Chapter 4
The darkness in the tower is different at night.
During the day, even with the smoke, there’s light.
A dull orange glow that filters through the windows and paints everything in shades of amber and gray.
But at night, the world outside goes black, and the only illumination comes from the smoldering forest below, a faint, flickering orange that casts shadows across the walls and makes the cabin feel smaller than it is.
Felix is on the cot. I’m on the floor, my back against the wall, my knees pulled up to my chest. We haven’t talked much since this morning. Since the binoculars. Since his hand covered mine and my body reacted in a way I couldn’t hide.
I can’t stop replaying it. The roughness of his palm. The heat of his skin. The way his voice dropped when he said my name, low and rough, like he was asking a question he didn’t have words for.
I’ve been watching fires from a distance my whole career. I’ve never been the one holding the match.
The cot creaks. Felix shifts, turning onto his side, and I can feel him looking at me through the dark. I can always feel him looking at me. I’ve been feeling it for years without knowing what it was.
“Graham.”
His voice is quiet. Not the radio voice. Not the teaching voice. Something else entirely.
“Yeah?”
“You’re still awake.”
“So are you.”
A pause. The windows rattle with a gust of wind.
“I can’t sleep,” he says. “Every time I close my eyes, I see the blowup. The trees crowning. The way the wind turned.”
“Is that what you were doing earlier? At the window?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“No,” he says. “I was thinking about you.”
The words hit me hard. I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I just sit there in the dark, my heart pounding, my skin prickling with something that feels like fear and want twisted together.
I stand up. My legs are stiff from hours on the floor, but I cross the small space between us and sit on the edge of the cot. Felix shifts to make room. His face is half-lit by the orange glow from the window.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I say. My voice comes out rough, scraped against something I didn’t know was there. “I’ve been trying. All day. All night. I can’t.”
Felix opens his mouth to speak.
I don’t let him.
My hand finds his hip in the dark. The fabric of his jeans is rough under my palm, warm from his body heat. I slide lower, my fingers tracing the line of his waistband, and then I’m wrapping my hand around his cock through the denim.
He inhales sharply. His whole body goes taut, his shoulders pressing back against the wall, his breath catching in his throat.
“Let me.” The words come out as a whisper. “I want to.”
He doesn’t stop me. He doesn’t say a word. He just looks at me, his eyes wide and dark, and I feel the tremor that runs through his thighs.
I unzip his jeans. The sound is obscenely loud in the quiet cabin. I reach inside, past the waistband of his boxers, and my fingers close around his cock.
He’s hot and heavy in my palm. His dick is thicker than I expected. The skin is silk-soft, and when I stroke upward, his hips lift off the cot, chasing the friction. A sound escapes his throat, low, broken, nothing like the composed voice he uses on the radio.
I’ve never touched a man like this. I’ve never wanted to. But my hand knows what to do. It moves in rhythmic strokes, learning the weight of him, the heat, the way his breath stutters when my thumb swipes over the head.
“Graham…” My name is a gasp, torn out of him.
“Come for me, do it.”
His forehead drops to my shoulder. His hands find my back, fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt, and he holds on like I’m the only thing keeping him grounded.. His breath is hot and ragged against my neck, his hips lifting into my grip, his body surrendering to my rhythm.
The power of it—the knowledge that I’m doing this to him, that I’m the one making him come apart—sends a surge of heat through my own groin.
I’m hard, aching against my jeans, but this isn’t about me.
Not yet. This is about him. About giving him the release he’s been denying himself.
About being the one who finally makes him let go.
“Felix.”
He doesn’t answer with words. He just gasps against my shoulder, his body tensing, his fingers twisting in my shirt. And then he comes with a broken groan, his whole body shuddering against mine.
I hold him through it. My grip gentles, my thumb tracing lazy circles on his hip, and I don’t pull away. I stay right where I am, my hand still wrapped around him, my cheek pressed to his hair.
The fire pops outside. The wind howls. The radio hisses static in the corner. But in here, there’s only the sound of his breathing, ragged at first, then slowing, evening out.
“Graham.” His voice is hoarse. Wrecked.
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t... I never thought...”
“I know.”
He lifts his head. His eyes are wet at the corners, but he’s not crying. He’s looking at me like I’m something he’s been waiting for, something he didn’t think he’d ever have.
“You’re engaged,” he says.
“Was. I was engaged.” I reach up and brush the hair off his forehead. His skin is damp with sweat, warm under my fingers. “That ended a long time ago. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“You disappeared. For two years. I thought…”
“I know what you thought.” I pull my hand out of his jeans, but I don’t pull away. I rest my palm on his stomach, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing. “I was running. From Jenna, from the wedding, from everything I was supposed to want. I didn’t know I was running toward something else.”
“Toward what?”
I don’t answer. I don’t have the words yet. But I think he understands, because he doesn’t push. He just leans back against the wall, his shoulder pressing against mine, and we sit there in the dark, the firelight flickering across our faces.
“I’ve never done that before,” I say.
“Touched a guy?”
“Touched anyone the way I just touched you.”
He turns his head. His eyes find mine in the dim light. “You’re quite good at it.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
He laughs and the tension in his shoulders finally eases.
I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes, my hand still resting on his stomach, and I don’t think about what happens next.
I don’t think about the fire still burning below us or the radio that might crackle to life at any moment or the two years I spent running from a truth I wasn’t ready to face.
I just sit there, in the dark, with the man I’ve known for a decade and only just started to see.