“To be fair, you haven’t expressed interest in a whole lot, so I didn’t see much point in forcing you.”
“And yet here we are, me being dragged behind you anyway.”
“This isn’t dragging. This is me walking, and you walking behind me of your own volition. If you want some bondage, we have a room for that.”
My steps stuttered. “Pardon me?”
His face flushed as he looked back at me. “Sorry, that was a bad, bad joke. Just a joke. We don’t have a bondage room. Although I’m sure a few people around here wouldn’t argue if one was added.”
I blinked. “I thought there were no women here.”
“There aren’t,” he said, looking bemused. “But the facility isn’t meant for just straight men either. We get all sorts, and sometimes they realize there’s more to them than they thought, or that they can be more comfortable with certain parts of themselves than they would be outside the resort.”
“You’ve seen that sort of thing then?” I wondered, curious for the first time. Sex hadn’t entered my mind. I might be private about my bisexuality, but that didn’t mean I suppressed or ignored it. I was at a facility filled with men who I realized erred toward being attractive, and while I was sure that was a coincidence, it was a rather distracting one. It would never have occurred to me to seek sex here; it seemed that would be frowned upon if not outright banned, as it was with other clean-living places.
“Seen? No,” he said with a shrug and then grinned. “Now, come on. We’ll get you set up in here before we go.”
‘In here’ turned out to be a small locker room. ‘Set up’ involved him disappearing for a moment before returning with a stack of clothes and towels, which he dropped onto the bench next to me. Examination showed a regular body towel, a washcloth, and a few pairs of shorts wrapped in plastic.
“So, find your size and preference,” he said, grinning at me. “And then rinse off in the showers before going out, please and thank you.”
“For what?” I wondered, picking up the shorts and staring at them dubiously.
“I mean, you can go nude if you want,” he said with a shrug. “That’s actually pretty common, but from what I’ve seen, a lot of the newer guests aren’t comfortable doing that. Well, not the younger ones. Older guys don’t seem to care as much; not sure if that’s a generational thing or if old guys just straight-up don’t care. Either way, I’ll be back. You go on ahead.”
I blinked as he went out the way he came, and I wondered what the hell had suddenly become so important that he had to take off without explanation. Not that it was any of my business, and I frowned at the shorts, realizing they were bathing shorts. I remembered there was a pool on the premises, but I hadn’t been interested enough to find it. I wasn’t a pool person, especiallywhen they were communal. Of course, I could walk out and tell him I wasn’t going to go swimming like a kid dropped off at the city pool, but I had agreed to it.
Sighing, I considered going naked before pushing the thought away. While I wasn’t shy about my body, I had worked hard at it despite how much my back loathed its existence as well as mine, I was a private person. If anything, I was grateful Luka had made himself scarce because, despite knowing I could change in front of him, I didn’t want to, not just because I liked my privacy. There was also the fact that I... Well, he was definitely one of the good-looking men and was far more distracting. I trusted my body wouldn’t betray me just because I was changing in front of him, but I would rather not deal with the discomfort.
The locker room stayed empty while I changed, stored my clothes in a locker, and rinsed off in one of the showers. There was only one other exit from the locker room. I grabbed the towels and made for the wooden door at the back. Opening it, I flinched when cold air washed over me, and I slowly stepped out to find an enclosed area filled with steam. Padding forward, I squinted through the steam and could see that the source was a small body of water in the center, sunlight filtering in, taking some of the steam with it.
Large rocks jutted up everywhere, even out of the water. That was until one of the rocks moved and I flinched in surprise. “Hello?”
“Oh, hello there,” a voice came from the steam, and as I walked closer, I could see the moving ‘rock’ was, in fact, a man sitting chest deep in the water. “Most of ‘em don’t come over this far. Wasn’t expecting anyone.”
“This far?” I wondered as I searched for a dry rock to drop the towels onto and edged closer to the water, sticking my foot in.Oh yeah, it was definitely hot. God, I bet once I’d adjusted to the water, the tension in my back would disappear.
“There’s a few springs around here that they’ve connected. This one’s the quieter one,” he said and gestured over his shoulder as I eased my way slowly into the water.
“These are natural springs?”
“Mhmm. I guess so long as you don’t drag a bunch of chemicals and shit in with you, the springs mostly take care of themselves and don’t need cleaning,” he said.
Ah, that would explain why you were supposed to rinse off.
“That makes sense,” I said, wondering what other surprises there were in this place as I sank up to my neck.
“Yeah, they like it when things run themselves around here,” he laughed. “I’m Cade.”
“Rowan,” I said, shaking his hand. “Sorry if I’m interrupting.”
“Nah,” Cade said with a laugh. “I’m usually pretty social, but sometimes when you want to soak in hot water with your dick out, you don’t want to be around a bunch of guys who either can’t shut up or decide they’re going to start screwing around.”
I froze. “Screwing around?”
Cade leaned forward, and I could see short blond hair plastered to a tanned, handsome face that broke into a laugh. “Oh, sorry, naw naw, not like, the gay screwing around though. I won’t lie to ya, some of the guys around here can be pretty gay with each other, but ya know what?”
“What?”
