And it felt true. The reckless giddiness that had filled him earlier at the bar had dissipated on the walk home. When Alexei had to focus on chords, on finger configurations over guitar strings, on remembering lyrics, it had brought his system back to attention. Right now, Alexei’s head felt as clear as the water in Crater Lake, Oregon: sparkling, crystalline blue.
“I’m good,” Alexei assured Ben again, when Ben continued to look at him with uncertainty. “I promise.”
Ben stared at him a second longer, until, apparently, he believed him. Because suddenly, Ben’s hands were—God, Ben’s hands were just…everywhere, his lips firmly back on Alexei’s. Alexei sank himself farther down, covering Ben’s body with his own, chest to chest, settling one thigh between Ben’s legs, and—
Even with Ben’s willing kisses, with his aggressive hands, it was all still a little shocking.
But mostly it was thrilling. Mostly it was transcendent.
And Alexei couldn’t bear one more transcendent second with Ben while his elbows scraped along this pilled, scratchy comforter.
With a grunt of irritation, Alexei sat up, yanking at the comforter beneath Ben’s body until Ben got the picture. He canted his body upward, as much as was needed for Alexei to rip the polyester nightmare from underneath him. In one fluid motion, Alexei flung the whole affair onto the floor.
“Whoa.”
Alexei’s motions stilled when he realized Ben was staring at him, leaning back on his elbows, his mouth smiling in a kind of amused awe.
“What?” Alexei said. “That thing was awful.”
“Agreed. You are just…intense.”
Alexei froze further. He supposed he did feel a little intense. Which wasn’t different, on a normal day, but it was when it came to this. When it came to this, Alexei felt so, so different.
“I like it,” Ben clarified at Alexei’s hesitation. And then Ben reached up and began unbuttoning Alexei’s shirt.
Alexei looked down, watching Ben’s progress, and he wondered why everything about this was so vastly superior to any sexual encounter he’d had before. Every time Ben’s knuckles grazed his skin, pleasure sizzled deep into his bones.
He wondered if it was because of the trail. Because never in his life, even in his cross-country days, even throughout all the hours he’d spent at the gym these last few years, had Alexei been more aware of his own body.
Every second on the trail was about the body.
Blisters. Bites, scratches.
Stretched muscles, overworked tendons.
Sunburned skin.
Maybe it was this hyperawareness of every part of himself that made each slide of Ben’s fingers, every whisper of Ben’s lips, feel like Alexei was on fire.
But maybe it didn’t have anything to do with that at all.
Maybe it was just because it was Ben.
So attentive to the small details Ben.
Ben, who was easing Alexei’s shirt over his shoulders, whose palms were sliding back down over Alexei’s chest, his abdomen, his sides.
“Damn,” Ben’s voice, shaky and low. “Lex.”
Alexei closed his eyes, unable to watch Ben admire him. Alexei knew…about his chest. About the shape of his torso. Some of the definition had already changed these last few weeks of hiking, his body adjusting to the rigors of the trail versus the targeted exercises of the gym, but he understood what Ben saw. He had always liked wearing his body down to exhaustion, whatever the method. It was a simple, understandable thing, working his muscles and his lungs. He could focus when he worked out, calm and even and productive. The gym was the one space, these last six months, where he never felt sad.
It wasn’t admirable, really, at least not in Alexei’s eyes. It wasn’t something to brag about, that his shoulders were sculpted because the endorphins that raced through his body in exercise were often the closest he felt to happiness. That he had defined obliques because he was lonely.
Because the endorphins always faded.
Ben’s light touch across his skin became too much. Alexei opened his eyes, tugging on Ben’s sweatshirt so he wasn’t the only one exposed. Ben slipped the sweatshirt off along with the T-shirt underneath before lying back on the pillow again. Alexei looked down at him then, really looked at him, Ben’s lean body and his open, patient face.
And Alexei knew he had slipped into the danger zone of getting too into his head, thinking too much about all the nights spent at the gym because he had nowhere else to go, the swipe-rights that always left him empty, the overwhelming unexpectedness of this man below him. He worried, heart thrumming anxiously in his chest, that all the windows that had opened within him would soon start to close.
