17. Blaze
Blaze
I must be out of my goddamn mind. What do I think I’m doing? How did this even happen? One minute Shawn was turning my own pop psychology around on me and it was working, and the next I was touching him and then he asked if he could kiss me and I said yes?
My brief window for internally freaking out is over because, all of a sudden, we’re at his cabin.
The only light is the one above the keypad where Shawn stabs in the code to unlock the door.
It doesn’t work the first time, so he has to do it again, and good, it means I’m not the only one who’s nervous.
The entire evening has been surreal, starting when Shawn sat down at my table, grinning like a boy who just ate candy for the first time, full of joy and energy.
I’d never seen him like that—purely, straightforwardly happy, and it looked so good on him it hurt.
I want to see him happy like that every day.
I want to make him happy like that every day.
Fifteen minutes ago, I wouldn’t have thought I had that power, but then he said he wanted me, and now anything seems possible.
When he finally gets the door open, we step inside the dark living room.
It’s much warmer in here than by the water.
I shed my jacket instinctively, and Shawn loses his, too, then switches on a table lamp.
We stare at each other for a second. I’m still not sure I should be doing this, but I’m emotionally raw enough not to care.
My entire life got shifted on its axis when Brooke told me about her and her boss-slash-boyfriend, and then when she told me she didn’t want the house.
It shifted yet again when Shawn kissed me, a very definite before-and-after moment of my existence.
The first time he kissed me it was good, but kind of tentative.
I thought maybe it wasn’t what he’d hoped it would be.
Maybe he’d decided kissing me was a mistake.
But then he kissed me again, and it didn’t feel tentative at all.
It felt good. And hot. And I’m looking at his mouth now, wondering if we’re going to kiss again.
“Um, you want to sit down?” He gestures to the sand-colored sofa like he’s trying to sell it to me.
I sit and lean over to unlace my boots. I doubt Marika wants my work boots anywhere near the upholstery in this place. I shake my head at the thought of my boss.
“What?”
“Just—nothing. This is a little weird.”
He sits next to me, unlaces his own shoes, and pushes them under the sofa. “Weird how?” There’s definitely a thread of hurt in his voice.
“Not you,” I say quickly. “You’re not weird. There’s nothing weird about you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” he says, and the teasing eases some of my anxiety.
“It’s just—this is where I work.”
“Should we go to your place?” he asks, because he’s considerate like that. But the idea of having him over tonight, with Brooke in the next room—okay, maybe she has a point that we need to disentangle our lives a little bit.
“No, it’s okay. Let me adjust.”
“Sure. There’s a lot of this that’s new to me, too.”
Right, because it turns out he’d never kissed a guy before. Which kind of tracks, honestly. I laugh, because Brooke was right.
“What’s so funny?” he asks.
“It’s just my sister—she said we were dating. Which didn’t make any sense because, well, we weren’t dating. How could I date a guy who’s not into guys? But now you are into guys—or at least into me,” I add a little shyly.
“I’m into you,” Shawn says, sounding dead serious, and my entire body flushes.
“So we were dating?”
“I have no idea,” he says, laughing now, too. “I don’t think we were doing it on purpose, but looking back, yeah. Dating central. The dinner definitely felt like a date. I didn’t know if you felt it, too.”
“I was trying to ignore the date vibes because I didn’t think you meant it that way.”
“I didn’t, truly. Except part of me did?” His smile is adorably confused, like a golden retriever who doesn’t understand where all the food in his bowl has gone.
“How is it possible we were both so oblivious to it?”
“Maybe we were protecting ourselves. Because if we weren’t dating, then there couldn’t be rejection.”
As we talk, we inch closer until there’s no room between us at all.
“I think I’d like to take you on a proper date,” Shawn says. “One where we both know that’s what we’re doing.”
Just like that, my slowly building confidence backslides.
If he wants to take me on a real date, what’s going to happen when he leaves Sanctuary Lake?
It’s one thing to have a vacation fling with a guy you’re attracted to.
Or, in my case, blow off some much-needed steam with a hot guest. But it’s another to pretend we could have a real relationship.
“You hate that idea. It was just a thought,” Shawn says, clearly reading something on my face. “I’m really lousy at this.” He runs a nervous hand through his short hair, and I catch it on its way back down.
“You aren’t lousy at this,” I say, because it’s not his fault I’m afraid I’m going to catch feelings. “Look, I have been with guys before, but I’m also not that, um, experienced. Especially at dating. It’s been a long time since I even tried.”
“Since when?”
“Since before my parents.” I’m not nervous to tell him, because it’s Shawn and he already knows about them, about how hard it was.
“That’s like, a really long time,” he says, squinting one eye at me. He must think—
“Oh, it’s not like I haven’t been with anyone since then,” I blurt out. “It’s just been more like hook-ups.”
He relaxes. “So you have more experience than me, at least with guys.”
“Some. But we might have to muddle through some things together, okay?”
He considers that, and then he grins. “I like the idea of muddling through as long as I have someone to muddle through with.”
It strikes me then, what he’s offering me is more than a make-out session, or going out on a date, or possible sex. He’s offering me the chance of not being entirely alone.
At least for a little while.
It’s a chance I’m going to grab onto. “Let’s muddle, then.” And I kiss him, because it seems silly that we’ve been talking instead of doing other things with our mouths.
I’m glad our first kiss was outside, under the stars.
It felt like a dream. But here, inside this cozy cottage, being with him feels like a fantasy.
He tastes fresh, his tongue is insistent and warm, and the touch of it against mine gets me going.
His big hands go to my shoulders, and he feels out my edges, groping and squeezing down my arms, then across my chest.
“You feel good,” he says between kisses. “You’re so strong.”
I allow a moment of pride at my strength being something he values, something he finds desirable.
I unbutton my flannel, baring the plain white tee underneath.
His hands go under my shirt, and the sensation of him skimming my bare stomach makes me shiver hard, my cock leaping in my jeans.
Holy shit, it’s been a long time, but I’ve never been this into anyone simply touching me before.
Impulsively, I strip off my shirt, leaving me naked from the waist up.
Since puberty started and body hair—a lot of body hair—followed in its wake, I’ve always been a little self-conscious about the mat covering my chest. I’ve grown more comfortable with it over time, but still—if Shawn’s grossed out by me, it’s going to suck.
“Love your body,” he says, and it’s the exact right thing to say at the exact right time to say it.
“Wanted to do this the first time I saw you coming out of the lake in your swim trunks,” he adds, digging his fingers into the thatch of hair excitedly, petting me, finding my nipples and brushing them with the edge of his fingernail. “Even though I didn’t understand why.”
I kiss him hard, rewarding him with my tongue down his throat, and he lets me lean him back into the sofa, getting on top of him, pressing him down with my weight.
“Want to see you, too,” I say, tugging at the hem of his sweatshirt.
It smells like sawdust. I back off long enough for him to lift it up and off, leaving him in a long-sleeved shirt I don’t have much use for, even though the sage color makes his eyes look especially green.
I push at it impatiently, and he laughs, and gets rid of it, and then I can see him in all his glory.
Shawn has the sculpted body of a professional athlete, and the scars to go with it. There’s the wicked curved one on his right arm from his Tommy John surgery. But he’s got another scar over his right ribs, and a third on his lower abs. I touch the one over his ribs lightly.
“Took a ball to the ribs in college. They had to operate to stop some internal bleeding.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “And this one?” I touch the one on his flat, practically hairless lower abdomen. He shivers.
“Appendicitis,” he says. “Got it out when I was eighteen. Luckily, it happened in the off-season.”
I shake my head. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“Not as much as some,” he says, shrugging.
“Well, I’m glad you made it to me alive and well,” I say, then kiss him before I add anything sappier.