“All I — whoa, hey, we were talking about you, here. Not me. I’m just saying, I kinda thought you’d be on the first boat out of here tomorrow.”
Still focused on Blake’s chest and the quickly-fading trails his fingernails leave behind there, Paxton shrugs (and Blake is not distracted by how adorable it is, because men in their thirties don’t find other men in their thirties “adorable”). “I never said that. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do.” He lifts his eyes and pins Blake in place. “Have you?”
They’re just a breath apart, and Blake can’t remember when Pax scooted closer, but his stomach is pressed against Blake’s now and his hand has relocated to Blake’s back. It’s intimate and arousing, and Blake can’tbelievethey can’t even fucking kiss. Thissucks.“Haven’t decided,” he echos, since his upstairs brain is no longer receiving the lion’s share of oxygenated blood at the moment.
“Perhaps,” Paxton says, his words ghosting over Blake’s lips and his palm spread firmly across Blake’s lower back, holding him close. “We should sleep on it.”
“Yeah,” Blake replies dizzily. Pax smells like cinnamon, just a hint, like he chewed a piece of gum or used some kind ofscented body wash to clean up before coming to bed.Maybe his toothpaste is cinnamon,Blake wonders, wishing he could find out thegoodway, without having to ask.
“Wouldn’t want to do anything reckless.”
“Reckless?” Blake parrots, his eyes starting to become heavy without his consent. It really isniceto just lay in someone’s arms like this.Safe. Comforting.
“Mmhmm,” Paxton hums, clearly feeling the same pull to sleep as Blake. “But if you don't like, uh, ‘reckless’, I can use ‘insouciant’, maybe.”
“You’re weird, Pax,” Blake mumbles, wrapping his arms more tightly around the other man’s body and snuggling down so that his face is nearly in Pax’s hair.Watermelon,he notices. “You’re a weird, nerdy dude who likes orgies. But I dig it. You’re tough for a hippie, or whatever.”
“Not a hippie,” Paxton near-slurs, more or less into Blake’s collarbone. “Don’t label me.”
“Kay.” Blake stifles a yawn. “Well, whatever you are, I‘m glad you’re here.”
It’s quiet for a moment, save for the low murmurs of the other paired-off folks in the room. Blake isjustabout asleep when Paxton speaks up again. “Why do I feel like I know you, Blake? I don’t know the first thing about you. And yet—”
Beside him in the bed, Blake goes stock-still, but there’s only honest curiosity in Paxton’s voice, nothing else, save for maybe confusion. So after a second, Blake relaxes and pulls his fingers through Pax’s hair, down to the nape of his neck. “It’s not just you,” he admits. “Kinda thought I was losing it a little, honestly. I mean, maybe this is just what happens when you really wanna fuck someone and you know they want you too, but you don’t act on it? Not like I would know, I don’t do self-denial. When I want a drink, you’ll find one in my hand. When I want sex, I go get it. The same goes for food or a fight.”
Paxton hums and breathes against Blake’s skin, and Blake fights the urge to roll him over and test whether his theory holds water, once and for all. “So you’re saying you’re just well-adjusted?”
Blake snorts. “God no. I’m just well-fed.”
Even without being able to see his face, Pax’s smile is impossible to miss. Blake can hear it in his voice, feel it against his skin. “In that case, perhaps we should explore Ava’s proposition after all. Find out if there is any part of you that isn’t, uh, full.”
“Only if we can ditch this metaphor,” Blake replies, and Paxton just laughs.
Chapter 3
It’s been a long time since Blake’s slept with another person by his side, never mind someone hewantedto be there. It’s foreign enough that Pax’s touch, hispresencewakes Blake frequently during the night. Not that he minds — while it doesn’t do anything for his sleep, as corny as it sounds, it soothes him down to his soul. It’s enough to know that Pax didn’t run the second casual sex was taken off the table, and that out of everyone here, hechoseBlake to cuddle up with.
That he feels the strange pull between them, too.
The room is quiet and cool, the mattress is plush and comfortable, and none of Blake’s cast-mates snore like an oncoming freight train. All that considered, heshouldbe able to drop right back off into dreamland each time he’s awoken. Despite the relaxing atmosphere, though, that’s not Blake’s experience.
Every time Pax’s hand grazes his thigh, his ass presses against Blake’s crotch, or his arm slings around Blake’s stomach (neither of them are subtle sleepers), Blake finds himself staring at the ceiling on a thirty to forty-minute reset.
While Pax snoozes obliviously on, Blake stares across the space between them, or at the back of Pax’s head, or down at the tanned hand on his stomach. Pax’s dark eyelashes flutter against his cheeks in his sleep and Blake wonders what he’s dreaming about. The whole thing is strange and discomfitingand wonderful, all at the same time. Enough that healmostdoesn’t even regret the sex-ban at all, having so severely underestimated how much he needed contact likethisso much more.
Despite all of the interruptions, Blake wakes for the last time feeling weirdly refreshed when the clock at his bedside reads 06:30 in bright red numbers. Unsurprisingly, everyone else is still passed out, most having stayed up until just a few hours prior talking and laughing (and drinking — if there’s one thing that flows freely here at the Retreat, it’s alcohol). Pax is still unconscious too, so Blake slips out from under his arm carefully, trying not to disturb him.
He grabs his dirty clothes off of the floor and shuffles across the dark room, rubbing his eyes and yawning. On the far side, there’s a walkway to the giant bathroom where he and Pax flirted the day before. Adjacent to the bathroom is a dressing area with wall-to-wall armoires and vanities in the center where anyone can sit and do their makeup or whatever.
Making his way to the armoire that contains his own belongings, Blake opens it, sticks his worn crap in the bin at the bottom, and grabs fresh clothing and his toiletry bag. He doesn’t bother to turn on any lights until he’s inside the bathroom, and only then because the sunrise rays coming through the window are still pretty dim. Forgoing the shower (because damn it, Blake isgoingto get in that ocean today), he washes his face, brushes his teeth, and slips on a plain tee (no logos — production rules) and his swim trunks.
As an afterthought, Blake styles his hair, eyeing the camera in the upper right corner of the room warily. If he’s going to be on TV making a fool of himself and getting in touch with his emotions instead of getting laid, he’s damn wellalsogoing to look good doing it. By the time he puts his shit away and quietly escapes out the door of the bedroom to the courtyard, the sun is a bit higher in the sky, setting it alight with a soft, pink glow.
Blake heads directly for the beach, ignoring the camera guy who jumps out of his chair and shoulders his equipment to follow. Somewhere around when Blake makes his way past the pool, he wishes he’d stopped in the kitchen for coffee. But when he glances over his shoulder, he realizes that if he turns around now he’ll literally run smack into the camera guy and the producer lurking behind him. After not so much deliberation, he sighs and keeps walking. Coffee will have to wait.
The sand is cool under Blake’s bare feet, and he wades into the water — just up to his calves — before stepping back from where the waves thin to nothing and settling down on the ground. He shifts his ass against the grains until he’s comfortable and rests his elbows on his knees, staring out over the slowly brightening horizon thoughtfully.
Regardless of the conversation he and Pax had last night, Blake still isn’t one hundred percent certain of what he’s going to do. He’d be lying if he said part of his brain wasn’t screaming at him to head for the hills. Opening himself up to another person in any meaningful way is scary enough, but doing it on camera while the whole world waits on the other side of the screen, chomping at the bit to judge and laugh?
