I use my free hand to draw an X across my chest. “I swear.”
“So, how do we get back down?” He cranes his neck to glance down over the side of the cliff.
“You can rappel, and I can climb down after you, or there’s about a mile long trail that leads back to camp from here.”
“Let’s take the trail.” He stands up and starts to unbuckle his harness. “If we climb back down, who knows what a second adrenaline rush might make me do.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” I rumble, hoping he doesn’t pick up the hint of sarcasm.
Percy meets my gaze and a shy smile twists his lips. Am I the biggest creep in the world if I suddenly find myself making a mental list of a dozen other adrenaline-inducing activities for this weekend? And, hey, if Percy needs someone to kiss again to burn off that energy afterward, I definitely won’t mind.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PERCY
I’d loveto blame my tossing and turning on the hard ground or say that the hot dogs Butch helped me cook over the fire for dinner just aren’t sitting right, but I can’t lie to myself. The real reason I’m staring up at the dark nylon ceiling of my tent, listening to leaves rustling and owls hooting has nothing to do with physical discomfort and everything to do with the fact that I can’t stop thinking about that stupid, stupid, very stupid kiss. Every time I close my eyes I relive the feeling of my lips against Butch’s and my body floods with an unpleasant mixture of horny heat and utter humiliation.
“It’s fine,” I whisper, trying to convince myself that he didn’t immediately tell all the guys what a pathetic moron I am the second I wandered into the woods to pee after we got back to camp.
Butch wouldn’t do that though. He’s sweet. At least, he seems sweet. Besides, he thinks it was nothing more than a burst of adrenaline that made me throw myself at him, not some idiotic crush on a man who couldn’t possibly be interested in me.
“It’s fine,” I say again, quietly into the dark, pulling my sleeping bag a little tighter around myself to combat the creeping cold that seems determined to chill me down to my bones. Unlike the rest of the guys here, I don’t have layers upon layers of muscles to keep me warm. Or two giant men to cuddle between in Ezra’s case.
Somewhere in the distance I hear the high-pitched cry of a coyote. It’s weirdly soothing, bringing up memories of nights spent camping in the backyard when I was a kid. The coyotes were always howling and yipping miles away, creating a soundtrack that I fell asleep to on dozens of warm summer nights. My eyelids start to get heavier, and I settle deeper into my sleeping bag, focusing on the nighttime sounds instead of the existential horrors lurking in my own thoughts.
A twig snaps outside my tent and my eyes jerk open, my body immediately going on alert. It’s probably a raccoon or someone getting up to pee, but I listen carefully just to be sure. The coyote howls again, still far away, and then I hear a murmured “Fuck” and fast shuffling footsteps.
My tent rattles with a little tap and a shadow looms, blocking out the sliver of moonlight.
“Percy?” a deep voice whispers, and then he taps again.
I unzip my sleeping bag, shivering as goose bumps race down my arms at the lack of cover, and I crawl forward to open the flap. Butch is standing outside my tent, wearing boxers and a tank top like it isn’t forty-some degrees outside, clutching a pillow to his chest.
My mouth goes dry and my heart flails wildly. Is he here to tell me that he lied earlier and the kissdidmake things weird? Or is he here to hook up like Juno suggested? I’m not sure which of those options is more terrifying.
“What’s up?” I whisper, trying not to look at his massive, muscular, bare thighs or the soft bulge in his obscenely thin boxers.
“I… uh… thought you might be scared of that wolf howling.”
“They’re coyotes.” As if to prove my point, a series of yips rings out, still safely distant.
Butch jumps a little at the sound and clutches his pillow tighter.
“Are you sure?” He looks over his shoulder like he’s expecting a hungry pack of wolves to be creeping up behind him in the dark. “Coyotes are still pretty scary. There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you’re freaked out or can’t sleep.”
I flatten my lips together to keep from smiling and he shuffles a little closer to my tent. Who would have thought a big, strong guy like Butch would be afraid of a few coyotes? It’s strangely endearing. In a weird way, it makes him a little less intimidating, a bit more human, like maybe he has some of the same insecurities and fears I do under all those muscles and charming smiles.
“Maybe I’m a little scared,” I lie. “Do you… um… do you want to come in here for a couple of minutes until they stop howling?”
Juno’s tent is meant for two people, so it’s got a little extra space. But I’m pretty sure with his size, Butch counts as two people all on his own, so it’ll be a tight fit. If he says he wants to come in, we might end up squished together with nowhere for my hands to go other than his bare thigh, or maybe his big, firm chest, breathing the same air, whispering in the dark so we don’t wake anyone else up…
My cock aches and my stomach dances with anxious butterflies.
Something rustles in a nearby bush and Butch practically dives into my tent. I scramble out of the way as best I can, but his body still collides with mine, large and solid and warm.Electricity pulses in my gut and I swallow the needy whimper that swells in my throat. I hate it when Juno’s right, but their insistence that my fear-induced abstinence is taking a toll on me might just be the truth. The urge to wrap myself around him just to feel more of his body against mine, to remember what it’s like to feel urgent and wanted and desperate is almost too much.
I swallow hard and inch myself back, trying to put a little bit of space between us before I do something stupid like kiss him again. Butch tosses his pillow down next to mine and I busy myself zipping the flap back up, using those few seconds to collect myself and try to calm my racing heart. When I turn back around, he’s nestled into my sleeping bag, holding the edge of it open for me.
“Sorry, is this okay? I should have brought my sleeping bag with me too, not just my pillow.” He laughs quietly. “It’s fucking cold.”
