“You’re not the asshole you pretend to be.”
He dropped assertions as if he had me figured out. Mum would occasionally say the same thing. Except when she said it, I took it as my shields had lowered. In Firefly, I didn’t want anybody to get in. The less they saw, the more they’d speculate, but it’d be about superficial things I didn’t care about.
Nick said it like a revelation.
The flames flickered against the new log, eating away at the bark. The renewed fire felt good against my thighs. I backed up before taking a seat next to Nick, careful not to make contact. It was one thing in jest to lug him through the woods, but as the silence crept in, the danger of intimacy returned.
“I’m not?”
He crossed his legs while shaking his head. “Not if you know where to look.” Looking up, I followed his line of sight to the socks still dangling above the campsite. I ran my hand across my beard, trying to hide the heat building in my cheeks.
“Can I ask you a question?”
I nodded.
“Why the tattoos?” His finger pointed at a mechanical serpent snaking around my calf, its head resting just above the knee. The black-and-white tattoo had been a gift from Sammy for my birthday. The hints of red radiating from behind, alongwith streaks through its underbelly, made it my first polka trash tat.
“They tell a story.” He didn’t ask a follow-up. After a moment of silence, I grumbled. “Sammy went to Germany with his girlfriend and toured the shops there. When he got back, he was dying to tattoo somebody with it. Telling your clients about ‘trash polka’ is a hard sell, especially when he hadn’t done any before. So, I let him.”
“What’s it mean?”
I bit my lip as his finger traced the red streak cutting through the dark black of the dragon’s hand. To explain that, I needed to go back to the beginning. I could have gotten alpha and omega anywhere, but instead, I let the artist put the first ink along my neck. I spent my childhood feeling like an outsider. No friends. No connections. Other than my parents, I could have walked away from Firefly without a second thought. The first tattoo served as the first step toward breaking out of their box.
“Some of them have literal meanings.” The dragon was a gorgeous piece of artwork I showed the world every time I wore shorts. “Most of them are time capsules, little reminders about who I was.” Even the bad ones, and there were a few of them hidden on my calf and back, told a story of a wild night sitting in the chair. “Want me to give you one?”
His head cocked to the side as he studied me. “Give?”
I replayed our conversations. Angst. Silence. Kiss. Skinny dipping. Despite all the things we covered, we skipped the mundane small talk. Nick followed me into the woods and now sat naked with me as we warmed by the fire… and he didn’t even know what I did for work.
I chuckled.
The confusion on his face made it even funnier. “What am I missing?”
I held my hand out. “Hi. I’m Charles Sanford. Everybody calls me Charlie.”
I caught the slight upturn of his lip and more than a little lift of the eyebrow. “Nicholas Johnson. Nick for short.”
We shook.
He pulled himself forward, a fraction of a second before I did. Our lips touched. Hand caressing his cheek, I couldn’t think of a better way to end the evening. The coconut had vanished, replaced by earth and campfire smoke. Tongues clashed while he slid to the side, throwing a leg over my lap.
Cocks touched.
His fingers grazed my neck while our lips engaged in gentle warfare. With a shift of his hips, there was no doubt in my mind that he enjoyed himself. The night could end with him bent over a log, me buried inside him as I came. It’d be worthy of porn.
I hesitated.
I wanted to touch him. Hell, I wanted to fuck him. I also wanted to hold onto this moment, the one where we existed without complications. Since he crossed into the forest, Nick walked as if the weight of the world hadn’t followed. I didn’t want to add to that weight. Not yet.
It had nothing to do with my fear of connecting with people while everything in life descended into chaos. Was my affection for this handsome man genuine? Or was I flailing, desperate for a lifeline? I didn’t want to make a misstep and become the reason sadness crept into his eyes.
I pulled away. Backlit by the fire, I couldn’t see his eyes, but I remembered them. Baby blues, almost the color of tropical waters.
“I didn’t mean to?—”
I put a finger over his lips. My hand slid to his cheek, my thumb caressing his lip.
“Come here.” Grabbing him by the shoulder, I pulled him about so he fit into the crook of my arm. I pulled him tight, his head resting on my chest. “We’ve got time for that.” My cock, still pointing toward the stars, didn’t agree with the decision.
