Chapter Eleven
THE BITE in the air doesn’t feel good once they climb into their sleeping bags. Whether it’s the elevation or just a drop in temperature, it’s cold. Lewis never planned on being at this elevation overnight.
He doesn’t have any pajamas, because he doesn’t sleep in pajamas. He has T-shirts and jeans. The T-shirt isn’t going to help much, and he can’t sleep in jeans.
So he crawls into his sleeping bag in nothing but his boxer briefs. Tad notices him shivering and offers his sweatshirt, which he’s sleeping in, but Lewis objects that then he’ll be cold. They argue about that for a bit, but Lewis eventually rolls over and refuses to engage anymore. It’s not the most mature tactic, but unless Tad’s going to wrestle him out of his sleeping bag and force him into the sweatshirt, it wins the argument.
Tad huffs and informs him for the twentieth time, “This is stupid.”
“I’m fine,” Lewis replies, his teeth chattering.
There’s some light in the tent from the moon, but not enough to see Tad’s face as he makes another exasperated sound. Whatever. He’s not going to make Tad suffer because he was too big of an idiot to pack warmer clothes. He thought about it, but he needed the space in his backpack. And it seemed like overkill when the forecast said it would be warm, and he wasn’t planning on camping so high in the mountains. He even congratulated himself on not being so anal, because yeah, of course he’s that guy who always overpacks. Not this time!
Which is why he’s curled into the fetal position in his sleeping bag, every muscle clenched tight as he quakes with shivers. He just needs to distract himself. Think about something soothing. Like an all-inclusive tropical vacation. A cruise. A Disney cruise! Everything contained right there in your floating hotel, predictable and safe, right down to the music.
This was stupid. This was such a stupid idea. He’s so stupid, to think he could pull this off.
“ Oh my god ,” Tad yells.
Lewis jumps, which makes his entire body spasm, which makes everything hurt, because every single one of his muscles is painfully tight.
Did he say that stuff out loud?
“Lewis. This is stupid . I’m right here, and I’m warm, and it’s dumb for you to be cold.”
Lewis’s teeth chatter. “Wh-Wh-Wh—” They’re chattering too hard for him to get a word out, so he settles for, “Huh?”
There’s a rustle of fabric, and Lewis sees Tad’s silhouette propped up on an elbow. “I’m not trying to start something. I swear . I respect that you don’t want to, and I totally get it. You’re super not in a place to even consider a relationship, and that makes sense, and I’m not trying to like, seduce you.”
“Um—” What the hell is he talking about? “Ok-k-k-kay?”
“I can’t listen to you shivering. You’ll never be able to sleep.”
That doesn’t help.
Lewis’s silence must communicate his befuddlement, because Tad lets out a loud sigh. “We can share, dummy. Body heat.”
Oh. Oh. Oh god, that’s such a bad idea.
But Lewis is so cold.
And Tad is so… so….
Images flash through Lewis’s mind from the past couple days. Tad’s shirt pulling taut over his chest and shoulders. Tad’s lean muscles bulging and working. Tad’s sweat staining his armpits and the center of his back and between his pecs. Tad’s laugh and luminous smile.
His shoulders lock up as a convulsive shiver wracks him, and that does it. He’s cold, and the idea of pressing up against Tad isn’t possible to fight.
“I’m not going to let you get hypothermia,” Tad says, sounding fierce. “So—”
Before he can finish, Lewis heaves himself from his side of the tent to Tad’s. The air outside his sleeping bag is fucking freezing, and he squeals, “Let me in!” as he paws at Tad’s.
Tad laughs and unzips his sleeping bag. Even though it’s way too small for both of them to fit, Lewis wriggles in. It’s blissfully warm, and when Tad hooks his legs around Lewis’s, Lewis’s arms go around his neck. The cold on his back makes him shudder into Tad. Tad says into his hair, “You were supposed to bring your sleeping bag with you.”
“I’m really bad at camping and I’d probably be dead right now if not for you,” Lewis says, which isn’t really a reply, but somehow is the only reply that feels right.
“Maybe not dead, but you probably would have climbed down that washed-out part of the trail, and it would’ve gotten dark, and….” Tad stops talking. “Never mind.”
“That’s my point,” Lewis says. He has his head tucked against Tad’s body. It feels really right.
Tad wriggles out of the sleeping bag despite Lewis’s attempts to keep him there. The lingering body heat he leaves behind is nothing compared to the heat of his actual body. Lewis shivers again.
In the moonlight’s filmy illumination, Tad’s crouched form is just a darker shadow. Polyester slithers over the bottom of the tent and Lewis hears a zipper. “What are you doing?” Lewis asks, teeth chattering.
“You’ll see,” Tad answers. “Well, you won’t see. It’s pretty dark. Unless you want me to get out a flashlight.”
“I j-just want you to c-c-come back,” Lewis says, feeling thoroughly pitiful.
The black blob of negative space pauses.
Tad comes back, pulling Lewis’s sleeping bag with him. “C’mon, roll onto this,” Tad urges him. When Lewis just keeps hunching into Tad’s sleeping bag, Tad huffs something that might be either a sigh or a laugh, and manhandles Lewis into following his orders.
In a few seconds, they’re cuddled up together on Lewis’s sleeping bag, with Tad’s draped over them. “Bet you didn’t know this tent came with a queen-size sleeping bag,” Tad says.
Lewis laughs. He’d laugh at anything right now, because he’s warm. Tad’s body is so warm.
He’d laugh at anything right now, because Tad’s arms are around him.
They’re fitted snug together, chest to chest and hip to hip. The fabric of Tad’s pajamas feels soft against Lewis’s bare skin. Lewis tells himself not to imagine how soft it would be if it was Tad’s skin he could feel.
The body heat gradually unknots Lewis’s tense muscles. As he’s getting less tense, though, he can feel Tad getting tenser. “You don’t like this,” Lewis mumbles.
Tad lets out a strangled laugh. “Um, no. I like this too much. Sorry if, um, you know. It becomes… obvious. I meant it, though. I respect your boundaries.”
The thought of Tad getting hard, and the possibility that Lewis might be able to feel his erection, makes it suddenly impossible to think of anything else.
And he’s the idiot who said no, they can’t fool around. He’s the idiot who said it wouldn’t feel right. Because they don’t know each other, and the marriage was a mistake, and Lewis isn’t a hookup kind of guy. He’s the one who set the boundaries, which Tad is now gallantly respecting.
“Sorry if I smell,” Lewis says, because he doesn’t know what else to.
There’s a silence. Then Tad guffaws. “Are we just like, apologizing to each other now?”
“I’m sorry I was a dick the other morning in the hotel too,” Lewis says in a rush, which is sort of agreement? But also just sort of something he should have said already.
Tad goes still in his arms. “Oh.” It’s more of an inhale than a word. Tad gets tenser. “I… don’t worry about it. I mean, I get it. You’re taking a break. I don’t blame you. I get why you reacted the way you did.”
A lump rises in Lewis’s throat. He has no idea what he wants, no idea how to get what he wants, no idea if Tad would even want the same thing, because Lewis pushed him away. “But I didn’t have to be a dick,” Lewis says softly. “All my exes called me a control freak. I guess they were right.”
Tad’s forehead bumps against Lewis’s. Warm breath puffs over his face. “You got freaked out over a big thing. That’s not being a control freak. I mean, I freak out over little things all the time.”
“Yeah, but we could’ve been in it together, and instead I turned it into like, me against you—” Lewis gulps down a breath and tries to wrestle this moment into something he knows how to handle. But this moment doesn’t want to be handled. This moment is Tad’s long, lean body pressed against Lewis’s, their arms around each other, and Lewis’s crumbling certainty that he shouldn’t have something with Tad, no matter how short-lived it is.
“Have you been thinking about this for the past few days?” Tad asks.
“Yeah.”
Tad is quiet for a second, his breath filling the space between them. “Then I accept your apology,” he finally says.
It’s that then that does it. Lewis giggles. “Wait—if I wasn’t thinking about it this whole time, you wouldn’t have accepted my apology?”
Seriously, Tad replies, “My minimum apology-accepting threshold is twenty-four hours of brooding, with occasional exceptions for particularly beautiful contrition.”
There’s another silence. Then Tad snorts and Lewis laughs and everything feels easy and natural between them again. That night in the bar, Lewis thought Tad was so funny—but now he realizes he didn’t know the half of it. It’s only been two days. Imagine getting to have Tad in your life all the time making you laugh like this?
Tad’s arms tighten around Lewis and every single bit of his resolve collapses. How can it not? Tad is funny and warm—literally warm, but also, he exudes a quiet warmth that draws Lewis to him. He’s solid and present, like he’s not afraid to be who he is. Or maybe more like, it doesn’t matter whether he’s afraid or not. He refuses to be anyone but who he is.
Lewis likes that. He really, really likes that.
He also really, really likes how Tad’s hands feel on his bare back, and how one of his legs has slipped between Tad’s without him realizing.
Maybe… maybe they can have something right now. Casual. No strings attached.
“I like you,” is how Lewis chooses to articulate any of this, because he’s incredibly bad at it. If romance—or even just sex—required a license, he never would have passed the test.
Does Tad’s breath catch? It’s a second, anyway, before he replies, “I like you too.”
“Um.” The dark makes this easier. “I know I’m like, on the whole break. Thing. But… I really like you, Tad. And maybe… I mean, I’m just….”
At this point, he half expects Tad to kick him out of the sleeping bag. Instead, fingers brush over Lewis’s face. “Yeah?” he asks softly. “Keep going.”
Lewis swallows so hard that Tad must hear it. “We’re here now. It doesn’t have to be forever. It can just be for now.”
Tad’s palm rests gently against Lewis’s cheek. Lewis can feel Tad’s heart, hummingbird fast, beating against his chest. He wants to lean into Tad’s hand. God, he wants that so badly. But he can’t. He can’t if Tad isn’t into this anymore.
“Just for now,” Tad repeats. Huskiness in his voice lights a blazing heat in Lewis’s gut. “I… yeah. That would be….” He laughs quietly. “You’re not the only one who’s bad at this, you know.”
“What does that mean?” Lewis asks. He’s not assuming the worst, but he’s also hardly daring to hope.
“It means….” Tad lets out a breath. “Fuck it.”
His lips brush Lewis’s. The softest touch. An unspoken question. The feeling Lewis has wanted since the morning they woke up in bed together, but which he’s been too scared to admit is completely within his grasp.
Lewis kisses him back, more than a brush, but still light. “Is this okay?” Lewis whispers.
One of Tad’s hands settles at the small of Lewis’s back, pulling him close. The other wanders up his spine and traces the line of a shoulder blade. “Is it okay with you?” Tad replies.
Lewis feels like he’s careening into feelings he can’t control, let alone stop. He slips a hand into Tad’s silky hair and tugs him closer. This time, when they kiss, Lewis tries to make it clear that this is so much more than okay. His fingers tighten in Tad’s hair, his tongue teases Tad’s upper lip.
Tad moans and opens.
Their tongues glide against each other’s and they’re both breathing hard already, kissing like they’re never going to get another chance, sucking and biting each other’s lips, and every time Tad drags his fingers across Lewis’s body, it’s like electricity sizzling over his skin.
Tad rolls his hips into Lewis’s, and now Lewis can feel his erection. He moans and clutches a fistful of Tad’s pajamas, pulling his mouth away from Tad’s to scrape his teeth down his jaw. Stubble burns his lips and desire pulses hot in his gut.
He lets out an explosive breath against Tad’s neck as he bites his way down to the collarbone he can feel, sharp and defined and skin-hot against Lewis’s lips as Tad’s shirt rubs the side of his face.
And oh god Tad smells—not good, exactly. Neither of them smells exactly good. But Tad smells like sweat and musk and earthiness, and it’s irresistible and Lewis wants to swallow him, all of him, down to the last drop.
He bites and sucks and slides his hands up Tad’s shirt, cups the small of his back and feels the muscles working there as Tad moves against him. Tad hauls Lewis’s face back up to his for another hard, openmouthed kiss. Their urgency builds, Lewis’s tongue fucking into Tad’s mouth, both of them groaning as they grind against each other. Tad slips a hand down Lewis’s underwear to grab his ass.
“I’m not going to last,” Lewis pants. Rubbing against Tad has him so hard and so close to the edge that it’s almost embarrassing.
Almost, except Tad’s bucking hips are just as uncontrolled. “Fuck,” Tad hisses. “I want—can I—?”
“Yes,” Lewis says, even though he’s not sure what he’s agreeing to. It doesn’t matter. If Tad wants it, Lewis wants to give it to him. He wishes he could see Tad’s face, but he can feel his body. God, he can feel his body, the roll of his hips, the way his muscles bunch and tighten and work under his hands, his hot, hard cock, straining at his pants.
Tad’s hand fumbles between their bodies. Elastic snaps and cloth gathers and Lewis gets the idea really quick. He shoves the front of his boxer briefs down and lets out a long moan when their bodies meet again. It’s skin against skin, delicious friction, slick hot wetness as their cocks rub and their pre-cum mingles and smears.
They kiss and it’s barely a kiss, just mouthing at each other, lips and tongues and teeth and harsh breathing.
“I want to touch you,” Tad whispers.
“Yes,” Lewis replies, since apparently it’s the only word he can say anymore. With effort, he adds, “I want you to do that too. Please do that.”
Tad runs a finger up Lewis’s cock from root to tip. Lewis shudders and sucks at his jaw, stubble prickling against his lips.
A finger slides over the head of Lewis’s cock, delicious, spine-tingling pressure in his slit, and Lewis lets out a helpless, desperate moan against Tad’s skin.
“God, you’re going to make me come just listening to you,” Tad gasps. He glides his thumb across Lewis’s cockhead, and Lewis can’t help the noise he makes as he feels pre-cum smear.
Tad groans and pulls Lewis tighter against him. At the same time, his hand wraps around both of their cocks, locking them together.
Lewis grinds into him, his hips rocking with need as he chases that incredible friction. Tad pumps his fist and Lewis’s mind goes blissfully blank, and there’s nothing but them, their bodies pressed tight, cocks rubbing, friction and slick pre-cum and their mouths hungry for each other. Lewis fucks up into Tad’s hand and Tad encourages it with a moan.
Tad’s body jerks. “Lewis—I’m coming—”
As he shudders and lets go, Lewis puts his hand between their bodies too. Cum shoots from him, onto both their stomachs, all over Lewis’s hand, and Tad’s movements are jerky, wild, as he moans and moans and—
“Me too,” Lewis manages, as his unstoppable orgasm barrels toward him.
The way Tad’s moving, and the noises he’s making? The feel of his cum slicking both of them? Lewis can’t survive that. His muscles screw tight and then it’s on him, pleasure exploding like a sunburst through his body, sweet and sharp and piercing.
He buries his face in Tad’s neck and breathes him in, lazy, sated, warm… and in so much trouble.