Chapter 6
It’s a wonder I manage to get inside the tent without tripping over my own feet.
My mind is a frantic loop of what is happening and oh god, don't let him notice and an insistent, primal yes, touch me again that I refuse to acknowledge.
I crawl inside wearing only my boxers, and Ace follows right behind me in his.
The cave shields us from the worst of the wind.
Outside the entrance, the storm rages in thick white sheets.
But here, with the fire burning near the mouth of the cave, the stone walls trap the heat.
The tent adds another layer of insulation, making the small space almost warm.
Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe it’s the burn of my own skin, the blood pumping through my veins.
“Lie down on your stomach,” Ace says, settling onto his knees beside my sleeping bag.
I do, pressing my face into the bunched-up fabric of my fleece, trying to breathe normally.
“Picked up some massage techniques from our team physio,” he says. “After brutal games, nothing better than working out the knots.”
He swings a leg over me, straddling my thighs. The thin cotton of our boxers is the only thing separating us. I can feel the weight of him, the heat of him, the hard muscles of his thighs bracketing my body. My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird.
Then his hands land on my shoulders, and every coherent thought scatters.
“Jesus, you’re tight,” Ace says, pressing his thumbs into the muscles. “What do you do to get this wound up?”
“Stress,” I manage, my voice muffled by the fleece. “All that… research.”
He chuckles, a warm puff of air against the back of my neck. “Yeah. I bet.”
He works a stubborn knot below my shoulder blade, and a wave of pain and relief washes through me. A groan escapes before I can stop it.
“Right there, huh?” He digs deeper, and I arch into it. “Just breathe.”
I try. I really do. But it’s hard to focus on breathing when he leans forward, when the fabric of my boxers pulls tight against my ass with every shift of his hips, when the friction of the sleeping bag against my hard-on is a maddening, constant tease.
Ace’s hands move lower, tracing the line of my spine, thumbs working into the muscles on either side.
I’m a live wire. Every touch, every brush of skin, is magnified.
I’m attuned to the scrape of his calloused palms, the strength in his fingers, the scent of soap that clings to him.
He’s everywhere. All over me. Inside my head.
“How’s that?” he asks, voice right next to my ear.
“Good,” I breathe. “It’s… good.”
My hard cock is trapped between my body and the sleeping bag, and every small movement he makes sends another jolt through me. I try to ease my hips for a little relief, but Ace’s weight keeps me pinned.
“Don’t move,” he murmurs. “Let me do the work.”
God. That’s the problem.
“You have trouble letting go, don’t you?” His hands knead my lower back, thumbs pressing into the dimples above my ass. “Always thinking. Always analyzing.” He leans closer, his breath warm against my ear. “Just let it happen, Simon.”
He says my name like a secret, and the sound of it in that low, intimate tone makes my stomach clench.
My resolve crumbles. I let out a shuddering breath and feel the tension drain out of me.
I sink into the sleeping bag and stop fighting it.
Stop fighting the heat pooling in my gut, the throbbing between my legs, the shame burning through me.
Because it feels good. All of it. His hands.
His weight. The way he’s taking control.
“See? Not so hard.” His lips are so close to my ear they almost brush it.
Not so hard. Right. If only he knew how hard things are for me right now. In every sense of the word.
The kneading of my lower back shifts into long, slow strokes that slide down to the swell of my ass and back up again. Each pass goes a little lower, lingers a little longer.
I push my face deeper into the fleece, muffling the moan that wants to break free.
“Sensitive here?” he asks, thumbs circling the place where my back ends and my ass begins. The muscles there jump under his touch.
“Y-yeah,” I gasp, the sound swallowed by the fabric.
He leans into it, applying more pressure, and his weight shifts forward. His chest is almost flush with my back now, and I can feel every breath he takes, the rise and fall of his ribcage against my spine.
Is this really how they give massages on the basketball team?
It feels so… intimate. But what do I know?
The closest I ever got to team sports was a weekend-long Dungeons and Dragons marathon in my friend’s basement.
Maybe this is just what confident, good-looking guys do with their friends.
Maybe I’m the one twisting it into something it isn’t.
I realize I’m leaking precum. A warm, wet spot seeps through the fabric of my boxers, a sticky evidence of my body’s betrayal. I should be mortified, and I am, but I’m also too lost in the sensation to care.
“You know,” Ace says, his voice a low rumble I feel in my bones, “the key to a good massage is knowing when to switch up the pressure.” He leans back, adjusting the angle. “Too deep for too long, and the muscle just fights back. You gotta ease off, then go back in.”
He demonstrates. His hands move in a fluid, hypnotic rhythm.
Hard pressure that makes me gasp, then a light, feathery touch that sends goosebumps racing across my skin.
Hard again, then soft. He’s working me like an instrument, and I’m helpless under him, melting into the sleeping bag.
My hips start tilting on their own, a small, involuntary motion, chasing the friction I desperately need.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “See? Your body knows what it needs.”
I know what my body needs right now, but it’s nothing I’m prepared to admit out loud.
His hands sweep back up, from my lower back all the way to my shoulders in one long, smooth glide. Then he lifts his weight off me, swinging his leg over and settling beside me on his own sleeping bag.
His sudden absence is a shock. The cold rushes in, and I feel exposed, bereft. I push myself up on my elbows and turn to look at him.
He’s sitting cross-legged, running a hand through his hair. The light from the fire at the cave entrance flickers across his features, catching in his blue eyes.
“Feel better?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice hoarse. “But…”
“But what?”
I don’t know how to say it. That I don’t want him to stop. That I want more. That, for a minute, I completely forgot about yetis and footprints and the storm and just wanted… him.
“I’m actually kind of cold now,” I finally say. “Your body heat was helping.” It’s a flimsy excuse, but it’s the best I have.
Ace studies me for a long moment, then a slow smile spreads across his face. “You want me to warm you up?”
“If you don’t mind,” I say, trying to sound casual, but my pulse is hammering.
“I don’t mind. Not at all.”
He moves back over me, but this time, he stretches out on top of me, skin to skin.
The heat of him is immediate, a blanket of warmth that seeps into me.
His chest presses against my back, his legs align with mine, and his arms settle on either side of my head.
His full weight pins me to the sleeping bag.
“How’s this?” he asks.
“Good,” I breathe.
“Better?”
“Yeah.”
I can feel everything. The steady beat of his heart against my back. The tickle of his chest hair against my skin. The hard planes of his muscles molding to my softer frame. My hard-on is crushed between my body and the sleeping bag, and the pressure is just on the right side of painful.
“Still tense,” he murmurs. His breath stirs the hair at my nape. He moves his hips slightly, a small rolling motion, and I let out a choked gasp as the friction shoots through me like lightning. The wet spot in my boxers is spreading, a sticky patch that clings to my cock.
“Sorry,” Ace says, but he doesn’t sound sorry at all. “Just getting comfortable.”
“Right.” The word leaves me in a puff of air.
He does it again, another slow roll of his hips, more purposeful this time. Something hard presses against the cleft of my ass, digging into my flesh through the thin fabric of my boxers.
“Feel that?” he whispers.
I can only nod, my throat too tight to speak.
“That’s what happens when I’m warm and comfortable.” He rocks forward again, the pressure increasing, and I feel the shape of it now, the length and heft of him, growing harder with each passing second. “And I’m very, very comfortable right now, Simon.”
My world narrows to this moment, to the heat building in my stomach, to the drag of his body against mine. I have never been this turned on. Never felt this out of control.
“It’s not the altitude that gets me antsy,” he says, his lips brushing my ear. “It’s you.”