Chapter 13
Thirteen
Victor
I'm hyperaware of every bump in the road on the van ride back to the resort. Jason is quiet beside me, his shoulder occasionally brushing mine as the van jostles along potholed roads. He doesn't pull away from the contact.
A big component of my successful career has to do with reading people, understanding not just what their fitness goals are, but what they need and want, when they’re tired but need a little push to exceed their preconceived limits, or when they’re in pain or at risk of injuring themselves.
The night Leah died, when grief and loss and unspoken feelings collided in his living room, I thought I was reading the signs right. I thought the way he touched me, the way he said my name, meant something beyond the moment.
Then he disappeared into the bathroom and came back fully clothed, the tense set of his shoulders apologizing before he’d even spoken.
I’d fled his apartment, then replayed that night a thousand times, wondering if I pushed too hard, if I misread everything.
Wondering if I took advantage of a man who was drowning in grief.
But today, in the mineral-rich water with steam rising around us, Jason looked at me for the first time in fifteen years. Really looked.
I’m more hopeful than I’ve ever been. And terrified.
No strings. No expectations. We scratch an itch and then we go back to our lives.
I meant it when I said I could do that. I'm good at casual. It's the serious stuff I've never been able to make work.
Getting to have Jason for a week, even on these terms, is more than I ever expected. More than I let myself hope for in fifteen years of silence.
So yeah. I can do this. Enjoy what he's offering, keep my feelings out of it, and walk away at the end with a good memory instead of another open wound.
Easy.
"See you at the bar? Cocktails before dinner?" Kelsey asks, looking from Jason to me and back at Jason when we reach the resort and disembark from the van.
"Of course, sweetie," Jason says. "I just want to wash the mineral smell off me first."
"Yeah, me too," I reply, though what I'm really thinking is that I need a few minutes to get my head on straight before whatever happens next.
Jason strides with purpose toward our casita and I follow a few steps behind. He toes his muddy hiking sandals off outside the door, I do the same, and when I shut the casita's door behind me, Jason's standing in the center of the living area, his back to me.
"Victor, about what I said earlier—"
Here it comes. The backpedal. The I wasn't thinking clearly or maybe we should just forget it.
"—I meant it," he finishes.
I blink. "Oh."
He turns around, and I can see the uncertainty in his eyes, but there’s also a set to his jaw I recognize. The same expression he wore when he was helping Leah through her treatments, when he was supporting Kelsey through her tween tribulations. Jason doesn’t do anything halfway.
“Jason,” I say, and his name feels different in my mouth now. Because I've been here before, on the edge of having him, and I know how quickly he can disappear.
"So," he says. "Are we doing this?"
Casual. Light. "I'm certainly not opposed."
The corner of his mouth twitches. "You're not opposed."
"I'm enthusiastically in favor," I amend. "Better?"
"Better." He takes a step toward me, then stops, like he's not sure of the choreography. "I should warn you. I don't really know what I'm doing here."
"You seemed to know what you were doing before.”
"That was different." His voice drops. "That was…I wasn't thinking. I just took what I wanted."
"And now?"
"Now I'm thinking." He meets my eyes. "Maybe too much."
I close the distance between us, stopping just out of arm's reach. "Then stop thinking. Take what you want."
Something flares in his expression—the look of a man who's about to stop arguing with himself.
"You sure about that?"
“I’m sure.” I hold his gaze. I've been sure for fifteen years.
He reaches up and cups my face in his hands. His palms are warm against my cheeks, and I can feel the slight tremor in his fingers. We’re both nervous.
And then he’s kissing me.
It’s different from that night. Slower, more intentional. Less desperate and more certain. His lips are soft against mine, and when I deepen the kiss, he makes a small sound that goes straight through me.
We break apart, breathing hard, foreheads pressed together. My cock is an iron bar in the prison of my hiking pants and I want…I don’t even know what I want. I want everything that we’ve been denying ourselves this past decade and a half.
I cup his jaw in my hand, the bristle of his unshaven scruff rasping against my palm. I kiss his other cheek, then trail my lips to his earlobe. I catch the soft flesh between my teeth and nibble, drinking in the sounds that fall from Jason’s open mouth.
I lay a series of open-mouthed kisses along the side of his neck. His pulse jumps under my lips. I slide my hands under his T-shirt. His skin is warm but his stomach flinches when I touch him.
I pull back and look into his face.
He’s an inch or two shorter than me and he’s not meeting my eyes. “Jason?” I say to the top of his bowed head.
“Yeah.”
“Is this okay?”
“Yeah.” It’s barely more than a whisper and he does not sound okay at all.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“I want—” he snaps his lips closed, but then they move as if he’s speaking soundlessly. Before I can ask what he’s saying, he’s clenched his fists at his sides and taken one step back from me.
“Look, Jason, we don’t have to do—”
“Stop talking. Please.”
I stop.
“When you said you wanted it last time, did you mean…generally, or…?”
“Yes, generally; yes, specifically.” I know I sound impatient, but my dick is fucking desperate and if Jason’s going to back out of this, I’d like to know sooner rather than later so I can go jerk off in the shower. Alone.
Oh.
Jason may have had sex only once with a man, but it’s not like he’s a shrinking virgin.
And he definitely knew what he was about last time.
I put firmly outside my head what this means about his sex life with Leah.
I don’t really want to contemplate kinky sex and my best friend who was almost a sister to me right now.
“Jason, if you want to take charge, I’m all for that.” I let my hands dangle loosely at my sides and bow my head. I’m not a true submissive, but I can totally play one for him, if that’s what he needs.
Jason lets out an explosive sigh. “On your knees, then.”
I bite my lip to suppress a smile. Here we are again. Jason saying those same words to me that he did that night. And I’m just as ready for him as I was then.
I drop to my knees and rest my ass on my heels. On the way, I catch sight of the bulge in his pants and my mouth waters.
“Give me your hand,” Jason says and I reach up to him. He puts my hand on his side, just above the waistline of his pants. “If I go too far, pinch me and I’ll stop.”
“I doubt you will, but okay.” I’m no shrinking virgin, either, and this ain’t my first rodeo of sucking dick. Not even of sucking his dick.
Just as Jason’s fingers unsnap his hiking pants and pull the zipper down, there’s a knock at our door.
We both freeze. Jason lifts a finger to his lips. As if I was going to let anything interrupt this.
There’s another knock, and then Logan’s voice, muffled through the wooden door, “Are they in there?”
“I think so,” Silas replies. “Kelsey said her stepdad was going to take a shower. Which, I saw him rinsing off in the locker room at the hot springs, but whatever, he should be done by now, right?”
And then Silas’s blond head appears on the other side of the big window that looks into our casita. His eyes go wide and his mouth drops into a surprised O before he closes it and steps out of view. “They’re, um, busy. We should catch up with them later.”
“Oh, shit,” I say, at the same time Jason says, “Fuck.”