“That’s nice.”
Blue was right behind me. Smelling clean from his shower, the air damp, swirling soap-scented around him. My quick inhale was involuntary. His scent was in my lungs. The smell of the simple Castile soap I purchased settled on my skin.
Blue hunkered down next to me, balanced on his bare feet, focused on the warmth of the fire, the glow of the flames, ancient gold, deep blue. He wrapped his arms around his knees. He held the comb.
“Sit here,” I said, gesturing at the space right in front of the small, slate hearth.
He sat in front of me, and I combed his hair dry in the firelight. Again, strand by silky strand, cool damp turning to golden warmth.
The cold couldn’t get at us from outside. Between us, the air deepened, warmth, tension. Closeness. His hair couldn’t get any more dry, silky waves against his neck, which he bent to the side, waiting for the next slow touch of the comb.
I let out a slow breath. Watched the tiny hairs behind his ear stir, his skin tensing as he shivered. He reached for the comb. I held it out to his extended fingers that, instead of taking the comb, wrapped around my hand. I could feel the slender, pointed plastic teeth of the comb against the heel of my palm. Smell his clean hair. Count the beats along a vein in his neck.
“Wolfe.” Just one word, low and hushed.
My breath picked up. I hadn’t moved, yet felt as though I was sliding forward, as though his gravity pulled me to him. It wasn’t right. I had nothing to trade. There wasn’t anything on earth he could be traded for. And he shouldn’t be traded for.
When he turned to me, on his hands and knees in front of the fire, fair hair falling around his face, my heart caught as though it had tumbled into a net. When he moved toward me, blue eyes, flushed cheeks, a wingless angel, I shifted backward, not to move away, but to feel the floor beneath my palms. To hold myselfthere, ground myself as I imagined what his mouth would taste like, seconds before I tasted it.
And then his mouth was on mine. He tasted soft, soft as spun sugar, lips warm and plush. He sighed as he pulled back, just a little, his breath ghosting across my skin. His gaze skirted between my mouth and my eyes, still on all fours, there in my living room in my small cabin in the middle of nowhere, with only the bare, ice-etched sky above to witness any of this.
“Okay?” he asked.
I licked my lower lip with my tongue, tasting the echo of his kiss. I could answer yes or no. I could go outside, turn my face up into the cold, dark air, and pretend this never happened. Or. I could follow where he led, my hands empty, my chest cracked open, all the tenderness I possessed on display.
“Yes,” I said, my sense of shock at having said it out loud quickly erased as he kissed me again.
Unbalanced, I slid the rest of the way to the floor, the thin wool carpet beneath my shoulder blades, Blue’s knees straddling my thigh. Blue’s hands planted on the carpet on either side of my head. His hair spreading along my face, graceful tendrils, a lace curtain made of gold. His form between me and the light of the fire created a shadow, inside which I could be safe, even as my heart sped up, banging inside my chest.
He kissed me again, and I reached up to pull him to me, so we could both be inside the shadow, a warm curve of air from the fire reaching around us, Blue’s weight upon me. Tension breaking like ice in the warmth of spring, our legs tangled. The heat of my groin building. The sharpness of his hip digging into me.
My hands moved. Fingers reaching along his side beneath his t-shirt. Warm skin, his ribs just below the surface. Quivering muscle over bone. Our faces close, his flushed, eyes bright. His hands were shaking.
“Blue?”
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, his voice trembling. “I figured it out this far. My body led, and I just followed. Only now?—”
My heart went out to him, and I raced to catch up. It was my turn to make him feel safe. To bury my own doubts and fears, and lead so he could follow. We would arrive together. My touch would be soft.
“Here,” I said. I reached back to grab a cushion from the couch and tucked it beneath Blue’s head. Shifted our bodies so I held him to me, our legs becoming tangled. The heat of our bodies joined.
My fingers were clumsy as I splayed them across his belly, bare where his t-shirt had risen up. His belly jumped, and I petted it smooth, breath jagged in his throat. And in mine.
I was not calm. But I kissed him, swallowing his soft sigh, tasting the moment when he relaxed against me. He had to know I wouldn’t hurt him, but sometimes, it was better to hear it out loud.
“I’ll go slow,” I said.
A flare of nostril as he looked to his left, as though remembering something. A thought stabbed my brain that I did not want to sully him with myself.
I paused. A blink. Heartbeats. A snap of flame deep inside a pine log. The dusty perfume of burning sap. Then Blue looped his arms around my neck and pulled me down hard against his body.
“Please,” he said, whispering in my ear, making me shiver.
I would not turn back. Could not, now. Want filled me as though it had burst through an icy dam to land deep inside me.
My cock was hard against my belly, but Blue’s needs came before my own. Skimming his skin, I reached below the waist of his sweatpants, the band of elastic on his briefs. The heat of hisgroin on my fingertips, the tense length of his cock in my palm. The arch of his neck as I stroked him, dark eyelashes fluttering on his cheeks.
His release did not take long, youth and energy having stoked desire beneath the surface. Since the shower. Since before then. Hot cum spilled over my knuckles, low sounds in Blue’s throat as he turned into my arms.
