Chapter 5
Iwake to the sound of wind howling outside the tent.
For a moment, I don’t remember where I am. Then it all comes rushing back. The footprints. The cave. Ace jerking off. Me watching him. The most mortifying conversation of my entire life.
I groan and pull the sleeping bag over my head.
“Morning, sunshine.”
Ace’s voice is right next to me.
“Morning,” I mumble into the fabric.
“Sleep okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “Fine.”
“Wanna check out the mess outside?”
I lower the sleeping bag slowly. Ace is sitting up in his thermal layers, peering out through the half-unzipped tent flap. Gray light filters in, and the wind whips against the cave entrance. The chill seeps through the air, making me shiver.
“What’s going on?”
“Snowstorm.” He glances back at me. “A big one. Rolled in maybe an hour ago. We’re not going anywhere today.”
My heart sinks. “What? But the tracks—”
“Will be buried under three feet of snow by the time this clears.” He zips the flap back up against the cold. “We’re stuck here until it passes.”
I sit up, the sleeping bag falling to my waist. “How long?”
“Could be an hour. Could be a couple of days.” He shrugs. “Welcome to the Himalayas.”
I stay quiet, staring at the tent wall and the light filtering through the fabric. My phone’s in my jacket, so I pull it out and swipe through the photos from yesterday—the massive footprint, the trail leading into the forest, the gouges in the tree bark. All of it about to be erased.
So many years of planning and researching and being called crazy, and I was so close. Right there. A yeti had been in this cave, maybe sleeping right where we’re sitting now, and I could have seen it. I could have proven its existence.
“Hey.” Ace’s voice is softer now. “It’s not over. Storm will pass. We’ll pick up the trail again.”
“The trail will be gone.”
“So we’ll find new tracks.”
I don’t answer. Can’t. My throat feels too tight.
“Look,” Ace says, his blue eyes earnest. “We found one set of prints. That means there are more. We’ll find them again.
I know this sucks. But we’ve got supplies, we’ve got shelter, and we’re not in danger.
And hey, silver lining? Now we actually have time to talk.
Get to know each other. We’ve been rushing nonstop since we met. ”
I know he’s trying to be nice, but the last thing I want right now is to make conversation.
I don’t even know what to say to him after last night.
There’s still that burning knot of shame in my stomach, and every time I look at him, I see him in that sleeping bag, his back arched and that monstrous cock in his fist. Then I see myself watching him like some creep, my own dick hard in my pants.
He nudges my foot with his. “C’mon, man. I’ll make coffee. We’ve got M&M’s. Breakfast of champions.”
A small smile tugs at my lips despite myself. “That doesn’t sound bad, actually.”
“I know.” He grins. His smile is so contagious it almost makes me forget how badly this is going.
Ace crawls out of the tent, and I follow, pulling on my fleece for warmth.
The cave entrance is a wall of white, snow swirling in the wind, but the fire is still smoldering.
Ace feeds it a few more logs and melts snow in our pot, then adds the instant coffee once it’s boiling.
We sit cross-legged by the flames, passing the M&M’s bag back and forth and sipping bitter coffee from our metal cups.
The wind roars outside. Ace talks about basketball, about a match last season where he got injured.
About growing up on the coast, a stone’s throw from the ocean, and how much he misses it.
I can feel him watching me as he talks, trying to get me to engage, and slowly, I do.
I talk about the first time I saw that picture book with the yeti, about the endless research and dead ends, about my parents and their constant disappointment in me.
By the time we finish the last of the M&M’s, the storm is showing no sign of letting up.
If anything, the sky is darker than before.
Ace takes the empty candy bag and shakes out the crumbs, licking the last of the sugar off his fingers.
My gaze lingers on his hands. On his mouth.
On the way his tongue catches a stray crumb from his bottom lip.
I look away quickly, focusing on the fire.
“We should probably clean up,” Ace says, standing and stretching. His thermal shirt rides up, exposing a strip of toned stomach. “Wash off the travel sweat.”
“How are we doing that?”
He’s already melting more snow in the pot, stirring it over the flames. Then he pulls a few small towels from his pack, along with a bar of soap. “The old-fashioned way.”
My pulse kicks up. The thought of stripping down to wash while he’s right there makes my skin prickle.
But Ace doesn’t hesitate. He pulls his shirt over his head in one smooth motion, and suddenly I’m face to face with that muscular torso in broad daylight.
Dark chest hair trails down between the grooves of his abs and disappears beneath the waistband of his pants.
There are a few scars scattered across his ribs, probably from basketball. His nipples are hard.
Then he hooks his thumbs into his waistband and pushes his pants down, stepping out of them. He’s left standing in just his boxers, dark blue cotton that fits snugly around his muscular thighs and the heavy bulge between them.
My cock twitches.
“Here,” he says, tossing me a towel. “Dip it in the water and scrub yourself down. It’s like a sponge bath. It works, trust me.”
Oh, I trust him. Just not myself.
I pull off my fleece, my movements clumsy. My thermal pants follow until I’m standing in nothing but my boxers, trying not to meet Ace’s eyes. Goosebumps rise on my arms, and not just from the cold. Fortunately, the flames help warm my bare chest and stomach.
When I glance up from dipping the towel in the water, I realize Ace has taken his boxers off, too.
He’s completely, unabashedly naked as he wrings out his towel.
His cock rests halfway to his knee, soft but still massive, easily the biggest I’ve ever seen.
Even the chilly air doesn’t seem to shrink it.
I want to look away. I really do. But it’s like a magnet.
My eyes are glued to it, to the dark curls at its base, to the heavy sac beneath it, probably still full since he didn’t get to finish last night.
I think about how his cock looked then, hard and glistening in his fist, and a fresh wave of heat rushes through me.
Ace starts washing his arms and chest, the soap lathering against the dusting of dark hair across his pecs.
He’s efficient, methodical, like it’s just another task to check off a list. He moves down to his stomach, then between his legs, and I watch, spellbound, as he soaps up that massive cock, lifts it to wash his balls, then rinses off with water from the pot.
“You keeping those on?” Ace nods at my boxers. “Or you going for a full wash?”
Right. Washing. I’m supposed to be washing.
I turn slightly away from him, angling my body so he can’t see me fully, and hook my thumbs under the waistband.
My hands shake as I push my boxers down and step out of them fast. I hunch forward a little toward the fire, trying to preserve some modesty as I start scrubbing myself with the soapy towel.
“Dude, you don’t have to hide,” Ace says. “It’s just us. Two guys. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Easy for him to say. His body is like a goddamn work of art.
“The cold doesn’t help,” I mutter, still facing away from him. “Shrinkage.”
In reality, the opposite is happening. My cock is starting to swell, thickening between my legs, and that makes me hunch even further.
“Seriously, it’s fine.” He chuckles. “You saw me jerk off last night. Pretty sure we’re past being modest.”
My face flames. I scrub harder at my chest, the rough towel scraping against my skin.
“You don’t need to be self-conscious, Simon,” Ace says. “You’ve got a nice body.”
“You’re kidding, right? I look like… a noodle compared to you.”
He laughs. “A noodle? Seriously? No, man. You’re lean. Good muscle tone. I bet you’d be a good swimmer. Long limbs, you know?”
I’ve never thought about my body as anything other than a vehicle for my brain, something I need to fuel and maintain. But hearing Ace describe it, I feel a strange little pang of pride. Maybe he’s just being nice, but he doesn’t sound like he’s lying.
When I risk a glance over my shoulder, he’s staring at my bare ass. Our eyes meet, and he doesn’t look away or flinch. Just holds my gaze for a second, then gives me a small smile.
“Want me to get your back?” he asks. “Can be hard to reach.”
I open my mouth to say no, that I’m fine, but what comes out is, “Okay.”
Ace steps up behind me, and I go rigid. His body heat reaches me before he even touches me. I hear him dip the towel in the hot water and wring it out. Then the warm cloth presses against my upper back, and I suck in a breath.
“Too hot?” he asks.
“No. It’s good.”
His other hand settles on my shoulder to steady himself, and I can feel the strength in his grip.
His thumb rests against my neck, right over my pulse.
He starts washing my back in slow, firm circles, moving from my shoulders down to the small of my back.
His knuckles brush my ass as he reaches the base of my spine.
“You’re really tense,” he murmurs. “All knots.”
“Sorry,” I breathe.
“Don’t be sorry.” Both of his hands move to my shoulders, and he starts working the muscle there, thumbs pressing deep. “Just means you need to relax a little more.”
Every instinct tells me to lean into him, to let those strong hands work the tension out of me, but I stay frozen, too aware of every point of contact. The heat of his skin. The scent of him. The closeness of his naked body to mine.
I pray he doesn’t look down and see that my cock is fully hard now, jutting out in front of me. That would be it. That would be the final nail in the coffin of my dignity.
“You know what?” Ace says. For a terrifying second, I think he’s about to mention my erection, but instead he says, “Let’s finish up out here, get dried off, and I’ll give you a proper massage in the tent. You’re so tense you’re gonna pull something.”
He steps away, and I almost stumble at the sudden loss of contact.
“A massage?” My voice comes out higher than intended.
“Yeah.” He grabs a towel and starts drying himself off. “It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do.”