind of heat — the lazy, sleepy kind that starts in his neck and spreads warm everywhere. It pools in unwelcome places: behind his knees, down his shoulder blades, in his ass crack.
“What’s the matter, cowboy? Can’t take the heat?”
"M’fine,” he scoffs indignantly, kneading a thick thigh splayed out over worn leather, soothing his sore muscles. Despite his objections otherwise, Sam’s dog-tired and aching for a cold shower. He wants to fall face first into the couch and stay there for, forever, maybe.
Your smirk burns him up from the inside out with irritation and a whole other barrel of emotions he doesn’t want to get into when you’re being this annoying. “If you need a break, I won’t tell anyone...”
Sam pants a laugh, settling the cattleman hat back over his head, squint in his warm brown eyes easing in the brim’s shadow. Shaking his head, he replies “I don’t believe that for one second.”
He’s heard that most people settle a bit after they reach their mid-20s. People have jobs and responsibilities and have less room to be obnoxious and wild. You haven’t changed one bit since high school. You’re just as loud mouthed and unpleasant as you were all those years ago before Sam left to enlist. You used to laugh and throw mud in his face when he worked on your daddy’s ranch as a kid, put burs in his boots and made fun of his gangly arms. Not much has changed on that front now that he’s back — he’s kind of glad for it, so used to people in this little town treating him differently now.
Sam licks salt from his lip, watching you in front of him, horse in a jog.
The steady rocking of your hips side to side holds his gaze, matching your pace but hanging back enough that conversation is sparse. Sam eyes the way denim hugs your legs, tapers off into a pair of worn brown boots with stitched designs fraying. He remembers when you’d first gotten those boots, how you danced in them before him. He’d always had a sneaking suspicion you liked him back then; he was older and worked for your daddy, your teasing always felt like just an excuse to talk to him.
You’re a woman now. An honest to god woman with pretty eyes and a dangerous smile — all stuffed into tight jeans and a chambray shirt with the top buttons undone in such a way that he can the path of sweat down your neck and into your cleavage. Sam visibly swallows.
“What’s it like?” your sweet twang tickles the inside of his ears, a shiver run down his spine.
Sam shifts in his saddle, leaning up on the horn to give his sleeping ass a break, “What’s what like?”
Silence for a beat, what little he can see of your profile twists in uncertainty. You slow up so that your horse falls in step beside his, shrugging to appear more casual, though it’s more comfort for you than him. “I mean... the Air Force, Afghanistan. That whole thing.”
Oh, that whole thing. Sam stiffens, reins creaking in tight fists as he struggle with such a small, harmless question.
In the hours you’ve spent together since he’s been back, the subject of where he went and why he’s back remained fairly untouched. Sam didn’t want to talk about it and you don’t like awkward, feelings conversations in general. He’d liked the balance the two of you had struck up. Considered you a good friend, even, for it.
“You don’t have to say anything! Just forget I said anything,” you rush out.
Sam can tell by the way you frantically avoid looking at him that an ashamed heat is crawling up your neck and pooling in your face. He sighs heavily, shoulders sagging and looks out over the herd of cattle moving pastures.
He’s dog-tired.
After Riley died, he just couldn’t find reason anymore — his momma said it was giving her smiley boy premature frown lines. Getting out was supposed to be a good thing for him, but he’s just so tired of waiting for the results. He’d expected coming home and working on the ranch would be like flipping a switch; he’d be happy again and wouldn’t have to think about his time in the war. For the most part, he has been. But some days he doesn’t know whether it’s better to be blind or to see thousands of miles away.
Then there are days like today: the in between where everything is blurry and he wants to talk about it, but doesn’t know where to begin.
“It’s hot as hell.”
The bewildered look on your face makes him smile small. His lips twitch and it sends yours chasing off after them, cracking big and wide. He wishes his momma could see him now, with that gap-toothed grin she says she misses so much. What it is, he doesn’t know, but something about you makes him so comfortable.
If you wanted to, you couldn’t get Sam to stop talking after that.
He tells stories of COs with sticks up their asses and hillbillies he never thought he’d have to protect and never wants to again, of all the shit Riley put him through and what passes for food on military bases. And by the time the sun sets and the cows are grazing on fresh, untouched grass, the ache in Sam’s hips and legs can’t compare to the one in his cheeks.
“He sounds like an amazing friend,” you smile softly, boot kicked up on the farriers stool outside the barn.
Sam smiles wistfully into the neck of his beer bottle, nodding firmly, “The best.”
The sweat on his shirt has dried under a cool night breeze, Sam’s eyes slide closed to savor the feeling of it. It’s peaceful and quiet in the best way, a warm beer in hand, crickets chirping and a somewhere frog croaking. He can’t help but think this is as close as he’s gonna get to being happy again without Riley.
A cacophonous clattering of the glass bottle graveyard the two of you cultivated breaks through it. You hiss loudly, muttering curses under your breath as you try and right the ones that fell over, “Shhh, dammit. Shit.”
Sam rolls his head to the side slowly with relaxed breaths, looking at you with a goofy smile. He places his bottle down in the dirt besides just about the dozen other empty ones, reaching out for you, “You’re a good friend too.”
You watch him with wide eyes, chewing your lip dark in that way that he never lets on drives him crazy.
His eyes lazily drift over your face, down the smooth planes of your neck and over the panicked heave of your chest. There’s a summer haze over him, he feels all fuzzy and warm with alcohol swirling around in his gut, liver working overtime. He’s thinking things he probably shouldn’t, fingers itching to do things he definitely shouldn’t.
You are a good friend, he means that.
He’s been home for a few months now and can count on one hand the amount of people he actually likes spending time with. His momma and his little sister on Sundays after church making — or rather, for his part, eating— pies. Your father, who Sam’s always looked up to, listening to life lessons that he’s already learned but doesn’t have the heart to say so. He likes going to the bar with the other ranch hand Tommy well enough, but only for a few.
You. All the time, even when he’s supposed to be doing something else or you’re annoying the hell out of him.
Sam clears his throat, hoping that the starry-eyed look in his eyes is obscured by the darkness of night and the low brim of his hat. By the way you’re looking back at him, he highly doubts he’s gotten away with it. “I should get going, it’s late.”
“You-” you swallow, sitting up straight in your seat as he makes to get up, “you shouldn’t drive.”
Cracking bones have Sam grimacing as he stretches tall, working out all the kinks he’d gotten from a long day out riding, driving the cattle. He stumbles a little in his boots, kicking up a small bit of dirt with a tipsy laugh, “You’re right...”
He sees your tense shoulders sag in relief, settling further against the red barn wall. Sam grins mischievously, swaying towards the open barn doors, “I’ll ride.”
“Sam!” you call after him, and he hears the light pounding of your boots after him as he bolts into the stables.
He’s never felt so fast, so light, running with you hot on his trail, boots sliding dangerously across the hay covered ground. Sam’s a kid again, unburdened by the hardships of war and the grief of losing his best friend.
Once, when he was working here in high school with you constantly ribbing on him, Sam stole your hat — same one sitting on that pretty head now — and ran. You gave chase until your shorter legs tired out and ugly sobs of frustration poured from your lungs. He felt guilty, mean even and stopped as soon as those doe eyes looked up at him in hurt. There was a terrible smirk on your face he’ll never forget when you triumphantly snatched it out of his hands and kicked him in the shin, little brat you were.
This is payback.
Sam takes a hard left into one of the empty stalls, laughing wildly when you corner him, hands holding his sides in stitches. Smiling eyes betray the scowl on your face as you approach slowly, as if he were a jumpy young colt for you to tame.
Something’s in the air, suffocating the closing space between the two of you and Sam’s pinned beneath the unreadable stare of your eyes dark with... somethin’.
The heave of his chest is prominent under the loose fabric of his unbuttoned shirt, white undershirt stretching taut over its broadness. He sucks down big, audible breaths to steady himself, face slack. Sam rests his hands over the silver longhorn buckle of his belt, pinkies tracing over the rough grooves to distract him from this churning in his stomach. It could just be the alcohol. He’s not been oblivious to the all the lingering touches and heated gazes these past few months working close together, but it could just be the alcohol.
In the back of his head, he can almost feel the phantom sting of his momma slapping him there, warning him that you don’t shit where you eat and he’d be stupid to do what his body is screaming for him to.
You’re the annoying girl that sent him sprawling into a cow patty, trained the dogs to circle him in the field and nip at his heels. You’re his boss’ daughter and his friend, an important one at that.
You’re... somethin’ and when he’s with you the sky is bluer and the clouds make these funny shapes with resemblances the two of you never agree on.
“Okay, okay, you got me,” Sam holds his arms up in surrender, rolled up sleeves unravelling on his forearms.
It doesn’t stop your approach like he’d hoped it would. The longer this goes on, and the closer you get — he can feel hot breaths fanning over his face now, raising goosebumps beneath his stubble — the weaker his resolve gets.
You’re right in front of him, warm hands squeezing his shoulders and a glint in your eyes that means trouble. “Do I win a prize, cowboy?”
Sam’s knees buckle just the slightest and it’s your hands wandering down the taut muscles at his sides that keep him standing. When you call him that he feels all weird inside, like any nickname before that was wrong and any after wouldn’t even register for him.
A sharp hiss leaves Sam’s lips, jolting as a cool few fingers experimentally drift beneath the hem of his shirt, smoothing over his hot skin. He says your name in warning, low and pleading.
“Sam...” you whisper, knocking his hat off with the tipping brim of your own, a pleading look of your own burning straight through him and settling in the erratic beat of his chest. He struggles to focus on anything other than your fingers splayed out on his torso, thumbs fiddling with the waistband of his boxers peaking out above his jeans, nails scratching just light enough to leave his skin crawling.
God, what did you say? He can’t remember, clenching fists to avoid reaching out and touching you, all warm against him. And why is he even fighting it?
Hesitantly, Sam places a calloused hand on your waist, squeezing softly when your nose rubs against his.
His mouth falls open stupidly, eyes tightly held shut because he’s afraid if he opens them you’ll disappear and he’ll be passed out on the floor at home. He doesn’t know how long he’s been watching after you like he had earlier that day — a while now — but his gaze always seems to find you, same as the few good dreams he has nowadays.
“I want you.”
“Shit,” Sam grumbles, slapping a hand over the back of your neck and crushing your lips to his.
The clunk of your hat hitting the stable floor is like the starting shot of a frantic race of tongue and teeth. Sam scrambles to grab handfuls of whatever he can, pulling you closer by the belt loops of your jeans. Your hands curl around his shoulders and push his shirt off, as he pulls you up to straddle him. Sam’s hands shoves themselves down the back of your jeans, stuck between scratchy denim and the soft flesh of your ass.
Your legs gets tangled with his along the bag of his thighs, the two of you stumbling around for balance. It’s found, of course, in the hay.
Sam’s never felt so desperate, so starved for touch that even with you in his arms it’s not enough. He craves more, wants more of you all the time. He wants you as a coworker, a friend, a lover.
Everything you have to offer, he’ll take.
On his back and staring up at you with pathetic, lovesick eyes, Sam blindly tugs off his shirt, distracted by the smooth expanse of skin you reveal to him in your own undressing. He leans forward to press kisses against the cups of your bra, palming at the flesh of your torso and along the ridges of your back, eyes black with hungry want.
Something whiny joins the harsh breathing that fills the quiet barn and it takes a second for Sam to realize that it had come from him. You slanted your hips over his, slowly rutting the rough fronts of your jeans against each other and Sam can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed by his soft moans.
“You can’t help it, huh?” you murmur against his lips, rocking back and forth over his groin, “My Cowboy, always watching me with those pretty brown eyes.”
Sam chokes out a wrecked moan, desperately gripping your biceps as you create a burning friction between you, weight bearing down on his hard dick. You’re riding him for all he’s worth and christ, he thinks he might just die.
“So soft for me, right? Even when I’m being mean...”
He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him, your sweet tongue in his mouth maybe, but Sam has never been so utterly helpless. He doesn’t rightly know what to do with you, if there even is anything he can do.
One particular roll of your hips has him quivering beneath you, reaching up to bring you down to his lips in a searing kiss. The grind has him seeing stars, crushing your shoulders in his hands as he fights back the rumbling burn in the base of his torso. Sam curses and you tut him, biting into his shoulder with a teasing smile, humming in appreciation as he stuffs his hands into the back pocket of your jeans and urges you on faster.
Forward and back, a familiar rocking motion that he’s watched intently anytime the two of you ride out together, Sam’s a moaning mess. You drag your hot crotch against his again and again, he can hardly do anything but pant into your mouth as it presses little affectionate kisses.
“Please...” he begs.
You smile down at him, running your hands under his chin and pinching softly. He loves that smile, real soft and teasing, and just for him. Does whatever he can to draw that smile out.
And then it’s a full out gallop, fast and hard down on his throbbing jean-covered cock and it’s too late before Sam realizes what’s about to happen.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he struggles to stop you, hands futile in their attempts to halt your hips. You don’t stop and the knowing glint in your eyes tells him you know exactly what it is you’re doing. It’s building, burning in his gut, thick thighs tensed, chasing after it in acquiescence.
Sam comes with a shout, painting the crotch of his jeans dark and wet with cum. He lays an arm over his eyes, practically hyperventilating as you ease him down with a few slow rolls over him.
“I-” Sam doesn’t know what to say. Is there anything to say? He’s embarrassed and in awe of himself, of you. “I promise that’s never happened before.”
“You’re somethin’ Sam Wilson,” there’s a laugh in your voice, but Sam doesn’t feel like it’s at him and what he views as his failings. You pat his still heaving chest with a satisfied smile, the thumb of your other hand tapping lightly over his plump bottom lip.
Sam grins, relieved that you’re still you. Understanding where it counts and a real fucking ball buster. Literally.
“Not that I don’t love a good roll in the hay as much as the next guy... but, let’s do dinner before next time?” He’s a bit shy in his asking, focused on where his thumb traces the skin you your thigh still splayed out over his.
You smile and nod, biting your lip and Sam’s a goner if it wasn’t already abundantly clear, “Gotta make it up to me somehow.”
Sam groans and throws you off of him, dipping you into a pile of hay he’s glad you disappear in.
