There were no holds barred, nothing hidden as Bede, with his touches, brushed his cheek against Galen’s, sighed in his ear.
The gasp of that mouth against Galen’s, the warmth of him, the tug of those fingers—all of this swept Galen up into a maelstrom he was unprepared for.
“Don’t you—” began Galen, but the words and the question and any thoughts hidden behind them vanished as Bede’s arm tightened around his waist.
Bede’s hand, hot palm against silken flesh, bore down on him and pulled him up and up until Galen’s head jerked back with a force sharp enough to nearly sever his spine.
There was simply not enough air in his lungs and he gasped, eyes wide open, dark sparks and bright ones circling around his vision as he collapsed in Bede’s arms.
“What?” he asked. “Wasthat?”
“What you needed,” said Bede with a sweet kiss to Galen’s mouth. “What I wanted to give you. In case this was the only time I could.”
What Bede had just given him was an encounter that should have taken place in a honeymoon boudoir, complete with a trail of rose petals leading up to the two-person bathtub in the middle of the room. Not a stand-up undefinablesomething, his blue jeans open to the air after a raw encounter between a parolee and hisboss.
But while it had been raw, there’d also been sweetness. Gentleness. All of which was now stamped on Galen’s very soul, and now what the hell was he supposed to do withthat?
“You don’t have to do anything,” said Bede, and it took Galen a moment to realize he’d asked his question aloud and that Bede had answered it aloud, rather than the two of them communicating on a soul-deep level. “It’s just to enjoy. Like life, I suppose.”
He drew back, his arm still around Galen’s waist and, one-handed, tucked Galen away in his boxers, and then zipped up the zipper and closed the brass button.
“What about you?” Galen asked as it seemed like, felt like, Bede was prepared to walk away into the woods without his fair share.
“Oh,” said Bede with a laugh, shaking his head, his smile bright, his eyes sparkling. “I don’t like doing it standing up.”
“What the hell?” asked Galen, unable to stifle his own laugh even as it mixed with a sudden flare of irritation. “You don’t get to just do that and walk away.”
“Sure I do.” Bede moved close for a second to tuck Galen’s shirt tails into his blue jeans. Then he stepped away and waved for Galen to follow. “C’mon. We’ll be late for the movie, which, according to Kell, isCool Hand Luke.”
A classic prison movie. Of course. What else would they show in the mess tent with a bunch of ex-cons crowding around? Laughing at the funny parts, critiquing anything they didn’t agree with, and of course they would know because they’d been there.
Maybe all of them hoped one day to be as cool as Paul Newman, but that idea didn’t matter as much as the fact that Bede was, quite simply, walking away. As if nothing that had happened between them mattered. Did it?
Galen found himself bereft at the idea, and hurried to follow after Bede, close on his heels. Trotting. Panting. Awash with feelings, his whole body swirling with desire for more.
By the time they both reached the mess tent, Galen was sweating, damp beneath his arms, between his legs, and still short of air as his body attempted to settle into a semblance of normal. Whatever that meant, anyhow.
There was no going back from knowing what Bede tasted like, how soft that supple mouth was, how strong and decisive those hands were. What remained unknown beneath Bede’s clothes was an undiscovered country that Galen knew he shouldn’t want to discover. But he did. Oh, he did.
Everybody in the valley was in the mess tent, settled in folding chairs that faced the propped up screen on the rail along the buffet table.
Two standing fans had been set up to keep the mess tent cool and airy, in spite of the heat of the early evening. The smell of popcorn was in the air, the sound of excited jostlings, low comments. Bowls of fresh, salty popcorn were being placed on small tables at the edges of aisles, and the soda machine was going full bore.
As Bede went and grabbed two seats at the end of the second aisle, nobody remarked that the two of them had arrived together and that they weren’t altogether tidy.
Nobody remarked that Galen was unusually flushed about the face and neck or that Bede’s grin was wide enough to light up the dark. That his hair was sticking to his forehead, and that veins stood out on his forearms as he grabbed a bowl of popcorn and passed it to Galen.
“You want something to drink?” asked Bede, as nicely as a boy on his second or third date. Polite but casual, as if the relationship between them was well on its way to being firmly established. “Iced tea?”
Galen blinked. He favored iced tea over milk or soda, and Bede had noticed.
“Have you been watching me?” Galen just about hissed, but he was laughing, too.
Bede chuckled in response as he got up to go over to the iced tea dispenser. A second later, Galen bowed his head and looked at the overflowing bowl of popcorn in his lap, slathered with butter and sparkling with salt and something that might be white cheddar powder.
He was sure that what he was getting himself into was not feasible, no sir. But a large part of him saw the irony, a deep, dark humor, in his current situation. He’d gone and done what he’d never thought possible: he had feelings for Bede. It was not just that his body was still flush with pleasure. It was the fact that his heart was full, that he felt good for the first time in a long time. There was no way he wanted to let any of that go.
When Bede took his place in the chair next to Galen’s, he reached casually across Galen to dig his fingers into the bowl. Shoving a fistful of powdery, salty popcorn into his mouth, he winked one blue eye at Galen, and then turned his attention to the screen.
